Chapter XIGurther
MONTY NEWTON dragged himself home, a weary, angry man, and let himself in with his key. He found the footman lying on the floor of the hall asleep, his greatcoat pulled over him, and stirred him to wakefulness with the toe of his boot.
“Get up,” he growled. “Anybody been here?”
Fred rose, a little dazed, rubbing his eyes.
“The old man’s in the drawing-room,” he said, and his employer passed on without another word.
As he opened the door, he saw that all the lights in the drawing-room were lit. Dr. Oberzohn had pulled a small table near the fire, and before this he sat bolt upright, a tiny chess-board before him, immersed in a problem. He looked across to the new-comer for a second and then resumed his study of the board, made a move . . .
“Ach!” he said in tones of satisfaction. “Leskina was wrong! It is possible to mate in five moves!”
He pushed the chess-men into confusion and turned squarely to face Newton.
“Well, have you concluded these matters satisfactorily?”
“He brought up the reserves,” said Monty, unlocking a tantalus on a side table and helping himself liberally to whisky. “They got Cuccini through the jaw. Nothing serious.”
Dr. Oberzohn laid his bony hands on his knees.
“Gurther must be disciplined,” he said. “Obviously he has lost his nerve; and when a man loses his nerve also he loses his sense of time. And his timing—how deplorable! The car had not arrived; my excellent police had not taken position . . . deplorable!”
“The police are after him: I suppose you know that?” Newton looked over his glass.
Dr. Oberzohn nodded.
“The extradition so cleverly avoided is now accomplished. But Gurther is too good a man to be lost. I have arranged a hiding-place for him. He is of many uses.”
“Where did he go?”
Dr. Oberzohn’s eyebrows wrinkled up and down.
“Who knows?” he said. “He has the little machine. Maybe he has gone to the house—the green light in the top window will warn him and he will move carefully.”
Newton walked to the window and looked out. Chester Square looked ghostly in the grey light of dawn. And then, out of the shadows, he saw a figure move and walk slowly towards the south side of the square.
“They’re watching this house,” he said, and laughed.
“Where is my young lady?” asked Oberzohn, who was staring glumly into the fire.
“I don’t know . . . there was a car pulled out of the mews as one of our men ‘closed’ the entrance. She has probably gone back to Heavytree Farm, and you can sell that laboratory of yours. There is only one way now, and that’s the rough way. We have time—we can do a lot in six weeks. Villa is coming this morning—I wish we’d taken that idol from the trunk. That may put the police on to the right track.”
Dr. Oberzohn pursed his lips as though he were going to whistle, but he was guilty of no such frivolity.
“I am glad they found him,” he said precisely. “To them it will be a scent. What shall they think, but that the unfortunate Barberton had come upon an old native treasure-house? No, I do not fear that.” He shook his head. “Mostly I fear Mr. Johnson Lee and the American, Elijah Washington.”
He put his hand into his jacket pocket and took out a thin pad of letters.
“Johnson Lee is for me difficult to understand. For what should a gentleman have to do with this boor that he writes so friendly letters to him?”
“How did you get these?”
“Villa took them: it was one of the intelligent actions also to leave the statue.”
He passed one of the letters across to Newton. It was addressed “Await arrival, Poste Restante, Mosamedes.” The letter was written in a curiously round, boyish hand. Another remarkable fact was that it was perforated across the page at regular intervals, and upon the lines formed by this perforation Mr. Johnson Lee wrote.
“Dear B.,” the letter ran, “I have instructed my banker to cable you £500. I hope this will carry you through and leave enough to pay your fare home. You may be sure that I shall not breathe a word, and your letters, of course, nobody in the house can read but me. Your story is amazing, and I advise you to come home at once and see Miss Leicester.“Your friend,“Johnson Lee.”
“Dear B.,” the letter ran, “I have instructed my banker to cable you £500. I hope this will carry you through and leave enough to pay your fare home. You may be sure that I shall not breathe a word, and your letters, of course, nobody in the house can read but me. Your story is amazing, and I advise you to come home at once and see Miss Leicester.
“Your friend,
“Johnson Lee.”
The note-paper was headed “Rath Hall, January 13th.”
“They came to me to-day. If I had seen them before, there would have been no need for the regrettable happening.”
He looked thoughtfully at his friend.
