Mr. Latter was breathing heavily.
“But what do you want me to do, Count?”
“Nothing at all, except what you were going to do normally,” answered the other. He glanced at a notebook on his desk. “You were going to Lady Manton’s near Sheffield, I see. Don’t alter your plans—go. In all probability it will take place at her house.” He glanced contemptuously at the other’s somewhat green face, and his manner changed abruptly. “You understand, Mr. Latter,” his voice was deadly smooth and quiet, “you understand, don’t you, what I say? You will go to Lady Manton’s house as arranged, and you will carry on exactly as if you had never received this note. Because, if you don’t, if you attempt any tricks with me, whatever the Black Gang may do or may not do to you—however much the police may protect you or may not protect you—you will have us to reckon with. And you know what that means.”
“Supposing the gang gets me and foils the police,” muttered Latter through dry lips. “What then?”
“I shall deal with them personally. They annoy me.”
There was something so supremely confident in the tone of the Count’s voice, that the other man looked at him quickly.
“But have you any idea who they are?” he asked eagerly.
“None—at present. Their leader is clever—but so am I. They have deliberately elected to fight me, and now I have had enough. It will save trouble if the police catch them for me: but if not …”
The Count shrugged his shoulders, and with a gesture of his hand dismissed the matter. Then he picked up a piece of paper from the desk and glanced at it.
“I will now give you your orders for Sheffield,” he continued. “It has been reported to me that in Sir John Manton’s works there is a red-hot madman named Delmorlick. He has a good job himself, but he spends most of his spare time inciting the unemployed—of which I am glad to say there are large numbers in the town—to absurd deeds of violence. He is a very valuable man to us, and appears to be one of those extraordinary beings who really believe in the doctrines of Communism. He can lash a mob, they tell me, into an absolute frenzy with his tongue. I want you to seek him out, and give him fifty pounds to carry on with. Tell him, of course, that it comes from the Great Master in Russia, and spur him on to renewed activity.
“You will also employ him, and two or three others whom you must leave him to choose, to carry out a little scheme of which you will find full details in this letter.” He handed an envelope to Latter, who took it with a trembling hand. “You personally will make arrangements about the necessary explosives. I calculate that, if successful, it should throw at least three thousand more men out of work. Moreover, Mr. Latter, if it is successful your fee will be a thousand pounds.”
“A thousand!” muttered Latter. “Is there much danger?”
The count smiled contemptuously. “Not if you do your work properly. Hullo! What’s up?”
From a little electric bell at his elbow came four shrill rings, repeated again and again.
The count rose, and with systematic thoroughness swept every piece of paper off the desk into his pocket. Then he shut down the top and locked it, while the bell, a little muffled, still rang inside.
“What’s the fool doing?” he cried angrily, stepping over to the big safe let into the wall, while Latter, his face white and terrified, followed at his side. And then abruptly the bell stopped.
Very deliberately the count pressed two concealed knobs, so sunk into the wall as to be invisible to a stranger, and the door of the safe swung open. And only then was it obvious that the safe was not a safe, but a second exit leading to a flight of stairs. For a moment or two he stood motionless, listening intently, while Latter fidgeted at his side. One hand was on a master switch which controlled all the lights, the other on a knob inside the second passage which, when turned, would close the great steel door noiselessly behind them.
He was frowning angrily, but gradually the frown was replaced by a look of puzzled surprise. Four rings from the shop below was the recognized signal for urgent danger, and everybody’s plan of action was cut and dried for such an emergency. In the other rooms every book and paper in the slightest degree incriminating were hurled pell-mell into secret recesses in the floor which had been specially constructed under every table. In their place appeared books carefully and very skilfully faked, purporting to record the business transactions of Mr. William Atkinson. And in the event of surprise being expressed at the size of Mr. Atkinson’s business considering the sort of office he possessed below, and the type of his clientele, it would soon be seen that Hoxton was but one of several irons which that versatile gentleman had in the fire. There were indisputable proofs in indisputable ledgers that Mr. Atkinson had organized similar enterprises in several of the big towns of England and Scotland, to say nothing of a large West End branch run under the name of Lewer Brothers. And surely he had the perfect right, if he so wished, to establish his central office in Hoxton … Or Timbuktu … What the devil did it matter to anyone except himself?
In the big room at the end the procedure was even simpler. The Count merely passed through the safe door and vanished through his private bolt-hole, leaving everything in darkness. And should inconvenient visitors ask inconvenient questions—well, it was Mr. Atkinson’s private office, and a very nice office too, though at the moment he was away.
Thus the procedure—simple and sound; but on this occasion something seemed to have gone wrong. Instead of
