There was another silence, and then Freyberger spoke, telling of the pieces of marble he had found in the drawer and how he had taken them to Antonides to be reconstructed.
“I did it on my own responsibility,” he said, “knowing the desperate urgency of the matter; to-morrow we will see what the thing represents.”
“You did right,” said the chief. “In a case like this, seemingly most intricate, it is often some by-bit of evidence that opens it up and exposes everything to the light. One of the points that strike me most is the anatomical knowledge and the dexterity shown in the removal of the head.”
He ceased, for a knock came to the door and an officer entered with a paper in his hand. “Report of the post-mortem examination of the body in the Gyde case, sir, just telegraphed from Carlisle.”
“Give it me,” said the chief. He took the paper, and the officer withdrew.
“‘Body of a fairly well-nourished man, dressed in grey tweed—clothes slashed with a knife, but no wounds found on the body. Head evidently removed by a skilled anatomist—Ha!—severed from neck where atlas meets occipital bone, ligamentum nuchae divided at a single stroke.’ This, so far from clearing matters, casts everything into a deeper darkness.” He paused a moment, and then went on. “We have incontrovertible evidence that yesterday afternoon Sir Anthony Gyde called upon the man Klein at a cottage on Blencarn Fell, in Cumberland; that he stayed there an hour and left with a black bag in his hand. Now, mark you, this boy, Lewthwaite, had his eye on the cottage the whole time. A very few minutes after Sir Anthony’s departure he peeped through the window, and saw the murdered body of Klein lying upon the floor. The whole mass of evidence goes to show that there were only two men concerned in this tragedy, Gyde and Klein, for Lewthwaite saw no one in the room.”
“Might a third man have been in hiding in an upstairs room?” put in Inspector Long.
“He might, but it is highly improbable. Besides, we have no use for a third man, for the crux of the thing is this: Gyde murdered Klein and decapitated him. The head found in the cupboard was the head he removed from Klein’s body; we are almost bound to believe this, from the two surgeons’ reports as to the manner of decapitation—well, the head removed from the body of Klein was not Klein’s head, for, leaving small points aside, Klein was a clean-shaved man and the head was the head of a bearded man.
“We can say now, almost for a certainty, that Klein has not been murdered, and that the real victim is a man extraordinarily like Gyde, the supposed murderer; more, several people have given evidence that the head is that of Gyde.”
“I for one agree with you, sir, that the head we have here in London and the body that is lying in Cumberland are one a part of the other.”