Four Just Men (8 page)

"I wonder you have not got an iron safe to lock me in," he said petulantly, and closed the conversation.

There was a knock at the door and Falmouth put his head inside.

"I don't want to hurry you, sir," he said, "but----"

So the Foreign Secretary drove off to Downing Street in something remarkably like a temper.

For he was not used to being hurried, or taken charge of, or ordered hither and thither. It irritated him further to see the now familiar cyclists on either side of the carriage, to recognise at every few yards an obvious policeman in mufti admiring the view from the sidewalk, and when he came to Downing Street and found it barred to all carriages but his own, and an enormous crowd of morbid sightseers gathered to cheer his ingress, he felt as he had never felt before in his life--humiliated.

He found his secretary waiting in his private office with the rough draft of the speech that was to introduce the second reading of the Extradition Bill.

"We are pretty sure to meet with a great deal of opposition," informed the secretary, "but Mainland has sent out three-line whips, and expects to get a majority of thirty-six--at the very least."

Ramon read over the notes and found them refreshing.

They brought back the old feeling of security and importance. After all, he was a great Minister of State. Of course the threats were too absurd--the police were to blame for making so much fuss; and of course the Press --yes, that was it--a newspaper sensation.

There was something buoyant, something almost genial in his air, when he turned with a half smile to his secretary.

"Well, what about my unknown friends--what do the blackguards call themselves?--the Four Just Men?"

Even as he spoke he was acting a part; he had not forgotten their title, it was with him day and night.

The secretary hesitated; between his chief and himself the Four Just Men had been a tabooed subject.

"They--oh, we've heard nothing more than you have read," he said lamely; "we know now who Thery is, but we can't place his three companions."

The Minister pursed his lips.

"They give me till tomorrow night to recant," he said.

"You have heard from them again?"

"The briefest of notes," said Sir Philip lightly.

"And otherwise?"

Sir Philip frowned. "They will keep their promise," he said shortly, for the 'otherwise' of his secretary had sent a coldness into his heart that he could not quite understand.

In the top room in the workshop at Carnaby Street, Thery, subdued, sullen, fearful, sat facing the three. "I want you to quite understand," said Manfred, "that we bear you no ill-will for what you have done. I think, and Senor Poiccart thinks, that Senor Gonsalez did right to spare your life and bring you back to us."

Thery dropped his eyes before the half-quizzical smile of the speaker.

"Tomorrow night you will do as you agreed to do--if the necessity still exists. Then you will go----" he paused.

"Where?" demanded Thery in sudden rage. "Where in the name of Heaven ? I have told them my name, they will know who I am--they will find that by writing to the police. Where am I to go?"

He sprang to his feet, glowering on the three men, his hands trembling with rage, his great frame shaking with the intensity of his anger.

"You betrayed yourself," said Manfred quietly; "that is your punishment. But we will find a place for you, a new Spain under other skies--and the girl at Jerez shall be there waiting for you."

Thery looked from one to the other suspiciously. Were they laughing at him ?

There was no smile on their faces; Gonsalez alone looked at him with keen, inquisitive eyes, as though he saw some hidden meaning in the speech.

"Will you swear that?" asked Thery hoarsely, "will you swear that by the----"

"I promise that--if you wish it I will swear it," said Manfred. "And now," he went on, his voice changing, "you know what is expected of you tomorrow night-- what you have to do ?"

Thery nodded.

"There must be no hitch--no bungling; you and I and Poiccart and Gonsalez will kill this unjust man in a way that the world will never guess--such an execution as shall appall mankind. A swift death, a sure death, a death that will creep through cracks, that will pass by the guards unnoticed. Why, there never has been such a thing done--such----" he stopped dead with flushed cheeks and kindling eyes, and met the gaze of his two companions. Poiccart impassive, sphinxlike, Leon interested and analytic. Manfred's face went a duller red.

"I am sorry," he said almost humbly; "for the moment I had forgotten the cause, and the end, in the strangeness of the means."

