# The Law of the Four Just Men/The Man Who Was Acquitted

| “ | He was tried and acquitted. Between the hour of his arrest and his release he had acquired the popularity which accumulates about the personality of successful politicians and good-looking murderers.... Possibly the enthusiasm of the crowd was fanned to its high temperature by the announcement the accused man had made in the dock—he had defended himself. "Whether I am convicted or acquitted, not one penny of my dear wife's money will I touch. I intend disposing of this accursed fortune to the poor of the country. I, for my part, shall leave this land for a distant shore and in a strange land, amidst strangers, I will cherish the memory of my dear wife, my partner and my friend." | ” |
THE MAN WHO WAS ACQUITTED
"Have you ever noticed," said Leon Gonsalez, looking up from his book and taking off the horn-rimmed glasses he wore when he was reading, "that poisoners and baby-farmers are invariably mystics?"
"I haven't noticed many baby-farmers—or poisoners for the matter of that," said Manfred with a little yawn. "Do you mean by 'mystic' an ecstatic individual who believes he can communicate directly with the Divine Power?"
Leon nodded.
"I've never quite understood the association of a superficial but vivid form of religion with crime," said Leon, knitting his forehead. "Religion, of course, does not develop the dormant criminality in a man's ethical system; but it is a fact that certain criminals develop a queer form of religious exaltation. Ferri, who questioned 200 Italian murderers, found that they were all devout: Naples, which is the most religious city in Europe, is also the most criminal. Ten per cent. of those inmates of British prisons who are tattooed are marked with religious symbols."
"Which only means that when a man of low intelligence submits to the tattoo artist, he demands pictures of the things with which he is familiar," said Manfred, and took up the paper he was reading. Suddenly he dropped the journal on his knees.
"You're thinking of Dr. Twenden," he said and Leon inclined his head slowly.
"I was," he confessed.
Manfred smiled.
"Twenden was acquitted with acclamation and cheered as he left the Exeter Assize Court," he said, "and yet he was guilty!"
"As guilty as a man can be—I wondered if your mind was on the case, George. I haven't discussed it with you."
"By the way, was he religious?" asked Manfred.
"I wouldn't say that," said the other, shaking his head. "I was thinking of the pious letter of thanks he wrote, and which was published in the Baxeter and Plymouth newspapers—it was rather like a sermon. What he is in private life I know no more than the account of the trial told me. You think he poisoned his wife?"
"I am sure," said Manfred quietly. "I intended discussing the matter with you this evening."
The trial of Dr. Twenden had provided the newspaper sensation of the week. The doctor was a man of thirty: his wife was seventeen years his senior and the suggestion was that he had married her for her money—she had a legacy of £2,000 a year which ceased at her death. Three months before this event she had inherited £63,000 from her brother, who had died in Johannesburg.
Twenden and his wife had not been on the best of terms, one of the subjects of disagreement being her unwillingness to continue paying his debts. After her inheritance had been transferred to her, she sent to Torquay, to her lawyer, the draft of a will in which she left the income from £12,000 to her husband, providing he did not marry again. The remainder of her fortune she proposed leaving to her nephew, one Jacley, a young civil engineer in the employ of the Plymouth Corporation.
The lawyer drafted her bequests and forwarded a rough copy for her approval before the will was engrossed. That draft arrived at Newton Abbot where the doctor and his wife were living (the doctor had a practice there) and was never seen again. A postman testified that it had been delivered at the 8 o'clock "round" on a Saturday. That day the doctor was called into consultation over a case of viper bite. He returned in the evening and dined with his wife. Nothing happened that was unusual. The doctor went to his laboratory to make an examination of the poison sac which had been extracted from the reptile.
In the morning Mrs. Twenden was very ill, showed symptoms which could be likened to blood-poisoning and died the same night.
It was found that in her arm was a small puncture such as might be made by a hypodermic needle, such a needle as, of course, the doctor possessed—he had in fact ten.
Suspicion fell upon him immediately. He had not summoned any further assistance besides that which he could give, until all hope of saving the unfortunate woman had gone. It was afterwards proved that the poison from which the woman had died was snake venom.
