after the stranger, she saw the guard appear round a bend in the road,
saw him stop and speak to the stranger. Apparently they knew one
another, for they shook hands at meeting, and after a while Digby
pointed down the road to where she was standing, and she saw the man
nod. Soon after the stranger went on out of view. Who could he be? Was
it an additional guard that the three men had put to protect her? When
Digby came up to her, she asked him.
“That gentleman, miss? He is Mr. Poiccart.”
“Poiccart?” she said, delighted. “Oh, I wish I had known!”
“I was surprised to see him,” said the guard. “As a matter of fact, he’s
the one of the three gentlemen I’ve met the most. He’s generally in
Curzon Street, even when the others are away.”
Digby had nothing to say about Poiccart except that he was a very quiet
gentleman and took no active part in the operations of the Just Men.
“I wonder why he wanted to know about onions?” asked the girl
thoughtfully. “That sounded awfully mysterious.”
It would not have been so mysterious to Leon.
The house retired to bed soon after ten, Alma going the rounds, and
examining the new bolts and locks which had been attached that morning
to every door which gave ingress to the house.
Mirabelle was unaccountably tired, and was asleep almost as soon as her
head touched the pillow.
She heard in her dreams the swish of the rain beating against her
window, lay for a long time trying to energize herself to rise and shut
the one open window where the curtains were blowing in. Then came a
heavier patter against a closed pane, and something rattled on the floor
of her room. She sat up. It could not be hail, although there was a
rumble of thunder in the distance.
She got out of bed, pulled on her dressing-gown, went to the window, and
had all her work to stifle a scream. Somebody was standing on the path
below . . . a woman! She leaned out.
“Who is it?” she asked.
“It is me—I—Joan!” There was a sob in the voice of the girl. Even in
that light Mirabelle could see that the girl was drenched. “Don’t wake
anybody. Come down—I want you.”
“What is wrong?” asked Mirabelle in a low voice.
“Everything . . . everything!”
She was on the verge of hysteria. Mirabelle lit a candle and crossed the
room, went downstairs softly, so that Alma should not be disturbed.
Putting the candle on the table, she unbarred and unbolted the door,
opened it, and, as she did so, a man slipped through the half-opened
door, his big hands smothering the scream that rose to her lips.
Another man followed and, lifting the struggling girl, carried her into
the drawing-room. One of the men took a small iron bottle from his
pocket, to which ran a flexible rubber tube ending in a large red cap.
Her captor removed his hands just as long as it took to fix the cap over
her face. A tiny faucet was turned. Mirabelle felt a puff on her face, a
strangely sweet taste, and then her heart began to beat thunderously.
She thought she was dying, and writhed desperately to free herself.
“She’s all right,” said Monty Newton, lifting an eyelid for a second.
“Get a blanket.” He turned fiercely to the whimpering girl behind him.
“Shut up, you!” he said savagely. “Do you want to rouse the whole
house?”
A woebegone Joan was whimpering softly, tears running down her face, her
hands clasping and unclasping in the agony of her mind.
“You told me you weren’t going to hurt her!” she sobbed.
“Get out,” he hissed, and pointed to the door. She went meekly.
A heavy blanket was wrapped round the unconscious girl, and, lifting her
between them, the two men went out into the rain, where the old trolley
was waiting, and slid her along the straw-covered floor. In another
second the trolley moved off, gathering speed.
By this time the effect of the gas had worn off and Mirabelle had
regained consciousness. She put out a hand and touched a woman’s knee.
“Who is that—Alma?”
“No,” said a miserable voice, “it’s Joan.”
“Joan? Oh, yes, of course . . . why did you do it?—how wicked!”
“Shut up!” Monty snarled. “Wait until you get to—where you’re going,
before you start these ‘whys’ and ‘wherefores.’”
Mirabelle was deathly sick and bemused, and for the next hour she was
too ill to feel even alarmed. Her head was going round and round, and
ached terribly, and the jolting of the truck did not improve matters in
this respect.
Monty, who was sitting with his back to the truck’s side, was smoking.
He cursed now and then, as some unusually heavy jolt flung him forward.
They passed through the heart of the storm: the flicker of lightning was
almost incessant and the thunder was deafening. Rain was streaming down
the hood of the trolley, rendering it like a drum.
Mirabelle fell into a little sleep and woke feeling better. It was still
dark, and she would not have known the direction they were taking, only
the driver took the wrong turning coming through a country town, and by
the help of the lightning she saw what was indubitably the stand of a
race-track, and a little later saw the word “Newbury.” They were going
towards London, she realized.
