"To minister to the afflicted, Murdy," said Malcolm Sage. "That is the mission of the Church."
"I suppose you meant that French case when you referred to the 'master-key,'" remarked the inspector, as if to change the subject.
Malcolm Sage nodded.
"But how do you account for Miss Crayne writing such letters about herself?" enquired the inspector, with a puzzled expression in his eyes. "Pretty funny letters some of them for a parson's daughter."
"I'm not a pathologist, Murdy," remarked Malcolm Sage drily, "but when you try to suppress hysteria in a young girl by sternness, it's about as effectual as putting ointment on a plague-spot."
"Sex-repression?" queried Freynes.
Malcolm Sage shrugged his shoulders; then after a pause, during which he lighted the pipe he had just re-filled, he added:
"When you are next in Great Russell Street, drop in at the British Museum and look at the bust of Faustina. You will see that her chin is similar in modelling to that of Miss Crayne. The girl was apparently very much attracted to Blade, and proceeded to weave what was no doubt to her a romance, later it became an obsession. It all goes to show the necessity for pathological consideration of certain crimes."
"But who was Faustina?" enquired the inspector, unable to follow the drift of the conversation.
"Faustina," remarked Malcolm Sage, "was the domestic fly in the philosophical ointment of an emperor," and Inspector Murdy laughed; for, knowing nothing of the marriage or the Meditations of Marcus Aurelius, it seemed to him the only thing to do.