(1929) The Three Just Men

by Edgar Wallace

  “I hate this place!” she sobbed. “Why does he keep me here? God! If I thought the hound was double-crossing me…! I’ll go mad if they keep me here any longer. I will, Leicester!” she screamed.

  “I’ll make some tea,” said Mirabelle, getting out of bed and finding her slippers.

  The girl sat throughout the operation huddled in a miserable heap, and by and by her whimpering got on Mirabelle’s nerves.

  “I don’t know why you should be wretched,” she said. “They’re not after your money!”

  “You can laugh—and how you can, I don’t know,” sobbed the girl, as she took the cup in her shaking hands. “I know I’m a fool, but I’ve never been locked up—like this before. I didn’t dream he’d break his word. He swore he’d come yesterday. What time is it?”

  “Six o’clock,” said Mirabelle.

  It might as well have been eight or midday, for all she knew to the contrary.

  “This is a filthy place,” said the hysterical girl. “I think they’re going to drown us all…or that thing will explode”—she pointed to the green baize box—“I know it! I feel it in my blood. That beast Gurther is here somewhere, ugh? He’s like a slimy snake. Have you ever seen him?”

  “Gurther? You mean the man who danced with me?”

  “That’s he. I keep telling you who he is,” said Joan impatiently. “I wish we could get out of here.”

  She jumped up suddenly.

  “Come and see if you can help me lift the trap.”

  Mirabelle knew it was useless before she set forth on the quest for freedom. Their united efforts failed to move the stone, and Joan was on the point of collapse when they came back to their sleeping-room.

  “I hope Gurther doesn’t know that those men are friends of yours,” she said, when she became calmer.

  “You told me that yesterday. Would that make any difference?”

  “A whole lot,” said Joan vehemently. “He’s got the blood of a fish, that man! There’s nothing he wouldn’t do. Monty ought to be flogged for leaving us here at his mercy. I’m not scared of Oberzohn—he’s old. But the other fellow dopes, and goes stark, staring mad at times. Monty told me one night that he was”—she choked—“a killer. He said that these German criminals who kill people are never satisfied with one murder, they go on and on until they’ve got twenty or thirty! He says that the German prisons are filled with men who have the murder habit.”

  “He was probably trying to frighten you.”

  “Why should he?” said the girl, with unreasonable anger. “And leave him alone! Monty is the best in the world. I adore the ground he walks on!”

  Very wisely, Mirabelle did not attempt to traverse this view.

  It was only when her companion had these hysterical fits that fear was communicated to her. Her faith was completely and whole-heartedly centred on the three men—upon Gonsalez. She wondered how old he was. Sometimes he looked quite young, at others an elderly man. It was difficult to remember his face; he owed so much to his expression, the smile in his eyes, to the strange, boyish eagerness of gesture and action which accompanied his speech. She could not quite understand herself; why was she always thinking of Gonsalez, as a maid might think of a lover? She went red at the thought. He seemed so apart, so aloof from the ordinary influences of women. Suppose she had committed some great crime and had escaped the vigilance of the law, would he hunt her down in the same remorseless, eager way, planning to cut off every avenue of her escape until he shepherded her into a prison cell? It was a horrible thought, and she screwed up her eyes tight to blot out the mental picture she had made.

  It would have given her no ordinary satisfaction to have known how often Gonsalez’s thoughts strayed to the girl who had so strangely come into his life. He spent a portion of his time that morning in his bedroom, fixing to the wall a large railway map which took in the south of England and the greater part of the Continent. A red-ink line marked the route from London to Lisbon, and he was fixing a little green flag on the line just south of Paris when Manfred strolled into the room and surveyed his work.

  “The Sud Express is about there,” he said, pointing to the last of the green flags, “and I think our friend will have a fairly pleasant and uneventful journey as far as Valladolid—where I have arranged for Miguel Garcia, an old friend of mine, to pick him up and shadow him on the westward journey—unless we get the ‘plane. I’m expecting a wire any minute. By the way, the Dieppe police have arrested the gentleman who tried to bump him overboard in mid-Channel, but the man who snatched at his portfolio at the Gare St. Lazare is still at liberty.”

