(1929) The Three Just Men (7 page)

CHAPTER SEVEN - “MORAL SUASION”

“THERE’S a man wants to see you, governor.”

It was a quarter-past nine. The girls had been gone ten minutes, and Montague Newton had settled himself down to pass the hours of waiting before he had to dress. He put down the patience cards he was shuffling.

“A man to see me? Who is he, Fred?”

“I don’t know: I’ve never seen him before. Looks to me like a ‘busy.’”

A detective! Monty’s eyebrows rose, but not in trepidation. He had met many detectives in the course of his chequered career and had long since lost his awe of them.

“Show him in,” he said with a nod.

The slim man in evening dress who came softly into the room was a stranger to Monty, who knew most of the prominent figures in the world of criminal detection. And yet his face was in some way familiar.

“Captain Newton?” he asked.

“That is my name.” Newton rose with a smile.

The visitor looked slowly round towards the door through which the footman had gone.

“Do your servants always listen at the keyhole?” he asked, in a quiet, measured tone, and Newton’s face went a dusky red. In two strides he was at the door and had flung it open, just in time to see the disappearing heels of the footman.

“Here, you!” He called the man back, a scowl on his face. “If you want to know anything, will you come in and ask?” he roared. “If I catch you listening at my door, I’ll murder you!”

The man with a muttered excuse made a hurried escape.

“How did you know?” growled Newton, as he came back into the room and slammed the door behind him.

“I have an instinct for espionage,” said the stranger, and went on, without a break: “I have called for Miss Mirabelle Leicester.”

Newton’s eyes narrowed.

“Oh, you have, have you?” he said softly. “Miss Leicester is not in the house. She left a quarter of an hour ago.”

“I did not see her come out of the house.”

“No, the fact is, she went out by way of the mews. My—er “—he was going to say “sister” but thought better of it—“my young friend—”

“Flash Jane Smith,” said the stranger. “Yes?”

Newton’s colour deepened. He was rapidly reaching the point when his sang-froid, nine-tenths of his moral assets, was in danger of deserting him.

“Who are you, anyway?” he asked.

The stranger wetted his lips with the tip of his tongue, a curiously irritating action of his, for some inexplicable reason.

“My name is Leon Gonsalez,” he said simply.

Instinctively the man drew back. Of course! Now he remembered, and the colour had left his cheeks, leaving him grey. With an effort he forced a smile.

“One of the redoubtable Four Just Men? What extraordinary birds you are!” he said. “I remember ten-fifteen years ago, being scared out of my life by the very mention of your name—you came to punish where the law failed, eh?”

“You must put that in your reminiscences,” said Leon gently. “For the moment I am not in an autobiographical mood.”

But Newton could not be silenced.

“I know a man”—he was speaking slowly, with quiet vehemence—“who will one day cause you a great deal of inconvenience, Mr. Leon Gonsalez: a man who never forgets you in his prayers. I won’t tell you who he is.”

“It is unnecessary. You are referring to the admirable Oberzohn. Did I not kill his brother…? Yes, I thought I was right. He was the man with the oxycephalic head and the queerly prognathic jaw. An interesting case: I would like to have had his measurements, but I was in rather a hurry.”

He spoke almost apologetically for his haste.

“But we’re getting away from the subject, Mr. Newton. You say this young lady has left your house by the mews, and you were about to suggest she left in the care of Miss—I don’t know what you call her. Why did she leave that way?”

Leon Gonsalez had something more than an instinct for espionage: he had an instinct for truth, and he knew two things immediately: first, that Newton was not lying when he said the girl had left the house; secondly, that there was an excellent, but not necessarily a sinister, reason for the furtive departure.

“Where has she gone?”

“Home,” said the other laconically. “Where else should she go?”

“She came to dinner…intending to stay the night?”

