Chapter IX: Part 9

“I did not wish to go to Mero’s,” said Manfred, “but as we have the time, I think it would be advisable to stroll in that direction. I am curious to discover whether this is really Oberzohn’s little treat, or whether the idea emanated from the unadmirable Mr. Newton.”

“And how will you know, George?” asked Gonsalez.

“By the car. If Oberzohn is master of the ceremonies, we shall find his machine parked somewhere in the neighbourhood. If it is Newton’s idea, then Oberzohn’s limousine, which brought them from South London, will have returned, and Newton’s car will be in its place.”

Mero’s was one of the most fashionable of dining clubs, patronized not only by the elite of society, but having on its books the cream of the theatrical world. It was situated in one of those quiet, old-world squares which are to be found in the very heart of London, enjoying, for some mysterious reason, immunity from the hands of the speculative property owner. The square retained the appearance it had in the days of the Georges; and though some of the fine mansions had been given over to commerce and the professions, and the lawyer and the manufacturer’s agent occupied the drawing-rooms and bedrooms sacred to the bucks and beauties of other days, quite a large number of the houses remained in private occupation.

There was nothing in the fascia of Mero’s to advertise its character. The club premises consisted of three of these fine old dwellings. The uninitiated might not even suspect that there was communication between the three houses, for the old doorways and doorsteps remained untouched, though only one was used.

They strolled along two sides of the square before, amidst the phalanx of cars that stood wheel to wheel, their backs to the railings of the centre gardens, they saw Oberzohn’s car.

The driver sat with his arms folded on the wheel, in earnest conversation with a pale-faced man, slightly and neatly bearded, and dressed in faultless evening dress. He was evidently a cripple: one shoulder was higher than the other; and when he moved, he walked painfully with the aid of a stick.

Manfred saw the driver point up the line of cars, and the lame gentleman limped in the direction the chauffeur had indicated and stopped to speak to another man in livery. As they came abreast of him, they saw that one of his boots had a thick sole, and the limp was explained.

“The gentleman has lost his car,” said Manfred, for now he was peering short-sightedly at the number-plates.

The theft of cars was a daily occurrence. Leon had something to say on the potentialities of that branch of crime. He owned to an encyclopædic knowledge of the current fashions in wrongdoing, and in a few brief sentences indicated the extent of these thefts.

“Fifty a week are shipped to India and the Colonies, after their numbers are erased and another substituted. In some cases the ‘knockers off,’ as they call the thieves, drive them straight away into the packing-cases which are prepared for every make of car; the ends are nailed up, and they are waiting shipment at the docks before the owner is certain of his loss. There are almost as many stolen cars in India, South Africa and Australia as there are honest ones!”

They walked slowly past the decorous portals of Mero’s, and caught a glimpse, through the curtained windows, of soft table lamps burning, of bare-armed women and white-shirted men, and heard faintly the strains of an orchestra playing a Viennese waltz.

“I should like to see our Jane,” said Gonsalez. “She never came to you, did she?”

“She came, but I didn’t see her,” said Manfred. “From the moment she leaves the theatre she must not be left.”

Leon nodded.

“I have already made that arrangement,” he said. “Digby——”

“Digby takes up his duty at midnight,” said Manfred. “He has been down to Oberzohn’s place to get the lie of the land: he thought it advisable that he should study the topography in daylight, and I agreed. He might get himself into an awkward tangle if he started exploring the canal bank in the dark hours. Summer or winter, there is usually a mist on the water.”

They reached Frater’s theatre so early that the queues at the pit door were still unadmitted, and Leon suggested that they make a circuit of this rambling house of entertainment. It stood in Shaftesbury Avenue and occupied an island site. On either side two narrow streets flanked the building, whilst the rear formed the third side of a small square, one of which was taken up by a County Council dwelling, mainly occupied by artisans. From the square a long passage-way led to Cranbourn Street; whilst, in addition to the alley which opened just at the back of the theatre, a street ran parallel to Shaftesbury Avenue from Charing Cross Road to Rupert Street.

The theatre itself was one of the best in London, and although it had had a succession of failures, its luck had turned, and the new mystery play was drawing all London.

“That is the stage door,” said Leon—they had reached the square—“and those are emergency exits”—he pointed back the way they had come—“which are utilized at the end of a performance to empty the theatre.”

“Why are you taking such an interest in the theatre itself?” asked Poiccart.

“Because,” said Gonsalez slowly, “I am in agreement with George. We should have found Newton’s car parked in Fitzreeve Gardens—not Oberzohn’s. And the circumstances are a little suspicious.”

The doors of the pit and gallery were open now; the queues were moving slowly to the entrances; and they watched the great building swallow up the devotees of the drama, before they returned to the front of the house.

Cars were beginning to arrive, at first at intervals, but, as the hour of the play’s beginning approached, in a ceaseless line that made a congestion and rendered the traffic police articulate and occasionally unkind. It was short of the half-hour after eight when Manfred saw Oberzohn’s glistening car in the block, and presently it pulled up before the entrance of the theatre. First Joan and then Monty Newton alighted and passed out of view.

Gonsalez thought he had never seen the girl looking quite as radiantly pretty. She had the colouring and the shape of youth, and though the more fastidious might object to her daring toilette, the most cantankerous could not cavil at the pleasing effect.

