The Complete Four Just Men by Edgar Wallace

. It is not so easy to understand,’ said the Telegram , ‘why, having the miscreants in their hands, certain journalists connected with a sensational and halfpenny contemporary allowed them to go free to work their evil designs upon a great statesman whose unparalleled . . . We say if, for unfortunately in these days of cheap journalism every story emanating from the sanctum sanctorum of sensation-loving sheets is not to be accepted on its pretensions; so if, as it stated, these desperadoes really did visit the office of a contemporary last night . . . ’
    At noonday Scotland Yard circulated broadcast a hastily printed sheet.
    £ 1000 R E W A R D
    Wanted, on suspicion of being connected with a criminal organ isation known as the Four Just Men, Miguel Thery, alias Saimont, alias le Chico, late of Jerez, Spain, a Spaniard speaking no English. Height 5 feet 8 inches. Eyes brown, hair black, slight black moustache, face broad. Scars: white scar on cheek, old knife wound on body. Figure, thick-set.
    The above reward will be paid to any person or persons who shall give such information as shall lead to the identification of the said Thery with the band known as the Four Just Men and his apprehension.
    From which may be gathered that, acting on the information furnished by the editor and his assistant at two o’clock in the morning, the Direct Spanish Cable had been kept busy; important personages had been roused from their beds in Madrid, and the history of Thery as recorded in the Bureau had been reconstructed from pigeon-hole records for the enlightenment of an energetic Commissioner of Police.
    Sir Philip Ramon, sitting writing in his study at Portland Place, found a difficulty in keeping his mind upon the letter that lay before him.
    It was a letter addressed to his agent at Branfell, the huge estate over which he, in the years he was out of office, played squire.
    Neither wife nor chick nor child had Sir Philip. ‘ . . . If by any chance these men succeed in carrying out their purpose I have made ample provision not only for yourself but for all who have rendered me faithful service,’ he wrote – from which may be gathered the tenor of his letter.
    During these past few weeks, Sir Philip’s feelings towards the possible outcome of his action had undergone a change.
    The irritation of a constant espionage, friendly on the one hand, menacing on the other, had engendered so bitter a feeling of resentment, that in this newer emotion all personal fear had been swallowed up. His mind was filled with one unswerving determination, to carry through the measure he had in hand, to thwart the Four Just Men, and to vindicate the integrity of a Minister of the Crown. ‘It would be absurd,’ he wrote in the course of an article entitled ‘Individuality in its Relation to the Public Service’, and which was published some months later in the Quarterly Review – ‘it would be monstrous to suppose that incidental criticism from a wholly unauthoritative source should affect or in any way influence a member of the Government in his conception of the legislation necessary for the millions of people entrusted to his care. He is the instrument, duly appointed, to put into tangible form the wishes and desires of those who naturally look to him not only to furnish means and methods for the betterment of their conditions, or the amelioration of irksome restrictions upon international commercial relations, but to find them protection from risks extraneous of purely commercial liabilities . . . in such a case a Minister of the Crown with a due appreciation of his responsibilities ceases to exist as a man and becomes merely an unhuman automaton.’
    Sir Philip Ramon was a man with very few friends. He had none of the qualities that go to the making of a popular man. He was an honest man, a conscientious man, a strong man. He was the cold-blooded, cynical creature that a life devoid of love had left him. He had no enthusiasm – and inspired