In his favour was the fact that no trace of the poison was found in either of the three syringes or the ten needles in his possession. It was his practice, and this the servants and another doctor who had ordered the treatment testified, to give his wife a subcutaneous injection of a new serum for her rheumatism.
This he performed twice a week and on the Saturday the treatment was due.
He was tried and acquitted. Between the hour of his arrest and his release he had acquired the popularity which accumulates about the personality of successful politicians and good-looking murderers, and he had been carried from the Sessions House shoulder high through a mob of cheering admirers, who had discovered nothing admirable in his character, and were not even aware of his existence, till the iron hand of the law closed upon his arm.
Possibly the enthusiasm of the crowd was fanned to its high temperature by the announcement the accused man had made in the dock—he had defended himself.
"Whether I am convicted or acquitted, not one penny of my dear wife's money will I touch. I intend disposing of this accursed fortune to the poor of the country. I, for my part, shall leave this land for a distant shore and in a strange land, amidst strangers, I will cherish the memory of my dear wife, my partner and my friend."
Here the doctor broke down.
"A distant shore," said Manfred, recalling the prisoner's passionate words. "You can do a lot with sixty-three thousand pounds on a distant shore."
The eyes of Leon danced with suppressed merriment.
"It grieves me, George, to hear such cynicism. Have you forgotten that the poor of Devonshire are even now planning how the money will be spent?"
Manfred made a noise of contempt, and resumed his reading, but his companion had not finished with the subject.
"I should like to meet Twenden," he said reflectively. "Would you care to go to Newton Abbot, George? The town itself is not particularly beautiful, but we are within half an hour's run of our old home at Babbacombe."
This time George Manfred put away his paper definitely.
"It was a particularly wicked crime," he said gravely. "I think I agree with you, Leon. I have been thinking of the matter all the morning, and it seems to call for some redress. But," he hesitated, "it also calls for some proof. Unless we can secure evidence which did not come before the Court, we cannot act on suspicion."
Leon nodded.
"But if we prove it," he said softly, "I promise you, Manfred, a most wonderful scheme."
That afternoon he called upon his friend, Mr. Fare of Scotland Yard, and when the Commissioner heard his request, he was less surprised than amused.
"I was wondering how long it would be before you wanted to see our prisons, Señor," he said. "I can arrange that with the Commissioners. What prison would you like to see?"
"I wish to see a typical county prison," said Leon. "What about Baxeter?"
"Baxeter," said the other in surprise. "That's rather a long way from London. It doesn't differ very materially from Wandsworth, which is a few miles from this building, or Pentonville, which is our headquarters prison."
"I prefer Baxeter," said Leon. "The fact is I am going to the Devonshire coast, and I could fill in my time profitably with this inspection."
The order was forthcoming on the next day. It was a printed note authorising the Governor of H.M. Prison, Baxeter, to allow the bearer to visit the prison between the hours of ten and twelve in the morning, and two and four in the afternoon.
They broke their journey at Baxeter, and Leon drove up to the prison, a prettier building than most of its kind. He was received by the Deputy Governor and a tall, good-looking chief warder, an ex-Guardsman, who showed him round the three wings, and through the restricted grounds of the gaol.
Leon rejoined his companion on the railway station just in time to catch the Plymouth express which would carry them to Newton Abbot.
"A thoroughly satisfactory visit," said Leon. "In fact, it is the most amazingly convenient prison I have ever been in."
"Convenient to get into or convenient to get away from?" asked Manfred.
"Both," said Leon.
They had not engaged rooms at either of the hotels. Leon had decided, if it was possible, to get lodgings near to the scene of the tragedy, and in this he was successful. Three houses removed from the corner house where Doctor Twenden was in residence he discovered furnished lodgings were to let.
A kindly rosy-faced Devonshire woman was the landlady, and they were the only tenants, her husband being a gunner on one of His Majesty's ships, and he was at sea. She showed them a bright sitting-room and two bedrooms on the same floor. Manfred ordered tea, and when the door closed on the woman, he turned to behold Leon standing by the window gazing intently at the palm of his left hand, which was enclosed, as was the other, in a grey silk glove.
