The Complete Four Just Men (89 page)

‘So!’ said Oberzohn dully. ‘That is very bad.’

‘But how do you do it, doctor? Do you shoot or sump’n?’

‘Let us talk about eventual wealth and happiness,’ said the doctor. ‘Tonight is a night of great joy for me. I will sing you a song.’

Then, to the amazement of the men and to their great unhappiness, he sang, in a thin reedy old voice, the story of a young peasant who had been thwarted in love and had thrown himself from a cliff into a seething waterfall. It was a lengthy song, intensely sentimental, and his voice held few of the qualities of music. The gang had never been set a more difficult job than to keep straight faces until he had finished.

‘Gee! You’re some artist, doctor!’ said the sycophantic Cuccini, and managed to get a simulation of envy into his voice.

‘In my student days I was a great singer,’ said the doctor modestly.

Over the mantelpiece was a big, old clock, with a face so faded that only a portion of the letters remained. Its noisy ticking had usually a sedative effect on the doctor. But its main purpose and value was its accuracy. Every day it was corrected by a message from Greenwich, and as Oberzohn’s success as an organizer depended upon exact timing, it was one of his most valuable assets.

He glanced up at the clock now, and that gave Cuccini his excuse.

‘We’ll be getting along, doctor,’ he said. ‘You don’t want anything tonight? I’d like to get a cut at that Gonsalez man. You won’t leave me out if there’s anything doing?’

Oberzohn rose and went out of the room without another word, for he knew that the rising of Cuccini was a signal that not only was the business of the day finished, but also that the gang needed its pay.

Every gang-leader attended upon Mr Oberzohn once a week with his pay-roll, and it was usually the custom for the Herr Doktor to bring his cash-box into the room and extract sufficient to liquidate his indebtedness to the leader. It was a big box, and on pay-day, as this was, filled to the top with bank-notes and Treasury bills. He brought it back now, put it on the table, consulted the little slip that Cuccini offered to him, and, taking out a pad of notes, fastened about by a rubber band, he wetted his finger and thumb.

‘You needn’t count them,’ said Cuccini. ‘We’ll take the lot.’

The doctor turned to see that Cuccini was carelessly holding a gun in his hand.

‘The fact is, doctor,’ said Cuccini coolly, ‘we’ve seen the red light, and if we don’t skip now, while the skipping’s good, there’s going to be no place we can stay comfortable in this little island, and I guess we’ll follow Gurther.’

One glance the doctor gave at the pistol and then he resumed his counting, as though nothing had happened.

‘Twenty, thirty, forty, fifty . . . ’

‘Now quit that,’ said Cuccini roughly. ‘I tell you, you needn’t count.’

‘My friend, I prefer to know what I am going to lose. It is a pardonable piece of curiosity.’

He raised his hand to the wall, where a length of cord hung, and pulled it gently, without taking his eyes from the bank-notes.

‘What are you doing? Put up your hands!’ hissed Cuccini.

‘Shoot, I beg.’ Oberzohn threw a pad of notes on the table. ‘There is your pay.’ He slammed down the lid of the box. ‘Now you shall go, if you can go! Do you hear them?’ He raised his hand, and to the strained ears of the men came a gentle rustling sound from the passage outside as though somebody were dragging a piece of parchment along the floor. ‘Do you hear? You shall go if you can,’ said the doctor again, with amazing calmness.

‘The snakes!’ breathed Cuccini, going white, and the hand that held the pistol shook.

‘Shoot them, my friend,’ sneered Oberzohn. ‘If you see them, shoot them. But you will not see them, my brave man. They will be – where? No eyes shall see them come or go. They may lie behind a picture, they may wait until the door is opened, and then . . . !’

Cuccini’s mouth was dry.

‘Call ’em off, doctor,’ he said tremulously.

‘Your gun – on the table.’

Still the rustling was audible. Cuccini hesitated for a second, then obeyed, and took up the notes.

The other three men were huddled together by the fireplace, the picture of fear.

‘Don’t open the door, doc,’ said Cuccini, but Oberzohn had already gripped the handle and turned it.

They heard another door open and the click of the passage light as it had come on. Then he returned.

‘If you go now, I shall not wish to see you again. Am I not a man to whom all secrets are known? You are well aware!’

Cuccini looked from the doctor to the door.

‘Want us to go?’ he asked, troubled.

Oberzohn shrugged.

‘As you wish! It was my desire that you should stay with me tonight – there is big work and big money for all of you.’

The men were looking at one another uneasily.

‘How long do you want us to stay?’ asked Cuccini.

