THE CASEFILES OF

MR J. G. REEDER

Edgar Wallace

with an introduction by

David Stuart Davies

The Casefiles of Mr J. G. Reeder first published by

Wordsworth Editions Limited in 2010

Published as an ePublication 2011

ISBN 978 1 84870 405 3

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For my husband

ANTHONY JOHN RANSON

with love from your wife, the publisher

Eternally grateful for your unconditional love,

not just for me but for our children,

Simon, Andrew and Nichola Trayler

INTRODUCTION

Edgar Richard Horatio Wallace (1875–1932) was the most prolific of authors. He wrote at a prodigious pace, producing one hundred and seventy three books (more than half involving crime and mystery) and seventeen plays.

Wallace led an interesting and somewhat colourful life. He was born in Greenwich, the illegitimate son of actors Marie (Polly) Richards and Richard Horatio Edgar Marriott who kept him for a mere nine days after his birth. He was adopted by George Freeman, a fish porter, and brought up with his other ten children. Wallace learned the truth of his parentage when he was eleven years old. This discovery came about because he needed a birth certificate in order to get a job. Like most things in his life, he took the shocking news in his stride.

Wallace’s early working life consisted of an ever-changing series of odd jobs until he joined the West Kent Regiment at the age of eighteen, later transferring to the Medical Staff Corps. He served as a correspondent during the Boer War for Reuters and South African and London newspapers. His journalistic work gave him a taste for writing and he concocted his first mystery novel featuring four respectable but ruthless vigilantes who find pleasure in administering justice when the law is incapable or unwilling to do so. However publishers were not interested in Wallace’s The Four Just Men and so he founded the Tallis Press and published the novel himself in 1905. He ran a vast and successful advertising campaign to promote the book which involved a huge publicity gimmick: a £500 reward was offered to any reader who could guess how the murder of the British Foreign Secretary was committed in the novel. This ploy generated tremendous sales, but Wallace had over-estimated his own cleverness in creating the murder mystery plot, for there were several correct responses and they all had to be paid. As result Wallace suffered great financial losses.

Nevertheless, The Four Just Men made Edgar Wallace’s name as a popular author. He was speedy and prolific, turning out novels, stories and plays in short order. His unbounded energy and enthusiasm for his craft ensured that there was always a new Edgar Wallace thriller on the bookstalls. It is said that he once dictated a play in four days and a novel over a weekend. His output was matched by his popularity. It has been claimed that in the 1920s and 1930s, one in every four books read in Britain was written by Wallace, who became known as the ‘King of Thrillers’.

Apart from The Four Just Men, he created Sanders of the River con-cerning the adventures of a British commissioner in Africa. Other characters included The Ringer, an underworld avenger, and Derrick Yale ‘the amazing psychometrical detective’ who pits his wits against Scotland Yard in The Crimson Circle. And of course Mr. J. G. Reeder.

Ever since the creation of Sherlock Holmes, authors had been inventing detectives who they hoped would be considered as clever as Holmes but different in character and personality. Many sleuths had certain peculiar traits, for instance Ernest Bramah’s entertaining if somewhat incredible character Max Carrados who was blind but had developed his other senses to a remarkable degree. His hearing was highly tuned and he could read newsprint by running his sensitive fingers over the paper.

With John G. Reeder, Wallace decided to go against the usual conceptions of a clever detective. He is neither glamorous, forthright nor particularly courageous, the traditional traits of a hero. Reeder presents the image of a timid, insignificant, gentle man – but his mind is as sharp as a tack. He has an extraordinary memory for faces and the remarkable ability to think like a criminal. Small and middle-aged, he has mutton-chop whiskers, wears steel-rimmed pince-nez and an old fashioned flat-topped bowler hat. He carries an umbrella with him day and night, and resolutely keeps it furled. The handle conceals a knife blade. Reeder also possesses a well-oiled revolver, although he is far from being a man of action, preferring to potter around his private library or to meditate. However, this mild-mannered, apparently inoffensive man is in fact an ice-cold professional with a dogged determination to bring the wrongdoers to justice. His lack of emotion and interaction with other human beings – rather like Sherlock Holmes – makes him an unsettling character and certainly a formidable opponent.

Wallace first introduced him to the reading public in the novel Room 13 (1924), though Reeder is far from being the main character in this story. Despite being mentioned early in the narrative, he does not put in an appearance until Chapter 11. However in this chapter Wallace brilliantly provides a rich portrait of Reeder, his character and modus operandi, in his interview with one of the villains. It is a wonderful exercise in character-building in one short scene, revealing that Reeder’s timid, old-fashioned exterior disguises a ruthless and emotionless opponent.

In Room 13, Reeder refutes the notion that he is a ‘busy’, a slang expression for policeman. (Wallace is very fond of using slang, no doubt to give his narrative an authentic tone.) Reeder explains his role thus.

‘I am merely an investigator, an inquiry agent, not a detective. “Detective” is term which is wholly repugnant to me. I have never arrested a man in my life nor have I the authority to do so.’ In essence this protestation is mainly a matter of semantics. Reeder’s role in this novel certainly involves detective work. He is ‘employed by the banks to try and track down the people who have been putting so many forged notes on the market.’

Room 13 is an enjoyable crime thriller whose central character, Johnny Gray, is a kind of Bulldog Drummond clone who possesses a perceptive manservant and a devil-may-care attitude to violence and murder, while Reeder hovers mysteriously in the background – a cool and clever puppet-master pulling various important strings. Surprisingly at the end of the novel, he confesses that Reeder is not his real name and that ‘I’m rather a sheep in wolf’s clothing, or a wolf in sheep’s clothing.’ This is a strange twist suggesting that probably Wallace had no intention of using the character again. However, it would seem that on reflection the author realised that there was more mileage to be had out of this strange little fellow, rather than the clichéd tough-guy hero, Johnny Gray.