“They will be difficult: I had that expectation,” he said, and Monty knew that he referred to the Three Just Men. “Yet they are mortal also—remember that, my Newton: they are mortal also.”
“As we are,” said Newton gloomily.
“That is a question,” said Oberzohn, “so far as I am concerned.”
Dr. Oberzohn never jested; he spoke with the greatest calm and assurance. The other man could only stare at him.
Although it was light, a green lamp showed clearly in the turret room of the doctor’s house as he came within sight of the ugly place. And, seeing that warning, he did not expect to be met in the passage by Gurther. The man had changed from his resplendent kit and was again in the soiled and shabby garments he had discarded the night before.
“You have come, Gurther?”
“Ja, Herr Doktor.”
“To my parlour!” barked Dr. Oberzohn, and marched ahead.
Gurther followed him and stood with his back to the door, erect, his chin raised, his bright, curious eyes fixed on a point a few inches above his master’s head.
“Tell me now.” The doctor’s ungainly face was working ludicrously.
“I saw the man and struck, Herr Doktor, and then the lights went out and I went to the floor, expecting him to shoot. . . . I think he must have taken the gracious lady. I did not see, for there was a palm between us. I returned at once to the greater hall, and walked through the people on the floor. They were very frightened.”
“You saw them?”
“Yes, Herr Doktor,” said Gurther. “It is not difficult for me to see in the dark. After that I ran to the other entrance, but they were gone.”
“Come here.”
The man took two stilted paces towards the doctor and Oberzohn struck him twice in the face with the flat of his hand. Not a muscle of the man’s face moved: he stood erect, his lips framed in a half-grin, his curious eyes staring straight ahead.
“That is for bad time, Gurther. Nobody saw you return?”
“No, Herr Doktor, I came on foot.”
“You saw the light?”
“Yes, Herr Doktor, and I thought it best to be here.”
“You were right,” said Oberzohn. “March!”
He went into the forbidden room, turned the key, and passed into the super-heated atmosphere. Gurther stood attentively at the door. Presently the doctor came out, carrying a long case covered with baize under his arm. He handed it to the waiting man, went into the room, and, after a few minutes’ absence, returned with a second case, a little larger.
“March!” he said.
Gurther followed him out of the house and across the rank, weed-grown “garden” towards the factory. A white mist had rolled up from the canal, and factory and grounds lay under the veil.
He led the way through an oblong gap in the wall where once a door had stood, and followed a tortuous course through the blackened beams and twisted girders that littered the floor. Only a half-hearted attempt had been made to clear up the wreckage after the fire, and the floor was ankle-deep in the charred shreds of burnt cloth. Near the far end of the building, Oberzohn stopped, put down his box and pushed aside the ashes with his foot until he had cleared a space about three feet square. Stooping, he grasped an iron ring and pulled, and a flagstone came up with scarcely an effort, for it was well counter-weighted. He took up the box again and descended the stone stairs, stopping only to turn on a light.
The vaults of the store had been practically untouched by the fire. There were shelves that still carried dusty bales of cotton goods. Oberzohn was in a hurry. He crossed the stone floor in two strides, pulled down the bar of another door, and, walking into the darkness, deposited his box on the floor.
The electric power of the factory had, in the old days, been carried on two distinct circuits, and the connection with the vaults was practically untouched by the explosion.
They were in a smaller room now, fairly comfortably furnished. Gurther knew it well, for it was here that he had spent the greater part of his first six months in England. Ventilation came through three small gratings near the roof. There was a furnace, and, as Gurther knew, an ample supply of fuel in one of the three cellars that opened into the vault.
“Here will you stay until I send for you,” said Oberzohn. “To-night, perhaps, after they have searched. You have a pistol?”
“Ja, Herr Doktor.”
“Food, water, bedding—all you need.” Oberzohn jerked open another of the cellars and took stock of the larder. “To-night I may come for you—to-morrow night—who knows? You will light the fire at once.” He pointed to the two baize-covered boxes. “Good morning, Gurther.”
“Good morning, Herr Doktor.”
Oberzohn went up to the factory level, dropped the trap and his foot pushed back the ashes which hid its presence, and with a cautious look round he crossed the field to his house. He was hardly in his study before the first police car came bumping along the lane.
