Title: The Law of the Four Just Men (1921) a.k.a Again the Three Just Men
Author: Edgar Wallace
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Title: The Law of the Four Just Men (1921) a.k.a Again the Three Just Men
Author: Edgar Wallace




CONTENTS:

THE MAN WHO LIVED AT CLAPHAM
THE MAN WITH THE CANINE TEETH
THE MAN WHO HATED EARTHWORMS
THE MAN WHO DIED TWICE
THE MAN WHO HATED AMELIA JONES
THE MAN WHO WAS HAPPY
THE MAN WHO LOVED MUSIC
THE MAN WHO WAS PLUCKED
THE MAN WHO WOULD NOT SPEAK
THE MAN WHO WAS ACQUITTED


* * * * *


THE MAN WHO LIVED AT CLAPHAM


"The jury cannot accept the unsupported suggestion--unsupported even by
the prisoner's testimony since he has not gone into the box--that Mr.
Noah Stedland is a blackmailer and that he obtained a large sum of money
from the prisoner by this practice. That is a defence which is rather
suggested by the cross-examination than by the production of evidence.
The defence does not even tell us the nature of the threat which
Stedland employed..."

The remainder of the summing up was creditable to the best traditions of
the Bar, and the jury, without retiring, returned a verdict of "Guilty."

There was a rustle of movement in the court and a thin babble of
whispered talk as the Judge fixed his pince-nez and began to write.

The man in the big oaken pen looked down at the pale drawn face of a
girl turned to him from the well of the court and smiled encouragingly.
For his part, he did not blanch and his grave eyes went back to the
figure on the Bench--the puce-gowned, white-headed figure that was
writing so industriously. What did a Judge write on these occasions, he
wondered? Surely not a precis of the crime. He was impatient now to have
done with it all; this airy court, these blurred rows of pink faces in
the gloom of the public gallery, the indifferent counsel and
particularly with the two men who had sat near the lawyer's pews
watching him intently.

He wondered who they were, what interest they had in the proceedings.
Perhaps they were foreign authors, securing first-hand impressions. They
had the appearance of foreigners. One was very tall (he had seen him
rise to his feet once), the other was slight and gave an impression of
boyishness, though his hair was grey. They were both clean-shaven and
both were dressed in black and balanced on their knees broad-brimmed
hats of soft black felt.

A cough from the Judge brought his attention back to the Bench.

"Jeffrey Storr," said his lordship, "I entirely agree with the verdict
of the jury. Your defence that Stedland robbed you of your savings and
that you broke into his house for the purpose of taking the law into
your own hands and securing the money and a document, the character of
which you do not specify but which you allege proved his guilt, could
not be considered seriously by any Court of Justice. Your story sounds
as though you had read of that famous, or infamous, association called
the Four Just Men, which existed some years ago, but which is now
happily dispersed. Those men set themselves to punish where the law
failed. It is a monstrous assumption that the law ever fails! You have
committed a very serious offence, and the fact that you were at the
moment of your arrest and capture in possession of a loaded revolver,
serves very gravely to aggravate your crime. You will be kept in penal
servitude for seven years."

Jeffrey Storr bowed and without so much as a glance at the girl in the
court, turned and descended the steps leading to the cells.

The two foreign-looking men who had excited the prisoner's interest and
resentment were the first to leave the court.

Once in the street the taller of the two stopped. "I think we will
wait for the girl," he said.

"Is she the wife?" asked the slight man.

"Married the week he made his unfortunate investment," replied the tall
man, then, "It was a curious coincidence, that reference of the Judge's
to the Four Just Men."

The other smiled.

"It was in that very court that you were sentenced to death, Manfred,"
he said, and the man called Manfred nodded.

"I wondered whether the old usher would remember me," he answered, "he
has a reputation for never forgetting a face. Apparently the loss of my
beard has worked a miracle, for I actually spoke to him. Here she is."

Fortunately the girl was alone. A beautiful face, thought Gonsalez, the
younger of the two men. She held her chin high and there was no sign of
tears. As she walked quickly toward Newgate Street they followed her.
She crossed the road into Hatton Garden and then it was that Manfred
spoke.

"Pardon me, Mrs. Storr," he said, and she turned and stared at the
foreign-looking man suspiciously.

"If you are a reporter--" she began.

"I'm not," smiled Manfred, "nor am I a friend of your husband's, though
I thought of lying to you in that respect in order to find an excuse for
talking to you."

His frankness procured her interest.

"I do not wish to talk about poor Jeffrey's terrible trouble," she said.
"I just want to be alone."

Manfred nodded.

"I understand that," he said sympathetically, "but I wish to be a friend
of your husband's and perhaps I can help him. The story he told in the
box was true--you thought that too, Leon?"

Gonsalez nodded.

"Obviously true," he said, "I particularly noticed his eyelids. When a
man lies he blinks at every repetition of the lie. Have you observed, my
dear George, that men cannot tell lies when their hands are clenched and
that when women lie they clasp their hands together?"

She looked at Gonsalez in bewilderment. She was in no mood for a lecture
on the physiology of expression and even had she known that Leon
Gonsalez was the author of three large books which ranked with the best
that Lombroso or Mantegazza had given to the world, she would have been
no more willing to listen.

"The truth is, Mrs. Storr," said Manfred, interpreting her new distress,
"we think that we can free your husband and prove his innocence. But we
want as many facts about the case as we can get."

She hesitated only a moment.

"I have some furnished lodgings in Gray's Inn Road," she said, "perhaps
you will be good enough to come with me.

"My lawyer does not think there is any use in appealing against the
sentence," she went on as they fell in one on either side of her.
Manfred shook his head.

"The Appeal Court would uphold the sentence," he said quietly, "with the
evidence you have there is no possibility of your husband being
released."

She looked round at him in dismay and now he saw that she was very near
to tears.

"I thought...you said...?" she began a little shakily.

Manfred nodded.

"We know Stedland," he said, "and--"

"The curious thing about blackmailers, is that the occiput is hardly
observable," interrupted Gonsalez thoughtfully. "I examined sixty-two
heads in the Spanish prisons and in every case the occipital
protuberance was little more than a bony ridge. Now in homicidal heads
the occiput sticks out like a pigeon's egg."

"My friend is rather an authority upon the structure of the head,"
smiled Manfred. "Yes, we know Stedland. His operations have been
reported to us from time to time. You remember the Wellingford case,
Leon?"

Gonsalez nodded.

"Then you are detectives?" asked the girl.

Manfred laughed softly.

"No, we are not detectives--we are interested in crime. I think we have
the best and most thorough record of the unconvicted criminal class of
any in the world."

They walked on in silence for some time.

"Stedland is a bad man," nodded Gonsalez as though the conviction had
suddenly dawned upon him. "Did you observe his ears? They are unusually
long and the outer margins are pointed--the Darwinian tubercle, Manfred.
And did you remark, my dear friend, that the root of the helix divides
the concha into two distinct cavities and that the lobule was adherent?
A truly criminal ear. The man has committed murder. It is impossible to
possess such an ear and not to murder."

The flat to which she admitted them was small and wretchedly furnished.
Glancing round the tiny dining-room, Manfred noted the essential
appointments which accompany a "furnished" flat.

The girl, who had disappeared into her room to take off her coat, now
returned, and sat by the table at which, at her invitation, they had
seated themselves.

"I realise that I am being indiscreet," she said with the faintest of
smiles; "but I feel that you really want to help me, and I have the
curious sense that you can! The police have not been unkind or unfair to
me and poor Jeff. On the contrary, they have been most helpful. I fancy
that they suspected Mr. Stedland of being a blackmailer, and they were
hoping that we could supply some evidence. When that evidence failed,
there was nothing for them to do but to press forward the charge. Now,
what can I tell you?"

"The story which was not told in court," replied Manfred.

She was silent for a time. "I will tell you," she said at last. "Only my
husband's lawyer knows, and I have an idea that he was sceptical as to
the truth of what I am now telling you. And if he is sceptical," she
said in despair, "how can I expect to convince you?"

The eager eyes of Gonsalez were fixed on hers, and it was he who
answered.

"We are already convinced, Mrs. Storr," and Manfred nodded.

Again there was a pause. She was evidently reluctant to begin a
narrative which, Manfred guessed, might not be creditable to her; and
this proved to be the case.

"When I was a girl," she began simply, "I was at school in Sussex--a big
girls' school; I think there were over two hundred pupils. I am not
going to excuse anything I did," she went on quickly. "I fell in love
with a boy--well, he was a butcher's boy! That sounds dreadful, doesn't
it? But you understand I was a child, a very impressionable child--oh,
it sounds horrible, I know; but I used to meet him in the garden leading
out from the prep. room after prayers; he climbed over the wall to those
meetings, and we talked and talked, sometimes for an hour. There was no
more in it than a boy and girl love affair, and I can't explain just why
I committed such a folly."

"Mantegazza explains the matter very comfortably in his Study of
Attraction," murmured Leon Gonsalez. "But forgive me, I interrupted
you."

"As I say, it was a boy and girl friendship, a kind of hero worship on
my part, for I thought he was wonderful. He must have been the nicest of
butcher boys," she smiled again, "because he never offended me by so
much as a word. The friendship burnt itself out in a month or two, and
there the matter might have ended, but for the fact that I had been
foolish enough to write letters. They were very ordinary, stupid
love-letters, and perfectly innocent--or at least they seemed so to me
at the time. To-day, when I read them in the light of a greater
knowledge they take my breath away."

"You have them, then?" said Manfred.

She shook her head.

"When I said 'them' I meant one, and I only have a copy of that,
supplied me by Mr. Stedland. The one letter that was not destroyed fell
into the hands of the boy's mother, who took it to the headmistress, and
there was an awful row. She threatened to write to my parents who were
in India, but on my solemn promise that the acquaintance should be
dropped, the affair was allowed to blow over. How the letter came into
Stedland's hands I do not know; in fact, I had never heard of the man
until a week before my marriage with Jeff. Jeff had saved about two
thousand pounds, and we were looking forward to our marriage day when
this blow fell. A letter from a perfectly unknown man, asking me to see
him at his office, gave me my first introduction to this villain. I had
to take the letter with me, and I went in some curiosity, wondering why
I had been sent for. I was not to wonder very long. He had a little
office off Regent Street, and after he had very carefully taken away the
letter he had sent me, he explained, fully and frankly, just what his
summons had meant."

Manfred nodded.

"He wanted to sell you the letter," he said, "for how much?"

"For two thousand pounds. That was the diabolical wickedness of it,"
said the girl vehemently. "He knew almost to a penny how much Jeff had
saved."

"Did he show you the letter?"

She shook her head.

"No, he showed me a photographic reproduction and as I read it and
recalled what construction might be put upon this perfectly innocent
note, my blood went cold. There was nothing to do but to tell Jeff,
because the man had threatened to send facsimiles to all our friends and
to Jeffrey's uncle, who had made Jeffrey his sole heir. I had already
told Jeffrey about what happened at school, thank heaven, and so I had
no need to fear his suspicion. Jeffrey called on Mr. Stedland, and I
believe there was a stormy scene; but Stedland is a big, powerful man in
spite of his age, and in the struggle which ensued poor Jeffrey got a
little the worst of it. The upshot of the matter was, Jeffrey agreed to
buy the letter for two thousand pounds, on condition that Stedland
signed a receipt, written on a blank page of the letter itself. It meant
the losing of his life savings; it meant the possible postponement of
our wedding; but Jeffrey would not take any other course. Mr. Stedland
lives in a big house near Clapham Common--"

"184 Park View West," interrupted Manfred.

"You know?" she said in surprise. "Well, it was at this house Jeffrey
had to call to complete the bargain. Mr. Stedland lives alone except for
a manservant, and opening the door himself, he conducted Jeffrey up to
the first floor, where he had his study. My husband, realising the
futility of argument, paid over the money, as he had been directed by
Stedland, in American bills--"

"Which are more difficult to trace, of course," said Manfred.

"When he had paid him, Stedland produced the letter, wrote the receipt
on the blank page, blotted it and placed it in an envelope, which he
gave to my husband. When Jeffrey returned home and opened the envelope,
he found it contained nothing more than a blank sheet of paper."

"He had rung the changes," said Manfred.

"That was the expression that Jeffrey used," said the girl. "Then it was
that Jeffrey decided to commit this mad act. You have heard of the Four
Just Men?"

"I have heard of them," replied Manfred gravely.

"My husband is a great believer in their methods, and a great admirer of
them too," she said. "I think he read everything that has ever been
written about them. One night, two days after we were married--I had
insisted upon marrying him at once when I discovered the situation--he
came to me.

"'Grace,' he said, 'I am going to apply the methods of the Four to this
devil Stedland.'

"He outlined his plans. He had apparently been watching the house, and
knew that except for the servant the man slept in the house alone, and
he had formed a plan for getting in. Poor dear, he was an indifferent
burglar; but you heard today how he succeeded in reaching Stedland's
room. I think he hoped to frighten the man with his revolver."

Manfred shook his head.

"Stedland graduated as a gun-fighter in South Africa," he said quietly.
"He is the quickest man on the draw I know, and a deadly shot. Of
course, he had your husband covered before he could as much as reach his
pocket."

She nodded.

"That is the story," she said quietly. "If you can help Jeff, I shall
pray for you all my life."

Manfred rose slowly.

"It was a mad attempt," he said. "In the first place Stedland would not
keep a compromising document like that in his house, which he leaves for
six hours a day. It might even have been destroyed, though that is
unlikely. He would keep the letter for future use. Blackmailers are keen
students of humanity, and he knows that money may still be made, from
that letter of yours. But if it is in existence--"

"If it is in existence," she repeated--and now the reaction had come and
her lips were trembling--

"I will place it in your hands within a week," said Manfred, and with
this promise left her.

