(1929) The Three Just Men Page 19

  “Listen!” said Mr. Washington with sudden energy. “I don’t want any more snakes—not that kind of snake! I’ve felt pain in my time, but nothing like this! I know it must have been snake venom, but I’d like to meet the little wriggler who brews the brand that was handed to me, and maybe I’d change my mind about collecting him—alive!”

  Leon agreed silently, and for the next few moments was avoiding a street car on one side, a baker’s cart on another, and a blah woman who was walking aimlessly in the road, apparently with no other intention than of courting an early death, this being the way of blah women.

  “Phew!” said Mr. Washington, as the car skidded on the greasy road. “I don’t know whether you’re a good driver or just naturally under the protection of Providence.”

  “Both,” said Leon, when he had straightened the machine. “All good drivers are that.”

  Presently he continued:

  “It is snake venom all right, Mr. Washington; only snake venom that has been most carefully treated by a man who knows the art of concentration of its bad and the extraction of its harmless constituents. My theory is that certain alkaloids are added, and it is possible that there has been a blending of two different kinds of poison. But you’re right when you say that no one animal carries in his poison sac that particular variety of death-juice. If it is any value to you, we are prepared to give you a snake-proof certificate!”

  “I don’t want another experience of that kind,” Elijah Washington warned him; but Leon turned the conversation to the state of the road and the problems of traffic control.

  There had been nothing seen or heard of Mirabelle, and Meadows’ activities had for the moment been directed to the forthcoming inquest on Barberton. Nowadays, whenever he reached Scotland Yard, he moved in a crowd of reporters, all anxious for news of further developments. The Barberton death was still the livest topic in the newspapers: the old scare of the snake had been revived and in some degree intensified. There was not a journal which did not carry columns of letters to the editor denouncing the inactivity of the policed Were they, asked one sarcastic correspondent, under the hypnotic influence of the snake’s eyes? Could they not, demanded another, give up trapping speeders on the Lingfield road and bring their mighty brains to the elucidation of a mystery that was to cause every household in London the gravest concern? The Barberton murder was the peg on which every letter-writing faddist had a novel view to hang, and Mr. Meadows was not at that time the happiest officer in the force.

  “Where is Lee?” asked Washington as they came into Curzon Street.

  “He’s in town for the moment, but we are moving him to the North of England, though I don’t think there is any danger to him, now that Barberton’s letters are in our possession. They would have killed him yesterday to prevent our handling the correspondence. To-day I should imagine he has no special importance in the eyes of Oberzohn and Company. And here we are!”

  Mr. Washington got out stiffly and was immediately admitted by the butler. The three men went upstairs to where George Manfred was wrestling with a phase of the problem. He was not alone; Digby, his head swathed in bandages, sat, an unhappy man, on the edge of a chair and answered Leon’s cheery greeting with a mournful smile.

  “I’m sending Digby to keep observation on Oberzohn’s house; and especially do I wish him to search that old boat of his.”

  He was referring to an ancient barge which lay on the mud at the bottom of Mr. Oberzohn’s private dock. From the canal there was a narrow waterway into the little factory grounds. It was so long since the small cantilever bridge which covered the entrance had been raised, that locals regarded the bridge floor as part of the normal bank of the canal. But behind the green water-gates was a concrete dock large enough to hold one barge, and here for years a decrepit vessel had wallowed, the hunting-ground of rats and the sleeping-place of the desperately homeless.

  “The barge is practically immovable: I’ve already reported on that,” said Leon.

  “It certainly has that appearance, and yet I would like a search,” replied Manfred. “You understand that this is night duty, and I have asked Meadows to notify the local inspector that you will be on duty—I don’t want to be pulled out of my bed to identify you at the Peckham police station. It isn’t a cheerful job, but you might be able to make it interesting by finding your way into his grounds. I don’t think the factory will yield much, but the house will certainly be a profitable study to an observer of human nature.”

