Front matter (continued 4)

The day passed without event. From the early evening papers that came from Gloucester she learned of the fire at Oberzohn’s, and did not connect the disaster with anything but an accident. She was not sorry. The fire had licked out one ugly chapter from the past. Incidentally it had destroyed a crude painting which was, to Dr. Oberzohn, more precious than any that Leonardo had painted or Raphael conceived, but this she did not know.

It was just before the dinner hour that there came the first unusual incident of the day. Mirabelle was standing by the garden gate, intent upon the glories of the evening sky, which was piled high with red and slate-coloured cumuli. The glass was falling and a wet night was promised. But the loveliness of that lavish colouring held her. And then she became dimly aware that a man was coming towards the house from the direction of Gloucester. He walked in the middle of the road slowly, as though he, too, were admiring the view and there was no need to hurry. His hands were behind him, his soft felt hat at the back of his head. A stocky-looking man, but his face was curiously familiar. He turned his unsmiling eyes in her direction, and, looking again at his strong features, at the tiny grey-black moustache under his aquiline nose, she was certain she had seen him before. Perhaps she had passed him in the street, and had retained a subconscious mental picture of him.

He slowed his step until, when he came abreast of her, he stopped.

“This is Heavytree Lane?” he asked, in a deep, musical voice.

“No—the lane is the first break in the hedge,” she smiled. “I’m afraid it isn’t much of a road—generally it is ankle-deep in mud.”

He looked past her to the house; his eyes ranged the windows, dropped for a moment upon a climbing clematis, and came back to her.

“I don’t know Gloucestershire very well,” he said, and added: “You have a very nice house.”

“Yes,” she said in surprise.

“And a garden.” And then, innocently: “Do you grow onions?”

She stared at him and laughed.

“I think we do—I am not sure. My aunt looks after the kitchen garden.”

His sad eyes wandered over the house again.

“It is a very nice place,” he said, and, lifting his hat, went on.

Digby was out: he had gone for a gentle walk, and, looking up the road after the stranger, she saw the guard appear round a bend in the road, saw him stop and speak to the stranger. Apparently they knew one another, for they shook hands at meeting, and after a while Digby pointed down the road to where she was standing, and she saw the man nod. Soon after the stranger went on out of view. Who could he be? Was it an additional guard that the three men had put to protect her? When Digby came up to her, she asked him.

“That gentleman, miss? He is Mr. Poiccart.”

“Poiccart?” she said, delighted. “Oh, I wish I had known!”

“I was surprised to see him,” said the guard. “As a matter of fact, he’s the one of the three gentlemen I’ve met the most. He’s generally in Curzon Street, even when the others are away.”

Digby had nothing to say about Poiccart except that he was a very quiet gentleman and took no active part in the operations of the Just Men.

“I wonder why he wanted to know about onions?” asked the girl thoughtfully. “That sounded awfully mysterious.”

It would not have been so mysterious to Leon.

The house retired to bed soon after ten, Alma going the rounds, and examining the new bolts and locks which had been attached that morning to every door which gave ingress to the house.

Mirabelle was unaccountably tired, and was asleep almost as soon as her head touched the pillow.

She heard in her dreams the swish of the rain beating against her window, lay for a long time trying to energize herself to rise and shut the one open window where the curtains were blowing in. Then came a heavier patter against a closed pane, and something rattled on the floor of her room. She sat up. It could not be hail, although there was a rumble of thunder in the distance.

She got out of bed, pulled on her dressing-gown, went to the window, and had all her work to stifle a scream. Somebody was standing on the path below . . . a woman! She leaned out.

“Who is it?” she asked.

“It is me—I—Joan!” There was a sob in the voice of the girl. Even in that light Mirabelle could see that the girl was drenched. “Don’t wake anybody. Come down—I want you.”

“What is wrong?” asked Mirabelle in a low voice.

“Everything . . . everything!”

She was on the verge of hysteria. Mirabelle lit a candle and crossed the room, went downstairs softly, so that Alma should not be disturbed. Putting the candle on the table, she unbarred and unbolted the door, opened it, and, as she did so, a man slipped through the half-opened door, his big hands smothering the scream that rose to her lips.

Another man followed and, lifting the struggling girl, carried her into the drawing-room. One of the men took a small iron bottle from his pocket, to which ran a flexible rubber tube ending in a large red cap. Her captor removed his hands just as long as it took to fix the cap over her face. A tiny faucet was turned. Mirabelle felt a puff on her face, a strangely sweet taste, and then her heart began to beat thunderously. She thought she was dying, and writhed desperately to free herself.

“She’s all right,” said Monty Newton, lifting an eyelid for a second. “Get a blanket.” He turned fiercely to the whimpering girl behind him. “Shut up, you!” he said savagely. “Do you want to rouse the whole house?”

A woebegone Joan was whimpering softly, tears running down her face, her hands clasping and unclasping in the agony of her mind.

“You told me you weren’t going to hurt her!” she sobbed.

“Get out,” he hissed, and pointed to the door. She went meekly.

A heavy blanket was wrapped round the unconscious girl, and, lifting her between them, the two men went out into the rain, where the old trolley was waiting, and slid her along the straw-covered floor. In another second the trolley moved off, gathering speed.

By this time the effect of the gas had worn off and Mirabelle had regained consciousness. She put out a hand and touched a woman’s knee.

“Who is that—Alma?”

“No,” said a miserable voice, “it’s Joan.”

“Joan? Oh, yes, of course . . . why did you do it?—how wicked!”

“Shut up!” Monty snarled. “Wait until you get to—where you’re going, before you start these ‘whys’ and ‘wherefores.’ ”

Mirabelle was deathly sick and bemused, and for the next hour she was too ill to feel even alarmed. Her head was going round and round, and ached terribly, and the jolting of the truck did not improve matters in this respect.

Monty, who was sitting with his back to the truck’s side, was smoking. He cursed now and then, as some unusually heavy jolt flung him forward. They passed through the heart of the storm: the flicker of lightning was almost incessant and the thunder was deafening. Rain was streaming down the hood of the trolley, rendering it like a drum.

Mirabelle fell into a little sleep and woke feeling better. It was still dark, and she would not have known the direction they were taking, only the driver took the wrong turning coming through a country town, and by the help of the lightning she saw what was indubitably the stand of a race-track, and a little later saw the word “Newbury.” They were going towards London, she realized.

At this hour of the morning there was little or no traffic, and when they turned on to the new Great West Road a big car went whizzing past at seventy miles an hour and the roar of it woke the girl. Now she could feel the trolley wheels skidding on tram-lines. Lights appeared with greater frequency. She saw a store window brilliantly illuminated, the night watchman having evidently forgotten to turn off the lights at the appointed hour.

Soon they were crossing the Thames. She saw the red and green lights of a tug, and black upon near black a string of barges in mid-stream. She dozed again and was jerked wide awake when the trolley swayed and skidded over a surface more uneven than any. Once its wheels went into a pothole and she was flung violently against the side. Another time it skidded and was brought up with a crash against some obstacle. The bumping grew more gentle, and then the machine stopped, and Monty jumped down and called to her sharply.

Her head was clear now, despite its throbbing. She saw a queer-shaped house, all gables and turrets, extraordinarily narrow for its height. It seemed to stand in the middle of a field. And yet it was in London: she could see the glow of furnace fires and hear the deep boom of a ship’s siren as it made its way down the river on the tide.

She had not time to take observations, for Monty fastened to her arm and she squelched through the mud up a flight of stone steps into a dimly lit hall. She had a confused idea that she had seen little dogs standing on the side of the steps, and a big bird with a long bill, but these probably belonged to the smoke of dreams which the gas had left.

Monty opened a door and pushed her in before him, and she stared into the face of Dr. Oberzohn.

He wore a black velvet dressing-gown that had once been a regal garment but was now greasy and stained. On his egg-shaped head he had an embroidered smoking-cap. His feet were encased in warm velvet slippers. He put down the book he had been reading, rubbed his glasses on one velvet sleeve, and then:

“So!” he said.

He pointed to the remains of a fire.

“Sit down, Mirabelle Leicester, and warm yourself. You have come quickly, my friend,”—he addressed Monty.

“I’m black and blue all over,” growled Newton. “Why couldn’t we have a car?”

“Because the cars were engaged, as I told you.”

“Did you——” began Newton quickly, but the old man glanced significantly at the girl, shivering before the fire and warming her hands mechanically.

“I will answer, but you need not ask, in good time. This is not of all moments the most propitious. Where is your woman?”

He had forgotten Joan, and went out to find her shivering in the passage.

“Do you want her?” he asked, poking his head in the door.

“She shall go with this girl. You will explain.”

“Where are you going to put her?”

Oberzohn pointed to the floor.

“Here? But——”

“No, no. My friend, you are too quick to see what is not meant. The gracious lady shall live in a palace—I have a certain friend who will no longer need it.”

His face twitched in the nearest he ever approached to a smile. Groping under the table, he produced a pair of muddy Wellingtons, kicked off his slippers and pulled on the boots with many gasps and jerks.

“All that they need is there: I have seen to it. March!”

He led the way out of the room, pulling the girl to her feet, and Newton followed, Joan bringing up the rear. Inside the factory, Oberzohn produced a small hand torch from his pocket and guided them through the debris till he came to that part of the floor where the trap was. With his foot he moved the covering of rubbish, pulled up the trap and went down.

