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- Herausgeber: Booksell-Verlag
- Kategorie: Krimi
- Sprache: Englisch
Edgar Wallace's "The Three Just Men" delves into the intricacies of justice and morality through a gripping narrative woven with elements of crime fiction and adventure. The book follows an enigmatic trio '— known as the Just Men '— who operate outside the conventional legal framework to deliver their own form of justice to wrongdoers. Wallace's adept use of vivid, suspenseful prose immerses the reader in a world where societal norms are challenged, reflecting the anxieties and transformative spirit of the early 20th century. This novel not only entertains but also engages with the ethical dilemmas surrounding law and justice, echoing themes prominent in contemporary criminal psychology and societal constraints. Edgar Wallace, a prolific British writer, was deeply influenced by his experiences in law, journalism, and the tumultuous socio-political landscape of his time. His early career as a reporter exposed him to the underbelly of crime, leading him to question the efficacy of the legal system. Such insights shaped his literary output, where he often questioned the moral fabric of society and the complexities of right and wrong, as vividly illustrated in this work. For readers intrigued by the randomness of justice and the human condition's intricacies, "The Three Just Men" is a compelling read. Wallace's intricate character development and fast-paced plot promise not only entertainment but also a thoughtful exploration of the philosophical underpinnings of justice. This novel is essential for aficionados of crime fiction and those seeking to ponder moral questions within an engaging narrative. In this enriched edition, we have carefully created added value for your reading experience: - A succinct Introduction situates the work's timeless appeal and themes. - The Synopsis outlines the central plot, highlighting key developments without spoiling critical twists. - A detailed Historical Context immerses you in the era's events and influences that shaped the writing. - A thorough Analysis dissects symbols, motifs, and character arcs to unearth underlying meanings. - Reflection questions prompt you to engage personally with the work's messages, connecting them to modern life. - Hand‐picked Memorable Quotes shine a spotlight on moments of literary brilliance. - Interactive footnotes clarify unusual references, historical allusions, and archaic phrases for an effortless, more informed read.
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Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2021
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The Three Just Men
Table of Contents
Introduction
When the machinery of justice grinds to a halt and guilt slips through polished legal gears, a secretive trio moves with pitiless precision to redress the balance, drawing readers into a relentless inquiry about whether ends that promise safety can ever justify the perilous means of vigilantism in the electric sprawl of the modern city, where reputation, secrecy, and the letter of the law are tested to destruction.
The Three Just Men, by Edgar Wallace, belongs to the strand of British crime and thriller fiction that flourished in the early twentieth century, and it continues the author’s long-running sequence about a clandestine group pursuing justice outside the courts. Published in the mid-1920s, the novel sits squarely in the interwar period, a time when anxieties about order, authority, and modern urban life fed popular fascination with crime narratives. Its action unfolds against the atmospheres and institutions of that era, drawing on contemporary settings to frame questions about how societies confront cunning offenders who manipulate procedure and public sentiment.
The premise is stark and immediately compelling: the Just Men—now three—target those who appear to be beyond legal reach, applying a precise, self-authored code to decide when and how to intervene. Rather than dwelling on gore, Wallace invests in cat-and-mouse ingenuity, clandestine surveillance, and carefully staged pressures that corner adversaries ethically and tactically. The book offers a high-velocity reading experience marked by stealthy approaches, reversals of advantage, and the unnerving presence of vigilant order pressing in on lawless calculation. Readers encounter a world where every detail—a timetable, a disguise, a rumor—can be weaponized to decisive effect.
Wallace’s style favors momentum and clarity: scenes snap into place, motives surface quickly, and plots advance with the steady certainty of a ticking device. Dialogue tends toward crisp exchanges that tighten suspense, while description focuses on the functional—streets, rooms, timetables, habits—so that setting becomes a matrix for action rather than a backdrop for ornament. The mood oscillates between clinical detachment and sudden, sharp peril, a rhythm that mirrors the Just Men’s disciplined methods. The result is a thriller climate that feels brisk and modern, engineered for forward motion yet constantly pausing at the edge of moral consideration.
At its center lies a debate about the relationship between legality and justice. Wallace poses it not as an abstract lecture but as a lived tension: what happens when strict procedure collides with manifest wrongdoing, and whose authority can claim the final word? Themes of loyalty, secrecy, and responsibility complicate the picture, as collective action shields individual conscience while also amplifying its risks. The novel probes how reputation is constructed and manipulated, how fear and reassurance circulate through a public hungry for certainty, and how power—official or clandestine—must answer for the methods it chooses in pursuit of safety.
Within the broader Just Men cycle, this installment refines the legend by exploring how a small, tightly coordinated unit can confront sprawling criminal inventiveness. Readers may recognize patterns that later team-based thrillers will echo: division of roles, synchronized operations, and the theatrical unveiling of carefully prepared traps. Yet Wallace’s focus stays resolutely on consequences—legal, social, and psychological. By emphasizing the friction between clandestine initiative and public institutions, the novel sustains a balanced fascination with both adversaries and guardians, inviting readers to study the mechanics of pursuit while keeping the ultimate moral calculus unsettled.
