(1929) The Three Just Men

by Edgar Wallace

  Mirabelle shook her head.

  “I don’t like to think what has happened to him,” she said. “Now, Alma, do you think we can get him into the drawing-room?”

  Together they lifted the heavy figure and staggered with it into the pretty little room, laying him at last upon the settee under the window.

  “He can rest there till we get the ambulance,” began Mirabelle, and a chuckle behind her made her turn with a gasp.

  It was the pedlar, and in his hand he held the pistol which she had discarded.

  “I only want you”—he nodded to the girl. “You other two women can come out here.” He jerked his head to the passage. Under the stairs was a big cupboard and he pulled the door open invitingly. “Get in here. If you make a noise, you’ll be sorry for yourselves.”

  Alma’s eyes wandered longingly to the gun she had left in the corner, but before she could make a move he had placed himself between her and the weapon.

  “Inside,” said the pedlar, and Mirabelle was not much surprised when Aunt Alma meekly obeyed.

  He shut the door on the two women and fastened the latch.

  “Now, young lady, put on your hat and be lively!”

  He followed her up the stairs into her room and watched her while she found a hat and a cloak. She knew only that it was a waste of time even to temporize with him. He, for his part, was so exultant at his success that he grew almost loquacious.

  “I suppose you saw the boys driving away and you didn’t remember that I was somewhere around. Was that you doing the shooting?”

  She did not answer.

  “It couldn’t have been Lew, or you’d have been dead,” he said. He was examining the muzzle of the pistol. “It was you all right.” He chuckled. “Ain’t you the game one! Sister, you ought to be—”

  He stopped dead, staring through the window. He was paralysed with amazement at the sight of a bare-headed Aunt Alma flying along the Gloucester Road. With an oath he turned to the girl.

  “How did she get out? Have you got anybody here? Now speak up.”

  “The cupboard under the stairs leads to the wine cellar,” said Mirabelle coolly, “and there are two ways out of the wine cellar I think Aunt Alma found one of them.”

  With an oath, he took a step towards her, gripped her by the arm and jerked her towards the door.

  “Lively!” he said, and dragged her down the stairs through the hall, into the kitchen.

  He shot back the bolts, but the lock of the kitchen door had been turned.

  “This way.” He swore cold-bloodedly, and, her arm still in his powerful grip, he hurried along the passage and pulled open the door.

  It was an unpropitious moment. A man was walking down the path, a half smile on his face, as though he was thinking over a remembered jest. At the sight of him the pedlar dropped the girl’s arm and his hand went like lightning to his pocket.

  “When will you die?” said Leon Gonsalez softly. “Make a choice, and make it quick!”

  And the gun in his hand seemed to quiver with homicidal eagerness.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN - TWO “ACCIDENTS”

  THE pedlar, his face twitching, put up his shaking hands.

  Leon walked to him, took the Browning from his moist grip and dropped it into his pocket.

  “Your friends are waiting, of course?” he said pleasantly.

  The pedlar did not answer.

  “Cuccini too? I thought I had incapacitated him for a long time.”

  “They’ve gone,” growled the pedlar.

  Gonsalez looked round in perplexity.

  “I don’t want to take you into the house. At the same time, I don’t want to leave you here,” he said. “I almost wish you’d drawn that gun of yours,” he added regretfully. “It would have solved so many immediate problems.”

  This particular problem was solved by the return of the dishevelled Alma and the restoration to her of her gun.

  “I would so much rather you shot him than I,” said Leon earnestly. “The police are very suspicious of my shootings, and they never wholly believe that they are done in self-defence.”

  With a rope he tied the man, and tied him uncomfortably, wrists to ankles. That done, he made a few inquiries and went swiftly out to the barn, returning in a few minutes with the unhappy guard.

  “It can’t be helped,” said Leon, cutting short the man’s apologies. “The question is, where are the rest of the brethren?”

  Something zipped past him: it had the intensified hum of an angry wasp, and a second later he heard a muffled “Plop!” In a second he was lying flat on the ground, his Browning covering the hedge that hid Heavytree Lane.

  “Run to the house,” he called urgently. “They won’t bother about you.” And the guard, nothing loth, sprinted for the cover of walls.

