“Yes, everything,” said the other desperately. “You’re not going to cast me off, do you hear? You’ve got to pension me, same as you’ve done other people. I know enough to send you for a lagging without—”
“I thought you did,” said Black.
Something glittered in the light of the lamp, and without a cry Jakobs went down in a huddled heap to the ground.
Black looked round. He wiped the blade of the stiletto carefully on the coat of the stricken man, carefully replaced the weapon in its leather case, and examined his own hands with considerable care for any signs of blood. But these Italian weapons make small wounds.
He turned and, pulling on his gloves, made his way back to where the cab was still waiting.
XV
Sir Isaac’s Fears
Under the bright light of a bronze lamp, all that was mortal of Jakobs lay extended upon the operating-table. About the body moved swiftly the shirt-sleeved figures of the doctors.
“I don’t think there is much we can do for him,” said Gonsalez. “He’s had an arterial perforation. It seems to me that he’s bleeding internally.”
They had made a superficial examination of the wound, and Poiccart had taken so serious a view of the man’s condition that he had dispatched a messenger for a magistrate.
Willie was conscious during the examination, but he was too weak and too exhausted to give any account of what had happened.
“There’s just a chance,” said Poiccart, “if we could get a J.P. up in time, that we could give him sufficient strychnine to enable him to tell us who had done this.”
“It’s murder, I think,” said Gonsalez, “the cut’s a clean one. Look, there’s hardly half an inch of wound. The man who did this used a stiletto, I should say, and used it pretty scientifically. It’s a wonder he wasn’t killed on the spot.”
The hastily-summoned justice of the peace appeared on the scene much sooner than they had anticipated. Gonsalez explained the condition of the man.
“He tried to tell me, after we had got him on the table, who had done it,” he said, “but I couldn’t catch the name.”
“Do you know him?” asked the J.P.
“I know him,” he said, “and I’ve rather an idea as to who has done it, but I can’t give any reasons for my suspicions.”
Jakobs was unconscious, and Gonsalez seized the first opportunity that presented itself of consulting with his colleague.
“I believe this is Black’s work,” he said hurriedly. “Why not send for him? We know Jakobs has been in his employ and was pensioned by him, and that’s sufficient excuse. Possibly, if we can get him down before this poor chap dies, we shall learn something.”
“I’ll get on the telephone,” said the other.
He drew from his pocket a memorandum book and consulted its pages. Black’s movements and his resorts were fairly well tabulated, but the telephone failed to connect the man they wanted.
At a quarter to two in the morning Jakobs died, without having regained consciousness, and it looked as though yet another mystery had been added to a list which was already appallingly large.
The news came to May Sandford that afternoon. The tragedy had occurred too late that night to secure descriptions in the morning papers; but from the earlier editions of the afternoon journals she read with a shock of the man’s terrible fate.
It was only by accident that she learnt of it from this source, for she was still reading of his death in the paper when Black, ostentatiously agitated, called upon her.
“Isn’t it dreadful. Miss Sandford?” he said.
He was quite beside himself with grief, the girl thought.
“I shall give evidence, of course, but I shall take great care to keep your name out of it. I think the poor man had very bad associates indeed,” he said frankly. “I had to discharge him for that reason. Nobody need know he ever came here,” he suggested. “It wouldn’t be pleasant for you to be dragged into a sordid case like this.”
“Oh, no, no,” she said. “I don’t want to be mixed up in it at all. I’m awfully sorry, but I can’t see how my evidence would help.”
“Of course,” agreed Black. It had only occurred to him that morning how damning might be the evidence that this girl was in a position to give, and he had come to her in a panic lest she had already volunteered it.
She thought he looked ill and worried, as indeed he was, for Black had slept very little that night. He knew that he was safe from detection. None had seen him meet the man, and although he had visited the resorts which the man frequented, he had not inquired after him.
Yet Black was obsessed by the knowledge that a net was drawing round him. Who were the hunters he could not guess. There came to him at odd moments a strange feeling of terror.
Nothing was going exactly right with him. Sir Isaac had showed signs of revolt.
Before the day was out he found that he had quite enough to bother him without the terrors which the unknown held.
The police had made most strenuous inquiries regarding his whereabouts on the night of the murder. They had even come to him and questioned him with such persistence that he suspected a directing force behind them. He had not bothered overmuch with the “Four Just Men.” He had accepted the word of his informant that the Four had separated for the time being, and the fact that Wilkinson Despard had left for America confirmed all that the man had told him.
He was getting short of money again. The settlement of his bets had left him short. Sandford must be “persuaded.”
Every day it was getting more and more of a necessity.
One morning Sir Isaac had telephoned him asking him to meet him in the park.
“Why not come here?” asked Black.
“No,” said the baronet’s voice. “I’d rather meet you in the park.”
He named the spot, and at
