The Fourth Plague Read online

“I sometimes think,” he said, “that you are worth three. The one you are, the one you can be, and the one you never appear to be!”

  Crocks chuckled.

  VI. —THE THREE

  IF YOU WALK FROM London Bridge along Tooley Street, through Rotherhithe, you come to Lower Deptford. Passing through this, you reach Deptford proper, and leading off from the left you will find a long straight road which crosses the Ravensbourne, and connects Greenwich—the one quaint corner of London which steadfastly refuses to be entirely modernized—with its more busy neighbour.

  The connecting road once accommodated the well-to-do middle class of Deptford, in the days when Deptford was a prosperous port, and when swarthy seafaring men with gold ear-rings recalled the brave days when the Great Peter himself worked in the shipyard and lived in a piggish fashion at Evelyn House.

  The houses are narrow-fronted and of a set pattern. There are overhanging wooden canopies to each of the doors; in some one finds traces of oak panelling, but usually the present-day tenants have utilized such of the wood as they can detach for the purpose of lighting their fires. For what was once Deptford’s glory is now Deptford’s slum. The great houses ring with the shrill voices of innumerable children. Floor after floor is let out in tenements, and in some cases a dozen families occupy the restricted space which, in olden times, barely sufficed to accommodate the progeny of opulent ship chandlers.

  When Mill Lane was Rowtonized, its hovels, its insanitary dens and its quaint little cottages pulled down by a wise borough architect, the Italian colony which had made its home in that unsalubrious neighbourhood moved northward and distributed itself along the road of ancient respectability.

  In the main the Italian made a good neighbour, quiet, sober, inoffensive; his piano-organ stalled in the confined area of the back yard, was, perhaps, a nuisance to men who loved to sleep far into the morning, but he gave little offence otherwise.

  In one of these houses, on an upper floor, three men were sitting round a table. A large fiasco of Chianti occupied the place of honour upon the table, and glasses had been set for the men by one who was evidently the host. The windows were heavily curtained and shuttered, the door itself had been edged with felt by the careful tenant, and as a further precaution against interruption there sat outside the door, two steps down the narrow stairs, the dark figure of a man, whose duty it was to see that the conference was not disturbed.

  The host was a tall man, immensely powerful; his black hair was cropped short; his face, lined and seamed, was half hidden by a bushy black beard.

  His shirt opened to show a patch of hairy chest, and the powerful arms revealed by the rolled-up sleeves spoke of enormous strength. They spoke truly, for Tommasino Patti bore in his own country the nickname “Il Bue,” which signifies, “The Ox.”

  It was as “Il Bue” that his companions knew him, though there was nothing bovine in the evil but intelligent face, nor in his lithe, quick movements.

  The man on his left was short and stout; clean-shaven save for a black moustache, carefully twisted to a curl at either end. He was short of breath, and spoke like one with chronic asthma, in deep, rumbling, wheezy tones.

  Facing Il Bue was a young man who contrasted remarkably with his companions. For, whilst the giant was careless to the point of slovenliness in his attire, and the stout man but little better, this third member of the council was dressed with exquisite care.

  He was a slim and graceful young man of medium height; handsome, with his olive skin, his fine forehead, and his slight dark moustache. He wore a suit of simple cut, which fitted him perfectly. His cravat was of dull black silk, and the only jewellery he wore was a black pearl in his cravat, and a thin gold chain across his waistcoat.

  He was a man who had been carefully valeted, and, from the dove-grey spats on his boots to his manicured finger-tips, he was correctness personified. His silk-lined overcoat lay carefully folded over the back of the chair, with a soft black felt hat on top. He himself lounged in the one comfortable chair which the room boasted—and his legs thrown over the arm of the chair displayed a glimpse of grey silk socks. He looked little more than twenty, though he was in reality much older.

  His attitude towards the others was one of amused curiosity. From time to time he examined his beautiful nails with solicitude, as though he found them much more interesting than the conversation. And yet the talk was startling enough.

  The stout man had finished the story of his adventure.

  “And Signors,” he said appealingly, “I, myself, could have secured this jewel, but for the restrictions which your Excellencies placed on me.”

  He spoke alternately to Il Bue and the young man at the foot of the table.

  “Why?” he asked, in extravagant despair, “why is it necessary that you should employ a third person—one without finesse, like this man, Mansingham, who blunders through the house, awakes the servants, and is arrested? It was tempting Providence, Signors; it would be almost as much a temptation to employ the girl.”

  The young man smiled.

  “You are a fool,” he said.

  They were speaking in liquid Italian, and the youth’s voice was soft and melodious.

  “Have we no example of the folly of acting otherwise?”

  He raised his eyebrows, and for a moment a baleful light shone in his eyes, changing the whole character of his face.

  “Listen, my little man.” He tapped the table before him, and spoke with quiet emphasis. “What may seem simple to you is not so simple to us. It is the rule of ‘Our Friends,’ when such a raid is carried out, that the person who abstracts and the person who immediately receives shall be unknown to one another. Moreover,” he said, carefully choosing his words, “it is necessary, since a certain happening which you may remember, that the medallion, if medallion it be, shall be received by two of our brethren, and not by one.”

