The Four Just Men is a detective thriller published in by the British writer Edgar Wallace. The eponymous "Just Men" appear in several sequels.
Table of contents
The doctor again went to the cupboard and took out a wide-necked bottle filled with a greyish powder. He brought it back and held it within a few inches of Leon's face. He took a scalpel and tilting the bottle brought out a few grains of the powder on the edge of it. This he dissolved in a twenty-ounce measure which he filled with water. He stirred the colourless fluid with a glass rod, then lifting the rod he allowed three drops to fall upon the mould wherein the little creature was hidden.
A few seconds passed, there was a heaving of the earth where the victim was concealed. Leon did not speak all the way back to the house. He sat curled up in the corner of the car, his arms lightly folded, his chin on his breast. That night without a word of explanation he left the house, declining Manfred's suggestion that he should walk with him and volunteering no information as to where he was going. Gonsalez walked by the cliff road, across Babbacombe Downs and came to the doctor's house at nine o'clock that night.
The doctor had a large house and maintained a big staff of servants, but amongst his other eccentricities was the choice of a gardener's cottage away from the house as his sleeping place at night. It was only lately that the doctor had chosen this lonely lodging. He had been happy enough in the big old house which had been his father's, until he had heard voices whispering to him at night and the creak of boards and had seen shapes vanishing along the dark corridors, and then in his madness he had conceived the idea that his servants were conspiring against him and that he might any night be murdered in his bed.
So he had the gardener turned out of his cottage, had refurnished the little house, and there, behind locked doors, he read and thought and slept the nights away. Gonsalez had heard of this peculiarity and approached the cottage with some caution, for a frightened man is more dangerous than a wicked man. He rapped at the door and heard a step across the flagged floor. You must come to my wedding too, my friend. It will be a wonderful wedding, for there I shall make a speech and tell the story of my discovery.
Will you have a drink? I have nothing here, but I can get it from the house. I have a telephone in my bedroom.
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Viglow's narrow eyes were gleaming with merriment and he leant back in his chair and crossed his legs, like one preparing for a pleasant recital. I have something of a European reputation," he said, with that extraordinary immodesty which Leon had noticed before. But I found after one or two talks with our own stupid farmers that there is an unusual prejudice against destroying"—he did not mention the dreaded name but shivered—"and that of course I had to get round.
Now that I am satisfied that my preparation is exact, I can release the packets in the post office. In fact, I was just about to telephone to the postmaster telling him that they could go off—they are all stamped and addressed—when you knocked at the door. I had to tell them that it was a new kind of fertiliser or they may not have been as enthusiastic in the furtherance of my experiment as I am.
The Four Just Men
They need only treat a limited area of earth," he explained. I believe," he leant forward and spoke impressively, "that in six months there will not be one living in Europe or Asia. In ordinary circumstances, Leon would have been strong enough to hold the man, but Viglow's strength was extraordinary and Gonsalez found himself thrust back into the chair. Before he could spring up, the man had passed through the door and slammed and locked it behind him.
The cottage was on one floor and was divided into two rooms by a wooden partition which Viglow had erected. Over the door was a fanlight, and pulling the table forward Leon sprang on to the top and with his elbow smashed the flimsy frame. The doctor looked round with a grin. Manfred came back the next morning from his walk and found Gonsalez pacing the lawn, smoking an extra long cigar. All the silverware in the outer room has been stolen. The doctor's watch and pocket-book have disappeared. It is the surest friend of mankind that we know, and now I am going down to the post office with a story which I think will be sufficiently plausible to recover those worm poisoners.
THE interval between Acts II and III was an unusually long one, and the three men who sat in the stage box were in such harmony of mind that none of them felt the necessity for making conversation. The piece was a conventional crook play and each of the three had solved the "mystery" of the murder before the drop fell on the first act. They had reached the same solution and the right one without any great mental effort.
Fare frowned as at some unpleasant memory and heard a soft laugh. Looking up, he met the dancing eyes of Leon. For example, when a billiard player strikes a ball he throws and twists his body after the ball—you must have seen the contortions of a player who has missed his shot by a narrow margin?
A man using scissors works his jaw, a rower moves his lips with every stroke of the oar. These are what we call 'automatisms'. Animals have these characteristics. A hungry dog approaching meat pricks his ears in the direction of his meal—". I less read than guessed your thoughts by following them. The last line in the last act we saw was uttered by a ridiculous stage parson who says: There is a justice beyond the law!
And then you looked across the stalls and nodded to the editor of the Megaphone. And I remembered that you had written an article on the Four Just Men for that journal—". You were right, of course. I was thinking of them and their pretensions to act as judges and executioners when the law fails to punish the guilty, or rather the guilty succeed in avoiding conviction. Leon raised his powerful opera glasses and surveyed the man whom his friend had indicated.
