when the trains to Paris are crowded; other nights when it is possible
to obtain a carriage to yourself; and it happened that this evening,
when Elijah Washington booked his seat, he might, if it had been
physically possible, have sat in one compartment and put his feet on the
seat in another.
Between the two great branches of the Anglo-Saxon race there is one
notable difference. The Englishman prefers to travel in solitude and
silence. His ideal journey is one from London to Constantinople in a
compartment that is not invaded except by the ticket collector; and if
it is humanly possible that he can reach his destination without having
given utterance to anything more sensational than an agreement with some
other passenger’s comment on the weather, he is indeed a happy man. The
American loves company; he has the acquisitiveness of the Latin,
combined with the rhetorical virtues of the Teuton. Solitude makes him
miserable; silence irritates him. He wants to talk about large and
important things, such as the future of the country, the prospects of
agriculture and the fluctuations of trade, about which the average
Englishman knows nothing, and is less interested. The American has a
town pride, can talk almost emotionally about a new drainage system and
grow eloquent upon a municipal balance sheet. The Englishman does not
cultivate his town pride until he reaches middle age, and then only in
sufficient quantities to feel disappointed with the place of his birth
after he has renewed its acquaintance.
Mr. Washington found himself in an empty compartment, and, grunting his
dissatisfaction, walked along the corridor, peeping into one cell after
another in the hope of discovering a fellow-countryman in a similar
unhappy plight. His search was fruitless and he returned to the carriage
in which his bag and overcoat were deposited, and settled down to the
study of an English humorous newspaper and a vain search for something
at which any intelligent man could laugh.
The doors of the coach were at either end, and most passengers entering
had to pass the open entrance of Mr. Washington’s compartment. At every
click of the door he looked up, hoping to find a congenial soul. But
disappointment awaited him, until a lady hesitated by the door. It was a
smoking carriage, but Washington, who was a man of gallant character,
would gladly have sacrificed his cigar for the pleasure of her society.
Young, he guessed, and a widow. She was in black, an attractive face
showed through a heavy veil.
“Is this compartment engaged?” she asked in a low voice that was almost
a whisper.
“No, madam.” Washington rose, hat in hand.
“Would you mind?” she asked in a soft voice.
“Why, surely! Sit down, ma’am,” said the gallant American. “Would you
like the corner seat by the window?”
She shook her head, and sat down near the door, turning her face from
him.
“Do you mind my smoking?” asked Washington, after a while.
“Please smoke,” she said, and again turned her face away.
“English,” thought Mr. Washington in disgust, and hunched himself for an
hour and a half of unrelieved silence.
A whistle blew, the train moved slowly from the platform, and Elijah
Washington’s adventurous journey had begun.
They were passing through Croydon when the girl rose, and, leaning out,
closed the little glass-panelled door.
“You should let me do that,” said Elijah reproachfully, and she murmured
something about not wishing to trouble him, and he relapsed into his
seat.
One or two of the men who passed looked in, and evidently this annoyed
her, for she reached and pulled down the spring blind which partially
hid her from outside observation, and after the ticket collector had
been and had punched the slips, she lowered the second of the three
blinds.
“Do you mind?” she asked.
“Sure not, ma’am,” said Elijah, without any great heartiness. He had no
desire to travel alone with a lady in a carriage so discreetly
curtained. He had heard of cases . . . and by nature he was an extremely
cautious man.
The speed of the train increased; the wandering passengers had settled
down. The second of the ticket inspections came as they were rushing
through Redhill, and Mr. Washington thought uncomfortably that there was
a significant look in the inspector’s face as he glanced first at the
drawn blinds, then from the lady to himself.
She affected a perfume of a peculiarly pleasing kind. The carriage was
filled with this subtle fragrance. Mr. Washington smelt it above the
scent of his cigar. Her face was still averted; he wondered if she had
gone to sleep, and, growing weary of his search for humour, he put down
the paper, folded his hands and closed his eyes, and found himself
gently drifting to that medley of the real and unreal which is the
overture of dreams.
The lady moved; he looked at her out of the corner of his half-closed
eyes. She had moved round so as to half face him. Her veil was still
down, her white gloves were reflectively clasped on her knees. He shut
his eyes again, until another movement brought him awake. She was
feeling in her bag.
