(1929) The Three Just Men

by Edgar Wallace

  If Dr. Oberzohn was shocked to learn that his secret was out, he did not show it by his face. Not a muscle moved.

  “Of such matters I know nothing. It is a fantasy, a story of fairies. Yet it must be true, Mr. Inspector Meadows, if you say it. No: I think you are deceived by the criminals of Curzon Street, W. Men of blood and murder, with records that are infamous. You desire to search my house? It is your privilege.” He waved his hand. “I do not ask you for the ticket of search. From basement to attic the house is yours.”

  He was not surprised when Meadows took him at his word, and, going out into the hall, summoned his assistants. They visited each room separately, the old cook and the half-witted Danish girl accepting this visitation as a normal occurrence: they had every excuse to do so, for this was the second time in a fortnight that the house had been visited by the police.

  “Now I’ll take a look at your room, if you don’t mind,” said Meadows.

  His quick eyes caught sight of the box ottoman against the wall, and the fact that the doctor was sitting thereon added to his suspicions.

  “I will look in here, if you please,” he said.

  Oberzohn rose and the detective lifted the lid. It was empty. The ottoman had been placed against the wall, at the bottom of which was a deep recess. Gurther had long since rolled through the false back.

  “You see—nothing,” said Oberzohn. “Now perhaps you would like to search my factory? Perhaps amongst the rafters and the burnt girders I may conceal a something. Or the barge in my slipway? Who knows what I may place amongst the rats?”

  “You’re almost clever,” said Meadows, “and I don’t profess to be a match for you. But there are three men in this town who are! I’ll be frank with you, Oberzohn. I want to put you where I can give you a fair trial, in accordance with the law of this country, and I shall resist, to the best of my ability, any man taking the law into his own hands. But whether you’re innocent or guilty, I wouldn’t stand in your shoes for all the money in Angola!”

  “So?” said the doctor politely.

  “Give up this girl, and I rather fancy that half your danger will be at an end. I tell you, you’re too clever for me. It’s a stupid thing for a police officer to say, but I can’t get at the bottom of your snake. They have.”

  The old man’s brows worked up and down.

  “Indeed?” he said blandly. “And of which snake do you speak?”

  Meadows said nothing more. He had given his warning: if Oberzohn did not profit thereby, he would be the loser.

  Nobody doubted, least of all he, that, in defiance of all laws that man had made, independent of all the machinery of justice that human ingenuity had devised, inevitable punishment awaited Oberzohn and was near at hand.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE - THE ACCOUNT BOOK

  IT was five o’clock in the morning when the mud-spattered Spanz dropped down through the mist and driving rain of the Chiltern Hills and struck the main Gloucester Road, pulling up with a jerk before Heavytree Farm. Manfred sprang out, but before he could reach the door, Aunt Alma had opened it, and by the look of her face he saw that she had not slept that night.

  “Where is Digby?” he asked.

  “He’s gone to interview the Chief Constable,” said Alma. “Come in, Mr. Gonsalez.”

  Leon was wet from head to foot: there was not a dry square centimetre upon him. But he was his old cheerful self as he stamped into the hall, shaking himself free of his heavy mackintosh.

  “Digby, of course, heard nothing, George.”

  “I’m the lightest sleeper in the world,” said Aunt Alma, “but I heard not a sound. The first thing I knew was when a policeman came up and knocked at my door and told me that he’d found the front door open.”

  “No clue was left at all?”

  “Yes,” said Aunt Alma. They went into the drawing-room and she took up from the table a small black bottle with a tube and cap attached. “I found this behind the sofa. She’d been lying on the sofa; the cushions were thrown on the floor and she tore the tapestry in her struggle.”

  Leon turned the faucet, and, as the gas hissed out, sniffed.

  “The new dental gas,” he said. “But how did they get in? No window was open or forced?”

  “They came in at the door: I’m sure of that. And they had a woman with them,” said Aunt Alma proudly.

  “How do you know?”