They stand for evil! He referred to a visit which Leon Gonsalez and Manfred had paid to the record department of Scotland Yard. There, with forty photographs of criminals spread upon the table before him Gonsalez, taking them in order, had enumerated the crimes with which their names were associated. He only made four errors and even they were very excusable. He's as shrewd as the devil and it hurts me to see him with a nice girl like Genee Maggiore.
She has the habit of being seen—it is not vanity, it is merely a peculiar symptom of her profession. Fare was not, apparently, anxious to commit himself. Did you read last week about the man, John Bidworth, who shot a nursemaid in Kensington Gardens and then shot himself? He died the next day in hospital and the surgeons tell us that he was undoubtedly under the influence of some Indian drug and that in his few moments of consciousness he as much as told the surgeon in charge of the case that he had been on a jag the night before and had finished up in what he called an opium house, and remembered nothing further till he woke up in the hospital.
He died without knowing that he had committed this atrocious crime. There is no doubt that under the maddening influence of the drug he shot the first person he saw. We have tried our best to find out. He has been watched. Places at which he has stayed any length of time have been visited, but we have found nothing to incriminate him. Leon Gonsalez had a favourite hour and a favourite meal at which he was at his brightest. That hour was at nine o'clock in the morning and the meal was breakfast. He put down his paper the next morning and asked:.
It is the departure from the set rules which govern human society. Now, had I asked you at midnight you would have told me that it is any act which wilfully offends and discomforts your neighbour. If I desired to give it a narrow and what they call in this country a legal interpretation I would add, 'contrary to the law'. There must be ten thousand crimes committed for every one detected.
People associated crime only with those offences which are committed by a certain type of illiterate or semi-illiterate lunatic or half-lunatic, glibly dubbed a 'criminal'. Now, here is a villainous crime, a monumental crime. He is a man who is destroying the souls of youth and breaking hearts ruthlessly! Here is one who is dragging down men and women from the upward road and debasing them in their own eyes, slaying ambition and all beauty of soul and mind in order that he should live in a certain comfort, wearing a clean dress shirt every evening of his life and drinking expensive and unnecessary wines with his expensive and indigestible dinner.
Ballam," said Gonsalez gravely. I do not doubt that sooner or later Mr. Ballam and I will gravitate together.
Do I look like a detective, George? There are two risks which criminals face with due respect to the opinions of Leon Gonsalez, this word criminal is employed by the narrator in the pursuit of easy wealth. There is the risk of detection and punishment which applies to the big as well as to the little delinquent. There is the risk of losing large sums of money invested for the purpose of securing even larger sums. The criminal who puts money in his business runs the least risk of detection.
That is why only the poor and foolish come stumbling up the stairs which lead to the dock at the Old Bailey, and that is why the big men, who would be indignant at the very suggestion that they were in the category of law-breakers, seldom or never make their little bow to the Judge. Gregory Ballam stood for and represented certain moneyed interests which had purchased at auction three houses in Montague Street, Portland Place.
They were three houses which occupied an island site. The first of these was let out in offices, the ground floor being occupied by a lawyer, the first floor by a wine and spirit merchant, the second being a very plain suite, dedicated to the business hours of Mr. This gentleman also rented the cellar, which by the aid of lime-wash and distemper had been converted into, if not a pleasant, at any rate a neat and cleanly storage place.
Through this cellar you could reach amongst other places a brand-new garage, which had been built for one of Mr. Ballam's partners, but in which Mr. Ballam was not interested at all. None but the workmen who had been employed in renovation knew that it was possible also to walk from one house to the other, either through the door in the cellar which had existed when the houses were purchased, or through a new door in Mr. The third house, that at the end of the island site, was occupied by the International Artists' Club, and the police had never followed Mr.
Ballam there because Mr. Ballam had never gone there, at least not by the front door. The Artists' Club had a "rest room" and there were times when Mr. Ballam had appeared, as if by magic, in that room, had met a select little party and conducted them through a well-concealed pass-door to the ground floor of the middle house. The middle house was the most respectable looking of the three. It had neat muslin curtains at all its windows and was occupied by a venerable gentleman and his wife.
The venerable gentleman made a practice of going out to business every morning at ten o'clock, his shiny silk hat set jauntily on the side of his head, a furled umbrella under his arm and a button-hole in his coat. The police knew him by sight and local constables touched their helmets to him. In the days gone by when Mr. Raymond, as he called himself, had a luxurious white beard and earned an elegant income by writing begging letters and interviewing credulous and sympathetic females, he did not have that name or the reputation which he enjoyed in Montague Street.
He spent most of the day in the Guildhall reading-room and came back at five o'clock in the evening as jaunty as ever. And his day's work being ended, he and his hard-faced wife went to their little attic room and played cribbage and their language was certainly jaunty but was not venerable. On the first floor, behind triple black velvet curtains, men and women smoked day and night. It was a large room, being two rooms which had been converted into one and it had been decorated under Mr. In this room nothing but opium was smoked. If you had a fancy for hasheesh you indulged yourself in a basement apartment.
