Character guide

Colonel J. Black

major

Also known as Colonel Black, Morris Black, the Earl of Verlond

Black is a man of leisure whose grave grey eyes and flawless Andalusian speech conceal a financier's appetite for other people's money. He keeps Sir Isaac Tramber on a leash of insults and loans, and treats a whining beggar's warning about Dr. Essley with the same patient contempt he shows his creditors. When a masked tribunal occupies his own boardroom and a pensioned servant turns up murdered, the hunter discovers he has become quarry — and the early arc turns on whether his nerve outlasts the net closing around him.

Sir Isaac Tramber

major

Also known as Sir Isaac, Isaac Tramber

Tramber orbits Lord Verlond as client, sycophant, and occasional whipping boy, absorbing insults in the hope of an invitation or a loan. He wants Mary Sandford's hand and, more urgently, her father's fortune, but his clumsy courtship only makes him look a fool. Half in and half out of Black's schemes, he is the story's barometer of weakness: when he starts showing signs of revolt, the reader knows the pressure on the conspirators is real.

Frank Fellowe

major

Also known as Fellowe, young Fellowe

Fellowe is the young man Black's men drag into a cellar-house and try to buy or bury, and his clear, unwavering eyes answer the proposition before his mouth can. He is offered the choice between a bribe and a chained existence in a donjon-keep substitute, and his refusal sets the trap that the Four Just Men spring on their host. His stubbornness matters because it forces the hidden tribunal into the open and makes the hunted financier feel hunted.

Dr. Essley

major

Also known as Essley, Dr. Essley

Essley moves through London with the freedom of a man who has organized his life to hide it, keeping erratic hours and admitting no patients worth mentioning. He is entangled with Black, and when a stranger in evening dress saves him from attack, he recognizes the voice and feels the steel in the arm that pushes him away. The grey envelope waiting on his writing-table — signed by the Four Just Men — turns his calculated disappearance into a countdown, and his panic is the reader's first real measure of what the Four can do.

Horace Gresham

supporting

Also known as Horace, Gresham, Mr. Horace Gresham

Gresham sits at Lord Verlond's dinner table beside the loveliest woman in the world, politely interested in talk of Sandford and a policeman friend, while a discharged servant named Farmer fingers him as the fourth member of the Four Just Men. He is the one who came late at night to Despard's study, whose face was never seen and whose voice was never heard, and who directed the others to their work. His mild social presence makes the accusation both plausible and unsettling, and it plants the question the early-middle arc keeps circling: who is the leader?

Willie Jakobs

supporting

Also known as Mr. Jakobs, Jakobs, Master Jakobs

Jakobs is the servant who listened at Despard's dressing-room door and carried the Four Just Men's plans back to Black, then was discharged for bad associates and quietly paid to keep quiet. He is found unconscious and dies before anyone can learn who attacked him, though Gonsalez suspects Black's work and sends for the man himself. His death is the hinge of the early investigation: it gives the police a murder, gives Black a fresh terror of the net drawing round him, and gives May Sandford a reason to be drawn into a case she wants no part of.

The Girl

supporting

A laughing young woman whose birthday champagne becomes the unwitting instrument of a poisoner's nerve, and whose fate hangs over the Cordova intrigue.

Manfred

major

Also known as Manfred the wise

A grey-eyed, velvet-cloaked gentleman of leisure in Cordova who dismisses beggars with 'God will provide' — and may be far more than he seems.

May Sandford

supporting

Also known as May, Sandford

The ironmaster's radiant daughter, happy on her birthday for reasons she keeps to herself, whose raised champagne glass becomes the target of a quiet, terrible hand.

Lord Verlond

major

Also known as Verlond

An eccentric, sharp-tongued earl and sporting steward who asks a young rider to pull his horse — a request that curdles into something far darker.

Mr. Theodore Sandford

supporting

Also known as Theodore Sandford, Mr. Sandford

A florid, hearty ironmaster whose genial banter with Colonel Black masks how little he suspects the man seated beside his daughter.

Augustus Fanks

minor

Also known as Fanks, Mr. Augustus Fanks

A character who appears in the narrative with limited but notable presence.

Ikey Tramber

minor

Also known as Ikey, Tramber

A relative or associate of Sir Isaac Tramber, involved in the races.

Lady Mary Cassilirs

minor

Also known as Lady Mary, Mary

A noblewoman who appears in the story with a minor role.

Constable Fellowe

supporting

Also known as Fellowe, Police-Constable Fellowe

A police constable whose beat brushes the cold shadows of Cordova's cafés, where a beggar's whispered question about Dr. Essley changes everything.

Sergeant Gurden

minor

Also known as Gurden, A Sergeant Gurden

A police sergeant who assists in the investigation.

Gonsalez

major

Also known as The redoubtable Gonsalez, Dr. Gonsalez

Gonsalez moves through Cordova's sunlit cafés as a man of wealth and taste, sipping coffee while beggars whine and waiters doze. When a lame mendicant drops the name Dr. Essley in perfect English, his curiosity sharpens into something colder and more deliberate. He is one of the Four Just Men, and his quiet refusal to be moved by either pity or performance marks him as the kind of man who decides fates over a marble table.

Poiccart

major

Poiccart sits at the Café of the Great Captain, unhurried and unreadable, dispensing alms with a proverb and watching the street with eyes that seem to search for something they have not yet found. His composure under the beggar's relentless pleading hints at a discipline honed far beyond ordinary patience. As one of the Four Just Men, he brings to Cordova the quiet menace of a man whose courtesy is a weapon and whose leisure is a cover.

Leon

minor

A minor character with a brief appearance.

Timbolino

minor

A minor character with a limited but notable appearance.

Dr. Cajalos

minor

Also known as Cajalos

A doctor who appears briefly in the narrative.

Despard

minor

Also known as Mr. Wilkinson Despard, Mr. Despard, Wilkinson Despard

A character who appears in the story with a minor role.

The Ironmaster

minor

A character referred to by title, involved in industrial matters.

Mr. Fellowe

minor

A relative of Frank Fellowe, possibly his father.

Lord Francis Ledborough

minor

Also known as Ledborough

A nobleman who appears briefly in the story.

Sparks

minor

Also known as the agitated Sparks

A minor character who appears in a scene.

Miss Sandford

minor

Also known as Sandford

Another name for May Sandford, possibly a duplicate.

Gram

minor

A minor character with a brief appearance.

Young Gresham

minor

A younger relative of Horace Gresham.

Mr. Weld

minor

Also known as Weld

An acquaintance from Australia who appears briefly.

Mr. Farmer

minor

Also known as Farmer

A minor character with a brief appearance.

Mr. de la Monte

minor

Also known as de la Monte

A minor character who appears briefly.

Dr. Wilson Graille

minor

Also known as Graille

A doctor who appears briefly in the narrative.