(1929) The Three Just Men (22 page)

“God have him in His keeping!” said Gurther, not lowering or raising his eyes. “And all the way back I thought this, Herr Doktor—how much better that it should be Pfeiffer and not me. Though my nerves are so bad.”

“So!” said the doctor for the fourth time, and held out his hand.

Gurther slipped his fingers into his waistcoat pocket and took out a gold cigarette-case. The doctor opened it and looked at the five cigarettes that reposed, at the two halves of the long holder neatly lying in their proper place, closed the case with a snap and laid it on the table.

“What shall I do with you, Gurther? Tomorrow the police will come and search this house.”

“There is the cellar, Herr Doktor: it is very comfortable there. I would prefer it.”

GURTHER REPORTS 147

Dr. Oberzohn made a gesture like a boy wiping something from a slate.

“That is not possible: it is in occupation,” he said. “I must find a new place for you.” He stared and mused. “There is the boat,” he said.

Gurther’s smile did not fade.

The boat was a small barge, which had been drawn up into the private dock of the O. & S. factory, and had been rotting there for years, the playing-ground of rats, the doss-house of the homeless. The doctor saw what was in the man’s mind.

“It may be comfortable. I will give you some gas to kill the rats, and it will only be for five-six days.”

“Ja, Herr Doktor.”

“For to-night you may sleep in the kitchen. One does not expect—”

There was a thunderous knock on the outer door. The two men looked at one another, but still Gurther grinned.

“I think it is the police,” said the doctor calmly.

He got to his feet, lifted the seat of a long hard-looking sofa, disclosing a deep cavity, and Gurther slipped in, and the seat was replaced. This done, the doctor waddled to the door and turned the key.

“Good morning, Inspector Meadows,”

“May I come in?” said Meadows.

Behind him were two police officers, one in uniform.

“Do you wish to see me? Certainly.” He held the door cautiously open and only Meadows came in, and preceded the doctor into his study.

“I want Mirabelle Leicester,” said Meadows curtly. “She was abducted from her home in the early hours of this morning, and I have information that the car which took her away came to this house. There are tracks of wheels in the mud outside.”

“If there are car tracks, they are mine,” said the doctor calmly. He enumerated the makes of machines he possessed. “There is another matter: as to cars having come here in the night, I have a sense of hearing, Mr. Inspector Meadows, and I have heard many cars in Hangman’s Lane—but not in my ground. Also, I’m sure you have not come to tell me of abducted girls, but to disclose to me the miscreant who burnt my store. That is what I expected of you.”

“What you expect of me and what you will get will be entirely different propositions,” said Meadows unpleasantly. “Now come across, Oberzohn! We know why you want this girl—the whole plot has been blown. You think you’ll prevent her from making a claim on the Portuguese Government for the renewal of a concession granted in June, 1912, to her father.”

If Dr. Oberzohn was shocked to learn that his secret was out, he did not show it by his face. Not a muscle moved.

“Of such matters I know nothing. It is a fantasy, a story of fairies. Yet it must be true, Mr. Inspector Meadows, if you say it. No: I think you are deceived by the criminals of Curzon Street, W. Men of blood and murder, with records that are infamous. You desire to search my house? It is your privilege.” He waved his hand. “I do not ask you for the ticket of search. From basement to attic the house is yours.”

He was not surprised when Meadows took him at his word, and, going out into the hall, summoned his assistants. They visited each room separately, the old cook and the half-witted Danish girl accepting this visitation as a normal occurrence: they had every excuse to do so, for this was the second time in a fortnight that the house had been visited by the police.

“Now I’ll take a look at your room, if you don’t mind,” said Meadows.

His quick eyes caught sight of the box ottoman against the wall, and the fact that the doctor was sitting thereon added to his suspicions.

“I will look in here, if you please,” he said.

Oberzohn rose and the detective lifted the lid. It was empty. The ottoman had been placed against the wall, at the bottom of which was a deep recess. Gurther had long since rolled through the false back.

“You see—nothing,” said Oberzohn. “Now perhaps you would like to search my factory? Perhaps amongst the rafters and the burnt girders I may conceal a something. Or the barge in my slipway? Who knows what I may place amongst the rats?”

“You’re almost clever,” said Meadows, “and I don’t profess to be a match for you. But there are three men in this town who are! I’ll be frank with you, Oberzohn. I want to put you where I can give you a fair trial, in accordance with the law of this country, and I shall resist, to the best of my ability, any man taking the law into his own hands. But whether you’re innocent or guilty, I wouldn’t stand in your shoes for all the money in Angola!”

“So?” said the doctor politely.

“Give up this girl, and I rather fancy that half your danger will be at an end. I tell you, you’re too clever for me. It’s a stupid thing for a police officer to say, but I can’t get at the bottom of your snake. They have.”

The old man’s brows worked up and down.

“Indeed?” he said blandly. “And of which snake do you speak?”

Meadows said nothing more. He had given his warning: if Oberzohn did not profit thereby, he would be the loser.

Nobody doubted, least of all he, that, in defiance of all laws that man had made, independent of all the machinery of justice that human ingenuity had devised, inevitable punishment awaited Oberzohn and was near at hand.

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE - THE ACCOUNT BOOK

IT was five o’clock in the morning when the mud-spattered Spanz dropped down through the mist and driving rain of the Chiltern Hills and struck the main Gloucester Road, pulling up with a jerk before Heavytree Farm. Manfred sprang out, but before he could reach the door, Aunt Alma had opened it, and by the look of her face he saw that she had not slept that night.

“Where is Digby?” he asked.

“He’s gone to interview the Chief Constable,” said Alma. “Come in, Mr. Gonsalez.”

Leon was wet from head to foot: there was not a dry square centimetre upon him. But he was his old cheerful self as he stamped into the hall, shaking himself free of his heavy mackintosh.