Ballam himself came to take a whiff of the dream-herb, but he usually reserved these visits for such occasions as the introduction of a new and profitable client. The pipe had no ill-effect upon Mr. That was his boast. He boasted now to a new client, a rich Spanish artist who had been picked up by one of his jackals and piloted to the International Artists' Club. Ballam leant forward curiously as the man took a silver box from his pocket and produced therefrom a green and sticky-looking pill.
It is even milder than opium and the result infinitely more wonderful. I only came out of curiosity," and he rose to go. Ballam, lighting his pipe slowly and puffing with evident enjoyment. Keep me awake at nights? I mean it ruins people smoking this kind of stuff. There's only one life and you've got to die once. There's a drug in the East which the natives call 'bal'. It turns men into raving lunatics.
I've a lady coming to see me. Must keep an appointment, old man," he laughed. With a howl of rage Ballam sprang to his feet and what happened after that he could not remember. Only something seemed to split in his head, and a blinding light flashed before his eyes and then a whole century of time went past, a hundred years of moving time and an eternity of flashing lights, of thunderous noises, of whispering voices, of ceaseless troubled movement. Sometimes he knew he was talking and listened eagerly to hear what he himself had to say.
Sometimes people spoke to him and mocked him and he had a consciousness that he was being chased by somebody. How long this went on he could not judge. In his half-bemused condition he tried to reckon time but found he had no standard of measurement. It seemed years after that he opened his eyes with a groan, and put his hand to his aching head. He was lying in bed. It was a hard bed and the pillow was even harder. He stared up at the white-washed ceiling and looked round at the plain distempered walls.
Then he peered over the side of the bed and saw that the floor as of concrete. Two lights were burning, one above a table and one in a corner of the room where a man was sitting reading a newspaper. He was a curious-looking man and Ballam blinked at him. Ballam did not reply. He was still staring, his mouth agape. The man was in uniform, in a dark, tight-fitting uniform. He wore a cap on his head and a badge. Round his waist was a shiny black belt and then Ballam read the letters on the shoulder-strap of the tunic. He glared round the room.
There was one window, heavily barred and covered with thick glass. On the wall was pasted a sheet of printed paper. He staggered out of bed and read, still open-mouthed:. He looked down at himself. He had evidently gone to bed with his breeches and stockings on and his breeches were of coarse yellow material and branded with faded black arrows.
He was in prison! How long had he been there? Go back and sleep. Sometimes I think you are as mad as you profess to be. Why don't you buck up and take your punishment like a man? He remembered it all now. The drug that drove men mad. Now go back to bed, Ballam. You can't do any good by kicking up a shindy this night of all nights in the world. Ballam staggered up to the table and sat down shakily in a chair. There was half a dozen sheets of blue note-paper headed in black: He was in Wandsworth prison! He looked round the cell.
It did not look like a cell and yet it did. It was so horribly bare and the door was heavy looking. He had never been in a cell before and of course it was different to what he had expected. The word fell like a sentence of doom and the man fell forward, his head upon his arms and wept hysterically. Then of a sudden he began to write with feverish haste, his face red with weeping.
His letter was incoherent. It was about a man who had come to the club and had given him a drug and then he had spent a whole eternity in darkness seeing lights and being chased by people and hearing whispering voices. And he was not guilty. He loved Genee Maggiore. He would not have hurt a hair of her head. He stopped here to weep again. Perhaps he was dreaming? Perhaps he was under the influence of this drug. He dashed his knuckles against the wall and the shock made him wince.
He lay on the bed and lost consciousness again and when he awoke the warder was still sitting in his place reading. He seemed to doze again for an hour, although in reality it was only for a few minutes, and every time he woke something within him said: Why don't you take it like a man? It's no worse for you than it was for her," said the warder savagely.
After that he lay still and he was falling into what seemed a longer sleep when the warder touched him. When he awoke he found his own clothes laid neatly by the side of the bed upon a chair and he dressed himself hurriedly. From what I've heard you ran an opium den. A good many of your clients gave us a visit. They had to go through with it, and so must you.
He waited, sitting on the edge of the bed, his face in his hands and then the door opened and a man came in. He was a slight man with a red beard and a mop of red hair. Then light was extinguished. A cap was drawn over his face and he thought he heard voices behind him. He wasn't fit to die, he knew that. There always was a parson in a case like this. Someone grasped his arm on either side and he walked slowly forward through the door across a yard and through another door.
It was a long way and once his knees gave under him but he stood erect. He took no account of time and could not judge it. Then he heard a heavy step and somebody caught him by the arm. The bag was pulled from his head. He was in the street. It was night and he stood under the light of a street-lamp. The man regarding him curiously was a policeman.
