The Complete Four Just Men (105 page)

‘Oh, I think I know your mysterious Mr Drake. We used him before, didn’t we?’

‘We used him before,’ agreed Leon gravely. ‘But this time he dies the death of a dog!’

‘Who is this Jones?’ asked Poiccart. ‘I’ve seen him at the Old Bailey – and he has a Dartmoor manner. You remember, George – an unpleasant case, eight-ten years ago. Not a fit companion for the pretty Leonora.’

Leon’s car took him the next morning to a famous market town, ten miles from Mr Malan’s farm. Here he sought and had an interview with the local inspector of taxes, producing the brief authorization which he had suggested Leonora should sign. The harassed official was both willing and anxious to give Leon all the information he required.

‘I have the devil of a job with these people. We know their main income, which arrives from South Africa every quarter, but they’ve got a score of other South African interests which we’re unable to trace. We knew that they are in the habit of receiving their money in cash. Both men have obviously been cheating the Revenue for years, but we could get no evidence against them. If Mr Malan keeps books, he also keeps them well out of sight! A few months ago we put a detective on to watch Cornelius, and we found his hiding place. It lies about twenty feet down a half-filled-in well in his garden.’

Leon nodded.

‘And it’s a solid rock chamber approached by a steel door. It sounds
like a fairy tale, doesn’t it? It’s one of the many in which Charles II was reputedly hidden, and the existence of the rock chamber has been known for centuries. Cornelius had the steel door fitted, and as the well is right under his window and is fastened by an iron trapdoor and is, moreover, visible from the road, it’s much more secure than any safe he could have in his house.’

‘Then why not search the strong-room?’ asked Leon.

The inspector shook his head.

‘We’ve no authority to do that – the most difficult thing in the world to secure is a search warrant, and our department, unless it institutes criminal proceedings, has never applied for such an authority.’

Leon smiled broadly.

‘Mr Drake will have to get it for you,’ he said cryptically.

The puzzled official frowned.

‘I don’t quite get that.’

‘You will get more than that,’ said the mysterious Leon.

As Leon walked up the muddy cart-track, he became aware of the sound of voices, one deep and bellowing, one high and shrill. Their words, incoherent in themselves, were indistinguishable. He turned the corner of an untidy clump of bushes, and saw the two: Cornelius the giant, and the rat-faced Mr Jones, who was white with passion.

‘I’m going to get you, you damned Dutch thief!’ he cried shrilly. ‘Robbing the orphan – that’s what you’re doing. You haven’t heard the last of me.’

What Cornelius said was impossible to understand, for in his rage he had relapsed into Cape Dutch, which is one of the most expressive mediums of vituperation. He caught sight of Leon, and came striding towards him.

‘You’re a detective: take that man from here. He’s a thief, a gaolbird. My brother gave him a job because he could get no other.’

The thin lips of Mr Jones curled in a sneer.

‘A hell of a job! A stable to sleep in and stuff to eat that Dartmoor would turn up its nose at – not that I know anything about Dartmoor,’ he added hastily. ‘All that this man says is lies. He’s a thief; he took the money from old Roos’s safe – ’

‘And you come and say “Give me ten thousand and I’ll tell Leonora not to trouble about the rest,” eh?’ snarled Cornelius.

Leon knew it was not the moment to tell the story of Mr Drake. That must come later. He made an excuse for his calling and then accompanied the man Jones back to the road.

‘Don’t you take any notice of what he said, mister, I mean about my trying to doublecross Leonora. She’s a good girl; she trusts me, she does, and I’m going to do the right thing by her . . . Old Roos led her the life of a dog.’

Leon wondered what kind of life this ex-convict would lead Leonora Malan and was quite satisfied that, whatever happened, the girl should be saved from such an association.

‘And when he says I was a convict – ’ began Jones again.

‘I can save you a lot of trouble,’ said Leon. ‘I saw you sentenced.’

He mentioned the offence, and the man went red and then white.

