(1929) The Three Just Men by Edgar Wallace Read Free Book Online

times writing them—but I can understand how it helped pass the time. Mr. Lee came over and asked if I had heard from you. He is wonderful.”
    The letter was in an educated hand.
    “He didn’t strike me as a man who wrote books,” said Meadows, and continued his search.
    Presently he unfolded a dilapidated map, evidently of Angola. It was rather on the small scale, so much so that it took in a portion of the Kalahari Desert in the south, and showed in the north the undulations of the rolling Congo.
    “No marks of any bind,” said Meadows, carrying the chart to the window to examine it more carefully. “And that, I think, is about all—unless this is something.”
    “This” was wrapped in a piece of cloth, and was fastened to the bottom and the sides of the trunk by two improvised canvas straps. Meadows tried to pull it loose and whistled.
    “Gold,” he said. “Nothing else can weigh quite as heavily as this.”
    He lifted out the bundle eventually, unwrapped the covering, and gazed in amazement on the object that lay under his eyes. It was an African bete, a nude, squat idol, rudely shaped, the figure of a native woman.
    “Gold?” said Manfred incredulously, and tried to lift it with his finger and thumb. He took a firmer grip and examined the discovery closely.
    There was no doubt that it was gold, and fine gold. His thumb-nail made a deep scratch in the base of the statuette. He could see the marks where the knife of the inartistic sculptor had sliced and carved.
    Meadows knew the coast fairly well: he had made many trips to Africa and had stopped off at various ports en route.
    “I’ve never seen anything exactly like it before,” he said, “and it isn’t recent workmanship either. When you see this”—he pointed to a physical peculiarity of the figure—“you can bet that you’ve got something that’s been made at least a couple of hundred years, and probably before then. The natives of West and Central Africa have not worn toe-rings, for example, since the days of the Caesars.”
    He weighed the idol in his hand.
    “Roughly ten pounds,” he said. “In other words, eight hundred pounds’ worth of gold.”
    He was examining the cloth in which the idol had been wrapped, and uttered an exclamation.
    “Look at this,” he said.
    Written on one corner, in indelible pencil, were the words:
    “Second shelf up left Gods lobby sixth.”
    Suddenly Manfred remembered.
    “Would you have this figure put on the scales right away?” he said. “I’m curious to know the exact weight.”
    “Why?” asked Meadows in surprise, as he rang the bell.
    The proprietor himself, who was aware that a police search was in progress, answered the call, and, at the detective’s request, hurried down to the kitchen and returned in a few minutes with a pair of scales, which he placed on the table. He was obviously curious to know the purpose for which they were intended, but Inspector Meadows did not enlighten him, standing pointedly by the door until the gentleman had gone.
    The figure was taken from under the cloth where it had been hidden whilst the scales were being placed, and put in one shallow pan on the machine.
    “Ten pounds seven ounces,” nodded Manfred triumphantly. “I thought that was the one!”
    “One what?” asked the puzzled Meadows.
    “Look at this list.”
    Manfred found the hotel bill with the rows of figures and pointed to the one which had a black cross against it.
    “107,” he said. “That is our little fellow, and the explanation is fairly plain. Barberton found some treasure-house filled with these statues. He took away the lightest. Look at the figures! He weighed them with a spring balance, one of those which register up to 21 lb. Above that he had to guess—he puts ‘about 24,’ ‘about 22.’”
    Meadows looked at his companion blankly, but Manfred was not deceived. That clever brain of the detective was working.
    “Not for robbery—the trunk is untouched. They did not even