“Illustrious Senhor,” began Leon, reading. “I have this day had the honour of placing before His Excellency the President, and the Ministers of the Cabinet, your letter dated May 15th, 1912. By a letter dated January 8th, 1911, the lands marked Ex. 275 on the Survey Map of the Biskara district, were conceded to you, Illustrious Senhor, in order to further the cause of science—a cause which is very dear to the heart of His Excellency the President. Your further letter, in which you complain, Illustrious Senhor, that the incursion of prospectors upon your land is hampering your scientific work, and your request that an end may be put to these annoyances by the granting to you of an extension of the concession, so as to give you title to all minerals found in the aforesaid area, Ex. 275 on the Survey Map of Biskara, and thus making the intrusion of prospectors illegal, has been considered by the Council, and the extending concession is hereby granted, on the following conditions: The term of the concession shall be for twelve years, as from the 14th day of June, 1912, and shall be renewable by you, your heirs or nominees, every twelfth year, on payment of a nominal sum of 1,000 milreis. In the event of the concessionnaire, his heirs or nominees, failing to apply for a renewal on the 14th day of June, 1924, the mineral rights of the said area, Ex. 275 on the Survey Map of Biskara, shall be open to claim in accordance with the laws of Angola——”
“Illustrious Senhor,” began Leon, reading. “I have this day had the honour of placing before His Excellency the President, and the Ministers of the Cabinet, your letter dated May 15th, 1912. By a letter dated January 8th, 1911, the lands marked Ex. 275 on the Survey Map of the Biskara district, were conceded to you, Illustrious Senhor, in order to further the cause of science—a cause which is very dear to the heart of His Excellency the President. Your further letter, in which you complain, Illustrious Senhor, that the incursion of prospectors upon your land is hampering your scientific work, and your request that an end may be put to these annoyances by the granting to you of an extension of the concession, so as to give you title to all minerals found in the aforesaid area, Ex. 275 on the Survey Map of Biskara, and thus making the intrusion of prospectors illegal, has been considered by the Council, and the extending concession is hereby granted, on the following conditions: The term of the concession shall be for twelve years, as from the 14th day of June, 1912, and shall be renewable by you, your heirs or nominees, every twelfth year, on payment of a nominal sum of 1,000 milreis. In the event of the concessionnaire, his heirs or nominees, failing to apply for a renewal on the 14th day of June, 1924, the mineral rights of the said area, Ex. 275 on the Survey Map of Biskara, shall be open to claim in accordance with the laws of Angola——”
Leon sat back.
“Fourteenth of June?” he said, and looked up. “Why, that is next week—five days! We’ve cut it rather fine, George.”
“Barberton said there were six weeks,” said Manfred. “Obviously he made the mistake of timing the concession from July 21st—the date of the letter. He must have been the most honest man in the world; there was no other reason why he should have communicated with Miss Leicester. He could have kept quiet and claimed the rights for himself. Go on, Leon.”
“That is about all,” said Leon, glancing at the tail of the letter. “The rest is more or less flowery and complimentary and has reference to the scientific work in which Professor Leicester was engaged. Five days—phew!” he whistled.
“We may now find something in Barberton’s long narrative to give us an idea of the value of this property.” Manfred turned the numerous pages. “Do any of you gentlemen write shorthand?”
Meadows went out into the hall and brought back an officer. Waiting until he had found pencil and paper, Leon began the extraordinary story of William Barberton—most extraordinary because every word had been patiently and industriously punched in the Braille characters.
Chapter XVIIIThe Story of Mont d’Or
“DEARFriend Johnny,—
“I have such a lot to tell you that I hardly know where to begin. I’ve struck rich at last, and the dream I’ve often talked over with you has come true. First of all, let me tell you that I have come upon nearly £50,000 worth of wrought gold. We’ve been troubled round here with lions, one of which took away a carrier of mine, and at last I decided to go out and settle accounts with this fellow. I found him six miles from the camp and planted a couple of bullets into him without killing him, and decided to follow up his spoor. It was a mad thing to do, trailing a wounded lion in the jungle, and I didn’t realize how mad until we got out of the bush into the hills and I found Mrs. Lion waiting for me. She nearly got me too. More by accident than anything else, I managed to shoot her dead at the first shot, and got another pot at her husband as he was slinking into a cave which was near our tent.
“As I had gone so far, I thought I might as well go the whole hog, especially as I’d seen two lion cubs playing round the mouth of the cave, and bringing up my boys, who were scared to death, I crawled in, to find, as I expected, that the old lion was nearly gone, and a shot finished him. I had to kill the cubs; they were too young to be left alone, and too much of a nuisance to bring back to camp. This cave had been used as a lair for years; it was full of bones, human amongst them.