The Three Just Men remains resonant because it insists that the question of justice is never purely technical, and that promises of security always arrive tethered to choices about means. Contemporary readers, accustomed to debates about accountability, oversight, and the boundaries of state and private power, will find its inquiries strikingly current. As a thriller, it delivers taut excitement, clever turnabouts, and the satisfactions of precise planning; as a reflection on order, it keeps doubt alive. It offers an accessible entry to Wallace’s world, rewarding both series newcomers and returning readers seeking a lean, provocative pursuit.
Synopsis
Edgar Wallace’s The Three Just Men revisits the famed vigilantes who have long operated in the shadows beyond conventional law. Now reduced to three, the men reaffirm their uncompromising code: to pursue wrongdoers whom legal systems cannot, or will not, touch. The novel opens by reestablishing their methods and reach, sketching their history and the ethical boundary they insist upon—swift, meticulous justice tempered by restraint. From discreet safe houses to coded communications with contacts across Europe, the trio prepare for new operations. The city watches and whispers, while newspapers reignite debate over their legality, effectiveness, and the unsettling simplicity of their signature warnings.
The opening movements of the story present a targeted case that illustrates their approach. A figure of influence, shielded by status and technicalities, orchestrates a pattern of cruelty through intermediaries. The Just Men quietly assemble a dossier, verify every allegation, and deliver a terse ultimatum: reform, confess, or face consequences. Their tactics emphasize exposure and deterrence, using precision rather than spectacle. When the ultimatum is ignored, the trio act with calculated timing, leaving behind material that allows authorities to intervene decisively. The episode reaffirms their reputation and sets the novel’s rhythm—self-imposed rules, measured escalation, and outcomes designed to curtail further harm without open scandal.
Official attention intensifies. A diligent investigator, charged with both containing and learning from the vigilantes, begins to map their patterns—preferred haunts, presumed resources, and psychological fingerprints. He sets bait, organizes surveillance, and tracks faint connections between crimes resolved without trials. The Just Men anticipate this scrutiny. They employ layered disguises, misdirection, and compartmentalized communication to render pursuit difficult, yet avoid unnecessary collisions with police. The narrative sustains tension around near-encounters, each side inferring the other’s limits. The public remains polarized: some applaud practical results; others demand due process. The trio continue, resolved to confront predation wherever legality falters.
From scattered interventions, a larger structure emerges. The men begin to perceive that several apparently separate abuses—financial coercion, illicit trafficking, and tailored blackmail—share common logistics and leadership. Analysis of times, payments, and couriers reveals a disciplined network insulated by front businesses and complicit officials. The Just Men shift from single-case remedies to strategic disruption. Their planning becomes granular: mapping safe houses, intercept points, and likely escape routes. A central adversary is implied rather than named, a figure whose anonymity has protected the enterprise. The trio conceive a multilayered campaign to destabilize the organization’s confidence, expose its dependencies, and neutralize its reach.
Infiltration follows. Working through intermediaries and false identities, the Just Men draw close to the network’s outer circles. A carefully staged exchange opens a pathway inward, but an unexpected variable—an innocent drawn into harm—forces improvisation. The trio adjust their timetable, weight rescue over retribution, and accept added personal risk. Their code is tested: ends must not justify means if bystanders pay the price. The shift in priorities momentarily alerts the network, which tightens security and seeds misinformation. The men salvage details from the disruption, gaining a clearer view of the hierarchy and the tools used to silence witnesses. Stakes and surveillance intensify.
A setback marks the middle of the novel. A meeting designed to unmask a controller becomes a controlled ambush. One of the trio narrowly escapes exposure; evidence they hoped to secure is destroyed. Authorities, evaluating the wreckage, attribute the confrontation to criminals turning on one another, not discerning the vigilantes’ presence. Public conversation swings toward fatigue with rumor and impatience for certainty. The Just Men withdraw to reassess. They recalibrate tactics, accepting that the adversary anticipates straightforward pressure. Instead of direct strikes, they prepare an incremental plan to force choices: cut a channel, surrender a ledger, or lose protection. Time becomes their ally.
By pressing legal and financial levers, the trio introduce stress at critical nodes. They redirect shipments, compromise payments, and quietly support a principled official who can act where they cannot. The strategy avoids spectacle, aiming to split the network from within. Whispered doubts spread among lieutenants; loyalties fray under targeted disclosures. The investigator, tracing anomalies, recognizes a guiding hand and begins to distinguish the vigilantes’ careful pattern from random upheaval. As pieces move, the Just Men compile a complete evidentiary package that can survive scrutiny, while reserving a final, decisive move meant to prevent flight or violent reprisals when exposure becomes inevitable.
The closing sequence unfolds across multiple locations with synchronized precision. Decoys lead key actors into monitored spaces, while alarms are muted at points the trio have mapped. A last exchange reveals the scope of the conspiracy without naming names in public view, preserving the book’s suspense. The Just Men ensure that core documentation reaches authorities, while pressure applied moments earlier denies the mastermind easy escape. The confrontation resolves without theatrical violence, favoring inevitability over surprise. Outcomes align with the vigilantes’ rulebook: secure the innocent, leave proof, and let institutions conclude the process. The network collapses in stages rather than in a single dramatic blow.
In the aftermath, the investigator reviews what was gained and what remains uncertain. He acknowledges hard results—rescued victims, seized assets, indicted intermediaries—yet questions endure about precedent and the place of extralegal actors. The Just Men withdraw as they always do, leaving debates in their wake and a terse message that echoes their creed. Wallace closes on the novel’s central theme: the uneasy frontier between law and justice, where procedure can lag and conscience rushes ahead. The final pages neither endorse nor condemn; they present a pattern of intervention that is meticulous, restrained, and controversial, and suggest the trio’s work will continue wherever necessity compels.
