said, “but I want to know why I am being detained here. Surely, if
you’re so rich, you do not want to hold me to ransom?”
“To ransom?” His forehead went up and down. “That is foolish talk. Did
she tell you?” He pointed at the girl, and his face went as black as
thunder.
“No, I guessed,” said Mirabelle quickly, not wishing to get her
companion into bad odour.
“I do not hold you to ransom. I hold you, lovely lady, because you are
good for my eyes. Did not Heine say, ‘The beauty of women is a sedative
to the soul’? You should read Heine: he is frivolous, but in his
stupidity there are many clever thoughts. Now tell me, lovely lady, have
you all you desire?”
“I want to go out,” she said. “I can’t stay in this underground room
without danger to my health.”
“Soon you shall go.” He bowed stiffly again, and shuffled across the
floor to the furnace. Behind this were the two baize-covered boxes, and
one he lifted tenderly. “Here are secrets such as you should not pry
into,” he said in his awkward English. “The most potent of chemicals,
colossal in power. The ignorant would touch them and they would
explode—you understand?”
He addressed Mirabelle, who did not understand but made no answer.
“They must be kept warm for that reason. One I take, the other I leave.
You shall not touch it—that is understood? My good friend has told
you?” He brought his eyes to Joan.
“I understand all right,” she said. “Listen, Oberzohn: when am I going
out for a walk? This place is getting on my nerves already.”
“To-night you shall have exercise with the lovely lady. I myself will
accompany you.”
“Why am I here, Mr. Oberzohn?” Mirabelle asked again.
“You are here because you are in danger,” said Oberzohn, holding the
green box under his arm. “You are in very great danger.” He nodded with
every word. “There are certain men, of all the most infamous, who have a
design upon your life. They are criminal, cunning and wise—but not so
cunning or wise as Dr. Oberzohn. Because I will not let you fall into
their hands I keep you here, young miss. Good morning.”
Again he bowed stiffly and went out, the iron door clanging behind him.
They heard him climbing the stairs, the thud of the trap as it fell, and
the rumble which Joan, at any rate, knew was made by the cement barrel
being rolled to the top of the trap.
“Pleasant little fellow, isn’t he?” said Joan bitterly. “Him and his
chemicals!” She glared down at the remaining box. “If I were sure it
wouldn’t explode, I should smash it to smithereens!” she said.
Later she told the prisoner of Oberzohn’s obsession; of how he spent
time and money in his search for the vital elixir.
“Monty thinks he’ll find it,” she said seriously. “Do you know, that old
man has had an ox stewed down to a pint? There used to be a king in
Europe—I forget his name—who had the same stuff, but not so strong.
Monty says that Oberzohn hardly ever takes a meal—just a teaspoonful of
this dope and he’s right for the day. And Monty says . . .”
For the rest of that dreary morning the girl listened without hearing to
the wise sayings and clever acts of Monty; and every now and again her
eyes strayed to the baize-covered box which contained “the most potent
chemicals,” and she wondered whether, in the direst extremity, she would
be justified in employing these dread forces for her soul’s salvation.
_Chapter XXIII_ _The Courier_
ELIJAH WASHINGTON came up to London for a consultation. With the
exception of a blue contusion beneath his right eye, he was none the
worse for his alarming experience.
Leon Gonsalez had driven him to town, and on the way up the big man had
expressed views about snake-bite which were immensely interesting to the
man at the wheel.
“I’ve figured it out this way: there is no snake at all. What happens is
that these guys have extracted snake venom—and that’s easy, by making a
poison-snake bite on something soft—and have poisoned a dart or a burr
with the venom. I’ve seen that done in Africa, particularly up in the
Ituri country, and it’s pretty common in South America. The fellow just
throws or shoots it, and just where the dart hits, he gets
snake-poisoning right away.”
“That is an excellent theory,” said Leon, “only—no dart or burr has
ever been found. It is the first thing the police looked for in the case
of the stockbroker. They had the ground searched for days. And it was
just the same in the case of the tramp and the bank clerk, just the same
in the case of Barberton. A dart would stick some time and would be
found in the man’s clothing or near the spot where he was struck down.
How do you account for that?”
Mr. Washington very frankly admitted that he couldn’t account for it at
all, and Leon chuckled.