“I can’t go down there, Monty, I can’t!” said Joan’s agitated voice. “What are you going to do with us? My God! if I’d known——”

“Don’t be a fool,” said Newton roughly. “What have you got to be afraid of? There’s nothing here. We want you to look after her for a day or two. You don’t want her to go down by herself: she’d be frightened to death.”

Her teeth chattering, Joan stumbled down the steps behind him. Certainly the first view of her new quarters was reassuring. Two little trestle beds had been made; the underground room had been swept clean, and a new carpet laid on the floor. Moreover, the apartment was brilliantly lit, and a furnace gave almost an uncomfortable warmth which was nevertheless very welcome, for the temperature had dropped 20° since noon.

“In this box there are clothes of all varieties, and expensive to purchase,” said Oberzohn, pointing to a brand-new trunk at the foot of one of the beds. “Food you will have in plenty—bread and milk newly every day. By night you shall keep the curtain over the ventilator.” On the wall was a small black curtain about ten inches square.

Monty took her into the next apartment and showed her the wash-place. There was even a bath, a compulsory fixture under the English Factory Act in a store of this description, where, in the old days, men had to handle certain insanitary products of the Coast.

“But how do we get out, Monty? Where do we get exercise?”

“You’ll come out to-morrow night: I’ll see to that,” he said, dropping his voice. “Now listen, Joan: you’ve got to be a sensible girl and help me. There’s money in this—bigger money than you have ever dreamed of. And when we’ve got this unpleasant business over, I’m taking you away for a trip round the world.”

It was the old promise, given before, never fulfilled, always hoped for. But this time it did not wholly remove her uneasiness.

“But what are you going to do with the girl?” she asked.

“Nothing; she will be kept here for a week. I’ll swear to you that nothing will happen to her. At the end of a week she’s to be released without a hair of her head being harmed.”

She looked at him searchingly. As far as she was able to judge, he was speaking the truth. And yet——

“I can’t understand it,”—she shook her head, and for once Monty Newton was patient with her.

“She’s the owner of a big property in Africa, and that we shall get, if things work out right,” he said. “The point is that she must claim within a few days. If she doesn’t, the property is ours.”

Her face cleared.

“Is that all?” She believed him, knew him well enough to detect his rare sincerity. “That’s taken a load off my mind, Monty. Of course I’ll stay and look after her for you—it makes it easier to know that nothing will happen. What are those baize things behind the furnace—they look like boxes?”

He turned on her quickly.

“I was going to tell you about those,” he said. “You’re not to touch them under any circumstances. They belong to the old man and he’s very stuffy about such things. Leave them just as they are. Let him touch them and nobody else. Do you understand?”

She nodded, and, to his surprise, pecked his cheek with her cold lips.

“I’ll help you, boy,” she said tremulously. “Maybe that trip will come off after all, if——”

“If what?”

“Those men—the men you were talking about—the Four Just Men, don’t they call themselves? They scare me sick, Monty! They were the people who took her away before, and they’ll kill us—even Oberzohn says that. They’re after him. Has he”—she hesitated—“has he killed anybody? That snake stuff . . . you’re not in it, are you, Monty?”

She looked more like a child than a sophisticated woman, clinging to his arm, her blue eyes looking pleadingly into his.

“Stuff! What do I know about snakes?” He disengaged himself and came back to where Oberzohn was waiting, a figure of patience.

The girl was lying on the bed, her face in the crook of her arm, and he was gazing at her, his expression inscrutable.

“That is all, then. Good night, gracious ladies.”

He turned and marched back towards the step and waved his hand. Monty followed. The girl heard the thud of the trap fall, the scrape of the old man’s boots, and then a rumbling sound, which she did not immediately understand. Later, when in a panic, she tried the trap, she found that a heavy barrel had been put on top, and that it was immovable.

Chapter XX Gurther Reports

DR. OBERZHON had not been to bed for thirty-five years. It was his practice to sleep in a chair, and alternate his dozes with copious draughts from his favourite authors. Mostly the books were about the soul, and free will, and predestination, with an occasional dip into Nietzsche by way of light recreation. In ordinary circumstances he would have had need for all the philosophy he could master; for ruin had come. The destruction of his store, which, to all intents and purposes, was uninsured, would have been the crowning stroke of fate but for the golden vision ahead.

Villa, that handsome half-breed, had arrived in England and had been with the doctor all the evening. At that moment he was on his way to Liverpool to catch the Coast boat, and he had left with his master a record of the claims that had already been pegged out on Monte Doro, as he so picturesquely renamed the new mountain. There were millions there; uncountable wealth. And between the Herr Doktor and the achievement of this colossal fortune was a life which he had no immediate desire to take. The doctor was a bachelor; women bored him. Yet he was prepared to take the extreme step if by so doing he could doubly ensure his fortune. Mirabelle dead gave him one chance; Mirabelle alive and persuaded, multiplied that chance by a hundred.

He opened the book he was reading at the last page and took out the folded paper. It was a special licence to marry, and had been duly registered at the Greenwich Registrar’s Office since the day before the girl had entered his employment. This was his second and most powerful weapon. He could have been legally married on this nearly a week ago. It was effective for two months at least, and only five days separated him from the necessity of a decision. If the time expired, Mirabelle could live. It was quite a different matter, killing in cold blood a woman for whom the police would be searching, and with whose disappearance his name would be connected, from that other form of slaying he favoured: the striking down of strange men in crowded thoroughfares. She was not for the snake—as yet.

He folded the paper carefully, put it back in the book and turned the page, when there was a gentle tap at the door and he sat up.

“Come in, Pfeiffer. March!”

The door opened slowly and a man sidled into the room, and at the sight of him Dr. Oberzohn gasped.

“Gurther!” he stammered, for once thrown out of his stride.

Gurther smiled and nodded, his round eyes fixed on the tassel of the Herr Doktor’s smoking-cap.

“You have returned—and failed?”

“The American, I think, is dead, Herr Doktor,” said the man in his staccato tone. “The so excellent Pfeiffer is also—dead!”

The doctor blinked twice.

“Dead?” he said gratingly. “Who told you this?”

“I saw him. Something happened . . . to the snake. Pfeiffer was bitten.”

The old man’s hard eyes fixed him.

“So!” he said softly.

“He died very quickly—in the usual manner,” jerked Gurther, still with that stupid smile.

“So!” said the doctor again. “All then was failure, and out of it comes an American, who is nothing, and Pfeiffer, who is much—dead!”

“God have him in his keeping!” said Gurther, not lowering or raising his eyes. “And all the way back I thought this, Herr Doktor—how much better that it should be Pfeiffer and not me. Though my nerves are so bad.”

“So!” said the doctor for the fourth time, and held out his hand.

Gurther slipped his fingers into his waistcoat pocket and took out a gold cigarette-case. The doctor opened it and looked at the five cigarettes that reposed, at the two halves of the long holder neatly lying in their proper place, closed the case with a snap and laid it on the table.

“What shall I do with you, Gurther? To-morrow the police will come and search this house.”

“There is the cellar, Herr Doktor: it is very comfortable there. I would prefer it.”

Dr. Oberzohn made a gesture like a boy wiping something from a slate.

“That is not possible: it is in occupation,” he said. “I must find a new place for you.” He stared and mused. “There is the boat,” he said.

Gurther’s smile did not fade.

The boat was a small barge, which had been drawn up into the private dock of the O. & S. factory, and had been rotting there for years, the playing-ground of rats, the doss-house of the homeless. The doctor saw what was in the man’s mind.

“It may be comfortable. I will give you some gas to kill the rats, and it will only be for five-six days.”

“Ja, Herr Doktor.”

“For to-night you may sleep in the kitchen. One does not expect——”

There was a thunderous knock on the outer door. The two men looked at one another, but still Gurther grinned.

“I think it is the police,” said the doctor calmly.

He got up to his feet, lifted the seat of a long hard-looking sofa, disclosing a deep cavity, and Gurther slipped in, and the seat was replaced. This done, the doctor waddled to the door and turned the key.

“Good morning, Inspector Meadows.”

“May I come in?” said Meadows.

Behind him were two police officers, one in uniform.

“Do you wish to see me? Certainly.” He held the door cautiously open and only Meadows came in, and preceded the doctor into his study.

“I want Mirabelle Leicester,” said Meadows curtly. “She was abducted from her home in the early hours of this morning, and I have information that the car which took her away came to this house. There are tracks of wheels in the mud outside.”

“If there are car tracks, they are mine,” said the doctor calmly. He enumerated the makes of machines he possessed. “There is another matter: as to cars having come here in the night, I have a sense of hearing, Mr. Inspector Meadows, and I have heard many cars in Hangman’s Lane—but not in my ground. Also, I’m sure you have not come to tell me of abducted girls, but to disclose to me the miscreant who burnt my store. That is what I expected of you.”

“What you expect of me and what you get will be entirely different propositions,” said Meadows unpleasantly. “Now come across, Oberzohn! We know why you want this girl—the whole plot has been blown. You think you’ll prevent her from making a claim on the Portuguese Government for the renewal of a concession granted in June, 1912, to her father.”

If Dr. Oberzohn was shocked to learn that his secret was out, he did not show it by his face. Not a muscle moved.

“Of such matters I know nothing. It is a fantasy, a story of fairies. Yet it must be true, Mr. Inspector Meadows, if you say it. No: I think you are deceived by the criminals of Curzon Street, W. Men of blood and murder, with records that are infamous. You desire to search my house? It is your privilege.” He waved his hand. “I do not ask you for the ticket of search. From basement to attic the house is yours.”

