Chapter II: Part 2

“He went down to the Embankment—he said he’d like to see the river before it was dark,” said that confidant of so many visitors.

Manfred stepped into the car by Leon’s side—Poiccart seldom went abroad, but sat at home piecing together the little jigsaw puzzles of life that came to Curzon Street for solution. He was the greatest of all the strategists: even Scotland Yard brought some of its problems for his inspection.

“On the Embankment?” Manfred looked up at the blue and pink sky. The sun had gone down, but the light of day remained. “If it were darker I should be worried . . . stop, there’s Dr. Elver.”

The little police surgeon who had passed them with a cheery wave of his hand turned and walked back.

“Well, Children of the Law”—he was inclined to be dramatic—“on what dread errand of vengeance are you bound?”

“We are looking for a man named Barberton to ask him to dinner,” said Manfred, shaking hands.

“Sounds tame to me: has he any peculiarities which would appeal to me?”

“Burnt feet,” said Leon promptly. “If you would like to learn how the coastal intelligence department extract information from unwilling victims, come along.”

Elver hesitated. He was a man burnt up by the Indian suns, wizened like a dried yellow apple, and he had no interest in the world beyond his work.

“I’ll go with you,” he said, stepping into the car. “And if your Barberton man fails you, you can have me as a guest. I like to hear you talking. One cannot know too much of the criminal mind! And life is dull since the snake stopped biting!”

The car made towards Blackfriars Bridge, and Manfred kept watch of the sidewalk. There was no sign of Barberton, and he signalled Leon to turn and come back. This brought the machine to the Embankment side of the broad boulevard. They had passed under Waterloo Bridge and were nearing Cleopatra’s Needle when Gonsalez saw the man they were seeking.

He was leaning against the parapet, his elbows on the coping and his head sunk forward as though he were studying the rush of the tide below. The car pulled up near a policeman who was observing the lounger thoughtfully. The officer recognized the police surgeon and saluted.

“Can’t understand that bird, sir,” he said. “He’s been standing there for ten minutes—I’m keeping an eye on him because he looks to me like a suicide who’s thinkin’ it over!”

Manfred approached the man, and suddenly, with a shock, saw his face. It was set in a grin—the eyes were wide open, the skin a coppery red.

“Elver! Leon!”

As Leon sprang from the car, Manfred touched the man’s shoulder and he fell limply to the ground. In a second the doctor was on his knees by the side of the still figure.

“Dead,” he said laconically, and then: “Good God!”

He pointed to the neck, where a red patch showed.

“What is that?” asked Manfred steadily.

“The snake!” said the doctor.

_Chapter V_ _The Golden Woman_

BARBERTON had been stricken down in the heart of London, under the very eyes of the policeman, it proved.

“Yes, sir, I’ve had him under observation for a quarter of an hour. I saw him walking along the Embankment, admiring the view, long before he stopped here.”

“Did anybody go near him or speak to him?” asked Dr. Elver, looking up.

“No, sir, he stood by himself. I’ll swear that nobody was within two yards of him. Of course, people have been passing to and fro, but I have been looking at him all the time, and I’ve not seen man or woman within yards of him, and my eyes were never off him.”

A second policeman had appeared on the scene, and he was sent across to Scotland Yard in Manfred’s car, for the ambulance and the police reserves necessary to clear and keep in circulation the gathering crowd. These returned simultaneously, and the two friends watched the pitiable thing lifted into a stretcher, and waited until the white-bodied vehicle had disappeared with its sad load before they returned to their machine.

Gonsalez took his place at the wheel; George got in by his side. No word was spoken until they were back at Curzon Street. Manfred went in alone, whilst his companion drove the machine to the garage. When he returned, he found Poiccart and George deep in discussion.

“You were right, Raymond.” Leon Gonsalez stripped his thin coat and threw it on a chair. “The accuracy of your forecasts is almost depressing. I am waiting all the time for the inevitable mistake, and I am irritated when this doesn’t occur. You said the snake would reappear, and the snake has reappeared. Prophesy now for me, O seer!”

Poiccart’s heavy face was gloomy; his dark eyes almost hidden under the frown that brought his bushy eyebrows lower.

“One hasn’t to be a seer to know that our association with Barberton will send the snake wriggling towards Curzon Street,” he said. “Was it Gurther or Pfeiffer?”

Manfred considered.

“Pfeiffer, I think. He is the steadier of the two. Gurther has brain-storms; he is on the neurotic side. And that nine-thonged whip of yours, Leon, cannot have added to his mental stability. No, it was Pfeiffer, I’m sure.”

“I suppose the whip unbalanced him a little,” said Leon. He thought over this aspect as though it were one worth consideration. “Gurther is a sort of Jekyll and Hyde, except that there is no virtue to him at all. It is difficult to believe, seeing him dropping languidly into his seat at the opera, that this exquisite young man in his private moments would not change his linen more often than once a month, and would shudder at the sound of a running bath-tap! That almost sounds as though he were a morphia fiend. I remember a case in ’99 . . . but I am interrupting you?”

“What precautions shall you take, Leon?” asked George Manfred.

“Against the snake?” Leon shrugged his shoulders. “The old military precaution against Zeppelin raids; the precaution the farmer takes against a plague of wasps. You cannot kneel on the chest of the _vespa vulgaris_ and extract his sting with an anæsthetic. You destroy his nest—you bomb his hangar. Personally, I have never feared dissolution in any form, but I have a childish objection to being bitten by a snake.”

Poiccart’s saturnine face creased for a moment in a smile.