Mr Reeder took centre stage in the next book. Wallace decided, like so many writers who create a brilliant detective character, that the best way to let him shine was in a series of short stories rather than a novel with a drawn-out and convoluted plot. As a result, The Mind of Mr J. G. Reeder (1925) is perhaps his best work featuring this character. It consists of eight intriguing mysteries which are solved with great ease and cool aplomb by Reeder who we are told ‘had for more than twenty years dealt exclusively with bank robbers and forgers’ but has now transferred from this ‘specialist occupation’ to ‘the more general practice of the Public Prosecutor’s bureau’. No doubt the move was made by Wallace in order to present his gifted sleuth with more variety in the types of crimes he encounters. Forgery may be interesting but murder holds more fascination for the reader. Indeed, when this particular collection was published in America it was re-titled The Murder Book of J. G. Reeder. These are bite-size mysteries, clever conundrums, similar to those Agatha Christie created for her detective Hercule Poirot in the collection Poirot Investigates, published a year earlier. Wallace’s knowledge of real crime and the criminal fraternity shines through in these narratives. While his hero is, to be honest, the stuff of fantasy, the crimes are credible and realistic.

However, the main attraction of the J. G. Reeder stories lies not just in the brilliance of Reeder’s detective work or the colourful criminal characters he encounters, but also in the humour with which Wallace peppers his tales. Many of his witty observations and descriptions usually involve his idiosyncratic hero. For example:

[Reeder] smoked cigarettes rather like a woman who detests them but feels that it is the correct thing to do.

Reeder – he’s hell and poison . . . He’d cut your throat and write a hymn about it.

Reeder takes a trip to the theatre to see a farce in the story ‘Sheer Melodrama’. His behaviour there is not only highly amusing, but again helps to add depth to his portrait.

Once he was inveigled into sitting through a roaring farce, and was the only man in the house not to laugh. He was, indeed, such a depressing influence that the leading lady sent a passionate request to the manager that ‘the miserable-looking old man in the middle of the third row’ should have his money returned and be requested to leave the theatre. Which as Mr Reeder had come in on a free ticket, placed the manager in a very awkward predicament.

It was in The Mind of Mr J. G. Reeder that Wallace introduced a new character: Margaret Belman. She is a pretty young woman who is a near neighbour of Mr Reeder in the Brockley Road and becomes entangled quite innocently in several of his cases. In ‘The Stealer of Marble’, carrying out a subterfuge to capture the criminal, Reeder finds himself claiming that Miss Belman is his wife; ‘this preposterous claim had been made to appease a mad woman.’ It plays on his mind wondering whether he owed the girl an apology for such an assertion. Unbeknownst to her, to assuage his own conscience, he secures Margaret Belman a better position, ‘a secretaryship at one of the political headquarters’. He also takes the young woman to the theatre to see a melodrama, believing that the acts of violence and cruelty in the play merely reflect real life, commenting, humorously, ‘There is really nothing very extravagant about a melodrama except the price of the seats . . . ’

Wallace teases the reader with their relationship. Apart from the vast difference in their ages, we are told often that Reeder is a bit of a cold fish. His housekeeper ‘thought he was a woman-hater’, but Wallace assures us that ‘the sentimental qualities of Mr Reeder were entirely unknown.’

Certainly the relationship between Margaret Belman and Reeder grows from story to story. In ‘The Strange Case’ we are told that Mr Reeder, ‘did not like Miss Margaret Belman because she was pretty, but because she was sensible’, and that, ‘he liked her so well that he often travelled home on the cars with her and they used to discuss the Prince of Wales, the Labour Government, the high cost of living, and other tender subjects with great animation.’

In the final story of the collection, ‘The Investors’, Reeder rescues the pretty Miss Belman from the clutches of the villain and in the closing moments we are given this tantalising interchange between Reeder’s boss, the Public Prosecutor, and Reeder.

‘Why did they delay their execution of Miss Belman?’

Mr Reeder coughed.

‘They wanted to make a clean sweep, but did not wish to kill her until they had me in their hands. I rather suspect – he coughed again – ‘that they thought I had an especial interest in the young lady.’

‘And have you?’ asked the Public Prosecutor.

Mr Reeder did not reply.

Wallace’s next step was to bring Margaret Belman more into the spotlight and feature her with his star J. G. Reeder in a thriller novel, Terror Keep (1927). In this adventure Reeder has left his house in Brockley Road and moved into a rather smart flat in town along with a manservant called Peters. He still maintains a relationship with Margaret Belman, but as the novel opens it is clear that it has not advanced emotionally or romantically on his part.

As usual Wallace creates a dark and dangerous foe for Reeder to tackle, and once again Margaret finds herself in peril at the hands of the villain. She is his Achilles heel after all. The master criminal this time is Crazy John Flack who was caught by Reeder several years ago and incarcerated in Broadmoor Criminal Asylum but has now escaped and is seeking vengeance. (Reeder was such a terror to the criminal classes that a revenge plot was used more than once in the stories.) This is an accomplished little thriller in which Wallace skilfully weaves a series of plotlines together to create a thrilling climax in an old country house by the sea.

The final page of Terror Keep will please the romantics by revealing that Reeder (‘Dear J. G.’) and Margaret’s relationship has moved on a stage further.

The character J. G. Reeder became a film star as early as 1929 when he appeared in Red Aces, which was written and directed by Wallace himself. In this movie he was portrayed by George Bellamy.

Other movies followed some time later: Mr Reeder in Room 13 (1938) with Gibb McLaughlin as Reeder; The Mind of Mr Reeder (1939) with Will Fyffe (the Scottish comedian dropping his accent) as Reeder; The Missing People (1939) starring Fyffe again as Reeder.

There was a British television series, The Mind of Mr J. G. Reeder, starring Hugh Burden in the title role, which ran for two series from 1969 to 1971. Most of the episodes were based on Wallace’s short stories.

Reeder deserves a high place in the pantheon of British detectives for his originality and ingenuity. The great crime writer and commentator on the history of crime fiction H. R. F. Keating best summed up the appeal of the Reeder casefiles.

. . . give in to Wallace’s happy blend of excitement, mystification and humour and these stories, written no doubt in some haste all those years ago, still amuse, intrigue and notably entertain.

David Stuart Davies

The publication of this book marks the centenary of the birth of Frederick Thomas Wright (1910–2002), a great Edgar Wallace fan, and a great dad

ROOM 13

Chapter 1

Over the grim stone archway were carved the words:

PARCERE SUBJECTIS

In cold weather, and employing the argot of his companions Johnny Gray translated this as ‘Parky Subjects’ – it certainly had no significance as ‘Spare the Vanquished’ for he had been neither vanquished nor spared.