He was not surprised when Meadows took him at his word, and, going out into the hall, summoned his assistants. They visited each room separately, the old cook and the half-witted Danish girl accepting this visitation as a normal occurrence: they had every excuse to do so, for this was the second time in a fortnight that the house had been visited by the police.

“Now I’ll take a look at your room, if you don’t mind,” said Meadows.

His quick eyes caught sight of the box ottoman against the wall, and the fact that the doctor was sitting thereon added to his suspicions.

“I will look in here, if you please,” he said.

Oberzohn rose and the detective lifted the lid. It was empty. The ottoman had been placed against the wall, at the bottom of which was a deep recess. Gurther had long since rolled through the false back.

“You see—nothing,” said Oberzohn. “Now perhaps you would like to search my factory? Perhaps amongst the rafters and the burnt girders I may conceal a something. Or the barge in my slipway? Who knows what I may place amongst the rats?”

“You’re almost clever,” said Meadows, “and I don’t profess to be a match for you. But there are three men in this town who are! I’ll be frank with you, Oberzohn. I want to put you where I can give you a fair trial, in accordance with the law of this country, and I shall resist, to the best of my ability, any man taking the law into his own hands. But whether you’re innocent or guilty, I wouldn’t stand in your shoes for all the money in Angola!”

“So?” said the doctor politely.

“Give up this girl, and I rather fancy that half your danger will be at an end. I tell you, you’re too clever for me. It’s a stupid thing for a police officer to say, but I can’t get at the bottom of your snake. They have.”

The old man’s brows worked up and down.

“Indeed?” he said blandly. “And of which snake do you speak?”

Meadows said nothing more. He had given his warning: if Oberzohn did not profit thereby, he would be the loser.

Nobody doubted, least of all he, that, in defiance of all laws that man had made, independent of all the machinery of justice that human ingenuity had devised, inevitable punishment awaited Oberzohn and was near at hand.

Chapter XXI The Account Book

IT was five o’clock in the morning when the mud-spattered Spanz dropped down through the mist and driving rain of the Chiltern Hills and struck the main Gloucester Road, pulling up with a jerk before Heavytree Farm. Manfred sprang out, but before he could reach the door, Aunt Alma had opened it, and by the look of her face he saw that she had not slept that night.

“Where is Digby?” he asked.

“He’s gone to interview the Chief Constable,” said Alma. “Come in, Mr. Gonsalez.”

Leon was wet from head to foot: there was not a dry square centimetre upon him. But he was his old cheerful self as he stamped into the hall, shaking himself free of his heavy mackintosh.

“Digby, of course, heard nothing, George.”

“I’m the lightest sleeper in the world,” said Aunt Alma, “but I heard not a sound. The first thing I knew was when a policeman came up and knocked at my door and told me that he’d found the front door open.”

“No clue was left at all?”

“Yes,” said Aunt Alma. They went into the drawing-room and she took up from the table a small black bottle with a tube and cap attached. “I found this behind the sofa. She’d been lying on the sofa; the cushions were thrown on the floor and she tore the tapestry in her struggle.”

Leon turned the faucet, and, as the gas hissed out, sniffed.

“The new dental gas,” he said. “But how did they get in? No window was open or forced?”

“They came in at the door: I’m sure of that. And they had a woman with them,” said Aunt Alma proudly.

“How do you know?”

“There must have been a woman,” said Aunt Alma. “Mirabelle would not have opened the door except to a woman, without waking either myself or Mr. Digby.”

Leon nodded, his eyes gleaming.

“Obviously,” he said.

“And I found the marks of a woman’s foot in the passage. It is dried now, but you can still see it.”

“I have already seen it,” said Leon. “It is to the left of the door: a small pointed shoe and a rubber heel. Miss Leicester opened the door to the woman, the men came in, and the rest was easy. You can’t blame Digby,” he said appealingly to George.

He was the friend at court of every agent, but this time Manfred did not argue with him.

“I blame myself,” he said. “Poiccart told me——”

“He was here,” said Aunt Alma.

“Who—Poiccart?” asked Manfred, surprised, and Gonsalez slapped his knee.

“That’s it, of course! What fools we are! We ought to have known why this wily old fox had left his post. What time was he here?”

Alma told him all the circumstances of the visit.

“He must have left the house immediately after us,” said Leon, with a wide grin of amusement, “caught the five o’clock train for Gloucester, taxied across.”

“And after that?” suggested Manfred.

Leon scratched his chin.

“I wonder if he’s back?” He took up the telephone and put a trunk call through to London. “Somehow I don’t think he is. Here’s Digby, looking as if he expected to be summarily executed.”

The police pensioner was indeed in a mournful and pathetic mood.

“I don’t know what you’ll think of me, Mr. Manfred——” he began.

“I’ve already expressed a view on that subject.” George smiled faintly. “I’m not blaming you, Digby. To leave a man who has been knocked about as you have been without an opposite number, was the height of folly. I didn’t expect them back so soon. As a matter of fact, I intended putting four men on from to-day. You’ve been making inquiries?”

“Yes, sir. The car went through Gloucester very early in the morning and took the Swindon road. It was seen by a cyclist policeman; he said there was a fat roll of tarpaulin lying on the tent of the trolley.”

“No sign of anybody chasing it in a car, or on a motor-bicycle?” asked Manfred anxiously.

Poiccart had recently taken to motor-cycling.

“No, sir.”

“You saw Mr. Poiccart?”

“Yes, he was just going back to London. He said he wanted to see the place with his own eyes.”

George was disappointed. If it had been a visit of curiosity, Poiccart’s absence from town was understandable. He would not have returned at the hour he was rung up.

Aunt Alma was cooking a hasty breakfast, and they had accepted her offer gratefully, for both men were famished; and they were in the midst of the meal when the London call came through.

“Is that you, Poiccart?”

“That is I,” said Poiccart’s voice. “Where are you speaking from?”

“Heavytree Farm. Did you see anything of Miss Leicester?”

There was a pause.

“Has she gone?”

“You didn’t know?”

Another pause.

“Oh, yes, I knew; in fact, I accompanied her part of the way to London, and was bumped off when the trolley struck a refuge on the Great West Road. Meadows is here: he has just come from Oberzohn’s. He says he has found nothing.”

Manfred thought for a while.

“We will be back soon after nine,” he said.

“Leon driving you?” was the dry response.

“Yes—in spite of which we shall be back at nine.”

“That man has got a grudge against my driving,” said Leon, when Manfred reported the conversation. “I knew it was he when Digby described the car and said there was a fat roll of mackintosh on the top. ‘Fat roll’ is not a bad description. Do you know whether Poiccart spoke to Miss Leicester?”

“Yes, he asked her if she grew onions”—a reply which sent Leon into fits of silent laughter.

Breakfast was over and they were making their preparations for departure, when Leon asked unexpectedly:

“Has Miss Leicester a writing-table of her own?”

“Yes, in her room,” said Alma, and took him up to show him the old bureau.

He opened the drawers without apology, took out some old letters, turned them over, reading them shamelessly. Then he opened the blotter. There were several sheets of blank paper headed “Heavytree Farm,” and two which bore her signature at the bottom. Alma explained that the bank account of the establishment was in Mirabelle’s name, and, when it was necessary to draw cash, it was a rule of the bank that it should be accompanied by a covering letter—a practice which still exists in some of the old West-country banking establishments. She unlocked a drawer that he had not been able to open and showed him a cheque-book with three blank cheques signed with her name.

“That banker has known me since I was so high,” said Alma scornfully. “You wouldn’t think there’d be so much red-tape.”

Leon nodded.

“Do you keep any account books?”

“Yes, I do,” said Alma in surprise. “The household accounts, you mean?”

“Could I see one?”

She went out and returned with a thin ledger, and he made a brief examination of its contents. Wholly inadequate, thought Alma, considering the trouble she had taken and the interest he had shown.

“That’s that,” he said. “Now, George, en voiture!”

“Why did you want to see the account book?” asked Manfred as they bowled up the road.

“I am naturally commercial-minded,” was the unsatisfactory reply. “And, George, we’re short of juice. Pray like a knight in armour that we sight a filling station in the next ten minutes.”

If George had prayed, the prayer would have been answered: just as the cylinders started to miss they pulled up the car before a garage, and took in a supply which was more than sufficient to carry them to their destination. It was nine o’clock exactly when the car stopped before the house. Poiccart, watching the arrival from George’s room, smiled grimly at the impertinent gesture of the chauffeur.

Behind locked doors the three sat in conference.

“This has upset all my plans,” said Leon at last. “If the girl was safe, I should settle with Oberzohn to-night.”

George Manfred stroked his chin thoughtfully. He had once worn a trim little beard, and had never got out of that beard-stroking habit of his.

“We think exactly alike. I intended suggesting that course,” he said gravely.

“The trouble is Meadows. I should like the case to have been settled one way or the other, and for Meadows to be out of it altogether. One doesn’t wish to embarrass him. But the urgency is very obvious. It would have been very easy,” said Leon, a note of regret in his gentle voice. “Now of course it is impossible until the girl is safe. But for that”—he shrugged his shoulders—“to-morrow friend Oberzohn would have experienced a sense of lassitude. No pain . . . just a little tiredness. Sleep, coma—death on the third day. He is an old man, and one has no desire to hurt the aged. There is no hurt like fear. As for Gurther, we will try a more violent method, unless Oberzohn gets him first. I sincerely hope he does.”

