knows? But that is the intention.”
“Snaking?” asked somebody, and there was a little titter of laughter.
“Say, doctor, how do you work that stunt?” Cuccini leaned forward, his
cigar between his fingers, greatly intrigued. “I saw no snakes down at
Rath Hall, and yet he was bitten, just as that Yankee was
bitten—Washington.”
“He will die,” said the doctor complacently. He was absurdly jealous for
the efficacy of his method.
“He was alive yesterday, anyway. We shadowed him to the station.”
“Then he was not bitten—no, that is impossible. When the
snake-bites,”—Oberzohn raised his palms and gazed piously at the
ceiling—“after that there is nothing. No, no, my friend, you are
mistaken.”
“I tell you I’m not making any mistake,” said the other doggedly. “I was
in the room, I tell you, soon after they brought him in, and I heard one
of the busies say that his face was all wet.”
“So!” said Oberzohn dully. “That is very bad.”
“But how do you do it, doctor? Do you shoot or sump’n’?”
“Let us talk about eventual wealth and happiness,” said the doctor.
“To-night is a night of great joy for me. I will sing you a song.”
Then, to the amazement of the men and to their great unhappiness, he
sang, in a thin, reedy old voice, the story of a young peasant who had
been thwarted in love and had thrown himself from a cliff into a
seething waterfall. It was a lengthy song, intensely sentimental, and
his voice held few of the qualities of music. The gang had never been
set a more difficult job than to keep straight faces until he had
finished.
“Gee! You’re some artist, doctor!” said the sycophantic Cuccini, and
managed to get a simulation of envy into his voice.
“In my student days I was a great singer,” said the doctor modestly.
Over the mantelpiece was a big, old clock, with a face so faded that
only a portion of the letters remained. Its noisy ticking had usually a
sedative effect on the doctor. But its main purpose and value was its
accuracy. Every day it was corrected by a message from Greenwich, and as
Oberzohn’s success as an organizer depended upon exact timing, it was
one of his most valuable assets.
He glanced up at the clock now, and that gave Cuccini his excuse.
“We’ll be getting along, doctor,” he said. “You don’t want anything
to-night? I’d like to get a cut at that Gonsalez man. You won’t leave me
out if there’s anything doing?”
Oberzohn rose and went out of the room without another word, for he knew
that the rising of Cuccini was a signal that not only was the business
of the day finished, but also that the gang needed its pay.
Every gang-leader attended upon Mr. Oberzohn once a week with his
pay-roll, and it was usually the custom for the Herr Doktor to bring his
cash-box into the room and extract sufficient to liquidate his
indebtedness to the leader. It was a big box, and on pay-day, as this
was, filled to the top with bank-notes and Treasury bills. He brought it
back now, put it on the table, consulted the little slip that Cuccini
offered to him, and, taking out a pad of notes, fastened about by a
rubber band, he wetted his finger and thumb.
“You needn’t count them,” said Cuccini. “We’ll take the lot.”
The doctor turned to see that Cuccini was carelessly holding a gun in
his hand.
“The fact is, doctor,” said Cuccini coolly, “we’ve seen the red light,
and if we don’t skip now, while the skipping’s good, there’s going to be
no place we can stay comfortable in this little island, and I guess
we’ll follow Gurther.”
One glance the doctor gave at the pistol and then he resumed his
counting, as though nothing had happened.
“Twenty, thirty, forty, fifty . . .”
“Now quit that,” said Cuccini roughly. “I tell you, you needn’t count.”
“My friend, I prefer to know what I am going to lose. It is a pardonable
piece of curiosity.”
He raised his hand to the wall, where a length of cord hung, and pulled
at it gently, without taking his eyes from the bank-notes.
“What are you doing? Put up your hands!” hissed Cuccini.
“Shoot, I beg.” Oberzohn threw a pad of notes on the table. “There is
your pay.” He slammed down the lid of the box. “Now you shall go, if you
_can_ go! Do you hear them?” He raised his hand, and to the strained
ears of the men came a gentle rustling sound from the passage outside as
though somebody were dragging a piece of parchment along the floor. “Do
you hear? You shall go if you can,” said the doctor again, with amazing
calmness.
“The snakes!” breathed Cuccini, going white, and the hand that held the
pistol shook.
“Shoot them, my friend,” sneered Oberzohn. “If you see them, shoot them.
