The Four Just Men (1920)

Front matter

TO

CONTENTS

PART I THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR FOREIGN AFFAIRS

CHAPTER I.

PART I

THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR FOREIGN AFFAIRS

CHAPTER I.

THERY’S TRADE

Four men sat about a table on the sidewalk in front of the Café of the Nations in the High Street of Cadiz and talked business.

Leon Gonsalez was one, Poiccart was another, George Manfred was a notable third, and one, Thery, or Saimont, was the fourth. Of this quartet, only Thery requires no introduction to the student of contemporary history. In the Bureau of Public Affairs you will find his record. As Thery, alias Saimont, he is registered, and to all students of Criminology and Physiognomy, he must need no introduction.

He sat at the little table, this man, obviously ill at ease, pinching his fat cheeks, smoothing his shaggy eyebrows, fingering the white scar on his unshaven chin, doing all the things that the lower classes do when they suddenly find themselves placed on terms of equality with their betters.

For although Gonsalez, with the light blue eyes and the restless hands, and Poiccart, heavy, saturnine, and suspicious, and George Manfred, with his grey-shot beard and single eyeglass, were less famous in the criminal world, each was a great man, as you shall learn.

Manfred laid down the Heraldo di Madrid, removed his eyeglass, rubbed it with a spotless handkerchief, and laughed quietly.

“These Russians are droll,” he commented.

Poiccart frowned and reached for the newspaper. “Who is it—this time?”

“A governor of one of the Southern Provinces.”

“Killed?”

Manfred’s moustache curled in scornful derision.

“Bah! Who ever killed a man with a bomb! Yes, yes; I know it has been done—but so clumsy, so primitive, so very much like undermining a city wall that it may fall and slay—amongst others—your enemy.”

Poiccart was reading the telegram deliberately and without haste, after his fashion.

“The Prince was severely injured and the would-be assassin lost an arm,” he read, and pursed his lips disapprovingly. The hands of Gonsalez, never still, opened and shut nervously, which was Leon’s sign of perturbation.

“Our friend here”—Manfred jerked his head in the direction of Gonsalez and laughed—”our friend has a conscience and——”

“Only once,” interrupted Leon quickly, “and not by my wish you remember, Manfred; you remember, Poiccart”—he did not address Thery—”I advised against it. You remember?” He seemed anxious to exculpate himself from the unspoken charge. “It was a miserable little thing, and I was in Madrid,” he went on breathlessly, “and they came to me, some men from a factory at Barcelona. They said what they were going to do, and I was horror-stricken at their ignorance of the elements of the laws of chemistry. I wrote down the ingredients and the proportions, and begged them, yes, almost on my knees, to use some other method. ‘My children,’ I said, ‘you are playing with something that even chemists are afraid to handle. If the owner of the factory is a bad man, by all means exterminate him, shoot him, wait on him after he has dined and is slow and dull, and present a petition with the right hand and—with the left hand—so’!”

Leon twisted his knuckles down and struck forward and upward at an imaginary oppressor. “But they would listen to nothing I had to say.”

Manfred stirred the glass of creamy liquid that stood at his elbow and nodded his head with an amused twinkle in his grey eyes.

“I remember—several people died, and the principal witness at the trial of the expert in explosives was the man for whom the bomb was intended.”

Thery cleared his throat as if to speak, and the three looked at him curiously. There was some resentment in Thery’s voice.

“I do not profess to be a great man like you, senõrs. Half the time I don’t understand what you are talking about—you speak of governments and kings and constitutions and causes. If a man does me an injury I smash his head”—he hesitated, ”I do not know how to say it … but I mean … well, you kill people without hating them, men who have not hurt you. Now, that is not my way….” He hesitated again, tried to collect his thoughts, looked intently at the middle of the roadway, shook his head, and relapsed into silence.

The others looked at him, then at one another, and each man smiled. Manfred took a bulky case from his pocket, extracted an untidy cigarette, rerolled it deftly and struck a government match on the sole of his boot.

