(1929) The Three Just Men (21 page)

A woebegone Joan was whimpering softly, tears running down her face, her hands clasping and unclasping in the agony of her mind.

“You told me you weren’t going to hurt her!” she sobbed.

“Get out,” he hissed, and pointed to the door. She went meekly.

A heavy blanket was wrapped round the unconscious girl, and, lifting her between them, the two men went out into the rain, where the old trolley was waiting, and slid her along the straw-covered floor. In another second the trolley moved off, gathering speed.

By this time the effect of the gas had worn off and Mirabelle had regained consciousness. She put out a hand and touched a woman’s knee. “Who is that—Alma?”

“No,” said a miserable voice, “it’s Joan.”

“Joan? Oh, yes, of course…why did you do it?—how wicked!”

“Shut up!” Monty snarled. “Wait until you get to—where you’re going before you start these ‘whys’ and ‘wherefores.’”

Mirabelle was deathly sick and bemused, and for the next hour she was too ill to feel even alarmed. Her head was going round and round, and ached terribly, and the jolting of the truck did not improve matters in this respect.

Monty, who was sitting with his back to the truck’s side, was smoking. He cursed now and then, as some unusually heavy jolt flung him forward. They passed through the heart of the storm: the flicker of lightning was almost incessant and the thunder was deafening. Rain was streaming down the hood of the trolley, rendering it like a drum.

Mirabelle fell into a sleep and woke feeling better. It was still dark, and she would not have known the direction they were taking, only the driver took the wrong turning coming through a country town, and by the help of the lightning she saw what was indubitably the stand of a race-track, and a little later saw the word “Newbury.” They were going towards London, she realized.

At this hour of the morning there was little or no traffic, and when they turned on to the new Great West Road a big car went whizzing past at seventy miles an hour and the roar of it woke the girl. Now she could feel the trolley wheels skidding on tram-lines. Lights appeared with greater frequency. She saw a store window brilliantly illuminated, the night watchman having evidently forgotten to turn off the lights at the appointed hour.

Soon they were crossing the Thames. She saw the red and green lights of a tug, and black upon near black a string of barges in mid-stream. She dozed again and was jerked wide awake when the trolley swayed and skidded over a surface more uneven than any. Once its wheels went into a pothole and she was flung violently against the side. Another time it skidded and was brought up with a crash against some obstacle. The bumping grew more gentle, and then the machine stopped, and Monty jumped down and called to her sharply.

Her head was clear now, despite its throbbing. She saw a queer-shaped house, all gables and turrets, extraordinarily narrow for its height. It seemed to stand in the middle of a field. And yet it was in London: she could see the glow of furnace fires and hear the deep boom of a ship’s siren as it made its way down the river on the tide.

She had not time to take observations, for Monty fastened to her arm and she squelched through the mud up a flight of stone steps into a dimly lit hall. She had a confused idea that she had seen little dogs standing on the side of the steps, and a big bird with a long bill, but these probably belonged to the smoke dreams which the gas had left.

Monty opened a door and pushed her in before him, and she stared into the face of Dr. Oberzohn.

He wore a black velvet dressing-gown that had once been a regal garment but was now greasy and stained. On his egg-shaped head he had an embroidered smoking-cap. His feet were encased in warm velvet slippers. He put down the book he had been reading, rubbed his glasses on one velvet sleeve, and then:

“So!” he said.

He pointed to the remains of a fire.

“Sit down, Mirabelle Leicester, and warm yourself. You have come quickly, my friend.”—he addressed Monty.

“I’m black and blue all over,” growled Newton. “Why couldn’t we have a car?”

“Because the cars were engaged, as I told you.”

“Did you—” began Newton quickly, but the old man glanced significantly at the girl, shivering before the fire and warming her hands mechanically.

“I will answer, but you need not ask, in good time. This is not of all moments the most propitious. Where is your woman?”

He had forgotten Joan, and went out to find her shivering in the passage.

“Do you want her?” he asked, poking his head in the door.

“She shall go with this girl. You will explain.”

“Where are you going to put her?”

Oberzohn pointed to the floor.

“Here? But—”

“No, no. My friend, you are too quick to see what is not meant. The gracious lady shall live in a palace—I have a certain friend who will no longer need it.”

His face twitched in the nearest he ever approached to a smile. Groping under the table, he produced a pair of muddy Wellingtons, kicked off his slippers and pulled on the boots with many gasps and jerks.

“All that they need is there: I have seen to it. March!”

He led the way out of the room, pulling the girl to her feet, and Newton followed, Joan bringing up the rear. Inside the factory, Oberzohn produced a small hand torch from his pocket and guided them through the debris till he came to that part of the floor where the trap was. With his foot he moved the covering of rubbish, pulled up the trap and went down.

“I can’t go down there, Monty, I can’t!” said Joan’s agitated voice. “What are you going to do with us? My God! if I’d known—”

“Don’t be a fool,” said Newton roughly. “What have you got to be afraid of? There’s nothing here. We want you to look after her for a day or two. You don’t want her to go down by herself: she’d be frightened to death.”

Her teeth chattering, Joan stumbled down the steps behind him. Certainly the first view of her new quarters was reassuring. Two little trestle beds had been made; the underground room had been swept clean, and a new carpet laid on the floor. Moreover, the apartment was brilliantly lit, and a furnace gave almost an uncomfortable warmth which was nevertheless very welcome, for the temperature had dropped 20deg since noon.

“In this box there are clothes of all varieties, and expensive to purchase,” said Oberzohn, pointing to a brand-new trunk at the foot of one of the beds. “Food you will have in plenty—bread and milk newly every day. By night you shall keep the curtain over the ventilator.” On the wall was a small black curtain about ten inches square.

