Front matter (continued 5)

“Nein, Herr Doktor.” Indeed, Gurther had not forgotten, though the vacant smirk on his face might suggest that he had a pleasant memory of the happening.

“A fool in an organization,” continued the doctor oracularly, “is like a bad plate on a ship, or a weak link in a chain. Let it snap, and what happens? You and I die, my dear Gurther. We go up before a stupid man in a white wig and a red cloak, and he hands us to another man who puts a rope around our necks, drops us through a hole in the ground—all because we have a stupid man like Herr Montague Newton to deal with.”

“Ja, Herr Doktor,” said Gurther as his master stopped. He felt that this comment was required of him.

“Now, I will tell you the whole truth.” The doctor carefully knocked off the ash of his cigar into the saucer of his cup. “There is a fortune for you and for me, and this girl that we have in the quiet place can give it to us. I can marry her, or I can wipe her out, so! If I marry her, it would be better, I think, and this I have arranged.”

And then, in his own way, he told the story of the hill of gold, concealing nothing, reserving nothing—all that he knew, all that Villa had told him.

“For three-four days now she must be here. At the end of that time nothing matters. The letter to Lisbon—of what value is it? I was foolish when I tried to stop it. She has made no nominee, she has no heirs, she has known nothing of her fortune, and therefore is in no position to claim the renewal of the concession.”

“Herr Doktor, will you graciously permit me to speak?”

The doctor nodded.

“Does the Newton know this?”

“The Newton knows all this,” said the doctor.

“Will you graciously permit me to speak again, Herr Doktor? What was this letter I was to have taken, had I not been overcome by misfortune?”

Oberzohn examined the ceiling.

“I have thought this matter from every angle,” he said, “and I have decided thus. It was a letter written by Gonsalez to the Secretary or the Minister of the Colonies, asking that the renewal of the concession should be postponed. The telegram from my friend at the Colonial Office in Lisbon was to this effect.” He fixed his glasses, fumbled in his waistcoat and took out the three-page telegram. “I will read it to you in your own language—

“ ‘Application has been received from Leon Gonsalez, asking His Excellency to receive a very special letter which arrives in two days. The telegram does not state the contents of the letter, but the Minister has given orders for the messenger to be received. The present Minister is not favourable to concessions granted to England or Englishmen.’ ”

He folded the paper.

“Which means that there will be no postponement, my dear Gurther, and this enormous fortune will be ours.”

Gurther considered this point and for a moment forgot to smile, and looked what he was in consequence: a hungry, discontented wolf of a man.

“Herr Doktor, graciously permit me to ask you a question?”

“Ask,” said Oberzohn magnanimously.

“What share does Herr Newton get? And if you so graciously honoured me with a portion of your so justly deserved gains, to what extent would be that share?”

The other considered this, puffing away until the room was a mist of smoke.

“Ten thousand English pounds,” he said at last.

“Gracious and learned doctor, that is a very small proportion of many millions,” said Gurther gently.

“Newton will receive one half,” said the doctor, his face working nervously, “if he is alive. If misfortune came to him, that share would be yours, Gurther, my brave fellow! And with so much money a man would not be hunted. The rich and the noble would fawn upon him; he would have his lovely yacht and steam about the summer seas everlastingly, huh?”

Gurther rose and clicked his heels.

“Do you desire me again this evening?”

“No, no, Gurther.” The old man shook his head. “And pray remember that there is another day to-morrow, and yet another day after. We shall wait and hear what our friend has to say. Good night, Gurther.”

“Good night, Herr Doktor.”

The doctor looked at the door for a long time after his man had gone and took up his book. He was deep in the chapter which was headed, in the German tongue: “The Subconscious Activity of the Human Intellect in Relation to the Esoteric Emotions.” To Dr. Oberzohn this was more thrilling than the most exciting novel.

Chapter XXVI In Captivity

THE second day of captivity dawned unseen, in a world that lay outside the brick roof and glazed white walls of Mirabelle Leicester’s prison-house. She had grown in strength and courage, but not so her companion. Joan, who had started her weary vigil with an almost cheerful gaiety, had sunk deeper and deeper into depression as the hours progressed, and Mirabelle woke to the sound of a woman’s sobs, to find the girl sitting on the side of her bed, her head in her wet hands.

“I hate this place!” she sobbed. “Why does he keep me here? God! If I thought the hound was double-crossing me . . . ! I’ll go mad if they keep me here any longer. I will, Leicester!” she screamed.

“I’ll make some tea,” said Mirabelle, getting out of bed and finding her slippers.

The girl sat throughout the operation huddled in a miserable heap, and by and by her whimpering got on Mirabelle’s nerves.

“I don’t know why you should be wretched,” she said. “They’re not after your money!”

“You can laugh—and how you can, I don’t know,” sobbed the girl, as she took the cup in her shaking hands. “I know I’m a fool, but I’ve never been locked up—like this before. I didn’t dream he’d break his word. He swore he’d come yesterday. What time is it?”

“Six o’clock,” said Mirabelle.

It might as well have been eight or midday, for all she knew to the contrary.

“This is a filthy place,” said the hysterical girl. “I think they’re going to drown us all . . . or that thing will explode”—she pointed to the green baize box—“I know it! I feel it in my blood. That beast Gurther is here somewhere, ugh! He’s like a slimy snake. Have you ever seen him?”

“Gurther? You mean the man who danced with me?”

“That’s he. I keep telling you who he is,” said Joan impatiently. “I wish we could get out of here.”

She jumped up suddenly.

“Come and see if you can help me lift the trap.”

Mirabelle knew it was useless before she set forth on the quest for freedom. Their united efforts failed to move the stone, and Joan was on the point of collapse when they came back to their sleeping-room.

“I hope Gurther doesn’t know that those men are friends of yours,” she said, when she became calmer.

“You told me that yesterday. Would that make any difference?”

“A whole lot,” said Joan vehemently. “He’s got the blood of a fish, that man! There’s nothing he wouldn’t do. Monty ought to be flogged for leaving us here at his mercy. I’m not scared of Oberzohn—he’s old. But the other fellow dopes, and goes stark, staring mad at times. Monty told me one night that he was” she choked—“a killer. He said that these German criminals who kill people are never satisfied with one murder, they go on and on until they’ve got twenty or thirty! He says that the German prisons are filled with men who have the murder habit.”

“He was probably trying to frighten you.”

“Why should he?” said the girl, with unreasonable anger. “And leave him alone! Monty is the best in the world. I adore the ground he walks on!”

Very wisely, Mirabelle did not attempt to traverse this view.

It was only when her companion had these hysterical fits that fear was communicated to her. Her faith was completely and whole-heartedly centred on the three men—upon Gonsalez. She wondered how old he was. Sometimes he looked quite young, at others an elderly man. It was difficult to remember his face; he owed so much to his expression, the smile in his eyes, to the strange, boyish eagerness of gesture and action which accompanied his speech. She could not quite understand herself; why was she always thinking of Gonsalez, as a maid might think of a lover? She went red at the thought. He seemed so apart, so aloof from the ordinary influences of women. Suppose she had committed some great crime and had escaped the vigilance of the law, would he hunt her down in the same remorseless, eager way, planning to cut off every avenue of her escape until he shepherded her into a prison cell? It was a horrible thought, and she screwed up her eyes tight to blot out the mental picture she had made.

It would have given her no ordinary satisfaction to have known how often Gonsalez’s thoughts strayed to the girl who had so strangely come into his life. He spent a portion of his time that morning in his bedroom, fixing to the wall a large railway map which took in the south of England and the greater part of the Continent. A red-ink line marked the route from London to Lisbon, and he was fixing a little green flag on the line just south of Paris when Manfred strolled into the room and surveyed his work.

“The Sud Express is about there,” he said, pointing to the last of the green flags, “and I think our friend will have a fairly pleasant and uneventful journey as far as Valladolid—where I have arranged for Miguel Garcia, an old friend of mine, to pick him up and shadow him on the westward journey—unless we get the ’plane. I’m expecting a wire any minute. By the way, the Dieppe police have arrested the gentleman who tried to bump him overboard in mid-Channel, but the man who snatched at his portfolio at the Gare St. Lazare is still at liberty.”

“He must be getting quite used to it now,” said Manfred coolly, and laughed to himself.

Leon turned.

“He’s a good fellow,” he said with quick earnestness. “We couldn’t have chosen a better man. The woman on the train, of course, was Gurther. He is the only criminal I’ve ever known who is really efficient at disguising himself.”

Manfred lit his pipe; he had lately taken to this form of smoking.

“The case grows more and more difficult every day. Do you realize that?”

Leon nodded.

“And more dangerous,” he said. “By the laws of average, Gurther should get one of us the next time he makes an attempt. Have you seen the papers?”

Manfred smiled.

“They’re crying for Meadows’ blood, poor fellow! Which shows the extraordinary inconsistency of the public. Meadows has only been in one snake case. They credit him with having fallen down on the lot.”

“They seem to be in remarkable agreement that the snake deaths come into the category of wilful murder,” said Gonsalez as they went down the stairs together.

Meadows had been talking to the reporters. Indeed, that was his chief offence from the view-point of the official mind. For the first article in the code of every well-constituted policeman is, “Thou shalt not communicate to the Press.”

Leon strolled aimlessly about the room. He was wearing his chauffeur’s uniform, and his hands were thrust into the breeches pockets. Manfred, recognizing the symptoms, rang the bell for Poiccart, and that quiet man came from the lower regions.