“Digby, of course, heard nothing, George.”

“I’m the lightest sleeper in the world,” said Aunt Alma, “but I heard not a sound. The first thing I knew was when a policeman came up and knocked at my door and told me that he’d found the front door open.”

“No clue was left at all?”

“Yes,” said Aunt Alma. They went into the drawing-room and she took up from the table a small black bottle with a tube and cap attached. “I found this behind the sofa. She’d been lying on the sofa; the cushions were thrown on the floor and she tore the tapestry in her struggle.”

Leon turned the faucet, and, as the gas hissed out, sniffed.

“The new dental gas,” he said. “But how did they get in? No window was open or forced?”

“They came in at the door: I’m sure of that. And they had a woman with them,” said Aunt Alma proudly.

“How do you know?”

“There must have been a woman,” said Aunt Alma. “Mirabelle would not have opened the door except to a woman, without waking either myself or Mr. Digby.”

Leon nodded, his eyes gleaming.

“Obviously,” he said.

“And I found the marks of a woman’s foot in the passage. It is dried now, but you can still see it.”

“I have already seen it,” said Leon. “It is to the left of the door: a small pointed shoe and a rubber heel. Miss Leicester opened the door to the woman, the men came in, and the rest was easy. You can’t blame Digby,” he said appealingly to George.

He was the friend at court of every agent, but this time Manfred did not argue with him.

“I blame myself,” he said. “Poiccart told me—”

“He was here,” said Aunt Alma.

“Who—Poiccart? asked Manfred, surprised, and Gonsalez slapped his knee.

“That’s it, of course! What fools we are! We ought to have known why this wily old fox had left his post. What time was he here?”

Alma told him all the circumstances of the visit.

“He must have left the house immediately after us,” said Leon, with a wide grin of amusement, “caught the five o’clock train for Gloucester, taxied across.”

“And after that?” suggested Manfred.

Leon scratched his chin.

“I wonder if he’s back?” He took up the telephone and put a trunk call through to London. “Somehow I don’t think he is. Here’s Digby, looking as if he expected to be summarily executed.”

The police pensioner was indeed in a mournful and pathetic mood.

“I don’t know what you’ll think of me, Mr. Manfred—” he began.

“I’ve already expressed a view on that subject.” George smiled faintly. “I’m not blaming you, Digby. To leave a man who has been knocked about as you have been without an opposite number was the height of folly. I didn’t expect them back so soon. As a matter of fact, I intended putting four men on from to-day. You’ve been making inquiries?”

“Yes, sir. The car went through Gloucester very early in the morning and took the Swindon road. It was seen by a cyclist policeman; he said there was a fat roll of tarpaulin lying on the tent of the trolley.”

“No sign of anybody chasing it in a car, or on a motor-bicycle?” asked Manfred anxiously.

Poiccart had recently taken to motor-cycling.

“No, sir.”

“You saw Mr. Poiccart?”

“Yes, he was just going back to London. He said he wanted to see the place with his own eyes.”

George was disappointed. If it had been a visit of curiosity, Poiccart’s absence from town was understandable. He would not have returned at the hour he was rung up.

Aunt Alma was cooking a hasty breakfast, and they had accepted her offering gratefully, for both men were famished; and they were in the midst of the meal when the London call came through.

“Is that you, Poiccart?”

“That is I,” said Poiccart’s voice. “Where are you speaking from?”

“Heavytree Farm. Did you see anything of Miss Leicester?”

There was a pause.

“Has she gone?”

“You didn’t know?”

Another pause.

“Oh, yes, I knew; in fact, I accompanied her part of the way to London, and was bumped off when the trolley struck a refuge on the Great West Road. Meadows is here: he has just come from Oberzohn’s. He says he has found nothing.”

Manfred thought for a while.

“We will be back soon after nine,” he said.

“Leon driving you?” was the dry response.

“Yes—in spite of which we shall be back at nine.”

“That man has got a grudge against my driving,” said Leon, when Manfred reported the conversation. “I knew it was he when Digby described the car and said there was a fat roll of mackintosh on the top. ‘Fat roll’ is not a bad description. Do you know whether Poiccart spoke to Miss Leicester?”

“Yes, he asked her if she grew onions.”—a reply which sent Leon into fits of silent laughter.

Breakfast was over and they were making their preparations for departure, when Leon asked unexpectedly: “Has Miss Leicester a writing-table of her own?”

“Yes, in her room,” said Alma, and took him up to show him the old bureau.

He opened the drawers without apology, took out some old letters, turned them over, reading them shamelessly. Then he opened the blotter. There were several sheets of blank paper headed “Heavytree Farm,” and two which bore her signature at the bottom. Alma explained that the bank account of the establishment was in Mirabelle’s name, and, when it was necessary to draw cash, it was a rule of the bank that it should be accompanied by a covering letter—a practice which still exists in some of the old West-country banking establishments. She unlocked a drawer that he had not been able to open and showed him a cheque-book with three blank cheques signed with her name.

“That banker has known me since I was so high,” said Alma scornfully. “You wouldn’t think there’d be so much red-tape.”

Leon nodded.

“Do you keep any account books?”

“Yes, I do,” said Alma in surprise. “The household accounts, you mean?”

“Could I see one?”

She went out and returned with a thin ledger, and he made a brief examination of its contents. Wholly inadequate, thought Alma, considering the trouble she had taken and the interest he had shown.

“That’s that,” he said. “Now, George, en voiture!”

“Why did you want to see the account book?” asked Manfred as they bowled up the road.

“I am naturally commercial-minded,” was the unsatisfactory reply. “And, George, we’re short of juice. Pray like a knight in armour that we sight a filling station in the next ten minutes.”