Free Four Just Men by Edgar Wallace

Senor Gonsalez did right to spare your life and bring you back to us."
    Thery dropped his eyes before the half-quizzical smile of the speaker.
    "Tomorrow night you will do as you agreed to do--if the necessity still exists. Then you will go----" he paused.
    "Where?" demanded Thery in sudden rage. "Where in the name of Heaven ? I have told them my name, they will know who I am--they will find that by writing to the police. Where am I to go?"
    He sprang to his feet, glowering on the three men, his hands trembling with rage, his great frame shaking with the intensity of his anger.
    "You betrayed yourself," said Manfred quietly; "that is your punishment. But we will find a place for you, a new Spain under other skies--and the girl at Jerez shall be there waiting for you."
    Thery looked from one to the other suspiciously. Were they laughing at him ?
    There was no smile on their faces; Gonsalez alone looked at him with keen, inquisitive eyes, as though he saw some hidden meaning in the speech.
    "Will you swear that?" asked Thery hoarsely, "will you swear that by the----"
    "I promise that--if you wish it I will swear it," said Manfred. "And now," he went on, his voice changing, "you know what is expected of you tomorrow night-- what you have to do ?"
    Thery nodded.
    "There must be no hitch--no bungling; you and I and Poiccart and Gonsalez will kill this unjust man in a way that the world will never guess--such an execution as shall appall mankind. A swift death, a sure death, a death that will creep through cracks, that will pass by the guards unnoticed. Why, there never has been such a thing done--such----" he stopped dead with flushed cheeks and kindling eyes, and met the gaze of his two companions. Poiccart impassive, sphinxlike, Leon interested and analytic. Manfred's face went a duller red.
    "I am sorry," he said almost humbly; "for the moment I had forgotten the cause, and the end, in the strangeness of the means."
    He raised his hand deprecatingly.
    "It is understandable," said Poiccart gravely, and Leon pressed Manfred's arm.
    The three stood in embarrassed silence for a moment, then Manfred laughed.
    "To work!" he said, and led the way to the improvised laboratory.
    Inside Thery took off his coat. Here was his province, and from being the cowed dependant he took charge of the party, directing them, instructing, commanding, until he had the men of whom, a few minutes before, he had stood in terror running from studio to laboratory, from floor to floor.
    There was much to be done, much testing, much calculating, many little sums to be worked out on paper, for in the killing of Sir Philip Ramon all the resources of modern science were to be pressed into the service of the Four.
    "I am going to survey the land," said Manfred suddenly, and disappearing into the studio returned with a pair of step-ladders. These he straddled in the dark passage, and mounting quickly pushed up a trapdoor that led to the flat roof of the building.
    He pulled himself up carefully, crawled along the leaden surface, and raising himself cautiously looked over the low parapet.
    He was in the centre of a half mile circle of uneven roofs. Beyond the circumference of his horizon London loomed murkily through smoke and mist. Below was a busy street. He took a hasty survey of the roof with its chimney stacks, its unornamental telegraph pole, its leaden floor and rusty guttering; then, through a pair of field-glasses, made a long, careful survey southward. He crawled slowly back to the trapdoor, raised it, and let himself down very gingerly till his feet touched the top of the ladder. Then he descended rapidly, closing the door after him.
    "Well?" asked Thery with something of triumph in his voice.
    "I see you have labelled it," said Manfred.
    "It is better so--since we shall work in the dark," said Thery.
    "Did you see then----?" began Poiccart.
    Manfred nodded.
    "Very indistinctly--one could just see the Houses of Parliament dimly, and Downing Street is a