THE COMPLETE FOUR JUST MEN SERIES (6 Detective Thrillers in One Edition). Edgar Wallace
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us will ever have anything to do with the Four,’ he said. ‘Why, Mr. Long,’ he went on, ‘the Four Just Men are as likely to come to you as to us; bein’ as you are a government official, it’s very likely indeed.’
Again Jessen and Charles exchanged a swift glance, and in the eyes of the journalist was a strange light.
Suppose they came to Jessen! It was not unlikely. Once before, in pursuing their vengeance in a South American State, they had come to such a man as Jessen. It was a thought, and one worth following.
Turning the possibilities over in his mind Charles stood deep in thought as Jessen, still speaking, was helped into his overcoat by one of the men.
Then as they left the hall together, passing the custodian of the place at the foot of the stairs, the journalist turned to his companion.
‘Should they come to you — ?’
Jessen shook his head.
‘That is unlikely,’ he said; ‘they hardly require outside help.’
They walked the rest of the way in silence.
Charles shook hands at the door of Jessen’s house.
‘If by any chance they should come—’ he said.
Jessen laughed.
‘I will let you know,’ he said a little ironically.
Then he entered his house, and Charles heard again the snap of the lock as the strange man closed the door behind him.
Within twentyfour hours the newspapers recorded the mysterious disappearance of a Mr. J. Long, of Presley Street. Such a disappearance would have been without interest, but for a note that was found on his table. It ran:
Mr. Long being necessary for our purpose, we have taken him.
The Four Just Men
That the affair had connection with the Four was sufficient to give it an extraordinary news value. That the press was confounded goes without saying. For Mr. Long was a fairly unimportant man with some selfeducation and a craze for reforming the criminal classes. But the Home Office, which knew Mr. Long as ‘Mr. Jessen’, was greatly perturbed, and the genius of Scotland Yard was employed to discover his whereabouts.
Chapter IV
The Red Bean
The Inner Council sent out an urgent call to the men who administer the affairs of the Red Hundred.
Starque came, Francois, the Frenchman, came, Hollom, the Italian, Paul Mirtisky, George Grabe, the American, and Lauder Bartholomew, the ex-captain of Irregular Cavalry, came also. Bartholomew was the best dressed of the men who gathered about the green table in Greek Street, for he had held the King’s commission, which is of itself a sartorial education. People who met him vaguely remembered his name and frowned. They had a dim idea that there was ‘something against him’, but were not quite sure what it was. It had to do with the South African War and a surrender — not an ordinary surrender, but an arrangement with the enemy on a cash basis, and the transference of stores. There was a court martial, and a cashiering, and afterwards Bartholomew came to England and bombarded first the War Office and then the press with a sheaf of typewritten grievances. Afterwards he went into the theatrical line of business and appeared in music-hall sketches as ‘Captain Lauder Bartholomew — the Hero of Dopfontein’.
There were other chapters which made good reading, for he figured in a divorce case, ran a society newspaper, owned a few selling platers, and achieved the distinction of appearing in the Racing Calendar in a paragraph which solemnly and officially forbade his presence on Newmarket Heath.
That he should figure on the Inner Council of the Red Hundred is remarkable only in so far as it demonstrates how much out of touch with British sentiments and conditions is the average continental politician. For Bartholomew’s secret application to be enrolled a member of the Red Hundred had been received with acclamation and his promotion to the Inner Council had been rapid. Was he not an English officer — an aristocrat? A member of the most exclusive circle of English society? Thus argued the Red Hundred, to whom a subaltern in a scallywag corps did not differ perceptibly from a Commander of the Household Cavalry.
Bartholomew lied his way to the circle, because he found, as he had all along suspected, that there was a strong business end to terrorism. There were grants for secret service work, and with his fertile imagination it was not difficult to find excuses and reasons for approaching the financial executive of the Red Hundred at frequent intervals. He claimed intimacy with royal personages. He not only stated as a fact that he was in their confidence, but he suggested family ties which reflected little credit upon his progenitors.
The Red Hundred was a paying speculation; membership of the Inner Council was handsomely profitable. He had drawn a bow at a venture when under distress — literally it was a distress warrant issued at the instance of an importunate landlord — he had indited a letter to a revolutionary offering to act as London agent for an organization which was then known as The Friends of the People, but which has since been absorbed into the body corporate of the Red Hundred. It is necessary to deal fully with the antecedents of this man because he played a part in the events that are chronicled in the Council of Justice that had effects further reaching than Bartholomew, the mercenary of anarchism, could in his wildest moments have imagined.
He was one of the seven that gathered in the dingy drawingroom of a Greek Street boardinghouse, and it was worthy of note that five of his fellows greeted him with a deference amounting to humility. The exception was Starque, who, arriving late, found an admiring circle hanging upon the words of this young man with the shifty eyes, and he frowned his displeasure.
Bartholomew looked up as Starque entered and nodded carelessly.
Starque took his place at the head of the table, and motioned impatiently to the others to be seated. One, whose duty it was, rose from his chair and locked the door. The windows were shuttered, but he inspected the fastenings; then, taking from his pocket two packs of cards, he scattered them in a confused heap upon the table. Every man produced a handful of money and placed it before him.
Starque was an ingenious man and had learnt many things in Russia. Men who gather round a green baize-covered table with locked doors are apt to be dealt with summarily if no adequate excuse for their presence is evident, and it is more satisfactory to be fined a hundred roubles for gambling than to be dragged off at a moment’s notice to an indefinite period of labour in the mines on suspicion of being concerned in a revolutionary plot.
Starque now initiated the business of the evening. If the truth be told, there was little in the earlier proceedings that differed from the procedure of the typical committee.
There were monies to be voted. Bartholomew needed supplies for a trip to Paris, where, as the guest of an Illustrious Personage, he hoped to secure information of vital importance to the Hundred.
‘This is the fourth vote in two months, comrade,’ said Starque testily, ‘last time it was for information from your Foreign Office, which proved to be inaccurate.’
Bartholomew shrugged his shoulders with an assumption of carelessness.
‘If you doubt the wisdom of voting the money, let it pass,’ he said; ‘my men fly high — I am not bribing policemen or sous-officiers of diplomacy.’
‘It is not a question of money,’ said Starque sullenly, ‘it is a question of results. Money we have in plenty, but the success of our glorious demonstration depends upon the reliability of our information.’
The vote was passed, and with its passing came a grim element into the council.
Starque leant forward and lowered his voice.
There are matters that need your immediate attention,’ he said. He took