“_I_ can,” he said. “In fact, I know just how it’s done.”
“Great snakes!” gasped Washington in amazement. “Then why don’t you tell
the police?”
“The police know—now,” said Leon. “It isn’t snake-bite—it is nicotine
poisoning.”
“How’s that?” asked the startled man, but Leon had his joke to himself.
After a consultation which had lasted most of the night they had brought
Washington from Rath Hall, and on the way Leon hinted gently that the
Three had a mission for him and hoped he would accept.
“You’re much too good a fellow to be put into an unnecessarily dangerous
position,” he said; “and even if you weren’t, we wouldn’t lightly risk
your blessed life; but the job we should ask you to do isn’t exactly a
picnic.”
“Listen!” said Mr. Washington with sudden energy. “I don’t want any more
snakes—not that kind of snake! I’ve felt pain in my time, but nothing
like this! I know it must have been snake venom, but I’d like to meet
the little wriggler who brews the brand that was handed to me, and maybe
I’d change my mind about collecting him—alive!”
Leon agreed silently, and for the next few moments was avoiding a street
car on one side, a baker’s cart on another, and a _blah_ woman who was
walking aimlessly in the road, apparently with no other intention than
of courting an early death, this being the way of _blah_ women.
“Phew!” said Mr. Washington, as the car skidded on the greasy road. “I
don’t know whether you’re a good driver or just naturally under the
protection of Providence.”
“Both,” said Leon, when he had straightened the machine. “All good
drivers are that.”
Presently he continued:
“It is snake venom all right, Mr. Washington; only snake venom that has
been most carefully treated by a man who knows the art of concentration
of its bad and the extraction of its harmless constituents. My theory is
that certain alkaloids are added, and it is possible that there has been
a blending of two different kinds of poison. But you’re right when you
say that no one animal carries in his poison sac that particular variety
of death-juice. If it is any value to you, we are prepared to give you a
snake-proof certificate!”
“I don’t want another experience of that kind,” Elijah Washington warned
him; but Leon turned the conversation to the state of the road and the
problems of traffic control.
There had been nothing seen or heard of Mirabelle, and Meadows’
activities had for the moment been directed to the forthcoming inquest
on Barberton. Nowadays, whenever he reached Scotland Yard, he moved in a
crowd of reporters, all anxious for news of further developments. The
Barberton death was still the livliest topic in the newspapers: the old
scare of the snake had been revived and in some degree intensified.
There was not a journal which did not carry columns of letters to the
editor denouncing the inactivity of the police. Were they, asked one
sarcastic correspondent, under the hypnotic influence of the snake’s
eyes? Could they not, demanded another, give up trapping speeders on the
Lingfield road and bring their mighty brains to the elucidation of a
mystery that was to cause every household in London the gravest concern?
The Barberton murder was the peg on which every letter-writing faddist
had a novel view to hang, and Mr. Meadows was not at that time the
happiest officer in the force.
“Where is Lee?” asked Washington as they came into Curzon Street.
“He’s in town for the moment, but we are moving him to the North of
England, though I don’t think there is any danger to him, now that
Barberton’s letters are in our possession. They would have killed him
yesterday to prevent our handling the correspondence. To-day I should
imagine he has no special importance in the eyes of Oberzohn and
Company. And here we are!”
Mr. Washington got out stiffly and was immediately admitted by the
butler. The three men went upstairs to where George Manfred was
wrestling with a phase of the problem. He was not alone; Digby, his head
swathed in bandages, sat, an unhappy man, on the edge of a chair and
answered Leon’s cheery greeting with a mournful smile.
“I’m sending Digby to keep observation on Oberzohn’s house; and
especially do I wish him to search that old boat of his.”
He was referring to an ancient barge which lay on the mud at the bottom
of Mr. Oberzohn’s private dock. From the canal there was a narrow
waterway into the little factory grounds. It was so long since the small
cantilever bridge which covered the entrance had been raised, that
locals regarded the bridge floor as part of the normal bank of the
canal. But behind the green water-gates was a concrete dock large enough
to hold one barge, and here for years a decrepit vessel had wallowed,
the hunting-ground of rats and the sleeping-place of the desperately
homeless.
“The barge is practically immovable: I’ve already reported on that,”
said Leon.
