How was it that he had so conveniently given Gyde the letter of introduction to his landlady, thus giving his murderer a burrow to hide in for the night?
Lastly, why, before leaving for Cumberland, had he smashed the bust to pieces?
All these queries suddenly had caused in the brain of Freyberger a new and absorbing interest.
Kolbecker, this mysterious artist, now was the object of his undivided attention.
In the past of Kolbecker, he felt, lay the solution of the mystery.
This bust had been destroyed for some powerful motive.
To find out the motive it would be necessary to reconstruct the bust and find out whom it represented, if possible, or what it represented.
To put the thing together again would be an extraordinarily difficult piece of work. One man alone could do it, and Freyberger knew that man.
In ordinary course of events this drawerful of marble fragments would be taken to the Yard and there placed with the other material evidence. But this involved loss of time. Freyberger felt, with a strange assurity, that in the thing lay a clue that might cast a strong light on the case.
To take it direct to the Yard would mean loss of time.