we will defy—’
Loud voices and the sound of scuffling in the little anteroom interrupted her, and a warning word shouted brought the audience to its feet.
‘The police!’
A hundred stealthy hands reached for cunning pockets, but somebody leapt upon a bench, near the entrance, and held up an authoritative hand.
‘Gentlemen, there is no occasion for alarm — I am Detective-Superintendent Falmouth from Scotland Yard, and I have no quarrel with the Red Hundred.’
Little Peter, transfixed for the moment, pushed his way towards the detective.
‘Who do you want — what do you want?’ he asked.
The detective stood with his back to the door and answered.
‘I want two men who were seen to enter this hall: two members of an organization that is outside the Red Hundred. They—’
‘Ha!’ The woman who still stood upon the platform leant forward with blazing eyes.
‘I know — I know!’ she cried breathlessly; ‘the men who threatened us-who threatened me — The Four Just Men!’
Chapter II
The Fourth Man
The tall man’s hand was in his pocket when the detective spoke.
When he had entered the hall he had thrown a swift glance round the place and taken in every detail. He had seen the beaded strip of unpainted wood which guarded the electric light cables, and had improved the opportunity whilst the prosy brother was speaking to make a further reconnaissance. There was a white porcelain switchboard with half a dozen switches at the left-hand side of the platform. He judged the distance and threw up the hand that held the pistol.
Bang! Bang!
A crash of broken glass, a quick flash of blue flame from the shattered fuses — and the hall was in darkness. It happened before the detective could spring from his form into the yelling, screaming crowd — before the police officer could get a glance at the man who fired the shots.
In an instant the place was a pandemonium.
‘Silence!’ Falmouth roared above the din; ‘silence! Keep quiet, you miserable cowards — show a light here, Brown, Curtis — Inspector, where are your men’s lanterns!’
The rays of a dozen bull’s-eye lamps waved over the struggling throng.
‘Open your lanterns’ — and to the seething mob, ‘Silence!’ Then a bright young officer remembered that he had seen gas-brackets in the room, and struggled through the howling mob till he came to the wall and found the gasfitting with his lantern. He struck a match and lit the gas, and the panic subsided as suddenly as it had begun.
Falmouth, choked with rage, threw his eye round the hall. ‘Guard the door,’ he said briefly; ‘the hall is surrounded and they cannot possibly escape.’ He strode swiftly along the central aisle, followed by two of his men, and with an agile leap, sprang on to the platform and faced the audience. The Woman of Gratz, with a white set face, stood motionless, one hand resting on the little table, the other at her throat. Falmouth raised his hand to enjoin silence and the lawbreakers obeyed.
‘I have no quarrel with the Red Hundred,’ he said. ‘By the law of this country it is permissible to hold opinions and propagate doctrines, however objectionable they be — I am here to arrest two men who have broken the laws of this country. Two persons who are part of the organization known as the Four Just Men.’
All the time he was speaking his eyes searched the faces before him. He knew that one-half of the audience could not understand him and that the hum of talk that arose as he finished was his speech in course of translation.
The faces he sought he could not discern. To be exact, he hoped that his scrutiny would induce two men, of whose identity he was ignorant, to betray themselves.
There are little events, unimportant in themselves, which occasionally lead to tremendous issues. A skidding motorbus that crashed into a private car in Piccadilly had led to the discovery that there were three vociferous foreign gentlemen imprisoned in the overturned vehicle. It led to the further discovery that the chauffeur had disappeared in the confusion of the collision. In the darkness, comparing notes, the three prisoners had arrived at a conclusion — to wit, that their abduction was a sequel to a mysterious letter each had received, which bore the signature ‘The Four Just Men’.
So in the panic occasioned by the accident, they were sufficiently indiscreet to curse the Four Just Men by name, and, the Four Just Men being a sore topic with the police, they were questioned further, and the end of it was that Superintendent Falmouth motored eastward in great haste and was met in Middlesex Street by a reserve of police specially summoned.
He was at the same disadvantage he had always been — the Four Just Men were to him names only, symbols of a swift remorseless force that struck surely and to the minute — and nothing more.
Two or three of the leaders of the Red Hundred had singled themselves out and drew closer to the platform.
‘We are not aware,’ said Francois, the Frenchman, speaking for his companions in faultless English, ‘we are not aware of the identity of the men you seek, but on the understanding that they are not brethren of our Society, and moreover’ — he was at a loss for words to put the fantastic situation—’and moreover since they have threatened us — threatened us,’ he repeated in bewilderment, ‘we will afford you every assistance.’
The detective jumped at the opportunity.
‘Good!’ he said and formed a rapid plan.
The two men could not have escaped from the hall. There was a little door near the platform, he had seen that — as the two men he sought had seen it. Escape seemed possible through there; they had thought so, too. But Falmouth knew that the outer door leading from the little vestibule was guarded by two policemen. This was the sum of the discovery made also by the two men he sought. He spoke rapidly to Francois.
‘I want every person in the hall to be vouched for,’ he said quickly. ‘Somebody must identify every man, and the identifier must himself be identified.’
The arrangements were made with lightning-like rapidity. From the platform in French, German and Yiddish, the leaders of the Red Hundred explained the plan. Then the police formed a line, and one by one the people came forward, and shyly, suspiciously or self-consciously, according to their several natures, they passed the police line.
‘That is Simon Czech of Buda-Pest.’
‘Who identifies him?’
‘I.’ — a dozen voices.
‘Pass.’
‘This is Michael Ranekov of Odessa.’
‘Who identifies him?’
‘I,’
