The Complete Four Just Men

by Edgar Wallace

  Yet it was clear to his two companions that Leon was pursuing some new inquiry in the days that followed. He haunted Fleet Street and Whitehall, and even paid a visit to Dublin. Once Manfred questioned him and Leon smiled amiably.

  ‘The whole thing is rather amusing. Connor isn’t even Irish. Probably isn’t Connor, though it is certain that he bore that name. I found it on the roll of a very fine Irish regiment. He is most likely a Levantine. Stewarts, the Dublin photographers, have a picture of him in a regimental group. That is what I went to Ireland to see. There’s a big bookmaker in Dublin who was an officer in the same regiment, and he says “Connor” spoke with a foreign accent.’

  ‘But who is Connor?’ asked Manfred.

  Leon showed his even white teeth in a grin of delight.

  ‘He is my story,’ was all that he would say.

  Three weeks later Leon Gonsalez found adventure.

  He had something of the qualities of a cat; he slept noiselessly; the keenest ear must strain to hear him breathing; he woke noiselessly. He could pass from complete oblivion to complete wakefulness in a flash. As a cat opens her eyes and is instantly and cold-bloodedly alert, so was Leon.

  He had the rare power of looking back into sleep and rediscovering causes, and he knew without remembering that what had wakened him was not the tap-tap of the blind cords for, the night being windy, this had been a normal accompaniment to sleep, but rather the sound of human movement.

  His room was a large one for so small a house, but there could never be enough ventilation for Leon, so that, in addition to windows, the door was wedged open . . . He snuffled picturesquely, like a man in heavy sleep, grumbled drowsily, and turned in the bed; but when he had finished turning, his feet were on the floor and he was standing upright, tightening the cord of his pyjamas.

  Manfred and Poiccart were away for the weekend, and he was alone in the house – a satisfactory state of affairs, since Leon preferred to deal with such situations as these single-handed.

  Waiting, his head bent, he heard the sound again. It came at the end of a whining gust of wind that should have drowned the noise – a distinct creak. Now the stairs gave seven distinct creakings. This one came from the second tread. He lifted his dressing-gown and drew it on as his bare feet groped for his slippers. Then he slipped out on to the landing, and switched on the light.

  There was a man on the landing; his yellow, uncleanly face was upraised to Leon’s. Fear, surprise, hateful resentment were there.

  ‘Keep your hand out of your pocket, or I’ll shoot you through the stomach,’ said Leon calmly. ‘It will take you four days to die, and you’ll regret every minute of it.’

  The second man, half-way up the stairs, stood stock-still, paralysed with fright. He was small and slim. Leon waved the barrel of his Browning in his direction, and the smaller figure shrank against the wall and screamed.

  Leon smiled. He had not met a lady burglar for years.

  ‘Turn about, both of you, and walk downstairs,’ he ordered; ‘don’t try to run – that would be fatal.’

  They obeyed him, the man sullenly, the girl, he guessed, rather weak in the knees.

  Presently they came to the ground floor.

  ‘To the left,’ said Leon.

  He stepped swiftly up to the man, dropped the Browning against his spine, and put his hand into the jacket pocket. He took out a short-barrelled revolver, and slipped it into the pocket of his dressing-gown.

  ‘Through the doorway – the light switch is on the left, turn it.’ Following them into the little dining-room, he closed the door behind him. ‘Now sit down – both of you.’

  The man he could place: a typical prison man; irregular features, bad-complexioned: a creature of low mentality, who spent his short periods of liberty qualifying for further imprisonment.

  His companion had not spoken, and until she spoke Leon could not place her into a category.

  ‘I’m very sorry – I am entirely to blame.’

  So she spoke, and Leon was enlightened.

  It was an educated voice – the voice you might hear in Bond Street ordering the chauffeur to drive to the Ritz.

  She was pretty, but then, most women were pretty to Leon; he had that amount of charity in his soul. Dark eyes, fine arches of eyebrows, rather full, red lips. The nervous fingers that twined in and out of one another were white, shapely, rather over-manicured. There was a small purple spot on the back of one finger, where a big ring had been.