“Look here, Gonsalez,” interrupted Monty Newton savagely. “You and your gang were wonderful people twenty years ago, but a lot has happened since then—and we don’t shiver at the name of the Three Just Men. I’m not a child—do you get that? And you’re not so very terrible at close range. If you want to complain to the police—”

“Meadows is outside. I persuaded him to let me see you first,” said Leon, and Newton started.

“Outside?” incredulously.

In two strides he was at the window and had pulled aside the blind. On the other side of the street a man was standing on the edge of the sidewalk, intently surveying the gutter. He knew him at once.

“Well, bring him in,” he said.

“Where has this young lady gone? That is ail I want to know.”

“She has gone home, I tell you.”

Leon went to the door and beckoned Meadows; they spoke together in low tones, and then Meadows entered the room and was greeted with a stiff nod from the owner of the house.

“What’s the idea of this, Meadows—sending this bird to cross-examine me?”

“This bird came on his own,” said Meadows coldly, “if you mean Mr. Gonsalez? I have no right to prevent any person from cross-examining you. Where is the young lady?”

“I tell you, she has gone home. If you don’t believe me, search the house—either of you.”

He was not bluffing: Leon was sure of that. He turned to the detective.

“I personally have no wish to trouble this gentleman any more.”

He was leaving the room when, from over his shoulder: “That snake is busy again, Newton.”

“What snake are you talking about?”

“He killed a man to-night on the Thames Embankment. I hope it will not spoil Lisa Marthon’s evening.”

Meadows, watching the man, saw him change colour.

“I don’t know what you mean,” he said loudly.

“You arranged with Lisa to pick up Barberton to-night and get him talking. And there she is, poor girl, all dressed to kill, and only a dead man to vamp—only a murdered man.” He turned suddenly, and his voice grew hard. “That is a good word, isn’t it, Newton—murder?”

“I didn’t know anything about it.”

As Newton’s hand came towards the bell: “We can show ourselves out,” said Leon.

He shut the door behind him, and presently there was a slam of the outer door, Monty got to the window too late to see his unwelcome guests depart, and went up to his room to change, more than a little perturbed in mind.

The footman called him from the hall.

“I’m sorry about that affair, sir. I thought it was a ‘busy’.”

“You think too much, Fred”—Newton threw the words down at his servitor with a snarl. “Go back to your place—which is the servants’ hall. I’ll ring you if I want you.”

He resumed his progress up the stairs and the man turned sullenly away.

He opened the door of his room, switched on the light, had closed the door and was half-way to his dressing-table, when an arm like steel closed round his neck, he was jerked suddenly backward on to the floor, and looked up into the inscrutable face of Gonsalez.

“Shout and you die!” whispered a voice in his ear.

Newton lay quiet.

“I’ll fix you for this,” he stammered.

The other shook his head.

“I think not, if by ‘fixing’ me you mean you’re going to complain to the police. You’ve been under my watchful eye for quite a long time, Monty Newton, and you’ll be amazed to learn that I’ve made several visits to your house. There is a little wall safe behind that curtain”—he nodded towards the corner of the room—“would you be surprised to learn that I’ve had the door open and every one of its documentary contents photographed?”

He saw the fear in the man’s eyes as he snapped a pair of aluminium handcuffs of curious design about Monty’s wrists. With hardly an effort he lifted him, heavy as he was, threw him on the bed, and, having locked the door, returned, and, sitting on the bed, proceeded first to strap his ankles and then leisurely to take off his prisoner’s shoes.

“What are you going to do?” asked Monty in alarm.

“I intend finding out where Miss Leicester has been taken,” said Gonsalez, who had stripped one shoe and, pulling off the silken sock, was examining the man’s bare foot critically. “Ordinary and strictly legal inquiries take time and fail at the end—unfortunately for you, I have not a minute to spare.”

“I tell you she’s gone home.”

Leon did not reply. He pulled open a drawer of the bureau, searched for some time, and presently found what he sought: a thin silken scarf. This, despite the struggles of the man on the bed, he fastened about his mouth.