“This is news to me. What is this about Gurther?” asked Poiccart.

Manfred told him.

“Leon is right now,” Poiccart nodded. He rose from the table and unlocked the door. “If any of you men wish to sleep, your rooms are ready; the curtains are drawn, and I will wake you at such and such an hour.”

But neither were inclined for sleep. George had to see a client that morning: a man with a curious story to tell. Leon wanted a carburetter adjusted. They would both sleep in the afternoon, they said.

The client arrived soon after. Poiccart admitted him and put him in the dining-room to wait before he reported his presence.

“I think this is your harem man,” he said, and went downstairs to show up the caller.

He was a commonplace-looking man with a straggling, fair moustache and a weak chin.

“Debilitated or degenerate,” he suggested.

“Probably a little of both,” assented Manfred, when the butler had announced him.

He came nervously into the room and sat down opposite to Manfred.

“I tried to get you on the ’phone last night,” he complained, “but I got no answer.”

“My office hours are from ten till two,” said George good-humouredly. “Now will you tell me again this story of your sister?”

The man leaned back in the chair and clasped his knees, and began in a sing-song voice, as though he were reciting something that he had learned by heart.

“We used to live in Turkey. My father was a merchant of Constantinople, and my sister, who went to school in England, got extraordinary ideas, and came back a most violent pro-Turk. She is a very pretty girl and she came to know some of the best Turkish families, although my father and I were dead against her going about with these people. One day she went to call on Hymar Pasha, and that night she didn’t come back. We went to the Pasha’s house and asked for her, but he told us she had left at four o’clock. We then consulted the police, and they told us, after they had made investigations, that she had been seen going on board a ship which left for Odessa the same night. I hadn’t seen her for ten years, until I went down to the Gringo Club, which is a little place in the East End—not high class, you understand, but very well conducted. There was a cabaret show after midnight, and whilst I was sitting there, thinking about going home—very bored, you understand, because that sort of thing doesn’t appeal to me—I saw a girl come out from behind a curtain dressed like a Turkish woman, and begin a dance. She was in the middle of the dance when her veil slipped off. It was Marie! She recognized me at once, and darted through the curtains. I tried to follow her, but they held me back.”

“Did you go to the police?” asked Manfred.

The man shook his head.

“No, what is the use of the police?” he went on in a monotonous tone. “I had enough of them in Constantinople, and I made up my mind that I would get outside help. And then somebody told me of you, and I came along. Mr. Manfred, is it impossible for you to rescue my sister? I’m perfectly sure that she is being detained forcibly and against her will.”

“At the Gringo Club?” asked Manfred.

“Yes,” he nodded.

“I’ll see what I can do,” said George. “Perhaps my friends and I will come down and take a look round some evening. In the meantime will you go back to your friend Dr. Oberzohn and tell him that you have done your part and I will do mine? Your little story will go into my collection of Unplausible Inventions!”

He touched a bell and Poiccart came in.

“Show Mr. Liggins out, please. Don’t hurt him—he may have a wife and children, though it is extremely unlikely.”

The visitor slunk from the room as though he had been whipped.

The door had scarcely closed upon him when Poiccart called Leon down from his room.

“Son,” he said, “George wants that man trailed.”

Leon peeped out after the retiring victim of Turkish tyranny.

“Not a hard job,” he said. “He has flat feet!”

Poiccart returned to the consulting-room.

“Who is he?” he asked.

“I don’t know. He’s been sent here either by Oberzohn or by friend Newton, the general idea being to bring us all together at the Gringo Club—which is fairly well known to me—on some agreeable evening. A bad actor! He has no tone. I shouldn’t be surprised if Leon finds something very interesting about him.”

“He’s been before, hasn’t he?”

Manfred nodded.

“Yes, he was here the day after Barberton came. At least, I had his letter the next morning and saw him for a few moments in the day. Queer devil, Oberzohn! And an industrious devil,” he added. “He sets everybody moving at once, and of course he’s right. A good general doesn’t attack with a platoon, but with an army, with all his strength, knowing that if he fails to pierce the line at one point he may succeed at another. It’s an interesting thought, Raymond, that at this moment there are probably some twenty separate and independent agencies working for our undoing. Most of them ignorant that their efforts are being duplicated. That is Oberzohn’s way—always has been his way. It’s the way he has started revolutions, the way he has organized religious riots.”

After he had had his bath and changed, he announced his intention of calling at Chester Square.

“I’m rather keen on meeting Joan Newton again, even if she has returned to her normal state of Jane Smith.”

Miss Newton was not at home, the maid told him when he called. Would he see Mr. Montague Newton, who was not only at home, but anxious for him to call, if the truth be told, for he had seen his enemy approaching.

“I shall be pleased,” murmured Manfred, and was ushered into the splendour of Mr. Newton’s drawing-room.

“Too bad about Joan,” said Mr. Newton easily. “She left for the Continent this morning.”

“Without a passport?” smiled Manfred.

A little slip on the part of Monty, but how was Manfred to know that the authorities had, only a week before, refused the renewal of her passport pending an inquiry into certain irregularities? The suggestion had been that other people than she had travelled to and from the Continent armed with this individual document.

“You don’t need a passport for Belgium,” he lied readily. “Anyway, this passport stuff’s a bit overdone. We’re not at war now.”

“All the time we’re at war,” said Manfred. “May I sit down?”

“Do. Have a cigarette?”

“Let me see the brand before I accept,” said Manfred cautiously, and the man guffawed as at a great joke.

The visitor declined the offer of the cigarette-case and took one from a box on the table.

“And is Jane making the grand tour?” he asked blandly.

“Jane’s run down and wants a rest.”

“What’s the matter with Aylesbury?”

He saw the man flinch at the mention of the women’s convict establishment, but he recovered instantly.

“It is not far enough out, and I’m told that there are all sorts of queer people living round there. No, she’s going to Brussels and then on to Aix-la-Chapelle, then probably to Spa—I don’t suppose I shall see her again for a month or two.”

“She was at Heavytree Farm in the early hours of this morning,” said Manfred, “and so were you. You were seen and recognized by a friend of mine—Mr. Raymond Poiccart. You travelled from Heavytree Farm to Oberzohn’s house in a Ford trolley.”

Not by a flicker of an eyelid did Monty Newton betray his dismay.

“That is bluff,” he said. “I didn’t leave this house last night. What happened at Heavytree Farm?”

“Miss Leicester was abducted. You are surprised, almost agitated, I notice.”

“Do you think I had anything to do with it?” asked Monty steadily.

“Yes, and the police share my view. A provisional warrant was issued for your arrest this morning. I thought you ought to know.”

Now the man drew back, his face went from red to white, and then to a deeper red again. Manfred laughed softly.

“You’ve got a guilty conscience, Newton,” he said, “and that’s half-way to being arrested. Where is Jane?”

“Gone abroad, I tell you.”

He was thrown off his balance by this all too successful bluff and had lost some of his self-possession.

“She is with Mirabelle Leicester: of that I’m sure,” said Manfred. “I’ve warned you twice, and it is not necessary to warn you a third time. I don’t know how far deep you’re in these snake murders: a jury will decide that sooner or later. But you’re dead within six hours of my learning that Miss Leicester has been badly treated. You know that is true, don’t you?”

Manfred was speaking very earnestly.

“You’re more scared of us than you are of the law, and you’re right, because we do not put our men to the hazard of a jury’s intelligence. You get the same trial from us as you get from a judge who knows all the facts. You can’t beat an English judge, Newton.”

The smile returned and he left the room. Fred, near at hand, waiting in the passage but at a respectful distance from the door, let him out with some alacrity.

Monty Newton turned his head sideways, caught a fleeting glimpse of the man he hated—hated worse than he hated Leon Gonsalez—and then called harshly for his servant.

“Come here,” he said, and Fred obeyed. “They’ll be sending round to make inquiries, and I want you to know what to tell them,” he said. “Miss Joan went away this morning to the Continent by the eight-fifteen. She’s either in Brussels or Aix-la-Chapelle. You’re not sure of the hotel, but you’ll find out. Is that clear to you?”

“Yes, sir.”

Fred was looking aimlessly about the room.

“What’s the matter with you?”

“I was wondering where the clock is.”

“Clock?” Now Monty Newton heard it himself. The tick-tick-tick of a cheap clock, and he went livid. “Find it,” he said hoarsely, and even as he spoke his eyes fell upon the little black box that had been pushed beneath the desk, and he groped for the door with a scream of terror.

Passers-by in Chester Square saw the door flung open and two men rush headlong into the street. And the little American clock, which Manfred had purchased a few days before, went on ticking out the time, and was still ticking merrily when the police experts went in and opened the box. It was Manfred’s oldest jest, and never failed.

Chapter XXII In the Store Cellar

IT was impossible that Mirabelle Leicester could fail to realize the serious danger in which she stood. Why she had incurred the enmity of Oberzohn, for what purpose this man was anxious to keep her under his eye, she could not even guess. It was a relief to wake up in the early morning, as she did, and find Joan sleeping in the same room; for though she had many reasons for mistrusting her, there was something about this doll-faced girl that made an appeal to her.

Joan was lying on the bed fully dressed, and at the sound of the creaking bed she turned and got up, fastening her skirt.

“Well, how do you like your new home?” she asked, with an attempt at joviality, which she was far from feeling, in spite of Monty’s assurances.

“I’ve seen better,” said Mirabelle coolly.

