by Robert Reed
in keeping with the facts from your point of view . To me, some
removals are justified; they are more, they are necessary. One must
meet cunning with cunning, crime with crime . The law does not
adequately meet all modern crime, even the English law . Science
has produced a new type of criminal; but the modern parliaments
of the world have not as yet devised a new type of punishment . The
criminal code requires drastic revisions, as drastic as those which it
received when it erased from its statute book such awful and vindic-
tive punishments as were accorded to sheep-stealers .”
He went on to tell as much of his later discoveries as he felt it was
expedient to announce to the House . He could never overcome his
suspicion of crowds . The House of Commons, with its serried ranks
of members, was a crowd to him, an intellectual, a sympathetic and
brilliant crowd, but a crowd nevertheless, which might contain, for
aught he knew, one man who would betray his plans to the enemy .
The House gasped when told the story of the pigeons .
“I understand,” he said, “that you have an Act in contemplation;
the terms of that Act have been briefly communicated to me, and
I can tell you, Mr . Speaker, and the members of this House, that
there is no provision in that measure which is not justified by the
circumstances . Within seven days,” he said, solemnly, “this country
will be ravaged by the most malignant form of epidemic disease that
has been known in modern history . The horrors of the great plague
of London will be multiplied, the ports of every foreign country will
be closed to your commerce; you will be shunned by every grain-
bearing ship that sails the sea .
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“You are face to face, not only with death in its most terrible
form, but with starvation, with anarchy, with civil war perhaps . And
yet, knowing this, I tell you that you would be false to your great tra-
ditions if you paid one single penny to this infamous confederacy .”
He sat down amidst a murmured cheer .
In a few minutes he had walked out behind the Speaker’s chair,
and was in the Prime Minister’s sitting-room . That statesman came
in soon afterwards .
“The Act will pass to-night,” he said; “the Lords are sitting, and
I hope to get the Assent early in the morning . Can you rest to-night,
Professor?”
Tillizini shook his head .
“There is no rest for me to-night,” he said .
He looked at his watch . The hands pointed a quarter after twelve .
An attendant brought in a tray with coffee . After he had retired, the
Prime Minister asked—
“You are satisfied with such steps as we have taken?”
Tillizini nodded .
“Yes, I think the number will be sufficient.”
“We have sent four infantry brigades by route march to-night,”
said the Premier . “The cavalry and artillery are coming from Col-
chester .”
“The destroyers?” asked Tillizini .
“They left Chatham at sunset to-night with orders to steam slowly
up the river .” Tillizini nodded again .
“There will be one waiting for you at Tilbury,” said the Prime
Minister, “that was in accordance with your wishes .”
A few minutes later Tillizini entered his car, wrapped in his
great coat, and the great Mercedes sped noiselessly out through the
guarded gate, through the press of people in Whitehall, into Trafal-
gar Square, then turned to the right along the Strand . It slowed down
to pass a market van, which had emerged from the street leading
from Waterloo Bridge . As it did so a man walked quickly from the
sidewalk and leapt on to the footboard of the car .
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He was a middle-aged man, poorly dressed, and he was appar-
ently Italian, for it was in that language he said—
“Signor Tillizini?”
“Yes,” said Tillizini, in the same language .
The man made no reply . His hand went up with a lightning jerk .
Before his fingers had closed on the trigger, Tillizini’s had grasped
the pistol near the trigger guard, He half rose to his feet and, with
a quick swing of his body such as wrestlers employ, he pulled the
man into the car . It was all over in a second . Before the passers-by
and the loungers about the sidewalk realized what had happened,
the man was in the car, his pistol reposed in Tillizini’s pocket, and
the Italian detective’s foot was pressing lightly but suggestively on
his throat .
“Keep very still,” said Tillizini, bending over . “Put your hands
up, so .”
The man obeyed with a whimper of pain; then something hard
and cold snapped around his wrists .
“Now you may sit up,” said Tillizini .
He dragged the man to his feet and threw him into a corner seat .
From his breast pocket he produced a little electric lamp and flashed
it in the man’s face .
“Oh, yes,” said Tillizini, with a little laugh . “I think I have seen
you before .”
He recognized him as one of the many thousand of agents which
the “Red Hand” possessed .
“What are you going to do with me, Signor?” asked the man
sullenly .
“That I will tell you later,” replied the other .