  Presently Leon located the enemy, and at a little distance off he saw the flat top of the covered trolley. A man walked invitingly across the gap in the hedge, but Gonsalez held his fire, and presently the manoeuvre was repeated. Obviously they were trying to concentrate his mind upon the gap whilst they were moving elsewhere. His eyes swept the meadow boundary—running parallel, he guessed, was a brook or ditch which would make excellent cover.

  Again the man passed leisurely across the gap. Leon steadied his elbow, and glanced along the sight. As he did so, the man reappeared.

  Crack!

  Gonsalez aimed a foot behind him. The man saw the flash and jumped back, as he had expected. In another second he was writhing on the ground with a bullet through his leg.

  Leon showed his teeth in a smile and switched his body round to face the new point of attack. It came from the spot that he had expected: a little rise of ground that commanded his position.

  The first bullet struck the turf to his right with an angry buzz, sent a divot flying heavenward, and ricocheted with a smack against a tree. Before the raised head could drop to cover, Gonsalez fired; fired another shot to left and right, then, rising, raced for the shelter of the tree, and reached it in time to see three heads bobbing back to the road. He waited, covering the gap, but the people who drew the wounded man out of sight did not show themselves, and a minute later he saw the trolley moving swiftly down the by-road, and knew that danger was past.

  The firing had attracted attention. He had not been back in the house a few minutes before a mounted policeman, his horse in a lather, came galloping up to the gate and dismounted. A neighbouring farm had heard the shots and telephoned to constabulary headquarters. For half an hour the mounted policeman took notes, and by this time half the farmers in the neighbourhood, their guns under their arms, had assembled in Mirabelle’s parlour.

  She had not seen as much of the redoubtable Leon as she could have wished, and when they had a few moments to themselves she seized the opportunity to tell him of the call which Lee had made that morning. Apparently he knew all about it, for he expressed no surprise, and was only embarrassed when she showed a personal interest in himself and his friends.

  It was not a very usual experience for him, and he was rather annoyed with himself at this unexpected glimpse of enthusiasm and hero-worship, sane as it was, and based, as he realized, upon her keen sense of justice.

  “I’m not so sure that we’ve been very admirable really,” he said. “But the difficulty is to produce at the moment a judgement which would be given from a distance of years. We have sacrificed everything which to most men would make life worth living, in our desire to see the scales held fairly.”

  “You are not married, Mr. Gonsalez?”

  He stared into the frank eyes. “Married! Why, no,” he said, and she laughed.

  “You talk as though that were a possibility that had never occurred to you.”

  “It hasn’t,” he admitted. “By the very nature of our work we are debarred from that experience. And is it an offensive thing to say that I have never felt my singleness to be a deprivation?”

  “It is very rude,” she said severely, and Leon was laughing to h
imself all the way back to town as at a great joke that improved upon repetition.

  “I think we can safely leave her for a week,” he reported, on his return to Curzon Street. “No, nothing happened. I was held up in a police trap near Newbury for exceeding the speed limit They said I was doing fifty, but I should imagine it was nearer eighty. Meadows will get me out of that. Otherwise, I must send the inevitable letter to the magistrate and pay the inevitable fine. Have you done anything about Johnson Lee?”

  Manfred nodded. “Meadows and the enthusiastic Mr. Washington have gone round to see him. I have asked Washington to go because”—he hesitated—“the snake is a real danger, so far as he is concerned. Elijah Washington promises to be a very real help. He is afraid of nothing, and has undertaken to stay with Lee and to apply such remedies for snake-bites as he knows.”

  He was putting on his gloves as he spoke, and Leon Gonsalez looked at him with a critical admiration.

  “Are you being presented at Court, or are you taking tea with a duchess?”

  “Neither. I’m calling upon friend Oberzohn.”

  “The devil you are!” said Leon, his eyebrows rising.

  “I have taken the precaution of sending him a note, asking him to keep his snakes locked up,” said Manfred, “and as I have pointedly forwarded the carbon copy of the letter, to impress the fact that another exists and may be brought in evidence against him, I think I shall leave Oberzohn & Smitts’ main office without hurt. If you are not too tired, Leon, I would rather prefer the Buick to the Spanz.”