At this hour of the morning there was little or no traffic, and when
they turned on to the new Great West Road a big car went whizzing past
at seventy miles an hour and the roar of it woke the girl. Now she could
feel the trolley wheels skidding on tram-lines. Lights appeared with
greater frequency. She saw a store window brilliantly illuminated, the
night watchman having evidently forgotten to turn off the lights at the
appointed hour.
Soon they were crossing the Thames. She saw the red and green lights of
a tug, and black upon near black a string of barges in mid-stream. She
dozed again and was jerked wide awake when the trolley swayed and
skidded over a surface more uneven than any. Once its wheels went into a
pothole and she was flung violently against the side. Another time it
skidded and was brought up with a crash against some obstacle. The
bumping grew more gentle, and then the machine stopped, and Monty jumped
down and called to her sharply.
Her head was clear now, despite its throbbing. She saw a queer-shaped
house, all gables and turrets, extraordinarily narrow for its height. It
seemed to stand in the middle of a field. And yet it was in London: she
could see the glow of furnace fires and hear the deep boom of a ship’s
siren as it made its way down the river on the tide.
She had not time to take observations, for Monty fastened to her arm and
she squelched through the mud up a flight of stone steps into a dimly
lit hall. She had a confused idea that she had seen little dogs standing
on the side of the steps, and a big bird with a long bill, but these
probably belonged to the smoke of dreams which the gas had left.
Monty opened a door and pushed her in before him, and she stared into
the face of Dr. Oberzohn.
He wore a black velvet dressing-gown that had once been a regal garment
but was now greasy and stained. On his egg-shaped head he had an
embroidered smoking-cap. His feet were encased in warm velvet slippers.
He put down the book he had been reading, rubbed his glasses on one
velvet sleeve, and then:
“So!” he said.
He pointed to the remains of a fire.
“Sit down, Mirabelle Leicester, and warm yourself. You have come
quickly, my friend,”—he addressed Monty.
“I’m black and blue all over,” growled Newton. “Why couldn’t we have a
car?”
“Because the cars were engaged, as I told you.”
“Did you——” began Newton quickly, but the old man glanced
significantly at the girl, shivering before the fire and warming her
hands mechanically.
“I will answer, but you need not ask, in good time. This is not of all
moments the most propitious. Where is your woman?”
He had forgotten Joan, and went out to find her shivering in the
passage.
“Do you want her?” he asked, poking his head in the door.
“She shall go with this girl. You will explain.”
“Where are you going to put her?”
Oberzohn pointed to the floor.
“Here? But——”
“No, no. My friend, you are too quick to see what is not meant. The
gracious lady shall live in a palace—I have a certain friend who will
no longer need it.”
His face twitched in the nearest he ever approached to a smile. Groping
under the table, he produced a pair of muddy Wellingtons, kicked off his
slippers and pulled on the boots with many gasps and jerks.
“All that they need is there: I have seen to it. March!”
He led the way out of the room, pulling the girl to her feet, and Newton
followed, Joan bringing up the rear. Inside the factory, Oberzohn
produced a small hand torch from his pocket and guided them through the
debris till he came to that part of the floor where the trap was. With
his foot he moved the covering of rubbish, pulled up the trap and went
down.
“I can’t go down there, Monty, I can’t!” said Joan’s agitated voice.
“What are you going to do with us? My God! if I’d known——”
“Don’t be a fool,” said Newton roughly. “What have you got to be afraid
of? There’s nothing here. We want you to look after her for a day or
two. You don’t want her to go down by herself: she’d be frightened to
death.”
Her teeth chattering, Joan stumbled down the steps behind him. Certainly
the first view of her new quarters was reassuring. Two little trestle
beds had been made; the underground room had been swept clean, and a new
carpet laid on the floor. Moreover, the apartment was brilliantly lit,
and a furnace gave almost an uncomfortable warmth which was nevertheless
very welcome, for the temperature had dropped 20° since noon.
“In this box there are clothes of all varieties, and expensive to
purchase,” said Oberzohn, pointing to a brand-new trunk at the foot of
one of the beds. “Food you will have in plenty—bread and milk newly
every day. By night you shall keep the curtain over the ventilator.” On
the wall was a small black curtain about ten inches square.
Monty took her into the next apartment and showed her the wash-place.
