Jack O' Judgment, Edgar Wallace [best historical biographies TXT] 📗

to explain where you've been, old boy. Sit down," said Boundary.

"Where is my daughter?" asked White.

"Where is your daughter?" repeated the colonel. "Well, that's a queer question to ask us. _We've_ been saying where is Solomon White all this time."

"I've been to Brighton," said the man, "but that's nothing to do with it."

"Been at Brighton? A very pleasant place, too," said Boundary. "And what were you doing at Brighton?"

"Keeping out of your way, damn you!" said White fiercely. "Trying to cure the fear of you which has made a rank coward of me. If you wanted to find a method for curing me, colonel, you've found it. I've come back for my daughter--where is she?"

The colonel pushed his chair back from the table and looked up with a quizzical smile.

"Now you're not going to take it hard, Solomon," he said. "We had to have you back and that was the only scheme we could think of. You see, there are lots of little bits of business that have to be cleared up, bits of business in which you had a hand the same as my other business associates."

"Where is the girl?" asked the man steadily.

"Well, I'm going to admit to you," said the colonel, with a fine show of frankness, "that I've put her away--no harm has come to her, you understand. She's at a little place at Putney Heath, a house I took specially for her, surrounded by loving guardians----"

"Like Pinto?" asked the man, looking down at the silent Silva.

"Like Lollie. Now you can't deny that Lollie's a very nice girl," said the colonel. "Sit down, Solomon, and talk things over."

"When I've got my girl I'll talk things over with you. Where is this place?"

"It is on Putney Heath," said the colonel. "Now aren't I being straightforward with you? If I had any bad designs against the girl, should I tell you where she is? If you go there, Solomon, take some of your copper friends."

"I have no copper friends," said the man angrily. "You know that well enough. What am I that I should go to the police? Can I go to them with clean hands?"

"Well, that's a question I've often asked myself," said the colonel. "I've often said----"

"What is the name of the house?" interrupted White. "I want to see whether you're playing square with me, Boundary, and if you're not, by----"

"Don't threaten me, don't threaten me, Solomon," said the colonel with a good-humoured gesture. "I'm a nervous man and I suffer from heart disease. You ought to know better than that. Bishopsholme is the place. It is the fourth big house after passing Tredennis Road--a fine villa standing in its own grounds. It looks a bit deserted because it was empty until a few days ago, when I put a scrap or two of furniture into it. Why not wait----"

"First I'll find out whether you're speaking the truth, and if you're not----"

"Gently, gently," growled Crewe. "What's the good of kicking up a row, White? The colonel's dealing straighter with you than you're dealing with us."

He was not in the colonel's secrets, and he himself was deceived, thinking that the girl had been removed to the house which he now heard about for the first time, and that the sole object of the abduction was to bring White back.

"Stay a while," said Boundary. "It is only just nine----"

But White was gone.

He pushed past the servant, one of the readiest and most dangerous of the colonel's instruments, and into the half-dark corridor. There was a light on the landing below, and as he ran down the stairs he thought he saw somebody standing there. It looked like a woman till the figure turned, and then Solomon White stood stock still. It was the first time he had seen Jack o' Judgment. The shimmer of the black silk coat, the curious suggestion of pallor which the white mask conveyed, the slouch hat, throwing a black bar of shadow diagonally across the face, lent the figure a peculiarly sinister aspect.

"Stand!"

The voice was commanding, the glittering revolver in the figure's hand more so.

"Who are you?" gasped Solomon White.

"Jack o' Judgment! Have you ever heard of little Jack?" chuckled the figure. "Oh, here's a new one--Solomon White, too, and never heard of Jack o' Judgment! Didn't you see me when they took me out of 'Snow' Gregory's pocket? Little Jack o' Judgment!"

Solomon White stepped back, his face twitching.

"I had nothing to do with that," he said hoarsely, "nothing to do with that, do you hear?"

"Where are you going? Won't you tell Jack something, give him a bit of news? Poor old Jack hears nothing these days," sighed the figure, laughter bubbling between the words.

"I'm going on private business. Get out of my way," said the other, remembering the urgency of his mission.

"But you'll tell Jack o' Judgment?" wheedled the figure, "you'll tell poor old Jack where you are going to find your beautiful daughter?"

"You know!" said the man.

He took a step forward, but the revolver waved him back.

"You'll speak, or you don't pass," said Jack o' Judgment. "You don't pass until you speak; do you hear, Solomon White?"

The man thought.

"It is a place called Bishopsholme," he said gruffly, "on Putney Heath. Now let me pass."

"Wait, wait!" said the figure eagerly, "wait for me--only five minutes! I won't keep you! But don't go, there's death there, Solomon White! It is waiting for you--don't you feel it in your bones?"

