The Three Just Men

died instantly. The cigarette holders that were carried by Gurther and the other assassin, Pfeiffer, were blowpipes, the cigarette a hollow metal fake. By the time they blew their little ice darts, it was in a half-molten condition and carried sufficient liquid poison to kill, even if the skin was only punctured. And, of course, all that did not enter the skin melted before there could be any examination by the police. That is why you never found darts such as the bushmen use, slithers of bamboo, thorns from trees. Oberzohn had the simplest method of dealing with all opposition: he sent out his snake-men to intercept them, and only once did they fail⁠—when they aimed at Leon and caught that snake-proof man, Elijah Washington!”

“What about Miss Leicester’s claim to the goldfields of Biskara?”

Manfred smiled.

“The renewal has already been applied for and granted. Leon found at Heavytree Farm some blank sheets of notepaper signed with the girl’s name. He stole one during the aunt’s absence and filled up the blank with a formal request for renewal. I have just had a wire to say that the lease is extended.”

He and Poiccart had to walk the best part of the way to New Cross before they could find a taxicab. Leon had gone on with the girl. Poiccart was worried about something, and did not speak his mind until the providential cab appeared on the scene and they were trundling along the New Cross Road.

“My dear George, I am a little troubled about Leon,” he said at last. “It seems almost impossible to believe, but⁠—”

“But what?” asked Manfred good-humouredly, and knowing what was coming.

“You don’t believe,” said Poiccart in a hushed voice, as though he were discussing the advent of some world cataclysm⁠—“you don’t believe that Leon is in love, do you?”

Manfred considered for a moment.

“Such things happen, even to just men,” he said, and Poiccart shook his head sadly.

“I have never contemplated such an unhappy contingency,” he said, and Manfred was laughing to himself all the way back to town.

Colophon

The Three Just Men
was published in 1925 by
Edgar Wallace.

This ebook was produced for
Standard Ebooks
by
Norman C. Walz,
and is based on a transcription produced in 2017 by
Al Haines, Cindy Beyer, and The Online Distributed Proofreaders Canada Team
for
Faded Page Canada
and on digital scans from the
Internet Archive.

The cover page is adapted from
Landscape with Industrial Buildings by a River,
a painting completed in circa 1890 by
Hercules Brabazon Brabazon.
The cover and title pages feature the
League Spartan and Sorts Mill Goudy
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The League of Moveable Type.

The first edition of this ebook was released on
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