Chapter III: Part 3

Dr. Oberzohn resumed his book—a fascinating book that was all about the human soul and immortality and time. He was in the very heart of an analysis of eternity when Gurther reappeared dressed in the “gentleman-club manner.” His dress-coat fitted perfectly; shirt and waistcoat were exactly the right cut. The snowy shirt, the braided trousers, the butterfly bow, and winged collar. . . .

“That is good.” Dr. Oberzohn went slowly over the figure. “But the studs should be pearl—not enamel. And the watch-chain is demode—it is not worn. The gentleman-club manner does not allow of visible ornament. Also I think a moustache . . . ?”

“Ja, Herr Doktor!”

Gurther, who was once an actor, disappeared again. When he returned the enamel studs had gone: there were small pearls in their place, and his white waistcoat had no chain across. And on his upper lip had sprouted a small brown moustache, so natural that even Oberzohn, scrutinizing closely, could find no fault with it. The doctor took a case from his pocket, fingered out three crisp notes.

“Your hands, please?”

Gurther took three paces to the old man, halted, clicked his heels and held out his hands for inspection.

“Good! You know Leon Gonsalez? He will be at the Arts Ball. He wears no fancy dress. He was the man who whipped you.”

“He was the man who whipped me,” said Gurther without heat.

There was a silence, Dr. Oberzohn pursing his lips.

“Also, he did that which brands him as an infamous assassin . . . I think . . . yes, I think my dear Gurther . . . there will be a girl also, but the men of my police will be there to arrange such matters. Benton will give you instructions. For you, only Gonsalez.”

Gurther bowed stiffly.

“I have implored the order,” he said, bowed again and withdrew. Later, Dr. Oberzohn heard the drone of the little car as it bumped and slithered across the grass to the road. He resumed his book: this matter of eternity was fascinating.

* * * * *

The Arts Ball at the Corinthian Hall was one of the events of the season, and the tickets, issued exclusively to the members of three clubs, were eagerly sought by society people who could not be remotely associated with any but the art of living.

When the girl came into the crowded hall, she looked around in wonder. The balconies, outlined in soft lights and half-hidden with flowers, had been converted into boxes; the roof had been draped with blue and gold tissue; at one end of the big hall was a veritable bower of roses, behind which one of the two bands was playing. Masks in every conceivable guise were swinging rhythmically across the polished floor. To the blasé, there was little difference between the Indians, the pierrots and the cavaliers to be seen here and those they had seen a hundred times on a hundred different floors.

As the girl gazed round in wonder and delight, forgetting all her misgivings, two men, one in evening dress, the other in the costume of a brigand, came from under the shadow of the balcony towards them.

“Here are our partners,” said Joan, with sudden vivacity. “Mirabelle, I want you to know Lord Evington.”

The man in evening dress stroked his little moustache, clicked his heels and bent forward in a stiff bow. He was thin-faced, a little pallid, unsmiling. His round, dark eyes surveyed her for a second, and then:

“I’m glad to meet you, Miss Leicester,” he said, in a high, harsh voice, that had just the trace of a foreign accent.

This struck the girl with as much surprise as the cold kiss he had implanted upon her hand, and, as if he read her thoughts, he went on quickly:

“I have lived so long abroad that England and English manners are strange to me. Won’t you dance? And had you not better mask? I must apologize to you for my costume.” He shrugged his shoulders. “But there was no gala dress available.”

She fixed the red mask, and in another second she was gliding through the crowd and was presently lost to view.

“I don’t understand it all, Benton.”

Joan was worried and frightened. She had begun to realize that the game she played was something different . . . her part more sinister than any rôle she had yet filled. To jolly along the gilded youth to the green tables of Captain Monty Newton was one thing; but never before had she seen the gang working against a woman.

“I don’t know,” grumbled the brigand, who was not inaptly arrayed. “There’s been a hurry call for everybody.” He glanced round uneasily as though he feared his words might be overheard. “All the guns are here—Defson, Cuccini, Jewy Stubbs . . .”

“The guns?” she whispered in horror, paling under her rouge. “You mean . . . ?”

“The guns are out: that’s all I know,” he said doggedly. “They started drifting in half an hour before you came.”

Joan was silent, her heart racing furiously. Then Monty had told her the truth. She knew that somewhere behind Oberzohn, behind Monty Newton, was a force perfectly dovetailed into the machine, only one cog of which she had seen working. These card parties of Monty’s were profitable enough, but for a long time she had had a suspicion that they were the merest side-line. The organization maintained a regular corps of gunmen, recruited from every quarter of the globe. Monty Newton talked sometimes in his less sober moments of what he facetiously described as the “Old Guard.” How they were employed, on what excuse, for what purpose, she had never troubled to think. They came and went from England in batches. Once Monty had told her that Oberzohn’s people had gone to Smyrna, and he talked vaguely of unfair competition that had come to the traders of the O. & S. outfit. Afterwards she read in the paper of a “religious riot” which resulted in the destruction by fire of a great block of business premises. After that Monty spoke no more of competition. The Old Guard returned to England, minus one of its number, who had been shot in the stomach in the course of this “religious riot.” What particular faith he possessed in such a degree as to induce him to take up arms for the cause, she never learned. She knew he was dead, because Monty had written to the widow, who lived in the Bronx.

Joan knew a lot about Monty’s business, for an excellent reason. She was with him most of the time; and whether she posed as his niece or daughter, his sister, or some closer relationship, she was undoubtedly the nearest to a confidante he possessed.

“Who is that man with the moustache—is he one?” she asked.

