The Complete Four Just Men (78 page)

Gonsalez loosened the slip-knot, and, flinging the man over his shoulder, carried him out of the room and down the stairs. He could only guess that this would be the only intruder, but left nothing to chance, and after he had handed his prisoner to the men who were waiting in the hall, he ran back to the room, to find, as he had expected, that no other adventurer had followed the lead. They were still standing at irregular intervals where he had seen them last. The signal was to come from the house. What was it to be? he wondered.

He left one of his men on guard in the room and went back to the study, to find that the startled burglar was an old friend. Lew Cuccini was looking from one of his captors to the other, a picture of dumbfounded chagrin. But the most extraordinary discovery that Leon made on his return to the study was that the American snake-charmer was his old cheerful self, and, except for his unsightly appearance, seemed to be none the worse for an ordeal which would have promptly ended the lives of ninety-nine men out of a hundred. ‘Snake-proof – that’s me. Is this the guy that did it?’ He pointed to Cuccini.

‘Where is Gurther?’ asked Manfred,

Cuccini grinned up into his face.

‘You’d better find out, boss,’ he said. ‘He’ll fix you. As soon as I shout – ’

‘Cuccini – ’ Leon’s voice was gentle. The point of the long-bladed knife that he held to the man’s neck was indubitably sharp. Cuccini shrank back. ‘You will not shout. If you do, I shall cut your throat and spoil all these beautiful carpets – that is a genuine silken Bokhara, George. I haven’t seen one in ten years.’ He nodded to the soft-hued rug on which George Manfred was standing. ‘What is the signal, Cuccini?’ turning his attention again to the prisoner. ‘And what happens when you give the signal?’

‘Listen,’ said Cuccini, ‘that throat-cutting stuff don’t mean anything to me. There’s no third degree in this country, and don’t forget it.’

‘You have never seen my ninety-ninth degree.’ Leon smiled like a delighted boy. ‘Put something in his mouth, will you?’

One of the men tied a woollen scarf round Cuccini’s head.

‘Lay him on the sofa.’

He was already bound hand and foot and helpless.

‘Have you any wax matches? Yes, here are some.’ Leon emptied a cut-glass container into the palm of his hand and looked round at the curious company. ‘Now, gentlemen, if you will leave me alone for exactly five minutes, I will give Mr Cuccini an excellent imitation of the persuasive methods of Gian Visconti, an excellent countryman of his, and the inventor of the system I am about to apply.’

Cuccini was shaking his head furiously. A mumble of unintelligible sounds came from behind the scarf.

‘Our friend is not unintelligent. Any of you who say that Signer Cuccini is unintelligent will incur my severest displeasure,’ said Leon.

They sat the man up and he talked brokenly, hesitatingly.

‘Splendid,’ said Leon, when he had finished. ‘Take him into the kitchen and give him a drink – you’ll find a tap above the kitchen sink.’

‘I’ve often wondered, Leon,’ said George, when they were alone together, ‘whether you would ever carry out those horrific threats of yours of torture and malignant savagery?’

‘Half the torture of torture is anticipation,’ said Leon easily, lighting a cigarette with one of the matches he had taken from the table, and carefully guiding the rest back into the glass bowl. ‘Any man versed in the art of suggestive descriptions can dispense with thumbscrews and branding irons, little maidens and all the ghastly apparatus of criminal justice ever employed by our ancestors. I, too, wonder,’ he mused, blowing a ring of smoke to the ceiling, ‘whether I could carry my threats into execution – I must try one day.’ He nodded pleasantly, as though he were promising himself a great treat.

Manfred looked at his watch.

‘What do you intend doing – giving the signal?’ Gonsalez nodded. ‘And then?’

‘Letting them come in. We may take refuge in the kitchen. I think it would be wiser.’

George Manfred nodded. ‘You’re going to allow them to open the safe?’

‘Exactly,’ said Leon. ‘I particularly wish that safe to be opened, and since Mr Lee demurs, I think this is the best method. I had that in my mind all the time. Have you seen the safe, George? I have. Nobody but an expert could smash it. I have no tools. I did not provide against such a contingency, and I have scruples. Our friends have tools – and no scruples!’

‘And the snake – is there any danger?’