‘Now you can go back to London, and I’m warning you not to go near Miss Leonora Malan. If you do, there is going to be trouble.’

Jones opened his mouth as if to say something, changed his mind and lurched up the road. It was later in the evening when Leon returned to tell the story of Mr Drake.

He reached the farm of Mr Cornelius Malan at nine o’clock. It was pitch dark; rain and sleet were falling, and the house offered no promise that his discomfort would be relieved, for not so much as a candle gleam illuminated the dark windows. He knocked for some time, but had no reply. Then he heard the sound of laboured breathing: somebody was walking towards him in the darkness, and he spun round.

‘Mr Cornelius Malan?’ he asked, and heard the man grunt, and then: ‘Who is it?’

‘An old friend,’ said Leon coolly, and though Cornelius could not see his face, he must have recognized him.

‘What do you want?’ His voice was shrill with anxiety.

‘I want to see you. It’s rather an important matter,’ said Leon.

The man pushed past him, unlocked the door and led the way into the darkness. Leon waited in the doorway until he saw the yellow flame of a match and heard the tinkle of a lamp chimney being lifted.

The room was big and bare. Only the glow of a wood fire burnt in the hearth, yet this apparently was the farmer’s living and sleeping room, for his untidy bed was in one corner of the room. In the centre was a bare deal table, and on this Leon sat uninvited. The man stood at the far end of the table, scowling down at him; his face was pale and haggard.

‘What do you want?’ he asked again.

‘It’s about John Drake,’ said Leon deliberately. ‘He’s an old enemy of mine; we have chased one another across three continents before now, and tonight, for the first time in ten years, we met.’

The man was puzzled, bewildered. ‘What’s this to do with me?’

Leon shrugged. ‘Only tonight I killed him.’

He saw the man’s jaw drop. ‘Killed him?’ – incredulously.

Leon nodded.

‘I stabbed him with a long knife,’ he said, with some relish. ‘You’ve probably heard about the Three Just Men: they do such things. And I’ve concealed the body on your farm. For the first time in my life I am conscious that I have acted unfairly, and it is my intention to give myself up to the police.’

Cornelius looked down at him.

‘On my farm?’ he said dully. ‘Where did you put the body?’

Not a muscle of Leon’s face moved.

‘I dropped it down the well.’

‘That’s a lie!’ stormed the other. ‘It is impossible that it was you who opened the cover! . . . ’

Leon shrugged his shoulders.

‘That you must tell the police. They at any rate will learn from me that I dropped him down that well. At the bottom I found a door which I succeeded in opening with a skeleton key, and inside that door is my unhappy victim.’

Malan’s lips were quivering.

Suddenly he turned and rushed from the room.

Leon heard the shot and ran through the door into the night . . . the next second he sprawled over the dead body of Cornelius Roos.

Later, when the police came and forced the cover of the well, they found another dead man huddled at the bottom of the well, where Cornelius had thrown him.

* * *

‘Jones must have been detected in the act of forcing the well, and been shot,’ said Leon. ‘Weird, isn’t it . . . after my yarn about having buried a man there? I expected no more than that Cornelius would pay up rather than have the well searched.’

‘Very weird,’ said Manfred drily, ‘and the weirdest thing is Jones’s real name.’

‘What is it?’

‘Drake,’ said Manfred. ‘The police phoned it through half-an-hour before you came in.’

‘The Englishman Konnor’

The Three Just Men sat longer over dinner than usual. Poiccart had been unusually talkative – and serious.

‘The truth is, my dear George,’ he appealed to the silent Manfred, ‘we are fiddling with things. There are still offences for which the law does not touch a man; for which death is the only and logical punishment. We do a certain amount of good – yes. We right certain wrongs – yes. But could not any honest detective agency do as much?’

‘Poiccart is a lawless man,’ murmured Leon Gonsalez; ‘he is going
fantee
– there is a murderous light in his eyes!’

Poiccart smiled good-humouredly.