“No; he’s Oberzohn’s man—for God’s sake don’t tell Monty I told you all this! I got orders to-night to put him wise about the girl.”

“What about her . . . what are they doing with her?” she gasped in terror.

“Let us dance,” said Benton, and half guided, half carried her into the throng.

They had reached the centre of the floor when, with no warning, every light in the hall went out.

_Chapter IX_ _Before the Lights Went Out_

THE band had stopped, a rustle of hand-clapping came from the hot dancers, and almost before the applause had started the second band struck up “Kulloo.”

Mirabelle was not especially happy. Her partner was the most correct of dancers, but they lacked just that unity of purpose, that oneness of interest which makes all the difference between the ill- and the well-matched.

“May we sit down?” she begged. “I am rather hot.”

“Will the gracious lady come to the little hall?” he asked. “It is cooler there, and the chairs are comfortable.”

She looked at him oddly.

“‘Gracious lady’ is a German expression—why do you use it, Lord Evington? I think it is very pretty,” she hastened to assure him.

“I lived for many years in Germany,” said Mr. Gurther. “I do not like the German people—they are so stupid.”

If he had said “German police” he would have been nearer to the truth; and had he added that the dislike was mutual, he might have gained credit for his frankness.

At the end of the room, concealed by the floral decorations of the bandstand, was a door which led to a smaller room, ordinarily separated from the main hall by folding doors which were seldom opened. To-night the annexe was to be used as a conservatory. Palms and banked flowers were everywhere. Arbours had been artificially created, and there were cosy nooks, half-hidden by shrubs, secluded seats and tables, all that ingenuity could design to meet the wishes of sitters-out.

He stood invitingly at the entrance of a little grotto, dimly illuminated by one Chinese lantern.

“I think we will sit in the open,” said Mirabelle, and pulled out a chair.

“Excuse me.”

Instantly he was by her side, the chair arranged, a cushion found, and she sank down with a sigh of relief. It was early yet for the loungers: looking round, she saw that, but for a solitary waiter fastening his apron with one eye upon possible customers, they were alone.

“You will drinke wine . . . no? An orangeade? Good!” He beckoned the waiter and gave his order. “You must excuse me if I am a little strange. I have been in Germany for many years—except during the war, when I was in France.”

Mr. Gurther had certainly been in Germany for many years, but he had never been in France. Nor had he heard a shot fired in the war. It is true that an aerial bomb had exploded perilously near the prison at Mainz in which he was serving ten years for murder, but that represented his sole warlike experience.

“You live in the country, of course?”

“In London: I am working with Mr. Oberzohn.”

“So: he is a good fellow. A gentleman.”

She had not been very greatly impressed by the doctor’s breeding, but it was satisfying to hear a stranger speak with such heartiness of her new employer. Her mind at the moment was on Heavytree Farm: the cool parlour with its chintzes—a room, at this hour, fragrant with the night scents of flowers which came stealing through the open casement. There was a fox-terrier, Jim by name, who would be wandering disconsolately from room to room, sniffing unhappily at the hall door. A lump came up into her throat. She felt very far from home and very lonely. She wanted to get up and run back to where she had left Joan and tell her that she had changed her mind and must go back to Gloucester that night . . . she looked impatiently for the waiter. Mr. Gurther was fiddling with some straws he had taken from the glass container in the centre of the table. One end of the straws showed above the edge of the table, the others were thrust deep in the wide-necked little bottle he had in the other hand. The hollow straws held half an inch of the red powder that filled the bottle.

“Excuse!”

The waiter put the orangeades on the table and went away to get change. Mirabelle’s eyes were wistfully fixed on a little door at the end of the room. It gave to the street, and there were taxicabs which could get her to Paddington in ten minutes.

When she looked round he was stirring the amber contents of her glass with a spoon. Two straws were invitingly protruding from the foaming orangeade. She smiled and lifted the glass as he fitted a cigarette into his long black holder.

“I may smoke—yes?”

The first taste she had through the straws was one of extreme bitterness. She made a wry face and put down the glass.

“How horrid!”

“Did it taste badly . . . ?” he began, but she was pouring out water from a bottle.

“It was most unpleasant——”

“Will you try mine, please?” He offered the glass to her and she drank. “It may have been something in the straw.” Here he was telling her the fact.

“It was . . .”

The room was going round and round, the floor rising up and down like the deck of a ship in a stormy sea. She rose, swayed, and caught him by the arm.

“Open the little door, waiter, please—the lady is faint.”

The waiter turned to the door and threw it open. A man stood there—just outside the door. He wore over his dinner dress a long cloak in the Spanish style. Gurther stood staring, a picture of amused dismay, his cigarette still unlit. He did not move his hands. Gonsalez was waiting there, alert . . . death grinning at him . . . and then the room went inky black. Somebody had turned the main switch.

_Chapter X_ _When the Lights Went Out_

FIVE, ten minutes passed before the hall-keeper tripped and stumbled and cursed his way to the smaller room and, smashing down the hired flowers, he passed through the wreckage of earthen pots and tumbled mould to the control. Another second and the rooms were brilliantly lit again—the band struck up a two-step and fainting ladies were escorted to the decent obscurity of their retiring rooms.

The manager of the hall came flying into the annexe.

“What happened—main fuse gone?”

“No,” said the hall-keeper sourly, “some fool turned over the switch.”

The agitated waiter protested that nobody had been near the switch-box.

“There was a lady and gentleman here, and another gentleman outside.” He pointed to the open door.

“Where are they now?”

“I don’t know. The lady was faint.”

