These people, who had been hurriedly summoned for the purpose of identifying the thing, were of all grades and professions.
Club waiters, a nobleman or two, the servants of the house, and others. When Freyberger, who was not a member of the high council, but who was admitted on account of his being an active agent in the case, had closed the door, saluted his chief and taken a modest seat in a corner of the room, Professor Salt was just finishing the remarks he was making.
“You see,” he said, “it is a matter of extraordinary difficulty to say exactly how long this head has been removed from the body; it has been dipped in some agent or passed through some process, which has discoloured the skin and shrunk the tissues. An acid might have done this, but, unfortunately for that theory, the skin gives a slightly alkaline reaction when touched with moist litmus paper. It has, to me, the appearance of a head that had been dried just as you dry a ham, by smoking it. Yet there is no trace of carbon to be found on the skin. I confess I am somewhat at a loss, for a case of the kind has never come before me up to this, and I believe it is unique in forensic medicine. That head might have been removed from the body a year ago, so dehydrated are the tissues. I do not say, having in view some unknown preservative agent, that it may not have been removed twelve hours ago. But I can say this, that whoever removed it was a most skilled anatomist. I have had many cases of dismemberment; in all of them the head has been hacked off through the cervical vertebra. This is quite different, the head has been removed above the atlas, the ligaments cleanly divided; no trace of hacking is discernible at the base of the skull. The thing was not so much dismemberment as a surgical operation, conducted with extraordinary skill, the most extraordinary skill. I do not think,” he finished with a grim smile, “that I could have done the thing so completely and artistically myself.” He buttoned up his overcoat, bowed to the chief, nodded to the detectives and departed.
“Well, Freyberger?” said the chief, “what news have you brought?”
“First, sir, may I ask two questions? Has the dentist given his decision? and have Coutts’s examined the handwriting of Sir Anthony Gyde?”
“The dentist is absent and can’t be called,” replied the other. “And as for the bankers, Sir Anthony went in, signed a receipt for the delivery of the parcel containing his wife’s jewels, which receipt was handed to the manager who released the jewels.
“The receipt was written before and handed to a man who knew Sir Anthony Gyde perfectly well. He asked Sir Anthony would he care to see the manager personally. Sir Anthony replied, no; that he was in a hurry. The man, one of the chief clerks, is prepared to swear on oath that it was Sir Anthony Gyde who signed the receipt, and no other. The chief cashier received the receipt from the manager’s room, glanced at it, and passed it. Not long ago, on our applying to him to glance at it again and make sure, he has done so. He says he is sure that it is Sir Anthony’s handwriting, but there is something about it that he can’t make out; that it is not a forgery he is certain, but all the same, there is something about it strange to him, some fine difference to the ordinary writing of Sir Anthony.
“He says he would cash a cheque on the signature without a moment’s hesitation; you know, in a forgery, it is the slavish imitation and consequent cramping that marks the thing; no man’s handwriting is exactly alike twice. Well, this thing is no slavish imitation of Gyde’s handwriting; it is his, flowing and easy, and written under the eye of a clerk. All the same, there is something about it strange. Gyde, it would appear, must have been in a totally different frame of mind to what he has ever been before in his life when he wrote that signature. I can understand the cashier’s meaning, I think, for these men’s eyes and brains are so wonderfully trained that they can tell from a signature almost the emotions of the person to whom it belongs. Gyde may have been under the influence of some extraordinary emotion, never felt by him before, when he signed that receipt—as undoubtedly he was.”
Freyberger listened attentively, and then proceeded to give the results of his investigations, speaking clearly and to the point.
He told how Gyde had hired the cab and driven to Howland Street, presented a letter from Kolbecker and occupied his room; how Kolbecker had lived in Cumberland for the last six weeks and had been paying for his room in London, sending several postal orders to his landlady. “I have secured the envelope of the last of these letters,” he said, taking the envelope from his pocket.