The room was furnished plainly, with a deal table, kitchen chairs and an old horsehair sofa. Neither chairs or table were overset; there was no mark at all of a struggle, nothing to hint of a tragedy enacted there, nothing, that is to say, but the headless body lying upon the floor.
The constable, a man of great intelligence, closed the door on the murmuring throng outside, and made a minute examination of the room.
He searched the floor carefully; there were no marks of footsteps, but in a corner lay something white; he picked it up, it was a silk handkerchief, marked with the initials “A.G.”
On the mantel, beside a tin candlestick, lay a letter, an envelope containing the envelope and letter which Sir Anthony had received that morning, and a sheet of paper on which was written:
“Paris, Feb. 8th.
”You will not escape me; neither you or the secret you carry, which is also mine. If necessary, I will follow you to the ends of the earth—and beyond,
“Klein.”
CHAPTER XIII
“SO,” said Freyberger, when this detailed description of the affair had been given to him by his Chief, “it is briefly this: Gyde was being blackmailed by this man; he called on him, murdered him, and cut off his head, put it in a bag, came to London with the bag and slipped out of his London house, carrying with him his jewels. It is an extraordinarily strange case.”