Chapter IV: Part 4

Alma pressed her lips tightly together as she placed a tray on a table by the side of the bed.

“I think it was about that advertisement I saw.” And then, with a gasp: “How did I come here?”

“They brought you,” said Alma. “The nurse is downstairs having her breakfast. She’s a nice woman and keeps press-cuttings.”

“The nurse?” asked Mirabelle in bewilderment.

“You arrived here at three o’clock in the morning in a motor-car. You had a nurse with you.” Alma enumerated the circumstances in chronological order. “And two men. First one of the men got out and knocked at the door. I was worried to death. In fact, I’d been worried all the afternoon, ever since I had your wire telling me not to come up to London.”

“But I didn’t send any such wire,” replied the girl.

“After I came down, the man—he was really a gentleman and very pleasantly spoken—told me that you’d been taken ill and a nurse had brought you home. They then carried you, the two men and the nurse, upstairs and laid you on the bed, and nurse and I undressed you. I simply couldn’t get you to wake up: all you did was to talk about the orangeade.”

“I remember! It was so bitter, and Lord Evington let me drink some of his. And then I . . . I don’t know what happened after that,” she said, with a little grimace.

“Mr. Gonsalez ordered the car, got the nurse from a nursing home,” explained Alma.

“Gonsalez! Not my Gonsalez—the—the Four Just Men Gonsalez?” she asked in amazement.

“I’m sure it was Gonsalez: they made no secret about it. You can see the gentlemen who brought you: he’s about the house somewhere. I saw him in Heavytree Lane not five minutes ago, strolling up and down and smoking. A pipe,” added Alma.

The girl got out of bed; her knees were curiously weak under her, but she managed to stagger to the window, and, pushing open the casement still farther, looked out across the patchwork quilt of colour. The summer flowers were in bloom; the delicate scents came up on the warm morning air, and she stood for a moment, drinking in great draughts of the exquisite perfume, and then, with a sigh, turned back to the waiting Alma.

“I don’t know how it all happened and what it’s about, but my word, Alma, I’m glad to be back! That dreadful man . . . ! We lunched at the Ritz-Carlton. . . . I never want to see another restaurant or a ball-room or Chester Square, or anything but old Heavytree!”

She took the cup of tea from Alma’s hand, drank greedily, and put it down with a little gasp.

“That was wonderful! Yes, the tea was too, but I’m thinking about Gonsalez. If it should be he!”

“I don’t see why you should get excited over a man who’s committed I don’t know how many murders.”

“Don’t be silly, Alma!” scoffed the girl. “The Just Men have never murdered, any more than a judge and jury murder.”

The room was still inclined to go round, and it was with the greatest difficulty that she could condense the two Almas who stood before her into one tangible individual.

“There’s a gentleman downstairs: he’s been waiting since twelve.”

And when she asked, she was to learn, to her dismay, that it was half-past one.

“I’ll be down in a quarter of an hour,” she said recklessly. “Who is it?”

“I’ve never heard of him before, but he’s a gentleman,” was the unsatisfactory reply. “They didn’t want to let him come in.”

“Who didn’t?”

“The gentlemen who brought you here in the night.”

Mirabelle stared at her.

“You mean . . . they’re guarding the house?”

“That’s how it strikes me,” said Alma bitterly. “Why they should interfere with us, I don’t know. Anyway, they let him in. Mr. Johnson Lee.”

The girl frowned.

“I don’t know the name,” she said.

Alma walked to the window.

“There’s his car,” she said, and pointed.

It was just visible, standing at the side of the road beyond the box hedge, a long-bodied Rolls, white with dust. The chauffeur was talking to a strange man, and from the fact that he was smoking a pipe Mirabelle guessed that this was one of her self-appointed custodians.

She had her bath, and with the assistance of the nurse, dressed and came shakily down the stairs. Alma was waiting in the brick-floored hall.

“He wants to see you alone,” she said in a stage whisper. “I don’t know whether I ought to allow it, but there’s evidently something wrong. These men prowling about the house have got thoroughly on my nerves.”

Mirabelle laughed softly as she opened the door and walked in. At the sound of the door closing, the man who was sitting stiffly on a deep settee in a window recess got up. He was tall and bent, and his dark face was lined. His eyes she could not see; they were hidden behind dark green glasses, which were turned in her direction as she came across the room to greet him.

“Miss Mirabelle Leicester?” he asked, in the quiet, modulated voice of an educated man.

He took her hand in his.

“Won’t you sit down?” she said, for he remained standing after she had seated herself.

“Thank you.” He sat down gingerly, holding between his knees the handle of the umbrella he had brought into the drawing-room. “I’m afraid my visit may be inopportune, Miss Leicester,” he said. “Have you by any chance heard about Mr. Barberton?”

Her brows wrinkled in thought.

“Barberton? I seem to have heard the name.”

“He was killed yesterday on the Thames Embankment.”

Then she recollected.

“The man who was bitten by the snake?” she asked in horror.

The visitor nodded.

“It was a great shock to me, because I have been a friend of his for many years, and had arranged to call at his hotel on the night of his death.” And then abruptly he turned the conversation in another and a surprising direction. “Your father was a scientist, Miss Leicester?”

She nodded.

“Yes, he was an astronomer, an authority upon meteors.”

“Exactly. I thought that was the gentleman. I have only recently had his book read to me. He was in Africa for some years?”

