The Council of Justice, Edgar Wallace [english novels to read .txt] 📗

Board of Trade, has had

an “affair”, and that a junior Lord of the Admiralty drinks like

a sponge, and the Chancellor hates the War Secretary, who will talk all

the time, and—’

 

‘Keeps a diary?’ asked Poiccart, and the other nodded.

 

‘A diary full of thousands of pounds’ worth of gossip, locked with a

sixpenny-ha’penny lock. His house is fitted with the Magno-Sellie

system of burglar alarms, and he keeps three servants.’

 

‘You are almost encyclopedic,’ said Poiccart.

 

‘My dear Poiccart,’ said Leon resentfully, ‘you have got a trick of

accepting the most wonderful information from me without paying me the

due of adopting the following flattering attitudes: primary,

incredulous surprise; secondary, ecstatic wonder; tertiary, admiration

blended with awe.’

 

Poiccart laughed outright: an unusual circumstance.

 

‘I have ceased to wonder at your cleverness, illustrious,’ he said,

speaking in Spanish, the language these two men invariably used when

alone.

 

‘All these things are beyond me,’ Poiccart went on, ‘yet no man can

say for all my slow brain that I am a sluggard in action.’

 

Leon smiled.

 

The work of the last few weeks had fallen heavily on them both. It

was no light task, the preparation of Three Months in Morocco.

The first word of every seventh paragraph formed the message that he

had to convey to Manfred—and it was a long message. There was the task

of printing it, arranging the immediate publication, the placing of the

book in the list, and generally thrusting it under the noses of an

unappreciative public. As sailors store life-belts for possible

contingencies, so, in every country had the Four Just Men stored the

equipment of rescue against their need. Poiccart, paying many flying

visits to the Midlands, brought back with him from time to time strange

parts of machinery. The lighter he carried with his luggage, the

heavier parts he smuggled into Chelmsford in a strongly-built

motor-car.

 

The detached house facing the prison was fortunately for sale, and

the agent who conducted the rapid negotiations that resulted in its

transfer had let fall the information that the clients hoped to

establish a garage on the Colchester Road that would secure a sensible

proportion of the Essex motor traffic. The arrival of two rough-painted

chassis supported this view of the new owners’ business. They were

enterprising people, these new arrivals, and it was an open secret ‘on

the road’, that Gipsy Jack, whose caravan was under distress, and in

the hands of the bailiff, had found financial support at their hands.

Albeit Jack protested vigorously at the ridiculous suggestion that he

should open in Chelmsford at an unpropitious season, and sniffed

contemptuously at the extravagant billing of the town. Nor did he

approve of the wording of the posters, which struck him as being milder

than the hilarious character of his business-entertainment called

for.

 

‘Them Heckfords are going to make a failure,’ said Mr. Peter Sweeney

in the bosom of his family. He occupied ‘Faith Home’, an ornate villa

on the Colchester Road. Before his momentous conception of the

‘Rational Faithers’, it had borne the more imposing title of ‘Palace

Lodge’, this by the way.

 

‘They’ve got no business ability, and they’re a bit gone on the

sherbet.’ For a high-priest of a new cult, Peter’s language was neither

pure nor refined. ‘And they haven’t got the common politeness of pigs,’

he added ambiguously. ‘I took the petition there today,’ Peter went on

indignantly, ‘and the chap that come to the door! Oh, what a sight!

Looked as if he’d been up all night, eyes red, face white, and all of a

shake.’

 

‘“Good mornin’, Mr. Heckford,” says I, “I’ve come

about the petition.”

 

‘“What petition?” says he.

 

‘“The petition for the poor creature now lyin’ in

Chelmsford,” says I, “under sentence of death—which is

legal murder,” I says.

 

‘“Go to the devil” he says; they were his exact words,

“Go to the devil.” I was that upset that I walked straight

away from the door—he didn’t even ask me in—an’ just as I got to the

bottom of the front garden, he shouts, “What do you want him

reprieved for—hasn’t he left you a pot of money?”’

 

Mr. Peter Sweeney was very much agitated as he repeated this callous

piece of cynicism.

 

‘That idea,’ said Peter solemnly and impressively, ‘Must Not be

Allowed to Grow.’

 

It was to give the lie to the wicked suggestion that Peter arranged

his daily demonstration, from twelve to two. There had been such

functions before, ‘Mass’ meetings with brass bands at the very prison

gates, but they were feeble mothers’ meetings compared to these

demonstrations on behalf of Manfred.

 

The memory of the daily ‘service’ is too fresh in the minds of the

public, and particularly the Chelmsford public, to need any description

here. Crowds of three thousand people were the rule, and Peter’s band

blared incessantly, whilst Peter himself grew hoarse from the effect of

railing his denunciation of the barbarous methods of a medieval

system.

 

Heckford Brothers, the new motor-car firm, protested against the

injury these daily paraders were inflicting on their business. That

same dissipated man, looking more dissipated than ever, who had been so

rude to him, called upon Peter and threatened him with injunctions.

This merely had the effect of stiffening Peter Sweeney’s back, and next

day the meeting lasted three hours.

 

In the prison, the pandemonium that went on outside penetrated even

to the seclusion of Manfred’s cell, and he was satisfied.

 

The local police were loath to interfere—and reopen the desperate

quarrel that had centred around such demonstrations before.

 

So Peter triumphed, and the crowd of idlers that flocked to the

midday gathering grew in proportion as the interest in the condemned

man’s fate arose.