Mr. Noah Stedland had left the Courts of Justice that afternoon with no
particular sense of satisfaction save that he was leaving it by the
public entrance. He was not a man who was easily scared, but he was
sensitive to impressions; and it seemed to him that the Judge's
carefully chosen words had implied, less in their substance than in
their tone, a veiled rebuke to himself. Beyond registering this fact,
his sensitiveness did not go. He was a man of comfortable fortune, and
that fortune had been got together in scraps--sometimes the scraps were
unusually large--by the exercise of qualities which were not handicapped
by such imponderable factors as conscience or remorse. Life to this
tall, broad-shouldered, grey-faced man was a game, and Jeffrey Storr,
against whom he harboured no resentment, was a loser.

He could think dispassionately of Storr in his convict clothes, wearing
out the years of agony in a convict prison, and at the mental picture
could experience no other emotion than that of the successful gambler
who can watch his rival's ruin with equanimity.

He let himself into his narrow-fronted house, closed and double-locked
the door behind him, and went up the shabbily carpeted stairs to his
study. The ghosts of the lives he had wrecked should have crowded the
room; but Mr. Stedland did not believe in ghosts. He rubbed his finger
along a mahogany table and noted that it was dusty, and the ghost of a
well-paid charlady took shape from that moment.

As he sprawled back in his chair, a big cigar between his gold-spotted
teeth, he tried to analyse the queer sensation he had experienced in
court. It was not the Judge, it was not the attitude of the defending
counsel, it was not even the possibility that the world might censure
him, which was responsible for his mental perturbation. It was certainly
not the prisoner and his possible fate, or the white-faced wife. And yet
there had been a something or a somebody which had set him glancing
uneasily over his shoulder.

He sat smoking for half an hour, and then a bell clanged and he went
down the stairs and opened the front door. The man who was waiting with
an apologetic smile on his face, a jackal of his, was butler and tout
and general errand-boy to the hard-faced man.

"Come in, Jope," he said, closing the door behind the visitor. "Go down
to the cellar and get me a bottle of whisky?"

"How was my evidence, guv'nor?" asked the sycophant, smirking
expectantly.

"Rotten," growled Stedland. "What did you mean by saying you heard me
call for help?"

"Well, guv'nor, I thought I'd make it a little worse for him," said Jope
humbly.

"Help!" sneered Mr. Stedland. "Do you think I'd call on a guy like you
for help? A damned lot of use you would be in a rough house! Get that
whisky!"

When the man came up with a bottle and a syphon, Mr. Stedland was gazing
moodily out of the window which looked upon a short, untidy garden
terminating in a high wall. Behind that was a space on which a building
had been in course of erection when the armistice put an end to
Government work. It was designed as a small factory for the making of
fuses, and was an eyesore to Mr. Stedland, since he owned the ground on
which it was built.

"Jope," he said, turning suddenly, "was there anybody in court we know?"

"No, Mr. Stedland," said the man, pausing in surprise. "Not that I know,
except Inspector--"

"Never mind about the Inspector," answered Mr. Stedland impatiently. "I
know all the splits who were there. Was there anybody else--anybody who
has a grudge against us?"

"No, Mr. Stedland. What does it matter if there was?" asked the valorous
Jope. "I think we're a match for any of 'em."

"How long have we been in partnership?" asked Stedland unpleasantly, as
he poured himself out a tot of whisky.

The man's face twisted in an ingratiating smile.

"Well, we've been together some time now, Mr. Stedland," he said.

Stedland smacked his lips and looked out of the window again.

"Yes," he said after a while, "we've been together a long time now. In
fact, you would almost have finished your sentence, if I had told the
police what I knew about you seven years ago--"

The man winced, and changed the subject. He might have realised, had he
thought, that the sentence of seven years had been commuted by Stedland
to a sentence of life servitude, but Mr. Jope was no thinker.

"Anything for the Bank today, sir?" he asked.

"Don't be a fool," said Stedland. "The Bank closed at three. Now, Jope,"
he turned on the other, "in future you sleep in the kitchen."

"In the kitchen, sir?" said the astonished servant, and Stedland nodded.

"I'm taking no more risks of a night visitor," he said. "That fellow was
on me before I knew where I was, and if I hadn't had a gun handy he
would have beaten me. The kitchen is the only way you can break into
this house from the outside, and I've got a feeling at the back of my
mind that something might happen."

"But he's gone to gaol."

"I'm not talking about him," snarled Stedland. "Do you understand, take
your bed to the kitchen."

"It's a bit draughty--" began Jope.

"Take your bed to the kitchen," roared Stedland, glaring at the man.

"Certainly, sir," said Jope with alacrity.

When his servant had gone, Stedland took off his coat and put on one of
stained alpaca, unlocked the safe, and took out a book. It was a
pass-book from his bank, and its study was very gratifying. Mr. Stedland
dreamed dreams of a South American ranch and a life of ease and quiet.
Twelve years' strenuous work in London had made him a comparatively rich
man. He had worked cautiously and patiently and had pursued the business
of blackmail in a businesslike manner. His cash balance was with one of
the beat known of the private bankers. Sir William Molbury & Co., Ltd.
Molbury's Bank had a reputation in the City for the privacy and even
mystery which enveloped the business of its clients--a circumstance
which suited Mr. Stedland admirably. It was, too, one of those
old-fashioned banks which maintain a huge reserve of money in its
vaults; and this was also a recommendation to Mr. Stedland, who might
wish to gather in his fluid assets in the shortest possible space of
time.

The evening and the night passed without any untoward incident, except
as was revealed when Mr. Jope brought his master's tea in the morning,
and told, somewhat hoarsely, of a cold and unpleasant night. "Get more
bedclothes," said Stedland curtly. He went off to his city office after
breakfast, and left Mr. Jope to superintend the operations of the
charwoman and to impress upon her a number of facts, including the high
rate at which she was paid, the glut of good charwomen on the market and
the consequences which would overtake her if she left Mr. Stedland's
study undusted.

At eleven o'clock that morning came a respectable and somewhat elderly
looking gentleman in a silk hat, and him Mr. Jope interviewed on the
door-mat.

"I've come from the Safe Deposit," said the visitor.

"What Safe Deposit?" asked the suspicious Mr. Jope.

"The Fetter Lane Deposit," replied the other. "We want to know if you
left your keys behind the last time you came?"

Jope shook his head. "We haven't any Safe Deposit," he said with
assurance, "and the governor's hardly likely to leave his keys behind."

"Then evidently I've come to the wrong house," smiled the gentleman.
"This is Mr. Smithson's?"

"No, it ain't," said the ungracious Jope, and shut the door in the
caller's face.

The visitor walked down the steps into the street and joined another man
who was standing at a corner.

"They know nothing of Safe Deposits, Manfred," he said.

"I hardly thought it would be at a Safe Deposit," said the taller of the
two. "In fact, I was pretty certain that he would keep all his papers at
the bank. You saw the man Jope, I suppose?"

"Yes," said Gonsalez dreamily. "An interesting face. The chin weak, but
the ears quite normal. The frontal bones slope irregularly backward, and
the head, so far as I can see, is distinctly oxycephalic."

"Poor Jope!" said Manfred without a smile. "And now, Leon, you and I
will devote our attention to the weather. There is an anticyclone coming
up from the Bay of Biscay, and its beneficent effects are already felt
in Eastbourne. If it extends northwards to London in the next three days
we shall have good news for Mrs. Storr."

"I suppose," said Gonsalez, as they were travelling back to their rooms
in Jermyn Street, "I suppose there is no possibility of rushing this
fellow."

Manfred shook his head.

"I do not wish to die," he said, "and die I certainly should, for Noah
Stedland is unpleasantly quick to shoot."

Manfred's prophecy was fulfilled two days later, when the influence of
the anticyclone spread to London and a thin yellow mist descended on the
city. It lifted in the afternoon, Manfred saw to his satisfaction, but
gave no evidence of dispersing before nightfall.

Mr. Stedland's office in Regent Street was small but comfortably
furnished. On the glass door beneath his name was inscribed the magic
word: "Financier," and it is true that Stedland was registered as a
moneylender and found it a profitable business; for what Stedland the
moneylender discovered, Stedland the blackmailer exploited, and it was
not an unusual circumstance for Mr. Stedland to lend at heavy interest
money which was destined for his own pocket. In this way he could obtain
a double grip upon his victim.

At half past two that afternoon his clerk announced a caller.

"Man or woman?"

"A man, sir," said the clerk, "I think he's from Molbury's Bank."

"Do you know him?" asked Stedland.

"No, sir, but he came yesterday when you were out, and asked if you'd
received the Bank's balance sheet." Mr. Stedland took a cigar from a box
on the table and lit it.

"Show him in," he said, anticipating nothing more exciting than a
dishonoured cheque from one of his clients.

The man who came in was obviously in a state of agitation. He closed the
door behind him and stood nervously fingering his hat.

"Sit down," said Stedland. "Have a cigar, Mr.--"

"Curtis, sir," said the other huskily. "Thank you, sir, I don't smoke."

"Well, what do you want?" asked Stedland.

"I want a few minutes' conversation with you, sir, of a private
character." He glanced apprehensively at the glass partition which
separated Mr. Stedland's office from the little den in which his clerks
worked.

"Don't worry," said Stedland humorously. "I can guarantee that screen is
sound-proof. What's your trouble?"

He scented a temporary embarrassment, and a bank clerk temporarily
embarrassed might make a very useful tool for future use.

"I hardly know how to begin, Mr. Stedland," said the man, seating
himself on the edge of a chair, his face twitching nervously. "It's
terrible story, a terrible story."

Stedland had heard about these terrible stories before, and sometimes
they meant no more than that the visitor was threatened with bailiffs
and was anxious to keep the news from the ears of his employers.
Sometimes the confession was more serious--money lost in gambling, and a
desperate eleventh-hour attempt to make good a financial deficiency.

"Go on," he said. "You won't shock me." The boast was a little
premature, however.

"It's not about myself, but about my brother, John Curtis, who's been
cashier for twenty years, sir," said the man nervously. "I hadn't the
slightest idea that he was in difficulties, but he was gambling on the
Stock Exchange, and only today he has told me the news. I am in terrible
distress about him, sir. I fear suicide. He is a nervous wreck."

"What has he done?" asked Stedland impatiently.

"He has robbed the Bank, sir," said the man in a hushed voice. "It
wouldn't matter if it had happened two years ago, but now, when things
have been going so badly and we've had to stretch a point to make our
balance sheet plausible, I shudder to think what the results will be."

"Of how much has he robbed the Bank?" asked Stedland quickly.

"A hundred and fifty thousand pounds," was the staggering reply, and
Stedland jumped to his feet.

"A hundred and fifty thousand?" he said incredulously.

"Yes, sir. I was wondering whether you could speak for him; you are one
of the most highly respected clients of the Bank!"

"Speak for him!" shouted Stedland, and then of a sudden he became cool.
His quick brain went over the situation, reviewing every possibility. He
looked up at the clock. It was a quarter to three.

"Does anybody in the Bank know?"

"Not yet, sir, but I feel it is my duty to the general manager to tell
him the tragic story. After the Bank closes this afternoon I am asking
him to see me privately and--"

"Are you going back to the Bank now?" asked Stedland.

"Yes, sir," said the man in surprise.

"Listen to me, my friend." Stedland's grey face was set and tense. He
took a case from his pocket, opened it and extracted two notes. "Here
are two notes for fifty," he said. "Take those and go home."

"But I've got to go to the Bank, sir. They will wonder--"

"Never mind what they wonder," said Stedland. "You'll have a very good
explanation when the truth comes out. Will you do this?"

The man took up the money reluctantly.

"I don't quite know what you--"

"Never mind what I want to do," snapped Stedland. "That is to keep your
mouth shut and go home. Do you understand plain English?"

"Yes, sir," said the shaking Curtis.

Five minutes later Mr. Stedland passed through the glass doors of
Molbury's Bank and walked straight to the counter. An air of calm
pervaded the establishment and the cashier, who knew Stedland, came
forward with a smile.

"'Unconscious of their awful doom, The little victims play;'" quoted
Stedland to himself. It was a favourite quotation of his, and he had
used it on many appropriate occasions.

He passed, a slip of paper across the counter, and the cashier looked at
it and raised his eyebrows.

"Why, this is almost your balance, Mr. Stedland," he said.

Stedland nodded.

"Yes, I am going abroad in a hurry," he said. "I shall not be back for
two years, but I am leaving just enough to keep the account running."

It was a boast of Molbury's that they never argued on such occasions as
these.

"Then you will want your box?" said the cashier politely.

"If you please," said Mr. Noah Stedland. If the Bank passed into the
hands of the Receiver, he had no wish for prying strangers to be
unlocking and examining the contents of the tin box he had deposited
with the Bank, and to the contents of which he made additions from time
to time.

Ten minutes later, with close on a hundred thousand pounds in his
pockets, a tin box in one hand, the other resting on his hip pocket--for
he took no chances--Mr. Stedland went out again on the street and into
the waiting taxicab. The fog was cleared, and the sun was shining at
Clapham when he arrived.

He went straight up to his study, fastened the door and unlocked the
little safe. Into this he pushed the small box and two thick bundles of
notes, locking the safe door behind him. Then he rang for the faithful
Jope, unfastening the door to admit him.

"Have we another camp bed in the house?" he asked.

"Yes, sir," said Jope.

