The Four Just Men (1920). Edgar Wallace

to generations of caretakers, and that a banker’s reference was all that was necessary in the way of guarantee.

      “Rather a crank,” said the trustee at a meeting of creditors, “thinks that he is going to make a fortune turning out photogravures of Murillo at a price within reach of the inartistic. He tells me that he is forming a small company to carry on the business, and that so soon as it is formed he will buy the plant outright.”

      And sure enough that very day Thomas Brown, merchant; Arthur W. Knight, gentleman; James Selkirk, artist; Andrew Cohen, financial agent; and James Leech, artist, wrote to the Registrar of Joint Stock Companies, asking to be formed into a company, limited by shares, with the object of carrying on business as photo-engravers, with which object they had severally subscribed for the shares set against their names.

      (In parenthesis, Manfred was a great artist.)

      And five days before the second reading of the Aliens Extradition Act, the company had entered into occupation of their new premises in preparation to starting business.

      “Years ago, when I first came to London,” said Manfred, “I learned the easiest way to conceal one’s identity was to disguise oneself as a public enemy. There’s a wealth of respectability behind the word ‘limited’, and the pomp and circumstance of a company directorship diverts suspicion, even as it attracts attention.”

      Gonsalez printed a neat notice to the effect that the Fine Arts Reproduction Syndicate would commence business on October 1, and a further neat label that ‘no hands were wanted’, and a further terse announcement that travellers and others could only be seen by appointment, and that all letters must be addressed to the Manager.

      It was a plain-fronted shop, with a deep basement crowded with the dilapidated plant left by the liquidated engraver. The ground floor had been used as offices, and neglected furniture and grimy files predominated. There were pigeon-holes filled with old plates, pigeon-holes filled with dusty invoices, pigeon-holes in which all the débris that is accumulated in an office by a clerk with salary in arrear was deposited.

      The first floor had been a workshop, the second had been a store, and the third and most interesting floor of all was that on which were the huge cameras and the powerful arc lamps that were so necessary an adjunct to the business. In the rear of the house on this floor were the three small rooms that had served the purpose of the bygone caretaker.

      In one of these, two days after the occupation, sat the four men of Cadiz.

      Autumn had come early in the year, a cold driving rain was falling outside, and the fire that burnt in the Georgian grate gave the chamber an air of comfort. This room alone had been cleared of litter, the best furniture of the establishment had been introduced, and on the ink-stained writing-table that filled the centre of the apartment stood the remains of a fairly luxurious lunch.

      Gonsalez was reading a small red book, and it may be remarked that he wore gold-rimmed spectacles; Poiccart was sketching at a corner of the table, and Manfred was smoking a long thin cigar and studying a manufacturing chemist’s price list. Thery (or as some prefer to call him Saimont) alone did nothing, sitting a brooding heap before the fire, twiddling his fingers, and staring absently at the leaping little flames in the grate.

      Conversation was carried on spasmodically, as between men whose minds were occupied by different thoughts. Thery concentrated the attentions of the three by speaking to the point. Turning from his study of the fire with a sudden impulse he asked:

      “How much longer am I to be kept here?”

      Poiccart looked up from his drawing and remarked:

      “That is the third time he has asked today.”

      “Speak Spanish!” cried Thery passionately. “I am tired of this new language. I cannot understand it, any more than I can understand you.”

      “You will wait till it is finished,” said Manfred, in the staccato patois of Andalusia; “we have told you that.”

      Thery growled and turned his face to the grate.

      “I am tired of this life,” he said sullenly. “I want to walk about without a guard—I want to go back to Jerez, where I was a free man. I am sorry I came away.”

      “So am I,” said Manfred quietly; “not very sorry though—I hope for your sake I shall not be.”

      “Who are you?” burst forth Thery, after a momentary silence. “What are you? Why do you wish to kill? Are you anarchists? What money do you make out of this? I want to know.”

      Neither Poiccart nor Gonsalez nor Manfred showed any resentment at the peremptory demand of their recruit. Gonsalez’s clean-shaven, sharp-pointed face twitched with pleasurable excitement, and his cold blue eyes narrowed.

      “Perfect! perfect!” he murmured, watching the other man’s face: “pointed nose, small forehead and—articulorum se ipsos torquentium sonus; gemitus, mugitusque parum explanatis——” The physiognomist might have continued Seneca’s picture of the Angry Man, but Thery sprang to his feet and glowered at the three.

      “Who are you?” he asked slowly. “How do I know that you are not to get money for this? I want to know why you keep me a prisoner, why you will not let me see the newspapers, why you never allow me to walk alone in the street, or speak to somebody who knows my language? You are not from Spain, nor you, nor you—your Spanish is, yes—but you are not of the country I know. You want me to kill—but you will not say how——”

      Manfred rose and laid his hand on the other’s shoulder.

      “Senõr,” he said—and there was nothing but kindness in his eyes—“restrain your impatience, I beg of you. I again assure you that we do not kill for gain. These two gentlemen whom you see have each fortunes exceeding six million pesetas, and I am even richer; we kill and we will kill because we are each sufferers through acts of injustice, for which the law gave us no remedy. If—if—” he hesitated, still keeping his grey eyes fixed unflinchingly on the Spaniard. Then he resumed gently: “If we kill you it will be the first act of the kind.”

      Thery was on his feet, white and snarling, with his back to the wall; a wolf at bay, looking from one to the other with fierce suspicion.

      “Me—me!” he breathed, “kill me?”

      Neither of the three men moved save Manfred, who dropped his outstretched hand to his side.

      “Yes, you.” He nodded as he spoke. “It would be new work for us, for we have never slain except for justice—and to kill you would be an unjust thing.”

      Poiccart looked at Thery pityingly.

      “That is why we chose you,” said Poiccart, “because there was always a fear of betrayal, and we thought—it had better be you.”

      “Understand,” resumed Manfred calmly, “that not a hair of your head will be harmed if you are faithful—that you will receive a reward that will enable you to live—remember the girl at Jerez.”

      Thery sat down again with a shrug of indifference but his hands were trembling as he struck a match to light his cigarette.

      “We will give you more freedom—you shall go out every day. In a few days we shall all return to Spain. They called you the silent man in the prison at Granada—we shall believe that you will remain so.”

      After this the conversation became Greek to the Spaniard, for the men spoke in English.

      “He gives very little trouble,” said Gonsalez. “Now that we have dressed him like an Englishman, he does not attract attention. He doesn’t like shaving every day; but it is necessary, and luckily he is fair. I do not allow him to speak in the street, and this tries his temper somewhat.”

      Manfred turned the talk into a more serious channel.

      “I shall send two more warnings, and one of those must be delivered in his very stronghold. He is