‘They’re clear of the danger zone,’ he said.
Plop!
He saw the flash, heard the smack of the bullet as it struck the door, and his hand stiffened. There was a thudding sound – a scream of pain from a dark corner of the mews and the sound of voices. Leon drew back into the yard and bolted the door.
‘He had a new kind of silencer. Oberzohn is rather a clever old bird. But my air pistol against their gun for noiselessness.’
‘I didn’t expect the attack from that end of the mews.’ Manfred was slipping a Browning back to his pocket.
‘If they had come from the other end the car would not have passed – I’d like to get one of those silencers.’
They went into the house. Poiccart had already extinguished the passage light.
‘You hit your man – does that thing kill?’
‘By accident – it is possible. I aimed at his stomach: I fear that I hit him in the head. He would not have squealed for a stomach wound. I fear he is alive.’
He felt his way up the stairs and took up the telephone. Immediately a voice said, ‘Number?’
‘Give me 8877 Treasury.’
He waited, and then a different voice asked: ‘Yes – Scotland Yard speaking.’
‘Can you give me Mr Meadows?’
Manfred was watching him frowningly.
‘That you, Meadows? . . . They have shot Leon Gonsalez – can you send police reserves and an ambulance?’
‘At once.’
Leon hung up the receiver, hugging himself.
‘The idea being – ?’ said Poiccart.
‘These people are clever.’ Leon’s voice was charged with admiration. ‘They haven’t cut the wires – they’ve simply tapped it at one end and thrown it out of order on the exchange side.’
‘Phew!’ Manfred whistled. ‘You deceived me – you were talking to Oberzohn?’
‘Captain Monty and Lew Cuccini. They may or may not be deceived, but if they aren’t, we shall know all about it.’
He stopped dead. There was a knock on the front door, a single, heavy knock. Leon grinned delightedly.
‘One of us is now supposed to open an upper window cautiously and look out, whereupon he is instantly gunned. I’m going to give these fellows a scare.’
He ran up the stairs to the top floor, and on the landing, outside an attic door, pulled at a rope. A fire ladder lying flat against the ceiling came down, and at the same time a small skylight opened. Leon went into the room, and his pocket-lamp located what he needed: a small papier-mache cylinder, not unlike a seven-pound shell. With this on his arm, he climbed up the ladder on to the roof, fixed the cylinder on a flat surface, and, striking a match, lit a touch-paper. The paper sizzled and spluttered, there was a sudden flash and ‘boom!’ a dull explosion, and a white ball shot up into the sky, described a graceful curve and burst into a shower of brilliant crimson stars. He waited till the last died out; then, with the hot cylinder under his arm, descended the ladder, released the rope that held it in place, and returned to his two friends.
‘They will imagine a secret arrangement of signals with the police,’ he said; ‘unless my knowledge of their psychology is at fault, we shall not be bothered again.’
Ten minutes later there was another knock at the door, peremptory, almost official in its character.
‘This,’ said Leon, ‘is a policeman to summon us for discharging fireworks in the public street!’
He ran lightly down into the hall and without hesitation pulled open the door. A tall, helmeted figure stood on the doorstep, notebook in hand.
‘Are you the gentleman that let off that rocket – ’ he began.
Leon walked past him, and looked up and down Curzon Street. As he had expected, the Old Guard had vanished.
Chapter 11
Gurther
Monty Newton dragged himself home, a weary angry man, and let himself in with his key. He found the footman lying on the floor of the hall asleep, his greatcoat pulled over him, and stirred him to wakefulness with the toe of his boot.
‘Get up,’ he growled. ‘Anybody been here?’
Fred rose, a little dazed, rubbing his eyes.
‘The old man’s in the drawing-room,’ he said, and his employer passed on without another word.
As he opened the door, he saw that all the lights in the drawing-room were lit. Dr Oberzohn had pulled a small table near the fire, and before this he sat bolt upright, a tiny chess-board before him, immersed in a problem. He looked across to the newcomer for a second and then resumed his study of the board, made a move . . .
