The Fourth Plague Read online

“Tell me, tell me,” said the voice impatiently, growing louder. “Who was it you gave it to?”

  “I gave it to a man,” she said, faintly.

  “Which way did he go?”

  “Through those bushes,” she said. Without another word he ran in the direction the other man had taken.

  She had time to get back to the room, close the shutters and pull the curtains, before she fell half-swooning upon the ground.

  Festini was light of foot, quick, and with the almost cat-like ability of picking his way in the dark. He had not gone twenty yards before he saw the man ahead.

  There was no time for finesse.

  Fortunately for him, Festini had changed his plans. He had dropped the idea of coming by cycle, and his car now stood, purring gently, in a little lane which adjoined the house.

  As he sighted the man ahead, he whipped out his automatic pistol and fired twice.

  Without a sound the man sank to the ground.

  Festini had no time to examine his victim. He knew that he was still alive, as he bent over him and searched his waistcoat pockets.

  In one of these he had hoped to find the jewel, but it was not there.

  But it was in the clasped hand of the stricken man.

  Festini found it, wrenched open the fingers, and possessed himself of the prize.

  “Now! Do your worst,” he hissed, as he swung round and shook his fist, as at a world that was at war with him, “do your worst!”

  The sound of the shot had awakened the people of the house. Lights appeared in two or three rooms.

  Vera, lying on the floor, was roused to consciousness by a loud knocking at her door.

  She got up slowly. Her head was still dizzy, and she staggered as she walked.

  “Who is there?” she asked.

  “It is I,” said her husband’s voice. “Open the door. Are you hurt?”

  She plunged her hands into a jug of water that stood on the washstand, and passed them over her face. The touch of the chilly water revived her. She dabbed her face with a towel with one hand as she opened the door with the other.

  “What is it?” she asked.

  She was steadying herself. She had heard the shot, and she was prepared for the worst.

  Sir Ralph was in his dressing-gown.

  “Where was the firing?” he asked.

  “I heard no firing,” she said, steadily.

  “Somebody fired a pistol in the garden,” said Sir Ralph.

  She heard Hilary’s voice in the passage.

  “Are you all right, Lady Morte-Mannery?” said his voice.

  “I am quite all right,” she replied. “What is wrong?”

  Her voice was shaky and high-pitched, but in a dull way she knew that her agitation would be excusable. There had been shots in the garden, somebody had been shot—who? At that moment there came to her a quick pang of fear.

  “Somebody is shot?” she asked, tensely. “Who is shot?”

  “There was a man in the garden, trying to enter the house,” said Hilary’s voice. “Possibly he was detected.”

  Sir Ralph crossed the room, and, opening the shutters, went out on to the balcony. Two men were already on the lawn below.

  “Have you found anything?” he called. He was addressing the two hastily-aroused servants who were conducting the search outside.

  Vera listened; her heart almost stopped beating, when the groom’s voice replied—

  “There’s a man shot in the shrubbery, Sir Ralph. He looks like a foreigner.”

  She clenched her hands and waited—rigid—expressionless.

  “What sort of man?” asked Sir Ralph, testily. “What do you mean by a foreigner, Philip?”

  “Well, he’s a clean-shaven gentleman,” said the servant. “I don’t think he’s badly hurt. A tall man.”

  A great joy surged over the woman.

  It was not he; whoever it was, whether this wounded man lived or died—it was not Festini.

  She listened. There was a new voice.

  “It’s all right, Sir Ralph,” it said.

  She recognized it, and set her teeth. Part of the conversation came to her in little gusts.

  “It was just a little clip of a bullet across the temple…that is the second time they have missed me…. I’m afraid you’ve lost something….”

  It was the voice of Tillizini.

  In the big hall they assembled, a dishevelled assembly, hastily garmented.

  Tillizini’s wound was a superficial one. The bullet had struck behind his ear, glancing over the parietal bone and temporarily stunning him. He was very cheerful.

  “I only came down to-night by car,” he said, “because I received information which led me to believe that the attempt would be made upon you. Now,” he said, “I am ready.”

  He stood up.

  “I want to examine your little museum,” he said, “and discover what is lost.”

  “Oh, I couldn’t have lost anything from there,” said Sir Ralph, confidently. “There are alarms in every window, and almost every pane.”

  “There are no alarms on the door, are there?” asked Tillizini.

  Sir Ralph looked surprised.

  “They are not necessary,” he said.

  He led the way, and the others followed.

  He opened the treasure house, and they flocked in behind him. He was a little in advance of Tillizini, and he turned in the doorway to switch on the light.

  At that moment Vera saw the evidence of her criminal folly. On the top of one of the shuttered cases was the little jewelled electric lamp which Sir Ralph had in a fit of unusual generosity given her.

  Tillizini saw it too. He was as quick as she, and quicker to move. With one step he stood between the tell-tale lamp and the gaze of the half-awake people in the doorway. His hand went out and covered it.

  When Sir Ralph turned the lamp had disappeared.

  There was a quick inspection.

  “It’s gone!” cried the knight. “They have taken the Leonardo!”

