The Council of Justice Page 6

  ‘Who is there?’ he asked in a low voice.

  Somebody spoke in German, and the voice carried so that every man knew the speaker.

  ‘The Woman of Gratz,’ said Bartholomew, and in his eagerness, he rose to his feet.

  If one sought for the cause of friction between Starque and the ex-captain of Irregular Cavalry, here was the end of the search. The flame that came to the eyes of these two men as she entered the room told the story.

  Starque, heavily made, animal man to his fingertips, rose to greet her, his face aglow.

  ‘Madonna,’ he murmured and kissed her hand.

  She was dressed well enough, with a rich sable coat that fitted tightly to her sinuous figure and a fur toque upon her beautiful head.

  She held a gloved hand toward Bartholomew and smiled.

  Bartholomew, like his rival, had a way with women, but it was a gentle way, overladen with Western conventions and hedged about with set proprieties. That he was a contemptible villain according to our conceptions is true, but he had received a rudimentary training in the world of gentlemen. He had moved among men who took their hats off to their womenkind and who controlled their actions by a nebulous code. Yet he behaved with greater extravagance than did Starque, for he held her hand in his, looking into her eyes, while Starque fidgeted impatiently.

  ‘Comrade,’ at last he said testily, ‘we will postpone our talk with our little Maria. It would be bad for her to think that she is holding us from our work—and there are the Four—’

  He saw her shiver.

  ‘The Four?’ she repeated. ‘Then they have written to you also?’

  Starque brought his fist with a crash down on the table.

  ‘You—you! They have dared threaten you? By Heaven—’

  ‘Yes,’ she went on, and it seemed that her rich, sweet voice grew a little husky, ‘they have threatened—me.’

  She loosened the furs at her throat as though the room had suddenly become hot and the atmosphere unbreathable.

  The torrent of words that came tumbling to the lips of Starque was arrested by the look in her face.

  ‘It isn’t death that I fear,’ she went on slowly; ‘indeed, I scarcely know what I fear.’

  Bartholomew, superficial and untouched by the tragic mystery of her voice, broke in upon their silence. For silenced they were by the girl’s distress.

  ‘With such men as we about, why need you notice the theatrical play of these Four Just Men?’ he asked with a laugh; then he remembered the two little beans and became suddenly silent with the rest.

  So complete and inexplicable was the chill that had come to them with the pronouncement of the name of their enemy, and so absolutely did the spectacle of the Woman of Gratz on the verge of tears move them, that they heard then what none had heard before—the ticking of the clock.

  It was the habit of many years that carried Bartholomew’s hand to his pocket; mechanically he drew out his watch, and automatically he cast his eyes about the room for the clock wherewith to check the time.

  It was one of those incongruous pieces of commonplace that intrude upon tragedy, but it loosened the tongues of the council, and they all spoke together.

  It was Starque who gathered the girl’s trembling hands between his plump palms.

  ‘Maria, Maria,’ he chided softly, ‘this is folly. What! The Woman of Gratz, who defied all Russia—who stood before Mirtowsky and bade him defiance—what is it?’

  The last words were sharp and angry and were directed to Bartholomew.

  For the second time that night, the Englishman’s face was white, and he stood clutching the edge of the table with staring eyes and with his lower jaw drooping.

  ‘God, man!’ cried Starque, seizing him by the arm, ‘what is it—speak—you are frightening her!’

  ‘The clock!’ gasped Bartholomew in a hollow voice, ‘where—where is the clock?’

  His staring eyes wandered helplessly from side to side. ‘Listen,’ he whispered, and they held their breath. Very plainly indeed did they hear the ‘tick—tick—tick.’

  ‘It is under the table,’ muttered Francois.

  Starque seized the cloth and lifted it. Underneath, in the shadow, he saw the black box and heard the ominous whir of clockwork. ‘Out!’ he roared and sprang to the door. It was locked from the outside.

  Again and again he flung his huge bulk against the door, but the men who pressed round him, whimpering and slobbering in their pitiable fright, crowded about him and gave him no room.

