The firing had attracted attention. He had not been back in the house a few minutes before a mounted policeman, his horse in a lather, came galloping up to the gate and dismounted. A neighbouring farm had heard the shots and telephoned to constabulary headquarters. For half an hour the mounted policeman took notes, and by this time half the farmers in the neighbourhood, their guns under their arms, had assembled in Mirabelle’s parlour.
She had not seen as much of the redoubtable Leon as she could have wished, and when they had a few moments to themselves she seized the opportunity to tell him of the call which Lee had made that morning. Apparently he knew all about it, for he expressed no surprise, and was only embarrassed when she showed a personal interest in himself and his friends.
It was not a very usual experience for him, and he was rather annoyed with himself at this unexpected glimpse of enthusiasm and hero-worship, sane as it was, and based, as he realized, upon her keen sense of justice.
“I’m not so sure that we’ve been very admirable really,” he said. “But the difficulty is to produce at the moment a judgment which would be given from a distance of years. We have sacrificed everything which to most men would make life worth living, in our desire to see the scales held fairly.”
“You are not married, Mr. Gonsalez?”
He stared into the frank eyes. “Married? Why, no,” he said, and she laughed.
“You talk as though that were a possibility that had never occurred to you.”
“It hasn’t,” he admitted. “By the very nature of our work we are debarred from that experience. And is it an offensive thing to say that I have never felt my singleness to be a deprivation?”
“It is very rude,” she said severely, and Leon was laughing to himself all the way back to town as at a great joke that improved upon repetition.
“I think we can safely leave her for a week,” he reported, on his return to Curzon Street. “No, nothing happened. I was held up in a police trap near Newbury for exceeding the speed limit. They said I was doing fifty, but I should imagine it was nearer eighty. Meadows will get me out of that. Otherwise, I must send the inevitable letter to the magistrate and pay the inevitable fine. Have you done anything about Johnson Lee?”
Manfred nodded. “Meadows and the enthusiastic Mr. Washington have gone round to see him. I have asked Washington to go because”—he hesitated—“the snake is a real danger, so far as he is concerned. Elijah Washington promises to be a very real help. He is afraid of nothing, and has undertaken to stay with Lee and to apply such remedies for snakebites as he knows.”
He was putting on his gloves as he spoke, and Leon Gonsalez looked at him with a critical admiration.
“Are you being presented at Court, or are you taking tea with a duchess?”
“Neither. I’m calling upon friend Oberzohn.”
“The devil you are!” said Leon, his eyebrows rising.
“I have taken the precaution of sending him a note, asking him to keep his snakes locked up,” said Manfred, “and as I have pointedly forwarded the carbon copy of the letter, to impress the fact that another exists and may be brought in evidence against him, I think I shall leave Oberzohn & Smitts’ main office without hurt. If you are not too tired, Leon, I would rather prefer the Buick to the Spanz.”
“Give me a quarter of an hour,” said Leon, and went up to his room to make himself tidy.
It was fifteen minutes exactly when the Buick stopped at the door, and Manfred got into the saloon. There was no partition between driver and passenger, and conversation was possible.
“It would have been as well if you’d had Brother Newton there,” he suggested.
“Brother Newton will be on the spot: I took the precaution of sending him a similar note,” said Manfred. “I shouldn’t imagine they’ll bring out their gunmen.”
“I know two, and possibly three, they won’t bring out.” Gonsalez grinned at the traffic policeman who waved him into Oxford Street. “That Browning of mine throws high, Manfred: I’ve always had a suspicion it did. Pistols are queer things, but this may wear into my hand.” He talked arms and ammunition until the square block of Oberzohn & Smitts came into sight. “Good hunting!” he said, as he got out, opened the saloon door and touched his hat to Manfred as he alighted.
He got back into his seat, swung the little car round in a circle, and sat on the opposite side of the road, his eyes alternately on the entrance and on the mirror which gave him a view of the traffic approaching him from the rear.
Manfred was not kept in the waiting-room for more than two minutes. At the end of that time, a solemn youth in spectacles, with a little bow, led him across the incurious office into the presence of the illustrious doctor.
The old man was at his desk. Behind him, his debonair self, Monty Newton, a large yellow flower in his buttonhole, a smile on his face. Oberzohn got up like a man standing to attention.
“Mr. Manfred, this is a great honour,” he said, and held out his hand stiffly.
An additional chair had been placed for the visitor: a rich-looking tapestried chair, to which the doctor waved the hand which Manfred
