The Council of Justice

 

The Council of Justice

 

 

by

 

Edgar Wallace

 

 

 

 

 

 

Contents

 

 

  I. The Red Hundred

  II. The Fourth Man

  III. Jessen, alias Long

  IV. The Red Bean

  V. The Council of Justice

  VI. Princess Revolutionary

  VII. The Government and Mr. Jessen

  VIII. An Incident in the Fight

  IX. The Four v. The Hundred

  X. The Trial

  XI. Manfred

  XII. In Wandsworth Gaol

  XIII. The 'Rational Faithers'

  XIV. At the Old Bailey

  XV. Chelmsford

  XVI. The Execution

 

 

I. The Red Hundred

 

 

  It is not for you or me to judge Manfred and his works. I say 'Manfred', though I might as well have said 'Gonsalez', or for the matter of that 'Poiccart', since they are equally guilty or great according to the light in which you view their acts. The most lawless of us would hesitate to defend them, but the greater humanitarian could scarcely condemn them.

  From the standpoint of us, who live within the law, going about our business in conformity with the code, and unquestioningly keeping to the left or to the right as the police direct, their methods were terrible, indefensible, revolting.

  It does not greatly affect the issue that, for want of a better word, we call them criminals. Such would be mankind's unanimous designation, but I think—indeed, I know—that they were indifferent to the opinions of the human race. I doubt very much whether they expected posterity to honour them.

  Their action towards the cabinet minister was murder, pure and simple. Yet, in view of the large humanitarian problems involved, who would describe it as pernicious?

  Frankly I say of the three men who killed Sir Philip Ramon, and who slew ruthlessly in the name of Justice, that my sympathies are with them. There are crimes for which there is no adequate punishment, and offences that the machinery of the written law cannot efface. Therein lies the justification for the Four Just Men,—the Council of Justice as they presently came to call themselves a council of great intellects, passionless.

  And not long after the death of Sir Philip and while England still rang with that exploit, they performed an act or a series of acts that won not alone from the Government of Great Britain, but from the Governments of Europe, a sort of unofficial approval and Falmouth had his wish. For here they waged war against great world-criminals—they pitted their strength, their cunning, and their wonderful intellects against the most powerful organization of the underworld-against past masters of villainous arts, and brains equally agile.

  It was the day of days for the Red Hundred. The wonderful inter-national congress was meeting in London, the first great congress of recognized Anarchism. This was no hole-and-corner gathering of hurried men speaking furtively, but one open and unafraid with three policemen specially retained for duty outside the hall, a commissionaire to take tickets at the outer lobby, and a shorthand writer with a knowledge of French and Yiddish to make notes of remarkable utterances.

  The wonderful congress was a fact.