“Yes,” she said quietly, “he died there. He was studying meteors for three years in Angola. You probably know that a very large number of shooting stars fall in that country. My father’s theory was that it was due to the ironstone mountains which attract them—so he set up a little observatory in the interior.” Her lips trembled for a second. “He was killed in a native rising,” she said.

“Do you know the part of Angola where he had his observatory?”

She shook her head.

“I’m not sure. I have never been in Africa, but perhaps Aunt Alma may know.”

She went out to find Alma waiting in the passage, in conversation with the pipe-smoker. The man withdrew hastily at the sight of her.

“Alma, do you remember what part of Angola father had his observatory?” she asked.

Alma did not know off-hand, but one of her invaluable scrap-books contained all the information that the girl wanted, and she carried the book to Mr. Lee.

“Here are the particulars,” she said, and laid the book open before them.

“Would you read it for me?” he requested gently, and she read to him the three short paragraphs which noted that Professor Leicester had taken up his residence in Bishaka.

“That is the place,” interrupted the visitor. “Bishaka! You are sure that Mr. Barberton did not communicate with you?”

“With me?” she said in amazement. “No—why should he?”

He did not answer, but sat for a long time, turning the matter over in his mind.

“You’re perfectly certain that nobody sent you a document, probably in the Portuguese language, concerning”—he hesitated—“Bishaka?”

She shook her head, and then, as though he had not seen the gesture, he asked the question again.

“I’m certain,” she said. “We have very little correspondence at the farm, and it isn’t possible that I could overlook anything so remarkable.”

Again he turned the problem over in his mind.

“Have you any documents in Portuguese or in English . . . any letters from your father about Angola?”

“None,” she said. “The only reference my father ever made to Bishaka was that he was getting a lot of information which he thought would be valuable, and that he was a little troubled because his cameras, which he had fixed in various parts of the country to cover every sector of the skies, were being disturbed by wandering prospectors.”

“He said that, did he?” asked Mr. Lee eagerly. “Come now, that explains a great deal!”

In spite of herself she laughed.

“It doesn’t explain much to me, Mr. Lee,” she said frankly. And then, in a more serious tone: “Did Barberton come from Angola?”

“Yes, Barberton came from that country,” he said in a lower voice. “I should like to tell you”—he hesitated—“but I am rather afraid.”

“Afraid to tell me? Why?”

He shook his head.

“So many dreadful things have happened recently to poor Barberton and others, that knowledge seems a most dangerous thing. I wish I could believe that it would not be dangerous to you,” he added kindly, “and then I could speak what is in my mind and relieve myself of a great deal of anxiety.” He rose slowly. “I think the best thing I can do is to consult my lawyer. I was foolish to keep it from him so long. He is the only man I can trust to search my documents.”

She could only look at him in astonishment.

“But surely you can search your own documents?” she said good-humouredly.

“No, I’m afraid I can’t. Because”—he spoke with the simplicity of a child—“I am blind.”

“Blind?” gasped Mirabelle, and the man laughed gently.

“I am pretty capable for a blind man, am I not? I can walk across a room and avoid all the furniture. The only thing I cannot do is to read—at least, read the ordinary print. I can read Braille: poor Barberton taught me. He was a schoolmaster,” he explained, “at a blind school near Brightlingsea. Not a particularly well-educated man, but a marvellously quick writer of Braille. We have corresponded for years through that medium. He could write a Braille letter almost as quickly as you can with pen and ink.”

Her heart was full of pity for the man: he was so cheery, so confident, and withal so proud of his own accomplishments, that pity turned to admiration. He had the ineffable air of obstinacy which is the possession of so many men similarly stricken, and she began to realize that self-pity, that greatest of all afflictions which attends blindness, had been eliminated from his philosophy.

“I should like to tell you more,” he said, as he held out his hand. “Probably I will dictate a long letter to you to-morrow, or else my lawyer will do so, putting all the facts before you. For the moment, however, I must be sure of my ground. I have no desire to raise in your heart either fear or—hope. Do you know a Mr. Manfred?”

“I don’t know him personally,” she said quickly. “George Manfred?”

He nodded.

“Have you met him?” she asked eagerly. “And Mr. Poiccart, the Frenchman?”

“No, not Mr. Poiccart. Manfred was on the telephone to me very early this morning. He seemed to know all about my relationships with my poor friend. He knew also of my blindness. A remarkable man, very gentle and courteous. It was he who gave me your address. Perhaps,” he mused, “it would be advisable if I first consulted him.”

“I’m sure it would!” she said enthusiastically. “They are wonderful. You have heard of them, of course, Mr. Lee—the Four Just Men?”

He smiled.

“That sounds as though you admire them,” he said. “Yes, I have heard of them. They are the men who, many years ago, set out to regularize the inconsistencies of the English law, to punish where no punishment is provided by the code. Strange I never associated them. . . .”

He meditated upon the matter in silence for a long while, and then:

“I wonder,” he said, but did not tell her what he was wondering.

She walked down the garden path with him into the roadway and stood chatting about the country and the flowers that he had never seen, and the weather and such trivialities as people talk about when their minds are occupied with more serious thoughts which they cannot share, until the big limousine pulled up and he stepped into its cool interior. He had the independence which comes to the educated blind and gently refused the offer of her guidance, an offer she did not attempt to repeat, sensing the satisfaction he must have had in making his way without help. She waved her hand to the car as it moved off, and so naturally did his hand go up in salute that for a moment she thought he had seen her.