  “I thought they had,” said Tillizini calmly, “and I thought I should be able to restore it—but, for the moment, that pleasure is denied me.”

  “But is it possible?” said Sir Ralph, bewildered. “Nobody could have got in here without my knowing!”

  He was almost tearful in his grief.

  “It was invaluable,” he said. “It cannot be replaced. It is the only one of the kind in the world. What does it mean—what does it mean, Tillizini? You must tell me everything! I insist upon knowing! I won’t be kept in the dark!”

  He raved and stormed as though Tillizini had been responsible for the theft. It was some time before he became calmer, and then the Italian was by no means informative.

  Vera, silent and watchful, waited. Whatever happened, Festini was safe! By now he would be far on his way to London. He had the parcel, that was enough: she had served him, she asked for no more.

  From the moment that Tillizini had put out his hand and covered the lamp she knew that he had guessed her secret. Would he betray her? To her surprise and relief he made no reference to what he must have seen and known.

  Yet he was distressed and worried—she saw that—but it was with the greater issue, with the danger which confronted civilization.

  He walked up and down the hall—a remarkable figure, with the white bandage encircling his head, his hands thrust deep into his pockets, his chin blue and unshaven, his eyes tired, with an infinite weariness.

  He took no part in the fruitless discussion as to how the thief effected an entry. He had all the information he required on that subject. He paused in his walk and took from his pocket a shining object—laid it in the palm of his hand and examined it.

  Sir Ralph, attracted by the glow of dull gold in his hand, stepped forward with a start
led cry.

  “Why, that is the locket!” he cried.

  Tillizini shook his head.

  “It is one very much like it,” he said, “but it is not the one. It is the famous locket that was stolen from the Dublin collection, and which is at the present moment supposed to be at the bottom of the North Sea. It was given to a fellow-passenger on that boat to guard and to return to me. You remember I was charged with the investigation of its disappearance?”

  He walked to the fireplace.

  There were two overhanging gas-brackets which gave a clear light.

  He held the medallion with both hands, using only two fingers of each. He gave it a sharp twist and it fell in two.

  Sir Ralph uttered an exclamation.

  “Why, I did not know that these things opened!” he said wonderingly.

  “I could most devoutly wish that they did not,” said Tillizini grimly.

  He damped his finger a little, and drew forth from the locket’s interior what looked like four discs of paper, as indeed they were. They were covered with fine writing—so fine that it was almost impossible to read them without the aid of a reading glass.

  “Do you understand Italian?” asked Tillizini.

  “A little,” said Sir Ralph, “but not enough to read this.”

  “Take a good look at it,” said the other; “it is from the hand of the greatest genius that ever lived since Jerusalem was a vassal state of Rome.”

  He spoke reverently—almost adoringly—of his famous compatriot.

  “That is the hand of Leonardo da Vinci,” he said in a hushed voice.

  “And what is it all about?” asked Frank, “and isn’t it written backwards?”

  He had been examining the microscopic writing with his keen eyes.

  Tillizini smiled.

  “The master wrote with his left hand invariably—always working back to the left. This will help you.”

  He drew from his pocket a tiny mirror in a leather case.

  “Read,” said Tillizini.

  Frank carried the little discs nearer to the light, and brought them with the mirror closer to his eyes. Marjorie, watching him, saw his lips move as he read the Italian, saw his brows pucker in a puzzled frown, then her lover looked up suddenly.

  “Why,” he said, “this is all about a plague.” Tillizini nodded.

  “The Great Plague,” he said, “or, as modern scientists call it, the Fourth Plague, which broke out simultaneously in Italy and Ireland in the same year. It was the one plague which our modern doctors are unable to understand or fathom. As a matter of fact, the only man who understood it was Leonardo da Vinci. He was, as you know well, Sir Ralph, more than a painter. He had the scientific mind perfectly developed. He was the first to foresee the coming of the aeroplane and the armoured ship. He was an engineer, a sculptor, a chemist, and—”

  He spread out his hands.

  “What is the use? I cannot enumerate his qualities,” he said. “He was so above the heads of his contemporaries that they were unable to realize what kind of genius was in their midst. Even posterity can hardly do him justice. He alone understood the Fourth Plague—its meaning and its cause.

  “That plague came into existence by the cultivation of a germ, though this, of course, he did not know because the microscope was denied him, but he guessed it—with that wonderful, God-like intuition of his, he guessed it,” said Tillizini, his face glowing with enthusiasm and pride.

  “The conditions under which the plague came into being, conditions which were undreamed of, even by those who saw them under their eyes, were revealed to Leonardo da Vinci. Ordinarily,” he went on, “they would in this year of grace be produced.”

  “What do you mean by that?” asked Sir Ralph.

  “Under the modern system,” said Tillizini, “that plague could never appear again. But there are six drugs which you might find in the British Pharmacopoeia,” he continued, “which, if you were to mix them, would produce a gas.”

  He spoke impressively, and with the assurance of the practical scientist.

  “That gas, passed through a filter of vegetable matter, would set up conditions which made the plague of 1500 possible.”