“Leon is going to be mysterious,” said Manfred dryly.

“I’m not really,” protested Leon, but he went red. It was one of his most charming peculiarities that he had never forgotten how to blush. “I was merely going to suggest that there’s a play running in London that we ought to see. I didn’t know that ‘The Ringer’ was a play until this morning, when I saw one of Oberzohn’s more genteel clerks go into the theatre, and, being naturally of an inquisitive turn of mind, followed him. A play that interests Oberzohn will interest me, and should interest you, George,” he said severely, “and certainly should interest Meadows—it is full of thrilling situations! It is about a criminal who escapes from Dartmoor and comes back to murder his betrayer. There is one scene which is played in the dark, that ought to thrill you—I’ve been looking up the reviews of the dramatic critics, and as they are unanimous that it is not an artistic success, and is, moreover, wildly improbable, it ought to be worth seeing. I always choose an artistic success when I am suffering from insomnia,” he added cruelly.

“Oberzohn is entitled to his amusements, however vulgar they may be.”

“But this play isn’t vulgar,” protested Leon, “except in so far as it is popular. I found it most difficult to buy a seat. Even actors go to see the audience act.”

“What seat did he buy?”

“Box A,” said Leon promptly, “and paid for it with real money. It is the end box on the prompt side—and before you ask me whence I gained my amazing knowledge of theatrical technique, I will answer that even a child in arms knows that the prompt side is the left-hand side facing the audience.”

“For to-night?”

Leon nodded.

“I have three stalls,” he said and produced them from his pocket. “If you cannot go, will you give them to the cook? She looks like a woman who would enjoy a good cry over the sufferings of the tortured heroine. The seats are in the front row, which means that you can get in and out between the acts without walking on other people’s knees.”

“Must I go?” asked Poiccart plaintively. “I do not like detective plays, and I hate mystery plays. I know who the real murderer is before the curtain has been up ten minutes, and that naturally spoils my evening.”

“Could you not take a girl?” asked Leon outrageously. “Do you know any who would go?”

“Why not take Aunt Alma?” suggested Manfred, and Leon accepted the name joyously.

Aunt Alma had come to town at the suggestion of the Three, and had opened up the Doughty Court flat.

“And really she is a remarkable woman, and shows a steadiness and a courage in face of the terrible position of our poor little friend, which is altogether praiseworthy. I don’t think Mirabelle Leicester is in any immediate danger. I think I’ve said that before. Oberzohn merely wishes to keep her until the period of renewal has expired. How he will escape the consequences of imprisoning her, I cannot guess. He may not attempt to escape them, may accept the term of imprisonment which will certainly be handed out to him, as part of the payment he must pay for his millions.”

“Suppose he kills her?” asked Poiccart.

For a second Leon’s face twitched.

“He won’t kill her,” he said quietly. “Why should he? We know that he has got her—the police know. She is a different proposition from Barberton, an unknown man killed nobody knew how, in a public place. No, I don’t think we need cross that bridge, only . . .” He rubbed his hands together irritably. “However, we shall see. And in the meantime I’m placing a lot of faith in Digby, a shrewd man with a sense of his previous shortcomings. You were wise there, George.”

He was looking at the street through the curtains.

“Tittlemouse is at his post, the faithful hound!” he said, nodding towards the solitary taxicab that stood on the rank. “I wonder whether he expects——”

Manfred saw a light creep into his eyes.

“Will you want me for the next two hours?” Leon asked quickly, and was out of the room in a flash.

Ten minutes later, Poiccart and George were talking together when they heard the street door close, and saw Leon stroll to the edge of the pavement and wave his umbrella. The taxi-driver was suddenly a thing of quivering excitement. He leaned down, cranked his engine, climbed back into his seat and brought the car up quicker than any taxicab driver had ever moved before.

“New Scotland Yard,” said Leon, and got into the machine.

The cab passed through the forbidding gates of the Yard and dropped him at the staff entrance.

“Wait here,” said Leon, and the man shifted uncomfortably.

“I’ve got to be back at my garage——” he began.

“I shall not be five minutes,” said Leon.

Meadows was in his room, fortunately.

“I want you to pull in this man and give him a dose of the third degree you keep in this country,” said Leon. “He carries a gun; I saw that when he had to get down to crank up his cab in Piccadilly Circus. The engine stopped.”

“What do you want to know?”

“All that there is to be known about Oberzohn. I may have missed one or two things. I’ve seen him outside the house. Oberzohn employs him for odd jobs and occasionally he acts as the old man’s chauffeur. In fact, he drove the machine the day Miss Leicester lunched with Oberzohn at the Ritz-Carlton. He may not have a cabman’s licence, and that will make it all the easier for you.”

A few minutes later, a very surprised and wrathful man was marched into Cannon Row and scientifically searched. Leon had been right about the revolver; it was produced and found to be loaded, and his excuse that he carried the weapon as a protection following upon a recent murder of a cab-driver, had not the backing of the necessary permit. In addition—and this was a more serious offence—he held no permit from Scotland Yard to ply for hire on the streets, and his badge was the property of another man.

“Put him inside,” said Meadows, and went back to report to the waiting Leon. “You’ve hit the bull’s-eye first time. I don’t know whether he will be of any use to us, but I don’t despise even the smallest fish.”

Whilst he was waiting, Leon had been engaged in some quick thinking.

“The man has been at Greenwich lately. One of my men saw him there twice, and I needn’t say that he was driving Oberzohn.”

“I’ll talk to him later and telephone you,” said Meadows, and Leon Gonsalez went back to Curzon Street, one large smile.

“You have merely exchanged a spy you know for a spy you don’t know,” said George Manfred, “though I never question these freakish acts of yours, Leon. So often they have a trick of turning up trumps. By the way, the police are raiding the Gringo Club in the Victoria Dock Road to-night, and they may be able to pick up a few of Mr. Oberzohn’s young gentlemen who are certain to be regular users of the place.”

The telephone bell rang shrilly, and Leon took up the receiver, and recognized Meadows’ voice.

“I’ve got a queer story for you,” said the inspector immediately.

“Did he talk?” asked the interested Leon.

“After a while. We took a finger-print impression, and found that he was on the register. More than that, he is a ticket-of-leave man. As an ex-convict we can send him back to finish his unexpired time. I promised to say a few words for him, and he spilt everything. The most interesting item is that Oberzohn is planning to be married.”

“To be married? Who is this?” asked Manfred, in surprise. “Oberzohn?”

Leon nodded.

“Who is the unfortunate lady?” asked Leon.

There was a pause, and then:

“Miss Leicester.”

Manfred saw the face of his friend change colour, and guessed.

“Does he know when?” asked Leon in a different voice.

“No. The licence was issued over a week ago, which means that Oberzohn can marry any morning he likes to bring along his bride. What’s the idea, do you think?”

“Drop in this evening and either I or George will tell you,” said Leon.

He put the telephone on the hook very carefully.

“That is a danger I had not foreseen, although it was obviously the only course Oberzohn could take. If he marries her, she cannot be called in evidence against him. May I see the book, George?”

Manfred unlocked the wall safe and brought back a small ledger. Leon Gonsalez turned the pages thoughtfully.

“Dennis—he has done good work for us, hasn’t he?” he asked.

“Yes, he’s a very reliable man. He owes us, amongst other things, his life. Do you remember, his wife was——”

“I remember.” Leon scribbled the address of a man who had proved to be one of the most trustworthy of his agents.

“What are you going to do?” asked Manfred.

“I’ve put Dennis on the doorstep of the Greenwich registrar’s office from nine o’clock in the morning until half-past three in the afternoon, and he will have instructions from me that, the moment he sees Oberzohn walk out of a cab with a lady, he must push him firmly but gently under the wheels of the cab and ask the driver politely to move up a yard.”

Leon in his more extravagantly humorous moods was very often in deadly earnest.

Chapter XXVII Mr. Newton’s Dilemma

THE most carefully guided streaks of luck may, in spite of all precautions, overflow into the wrong channel, and this had happened to Mr. Montague Newton, producing an evening that was financially disastrous and a night from which sleep was almost banished. He had had one of his little card parties; but whether it was the absence of Joan, and the inadequacy of her fluffy-haired substitute, or whether the wine had disagreed with one of the most promising victims, the result was the same. They had played chemin de fer, and the gilded pigeon, whose feathers seemed already to be ornamenting the head-dress of Monty Newton, had been successful, and when he should have been signing cheques for large amounts, he was cashing his counters with a reluctant host.

The night started wrong with Joan’s substitute, whose name was Lisa. She had guided to the establishment, via an excellent dinner at Mero’s, the son of an African millionaire. Joan, of course, would have brought him alone, but Lisa, less experienced, had allowed a young-looking friend of the victim to attach himself to the party, and she had even expected praise for her perspicacity and enterprise in producing two birds for the stone which Mr. Newton so effectively wielded, instead of one.

Monty did not resent the presence of the new-comer, and rather took the girl’s view, until he learnt that Lisa’s “find” was not, as she had believed, an officer of the Guards, but a sporting young lawyer with a large criminal practice, and one who had already, as a junior, conducted several prosecutions for the Crown. The moment his name was mentioned, Monty groaned in spirit. He was, moreover, painfully sober. His friend was not so favourably situated.

