The Council of Justice by Otto Penzler

Author:Otto Penzler
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781480493926
Publisher: MysteriousPress.com/Open Road

CHAPTER IX.

The Four v. The Hundred

SOME WORKMEN, RETURNING HOME of an evening and taking a shortcut through a field two miles from Catford, saw a man hanging from a tree.

They ran across and found a fashionably dressed gentleman of foreign appearance. One of the labourers cut the rope with his knife, but the man was dead when they cut him down. Beneath the tree was a black bag, to which somebody had affixed a label bearing the warning, ‘Do not touch—this bag contains explosives: inform the police.’ More remarkable still was the luggage label tied to the lapel of the dead man’s coat. It ran: ‘This is Franz Kitsinger, convicted at Prague in 1904, for throwing a bomb; escaped from prison March 17, 1905, was one of the three men responsible for the attempt on the Tower Bridge today. Executed by order of The Council of Justice.’

‘It’s a humiliating confession,’ said the chief commissioner when they brought the news to him, ‘but the presence of these men takes a load off my mind.’

But the Red Hundred were grimly persistent.

That night, a man smoking a cigar strolled aimlessly past the policeman on point duty at the corner of Kensington Park Gardens and walked casually into Ladbroke Square. He strolled on, turned a corner, and, crossing a road, came to where one great garden served for a double row of middle-class houses. The backs of these houses opened on to the square. He looked round and, seeing the coast clear, he clambered over the iron railings and dropped into the big pleasure ground, holding very carefully an object that bulged in his pocket.

He took a leisurely view of the houses before he decided on the victim. The blinds of this particular house were up, and the French windows of the dining room were open, and he could see the laughing group of young people about the table. There was a birthday party or something of the sort in progress, for there was a great parade of Parthian caps and paper sunbonnets.

The man was evidently satisfied with the possibilities for tragedy, and he took a pace nearer …

Two strong arms were about him, arms with muscles like cords of steel.

‘Not that way, my friend,’ whispered a voice in his ear …

The man showed his teeth in a dreadful grin.

The sergeant on duty at Notting Hill Gate Station received a note at the hands of a grimy urchin, who for days afterward maintained a position of enviable notoriety.

‘A gentleman told me to bring this,’ he said.

The sergeant looked at the small boy sternly and asked him if he ever washed his face. Then he read the letter:

‘The second man of the three concerned in the attempt to blow up the Tower Bridge will be found in the garden of Maidham Crescent, under the laurel bushes, opposite No. 72.’

It was signed ‘The Council of Justice’.

The commissioner was sitting over his coffee at the Ritz when they brought him the news. Falmouth was a deferential guest, and the chief passed him the note without comment.

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