The three had disappeared when the manager went out into a small courtyard that led round the corner of the building to a side street. Then he came back on a tour of inspection.

“Somebody did it from the yard. There’s a window open—you can reach the switch easily.”

The window was fastened and locked.

“There is no lady or gentleman in the yard,” he said. “Are you sure they did not go into the big hall?”

“In the dark—maybe.”

The waiter’s nervousness was understandable. Mr. Gurther had given him a five-pound note and the man had not as yet delivered the change. Never would he return to claim it if all that his keen ears heard was true.

Four men had appeared in the annexe: one shut the door and stood by it. The three others were accompanied by the manager, who called Phillips, the waiter.

“This man served them,” he said, troubled. Even the most innocent do not like police visitations.

“What was the gentleman like?”

Phillips gave a brief and not inaccurate description.

“That is your man, I think, Herr Fluen?”

The third of the party was bearded and plump; he wore a Derby hat with evening dress.

“That is Gurther,” he nodded. “It will be a great pleasure to meet him. For eight months the Embassy has been striving for his extradition. But our people at home . . . !”

He shrugged his shoulders. All properly constituted officials behave in such a manner when they talk of governments.

“The lady now”—Inspector Meadows was patently worried—“she was faint, you say. Had she drunk anything?”

“Orangeade—there is the glass. She said there was something nasty in the straws. These.”

Phillips handed them to the detective. He wetted his finger from them, touched his tongue and spat out quickly.

“Yes,” he said, and went out by the little door.

Gonsalez, of course: but where had he gone, and how, with a drugged girl on his hands and the Child of the Snake? Gurther was immensely quick to strike, and an icy-hearted man: the presence of a woman would not save Leon.

“When the light went out——” began the waiter, and the trouble cleared from Mr. Meadows’ face.

“Of course—I had forgotten that,” he said softly. “The lights went out!”

All the way back to the Yard he was trying to bring something from the back of his mind—something that was there, the smooth tip of it tantalizingly displayed, yet eluding every grasp. It had nothing to do with the lights—nor Gonsalez, nor yet the girl. Gurther? No. Nor Manfred? What was it? A name had been mentioned to him that day—it had a mysterious significance. A golden idol! He picked up the end of the thought . . . Johnny! Manfred’s one mystery. That was the dust which lay on all thought. And now that he remembered, he was disappointed. It was so ridiculously unimportant a matter to baffle him.

He left his companions at the corner of Curzon Street and went alone to the house. There was a streak of light showing between the curtains in the upstairs room. The passage was illuminated—Poiccart answered his ring at once.

“Yes, George and Leon were here a little time back—the girl? No, they said nothing about a girl. They looked rather worried, I thought. Miss Leicester, I suppose? Won’t you come in?”

“No, I can’t wait. There’s a light in Manfred’s room.”

The ghost of a smile lit the heavy face and faded as instantly.

“My room also,” he said. “Butlers take vast liberties in the absence of their masters. Shall I give a message to George?”

“Ask him to call me at the Yard.”

Poiccart closed the door on him; stopped in the passage to arrange a salver on the table and hung up a hat. All this Meadows saw through the fanlight and walking-stick periscope which is so easily fitted and can be of such value. And seeing, his doubts evaporated.

Poiccart went slowly up the stairs into the little office room, pulled back the curtains and opened the window at the top. The next second, the watching detective saw the light go out and went away.

“I’m sorry to keep you in the dark,” said Poiccart.

The men who were in the room waited until the shutters were fast and the curtains pulled across, and then the light flashed on. White of face, her eyes closed, her breast scarcely moving, Mirabelle Leicester lay on the long settee. Her domino was a heap of shimmering green and scarlet on the floor, and Leon was gently sponging her face, George Manfred watching from the back of the settee, his brows wrinkled.

“Will she die?” he asked bluntly.

“I don’t know: they sometimes die of that stuff,” replied Leon cold-bloodedly. “She must have had it pretty raw. Gurther is a crude person.”

“What was it?” asked George.

Gonsalez spread out his disengaged hand in a gesture of uncertainty.

“If you can imagine morphia with a kick in it, it was that. I don’t know. I hope she doesn’t die: she is rather young—it would be the worst of bad luck.”

Poiccart stirred uneasily. He alone had within his soul what Leon would call “a trace” of sentiment.

“Could we get Elver?” he asked anxiously, and Leon looked up with his boyish smile.

“Growing onions in Seville has softened you, Raymondo mio!” He never failed in moments of great strain to taunt the heavy man with his two years of agricultural experiment, and they knew that the gibes were deliberately designed to steady his mind. “Onions are sentimental things—they make you cry: a vegetable _muchos simpatico_! This woman is alive!”

Her eyelids had fluttered twice. Leon lifted the bare arm, inserted the needle of a tiny hypodermic and pressed home the plunger.

“To-morrow she will feel exactly as if she had been drunk,” he said calmly, “and in her mouth will be the taste of ten rank cigars. Oh, senorinetta, open thy beautiful eyes and look upon thy friends!”

The last sentence was in Spanish. She heard: the lids fluttered and rose.

“You’re a long way from Heavytree Farm, Miss Leicester.”

She looked up wonderingly into the kindly face of George Manfred.

“Where am I?” she asked faintly, and closed her eyes again with a grimace of pain.

“They always ask that—just as they do in books,” said Leon oracularly. “If they don’t say ‘Where am I?’ they ask for their mothers. She’s quite out of danger.”

One hand was on her wrist, another at the side of her neck.

“Remarkably regular. She has a good head—mathematical probably.”

