The Complete Four Just Men (46 page)

‘You’re not going?’ she said in astonishment.

‘I’m afraid I must,’ he said. ‘I’ve a rather important engagement and – er – I only called in passing. Which way did this man go? Did he give you any idea as to his destination?’

She shook her head.

‘No. All he said was that there were people who would be glad of the information he could give about you.’

‘He did, did he?’ said Black, with an heroic attempt at a smile. ‘I never thought Jakobs was that kind of man. Of course, there is nothing that I should mind everybody knowing, but one has business secrets, you know. Miss Sandford. He is a discharged employee of mine who has stolen some contracts. You need not worry about the matter.’

He smiled confidently at her as he left the room.

He drove straight from the house to his city office. The place was in darkness, but he knew his way without the necessity of lighting up. He ran upstairs into the boardroom.

There was a little door in one corner of the room, concealed from view by a hanging curtain.

He closed the shutters and pulled down the blinds before he switched on the light. He pushed the curtain aside and examined the face of the door. There was no sign that it had been forced. Jakobs knew of the existence of this little retiring-room, and had, in his indiscretion, mentioned its existence in one of his letters of demand.

Black drew from his pocket a small bunch of keys attached to a silver chain. The door of the room opened easily. There was a smaller room disclosed – no larger than a big cupboard. A single incandescent electric burner slung from the ceiling supplied all the light necessary. There was a dressing-table, a chair, a big looking-glass, and a number of hooks from which were suspended a dozen articles of attire. Air was admitted through two ventilators let into the wall and communicating with the main ventilating shaft of the building.

He opened the door of the dressing-table and drew out a number of wigs. They were wigs such as only Fasieur can supply – perfectly modelled and all of one shade of hair, though differently arranged.

He tossed them on to the table impatiently, groping for something which he knew should be there, and was there unless a thief skilled in the use of skeleton keys, and having, moreover, some knowledge of the office, had taken it. He stopped his search suddenly and
examined a pad of paper which lay on the table.

It was a pad which he kept handy for note-taking – to jot down memoranda. On the white face of the paper was a large brown thumb-mark, and though Colonel Black knew little of the science of anthropology, he was sufficiently well acquainted with the sign to know that it was the mark of a thumb which ought never to have been in this secret office
of his.

Then it was Willie! Willie Jakobs, the befriended, the pensioned, and the scorned, who had removed a certain green bottle, the duplicate of which was in his pocket at that moment.

Black did not lose his nerve. He went to a drawer in the desk of his outer office and took out a Browning pistol. It was loaded. He balanced it in his right hand, looked at it reflectively, then put it back again. He hated firearms; they made a great deal of unnecessary noise, and they left behind them too sure an indication of the identity of their user. Men have been traced by bullets.

There were other ways. He lifted from the drawer a long thin knife. It was an Italian stiletto of the sixteenth century – the sort of toy a man might use in these prosaic days for opening his letters. And indeed this was the ostensible reason why Black kept the weapon at hand.

He drew it from its ornate leather sheath and tested its temper, felt its edge and gingerly fingered its point; then he put the stiletto in its case in his overcoat pocket, switched out the light and went out. This was not a case which demanded the employment of the little bottle. There was too little of the precious stuff left, and he had need of it for other purposes.

There were two or three places where he might find the man. A little public-house off Regent Street was one. He drove there, stopping the cab a few paces from the spot. He strode into the bar, where men of Jakobs’s kind were to be found, but it was empty. The man he sought was not there.

He made a tour of other likely places with no better success. Willie would be at home. He had moved to lodgings on the south side of the Thames.

It was coming from a little public-house off the New Kent Road that Black found his man. Willie had been spending the evening brooding over his grievance, and was on his way home to prepare for his big adventure when Black clapped him on the shoulder.

‘Hullo, Willie,’ he said.

The man turned round with a start.

‘Keep your hands off me,’ he said hastily,
stumbling against the wall.