“I’ll bet you have!” Joan stretched and yawned; then, opening one of the cupboards, took a shovelful of coal and threw it into the furnace, clanging the iron door. “That’s my job,” she said humorously, “to keep you warm.”

“How long am I going to be kept here?”

“Five days,” was the surprising answer.

“Why five?” asked Mirabelle curiously.

“I don’t know. Maybe they’ll tell you,” said Joan.

She fixed a plug in the wall and turned on the small electric fire. Disappearing, she came back with a kettle which she placed on top of the ring.

“The view’s not grand, but the food’s good,” she said, with a gaiety that Mirabelle was now sure was forced.

“You’re with these people, of course—Dr. Oberzohn and Newton?”

“Mister Newton,” corrected Joan. “Yes, I’m his fiancée. We’re going to be married when things get a little better,” she said vaguely, “and there’s no use in your getting sore with me because I helped to bring you here. Monty’s told me all about it. They’re going to do you no harm at all.”

“Then why——” began Mirabelle.

“He’ll tell you,” interrupted Joan, “sooner or later. The old man, or—or—well, Monty isn’t in this: he’s only obliging Oberzohn.”

With one thing Mirabelle agreed: it was a waste of time to indulge in recriminations or to reproach the girl for her supreme treachery. After all, Joan owed nothing to her, and had been from the first a tool employed for her detention. It would have been as logical for a convict to reproach the prison guard.

“How do you come to be doing this sort of thing?” she asked, watching the girl making tea.

“Where do you get ‘this sort of thing’ from?” demanded Joan. “If you suppose that I spend my life chaperoning females, you’ve got another guess coming. Scared, aren’t you?”

She looked across at Mirabelle and the girl shook her head.

“Not really.”

“I should be,” confessed Joan. “Do you mind condensed milk? There’s no other. Yes, I should be writhing under the table, knowing something about Oberzohn.”

“If I were Oberzohn,” said Mirabelle with spirit, “I should be hiding in a deep hole where the Four Just Men would not find me.”

“Four Just Men!” sneered the girl, and then her face changed. “Were they the people who whipped Gurther?”

Mirabelle had not heard of this exploit, but she gave them credit with a nod.

“Is that so? Does Gurther know they’re friends of yours?” she asked significantly.

“I don’t know Gurther.”

“He’s the man who danced with you the other night—Lord—I forget what name we gave him. Because, if he does know, my dear,” she said slowly, “you’ve got two people to be extremely careful with. Gurther’s half mad. Monty has always said so. He dopes too, and there are times when he’s not a man at all but a low-down wolf. I’m scared of him—I’ll admit it. There aren’t Four Just Men, anyway,” she went off at a tangent. “There haven’t been more than three for years. One of them was killed in Bordeaux. That’s a town I’d hate to be killed in,” said Joan irreverently.

An interval of silence followed whilst she opened an air-tight tin and took out a small cake, and, putting it on the table, cut it into slices.

“What are they like?” she asked.

Evidently the interval had been filled with thoughts of the men from Curzon Street.

“Monty says they’re just bluff, but I’m not so sure that Monty tells me all he thinks. He’s so scared that he told me to call and see them, just because they gave him an order—which isn’t like Monty. They’ve killed people, haven’t they?”

Mirabelle nodded.

“And got away with it? They must be clever.” Joan’s admiration was dragged from her. “Where do they get their money?”

That was always an interesting matter to Joan.

When the girl explained, she was really impressed. That they could kill and get away with it, was wonderful; that they were men of millions, placed them in a category apart.

“They’ll never find you here,” said Joan. “There’s nobody living knows about this vault. There used to be eight men working here, sorting monkey hides, and every one of them’s dead. Monty told me. He said this place is below the canal level, and Oberzohn can flood it in five minutes. Monty thinks the old man had an idea of running a slush factory here.”

“What is a slush factory?” asked Mirabelle, open-mouthed.

“Phoney—snide—counterfeit. Not English, but Continental work. He was going to do that if things had gone really bad, but of course you make all the difference.”

Mirabelle put down her cup.

“Does he expect to make money out of me?” she said, trying hard not to laugh.

The girl nodded solemnly.

“Does he think I have a great deal of money?”

“He’s sure.”

Joan was sure too. Her tone said that plainly enough.

Mirabelle sat down on the bed, for the moment too astonished to speak. Her own financial position was no mystery. She had been left sufficient to bring her in a small sum yearly, and with the produce of the farm had managed to make both ends meet. It was the failure of the farm as a source of profit which had brought her to her new job in London. Alma had also a small annuity; the farm was the girl’s property, but beyond these revenues she had nothing. There was not even a possibility that she was an heiress. Her father had been a comparatively poor man, and had been supported in his numerous excursions to various parts of the world in search of knowledge by the scientific societies to which he was attached; his literary earnings were negligible; his books enjoyed only a very limited sale. She could trace her ancestry back for seven generations; knew of her uncles and aunts, and they did not include a single man or woman who, in the best traditions of the story-books, had gone to America and made an immense fortune.

“It is absurd,” she said. “I have no money. If Mr. Oberzohn puts me up to ransom, it will have to be something under a hundred!”

“Put you up to ransom?” said Joan. “I don’t get you there. But you’re rich all right—I can tell you that. Monty says so, and Monty wouldn’t lie to me.”

Mirabelle was bewildered. It seemed almost impossible that a man of Oberzohn’s intelligence and sources of information could make such a mistake. And yet Joan was earnest.

“They must have mistaken me for somebody else,” she said, but Joan did not answer. She was sitting up in a listening attitude, and her eyes were directed towards the iron door which separated their sleeping apartment from the larger vault. She had heard the creak of the trap turning and the sound of feet coming down the stairs.

Mirabelle rose as Oberzohn came in. He wore his black dressing-gown, his smoking-cap was at the back of his head, and the muddy Wellington boots which he had pulled over his feet looked incongruous, and would at any other time have provoked her to laughter.

He favoured her with a stiff nod.

“You have slept well, gracious lady?” he said, and to her amazement took her cold hand in his and kissed it.

She felt the same feeling of revulsion and unreality as had overcome her that night at the dance when Gurther had similarly saluted her.

“It is a nice place, for young people and for old.” He looked round the apartment with satisfaction. “Here I should be content to spend my life reading my books, and giving my mind to thought, but”—he spread his hands and shrugged—“what would you? I am a business man, with immense interests in every part of the world. I am rich, too, beyond your dreams! I have stores in every part of the world, and thousands of men and women on my pay-roll.”

Why was he telling her all this, she wondered, reciting the facts in a monotonous voice. Surely he had not come down to emphasize the soundness of his financial position?

“I am not very much interested in your business, Mr. Oberzohn,” she said, “but I want to know why I am being detained here. Surely, if you’re so rich, you do not want to hold me to ransom?”

“To ransom?” His forehead went up and down. “That is foolish talk. Did she tell you?” He pointed at the girl, and his face went as black as thunder.

“No, I guessed,” said Mirabelle quickly, not wishing to get her companion into bad odour.

“I do not hold you to ransom. I hold you, lovely lady, because you are good for my eyes. Did not Heine say, ‘The beauty of women is a sedative to the soul’? You should read Heine: he is frivolous, but in his stupidity there are many clever thoughts. Now tell me, lovely lady, have you all you desire?”

“I want to go out,” she said. “I can’t stay in this underground room without danger to my health.”

“Soon you shall go.” He bowed stiffly again, and shuffled across the floor to the furnace. Behind this were the two baize-covered boxes, and one he lifted tenderly. “Here are secrets such as you should not pry into,” he said in his awkward English. “The most potent of chemicals, colossal in power. The ignorant would touch them and they would explode—you understand?”

He addressed Mirabelle, who did not understand but made no answer.

“They must be kept warm for that reason. One I take, the other I leave. You shall not touch it—that is understood? My good friend has told you?” He brought his eyes to Joan.

“I understand all right,” she said. “Listen, Oberzohn: when am I going out for a walk? This place is getting on my nerves already.”

“To-night you shall have exercise with the lovely lady. I myself will accompany you.”

“Why am I here, Mr. Oberzohn?” Mirabelle asked again.

“You are here because you are in danger,” said Oberzohn, holding the green box under his arm. “You are in very great danger.” He nodded with every word. “There are certain men, of all the most infamous, who have a design upon your life. They are criminal, cunning and wise—but not so cunning or wise as Dr. Oberzohn. Because I will not let you fall into their hands I keep you here, young miss. Good morning.”

Again he bowed stiffly and went out, the iron door clanging behind him. They heard him climbing the stairs, the thud of the trap as it fell, and the rumble which Joan, at any rate, knew was made by the cement barrel being rolled to the top of the trap.

“Pleasant little fellow, isn’t he?” said Joan bitterly. “Him and his chemicals!” She glared down at the remaining box. “If I were sure it wouldn’t explode, I should smash it to smithereens!” she said.

Later she told the prisoner of Oberzohn’s obsession; of how he spent time and money in his search for the vital elixir.

“Monty thinks he’ll find it,” she said seriously. “Do you know, that old man has had an ox stewed down to a pint? There used to be a king in Europe—I forget his name—who had the same stuff, but not so strong. Monty says that Oberzohn hardly ever takes a meal—just a teaspoonful of this dope and he’s right for the day. And Monty says . . .”

