The Council of Justice | Page 2

or
whether he should call a taxi and drive direct to the hall, when a hand
grasped his arm.
He turned quickly and reached for his hip pocket. Two men stood
behind him and but for themselves the square through which he was
passing was deserted.
Before he could grasp the Browning pistol, his other arm was seized
and the taller of the two men spoke.
'You are Augustus Schmidt?' he asked.

'That is my name.'
'You are an anarchist?'
'That is my affair.'
'You are at present on your way to a meeting of the Red Hundred?'
Herr Schmidt opened his eyes in genuine astonishment.
'How did you know that?' he asked.
'I am Detective Simpson from Scotland Yard, and I shall take you into
custody,' was the quiet reply.
'On what charge?' demanded the German.
'As to that I shall tell you later.'
The man from Baden shrugged his shoulders.
'I have yet to learn that it is an offence in England to hold opinions.'
A closed motor-car entered the square, and the shorter of the two
whistled and the chauffeur drew up near the group.
The anarchist turned to the man who had arrested him.
'I warn you that you shall answer for this,' he said wrathfully. 'I have an
important engagement that you have made me miss through your
foolery and--'
'Get in!' interrupted the tall man tersely.
Schmidt stepped into the car and the door snapped behind him.
He was alone and in darkness. The car moved on and then Schmidt
discovered that there were no windows to the vehicle. A wild idea came
to him that he might escape. He tried the door of the car; it was

immovable. He cautiously tapped it. It was lined with thin sheets of
steel.
'A prison on wheels,' he muttered with a curse, and sank back into the
corner of the car.
He did not know London; he had not the slightest idea where he was
going. For ten minutes the car moved along. He was puzzled. These
policemen had taken nothing from him, he still retained his pistol. They
had not even attempted to search him for compromising documents.
Not that he had any except the pass for the conference and--the Inner
Code!
Heavens! He must destroy that. He thrust his hand into the inner pocket
of his coat. It was empty. The thin leather case was gone! His face went
grey, for the Red Hundred is no fanciful secret society but a
bloody-minded organization with less mercy for bungling brethren than
for its sworn enemies. In the thick darkness of the car his nervous
fingers groped through all his pockets. There was no doubt at all--the
papers had gone.
In the midst of his search the car stopped. He slipped the flat pistol
from his pocket. His position was desperate and he was not the kind of
man to shirk a risk.
Once there was a brother of the Red Hundred who sold a password to
the Secret Police. And the brother escaped from Russia. There was a
woman in it, and the story is a mean little story that is hardly worth the
telling. Only, the man and the woman escaped, and went to Baden, and
Schmidt recognized them from the portraits he had received from
headquarters, and one night...You understand that there was nothing
clever or neat about it. English newspapers would have described it as a
'revolting murder', because the details of the crime were rather
shocking. The thing that stood to Schmidt's credit in the books of the
Society was that the murderer was undiscovered.
The memory of this episode came back to the anarchist as the car
stopped--perhaps this was the thing the police had discovered? Out of

the dark corners of his mind came the scene again, and the voice of the
man...'Don't! don't! O Christ! don't!' and Schmidt sweated...
The door of the car opened and he slipped back the cover of his pistol.
'Don't shoot,' said a quiet voice in the gloom outside, 'here are some
friends of yours.'
He lowered his pistol, for his quick ears detected a wheezing cough.
'Von Dunop!' he cried in astonishment.
'And Herr Bleaumeau,' said the same voice. 'Get in, you two.'
Two men stumbled into the car, one dumbfounded and silent--save for
the wheezing cough--the other blasphemous and voluble.
'Wait, my friend!' raved the bulk of Bleaumeau; 'wait! I will make you
sorry.'
The door shut and the car moved on.
The two men outside watched the vehicle with its unhappy passengers
disappear round a corner and then walked slowly away.
'Extraordinary men,' said the taller.
'Most,' replied the other, and then, 'Von Dunop--isn't he--?'
'The man who threw the bomb at the Swiss President--yes.'
The shorter man smiled in the darkness.
'Given