‘Tonight only; if you would not prefer . . . ’

Tonight would come the crisis. Oberzohn had realized this since the day dawned for him.

‘We’ll stay – where do we sleep?’

For answer Oberzohn beckoned them from the room and they followed him into the laboratory. In the wall that faced them was a heavy iron door that opened into a concrete storehouse, where he kept various odds and ends of equipment, oil and spirit for his cars, and the little gas engine that worked a small dynamo in the laboratory and gave him, if necessary a lighting plant independent of outside current.

There were three long windows heavily barred and placed just under the ceiling.

‘Looks like the condemned cell to me,’ grumbled Cuccini suspiciously.

‘Are the bolts on the inside of a condemned cell?’ asked Oberzohn. ‘Does the good warden give you the key as I give you?’

Cuccini took the key.

‘All right,’ he said ungraciously, ‘there are plenty of blankets here, boys – I guess you want us where the police won’t look, eh?’

‘That is my intention,’ replied the doctor.

Dr Oberzohn closed the door on them and re-entered his study, his big mouth twitching with amusement. He pulled the cord again and closed the ventilator he had opened. It was only a few days before that he had discovered that there were dried leaves in the ventilator shaft, and that the opening of the inlet made them rustle, disturbingly for a man who was engaged in a profound study of the lesser known, and therefore the more highly cultured, philosophers.

Chapter 31

The things in the box

He heard the soft purr of engines, and, looking through the hall window, saw the dim lights of the car approaching the house, and turned out the hall lamp. There he waited in the darkness, till the door of the limousine opened and Gurther jumped out. ‘I respectfully report that it is done, Herr Doktor,’ he said.

Oberzohn nodded.

‘The woman of Newton – where is she?’

‘She is inside. Is it your wish that I should bring her? She was very troublesome, Herr Doktor, and I had to use the needle.’

‘Bring her in. You – !’ he barked to the chauffeur. ‘Help our friend.’

Together they lifted the unconscious girl, but carried her no farther than the steps. At this point Oberzohn decided that she must return to the prison. First they sent the chauffeur away; the car was garaged at New Cross (it was one of Oberzohn’s three London depots), where the man also lived. After he had gone, they carried Joan between them to the factory, taking what, to Gurther, seemed an unnecessarily circuitous route. If it was necessary, it was at least expedient, for the nearest way to the factory led past the yawning hole that the doctor had dug with such labour.

There was no mistaking Oberzohn’s arrival this time. The trap went up with a thud, and Mirabelle listened, with a quickly beating heart, to the sound of feet coming down the stone stairs. There were two people, and they were walking heavily. Somehow she knew before she saw their burden that it was Joan. She was in evening dress, her face as white as chalk and her eyes closed; the girl thought she was dead when she saw them lay her on the bed.

‘You have given her too much, Gurther,’ said Oberzohn.

Gurther? She had not recognized him. It was almost impossible to believe that this was the dapper young man who had danced with her at the Arts Ball.

‘I had to guess in the dark, Herr Doktor,’ said Gurther.

They were talking in German, and Mirabelle’s acquaintance with that language was very slight. She saw Gurther produce a small flat case from his pocket, take out a little phial, and shake into the palm of his hand a small brown capsule. This he dissolved in a tiny tube which, with the water he used, was also extracted from the case. Half filling a minute syringe, he sent the needle into Joan’s arm. A pause, and then: ‘Soon she will wake, with your kind permission, Herr Doktor,’ said Gurther.

Mirabelle was not looking at him, but she knew that his hot eyes were fixed on her, that all the time except the second he was operating, he was looking at her; and now she knew that this was the man to be feared. A cold hand seemed to grip at her heart.

‘That will do, Gurther.’ Oberzohn’s voice was sharp. He, too, had interpreted the stare. ‘You need not wait.’

Gurther obediently stalked from the room, and the doctor followed. Almost before the trap had fastened down she was by the girl’s side, with a basin of water and a wet towel. The second the water touched her face, Joan opened her eyes and gazed wildly up at the vaulted ceiling, then rolling over from the bed to her knees, she struggled to her feet, swayed and would have fallen, had not Mirabelle steadied her.

‘They’ve got him! They’ve got my boy . . . killed him like a dog!’

‘What – Mr – Mr Newton?’ gasped Mirabelle, horrified.

‘Killed him – Monty – Monty!’

And then she began to scream and run up and down the room like a thing demented. Mirabelle, sick at heart, almost physically sick at the sight, caught her and tried to calm her, but she was distracted, half mad. The drug and its antidote seemed to have combined to take away the last vestige of restraint. It was not until she fell, exhausted, that Mirabelle was able to drag her again to the bed and lay her upon it.