"Well, bring it up here. I am going to sleep in my study tonight."

"Anything wrong, sir?"

"Don't ask jackass questions. Do as you're told!"

Tomorrow, he thought, he would seek out a safer repository for his
treasures. He spent that evening in his study and lay down to rest, but
not to sleep, with a revolver on a chair by the side of his camp bed.
Mr. Stedland was a cautious man. Despite his intention to dispense with
sleep for one night, he was dozing when a sound in the street outside
roused him.

It was a familiar sound--the clang of fire bells--and apparently fire
engines were in the street, for he heard the whine of motors and the
sound of voices. He sniffed; there was a strong smell of burning, and
looking up he saw a flicker of light reflected on the ceiling. He sprang
out of bed to discover the cause. It was immediately discernible, for
the fuse factory was burning merrily, and he caught a glimpse of firemen
at work and a momentary vision of a hose in action. Mr. Stedland
permitted himself to smile. That fire would be worth money to him, and
there was no danger to himself.

And then he heard a sound in the hall below; a deep voice boomed an
order, and he caught the chatter of Jope, and unlocked the door. The
lights were burning in the hall and on the stairway. Looking over the
banisters he saw the shivering Jope, with an overcoat over his pyjamas,
expostulating with a helmeted fireman.

"I can't help it," the latter was saying, "I've got to get a hose
through one of these houses, and it might as well be yours."

Mr. Stedland had no desire to have a hose through his house, and thought
he knew an argument which might pass the inconvenience on to his
neighbour.

"Just come up here a moment," he said. "I want to speak to one of those
firemen."

The fireman came clumping up the stairs in his heavy boots, a fine
figure of a man in his glittering brass.

"Sorry," he said, "but I must get the hose--"

"Wait a moment, my friend," said Mr. Stedland with a smile. "I think you
will understand me after a while. There are plenty of houses in this
road, and a tenner goes a long way, eh? Come in."

He walked back into his room and the fireman followed and stood watching
as he unlocked the safe. Then:

"I didn't think it would be so easy," he said.

Stedland swung round.

"Put up your hands," said the fireman, "and don't make trouble, or
you're going out, Noah. I'd just as soon kill you as talk to you."

Then Noah Stedland saw that beneath the shade of the helmet the man's
face was covered with a black mask.

"Who--who are you?" he asked hoarsely.

"I'm one of the Four Just Men--greatly reviled and prematurely mourned.
Death is my favourite panacea for all ills..."

At nine o'clock in the morning Mr. Noah Stedland still sat biting his
nails, a cold uneaten breakfast spread on a table before him.

To him came Mr. Jope wailing tidings of disaster, interrupted by Chief
Inspector Holloway and a hefty subordinate who followed the servant into
the room.

"Coming for a little walk with me, Stedland?" asked the cheery
inspector, and Stedland rose heavily.

"What's the charge?" he asked heavily.

"Blackmail," replied the officer. "We've got evidence enough to hang
you--delivered by special messenger. You fixed that case against Storr
too--naughty, naughty!"

As Mr. Stedland put on his coat the inspector asked:

"Who gave you away?"

Mr. Stedland made no reply. Manfred's last words before he vanished into
the foggy street had been emphatic.

"If he wanted to kill you, the man called Curtis would have killed you
this afternoon when we played on your cunning; we could have killed you
as easily as we set fire to the factory. And if you talk to the police
of the Four Just Men, we will kill you, even though you be in
Pentonville with a regiment of soldiers round you."

And somehow Mr. Stedland knew that his enemy spoke the truth. So he said
nothing, neither there nor in the dock at the Old Bailey, and went to
penal servitude without speaking.



THE MAN WITH THE CANINE TEETH


"Murder, my dear Manfred is the most accidental of crimes," said Leon
Gonsalez, removing his big shell-rimmed glasses and looking across the
breakfast-table with that whimsical earnestness which was ever a delight
to the handsome genius who directed the operations of the Four Just Men.

"Poiccart used to say that murder was a tangible expression of
hysteria," he smiled, "but why this grisly breakfast-table topic?"

Gonsalez put on his glasses again and returned, apparently, to his study
of the morning newspaper. He did not wilfully ignore the question, but
his mind, as George Manfred knew, was so completely occupied by his
reflections that he neither heard the query nor, for the matter of that,
was he reading the newspaper. Presently he spoke again.

"Eighty per cent of the men who are charged with murder are making their
appearance in a criminal court for the first time," he said-"therefore,
murderers as a class are not criminals--I speak, of course, for the
Anglo-Saxon murderer. Latin and Teutonic criminal classes supply sixty
per cent of the murderers in France, Italy and the Germanic States. They
are fascinating people, George, fascinating!"

His face lighted up with enthusiasm, and George Manfred surveyed him
with amusement.

"I have never been able to take so detached a view of those gentlemen,"
he said, "To me they are completely horrible--for is not murder the
apotheosis of injustice?" he asked.

"I suppose so," said Gonsalez vacantly.

"What started this line of thought?" asked Manfred, rolling his
serviette.

"I met a true murderer type last night," answered the other calmly. "He
asked me for a match and smiled when I gave it to him. A perfect set of
teeth, my dear George, perfect--except--"

"Except?"

"The canine teeth were unusually large and long, the eyes deep set and
amazingly level, the face anamorphic--which latter fact is not
necessarily criminal."

"Sounds rather an ogre to me," said Manfred.

"On the contrary," Gonsalez hastened to correct the impression, "he was
quite good-looking. None but a student would have noticed the
irregularity of the face. Oh no, he was most presentable."

He explained the circumstances of the meeting. He had been to a concert
the night before--not that he loved music, but because he wished to
study the effect of music upon certain types of people. He had returned
with hieroglyphics scribbled all over his programme, and had sat up half
the night elaborating his notes.

"He is the son of Professor Tableman. He is not on good terms with his
father, who apparently disapproves of his choice of fiancee, and he
loathes his cousin," added Gonsalez simply.

Manfred laughed aloud.

"You amusing person! And did he tell you all this of his own free will,
or did you hypnotise him and extract the information? You haven't asked
me what I did last night."

Gonsalez was lighting a cigarette slowly and thoughtfully.

"He is nearly two metres--to be exact, six feet two inches--in height,
powerfully built, with shoulders like that!" He held the cigarette in
one hand and the burning match in the other to indicate the breadth of
the young man. "He has big, strong hands and plays football for the
United Hospitals. I beg your pardon, Manfred; where were you last
night?"

"At Scotland Yard," said Manfred; but if he expected to produce a
sensation he was to be disappointed. Probably knowing his Leon, he
anticipated no such result.

"An interesting building," said Gonsalez. "The architect should have
turned the western facade southward--though its furtive entrances are in
keeping with its character. You had no difficulty in making friends?"

"None. My work in connection with the Spanish Criminal Code and my
monograph on Dactyology secured me admission to the chief."

Manfred was known in London as "Senor Fuentes," an eminent writer on
criminology, and in their roles of Spanish scientists both men bore the
most compelling of credentials from the Spanish Minister of Justice.
Manfred had made his home in Spain for many years. Gonsalez was a native
of that country, and the third of the famous four--there had not been a
fourth for twenty years--Poiccart, the stout and gentle, seldom left his
big garden in Cordova.

To him Leon Gonsalez referred when he spoke.

"You must write and tell our dear friend Poiccart," he said. "He will be
interested. I had a letter from him this morning. Two new litters of
little pigs have come to bless his establishment, and his orange trees
are in blossom."

He chuckled to himself, and then suddenly became serious.

"They took you to their bosom, these policemen?"

Manfred nodded.

"They were very kind and charming. We are lunching with one of the
Assistant Commissioners, Mr. Reginald Fare, tomorrow. British police
methods have improved tremendously since we were in London before, Leon.
The finger-print department is a model of efficiency, and their new men
are remarkably clever."

"They will hang us yet," said the cheerful Leon.

"I think not!" replied his companion.

The lunch at the Ritz-Carlton was, for Gonsalez especially, a most
pleasant function. Mr. Fare, the middle-aged Commissioner, was, in
addition to being a charming gentleman, a very able scientist. The views
and observations of Marro, Lombroso, Fere, Mantegazza and Ellis flew
from one side of the table to the other.

"To the habitual criminal the world is an immense prison, alternating
with an immense jag," said Fare. "That isn't my description but one a
hundred years old. The habitual criminal is an easy man to deal with. It
is when you come to the non-criminal classes, the murderers, the
accidental embezzlers--"

"Exactly!" said Gonsalez. "Now my contention is--"

He was not to express his view, for a footman had brought an envelope to
the Commissioner, and he interrupted Gonsalez with an apology to open
and read its contents.

"H'm!" he said. "That is a curious coincidence..."

He looked at Manfred thoughtfully.

"You were saying the other night that you would like to watch Scotland
Yard at work close at hand, and I promised you that I would give you the
first opportunity which presented--your chance has come!"

He had beckoned the waiter and paid his bill before he spoke again.

"I shall not disdain to draw upon your ripe experience," he said, "for
it is possible we may need all the assistance we can get in this case."

"What is it?" asked Manfred. as the Commissioner's car threaded the
traffic at Hyde Park Corner.

"A man has been found dead in extraordinary circumstances," said the
Commissioner. "He holds rather a prominent position in the scientific
world--a Professor Tableman--you probably know the name."

"Tableman?" said Gonsalez, his eyes opening wide. "Well, that is
extraordinary! You were talking of coincidences, Mr. Fare. Now I will
tell you of another."

He related his meeting with the son of the Professor on the previous
night.

"Personally," Gonsalez went on, "I look upon all coincidences as part of
normal intercourse. It is a coincidence that, if you receive a bill
requiring payment, you receive two or more during the day, and that if
you receive a cheque by the first post, be sure you will receive a
cheque by your second or third post. Some day I shall devote my mind to
the investigation of that phenomenon."

"Professor Tableman lives in Chelsea. Some years ago he purchased his
house from an artist, and had the roomy studio converted into a
laboratory. He was a lecturer in physics and chemistry at the Bloomsbury
University," explained Fare, though he need not have done so, for
Manfred recalled the name; "and he was also a man of considerable
means."

"I knew the Professor and dined with him about a month ago," said Fare.
"He had had some trouble with his son. Tableman was an arbitrary,
unyielding old man, one of those types of Christians who worship the
historical figures of the Old Testament but never seem to get to the
second book."

They arrived at the house, a handsome modern structure in one of the
streets abutting upon King's Road, and apparently the news of the
tragedy had not leaked out, for the usual crowd of morbid loungers had
not gathered. A detective was waiting for them, and conducted the
Commissioner along a covered passage-way running by the side of the
house, and up a flight of steps directly into the studio. There was
nothing unusual about the room save that it was very light, for one of
the walls was a huge window and the sloping roof was also of glass.
Broad benches ran the length of two walls, and a big table occupied the
centre of the room, all these being covered with scientific apparatus,
whilst two long shelves above the benches were filled with bottles and
jars, apparently containing chemicals.

A sad-faced, good-looking young man rose from a chair as they entered.

"I am John Munsey," he said, "the Professor's nephew. You remember me,
Mr. Fare? I used to assist my uncle in his experiments."

Fare nodded. His eyes were occupied with the figure that lay upon the
ground, between table and bench.

"I have not moved the Professor," said the young man in a low voice.
"The detectives who came moved him slightly to assist the doctor in
making his examination, but he has been left practically where he fell."

The body was that of an old man, tall and spare, and on the grey face
was an unmistakable look of agony and terror.

"It looks like a case of strangling," said Fare. "Has any rope or cord
been found?"

"No, sir," replied the young man. "That was the view which the
detectives reached, and we made a very thorough search of the
laboratory."

Gonsalez was kneeling by the body, looking with dispassionate interest
at the lean neck. About the throat was a band of blue about four inches
deep, and he thought at first that it was a material bandage of some
diaphanous stuff, but on close inspection he saw that it was merely the
discoloration of the skin. Then his keen eye rose to the table, near
where the Professor fell.

"What is that?" he asked. He pointed to a small green bottle by the side
of which was an empty glass.

"It is a bottle of creme de menthe," said the youth; "my uncle took a
glass usually before retiring."

"May I?" asked Leon, and Fare nodded.

Gonsalez picked up the glass and smelt it, then held it to the light.

"This glass was not used for liqueur last night, so he was killed before
he drank," the Commissioner said. "I'd like to hear the whole story from
you, Mr. Munsey. You sleep on the premises, I presume?"

After giving a few instructions to the detectives, the Commissioner
followed the young man into a room which was evidently the late
Professor's library.

"I have been my uncle's assistant and secretary for three years," he
said, "and we have always been on the most affectionate terms. It was my
uncle's practice to spend the morning in his library, the whole of the
afternoon either in his laboratory or at his office at the University,
and he invariably spent the hours between dinner and bedtime working at
his experiments."

"Did he dine at home?" asked Fare.

"Invariably," replied Mr. Munsey, "unless he had an evening lecture or
there was a meeting of one of the societies with which he was connected,
and in that case he dined at the Royal Society's Club in St. James's
Street.

