The Council of Justice by Edgar Wallace (best new books to read TXT) 📖

pen bulked like a three-volume novel.

 

Charles stopped to threaten an office-boy who had misdirected a

letter, strolled into various quiet offices to ‘see who was there’ and

with his raincoat on his arm, and his stick in his hand, stopped at the

end of his wanderings before the chattering tape machine. He looked

through the glass box that shielded the mechanism, and was interested

in a message from Teheran in the course of transmission.

 

‘…at early date. Grand Vizier has informed Exchange Correspondent

that the construction of line will be pushed forward…’

 

The tape stopped its stuttering and buzzed excitedly, then came a

succession of quick jerks that cleared away the uncompleted

message.

 

Then ‘…the leader of the Four Just Men was arrested in London

tonight,’ said the tape, and Charles broke for the editor’s room.

 

He flung open the door without ceremony, and repeated the story the

little machine had told.

 

The grey chief received the news quietly, and the orders he gave in

the next five minutes inconvenienced some twenty or thirty unoffending

people.

 

The construction of the ‘story’ of the Four Just Men, began at the

lower rung of the intellectual ladder.

 

‘You boy! get half a dozen taxicabs here quick…Poynter, ‘phone the

reporters in…get the Lambs Club on the ‘phone and see if O’Mahony or

any other of our bright youths are there…There are five columns about

the Four Just Men standing in the gallery, get it pulled up, Mr.

Short…pictures—h’m…yet wire Massonni to get down to the police

station and see if he can find a policeman who’ll give him material for

a sketch…Off you go, Charles, and get the story.’

 

There was no flurry, no rush; it was for all the world like the

scene on a modern battleship when ‘clear lower deck for action’ had

sounded. Two hours to get the story into the paper was ample, and there

was no need for the whip.

 

Later, with the remorseless hands of the clock moving on, taxi after

taxi flew up to the great newspaper office, discharging alert young men

who literally leapt into the building. Later, with waiting operators

sitting tensely before the keyboards of the linotypes, came Charles

Garrett doing notable things with a stump of pencil and a ream of thin

copy paper.

 

It was the Megaphone that shone splendidly amidst its

journalistic fellows, with pages—I quote the envenomed opinion of the

news editor of the Mercury—that ‘shouted like the checks on a

bookmaker’s waistcoat’.

 

It was the Megaphone that fed the fires of public interest,

and was mainly responsible for the huge crowds that gathered outside

Greenwich Police Court, and overflowed in dense masses to the foot of

Blackheath Hill, whilst Manfred underwent his preliminary

inquiries.

 

‘George Manfred, aged 39, of no occupation, residing at Hill Crest

Lodge, St John’s.’ In this prosaic manner he was introduced to the

world.

 

He made a striking figure in the steel-railed dock. A chair was

placed for him, and he was guarded as few prisoners had been guarded. A

special cell had been prepared for his reception, and departing from

established custom, extra warders were detailed to watch him. Falmouth

took no risks.

 

The charge that had been framed had to do with no well-known case.

Many years before, one Samuel Lipski, a notorious East End sweater, had

been found dead with the stereotyped announcement that he had fallen to

the justice of the Four. Upon this the Treasury founded its case for

the prosecution—a case which had been very thoroughly and convincingly

prepared, and pigeon-holed against such time as arrest should overtake

one or the other of the Four Just Men.

 

Reading over the thousands of newspaper cuttings dealing with the

preliminary examination and trial of Manfred, I am struck with the

absence of any startling feature, such as one might expect to find in a

great state trial of this description. Summarizing the evidence that

was given at the police court, one might arrange the ‘parts’ of the

dozen or so commonplace witnesses so that they read:

 

A policeman: ‘I found the body.’

 

An inspector: ‘I read the label.’

 

A doctor: ‘I pronounced him dead.’

 

An only man with a slight squint and broken English: ‘This man

Lipski, I known him, he were a goot man and make the business wit the

head, ker-vick.’

 

And the like.

 

Manfred refused to plead ‘guilty’ or ‘not guilty’. He spoke only

once during the police court proceedings, and then only when the formal

question had been put to him.

 

‘I am prepared to abide by the result of my trial,’ he said clearly,

‘and it cannot matter much one way or the other whether I plead

“guilty” or “not guilty”.’

 

‘I will enter your plea as “not guilty”,’ said the

magistrate.

 

Manfred bowed.

 

‘That is at your worship’s discretion,’ he said.

 

On the seventh of June he was formally committed for trial. He had a

short interview with Falmouth before he was removed from the

police-court cells.

 

Falmouth would have found it difficult to analyse his feelings

towards this man. He scarcely knew himself whether he was glad or sorry

that fate had thrown the redoubtable leader into his hands.

 

His attitude to Manfred was that of a subordinate to a superior, and

that attitude he would have found hardest to explain.

 

When the cell door was opened to admit the detective, Manfred was

reading. He rose with a cheery smile to greet his visitor.

 

‘Well, Mr. Falmouth,’ he said lightly, ‘we enter upon the second and

more serious act of the drama.’

 

‘I don’t know whether I’m glad or sorry,’ said Falmouth bluntly.

 

‘You ought to be glad,’ said Manfred with his quizzical smile. ‘For

you’ve vindicated—’

 

‘Yes, I know all about that,’ said Falmouth dryly, ‘but it’s the

other pan I hate.’

