by Robert Reed
his face and secured to the hood of his white gown .
The others followed his example .
They took up rubber gloves from the bench in the outer room and
drew them on . Il Bue pulled the door open and a faint sweet scent
came out to greet them .
In the centre of the inner and smaller compartment was a long
narrow table on which, at intervals, rested four deep porcelain dishes
under glass bell-covers .
They were no more to the sight than narrow strips of glass coated
with a light-brown gelatinous substance, but each glass case held
death in a terrible form .
Festini looked at them curiously . It was almost impossible to be-
lieve that these innocent-looking strips of dull glass could play so
powerful a part .
“That is all?” said he, half to himself .
“That is all, Signor,” said Il Bue .
His big face was twisted in a puzzled grin .
“It seems a very simple thing,” he said, suspiciously; “why, I
could smash it out of existence with a blow of my fist.”
The man with the sour face looked up at him sideways .
“You would die very soon,” he said .
He was the chemist of the party, a brilliant man with strange gifts,
who had been brought into association with the “Red Hand” and
THE 4TH PLAGUE, by Edgar Wallace (Part 2) | 394
found an outlet in their operations for the lawless and perverse spirit
within him .
Festini turned and led the way from the room . He waited till Il
Bue re-padlocked the door, then he stepped out of the shed, slipping
down his mask .
The fresh air came to him like a sweet, refreshing draught; it
seemed to him that he had tasted the very atmosphere of death and
desolation in that tiny room; that it was already tainted with the
plague he was about to spread wide-cast .
He made no other attempt to see the girl; he was satisfied with
that one interview . He remained in his room, reading by the aid of
a portable electric lamp such comments of the Press upon the “Red
Hand” as his agents had collected .
At ten o’clock there were two new arrivals . In one of these Fes-
tini was particularly interested; it was the priest he had secured for
the marriage ceremony .
Psychologists have endeavoured to get at the state of Festini’s
mind; to analyse by set formula the exact proportions . Was he whol-
ly villain? Were the fantastic acts of chivalry, preposterous as they
were, remembering the circumstances in which they were displayed,
indications of a better nature?
Tillizini, in his exhaustive analysis of the man’s character, had at-
tributed such acts as this contemplated marriage as merely evidence
of habit . Festini’s long association with men and women of his class
had endowed him with an habitual respect for certain conventions .
This was Tillizini’s estimate, and was probably an accurate one, for
he knew the man .
The priest he had chosen had been brought post-haste from Italy,
and had travelled night and day . He was a man known to the as-
sociation as being “safe”: he himself was suspected of complicity in
certain outrages which had shocked Italy in the year before the great
trial . He himself had stood with the other sixty prisoners in a cage in
the criminal court, but, thanks to ingenious perjury, he had escaped
punishment .
THE 4TH PLAGUE, by Edgar Wallace (Part 2) | 395
Festini greeted him without cordiality, with the grave respect
which a true son of the Church shows to his spiritual superior, and
with the faint hint of patronage which the greater intellect instinc-
tively adopts towards the lesser .
He gave orders for the priest’s accommodation, and, after the
brief interview, was again left alone .
It was near midnight when Festini threw himself down on a
truckle bed to snatch a few hours’ sleep . In the early horns of the
morning his spies would bring him news of the Premier’s reply . He
fell into an uneasy, fitful sleep, a sleep disturbed by bad dreams,
such as were not usual with him .
There came a light knock and he went to the door . Il Bue was
waiting .
“What is it?” asked Festini .
“One of the brethren has just come in,” said the man, who was
palpably disturbed . “He came on his cycle from where he has been
watching the London road, and he says that some soldiers are march-
ing from London .”
Festini made a gesture of impatience .
“Did you wake me to tell me that?” he asked, irritably . “Haven’t
you been long enough in England, my friend, to know that soldiers
have nothing whatever to do with police work? This is not Italy, it is
England . Go—tell your scout to return to his post, to watch not for
the army, but for Tillizini and his friends .”
He went back to his room and again lay on the bed, pulling a soft,
camel-hair rug over him . He tossed from side to side but could not
sleep; he got up after a little while, and went out . A man was keeping
guard outside the door .
“Go to Catrina,” he said, “and tell her to make me some choco-
late .”
A few minutes later the woman brought him in a steaming bowl
on a tray . She set it before him and he acknowledged it with a curt
word of thanks, when a thought occurred to him .
“Catrina,” he said, calling her back, “your lady is well?”
THE 4TH PLAGUE, by Edgar Wallace (Part 2) | 396
“Yes, padrone,” she replied . “I saw her two hours ago, before she
was asleep .”