Day by day, harnessed to the shafts, he and Lal Morgon had pulled a heavy handcart up the steep slope, and day by day had watched absently the red-bearded gate-warder put his key in the big polished lock and snap open the gates. And then the little party had passed through, an armed warder leading, an armed warder behind, and the gate had closed.

And at four o’clock he had walked back under the archway and waited whilst the gate was unlocked and the handcart admitted.

Every building was hideously familiar. The gaunt ‘halls’, pitch-painted against the Dartmoor storms, the low-roofed office, the gas house, the big, barn-like laundry, the ancient bakery, the exercise yard with its broken asphalt, the ugly church, garishly decorated, the long, scrubbed benches with the raised seats for the warders . . . and the graveyard where the happily released lifers rested from their labours.

One morning in spring, he went out of the gate with a working-party. They were building a shed, and he had taken the style and responsibility of bricklayer’s labourer. He liked the work because you can talk more freely on a job like that, and he wanted to hear all that Lal Morgon had to say about the Big Printer.

‘Not so much talking today,’ said the warder in charge, seating himself on a sack-covered brick heap.

‘No, sir,’ said Lal.

He was a wizened man of fifty and a lifer, and he had one ambition, which was to live long enough to get another ‘lagging’.

‘But not burglary. Gray,’ he said as he leisurely set a brick in its place; ‘and not shootin’, like old Legge got his packet. And not faking Spider King, like you got yours.’

‘I didn’t get mine for faking Spider King,’ said Johnny calmly. ‘I didn’t know that Spider King had been rung in when I took him on the course, and was another horse altogether. They framed up Spider King to catch me. I am not complaining.’

‘I know you’re innocent – everybody is,’ said Lal soothingly. ‘I’m the only guilty man in boob. That’s what the governor says. “Morgon,” he says, “it does my heart good to meet a guilty man that ain’t the victim of circumstantiality. Like everybody else is in boob,” he says.’

Johnny did not pursue the subject. There was no reason why he should. This fact was beyond dispute. He had known all about the big racecourse swindles that were being worked, and had been an associate of men who backed the ‘rung in’ horses. He accepted the sentence of three years’ penal servitude that had been passed without appeal or complaint. Not because he was guilty of the act for which he was charged – there was another excellent reason.

‘If they lumbered you with the crime, it was because you was a mug,’ said old Lal complacently. ‘That’s what mugs are for – to be lumbered. What did old Kane say?’

‘I didn’t see Mr Kane.’ said Johnny shortly.

‘He’d think you was a mug, too,’ said Lal with satisfaction – ‘hand me a brick. Gray, and shut up! That nosey screw’s coming over.’ The ‘nosey screw’ was no more inquisitive than any other warder. He strolled across, the handle of his truncheon showing from his pocket, the well-worn strap dangling. ‘Not so much talking,’ he said mechanically.

‘I was asking for a brick, sir,’ said Lal humbly. ‘These bricks ain’t so good as the last lot.’

‘I’ve noticed that,’ said the warder, examining a half-brick with a professional and disapproving eye.

‘Trust you to notice that, sir,’ said the sycophant with the right blend of admiration and awe. And, when the warder had passed, ‘That boss-eyed perisher don’t know a brick from a gas-stove,’ said Lal without heat. ‘He’s the bloke that old Legge got straightened when he was in here – used to have private letters brought in every other day. But then, old Legge’s got money. Him and Peter Kane smashed the strong-room of the Orsonic and got away with a million dollars. They never caught Peter, but Legge was easy. He shot a copper and got life.’

Johnny had heard Legge’s biography a hundred times, but Lal Morgon had reached the stage of life when every story he told was new.

‘That’s why he hates Peter,’ said the garrulous bricklayer. ‘That’s why young Legge and him are going to get Peter. And young Legge’s hot! Thirty years of age by all accounts, and the biggest printer of slush in the world! And it’s not ord’nary slush. Experts get all mixed up when they see young Legge’s notes – can’t tell ’em from real Bank of England stuff. And the police and the secret service after him for years – and then never got him!’

The day was warm, and Lal stripped off his red and blue striped working jacket. He wore, as did the rest of the party, the stained yellow breeches faintly stamped with the broad arrow. Around his calves were buttoned yellow gaiters. His shirt was of stout cotton, white with narrow blue stripes, and on his head was a cap adorned with mystic letters of the alphabet to indicate the dates of his convictions. A week later, when the letters were abolished, Lal Morgon had a grievance. He felt as a soldier might feel when he was deprived of his decorations.

‘You’ve never met young Jeff?’ stated rather than asked Lal, smoothing a dab of mortar with a leisurely touch.

‘I’ve seen him – I have not met him,’ said Johnny grimly, and something in his tone made the old convict look up.

‘He “shopped” me,’ said Johnny, and Lal indicated his surprise with an inclination of his head that was ridiculously like a bow.

‘I don’t know why, but I do know that he “shopped” me,’ said Johnny. ‘He was the man who fixed up the fake, got me persuaded to bring the horse on to the course, and then squeaked. Until then I did not know that the alleged Spider King was in reality Boy Saunders cleverly camouflaged.’

‘Squeaking’s hidjus,’ said the shocked Lal, and he seemed troubled. ‘And Emanuel Legge’s boy, too! Why did he do it – did you catch him over money?’

Johnny shook his head.

‘I don’t know. If it’s true that he hates Peter Kane he may have done it out of revenge, knowing that I’m fond of Peter, and . . . well, I’m fond of Peter. He warned me about mixing with the crowd I ran with –’

‘Stop that talking, will you?’ They worked for some time in silence. Then: ‘That screw will get somebody hung one of these days,’ said Lal in a tone of quiet despair. ‘He’s the feller that little Lew Morse got a bashing for – over clouting him with a spanner in the blacksmith’s shop. He was nearly killed. What a pity! Lew wasn’t much account, an’ he’s often said he’d as soon be dead as sober.’

At four o’clock the working-party fell in and marched or shuffled down the narrow road to the prison gates.