That was the first of the awkward things to happen. The second was the bad temper of the player, who, when the bank was considerably over £3,000, had first of all insisted upon the cards being reshuffled, and then had gone banquo—the game being baccarat. Even this contretemps might have been overcome, but after he had expressed his willingness to “give it,” the card which Monty had so industriously palmed, slipped from his hand to the table, and though the fact was unnoticed by the players, the lawyer’s attention being diverted at the moment, it was impossible to recover that very valuable piece of pasteboard. And Monty had done a silly thing. Instead of staging an artistic exhibition of annoyance at remarks which the millionaire’s son had made, he decided to take a chance on the natural run of the cards. And he had lost. On top of that, the slightly inebriated player had decided that when a man had won a coup of £3,000 it was time to stop playing. So Monty experienced the mortification of paying out money, and accompanying his visitor to the door with a smile that was so genial and so full of good-fellowship that the young gentleman was compelled to apologize for his boorishness.

“Come along some other night and give me my revenge,” said Monty.

“You bet I will! I’m going to South Africa to-morrow, but I shall be back early next year, and I’ll look you up.”

Monty watched him going down the steps and hoped he would break his neck.

He was worried about Joan—more worried than he thought it was possible for him to be about so light a girl. She was necessary to him in many ways. Lisa was a bungling fool, he decided, though he sent her home without hurting her feelings. She was a useful girl in many ways, and nothing spoils a tout quicker than constant nagging.

He felt very lonely in the house, and wandered from room to room, irritated with himself that the absence of this feather-brained girl, who had neither the education nor the breed of his own class, should make such a big difference. And it did; he had to admit as much to himself. He hated the thought of that underground room. He knew something of her temperament, and how soon her experience would get on her nerves. In many respects he wished he did not feel that way about her, because she had a big shock coming, and it was probably because he foresaw this hurt, that he was anxious to make the present as happy as he could for her.

After he had done what he was to do, there was no reason in the world why they should be bad friends, and he would give her a big present. Girls of that class soon forget their miseries if the present is large enough. Thus he argued, tossing from side to side in his bed, and all the time his thoughts playing about that infernal cellar. What she must be feeling! He did not worry at all about Mirabelle, because—well, she was a principal in the case. To him, Joan was the real victim.

Sleep did not come until daybreak, and he woke in his most irritable frame of mind. He had promised the girl he would call and see her, though he had privately arranged with Oberzohn not to go to the house until the expiry of the five days.

By lunch-time he could stand the worry no longer, and, ordering his car, drove to a point between New Cross and Bermondsey, walking on foot the remainder of the distance. Mr. Oberzohn expected the visit. He had a shrewd knowledge of his confederate’s mental outfit, and when he saw this well-dressed man picking a dainty way across the littered ground, he strolled out on the steps to meet him.

“It is curious you should have come,” he said.

“Why didn’t you telephone?” growled Newton. This was his excuse for the visit.

“Because there are human machines at the end of every wire,” said Oberzohn. “If they were automatic and none could listen, but you and I, we would talk and talk and then talk! All day long would I speak with you and find it a pleasure. But not with Miss This and Miss That saying, ‘One moment, if you please,’ and saying to the Scotland Yard man, ‘Now you cut in’!”

“Is Gurther back?”

“Gurther is back,” said the doctor soberly.

“Nothing happened to that bird? At least, I saw nothing in the evening papers.”

“He has gone to Lisbon,” replied the doctor indifferently. “Perhaps he will get there, perhaps he will not—what does it matter? I should like to see the letter, because it is data, and data has an irresistible charm for a poor old scientist. You will have a drink?”

Monty hesitated, as he always did when Oberzohn offered him refreshment. You could never be sure with Oberzohn.

“I’ll have a whisky,” he said at last, “a full bottle—one that hasn’t been opened. I’ll open it myself.”

The doctor chuckled unevenly.

“You do not trust?” he said. “I think you are wise. For who is there in this world of whom a man can say, ‘He is my friend. To the very end of my life I will have confidence in him’?”

Monty did not feel that the question called for an answer.

He took the whisky bottle to the light, examined the cork and drove in the corkscrew.

“The soda water—that also might be poisoned,” said Dr. Oberzohn pleasantly.

At any other time he would not have made that observation. That he said it at all, betrayed a subtle but ominous change in their relationships. If Monty noticed this, he did not say a word, but filled his glass and sat down on the sofa to drink. And all the time the doctor was watching him interestedly.

“Yes, Gurther is back. He failed, but you must excuse failure in a good man. The perfect agent has yet to be found, and the perfect principal also. The American, Washington, had left Paris when I last heard of him. He is to be congratulated. If I myself lived in Paris I should always be leaving. It is a frivolous city.”

Monty lit a cigar, and decided to arrive at the object of his visit by stages. For he had come to perform two important duties. He accounted as a duty a call upon Joan. No less was it a duty, and something of a relief also, to make his plan known to his partner.

“How are the girls?” he asked.

“They are very happy,” said Dr. Oberzohn, who had not resumed his seat, but stood in an attitude somewhat reminiscent of Gurther, erect, staring, motionless. “Always my guests are happy.”

“In that dog-hole?” said the other contemptuously. “I don’t want Joan to be here.”

The Herr Doktor shrugged.

“Then take her away, my friend,” he said. “Why should she stay, if you are unhappy because this woman is not with you? She serves no purpose. Possibly she is fretting. By all means—I will bring her to you.” He moved to the door.

“Wait a moment,” said Monty. “I’ll see her later and take her out perhaps, but I don’t want her to be away permanently. Somebody ought to stay with that girl.”

“Why? Am I not here?” asked Oberzohn blandly.

“You’re here, and Gurther’s here.” Monty was looking out of the window and did not meet the doctor’s eyes. “Especially Gurther. That’s why I think that Mirabelle Leicester should have somebody to look after her. Has it ever struck you that the best way out of this little trouble is—marriage?”

“I have thought that,” said the doctor. “You also have thought it? This is wonderful! You are beginning to think.”

The change of tone was noticeable enough now. Monty snapped round at the man who had hitherto stood in apparent awe of him and his judgments.

“You can cut that sarcasm right out, Oberzohn,” he said, and, without preamble: “I’m going to marry that girl.”

Oberzohn said nothing to this.

“She’s not engaged; she’s got no love affairs at all. Joan told me, and Joan is a pretty shrewd girl. I don’t know how I’m going to fix it, but I guess the best thing I can do is to pretend that I am a real friend and get her out of your cellar. She’ll be so grateful that maybe she will agree to almost anything. Besides, I think I made an impression the first time I saw her. And I’ve got a position to offer her, Oberzohn: a house in the best part of London——”

“My house,” interrupted Oberzohn’s metallic voice.

“Your house? Well, our house, let us say. We’re not going to quarrel about terms.”

“I also have a position to offer her, and I do not offer her any other man’s.”

Oberzohn was looking at him wide-eyed, a comical figure; his elongated face seemed to stand out in the gloom like a pantomime mask.

“You?” Monty could hardly believe his ears.

“I, Baron Eruc Oberzohn.”

“A baron, are you?” The room shook with Monty’s laughter. “Why, you damned old fool, you don’t imagine she’d marry you, do you?”

Oberzohn nodded.

“She would do anythings what I tell her.” In his agitation his English was getting a little ragged. “A girl may not like a mans, but she might hate somethings worse—you understand? A woman says death is not’ing, but a woman is afeard of death, isn’t it?”

“You’re crazy,” said Monty scornfully.

“I am crazy, am I? And a damned old fool also—yes? Yet I shall marry her.”

There was a dead silence, and then Oberzohn continued the conversation, but on a much calmer note.

“Perhaps I am what you call me, but it is not a thing worthy for two friends to quarrel. To-morrow you shall come here, and we will discuss this matter like a business proposition, hein?”

Monty examined him as though he were a strange insect that had wandered into his ken.

“You’re not a Swede, you’re German,” he said. “That baron stuff gave you away.”

“I am from the Baltic, but I have lived many years in Sweden,” said Oberzohn shortly. “I am not German: I do not like them.”

More than this he would not say. Possibly he shared Gurther’s repugnance towards his sometime neighbours.

“We shall not quarrel, anyway,” he continued. “I am a fool, you are a fool, we are all fools. You wish to see your woman?”

“I wish to see Joan,” said Monty gruffly. “I don’t like that ‘your woman’ line of yours.”

“I will go get her. You wait.”

Again the long boots came from under the table, were dragged on to the doctor’s awkward feet, and Monty watched him from the window as he crossed to the factory and disappeared.

He was gone five minutes before he came out again, alone. Monty frowned. What was the reason for this?

“My friend,” panted Oberzohn, to whom these exertions were becoming more and more irksome, “it is not wise.”

“I want to see her——” began Monty.

“Gently, gently; you shall see her. But on the canal bank Gurther has also seen a stranger, who has been walking up and down, pretending to fish. Who can fish in a canal, I ask you?”

“What is he to do with it?”

“Would it be wise to bring her in daylight, I ask you again? Do not the men think that your—that this girl is in Brussels?”

This had not occurred to Monty.

“I have an idea for you. It is a good idea. The brain of old fool Oberzohn sometimes works remarkably. This morning a friend sent to me a ticket for a theatre. Now you shall take her to-night. There is always a little fog when the sun is setting and you can leave the house in a car. Presently I will send a man to attract this watcher’s attention, and then I will bring her to the house and you can call for her.”

“I will wait for her.” Monty was dogged on this point.

And wait he did, until an hour later a half-crazy girl came flying into the room and into his arms.

