kept the matter a secret till half an hour before the paper went to press. This may seem to the layman an extraordinary circumstance, but experience has shown most men who control newspapers that news has an unlucky knack of leaking out before it appears in type. Wicked compositors—and even compositors can be wicked—have been known to screw up copies of important and exclusive news, and throw them out of a convenient window so that they have fallen close to a patient man standing in the street below and have been immediately hurried off to the office of a rival newspaper and sold for more than their weight in gold. Such cases have been known.
But at half-past eleven the buzzing hive of Megaphone House began to hum, for then it was that the sub-editors learnt for the first time of the “outrage.”
It was a great story—yet another Megaphone scoop, headlined half down the page with “The ‘Just four’ again—Outrage at the office of the Megaphone—Devilish Ingenuity—Another Threatening Letter—The Four Will Keep Their Promise—Remarkable Document—Will the Police Save Sir Philip Ramon?
“A very good story,” said the chief complacently, reading the proofs. He was preparing to leave, and was speaking to Welby by the door.
“Not bad,” said the discriminating Welby. “What I think—hullo!”
The last was addressed to a messenger who appeared with a stranger.
“Gentleman wants to speak to somebody, sir—bit excited, so I brought him up; he’s a foreigner, and I can’t understand him, so I brought him to you”—this to Welby.
“What do you want?” asked the chief in French.
The man shook his head, and said a few words in a strange tongue.
“Ah!” said Welby, “Spanish—what do you wish?” he said in that language.
“Is this the office of that paper?” The man produced a grimy copy of the Megaphone.
“Yes.”
“Can I speak to the editor?”
The chief looked suspicious.
“I am the editor,” he said.
The man looked over his shoulder, then leant forward.
“I am one of The Four Just Men,” he said hesitatingly. Welby took a step towards him and scrutinised him closely.
“What is your name?” he asked quickly.
“Miguel Thery of Jerez,” replied the man.
It was half-past ten when, returning from a concert, the cab that bore Poiccart and Manfred westward passed through Hanover Square and turned off to Oxford Street.
“You ask to see the editor,” Manfred was explaining; “they take you up to the offices—you explain your business to somebody; they are very sorry, but they cannot help you; they are very polite, but not to the extent of seeing you off the premises, so, wandering about seeking your way out, you come to the editor’s room and, knowing that he is out, slip in, make your arrangements, walk out, locking the door after you if nobody is about, addressing a few farewell words to an imaginary occupant, if you are seen, and voila!”
Poiccart bit the end of his cigar.
“Use for your envelope a gum that will not dry under an hour and you heighten the mystery,” he said quietly, and Manfred was amused.
“The envelope-just-fastened is an irresistible attraction to an English detective.”
The cab speeding along Oxford Street turned into Edgware Road, when Manfred put up his hand and pushed open the trap in the roof.
“We’ll get down here,” he called, and the driver pulled up to the sidewalk.
“I thought you said Pembridge Gardens?” he remarked as Manfred paid him.
“So I did,” said Manfred; “good night.”
They waited chatting on the edge of the pavement until the cab had disappeared from view, then turned back to the Marble Arch, crossed to Park Lane, walked down that plutocratic thoroughfare and round into Piccadilly. Near the Circus they found a restaurant with a long bar and many small alcoves, where men sat around marble tables, drinking, smoking, and talking. In one of these, alone, sat Gonsalez, smoking a long cigarette and wearing on his clean-shaven mobile face a look of meditative content.
Neither of the men evinced the slightest sign of surprise at meeting him—yet Manfred’s heart missed a beat, and into the pallid cheeks of Poiccart crept two bright red spots.
They seated themselves, a waiter came and they gave their orders, and when he had gone Manfred asked in a low tone, “Where is Thery?”
Leon gave the slightest shrug.
“Thery has made his escape,” he answered calmly.
For a minute neither man spoke, and Leon continued:
“This morning, before you left, you gave him a bundle of newspapers?”
Manfred nodded.
“They were English newspapers,” he said. “Thery does not know a word of English. There were pictures in them—I gave them to amuse him.”
“You gave him, amongst others, the Megaphone?”
“Yes—ha!” Manfred remembered.
“The offer of a reward was in it—and the free pardon—printed in Spanish.”
Manfred was gazing into vacancy.
“I remember,” he said slowly. “I read it afterwards.”
“It was very ingenious,” remarked Poiccart commendingly.
“I noticed he was rather excited, but I accounted for this by the fact that we had told him last night of the method we intended adopting for the removal of Ramon and the part he was to play.”
Leon changed the topic to allow the waiter to serve the refreshments that had been ordered.
“It is preposterous,” he went on without changing his key, “that a horse on which so much money has been placed should not have been sent to England at least a month in advance.”
“The idea of a bad Channel-crossing leading to the scratching of the favourite of a big race is unheard of,” added Manfred severely.
The waiter left them.
“We went for a walk this afternoon,” resumed Leon, “and were passing along Regent Street, he stopping every few seconds to look in the shops, when suddenly—we had been staring at the window of a photographer’s—I missed him. There were hundreds of people in the street—but no Thery. … I have been seeking him ever since.”
Leon sipped his drink and looked at his watch.
The other two men did nothing, said nothing.
A careful observer might have noticed that both Manfred’s and Poiccart’s hands strayed to the top button of their coats.
“Perhaps not so bad as that,” smiled Gonsalez.
Manfred broke the silence of the two.
“I take all blame,” he commenced, but Poiccart stopped him with a gesture.
“If there is any blame, I alone am blameless,” he said with a short laugh. “No, George, it is too late to talk of blame. We underrated the cunning of m’sieur, the enterprise of the English newspapers and—and——”
“The girl at Jerez,” concluded Leon.
Five minutes passed in silence, each man thinking rapidly.
“I have a motor-car not far from here,” said Leon at length. “You had told me you would be at this place