Parcere Subjectis

Johnny looked up and winked at the grim jest, and he had the illusion that the archway winked back at him. At half-past four he turned into the deep-recessed doorway of his cell, and the yellow door closed on him with a metallic snap of a lock.

It was a big, vaulted cell, and the colour of the folded blanket ends gave it a rakish touch of gaiety. On a shelf in one corner was a photo-graph of a fox terrier, a pretty head turned enquiringly toward him. He poured out a mugful of water and drank it, looking up at the barred window. Presently his tea would come, and then the lock would be put on for eighteen and a half hours. And for eighteen and a half hours he must amuse himself as best he could. He could read whilst the light held – a volume of travel was on the ledge that served as a table. Or he could write on his slate, or draw horses and dogs, or work out interminable problems in mathematics, or write poetry . . . or think. That was the worst exercise of all. He crossed the cell and took down the photograph. The mount had worn limp with much handling, and he looked with a half-smile into the big eyes of the terrier.

‘It is a pity you can’t write, old Spot,’ he said. Other people could write, and did, he thought as he replaced the photograph. But Peter Kane never once mentioned Marney, and Marney had not written since . . . a long time. It was ominous, informative, in some ways decisive. A brief reference, ‘Marney is well’, or ‘Marney thanks you for your enquiry’, and that was all.

The whole story was clearly written in those curt phrases, the story of Peter’s love for the girl, and his determination that she should not marry a man with the prison taint. Peter’s adoration of his daughter was almost a mania – her happiness and her future came first, and must always be first. Peter loved him – Johnny had sensed that. He had given him the affection that a man might give his grown son. If this tragic folly of his had not led to the entanglement which brought him to a convict prison, Peter would have given Marney to him, as she was willing to give herself. ‘That’s that,’ said Johnny, in his role of philosopher. And then came tea and the final lock-up, and silence . . . and thoughts again.

Why did young Legge trap him? He had only seen the man once; they had never even met. It was only by chance that he had ever seen this young printer of forged notes. He could not guess that he was known to the man he ‘shopped’,for Jeff Legge was an illusive person. One never met him in the usual rendezvous where the half-underworld foregather to boast and plot or drink and love.

A key rattled in the lock, and Johnny got up. He forgot that it was the evening when the chaplain visited him. ‘Sit down. Gray.’ The door closed on the clergyman, and he seated himself on Johnny’s bed. It was curious that he should take up the thread of Johnny’s interrupted thoughts.

‘I want to get your mind straight about this man Legge . . . the son, I mean. It is pretty bad to brood on grievances, real or fancied, and you are nearing the end of your term of imprisonment, when your resentment will have a chance of expressing itself. And, Gray, I don’t want to see you here again.’

Johnny Gray smiled.

‘You won’t see me here!’ he emphasised the word. ‘As to Jeff Legge, I know little about him, though I’ve done some fairly fluent guessing and I’ve heard a lot.’

The chaplain shook his head thoughtfully.

‘I have heard a little; he’s the man they call the Big Printer, isn’t he? Of course, I know all about the flooding of Europe with spurious notes, and that the police had failed to catch the man who was putting them into circulation. Is that Jeff Legge?’

Johnny did not answer, and the chaplain smiled a little sadly. ‘Thou shalt not squeak’ – the eleventh commandment, isn’t it?’ he asked good-humouredly. ‘I am afraid I have been indiscreet. When does your sentence end?’

‘In six months,’ replied Johnny, ‘and I’ll not be sorry.’

‘What are you going to do? Have you any money?’

The convict’s lips twitched.

‘Yes, I have three thousand a year,’ he said quietly. ‘That is a fact which did not come out at the trial, for certain reasons. No, padre, money isn’t my difficulty. I suppose I shall travel. I certainly shall not attempt to live down my grisly past.’

‘That means you’re not going to change your name,’ said the chaplain with a twinkle in his eye. ‘Well, with three thousand a year, I can’t see you coming here again.’ Suddenly he remembered. Putting his hand in his pocket, he took out a letter. ‘The Deputy gave me this, and I’d nearly forgotten. It arrived this morning.’

The letter was opened, as were all letters that came to convicts, and Johnny glanced carelessly at the envelope. It was not, as he had expected, a letter from his lawyer. The bold handwriting was Peter Kane’s – the first letter he had written for six months. He waited until the door had closed upon the visitor, and then he took the letter from the envelope. There were only a few lines of writing.

Dear Johnny

I hope you are not going to be very much upset by the news I am telling you. Marney is marrying Major Floyd, of Toronto, and I know that you’re big enough and fine enough to wish her luck. The man she is marrying is a real good fellow who will make her happy.

Johnny put down the letter on to the ledge, and for ten minutes paced the narrow length of his cell, his hands clasped behind him. Marney to be married! His face was white, tense, his eyes dark with gloom. He stopped and poured out a mugful of water with a hand that shook, then raised the glass to the barred window that looked eastward.

‘Good luck to you, Marney!’ he said huskily, and drank the mug empty.

Chapter 2

Two days later, Johnny Gray was summoned to the Governor’s office and heard the momentous news.

‘Gray, I have good news for you. You are to be released immediately. I have just had the authority.’

Johnny inclined his head.

‘Thank you, sir,’ he said.

A warder took him to a bathroom, where he stripped, and, with a blanket about him, came out to a cubicle, where his civilian clothes were waiting. He dressed with a queer air of unfamiliarity, and went back to his cell. The warder brought him a looking-glass and a safety-razor, and he completed his toilet.

The rest of the day was his own. He was a privileged man, and could wander about the prison in his strangely-feeling attire, the envy of men whom he had come to know and to loathe; the half madmen who for a year had been whispering their futilities into his ear.

As he stood there in the hall at a loose end, the door was flung open violently, and a group of men staggered in. In the midst of them was a howling, shrieking thing that was neither man nor beast, his face bloody, his wild arms gripped by struggling warders.

He watched the tragic group as it made its way to the punishment cells.

‘Fenner,’ said somebody under his breath. ‘He coshed a screw, but they can’t give him another bashing.’

‘Isn’t Fenner that twelve-year man, that’s doing his full time?’ asked Johnny, remembering the convict. ‘And he’s going out tomorrow, too!’