Leon snapped his fingers.

‘The snake has struck for the night, and will strike no more! As for Gurther – ’

‘He owes you something.’

Leon sent another ring up and did not speak until it broke on the ceiling.

‘Gurther is dead,’ he said simply. ‘He has been lying on the lawn in front of the house for the past ten minutes.’

Chapter 17

Written in Braille

Leon briefly related the scene he had witnessed from the balcony.

‘It was undoubtedly Gurther,’ he said. ‘I could not mistake him. He passed out of view for a second behind one of the pillars, and when I looked round he was lying flat on the ground.’

He threw his cigarette into the fire-place.

‘I think it is nearly time,’ he said. He waited until Manfred had gone, and, going to the door, moved the bar and pulled it open wide.

Stooping down, he saw that the opening of the door had been observed, for one of the men was moving across the lawn in the direction of the house. From his pocket he took a small electric lamp and sent three flickering beams into the darkness. To his surprise, only two men walked forward to the house. Evidently Cuccini was expected to deal with any resistance before the raid occurred.

The house had been built in the fifteenth century, and the entrance hall was a broad, high barn of a place. Some Georgian architect, in the peculiar manner of his kind, had built a small minstrel gallery over the dining-room entrance and immediately facing the study. Leon had already explored the house and had found the tiny staircase that led to this architectural monstrosity. He had no sooner given the signal than he dived into the dining-room, through the tall door, and was behind the thick curtains at the back of the narrow gallery when the first two men came in. He saw them go straight into the study and push open the door. At the same time a third man appeared under the porch, though he made no attempt to enter the hall.

Presently one of those who had gone into the study came out and called Cuccini by name. When no answer came, he went grumbling back to his task. What that task was, Leon could guess, before the peculiarly acrid smell of hot steel was wafted to his sensitive nostrils.

By crouching down he could see the legs of the men who were working at the safe. They had turned on all the lights, and apparently expected no interruption. The man at the door was joined by another man.

‘Where is Lew?’

In the stillness of the house the words, though spoken in a low tone, were audible.

‘I don’t know – inside somewhere. He had to fix that dago.’

Leon grinned. This description of himself never failed to tickle him.

One of the workers in the library came out at this point.

‘Have you seen Cuccini?’

‘No,’ said the man at the door.

‘Go in and find him. He ought to be here.’

Cuccini’s absence evidently made him uneasy, for though he returned to the room he was out again in a minute, asking if the messenger had come back. Then, from the back of the passage, came the searcher’s voice: ‘The kitchen’s locked.’

The safe-cutter uttered an expression of amazement.

‘Locked? What’s the idea?’

He came to the foot of the stairs and bellowed up: ‘Cuccini!’

Only the echo answered him.

‘That’s queer.’ He poked his head in the door of the study. ‘Rush that job, Mike. There’s some funny business here.’ And over his shoulder, ‘Tell the boys to get ready to jump.’

The man went out into the night and was absent some minutes, to return with an alarming piece of news.

‘They’ve gone, boss. I can’t see one of them.’

The ‘boss’ cursed him, and himself went into the grounds on a visit of inspection. He came back in a hurry, ran into the study, and Leon heard his voice: ‘Stand ready to clear.’

‘What about Cuccini?’

‘Cuccini will have to look after himself . . . got it, Mike?’

The deep voice said something. There followed the sound of a crack, as though something of iron had broken. It was the psychological moment. Leon parted the curtains and dropped lightly to the floor.

The man at the door turned in a flash at the sound.

‘Put ’em up!’ he said sharply.

‘Don’t shoot.’ Leon’s voice was almost conversational in its calmness. ‘The house is surrounded by police.’

With an oath the man darted out of the door, and at that instant came the sound of the first shot, followed by desultory firing from the direction of the road. The second guard had been the first to go. Leon ran to the door, slammed it tight and switched on the lights as the two men came from the study. Under the arm of one was a thick pad of square brown sheets. He dropped his load and put up his hands at the sight of the gun; but his companion was made of harder material, and, with a yell, he leapt at the man who stood between him and freedom. Leon twisted aside, advanced his shoulder to meet the furious drive of the man’s fist; then, dropping his pistol, he stooped swiftly and tackled him below the knees. The man swayed, sought to recover his balance and fell with a crash on the stone floor. All the time his companion stood dazed and staring, his hands waving in the air.

