He looked inquiringly at Sir Isaac, as being the more likely of the two.
“Not me,” said the other brutally. “I find all my work cut out to keep my own secrets, without having any dam’ eavesdropping man on the premises to spy on me.”
The man against whom this was directed did not seem particularly hurt by the bluntness of the other. He merely bowed his head and made no reply.
Black took a flat case from his inside pocket, opened it and extracted two notes.
“Here are twenty pounds,” he said, “which makes £220 you have had from me. Now, if you can find out anything else worth knowing I don’t mind making it up to £300—but it has got to be something good. Keep in with the servants. You know the rest of them. Is there any reason why you shouldn’t go back to the flat?”
“No, sir,” said the man. “I was merely discharged for carelessness.”
“Very good,” said Black. “You know my address and where to find me. If anything turns up let me know.”
“Yes, sir.”
“By the way,” said Black, as he made a move to go, “do the Four contemplate taking any action in the immediate future?”
“No, sir,” said the man eagerly. “I am particularly sure of that. I heard them discussing the advisability of parting. One gentleman wanted to go to the Continent for a month, and another wanted to go to America to see about his mining property. By the way, they all agreed there was no necessity to meet for a month. I gathered that for the time being they were doing nothing.”
“Excellent!” said Black.
He shook hands with the servant and departed.
“Pretty beastly sort of man to have about the house,” said Sir Isaac as they walked back to the cab.
“Yes,” said Black, good-humouredly, “but it isn’t my house, and I feel no scruples in the matter. I do not,” he added virtuously, “approve of tapping servants for information about their masters and mistresses, but there are occasions when this line of conduct is perfectly justified.”
XIV
Willie Jakobs Tells
Left alone, the man whom they had called Farmer waited a few minutes. Then he took down his coat, which hung behind the door, put on his hat and gloves deliberately and thoughtfully, and left the house.
He walked in the direction which Black and Sir Isaac had taken, but their taxicab was flying northward long before he reached the spot where it had waited.
He pursued his way into the Camberwell Road and boarded a tramcar. The street lamps and the lights in the shop windows revealed him to be a good-looking man, a little above the average height, with a pale refined face. He was dressed quietly, but well.
He alighted near the Elephant and Castle and strode rapidly along the New Kent Road, turning into one of the poorer streets which lead to a labyrinth of smaller and more poverty-stricken thoroughfares in that district which is bounded on the west by East Street and on the east by the New Kent Road. A little way along, some of the old houses had been pulled down and new buildings in yellow brick had been erected. A big red lamp outside a broad entrance notified the neighbourhood that this was the free dispensary, though none who lived within a radius of five miles needed any information as to the existence of this institution.
In the hallway was a board containing the names of three doctors, and against them a little sliding panel, which enabled them to inform their visitors whether they were in or out. He paused before the board.
The little indicator against the first name said “Out.”
Farmer put up his hand and slid the panel along to show the word “In.” Then he passed through the door, through the large waiting-room into a small room, which bore the name “Dr. Wilson Graille.”
He closed the door behind him and slipped a catch. He took off his hat and coat and hung them up. Then he touched a bell, and a servant appeared.
“Is Dr. O’Hara in?” he asked.
“Yes, doctor,” replied the man.
“Ask him to come along to me, will you, please?”
In a few minutes a man of middle height, but powerfully built, came in and closed the door behind him.
“Well, how did you get on?” he inquired, and, uninvited, drew up a chair to the table.
“They jumped at the bait,” said Gonsalez with a little laugh. “I think they have got something on. They were most anxious to know whether we were moving at all. You had better notify Manfred. We’ll have a meeting tonight. What about Despard? Do you think he would object to having his name used?”
His voice lacked the mock culture which had so deceived Black.
“Not a bit. I chose him purposely because I knew he was going abroad tonight.”
“And the others?”
“With the exception of the art man, they are nonexistent.”
“Suppose he investigates?”
“Not he. He will be satisfied to take the most prominent of the four—Despard, and the other chap whose name I have forgotten. Despard leaves tonight, and the other on Wednesday for America. You see, that fits in with what I told Black.”
He took from his pocket the two ten-pound notes and laid them on the table.
“Twenty pounds,” he said, and handed them to the other man. “You ought to be able to do something with that.”
The other stuffed them into his waistcoat pocket.
“I shall send those two Brady children to the seaside,” he said. “It probably won’t save their lives, but it will give the little devils some conception of what joy life holds—for a month or so.”
The same thought seemed to occur to both, and they laughed.
“Black would not like to know to what base use his good money is being put,” said Graille, or Farmer, or Gonsalez—call him what you will—with a twinkle in his blue eyes.
“Were they anxious to know who was the fourth man?” asked Poiccart.
“Most keen on it,” he said. “But I wondered if they would
