The doctor sat musing. Lawler came in with the tray, on which was a small basin of gruel and soda-water bottles, a decanter of whisky, and a tall tumbler. Julian mixed himself a drink, and the doctor, still meditatively, took the basin of gruel onto his knees. As he sipped it, he looked a strange, little, serious ascetic, sitting there in the light from the wax candles, his shining boots planted gently on the broad back of the slumbering mastiff, his light eyes fixed on the fire. He did not speak again until he was half way through his gruel. Then he said:
"And you know absolutely nothing of Marr's past history?"
"No; nothing."
"I gather from all you have told me that it would be worthy of study. If I knew it I might understand the startling change from the aspect of evil to the aspect of good at death. I believe the man must have been far less evil than you thought him, for dead faces express something that was always latent, if not known, in the departed natures. Ignorantly, you possibly attributed to Marr a nature far more horrible than he ever really possessed."
But Julian answered:
"I feel absolutely convinced that at the time I knew him he was one of the greatest rips, one of the most merciless men in London. I never felt about any man as I did about him! And he impressed others in the same way."
"I wish I had seen him," Doctor Levillier said.
An idea, suggested by Julian's last remark, suddenly struck him.
"He conveyed a strong impression of evil, you say?"
"Yes."