“He must have left the house immediately after us,” said Leon, with a
wide grin of amusement, “caught the five o’clock train for Gloucester,
taxied across.”
“And after that?” suggested Manfred.
Leon scratched his chin.
“I wonder if he’s back?” He took up the telephone and put a trunk call
through to London. “Somehow I don’t think he is. Here’s Digby, looking
as if he expected to be summarily executed.”
The police pensioner was indeed in a mournful and pathetic mood.
“I don’t know what you’ll think of me, Mr. Manfred——” he began.
“I’ve already expressed a view on that subject.” George smiled faintly.
“I’m not blaming you, Digby. To leave a man who has been knocked about
as you have been without an opposite number, was the height of folly. I
didn’t expect them back so soon. As a matter of fact, I intended putting
four men on from to-day. You’ve been making inquiries?”
“Yes, sir. The car went through Gloucester very early in the morning and
took the Swindon road. It was seen by a cyclist policeman; he said there
was a fat roll of tarpaulin lying on the tent of the trolley.”
“No sign of anybody chasing it in a car, or on a motor-bicycle?” asked
Manfred anxiously.
Poiccart had recently taken to motor-cycling.
“No, sir.”
“You saw Mr. Poiccart?”
“Yes, he was just going back to London. He said he wanted to see the
place with his own eyes.”
George was disappointed. If it had been a visit of curiosity, Poiccart’s
absence from town was understandable. He would not have returned at the
hour he was rung up.
Aunt Alma was cooking a hasty breakfast, and they had accepted her offer
gratefully, for both men were famished; and they were in the midst of
the meal when the London call came through.
“Is that you, Poiccart?”
“That is I,” said Poiccart’s voice. “Where are you speaking from?”
“Heavytree Farm. Did you see anything of Miss Leicester?”
There was a pause.
“Has she gone?”
“You didn’t know?”
Another pause.
“Oh, yes, I knew; in fact, I accompanied her part of the way to London,
and was bumped off when the trolley struck a refuge on the Great West
Road. Meadows is here: he has just come from Oberzohn’s. He says he has
found nothing.”
Manfred thought for a while.
“We will be back soon after nine,” he said.
“Leon driving you?” was the dry response.
“Yes—in spite of which we shall be back at nine.”
“That man has got a grudge against my driving,” said Leon, when Manfred
reported the conversation. “I knew it was he when Digby described the
car and said there was a fat roll of mackintosh on the top. ‘Fat roll’
is not a bad description. Do you know whether Poiccart spoke to Miss
Leicester?”
“Yes, he asked her if she grew onions”—a reply which sent Leon into
fits of silent laughter.
Breakfast was over and they were making their preparations for
departure, when Leon asked unexpectedly:
“Has Miss Leicester a writing-table of her own?”
“Yes, in her room,” said Alma, and took him up to show him the old
bureau.
He opened the drawers without apology, took out some old letters, turned
them over, reading them shamelessly. Then he opened the blotter. There
were several sheets of blank paper headed “Heavytree Farm,” and two
which bore her signature at the bottom. Alma explained that the bank
account of the establishment was in Mirabelle’s name, and, when it was
necessary to draw cash, it was a rule of the bank that it should be
accompanied by a covering letter—a practice which still exists in some
of the old West-country banking establishments. She unlocked a drawer
that he had not been able to open and showed him a cheque-book with
three blank cheques signed with her name.
“That banker has known me since I was so high,” said Alma scornfully.
“You wouldn’t think there’d be so much red-tape.”
Leon nodded.
“Do you keep any account books?”
“Yes, I do,” said Alma in surprise. “The household accounts, you mean?”
“Could I see one?”
She went out and returned with a thin ledger, and he made a brief
examination of its contents. Wholly inadequate, thought Alma,
considering the trouble she had taken and the interest he had shown.
“That’s that,” he said. “Now, George, _en voiture_!”
“Why did you want to see the account book?” asked Manfred as they bowled
up the road.
“I am naturally commercial-minded,” was the unsatisfactory reply. “And,
George, we’re short of juice. Pray like a knight in armour that we sight
a filling station in the next ten minutes.”
If George had prayed, the prayer would have been answered: just as the
cylinders started to miss they pulled up the car before a garage, and
took in a supply which was more than sufficient to carry them to their
destination. It was nine o’clock exactly when the car stopped before the
house. Poiccart, watching the arrival from George’s room, smiled grimly
at the impertinent gesture of the chauffeur.