So he passed out of her sight, and might well have passed out of her life, for Mr. Oberzohn had decreed that the remaining hours of blind Johnson Lee were to be few.

But it happened that the Three Men had reached the same decision in regard to Mr. Oberzohn, only there was some indecision as to the manner of his passing. Leon Gonsalez had original views.

_Chapter XIV_ _The Pedlar_

THE man with the pipe was standing within half a dozen paces of her. She was going back through the gate, when she remembered Aunt Alma’s views on the guardianship.

“Are you waiting here all day?” she asked.

“Till this evening, miss. We’re to be relieved by some men from Gloucester—we came from town, and we’re going back with the nurse, if you can do without her?”

“Who placed you here?” she asked.

“Mr. Gonsalez. He thought it would be wise to have somebody around.”

“But why?”

The big man grinned.

“I’ve known Mr. Gonsalez many years,” he said. “I’m a police pensioner, and I can remember the time when I’d have given a lot of money to lay my hands on him—but I’ve never asked him why, miss. There is generally a good reason for everything he does.”

Mirabelle went back into the farmhouse, very thoughtful. Happily, Alma was not inquisitive; she was left alone in the drawing-room to reconstruct her exciting yesterday.

Mirabelle harboured very few illusions. She had read much, guessed much, and in the days of her childhood had been in the habit of linking cause to effect. The advertisement was designed especially for her: that was her first conclusion. It was designed to bring her into the charge of Oberzohn. For now she recognized this significant circumstance: never once, since she had entered the offices of Oberzohn & Smitts, until the episode of the orangeade, had she been free to come and go as she wished. He had taken her to lunch, he had brought her back; Joan Newton had been her companion in the drive from the house, and from the house to the hall; and from then on she did not doubt that Oberzohn’s surveillance had continued, until . . .

Dimly she remembered the man in the cloak who had stood in the rocking doorway. Was that Gonsalez? Somehow she thought it must have been. Gonsalez, watchful, alert—why? She had been in danger—was still in danger. Though why anybody should have picked unimportant her, was the greatest of all mysteries.

In some inexplicable way the death of Barberton had been associated with that advertisement and the attention she had received from Dr. Oberzohn and his creatures. Who was Lord Evington? She remembered his German accent and his “gracious lady,” the curious click of his heels and his stiff bow. That was a clumsy subterfuge which she ought to have seen through from the first. He was another of her watchers. And the drugged orangeade was his work. She shuddered. Suppose Leon Gonsalez, or whoever it was, had not arrived so providentially, where would she be at this moment?

Walking to the window, she looked out, and the sight of the two men just inside the gate gave her a sense of infinite relief and calm; and the knowledge that she, for some reason, was under the care and protection of this strange organization about which she had read, thrilled her.

She walked into the vaulted kitchen, to find the kitchen table covered with fat volumes, and Aunt Alma explaining to the interested nurse her system of filing. Two subjects interested that hard-featured lady: crime and family records. She had two books filled with snippings from country newspapers relating to the family of a distant cousin who had been raised to a peerage during the war. She had another devoted to the social triumphs of a distant woman, Goddard, who had finally made a sensational appearance as petitioner in the most celebrated divorce suit of the age. But crime, generally speaking, was Aunt Alma’s chief preoccupation. It was from these voluminous cuttings that Mirabelle had gained her complete knowledge of the Four Just Men and their operations. There were books packed with the story of the Ramon murder, arranged with loving care in order of time, for chronology was almost a vice in Alma Goddard. Only one public sensation was missing from her collection, and she was explaining the reason to the nurse as Mirabelle came into the kitchen.

“No, my dear,” she was saying, “there is nothing about The Snake. I won’t have anything to do with that: it gives me the creeps. In fact, I haven’t read anything that has the slightest reference to it.”

“I’ve got every line,” said the nurse enthusiastically. “My brother is a reporter on the _Megaphone_, and he says this is the best story they’ve had for years——”

Mirabelle interrupted this somewhat gruesome conversation to make inquiries about luncheon. Her head was steady now and she had developed an appetite.

The front door stood open, and as she turned to go into the dining-room to get her writing materials, she heard an altercation at the gate. A third man had appeared: a grimy-looking pedlar who carried a tray before him, packed with all manner of cheap buttons and laces. He was a middle-aged man with a ragged beard, and despite the warmth of the day, was wearing a long overcoat that almost reached to his heels.

“You may or you may not be,” the man with the pipe was saying, “but you’re not going in here.”

“I’ve served this house for years,” snarled the pedlar. “What do you mean by interfering with me? You’re not a policeman.”

“Whether I’m a policeman or a dustman or a postman,” said the patient guard, “you don’t pass through this gate—do you understand that?”

At this moment the pedlar caught sight of the girl at the door and raised his battered hat with a grin. He was unknown to the girl; she did not remember having seen him at the house before. Nor did Alma, who came out at that moment.

“He’s a stranger here, but we’re always getting new people up from Gloucester,” she said. “What does he want to sell?”

She stalked out into the garden, and at the sight of her the grin left the pedlar’s face.

“I’ve got some things I’d like to sell to the young lady, ma’am,” he said.

“I’m not so old, and I’m a lady,” replied Alma sharply. “And how long is it since you started picking and choosing your customers?”

The man grumbled something under his breath, and without waiting even to display his wares, shuffled off along the dusty road, and they watched him until he was out of sight.