The voice sank to a whisper, and in spite of himself, a cold shiver passed down White's spine. He half-turned to go back.

"Wait!" said the figure again eagerly, fiercely. "I shall not keep you a minute--a second!"

Solomon White stood irresolutely, and the mask seemed to melt into the darkness. White strained his ears to catch the soft patter of its shoes as it mounted the stairs, but no sound came. Then with a start he seemed to awake as if from a bad dream, and without another word strode down the remaining stairs into the night.

On the landing above, the strange being who called himself "Jack o' Judgment" stood outside the door of Boundary's flat. He had taken a key from his pocket and had it poised, when he heard the clatter of the other's feet. He stood undecidedly, but only for a second, then the key slipped into the lock and the door opened. The butler from his little pantry saw the figure and slammed his own door, bolting it with trembling fingers.

In a second Jack o' Judgment was in the room facing the paralysed trio.

He spoke no word, but suddenly his right arm was raised, some shining object flew from his hand, and there was a crash of glass and instantly a vile odour. On the opposite wall where the bottle had broken appeared a dark and irregular stain.

Then, without so much as a laugh, he stepped back through the door and raced down the stairs in pursuit of White. It was too late; the man had disappeared. Jack o' Judgment stood for a moment listening, then he slipped off the black coat and ripped off the mask. The coat was of the finest silk, for he rolled it into the space of a pocket-handkerchief and slipped it in his pocket. The handkerchief went the same way. If there had been observers, they would have caught a glimpse of a man in evening dress as he went swiftly down the half-lighted stairway.

He turned and walked in the shadow of the building and passed down a side street, where a big limousine was awaiting him. He gave a murmured direction to the driver, and the car sped on its way.


CHAPTER XVIII

THE JUDGMENT OF DEATH


Solomon White had a taxi waiting, and gave his directions. He was sufficiently loyal to the band to avoid calling especial attention to the house where the girl was imprisoned, and he told his cab to wait at the end of Putney Heath. The night was wild and boisterous and very dark, but he carried an electric torch, and presently he came to weather-stained gates bearing in letters which had half-faded the name he sought. He pushed open the gate with some trouble. There was a curving carriage-drive which led to the front door, which stood at the head of a flight of steps under a square and ugly portico.

He looked up at the building, but it was in darkness. Apparently it was empty, but he knew enough of the colonel's methods to know that Boundary would not advertise the presence of the girl to the outside world.

He stood hesitating, wondering. The whole thing might be a trap, but Solomon White was not easily scared. He took a revolver from his pocket, drew back the hammer and walked forward cautiously. There was no sign of life. The rustling of shrubs and trees was the only mournful sound which varied the roar of the storm.

He was opposite the door, and one foot was raised to surmount the first step, when there came a sound like the sharp tap of a drum.

"Rap-rap!"

Solomon White stood for fully a second before he crumbled and fell, and he was dead before he reached the ground.

Still there was no sign or sound of life. A church clock boomed out the quarter to ten. A motor-car went past, and then the laurel bushes by the side of the steps moved, and a man in a black mackintosh stepped out. He bent over the dead man, picked up the fallen torch and flashed the light on the dead man's face, then, with a grunt of satisfaction, Raoul Pontarlier unscrewed his Soubet silencer and slipped his automatic into the wet pocket of his mackintosh.

Feeling in an inside pocket for a cigarette, he found one and lit it from the smouldering end of a tinder-lighter. Then, carefully concealing the lighted cigarette in the palm of his hand, he walked softly and noiselessly down the drive, keeping to the shadow of the bushes and watching to left and right for signs of approaching pedestrians. At two points he could see the heath road, and nobody was in sight. There was plenty of time, and men had been ruined by haste. He reached the gate and carefully looked over. The road was deserted. His hand was on the gate, when something cold and hard was pushed against his ear and he turned round.

"Put up your hands!" said a mocking voice. "Put them up!"

The Frenchman's hands rose slowly.

"Now turn round and face the house. Quick!" said the voice. "_Marchez!_ Halt!"

Raoul stopped. If he could only get his hands down and duck, one lightning dive....

His captor evidently read his thoughts, for he felt a hand slip into his mackintosh pocket, and he was relieved of the weight of his automatic.

"Go forward, up the steps. Stop!"

The stranger had seen the huddled figure of White, and stooped over him. He made no comment. He knew the man was dead before his hands had touched him.

"Mount the steps, _canaille!_" said the voice, and Raoul walked slowly up the steps of the house and halted with his face against the door.

A hand came up under his uplifted arm and sought the keyhole. A few minutes' fumbling until