There was even a bath, a compulsory fixture under the English Factory
Act in a store of this description, where, in the old days, men had to
handle certain insanitary products of the Coast.
“But how do we get out, Monty? Where do we get exercise?”
“You’ll come out to-morrow night: I’ll see to that,” he said, dropping
his voice. “Now listen, Joan: you’ve got to be a sensible girl and help
me. There’s money in this—bigger money than you have ever dreamed of.
And when we’ve got this unpleasant business over, I’m taking you away
for a trip round the world.”
It was the old promise, given before, never fulfilled, always hoped for.
But this time it did not wholly remove her uneasiness.
“But what are you going to do with the girl?” she asked.
“Nothing; she will be kept here for a week. I’ll swear to you that
nothing will happen to her. At the end of a week she’s to be released
without a hair of her head being harmed.”
She looked at him searchingly. As far as she was able to judge, he was
speaking the truth. And yet——
“I can’t understand it,”—she shook her head, and for once Monty Newton
was patient with her.
“She’s the owner of a big property in Africa, and that we shall get, if
things work out right,” he said. “The point is that she must claim
within a few days. If she doesn’t, the property is ours.”
Her face cleared.
“Is that all?” She believed him, knew him well enough to detect his rare
sincerity. “That’s taken a load off my mind, Monty. Of course I’ll stay
and look after her for you—it makes it easier to know that nothing will
happen. What are those baize things behind the furnace—they look like
boxes?”
He turned on her quickly.
“I was going to tell you about those,” he said. “You’re not to touch
them under any circumstances. They belong to the old man and he’s very
stuffy about such things. Leave them just as they are. Let him touch
them and nobody else. Do you understand?”
She nodded, and, to his surprise, pecked his cheek with her cold lips.
“I’ll help you, boy,” she said tremulously. “Maybe that trip will come
off after all, if——”
“If what?”
“Those men—the men you were talking about—the Four Just Men, don’t
they call themselves? They scare me sick, Monty! They were the people
who took her away before, and they’ll kill us—even Oberzohn says that.
They’re after him. Has he”—she hesitated—“has he killed anybody? That
snake stuff . . . you’re not in it, are you, Monty?”
She looked more like a child than a sophisticated woman, clinging to his
arm, her blue eyes looking pleadingly into his.
“Stuff! What do I know about snakes?” He disengaged himself and came
back to where Oberzohn was waiting, a figure of patience.
The girl was lying on the bed, her face in the crook of her arm, and he
was gazing at her, his expression inscrutable.
“That is all, then. Good night, gracious ladies.”
He turned and marched back towards the step and waved his hand. Monty
followed. The girl heard the thud of the trap fall, the scrape of the
old man’s boots, and then a rumbling sound, which she did not
immediately understand. Later, when in a panic, she tried the trap, she
found that a heavy barrel had been put on top, and that it was
immovable.
_Chapter XX_ _Gurther Reports_
DR. OBERZHON had not been to bed for thirty-five years. It was his
practice to sleep in a chair, and alternate his dozes with copious
draughts from his favourite authors. Mostly the books were about the
soul, and free will, and predestination, with an occasional dip into
Nietzsche by way of light recreation. In ordinary circumstances he would
have had need for all the philosophy he could master; for ruin had come.
The destruction of his store, which, to all intents and purposes, was
uninsured, would have been the crowning stroke of fate but for the
golden vision ahead.
Villa, that handsome half-breed, had arrived in England and had been
with the doctor all the evening. At that moment he was on his way to
Liverpool to catch the Coast boat, and he had left with his master a
record of the claims that had already been pegged out on Monte Doro, as
he so picturesquely renamed the new mountain. There were millions there;
uncountable wealth. And between the Herr Doktor and the achievement of
this colossal fortune was a life which he had no immediate desire to
take. The doctor was a bachelor; women bored him. Yet he was prepared to
take the extreme step if by so doing he could doubly ensure his fortune.
Mirabelle dead gave him one chance; Mirabelle alive and persuaded,
multiplied that chance by a hundred.
He opened the book he was reading at the last page and took out the
folded paper. It was a special licence to marry, and had been duly
registered at the Greenwich Registrar’s Office since the day before the
girl had entered his employment. This was his second and most powerful
weapon. He could have been legally married on this nearly a week ago. It
was effective for two months at least, and only five days separated him
from the necessity of a decision. If the time expired, Mirabelle could
live. It was quite a different matter, killing in cold blood a woman for
whom the police would be searching, and with whose disappearance his
name would be connected, from that other form of slaying he favoured:
the striking down of strange men in crowded thoroughfares. She was not
for the snake—as yet.