‘We know this is true, all of us. There are three men I know, every one of them worthy of destruction. They have wrecked lives, and are within the pale of the law . . . Now, my view is . . . ’

They let him talk and talk, and to the eyes of Manfred came a vision of Merrell, the Fourth of the Four Just Men – he who died in Bordeaux and, in dying completed his purpose. Some day the story of Merrell the Fourth may be told. Manfred remembered a warm, still night, when Poiccart had spoken in just this strain. They were younger then: eager for justice, terribly swift to strike . . .

‘We are respectable citizens,’ said Leon, getting up, ‘and you are trying to corrupt us, my friend. I refuse to be corrupted!’

Poiccart looked up at him from under his heavy eyelids.

‘Who shall be the first to break back to the old way?’ he asked significantly.

Leon did not answer.

This was a month before the appearance of the tablet. It came into the possession of the Four in a peculiar way. Poiccart was in Berlin, looking for a man who called himself Lefèvre. One sunny afternoon, when he was lounging through Charlonenburg, he called in at an antique shop to buy some old Turkish pottery that was exhibited for sale. Two large blue vases were his purchase, and these he had packed and sent to the House with the Silver Triangle, in Curzon Street.

It was Manfred who found the gold badge. He had odd moments of domesticity, and one day decided to wash the pottery. There were all sorts of oddments at the bottom of the vases: one was stuffed with old pieces of Syrian newspaper for half its depth, and it needed a great deal of patience and groping with pieces of wire to bring these to light. Nearing the end of his task, he heard a metallic tinkle and, as he turned the jar upside down, there dropped into the kitchen sink a gold chain bracelet that held an oblong gold tablet, inscribed on both sides with minute Arabic writing.

Now it so happened that Mr Dorian of the
Evening Herald
was in the kitchen when this interesting find was made, and Mr Dorian, as everybody knows, is the greatest gossip-writer that ever went into Fleet Street. He is a youngish man of forty-something who looks twenty-something. You meet him at first nights and very select functions, at the unveiling of war memorials – he was a very good artilleryman during the war. Sometimes he called and stayed to dinner to talk over the old days on the
Megaphone
, but never before had he made professional profit out of his visits. ‘Poiccart will be indifferent – but Leon will be delighted,’ said Manfred as he examined the bracelet link by link. ‘Gold, of course. Leon loves mysteries and usually makes his own. This will go into his little story box.’

The little story box was Leon’s especial eccentricity. Disdaining safes and strong rooms, that battered steel deed-box reposed beneath his bed. It is true that it contained nothing of great value intrinsically: a jumble of odds and ends, from the torn tickets of bookmakers to two inches of the rope that should have hanged Manfred, each inconsiderable object had its attachment in the shape of a story.

The imagination of the journalist was fired. He took the bracelet in his hand and examined it.

‘What is it?’ he asked curiously.

Manfred was examining the inscription.

‘Leon understands Arabic better than I – it rather looks like the identification disc of a Turkish officer. He must be, or must have been, rather an exquisite.’

Curious, mused Dorian aloud. Here in smoky London a jar or vase bought in Berlin, and out of it tumbles something of Eastern romance. He asked it he might muse in print to the same purpose, and George Manfred had no objection.

Leon came back that evening: he had been asked by the American Government to secure exact information about a certain general cargo which was being shipped from lighters in the port of London.

‘Certain raw materials,’ he reported, ‘which could have caused a great deal of trouble for our friends in America.’

Manfred told him of his find.

‘Dorian was here – I told him he could write about this if he liked.’

‘H’m!’ said Leon, reading the inscription. ‘Did you tell him what this writing stood for? But you’re not a whale at Arabic, are you? There’s one word in Roman characters, “Konnor” – did you see that? “Konnor”? Now what is “Konnor”?’ He looked up at the ceiling. ‘“The Englishman Konnor” – that was the owner of this interesting exhibit. Konnor? I’ve got it – “Connor”!’

