The Complete Four Just Men Read online

  Henri Delaye François, aged 36, a Frenchman, also believed to have been engaged in propaganda work.

  The cause of death in the case of Bartholomew seems to be evident, but with the other two men some doubt exists, and the police, who preserve an attitude of rigid reticence, will await the medical examination before making any statement.

  One unusual feature of the case is understood to be contained in a letter found in the room accepting, on behalf of an organization known as the Four Just Men, full responsibility for the killing of the two foreigners, and another, writes a correspondent, is the extraordinary structural damage to the room itself. The tenant, the Countess Slienvitch, had not, up to a late hour last night, been traced.

  Superintendent Falmouth, standing in the centre of the room, from which most traces of the tragedy had been removed, was mainly concerned with the ‘structural damage’ that The Times so lightly passed over.

  At his feet yawned a great square hole, and beneath, in the empty flat below, was a heap of plaster and laths, and the debris of destruction.

  ‘The curious thing is, and it shows how thorough these men are,’ explained the superintendent to his companion, ‘that the first thing we found when we got there was a twenty-pound note pinned to the wall with a brief note in pencil saying that this was to pay the owner of the property for the damage.’

  It may be added that by the express desire of the young man at his side he dispensed with all ceremony of speech.

  Once or twice in speaking, he found himself on the verge of saying, ‘Your Highness’, but the young man was so kindly, and so quickly put the detective at his ease, that he overcame the feeling of annoyance that the arrival of the distinguished visitor with the letter from the commissioner had caused him, and became amiable.

  ‘Of course, I have an interest in all this,’ said the young man quietly; ‘these people, for some reason, have decided I am not fit to encumber the earth – ’

  ‘What have you done to the Red Hundred, sir?’

  The young man laughed.

  ‘Nothing. On the contrary,’ he added with a whimsical smile, ‘I have helped them.’

  The detective remembered that this hereditary Prince of the Escorial bore a reputation for eccentricity.

  With a suddenness which was confusing, the Prince turned with a smile on his lips.

  ‘You are thinking of my dreadful reputation?’

  ‘No, no!’ disclaimed the embarrassed Mr Falmouth. ‘I – ’

  ‘Oh, yes – I’ve done lots of things,’ said the other with a little laugh; ‘it’s in the blood – my illustrious cousin – ’

  ‘I assure your Highness,’ said Falmouth impressively, ‘my reflections were not – er – reflections on yourself – there is a story that you have dabbled in socialism – but that, of course – ’

  ‘Is perfectly true,’ concluded the Prince calmly. He turned his attention to the hole in the floor.

  ‘Have you any theory?’ he asked.

  The detective nodded.

  It’s more than a theory – it’s knowledge – you see we’ve seen Jessen, and the threads of the story are all in hand.’

  ‘What will you do?’

  ‘Nothing,’ said the detective stolidly; ‘hush up the inquest until we can lay the Four Just Men by the heels.’

  ‘And the manner of killing?’

  ‘That must be kept quiet,’ replied Falmouth emphatically. This conversation may furnish a clue as to the unprecedented conduct of the police at the subsequent inquest.

  In the little coroner’s court there was accommodation for three pressmen and some fifty of the general public. Without desiring in any way to cast suspicion upon the cleanest police force in the world, I can only state that the jury were remarkably well disciplined, that the general public found the body of the court so densely packed with broad-shouldered men that they were unable to obtain admission. As to the press, the confidential circular had done its work, and the three shining lights of journalism that occupied the reporters’ desk were careful to carry out instructions.

  The proceedings lasted a very short time, a verdict, ‘ . . . some person or persons unknown’, was recorded, and another London mystery was added (I quote from the Evening News) to the already alarming and formidable list of unpunished crimes.

  Charles Garrett was one of the three journalists admitted to the inquest, and after it was all over he confronted Falmouth.

  ‘Look here, Falmouth,’ he said pugnaciously, ‘what’s the racket?’