‘That’s him,’ said his informant, one of the hall sweepers. ‘He’d have got out with nine, but old Legge reported him. Game to the last, eh? They can’t bash him after tomorrow, and the visiting justices won’t be here for a week.’

Johnny remembered the case. Legge had been witness to a brutal assault on the man by one of the warders, who had since been discharged from the service. In desperation the unfortunate Fenner had hit back, and had been tried. Legge’s evidence might have saved him from the flogging which followed, but Legge was too good a friend of the warders – or they were too good friends of his – to betray a ‘screw’. So Fenner had gone to the triangle, as he would not go again.

He could not sleep the last night in the cell. His mind was on Marney. He did not reproach her for a second. Nor did he feel bitter toward her father. It was only right and proper that Peter Kane should do what was best for his girl. The old man’s ever-present fear for his daughter’s future was almost an obsession. Johnny guessed that when this presentable Canadian had come along, Peter had done all in his power to further the match.

Johnny Gray walked up the steep slope for the last time. A key turned in the big lock, and he stood outside the gates, a free man. The red-bearded head warder put out his hand.

‘Good luck to you,’ he said gruffly. ‘Don’t you come over the Alps again.’

‘I’ve given up mountain climbing,’ said Johnny.

He had taken his farewell of the Governor, and now the only thing to remind him of his association with the grim prison he had left was the warder who walked by his side to the station. He had some time to wait, and Johnny tried to get some information from another angle.

‘No, I don’t know Jeff Legge,’ said the warder, shaking his head. ‘I knew the old man: he was here until twelve months ago – you were here, too, weren’t you, Gray?’

Johnny nodded.

‘Mr Jeff Legge has never been over the Alps, then?’ he asked sardonically.

‘No, not in this prison, and he wasn’t in Parkhurst or Portland, so far as I can remember. I’ve been at both places. I’ve heard the men talking about him. They say he’s clever, which means that he’ll be putting out his tins one morning. Goodbye, Gray, and be good!’

Johnny gripped the outstretched hand of the man, and, when he was in the carriage, took out his silk handkerchief and wiped his hand of the last prison contact.

His servant was waiting for him at Paddington when he arrived that afternoon, and with him, straining at a leash, a small, lop-eared fox terrier, who howled his greeting long before Johnny had seen the group. In another second the dog was struggling in his arms, licking his face, his ears and his hair, and whining his joy at the reunion. There were tears in Johnny’s eyes when he put the dog down on the platform.

‘There are a number of letters for you, sir. Will you dine at home?’

The excellent Parker might have been welcoming his master from a short sojourn at Monte Carlo, so very unemotional was he.

‘Yes, I’ll dine at home,’ said Johnny. He stepped into the taxicab that Parker had hired, and Spot leapt after him.

‘There is no baggage, sir?’ asked Parker gravely through the open window.

‘There is no baggage,’ said Johnny as gravely. ‘You had better ride back with me, Parker.’

The man hesitated.

‘It would be a very great liberty, sir,’ he said.

‘Not so great a liberty as I have had taken with me during the past year and nine months,’ said Johnny.

As the cab came out into dismal Chapel Street, the greatly daring Parker asked: ‘I hope you have not had too bad a time, sir?’

Johnny laughed.

‘It has not been pleasant, Parker. Prisons seldom are.’

‘I suppose not, sir,’ agreed Parker, and added unnecessarily: ‘I have never been in prison, sir.’

Johnny’s flat was in Queen’s Gate, and at the sight of the peaceful luxury of his study he caught his breath.

‘You’re a fool,’ he said aloud to himself.

‘Yes, sir,’ said the obliging Parker.

That night many men came furtively to the flat in Queen’s Gate, and Johnny, after admitting the first of these, called Parker into his small dining-room.

‘Parker, I am told that during my absence in the country even staid men have acquired the habit of attending cinema performances?’

‘Well, sir, I like the pictures myself,’ admitted Parker.

‘Then go and find one that lasts until eleven o’clock,’ said Johnny.

‘You mean, sir – ?’

‘I mean I don’t want you here tonight.’

Parker’s face fell, but he was a good servant.

‘Very good, sir,’ he said, and went out, wondering sorrowfully what desperate plans his master was hatching.

At half-past ten the last of the visitors took his leave.

‘I’ll see Peter tomorrow,’ said Johnny, tossing the end of his cigarette into the hall fireplace. ‘You know nothing of this wedding, when it is to take place?’

‘No, Captain. I only know Peter slightly.’

‘Who is the bridegroom?’

‘A swell, by all accounts – Peter is a plausible chap, and he’d pull in the right kind. A major in the Canadian Army, I’ve heard, and a very nice man. Peter can catch mugs easier than some people can catch flies –’

‘Peter was never a mug-catcher,’ said John Gray sharply.

‘I don’t know,’ said the other. ‘There’s one born every minute.’

‘But they take a long time to grow up, and the women get first pluck,’ said Johnny good-humouredly.

Parker, returning at 11.15, found his master sitting before a fireplace which was choked with burnt paper.

Johnny reached Horsham the next afternoon soon after lunch, and none who saw the athletic figure striding up the Horsham Road would guess that less than two days before he had been the inmate of a convict cell.

He had come to make his last desperate fight for happiness. How it would end, what argument to employ, he did not know. There was one, and one only, but that he could not use.

As he turned into Down Road he saw two big limousines standing one behind the other, and wondered what social event was in progress.

Manor Hill stood aloof from its suburban neighbours, a sedate, red-brick house, its walls gay with clematis. Johnny avoided the front gates and passed down a side path which, as he knew, led to the big lawn behind, where Peter loved to sun himself at this hour.

He paused as he emerged into the open. A pretty parlourmaid was talking to an elderly man, who wore without distinction the livery of a butler. His lined face was puckered uncomfortably, and his head was bent in a listening attitude, though it was next to impossible for a man totally deaf to miss hearing all that was said.

‘I don’t know what sort of houses you’ve been in, and what sort of people you’ve been working for, but I can tell you that if I find you in my room again, looking in my boxes, I shall tell Mr Kane. I won’t have it, Mr Ford!’

‘No, miss,’ said the butler, huskily.

It was not, Johnny knew, emotion which produced the huskiness. Barney Ford had been husky from his youth – probably squawked huskily in his cradle.