There was a knock at the outer door. Without turning his back upon his prisoners, Leon reached for the bar and pulled it up. Manfred came in.

‘The gentleman who shouted
“Cuccini” scared them.
I think they’ve got away. There were two cars parked on the road.’

His eyes fell upon the brown sheets scattered on the floor and he nodded.

‘I think you have all you want, Leon,’ he said.

The detectives came crowding in at that moment and secured their prisoners whilst Leon Gonsalez and his friend went out on to the lawn to search for Gurther.

The man lay as he had fallen, on his face, and as Leon flashed his lamp upon the figure, he saw that the snake had struck behind the ear.

‘Gurther?’ frowned Leon.

He turned the figure on its back and gave a little gasp of surprise, for there looked up to the starry skies the heavy face of Pfeiffer.

‘Pfeiffer! I could have sworn it was the other! There has been some double-crossing here. Let me think.’ He stood for fully a minute, his chin on his hand. ‘I could have understood Gurther; he was becoming a nuisance and a danger to the old man. Pfeiffer, the more reliable of the two, hated him. My first theory was that Gurther had been put out by order of Oberzohn.’

‘Suppose Gurther heard that order, or came to know of it?’ asked Manfred quietly.

Leon snapped his fingers.

‘That is it! We had a similar case a few years ago, you will remember, George? The old man gave the “out” order to Pfeiffer – and Gurther got his blow in first. Shrewd fellow!’

When they returned to the house, the three were seated in a row in Johnson Lee’s Library. Cuccini, of course, was an old acquaintance. Of the other two men, Leon recognized one, a notorious gunman whose photograph had embellished the pages of
Hue and Cry
for months.

The third, and evidently the skilled workman of the party, for he it was whom they had addressed as ‘Mike’ and who had burnt out the lock of Lee’s safe, was identified by Meadows as Mike Selwyn, a skilful burglar and bank-smasher, who had, according to his statement, only arrived from the Continent that afternoon in answer to a flattering invitation which promised considerable profit to himself.

‘And why I left Milan,’ he said bitterly, ‘where the graft is easy and the money’s good, I’d like you to tell me!’

The prisoners were removed to the nearest secure lock-up, and by the time Lee’s servants returned from their dance, all evidence of an exciting hour had disappeared, except that the blackened and twisted door of the safe testified to the sinister character of the visitation.

Meadows returned as they were gathering together the scattered sheets. There were hundreds of them, all written in Braille characters, and Manfred’s sensitive fingers were skimming their surface.

‘Oh, yes,’ he said, in answer to a question that was put to him, ‘I knew Lee was blind, the day we searched Barberton’s effects. That was my mystery.’ He laughed. ‘Barberton expected a call from his old friend and had left a message for him on the mantelpiece. Do you remember that strip of paper? It ran: “Dear Johnny, I will be back in an hour.” These are letters – ’ he indicated the papers.

‘The folds tell me that,’ said Meadows. ‘You may not get a conviction against Cuccini; the two burglars will come up before a judge, but to charge Cuccini means the whole story of the snake coming out, and that means a bigger kick than I’m prepared to laugh away – I am inclined to let Cuccini go for the moment.’

Manfred nodded. He sat with the embossed sheets on his knee.

‘Written from various places,’ he went on.

It was curious to see him, his fingers running swiftly along the embossed lines, his eyes fixed on vacancy.

‘So far I’ve learnt nothing, except that in his spare time Barberton amused himself by translating native fairy stories into English and putting them into Braille for use in the blind school. I knew, of course, that he did that, because I’d already interviewed his sister, who is the mistress of the girls’ section.’

He had gone through half a dozen letters when he rose from the table and walked across to the safe.

‘I have a notion that the thing we’re seeking is not here,’ he said. ‘It is hardly likely that he would allow a communication of that character to be jumbled up with the rest of the correspondence.’

The safe door was open and the steel drawer at the back had been pulled out. Evidently it was from this receptacle that the letters had been taken. Now the drawer was empty. Manfred took it out and measured the depth of it with his finger.

‘Let me see,’ said Gonsalez suddenly.