“She is very beautiful,” said Poiccart in a hushed voice.

“All people are beautiful—just as all onions are beautiful. What is the difference between a lovely maid and the ugliest of duennas—what but a matter of pigmentation and activity of tissue? Beneath that, an astounding similarity of the circulatory, sustentacular, motorvascular——”

“How long have we got?” Manfred interrupted him, and Leon shook his head.

“I don’t know—not long, I should think. Of course, we could have told Meadows and he’d have turned out police reserves, but I should like to keep them out of it.”

“The Old Guard was there?”

“Every man jack of them—those tough lads! They will be here just as soon as the Herr Doktor discovers what is going forward. Now, I think you can travel. I want her out of the way.”

Stooping, he put his hands under her and lifted her. The strength in his frail body was a never-ending source of wonder to his two friends.

They followed him down the stairs and along the short passage, down another flight to the kitchen. Manfred opened a door and went out into the paved yard. There was a heavier door in the boundary wall. He opened this slowly and peeped out. Here was the inevitable mews. The sound of an engine running came from a garage near by. Evidently somebody was on the look out for them. A long-bodied car drew up noiselessly and a woman got out. Beside the driver at the wheel sat two men.

“I think you’ll just miss the real excitement,” said Gonsalez, and then to the nurse he gave a few words of instruction and closed the door on her.

“Take the direct road,” he said to the driver. “Swindon—Gloucester. Good night.”

“Good night, sir.”

He watched anxiously as the machine swung into the main road. Still he waited, his head bent. Two minutes went by, and the faint sound of a motor-horn, a long blast and a short, and he sighed.

“They’re clear of the danger zone,” he said.

_Plop!_

He saw the flash, heard the smack of the bullet as it struck the door, and his hand stiffened. There was a thudding sound—a scream of pain from a dark corner of the mews and the sound of voices. Leon drew back into the yard and bolted the door.

“He had a new kind of silencer. Oberzohn is rather a clever old bird. But my air pistol against their gun for noiselessness.”

“I didn’t expect the attack from that end of the mews.” Manfred was slipping a Browning back to his pocket.

“If they had come from the other end the car would not have passed—I’d like to get one of those silencers.”

They went into the house. Poiccart had already extinguished the passage light.

“You hit your man—does that thing kill?”

“By accident—it is possible. I aimed at his stomach: I fear that I hit him in the head. He would not have squealed for a stomach wound. I fear he is alive.”

He felt his way up the stairs and took up the telephone. Immediately a voice said, “Number?”

“Give me 8877 Treasury.”

He waited, and then a different voice asked:

“Yes—Scotland Yard speaking.”

“Can you give me Mr. Meadows?”

Manfred was watching him frowningly.

“That you, Meadows? . . . They have shot Leon Gonsalez—can you send police reserves and an ambulance?”

“At once.”

Leon hung up the receiver, hugging himself.

“The idea being——?” said Poiccart.

“These people are clever.” Leon’s voice was charged with admiration. “They haven’t cut the wires—they’ve simply tapped it at one end and thrown it out of order on the exchange side.”

“Phew!” Manfred whistled. “You deceived me—you were talking to Oberzohn?”

“Captain Monty and Lew Cuccini. They may or may not be deceived, but if they aren’t, we shall know all about it.”

He stopped dead. There was a knock on the front door, a single, heavy knock. Leon grinned delightedly.

“One of us is now supposed to open an upper window cautiously and look out, whereupon he is instantly gunned. I’m going to give these fellows a scare.”

He ran up the stairs to the top floor, and on the landing, outside an attic door, pulled at a rope. A fire ladder lying flat against the ceiling came down, and at the same time a small skylight opened. Leon went into the room, and his pocket-lamp located what he needed: a small papier-mâché cylinder, not unlike a seven-pound shell. With this on his arm, he climbed up the ladder on to the roof, fixed the cylinder on a flat surface, and, striking a match, lit a touch-paper. The paper sizzled and spluttered, there was a sudden flash and “boom!” a dull explosion, and a white ball shot up into the sky, described a graceful curve and burst into a shower of brilliant crimson stars. He waited till the last died out; then, with the hot cylinder under his arm, descended the ladder, released the rope that held it in place, and returned to his two friends.

“They will imagine a secret arrangement of signals with the police,” he said; “unless my knowledge of their psychology is at fault, we shall not be bothered again.”

Ten minutes later there was another knock at the door, peremptory, almost official in its character.

“This,” said Leon, “is a policeman to summon us for discharging fireworks in the public street!”

He ran lightly down into the hall and without hesitation pulled open the door. A tall, helmeted figure stood on the doorstep, notebook in hand.

“Are you the gentleman that let off that rocket——” he began.

Leon walked past him, and looked up and down Curzon Street. As he had expected, the Old Guard had vanished.

_Chapter XI_ _Gurther_

MONTY NEWTON dragged himself home, a weary, angry man, and let himself in with his key. He found the footman lying on the floor of the hall asleep, his greatcoat pulled over him, and stirred him to wakefulness with the toe of his boot.

“Get up,” he growled. “Anybody been here?”

Fred rose, a little dazed, rubbing his eyes.

“The old man’s in the drawing-room,” he said, and his employer passed on without another word.

As he opened the door, he saw that all the lights in the drawing-room were lit. Dr. Oberzohn had pulled a small table near the fire, and before this he sat bolt upright, a tiny chess-board before him, immersed in a problem. He looked across to the new-comer for a second and then resumed his study of the board, made a move . . .