“It is a great pity,”—Leon spoke in Spanish—“a thousand pities! I have the same feeling when I see a perfect block of marble placed in the hands of a tombstone-maker to be mangled into ugliness!”

Manfred put out his hand and drew him back into the shadow. A cab was dropping the lame man. He got out with the aid of a linkman, paid the driver, and limped into the vestibule. It was not a remarkable coincidence: the gentleman had evidently come from Mero’s, and as all London was flocking to the drama, there was little that was odd in finding him here. They saw that he went up into the dress-circle, and later, when they took their places in the stalls, Leon, glancing up, saw the pale, bearded face and noted that he occupied the end seat of the front row.

“I’ve met that man somewhere,” he said, irritated. “Nothing annoys me worse than to forget, not a face, but where I have seen it!”

Did Gurther but know, he had achieved the height of his ambition: he had twice passed under the keen scrutiny of the cleverest detectives in the world, and had remained unrecognized.

_Chapter XXIX_ _Work for Gurther_

GURTHER was sleeping when he was called for duty, but presented himself before his director as bright and alert as though he had not spent a sleepless night, nor yet had endured the strain of a midnight train jump.

“Once more, my Gurther, I send you forth.” Dr. Oberzohn was almost gay. “This time to save us all from the Judas treachery of one we thought was our friend. To-night the snake must bite, and bite hard, Gurther. And out into the dark goes the so-called Trusted! And after that, my brave boy, there shall be nothing to fear.”

He paused for approval, and got it in a snapped agreement.

“To-night we desire from you a _chef d’œuvre_, the supreme employment of your great art, Gurther; the highest expression of genius! The gentleman-club manner will not do. They may look for you and find you. Better it should be, this time, that you——”

“Herr Doktor, will you graciously permit me to offer a humble suggestion?” said Gurther eagerly.

The doctor nodded his head slowly.

“You may speak, Gurther,” he said. “You are a man of intelligence; I would not presume to dictate to an artist.”

“Let me go for an hour, perhaps two hours, and I will return to you with a manner that is unique. Is it graciously permitted, Herr Doktor?”

“March!” said the doctor graciously, waving his hand to the door.

Nearly an hour and a half passed before the door opened and a gentleman came in who for even a moment even the doctor thought was a stranger. The face had an unearthly ivory pallor; the black brows, the faint shadows beneath the eyes that suggested a recent illness, the close-cropped black beard in which grey showed—these might not have deceived him. But the man was obviously the victim of some appalling accident of the past. One shoulder was hunched, the hand that held the stick was distorted out of shape, and as he moved, the clump of his club foot advertised his lameness.

“Sir, you desire to see me——?” began the doctor, and then stared open-mouthed. “It is not . . . !”

Gurther smiled.

“Herr Doktor, are you condescendingly pleased?”

“Colossal!” murmured Oberzohn, gazing in amazement. “Of all accomplishments this is supreme! Gurther, you are an artist. Some day we shall buy a theatre for you in Unter den Linden, and you shall thrill large audiences.”

“Herr Doktor, this is my own idea; this I have planned for many months. The boots I made myself; even the coat I altered”—he patted his deformed shoulder proudly.

“An eyeglass?”

“I have it,” said Gurther promptly.

“The cravat—is it not too proper?”

Gurther fingered his tie.

“For the grand habit I respectfully claim that the proper tie is desirable, if you will graciously permit.”

The Herr Doktor nodded.

“You shall go with God, Gurther,” he said piously, took a golden cigarette-case from his pocket and handed it to the man. “Sit down, my dear friend.”

He rose and pointed to the chair he had vacated.

“In my own chair, Gurther. Nothing is too good for you. Now here is the arrangement . . .”

Step by step he unfolded the time-table, for chronology was almost as great a passion with this strange and wicked man as it was with Aunt Alma.

So confident was Gurther of his disguise that he had gone in the open to speak to Oberzohn’s chauffeur, and out of the tail of his eye he had seen Manfred and Gonsalez approaching. It was the supreme test and was passed with credit to himself.

He did not dine at Mero’s; Gurther never ate or drank when he was wearing a disguise, knowing just how fatal that occupation could be. Instead, he had called a taxi, and had killed time by being driven slowly round and round the Outer Circle of Regent’s Park.

Gurther was doing a great deal of thinking in these days, and at the cost of much physical discomfort had curtailed his pernicious practices, that his head might be clear all the time. For if he were to live, that clear head of his was necessary. The prisoner in the cellar occupied his thoughts. She had an importance for two reasons: she was a friend of the men whom he hated with a cold and deadly malignity beyond description; she represented wealth untold, and the Herr Doktor had even gone to the length of planning a marriage with her. She was not to be killed, not to be hurt; she was so important that the old man would take the risks attendant upon a marriage. There must be an excellent reason for that, because Dr. Oberzohn had not a very delicate mind.

He seemed to remember that, by the English law, a wife could not give evidence against her husband. He was not sure, but he had a dim notion that Pfeiffer had told him this: Pfeiffer was an educated man and had taken high honours at the gymnasium.

Gurther was not well read. His education had been of a scrappy character, and once upon a time he had been refused a leading part because of his provincial accent. That fault he had corrected in prison, under the tuition of a professor who was serving a life sentence for killing two women; but by the time Gurther had been released, he was a marked man, and the stage was a career lost to him for ever.

