Edgar Wallace

“ He said no more. The big man’s hand suddenly closed round his throat with a grip like steel. Willie struggled, but he was like a child in the grasp of the other.
“You dog,” breathed Black.
He shook the helpless man violently. Then with his disengaged hand he whipped the tell-tale phial from the other’s pocket and pushed him against the wall. “And I’ll teach you that that’s nothing to what you’ll get if you ever come across me again.”
Jakobs dropped, white and ghastly, against the wall. “You’ve got the bottle, Black.” he said, “but I know everything that you’ve done with it.” ”

“ Willie Jakobs, the befriended, the pensioned, and the scorned, who had removed a certain green bottle, the duplicate of which was in his pocket at that moment.
Black did not lose his nerve. He went to a drawer in the desk of his outer office and took out a Browning pistol. It was loaded. He balanced it in his right hand, looked at it reflectively, then put it back again. He hated firearms; they made a great deal of unnecessary noise, and they left behind them too sure an indication of the identity of their user. Men have been traced by bullets. ”

“ I’ve got a cab waiting round the corner.”
“You don’t get me into no cabs,” said Jakobs. “I’ve had enough of you, Black. You’ve turned round on me. You cast me out like a dog. Is that the way to treat a pal?”
“You’ve made a mistake, my friend,” said Black smoothly. “We’re all liable to make mistakes. I’ve made many, and I dare say you’ve made a few. Now, let’s talk business.”
Willie said nothing. He was still suspicious. Once he thought he saw the other’s hand steal to his breast-pocket. He guessed the motive of the action. This, then, was where the bottle was. ”

“ Patients began to come in, and within a quarter of an hour the two men were as busy as men could be attending to the injuries, the diseases and the complaints of the people of this overcrowded neighbourhood.
This great dispensary owed its erection and its continuance to the munificence of three doctors who appeared from nowhere. Who the man was who had contributed £5,000 to the upkeep, and who had afterwards appeared in person, masked and cloaked, and had propounded to three earnest workers for humanity his desire to be included in the organization, nobody knew, unless it was Manfred. ”

“ There were two or three places where he might find the man. A little public-house off Regent Street was one. He drove there, stopping the cab a few paces from the spot. He strode into the bar, where men of Jakobs’ kind were to be found, but it was empty. The man he sought was not there.
He made a tour of other likely places with no better success. Willie would be at home. He had moved to lodgings on the south side of the Thomas.
It was coming from a little public-house off the New Kent Road that Black found his man. ”

“ No man ever remembered their going to church, or urging attendance at any place of worship. The religious bodies that laboured in the neighbourhood were themselves astonished. One by one they had nibbled at the sectarian question. Some had asked directly to what religious organization these men were attached. ”