"My uncle, as you probably know, Mr. Fare, has had a serious
disagreement with his son, Stephen Tableman, and my cousin and very good
friend. I have done my best to reconcile them, and when, twelve months
ago, my uncle sent for me in this very room and told me that he had
altered his will and left the whole of his property to me and had cut
his son entirely from his inheritance, I was greatly distressed. I went
immediately to Stephen and begged him to lose no time in reconciling
himself with the old man. Stephen just laughed and said he didn't care
about the Professor's money, and that, sooner than give up Miss
Faber--it was about his engagement that the quarrel occurred--he would
cheerfully live on the small sum of money which his mother left him. I
came back and saw the Professor and begged him to restore Stephen to his
will. I admit," he half smiled, "that I expected and would appreciate a
small legacy. I am following the same scientific course as the Professor
followed in his early days, and I have ambitions to carry on his work.
But the Professor would have none of my suggestion. He raved and stormed
at me, and I thought it would be discreet to drop the subject, which I
did. Nevertheless, I lost no opportunity of putting in a word for
Stephen, and last week, when the Professor was in an unusually amiable
frame of mind, I raised the whole question again and he agreed to see
Stephen. They met in the laboratory; I was not present, but I believe
that there was a terrible row. When I came in, Stephen had gone, and Mr.
Tableman was livid with rage. Apparently, he had again insisted upon
Stephen giving up his fiancee, and Stephen had refused point-blank."

"How did Stephen arrive at the laboratory?" asked Gonsalez. "May I ask
that question, Mr. Fare?"

The Commissioner nodded.

"He entered by the side passage. Very few people who come to the house
on purely scientific business enter the house."

"Then access to the laboratory is possible at all hours?"

"Until the very last thing at night, when the gate is locked," said the
young man. "You see, Uncle used to take a little constitutional before
going to bed, and he preferred using that entrance."

"Was the gate locked last night?"

John Munsey shook his head.

"No." he said quietly. "That was one of the first things I investigated.
The gate was unfastened and ajar. It is not so much of a gate as an iron
grille, as you probably observed."

"Go on," nodded Mr. Fare.

"Well, the Professor gradually cooled down, and for two or three days he
was very thoughtful, and I thought a little sad. On Monday--what is
today? Thursday?--yes, it was on Monday, he said to me: 'John, let's
have a little talk about Steve. Do you think I have treated him very
badly?'-'I think you were rather unreasonable, Uncle,' I said. 'Perhaps
I was,' he replied. 'She must be a very fine girl for Stephen to risk
poverty for her sake.' That was the opportunity I had been praying for,
and I think I urged Stephen's case with an eloquence which he would have
commended. The upshot of it was that the old man weakened and sent a
wire to Stephen, asking him to see him last night. It must have been a
struggle for the Professor to have got over his objection to Miss Faber;
he was a fanatic on the question of heredity--"

"Heredity?" interrupted Manfred quickly. "What was wrong with Miss
Faber?"

"I don't know," shrugged the other, "but the Professor had heard rumours
that her father had died in an inebriates' home. I believe those rumours
were baseless."

"What happened last night?" asked Fare.

"I understand that Stephen came," said Munsey. "I kept carefully out of
the way; in fact, I spent my time in my room, writing off some arrears
of correspondence. I came downstairs about half past eleven, but the
Professor had not returned. Looking from this window you can see the
wall of the laboratory, and as the lights were still on, I thought the
Professor's conversation had been protracted, and, hoping that the best
results might come from this interview, I went to bed. It was earlier
than I go as a rule, but it was quite usual for me to go to bed even
without saying good night to the Professor.

"I was awakened at eight in the morning by the housekeeper, who told me
that the Professor was not in his room. Here again, this was not an
unusual circumstance. Sometimes the Professor would work very late in
the laboratory and then throw himself into an armchair and go off to
sleep. It was a habit of which I had remonstrated as plainly as I dared;
but he was not a man who bore criticism with equanimity.

"I got into my dressing-gown and my slippers, and went along to the
laboratory, which is reached, as you know, by the way we came here. It
was then that I discovered him on the floor, and he was quite dead."

"Was the door of the laboratory open?" asked Gonsalez.

"It was ajar."

"And the gate also was ajar?"

Munsey nodded.

"You heard no sound of quarrelling?"

"None."

There was a knock, and Munsey walked to the door.

"It is Stephen," he said, and a second later Stephen Tableman, escorted
by two detectives, came into the room. His big face was pale, and when
he greeted his cousin with a little smile, Manfred saw the extraordinary
canines, big and cruel looking. The other teeth were of normal size, but
these pointed fangs were notably abnormal.

Stephen Tableman was a young giant, and, observing those great hands of
his, Manfred bit his lip thoughtfully.

"You have heard the sad news, Mr. Tableman?"

"Yes, sir," said Stephen in a shaking voice. "Can I see my father?"

"In a little time," said Fare, and his voice was hard. "I want you to
tell me when you saw your father last."

"I saw him alive last night," said Stephen Tableman quickly. "I came by
appointment to the laboratory, and we had a long talk."

"How long were you there with him?"

"About two hours, as near as I can guess."

"Was the conversation of a friendly character?"

"Very," said Stephen emphatically. "For the first time since over a year
ago"--he hesitated--"we discussed a certain subject rationally."

"The subject being your fiancee, Miss Faber?"

Stephen looked at the interrogator steadily.

"That was the subject, Mr. Fare," he replied quietly.

"Did you discuss any other matters?"

Stephen hesitated.

"We discussed money," he said. "My father cut off his allowance, and I
have been rather short; in fact, I have been overdrawn at my bank, and
he promised to make that right, and also spoke about--the future."

"About his will?"

"Yes, sir, he spoke about altering his will." He looked across at
Munsey, and again he smiled. "My cousin has been a most persistent
advocate, and I can't thank him half enough for his loyalty to me in
those dark times," he said.

"When you left the laboratory, did you go out by the side entrance?"

Stephen nodded.

"And did you close the door behind you?"

"My father closed the door," he said. "I distinctly remember hearing the
click of the lock as I was going up the alley."

"Can the door be opened from outside?"

"Yes," said Stephen, "there is a lock which has only one key, and that
is in my father's possession--I think I am right, John?"

John Munsey nodded.

"So that, if he closed the door behind you, it could only be opened
again by somebody in the laboratory--himself, for example?"

Stephen looked puzzled.

"I don't quite understand the meaning of this enquiry," he said. "The
detective told me that my father had been found dead. What was the
cause?"

"I think he was strangled," said Fare quietly, and the young man took a
step back.

"Strangled!" he whispered. "But he hadn't an enemy in the world."

"That we shall discover." Fare's voice was dry and businesslike. "You
can go now, Mr. Tableman."

After a moment's hesitation the big fellow swung across the room through
a door in the direction of the laboratory. He came back after an absence
of a quarter of an hour, and his face was deathly white.

"Horrible, horrible!" he muttered. "My poor father!"

"You are on the way to being a doctor, Mr. Tableman? I believe you are
at the Middlesex Hospital," said Fare. "Do you agree with me that your
father was strangled?"

The other nodded.

"It looks that way," he said, speaking with difficulty. "I couldn't
conduct an examination as if he had been--somebody else, but it looks
that way."

The two men walked back to their lodgings. Manfred thought best when his
muscles were most active. Their walk was in silence, each being busy
with his own thoughts.

"You observed the canines?" asked Leon with quiet triumph after a while.

"I observed too his obvious distress," said Manfred, and Leon chuckled.

"It is evident that you have not read friend Mantegazza's admirable
monograph on the 'Physiology of Pain,'" he said smugly--Leon was
delightfully smug at times--"nor examined his most admirable tables on
the 'Synonyms of Expression,' or otherwise you would be aware that the
expression of sorrow is indistinguishable from the expression of
remorse."

Manfred looked down at his friend with that quiet smile of his.

"Anybody who did not know you, Leon, would say that you were convinced
that Professor Tableman was strangled by his son."

"After a heated quarrel," said Gonsalez complacently.

"When young Tableman had gone, you inspected the laboratory. Did you
discover anything?"

"Nothing more than I expected to find," said Gonsalez. "There were the
usual air apparatus, the inevitable liquid-air still, the
ever-to-be-expected electric crucibles. The inspection was superfluous,
I admit, for I knew exactly how the murder was committed--for murder it
was--the moment I came into the laboratory and saw the thermos flask and
the pad of cotton wool."

Suddenly he frowned and stopped dead.

"Santa Miranda!" he ejaculated. Gonsalez always swore by this
non-existent saint. "I had forgotten!"

He looked up and down the street.

"There is a place from whence we can telephone," he said. "Will you come
with me, or shall I leave you here?"

"I am consumed with curiosity," said Manfred.

They went into the shop and Gonsalez gave a number. Manfred did not ask
him how he knew it, because he too had read the number which was written
on the telephone disc that stood on the late Professor's table.

"Is that you, Mr. Munsey?" asked Gonsalez. "It is I. You remember I have
just come from you? Yes, I thought you would recognise my voice. I want
to ask you where are the Professor's spectacles."

There was a moment's silence.

"The Professor's spectacles?" said Munsey's voice. "Why, they're with
him, aren't they?"

"They were not on the body or near it," said Gonsalez. "Will you see if
they are in his room? I'll hold the line."

He waited, humming a little aria from El Perro Chico, a light opera
which had its day in Madrid fifteen years before; and presently he
directed his attention again to the instrument.

"In his bedroom, were they? Thank you very much."

He hung up the receiver. He did not explain the conversation to Manfred,
nor did Manfred expect him to, for Leon Gonsalez dearly loved a mystery.
All he permitted himself to say was;

"Canine teeth!"

And this seemed to amuse him very much.

When Gonsalez came to breakfast the next morning, the waiter informed
him that Manfred had gone out early. George came in about ten minutes
after the other had commenced breakfast, and Leon Gonsalez looked up.

"You puzzle me when your face is so mask-like, George," he said. "I
don't know whether you're particularly amused or particularly
depressed."

"A little of the one and a little of the other," said Manfred, sitting
down to breakfast. "I have been to Fleet Street to examine the files of
the sporting press."

"The sporting press?" repeated Gonsalez, staring at him, and Manfred
nodded.

"Incidentally, I met Fare. No trace of poison has been found in the
body, and no other sign of violence. They are arresting Stephen Tableman
today."

"I was afraid of that," said Gonsalez gravely. "But why the sporting
press, George?"

Manfred did not answer the question, but went on:

"Fare is quite certain that the murder was committed by Stephen
Tableman. His theory is that there was a quarrel and that the young man
lost his temper and choked his father. Apparently, the examination of
the body proved that extraordinary violence must have been used. Every
blood-vessel in the neck is congested. Fare also told me that at first
the doctor suspected poison, but there is no sign of any drug to be
discovered, and the doctors say that the drug that would cause that
death with such symptoms is unknown. It makes it worse for Stephen
Tableman because for the past few months he has been concentrating his
studies upon obscure poisons."

Gonsalez stretched back in his chair, his hands in his pockets.

"Well, whether he committed that murder or not," he said after a while,
"he is certain to commit a murder sooner or later. I remember once a
doctor in Barcelona who had such teeth. He was a devout Christian, a
popular man, a bachelor, and had plenty of money, and there seemed no
reason in the world why he should murder anybody, and yet he did. He
murdered another doctor who threatened to expose some error he made in
an operation. I tell you, George, with teeth like that--" He paused and
frowned thoughtfully. "My dear George," he said, "I am going to ask Fare
if he will allow me the privilege of spending a few hours alone in
Professor Tableman's laboratory."

"Why on earth--" began Manfred, and checked himself. "Why, of course,
you have a reason, Leon. As a rule I find no difficulty in solving such
mysteries as these. But in this case I am puzzled, though I have
confidence that you have already unravelled what mystery there is. There
are certain features about the business which are particularly baffling.
Why should the old man be wearing thick gloves--"

Gonsalez sprang to his feet, his eyes blazing.

"What a fool! What a fool!" he almost shouted. "I didn't see those. Are
you sure, George?" he asked eagerly. "He had thick gloves? Are you
certain?"

Manfred nodded, smiling his surprise at the other's perturbation.

"That's it!" Gonsalez snapped his fingers. "I knew there was some error
in my calculations! Thick woollen gloves, weren't they?" He became
suddenly thoughtful. "Now, I wonder how the devil he induced the old man
to put 'em on?" he said half to himself.

The request to Mr. Fare was granted, and the two men went together to
the laboratory. John Munsey was waiting for them.

"I discovered those spectacles by my uncle's bedside," he said as soon
as he saw them.

"Oh, the spectacles?" said Leon absently. "May I see them?" He took them
in his hand. "Your uncle was very short-sighted. How did they come to
leave his possession, I wonder?"

"I think he went up to his bedroom to change; he usually did after
dinner," explained Mr. Munsey. "And he must have left them there. He
usually kept an emergency pair in the laboratory, but for some reason or
other he doesn't seem to have put them on. Do you wish to be alone in
the laboratory?" he asked.

"I would rather," said Leon. "Perhaps you would entertain my friend
whilst I look round?"

Left alone, he locked the door that communicated between the laboratory
and the house, and his first search was for the spectacles that the old
man usually wore when he was working.

Characteristically enough, he went straight to the place where they
were--a big galvanised ash-pan by the side of the steps leading up to
the laboratory. He found them in fragments, the horn rims broken in two
places, and he collected what he could and returned to the laboratory,
and, laying them on the bench, he took up the telephone.

The laboratory had a direct connection with the exchange, and after five
minutes waiting, Gonsalez found himself in communication with Stephen
Tableman.

"Yes, sir," was the surprised reply. "My father wore his glasses
throughout the interview."

"Thank you, that is all," said Gonsalez and hung up the 'phone.

Then he went to one of the apparatus in a corner of the laboratory and
worked steadily for an hour and a half. At the end of that time he went
to the telephone again. Another half hour passed, and then he pulled
from his pocket a pair of thick woollen gloves, and unlocking the door
leading to the house, called Manfred.

"Ask Mr. Munsey to come," he said.