He raised his hand deprecatingly.

"It is understandable," said Poiccart gravely, and Leon pressed Manfred's arm.

The three stood in embarrassed silence for a moment, then Manfred laughed.

"To work!" he said, and led the way to the improvised laboratory.

Inside Thery took off his coat. Here was his province, and from being the cowed dependant he took charge of the party, directing them, instructing, commanding, until he had the men of whom, a few minutes before, he had stood in terror running from studio to laboratory, from floor to floor.

There was much to be done, much testing, much calculating, many little sums to be worked out on paper, for in the killing of Sir Philip Ramon all the resources of modern science were to be pressed into the service of the Four.

"I am going to survey the land," said Manfred suddenly, and disappearing into the studio returned with a pair of step-ladders. These he straddled in the dark passage, and mounting quickly pushed up a trapdoor that led to the flat roof of the building.

He pulled himself up carefully, crawled along the leaden surface, and raising himself cautiously looked over the low parapet.

He was in the centre of a half mile circle of uneven roofs. Beyond the circumference of his horizon London loomed murkily through smoke and mist. Below was a busy street. He took a hasty survey of the roof with its chimney stacks, its unornamental telegraph pole, its leaden floor and rusty guttering; then, through a pair of field-glasses, made a long, careful survey southward. He crawled slowly back to the trapdoor, raised it, and let himself down very gingerly till his feet touched the top of the ladder. Then he descended rapidly, closing the door after him.

"Well?" asked Thery with something of triumph in his voice.

"I see you have labelled it," said Manfred.

"It is better so--since we shall work in the dark," said Thery.

"Did you see then----?" began Poiccart.

Manfred nodded.

"Very indistinctly--one could just see the Houses of Parliament dimly, and Downing Street is a jumble of roofs."

Thery had turned to the work that was engaging his attention. Whatever was his trade he was a deft workman. Somehow he felt that he must do his best for these men. He had been made forcibly aware of their superiority in the last days, he had now an ambition to assert his own skill, his individuality, and to earn commendation from these men who had made him feel his littleness.

Manfred and the others stood aside and watched him in silence. Leon, with a perplexed frown, kept his eyes fixed on the workman's face. For Leon Gonsalez, scientist, physiognomist (his translation of the
Theologi Physiognomia Humana
of Lequetius is regarded today as the finest), was endeavouring to reconcile the criminal with the artisan.

After a while Thery finished.

"All is now ready," he said with a grin of satisfaction: "let me find your Minister of State, give me a minute's speech with him, and the next minute he dies."

His face, repulsive in repose, was now demoniacal. He was like some great bull from his own country made more terrible with the snuffle of blood in his nostrils.

In strange contrast were the faces of his employers. Not a muscle of either face stirred. There was neither exultation nor remorse in their expressions--only a curious something that creeps into the set face of the judge as he pronounces the dread sentence of the law. Thery saw that something, and it froze him to his very marrow.

He threw up his hands as if to ward them off.

"Stop! stop!" he shouted; "don't look like that, in the name of God--don't, don't!" He covered his face with shaking hands.

"Like what, Thery?" asked Leon softly.

Thery shook his head.

"I cannot say--like the judge at Granada when he says --when he says, 'Let the thing be done!'"

"If we look so," said Manfred harshly, "it is because we are judges--and not alone judges but executioners of our judgment."

"I thought you would have been pleased," whimpered Thery.

"You have done well," said Manfred gravely.

"Bueno, bueno!" echoed the others.

"Pray God that we are successful," added Manfred solemnly, and Thery stared at this strange man in amazement.

Superintendent Falmouth reported to the Commissioner that afternoon that all arrangements were now complete for the protection of the threatened Minister.

"I've filled up 44 Downing Street," he said; "there's practically a man in every room. I've got four of our best men on the roof, men in the basement, men in the kitchens."

"What about the servants?" asked the Commissioner.

