IV

It was at a little past nine in the evening that I next saw Hewitt. He

came into my rooms in an incongruous get-up. He wore corduroy trousers,

a very dirty striped jersey, a particularly greasy old jacket, and a

twisted neckcloth; but over all was an excellent overcoat, and on his

head a tall hat of high polish.

"Brought to me by Kerrett," he said, in explanation of the hat and

overcoat. "He's been waiting with them for a long time in a court by

Milford Lane. A good hat and overcoat will cover anything, and I

preferred to enter this building in my own character. I've been wearing

that this afternoon," and he pulled out of his pocket an old peaked cap

with ear-pieces tied over the top.

"You mustn't bring your best clothes," he went on, "or you'll spoil

them scrambling about boats and groping in ditches. I have done my

ditch-groping for the day, and I'm going to change. You had best be

putting on older things while I get into newer."

"What sort of place is this Channel Marsh?" I asked.

"Well, I should think there must be a great many better places to spend

a night in. It must be the dreariest, wettest flat within many miles of

London, and I should like to see the portrait of the man who had the

idea of building a house there. For a house there is, or rather the

ruins of it--deserted for years, and half carried away by rats and

people who wanted slates and firewood and water pipes."

"Is that the place where you intend waiting to-night?"

"It is. I haven't examined it nearly so closely as I should like, for

fear of raising a scare. Channel Marsh is almost an island, with a

narrow neck of an entrance at each end. A foot-track runs the whole

length, and a person in the ruined house can easily see anybody entering

the Marsh from either end. For that reason I reconnoitred from a

boat--the boat you will go in to-night. I think it is the very dirtiest

old tub I ever saw, so that it suited my rig out. I discovered it at a

wharf some little way down the river, and I paid a shilling for the hire

of it. Channel Marsh is banked a bit on one side, and I crept up under

cover of the bank. I learned very little, beyond the general lie of the

land, because I was so mighty cautious. I judged it better to be content

with half an examination, rather than drive away the game. And even as

it is I've an idea I have been seen. I lay up among some reeds till

dark, but after that I am _sure_ there was somebody on the Marsh--and

skulking, too, like me. So after waiting and scouting for a little I

gave it up and paddled quietly back."

"But look here, Hewitt," I said, "this seems a bit mad. Why go and risk

yourself as you talk of doing? You believe Mayes will be there, at the

ruin, or will come there at twelve. Very well, then, why can't the

police send enough men to surround the place and capture him for

certain?"

Hewitt smiled and shook his head. "My dear Brett," he said, "you haven't

seen the place, and I have. It will be hard enough job for you and

Plummer to get near the spot unobserved, guided by a man who knows every

inch. A trampling crowd of policemen would have as much chance as a herd

of elephants, and on such light nights as we are having now they would

be seen a mile off. And who knows what scouts he may have out? No, as I

say, it will be a great piece of luck if you get through unobserved as

it is, and even now I'm not perfectly certain that I couldn't do best

alone. However, arrangements are made now, and you are coming, three of

you."

"Then what are the arrangements?" I asked.

"Just these. You are to leave here first. Make the best of your way to

Mile End Gate, where an old inn stands in the middle of the road. Go to

the corner of the turning opposite this, at the south side of the road.

At eleven o'clock a four-wheeler will drive up, with Plummer and one of

his men in it. The man is one who knows all the geography of Channel

Marsh, and he also knows exactly where to find the boat I used to-day.

You will drive to a little way beyond Bow Bridge, and then Plummer's man

will lead you to the boat. You had better scull and leave the others to

look out. They will know what to do. You will pull along to a place

where you can watch till you see me coming on to the Marsh by the path.

As soon as you see me you will slip quietly along to a place the

policeman will show you, close to the ruin, and watch again. That's all.

I don't know whether or not you think it worth while to take a pistol. I

certainly shall; but then I'm most likely to want it. Plummer will have

one."