Festini nodded .
“See her again now,” he said, “I will go up with you .”
Taking a lamp from the bracket in the narrow passage of the
house, the woman led the way upstairs, and Festini followed .
He waited outside the door whilst the woman unlocked it and
entered . He heard a smothered exclamation .
“Padrone!” cried the woman, wildly . “Padrone!”
He rushed into the room . The little bed in the corner was empty .
The window was open and three of the bars were missing . Marjorie
Meagh had gone!
CHAPTER XVI
TILLIZINI ADDRESSES THE HOUSE
Though it was past midnight the streets of London were alive
with people; shops were open, lights blazed from windows which
ordinarily would have been in darkness . The motor services which
carried the Londoner to and from his home were still running; spe-
cial editions of the evening papers were on sale in the streets, and
about the House of Commons, where the crowd grew in intensity,
they found a ready sale .
Between Whitehall and Victoria Street some thirty thousand
people had assembled, but the police had no difficulty in controlling
the assembly or in securing a passage way for the constant stream of
cars which were passing to and from the House of Commons . The
character of the crowd was an interesting one . These were no idle
sightseers, attracted by the chance of a little excitement; it was the
silk-hatted middle class
of England, overcoated, muffled, bespec-
tacled, waiting patiently for news which meant all the difference
between life and death to them .
For once in its history the House of Commons was sitting in se-
cret session . At eleven o’clock that night, by the Speaker’s direction,
THE 4TH PLAGUE, by Edgar Wallace (Part 2) | 397
the galleries had been cleared, and strangers had been excluded, not
only from the lobby, but from the precincts of the House . Parliament
had resolved itself into a National Jury .
At five minutes after twelve a great car, covered with dust, came
slowly along Whitehall . It bore three small lamps on its radiator, ar-
ranged in the form of a triangle . Unchallenged the car passed Bridge
Street and into Palace Yard . About the entrance of the House were
a crowd of policemen, but they made a way for the tall man in the
dusty coat who sprang from the seat by the side of the driver . Two
men were waiting for him; Hilary George, M .P ., was one, and In-
spector Crocks the other .
The three passed into the interior of the House and made their
way to a small Committee room which had been prepared for them .
“Well?” asked Crocks . His face was of an unusual pallor, and he
spoke with the irritability which is peculiar to the man undergoing a
great nervous strain .
Tillizini slowly divested himself of his great coat, laid it across
a chair, and walked to the fire. He stood for a while, warming his
hands at the blaze; then he spoke .
“I have located them,” he said, “definitely.”
“Thank God!” said Crocks .
“There is no doubt?” asked Hilary . Tillizini shook his head . He
took a book from his inside pocket, opened it, and extracted three
slips of paper . They were advertisements cut from a newspaper of
the week before .
“I don’t know,” he said, “whether you have noticed these?”
They bent over the table, the three heads together, reading the
advertisement .
“I cannot understand it,” said Hilary; “this is an advertisement
offering good prices for pigeons .” He examined the other . “This is
the same,” he said .
“They’re all the same,” said Tillizini, quietly . “Do you notice that
they advertise that they want old pigeons?”
Hilary nodded .
THE 4TH PLAGUE, by Edgar Wallace (Part 2) | 398
“The address is at a place in London . The man who advertised
had thousands of replies, and has made thousands of purchases, too .
Throughout the week basket after basket of birds has come con-
signed to him at the various London termini; they have been col-
lected by the agents of the ‘Red Hand’ and forwarded to Festini .”
“But why?” asked Crocks, puzzled . “He’s not going to start a
pigeon-shooting competition?”
Tillizini laughed. He had walked back to the fire and was bending
over it, his hands almost touching the flames.
“If you will believe me,” he said, “I have been looking for that
advertisement for quite a long time .” He straightened himself and
stood with his back to the fire, his hands behind him. Then he asked
suddenly: “How is the ‘Red Hand’ to distribute the germs of this
plague? Has that thought ever occurred to you? How can they, with-
out danger to themselves, spread broadcast the seeds of the Black
Death?”
“Good Heavens!” said Hilary, as the significance of the move
suddenly dawned upon him .
“To-morrow morning,” Tillizini went on, “if the Premier’s reply
is unfavourable, they will release these thousands of pigeons, and
release also, in a portable form, sufficient of the culture to spread
death in whichever neighbourhood the pigeon lands . Naturally, be-
ing old birds, they will fly straight back to the homes they have left.