“But what struck me was the appearance of the roof, which, I was almost certain, had been cut out by hand. It was like a house, and there was a cut door in the rock at the back. I made a torch and went through on a tour of inspection, and you can imagine my surprise when I found myself in a little room with a line of stone niches or shelves. There were three lines of them on each side. Standing on these at intervals there were little statuettes. They were so covered with dust that I thought they were stone, until I tried to take one down to examine it; then I knew by its weight that it was gold, as they all were.
“I didn’t want my boys to know about my find, because they are a treacherous lot, so I took the lightest, after weighing them all with a spring balance, and made a note where I’d taken it from. You might think that was enough of a find for one man in a lifetime, but my luck had set in. I sent the boys back and ordered them to break camp and join me on top of the Thaba. I called it the Thaba, because it is rather like a hill I know in Basutoland, and is one of two.
“The camp was moved up that night; it was a better pitch than any we had had. There was water, plenty of small game, and no mosquitoes. The worst part of it was the terrific thunderstorms which come up from nowhere, and until you’ve seen one in this ironstone country you don’t know what a thunderstorm is like! The hill opposite was slightly smaller than the one I had taken as a camp, and between was a shallow valley, through which ran a small shallow river—rapids would be a better word.
“Early the next morning I was looking round through my glasses, and saw what I thought was a house on the opposite hill. I asked my head-man who lived there, and he told me that it was once the house of the Star Chief; and I remembered that somebody told me, down in Mossamedes, that an astronomer had settled in this neighbourhood and had been murdered by the natives. I thought I would go over and have a look at the place. The day being cloudy and not too hot, I took my gun and a couple of boys and we crossed the river and began climbing the hill. The house was, of course, in ruins; it had only been a wattle hut at the best of times. Part of it was covered with vegetation, but out of curiosity I searched round, hoping to pick up a few things that might be useful to me, more particularly kettles, for my boys had burnt holes in every one I had. I found a kettle, and then, turning over a heap of rubbish which I think must have been his bed, I found a little rusty tin box and broke it open with my stick. There were a few letters which were so faded that I could only read a word here and there, and in a green oilskin, a long letter from the Portuguese Government.”
(It was at this point, either by coincidence or design, that the narrative continued on the actual paper to which he referred.)
“I speak Portuguese and can read it as easily as English, and the only thing that worried me about it was that the concession gave Professor Leicester all rights to my cave. My first idea was to burn it, but then I began to realize what a scoundrelly business that would be, and I took the letters out into the sun and tried to find if he had any relations, hoping that I’d be able to fix it up with them to take at any rate 50 per cent. of my find. There was only one letter that helped me. It was written in a child’s hand and was evidently from his daughter. It had no address, but there was the name—‘Mirabelle Leicester.’
“I put it in my pocket with the concession and went on searching, but found nothing more. I was going down the hill towards the valley when it struck me that perhaps this man had found gold, and the excuse for getting the concession was a bit of artfulness. I sent a boy back to the camp for a pick, a hammer and a spade, and when he returned I began to make a cutting in the side of the hill. There was nothing to guide me—no outcrop, such as you usually find near a true reef—but I hadn’t been digging for an hour before I struck the richest bed of conglomerate I’ve ever seen. I was either dreaming, or my good angel had at last led me to the one place in the hill where gold could be found. I had previously sent the boys back to the camp and told them to wait for me, because, if I did strike metal, I did not want the fact advertised all over Angola, where they’ve been looking for gold for years.
“Understand, it was not a reef in the ordinary sense of the word, it was all conglomerate, and the wider I made my cutting, the wider the bed appeared. I took the pick to another part of the hill and dug again, with the same result—conglomerate. It was as though nature had thrown up a huge golden hump on the earth. I covered both cuttings late that night and went back to camp. (I was stalked by a leopard in the low bush, but managed to get him.)
“Early next morning, I started off and tried another spot, and with the same result; first three feet of earth, then about six inches of shale, and then conglomerate. I tried to work through the bed, thinking that it might be just a skin, but I was saved much exertion by coming upon a deep rift in the hill about twenty feet wide at the top and tapering down to about fifty feet below the ground level. This gave me a section to work on, and as near as I can judge, the conglomerate bed is something over fifty feet thick and I’m not so sure that it doesn’t occur again after an interval of twenty feet or more, for I dug more shale and had a showing of conglomerate at the very bottom of the ravine.
“What does this mean, Johnny? It means that we have found a hill of gold; not solid gold, as in the story-books, but gold that pays ounces and probably pounds to the ton. How the prospectors have missed it all these years I can’t understand, unless it is that they’ve made their cuttings on the north side of the hill, where they have found nothing but slate and sandstone. The little river in the valley must be feet deep in alluvial, for I panned the bed and got eight ounces of pure gold in an hour—and that was by rough and ready methods. I had to be careful not to make the boys too curious, and I am breaking camp to-morrow, and I want you to cable or send me £500 to Mossamedes. The statuette I’m bringing home is worth all that. I would bring more, only I can’t trust these Angola boys; a lot of them are mission boys and can read Portuguese, and they’re too friendly with a half-breed called Villa, who is an agent of Oberzohn & Smitts; the traders and I know these people to be the most unscrupulous scoundrels on the coast.
