(1929) The Three Just Men (11 page)

“Good morning, Herr Doktor.”

Oberzohn went up to the factory level, dropped the trap and his foot pushed back the ashes which hid its presence, and with a cautious look round he crossed the field to his house. He was hardly in his study before the first police car came bumping along the lane.

CHAPTER TWELVE - LEON THEORIZES

MAKING inquiries, Detective-Inspector Meadows discovered that, on the previous evening at eight o’clock, two men had called upon Barberton. The first of these was described as tall and rather aristocratic in appearance. He wore dark, horn-rimmed spectacles. The hotel manager thought he might have been an invalid, for he walked with a stick. The second man seemed to have been a servant of some kind, for he spoke respectfully to the visitor.

“No, he gave no name, Mr. Meadows,” said the manager. “I told him of the terrible thing which had happened to Mr. Barberton, and he was so upset that I didn’t like to press the question.”

Meadows was on his circuitous way to Curzon Street when he heard this, and he arrived in time for breakfast. Manfred’s servants regarded it as the one eccentricity of an otherwise normal gentleman that he invariably breakfasted with his butler and chauffeur. This matter had been discussed threadbare in the tiny servants’ hall, and it no longer excited comment when Manfred telephoned down to the lower regions and asked for another plate.

The Triangle were in cheerful mood. Leon Gonsalez was especially bright and amusing, as he invariably was after such a night as he had spent.

“We searched Oberzohn’s house from cellar to attic,” said Meadows when the plate had been laid.

“And of course you found nothing. The elegant Gurther?”

“He wasn’t there. That fellow will keep at a distance if he knows that there’s a warrant out for him. I suspect some sort of signal. There was a very bright green light burning in one of those ridiculous Gothic turrets.” Manfred stifled a yawn.

“Gurther went back soon after midnight,” he said, “and was there until Oberzohn’s return.”

“Are you sure?” asked the astonished detective.

Leon nodded, his eyes twinkling.

“After that, one of those infernal river mists blotted out observation,” he said, “but I should imagine Herr Gurther is not far away. Did you see his companion, Pfeiffer?”

Meadows nodded. “Yes, he was cleaning boots when I arrived.”

“How picturesque!” said Gonzalez. “I think he will have a valet the next time be goes to prison, unless the system has altered since your days, George?”

George Manfred, who had once occupied the condemned cell in Chelmsford Prison, smiled.

“An interesting man, Gurther,” mused Gonsalez. “I have a feeling that he will escape hanging. So you could not find him? I found him last night. But for the lady, who was both an impediment and an interest, we might have put a period to his activities.” He caught Meadows’ eye. “I should have handed him to you, of course.”

“Of course,” said the detective dryly.

“A remarkable man, but nervous. You are going to see Mr. Johnson Lee?”

“What made you say that?” asked the detective in astonishment, for he had not as yet confided his intention to the three men.

“He will surprise you,” said Leon. “Tell me, Mr. Meadows: when you and George so thoroughly and carefully searched Barberton’s box, did you find anything that was suggestive of his being a cobbler, let us say—or a bookbinder?”

“I think in his sister’s letter there was a reference to the books he had made. I found nothing particular except an awl and a long oblong of wood which was covered with pinpricks. As a matter of fact, when I saw it my first thought was that, living the kind of life he must have done in the wilderness, it was rather handy to be able to repair his own shoes. The idea of bookbinding is a new one.”

“I should say he never bound a book in his life, in the ordinary sense of the word,” remarked Manfred; “and as Leon says, you will find Johnson Lee a very surprising man.”

“Do you know him?”

Manfred nodded gravely.

“I have just been on the telephone to him,” he said. “You’ll have to be careful of Mr. Lee Meadows. Our friend the snake may be biting his way, and will, if he hears a breath of suspicion that he was in Barberton’s confidence.”

The detective put down his knife and fork.

“I wish you fellows would stop being mysterious,” he said, half annoyed, half amused. “What is behind this business? You talk of the snake as though you could lay your hands on him.”

“And we could,” they said in unison.