“Your-way-my-dear-Thery”—he puffed—“is a fool’s way. You kill for benefit; we kill for justice, which lifts us out of the ruck of professional slayers. When we see an unjust man oppressing his fellows; when we see an evil thing done against the good God”—Thery crossed himself, “and against man—and know that by the laws of man this evildoer may escape punishment—we punish.”

“Listen,” interrupted the taciturn Poiccart: “once there was a girl, young and beautiful, up there”—he waved his hand northward with unerring instinct—”and a priest—a priest, you understand—and the parents winked at it because it is often done … but the girl was filled with loathing and shame, and would not go a second time, so he trapped her and kept her in a house, and then when the bloom was off turned her out, and I found her. She was nothing to me, but I said, ‘Here is a wrong that the law cannot adequately right.’ So one night I called on the priest with my hat over my eyes and said that I wanted him to come to a dying traveller. He would not have come then, but I told him that the dying man was rich and was a great person. He mounted the horse I had brought, and we rode to a little house on the mountain…. I locked the door and he turned round—so! Trapped, and he knew it. ‘What are you going to do?’ he said with a gasping noise. ‘I am going to kill you, señor,’ I said, and he believed me. I told him the story of the girl…. He screamed when I moved towards him, but he might as well have saved his breath. ‘Let me see a priest,’ he begged; and I handed him—a mirror.”

Poiccart stopped to sip his coffee.

“They found him on the road next day without a mark to show how he died,” he said simply.

“How?” Thery bent forward eagerly, but Poiccart permitted himself to smile grimly, and made no response.

Thery bent his brows and looked suspiciously from one to the other.

“If you can kill as you say you can, why have you sent for me? I was happy in Jerez working at the wine factory … there is a girl there … they call her Juan Samarez.” He mopped his head and looked quickly from one to the other. “When I received your message I thought I should like to kill you—whoever you were—you understand I am happy … and there is the girl—and the old life I have forgotten——”

Manfred arrested the incoherent protests.

“Listen,” said he imperiously; “it is not for you to inquire the wherefore and the why; we know who you are and what you are; we know more of you even than the police know, for we could send you to the garotte."

Poiccart nodded his head in affirmation, and Gonsalez looked at Thery curiously, like the student of human nature that he was.

“We want a fourth man,” went on Manfred,“for something we wish to do; we would have wished to have had one animated by no other desire than to see justice done. Failing that, we must have a criminal, a murderer if you like.”

Thery opened and shut his mouth as if about to speak.

“One whom we can at a word send to his death if he fails us; you are the man; you will run no risk; you will be well rewarded; you may not be asked to slay. Listen,” went on Manfred, seeing that Thery had opened his mouth to speak. “Do you know England? I see that you do not. You know Gibraltar? Well, this is the same people. It is a country up there”—Manfred’s expressive hands waved north,—“a curious, dull country, with curious, dull people. There is a man, a member of the Government, and there are men whom the Government have never heard of. You remember one; he is in England; it is the only country where he is safe; from England he directs the movement here, the great movement. You know of what I speak?”

Thery nodded.

“This year as well as last there has been a famine, men have been dying about the church doors, starving in the public squares; they have watched corrupt Government succeed corrupt Government; they have seen millions flow from the public treasury into the pockets of politicians. This year something will happen; the old régime must go. The Government know this; they know where the danger lies, they know their salvation can only come if Garcia is delivered into their hands before the organisation for revolt is complete. But Garcia is safe for the present and would be safe for all time were it not for a member of the English Government, who is about to introduce and pass into law a Bill. When that is passed, Garcia is as good as dead. You must help us to prevent that from ever becoming law; that is why we have sent for you.”

Thery looked bewildered. “But how?” he stammered.

Manfred drew a paper from his pocket and handed it to Thery. “This, I think,” he said, speaking deliberately, “is an exact copy of the police description of yourself.” Thery nodded. Manfred leant over and, pointing to a word that occurred half way down the sheet, “Is that your trade?” he asked.

Thery looked puzzled. “Yes,” he replied.

“Do you really know anything about that trade?” asked Manfred earnestly; and the other two men leant forward to catch the reply.

“I know,” said Thery slowly, “everything there is to be known: had it not been for a—mistake I might have earned great money.”