  “There must have been a woman,” said Aunt Alma. “Mirabelle would not have opened the door except to a woman, without waking either myself or Mr. Digby.”

  Leon nodded, his eyes gleaming.

  “Obviously,” he said.

  “And I found the marks of a woman’s foot in the passage. It is dried now, but you can still see it.”

  “I have already seen it,” said Leon. “It is to the left of the door: a small pointed shoe and a rubber heel. Miss Leicester opened the door to the woman, the men came in, and the rest was easy. You can’t blame Digby,” he said appealingly to George.

  He was the friend at court of every agent, but this time Manfred did not argue with him.

  “I blame myself,” he said. “Poiccart told me—”

  “He was here,” said Aunt Alma.

  “Who—Poiccart? asked Manfred, surprised, and Gonsalez slapped his knee.

  “That’s it, of course! What fools we are! We ought to have known why this wily old fox had left his post. What time was he here?”

  Alma told him all the circumstances of the visit.

  “He must have left the house immediately after us,” said Leon, with a wide grin of amusement, “caught the five o’clock train for Gloucester, taxied across.”

  “And after that?” suggested Manfred.

  Leon scratched his chin.

  “I wonder if he’s back?” He took up the telephone and put a trunk call through to London. “Somehow I don’t think he is. Here’s Digby, looking as if he expected to be summarily executed.”

  The police pensioner was indeed in a mournful and pathetic mood.

  “I don’t know what you’ll think of me, Mr. Manfred—” he began.

  “I’ve already expressed a view on that subject.” George smiled faintly. “I’m not blaming you, Digby. To leave a man who has been knocked about as you have been without an opposite number was the height of folly. I didn’t expect them back so soon. As a matter of fact, I intended putting four men on from to-day. You’ve been making inquiries?”

  “Yes, sir. The car went through Gloucester very early in the morning and took the Swindon road. It was seen by a cyclist policeman; he said there was a fat roll of tarpaulin lying on the tent of the trolley.”

  “No sign of anybody chasing it in a car, or on a motor-bicycle?” asked Manfred anxiously.

  Poiccart had recently taken to motor-cycling.

  “No, sir.”

  “You saw Mr. Poiccart?”

  “Yes, he was just going back to London. He said he wanted to see the place with his own eyes.”

  George was disappointed. If it had been a visit of curiosity, Poiccart’s absence from town was understandable. He would not have returned at the hour he was rung up.

  Aunt Alma was cooking a hasty breakfast, and they had accepted her offering gratefully, for both men were famished; and they were in the midst of the meal when the London call came through.

  “Is that you, Poiccart?”

  “That is I,” said Poiccart’s voice. “Where are you speaking from?”

  “Heavytree Farm. Did you see anything of Miss Leicester?”

  There was a pause.

  “Has she gone?”

  “You didn’t know?”

  Another pause.

  “Oh, yes, I knew; in fact, I accompanied her part of the way to London, and was bumped off when the trolley struck a refuge on the Great West Road. Meadows is here: he has just come from Oberzohn’s. He says he has found nothing.”

  Manfred thought for a while.

  “We will be back soon after nine,” he said.

 
; “Leon driving you?” was the dry response.

  “Yes—in spite of which we shall be back at nine.”

  “That man has got a grudge against my driving,” said Leon, when Manfred reported the conversation. “I knew it was he when Digby described the car and said there was a fat roll of mackintosh on the top. ‘Fat roll’ is not a bad description. Do you know whether Poiccart spoke to Miss Leicester?”

  “Yes, he asked her if she grew onions.”—a reply which sent Leon into fits of silent laughter.

  Breakfast was over and they were making their preparations for departure, when Leon asked unexpectedly: “Has Miss Leicester a writing-table of her own?”

  “Yes, in her room,” said Alma, and took him up to show him the old bureau.