He folded the paper carefully, put it back in the book and turned the
page, when there was a gentle tap at the door and he sat up.
“Come in, Pfeiffer. March!”
The door opened slowly and a man sidled into the room, and at the sight
of him Dr. Oberzohn gasped.
“Gurther!” he stammered, for once thrown out of his stride.
Gurther smiled and nodded, his round eyes fixed on the tassel of the
Herr Doktor’s smoking-cap.
“You have returned—and failed?”
“The American, I think, is dead, Herr Doktor,” said the man in his
staccato tone. “The so excellent Pfeiffer is also—dead!”
The doctor blinked twice.
“Dead?” he said gratingly. “Who told you this?”
“I saw him. Something happened . . . to the snake. Pfeiffer was bitten.”
The old man’s hard eyes fixed him.
“So!” he said softly.
“He died very quickly—in the usual manner,” jerked Gurther, still with
that stupid smile.
“So!” said the doctor again. “All then was failure, and out of it comes
an American, who is nothing, and Pfeiffer, who is much—dead!”
“God have him in his keeping!” said Gurther, not lowering or raising his
eyes. “And all the way back I thought this, Herr Doktor—how much better
that it should be Pfeiffer and not me. Though my nerves are so bad.”
“So!” said the doctor for the fourth time, and held out his hand.
Gurther slipped his fingers into his waistcoat pocket and took out a
gold cigarette-case. The doctor opened it and looked at the five
cigarettes that reposed, at the two halves of the long holder neatly
lying in their proper place, closed the case with a snap and laid it on
the table.
“What shall I do with you, Gurther? To-morrow the police will come and
search this house.”
“There is the cellar, Herr Doktor: it is very comfortable there. I would
prefer it.”
Dr. Oberzohn made a gesture like a boy wiping something from a slate.
“That is not possible: it is in occupation,” he said. “I must find a new
place for you.” He stared and mused. “There is the boat,” he said.
Gurther’s smile did not fade.
The boat was a small barge, which had been drawn up into the private
dock of the O. & S. factory, and had been rotting there for years, the
playing-ground of rats, the doss-house of the homeless. The doctor saw
what was in the man’s mind.
“It may be comfortable. I will give you some gas to kill the rats, and
it will only be for five-six days.”
“Ja, Herr Doktor.”
“For to-night you may sleep in the kitchen. One does not expect——”
There was a thunderous knock on the outer door. The two men looked at
one another, but still Gurther grinned.
“I think it is the police,” said the doctor calmly.
He got up to his feet, lifted the seat of a long hard-looking sofa,
disclosing a deep cavity, and Gurther slipped in, and the seat was
replaced. This done, the doctor waddled to the door and turned the key.
“Good morning, Inspector Meadows.”
“May I come in?” said Meadows.
Behind him were two police officers, one in uniform.
“Do you wish to see me? Certainly.” He held the door cautiously open and
only Meadows came in, and preceded the doctor into his study.
“I want Mirabelle Leicester,” said Meadows curtly. “She was abducted
from her home in the early hours of this morning, and I have information
that the car which took her away came to this house. There are tracks of
wheels in the mud outside.”
“If there are car tracks, they are mine,” said the doctor calmly. He
enumerated the makes of machines he possessed. “There is another matter:
as to cars having come here in the night, I have a sense of hearing, Mr.
Inspector Meadows, and I have heard many cars in Hangman’s Lane—but not
in my ground. Also, I’m sure you have not come to tell me of abducted
girls, but to disclose to me the miscreant who burnt my store. That is
what I expected of you.”
“What you expect of me and what you get will be entirely different
propositions,” said Meadows unpleasantly. “Now come across, Oberzohn! We
know why you want this girl—the whole plot has been blown. You think
you’ll prevent her from making a claim on the Portuguese Government for
the renewal of a concession granted in June, 1912, to her father.”
If Dr. Oberzohn was shocked to learn that his secret was out, he did not
show it by his face. Not a muscle moved.
“Of such matters I know nothing. It is a fantasy, a story of fairies.
Yet it must be true, Mr. Inspector Meadows, if you say it. No: I think
you are deceived by the criminals of Curzon Street, W. Men of blood and
murder, with records that are infamous. You desire to search my house?