  With his strong arms he threw them aside left and right, then leapt at the door, bringing all his weight and strength to bear, and the door crashed open.

  Alone of the party, the Woman of Gratz preserved her calm. She stood by the table, her foot almost touching the accursed machine, and she felt the faint vibrations of its working. Then Starque caught her up in his arms and through the narrow passage he half led, half carried her, till they reached the street in safety.

  The passing pedestrians saw the dishevelled group, and, scenting trouble, gathered about them.

  ‘What was it? What was it?’ whispered Francois, but Starque pushed him aside with a snarl.

  A taxi was passing and he called it, and lifting the girl inside, he shouted directions and sprang in after her.

  As the taxi whirled away, the bewildered Council looked from one to the other.

  They had left the door of the house wide open, and in the hall a flickering gas jet gyrated wildly.

  ‘Get away from here,’ said Bartholomew beneath his breath.

  ‘But the papers—the records,’ said the other, wringing his hands.

  Bartholomew thought quickly.

  The records were such as could not be left lying about with impunity. For all he knew, these madmen had implicated him in their infernal writings. He was not without courage, but it needed all he possessed to re-enter the room where a little machine in a black box ticked mysteriously.

  ‘Where are they?’ he demanded.

  ‘On the table,’ almost whispered the other. ‘Mon Dieux! what disaster!’ The Englishman made up his mind.

  He sprang up the three steps into the hall. Two paces brought him to the door, another stride to the table. He heard the ‘tick’ of the machine, gave one glance to the table and another to the floor, and was out again in the street before he had taken two long breaths.

  Francois stood waiting; the rest of the men had disappeared.

  ‘The papers! The papers!’ cried the Frenchman.

  ‘Gone!’ replied Bartholomew between his teeth.

  Less than a hundred yards away, another conference was being held.

  ‘Manfred,’ said Poiccart suddenly—there had been a lull in the talk—‘shall we need our friend?’ Manfred smiled. ‘Meaning the admirable Mr. Jessen?’

  Poiccart nodded.

  ‘I think so,’ said Manfred quietly. ‘I am not so sure that the cheap alarm clock we put in the biscuit box will be a sufficient warning to the Inner Council—here is Leon.’

  Gonsalez walked into the room and removed his overcoat deliberately.

  Then they saw that the sleeve of his dress coat was torn, and Manfred remarked the stained handkerchief that was lightly bound round one hand.

  ‘Glass,’ explained Gonsalez laconically. ‘I had to scale a wall.’

  ‘Well?’ asked Manfred.

  ‘Very well,’ replied the other; ‘they bolted like sheep, and I had nothing to do but to walk in and carry away the extremely interesting record of sentences they have passed.’

  ‘What of Bartholomew?’ Gonsalez was mildly amused. ‘He was less panicky than the rest—he came back to look for the papers.’

  ‘Will he—?’

  ‘I think so,’ said Leon. ‘I noticed he left the black bean behind him in his flight—so I presume we shall see the red.’

  ‘It will simplify matters,’ said Manfred gravely.

  CHAPTER V.

  The Council of Justice

  LAUDER BA
RTHOLOMEW KNEW A MAN who was farming in Uganda. It was not remarkable that he should suddenly remember his friend’s existence and call to mind a three years’ old invitation to spend a winter in that part of Africa. Bartholomew had a club. It was euphemistically styled in all the best directories as ‘Social, Literary, and Dramatic’, but knowing men about town called it by a shorter title. To them, it was a ‘night club’. Poorly as were the literary members catered for, there were certain weeklies, The Times, and a collection of complimentary timetables to be obtained for the asking, and Bartholomew sought and found particulars of sailings. He might leave London on the next morning and overtake (via Brindisi and Suez) the German boat that would land him in Uganda in a couple of weeks.

  On the whole, he thought this course would be wise.

