The Plague, Pestilence & Apocalypse MEGAPACK™

by Robert Reed

  hand under it and shook it, and something fell out wrapped in silver

  tissue . He unrolled the paper and handed the contents to Crocks .

  “I am almost inclined to ask you to keep this in Scotland Yard,”

  he said, “yet I don’t think they will burgle me again .”

  It was the medallion!

  “As for that which they have stolen,” Tillizini went on, “it is re-

  grettable . I feel I shall never forgive myself for losing that charming

  locket of yours .”

  His voice was filled with gentle mockery, and the servant grinned

  a little sheepishly, mumbling his depreciation of any fuss at so small

  a loss .

  “I’m not at all annoyed, sir,” he said, awkwardly .

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  What was true of Thomas was not true of the two leaders of the

  “Red Hand” who at that moment were sitting in a little room in

  Deptford examining with consternation and chagrin the plump and

  smiling features of a healthy child of two .

  CHAPTER XI

  LADY MORTE-MANNERY HELPS A FRIEND

  Sir Ralph Morte-Mannery was in an amiable mood . He had just

  read a most complimentary reference to his own perspicacity and

  genius in a French journal devoted to the interests of collectors . His

  gaiety had affected the other members of the little dinner party, and

  had tempered somewhat the natural annoyance of the quashing of

  George Mansingham’s conviction .

  That unfortunate man had been released, not because the judges

  of the Appeal Court thought that his sentence was excessive, but

  because, in summing up, Sir Ralph had outraged most of the canons

  of good taste which it is possible for a judge to outrage .

  In giving judgment their lordships had said many bitter things

  about Sir Ralph; indeed, so unkind had been some of their com-

  ments, that Hilary George, listening with that air of delighted won-

  der which was his normal attitude toward life, had felt a sinking of

  his heart as he thought of the humiliation which by his efforts he had

  brought upon his sometime friend .

  Hilary was too good a man and too good a sportsman to exult in

  his victory . He was a strong man, too . None but a strong man would

  have taken the first train to Burboro’ and carried the news of the

  result to a man who would consider himself as being almost within

  his legal rights in slaying the messenger .

  There had been a stiff little meeting in the library; later, some-

  thing like a reconciliation . Hilary, in terms which his old friendship

  permitted, gave the result of the finding, toning down the more vig-

  orous of the judges’ remarks, and inwardly praying that The Times,

  in its record of the case, would sub-edit it as mercifully .

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  Sir Ralph had been prepared for some such upset . He himself

  was an excellent lawyer where his prejudices did not interfere with

  his judgment . The lawyer in him had told him that his sentence had

  been excessive, just as the collector in him demanded as emphati-

  cally that the man should have been hung . But Hilary, with his baby

  face and his babbling humour, and his readiness to laugh at jokes

  against himself, had broken down the reserve of the older man, and

  had been invited to stay on .

  Over the dinner-table Sir Ralph even drank his health in facetious

  terms . The host’s humour was not of a great quality . But it was quite

  sufficient, as indeed it is in the case of all men whose flashes of

  humour are few and far between . He insisted on referring to Hilary

  as the “enemy” or “my oppressor,” and it gave him considerable

  amusement to do so .

  “Now, Hilary,” he said, with heavy jocularity, “you must give us

  all the news of the best criminal circles . What are the ‘Red Hand’

  doing? Really, they are killing as many people as the motor-buses .”

  “Those people who know best,” said Hilary, gravely, “are view-

  ing the inactivity of the ‘Red Hand’ with some apprehension . I hap-

  pen to know the Government is rather worried about it . These men

  are brilliantly organized, and they will stop at nothing .”

  “Has anybody discovered,” asked Marjorie, “why they are rifling

  the collections? There was an article in the Post Herald about it the

  other day .”

  Hilary shook his head .

  “I’m blessed if I can understand it,” he said, “there’s something

  behind it . I don’t want to bother you, Ralph,” he went on, “but

  doesn’t it ever strike you, as a lawyer and as a man of keen per-

  ceptions, that there really might have been some ‘Red Hand’ move

  behind that burglary of yours?”

  Sir Ralph shook his head .

  “I shouldn’t think it was likely; of course, it might be so,” he

  conceded graciously, though in his heart of hearts he was perfectly

  satisfied that it was nothing of the sort.

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  “Their latest exploit,” said Hilary, “was to kidnap one of Til-

  lizini’s agents . The man was taken away overnight and turned up

  whole and hearty in the morning . For some reason they’d given an

  order for his release, being, I think, under the impression that they’d

  killed Tillizini and there was no necessity to retain his agent . The

  man could give very little account of his movements, except that

  he had been more or less stupefied by the administration of a drug

  which somewhat dulled his powers of recollection . He was unable

  to assist the police in locating the house where he had been taken .

