‘And we could,’ they said in unison.
‘Who is he?’ challenged the detective.
‘The Herr Doktor,’ smiled Gonsalez.
‘Oberzohn?’
Leon nodded.
‘I thought you would have discovered that by connecting the original three murders together – and murders they were. First – ’ he ticked the names off on his fingers – ‘we have a stockbroker. This gentleman was a wealthy speculator who occasionally financed highly questionable deals. Six months before his death he drew from the bank a very large sum of money in notes. By an odd coincidence the bank clerk, going out to luncheon, saw his client and Oberzohn driving past in a taxicab, and as they came abreast he saw a large blue envelope go into Oberzohn’s pocket. The money had been put into a blue envelope when it was drawn. The broker had financed the doctor, and when the scheme failed and the money was lost, he not unnaturally asked for its return. He trusted Oberzohn not at all; carried his receipt about in his pocket, and never went anywhere unless he was armed – that fact did not emerge at the inquest, but you know it is true.’
Meadows nodded.
‘He threatened Oberzohn with exposure at a meeting they had in Winchester Street, on the day of his death. That night he returns from a theatre or from his club, and is found dead on the doorstep. No receipt is found. What follows?
‘A man, a notorious blackmailer, homeless and penniless, was walking along the Bayswater Road, probably looking for easy money, when he saw the broker’s car going into Orme Place. He followed on the off-chance of begging a few coppers. The chauffeur saw him. The tramp, on the other hand, must have seen something else. He slept the next night at Rowton House, told a friend, who had been in prison with him, that he had a million pounds as good as in his hand . . . ’
Meadows laughed helplessly.
‘Your system of investigation is evidently more thorough than ours!’
‘It is complementary to yours,’ said George quietly. ‘Go on, Leon.’
‘Now what happened to our friend the burglar? He evidently saw somebody in Orme Place whom he either recognized or trailed to his home. For the next day or two he was in and out of public telephone booths, though no number has been traced. He goes to Hyde Park, obviously by appointment – and the snake bites!
‘There was another danger to the confederacy. The bank clerk, learning of the death of the client, is troubled. I have proof that he called Oberzohn on the ’phone. If you remember, when the broker’s affairs were gone into, it was found that he was almost insolvent. A large sum of money had been drawn out of the bank and paid to “X”. The certainty that he knew who “X” was worried this decent bank clerk, and he called Oberzohn, probably to ask him why he had not made a statement. On the day he telephoned the snake man, that day he died.’
The detective was listening in silent wonder. ‘It sounds like a page out of a sensational novel,’ he said, ‘yet it hangs together.’
‘It hangs together because it is true.’ Poiccart’s deep voice broke into the conversation. ‘This has been Oberzohn’s method all his life. He is strong for logic, and there is no more logical action in the world than the destruction of those who threaten your safety and life.’
Meadows pushed away his plate, his breakfast half eaten. ‘Proof,’ he said briefly.
‘What proof can you have, my dear fellow?’ scoffed Leon.
‘The proof is the snake,’ persisted Meadows. ‘Show me how he could educate a deadly snake to strike, as he did, when the victim was under close observation, as in the case of Barberton, and I will believe you.’
The Three looked at one another and smiled together. ‘One of these days I will show you,’ said Leon. ‘They have certainly tamed their snake! He can move so quickly that the human eye cannot follow him. Always he bites on the most vital part, and at the most favourable time. He struck at me last night, but missed me. The next time he strikes – ’ he was speaking slowly and looking at the detective through the veriest slits of his half-closed eyelids – ‘the next time he strikes, not all Scotland Yard on the one side, nor his agreeable company of gunmen on the other, will save him!’
Poiccart rose suddenly. His keen ears had heard the ring of a bell, and he went noiselessly down the stairs.
‘The whole thing sounds like a romance to me.’ Meadows was rubbing his chin irritably. ‘I am staring at the covers of a book whilst you are reading the pages. I suppose you devils; have the A and Z of the story?’