  “I hope I do better this time, Mr. Manfred,” said Digby, turning to go. “And, if you don’t mind, I’ll go by day and take a look at the place. I don’t want to fall down this time!”

  George smiled as he rose and shook the man’s hand at parting. “Even Mr. Gonsalez makes mistakes,” he said maliciously, and Leon looked hurt.

  Manfred tidied some papers on his desk and put them into a drawer, waiting for Poiccart’s return. When he had come: “Now, Mr. Washington, we will tell you what we wish you to do. We wish you to take a letter to Lisbon. Leon has probably hinted something to that effect, and it is now my duty to tell you that the errand is pretty certain to be an exceedingly dangerous one, but you are the only man I know to whom I could entrust this important document. I feel I cannot allow you to undertake this mission without telling you that the chances are heavily against your reaching Portugal.”

  “Bless you for those cheerful words,” said Washington blankly. “The only thing I want to be certain about is, am I likely to meet Mr. Snake?”

  Manfred nodded, and the American’s face lengthened.

  “I don’t know that even that scares me,” he said at last, “especially now that I know that the dope they use isn’t honest snake-spit at all but a synthesized poison. It was having my confidence shaken in snakes that rattled me. When do you want me to go?”

  “Tonight.”

  Mr. Washington for the moment was perplexed, and Manfred continued: “Not by the Dover-Calais route. We would prefer that you travelled by Newhaven-Dieppe. Our friends are less liable to be on the alert, though I can’t even guarantee that. Oberzohn spends a lot of money in espionage. This house has been under observation for days. I will show you.”

  He walked to the window and drew aside the curtain.

  “Do you see a spy?” he asked, with a twinkle in his eye.

  Mr. Washington looked up and down the street.

  “Sure!” he said. “That man at the corner smoking a cigar—”

  “Is a detective officer from Scotland Yard,” said Manfred. “Do you see anybody else?”

  “Yes,” said Washington after a while, “there’s a man cleaning windows on the opposite side of the road: he keeps looking across here.”

  “A perfectly innocent citizen,” said Manfred.

  “Well, he can’t be in any of those taxis, because they’re empty.” Mr. Washington nodded to a line of taxis drawn up on the rank in the centre of the road.

  “On the contrary, he is in the first taxi on the rank—he is the driver! If you went out and called a cab, he would come to you. If anybody else called him, he would be engaged. His name is Clarke, he lives at 43, Portlington Mews; he is an ex-convict living apart from his wife, and he receives seven pounds a week for his services, ten pounds every time he drives Oberzohn’s car, and all the money he makes out of his cab.”

  He smiled at the other’s astonishment.

  “So the chances are that your movements will be known; even though you do not call the cab, he will follow you. You must be prepared for that. I’m putting all my cards on the table, Mr. Washington, and asking you to do something which, if you cannot bring yourself to agree, must be done by either myself, Poiccart or Gonsalez. Frankly, none of us can be spared.”

  “I’ll go,” said the American. “Snake or no snake, I’m for Lisbon. What is my route?”

  Poiccart took a folded paper from his pocket.

  “Newhaven, Dieppe, Paris. You have a reserved compartment on the Sud Express; you reac
h Valladolid late tomorrow night, and change to the Portuguese mail. Unless I can fix an aeroplane to meet you at Irun. We are trying now. Otherwise, you should be in Lisbon at two o’clock on the following afternoon. He had better take the letter now, George.”

  Manfred unlocked the wall safe and took out a long envelope. It was addressed to “Senhor Alvaz Manuel y Cintra, Minister of Colonies,” and was heavily sealed.

  “I want you to place this in Senhor Cintra’s hands. You’ll have no difficulty there because you will be expected,” he said. “Will you travel in that suit?”

  The American thought.

  “Yes, that’s as good as any,” he said.

  “Will you take off your jacket?”