Heavytree Farm was rather grandly named for so small a property. The little estate followed the road to Heavytree Lane, which formed the southern boundary of the property. The lane itself ran at an angle to behind the house, where the third boundary was formed by a hedge dividing the farmland from the more pretentious estate of a local magnate. It was down the lane the pedlar turned.

“Excuse me, ma’am,” said the companion of the man with the pipe.

He opened the gate, walked in, and, making a circuit of the house, reached the orchard behind. Here a few outhouses were scattered, and, clearing these, he came to the meadow, where Mirabelle’s one cow ruminated in the lazy manner of her kind. Half hidden by a thick-boled apple-tree, the watcher waited, and presently, as he expected, he saw a head appear through the boundary hedge. After an observation the pedlar sprang into the meadow and stood, taking stock of his ground. He had left his tray and his bag, and, running with surprising swiftness for a man of his age, he gained a little wooden barn, and, pulling open the door, disappeared into its interior. By this time the guard had been joined by his companion and they had a short consultation, the man with the pipe going back to his post before the house, whilst the other walked slowly across the meadow until he came to the closed door of the barn.

Wise in his generation, he first made a circuit of the building, and discovered there were no exits through the blackened gates. Then, pulling both doors open wide:

“Come out, bo’!” he said.

The barn was empty, except for a heap of hay that lay in one corner and some old and wheelless farm-wagons propped up on three trestles awaiting the wheelwright’s attention.

A ladder led to a loft, and the guard climbed slowly. His head was on a level with the dark opening, when:

“Put up your hands!”

He was looking into the adequate muzzle of an automatic pistol.

“Come down, bo’!”

“Put up your hands,” hissed the voice in the darkness, “or you’re a dead man!”

The watcher obeyed, cursing his folly that he had come alone.

“Now climb up.”

With some difficulty the guard brought himself up to the floor level.

“Step this way, and step lively,” said the pedlar. “Hold your hands out.”

He felt the touch of cold steel on his wrist, heard a click.

“Now the other hand.”

The moment he was manacled, the pedlar began a rapid search.

“Carry a gun, do you?” he sneered, as he drew a pistol from the man’s hip pocket. “Now sit down.”

In a few seconds the discomfited guard was bound and gagged. The pedlar, crawling to the entrance of the loft, looked out between a crevice in the boards. He was watching not the house, but the hedge through which he had climbed. Two other men had appeared there, and he grunted his satisfaction. Descending into the barn, he pulled away the ladder and let it fall on the floor, before he came out into the open and made a signal.

The second guard had made his way back by the shortest cut to the front of the house, passing through the garden and in through the kitchen door. He stopped to shoot the bolts, and the girl, coming into the kitchen, saw him.

“Is anything wrong?” she asked anxiously.

“I don’t know, miss.” He was looking at the kitchen windows: they were heavily barred. “My mate has just seen that pedlar go into the barn.”

She followed him to the front door. He had turned to go, but, changing his mind, came back, and she saw him put his hand into his hip pocket and was staggered to see him produce a long-barrelled Browning.

“Can you use a pistol, miss?”

She nodded, too surprised to speak, and watched him as he jerked back the jacket and put up the safety catch.

“I want to be on the safe side, and I’d feel happier if you were armed.”

There was a gun hanging on the wall and he took it down.

“Have you any shells for this?” he asked.

She pulled open the drawer of the hall-stand and took out a cardboard carton.

“They may be useful,” he said.

“But surely, Mr.——”

“Digby.” He supplied his name.

“Surely you’re exaggerating? I don’t mean that you’re doing it with any intention of frightening me, but there isn’t any danger to us?”

“I don’t know. I’ve got a queer feeling—had it all morning. How far is the nearest house from here?”

“Not half a mile away,” she said.

“You’re on the ’phone?”

She nodded.

“I’m scared, maybe. I’ll just go out into the road and have a look round. I wish that fellow would come back,” he added fretfully.

He walked slowly up the garden path and stood for a moment leaning over the gate. As he did so, he heard the rattle and asthmatic wheezing of an ancient car, and saw a tradesman’s trolley come round a corner of Heavytree Lane. Its pace grew slower as it got nearer to the house, and opposite the gate it stopped altogether. The driver getting down with a curse, lifted up the battered tin bonnet, and, groping under the seat, brought out a long spanner. Then, swift as thought, he half turned and struck at Digby’s head. The girl heard the sickening impact, saw the watcher drop limply to the path, and in another second she had slammed the door and thrust home the bolts.

She was calm; the hand that took the revolver from the hall-table did not tremble.

“Alma!” she called, and Alma came running downstairs.

“What on earth——?” she began, and then saw the pistol in Mirabelle’s hands.

“They are attacking the house,” said the girl quickly. “I don’t know who ‘they’ are, but they’ve just struck down one of the men who was protecting us. Take the gun, Alma.”

Alma’s face was contorted, and might have expressed fear or anger or both. Mirabelle afterwards learnt that the dominant emotion was one of satisfaction to find herself in so warlike an environment.

Running into the drawing-room, the girl pushed open the window, which commanded a view of the road. The gate was unfastened and two men, who had evidently been concealed inside the trolley, were lifting the unconscious man, and she watched, with a calm she could not understand in herself, as they threw him into the interior and fastened the tailboard. She counted four in all, including the driver, who was climbing back to his seat. One of the new-comers, evidently the leader, was pointing down the road towards the lane, and she guessed that he was giving directions as to where the car should wait, for it began to go backwards almost immediately and with surprising smoothness, remembering the exhibition it had given of decrepitude a few minutes before.