But you will not see them, my brave man. They will be—where? No eyes
shall see them come or go. They may lie behind a picture, they may wait
until the door is opened, and then . . . !”
Cuccini’s mouth was dry.
“Call ’em off, doctor,” he said tremulously.
“Your gun—on the table.”
Still the rustling sound was audible. Cuccini hesitated for a second,
then obeyed, and took up the notes.
The other three men were huddled together by the fire-place, the picture
of fear.
“Don’t open the door, doc,” said Cuccini, but Oberzohn had already
gripped the handle and turned it.
They heard another door open and the click of the passage light as it
had come on. Then he returned.
“If you go now, I shall not wish to see you again. Am I not a man to
whom all secrets are known? You are well aware!”
Cuccini looked from the doctor to the door.
“Want us to go?” he asked, troubled.
Oberzohn shrugged.
“As you wish! It was my desire that you should stay with me
to-night—there is big work and big money for all of you.”
The men were looking at one another uneasily.
“How long do you want us to stay?” asked Cuccini.
“To-night only; if you would not prefer . . .”
To-night would come the crisis. Oberzohn had realized this since the day
dawned for him.
“We’ll stay—where do we sleep?”
For answer Oberzohn beckoned them from the room and they followed him
into the laboratory. In the wall that faced them was a heavy iron door
that opened into a concrete storehouse, where he kept various odds and
ends of equipment, oil and spirit for his cars, and the little gas
engine that worked a small dynamo in the laboratory and gave him, if
necessary, a lighting plant independent of outside current.
There were three long windows heavily barred and placed just under the
ceiling.
“Looks like the condemned cell to me,” grumbled Cuccini suspiciously.
“Are the bolts on the inside of a condemned cell?” asked Oberzohn. “Does
the good warden give you the key as I give you?”
Cuccini took the key.
“All right,” he said ungraciously, “there are plenty of blankets here,
boys—I guess you want us where the police won’t look, eh?”
“That is my intention,” replied the doctor.
Dr. Oberzohn closed the door on them and re-entered his study, his big
mouth twitching with amusement. He pulled the cord again and closed the
ventilator he had opened. It was only a few days before that he had
discovered that there were dried leaves in the ventilator shaft, and
that the opening of the inlet made them rustle, disturbingly for a man
who was engaged in a profound study of the lesser known, and therefore
the more highly cultured, philosophers.
_Chapter XXXI_ _The Things in the Box_
HE heard the soft purr of engines, and, looking through the hall
window, saw the dim lights of the car approaching the house, and turned
out the hall lamp. There he waited in the darkness, till the door of the
limousine opened and Gurther jumped out.
“I respectfully report that it is done, Herr Doktor,” he said.
Oberzohn nodded.
“The woman of Newton—where is she?”
“She is inside. Is it your wish that I should bring her? She was very
troublesome, Herr Doktor, and I had to use the needle.”
“Bring her in—you!” He barked to the chauffeur. “Help our friend.”
Together they lifted the unconscious girl, but carried her no farther
than the steps. At this point Oberzohn decided that she must return to
the prison. First they sent the chauffeur away; the car was garaged at
New Cross (it was one of Oberzohn’s three London depots), where the man
also lived. After he had gone, they carried Joan between them to the
factory, taking what, to Gurther, seemed an unnecessarily circuitous
route. If it was unnecessary, it was at least expedient, for the nearest
way to the factory led past the yawning hole that the doctor had dug
with such labour.
There was no mistaking Oberzohn’s arrival this time. The trap went up
with a thud, and Mirabelle listened, with a quickly beating heart, to
the sound of feet coming down the stone stairs. There were two people,
and they were walking heavily. Somehow she knew before she saw their
burden that it was Joan. She was in evening dress, her face as white as
chalk and her eyes closed; the girl thought she was dead when she saw
them lay her on the bed.
“You have given her too much, Gurther,” said Oberzohn.
Gurther?
She had not recognized him. It was almost impossible to believe that
this was the dapper young man who had danced with her at the Arts Ball.
“I had to guess in the dark, Herr Doktor,” said Gurther.
They were talking in German, and Mirabelle’s acquaintance with that
language was very slight. She saw Gurther produce a small flat case from
his pocket, take out a little phial, and shake into the palm of his hand
a small brown capsule. This he dissolved in a tiny tube which, with the
water he used, was also extracted from the case. Half filling a minute
syringe, he sent the needle into Joan’s arm. A pause, and then:
“Soon she will wake, with your kind permission, Herr Doktor,” said
Gurther.