  “He must be getting quite used to it now,” said Manfred coolly, and laughed to himself.

  Leon turned. “He’s a good fellow,” he said with quick earnestness. “We couldn’t have chosen a better man. The woman on the train, of course, was Gurther. He is the only criminal I’ve ever known who is really efficient at disguising himself.”

  Manfred lit his pipe; he had lately taken to this form of smoking. “The case grows more and more difficult every day. Do you realize that?”

  Leon nodded. “And more dangerous,” he said. “By the laws of average, Gurther should get one of us the next time he makes an attempt. Have you seen the papers?”

  Manfred smiled.

  “They’re crying for Meadows’ blood, poor fellow! Which shows the extraordinary inconsistency of the public. Meadows has only been in one snake case. They credit him with having fallen down on the lot.”

  “They seem to be in remarkable agreement that the snake deaths come into the category of wilful murder,” said Gonsalez as they went down the stairs together.

  Meadows had been talking to the reporters. Indeed, that was his chief offence from the viewpoint of the official mind. For the first article in the code of every well-constituted policeman is, “Thou shalt not communicate to the Press.”

  Leon strolled aimlessly about the room. He was wearing his chauffeur’s uniform, and his hands were thrust into the breeches pockets. Manfred, recognizing the symptoms, rang the bell for Poiccart, and that quiet man came from the lower regions.

  “Leon is going to be mysterious,” said Manfred dryly.

  “I’m not really,” protested Leon, but he went red. It was one of his most charming peculiarities that he had never forgotten how to blush. “I was merely going to suggest that there’s a play running in London that we ought to see. I didn’t know that ‘The Ringer’ was a play until this morning, when I saw one of Oberzohn’s more genteel clerks go into the theatre, and, being naturally of an inquisitive turn of mind, followed him. A play that interests Oberzohn will interest me, and should interest you, George,” he said severely, “and certainly should interest Meadows—it is full of thrilling situations! It is about a criminal who escapes from Dartmoor and comes back to murder his betrayer. There is one scene which is played in the dark, that ought to thrill you—I’ve been looking up the reviews of the dramatic critics, and as they are unanimous that it is not an artistic success, and is, moreover, wildly improbable, it ought to be worth seeing. I always choose an artistic success when I am suffering from insomnia,” he added cruelly.

  “Oberzohn is entitled to his amusements, however vulgar they may be.”

  “But this play isn’t vulgar,” protested Leon, “except in so far as it is popular. I found it most difficult to buy a seat. Even actors go to see the audience act.”

  “What seat did he buy?”

  “Box A,” said Leon promptly, “and paid for it with real money. It is the end box on the prompt side—and before you ask me whence I gained my amazing knowledge of theatrical technique, I will answer that even a child in arms knows that the prompt side is the left-hand side facing the audience.”

  “For tonight?”

  Leon nodded.

  “I have three stalls,” he said and produced them from his pocket. “If you cannot go, will you give them to the cook? She looks like a woman who would enjoy a good cry over the sufferings of the
tortured heroine. The seats are in the front row, which means that you can get in and out between the acts without walking on other people’s knees.”

  “Must I go?” asked Poiccart plaintively. “I do not like detective plays, and I hate mystery plays. I know who the real murderer is before the curtain has been up ten minutes, and that naturally spoils my evening.”

  “Could you not take a girl?” asked Leon outrageously. “Do you know any who would go?”

  “Why not take Aunt Alma?” suggested Manfred, and Leon accepted the name joyously.

  Aunt Alma had come to town at the suggestion of the Three, and had opened up the Doughty Court flat.

  “And really she is a remarkable woman, and shows a steadiness and a courage in face of the terrible position of our poor little friend, which is altogether praiseworthy. I don’t think Mirabelle Leicester is in any immediate danger. I think I’ve said that before. Oberzohn merely wishes to keep her until the period of renewal has expired. How he will escape the consequences of imprisoning her, I cannot guess. He may not attempt to escape them, may accept the term of imprisonment which will certainly be handed out to him, as part of the payment he must pay for his millions.”