‘Now, don’t be silly,’ said Black. ‘Let’s talk this matter out reasonably. You’re a reasonable man, aren’t you? I’ve got a cab waiting round the corner.’

‘You don’t get me into no cabs,’ said Jakobs. ‘I’ve had enough of you, Black. You’ve turned round on me. You cast me out like a dog. Is that the way to treat a pal?’

‘You’ve made a mistake, my friend,’ said Black smoothly. ‘We’re all liable to make mistakes. I’ve made many, and I dare say you’ve made a few. Now, let’s talk business.’

Willie said nothing. He was still suspicious. Once he thought he saw the other’s hand steal to his breast-pocket. He guessed the motive of the action. This, then, was where the bottle was.

Black was an adept in the art of cajolery. He knew the weak places of all the men who had been associated with him. Very slowly he led the other aimlessly, so it seemed, from one street to another until they reached a little cul-de-sac. Stables occupied one side of the tiny street and artisan houses the other. One street-lamp half-way down showed a dim light.

Willie hesitated. ‘There’s no thoroughfare,’ he said.

‘Oh yes, there is,’ said Black confidently. ‘I know this neighbourhood rather well. Now, there’s one thing I want to ask you, Willie. I’m sure you are feeling more friendly towards me now, aren’t you?’

His hand rested almost affectionately on the other’s shoulder.

‘You didn’t play the game,’ persisted the other.

‘Let bygones be bygones,’ said Black. ‘What I want to know is, Willie, why did you take the bottle?’

He asked the question in a matter-of-fact tone. He did not raise his voice or give the query unusual emphasis.

The other man was taken off his guard. ‘Well, I felt sore,’ he said.

‘And I suppose,’ said Black, with gentle reproach, ‘you’re waiting to hand that bottle to our friend Fellowe?’

‘I haven’t handed it to anybody yet,’ said Willie, ‘but to tell you the truth – ’

He said no more. The big man’s hand suddenly closed round his throat with a grip like steel. Willie struggled, but he was like a child in the grasp of the other.

‘You dog,’ breathed Black.

He shook the helpless man violently. Then with his disengaged hand he whipped the tell-tale phial from the other’s pocket and pushed him against the wall.

‘And I’ll teach you that that’s nothing to what you’ll get if you ever come across me again.’

Jakobs dropped, white and ghastly, against the wall. ‘You’ve got the bottle, Black,’ he said, ‘but I know everything that you’ve done with it.’

‘You do, do you?’

‘Yes, everything,’ said the other desperately. ‘You’re not going to cast me off, do you hear? You’ve got to pension me, same as you’ve done other people. I know enough to send you for a lagging without – ’

‘I thought you did,’ said Black.

Something glittered in the light of the lamp, and without a cry Jakobs went down in a huddled heap to the ground.

Black looked round. He wiped the blade of the stiletto carefully on the coat of the stricken man, carefully replaced the weapon in its leather case, and examined his own hands with considerable care for any signs of blood. But these Italian weapons make small wounds.

He turned and, pulling on his gloves, made his way back to where the cab was still waiting.

Chapter 15

Sir Isaac’s fears

Under the bright light of a bronze lamp, all that was mortal of Jakobs lay extended upon the operating-table. About the body moved
swiftly the shirt-sleeved figures of the doctors.

‘I don’t think there is much we can do for him,’ said Gonsalez. ‘He’s had an arterial perforation. It seems to me that he’s bleeding internally.’

They had
made a superficial examination of the wound,
and
Poiccart had taken so serious a view of the man’s condition that he had dispatched a messenger for a magistrate.

Willie was conscious during the examination, but he was too weak and too exhausted to give any account of what had happened.

‘There’s just a chance,’ said Gonsalez, if we could get a J
.
P. up in time, that we could give him sufficient strychnine to enable him to tell us who had done this.’

