THE NINE BEARS
The room in which the Nine Men sat was large, even as rooms go in
Spain. It had the appearance of a small lecture hall. Heavy
curtains of dark blue velvet hid the tall windows, and electric
lights, set at intervals in the ceiling, provided light.
The little desks at which the men sat were placed so as to form a
horseshoe.
Of the nine, it is possible that one knew the other, and that some
guessed the identity of all. It was difficult to disguise Grayson,
who in his life of inactivity had grown exceedingly stout, and yet
with all the trickery of the black cloaks they wore and the crêpe
masks that hid their faces, it was hard enough to single even him
from his fellows.
The last man had reached his seat when one who sat at the extreme end
of the horseshoe on the president's right, rose and asked: "What of
Poltavo, brother?"
"He has not yet arrived," was the muffled reply.
"Perhaps, then, it is well that I should say what I have to say
before his return," said the first speaker.
He rose to his feet, and eight pairs of eyes turned towards him.
"Gentlemen," he began, "the time has come when our operations must
cease."
A murmur interrupted him, and he stopped.
"What is it?" he asked sharply.
"Let us have more light," said a mask at the end of the horseshoe,
and pointed to the ceiling where only half of the lights glowed.
Baggin nodded, and the man rose and made his way to the curtained
recess where the switches were.
"No, no, no!" said Baggin quickly--for he suddenly realised that
there was something hidden by the curtain, a sinister figure of a man
in convict shirt, fingering the edge of a brand-new knife. So Baggin
pictured him.
The masked man halted in surprise.
"No, no," repeated Baggin, and beckoned him back. "For what I have
to say I need no light; you interrupt me, brother."
With a muttered apology the man resumed his seat.
"I have said," continued Baggin, "that the time has come when we must
seriously consider the advisability of dispersing."
A murmur of assent met these words.
"This organisation of ours has grown and grown until it has become
unwieldy," he went on. "We are all business men, so there is no need
for me to enlarge upon the danger that attends the house that
undertakes responsibilities which it cannot personally attend to.
"We have completed a most wonderful organisation. We have employed
all the ingenuities of modern science to further our plans. We have
agents in every part of Europe, in India, Egypt, and America. So
long as these agents have been ignorant of the identity and location
of their employers, we were safe. To ensure this, we have worked
through Count Poltavo, a gentleman who came to us some time
ago--under peculiar conditions.
"We have employed, too, and gratefully employed, Catherine Dominguez,
a charming lady, as to whose future you need have no fear. Some time
ago, as you all know, we established wireless stations in the great
capitals, as being the safest method by which our instructions might
be transmitted without revealing to our agents the origin of these
commands. A code was drawn up, certain arrangements of letters and
words, and this code was deciphered and our secret revealed through
the ingenuity of one man. We were prepared to meet him on a business
basis. We communicated with him by wireless, and agreed to pay a sum
not only to himself, but to two others, if he kept our secret and
agreed to make no written record of their discovery. They promised,
but their promise was broken, and it was necessary to employ other
methods.
"I am fully prepared to accept responsibility for my share of the
result, just as I am prepared to share responsibility for any other
act which circumstances may have rendered necessary.
"And now, gentlemen, I come to the important part in my speech. By
sharing the result of our operations we may each go our way, in
whatever guise we think most suitable, to the enjoyment of our
labours.
"In a short time for many of us the statute of limitations will have
worked effectively; and for others there are States in South America
that would welcome us and offer us every luxury that money can buy or
heart desire.
"Yet I would not advise the scattering of our forces. Rather, I have
a scheme which will, I think, enable us to extract the maximum of
enjoyment from life, at a minimum of risk. With that end in view, I
have expended from our common fund a sum equal to half-a-million
English pounds. I have completed elaborate arrangements, which I
shall ask you to approve of; I have fashioned our future." He threw
out his hands with a gesture of pride. "It is for you to decide
whether we shall go our several ways, each in fear of the weakness of
the other, our days filled with dread, our nights sleepless with
doubt, or whether in new circumstances we shall live together in
freedom, in happiness, and in unity."
Again the murmured applause.
"But there is an element of danger which must be removed," Baggin
went on; "between freedom and us there lies a shadow."
He stopped and looked from mask to mask.
"That shadow," he said slowly, "is Count Ivan Poltavo, the man who
knows our secrets, who has done our work, the one man in the world
who holds our lives in the hollow of his----"
Before he had finished he saw their eyes leave his face and seek the
door, and he turned to meet the calm scrutiny of the subject of his
discourse. He had entered the room whilst Baggin was speaking and
stood listening.
For a few moments there was silence.
Over Baggin's face came a startling change.
The flush of excitement died out of his cheeks, leaving him ghastly
pale and overcome with confusion. His mouth, opened to conclude his
sentence, hung gaping, as if it had suddenly been frozen in that
position. His eyes glared with rage and terror.
Count Poltavo advanced, hat in hand, and bowed gravely to the masked
company.
"Monsieur Baggin does me an honour that I do not deserve," he said.
Baggin, recovering himself, shot a swift side glance at a curtained
recess behind which stooped a crop-haired man in a convict shirt,
fingering a brand-new knife.
"Monsieur Baggin," Count Poltavo went on, "is wrong when he says I am
the only man who stands between the Nine Bears of Cadiz and
freedom--there is another, and his name is T. B. Smith."
"T. B. Smith is dead, or dying," said Baggin angrily; "we have your
word for it."
His antagonist favoured him with the slightest bow.
"Even I may fall into an error," he said magnanimously. "T. B. is
neither dead nor dying."
"But he fell?"
The count smiled.
"It was clever, and for the moment even I was deceived," he confessed.
He walked forward until he was opposite the curtain where the
assassin waited.
"He is in Jerez, messieurs--with an assistant. I saw them upon the
street this morning. Mr. Smith," he concluded, smiling, "wore his
arm in a sling."
"It's a lie!" shouted Baggin. "Strike, Carlos!"
He wrenched the curtain aside, revealing the sinister figure behind.
Poltavo fell back with an ashen face, but the convict made no move.
Baggin sprang at him in a fury, and struck madly, blindly, but
Poltavo's arm caught his, and wrenched him backward.
In the count's other hand was a revolver, and the muzzle covered the
convict.
"Gentlemen," he said, and his eyes blazed with triumph, "I have told
you that T. B. Smith was here with an assistant--behold the
assistant!"
And Cord Van Ingen, in his convict shirt, standing with one hand
against the wall of the recess, and the other on his hip, smiled
cheerfully.
"That is very true," he said.
Under his hand were the three switches that controlled the light in
the room.
"It is also true, my young friend," said Poltavo softly, "that you
have meddled outrageously in this matter--that you are virtually
dead."
Van Ingen nodded.
"Wasn't it a Polish philosopher," he began, with all the hesitation
of one who is beginning a long discourse, "who said----"
Then he switched out the light and dropped flat on the floor. The
revolvers cracked together, and Poltavo uttered an oath.
There was a wild scramble in the dark. A knot of men swayed over a
prostrate form; then a trembling hand found the switch, and the room
was flooded with light.
Poltavo lay flat on his back with a bullet through his leg, but the
man they sought, the man in the striped shirt and with a three days'
growth of beard, was gone.