For the rest of that dreary morning the girl listened without hearing to the wise sayings and clever acts of Monty; and every now and again her eyes strayed to the baize-covered box which contained “the most potent chemicals,” and she wondered whether, in the direst extremity, she would be justified in employing these dread forces for her soul’s salvation.

Chapter XXIII The Courier

ELIJAH WASHINGTON came up to London for a consultation. With the exception of a blue contusion beneath his right eye, he was none the worse for his alarming experience.

Leon Gonsalez had driven him to town, and on the way up the big man had expressed views about snake-bite which were immensely interesting to the man at the wheel.

“I’ve figured it out this way: there is no snake at all. What happens is that these guys have extracted snake venom—and that’s easy, by making a poison-snake bite on something soft—and have poisoned a dart or a burr with the venom. I’ve seen that done in Africa, particularly up in the Ituri country, and it’s pretty common in South America. The fellow just throws or shoots it, and just where the dart hits, he gets snake-poisoning right away.”

“That is an excellent theory,” said Leon, “only—no dart or burr has ever been found. It is the first thing the police looked for in the case of the stockbroker. They had the ground searched for days. And it was just the same in the case of the tramp and the bank clerk, just the same in the case of Barberton. A dart would stick some time and would be found in the man’s clothing or near the spot where he was struck down. How do you account for that?”

Mr. Washington very frankly admitted that he couldn’t account for it at all, and Leon chuckled.

“I can,” he said. “In fact, I know just how it’s done.”

“Great snakes!” gasped Washington in amazement. “Then why don’t you tell the police?”

“The police know—now,” said Leon. “It isn’t snake-bite—it is nicotine poisoning.”

“How’s that?” asked the startled man, but Leon had his joke to himself.

After a consultation which had lasted most of the night they had brought Washington from Rath Hall, and on the way Leon hinted gently that the Three had a mission for him and hoped he would accept.

“You’re much too good a fellow to be put into an unnecessarily dangerous position,” he said; “and even if you weren’t, we wouldn’t lightly risk your blessed life; but the job we should ask you to do isn’t exactly a picnic.”

“Listen!” said Mr. Washington with sudden energy. “I don’t want any more snakes—not that kind of snake! I’ve felt pain in my time, but nothing like this! I know it must have been snake venom, but I’d like to meet the little wriggler who brews the brand that was handed to me, and maybe I’d change my mind about collecting him—alive!”

Leon agreed silently, and for the next few moments was avoiding a street car on one side, a baker’s cart on another, and a blah woman who was walking aimlessly in the road, apparently with no other intention than of courting an early death, this being the way of blah women.

“Phew!” said Mr. Washington, as the car skidded on the greasy road. “I don’t know whether you’re a good driver or just naturally under the protection of Providence.”

“Both,” said Leon, when he had straightened the machine. “All good drivers are that.”

Presently he continued:

“It is snake venom all right, Mr. Washington; only snake venom that has been most carefully treated by a man who knows the art of concentration of its bad and the extraction of its harmless constituents. My theory is that certain alkaloids are added, and it is possible that there has been a blending of two different kinds of poison. But you’re right when you say that no one animal carries in his poison sac that particular variety of death-juice. If it is any value to you, we are prepared to give you a snake-proof certificate!”

“I don’t want another experience of that kind,” Elijah Washington warned him; but Leon turned the conversation to the state of the road and the problems of traffic control.

There had been nothing seen or heard of Mirabelle, and Meadows’ activities had for the moment been directed to the forthcoming inquest on Barberton. Nowadays, whenever he reached Scotland Yard, he moved in a crowd of reporters, all anxious for news of further developments. The Barberton death was still the livliest topic in the newspapers: the old scare of the snake had been revived and in some degree intensified. There was not a journal which did not carry columns of letters to the editor denouncing the inactivity of the police. Were they, asked one sarcastic correspondent, under the hypnotic influence of the snake’s eyes? Could they not, demanded another, give up trapping speeders on the Lingfield road and bring their mighty brains to the elucidation of a mystery that was to cause every household in London the gravest concern? The Barberton murder was the peg on which every letter-writing faddist had a novel view to hang, and Mr. Meadows was not at that time the happiest officer in the force.

“Where is Lee?” asked Washington as they came into Curzon Street.

“He’s in town for the moment, but we are moving him to the North of England, though I don’t think there is any danger to him, now that Barberton’s letters are in our possession. They would have killed him yesterday to prevent our handling the correspondence. To-day I should imagine he has no special importance in the eyes of Oberzohn and Company. And here we are!”

Mr. Washington got out stiffly and was immediately admitted by the butler. The three men went upstairs to where George Manfred was wrestling with a phase of the problem. He was not alone; Digby, his head swathed in bandages, sat, an unhappy man, on the edge of a chair and answered Leon’s cheery greeting with a mournful smile.

“I’m sending Digby to keep observation on Oberzohn’s house; and especially do I wish him to search that old boat of his.”

He was referring to an ancient barge which lay on the mud at the bottom of Mr. Oberzohn’s private dock. From the canal there was a narrow waterway into the little factory grounds. It was so long since the small cantilever bridge which covered the entrance had been raised, that locals regarded the bridge floor as part of the normal bank of the canal. But behind the green water-gates was a concrete dock large enough to hold one barge, and here for years a decrepit vessel had wallowed, the hunting-ground of rats and the sleeping-place of the desperately homeless.

“The barge is practically immovable: I’ve already reported on that,” said Leon.

“It certainly has that appearance, and yet I would like a search,” replied Manfred. “You understand that this is night duty, and I have asked Meadows to notify the local inspector that you will be on duty—I don’t want to be pulled out of my bed to identify you at the Peckham police station. It isn’t a cheerful job, but you might be able to make it interesting by finding your way into his grounds. I don’t think the factory will yield much, but the house will certainly be a profitable study to an observer of human nature.”

“I hope I do better this time, Mr. Manfred,” said Digby, turning to go. “And, if you don’t mind, I’ll go by day and take a look at the place. I don’t want to fall down this time!”

George smiled as he rose and shook the man’s hand at parting.

“Even Mr. Gonsalez makes mistakes,” he said maliciously, and Leon looked hurt.

Manfred tidied some papers on his desk and put them into a drawer, waiting for Poiccart’s return. When he had come:

“Now, Mr. Washington, we will tell you what we wish you to do. We wish you to take a letter to Lisbon. Leon has probably hinted something to that effect, and it is now my duty to tell you that the errand is pretty certain to be an exceedingly dangerous one, but you are the only man I know to whom I could entrust this important document. I feel I cannot allow you to undertake this mission without telling you that the chances are heavily against your reaching Portugal.”

“Bless you for those cheerful words,” said Washington blankly. “The only thing I want to be certain about is, am I likely to meet Mr. Snake?”

Manfred nodded, and the American’s face lengthened.

“I don’t know that even that scares me,” he said at last, “especially now that I know that the dope they use isn’t honest snake-spit at all but a synthesized poison. It was having my confidence shaken in snakes that rattled me. When do you want me to go?”

“To-night.”

Mr. Washington for the moment was perplexed, and Manfred continued:

“Not by the Dover-Calais route. We would prefer that you travelled by Newhaven-Dieppe. Our friends are less liable to be on the alert, though I can’t even guarantee that. Oberzohn spends a lot of money in espionage. This house has been under observation for days. I will show you.”

He walked to the window and drew aside the curtain.

“Do you see a spy?” he asked, with a twinkle in his eye.

Mr. Washington looked up and down the street.

“Sure!” he said. “That man at the corner smoking a cigar——”

“Is a detective officer from Scotland Yard,” said Manfred. “Do you see anybody else?”

“Yes,” said Washington after a while, “there’s a man cleaning windows on the opposite side of the road: he keeps looking across here.”

“A perfectly innocent citizen,” said Manfred.

“Well, he can’t be in any of those taxis, because they’re empty.” Mr. Washington nodded to a line of taxis drawn up on the rank in the centre of the road.

“On the contrary, he is in the first taxi on the rank—he is the driver! If you went out and called a cab, he would come to you. If anybody else called him, he would be engaged. His name is Clarke, he lives at 43, Portlington Mews; he is an ex-convict living apart from his wife, and he receives seven pounds a week for his services, ten pounds every time he drives Oberzohn’s car, and all the money he makes out of his cab.”

He smiled at the other’s astonishment.

“So the chances are that your movements will be known; even though you do not call the cab, he will follow you. You must be prepared for that. I’m putting all my cards on the table, Mr. Washington, and asking you to do something which, if you cannot bring yourself to agree, must be done by either myself, Poiccart or Gonsalez. Frankly, none of us can be spared.”

“I’ll go,” said the American. “Snake or no snake, I’m for Lisbon. What is my route?”

Poiccart took a folded paper from his pocket.

“Newhaven, Dieppe, Paris. You have a reserved compartment on the Sud Express; you reach Valladolid late to-morrow night, and change to the Portuguese mail. Unless I can fix an aeroplane to meet you at Irun. We are trying now. Otherwise, you should be in Lisbon at two o’clock on the following afternoon. He had better take the letter now, George.”

Manfred unlocked the wall safe and took out a long envelope. It was addressed to “Senhor Alvaz Manuel y Cintra, Minister of Colonies,” and was heavily sealed.

“I want you to place this in Senhor Cintra’s hands. You’ll have no difficulty there because you will be expected,” he said. “Will you travel in that suit?”

The American thought.

“Yes, that’s as good as any,” he said.

“Will you take off your jacket?”

