The Greatest Thrillers of Edgar Wallace. Edgar Wallace
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of Police were leaving nothing to chance. If they were satisfied that cunning could be matched by cunning, craft by craft, stealth by counter-stealth, they would have been content to defend their charge on conventional lines. But they were outmanoeuvred. The stake was too high to depend upon strategy — this was a case that demanded brute force. It is difficult, writing so long after the event, to realise how the terror of the Four had so firmly fastened upon the finest police organisation in the world, to appreciate the panic that had come upon a body renowned for its clearheadedness.
The crowd that blocked the approaches to Whitehall soon began to grow as the news of Billy’s death circulated, and soon after two o’clock that afternoon, by order of the Commissioner, Westminster Bridge was closed to all traffic, vehicular or passenger. The section of the Embankment that runs between Westminster and Hungerford Bridge was next swept by the police and cleared of curious pedestrians; Northumberland Avenue was barred, and before three o’clock there was no space within five hundred yards of the official residence of Sir Philip Ramon that was not held by a representative of the law. Members of Parliament on their way to the House were escorted by mounted men, and, taking on a reflected glory, were cheered by the crowd. All that afternoon a hundred thousand people waited patiently, seeing nothing, save, towering above the heads of a host of constabulary, the spires and towers of the Mother of Parliaments, or the blank faces of the buildings — in Trafalgar Square, along the Mall as far as the police would allow them, at the lower end of Victoria Street, eight deep along the Albert Embankment, growing in volume every hour. London waited, waited in patience, orderly, content to stare steadfastly at nothing, deriving no satisfaction for their weariness but the sense of being as near as it was humanly possible to be to the scene of a tragedy. A stranger arriving in London, bewildered by this gathering, asked for the cause. A man standing on the outskirts of the Embankment throng pointed across the river with the stem of his pipe.
“We’re waiting for a man to be murdered,” he said simply, as one who describes a familiar function.
About the edge of these throngs newspaper boys drove a steady trade. From hand to hand the pink sheets were passed over the heads of the crowd. Every half hour brought a new edition, a new theory, a new description of the scene in which they themselves were playing an ineffectual if picturesque part. The clearing of the Thames Embankment produced an edition; the closing of Westminster Bridge brought another; the arrest of a foolish Socialist who sought to harangue the crowd in Trafalgar Square was worthy of another. Every incident of the day was faithfully recorded and industriously devoured.
All that afternoon they waited, telling and retelling the story of the Four, theorising, speculating, judging. And they spoke of the culmination as one speaks of a promised spectacle, watching the slow-moving hands of Big Ben ticking off the laggard minutes. “Only two more hours to wait,” they said at six o’clock, and that sentence, or rather the tone of pleasurable anticipation in which it was said, indicated the spirit of the mob. For a mob is a cruel thing, heartless and unpitying.
Seven o’clock boomed forth, and the angry hum of talk ceased. London watched in silence, and with a quicker beating heart, the last hour crawl round the great clock’s dial.
There had been a slight alteration in the arrangements at Downing Street, and it was after seven o’clock before Sir Philip, opening the door of his study, in which he had sat alone, beckoned the Commissioner and Falmouth to approach. They walked towards him, stopping a few feet from where he stood.
The Minister was pale, and there were lines on his face that had not been there before. But the hand that held the printed paper was steady and his face was sphinxlike.
“I am about to lock my door,” he said calmly. “I presume that the arrangements we have agreed upon will be carried out?”
“Yes, sir,” answered the Commissioner quietly.
Sir Philip was about to speak, but he checked himself.
After a moment he spoke again.
“I have been a just man according to my rights,” he said half to himself. “Whatever happens I am satisfied that I am doing the right thing — What is that?”
Through the corridor there came a faint roar.
“The people — they are cheering you,” said Falmouth, who just before had made a tour of inspection.
The Minister’s lip curled in disdain and the familiar acid crept into his voice.
“They will be terribly disappointed if nothing happens,” he said bitterly. “The people! God save me from the people, their sympathy, their applause, their insufferable pity.”
He turned and pushed open the door of his study, slowly closed the heavy portal, and the two men heard the snick of the lock as he turned the key.
Falmouth looked at his watch.
“Forty minutes,” was his laconic comment.
In the dark stood the Four Men.
“It is nearly time,” said the voice of Manfred, and Thery shuffled forward and groped on the floor for something.
“Let me strike a match,” he grumbled in Spanish.
“No!”
It was Poiccart’s sharp voice that arrested him; it was Gonsalez who stooped quickly and passed sensitive fingers over the floor.
He found one wire and placed it in Thery’s hand, then he reached up and found the other, and Thery deftly tied them together.
“Is it not time?” asked Thery, short of breath from his exertions.
“Wait.”
Manfred was examining the illuminated dial of his watch. In silence they waited.
“It is time,” said Manfred solemnly, and Thery stretched out his hand.
Stretched out his hand — and groaned and collapsed.
The three heard the groan, felt rather than saw the swaying figure of the man, and heard the thud of him as he struck the floor.
“What has happened?” whispered a tremorless voice; it was Gonsalez.
Manfred was at Thery’s side fumbling at his shirt.
“Thery has bungled and paid the consequence,” he said in a hushed voice.
“But Ramon — —”
“We shall see, we shall see,” said Manfred, still with his fingers over the heart of the fallen man.
That forty minutes was the longest that Falmouth ever remembered spending. He had tried to pass it pleasantly by recounting some of the famous criminal cases in which he had played a leading role. But he found his tongue wandering after his mind. He grew incoherent, almost hysterical. The word had been passed round that there was to be no talking in tones above a whisper, and absolute silence reigned, save an occasional sibilant murmur as a necessary question was asked or answered.
Policemen were established in every room, on the roof, in the basement, in every corridor, and each man was armed. Falmouth looked round. He sat in the secretary’s office, having arranged for Hamilton to be at the House. Every door stood wide open, wedged back, so that no group of policemen should be out of sight of another.
“I cannot think what can happen,” he whispered for the twentieth time to his superior. “It is impossible for those fellows to keep their promise — absolutely impossible.”
“The question, to my mind, is whether they will keep their other promise,” was the Commissioner’s reply, “whether having found that they have failed they will give up their attempt. One thing is certain,” he proceeded, “if Ramon comes out of this alive, his rotten Bill will pass without opposition.”
He looked at his watch. To be exact, he had held his watch in his hand since Sir Philip had entered his room.
“It wants five minutes.” He sighed anxiously.