Behind locked doors the three sat in conference.
“This has upset all my plans,” said Leon at last. “If the girl was safe,
I should settle with Oberzohn to-night.”
George Manfred stroked his chin thoughtfully. He had once worn a trim
little beard, and had never got out of that beard-stroking habit of his.
“We think exactly alike. I intended suggesting that course,” he said
gravely.
“The trouble is Meadows. I should like the case to have been settled one
way or the other, and for Meadows to be out of it altogether. One
doesn’t wish to embarrass him. But the urgency is very obvious. It would
have been very easy,” said Leon, a note of regret in his gentle voice.
“Now of course it is impossible until the girl is safe. But for
that”—he shrugged his shoulders—“to-morrow friend Oberzohn would have
experienced a sense of lassitude. No pain . . . just a little tiredness.
Sleep, coma—death on the third day. He is an old man, and one has no
desire to hurt the aged. There is no hurt like fear. As for Gurther, we
will try a more violent method, unless Oberzohn gets him first. I
sincerely hope he does.”
“This is news to me. What is this about Gurther?” asked Poiccart.
Manfred told him.
“Leon is right now,” Poiccart nodded. He rose from the table and
unlocked the door. “If any of you men wish to sleep, your rooms are
ready; the curtains are drawn, and I will wake you at such and such an
hour.”
But neither were inclined for sleep. George had to see a client that
morning: a man with a curious story to tell. Leon wanted a carburetter
adjusted. They would both sleep in the afternoon, they said.
The client arrived soon after. Poiccart admitted him and put him in the
dining-room to wait before he reported his presence.
“I think this is your harem man,” he said, and went downstairs to show
up the caller.
He was a commonplace-looking man with a straggling, fair moustache and a
weak chin.
“Debilitated or degenerate,” he suggested.
“Probably a little of both,” assented Manfred, when the butler had
announced him.
He came nervously into the room and sat down opposite to Manfred.
“I tried to get you on the ’phone last night,” he complained, “but I got
no answer.”
“My office hours are from ten till two,” said George good-humouredly.
“Now will you tell me again this story of your sister?”
The man leaned back in the chair and clasped his knees, and began in a
sing-song voice, as though he were reciting something that he had
learned by heart.
“We used to live in Turkey. My father was a merchant of Constantinople,
and my sister, who went to school in England, got extraordinary ideas,
and came back a most violent pro-Turk. She is a very pretty girl and she
came to know some of the best Turkish families, although my father and I
were dead against her going about with these people. One day she went to
call on Hymar Pasha, and that night she didn’t come back. We went to the
Pasha’s house and asked for her, but he told us she had left at four
o’clock. We then consulted the police, and they told us, after they had
made investigations, that she had been seen going on board a ship which
left for Odessa the same night. I hadn’t seen her for ten years, until I
went down to the Gringo Club, which is a little place in the East
End—not high class, you understand, but very well conducted. There was
a cabaret show after midnight, and whilst I was sitting there, thinking
about going home—very bored, you understand, because that sort of thing
doesn’t appeal to me—I saw a girl come out from behind a curtain
dressed like a Turkish woman, and begin a dance. She was in the middle
of the dance when her veil slipped off. It was Marie! She recognized me
at once, and darted through the curtains. I tried to follow her, but
they held me back.”
“Did you go to the police?” asked Manfred.
The man shook his head.
“No, what is the use of the police?” he went on in a monotonous tone. “I
had enough of them in Constantinople, and I made up my mind that I would
get outside help. And then somebody told me of you, and I came along.
Mr. Manfred, is it impossible for you to rescue my sister? I’m perfectly
sure that she is being detained forcibly and against her will.”
“At the Gringo Club?” asked Manfred.
“Yes,” he nodded.
“I’ll see what I can do,” said George. “Perhaps my friends and I will
come down and take a look round some evening. In the meantime will you
go back to your friend Dr. Oberzohn and tell him that you have done your
part and I will do mine? Your little story will go into my collection of
Unplausible Inventions!”
He touched a bell and Poiccart came in.
“Show Mr. Liggins out, please. Don’t hurt him—he may have a wife and
children, though it is extremely unlikely.”
The visitor slunk from the room as though he had been whipped.
The door had scarcely closed upon him when Poiccart called Leon down
from his room.
“Son,” he said, “George wants that man trailed.”
Leon peeped out after the retiring victim of Turkish tyranny.
“Not a hard job,” he said. “He has flat feet!”
