H. De Vere Stacpoole

“ The fatal, fatal mistake of the woman who gives herself up to a man before marriage, the fatal mistake is not so much perhaps in yielding to nature as in entertaining the idea that she is loved.
To Hellier the idea of love was inseparable from the idea of marriage. He could not think of the woman he loved in any other position than exactly on the same pedestal as himself. His wife before all the world, on a par with his mother and his sisters, respected by them and received as one of themselves.
And she was the daughter of an assassin. A cold-blooded murderer, whose crime had shocked Europe. ”

“ Klein’s initials, were tattooed on the corpse, then the corpse was Klein’s, Gyde was a murderer, and Freyberger a fool, so he told himself.
He paced the room rapidly in anger and irritation. The chance of his life had not come then, he had been fighting air and all the time he had fancied himself matched against a demon with the intellect of a Moltke!
Freyberger, so logical, so calm, so common-place-looking at ordinary times, was terrible when in anger. His face quite changed and a new man appeared; a ferocious and formidable individual, utterly destitute of fear. ”

“ There was something in the Gyde case that affected him as he had never been affected before. Perhaps it was some effluence from the obscure and diabolical mind with which he felt himself at war; perhaps it was the extraordinary intricacies of the pursuit, and the foreknowledge that the creature against whom he had pitted himself was at once a demon, a genius and a madman. Perhaps it was on account of all these reasons that, when he unearthed these recent traces, his soul turned in him and a furious hunger and hatred filled his heart.
The hound hates the thing he is pursuing. ”

“ In portraiture there is only one real medium—marble. Paint, photography, Berlin woolwork, all are pretty much on the same level when compared to marble, cut by the chisel of a master.
Whoever has seen the statue of Demosthenes, by Praxiteles, has heard Demosthenes speak; has seen him as he once stood in the Agora.
A man’s face is individuality, expressed by a million curves; in a portrait these curves are suggested; in a bust they are reproduced.
This bust, reconstructed and unveiled by Antonides, was a triumph of art. ”

“ Freyberger returned to the sitting-room, sat down in the armchair, just as though he were at home, took a cigar from his pocket and lit it.
He was in the tiger’s den. At any moment it was quite within the bounds of possibility that the door might open and the terror, having let himself in by the verandah, enter the room. This was not what made Freyberger feel uneasy, but rather the thought that the unknown might have noticed Hellier following him and taken fright. ”

“ He has great qualities, he has perception and determination, but he is human. It is human to be jealous. You have committed no fault that I can see; but, then, I am not Freyberger. Had I met you in the passage of that house to-night, I would have said to you, ‘Your coming here makes no difference if the bird has flown; if the bird has not flown then remain with me, and help to capture him on his return.’ But then, you see, I am just a woman, not a jealous detective. ”

“ Of nights in Blencarn, or Skirwith, or any of the villages in the plain below, the villagers, waking from their sleep, hear a roar like the roar of an express train. It is the helm wind.
Next morning the trees are in torment; in the plain below a high gale is blowing, and, looking up at the fells, you see above them, ruled upon the sky, a bar of cloud. It is the helm bar, under it the wind comes rushing. When it is high, nothing can withstand its force on the fell top; it will blow a farm cart away like a feather ”

“ So Hellier wished he was Comyns, utterly ignorant of the fact that if some magician had converted him into the object of his admiration, the woman he loved would not have looked at him twice.
He had only known her ten days. Her name was Mademoiselle Cécile Lefarge, he had met her accidently at the Hotel des Bains, and had fallen in love with her on sight.
When a man falls in love with a woman on sight, it is through his desires that love comes to him. Her body takes possession of his mind. This kind of love may fade away or endure for ever; as a rule it is unfortunate, and fades ”

“ He bought a great bunch, and, calling a passing cab, ordered the driver to take him to the Langham.
Violets were Cécile Lefarge’s favourite flowers.
Love may be a liar, love may be blind, love may be anything you please, but, whatever else he may be, love is a courtier. No frilled marquess of the old regime, by long study, ever knew his monarch’s predilections as a lover by instinct knows the predilections of his mistress.
Hellier bought violets instead of roses, instinctively and not from choice. ”