 

‘You mean—?’

 

Manfred did not complete the question.

 

‘I do—it’s a hanging job, Mr. Manfred, and that is the hateful

business after the wonderful work you’ve done for the country.’

 

Manfred threw back his head, and laughed in unrestrained

amusement.

 

‘Oh, it’s nothing to laugh about,’ said the plain-spoken detective,

‘you are against a bad proposition—the Home Secretary is a cousin of

Ramon’s, and he hates the very name of the Four Just Men.’

 

‘Yet I may laugh,’ said Manfred calmly, ‘for I shall escape.’

 

There was no boastfulness in the speech, but a quiet assurance that

had the effect of nettling the other.

 

‘Oh, you will, will you?’ he said grimly. ‘Well, we shall see.’

 

There was no escape for Manfred in the dozen yards or so between his

cell door and the prison van. He was manacled to two warders, and a

double line of policemen formed an avenue through which he was marched.

Not from the van itself that moved in a solid phalanx of mounted men

with drawn swords. Nor from the gloomy portals of Wandsworth Gaol where

silent, uniformed men closed round him and took him to the

triple-locked cell.

 

Once in the night, as he slept, he was awakened by the sound of the

changing guard, and this amused him.

 

If one had the space to write, one could compile a whole book’

concerning Manfred’s life during the weeks he lay in gaol awaiting

trial. He had his visitors. Unusual laxity was allowed in this respect.

Falmouth hoped to find the other two men. He generously confessed his

hope to Manfred.

 

‘You may make your mind easy on that point,’ said Manfred; ‘they

will not come.’

 

Falmouth believed him.

 

‘If you were an ordinary criminal, Mr. Manfred,’ he said smilingly,

‘I should hint the possibilities of King’s evidence, but I won’t insult

you.’

 

Manfred’s reply staggered him.

 

‘Of course not,’ he said with an air of innocence; ‘if they were

arrested, who on earth would arrange my escape?’

 

The Woman of Gratz did not come to see him, and he was glad.

 

He had his daily visits from the governor, and found him charmingly

agreeable. They talked of countries known to both, of people whom each

knew equally well, and tacitly avoided forbidden subjects. Only—

 

‘I hear you are going to escape?’ said the governor, as he concluded

one of these visits. He was a largely built man, sometime Major of

Marine Artillery, and he took life seriously. Therefore he did not

share Falmouth’s view of the projected escape as being an ill-timed

jest.

 

‘Yes,’ replied Manfred.

 

‘From here?’

 

Manfred shook his head solemnly.

 

‘The details have not yet been arranged,’ he said with admirable

gravity. The governor frowned.

 

‘I don’t believe you’re trying to pull my leg—it’s too devilishly

serious a matter to joke about—but it would be an awkward thing for me

if you got away.’ He was of the prisoner’s own caste and he had supreme

faith in the word of the man who discussed prison-breaking so

lightheartedly.

 

‘That I realize,’ said Manfred with a little show of deference, ‘and

I shall accordingly arrange my plans, so that the blame shall be

equally distributed.’

 

The governor, still frowning thoughtfully, left the cell. He came

back in a few minutes.

 

‘By the way, Manfred,’ he said, ‘I forgot to tell you that you’ll

get a visit from the chaplain. He’s a very decent young fellow, and I

know I needn’t ask you to let him down lightly.’

 

With this subtle assumption of mutual paganism, he left finally.

 

‘That is a worthy gentleman,’ thought Manfred.

 

The chaplain was nervously anxious to secure an opening, and sought

amidst the trivialities that led out of the conventional exchange of

greetings a fissure for the insertion of a tactful inquiry.

 

Manfred, seeing his embarrassment, gave him the chance, and listened

respectfully while the young man talked, earnestly, sincerely,

manfully.

 

‘N—no,’ said the prisoner after a while, ‘I don’t think, Mr.

Summers, that you and I hold very different opinions, if they were all

reduced to questions of faith and appreciation of God’s goodness—but

I have got to a stage where I shrink from labelling my inmost beliefs

with this or that creed, or circumscribing the boundless limits of my

faith with words. I know you will forgive me and believe that I do not

say this from any desire to hurt you, but I have reached, too, a phase

of conviction where I am adamant to outside influence. For good or ill,

I must stand by the conceptions that I have built out of my own life

and its teachings.

 

‘There is another, and a more practical reason,’ he added, ‘why I

should not do you or any other chaplain the disservice of taking up

your time—I have no intention of dying.’

 

With this, the young minister was forced to be content. He met

Manfred frequently, talking of books and people and of strange

religions.

 

To the warders and those about him, Manfred was a source of constant

wonder. He never wearied them with the recital of his coming attempt.

Yet all that he said and did seemed founded on that one basic article

of faith: I shall escape.

 

The governor took every precaution to guard against rescue. He

applied for and secured reinforcements of warders, and Manfred, one

morning at exercise seeing strange faces amongst his guards, bantered

him with over-nervousness.

 

‘Yes,’ said the Major, ‘I’ve doubled the staff. I’m taking you at

your word, that is all—one must cling tight to the last lingering

shreds of faith one has in mankind. You say that you’re going to

escape, and I believe you.’ He thought a moment, ‘I’ve studied you,’ he

added.