Chapter XIILeon Theorizes
MAKING inquiries, Detective-Inspector Meadows discovered that, on the previous evening at eight o’clock, two men had called upon Barberton. The first of these was described as tall and rather aristocratic in appearance. He wore dark, horn-rimmed spectacles. The hotel manager thought he might have been an invalid, for he walked with a stick. The second man seemed to have been a servant of some kind, for he spoke respectfully to the visitor.
“No, he gave no name, Mr. Meadows,” said the manager. “I told him of the terrible thing which had happened to Mr. Barberton, and he was so upset that I didn’t like to press the question.”
Meadows was on his circuitous way to Curzon Street when he heard this, and he arrived in time for breakfast. Manfred’s servants regarded it as the one eccentricity of an otherwise normal gentleman that he invariably breakfasted with his butler and chauffeur. This matter had been discussed threadbare in the tiny servants’ hall, and it no longer excited comment when Manfred telephoned down to the lower regions and asked for another plate.
The Triangle were in cheerful mood. Leon Gonsalez was especially bright and amusing, as he invariably was after such a night as he had spent.
“We searched Oberzohn’s house from cellar to attic,” said Meadows when the plate had been laid.
“And of course you found nothing. The elegant Gurther?”
“He wasn’t there. That fellow will keep at a distance if he knows that there’s a warrant out for him. I suspect some sort of signal. There was a very bright green light burning in one of those ridiculous Gothic turrets.”
Manfred stifled a yawn.
“Gurther went back soon after midnight,” he said, “and was there until Oberzohn’s return.”
“Are you sure?” asked the astonished detective.
Leon nodded, his eyes twinkling.
“After that, one of those infernal river mists blotted out observation,” he said, “but I should imagine Herr Gurther is not far away. Did you see his companion, Pfeiffer?”
Meadows nodded.
“Yes, he was cleaning boots when I arrived.”
“How picturesque!” said Gonsalez. “I think he will have a valet the next time he goes to prison, unless the system has altered since your days, George?”
George Manfred, who had once occupied the condemned cell in Chelmsford Prison, smiled.
“An interesting man, Gurther,” mused Gonsalez. “I have a feeling that he will escape hanging. So you could not find him? I found him last night. But for the lady, who was both an impediment and an interest, we might have put a period to his activities.” He caught Meadows’ eye. “I should have handed him to you, of course.”
“Of course,” said the detective dryly.
“A remarkable man, but nervous. You are going to see Mr. Johnson Lee?”
“What made you say that?” asked the detective in astonishment, for he had not as yet confided his intention to the three men.
“He will surprise you,” said Leon. “Tell me, Mr. Meadows: when you and George so thoroughly and carefully searched Barberton’s box, did you find anything that was suggestive of his being a cobbler, let us say—or a bookbinder?”
“I think in his sister’s letter there was a reference to the books he had made. I found nothing particular except an awl and a long oblong of wood which was covered with pinpricks. As a matter of fact, when I saw it my first thought was that, living the kind of life he must have done in the wilderness, it was rather handy to be able to repair his own shoes. The idea of bookbinding is a new one.”
“I should say he never bound a book in his life, in the ordinary sense of the word,” remarked Manfred; “and as Leon says, you will find Johnson Lee a very surprising man.”
“Do you know him?”
Manfred nodded gravely.
“I have just been on the telephone to him,” he said. “You’ll have to be careful of Mr. Lee, Meadows. Our friend the snake may be biting his way, and will, if he hears a breath of suspicion that he was in Barberton’s confidence.”
The detective put down his knife and fork.
“I wish you fellows would stop being mysterious,” he said, half annoyed, half amused. “What is behind this business? You talk of the snake as though you could lay your hands on him.”
“And we could,” they said in unison.
“Who is he?” challenged the detective.
“The Herr Doktor,” smiled Gonsalez.
“Oberzohn?”
Leon nodded.
“I thought you would have discovered that by connecting the original three murders together—and murders they were. First”—he ticked the names off on his fingers—“we have a stockbroker. This gentleman was a wealthy speculator who occasionally financed highly questionable deals. Six months before his death he drew from the bank a very large sum of money in notes. By an odd coincidence the bank clerk, going out to luncheon, saw his client and Oberzohn driving past in a taxicab, and as they came abreast he saw a large blue envelope go into Oberzohn’s pocket. The money had been put into a blue envelope when it was drawn. The broker had financed the doctor, and when the scheme failed and the money was lost, he not unnaturally asked for its return. He trusted Oberzohn not at all; carried his receipt about in his pocket, and never went anywhere unless he was armed—that fact did not emerge at the inquest, but you know it is true.”