Mr. Washington was awake now—as wide awake as he had ever been in his
life. In stretching out her hand, the lady had pulled short her sleeve,
and there was a gap of flesh between the glove and the wrist of her
blouse, and on her wrist was hair!
He shifted his position slightly, grunted as in his sleep, and dropped
his hand to his pocket, and all the time those cold eyes were watching
him through the veil.
Lifting the bottom of the veil, she put the ebony holder between her
teeth and searched the bag for a match. Then she turned appealingly to
him as though she had sensed his wakefulness. As she rose, Washington
rose too, and suddenly he sprang at her and flung her back against the
door. For a moment the veiled lady was taken by surprise, and then there
was a flash of steel.
From nowhere a knife had come into her hand and Washington gripped the
wrist and levered it over, pushing the palm of his hand under the chin.
Even through the veil he could feel the bristles, and knew now, if he
had not known before, that he had to deal with a man. A live, active
man, rendered doubly strong by the knowledge of his danger. Gurther
butted forward with his head, but Washington saw the attack coming,
shortened his arm and jabbed full at the face behind the veil. The blow
stopped the man, only for an instant, and again he came on, and this
time the point of the knife caught the American’s shoulder, and ripped
the coat to the elbow. It needed this to bring forth Elijah Washington’s
mental and physical reserves. With a roar he gripped the throat of his
assailant and threw him with such violence against the door that it
gave, and the “widow in mourning” crashed against the panel of the outer
corridor. Before he could reach the attacker, Gurther had turned and
sped along the corridor to the door of the coach. In a second he had
flung it open and had dropped to the footboard. The train was slowing to
take Horsham Junction, and the cat eyes waited until he saw a good fall,
and let go. Staring back into the darkness, Washington saw nothing, and
then the train inspector came along.
“It was a man in woman’s clothes,” he said, a little breathlessly, and
they went back to search the compartment, but Mr. Gurther had taken bag
and everything with him, and the only souvenir of his presence was the
heel of a shoe that had been torn off in the struggle.
_Chapter XXV_ _Gurther Returns_
THE train was going at thirty miles an hour when Gurther dropped on to
a ridge of sand by the side of the track, and in the next second he was
sliding forward on his face. Fortunately for him the veil, though torn,
kept his eyes free. Stumbling to his feet, he looked round. The
level-crossing gates should be somewhere here. He had intended jumping
the train at this point, and Oberzohn had made arrangements accordingly.
A signalman, perched high above the track, saw the figure and
challenged.
“I’ve lost my way,” said Gurther. “Where is the level-crossing?”
“A hundred yards farther on. Keep clear of those metals—the Eastbourne
express is coming behind.”
If Gurther had had his way, he would have stopped long enough to remove
a rail for the sheer joy of watching a few hundred of the hated people
plunged to destruction. But he guessed that the car was waiting, went
sideways through the safety gates into a road which was fairly populous.
There were people about who turned their heads and looked in amazement
at the bedraggled woman in black, but he had got beyond worrying about
his appearance.
He saw the car with the little green light which Oberzohn invariably
used to mark his machines from others, and, climbing into the cab (as it
was), sat down to recover his breath. The driver he knew as one of the
three men employed by Oberzohn, one of whom Mr. Washington had seen that
morning.
The journey back to town was a long one, though the machine, for a
public vehicle, was faster than most. Gurther welcomed the ride. Once
more he had failed, and he reasoned that this last failure was the most
serious of all. The question of Oberzohn’s displeasure did not really
arise. He had travelled far beyond the point when the Swede’s
disapproval meant very much to him. But there might be a consequence
more serious than any. He knew well with what instructions Pfeiffer had
been primed on the night of the attack at Rath House—only Gurther had
been quicker, and his snake had bitten first. Dr. Oberzohn had no
illusions as to what had happened, and if he had tactfully refrained
from making reference to the matter, he had his purpose and reasons. And
this night journey with Elijah Washington was one of them.
There was no excuse; he had none to offer. His hand wandered beneath the
dress to the long knife that was strapped to his side, and the touch of
the worn handle was very reassuring. For the time being he was safe;
until another man was found to take Pfeiffer’s place Oberzohn was
working single-handed and could not afford to dispense with the services
of this, the last of his assassins.
It was past eleven when he dismissed the taxi at the end of the long
lane, and, following the only safe path, came to the unpainted door that
gave admission to Oberzohn’s property. And the first words of his master
told him that there was no necessity for explanation.