He groped along the floor of the safe, and presently he began to feel carefully along the sides.

‘Nothing here,’ he said. He drew out half a dozen account books and a bundle of documents which at first glance Manfred had put aside as being personal to the owner of Rath Hall. These were lying on the floor amidst the mass of molten metal that had burnt deep holes in the carpet. Leon examined the books one by one, opening them and running his nail along the edge of the pages. The fourth, a weighty ledger, did not open so easily – did not, indeed, open at all. He carried it to the table and tried to pull back the cover. ‘Now, how does this open?’

The ledger covers were of leather; to all appearance a very ordinary book, and Leon was anxious not to disturb so artistic a camouflage. Examining the edge carefully, he saw a place where the edges had been forced apart. Taking out a knife, he slipped the thin blade into the aperture. There was a click and the cover sprang up like the lid of a box.

‘And this, I think, is what we are looking for,’ said Gonsalez.

The interior of the book had been hollowed out, the edges being left were gummed tight, and the receptacle thus formed was packed close with brown papers; brown, except for one, which was written on a large sheet of foolscap, headed:

‘Bureau of the Ministry of Colonies, Lisbon.’

Barberton had superimposed upon this long document his Braille writing, and now one of the mysteries was cleared up.

‘Lee said he had never received any important documents,’ said Manfred, ‘and, of course, he hadn’t, so far as he knew. To him this was merely a sheet of paper on which Braille characters were inscribed. Read this, Leon.’

Leon scanned the letter. It was dated ‘July 21st, 1912’, and bore, in the lower left-hand corner, the seal of the Portuguese Colonial Office. He read it through rapidly and at the end looked up with a sigh of satisfaction.

‘And this settles Oberzohn and Co., and robs them of a fortune, the extent of which I think we shall discover when we read Barberton’s letter.’

He lit a cigarette and scanned the writing again, whilst Meadows, who did not understand Leon’s passion for drama, waited with growing impatience.

‘Illustrious Senhor,’ [began Leon, reading] ‘I have this day had the honour of placing before His Excellency the President, and the Ministers of the Cabinet, your letter dated May 15th, 1912. By a letter dated January 8th, 1911, the lands marked Ex. 275 on the Survey Map of the Biskara district were conceded to you, Illustrious Senhor, in order to further the cause of science – a cause which is very dear to the heart of His Excellency the President. Your further letter, in which you complain, Illustrious Senhor, that the incursion of prospectors upon our land is hampering your scientific work, and your request that an end may be put to these annoyances by the granting to you of an extension of the concession, so as to give you title to all mineral found in the aforesaid area, Ex. 275 on the Survey Map of Biskara, and thus making the intrusion of prospectors illegal, has been considered by the Council, and the extending concession is hereby granted, on the following conditions: The term of the concession shall be for twelve years, as from the 14th day of June, 1912, and shall be renewable by you, your heirs or nominees, every twelfth year, on payment of a nominal sum of 1,000 milreis. In the event of the concessionaire, his heirs or nominees, failing to apply for a renewal on the 14th day of June, 1924, the mineral rights of the said area, Ex. 275 on the Survey Map of Biskara, shall be open to claim in accordance with the laws of Angola – ’

Leon sat back.

‘Fourteenth of June?’ he said, and looked up. ‘Why, that is next week – five days! We’ve cut it rather fine, George.’

‘Barberton said there were six weeks,’ said Manfred. ‘Obviously he made the mistake of timing the concession from July 21st – the date of the letter. He must have been the most honest man in the world; there was no other reason why he should have communicated with Miss Leicester. He could have kept quiet and claimed the rights for himself. Go on, Leon.’

‘That is about all,’ said Leon, glancing at the tail of the letter. ‘The rest is more or less flowery and complimentary and has reference to the scientific work in which Professor Leicester was engaged. Five days – phew!’ he whistled.

‘We may now find something in Barberton’s long narrative to give us an idea of the value of this property.’ Manfred turned the numerous pages. ‘Do any of you gentlemen write shorthand?’

Meadows went out into the hall and brought back an officer. Waiting until he had found pencil and paper, Leon began the extraordinary story of William Barberton – most extraordinary because every word had been patiently and industrially punched in the Braille characters.