Manfred heaved a sigh of relief and nodded to his two companions.

“Then,” said he briskly, “the English Minister is a dead man.”

CHAPTER II

CHAPTER II

A NEWSPAPER STORY

On the fourteenth day of August, 19—, a tiny paragraph appeared at the foot of an unimportant page in London’s most sober journal to the effect that the secretary of state for foreign affairs had been much annoyed by the receipt of a number of threatening letters, and was prepared to pay a reward of fifty pounds to any person who would give such information as would lead to the apprehension and conviction of the person or persons, etc. The few people who read London’s most sober journal thought, in their ponderous Athænaeum Club way, that it was a remarkable thing that a Minister of State should be annoyed at anything; more remarkable that he should advertise his annoyance, and most remarkable of all that he could imagine for one minute that the offer of a reward would put a stop to the annoyance.

News editors of less sober but larger circulated newspapers, wearily scanning the dull columns of Old Sobriety, read the paragraph with a newly acquired interest.

“Hullo, what’s this?” asked Smiles of the Comet, and cut out the paragraph with huge shears, pasted it upon a sheet of copy-paper and headed it:

“Who is Sir Philip’s Correspondent?” As an afterthought—the Comet being in Opposition—he prefixed an introductory paragraph, humorously suggesting that the letters were from an intelligent electorate grown tired of the shilly-shallying methods of the Government.

The news editor of the Evening World—a white-haired gentleman of deliberate movement—read the paragraph twice, cut it out carefully, read it again and, placing it under a paper-weight, very soon forgot all about it.

The news editor of the Megaphone, which is a very bright newspaper indeed, cut the paragraph as he read it, rang a bell, called a reporter, all in a breath, so to speak, and issued a few terse instructions.

“Go down to Portland Place, try to see Sir Philip Ramon, secure the story of that paragraph—why he is threatened, what he is threatened with; get a copy of one of the letters if you can. If you cannot see Ramon, get hold of a secretary.”

And the obedient reporter went forth.

He returned in an hour in that state of mysterious agitation peculiar to the reporter who has got a “beat.” The news editor duly reported to the editor-in-chief, and that great man said, “That’s very good, that’s very good indeed”—which was praise of the highest order.

What was “very good indeed” about the reporter’s story may be gathered from the half-column that appeared in the Megaphone on the following day:

Cabinet Minister in Danger Threats to Murder the Foreign Secretary “The Four Just Men” Plot to Arrest the Passage of the Aliens Extradition Bill Extraordinary Revelations

Considerable comment was excited by the appearance in the news columns of yesterday’s National Journal of the following paragraph:

The Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs (Sir Philip Ramon) has during the past few weeks been the recipient of threatening letters, all apparently emanating from one source and written by one person. These letters are of such a character that they cannot be ignored by his Majesty’s Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, who hereby offers a reward of Fifty pounds (£50) to any person or persons, other than the actual writer, who will lay such information as will lead to the apprehension and conviction of the author of these anonymous letters.

So unusual was such an announcement, remembering that anonymous and threatening letters are usually to be found daily in the letter-bags of every statesman and diplomat, that the Daily Megaphone immediately instituted inquiries as to the cause for this unusual departure.

A representative of this newspaper called at the residence of Sir Philip Ramon, who very courteously consented to be seen.

“It is quite an unusual step to take,” said the great Foreign Secretary, in answer to our representative’s question, “but it has been taken with the full concurrence of my colleagues of the Cabinet. We have reasons to believe there is something behind the threats, and I might say that the matter has been in the hands of the police for some weeks past.

“Here is one of the letters,” and Sir Philip produced a sheet of foreign notepaper from a portfolio, and was good enough to allow our representative to make a copy.

It was undated, and beyond the fact that the handwriting was of the flourishing effeminate variety that is characteristic of the Latin races, it was written in good English.

It ran:

Your Excellency,—

The Bill that you are about to pass into law is an unjust one. It is calculated to hand over to a corrupt and vengeful Government men who now in England find an asylum from the persecutions of despots and tyrants. We know that in England opinion is divided upon the merits of your Bill, and that upon your strength, and your strength alone, depends the passing into law of the Aliens Political Offences Bill.