  “Give me a quarter of an hour,” said Leon, and went up to his room to make himself tidy.

  It was fifteen minutes exactly when the Buick stopped at the door, and Manfred got into the saloon. There was no partition between driver and passenger, and conversation was possible.

  “It would have been as well if you’d had Brother Newton there,” he suggested.

  “Brother Newton will be on the spot: I took the precaution of sending him a similar note,” said Manfred. “I shouldn’t imagine they’ll bring out their gunmen.”

  “I know two, and possibly three, they won’t bring out.” Gonsalez grinned at the traffic policeman who waved him into Oxford Street. “That Browning of mine throws high, Manfred: I’ve always had a suspicion it did. Pistols are queer things, but this may wear into my hand.” He talked arms and ammunition until the square block of Oberzohn & Smitts came into sight. “Good hunting!” he said, as he got out, opened the saloon door and touched his hat to Manfred as he alighted.

  He got back into his seat, swung the little car round in a circle, and sat on the opposite side of the road, his eyes alternately on the entrance and on the mirror which gave him a view of the traffic approaching him from the rear.

  Manfred was not kept in the waiting-room for more than two minutes. At the end of that time, a solemn youth in spectacles, with a little bow, led him across the incurious office into the presence of the illustrious doctor.

  The old man was at his desk. Behind him, his debonair self, Monty Newton, a large yellow flower in his buttonhole, a smile on his face. Oberzohn got up like a man standing to attention.

  “Mr. Manfred, this is a great honour,” he said, and held at his hand stiffly.

  An additional chair had been placed for the visitor: a rich-looking tapestried chair, to which the doctor waved the hand which Manfred did not take.

  “Good morning, Manfred.” Newton removed his cigar and nodded genially. “Were you at the dance last night?”

  “I was there, but I didn’t come in,” said Manfred, seating himself. “You did not turn up till late, they tell me?”

  “It was of all occurrences the most unfortunate,” said Dr. Oberzohn, and Newton laughed.

  “I’ve lost his laboratory secretary and he hasn’t forgiven me,” he said almost jovially. “The girl he took on yesterday. Rather a stunner in the way of looks. She didn’t wish to go back to the country where she came from, so my sister offered to put her up for the night in Chester Square. I’m blessed if she didn’t lose herself at the dance, and we haven’t seen her since!”

  “It was a terrible thing,” said Oberzohn sadly. “I regard her as in my charge. For her safety I am responsible. You, I trust, Mr. Newton—”

  “I don’t think I should have another uneasy moment if I were you, doctor,” said Manfred easily. “The young lady is back at Heavytree Farm. I thought that would surprise you. And she is still there: that will surprise you more, if you have not already heard by telephone that your Old Guard failed dismally to—er—bring her back to work. I presume that was their object?”

  “My old guard, Mr. Manfred?” Oberzohn shook his head in bewilderment. “This is beyond my comprehension.”

  “Is your sister well?” asked Manfred blandly. Newton shrugged his shoulders.

  “She is naturally upset. And who wouldn’t be? Joan is a very tender-hearted girl.”

  “She has been that way for years,” said Manfred offensively. “May I smoke?”

  “Will you have one of my cigarettes?” Manfred’s grave eyes fixed the doctor in a stare that held the older man against his will.

  “I have had just one too many of your cigarettes,” he said. His words came like a cold wind. “I do not want any more, Herr Doktor, or there will be vacancies in your family circle. Who knows that, long before you compound your wonderful elixir, you may be called to normal immortality?”

  The yellow face of Oberzohn had turned to a dull red.

  “You seem to know so much about me, Mr. Manfred, as myself,” he said in a husky whisper.

  Manfred nodded.

  “More. For whilst you are racing against time to avoid the end of a life which does not seem especially worthy of preservation, and whilst you know not what day or hour that end may come, I can tell you to the minute,” The finger of his gloved hand pointed the threat.

  All trace of a smile had vanished from Monty Newton’s face. His eyes did not leave the caller’s.

  “Perhaps you shall tell me.” Oberzohn found a difficulty in speaking. Rage possessed him, and only his iron will choked down the flames from view.

