goggles, I suppose?”
“Yes, sir.”
“I thought so,” muttered Falmouth savagely, and raced down the broad marble stairs that led to the entrance-hall. There were four men on duty who saluted him as he approached.
“Do you remember my going out?” he asked of the sergeant in charge.
“Yes, sir — both times,” the officer replied.
“Damn your ‘both times’!” snapped Falmouth; “how long had I been gone the first time before I returned?”
“Five minutes, sir,” was the astonished officer’s reply.
“They just gave themselves time to do it,” muttered Falmouth, and then aloud, “Did I return in my car?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Ah!” — hope sprang into the detective’s breast— “did you notice the number?” he asked, almost fearful to hear the reply.
“Yes!”
The detective could have hugged the stolid officer.
“Good — what was it?”
“A17164.”
The detective made a rapid note of the number.
“Jackson,” he called, and one of the men in mufti stepped forward and saluted.
“Go to the Yard; find out the registered owner of this car. When you have found this go to the owner; ask him to explain his movements; if necessary, take him into custody.”
Falmouth retraced his steps to Sir Philip’s study. He found the statesman still agitatedly walking up and down the room, the secretary nervously drumming his fingers on the table, and the letter still unopened.
“As I thought,” explained Falmouth, “the man you saw was one of the Four impersonating me. He chose his time admirably: my own men were deceived. They managed to get a car exactly similar in build and colour to mine, and, watching their opportunity, they drove to Downing Street a few minutes after I had left. There is one last chance of our catching him — luckily the sergeant on duty noticed the number of the car, and we might be able to trace him through that — hullo.” An attendant stood at the door.
Would the Superintendent see Detective Jackson?
Falmouth found him waiting in the hall below.
“I beg your pardon, sir,” said Jackson, saluting, “but is there not some mistake in this number?”
“Why?” asked the detective sharply.
“Because,” said the man, “A17164 is the number of your own car.”
Chapter VIII
The Pocket-Book
Final warning was brief and to the point:
We allow you until tomorrow evening to reconsider your position in the matter of the Aliens Extradition Bill. If by six o’clock no announcement is made in the afternoon newspapers of your withdrawing this measure we shall have no other course to pursue but to fulfil our promise. You will die at eight in the evening. We append for your enlightenment a concise table of the secret police arrangements made for your safety tomorrow. Farewell.
(Signed) FOUR JUST MEN
Sir Philip read this over without a tremor. He read too the slip of paper on which was written, in the strange foreign hand, the details that the police had not dared to put into writing.
“There is a leakage somewhere,” he said, and the two anxious watchers saw that the face of their charge was grey and drawn.
“These details were known only to four,” said the detective quietly, “and I’ll stake my life that it was neither the Commissioner nor myself.”
“Nor I!” said the private secretary emphatically.
Sir Philip shrugged his shoulders with a weary laugh.
“What does it matter? — they know,” he exclaimed; “by what uncanny method they learnt the secret I neither know nor care. The question is, can I be adequately protected tomorrow night at eight o’clock?”
Falmouth shut his teeth.
“Either you’ll come out of it alive or, by the Lord, they’ll kill two,” he said, and there was a gleam in his eye that spoke for his determination.
The news that yet another letter had reached the great statesman was on the streets at ten o’clock that night. It circulated through the clubs and theatres, and between the acts grave-faced men stood in the vestibules discussing Ramon’s danger. The House of Commons was seething with excitement. In the hope that the Minister would come down, a strong House had gathered, but the members were disappointed, for it was evident soon after the dinner recess that Sir Philip had no intention of showing himself that night.
“Might I ask the right honourable the Prime Minister whether it is the intention of His Majesty’s Government to proceed with the Aliens Extradition (Political Offences) Bill,” asked the Radical Member for West Deptford, “and whether he has not considered, in view of the extraordinary conditions that this Bill has called into life, the advisability of postponing the introduction of this measure?”
The question was greeted with a chorus of ‘hear-hears’, and the Prime Minister rose slowly and turned an amused glance in the direction of the questioner.
“I know of no circumstance that is likely to prevent my right honourable friend, who is unfortunately not in his place tonight, from moving the second reading of the Bill tomorrow,” he said, and sat down.
“What the devil was he grinning at?” grumbled West Deptford to a neighbour.
“He’s deuced uncomfortable, is JK,” said the other wisely, “deuced uncomfortable; a man in the Cabinet was telling me today that old JK has been feeling deuced uncomfortable. ‘You mark my words,’ he said, ‘this Four Just Men business is making the Premier deuced uncomfortable,’” and the hon. member subsided to allow West Deptford to digest his neighbour’s profundities.
“I’ve done my best to persuade Ramon to drop the Bill,” the Premier was saying, “but he is adamant, and the pitiable thing is that he believes in his heart of hearts that these fellows intend keeping faith.”
“It is monstrous,” said the Colonial Secretary hotly; “it is inconceivable that such a state of affairs can last. Why, it strikes at the root of everything, it unbalances every adjustment of civilisation.”
“It is a poetical idea,” said the phlegmatic Premier, “and the standpoint of the Four is quite a logical one. Think of the enormous power for good or evil often vested in one man: a capitalist controlling the markets of the world, a speculator cornering cotton or wheat whilst mills stand idle and people starve, tyrants and despots with the destinies of nations between their thumb and finger — and then think of the four men, known to none; vague, shadowy figures stalking tragically through the world, condemning and executing the capitalist, the corner maker, the tyrant — evil forces all, and all beyond reach of the law. We have said of these people, such of us as are touched with mysticism, that God would judge them. Here are men arrogating to themselves the divine right of superior judgment. If we catch them they will end their lives unpicturesquely, in a matter-of-fact, commonplace manner in a little shed in Pentonville Gaol, and the world will never realise how great are the artists who perish.”
“But Ramón?”
The Premier smiled.
“Here, I think, these men have just overreached themselves. Had they been content to slay