THE COMPLETE FOUR JUST MEN SERIES (6 Detective Thrillers in One Edition). Edgar WallaceЧитать онлайн книгу.
alcoves, where men sat around marble tables, drinking, smoking, and talking. In one of these, alone, sat Gonsalez, smoking a long cigarette and wearing on his cleanshaven mobile face a look of meditative content.
Neither of the men evinced the slightest sign of surprise at meeting him — yet Manfred’s heart missed a beat, and into the pallid cheeks of Poiccart crept two bright red spots.
They seated themselves, a waiter came and they gave their orders, and when he had gone Manfred asked in a low tone, “Where is Thery?”
Leon gave the slightest shrug.
“Thery has made his escape,” he answered calmly.
For a minute neither man spoke, and Leon continued:
“This morning, before you left, you gave him a bundle of newspapers?”
Manfred nodded.
“They were English newspapers,” he said. “Thery does not know a word of English. There were pictures in them — I gave them to amuse him.”
“You gave him, amongst others, the Megaphone?”
“Yes — ha!” Manfred remembered.
“The offer of a reward was in it — and the free pardon — printed in Spanish.”
Manfred was gazing into vacancy.
“I remember,” he said slowly. “I read it afterwards.”
“It was very ingenious,” remarked Poiccart commendingly.
“I noticed he was rather excited, but I accounted for this by the fact that we had told him last night of the method we intended adopting for the removal of Ramon and the part he was to play.”
Leon changed the topic to allow the waiter to serve the refreshments that had been ordered.
“It is preposterous,” he went on without changing his key, “that a horse on which so much money has been placed should not have been sent to England at least a month in advance.”
“The idea of a bad Channel-crossing leading to the scratching of the favourite of a big race is unheard of,” added Manfred severely.
The waiter left them.
“We went for a walk this afternoon,” resumed Leon, “and were passing along Regent Street, he stopping every few seconds to look in the shops, when suddenly — we had been staring at the window of a photographer’s — I missed him. There were hundreds of people in the street — but no Thery…I have been seeking him ever since.”
Leon sipped his drink and looked at his watch.
The other two men did nothing, said nothing.
A careful observer might have noticed that both Manfred’s and Poiccart’s hands strayed to the top button of their coats.
“Perhaps not so bad as that,” smiled Gonsalez.
Manfred broke the silence of the two.
“I take all blame,” he commenced, but Poiccart stopped him with a gesture.
“If there is any blame, I alone am blameless,” he said with a short laugh. “No, George, it is too late to talk of blame. We underrated the cunning of m’sieur, the enterprise of the English newspapers and — and — —”
“The girl at Jerez,” concluded Leon.
Five minutes passed in silence, each man thinking rapidly.
“I have a car not far from here,” said Leon at length. “You had told me you would be at this place by eleven o’clock; we have the naphtha launch at Burnham-on-Crouch — we could be in France by daybreak.”
Manfred looked at him. “What do you think yourself?” he asked.
“I say stay and finish the work,” said Leon.
“And I,” said Poiccart quietly but decisively.
Manfred called the waiter.
“Have you the last editions of the evening papers?”
The waiter thought he could get them, and returned with two.
Manfred scanned the pages carefully, then threw them aside.
“Nothing in these,” he said. “If Thery has gone to the police we must hide and use some other method to that agreed upon, or we could strike now. After all, Thery has told us all we want to know, but — —”
“That would be unfair to Ramon.” Poiccart finished the sentence in such a tone as summarily ended that possibility. “He has still two days, and must receive yet another, and last, warning.”
“Then we must find Thery.”
It was Manfred who spoke, and he rose, followed by Poiccart and Gonsalez.
“If Thery has not gone to the police — where would he go?”
The tone of Leon’s question suggested the answer.
“To the office of the newspaper that published the Spanish advertisement,” was Manfred’s reply, and instinctively the three men knew that this was the correct solution.
“Your motorcar will be useful,” said Manfred, and all three left the bar.
In the editor’s room Thery faced the two journalists.
“Thery?” repeated Welby; “I do not know that name. Where do you come from? What is your address?”
“I come from Jerez in Andalusia, from the wine farm of Sienor.”
“Not that,” interrupted Welby; “where do you come from now — what part of London?”
Thery raised his hands despairingly.
“How should I know? There are houses and streets and people — and it is in London, and I was to kill a man, a Minister, because he had made a wicked law — they did not tell me — —”
“They — who?” asked the editor eagerly.
“The other three.”
“But their names?”
Thery shot a suspicious glance at his questioner.
“There is a reward,” he said sullenly, “and a pardon. I want these before I tell — —”
The editor stepped to his desk.
“If you are one of the Four you shall have your reward — you shall have some of it now.” He pressed a button and a messenger came to the door.
“Go to the composing room and tell the printer not to allow his men to leave until I give orders.”
Below, in the basement, the machines were thundering as they flung out the first numbers of the morning news.
“Now” — the editor turned to Thery, who had stood, uneasily shifting from foot to foot whilst the order was being given— “now, tell me all you know.”
Thery did not answer; his eyes were fixed on the floor.
“There is a reward and a pardon,” he muttered doggedly.
“Hasten!” cried Welby. “You will receive your reward and the pardon also. Tell us, who are the Four Just Men? Who are the other three? Where are they to be found?”
“Here,” said a clear voice behind him; and he turned as a stranger, closing the door as he entered, stood facing the three men — a stranger in evening dress, masked from brow to chin.
There was a revolver in the hand that hung at his side.
“I am one,” repeated the stranger calmly; “there are two others waiting outside the building.”
“How