The Complete Four Just Men

by Edgar Wallace

‘You’ll come out tomorrow night: I’ll see to that,’ he said, dropping his voice. ‘Now listen, Joan: you’ve got to be a sensible girl and help me. There’s money in this – bigger money than you’ve ever dreamed of. And when we’ve got this unpleasant business over, I’m taking you away for a trip round the world.’

  It was the old promise, given before, never fulfilled, always hoped for. But this time it did not wholly remove her uneasiness.

  ‘But what are you going to do with the girl?’ she asked.

  ‘Nothing; she will be kept here for a week. I’ll swear to you that nothing will happen to her. At the end of a week she’s to be released without a hair of her head being harmed.’

  She looked at him searchingly. As far as she was able to judge, he was speaking the truth. And yet –

  ‘I can’t understand it – ’ she shook her head, and for once Monty Newton was patient with her.

  ‘She’s the owner of a big property in Africa, and that we shall get, if things work out right,’ he said. ‘The point is that she must claim within a few days. If she doesn’t, the property is ours.’

  Her face cleared.

  ‘Is that all?’ She believed him, knew him well enough to detect his rare sincerity. ‘That’s taken a load off my mind, Monty. Of course I’ll stay and look after her for you – it makes it easier to know that nothing will happen. What are those baize things behind the furnace – they look like boxes?’

  He turned on her quickly.

  ‘I was going to tell you about those,’ he said. ‘You’re not to touch them under any circumstances. They belong to the old man and he’s very stuffy about such things. Leave them just as they are. Let him touch them and nobody else. Do you understand?’

  She nodded, and, to his surprise, pecked his cheek with her cold lips.

  ‘I’ll help you, boy,’ she said tremulously. ‘Maybe that trip will come off after all, if – ’

  ‘If what?’

  ‘Those men – the men you were talking about – the Four Just Men, don’t they call themselves? They scare me sick, Monty! They were the people who took her away before, and they’ll kill us – even Oberzohn says that. They’re after him. Has he – ’ she hesitated – ‘has he killed anybody? That snake stuff . . . you’re not in it, are you, Monty?’

  She looked more like a child than a sophisticated woman, clinging to his arm, her blue eyes looking pleadingly into his.

  ‘Stuff! What do I know about snakes?’ He disengaged himself and came back to where Oberzohn was waiting, a figure of patience.

  The girl was lying on the bed, her face in the crook of her arm, and he was gazing at her, his expression inscrutable.

  ‘That is all, then. Good night, gracious ladies.’

  He turned and marched back towards the step and waved his hand. Monty followed. The girl heard the thud of the trap fall, the scrape of the old man’s boots, and then a rumbling sound, which she did not immediately understand. Later, when in a panic she tried the trap, she found that a heavy barrel had been put on top, and that it was immovable.

  Chapter 20

  Gurther reports

  Dr Oberzohn had not been to bed for thirty-five years. It was his practice to sleep in a chair, and alternate his dozes with copious draughts from his favourite authors. Mostly the books were about the soul, and free will, and predestination, with an occasional dip into Nietzsche by way of light recreation. In ordinary circumstances he would have had need for all the philosophy he could master; for ruin had come. The destruction of his store, which, to all intents and purposes, was uninsured, would have been the crowning stroke of fate but for the golden vision ahead.

  Villa, that handsome half-breed, had arrived in England and had been with the doctor all the evening. At that moment he was on his way to Liverpool to catch the Coast boat, and he had left with his master a record of the claims that had already been pegged out on Monto Doro, as he so picturesquely renamed the new mountain. There were millions there; uncountable wealth. And between the Herr Doktor and the achievement of this colossal fortune was a life which he had no immediate desire to take. The doctor was a bachelor; women bored him. Yet he was prepared to take the extreme step if by so doing he could doubly ensure his fortune. Mirabelle dead gave him one chance; Mirabelle alive and persuaded, multiplied that chance by a hundred.

  He opened the book he was reading at the last page and took out the folded paper. It was a special licence to marry, and had been duly registered at the Greenwich Registrar’s Office since the day before the girl had entered his employment. This was his second and most powerful weapon. He could have been legally married on this nearly a week ago. It was effective for two months at least, and only five days separated him from the necessity of a decision. If the time expired, Mirabelle could live. It was quite a different matter, killing in cold blood a woman for whom the police would be searching, and with whose disappearance his name would be connected, from that other form of slaying he favoured: the striking down of strange men in crowded thoroughfares. She was not for the snake – as yet.

