The Law of the Four Just Men

a house in which one could move without sound, for the floorboards were old and creaky and every stair produced a creak. But the man who was creeping from step to step was an artist and Leon heard no other sound until the door slowly opened and a figure came in.

It moved with stealthy steps across the room and stood for a few seconds by the side of the bulky figure in the bed. Apparently he listened and was satisfied. Then Leon saw a stick rise and fall.

Bash Jones did not say a word until he heard the crash of the broken glass. Then he uttered an oath and Leon heard him fumble in his pocket for his matches. The delay was fatal. The chlorine gas, compressed at a pressure of many atmospheres, surged up around him. He choked, turned to run and fell, and the yellow gas rolled over him in a thick and turgid cloud.

Leon Gonsalez stepped from his place of concealment and the dying man staring up saw two enormous glass eyes and the snout-like nozzle of the respirator and went bewildered to his death.

Leon collected the broken glass and carefully wrapped the pieces in his bag. He replaced the clothes with the most extraordinary care and put away the wig and tidied the room before he opened the window and the door. Then he went to the front of the house and opened those windows too. A southwester was blowing and by the morning the house would be free from gas.

Not until he was in the back yard did he remove the gas mask he wore and place that too in the bag.

An hour later he was in his own bed in a deep, untroubled sleep.

Mrs. Jones slept well that night, and in a dainty cubicle somewhere in the west of England a slim girlish figure in pyjamas snuggled into her pillow and sighed happily.

But Bash Jones slept soundest of all.

The Man Who Was Happy

On a pleasant evening in early summer, Leon Gonsalez descended from the top of a motor-omnibus at Piccadilly Circus and walking briskly down the Haymarket, turned into Jermyn Street apparently oblivious of the fact that somebody was following on his heels.

Manfred looked up from his writing as his friend came in, and nodded smilingly as Leon took off his light overcoat and made his way to the window overlooking the street.

“What are you searching for so anxiously, Leon?” he asked.

“Jean Prothero, of 75 Barside Buildings, Lambeth,” said Leon, not taking his eyes from the street below. “Ah, there he is, the industrious fellow!”

“Who is Jean Prothero?”

Gonsalez chuckled.

“A very daring man,” evaded Leon, “to wander about the West End at this hour.” He looked at his watch. “Oh no, not so daring,” he said, “everybody who is anybody is dressing for dinner just now.”

“A ladder larcenist?” suggested Manfred, and Leon chuckled again.

“Nothing so vulgar,” he said. “By ladder larcenist I presume you mean the type of petty thief who puts a ladder against a bedroom window whilst the family are busy at dinner downstairs, and makes off with the odd scraps of jewellery he can find?”

Manfred nodded.

“That is the official description of this type of criminal,” he agreed.

Leon shook his head.

“No, Mr. Prothero is interesting,” he said. “Interesting for quite another reason. In the first place, he is a bald-headed criminal, or potential criminal, and as you know, my dear George, criminals are rarely bald. They are coarse-haired, and they are thin-haired: they have such personal eccentricities as parting their hair on the wrong side, but they are seldom bald. The dome of Mr. Prothero’s head is wholly innocent of hair of any kind. He is the second mate of a tramp steamer engaged in the fruit trade between the Canary Islands and Southampton. He has a very pretty girl for a wife and, curiously enough, a ladder larcenist for a brother-in-law, and I have excited his suspicion quite unwittingly. Incidentally,” he added as though it were a careless afterthought, “he knows that I am one of the Four Just Men.”

Manfred was silent. Then:

“How does he know that?” he asked quietly.

Leon had taken off his coat and had slipped his arms into a faded alpaca jacket; he did not reply until he had rolled and lit an untidy Spanish cigarette.

“Years ago, when there was a hue and cry after that pernicious organisation, whose name I have mentioned, an organisation which, in its humble way, endeavoured to right the injustice of the world and to mete out to evildoers the punishment which the ponderous machinery of the Law could not inflict, you were arrested, my dear George, and consigned to Chelmsford Gaol. From there you made a miraculous escape, and on reaching the coast you and I and Poiccart were taken aboard the yacht of our excellent friend the Prince of the Asturias, who honoured us by acting as the fourth of our combination.”

Manfred nodded.

“On that ship was Mr. Jean Prothero,” said Leon. “How he came to be on the yacht of His Serene Highness I will explain at a later stage, but assuredly he was there. I never forget faces, George, but unfortunately I am not singular in this respect, Mr. Prothero remembered me, and seeing me in Barside Buildings⁠—”

“What were you doing in Barside Buildings?” asked Manfred with a faint smile.

“In Barside Buildings,” replied Leon impressively, “are two men unknown to one another, both criminals, and both colour-blind!”

Manfred put down his pen and turned, prepared for a lecture on criminal statistics, for he had noticed the enthusiasm in Gonsalez’s voice.

“By means of these two men,” said Leon joyously, “I am able to refute the perfectly absurd theories which both Mantegazza and Scheml have expounded, namely, that criminals are never colour-blind. The truth is, my dear George, both these men have been engaged in crime since their early youth. Both have served terms of imprisonment, and what is more important, their fathers were colour-blind and criminals!”

“Well, what about