The Greatest Thrillers of Edgar Wallace. Edgar Wallace

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      “How do I know that the murder you contemplate will not be committed as soon as you get clear?”

      The other laughed under his mask.

      “How do I know that as soon as I have left the room you will not raise an alarm?”

      “I should have given my word, sir,” said the editor stiffly.

      “And I mine,” was the quiet response; “And my word has never been broken.”

      In the editor’s mind a struggle was going on; here in his hand was the greatest story of the century; another minute and he would have extracted from Thery the secret of the Four.

      Even now a bold dash might save everything — and the printers were waiting…but the hand that held the revolver was the hand of a resolute man, and the chief yielded.

      “I agree, but under protest,” he said. “I warn you that your arrest and punishment is inevitable.”

      “I regret,” said the masked man with a slight bow, “that I cannot agree with you — nothing is inevitable save death. Come, Thery,” he said, speaking in Spanish. “On my word as a Caballero I will not harm you.”

      Thery hesitated, then slunk forward with his head bowed and his eyes fixed on the floor.

      The masked man opened the door an inch, listened, and in the moment came the inspiration of the editor’s life.

      “Look here,” he said quickly, the man giving place to the journalist, “when you get home will you write us an article about yourselves? You needn’t give us any embarrassing particulars, you know — something about your aspirations, your raison d’etre.”

      “Sir,” said the masked man — and there was a note of admiration in his voice— “I recognise in you an artist. The article will be delivered tomorrow”; and opening the door the two men stepped into the darkened corridor.

Chapter VI

       The Clues

       Table of Contents

      Blood-red placards, hoarse newsboys, overwhelming headlines, and column after column of leaded type told the world next day how near the Four had been to capture. Men in the train leant forward, their newspapers on their knees, and explained what they would have done had they been in the editor of the Megaphone’s position. People stopped talking about wars and famines and droughts and street accidents and parliaments and ordinary everyday murders and the German Emperor, in order to concentrate their minds upon the topic of the hour. Would the Four Just Men carry out their promise and slay the Secretary for Foreign Affairs on the morrow?

      Nothing else was spoken about. Here was a murder threatened a month ago, and, unless something unforeseen happened, to be committed tomorrow.

      No wonder that the London Press devoted the greater part of its space to discussing the coming of Thery and his recapture.

      ‘…It is not so easy to understand,’ said the Telegram, ‘why, having the miscreants in their hands, certain journalists connected with a sensational and halfpenny contemporary allowed them to go free to work their evil designs upon a great statesman whose unparalleled…We say if, for unfortunately in these days of cheap journalism every story emanating from the sanctum sanctorum of sensation-loving sheets is not to be accepted on its pretensions; so if, as it stated, these desperadoes really did visit the office of a contemporary last night…’ At noonday Scotland Yard circulated broadcast a hastily printed sheet:

      £1000 REWARD

      Wanted, on suspicion of being connected with a criminal organisation known as the Four Just Men, MIGUEL THERY, alias SAIMONT, alias LE CHICO, late of Jerez, Spain, a Spaniard speaking no English. Height 5 feet 8 inches. Eyes brown, hair black, slight black moustache, face broad. Scars: white scar on cheek, old knife wound on body. Figure, thickset.

      The above reward will be paid to any person or persons who shall give such information as shall lead to the identification of the said Thery with the band known as the Four Just Men and his apprehension.

      From which may be gathered that, acting on the information furnished by the editor and his assistant at two o’clock in the morning, the Direct Spanish Cable had been kept busy; important personages had been roused from their beds in Madrid, and the history of Thery as recorded in the Bureau had been reconstructed from pigeonhole records for the enlightenment of an energetic Commissioner of Police.

      Sir Philip Ramon, sitting writing in his study at Portland Place, found a difficulty in keeping his mind upon the letter that lay before him.

      It was a letter addressed to his agent at Branfell, the huge estate over which he, in the years he was out of office, played squire.

      Neither wife nor chick nor child had Sir Philip. ‘…If by any chance these men succeed in carrying out their purpose I have made ample provision not only for yourself but for all who have rendered me faithful service,’ he wrote — from which may be gathered the tenor of his letter.

      During these past few weeks, Sir Philip’s feelings towards the possible outcome of his action had undergone a change.

      The irritation of a constant espionage, friendly on the one hand, menacing on the other, had engendered so bitter a feeling of resentment, that in this newer emotion all personal fear had been swallowed up. His mind was filled with one unswerving determination, to carry through the measure he had in hand, to thwart the Four Just Men, and to vindicate the integrity of a Minister of the Crown. ‘It would be absurd,’ he wrote in the course of an article entitled Individuality in its Relation to the Public Service, and which was published some months later in the Quarterly Review—’it would be monstrous to suppose that incidental criticism from a wholly unauthoritative source should affect or in any way influence a member of the Government in his conception of the legislation necessary for the millions of people entrusted to his care. He is the instrument, duly appointed, to put into tangible form the wishes and desires of those who naturally look to him not only to furnish means and methods for the betterment of their conditions, or the amelioration of irksome restrictions upon international commercial relations, but to find them protection from risks extraneous of purely commercial liabilities…in such a case a Minister of the Crown with a due appreciation of his responsibilities ceases to exist as a man and becomes merely an unhuman automaton.’

      Sir Philip Ramon was a man with very few friends. He had none of the qualities that go to the making of a popular man. He was an honest man, a conscientious man, a strong man. He was the coldblooded, cynical creature that a life devoid of love had left him. He had no enthusiasm — and inspired none. Satisfied that a certain procedure was less wrong than any other, he adopted it. Satisfied that a measure was for the immediate or ultimate good of his fellows, he carried that measure through to the bitter end. It may be said of him that he had no ambitions — only aims. He was the most dangerous man in the Cabinet, which he dominated in his masterful way, for he knew not the meaning of the blessed word ‘compromise’.

      If he held views on any subject under the sun, those views were to be the views of his colleagues.

      Four times in the short history of the administration had Rumoured Resignation of a Cabinet Minister filled the placards of the newspapers, СКАЧАТЬ