to the nurse he gave a few words of instruction and closed the door on
her.
“Take the direct road,” he said to the driver. “Swindon—Gloucester.
Good night.”
“Good night, sir.”
He watched anxiously as the machine swung into the main road. Still he
waited, his head bent. Two minutes went by, and the faint sound of a
motor-horn, a long blast and a short, and he sighed.
“They’re clear of the danger zone,” he said.
_Plop!_
He saw the flash, heard the smack of the bullet as it struck the door,
and his hand stiffened. There was a thudding sound—a scream of pain
from a dark corner of the mews and the sound of voices. Leon drew back
into the yard and bolted the door.
“He had a new kind of silencer. Oberzohn is rather a clever old bird.
But my air pistol against their gun for noiselessness.”
“I didn’t expect the attack from that end of the mews.” Manfred was
slipping a Browning back to his pocket.
“If they had come from the other end the car would not have passed—I’d
like to get one of those silencers.”
They went into the house. Poiccart had already extinguished the passage
light.
“You hit your man—does that thing kill?”
“By accident—it is possible. I aimed at his stomach: I fear that I hit
him in the head. He would not have squealed for a stomach wound. I fear
he is alive.”
He felt his way up the stairs and took up the telephone. Immediately a
voice said, “Number?”
“Give me 8877 Treasury.”
He waited, and then a different voice asked:
“Yes—Scotland Yard speaking.”
“Can you give me Mr. Meadows?”
Manfred was watching him frowningly.
“That you, Meadows? . . . They have shot Leon Gonsalez—can you send
police reserves and an ambulance?”
“At once.”
Leon hung up the receiver, hugging himself.
“The idea being——?” said Poiccart.
“These people are clever.” Leon’s voice was charged with admiration.
“They haven’t cut the wires—they’ve simply tapped it at one end and
thrown it out of order on the exchange side.”
“Phew!” Manfred whistled. “You deceived me—you were talking to
Oberzohn?”
“Captain Monty and Lew Cuccini. They may or may not be deceived, but if
they aren’t, we shall know all about it.”
He stopped dead. There was a knock on the front door, a single, heavy
knock. Leon grinned delightedly.
“One of us is now supposed to open an upper window cautiously and look
out, whereupon he is instantly gunned. I’m going to give these fellows a
scare.”
He ran up the stairs to the top floor, and on the landing, outside an
attic door, pulled at a rope. A fire ladder lying flat against the
ceiling came down, and at the same time a small skylight opened. Leon
went into the room, and his pocket-lamp located what he needed: a small
papier-mâché cylinder, not unlike a seven-pound shell. With this on his
arm, he climbed up the ladder on to the roof, fixed the cylinder on a
flat surface, and, striking a match, lit a touch-paper. The paper
sizzled and spluttered, there was a sudden flash and “boom!” a dull
explosion, and a white ball shot up into the sky, described a graceful
curve and burst into a shower of brilliant crimson stars. He waited till
the last died out; then, with the hot cylinder under his arm, descended
the ladder, released the rope that held it in place, and returned to his
two friends.
“They will imagine a secret arrangement of signals with the police,” he
said; “unless my knowledge of their psychology is at fault, we shall not
be bothered again.”
Ten minutes later there was another knock at the door, peremptory,
almost official in its character.
“This,” said Leon, “is a policeman to summon us for discharging
fireworks in the public street!”
He ran lightly down into the hall and without hesitation pulled open the
door. A tall, helmeted figure stood on the doorstep, notebook in hand.
“Are you the gentleman that let off that rocket——” he began.
Leon walked past him, and looked up and down Curzon Street. As he had
expected, the Old Guard had vanished.
_Chapter XI_ _Gurther_
MONTY NEWTON dragged himself home, a weary, angry man, and let himself
in with his key. He found the footman lying on the floor of the hall
asleep, his greatcoat pulled over him, and stirred him to wakefulness
with the toe of his boot.
“Get up,” he growled. “Anybody been here?”
Fred rose, a little dazed, rubbing his eyes.
“The old man’s in the drawing-room,” he said, and his employer passed on
without another word.
As he opened the door, he saw that all the lights in the drawing-room
were lit. Dr. Oberzohn had pulled a small table near the fire, and
before this he sat bolt upright, a tiny chess-board before him, immersed
in a problem. He looked across to the new-comer for a second and then
resumed his study of the board, made a move . . .
“Ach!” he said in tones of satisfaction. “Leskina was wrong! It is
possible to mate in five moves!”