“ Sir Lionel Gyde had killed Sir Thomas Fiennes in a duel, and had been killed in turn by Sir Thomas’s son. He stands, still, in effigy, does Sir Lionel, dressed in faded violet velvet and Mechlin lace, staring from the canvas straight before him, at the poplar trees waving in the wind before the gallery windows. He has every point that goes to the making of a handsome and debonair cavalier, but he has the pale blue eyes of a murderer. ”

“ Instinct requires no affirmation, and some instinct tells me that not only is Gyde guiltless of the murder of Klein, but that Klein is the murderer of Gyde.
“The face of the man Müller, which is incontestably the face of the man Klein, speaks to me in the old and long-written language of human expression. It is a terrible face and full of evil, full of logic, and subtlety and craft. It is the face of a mathematician, yet the face of a satyr. It is cold as ice. ”

“ Again, if a man murders another in hot blood does he decapitate him? Not as a rule. Let us suppose this head that of some unknown third party: of course, Gyde, if he were the murderer, may have had some powerful reason for removing the head; but why should he leave it in a cupboard in his own house in Piccadilly as another damning piece of evidence against himself? You will excuse me, sir, for speaking so long, but I wish to say this:
“The faults before us are the continuous chance blunders of an unimaginable fool, if we view them as the faults committed by Sir Anthony Gyde. ”

“ The extraordinary folly of the ordinary criminal is nowhere to be found in the mass of evidence before us. Even the cleverest criminal we know of is clever only intermittently; his work is not, as a rule, a masterpiece, thought out to the very last detail, if it is it is planned on old-fashioned lines.
“I can say this of the Gyde case, that in my humble opinion it is a flawless piece of criminal work carried out on entirely new-fashioned lines. The work of a genius, and we must treat it as such. I have said that I believe Klein is the active agent and is alive here in London possibly. ”

“ She divined this devil, she knew his construction, his capacity for murder without a motive. She is an innocent woman, yet she knew this demon as well as if she had constructed him—sub-consciously. Ah, the sub-consciousness of women, what does it not hide? A woman who loves is a terrible thing, more keen-scented than a hound, more dangerous than a tiger.
“My friend, Klein, if I miss you here it will not be the fault of Mademoiselle Lefarge. ”

“ That the stranger was Klein, despite his miraculous ageing, he felt almost certain. But to arrest him there and then for no other reason than lay in an unconfirmed belief was not to be thought of. To let a murderer escape is bad, but to arrest a man who, if he is not innocent, still, has no stains or proof of guilt is worse. It is what the Criminal Investigation Department calls a “serious mistake,” and Freyberger did not fancy such a tag to his reputation. ”

“ He worshipped art for the sake of art, and he worshipped money for the sake of money.
His fortune was reputed to be half a million, and he lived on a pound a week.
He was very frank, with that frankness which sometimes veils the deepest and most profound deceit; he had no loves or hates, no heart, no wife, no children or relations. Only his money and his profound knowledge of men and art.
There were many curiosities for sale in the shop of Antonides, but the most curious of them all was Antonides, also on sale—at a price. ”

“ The Gyde case had hit him badly; after all his researches and calculations, after all the energy he had spent upon it, it had slipped away and left him.
He had proved so much, yet he had done so little.
That is perhaps the most exasperating thing about detective work. You have your case complete; the whole thing is reasoned out, plotted and planned; you have built round your man a complete structure, a prison that will hold him, you only want one little brick of evidence to complete it ”

“ Murderers come into my shop, I won’t say every day, but often. My dear friend, the world is full of them. You will ask, if that is so why are so comparatively few murders committed? For this reason, very few people have the motive for slaying a fellow man or woman. I myself cannot remember a single time in my life when the commission of a murder would have benefited me much, and when that murder could have been committed by me with reasonable chance of not being discovered. ”