‘Ach!’ he said in tones of satisfaction. ‘Leskina was wrong! It is possible to mate in five moves!’
He pushed the chessmen into confusion and turned squarely to face Newton.
‘Well, have you concluded these matters satisfactorily?’
‘He brought up the reserves,’ said Monty, unlocking a tantalus on a side table and helping himself liberally to whisky. ‘They got Cuccini through the jaw. Nothing serious.’
Dr Oberzohn laid his bony hands on his knees.
‘Gurther must be disciplined,’ he said. ‘Obviously he has lost his nerve; and when a man loses his nerve also he loses his sense of time. And his timing – how deplorable! The car had not arrived; my excellent police had not taken position . . . deplorable!’
‘The police are after him: I suppose you know that?’ Newton looked over his glass.
Dr Oberzohn nodded.
‘The extradition so cleverly avoided is now accomplished. But Gurther is too good a man to be lost. I have arranged a hiding-place for him. He is of many uses.’
‘Where did he go?’
Dr Oberzohn’s eyebrows wrinkled up and down.
‘Who knows?’ he said. ‘He has the little machine. Maybe he has gone to the house – the green light in the top window will warn him and he will move carefully.’
Newton walked to the window and looked out. Chester Square looked ghostly in the grey light of dawn. And then, out of the shadows, he saw a figure move and walk slowly towards the south side of the square. ‘They’re watching this house,’ he said, and laughed.
‘Where is my young lady?’ asked Oberzohn, who was staring glumly into the fire.
‘I don’t know . . . there was a car pulled out of the mews as one of our men “closed” the entrance. She has probably gone back to Heavytree Farm, and you can sell that laboratory of yours. There is only one way now, and that’s the rough way. We have time – we can do a lot in six weeks. Villa is coming this morning – I wish we’d taken that idol from the trunk. That may put the police on to the right track.’
Dr Oberzohn pursed his lips as though he were going to whistle, but he was guilty of no such frivolity.
‘I am glad they found him,’ he said precisely. ‘To them it will be a scent. What shall they think, but that the unfortunate Barberton had come upon an old native treasure-house? No, I do not fear that.’ He shook his head. ‘Mostly I fear Mr Johnson Lee and the American, Elijah Washington.’
He put his hand into his jacket pocket and took out a thin pad of letters. ‘Johnson Lee is for me difficult to understand. For what should a gentleman have to do with this boor that he writes so friendly letters to him?’
‘How did you get these?’
‘Villa took them: it was one of the intelligent actions also to leave the statue.’
He passed one of the letters across to Newton. It was addressed ‘Await arrival, Poste Restante, Mosamedes.’ The letter was written in a curiously round, boyish hand. Another remarkable fact was that it was perforated across the page at regular intervals, and upon the lines formed by this perforation Mr Johnson Lee wrote –
Dear B, [the letter ran] ‘I have instructed my bankers to cable you £500. I hope th
is will carry you through and leave enough to pay your fare home. You may be sure that I shall not breathe a word, and your letters, of course, nobody in the house can read but me. Your story is amazing and I advise you to come home at once and see Miss Leicester.
Your friend,
Johnson Lee
The note-paper was headed ‘Rath Hall, January 13th’.
‘They came to me today. If I had seen them before, there would have been no need for the regrettable happening.’
He looked thoughtfully at his friend. ‘They will be difficult: I had that expectation,’ he said; and Monty knew that he referred to the Three Just Men. ‘Yet they are mortal also – remember that, my Newton: they are mortal also.’
‘As we are,’ said Newton gloomily
‘That is a question,’ said Oberzohn, ‘so far as I am concerned.’
Dr Oberzohn never jested; he spoke with the greatest calm and assurance. The other man could only stare at him.