In the East India Dock Road he stopped the car at a police-station
and bundled the captive out . The inspector was inclined to resent the
spectacle of a strange-looking foreign gentleman hauling a hand-
cuffed compatriot into the charge-room . But at a word from Tillizini
he became obsequiousness itself .
“Search him,” said Tillizini .
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He unlocked the handcuffs, a pair of his own, and two constables,
with scientific deftness born of experience, made a quick but careful
examination of the man’s possessions . He seemed to be well sup-
plied with money, Tillizini noticed; he had no papers of any kind .
A pencil and two stamps and some unaddressed telegraph forms,
comprised the sum of his property .
Tillizini carried the telegraph forms to the inspector’s desk and
examined them carefully . They were innocent of address or writ-
ing, but he saw impressions which showed that another telegram
had been written on top of one of them with pencil . He looked at it
closely but he could detect nothing . From his pocket he took a soft
crayon and gently rubbed the impression over . Gradually the words
came to light . The address was unintelligible . It had evidently been
written upon a harder substance . There were two words in Italian,
and Tillizini had little difficulty in deciphering them.
“Lisa goes,” he read .
He looked at the man .
“Who is Lisa?” he asked . But before the prisoner could shake
his head in pretended ignorance, Tillizini knew, and smothered an
exclamation that came to his lips .
Vera had gone to her sometime lover . Here was a complication
indeed .
CHAPTER XVII
MARJORIE CROSSES THE MARSH
Marjorie had retired for the night at eleven o’clock . She had
given up an attempt to bar the door against intruders, for her efforts
to barricade herself in had been resented by the woman, and, more-
over, they had been so ineffectual as to render the attempt a waste
of time and energy .
The house boasted one storey, the ground and the first floor;
her room was on the upper floor at the back of the house. It had
been chosen partly for the reason that it was undoubtedly the most
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habitable of the apartments which the ramshackle dwelling boasted,
and partly because from this position she could see little or nothing
of the movements of those members of the “Red Hand” who were
engaged in the nefarious work of preparing the culture .
The night was an unusually clear one, and when, after half an
hour of sleeplessness, she arose to escape from the tumult of thought
which assailed her, her steps turned instinctively to the one outlet
upon the world which the room afforded . She leant her arms on the
old-fashioned window-sill and looked wistfully out to the twinkling
points of light upon the river .
No sound broke the stillness of the night, the house was wrapped
in silence . Now and then there came to her the faint echo of a siren
farther down the river . She stood for some time, and then, with a
shiver, realized that the night was by no means warm .
Festini and his servants had provided her with a long black cloak .
She took it down from its peg on the wall and wrapped it about her .
Her fingers were still busy with the fastening at her throat, when a
little sharp, metallic tap at the window made her turn with a start .
Her heart beat quickly as she stood motionless, watching . She
waited nearly a minute before it came again . It was as though some-
body were at the window .… There could be nobody there, she told
herself . She walked softly to the window and opened it . The bars
had been so placed that they came almost flush with the brickwork.
It was impossible for her to see who stood directly below .
She waited a little while longer and heard a hiss . She stood back .
She did not know why, but it seemed that the unknown was warning
her. Then something fell on the floor at her feet.
She stooped and ran her hand lightly along the uncarpeted boards .
Presently she found what she sought . It was a little pebble, but she
was led to it by catching her fingers in a thin piece of twine, and by
and by she had drawn up to the window a piece of thicker string .
She understood its meaning now . Rapidly she drew it in . There
was a heavier weight at the end of it, and presently she came upon
a stout, closely-woven hemp rope . This was the end of the series .
Somebody on the ground without held the rope with gentle firmness.
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Her hands trembling with excitement, she knotted the end about
one of the bars of the window, and felt the man outside test the
strength of it . Again and again he pulled as she watched anxiously
the amateur knots she had tied .
To her delight they showed no signs of slipping .
The rope went taut again . There was a steady strain on it . She
heard no sound, and it was with a startling suddenness that the bare
head of a man appeared above the window-sill; he reached up and
clasped a bar and came to rest sitting lightly on the ledge without .
“Don’t make a sound,” he whispered . He went to work methodi-
cally. The bars had been screwed on to a square of wood fitted into
the window space, stapled and morticed into the brickwork itself .
She could not see his face, and he spoke too low for her ordinar-
ily to recognize his voice; but this was Tillizini, and she knew it . He
lost no time . A little electric lamp showed him the method by which
the bars were fastened . They had been screwed on from the outside,
sufficient security for the girl within, though offering no serious ob-
stacle to a man armed with a screwdriver without .