  “The day that injury comes to Mirabelle Leicester, that day you go out—you and those who are with you!”

  “Look here, Manfred, there’s a law in this country—” began Monty Newton hotly.

  “I am the law.” The words rang like a knell of fate. “In this matter I am judge, jury, hangman. Old or young, I will not spare,” he said evenly.

  “Are you immortal too?” sneered Monty.

  Only for a second did Manfred’s eyes leave the old man’s face.

  “The law is immortal,” he said. “If you dream that, by some cleverly concerted coup, you can sweep me from your path before I grow dangerous, be sure that your sweep is clean.”

  “You haven’t asked me to come here to listen to this stuff, have you?” asked Newton, and though his words were bold, his manner aggressive, there were shadows on his face which were not there when Manfred had come into the room—shadows under his eyes and in his cheeks where plumpness had been.

  “I’ve come here to tell you to let up on Miss Leicester. You’re after something that you cannot get, and nobody is in a position to give you. I don’t know what it is—I will make you a present of that piece of information. But it’s big—bigger than any prize you’ve ever gone after in your wicked lives. And to get that, you’re prepared to sacrifice innocent lives with the recklessness of spendthrifts who think there is no bottom to their purse. The end is near!”

  He rose slowly and stood by the table, towering over the stiff-backed doctor.

  “I cannot say what action the police will take over this providential snake-bite, Oberzohn, but I’ll make you this offer: I and my friends will stand out of the game and leave Meadows to get you in his own way. You think that means you’ll go scot-free? But it doesn’t. These police are like bull-dogs: once they’ve got a grip of you, they’ll never let go.”

  “What
is the price you ask for this interesting service?” Newton was puffing steadily at his cigar, his hands clasped behind him, his feet apart, a picture of comfort and well-being.

  “Leave Miss Leicester alone. Find a new way of getting the money you need so badly.”

  Newton laughed.

  “My dear fellow, that’s a stupid thing to say. Neither Oberzohn nor I are exactly poor.”

  “You’re bankrupt, both of you,” said Manfred quietly. “You are in the position of gamblers when the cards have run against you for a long time. You have no reserve, and your expenses are enormous. Find another way, Newton—and tell your sister”—he paused by the door, looking down into the white lining of his silk hat—“I’d like to see her at Curzon Street to-morrow morning at ten o’clock.”

  “Is that an order?” asked Newton sarcastically.

  Manfred nodded.

  “Then let me tell you,” roared the man, white with passion, “that I take no orders for her or for me. Got swollen heads since you’ve had your pardon, haven’t you? You look out for me, Manfred. I’m not exactly harmless.”

  He felt the pressure of the doctor’s foot upon his and curbed his temper.

  “All right,” he growled, “but don’t expect to see Joan.”

  He added a coarse jest, and Manfred raised his eyes slowly and met his.

  “You will be hanged by the State or murdered by Oberzohn—I am not sure which,” he said simply, and he spoke with such perfect confidence that the heart of Monty Newton turned to water.

  Manfred stood in the sidewalk and signalled, and the little car came swiftly and noiselessly across. Leon’s eyes were on the entrance. A tall man standing in the shadow of the hall was watching. He was leaning against the wall in a negligent attitude, and for a second Leon was startled.

  “Get in quickly!”

  Leon almost shouted the words back, and Manfred jumped into the machine, as the chauffeur sent the car forward, with a jerk that strained every gear.

  “What on—?” began Manfred, but the rest of his words were lost in the terrific crash which followed.

  The leather hood of the machine was ripped down at the back, a splinter of glass struck Leon’s cap and sliced a half-moon neatly. He jammed on the brakes, threw open the door of the saloon and leaped out. Behind the car was a mass of wreckage; a great iron casting lay split into three pieces amidst a tangle of broken packing-case. Leon looked up; immediately above the entrance to Oberzohn & Smitts’ was a crane, which had swung out with a heavy load just before Manfred came out. The steel wire hung loosely from the derrick. He heard excited voices speaking from the open doorway three floors above, and two men in large glasses were looking down and gabbling in a language he did not understand.