Historical Context
Set principally in interwar London with forays to continental Europe, The Three Just Men unfolds against the urban modernity of the mid‑1920s: crowded streets, expanding suburbs, motorcars, telephones, and a bureaucracy centered in Whitehall. The city’s docks, clubs, and courts—Limehouse, the West End, and the Old Bailey—form a landscape where cosmopolitan elites live beside migrant communities and entrenched poverty. Britain is adjusting to post‑1918 realities: war losses, inflation, and a recalibrated empire. The novel’s vigilantism plays out in a metropolis policed by an increasingly professional Scotland Yard yet strained by organized crime, political unrest, and the fear that official mechanisms cannot always protect ministers, judges, or citizens.
Edgar Wallace’s formative experience as a war correspondent during the Second Boer War (1899–1902) brought him into contact with clandestine operations, intelligence gathering, and irregular tactics. British forces fought the South African Republic (Transvaal) and the Orange Free State, enduring sieges at Ladysmith, Mafeking, and Kimberley before adopting blockhouse lines and counter‑guerrilla methods. The war professionalized imperial intelligence and highlighted the value—and moral ambiguity—of covert action. The Three Just Men mirrors these lessons in its cool, military‑style planning, cross‑border pursuits, and reliance on surveillance and coded communication, presenting its protagonists as a private, highly mobile “special service” filling gaps left by conventional policing and diplomacy.
Prewar and Edwardian London witnessed spectacular episodes of anarchist and émigré violence that shaped public fears. The Tottenham Outrage (23 January 1909) saw two Latvian robbers trigger a running gun battle through North London. The Siege of Sidney Street (January 1911) in Stepney pitted armed Latvian anarchists against police and soldiers, with Home Secretary Winston Churchill controversially present at the scene. These incidents embedded the idea of agile, ideologically driven cells outmatching ordinary policing. The Three Just Men channels this context by portraying cosmopolitan conspirators, clandestine safe houses, and swift extra‑legal responses, suggesting that only disciplined, transnational actors can neutralize threats that exploit borders and bureaucracy.
The British security state took institutional shape with the Secret Service Bureau (1909), splitting into the domestic MI5 and foreign‑facing MI6, and the Official Secrets Act 1911—expanded in 1920—criminalized unauthorized disclosure and espionage. Wartime controls under the Defence of the Realm Act (1914) normalized surveillance and emergency powers. These measures cultivated a culture of secrecy, fenced courts, and a public accustomed to hidden enemies. The Three Just Men echoes this environment through encrypted messages, compartmentalized operations, and shadowy adversaries whose plots intersect ministries and embassies. By staging contests parallel to official intelligence, the book dramatizes both the necessity and the perils of clandestine guardianship beyond open judicial scrutiny.
Policing modernization profoundly altered London’s crime landscape. Scotland Yard adopted Sir Edward Henry’s fingerprint system in 1901, and the Stratton brothers’ 1905 conviction marked Britain’s first murder case secured by fingerprint evidence. After World War I, motorized “smash‑and‑grab” gangs prompted creation of the Flying Squad (1919) within the Metropolitan Police CID to pursue armed robbers across districts. The Police Act 1919, following strikes and unrest, restructured forces and established the Police Federation. These reforms raised investigative capacity yet exposed response gaps against fast, organized offenders. The Three Just Men leverages that tension: its protagonists anticipate forensic and motorized policing while outpacing both criminals and procedure, acting where method and jurisdiction slow the law.
Interwar organized crime and narcotics panics supplied vivid antagonists. Racecourse racketeering surged as Charles “Darby” Sabini’s Italian gang battled rivals, including remnants of the Birmingham Boys led by Billy Kimber, for control of betting pitches and protection rackets in the early 1920s. Simultaneously, the Dangerous Drugs Act 1920 implemented the 1912 Hague Opium Convention, yet sensational cases persisted: the 1922 death of dancer Freda Kempton and the conviction of the so‑called “Brilliant Chang” stoked fears of cocaine rings operating from cafes and clubs. The Three Just Men mirrors these developments through syndicate‑style villains and transnational smuggling networks, framing vigilantism as a swift, surgical response to profit‑driven, modern criminal enterprises.
Political volatility framed the decade. The 1917 Russian Revolution energized British radicalism and anti‑communist fears; the 1924 “Zinoviev letter” scandal—published by the Daily Mail weeks before the October election—suggested Comintern interference and helped unseat Ramsay MacDonald’s Labour government. Industrial strife culminated in the General Strike (3–12 May 1926), when the Emergency Powers Act 1920 enabled rapid mobilization of volunteers and military logistics to maintain supplies. Though not a strike novel, The Three Just Men reflects a society attuned to conspiracy, subversion, and crisis management. Its plots of clandestine cells, propaganda, and leverage over critical infrastructure resonate with a Britain prepared to invoke exceptional measures to preserve order.