  He opened the drawers without apology, took out some old letters, turned them over, reading them shamelessly. Then he opened the blotter. There were several sheets of blank paper headed “Heavytree Farm,” and two which bore her signature at the bottom. Alma explained that the bank account of the establishment was in Mirabelle’s name, and, when it was necessary to draw cash, it was a rule of the bank that it should be accompanied by a covering letter—a practice which still exists in some of the old West-country banking establishments. She unlocked a drawer that he had not been able to open and showed him a cheque-book with three blank cheques signed with her name.

  “That banker has known me since I was so high,” said Alma scornfully. “You wouldn’t think there’d be so much red-tape.”

  Leon nodded.

  “Do you keep any account books?”

  “Yes, I do,” said Alma in surprise. “The household accounts, you mean?”

  “Could I see one?”

  She went out and returned with a thin ledger, and he made a brief examination of its contents. Wholly inadequate, thought Alma, considering the trouble she had taken and the interest he had shown.

  “That’s that,” he said. “Now, George, en voiture!”

  “Why did you want to see the account book?” asked Manfred as they bowled up the road.

  “I am naturally commercial-minded,” was the unsatisfactory reply. “And, George, we’re short of juice. Pray like a knight in armour that we sight a filling station in the next ten minutes.”

  If George had prayed, the prayer would have been answered: just as the cylinders started to miss they pulled up the car before a garage, and took in a supply which was more than sufficient to carry them to their destination. It was nine o’clock exactly when the car stopped before the house. Poiccart, watching the arrival from George’s room, smiled grimly at the impertinent gesture of the chauffeur.

  Behind locked doors the three sat in conference.

  “This has upset all my plans,” said Leon at last. “If the girl was safe, I should settle with Oberzohn tonight.”

  George Manfred stroked his chin thoughtfully. He had once worn a trim little beard, and had never got out of that beard-stroking habit of his.

  “We think exactly alike. I intended suggesting that course,” he said gravely.

  “The trouble is Meadows. I should like the case to have been settled one way or the other, and for Meadows to be out of it altogether. One doesn’t wish to embarrass him. But the urgency is very obvious. It would have been very easy,” said Leon, a note of regret in his gentle voice. “Now of course it is impossible until the girl is safe. But for that”—he shrugged his shoulders—“tomorrow friend Oberzohn would have experienced a sense of lassitude. No pain…just a little tiredness. Sleep, coma—death on the third day. He is an old man, and one has no desire to hurt the aged. There is no hurt like fear. As for Gurther, we will try a more violent method, unless Oberzohn gets him first. I sincerely hope he does.”

  “This is news to me. What is this about Gurther?” asked Poiccart.

  Manfred told him.

  “Leon is right now,” Poiccart nodded. He rose from the table and unlocked the door. “If any of you men wish to sleep, your rooms are ready; the curtains are drawn, and I will wake you at such and such an hour.”

  But neither was inclined for sleep. George had to see a client that morning: a man with a curious story to tell. Leon wanted a carburettor adjusted. They would both sleep in the afternoon, they said.

  The client arrived soon after. Poiccart admitted him and put him in the dining-room to wait before he reported his presence.

  “I think this is your harem man,” he said, and went downstairs to show up the caller.

  He was a commonplace-looking man with a straggling, fair moustache and a weak chin.

  “Debilitated or degenerate,” he suggested.

  “Probably a little of both,” assented Manfred, when the butler had announced him.

  He came nervously into the room and sat down opposite to Manfred.

  “I tried to get you on the ‘phone last night,” he complained, “but I got no answer.”

  “My office hours are from ten till two!” said George good-humouredly. “Now will you tell me again this story of your sister?”

  The man leaned back in the chair and clasped his knees, and began in a sing-song voice, as though he were reciting something that he had learned by heart.