  He smiled.

  “I repeat,” he said, “And not by one.”

  He looked at Il Bue, still smiling, and then at the stout man.

  “A year ago,” he said, “we had marked down something we required. It was a medallion. One of those two medallions, I know, contains a secret which will make us rich. We commissioned a brother skilled in scientific abstraction to remove that jewel. It follows, my dear Pietro, that the same set of brains which can wield, with great skill, a set of tools for the removal of locks or the forcing of glass cases may be entirely inefficient or inadequate when it comes to the removal and the safeguarding of the treasure. In stealing, as in all other sciences, the specialist has the advantage; we instruct one specialist to take the medallion from its case—wherever it may be—we employ two other specialists jointly to receive that jewel and to take it to a place of safety—watching each other the while. You follow me?”

  The stout man nodded grudgingly, and the young man went on.

  “The gentleman,” he said, with grim humour, “who received that precious relic of which the society stood in the greatest need, disappeared with it. He was false to his oath, false to his kin; he demonstrated the falsity of the English adage, that there was honour amongst thieves—and indeed there is not—and, although eventually we found him, we never found the jewel.”

  He took a flat gold cigarette case from his pocket, took out a cigarette and lit it.

  “It would have been no satisfaction to us to remove this erring friend. It was fortunate that he saved us the trouble by removing himself. We did not find the jewel,” he repeated. “That most desirable thing he had, in his panic, handed to some peasant or other. That peasant we have at last located.”

  He exchanged a swift glance with Il Bue, and the big man nodded emphatically.

  “Whether we shall get the jewel remains to be seen,” continued the exquisite young man, puffing rings of smoke at the ceiling.

  “At any rate, the necessity for taking precautions in the matter
of receiving these articles which are so precious to us, and which are located with such great pains and with such labour, must be fairly obvious.”

  He looked at his watch.

  “Now, I have little time to spare. Let me see what is to be seen.”

  The big man rose and walked heavily across the room. He put his hand under the pillow of a truckle bed which stood in the corner, and pulled out a long, flat box. He brought it to the other, and opened it with a key which hung with a crucifix about his neck.

  It was a curious collection which met the young man’s eyes. The box was almost filled with lockets of every conceivable shape and description. There were lockets of gold and of silver, lockets carved from crystal, lockets so encrusted with jewels that it was impossible to tell what was the subsidiary metal. Some bore a painted miniature, others were brilliant with enamels.

  The young man fingered them with quick and skilful hands. He lifted them one by one from their box, laid them in the palm of his hand, and turned them; and, as he examined, he rejected.

  He finished his labours at last.

  “They are very valuable,” he said, “but not of the value I hoped. We have to search still further. I believe that the locket which is in the possession of this foolish man Morte-Mannery is more likely to be the one we seek than any other. We must lose no time and spare no pains to secure it.”

  He took a flat leather wallet from his inside coat pocket, opened it and removed a sheet of paper. There was a drawing in pencil.

  “This is it,” he said, “if any is.”

  He passed the design to the stout man.

  “You observe those curious arabesques, that cupid, that tiny hoofed devil? That is the master’s own work.”

  He spoke with enthusiasm. For one moment the sinister object of the chase was lost sight of in his artistic appreciation of the design.

  “There are two such lockets in the world.”

  He spoke more quickly now.

  “One we may secure to-night. The other on Friday. We must make some arrangements. If necessary I will go down myself and receive the locket. This drawing,” he pointed to the paper, “almost decides me. We can afford to slacken our efforts elsewhere and concentrate them upon Burboro’. By the way, what money is wanted?”

  “A thousand English pounds,” said the stout man, breathlessly.

  The young man laughed.

  “It is absurd to ask for a thousand pounds for something which may be of no value whatever,” he said. “You must promise her—where is she, by the way?”

  “She will be in town to-night, Signor,” said Pietro.

  The young man nodded.

  “She is very faithful and enthusiastic,” he said; “a curious woman, our Lisa,” he mused, as he rose.

  Il Bue jumped to his feet and assisted him with his overcoat.

  “You will probably find her useful, to-night.”

  “Why don’t you trust her to get the jewel from this pig’s house?” asked the tall man gruffly.

  The young exquisite smiled.

  “My poor man,” he said, “if I do not trust a brother, why should I trust—”

  “No,” he said, a little harshly, as he stood by the door buttoning his coat, “I take no more risks. My father warned me against any such folly, and I neglected his warning. I have had to pay the price for my neglect. Who is outside?” he asked suddenly.

  “Beppo,” said Il Bue. “I had to have somebody who was reliable. Beppo loves the dark.”

  “He is an unwholesome beast,” said the young man, lightly. “He would cut my throat or yours for a piastre.”

  “That may be,” said the other, with a growl, “but a man whose neck is in danger, and whose life depends upon keeping faith, is one to employ for such work.”

  They opened the door, the brawny host leading the way, carrying a hand-lamp. A figure sat crouched on the stairs, his knees drawn up and his head bent low.

  “A pretty sentry! He’s asleep!” said the young man.

  Il Bue leant down, and grasped the man by the neck.

