The Fourth Plague (14 page)

The wind carried the voices of their pursuers. One staccato shot rang out, a bullet whistled past them, then some one in authority must have given the order to stop firing. And indeed it was more dangerous for the men than for the fugitives.

There was a coastguard station half a mile along the cliff road, and, although neither the girl nor Mansingham realized the fact, they instinctively felt that the coastline offered the best means of escape. Then suddenly Marjorie tripped and fell. Mansingham stopped in his stride and turned to lift her. As he raised her to her feet he uttered an exclamation of despair.

Facing him were two men, indubitably Italians, and their revolvers covered him. He had come against the “Red Hand” outpost.

It was all over in ten minutes. The pursuers came up, the girl was snatched from his protecting arms. He fought well; man after man fell before his huge fists. Then a knife, deftly thrown, struck him by the haft full between the eyes and he went down like a log.

Festini, breathless, his face marred by an ugly redness which was fast developing into a bruise, directed operations.

“If you make a sound,” he said, “or attempt to attract the attention of any person you see, you will have that person's death on your hands, and probably your own.”

He spoke curtly, impersonally, as though she herself were Mansingham.

“Do not hurt him,” she gasped. She referred to the prostrate form of the farm-labourer, now stirring to life. Festini made no answer. He was of a race which did not readily forgive a blow.

“Take her away,” he said.

He remained behind with his two familiars. “I think we will cut his throat, Signor,” said Il Bue, “and that will be an end to him.”

“And an end to us,” said Festini; “this coast is patrolled, the man will be found, and the whole coastline searched.”

He walked a dozen paces to the edge of the cliff and looked down. There was a sheer fall here of two hundred feet, and the tide was in.

“There is twenty feet of water here,” he said, significantly.

They carried the reviving man by the head and feet to the edge of the cliff. They swung him twice and then released their hold, his arms and legs outstretched like a starfish. Round and round he twirled in that brief space of time, Festini and the other watching. Then the water splashed whitely and the dark figure disappeared.

They waited a little while, there was no reappearance, and Festini and his lieutenant retraced their footsteps to the cottage, the third man following.

XIV. —TILLIZINI LEAVES A MARK

THE PERIOD OF ULTIMATUM was drawing to a close. For four days longer England had the opportunity of agreeing to the terms which the “Red Hand” had laid down.

In his big library at Downing Street, occupying the chair which great and famous men had occupied for the past century, the Prime Minister, grave and preoccupied, sat in conference with Tillizini.

The Italian was unusually spick and span that morning. He had dressed himself with great care, an ominous sign for the organization he had set himself to exterminate. For this was one of his eccentricities, and it had passed into a legend among the criminal classes in Italy, that a neat Tillizini was a dangerous Tillizini. There is a saying in Florence, “Tillizini has a new coat—who is for the galleys?”

The Prime Minister was fingering his pen absently, making impossible little sketches upon his blotting pad.

“Then you associate the disappearance of Miss Marjorie Meagh with the operations of the ‘Red Hand'?”

“I do,” said the other.

“And what of the man, Mansingham?”

“That, too,” said Tillizini. “They were seen together in a field where Mansingham was working, his book and his coat were found as he had left them, and then he and she walked together to the stile. He is seen by another labourer to walk back slowly across the field, to suddenly stoop and pick up something, probably the lady's handkerchief or bag, it is immaterial which. He runs back to the stile, jumps over, and evidently follows the lady. From that moment neither he nor she are seen again. One woman I questioned at a cottage by the roadside remembers a big car passing about that time. I place the three circumstances together.”

“But surely,” said the Prime Minister, “they would hardly take the man. What object had they? What object in taking the lady so far as that was concerned?” Tillizini looked out of the window. From where he sat he commanded a view of Green Park, a bright and spirited scene. The guard had just been relieved at the Horse Guards, and they were riding across the parade ground, their cuirasses glittering in the sun, their polished helmets so many mirrors reflecting the rays of light. He watched them sadly, and the great crowd that marched on either side of them. Not all the arms of England, all her military and naval strength, her laws and splendid institutions, could save her from the malignity of the “Red Hand.”

He turned with a start to the Prime Minister, and found that gentleman regarding him curiously.

“In a sense,” he said, “I do not mind this abduction, always providing that neither of these people are injured. I cannot understand why they should have bothered; but it is these side issues of private vengeance which invariably bring the big organizations to grief.”

“Seriously, Professor Tillizini,” said the Premier, “do you think that these men will carry their threat into execution?”

