(1929) The Three Just Men (36 page)

Meadows had gone away to telephone to police headquarters. He had decided to re-establish telephone connection with the doctor, and when this was done, he called the house and Oberzohn’s voice answered him.

The colloquy was short and unsatisfactory. The terms which the doctor offered were such as no self-respecting Government could accept. Immunity for himself and his companions (he insisted so strongly upon this latter offer that Meadows guessed, accurately, that the gang were standing around the instrument).

“I don’t want your men at all. So far as I am concerned, they can go free,” said Meadows. “Ask one of them to speak on the ‘phone.”

“Oh, indeed, no,” said Oberzohn. “It is ridiculous to ask me that.”

He hung up at this point and explained to the listening men that the police had offered him freedom if he would surrender the gang.

“As I already told you,” he said in conclusion, “that is not the way of Dr. Oberzohn. I will gain nothing at the expense of my friends.”

A little later, when Cuccini crept into the room to call police headquarters and confirm this story of the doctor, he found that not only had the wire been cut, but a yard of the flex had been removed. Dr. Oberzohn was taking no risks.

The night passed without any further incident. Police reserves were pouring into the neighbourhood; the grounds had been isolated, and even the traffic of barges up and down the canal prohibited. The late editions of the morning newspapers had a heavily head-lined paragraph about the siege of a house in the New Cross area, and when the first reporters arrived a fringe of sightseers had already gathered at every police barrier. Later, special editions, with fuller details, begun to roll out of Fleet Street; the crowd grew in density, and a high official from Scotland Yard, arriving soon after nine, ordered a further area to be cleared, and with some difficulty the solid wedge of humanity at the end of Hangman’s Lane was slowly pushed back until the house was invisible to them. Even here, a passageway was kept for police cars and only holders of passes were allowed to come within the prohibited area.

The three men, with the police chief, had taken up their headquarters in the factory, from which the body of Gurther had been removed in the night. The Deputy Commissioner, who came on the spot at nine and examined the dead snakes, was something of a herpetologist, and pronounced them to be veritable fers-de-lance, a view from which Poiccart differed.

“They are a species of African tree snakes that the natives call mamba. There are two, a black and a green. Both of these are the black type.”

“The Zoo mamba?” said the official, remembering the sensational disappearance of a deadly snake which had preceded the first of the snake mysteries.

“You will probably find the bones of the Zoo mamba in some mole run in Regent’s Park—he must have been frozen to death the night of his escape,” said Poiccart. “It was absolutely impossible that at that temperature he could live. I have made a very careful inspection of the land, and adjacent to the Zoological Gardens is a big stretch of earth which is honeycombed by moles. No, this was imported, and the rest of his menagerie was imported.”

The police chief shook his head.

“Still, I’m not convinced that a snake could have been responsible for these deaths,” he said, and went over the ground so often covered.

The three listened in polite silence, and offered no suggestion.

The morning brought news of Washington’s arrival in Lisbon. He had left the train at Irun, Leon’s agent in Madrid having secured a relay of aeroplanes, and the journey from Irun to Lisbon had been completed in a few hours. He was now on his way back.

“If he makes the connections he will be here tonight,” he told Manfred. “I rather think he will be a very useful recruit to our forces.”

“You’re thinking of the snakes in the house?”

Leon nodded.

“I know Oberzohn,” he said simply, and George Manfred thought of the girl, and knew the unspoken fears of his friend were justified.

The night had not been an idle one for Oberzohn and his companions. With the first light of dawn they had mounted to the roof, and, under his direction, the gunmen had dismantled the four sheds which stood at each corner of the parapet. Unused to the handling of such heavy metal, the remnants of the Old Guard gazed in awe upon the tarnished jackets of the Maxim guns that were revealed.

Oberzohn understood the mechanism of the machines so thoroughly that in half an hour he had taught his crew the method of handling and sighting. In the larger shed was a collapsible tripod, which was put together, and on this he mounted a small but powerful searchlight and connected it up with one of the plugs in the roof.

He pointed to them the three approaches to the house: the open railway arches and the long lane, at the end of which the crowd at that moment was beginning to gather.

“From only these places can the ground be approached,” he said, “and my little quick-firers cover them!”

Just before eleven there came down Hangman’s Lane, drawn by a motor tractor, a long tree-trunk, suspended about the middle by chains, and Oberzohn, examining it carefully through his field-glasses, realized that no door in the world could stand against the attack of that battering-ram. He took up one of the dozen rifles that lay on the floor, sighted it carefully, resting his elbow on the parapet, and fired.

He saw the helmet of a policeman shoot away from the head of the astonished man, and fired again. This time he was more successful, for a policeman who was directing the course of the tractor crumpled up and fell in a heap.

A shrill whistle blew; the policemen ran to cover, leaving the machine unattended. Again he fired, this time at the driver of the tractor. He saw the man scramble down from his seat and run for the shelter of the fence.

A quarter of an hour passed without any sign of activity on the part of his enemies, and then eight men, armed with rifles, came racing across the ground towards the wire barrier. Oberzohn dropped his rifle, and, taking a grip of the first machine-gun in his hand, sighted it quickly. The staccato patter of the Maxim awakened the echoes. One man dropped; the line wavered. Again the shrill whistle, and they broke for cover, dragging their wounded companion with them.

“I was afraid of that,” said Leon, biting his knuckles—sure evidence of his perturbation.

He had put a ladder against the wall of the factory, and now he climbed up on to the shaky roof and focussed his glasses.

“There’s another Maxim on this side,” he shouted down. And then, as he saw a man’s head moving above the parapet, he jerked up his pistol and fired. He saw the stone splinters fly up and knew that it was not bad practice at four hundred yards. The shot had a double effect; it made the defenders cautious and aroused in them the necessary quantity of resentment.