‘It’s murder, I think,’ said Gonsalez, ‘the cut’s a clean one. Look, there’s hardly half an inch of wound. The man who did this used a stiletto, I should say, and used it pretty scientifically. It’s a wonder he wasn’t killed on the spot.’

The hastily-summoned justice of the peace appeared on the scene much sooner than they had anticipated. Gonsalez explained the condition of the man.

‘He tried to tell me, after we had got him on the table, who had done it,’ he said, ‘but I couldn’t catch the name.’

‘Do you know him?’ asked the J.P.

‘I know him,’ he said, ‘and I’ve rather an idea as to who has done it, but I can’t give any reasons for my suspicions.’

Jakobs was unconscious, and Gonsalez seized the first opportunity that presented itself of consulting with his colleague.

‘I believe this is Black’s work,’ he said hurriedly. ‘Why not send for him? We know Jakobs has been in his employ and was pensioned by him, and that’s sufficient excuse. Possibly, if we can get him down before this poor chap dies, we shall learn something.’

‘I’ll get on the telephone,’ said the other.

He drew from his pocket a memorandum book and consulted its pages. Black’s movements and his resorts were fairly well tabulated, but the telephone failed to connect the man they wanted.

At a quarter to two in the morning Jakobs died, without having regained consciousness, and it looked as though yet another mystery had been added to a list which was already appallingly large.

The news came to May Sandford that afternoon. The tragedy had occurred too late that night to secure descriptions in the morning papers; but from the earlier editions of the afternoon journals she read with a shock of the man’s terrible fate.

It was only by accident that she learnt of it from this source, for she was still reading of his death in the paper when Black, ostentatiously agitated, called upon her. ‘Isn’t it dreadful, Miss Sandford?’ he said.

He was quite beside himself with grief, the girl thought.

‘I shall give evidence, of course, but I shall take great care to keep your name out of it. I think the poor man had very bad associates indeed,’ he said frankly. ‘I had to discharge him for that reason. Nobody need know he ever came here,’ he suggested. ‘It wouldn’t be pleasant for you to be dragged into a sordid case like this.’

‘Oh, no, no,’ she said. ‘I don’t want to be mixed up in it at all. I’m awfully sorry, but I can’t see how my evidence would help.’

‘Of course,’ agreed Black. It had only occurred to him that morning how damning might be the evidence that this girl was in a position to give, and he had come to her in a panic lest she had already volunteered it.

She thought he looked ill and worried, as indeed he was, for Black had slept very little that night. He knew that he was safe from detection. None had seen him meet the man, and although he had visited the resorts which the man frequented, he had not inquired after him.

Yet Black was obsessed by the knowledge that a net was drawing round him. Who were the hunters he could not guess. There came to him at odd moments a strange feeling of terror.

Nothing was going exactly right with him. Sir Isaac had showed signs of revolt.

Before the day was out he found that he had quite enough to bother him without the terrors which the unknown held. The police had made most strenuous inquiries regarding his whereabouts on the night of the murder. They had even come to him and questioned him with such persistence that he suspected a directing force behind them. He had not bothered overmuch with the Four Just Men. He had accepted the word of his informant that the Four had separated for the time being, and the fact that Wilkinson Despard had left for America confirmed all that the man had told him.

He was getting short of money again. The settlement of his bets had left him short. Sandford must be ‘persuaded’. Every day it was getting more and more of a necessity.

One morning Sir Isaac had telephoned him asking him to meet him in the park.

‘Why not come here?’ asked Black.

‘No,’ said the baronet’s voice. ‘I’d rather meet you in the park.’

He named the spot, and at the hour Black met him, a little annoyed that his day’s programme should be interrupted by this eccentricity on the part of Sir Isaac Tramber.

The baronet himself did not at once come to the point. He talked around, hummed and hawed, and at last blurted out the truth.

‘Look here, Black,’ he said, ‘you and I have been good pals – we’ve been together in some queer adventures, but now I am going to – I want – ’

He stammered and spluttered.