“Seriously, I do,” said Tillizini. “Your experts scoffed at the idea of the ‘Red Hand' being able to cultivate this particular germ. The ‘Red Hand's' reply must have been a little startling to them.” He smiled. “If I remember rightly they sent a little of the culture to your Bacteriological Institute. Animals which were inoculated died with all the symptoms which have been described by the fifteenth-century writers.”

The Premier nodded his head.

“We cannot give the money, that is impossible; you recognize that, Professor?” Tillizini assented.

“It would mean the negation of all law; it would create a precedent which would put an end to all the authority of civilization; it were better that all England should be ravaged by this disease than that a single penny should leave the Treasury. That is my view. I am prepared,” he said quietly, “to accept not only the responsibility of that action, but the first consequence of these men's machinations. This I have intimated through the public press. The only hope is that we may secure the culture, and not only secure it, but locate the laboratory where the cultivation is being made. It is a hope,” he shrugged his shoulders. “I know you are doing all you can, Tillizini,” he said quickly, “and Scotland Yard—”

“Scotland Yard is working splendidly,” said Tillizini. “Your police organization is rather wonderful.”

He rose to his feet.

“Four days,” he said, “is a very long time.”

“You will take any steps you deem necessary for the public safety?”

“You may be sure of that, sir,” said Tillizini.

The Premier twisted his blotter in his preoccupation.

“They say of you, Professor,” he said deliberately, “that you do not hesitate to commit what in the eyes of the law-abiding world might be considered as criminal acts, in order to further justice.”

“I have never hesitated,” said Tillizini, “if you mean—”

“I mean nothing in particular,” said the Premier; “only I tell you this, if you deem it necessary to go outside the law to administer preventive punishment, I assure you that I will secure you the necessary indemnity from Parliament.”

Tillizini bowed.

“I have to thank your Excellency for that,” he said, “and you may be sure I shall not abuse the power, and that no crime I commit will ever need an act of indemnity.”

The Premier looked up in astonishment.

“Why?”

“Because,” said Tillizini, with his sweetest smile, “my crimes are never brought home to me.”

With another bow he left the room.

Outside the house in Downing Street. Inspector Crocks was waiting.

“I got you some telegrams,” he said, genially. “I am rapidly deteriorating into a private secretary'.”

Tillizini smiled. A feeling of affection had grown up between these two men, so differently constituted, so temperamentally apart. When Crocks had been detailed to assist Tillizini in his work, there were many sceptical people who smiled behind their hands, for anybody more unlike the detective of fiction than the inspector could not easily be imagined. Yet he was a shrewd, clever man, subtle to a point of brilliancy. A rapid and effective organizer, with a knowledge of the criminal underworld which few men possess.

Tillizini tore open the telegrams; he read them twice, then he crumpled them into a ball and thrust them into his coat pocket. The letters, after glancing at the address and the postmark, he placed unopened in the inside pocket of his frock coat.

“I didn't show you the telegrams,” he said to the other, “because they were in code.”

In a few words he communicated the gist of their contents. Tillizini's code-book was in his head.

“I am going to see my decoy now.”

“Is he still alive?” asked the inspector with simulated surprise.

“He was, a few minutes ago,” said Tillizini. For once he did not treat the subject facetiously, and the inspector knew that the question he had put in good-humour had a serious application.

“I secured him a position,” said Tillizini suddenly; “he is an outside porter at Victoria, It will afford him an excellent opportunity of becoming acquainted with contrary humanity.”

“And at the same time he will be able to give you a little information,” said Crocks. “I think it is an excellent scheme. He doesn't look clever, and I don't think he is particularly clever, but he has got the power which so few police officers possess, unfortunately. The moment a man begins to look important his value decreases.”

Tillizini laughed.

“Oh, unimportant man!” he said cryptically.

A few minutes later the two parted. The detective went back to Scotland Yard and Tillizini hailed a cab and drove to an address in South London.

At half-past twelve that day the fast train from Burboro' to Victoria steamed slowly into the big terminus. Vera Morte-Mannery was one of the first to descend. Her foot touched the platform almost before the train stopped.

She walked quickly through the barrier into the large space at the end of the station.

She looked round anxiously, and then up at the clock. The man she sought was not there. She strolled aimlessly from one side of the station to the other, and was returning to the bookstall, when Festini, with rapid strides, came into the station.

She caught his eye and he checked himself and turned about carelessly. He walked out of the station and she followed. At his uplifted finger a car came out of the rank and drew alongside the pavement.

Without a word she got in and he followed. They drove in silence until the car turned into Hyde Park and slowed down in obedience to the regulations.