  Falmouth, having reason to know, and to an extent stand in awe of, the little man, waggled his head darkly.

  ‘Oh, rot!’ said Charles rudely, ‘don’t be so disgustingly mysterious – why aren’t we allowed to say these chaps died – ?’

  ‘Have you seen Jessen?’ asked the detective.

  ‘I have,’ said Charles bitterly, ‘and after what I’ve done for that man; after I’ve put his big feet on the rungs of culture – ’

  ‘Wouldn’t he speak?’ asked Falmouth innocently.

  ‘He was as close,’ said Charles sadly, ‘as the inside washer of a vacuum pump.’

  ‘H’m!’ the detective was considering. Sooner or later the connection must occur to Charles, and he was the only man who would be likely to surprise Jessen’s secret. Better that the journalist should know now.

  ‘If I were you,’ said Falmouth quietly, ‘I shouldn’t worry Jessen; you know what he is, and in what capacity he serves the Government. Come along with me.’

  He did not speak a word in reply to the questions Charles put until they passed through the showy portals of Carlby Mansions and a lift had deposited them at the door of the flat.

  Falmouth opened the door with a key, and Charles went into the flat at his heels.

  He saw the hole in the floor.

  ‘This wasn’t mentioned at the inquest,’ he said; ‘but what’s this to do with Jessen?’

  He looked up at the detective in perplexity, then a light broke upon him and he whistled.

  ‘Well, I’m – ’ he said, then he added softly – ‘But what does the Government say to this?’

  ‘The Government,’ said Falmouth in his best official manner, smoothing the nap of his hat the while – ‘the Government regard the circumstances as unusual, but they have accepted the situation with great philosophy.’

  * * *

  That night Mr Long (or Jessen) reappeared at the Guild as though nothing whatever had happened, and addressed his audience for half an hour on the subject of ‘Do burglars make good caretakers?’

  Chapter 8

  Two incidents in the fight

  From what secret place in the metropolis the Woman of Gratz reorganized her forces we shall never know; whence came her strength of purpose and her unbounded energy we can guess. With Starque’s death she became virtually and actually the leader of the Red Hundred, and from every corner of Europe came reinforcements of men and money to strengthen her hand and to re-establish the shaking prestige of the most powerful association that Anarchism had ever known.

  Great Britain had ever been immune from the active operations of the anarchist. It had been the sanctuary of the revolutionary for centuries, and Anarchism had hesitated to jeopardize the security of refugees by carrying on its propaganda on British soil. That the extremists of the movement had chafed under the restriction is well known, and when the Woman of Gratz openly declared war on England, she was acclaimed enthusiastically.

  Then followed perhaps the most extraordinary duels that the world had ever seen. Two powerful bodies, both outside the pale of the law, fought rapidly, mercilessly, asking no quarter and giving none. And the eerie thing about it all was, that no man saw the agents of either of the combatants. It was as though two spirit forces were engaged in some titanic combat. The police were almos
t helpless. The fight against the Red Hundred was carried on, almost single-handedly, by the Four Just Men, or, to give them the title with which they signed their famous proclamation, ‘The Council of Justice’.

  There were occasions when the Council delegated its work to the police, as for instance when Scotland Yard received intimation of the attempt that was to be made on the House of Commons. But mainly they fought without assistance.

  Who can remember without a thrill of horror the blood-red posters, marked with the triangle of the Red Hundred, which appeared by magic one night on all the prominent hoardings of London, announcing the coming destruction of London.

  ‘Tomorrow,’ ran the poster, ‘from two airships controlled by our brethren, we will lay in ashes this hive of plutocracy and corruption . . . ’

  There were other and more flowery phrases in the edict.

  ‘I underestimated her power,’ confessed Manfred, and the three men who were with him in the Lewisham house looked grave.

  This house in Lewisham was charmingly suburban, and had the prosperous appearance that the home of a bank manager usually bears. Years ago Manfred had purchased the house, and the old lady who acted as caretaker in his prolonged absences and cook and maid-of-all-works during his visits, satisfied the neighbours, as she satisfied herself, with the hint that Manfred was a foreign ‘gentleman’ in the ‘music line’.