“Who is he?” challenged the detective.

“The Herr Doktor,” smiled Gonsalez.

“Oberzohn?”

Leon nodded.

“I thought you would have discovered that by connecting the original three murders together—and murders they were. First”—he ticked the names off on his fingers—“we have a stockbroker. This gentleman was a wealthy speculator who occasionally financed highly questionable deals. Six months before his death he drew from the bank a very large sum of money in notes. By an odd coincidence the bank clerk, going out to luncheon, saw his client and Oberzohn driving past in a taxicab, and as they came abreast he saw a large blue envelope go into Oberzohn’s pocket. The money had been put into a blue envelope when it was drawn. The broker had financed the doctor, and when the scheme failed and the money was lost, he not unnaturally asked for its return. He trusted Oberzohn not at all; carried his receipt about in his pocket, and never went anywhere unless he was armed—that fact did not emerge at the inquest, but you know it is true.”

Meadows nodded.

“He threatened Oberzohn with exposure at a meeting they had in Winchester Street, on the day of his death. That night he returns from a theatre or from his club, and is found dead on the doorstep. No receipt is found. What follows?

“A man, a notorious blackmailer, homeless and penniless, was walking along the Bayswater Road, probably looking for easy money, when he saw the broker’s car going into Orme Place. He followed on the off-chance of begging a few coppers. The chauffeur saw him. The tramp, on the other hand, must have seen something else. He slept the next night at Rowton House, told a friend, who had been in prison with him, that he had a million pounds as good as in his hand…”

Meadows laughed helplessly.

“Your system of investigation is evidently more thorough than ours!”

“It is complementary to yours,” said George quietly. “Go on, Leon.”

“Now what happened to our friend the burglar? He evidently saw somebody in Orme Place whom he either recognized or trailed to his home. For the next day or two he was in and out of public telephone booths, though no number has been traced. He goes to Hyde Park, obviously by appointment—and the snake bites!

“There was another danger to the confederacy. The bank clerk, learning of the death of the client, is troubled. I have proof that he called Oberzohn on the ‘phone. If you remember, when the broker’s affairs were gone into, it was found that he was almost insolvent. A large sum of money had been drawn out of the bank and paid to ‘X.’ The certainty that he knew who ‘X’ was worried this decent bank clerk, and he called Oberzohn, probably to ask him why he had not made a statement. On the day he telephoned the snake man, that day he died.”

The detective was listening in silent wonder. “It sounds like a page out of a sensational novel,” he said, “yet it hangs together.”

“It hangs together because it is true.” Poiccart’s deep voice broke into the conversation. “This has been Oberzohn’s method all his life. He is strong for logic, and there is no more logical action in the world than the destruction of those who threaten your safety and life.”

Meadows pushed away his plate, his breakfast half eaten. “Proof,” he said briefly.

“What proof can you have, my dear fellow?” scoffed Leon.

“The proof is the snake,” persisted Meadows. “Show me how he could educate a deadly snake to strike, as he did, when the victim was under close observation, as in the case of Barberton, and I will believe you.”

The Three looked at one another and smiled together. “One of these days I will show you,” said Leon. “They have certainly tamed their snake! He can move so quickly that the human eye cannot follow him. Always he bites on the most vital part, and al the most favourable time. He struck at me last night, but missed me. The next time he strikes”—he was speaking slowly and looking at the detective through the veriest slits of his half-closed eyelids—“the next time he strikes, not all Scotland Yard on the one side, nor his agreeable company of gunmen on the other, will save him!”

Poiccart rose suddenly. His keen ears had heard the ring of a bell, and he went noiselessly down the stairs.

“The whole thing sounds like a romance to me.” Meadows was rubbing his chin irritably. “I am staring at the covers of a book whilst you are reading the pages. I suppose you devils; have the A and Z of the story?” Leon nodded. “Why don’t you tell me?”

“Because I value your life,” said Leon simply. “Because I wish—we all wish—to keep the snake’s attention upon ourselves.”

Poiccart came back at that moment and put his head in the door.