Leon nodded.
‘Why don’t you tell me?’
‘Because I value your life,’ said Leon simply. ‘Because I wish – we all wish – to keep the snake’s attention upon ourselves.’
Poiccart came back at that moment and put his head in the door.
‘Would you like to see Mr Elijah Washington?’ he asked, and they saw by the gleam in his eyes that Mr Elijah Washington was well worth meeting.
He arrived a second or two later, a tall, broad-shouldered man with a reddish face. He wore pince-nez, and behind the rimless glasses his eyes were alive and full of bubbling laughter. From head to foot he was dressed in white; the cravat which flowed over the soft silk shirt was a bright yellow; the belt about his waist as bright as scarlet.
He stood beaming upon the company, his white panama crushed under his arm, both huge hands thrust into his trousers pockets.
‘Glad to know you folks,’ he greeted them in a deep boom of a voice. ‘I guess Mr Barberton told you all about me. That poor little guy! Listen: he was a he-man all right, but kinder mysterious. They told me I’d find the police chief here – Captain Meadows?’
‘Mister,’ said the inspector, ‘I’m that man.’
Washington put out his huge paw and caught the detective’s hand with a grip that would have been notable in a boa constrictor.
‘Glad to know you! My name is Elijah Washington – the Natural History Syndicate, Chicago.’
‘Sit down, Mr Washington.’ Poiccart pushed forward a chair.
‘I want to tell you gentlemen that this Barberton was murdered. Snake? Listen, I know snakes – brought up with ’um! Snakes are my hobby: I know ’um from egg-eaters to “tigers” – notechis sentatus, moccasins, copperheads, corals, mamba, fer de lance – gosh! snakes are just common objects like flies. An’ I tell you boys right here and now, that there ain’t a snake in this or the next world that can climb up a parapet, bite a man and get away with it with a copper looking on.’
He beamed from one to the other: he was almost paternal.
‘I’d like to have shown you folks a worse-than-mamba,’ he said regretfully, ‘but carrying round snakes in your pocket is just hot dog: it’s like a millionaire wearin’ diamond ear-rings just to show he can afford ’em. I liked that little fellow; I’m mighty sorry he’s dead, but if any man tells you that a snake bit him, go right up to him, hit him on the nose, and say “Liar!” ’
‘You will have some coffee?’ Manfred had rung the bell.
‘Sure I will: never have got used to this tea-drinking habit. I’m on the wagon too: got scared up there in the back-lands of Angola – ’
‘What were you doing there?’ asked Leon.
‘Snakes,’ said the other briefly. ‘I represent an organization that supplies specimens to zoos and museums. I was looking for a flying snake – there ain’t such a thing, though the natives say there is. I got a new kinder cobra – viperidae crotalinae – and yet not!’
He scratched his head, bringing his scientific perplexity into the room. Leon’s heart went out to him.
He had met Barberton by accident. Without shame he confessed that he had gone to a village in the interior for a real solitary jag, and returning to such degree of civilization as Mossamedes represented, he found a group of Portuguese breeds squatting about a fire at which the man’s feet were toasting.
‘You can tell us nothing about Barberton?’
Mr Elijah Washington shook his head.
‘No, sir: I know him same as I might know you. It got me curious when I found out the why of the torturing: he wouldn’t tell where it was.’
‘Where what was?’ asked Manfred quickly, and Washington was surprised.
‘Why, the writing they wanted to get. I thought maybe he’d told you. He said he was coming right along to spill all that part of it. It was a letter he’d found in a tin box – that was all he’d say.’
They looked at one another.
‘I know no more about it than that,’ Mr Washington added, when he saw Gonsalez’ lips move. ‘It was just a letter. Who it was from, why, what it was about, he never told me. My first idea was that he’d been flirting round about here, but divorce laws are mighty generous and they wouldn’t trouble to get evidence that way. A man doesn’t want any documents to get rid of his wife. I dare say you folks wonder why I’ve come along.’ Mr Washington raised his steaming cup of coffee, which must have been nearly boiling, and drank it at one gulp. ‘That’s fine,’ he said, ‘the nearest to coffee I’ve had since I left home.’