The next evening, under ‘The Man in Town,’ Mr Dorian’s daily column, Leon read of the find, and was just a little irritated to discover that the thorough Mr Dorian had referred to the story box. If the truth be told, Leon was not proud of this little box of his; it stood for romance and sentiment, two qualities which he was pleased to believe were absent from his spiritual make-up.

‘George, you’re becoming a vulgar publicity agent,’ he complained. ‘The next thing that will happen will be that I shall receive fabulous offers from a Sunday newspaper for a series of ten articles on “Stories from my Story Box”, and if I do I shall sulk for three days.’

Nevertheless, into the black box went the bracelet. What the writing was all about, and where ‘the Englishman Konnor’ came into it, Leon refused to say.

Yet it was clear to his two companions that Leon was pursuing some new inquiry in the days that followed. He haunted Fleet Street and Whitehall, and even paid a visit to Dublin. Once Manfred questioned him and Leon smiled amiably.

‘The whole thing is rather amusing. Connor isn’t even Irish. Probably isn’t Connor, though it is certain that he bore that name. I found it on the roll of a very fine Irish regiment. He is most likely a Levantine. Stewarts, the Dublin photographers, have a picture of him in a regimental group. That is what I went to Ireland to see. There’s a big bookmaker in Dublin who was an officer in the same regiment, and he says “Connor” spoke with a foreign accent.’

‘But who is Connor?’ asked Manfred.

Leon showed his even white teeth in a grin of delight.

‘He is my story,’ was all that he would say.

Three weeks later Leon Gonsalez found adventure.

He had something of the qualities of a cat; he slept noiselessly; the keenest ear must strain to hear him breathing; he woke noiselessly. He could pass from complete oblivion to complete wakefulness in a flash. As a cat opens her eyes and is instantly and cold-bloodedly alert, so was Leon.

He had the rare power of looking back into sleep and rediscovering causes, and he knew without remembering that what had wakened him was not the tap-tap of the blind cords for, the night being windy, this had been a normal accompaniment to sleep, but rather the sound of human movement.

His room was a large one for so small a house, but there could never be enough ventilation for Leon, so that, in addition to windows, the door was wedged open . . . He snuffled picturesquely, like a man in heavy sleep, grumbled drowsily, and turned in the bed; but when he had finished turning, his feet were on the floor and he was standing upright, tightening the cord of his pyjamas.

Manfred and Poiccart were away for the weekend, and he was alone in the house – a satisfactory state of affairs, since Leon preferred to deal with such situations as these single-handed.

Waiting, his head bent, he heard the sound again. It came at the end of a whining gust of wind that should have drowned the noise – a distinct creak. Now the stairs gave seven distinct creakings. This one came from the second tread. He lifted his dressing-gown and drew it on as his bare feet groped for his slippers. Then he slipped out on to the landing, and switched on the light.

There was a man on the landing; his yellow, uncleanly face was upraised to Leon’s. Fear, surprise, hateful resentment were there.

‘Keep your hand out of your pocket, or I’ll shoot you through the stomach,’ said Leon calmly. ‘It will take you four days to die, and you’ll regret every minute of it.’

The second man, half-way up the stairs, stood stock-still, paralysed with fright. He was small and slim. Leon waved the barrel of his Browning in his direction, and the smaller figure shrank against the wall and screamed.

Leon smiled. He had not met a lady burglar for years.

‘Turn about, both of you, and walk downstairs,’ he ordered; ‘don’t try to run – that would be fatal.’

They obeyed him, the man sullenly, the girl, he guessed, rather weak in the knees.

Presently they came to the ground floor.

‘To the left,’ said Leon.

He stepped swiftly up to the man, dropped the Browning against his spine, and put his hand into the jacket pocket. He took out a short-barrelled revolver, and slipped it into the pocket of his dressing-gown.

‘Through the doorway – the light switch is on the left, turn it.’ Following them into the little dining-room, he closed the door behind him. ‘Now sit down – both of you.’

The man he could place: a typical prison man; irregular features, bad-complexioned: a creature of low mentality, who spent his short periods of liberty qualifying for further imprisonment.

His companion had not spoken, and until she spoke Leon could not place her into a category.