The man who had given instructions came striding down the path towards the door.

“Stop!”

He looked round with a start into the levelled muzzle of a Browning, and his surprise would, in any other circumstances, have been comical.

“It’s all right, miss——” he began.

“Put yourself outside that gate,” said Mirabelle coolly.

“I wanted to see you . . . very important——”

_Bang!_

Mirabelle fired a shot, aimed above his head, towards the old poplar. The man ducked and ran. Clear of the gate he dropped to the cover of a hedge, where his men already were, and she heard the murmur of their voices distinctly, for the day was still, and the far-off chugging of the trolley’s engine sounded close at hand. Presently she saw a head peep round the hedge.

“Can I have five minutes’ talk with you?” asked the leader loudly.

He was a thick-set, bronzed man, with a patch of lint plastered to his face, and she noted unconsciously that he wore gold ear-rings.

“There’s no trouble coming to you,” he said, opening the gate as he spoke. “You oughtn’t to have fired, anyway. Nobody’s going to hurt you——”

He had advanced a yard into the garden as he spoke.

_Bang, bang!_

In her haste she had pressed butt and trigger just a fraction too long, and, startled by the knowledge that another shot was coming, her hand jerked round, and the second shot missed his head by the fraction of an inch. He disappeared in a flash, and a second later she saw their hats moving swiftly above the box. They were running towards the waiting car.

“Stay here, Alma!”

Alma Goddard nodded grimly, and the girl flew up the stairs to her room. From this elevation she commanded a better view. She saw them climb into the van, and in another second the limp body of the guard was thrown out into the hedge; then, after a brief space of time, the machine began moving and, gathering speed, disappeared in a cloud of dust on the Highcombe Road.

Mirabelle came down the stairs at a run, pulled back the bolts and flew out and along the road towards the still figure of the detective. He was lying by the side of the ditch, his head a mass of blood, and she saw that he was still breathing. She tried to lift him, but it was too great a task. She ran back to the house. The telephone was in the hall: an old-fashioned instrument with a handle that had to be turned, and she had not made two revolutions before she realized that the wire had been cut.

Alma was still in the parlour, the gun gripped tight in her hand, a look of fiendish resolution on her face.

“You must help me to get Digby into the house,” she said.

“Where is he?”

Mirabelle pointed, and the two women, returning to the man, half lifted, half dragged him back to the hall. Laying him down on the brick floor, the girl went in search of clean linen. The kitchen, which was also the drying place for Alma’s more intimate laundry, supplied all that she needed. Whilst Alma watched unmoved the destruction of her wardrobe, the girl bathed the wound and the frightened nurse (who had disappeared at the first shot) applied a rough dressing. The wound was an ugly one, and the man showed no signs of recovering consciousness.

“We shall have to send Mary into Gloucester for an ambulance,” said Mirabelle. “We can’t send nurse—she doesn’t know the way.”

“Mary,” said Alma calmly, “is at this moment having hysterics in the larder. I’ll harness the dog-cart and go myself. But where is the other man?”

Mirabelle shook her head.

“I don’t like to think what has happened to him,” she said. “Now, Alma, do you think we can get him into the drawing-room?”

Together they lifted the heavy figure and staggered with it into the pretty little room, laying him at last upon the settee under the window.

“He can rest there till we get the ambulance,” began Mirabelle, and a chuckle behind her made her turn with a gasp.

It was the pedlar, and in his hand he held the pistol which she had discarded.

“I only want you”—he nodded to the girl. “You other two women can come out here.” He jerked his head to the passage. Under the stairs was a big cupboard and he pulled the door open invitingly. “Get in here. If you make a noise, you’ll be sorry for yourselves.”

Alma’s eyes wandered longingly to the gun she had left in the corner, but before she could make a move he had placed himself between her and the weapon.

“Get inside,” said the pedlar, and Mirabelle was not much surprised when Aunt Alma meekly obeyed.

He shut the door on the two women and fastened the hatch.

“Now, young lady, put on your hat and be lively!”

He followed her up the stairs into her room and watched her while she found a hat and a cloak. She knew only too well that it was a waste of time even to temporize with him. He, for his part, was so exultant at his success that he grew almost loquacious.

“I suppose you saw the boys driving away and you didn’t remember that I was somewhere around? Was that you doing the shooting?”

She did not answer.

“It couldn’t have been Lew, or you’d have been dead,” he said. He was examining the muzzle of the pistol. “It was you all right.” He chuckled. “Ain’t you the game one! Sister, you ought to be——”

He stopped dead, staring through the window. He was paralysed with amazement at the sight of a bare-headed Aunt Alma flying along the Gloucester Road. With an oath he turned to the girl.

“How did she get out? Have you got anybody here? Now speak up.”

“The cupboard under the stairs leads to the wine cellar,” said Mirabelle coolly, “and there are two ways out of the wine cellar. I think Aunt Alma found one of them.”

With an oath, he took a step towards her, gripped her by the arm and jerked her towards the door.

“Lively!” he said, and dragged her down the stairs through the hall, into the kitchen.

He shot back the bolts, but the lock of the kitchen door had been turned.

“This way.” He swore cold-bloodedly, and, her arm still in his powerful grip, he hurried along the passage and pulled open the door.