Dr. Oberzohn witnessed the reunion unmoved.

“That is a pretty scene for me,” he said, “for one to be so soon married,” and he left them alone.

“Monty, I can’t possibly go back to that beastly place to-night. She’ll have to stay by herself. And she’s not a bad kid, Monty, but she doesn’t know she’s worth a lot of money.”

“Have you been talking to her?” he asked angrily. “I told you——”

“No, I’ve only just asked her a few questions. You can’t be in a poky hole like that, thrown together day and night, without talking, can you? Monty, you’re absolutely sure nothing can happen to her?”

Monty cleared his throat.

“The worst thing that can happen to her,” he said, “is to get married.”

She opened her eyes at this.

“Does somebody want to marry her?”

“Oberzohn,” he said.

“That old thing!” she scoffed.

Again he found a difficulty in speaking.

“I have been thinking it over, honey,” he said. “Marriage doesn’t mean a whole lot to anybody.”

“It’ll mean a lot to me,” she said quietly.

“Suppose I married her?” he blurted.

“You!” She stepped back from him in horror.

“Only just a . . . well, this is the truth, Joan. It may be the only way to get her money. Now you’re in on this graft, and you know what you are to me. A marriage—a formal marriage—for a year or two, and then a divorce, and we could go away together, man and wife.”

“Is that what he meant?” She jerked her head to the door. “About ‘married so soon’?”

“He wants to marry her himself.”

“Let him,” she said viciously. “Do you think I care about money? Isn’t there any other way of getting it?”

He was silent. There were too many other ways of getting it for him to advance a direct negative.

“Oh, Monty, you’re not going to do that?”

“I don’t know what I’m going to do yet,” he said.

“But not that?” she insisted, clinging to him by his coat.

“We’ll talk about it to-night. The old man’s got us tickets for the theatre. We’ll have a bit of dinner up West and go on, and it really doesn’t matter if anybody sees us, because they know very well you’re not in Brussels. What is that queer scent you’ve got?”

Joan laughed, forgetting for the moment the serious problem which faced her.

“Joss-sticks,” she said. “The place got so close and stuffy, and I found them in the pantry with the provisions. As a matter of fact, it was a silly thing to do, because we had the place full of smoke. It’s gone now, though. Monty, you do these crazy things when you’re locked up,” she said seriously. “I don’t think I can go back again.”

“Go back to-morrow,” he almost pleaded. “It’s only for two or three days, and it means a lot to me. Especially now that Oberzohn has ideas.”

“You’re not going to think any more about—about marrying her, are you?”

“We’ll talk of it to-night at dinner. I thought you’d like the idea of the graft,” he added untruthfully.

Joan had to return to her prison to collect some of her belongings. She found the girl lying on the bed, reading, and Mirabelle greeted her with a smile.

“Well, is your term of imprisonment ended?”

Joan hesitated.

“Not exactly. Do you mind if I’m not here to-night?”

Mirabelle shook her head. If the truth be told, she was glad to be alone. All that day she had been forced to listen to the plaints and weepings of this transfigured girl, and she felt that she could not well stand another twenty-four hours.

“You’re sure you won’t mind being alone?

“No, of course not. I shall miss you,” added Mirabelle, more in truth than in compliment. “When will you return?”

The girl made a little grimace.

“To-morrow.”

“You don’t want to come back, naturally? Have you succeeded in persuading your—your friend to let me out too?”

Joan shook her head.

“He’ll never do that, my dear, not till . . .” She looked at the girl. “You’re not engaged, are you?”

“I? No. Is that another story they’ve heard?” Mirabelle got up from the bed, laughing. “An heiress, and engaged?”

“No, they don’t say you were engaged.” Joan hastened to correct the wrong impression. There was genuine admiration in her voice, when she said: “You’re wonderful, kid! If I were in your shoes I’d be quaking. You’re just as cheerful as though you were going to the funeral of a rich aunt!”

She did not know how near to a breakdown her companion had been that day, and Mirabelle, who felt stronger and saner now, had no desire to tell her.

“You’re rather splendid.” Joan nodded. “I wish I had your pluck.”

And then, impulsively, she came forward and kissed the girl.

“Don’t feel too sore at me,” she said, and was gone before Mirabelle could make a reply.

The doctor was waiting for her in the factory.

“The spy has walked up to the canal bridge. We can go forward,” he said. “Besides,”—he had satisfaction out of this—“he cannot see over high walls.”

“What is this story about marrying Mirabelle Leicester?”

“So he has told you? Also did he tell you that—that he is going to marry her?”

“Yes, and I’ll tell you something, doctor. I’d rather he married her than you.”

“So!” said the doctor.

“I’d rather anybody else married her, except that snake of yours.”

Oberzohn looked round sharply. She had used the word quite innocently, without any thought of its application, and uttered an “Oh!” of dismay when she realized her mistake.

“I meant Gurther,” she said.

“Well, I know you meant Gurther, young miss,” he said stiffly.

To get back to the house they had to make a half-circle of the factory and pass between the canal wall and the building itself. The direct route would have taken them into a deep hollow into which the debris of years had been thrown, and which now Nature, in her kindness, had hidden under a green mantle of wild convolvulus. It was typical of the place that the only beautiful picture in the grounds was out of sight.

They were just turning the corner of the factory when the doctor stopped and looked up at the high wall, which was protected by a cheval de frise of broken glass. All except in one spot, about two feet wide, where not only the glass but the mortar which held it in place had been chipped off. There were fragments of the glass, and, on the inside of the wall, marks of some implement on the hard surface of the mortar.

“So!” said the doctor.

He was examining the scratches on the wall.

“Wait,” he ordered, and hurried back into the factory, to return, carrying in each hand two large rusty contraptions which he put on the ground.

One by one he forced open the jagged rusty teeth until they were wide apart and held by a spring catch. She had seen things like that in a museum. They were man-traps—relics of the barbarous days when trespass was not only a sin but a crime.

He fixed the second of the traps on the path between the factory and the wall.

“Now we shall see,” he said. “Forward!”

Monty was waiting for her impatiently. The Rolls had been turned out in her honour, and the sulky-looking driver was already in his place at the wheel.

“What is the matter with that chauffeur?” she asked, as they bumped up the lane towards easier going. “He looks so happy that I shouldn’t be surprised to hear that his mother was hanged this morning.”

“He’s sore with the old man,” explained Monty. “Oberzohn has two drivers. They do a little looking round in the morning. The other fellow was supposed to come back to take over duty at three o’clock, and he hasn’t turned up. He was the better driver of the two.”

The chauffeur was apparently seeking every pothole in the ground, and in the next five minutes she was alternately clutching the support of the arm-strap and Monty. They were relieved when at last the car found a metal road and began its noiseless way towards The Lights. And then her hand sought his, and for the moment this beautiful flower which had grown in such foul soil, bloomed in the radiance of a love common to every woman, high and low, good and bad.

Chapter XXVIII At Frater’s

MANFRED suggested an early dinner at the Lasky, where the soup was to his fastidious taste. Leon, who had eaten many crumpets for tea—he had a weakness for this indigestible article of diet—was prepared to dispense with the dinner, and Poiccart had views, being a man of steady habits. They dined at the Lasky, and Leon ordered a baked onion, and expatiated upon the two wasted years of Poiccart’s life, employing a wealth of imagery and a beauty of diction worthy of a better subject.

Manfred looked at his watch.

“Where are they dining?” he asked.

“I don’t know yet,” said Leon. “Our friend will be here in a few minutes; when we go out he will tell us. You don’t want to see her?”

Manfred shook his head.

“No,” he said.

“I’m going to be bored,” complained Poiccart.

“Then you should have let me bring Alma,” said Leon promptly.

“Exactly.” Raymond nodded his sober head. “I have the feeling that I am saving a lady from an unutterably dreary evening.”

There was a man waiting for them when they came out of the restaurant—a very uninteresting-looking man who had three sentences to say sotto voce as they stood near him, but apparently in ignorance of his presence.

“I did not wish to go to Mero’s,” said Manfred, “but as we have the time, I think it would be advisable to stroll in that direction. I am curious to discover whether this is really Oberzohn’s little treat, or whether the idea emanated from the unadmirable Mr. Newton.”

“And how will you know, George?” asked Gonsalez.

“By the car. If Oberzohn is master of the ceremonies, we shall find his machine parked somewhere in the neighbourhood. If it is Newton’s idea, then Oberzohn’s limousine, which brought them from South London, will have returned, and Newton’s car will be in its place.”

Mero’s was one of the most fashionable of dining clubs, patronized not only by the elite of society, but having on its books the cream of the theatrical world. It was situated in one of those quiet, old-world squares which are to be found in the very heart of London, enjoying, for some mysterious reason, immunity from the hands of the speculative property owner. The square retained the appearance it had in the days of the Georges; and though some of the fine mansions had been given over to commerce and the professions, and the lawyer and the manufacturer’s agent occupied the drawing-rooms and bedrooms sacred to the bucks and beauties of other days, quite a large number of the houses remained in private occupation.

There was nothing in the fascia of Mero’s to advertise its character. The club premises consisted of three of these fine old dwellings. The uninitiated might not even suspect that there was communication between the three houses, for the old doorways and doorsteps remained untouched, though only one was used.

They strolled along two sides of the square before, amidst the phalanx of cars that stood wheel to wheel, their backs to the railings of the centre gardens, they saw Oberzohn’s car.