“So you did not get him, Gurther?”
“No, Herr Doktor.”
“I should not have sent you.” Oberzohn’s voice was extraordinarily mild
in all the circumstances. “That man you cannot kill—with the snake. I
have learned since you went that he was bitten at the blind man’s house,
yet lives! That is extraordinary. I would give a lot of money to test
his blood. You tried the knife?”
“Ja, Herr Doktor.” He lifted his veil, stripped off hat and wig in one
motion. The rouged and powdered face was bruised; from under the brown
wig was a trickle of dried blood.
“Good! You have done as well as you could. Go to your room,
Gurther—march!”
Gurther went upstairs and for a quarter of an hour was staring at his
grinning face in the glass, as with cream and soiled towel he removed
his make-up.
Oberzohn’s very gentleness was a menace. What did it portend? Until that
evening neither Gurther nor his dead companion had been taken into the
confidence of the two men who directed their activities. He knew there
were certain papers to be recovered; he knew there were men to be
killed; but what value were the papers, or why death should be directed
to this unfortunate or that, he neither knew nor cared. His duty had
been to obey, and he had served a liberal paymaster well and loyally.
That girl in the underground room? Gurther had many natural explanations
for her imprisonment. And yet none of them fitted the conditions. His
cogitations were wasted time. That night, for the first time, the doctor
took him into his confidence.
He had finished dressing and was on his way to his kitchen when the
doctor stood at the doorway and called him in.
“Sit down, Gurther.” He was almost kind. “You will have a cigar? These
are excellent.”
He threw a long, thin, black cheroot, and Gurther caught it between his
teeth and seemed absurdly pleased with his trick.
“The time has come when you must know something, Gurther,” said the
doctor. He took a fellow to the weed the man was smoking, and puffed
huge clouds of rank smoke into the room. “I have for a friend—who? Heir
Newton?” He shrugged his shoulders. “He is a very charming man, but he
has no brains. He is the kind of man, Gurther, who would live in
comfort, take all we gave him by our cleverness and industry, and never
say thank you! And in trouble what will he do, Gurther? He will go to
the police—yes, my dear friend, he will go to the police!”
He nodded. Gurther had heard the same story that night when he had crept
soft-footed to the door and had heard the doctor discuss certain matters
with the late Mr. Pfeiffer.
“He would, without a wink of his eyelash, without a snap of his hand,
send you and me to death, and would read about our execution with a
smile, and then go forth and eat his plum-pudding and roast beef! That
is our friend Heir Newton! You have seen this with your own eyes?”
“_Ja, Herr Doktor!_” exclaimed the obedient Gurther.
“He is a danger for many reasons,” Oberzohn proceeded deliberately.
“Because of these three men who have so infamously set themselves out to
ruin me, who burnt down my house, and who whipped you, Gurther—they
tied you up to a post and whipped you with a whip of nine tails. You
have not forgotten, Gurther?”
“_Nein, Herr Doktor._” Indeed, Gurther had not forgotten, though the
vacant smirk on his face might suggest that he had a pleasant memory of
the happening.
“A fool in an organization,” continued the doctor oracularly, “is like a
bad plate on a ship, or a weak link in a chain. Let it snap, and what
happens? You and I die, my dear Gurther. We go up before a stupid man in
a white wig and a red cloak, and he hands us to another man who puts a
rope around our necks, drops us through a hole in the ground—all
because we have a stupid man like Herr Montague Newton to deal with.”
“_Ja, Herr Doktor_,” said Gurther as his master stopped. He felt that
this comment was required of him.
“Now, I will tell you the whole truth.” The doctor carefully knocked off
the ash of his cigar into the saucer of his cup. “There is a fortune for
you and for me, and this girl that we have in the quiet place can give
it to us. I can marry her, or I can wipe her out, so! If I marry her, it
would be better, I think, and this I have arranged.”
And then, in his own way, he told the story of the hill of gold,
concealing nothing, reserving nothing—all that he knew, all that Villa
had told him.
“For three-four days now she must be here. At the end of that time
nothing matters. The letter to Lisbon—of what value is it? I was
foolish when I tried to stop it. She has made no nominee, she has no
heirs, she has known nothing of her fortune, and therefore is in no
position to claim the renewal of the concession.”