What is it—a hold-up case? Gregory Ballam's hair had been black less than seven hours before when Leon Gonsalez had drugged his coffee and had brought him through the basement exit into the big yard at the back of the club. For here was a nice new garage as Leon had discovered when he prospected the place, and here they were left uninterrupted to play the comedy of the condemned cell with blue sheets of prison notepaper put there for the occasion and a copy of Prison Regulations which was donated quite unwittingly by Mr.
Fare, Commissioner of Police. It was from a placid man who had written his letter in the hour of siesta, when Cordova slept, and he had scribbled all the things which had come into his head as he sat in an orange bower overlooking the lordly Guadalquivir, now in yellow spate. That and a green-shaded reading lamp supplied the illumination to their comfortable Jermyn Street flat at the moment.
There was a time when the name of these three, with one who now lay in the Bordeaux cemetery, had stricken terror to the hearts of evil-doers. In those days the Four Just Men were a menace to the sleep of many cunning men who had evaded the law, yet had not evaded this ubiquitous organisation, which slew ruthlessly in the name of Justice. When one of them has grown fat and is devoting himself to his raiment, and one is a mere courtier of the King of France, and the other is old and full of sorrow for his love-sick child. Then they become human, my dear Manfred, just as Poiccart becomes human when he grows onions.
Shall I read you bits? I have some gorgeous roses. Manfred would love them There is one that is exceptionally intelligent and contemplative. I have named him George. Curiously enough the fingerprints of twins of the anthropoid ape are dissimilar. I wish you would get information on this subject He read on, little scraps of domestic news, fleeting excursions into scientific side-issues, tiny scraps of gossip—they filled ten closely written pages.
Leon folded the letter and put it in his pocket. That was one of the illusions of the excellent Lombroso. Anyway the finger-print system is unsatisfactory. Leon rolled a cigarette with deft fingers, licked down the paper and lit the ragged end before he replied. In Britain there are fifty million inhabitants.
One hundred thousand is exactly one five-hundredth of fifty millions. Suppose you were a police officer and you were called to the Albert Hall where five hundred people were assembled and told that one of these had in his possession stolen property and you received permission to search them.
Would you be content with searching one and giving a clean bill to the rest? There was a long silence after this and then Manfred reached to a case by the side of the fireplace and took down a book. Presently he heard the creak of a chair as Gonsalez rose and the soft "pad" of a closing door. Manfred looked up at the clock and, as he knew, it was half past eight. In five minutes Leon was back again. He had changed his clothing and, as Manfred had once said before, his disguise was perfect.
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It was not a disguise in the accepted understanding of the word, for he had not in any way touched his face, or changed the colour of his hair. Only by his artistry he contrived to appear just as he wished to appear, an extremely poor man. His collar was clean, but frayed. His boots were beautifully polished, but they were old and patched. He did not permit the crudity of a heel worn down, but had fixed two circular rubber heels just a little too large for their foundations.
An ever so much more sympathetic role, George. Moreover, it brings people to me for advice. One of these nights you must come down to the public bar of the 'Cow and Compasses' and hear me discourse upon the Married Woman's Property Act. I rather think Amelia Jones has done both. The gloomy thoroughfare was well-nigh empty, for it was a grey cold night when Leon turned into the bar. The uninviting weather may have been responsible for the paucity of clients that evening, for there were scarcely half a dozen people on the sanded floor when he made his way to the bar and ordered a claret and soda.
One who had been watching for him started up from the deal form on which she had been sitting and subsided again when he walked toward her with glass in hand. She held a little glass of port in her hand, but it was barely touched. It was on one desperate night when in an agony of terror and fear this woman had fled from her lonely home to the light and comfort of the public-house that Leon had met her. He was at the time pursuing with the greatest caution a fascinating skull which he had seen on the broad shoulders of a Covent Garden porter.
He had tracked the owner to his home and to his place of recreation and was beginning to work up to his objective, which was to secure the history and the measurements of this unimaginative bearer of fruit, when the stout charwoman had drifted into his orbit. To-night she evidently had something on her mind of unusual importance, for she made three lame beginnings before she plunged into the matter which was agitating her.
Lucas" this was the name Gonsalez had given to the habitues of the "Cow and Compasses" , "I want to ask you a great favour. You've been very kind to me, giving me advice about my husband, and all that. But this is a big favour and you're a very busy gentleman, too. I would pay your fare," she went on fervently. Have you heard from your husband? He had suspected the third factor, yet he had never been able to fit it in the scheme of this commonplace woman.
You don't know him, Mr. But nobody does know him like I do. If he'd come straight to me it'd be all right, but he's not that kind. He's going to kill me, I tell you, and I don't care how soon it comes. He wasn't called Bash Jones for nothing. I'll get it all right! But I don't mind, I don't mind," she repeated. He knew it was useless to try to persuade her to tell her troubles, and at closing time they left the bar together. He offered his hand. It was the first time he had done so, and she took it in her big limp palm and shook it feebly.