  Mr. Washington obeyed, and with a small pair of scissors Manfred cut a slit in the lining and slipped the letter in. Then, to the American’s astonishment, Leon produced a rolled housewife, threaded a needle with extraordinary dexterity, and for the next five minutes the snake-hunter watched the deft fingers stitching through paper and lining. So skilfully was the slit sewed that Elijah Washington had to look twice to make sure where the lining had been cut.

  “Well, that beats the band!” he said. “Mr. Gonsalez, I’ll send you my shirts for repair!”

  “And here is something for you to carry.” It was a black leather portfolio, well worn. To one end was attached a steel chain terminating in a leather belt. “I want you to put this round your waist, and from now on to carry this wallet. It contains nothing more important than a few envelopes imposingly sealed, and if you lose it no great harm will come.”

  “You think they’ll go for the wallet?” Manfred nodded.

  “One. cannot tell, of course, what Oberzohn will do, and he’s as wily as one of his snakes. But my experience has been,” he said, “that the cleverer the criminal, the bigger the fool and the more outrageous his mistakes. You will want money.”

  “Well, I’m not short of that,” said the other with a smile. “Snakes are a mighty profitable proposition. Still, I’m a business man…”

  For the next five minutes they discussed financial details, and he was more than surprised to discover the recklessness with which money was disbursed.

  He went out, with a glance from the corner of his eye at the taximan, whose hand was raised inquiringly, but, ignoring the driver, he turned and walked towards Regent Street, and presently found a wandering taxi of an innocuous character, and ordered the man to drive to the Ritz-Carlton, where rooms had been taken for him.

  He was in Regent Street before he looked round through the peep-hole, and, as Manfred had promised him, the taxi was following, its flag down to prevent chance hiring. Mr. Washington went up to his room, opened the window and looked out: the taxi had joined a near-by rank. The driver had left his box.

  “He’s on the ‘phone,” muttered Mr. Washington, and would have given a lot of money to have known the nature of the message.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR - ON THE NIGHT MAIL

  A MAN of habit, Mr. Oberzohn missed his daily journey to the City Road. In ordinary circumstances the loss would have been a paralysing one, but of late he had grown more and more wedded to his deep arm-chair and his ponderous volumes; and though the City Road had been a very useful establishment in many ways, and was ill replaced by the temporary building which his manager had secured, he felt he could almost dispense with that branch of his business altogether.

  Oberzohn & Smitts was an institution which had grown out of nothing. The energy of the partners, and especially the knowledge of African trading conditions which the departed Smitts possessed, had produced a nourishing business which ten years before could have been floated for half a million pounds.

  Orders still came in. There were up-country stores to be restocked; new, if unimportant, contracts to be fulfilled; there was even a tentative offer under consideration from one of the South American States for the armaments of a political faction. But Mr. Oberzohn was content to mark time, in the faith that the next week would see him superior to these minor considerations and in a position, if he so wished, to liquidate his business and sell his stores and his trade. There were purchasers ready, but the half million pounds had dwindled to a tenth of that sum, which outstanding bills would more than absorb. As Manfred had said, his running expenses were enormous. He had agents in every central Government office in Europe, and though they did not earn their salt, they certainly drew more than condiment for their services.

  He had spent a busy morning in his little workshop-laboratory, and had settled himself down in his chair, when a telegraph messenger came trundling his bicycle across the rough ground, stopped to admire for a second the iron dogs which littered the untidy strip of lawn, and woke the echoes of this gaunt house with a thunderous knock. Mr. Oberzohn hurried to the door. A telegram to this address must necessarily be important. He took the telegram, slammed the door in the messenger’s face and hurried back to his room, tearing open the envelope as he went.

  There were three sheets of misspelt writing, for the wire was in Portuguese and telegraph operators are bad guessers. He read it through carefully, his lips moving silently, until he came to the end, then he started reading all over again, and, for a better understanding of its purport, he took a pencil and paper and translated the message into Swedish. He laid the telegram face downwards on the table and took up his book, but he was not reading. His busy mind slipped from Lisbon to London, from Curzon Street to the factory, and at last he shut his book with a bang, got up, and opening the door, barked Gurther’s name. That strange man came downstairs in his stockinged feet, his hair hanging over his eyes, an unpleasant sight. Dr. Oberzohn pointed to the room and the man entered.

