Edgar Wallace

“ Where are you takin’ me?”
“The game is the old game,” said Mr. Howard sadly—“the same old game, Bill, and I’m taking you to the same old sweet spot.”
“You’ve made a mistake this time, guv’nor,” cried Bill fiercely, and there was a slight clink.
“Permit me, Billy,” said Mr Howard, stooping quickly and picking up the purse Billy had dropped.
At the police station the sergeant behind the charge desk pretended to be greatly overjoyed at Billy’s arrival, and the jailer, who put Billy into a steel-barred dock, and passed his hands through cunning pockets, greeted him as a friend. ”

“ One soldierly-looking gentleman, with a grey moustache, and attended by a quiet, observant, clean-shaven man, interested the anarchist. He and the soldier exchanged glances.
“Who the dickens was that?” asked the commissioner as he stepped into the taxi. “I seem to know his face.”
“I have seen him before,” said Falmouth. “I won”t go with you, sir—I’ve a little business to do in this part of the world.”
Thereafter Von Dunop was not permitted to enjoy his walk in solitude, for, unknown to him, a man “picked him up” and followed him throughout the evening. ”

“ That night a man, smoking a cigar, strolled aimlessly past the policeman on point duty at the corner of Kensington Park Gardens, and walked casually into Ladbroke Square. He strolled on, turned a corner and, crossing a road, he came to where one great garden served for a double row of middle-class houses. ”

“ Street vendors sold his portrait, frowsy men purveying the real life and adventures of the Four Just Men did a roaring trade, and itinerant street singers, introducing extemporised verses into their repertoire, declaimed the courage of that statesman bold, who dared for to resist the threats of coward alien and deadly anarchist. ”

“ The commissioner was sitting over his coffee at the Ritz, when they brought him the news. Falmouth was a deferential guest, and the chief passed him the note without comment.
“This is going to settle the Red Hundred,” said Falmouth. “These people are fighting them with their own weapons—assassination with assassination, terror with terror. Where do we come in?” ”

“ But we—we are murderers!”
“They would not have erected a statue of Napoleon’s assassin,” said Poiccart easily, “any more than they have enshrined Felton, who slew a profligate and debauched Minister of Charles I. Posterity may do us justice,” he spoke half mockingly; “for myself I am satisfied with the approval of my conscience.”
He threw away the cigar he was smoking, and put his hand to the inside pocket of his coat to find another. He withdrew his hand without the cigar and whistled a passing cab. ”

“ The Home Secretary had a house in Berkeley Square. Von Dunop knew the number very well. He slackened pace to allow the man in evening dress to pass. The slow-moving taxi that was fifty yards away he must risk. ”

“ Bill,” asked the Radical Member for West Deptford, “and whether he has not considered, in view of the extraordinary conditions that this Bill has called into life, the advisability of postponing the introduction of this measure?” ”

“ And as the hour grew later, that one man became two, at eleven o’clock he became three, and at quarter to twelve, when Von Dunop had finally fixed upon the scene and scope of his exploit, he turned from Park Lane into Brook Street to discover, to his annoyance, quite a number of people within call. ”