  To tell the truth, the Red Hundred was becoming too much of a serious business; he had a feeling that he was suspect and was more certain that the end of his unlimited financing was in sight. That much he had long since recognized and had made his plans accordingly. As to the Four Just Men, they would come in with Menshikoff; it would mean only a duplication of treachery. Turning the pages of a Bradshaw, he mentally reviewed his position. He had in hand some seven hundred pounds, and his liabilities were of no account because the necessity for discharging them never occurred to him. Seven hundred pounds—and the red bean, and Menshikoff.

  ‘If they mean business,’ he said to himself, ‘I can count on three thousand.’

  The obvious difficulty was to get into touch with the Four. Time was everything, and one could not put an advertisement in the paper:

  ‘If the Four Just Men will communicate with L—B—they will hear of something to their advantage.’

  Nor was it expedient to make in the agony columns of the London press even the most guarded reference to Red Beans after what had occurred at the Council Meeting. The matter of the Embassy was simple. Under his breath he cursed the Four Just Men for their unbusinesslike communication. If only they had mentioned or hinted at some rendezvous, the thing might have been arranged.

  A man in evening dress asked him if he had finished with the Bradshaw. He resigned it ungraciously and, calling a club waiter, ordered a whiskey and soda and flung himself into a chair to think out a solution.

  The man returned the Bradshaw with a polite apology.

  ‘So sorry to have interrupted, but I’ve been called abroad at a moment’s notice,’ he said.

  Bartholomew looked up resentfully. This young man’s face seemed familiar.

  ‘Haven’t I met you somewhere?’ he asked.

  The stranger shrugged his shoulders.

  ‘One is always meeting and forgetting,’ he smiled. ‘I thought I knew you, but I cannot quite place you.’

  Not only the face but the voice was strangely familiar.

  ‘Not English,’ was Bartholomew’s mental analysis, ‘possibly French, more likely Slav—who the dickens can it be?’

  In a way, he was glad of the diversion and found himself engaged in a pleasant discussion on fly-fishing.

  As the hands of the clock pointed to midnight, the stranger yawned and got up from his chair.

  ‘Going west?’ he asked pleasantly.

  Bartholomew had no definite plans for spending the next hour, so he assented and the two men left the club together. They strolled across Piccadilly Circus and into Piccadilly, chatting pleasantly.

  Through Half Moon Street into Berkeley Square, deserted and silent, the two men sauntered, then the stranger stopped. ‘I’m afraid I’ve taken you out of your way,’ he said.

  ‘Not a bit,’ replied Bartholomew and was conventionally amiable. Then they parted, and the ex-captain walked back by the way he had come, picking up again the threads of the problem that had filled his mind in the earlier part of the evening.

  Halfway down Half Moon Street was a motorcar, and as he came abreast, a man who stood by the curb—and whom he had mistaken for a waiting chauffeur—barred his further progress. ‘Captain Bartholomew?’ he asked respectfully.

  ‘That is my name,’ said the other in surprise.

  ‘My master wishes to know whether you have decided.’

  ‘What—?’

  ‘If,’ went on his imperturbable examiner, ‘if you have decided on the red—here is the car, if you will be pleased to enter.’

  ‘And if I have decided on the black?’ he asked with a little hesitation.

  ‘Under the circumstances,’ said the man without emotion, ‘my master is of opinion that for his greater safety, he must take steps to ensure your neutrality.’

  There was no menace in the tone, but an icy matter-of-fact confidence that shocked this hardened adventurer.

  In the dim light, he saw something in the man’s hand—a thin, bright something that glittered.

  ‘It shall be red!’ he said hoarsely.

  The man bowed and opened the door of the car.

  Bartholomew had regained a little of his self-assurance by the time he stood before the men.

  He was not unused to masked tribunals. There had been one such since his elevation to the Inner Council.

  But these four men were in evening dress, and the stagey setting that had characterized the Red Hundred’s Court of Justice was absent. There was no weird adjustment of lights, or rollings of bells, or partings of sombre draperies. None of the cheap trickery of the Inner Council.

  The room was evidently a drawing room, very much like a hundred other drawing rooms he had seen.

  The four men who sat at equal distance before him were sufficiently ordinary in appearance, save for their masks. He thought one of them wore a beard, but he was not sure. This man did most of the speaking.

