Four Just Men | Page 9

did not realise that Dax is no farther
from London than Aberdeen.
But here was the Hidden Terror in the Metropolis itself. Why, argued
London, with suspicious sidelong glances, every man we rub elbows
with may be one of the Four, and we none the wiser.
Heavy, black-looking posters stared down from blank walls, and filled
the breadth of every police noticeboard.
£1000 REWARD
Whereas, on August 18, at about 4.30 o'clock in the afternoon, an
infernal machine was deposited in the Members' Smoke-Room by some
person or persons unknown.
And whereas there is reason to believe that the person or persons
implicated in the disposal of the aforesaid machine are members of an
organised body of criminals known as The Four Just Men, against
whom warrants have been issued on charges of wilful murder in
London, Paris, New York, New Orleans, Seattle (USA), Barcelona,
Tomsk, Belgrade, Christiania, Capetown and Caracas.
Now, therefore, the above reward will be paid by his Majesty's
Government to any person or persons who shall lay such information as
shall lead to the apprehension of any of or the whole of the persons
styling themselves The Four Just Men and identical with the band
before mentioned.
And, furthermore, a free pardon and the reward will be paid to any
member of the band for such information, providing the person laying
such information has neither committed nor has been an accessory
before or after the act of any of the following murders.
(Signed)Ryday Montgomery, His Majesty's Secretary of State for

Home Affairs.
J. B. Calfort, Commissioner of Police.
Here followed a list of the sixteen crimes alleged against the four men.
God Save the King
All day long little knots of people gathered before the broadsheets,
digesting the magnificent offer.
It was an unusual hue and cry, differing from those with which
Londoners were best acquainted. For there was no appended
description of the men wanted; no portraits by which they might be
identified, no stereotyped 'when last seen was wearing a dark blue serge
suit, cloth cap, check tie', on which the searcher might base his scrutiny
of the passer-by.
It was a search for four men whom no person had ever consciously seen,
a hunt for a will-o'-the-wisp, a groping in the dark after indefinite
shadows.
Detective Superintendent Falmouth, who was a very plain-spoken man
(he once brusquely explained to a Royal Personage that he hadn't got
eyes in the back of his head), told the Assistant Commissioner exactly
what he thought about it.
"You can't catch men when you haven't got the slightest idea who or
what you're looking for. For the sake of argument, they might be
women for all we know-- they might be chinamen or niggers; they
might be tall or short; they might--why, we don't even know their
nationality! They've committed crimes in almost every country in the
world. They're not French because they killed a man in Paris, or
Yankee because they strangled Judge Anderson."
"The writing," said the Commissioner, referring to a bunch of letters he
held in his hand.

"Latin; but that may be a fake. And suppose it isn't? There's no
difference between the handwriting of a Frenchman, Spaniard,
Portuguese, Italian, South American, or Creole--and, as I say, it might
be a fake, and probably is."
"What have you done?" asked the Commissioner.
"We've pulled in all the suspicious characters we know. We've cleaned
out Little Italy, combed Bloomsbury, been through Soho, and searched
all the colonies. We raided a place at Nunhead last night--a lot of
Armenians live down there, but----"
The detective's face bore a hopeless look.
"As likely as not," he went on, "we should find them at one of the
swagger hotels--that's if they were fools enough to bunch together; but
you may be sure they're living apart, and meeting at some unlikely spot
once or twice a day."
He paused, and tapped his fingers absently on the big desk at which he
and his superior sat.
"We've had de Courville over," he resumed. "He saw the Soho crowd,
and what is more important, saw his own man who lives amongst
them--and it's none of them, I'll swear--or at least he swears, and I'm
prepared to accept his word."
The Commissioner shook his head pathetically.
"They're in an awful stew in Downing Street," he said. "They do not
know exactly what is going to happen next."
Mr Falmouth rose to his feet with a sigh and fingered the brim of his
hat.
"Nice time ahead of us--I don't think," he remarked paradoxically.
"What are the people thinking about it?" asked the Commissioner.

"You've seen the papers?"
Mr .Commissioner's shrug was uncomplimentary to British journalism.
"The papers! Who in Heaven's name is going to take the slightest
notice of what is in the papers!" he