He pushed the chess-men into confusion and turned squarely to face
Newton.
“Well, have you concluded these matters satisfactorily?”
“He brought up the reserves,” said Monty, unlocking a tantalus on a side
table and helping himself liberally to whisky. “They got Cuccini through
the jaw. Nothing serious.”
Dr. Oberzohn laid his bony hands on his knees.
“Gurther must be disciplined,” he said. “Obviously he has lost his
nerve; and when a man loses his nerve also he loses his sense of time.
And his timing—how deplorable! The car had not arrived; my excellent
police had not taken position . . . deplorable!”
“The police are after him: I suppose you know that?” Newton looked over
his glass.
Dr. Oberzohn nodded.
“The extradition so cleverly avoided is now accomplished. But Gurther is
too good a man to be lost. I have arranged a hiding-place for him. He is
of many uses.”
“Where did he go?”
Dr. Oberzohn’s eyebrows wrinkled up and down.
“Who knows?” he said. “He has the little machine. Maybe he has gone to
the house—the green light in the top window will warn him and he will
move carefully.”
Newton walked to the window and looked out. Chester Square looked
ghostly in the grey light of dawn. And then, out of the shadows, he saw
a figure move and walk slowly towards the south side of the square.
“They’re watching this house,” he said, and laughed.
“Where is my young lady?” asked Oberzohn, who was staring glumly into
the fire.
“I don’t know . . . there was a car pulled out of the mews as one of our
men ‘closed’ the entrance. She has probably gone back to Heavytree Farm,
and you can sell that laboratory of yours. There is only one way now,
and that’s the rough way. We have time—we can do a lot in six weeks.
Villa is coming this morning—I wish we’d taken that idol from the
trunk. That may put the police on to the right track.”
Dr. Oberzohn pursed his lips as though he were going to whistle, but he
was guilty of no such frivolity.
“I am glad they found him,” he said precisely. “To them it will be a
scent. What shall they think, but that the unfortunate Barberton had
come upon an old native treasure-house? No, I do not fear that.” He
shook his head. “Mostly I fear Mr. Johnson Lee and the American, Elijah
Washington.”
He put his hand into his jacket pocket and took out a thin pad of
letters.
“Johnson Lee is for me difficult to understand. For what should a
gentleman have to do with this boor that he writes so friendly letters
to him?”
“How did you get these?”
“Villa took them: it was one of the intelligent actions also to leave
the statue.”
He passed one of the letters across to Newton. It was addressed “Await
arrival, Poste Restante, Mosamedes.” The letter was written in a
curiously round, boyish hand. Another remarkable fact was that it was
perforated across the page at regular intervals, and upon the lines
formed by this perforation Mr. Johnson Lee wrote.
“Dear B.,” the letter ran, “I have instructed my banker to cable
you £500. I hope this will carry you through and leave enough to
pay your fare home. You may be sure that I shall not breathe a
word, and your letters, of course, nobody in the house can read
but me. Your story is amazing, and I advise you to come home at
once and see Miss Leicester.
“Your friend,
“JOHNSON LEE.”
The note-paper was headed “Rath Hall, January 13th.”
“They came to me to-day. If I had seen them before, there would have
been no need for the regrettable happening.”
He looked thoughtfully at his friend.
“They will be difficult: I had that expectation,” he said, and Monty
knew that he referred to the Three Just Men. “Yet they are mortal
also—remember that, my Newton: they are mortal also.”
“As we are,” said Newton gloomily.
“That is a question,” said Oberzohn, “so far as I am concerned.”
Dr. Oberzohn never jested; he spoke with the greatest calm and
assurance. The other man could only stare at him.
Although it was light, a green lamp showed clearly in the turret room of
the doctor’s house as he came within sight of the ugly place. And,
seeing that warning, he did not expect to be met in the passage by
Gurther. The man had changed from his resplendent kit and was again in
the soiled and shabby garments he had discarded the night before.
“You have come, Gurther?”
“Ja, Herr Doktor.”
“To my parlour!” barked Dr. Oberzohn, and marched ahead.
Gurther followed him and stood with his back to the door, erect, his
chin raised, his bright, curious eyes fixed on a point a few inches
above his master’s head.
“Tell me now.” The doctor’s ungainly face was working ludicrously.
“I saw the man and struck, Herr Doktor, and then the lights went out and
I went to the floor, expecting him to shoot. . . . I think he must have
taken the gracious lady. I did not see, for there was a palm between us.