  ‘This man is not responsible,’ she said, in a low voice. ‘I hired him. A – a friend of mine used to help him, and he came to the house one night last week; and I asked him to do this for me. That’s really true.’

  ‘Asked him to burgle my house?’

  She nodded. ‘I wish you’d let him go – I could talk to you then . . . and feel more comfortable. It really isn’t his fault. I’m entirely to blame.’

  Leon pulled open the drawer of a small writing-table, and took out a sheet of paper and an inkpad. He put them on the table before the girl’s unshaven companion.

  ‘Put your finger and thumb on the pad – press ’em.’

  ‘Whaffor?’ The man was husky and suspicious.

  ‘I want your finger-prints in case I have to come after you. Be slippy!’

  Reluctantly, the burglar obeyed – first one hand and then the other. Leon examined the prints on the paper, and was satisfied.

  ‘Step this way.’

  He pushed his visitor to the street door, opened it, and walked out after him.

  ‘You must not carry a gun,’ he said. As he spoke his fist shot up and caught the man under the jaw, and the man went sprawling to the ground.

  He got up whimpering.

  ‘She made me carry it,’ he whined.

  ‘Then she earned you a punch on the jaw,’ said Leon brightly, and closed the door on one who called himself, rather unimaginatively, ‘John Smith’.

  When he returned to the dining-room, the girl had loosened the heavy coat she wore, and was sitting back in her chair, rather white of face but perfectly calm.

  ‘Has he gone? I’m so glad! You hit him, didn’t you? I thought I heard you. What do you think of me?’

  ‘I wouldn’t have missed tonight for a thousand pounds!’ said Leon, and he was telling the truth.

  Only for a fraction of a second did she smile.

  ‘Why do you think I did this mad, stupid thing?’ she asked quietly. Leon shook his head.

  ‘That is exactly what I can’t think: we’ve no very important case on hand; the mysterious documents which figure in all sensation stories are entirely missing. I can only suppose that we’ve been rather unkind to some friend of yours – a lover, a father, a brother – ’

  He saw the ghost of a smile appear and disappear.

  ‘No; it isn’t revenge. You’ve done me no harm, directly or indirectly. And there are no secret documents.’

  ‘Then it’s not revenge and it’s not robbery; I confess that I am beaten!’ Leon’s smile was dazzling, and this time she responded without reservation.

  ‘I suppose I’d better tell you everything,’ she said, ‘and I’d best start by telling you that my name is Lois Martin, my father is Sir Charles Martin, the surgeon, and I shall be married in three weeks’ time to Major John Rutland, of the Cape Police. And that is why I burgled your house.’

  Leon was amused.

  ‘You were – er – looking for a wedding-present?’ he asked, mildly sarcastic.

  To his surprise, she nodded.

  ‘That is just what I came for,’ she said. ‘I’ve been very silly. If I’d known you better, I should have come to you and asked for it.’

  Her steady eyes were fixed upon Leon.

  ‘Well?’ he asked. ‘What is this interesting object?’

/>   She spoke very slowly.

  ‘A gold chain bangle, with an identification disc . . . ’

  Leon was not surprised, except that she was speaking the truth. He jotted down the names she had given him. A gold bracelet,’ he repeated, ‘the property of – ?’

  She hesitated.

  ‘I suppose you’ve got to know the whole story – I’m rather in your hands.’

  He nodded.

  ‘Very much in my hands,’ he said pleasantly. ‘It seems to me that you will get less discomfort in telling me now than in explaining the matter to a police magistrate.’

  He was geniality itself yet she, womanlike, could detect a hardness in his tone that made her shiver a little.

  ‘Major Rutland knows nothing about my coming here – he would be horrified if he knew I had taken this risk,’ she began.

  She told him, haltingly at first, how her older brother had been killed in Africa during the War.

