X.  —  A Way of Tillizini's 

TILLIZINI was sitting in his room, examining a number of photographs that he had received that morning from Florence, when the note came to him.

He opened and read it.

It was brief and to the point.

"We have taken your spy. You will give us five hundred English pounds, and he shall be released. By Order of The Red Hand."

He folded it carefully.

"Is the messenger still waiting?" he asked.

"No, sir," said the servant, "it was a boy who handed it in."

Tillizini examined the note again, and smiled. He rose from the table and went to the telephone which stood on a small bracket near the wall. He gave a Treasury number which is not in the telephone book, it is only to be found in the small volume issued to Cabinet Ministers and to public officials, and in a few seconds he was connected with Inspector Crocks.

"They have taken my man," he said; "at least they say they have, and I suppose they are speaking the truth. They demand £500 for his immediate release."

"What are you going to do?" asked the inspector's voice.

"I'm going to release him," said the other, "though I have my doubts as to whether they really want the money."

In a few minutes they were driving to Smith's lodgings. The landlady gave him all the information he required, and another hour's search revealed the place where his man had been captured. As he thought, it was on the wharf from whence he usually set his make-believe flash-signals. There were signs of a little struggle. Some children, playing in the dark street from which the wharf was gained, had seen four men, very drunk as they thought, staggering to a waiting motor-car.

 

*      *      *      *      *

 

There is a little club in Soho where men, with certain political views, may be found between the hours of eleven at night and five in the morning.

At a quarter to twelve the stout man Pietro, who had formed the third at the Deptford conference, entered the club and, after a fruitless inspection of its members, came out again.

He walked through Soho, crossed Oxford Street, and entered one of the slummy thoroughfares which abound in the neighbourhood of Tottenham Court Road.

He let himself into a gloomy house with a key, and closed the door behind him.

His room was on the ground floor. He unlocked the door, went in, and again closed and locked it before he struck a match.

His hands were fumbling with a match-box when there was a quick, blinding flash, and he found himself standing in a circle of light thrown by an electric light.

"Don't move," said a voice, "or I will kill you."

The intruder spoke in Italian.

"You may light the gas," said the unknown.

The circle of light followed the alarmed man, as he moved to the centre of the room, reached up and ignited an incandescent burner.

"Tillizini!" he gasped.

"It is I," said the other easily. "Your doors are shut — yes. Your windows are shuttered, of course. Sit down."

Shaking in every limb, the man obeyed. The revolver in the professor's hand was an excellent excuse for obedience.

"Where have you been to-night?"

"That is no business of yours," growled the other. "You have no right to come into my room. What have you stolen?"

"Don't be foolish," said Tillizini, calmly. "Stand up again, put your hands above your head. Thank you, Signor."

His deft fingers searched the other, removed a revolver from the hip-pocket and a knife from inside the waistband of his trousers. These he laid on the table, first jerking open the chamber of the revolver scientifically. There was a little clatter of cartridges as they fell on the floor.

"Now I want your hand," he said. "Hold it out."

Hesitatingly, the other man obeyed, his fearful eyes fixed upon the calm face of the other.

Tillizini leant over and raised the hand to his face. His sensitive nostrils dilated. He had no difficulty in detecting the scent of the attar of roses with which his spy's papers had been impregnated.

"Yes," he said, "you are the man I want."

The fear deepened in the stout man's eyes.

"What do you mean?" he gasped.

He had a superstitious dread of this undefeatable man. With the ignorance of his kind he had endowed him with powers which were almost supernatural.

"I want the man you helped to kidnap to-night, or if you did not help to kidnap, assisted in searching," said the Italian, pleasantly.

"It's a lie," said the other. "I know nothing about a kidnapped man."

"The man you searched to-night," continued Tillizini, unemotionally, "whose pockets you ransacked, whose papers you examined. Where is he?"

The look of fear in the man's face was ludicrous.

"How do you know?" he gasped.

"I know," said Tillizini. "That is sufficient."

He waited for the stout man to speak, but in whatever fear he stood of the detective, his terror of reprisal from his comrades was a greater factor.

"I can tell you nothing — nothing," he said, sullenly.