It is your privilege.” He waved his hand. “I do not ask you for the
ticket of search. From basement to attic the house is yours.”
He was not surprised when Meadows took him at his word, and, going out
into the hall, summoned his assistants. They visited each room
separately, the old cook and the half-witted Danish girl accepting this
visitation as a normal occurrence: they had every excuse to do so, for
this was the second time in a fortnight that the house had been visited
by the police.
“Now I’ll take a look at your room, if you don’t mind,” said Meadows.
His quick eyes caught sight of the box ottoman against the wall, and the
fact that the doctor was sitting thereon added to his suspicions.
“I will look in here, if you please,” he said.
Oberzohn rose and the detective lifted the lid. It was empty. The
ottoman had been placed against the wall, at the bottom of which was a
deep recess. Gurther had long since rolled through the false back.
“You see—nothing,” said Oberzohn. “Now perhaps you would like to search
my factory? Perhaps amongst the rafters and the burnt girders I may
conceal a something. Or the barge in my slipway? Who knows what I may
place amongst the rats?”
“You’re almost clever,” said Meadows, “and I don’t profess to be a match
for you. But there are three men in this town who are! I’ll be frank
with you, Oberzohn. I want to put you where I can give you a fair trial,
in accordance with the law of this country, and I shall resist, to the
best of my ability, any man taking the law into his own hands. But
whether you’re innocent or guilty, I wouldn’t stand in your shoes for
all the money in Angola!”
“So?” said the doctor politely.
“Give up this girl, and I rather fancy that half your danger will be at
an end. I tell you, you’re too clever for me. It’s a stupid thing for a
police officer to say, but I can’t get at the bottom of your snake. They
have.”
The old man’s brows worked up and down.
“Indeed?” he said blandly. “And of which snake do you speak?”
Meadows said nothing more. He had given his warning: if Oberzohn did not
profit thereby, he would be the loser.
Nobody doubted, least of all he, that, in defiance of all laws that man
had made, independent of all the machinery of justice that human
ingenuity had devised, inevitable punishment awaited Oberzohn and was
near at hand.
_Chapter XXI_ _The Account Book_
IT was five o’clock in the morning when the mud-spattered Spanz
dropped down through the mist and driving rain of the Chiltern Hills and
struck the main Gloucester Road, pulling up with a jerk before Heavytree
Farm. Manfred sprang out, but before he could reach the door, Aunt Alma
had opened it, and by the look of her face he saw that she had not slept
that night.
“Where is Digby?” he asked.
“He’s gone to interview the Chief Constable,” said Alma. “Come in, Mr.
Gonsalez.”
Leon was wet from head to foot: there was not a dry square centimetre
upon him. But he was his old cheerful self as he stamped into the hall,
shaking himself free of his heavy mackintosh.
“Digby, of course, heard nothing, George.”
“I’m the lightest sleeper in the world,” said Aunt Alma, “but I heard
not a sound. The first thing I knew was when a policeman came up and
knocked at my door and told me that he’d found the front door open.”
“No clue was left at all?”
“Yes,” said Aunt Alma. They went into the drawing-room and she took up
from the table a small black bottle with a tube and cap attached. “I
found this behind the sofa. She’d been lying on the sofa; the cushions
were thrown on the floor and she tore the tapestry in her struggle.”
Leon turned the faucet, and, as the gas hissed out, sniffed.
“The new dental gas,” he said. “But how did they get in? No window was
open or forced?”
“They came in at the door: I’m sure of that. And they had a woman with
them,” said Aunt Alma proudly.
“How do you know?”
“There must have been a woman,” said Aunt Alma. “Mirabelle would not
have opened the door except to a woman, without waking either myself or
Mr. Digby.”
Leon nodded, his eyes gleaming.
“Obviously,” he said.
“And I found the marks of a woman’s foot in the passage. It is dried
now, but you can still see it.”
“I have already seen it,” said Leon. “It is to the left of the door: a
small pointed shoe and a rubber heel. Miss Leicester opened the door to
the woman, the men came in, and the rest was easy. You can’t blame
Digby,” he said appealingly to George.
He was the friend at court of every agent, but this time Manfred did not
argue with him.
“I blame myself,” he said. “Poiccart told me——”
“He was here,” said Aunt Alma.
“Who—Poiccart?” asked Manfred, surprised, and Gonsalez slapped his
knee.
“That’s it, of course! What fools we are! We ought to have known why
this wily old fox had left his post. What time was he here?”