Manfred laughed.
"I don't usually make comments on our attire, my dear Leon," he said, "and remembering your Continental origin, it is remarkable that you commit so few errors in dress—from an Englishman's point of view," he added.
"It's queer, isn't it," said Leon, still looking at his palm.
"But I've never seen you wearing silk gloves before," Manfred went on curiously. "In Spain it is not unusual to wear cotton gloves, or even silk——"
"The finest silk," murmured Leon, "and I cannot bend my hand in it."
"Is that why you've been carrying it in your pocket," said Manfred in surprise, and Gonsalez nodded.
"I cannot bend my hand in it," he said, "because in the palm of my hand is a stiff copper-plate and on that plate is half an inch thickness of plastic clay of a peculiarly fine texture."
"I see," said Manfred slowly.
"I love Baxeter prison," said Leon, "and the Deputy Governor is a dear young man: his joy in my surprise and interest when he showed me the cells was delightful to see. He even let me examine the master key of the prison, which naturally he carried, and if, catching and holding his eye, I pressed the business end of the key against the palm of my gloved hand, why it was done in a second, my dear George, and there was nothing left on the key to show him the unfair advantage I had taken."
He had taken a pair of folding scissors from his pocket and dexterously had opened them and was soon cutting away the silk palm of the glove.
"'How wonderful,' said I, 'and that is the master key!' and so we went on to see the punishment cell and the garden and the little unkempt graves where the dead men lie who have broken the law, and all the time I had to keep my hand in my pocket, for fear I'd knock against something and spoil the impression. Here it is."
The underside of the palm had evidently been specially prepared for the silk came off easily, leaving a thin grey slab of slate-coloured clay in the centre of which was clearly the impression of a key.
"The little hole at the side is where you dug the point of the key to get the diameter?" said Manfred, and Leon nodded.
"This is the master key of Baxeter Gaol, my dear Manfred," he said with a smile, as he laid it upon the table. "With this I could walk in—no, I couldn't." He stopped suddenly and bit his lip.
"You are colossal," said Manfred admiringly.
"Aren't I," said Leon with a wry face. "Do you know there is one door we can't open?"
"What is that?"
"The big gates outside. They can only be opened from the inside. H'm."
He laid his hat carefully over the clay mould when the landlady came in with the tray.
Leon sipped his tea, staring vacantly at the lurid wallpaper, and Manfred did nor interrupt his thoughts.
Leon Gonsalez had ever been the schemer of the Four Just Men, and he had developed each particular of his plan as though it were a story he was telling himself.
His extraordinary imagination enabled him to foresee every contingency. Manfred had often said that the making of the plan gave Leon as much pleasure as its successful consummation.
"What a stupid idiot I am," he said at last. "I didn't realise that there was no keyhole in the main gate of a prison—except of course Dartmoor."
Again he relapsed into silent contemplation of the wall, a silence broken by cryptic mutterings. "I send the wire ... It must come, of course, from London ... They would send down if the wire was strong enough. It must be five men—no five could go into a taxi—six ... If the door of the van is locked, but it won't be.... If it fails then I could try the next night."
"What on earth are you talking about?" asked Manfred good-humouredly.
Leon woke with a start from his reverie.
"We must first prove that this fellow is guilty," he said, "and we'll have to start on that job to-night. I wonder if our good landlady has a garden."
The good landlady had one. It stretched out for two hundred yards at the back of the house, and Leon made a survey and was satisfied.
"The doctor's place?" he asked innocently, as the landlady pointed out this object of interest. "Not the man who was tried at Baxeter?"
"The very man," said the woman triumphantly. "I tell you, it caused a bit of a sensation round here."
"Do you think he was innocent?"
The landlady was not prepared to take a definite standpoint.
"Some think one thing and some think the other," she replied, in the true spirit of diplomacy. "He's always been a nice man, and he attended my husband when he was home last."
"Is the doctor staying in his house?"
"Yes, sir," said the woman. "He's going abroad soon."