‘What do you want?’ asked Black with a frown.

‘Well, to tell the truth,’ said Sir Isaac, with a pathetic attempt to be firm, ‘I think it is about time that you and I dissolved partnership.’

‘What do you mean?’ asked Black.

‘Well, you know, I’m getting talked about,’ said the other disjointedly. ‘People are spreading lies about me, and one or two chaps recently have asked me what business you and I are engaged in, and – it’s worrying me, Black.’ he said with the sudden exasperation of a weak man. ‘I believe I have lost my chance with Verlond because of my association with you.’

‘I see,’ said Black. It was a favourite expression of his. It meant much; it meant more than usual now.

‘I understand,’ he said, ‘that you think the ship is sinking, and, rat-like, you imagine it is time to swim to the shore.’

‘Don’t be silly, dear old fellow,’ protested the other, ‘and don’t be unreasonable. You see how it is. When I joined you, you were goin’ to do big things – big amalgamations, big trusts, stuffin’ an’ all that sort of thing. Of course,’ he admitted apologetically, ‘I knew all about the bucket-shop, but that was a side-line.’

Black smiled grimly. ‘A pretty profitable side-line for you,’ he said dryly.

‘I know, I know,’ said Ikey, patient to an offensive degree, ‘but it wasn’t a matter of millions an’ all that, now was it?’

Black was thoughtful, biting his nails and looking down at the grass at his feet.

‘People are talkin’, dear old fellow,’ Tramber went on, ‘sayin’ the most awful rotten things. You’ve been promisin’ this combination with Sandford’s foundries, you’ve practically issued shares in Amalgamated Foundries of Europe without havin’ the goods.’

‘Sandford won’t come in,’ said Black, without looking up, ‘unless I pay him a quarter of a million cash – he’ll take the rest in shares. I want him to take his price in shares.’

‘He’s no mug,’ said the baronet coarsely. ‘Old Sandford isn’t a mug – and I’ll bet he’s got Verlond behind him. He’s no mug either.’

There was a long and awkward silence – awkward for Sir Isaac, who had an unaccountable desire to bolt.

‘So you want to sneak out of it, do you?’ said Black, meeting his eyes with a cold smile.

‘Now, my dear old chap,’ said Sir Isaac hastily, ‘don’t take that uncharitable view.

Partnerships are always being dissolved, it’s what they’re for,’ he said with an attempt at humour. ‘And I must confess I don’t like some of your schemes.’

‘You don’t like!’ Black turned round on him with a savage oath. ‘Do you like the money you’ve got for it? The money paid in advance for touting new clients? The money given to you to settle your debts at the club? You’ve got to go through with it, Ikey, and if you don’t, I’ll tell the whole truth to Verlond and to every pal you’ve got.’

‘They wouldn’t believe you,’ said Sir Isaac calmly. ‘You see, my dear chap, you’ve got such an awful reputation, and the worst of having a bad reputation is that no one believes you. If it came to a question of believing you or believing me, who do you think Society would believe – a man of some position, one in the baronetage of Great Britain, or a man – well, not to put too fine a point on it – like you?’

Black looked at him long and steadily.

‘Whatever view you take,’ he said slowly, ‘you’ve got to stand your corner. If, as a result of any of the business we are now engaged in, I am arrested, I shall give information to the police concerning you. We are both in the same boat – we sink or swim together.’

He noticed the slow-spreading alarm on Sir Isaac’s face.

‘Look here,’ he said, ‘I’ll arrange to pay you back that money I’ve got. I’ll give you bills – ’

Black laughed. ‘You’re an amusing devil,’ he said. ‘You and your bills! I can write bills myself, can’t I? I’d as soon take a crossing-sweeper’s bills as yours. Why, there’s enough of your paper in London to feed Sandford’s furnaces for a week.’