Mirabelle was not looking at him, but she knew that his hot eyes were
fixed on her, that all the time except the second he was operating, he
was looking at her; and now she knew that this was the man to be feared.
A cold hand seemed to grip at her heart.
“That will do, Gurther.” Oberzohn’s voice was sharp. He, too, had
interpreted the stare. “You need not wait.”
Gurther obediently stalked from the room, and the doctor followed.
Almost before the trap had fastened down she was by the girl’s side,
with a basin of water and a wet towel. The second the water touched her
face, Joan opened her eyes and gazed wildly up at the vaulted ceiling,
then rolling over from the bed to her knees, she struggled to her feet,
swayed and would have fallen, had not Mirabelle steadied her.
“They’ve got him! They’ve got my boy . . . killed him like a dog!”
“What—Mr.—Mr. Newton?” gasped Mirabelle, horrified.
“Killed him—Monty—Monty!”
And then she began to scream and run up and down the room like a thing
demented. Mirabelle, sick at heart, almost physically sick at the sight,
caught her and tried to calm her, but she was distracted, half mad. The
drug and its antidote seemed to have combined to take away the last
vestige of restraint. It was not until she fell, exhausted, that
Mirabelle was able to drag her again to the bed and lay her upon it.
Montague Newton was dead! Who had killed him? Who were the “they”? Then
she thought of Gurther in his strange attire; white dress-front
crumpled, even his beard disarranged in the struggle he had had with the
overwrought woman.
In sheer desperation she ran up the steps and tried the trap, but it was
fast. She must get away from here—must get away at once. Joan was
moaning pitiably, and the girl sat by her side, striving to calm her.
She seemed to have passed into a state of semi-consciousness; except for
her sobs, she made no sound and uttered no intelligible word. Half an
hour passed—the longest and most dreadful half-hour in Mirabelle
Leicester’s life. And then she heard a sound. It had penetrated even to
the brain of this half-mad girl, for she opened her eyes wide, and,
gripping Mirabelle, drew herself up.
“He’s coming,” she said, white to the lips, “coming . . . the Killer is
coming!”
“For God’s sake don’t talk like that!” said Mirabelle, beside herself
with fear.
There it was, in the outer room; a stealthy shuffle of feet. She stared
at the closed door, and the strain of the suspense almost made her
faint. And then she saw the steel door move, slowly, and first a hand
came through, the edge of a face . . . Gurther was leering at her. His
beard was gone, and his wig; he was collarless, and had over his white
shirt the stained jacket that was his everyday wear.
“I want you.” He was talking to Mirabelle.
Her tongue clave to the roof of her mouth, but she did not speak.
“My pretty little lady——” he began, and then, with a shriek, Joan
leapt at him.
“Murderer, murderer . . . ! Beast!” she cried, striking wildly at his
face. With a curse, he tried to throw her off, but she was clinging to
him; a bestial lunatic thing, hardly human.
He flung her aside at last, and then he put up his hand to guard his
face as she leapt at him again. This time she went under his arm and was
through the door in a flash. He heard the swift patter of her feet on
the stairs, and turned in pursuit. The trap was open. He stumbled and
tripped in the dark across the floor of the gaunt factory. Just as she
reached the open, he grabbed at her and missed. Like a deer she sped,
but he was fleeter-footed behind her; and suddenly his hand closed about
her throat.
“You had better go out, my friend,” he said, and tightened his grip.
As she twisted to avoid him, he put out his foot. There was a grating
snap, something gripped his legs, and the excruciating pain of it was
agonizing. He loosened his hold of her throat, but held her arm tightly.
With all his strength he threw her against the wall and she fell in a
heap. Then, leaning down, he forced apart the cruel jagged teeth of the
man-trap on to which he had put his foot, and drew his leg clear. He was
bleeding; his trouser leg was torn to ribbons. He stopped only long
enough to drag the girl to her feet, and, throwing her across his
shoulder as though she were a sack, he went back into the factory, down
the stairs, and threw her on to the bed with such violence that the
spring supports broke. It had a strange effect upon the dazed woman, but
this he did not see, for he had turned to Mirabelle.
“My little lady, I want you!” he breathed.
Blood was trickling down from his wounded calf, but he did not feel the
pain any more; felt nothing, save the desire to hurt those who hunted
him; wanted nothing but the materialization of crude and horrid dreams.