He wiped his lips with a large and vivid silk handkerchief.
‘I’ve come along, gentleman, because I’ve got a pretty good idea that I’d be useful to anybody who’s snake-hunting in this little dorp.’
‘It’s rather a dangerous occupation, isn’t it?’ said Manfred quietly.
Washington nodded.
‘To you, but not to me,’ he said. ‘I am snake-proof.’
He pulled up his sleeve: the forearm was scarred and pitted with old wounds.
‘Snakes,’ he said briefly. ‘That’s cobra.’ He pointed proudly. ‘When that snake struck, my boys didn’t wait for anything, they started dividing my kit. Sort of appointed themselves a board of executors and joint heirs of the family estate.’
‘But you were very ill?’ said Gonsalez.
Mr Washington shook his head.
‘No, sir, not more than if a bee bit me, and not so much as if a wasp had got in first punch. Some people can eat arsenic, some people can make a meal of enough morphia to decimate a province. I’m snake-proof – been bitten ever since I was five.’
He bent over towards them, and his jolly face went suddenly serious. ‘I’m the man you want,’ he said.
‘I think you are,’ said Manfred slowly.
‘Because this old snake ain’t finished biting. There’s a graft in it somewhere, and I want to find it. But first I want to vindicate the snake. Anybody who says a snake’s naturally vicious doesn’t understand. Snakes are timid, quiet, respectful things, and don’t want no trouble with nobody. If a snake sees you coming, he naturally lights out for home. When momma snake’s running around with her family, she’s naturally touchy for fear you’d tread on any of her boys and girls, but she’s a lady, and if you give her time she’ll Maggie ’um and get ’um into the parlour where the foot of white man never trod.’
Leon was looking at him with a speculative eye.
‘It is queer to think,’ he said, speaking half to himself, ‘that you may be the only one of us who will be alive this day week!’
Meadows, not easily shocked, felt a cold shiver run down his spine.
Chapter 13
Mirabelle goes home
The prediction that Leon Gonsalez had made was not wholly fulfilled, though he himself had helped to prevent the supreme distress he prophesied. When Mirabelle Leicester awoke in the morning, her head was thick and dull, and for a long time she lay between sleeping and waking, trying to bring order to the confusion of her thoughts, her eyes on the ceiling towards a gnarled oak beam which she had seen before somewhere; and when at last she summoned sufficient energy to raise herself on her elbow, she looked upon the very familiar surroundings of her own pretty little room.
Heavytree Farm! What a curious dream she had had! A dream filled with fleeting visions of old men with elongated heads, of dance music and a crowded ball-room, of a slightly over-dressed man who had been very polite to her at dinner. Where did she dine? She sat up in bed, holding her throbbing head.
Again she looked round the room and slowly, out of her dreams, emerged a few tangible facts. She was still in a state of bewilderment when the door opened and Aunt Alma came in, and the unprepossessing face of her relative was accentuated by her look of anxiety.
‘Hullo, Alma!’ said Mirabelle dully. ‘I’ve had such a queer dream.’
Alma pressed her lips tightly together as she placed a tray on a table by the side of the bed.
‘I think it was about that advertisement I saw.’ And then, with a gasp: ‘How did I come here?’
‘They brought you,’ said Alma. ‘The nurse is downstairs having her breakfast. She’s a nice woman and keeps press-cuttings.’
‘The nurse?’ asked Mirabelle in bewilderment.
‘You arrived here at three o’clock in the morning in a motor-car. You had a nurse with you.’ Alma enumerated the circumstances in chronological order. ‘And two men. First one of the men got out and knocked at the door. I was worried to death. In fact, I’d been worried all the afternoon, ever since I had your wire telling me not to come up to London.’
‘But I didn’t send any such wire,’ replied the girl.