“Herr Doktor, will you graciously permit me to speak?”
The doctor nodded.
“Does the Newton know this?”
“The Newton knows all this,” said the doctor.
“Will you graciously permit me to speak again, Herr Doktor? What was
this letter I was to have taken, had I not been overcome by misfortune?”
Oberzohn examined the ceiling.
“I have thought this matter from every angle,” he said, “and I have
decided thus. It was a letter written by Gonsalez to the Secretary or
the Minister of the Colonies, asking that the renewal of the concession
should be postponed. The telegram from my friend at the Colonial Office
in Lisbon was to this effect.” He fixed his glasses, fumbled in his
waistcoat and took out the three-page telegram. “I will read it to you
in your own language—
“‘Application has been received from Leon Gonsalez, asking His
Excellency to receive a very special letter which arrives in two
days. The telegram does not state the contents of the letter,
but the Minister has given orders for the messenger to be
received. The present Minister is not favourable to concessions
granted to England or Englishmen.’”
He folded the paper.
“Which means that there will be no postponement, my dear Gurther, and
this enormous fortune will be ours.”
Gurther considered this point and for a moment forgot to smile, and
looked what he was in consequence: a hungry, discontented wolf of a man.
“Herr Doktor, graciously permit me to ask you a question?”
“Ask,” said Oberzohn magnanimously.
“What share does Herr Newton get? And if you so graciously honoured me
with a portion of your so justly deserved gains, to what extent would be
that share?”
The other considered this, puffing away until the room was a mist of
smoke.
“Ten thousand English pounds,” he said at last.
“Gracious and learned doctor, that is a very small proportion of many
millions,” said Gurther gently.
“Newton will receive one half,” said the doctor, his face working
nervously, “if he is alive. If misfortune came to him, that share would
be yours, Gurther, my brave fellow! And with so much money a man would
not be hunted. The rich and the noble would fawn upon him; he would have
his lovely yacht and steam about the summer seas everlastingly, huh?”
Gurther rose and clicked his heels.
“Do you desire me again this evening?”
“No, no, Gurther.” The old man shook his head. “And pray remember that
there is another day to-morrow, and yet another day after. We shall wait
and hear what our friend has to say. Good night, Gurther.”
“Good night, Herr Doktor.”
The doctor looked at the door for a long time after his man had gone and
took up his book. He was deep in the chapter which was headed, in the
German tongue: “The Subconscious Activity of the Human Intellect in
Relation to the Esoteric Emotions.” To Dr. Oberzohn this was more
thrilling than the most exciting novel.
_Chapter XXVI_ _In Captivity_
THE second day of captivity dawned unseen, in a world that lay outside
the brick roof and glazed white walls of Mirabelle Leicester’s
prison-house. She had grown in strength and courage, but not so her
companion. Joan, who had started her weary vigil with an almost cheerful
gaiety, had sunk deeper and deeper into depression as the hours
progressed, and Mirabelle woke to the sound of a woman’s sobs, to find
the girl sitting on the side of her bed, her head in her wet hands.
“I hate this place!” she sobbed. “Why does he keep me here? God! If I
thought the hound was double-crossing me . . . ! I’ll go mad if they
keep me here any longer. I will, Leicester!” she screamed.
“I’ll make some tea,” said Mirabelle, getting out of bed and finding her
slippers.
The girl sat throughout the operation huddled in a miserable heap, and
by and by her whimpering got on Mirabelle’s nerves.
“I don’t know why _you_ should be wretched,” she said. “They’re not
after _your_ money!”
“You can laugh—and how you can, I don’t know,” sobbed the girl, as she
took the cup in her shaking hands. “I know I’m a fool, but I’ve never
been locked up—like this before. I didn’t dream he’d break his word. He
swore he’d come yesterday. What time is it?”
“Six o’clock,” said Mirabelle.
It might as well have been eight or midday, for all she knew to the
contrary.
“This is a filthy place,” said the hysterical girl. “I think they’re
going to drown us all . . . or that thing will explode”—she pointed to
the green baize box—“I know it! I feel it in my blood. That beast
Gurther is here somewhere, ugh! He’s like a slimy snake. Have you ever
seen him?”
“Gurther? You mean the man who danced with me?”
“That’s he. I keep telling you who he is,” said Joan impatiently. “I
wish we could get out of here.”
