Wallace's Four Just Men was a group of wealthy, cosmopolitan vigilantes, skilled in the ways of crime, who took on tasks of retribution which the police were unable or unwilling to carry out. In The Four Just Men, Wallace's first crime book, they are definitely on the criminal side, undertaking to assassinate a politically compromised British Cabinet minister. It was this book, serialised in a newspaper, that established Wallace's name; when he offered a prize to anyone who could work out the murder method and was swamped and nearly bankrupted by the number of correct replies.
Even at this point the Four was really Three. Before the book begins one unnamed member of the group has already died in a gun battle in Bordeaux, and his replacement, Thery, proves to be a risky failure. From that point on the Just Men are a trio -- Leon Gonsalez, George Manfred and Raymond Poiccart. Gonsalez and Manfred take the active roles; Poiccart, when he is present at all, usually acts as an armchair detective.
Sequels followed -- The Council of Justice, The Just Men of Cordova, The Law of the Four Just Men -- during which the trio were pardoned for (unspecified) war work and moved to the right side of the law. in The Three Just Men they are running a detective agency in Curzon Street. At least, Manfred is; Gonsalez is playing the part of his chauffeur and Poiccart that of his butler, though the reasons for this are never explained.
They are approached by a man named Barberton, who asks them to locate a Mirabelle Leicester. The reader has already been introduced to Mirabelle, who has just been tempted by a suspiciously personalised advertisement into taking a job with the sinister Doktor Oberzohn, also known to the Just Men. They retrieve Mirabelle from the clutches of Oberzohn's lackeys, Monty Newton and the murderous Gurther, but by this time Barberton has been killed by a mysterious snakebite, and Mirabelle has no idea of why he wanted to find her.
At 256 pages, this is a long book for Wallace, with a wide cast of characters, and the action never stops. It shows more care than much of Wallace's later writing, and the book ends with a well-described police siege on a house in suburban London. In between we find snakes, Braille, gold, an elixir of life, a secret boathouse, mantraps, plots and counterplots, all interspersed with flashes of Wallace's humour. The Three Just Men is Wallace at his best.
The Three Just Men should soon be available from Gutenberg Australia.
Jon.
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