“Ach!” he said in tones of satisfaction. “Leskina was wrong! It is possible to mate in five moves!”

He pushed the chess-men into confusion and turned squarely to face Newton.

“Well, have you concluded these matters satisfactorily?”

“He brought up the reserves,” said Monty, unlocking a tantalus on a side table and helping himself liberally to whisky. “They got Cuccini through the jaw. Nothing serious.”

Dr. Oberzohn laid his bony hands on his knees.

“Gurther must be disciplined,” he said. “Obviously he has lost his nerve; and when a man loses his nerve also he loses his sense of time. And his timing—how deplorable! The car had not arrived; my excellent police had not taken position . . . deplorable!”

“The police are after him: I suppose you know that?” Newton looked over his glass.

Dr. Oberzohn nodded.

“The extradition so cleverly avoided is now accomplished. But Gurther is too good a man to be lost. I have arranged a hiding-place for him. He is of many uses.”

“Where did he go?”

Dr. Oberzohn’s eyebrows wrinkled up and down.

“Who knows?” he said. “He has the little machine. Maybe he has gone to the house—the green light in the top window will warn him and he will move carefully.”

Newton walked to the window and looked out. Chester Square looked ghostly in the grey light of dawn. And then, out of the shadows, he saw a figure move and walk slowly towards the south side of the square.

“They’re watching this house,” he said, and laughed.

“Where is my young lady?” asked Oberzohn, who was staring glumly into the fire.

“I don’t know . . . there was a car pulled out of the mews as one of our men ‘closed’ the entrance. She has probably gone back to Heavytree Farm, and you can sell that laboratory of yours. There is only one way now, and that’s the rough way. We have time—we can do a lot in six weeks. Villa is coming this morning—I wish we’d taken that idol from the trunk. That may put the police on to the right track.”

Dr. Oberzohn pursed his lips as though he were going to whistle, but he was guilty of no such frivolity.

“I am glad they found him,” he said precisely. “To them it will be a scent. What shall they think, but that the unfortunate Barberton had come upon an old native treasure-house? No, I do not fear that.” He shook his head. “Mostly I fear Mr. Johnson Lee and the American, Elijah Washington.”

He put his hand into his jacket pocket and took out a thin pad of letters.

“Johnson Lee is for me difficult to understand. For what should a gentleman have to do with this boor that he writes so friendly letters to him?”

“How did you get these?”

“Villa took them: it was one of the intelligent actions also to leave the statue.”

He passed one of the letters across to Newton. It was addressed “Await arrival, Poste Restante, Mosamedes.” The letter was written in a curiously round, boyish hand. Another remarkable fact was that it was perforated across the page at regular intervals, and upon the lines formed by this perforation Mr. Johnson Lee wrote.

“Dear B.,” the letter ran, “I have instructed my banker to cable
you £500. I hope this will carry you through and leave enough to
pay your fare home. You may be sure that I shall not breathe a
word, and your letters, of course, nobody in the house can read
but me. Your story is amazing, and I advise you to come home at
once and see Miss Leicester.

“Your friend,
“JOHNSON LEE.”

The note-paper was headed “Rath Hall, January 13th.”

“They came to me to-day. If I had seen them before, there would have been no need for the regrettable happening.”

He looked thoughtfully at his friend.

“They will be difficult: I had that expectation,” he said, and Monty knew that he referred to the Three Just Men. “Yet they are mortal also—remember that, my Newton: they are mortal also.”

“As we are,” said Newton gloomily.

“That is a question,” said Oberzohn, “so far as I am concerned.”

Dr. Oberzohn never jested; he spoke with the greatest calm and assurance. The other man could only stare at him.

Although it was light, a green lamp showed clearly in the turret room of the doctor’s house as he came within sight of the ugly place. And, seeing that warning, he did not expect to be met in the passage by Gurther. The man had changed from his resplendent kit and was again in the soiled and shabby garments he had discarded the night before.

“You have come, Gurther?”

“Ja, Herr Doktor.”

“To my parlour!” barked Dr. Oberzohn, and marched ahead.

Gurther followed him and stood with his back to the door, erect, his chin raised, his bright, curious eyes fixed on a point a few inches above his master’s head.

“Tell me now.” The doctor’s ungainly face was working ludicrously.

“I saw the man and struck, Herr Doktor, and then the lights went out and I went to the floor, expecting him to shoot. . . . I think he must have taken the gracious lady. I did not see, for there was a palm between us. I returned at once to the greater hall, and walked through the people on the floor. They were very frightened.”

“You saw them?”

“Yes, Herr Doktor,” said Gurther. “It is not difficult for me to see in the dark. After that I ran to the other entrance, but they were gone.”

“Come here.”

The man took two stilted paces towards the doctor and Oberzohn struck him twice in the face with the flat of his hand. Not a muscle of the man’s face moved: he stood erect, his lips framed in a half-grin, his curious eyes staring straight ahead.

“That is for bad time, Gurther. Nobody saw you return?”

“No, Herr Doktor, I came on foot.”

“You saw the light?”

“Yes, Herr Doktor, and I thought it best to be here.”

“You were right,” said Oberzohn. “March!”

He went into the forbidden room, turned the key, and passed into the super-heated atmosphere. Gurther stood attentively at the door. Presently the doctor came out, carrying a long case covered with baize under his arm. He handed it to the waiting man, went into the room, and, after a few minutes’ absence, returned with a second case, a little larger.

“March!” he said.

Gurther followed him out of the house and across the rank, weed-grown “garden” towards the factory. A white mist had rolled up from the canal, and factory and grounds lay under the veil.