I thought it well worth while, and I took my regulation "Webley"--a

relic of my old Volunteer captaincy. Then, by way of the underground

railway, I gained the neighbourhood of Mile End, and interested myself

about its back streets till the time approached to look for Plummer's

cab.

Plummer was more than punctual--indeed, he was two or three minutes

before his time. The cab drew near the kerb and scarcely stopped, so

quickly did I scramble in.

"Good," said Plummer; "we're well ahead of time. Mr. Hewitt quite

right?"

"Yes," I said. "I left him so an hour and a half ago at his office." And

we sat silent while the cab rattled and rumbled over the stony road to

Bow Bridge, and the shopkeepers on the way put up their shutters and

extinguished their lights.

Bow Bridge was reached and passed, and presently we stopped the cab and

alighted. Here Styles, Plummer's man, took the lead, and a little way

farther along the road we turned into a dark and muddy lane on the left.

We floundered through this for some hundred and fifty yards or so, and

then suddenly drew in at an opening on the right. Here we stood for a

few moments while our guide groped his way down toward the muddy water

we could smell, rather than see, a little way before us.

There were a few broken steps and a broad black thing which was the

boat. We got into it as silently as we could manage, and cast off. It

was a clumsy, broad-beamed, leaky old conveyance, and that it was as

dirty as Hewitt had described it I could feel as I groped for the sculls

and got them out. The night was light and dark by turns--changing with

the clouds. We shipped the rudder, and Styles steered, or I should

probably have run ashore more than once, for the banks were not always

distinct, and the channel was narrow and dark. We passed the black forms

of several factories with tall chimneys, and then drew out among the

Marshes, flat and grey, with wisps of mist lying here and there. So we

went in silence for a while, till at last we drew in against the bank on

the left and laid hold by a post at a landing-place.

"This is the Channel Marsh," whispered Styles, as we climbed cautiously

ashore. "We can't see the house very well from here, but there's where

Mr. Hewitt will come through."

Looking over the top of the low bank, we could discern a path which

traversed the length of the marsh, entering it by a broken gate at a

neck of land which we must have passed on our way. Here we crouched and

waited. We had heard the half-hour struck on some distant clock soon

after entering the boat, and now we waited anxiously for the

three-quarters. So long did the time seem to my excited perceptions that

I had quite decided that the clock must have stopped, or, at any rate,

did not chime quarters, when at last the strokes came, distant and

plaintive, over the misty flats.

"A quarter of an hour," Plummer remarked. "He won't be a minute late,

nor a minute too early, from what I know of him. How long will it take

him from that gate to the ruin?"

"Eight or nine minutes, good," Styles answered.

"Then we shall see him in seven minutes or six minutes, as the case may

be," Plummer rejoined in the same low tones.

Slowly the minutes dragged, with not a sound about us save the sucking

and lapping of the muddy river and the occasional flop of a water-rat.

The dark clouds were now fewer, and the moon was high and only partially

obscured by the thinner clouds that traversed its face. More than once I

fancied a sound from the direction of the ruin, and then I doubted my

fancy; when at last there was a sound indeed, but from the opposite

direction, and in a moment we saw Hewitt, muffled close about the neck,

walking briskly up the path.

We regained the boat with all possible speed and silence, and I pulled

my best, regardless of my stiff wrist. During our watch I had had time

to perceive the wisdom of the arrangements which had been made. We had

been watching from a place fairly out of sight from the ruin, yet

sufficiently near it to be able to reach its neighbourhood before

Hewitt; and certainly it was better to approach the actual spot at the

same time as Hewitt himself, for then, if he were being watched for, the

attention of the watcher would be diverted from us.

Presently we reached the reed-bed that Hewitt had spoken of, and I could

see a sort of little creek or inlet. Here I ceased to pull, and Styles

cautiously punted us into the creek with one of the sculls. The boat

grounded noiselessly in the mud, and we crept ashore one at a time

through mud and sedge.