 

And the augmented band blared and the big drum boomed the louder and

Rational Faith gained many new converts.

 

A sightseer, attracted by curiosity, was standing on the fringe of

the crowd one day. He could not see the band from where he stood but he

made a remarkable observation; it was nothing less than a gross

reflection upon a valued member of the orchestra.

 

‘That chap,’ said this unknown critic, ‘is beating out of time—or

else there’s two drums going.’

 

The man to whom he addressed his remarks listened attentively, and

agreed.

 

The crowd had swayed back to the railings before the premises of the

motor manufacturers, and as it dispersed—Peter’s party ‘processed’

magnificently to the town before breaking up—one of the new tenants

came to the door and stood, watching the melting crowd. He overheard

this remark concerning the big drummer’s time, and it vexed him. When

he came back to the sitting-room, where a pallid Poiccart lay supinely

on a couch, he said:

 

‘We must be careful,’ and repeated the conversation.

 

Until six o’clock these men rested—as men must rest who have been

working under a monstrous pressure of air—then they went to clear away

the results of their working.

 

At midnight they ceased, and washed away the stains of their

labours.

 

‘Luckily,’ said Poiccart, ‘we have many rooms to fill yet; the

drawing-room can hold little more, the dining-room we need, the

morning-room is packed. We must start upstairs tomorrow.’

 

As the work proceeded, the need for caution became more and more

apparent; but no accident marred their progress, and three days before

the date fixed for the execution, the two men, coming to their barely

furnished living-room, looked at each other across the uncovered table

that separated them, and sighed thankfully, for the work was almost

finished.

 

‘Those fellows,’ said Mr. Peter Sweeney, ‘are not so Bad as I

thought they was. One of ‘em come to me today and Apologized. He was

lookin’ better too, and offered to sign the petition.’ Peter always

gave you the impression in speaking that he was using words that began

with capital letters.

 

‘Pa,’ said his son, who had a mind that dealt in material issues,

‘what are you going to do with Manfred’s money?’

 

His parent looked at him sternly.

 

‘I shall Devote it to the Cause,’ he said shortly.

 

‘That’s you, ain’t it?’ asserted the innocent child.

 

Peter disdained to answer.

 

‘These young men,’ he went on, ‘might do worse than they have done.

They are more businesslike than I thought, darker, the town

electrician, tells me that they had got a power current in their works,

they have got a little gas-engine too, and from the way one of them was

handling a big car today on the London road, it strikes me they know

something about the business of motor-car running.’

 

Gonsalez, coming back from a trial trip on his noisy car, had to

report a disquieting circumstance.

 

‘She’s here,’ he said, as he was washing the grime from his

hands.

 

Poiccart looked up from his work—he was heating something in a I

crucible over an electric stove.

 

‘The Woman of Gratz?’ he asked.

 

Leon nodded.

 

‘That is natural,’ Poiccart said, and went on with his

experiment.

 

‘She saw me,’ said Leon calmly.

 

‘Oh!’ said the other, unconcerned. ‘Manfred said—’

 

‘That she would betray no more—I believe that, and George asked us

to be good to her, that is a command.’

 

(There was a great deal more in Manfred’s letter to ‘his cousin in

London’ than met the governor’s eye.)

 

‘She is an unhappy woman,’ said Gonsalez gravely; ‘it was pitiable

to see her at Wandsworth, where she stood day after day with those

tragic eyes of hers on the ugly gate of the prison; here, with the

result of her work in sight, she must be suffering the tortures of the

damned.’

 

‘Then tell her,’ said Poiccart.

 

‘That—’

 

‘That George will escape.’

 

‘I thought of that. I think George would wish it.’

 

‘The Red Hundred has repudiated her,’ Leon went on. ‘We were advised

of that yesterday; I am not sure that she is not under sentence. You

remember Herr Schmidt, he of the round face? It was he who denounced

her.’

 

Poiccart nodded and looked up thoughtfully.

 

‘Schmidt—Schmidt,’ he puzzled. ‘Oh yes—there is something against

him, a cold-blooded murder, was it not?’

 

‘Yes,’ said Leon very quietly, and they did not speak again of Herr

Schmidt of Prague. Poiccart was dipping thin glass rods into the

seething, bubbling contents of the crucible, and Leon watched idly.

 

‘Did she speak?’ Poiccart asked after a long interval of

silence.

 

‘Yes.’

 

Another silence, and then Leon resumed:

 

‘She was not sure of me—but I made her the sign of the Red Hundred.

I could not speak to her in the open street. Falmouth’s people were in

all probability watching her day and night. You know the old glove

trick for giving the hour of assignation. Drawing on the glove slowly

and stopping to admire the fit of one, two, or three fingers…so I

signalled to her to meet me in three hours’ time.’

 

‘Where?’

 

‘At Wivenhoe—that was fairly simple too…imagine me leaning over

the side of the car to demand of the willing bystanders how long it

would take me to reach Wivenhoe—the last word loudly—would it take me

three hours? Whilst they volunteered their counsel, I saw her signal of

assent.’

 

Poiccart hummed as he worked.

 

‘Well—are you going?’ he asked.

 

‘I am,’ said the other, and looked at his watch.

 

After midnight, Poiccart, dozing in his chair, heard the splutter

and the Gatling-gun explosions of the car as it turned into the

extemporized garage.

 

‘Well?’ he asked as Leon entered.

 

‘She’s gone,’ said Gonsalez with a sigh of relief. ‘It was a

difficult business,