“You’ve no objection to stealing my theories,” he said dryly, and the other doubled up in silent laughter.

Manfred was pacing the little room, his hands behind him, a thick Egyptian cigarette between his lips.

“There’s a train leaves Paddington for Gloucester at ten forty-five,” he said. “Will you telegraph to Miss Goddard, Heavytree Farm, and ask her to meet the train with a cab? After that I shall want two men to patrol the vicinity of the farm day and night.”

Poiccart pulled open a drawer of the desk, took out a small book and ran his finger down the index.

“I can get this service in Gloucester,” he said. “Gordon, Williams, Thompson and Elfred—they’re reliable people and have worked for us before.”

Manfred nodded.

“Send them the usual instructions by letter. I wonder who will be in charge of this Barberton case. If it’s Meadows, I can work with him. On the other hand, if it’s Arbuthnot, we shall have to get our information by subterranean methods.”

“Call Elver,” suggested Leon, and George pulled the telephone towards him.

It was some time before he could get into touch with Dr. Elver, and then he learnt, to his relief, that the redoubtable Inspector Meadows had complete charge.

“He’s coming up to see you,” said Elver. “As a matter of fact, the chief was here when I arrived at the Yard, and he particularly asked Meadows to consult with you. There’s going to be an awful kick at the Home Secretary’s office about this murder. We had practically assured the Home Office that there would be no repetition of the mysterious deaths and that the snake had gone dead for good.”

Manfred asked a few questions and then hung up.

“They are worried about the public—you never know what masses will do in given circumstances. But you can gamble that the English mass does the same thing—Governments hate intelligent crowds. This may cost the Home Secretary his job, poor soul! And he’s doing his best.”

A strident shout in the street made him turn his head with a smile.

“The late editions have got it—naturally. It might have been committed on their doorstep.”

“But why?” asked Poiccart. “What was Barberton’s offence?”

“His first offence,” said Leon promptly, without waiting for Manfred to reply, “was to go in search of Miss Mirabelle Leicester. His second and greatest was to consult with us. He was a dead man when he left the house.”

The faint sound of a bell ringing sent Poiccart down to the hall to admit an unobtrusive, middle-aged man, who might have been anything but what he was: one of the cleverest trackers of criminals that Scotland Yard had known in thirty years. A sandy-haired, thin-faced man, who wore pince-nez and looked like an actor, he had been a visitor to Curzon Street before, and now received a warm welcome. With little preliminary he came to the object of his call, and Manfred told him briefly what had happened, and the gist of his conversation with Barberton.

“Miss Mirabelle Leicester is——” began Manfred.

“Employed by Oberzohn—I know,” was the surprising reply. “She came up to London this morning and took a job as laboratory assistant. I had no idea that Oberzohn & Smitts had a laboratory on the premises.”

“They hadn’t until a couple of days ago,” interrupted Leon. “The laboratory was staged especially for her.”

Meadows nodded, then turned to Manfred.

“He didn’t give you any idea at all why he wanted to meet Miss Leicester?”

George shook his head.

“No, he was very mysterious indeed on that subject,” he said.

“He arrived by the _Benguella_, eh?” said Meadows, making a note. “We ought to get something from the ship before they pay off their stewards. If a man isn’t communicative on board ship, he’ll never talk at all! And we may find something in his belongings. Would you like to come along, Manfred?”

“I’ll come with pleasure,” said George gravely. “I may help you a little—you will not object to my making my own interpretation of what we see?”

Meadows smiled.

“You will be allowed your private mystery,” he said.

A taxi set them down at the Petworth Hotel in Norfolk Street, and they were immediately shown up to the room which the dead man had hired but had not as yet occupied. His trunk, still strapped and locked, stood on a small wooden trestle, his overcoat was hanging behind the door; in one corner of the room was a thick hold-all, tightly strapped, and containing, as they subsequently discovered, a weather-stained mackintosh, two well-worn blankets and an air pillow, together with a collapsible canvas chair, also showing considerable signs of usage. This was the object of their preliminary search.

The lock of the trunk yielded to the third key which the detective tried. Beyond changes of linen and two suits, one of which was practically new and bore the tab of a store in St. Paul de Loanda, there was very little to enlighten them. They found an envelope full of papers, and sorted them out one by one on the bed. Barberton was evidently a careful man: he had preserved his hotel bills, writing on their backs brief but pungent comments about the accommodation he had enjoyed or suffered. There was an hotel in Lobuo which was full of vermin; there was one at Mossamedes of which he had written: “Rats ate one boot. Landlord made no allowance. Took three towels and pillow-slip.”

“One of the Four Just Men in embryo,” said Meadows dryly.

Manfred smiled.

On the back of one bill were closely written columns of figures: “12/6, 13/15, 10/7, 17/12, about 24,” etc. Against a number of these figures the word “about” appeared, and Manfred observed that invariably this qualification marked one of the higher numbers. Against the 10/7 was a thick pencil mark.

There were amongst the papers several other receipts. In St. Paul he had bought a “pistol automatic of precision” and ammunition for the same. The “pistol automatic of precision” was not in the trunk.

“We found it in his pocket,” said Meadows briefly. “That fellow was expecting trouble, and was entitled to, if it is true that they tortured him at Mosamodes.”

“Moss-_am_-o-dees,” Manfred corrected the mispronunciation. It almost amounted to a fad in him that to hear a place miscalled gave him a little pain.

Meadows was reading a letter, turning the pages slowly.

“This is from his sister: she lives at Brightlingsea, and there’s nothing in it except . . .” He read a portion of the letter aloud:

“. . . thank you for the books. The children will appreciate
them. It must have been like old times writing them—but I can
understand how it helped pass the time. Mr. Lee came over and
asked if I had heard from you. He is wonderful.”

