Edgar Wallace

“ I would believe that the power of introspection had no real place in her mental equipment, else how can we explain her attitude towards the man whom she had once defied and reconcile those outbursts of hers wherein she called for his death, for his terrible punishment, wherein, too, she allowed herself the rare luxury of unrestrained speech, how can we reconcile these tantrums with the fact that this man’s voice filled her thoughts day and night, the recollection of this man’s eyes through his mask followed her every movement, till the image of him became an obsession? ”

“ Billy had left Scotland Yard to look for a man with a discoloured hand. Here again, he might, had he been less fearful of treachery, have placed in the hands of the police a very valuable mark of identification.
It seems a very lame excuse to urge on Billy’s behalf that this cupidity alone stayed his hand when he came face to face with the man he was searching for. And yet it was so. Then again there was a sum in simple proportion to be worked out. If one Just Man was worth a thousand pounds, what was the commercial value of four? Billy was a thief with a business head. ”

“ Billy licked his dry lips, but did not speak.
“Harry Moss would like to know who he owes his three stretch to—and the ten. Men who’ve had the cat have a long memory, Billy.”
“That’s not playing the game, Mr. Falmouth,” cried Billy thickly. “I—I was a bit hard up, an’ Harry Moss wasn’t a pal of mine—and the p’lice wanted to find out—”
“And the police want to find out now,” said Falmouth.
Billy Marks made no reply for a moment.
“I’ll tell you all there is to be told,” he said at last, and cleared his throat. The detective stopped him. ”

“ Billy shook his head mournfully.
“I could easily tell you a lie, Mr Falmouth,” he said frankly, “and I could easily pitch a tale that would take you in, but I’m playin’ it square with you.”
The detective recognised the sincerity of the man and nodded.
“You’ve done your best, Billy,” he said, and then: “I’ll tell you what I’m going to do. You are the only man in the world who has ever seen one of the Four Just Men—and lived to tell the story. ”

“ He looked at it, nodded, and slipped it into his pocket.
“Farewell,” he said as he turned to the open door.
“In God’s name!” said the Woman of Gratz, trembling, “go in peace, Little Father.”
And the man Jessen, sometime headsman to the Supreme Council, and latterly public executioner of England, walked out, no man barring his exit.
The power of the Red Hundred was broken. This much Falmouth knew. He kept an ever-vigilant band of men on duty at the great termini of London, and to these were attached the members of a dozen secret police forces of Europe. ”

“ Because of the success with which the open policy had been pursued the Woman of Gratz preferred to take the risk of an open trial in a hall liable to police raid.
The man must be so guarded that escape was impossible. Messengers sped in every direction to carry out her instruction. There was a rapid summoning of leaders of the movement, the choice of the place of trial, the preparation for a ceremony which was governed by well-established precedent, and the arrangement of the properties which played so effective a part in the trials of the Hundred. ”

“ Here is a sovereign; go home, get a little sleep, turn out as early as you can and go west.” The detective went to his desk, and wrote a dozen words on a card. “Take this: if you see the man or his companion, follow them, show this card to the first policeman you meet, point out the man, and you’ll go to bed a thousand pounds richer than when you woke.”
Billy took the card.
“If you want me at any time you will find somebody here who will know where I am. Good-night,” and Billy passed into the street, his brain in a whirl, and a warrant written on a visiting-card in his waistcoat pocket. ”

“ Poiccart stopped to laugh—his laugh ended in a sleepy yawn.
“You know the sort of questions,” said he, “and you know how very naïve the illiterate are when they are seeking to disguise their identities by elaborate hypotheses. ”

“ I determined to make my next move. I invited him to take a cup of coffee, and when the cups were placed before us, I put down a sovereign. The stall-keeper shook his head, said he could not change it. ‘Hasn’t your friend any small change?’ he asked.
“It was here that the vanity of the little thief told me what I wanted to know. He drew from his pocket, with a nonchalant air—a sovereign. ‘This is all that I have got,’ he drawled. I found some coppers—I had to think quickly. He had told the police something, something worth paying for —what was it? ”

“ The motor-car bore the detective and his charge to Scotland Yard, and in Superintendent Falmouth’s office Billy prepared to unburden himself.
“Before you begin,” said the officer, “I want to warn you that you must be as brief as possible. Every minute is precious.” ”

“ And as soon as they have bolted, we’ve employed fairly commonplace methods and brought ’em back.
“If you ask me whether I’ve been in dreadful danger, when arresting desperate murderers and criminals, I say ‘No.’
“When your average criminal finds himself cornered, he says, ‘All right, Mr. Falmouth; it’s a cop,’ and goes quietly.
“Crime and criminals run in grooves. They”re hardy annuals with perennial methods. Extraordinary circumstances baffle the police as they baffle other folks. You can’t run a business on business lines and be absolutely prepared for anything that turns up. ”

“ Whiteley’s will supply you with a flea or an elephant, but if a woman asked a shopgirl to hold her baby whilst she went into the tinned meat department, the girl and the manager and the whole system would be floored, because there is no provision for holding babies. And if a Manchester goods merchant, unrolling his stuff, came upon a snake lying all snug in the bale, he’d be floored too, because natural history isn’t part of their business training, and they wouldn’t be quite sure whether it was a big worm or a boa constrictor. ”

“ He had put me off my guard.”
“But why——?” began Manfred.
“That is what I thought,” the other answered. “Why did he not have me arrested?” He turned to Leon, who had been a silent listener. “Tell us, Leon, why?”
“The explanation is simple,” said Gonsalez quietly: “why did not Thery betray us?——cupidity, the second most potent force of civilisation. He has some doubt of the reward. He may fear the honesty of the police— most criminals do so; he may want witnesses.” Leon walked to the wall, where his coat hung. ”

“ When people sometimes ask me about the cleverness of Scotland Yard, I can’t tell ’em tales such as you read about. I’ve had murderers, anarchists, burglars, and average low-down people to deal with, but they have mostly done their work in a commonplace way and bolted. ”

“ He had the man’s description, he had looked at his face, he knew him feature by feature. That was something, at any rate. Nay, it occurred to him that if the man was arrested through his description he would still be entitled to the reward—or a part of it. ”

“ The chief commissioner frowned.
“It”s a remarkable thing,” he said, “that as soon as we get a situation such as—the Red Hundred scare and the Four Just Men scare, for instance, we’re completely at sea, and that”s what the papers will say. It doesn’t sound creditable, but it’s so.”
I place the superintendent”s defence of Scotland Yard on record in extenso.
“What the papers say,” said Falmouth, “never keeps me awake at night. Nobody’s quite got the hang of the police force in this country—certainly the writing people haven’t.
“There are two ways of writing about the police, sir. ”