The Fourth Plague Read online

  He winced at the words.

  “It is no humiliation,” he said, a little haughtily. “In my veins runs the best blood of Italy. It is an honour to be the chosen bride of Festini.”

  She was amazed at the unexpected vanity of the man.

  She had never regarded him, even at the most friendly period of their relationship, as more than a rather good-looking, well-mannered member of the middle classes. That he should esteem his birth as being sufficient to make him superior to censure was a strange point of view.

  She looked at him, in spite of herself, with an added interest.

  “I ask you to be my wife,” he said.

  He emphasized the words.

  “You ought to realize that, in addition to doing you an honour, I am also acting with great magnanimity. You are here alone,” he said, “entirely and absolutely at my mercy. You are surrounded by men and women who would question no act of mine, however barbarous it might seem to you. Do you understand?”

  She understood too well.

  She was safe unless she made quasi-friendly relationships impossible. She had need to temporize.

  He may have guessed what was passing in her mind.

  “Understand,” he said, “there is no escape from here, except as my wife. I will be patient without you. I have been patient with you,” he went on. “To-morrow a priest will marry us according to the rights of my Church.”

  “To-morrow!” she gasped.

  “To-morrow,” he said, a little mockingly. “It is rather soon, is it not? And you have no trousseau!”

  He waved the objection away.

  “That is a detail which can either be arranged or can be overridden.”

  He made no attempt to touch her.

  “May I sit down?” he asked.

  She nodded, and he drew a chair forward to the table and seated himself.

  “I think I ought to take you a little into my confidence,” he said, in his pleasant, matter-of-fact manner. “It is necessary to expedite matters. Your friend—how do you pronounce his name—Mansingham?—was picked up by a fishing smack. I think he swam out to sea and picked up the smack, but it is immaterial. He is alive, and, I have reason to believe, talkative.”

  He saw the look of hope spring up in her face, and smiled.

  “The fact that he will be able to identify me with this act of abduction,” he went on, “embarrasses me, but, fortunately, our scheme is so far advanced that there is no longer any necessity for me to disguise my association with the ‘Red Hand.’”

  “The only thing which is a trifle annoying is that I must stay in this deadly place a few more days. All the work that is to be done my agents can do. But for your presence here it would be an impossible situation. Not for all the gold in England could I rusticate by the banks of the Thames—alone.”

  His dazzling smile bewildered the girl. He had a trick of discussing the most outrageous propositions with a serious and convincing air. It was all superficial, but then his superficiality bit deeper into him than into most men.

  At heart she knew him to be a cold-blooded and remorseless man, who would stop at nothing to gain his ends. It was only that the veneer of civilization was thicker, that the brute within him did not lie so close to the surface, which distinguished him from his comrades.

  But the streak of cruelty was there, as he showed.

  “By the way,” he said, “I met Mr. Gallinford the other day, and condoled with him upon your disappearance.”

  “You brute!” she flamed. “How dare you mock me!”

  “I like you when you are like that,” he said, admiringly. “You almost tempt me to continue to tell how ill and worn he looks.”

  He laughed, but there was no note of merriment in the sound.

  “A singularly thick-headed man! Had he been an Italian he would have known by my face, by the change in my eyes when your name was mentioned, that it was I”—he pointed to himself—“who had robbed him. But then these Englishmen are so phlegmatic! They soon forget. You must not worry very much about your Frank,” he said, as he rose to go. “In a year or two he will have married some comfortable Englishwoman, and have settled down to a life made up with shooting pheasants and discussing defective drainage.”

  She was incapable of reply.

  He went out of the room and locked the door behind him, leaving her alone, with her head on her arms—weeping from very anger.

  He found Il Bue in the room below with two men who had just come in from the laboratory he had arranged in the wooden shed.

  “Well?” he asked, moodily, as he flung himself into a chair at the head of the table. “What are the developments?”

  “Signor,” said one of the men, “everything is ready. We have secured perfect cultures, even more perfect than those dispatched to the Bacteriological Institution.” Festini nodded.

  “To-morrow I shall receive the Government’s reply. I have asked them to advertise that reply in the columns of a newspaper.”

  “And what will it be?” asked Il Bue, his eyes fixed upon Festini’s face.

  Festini shrugged.

  “Who knows?” he said. “I think at the eleventh hour they will agree to my terms.”

  One of the assistants in white was a thick-set man with a sour, bad-tempered face. He took no part in the subsequent discussion on the methods to be adopted for the distribution of the plague.

  Festini had made elaborate precautions and had issued exhaustive literature for distribution amongst the members of the “Red Hand.”

  He was sincere in his desire that the agents of his organization should escape the consequences of their own villainy.

  When the discussion was finished, the surly man jerked his head round to Festini. He was sitting on his right hand, his elbows on the table, his big, fleshy hands clasped.

  “What about this woman, Signor Festini?” he asked.

  The young man looked at him steadily.

  “‘This woman’?” he repeated, softly, “I do not know who you mean.”