He was waiting at Paddington Station the next morning in a suit a little less shabby, and to his surprise Mrs. Jones appeared dressed in better taste than he could have imagined was possible. Her clothes were plain but they effectively disguised the class to which she belonged. She took the tickets for Swindon and there was little conversation on the journey. Obviously she did not intend to unburden her mind as yet. The train was held up at Newbury whilst a slow up-train shunted to allow a school special to pass. It was crowded with boys and girls who waved a cheery and promiscuous greeting as they passed.
At Swindon they alighted and then for the first time the woman gave some indication as to the object of their journey. Presently another special ran into the station and the majority of the passengers in this train also were children. Several alighted at the junction, apparently to change for some other destination than London, and Leon was talking to the woman, who he knew was not listening, when he saw her face light up. She left him with a little gasp and walked quickly along the platform to greet a tall, pretty girl wearing the crimson and white hat-ribbon of a famous West of England school.
Jones, it is so kind of you to come down to see me. I wish you wouldn't take so much trouble. I should be only too happy to come to London," she laughed. How are you getting on at school, miss? Jones in an awe-stricken voice. Where are you spending your holidays, miss? The eyes of Amelia Jones devoured the girl and Leon knew that all the love in her barren life was lavished upon this child she had nursed. They walked up and down the platform together and when her train came in Mrs.
Jones stood at the carriage door until it drew out from the station and then waited motionless looking after the express until it melted in the distance. I didn't know this when I married him. I was nursemaid in a house that he'd burgled and I was discharged because I'd left the kitchen door ajar for him, not knowing that he was a thief. He did one long lagging and when he came out he swore he wouldn't go back to prison again, and the next time if there was any danger of an alarm being raised, he would make it a case of murder.
He and another man got into touch with a rich bookmaker on Blackheath. Bash used to do his dirty work for him, but they quarrelled and Bash and his pal burgled the house and got away with nearly nine thousand pounds. I thought he'd killed this man at first. It wasn't his fault that he hadn't. He walked into the room and bashed him as he lay in bed—that was Bash's way—that's how he got his name. He thought there'd be a lot of enquiries and gave me the money to look after. I had to put the notes into an old beer jar half full of sand, ram in the cork and cover the cork and the neck with candle-wax so that the water couldn't get through, and then put it in the cistern which he could reach from one of the upstairs rooms at the back of the house.
I was nearly mad with fear because I thought the gentleman had been killed, but I did as I was told and sunk the jar in the cistern. That night Bash and his mate were getting away to the north of England when they were arrested at Euston Station. Bash's friend was killed, for he ran across the line in front of an engine, but they caught Bash and the house was searched from end to end. He got fifteen years' penal servitude and he would have been out two years ago if he hadn't been a bad character in prison.
Lucas, and my first thought was of my child. I saw the kind of life that she was going to grow up to, the surroundings, the horrible slums, the fear of the police, for I knew that Bash would spend a million if he had it in a few weeks. I knew I was free of Bash for at least twelve years and I thought and I thought and at last I made up my mind. I won't tell you how I bought grand clothes so that nobody would suspect I was a working woman or how I changed the money. I'm not well educated, but I read the newspapers for months, the columns about money.
At first I was puzzled and I could make no end to it, but after a while I got to understand and it was in an Argentine company that I invested the money, and I got a lawyer in Bermondsey to make a trust of it. She gets the interest every quarter and pays her own bills—I've never touched a penny of it. The next thing was to get my little girl out of the neighbourhood, and I sent her away to a home for small children—it broke my heart to part with her—until she was old enough to go into a school. I used to see her regularly and when, after my first visit, I found she had almost forgotten who I was, I pretended that I'd been her nurse—and that's the story.
He'll find out," she spoke almost in a whisper. So that was the tragedy! Leon was struck dumb by the beauty of this woman's sacrifice. When he found his voice again, he asked:. People from Deptford who he's met in prison. Asking what I do at nights, what time I go to bed, what I do in the daytime. They have told him nothing. If they had he wouldn't be still asking. Why, Toby Brown came up from Devizes a month ago and told me Bash was there and was still asking questions about me. He'd told Toby that he'd never do another lagging and that he reckoned he'd be alive up to Midsummer Day if they caught him.
Not my own, no, not my own, Manfred," he shook his head, "but the glory of Amelia Jones. A wonderful woman, George. For her sake I am going to take a month's holiday, during which time you can go back to Spain and see our beloved Poiccart and hear all about the onions. Leon Gonsalez left for Devizes the next afternoon. He arrived in the town at dusk and staggered unsteadily up the rise toward the market-place.
At ten o'clock that night a police constable found him leaning against a wall at the back of the Bear Hotel, singing foolish songs, and ordered him to move away. Whereupon Leon addressed him in language for which he was at the time since he was perfectly sober heartily ashamed. Therefore he did appear before a bench of magistrates the next morning, charged with being drunk, using abusive language and obstructing the police in the execution of their duty. Is anything known against the man? So they committed him to the local gaol as he had expected.
