IV
It was at a little past nine in the evening that I next saw Hewitt. Hecame into my rooms in an incongruous get-up. He wore corduroy trousers,a very dirty striped jersey, a particularly greasy old jacket, and atwisted neckcloth; but over all was an excellent overcoat, and on hishead a tall hat of high polish.
"Brought to me by Kerrett," he said, in explanation of the hat andovercoat. "He's been waiting with them for a long time in a court byMilford Lane. A good hat and overcoat will cover anything, and Ipreferred to enter this building in my own character. I've been wearingthat this afternoon," and he pulled out of his pocket an old peaked capwith ear-pieces tied over the top.
"You mustn't bring your best clothes," he went on, "or you'll spoilthem scrambling about boats and groping in ditches. I have done myditch-groping for the day, and I'm going to change. You had best beputting on older things while I get into newer."
"What sort of place is this Channel Marsh?" I asked.
"Well, I should think there must be a great many better places to spenda night in. It must be the dreariest, wettest flat within many miles ofLondon, and I should like to see the portrait of the man who had theidea of building a house there. For a house there is, or rather theruins of it--deserted for years, and half carried away by rats andpeople who wanted slates and firewood and water pipes."
"Is that the place where you intend waiting to-night?"
"It is. I haven't examined it nearly so closely as I should like, forfear of raising a scare. Channel Marsh is almost an island, with anarrow neck of an entrance at each end. A foot-track runs the wholelength, and a person in the ruined house can easily see anybody enteringthe Marsh from either end. For that reason I reconnoitred from aboat--the boat you will go in to-night. I think it is the very dirtiestold tub I ever saw, so that it suited my rig out. I discovered it at awharf some little way down the river, and I paid a shilling for the hireof it. Channel Marsh is banked a bit on one side, and I crept up undercover of the bank. I learned very little, beyond the general lie of theland, because I was so mighty cautious. I judged it better to be contentwith half an examination, rather than drive away the game. And even asit is I've an idea I have been seen. I lay up among some reeds tilldark, but after that I am _sure_ there was somebody on the Marsh--andskulking, too, like me. So after waiting and scouting for a little Igave it up and paddled quietly back."
"But look here, Hewitt," I said, "this seems a bit mad. Why go and riskyourself as you talk of doing? You believe Mayes will be there, at theruin, or will come there at twelve. Very well, then, why can't thepolice send enough men to surround the place and capture him forcertain?"
Hewitt smiled and shook his head. "My dear Brett," he said, "you haven'tseen the place, and I have. It will be hard enough job for you andPlummer to get near the spot unobserved, guided by a man who knows everyinch. A trampling crowd of policemen would have as much chance as a herdof elephants, and on such light nights as we are having now they wouldbe seen a mile off. And who knows what scouts he may have out? No, as Isay, it will be a great piece of luck if you get through unobserved asit is, and even now I'm not perfectly certain that I couldn't do bestalone. However, arrangements are made now, and you are coming, three ofyou."
"Then what are the arrangements?" I asked.
"Just these. You are to leave here first. Make the best of your way toMile End Gate, where an old inn stands in the middle of the road. Go tothe corner of the turning opposite this, at the south side of the road.At eleven o'clock a four-wheeler will drive up, with Plummer and one ofhis men in it. The man is one who knows all the geography of ChannelMarsh, and he also knows exactly where to find the boat I used to-day.You will drive to a little way beyond Bow Bridge, and then Plummer's manwill lead you to the boat. You had better scull and leave the others tolook out. They will know what to do. You will pull along to a placewhere you can watch till you see me coming on to the Marsh by the path.As soon as you see me you will slip quietly along to a place thepoliceman will show you, close to the ruin, and watch again. That's all.I don't know whether or not you think it worth while to take a pistol. Icertainly shall; but then I'm most likely to want it. Plummer will haveone."