  “Suppose he kills her?” asked Poiccart.

  For a second Leon’s face twitched.

  “He won’t kill her,” he said quietly. “Why should he? We know that he has got her—the police know. She is a different proposition from Barberton, an unknown man killed nobody knew how, in a public place. No, I don’t think we need cross that bridge, only…” He rubbed his hands together irritably. “However, we shall see. And in the meantime I’m placing a lot of faith in Digby, a shrewd man with a sense of his previous shortcomings. You were wise there, George.”

  He was looking at the street through the curtains.

  “Tittlemouse is at his post, the faithful hound!” he said, nodding towards the solitary taxicab that stood on the rank. “I wonder whether he expects—”

  Manfred saw a light creep into his eyes.

  “Will you want me for the next two hours?” Leon asked quickly, and was out of the room in a flash.

  Ten minutes later, Poiccart and George were talking together when they heard the street door close, and saw Leon stroll to the edge of the pavement and wave his umbrella. The taxi-driver was suddenly a thing of quivering excitement. He leaned down, cranked his engine, climbed back into his seat and brought the car up quicker than any taxicab driver had ever moved before.

  “New Scotland Yard,” said Leon, and got into the machine.

  The cab passed through the forbidding gates of the Yard and dropped him at the staff entrance.

  “Wait here,” said Leon, and the man shifted uncomfortably.

  “I’ve got to be back at my garage—” he began.

  “I shall not be five minutes,” said Leon.

  Meadows was in his room, fortunately.

  “I want you to pull in this man and give him a dose of the third degree you keep in this country,” said Leon. “He carries a gun; I saw that when he had to get down to crank up his cab in Piccadilly Circus. The engine stopped.”

  “What do you want to know?”

  “All that there is to be known about Oberzohn. I may have missed one or two things. I’ve seen him outside the house. Oberzohn employs him for odd jobs and occasionally he acts as the old man’s chauffeur. In fact, he drove the machine the day Miss Leicester lunched with Oberzohn at the Ritz-Carlton. He may not have a cabman’s licence, and that will make it all the easier for you.”

  A few minutes later, a very surprised and wrathful man was marched into Cannon Row and scientifically searched. Leon had been right about the revolver; it was produced and found to be loaded, and his excuse that he carried the weapon as a protection following upon a recent murder of a cab-driver had not the backing of the necessary permit. In addition—and this was a more serious offence—he held no permit from Scotland Yard to ply for hire on the streets, and his badge was the property of another man.

  “Put him inside,” said Meadows, and went back to report to the waiting Leon. “You’ve hit the bull’s-eye first time. I don’t know whether he will be of any use to us, but I don’t despise even the smallest fish.”

  Whilst he was waiting, Leon had been engaged in some quick thinking.

  “The man has been at Greenwich lately. One of my men saw him there twice, and I needn’t say that he was driving Oberzohn.”

  “I’ll talk to him later and telephone you,” said Meadows, and Leon Gonsalez went back to Curzon Street, one large smile.

  “You have merely exchanged a spy you know for a spy you don’t know,” said George Manfred, “though I never question these freakish acts of yours, Leon. So often they have a trick of turning up trumps. By the way, the police are raiding the Gringo Club in the Victoria Dock Road tonight, and they may be able to pick up a few of Mr. Oberzohn’s young gentlemen who are certain to be regular users of the place.”

  The telephone bell rang shrilly, and Leon took up the receiver, and recognized Meadows’ voice.

  “I’ve got a queer story for you,” said the inspector immediately.

  “Did he talk?” asked the interested Leon.

  “After a while. We took a finger-print impression, and found that he was on the register. More than that, he is a ticket-of-leave man. As an ex-convict we can send him back to finish his unexpired time. I promised to say a few words for him, and he spilt everything. The most interesting item is that Oberzohn is planning to be married.”