‘If you are a burglar and trying to keep your hand in, I understand it,’ the girl continued hotly, ‘but you’re supposed to be a respectable man! I won’t have this underhand prying and sneaking. Understand that! I won’t have it!’

‘No, miss,’ said the hoarse Barney. John Gray surveyed the scene with amusement. Barney he knew very well. He had quitted the shadier walks of life when Peter Kane had found it expedient to retire from his hazardous calling. Ex-convict, ex-burglar and ex-prizefighter, his seamy past was in some degree redeemed by his affection for the man whose bread he ate and in whose service he pretended to be, though a worse butler had never put on uniform than Barney.

The girl was pretty, with hair of dull gold and a figure that was both straight and supple. Now her face was flushed with annoyance, and the dark eyes were ablaze. Barney certainly had prying habits, the heritage of his unregenerate days. Other servants had left the house for the same reason, and Peter had cursed and threatened without wholly reforming his servitor.

The girl did not see him as she turned and flounced into the house, leaving the old man to stare after her. ‘You’ve made her cross,’ said John, coming up behind him. Barney Ford spun round and stared. Then his jaw dropped. ‘Good Lord, Johnny, when did you come down from college?’ The visitor laughed softly.

‘Term ended yesterday,’ he said. ‘How is Peter?’

Before he replied the servant blew his nose violently, all the time keeping his eye upon the newcomer. ‘How long have you bin here?’ he asked at length. ‘I arrived at the tail-end of your conversation,’ said Johnny, amused. ‘Barney, you haven’t reformed!’ Barney Ford screwed up his face into an expression of scorn. ‘They think you’re a hook even if you ain’t one,’ he said. ‘What does she know about life? You ain’t seen Peter? He’s in the house; I’ll tell him in a minute. He’s all right. All beans and bacon about the girl. That fellow adores the ground she walks on. It’s not natural, being fond of your kids like that. I never was.’ He shook his head despairingly. ‘There’s too much lovey-dovey and not enough strap nowadays. Spare the rod and spoil the child, as the good old poet says.’

John Grey turned his head at the sound of a foot upon a stone step. It was Peter, Peter radiant yet troubled. Straight as a ramrod, for all his sixty years and white hair. He was wearing a morning coat and pearl-grey waistcoat – an innovation. For a second he hesitated, the smile struck from his face, frowning, and then he came quickly, his hand outstretched.

‘Well, Johnny boy, had a rotten time?’

His hand fell on the young man’s shoulder, his voice had the old pleasure of pride and affection.

‘Fairly rotten,’ said Johnny; ‘but any sympathy with me is wasted. Personally, I prefer Dartmoor to Parkhurst – it is more robust, and there are fewer imbeciles.’

Peter took his arm and led him to a chair beneath the big Japanese umbrella planted on the lawn. There was something in his manner, a certain awkwardness which the newcomer could not understand.

‘Did you meet anybody . . . there . . . that I know, Johnny boy?’

‘Legge,’ said the other laconically, his eyes on Peter’s face.

‘That’s the man I’m thinking of. How is he?’

The tone was careless, but Johnny was not deceived. Peter was intensely interested.

‘He’s been out six months – didn’t you know?’

The other’s face clouded.

‘Out six months? Are you sure?’

Johnny nodded.

‘I didn’t know.’

‘I should have thought you would have heard from him,’ said John quietly. ‘He doesn’t love you!’

Peter’s slow smile broadened.

‘I know he doesn’t; did you get a chance of talking with him?’

‘Plenty of chances. He was in the laundry, and he straightened a couple of screws so that he could do what he liked. He hates you, Peter. He says you shopped him.’

‘He’s a liar,’ said Peter calmly. ‘I wouldn’t shop my worst enemy, He shopped himself. Johnny, the police get a reputation for smartness, but the truth is, every other criminal arrests himself. Criminals aren’t clever. They wear gloves to hide fingerprints, and then write their names in the visitors book. Legge and I smashed the strong-room of the Orsonic and got away with a hundred and twenty thousand pounds in American currency – it was the last job I did. It was dead easy getting away, but Emanuel started boasting what a clever fellow he was; and he drank a bit. An honest man can drink and wake up in his own bed. But a crook who drinks says good morning to the gaoler.’

He dropped the subject abruptly, and again his hand fell on the younger man’s shoulder.

‘Johnny, you’re not feeling sore, are you?’

Johnny did not answer.

‘Are you?’

And now the fight was to begin. John Gray steeled himself for the forlorn hope.

‘About Marney? No, only –’

‘Old boy, I had to do it.’ Peter’s voice was urgent, pleading. ‘You know what she is to me. I liked you well enough to take a chance, but after they dragged you I did some hard thinking. It would have smashed me, Johnny, if she’d been your wife then. I couldn’t bear to see her cry even when she was quite a little baby. Think what it would have meant to her. It was bad enough as it was. And then this fellow came along – a good, straight, clean, cheery fellow – a gentleman. And well, I’ll tell you the truth – I helped him. You’ll like him. He’s the sort of man anybody would like. And she loves him, Johnny.’

There was a silence.

‘I don’t bear him any ill-will. It would be absurd if I did. Only, Peter, before she marries I want to say –’

‘Before she marries?’ Peter Kane’s voice shook. ‘John, didn’t Barney tell you? She was married this morning.’

Chapter 3

‘Married?’

Johnny repeated the word dully.

Marney married . . . ! It was incredible, impossible to comprehend. For a moment the stays and supports of existence dissolved into dust, and the fabric of life fell into chaos.

‘Married this morning, Johnny. You’ll like him. He isn’t one of us, old boy. He’s as straight as . . . well, you understand, Johnny boy? I’ve worked for her and planned for her all these years; I’d have been rotten if I took a chance with her future.’

Peter Kane was pleading, his big hand on the other’s shoulder, his fine face clouded with anxiety and the fear that he had hurt this man beyond remedy.

‘I should have wired . . .’