"Your friend is interested in science," said Mr. Munsey as he
accompanied Manfred along the passage.

"I think he is one of the cleverest in his own particular line," said
Manfred.

He came into the laboratory ahead of Munsey, and to his surprise,
Gonsalez was standing near the table, holding in his hand a small
liqueur glass filled with an almost colourless liquid. Almost
colourless, but there was a blue tinge to it, and to Manfred's amazement
a faint mist was rising from its surface.

Manfred stared at him, and then he saw that the hands of Leon Gonsalez
were enclosed in thick woollen gloves.

"Have you finished?" smiled Mr. Munsey as he came from behind Manfred;
and then he saw Leon and smiled no more. His face went drawn and
haggard, his eyes narrowed, and Manfred heard his laboured breathing.

"Have a drink, my friend?" said Leon pleasantly. "A beautiful drink.
You'd mistake it for creme de menthe or any old liqueur--especially if
you were a short-sighted, absent-minded old man and somebody had
purloined your spectacles."

"What do you mean?" asked Munsey hoarsely. "I--I don't understand you."

"I promise you that this drink is innocuous, that it contains no poison
whatever, that it is as pure as the air you breathe," Gonsalez went on.

"Damn you!" yelled Munsey, but before he could leap at his tormentor,
Manfred had caught him and slung him to the ground.

"I have telephoned for the excellent Mr. Fare, and he will be here soon,
and also Mr. Stephen Tableman. Ah, here they are."

There was a tap at the door.

"Will you open, please, my dear George? I do not think our young friend
will move. If he does, I will throw the contents of this glass in his
face."

Fare came in, followed by Stephen, and with them an officer from
Scotland Yard.

"There is your prisoner, Mr. Fare," said Gonsalez. "And here is the
means by which Mr. John Munsey encompassed the death of his
uncle--decided thereto, I guess, by the fact that his uncle had been
reconciled with Stephen Tableman, and that the will which he had so
carefully manoeuvred was to be altered in Stephen Tableman's favour."

"That's a lie!" gasped John Munsey. "I worked for you--you know I did,
Stephen. I did my best for you--"

"All part of the general scheme of deception--again I am guessing," said
Gonsalez. "If I am wrong, drink this. It is the liquid your uncle drank
on the night of his death."

"What is it?" demanded Fare quickly.

"Ask him," smiled Gonsalez, nodding to the man.

John Munsey turned on his heels and walked to the door, and the police
officer who had accompanied Fare followed him.

"And now I will tell you what it is," said Gonsalez. "It is liquid air!"

"Liquid air!" said the Commissioner. "Why, what do you mean? How can a
man be poisoned with liquid air?"

"Professor Tableman was not poisoned. Liquid air is a fluid obtained by
reducing the temperature of air to two hundred and seventy degrees below
zero. Scientists use the liquid for experiments, and it is usually kept
in a thermos flask, the mouth of which is stopped with cotton wool,
because, as you know, there would be danger of a blow up if the air was
confined."

"Good God?" gasped Tableman in horror. "Then that blue mark about my
father's throat--"

"He was frozen to death. At least his throat was frozen solid the second
that liquid was taken. Your father was in the habit of drinking a
liqueur before he went to bed, and there is no doubt that, after you had
left, Munsey gave the Professor a glassful of liquid air and by some
means induced him to put on gloves."

"Why did he do that? Oh, of course, the cold," said Manfred.

Gonsalez nodded.

"Without gloves he would have detected immediately the stuff he was
handling. What artifice Munsey used we may never know. It is certain he
himself must have been wearing gloves at the time. After your father's
death he then began to prepare evidence to incriminate somebody else.
The Professor had probably put away his glasses preparatory to going to
bed, and the murderer, like myself, overlooked the fact that the body
was still wearing gloves.

"My own theory," said Gonsalez later, "is that Munsey has been working
for years to oust his cousin from his father's affections. He probably
invented the story of the dipsomaniac father of Miss Faber."

Young Tableman had come to their lodgings, and now Gonsalez had a shock.
Something he said had surprised a laugh from Stephen, and Gonsalez
stared at him.

"Your--your teeth!" he stammered.

Stephen flushed.

"My teeth?" he repeated, puzzled.

"You had two enormous canines when I saw you last," said Gonsalez. "You
remember, Manfred?" he said, and he was really agitated. "I told you--"

He was interrupted by a burst of laughter from the young student.

"Oh, they were false," he said awkwardly. "They were knocked out at a
rugger match, and Benson, who's a fellow in our dental department and is
an awfully good chap, though a pretty poor dentist, undertook to make me
two to fill the deficiency. They looked terrible, didn't they? I don't
wonder your noticing them. I got two new ones put in by another
dentist."

"It happened on the thirteenth of September last year. I read about it
in the sporting press," said Manfred, and Gonsales fixed him with a
reproachful glance.

"You see, my dear Leon--" Manfred laid his hand on the other's
shoulder--"I knew they were false, just as you knew they were canines."

When they were alone, Manfred said:

"Talking about canines--"

"Let us talk about something else," snapped Leon.



THE MAN WHO HATED EARTHWORMS


"The death has occurred at Staines of Mr. Falmouth, late Superintendent
of the Criminal Investigation Department. Mr. Falmouth will best be
remembered as the Officer who arrested George Manfred, the leader of the
Four Just Men gang. The sensational escape of this notorious man is
perhaps the most remarkable chapter in criminal history. The 'Four Just
Men' was an organisation which set itself to right acts of injustice
which the law left unpunished. It is believed that the members were
exceedingly rich men who devoted their lives and fortunes to this
quixotic but wholly unlawful purpose. The gang has not been heard of for
many years."

Manfred read the paragraph from the Morning Telegram and Leon Gonsalez
frowned.

"I have an absurd objection to being called a 'gang,'" he said, and
Manfred smiled quietly.

"Poor old Falmouth," he reflected, "well, he knows! He was a nice
fellow."

"I liked Falmouth," agreed Gonsalez. "He was a perfectly normal man
except for a slight progenism--"

Manfred laughed.

"Forgive me it I appear dense, but I have never been able to keep up
with you in this particular branch of science," he said, "what is a
'progenism'?"

"The unscientific call it an 'underhung jaw,'" explained Leon, "and it
is mistaken for strength. It is only normal in Piedmont where the
brachycephalic skull is so common. With such a skull, progenism is
almost a natural condition."

"Progenism or not, he was a good fellow," insisted Manfred and Leon
nodded. "With well-developed wisdom teeth," he added slyly, and Gonsalez
went red, for teeth formed a delicate subject with him. Nevertheless he
grinned.

"It will interest you to know, my dear George," he said triumphantly,
"that when the famous Dr. Carrara examined the teeth of four hundred
criminals and a like number of non-criminals--you will find his detailed
narrative in the monograph 'Sullo Sviluppo Del Terzo Dente Morale Net
Criminali'--he found the wisdom tooth more frequently present in normal
people."

"I grant you the wisdom tooth," said Manfred hastily. "Look at the bay!
Did you ever see anything more perfect?"

They were sitting on a little green lawn overlooking Babbacombe Beach.
The sun was going down and a perfect day was drawing to its close. High
above the blue sea towered the crimson cliffs and green fields of Devon.

Manfred looked at his watch.

"Are we dressing for dinner?" he asked, "or has your professional friend
Bohemian tastes?"

"He is of the new school," said Leon, "rather superior, rather
immaculate, very Balliol. I am anxious that you should meet him, his
hands are rather fascinating."

Manfred in his wisdom did not ask why.

"I met him at golf," Gonsalez went on, "and certain things happened
which interested me. For example, every time he saw an earthworm he
stopped to kill it and displayed such an extraordinary fury in the
assassination that I was astounded. Prejudice has no place in the
scientific mind. He is exceptionally wealthy. People at the club told me
that his uncle left him close on a million, and the estate of his aunt
or cousin who died last year was valued at another million and he was
the sole legatee. Naturally a good catch. Whether Miss Moleneux thinks
the same I have had no opportunity of gauging," he added after a pause.

"Good lord!" cried Manfred in consternation as he jumped up from his
chair. "She is coming to dinner too, isn't she?"

"And her mamma," said Leon solemnly. "Her mamma has learnt Spanish by
correspondence lessons, and insists upon greeting me with 'habla usted
Espanol?'"

The two men had rented Cliff House for the spring. Manfred loved
Devonshire in April when the slopes of the hills were yellow with
primroses and daffodils made a golden path across the Devon lawns.
"Senor Fuentes" had taken the house after one inspection and found the
calm and the peace which only nature's treasury of colour and fragrance
could bring to his active mind.

Manfred had dressed and was sitting by the wood fire in the drawing-room
when the purr of a motor-car coming cautiously down the cliff road
brought him to his feet and through the open French window.

Leon Gonsalez had joined him before the big limousine had come to a halt
before the porch.

The first to alight was a man and George observed him closely. He was
tall and thin. He was not bad looking, though the face was lined and the
eyes deep set and level. He greeted Gonsalez with just a tiny hint of
patronage in his tone.

"I hope we haven't kept you waiting, but my experiments detained me.
Nothing went right in the laboratory today. You know Miss Moleneux and
Mrs. Moleneux?"

Manfred was introduced and found himself shaking hands with a grave-eyed
girl of singular beauty.

Manfred was unusually sensitive to "atmosphere" and there was something
about this girl which momentarily chilled him. Her frequent smile, sweet
as it was and undoubtedly sincere, was as undoubtedly mechanical. Leon,
who judged people by reason rather than instinct, reached his conclusion
more surely and gave shape and definite description to what in Manfred's
mind was merely a distressful impression. The girl was afraid! Of what?
wondered Leon. Not of that stout, complacent little woman whom she
called mother, and surely not of this thin-faced academic gentleman in
pince-nez.

Gonsalez had introduced Dr. Viglow and whilst the ladies were taking off
their cloaks in Manfred's room above, he had leisure to form a judgment.
There was no need for him to entertain his guest. Dr. Viglow spoke
fluently, entertainingly and all the time.

"Our friend here plays a good game of golf," he said, indicating
Gonsalez, "a good game of golf indeed for a foreigner. You two are
Spanish?"

Manfred nodded. He was more thoroughly English than the doctor, did that
gentleman but know, but it was as a Spaniard and armed, moreover, with a
Spanish passport that he was a visitor to Britain.

"I understood you to say that your investigations have taken rather a
sensational turn, Doctor," said Leon and a light came into Dr. Viglow's
eyes.

"Yes," he said complacently, and then quickly, "who told you that?"

"You told me yourself at the club this morning."

The doctor frowned.

"Did I?" he said and passed his hand across his forehead. "I can't
recollect that. When was this?"

"This morning," said Leon, "but your mind was probably occupied with
much more important matters."

The young professor bit his lip and frowned thoughtfully.

"I ought not to have forgotten what happened this morning," he said in a
troubled tone.

He gave the impression to Manfred that one half of him was struggling
desperately to overcome a something in the other half. Suddenly he
laughed.

"A sensational turn!" he said. "Yes indeed, and I rather think that
within a few months I shall not be without fame, even in my own country!
It is, of course, terribly expensive. I was only reckoning up today that
my typists' wages come to nearly £60 a week."

Manfred opened his eyes at this.

"Your typists' wages?" he repeated slowly. "Are you preparing a book?"

"Here are the ladies," said Dr. Felix.

His manner was abrupt to rudeness and later when they sat round the
table in the little dining-room Manfred had further cause to wonder at
the boorishness of this young scientist. He was seated next to Miss
Moleneux and the meal was approaching its end when most unexpectedly he
turned to the girl and in a loud voice said:

"You haven't kissed me today, Margaret."

The girl went red and white and the fingers that fidgeted with the
table-ware before her were trembling when she faltered:

"Haven't--haven't I, Felix?"

The bright eyes of Gonsalez never left the doctor. The man's face had
gone purple with rage.

"By God! This is a nice thing!" he almost shouted. "I'm engaged to you.
I've left you everything in my will and I'm allowing your mother a
thousand a year and you haven't kissed me today!"

"Doctor!" It was the mild but insistent voice of Gonsalez that broke the
tension. "I wonder whether you would tell me what chemical is
represented by the formula Cl2O5."

The doctor had turned his head slowly at the sound of Leon's voice and
now was staring at him. Slowly the strange look passed from his face and
it became normal.

"Cl2O5 is Oxide of Chlorine," he said in an even voice, and from
thenceforward the conversation passed by way of acid reactions into a
scientific channel.

The only person at the table who had not been perturbed by Viglow's
outburst had been the dumpy complacent lady on Manfred's right. She had
tittered audibly at the reference to her allowance, and when the hum of
conversation became general she lowered her voice and leant toward
Manfred.

"Dear Felix is so eccentric," she said, "but he is quite the nicest,
kindest soul. One must look after one's girls, don't you agree, senor?"

She asked this latter question in very bad Spanish and Manfred nodded.
He shot a glance at the girl. She was still deathly pale.

"And I am perfectly certain she will be happy, much happier than she
would have been with that impossible person."

She did not specify who the "impossible person" was, but Manfred sensed
a whole world of tragedy. He was not romantic, but one look at the girl
had convinced him that there was something wrong in this engagement. Now
it was that he came to a conclusion which Leon had reached an hour
before, that the emotion which dominated the girl was fear. And he
pretty well knew of whom she was afraid.

Half an hour later when the tail light of Dr. Viglow's limousine had
disappeared round a corner of the drive the two men went back to the
drawing-room and Manfred threw a handful of kindling to bring the fire
to a blaze.

"Well, what do you think?" said Gonsalez, rubbing his hands together
with evidence of some enjoyment.