“I shall be at Mossamedes about three weeks after you get this letter, but I don’t want to get back to the coast in a hurry, otherwise people are going to suspect I have made a strike.”
Leon put the letter down.
“There is the story in a nutshell, gentlemen,” he said. “I don’t, for one moment, believe that Mr. Barberton showed Villa the letter. It is more likely that one of the educated natives he speaks about saw it and reported it to Oberzohn’s agent. Portuguese is the lingua franca of that part of the coast. Barberton was killed to prevent his meeting the girl and telling her of his find—incidentally, of warning her to apply for a renewal of the concession. It wasn’t even necessary that they should search his belongings to recover the letter, because once they knew of its existence and the date which Barberton had apparently confounded with the date the letter was written, their work was simply to present an application to the Colonial Office at Lisbon. It was quite different after Barberton was killed, when they learnt or guessed that the letter was in Mr. Lee’s possession.”
Meadows agreed.
“That was the idea behind Oberzohn’s engagement of Mirabelle Leicester?”
“Exactly, and it was also behind the attack upon Heavytree Farm. To secure this property they must get her away and keep her hidden either until it is too late for her to apply for a renewal, or until she has been bullied or forced into appointing a nominee.”
“Or married,” said Leon briskly. “Did that idea occur to you? Our tailor-made friend, Monty Newton, may have had matrimonial intentions. It would have been quite a good stroke of business to secure a wife and a large and auriferous hill at the same time. This, I think, puts a period to the ambitions of Herr Doktor Oberzohn.”
He got up from the table and handed the papers to the custody of the detective, and turned with a quizzical smile to his friend.
“George, do you look forward with any pleasure to a two hundred and fifty miles’ drive?”
“Are you the chauffeur?” asked George.
“I am the chauffeur,” said Leon cheerfully. “I have driven a car for many years and I have not been killed yet. It is unlikely that I shall risk my precious life and yours to-night. Come with me and I promise never to hit her up above sixty except on the real speedways.”
Manfred nodded.
“We will stop at Oxley and try to get a ’phone call through to Gloucester,” said Leon. “This line is, of course, out of order. They would do nothing so stupid as to neglect the elementary precaution of disconnecting Rath Hall.”
At Oxley the big Spanz pulled up before the dark and silent exterior of an inn, and Leon, getting down, brought the half-clad landlord to the door and explained his mission, and also learned that two big cars had passed through half an hour before, going in the direction of London.
“That was the gang. I wonder how they’ll explain to their paymaster their second failure?”
His first call was to the house in Curzon Street, but there was no reply.
“Ring them again,” said Leon. “You left Poiccart there?”
Manfred nodded.
They waited for five minutes; still there was no reply.
“How queer!” said Manfred. “It isn’t like Poiccart to leave the house. Get Gloucester.”
At this hour of the night the lines are comparatively clear, and in a very short time he heard the Gloucester operator’s voice, and in a few seconds later the click that told them they were connected with Heavytree Farm. Here there was some delay before the call was answered.
It was not Mirabelle Leicester nor her aunt who spoke. Nor did he recognize the voice of Digby, who had recovered sufficiently to return to duty.
“Who is that?” asked the voice sharply. “Is that you, sergeant?”
“No, it is Mr. Meadows,” said Leon mendaciously.
“The Scotland Yard gentleman?” It was an eager inquiry. “I’m Constable Kirk, of the Gloucester Police. My sergeant’s been trying to get in touch with you, sir.”
“What is the matter?” asked Leon, a cold feeling at his heart.
“I don’t know, sir. About half an hour ago, I was riding past here—I’m one of the mounted men—and I saw the door wide open and all the lights on, and when I came in there was nobody up. I woke Miss Goddard and Mr. Digby, but the young lady was not in the house.”
“Lights everywhere?” asked Leon quickly.
“Yes, sir—in the parlour at any rate.”
“No sign of a struggle?”
“No, sir, but a car passed me three miles from the house and it was going at a tremendous rate. I think she may have been in that. Mr. Digby and Miss Goddard have just gone into Gloucester.”
“All right, officer. I am sending Mr. Gonsalez down to see you,” said Leon, and hung up the receiver.
“What is it?” asked George Manfred, who knew that something was wrong by his friend’s face.
“They’ve got Mirabelle Leicester after all,” said Leon. “I’m afraid I shall have to break my promise to you, George. That machine of mine is going to travel before daybreak!”
Chapter XIXAt Heavytree Farm
IT had been agreed that, having failed in their attack, and their energies for the moment being directed to Rath Hall, an immediate return of the Old Guard to Heavytree Farm was unlikely. This had been Meadows’ view, and Leon and his friend were of the same mind. Only Poiccart, that master strategist, working surely with a queer knowledge of his enemies’ psychology, had demurred from this reasoning; but as he had not insisted upon his point of view, Heavytree Farm and its occupants had been left to the care of the local police and the shaken Digby.