It was an unpropitious moment. A man was walking down the path, a half-smile on his face, as though he was thinking over a remembered jest. At the sight of him the pedlar dropped the girl’s arm and his hand went like lightning to his pocket.

“When will you die?” said Leon Gonsalez softly. “Make a choice, and make it quick!”

And the gun in his hand seemed to quiver with homicidal eagerness.

_Chapter XV_ _Two “Accidents”_

THE pedlar, his face twitching, put up his shaking hands.

Leon walked to him, took the Browning from his moist grip and dropped it into his pocket.

“Your friends are waiting, of course?” he said pleasantly.

The pedlar did not answer.

“Cuccini too? I thought I had incapacitated him for a long time.”

“They’ve gone,” growled the pedlar.

Gonsalez looked round in perplexity.

“I don’t want to take you into the house. At the same time, I don’t want to leave you here,” he said. “I almost wish you’d drawn that gun of yours,” he added regretfully. “It would have solved so many immediate problems.”

This particular problem was solved by the return of the dishevelled Alma and the restoration to her of her gun.

“I would so much rather you shot him than I,” said Leon earnestly. “The police are very suspicious of my shootings, and they never wholly believe that they are done in self-defence.”

With a rope he tied the man, and tied him uncomfortably, wrists to ankles. That done, he made a few inquiries and went swiftly out to the barn, returning in a few minutes with the unhappy guard.

“It can’t be helped,” said Leon, cutting short the man’s apologies. “The question is, where are the rest of the brethren?”

Something zipped past him: it had the intensified hum of an angry wasp, and a second later he heard a muffled “Plop!” In a second he was lying flat on the ground, his Browning covering the hedge that hid Heavytree Lane.

“Run to the house,” he called urgently. “They won’t bother about you.” And the guard, nothing loth, sprinted for the cover of walls.

Presently Leon located the enemy, and at a little distance off he saw the flat top of the covered trolley. A man walked slowly and invitingly across the gap in the hedge, but Gonsalez held his fire, and presently the manœuvre was repeated. Obviously they were trying to concentrate his mind upon the gap whilst they were moving elsewhere. His eyes swept the meadow boundary—running parallel, he guessed, was a brook or ditch which would make excellent cover.

Again the man passed leisurely across the gap. Leon steadied his elbow, and glanced along the sight. As he did so, the man reappeared.

_Crack!_

Gonsalez aimed a foot behind him. The man saw the flash and jumped back, as he had expected. In another second he was writhing on the ground with a bullet through his leg.

Leon showed his teeth in a smile and switched his body round to face the new point of attack. It came from the spot that he had expected: a little rise of ground that commanded his position.

The first bullet struck the turf to his right with an angry buzz, sent a divot flying heavenward, and ricochetted with a smack against a tree. Before the raised head could drop to cover, Gonsalez fired; fired another shot to left and right, then, rising, raced for the shelter of the tree, and reached it in time to see three heads bobbing back to the road. He waited, covering the gap, but the people who drew the wounded man out of sight did not show themselves, and a minute later he saw the trolley moving swiftly down the by-road, and knew that danger was past.

The firing had attracted attention. He had not been back in the house a few minutes before a mounted policeman, his horse in a lather, came galloping up to the gate and dismounted. A neighbouring farm had heard the shots and telephoned to constabulary head-quarters. For half an hour the mounted policeman took notes, and by this time half the farmers in the neighbourhood, their guns under their arms, had assembled in Mirabelle’s parlour.

She had not seen as much of the redoubtable Leon as she could have wished, and when they had a few moments to themselves she seized the opportunity to tell him of the call which Lee had made that morning. Apparently he knew all about it, for he expressed no surprise, and was only embarrassed when she showed a personal interest in himself and his friends.

It was not a very usual experience for him, and he was rather annoyed with himself at this unexpected glimpse of enthusiasm and hero-worship, sane as it was, and based, as he realized, upon her keen sense of justice.

“I’m not so sure that we’ve been very admirable really,” he said. “But the difficulty is to produce at the moment a judgment which would be given from a distance of years. We have sacrificed everything which to most men would make life worth living, in our desire to see the scales held fairly.”

“You are not married, Mr. Gonsalez?”

He stared into the frank eyes.

“Married? Why, no,” he said, and she laughed.

“You talk as though that were a possibility that had never occurred to you.”

“It hasn’t,” he admitted. “By the very nature of our work we are debarred from that experience. And is it an offensive thing to say that I have never felt my singleness to be a deprivation?”

“It is very rude,” she said severely, and Leon was laughing to himself all the way back to town as at a great joke that improved upon repetition.

“I think we can safely leave her for a week,” he reported, on his return to Curzon Street. “No, nothing happened. I was held up in a police trap near Newbury for exceeding the speed limit. They said I was doing fifty, but I should imagine it was nearer eighty. Meadows will get me out of that. Otherwise, I must send the inevitable letter to the magistrate and pay the inevitable fine. Have you done anything about Johnson Lee?”

Manfred nodded.

“Meadows and the enthusiastic Mr. Washington have gone round to see him. I have asked Washington to go because”—he hesitated—“the snake is a real danger, so far as he is concerned. Elijah Washington promises to be a very real help. He is afraid of nothing, and has undertaken to stay with Lee and to apply such remedies for snake-bites as he knows.”

He was putting on his gloves as he spoke, and Leon Gonsalez looked at him with a critical admiration.

“Are you being presented at Court, or are you taking tea with a duchess?”

