It was draped with black and set with three desks. It reminded him of nothing so much as a judge’s desk, save that the hangings were of purple, the desks of black oak, and the carpet that covered the dais of the same sombre hue.
Three men sat at the desks. They were masked, and a diamond pin in the cravat of one glittered in the light of the huge electrolier which hung from the vaulted roof. Gonsalez had a weakness for jewels.
The remaining member of the Four was to the right of the prisoners.
With the stained-glass windows, the raftered roof, and the solemn character of the architecture, the illusion of the chapel ended. There was no other furniture on the floor; it was tiled and bare of chair or pew.
Black took all this in quickly. He noted a door behind the three, through which they came and apparently made their exit. He could see no means of escape save by the way he had come.
The central figure of the three at the desk spoke in a voice which was harsh and stern and uncompromising.
“Morris Black,” he said solemnly, “what of Fanks?”
Black shrugged his shoulders and looked round as though weary of a question which he found it impossible to answer.
“What of Jakobs, of Coleman, of a dozen men who have stood in your way and have died?” asked the voice.
Still Black was silent.
His eye took in the situation. Behind him were two doors, and he observed that the key was in the lock. He could see that he was in an old Norman chapel which private enterprise had restored for a purpose.
The door was modern and of the usual “churchy” type.
“Isaac Tramber,” said Number One, “what part have you played?”
“I don’t know,” stammered Sir Isaac. “I am as much in the dark as you are. I think the bucket-shop idea is perfectly beastly. Now look here, is there anything else I can tell you, because I am most anxious to get out of this affair with clean hands?”
He made a step forward and Black reached out a hand to restrain him, but was pulled back by the man at his side.
“Come here,” said Number One. His knees shaking under him, Sir Isaac walked quickly up the aisle floor.
“I’ll do anything I can,” he said eagerly, as he stood like a penitent boy before the master’s figure. “Any information I can give you I shall be most happy to give.”
“Stop!” roared Black. His face was livid with rage. “Stop,” he said hoarsely, “you don’t know what you’re doing, Ikey. Keep your mouth shut and stand by me and you’ll not suffer.”
“There is only one thing I know,” Sir Isaac went on, “and that is that Black had a bit of a row with Fanks—”
The words were scarcely out of his mouth when three shots rang out in rapid succession. The Four had not attempted to disarm Black. With lightning-like rapidity he had whipped out his Browning pistol and had fired at the traitor.
In a second he was at the door. An instant later the key was turned and he was through.
“Shoot—shoot, Manfred,” said a voice from the dais. But they were too late—Black had vanished into the darkness. As the two men sprang after him, they stood for a moment silhouetted against the light from the chapel within.
Crack! crack! A nickel bullet struck the stone supports of the doorway and covered them with fine dust and splinters of stone.
“Put the lights out and follow,” said Manfred quickly.
He was too late, for Black had a start, and the fear and hatred in him lent him unsuspected speed.
The brute instinct in him led him across the field unerringly. He reached the tiny road, fumed to the left, and found the grey racing car waiting, unattended.
He sprang to the crank and turned it. He was in the driver’s seat in an instant. He had to take risks—there might be ditches on either side of the road, but he turned the wheel over till it almost locked and brought his foot down over the pedal.
The car jumped forward, lurched to the side, recovered itself, and went bumping and crashing along the road.
“It’s no good,” said Manfred. He saw the taillights of the car disappearing. “Let’s get back.”
He had slipped off his mask.
They raced back to the chapel. The lights were on again. Sir Isaac Tramber lay stone-dead on the floor. The bullet had struck him in the left shoulder and had passed through this heart.
But it was not to him they looked. Number One lay still and motionless on the floor in a pool of blood.
“Look to the injury,” he said, “and unless it is fatal do not unmask me.”
Poiccart and Gonsalez made a brief examination of the wound.
“It’s pretty serious.”
In this terse sentence they summarized their judgment.
“I thought it was,” said the wounded man quietly. “You had better get on to Southampton. He’ll probably pick up Fellowe”—he smiled through his mask—“I suppose I ought to call him Lord Francis Ledborough now. He’s a nephew of mine and a sort of a police-commissioner himself. I wired him to follow me. You might pick up his car and go on together. Manfred can stay with me. Take this mask off.”
Gonsalez stooped down and gently removed the silk half-mask. Then he started back.
“Lord Verlond!” he exclaimed with surprise, and Manfred, who knew, nodded.
The road was clear of traffic at this hour of the night. It was dark and none too wide in places for a man who had not touched the steering-wheel of a car for some years, but Black, bareheaded, sat and drove the big machine ahead without fear of consequences. Once he went rocking through a little town at racing speed.
A policeman who attempted to hold him up narrowly escaped with his life. Black reached open