Meadows nodded.
“He threatened Oberzohn with exposure at a meeting they had in Winchester Street, on the day of his death. That night he returns from a theatre or from his club, and is found dead on the doorstep. No receipt is found. What follows?
“A man, a notorious blackmailer, homeless and penniless, was walking along the Bayswater Road, probably looking for easy money, when he saw the broker’s car going into Orme Place. He followed on the off-chance of begging a few coppers. The chauffeur saw him. The tramp, on the other hand, must have seen something else. He slept the next night at Rowton House, told a friend, who had been in prison with him, that he had a million pounds as good as in his hand. . . .”
Meadows laughed helplessly.
“Your system of investigation is evidently more thorough than ours.”
“It is complementary to yours,” said George quietly. “Go on, Leon.”
“Now what happened to our friend the burglar? He evidently saw somebody in Orme Place whom he either recognized or trailed to his home. For the next day or two he was in and out of public telephone booths, though no number has been traced. He goes to Hyde Park, obviously by appointment—and the snake-bites!
“There was another danger to the confederacy. The bank clerk, learning of the death of the client, is troubled. I have proof that he called Oberzohn on the ’phone. If you remember, when the broker’s affairs were gone into, it was found that he was almost insolvent. A large sum of money had been drawn out of the bank and paid to ‘X.’ The certainty that he knew who ‘X.’ was, worried this decent bank clerk, and he called Oberzohn, probably to ask him why he had not made a statement. On the day he telephoned the snake man, that day he died.”
The detective was listening in silent wonder.
“It sounds like a page out of a sensational novel,” he said, “yet it hangs together.”
“It hangs together because it is true.” Poiccart’s deep voice broke into the conversation. “This has been Oberzohn’s method all his life. He is strong for logic, and there is no more logical action in the world than the destruction of those who threaten your safety and life.”
Meadows pushed away his plate, his breakfast half eaten.
“Proof,” he said briefly.
“What proof can you have, my dear fellow?” scoffed Leon.
“The proof is the snake,” persisted Meadows. “Show me how he could educate a deadly snake to strike, as he did, when the victim was under close observation, as in the case of Barberton, and I will believe you.”
The Three looked at one another and smiled together.
“One of these days I will show you,” said Leon. “They have certainly tamed their snake! He can move so quickly that the human eye cannot follow him. Always he bites on the most vital part, and at the most favourable time. He struck at me last night, but missed me. The next time he strikes”—he was speaking slowly and looking at the detective through the veriest slits of his half-closed eyelids—“the next time he strikes, not all Scotland Yard on the one side, nor his agreeable company of gunmen on the other, will save him!”
Poiccart rose suddenly. His keen ears had heard the ring of a bell, and he went noiselessly down the stairs.
“The whole thing sounds like a romance to me.” Meadows was rubbing his chin irritably. “I am staring at the covers of a book whilst you are reading the pages. I suppose you devils have the A and Z of the story?”
Leon nodded.
“Why don’t you tell me?”
“Because I value your life,” said Leon simply. “Because I wish—we all wish—to keep the snake’s attention upon ourselves.”
Poiccart came back at that moment and put his head in the door.
“Would you like to see Mr. Elijah Washington?” he asked, and they saw by the gleam in his eyes that Mr. Elijah Washington was well worth meeting.
He arrived a second or two later, a tall, broad-shouldered man with a reddish face. He wore pince-nez, and behind the rimless glasses his eyes were alive and full of bubbling laughter. From head to foot he was dressed in white; the cravat which flowed over the soft silk shirt was a bright yellow; the belt about his waist as bright as scarlet.
He stood beaming upon the company, his white panama crushed under his arm, both huge hands thrust into his trousers pockets.
“Glad to know you folks,” he greeted them in a deep boom of a voice. “I guess Mr. Barberton told you all about me. That poor little guy! Listen: he was a he-man all right, but kinder mysterious. They told me I’d find the police chief here—Captain Meadows?”
“Mister,” said the inspector, “I’m that man.”
Washington put out his huge paw and caught the detective’s hand with a grip that would have been notable in a boa constrictor.