As social and political critique, the book exposes tensions between legality and justice in a Britain of secret laws, class anxieties, and uneven policing. It highlights vulnerabilities in institutions tasked with protecting ministers, courts, and public spaces, suggesting that entrenched privilege and procedural caution can shield powerful wrongdoers and leave ordinary victims exposed. By making foreigners both suspects and saviors, it interrogates xenophobic reflexes produced by the Aliens legislation and Red Scare climate. Its extrajudicial resolutions question faith in formal due process while implicitly condemning corruption, inertia, and organized criminal capture of urban economies, thereby reflecting and challenging the interwar appetite for security at any cost.
The Three Just Men
“£520 p.a. Wanted at once, Laboratory Secretary[1] (lady). Young; no previous experience required, but must have passed recognized examination which included physics and inorganic (elementary) chemistry. Preference will be given to one whose family has some record in the world of science. Apply by letter, Box 9754, Daily Megaphone[8]. If applicant is asked to interview advertiser, fare will be paid from any station within a hundred and fifty miles of London.”
A GOOD friend sent one of the issues containing this advertisement to Heavytree Farm[5] and circled the announcement with a blue pencil.
Mirabelle Leicester found the newspaper on the hall settee when she came in from feeding the chickens, and thought that it had been sent by the Alington land agent who was so constantly calling her attention to the advertisers who wished to buy cheap farms. It was a practice of his. She had the feeling that he resented her presence in the country, and was anxious to replace her with a proprietor less poverty-stricken.
Splitting the wrapper with a dusty thumb, she turned naturally to the advertisement pages, having the agent in mind. Her eyes went rapidly down the “Wanted to Buy” column. There were several “gentlemen requiring small farm in good district,” but none that made any appeal to her, and she was wondering why the parsimonious man had spent tuppence-ha’penny[2] on postage and paper when the circled paragraph caught her eye.
“Glory!” said Mirabelle, her red lips parted in excited wonder.
Aunt Alma looked up from her press-cutting book, startled as Mirabelle dashed in.
“Me!” she said dramatically, and pointed a finger at the advertisement. “I am young—I have no experience—I have my higher certificate—and daddy was something in the world of science. And, Alma, we are exactly a hundred and forty miles from London town!”
“Dear me!” said Aunt Alma, a lady whose gaunt and terrifying appearance was the terror of tradesmen and farm hands, though a milder woman never knitted stockings.
“Isn’t it wonderful? This solves all our problems. We’ll leave the farm to Mark, open the flat in Bloomsbury ... we can afford one or even two theatres a week ...”
Alma read the announcement for the second time.
“It seems good,” she said with conventional caution, “though I don’t like the idea of your working, my dear. Your dear father ...”
“Would have whisked me up to town and I should have had the job by to-night,” said Mirabelle definitely.
But Alma wasn’t sure. London was full of pitfalls and villainy untold lurked in its alleys and dark passages. She herself never went to London except under protest.
“I was there years ago when those horrible Four Just Men were about, my dear,” she said, and Mirabelle, who loved her, listened to the oft-told story. “They terrorized London. One couldn’t go out at night with the certainty that one would come back again alive ... and to think that they have had a free pardon! It is simply encouraging crime.”
“My dear,” said Mirabelle (and this was her inevitable rejoinder), “they weren’t criminals at all. They were very rich men who gave up their lives to punishing those whom the law let slip through its greasy old fingers. And they were pardoned for the intelligence work they did in the war—one worked for three months in the German War Office—and there aren’t four at all: there are only three. I’d love to meet them—they must be dears!”
When Aunt Alma made a grimace, she was hideous. Mirabelle averted her eyes.
“Anyway, they are not in London now, darling,” she said, “and you will be able to sleep soundly at nights.”
“What about the snake[7]?” asked Miss Alma Goddard[6] ominously.
Now if there was one thing which no person contemplating a visit to London wished to be reminded about, it was the snake.
Six million people rose from their beds every morning, opened their newspapers and looked for news of the snake. Eighteen daily newspapers never passed a day without telling their readers that the scare was childish and a shocking commentary on the neurotic tendencies of the age; they also published, at regular intervals, intimate particulars of the black mamba[9], its habits and its peculiar deadliness, and maintained quite a large staff of earnest reporters to “work up the story.”
The black mamba[4], most deadly of all the African snakes, had escaped from the Zoo one cold and foggy night in March. And there should have been the end of him—a three-line paragraph, followed the next day by another three-line paragraph detailing how the snake was found dead on the frozen ground—no mamba could live under a temperature of 75° Fahrenheit. But the second paragraph never appeared. On the 2nd of April a policeman found a man huddled up in a doorway in Orme Place. He proved to be a well known and apparently wealthy stockbroker, named Emmett. He was dead. In his swollen face were found two tiny punctured wounds, and the eminent scientist who was called into consultation gave his opinion that the man had died from snake-bite: an especially deadly snake. The night was chilly; the man had been to a theatre alone. His chauffeur stated that he had left his master in the best of spirits on the doorstep. The key found in the dead man’s hand showed that he was struck before the car had turned. When his affairs were investigated he was found to be hopelessly insolvent. Huge sums drawn from his bank six months before had disappeared.
London had scarcely recovered from this shocking surprise when the snake struck again. This time in the crowded street, and choosing a humble victim, though by no means a blameless one. An ex-convict named Sirk, a homeless down-and-out, was seen to fall by a park-keeper near the Achilles statue in Hyde Park. By the time the keeper reached him he was dead. There was no sign of a snake—nobody was near him. This time the snake had made his mark on the wrist—two little punctured wounds near together.