The driver sat with his arms folded on the wheel, in earnest conversation with a pale-faced man, slightly and neatly bearded, and dressed in faultless evening dress. He was evidently a cripple: one shoulder was higher than the other; and when he moved, he walked painfully with the aid of a stick.

Manfred saw the driver point up the line of cars, and the lame gentleman limped in the direction the chauffeur had indicated and stopped to speak to another man in livery. As they came abreast of him, they saw that one of his boots had a thick sole, and the limp was explained.

“The gentleman has lost his car,” said Manfred, for now he was peering short-sightedly at the number-plates.

The theft of cars was a daily occurrence. Leon had something to say on the potentialities of that branch of crime. He owned to an encyclopædic knowledge of the current fashions in wrongdoing, and in a few brief sentences indicated the extent of these thefts.

“Fifty a week are shipped to India and the Colonies, after their numbers are erased and another substituted. In some cases the ‘knockers off,’ as they call the thieves, drive them straight away into the packing-cases which are prepared for every make of car; the ends are nailed up, and they are waiting shipment at the docks before the owner is certain of his loss. There are almost as many stolen cars in India, South Africa and Australia as there are honest ones!”

They walked slowly past the decorous portals of Mero’s, and caught a glimpse, through the curtained windows, of soft table lamps burning, of bare-armed women and white-shirted men, and heard faintly the strains of an orchestra playing a Viennese waltz.

“I should like to see our Jane,” said Gonsalez. “She never came to you, did she?”

“She came, but I didn’t see her,” said Manfred. “From the moment she leaves the theatre she must not be left.”

Leon nodded.

“I have already made that arrangement,” he said. “Digby——”

“Digby takes up his duty at midnight,” said Manfred. “He has been down to Oberzohn’s place to get the lie of the land: he thought it advisable that he should study the topography in daylight, and I agreed. He might get himself into an awkward tangle if he started exploring the canal bank in the dark hours. Summer or winter, there is usually a mist on the water.”

They reached Frater’s theatre so early that the queues at the pit door were still unadmitted, and Leon suggested that they make a circuit of this rambling house of entertainment. It stood in Shaftesbury Avenue and occupied an island site. On either side two narrow streets flanked the building, whilst the rear formed the third side of a small square, one of which was taken up by a County Council dwelling, mainly occupied by artisans. From the square a long passage-way led to Cranbourn Street; whilst, in addition to the alley which opened just at the back of the theatre, a street ran parallel to Shaftesbury Avenue from Charing Cross Road to Rupert Street.

The theatre itself was one of the best in London, and although it had had a succession of failures, its luck had turned, and the new mystery play was drawing all London.

“That is the stage door,” said Leon—they had reached the square—“and those are emergency exits”—he pointed back the way they had come—“which are utilized at the end of a performance to empty the theatre.”

“Why are you taking such an interest in the theatre itself?” asked Poiccart.

“Because,” said Gonsalez slowly, “I am in agreement with George. We should have found Newton’s car parked in Fitzreeve Gardens—not Oberzohn’s. And the circumstances are a little suspicious.”

The doors of the pit and gallery were open now; the queues were moving slowly to the entrances; and they watched the great building swallow up the devotees of the drama, before they returned to the front of the house.

Cars were beginning to arrive, at first at intervals, but, as the hour of the play’s beginning approached, in a ceaseless line that made a congestion and rendered the traffic police articulate and occasionally unkind. It was short of the half-hour after eight when Manfred saw Oberzohn’s glistening car in the block, and presently it pulled up before the entrance of the theatre. First Joan and then Monty Newton alighted and passed out of view.

Gonsalez thought he had never seen the girl looking quite as radiantly pretty. She had the colouring and the shape of youth, and though the more fastidious might object to her daring toilette, the most cantankerous could not cavil at the pleasing effect.

“It is a great pity,”—Leon spoke in Spanish—“a thousand pities! I have the same feeling when I see a perfect block of marble placed in the hands of a tombstone-maker to be mangled into ugliness!”

Manfred put out his hand and drew him back into the shadow. A cab was dropping the lame man. He got out with the aid of a linkman, paid the driver, and limped into the vestibule. It was not a remarkable coincidence: the gentleman had evidently come from Mero’s, and as all London was flocking to the drama, there was little that was odd in finding him here. They saw that he went up into the dress-circle, and later, when they took their places in the stalls, Leon, glancing up, saw the pale, bearded face and noted that he occupied the end seat of the front row.

“I’ve met that man somewhere,” he said, irritated. “Nothing annoys me worse than to forget, not a face, but where I have seen it!”

Did Gurther but know, he had achieved the height of his ambition: he had twice passed under the keen scrutiny of the cleverest detectives in the world, and had remained unrecognized.

Chapter XXIX Work for Gurther

GURTHER was sleeping when he was called for duty, but presented himself before his director as bright and alert as though he had not spent a sleepless night, nor yet had endured the strain of a midnight train jump.

“Once more, my Gurther, I send you forth.” Dr. Oberzohn was almost gay. “This time to save us all from the Judas treachery of one we thought was our friend. To-night the snake must bite, and bite hard, Gurther. And out into the dark goes the so-called Trusted! And after that, my brave boy, there shall be nothing to fear.”

He paused for approval, and got it in a snapped agreement.

“To-night we desire from you a chef d’œuvre, the supreme employment of your great art, Gurther; the highest expression of genius! The gentleman-club manner will not do. They may look for you and find you. Better it should be, this time, that you——”

“Herr Doktor, will you graciously permit me to offer a humble suggestion?” said Gurther eagerly.

The doctor nodded his head slowly.

“You may speak, Gurther,” he said. “You are a man of intelligence; I would not presume to dictate to an artist.”

“Let me go for an hour, perhaps two hours, and I will return to you with a manner that is unique. Is it graciously permitted, Herr Doktor?”

“March!” said the doctor graciously, waving his hand to the door.

Nearly an hour and a half passed before the door opened and a gentleman came in who for even a moment even the doctor thought was a stranger. The face had an unearthly ivory pallor; the black brows, the faint shadows beneath the eyes that suggested a recent illness, the close-cropped black beard in which grey showed—these might not have deceived him. But the man was obviously the victim of some appalling accident of the past. One shoulder was hunched, the hand that held the stick was distorted out of shape, and as he moved, the clump of his club foot advertised his lameness.

“Sir, you desire to see me——?” began the doctor, and then stared open-mouthed. “It is not . . . !”

Gurther smiled.

“Herr Doktor, are you condescendingly pleased?”

“Colossal!” murmured Oberzohn, gazing in amazement. “Of all accomplishments this is supreme! Gurther, you are an artist. Some day we shall buy a theatre for you in Unter den Linden, and you shall thrill large audiences.”

“Herr Doktor, this is my own idea; this I have planned for many months. The boots I made myself; even the coat I altered”—he patted his deformed shoulder proudly.

“An eyeglass?”

“I have it,” said Gurther promptly.

“The cravat—is it not too proper?”

Gurther fingered his tie.

“For the grand habit I respectfully claim that the proper tie is desirable, if you will graciously permit.”

The Herr Doktor nodded.

“You shall go with God, Gurther,” he said piously, took a golden cigarette-case from his pocket and handed it to the man. “Sit down, my dear friend.”

He rose and pointed to the chair he had vacated.

“In my own chair, Gurther. Nothing is too good for you. Now here is the arrangement . . .”

Step by step he unfolded the time-table, for chronology was almost as great a passion with this strange and wicked man as it was with Aunt Alma.

So confident was Gurther of his disguise that he had gone in the open to speak to Oberzohn’s chauffeur, and out of the tail of his eye he had seen Manfred and Gonsalez approaching. It was the supreme test and was passed with credit to himself.

He did not dine at Mero’s; Gurther never ate or drank when he was wearing a disguise, knowing just how fatal that occupation could be. Instead, he had called a taxi, and had killed time by being driven slowly round and round the Outer Circle of Regent’s Park.

Gurther was doing a great deal of thinking in these days, and at the cost of much physical discomfort had curtailed his pernicious practices, that his head might be clear all the time. For if he were to live, that clear head of his was necessary. The prisoner in the cellar occupied his thoughts. She had an importance for two reasons: she was a friend of the men whom he hated with a cold and deadly malignity beyond description; she represented wealth untold, and the Herr Doktor had even gone to the length of planning a marriage with her. She was not to be killed, not to be hurt; she was so important that the old man would take the risks attendant upon a marriage. There must be an excellent reason for that, because Dr. Oberzohn had not a very delicate mind.

He seemed to remember that, by the English law, a wife could not give evidence against her husband. He was not sure, but he had a dim notion that Pfeiffer had told him this: Pfeiffer was an educated man and had taken high honours at the gymnasium.

Gurther was not well read. His education had been of a scrappy character, and once upon a time he had been refused a leading part because of his provincial accent. That fault he had corrected in prison, under the tuition of a professor who was serving a life sentence for killing two women; but by the time Gurther had been released, he was a marked man, and the stage was a career lost to him for ever.

Oberzohn possessed advantages which were not his. He was the master; Gurther was the servant. Oberzohn could determine events by reason of his vast authority, and the strings which he pulled in every part of the world. Even Gurther had accepted this position of blind, obedient servant, but now his angle had shifted, even as Oberzohn’s had moved in relation to Montague Newton. Perhaps because of this. The doctor, in curtailing one confidence, was enlarging another, and in the enlargement his prestige suffered.

