The Council of Justice | Page 7

language of the harsh gutturals,
and those who were in their vicinity looked at them in some perplexity,
for it is a tongue unlike any that is heard in the Revolutionary Belt.
Closer and closer they grew to the inflexible inquisitor at the end of the
police line. Ahead of them was a young man who turned from time to
time as if seeking a friend behind. His was a face that fascinated the
shorter of the two men, ever a student of faces. It was a face of deadly
pallor, that the dark close-cropped hair and the thick black eyebrows
accentuated. Aesthetic in outline, refined in contour, it was the face of a
visionary, and in the restless, troubled eyes there lay a hint of the
fanatic. He reached the barrier and a dozen eager men stepped forward
for the honour of sponsorship. Then he passed and Manfred stepped
calmly forward.
'Heinrich Rossenburg of Raz,' he mentioned the name of an obscure
Transylvanian village.
'Who identifies this man?' asked Falmouth monotonously. Manfred
held his breath and stood ready to spring.
'I do.'
It was the spiritue who had gone before him; the dreamer with the face
of a priest.
'Pass.'
Manfred, calm and smiling, sauntered through the police with a
familiar nod to his saviour. Then he heard the challenge that met his
companion.

'Rolf Woolfund,' he heard Poiccart's clear, untroubled voice.
'Who identifies this man?'
Again he waited tensely.
'I do,' said the young man's voice again.
Then Poiccart joined him, and they waited a little.
Out of the corner of his eye Manfred saw the man who had vouched for
him saunter toward them. He came abreast, then:
'If you would care to meet me at Reggiori's at King's Cross I shall be
there in an hour,' he said, and Manfred noticed without emotion that
this young man also spoke in Arabic.
They passed through the crowd that had gathered about the hall--for the
news of the police raid had spread like wildfire through the East
End--and gained Aldgate Station before they spoke.
'This is a curious beginning to our enterprise,' said Manfred. He seemed
neither pleased nor sorry. 'I have always thought that Arabic was the
safest language in the world in which to talk secrets--one learns
wisdom with the years,' he added philosophically.
Poiccart examined his well-manicured finger-nails as though the
problem centred there. 'There is no precedent,' he said, speaking to
himself.
'And he may be an embarrassment,' added George; then, 'let us wait and
see what the hour brings.'
The hour brought the man who had befriended them so strangely. It
brought also a little in advance of him a fourth man who limped
slightly but greeted the two with a rueful smile. 'Hurt?' asked Manfred.
'Nothing worth speaking about,' said the other carelessly, 'and now
what is the meaning of your mysterious telephone message?'

Briefly Manfred sketched the events of the night, and the other listened
gravely.
'It's a curious situation,' he began, when a warning glance from Poiccart
arrested him. The subject of their conversation had arrived.
He sat down at the table, and dismissed the fluttering waiter that hung
about him.
The four sat in silence for a while and the newcomer was the first to
speak.
'I call myself Bernard Courtlander,' he said simply, 'and you are the
organization known as the Four Just Men.'
They did not reply.
'I saw you shoot,' he went on evenly, 'because I had been watching you
from the moment when you entered the hall, and when the police
adopted the method of identification, I resolved to risk my life and
speak for you.'
'Meaning,' interposed Poiccart calmly, 'you resolved to risk--our killing
you?'
'Exactly,' said the young man, nodding, 'a purely outside view would be
that such a course would be a fiendish act of ingratitude, but I have a
closer perception of principles, and I recognize that such a sequel to my
interference is perfectly logical.' He singled out Manfred leaning back
on the red plush cushions. 'You have so often shown that human life is
the least considerable factor in your plan, and have given such evidence
of your singleness of purpose, that I am fully satisfied that if my life--or
the life of any one of you--stood before the fulfilment of your objects,
that life would go--so!' He snapped his fingers. 'Well?' said Manfred. 'I
know of your exploits,' the strange young man went on, 'as who does
not?'
He took from his pocket a leather case, and from that he extracted a

newspaper cutting. Neither of the three men evinced the slightest
interest in the paper he unfolded on the white cloth. Their eyes were on
his face.
'Here is a list of people slain--for justice' sake,' Courtlander said,
smoothing the