“In Mosamodes,” he said—“and if you ever say that before my friend George Manfred, be careful to give its correct pronunciation: he is rather touchy on the point—some friends of yours took a man named Barberton, whom they subsequently murdered, and tried to make him talk by burning his feet. He was a hero. I’m going to see how heroic you are.”

“For God’s sake don’t do it!” said the muffled voice of Newton.

Gonsalez was holding a flat metal case which he had taken from his pocket, and the prisoner watched him, fascinated, as he removed the lid, and snapped a cigar-lighter close to its blackened surface. A blue flame rose and swayed in the draught.

“The police force is a most excellent institution,” said Leon. He had found a silver shoe-horn on the table and was calmly heating it in the light of the flame, holding the rapidly warming hook with a silk handkerchief. “But unfortunately, when you are dealing with crimes of violence, moral suasion and gentle treatment produce nothing more poignant in the bosom of your adversary than a sensation of amused and derisive contempt. The English, who make a god of the law, gave up imprisoning thugs and flogged them, and there are few thugs left. When the Russian gunmen came to London, the authorities did the only intelligent thing—they held back the police and brought up the artillery, having only one desire, which was to kill the gunmen at any expense. Violence fears violence. The gunman lives in the terror of the gun—by the way, I understand the old guard is back in full strength?”

When Leon started in this strain he could continue for hours.

“I don’t know what you mean,” mumbled Monty.

“You wouldn’t.” The intruder lifted the blackened, smoking shoe-horn, brought it as near to his face as he dared.

“Yes, I think that will do,” he said, and came slowly towards the bed.

The man drew up his feet in anticipation of pain, but a long hand caught him by the ankles and drew them straight again.

“They’ve gone to the Arts Ball.” Even through the handkerchief the voice sounded hoarse.

“The Arts Ball?” Gonsalez looked down at him, and then, throwing the hot shoe-horn into the fireplace, he removed the gag. “Why have they gone to the Arts Ball?”

“I wanted them out of the way to-night.”

“Is Oberzohn likely to be at the Arts Ball?”

“Oberzohn?” The man’s laugh bordered on the hysteric.

“Or Gurther?”

This time Mr. Newton did not laugh.

“I don’t know who you mean,” he said.

“We’ll go into that later,” replied Leon lightly, pulling the knot of the handkerchief about the ankles. “You may get up now. What time do you expect them back?”

“I don’t know. I told Joan not to hurry, as I was meeting somebody here to-night.”

Which sounded plausible. Leon remembered that the Arts Ball was a fancy dress affair, and there was some reason for the departure from the mews instead of from the front of the house. As though he were reading his thoughts, Newton said:

“It was Miss Leicester’s idea, going through the back. She was rather shy…she was wearing a domino.”

“Colour?”

“Green, with a reddish hood.”

Leon looked at him quickly.

“Rather distinctive. Was that the idea?”

“I don’t know what the idea was,” growled Newton, sitting on the edge of the bed and pulling on a sock. “But I do know this, Gonsalez,” he said, with an outburst of anger which was half fear; “that you’ll be sorry you did this to me!”

Leon walked to the door, turned the key and opened it.

“I only hope that you will not be sorry I did not kill you,” he said, and was gone.

Monty Newton waited until from his raised window he saw the slim figure pass along the sidewalk and disappear round a corner, and then he hurried down, with one shoe on and one off, to call New Cross 93.

CHAPTER EIGHT - THE HOUSE OF OBERZOHN

IN a triangle two sides of which were expressed by the viaducts of converging railroads and the base by the dark and sluggish waters of the Grand Surrey Canal, stood the gaunt ruins of a store in which had once been housed the merchandise of the 0. & S. Company. A Zeppelin in passing had dropped an incendiary bomb at random, and torn a great ugly gap in the roof. The fire that followed left the iron frames of the windows twisted and split; the roof by some miracle remained untouched except for the blackened edges about the hole through which the flames had rushed to the height of a hundred feet.