“Would you like to see Mr. Elijah Washington?” he asked, and they saw by the gleam in his eyes that Mr. Elijah Washington was well worth meeting.

He arrived a second or two later, a tall, broad-shouldered man with a reddish face. He wore pince-nez, and behind the rimless glasses his eyes were alive and full of bubbling laughter. From head to foot he was dressed in white; the cravat which flowed over the soft silk shirt was a bright yellow; the belt about his waist as bright as scarlet.

He stood beaming upon the company, his white panama crushed under his arm, both huge hands thrust into his trousers pockets.

“Glad to know you folks,” he greeted them in a deep boom of a voice. “I guess Mr. Barberton told you all about me. That poor little guy! Listen: he was a he-man all right, but kinder mysterious. They told me I’d find the police chief here—Captain Meadows?”

“Mister,” said the inspector, “I’m that man.”

Washington put out his huge paw and caught the detective’s hand with a grip that would have been notable in a boa constrictor.

“Glad to know you! My name is Elijah Washington—the Natural History Syndicate, Chicago.”

“Sit down Mr. Washington.” Poiccart pushed forward a chair.

“I want to tell you gentleman that this Barberton was murdered. Snake? Listen, I know snakes—brought up with ‘um! Snakes are my hobby: I know ‘um from egg-eaters to ‘tigers’—notechis sentatus, moccasins, copperheads, corals mamba, fer de lance—gosh! snakes are just common objects like flies. An’ I tell you boys right here and now, that there ain’t a snake in this or the next world that can climb up a parapet, bite a man and get away with it with a copper looking on.”

He beamed from one to the other: he was almost paternal.

“I’d like to have shown you folks a worse-than-mamba,” he said regretfully, “but carrying round snakes in your pocket is just hot dog: it’s like a millionaire wearin’ diamond ear-rings just to show he can afford ‘em. I liked that little fellow; I’m mighty sorry he’s dead, but if any man tells you that a snake bit him, go right up to him, hit him on the nose, and say ‘Liar!’”

“You will have some coffee?” Manfred had rung the bell.

“Sure I will: never have got used to this tea-drinking habit. I’m on the wagon too: got scared up there in the back-lands of Angola—”

“What were you doing there?” asked Leon.

“Snakes,” said the other briefly. “I represent an organization that supplies specimens to zoos and museums. I was looking for a flying snake—there ain’t such a thing, though the natives say there is. I got a new kinder cobra—viperidae crotalinae—and yet not!”

He scratched his head, bringing his scientific perplexity into the room. Leon’s heart went out to him.

He had met Barberton by accident. Without shame he confessed that he had gone to a village in the interior for a real solitary jag, and returning to such degree of civilization as Mossamedes represented, he found a group of Portuguese breeds squatting about a fire at which the man’s feet were toasting.

“I don’t know what he was—a prospector, I guess. He was one of those what-is-its you meet along that coast. I’ve met his kind most everywhere—as far south as Port Nottosh. In Angola there are scores: they go native at the end.”

“You can tell us nothing about Barberton?”

Mr. Elijah Washington shook his head.

“No, sir: I know him same as I might know you. It got me curious when I found out the why of the torturing: he wouldn’t tell where it was.”

“Where what was?” asked Manfred quickly, and Washington was surprised.

“Why, the writing they wanted to get. I thought maybe he’d told you. He said he was coming right along to spill all that part of it. It was a letter he’d found in a tin box—that was all he’d say.”

They looked at one another.

“I know no more about it than that,” Mr. Washington added, when he saw Gonsalez’ lips move. “It was just a letter. Who it was from, why, what it was about, he never told me. My first idea was that he’d been flirting round about here, but divorce laws are mighty generous and they wouldn’t trouble to get evidence that way. A man doesn’t want any documents to get rid of his wife. I dare say you folks wonder why I’ve come along.” Mr. Washington raised his steaming cup of coffee, which must have been nearly boiling, and drank it at one gulp. “That’s fine,” he said, “the nearest to coffee I’ve had since I left home.”