Then she turned to him suddenly and, with a breaking voice, asked—

“Where is Marjorie Meagh?”

He raised his eyebrows.

“Marjorie Meagh?” he asked. “You do not mean to tell me that you have brought me to London to ask me a question like that?”

“Where is Marjorie Meagh?” she asked again.

“How on earth should I know?”

“Festini,” she said, pleadingly, “let us be frank with one another. Marjorie has been taken by the ‘Red Hand.' You are the ‘Red Hand.'”

“Hush!” he muttered, savagely; “don't shout, people could hear you on the sidewalks!”

His manner to her had changed. It was a little cold, a little impatient, more than a little intolerant. She had detected the changed atmosphere the moment she had met him.

She pressed her lips tightly together and remained silent for a little while.

“What is your object in taking her?” she asked.

“That is hidden from you. Do you not trust me?”

“Trust you!” she laughed bitterly. “Have I not trusted you to the fullest extent?” she asked. “That question should rather come from me. You do not trust me, Festini.”

It was less a statement than a pleading. She wanted him to deny it, but no denial came.

“There are things which it is not right for me to tell you.”

“Why?” she asked; “is there any secret of the ‘Red Hand' which I do not know?”

He smiled a little uneasily.

“You did not know anything about the Fourth Plague,” he said, softly.

“I do not complain of that,” she said, “it was too great a thing to trust with any man or woman. But there is nothing so subtle in this kidnapping of Marjorie Meagh.”

He spread out his hands with a gesture of helplessness.

“I cannot tell you,” he said. “There is something behind this which you cannot know.”

“There is something behind it which I can guess!” she said fiercely. “You love Marjorie—you have taken her because you love her. Don't deny it. I can see it in your face. Oh, you liar! You liar!”

He had never seen her like this. It was a new force he was encountering, one which at once pleased and piqued him.

She had been all softness, all yielding to him before, an easy conquest for this handsome man, with his soft voice and his eloquent eyes.

In her anger she was a little terrible, but she did not terrify him. He was used to opposition, and had a quick way with it. There was enough of woman in him to appreciate her feelings. But, like the autocrat he was, he resented her revolt, and in his resentment said more than it was wise, under the circumstances, to say.

“Yes, it is true,” he said, coolly. “I do love her. Why should I deny it? I do not love you any less because I love her. She is on a different plane to you and I.”

Vera was breathing quickly; her bosom rose and fell with the intensity of her pent up rage. She did not speak again for a minute; she was conquering an insane desire to throw herself from the car, to run anywhere out of his sight, as she had gone, she knew, out of his heart. The fires of humiliation and jealousy burnt too fiercely within her for words.

Again and again she checked the wild torrent of speech that rose to her lips and choked in the checking.

And this was the end! The end of her dream, the reward for all her work, for all her treachery to those who loved her, the last stretch of the happy road which she had fondly thought led to eternity.

From time to time he looked at her out of the corner of his eye.

“I understand,” she said at last, speaking composedly, “your great plan has come to fruition. You have no further use for me?”

“Do not say that, Vera,” he said.

He was immensely relieved to discover how well she had taken the news, which, cold-blooded as he was, he had no desire, and if the truth be told, no intention of telling her.

“You are indispensable,” he said. He tried to take her hand, but she withdrew it. “It is only the exigencies of the scheme we have in hand which has prevented me from taking you more fully into my confidence. As to Marjorie, I want you to be generous,” he said. “I want you to realize—”

“Oh, I understand,” she said, wearily. “Were you ever sincere, Festini, were you ever faithful?”

She looked at him searchingly.

“I swear,” he began.

“Don't swear,” she said. “I think I understand.” She smiled bravely. “I'll get out here,” she said. “I'd like a little walk. This was not exactly the outcome of the morning's meeting that I expected,” she went on; “although I was jealous, I never realized that my suspicions were true.”

He tried by argument to persuade her to remain with him, but she was determined. She tapped the window and the car drew up. As she alighted, he assisted her. She held out her hand.

“Good-bye, Festini,” she said. His eyes narrowed.

“You must see me again, there is no goodbye with me,” he said, abruptly. “I have told you you are indispensable—I mean that.”

She made no reply. Gently she relaxed her clasp, and her hand fell listlessly to her side. Then she turned abruptly and walked away.

He stood watching her until she was out of sight. Could he trust her? He had a large knowledge of men, a larger of women. He had weighed all the chances; she would not betray him, he thought. These English people love to suffer in silence, to hug to their secret hearts their greatest griefs.