Aunt Alma offered to give up her room to the wounded man, but he would not hear of this, and took the spare bedroom; an excellent position for a defender, since it separated Mirabelle’s apartment from the pretty little room which Aunt Alma used as a study and sleeping-place.
The staff of Heavytree Farm consisted of an ancient cowman, a cook and a maid, the latter of whom had already given notice and left on the afternoon of the attack. She had, as she told Mirabelle in all seriousness, a weak heart.
“And a weak head too!” snapped Alma. “I should not worry about your heart, my girl, if I were you.”
“I was top of my class at school,” bridled the maid, touched to the raw by this reflection upon her intelligence.
“It must have been a pretty small class,” retorted Alma.
A new maid had been found, a girl who had been thrilled by the likelihood that the humdrum of daily labour would be relieved by exciting events out of the ordinary, and before evening the household had settled down to normality. Mirabelle was feeling the reaction and went to bed early that night, waking as the first slant of sunlight poured through her window. She got up, feeling, she told herself, as well as she had felt in her life. Pulling back the chintz curtains, she looked out upon a still world with a sense of happiness and relief beyond measure. There was nobody in sight. Pools of mist lay in the hollows, and from one white farmstead, far away on the slope of the hill, she saw the blue smoke was rising. It was a morning to remember, and, to catch its spirit the better, she dressed hastily and went down into the garden. As she walked along the path she heard a window pulled open and the bandaged head of Mr. Digby appeared.
“Oh, it’s you, is it, miss?” he said with relief, and she laughed.
“There is nothing more terrible in sight than a big spider,” she said, and pointed to a big flat fellow, who was already spinning his web between the tall hollyhocks. And the first of the bees was abroad.
“If anybody had come last night I shouldn’t have heard them,” he confessed. “I slept like a dead man.” He touched his head gingerly. “It smarts, but the ache is gone,” he said, not loth to discuss his infirmities. “The doctor said I had a narrow escape; he thought there was a fracture. Would you like me to make you some tea, miss, or shall I call the servant?”
She shook her head, but he had already disappeared, and came seeking her in the garden ten minutes later, with a cup of tea in his hand. He told her for the second time that he was a police pensioner and had been in the employ of Gonsalez for three years. The Three paid well, and had, she learned to her surprise, considerable private resources.
“Does it pay them—this private detective business?”
“Lord bless your heart, no, miss!” He scoffed at the idea. “They are very rich men. I thought everybody knew that. They say Mr. Gonsalez was worth a million even before the war.”
This was astonishing news.
“But why do they do this”—she hesitated—“this sort of thing?”
“It is a hobby, miss,” said the man vaguely. “Some people run race-horses, some own yachts—these gentlemen get a lot of pleasure out of their work and they pay well,” he added.
Men in the regular employ of the Three Just Men not only received a good wage, but frequently a bonus which could only be described as colossal. Once, after they had rounded up and destroyed a gang of Spanish bank robbers, they had distributed £1,000 to every man who was actively employed.
He hinted rather than stated that this money had formed part of the loot which the Three had recovered, and did not seem to think that there was anything improper in this distribution of illicit gains.
“After all, miss,” he said philosophically, “when you collect money like that, it’s impossible to give it back to the people it came from. This Diego had been holding up banks for years, and banks are not like people—they don’t feel the loss of money.”
“That’s a thoroughly immoral view,” said Mirabelle, intent upon her flower-picking.
“It may be, miss,” agreed Digby, who had evidently been one of the recipients of bounty, and took a complacent and a tolerant view. “But a thousand pounds is a lot of money.”
The day passed without event. From the early evening papers that came from Gloucester she learned of the fire at Oberzohn’s, and did not connect the disaster with anything but an accident. She was not sorry. The fire had licked out one ugly chapter from the past. Incidentally it had destroyed a crude painting which was, to Dr. Oberzohn, more precious than any that Leonardo had painted or Raphael conceived, but this she did not know.
It was just before the dinner hour that there came the first unusual incident of the day. Mirabelle was standing by the garden gate, intent upon the glories of the evening sky, which was piled high with red and slate-coloured cumuli. The glass was falling and a wet night was promised. But the loveliness of that lavish colouring held her. And then she became dimly aware that a man was coming towards the house from the direction of Gloucester. He walked in the middle of the road slowly, as though he, too, were admiring the view and there was no need to hurry. His hands were behind him, his soft felt hat at the back of his head. A stocky-looking man, but his face was curiously familiar. He turned his unsmiling eyes in her direction, and, looking again at his strong features, at the tiny grey-black moustache under his aquiline nose, she was certain she had seen him before. Perhaps she had passed him in the street, and had retained a subconscious mental picture of him.
He slowed his step until, when he came abreast of her, he stopped.
“This is Heavytree Lane?” he asked, in a deep, musical voice.
“No—the lane is the first break in the hedge,” she smiled. “I’m afraid it isn’t much of a road—generally it is ankle-deep in mud.”