Montague Newton was dead! Who had killed him? Who were the ‘they’? Then she thought of Gurther in his strange attire; white dress-front crumpled, even his beard disarranged in the struggle he had had with the overwrought woman.

In sheer desperation she ran up the steps and tried the trap, but it was fast. She must get away from here – must get away at once. Joan was moaning pitiably, and the girl sat by her side, striving to calm her. She seemed to have passed into a state of semi-consciousness; except for her sobs, she made no sound and uttered no intelligible word. Half an hour passed – the longest and most dreadful half-hour in Mirabelle Leicester’s life. And then she heard a sound. It had penetrated even to the brain of this half-mad girl, for she opened her eyes wide, and, gripping Mirabelle, drew herself up.

‘He’s coming,’ she said, white to the lips, ‘coming . . . the Killer is coming!’

‘For God’s sake don’t talk like that!’ said Mirabelle, beside herself with fear.

There it was, in the outer room; a stealthy shuffle of feet. She stared at the closed door, and the strain of the suspense almost made her faint. And then she saw the steel door move slowly, and first a hand came through, the edge of a face . . . Gurther was leering at her. His beard was gone, and his wig; he was collarless, and had over his white shirt the stained jacket that was his everyday wear.

‘I want you.’ He was talking to Mirabelle. Her tongue clave to the roof of her mouth, but she did not speak.

‘My pretty little lady – ’ he began, and then, with a shriek, Joan leapt at him.

‘Murderer, murderer . . . ! Beast!’ she cried, striking wildly at his face. With a curse, he tried to throw her off, but she was clinging to him; a bestial lunatic thing, hardly human.

He flung her aside at last, and then he put up his hand to guard his face as she leapt at him again. This time she went under his arm and was through the door in a flash. He heard the swift patter of her feet on the stairs, and turned in pursuit. The trap was open. He stumbled and tripped in the dark across the floor of the gaunt factory. Just as she reached the open, he grabbed at her and missed. Like a deer she sped, but he was fleeter-footed behind her; and suddenly his hand closed about her throat.

‘You had better go out, my friend,’ he said, and tightened his grip.

As she twisted to avoid him, he put out his foot. There was a grating snap, something gripped his legs, and the excruciating pain of it was agonizing. He loosened his hold of her throat, but held her arm tightly. With all his strength he threw her against the wall and she fell in a heap. Then, leaning down, he forced apart the cruel jagged teeth of the mantrap on to which he had put his foot, and drew his leg clear. He was bleeding; his trouser leg was torn to ribbons. He stopped only long enough to drag the girl to her feet, and, throwing her across his shoulder as though she were a sack, he went back into the factory, down the stairs, and threw her on to the bed with such violence that the spring supports broke. It had a strange effect upon the dazed woman, but this he did not see, for he had turned to Mirabelle.

‘My little lady, I want you!’ he breathed.

Blood was trickling down from his wounded calf, but he did not feel the pain any more; felt nothing, save the desire to hurt those who hunted him; wanted nothing but the materialization of crude and horrid dreams.

She stood, frozen, paralysed, incapable of movement. And then his hand came under her chin and he lifted her face; and she saw the bright, hungry eyes devouring her, saw the thin lips come closer and closer, could not move; had lost all sentient impressions, and could only stare into the eyes of this man-snake, hypnotized by the horror of the moment.

And then a raging fury descended upon him. Narrow fingers tore at his face, almost blinding him. He turned with a howl of rage, but the white-faced Joan had flown to the furnace and taken up a short iron bar that had been used to rake the burning coals together. She struck at him and missed. He dodged past her and she flung the bar at him, and again missed him. The iron struck the green box, behind the furnace, there was a sound of smashing glass. He did not notice this, intent only upon the girl, and Mirabelle closed her eyes and heard only the blow as he struck her.

When she looked again, Joan was lying on the bed and he was tying one of her hands to the bed-rail with a strap which he had taken from his waist. Then Mirabelle saw a sight that released her pent speech. He heard her scream and grinned round at her . . . saw where she was looking and looked too.

Something was coming from the broken green box! A black, spade-shaped head, with bright, hard eyes that seemed to survey the scene in a malignant stare. And then, inch by inch, a thick shining thing, like a rubber rope, wriggled slowly to the floor, coiled about upon itself, and raised its flat head. ‘Oh, God, look!’

He turned about at the sight, that immovable grin of his upon his face, and said something in a guttural tongue. The snake was motionless, its baleful gaze first upon the sinking girl, then upon the man.