"I think it's rather horrible," replied Manfred, settling himself in his
chair. "I thought the days when wicked mothers forced their daughters
into unwholesome marriages were passed and done with. One hears so much
about the modern girl."

"Human nature isn't modern," said Gonsalez briskly, "and most mothers
are fools where their daughters are concerned. I know you won't agree
but I speak with authority. Mantegazza collected statistics of 843
families--"

Manfred chuckled.

"You and your Mantegazza!" he laughed. "Did that infernal man know
everything?"

"Almost everything," said Leon. "As to the girl," he became suddenly
grave. "She will not marry him of course."

"What is the matter with him?" asked Manfred. "He seems to have an
ungovernable temper."

"He is mad," replied Leon calmly and Manfred looked at him.

"Mad?" he repeated incredulously. "Do you mean to say that he is a
lunatic?"

"I never use the word in a spectacular or even in a vulgar sense," said
Gonsalez, lighting a cigarette carefully. "The man is undoubtedly mad. I
thought so a few days ago and I am certain of it now. The most ominous
test is the test of memory. People who are on the verge of madness or
entering its early stages do not remember what happened a short time
before. Did you notice how worried he was when I told him of the
conversation we had this morning?"

"That struck me as peculiar," agreed Manfred.

"He was fighting," said Leon, "the sane half of his brain against the
insane half. The doctor against the irresponsible animal. The doctor
told him that if he had suddenly lost his memory for incidents which had
occurred only a few hours before, he was on the high way to lunacy. The
crazy half of the brain told him that he was such a wonderful fellow
that the rules applying to ordinary human beings did not apply to him.
We will call upon him tomorrow to see his laboratory and discover why he
is paying £60 a week for typists," he said. "And now, my dear George,
you can go to bed. I am going to read the excellent but often misguided
Lombroso on the male delinquent."

Dr. Viglow's laboratory was a new red building on the edge of Dartmoor.
To be exact, it consisted of two buildings, one of which was a large
army hut which had been recently erected for the accommodation of the
doctor's clerical staff.

"I haven't met a professor for two or three years," said Manfred as they
were driving across the moor, en route to pay their call, "nor have I
been in a laboratory for five. And yet within the space of a few weeks I
have met two extraordinary professors, one of whom I admit was dead.
Also I have visited two laboratories."

Leon nodded.

"Some day I will make a very complete examination of the phenomena of
coincidence," he said.

When they reached the laboratory they found a post-office van, backed up
against the main entrance, and three assistants in white overalls were
carrying post bags and depositing them in the van.

"He must have a pretty large correspondence," said Manfred in wonder.

The doctor, in a long white overall, was standing at the door as they
alighted from their car, and greeted them warmly.

"Come into my office." he said, and led the way to a large airy room
which was singularly free from the paraphernalia which Gonsalez usually
associated with such work-rooms.

"You have a heavy post," said Leon and the doctor laughed quietly.

"They are merely going to the Torquay post office," he said. "I have
arranged for them to be despatched when--" he hesitated, "when I am
sure. You see," he said, speaking with great earnestness, "a scientist
has to be so careful. Every minute after he has announced a discovery he
is tortured with the fear that he has forgotten something, some
essential, or has reached a too hasty conclusion. But I think I'm
right," he said, speaking half to himself. "I'm sure I'm right, but I
must be even more sure!"

He showed them round the large room, but there was little which Manfred
had not seen in the laboratory of the late Professor Tableman. Viglow
had greeted them genially, indeed expansively, and yet within five
minutes of their arrival he was taciturn, almost silent, and did not
volunteer information about any of the instruments in which Leon showed
so much interest, unless he was asked.

They came back to his room and again his mood changed and he became
almost gay.

"I'll tell you," he said, "by Jove, I'll tell you! And no living soul
knows this except myself, or realises or understands the extraordinary
work I have been doing."

His face lit up, his eyes sparkled and it seemed to Manfred that he grew
taller in this moment of exaltation. Pulling open a drawer of a table
which stood against the wall he brought out a long porcelain plate and
laid it down. From a wire-netted cupboard on the wall he took two tin
boxes and with an expression of disgust which he could not disguise,
turned the contents upon the slab. It was apparently a box full of
common garden mould and then Leon saw to his amazement a wriggling
little red shape twisting and twining in its acute discomfort. The
little red fellow sought to hide himself and burrowed sinuously into the
mould.

"Curse you! Curse you!" The doctor's voice rose until it was a howl. His
face was twisted and puckered in his mad rage. "How I hate you!"

If ever a man's eyes held hate and terror, they were the eyes of Dr.
Felix Viglow.

Manfred drew a long breath and stepped back a pace the better to observe
him. Then the man calmed himself and peered down at Leon.

"When I was a child," he said in a voice that shook, "I hated them and
we had a nurse named Martha, a beastly woman, a wicked woman, who
dropped one down my neck. Imagine the horror of it!"

Leon said nothing. To him the earthworm was a genus of chaetopod in the
section oligochaeta and bore the somewhat, pretentious name of lumbricus
terrestris. And in that way, Dr. Viglow, eminent naturalist and
scientist, should have regarded this beneficent little fellow.

"I have a theory," said the doctor. He was calmer now and was wiping the
sweat from his forehead with a handkerchief, "that in cycles every type
of living thing on the earth becomes in turn the dominant creature. In a
million years' time man may dwindle to the size of an ant and the
earthworm, by its super-intelligence, its cunning and its ferocity, may
be pre-eminent in the world! I have always thought that," he went on
when neither Leon nor Manfred offered any comment. "It is still my
thought by day and my dream by night. I have devoted my life to the
destruction of this menace."

Now the earthworm is neither cunning nor intelligent and is moreover
notoriously devoid of ambition.

The doctor again went to the cupboard and took out a wide-necked bottle
filled with a greyish powder. He brought it back and held it within a few
inches of Leon's face.

"This is the work of twelve years," he said simply. "There is no
difficulty in finding a substance which will kill these pests, but this
does more."

He took a scalpel and tilting the bottle brought out a few grains of the
powder on the edge of it. This he dissolved in a twenty-ounce measure
which he filled with water. He stirred the colourless fluid with a glass
rod, then lifting the rod he allowed three drops to fall upon the mould
wherein the little creature was hidden. A few seconds passed, there was
a heaving of the earth where the victim was concealed.

"He is dead," said the doctor triumphantly and scraped away the earth
to prove the truth of his words. "And he is not only dead, but that
handful of earth is death to any other earthworm that touches it."

He rang a bell and one of his attendants came in.

"Clear away that," he said with a shudder and walked gloomily to his
desk.

Leon did not speak all the way back to the house. He sat curled up in
the corner of the car, his arms lightly folded, his chin on his breast.
That night without a word of explanation he left the house, declining
Manfred's suggestion that he should walk with him and volunteering no
information as to where he was going.

Gonsalez walked by the cliff road, across Babbacombe Downs and came to
the doctor's house at nine o'clock that night. The doctor had a large
house and maintained a big staff of servants, but amongst his other
eccentricities was the choice of a gardener's cottage away from the
house as his sleeping place at night.

It was only lately that the doctor had chosen this lonely lodging. He
had been happy enough in the big old house which had been his father's,
until he had heard voices whispering to him at night and the creak of
boards and had seen shapes vanishing along the dark corridors, and then
in his madness he had conceived the idea that his servants were
conspiring against him and that he might any night be murdered in his
bed. So he had the gardener turned out of his cottage, had refurnished
the little house, and there, behind locked doors, he read and thought
and slept the nights away. Gonsalez had heard of this peculiarity and
approached the cottage with some caution, for a frightened man is more
dangerous than a wicked man. He rapped at the door and heard a step
across the flagged floor.

"Who is that?" asked a voice.

"It is I," said Gonsalez and gave the name by which he was known.

After hesitation the lock turned and the door opened.

"Come in, come in," said Viglow testily and locked the door behind him.
"You have come to congratulate me, I am sure. You must come to my
wedding too, my friend. It will be a wonderful wedding, for there I
shall make a speech and tell the story of my discovery. Will you have a
drink? I have nothing here, but I can get it from the house. I have a
telephone in my bedroom."

Leon shook his head.

"I have been rather puzzling out your plan, Doctor," he said, accepting
the proffered cigarette, "and I have been trying to connect those postal
bags which I saw being loaded at the door of your laboratory with the
discovery which you revealed this afternoon."

Dr. Viglow's narrow eyes were gleaming with merriment and he leant back
in his chair and crossed his legs, like one preparing for a pleasant
recital.

"I will tell you," he said. "For months I have been in correspondence
with farming associations, both here and on the Continent. I have
something of a European reputation," he said, with that extraordinary
immodesty which Leon had noticed before. "In fact, I think that my
treatment for phylloxera did more to remove the scourge from the
vineyards of Europe than any other preparation."

Leon nodded. He knew this to be the truth.

"So you see, my word is accepted in matters dealing with agriculture.
But I found after one or two talks with our own stupid farmers that
there is an unusual prejudice against destroying"--he did not mention
the dreaded name but shivered--"and that of course I had to get round.
Now that I am satisfied that my preparation is exact, I can release the
packets in the post office. In fact, I was just about to telephone to
the postmaster telling him that they could go off--they are all stamped
and addressed--when you knocked at the door."

"To whom are they addressed?" asked Leon steadily.

"To various farmers--some fourteen thousand in all in various parts of
the country and Europe, and each packet has printed instructions in
English, French, German and Spanish. I had to tell them that it was a
new kind of fertiliser or they may not have been as enthusiastic in the
furtherance of my experiment as I am."

"And what are they going to do with these packets when they get them?"
asked Leon quietly.

"They will dissolve them and spray a certain area of their land--I
suggested ploughed land. They need only treat a limited area of earth,"
he explained. "I think these wretched beasts will carry infection
quickly enough. I believe," he leant forward and spoke impressively,
"that in six months there will not be one living in Europe or Asia."

"They do not know that the poison is intended to kill--earthworms?"
asked Leon.

"No, I've told you," snapped the other. "Wait, I will telephone the
postmaster."

He rose quickly to his feet, but Leon was quicker and gripped him arm.

"My dear friend," he said, "you must not do this."

Dr. Viglow tried to withdraw his arm.

"Let me go," he snarled. "Are you one of those devils who are trying to
torment me?"

In ordinary circumstances, Leon would have been strong enough to hold
the man, but Viglow's strength was extraordinary and Gonsalez found
himself thrust back into the chair. Before he could spring up, the man
had passed through the door and slammed and locked it behind him.

The cottage was on one floor and was divided into two rooms by a wooden
partition which Viglow had erected. Over the door was a fanlight, and
pulling the table forward Leon sprang on to the top and with his elbow
smashed the flimsy frame.

"Don't touch that telephone," he said sternly. "Do you hear?"

The doctor looked round with a grin. "You are a friend of those devils!"
he said, and his hand was on the receiver when Leon shot him dead.

Manfred came back the next morning from his walk and found Gonsalez
pacing the lawn, smoking an extra long cigar.

"My dear Leon," said Manfred as he slipped his arm in the other's. "You
did not tell me."

"I thought it best to wait," said Leon.

"I heard quite by accident," Manfred went on. "The story is that a
burglar broke into the cottage and shot the doctor when he was
telephoning for assistance. All the silverware in the outer room has
been stolen. The doctor's watch and pocket-book have disappeared."

"They are at this moment at the bottom of Babbacombe Bay," said Leon. "I
went fishing very early this morning before you were awake."

They paced the lawn in silence for a while and then:

"Was it necessary?" asked Manfred.

"Very necessary," said Leon gravely. "You have to realise first of all
that although this man was mad, he had discovered not only a poison but
an infection."

"But, my dear fellow," smiled Manfred, "was an earthworm worth it?"

"Worth more than his death," said Leon. "There isn't a scientist in the
world who does not agree that if the earthworm was destroyed the world
would become sterile and the people of this world would be starving in
seven years."

Manfred stopped in his walk and stared down at his companion.

"Do you really mean that?"

Leon nodded.

"He is the one necessary creature in God's world," he said soberly. "It
fertilises the land and covers the bare rocks with earth. It is the
surest friend of mankind that we know, and now I am going down to the
post office with a story which I think will be sufficiently plausible to
recover those worm poisoners."

Manfred mused a while, then he said:

"I'm glad in many ways--in every way," he corrected. "I rather liked
that girl, and I'm sure that impossible person isn't so impossible."



THE MAN WHO DIED TWICE


The interval between Acts II and III was an unusually long one, and the
three men who sat in the stage box were in such harmony of mind that none
of them felt the necessity for making conversation. The piece was a
conventional crook play and each of the three had solved the "mystery"
of the murder before the drop fell on the first act. They had reached
the same solution (and the right one) without any great mental effort.

Fare, the Police Commissioner, had dined with George Manfred and Leon
Gonsalez (he addressed them respectively as "Senor Fuentes" and "Senor
Mandrelino" and did not doubt that they were natives of Spain, despite
their faultless English) and the party had come on to the theatre.

Mr. Fare frowned as at some unpleasant memory and heard a soft laugh.
Looking up, he met the dancing eyes of Leon.

"Why do you laugh?" he asked, half smiling in sympathy.

"At your thoughts," replied the calm Gonsalez.

"At my thoughts!" repeated the other, startled,

"Yes," Leon nodded, "you were thinking of the Four Just Men."

"Extraordinary!" exclaimed Fare. "It is perfectly true. What is it,
telepathy?"

Gonsalez shook his head. As to Manfred, he was gazing abstractedly into
the stalls.