  He was found in a dazed condition sitting on one of the seats on

  London Bridge in the early hours of the morning, and has been in a

  more or less semi-conscious condition ever since .”

  “That’s very interesting .” Frank, who was seated next to Marjo-

  rie, leant across the table . “I’ve seen men like that in Italy; it’s a sort

  of opium preparation that some of the peasants take . There is a slang

  term for it in Italian, an abbreviation of non mi ricordo .”

  “He remembers nothing, any way,” said Hilary, “except——” He

  stopped .

  “Except what?” asked Vera .

  She had been a silent listener to the conversation . She was look-

  ing very beautiful to-night, Hilary thought . She wore a dress of grey

  chiffon velvet, one big pink rose in her corsage .

  “I forget now,” said Hilary . He remembered that he had received

  his information in confidence and that he himself might be associ-

  ated in the case at a later period .

  “By the way,” he went on, “I saw you in town the other day .”

  Vera reused her delicate eyebrows .

  “Really,” she drawled, “that was awfully clever of you . Where

  was I?”

  “You were in Oxford Street,” said Hilary . “That was an awfully

  swagger motor-car you were driving in; was it Festini’s?”

  She looked at him steadily .

  “Festini?” she repeated .

  “I thought I saw you with Festini,” he said hastily .

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, by Edgar Wallace (Part 2) | 349

  For a man with such a wide knowledge of human creatures and,

  moreover, so versed in the ways of society, he seemed to be making

  an unusual number of faux pas .

  “I do not know Festini,” she said, “if you mean Count Festini,

  whose name one sees through the medium of the public press as

  moving in exalted circles; nor have I ever been in a motor-car in

  Oxford Street since I drove with Sir Ralph to Buzzard’s last Christ-

  mas .”

  “I am sorry,” murmured the barrister .

  Vera changed the subject with an easy grace . She was a perfect

  hostess, though she required all her self-control to prevent her show-

  ing the anger she felt .

  “Go on telling us something about the ‘Red Hand’,” she said .

  “What is this immense coup one hears about? I am awfully keen to

  know .”

  “Nobody seems to have any information on that subject,” said

  Hilary, “not even Tillizini .”

  “Not even Tillizini?” she repeated in mock amazement .

  “Not even Tillizini,” repeated Hilary . “He seems to be as much in

  the dark as any of us .”

  “People are getting a little jumpy,” said Sir Ralph, as, at a signal

  from Vera, the two women rose from the table . “There was another

  article in this morning’s paper . I know the journalists who are gener-

  ally behind the scenes in these things expect something pretty big to

  happen . The police are guarding all the public buildings, and every

  Cabinet Minister is being shadowed with as much care as though the

  ‘Red Hand’ was a suffragist organization .”

  The party laughed politely at Sir Ralph’s little gibe .

  “I can confirm that,” said Frank, as he selected a cigar from the

  box which Marjorie offered him . “The various corporations respon-

  sible for their safety have asked a number of engineers to make an

  inspection of the bridges .”

  “Across the Thames?”

  He nodded . “There’s a water-guard every night for these,” he

  said; “all the signs are pretty ominous .”

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  Sir Ralph and Hilary strolled away . They were both interested in

  the collection, and Vera joined the other two .

  “I am not going to stay long with you,” she smiled; “don’t look

  so alarmed, Mr . Gallinford .”

  She was genuine in her desire to propitiate him . His attitude to-

  wards her was a little strange and stiff . If she knew the reason, she

  gave no indication . In a way, he amused her . He was so open and

  so English . She experienced the resentment of her remote ancestry

  stirring within her at his dogged, unwavering honesty . Her attitude

  to the distress of Marjorie was at once polite and antagonistic . She,

  Marjorie, had remonstrated with him without effect . With all her

  pride in her lover, she desired that he should stand well with others

  and should inspire in them the same admiration which she herself

  felt for him .

  Vera’s attempt at conciliation on this occasion was crowned with

  no greater success than her previous effort . After a while she yawned

  slightly behind her hand . She apologized laughingly .

  “Do not think you poor people are boring me,” she said, “but

  I’ve had some rather trying nights lately . Where are you going?” she

  asked .

  “I am going into the billiard-room to play Marjorie a hundred

  up,” said Frank, with an heroic attempt to be genial .

  Vera nodded .

  “And I’ve got my accounts to bring up to date .”

  She made a wry little face . “Pity me,” she demanded, with a

  smile .

  “Can I help you, dear?” asked Marjorie .

  Vera shook her head .

  “Accounts,” she said, with thinly-veiled acrimony, “are myster-

  ies into which I trust your future husband will never initiate you .”