  “Good God!” said Frank. “Do you mean to say that you can produce a plague synthetically?”

  Tillizini nodded.

  “That is exactly what Leonardo da Vinci discovered. This is the secret.”

  He held the flimsy discs in his hands.

  “There is no doubt that Leonardo did produce a plague synthetically, two years after. At any rate, some such outbreak occurred in the town where his laboratory was situated. It is believed that, as a result of that plague, Mona Lisa Gioconda lost her life.”

  “Oh, that is the woman in the picture,” said Marjorie.

  “That is the woman in the picture,” repeated Tillizini, “the one woman in the world whom Leonardo ever loved. The one great softening influence that ever came into his life. His investigations into the cause of the plague he set forth, concisely, on these little filaments. The lockets he fashioned himself. One, as you know—”

  “I know the history,” said Sir Ralph. “I was telling Mr. Gallinford only the other day. How extraordinary it is that that old-world story should be revived.”

  “But why do the ‘Red Hand’ want these lockets?”

  “They only want one. Either one will do,” said Tillizini. “Don’t you realize? To-morrow, with the aid of a man with even the most elementary knowledge of chemistry, they could devastate London—and not only London, but the whole of England, or, if it please them, the whole of Europe, working from different centres.”

  As the little party stood stricken to silence, the full horror of the danger dawning upon them, Tillizini heard a long-drawn sigh.

  Vera had stumbled forward in a dead faint, and Frank had just time to catch her before she fell.

  XIII. —THE ABDUCTION OF MARJORIE

  IT WAS A WEEK after the burglary at Highlawns that a perfectly happy man went whistling to his work. He walked with a brisk step, carrying his lunch in a gaily-coloured handkerchief, with a tin can full of tea for his breakfast. George Mansingham raised his eyes to the sky, which was just turning grey, in thankfulness at his freedom.

  Work had been found for him through the medium of Hilary George, at a little farm outside the town. He and his wife had been installed in a tiny cottage on Sir Ralph’s estate. To give Sir Ralph his due, he had freely admitted the injustice of the sentence he had passed; if not to the man, at least to himself, which was something; and it needed little pleading on the part of Hilary George, who had taken an interest in the case, to induce him to let his untenanted cottage to the man he had wronged.

  Early as the hour was, he found his employer and his son up and about. There is much work to be done before the sun comes up over the edge of the world. There are horses to be fed and groomed, sheep and cattle that require attention, cows to be milked, and milk to be carried.

  The sky grew lighter, the sun came up, it seemed to him with a rush, but he was too busy to notice the progress of the time. At half-past eight nature called him to breakfast. He sat down to his frugal meal, first placing two nosebags on the heads of the horses, for he was now engaged in ploughing the ten-acre lot Farmer Wensell farmed. His meal quickly disposed of, he pulled a bulky book from the inside of his jacket pocket and began to read. He had a passion for self-education, and at the moment Merejowski’s Forerunner, which Marjorie had lent him, had a special significance, not only for him, but for the whole of England. He was so intent upon the pages of this wonderful romance that he did not notice the girl who was crossing the field with such free strides.

  He heard his name called and looked up; then he sprang to his feet, hat in hand.

  “You’re very absorbed, Mansingham,” smiled Marjorie.

  “Yes, miss,” sai
d the other, “it’s a wonderful book, and he’s a wonderful man. I’m not surprised all the world’s talking about him just now.”

  “It’s not because of his genius that they are speaking of him,” said the girl, gravely.

  She carried a paper under her arm; in fact she had been down to Burboro’ Station to get the journal.

  “It’s a terrible business, miss,” said the man. He put the book down. “It doesn’t seem possible, in a civilized age, and in a country like England. Is there any fresh news this morning, miss?”

  She nodded gravely.

  “The ‘Red Hand’ have addressed the Premier,” she said, “and they have demanded ten million pounds, an act of indemnity passed by the House of Commons, and freedom to leave the country.”

  The man looked incredulous.

  “Why, they’ll never get that, will they, miss?” he asked. “It’s against all reason, a demand like that! Suppose it’s not true, suppose they haven’t discovered this plague—”

  She shook her head.

  “There’s no doubt about it, Mansingham,” she said. “Mr. Gallinford knows it to be true. He has been investigating, looking up old documents relating to the plague of 1500. These men have it in their power to decimate the whole of England.”

  The subject they were discussing filled the minds of men throughout Great Britain that day; nay, throughout Europe. Wherever civilized people foregathered, the cable and the telegraph had carried the news of the threat which overhung the country. It was the final demand of the “Red Hand,” a demand which at first had been pooh-poohed, and had been discussed by Government officials as a problem which called for immediate solution.

  The “Red Hand” had acted swiftly. Three days after the locket had disappeared from Burboro’ a startling proclamation of the “Red Hand,” printed in blood-red characters, had covered the hoardings and the walls of London. Then it was for the first time that England woke to a realization of the terrible danger which threatened her. It was incomprehensible, unbelievable. It was almost fantastic. Men who read it smiled helplessly as though they were reading something which was beyond their understanding. And yet the proclamation was clear enough. It ran:—