The Fourth Plague

by Edgar Wallace

  “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, without 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, being 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 obviously 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.

  “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 legislative 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 beckoning 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 Professor Tillizini be allowed to address the House from this place.”

  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 House 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 extermination. 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 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, succeed 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 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 vindictive 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.

  “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 traditions if you paid one single penny to this infamous confederacy.”

  He sat down amidst a murmured cheer.
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  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 Colchester.”

  “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 Trafalgar 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.

  He was a middle-aged man, poorly dressed, and he was apparently 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 handcuffed compatriot into the charge-room. But at a word from Tillizini he became obsequiousness itself.

  “Search him,” said Tillizini.

  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 supplied 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 writing, 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.

  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, moreover, 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 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 somebody 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.

  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 methodically. The bars had been screwed on to a square of wood fitt
ed into the window space, stapled and morticed into the brickwork itself.

  She could not see his face, and he spoke too low for her ordinarily 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 obstacle 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.

  “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 hundred yards from the house, when Tillizini stopped, and motioned her forward.