“Glad to know you. My name is Elijah Washington—the Natural History Syndicate, Chicago.”
“Sit down, Mr. Washington.” Poiccart pushed forward a chair.
“I want to tell you gentlemen that this Barberton was murdered. Snake? Listen, I know snakes—brought up with ’um! Snakes are my hobby: I know ’um from egg-eaters to ‘tigers’—notechis sentatus, moccasins, copperheads, corals, mamba,fer de lance—gosh! snakes are just common objects like flies. An’ I tell you boys right here and now, that there ain’t a snake in this or the next world that can climb up a parapet, bite a man and get away with it with a copper looking on.”
He beamed from one to the other: he was almost paternal.
“I’d like to have shown you folks a worse-than-mamba,” he said regretfully, “but carrying round snakes in your pocket is just hot dog: it’s like a millionaire wearin’ diamond ear-rings just to show he can afford ’em. I liked that little fellow; I’m mighty sorry he’s dead, but if any man tells you that a snake bit him, go right up to him, hit him on the nose, and say ‘Liar!’ ”
“You will have some coffee?” Manfred had rung the bell.
“Sure I will: never have got used to this tea-drinking habit. I’m on the wagon too: got scared up there in the backlands of Angola——”
“What were you doing there?” asked Leon.
“Snakes,” said the other briefly. “I represent an organization that supplies specimens to zoos and museums. I was looking for a flying snake—there ain’t such a thing, though the natives say there is. I got a new kinder cobra—viperidæ crotalinæ—and yet not!”
He scratched his head, bringing his scientific perplexity into the room. Leon’s heart went out to him.
He had met Barberton by accident. Without shame he confessed that he had gone to a village in the interior for a real solitary jag, and returning to such degree of civilization as Mossamedes represented, he found a group of Portuguese breeds squatting about a fire at which the man’s feet were toasting.
“I don’t know what he was—a prospector, I guess. He was one of those what-is-its you meet along that coast. I’ve met his kind most everywhere—as far south as Port Nottosh. In Angola there are scores: they go native at the end.”
“You can tell us nothing about Barberton?”
Mr. Elijah Washington shook his head.
“No, sir: I know him same as I might know you. It got me curious when I found out the why of the torturing: he wouldn’t tell where it was.”
“Where what was?” asked Manfred quickly, and Mr. Washington was surprised.
“Why, the writing they wanted to get. I thought maybe he’d told you. He said he was coming right along to spill all that part of it. It was a letter he’d found in a tin box—that was all he’d say.”
They looked at one another.
“I know no more about it than that,” Mr. Washington added, when he saw Gonsalez’ lips move. “It was just a letter. Who it was from, why, what it was about, he never told me. My first idea was that he’d been flirting round about here, but divorce laws are mighty generous and they wouldn’t trouble to get evidence that way. A man doesn’t want any documents to get rid of his wife. I dare say you folks wonder why I’ve come along.” Mr. Washington raised his steaming cup of coffee, which must have been nearly boiling, and drank it at one gulp. “That’s fine,” he said, “the nearest to coffee I’ve had since I left home.”
He wiped his lips with a large and vivid silk handkerchief.
“I’ve come along, gentlemen, because I’ve got a pretty good idea that I’d be useful to anybody who’s snake-hunting in this little dorp.”
“It’s rather a dangerous occupation, isn’t it?” said Manfred quietly.
Washington nodded.
“To you, but not to me,” he said. “I am snake-proof.”
He pulled up his sleeve: the forearm was scarred and pitted with old wounds.
“Snakes,” he said briefly. “That’s cobra.” He pointed proudly. “When that snake struck, my boys didn’t wait for anything, they started dividing my kit. Sort of appointed themselves a board of executors and joint heirs of the family estate.”
“But you were very ill?” said Gonsalez.
Mr. Washington shook his head.
“No, sir, not more than if a bee bit me, and not so much as if a wasp had got in first punch. Some people can eat arsenic, some people can make a meal of enough morphia to decimate a province. I’m snake-proof—been bitten ever since I was five.”
He bent over towards them, and his jolly face went suddenly serious.
“I’m the man you want,” he said.
“I think you are,” said Manfred slowly.