"Then you shall come a little journey with me," said Tillizini. "We will leave the light, if you don't mind. Get up."

He went to the door and, standing with his back against it, unlocked it.

"You will go first," he said.

Outside the street was deserted, save for a number of children who were playing noisily in the roadway.

"To the right," said Tillizini, curtly.

The man obeyed.

Drawn up by the opposite side of the pavement a little way along was a pair-horse brougham. Opposite this Pietro waited till Tillizini's voice stopped him.

"Get in."

Again the man obeyed and Tillizini followed. He closed the door, and the prisoner noted that he gave no instructions as to where the man was to drive. Evidently that had already been arranged. His wonder was dissipated when he found the carriage driving along the Thames Embankment. He was going to Tillizini's house. He pulled himself together. He was half losing his nerve. After all, Tillizini could not torture him here, in the heart of London, and he a Government official.

It was to Adelphi Terrace that the carriage drove and pulled up before the detective's house.

"Get out."

The map followed his instructions. Tillizini's ring was instantly answered by a servant. The two men stepped into the hall.

"Has anybody been?" asked the detective, in English.

"No, sir, except a man called with a parcel for you."

"A parcel?" He looked thoughtful. "A large parcel?" he asked, idly.

"No, sir, a smallish parcel," replied the man. "He would not leave it until I signed for it."

"I see," said the detective, "and so you left him at the hall door whilst you went down to get a pencil?"

The man smiled.

"Oh, no, sir, I took the parcel from him — there it is on the hall table. I wouldn't leave the door."

Tillizini's lips twitched. In the most tragic moments of his life he could find sources of amusement. He scarcely gave the parcel more than a passing glance. Instead, his eyes rapidly surveyed the floor. He opened the door, and looked at the lock. It was a patent lock with a small catch. From the slot into which the bevelled snap caught he extracted two little threads. He examined them briefly and kept them between the finger and thumb of his left hand. All the time he kept his hold upon his revolver, though the servant did not observe it.

"Very good, Thomas," he said, as he closed the door again, "you may go. Marchez, mon ami."

This last was to his prisoner. Pietro obeyed. He mounted the broad staircase to the dark landing above, and Tillizini stepped close to his prisoner.

"Go through that door," he said.

Pietro did so.

He flung the door open, hesitated a moment, then stepped in. When the Italian's hand was on the knob of the door, Tillizini spoke. He was addressing apparently a person below.

"All right, Thomas," he said loudly, "you may bring up that parcel now."

Then he pushed Pietro into the room. It was in complete darkness, as he expected. The captive stood hesitating in the doorway for a fraction of a second, Tillizini behind him, waiting. He had only to wait for an infinitesimal space of time. From the darkness in the room four shots rang out in rapid succession and Pietro pitched forward on his face, a dying man.

Tillizini had moved swiftly under cover of the doorway. He offered no view of himself to his hidden enemy. He heard the quick steps of Thomas. In the hall below were governing switches by which any room in the house could be illuminated. A quick order from Tillizini, and the lights blazed up in his room.

He sprang in, leaping over the twitching form of the fallen man. The room was empty; it offered no cover to any person in hiding. There was no need to search beyond the open window. The man who had waited there had already prepared and carried into effect his escape.

Tillizini shut down the switch and the room was in darkness again. He flew to the window. A slender rope had been fastened to the leg of his heavy writing table. It extended across the room, through the open window, and now swung to and fro in the breeze below.

The street was empty. There was no profit in searching farther. He closed down the window and 'phoned the police.

The man on the floor was too far gone for help. He was dying when Tillizini reached his side. With the help of the servant and a hastily-summoned policeman he was laid on the settee, where a few nights before the helpless and innocent victim of the "Red Hand's" plotting had lain.

Tillizini's busy hands plucked phial after phial from his medicine chest... the man revived a little, but it was evident, long before the police surgeon came, that he had no chance. He looked up at Tillizini's emotionless face with a faint smile.

"Signor," he said, in Italian, "I ought to have known better — it was thus you trapped others. I have certain monies at the bank" — he named the institution — "I wish that money to go to my sister, who is a widow at Sezzori."

"That I will send, Pietro."

"You know my name," said the dying man.

"I know you very well," said Tillizini.