"Oh yes, he is distributing that money, isn't he? I read something about it in the newspapers—the poor are to benefit, are they not?"
The landlady sniffed.
"I hope they get it," she said significantly.
"Which means that you don't think they will," smiled Manfred, strolling back from an inspection of her early chrysanthemums.
"They may," said the cautious landlady, "but nothing has happened yet. The vicar went to the doctor yesterday morning, and asked him whether a little of it couldn't be spared for the poor of Newton Abbot. We've had a lot of unemployment here lately, and the doctor said 'Yes he would think about it', and sent him a cheque for fifty pounds from what I heard."
"That's not a great deal," said Manfred. "What makes you think he is going abroad?"
"All his trunks are packed and his servants are under notice, that's how I came to know," said the landlady. "I don't think it's a bad thing. Poor soul, she didn't have a very happy life."
The "poor soul" referred to was apparently the doctor's wife, and when asked to explain, the landlady knew no more than that people had talked, that there was probably nothing in it, and why shouldn't the doctor go motoring on the moor with pretty girls if he felt that way inclined.
"He had his fancies," said the landlady.
Apparently those "fancies" came and went through the years of his married life.
"I should like to meet the doctor," said Leon, but she shook her head.
"He won't see anyone, not even his patients, sir," she said.
Nevertheless Leon succeeded in obtaining an interview. He had judged the man's character correctly thus far, and he knew he would not refuse an interview with a journalist.
The servant took Leon's name, closing the front door in his face while she went to see the doctor, and when she came back it was to invite him in.
He found the medical gentleman in his study, and the dismantled condition of the room supported Mrs. Martin's statement that he was leaving the town at an early date. He was in fact engaged in destroying old business letters and bills when Leon arrived.
"Come in," grumbled the doctor. "I suppose if I didn't see you, you'd invent something about me. Now what do you want?"
He was a good-looking young man with regular features, a carefully trimmed black moustache and tiny black side-whiskers.
"Light-blue eyes I do not like," said Leon to himself, "and I should like to see you without a moustache."
"I've been sent down from London to ask to what charities you are distributing your wife's money, Dr. Twenden," said Leon, with the brisk and even rude directness of a London reporter.
The doctor's lips curled.
"The least they can do is to give me a chance to make up my mind," he said. "The fact is, I've got to go abroad on business, and whilst I'm away I shall carefully consider the merits of the various charity organisations of Devon to discover which are the most worthy and how the money is to be distributed."
"Suppose you don't come back again?" asked Leon cruelly. "I mean, anything might happen; the ship may sink or the train smash—what happens to the money then?"
"That is entirely my affair," said the doctor stiffly, and closing his eyes, arched his eyebrows for a second as he spoke. "I really don't wish to reopen this matter. I've had some very charming letters from the public, but I've had abusive ones too. I had one this morning saying that it was a pity that the Four Just Men were not in existence! The Four just Men!" he smiled contemptuously, "as though I should have cared a snap of my fingers for that kind of cattle!"
Leon smiled too.
"Perhaps it would be more convenient if I saw you to-night," he suggested.
The doctor shook his head.
"I'm to be the guest of honour of a few friends of mine," he said, with a queer air of importance, "and I shan't be back until half past eleven at the earliest."
"Where is the dinner to be held? That might make an interesting item of news," said Leon.
"It's to be held at the Lion Hotel. You can say that Sir John Murden is in the chair, and that Lord Tussborough has promised to attend. I can give you the list of the people who'll be there."
"The dinner engagement is a genuine one," thought Leon with satisfaction.
The list was forthcoming, and pocketing the paper with due reverence, Gonsalez bowed himself out. From his bedroom window that evening he watched the doctor, splendidly arrayed, enter a taxi and drive away. A quarter of an hour later the servant, whom Leon had seen, came out pulling on her gloves. Gonsalez watched her for a good quarter of an hour, during which time she stood at the corner of the street. She was obviously waiting for something or somebody. What it was he saw. The Torquay bus passed by, stopped, and she mounted it.
After dinner he had a talk with the landlady and brought the conversation back to the doctor's house.
