"That's more than we know at present; we must wait for further particulars.--By the way, I wonder who and what the murdered man was? The Baron von Rosenberg they call him. I never heard the name before."
"I knew the Baron von Rosenberg some years ago--in Paris," answered Stephanie with just a trace of heightened colour in her cheeks. "He was a man between forty and fifty years old, and said to be very rich.--I never liked him. Indeed, I may say that I had every reason to hate him. And now he's dead! C'est bien--c'est très bien."
Her husband was only half heeding her. "Stephanie," he said, "I never hated any one as I hate that man. Should the evidence at the inquest, which will no doubt be held in the course of to-day, go to prove, or go far to prove, that Brooke is the assassin, and should the police not succeed in arresting him in the course of the next forty-eight hours, do you know what I have made up my mind to do?"
"How is it possible that I should know?"
"I have made up my mind not to trust to what the regular police may or may not be able to do in this matter, but to employ a private detective on my own account. I happen to be acquainted with a man who is nothing less than a sleuth-hound in such a case as this. He has succeeded more than once when Scotland Yard has failed ignominiously. His services I shall secure; and if it cost me the last sovereign I have in the world, I will do all that man can do to bring Gerald Brooke to the bar of justice."
He spoke with a concentrated malignity of purpose such as he had never exhibited in his wife's presence before. There was an eager, cruel gleam in his eyes, like that of some carnivorous animal which scents its prey from afar. He set his teeth hard when he had done speaking, so that the gash in his lip showed with startling distinctness, and lent to his features an unmistakably wolfish expression.
Stephanie looked at him and wondered. She had flattered herself, as many wives do, that she had read and thoroughly understood her husband; but in this man there were evidently smouldering volcanic forces which might burst into activity at any moment, chained tempests of rage and ferocity which might not always be kept in check, the existence of which she had never suspected before. From that day forward, although her husband knew it not, she regarded him with somewhat different eyes.
He rose abruptly and rang the bell. "Let a hansom be fetched at once," he said to the servant.
"For what purpose do you require a hansom?" asked his wife.
"To drive me to the terminus. I shall go down to King's Harold by the first train. I want to hear for myself the evidence at the inquest on the Baron von Rosenberg."