The words suggested a thought. ‘Let’s say no more about this matter till after the amalgamation. It’s coming off next week. It may make all the difference in our fortune, Ikey,’ he said in gentler tones. ‘Just drop the idea of ratting.’

‘I’m not ratting,’ protested the other. ‘I’m merely – ’

‘I know,’ said Black. ‘You’re merely taking precautions – well, that’s all the rats do. You’re in this up to your neck – don’t deceive yourself. You can’t get out of it until I say “Go”.’

‘It will be awkward for me if the game is exposed,’ said Sir Isaac, biting his nails. ‘It will be jolly unpleasant if it is discovered I am standing in with you.’

‘It will be more awkward for you,’ answered Black ominously, ‘if, at the psychological moment, you are
not
standing in with me.’

* * *

Theodore Sandford, a busy man, thrust his untidy grey head into the door of his daughter’s sitting-room.

‘May,’ said he, ‘don’t forget that I am giving a dinner tonight in your honour – for unless my memory is at fault and the cheque you found on your breakfast-tray was missupplied, you are twenty-two today.’

She blew him a kiss.

‘Who is coming?’ she asked. ‘I ought really to have invited everybody myself.’

‘Can’t stop to tell you,’ said her father with a smile. ‘I’m sorry you quarrelled with young Fellowe. I should like to have asked him.’

She smiled gaily. ‘I shall have to get another policeman,’ she said.

He looked at her for a long time. ‘Fellowe isn’t an ordinary policeman,’ he said quietly. ‘Do you know that I saw him dining with the Home Secretary the other day?’

Her eyebrows rose.

‘In uniform?’ she asked.

He laughed.

‘No, you goose,’ he chuckled, ‘in his dressing-gown.’

She followed him down the corridor. ‘You’ve learnt that from Lord Verlond,’ she said reproachfully.

She waited till the car had carried her father from view, then walked back to her room, happy with the happiness which anticipates happiness.

The night before had been a miserable one till, acting on an impulse, she had humbled herself, and found strange joy in the humiliation.

The knowledge that this young man was still her ideal, all she would have him to be, had so absorbed her that for the time being she was oblivious of all else.

She recalled with a little start the occasion of their last meeting, and how they had parted.

The recollection made her supremely miserable again, and, jumping up from her stool, she had opened her little writing-bureau and scribbled a hurried, penitent, autocratic little note, ordering and imploring him to come to her the instant he received it.

Frank came promptly. The maid announced his arrival within ten minutes of Mr Sandford’s departure.

May ran lightly downstairs and was seized with a sudden fit of shyness as she reached the library door. She would have paused, but the maid, who was following her, regarded her with so much sympathetic interest that she was obliged to assume a nonchalance that she was far from feeling and enter the room.

Frank was standing with his back to the door, but he turned quickly on hearing the light rustle of her gown.

May closed the door, but she made no effort to move away from it.

‘How do you do?’ she began.

The effort she was making to still the wild beating of her heart made her voice sound cold and formal.

‘I am very well, thank you.’ Frank’s tone reflected her own.

‘I – I wanted to see you,’ she continued, with an effort to appear natural.

‘So I gathered from your note,’ he replied.

‘It was good of you to come,’ she went on conventionally. ‘I hope it has not inconvenienced you at all.’

‘Not at all.’ Again Frank’s voice was an expressive echo. ‘I was just on the point of going out, so came at once.’

‘Oh, I am sorry – won’t you keep your other appointment first? Any time will suit me; it – it is nothing important.’

‘Well, I hadn’t an appointment exactly.’ It was the young man’s turn to hesitate. ‘To tell the truth, I was coming here.’

‘Oh, Frank! Were you really?’

‘Yes, really and truly, little girl.’ May did not answer, but something Frank saw in her face spoke more plainly than words could do.

Mr Sandford returned that afternoon to find two happy people sitting in the half-darkness of the drawing-room; and ten members of the Criminal Investigation Department waited at Scotland Yard, alternately swearing and wringing their hands.