(1929) The Three Just Men (10 page)

“I think you’ll just miss the real excitement,” said Gonsalez, and then to the nurse he gave a few words of instruction and closed the door on her.

“Take the direct road,” he said to the driver. “Swindon—Gloucester. Good night.”

“Good night, sir.”

He watched anxiously as the machine swung into the main road. Still he waited, his head bent. Two minutes went by, and the faint sound of a motor-horn, a long blast and a short, and he sighed.

“They’re clear of the danger zone,” he said.

Plop!

He saw the flash, heard the smack of the bullet as it struck the door, and his hand stiffened. There was a thudding sound—a scream of pain from a dark corner of the mews and the sound of voices. Leon drew back into the yard and bolted the door.

“He had a new kind of silencer. Oberzohn is rather a clever old bird. But my air pistol against their gun for noiselessness.”

“I didn’t expect the attack from that end of the mews.” Manfred was slipping a Browning back to his pocket.

“If they had come from the other end the car would not have passed—I’d like to get one of those silencers.”

They went into the house. Poiccart had already extinguished the passage light.

“You hit your man—does that thing kill?”

“By accident—it is possible. I aimed at his stomach: I fear that I hit him in the head. He would not have squealed for a stomach wound. I fear he is alive.”

He felt his way up the stairs and took up the telephone. Immediately a voice said, “Number?”

“Give me 8877 Treasury.”

He waited, and then a different voice asked: “Yes—Scotland Yard speaking.”

“Can you give me Mr. Meadows?”

Manfred was watching him frowningly.

“That you, Meadows?…They have shot Leon Gonsalez—can you send police reserves and an ambulance?”

“At once.”

Leon hung up the receiver, hugging himself. “The idea being—?” said Poiccart.

“These people are clever.” Leon’s voice was charged with admiration. “They haven’t cut the wires—they’ve simply tapped it at one end and thrown it out of order on the exchange side.”

“Phew!” Manfred whistled. “You deceived me—you were talking to Oberzohn?”

“Captain Monty and Lew Cuccini. They may or may not be deceived, but if they aren’t, we shall know all about it.”

He stopped dead. There was a knock on the front door, a single, heavy knock. Leon grinned delightedly.

“One of us is now supposed to open an upper window cautiously and look out, whereupon he is instantly gunned. I’m going to give these fellows a scare.”

He ran up the stairs to the top floor, and on the landing, outside an attic door, pulled at a rope. A fire ladder lying flat against the ceiling came down, and at the same time a small skylight opened. Leon went into the room, and his pocket-lamp located what he needed: a small papier-mache cylinder, not unlike a seven-pound shell. With this on his arm, he climbed up the ladder on to the roof, fixed the cylinder on a flat surface, and, striking a match, lit a touch-paper. The paper sizzled and spluttered, there was a sudden flash and “boom!” a dull explosion, and a white ball shot up into the sky, described a graceful curve and burst into a shower of brilliant crimson stars. He waited till the last died out; then, with the hot cylinder under his arm, descended the ladder, released the rope that held it in place, and returned to his two friends.

“They will imagine a secret arrangement of signals with the police,” he said; “unless my knowledge of their psychology is at fault, we shall not be bothered again.”

Ten minutes later there was another knock at the door, peremptory, almost official in its character.

“This,” said Leon, “is a policeman to summon us for discharging fireworks in the public street!”

He ran lightly down into the hall and without hesitation pulled open the door. A tall, helmeted figure stood on the doorstep, notebook in hand.

“Are you the gentleman that let off that rocket—” he began.

Leon walked past him, and looked up and down Curzon Street. As he had expected, the Old Guard had vanished.

CHAPTER ELEVEN - GURTHER

MONTY NEWTON dragged himself home, a weary angry man, and let himself in with his key. He found the footman lying on the floor of the hall asleep, his greatcoat pulled over him, and stirred him to wakefulness with the toe of his boot.

“Get up,” he growled. “Anybody been here?”

Fred rose, a little dazed, rubbing his eyes.

“The old man’s in the drawing-room,” he said, and his employer passed on without another word.

As he opened the door, he saw that all the lights in the drawing-room were lit Dr. Oberzohn had pulled a small table near the fire, and before this he sat bolt upright, a tiny chess-board before him; immersed in a problem. He looked across to the new-corner for a second and then resumed his study of the board, made a move…

“Ach!” he said in tones of satisfaction. “Leskina was wrong! It is possible to mate in five moves!”

He pushed the chessmen into confusion and turned squarely to face Newton.

“Well, have you concluded these matters satisfactorily?”

“He brought up the reserves,” said Monty, unlocking a tantalus on a side table and helping himself liberally to whisky. “They got Cuccini through the jaw. Nothing serious.”

Dr. Oberzohn laid his bony hands on his knees.