  ‘I understand,’ he said smoothly, ‘you have chosen the red.’

  ‘You seem to know a great deal about my private affairs,’ replied Bartholomew.

  ‘You have chosen the red—again?’ said the man.

  ‘Why—again?’ demanded the prisoner.

  The masked man’s eyes shone steadily through the holes in the mask.

  ‘Years ago,’ he said quietly, ‘there was an officer who betrayed his country and his comrades.’

  ‘That is an old lie.’

  ‘He was in charge of a post at which was stored a great supply of foodstuffs and ammunition,’ the mask went on. ‘There was a commandant of the enemy who wanted those stores but had not sufficient men to rush the garrison.’

  ‘An old lie,’ repeated Bartholomew sullenly.

  ‘So the commandant hit upon the ingenious plan of offering a bribe. It was a risky thing, and in nine hundred and ninety-nine cases out of a thousand, it would have been a futile business. Indeed, I am sure that I am understating the proportion—but the wily old commandant knew his man.’

  ‘There is no necessity to continue,’ said Bartholomew.

  ‘No correspondence passed,’ Manfred went on; ‘our officer was too cunning for that, but it was arranged that the officer’s answer should be conveyed thus.’

  He opened his hand and Bartholomew saw two beans, one red and the other black, reposing in the palm.

  ‘The black was to be a refusal, the red an acceptance, the terms were to be scratched on the side of the red bean with a needle—and the sum agreed was £1,000.’ Bartholomew made no answer.

  ‘Exactly that sum we offer you to place us from time to time in possession of such information as we require concerning the movements of the Red Hundred.’

  ‘If I refuse?’

  ‘You will not refuse,’ replied the mask calmly; ‘you need the money, and you have even now under consideration a plan for cutting yourself adrift from your friends.’

  ‘You know so much—’ began the other with a shrug.

  ‘I know a great deal. For instance, I know that you contemplate immediate flight—by the way, are you aware that the Lucus Woerhmann is in dock at Naples with a leaking boiler?’

  Bartholomew started, as well he might, for nobody but himself knew that the Lucus Woerh
mann was the ship he had hoped to overtake at Suez.

  Manfred saw his bewilderment and smiled. ‘I do not ask credit for supernatural powers,’ he said; ‘frankly, it was the merest guesswork, but you must abandon your trip. It is necessary for our greater success that you should remain.’

  Bartholomew bit his lips. This scheme did not completely fall in with his plans. He affected a sudden geniality.

  ‘Well, if I must, I must,’ he said heartily, ‘and since I agree, may I ask whom I have the honour of addressing, and further, since I am now your confidential agent, that I may see the faces of my employers?’

  He recognized the contempt in Manfred’s laugh.

  ‘You need no introduction to us,’ said Manfred coldly, ‘and you will understand we do not intend taking you into our confidence. Our agreement is that we share your confidence, not that you shall share ours.’

  ‘I must know something,’ said Bartholomew doggedly. ‘What am I to do? Where am I to report? How shall I be paid?’

  ‘You will be paid when your work is completed.’ Manfred reached out his hand toward a little table that stood within his reach.

  Instantly the room was plunged into darkness.

  The traitor sprang back, fearing he knew not what.

  ‘Come—do not be afraid,’ said a voice.

  ‘What does this mean?’ cried Bartholomew and stepped forward.

  He felt the floor beneath him yield and tried to spring backward, but already he had lost his balance, and with a scream of terror, he felt himself falling, falling …

  ‘Here, wake up!’

  Somebody was shaking his arm, and he was conscious of an icy coldness and a gusty raw wind that buffeted his face.

  He shivered and opened his eyes.

  First of all, he saw an iron camel with a load on its back; then he realized dimly that it was the ornamental support of a garden seat; then he saw a dull grey parapet of grimy stone. He was sitting on a seat on the Thames Embankment, and a policeman was shaking him, not ungently, to wakefulness.

  ‘Come along, sir—this won’t do, ye know.’

  He staggered to his feet unsteadily. He was wearing a fur coat that was not his.