Therefore it grieves us to warn you that unless your Government withdraws this Bill, it will be necessary to remove you, and not alone you, but any other person who undertakes to carry into law this unjust measure.

(Signed)

Four Just Men.

“The Bill referred to,” Sir Philip resumed, “is of course the Aliens Extradition (Political Offences) Bill, which, had it not been for the tactics of the Opposition, might have passed quietly into law last session.”

Sir Philip went on to explain that the Bill was called into being by the insecurity of the succession in Spain.

“It is imperative that neither England nor any other country should harbour propagandists who, from the security of these, or other shores, should set Europe ablaze. Coincident with the passage of this measure similar Acts or proclamations have been made in every country in Europe. In fact, they are all in existence, having been arranged to come into law simultaneously with ours, last session.”

“Why do you attach importance to these letters?” asked the Daily Megaphone representative.

“Because we are assured, both by our own police and the continental police, that the writers are men who are in deadly earnest. The ‘Four Just Men’, as they sign themselves, are known collectively in almost every country under the sun. Who they are individually we should all very much like to know. Rightly or wrongly, they consider that justice as meted out here on earth is inadequate, and have set themselves about correcting the law. They were the people who assassinated General Trelovitch, the leader of the Servian Regicides: they hanged the French Army Contractor, Conrad, in the Place de la Concorde—with a hundred policemen within call. They shot Hermon le Blois, the poet-philosopher, in his study for corrupting the youth of the world with his reasoning.”

The Foreign Secretary then handed to our representative a list of the crimes committed by this extraordinary quartet.

Our readers will recollect the circumstance of each murder, and it will be remembered that until today—so closely have the police of the various nationalities kept the secret of the Four Men—no one crime has been connected with the other; and certainly none of the circumstances which, had they been published, would have assuredly revealed the existence of this band, have been given to the public before today.

The Daily Megaphone is able to publish a full list of sixteen murders committed by the four men.

“Two years ago, after the shooting of le Blois, by some hitch in their almost perfect arrangements, one of the four was recognised by a detective as having been seen leaving le Blois’s house on the Avenue Kleber, and he was shadowed for three days, in the hope, that the four might be captured together. In the end he discovered he was being watched, and made a bolt for liberty. He was driven to bay in a café in Bordeaux—they had followed him from Paris: and before he was killed he shot a sergeant de ville and two other policemen. He was photographed, and the print was circulated throughout Europe, but who he was or what he was, even what nationality he was, is a mystery to this day.”

“But the four are still in existence?”

Sir Philip shrugged his shoulders. “They have either recruited another, or they are working short-handed,” he said.

In conclusion the Foreign Secretary said:

“I am making this public through the Press, in order that the danger which threatens, not necessarily myself, but any public man who runs counter to the wishes of this sinister force, should be recognised. My second reason is that the public may in its knowledge assist those responsible for the maintenance of law and order in the execution of their office, and by their vigilance prevent the committal of further unlawful acts.”

Inquiries subsequently made at Scotland Yard elicited no further information on the subject beyond the fact that the Criminal Investigation Department was in communication with the chiefs of the continental police.

The following is a complete list of the murders committed by the Four Just Men, together with such particulars as the police have been able to secure regarding the cause for the crimes. We are indebted to the Foreign Office for permission to reproduce the list.

London, October 7, 1899.—Thomas Cutler, master tailor, found dead under suspicious circumstances. Coroner’s jury returned a verdict of “Willful murder against some person or persons unknown.”

(Cause of murder ascertained by police: Cutler, who was a man of some substance, and whose real name was Bentvitch, was a sweater of a particularly offensive type. Three convictions under the Factory Act. Believed by the police there was a further and more intimate cause for the murder not unconnected with Cutler’s treatment of women employees.)

Liège, February 28,1900.—Jacques Ellerman, prefect: shot dead returning from the Opera House. Ellerman was a notorious evil liver, and upon investigating his affairs after his death it was found that he had embezzled nearly a quarter of a million francs of the public funds.