The letter was in an educated hand.

“He didn’t strike me as a man who wrote books,” said Meadows, and continued his search.

Presently he unfolded a dilapidated map, evidently of Angola. It was rather on the small scale, so much so that it took in a portion of the Kalahari Desert in the south, and showed in the north the undulations of the rolling Congo.

“No marks of any kind,” said Meadows, carrying the chart to the window to examine it more carefully. “And that, I think, is about all—unless this is something.”

“This” was wrapped in a piece of cloth, and was fastened to the bottom and the sides of the trunk by two improvised canvas straps. Meadows tried to pull it loose and whistled.

“Gold,” he said. “Nothing else can weigh quite as heavily as this.”

He lifted out the bundle eventually, unwrapped the covering, and gazed in amazement on the object that lay under his eyes. It was an African _bête_, a nude, squat idol, rudely shaped, the figure of a native woman.

“Gold?” said Manfred incredulously, and tried to lift it with his finger and thumb. He took a firmer grip and examined the discovery closely.

There was no doubt that it was gold, and fine gold. His thumb-nail made a deep scratch in the base of the statuette. He could see the marks where the knife of the inartistic sculptor had sliced and carved.

Meadows knew the coast fairly well: he had made many trips to Africa and had stopped off at various ports en route.

“I’ve never seen anything exactly like it before,” he said, “and it isn’t recent workmanship either. When you see this”—he pointed to a physical peculiarity of the figure—“you can bet that you’ve got something that’s been made at least a couple of hundred years, and probably before then. The natives of West and Central Africa have not worn toe-rings, for example, since the days of the Cæsars.”

He weighed the idol in his hand.

“Roughly ten pounds,” he said. “In other words, eight hundred pounds’ worth of gold.”

He was examining the cloth in which the idol had been wrapped, and uttered an exclamation.

“Look at this,” he said.

Written on one corner, in indelible pencil, were the words:

“Second shelf up left Gods lobby sixth.”

Suddenly Manfred remembered.

“Would you have this figure put on the scales right away?” he said. “I’m curious to know the exact weight.”

“Why?” asked Meadows in surprise, as he rang the bell.

The proprietor himself, who was aware that a police search was in progress, answered the call, and, at the detective’s request, hurried down to the kitchen and returned in a few minutes with a pair of scales, which he placed on the table. He was obviously curious to know the purpose for which they were intended, but Inspector Meadows did not enlighten him, standing pointedly by the door until the gentleman had gone.

The figure was taken from under the cloth where it had been hidden whilst the scales were being placed, and put in one shallow pan on the machine.

“Ten pounds seven ounces,” nodded Manfred triumphantly. “I thought that was the one!”

“One what?” asked the puzzled Meadows.

“Look at this list.”

Manfred found the hotel bill with the rows of figures and pointed to the one which had a black cross against it.

“10/7,” he said. “That is our little fellow, and the explanation is fairly plain. Barberton found some treasure-house filled with these statues. He took away the lightest. Look at the figures! He weighed them with a spring balance, one of those which register up to 21 lbs. Above that he had to guess—he puts ‘about 24,’ ‘about 22.’”

Meadows looked at his companion blankly, but Manfred was not deceived. That clever brain of the detective was working.

“Not for robbery—the trunk is untouched. They did not even burn his feet to find the idol or the treasure-house: they must have known nothing of that. It was easy to rob him—or, if they knew of his gold idol, they considered it too small loot to bother with.”

He looked slowly round the apartment. On the mantelshelf was a slip of brown paper like a pipe-spill.

He picked it up, looked at both sides, and, finding the paper blank, put it back where he had found it. Manfred took it down and absently drew the strip between his sensitive finger-tips.

“The thing to do,” said Meadows, taking one final look round, “is to find Miss Leicester.”

Manfred nodded.

“That is one of the things,” he said slowly. “The other, of course, is to find Johnny.”

“Johnny?” Meadows frowned suspiciously. “Who is Johnny?” he asked.

“Johnny is my private mystery.” George Manfred was smiling. “You promised me that I might have one!”

_Chapter VI_ _In Chester Square_

WHEN Mirabelle Leicester went to Chester Square, her emotions were a curious discord of wonder, curiosity and embarrassment. The latter was founded on the extraordinary effusiveness of her companion, who had suddenly, and with no justification, assumed the position of dearest friend and lifelong acquaintance. Mirabelle thought the girl was an actress: a profession in which sudden and violent friendships are not of rare occurrence. She wondered why Aunt Alma had not made an effort to come to town, and wondered more that she had known of Alma’s friendship with the Newtons. That the elder woman had her secrets was true, but there was no reason why she should have refrained from speaking of a family who were close enough friends to be asked to chaperon her in town.

She had time for thought, for Joan Newton chattered away all the time, and if she asked a question, she either did not wait for approval, or the question was answered to her own satisfaction before it was put.

Chester Square, that dignified patch of Belgravia, is an imposing quarter. The big house into which the girl was admitted by a footman had that air of luxurious comfort which would have appealed to a character less responsive to refinement than Mirabelle Leicester’s. She was ushered into a big drawing-room which ran from the front to the back of the house, and did not terminate even there, for a large, cool conservatory, bright with flowers, extended a considerable distance.

“Monty isn’t back from the City yet,” Joan rattled on. “My dear! He’s awfully busy just now, what with stocks and shares and things like that.”