  Though the information is of no consequence so far as the story goes, it might be said that Manfred had houses in other parts of London, in Paris, Berlin, Petrograd, Madrid, Vienna, and at Oyster Bay; in addition to which, I have reason to believe that the lease of ‘Laing Kloof’, that charming residence at Claremont, in Cape Colony, is also held by him.

  The young man who called himself Courlander broke the silence that Manfred’s speech caused.

  ‘This airship – what do you intend doing?’

  The conversation took place the night before the bills had been posted. A poster, wet from the press, had come to Manfred through one of his mysterious agencies.

  Manfred smiled. ‘It wasn’t the thought of the balloons that induced the comment,’ he said. ‘As to these, I could destroy them tonight, or rather Leon could.’

  ‘We have a fancy for a theatrical display,’ said Leon. The book he was reading rested on his knees, and he held his pince-nez poised between his fingers.

  He spoke half seriously, half jestingly; his thin scholarly face was a trifle paler, and there was more grey at his temples than in the days when he and Manfred and Poiccart and the man Thery had executed the cabinet minister. But the old fire still flamed in his eyes – that look of eager analysis that swept the face of every man he met until it seemed that every virtue, every weakness, every passion, that went to the moulding of that face had been valued and weighed and catalogued for future reference.

  ‘The balloons are nothing,’ Manfred went on. ‘London will get a little panicky when it sees them overhead, and if, by chance, one of the bombs explodes in the street there might be damage done; mainly I am concerned with the knowledge that the continental party is sending fresh supplies to England.’

  ‘Money?’

  ‘The Pausique bomb,’ said Manfred, ‘a deadly form of explosive. They could never have been prepared here in England; as to the balloons, you shall see our new destroyer!’

  * * *

  The verger rather thought the gallery would be closed for the day. The Commissioner of Police had issued orders that the streets were to be cleared, and citizens had been warned to remain indoors until the danger was passed.

  The verger, too, eyed the big box that Manfred carried, dubiously. Then Gonsalez showed him the permit, signed by the dean, that gave the party permission to photograph, and the ‘camera’ was passed.

  The verger was a nervous man with wife and children living in Balham.

  ‘Will you gentlemen be long?’ he asked anxiously.

  ‘About two hours,’ said Manfred.

  The verger groaned in spirit.

  ‘But you needn’t come up with us; we shall find our way out,’ he said.

  They left the verger at the foot of the winding stairway, by no means satisfied in his mind as to the proper course of action. From the gallery of St Paul’s Cathedral, on a clear day, one may view a panorama like which there is nothing in the world. It was such a day as this, and London took on a new glory in the bright spring sunlight. The streets below were strangely deserted; here and there were little red groups of soldiers.

  ‘Marksmen,’ said Poiccart; ‘your English soldier shoots rather well, does he not?’

  Manfred nodded, and Courlander, looking a little puzzled, asked: ‘Why have they not taken position in – such a place as this, for instance?’

  ‘Three hundred feet one way or the other makes little difference,’ explained Gonsalez. ‘I should imagine they have all kinds of cumbersome apparatus for getting the range which would be impracticable in this restricted position – ah!’

  He pointed southward.

  High in the air appeared two tiny objects. Through his glasses Manfred made out their character.

  ‘Cylinder shaped, ot course,’ he muttered, ‘on the Zeppelin plan, with the usual foolish motor and propellers; the wind’s with them.’

  They stood watching in silence. Then Gonsalez, sweeping the horizon with his binoculars, pointed to the Monument, from the cage of which came a sudden flash and a flicker of light.

  ‘The military people have seen it and are sending the warning round. Aren’t they in telegraphic communication?’

  The flashes ceased for a little while, then recommenced with greater vigour than before.

  Gonsalez spelt out the words.