“Neither. I’m calling upon friend Oberzohn.”

“The devil you are!” said Leon, his eyebrows rising.

“I have taken the precaution of sending him a note, asking him to keep his snakes locked up,” said Manfred, “and as I have pointedly forwarded the carbon copy of the letter, to impress the fact that another exists and may be brought in evidence against him, I think I shall leave Oberzohn & Smitts’ main office without hurt. If you are not too tired, Leon, I would rather prefer the Buick to the Spanz.”

“Give me a quarter of an hour,” said Leon, and went up to his room to make himself tidy.

It was fifteen minutes exactly when the Buick stopped at the door, and Manfred got into the saloon. There was no partition between driver and passenger, and conversation was possible.

“It would have been as well if you’d had Brother Newton there,” he suggested.

“Brother Newton will be on the spot: I took the precaution of sending him a similar note,” said Manfred. “I shouldn’t imagine they’ll bring out their gunmen.”

“I know two, and possibly three, they won’t bring out.” Gonsalez grinned at the traffic policeman who waved him into Oxford Street. “That Browning of mine throws high, Manfred: I’ve always had a suspicion it did. Pistols are queer things, but this may wear into my hand.” He talked arms and ammunition until the square block of Oberzohn & Smitts came into sight. “Good hunting!” he said, as he got out, opened the saloon door and touched his hat to Manfred as he alighted.

He got back into his seat, swung the little car round in a circle, and sat on the opposite side of the road, his eyes alternately on the entrance and on the mirror which gave him a view of the traffic approaching him from the rear.

Manfred was not kept in the waiting-room for more than two minutes. At the end of that time, a solemn youth in spectacles, with a little bow, led him across the incurious office into the presence of the illustrious doctor.

The old man was at his desk. Behind him, his debonair self, Monty Newton, a large yellow flower in his buttonhole, a smile on his face. Oberzohn got up like a man standing to attention.

“Mr. Manfred, this is a great honour,” he said, and held out his hand stiffly.

An additional chair had been placed for the visitor: a rich-looking tapestried chair, to which the doctor waved the hand which Manfred did not take.

“Good morning, Manfred.” Newton removed his cigar and nodded genially. “Were you at the dance last night?”

“I was there, but I didn’t come in,” said Manfred, seating himself. “You did not turn up till late, they tell me?”

“It was of all occurrences the most unfortunate,” said Dr. Oberzohn, and Newton laughed.

“I’ve lost his laboratory secretary and he hasn’t forgiven me,” he said almost jovially. “The girl he took on yesterday. Rather a stunner in the way of looks. She didn’t wish to go back to the country where she came from, so my sister offered to put her up for the night in Chester Square. I’m blessed if she didn’t lose herself at the dance, and we haven’t seen her since!”

“It was a terrible thing,” said Oberzohn sadly. “I regard her as in my charge. For her safety I am responsible. You, I trust, Mr. Newton——”

“I don’t think I should have another uneasy moment if I were you, doctor,” said Manfred easily. “The young lady is back at Heavytree Farm. I thought that would surprise you. And she is still there: that will surprise you more, if you have not already heard by telephone that your Old Guard failed dismally to—er—bring her back to work. I presume that was their object?”

“My old guard, Mr. Manfred?” Oberzohn shook his head in bewilderment. “This is beyond my comprehension.”

“Is your sister well?” asked Manfred blandly.

Newton shrugged his shoulders.

“She is naturally upset. And who wouldn’t be? Joan is a very tender-hearted girl.”

“She has been that way for years,” said Manfred offensively. “May I smoke?”

“Will you have one of my cigarettes?”

Manfred’s grave eyes fixed the doctor in a stare that held the older man against his will.

“I have had just one too many of your cigarettes,” he said. His words came like a cold wind. “I do not want any more, Herr Doktor, or there will be vacancies in your family circle. Who knows that, long before you compound your wonderful elixir, you may be called to normal immortality?”

The yellow face of Oberzohn had turned to a dull red.

“You seem to know so much about me, Mr. Manfred, as myself,” he said in a husky whisper.

Manfred nodded.

“More. For whilst you are racing against time to avoid the end of a life which does not seem especially worthy of preservation, and whilst you know not what day or hour that end may come, I can tell you to the minute.” The finger of his gloved hand pointed the threat.

All trace of a smile had vanished from Monty Newton’s face. His eyes did not leave the caller’s.

“Perhaps you shall tell me.” Oberzohn found a difficulty in speaking. Rage possessed him, and only his iron will choked down the flames from view.

“The day that injury comes to Mirabelle Leicester, that day you go out—you and those who are with you!”

“Look here, Manfred, there’s a law in this country——” began Monty Newton hotly.

“I am the law.” The words rang like a knell of fate. “In this matter I am judge, jury, hangman. Old or young, I will not spare,” he said evenly.

“Are you immortal too?” sneered Monty.

Only for a second did Manfred’s eyes leave the old man’s face.

“The law is immortal,” he said. “If you dream that, by some cleverly concerted coup, you can sweep me from your path before I grow dangerous, be sure that your sweep is clean.”

“You haven’t asked me to come here to listen to this stuff, have you?” asked Newton, and though his words were bold, his manner aggressive, there were shadows on his face which were not there when Manfred had come into the room—shadows under his eyes and in his cheeks where plumpness had been.

