THE COMPLETE FOUR JUST MEN SERIES (6 Detective Thrillers in One Edition). Edgar Wallace

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СКАЧАТЬ lock me in,” he said petulantly, and closed the conversation.

      There was a knock at the door and Falmouth put his head inside.

      “I don’t want to hurry you, sir,” he said, “but — —”

      So the Foreign Secretary drove off to Downing Street in something remarkably like a temper.

      For he was not used to being hurried, or taken charge of, or ordered hither and thither. It irritated him further to see the now familiar cyclists on either side of the carriage, to recognise at every few yards an obvious policeman in mufti admiring the view from the sidewalk, and when he came to Downing Street and found it barred to all carriages but his own, and an enormous crowd of morbid sightseers gathered to cheer his ingress, he felt as he had never felt before in his life — humiliated.

      He found his secretary waiting in his private office with the rough draft of the speech that was to introduce the second reading of the Extradition Bill.

      “We are pretty sure to meet with a great deal of opposition,” informed the secretary, “but Mainland has sent out three-line whips, and expects to get a majority of thirty-six — at the very least.”

      Ramon read over the notes and found them refreshing.

      They brought back the old feeling of security and importance. After all, he was a great Minister of State. Of course the threats were too absurd — the police were to blame for making so much fuss; and of course the Press — yes, that was it — a newspaper sensation.

      There was something buoyant, something almost genial in his air, when he turned with a half smile to his secretary.

      “Well, what about my unknown friends — what do the blackguards call themselves? — the Four Just Men?”

      Even as he spoke he was acting a part; he had not forgotten their title, it was with him day and night.

      The secretary hesitated; between his chief and himself the Four Just Men had been a tabooed subject.

      “They — oh, we’ve heard nothing more than you have read,” he said lamely; “we know now who Thery is, but we can’t place his three companions.”

      The Minister pursed his lips.

      “They give me till tomorrow night to recant,” he said.

      “You have heard from them again?”

      “The briefest of notes,” said Sir Philip lightly.

      “And otherwise?”

      Sir Philip frowned. “They will keep their promise,” he said shortly, for the ‘otherwise’ of his secretary had sent a coldness into his heart that he could not quite understand.

      In the top room in the workshop at Carnaby Street, Thery, subdued, sullen, fearful, sat facing the three. “I want you to quite understand,” said Manfred, “that we bear you no ill-will for what you have done. I think, and Senor Poiccart thinks, that Senor Gonsalez did right to spare your life and bring you back to us.”

      Thery dropped his eyes before the half-quizzical smile of the speaker.

      “Tomorrow night you will do as you agreed to do — if the necessity still exists. Then you will go — —” he paused.

      “Where?” demanded Thery in sudden rage. “Where in the name of Heaven? I have told them my name, they will know who I am — they will find that by writing to the police. Where am I to go?”

      He sprang to his feet, glowering on the three men, his hands trembling with rage, his great frame shaking with the intensity of his anger.

      “You betrayed yourself,” said Manfred quietly; “that is your punishment. But we will find a place for you, a new Spain under other skies — and the girl at Jerez shall be there waiting for you.”

      Thery looked from one to the other suspiciously. Were they laughing at him?

      There was no smile on their faces; Gonsalez alone looked at him with keen, inquisitive eyes, as though he saw some hidden meaning in the speech.

      “Will you swear that?” asked Thery hoarsely, “will you swear that by the — —”

      “I promise that — if you wish it I will swear it,” said Manfred. “And now,” he went on, his voice changing, “you know what is expected of you tomorrow night — what you have to do?”

      Thery nodded.

      “There must be no hitch — no bungling; you and I and Poiccart and Gonsalez will kill this unjust man in a way that the world will never guess — such an execution as shall appall mankind. A swift death, a sure death, a death that will creep through cracks, that will pass by the guards unnoticed. Why, there never has been such a thing done — such — —” he stopped dead with flushed cheeks and kindling eyes, and met the gaze of his two companions. Poiccart impassive, sphinxlike, Leon interested and analytic. Manfred’s face went a duller red.

      “I am sorry,” he said almost humbly; “for the moment I had forgotten the cause, and the end, in the strangeness of the means.”

      He raised his hand deprecatingly.

      “It is understandable,” said Poiccart gravely, and Leon pressed Manfred’s arm.

      The three stood in embarrassed silence for a moment, then Manfred laughed.

      “To work!” he said, and led the way to the improvised laboratory.

      Inside Thery took off his coat. Here was his province, and from being the cowed dependant he took charge of the party, directing them, instructing, commanding, until he had the men of whom, a few minutes before, he had stood in terror running from studio to laboratory, from floor to floor.

      There was much to be done, much testing, much calculating, many little sums to be worked out on paper, for in the killing of Sir Philip Ramon all the resources of modern science were to be pressed into the service of the Four.

      “I am going to survey the land,” said Manfred suddenly, and disappearing into the studio returned with a pair of step-ladders. These he straddled in the dark passage, and mounting quickly pushed up a trapdoor that led to the flat roof of the building.

      He pulled himself up carefully, crawled along the leaden surface, and raising himself cautiously looked over the low parapet.

      He was in the centre of a half mile circle of uneven roofs. Beyond the circumference of his horizon London loomed murkily through smoke and mist. Below was a busy street. He took a hasty survey of the roof with its chimney stacks, its unornamental telegraph pole, its leaden floor and rusty guttering; then, through a pair of field-glasses, made a long, careful survey southward. He crawled slowly back to the trapdoor, raised it, and let himself down very gingerly till his feet touched the top of the ladder. Then he descended rapidly, closing the door after him.

      “Well?” asked Thery with something of triumph in his voice.

      “I see you have labelled it,” said Manfred.

      “It is better СКАЧАТЬ