She spoke as though “stocks and shares and things like that” were phenomena which had come into existence the day before yesterday for the occupation of Monty Newton.

“Is there a boom?” asked Mirabelle with a smile, and the term seemed to puzzle the girl.

“Ye-es, I suppose there is. You know what the Stock Exchange is, my dear? Everybody connected with it is wealthy beyond the dreams of avarice. The money they make is simply wicked! And they can give a girl an awfully good time—theatres, parties, dresses, pearls—why, Monty would think nothing of giving a string of pearls to a girl if he took a liking to her!”

In truth Joan was walking on very uncertain ground. Her instructions had been simple and to the point. “Get her to Chester Gardens, make friends with her, and don’t mention the fact that I know Oberzohn.” What was the object of bringing Mirabelle Leicester to the house, what was behind this move of Monty’s, she did not know. She was merely playing for safety, baiting the ground, as it were, with her talk of good times and vast riches, in case that was required of her. For she, no less than many of her friends, entertained a wholesome dread of Monty Newton’s disapproval, which usually took a definitely unpleasant shape.

Mirabelle was laughing softly.

“I didn’t know that stockbrokers were so rich,” she said dryly, “and I can assure you that some of them aren’t!”

She passed tactfully over the _gaucherie_ of the pearls that Monty would give to any girl who took his fancy. By this time she had placed Joan: knew something of her upbringing, guessed pretty well the extent of her intelligence, and marvelled a little that a man of the unknown Mr. Newton’s position should have allowed his sister to come through the world without the benefit of a reasonably good education.

“Come up to your room, my dear,” said Joan. “We’ve got a perfectly topping little suite for you, and I’m sure you’ll be comfortable. It’s at the front of the house, and if you can get used to the milkmen yowling about the streets before they’re aired, you’ll have a perfectly topping time.”

When Mirabelle inspected the apartment she was enchanted. It fulfilled Joan’s vague description. Here was luxury beyond her wildest dreams. She admired the silver bed and the thick blue carpet, the silken panelled walls, the exquisite fittings, and stood in rapture before the entrance of a little bathroom, with its silver and glass, its shaded lights and marble walls.

“I’ll have a cup of tea sent up to you, my dear. You’ll want to rest after your horrible day at that perfectly terrible factory, and I wonder you can stand Oberzohn, though they tell me he’s quite a nice man. . . .”

She seemed anxious to go, and Mirabelle was no less desirous of being alone.

“Come down when you feel like it,” said Joan at parting, and ran down the stairs, reaching the hall in time to meet Mr. Newton, who was handing his hat and gloves to his valet.

“Well, is she here?”

“She’s here all right,” said Joan, who was not at all embarrassed by the presence of the footman. “Monty, isn’t she a bit of a fool? She couldn’t say boo to a goose. What is the general scheme?”

He was brushing his hair delicately in the mirror above the hall-stand.

“What’s what scheme?” he asked, after the servant had gone, as he strolled into the drawing-room before her.

“Bringing her here—is she sitting into a game?”

“Don’t be stupid,” said Monty without heat, as he dropped wearily to a low divan and drew a silken cushion behind him. “Nor inquisitive,” he added. “You haven’t scared her, have you?”

“I like that!” she said indignantly.

She was one of those ladies who speak more volubly and with the most assurance when there is a mirror in view, and she had her eyes fixed upon herself all the time she was talking, patting a strand of hair here and there, twisting her head this way and that to get a better effect, and never once looking at the man until he drew attention to himself.

“Scared! I’ll bet she’s never been to such a beautiful house in her life! What is she, Monty? A typist or something? I don’t understand her.”

“She’s a lady,” said Monty offensively. “That’s the type that’ll always seem like a foreign language to you.”

She lifted one shoulder delicately.

“I don’t pretend to be a lady, and what I am, you’ve made me,” she said, and the reproach was mechanical. He had heard it before, not only from her but from others similarly placed. “I don’t think it’s very kind to throw my education up in my face, considering the money I’ve made for you.”

“And for yourself.” He yawned. “Get me some tea.”

“You might say ‘please’ now and again,” she said resentfully, and he smiled as he took up the evening paper, paying her no more attention, until she had rung the bell with a vicious jerk and the silver tray came in and was deposited on a table near him.

“Where are you going to-night?”

His interest in her movements was unusual, and she was flattered.

“You know very well, Monty, where I’m going to-night,” she said reproachfully. “You promised to take me too. I think you’d look wonderful as a Crusader—one of them—those old knights in armour.”

He nodded, but not to her comment.

“I remember, of course—the Arts Ball.”

His surprise was so well simulated that she was deceived.

“Fancy your forgetting! I’m going as Cinderella, and Minnie Gray is going as a pierrette——”

“Minnie Gray isn’t going as anything,” said Monty, sipping his tea. “I’ve already telephoned to her to say that the engagement is off. Miss Leicester is going with you.”

“But, Monty——” protested the girl.

“Don’t ‘but Monty’ me,” he ordered. “I’m telling you! Go up and see this girl, and put it to her that you’ve got a spare ticket for the dance.”

“But her costume, Monty! The girl hasn’t got a fancy dress. And Minnie——”

“Forget Minnie, will you? Mirabelle Leicester is going to the Arts Ball to-night.” He tapped the tray before him to emphasize every word. “You have a ticket to spare, and you simply can’t go alone because I have a very important business engagement and your friend has failed you. Her dress will be here in a few minutes: it is a bright green domino with a bright-red hood.”

“How perfectly hideous!” She forgot for the moment her disappointment in this outrage. “Bright green! Nobody has a complexion to stand that!”

Yet he ignored her.