“It certainly has that appearance, and yet I would like a search,”
replied Manfred. “You understand that this is night duty, and I have
asked Meadows to notify the local inspector that you will be on duty—I
don’t want to be pulled out of my bed to identify you at the Peckham
police station. It isn’t a cheerful job, but you might be able to make
it interesting by finding your way into his grounds. I don’t think the
factory will yield much, but the house will certainly be a profitable
study to an observer of human nature.”
“I hope I do better this time, Mr. Manfred,” said Digby, turning to go.
“And, if you don’t mind, I’ll go by day and take a look at the place. I
don’t want to fall down this time!”
George smiled as he rose and shook the man’s hand at parting.
“Even Mr. Gonsalez makes mistakes,” he said maliciously, and Leon looked
hurt.
Manfred tidied some papers on his desk and put them into a drawer,
waiting for Poiccart’s return. When he had come:
“Now, Mr. Washington, we will tell you what we wish you to do. We wish
you to take a letter to Lisbon. Leon has probably hinted something to
that effect, and it is now my duty to tell you that the errand is pretty
certain to be an exceedingly dangerous one, but you are the only man I
know to whom I could entrust this important document. I feel I cannot
allow you to undertake this mission without telling you that the chances
are heavily against your reaching Portugal.”
“Bless you for those cheerful words,” said Washington blankly. “The only
thing I want to be certain about is, am I likely to meet Mr. Snake?”
Manfred nodded, and the American’s face lengthened.
“I don’t know that even that scares me,” he said at last, “especially
now that I know that the dope they use isn’t honest snake-spit at all
but a synthesized poison. It was having my confidence shaken in snakes
that rattled me. When do you want me to go?”
“To-night.”
Mr. Washington for the moment was perplexed, and Manfred continued:
“Not by the Dover-Calais route. We would prefer that you travelled by
Newhaven-Dieppe. Our friends are less liable to be on the alert, though
I can’t even guarantee that. Oberzohn spends a lot of money in
espionage. This house has been under observation for days. I will show
you.”
He walked to the window and drew aside the curtain.
“Do you see a spy?” he asked, with a twinkle in his eye.
Mr. Washington looked up and down the street.
“Sure!” he said. “That man at the corner smoking a cigar——”
“Is a detective officer from Scotland Yard,” said Manfred. “Do you see
anybody else?”
“Yes,” said Washington after a while, “there’s a man cleaning windows on
the opposite side of the road: he keeps looking across here.”
“A perfectly innocent citizen,” said Manfred.
“Well, he can’t be in any of those taxis, because they’re empty.” Mr.
Washington nodded to a line of taxis drawn up on the rank in the centre
of the road.
“On the contrary, he is in the first taxi on the rank—he is the driver!
If you went out and called a cab, he would come to you. If anybody else
called him, he would be engaged. His name is Clarke, he lives at 43,
Portlington Mews; he is an ex-convict living apart from his wife, and he
receives seven pounds a week for his services, ten pounds every time he
drives Oberzohn’s car, and all the money he makes out of his cab.”
He smiled at the other’s astonishment.
“So the chances are that your movements will be known; even though you
do not call the cab, he will follow you. You must be prepared for that.
I’m putting all my cards on the table, Mr. Washington, and asking you to
do something which, if you cannot bring yourself to agree, must be done
by either myself, Poiccart or Gonsalez. Frankly, none of us can be
spared.”
“I’ll go,” said the American. “Snake or no snake, I’m for Lisbon. What
is my route?”
Poiccart took a folded paper from his pocket.
“Newhaven, Dieppe, Paris. You have a reserved compartment on the Sud
Express; you reach Valladolid late to-morrow night, and change to the
Portuguese mail. Unless I can fix an aeroplane to meet you at Irun. We
are trying now. Otherwise, you should be in Lisbon at two o’clock on the
following afternoon. He had better take the letter now, George.”
Manfred unlocked the wall safe and took out a long envelope. It was
addressed to “Senhor Alvaz Manuel y Cintra, Minister of Colonies,” and
was heavily sealed.
“I want you to place this in Senhor Cintra’s hands. You’ll have no
difficulty there because you will be expected,” he said. “Will you
travel in that suit?”