Poiccart returned to the consulting-room.
“Who is he?” he asked.
“I don’t know. He’s been sent here either by Oberzohn or by friend
Newton, the general idea being to bring us all together at the Gringo
Club—which is fairly well known to me—on some agreeable evening. A bad
actor! He has no tone. I shouldn’t be surprised if Leon finds something
very interesting about him.”
“He’s been before, hasn’t he?”
Manfred nodded.
“Yes, he was here the day after Barberton came. At least, I had his
letter the next morning and saw him for a few moments in the day. Queer
devil, Oberzohn! And an industrious devil,” he added. “He sets everybody
moving at once, and of course he’s right. A good general doesn’t attack
with a platoon, but with an army, with all his strength, knowing that if
he fails to pierce the line at one point he may succeed at another. It’s
an interesting thought, Raymond, that at this moment there are probably
some twenty separate and independent agencies working for our undoing.
Most of them ignorant that their efforts are being duplicated. That is
Oberzohn’s way—always has been his way. It’s the way he has started
revolutions, the way he has organized religious riots.”
After he had had his bath and changed, he announced his intention of
calling at Chester Square.
“I’m rather keen on meeting Joan Newton again, even if she has returned
to her normal state of Jane Smith.”
Miss Newton was not at home, the maid told him when he called. Would he
see Mr. Montague Newton, who was not only at home, but anxious for him
to call, if the truth be told, for he had seen his enemy approaching.
“I shall be pleased,” murmured Manfred, and was ushered into the
splendour of Mr. Newton’s drawing-room.
“Too bad about Joan,” said Mr. Newton easily. “She left for the
Continent this morning.”
“Without a passport?” smiled Manfred.
A little slip on the part of Monty, but how was Manfred to know that the
authorities had, only a week before, refused the renewal of her passport
pending an inquiry into certain irregularities? The suggestion had been
that other people than she had travelled to and from the Continent armed
with this individual document.
“You don’t need a passport for Belgium,” he lied readily. “Anyway, this
passport stuff’s a bit overdone. We’re not at war now.”
“All the time we’re at war,” said Manfred. “May I sit down?”
“Do. Have a cigarette?”
“Let me see the brand before I accept,” said Manfred cautiously, and the
man guffawed as at a great joke.
The visitor declined the offer of the cigarette-case and took one from a
box on the table.
“And is Jane making the grand tour?” he asked blandly.
“Jane’s run down and wants a rest.”
“What’s the matter with Aylesbury?”
He saw the man flinch at the mention of the women’s convict
establishment, but he recovered instantly.
“It is not far enough out, and I’m told that there are all sorts of
queer people living round there. No, she’s going to Brussels and then on
to Aix-la-Chapelle, then probably to Spa—I don’t suppose I shall see
her again for a month or two.”
“She was at Heavytree Farm in the early hours of this morning,” said
Manfred, “and so were you. You were seen and recognized by a friend of
mine—Mr. Raymond Poiccart. You travelled from Heavytree Farm to
Oberzohn’s house in a Ford trolley.”
Not by a flicker of an eyelid did Monty Newton betray his dismay.
“That is bluff,” he said. “I didn’t leave this house last night. What
happened at Heavytree Farm?”
“Miss Leicester was abducted. You are surprised, almost agitated, I
notice.”
“Do you think I had anything to do with it?” asked Monty steadily.
“Yes, and the police share my view. A provisional warrant was issued for
your arrest this morning. I thought you ought to know.”
Now the man drew back, his face went from red to white, and then to a
deeper red again. Manfred laughed softly.
“You’ve got a guilty conscience, Newton,” he said, “and that’s half-way
to being arrested. Where is Jane?”
“Gone abroad, I tell you.”
He was thrown off his balance by this all too successful bluff and had
lost some of his self-possession.
“She is with Mirabelle Leicester: of that I’m sure,” said Manfred. “I’ve
warned you twice, and it is not necessary to warn you a third time. I
don’t know how far deep you’re in these snake murders: a jury will
decide that sooner or later. But you’re dead within six hours of my
learning that Miss Leicester has been badly treated. You know that is
true, don’t you?”
Manfred was speaking very earnestly.
“You’re more scared of us than you are of the law, and you’re right,
because we do not put our men to the hazard of a jury’s intelligence.
You get the same trial from us as you get from a judge who knows all the
facts. You can’t beat an English judge, Newton.”
The smile returned and he left the room. Fred, near at hand, waiting in
the passage but at a respectful distance from the door, let him out with
some alacrity.
