# The Council of Justice — Character guide

> Key figures in The Council of Justice by Edgar Wallace.

- [George Manfred](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_council_of_justice_se/characters/manfred.md): 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 sereni
- [Lauder Bartholomew](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_council_of_justice_se/characters/lauder_bartholomew.md): 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 
- [Charles Garret](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_council_of_justice_se/characters/charles_garret.md): 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
- [Rudulph Starque](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_council_of_justice_se/characters/rudulph_starque.md): 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
- [Mr. Jessen](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_council_of_justice_se/characters/jessen.md): 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 und
- [The Woman of Gratz](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_council_of_justice_se/characters/the_woman_of_gratz.md): 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 dee
- [Leon Gonsalez](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_council_of_justice_se/characters/leon_gonsalez.md): 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 cha
- [Poiccart](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_council_of_justice_se/characters/poiccart.md): 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, watch
- [Herr Schmidt](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_council_of_justice_se/characters/herr_schmidt.md): 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 i
- [Superintendent Falmouth](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_council_of_justice_se/characters/falmouth.md): 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
- [Peter Sweeney](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_council_of_justice_se/characters/little_peter.md): A small-time criminal involved in the plot.
- [Herr Von Dunop](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_council_of_justice_se/characters/herr_von_dunop.md): A German official assisting in the case.
- [François](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_council_of_justice_se/characters/francois.md): A French anarchist and member of the Red Hundred.
- [Bernard Courtlander](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_council_of_justice_se/characters/bernard_courtlander.md): A young man accused of a crime and defended by the Four.
- [M. Menshikoff](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_council_of_justice_se/characters/menshikoff.md): A Russian agent involved with the Red Hundred.
- [Carlos Ferdinand Bourbon](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_council_of_justice_se/characters/carlos_ferdinand_bourbon.md): A royal claimant mentioned in the plot.
- [Sir William Seddon](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_council_of_justice_se/characters/sir_william_seddon.md): A government official involved in the case.

HTML index: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_council_of_justice_se/characters