The Board meeting after three o’clock sat to a continuous accompaniment of rifle fire. But Senor Rosas, with a Roman fortitude held the attention of his colleagues to the business of the agenda. The members seemed sunk in bewilderment, and it is difficult to believe that their minds worked competently on their business. The Vice-President did most of the talking. “It is all right, gentlemen,” he would say, on receiving a message from his secretary: “the Police are managing this little affair very well.”
At half past five the last defences of the Bodyguard fell. It was a bloody business, for Kubek, who had learned the art of street-fighting in Eastern Europe, put up a stout resistance till he got a bullet in his windpipe. Peters ruefully calculated that that day the Police had over sixty men dead and nearly a hundred wounded, but he consoled himself with the reflection that the Bodyguard could not have a dozen survivors. He himself was bleeding from two wounds, but they must go untended, for he had still much to do. He hastened to confer with a slight youngish man, who wore civilian clothes—an old tweed jacket and riding breeches of the English cut—and who had joined him at the smelting works on his arrival that morning.
About 6 p.m. the Vice-President at last brought the Board meeting to an end. His secretary had just handed him written message which seemed to give him satisfaction.
“Gentlemen,” he said, “our labours are over for the day, I thank you for the attention you have given to the Company’s business under somewhat trying conditions. And now, I judge, we are all going to have a bit of a holiday. I ought to tell you that important events have just taken place in this city, and our activities have got to close do for a spell. There has been a revolution, gentlemen. The workers of the Gran Seco have risen against the Government of Olifa, and they are counting on our President be their leader. I have no authority to speak for his Excellency, but I guess it’s more than likely that he will consent. What I have got to say is that you gentlemen are free to do what you please. You can’t oppose the revolution in township, for it has already succeeded, but there’s no call for you to take a part in it unless you like. You can stay on here, and “—here there was a significant pause—”I will make it my business to see that your comforts are attended to.”
The members, hypnotised by the long tension of the afternoon, stared blankly at the speaker. Then slowly life seemed to waken in their opaque eyes. The man called Lariarty became their spokesman. He rose and bowed to the chair.
“I think we will go down to Olifa,” he said.
At that moment there came the sound of explosions one after another in a chain, which set the windows rattling.
The Vice-President shook his head.
“I reckon that’s impossible, gentlemen. What you hear is the blowing up of the rolling stock at the railway-station. There will be no facilities for travel to Olifa, till Olifa makes them afresh.”
XIII
About 8 p.m., when the dark had fallen, two men groped their way into a room in the oldest quarter of the city, just above the dusty hollow which separated it from the works area. It was a hut in a yard, reached by a circuitous passage among sheds and the back premises of low-class taverns. The place was very quiet, for the inhabitants were out in the main streets, eager to catch what they could in the troubled waters. It was also very dark, till one of the men struck a light and revealed a dirty little cubby-hole which had once been an Indian cabin. Then he put his back to the door and listened, as if he were expecting others to join him.
The man at the door bore the marks of hard usage. He was dirty and dishevelled, there was a long shallow cut on his left cheek, and he limped as if from a wound in the leg. His face was white, his air was weary and dejected, but his eyes were as quick and ugly as a mad hound’s. The other, who had seated himself on a barrel, was of a different type. He was neatly dressed in a dark suit, with a blue linen collar, a black tie, and a pearl pin. His face likewise was white, but it was with the pallor of settled habit and not of strain, and his eyes, opaque and expressionless, gave him an air of calm and self-possession.
“How many’s left?” said the man at the door, as if in answer to a question. “God knows, and He won’t tell. Mollison got away from the last bloody show, and Snell was on the Regina roof and presumably escaped the round-up. Bechstein was never in the scrap at all, for he was in bed this morning with a touch of fever. Radin got off, I hear, and no one saw Molinoff after midday. Let’s put our salvage at half a dozen. Enough to do the job, say I, if there’s any luck left to us.”
The man on the barrel said something in a low voice, and the other laughed angrily.
“That blasted Mexican was at the bottom of it. Of course I know that, but how in hell can we touch him? He has gotten five thousand men to protect his fat carcass. Poor old Kubek! He never spotted that Rosas was in the game or there would have been one dago less in the world. It’s the other we’re laying for, the man that Kubek got on the trail of but couldn’t get up with. I don’t know his name, curse him, but I know the cut of his jib. If I can put it across him, I’ll die happy. He’s been up here off and on for months, slipping about in the dark like a skunk, and leaving no trace but a stink.”
“He will not come here,” said the man on the barrel.
“I say he will. Mollison knew where to find him, for they used to drink together. Pete is the stricken penitent now, anxious to stand well with the new authorities, and that God—darned mystery man is the brain of the business. He wants to round up the remnant of us, and Pete’s going to help him. He’s coming here at half past eight to be put wise by Pete about certain little things that concern the public peace. I reckon he’ll find the peace of God.”
There were steps in the alley, and the doorkeeper, looking through a chink in the boarding, was satisfied. He opened, and a man entered. It was a squat fellow with a muffler round his throat and the bright eyes of fever. “Snell’s dead,” he gasped as he dropped wearily on a heap of straw.
A moment later there came the sound of double footsteps, and two men were admitted, one a tall man with high cheek-bones and the other a handsome youth with a neat fair moustache. Both wore bandages, one on his left arm and one across the forehead. But they seemed less weary than the others, and they remained standing, each with a hand in a side pocket and their eyes fixed on the doorway.
Once again came double footsteps and the little party fell as silent as the grave. A hat was put over the lantern.
The man at the door held up a warning hand and did not open it, but stood back a pace. There was a sound of fumbling with the latch, and the door opened slowly. Two men entered, one a bearded giant whose coat had been rent so that the left side flapped over his shoulder and whose lips were bleeding, the other a slim, youngish man in an old tweed jacket and breeches of an English cut.
No sooner were they inside than the covering was removed from the lamp. The doorkeeper had his back to the door, the man on the straw got to his feet, and the giant caught his companion from behind and held his arms.
Four pistol barrels glimmered in the scanty light.
“Hullo,” said the newcomer. “There are more friends here than I expected. You have done me proud, Mollison.”
It was a strange and macabre scene. The man with the dark suit and the pearl pin sat unmoved on the barrel, his opaque eyes stolidly regarding him who seemed to be a prisoner. Bechstein, the man with the fever, had his revolver laid over one arm, as if he were uncertain of his shaking limbs. The doorkeeper lolled against the door-post grinning, Radin and Molinoff stood on each side like executioners, and the giant Mollison spat blood from his mouth, while his great face hung like a monstrous gargoyle over the slim figure of his captive.
That