he came from behind Manfred; and then he saw Leon and smiled no more. His face went drawn and haggard, his eyes narrowed, and Manfred heard his laboured breathing.
“Have a drink, my friend?” said Leon pleasantly. “A beautiful drink. You’d mistake it for crème de menthe or any old liqueur—especially if you were a shortsighted, absentminded old man and somebody had purloined your spectacles.”
“What do you mean?” asked Munsey hoarsely. “I—I don’t understand you.”
“I promise you that this drink is innocuous, that it contains no poison whatever, that it is as pure as the air you breathe,” Gonsalez went on.
“Damn you!” yelled Munsey, but before he could leap at his tormentor, Manfred had caught him and slung him to the ground.
“I have telephoned for the excellent Mr. Fare, and he will be here soon, and also Mr. Stephen Tableman. Ah, here they are.”
There was a tap at the door.
“Will you open, please, my dear George? I do not think our young friend will move. If he does, I will throw the contents of this glass in his face.”
Fare came in, followed by Stephen, and with them an officer from Scotland Yard.
“There is your prisoner, Mr. Fare,” said Gonsalez. “And here is the means by which Mr. John Munsey encompassed the death of his uncle—decided thereto, I guess, by the fact that his uncle had been reconciled with Stephen Tableman, and that the will which he had so carefully manoeuvred was to be altered in Stephen Tableman’s favour.”
“That’s a lie!” gasped John Munsey. “I worked for you—you know I did, Stephen. I did my best for you—”
“All part of the general scheme of deception—again I am guessing,” said Gonsalez. “If I am wrong, drink this. It is the liquid your uncle drank on the night of his death.”
“What is it?” demanded Fare quickly.
“Ask him,” smiled Gonsalez, nodding to the man.
John Munsey turned on his heels and walked to the door, and the police officer who had accompanied Fare followed him.
“And now I will tell you what it is,” said Gonsalez. “It is liquid air!”
“Liquid air!” said the Commissioner. “Why, what do you mean? How can a man be poisoned with liquid air?”
“Professor Tableman was not poisoned. Liquid air is a fluid obtained by reducing the temperature of air to two hundred and seventy degrees below zero. Scientists use the liquid for experiments, and it is usually kept in a thermos flask, the mouth of which is stopped with cotton wool, because, as you know, there would be danger of a blow up if the air was confined.”
“Good God?” gasped Tableman in horror. “Then that blue mark about my father’s throat—”
“He was frozen to death. At least his throat was frozen solid the second that liquid was taken. Your father was in the habit of drinking a liqueur before he went to bed, and there is no doubt that, after you had left, Munsey gave the Professor a glassful of liquid air and by some means induced him to put on gloves.”
“Why did he do that? Oh, of course, the cold,” said Manfred.
Gonsalez nodded.
“Without gloves he would have detected immediately the stuff he was handling. What artifice Munsey used we may never know. It is certain he himself must have been wearing gloves at the time. After your father’s death he then began to prepare evidence to incriminate somebody else. The Professor had probably put away his glasses preparatory to going to bed, and the murderer, like myself, overlooked the fact that the body was still wearing gloves.
“My own theory,” said Gonsalez later, “is that Munsey has been working for years to oust his cousin from his father’s affections. He probably invented the story of the dipsomaniac father of Miss Faber.”
Young Tableman had come to their lodgings, and now Gonsalez had a shock. Something he said had surprised a laugh from Stephen, and Gonsalez stared at him.
“Your—your teeth!” he stammered.
Stephen flushed.
“My teeth?” he repeated, puzzled.
“You had two enormous canines when I saw you last,” said Gonsalez. “You remember, Manfred?” he said, and he was really agitated. “I told you—”
He was interrupted by a burst of laughter from the young student.
“Oh, they were false,” he said awkwardly. “They were knocked out at a rugger match, and Benson, who’s a fellow in our dental department and is an awfully good chap, though a pretty poor dentist, undertook to make me two to fill the deficiency. They looked terrible, didn’t they? I don’t wonder your noticing them. I got two new ones put in by another dentist.”
“It happened on the thirteenth of September last year. I read about it in the sporting press,” said Manfred, and Gonsalez fixed him with a reproachful glance.
“You see, my dear Leon—” Manfred laid his hand on the other’s shoulder—“I knew they were false, just as you knew they were canines.”
When they were alone, Manfred said:
“Talking about canines—”
“Let us talk about something else,” snapped Leon.
The Man Who Hated Earthworms
“The death has occurred at Staines of Mr. Falmouth, late Superintendent of the Criminal Investigation Department. Mr. Falmouth will best be remembered as the Officer who arrested George Manfred, the leader of the Four Just Men gang. The sensational escape of this notorious man is perhaps the most remarkable chapter in criminal history. The ‘Four Just Men’ was an organisation which set itself to right acts of injustice which the law left unpunished. It is believed that the members were exceedingly rich men who devoted their lives and fortunes to this quixotic but wholly unlawful purpose. The gang has not been heard of for many years.”
Manfred read the paragraph from the Morning Telegram and Leon Gonsalez frowned.
“I have an absurd objection to being called a ‘gang,’ ” he said, and Manfred smiled quietly.
“Poor old Falmouth,” he reflected, “well, he knows! He was a nice fellow.”
“I liked Falmouth,” agreed Gonsalez. “He was a perfectly normal man except for a slight progenism—”
Manfred laughed.
“Forgive me if I appear dense, but I have never been able to keep up with you