A month later the third man fell a victim. He was a clerk of the Bank of England, a reputable man who was seen to fall forward in a subway train, and, on being removed to hospital, was discovered to have died—again from snake-bite.
So that the snake became a daily figure of fear, and its sinister fame spread even so far afield as Heavytree Farm.
“Stuff!” said Mirabelle, yet with a shiver. “Alma, I wish you wouldn’t keep these horrors in your scrap-book.”
“They are Life,” said Alma soberly, and then: “When will you take up your appointment?” she asked, and the girl laughed.
“We will make a beginning right away—by applying for the job,” she said practically. “And you needn’t start packing your boxes for a very long time!”
An hour later she intercepted the village postman and handed him a letter.
And that was the beginning of the adventure which involved so many lives and fortunes, which brought the Three Just Men to the verge of dissolution, and one day was to turn the heart of London into a battle-field.
Two days after the letter was dispatched came the answer, typewritten, surprisingly personal, and in places curiously worded. There was an excuse for that, for the heading on the note-paper was
On the third day Mirabelle Leicester stepped down from a ’bus in the City Road and entered the unimposing door of Romance, and an inquisitive chauffeur who saw her enter followed and overtook her in the lobby.
“Excuse me, madame—are you Mrs. Carter?”
Mirabelle did not look like Mrs. Anybody.
“No,” she said, and gave her name.
“But you’re the lady from Hereford ... you live with your mother at Telford Park ... ?”
The man was so agitated that she was not annoyed by his insistence. Evidently he had instructions to meet a stranger and was fearful of missing her.
“You have made a mistake—I live at Heavytree Farm, Daynham—with my aunt.”
“Is she called Carter?”
She laughed.
“Miss Alma Goddard—now are you satisfied?”
“Then you’re not the lady, miss; I’m waiting to pick her up.”
The chauffeur withdrew apologetically.
The girl waited in the ornate ante-room for ten minutes before the pale youth with the stiff, upstanding hair and the huge rimless spectacles returned. His face was large, expressionless, unhealthy. Mirabelle had noted as a curious circumstance that every man she had seen in the office was of the same type. Big heavy men who gave the impression that they had been called away from some very urgent work to deal with the triviality of her inquiries. They were speechless men who glared solemnly at her through thick lenses and nodded or shook their heads according to the requirements of the moment. She expected to meet foreigners in the offices of Oberzohn & Smitts; Germans, she imagined, and was surprised later to discover that both principals and staff were in the main Swedish.
The pale youth, true to the traditions of the house, said nothing: he beckoned her with a little jerk of his head, and she went into a larger room, where half a dozen men were sitting at half a dozen desks and writing furiously, their noses glued short-sightedly to the books and papers which engaged their attention. Nobody looked up as she passed through the waist-high gate which separated the caller from the staff. Hanging upon the wall between two windows was a map of Africa with great green patches. In one corner of the room were stacked a dozen massive ivory tusks, each bearing a hanging label. There was the model of a steamship in a case on a window-ledge, and on another a crudely carved wooden idol of native origin.
The youth stopped before a heavy rosewood door and knocked. When a deep voice answered, he pushed open the door and stood aside to let her pass. It was a gigantic room—that was the word which occurred to her as most fitting, and the vast space of it was emphasized by the almost complete lack of furniture. A very small ebony writing-table, two very small chairs and a long and narrow black cupboard fitted into a recess were all the furnishings she could see. The high walls were covered with a golden paper. Four bright-red rafters ran across the black ceiling—the floor was completely covered with a deep purple carpet. It seemed that there was a rolled map above the fire-place—a long thin cord came down from the cornice and ended in a tassel within reach.
The room, with its lack of appointments, was so unexpected a vision that the girl stood staring from walls to roof, until she observed her guide making urgent signs, and then she advanced towards the man who stood with his back to the tiny fire that burnt in the silver fire-place.
He was tall and grey; her first impression was of an enormously high forehead. The sallow face was long, and nearer at hand, she saw, covered by innumerable lines and furrows. She judged him to be about fifty until he spoke, and then she realized that he was much older.
“Miss Mirabelle Leicester?”
His English was not altogether perfect; the delivery was queerly deliberate and he lisped slightly.
“Pray be seated. I am Dr. Eruc Oberzohn. I am not German. I admire the Germans, but I am Swedish. You are convinced?”
She laughed, and when Mirabelle Leicester laughed, less susceptible men than Dr. Eruc Oberzohn had forgotten all other business. She was not very tall—her slimness and her symmetrical figure made her appear so. She had in her face and in her clear grey eyes something of the country-side; she belonged to the orchards where the apple-blossom lay like heavy snow upon the bare branches; to the cold brooks that ran noisily under hawthorn hedges. The April sunlight was in her eyes and the springy velvet of meadows everlastingly under her feet.
To Dr. Oberzohn she was a girl in a blue tailor-made costume. He saw that she wore a little hat with a straight brim that framed her face just above the lift of her curved eyebrows. A German would have seen these things, being a hopeless sentimentalist. The doctor was not German; he loathed their sentimentality.
“Will you be seated? You have a scientific training?”
Mirabelle shook her head.
“I haven’t,” she confessed ruefully, “but I’ve passed in the subjects you mentioned in your advertisement.”
“But your father—he was a scientist?”
She nodded gravely.