"Sir Philip has brought up his own people from the country, and now there isn't a person in the house from the private secretary to the doorkeeper whose name and history I do not know from A to Z."

The Commissioner breathed an anxious sigh.

"I shall be very glad when tomorrow is over," he said. "What are the final arrangements?"

"There has been no change, sir, since we fixed things up the morning Sir Philip came over. He remains at 44 all day tomorrow until half past eight, goes over to the House at nine to move the reading of the Bill, returns at eleven."

"I have given orders for the traffic to be diverted along the Embankment between a quarter to nine and a quarter after, and the same at eleven," said the Commissioner. "Four closed carriages will drive from Downing Street to the House, Sir Philip will drive down in a car immediately afterwards."

There was a rap at the door--the conversation took place in the Commissioner's office--and a police officer entered. He bore a card in his hand, which he laid upon the table.

"Senor Jose di Silva," read the Commissioner, "the Spanish Chief of Police," he explained to the Superintendent. "Show him in, please."

Senor di Silva, a lithe little man, with a pronounced nose and a beard, greeted the Englishmen with the exaggerated politeness that is peculiar to Spanish official circles.

"I am sorry to bring you over," said the Commissioner, after he had shaken hands with the visitor and had introduced him to Falmouth; "we thought you might be able to help us in our search for Thery."

"Luckily I was in Paris," said the Spaniard; "yes, I know Thery, and I am astounded to find him in such distinguished company. Do I know the Four?"--his shoulders went up to his ears--"who does? I know of them--there was a case at Malaga, you know ? . . . Thery is not a good criminal. I was astonished to learn that he had joined the band."

"By the way," said the chief, picking up a copy of the police notice that lay on his desk, and running his eye over it, "your people omitted to say--although it really isn't of very great importance--what is Thery's trade?"

The Spanish policeman knitted his brow.

"Thery's trade! Let me remember." He thought for a moment. "Thery's trade ? I don't think I know; yet I have an idea that it is something to do with rubber. His first crime was stealing rubber; but if you want to know for certain----"

The Commissioner laughed.

"It really isn't at all important," he said lightly.

There was yet another missive to be handed to the doomed Minister. In the last he had received there had occurred the sentence:
One more warning you shall receive, and so that we may be assured it shall not go astray, our next and last message shall be delivered into your hands by one of us in person.

This passage afforded the police more comfort than had any episode since the beginning of the scare. They placed a curious faith in the honesty of the Four Men; they recognised that these were not ordinary criminals and that their pledge was inviolable. Indeed, had they thought otherwise the elaborate precautions that they were taking to ensure the safety of Sir Philip would not have been made. The honesty of the Four was their most terrible characteristic.

In this instance it served to raise a faint hope that the men who were setting at defiance the establishment of the law would overreach themselves. The letter conveying this message was the one to which Sir Philip had referred so airily in his conversation with his secretary. It had come by post, bearing the date mark,
Balham, 12.15.

"The question is, shall we keep you absolutely surrounded, so that these men cannot by any possible chance carry out their threat?" asked Superintendent Falmouth in some perplexity, "or shall we apparently relax our vigilance in order to lure one of the Four to his destruction ?"

The question was directed to Sir Philip Ramon as he sat huddled up in the capacious depths of his office chair.

"You want to use me as a bait?" he asked sharply.

The detective expostulated.

"Not exactly that, sir; we want to give these men a chance----"

"I understand perfectly," said the Minister, with some show of irritation.

The detective resumed :

"We know now how the infernal machine was smuggled into the House; on the day on which the outrage was committed an old member, Mr. Bascoe, the member for North Torrington, was seen to enter the House."

"Well ?" asked Sir Philip in surprise.

"Mr. Bascoe was never within a hundred miles of the House of Commons on that date," said the detective quietly. "We might never have found it out, for his name did not appear in the division list. We've been working quietly on that House of Commons affair ever since, and it was only a couple o£ days ago that we made the discovery."