He was hardly down before there was a splutter from the roof, and the whine and snap of machine-gun bullets; one slate tile shivered and its splinters leapt high in the air and dropped beside his hand.

The presence of the girl was the only complication. Without her, the end of Oberzohn and his companions was inevitable. Nobody realized this better than the doctor, eating a huge ham sandwich in the shelter of the parapet—an unusual luxury, for he ate few solids.

“This will be very shocking for our friends of Curzon Street,” he said. “At this moment they bite their hands in despair.” (He was nearly right here.)

He peeped over the parapet. There was no policeman in sight. Even the trains that had roared at regular intervals along the viaduct had ceased to run, traffic being diverted to another route.

At half-past twelve, looking through a peep-hole, he saw a long yellow line of men coming down Hangman’s Lane, keeping to the shelter of the fence.

“Soldiers,” he said, and for a second his voice quavered.

Soldiers they were. Presently they began to trickle into the grounds, one by one, each man finding his own cover. Simultaneously there came a flash and a crack from the nearest viaduct. A bullet smacked against the parapet and the sound of the ricochet was like the hum of a bee.

Another menace had appeared simultaneously; a great, lumbering, awkward vehicle, that kept to the middle of the lane and turned its ungainly nose into the field. It was a tank, and Oberzohn knew that only the girl’s safety stood between him and the dangling noose.

He went down to see her, unlocked the door, and found her, to his amazement, fast asleep. She got up at the sound of the key in the lock, and accepted the bread and meat and water he brought her without a word.

“What time is it?”

Oberzohn stared at her.

“That you should ask the time at such a moment!” he said.

The room was in darkness but for the light he had switched on.

“It is noon, and our friends have brought soldiers. Ach! how important a woman you are, that the whole army should come out for you!”

Sarcasm was wasted on Mirabelle.

“What is going to happen—now?”

“I do not know.” He shrugged his shoulders. “They have brought a diabolical instrument into the grounds. They may use it, to give them cover, so that the door may be blown in. At that moment I place you in the snake-room. This I shall tell our friends very quickly.”

She gazed at him in horror.

“You wouldn’t do anything so wicked, Mr. Oberzohn!”

Up and down went the skin of his forehead.

“That I shall tell them and that I shall do,” he said, and locked her in with this comfortless assurance.

He went into his study and, fastening the door, took two strands of wire from his pocket and repaired the broken telephone connections.

“I wish to speak to Meadows,” he said to the man who answered him—a police officer who had been stationed at the exchange to answer any call from this connection.

“I will put you through to him,” was the reply.

For a moment the doctor was surprised that Meadows was not at the exchange. He did not know then that a field telephone line had been organized, and that the factory headquarters of the directing staff was in communication with the world.

It was not Meadows, but another man who answered him, and by his tone of authority Oberzohn guessed that some higher police official than Meadows was on the spot.

“I am the doctor Oberzohn,” he barked. “You have brought a tank machine to attack me. If this approaches beyond the wire fence, I shall place the woman Leicester in the home of the snakes, and there I will bind her and release my little friends to avenge me.”

“Look here—” began the officer, but Oberzohn hung up on him.

He went out and locked the door, putting the key in his pocket. His one doubt was of the loyalty of his companions. But here, strangely enough, he underrated their faith in him. The very mildness of the attack, the seeming reluctance of the soldiers to fire, had raised their hopes and spirits; and when, a quarter of an hour later, they saw the tank turn and go out into Hangman’s Lane, they were almost jubilant.

“You’re sure that he will carry out his threat?” asked the police chief.

“Certain,” said Leon emphatically. “There is nothing on earth that will stop Oberzohn. You will force the house to find a man who has died by his own hand, and—” He shuddered at the thought. “The only thing to be done is to wait for the night. If Washington arrives on time, I think we can save Miss Leicester.”

From the roof Dr. Oberzohn saw that the soldiers were digging a line of trenches, and sent a spatter of machine-gun bullets in their direction. They stopped their work for a moment to look round, and then went on digging, as though nothing had happened.

The supply of ammunition was not inexhaustible, and he determined to reserve any further fire until the attack grew more active. Looking over the top of the parapet to examine the ground immediately below, something hot and vicious snicked his ear. He saw the brickwork of the chimney behind him crumble and scatter, and, putting up his hand, felt blood.

“You’d better keep down, Oberzohn,” said Cuccini, crouching in the shelter of the parapet. “They nearly got you then. They’re firing from that railway embankment. Have you had a talk with the boss of these birds?”

“They are weakening,” said Oberzohn promptly. “Always they are asking me if I will surrender the men; always I reply, ‘Never will I do anything so dishonourable.’”

Cuccini grunted, having his own views of the doctor’s altruism.

Late in the afternoon, a flight of aeroplanes appeared in, the west: five machines flying in V formation. None of the men on the roof recognized the danger, standing rather in the attitude and spirit of sightseers. The machines were flying low; with the naked eye Cuccini could read their numbers long before they came within a hundred yards of the house. Suddenly the roof began to spout little fountains of asphalt. Oberzohn screamed a warning and darted to the stairway, and three men followed him out. Cuccini lay spread-eagled where he fell, two machine-gun bullets through his head.

The fighting machines mounted, turned and came back. Standing on the floor below, Oberzohn heard the roar of their engines as they passed, and went incautiously to the roof, to discover that the guns of flying machines fire equally well from the tail. He was nearer to death then than he had ever been. One bullet hit the tip of his finger and sliced it off neatly. With a scream of pain he half fell, half staggered to safety, spluttering strange oaths in German.