“You will explain to Miss Leicester that the dress came from a friend who, through illness or any cause you like to invent, is unable to go to the dance—she’ll jump at the chance. It is one of the events of the year and tickets are selling at a premium.”

She asked him what that meant, and he explained patiently.

“Maybe she’ll want to spend a quiet evening—have one of those headaches,” he went on. “If that is so, you can tell her that I’ve got a party coming to the house to-night, and they will be a little noisy. Did she want to know anything about me?”

“No, she didn’t,” snapped Joan promptly. “She didn’t want to know about anything. I couldn’t get her to talk. She’s like a dumb oyster.”

Mirabelle was sitting by the window, looking down into the square, when there was a gentle tap at the door and Joan came in.

“I’ve got wonderful news for you,” she said.

“For me?” said Mirabelle in surprise.

Joan ran across the room, giving what she deemed to be a surprisingly life-like representation of a young thing full of innocent joy.

“I’ve got an extra ticket for the Arts Ball to-night. They’re selling at a—they’re very expensive. Aren’t you a lucky girl!”

“I?” said Mirabelle in surprise. “Why am I the lucky girl?”

Joan rose from the bed and drew back from her reproachfully.

“You surely will come with me? If you don’t, I shan’t be able to go at all. Lady Mary and I were going together, and now she’s sick!”

Mirabelle opened her eyes wider.

“But I can’t go, surely. It is a fancy dress ball, isn’t it? I read something about it in the papers. And I’m awfully tired to-night.”

Joan pouted prettily.

“My dear, if you lay down for an hour you’d be fit. Besides, you couldn’t sleep here early to-night: Monty’s having one of his men parties, and they’re a noisy lot of people—though thoroughly respectable,” she added hastily.

Poor Joan had a mission outside her usual range.

“I’d love to go,”—Mirabelle was anxious not to be a kill-joy,—“if I could get a dress.”

“I’ve got one,” said the girl promptly, and ran out of the room.

She returned very quickly, and threw the domino on the bed.

“It’s not pretty to look at, but it’s got this advantage, that you can wear almost anything underneath.”

“What time does the ball start?” Mirabelle, examining her mind, found that she was not averse to going; she was very human, and a fancy dress ball would be a new experience.

“Ten o’clock,” said Joan. “We can have dinner before Monty’s friends arrive. You’d like to see Monty, wouldn’t you? He’s downstairs—such a gentleman, my dear!”

The girl could have laughed.

A little later she was introduced to the redoubtable Monty, and found his suave and easy manner a relief after the jerky efforts of the girl to be entertaining. Monty had seen most parts of the world and could talk entertainingly about them all. Mirabelle rather liked him, though she thought he was something of a fop, yet was not sorry when she learned that, so far from having friends to dinner, he did not expect them to arrive until after she and Joan had left.

The meal put her more at her ease. He was a polished man of the world, courteous to the point of pomposity; he neither said nor suggested one thing that could offend her; they were half-way through dinner when the cry of a newsboy was heard in the street. Through the dining-room window she saw the footman go down the steps and buy a newspaper. He glanced at the stop-press space and came back slowly up the stairs reading. A little later he came into the room, and must have signalled to her host, for Monty went out immediately and she heard their voices in the passage. Joan was uneasy.

“I wonder what’s the matter?” she asked, a little irritably. “It’s very bad manners to leave ladies in the middle of dinner——”

At that moment Monty came back. Was it imagination on her part, or had he gone suddenly pale? Joan saw it, and her brows met, but she was too wise to make a comment upon his appearance.

Mr. Newton seated himself in his place with a word of apology and poured out a glass of champagne. Only for a second did his hand tremble, and then, with a smile, he was his old self.

“What is wrong, Monty?”

“Wrong? Nothing,” he said curtly, and took up the topic of conversation where he had laid it down before leaving the room.

“It isn’t that old snake, is it?” asked Joan with a shiver. “Lord! that unnerves me! I never go to bed at night without looking under, or turning the clothes right down to the foot! They ought to have found it months ago if the police——”

At this point she caught Monty Newton’s eye, cold, menacing, malevolent, and the rest of her speech died on her lips.

Mirabelle went upstairs to dress, and Joan would have followed but the man beckoned her.

“You’re a little too talkative, Joan,” he said, more mildly than she had expected. “The snake is not a subject we wish to discuss at dinner. And listen!” He walked into the passage and looked round, then came back and closed the door. “Keep that girl near you.”

“Who is going to dance with me?” she asked petulantly. “I look like having a hell of a lively night!”

“Benton will be there to look after you, and one of the ‘Old Guard’——”

He saw the frightened look in her face and chuckled.

“What’s the matter, you fool?” he asked good-humouredly. “He’ll dance with the girl.”

“I wish those fellows weren’t going to be there,” she said uneasily, but he went on, without noticing her:

“I shall arrive at half-past eleven. You had better meet me near the entrance to the American bar. My party didn’t turn up, you understand. You’ll get back here at midnight.”

“So soon?” she said in dismay. “Why, it doesn’t end till——”

“You’ll be back here at midnight,” he said evenly. “Go into her room, clear up everything she may have left behind. You understand? Nothing is to be left.”

“But when she comes back she’ll——”

“She’ll not come back,” said Monty Newton, and the girl’s blood ran cold.

_Chapter VII_ _“Moral Suasion”_

“THERE’S a man wants to see you, governor.”

It was a quarter-past nine. The girls had been gone ten minutes, and Montague Newton had settled himself down to pass the hours of waiting before he had to dress. He put down the patience cards he was shuffling.