Although it was light, a green lamp showed clearly in the turret room of the doctor’s house as he came within sight of the ugly place. And, seeing that warning, he did not expect to be met in the passage by Gurther. The man had changed from his resplendent kit and was again in the soiled and shabby garments he had discarded the night before.
‘You have come, Gurther?’
‘Ja, Herr Doktor.’
‘To my parlour!’ barked Dr Oberzohn, and marched ahead.
Gurther followed him and stood with his back to the door, erect, his chin raised, his bright, curious eyes fixed on a point a few inches above his master’s head.
‘Tell me now.’ The doctor’s ungainly face was working ludicrously.
‘I saw the man and struck, Herr Doktor, and then the lights went out and I went to the floor, expecting him to shoot . . . I think he must have taken the gracious lady. I did not see, for there was a palm between us. I returned at once to the greater hall, and walked through the people on the floor. They were very frightened.’
‘You saw them?’
‘Yes, Herr Doktor,’ said Gurther. ‘It is not difficult for me to see in the dark. After that I ran to the other entrance, but they were gone.’
‘Come here.’
The man took two stilted paces towards the doctor and Oberzohn struck him twice in the face with the flat of his hand. Not a muscle of the man’s face moved: he stood erect, his lips framed in a half-grin, his curious eyes staring straight ahead.
‘That is for bad time, Gurther. Nobody saw you return?’
‘No, Herr Doktor, I came on foot.’
‘You saw the light?’
‘Yes, Herr Doktor, and I thought it best to be here.’
‘You were right,’ said Oberzohn. ‘March!’
He went into the forbidden room, turned the key, and passed into the super-heated atmosphere. Gurther stood attentively at the door. Presently the doctor came out, carrying a long case covered with baize under his arm. He handed it to the waiting man, went into the room, and, after a few minutes’ absence, returned with a second case, a little larger.
‘March!’ he said.
Gurther followed him out of the house and across the rank, weed-grown ‘garden’ towards the factory. A white mist had rolled up from the canal, and factory and grounds lay under the veil.
He led the way through an oblong gap in the wall where once a door had stood, and followed a tortuous course through the blackened beams and twisted girders that littered the floor. Only a half-hearted attempt had been made to clear up the wreckage after the fire, and the floor was ankle-deep in charred shreds of burnt cloth. Near the far end of the building, Oberzohn stopped, put down his box and pushed aside the ashes with his foot until he had cleared a space about three feet square. Stooping, he grasped an iron ring and pulled, and a flagstone came up with scarcely an effort, for it was well counter-weighted. He took up the box again and descended the stone stairs, stopping only to turn on a light.
The vaults of the store had been practically untouched by the fire. There were shelves that still carried dusty bales of cotton goods. Oberzohn was in a hurry. He crossed the stone floor in two strides, pulled down the bar of another door, and, walking into the darkness, deposited his box on the floor.
The electric power of the factory had, in the old days, been carried on two distinct circuits, and the connection with the vaults was practically untouched by the explosion.
They were in a smaller room now, fairly comfortably furnished. Gurther knew it well, for it was here that he had spent the greater part of his first six months in England. Ventilation came through three small gratings near the roof. There was a furnace, and, as Gurther knew, an ample supply of fuel in one of the three cellars that opened into the vault.
‘Here will you stay until I send for you,’ said Oberzohn. ‘Tonight, perhaps, after they have searched. You have a pistol?’
‘Ja, Herr Doktor.’
‘Food, water, bedding – all you need.’ Oberzohn jerked open another of the cellars and took stock of the larder. ‘Tonight I may come for you – tomorrow night – who knows? You will light the fire at once.’ He pointed to the two baize-covered boxes. ‘Good morning, Gurther.’
‘Good morning, Herr Doktor.’
Oberzohn went up to the factory level, dropped the trap and his foot pushed back the ashes which hid its presence, and with a cautious look round he crossed the field to his house. He was hardly in his study before the first police car came bumping along the lane.