"No, it was not telepathy," said Leon, "it was your facial expression."

"But I haven't mentioned those rascals, how--"

"Facial expression," said Leon, revelling in his pet topic, "especially
an expression of the emotions, comes into the category of primitive
instincts--they are not 'willed.' For example, when a billiard player
strikes a ball he throws and twists his body after the ball--you must
have seen the contortions of a player who has missed his shot by a
narrow margin? A man using scissors works his jaw, a rower moves his
lips with every stroke of the oar. These are what we call 'automatisms.'
Animals have these characteristics. A hungry dog approaching meat pricks
his ears in the direction of his meal--"

"Is there a particular act of automatism produced by the thought of the
Four Just Men?" asked the Commissioner, smiling.

Leon nodded.

"It would take long to describe, but I will not deceive you. I less read
than guessed your thoughts by following them. The last line in the last
act we saw was uttered by a ridiculous stage parson who says: 'Justice!
There is a justice beyond the law!' And I saw you frown. And then you
looked across the stalls and nodded to the editor of the Megaphone. And
I remembered that you had written an article on the Four Just Men for
that journal--"

"A little biography on poor Falmouth who died the other day," corrected
Fare. "Yes, yes, I see. You were right, of course. I was thinking of
them and their pretensions to act as judges and executioners when the
law fails to punish the guilty, or rather the guilty succeed in avoiding
conviction."

Manfred turned suddenly.

"Leon," he spoke in Spanish, in which language the three had been
conversing off and on during the evening. "View the cavalier with the
diamond in his shirt--what do you make of him?" The question was in
English.

Leon raised his powerful opera glasses and surveyed the man whom his
friend had indicated.

"I should like to hear him speak," he said after a while. "See how
delicate his face is and how powerful are his jaws--almost prognathic,
for the upper maxilla is distinctly arrested. Regard him, senor, and
tell me if you do not agree that his eyes are unusually bright?"

Manfred took the glasses and looked at the unconscious man.

"They are swollen--yes, I see they are bright."

"What else do you see?"

"The lips are large and a little swollen too, I think," said Manfred.

Leon took the glasses and turned to the Commissioner.

"I do not bet, but if I did I would wager a thousand pesetas that this
man speaks with a harsh cracked voice."

Fare looked from his companion to the object of their scrutiny and then
back to Leon.

"You are perfectly right," he said quietly. "His name is Ballam and his
voice is extraordinarily rough and harsh. What is he?"

"Vicious," replied Gonsalez. "My dear friend, that man is vicious, a bad
man. Beware of the bright eyes and the cracked voice, senor! They stand
for evil!"

Fare rubbed his nose irritably, a trick of his.

"If you were anybody else I should be very rude and say that you knew
him or had met him," he said, "but after your extraordinary
demonstration the other day I realise there must be something in
physiognomy."

He referred to a visit which Leon Gonsalez and Manfred had paid to the
record department of Scotland Yard. There, with forty photographs of
criminals spread upon the table before him Gonsalez, taking them in
order, had enumerated the crimes with which their names were associated.
He only made four errors and even they were very excusable.

"Yes, Gregory Ballam is a pretty bad lot," said the Commissioner
thoughtfully. "He has never been through our hands, but that is the luck
of the game. He's as shrewd as the devil and it hurts me to see him with
a nice girl like Genee Maggiore."

"The girl who is sitting with him?" asked Manfred, interested.

"An actress," murmured Gonsalez. "You observe, my dear George, how she
turns her head first to the left and then to the right at intervals,
though there is no attraction in either direction. She has the habit of
being seen--it is not vanity, it is merely a peculiar symptom of her
profession."

"What is his favourite vanity?" asked Manfred and the Commissioner
smiled. "You know our Dickens, eh?" he asked, for he thought of Manfred
as a Spaniard. "Well, it would be difficult to tell you what Gregory
Ballam does to earn his respectable income," he said more seriously. "I
think he is connected with a moneylender's business and runs a few
profitable sidelines."

"Such as--" suggested Manfred.

Mr. Fare was not, apparently, anxious to commit himself. "I'll tell you
in the strictest confidence," he said. "We believe, and have good cause
to believe, that he has a hop joint which is frequented by wealthy
people. Did you read last week about the man, John Bidworth, who shot a
nursemaid in Kensington Gardens and then shot himself?"

Manfred nodded.

"He was quite a well-connected person, wasn't he?" he asked.

"He was very well connected," replied Fare emphatically. "So well
connected that we did not want to bring his people into the case at all.
He died the next day in hospital and the surgeons tell us that he was
undoubtedly under the influence of some Indian drug and that in his few
moments of consciousness he as much as told the surgeon in charge of the
case that he had been on a jag the night before and had finished up in
what he called an opium house, and remembered nothing further till he
woke up in the hospital. He died without knowing that he had committed
this atrocious crime. There is no doubt that under the maddening
influence of the drug he shot the first person he saw."

"Was it Mr. Ballam's opium house?" asked Gonsalez, interested.

The curtain rose at that moment and conversation went on in a whisper.

"We don't know--in his delirium he mentioned Ballam's name. We have
tried our best to find out. He has been watched. Places at which he has
stayed any length of time have been visited, but we have found nothing
to incriminate him."

Leon Gonsalez had a favourite hour and a favourite meal at which he was
at his brightest. That hour was at nine o'clock in the morning and the
meal was breakfast. He put down his paper the next morning and asked:

"What is crime?"

"Professor," said Manfred solemnly, "I will tell you. It is the
departure from the set rules which govern human society."

"You are conventional," said Gonsalez. "My dear George, you are always
conventional at nine o'clock in the morning! Now, had I asked you at
midnight you would have told me that it is any act which wilfully
offends and discomforts your neighbour. If I desired to give it a narrow
and what they call in this country a legal interpretation I would add,
'contrary to the law.' There must be ten thousand crimes committed for
every one detected. People associated crime only with those offences
which are committed by a certain type of illiterate or semi-illiterate
lunatic or half-lunatic, glibly dubbed a 'criminal.' Now, here is a
villainous crime, a monumental crime. He is a man who is destroying the
souls of youth and breaking hearts ruthlessly! Here is one who is
dragging down men and women from the upward road and debasing them in
their own eyes, slaying ambition and all beauty of soul and mind in
order that he should live in a certain comfort, wearing a clean dress
shirt every evening of his life and drinking expensive and unnecessary
wines with his expensive and indigestible dinner."

"Where is this man?" asked Manfred.

"He lives at 993 Jermyn Street, in fact he is a neighbour," said Leon.

"You're speaking of Mr. Ballam?"

"I'm speaking of Mr. Ballam," said Gonsalez gravely. "To-night I am
going to be a foreign artist with large rolls of money in my pockets and
an irresistible desire to be amused. I do not doubt that sooner or later
Mr. Ballam and I will gravitate together. Do I look like a detective,
George?" he asked abruptly.

"You look more like a successful pianist," said George and Gonsalez
sniffed.

"You can even be offensive at nine o'clock in the morning," he said.

There are two risks which criminals face (with due respect to the
opinions of Leon Gonsalez, this word criminal is employed by the
narrator) in the pursuit of easy wealth. There is the risk of detection
and punishment which applies to the big as well as to the little
delinquent. There is the risk of losing large sums of money invested for
the purpose of securing even larger sums. The criminal who puts money in
his business runs the least risk of detection. That is why only the poor
and foolish come stumbling up the stairs which lead to the dock at the
Old Bailey, and that is why the big men, who would be indignant at the
very suggestion that they were in the category of law-breakers, seldom
or never make their little bow to the Judge.

Mr. Gregory Ballam stood for and represented certain moneyed interests
which had purchased at auction three houses in Montague Street, Portland
Place. They were three houses which occupied an island site. The first
of these was let out in offices, the ground floor being occupied by a
lawyer, the first floor by a wine and spirit merchant, the second being
a very plain suite, dedicated to the business hours of Mr. Gregory
Ballam. This gentleman also rented the cellar, which by the aid of
lime-wash and distemper had been converted into, if not a pleasant, at
any rate a neat and cleanly storage place. Through this cellar you could
reach (amongst other places) a brand-new garage, which had been built
for one of Mr. Ballam's partners, but in which Mr. Ballam was not
interested at all.

None but the workmen who had been employed in renovation knew that it
was possible also to walk from one house to the other, either through
the door in the cellar which had existed when the houses were purchased,
or through a new door in Mr. Ballam's office.

The third house, that at the end of the island site, was occupied by the
International Artists' Club, and the police had never followed Mr.
Ballam there because Mr. Ballam had never gone there, at least not by
the front door. The Artists' Club had a "rest room" and there were times
when Mr. Ballam had appeared, as if by magic, in that room, had met a
select little party and conducted them through a well-concealed
pass-door to the ground floor of the middle house. The middle house was
the most respectable looking of the three. It had neat muslin curtains
at all its windows and was occupied by a venerable gentleman and his
wife.

The venerable gentleman made a practice of going out to business every
morning at ten o'clock, his shiny silk hat set jauntily on the side of
his head, a furled umbrella under his arm and a button-hole in his coat.
The police knew him by sight and local constables touched their helmets
to him. In the days gone by when Mr. Raymond, as he called himself, had
a luxurious white beard and earned an elegant income by writing begging
letters and interviewing credulous and sympathetic females, he did not
have that name or the reputation which he enjoyed in Montague Street.
But now he was clean-shaven and had the appearance of a retired admiral
and he received £4 a week for going out of the house every morning at
ten o'clock, with his silk hat set at a rakish angle, and his furled
umbrella and his neat little boutonniere. He spent most of the day in
the Guildhall reading-room and came back at five o'clock in the evening
as jaunty as ever.

And his day's work being ended, he and his hard-faced wife went to their
little attic room and played cribbage and their language was certainly
jaunty but was not venerable.

On the first floor, behind triple black velvet curtains, men and women
smoked day and night. It was a large room, being two rooms which had
been converted into one and it had been decorated under Mr. Ballam's
eye. In this room nothing but opium was smoked. If you had a fancy for
hasheesh you indulged yourself in a basement apartment. Sometimes Mr.
Ballam himself came to take a whiff of the dream-herb, but he usually
reserved these visits for such occasions as the introduction of a new
and profitable client. The pipe had no ill-effect upon Mr. Ballam. That
was his boast. He boasted now to a new client, a rich Spanish artist who
had been picked up by one of his jackals and piloted to the
International Artists' Club.

"Nor on me," said the newcomer, waving away a yellow-faced Chinaman who
ministered to the needs of the smokers. "I always bring my own smoke."

Ballam leant forward curiously as the man took a silver box from his
pocket and produced therefrom a green and sticky-looking pill.

"What is that?" asked Ballam curiously.

"It is a mixture of my own, cannabis indica, opium and a little Turkish
tobacco mixed. It is even milder than opium and the result infinitely
more wonderful."

"You can't smoke it here," said Ballam, shaking his head. "Try the pipe,
old man."

But the "old man"--he was really young in spite of his grey hair--was
emphatic.

"It doesn't matter," he said, "I can smoke at home. I only came out of
curiosity," and he rose to go.

"Don't be in a hurry," said Ballam hastily. "See here, we've got a
basement downstairs where the hemp pipes go--the smokers up here don't
like the smell--I'll come down and try one with you. Bring your coffee."

The basement was empty and selecting a comfortable divan Mr. Ballam and
his guest sat down.

"You can light this with a match, you don't want a spirit stove," said
the stranger.

Ballam, sipping his coffee, looked dubiously at the pipe which Gonsalez
offered.

"There was a question I was going to ask you," said Leon. "Does running
a show like this keep you awake at nights?"

"Don't be silly," said Mr. Ballam, lighting his pipe slowly and puffing
with evident enjoyment. "This isn't bad stuff at all. Keep me awake at
nights? Why should it?"

"Well," answered Leon. "Lots of people go queer here, don't they? I mean
it ruins people smoking this kind of stuff."

"That's their look out," said Mr. Ballam comfortably. "They get a lot of
fun. There's only one life and you've got to die once."

"Some men die twice," said Leon soberly. "Some men who under the
influence of a noxious drug go fantee and wake to find themselves
murderers. There's a drug in the East which the natives call 'bal.' It
turns men into raving lunatics."

"Well, that doesn't interest me," said Ballam impatiently. "We must
hurry up with this smoke. I've a lady coming to see me. Must keep an
appointment, old man," he laughed.

"On the contrary, the introduction of this drug into a pipe interests
you very much," said Leon, "and in spite of Miss Maggiore's
appointment--"

The other started.

"What the hell are you talking about?" he asked crossly.

"In spite of that appointment I must break the news to you that the drug
which turns men into senseless beasts is more potent than any you serve
in this den."

"What's it to do with me?" snarled Ballam.

"It interests you a great deal," said Leon coolly, "because you are at
this moment smoking a double dose!"

With a howl of rage Ballam sprang to his feet and what happened after
that he could not remember. Only something seemed to split in his head,
and a blinding light flashed before his eyes and then a whole century of
time went past, a hundred years of moving time and an eternity of
flashing lights, of thunderous noises, of whispering voices, of
ceaseless troubled movement. Sometimes he knew he was talking and
listened eagerly to hear what he himself had to say. Sometimes people
spoke to him and mocked him and he had a consciousness that he was being
chased by somebody.

How long this went on he could not judge. In his half-bemused condition
he tried to reckon time but found he had no standard of measurement. It
seemed years after that he opened his eyes with a groan, and put his
hand to his aching head. He was lying in bed. It was a hard bed and the
pillow was even harder. He stared up at the white-washed ceiling and
looked round at the plain distempered walls. Then he peered over the
side of the bed and saw that the floor was of concrete. Two lights were
burning, one above a table and one in a corner of the room where a man
was sitting reading a newspaper. He was a curious-looking man and Ballam
blinked at him.