“ He recognized him at once as Sir Anthony Gyde. He saw him cross the field and enter the little valley.
Here Sir Anthony looked around him, sweeping the fell face as though to see if he were observed. Apparently satisfied, he knocked at the cottage door; the door was opened for him, he entered, and the door was closed.
All this vastly interested the boy. Klein, the German artist, had greatly exercised the local mind. A man whose face and personality would have drawn attention in a city, excited the deepest interest among these primitive folk. ”

“ Hellier had come over to Boulogne a fortnight ago to recruit from an attack of influenza; he was a briefless barrister, with two hundred and fifty pounds a year of his own; his chambers were in Clifford’s Inn, and he had a taste for that side of life which lends itself to romantic literature.
The novels of Gaboriau, absorbed as a boy, had given him his first impetus towards the law.
There is no manner of doubt in the world that housebreaking is the most romantic of the professions; after housebreaking, the profession that helps the housebreaker to escape the law. ”

“ The man who would command events must be able to command sleep. This, at least, Freyberger was able to do. He cast himself upon his bed, closed his eyes and was immediately lost in oblivion.
At half-past four he awoke, made himself some coffee, lit a cigar and fell, for a moment, into meditation. There was one point wanting to him in the case before it stood absolutely four square and to his satisfaction.
That point was the proof that the bust of Sir Anthony Gyde was by the hand of the same sculptor as the bust of M. Lefarge. ”

“ He had hoped to find an envelope post-marked Boulogne-sur-Mer and addressed to him in a characteristic woman’s hand. He had received no reply to his last letter, but there was the chance that one might come by the second post.
London is a terrible place for the anxious heart expecting news by post. There are so many posts; every hour you hear the double knock at some one else’s door, every hour you see the man in blue passing, the man who could bring you so much if the fates only willed. ”

“ Men fear the future, but it is in the past that danger lies. At any moment one of those old vague pictures that lie beyond yesterday, may become animated, and the woman we betrayed in the rose garden, or the brother of the man we killed in the desert, may enter our lives through some unseen door.
Gyde, having paced the room for some ten minutes, rang a bell by the mantel and ordered the servant who answered it to summon Gristlethwaite, the land-agent. ”

“ The face in the retinal picture is filled with fire, the fire of the infernal regions. I construct from the two pictures a personality rare in the annals of crime. A criminal genius, actuated by more than ordinary motives, using extraordinary precautions, inventing new ways. ”

“ He was only thirty-three years of age, yet he was already summing up his life, looking back at his past, telling himself that had he not fooled away his time in the by-ways of literature and stuck to the hard high road of life, he might now have been well-to-do, like Comyns.
It is only when a man is really in love that he sees the defects in himself and his position, sees them with a preternatural and startling vividness—if he is a man. ”

“ That is what I have been waiting for, sir, and I have no qualms at all in the matter. If this man lives, it is inevitable that he must murder. Far better is it that he should commit one more crime and be taken, than that he should escape now, take warning that he is watched, amend his methods and enter on a new campaign of infamy.
“Besides, it is not at all inevitable that he should commit another murder. An attempt is quite sufficient. His next victim may be more fortunate than Mr Goldberg. His next victim may turn the tables upon him. ”

“ Well, sir, it seems to me that there are many points in this case, each giving the lie to the other, each extraordinary. I have never come across such a chain of circumstances before. Accident might have cast all these extraordinary circumstances together. Gyde may have gone to murder his blackmailer, and found in the cottage, as well as his intended victim, a man very like himself. Gyde may have murdered this man for some reason or another and taken away his head; Gyde may have left those letters behind him from some extraordinary blunder. ”

“ There is scarcely a farm girl in Cumberland who has not a bicycle of her own, and before the tale was well told Bob Lewthwaite’s eldest sister had started to fetch the constable from Langwathby.
When he arrived, and when lamps were lit, the whole village, headed by the policeman, made for Skirle Cottage.
The constable alone entered.
On the floor lay the body of Klein, headless and fearful to behold. It was dressed in the well-known grey suit, but the clothes, for some mysterious reason, were slashed, as if with a knife. ”