He led the way through an oblong gap in the wall where once a door had stood, and followed a tortuous course through the blackened beams and twisted girders that littered the floor. Only a half-hearted attempt had been made to clear up the wreckage after the fire, and the floor was ankle-deep in the charred shreds of burnt cloth. Near the far end of the building, Oberzohn stopped, put down his box and pushed aside the ashes with his foot until he had cleared a space about three feet square. Stooping, he grasped an iron ring and pulled, and a flagstone came up with scarcely an effort, for it was well counter-weighted. He took up the box again and descended the stone stairs, stopping only to turn on a light.

The vaults of the store had been practically untouched by the fire. There were shelves that still carried dusty bales of cotton goods. Oberzohn was in a hurry. He crossed the stone floor in two strides, pulled down the bar of another door, and, walking into the darkness, deposited his box on the floor.

The electric power of the factory had, in the old days, been carried on two distinct circuits, and the connection with the vaults was practically untouched by the explosion.

They were in a smaller room now, fairly comfortably furnished. Gurther knew it well, for it was here that he had spent the greater part of his first six months in England. Ventilation came through three small gratings near the roof. There was a furnace, and, as Gurther knew, an ample supply of fuel in one of the three cellars that opened into the vault.

“Here will you stay until I send for you,” said Oberzohn. “To-night, perhaps, after they have searched. You have a pistol?”

“Ja, Herr Doktor.”

“Food, water, bedding—all you need.” Oberzohn jerked open another of the cellars and took stock of the larder. “To-night I may come for you—to-morrow night—who knows? You will light the fire at once.” He pointed to the two baize-covered boxes. “Good morning, Gurther.”

“Good morning, Herr Doktor.”

Oberzohn went up to the factory level, dropped the trap and his foot pushed back the ashes which hid its presence, and with a cautious look round he crossed the field to his house. He was hardly in his study before the first police car came bumping along the lane.

_Chapter XII_ _Leon Theorizes_

MAKING inquiries, Detective-Inspector Meadows discovered that, on the previous evening at eight o’clock, two men had called upon Barberton. The first of these was described as tall and rather aristocratic in appearance. He wore dark, horn-rimmed spectacles. The hotel manager thought he might have been an invalid, for he walked with a stick. The second man seemed to have been a servant of some kind, for he spoke respectfully to the visitor.

“No, he gave no name, Mr. Meadows,” said the manager. “I told him of the terrible thing which had happened to Mr. Barberton, and he was so upset that I didn’t like to press the question.”

Meadows was on his circuitous way to Curzon Street when he heard this, and he arrived in time for breakfast. Manfred’s servants regarded it as the one eccentricity of an otherwise normal gentleman that he invariably breakfasted with his butler and chauffeur. This matter had been discussed threadbare in the tiny servants’ hall, and it no longer excited comment when Manfred telephoned down to the lower regions and asked for another plate.

The Triangle were in cheerful mood. Leon Gonsalez was especially bright and amusing, as he invariably was after such a night as he had spent.

“We searched Oberzohn’s house from cellar to attic,” said Meadows when the plate had been laid.

“And of course you found nothing. The elegant Gurther?”

“He wasn’t there. That fellow will keep at a distance if he knows that there’s a warrant out for him. I suspect some sort of signal. There was a very bright green light burning in one of those ridiculous Gothic turrets.”

Manfred stifled a yawn.

“Gurther went back soon after midnight,” he said, “and was there until Oberzohn’s return.”

“Are you sure?” asked the astonished detective.

Leon nodded, his eyes twinkling.

“After that, one of those infernal river mists blotted out observation,” he said, “but I should imagine Herr Gurther is not far away. Did you see his companion, Pfeiffer?”

Meadows nodded.

“Yes, he was cleaning boots when I arrived.”

“How picturesque!” said Gonsalez. “I think he will have a valet the next time he goes to prison, unless the system has altered since your days, George?”

George Manfred, who had once occupied the condemned cell in Chelmsford Prison, smiled.

“An interesting man, Gurther,” mused Gonsalez. “I have a feeling that he will escape hanging. So you could not find him? I found him last night. But for the lady, who was both an impediment and an interest, we might have put a period to his activities.” He caught Meadows’ eye. “I should have handed him to you, of course.”

“Of course,” said the detective dryly.

“A remarkable man, but nervous. You are going to see Mr. Johnson Lee?”

“What made you say that?” asked the detective in astonishment, for he had not as yet confided his intention to the three men.

“He will surprise you,” said Leon. “Tell me, Mr. Meadows: when you and George so thoroughly and carefully searched Barberton’s box, did you find anything that was suggestive of his being a cobbler, let us say—or a bookbinder?”

“I think in his sister’s letter there was a reference to the books he had made. I found nothing particular except an awl and a long oblong of wood which was covered with pinpricks. As a matter of fact, when I saw it my first thought was that, living the kind of life he must have done in the wilderness, it was rather handy to be able to repair his own shoes. The idea of bookbinding is a new one.”

“I should say he never bound a book in his life, in the ordinary sense of the word,” remarked Manfred; “and as Leon says, you will find Johnson Lee a very surprising man.”

“Do you know him?”

Manfred nodded gravely.

“I have just been on the telephone to him,” he said. “You’ll have to be careful of Mr. Lee, Meadows. Our friend the snake may be biting his way, and will, if he hears a breath of suspicion that he was in Barberton’s confidence.”

The detective put down his knife and fork.

“I wish you fellows would stop being mysterious,” he said, half annoyed, half amused. “What is behind this business? You talk of the snake as though you could lay your hands on him.”