“Gurther must be disciplined,” he said. “Obviously he has lost his nerve; and when a man loses his nerve also he loses his sense of time. And his timing—how deplorable! The car had not arrived; my excellent police had not taken position…deplorable!”

“The police are after him: I suppose you know that?” Newton looked over his glass.

Dr. Oberzohn nodded.

“The extradition so cleverly avoided is now accomplished. But Gurther is too good a man to be lost. I have arranged a hiding-place for him. He is of many uses.”

“Where did he go?”

Dr. Oberzohn’s eyebrows wrinkled up and down.

“Who knows?” he said. “He has the little machine. Maybe he has gone to the house—the green light in the top window will warn him and he will move carefully.”

Newton walked to the window and looked out Chester Square looked ghostly in the grey light of dawn. And then, out of the shadows, he saw a figure move and walk slowly towards the south side of the square. “They’re watching this house,” he said, and laughed.

“Where is my young lady?” asked Oberzohn, who was staring glumly into the fire.

“I don’t know…there was a car pulled out of the mews as one of our men ‘closed’ the entrance. She has probably gone back to Heavytree Farm, and you can sell that laboratory of yours. There is only one way now, and that’s the rough way. We have time—we can do a lot in six weeks. Villa is coming this morning—I wish we’d taken that idol from the trunk. That may put the police on to the right track.”

Dr. Oberzohn pursed his lips as though he were going to whistle, but he was guilty of no such frivolity.

“I am glad they found him,” he said precisely. “To them it will be a scent. What shall they think, but that the unfortunate Barberton had come upon an old native treasure-house? No, I do not fear that” He shook his head. “Mostly I fear Mr. Johnson Lee and the American, Elijah Washington.”

He put his hand into his jacket pocket and took out a thin pad of letters. “Johnson Lee is for me difficult to understand. For what should a gentleman have to do with this boor that he writes so friendly letters to him?”

“How did you get these?”

“Villa took them: it was one of the intelligent actions also to leave the statue.”

He passed one of the letters across to Newton. It was addressed “Await arrival, Paste Restante, Mosamedes.” The letter was written in a curiously round, boyish hand. Another remarkable fact was that it was perforated across the page at regular intervals, and upon the lines formed by this perforation Mr. Johnson Lee wrote:

“Dear B.,” the letter ran, “I have instructed my bankers to cable you PS500. I hope this will carry you through and leave enough to pay your fare home. You may be sure that I shall not breathe a word, and your letters, of course, nobody in the house can read but me. Your story is amazing and I advise you to come home at once and see Miss Leicester.

“Your friend,

“JOHNSON LEE.”

The note-paper was headed “Rath Hall, January 13th.”

“They came to me to-day. If I had seen them before, there would have been no need for the regrettable happening.”

He looked thoughtfully at his friend. “They will be difficult: I had that expectation,” he said; and Monty knew that he referred to the Three Just Men. “Yet they are mortal also—remember that, my Newton: they are mortal also.”

“As we are,” said Newton gloomily

“That is a question,” said Oberzohn, “so far as I am concerned.”

Dr. Oberzohn never jested; he spoke with the greatest calm and assurance. The other man could only stare at him.

Although it was light, a green lamp showed clearly in the turret room of the doctor’s house as he came within sight of the ugly place. And, seeing that warning, he did not expect to be met in the passage by Gurther. The man had changed from his resplendent kit and was again in the soiled and shabby garments he had discarded the night before.

“You have come, Gurther?”

“Ja, Herr Doktor.”

“To my parlour!” barked Dr. Oberzohn, and marched ahead.

Gurther followed him and stood with his back to the door, erect, his chin raised, his bright, curious eyes fixed on a point a few inches above his master’s head.

“Tell me now.” The doctor’s ungainly face was working ludicrously.

“I saw the man and struck, Herr Doktor, and then the lights went out and I went to the floor, expecting him to shoot…I think he must have taken the gracious lady. I did not see, for there was a palm between us. I returned at once to the greater hall, and walked through the people on the floor. They were very frightened.”

“You saw them?”

“Yes, Herr Doktor,” said Gurther. “It is not difficult for me to see in the dark. After that I ran to the other entrance, but they were gone.”

“Come here.”

The man took two stilted paces towards the doctor and Oberzohn struck him twice in the face with the flat of his hand. Not a muscle of the man’s face moved: he stood erect, his lips framed in a half-grin, his curious eyes staring straight ahead.

“That is for bad time, Gurther. Nobody saw you return?”

“No, Herr Doktor, I came on foot.”

“You saw the light?”

“Yes, Herr Doktor, and I thought it best to be here.”

“You were right,” said Oberzohn. “March!”

He went into the forbidden room, turned the key, and passed into the super-heated atmosphere. Gurther stood attentively at the door. Presently the doctor came out, carrying a long case covered with baize under his arm. He handed it to the waiting man, went into the room, and, after a few minutes’ absence, returned with a second case, a little larger.

“March!” he said.