He looked past her to the house; his eyes ranged the windows, dropped for a moment upon a climbing clematis, and came back to her.
“I don’t know Gloucestershire very well,” he said, and added: “You have a very nice house.”
“Yes,” she said in surprise.
“And a garden.” And then, innocently: “Do you grow onions?”
She stared at him and laughed.
“I think we do—I am not sure. My aunt looks after the kitchen garden.”
His sad eyes wandered over the house again.
“It is a very nice place,” he said, and, lifting his hat, went on.
Digby was out: he had gone for a gentle walk, and, looking up the road after the stranger, she saw the guard appear round a bend in the road, saw him stop and speak to the stranger. Apparently they knew one another, for they shook hands at meeting, and after a while Digby pointed down the road to where she was standing, and she saw the man nod. Soon after the stranger went on out of view. Who could he be? Was it an additional guard that the three men had put to protect her? When Digby came up to her, she asked him.
“That gentleman, miss? He is Mr. Poiccart.”
“Poiccart?” she said, delighted. “Oh, I wish I had known!”
“I was surprised to see him,” said the guard. “As a matter of fact, he’s the one of the three gentlemen I’ve met the most. He’s generally in Curzon Street, even when the others are away.”
Digby had nothing to say about Poiccart except that he was a very quiet gentleman and took no active part in the operations of the Just Men.
“I wonder why he wanted to know about onions?” asked the girl thoughtfully. “That sounded awfully mysterious.”
It would not have been so mysterious to Leon.
The house retired to bed soon after ten, Alma going the rounds, and examining the new bolts and locks which had been attached that morning to every door which gave ingress to the house.
Mirabelle was unaccountably tired, and was asleep almost as soon as her head touched the pillow.
She heard in her dreams the swish of the rain beating against her window, lay for a long time trying to energize herself to rise and shut the one open window where the curtains were blowing in. Then came a heavier patter against a closed pane, and something rattled on the floor of her room. She sat up. It could not be hail, although there was a rumble of thunder in the distance.
She got out of bed, pulled on her dressing-gown, went to the window, and had all her work to stifle a scream. Somebody was standing on the path below . . . a woman! She leaned out.
“Who is it?” she asked.
“It is me—I—Joan!” There was a sob in the voice of the girl. Even in that light Mirabelle could see that the girl was drenched. “Don’t wake anybody. Come down—I want you.”
“What is wrong?” asked Mirabelle in a low voice.
“Everything . . . everything!”
She was on the verge of hysteria. Mirabelle lit a candle and crossed the room, went downstairs softly, so that Alma should not be disturbed. Putting the candle on the table, she unbarred and unbolted the door, opened it, and, as she did so, a man slipped through the half-opened door, his big hands smothering the scream that rose to her lips.
Another man followed and, lifting the struggling girl, carried her into the drawing-room. One of the men took a small iron bottle from his pocket, to which ran a flexible rubber tube ending in a large red cap. Her captor removed his hands just as long as it took to fix the cap over her face. A tiny faucet was turned. Mirabelle felt a puff on her face, a strangely sweet taste, and then her heart began to beat thunderously. She thought she was dying, and writhed desperately to free herself.
“She’s all right,” said Monty Newton, lifting an eyelid for a second. “Get a blanket.” He turned fiercely to the whimpering girl behind him. “Shut up, you!” he said savagely. “Do you want to rouse the whole house?”
A woebegone Joan was whimpering softly, tears running down her face, her hands clasping and unclasping in the agony of her mind.
“You told me you weren’t going to hurt her!” she sobbed.
“Get out,” he hissed, and pointed to the door. She went meekly.
A heavy blanket was wrapped round the unconscious girl, and, lifting her between them, the two men went out into the rain, where the old trolley was waiting, and slid her along the straw-covered floor. In another second the trolley moved off, gathering speed.
By this time the effect of the gas had worn off and Mirabelle had regained consciousness. She put out a hand and touched a woman’s knee.
“Who is that—Alma?”
“No,” said a miserable voice, “it’s Joan.”
“Joan? Oh, yes, of course . . . why did you do it?—how wicked!”
“Shut up!” Monty snarled. “Wait until you get to—where you’re going, before you start these ‘whys’ and ‘wherefores.’ ”
Mirabelle was deathly sick and bemused, and for the next hour she was too ill to feel even alarmed. Her head was going round and round, and ached terribly, and the jolting of the truck did not improve matters in this respect.
Monty, who was sitting with his back to the truck’s side, was smoking. He cursed now and then, as some unusually heavy jolt flung him forward. They passed through the heart of the storm: the flicker of lightning was almost incessant and the thunder was deafening. Rain was streaming down the hood of the trolley, rendering it like a drum.
Mirabelle fell into a little sleep and woke feeling better. It was still dark, and she would not have known the direction they were taking, only the driver took the wrong turning coming through a country town, and by the help of the lightning she saw what was indubitably the stand of a race-track, and a little later saw the word “Newbury.” They were going towards London, she realized.