"I suppose it requires a lot of servants to keep a big house like that going."
"He's only got one now, sir: Milly Brown, who lives in Torquay. She is leaving on Saturday. The cook left last week. The doctor has all his meals at the hotel."
He left Manfred to talk to the landlady—and Manfred could be very entertaining.
Slipping through the garden he reached a little alleyway at the back of the houses. The back gate giving admission to the doctor's garden was locked, but the wall was not high. He expected that the door of the house would be fastened, and he was not surprised when he found it was locked. A window by the side of the door was, however, wide open: evidently neither the doctor nor his maid expected burglars. He climbed through the window on to the kitchen sink, through the kitchen and into the house, without difficulty. His search of the library into which he had been shown that afternoon was a short one. The desk had no secret drawers, and most of the papers had been burnt. The ashes overflowed the grate on to the tiled hearth. The little laboratory, which had evidently been a creamery when the house was in former occupation, yielded nothing, nor did any of the rooms.
He had not expected that in this one search he would make a discovery, remembering that the police had probably ransacked the house after the doctor's arrest and had practically been in occupation ever since.
He went systematically and quickly through the pockets of all the doctor's clothing that he found in the wardrobe of his bedroom, but it produced nothing more interesting than a theatre programme.
"I'm afraid I shan't want that key," said Leon regretfully, and went downstairs again. He turned on his pocket lamp: there might be other clothing hanging in the hall, but he found the rack was empty.
As he flashed the light around, the beam caught a large tin letter-box fastened to the door. He lifted up the yellow lid and at first saw nothing. The letter-box looked as if it had been home-made. It was, as he had seen at first, of grained and painted tin that had been shaped roughly round a wooden frame; he saw the supports at each corner. One was broken. He put in his hand, and saw that what he thought had been the broken ends of the frame, was a small square packet standing bolt upright: it was now so discoloured by dust that it seemed to be part of the original framework. He pulled it out, tearing the paper cover as he did so; it had been held in its place by the end of a nail which had been driven into the original wood, which explained why it had not fallen over when the door had been slammed. He blew the dust from it; the package was addressed from the Pasteur Laboratory. He had no desire to examine it there, and slipped it into his pocket, getting out of the house by the way he had come in, and rejoining Manfred just when that gentleman was beginning to get seriously worried, for Leon had been three hours in the house.
"Did you find anything?" asked Manfred when they were alone.
"This," said Leon. He pulled the packet out of his pocket and explained where he had found it.
"The Pasteur Institute," said Manfred in surprise. "Of course," he said suddenly, "the serum which the doctor used to inject into his wife's arm. Pasteur are the only people who prepare that. I remember reading as much in the account of the trial."
"And which he injected twice a week, if I remember rightly," said Leon, "on Wednesdays and Saturdays, and the evidence was that he did not inject it on the Wednesday before the murder. It struck me at the time as being rather curious that nobody asked him when he was in the witness box why he had omitted this injection."
He cut along the paper and pulled it apart: inside was an oblong wooden box, about which was wrapped a letter. It bore the heading of the laboratory, directions, and was in French:
    "Sir (it began),
    "We despatch to you immediately the serum Number 47 which you desire, and we regret that through the fault of a subordinate, this was not sent you last week. We received your telegram to-day that you are entirely without serum, and we will endeavour to expedite the delivery of this."
"Entirely without serum," repeated Gonsalez. He took up the wrapping-paper and examined the stamp. "Paris, the 14th September," he said, "and here's the receiving stamp, Newton Abbot the 16th September, 7 a.m."
He frowned.
"This was pushed through the letter-box on the morning of the 16th," he said slowly. "Mrs. Twenden was injected on the evening of the 15th. The 16th was a Sunday, and there's an early post. Don't you see, Manfred?"
Manfred nodded.
"Obviously he could not have injected serum because he had none to inject, and this arrived when his wife was dying. It is, of course, untouched."
He took out a tiny tube and tapped the seal.