  He folded the paper carefully, put it back in the book and turned the page, when there was a gentle tap at the door and he sat up.

  ‘Come in, Pfeiffer. March!’

  The door opened slowly and a man sidled into the room, and at the sight of him Dr Oberzohn gasped.

  ‘Gurther!’ he stammered, for once thrown out of his stride.

  Gurther smiled and nodded, his round eyes fixed on the tassel of the Herr Doktor’s smoking-cap.

  ‘You have returned – and failed?’

  ‘The American, I think, is dead, Herr Doktor,’ said the man in staccato tone. ‘The so excellent Pfeiffer is also – dead!’

  The doctor blinked twice.

  ‘Dead?’ he said gratingly. ‘Who told you this?’

  ‘I saw him. Something happened . . . to the snake. Pfeiffer was bitten.’

  The old man’s hard eyes fixed him.

  ‘So!’ he said softly.

  ‘He died very quickly – in the usual manner,’ jerked Gurther, still with that stupid smile.

  ‘So!’ said the doctor again. ‘All then was failure, and out of it comes an American, who is nothing, and Pfeiffer, who is much – dead!’

  ‘God have him in His keeping!’ said Gurther, not lowering or raising his eyes. ‘And all the way back I thought this, Herr Doktor – how much better that it should be Pfeiffer and not me. Though my nerves are so bad.’

  ‘So!’ said the doctor for the fourth time, and held out his hand.

  Gurther slipped his fingers into his waistcoat pocket and took out a gold cigarette-case. The doctor opened it and looked at the five cigarettes that reposed, at the two halves of the long holder neatly lying in their proper place, closed the case with a snap and laid it on the table.

  ‘What shall I do with you, Gurther? Tomorrow the police will come and search this house.’

  ‘There is the cellar, Herr Doktor: it is very comfortable there. I would prefer it.’

  Dr Oberzohn made a gesture like a boy wiping something from a slate.

  ‘That is not possible: it is in occupation,’ he said. ‘I must find a new place for you.’ He stared and mused. ‘There is the boat,’ he said.

  Gurther’s smile did not fade.

  The boat was a small barge, which had been drawn up into the private dock of the O. & S. factory, and had been rotting there for years, the playing-ground of rats, the doss-house of the homeless. The doctor saw what was in the man’s mind.

  ‘It may be comfortable. I will give you some gas to kill the rats, and it will only be for five-six days.’

  ‘Ja, Herr Doktor.’

  ‘For tonight you may sleep in the kitchen. One does not expect – ’

  There was a thunderous knock on the outer door. The two men looked at one
another, but still Gurther grinned.

  ‘I think it is the police,’ said the doctor calmly.

  He got to his feet, lifted the seat of a long hard-looking sofa, disclosing a deep cavity, and Gurther slipped in, and the seat was replaced. This done, the doctor waddled to the door and turned the key.

  ‘Good morning, Inspector Meadows,’

  ‘May I come in?’ said Meadows.

  Behind him were two police officers, one in uniform.

  ‘Do you wish to see me? Certainly.’ He held the door cautiously open and only Meadows came in, and preceded the doctor into his study.

  ‘I want Mirabelle Leicester,’ said Meadows curtly. ‘She was abducted from her home in the early hours of this morning, and I have information that the car which took her away came to this house. There are tracks of wheels in the mud outside.’

  ‘If there are car tracks, they are mine,’ said the doctor calmly. He enumerated the makes of machines he possessed. ‘There is another matter: as to cars having come here in the night, I have a sense of hearing, Mr Inspector Meadows, and I have heard many cars in Hangman’s Lane – but not in my ground. Also, I’m sure you have not come to tell me of abducted girls, but to disclose to me the miscreant who burnt my store. That is what I expected of you.’

  ‘What you expect of me and what you will get will be entirely different propositions,’ said Meadows unpleasantly. ‘Now come across, Oberzohn! We know why you want this girl – the whole plot has been blown. You think you’ll prevent her from making a claim on the Portuguese Government for the renewal of a concession granted in June, 1912, to her father.’

  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 21

  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 today. 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?’