Chapter 12
Leon theorizes
Making inquiries, Detective-Inspector Meadows discovered that, on the previous evening at eight o’clock, two men had called upon Barberton. The first of these was described as tall and rather aristocratic in appearance. He wore dark, horn-rimmed spectacles. The hôtel manager thought he might have been an invalid, for he walked with a stick. The second man seemed to have been a servant of some kind, for he spoke respectfully to the visitor.
‘No, he gave no name, Mr Meadows,’ said the manager. ‘I told him of the terrible thing which had happened to Mr Barberton, and he was so upset that I didn’t like to press the question.’
Meadows was on his circuitous way to Curzon Street when he heard this, and he arrived in time for breakfast. Manfred’s servants regarded it as the one eccentricity of an otherwise normal gentleman that he invariably breakfasted with his butler and chauffeur. This matter had been discussed threadbare in the tiny servants’ hall, and it no longer excited comment when Manfred telephoned down to the lower regions and asked for another plate.
The Triangle were in cheerful mood. Leon Gonsalez was especially bright and amusing, as he invariably was after such a night as he had spent.
‘We searched Oberzohn’s house from cellar to attic,’ said Meadows when the plate had been laid.
‘And of course you found nothing. The elegant Gurther?’
‘He wasn’t there. That fellow will keep at a distance if he knows that there’s a warrant out for him. I suspect some sort of signal. There was a very bright green light burning in one of those ridiculous Gothic turrets.’
Manfred stifled a yawn. ‘Gurther went back soon after midnight,’ he said, ‘and was there until Oberzohn’s return.’
‘Are you sure?’ asked the astonished detective.
Leon nodded, his eyes twinkling. ‘After that, one of those infernal river mists blotted out observation,’ he said, ‘but I should imagine Herr Gurther is not far away. Did you see his companion, Pfeiffer?’
Meadows nodded. ‘Yes, he was cleaning boots when I arrived.’
‘How picturesque!’ said Gonzalez. ‘I think he will have a valet the next time be goes to prison, unless the system has altered since your days, George?’
George Manfred, who had once occupied the condemned cell in Chelmsford Prison, smiled.
‘An interesting man, Gurther,’ mused Gonsalez. ‘I have a feeling that he will escape hanging. So you could not find him? I found him last night. But for the lady, who was both an impediment and an interest, we might have put a period to his activities.’ He caught Meadows’s eye. ‘I should have handed him to you, of course.’
‘Of course,’ said the detective dryly.
‘A remarkable man, but nervous. You are going to see Mr Johnson Lee?’
‘What made you say that?’ asked the detective in astonishment, for he had not as yet confided his intention to the three men.
‘He will surprise you,’ said Leon. ‘Tell me, Mr Meadows: when you and George so thoroughly and carefully searched Barberton’s box, did you find anything that was suggestive of his being a cobbler, let us say – or a bookbinder?’
‘I think in his sister’s letter there was a reference to the books he had made. I found nothing particular except an awl and a long oblong of wood which was covered with pinpricks. As a matter of fact, when I saw it my first thought was that, living the kind of life he must have done in the wilderness, it was rather handy to be able to repair his own shoes. The idea of bookbinding is a new one.’
‘I should say he never bound a book in his life, in the ordinary sense of the word,’ remarked Manfred; ‘and as Leon says, you will find Johnson Lee a very surprising man.’
‘Do you know him?’
Manfred nodded gravely.
‘I have just been on the telephone to him,’ he said. ‘You’ll have to be careful of Mr Lee, Meadows. Our friend the snake may be biting his way, and will, if he hears a breath of suspicion that he was in Barberton’s confidence.’
The detective put down his knife and fork.
‘I wish you fellows would stop being mysterious,’ he said, half annoyed, half amused. ‘What is behind this business? You talk of the snake as though you could lay your hands on him.’
The Complete Four Just Men Page 76