The man looked at him bleakly.

"Some day," he said, at last — his voice was growing fainter — "they will have you, our brave 'Red Hand,' Signor, and there will be a great killing."

He checked himself and looked round at the uncomprehending policeman, who could not understand the language, and at the servant, obviously English and agitated by the extraordinary character of the evening.

Then he half whispered.

"There is something I wish to tell you, Signor."

His voice was now difficult to hear. Tillizini bent his head to catch the words, and in that moment the dying man mustered his last reserve of strength; by sheer effort of malignant will he called into play all the vital forces which were left alive within him. As Tillizini's head sank lower and lower, Pietro's hand crept to his side.

"Signor," he whispered, "take that!" Quick as he was, Tillizini was quicker. As he whipped round, his vice-like grip held the other's wrist, and the gleaming knife fell with a clatter to the polished floor. Then with a quick jerk he flung the man's hand down on the settee and stood up, smiling.

"How like a rat, Pietro, how like a rat!" And the dying man, unrepentant of his many villainies, of the sorrow and the suffering he had brought to so many people, saw with the glaze of death filming his eyes, the lips of Tillizini part in an amused and contemptuous smile.

 

*      *      *      *      *

 

An hour later Tillizini sat in the private office of Inspector Crocks, of Scotland Yard.

"It was a narrow squeak for you," said the inspector, admiringly.

"There were two," said Tillizini, dryly. "Which one do you mean?"

"The first, I think, was the most serious," said the Englishman.

"Now it's strange that you should say that," said Tillizini. "I think the second was — the dagger was poisoned. I discovered that soon after."

"Poisoned?"

"Yes, with a poison that is not a particularly pleasant one — tetanus," he said.

"Good God!" said the inspector, genuinely shocked. "That's the germ of lock-jaw, isn't it?"

Tillizini nodded.

"That is it," he said, cheerfully. "A pleasant end especially planned for me. I tell you these men are scientists in a crude way. I knew he was upstairs waiting, the first man. An old trick that, you've probably had it played on innocent suburban folk of this city hundreds of times."

The inspector agreed with a gesture.

"When the amiable Thomas closed the door, our friend who delivered the parcel quickly put up a piece of canvas paper backed with a strong silk fabric. The door caught in the staple, but so did the strong silk. When he considered the coast was clear and he judged Thomas to be out of the way, he had but to pull the projecting end — "

"I know the trick," said the inspector. "I've seen it done a score of times."

"I suspected something of the sort," said Tillizini, "but mostly I suspected a parcel. I thought, too, that the kidnapping of Smith was a ruse to get me out so that a warm welcome might be prepared for me when I came back."

"Have you found the man?"

"He'll be found," said Tillizini, "by to-morrow morning."

"I've got men out now hunting for him," said Crocks. "It's rather a difficult job, Tillizini, dealing with your people."

Tillizini smiled.

"They are somewhat different to the average English criminal," he said. "One of these days when you are in Florence, Inspector, you must come to my museum and I'll show you the skulls of typical criminals of all countries. I will explain then to you just why our Southern men are more dangerous to handle, and if you would be patient with me," he favoured the policeman with his little bow, "I would then as briefly as possible give you the basis by which you may forejudge men's actions."

"In other words," said the Inspector, jovially, "you'll give me elementary lessons in necromancy."

"Something of the sort," said Tillizini. He had had half an hour with Crocks and with the Commissioner. Another crime had been laid at the door of the "Red Hand." A worrying business for the English police, however satisfactory it might be to Tillizini.

He rose from his chair and looked at his watch; it was nearly twelve. The inspector followed his example.

"Where are you going now?"

"I'm going back to my house," he said, "will you come?"

"I have an hour to spare," said the other, "and I like your room, it's rather restful. If I shan't be in the way I'll come round and get a few particulars at first hand."

"Come along," said Tillizini.

He passed through the broad corridors of Scotland Yard, down the stone stairway, and out by the entrance near the arch. The policeman on duty at the door saluted him respectfully.

They strolled together leisurely back to the house in Adelphi Terrace. Tillizini rang; it was an act of laziness on his part that he did not find his key. There was no reply, and he rang again. Then he opened the door himself and stepped in. The two hall lights were burning, but there was no sign of Thomas.

