“Whilst this was going on, he made a most profound study of Lefarge himself: his walk, his manner, his voice, his handwriting.
“He was, in fact, preparing to be Lefarge’s understudy for an hour or two upon the stage of life.
“For three hours every day, during a space of four months, he wore the mask, conversing with himself, laughing and talking before a looking-glass, so that the thing might gain the lines and wrinkles of life.
“One day he asked Lefarge to call upon him.
“Lefarge called. Muller murdered him, and stripped him of his clothes and decapitated him.
“Then he dressed the body in his own clothes, put on the clothes of his victim, put on his face, put on his hat, his manner, his walk and his voice.
“Then, with his victim’s head in a black bag, he ran down the stairs, got into his victim’s carriage, drove home, collected a hundred thousand pounds’ worth of jewels, drove to the corner of the Rue d’Amsterdam and disappeared.
“But Nemesis followed him. The murder of Lefarge had wakened up the lust for killing that lay like a spectre in the darkness of his soul. He killed three people to satiate this madness, as we have seen. Then he was at peace.
“Six years passed. Then, in Vienna, he met Sir Anthony Gyde.
“He was living in Vienna under the name of Klein; living extravagantly on the proceeds of the Lefarge business. He belonged to a very vicious circle, amidst whom Gyde became implicated, and he was in low water financially.