“I’ve come here to tell you to let up on Miss Leicester. You’re after something that you cannot get, and nobody is in a position to give you. I don’t know what it is—I will make you a present of that piece of information. But it’s big—bigger than any prize you’ve ever gone after in your wicked lives. And to get that, you’re prepared to sacrifice innocent lives with the recklessness of spendthrifts who think there is no bottom to their purse. The end is near!”

He rose slowly and stood by the table, towering over the stiff-backed doctor.

“I cannot say what action the police will take over this providential snake-bite, Oberzohn, but I’ll make you this offer: I and my friends will stand out of the game and leave Meadows to get you in his own way. You think that means you’ll go scot-free? But it doesn’t. These police are like bulldogs: once they’ve got a grip of you, they’ll never let go.”

“What is the price you ask for this interesting service?” Newton was puffing steadily at his cigar, his hands clasped behind him, his feet apart, a picture of comfort and well-being.

“Leave Miss Leicester alone. Find a new way of getting the money you need so badly.”

Newton laughed.

“My dear fellow, that’s a stupid thing to say. Neither Oberzohn nor I are exactly poor.”

“You’re bankrupt, both of you,” said Manfred quietly. “You are in the position of gamblers when the cards have run against you for a long time. You have no reserve, and your expenses are enormous. Find another way, Newton—and tell your sister”—he paused by the door, looking down into the white lining of his silk hat—“I’d like to see her at Curzon Street to-morrow morning at ten o’clock.”

“Is that an order?” asked Newton sarcastically.

Manfred nodded.

“Then let me tell you,” roared the man, white with passion, “that I take no orders for her or for me. Got swollen heads since you’ve had your pardon, haven’t you? You look out for me, Manfred. I’m not exactly harmless.”

He felt the pressure of the doctor’s foot upon his and curbed his temper.

“All right,” he growled, “but don’t expect to see Joan.”

He added a coarse jest, and Manfred raised his eyes slowly and met his.

“You will be hanged by the State or murdered by Oberzohn—I am not sure which,” he said simply, and he spoke with such perfect confidence that the heart of Monty Newton turned to water.

Manfred stood in the sidewalk and signalled, and the little car came swiftly and noiselessly across. Leon’s eyes were on the entrance. A tall man standing in the shadow of the hall was watching. He was leaning against the wall in a negligent attitude, and for a second Leon was startled.

“Get in quickly!”

Leon almost shouted the words back, and Manfred jumped into the machine, as the chauffeur sent the car forward, with a jerk that strained every gear.

“What on——?” began Manfred, but the rest of his words were lost in the terrific crash which followed.

The leather hood of the machine was ripped down at the back, a splinter of glass struck Leon’s cap and sliced a half-moon neatly. He jammed on the brakes, threw open the door of the saloon and leaped out. Behind the car was a mass of wreckage; a great iron casting lay split into three pieces amidst a tangle of broken packing-case. Leon looked up; immediately above the entrance to Oberzohn & Smitts’ was a crane, which had swung out with a heavy load just before Manfred came out. The steel wire hung loosely from the derrick. He heard excited voices speaking from the open doorway three floors above, and two men in large glasses were looking down and gabbling in a language he did not understand.

“A very pretty accident. We might have filled half a column in the evening newspapers if we had not moved.”

“And the gentleman in the hall—what was he doing?”

Leon walked back through the entrance: the man had disappeared, but near where he had been standing was a small bell-push which, it was obvious, had recently been fixed, for the wires ran loosely on the surface of the wall and were new.

He came back in time to see a policeman crossing the road.

“I wish to find out how this accident occurred, constable,” he said. “My master was nearly killed.”

The policeman looked at the ton of debris lying half on the sidewalk, half on the road, then up at the slackened hawser.

“The cable has run off the drum, I should think.”

“I should think so,” said Leon gravely.

He did not wait for the policeman to finish his investigations, but went home at a steady pace, and made no reference to the “accident” until he had put away his car and had returned to Curzon Street.

“The man in the hall was put there to signal when you were under the load—certain things must not happen,” he said. “I am going out to make a few inquiries.”

Gonsalez knew one of Oberzohn’s staff: a clean young Swede, with that knowledge of English which is normal in Scandinavian countries; and at nine o’clock that night he drifted into a Swedish restaurant in Dean Street and found the young man at the end of his meal. It was an acquaintance—one of many—that Leon had assiduously cultivated. The young man, who knew him as Mr. Heinz—Leon spoke German remarkably well—was glad to have a companion with whom he could discuss the inexplicable accident of the afternoon.

“The cable was not fixed to the drum,” he said. “It might have been terrible: there was a gentleman in a motor-car outside, and he had only moved away a few inches when the case fell. There is bad luck in that house. I am glad that I am leaving at the end of the week.”

Leon had some important questions to put, but he did not hurry, having the gift of patience to a marked degree. It was nearly ten when they parted, and Gonsalez went back to his garage, where he spent a quarter of an hour.

At midnight, Manfred had just finished a long conversation with the Scotland Yard man who was still at Brightlingsea, when Leon came in, looking very pleased with himself. Poiccart had gone to bed, and Manfred had switched out one circuit of lights when his friend arrived.

“Thank you, my dear George,” said Gonsalez briskly. “It was very good of you, and I did not like troubling you, but——”

“It was a small thing,” said Manfred with a smile, “and involved merely the changing of my shoes. But why? I am not curious, but why did you wish me to telephone the night watchman at Oberzohn’s to be waiting at the door at eleven o’clock for a message from the doctor?”