The Three Just Men quotes

“What about the snake?” asked Miss Alma Goddard ominously.

Now if there was one thing which no person contemplating a visit to London wished to be reminded about, it was the snake.

Six million people rose from their beds every morning, opened their newspapers and looked for news of the snake.

A tall, strikingly handsome man, with the face of a patrician and the shoulders of an athlete, Curzon Street—or such of the street as took the slightest notice of anything—observed him to be extremely well dressed on all occasions.

He was a walking advertisement for a Hanover Street tailor who was so fashionable that he would have died with horror at the very thought of advertising at all.

Car folk held up at busy crossings glanced into his limousine, saw the clean-cut profile and the tanned, virile face, and guessed him for a Harley Street specialist. Very few people knew him socially. Dr.

“Poor soul!” murmured Manfred, blowing a cloud of smoke to the ceiling. “It’s a great trial introducing one’s friends to you, Leon.”

“Fortunately, you have no friends,” said Leon, reaching out and taking a cigarette from the open gold case on the table.

“Well, what do you think of our Mr. Barberton’s mystery?”

“Could we get Elver?” he asked anxiously, and Leon looked up with his boyish smile.

“Growing onions in Seville has softened you, Raymondo mio!”

He never failed in moments of great strain to taunt the heavy man with his two years of agricultural experiment, and they knew that the gibes were deliberately designed to steady his mind. “Onions are sentimental things—they make you cry: a vegetable muchos simpatico!

“Why don’t you tell me?”

“Because I value your life,” said Leon simply. “Because I wish⁠—we all wish⁠—to keep the snake’s attention upon ourselves.”

Poiccart came back at that moment and put his head in the door.

A man was walking down the path, a half-smile on his face, as though he was thinking over a remembered jest. At the sight of him the pedlar dropped the girl’s arm and his hand went like lightning to his pocket.

“When will you die?” said Leon Gonsalez softly. “Make a choice, and make it quick!”

And the gun in his hand seemed to quiver with homicidal eagerness.

This particular problem was solved by the return of the dishevelled Alma and the restoration to her of her gun.

“I would so much rather you shot him than I,” said Leon earnestly. “The police are very suspicious of my shootings, and they never wholly believe that they are done in self-defence.”

With a rope he tied the man, and tied him uncomfortably, wrists to ankles. That done, he made a few inquiries and went swiftly out to the barn, returning in a few minutes with the unhappy guard.

“You talk as though that were a possibility that had never occurred to you.”

“It hasn’t,” he admitted. “By the very nature of our work we are debarred from that experience. And is it an offensive thing to say that I have never felt my singleness to be a deprivation?”

“It is very rude,” she said severely, and Leon was laughing to himself all the way back to town as at a great joke that improved upon repetition.

“Look here, Manfred, there’s a law in this country—” began Monty Newton hotly.

“I am the law.” The words rang like a knell of fate. “In this matter I am judge, jury, hangman. Old or young, I will not spare,” he said evenly.

“Are you immortal too?” sneered Monty.

He added a coarse jest, and Manfred raised his eyes slowly and met his.

“You will be hanged by the State or murdered by Oberzohn⁠—I am not sure which,” he said simply, and he spoke with such perfect confidence that the heart of Monty Newton turned to water.

Manfred stood in the sidewalk and signalled, and the little car came swiftly and noiselessly across. Leon’s eyes were on the entrance. A tall man standing in the shadow of the hall was watching.

Oberzohn & Smitts; and, what is more, he expected to read it before he had seen the paper.

“Accidents are accidents,” said Leon the philosopher that morning at breakfast.

“And that talk I had with the clerk last night told me a lot: Oberzohn has allowed his fire insurance to lapse!”

“What happened to the assassins?” asked Meadows with a shiver.

“That is a question for the theologian, if you will forgive the well-worn jest,” said Leon. “I think they are in hell, but then I’m prejudiced.”

Mr. Lee had left the dining-table and was standing at the front door, leaning on his stick; and with him an interested Mr. Washington.

“I’ve often wondered, Leon,” said George, when they were alone together, “whether you would ever carry out these horrific threats of yours of torture and malignant savagery?”

“Half the torture of torture is anticipation,” said Leon easily

, lighting a cigarette with one of the matches he had taken from the table, and carefully guiding the rest back into the glass bowl.

“Phew!” said Mr. Washington, as the car skidded on the greasy road. “I don’t know whether you’re a good driver or just naturally under the protection of Providence.”

“Both,” said Leon, when he had straightened the machine. “All good drivers are that.”

“It is snake venom all right, Mr. Washington; only snake venom that has been most carefully treated by a man who knows the art of concentration of its bad and the extraction of its harmless constituents.

The train was slowing to take Horsham Junction, and the cat eyes waited until he saw a good fall, and let go. Staring back into the darkness, Washington saw nothing, and then the train inspector came along.

“It was a man in woman’s clothes,” he said, a little breathlessly

, and they went back to search the compartment, but Mr. Gurther had taken bag and everything with him, and the only souvenir of his presence was the heel of a shoe that had been torn off in the struggle.

“A baron, are you?” The room shook with Monty’s laughter.

“Why, you damned old fool, you don’t imagine she’d marry you, do you?”

“She would do anythings what I tell her.” In his agitation his English was getting a little ragged. “A girl may not like a mans, but she might hate somethings worse—you understand?

“Yes, and I’ll tell you something, doctor. I’d rather he married her than you.”

“I’d rather anybody else married her, except that snake of yours.”

Oberzohn looked round sharply. She had used the word quite innocently, without any thought of its application, and uttered an “Oh!” of dismay when she realized her mistake.

“We will try the factory first. If that draws blank, we’ll ask Dr. Oberzohn’s guidance, and if it is not willingly given I shall persuade him.” And in the reflected light of the lamp George Manfred saw the hard Leon he knew of old.

“This time I shall not promise: my threat will be infinitely milder than my performance.”

They came to the dark entry of the factory, and Manfred splashed his light inside.

“You will remember my sainted brother, Señor Gonsalez, and of the great loss which the world suffered when he was so vilely murdered?”

Leon stood without a quiver. Presently the man would shoot.

At any second a bullet might come crashing on its fatal errand. This was a queer way to finish so full a life. He knew it was coming, had only one regret;

Cuccini was biting his nails nervously.

“Might as well be hung for a sheep as a lamb, boss,” he growled. “I’ve got an idea you’ve roped us into this.”

“You may rope yourself out of it!” snapped Oberzohn. “There is the door—go if you wish. There are police there; make terms with them. A few days ago you were in trouble, my friend. Who saved you? The doctor Oberzohn.