At this hour of the morning there was little or no traffic, and when they turned on to the new Great West Road a big car went whizzing past at seventy miles an hour and the roar of it woke the girl. Now she could feel the trolley wheels skidding on tram-lines. Lights appeared with greater frequency. She saw a store window brilliantly illuminated, the night watchman having evidently forgotten to turn off the lights at the appointed hour.
Soon they were crossing the Thames. She saw the red and green lights of a tug, and black upon near black a string of barges in mid-stream. She dozed again and was jerked wide awake when the trolley swayed and skidded over a surface more uneven than any. Once its wheels went into a pothole and she was flung violently against the side. Another time it skidded and was brought up with a crash against some obstacle. The bumping grew more gentle, and then the machine stopped, and Monty jumped down and called to her sharply.
Her head was clear now, despite its throbbing. She saw a queer-shaped house, all gables and turrets, extraordinarily narrow for its height. It seemed to stand in the middle of a field. And yet it was in London: she could see the glow of furnace fires and hear the deep boom of a ship’s siren as it made its way down the river on the tide.
She had not time to take observations, for Monty fastened to her arm and she squelched through the mud up a flight of stone steps into a dimly lit hall. She had a confused idea that she had seen little dogs standing on the side of the steps, and a big bird with a long bill, but these probably belonged to the smoke of dreams which the gas had left.
Monty opened a door and pushed her in before him, and she stared into the face of Dr. Oberzohn.
He wore a black velvet dressing-gown that had once been a regal garment but was now greasy and stained. On his egg-shaped head he had an embroidered smoking-cap. His feet were encased in warm velvet slippers. He put down the book he had been reading, rubbed his glasses on one velvet sleeve, and then:
“So!” he said.
He pointed to the remains of a fire.
“Sit down, Mirabelle Leicester, and warm yourself. You have come quickly, my friend,”—he addressed Monty.
“I’m black and blue all over,” growled Newton. “Why couldn’t we have a car?”
“Because the cars were engaged, as I told you.”
“Did you——” began Newton quickly, but the old man glanced significantly at the girl, shivering before the fire and warming her hands mechanically.
“I will answer, but you need not ask, in good time. This is not of all moments the most propitious. Where is your woman?”
He had forgotten Joan, and went out to find her shivering in the passage.
“Do you want her?” he asked, poking his head in the door.
“She shall go with this girl. You will explain.”
“Where are you going to put her?”
Oberzohn pointed to the floor.
“Here? But——”
“No, no. My friend, you are too quick to see what is not meant. The gracious lady shall live in a palace—I have a certain friend who will no longer need it.”
His face twitched in the nearest he ever approached to a smile. Groping under the table, he produced a pair of muddy Wellingtons, kicked off his slippers and pulled on the boots with many gasps and jerks.
“All that they need is there: I have seen to it. March!”
He led the way out of the room, pulling the girl to her feet, and Newton followed, Joan bringing up the rear. Inside the factory, Oberzohn produced a small hand torch from his pocket and guided them through the debris till he came to that part of the floor where the trap was. With his foot he moved the covering of rubbish, pulled up the trap and went down.
“I can’t go down there, Monty, I can’t!” said Joan’s agitated voice. “What are you going to do with us? My God! if I’d known——”
“Don’t be a fool,” said Newton roughly. “What have you got to be afraid of? There’s nothing here. We want you to look after her for a day or two. You don’t want her to go down by herself: she’d be frightened to death.”
Her teeth chattering, Joan stumbled down the steps behind him. Certainly the first view of her new quarters was reassuring. Two little trestle beds had been made; the underground room had been swept clean, and a new carpet laid on the floor. Moreover, the apartment was brilliantly lit, and a furnace gave almost an uncomfortable warmth which was nevertheless very welcome, for the temperature had dropped 20° since noon.
“In this box there are clothes of all varieties, and expensive to purchase,” said Oberzohn, pointing to a brand-new trunk at the foot of one of the beds. “Food you will have in plenty—bread and milk newly every day. By night you shall keep the curtain over the ventilator.” On the wall was a small black curtain about ten inches square.
Monty took her into the next apartment and showed her the wash-place. There was even a bath, a compulsory fixture under the English Factory Act in a store of this description, where, in the old days, men had to handle certain insanitary products of the Coast.
“But how do we get out, Monty? Where do we get exercise?”
“You’ll come out to-morrow night: I’ll see to that,” he said, dropping his voice. “Now listen, Joan: you’ve got to be a sensible girl and help me. There’s money in this—bigger money than you have ever dreamed of. And when we’ve got this unpleasant business over, I’m taking you away for a trip round the world.”
It was the old promise, given before, never fulfilled, always hoped for. But this time it did not wholly remove her uneasiness.
“But what are you going to do with the girl?” she asked.