  The stout man jerked his head upwards. He was the kind of man who moved in jerks.

  “She who is upstairs,” he said.

  Festini got up very slowly from the table.

  “You will understand, Gregorio,” he said, in his honeyed tones, “that you will never refer to that lady in such a way. Indeed,” he said, carefully, “you will never refer to her at all.”

  “There are no secrets from the brethren,” grumbled the man. “We all want to know what is the plan with regard to her.” Without a word Festini’s hand leapt out; his quick, strong fingers caught the other by the throat; with a sidelong twist he forced the man’s head back over the table.

  Festini was a strong man despite his frail physique.

  “You dog!” he hissed in the man’s purple face. “Must I answer to you for all I do?” The man struggled to recover his balance, but a long bright blade flashed in front of his eyes.

  Festini hesitated, then he released his grip, and the man staggered up to his feet.

  “Remember this,” said the Count. “Remember it all your life, Gregorio. It may serve you well one day—the recollection.” The man was livid and shaking.

  “I’m sorry, Signor,” he said, humbly; “it was thoughtless. I did not intend to offend your Excellency.”

  With a curt nod Festini dismissed him.

  “And understand,” he said, “that I will not spare any man who speaks slightingly or lightly of the lady who is to be the Countess Festini. There is my plan, if you wish to know it. That is enough—too much, perhaps—certainly enough. I give you my best—you must give me obedience and faith. That is all I ask.”

  He was in no mood of tolerance.

  George Mansingham had arrived in England, and by this time Tillizini knew what he had already guessed. London was unsafe for
Festini, and he was the type of man who scorned any disguise.

  He must fret away his time in this God-forsaken spot; the fulfilment of his plans demanded it.

  He stopped in the house long enough to don the white overall which had distinguished his companions, and went into the long wooden shed, Il Bue and the two men joining him at the entrance of the hut.

  The only light came through a big skylight. House and shed had formed part of a boat-builder’s establishment, long since bankrupt and fallen into decay. It suited his purpose admirably. It was far enough away from the high road to obtain seclusion. He had a plausible excuse for the presence of his men. The premises were ostensibly part of the properties of a little company he had formed some time before for the manufacture of synthetic rubber.

  There is something about synthetic rubber and its manufacturers and inventors which keep an amused public at bay.

  The shed was divided into two parts. In the first there were a number of test tubes, retorts and scientific apparatus upon a large bench.

  The entrance to the second room was obtained through a stout door, which was fastened by two padlocks.

  These the big man unfastened. Before he opened the door he pulled up from his chin an antiseptic mask, which he brought over his face and secured to the hood of his white gown.

  The others followed his example.

  They took up rubber gloves from the bench in the outer room and drew them on. Il Bue pulled the door open and a faint sweet scent came out to greet them.

  In the centre of the inner and smaller compartment was a long narrow table on which, at intervals, rested four deep porcelain dishes under glass bell-covers.

  They were no more to the sight than narrow strips of glass coated with a light-brown gelatinous substance, but each glass case held death in a terrible form.

  Festini looked at them curiously. It was almost impossible to believe that these innocent-looking strips of dull glass could play so powerful a part.

  “That is all?” said he, half to himself.

  “That is all, Signor,” said Il Bue.

  His big face was twisted in a puzzled grin.

  “It seems a very simple thing,” he said, suspiciously; “why, I could smash it out of existence with a blow of my fist.”

  The man with the sour face looked up at him sideways.

  “You would die very soon,” he said.

  He was the chemist of the party, a brilliant man with strange gifts, who had been brought into association with the “Red Hand” and found an outlet in their operations for the lawless and perverse spirit within him.

  Festini turned and led the way from the room. He waited till Il Bue re-padlocked the door, then he stepped out of the shed, slipping down his mask.

  The fresh air came to him like a sweet, refreshing draught; it seemed to him that he had tasted the very atmosphere of death and desolation in that tiny room; that it was already tainted with the plague he was about to spread wide-cast.

  He made no other attempt to see the girl; he was satisfied with that one interview. He remained in his room, reading by the aid of a portable electric lamp such comments of the Press upon the “Red Hand” as his agents had collected.

  At ten o’clock there were two new arrivals. In one of these Festini was particularly interested; it was the priest he had secured for the marriage ceremony.

  Psychologists have endeavoured to get at the state of Festini’s mind; to analyse by set formula the exact proportions. Was he wholly villain? Were the fantastic acts of chivalry, preposterous as they were, remembering the circumstances in which they were displayed, indications of a better nature?

  Tillizini, in his exhaustive analysis of the man’s character, had attributed such acts as this contemplated marriage as merely evidence of habit. Festini’s long association with men and women of his class had endowed him with an habitual respect for certain conventions. This was Tillizini’s estimate, and was probably an accurate one, for he knew the man.

  The priest he had chosen had been brought post-haste from Italy, and had travelled night and day. He was a man known to the association as being “safe”: he himself was suspected of complicity in certain outrages which had shocked Italy in the year before the great trial. He himself had stood with the other sixty prisoners in a cage in the criminal court, but, thanks to ingenious perjury, he had escaped punishment.

