Character guide

George Manfred

major

Also known as Manfred, George, Mr. Manfred

Manfred commands the Four Just Men, an outlaw council that executes killers the law cannot touch, and his capture turns his trial into a stage for their ideals. In Wandsworth Gaol he unnerves the governor with his serenity, refusing a handshake because he is handcuffed, and grows troubled by a mysterious woman in black haunting the prison gates. His intelligence and composure make him the gravitational center of the early case, forcing the reader to weigh whether a murderer can also be a moralist.

Lauder Bartholomew

major

Also known as Bartholomew, Justice Lauder Bartholomew, Captain Bartholomew

Bartholomew steps into the witness box masked, confesses membership in the Four Just Men, and testifies that a commission of jurists endorsed their killings as worthy of death. His loyalty is absolute and unsettling: he says he would believe Manfred's denial over his own certainty. Whether he is a judge, an adventurer, or both, his testimony gives the vigilantes a legal conscience and raises the question of how far a man may go to serve justice.

Charles Garret

supporting

Also known as Charles, Charles Garrett, Garrett

Garret moves through the case as a working reporter, chasing the inquest's omissions and the strange reappearance of men who should be dead. Warned off Jessen by Falmouth, he still whistles at what he finds in the Carlby Mansions flat, sensing a Government arrangement too philosophical to explain. His curiosity makes him the reader's proxy, dragging the shadow war between the Four Just Men and the Red Hundred into the open.

Rudulph Starque

supporting

Also known as Starque, Rudolph Starque

Starque chairs the anarchist council, tallying targets from chancellors to secret policemen and calling for their deaths in a murmured chorus. He is theatrical, hungry for sensation, and visibly shaken when the Four Just Men's threatening letters reach every member but Bartholomew. His suspicion of Bartholomew's two beans and his need to command the room make him the movement's brittle public face, the man whose vanity and fear the Council of Justice can exploit.

Mr. Jessen

supporting

Also known as Jessen, the admirable Mr. Jessen, the quiet Jessen

Jessen is the Government's man in the shadows, so useful that Falmouth warns a journalist not to worry him and the official line calls his circumstances unusual but philosophically accepted. He vanishes and reappears under the name Long, delivering lectures as if nothing happened, while the hole in the Carlby Mansions floor hints at work no inquest recorded. His ambiguous role shows how the state quietly tolerates the vigilantes it publicly condemns.

The Woman of Gratz

major

Also known as Gratz, Princess Revolutionary

The Woman of Gratz leads the Red Hundred's Inner Council and, after Starque's death, becomes its undisputed commander, declaring open war on England. She is magnetic, theatrical, and dangerous, but Manfred wounds her deepest vanity by naming her a warm flesh-and-blood woman rather than a patriot of flaming words. Her humiliated vow to repay him drives the escalating duel between her anarchists and the Council of Justice, making her the story's most personal and relentless antagonist.

Leon Gonsalez

major

Also known as Gonsalez, Leon

Gonsalez is the strategist of the Four, the one who lies back with closed eyes and marshals details while Poiccart puffs his pipe in silence. He dissects Peter Sweeney's 'Rational Faithers' — their brass bands, their chants against capital punishment — with the amused precision of a man already deciding how the story ends. His mildness is the point: the more gently he talks, the more inevitable the judgment sounds.

Poiccart

major

Also known as the merciless Poiccart, a pallid Poiccart

Poiccart sits through Gonsalez's long, drowsy monologues about Peter Sweeney and the 'Rational Faithers,' answering mostly with a yawn or a turned head. He is the counterweight to Leon's restless theorizing: quiet, watchful, and, as his epithet insists, merciless. When the Four need someone to simply wait and then act, it is the pallid Poiccart who is trusted with the waiting.

Herr Schmidt

supporting

Also known as Schmidt

Schmidt is a man from Baden with a Browning in his hip-pocket and a pass to the secret congress in his coat — until a hand grips his arm and 'Detective Simpson' bundles him into a windowless prison on wheels. His panic is not for his opinions but for the Inner Code, already lifted from his pocket, and for what the Red Hundred does to bungling brethren. He is the first proof that the Four Just Men reach into the anarchists' own ranks.

Superintendent Falmouth

supporting

Also known as Mr. Falmouth, Inspector Falmouth

Falmouth is the official face of the law closing in on the Four, yet the trial he helps steer produces a stranger in a half mask who testifies that the Four's judgments were 'animated with a high sense of duty to mankind.' The superintendent's problem is not catching his quarry but the uncomfortable fact that their methods keep finding defenders in open court. His pursuit matters because it forces the book's central question — whether justice can be outsourced — into the dock.

Peter Sweeney

minor

Also known as little Peter, Peter, Mr. Peter Sweeney, Sweeney

A small-time criminal involved in the plot.

Herr Von Dunop

minor

Also known as Von Dunop, Von

A German official assisting in the case.

François

minor

Also known as Henri Delaye François

A French anarchist and member of the Red Hundred.

Bernard Courtlander

minor

Also known as Courtlander

A young man accused of a crime and defended by the Four.

M. Menshikoff

minor

Also known as Menshikoff

A Russian agent involved with the Red Hundred.

Carlos Ferdinand Bourbon

minor

Also known as Carlos Ferdinand

A royal claimant mentioned in the plot.

Sir William Seddon

minor

Also known as Sir William

A government official involved in the case.

Mr. J. Long

minor

Also known as Mr. Long, Long

An alias used by Mr. Jessen during his mission.

Smith of the Megaphone

minor

Also known as Smith, the Megaphone

A mysterious informant who communicates via megaphone.

Little Maria

minor

Also known as Maria, Marie

A young girl connected to the Red Hundred.

Ike

minor

A minor criminal associate of Peter Sweeney.

Luigi Fressini

minor

Also known as Fressini

An Italian anarchist and member of the Red Hundred.

James Sinclair

minor

Also known as Jimmy

A young man caught up in the events.

Gipsy Jack

minor

Also known as Jack

A Romany character with minor involvement.

Falk

minor

A member of the Red Hundred.

Magnus the Jew

minor

A minor character mentioned in passing.

Carl

minor

A minor character with brief appearance.