The Complete Four Just Men Read online

  Was there any trace of poison in these birds? – None that could be discovered.

  At this point Sir Francis Katling was recalled. He had seen the birds. He could find no trace of poison.

  Granted the possibility of such a gas as we have already spoken of – a deadly gas with the property of rapid dissipation – might not the escape of a minute quantity of such a fume bring about the death of these birds? – Yes, if they were resting on the window-sill.

  By the Foreman: Do you connect these birds with the tragedy? – I do not, replied the witness emphatically.

  Superintendent Falmouth resumed his evidence.

  Were there any other curious features that struck you? – None.

  The Coroner proceeded to question the witness concerning the relations of Marks with the police.

  Was the stain found on Sir Philip’s hand, and on the hand of the man Thery, found also on Marks? – No.

  * * *

  It was as the court was dispersing, and little groups of men stood discussing the most extraordinary verdict ever given by a coroner’s jury, “Death from some unknown cause, and wilful murder against some person or persons unknown”, that the Coroner himself met on the threshold of the court a familiar face.

  ‘Hullo, Carson!’ he said in surprise, ‘you here too; I should have thought that your bankrupts kept you busy – even on a day like this – extraordinary case.’

  ‘Extraordinary,’ agreed the other.

  ‘Were you there all the time?’

  ‘Yes,’ replied the spectator.

  ‘Did you notice what a bright foreman we had?’

  ‘Yes; I think he would make a smarter lawyer than a company promoter.’

  ‘You know him, then?’

  ‘Yes,’ yawned the Official Receiver; ‘poor devil, he thought he was going to set the Thames on fire, floated a company to reproduce photogravures and things – took Etherington’s off our hands, but it’s back again.’

  ‘Has he failed?’ asked the Coroner in surprise.

  ‘Not exactly failed. He’s just given it up, says the climate doesn’t suit him – what is his name again?’

  ‘Manfred,’ said the Coroner.

  Chapter 12

  Conclusion

  Falmouth sat on the opposite side of the Chief Commissioner’s desk, his hands clasped before him. On the blotting-pad lay a thin sheet of grey notepaper. The Commissioner picked it up again and re-read it.

  When you receive this [it ran] we who for want of a better title call ourselves ‘The Four Just Men’ will be scattered throughout Europe, and there is little likelihood of your ever tracing us. In no spirit of boastfulness we say: We have accomplished that which we set ourselves to accomplish. In no sense of hypocrisy we repeat our regret that such a step as we took was necessary.

  Sir Philip Ramon’s death would appear to have been an accident. This much we confess. Thery bungled – and paid the penalty. We depended too much upon his technical knowledge. Perhaps by diligent search you will solve the mystery of Sir Philip Ramon’s death – when such a search is rewarded you will realise the truth of this statement. Farewell.

  ‘It tells us nothing,’ said the Commissioner. Falmouth shook his head despairingly. ‘Search!’ he said bitterly; ‘we have searched the house in Downing Street from end to end – where else can we search?’

  ‘Is there no paper amongst Sir Philip’s documents that might conceivably put you on the track?’

  ‘None that we have seen.’

  The chief bit the end of his pen thoughtfully.

  ‘Has his country house been examined?’

  Falmouth frowned.

  ‘I didn’t think that necessary.’

  ‘Nor Portland Place?’

  ‘No: it was locked up at the time of the murder.’

  The Commissioner rose.

  ‘Try Portland Place,’ he advised. ‘At present it is in the hands of Sir Philip’s executors.’

  The detective hailed a hansom, and in a quarter of an hour found himself knocking upon the gloomy portals of the late Foreign Secretary’s town house. A grave manservant opened the door; it was Sir Philip’s butler, a man known to Falmouth, who greeted him with a nod.

  ‘I want to make a search of the house, Perks,’ he said. ‘Has anything been touched?’

  The man shook his head.

  ‘No, Mr Falmouth,’ he replied, ‘everything is just as Sir Philip left it. The lawyer gentlemen have not even made an inventory.’

  Falmouth walked through the chilly hall to the comfortable little room set apart for the butler.

  ‘I should like to start with the study,’ he said.

  ‘I’m afraid there will be a difficulty, then, sir,’ said Perks respectfully.

  ‘Why?’ demanded Falmouth sharply.

  ‘It is the only room in the house for which we have no key. Sir Philip had a special lock for his study and carried the key with him. You see, being a Cabinet Minister, and a very careful man, he was very particular about people entering his study.’

  Falmouth thought.

  A number of Sir Philip’s private keys were deposited at Scotland Yard.

  He scribbled a brief note to his chief and sent a footman by cab to the Yard.

  Whilst he was waiting he sounded the butler.

  ‘Where were you when the murder was committed, Perks?’ he asked.

  ‘In the country: Sir Philip sent away all the servants, you will remember.’

  ‘And the house?’

  ‘Was empty – absolutely empty.’

  ‘Was there any evidence on your return that any person had effected an entrance?’

  ‘None, sir; it would be next to impossible to burgle this house. There are alarm wires fixed communicating with the police station, and the windows are automatically locked.’

