—”
“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 did you get here — what do you want?” demanded the editor, and stretched his hand to an open drawer in his desk.
“Take your hand away” — and the thin barrel of the revolver rose with a jerk. “How I came here your doorkeeper will explain, when he recovers consciousness. Why I am here is because I wish to save my life — not an unreasonable wish. If Thery speaks I may be a dead man — I am about to prevent him speaking. I have no quarrel with either of you gentlemen, but if you hinder me I shall kill you,” he said simply. He spoke all the while in English, and Thery, with wide-stretched eyes and distended nostrils, shrank back against the wall, breathing quickly.
“You,” said the masked man, turning to the terror-stricken informer and speaking in Spanish, “would have betrayed your comrades — you would have thwarted a great purpose, therefore it is just that you should die.”
He raised the revolver to the level of Thery’s breast, and Thery fell on his knees, mouthing the prayer he could not articulate.
“By God — no!” cried the editor, and sprang forward.
The revolver turned on him.
“Sir,” said the unknown — and his voice sank almost to a whisper— “for God’s sake do not force me to kill you.”
“You shall not commit a coldblooded murder,” cried the editor in a white heat of anger, and moved forward, but Welby held him back. “What is the use?” said Welby in an undertone; “he means it — we can do nothing.”
“You can do something,” said the stranger, and his revolver dropped to his side.
Before the editor could answer there was a knock at the door.
“Say you are busy”; and the revolver covered Thery, who was a whimpering, huddled heap by the wall.
“Go away,” shouted the editor, “I am busy.”
“The printers are waiting,” said the voice of the messenger.
“Now,” asked the chief, as the footsteps of the boy died away; “what can we do?”
“You can save this man’s life.”
“How?”
“Give me your word of honour that you will allow us both to depart, and will neither raise an alarm nor leave this room for a quarter of an hour.”
The editor hesitated.
“How do I know that the murder you contemplate will not be committed as soon as you get clear?”
The other laughed under his mask.
“How do I know that as soon as I have left the room you will not raise an alarm?”
“I should have given my word, sir,” said the editor stiffly.
“And I mine,” was the quiet response; “And my word has never been broken.”
In the editor’s mind a struggle was going on; here in his hand was the greatest story of the century; another minute and he would have extracted from Thery the secret of the Four.
Even now a bold dash might save everything — and the printers were waiting…but the hand that held the revolver was the hand of a resolute man, and the chief yielded.
“I agree, but under protest,” he said. “I warn you that your arrest and punishment is inevitable.”
“I regret,” said the masked man with a slight bow, “that I cannot agree with you — nothing is inevitable save death. Come, Thery,” he said, speaking in Spanish. “On my word as a Caballero I will not harm you.”
Thery hesitated, then slunk forward with his head bowed and his eyes fixed on the floor.
The masked man opened the door an inch, listened, and in the moment came the inspiration of the editor’s life.
“Look here,” he said quickly, the man giving place to the journalist, “when you get home will you write us an article about yourselves? You needn’t give us any embarrassing particulars, you know — something about your aspirations, your raison d’etre.”
“Sir,” said the masked man — and there was a note of admiration in his voice— “I recognise in you an artist. The article will be delivered tomorrow”; and opening the door the two men stepped into the darkened corridor.
Chapter VI
The Clues
Blood-red placards, hoarse newsboys, overwhelming headlines, and column after column of leaded type told the world next day how near the Four had been to capture. Men in the train leant forward, their newspapers on their knees, and explained what they would have done had they been in the editor of the Megaphone’s position. People stopped talking about wars and famines and droughts and street accidents and parliaments and ordinary everyday murders and the German Emperor, in order to concentrate their minds upon the topic of the hour. Would the Four Just Men carry out their promise and slay the Secretary for Foreign Affairs on the morrow?
Nothing else was spoken about. Here was a murder threatened a month ago, and, unless something unforeseen happened, to be committed tomorrow.
No wonder that the London Press devoted the greater part of its space to discussing the coming of Thery and his recapture.
‘…It is not so easy to understand,’ said the Telegram, ‘why, having the miscreants in their hands, certain journalists connected with a sensational and halfpenny contemporary allowed them to go free to work their evil designs upon a great statesman whose unparalleled…We say if, for unfortunately in these days of cheap journalism every story emanating from the sanctum sanctorum of sensation-loving sheets is not to be accepted on its pretensions; so if, as it stated, these desperadoes really did visit the office of a contemporary last night…’ At noonday Scotland Yard circulated broadcast