Tillizini closed the door behind him. Thomas was usually to be found in the basement. He walked to the end of the passage and called over the stairs, but again without reply. Neatly folded on a little dumb waiter, placed for better security beneath a glass, was a note. Tillizini pulled it out, took it up and read it. It explained much. It was addressed to the man, Thomas.

"I have been arrested in connexion with to-day's crime," it said; "please bring my overcoat at once to Bow Street."

It was signed, "Antonio Tillizini."

Without a word he handed the wire to the English detective.

"We will now go and discover things," he said, and led the way upstairs.

He did not trouble to arm himself because he knew the ways of the "Red Hand" too well to believe that any of the organization were present. They had probably had half an hour after Thomas had hurried away with the necessary overcoat. They would do what they wanted to do in ten minutes.

He opened the door of his room and walked in without fear. He switched on the light. The room was in confusion. There had been a diligent and damaging search. The drawers of his desk had been ripped open and the floor was covered with papers and splinters of rosewood.

Not even the chairs and the settee had escaped attention. They had been cut open and their stuffings pulled out. The legs of one chair had been lopped off as by a machette. Strangely enough, the little case of medicines, which still stood open on his desk, had been left intact. The "Red Hand" had too great a respect for Tillizini's knowledge of chemistry, and they had had such illuminating lessons of his knowledge of high explosives, that they had left this severely alone, excepting that there was plenty of evidence that each phial had been carefully and cautiously lifted from its velvet-lined well and examined.

With a quick glance at the damage done, the Italian walked with rapid strides across the room, lifted up one corner of the carpet and slipped back a narrow panel in the floor. It had been cunningly constructed by Tillizini's own hand. It would be almost impossible for anybody not in the secret to know that such a receptacle existed. He thrust in his hand, and felt for a little while with a grim smile, then his hand slowly withdrew. The detective saw that he held a paper.

 

"For the locket, thanks," he read; "now you shall hear from us, Tillizini."

 

The Italian said nothing. He stood in the middle of the room, his hands clasped on his breast, his head sunk in thought.

"They have taken the locket," said Inspector Crocks, aghast.

Tillizini did not reply.

There came a knock at the door, and Thomas, still with his master's overcoat on his arm, entered.

"I'm sorry, sir; did you?" he began.

Tillizini raised his head.

"Thomas," he said, "I have told you under no circumstances must you leave this house. Your failure to carry out my instructions, however, is mainly my fault. To-morrow I will draw you a little sign which you will see on any letter or wire I send, and know that it comes from me."

"I'm very sorry, sir," said Thomas. Tillizini waved his apologies away.

"It is nothing," he said, "all this; rather," he smiled, "I owe you an apology. You have a little child, have you not?"

"Yes, sir," said Thomas, wonderingly. "You carry his portrait in a locket, do you not?"

"Oh, yes, sir," replied Thomas. "Why, you know I do, sir. I brought you the locket to see the other day."

"I am sorry to say, Thomas," said Tillizini, gravely, "that I have lost it — I hope it may be recovered. I put it in a safe place, I assure you."

"Oh, it's nothing, sir," said Thomas. "I can get another. It wasn't worth half a crown."

"A token of a father's love is invaluable," said Tillizini, the corners of his lips turning up.

He took his revolver from his pocket, pressed a spring near the trigger guard, and a little silver lid flew open in the butt. He held his hand under it and shook it, and something fell out wrapped in silver tissue. He unrolled the paper and handed the contents to Crocks.

"I am almost inclined to ask you to keep this in Scotland Yard," he said, "yet I don't think they will burgle me again."

It was the medallion!

"As for that which they have stolen," Tillizini went on, "it is regrettable. I feel I shall never forgive myself for losing that charming locket of yours."

His voice was filled with gentle mockery, and the servant grinned a little sheepishly, mumbling his depreciation of any fuss at so small a loss.

"I'm not at all annoyed, sir," he said, awkwardly.

What was true of Thomas was not true of the two leaders of the "Red Hand" who at that moment were sitting in a little room in Deptford examining with consternation and chagrin the plump and smiling features of a healthy child of two.