“But not a great scientist,” he stated. “England and America do not produce such men. Ah, tell me not of your Kelvins, Edisons, and Newtons! They were incomplete, dull men, ponderous men—the fire was not there.”
She was somewhat taken aback, but she was amused as well. His calm dismissal of men who were honoured in the scientific world was so obviously sincere.
“Now talk to me of yourself.” He seated himself in the hard, straight-backed chair by the little desk.
“I’m afraid there is very little I can tell you, Dr. Oberzohn. I live with my aunt at Heavytree Farm in Gloucester, and we have a flat in Doughty Court. My aunt and I have a small income—and I think that is all.”
“Go on, please,” he commanded. “Tell me of your sensations when you had my letter—I desire to know your mind. That is how I form all opinions; that is how I made my immense fortune. By the analysis of the mind.”
She had expected many tests; an examination in elementary science; a typewriting test possibly (she dreaded this most); but she never for one moment dreamt that the flowery letter asking her to call at the City Road offices of Oberzohn & Smitts would lead to an experiment in psycho-analysis.
“I can only tell you that I was surprised,” she said, and the tightening line of her mouth would have told him a great deal if he were the student of human nature he claimed to be. “Naturally the salary appeals to me—ten pounds a week is such a high rate of pay that I cannot think I am qualified——”
“You are qualified.” His harsh voice grew more strident as he impressed this upon her. “I need a laboratory secretary. You are qualified”—he hesitated, and then went on—“by reason of distinguished parentage. Also”—he hesitated again for a fraction of a second—“also because of general education. Your duties shall commence soon!” He waved a long, thin hand to the door in the corner of the room. “You will take your position at once,” he said.
The long face, the grotesquely high forehead, the bulbous nose and wide, crooked mouth all seemed to work together when he spoke. At one moment the forehead was full of pleats and furrows—at the next, comparatively smooth. The point of his nose dipped up and down at every word, only his small, deep-set eyes remained steadfast, unwinking. She had seen eyes like those before, brown and pathetic. Of what did they remind her? His last words brought her to the verge of panic.
“Oh, I could not possibly start to-day,” she said in trepidation.
“To-day, or it shall be never,” he said with an air of finality.
She had to face a crisis. The salary was more than desirable; it was necessary. The farm scarcely paid its way, for Alma was not the best of managers. And the income grew more and more attenuated. Last year the company in which her meagre fortune was invested had passed a dividend and she had to give up her Swiss holiday.
“I’ll start now.” She had to set her teeth to make this resolve.
“Very good; that is my wish.”
He was still addressing her as though she were a public meeting. Rising from his chair, he opened the little door and she went into a smaller room. She had seen laboratories, but none quite so beautifully fitted as this—shelf upon shelf of white porcelain jars, of cut-glass bottles, their contents engraved in frosted letters; a bench that ran the length of the room, on which apparatus of every kind was arranged in order. In the centre of the room ran a long, glass-topped table, and here, in dustproof glass, were delicate instruments, ranging from scales which she knew could be influenced by a grain of dust, to electrical machines, so complicated that her heart sank at the sight of them.
“What must I do?” she asked dismally.
Everything was so beautifully new; she was sure she would drop one of those lovely jars ... all the science of the school laboratory had suddenly drained out of her mind, leaving it a blank.
“You will do.” Remarkably enough, the doctor for the moment seemed as much at a loss as the girl. “First—quantities. In every jar or bottle there is a quantity. How much? Who knows? The last secretary was careless, stupid. She kept no book. Sometimes I go for something—it is not there! All gone. That is very regrettable.”
“You wish me to take stock?” she asked, her hopes reviving at the simplicity of her task.
There were measures and scales enough. The latter stood in a line like a platoon of soldiers ranged according to their size. Everything was very new, very neat. There was a smell of drying enamel in the room as though the place had been newly painted.
“That is all,” said the long-faced man.
He put his hand in the pocket of his frock-coat and took out a large wallet. From this he withdrew two crisp notes.
“Ten pounds,” he said briefly. “We pay already in advance. There is one more thing I desire to know,” he said. “It is of the aunt. She is in London?”
Mirabelle shook her head.
“No, she is in the country. I expected to go back this afternoon, and if I was—successful, we were coming to town to-morrow.”
He pursed his thickish lips; she gazed fascinated at his long forehead rippled in thought.
“It will be a nervous matter for her if you stay in London to-night—no?”
She smiled and shook her head.
“No. I will stay at the flat; I have often stayed there alone, but even that will not be necessary. I will wire asking her to come up by the first train.”
“Wait.” He raised a pompous hand and darted back to his room. He returned with a packet of telegraph forms. “Write your telegram,” he commanded. “A clerk shall dispatch it at once.”
Gratefully she took the blanks and wrote her news and request.
“Thank you,” she said.
Mr. Oberzohn bowed, went to the door, bowed again, and the door closed behind him.
Fortunately for her peace of mind, Mirabelle Leicester had no occasion to consult her employer or attempt to open the door. Had she done so, she would have discovered that it was locked. As for the telegram she had written, that was a curl of black ash in his fire.
NO. 233, Curzon Street, was a small house. Even the most enthusiastic of agents would not, if he had any regard to his soul’s salvation, describe its dimensions with any enthusiasm. He might enlarge upon its bijou beauties, refer reverently to its historical association, speak truthfully of its central heating and electric installation, but he would, being an honest man, convey the impression that No. 233 was on the small side.