Tillizini worked at fever heat . Clinging on to one bar, with one
of his thin legs thrust through into the room, he had two bars out in
ten minutes .
As he removed them he handed them to the girl, and she placed
them quietly upon the bed .
He stepped lightly into the room, re-tied the rope to one of the
remaining bars, fastened one end about her waist, and assisted her
through the window .
“Stay at the bottom until I come,” he said .
She had not long to wait; whilst her fingers were still unfastening
the knot around her waist Tillizini was coming down the rope hand
over hand .
“Wait!” he whispered . He disappeared into the darkness in the
direction of the shed . Piled up alongside was basket after basket of
a pattern . He walked swiftly along, unfastening the trap-fronts as
he did so. Soon it would be light, and at the first sign of dawn the
pigeons would begin their homeward flight. He returned to the girl.
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“Move very slowly,” he whispered, “and follow me .”
They crouched down, and almost at a crawl crossed the big yard,
the limits of which were still defined. They gained the marsh which
lay between them and the river .
Still Tillizini showed no signs of abandoning his caution, and
the girl, cramped and aching from her unaccustomed exertions,
wondered why he still moved almost on hands and knees when the
danger seemed to be past .
The ground underfoot was swampy, with every step she went
ankle deep into liquid mud, she was breathing with difficulty, and
her back ached with an intolerable, nagging pain . She felt she could
go no farther; it seemed to her that she had been moving for horns
across miles of country, although, in fact, she had not gone two hun-
dred yards from the house, when Tillizini stopped, and motioned her
forward .
“Stay here,” he whispered .
Although the marsh was apparently a dead level, there were little
hummocks and rises at irregular intervals, and toward one of the
former he moved stealthily .
She thought she saw the black figure of a man sitting on the one
dry space in the marsh, but fancy plays strange tricks on a dark and
starless night, and her heart had beaten wildly a dozen times dur-
ing that agonizing crawl at imaginary figures contesting her way of
escape .
The man on the hummock was no figment of imagination, how-
ever; he sat cross-legged like a tailor, a big sheep-skin rug about his
shoulders, a long-barrelled revolver on his knee .
The duty of outpost in this direction had fallen to Gregorio, the
sour-faced man who had aroused Festini’s anger earlier during the
day .The “Red Hand” had established a system of sentries to preclude
any surprises, and from where he sat Gregorio could keep a clear
&nbs
p; lookout upon the river approaches to the house .
He sat wide awake and alert, his fingers touching the trigger of
his revolver . All this Tillizini guessed rather than saw . He knew that
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any act of violence, unless it was unexpected and deadly, would
produce an alarm . The bold way was the only means possible . He
rose and straightened himself, and went squelching forward across
the oozy ground .
Gregorio heard him and sprang to his feet .
“Who’s there?” he asked, softly .
“It is I, Brother,” said Tillizini in Italian .
He yawned .
“Is anything wrong?” asked Gregorio, peering forward in the
darkness to distinguish the newcomer .
Tillizini’s answer was to yawn again loudly and prodigiously, as
one who had been recently wakened from his proper sleep and had
reluctantly obeyed the summons .
His yawn extended for the half a dozen paces that separated him
from the sentry .
Gregorio had no suspicion. His finger mechanically went from
the trigger to the butt of the revolver, which now hung loosely at his
side .
“What d—?” he began again .
Then like a bolt from a crossbow Tillizini launched himself at the
man’s throat . His left hand gripped the revolver, he wrenched it from
the man’s hand . In that motion he had him by the throat, and the two
men were rolling on the ground .
The sentry’s yell for help was strangled in his throat .
Marjorie, a dozen yards away, kneeling in the cold marsh with
clasped hands and parted lips, heard the sound of the struggle and
heard, too, a stifled cry, and then a silence.
A few seconds later Tillizini came back to her .
“You may get up,” he said softly, “there is no need for any further
concealment .”
He gave her his arm and assisted the half-fainting girl the remain-
der of the journey .
At the water’s edge he found the little Canadian canoe that had
carried him across the river, and helped her into it . He followed, and,
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seizing his paddle, with two strokes he sent the little craft swiftly
into the stream .
CHAPTER XVIII
THE WOMAN
Festini stared dumbfounded at the window . He saw the dangling
rope, and knew in what deadly peril he stood .
The girl had been rescued from the outside; he saw the bars laid