are growing nervous — you haven’t had enough sleep, Falmouth. That isn’t spoken like your real self — we must save him.”
He turned from the study and beckoned one of the officers who guarded the landing.
“Sergeant, tell Inspector Collins to send an emergency call throughout the area for reserves to gather immediately. I will put such a cordon round Ramon today,” he went on addressing Falmouth, “that no man shall reach him without the fear of being crushed to death.”
And within an hour there was witnessed in London a scene that has no parallel in the history of the Metropolis. From every district there came a small army of policemen. They arrived by train, by tramway car, by motorbus, by every vehicle and method of traction that could be requisitioned or seized. They streamed from the stations, they poured through the thoroughfares, till London stood aghast at the realisation of the strength of her civic defences.
Whitehall was soon packed from end to end; St James’s Park was black with them. Automatically Whitehall, Charles Street, Birdcage Walk, and the eastern end of the Mall were barred to all traffic by solid phalanxes of mounted constables. St George’s Street was in the hands of the force, the roof of every house was occupied by a uniformed man. Not a house or room that overlooked in the slightest degree the Foreign Secretary’s residence but was subjected to a rigorous search. It was as though martial law had been proclaimed, and indeed two regiments of Guards were under arms the whole of the day ready for any emergency. In Sir Philip’s room the Commissioner, backed by Falmouth, made his last appeal to the stubborn man whose life was threatened.
“I tell you, sir,” said the Commissioner earnestly, “we can do no more than we have done, and I am still afraid. These men affect me as would something supernatural. I have a horrible dread that for all our precautions we have left something out of our reckoning; that we are leaving unguarded some avenue which by their devilish ingenuity they may utilise. The death of this man Marks has unnerved me — the Four are ubiquitous as well as omnipotent. I beg of you, sir, for God’s sake, think well before you finally reject their terms. Is the passage of this Bill so absolutely necessary?” — he paused— “is it worth your life?” he asked with blunt directness; and the crudity of the question made Sir Philip wince.
He waited some time before he replied, and when he spoke his voice was low and firm.
“I shall not withdraw,” he said slowly, with a dull, dogged evenness of tone. “I shall not withdraw in any circumstance.
“I have gone too far,” he went on, raising his hand to check Falmouth’s appeal. “I have got beyond fear, I have even got beyond resentment; it is now to me a question of justice. Am I right in introducing a law that will remove from this country colonies of dangerously intelligent criminals, who, whilst enjoying immunity from arrest, urge ignorant men forward to commit acts of violence and treason? If I am right, the Four Just Men are wrong. Or are they right: is this measure an unjust thing, an act of tyranny, a piece of barbarism dropped into the very centre of twentieth-century thought, an anachronism? If these men are right, then I am wrong. So it has come to this, that I have to satisfy my mind as to the standard of right and wrong that I must accept — and I accept my own.”
He met the wondering gaze of the officers with a calm, unflinching countenance.
“You were wise to take the precautions you have,” he resumed quietly. “I have been foolish to chafe under your protective care.”
“We must take even further precautions,” the Commissioner interrupted; “between six and half past eight o’clock tonight we wish you to remain in your study, and under no circumstance to open the door to a single person — even to myself or Mr Falmouth. During that time you must keep your door locked.” He hesitated. “If you would rather have one of us with you — —”
“No, no,” was the Minister’s quick reply; “after the impersonation of yesterday I would rather be alone.”
The Commissioner nodded. “This room is anarchist-proof,” he said, waving his hand round the apartment. “During the night we have made a thorough inspection, examined the floors, the wall, the ceiling, and fixed steel shields to the shutters.”
He looked round the chamber with the scrutiny of a man to whom every visible object was familiar.
Then he noticed something new had been introduced. On the table stood a blue china bowl full of roses.
“This is new,” he said, bending his head to catch the fragrance of the beautiful flowers.
“Yes,” was Ramon’s careless reply, “they were sent from my house in Hereford this morning.”
The Commissioner plucked a leaf from one of the blooms and rolled it between his fingers. “They look so real,” he said paradoxically, “that they might even be artificial.”
As he spoke he was conscious that he associated the roses in some way with — what?
He passed slowly down the noble marble stairway — a policeman stood on every other step — and gave his views to Falmouth.
“You cannot blame the old man for his decision; in fact, I admire him today more than I have ever done before. But” — there was a sudden solemnity in his voice— “I am afraid — I am afraid.”
Falmouth said nothing.
“The notebook tells nothing,” the Commissioner continued, “save the route that Sir Philip might have taken had he been anxious to arrive at 44 Downing Street by back streets. The futility of the plan is almost alarming, for there is so much evidence of a strong subtle mind behind the seeming innocence of this list of streets that I am confident that we have not got hold of the true inwardness of its meaning.”
He passed into the streets and threaded his way between crowds of policemen. The extraordinary character of the precautions taken by the police had the natural result of keeping the general public ignorant of all that was happening in Downing Street. Reporters were prohibited within the magic circle, and newspapers, and particularly the evening newspapers, had to depend upon such information as was grudgingly offered by Scotland Yard. This was scanty, while their clues and theories, which were many, were various and wonderful.
The Megaphone, the newspaper that regarded itself as being the most directly interested in the doings of the Four Just Men, strained every nerve to obtain news of the latest developments. With the coming of the fatal day, excitement had reached an extraordinary pitch; every fresh edition of the evening newspapers was absorbed as soon as it reached the streets. There was little material to satisfy the appetite of a sensation-loving public, but such as there was, was given. Pictures of 44 Downing Street, portraits of the Minister, plans of the vicinity of the Foreign Office, with diagrams illustrating existing police precautions, stood out from columns of letterpress dealing, not for the first but for the dozenth time, with the careers of the Four as revealed by their crimes.
And with curiosity at its height, and all London, all England, the whole of the civilised world, talking of one thing and one thing only there came like a bombshell the news of Marks’ death.
Variously described as one of the detectives engaged in the case, as a foreign police officer, as Falmouth himself, the death of Marks grew from ‘Suicide in a Railway Carriage’ to its real importance. Within an hour the story of tragedy, inaccurate in detail, true in substance, filled the columns of the Press. Mystery on mystery! Who was this ill-dressed man, what part was he playing in the great game, how came he by his death? asked the world instantly; and little by little, pieced together by ubiquitous newsmen, the story was made known. On top of this news came the great police march on Whitehall. Here was evidence of the serious view the authorities were taking.
‘From my vantage place,’ wrote Smith in the Megaphone, ‘I could see the length of Whitehall. It was the most wonderful spectacle that London has ever witnessed. I saw nothing but a great sea of black helmets reaching from one end of the broad thoroughfare to the other. Police! the whole vicinity was black with police; they thronged side streets, they crowded into the