Monty Newton turned his head sideways, caught a fleeting glimpse of the
man he hated—hated worse than he hated Leon Gonsalez—and then called
harshly for his servant.
“Come here,” he said, and Fred obeyed. “They’ll be sending round to make
inquiries, and I want you to know what to tell them,” he said. “Miss
Joan went away this morning to the Continent by the eight-fifteen. She’s
either in Brussels or Aix-la-Chapelle. You’re not sure of the hotel, but
you’ll find out. Is that clear to you?”
“Yes, sir.”
Fred was looking aimlessly about the room.
“What’s the matter with you?”
“I was wondering where the clock is.”
“Clock?” Now Monty Newton heard it himself. The tick-tick-tick of a
cheap clock, and he went livid. “Find it,” he said hoarsely, and even as
he spoke his eyes fell upon the little black box that had been pushed
beneath the desk, and he groped for the door with a scream of terror.
Passers-by in Chester Square saw the door flung open and two men rush
headlong into the street. And the little American clock, which Manfred
had purchased a few days before, went on ticking out the time, and was
still ticking merrily when the police experts went in and opened the
box. It was Manfred’s oldest jest, and never failed.
_Chapter XXII_ _In the Store Cellar_
IT was impossible that Mirabelle Leicester could fail to realize the
serious danger in which she stood. Why she had incurred the enmity of
Oberzohn, for what purpose this man was anxious to keep her under his
eye, she could not even guess. It was a relief to wake up in the early
morning, as she did, and find Joan sleeping in the same room; for though
she had many reasons for mistrusting her, there was something about this
doll-faced girl that made an appeal to her.
Joan was lying on the bed fully dressed, and at the sound of the
creaking bed she turned and got up, fastening her skirt.
“Well, how do you like your new home?” she asked, with an attempt at
joviality, which she was far from feeling, in spite of Monty’s
assurances.
“I’ve seen better,” said Mirabelle coolly.
“I’ll bet you have!” Joan stretched and yawned; then, opening one of the
cupboards, took a shovelful of coal and threw it into the furnace,
clanging the iron door. “That’s my job,” she said humorously, “to keep
you warm.”
“How long am I going to be kept here?”
“Five days,” was the surprising answer.
“Why five?” asked Mirabelle curiously.
“I don’t know. Maybe they’ll tell you,” said Joan.
She fixed a plug in the wall and turned on the small electric fire.
Disappearing, she came back with a kettle which she placed on top of the
ring.
“The view’s not grand, but the food’s good,” she said, with a gaiety
that Mirabelle was now sure was forced.
“You’re with these people, of course—Dr. Oberzohn and Newton?”
“Mister Newton,” corrected Joan. “Yes, I’m his fiancée. We’re going to
be married when things get a little better,” she said vaguely, “and
there’s no use in your getting sore with me because I helped to bring
you here. Monty’s told me all about it. They’re going to do you no harm
at all.”
“Then why——” began Mirabelle.
“He’ll tell you,” interrupted Joan, “sooner or later. The old man,
or—or—well, Monty isn’t in this: he’s only obliging Oberzohn.”
With one thing Mirabelle agreed: it was a waste of time to indulge in
recriminations or to reproach the girl for her supreme treachery. After
all, Joan owed nothing to her, and had been from the first a tool
employed for her detention. It would have been as logical for a convict
to reproach the prison guard.
“How do you come to be doing this sort of thing?” she asked, watching
the girl making tea.
“Where do you get ‘this sort of thing’ from?” demanded Joan. “If you
suppose that I spend my life chaperoning females, you’ve got another
guess coming. Scared, aren’t you?”
She looked across at Mirabelle and the girl shook her head.
“Not really.”
“I should be,” confessed Joan. “Do you mind condensed milk? There’s no
other. Yes, I should be writhing under the table, knowing something
about Oberzohn.”
“If I were Oberzohn,” said Mirabelle with spirit, “I should be hiding in
a deep hole where the Four Just Men would not find me.”
“Four Just Men!” sneered the girl, and then her face changed. “Were they
the people who whipped Gurther?”
Mirabelle had not heard of this exploit, but she gave them credit with a
nod.
“Is that so? Does Gurther know they’re friends of yours?” she asked
significantly.
“I don’t know Gurther.”
“He’s the man who danced with you the other night—Lord—I forget what
name we gave him. Because, if he does know, my dear,” she said slowly,
“you’ve got two people to be extremely careful with. Gurther’s half mad.