I thought it well worth while, and I took my regulation "Webley"--arelic of my old Volunteer captaincy. Then, by way of the undergroundrailway, I gained the neighbourhood of Mile End, and interested myselfabout its back streets till the time approached to look for Plummer'scab.
Plummer was more than punctual--indeed, he was two or three minutesbefore his time. The cab drew near the kerb and scarcely stopped, soquickly did I scramble in.
"Good," said Plummer; "we're well ahead of time. Mr. Hewitt quiteright?"
"Yes," I said. "I left him so an hour and a half ago at his office." Andwe sat silent while the cab rattled and rumbled over the stony road toBow Bridge, and the shopkeepers on the way put up their shutters andextinguished their lights.
Bow Bridge was reached and passed, and presently we stopped the cab andalighted. Here Styles, Plummer's man, took the lead, and a little wayfarther along the road we turned into a dark and muddy lane on the left.We floundered through this for some hundred and fifty yards or so, andthen suddenly drew in at an opening on the right. Here we stood for afew moments while our guide groped his way down toward the muddy waterwe could smell, rather than see, a little way before us.
There were a few broken steps and a broad black thing which was theboat. We got into it as silently as we could manage, and cast off. Itwas a clumsy, broad-beamed, leaky old conveyance, and that it was asdirty as Hewitt had described it I could feel as I groped for the scullsand got them out. The night was light and dark by turns--changing withthe clouds. We shipped the rudder, and Styles steered, or I shouldprobably have run ashore more than once, for the banks were not alwaysdistinct, and the channel was narrow and dark. We passed the black formsof several factories with tall chimneys, and then drew out among theMarshes, flat and grey, with wisps of mist lying here and there. So wewent in silence for a while, till at last we drew in against the bank onthe left and laid hold by a post at a landing-place.
"This is the Channel Marsh," whispered Styles, as we climbed cautiouslyashore. "We can't see the house very well from here, but there's whereMr. Hewitt will come through."
Looking over the top of the low bank, we could discern a path whichtraversed the length of the marsh, entering it by a broken gate at aneck of land which we must have passed on our way. Here we crouched andwaited. We had heard the half-hour struck on some distant clock soonafter entering the boat, and now we waited anxiously for thethree-quarters. So long did the time seem to my excited perceptions thatI had quite decided that the clock must have stopped, or, at any rate,did not chime quarters, when at last the strokes came, distant andplaintive, over the misty flats.
"A quarter of an hour," Plummer remarked. "He won't be a minute late,nor a minute too early, from what I know of him. How long will it takehim from that gate to the ruin?"
"Eight or nine minutes, good," Styles answered.
"Then we shall see him in seven minutes or six minutes, as the case maybe," Plummer rejoined in the same low tones.
Slowly the minutes dragged, with not a sound about us save the suckingand lapping of the muddy river and the occasional flop of a water-rat.The dark clouds were now fewer, and the moon was high and only partiallyobscured by the thinner clouds that traversed its face. More than once Ifancied a sound from the direction of the ruin, and then I doubted myfancy; when at last there was a sound indeed, but from the oppositedirection, and in a moment we saw Hewitt, muffled close about the neck,walking briskly up the path.
We regained the boat with all possible speed and silence, and I pulledmy best, regardless of my stiff wrist. During our watch I had had timeto perceive the wisdom of the arrangements which had been made. We hadbeen watching from a place fairly out of sight from the ruin, yetsufficiently near it to be able to reach its neighbourhood beforeHewitt; and certainly it was better to approach the actual spot a
t thesame time as Hewitt himself, for then, if he were being watched for, theattention of the watcher would be diverted from us.
Presently we reached the reed-bed that Hewitt had spoken of, and I couldsee a sort of little creek or inlet. Here I ceased to pull, and Stylescautiously punted us into the creek with one of the sculls. The boatgrounded noiselessly in the mud, and we crept ashore one at a timethrough mud and sedge.