The creek was edged with a bank of rough, broken ground, grown with

coarse grass and bramble, and as we peeped over this bank the ruined

house stood before us--so near as to startle me by its proximity. It

must have been a large house originally--if, indeed, it was ever

completed. Now it stood roofless, dismantled, and windowless, and in

many places whole rods of brickwork had fallen and now littered the

ground about. The black gap of the front door stood plain to see, with a

short flight of broken steps before it, and by the side of these a thick

timber shore supported the front wall. It struck me then that the ruin

was perhaps largely due to a failure of the marshy foundation.

The place seemed silent and empty. Hewitt's footsteps were now plain to

hear, and presently he appeared, walking briskly as before. He could not

see us, and did not look for us, but made directly for the broken steps.

He mounted these, paused on the topmost, and struck a match. It seemed a

rather large hall, and I caught a momentary glimpse of bare rafters and

plasterless wall. Then the match went out and Hewitt stepped within.

Almost on the instant there came a loud jar, and a noise of falling

bricks; and then, in the same instant of time I heard a terrific crash,

and saw Hewitt leap out at the front door--leap out, as it seemed, from

a cloud of dust and splinters.

I sprang to my feet, but Plummer pulled me down again. "Steady!" he

said, "lie low! He isn't hurt. Wait and see before we show ourselves."

It seemed that the floor above had fallen on the spot where Hewitt had

been standing. He had alighted from his leap on hands and knees, but now

stood facing the house, revolver in hand, watching.

There was a moment's pause, a sound of movement from the upper part of

the ruin, another quiet moment, and then a bang and a flash from high on

the wall to the right. Hewitt sprang to shelter behind the heavy shore,

and another shot followed him, scoring a white line across the thick

timber.

Plummer was up, and Styles and I were after him.

"There he is!" cried Plummer, "up on the coping!" I pulled out my own

pistol.

"Don't shoot!" cried Hewitt. "We'll take him alive!"

Far to the right, on the topmost coping of the front wall, I could see a

crouching figure. I saw it rise to its knees, and once more raise an arm

to take aim at Hewitt; and then, with a sudden cry, another human figure

appeared from behind the coping and sprang upon the first. There was a

moment of struggle, and then the rotten coping crumbled, and down, down,

came bricks and men together.

I sickened. I can only explain my feeling by saying that never before

had I seen anything that seemed so long in falling as those two men. And

then with a horrid crash they struck the broken ground, and the pistol

fired again with the shock.

We reached them in a dozen strides, and turned them over, limp, oozing,

and lifeless. And then we saw that one was Mayes, and the other--Victor

Peytral!

We kept no silence now, but Plummer blew his whistle loud and long, and

I fired my revolver into the air, chamber after chamber. Styles started

off at a run along the path towards the town lights, to fetch what aid

he might.

But even then we had doubt if any aid would avail Mayes. He was the

under man in the fall, and he had dropped across a little heap of

bricks. He now lay unconscious, breathing heavily, with a terrible wound

at the back of the head, and Hewitt foretold--and rightly--that when the

doctor did come he would find a broken spine. Peytral, on the other

hand, though unconscious, showed no sign of injury, and just before the

doctor came sighed heavily and turned on his side.

First there came policemen, and then in a little time a hastily dressed

surgeon, and after him an ambulance. Mayes was carried off to hospital,

but with a good deal of rubbing and a little brandy, Peytral came round

well enough to be helped over the Marshes to a cab.

The trap which had been laid for Hewitt was simple, but terribly

effective. The floor above the hall--loose and broken everywhere--was

supported on rafters, and the rafters were crossed underneath and

supported at the centre by a stout beam. The rafters had been sawn

through at both ends, and the rotten floor had been piled high with

broken brick and stone to a weight of a ton or more. The end of a loose

beam had been wedged obliquely under the end of the one timber now

supporting the whole weight, so that a pull on the opposite end of this

long lever would force away the bricks on which the beam rested and let

the whole weight fall. It was the jar of the beam and the fall of the

first few loose bricks that had so far warned Hewitt as to enable him to

leap from under the floor almost as it fell.

