“Printed at Maybrick Hall,” said Sir Bryan grimly. “And listen to this—a couple of the Ten Proletarian Maxims.
“‘Thou shalt demand on behalf of your class the COMPLETE SURRENDER of the CAPITALIST CLASS.’
“And another:
“‘Thou shalt teach REVOLUTION, for revolution means the abolition of the present political state, the end of Capitalism.’”
He gave a short laugh.
“That’s what they’re teaching the children. Destruction: destruction: destruction—and not a syllable devoted to construction. What are they going to put in its place? They don’t know—and they don’t care—as long as they get paid for the teaching.”
Sir John Haverton nodded thoughtfully.
“I must go into all this in detail,” he remarked. “But in the meantime you have raised my curiosity most infernally about this Black Gang of yours. I seem to remember some extraordinary manifesto in the paper—something to do with that damned blackguard Latter, wasn’t it?”
Sir Bryan leaned back in his chair and lit a cigarette.
“There are one or two gaps I haven’t filled in myself at the moment,” he answered. “But I can tell you very briefly what led us to our discoveries at that house in Essex of which I spoke to you—Maybrick Hall. About six days ago I received a typewritten communication of a similar type to one or two which I had seen before. A certain defect in the typewriter made it clear that the source was the same, and that source was the leader of the Black Gang. Here is the communication.”
He opened a drawer in his desk, and passed a sheet of paper across to the Cabinet Minister.
“If,” it ran, “jolly old McIver will take his morning constitutional to Maybrick Hall in Essex, he will find much to interest him in that delightful and rural spot. Many specimens, both dead and alive, will be found there, all in a splendid state of preservation. He will also find a great many interesting devices in the house. Above all, let him be careful of an elderly clergyman of beneficent aspect, whose beauty is only marred by a stiff and somewhat swollen neck, accompanied by a charming lady who answers to the name of Janet. They form the peerless gems of the collection, and were on the point of leaving the country with the enclosed packet which I removed from them for safe keeping. My modesty forbids me to tell an unmarried man like you in what portion of dear Janet’s garments this little bag was found, but there’s no harm in your guessing.”
“What the devil?” spluttered Sir John. “Is it a practical joke?”
“Far from it,” answered the other. “Read to the end.”
“After McIver has done this little job,” Sir John read out, “he might like a trip to the North. There was an uninhabited island off the West coast of Mull, which is uninhabited no longer. He may have everything he finds there, with my love.—The leader of the Black Gang.”
Sir John laid down the paper and stared at the Director of Criminal Investigation.
“Is this the rambling of a partially diseased intellect?” he inquired with mild sarcasm.
“Nothing of the sort,” returned the other shortly. “McIver and ten plain-clothes men went immediately to Maybrick Hall. And they found it a very peculiar place. There were some fifteen men there—trussed up like so many fowls, and alive. They were laid out in a row in the hall.
“Enthroned in state, in two chairs at the end, and also trussed hand and foot, were the beneficent clergyman and Miss Janet. So much for the living ones, with the exception of an Italian, who was found peacefully sleeping upstairs, with his right wrist padlocked to the wall by a long chain. I’ve mentioned him last, because he was destined to play a very important part in the matter.” He frowned suddenly. “A very important part, confound him,” he repeated. “However, we will now pass to the other specimens. In the grounds were discovered—a dead fowl, a dead fox, a dead hound the size of a calf—and three dead men.”
Sir John ejaculated explosively, sitting up in his chair.
“They had all died from the same cause,” continued the other imperturbably—”electrocution. But that was nothing compared to what they found inside. In an upstairs room was a dreadful-looking specimen, more like an ape than a man, whose neck was broken. In addition, the main artery of his left arm had been severed with a knife. And even that was mild to what they found downstairs. Supported against the wall was a red-headed man stone dead. A bayonet fixed to a rifle had been driven clean through his chest, and stuck six inches into the wall behind him. And on that the body was supported.”
“Good heavens!” said Sir John, aghast. “Who had done it?”
“The leader of the Black Gang had done it all, fighting desperately for his own life and that of his wife. One of the men lashed up in the hall turned King’s Evidence and told us everything. I’m not going to weary you with the entire story, because you wouldn’t believe it. This man had heard everything: had been present through it all. He heard how this leader—a man of gigantic strength—had thrown his wife over the high live-wire fence, just as the hound was on top of them, and the hound dashing after her had electrocuted itself. He heard how the girl, rushing blindly through the night in an unknown country, had stumbled by luck on the local post office, and managed to get a telephone call through to London, where she found the rest of the gang assembled and waiting—their suspicions aroused over some message received that evening from the Ritz. Then she left the post office and was wandering aimlessly along the road, when a car pulled up suddenly in front of her. Inside was a clergyman accompanied by another man—neither of whom she recognised. They offered her a lift, and the next thing she knew was that she’d been trapped again, and was back at Maybrick Hall. So much this man heard: the rest he saw. The leader of the Black Gang and his wife were sentenced to death by the clergyman…Clergyman!” Sir Bryan shook his fist in the air. “I’d give a year’s screw to have laid my hands on that clergyman.”
“He escaped?” cried the other.
“All in due course,” said Sir Bryan. “They were sentenced to death by having their brains bashed out with the butt of a rifle—after which they were to be thrown in the river. It was to be made to appear an accident. And the man who was to do it was a Russian called Yulowski—one of the men who butchered the Russian Royal family…A devil of the most inhuman description. He literally had the rifle raised to kill the girl, when the Black Gang, having cut the wire fence, arrived in the nick of time. And it was then that the leader of that gang, who had thought he was on the point of seeing his wife’s brains dashed out, took advantage of the utter confusion and sprang on the Russian with a roar of rage. The man who told us stated that he had never dreamed such a blow was possible as the rifle thrust which pierced clean through the Russian. It split him like a rotten cabbage, and he died in three minutes.”
“But, my dear fellow,” spluttered the Cabinet Minister, “you can’t expect me to believe all this. You’re pulling my leg.”
“Never farther from it in my life, Haverton,” said the other. “I admit it seems a bit over the odds, but every word I’ve told you is gospel. To return to the discoveries. McIver found that the house was the headquarters of a vast criminal organisation. There were schemes of the most fantastic descriptions cut and dried in every detail. Some of them were stupid: some were not. I have them all here. This one “—he glanced through some papers on his desk—”concerns the blowing of a large gap in one of the retaining walls of the big reservoir at Staines. This one concerns a perfectly-thought-out plot on your life when you go to Beauchamp Hall next week. You were to be found dead in your railway carriage.”
“What!” roared Sir John, springing to his feet.
“It would very likely have failed,” said Sir Bryan calmly, “but they would have tried again. They don’t like you or your views at all—these gentlemen. But those are the least important. From time immemorial wild, fanatical youths have done similar things: the danger was far greater and more subtle. And perhaps