  ‘There were no marks on the doors or windows that would lead you to believe that an entrance had been attempted?’

  The butler shook his head emphatically. ‘None; in the course of my daily duty I make a very careful inspection of the paintwork, and I should have noticed any marks of the kind.’

  In half an hour the footman, accompanied by a detective, returned, and Falmouth took from the plain-clothed officer a small bunch of keys.

  The butler led the way to the first floor.

  He indicated the study, a massive oaken door, fitted with a microscopic lock.

  Very carefully Falmouth made his selection of keys. Twice he tried unsuccessfully, but at the third attempt the lock turned with a click, and the door opened noiselessly.

  He stood for a moment at the entrance, for the room was in darkness.

  ‘I forgot,’ said Perks, ‘the shutters are closed – shall I open them?’

  ‘If you please,’ said the detective.

  In a few minutes the room was flooded with light.

  It was a plainly furnished apartment, rather similar in appearance to that in which the Foreign Secretary met his end. It smelt mustily of old leather, and the walls of the room were covered with bookshelves. In the centre stood a big mahogany writing-table, with bundles of papers neatly arranged.

  Falmouth took a rapid and careful survey of this desk. It was thick with accumulated dust. At one end, within reach of the vacant chair stood an ordinary table telephone.

  ‘No bells,’ said Falmouth.

  ‘No,’ replied the butler. ‘Sir Philip disliked bells – there is a “buzzer”.’

  Falmouth remembered.

  ‘Of course,’ he said quickly. ‘I remember – hullo!’

  He bent forward eagerly.

  ‘Why, what has happened to the telephone?’

  He might well ask, for its steel was warped and twisted. Beneath where the vulcanite recei
ver stood was a tiny heap of black ash, and of the flexible cord that connected it with the outside world nothing remained but a twisted piece of discoloured wire.

  The table on which it stood was blistered as with some great heat.

  The detective drew a long breath.

  He turned to his subordinate.

  ‘Run across to Miller’s in Regent Street – the electrician – and ask Mr Miller to come here at once.’

  He was still standing gazing at the telephone when the electrician arrived.

  ‘Mr Miller,’ said Falmouth slowly, ‘what has happened to this telephone?’

  The electrician adjusted his pince-nez and inspected the ruin.

  ‘H’m,’ he said, ‘it rather looks as though some linesman had been criminally careless.’

  ‘Linesman? What do you mean?’ demanded Falmouth.

  ‘I mean the workmen engaged to fix telephone wires.’ He made another inspection.

  ‘Cannot you see?’

  He pointed to the battered instrument.

  ‘I see that the machine is entirely ruined – but why?’

  The electrician stooped and picked up the scorched wire from the ground.

  ‘What I mean is this,’ he said. ‘Somebody has attached a wire carrying a high voltage – probably an electric-lighting wire – to this telephone line: and if anybody had happened to have been at – ’ He stopped suddenly, and his face went white.

  ‘Good God!’ he whispered, ‘Sir Philip Ramon was electrocuted!’

  For a while not one of the party spoke. Then Falmouth’s hand darted into his pocket and he drew out the little notebook which Billy Marks had stolen.

  ‘That is the solution,’ he cried; ‘here is the direction the wires took – but how is it that the telephone at Downing Street was not destroyed in a similar manner?’

  The electrician, white and shaking, shook his head impatiently.

  ‘I have given up trying to account for the vagaries of electricity,’ he said; ‘besides, the current, the full force of the current, might have been diverted – a short circuit might have been effected – anything might have happened.’

  ‘Wait!’ said Falmouth eagerly. ‘Suppose the man making the connection had bungled – had taken the full force of the current himself – would that have brought about this result?’

  ‘It might – ’

  ‘ “Thery bungled – and paid the penalty,” ’ quoted Falmouth slowly. ‘Ramon got a slight shock – sufficient to frighten him – he had a weak heart – the burn on his hand, the dead sparrows! By Heaven! it’s as clear as daylight!’

  Later, a strong force of police raided the house in Carnaby Street, but they found nothing – except a half-smoked cigarette bearing the name of a London tobacconist, and the counterfoil of a passage ticket to New York.

  It was marked per RMS Lucania, and was for three first-class passengers.

  When the Lucania arrived at New York she was searched from stem to stern, but the Four Just Men were not discovered.

  It was Gonsalez who had placed the ‘clue’ for the police to find.

  THE END

  The Council of Justice

  Chapter 1

  The Red Hundred

  It is not for you or me to judge Manfred and his works. I say ‘Manfred’, though I might as well have said ‘Gonsalez’, or for the matter of that ‘Poiccart’, since they are equally guilty or great according to the light in which you view their acts. The most lawless of us would hesitate to defend them, but the greater humanitarian could scarcely condemn them.

  From the standpoint of us, who live within the law, going about our business in conformity with the code, and unquestioningly keeping to the left or to the right as the police direct, their methods were terrible, indefensible, revolting.

  It does not greatly affect the issue that, for want of a better word, we call them criminals. Such would be mankind’s unanimous designation, but I think – indeed, I know – that they were indifferent to the opinions of the human race. I doubt very much whether they expected posterity to honour them.