‘After I came down, the man – he was really a gentleman and very pleasantly spoken – told me that you’d been taken ill and a nurse had brought you home. They then carried you, the two men and the nurse, upstairs and laid you on the bed, and nurse and I undressed you. I simply couldn’t get you to wake up: all you did was to talk about the orangeade.’
‘I remember! It was so bitter, and Lord Evington let me drink some of his. And then I . . . I don’t know what happened after that,’ she said, with a little grimace.
‘Mr Gonsalez ordered the car, got the nurse from a nursing home,’ explained Alma.
‘Gonsalez! Not my Gonsalez – the – the Four Just Men Gonsalez?’ she asked in amazement.
‘I’m sure it was Gonsalez: they made no secret about it. You can see the gentleman who brought you: he’s about the house somewhere. I saw him in Heavytree Lane not five minutes ago, strolling up and down and smoking. A pipe,’ added Alma.
The girl got out of bed; her knees were curiously weak under her, but she managed to stagger to the window, and, pushing open the casement still farther, looked out across the patchwork quilt of colour. The summer flowers were in bloom; the delicate scents came up on the warm morning air, and she stood for a moment, drinking in great draughts of the exquisite perfume, and then, with a sigh, turned back to the waiting Alma.
‘I don’t know how it all happened and what it’s about, but my word, Alma, I’m glad to be back! That dreadful man . . . ! We lunched at the Ritz-Carlton . . . I never want to see another restaurant or a ball-room or Chester Square, or anything but old Heavytree!’
She took the cup of tea from Alma’s hand, drank greedily, and put it down with a little gasp.
‘That was wonderful! Yes, the tea was too, but I’m thinking about Gonsalez. If it should be he!’
‘I don’t see why you should get excited over a man who’s committed I don’t know how many murders.’
‘Don’t be silly, Alma!’ scoffed the girl. ‘The Just Men have never murdered, any more than a judge and jury murder.’
The room was still inclined to go round, and it was with the greatest difficulty that she could condense the two Almas who stood before her into one tangible individual.
‘There’s a gentleman downstairs: he’s been wait
ing since twelve.’
And when she asked, she was to learn, to her dismay, that it was half-past one.
‘I’ll be down in a quarter of an hour,’ she said recklessly. ‘Who is it?’
‘I’ve never heard of him before, but he’s a gentleman,’ was the unsatisfactory reply. ‘They didn’t want to let him come in.’
‘Who didn’t?’
‘The gentlemen who brought you here in the night.’
Mirabelle stared at her.
‘You mean . . . they’re guarding the house?’
‘That’s how it strikes me,’ said Alma bitterly. ‘Why they should interfere with us, I don’t know. Anyway, they let him in. Mr Johnson Lee.’
The girl frowned.
‘I don’t know the name,’ she said.
Alma walked to the window.
‘There’s his car,’ she said, and pointed.
It was just visible, standing at the side of the road beyond the box hedge, a long-bodied Rolls, white with dust. The chauffeur was talking to a strange man, and from the fact that he was smoking a pipe Mirabelle guessed that this was one of her self-appointed custodians.
She had her bath, and with the assistance of the nurse, dressed and came shakily down the stairs. Alma was waiting in the brick-floored hall.
‘He wants to see you alone,’ she said in a stage whisper. ‘I don’t know whether I ought to allow it, but there’s evidently something wrong. These men prowling about the house have got thoroughly on my nerves.’
Mirabelle laughed softly as she opened the door and walked in. At the sound of the door closing, the man who was sitting stiffly on a deep settee in a window recess got up. He was tall and bent, and his dark face was lined. His eyes she could not see; they were hidden behind dark green glasses, which were turned in her direction as she came across the room to greet him.
‘Miss Mirabelle Leicester?’ he asked, in the quiet, modulated voice of an educated man. He took her hand in his.
‘Won’t you sit down?’ she said, for he remained standing after she had seated herself.
The Complete Four Just Men Page 77