“Señor Jose di Silva,” read the commissioner, “the Spanish Chief of Police,” he explained to the superintendent. “Show him in, please.”
Señor di Silva, a lithe little man, with a pronounced nose and a beard, greeted the Englishmen with the exaggerated politeness that is peculiar to Spanish official circles.
“I am sorry to bring you over,” said Mr. Commissioner, after he had shaken hands with the visitor and had introduced him to Falmouth; “we thought you might be able to help us in our search for Thery.”
“Luckily I was in Paris,” said the Spaniard; “yes, I know Thery, and I am astounded to find him in such distinguished company. Do I know the Four?”—his shoulders went up to his ears—“who does? I know of them—there was a case at Malaga, you know? … Thery is not a good criminal. I was astonished to learn that he had joined the band.”
“By the way,” said the chief, picking up a copy of the police notice that lay on his desk, and running his eye over it, “your people omitted to say—although it really isn’t of very great importance—what is Thery’s trade?”
The Spanish policeman knitted his brow.
“Thery’s trade! Let me remember”; he thought for a moment. “Thery’s trade? I don’t think I know; yet I have an idea that it is something to do with rubber. His first crime was stealing rubber; but if you want to know for certain—”
The commissioner laughed.
“It really isn’t at all important,” he said lightly.
VIII
The Messenger of the Four
There was yet another missive to be handed to the doomed minister. In the last he had received there had occurred the sentence: “One more warning you shall receive, and, so that we may be assured it shall not go astray, our next and last message shall be delivered into your hands by one of us in person.”
This passage afforded the police more comfort than had any episode since the beginning of the scare. They placed a curious faith in the honesty of the Four Men; they recognized that these were not ordinary criminals and that their pledge was inviolable. Indeed, had they thought otherwise, the elaborate precautions that they were taking to ensure the safety of Sir Philip would not have been made. The honesty of the Four was their most terrible characteristic.
In this instance it served to raise a faint hope that the men who were setting at defiance the establishment of the law would overreach themselves. The letter conveying this message was the one to which Sir Philip had referred so airily in his conversation with his secretary. It had come by post, bearing the date mark, “Balham, 12:15.”
“The question is, shall we keep you absolutely surrounded, so that these men cannot by any possible chance carry out their threat?” asked Superintendent Falmouth, in some perplexity, “or shall we apparently relax our vigilance in order to lure one of the Four to his destruction?”
The question was directed to Sir Philip Ramon as he sat huddled up in the capacious depths of his office chair.
“You want to use me as a bait?” he asked sharply.
The detective expostulated.
“Not exactly that, sir; we want to give these men a chance—”
“I understand perfectly,” said the minister, with some show of irritation.
The detective resumed:
“We know now how the infernal machine was smuggled into the House; on the day on which the outrage was committed an old member, Mr. Bascoe, the member for North Torrington, was seen to enter the House.”
“Well?” asked Sir Philip in surprise.
“Mr. Bascoe was never within a hundred miles of the House of Commons on that date,” said the detective quietly. “We might never have found it out, for his name did not appear in the division list. We’ve been working quietly on that House of Commons affair ever since, and it was only a couple of days ago that we made the discovery.”
Sir Philip sprang from his chair and nervously paced the floor of his room.
“Then they are evidently well acquainted with the conditions of life in England,” he asserted rather than asked.
“Evidently; they’ve got the lay of the land, and that is one of the dangers of the situation.”
“But,” frowned the other, “you have told me there were no dangers, no real dangers.”
“There is this danger, sir,” replied the detective, eyeing the minister steadily, and dropping his voice as he spoke; “men who are capable of making such disguise are really outside the ordinary run of criminals. I don’t know what their game is, but whatever it is, they are playing it thoroughly. One of them is evidently an artist at that sort of thing, and he’s the man I’m afraid of—today.”
Sir Philip’s head tossed impatiently.
“I am tired of all this, tired of it”—he thrashed the edge of his desk with an open palm—“detectives and disguises and masked murderers until the atmosphere is, for all the world, like that of a melodrama.”
“You must have patience for a day or two,” said the plainspoken officer. The Four Just Men were on the nerves of more people than the foreign minister. “And we have not decided what is to be our plan for this evening,” he added.
“Do as you like,” said Sir Philip shortly, and then, “Am I to be allowed to go to the House tonight?”
“No; that is not part of the programme,” replied the detective.
Sir Philip stood for a moment in thought.
“These arrangements; they are kept secret, I suppose?”
“Absolutely.”
“Who knows of them?”
“Yourself, the Commissioner, your secretary, and myself.”
“And no one else?”
“No one; there is no danger likely to arise from that source. If your safety depended upon the secrecy of it, it would be plain sailing.”
“Have these arrangements been committed to writing?” asked Sir Philip.
“No, sir; nothing has been written: our plans have been settled upon and communicated verbally; even the prime minister does not know.”
Sir Philip