  Their action towards the cabinet minister was murder, pure and simple. Yet, in view of the large humanitarian problems involved, who would describe it as pernicious?

  Frankly I say of the three men who killed Sir Philip Ramon, and who slew ruthlessly in the name of Justice, that my sympathies are with them. There are crimes for which there is no adequate punishment, and offences that the machinery of the written law cannot efface. Therein lies the justification for the Four Just Men – the Council of Justice as they presently came to call themselves, a council of great intellects, passionless.

  And not long after the death of Sir Philip and while England still rang with that exploit, they performed an act or a series of acts that won not alone from the Government of Great Britain, but from the Governments of Europe, a sort of unofficial approval and Falmouth had his wish. For here they waged war against great world-criminals – they pitted their strength, their cunning, and their wonderful intellects against the most powerful organization of the underworld – against past masters of villainous arts, and brains equally agile.

  * * *

  It was the day of days for the Red Hundred. The wonderful inter-national congress was meeting in London, the first great congress of recognized Anarchism. This was no hole-and-corner gathering of hurried men speaking furtively, but one open and unafraid, with three policemen specially retained for duty outside the hall, a commissionaire to take tickets at the outer lobby, and a shorthand writer with a knowledge of French and Yiddish to make notes of remarkable utterances.

  The wonderful congress was a fact. When it had been broached there were people who laughed at the idea; Niloff of Vitebsk was one because he did not think such openness possible. But little Peter (his preposterous name was Konoplanikova, and he was a reporter on the staff of the foolish Russkoye Znamza), this little Peter who had thought out the whole thing; whose idea it was to gather a conference of the Red Hundred in London; who hired the hall and issued the bills (bearing in the top left-hand corner the inverted triangle of the Hundred) asking those Russians in London interested in the building of a Russian Sailors’ Home to apply for tickets; who, too, secured a hall where interruption was impossible; was happy – yea, little brothers, it was a great day for Peter.

  ‘You can always deceive the police,’ said little Peter enthusiastically; ‘call a meeting with a philanthropic object and – voilà!’

  Wrote Inspector Falmouth to the assistant commissioner of police –

  Your respected communication to hand. The meeting to be held tonight at the Phoenix Hall, Middlesex Street, E., with the object of raising funds for a Russian Sailors’ Home is, of course, the first international congress of the Red Hundred. Shall not be able to get a man inside, but do not think that matters much, as meeting will be engaged throwing flowers at one another and serious business will not commence till the meeting of the inner committee.

  I enclose a list of men already arrived in London, and have the honour to request that you will send me portraits of under-mentioned men.

  There were three delegates from Baden, Herr Smidt from Freiburg, Herr Bleaumeau from Karlsruhe, and Herr Von Dunop from Mannheim. They were not considerable persons, even in the eyes of the world of Anarchism; they called for no particular notice, and therefore the strange thing that happened to them on the night of the congress is all the more remarkable.

  Herr Smidt had left his pension in Bloomsbury and was hurrying eastward. It was a late autumn evening and a chilly rain fell, and Herr Smidt was debating in his mind whether he should go direct to the rendezvous where he had promised to meet his two compatriots, or whether he should call a taxi and drive direct to the hall, when a hand grasped his arm.

  He turned quickly and reached for his hip pocket. Two men stood b
ehind him and but for themselves the square through which he was passing was deserted.

  Before he could grasp the Browning pistol, his other arm was seized and the taller of the two men spoke.

  ‘You are Augustus Smidt?’ he asked.

  ‘That is my name.’

  ‘You are an anarchist?’

  ‘That is my affair.’

  ‘You are at present on your way to a meeting of the Red Hundred?’

  Herr Smidt opened his eyes in genuine astonishment.

  ‘How did you know that?’ he asked.

  ‘I am Detective Simpson from Scotland Yard, and I shall take you into custody,’ was the quiet reply.

  ‘On what charge?’ demanded the German.

  ‘As to that I shall tell you later.’

  The man from Baden shrugged his shoulders.

  ‘I have yet to learn that it is an offence in England to hold opinions.’

  A closed motor-car entered the square, and the shorter of the two whistled and the chauffeur drew up near the group.

  The anarchist turned to the man who had arrested him.

  ‘I warn you that you shall answer for this,’ he said wrathfully. ‘I have an important engagement that you have made me miss through your foolery and – ’

  ‘Get in!’ interrupted the tall man tersely.

  Smidt stepped into the car and the door snapped behind him.

  He was alone and in darkness. The car moved on and then Smidt discovered that there were no windows to the vehicle. A wild idea came to him that he might escape. He tried the door of the car; it was immovable. He cautiously tapped it. It was lined with thin sheets of steel.

  ‘A prison on wheels,’ he muttered with a curse, and sank back into the corner of the car.

  He did not know London; he had not the slightest idea where he was going. For ten minutes the car moved along. He was puzzled. These policemen had taken nothing from him, he still retained his pistol. They had not even attempted to search him for compromising documents. Not that he had any except the pass for the conference and – the Inner Code!