  ‘Over Chislehurst, heading for London at the rate of twenty miles an hour,’ he read, and Manfred slid back a panel of the polished wooden box and surveyed the contents approvingly.

  ‘If I know the Red Hundred,’ said Courlander, ‘there will first be a parade – a little cat-and-mouse play.’

  Gonsalez smiled grimly.

  ‘They will be sorry,’ he said simply. He saw Courlander’s eyes wandering to the box with a look in which doubt and amusement were blended.

  ‘That was George’s idea,’ said Gonsalez regretfully; ‘I almost grudge him that. George has had them for years. He foresaw the possibility.’

  ‘This?’ Courlander’s hand waved inquiringly to where the two airships, growing larger every minute, sailed serenely in the sky.

  ‘Oh, no,’ said Leon; ‘wars and things,’ he added vaguely. ‘George has the makings of a patriot – sentiment is his one failing.’

  Manfred’s amusement was checked by the silent Poiccart.

  ‘In what order?’ he asked abruptly.

  ‘First St Paul’s – ’ began Manfred.

  ‘Here!’ said Courlander.

  ‘Here,’ smiled Manfred – ‘I won’t insult you by asking you if you’re afraid – then the Tower, then the Mint, after that the National Gallery, and en route any particular public building that takes their fancy.’

  He watched the nearing airships. They were so close now that the men in the skeleton car could be seen and the thud of the engines plainly heard.

  ‘They are dropping a little,’ reported Poiccart.

  ‘So much the better,’ said Manfred, and slipped on to his right hand a leathern gauntlet.

  ‘Look!’

  From the car of one of the airships, a small round object – absurdly small it seemed – fell straight as a plummet into the tangle of roofs and gables below. A second’s pause, then, with a crash like thunder, a warehouse on the south side of the river burst into flames, shivered and collapsed like a house of cards.

  ‘They have stopped,’ said Poiccart.

  The propellers had ceased to revolve and the airships caugh
t by the wind swung slowly round.

  ‘Idle curiosity has destroyed many a wary conspirator,’ moralized Manfred, and slipped his gloved hand into the box. Twice he did this and each time he drew forth a bird.

  Such a bird as few men see in these days, but which, in other times, the chivalry of England regarded with the pride and admiration that a later generation reserves for its racehorses.

  ‘Falconry,’ said Manfred, as he deftly slipped the hoods from the great hawks’ heads, ‘is a decaying sport – these have been well trained – but not for the snaring of pigeons’or pheasants or fowl – you shall see.’

  As he slipped the falcons, Poiccart spoke. ‘They are coming.’

  ‘Good,’ said Manfred, and watching the whirling death he had loosened.

  For a moment they circled aimlessly, then with one accord they soared upward with one clean sweep of wing.

  Straight for the two airships they made.

  ‘They are over the river, I trust,’ said Manfred calmly. ‘Did you notice the steel spurs . . . ?’

  High over the balloons the two hawks poised, then, as though each had singled out its enemy, they dropped like stones . . .

  At that distance one could not hear the sibilant swish of slashed silk or the whistle of escaping gas. Only suddenly one of the balloons swayed and listed, and there appeared in its rigid side a great dent; then it fell.

  It fell and no noise but one faint cry attended its falling.

  ‘One,’ said Manfred grimly, ‘and in the river!’

  The collapse of the second was not so rapid. It too, sagged across its broad back and rolled so that the car swayed wildly.

  They could see the men who formed its crew holding on to the cordage, but all the time the airship was beating toward them.

  They saw one of the crew release ballast and the balloon rose higher, then the engine stopped and the wind took charge of the great gas bag, and it drifted slowly back riverward.

  Manfred made no sign; if he sighed a sigh of relief, he did so inwardly.

  Then, as the airship, all crumpled and rolling, drifted backward, there was a bang: which echoed and reverberated through the London streets. Something went whining through the air, and over the airship appeared suddenly a puffy ball of white smoke, for the fraction of a second nothing happened.