Twenty-one days later, looking very brown and fit, he burst into the flat and Manfred turned with outstretched hands. They rather upset my calculations by giving me three weeks instead of a month, and I was afraid that I'd get back before you. Six large Spanish onions stood in a row and Leon Gonsalez doubled up with mirth. It was not until he had changed into more presentable garments that he told of his experience.
I worked with him in the tailor's shop. He is coming out next Monday. There are usually two young men lodgers who are railwaymen and these do duty until three in the morning on the third of every month. The young men have no key, so they come in by the kitchen door which is left unlocked. The kitchen door is reached by a narrow passage which runs the length of Little Mill Street and parallel with the houses.
Oh yes, he was frightfully anxious to secure information, and he told me that he would never come back to gaol again except for a short visit. I think he had better die," said Leon, with some gravity. This unfortunate girl, happy in her friends, well-bred—". Put the son of a duke in the slums and he'll grow up a peculiar kind of slum child, but a slum child nevertheless.
Think of the horror of it. Dragging this child back to the kennels of Deptford, for that will be the meaning of it, supposing this Mr. Bash Jones does not kill his wife. If he kills her then the grisly truth is out. No, I think we had better settle this Mr. On the afternoon of the third, Mrs. Amelia Jones was called away by telegram. She met Leon Gonsalez at Paddington Station. I have some friends in Plymouth.
They will probably meet you at the station and if they do not meet you, you must go to this address. When dark fell Leon Gonsalez arrived in Little Mill Street carrying a bulky something in a black cloth bag. He entered the house unobserved, for the night was wet and gusty and Little Mill Street crouched over its scanty fires. He closed the door behind him and with the aid of his pocket lamp found his way to the one poor bedroom in the tiny house.
He turned down the cover, humming to himself, then very carefully he removed the contents of the bag, the most important of which was a large glass globe. Over this he carefully arranged a black wig and searched the room for articles of clothing which might be rolled into a bundle. When he had finished his work, he stepped back and regarded it with admiration. Then he went downstairs, unlocked the kitchen door, and to make absolutely certain crossed the little yard and examined the fastening of the gate which led from the lane. The lock apparently was permanently out of order and he went back satisfied.
In one corner of the room was a clothes hanger, screened from view by a length of cheap cretonne. He had cleared this corner of its clothing to make up the bundle on the bed. Then he sat down in a chair and waited with the patience which is the peculiar attribute of the scientist.
The church bells had struck two when he heard the back gate creak, and rising noiselessly took something from his pocket and stepped behind the cretonne curtain. It was not a house in which one could move without sound, for the floor-boards were old and creaky and every stair produced a creak. But the man who was creeping from step to step was an artist and Leon heard no other sound until the door slowly opened and a figure came in. It moved with stealthy steps across the room and stood for a few seconds by the side of the bulky figure in the bed.
Apparently he listened and was satisfied. Then Leon saw a stick rise and fall. Bash Jones did not say a word until he heard the crash of the broken glass. Then he uttered an oath and Leon heard him fumble in his pocket for his matches. The delay was fatal. The chlorine gas, compressed at a pressure of many atmospheres, surged up around him. He choked, turned to run and fell, and the yellow gas rolled over him in a thick and turgid cloud. Leon Gonsalez stepped from his place of concealment and the dying man staring up saw two enormous glass eyes and the snout-like nozzle of the respirator and went bewildered to his death.
Leon collected the broken glass and carefully wrapped the pieces in his bag. He replaced the clothes with the most extraordinary care and put away the wig and tidied the room before he opened the window and the door. Then he went to the front of the house and opened those windows too. A south-wester was blowing and by the morning the house would be free from gas. Not until he was in the back yard did he remove the gas mask he wore and place that too in the bag. Jones slept well that night, and in a dainty cubicle somewhere in the west of England a slim girlish figure in pyjamas snuggled into her pillow and sighed happily.
ON a pleasant evening in early summer, Leon Gonsalez descended from the top of a motor-omnibus at Piccadilly Circus and walking briskly down the Haymarket, turned into Jermyn Street apparently oblivious of the fact that somebody was following on his heels.
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Manfred looked up from his writing as his friend came in, and nodded smilingly as Leon took off his light overcoat and made his way to the window overlooking the street. Prothero is interesting," he said. In the first place, he is a bald-headed criminal, or potential criminal, and as you know, my dear George, criminals are rarely bald. They are coarse-haired, and they are thin-haired: The dome of Mr.
Prothero's head is wholly innocent of hair of any kind. He is the second mate of a tramp steamer engaged in the fruit trade between the Canary Islands and Southampton. He has a very pretty girl for a wife and, curiously enough, a ladder larcenist for a brother-in-law, and I have excited his suspicion quite unwittingly. Incidentally," he added as though it were a careless afterthought, "he knows that I am one of the Four Just Men. Leon had taken off his coat and had slipped his arms into a faded alpaca jacket; he did not reply until he had rolled and lit an untidy Spanish cigarette.