Mr. Washington obeyed, and with a small pair of scissors Manfred cut a slit in the lining and slipped the letter in. Then, to the American’s astonishment, Leon produced a rolled housewife, threaded a needle with extraordinary dexterity, and for the next five minutes the snake-hunter watched the deft fingers stitching through paper and lining. So skilfully was the slit sewed that Elijah Washington had to look twice to make sure where the lining had been cut.

“Well, that beats the band!” he said. “Mr. Gonsalez, I’ll send you my shirts for repair!”

“And here is something for you to carry.” It was a black leather portfolio, well worn. To one end was attached a steel chain terminating in a leather belt. “I want you to put this round your waist, and from now on to carry this wallet. It contains nothing more important than a few envelopes imposingly sealed, and if you lose it no great harm will come.”

“You think they’ll go for the wallet?”

Manfred nodded.

“One cannot tell, of course, what Oberzohn will do, and he’s as wily as one of his snakes. But my experience has been,” he said, “that the cleverer the criminal, the bigger the fool and the more outrageous his mistakes. You will want money.”

“Well, I’m not short of that,” said the other with a smile. “Snakes are a mighty profitable proposition. Still, I’m a business man . . .”

For the next five minutes they discussed financial details, and he was more than surprised to discover the recklessness with which money was disbursed.

He went out, with a glance from the corner of his eye at the taximan, whose hand was raised inquiringly, but, ignoring the driver, he turned and walked towards Regent Street, and presently found a wandering taxi of an innocuous character, and ordered the man to drive to the Ritz-Carlton, where rooms had been taken for him.

He was in Regent Street before he looked round through the peep-hole, and, as Manfred had promised him, the taxi was following, its flag down to prevent chance hiring. Mr. Washington went up to his room, opened the window and looked out: the taxi had joined a near-by rank. The driver had left his box.

“He’s on the ’phone,” muttered Mr. Washington, and would have given a lot of money to have known the nature of the message.

Chapter XXIV On the Night Mail

A MAN of habit, Mr. Oberzohn missed his daily journey to the City Road. In ordinary circumstances the loss would have been a paralysing one, but of late he had grown more and more wedded to his deep arm-chair and his ponderous volumes; and though the City Road had been a very useful establishment in many ways, and was ill replaced by the temporary building which his manager had secured, he felt he could almost dispense with that branch of his business altogether.

Oberzohn & Smitts was an institution which had grown out of nothing. The energy of the partners, and especially the knowledge of African trading conditions which the departed Smitts possessed, had produced a flourishing business which ten years before could have been floated for half a million pounds.

Orders still came in. There were up-country stores to be restocked; new, if unimportant, contracts to be fulfilled; there was even a tentative offer under consideration from one of the South American States for the armaments of a political faction. But Mr. Oberzohn was content to mark time, in the faith that the next week would see him superior to these minor considerations, and in a position, if he so wished, to liquidate his business and sell his stores and his trade. There were purchasers ready, but the half a million pounds had dwindled to a tenth of that sum, which outstanding bills would more than absorb. As Manfred had said, his running expenses were enormous. He had agents in every central Government office in Europe, and though they did not earn their salt, they certainly drew more than condiment for their services.

He had spent a busy morning in his little workshop-laboratory, and had settled himself down in his chair, when a telegraph messenger came trundling his bicycle across the rough ground, stopped to admire for a second the iron dogs which littered the untidy strip of lawn, and woke the echoes of this gaunt house with a thunderous knock. Mr. Oberzohn hurried to the door. A telegram to this address must necessarily be important. He took the telegram, slammed the door in the messenger’s face and hurried back to his room, tearing open the envelope as he went.

There were three sheets of misspelt writing, for the wire was in Portuguese and telegraph operators are bad guessers. He read it through carefully, his lips moving silently, until he came to the end, then he started reading all over again, and, for a better understanding of its purport, he took a pencil and paper and translated the message into Swedish. He laid the telegram face downwards on the table and took up his book, but he was not reading. His busy mind slipped from Lisbon to London, from Curzon Street to the factory, and at last he shut his book with a bang, got up, and opening the door, barked Gurther’s name. That strange man came downstairs in his stockinged feet, his hair hanging over his eyes, an unpleasant sight. Dr. Oberzohn pointed to the room and the man entered.

For an hour they talked behind locked doors, and then Gurther came out, still showing his teeth in a mechanical smile, and went up the stairs two at a time. The half-witted Danish maid, passing the door of the doctor’s room, heard his gruff voice booming into the telephone, but since he spoke a language which, whilst it had some relation to her own, was subtly different, she could not have heard the instructions, admonitions, orders and suggestions which he fired in half a dozen different directions, even if she had heard him clearly.

This done, Dr. Oberzohn returned to his book and a midday refreshment, spooning his lunch from a small cup at his side containing a few fluid ounces of dark red liquid. One half of his mind was pursuing his well-read philosophers; the other worked at feverish speed, conjecturing and guessing, forestalling and baffling the minds that were working against him. He played a game of mental chess, all the time seeking for a check, and when at last he had discovered one that was adequate, he put down his book and went out into his garden, strolling up and down inside the wire fence, stopping now and again to pick a flower from a weed, or pausing to examine a rain-filled pothole as though it were the star object in a prize landscape.

He loved this ugly house, knew every brick of it, as a feudal lord might have known the castle he had built, the turret, the flat roof with its high parapet, that commanded a view of the canal bank on the one side and the railway arches left and right. They were railway arches which had a value to him. Most of them were blocked up, having been converted into lock-up garages and sheds, and through only a few could ingress be had. One, under which ran the muddy lane—why it was called Hangman’s Lane nobody knew; another that gave to some allotments on the edge of his property; and a third through which he also could see daylight, but which spanned no road at all.

An express train roared past in a cloud of steam, and he scanned the viaduct with benignant interest. And then he performed his daily tour of inspection. Turning back into the house, he climbed the stairs to the third floor, opened a little door that revealed an extra flight of steps, and emerged on to the roof. At each corner was a square black shed, about the height of a man’s chest. The doors were heavily padlocked, and near by each was a stout black box, equally weatherproof. There were other things here: great, clumsy wall-plugs at regular intervals. Seeing them, it might be thought that Mr. Oberzohn contemplated a night when, in the exultation of achievement, he would illuminate his ungainly premises. But up till now that night had not arrived, and in truth the only light usable was one which at the moment was dismantled in the larger of the four sheds.

From here he could look down upon the water cutting into the factory grounds; and the black bulk of the barge, which filled the entire width of the wharf, seemed so near that he could have thrown a stone upon it. His idle interest was in the sluggish black water that oozed through the gates. A slight mist lay upon the canal; a barge was passing down towards Deptford, and he contemplated the straining horse that tugged the barge rope with a mind set upon the time when he, too, might use the waterway in a swifter craft.

London lay around him, its spires and chimneys looming through the thin haze of smoke. Far away the sun caught the golden ball of St. Paul’s and added a new star to the firmament. Mr. Oberzohn hated London—only this little patch of his had beauty in his eyes. Not the broad green parks and the flowering rhododendrons; not the majestic aisles of pleasure where the rich lounger rode or walked, nor the streets of stone-fronted stores, nor the pleasant green of suburban roads—he loved only these God-forgotten acres, this slimy wilderness in which he had set up his habitation.

He went downstairs, locking the roof door behind him, and, passing Gurther’s room, knocked and was asked to enter. The man sat in his singlet; he had shaved once, but now the keen razor was going across his skin for the second time. He turned his face, shining with cream, and grinned round at the intruder, and with a grunt the doctor shut the door and went downstairs, knowing that the man was for the moment happy; for nothing pleased Gurther quite so much as “dressing up.”

The doctor stood at the entrance of his own room, hesitating between books and laboratory, decided upon the latter, and was busy for the next two hours. Only once he came out, and that was to bring from the warm room the green baize box which contained “the most potent of chemicals, colossal in power.”

The Newhaven-Dieppe route is spasmodically popular. There are nights when the trains to Paris are crowded; other nights when it is possible to obtain a carriage to yourself; and it happened that this evening, when Elijah Washington booked his seat, he might, if it had been physically possible, have sat in one compartment and put his feet on the seat in another.

Between the two great branches of the Anglo-Saxon race there is one notable difference. The Englishman prefers to travel in solitude and silence. His ideal journey is one from London to Constantinople in a compartment that is not invaded except by the ticket collector; and if it is humanly possible that he can reach his destination without having given utterance to anything more sensational than an agreement with some other passenger’s comment on the weather, he is indeed a happy man. The American loves company; he has the acquisitiveness of the Latin, combined with the rhetorical virtues of the Teuton. Solitude makes him miserable; silence irritates him. He wants to talk about large and important things, such as the future of the country, the prospects of agriculture and the fluctuations of trade, about which the average Englishman knows nothing, and is less interested. The American has a town pride, can talk almost emotionally about a new drainage system and grow eloquent upon a municipal balance sheet. The Englishman does not cultivate his town pride until he reaches middle age, and then only in sufficient quantities to feel disappointed with the place of his birth after he has renewed its acquaintance.

Mr. Washington found himself in an empty compartment, and, grunting his dissatisfaction, walked along the corridor, peeping into one cell after another in the hope of discovering a fellow-countryman in a similar unhappy plight. His search was fruitless and he returned to the carriage in which his bag and overcoat were deposited, and settled down to the study of an English humorous newspaper and a vain search for something at which any intelligent man could laugh.