Monty has always said so. He dopes too, and there are times when he’s
not a man at all but a low-down wolf. I’m scared of _him_—I’ll admit
it. There aren’t Four Just Men, anyway,” she went off at a tangent.
“There haven’t been more than three for years. One of them was killed in
Bordeaux. That’s a town I’d hate to be killed in,” said Joan
irreverently.
An interval of silence followed whilst she opened an air-tight tin and
took out a small cake, and, putting it on the table, cut it into slices.
“What are they like?” she asked.
Evidently the interval had been filled with thoughts of the men from
Curzon Street.
“Monty says they’re just bluff, but I’m not so sure that Monty tells me
all he thinks. He’s so scared that he told me to call and see them, just
because they gave him an order—which isn’t like Monty. They’ve killed
people, haven’t they?”
Mirabelle nodded.
“And got away with it? They must be clever.” Joan’s admiration was
dragged from her. “Where do they get their money?”
That was always an interesting matter to Joan.
When the girl explained, she was really impressed. That they could kill
and get away with it, was wonderful; that they were men of millions,
placed them in a category apart.
“They’ll never find you here,” said Joan. “There’s nobody living knows
about this vault. There used to be eight men working here, sorting
monkey hides, and every one of them’s dead. Monty told me. He said this
place is below the canal level, and Oberzohn can flood it in five
minutes. Monty thinks the old man had an idea of running a slush factory
here.”
“What is a slush factory?” asked Mirabelle, open-mouthed.
“Phoney—snide—counterfeit. Not English, but Continental work. He was
going to do that if things had gone really bad, but of course you make
all the difference.”
Mirabelle put down her cup.
“Does he expect to make money out of me?” she said, trying hard not to
laugh.
The girl nodded solemnly.
“Does he think I have a great deal of money?”
“He’s sure.”
Joan was sure too. Her tone said that plainly enough.
Mirabelle sat down on the bed, for the moment too astonished to speak.
Her own financial position was no mystery. She had been left sufficient
to bring her in a small sum yearly, and with the produce of the farm had
managed to make both ends meet. It was the failure of the farm as a
source of profit which had brought her to her new job in London. Alma
had also a small annuity; the farm was the girl’s property, but beyond
these revenues she had nothing. There was not even a possibility that
she was an heiress. Her father had been a comparatively poor man, and
had been supported in his numerous excursions to various parts of the
world in search of knowledge by the scientific societies to which he was
attached; his literary earnings were negligible; his books enjoyed only
a very limited sale. She could trace her ancestry back for seven
generations; knew of her uncles and aunts, and they did not include a
single man or woman who, in the best traditions of the story-books, had
gone to America and made an immense fortune.
“It is absurd,” she said. “I have no money. If Mr. Oberzohn puts me up
to ransom, it will have to be something under a hundred!”
“Put you up to ransom?” said Joan. “I don’t get you there. But you’re
rich all right—I can tell you that. Monty says so, and Monty wouldn’t
lie to me.”
Mirabelle was bewildered. It seemed almost impossible that a man of
Oberzohn’s intelligence and sources of information could make such a
mistake. And yet Joan was earnest.
“They must have mistaken me for somebody else,” she said, but Joan did
not answer. She was sitting up in a listening attitude, and her eyes
were directed towards the iron door which separated their sleeping
apartment from the larger vault. She had heard the creak of the trap
turning and the sound of feet coming down the stairs.
Mirabelle rose as Oberzohn came in. He wore his black dressing-gown, his
smoking-cap was at the back of his head, and the muddy Wellington boots
which he had pulled over his feet looked incongruous, and would at any
other time have provoked her to laughter.
He favoured her with a stiff nod.
“You have slept well, gracious lady?” he said, and to her amazement took
her cold hand in his and kissed it.
She felt the same feeling of revulsion and unreality as had overcome her
that night at the dance when Gurther had similarly saluted her.
“It is a nice place, for young people and for old.” He looked round the
apartment with satisfaction. “Here I should be content to spend my life
reading my books, and giving my mind to thought, but”—he spread his
hands and shrugged—“what would you? I am a business man, with immense
interests in every part of the world. I am rich, too, beyond your
dreams! I have stores in every part of the world, and thousands of men
and women on my pay-roll.”
Why was he telling her all this, she wondered, reciting the facts in a
monotonous voice. Surely he had not come down to emphasize the soundness
of his financial position?