‘I’m very sorry – I am entirely to blame.’

So she spoke, and Leon was enlightened.

It was an educated voice – the voice you might hear in Bond Street ordering the chauffeur to drive to the Ritz.

She was pretty, but then, most women were pretty to Leon; he had that amount of charity in his soul. Dark eyes, fine arches of eyebrows, rather full, red lips. The nervous fingers that twined in and out of one another were white, shapely, rather over-manicured. There was a small purple spot on the back of one finger, where a big ring had been.

‘This man is not responsible,’ she said, in a low voice. ‘I hired him. A – a friend of mine used to help him, and he came to the house one night last week; and I asked him to do this for me. That’s really true.’

‘Asked him to burgle my house?’

She nodded.
‘I wish
you’d
let him go – I could
talk
to
you
then . . . and feel more comfortable. It really isn’t his fault. I’m entirely to blame.’

Leon pulled open the drawer of a small writing-table, and took out a sheet of paper and an inkpad. He put them on the table before the girl’s unshaven companion.

‘Put your finger and thumb on the pad – press ’em.’

‘Whaffor?’ The man was husky and suspicious.

‘I want your finger-prints in case I have to come after you. Be slippy!’

Reluctantly, the burglar obeyed – first one hand and then the other. Leon examined the prints on the paper, and was satisfied.

‘Step this way.’

He pushed his visitor to the street door, opened it, and walked out after him.

‘You must not carry a gun,’ he said. As he spoke his fist shot up and caught the man under the jaw, and the man went sprawling to the ground.

He got up whimpering.

‘She made me carry it,’ he whined.

‘Then she earned you a punch on the jaw,’ said Leon brightly, and closed the door on one who called himself, rather unimaginatively, ‘John Smith’.

When he returned to the dining-room, the girl had loosened the heavy coat she wore, and was sitting back in her chair, rather white of face but perfectly calm.

‘Has he gone? I’m so glad! You hit him, didn’t you? I thought I heard you. What do you think of me?’

‘I wouldn’t have missed tonight for a thousand pounds!’ said Leon, and he was telling the truth.

Only for a fraction of a second did she smile.

‘Why do you think I did this mad, stupid thing?’ she asked quietly. Leon shook his head.

‘That is exactly what I can’t think: we’ve no very important case on hand; the mysterious documents which figure in all sensation stories are entirely missing. I can only suppose that we’ve been rather unkind to some friend of yours – a lover, a father, a brother – ’

He saw the ghost of a smile appear and disappear.

‘No; it isn’t revenge. You’ve done me no harm, directly or indirectly. And there are no secret documents.’

‘Then it’s not revenge and it’s not robbery; I confess that I am beaten!’ Leon’s smile was dazzling, and this time she responded without reservation.

‘I suppose I’d better tell you everything,’ she said, ‘and I’d best start by telling you that my name is Lois Martin, my father is Sir Charles Martin, the surgeon, and I shall be married in three weeks’ time to Major John Rutland, of the Cape Police. And that is why I burgled your house.’

Leon was amused.

‘You were – er – looking for a wedding-present?’ he asked, mildly sarcastic.

To his surprise, she nodded.

‘That is just what I came for,’ she said. ‘I’ve been very silly. If I’d known you better, I should have come to you and asked for it.’

Her steady eyes were fixed upon Leon.

‘Well?’ he asked. ‘What is this interesting object?’

She spoke very slowly.

‘A gold chain bangle, with an identification disc . . . ’

Leon was not surprised, except that she was speaking the truth. He jotted down the names she had given him. A gold bracelet,’ he repeated, ‘the property of – ?’

She hesitated.

‘I suppose you’ve got to know the whole story – I’m rather in your hands.’

He nodded.

‘Very much in my hands,’ he said pleasantly. ‘It seems to me that you will get less discomfort in telling me now than in explaining the matter to a police magistrate.’

He was geniality itself yet she, womanlike, could detect a hardness in his tone that made her shiver a little.