The American thought.
“Yes, that’s as good as any,” he said.
“Will you take off your jacket?”
Mr. Washington obeyed, and with a small pair of scissors Manfred cut a
slit in the lining and slipped the letter in. Then, to the American’s
astonishment, Leon produced a rolled housewife, threaded a needle with
extraordinary dexterity, and for the next five minutes the snake-hunter
watched the deft fingers stitching through paper and lining. So
skilfully was the slit sewed that Elijah Washington had to look twice to
make sure where the lining had been cut.
“Well, that beats the band!” he said. “Mr. Gonsalez, I’ll send you my
shirts for repair!”
“And here is something for you to carry.” It was a black leather
portfolio, well worn. To one end was attached a steel chain terminating
in a leather belt. “I want you to put this round your waist, and from
now on to carry this wallet. It contains nothing more important than a
few envelopes imposingly sealed, and if you lose it no great harm will
come.”
“You think they’ll go for the wallet?”
Manfred nodded.
“One cannot tell, of course, what Oberzohn will do, and he’s as wily as
one of his snakes. But my experience has been,” he said, “that the
cleverer the criminal, the bigger the fool and the more outrageous his
mistakes. You will want money.”
“Well, I’m not short of that,” said the other with a smile. “Snakes are
a mighty profitable proposition. Still, I’m a business man . . .”
For the next five minutes they discussed financial details, and he was
more than surprised to discover the recklessness with which money was
disbursed.
He went out, with a glance from the corner of his eye at the taximan,
whose hand was raised inquiringly, but, ignoring the driver, he turned
and walked towards Regent Street, and presently found a wandering taxi
of an innocuous character, and ordered the man to drive to the
Ritz-Carlton, where rooms had been taken for him.
He was in Regent Street before he looked round through the peep-hole,
and, as Manfred had promised him, the taxi was following, its flag down
to prevent chance hiring. Mr. Washington went up to his room, opened the
window and looked out: the taxi had joined a near-by rank. The driver
had left his box.
“He’s on the ’phone,” muttered Mr. Washington, and would have given a
lot of money to have known the nature of the message.
_Chapter XXIV_ _On the Night Mail_
A MAN of habit, Mr. Oberzohn missed his daily journey to the City
Road. In ordinary circumstances the loss would have been a paralysing
one, but of late he had grown more and more wedded to his deep arm-chair
and his ponderous volumes; and though the City Road had been a very
useful establishment in many ways, and was ill replaced by the temporary
building which his manager had secured, he felt he could almost dispense
with that branch of his business altogether.
Oberzohn & Smitts was an institution which had grown out of nothing. The
energy of the partners, and especially the knowledge of African trading
conditions which the departed Smitts possessed, had produced a
flourishing business which ten years before could have been floated for
half a million pounds.
Orders still came in. There were up-country stores to be restocked; new,
if unimportant, contracts to be fulfilled; there was even a tentative
offer under consideration from one of the South American States for the
armaments of a political faction. But Mr. Oberzohn was content to mark
time, in the faith that the next week would see him superior to these
minor considerations, and in a position, if he so wished, to liquidate
his business and sell his stores and his trade. There were purchasers
ready, but the half a million pounds had dwindled to a tenth of that
sum, which outstanding bills would more than absorb. As Manfred had
said, his running expenses were enormous. He had agents in every central
Government office in Europe, and though they did not earn their salt,
they certainly drew more than condiment for their services.
He had spent a busy morning in his little workshop-laboratory, and had
settled himself down in his chair, when a telegraph messenger came
trundling his bicycle across the rough ground, stopped to admire for a
second the iron dogs which littered the untidy strip of lawn, and woke
the echoes of this gaunt house with a thunderous knock. Mr. Oberzohn
hurried to the door. A telegram to this address must necessarily be
important. He took the telegram, slammed the door in the messenger’s
face and hurried back to his room, tearing open the envelope as he went.
There were three sheets of misspelt writing, for the wire was in
Portuguese and telegraph operators are bad guessers. He read it through
carefully, his lips moving silently, until he came to the end, then he
started reading all over again, and, for a better understanding of its
purport, he took a pencil and paper and translated the message into
Swedish. He laid the telegram face downwards on the table and took up
his book, but he was not reading. His busy mind slipped from Lisbon to
London, from Curzon Street to the factory, and at last he shut his book
with a bang, got up, and opening the door, barked Gurther’s name. That
strange man came downstairs in his stockinged feet, his hair hanging
over his eyes, an unpleasant sight. Dr. Oberzohn pointed to the room and
the man entered.