“Because this old snake ain’t finished biting. There’s a graft in it somewhere, and I want to find it. But first I want to vindicate the snake. Anybody who says a snake’s naturally vicious doesn’t understand. Snakes are timid, quiet, respectful things, and don’t want no trouble with nobody. If a snake sees you coming, he naturally lights out for home. When momma snake’s running around with her family, she’s naturally touchy for fear you’d tread on any of her boys and girls, but she’s a lady, and if you give her time she’ll Maggie ’um and get ’um into the parlour where the foot of white man never trod.”
Leon was looking at him with a speculative eye.
“It is queer to think,” he said, speaking half to himself, “that you may be the only one of us who will be alive this day week!”
Meadows, not easily shocked, felt a cold shiver run down his spine.
Chapter XIIIMirabelle Goes Home
THE prediction that Leon Gonsalez had made was not wholly fulfilled, though he himself had helped to prevent the supreme distress he prophesied. When Mirabelle Leicester awoke in the morning, her head was thick and dull, and for a long time she lay between sleeping and waking, trying to bring order to the confusion of her thoughts, her eyes on the ceiling towards a gnarled oak beam which she had seen before somewhere; and when at last she summoned sufficient energy to raise herself on her elbow, she looked upon the very familiar surroundings of her own pretty little room.
Heavytree Farm! What a curious dream she had had! A dream filled with fleeting visions of old men with elongated heads, of dance music and a crowded ball-room, of a slightly over-dressed man who had been very polite to her at dinner. Where did she dine? She sat up in bed, holding her throbbing head.
Again she looked round the room and slowly, out of her dreams, emerged a few tangible facts. She was still in a state of bewilderment when the door opened and Aunt Alma came in, and the unprepossessing face of her relative was accentuated by her look of anxiety.
“Hullo, Alma!” said Mirabelle dully. “I’ve had such a queer dream.”
Alma pressed her lips tightly together as she placed a tray on a table by the side of the bed.
“I think it was about that advertisement I saw.” And then, with a gasp: “How did I come here?”
“They brought you,” said Alma. “The nurse is downstairs having her breakfast. She’s a nice woman and keeps press-cuttings.”
“The nurse?” asked Mirabelle in bewilderment.
“You arrived here at three o’clock in the morning in a motor-car. You had a nurse with you.” Alma enumerated the circumstances in chronological order. “And two men. First one of the men got out and knocked at the door. I was worried to death. In fact, I’d been worried all the afternoon, ever since I had your wire telling me not to come up to London.”
“But I didn’t send any such wire,” replied the girl.
“After I came down, the man—he was really a gentleman and very pleasantly spoken—told me that you’d been taken ill and a nurse had brought you home. They then carried you, the two men and the nurse, upstairs and laid you on the bed, and nurse and I undressed you. I simply couldn’t get you to wake up: all you did was to talk about the orangeade.”
“I remember! It was so bitter, and Lord Evington let me drink some of his. And then I . . . I don’t know what happened after that,” she said, with a little grimace.
“Mr. Gonsalez ordered the car, got the nurse from a nursing home,” explained Alma.
“Gonsalez! Not my Gonsalez—the—the Four Just Men Gonsalez?” she asked in amazement.
“I’m sure it was Gonsalez: they made no secret about it. You can see the gentlemen who brought you: he’s about the house somewhere. I saw him in Heavytree Lane not five minutes ago, strolling up and down and smoking. A pipe,” added Alma.
The girl got out of bed; her knees were curiously weak under her, but she managed to stagger to the window, and, pushing open the casement still farther, looked out across the patchwork quilt of colour. The summer flowers were in bloom; the delicate scents came up on the warm morning air, and she stood for a moment, drinking in great draughts of the exquisite perfume, and then, with a sigh, turned back to the waiting Alma.
“I don’t know how it all happened and what it’s about, but my word, Alma, I’m glad to be back! That dreadful man . . . ! We lunched at the Ritz-Carlton. . . . I never want to see another restaurant or a ball-room or Chester Square, or anything but old Heavytree!”
She took the cup of tea from Alma’s hand, drank greedily, and put it down with a little gasp.
“That was wonderful! Yes, the tea was too, but I’m thinking about Gonsalez. If it should be he!”
“I don’t see why you should get excited over a man who’s committed I don’t know how many murders.”
“Don’t be silly, Alma!” scoffed the girl. “The Just Men have never murdered, any more than a judge and jury murder.”