I returned at once to the greater hall, and walked through the people on
the floor. They were very frightened.”
“You saw them?”
“Yes, Herr Doktor,” said Gurther. “It is not difficult for me to see in
the dark. After that I ran to the other entrance, but they were gone.”
“Come here.”
The man took two stilted paces towards the doctor and Oberzohn struck
him twice in the face with the flat of his hand. Not a muscle of the
man’s face moved: he stood erect, his lips framed in a half-grin, his
curious eyes staring straight ahead.
“That is for bad time, Gurther. Nobody saw you return?”
“No, Herr Doktor, I came on foot.”
“You saw the light?”
“Yes, Herr Doktor, and I thought it best to be here.”
“You were right,” said Oberzohn. “March!”
He went into the forbidden room, turned the key, and passed into the
super-heated atmosphere. Gurther stood attentively at the door.
Presently the doctor came out, carrying a long case covered with baize
under his arm. He handed it to the waiting man, went into the room, and,
after a few minutes’ absence, returned with a second case, a little
larger.
“March!” he said.
Gurther followed him out of the house and across the rank, weed-grown
“garden” towards the factory. A white mist had rolled up from the canal,
and factory and grounds lay under the veil.
He led the way through an oblong gap in the wall where once a door had
stood, and followed a tortuous course through the blackened beams and
twisted girders that littered the floor. Only a half-hearted attempt had
been made to clear up the wreckage after the fire, and the floor was
ankle-deep in the charred shreds of burnt cloth. Near the far end of the
building, Oberzohn stopped, put down his box and pushed aside the ashes
with his foot until he had cleared a space about three feet square.
Stooping, he grasped an iron ring and pulled, and a flagstone came up
with scarcely an effort, for it was well counter-weighted. He took up
the box again and descended the stone stairs, stopping only to turn on a
light.
The vaults of the store had been practically untouched by the fire.
There were shelves that still carried dusty bales of cotton goods.
Oberzohn was in a hurry. He crossed the stone floor in two strides,
pulled down the bar of another door, and, walking into the darkness,
deposited his box on the floor.
The electric power of the factory had, in the old days, been carried on
two distinct circuits, and the connection with the vaults was
practically untouched by the explosion.
They were in a smaller room now, fairly comfortably furnished. Gurther
knew it well, for it was here that he had spent the greater part of his
first six months in England. Ventilation came through three small
gratings near the roof. There was a furnace, and, as Gurther knew, an
ample supply of fuel in one of the three cellars that opened into the
vault.
“Here will you stay until I send for you,” said Oberzohn. “To-night,
perhaps, after they have searched. You have a pistol?”
“Ja, Herr Doktor.”
“Food, water, bedding—all you need.” Oberzohn jerked open another of
the cellars and took stock of the larder. “To-night I may come for
you—to-morrow night—who knows? You will light the fire at once.” He
pointed to the two baize-covered boxes. “Good morning, Gurther.”
“Good morning, Herr Doktor.”
Oberzohn went up to the factory level, dropped the trap and his foot
pushed back the ashes which hid its presence, and with a cautious look
round he crossed the field to his house. He was hardly in his study
before the first police car came bumping along the lane.
_Chapter XII_ _Leon Theorizes_
MAKING inquiries, Detective-Inspector Meadows discovered that, on the
previous evening at eight o’clock, two men had called upon Barberton.
The first of these was described as tall and rather aristocratic in
appearance. He wore dark, horn-rimmed spectacles. The hotel manager
thought he might have been an invalid, for he walked with a stick. The
second man seemed to have been a servant of some kind, for he spoke
respectfully to the visitor.
“No, he gave no name, Mr. Meadows,” said the manager. “I told him of the
terrible thing which had happened to Mr. Barberton, and he was so upset
that I didn’t like to press the question.”
Meadows was on his circuitous way to Curzon Street when he heard this,
and he arrived in time for breakfast. Manfred’s servants regarded it as
the one eccentricity of an otherwise normal gentleman that he invariably
breakfasted with his butler and chauffeur. This matter had been
discussed threadbare in the tiny servants’ hall, and it no longer
excited comment when Manfred telephoned down to the lower regions and
asked for another plate.
The Triangle were in cheerful mood. Leon Gonsalez was especially bright
and amusing, as he invariably was after such a night as he had spent.
“We searched Oberzohn’s house from cellar to attic,” said Meadows when
the plate had been laid.
“And of course you found nothing. The elegant Gurther?”