Peytral's sudden appearance, when we had time to reflect on it, gave us

a suspicion as to some at least of the espionage to which Hewitt had

been subjected--a suspicion confirmed, later, by Peytral himself after

his recovery from the shock of the fall. For fresh news of his enemy had

re-awakened all his passion, and since he alone could not find him, he

was willing enough to let Hewitt do the tracking down, if only he

himself might clutch Mayes's throat in the end. This explained the

"business" that had called him away after the Barbican stronghold had

been captured; finding both Hewitt and Plummer somewhat uncommunicative,

and himself somewhat "out of it," he had drawn off, and had followed

Hewitt's every movement, confident that he would be led to his old enemy

at last. What I had told him of the cypher message had led him to hunt

out Channel Marsh in the afternoon, and to return at midnight. He, of

course, regarded the message, as I did myself at the time, as a

perfectly genuine instruction from Mayes to Sims, and he came to the

rendezvous wholly in ignorance as to what Hewitt was doing, and with no

better hope than that he might hear something that would lead him in the

direction of Mayes. He had entered the marsh after dark from the upper

end, and had lain concealed by the other channel till near midnight;

then he had crept to the rear of the ruin and climbed to where an

opening seemed to offer a good chance of hearing what might pass in the

hall. He had heard Hewitt approach from the front, and the crash that

followed. The rest we had seen.

V

Mayes never recovered consciousness, and was dead when we visited the

hospital the day after; both skull and spine were badly fractured. And

the very last we saw of the Red Triangle was the implement with which it

had been impressed, which was found in his pocket.

It was a small triangular prism of what I believe is called soapstone.

It was perhaps four inches long, and the face at the end corresponded

with the mark that Hewitt had seen on the forehead of Mr. Jacob Mason.

It fitted closely in a leather case, in the end of which was a small,

square metal box full of the red, greasy pigment with which the mark had

been impressed.

It was from Broady Sims that we learnt the exact use and meaning of this

implement: though he would not say a word till he had seen with his own

eyes Mayes lying dead in the mortuary. Then he gasped his relief and

said, "That's the end of something worse than slavery for me! I'll turn

straight after this."

Sims's story was long, and it went over ground that concerns none of

Hewitt's adventures. But what we learned from it was briefly this. It

had been Mayes's way to meet clever criminals as they left gaol after a

term of imprisonment. In this manner he had met Sims. He had made great

promises, had spoken of great ideas which they could put into execution

together, had lent him money, and then at last had "initiated" him, as

he called it. He had put him to lie back in a chair and had directed his

gaze on the Red Triangle held in the air before him: and then the

Triangle had descended gently, and he felt sleepy, till at the cold

touch of the thing on his forehead his senses had gone. This was done

more than once, and in the end the victim found that Mayes had only to

raise the Triangle before him to send him to sleep instantly. Then he

found that he must do certain things, whether he wanted or not. And it

ended in complete subservience; so that Mayes could set him to

perpetrate a robbery and then appropriate the proceeds for himself, for

by post-hypnotic suggestion he could force him to bring and hand over

every penny. More, the poor wretch was held in constant terror, for he

knew that his very life depended on the lift of his master's hand. He

could be sent into lethargy by a gesture and killed in that state. That

very thing was done, in fact, as we have seen, in two cases.

Sims was but one of a gang of such criminals, brought to heel and made

victims. Their minds and souls, such as they were, had passed into the

miscreant's keeping, and terror reinforced the power of hypnotism. They

committed crimes, and when they failed they took the punishment; when

they succeeded Mayes took the gains, or at any rate the greater part of

them. He went, also, among people who were not yet criminals, and by

degrees made them so, to his own profit. The case of Henning, the

correspondence clerk, was one that had come under Hewitt's eyes. He used

his faculty also with great cunning in other ways--as we had seen in the

matter of the Admiralty code. And it was even said among the gang that a

man he had once hypnotised he could force by suggestion to commit

suicide when he became useless or inconvenient.