“And we could,” they said in unison.

“Who is he?” challenged the detective.

“The Herr Doktor,” smiled Gonsalez.

“Oberzohn?”

Leon nodded.

“I thought you would have discovered that by connecting the original three murders together—and murders they were. First”—he ticked the names off on his fingers—“we have a stockbroker. This gentleman was a wealthy speculator who occasionally financed highly questionable deals. Six months before his death he drew from the bank a very large sum of money in notes. By an odd coincidence the bank clerk, going out to luncheon, saw his client and Oberzohn driving past in a taxicab, and as they came abreast he saw a large blue envelope go into Oberzohn’s pocket. The money had been put into a blue envelope when it was drawn. The broker had financed the doctor, and when the scheme failed and the money was lost, he not unnaturally asked for its return. He trusted Oberzohn not at all; carried his receipt about in his pocket, and never went anywhere unless he was armed—that fact did not emerge at the inquest, but you know it is true.”

Meadows nodded.

“He threatened Oberzohn with exposure at a meeting they had in Winchester Street, on the day of his death. That night he returns from a theatre or from his club, and is found dead on the doorstep. No receipt is found. What follows?

“A man, a notorious blackmailer, homeless and penniless, was walking along the Bayswater Road, probably looking for easy money, when he saw the broker’s car going into Orme Place. He followed on the off-chance of begging a few coppers. The chauffeur saw him. The tramp, on the other hand, must have seen something else. He slept the next night at Rowton House, told a friend, who had been in prison with him, that he had a million pounds as good as in his hand. . . .”

Meadows laughed helplessly.

“Your system of investigation is evidently more thorough than ours.”

“It is complementary to yours,” said George quietly. “Go on, Leon.”

“Now what happened to our friend the burglar? He evidently saw somebody in Orme Place whom he either recognized or trailed to his home. For the next day or two he was in and out of public telephone booths, though no number has been traced. He goes to Hyde Park, obviously by appointment—and the snake-bites!

“There was another danger to the confederacy. The bank clerk, learning of the death of the client, is troubled. I have proof that he called Oberzohn on the ’phone. If you remember, when the broker’s affairs were gone into, it was found that he was almost insolvent. A large sum of money had been drawn out of the bank and paid to ‘X.’ The certainty that he knew who ‘X.’ was, worried this decent bank clerk, and he called Oberzohn, probably to ask him why he had not made a statement. On the day he telephoned the snake man, that day he died.”

The detective was listening in silent wonder.

“It sounds like a page out of a sensational novel,” he said, “yet it hangs together.”

“It hangs together because it is true.” Poiccart’s deep voice broke into the conversation. “This has been Oberzohn’s method all his life. He is strong for logic, and there is no more logical action in the world than the destruction of those who threaten your safety and life.”

Meadows pushed away his plate, his breakfast half eaten.

“Proof,” he said briefly.

“What proof can you have, my dear fellow?” scoffed Leon.

“The proof is the snake,” persisted Meadows. “Show me how he could educate a deadly snake to strike, as he did, when the victim was under close observation, as in the case of Barberton, and I will believe you.”

The Three looked at one another and smiled together.

“One of these days I will show you,” said Leon. “They have certainly tamed their snake! He can move so quickly that the human eye cannot follow him. Always he bites on the most vital part, and at the most favourable time. He struck at me last night, but missed me. The next time he strikes”—he was speaking slowly and looking at the detective through the veriest slits of his half-closed eyelids—“the next time he strikes, not all Scotland Yard on the one side, nor his agreeable company of gunmen on the other, will save him!”

Poiccart rose suddenly. His keen ears had heard the ring of a bell, and he went noiselessly down the stairs.

“The whole thing sounds like a romance to me.” Meadows was rubbing his chin irritably. “I am staring at the covers of a book whilst you are reading the pages. I suppose you devils have the A and Z of the story?”

Leon nodded.

“Why don’t you tell me?”

“Because I value your life,” said Leon simply. “Because I wish—we all wish—to keep the snake’s attention upon ourselves.”

Poiccart came back at that moment and put his head in the door.

“Would you like to see Mr. Elijah Washington?” he asked, and they saw by the gleam in his eyes that Mr. Elijah Washington was well worth meeting.

He arrived a second or two later, a tall, broad-shouldered man with a reddish face. He wore pince-nez, and behind the rimless glasses his eyes were alive and full of bubbling laughter. From head to foot he was dressed in white; the cravat which flowed over the soft silk shirt was a bright yellow; the belt about his waist as bright as scarlet.

He stood beaming upon the company, his white panama crushed under his arm, both huge hands thrust into his trousers pockets.

“Glad to know you folks,” he greeted them in a deep boom of a voice. “I guess Mr. Barberton told you all about me. That poor little guy! Listen: he was a he-man all right, but kinder mysterious. They told me I’d find the police chief here—Captain Meadows?”

“Mister,” said the inspector, “I’m that man.”

Washington put out his huge paw and caught the detective’s hand with a grip that would have been notable in a boa constrictor.

“Glad to know you. My name is Elijah Washington—the Natural History Syndicate, Chicago.”

“Sit down, Mr. Washington.” Poiccart pushed forward a chair.

“I want to tell you gentlemen that this Barberton was murdered. Snake? Listen, I know snakes—brought up with ’um! Snakes are my hobby: I know ’um from egg-eaters to ‘tigers’—_notechis sentatus_, moccasins, copperheads, corals, mamba, _fer de lance_—gosh! snakes are just common objects like flies. An’ I tell you boys right here and now, that there ain’t a snake in this or the next world that can climb up a parapet, bite a man and get away with it with a copper looking on.”