The house was flanked by two modern mansions, stone-fronted, with metal and glass doors that gave out a blur of light by night. Both overtopped the modest roof of their neighbour by many stories—No. 233 had the appearance of a little man crushed in a crowd and unable to escape, and there was in its mild frontage the illusion of patient resignation and humility.
To that section of Curzon Street wherein it had its place, the house was an offence and was, in every but a legal sense, a nuisance. A learned Chancery judge to whom application had been made on behalf of neighbouring property owners, ground landlords and the like, had refused to grant the injunction for which they had pleaded, “prohibiting the said George Manfred from carrying on a business, to wit the Triangle Detective Agency, situate at the aforesaid number two hundred and thirty-three Curzon Street in the City of Westminster in the County of Middlesex.”
In a judgment which occupied a third of a column of The Times he laid down the dictum that a private detective might be a professional rather than a business man—a dictum which has been, and will be, disputed to the end of time.
So the little silver triangle remained fixed to the door, and he continued to interview his clients—few in number, for he was most careful to accept only those who offered scope for his genius.
A tall, strikingly handsome man, with the face of a patrician and the shoulders of an athlete, Curzon Street—or such of the street as took the slightest notice of anything—observed him to be extremely well dressed on all occasions. He was a walking advertisement for a Hanover Street tailor who was so fashionable that he would have died with horror at the very thought of advertising at all. Car folk held up at busy crossings glanced into his limousine, saw the clean-cut profile and the tanned, virile face, and guessed him for a Harley Street specialist. Very few people knew him socially. Dr. Elver, the Scotland Yard surgeon, used to come up to Curzon Street at times and give his fantastic views on the snake and its appearances, George Manfred and his friends listening in silence and offering no help. But apart from Elver and an Assistant Commissioner of Police, a secretive man, who dropped in at odd moments to smoke a pipe and talk of old times, the social callers were few and far between.
His chauffeur-footman was really better known than he. At the mews where he garaged his car, they called him “Lightning,” and it was generally agreed that this thin-faced, eager-eyed man would sooner or later meet the end which inevitably awaits all chauffeurs who take sharp corners on two wheels at sixty miles an hour: some of the critics had met the big Spanz on the road and had reproached him afterwards, gently or violently, according to the degree of their scare.
Few knew Mr. Manfred’s butler, a dark-browed foreigner, rather stout and somewhat saturnine. He was a man who talked very little even to the cook and the two housemaids who came every morning at eight and left the house punctually at six, for Mr. Manfred dined out most nights.
He advertised only in the more exclusive newspapers, and not in his own name; no interviews were granted except by appointment, so that the arrival of Mr. Sam Barberton was in every sense an irregularity.
He knocked at the door just as the maids were leaving, and since they knew little about Manfred and his ways except that he liked poached eggs and spinach for breakfast, the stranger was allowed to drift into the hall, and here the taciturn butler, hastily summoned from his room, found him.
The visitor was a stubby, thick-set man with a brick-red face and a head that was both grey and bald. His dress and his speech were equally rough. The butler saw that he was no ordinary artisan because his boots were of a kind known as veldtschoons[12]. They were of undressed leather, patchily bleached by the sun.
“I want to see the boss of this Triangle,” he said in a loud voice, and, diving into his waistcoat pocket, brought out a soiled newspaper cutting.
The butler took it from him without a word. It was the Cape Times[13]—he would have known by the type and the spacing even if on the back there had not been printed the bisected notice of a church bazaar at Wynberg. The butler studied such things.
“I am afraid that you cannot see Mr. Manfred without an appointment,” he said. His voice and manner were most unexpectedly gentle in such a forbidding man.
“I’ve got to see him, if I sit here all night,” said the man stubbornly, and symbolized his immovability by squatting down in the hall chair.
Not a muscle of the servant’s face moved. It was impossible to tell whether he was angry or amused.
“I got this cutting out of a paper I found on the Benguella—she docked at Tilbury this afternoon—and I came straight here. I should never have dreamt of coming at all, only I want fair play for all concerned. That Portuguese feller with a name like a cigar—Villa, that’s it!—he said, ‘What’s the good of going to London when we can settle everything on board ship?’ But half-breed Portuguese! My God, I’d rather deal with bushmen! Bushmen are civilized—look here.”
Before the butler realized what the man was doing, he had slipped off one of his ugly shoes. He wore no sock or stocking underneath, and he upturned the sole of his bare foot for inspection. The flesh was seamed and puckered into red weals, and the butler knew the cause.
“Portuguese,” said the visitor tersely as he resumed his shoe. “Not niggers—Portugooses—half-bred, I’ll admit. They burnt me to make me talk, and they’d have killed me only one of those hell-fire American traders came along—full of fight and fire-water. He brought me into the town.”
“Where was this?” asked the butler.
“Mosamades: I went ashore to look round, like a fool. I was on a Woerman boat that was going up to Boma. The skipper was a Hun, but white—he warned me.”
“And what did they want to know from you?”
The caller shot a suspicious glance at his interrogator.
“Are you the boss?” he demanded.
“No—I’m Mr. Manfred’s butler. What name shall I tell him?”