Gurther was now the confidant, therefore the equal; and logically, the equal can always become the superior. He had dreamed dreams of a life of ease, a gratification of his sense of luxury without the sobering thought that somewhere round the corner was waiting a man ready to tap him on the shoulder . . . a white palace in a flowery land, with blue swimming pools, and supple girls who called him Master. Gurther began to see the light.

Until he had taken his seat in the theatre, he had not so much as glimpsed the man and the woman in the end box.

Joan was happy—happier than she remembered having been. Perhaps it was the reaction from her voluntary imprisonment. Certainly it was Monty’s reluctant agreement to a change of plans which so exalted her. Monty had dropped the thin pretence of an accommodation marriage; and once he was persuaded to this, the last hindrance to enjoyment was dissipated. Let Oberzohn take the girl if he wanted her; take, too, such heavy responsibility as followed. Monty Newton would get all that he wanted without the risk. Having arrived at this decision, he had ordered another bottle of champagne to seal the bargain, and they left Mero’s club a much happier couple than they had been when they entered.

“As soon as we’ve carved up this money, we’ll get away out of England,” he told her as they were driving to the theatre. “What about Buenos Ayres for the winter, old girl?”

She did not know where Buenos Ayres was, but she gurgled her delight at the suggestion, and Monty expatiated upon the joys of the South American summer, the beauties of B.A., its gaieties and amusements.

“I don’t suppose there’ll be any kick coming,” he said, “but it wouldn’t be a bad scheme if we took a trip round the world, and came back in about eighteen months’ time to settle down in London. My hectic past would have been forgotten by then—why, I might even get into Parliament.”

“How wonderful!” she breathed, and then: “What is this play about, Monty?”

“It’s a bit of a thrill, the very play for you—a detective story that will make your hair stand on end.”

She had all the gamin’s morbid interest in murder and crime, and she settled down in the box with a pleasant feeling of anticipation, and watched the development of the first act.

The scene was laid in a club, a low-down resort where the least desirable members of society met, and she drank in every word, because she knew the life, had seen that type of expensively dressed woman who swaggered on to the stage and was addressed familiarly by the club proprietor. She knew that steady-eyed detective when he made his embarrassing appearance. The woman was herself. She even knew the cadaverous wanderer who approached stealthily at the door: a human wolf that fled at the sight of the police officer.

The three who sat in the front row of the stalls—how Leon Gonsalez secured these tickets was one of the minor mysteries of the day—saw her, and one at least felt his heart ache.

Monty beamed his geniality. He had taken sufficient wine to give him a rosy view of the world, and he was even mildly interested in the play, though his chief pleasure was in the girl’s enchantment. He ordered ices for her after the first interval.

“You’re getting quite a theatre fan, kiddie,” he said. “I must take you to some other shows. I had no idea you liked this sort of thing.”

She drew a long breath and smiled at him.

“I like anything when I’m with you,” she said, and they held hands foolishly, till the house lights dimmed and the curtain rose upon a lawyer’s office.

The lawyer was of the underworld: a man everlastingly on the verge of being struck off the rolls. He had betrayed a client with whom he had had dealings, and the man had gone to prison for a long term, but had escaped. Now the news had come that he had left Australia and was in London, waiting his opportunity to destroy the man whose treachery was responsible for his capture.

Here was a note to which the heart of the girl responded. Even Monty found himself leaning forward, as the old familiar cant terms of his trade came across the footlights.

“It is quite all right,” he said at the second interval, “only”—he hesitated—“isn’t it a bit too near the real thing? After all, one doesn’t come to the theatre to see . . .”

He stopped, realizing that conditions and situations familiar to him were novel enough to a fashionable audience which was learning for the first time that a “busy” was a detective, and that a police informer went by the title of “nose.”

The lights up, he glanced round the house, and suddenly he started and caught her arm.

“Don’t look for a moment,” he said, averting his eyes, “then take a glance at the front row. Do you see anybody you know?”

Presently she looked.

“Yes, that is the fellow you hate so much, isn’t it—Gonsalez?”

“They’re all there—the three of them,” said Monty. “I wonder,”—he was troubled at the thought—“I wonder if they’re looking for you?”

“For me? They’ve nothing on me, Monty.”

He was silent.

“I’m glad you’re not going back to that place to-night. They’ll trail you sure—sure!”

He thought later that it was probably a coincidence that they were there at all. They seemed to show no interest in the box, but were chattering and talking and laughing to one another. Not once did their eyes come up to his level, and after a while he gained in confidence, though he was glad enough when the play was resumed.

There were two scenes in the act: the first was a police station, the second the lawyer’s room. The man was drunk, and the detective had come to warn him that The Ringer was after him. And then suddenly the lights on the stage were extinguished and the whole house was in the dark. It was part of the plot. In this darkness, and in the very presence of the police, the threatened man was to be murdered. They listened in tense silence, the girl craning her head forward, trying to pierce the dark, listening to the lines of intense dialogue that were coming from the blackness of the stage. Somebody was in the room—a woman, and they had found her. She slipped from the stage detective’s grasp and vanished, and when the lights went up she was gone.

“What has happened, Monty?” she whispered.

He did not answer.

“Do you think——”

She looked round at him. His head was resting on the plush-covered ledge of the box. His face, turned towards her, was grey; the eyes were closed, and his teeth showed in a hideous grin.

She screamed.

“Monty! Monty!”

She shook him. Again her scream rang through the house. At first the audience thought that it was a woman driven hysterical by the tenseness of the stage situation, and then one or two people rose from their stalls and looked up.

“Monty! Speak to me! He’s dead, he’s dead!”

Three seats in the front row had emptied. The screams of the hysterical girl made it impossible for the scene to proceed, and the curtain came down quickly.

The house was seething with excitement. Every face was turned towards the box where she knelt by the side of the dead man, clasping him in her arms, and the shrill agony in her voice was unnerving.

The door of the box swung open, and Manfred dashed in. One glance he gave at Monty Newton, and he needed no other.

“Get the girl out,” he said curtly.

Leon tried to draw her from the box, but she was a shrieking fury.

“You did it, you did it! . . . Let me go to him!”

Leon lifted her from her feet, and, clawing wildly at his face, she was carried from the box.

The manager was running along the passage, and Leon sent him on with a jerk of his head. And then a woman in evening dress came from somewhere.

“May I take her?” she said, and the exhausted girl collapsed into her arms.

Gonsalez flew back to the box. The man was lying on the floor, and the manager, standing at the edge of the box, was addressing the audience.

“The gentleman has fainted, and I’m afraid his friend has become a little hysterical. I must apologize to you, ladies and gentlemen, for this interruption. If you will allow us a minute to clear the box, the play will be resumed. If there is a doctor in the house, I should be glad if he would come.”

There were two doctors within reach, and in the passage, which was now guarded by a commissionaire, a hasty examination was made. They examined the punctured wound at the back of the neck and then looked at one another.

“This is The Snake,” said one.

“The house mustn’t know,” said Manfred. “He’s dead, of course?”

The doctor nodded.

Out in the passage was a big emergency exit door, and this the manager pushed open, and, running out into the street, found a cab, into which all that was mortal of Monty Newton was lifted.

Whilst this was being done, Poiccart returned.

“His car has just driven off,” he said. “I saw the number-plate as it turned into Lisle Street.”

“How long ago?” asked Gonsalez quickly.

“At this very moment.”

Leon pinched his lip thoughtfully.

“Why didn’t he wait, I wonder?”

He went back through the emergency door, which was being closed, and passed up the passage towards the entrance. The box was on the dress-circle level, and the end of a short passage brought him into the circle itself.

And then the thought of the lame man occurred to him, and his eyes sought the first seat in the front row, which was also the seat nearest to the boxes. The man had gone.

As he made this discovery, George emerged from the passage.

“Gurther!” said Leon. “What a fool I am! But how clever!”

“Gurther?” said Manfred in amazement. “Do you mean the man with the club foot?”

Leon nodded.

“He was not alone, of course,” said Gonsalez. “There must have been two or three of the gang here, men and women—Oberzohn works these schemes out with the care and thoroughness of a general. I wonder where the management have taken the girl?”

He found the manager discussing the tragedy with two other men, one of whom was obviously associated with the production, and he signalled him aside.

“The lady? I suppose she’s gone home. She’s left the theatre.”

“Which way did she go?” asked Gonsalez, in a sudden panic.

The manager called a linkman, who had seen a middle-aged woman come out of the theatre with a weeping girl, and they had gone down the side-street towards the little square at the back of the playhouse.

“She may have taken her home to Chester Square,” said Manfred. His voice belied the assumption of confidence.

Leon had not brought his own machine, and they drove to Chester Square in a taxi. Fred, the footman, had neither heard nor seen the girl, and nearly fainted when he learned of the tragic ending to his master’s career.

“Oh, my God!” he groaned. “And he only left here this afternoon . . . dead, you say?”

Gonsalez nodded.

“Not—not The Snake?” faltered the man.

“What do you know about the snake?” demanded Manfred sternly.

“Nothing, except—well, the snake made him nervous, I know. He told me to-day that he hoped he’d get through the week without a snake-bite.”

He was questioned closely, but although it was clear that he knew something of his master’s illicit transactions, and that he was connected in business with Oberzohn, the footman had no connection with the doctor’s gang. He drew a large wage and a percentage of profits from the gaming side of the business, and confessed that it was part of his duties to prepare stacks of cards and pass them to his master under cover of bringing in the drinks. But of anything more sinister he knew nothing.

