The Fourth Plague by Edgar Wallace Read Free Book Online Page A

bitter little laugh.
    Marjorie knit her pretty brows in thought.
    â€œI can’t think of anybody,” she said slowly.
    â€œThen don’t,” said Vera, briskly. “I don’t know exactly why I asked you.”
    Further discussion of the subject was made impossible by the arrival of Sir Ralph himself.
    He had evidently forgotten that any strained relations existed between himself and his wife, or that her iniquitous extravagance in prepared oats had ever come between them.
    â€œVera,” he said, going towards her, “did you notice a man in the court to-day, a peculiarly foreign-looking man?”
    She thought a moment.
    â€œYes, there was a person sitting near—” she nearly said Hilary George, but deemed it tactful to mention another barrister who had been engaged in the case.
    â€œHow did he impress you?” he asked.
    â€œI should like to say that he did not impress me at all,” she said, with a smile. She was most anxious to restore him to good-humour. “But unfortunately, I did take particular notice of him; rather a distinguished-looking man, clean-shaven and with a lined, thoughtful face.”
    Sir Ralph nodded.
    â€œThat’s the man,” he said. “I’ve just had a note from him. I didn’t know he was in Burboro’. That is Tillizini.”
    He said this impressively. At the moment, Tillizini’s name was in the mouth of half the population of England.
    He nodded.
    â€œNone other,” he said. “I had a note from one of the under secretaries of the Home Office saying that he was coming down. I don’t know why our little burglary should have attracted his attention, but at any rate he could not have been very interested, for he did not turn up until to-day. He has just sent a note to tell me that he is staying at the George, and I have written to ask him to come up to dinner to-night.”
    She made a little face.
    â€œHe’s a detective or something, isn’t he?” she asked.
    â€œMore than a detective.”
    Sir Ralph was rather inclined to be irritable if you did not rise to his values. It was better to over-estimate them than to under-estimate them in any case.
    â€œSurely you have read the papers?” he went on, with his best magisterial air. “You couldn’t very well escape his name nowadays. He is the man whom the English Government brought over as a sort of consultant, to deal with this terrible outbreak of crime.”
    â€œI’ve heard something about it,” said his wife, carelessly. “The ‘Black Hand’ or the ‘Red Hand’—I forget exactly what colour it is.”
    Sir Ralph frowned.
    â€œYou must not treat these matters frivolously, Vera,” he said, coldly. “I’ve had reason to speak to you before on similar occasions. The ‘Red Hand’ is a very mysterious organization, which is striking at the very heart of our domestic security. Any man, and I may add any woman, should be extremely grateful to those who, by their gifts of divination, are endeavouring to shield the innocent victims of a band of organized criminals.”
    Vera hated her husband when he made speeches to her. She knew more about the “Red Hand” and its workings than she was prepared to discuss with Sir Ralph.
    It was a pose of hers, as it was a pose of certain members of her class, to profess a profound ignorance upon matters which were engaging the attention of newspaper readers. The pose of ignorance is a popular one with members of the leisured classes; popular, because it suggests their superiority to the influences which surround them; because it signalizes their independence of chronicled facts, and because, too, it is the easiest of all poses to assume and to sustain.
    Vera had caught the trick and found it a profitable one. It lent her an overpowering naivete, which had a paralysing effect upon the better-informed but socially inferior members of the