The creek was edged with a bank of rough, broken ground, grown withcoarse grass and bramble, and as we peeped over this bank the ruinedhouse stood before us--so near as to startle me by its proximity. Itmust have been a large house originally--if, indeed, it was evercompleted. Now it stood roofless, dismantled, and windowless, and inmany places whole rods of brickwork had fallen and now littered theground about. The black gap of the front door stood plain to see, with ashort flight of broken steps before it, and by the side of these a thicktimber shore supported the front wall. It struck me then that the ruinwas perhaps largely due to a failure of the marshy foundation.
The place seemed silent and empty. Hewitt's footsteps were now plain tohear, and presently he appeared, walking briskly as before. He could notsee us, and did not look for us, but made directly for the broken steps.He mounted these, paused on the topmost, and struck a match. It seemed arather large hall, and I caught a momentary glimpse of bare rafters andplasterless wall. Then the match went out and Hewitt stepped within.
Almost on the instant there came a loud jar, and a noise of fallingbricks; and then, in the same instant of time I heard a terrific crash,and saw Hewitt leap out at the front door--leap out, as it seemed, froma cloud of dust and splinters.
I sprang to my feet, but Plummer pulled me down again. "Steady!" hesaid, "lie low! He isn't hurt. Wait and see before we show ourselves."
It seemed that the floor above had fallen on the spot where Hewitt hadbeen standing. He had alighted from his leap on hands and knees, but nowstood facing the house, revolver in hand, watching.
There was a moment's pause, a sound of movement from the upper part ofthe ruin, another quiet moment, and then a bang and a flash from high onthe wall to the right. Hewitt sprang to shelter behind the heavy shore,and another shot followed him, scoring a white line across the thicktimber.
Plummer was up, and Styles and I were after him.
"There he is!" cried Plummer, "up on the coping!" I pulled out my ownpistol.
"Don't shoot!" cried Hewitt. "We'll take him alive!"
Far to the right, on the topmost coping of the front wall, I could see acrouching figure. I saw it rise to its knees, and once more raise an armto take aim at Hewitt; and then, with a sudden cry, another human figureappeared from behind the coping and sprang upon the first. There was amoment of struggle, and then the rotten coping crumbled, and down, down,came bricks and men together.
I sickened. I can only explain my feeling by saying that never beforehad I seen anything that seemed so long in falling as those two men. Andthen with a horrid crash they struck the broken ground, and the pistolfired again with the shock.
We reached them in a dozen strides, and turned them over, limp, oozing,and lifeless. And then we saw that one was Mayes, and the other--VictorPeytral!
We kept no silence now, but Plummer blew his whistle loud and long, andI fired my revolver into the air, chamber after chamber. Styles startedoff at a run along the path towards the town lights, to fetch what aidhe might.
But even then we had doubt if any aid would avail Mayes. He was theunder man in the fall, and he had dropped across a little heap ofbricks. He now lay unconscious, breathing heavily, with a terrible woundat the back of the head, and Hewitt foretold--and rightly--that when thedoctor did come he would find a broken spine. Peytral, on the otherhand, though unconscious, showed no sign of injury, and just before thedoctor came sighed heavily and turned on his side.
First there came policemen, and then in a little time a hastily dressedsurgeon, and after him an ambulance. Mayes was carried off to hospital,but with a good deal of rubbing and a little brandy, Peytral came roundwell enough to be helped over the Marshes to a cab.
The trap which had been laid for Hewitt was simple, but terriblyeffective. The floor above the hall--loose and broken everywhere--wassupported on rafters, and the rafters were crossed underneath andsupported at the centre by a stout beam. The rafters had been sawnthrough at both ends, and the rotten floor had been piled high withbroken brick and stone to a weight of a ton or more. The end of a loosebeam had been wedged obliquely under the end of the one timber nowsupporting the whole weight, so that a pull on the opposite end of thislong lever would force away the bricks on which the beam rested and letthe whole weight fall. It was the jar of the beam and the fall of thefirst few loose bricks that had so far warned Hewitt as to enable him toleap from under the floor almost as it fell.