“He wasn’t there. That fellow will keep at a distance if he knows that
there’s a warrant out for him. I suspect some sort of signal. There was
a very bright green light burning in one of those ridiculous Gothic
turrets.”
Manfred stifled a yawn.
“Gurther went back soon after midnight,” he said, “and was there until
Oberzohn’s return.”
“Are you sure?” asked the astonished detective.
Leon nodded, his eyes twinkling.
“After that, one of those infernal river mists blotted out observation,”
he said, “but I should imagine Herr Gurther is not far away. Did you see
his companion, Pfeiffer?”
Meadows nodded.
“Yes, he was cleaning boots when I arrived.”
“How picturesque!” said Gonsalez. “I think he will have a valet the next
time he goes to prison, unless the system has altered since your days,
George?”
George Manfred, who had once occupied the condemned cell in Chelmsford
Prison, smiled.
“An interesting man, Gurther,” mused Gonsalez. “I have a feeling that he
will escape hanging. So you could not find him? I found him last night.
But for the lady, who was both an impediment and an interest, we might
have put a period to his activities.” He caught Meadows’ eye. “I should
have handed him to you, of course.”
“Of course,” said the detective dryly.
“A remarkable man, but nervous. You are going to see Mr. Johnson Lee?”
“What made you say that?” asked the detective in astonishment, for he
had not as yet confided his intention to the three men.
“He will surprise you,” said Leon. “Tell me, Mr. Meadows: when you and
George so thoroughly and carefully searched Barberton’s box, did you
find anything that was suggestive of his being a cobbler, let us say—or
a bookbinder?”
“I think in his sister’s letter there was a reference to the books he
had made. I found nothing particular except an awl and a long oblong of
wood which was covered with pinpricks. As a matter of fact, when I saw
it my first thought was that, living the kind of life he must have done
in the wilderness, it was rather handy to be able to repair his own
shoes. The idea of bookbinding is a new one.”
“I should say he never bound a book in his life, in the ordinary sense
of the word,” remarked Manfred; “and as Leon says, you will find Johnson
Lee a very surprising man.”
“Do you know him?”
Manfred nodded gravely.
“I have just been on the telephone to him,” he said. “You’ll have to be
careful of Mr. Lee, Meadows. Our friend the snake may be biting his way,
and will, if he hears a breath of suspicion that he was in Barberton’s
confidence.”
The detective put down his knife and fork.
“I wish you fellows would stop being mysterious,” he said, half annoyed,
half amused. “What is behind this business? You talk of the snake as
though you could lay your hands on him.”
“And we could,” they said in unison.
“Who is he?” challenged the detective.
“The Herr Doktor,” smiled Gonsalez.
“Oberzohn?”
Leon nodded.
“I thought you would have discovered that by connecting the original
three murders together—and murders they were. First”—he ticked the
names off on his fingers—“we have a stockbroker. This gentleman was a
wealthy speculator who occasionally financed highly questionable deals.
Six months before his death he drew from the bank a very large sum of
money in notes. By an odd coincidence the bank clerk, going out to
luncheon, saw his client and Oberzohn driving past in a taxicab, and as
they came abreast he saw a large blue envelope go into Oberzohn’s
pocket. The money had been put into a blue envelope when it was drawn.
The broker had financed the doctor, and when the scheme failed and the
money was lost, he not unnaturally asked for its return. He trusted
Oberzohn not at all; carried his receipt about in his pocket, and never
went anywhere unless he was armed—that fact did not emerge at the
inquest, but you know it is true.”
Meadows nodded.
“He threatened Oberzohn with exposure at a meeting they had in
Winchester Street, on the day of his death. That night he returns from a
theatre or from his club, and is found dead on the doorstep. No receipt
is found. What follows?
“A man, a notorious blackmailer, homeless and penniless, was walking
along the Bayswater Road, probably looking for easy money, when he saw
the broker’s car going into Orme Place. He followed on the off-chance of
begging a few coppers. The chauffeur saw him. The tramp, on the other
hand, must have seen something else. He slept the next night at Rowton
House, told a friend, who had been in prison with him, that he had a
million pounds as good as in his hand. . . .”
Meadows laughed helplessly.
“Your system of investigation is evidently more thorough than ours.”
“It is complementary to yours,” said George quietly. “Go on, Leon.”
“Now what happened to our friend the burglar? He evidently saw somebody
in Orme Place whom he either recognized or trailed to his home. For the
next day or two he was in and out of public telephone booths, though no
number has been traced. He goes to Hyde Park, obviously by
appointment—and the snake-bites!