Sims and the ragged fellow who had decoyed me into Mayes's den were the

only members of the gang whom we could identify after his death, but

many others must have shared their relief; and I sincerely hope--though

I hardly expect--that they all availed themselves of their liberty to

abandon their evil courses. As in fact the two I speak of did, and took

to honest work.

All that had remained mysterious in the earlier cases now became clear.

In the first, the case of Samuel's diamonds, Denson had been put into

the office where Samuel had found him, by Mayes, with the express design

of effecting a diamond robbery. The robbery was effected, and the

unhappy Denson formed a plan of making a bolt of it himself with the

diamonds. He was, perhaps, what is called a difficult subject in

hypnotism--amenable enough to direct influence, but not sufficiently

retentive of post-hypnotic suggestion. He hid the jewels and adopted a

disguise, but Mayes was watching him better than he supposed. The

diamonds were lost, but Denson was found and done to death--probably not

in that retreat near Barbican, but at night in some empty street. The

diamonds were not found on him, and the body, with the mark of the

Triangle still on it, was taken by night to a central spot in London and

there left. Mayes probably thought that a notable example like this, so

boldly displayed and so conspicuously reported in the Press, would

impress his auxiliaries throughout London with the terror that was one

of his weapons; for they would well understand the meaning of the Red

Triangle, and they would receive a striking illustration of the

consequences of rebellion or bad faith. The money and the watch were

left in the pockets because they were trifles after the loss of fifteen

thousand pounds' worth of diamonds, and their presence in the pockets

made the murder the less easy to understand--which was a point gained.

And as to the keys--Mayes knew nothing of where the diamonds were

hidden, and so had no use for them. For where could he use them? Denson

had left his lodgings, and as to the office, that, he would guess, would

be in the hands of the police, on Samuel's complaint. The immediate

result of this affair on the only honest member of Mayes's circle I have

told in the case of Mr. Jacob Mason. He was not yet thoroughly in

Mayes's hands, but he had "dabbled," as he remorsefully confessed, and

Mayes had already found him useful. He was dangerous, and his end came

quickly. Another victim who had probably begun innocently enough was

Henning, the clerk to Kingsley, Bell and Dalton, and his death in the

Penn's Meadow barn leaves a mystery that never can be positively cleared

up. Was it murder or was it suicide by post-hypnotic suggestion? It will

be remembered that the fire burst out in the barn after Mayes had left

it.

The case of Mr. Telfer was explained clearly enough by Hewitt at the

time; but it is an example of the snares that lie open for the most

innocent person who allows himself to be made the subject of hypnotic

experiments at the hands of persons with whom, and with whose objects,

he is not thoroughly acquainted. And it must be remembered that at this

time there are persons advertising to teach the practice of hypnotism to

anybody who will pay; to anybody who may use the terrible power as he

pleases. More, the danger is so great that it has led two eminent men of

science to issue a public protest and warning, with an urgent plea that

the practice of hypnotism be restricted by law at least as closely as

that of vivisection.

As to what would have happened if Plummer and I had yielded to Mayes's

threats so far as to undergo the "initiation" he proposed, at the time

we were helpless in his hands--of that I have little doubt. I cannot

suppose that he would have wasted much time over me, once I had fallen

lethargic. When Hewitt burst in he would have found me lying dead, with

the Red Triangle on my forehead. It would have saved Mayes a lot of

noise and struggle, at least.

But I often wonder whether or not there was anything in his reference to

the place beyond the sea, where he would make me a great man if I did as

he wished. Was it his design, having accumulated sufficient wealth, to

return and take his natural place among the enlightened rulers of Hayti?

He would not have been so much worse than some of the others.