The room was still inclined to go round, and it was with the greatest difficulty that she could condense the two Almas who stood before her into one tangible individual.
“There’s a gentleman downstairs: he’s been waiting since twelve.”
And when she asked, she was to learn, to her dismay, that it was half-past one.
“I’ll be down in a quarter of an hour,” she said recklessly. “Who is it?”
“I’ve never heard of him before, but he’s a gentleman,” was the unsatisfactory reply. “They didn’t want to let him come in.”
“Who didn’t?”
“The gentlemen who brought you here in the night.”
Mirabelle stared at her.
“You mean . . . they’re guarding the house?”
“That’s how it strikes me,” said Alma bitterly. “Why they should interfere with us, I don’t know. Anyway, they let him in. Mr. Johnson Lee.”
The girl frowned.
“I don’t know the name,” she said.
Alma walked to the window.
“There’s his car,” she said, and pointed.
It was just visible, standing at the side of the road beyond the box hedge, a long-bodied Rolls, white with dust. The chauffeur was talking to a strange man, and from the fact that he was smoking a pipe Mirabelle guessed that this was one of her self-appointed custodians.
She had her bath, and with the assistance of the nurse, dressed and came shakily down the stairs. Alma was waiting in the brick-floored hall.
“He wants to see you alone,” she said in a stage whisper. “I don’t know whether I ought to allow it, but there’s evidently something wrong. These men prowling about the house have got thoroughly on my nerves.”
Mirabelle laughed softly as she opened the door and walked in. At the sound of the door closing, the man who was sitting stiffly on a deep settee in a window recess got up. He was tall and bent, and his dark face was lined. His eyes she could not see; they were hidden behind dark green glasses, which were turned in her direction as she came across the room to greet him.
“Miss Mirabelle Leicester?” he asked, in the quiet, modulated voice of an educated man.
He took her hand in his.
“Won’t you sit down?” she said, for he remained standing after she had seated herself.
“Thank you.” He sat down gingerly, holding between his knees the handle of the umbrella he had brought into the drawing-room. “I’m afraid my visit may be inopportune, Miss Leicester,” he said. “Have you by any chance heard about Mr. Barberton?”
Her brows wrinkled in thought.
“Barberton? I seem to have heard the name.”
“He was killed yesterday on the Thames Embankment.”
Then she recollected.
“The man who was bitten by the snake?” she asked in horror.
The visitor nodded.
“It was a great shock to me, because I have been a friend of his for many years, and had arranged to call at his hotel on the night of his death.” And then abruptly he turned the conversation in another and a surprising direction. “Your father was a scientist, Miss Leicester?”
She nodded.
“Yes, he was an astronomer, an authority upon meteors.”
“Exactly. I thought that was the gentleman. I have only recently had his book read to me. He was in Africa for some years?”
“Yes,” she said quietly, “he died there. He was studying meteors for three years in Angola. You probably know that a very large number of shooting stars fall in that country. My father’s theory was that it was due to the ironstone mountains which attract them—so he set up a little observatory in the interior.” Her lips trembled for a second. “He was killed in a native rising,” she said.
“Do you know the part of Angola where he had his observatory?”
She shook her head.
“I’m not sure. I have never been in Africa, but perhaps Aunt Alma may know.”
She went out to find Alma waiting in the passage, in conversation with the pipe-smoker. The man withdrew hastily at the sight of her.
“Alma, do you remember what part of Angola father had his observatory?” she asked.
Alma did not know off-hand, but one of her invaluable scrap-books contained all the information that the girl wanted, and she carried the book to Mr. Lee.
“Here are the particulars,” she said, and laid the book open before them.
“Would you read it for me?” he requested gently, and she read to him the three short paragraphs which noted that Professor Leicester had taken up his residence in Bishaka.
“That is the place,” interrupted the visitor. “Bishaka! You are sure that Mr. Barberton did not communicate with you?”
“With me?” she said in amazement. “No—why should he?”
He did not answer, but sat for a long time, turning the matter over in his mind.
“You’re perfectly certain that nobody sent you a document, probably in the Portuguese language, concerning”—he hesitated—“Bishaka?”
She shook her head, and then, as though he had not seen the gesture, he asked the question again.
“I’m certain,” she said. “We have very little correspondence at the farm, and it isn’t possible that I could overlook anything so remarkable.”