  Festini greeted him without cordiality, with the grave respect which a true son of the Church shows to his spiritual superior, and with the faint hint of patronage which the greater intellect instinctively adopts towards the lesser.

  He gave orders for the priest’s accommodation, and, after the brief interview, was again left alone.

  It was near midnight when Festini threw himself down on a truckle bed to snatch a few hours’ sleep. In the early horns of the morning his spies would bring him news of the Premier’s reply. He fell into an uneasy, fitful sleep, a sleep disturbed by bad dreams, such as were not usual with him.

  There came a light knock and he went to the door. Il Bue was waiting.

  “What is it?” asked Festini.

  “One of the brethren has just come in,” said the man, who was palpably disturbed. “He came on his cycle from where he has been watching the London road, and he says that some soldiers are marching from London.”

  Festini made a gesture of impatience.

  “Did you wake me to tell me that?” he asked, irritably. “Haven’t you been long enough in England, my friend, to know that soldiers have nothing whatever to do with police work? This is not Italy, it is England. Go—tell your scout to return to his post, to watch not for the army, but for Tillizini and his friends.”

  He went back to his room and again lay on the bed, pulling a soft, camel-hair rug over him. He tossed from side to side but could not sleep; he got up after a little while, and went out. A man was keeping guard outside the door.

  “Go to Catrina,” he said, “and tell her to make me some chocolate.”

  A few minutes later the woman brought him in a steaming bowl on a tray. She set it before him and he acknowledged it with a curt word of thanks, when a thought occurred to him.

  “Catrina,” he said, calling her back, “your lady is well?”

  “Yes, padrone,” she replied. “I saw her two hours ago, before she was asleep.”

  Festini nodded.

  “See her again now,” he said, “I will go up with you.”

  Taking a lamp from the bracket in the narrow passage of the house, the woman led the way upstairs, and Festini followed.

  He waited outside the door whilst the woman unlocked it and entered. He heard a smothered exclamation.

  “Padrone!” cried the woman, wildly. “Padrone!”

  He rushed into the room. The little bed in the corner was empty. The window was open and three of the bars were missing. Marjorie Meagh had gone!

  XVI. —TILLIZINI ADDRESSES THE HOUSE

  THOUGH IT WAS PAST midnight the streets of London were alive with people; shops were open, lights blazed from windows which ordinarily would have been in darkness. The motor services which carried the Londoner to and from his home were still running; special editions of the evening papers were on sale in the streets, and about the House of Commons, where the crowd grew in intensity, they found a ready sale.

  Between Whitehall and Victoria Street some thirty thousand people had assembled, but the police had no difficulty in controlling the assembly or in securing a passage way for the constant stream of cars which were passing to and from the House of Commons. The character of the crowd was an interesting one. These were no idle sightseers, attracted by the chance of a little excitement; it was the silk-hatted middle class of England, overcoated, muffled, bespectacled, waiting patiently for news which meant all the difference between life and death to them.

  For once in its history the H
ouse of Commons was sitting in secret session. At eleven o’clock that night, by the Speaker’s direction, the galleries had been cleared, and strangers had been excluded, not only from the lobby, but from the precincts of the House. Parliament had resolved itself into a National Jury.

  At five minutes after twelve a great car, covered with dust, came slowly along Whitehall. It bore three small lamps on its radiator, arranged in the form of a triangle. Unchallenged the car passed Bridge Street and into Palace Yard. About the entrance of the House were a crowd of policemen, but they made a way for the tall man in the dusty coat who sprang from the seat by the side of the driver. Two men were waiting for him; Hilary George, M.P., was one, and Inspector Crocks the other.

  The three passed into the interior of the House and made their way to a small Committee room which had been prepared for them.

  “Well?” asked Crocks. His face was of an unusual pallor, and he spoke with the irritability which is peculiar to the man undergoing a great nervous strain.

  Tillizini slowly divested himself of his great coat, laid it across a chair, and walked to the fire. He stood for a while, warming his hands at the blaze; then he spoke.

  “I have located them,” he said, “definitely.”

  “Thank God!” said Crocks.

  “There is no doubt?” asked Hilary. Tillizini shook his head. He took a book from his inside pocket, opened it, and extracted three slips of paper. They were advertisements cut from a newspaper of the week before.

  “I don’t know,” he said, “whether you have noticed these?”

  They bent over the table, the three heads together, reading the advertisement.

  “I cannot understand it,” said Hilary; “this is an advertisement offering good prices for pigeons.” He examined the other. “This is the same,” he said.

  “They’re all the same,” said Tillizini, quietly. “Do you notice that they advertise that they want old pigeons?”

  Hilary nodded.

  “The address is at a place in London. The man who advertised had thousands of replies, and has made thousands of purchases, too. Throughout the week basket after basket of birds has come consigned to him at the various London termini; they have been collected by the agents of the ‘Red Hand’ and forwarded to Festini.”