  “Wake up, you dog,” he hissed. “Is this the way?”

  Then he stopped, for the head fell back jerkily, and a handle of a dagger protruding from his heart gave them a complete explanation of his silence.

  Yes! there he lay—this man, who had perjured himself clear of the scaffold in two countries—this jackal of a villainous confederacy—and the three men stared at him in amazement and horror.

  The former state only could be applied to the young man, who, without any pause, without any sign of emotion, continued buttoning his gloves.

  “There is only one man who could have done that,” he said, thoughtfully, “and that man is Antonio Tillizini.”

  VII. —THE GOLDEN ANTONIO

  “SIGNOR—FOR THE LOVE of Heaven!” The Strand was crowded with a matinee throng, and the idle folk which promenade that famous thoroughfare before the Easter holiday filled the sidewalks.

  To the man in a hurry the name of the loitering, sauntering pleasure-seekers was anathema. Frank Gallinford was that man in a hurry, for the 6.30 Burboro’ express waits for no man, and, though Charing Cross was in sight, there remained only two minutes to get through the crowd, into the station, and on to the platform.

  He cursed the idlers deeply and earnestly as he elbowed and pushed his way forward. To leave the pavement was to court disaster, for the roadway was blocked with traffic, and moreover an intelligent authority had had it dug up at its busiest portion and railed off to half its width for “repairs.”

  Frank Gallinford had stepped from the kerb into the roadway, and from the roadway on to the kerb again, dodging between the hawkers who vended their wares; he had sprung away from the wheels of devastating motor-cars, and buffeted stout and leisurely gentlemen in his effort to reach the station on time, but he seemed as far from his objective as ever.

  Then he suddenly felt his sleeve clutched and the words—

  “Signor, in the name of Mary!”

  They were gasped rather than spoken, and the language employed was Italian.

  Frank stopped and looked round with a bewildered frown. Who spoke to him in Italian in this most English Strand—and who knew that he was acquainted with the language?

  The man at his elbow was unquestionably Latin. His long, cadaverous face, covered with a week’s growth of beard, was working almost convulsively in his agitation. The big black eyes that stared at him from beneath two shaggy brows blazed as only Southern eyes can blaze.

  In a moment the Englishman’s anxiety to catch his train was forgotten. The soft accents which he knew so well, and loved so well, came to his ears like the first sigh of the breeze that ripples the Adriatic on summer nights. It stirred memories of a simple and charming peasantry, it brought visions of the marble palaces of the old Venetian nobility.

  “Well, my friend?” he asked, kindly.

  “I cannot speak to you here,” said the man, dropping his voice and speaking quickly. “You remember me, Signor?—Romano—I was your foreman on the harbour works at Cattaro.”

  Frank remembered, and his hand dropped in a friendly salute on the other’s shoulder.

  “Remember you, Miguelo mio!” he laughed, “why, however could I forget you! You were the man who swam out to me when I was seized with cramp—confound you, you saved my life!”

  A faint smile flickered across the lips of the little Italian, and then the look of anxiety came again.

  “Follow me,” he whispered, “this is urgent, you do not know, you cannot understand.”

  With no other word, he plunged into the throng, and Frank Gallinford, keeping him in sight, followed.

  Romano turned the first corner he reached. It was a steep street which led down into the Adelphi.

  Here the stream of traffic dried up. Into the gloomy depths only the m
ost experienced travellers, who knew this contributed a short cut to the District Railway station, ventured, and the two men had the thoroughfare to themselves.

  When they had gone fifty yards the Italian stopped, and Frank observed that he chose a spot midway between two street-lamps where the light was dimmest and most uncertain.

  “Signor,” he said, speaking rapidly, almost incoherently, “you know me a little. I am a mason, and I was brought to London to work on the new Italian restaurant in Regent Street. I have no friend in London, no one to whom I can turn—and I am in despair “—he wrung his hands, and his voice, though he kept it low by sheer effort of control, was shrill,—“and then I saw your face—your strong, calm English face in that great crowd, Signor—like a saint, Signor….”

  Frank was too accustomed to the extravagance of the Italian compliment to feel embarrassed, though he had never overcome the sense of shyness which comes to the more phlegmatic Anglo-Saxon in face of florid flattery.

  “I am not feeling particularly angelic, Miguelo,” he said, with a rueful smile as the recollection of his lost train occurred to him.

  “Listen, Signor,” the man went on. “Years ago, when I was younger, I was in New York—and for a joke, Signor—I swear it was no more than a youthful jest—I joined a Society. I took oaths—I thought nothing of it. Then I went away to my own country, later to Montenegro, then to Italy again—and now to London. And, Signor, they have found me, my Society. And they tell me I must do horrible things—horrible—horrible.”

  He covered his face with his hands and groaned. Frank was puzzled. He knew of these secret societies, had indeed seen their milder manifestations. He had endured an exasperating strike on more occasions than one as a result of some offence given to an official of a society. But never had he glimpsed the tragedy, the underlying horror of these mysterious associations.

  He laid his hand gently on the other’s arm.

  “My friend,” he said, soothingly, “you need not worry—this is England. These things do not happen here. If you are threatened, go to the police.”