Oberzohn possessed advantages which were not his. He was the master; Gurther was the servant. Oberzohn could determine events by reason of his vast authority, and the strings which he pulled in every part of the world. Even Gurther had accepted this position of blind, obedient servant, but now his angle had shifted, even as Oberzohn’s had moved in relation to Montague Newton. Perhaps because of this. The doctor, in curtailing one confidence, was enlarging another, and in the enlargement his prestige suffered.

Gurther was now the confidant, therefore the equal; and logically, the equal can always become the superior. He had dreamed dreams of a life of ease, a gratification of his sense of luxury without the sobering thought that somewhere round the corner was waiting a man ready to tap him on the shoulder . . . a white palace in a flowery land, with blue swimming pools, and supple girls who called him Master. Gurther began to see the light.

Until he had taken his seat in the theatre, he had not so much as glimpsed the man and the woman in the end box.

Joan was happy—happier than she remembered having been. Perhaps it was the reaction from her voluntary imprisonment. Certainly it was Monty’s reluctant agreement to a change of plans which so exalted her. Monty had dropped the thin pretence of an accommodation marriage; and once he was persuaded to this, the last hindrance to enjoyment was dissipated. Let Oberzohn take the girl if he wanted her; take, too, such heavy responsibility as followed. Monty Newton would get all that he wanted without the risk. Having arrived at this decision, he had ordered another bottle of champagne to seal the bargain, and they left Mero’s club a much happier couple than they had been when they entered.

“As soon as we’ve carved up this money, we’ll get away out of England,” he told her as they were driving to the theatre. “What about Buenos Ayres for the winter, old girl?”

She did not know where Buenos Ayres was, but she gurgled her delight at the suggestion, and Monty expatiated upon the joys of the South American summer, the beauties of B.A., its gaieties and amusements.

“I don’t suppose there’ll be any kick coming,” he said, “but it wouldn’t be a bad scheme if we took a trip round the world, and came back in about eighteen months’ time to settle down in London. My hectic past would have been forgotten by then—why, I might even get into Parliament.”

“How wonderful!” she breathed, and then: “What is this play about, Monty?”

“It’s a bit of a thrill, the very play for you—a detective story that will make your hair stand on end.”

She had all the gamin’s morbid interest in murder and crime, and she settled down in the box with a pleasant feeling of anticipation, and watched the development of the first act.

The scene was laid in a club, a low-down resort where the least desirable members of society met, and she drank in every word, because she knew the life, had seen that type of expensively dressed woman who swaggered on to the stage and was addressed familiarly by the club proprietor. She knew that steady-eyed detective when he made his embarrassing appearance. The woman was herself. She even knew the cadaverous wanderer who approached stealthily at the door: a human wolf that fled at the sight of the police officer.

The three who sat in the front row of the stalls—how Leon Gonsalez secured these tickets was one of the minor mysteries of the day—saw her, and one at least felt his heart ache.

Monty beamed his geniality. He had taken sufficient wine to give him a rosy view of the world, and he was even mildly interested in the play, though his chief pleasure was in the girl’s enchantment. He ordered ices for her after the first interval.

“You’re getting quite a theatre fan, kiddie,” he said. “I must take you to some other shows. I had no idea you liked this sort of thing.”

She drew a long breath and smiled at him.

“I like anything when I’m with you,” she said, and they held hands foolishly, till the house lights dimmed and the curtain rose upon a lawyer’s office.

The lawyer was of the underworld: a man everlastingly on the verge of being struck off the rolls. He had betrayed a client with whom he had had dealings, and the man had gone to prison for a long term, but had escaped. Now the news had come that he had left Australia and was in London, waiting his opportunity to destroy the man whose treachery was responsible for his capture.

Here was a note to which the heart of the girl responded. Even Monty found himself leaning forward, as the old familiar cant terms of his trade came across the footlights.

“It is quite all right,” he said at the second interval, “only”—he hesitated—“isn’t it a bit too near the real thing? After all, one doesn’t come to the theatre to see . . .”

He stopped, realizing that conditions and situations familiar to him were novel enough to a fashionable audience which was learning for the first time that a “busy” was a detective, and that a police informer went by the title of “nose.”

The lights up, he glanced round the house, and suddenly he started and caught her arm.

“Don’t look for a moment,” he said, averting his eyes, “then take a glance at the front row. Do you see anybody you know?”

Presently she looked.

“Yes, that is the fellow you hate so much, isn’t it—Gonsalez?”

“They’re all there—the three of them,” said Monty. “I wonder,”—he was troubled at the thought—“I wonder if they’re looking for you?”

“For me? They’ve nothing on me, Monty.”

He was silent.

“I’m glad you’re not going back to that place to-night. They’ll trail you sure—sure!”

He thought later that it was probably a coincidence that they were there at all. They seemed to show no interest in the box, but were chattering and talking and laughing to one another. Not once did their eyes come up to his level, and after a while he gained in confidence, though he was glad enough when the play was resumed.

There were two scenes in the act: the first was a police station, the second the lawyer’s room. The man was drunk, and the detective had come to warn him that The Ringer was after him. And then suddenly the lights on the stage were extinguished and the whole house was in the dark. It was part of the plot. In this darkness, and in the very presence of the police, the threatened man was to be murdered. They listened in tense silence, the girl craning her head forward, trying to pierce the dark, listening to the lines of intense dialogue that were coming from the blackness of the stage. Somebody was in the room—a woman, and they had found her. She slipped from the stage detective’s grasp and vanished, and when the lights went up she was gone.