From there you made a miraculous escape, and on reaching the coast you and I and Poiccart were taken aboard the yacht of our excellent friend the Prince of the Asturias, who honoured us by acting as the fourth of our combination. Jean Prothero," said Leon. I never forget faces, George, but unfortunately I am not singular in this respect, Mr. Prothero remembered me, and seeing me in Barside Buildings—". Manfred put down his pen and turned, prepared for a lecture on criminal statistics, for he had noticed the enthusiasm in Gonsalez's voice. The truth is, my dear George, both these men have been engaged in crime since their early youth.
Both have served terms of imprisonment, and what is more important, their fathers were colour-blind and criminals! Prothero, her own father having been a blameless carpenter, and lives in the flat overhead. These flats are just tiny dwelling places consisting of two rooms and a kitchen. The builders of Lambeth tenements do not allow for the luxury of a bathroom. In this way I came to meet Mrs. Prothero whilst overcoming the reluctance of her brother to talk about himself. He passed on the stairs and I saw him give me a swift glance.
His face was in the shadow and I did not recognise him until our second meeting, which was today. He followed me home. As a matter of fact," he added, "I have an idea that he followed me yesterday, and only came today to confirm my place of residence. Unless, of course—" he paused. The next morning he strolled into Manfred's bedroom carrying the cup of tea which the servant usually brought, and George stared up at him in amazement. Leon Gonsalez was dressed in what he called his "pyjama outfit"—a grey flannel coat and trousers, belted at the waist, a silk shirt open at the neck and a pair of light slippers constituted his attire, and Manfred, who associated this costume with all-night studies, was not astonished when Leon shook his head.
Prothero for the rest of the day. Rather, I wish you to discuss purely scientific and agricultural matters, as becomes an honest Andalusian farmer, and moreover to speak in Spanish. Spanish and agriculture it shall be, and no reference whatever to Prothero. Nothing particularly interesting happened that day. Once Manfred was on the point of referring to Leon's experience, and divining the drift of his thought, Leon raised a warning finger. Gonsalez could talk about crime, and did.
He talked of its more scientific aspects and laid particular stress upon his discovery of the colour-blind criminal. Prothero he said no word. He pulled a chair to the wall and mounted it nimbly. Above his head was a tiny ventilator fastened to the wall with screws. Humming a little tune he turned a screwdriver deftly and lifted the little grille from its socket, Manfred watching him gravely. Admitting that he speaks Spanish, and that I have said nothing which has not illuminated that branch of science which is my particular hobby," he added modestly, "he must have been terribly bored.
With deft fingers he detached one of the wires by which the box was suspended in the ventilator shaft. Prothero came last night," he explained. This I learnt from the head waiter—he adores me because I give him exactly three times the tip which he gets from other residents in these service flats, and because I tip him three times as often. I didn't exactly know what Prothero's game was, until I heard the tap-tap of the microphone coming down the shaft. I do not think there is much chance of our meeting Mr. On the other hand, we shall see Mrs. Prothero shopping at eleven o'clock in the London Road, for she is a methodical lady.
He was not usually allowed to see the workings of any of Leon's schemes until the dramatic denouement, which was meat and drink to him, was near at hand. It was four minutes to eleven exactly when Manfred saw Mrs. He felt the pressure of Leon's hand on his arm and looked. A girl was crossing the road. She was neatly, even well-dressed for one of her class. She carried a market bag in one gloved hand, a purse in the other. The girl had paused to look in a jeweller's window and Manfred had time to observe her. Her face was sweet and womanly, the eyes big and dark, the little chin firm and rounded.
The girl looked round at first in surprise, and then with a smile. Manfred had an impression of flashing white teeth and scarlet lips parted in amusement. Her voice was not the voice of a lady, but it was quiet and musical.
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Selbert," he introduced Manfred. Prothero being away at the Docks for three days," she replied. Evidently, thought Manfred, she was not particularly proud of her relationship. Possibly she suspected his illicit profession, but at any rate she had no desire to discuss him, for she changed the subject quickly.
They talked for a little while, and then with an apology she left them and they saw her vanish through the wide door of a grocer's store. When they returned to their flat in the afternoon the mail had been and there were half a dozen letters. One bearing a heavy crest upon the envelope attracted Manfred's attention. Fare of Scotland Yard is dining with us tonight at Connaught Gardens, and I wonder whether you would come along?
Fare tells me that you are one of the cleverest criminologists of the century, and as it is a study which I have made particularly my own, I shall be glad to make your acquaintance. Promptly at the hour of eight they presented themselves at the big house standing at the corner of Connaught Gardens and were admitted by a footman who took their hats and coats and showed them into a large and gloomy drawing-room.