Gurther’s surprise was tragic; it was as though he had been confronted with some apparition from another world. And then his hand went to his hip pocket; there was a flash of light and a deafening explosion that stunned her. The pistol dropped from his hand and fell with a clatter to the floor, and she saw his arm was stiffly extended, and protruding from the cuff of his coat a black tail that wound round and round his wrist. It had struck up his sleeve. The cloth about his biceps was bumping up and down erratically.

He stood straightly erect, grinning, the arm still outflung, his astonished eyes upon the coil about his wrist. And then, slowly his other hand came round, gripped the tail and pulled it savagely forth. The snake turned with an angry hiss and tried to bite back at him; but raising his hand, he brought the head crashing down against the furnace. There was a convulsive wriggle as the reptile fell among the ashes.

‘
Gott in himmel
!’ whispered Gurther, and his free hand went up to his arm and felt gingerly. ‘He is dead, gracious lady. Perhaps there is another?’

He went, swaying as he walked, to the green box, and put in his hand without hesitation. There was another – a bigger snake, roused from its sleep and angry. He bit twice at the man’s wrist, but Gurther laughed, a gurgling laugh of pure enjoyment. For already he was a dead man; that he knew. And it had come to him, at the moment and second of his dissolution, when the dread gates of judgment were already ajar, that he should go to his Maker with this clean space in the smudge of his life.

‘Go, little one,’ he said, grinning into the spade-face. ‘You have no more poison; that is finished!’

He put the writhing head under his heel, and Mirabelle shut her eyes and put her hands to her ears. When she looked again, the man was standing by the door, clinging to the post and slipping with every frantic effort to keep himself erect. He grinned at her again; this man of murder, who had made his last kill.

‘Pardon, gracious lady,’ he said thickly, and went down on his knees, his head against the door, his body swaying slowly from side to side, and finally tumbled over.

She heard Oberzohn’s harsh voice from the floor above. He was calling Gurther, and presently he appeared in the doorway, and there was a pistol in his hand.

‘So!’ he said, looking down at the dying man.

And then he saw the snake, and his face wrinkled. He looked from Mirabelle to the girl on the bed, went over and examined her, but did not attempt to release the strap. It was Mirabelle who did that; Mirabelle who sponged the bruised face and loosened the dress.

So doing, she felt a hand on her shoulder.

‘Come,’ said Oberzohn.

‘I’m staying here with Joan, until – ’

‘You come at once, or I will give you to my pretty little friends.’ He pointed to the two snakes on the floor who still moved spasmodically.

She had to step past Gurther, but that seemed easier than passing those wriggling, shining black ropes; and, her hand in his, she stumbled up the dark steps and eventually into the clean, sweet air of the night.

He was dressed for a journey; she had noticed that when he appeared. A heavy cloth cap was on his curious-shaped head, and he looked less repulsive with so much of his forehead hidden. Though the night was warm, he wore an overcoat.

They were passing between the wall and the factory when he stopped and put his hand before her mouth. He had heard voices, low voices on the other side of the wall, and presently the scrape of something. Without removing his hand from her face, he half dragged, half pushed her until they were clear of the factory.

She thought they were going back to the house, which was in darkness, but instead, he led her straight along the wall, and presently she saw the bulk of the barge.

‘Stay, and do not speak,’ he said, and began to turn a rusty wheel. With a squeak and a groan the water-gates opened inwards. What did he intend doing? There was no sign of a boat, only this old dilapidated barge. She was presently to know.

‘Come,’ he said again. She was on the deck of the barge, moving forward to its bow, which pointed towards the open gate and the canal beyond.

She heard him puff and groan as he strained at a rope he had found, and then, looking down, she saw the front of the barge open, like the two water-gates of a lock. Displaying remarkable agility, he lowered himself over the edge; he seemed to be standing on something solid, for again he ordered her to join him.

‘I will not go,’ she said breathlessly, and turning, would have fled, but his hand caught her dress and dragged at her.

‘I will drown you here, woman,’ he, said, and she knew that the threat would have a sequel.

Tremblingly she lowered herself over the edge until her foot touched something hard and yet yielding. He was pushing at the barge with all his might, and the platform beneath her grew in space. First the sharp nose and then the covered half-deck of the fastest motor-boat that Mr Oberzohn’s money could buy, or the ingenuity of builders could devise. The old barge was a boat-house, and this means of escape had always been to his hand. It was for this reason that he lived in a seemingly inaccessible spot.

The men who had been on the canal bank were gone. The propellers revolving slowly, the boat stole down the dark waters, after a short time slipped under a bridge over which street-cars were passing, and headed for Deptford and the river.