“A man to see me? Who is he, Fred?”

“I don’t know: I’ve never seen him before. Looks to me like a ‘busy.’”

A detective! Monty’s eyebrows rose, but not in trepidation. He had met many detectives in the course of his chequered career and had long since lost his awe of them.

“Show him in,” he said with a nod.

The slim man in evening dress who came softly into the room was a stranger to Monty, who knew most of the prominent figures in the world of criminal detection. And yet his face was in some way familiar.

“Captain Newton?” he asked.

“That is my name.” Newton rose with a smile.

The visitor looked slowly round towards the door through which the footman had gone.

“Do your servants always listen at the keyhole?” he asked, in a quiet, measured tone, and Newton’s face went a dusky red.

In two strides he was at the door and had flung it open, just in time to see the disappearing heels of the footman.

“Here, you!” He called the man back, a scowl on his face. “If you want to know anything, will you come in and ask?” he roared. “If I catch you listening at my door, I’ll murder you!”

The man with a muttered excuse made a hurried escape.

“How did you know?” growled Newton, as he came back into the room and slammed the door behind him.

“I have an instinct for espionage,” said the stranger, and went on, without a break: “I have called for Miss Mirabelle Leicester.”

Newton’s eyes narrowed.

“Oh, you have, have you?” he said softly. “Miss Leicester is not in the house. She left a quarter of an hour ago.”

“I did not see her come out of the house?”

“No, the fact is, she went out by way of the mews. My—er”—he was going to say “sister” but thought better of it—“my young friend——”

“Flash Jane Smith,” said the stranger. “Yes?”

Newton’s colour deepened. He was rapidly reaching the point when his sang-froid, nine-tenths of his moral assets, was in danger of deserting him.

“Who are you, anyway?” he asked.

The stranger wetted his lips with the tip of his tongue, a curiously irritating action of his, for some inexplicable reason.

“My name is Leon Gonsalez,” he said simply.

Instinctively the man drew back. Of course! Now he remembered, and the colour had left his cheeks, leaving him grey. With an effort he forced a smile.

“One of the redoubtable Four Just Men? What extraordinary birds you are!” he said. “I remember ten-fifteen years ago, being scared out of my life by the very mention of your name—you came to punish where the law failed, eh?”

“You must put that in your reminiscences,” said Leon gently. “For the moment I am not in an autobiographical mood.”

But Newton could not be silenced.

“I know a man”—he was speaking slowly, with quiet vehemence—“who will one day cause you a great deal of inconvenience, Mr. Leon Gonsalez: a man who never forgets you in his prayers. I won’t tell you who he is.”

“It is unnecessary. You are referring to the admirable Oberzohn. Did I not kill his brother . . . ? Yes, I thought I was right. He was the man with the oxycephalic head and the queerly prognathic jaw. An interesting case: I would like to have had his measurements, but I was in rather a hurry.”

He spoke almost apologetically for his haste.

“But we’re getting away from the subject, Mr. Newton. You say this young lady has left your house by the mews, and you were about to suggest she left in the care of Miss—I don’t know what you call her. Why did she leave that way?”

Leon Gonsalez had something more than an instinct for espionage: he had an instinct for truth, and he knew two things immediately: first, that Newton was not lying when he said the girl had left the house; secondly, that there was an excellent, but not necessarily a sinister, reason for the furtive departure.

“Where has she gone?”

“Home,” said the other laconically. “Where else should she go?”

“She came to dinner . . . intending to stay the night?”

“Look here, Gonsalez,” interrupted Monty Newton savagely. “You and your gang were wonderful people twenty years ago, but a lot has happened since then—and we don’t shiver at the name of the Three Just Men. I’m not a child—do you get that? And you’re not so very terrible at close range. If you want to complain to the police——”

“Meadows is outside. I persuaded him to let me see you first,” said Leon, and Newton started.

“Outside?” incredulously.

In two strides he was at the window and had pulled aside the blind. On the other side of the street a man was standing on the edge of the sidewalk, intently surveying the gutter. He knew him at once.

“Well, bring him in,” he said.

“Where has this young lady gone? That is all I want to know.”

“She has gone home, I tell you.”

Leon went to the door and beckoned Meadows; they spoke together in low tones, and then Meadows entered the room and was greeted with a stiff nod from the owner of the house.

“What’s the idea of this, Meadows—sending this bird to cross-examine me?”

“This bird came on his own,” said Meadows coldly, “if you mean Mr. Gonsalez? I have no right to prevent any person from cross-examining you. Where is the young lady?”

“I tell you she has gone home. If you don’t believe me, search the house—either of you.”

He was not bluffing: Leon was sure of that. He turned to the detective.

“I personally have no wish to trouble this gentleman any more.”

He was leaving the room when, from over his shoulder:

“That snake is busy again, Newton.”

“What snake are you talking about?”

“He killed a man to-night on the Thames Embankment. I hope it will not spoil Lisa Marthon’s evening.”

Meadows, watching the man, saw him change colour.

“I don’t know what you mean,” he said loudly.

“You arranged with Lisa to pick up Barberton to-night and get him talking. And there she is, poor girl, all dressed to kill, and only a dead man to vamp—only a murdered man.” He turned suddenly, and his voice grew hard. “That is a good word, isn’t it, Newton—murder?”

“I didn’t know anything about it.”

As Newton’s hand came towards the bell:

“We can show ourselves out,” said Leon.

He shut the door behind him, and presently there was a slam of the outer door. Monty got to the window too late to see his unwelcome guests depart, and went up to his room to change, more than a little perturbed in mind.