Peytral's sudden appearance, when we had time to reflect on it, gave usa suspicion as to some at least of the espionage to which Hewitt hadbeen subjected--a suspicion confirmed, later, by Peytral himself afterhis recovery from the shock of the fall. For fresh news of his enemy hadre-awakened all his passion, and since he alone could not find him, hewas willing enough to let Hewitt do the tracking down, if only hehimself might clutch Mayes's throat in the end. This explained the"business" that had called him away after the Barbican stronghold hadbeen captured; finding both Hewitt and Plummer somewhat uncommunicative,and himself somewhat "out of it," he had drawn off, and had followedHewitt's every movement, confident that he would be led to his old enemyat last. What I had told him of the cypher message had led him to huntout Channel Marsh in the afternoon, and to return at midnight. He, ofcourse, regarded the message, as I did myself at the time, as aperfectly genuine instruction from Mayes to Sims, and he came to therendezvous wholly in ignorance as to what Hewitt was doing, and with nobetter hope than that he might hear something that would lead him in thedirection of Mayes. He had entered the marsh after dark from the upperend, and had lain concealed by the other channel till near midnight;then he had crept to the rear of the ruin and climbed to where anopening seemed to offer a good chance of hearing what might pass in thehall. He had heard Hewitt approach from the front, and the crash thatfollowed. The rest we had seen.
V
Mayes never recovered consciousness, and was dead when we visited thehospital the day after; both skull and spine were badly fractured. Andthe very last we saw of the Red Triangle was the implement with which ithad been impressed, which was found in his pocket.
It was a small triangular prism of what I believe is called soapstone.It was perhaps four inches long, and the face at the end correspondedwith the mark that Hewitt had seen on the forehead of Mr. Jacob Mason.It fitted closely in a leather case, in the end of which was a small,square metal box full of the red, greasy pigment with which the mark hadbeen impressed.
It was from Broady Sims that we learnt the exact use and meaning of thisimplement: though he would not say a word till he had seen with his owneyes Mayes lying dead in the mortuary. Then he gasped his relief andsaid, "That's the end of something worse than slavery for me! I'll turnstraight after this."
Sims's story was long, and it went over ground that concerns none ofHewitt's adventures. But what we learned from it was briefly this. Ithad been Mayes's way to meet clever criminals as they left gaol after aterm of imprisonment. In this manner he had met Sims. He had made greatpromises, had spoken of great ideas which they could put into executiontogether, had lent him money, and then at last had "initiated" him, ashe called it. He had put him to lie back in a chair and had directed hisgaze on the Red Triangle held in the air before him: and then theTriangle had descended gently, and he felt sleepy, till at the coldtouch of the thing on his forehead his senses had gone. This was donemore than once, and in the end the victim found that Mayes had only toraise the Triangle before him to send him to sleep instantly. Then hefound that he must do certain things, whether he wanted or not. And itended in complete subservience; so that Mayes could set him toperpetrate a r
obbery and then appropriate the proceeds for himself, forby post-hypnotic suggestion he could force him to bring and hand overevery penny. More, the poor wretch was held in constant terror, for heknew that his very life depended on the lift of his master's hand. Hecould be sent into lethargy by a gesture and killed in that state. Thatvery thing was done, in fact, as we have seen, in two cases.
Sims was but one of a gang of such criminals, brought to heel and madevictims. Their minds and souls, such as they were, had passed into themiscreant's keeping, and terror reinforced the power of hypnotism. Theycommitted crimes, and when they failed they took the punishment; whenthey succeeded Mayes took the gains, or at any rate the greater part ofthem. He went, also, among people who were not yet criminals, and bydegrees made them so, to his own profit. The case of Henning, thecorrespondence clerk, was one that had come under Hewitt's eyes. He usedhis faculty also with great cunning in other ways--as we had seen in thematter of the Admiralty code. And it was even said among the gang that aman he had once hypnotised he could force by suggestion to commitsuicide when he became useless or inconvenient.