"H'm," said Leon, "I shall want that key after all. Do you remember, Manfred, he did not inject on Wednesday: why? because he had no serum. He was expecting the arrival of this, and it must have gone out of his mind. Probably we shall discover that the postman knocked, and getting no answer on the Sunday morning, pushed the little package through the letter-box, where by accident it must have fallen into the corner where I discovered it."
He put down the paper and drew a long breath.
"And now I think I will get to work on that key," he said.
Two days later Manfred came in with news.
"Where is my friend?"
Mrs. Martin, the landlady, smiled largely.
"The gentleman is working in the greenhouse, sir. I thought he was joking the other day when he asked if he could put up a vice on the potting bench, but, lord, he's been busy ever since!"
"He's inventing a new carburettor," said Manfred, devoutly hoping that the lady had no knowledge of the internal-combustion engine.
"He's working hard, too, sir; he came out to get a breath of air just now, and I never saw a gentleman perspire so! He seems to be working with that file all the day."
"You mustn't interrupt him," began Manfred.
"I shouldn't dream of doing it," said the landlady indignantly.
Manfred made his way to the garden, and his friend, who saw him coming—the greenhouse made an ideal workshop for Leon, for he could watch his landlady's approach and conceal the key he had been filing for three days—walked to meet him.
"He is leaving to-day, or rather tonight," said Manfred. "He's going to Plymouth: there he will catch the Holland-American boat to New York."
"To-night?" said Leon in surprise. "That cuts me rather fine. By what train?"
"That I don't know," said Manfred.
"You're sure?"
Manfred nodded.
"He's giving it out that he's leaving to-morrow, and is slipping away to-night. I don't think he wants people to know of his departure. I discovered it through an indiscretion of the worthy doctor's. I was in the post office when he was sending a wire. He had his pocket-book open on the counter, and I saw some labels peeping out. I knew they were steamship labels, and I glimpsed the printed word 'Rotterdam', looked up the newspapers, and saw that the Rotterdam was leaving tomorrow. When I heard that he had told people that he was leaving Newton Abbot to-morrow I was certain."
"That's all to the good," said Leon. "George, we're going to achieve the crowning deed of our lives. I say 'we', but I'm afraid I must do this alone—though you have a very important role to play."
He chuckled softly and rubbed his hands.
"Like every other clever criminal he has made one of the most stupid of blunders. He has inherited his wife's money under an old will, which left him all her possessions, with the exception of £2,000 which she had on deposit at the bank, and this went to her nephew, the Plymouth engineer. In his greed Twenden is pretty certain to have forgotten this legacy. He's got all the money in a Torquay bank. It was transferred from Newton Abbot a few days ago and was the talk of the town. Go to Plymouth, interview young Jacley, see his lawyer, if he has one, or any lawyer if he hasn't, and if the two thousand pounds has not been paid, get him to apply for a warrant for Twenden's arrest. He is an absconding trustee under those circumstances, and the Justices will grant the warrant if they know the man is leaving by the Rotterdam tomorrow."
"If you were an ordinary man, Leon," said Manfred, "I should think that your revenge was a little inadequate."
"It will not be that," said Leon quietly.
At nine-thirty, Dr. Twenden, with his coat collar turned up and the brim of a felt hat hiding the upper part of his face, was entering a first-class carriage at Newton Abbot, when the local detective-sergeant whom he knew tapped him on the shoulder.
"I want you, Doctor."
"Why, Sergeant?" demanded the doctor, suddenly white.
"I have a warrant for your arrest," said the officer.
When the charge was read over to the man at the police station he raved like a lunatic.
"I'll give you the money now, now! I must go to-night. I'm leaving for America tomorrow."
"So I gather," said the Inspector dryly. "That is why you're arrested, Doctor."
And they locked him in the cells for the night.
The next morning he was brought before the Justices. Evidence was taken, the young nephew from Plymouth made his statement, and the Justices conferred.
"There is prima facie evidence here of intention to defraud, Dr. Twenden," said the chairman at last. "You are arrested with a very large sum of money and letters of credit in your possession, and it seems clear that it was your intention to leave the country. Under those circumstances we have no other course to follow, but commit you to take your trial at the forthcoming session."