  For an hour they talked behind locked doors, and then Gurther came out, still showing his teeth in a mechanical smile, and went up the stairs two at a time. The half-witted Danish maid, passing the door of the doctor’s room, heard his gruff voice booming into the telephone, but since he spoke a language which, whilst it had some relation to her own, was subtly different, she could not have heard the instructions, admonitions, orders and suggestions which he fired in half a dozen different directions, even if she had heard him clearly.

  This done, Dr. Oberzohn returned to his book and a midday refreshment, spooning his lunch from a small cup at his side containing a few fluid ounces of dark red liquid. One half of his mind was pursuing his well-read philosophers; the other worked at feverish speed, conjecturing and guessing, forestalling and baffling the minds that were working against him. He played a game of mental chess, all the time seeking for a check, and when at last he had discovered one that was adequate, he put down his book and went out into his garden, strolling up and down inside the wire fence, stopping now and again to pick a flower from a weed, or pausing to examine a rain-filled pothole as though it were the star object in a prize landscape.

  He loved this ugly house, knew every brick of it, as a feudal lord might have known the castle he had built, the turret, the flat roof with its high parapet, that commanded a view of the canal bank on the one side and the railway arches left and right. They were railway arches which had a value to him. Most of them were blocked up, having been converted into lock-up garages and sheds, and through only a few could ingress be had. One, under which ran the muddy lane—why it was called Hangman’s Lane nobody knew; another that gave to some allotments on the edge of his property; and a third through which he also could see daylight, but which spanned no road at all.

  An express train roared past in a cloud of steam, and he scanned the viaduct with benignant interest. And then he performed his daily tour of inspection. Turning back into the house, he climbed the stairs to the third floor, opened a little door that revealed an extra flight of steps, and emerged on to the roof. At each corner was a square black shed, about the height of a man’s chest. The doors were heavily padlocked, and near by each was a stout black box, equally weatherproof. There were other things here: great, clumsy wall-plugs at regular intervals. Seeing them
, it might be thought that Mr. Oberzohn contemplated a night when, in the exultation of achievement, he would illuminate his ungainly premises. But up till now that night had not arrived, and in truth the only light usable was one which at the moment was dismantled in the larger of the four sheds.

  From here he could look down upon the water cutting into the factory grounds; and the black bulk of the barge, which filled the entire width of the wharf, seemed so near that he could have thrown a stone upon it. His idle interest was in the sluggish black water that oozed through the gates. A slight mist lay upon the canal; a barge was passing down towards Deptford, and he contemplated the straining horse that tugged the barge rope with a mind set upon the time when he, too, might use the waterway in a swifter craft.

  London lay around him, its spires and chimneys looming through the thin haze of smoke. Far away the sun caught the golden ball of St. Paul’s and added a new star to the firmament. Mr. Oberzohn hated London—only this little patch of his had beauty in his eyes. Not the broad green parks and the flowering rhododendrons; not the majestic aisles of pleasure which the rich lounger rode or walked, nor the streets of stone-fronted stores, nor the pleasant green of suburban roads—he loved only these God-forgotten acres, this slimy wilderness in which he had set up his habitation.

  He went downstairs, locking the roof door behind him, and, passing Gurther’s room, knocked and was asked to enter. The man sat in his singlet; he had shaved once, but now the keen razor was going across his skin for the second time. He turned his face, shining with cream, and grinned round at the intruder, and with a grunt the doctor shut the door and went downstairs, knowing that the man was for the moment happy; for nothing pleased Gurther quite so much as “dressing up.”

  The doctor stood at the entrance of his own room, hesitating between books and laboratory, decided upon the latter, and was busy for the next two hours. Only once he came out, and that was to bring from the warm room the green baize box which contained “the most potent of chemicals, colossal in power.”