“Nothing; she will be kept here for a week. I’ll swear to you that nothing will happen to her. At the end of a week she’s to be released without a hair of her head being harmed.”
She looked at him searchingly. As far as she was able to judge, he was speaking the truth. And yet——
“I can’t understand it,”—she shook her head, and for once Monty Newton was patient with her.
“She’s the owner of a big property in Africa, and that we shall get, if things work out right,” he said. “The point is that she must claim within a few days. If she doesn’t, the property is ours.”
Her face cleared.
“Is that all?” She believed him, knew him well enough to detect his rare sincerity. “That’s taken a load off my mind, Monty. Of course I’ll stay and look after her for you—it makes it easier to know that nothing will happen. What are those baize things behind the furnace—they look like boxes?”
He turned on her quickly.
“I was going to tell you about those,” he said. “You’re not to touch them under any circumstances. They belong to the old man and he’s very stuffy about such things. Leave them just as they are. Let him touch them and nobody else. Do you understand?”
She nodded, and, to his surprise, pecked his cheek with her cold lips.
“I’ll help you, boy,” she said tremulously. “Maybe that trip will come off after all, if——”
“If what?”
“Those men—the men you were talking about—the Four Just Men, don’t they call themselves? They scare me sick, Monty! They were the people who took her away before, and they’ll kill us—even Oberzohn says that. They’re after him. Has he”—she hesitated—“has he killed anybody? That snake stuff . . . you’re not in it, are you, Monty?”
She looked more like a child than a sophisticated woman, clinging to his arm, her blue eyes looking pleadingly into his.
“Stuff! What do I know about snakes?” He disengaged himself and came back to where Oberzohn was waiting, a figure of patience.
The girl was lying on the bed, her face in the crook of her arm, and he was gazing at her, his expression inscrutable.
“That is all, then. Good night, gracious ladies.”
He turned and marched back towards the step and waved his hand. Monty followed. The girl heard the thud of the trap fall, the scrape of the old man’s boots, and then a rumbling sound, which she did not immediately understand. Later, when in a panic, she tried the trap, she found that a heavy barrel had been put on top, and that it was immovable.
Chapter XXGurther Reports
DR. OBERZHON had not been to bed for thirty-five years. It was his practice to sleep in a chair, and alternate his dozes with copious draughts from his favourite authors. Mostly the books were about the soul, and free will, and predestination, with an occasional dip into Nietzsche by way of light recreation. In ordinary circumstances he would have had need for all the philosophy he could master; for ruin had come. The destruction of his store, which, to all intents and purposes, was uninsured, would have been the crowning stroke of fate but for the golden vision ahead.
Villa, that handsome half-breed, had arrived in England and had been with the doctor all the evening. At that moment he was on his way to Liverpool to catch the Coast boat, and he had left with his master a record of the claims that had already been pegged out on Monte Doro, as he so picturesquely renamed the new mountain. There were millions there; uncountable wealth. And between the Herr Doktor and the achievement of this colossal fortune was a life which he had no immediate desire to take. The doctor was a bachelor; women bored him. Yet he was prepared to take the extreme step if by so doing he could doubly ensure his fortune. Mirabelle dead gave him one chance; Mirabelle alive and persuaded, multiplied that chance by a hundred.
He opened the book he was reading at the last page and took out the folded paper. It was a special licence to marry, and had been duly registered at the Greenwich Registrar’s Office since the day before the girl had entered his employment. This was his second and most powerful weapon. He could have been legally married on this nearly a week ago. It was effective for two months at least, and only five days separated him from the necessity of a decision. If the time expired, Mirabelle could live. It was quite a different matter, killing in cold blood a woman for whom the police would be searching, and with whose disappearance his name would be connected, from that other form of slaying he favoured: the striking down of strange men in crowded thoroughfares. She was not for the snake—as yet.
He folded the paper carefully, put it back in the book and turned the page, when there was a gentle tap at the door and he sat up.
“Come in, Pfeiffer. March!”
The door opened slowly and a man sidled into the room, and at the sight of him Dr. Oberzohn gasped.
“Gurther!” he stammered, for once thrown out of his stride.
Gurther smiled and nodded, his round eyes fixed on the tassel of the Herr Doktor’s smoking-cap.
“You have returned—and failed?”
“The American, I think, is dead, Herr Doktor,” said the man in his staccato tone. “The so excellent Pfeiffer is also—dead!”
The doctor blinked twice.
“Dead?” he said gratingly. “Who told you this?”
“I saw him. Something happened . . . to the snake. Pfeiffer was bitten.”
The old man’s hard eyes fixed him.
“So!” he said softly.
“He died very quickly—in the usual manner,” jerked Gurther, still with that stupid smile.
“So!” said the doctor again. “All then was failure, and out of it comes an American, who is nothing, and Pfeiffer, who is much—dead!”
“God have him in his keeping!” said Gurther, not lowering or raising his eyes. “And all the way back I thought this, Herr Doktor—how much better that it should be Pfeiffer and not me. Though my nerves are so bad.”