  With a nod she passed out of the room . She returned a few min-

  utes later as though she had left something behind, and found the

  room empty . She made her way to the billiard-room; the game had

  just started, so they were settled for at least half an hour .

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  She looked at the jewelled watch on her wrist; it wanted five

  minutes to ten . She came back to the hall and went up the stairs

  slowly, and as slowly walked past the museum . The iron door was

  closed, but its rosewood covering stood ajar . Ralph was engaged in

  an argument on the respective values of Renaissance artists which

  would last for at least an hour . She quickened her steps . At the other

  end of the corridor her own room was situated . Highlawns had been

  reconstructed to suit Sir Ralph’s convenience . In a sense it was con-

  venient to her too, for she had chosen a small room in a wing which

  was never fully occupied unless Sir Ralph had an unusually large

  house-party .

  She closed the door behind her and locked it . It was a pretty

  room, furnished with taste, though it contained little that could by

  any stretch of imagination be termed valuable . Sir Ralph had his

  own views on the luxury of the age, and the simplicity, not to say the

  meanness, of his domestic arrangements, was a concrete expression

  of his disapproval of modern luxurious tendencies .

  The room possessed, what is unusual in English country houses,

  long French windows which opened on to a balcony . She looked at

  her watch again, then drew a heavy curtain across her door . The gas

  was burning dimly . The room might have been a sitting-room but for

  the big white bed which stood in an alcove, screened from view by

  thick silk curtains .

  She did not trouble to turn up the light . She looked at it for a mo-

  ment in doubt, and then walked to the window . Again she looked at

  the light hesitatingly, and, walking back, turned it out . She opened

  the window and stepped out on to the balcony .

  It was a mild, pleasant night . The moon was hidden behind a

  bank of clouds, but there was sufficient light to distinguish the more

  prominent objects in the big, sweet-smelling garden below . She

  looked carefully left and right, and saw nothing . She went back to

  her room to get a rug, and resumed her vigil . The clock of the village

  church had struck ten in its lugubrious tones when she heard a slight

  sound in the garden below .

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  She walked back to her room quickly, opened a cupboard, and

  took out a silk ladder; there was a hook attached, and this she fas-

  tened with deft fingers to a socket in the balcony, fixed in the wall,

  ostensibly to support the sunblinds when their cover was necessary .

  She dropped, the ladder over . A dark form rose from the shadow

  of the portico beneath and mounted the swaying cordage . He leapt

  lightly over the balustrade, and stopped for a moment to pull up the

  ladder after him, and to lay it on the floor of the balcony.

  She took his hand and led him into the room, closed the windows,

  shuttered them, and pulled the velvet c
urtains across . Then she lit

  the gas and returned to him . She laid her two hands upon his shoul-

  ders, and looked hungrily into his face .

  Beautiful as she was, the love which shone in her eyes transfig-

  ured her face and intensified her loveliness.

  “It is you!” she breathed . “Oh, thank you for coming yourself! I

  was afraid that you would send one of those wretched men of yours .”

  Festini smiled kindly . He patted her cheek caressingly .

  “I had to come,” he said, “though it is not long since I saw you .”

  “It is two days,” she said, reproachfully .

  He nodded .

  “So it is,” he smiled . “You got my letter?”

  For answer she took a crumpled envelope from her breast .

  “You ought to bum that,” he said, half seriously . “It is a very

  dangerous thing to keep letters, even though they are apparently in-

  nocent .

  “You have come alone?” she asked .

  He inclined his head . The hand that rested in his was shaking, but

  not from fear .

  “I have missed you so . I hate this place,” she said, vehemently .

  “It is a prison to me . It eats out my heart—this life . Festini,” she

  said, and again her two hands were laid on his shoulder, and her face

  searched his, “you cannot understand what an existence this is .”

  “It is only for a little while, my child,” he said .

  She was older than he, but his paternal manner was perfect .

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  “Later we will go away, and leave this dull land for a more pleas-

  ant one . Leave these grey skies, for the blue of our Italy, and these

  drab, drizzling fields for the sun-washed vineyards of our own land.”

  He kissed her lightly again . He was anxious to get to business .

  None knew the relations of these two, for Festini kept his secret

  well . Even in the innermost council of his association, he spoke of

  her as though she were the veriest stranger .

  “I want to go somewhere,” she said, moodily, “out of this! I

  planned to see you in Ireland last year, and at the last moment Ralph

  would not let me go .”

  She turned suddenly to him .

  “You must have met Marjorie there .”

  “Marjorie?” he said, innocently .

  “We were going together,” she went on, “and when I found she

  had to go alone—after all my planning—”