"But I can have bail: I insist upon that," said the doctor furiously.
"There will be no bail," was the sharp reply, and that afternoon he was removed by taxi-cab to Baxeter prison.
The Sessions were for the following week, and the doctor again fumed in that very prison from which he had emerged if not with credit, at least without disaster.
On the second day of his incarceration the Governor of Baxeter Gaol received a message:
    "Six star men transferred to you will arrive at Baxeter Station 10.15. Arrange for prison van to meet."
It was signed "Imprison", which is the telegraphic address of the Prison Commissioner.
It happened that just about then there had been a mutiny in one of the London prisons, and the deputy governor, beyond expressing his surprise as to the lateness of the hour, arranged for the prison van to be at Baxeter station yard to meet the batch of transfers.
The 10.15 from London drew into the station, and the warders waiting on the platform walked slowly down the train looking for a carriage with drawn blinds But there were no prisoners on the train, and there was no other train due until four o'clock in the morning.
"They must have missed it," said one of the warders. "All right, Jerry," this to the driver. He slammed the door of the Black Maria which had been left open, and the van lumbered out of the station yard.
Slowly up the slope and through the black prison gates: the van turned through another gate to the left, a gate set at right angles to the first, and stopped before the open doors of a brick shed isolated from the prison.
The driver grumbled as he descended and unharnessed his horses.
"I shan't put the van in the shed to-night," he said. "Perhaps you'll get some of the prisoners to do it tomorrow."
"That will be all right," said the warder, anxious to get away.
The horses went clopping from the place of servitude, there was a snap of locks as the gates were closed, and then silence.
So far all was well from one man's point of view. A roaring south-wester was blowing down from Dartmoor round the angles of the prison, and wailing through the dark, deserted yard.
Suddenly there was a gentle crack, and the door of the Black Maria opened. Leon had discovered that his key could not open yet another door. He had slipped into the prison van when the warders were searching the train, and had found some difficulty in getting out again. No men were coming from London, as he knew, but he was desperately in need of that Black Maria. It had piloted him to the very spot he wished to go. He listened. There was no sound save the wind, and he walked cautiously to a little glass covered building, and plied his master key. The lock turned, and he was inside a small recess where the prisoners were photographed. Through another door and he was in a store-room. Beyond that lay the prison wards. He had questioned wisely and knew where the remand cells were to be found.
A patrol would pass soon, he thought, looking at his watch, and he waited till he heard footsteps go by the door. The patrol would now be traversing a wing at right angles to the ward, and he opened the door and stepped into the deserted hall. He heard the feet of the patrol man receding and went softly up a flight of iron stairs to the floor above and along the cell doors. Presently he saw the man he wanted. His key went noiselessly into the cell door and turned. Doctor Twenden blinked up at him from his wooden bed.
"Get up," whispered Gonsalez, "and turn round."
Numbly the doctor obeyed.
Leon strapped his hands behind him and took him by the arm, stopping to lock the cell door. Out through the store-room into the little glass place, then before the doctor knew what had happened, he slipped a large silk handkerchief over his mouth.
"Can you hear me?"
The man nodded.
"Can you feel that?"
"That" was a something sharp that slabbed his left arm. He tried lo wriggle his arm away.
"You will recognise the value of a hypodermic syringe, you better than any," said the voice of Gonsalez in his ear. "You murdered an innocent woman, and you evaded the law. A few days ago you spoke of the Four Just Men. I am one of them!"
The man stared into the darkness at a face he could not see.
"The law missed you, but we have not missed you. Can you understand?"
The head nodded more slowly now.
Leon released his grip of the man's arm, and felt him slipping to the floor. There he lay whilst Gonsalez went into the shed, pulled up the two traps that hung straightly in the pit until they clicked together, and slipped the end of the rope he had worn round his waist over the beam....
Then he went back to the unconscious man.
In the morning when the warders came to the coach house, which was also the execution shed, they saw a taut rope. The track was open, and a man was at the end of the rope, very still. A man who had escaped the gallows of the law, but had died at the hands of justice.
THE END