Free (1929) The Three Just Men by Edgar Wallace Page A

studs had gone: there were small pearls in their place, and his white waistcoat had no chain across. And on his upper lip had sprouted a small brown moustache, so natural that even Oberzohn, scrutinizing closely, could find no fault with it. The doctor took a case from his pocket, fingered out three crisp notes.
    “Your hands, please?”
    Gurther took three paces to the old man, halted, clicked his heels and held out his hands for inspection.
    “Good! You know Leon Gonsalez? He will be at the Arts Ball. He wears no fancy dress. He was the man who whipped you.”
    “He was the man who whipped me,” said Gurther without heat.
    There was a silence, Dr. Oberzohn pursing his lips.
    “Also, he did that which brands him as an infamous assassin…I think… yes, I think my dear Gurther…there will be a girl also, but the men of my police will be there to arrange such matters. Benton will give you instructions. For you, only Gonsalez.”
    Gurther bowed stiffly.
    “I have implored the order,” he said, bowed again and withdrew. Later, Dr. Oberzohn heard the drone of the little car as it bumped and slithered across the grass to the road. He resumed his book: this matter of eternity was fascinating.
    The Arts Ball at the Corinthian Hall as one of the events of the season, and the tickets, issued exclusively to the members of three clubs, were eagerly sought by society people who could not be remotely associated with any but the art of living.
    When the girl came into the crowded hall, she looked around in wonder. The balconies, outlined in soft lights and half-hidden with flowers, had been converted into boxes; the roof had been draped with blue and gold tissue; at one end of the big hall was a veritable bower of roses, behind which one of the two bands was playing. Masks in every conceivable guise were swinging rhythmically across the polished floor. To the blase, there was little difference between the Indians, the pierrots and the cavaliers to be seen here and those they had seen a hundred times on a hundred different floors.
    As the girl gazed round in wonder and delight, forgetting all her misgivings, two men, one in evening dress, the other in the costume of a brigand, came from under the shadow of the balcony towards them.
    “Here are our partners,” said Joan, with sudden vivacity. ‘“Mirabelle, I want you to know Lord Evington.”
    The man in evening dress stroked his little moustache, clicked his heels and bent forward in a stiff bow. He was thin-faced, a little pallid, unsmiling. His round, dark eyes surveyed her for a second, and then:
    “I’m glad to meet you, Miss Leicester,” he said, in a high, harsh voice, that had just the trace of a foreign accent.
    This struck the girl with as much surprise as the cold kiss he had implanted upon her hand, and, as if he read her thoughts, he went on quickly:
    “I have lived so long abroad that England and English manners are strange to me. Won’t you dance? And had you not better mask? I must apologise to you for my costume.” He shrugged his shoulders. “But there was no gala dress available.”
    She fixed the red mask, and in another second she was gliding through the crowd and was presently lost to view.
    “I don’t understand it all, Benton.”
    Joan was worried and frightened. She had begun to realize that the game she played was something different…her part more sinister than any role she had yet filled. To jolly along the gilded youth to the green tables of Captain Monty Newton was one thing; but never before had she seen the gang working against a woman.
    “I don’t know,” grumbled the brigand, who was not inaptly arrayed. “There’s been a hurry call for everybody.” He glanced round uneasily as though he feared his words might be overheard. “All the guns are here—Defson, Cuccini, Jewy Stubbs…”
    “The guns?” she whispered in horror, paling under her rouge. “You mean…?”
    “The guns are out: that’s all I know,” he said