“His photograph! Why did you not tell me you had one?”
“Because you never asked.”
“Of course, of course, it was my fault; but please, if you will be so kind, let me see it.”
She left the room, and returned with a small photograph in her hand. Freyberger almost snatched it from her, held it under the lamp and examined it.
It was somewhat faded, and at the bottom of the card appeared the photographer’s name and address.
“Gassard, 110 Boulevard St-Michel, Paris.”
He examined the face.
It was a face to give a physiognomist (to use Freyberger’s expression) pause. A face quite impossible to describe. One might say that the cheek bones were abnormally flat and the face very wide across them. That the nose was terribly pinched at the root; that the eyes were somewhat of the Mongolian type; all this would give no idea of the physiognomy upon which Freyberger’s eyes were fixed.
It was a repulsive face, even in repose, and the most distinctive thing about it was the expression, an expression cold and evil; a thoughtful expression, that made one shudder in trying to conjure up the thoughts that had given it birth; the expression of Osimandias, of the cruel and cold and the diabolically clever.
Between this faded photograph and the retinal picture there lay a world of difference, all the difference between a landscape seen in the calm of a still winter’s day and the same landscape tempest torn; yet they were pictures of the same person, and of this Freyberger felt sure.