“So!” said the doctor for the fourth time, and held out his hand.
Gurther slipped his fingers into his waistcoat pocket and took out a gold cigarette-case. The doctor opened it and looked at the five cigarettes that reposed, at the two halves of the long holder neatly lying in their proper place, closed the case with a snap and laid it on the table.
“What shall I do with you, Gurther? To-morrow the police will come and search this house.”
“There is the cellar, Herr Doktor: it is very comfortable there. I would prefer it.”
Dr. Oberzohn made a gesture like a boy wiping something from a slate.
“That is not possible: it is in occupation,” he said. “I must find a new place for you.” He stared and mused. “There is the boat,” he said.
Gurther’s smile did not fade.
The boat was a small barge, which had been drawn up into the private dock of the O. & S. factory, and had been rotting there for years, the playing-ground of rats, the doss-house of the homeless. The doctor saw what was in the man’s mind.
“It may be comfortable. I will give you some gas to kill the rats, and it will only be for five-six days.”
“Ja, Herr Doktor.”
“For to-night you may sleep in the kitchen. One does not expect——”
There was a thunderous knock on the outer door. The two men looked at one another, but still Gurther grinned.
“I think it is the police,” said the doctor calmly.
He got up to his feet, lifted the seat of a long hard-looking sofa, disclosing a deep cavity, and Gurther slipped in, and the seat was replaced. This done, the doctor waddled to the door and turned the key.
“Good morning, Inspector Meadows.”
“May I come in?” said Meadows.
Behind him were two police officers, one in uniform.
“Do you wish to see me? Certainly.” He held the door cautiously open and only Meadows came in, and preceded the doctor into his study.
“I want Mirabelle Leicester,” said Meadows curtly. “She was abducted from her home in the early hours of this morning, and I have information that the car which took her away came to this house. There are tracks of wheels in the mud outside.”
“If there are car tracks, they are mine,” said the doctor calmly. He enumerated the makes of machines he possessed. “There is another matter: as to cars having come here in the night, I have a sense of hearing, Mr. Inspector Meadows, and I have heard many cars in Hangman’s Lane—but not in my ground. Also, I’m sure you have not come to tell me of abducted girls, but to disclose to me the miscreant who burnt my store. That is what I expected of you.”
“What you expect of me and what you get will be entirely different propositions,” said Meadows unpleasantly. “Now come across, Oberzohn! We know why you want this girl—the whole plot has been blown. You think you’ll prevent her from making a claim on the Portuguese Government for the renewal of a concession granted in June, 1912, to her father.”
If Dr. Oberzohn was shocked to learn that his secret was out, he did not show it by his face. Not a muscle moved.
“Of such matters I know nothing. It is a fantasy, a story of fairies. Yet it must be true, Mr. Inspector Meadows, if you say it. No: I think you are deceived by the criminals of Curzon Street, W. Men of blood and murder, with records that are infamous. You desire to search my house? It is your privilege.” He waved his hand. “I do not ask you for the ticket of search. From basement to attic the house is yours.”
He was not surprised when Meadows took him at his word, and, going out into the hall, summoned his assistants. They visited each room separately, the old cook and the half-witted Danish girl accepting this visitation as a normal occurrence: they had every excuse to do so, for this was the second time in a fortnight that the house had been visited by the police.
“Now I’ll take a look at your room, if you don’t mind,” said Meadows.
His quick eyes caught sight of the box ottoman against the wall, and the fact that the doctor was sitting thereon added to his suspicions.
“I will look in here, if you please,” he said.
Oberzohn rose and the detective lifted the lid. It was empty. The ottoman had been placed against the wall, at the bottom of which was a deep recess. Gurther had long since rolled through the false back.
“You see—nothing,” said Oberzohn. “Now perhaps you would like to search my factory? Perhaps amongst the rafters and the burnt girders I may conceal a something. Or the barge in my slipway? Who knows what I may place amongst the rats?”
“You’re almost clever,” said Meadows, “and I don’t profess to be a match for you. But there are three men in this town who are! I’ll be frank with you, Oberzohn. I want to put you where I can give you a fair trial, in accordance with the law of this country, and I shall resist, to the best of my ability, any man taking the law into his own hands. But whether you’re innocent or guilty, I wouldn’t stand in your shoes for all the money in Angola!”
“So?” said the doctor politely.
“Give up this girl, and I rather fancy that half your danger will be at an end. I tell you, you’re too clever for me. It’s a stupid thing for a police officer to say, but I can’t get at the bottom of your snake. They have.”
The old man’s brows worked up and down.
“Indeed?” he said blandly. “And of which snake do you speak?”
Meadows said nothing more. He had given his warning: if Oberzohn did not profit thereby, he would be the loser.
Nobody doubted, least of all he, that, in defiance of all laws that man had made, independent of all the machinery of justice that human ingenuity had devised, inevitable punishment awaited Oberzohn and was near at hand.