For an hour they talked behind locked doors, and then Gurther came out,
still showing his teeth in a mechanical smile, and went up the stairs
two at a time. The half-witted Danish maid, passing the door of the
doctor’s room, heard his gruff voice booming into the telephone, but
since he spoke a language which, whilst it had some relation to her own,
was subtly different, she could not have heard the instructions,
admonitions, orders and suggestions which he fired in half a dozen
different directions, even if she had heard him clearly.
This done, Dr. Oberzohn returned to his book and a midday refreshment,
spooning his lunch from a small cup at his side containing a few fluid
ounces of dark red liquid. One half of his mind was pursuing his
well-read philosophers; the other worked at feverish speed, conjecturing
and guessing, forestalling and baffling the minds that were working
against him. He played a game of mental chess, all the time seeking for
a check, and when at last he had discovered one that was adequate, he
put down his book and went out into his garden, strolling up and down
inside the wire fence, stopping now and again to pick a flower from a
weed, or pausing to examine a rain-filled pothole as though it were the
star object in a prize landscape.
He loved this ugly house, knew every brick of it, as a feudal lord might
have known the castle he had built, the turret, the flat roof with its
high parapet, that commanded a view of the canal bank on the one side
and the railway arches left and right. They were railway arches which
had a value to him. Most of them were blocked up, having been converted
into lock-up garages and sheds, and through only a few could ingress be
had. One, under which ran the muddy lane—why it was called Hangman’s
Lane nobody knew; another that gave to some allotments on the edge of
his property; and a third through which he also could see daylight, but
which spanned no road at all.
An express train roared past in a cloud of steam, and he scanned the
viaduct with benignant interest. And then he performed his daily tour of
inspection. Turning back into the house, he climbed the stairs to the
third floor, opened a little door that revealed an extra flight of
steps, and emerged on to the roof. At each corner was a square black
shed, about the height of a man’s chest. The doors were heavily
padlocked, and near by each was a stout black box, equally weatherproof.
There were other things here: great, clumsy wall-plugs at regular
intervals. Seeing them, it might be thought that Mr. Oberzohn
contemplated a night when, in the exultation of achievement, he would
illuminate his ungainly premises. But up till now that night had not
arrived, and in truth the only light usable was one which at the moment
was dismantled in the larger of the four sheds.
From here he could look down upon the water cutting into the factory
grounds; and the black bulk of the barge, which filled the entire width
of the wharf, seemed so near that he could have thrown a stone upon it.
His idle interest was in the sluggish black water that oozed through the
gates. A slight mist lay upon the canal; a barge was passing down
towards Deptford, and he contemplated the straining horse that tugged
the barge rope with a mind set upon the time when he, too, might use the
waterway in a swifter craft.
London lay around him, its spires and chimneys looming through the thin
haze of smoke. Far away the sun caught the golden ball of St. Paul’s and
added a new star to the firmament. Mr. Oberzohn hated London—only this
little patch of his had beauty in his eyes. Not the broad green parks
and the flowering rhododendrons; not the majestic aisles of pleasure
where the rich lounger rode or walked, nor the streets of stone-fronted
stores, nor the pleasant green of suburban roads—he loved only these
God-forgotten acres, this slimy wilderness in which he had set up his
habitation.
He went downstairs, locking the roof door behind him, and, passing
Gurther’s room, knocked and was asked to enter. The man sat in his
singlet; he had shaved once, but now the keen razor was going across his
skin for the second time. He turned his face, shining with cream, and
grinned round at the intruder, and with a grunt the doctor shut the door
and went downstairs, knowing that the man was for the moment happy; for
nothing pleased Gurther quite so much as “dressing up.”
The doctor stood at the entrance of his own room, hesitating between
books and laboratory, decided upon the latter, and was busy for the next
two hours. Only once he came out, and that was to bring from the warm
room the green baize box which contained “the most potent of chemicals,
colossal in power.”
* * * * *