“There was another danger to the confederacy. The bank clerk, learning
of the death of the client, is troubled. I have proof that he called
Oberzohn on the ’phone. If you remember, when the broker’s affairs were
gone into, it was found that he was almost insolvent. A large sum of
money had been drawn out of the bank and paid to ‘X.’ The certainty that
he knew who ‘X.’ was, worried this decent bank clerk, and he called
Oberzohn, probably to ask him why he had not made a statement. On the
day he telephoned the snake man, that day he died.”
The detective was listening in silent wonder.
“It sounds like a page out of a sensational novel,” he said, “yet it
hangs together.”
“It hangs together because it is true.” Poiccart’s deep voice broke into
the conversation. “This has been Oberzohn’s method all his life. He is
strong for logic, and there is no more logical action in the world than
the destruction of those who threaten your safety and life.”
Meadows pushed away his plate, his breakfast half eaten.
“Proof,” he said briefly.
“What proof can you have, my dear fellow?” scoffed Leon.
“The proof is the snake,” persisted Meadows. “Show me how he could
educate a deadly snake to strike, as he did, when the victim was under
close observation, as in the case of Barberton, and I will believe you.”
The Three looked at one another and smiled together.
“One of these days I will show you,” said Leon. “They have certainly
tamed their snake! He can move so quickly that the human eye cannot
follow him. Always he bites on the most vital part, and at the most
favourable time. He struck at me last night, but missed me. The next
time he strikes”—he was speaking slowly and looking at the detective
through the veriest slits of his half-closed eyelids—“the next time he
strikes, not all Scotland Yard on the one side, nor his agreeable
company of gunmen on the other, will save him!”
Poiccart rose suddenly. His keen ears had heard the ring of a bell, and
he went noiselessly down the stairs.
“The whole thing sounds like a romance to me.” Meadows was rubbing his
chin irritably. “I am staring at the covers of a book whilst you are
reading the pages. I suppose you devils have the A and Z of the story?”
Leon nodded.
“Why don’t you tell me?”
“Because I value your life,” said Leon simply. “Because I wish—we all
wish—to keep the snake’s attention upon ourselves.”
Poiccart came back at that moment and put his head in the door.
“Would you like to see Mr. Elijah Washington?” he asked, and they saw by
the gleam in his eyes that Mr. Elijah Washington was well worth meeting.
He arrived a second or two later, a tall, broad-shouldered man with a
reddish face. He wore pince-nez, and behind the rimless glasses his eyes
were alive and full of bubbling laughter. From head to foot he was
dressed in white; the cravat which flowed over the soft silk shirt was a
bright yellow; the belt about his waist as bright as scarlet.
He stood beaming upon the company, his white panama crushed under his
arm, both huge hands thrust into his trousers pockets.
“Glad to know you folks,” he greeted them in a deep boom of a voice. “I
guess Mr. Barberton told you all about me. That poor little guy! Listen:
he was a he-man all right, but kinder mysterious. They told me I’d find
the police chief here—Captain Meadows?”
“Mister,” said the inspector, “I’m that man.”
Washington put out his huge paw and caught the detective’s hand with a
grip that would have been notable in a boa constrictor.
“Glad to know you. My name is Elijah Washington—the Natural History
Syndicate, Chicago.”
“Sit down, Mr. Washington.” Poiccart pushed forward a chair.
“I want to tell you gentlemen that this Barberton was murdered. Snake?
Listen, I know snakes—brought up with ’um! Snakes are my hobby: I know
’um from egg-eaters to ‘tigers’—_notechis sentatus_, moccasins,
copperheads, corals, mamba, _fer de lance_—gosh! snakes are just common
objects like flies. An’ I tell you boys right here and now, that there
ain’t a snake in this or the next world that can climb up a parapet,
bite a man and get away with it with a copper looking on.”
He beamed from one to the other: he was almost paternal.
“I’d like to have shown you folks a worse-than-mamba,” he said
regretfully, “but carrying round snakes in your pocket is just hot dog:
it’s like a millionaire wearin’ diamond ear-rings just to show he can
afford ’em. I liked that little fellow; I’m mighty sorry he’s dead, but
if any man tells you that a snake bit him, go right up to him, hit him
on the nose, and say ‘Liar!’”
“You will have some coffee?” Manfred had rung the bell.
“Sure I will: never have got used to this tea-drinking habit. I’m on the
wagon too: got scared up there in the backlands of Angola——”
“What were you doing there?” asked Leon.