He beamed from one to the other: he was almost paternal.

“I’d like to have shown you folks a worse-than-mamba,” he said regretfully, “but carrying round snakes in your pocket is just hot dog: it’s like a millionaire wearin’ diamond ear-rings just to show he can afford ’em. I liked that little fellow; I’m mighty sorry he’s dead, but if any man tells you that a snake bit him, go right up to him, hit him on the nose, and say ‘Liar!’”

“You will have some coffee?” Manfred had rung the bell.

“Sure I will: never have got used to this tea-drinking habit. I’m on the wagon too: got scared up there in the backlands of Angola——”

“What were you doing there?” asked Leon.

“Snakes,” said the other briefly. “I represent an organization that supplies specimens to zoos and museums. I was looking for a flying snake—there ain’t such a thing, though the natives say there is. I got a new kinder cobra—_viperidæ crotalinæ_—and yet not!”

He scratched his head, bringing his scientific perplexity into the room. Leon’s heart went out to him.

He had met Barberton by accident. Without shame he confessed that he had gone to a village in the interior for a real solitary jag, and returning to such degree of civilization as Mossamedes represented, he found a group of Portuguese breeds squatting about a fire at which the man’s feet were toasting.

“I don’t know what he was—a prospector, I guess. He was one of those what-is-its you meet along that coast. I’ve met his kind most everywhere—as far south as Port Nottosh. In Angola there are scores: they go native at the end.”

“You can tell us nothing about Barberton?”

Mr. Elijah Washington shook his head.

“No, sir: I know him same as I might know you. It got me curious when I found out the why of the torturing: he wouldn’t tell where it was.”

“Where what was?” asked Manfred quickly, and Mr. Washington was surprised.

“Why, the writing they wanted to get. I thought maybe he’d told you. He said he was coming right along to spill all that part of it. It was a letter he’d found in a tin box—that was all he’d say.”

They looked at one another.

“I know no more about it than that,” Mr. Washington added, when he saw Gonsalez’ lips move. “It was just a letter. Who it was from, why, what it was about, he never told me. My first idea was that he’d been flirting round about here, but divorce laws are mighty generous and they wouldn’t trouble to get evidence that way. A man doesn’t want any documents to get rid of his wife. I dare say you folks wonder why I’ve come along.” Mr. Washington raised his steaming cup of coffee, which must have been nearly boiling, and drank it at one gulp. “That’s fine,” he said, “the nearest to coffee I’ve had since I left home.”

He wiped his lips with a large and vivid silk handkerchief.

“I’ve come along, gentlemen, because I’ve got a pretty good idea that I’d be useful to anybody who’s snake-hunting in this little dorp.”

“It’s rather a dangerous occupation, isn’t it?” said Manfred quietly.

Washington nodded.

“To you, but not to me,” he said. “I am snake-proof.”

He pulled up his sleeve: the forearm was scarred and pitted with old wounds.

“Snakes,” he said briefly. “That’s cobra.” He pointed proudly. “When that snake struck, my boys didn’t wait for anything, they started dividing my kit. Sort of appointed themselves a board of executors and joint heirs of the family estate.”

“But you were very ill?” said Gonsalez.

Mr. Washington shook his head.

“No, sir, not more than if a bee bit me, and not so much as if a wasp had got in first punch. Some people can eat arsenic, some people can make a meal of enough morphia to decimate a province. I’m snake-proof—been bitten ever since I was five.”

He bent over towards them, and his jolly face went suddenly serious.

“I’m the man you want,” he said.

“I think you are,” said Manfred slowly.

“Because this old snake ain’t finished biting. There’s a graft in it somewhere, and I want to find it. But first I want to vindicate the snake. Anybody who says a snake’s naturally vicious doesn’t understand. Snakes are timid, quiet, respectful things, and don’t want no trouble with nobody. If a snake sees you coming, he naturally lights out for home. When momma snake’s running around with her family, she’s naturally touchy for fear you’d tread on any of her boys and girls, but she’s a lady, and if you give her time she’ll Maggie ’um and get ’um into the parlour where the foot of white man never trod.”

Leon was looking at him with a speculative eye.

“It is queer to think,” he said, speaking half to himself, “that you may be the only one of us who will be alive this day week!”

Meadows, not easily shocked, felt a cold shiver run down his spine.

_Chapter XIII_ _Mirabelle Goes Home_

THE prediction that Leon Gonsalez had made was not wholly fulfilled, though he himself had helped to prevent the supreme distress he prophesied. When Mirabelle Leicester awoke in the morning, her head was thick and dull, and for a long time she lay between sleeping and waking, trying to bring order to the confusion of her thoughts, her eyes on the ceiling towards a gnarled oak beam which she had seen before somewhere; and when at last she summoned sufficient energy to raise herself on her elbow, she looked upon the very familiar surroundings of her own pretty little room.

Heavytree Farm! What a curious dream she had had! A dream filled with fleeting visions of old men with elongated heads, of dance music and a crowded ball-room, of a slightly over-dressed man who had been very polite to her at dinner. Where did she dine? She sat up in bed, holding her throbbing head.

Again she looked round the room and slowly, out of her dreams, emerged a few tangible facts. She was still in a state of bewilderment when the door opened and Aunt Alma came in, and the unprepossessing face of her relative was accentuated by her look of anxiety.

“Hullo, Alma!” said Mirabelle dully. “I’ve had such a queer dream.”