The footman called him from the hall.

“I’m sorry about that affair, sir. I thought it was a ‘busy’ . . .”

“You think too much, Fred”—Newton threw the words down at his servitor with a snarl. “Go back to your place, which is the servants’ hall. I’ll ring you if I want you.”

He resumed his progress up the stairs and the man turned sullenly away.

He opened the door of his room, switched on the light, had closed the door and was half-way to his dressing-table, when an arm like steel closed round his neck, he was jerked suddenly backward on to the floor, and looked up into the inscrutable face of Gonsalez.

“Shout and you die!” whispered a voice in his ear.

Newton lay quiet.

“I’ll fix you for this,” he stammered.

The other shook his head.

“I think not, if by ‘fixing’ me you mean you’re going to complain to the police. You’ve been under my watchful eye for quite a long time, Monty Newton, and you’ll be amazed to learn that I’ve made several visits to your house. There is a little wall safe behind that curtain”—he nodded towards the corner of the room—“would you be surprised to learn that I’ve had the door open and every one of its documentary contents photographed?”

He saw the fear in the man’s eyes as he snapped a pair of aluminium handcuffs of curious design about Monty’s wrists. With hardly an effort he lifted him, heavy as he was, threw him on the bed, and, having locked the door, returned, and, sitting on the bed, proceeded first to strap his ankles and then leisurely to take off his prisoner’s shoes.

“What are you going to do?” asked Monty in alarm.

“I intend finding out where Miss Leicester has been taken,” said Gonsalez, who had stripped one shoe and, pulling off the silken sock, was examining the man’s bare foot critically. “Ordinary and strictly legal inquiries take time and fail at the end—unfortunately for you, I have not a minute to spare.”

“I tell you she’s gone home.”

Leon did not reply. He pulled open a drawer of the bureau, searched for some time, and presently found what he sought: a thin silken scarf. This, despite the struggles of the man on the bed, he fastened about his mouth.

“In Mosamodes,” he said—“and if you ever say that before my friend George Manfred, be careful to give its correct pronunciation: he is rather touchy on the point—some friends of yours took a man named Barberton, whom they subsequently murdered, and tried to make him talk by burning his feet. He was a hero. I’m going to see how heroic you are.”

“For God’s sake don’t do it!” said the muffled voice of Newton.

Gonsalez was holding a flat metal case which he had taken from his pocket, and the prisoner watched him, fascinated, as he removed the lid, and snapped a cigar-lighter close to its blackened surface. A blue flame rose and swayed in the draught.

“The police force is a most excellent institution,” said Leon. He had found a silver shoe-horn on the table and was calmly heating it in the light of the flame, holding the rapidly warming hook with a silk handkerchief. “But unfortunately, when you are dealing with crimes of violence, moral suasion and gentle treatment produce nothing more poignant in the bosom of your adversary than a sensation of amused and derisive contempt. The English, who make a god of the law, gave up imprisoning thugs and flogged them, and there are few thugs left. When the Russian gunmen came to London, the authorities did the only intelligent thing—they held back the police and brought up the artillery, having only one desire, which was to kill the gunmen at any expense. Violence fears violence. The gunman lives in the terror of the gun—by the way, I understand the old guard is back in full strength?”

When Leon started in this strain he could continue for hours.

“I don’t know what you mean,” mumbled Monty.

“You wouldn’t.” The intruder lifted the blackened, smoking shoe-horn, brought it as near to his face as he dared.

“Yes, I think that will do,” he said, and came slowly towards the bed.

The man drew up his feet in anticipation of pain, but a long hand caught him by the ankles and drew them straight again.

“They’ve gone to the Arts Ball.” Even through the handkerchief the voice sounded hoarse.

“The Arts Ball?” Gonsalez looked down at him, and then, throwing the hot shoe-horn into the fire-place, he removed the gag. “Why have they gone to the Arts Ball?”

“I wanted them out of the way to-night.”

“Is—Oberzohn likely to be at the Arts Ball?”

“Oberzohn!” The man’s laugh bordered on the hysterical.

“Or Gurther?”

This time Mr. Newton did not laugh.

“I don’t know who you mean,” he said.

“We’ll go into that later,” replied Leon lightly, pulling the knot of the handkerchief about the ankles. “You may get up now. What time do you expect them back?”

“I don’t know. I told Joan not to hurry, as I was meeting somebody here to-night.”

Which sounded plausible. Leon remembered that the Arts Ball was a fancy dress affair, and there was some reason for the departure from the mews instead of from the front of the house. As though he were reading his thoughts, Newton said:

“It was Miss Leicester’s idea, going through the back. She was rather shy . . . she was wearing a domino.”

“Colour?”

“Green, with a reddish hood.”

Leon looked at him quickly.

“Rather distinctive. Was that the idea?”

“I don’t know what the idea was,” growled Newton, sitting on the edge of the bed and pulling on a sock. “But I do know this, Gonsalez,” he said, with an outburst of anger which was half fear: “that you’ll be sorry you did this to me!”

Leon walked to the door, turned the key and opened it.

“I only hope that you will not be sorry I did not kill you,” he said, and was gone.

Monty Newton waited until from his raised window he saw the slim figure pass along the sidewalk and disappear round a corner, and then he hurried down, with one shoe on and one off, to call New Cross 93.

_Chapter VIII_ _The House of Oberzohn_

IN a triangle two sides of which were expressed by the viaducts of converging railroads and the base by the dark and sluggish waters of the Grand Surrey Canal, stood the gaunt ruins of a store in which had once been housed the merchandise of the O. & S. Company. A Zeppelin in passing had dropped an incendiary bomb at random, and torn a great ugly gap in the roof. The fire that followed left the iron frames of the windows twisted and split; the roof by some miracle remained untouched except for the blackened edges about the hole through which the flames had rushed to the height of a hundred feet.

