‘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 bad 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.’
‘All the time we’re at war,’ said Manfred. ‘May I sit down?’
‘Do. Have a cigarette?’
‘Let me see the brand before I accept,’ said Manfred cautiously, and the man guffawed as at a great joke.
The visitor declined the offer of the cigarette-case and took one from a box on the table.
‘And is Jane making the grand tour?’ he asked blandly.
‘Jane’s run down and wants a rest.’
‘What’s the matter with Aylesbury?’
He saw the man flinch at the mention of the women’s convict establishment, but he recovered instantly. ‘It is not far enough out, and I’m told that there are all sorts of queer people living round there. No, she’s going to Brussels and then on to Aix-la-Chapelle, then prob-ably to Spa – I don’t suppose I shall see her again for a month or two.’
‘She was at Heavytree Farm in the early hours of this morning,’ said Manfred, ‘and so were you. You were seen and recognized by a friend of mine – Mr Raymond Poiccart. You travelled from Heavytree Farm to Oberzohn’s house in a Ford trolley.’
Not by a flicker of an eyelid did Monty Newton betray his dismay.
‘That is bluff,’ he said. ‘I didn’t leave this house last night. What happened at Heavytree Farm?’
‘Miss Leicester was abducted. You are surprised, almost agitated, I notice.’
‘Do you think I had anything to do with it?’ asked Monty steadily.
‘Yes, and the police share my view. A provisional warrant was issued for your arrest this morning. I thought you ought to know.’
Now the man drew back, his face went from red to white, and then to a deeper red again. Manfred laughed softly.
‘You’ve got a guilty conscience, Newton,’ he said, ‘and that’s half-way to being arrested. Where is Jane?’
‘Gone abroad, I tell you.’
He was thrown off his balance by this all too successful bluff and had lost some of his self-possession.
‘She is with Mirabelle Leicester: of that I’m sure,’ said Manfred. ‘I’ve warned you twice, and it is not necessary to warn you a third time. I don’t know how far deep you’re in these snake murders: a jury will decide that sooner or later. But you’re dead within six hours of my learning that Miss Leicester has been badly treated. You know that is true, don’t you?’
Manfred was speaking very earnestly.
‘You’re more scared of us than you are of the law, and you’re right, because we do not put our men to the hazard of a jury’s intelligence. You get the same trial from us as you get from a judge who knows all the facts. You can’t beat an English judge, Newton.’
The smile returned and he left the room. Fred, near at hand, waiting in the passage but at a respectful distance from the door, let him out with some alacrity.
Monty Newton turned his head sideways, caught a fleeting glimpse of the man he hated – hated worse than he hated Leon Gonsalez – and then called harshly for his servant.
‘Come here,’ he said, and Fred obeyed. ‘They’ll be sending round to make inquiries, and I want you to know what to tell them,’ he said. ‘Miss Joan went away this morning to the Continent by the eight-fifteen. She’s either in Brussels or Aix-la-Chapelle. You’re not sure of the hôtel, but you’ll find out. Is that clear to you?’
‘Yes, sir.’
Fred was looking aimlessly about the room.
‘What’s the matter with you?’
‘I was wondering where the clock is.’
‘Clock?’ Now Monty Newton heard it himself. The tick-tick-tick of a cheap clock, and he went livid. ‘Find it,’ he said hoarsely, and even as he spoke his eyes fell upon the little black box that had been pushed beneath the desk, and he groped for the door with a scream of terror.
Passers-by in Chester Square saw the door flung open and two men rush headlong into the street. And the little American clock, which Manfred had purchased a few days before, went on ticking out the time, and was still ticking merrily when the police experts went in and opened the box. It was Manfred’s oldest jest, and never failed.
Chapter 22
In the store cellar
It was impossible that Mirabelle Leicester could fail to realize the serious danger in which she stood. Why she had incurred the enmity of Oberzohn, for what purpose this man was anxious to keep her under his eye, she could not even guess. It was a relief to wake up in the early morning, as she did, and find Joan sleeping in the same room; for though she had many reasons for mistrusting her, there was something about this doll-faced girl that made an appeal to her.
Joan was lying on the bed fully dressed, and at the sound of the creaking bed she turned and got up, fastening her skirt.
‘Well, how do you like your new home?’ she asked, with an attempt at joviality, which she was far from feeling, in spite of Monty’s assurances.
‘I’ve seen better,’ said Mirabelle coolly.
‘I’ll bet you have!’ Joan stretched and yawned; then, opening one of the cupboards, took a shovelful of coal and threw it into the furnace, clanging the iron door. ‘That’s my job,’ she said humorously, ‘to keep you warm.’
‘How long am I going to be kept here?’
‘Five days,’ was the surprising answer.
‘Why five?’ asked Mirabelle curiously.
‘I don’t know. Maybe they’ll tell you,’ said Joan.
She fixed a plug in the wall and turned on the small electric fire. Disappearing, she came back with a kettle which she placed on top of the ring.
‘The view’s not grand, but the food’s good,’ she said, with a gaiety that Mirabelle was now sure was forced.
‘You’re with these people, of course – Dr Oberzohn and Newton?’
‘Mister Newton,’ corrected Joan. ‘Yes, I’m his fiancée. We’re going to be married when things get a little better,’ she said vaguely, ‘and there’s no use in your getting sore with me because I help
ed to bring you here. Monty’s told me all about it. They’re going to do you no harm at all.’
‘Then why – ’ began Mirabelle.
‘He’ll tell you,’ interrupted Joan, ‘sooner or later. The old man, or – or – well, Monty isn’t in this: he’s only obliging Oberzohn.’
With one thing Mirabelle agreed: it was a waste of time to indulge in recriminations or to reproach the girl for her supreme treachery. After all, Joan owed nothing to her, and had been from the first a tool employed for her detention. It would have been as logical for a convict to reproach the prison guard.
‘How do you come to be doing this sort of thing?’ she asked, watching the girl making tea.
‘Where do you get “this sort of thing” from?’ demanded Joan. ‘If you suppose that I spend my life chaperoning females, you’ve got another guess coming. Scared, aren’t you?’
She looked across at Mirabelle and the girl shook her head.
‘Not really.’
‘I should be,’ confessed Joan. ‘Do you mind condensed milk? There’s no other. Yes, I should be writhing under the table, knowing something about Oberzohn.’
‘If I were Oberzohn,’ said Mirabelle with spirit, ‘I should be hiding in a deep hole where the Four Just Men would not find me.’
‘Four Just Men!’ sneered the girl, and then her face changed. ‘Were they the people who whipped Gurther?’
Mirabelle had not heard of this exploit, but she gave them credit with a nod.
‘Is that so? Does Gurther know they’re friends of yours?’ she asked significantly.
‘I don’t know Gurther.’
‘He’s the man who danced with you the other night – Lord – I forget what name we gave him. Because, if he does know, my dear,’ she said slowly, ‘you’ve got two people to be extremely careful with. Gurther’s half mad. Monty has always said so. He dopes too, and there are times when he’s not a man at all but a low-down wolf. I’m scared of him – I’ll admit it. There aren’t Four Just Men, anyway,’ she went off at a tangent. ‘There haven’t been more than three for years. One of them was killed in Bordeaux. That’s a town I’d hate to be killed in,’ said Joan irreverently.
The Complete Four Just Men Page 86