"I am dreaming," he said aloud and the man looked up.

"Hello! Do you want to get up?"

Ballam did not reply. He was still staring, his mouth agape. The man was
in uniform, in a dark, tight-fitting uniform. He wore a cap on his head
and a badge. Round his waist was a shiny black belt and then Ballam read
the letters on the shoulder-strap of the tunic.

"A.W.," he repeated, dazed. "A.W."

What did "A.W." stand for? And then the truth flashed on him.

Assistant Warder! He glared round the room. There was one window,
heavily barred and covered with thick glass. On the wall was pasted a
sheet of printed paper. He staggered out of bed and read, still
open-mouthed:

"Regulations for His Majesty's Prisons."

He looked down at himself. He had evidently gone to bed with his
breeches and stockings on and his breeches were of coarse yellow
material and branded with faded black arrows. He was in prison! How long
had he been there?

"Are you going to behave today?" asked the warder curtly. "We don't want
any more of those scenes you gave us yesterday!"

"How long have I been here?" croaked Ballam.

"You know how long you've been here. You've been here three weeks,
yesterday."

"Three weeks!" gasped Ballam. "What is the charge?"

"Now don't come that game with me, Ballam," said the warder, not
unkindly. "You know I'm not allowed to have conversations with you. Go
back and sleep. Sometimes I think you are as mad as you profess to be."

"Have I been--bad?" asked Ballam.

"Bad?" The warder jerked up his head. "I wasn't in the court with you,
but they say you behaved in the dock like a man demented, and when the
Judge was passing sentence of death--"

"My God!" shrieked Ballam and fell back on the bed, white and haggard.
"Sentenced to death!" He could hardly form the words. "What have I
done?"

"You killed a young lady, you know that," said the warder. "I'm
surprised at you, trying to come it over me after the good friend I've
been to you, Ballam. Why don't you buck up and take your punishment like
a man?"

There was a calendar above the place where the warder had been sitting.

"Twelfth of April," read Ballam and could have shrieked again, for it
was the first day of March that he met that mysterious stranger. He
remembered it all now. Bal! The drug that drove men mad.

He sprang to his feet.

"I want to see the Governor! I want to tell them the truth! I've been
drugged!"

"Now you've told us all that story before," said the warder with an air
of resignation. "When you killed the young lady--"

"What young lady?" shrieked Ballam. "Not Maggiore! Don't tell me--"

"You know you killed her right enough," said the warder. "What's the
good of making all this fuss? Now go back to bed, Ballam. You can't do
any good by kicking up a shindy this night of all nights in the world."

"I want to see the Governor! Can I write to him?"

"You can write to him if you like," and the warder indicated the table.

Ballam staggered up to the table and sat down shakily in a chair. There
was half a dozen sheets of blue note-paper headed in black: "H.M.
Prison, Wandsworth, S.W.1."

He was in Wandsworth prison! He looked round the cell. It did not look
like a cell and yet it did. It was so horribly bare and the door was
heavy looking. He had never been in a cell before and of course it was
different to what he had expected.

A thought struck him.

"When--when am I to be punished?" he said chokingly.

"Tomorrow!"

The word fell like a sentence of doom and the man fell forward, his head
upon his arms and wept hysterically. Then of a sudden he began to write
with feverish haste, his face red with weeping.

His letter was incoherent. It was about a man who had come to the club
and had given him a drug and then he had spent a whole eternity in
darkness seeing lights and being chased by people and hearing whispering
voices. And he was not guilty. He loved Genee Maggiore. He would not
have hurt a hair of her head.

He stopped here to weep again. Perhaps he was dreaming? Perhaps he was
under the influence of this drug. He dashed his knuckles against the
wall and the shock made him wince.

"Here, none of that," said the warder sternly. "You get back to bed."

Ballam looked at his bleeding knuckles. It was true! It was no dream! It
was true, true!

He lay on the bed and lost consciousness again and when he awoke the
warder was still sitting in his place reading. He seemed to doze again
for an hour, although in reality it was only for a few minutes, and
every time he woke something within him said: "This morning you die!"

Once he sprang shrieking from the bed and had to be thrown back.

"If you give me any more trouble I'll get another officer in and we'll
tie you down. Why don't you take it like a man? It's no worse for you
than it was for her," said the warder savagely.

After that he lay still and he was falling into what seemed a longer
sleep when the warder touched him. When he awoke he found his own
clothes laid neatly by the side of the bed upon a chair and he dressed
himself hurriedly.

He looked around for something.

"Where's the collar?" he asked trembling.

"You don't need a collar," the warder's voice had a certain quality of
sardonic humour.

"Pull yourself together," said the man roughly. "Other people have gone
through this. From what I've heard you ran an opium den. A good many of
your clients gave us a visit. They had to go through with it, and so
must you."

He waited, sitting on the edge of the bed, his face in his hands and
then the door opened and a man came in. He was a slight man with a red
beard and a mop of red hair.

The warder swung the prisoner round.

"Put your hands behind you," he said and Ballam sweated as he felt the
strap grip his wrists.

Then light was extinguished. A cap was drawn over his face and he
thought he heard voices behind him. He wasn't fit to die, he knew that.
There always was a parson in a case like this. Someone grasped his arm
on either side and he walked slowly forward through the door across a
yard and through another door. It was a long way and once his knees gave
under him but he stood erect. Presently they stopped.

"Stand where you are," said a voice and he found a noose slipped round
his neck and waited, waited in agony, minutes, hours it seemed. He took
no account of time and could not judge it. Then he heard a heavy step
and somebody caught him by the arm.

"What are you doing here, governor?" said a voice.

The bag was pulled from his head. He was in the street. It was night and
he stood under the light of a street-lamp. The man regarding him
curiously was a policeman.

"Got a bit of rope round your neck, too, somebody tied your hands. What
is it--a hold-up case?" said the policeman as he loosened the straps.
"Or is it a lark?" demanded the representative of the law. "I'm
surprised at you, an old gentleman like you with white hair!"

Gregory Ballam's hair had been black less than seven hours before when
Leon Gonsalez had drugged his coffee and had brought him through the
basement exit into the big yard at the back of the club.

For here was a nice new garage as Leon had discovered when he prospected
the place, and here they were left uninterrupted to play the comedy of
the condemned cell with blue sheets of prison notepaper put there for
the occasion and a copy of Prison Regulations which was donated quite
unwittingly by Mr. Fare, Commissioner of Police.



THE MAN WHO HATED AMELIA JONES


There was a letter that came to Leon Gonsalez, and the stamp bore the
image and superscription of Alphonse XIII. It was from a placid man who
had written his letter in the hour of siesta, when Cordova slept, and he
had scribbled all the things which had come into his head as he sat in
an orange bower overlooking the lordly Guadalquivir, now in yellow
spate.

"It is from Poiccart," said Leon.

"Yes?" replied George Manfred, half asleep in a big armchair before the
fire.

That and a green-shaded reading lamp supplied the illumination to their
comfortable Jermyn Street flat at the moment.

"And what," said George, stretching himself, "what does our excellent
friend Poiccart have to say?"

"A blight has come upon his onions," said Leon solemnly and Manfred
chuckled and then was suddenly grave.

There was a time when the name of these three, with one who now lay in
the Bordeaux cemetery, had stricken terror to the hearts of evil-doers.
In those days the Four Just Men were a menace to the sleep of many
cunning men who had evaded the law, yet had not evaded this ubiquitous
organisation, which slew ruthlessly in the name of Justice.

Poiccart was growing onions! He sighed and repeated the words aloud.

"And why not?" demanded Leon. "Have you read of the Three Musketeers?"

"Surely," said Manfred, with a smile at the fire.

"In what book, may I ask?" demanded Leon. "Why, in 'The Three
Musketeers,' of course," replied Manfred in surprise.

"Then you did wrong," said Leon Gonsalez promptly. "To love the Three
Musketeers, you must read of them in 'The Iron Mask.' When one of them
has grown fat and is devoting himself to his raiment, and one is a mere
courtier of the King of France, and the other is old and full of sorrow
for his love-sick child. Then they become human, my dear Manfred, just
as Poiccart becomes human when he grows onions. Shall I read you bits?"

"Please," said Manfred, properly abashed.

"H'm," read Gonsalez, "I told you about the onions, George. I have some
gorgeous roses. Manfred would love them...do not take too much heed of
this new blood test, by which the American doctor professes that he can
detect degrees of relationship...the new little pigs are doing
exceedingly well. There is one that is exceptionally intelligent and
contemplative. I have named him George.'"

George Manfred by the fire squirmed in his chair and chuckled.

"'This will be a very good year for wine, I am told,'" Leon read on,
"'but the oranges are not as plentiful as they were last year...do you
know that the finger-prints of twins are identical? Curiously enough the
fingerprints of twins of the anthropoid ape are dissimilar. I wish you
would get information on this subject...'"

He read on, little scraps of domestic news, fleeting excursions into
scientific side-issues, tiny scraps of gossip--they filled ten closely
written pages.

Leon folded the letter and put it in his pocket. "Of course he's not
right about the finger-prints of twins being identical. That was one of
the Illusions of the excellent Lombroso. Anyway the finger-print system
is unsatisfactory."

"I never heard it called into question," said George in surprise. "Why
isn't it satisfactory?"

Leon rolled a cigarette with deft fingers, licked down the paper and lit
the ragged end before he replied.

"At Scotland Yard, they have, let us say, one hundred thousand
finger-prints. In Britain there are fifty million inhabitants. One
hundred thousand is exactly one five-hundredth of fifty millions.
Suppose you were a police officer and you were called to the Albert Hall
where five hundred people were assembled and told that one of these had
in his possession stolen property and you received permission to search
them. Would you be content with searching one and giving a clean bill to
the rest?"

"Of course not," said Manfred, "but I don't see what you mean."

"I mean that until the whole of the country and every country in Europe
adopts a system by which every citizen registers his finger-prints and
until all the countries have an opportunity of exchanging those
finger-prints and comparing them with their own, it is ridiculous to say
that no two prints are alike."

"That settles the finger-print system," said Manfred, sotto voce.

"Logically it does," said the complacent Leon, "but actually it will
not, of course."

There was a long silence after this and then Manfred reached to a case
by the side of the fireplace and took down a book.

Presently he heard the creak of a chair as Gonsalez rose and the soft
"pad" of a closing door. Manfred looked up at the clock and, as he knew,
it was half past eight.

In five minutes Leon was back again. He had changed his clothing and, as
Manfred had once said before, his disguise was perfect. It was not a
disguise in the accepted understanding of the word, for he had not in
any way touched his face, or changed the colour of his hair.

Only by his artistry he contrived to appear just as he wished to appear,
an extremely poor man. His collar was clean, but frayed. His boots were
beautifully polished, but they were old and patched. He did not permit
the crudity of a heel worn down, but had fixed two circular rubber heels
just a little too large for their foundations.

"You are an old clerk battling with poverty, and striving to the end to
be genteel," said Manfred.

Gonsalez shook his head.

"I am a solicitor who, twenty years ago, was struck off the rolls and
ruined because I helped a man to escape the processes of the law. An
ever so much more sympathetic role, George. Moreover, it brings people
to me for advice. One of these nights you must come down to the public
bar of the 'Cow and Compasses' and hear me discourse upon the Married
Woman's Property Act."

"I never asked you what you were before," said George. "Good hunting,
Leon, and my respectful salutations to Amelia Jones!"

Gonsalez was biting his lips thoughtfully and looking into the fire and
now he nodded.

"Poor Amelia Jones?" he said softly.

"You're a wonderful fellow," smiled Manfred, "only you could invest a
charwoman of middle age with the glamour of romance."

Leon was helping himself into a threadbare overcoat.

"There was an English poet once--it was Pope, I think--who said that
everybody was romantic who admired a fine thing, or did one. I rather
think Amelia Jones has done both."

The "Cow and Compasses" is a small public-house in Treet Road, Deptford.
The gloomy thoroughfare was well-nigh empty, for it was a grey cold
night when Leon turned into the bar. The uninviting weather may have
been responsible for the paucity of clients that evening, for there were
scarcely half a dozen people on the sanded floor when he made his way to
the bar and ordered a claret and soda.

One who had been watching for him started up from the deal form on which
she had been sitting and subsided again when he walked toward her with
glass in hand.

"Well, Mrs. Jones," he greeted her, "and how are you this evening?"

She was a stout woman with a white worn face and hands that trembled
spasmodically.

"I am glad you've come, sir," she said.

She held a little glass of port in her hand, but it was barely touched.
It was on one desperate night when in an agony of terror and fear this
woman had fled from her lonely home to the light and comfort of the
public-house that Leon had met her. He was at the time pursuing with the
greatest caution a fascinating skull which he had seen on the broad
shoulders of a Covent Garden porter. He had tracked the owner to his
home and to his place of recreation and was beginning to work up to his
objective, which was to secure the history and the measurements of this
unimaginative bearer of fruit, when the stout charwoman had drifted into
his orbit. To-night she evidently had something on her mind of unusual
importance, for she made three lame beginnings before she plunged into
the matter which was agitating her.

"Mr. Lucas" (this was the name Gonsalez had given to the habitues of the
"Cow and Compasses"), "I want to ask you a great favour. You've been
very kind to me, giving me advice about my husband, and all that. But
this is a big favour and you're a very busy gentleman, too."

She looked at him appe