She stood, frozen, paralysed, incapable of movement. And then his hand
came under her chin and he lifted her face; and she saw the bright,
hungry eyes devouring her, saw the thin lips come closer and closer,
could not move; had lost all sentient impressions, and could only stare
into the eyes of this man-snake, hypnotized by the horror of the moment.
And then a raging fury descended upon him. Narrow fingers tore at his
face, almost blinding him. He turned with a howl of rage, but the
white-faced Joan had flown to the furnace and taken up a short iron bar
that had been used to rake the burning coals together. She struck at him
and missed. He dodged past her and she flung the bar at him, and again
missed him. The iron struck the green box, behind the furnace, there was
a sound of smashing glass. He did not notice this, intent only upon the
girl, and Mirabelle closed her eyes and heard only the blow as he struck
her.
When she looked again, Joan was lying on the bed and he was tying one of
her hands to the bed-rail with a strap which he had taken from his
waist. Then Mirabelle saw a sight that released her pent speech. He
heard her scream and grinned round at her . . . saw where she was
looking and looked too.
Something was coming from the broken green box! A black, spade-shaped
head, with bright, hard eyes that seemed to survey the scene in a
malignant stare. And then, inch by inch, a thick shining thing, like a
rubber rope, wriggled slowly to the floor, coiled about upon itself, and
raised its flat head.
“Oh, God, look!”
He turned about at the sight, that immovable grin of his upon his face,
and said something in a guttural tongue. The snake was motionless, its
baleful gaze first upon the sinking girl, then upon the man.
Gurther’s surprise was tragic; it was as though he had been confronted
with some apparition from another world. And then his hand went to his
hip pocket; there was a flash of light and a deafening explosion that
stunned her. The pistol dropped from his hand and fell with a clatter to
the floor, and she saw his arm was stiffly extended, and protruding from
the cuff of his coat a black tail that wound round and round his wrist.
It had struck up his sleeve. The cloth about his biceps was bumping up
and down erratically.
He stood straightly erect, grinning, the arm still outflung, his
astonished eyes upon the coil about his wrist. And then, slowly his
other hand came round, gripped the tail and pulled it savagely forth.
The snake turned with an angry hiss and tried to bite back at him; but
raising his hand, he brought the head crashing down against the furnace.
There was a convulsive wriggle as the reptile fell among the ashes.
“Gott in himmel!” whispered Gurther, and his free hand went up to his
arm and felt gingerly. “He is dead, gracious lady. Perhaps there is
another?”
He went, swaying as he walked, to the green box, and put in his hand
without hesitation. There was another—a bigger snake, roused from its
sleep and angry. He bit twice at the man’s wrist, but Gurther laughed, a
gurgling laugh of pure enjoyment. For already he was a dead man; that he
knew. And it had come to him, at the moment and second of his
dissolution, when the dread gates of judgment were already ajar, that he
should go to his Maker with this clean space in the smudge of his life.
“Go, little one,” he said, grinning into the spade-face. “You have no
more poison; that is finished!”
He put the writhing head under his heel, and Mirabelle shut her eyes and
put her hands to her ears. When she looked again, the man was standing
by the door, clinging to the post and slipping with every frantic effort
to keep himself erect.
He grinned at her again; this man of murder, who had made his last kill.
“Pardon, gracious lady,” he said thickly, and went down on his knees,
his head against the door, his body swaying slowly from side to side,
and finally tumbled over.
She heard Oberzohn’s harsh voice from the floor above. He was calling
Gurther, and presently he appeared in the doorway, and there was a
pistol in his hand.
“So!” he said, looking down at the dying man.
And then he saw the snake, and his face wrinkled. He looked from
Mirabelle to the girl on the bed, went over and examined her, but did
not attempt to release the strap. It was Mirabelle who did that;
Mirabelle who sponged the bruised face and loosened the dress.
So doing, she felt a hand on her shoulder.
“Come,” said Oberzohn.
“I’m staying here with Joan, until——”
“You come at once, or I will give you to my pretty little friends.” He
pointed to the two snakes on the floor who still moved spasmodically.
She had to step past Gurther, but that seemed easier than passing those
wriggling, shining black ropes; and, her hand in his, she stumbled up
the dark steps and eventually into the clean, sweet air of the night.
He was dressed for a journey; she had noticed that when he appeared. A
heavy cloth cap was on his curious-shaped head, and he looked less
repulsive with so much of his forehead hidden. Though the night was
warm, he wore an overcoat.