‘It would have made no difference,’ said Peter Kane almost doggedly. ‘Nothing could have been changed, Johnny, nothing. It had to be. If you had been convicted innocently – I don’t say you weren’t – I couldn’t have the memory of your imprisonment hanging over her; I couldn’t have endured the uncertainty myself. Johnny, I’ve been crook all my life – up to fifteen years ago. I take a broader view than most men because I am what I am. But she doesn’t know that. Craig’s here today –’

‘Craig – the Scotland Yard man?’

Peter nodded, a look of faint amusement in his eyes.

‘We’re good friends; we have been for years. And do you know what he said this morning? He said, “Peter, you’ve done well to marry that girl into the straight way”, and I know he’s right.’

Johnny stretched back in the deep cane chair, his hand shading his eyes, as though he found the light too strong for him.

‘I’m not going to be sorry for myself,’ he said with a smile, and stretching out his hand, gripped Kane’s arm. ‘You’ll not have another vendetta on your hands, Peter. I have an idea that Emanuel Legge will keep you busy –’

He stopped suddenly. The ill-fitted butler had made a stealthy appearance.

‘Peter,’ he began in his husky whisper, ‘he’s come. Do you want to see him?’

‘Who?’

‘Emanuel Legge – uglier than ever.’

Peter Kane’s face set, mask-like.

‘Where is Miss Marney – Mrs Floyd?’

‘She’s gettin’ into her weddin’ things and falderals for the photogrypher,’ said Barney. ‘She had ’em off once, but the photogrypher’s just come, and he’s puttin’ up his things in the front garden. I sez to Marney –’

‘You’re a talkative old gentleman,’ said Peter grimly. ‘Send Emanuel through. Do you want to see him, Johnny?’

John Gray rose.

‘No,’ he said. ‘I’ll wander through your alleged rosary. I want nothing to remind me of the Awful Place, thank you.’

Johnny had disappeared through an opening of the box hedge at the lower end of the lawn when Barney returned with the visitor.

Mr Emanuel Legge was a man below middle height, thin of body and face, grey and a little bald. On his nose perched a pair of horn-rimmed spectacles. He stood for a second or two surveying the scene, his chin lifted, his thin lips drawn in between his teeth. His attire was shabby, a steel chain served as a watch-guard, and, as if to emphasise the rustiness of his wrinkled suit, he wore boots that were patently new and vividly yellow. Hat in hand, he waited, his eyes slowly sweeping the domain of his enemy, until at last they came to rest upon his host.

It was Peter Kane who broke the deadly silence.

‘Well, Emanuel? Come over and sit down.’

Legge moved slowly toward his host. ‘Quite a swell place, Peter. Everything of the best, eh? Trust you! Still got old Barney, I see. Has he reformed too? That’s the word, ain’t it – “reformed”?’

His voice was thin and complaining. His pale blue eyes blinked coldly at the other.

‘He doesn’t go thieving any more, if that is what you mean,’ said Peter shortly, and a look of pain distorted the visitor’s face.

‘Don’t use that word; it’s low –’

‘Let me take your hat.’ Peter held out his hand, but the man drew his away.

‘No, thanks. I promised a young friend of mine that I wouldn’t lose anything while I was here. How long have you been at this place, Peter?’

‘About fourteen years.’

Peter sat down, and the unwelcome guest followed his example, pulling his chair round so that he faced the other squarely.

‘Ah!’ he said thoughtfully. ‘Living very comfortable, plenty to eat, go out and come in when you like. Good way of spending fourteen years. Better than having the key on you four o’clock in the afternoon. Princetown’s the same old place – oh, I forgot you’d never been there.’

‘I’ve motored through,’ said Peter coolly, deliberately, and knew that he had touched a raw place before the lips of the man curled back in a snarl.

‘Oh, you’ve motored through!’ he sneered. ‘I wish I’d known; I’d have hung my flags out! They ought to have decorated Princetown that day. Peter. You drove through!’ he almost spat the words.

‘Have a cigar?’

Emanuel Legge waved aside the invitation.

‘No, thanks. I’ve got out of the habit – you do in fifteen years. You can get into some, too. Fifteen years is a long time out of a life.’

So Emanuel had come to make trouble, and had chosen his day well. Peter took up the challenge.

‘The man you shot would have been glad of a few – he died two years after,’ he said curtly, and all the pent fury of his sometime comrade flamed in his eyes.

‘I hope he’s in hell,’ he hissed, ‘the dirty flattie!’ With an effort he mastered himself. ‘You’ve had a real good time, Peter? Nice house, that wasn’t bought for nothing. Servants and whatnot and motoring through the moor! You’re clever!’

‘I admit it.’

The little man’s hands were trembling, his thin lips twitched convulsively.

‘Leave your pal in the lurch and get away yourself, eh? Every man for himself – well, that’s the law of nature, ain’t it? And if you think he’s going to squeak, send a line to the busies in charge of the case and drop a few hundred to ’em and there you are!’ He paused, but no reply came. ‘That’s how it’s done, ain’t it, Peter?’

Kane shrugged his shoulders indifferently.

‘I don’t know – I’m never too old to learn.’

‘But that’s the way it’s done?’ insisted the man, showing his teeth again. ‘That’s the way you keep out of boob, ain’t it?’

Peter looked at his tormentor, outwardly untroubled.

‘I won’t argue with you,’ he said.

‘You can’t,’ said the other. ‘I’m logical.’ He gazed around. ‘This house cost a bit of money. What’s half of two hundred thousand? I’m a bad counter!’ Peter did not accept the opening. ‘It’s a hundred thousand, ain’t it? I got sixty thousand--you owe me forty.’

‘We got less than a hundred and twenty thousand pounds, if you’re talking about the ship job. You got sixty thousand, which was more than your share. I paid it into your bank the day you went down.’

Legge smiled sceptically.

‘The newspapers said a million dollars,’ he murmured.

‘You don’t believe what you read in the newspapers, do you? Emanuel, you’re getting childish.’ Then suddenly: ‘Are you trying to put the “black” on me?’

‘Blackmail?’ Emanuel was shocked. ‘There’s honour amongst – friends surely, Peter. I only want what’s right and fair.’

Peter laughed softly, amusedly.

‘Comic, is it? You can afford to laugh at a poor old fellow who’s been in stir for fifteen years.’

The master of Manor Hill snapped round on him.

‘If you’d been in hell for fifty I should still laugh.’