Sattle (Kentucky), October, 1900.—Judge Anderson. Found dead in his room, strangled. Anderson had thrice been tried for his life on charges of murder. He was the leader of the Anderson faction in the Anderson-Hara feud. Had killed in all seven of the Hara clan, was three times indicted and three times released on a verdict of Not Guilty. It will be remembered that on the last occasion, when charged with the treacherous murder of the Editor of the Seattle Star, he shook hands with the packed jury and congratulated them.

New York, October 30, 1900.—Patrick Welch, a notorious grafter and stealer of public moneys. Sometime City Treasurer; moving spirit in the infamous Street Paving Syndicate; exposed by the

New York Journal. Welch was found hanging in a little wood on Long Island. Believed at the time to have been suicide.

Paris, March 4, 1901.—Madame Despard.—Asphyxiated. This also was regarded as suicide till certain information came to hands of French police. Of Madame Despard nothing good can be said. She was a notorious “dealer in souls”.

Paris, March 4, 1902 (exactly a year later).—Monsieur Gabriel Lanfin, Minister of Communication. Found shot in his brougham in the Bois de Boulogne. His coachman was arrested but eventually discharged. The man swore he heard no shot or cry from his master. It was raining at the time, and there were few pedestrians in the Bois.

(Here followed ten other cases, all on a par with those quoted above, including the cases of Trelovitch and le Blois.)

It was undoubtedly a great story.

The editor-in-chief, seated in his office, read it over again and said, “Very good indeed.”

The reporter—whose name was Smith—read it over and grew pleasantly warm at the consequences of his achievement.

The foreign secretary read it in bed as he sipped his morning tea, and frowningly wondered if he had said too much.

The chief of the French police read it—translated and telegraphed—in Le Temps, and furiously cursed the talkative Englishman who was upsetting his plans.

In Madrid, at the Café de la Paix, in the Place of the Sun, Manfred, cynical, smiling, and sarcastic, read extracts to three men—two pleasantly amused, the other heavy-jowled and pasty of face, with the fear of death in his eyes.

CHAPTER III

CHAPTER III

THE FAITHFUL COMMONS

Somebody—was it Mr Gladstone?—placed it on record that there is nothing quite so dangerous, quite so ferocious, quite so terrifying as a mad sheep. Similarly, as we know, there is no person quite so indiscreet, quite so foolishly talkative, quite so amazingly gauche, as the diplomat who for some reason or other has run off the rails.

There comes a moment to the man who has trained himself to guard his tongue in the Councils of Nations, who has been schooled to walk warily amongst pitfalls digged cunningly by friendly Powers, when the practice and precept of many years are forgotten, and he behaves humanly. Why this should be has never been discovered by ordinary people, although the psychological minority who can generally explain the mental processes of their fellows, have doubtless very adequate and convincing reasons for these acts of disbalancement.

Sir Philip Ramon was a man of peculiar temperament. I doubt whether anything in the wide world would have arrested his purpose once his mind had been made up. He was a man of strong character, a firm, square-jawed, big-mouthed man, with that shade of blue in his eyes that one looks for in peculiarly heartless criminals, and particularly famous generals. And yet Sir Philip Ramon feared, as few men imagined he feared, the consequence of the task he had set himself.

There are thousands of men who are physically heroes and morally poltroons, men who would laugh at death—and live in terror of personal embarrassments. Coroner’s courts listen daily to the tale of such men’s lives—and deaths.

The foreign secretary reversed these qualities. Good animal men would unhesitatingly describe the Minister as a coward, for he feared pain and he feared death.

“If this thing is worrying you so much,” the premier said kindly— it was at the Cabinet Council two days following the publication of the Megaphone’s story—”why don’t you drop the Bill? After all, there are matters of greater importance to occupy the time of the House, and we are getting near the end of the session.”

An approving murmur went round the table.

“We have every excuse for dropping it. There must be a horrible slaughtering of the innocents—Braithewaite’s Unemployed Bill must go; and what the country will say to that, Heaven only knows.”

“No, no!” The foreign secretary brought his fist down on the table with a crash. “It shall go through; of that I am determined. We are breaking faith with the Cortes, we are breaking faith with France, we are breaking faith with every country in the Union. I have promised the passage of this measure—and we must go through with it, even though there are a thousand ‘Just Men’, and a thousand threats.”