  “We used to live in Turkey. My father was a merchant of Constantinople, and my sister, who went to school in England, got extraordinary ideas, and came back a most violent pro-Turk. She is a very pretty girl and she came to know some of the best Turkish families, although my father and I were dead against her going about with these people. One day she went to call on Hymer Pasha, and that night she didn’t come back. We went to the Pasha’s house and asked for her, but he told us she had left at four o’clock. We then consulted the police, and they told us, after they had made investigations, that she had been seen going on board a ship which left for Odessa the same night. I hadn’t seen her for ten years, until I went down to the Gringo Club, which is a little place in the East End—not high class, you understand, but very well conducted. There was a cabaret show after midnight, and whilst I was sitting there, thinking about going home—very bored, you understand, because that sort of thing doesn’t appeal to me—I saw a girl come out from behind a curtain dressed like a Turkish woman, and begin a dance. She was in the middle of the dance when her veil slipped off. It was Marie! She recognized me at once, and darted through the curtains. I tried to follow her, but they held me back.”

  “Did you go to the police?” asked Manfred.

  The man shook his head.

  “No, what is the use of the police?” he went on in a monotonous tone. “I had enough of them in Constantinople, and I made up my mind that I would get outside help. And then somebody told me of you, and I came along. Mr. Manfred, is it impossible for you to rescue my sister? I’m perfectly sure that she is being detained forcibly and against her will.”

  “At the Gringo Club?” asked Manfred.

  “Yes,” he nodded. “I’ll see what I can do,” said George. “Perhaps my friends and I will come down and take a look round some evening. In the meantime will you go back to your friend Dr. Oberzohn and tell him that you have done your part and I will do mine? Your little story will go into my collection of Unplausible Inventions!”

  He touched a bell and Poiccart came in.

  “Show Mr. Liggins out, please. Don’t hurt him—he may have a wife and children, though it is extremely unlikely.”

  The visitor slunk from the room as though he had been whipped.

  The door had scarcely closed upon him when Poiccart called Leon down from his room.

  “Son,” he said, “George wants that man trailed.” Leon peeped out after the retiring victim of Turkish tyranny.

  “Not a hard job,” he said. “He has flat feet!”

  Poiccart returned to the consulting-room. “Who is he?” he asked.

  “I don’t know. He’s been sent here either by Oberzohn or by friend Newton, the general idea being to bring us all together at the Gringo Club—which is fairly well known to me—on some agreeable evening. A b
ad actor! He has no tone. I shouldn’t be surprised if Leon finds something very interesting about him.”

  “He’s been before, hasn’t he?” Manfred nodded.

  “Yes, he was here the day after Barberton came. At least, I had his letter the next morning and saw him for a few moments in the day. Queer devil, Oberzohn! And an industrious devil,” he added. “He sets everybody moving at once, and of course he’s right. A good general doesn’t attack with a platoon, but with an army, with all his strength, knowing that if he fails to pierce the line at one point he may succeed at another. It’s an interesting thought, Raymond, that at this moment there are probably some twenty separate and independent agencies working for our undoing. Most of them ignorant that their efforts are being duplicated. That is Oberzohn’s way—always has been his way. It’s the way he has started revolutions, the way he has organized religious riots.”

  After he had had his bath and changed, he announced his intention of calling at Chester Square.

  “I’m rather keen on meeting Joan Newton again, even if she has returned to her normal state of Jane Smith.”

  Miss Newton was not at home, the maid told him when he called. Would he see Mr. Montague Newton, who was not only at home, but anxious for him to call, if the truth be told, for he had seen his enemy approaching.

  “I shall be pleased,” murmured Manfred, and was ushered into the splendour of Mr. Newton’s drawing-room.

  “Too bad about Joan,” said Mr. Newton easily. “She left for the Continent this morning.”

  “Without a passport?” smiled Manfred.

  A little slip on the part of Monty, but how was Manfred to know that the authorities had, only a week before, refused the renewal of her passport pending an inquiry into certain irregularities? The suggestion had been that other people than she had travelled to and from the Continent armed with this individual document.

  “You don’t need a passport for Belgium,” he lied readily. “Anyway, this passport stuff’s a bit overdone. We’re not at war now.”