“What has happened, Monty?” she whispered.

He did not answer.

“Do you think——”

She looked round at him. His head was resting on the plush-covered ledge of the box. His face, turned towards her, was grey; the eyes were closed, and his teeth showed in a hideous grin.

She screamed.

“Monty! Monty!”

She shook him. Again her scream rang through the house. At first the audience thought that it was a woman driven hysterical by the tenseness of the stage situation, and then one or two people rose from their stalls and looked up.

“Monty! Speak to me! He’s dead, he’s dead!”

Three seats in the front row had emptied. The screams of the hysterical girl made it impossible for the scene to proceed, and the curtain came down quickly.

The house was seething with excitement. Every face was turned towards the box where she knelt by the side of the dead man, clasping him in her arms, and the shrill agony in her voice was unnerving.

The door of the box swung open, and Manfred dashed in. One glance he gave at Monty Newton, and he needed no other.

“Get the girl out,” he said curtly.

Leon tried to draw her from the box, but she was a shrieking fury.

“You did it, you did it! . . . Let me go to him!”

Leon lifted her from her feet, and, clawing wildly at his face, she was carried from the box.

The manager was running along the passage, and Leon sent him on with a jerk of his head. And then a woman in evening dress came from somewhere.

“May I take her?” she said, and the exhausted girl collapsed into her arms.

Gonsalez flew back to the box. The man was lying on the floor, and the manager, standing at the edge of the box, was addressing the audience.

“The gentleman has fainted, and I’m afraid his friend has become a little hysterical. I must apologize to you, ladies and gentlemen, for this interruption. If you will allow us a minute to clear the box, the play will be resumed. If there is a doctor in the house, I should be glad if he would come.”

There were two doctors within reach, and in the passage, which was now guarded by a commissionaire, a hasty examination was made. They examined the punctured wound at the back of the neck and then looked at one another.

“This is The Snake,” said one.

“The house mustn’t know,” said Manfred. “He’s dead, of course?”

The doctor nodded.

Out in the passage was a big emergency exit door, and this the manager pushed open, and, running out into the street, found a cab, into which all that was mortal of Monty Newton was lifted.

Whilst this was being done, Poiccart returned.

“His car has just driven off,” he said. “I saw the number-plate as it turned into Lisle Street.”

“How long ago?” asked Gonsalez quickly.

“At this very moment.”

Leon pinched his lip thoughtfully.

“Why didn’t he wait, I wonder?”

He went back through the emergency door, which was being closed, and passed up the passage towards the entrance. The box was on the dress-circle level, and the end of a short passage brought him into the circle itself.

And then the thought of the lame man occurred to him, and his eyes sought the first seat in the front row, which was also the seat nearest to the boxes. The man had gone.

As he made this discovery, George emerged from the passage.

“Gurther!” said Leon. “What a fool I am! But how clever!”

“Gurther?” said Manfred in amazement. “Do you mean the man with the club foot?”

Leon nodded.

“He was not alone, of course,” said Gonsalez. “There must have been two or three of the gang here, men and women—Oberzohn works these schemes out with the care and thoroughness of a general. I wonder where the management have taken the girl?”

He found the manager discussing the tragedy with two other men, one of whom was obviously associated with the production, and he signalled him aside.

“The lady? I suppose she’s gone home. She’s left the theatre.”

“Which way did she go?” asked Gonsalez, in a sudden panic.

The manager called a linkman, who had seen a middle-aged woman come out of the theatre with a weeping girl, and they had gone down the side-street towards the little square at the back of the playhouse.

“She may have taken her home to Chester Square,” said Manfred. His voice belied the assumption of confidence.

Leon had not brought his own machine, and they drove to Chester Square in a taxi. Fred, the footman, had neither heard nor seen the girl, and nearly fainted when he learned of the tragic ending to his master’s career.

“Oh, my God!” he groaned. “And he only left here this afternoon . . . dead, you say?”

Gonsalez nodded.

“Not—not The Snake?” faltered the man.

“What do you know about the snake?” demanded Manfred sternly.

“Nothing, except—well, the snake made him nervous, I know. He told me to-day that he hoped he’d get through the week without a snake-bite.”

He was questioned closely, but although it was clear that he knew something of his master’s illicit transactions, and that he was connected in business with Oberzohn, the footman had no connection with the doctor’s gang. He drew a large wage and a percentage of profits from the gaming side of the business, and confessed that it was part of his duties to prepare stacks of cards and pass them to his master under cover of bringing in the drinks. But of anything more sinister he knew nothing.

“The woman, of course, was a confederate, who had been planted to take charge of the girl the moment the snake struck. I was in such a state of mind,” confessed Leon, “that I do not even remember what she looked like. I am a fool—a double-distilled idiot! I think I must be getting old. There’s only one thing for us to do, and that is to get back to Curzon Street—something may have turned up.”

“Did you leave anybody in the house?”

Leon nodded.

“Yes, I left one of our men, to take any ’phone messages that came through.”