They were passing between the wall and the factory when he stopped and
put his hand before her mouth. He had heard voices, low voices on the
other side of the wall, and presently the scrape of something. Without
removing his hand from her face, he half dragged, half pushed her until
they were clear of the factory.
She thought they were going back to the house, which was in darkness,
but instead, he led her straight along the wall, and presently she saw
the bulk of the barge.
“Stay, and do not speak,” he said, and began to turn a rusty wheel. With
a squeak and a groan the water-gates opened inwards.
What did he intend doing? There was no sign of a boat, only this old
dilapidated barge. She was presently to know.
“Come,” he said again.
She was on the deck of the barge, moving forward to its bow, which
pointed towards the open gate and the canal beyond.
She heard him puff and groan as he strained at a rope he had found, and
then, looking down, she saw the front of the barge open, like the two
water-gates of a lock. Displaying remarkable agility, he lowered himself
over the edge; he seemed to be standing on something solid, for again he
ordered her to join him.
“I will not go,” she said breathlessly, and turning, would have fled,
but his hand caught her dress and dragged at her.
“I will drown you here, woman,” he said, and she knew that the threat
would have a sequel.
Tremblingly she lowered herself over the edge until her foot touched
something hard and yet yielding. He was pushing at the barge with all
his might, and the platform beneath her grew in space. First the sharp
nose and then the covered half-deck of the fastest motor-boat that Mr.
Oberzohn’s money could buy, or the ingenuity of builders could devise.
The old barge was a boat-house, and this means of escape had always been
to his hand. It was for this reason that he lived in a seemingly
inaccessible spot.
The men who had been on the canal bank were gone. The propellers
revolving slowly, the boat stole down the dark waters, after a short
time slipped under a bridge over which street-cars were passing, and
headed for Deptford and the river.
Dr. Oberzohn took off his overcoat and laid it tenderly inside the
shelter of the open cabin, tenderly because every pocket was packed
tight with money.
To Mirabelle Leicester, crouching in the darkness of that sheltered
space, the time that passed had no dimension. Once an authoritative
voice hailed them from the bank. It was a policeman; she saw him after
the boat had passed. A gas-lamp showed the glitter of his metal buttons.
But soon he was far behind.
Deptford was near when they reached a barrier which neither ingenuity
nor money could pass; a ragged nightbird peered down curiously at the
motor-boat.
“You can’t get through here, guv’nor,” he said simply. “The lock doesn’t
open until high tide.”
“When is this high tide?” asked Oberzohn breathlessly.
“Six o’clock to-morrow morning,” said the voice.
For a long time he saw, stricken to inactivity by the news, and then he
sent his engines into reverse and began circling round.
“There is one refuge for us, young miss,” he said. “Soon we shall see
it. Now I will tell you something. I desire so much to live. Do you
also?”
She did not answer.
“If you cry out, if you will make noises, I will kill you—that is all,”
he said; and the very simplicity of his words, the lack of all emphasis
behind the deadly earnestness, told her that he would keep his word.
_Chapter XXXII_ _The Search_
“’WARE man-traps,” said Gonsalez.
The white beam of his lamp had detected the ugly thing. He struck at it
with his stick, and with a vicious snap it closed.
“Here’s one that’s been sprung,” he said, and examined the teeth. “And,
what’s more, it has made a catch! There’s blood here.”
Manfred and Digby were searching the ground cautiously. Then Manfred
heard the quick intake of his breath, and he stooped again, picked up a
strip of braided cloth.
“A man’s,” he said, and his relief betrayed his fear. “Somebody in
evening dress, and quite recent.” He looked at his finger. “The blood is
still wet.”
Digby showed him the ventilator grating through which he had smelt the
incense, and when Leon stooped, the faint aroma still remained.
“We will try the factory first. If that draws blank, we’ll ask Dr.
Oberzohn’s guidance, and if it is not willingly given I shall persuade
him.” And in the reflected light of the lamp George Manfred saw the hard
Leon he knew of old. “This time I shall not promise: my threat will be
infinitely milder than my performance.”
They came to the dark entry of the factory, and Manfred splashed his
light inside.
“You’ll have to walk warily here,” he said.
Progress was slow, for they did not know that a definite path existed
between the jagged ends of broken iron and debris. Once or twice Leon
stopped to stamp on the floor; it gave back a hollow sound.