The premier shrugged his shoulders.

“Forgive me for saying so, Ramon,” said Bolton, the solicitor general, “but I can’t help feeling you were rather indiscreet to give particulars to the Press as you did. Yes, I know we were agreed that you should have a free hand to deal with the matter as you wished, but somehow I did not think you would have been quite so—what shall I say?—candid.”

“My discretion in the matter, Sir George, is not a subject that I care to discuss,” replied Ramon stiffly.

Later, as he walked across Palace Yard with the youthful-looking chancellor, Mr Solicitor-General, smarting under the rebuff, said, à propos of nothing, “Silly old ass.” And the youthful guardian of Britain’s finances smiled.

“If the truth be told,” he said, “Ramon is in a most awful funk. The story of the Four Just Men is in all the clubs, and a man I met at the Carlton at lunch has rather convinced me that there is really something to be feared. He was quite serious about it—he’s just returned from South America and has seen some of the work done by these men.”

“What was that?”

“A president or something of one of these rotten little republics … about eight months ago—you’ll see it in the list… They hanged him … most extraordinary thing in the world. They took him out of bed in the middle of the night, gagged him, blindfolded him, carried him to the public jail, gained admission, and hanged him on the public gallows—and escaped!”

Mr Solicitor-General saw the difficulties of such proceedings, and was about to ask for further information when an under-secretary buttonholed the chancellor and bore him off. “Absurd,” muttered Mr Solicitor crossly.

There were cheers for the secretary for foreign affairs as his brougham swept through the crowd that lined the approaches to the House. He was in no wise exalted, for popularity was not a possession he craved. He knew instinctively that the cheers were called forth by the public’s appreciation of his peril; and the knowledge chilled and irritated him. He would have liked to think that the people scoffed at the existence of this mysterious four—it would have given him some peace of mind had he been able to think “the people have rejected the idea.”

For although popularity or unpopularity was outside his scheme of essentials, yet he had an unswerving faith in the brute instincts of the mob. He was surrounded in the lobby of the House with a crowd of eager men of his party, some quizzical, some anxious, all clamouring for the latest information—all slightly in fear of the acid-tongued Minister.

“Look here, Sir Philip”—it was the stout, tactless member for West Brondesbury—“what is all this we hear about threatenin’ letters? Surely you’re not goin’ to take notice of things of that sort—why, I get two or three every day of my life.”

The Minister strode impatiently away from the group, but Tester—the member—caught his arm.

“Look here——” he began.

“Go to the devil,” said the foreign secretary plainly, and walked quickly to his room.

“Beastly temper that man’s got, to be sure,” said the honourable member despairingly. “Fact is, old Ramon’s in a blue funk. The idea of making a song about threatenin’ letters! Why, I get——”

A group of men in the members’ smokeroom discussed the question of the Just Four in a perfectly unoriginal way.

“It’s too ridiculous for words,” said one oracularly. “Here are four men, a mythical four, arrayed against all the forces and established agencies of the most civilised nation on earth.”

“Except Germany,” interrupted Scott, MP, wisely.

“Do you think Ramon will withdraw the bill?” asked the senior member for Aldgate East.

“Ramon? Not he—he’d sooner die.”

“It’s a most unusual circumstance,” said Aldgate East; and three boroughs, a London suburb, and a midland town nodded and “thought it was.”

“In the old days, when old Bascoe was a young member”—Aldgate East indicated an aged senator bent and white of beard and hair, who was walking painfully toward a seat—”in the old days——”

“Thought old Bascoe had paired?” remarked an irrelevant listener.

“In the old days,” continued the member for the East End, “before the Fenian trouble—”

“If I were Ramon,” resumed Aldgate East profoundly, “I know exactly what I should do. I should go to the police and say ‘Look here——’”

A bell rang furiously and continuously, and the members went scampering along the corridor. “Division—’vision.”

Clause Nine of the Medway Improvement Bill having been satisfactorily settled and the words “Or as may hereafter be determined” added by a triumphant majority of twenty-four, the faithful Commons returned to the interrupted discussion.