They paid off the taxi before the house, and Leon sprinted to the garage to get the car. The man who opened the door to them was he who had been tied up by the pedlar at Heavytree Farm, and his first words came as a shock to Manfred:

“Digby’s here, sir.”

“Digby?” said the other in surprise. “I thought he was on duty?”

“He’s been here since just after you left, sir. If I’d known where you had gone, I’d have sent him to you.”

Digby came out of the waiting-room at that moment, ready to apologize.

“I had to see you, sir, and I’m sorry I’m away from my post.”

“You may not be missing much,” said Manfred unsmilingly. “Come upstairs and tell me all about it.”

Digby’s story was a strange one. He had gone down that afternoon to the canal bank to make a reconnaissance of ground which was new to him.

“I’m glad I did too, because the walls have got broken glass on top. I went up into the Old Kent Road and bought a garden hoe, and prised the mortar loose, so that if I wanted, I could get over. And then I climbed round the water-gate and had a look at that barge of his. There was nobody about, though I think they spotted me afterwards. It is a fairly big barge, and, of course, in a terrible state, but the hold is full of cargo—you know that, sir?”

“You mean there is something in the barge?”

Digby nodded.

“Yes, it has a load of some kind. The after part, where the bargee’s sleeping quarters are, is full of rats and water, but the fore part of the vessel is water-tight, and it holds something heavy too. That is why the barge is down by its head in the mud. I was in the Thames police and I know a lot about river craft.”

“Is that what you came to tell me?”

“No, sir, it was something queerer than that. After I’d given the barge a look over and tried to pull up some of the boards—which I didn’t manage to do—I went along and had a look at the factory. It’s not so easy to get in, because the entrance faces the house, but to get to it you have to go half round the building, and that gives you a certain amount of cover. There was nothing I could see in the factory itself. It was in a terrible mess, full of old iron and burnt-out boxes. I was coming round the back of the building,” he went on impressively, “when I smelt a peculiar scent.”

“A perfume?”

“Yes, sir, it was perfume, but stronger—more like incense. I thought at first it might be an old bale of stuff that had been thrown out, or else I was deceiving myself. I began poking about in the rubbish heaps—but _they_ didn’t smell of scent! Then I went back into the building again, but there was no smell at all. It was very strong when I returned to the back of the factory, and then I saw a little waft of smoke come out of a ventilator close to the ground. My first idea was that the place was on fire, but when I knelt down, it was this scent.”

“Joss-sticks?” said Poiccart quickly.

“That’s what it was!” said the detective. “Like incense, yet not like it. I knelt down and listened at the grating, and I’ll swear that I heard voices. They were very faint.”

“Men’s?”

“No, women’s.”

“Could you see anything?”

“No, sir, it was a blind ventilator; there was probably a shaft there—in fact, I’m sure there was, because I pushed a stone through one of the holes and heard it drop some distance down.”

“There may be an underground room there,” said Poiccart, “and somebody’s burnt joss-sticks to sweeten the atmosphere.”

“Under the factory? It’s not in the plans of the building. I’ve had them from the surveyor’s office and examined them,” said George, “although surveyors’ plans aren’t infallible. A man like Oberzohn would not hesitate to break so unimportant a thing as a building law!”

Leon came in at that moment, heard the story and was in complete agreement with Poiccart’s theory.

“I wondered at the time we saw the plans whether we ought to accept that as conclusive,” he said. “The store was built at the end of 1914, when architects and builders took great liberties and pleaded the exigencies of the war.”

Digby went on with his story.

“I was going back to the barge to get past the water-gate, but I saw the old man coming down the steps of the house, so I climbed the wall, and very glad I was that I’d shifted that broken glass, or I should never have got over.”

Manfred pulled his watch from his pocket with a frown. They had lost nearly an hour of precious time with their inquiries in Chester Square.

“I hope we’re not too late,” he said ominously. “Now, Leon . . .”

But Leon had gone down the stairs in three strides.

_Chapter XXX_ _Joan a Prisoner_

DAZED with grief, not knowing, not seeing, not caring, not daring to think, Joan suffered herself to be led quickly into the obscurity of the side-street, and did not even realize that Oberzohn’s big limousine had drawn up by the sidewalk.

“Get in,” said the woman harshly.

Joan was pushed through the door and guided to a seat by somebody who was already in the machine.

She collapsed in a corner moaning as the door slammed and the car began to move.

“Where are we going? Let me get back to him!”

“The gracious lady will please restrain her grief,” said a hateful voice, and she swung round and stared unseeingly to the place whence the voice had come.

The curtains of the car had been drawn; the interior was as black as pitch.

“You—you beast!” she gasped. “It’s you, is it? . . . Gurther! You murdering beast!”

She struck at him feebly, but he caught her wrist.

“The gracious lady will most kindly restrain her grief,” he said suavely. “The Herr Newton is not dead. It was a little trick in order to baffle certain interferers.”

“You’re lying, you’re lying!” she screamed, struggling to escape from those hands of steel. “He’s dead! You know he’s dead, and you killed him! You snake-man!”

“The gracious lady must believe me,” said Gurther earnestly. They were passing through a public part of the town and at any moment a policeman might hear her shrieks. “If Herr Newton had not pretended to be hurt, he would have been arrested . . . he follows in the next car.”

“You’re trying to quieten me,” she said, “but I won’t be quiet.”