  ‘That’s how I come to know Jack,’ she said. ‘He was in the desert, too. He wrote to me two years ago from Paris – said he had some papers belonging to poor Frank. He had taken them from his – from his body, after he was killed. Naturally, Daddy asked him to come over, and we became good friends, although Daddy isn’t very keen on – our marriage.’

  She was silent for a little while, and then went on quickly.

  ‘Father doesn’t like the marriage at all, and really the fact that we are getting married is a secret. You see, Mr Gonsalez, I am a comparatively rich woman: my mother left me a large sum of money. And John will be rich, too. During the War, when he was a prisoner, he located a big gold mine in Syria, and that is what the inscription is all about. John saved the life of an Arab, and in his gratitude he revealed to him where the mine was located, and had it all inscribed on a little gold tablet, in Arabic. John lost it at the end of the War, and he’d heard nothing more of it until he read in the Evening Herald about your discovery. Poor John was naturally terribly upset at the thought that he might be forestalled by somebody who could decipher the tablet, so I suggested he should call and see you and ask for the bracelet back; but he wouldn’t hear of this. Instead, he’s been getting more and more worried and upset and nervous, and at last I thought of this mad scheme. Jack has quite a number of acquaintances amongst the criminal classes – being a police officer he very naturally can deal with them; and he’s done a lot to help them to keep straight. This man who came tonight was one of them. It was I who saw him, and suggested this idea of getting into the house and taking the bracelet. We knew that you kept it under your bed – ’

  ‘Are you sure it was you and not Major John Rutland who thought out this burglary?’

  Again she hesitated.

  ‘I think he did in fun suggest that the house should be burgled.’

  ‘And that you should do the burgling?’ asked Leon blandly.

  She avoided his eyes.

  ‘In fun . . . yes. He said nobody would hurt me, and I could always pretend it was a practical joke. It was very stupid, I know, Mr Gonsalez; if my father knew . . . ’

  ‘Exactly,’ said Leon brusquely. ‘You needn’t tell me any more – about the burglary. How much money have you at the bank?’

  She looked at him in surprise.

  ‘Nearly forty thousand pounds,’ she said. ‘I’ve sold a lot of securities lately – they were not very productive – ’

  Leon smiled.

  ‘And you’ve heard of a better investment?’

  She was quick to see what he meant.

  ‘You’re altogether wrong, Mr Gonsalez,’ she said coldly. ‘John is only allowing me to put a thousand pounds into his exploration syndicate – he isn’t quite sure whether it is a thousand or eight hundred he will require. He won’t let me invest a penny more. He’s going to Paris tomorrow night, to start these people on their way; and then he is coming back, and we are to be married and follow them.’

  Leon looked at her thoughtfully.

  ‘Tomorrow night – do you mean tonight?’

  She glanced quickly at the clock, and laughed.

  ‘Of course, tonight.’

  Then she leaned across the table and spoke earnestly.

  ‘Mr Gonsalez, I’ve heard so much about you and your friends, and I’m sure you wouldn’t betray our secret. If I’d any sense I should have come to you yesterday and asked you for the tablet – I would even pay a good sum to relieve John’s anxiety. Is it too late now?’

  Leon nodded.

  ‘Much too late. I am keeping that as a memento. The enterprising gentleman who wrote the paragraph told you that it is part of my story collection – and I never part with stories. By the way, when do you give your cheque?’

  Her lips twitched at this.

  ‘You still think John is a wicked swindler? I gave him the cheque yesterday.’

  ‘A thousand or eight hundred?’

  ‘That is for him to decide,’ she said.

  Leon nodded, and rose.

  ‘I will not trouble you any further. Burglary, Miss Martin, is evidently not your speciality, and I should advise you to avoid that profession in the future.’

  ‘You’re not giving me in charge?’ she smiled.

  ‘Not yet,’ said Leon.

  He opened the door for her, and stood in his dressing-gown, watching her. He saw her cross the road to the taxi rank, and take the last vehicle available. Then he bolted the door and went back to bed.