“The woman, of course, was a confederate, who had been planted to take charge of the girl the moment the snake struck. I was in such a state of mind,” confessed Leon, “that I do not even remember what she looked like. I am a fool—a double-distilled idiot! I think I must be getting old. There’s only one thing for us to do, and that is to get back to Curzon Street—something may have turned up.”

“Did you leave anybody in the house?”

Leon nodded.

“Yes, I left one of our men, to take any ’phone messages that came through.”

They paid off the taxi before the house, and Leon sprinted to the garage to get the car. The man who opened the door to them was he who had been tied up by the pedlar at Heavytree Farm, and his first words came as a shock to Manfred:

“Digby’s here, sir.”

“Digby?” said the other in surprise. “I thought he was on duty?”

“He’s been here since just after you left, sir. If I’d known where you had gone, I’d have sent him to you.”

Digby came out of the waiting-room at that moment, ready to apologize.

“I had to see you, sir, and I’m sorry I’m away from my post.”

“You may not be missing much,” said Manfred unsmilingly. “Come upstairs and tell me all about it.”

Digby’s story was a strange one. He had gone down that afternoon to the canal bank to make a reconnaissance of ground which was new to him.

“I’m glad I did too, because the walls have got broken glass on top. I went up into the Old Kent Road and bought a garden hoe, and prised the mortar loose, so that if I wanted, I could get over. And then I climbed round the water-gate and had a look at that barge of his. There was nobody about, though I think they spotted me afterwards. It is a fairly big barge, and, of course, in a terrible state, but the hold is full of cargo—you know that, sir?”

“You mean there is something in the barge?”

Digby nodded.

“Yes, it has a load of some kind. The after part, where the bargee’s sleeping quarters are, is full of rats and water, but the fore part of the vessel is water-tight, and it holds something heavy too. That is why the barge is down by its head in the mud. I was in the Thames police and I know a lot about river craft.”

“Is that what you came to tell me?”

“No, sir, it was something queerer than that. After I’d given the barge a look over and tried to pull up some of the boards—which I didn’t manage to do—I went along and had a look at the factory. It’s not so easy to get in, because the entrance faces the house, but to get to it you have to go half round the building, and that gives you a certain amount of cover. There was nothing I could see in the factory itself. It was in a terrible mess, full of old iron and burnt-out boxes. I was coming round the back of the building,” he went on impressively, “when I smelt a peculiar scent.”

“A perfume?”

“Yes, sir, it was perfume, but stronger—more like incense. I thought at first it might be an old bale of stuff that had been thrown out, or else I was deceiving myself. I began poking about in the rubbish heaps—but they didn’t smell of scent! Then I went back into the building again, but there was no smell at all. It was very strong when I returned to the back of the factory, and then I saw a little waft of smoke come out of a ventilator close to the ground. My first idea was that the place was on fire, but when I knelt down, it was this scent.”

“Joss-sticks?” said Poiccart quickly.

“That’s what it was!” said the detective. “Like incense, yet not like it. I knelt down and listened at the grating, and I’ll swear that I heard voices. They were very faint.”

“Men’s?”

“No, women’s.”

“Could you see anything?”

“No, sir, it was a blind ventilator; there was probably a shaft there—in fact, I’m sure there was, because I pushed a stone through one of the holes and heard it drop some distance down.”

“There may be an underground room there,” said Poiccart, “and somebody’s burnt joss-sticks to sweeten the atmosphere.”

“Under the factory? It’s not in the plans of the building. I’ve had them from the surveyor’s office and examined them,” said George, “although surveyors’ plans aren’t infallible. A man like Oberzohn would not hesitate to break so unimportant a thing as a building law!”

Leon came in at that moment, heard the story and was in complete agreement with Poiccart’s theory.

“I wondered at the time we saw the plans whether we ought to accept that as conclusive,” he said. “The store was built at the end of 1914, when architects and builders took great liberties and pleaded the exigencies of the war.”

Digby went on with his story.

“I was going back to the barge to get past the water-gate, but I saw the old man coming down the steps of the house, so I climbed the wall, and very glad I was that I’d shifted that broken glass, or I should never have got over.”

Manfred pulled his watch from his pocket with a frown. They had lost nearly an hour of precious time with their inquiries in Chester Square.

“I hope we’re not too late,” he said ominously. “Now, Leon . . .”

But Leon had gone down the stairs in three strides.

Chapter XXX Joan a Prisoner

DAZED with grief, not knowing, not seeing, not caring, not daring to think, Joan suffered herself to be led quickly into the obscurity of the side-street, and did not even realize that Oberzohn’s big limousine had drawn up by the sidewalk.

“Get in,” said the woman harshly.

Joan was pushed through the door and guided to a seat by somebody who was already in the machine.

She collapsed in a corner moaning as the door slammed and the car began to move.

“Where are we going? Let me get back to him!”

“The gracious lady will please restrain her grief,” said a hateful voice, and she swung round and stared unseeingly to the place whence the voice had come.

The curtains of the car had been drawn; the interior was as black as pitch.

“You—you beast!” she gasped. “It’s you, is it? . . . Gurther! You murdering beast!”

She struck at him feebly, but he caught her wrist.

“The gracious lady will most kindly restrain her grief,” he said suavely. “The Herr Newton is not dead. It was a little trick in order to baffle certain interferers.”

“You’re lying, you’re lying!” she screamed, struggling to escape from those hands of steel. “He’s dead! You know he’s dead, and you killed him! You snake-man!”

“The gracious lady must believe me,” said Gurther earnestly. They were passing through a public part of the town and at any moment a policeman might hear her shrieks. “If Herr Newton had not pretended to be hurt, he would have been arrested . . . he follows in the next car.”

“You’re trying to quieten me,” she said, “but I won’t be quiet.”

And then a hand came over her mouth and pressed her head back against the cushions. She struggled desperately, but two fingers slid up her face and compressed her nostrils. She was being suffocated. She struggled to free herself from the tentacle hold of him, and then slipped into unconsciousness. Gurther felt the straining figure go limp and removed his hands. She did not feel the prick of the needle on her wrist, though the drugging was clumsily performed in the darkness and in a car that was swaying from side to side. He felt her pulse, his long fingers pressed her throat and felt the throb of the carotid artery; propping her so that she could not fall, Herr Gurther sank back luxuriously into a corner of the limousine and lit a cigar.

The journey was soon over. In a very short time they were bumping down Hangman’s Lane and turned so abruptly into the factory grounds that one of the mudguards buckled to the impact of the gate-post.

It must have been two hours after the departure of her companion, when Mirabelle, lying on her bed, half dozing, was wakened by her book slipping to the floor, and sat up quickly to meet the apprising stare of the man whom, of all men in the world, she disliked most cordially. Dr. Oberzohn had come noiselessly into the room and under his arm was a pile of books.

“I have brought these for you,” he said, in his booming voice, and stacked them neatly on the table.

She did not answer.

“Novels of a frivolous kind, such as you will enjoy,” he said, unconscious of offence. “I desired the seller of the books to pick them for me. Fiction stories of adventure and of amorous exchanges. These will occupy your mind, though to me they would be the merest rubbish and nonsense.”

She stood silently, her hands clasped behind her, watching him. He was neater than usual, had resumed the frock-coat he wore the day she had first met him—how long ago that seemed!—his collar was stiffly white, and if his cravat was more gorgeous than is usually seen in a man correctly arrayed, it had the complementary value of being new.

He held in his hand a small bouquet of flowers tightly packed, their stems enclosed in silver foil, a white paper frill supplying an additional expression of gentility.

“These are for you.” He jerked out his hand towards her.

Mirabelle looked at the flowers, but did not take them. He seemed in no way disconcerted, either by her silence, or by the antagonism which her attitude implied, but, laying the flowers on top of the books, he clasped his hands before him and addressed her. He was nervous, for some reason; the skin of his forehead was furrowing and smoothing with grotesque rapidity. She watched the contortions, fascinated.

“To every man,” he began, “there comes a moment of domestic allurement. Even to the scientific mind, absorbed in its colossal problems, there is this desire for family life and for the haven of rest which is called marriage.”

He paused, as though he expected her to offer some comment upon his platitude.

“Man alone,” he went on, when she did not speak, “has established an artificial and unnatural convention that, at a certain age, a man should marry a woman of that same age. Yet it has been proved by history that happy marriages are often between a man who is in the eyes of the world old, and a lady who is youthful.”

She was gazing at him in dismay. Was he proposing to her? The idea was incredible, almost revolting. He must have read in her face the thoughts that were uppermost in her mind, the loathing, the sense of repulsion which filled her, yet he went on, unabashed:

“I am a man of great riches. You are a girl of considerable poverty. But because I saw you one day in your poor house, looking, gracious lady, like a lily growing amidst foul weeds, my heart went out to you, and for this reason I brought you to London, spending many thousands of pounds in order to give myself the pleasure of your company.”

“I don’t think you need go any farther, Dr. Oberzohn,” she said quietly, “if you’re proposing marriage, as I think you are.”

He nodded emphatically.

“Such is my honourable intention,” he said.

“I would never marry you in any circumstances,” she said. “Not even if I had met you under the happiest conditions. The question of your age”—she nearly added “and of your appearance,” but her natural kindness prevented that cruel thrust, though it would not have hurt him in the slightest degree—“has nothing whatever to do with my decision. I do not even like you, and have never liked you, Mr. Oberzohn.”