And then a hand came over her mouth and pressed her head back against the cushions. She struggled desperately, but two fingers slid up her face and compressed her nostrils. She was being suffocated. She struggled to free herself from the tentacle hold of him, and then slipped into unconsciousness. Gurther felt the straining figure go limp and removed his hands. She did not feel the prick of the needle on her wrist, though the drugging was clumsily performed in the darkness and in a car that was swaying from side to side. He felt her pulse, his long fingers pressed her throat and felt the throb of the carotid artery; propping her so that she could not fall, Herr Gurther sank back luxuriously into a corner of the limousine and lit a cigar.

The journey was soon over. In a very short time they were bumping down Hangman’s Lane and turned so abruptly into the factory grounds that one of the mudguards buckled to the impact of the gate-post.

* * * * *

It must have been two hours after the departure of her companion, when Mirabelle, lying on her bed, half dozing, was wakened by her book slipping to the floor, and sat up quickly to meet the apprising stare of the man whom, of all men in the world, she disliked most cordially. Dr. Oberzohn had come noiselessly into the room and under his arm was a pile of books.

“I have brought these for you,” he said, in his booming voice, and stacked them neatly on the table.

She did not answer.

“Novels of a frivolous kind, such as you will enjoy,” he said, unconscious of offence. “I desired the seller of the books to pick them for me. Fiction stories of adventure and of amorous exchanges. These will occupy your mind, though to me they would be the merest rubbish and nonsense.”

She stood silently, her hands clasped behind her, watching him. He was neater than usual, had resumed the frock-coat he wore the day she had first met him—how long ago that seemed!—his collar was stiffly white, and if his cravat was more gorgeous than is usually seen in a man correctly arrayed, it had the complementary value of being new.

He held in his hand a small bouquet of flowers tightly packed, their stems enclosed in silver foil, a white paper frill supplying an additional expression of gentility.

“These are for you.” He jerked out his hand towards her.

Mirabelle looked at the flowers, but did not take them. He seemed in no way disconcerted, either by her silence, or by the antagonism which her attitude implied, but, laying the flowers on top of the books, he clasped his hands before him and addressed her. He was nervous, for some reason; the skin of his forehead was furrowing and smoothing with grotesque rapidity. She watched the contortions, fascinated.

“To every man,” he began, “there comes a moment of domestic allurement. Even to the scientific mind, absorbed in its colossal problems, there is this desire for family life and for the haven of rest which is called marriage.”

He paused, as though he expected her to offer some comment upon his platitude.

“Man alone,” he went on, when she did not speak, “has established an artificial and unnatural convention that, at a certain age, a man should marry a woman of that same age. Yet it has been proved by history that happy marriages are often between a man who is in the eyes of the world old, and a lady who is youthful.”

She was gazing at him in dismay. Was he proposing to her? The idea was incredible, almost revolting. He must have read in her face the thoughts that were uppermost in her mind, the loathing, the sense of repulsion which filled her, yet he went on, unabashed:

“I am a man of great riches. You are a girl of considerable poverty. But because I saw you one day in your poor house, looking, gracious lady, like a lily growing amidst foul weeds, my heart went out to you, and for this reason I brought you to London, spending many thousands of pounds in order to give myself the pleasure of your company.”

“I don’t think you need go any farther, Dr. Oberzohn,” she said quietly, “if you’re proposing marriage, as I think you are.”

He nodded emphatically.

“Such is my honourable intention,” he said.

“I would never marry you in any circumstances,” she said. “Not even if I had met you under the happiest conditions. The question of your age”—she nearly added “and of your appearance,” but her natural kindness prevented that cruel thrust, though it would not have hurt him in the slightest degree—“has nothing whatever to do with my decision. I do not even like you, and have never liked you, Mr. Oberzohn.”

“Doctor,” he corrected, and in spite of her woeful plight she could have laughed at this insistence upon the ceremonial title.

“Young miss, I cannot woo you in the way of my dear and sainted brother, who was all for ladies and had a beautiful manner.”

She was amazed to hear that he had a brother at all—and it was almost a relief to know that he was dead.

“Martyred, at the hands of wicked and cunning murderers, slain in his prime by the assassin’s pistol . . .” His voice trembled and broke. “For that sainted life I will some day take vengeance.”

It was not wholly curiosity that impelled her to ask who killed him.

“Leon Gonsalez.” The words in his lips became the grating of a file. “Killed . . . murdered! And even his beautiful picture destroyed in that terrible fire. Had he saved that, my heart would have been soft towards him.” He checked himself, evidently realizing that he was getting away from the object of his call. “Think over this matter, young lady. Read the romantic books and the amorous books, and then perhaps you will not think it is so terrible a fate to drift at moonlight through the canals of Venice, with the moon above and the gondoliers.”

He wagged his head sentimentally.

“There is no book which will change my view, doctor,” she said. “I cannot understand why you propose such an extraordinary course, but I would rather die than marry you.”

His cold eyes filled her with a quick terror.

“There are worse things than death, which is but sleep—many worse things, young miss. To-morrow I shall come for you, and we will go into the country, where you will say ‘yes’ and ‘no’ according to my desire. I have many—what is the word?—certificates for marriage, for I am too clever a man to leave myself without alternatives.”

(This was true; he had residential qualifications in at least four counties, and at each he had given legal notice of his intended marriage.)