The store was flush with the canal towing-path; barges had moored here, discharging rubber in bales, palm nut, nitrates even, and had restocked with Manchester cloth and case upon case of Birmingham-made geegaws of brass and lacquer.

Mr. Oberzohn invariably shipped his spirituous cargoes from Hamburg, since Germany is the home of synthesis. In the centre of the triangle was a red-brick villa, more unlovely than the factory, missing as it did that ineffable grandeur, made up of tragedy and pathos, attaching to a burnt-out building, however ugly it may have been in its prime.

The villa was built from a design in Mr. Oberzohn’s possession, and was the exact replica of the house in Sweden where he was born. It had high, gabled ends at odd and unexpected places. The roof was shingled with grey tiles; there were glass panels in the curious-looking door, and iron ornaments in the shape of cranes and dogs flanking the narrow path through the rank nettle and dock which constituted his garden.

Here he dwelt, in solitude, yet not in solitude, for two men lived in the house, and there was a stout Swedish cook and a very plain Danish maid, a girl of vacant countenance, who worked from sun-up to midnight without complaint, who seldom spoke and never smiled. The two men were somewhere in the region of thirty. They occupied the turret rooms at each end of the building, and had little community of interest. They sometimes played cards together with an old and greasy pack, but neither spoke more than was necessary. They were lean, hollow-faced men, with a certain physiognomical resemblance. Both had thin, straight lips; both had round, staring, dark eyes filled with a bright but terrifying curiosity.

“They look,” reported Leon Gonsalez, when he went to examine the ground, “as if they are watching pigs being killed and enjoying every minute of it. Iwan Pfeiffer is one, Sven Gurther is the other. Both have escaped the gallows or the axe in Germany; both have convictions against them. They are typical German-trained criminals—as pitiless as wolves. Dehumanized.”

The “Three,” as was usual, set the machinery of the law in motion, and found that the hands of the police were tied. Only by stretching the law could the men be deported, and the law is difficult to stretch. To all appearance they offended in no respect. A woman, by no means the most desirable of citizens, laid a complaint against one. There was an investigation—proof was absent; the very character of the complainant precluded a conviction, and the matter was dropped—by the police.

Somebody else moved swiftly.

One morning, just before daybreak, a policeman patrolling the tow-path heard a savage snarl and looked round for the dog. He found instead, up one of those narrow entries leading to the canal bank, a man. He was tied to the stout sleeper fence, and his bare back showed marks of a whip. Somebody had held him up at night as he prowled the bank in search of amusement, had tied and flogged him. Twenty-five lashes: an expert thought the whip used was the official cat-o’-nine-tails.

Scotland Yard, curious, suspicious, sought out the Three Just Men. They had alibis so complete as to be unbreakable. Sven Gurther went unavenged—but he kept from the tow-path thereafter.

In this house of his there were rooms which only Dr. Oberzohn visited. The Danish maid complained to the cook that when she had passed the door of one as the doctor came out, a blast of warm, tainted air had rushed out and made her cough for an hour. There was another room in which from time to time the doctor had installed a hotchpotch of apparatus. Vulcanizing machines, electrical machines (older and more used than Mirabelle had seen in her brief stay in the City Road), a liquid air plant, not the most up-to-date but serviceable.

He was not, curiously enough, a doctor in the medical sense. He was not even a doctor of chemistry. His doctorate was in Literature and Law. These experiments of his were hobbies—hobbies that he had pursued from his childhood.

On this evening he was sitting in his stuffy parlour reading a close-printed and closer-reasoned volume of German philosophy, and thinking of something else. Though the sun had only just set, the blinds and curtains were drawn; a wood fire crackled in the grate, and the bright lights of three half-watt lamps made glaring radiance.

An interruption came in the shape of a telephone call. He listened, grunting replies.

“So!” he said at last, and spoke a dozen words in his strange English.

Putting aside his book, he hobbled in his velvet slippers across the room and pressed twice upon the bell-push by the side of the fire-place. Gurther came in noiselessly and stood waiting.

He was grimy, unshaven. The pointed chin and short upper lip were blue. The V of his shirt visible above the waistcoat was soiled and almost black at the edges. He stood at attention, smiling vacantly, his eyes fixed at a point above the doctor’s head.

Dr. Oberzohn lifted his eyes from his book.

“I wish you to be a gentleman of club manner to-night,” he said. He spoke in that hard North-German tongue which the Swede so readily acquires.

“Ja, Herr Doktor!”

The man melted from the room.

Dr. Oberzohn for some reason hated Germans. So, for the matter of that, did Gurther and Pfeiffer, the latter being Polish by extraction and Russian by birth. Gurther hated Germans because they stormed the little jail at Altostadt to kill him after the dogs found Frau Siedlitz’s body. He would have died then but for the green police, who scented a Communist rising, scattered the crowd and sent Gurther by-road to the nearest big town under escort. The two escorting policemen were never seen again. Gurther reappeared mysteriously in England two years after, bearing a veritable passport. There was no proof even that he was Gurther. Leon knew, Manfred knew, Poiccart knew.

There had been an alternative to the whipping.

“It would be a simple matter to hold his head under water until he was drowned,” said Leon.

They debated the matter, decided against this for no sentimental or moral reason—none save expediency. Gurther had his whipping and never knew how near to the black and greasy water of the canal he had been.