A man was standing with his back to the fire—a tall man of fifty with a mane of grey hair, that gave him an almost leonine appearance. I only discovered it half an hour ago. I hope you don't mind. The woman who came in was thin and vinegary, a pair of pale eyes, a light-lipped mouth and a trick of frowning deprived her of whatever charm Nature had given to her. Leon Gonsalez, who analysed faces automatically and mechanically, thought, "Spite—suspicion—uncharity—vanity. It was an awkward meal. Lord Pertham was nervous and his nervousness might have communicated itself to the two men if they had been anything but what they were.
This big man seemed to be in terror of his wife—was deferential, even humble in her presence, and when at last she swept her sour face from the room he made no attempt to hide his sigh of relief. Apparently her ladyship was in the habit of having little disagreements with her cook, for in the course of the conversation which followed he casually mentioned certain servants in his household who were no longer in his employ. He spoke mostly of their facial characteristics, and it seemed to Manfred, who was listening as intently as his companion, that his lordship was not a great authority upon the subject.
He spoke haltingly, made several obvious slips, but Leon did not correct him. He mentioned casually that he had an additional interest in criminals because his own life had been threatened. They went up the broad stairs into a little drawing-room on the first floor. His lordship was evidently surprised. Her face was white and her thin lips were trembling. The two men would have followed him, but he stopped half-way up the stairs and waved them back. Standing at the foot of the stairs they heard him moving about. Presently they heard a cry and the sound of a struggle. Manfred was half-way up the stairs when a door slammed above.
Then came the sound of voices and a shot, followed by a heavy fall. The smoking revolver was still in his hand. In the middle of the floor lay a poorly dressed man and his blood stained the pearl-grey carpet. Gonsalez walked quickly to the body and turned it over. At the first sight he knew that the man was dead.
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He looked long and earnestly in his face, and Lord Pertham said:. They walked home to their lodgings that night leaving Lord Pertham closeted with a detective-inspector, and Lady Pertham in hysterics. Neither man spoke until they reached their flat, then Leon, with a sigh of content, curled up in the big armchair and pulled lovingly at an evil-smelling cigar.
It was not odd that he should commit the burglary, because he was a ladder larcenist, as you call him. By the way, did you look at the dead man's hand? What are the things you were thinking of? He must have had it in his pocket at dinner. And by that smile Manfred knew that he was prevaricating. He went into his room and returned with two little instruments that looked like the gongs of electric bells, except that there was a prong sticking up from each. He locked the sitting-room door and placed one of these articles on the floor, sticking the spike into the bottom of the door so that it was impossible to open without exercising pressure upon the bell.
He tried it and there was a shrill peal. Not satisfied with the fastening of the window he pushed in a little wedge, and performed the same office to the second of the windows looking upon the street. Another door, leading to Manfred's room from the passage without, he treated as he had served the first. In the middle of the night there was a frantic ring from one of the bells. Manfred leapt out of bed and switched on the light.
His own door was fast and he raced into the sitting-room, but Gonsalez was there before him examining the little sentinel by the door. The door had been unlocked. He kicked away the alarm with his slippered foot. There was a momentary silence, then the sound of a slippered foot, and a man came in. He was fully dressed and hatless, and Manfred, seeing the bald head, gasped. It was undoubtedly Lord Pertham, though the great mop of hair had vanished, and Manfred could only stare as Leon's left hand slipped into the pocket of the midnight visitor and drew forth a revolver which he placed carefully on the mantelshelf.
Lord Pertham sank into a chair and covered his face with his hands. For a while the silence was unbroken. Their decision should have come as a profoundly welcome event in the general atmosphere of bleakness that we as a country have been ploughing through. This is a bleakness compounded of intolerance, divisiveness, violence, secrecy and muteness wrought by either voluntary prudence or involuntary fear. This is reflected in various views of the following nature. One, that the judges should not have gone public. It is a prompt and no-nonsense rap-on-the-knuckles unleashed by the expert on public etiquette.
Presumably as a corrective against an ungentlemanly break from the decorous conventions and protocols of being neither seen nor heard. At best, this sort of reaction is feeble and priggish without, however, being harmless in moulding public opinion. At worst, the reaction smacks of timidity and opportunism cloaked as stern headmaster-ish unbendingness in the cause of upholding decent schoolboy conduct.
This must be seen in the light of the pains which the justices have taken to explain the rationale for their action. This should be plain both from the letter they sent the CJI and the deposition made by them at the press conference. To insist that they should have addressed the issue at a full meeting of all 24 judges of the Supreme Court is again incomprehensible. It is these four senior judges who had a problem. Why should the validity of their point of view depend on the endorsement of it by all or even a majority of the remaining judges?
This is a particularly pertinent question to ask because it is often the case that intra-organisational divisions do not necessarily reflect genuine and principled differences of opinion. They may, instead, only reflect positions that are inspired by considerations of cautious self-protection. These are very common and well-known features of institutional functioning, from which no institution, including the judiciary, is exempt. It strikes one as being strangely obtuse and disingenuous to fail to see this.