  “To be married? Who is this?” asked Manfred, in surprise. “Oberzohn?”

  Leon nodded.

  “Who is the unfortunate lady?” asked Leon.

  There was a pause, and then:

  “Miss Leicester.”

  Manfred saw the face of his friend change colour, and guessed.

  “Does he know when?” asked Leon in a different voice.

  “No. The licence was issued over a week ago, which means that Oberzohn can marry any morning he likes to bring along his bride. What’s the idea, do you think?”

  “Drop in this evening and either I or George will tell you,” said Leon.

  He put the telephone on the hook very carefully.

  “That is a danger I had not foreseen, although it was obviously the only course Oberzohn could take. If he marries her, she cannot be called in evidence against him. May I see the book, George?”

  Manfred unlocked the wall safe and brought back a small ledger. Leo Gonsalez turned the pages thoughtfully.

  “Dennis—he has done good work for us, hasn’t he?” he asked.

  “Yes, he’s a very reliable man. He owes us, amongst other things, his life. Do you remember, his wife was—”

  “I remember.” Leon scribbled the address of a man who had proved to be one of the most trustworthy of his agents.

  “What are you going to do?” asked Manfred.

  “I’ve put Dennis on the doorstep of the Greenwich registrar’s office from nine o’clock in the morning until half-past three in the afternoon, and he will have instructions from me that, the moment he sees Oberzohn walk out of a cab with a lady, he must push him firmly but gently under the wheels of the cab and ask the driver politely to move up a yard.”

  Leon in his more extravagantly humorous moods was very often in deadly earnest.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN - MR. NEWTON’S DILEMMA

  THE most carefully guided streaks of luck may, in spite of all precautions, overflow into the wrong channel, and this had happened to Mr. Montague Newton, producing an evening that was financially disastrous and a night from which sleep was almost banished. He had had one of his little card parties; but whether it was the absence of Joan, and the inadequacy of her fluffy-haired substitute, or whether the wine had disagreed with one of the most promising victims, the result was the same. They had played chemin de fer, and the gilded pigeon, whose feathers seemed already to be ornamenting the headdress of Monty Newton, had been successful, and when he should h
ave been signing cheques for large amounts, he was cashing his counters with a reluctant host.

  The night started wrong with Joan’s substitute, whose name was Lisa. She had guided to the establishment, via an excellent dinner at Mero’s, the son of an African millionaire. Joan, of course, would have brought him alone, but Lisa, less experienced, had allowed a young-looking friend of the victim to attach himself to the party, and she had even expected praise for her perspicacity and enterprise in producing two birds for the stone which Mr. Newton so effectively wielded, instead of one.

  Monty did not resent the presence of the new-corner, and rather took the girl’s view, until he learnt that Lisa’s “find” was not, as she had believed, an officer of the Guards, but a sporting young lawyer with a large criminal practice, and one who had already, as a junior, conducted several prosecutions for the Crown. The moment his name was mentioned, Monty groaned in spirit. He was, moreover, painfully sober. His friend was not so favourably situated.

  That was the first of the awkward things to happen. The second was the bad temper of the player, who, when the bank was considerably over PS3,000, had first of all insisted upon the cards being reshuffled, and then he had gone banquo—the game being baccarat. Even this contretemps might have been overcome, but after he had expressed his willingness to “give it,” the card which Monty had so industriously palmed slipped from his hand to the table, and though the fact was unnoticed by the players, the lawyer’s attention being diverted at the moment, it was impossible to recover that very valuable piece of pasteboard. And Monty had done a silly thing. Instead of staging an artistic exhibition of annoyance at remarks which the millionaire’s son had made, he decided to take a chance on the natural run of the cards. And he had lost. On top of that, the slightly inebriated player had decided that when a man had won a coup of PS3,000 it was time to stop playing. So Monty experienced the mortification of paying out money, and accompanying his visitor to the door with a smile that was so genial and so full of good-fellowship that the young gentleman was compelled to apologize for his boorish-ness.