Again he turned the problem over in his mind.
“Have you any documents in Portuguese or in English . . . any letters from your father about Angola?”
“None,” she said. “The only reference my father ever made to Bishaka was that he was getting a lot of information which he thought would be valuable, and that he was a little troubled because his cameras, which he had fixed in various parts of the country to cover every sector of the skies, were being disturbed by wandering prospectors.”
“He said that, did he?” asked Mr. Lee eagerly. “Come now, that explains a great deal!”
In spite of herself she laughed.
“It doesn’t explain much to me, Mr. Lee,” she said frankly. And then, in a more serious tone: “Did Barberton come from Angola?”
“Yes, Barberton came from that country,” he said in a lower voice. “I should like to tell you”—he hesitated—“but I am rather afraid.”
“Afraid to tell me? Why?”
He shook his head.
“So many dreadful things have happened recently to poor Barberton and others, that knowledge seems a most dangerous thing. I wish I could believe that it would not be dangerous to you,” he added kindly, “and then I could speak what is in my mind and relieve myself of a great deal of anxiety.” He rose slowly. “I think the best thing I can do is to consult my lawyer. I was foolish to keep it from him so long. He is the only man I can trust to search my documents.”
She could only look at him in astonishment.
“But surely you can search your own documents?” she said good-humouredly.
“No, I’m afraid I can’t. Because”—he spoke with the simplicity of a child—“I am blind.”
“Blind?” gasped Mirabelle, and the man laughed gently.
“I am pretty capable for a blind man, am I not? I can walk across a room and avoid all the furniture. The only thing I cannot do is to read—at least, read the ordinary print. I can read Braille: poor Barberton taught me. He was a schoolmaster,” he explained, “at a blind school near Brightlingsea. Not a particularly well-educated man, but a marvellously quick writer of Braille. We have corresponded for years through that medium. He could write a Braille letter almost as quickly as you can with pen and ink.”
Her heart was full of pity for the man: he was so cheery, so confident, and withal so proud of his own accomplishments, that pity turned to admiration. He had the ineffable air of obstinacy which is the possession of so many men similarly stricken, and she began to realize that self-pity, that greatest of all afflictions which attends blindness, had been eliminated from his philosophy.
“I should like to tell you more,” he said, as he held out his hand. “Probably I will dictate a long letter to you to-morrow, or else my lawyer will do so, putting all the facts before you. For the moment, however, I must be sure of my ground. I have no desire to raise in your heart either fear or—hope. Do you know a Mr. Manfred?”
“I don’t know him personally,” she said quickly. “George Manfred?”
He nodded.
“Have you met him?” she asked eagerly. “And Mr. Poiccart, the Frenchman?”
“No, not Mr. Poiccart. Manfred was on the telephone to me very early this morning. He seemed to know all about my relationships with my poor friend. He knew also of my blindness. A remarkable man, very gentle and courteous. It was he who gave me your address. Perhaps,” he mused, “it would be advisable if I first consulted him.”
“I’m sure it would!” she said enthusiastically. “They are wonderful. You have heard of them, of course, Mr. Lee—the Four Just Men?”
He smiled.
“That sounds as though you admire them,” he said. “Yes, I have heard of them. They are the men who, many years ago, set out to regularize the inconsistencies of the English law, to punish where no punishment is provided by the code. Strange I never associated them. . . .”
He meditated upon the matter in silence for a long while, and then:
“I wonder,” he said, but did not tell her what he was wondering.
She walked down the garden path with him into the roadway and stood chatting about the country and the flowers that he had never seen, and the weather and such trivialities as people talk about when their minds are occupied with more serious thoughts which they cannot share, until the big limousine pulled up and he stepped into its cool interior. He had the independence which comes to the educated blind and gently refused the offer of her guidance, an offer she did not attempt to repeat, sensing the satisfaction he must have had in making his way without help. She waved her hand to the car as it moved off, and so naturally did his hand go up in salute that for a moment she thought he had seen her.
So he passed out of her sight, and might well have passed out of her life, for Mr. Oberzohn had decreed that the remaining hours of blind Johnson Lee were to be few.
But it happened that the Three Men had reached the same decision in regard to Mr. Oberzohn, only there was some indecision as to the manner of his passing. Leon Gonsalez had original views.