Sims and the ragged fellow who had decoyed me into Mayes's den were theonly members of the gang whom we could identify after his death, butmany others must have shared their relief; and I sincerely hope--thoughI hardly expect--that they all availed themselves of their liberty toabandon their evil courses. As in fact the two I speak of did, and tookto honest work.
All that had remained mysterious in the earlier cases now became clear.In the first, the case of Samuel's diamonds, Denson had been put intothe office where Samuel had found him, by Mayes, with the express designof effecting a diamond robbery. The robbery was effected, and theunhappy Denson formed a plan of making a bolt of it himself with thediamonds. He was, perhaps, what is called a difficult subject inhypnotism--amenable enough to direct influence, but not sufficientlyretentive of post-hypnotic suggestion. He hid the jewels and adopted adisguise, but Mayes was watching him better than he supposed. Thediamonds were lost, but Denson was found and done to death--probably notin that retreat near Barbican, but at night in some empty street. Thediamonds were not found on him, and the body, with the mark of theTriangle still on it, was taken by night to a central spot in London andthere left. Mayes probably thought that a notable example like this, soboldly displayed and so conspicuously reported in the Press, wouldimpress his auxiliaries throughout London with the terror that was oneof his weapons; for they would well understand the meaning of the RedTriangle, and they would receive a striking illustration of theconsequences of rebellion or bad faith. The money and the watch wereleft in the pockets because they were trifles after the loss of fifteenthousand pounds' worth of diamonds, and their presence in the pocketsmade the murder the less easy to understand--which was a point gained.And as to the keys--Mayes knew nothing of where the diamonds werehidden, and so had no use for them. For where could he use them? Densonhad left his lodgings, and as to the office, that, he would guess, wouldbe in the hands of the police, on Samuel's complaint. The immediateresult of this affair on the only honest member of Mayes's circle I havetold in the case of Mr. Jacob Mason. He was not yet thoroughly inMayes's hands, but he had "dabbled," as he remorsefully confessed, andMayes had already found him useful. He was dangerous, and his end camequickly. Another victim who had probably begun innocently enough wasHenning, the clerk to Kingsley, Bell and Dalton, and his death in thePenn's Meadow barn leaves a mystery that never can be positively clearedup. Was it murder or was it suicide by post-hypnotic suggestion? It willbe remembered that the fire burst out in the barn after Mayes had leftit.
The case of Mr. Telfer was explained clearly enough by Hewitt at thetime; but it is an example of the snares that lie open for the mostinnocent person who allows himself to be made the subject of hypnoticexperiments at the hands of persons with whom, and with whose objects,he is not thoroughly acquainted. And it must be remembered that at thistime there are persons advertising to teach the practice of hypnotism toanybody who will pay; to anybody who may use the terrible power as hepleases. More, the danger is so great that it has led two eminent men ofscience to issue a public protest and warning, with an urgent plea thatthe practice of hypnotism be restricted by law at least as closely asthat of vivisection.
As to what would have happened if Plummer and I had yielded to Mayes'sthreats so far as to undergo the "initiation" he proposed, at the timewe were helpless in his hands--of that I have little doubt. I cannotsuppose that he would have wasted much time over me, once I had fallenlethargic. When Hewitt burst in he would have found me lying dead, withthe Red Triangle on my forehead. It would have saved Mayes a lot ofnoise and struggle, at least.
But I often wonder whether or not there was anything in his reference tothe place beyond the sea, where he would make me a great man if I did ashe wished. Was it his design, having accumulated sufficient wealth, toreturn and take his natural place among the enlightened rulers of Hayti?He would not have been so much worse than some of the others.
The Red Triangle Page 22