“Doctor,” he corrected, and in spite of her woeful plight she could have laughed at this insistence upon the ceremonial title.

“Young miss, I cannot woo you in the way of my dear and sainted brother, who was all for ladies and had a beautiful manner.”

She was amazed to hear that he had a brother at all—and it was almost a relief to know that he was dead.

“Martyred, at the hands of wicked and cunning murderers, slain in his prime by the assassin’s pistol . . .” His voice trembled and broke. “For that sainted life I will some day take vengeance.”

It was not wholly curiosity that impelled her to ask who killed him.

“Leon Gonsalez.” The words in his lips became the grating of a file. “Killed . . . murdered! And even his beautiful picture destroyed in that terrible fire. Had he saved that, my heart would have been soft towards him.” He checked himself, evidently realizing that he was getting away from the object of his call. “Think over this matter, young lady. Read the romantic books and the amorous books, and then perhaps you will not think it is so terrible a fate to drift at moonlight through the canals of Venice, with the moon above and the gondoliers.”

He wagged his head sentimentally.

“There is no book which will change my view, doctor,” she said. “I cannot understand why you propose such an extraordinary course, but I would rather die than marry you.”

His cold eyes filled her with a quick terror.

“There are worse things than death, which is but sleep—many worse things, young miss. To-morrow I shall come for you, and we will go into the country, where you will say ‘yes’ and ‘no’ according to my desire. I have many—what is the word?—certificates for marriage, for I am too clever a man to leave myself without alternatives.”

(This was true; he had residential qualifications in at least four counties, and at each he had given legal notice of his intended marriage.)

“Not to-morrow or any other day. Nothing would induce me.”

His eyebrows went almost to the top of his head.

“So!” he said, with such significance that her blood ran cold. “There are worse men than the Herr Doktor,”—he raised a long finger warningly,—“terrible men with terrible minds. You have met Gurther?”

She did not answer this.

“Yes, yes, you danced with him. A nice man, is he not, to ladies? Yet this same Gurther . . . I will tell you something.”

He seated himself on a corner of the table and began talking, until she covered her ears with her hands and hid her white face from him.

“They would have killed him for that,” he said, when her hands came down, “but Gurther was too clever, and the poor German peasants too stupid. You shall remember that, shall you not?”

He did not wait for her answer. With a stiff bow he strutted out of the room and up the stairs. There came the thud of the trap falling and the inevitable rumble of the concrete barrel.

He had some work to do, heavy work for a man who found himself panting when he climbed stairs. And though four of his best and most desperate men were waiting in his parlour drinking his whisky and filling the little room with their rank cigar smoke, he preferred to tackle this task which he had already begun as soon as night fell, without their assistance or knowledge.

On the edge of the deep hole in his grounds, where the wild convolvulus grew amidst the rusty corners of discarded tins and oil barrels, was a patch of earth that yielded easily to the spade. When the factory had been built, the depression had been bigger, but the builders had filled in half the hole with the light soil that they had dug out of the factory’s foundations.

He took his spade, which he had left in the factory, and, skirting the saucer-shaped depression, he reached a spot where a long trench had already been dug. Taking off his fine coat and waistcoat, unfastening cravat and collar and carefully depositing them upon the folded coat, he continued his work, stopping now and again to wipe his streaming brow.

He had to labour in the dark, but this was no disadvantage; he could feel the edges of the pit. In an hour the top of the trench was level with his chin, and, stooping to clear the bottom of loose soil, he climbed up with greater difficulty than he had anticipated, and it was only after the third attempt that he managed to reach the top, out of breath and short of temper.

He dressed again, and with his electric torch surveyed the pit he had made and grunted his satisfaction.

He was keenly sensitive to certain atmospheres, and needed no information about the change which had come over his subordinates. In their last consultation Gurther had been less obsequious, had even smoked in his presence without permission—absent-mindedly, perhaps, but the offence was there. And Dr. Oberzohn, on the point of smacking his face for his insolence, heard a warning voice within himself which had made his hand drop back at his side. Or was it the look he saw on Gurther’s face? The man was beyond the point where he could discipline him in the old Junker way. For although Dr. Oberzohn contemned all things Teutonic, he had a sneaking reverence for the military caste of that nation.

He left the spade sticking in a heap of turned earth. He would need that again, and shortly. Unless Gurther failed. Somehow he did not anticipate a failure in this instance. Mr. Monty Newton had not yet grown suspicious, would not be on his guard. His easy acceptance of the theatre ticket showed his mind in this respect.

The four men in his room rose respectfully as he came in. The air was blue with smoke, and Lew Cuccini offered a rough apology. He had been released that morning from detention, for Meadows had found it difficult to frame a charge which did not expose the full activities of the police, and the part they were playing in relation to Mirabelle Leicester. Evidently Cuccini had been reproaching, in his own peculiar way and in his own unprincipled language, the cowardice of his three companions, for the atmosphere seemed tense when the doctor returned. Yet, as was subsequently proved, the appearance of discord was deceptive; might indeed have been staged for their host’s benefit.

“I’ve just been telling these birds——” began Cuccini.

“Oh, shut up, Lew!” growled one of his friends. “If that crazy man hadn’t been shouting your name, we should not have gone back! He’d have wakened the dead. And our orders were to retire at the first serious sign of an alarm. That’s right, doctor, isn’t it?”

“Sure it’s right,” said the doctor blandly. “Never be caught—that is a good motto. Cuccini was caught.”

“And I’d give a year of my life to meet that Dago again,” said Cuccini, between his teeth.

He was delightfully inconsistent, for he came into the category, having been born in Milan, and had had his early education in the Italian quarter of Hartford, Connecticut.

“He’d have tortured me too . . . he was going to put lighted wax matches between my fingers——”

“And then you spilled it!” accused one of the three hotly. “You talk about us bolting!”

“Silence!” roared the doctor. “This is unseemly! I have forgiven everything. That shall be enough for you all. I will hear no other word.”

“Where is Gurther?” Cuccini asked the question.

“He has gone away. To-night he leaves for America. He may return—who knows? But that is the intention.”

“Snaking?” asked somebody, and there was a little titter of laughter.

“Say, doctor, how do you work that stunt?” Cuccini leaned forward, his cigar between his fingers, greatly intrigued. “I saw no snakes down at Rath Hall, and yet he was bitten, just as that Yankee was bitten—Washington.”

“He will die,” said the doctor complacently. He was absurdly jealous for the efficacy of his method.

“He was alive yesterday, anyway. We shadowed him to the station.”

“Then he was not bitten—no, that is impossible. When the snake-bites,”—Oberzohn raised his palms and gazed piously at the ceiling—“after that there is nothing. No, no, my friend, you are mistaken.”

“I tell you I’m not making any mistake,” said the other doggedly. “I was in the room, I tell you, soon after they brought him in, and I heard one of the busies say that his face was all wet.”

“So!” said Oberzohn dully. “That is very bad.”

“But how do you do it, doctor? Do you shoot or sump’n’?”

“Let us talk about eventual wealth and happiness,” said the doctor. “To-night is a night of great joy for me. I will sing you a song.”

Then, to the amazement of the men and to their great unhappiness, he sang, in a thin, reedy old voice, the story of a young peasant who had been thwarted in love and had thrown himself from a cliff into a seething waterfall. It was a lengthy song, intensely sentimental, and his voice held few of the qualities of music. The gang had never been set a more difficult job than to keep straight faces until he had finished.

“Gee! You’re some artist, doctor!” said the sycophantic Cuccini, and managed to get a simulation of envy into his voice.

“In my student days I was a great singer,” said the doctor modestly.

Over the mantelpiece was a big, old clock, with a face so faded that only a portion of the letters remained. Its noisy ticking had usually a sedative effect on the doctor. But its main purpose and value was its accuracy. Every day it was corrected by a message from Greenwich, and as Oberzohn’s success as an organizer depended upon exact timing, it was one of his most valuable assets.

He glanced up at the clock now, and that gave Cuccini his excuse.

“We’ll be getting along, doctor,” he said. “You don’t want anything to-night? I’d like to get a cut at that Gonsalez man. You won’t leave me out if there’s anything doing?”

Oberzohn rose and went out of the room without another word, for he knew that the rising of Cuccini was a signal that not only was the business of the day finished, but also that the gang needed its pay.

Every gang-leader attended upon Mr. Oberzohn once a week with his pay-roll, and it was usually the custom for the Herr Doktor to bring his cash-box into the room and extract sufficient to liquidate his indebtedness to the leader. It was a big box, and on pay-day, as this was, filled to the top with bank-notes and Treasury bills. He brought it back now, put it on the table, consulted the little slip that Cuccini offered to him, and, taking out a pad of notes, fastened about by a rubber band, he wetted his finger and thumb.

“You needn’t count them,” said Cuccini. “We’ll take the lot.”

The doctor turned to see that Cuccini was carelessly holding a gun in his hand.

“The fact is, doctor,” said Cuccini coolly, “we’ve seen the red light, and if we don’t skip now, while the skipping’s good, there’s going to be no place we can stay comfortable in this little island, and I guess we’ll follow Gurther.”

One glance the doctor gave at the pistol and then he resumed his counting, as though nothing had happened.

“Twenty, thirty, forty, fifty . . .”

“Now quit that,” said Cuccini roughly. “I tell you, you needn’t count.”

“My friend, I prefer to know what I am going to lose. It is a pardonable piece of curiosity.”