“Not to-morrow or any other day. Nothing would induce me.”

His eyebrows went almost to the top of his head.

“So!” he said, with such significance that her blood ran cold. “There are worse men than the Herr Doktor,”—he raised a long finger warningly,—“terrible men with terrible minds. You have met Gurther?”

She did not answer this.

“Yes, yes, you danced with him. A nice man, is he not, to ladies? Yet this same Gurther . . . I will tell you something.”

He seated himself on a corner of the table and began talking, until she covered her ears with her hands and hid her white face from him.

“They would have killed him for that,” he said, when her hands came down, “but Gurther was too clever, and the poor German peasants too stupid. You shall remember that, shall you not?”

He did not wait for her answer. With a stiff bow he strutted out of the room and up the stairs. There came the thud of the trap falling and the inevitable rumble of the concrete barrel.

He had some work to do, heavy work for a man who found himself panting when he climbed stairs. And though four of his best and most desperate men were waiting in his parlour drinking his whisky and filling the little room with their rank cigar smoke, he preferred to tackle this task which he had already begun as soon as night fell, without their assistance or knowledge.

On the edge of the deep hole in his grounds, where the wild convolvulus grew amidst the rusty corners of discarded tins and oil barrels, was a patch of earth that yielded easily to the spade. When the factory had been built, the depression had been bigger, but the builders had filled in half the hole with the light soil that they had dug out of the factory’s foundations.

He took his spade, which he had left in the factory, and, skirting the saucer-shaped depression, he reached a spot where a long trench had already been dug. Taking off his fine coat and waistcoat, unfastening cravat and collar and carefully depositing them upon the folded coat, he continued his work, stopping now and again to wipe his streaming brow.

He had to labour in the dark, but this was no disadvantage; he could feel the edges of the pit. In an hour the top of the trench was level with his chin, and, stooping to clear the bottom of loose soil, he climbed up with greater difficulty than he had anticipated, and it was only after the third attempt that he managed to reach the top, out of breath and short of temper.

He dressed again, and with his electric torch surveyed the pit he had made and grunted his satisfaction.

He was keenly sensitive to certain atmospheres, and needed no information about the change which had come over his subordinates. In their last consultation Gurther had been less obsequious, had even smoked in his presence without permission—absent-mindedly, perhaps, but the offence was there. And Dr. Oberzohn, on the point of smacking his face for his insolence, heard a warning voice within himself which had made his hand drop back at his side. Or was it the look he saw on Gurther’s face? The man was beyond the point where he could discipline him in the old Junker way. For although Dr. Oberzohn contemned all things Teutonic, he had a sneaking reverence for the military caste of that nation.

He left the spade sticking in a heap of turned earth. He would need that again, and shortly. Unless Gurther failed. Somehow he did not anticipate a failure in this instance. Mr. Monty Newton had not yet grown suspicious, would not be on his guard. His easy acceptance of the theatre ticket showed his mind in this respect.

The four men in his room rose respectfully as he came in. The air was blue with smoke, and Lew Cuccini offered a rough apology. He had been released that morning from detention, for Meadows had found it difficult to frame a charge which did not expose the full activities of the police, and the part they were playing in relation to Mirabelle Leicester. Evidently Cuccini had been reproaching, in his own peculiar way and in his own unprincipled language, the cowardice of his three companions, for the atmosphere seemed tense when the doctor returned. Yet, as was subsequently proved, the appearance of discord was deceptive; might indeed have been staged for their host’s benefit.

“I’ve just been telling these birds——” began Cuccini.

“Oh, shut up, Lew!” growled one of his friends. “If that crazy man hadn’t been shouting your name, we should not have gone back! He’d have wakened the dead. And our orders were to retire at the first serious sign of an alarm. That’s right, doctor, isn’t it?”

“Sure it’s right,” said the doctor blandly. “Never be caught—that is a good motto. Cuccini was caught.”

“And I’d give a year of my life to meet that Dago again,” said Cuccini, between his teeth.

He was delightfully inconsistent, for he came into the category, having been born in Milan, and had had his early education in the Italian quarter of Hartford, Connecticut.

“He’d have tortured me too . . . he was going to put lighted wax matches between my fingers——”

“And then you spilled it!” accused one of the three hotly. “You talk about us bolting!”

“Silence!” roared the doctor. “This is unseemly! I have forgiven everything. That shall be enough for you all. I will hear no other word.”

“Where is Gurther?” Cuccini asked the question.

“He has gone away. To-night he leaves for America. He may return—who knows? But that is the intention.”

“Snaking?” asked somebody, and there was a little titter of laughter.

“Say, doctor, how do you work that stunt?” Cuccini leaned forward, his cigar between his fingers, greatly intrigued. “I saw no snakes down at Rath Hall, and yet he was bitten, just as that Yankee was bitten—Washington.”

“He will die,” said the doctor complacently. He was absurdly jealous for the efficacy of his method.

“He was alive yesterday, anyway. We shadowed him to the station.”

“Then he was not bitten—no, that is impossible. When the snake-bites,”—Oberzohn raised his palms and gazed piously at the ceiling—“after that there is nothing. No, no, my friend, you are mistaken.”

“I tell you I’m not making any mistake,” said the other doggedly. “I was in the room, I tell you, soon after they brought him in, and I heard one of the busies say that his face was all wet.”