Monty took her into the next apartment and showed her the wash-place. There was even a bath, a compulsory fixture under the English Factory Act in a store of this description, where, in the old days, men had to handle certain insanitary products of the Coast.

“But how do we get out, Monty? Where do we get exercise?”

“You’ll come out tomorrow night: I’ll see to that,” he said, dropping his voice. “Now listen, Joan: you’ve got to be a sensible girl and help me. There’s money in this—bigger money than you’ve ever dreamed of. And when we’ve got this unpleasant business over, I’m taking you away for a trip round the world.”

It was the old promise, given before, never fulfilled, always hoped for. But this time it did not wholly remove her uneasiness.

“But what are you going to do with the girl?” she asked.

“Nothing; she will be kept here for a week. I’ll swear to you that nothing will happen to her. At the end of a week she’s to be released without a hair of her head being harmed.”

She looked at him searchingly. As far as she was able to judge, he was speaking the truth. And yet—

“I can’t understand it”—she shook her head, and for once Monty Newton was patient with her.

“She’s the owner of a big property in Africa, and that we shall get, if things work out right,” he said. “The point is that she must claim within a few days. If she doesn’t, the property is ours.”

Her face cleared.

“Is that all?” She believed him, knew him well enough to detect his rare sincerity. “That’s taken a load off my mind, Monty. Of course I’ll stay and look after her for you—it makes it easier to know that nothing will happen. What are those baize things behind the furnace—they look like boxes?”

He turned on her quickly.

“I was going to tell you about those,” he said. “You’re not to touch them under any circumstances. They belong to the old man and he’s very stuffy about such things. Leave them just as they are. Let him touch them and nobody else. Do you understand?”

She nodded, and, to his surprise, pecked his cheek with her cold lips.

“I’ll help you, boy,” she said tremulously. “Maybe that trip will come off after all, if—”

“If what?”

“Those men—the men you were talking about—the Four Just Men, don’t they call themselves? They scare me sick, Monty! They were the people who took her away before, and they’ll kill us—even Oberzohn says that. They’re after him. Has he”—she hesitated—“has he killed anybody? That snake stuff…you’re not in it, are you, Monty?”

She looked more like a child than a sophisticated woman, clinging to his arm, her blue eyes looking pleadingly into his.

“Stuff! What do I know about snakes?” He disengaged himself and came back to where Oberzohn was waiting, a figure of patience.

The girl was lying on the bed, her face in the crook of her arm, and he was gazing at her, his expression inscrutable.

“That is all, then. Good night, gracious ladies.”

He turned and marched back towards the step and waved his hand. Monty followed. The girl heard the thud of the trap fall, the scrape of the old man’s boots, and then a rumbling sound, which she did not immediately understand. Later, when in a panic she tried the trap, she found that a heavy barrel had been put on top, and that it was immovable.

CHAPTER TWENTY - GURTHER REPORTS

DR. OBERZOHN had not been to bed for thirty-five years. It was his practice to sleep in a chair, and alternate his dozes with copious draughts from his favourite authors. Mostly the books were about the soul, and free will, and predestination, with an occasional dip into Nietzsche by way of light recreation. In ordinary circumstances he would have had need for all the philosophy he could master; for ruin had come. The destruction of his store, which, to all intents and purposes, was uninsured, would have been the crowning stroke of fate but for the golden vision ahead.

Villa, that handsome half-breed, had arrived in England and had been with the doctor all the evening. At that moment he was on his way to Liverpool to catch the Coast boat, and he had left with his master a record of the claims that had already been pegged out on Monto Doro, as he so picturesquely renamed the new mountain. There were millions there; uncountable wealth. And between the Herr Doktor and the achievement of this colossal fortune was a life which he had no immediate desire to take. The doctor was a bachelor; women bored him. Yet he was prepared to take the extreme step if by so doing he could doubly ensure his fortune. Mirabelle dead gave him one chance; Mirabelle alive and persuaded, multiplied that chance by a hundred.

He opened the book he was reading at the last page and took out the folded paper. It was a special licence to marry, and had been duly registered at the Greenwich Registrar’s Office since the day before the girl had entered his employment. This was his second and most powerful weapon. He could have been legally married on this nearly a week ago. It was effective for two months at least, and only five days separated him from the necessity of a decision. If the time expired, Mirabelle could live. It was quite a different matter, killing in cold blood a woman for whom the police would be searching, and with whose disappearance his name would be connected, from that other form of slaying he favoured: the striking down of strange men in crowded thoroughfares. She was not for the snake—as yet.

He folded the paper carefully, put it back in the book and turned the page, when there was a gentle tap at the door and he sat up.

“Come in, Pfeiffer. March!”

The door opened slowly and a man sidled into the room, and at the sight of him Dr. Oberzohn gasped.

“Gurther!” he stammered, for once thrown out of his stride.

Gurther smiled and nodded, his round eyes fixed on the tassel of the Herr Doktor’s smoking-cap.

“You have returned—and failed?”

“The American, I think, is dead, Herr Doktor,” said the man in staccato tone. “The so excellent Pfeiffer is also—dead!”

The doctor blinked twice.

“Dead?” he said gratingly. “Who told you this?”

“I saw him. Something happened…to the snake. Pfeiffer was bitten.”

The old man’s hard eyes fixed him.

“So!” he said softly.

“He died very quickly—in the usual manner,” jerked Gurther, still with that stupid smile.

“So!” said the doctor again. “All then was failure, and out of it comes an American, who is nothing, and Pfeiffer, who is much—dead!”