It is very ingenious . They might of course have done the same thing
by post, but there was a certain amount of risk attached to that . The
present method is one which would appeal to Festini . I arrested a
man this afternoon who has been collecting the birds . He is obvi-
ously one of the ‘Red Hand,’ though he protests against such an
imputation .”
“What is to be done?” asked Hilary . “You had better see the Prime
Minister at once .”
The door opened and a young man came in hurriedly .
“Is Professor Tillizini here?” he asked .
Hilary indicated the detective .
THE 4TH PLAGUE, by Edgar Wallace (Part 2) | 399
“Will you come at once, Professor? The Prime Minister wishes
you to stand at the bar of the House to explain to the honourable
members exactly the position .”
Tillizini nodded .
He followed his conductor along the broad corridor, across the
lobby, through two swing doors . He suddenly found himself in a
large chamber; it gave him the impression of being dimly lighted .
On either side he saw row after row of faces rising in tiers . At the
further end, behind a big table surmounted by a gold mace, sat a
wigged and gowned figure on a canopied chair. Near the table on his
left a man rose and spoke to the Speaker . Tillizini could not hear the
words he said. The moment afterwards the grave figure in the wig
and gown invited him forward .
Tillizini knew something of the august character of this legisla-
tive assembly; he knew, since it was his business to know, with what
jealousy it guarded its doors against the unelected stranger, and he
experienced a feeling of unreality as he walked along the floor of the
House and made his way, at the invitation of the Premier’s beckon-
ing finger, to a place on the Front Bench.
The House was in silence . A faint murmur of “Hear, Hear,” had
greeted him, but that had died away. A strange figure he made, still
powdered with the fine dust of the road, unshaven, grimy.
He sank down on the cushioned bench by the Premier’s side, and
looked with curious eyes at the Mother of Parliaments .
Amidst dead silence the Prime Minister rose and addressed the
Speaker .
“Mr . Speaker,” he said, “it is within my province, had I so desired,
to have asked you to vacate the chair and for the House to resolve
itself into a Committee . Under those circumstances we should have
had extensive powers, one such power being our right to summon
any stranger before us to give evidence .
“But the time is so very short, and the issues are so very serious,
that I have asked you to rule, as an extraordinary ruling, that Profes-
sor Tillizini be allowed to address the House from this place .”
THE 4TH PLAGUE, by Edgar Wallace (Part 2) | 400
The Prime Minister sat down, and the bearded man in the chair
looked at Tillizini, and nodded again . For a moment the professor
did not understand its significance; then a whispered word from the
Premier at his side brought him to his feet, a little embarrassed, a
little bewildered .
He spoke hesitatingly, halting now and then for a word, thanking
the H
ouse for its indulgence and for the remarkable privilege it had
granted him .
“The Prime Minister,” he went on, “has asked me to give you a
brief outline of the history of the ‘Red Hand .’ He thinks, and I agree,
that you should be made fully aware of one fact only that the ‘Red
Hand’ threatens to perform .”
For five minutes he traced the history of the organization; its
growth from the famous Three Finger Society of Sicily; he spoke
briefly of its crimes, both on the Continent and in America, for he
had the details at his finger-tips, and he himself had been engaged in
unravelling many of the mysteries which had surrounded the work
of these men .
“I do not know,” he said, “what plans this Parliament has formed
for ridding the country of so dangerous and so terrible a force . No
plan,” he spoke earnestly and emphatically, and punctuated his
speech with characteristic gestures, “which you may decide upon,
can be effective unless it includes some system of physical exter-
mination . I do not make myself clear, perhaps,” he said, hurriedly,
“although I have a very large acquaintance with your language .” He
emphasized his point with one finger on the palm of his hand. “These
men are going to destroy you and your kind . Believe me, they will
have no compunction; the plague will be spread throughout England
unless you take the most drastic steps within the next few hours .
There is no existing law on the statute books which exactly provides
for the present situation . You must create a new method to deal with
a new crime, and, Mr . Speaker, whatever this House does, whatever
steps it takes, however dreadful may be the form of punishment
which it, in its wisdom, may devise, it cannot be too drastic or too
severe to deal with the type of criminal organization which the ‘Red
THE 4TH PLAGUE, by Edgar Wallace (Part 2) | 401
Hand’ represents. I can, if I wish,” he said, with a smile, “arrest fifty
members of the ‘Red Hand’ to-night . I could, with a little care, suc-
ceed in assassinating Festini .”
He spoke in a matter-of-fact tone, as though assassination were
everyday work, and a little shiver ran through the House . He was
sensible to such undefinable impressions in others.
“You do not like the word?” he said, with a smile, “and neither
do I . I used it because I felt that it was a word which would be more