“So!” said Oberzohn dully. “That is very bad.”

“But how do you do it, doctor? Do you shoot or sump’n’?”

“Let us talk about eventual wealth and happiness,” said the doctor. “To-night is a night of great joy for me. I will sing you a song.”

Then, to the amazement of the men and to their great unhappiness, he sang, in a thin, reedy old voice, the story of a young peasant who had been thwarted in love and had thrown himself from a cliff into a seething waterfall. It was a lengthy song, intensely sentimental, and his voice held few of the qualities of music. The gang had never been set a more difficult job than to keep straight faces until he had finished.

“Gee! You’re some artist, doctor!” said the sycophantic Cuccini, and managed to get a simulation of envy into his voice.

“In my student days I was a great singer,” said the doctor modestly.

Over the mantelpiece was a big, old clock, with a face so faded that only a portion of the letters remained. Its noisy ticking had usually a sedative effect on the doctor. But its main purpose and value was its accuracy. Every day it was corrected by a message from Greenwich, and as Oberzohn’s success as an organizer depended upon exact timing, it was one of his most valuable assets.

He glanced up at the clock now, and that gave Cuccini his excuse.

“We’ll be getting along, doctor,” he said. “You don’t want anything to-night? I’d like to get a cut at that Gonsalez man. You won’t leave me out if there’s anything doing?”

Oberzohn rose and went out of the room without another word, for he knew that the rising of Cuccini was a signal that not only was the business of the day finished, but also that the gang needed its pay.

Every gang-leader attended upon Mr. Oberzohn once a week with his pay-roll, and it was usually the custom for the Herr Doktor to bring his cash-box into the room and extract sufficient to liquidate his indebtedness to the leader. It was a big box, and on pay-day, as this was, filled to the top with bank-notes and Treasury bills. He brought it back now, put it on the table, consulted the little slip that Cuccini offered to him, and, taking out a pad of notes, fastened about by a rubber band, he wetted his finger and thumb.

“You needn’t count them,” said Cuccini. “We’ll take the lot.”

The doctor turned to see that Cuccini was carelessly holding a gun in his hand.

“The fact is, doctor,” said Cuccini coolly, “we’ve seen the red light, and if we don’t skip now, while the skipping’s good, there’s going to be no place we can stay comfortable in this little island, and I guess we’ll follow Gurther.”

One glance the doctor gave at the pistol and then he resumed his counting, as though nothing had happened.

“Twenty, thirty, forty, fifty . . .”

“Now quit that,” said Cuccini roughly. “I tell you, you needn’t count.”

“My friend, I prefer to know what I am going to lose. It is a pardonable piece of curiosity.”

He raised his hand to the wall, where a length of cord hung, and pulled at it gently, without taking his eyes from the bank-notes.

“What are you doing? Put up your hands!” hissed Cuccini.

“Shoot, I beg.” Oberzohn threw a pad of notes on the table. “There is your pay.” He slammed down the lid of the box. “Now you shall go, if you _can_ go! Do you hear them?” He raised his hand, and to the strained ears of the men came a gentle rustling sound from the passage outside as though somebody were dragging a piece of parchment along the floor. “Do you hear? You shall go if you can,” said the doctor again, with amazing calmness.

“The snakes!” breathed Cuccini, going white, and the hand that held the pistol shook.

“Shoot them, my friend,” sneered Oberzohn. “If you see them, shoot them. But you will not see them, my brave man. They will be—where? No eyes shall see them come or go. They may lie behind a picture, they may wait until the door is opened, and then . . . !”

Cuccini’s mouth was dry.

“Call ’em off, doctor,” he said tremulously.

“Your gun—on the table.”

Still the rustling sound was audible. Cuccini hesitated for a second, then obeyed, and took up the notes.

The other three men were huddled together by the fire-place, the picture of fear.

“Don’t open the door, doc,” said Cuccini, but Oberzohn had already gripped the handle and turned it.

They heard another door open and the click of the passage light as it had come on. Then he returned.

“If you go now, I shall not wish to see you again. Am I not a man to whom all secrets are known? You are well aware!”

Cuccini looked from the doctor to the door.

“Want us to go?” he asked, troubled.

Oberzohn shrugged.

“As you wish! It was my desire that you should stay with me to-night—there is big work and big money for all of you.”

The men were looking at one another uneasily.

“How long do you want us to stay?” asked Cuccini.

“To-night only; if you would not prefer . . .”

To-night would come the crisis. Oberzohn had realized this since the day dawned for him.

“We’ll stay—where do we sleep?”

For answer Oberzohn beckoned them from the room and they followed him into the laboratory. In the wall that faced them was a heavy iron door that opened into a concrete storehouse, where he kept various odds and ends of equipment, oil and spirit for his cars, and the little gas engine that worked a small dynamo in the laboratory and gave him, if necessary, a lighting plant independent of outside current.

There were three long windows heavily barred and placed just under the ceiling.

“Looks like the condemned cell to me,” grumbled Cuccini suspiciously.

“Are the bolts on the inside of a condemned cell?” asked Oberzohn. “Does the good warden give you the key as I give you?”

Cuccini took the key.

“All right,” he said ungraciously, “there are plenty of blankets here, boys—I guess you want us where the police won’t look, eh?”

“That is my intention,” replied the doctor.