  His alarm clock called him at seven, and he arose cheerfully, having before him work which was after his own heart. In the morning he called at a tourist agency and bought a ticket to Paris – it seemed a waste of time to go to the office of the High Commissioner for South Africa and examine the available records of the Cape Police; but he was a conscientious man. The afternoon he spent idling near the Northern and Southern Bank in Threadneedle Street, and at a quarter to three his vigil was rewarded, for he saw Major John Rutland descend from a cab, go into the bank, and emerge a few minutes before the big doors closed. The Major looked very pleased with himself – a handsome fellow, rather slim, with a short-cropped military moustache.

  Manfred came back in the afternoon, but Leon told him nothing of the burglary. After dinner he went up to his own room, took from a drawer an automatic, laid a few spots of oil in the sliding jacket, and loaded it carefully. From a small box he took a silencer, which he fixed to the muzzle. He put the apparatus into his overcoat pocket, found his suitcase, and came downstairs. George was standing in the hallway.

  ‘Going out, Leon?’

  ‘I shall be away a couple of days,’ said Leon, and Manfred, who never asked questions, opened the door for him.

  Leon was hunched up in a corner of a first-class carriage when he saw Major Rutland and the girl pass. Behind them, an unwanted third, was a tall, thin-faced man with grey hair, obviously the surgeon. Leon saw them from the corner of his eye, and as the train pulled out had another glimpse of the girl waving her hand to her departing lover.

  It was a dark, gusty night; the weather conditions chalked on a board at the railway station promised an unpleasant crossing, and when he stepped on to the boat at midnight he found it rolling uneasily, even in the comparatively calm waters of the harbour.

  He made a quick scrutiny of the purser’s list. Major Rutland had taken a cabin and this, after the boat began to move out of harbour, he located. It was the aft cabin de luxe, not a beautiful apartment, for the ship was an old one.

  He waited till the assistant purser came along to collect his ticket, and then: ‘I’m afraid I’ve lost my ticket,’ he said, and paid.

  His ticket from Dover to Calais was in his pocket, but Major Rutland had not taken the Calais but the Ostend boat. He watched the assistant purser go into the cabin de luxe, and peered through the window. The Major was lying on a sof
a, his cap pulled down over his eyes.

  After the assistant purser had taken his ticket and departed, Leon waited for another half-hour; then he saw the cabin go dark. He wandered round the ship: the last light of England showed glitteringly on the south-western horizon. There were no passengers on deck: the few that the ship carried had gone below, for she was tossing and rolling diabolically. Another quarter of an hour passed, and then Leon turned the handle of the stateroom door, stepped into the cabin and sent the light of his small torch round the room. Evidently the Major was travelling without a great deal of luggage: there were two small suitcases and nothing more.

  These Leon took out on to the deck and, walking to the rail, dropped them into the water. The man’s hat went the same way. He put the torch back into his pocket and, returning for the second time to the cabin, gently shook the sleeper.

  ‘I want to speak to you, Konnor,’ he said, in a voice little above a whisper.

  The man was instantly awake. ‘Who are you?’

  ‘Come outside: I want to talk to you.’

  ‘Major Rutland’ followed on to the dim deck.

  ‘Where are you going?’ he asked.

  The aft of the ship was reserved for second-class passengers, and this, too, was deserted. They made their way to the rail above the stern. They were in complete darkness.

  ‘You know who I am?’

  ‘Haven’t the slightest idea,’ was the cool reply.

  ‘My name is Gonsalez. Yours, of course, is Eugene Konnor – or Bergstoft,’ said Leon. ‘You were at one time an officer in the – ’ He mentioned the regiment. ‘In the desert you went over to the enemy by arrangements made through an agency in Cairo. You were reported killed, but in reality you were employed by the enemy as a spy. You were responsible for the disaster at El Masjid – don’t try to draw that gun or your life will be shorter.’

  ‘Well,’ said the man, a little breathlessly, ‘what do you want?’

  ‘I want first of all the money you drew from the bank this afternoon. I’ve an idea that Miss Martin gave you a blank cheque, and I’ve a stronger idea that you filled that almost to the limit of her balance, as she will discover tomorrow morning.’