The doors of the coach were at either end, and most passengers entering had to pass the open entrance of Mr. Washington’s compartment. At every click of the door he looked up, hoping to find a congenial soul. But disappointment awaited him, until a lady hesitated by the door. It was a smoking carriage, but Washington, who was a man of gallant character, would gladly have sacrificed his cigar for the pleasure of her society. Young, he guessed, and a widow. She was in black, an attractive face showed through a heavy veil.

“Is this compartment engaged?” she asked in a low voice that was almost a whisper.

“No, madam.” Washington rose, hat in hand.

“Would you mind?” she asked in a soft voice.

“Why, surely! Sit down, ma’am,” said the gallant American. “Would you like the corner seat by the window?”

She shook her head, and sat down near the door, turning her face from him.

“Do you mind my smoking?” asked Washington, after a while.

“Please smoke,” she said, and again turned her face away.

“English,” thought Mr. Washington in disgust, and hunched himself for an hour and a half of unrelieved silence.

A whistle blew, the train moved slowly from the platform, and Elijah Washington’s adventurous journey had begun.

They were passing through Croydon when the girl rose, and, leaning out, closed the little glass-panelled door.

“You should let me do that,” said Elijah reproachfully, and she murmured something about not wishing to trouble him, and he relapsed into his seat.

One or two of the men who passed looked in, and evidently this annoyed her, for she reached and pulled down the spring blind which partially hid her from outside observation, and after the ticket collector had been and had punched the slips, she lowered the second of the three blinds.

“Do you mind?” she asked.

“Sure not, ma’am,” said Elijah, without any great heartiness. He had no desire to travel alone with a lady in a carriage so discreetly curtained. He had heard of cases . . . and by nature he was an extremely cautious man.

The speed of the train increased; the wandering passengers had settled down. The second of the ticket inspections came as they were rushing through Redhill, and Mr. Washington thought uncomfortably that there was a significant look in the inspector’s face as he glanced first at the drawn blinds, then from the lady to himself.

She affected a perfume of a peculiarly pleasing kind. The carriage was filled with this subtle fragrance. Mr. Washington smelt it above the scent of his cigar. Her face was still averted; he wondered if she had gone to sleep, and, growing weary of his search for humour, he put down the paper, folded his hands and closed his eyes, and found himself gently drifting to that medley of the real and unreal which is the overture of dreams.

The lady moved; he looked at her out of the corner of his half-closed eyes. She had moved round so as to half face him. Her veil was still down, her white gloves were reflectively clasped on her knees. He shut his eyes again, until another movement brought him awake. She was feeling in her bag.

Mr. Washington was awake now—as wide awake as he had ever been in his life. In stretching out her hand, the lady had pulled short her sleeve, and there was a gap of flesh between the glove and the wrist of her blouse, and on her wrist was hair!

He shifted his position slightly, grunted as in his sleep, and dropped his hand to his pocket, and all the time those cold eyes were watching him through the veil.

Lifting the bottom of the veil, she put the ebony holder between her teeth and searched the bag for a match. Then she turned appealingly to him as though she had sensed his wakefulness. As she rose, Washington rose too, and suddenly he sprang at her and flung her back against the door. For a moment the veiled lady was taken by surprise, and then there was a flash of steel.

From nowhere a knife had come into her hand and Washington gripped the wrist and levered it over, pushing the palm of his hand under the chin. Even through the veil he could feel the bristles, and knew now, if he had not known before, that he had to deal with a man. A live, active man, rendered doubly strong by the knowledge of his danger. Gurther butted forward with his head, but Washington saw the attack coming, shortened his arm and jabbed full at the face behind the veil. The blow stopped the man, only for an instant, and again he came on, and this time the point of the knife caught the American’s shoulder, and ripped the coat to the elbow. It needed this to bring forth Elijah Washington’s mental and physical reserves. With a roar he gripped the throat of his assailant and threw him with such violence against the door that it gave, and the “widow in mourning” crashed against the panel of the outer corridor. Before he could reach the attacker, Gurther had turned and sped along the corridor to the door of the coach. In a second he had flung it open and had dropped to the footboard. The train was slowing to take Horsham Junction, and the cat eyes waited until he saw a good fall, and let go. Staring back into the darkness, Washington saw nothing, and then the train inspector came along.

“It was a man in woman’s clothes,” he said, a little breathlessly, and they went back to search the compartment, but Mr. Gurther had taken bag and everything with him, and the only souvenir of his presence was the heel of a shoe that had been torn off in the struggle.

Chapter XXV Gurther Returns

THE train was going at thirty miles an hour when Gurther dropped on to a ridge of sand by the side of the track, and in the next second he was sliding forward on his face. Fortunately for him the veil, though torn, kept his eyes free. Stumbling to his feet, he looked round. The level-crossing gates should be somewhere here. He had intended jumping the train at this point, and Oberzohn had made arrangements accordingly. A signalman, perched high above the track, saw the figure and challenged.

“I’ve lost my way,” said Gurther. “Where is the level-crossing?”

“A hundred yards farther on. Keep clear of those metals—the Eastbourne express is coming behind.”

If Gurther had had his way, he would have stopped long enough to remove a rail for the sheer joy of watching a few hundred of the hated people plunged to destruction. But he guessed that the car was waiting, went sideways through the safety gates into a road which was fairly populous. There were people about who turned their heads and looked in amazement at the bedraggled woman in black, but he had got beyond worrying about his appearance.

He saw the car with the little green light which Oberzohn invariably used to mark his machines from others, and, climbing into the cab (as it was), sat down to recover his breath. The driver he knew as one of the three men employed by Oberzohn, one of whom Mr. Washington had seen that morning.

The journey back to town was a long one, though the machine, for a public vehicle, was faster than most. Gurther welcomed the ride. Once more he had failed, and he reasoned that this last failure was the most serious of all. The question of Oberzohn’s displeasure did not really arise. He had travelled far beyond the point when the Swede’s disapproval meant very much to him. But there might be a consequence more serious than any. He knew well with what instructions Pfeiffer had been primed on the night of the attack at Rath House—only Gurther had been quicker, and his snake had bitten first. Dr. Oberzohn had no illusions as to what had happened, and if he had tactfully refrained from making reference to the matter, he had his purpose and reasons. And this night journey with Elijah Washington was one of them.

There was no excuse; he had none to offer. His hand wandered beneath the dress to the long knife that was strapped to his side, and the touch of the worn handle was very reassuring. For the time being he was safe; until another man was found to take Pfeiffer’s place Oberzohn was working single-handed and could not afford to dispense with the services of this, the last of his assassins.

It was past eleven when he dismissed the taxi at the end of the long lane, and, following the only safe path, came to the unpainted door that gave admission to Oberzohn’s property. And the first words of his master told him that there was no necessity for explanation.

“So you did not get him, Gurther?”

“No, Herr Doktor.”

“I should not have sent you.” Oberzohn’s voice was extraordinarily mild in all the circumstances. “That man you cannot kill—with the snake. I have learned since you went that he was bitten at the blind man’s house, yet lives! That is extraordinary. I would give a lot of money to test his blood. You tried the knife?”

“Ja, Herr Doktor.” He lifted his veil, stripped off hat and wig in one motion. The rouged and powdered face was bruised; from under the brown wig was a trickle of dried blood.

“Good! You have done as well as you could. Go to your room, Gurther—march!”

Gurther went upstairs and for a quarter of an hour was staring at his grinning face in the glass, as with cream and soiled towel he removed his make-up.

Oberzohn’s very gentleness was a menace. What did it portend? Until that evening neither Gurther nor his dead companion had been taken into the confidence of the two men who directed their activities. He knew there were certain papers to be recovered; he knew there were men to be killed; but what value were the papers, or why death should be directed to this unfortunate or that, he neither knew nor cared. His duty had been to obey, and he had served a liberal paymaster well and loyally. That girl in the underground room? Gurther had many natural explanations for her imprisonment. And yet none of them fitted the conditions. His cogitations were wasted time. That night, for the first time, the doctor took him into his confidence.

He had finished dressing and was on his way to his kitchen when the doctor stood at the doorway and called him in.

“Sit down, Gurther.” He was almost kind. “You will have a cigar? These are excellent.”

He threw a long, thin, black cheroot, and Gurther caught it between his teeth and seemed absurdly pleased with his trick.

“The time has come when you must know something, Gurther,” said the doctor. He took a fellow to the weed the man was smoking, and puffed huge clouds of rank smoke into the room. “I have for a friend—who? Heir Newton?” He shrugged his shoulders. “He is a very charming man, but he has no brains. He is the kind of man, Gurther, who would live in comfort, take all we gave him by our cleverness and industry, and never say thank you! And in trouble what will he do, Gurther? He will go to the police—yes, my dear friend, he will go to the police!”

He nodded. Gurther had heard the same story that night when he had crept soft-footed to the door and had heard the doctor discuss certain matters with the late Mr. Pfeiffer.

“He would, without a wink of his eyelash, without a snap of his hand, send you and me to death, and would read about our execution with a smile, and then go forth and eat his plum-pudding and roast beef! That is our friend Heir Newton! You have seen this with your own eyes?”

“Ja, Herr Doktor!” exclaimed the obedient Gurther.

“He is a danger for many reasons,” Oberzohn proceeded deliberately. “Because of these three men who have so infamously set themselves out to ruin me, who burnt down my house, and who whipped you, Gurther—they tied you up to a post and whipped you with a whip of nine tails. You have not forgotten, Gurther?”