“Barberton—Mister Samuel Barberton. Tell him I want certain things found out. The address of a young lady by the name of Miss Mirabelle Leicester. And I’ll tell your governor something too. This Portugoose got drunk one night, and spilled it about the fort they’ve got in England. Looks like a house but it’s a fort: he went there....”
No, he was not drunk; stooping to pick up an imaginary match-stalk, the butler’s head had come near the visitor; there was a strong aroma of tobacco but not of drink.
“Would you very kindly wait?” he asked, and disappeared up the stairs.
He was not gone long before he returned to the first landing and beckoned Mr. Barberton to come. The visitor was ushered into a room at the front of the house, a small room, which was made smaller by the long grey velvet curtains that hung behind the empire desk where Manfred was standing.
“This is Mr. Barberton, sir,” said the butler, bowed, and went out, closing the door.
“Sit down, Mr. Barberton.” He indicated a chair and seated himself. “My butler tells me you have quite an exciting story to tell me—you are from the Cape?”
“No, I’m not,” said Mr. Barberton. “I’ve never been at the Cape in my life.”
The man behind the desk nodded.
“Now, if you will tell me——”
“I’m not going to tell you much,” was the surprisingly blunt reply. “It’s not likely that I’m going to tell a stranger what I wouldn’t even tell Elijah Washington—and he saved my life!”
Manfred betrayed no resentment at this cautious attitude. In that room he had met many clients who had shown the same reluctance to accept him as their confidant. Yet he had at the back of his mind the feeling that this man, unlike the rest, might remain adamant to the end: he was curious to discover the real object of the visit.
Barberton drew his chair nearer the writing-table and rested his elbows on the edge.
“It’s like this, Mr. What’s-your-name. There’s a certain secret which doesn’t belong to me, and yet does in a way. It is worth a lot of money. Mr. Elijah Washington knew that and tried to pump me, and Villa got a gang of Kroomen to burn my feet, but I’ve not told yet. What I want you to do is to find Miss Mirabelle Leicester; and I want to get her quick, because there’s only about two weeks, if you understand me, before this other crowd gets busy—Villa is certain to have cabled ’em, and according to him they’re hot!”
Mr. Manfred leant back in his padded chair, the glint of an amused smile in his grey eyes.
“I take it that what you want us to do is to find Miss Leicester?”
The man nodded energetically.
“Have you the slightest idea as to where she is to be found? Has she any relations in England?”
“I don’t know,” interrupted the man. “All I know is that she lives here somewhere, and that her father died three years ago, on the twenty-ninth of May—make a note of that: he died in England on the twenty-ninth of May.”
That was an important piece of information, and it made the search easy, thought Manfred.
“And you’re going to tell me about the fort, aren’t you?” he said, as he looked up from his notes.
Barberton hesitated.
“I was,” he admitted, “but I’m not so sure that I will now, until I’ve found this young lady. And don’t forget”—he rapped the table to emphasize his words—“that crowd is hot!”
“Which crowd?” asked Manfred good-humouredly. He knew many “crowds,” and wondered if it was about one which was in his mind that the caller was speaking.
“The crowd I’m talking about,” said Mr. Barberton, who spoke with great deliberation and was evidently weighing every word he uttered for fear that he should involuntarily betray his secret.
That seemed to be an end of his requirements, for he rose and stood a little awkwardly, fumbling in his inside pocket.
“There is nothing to pay,” said Manfred, guessing his intention. “Perhaps, when we have located your Miss Mirabelle Leicester, we shall ask you to refund our out-of-pocket expenses.”
“I can afford to pay——” began the man.
“And we can afford to wait.” Again the gleam of amusement in the deep eyes.
Still Mr. Barberton did not move.
“There’s another thing I meant to ask you. You know all that’s happening in this country?”
“Not quite everything,” said the other with perfect gravity.
“Have you ever heard of the Four Just Men[3]?”
It was a surprising question. Manfred bent forward as though he had not heard aright.
“The Four——?”
“The Four Just Men—three, as a matter of fact. I’d like to get in touch with those birds.”
Manfred nodded.
“I think I have heard of them,” he said.
“They’re in England now somewhere. They’ve got a pardon: I saw that in the Cape Times—the bit I tore the advertisement from.”
“The last I heard of them, they were in Spain,” said Manfred, and walked round the table and opened the door. “Why do you wish to get in touch with them?”
“Because,” said Mr. Barberton impressively, “the crowd are scared of ’em—that’s why.”
Manfred walked with his visitor to the landing.
“You have omitted one important piece of information,” he said with a smile, “but I did not intend your going until you told me. What is your address?”
“Petworth Hotel, Norfolk Street.”
Barberton went down the stairs; the butler was waiting in the hall to show him out, and Mr. Barberton, having a vague idea that something of the sort was usual in the houses of the aristocracy, slipped a silver coin in his hand. The dark-faced man murmured his thanks: his bow was perhaps a little lower, his attitude just a trifle more deferential.
He closed and locked the front door and went slowly up the stairs to the office room. Manfred was sitting on the empire table, lighting a cigarette. The chauffeur-valet had come through the grey curtains to take the chair which had been vacated by Mr. Barberton.
“He gave me half a crown—generous fellow,” said Poiccart, the butler. “I like him, George.”
“I wish I could have seen his feet,” said the chauffeur, whose veritable name was Leon Gonsalez. He spoke with regret. “He comes from West Sussex, and there is insanity in his family. The left parietal is slightly recessed and the face is asymmetrical.”
