Chapter 37

A QUARTER of an hour later he was standing in the presence of his superior.

�Good evening, Freyberger,� said the chief.

�Good evening, sir.�

�There is an express to Birmingham from Paddington at a quarter past midnight.�

�Yes, sir.�

�I want you to catch it.�

�Yes, sir.�

�The train stops at Reading.�

�So I believe, sir.�

�You must get out at Reading and spend the night there. I want you early on the spot to-morrow morning. A murder has been committed.�

�At Reading?�

�No, at Sonning.�

�The village of Sonning-on-Thames?�

�Precisely. Do you know it?�

�Slightly. I have in fact��

�Yes?�

�Well, it is a pleasure resort, a place where young couples��

�Precisely�where a young man might take a young woman.�

Freyberger smiled discreetly.

�Well,� continued the chief, �I am sending you down there hoping you may meet some one more interesting than a girl.�

�And who may that be, sir?� asked Freyberger, a sudden glitter coming into his eye.

�Klein.�

�Ah!�

�M�ller, Kolbecker�call him what you will.�

�So!�

�You do not seem as jubilant as one might expect.�

�I am not jubilant, sir; I would swear not to laugh again until I have this man by the shoulder, only the oath would be unnecessary. I am not jubilant, but I am glad. May I have the details of this crime?�

�A man named Bronson, a farm-labourer, fifty years of age, has been found stabbed to death in a field at Sonning.�

�Stabbed!�

�Stabbed; there was no apparent motive for the crime, and the body was hacked as if by a maniac.�

�That is he!� said Freyberger.

�I suspect so. The only thing that makes me feel doubtful is the use of the knife. A strangler once a strangler always.�

�He is frightened,� said Freyberger. �He must assuage his passion for murder, and he has changed his method.�

�Do you think you will find him in the neighbourhood of Sonning?�

�I think it probable.�

�Probable?�

�Yes.�

�We have a few minutes to spare before you need start to catch your train,� said the chief, who always liked to get at Freyberger�s line of reasoning. �So you can just tell me why you think it probable. I would have put it down only as possible.�

�In this way, sir. Why has this murder (if it is one of Klein�s), why has it taken place at Sonning rather than anywhere else? Sonning is a pleasant place enough to spend a day, it would be pleasant enough to spend a week there, but that fact is not an inducement to a murderer. I believe this man commits his crimes within easy reach of some den of his. We know from the house-agent that a man, similar to him, took a house in St Ann�s Road. We have seen that he only furnished one room, and had no servant or help of any sort. He does not want to be spied on.

�We may suppose he left London, and for some reason or another took probably a cottage near Sonning, just as he took a cottage on the Fells of Cumberland.�

�Yes, we may suppose that.�

�Well�when was this murder committed�?�

�Yesterday morning.�

�Then it is probable he is still in the neighbourhood. Leaving aside the assumption that this murder was a sudden affair, the impulse of a moment, and that he had not made plans for leaving Sonning, there is the fact that a murderer of this type has a tendency to cling to the neighbourhood of his crime. Well, we will see. There is one thing I would like to have before I start.�

�What is that?�

�The sheath of the knife I found at St Ann�s Road.�

�You shall have it.�

The chief rang, and ordered the officer who answered the summons to bring the article in question, and Freyberger, placing it in his pocket, departed.