She jumped up suddenly.
“Come and see if you can help me lift the trap.”
Mirabelle knew it was useless before she set forth on the quest for
freedom. Their united efforts failed to move the stone, and Joan was on
the point of collapse when they came back to their sleeping-room.
“I hope Gurther doesn’t know that those men are friends of yours,” she
said, when she became calmer.
“You told me that yesterday. Would that make any difference?”
“A whole lot,” said Joan vehemently. “He’s got the blood of a fish, that
man! There’s nothing he wouldn’t do. Monty ought to be flogged for
leaving us here at his mercy. I’m not scared of Oberzohn—he’s old. But
the other fellow dopes, and goes stark, staring mad at times. Monty told
me one night that he was” she choked—“a killer. He said that these
German criminals who kill people are never satisfied with one murder,
they go on and on until they’ve got twenty or thirty! He says that the
German prisons are filled with men who have the murder habit.”
“He was probably trying to frighten you.”
“Why should he?” said the girl, with unreasonable anger. “And leave him
alone! Monty is the best in the world. I adore the ground he walks on!”
Very wisely, Mirabelle did not attempt to traverse this view.
It was only when her companion had these hysterical fits that fear was
communicated to her. Her faith was completely and whole-heartedly
centred on the three men—upon Gonsalez. She wondered how old he was.
Sometimes he looked quite young, at others an elderly man. It was
difficult to remember his face; he owed so much to his expression, the
smile in his eyes, to the strange, boyish eagerness of gesture and
action which accompanied his speech. She could not quite understand
herself; why was she always thinking of Gonsalez, as a maid might think
of a lover? She went red at the thought. He seemed so apart, so aloof
from the ordinary influences of women. Suppose she had committed some
great crime and had escaped the vigilance of the law, would he hunt her
down in the same remorseless, eager way, planning to cut off every
avenue of her escape until he shepherded her into a prison cell? It was
a horrible thought, and she screwed up her eyes tight to blot out the
mental picture she had made.
It would have given her no ordinary satisfaction to have known how often
Gonsalez’s thoughts strayed to the girl who had so strangely come into
his life. He spent a portion of his time that morning in his bedroom,
fixing to the wall a large railway map which took in the south of
England and the greater part of the Continent. A red-ink line marked the
route from London to Lisbon, and he was fixing a little green flag on
the line just south of Paris when Manfred strolled into the room and
surveyed his work.
“The Sud Express is about there,” he said, pointing to the last of the
green flags, “and I think our friend will have a fairly pleasant and
uneventful journey as far as Valladolid—where I have arranged for
Miguel Garcia, an old friend of mine, to pick him up and shadow him on
the westward journey—unless we get the ’plane. I’m expecting a wire any
minute. By the way, the Dieppe police have arrested the gentleman who
tried to bump him overboard in mid-Channel, but the man who snatched at
his portfolio at the Gare St. Lazare is still at liberty.”
“He must be getting quite used to it now,” said Manfred coolly, and
laughed to himself.
Leon turned.
“He’s a good fellow,” he said with quick earnestness. “We couldn’t have
chosen a better man. The woman on the train, of course, was Gurther. He
is the only criminal I’ve ever known who is really efficient at
disguising himself.”
Manfred lit his pipe; he had lately taken to this form of smoking.
“The case grows more and more difficult every day. Do you realize that?”
Leon nodded.
“And more dangerous,” he said. “By the laws of average, Gurther should
get one of us the next time he makes an attempt. Have you seen the
papers?”
Manfred smiled.
“They’re crying for Meadows’ blood, poor fellow! Which shows the
extraordinary inconsistency of the public. Meadows has only been in one
snake case. They credit him with having fallen down on the lot.”
“They seem to be in remarkable agreement that the snake deaths come into
the category of wilful murder,” said Gonsalez as they went down the
stairs together.
Meadows had been talking to the reporters. Indeed, that was his chief
offence from the view-point of the official mind. For the first article
in the code of every well-constituted policeman is, “Thou shalt not
communicate to the Press.”
Leon strolled aimlessly about the room. He was wearing his chauffeur’s
uniform, and his hands were thrust into the breeches pockets. Manfred,
recognizing the symptoms, rang the bell for Poiccart, and that quiet man
came from the lower regions.
“Leon is going to be mysterious,” said Manfred dryly.