Emanuel was sorry for himself. That was ever a weakness of his; he said as much.

‘You wouldn’t, would you? You’ve got a daughter, haven’t you? Young? Married today, wasn’t she?

‘Yes.’

‘Married money – a swell?’

‘Yes. She married a good man.’

‘He doesn’t know what you are, Peter?’ Emanuel asked the question carelessly, and his host fixed him with a steely glance.

‘No. What’s the idea? Do you think you’ll get forty thousand that way?’

‘I’ve got a boy. You’ve never sat in a damp cell with the mists of the moor hanging on the walls and thought and thought till your heart ached? You can get people through their children.’ He paused. ‘I could get you that way.’

In a second Peter Kane was towering above him, an ominous figure.

‘The day my heart ached,’ he said slowly, ‘yours would not beat! You’re an old man, and you’re afraid of death! I can see it in your eyes. I am afraid of nothing. I’d kill you!’

Before the ferocity of voice and mien, Legge shrank farther into his chair.

‘What’s all this talk about killing? I only want what’s fair. Fond of her, ain’t you, Peter? I’ll bet you are. They say that you’re crazy about her. Is she pretty? I don’t suppose she takes after you. Young Johnny Gray was sweet on her too. Peter, I’ll get you through her –’

So far he got, and then a hand like a steel clamp fell on his neck, and he was jerked from his chair.

Peter spoke no word but, dragging the squirming figure behind him, as if it had neither weight nor resistance, he strode up the narrow pathway by the side of the house, across the strip of garden, through the gate and into the road. A jerk of his arm, and Emanuel Legge was floundering in the dusty road.

‘Don’t come back, Emanuel,’ he said, and did not stop to listen to the reply.

* * *

John Gray passed out of sight and hearing of the two men, being neither curious to know Legge’s business nor anxious to renew a prison acquaintance.

Below the box hedge were three broad terraces, blazing with colour, blanketed with the subtle fragrance of flowers. Beyond that, a sloping meadow leading to a little river. Peter had bought his property wisely. A great cedar of Lebanon stood at the garden’s edge; to the right, massed bushes were patched with purple and heliotrope blooms.

He sat down on a marble seat, glad of the solitude which he shared only with a noisy thrush and a lark invisible in the blue above him.

Marney was married. That was the beginning and the end of him. But happy. He recognised his very human vanity in the instant doubt that she could be happy with anybody but him.

How dear she was! And then a voice came to him, a shrill, hateful voice. It was Legge’s – he was threatening the girl, and Johnny’s blood went cold. Here was the vulnerable point in Peter Kane’s armour; the crevice through which he could be hurt.

He started to his feet and went up the broad steps of the terrace, three at a time. The garden was empty, save for Barney setting a table. Kane and his guest had disappeared. He was crossing the lawn when he saw something white shining in the gloom beyond the open French windows of a room. Something that took glorious shape. A girl in bridal white, and her hands were outstretched to him. So ethereal, so unearthly was her beauty, that at first he did not recognise her.

‘Johnny!’

A soldierly figure was at her side, Peter Kane was behind her, but he had no eyes for any but Marney.

She came flying toward him, both his hands were clasped in her warm palm.

‘Oh, Johnny . . . Johnny!’

Then he looked up into the smiling face of the bridegroom, that fine, straight man to whom Peter had entrusted his beloved girl. For a second their eyes met, the debonair Major Floyd and his. Not by a flicker of eyelash did Johnny Gray betray himself.

The husband of the woman he loved was Jeff Legge, forger and traitor, the man sworn with his father to break the heart of Peter Kane.

Chapter 4

Had he betrayed himself, he wondered? All his willpower was exercised to prevent such a betrayal. Though a tornado of fury swept through and through him, though he saw the face of the man distorted and blurred, and brute instinct urged his limbs to savage action, he remained outwardly unmoved. It was impossible for the beholder to be sure whether he had paled, for the sun and wind of Dartmoor had tanned his lean face the colour of mahogany. For a while so terrific was the shock that he was incapable of speech or movement.

‘Major Floyd’ was Jeff Legge! In a flash he realised the horrible plot. This was Emanuel’s revenge – to marry his crook son to the daughter of Peter Kane.

Jeff was watching him narrowly, but by no sign did Johnny be-tray his recognition. It was all over in a fraction of a second. He brought his eyes back to the girl, smiling mechanically. She seemed oblivious to her surroundings. That her new husband stood by, watching her with a gleam of amusement in his eyes, that Peter was frowning anxiously, and that even old Barney was staring open-mouthed, meant nothing. ‘Johnny, poor Johnny! You aren’t hating me, are you?’

John smiled and patted the hand that lay in his. ‘Are you happy?’ he asked in a low voice.

‘Yes, oh yes, I’m happily married – that’s what you mean, isn’t it? I’m very happy . . . Johnny, was it terrible? I haven’t stopped thinking about you, I haven’t. Though I didn’t write . . . after . . . Don’t you think I was a beast? I know I was. Johnny, didn’t it hurt you, old boy?’

He shook his head.

‘There’s one thing you mustn’t be in Dartmoor – sorry for yourself. Are you happy?’

She did not meet his eyes.

‘That is twice you’ve asked in a minute! Isn’t it disloyal to say that I am? Don’t you want to meet Jeffrey?’

‘Why, of course, I want to meet Jeffrey.’

He crossed to the man, and Jeff Legge watched him.

‘I want you to meet Captain Gray, a very old friend of mine,’ she said with a catch in her voice.

Jeffrey Legge’s cold hand gripped his.

‘I’m glad to meet you, Captain Gray.’

Had he been recognised? Apparently not, for the face turned to him was puckered in an embarrassed smile.

‘You’ve just come back from East Africa, haven’t you? Get any shooting?’

‘No, I didn’t do any shooting,’ said Johnny.

‘Lots of lions, aren’t there?’ said Jeff.

The lips of the ex-convict twitched.

‘In that part of the country where I was living, the lions are singularly tame,’ he said dryly.

‘Marney, darling, you’re glad to see Gray on your wedding day, aren’t you? – it was good of you to come, Gray. Mrs Floyd has often spoken about you.’

He put his arm about the girl, his eyes never leaving Johnny’s face. He designed to hurt – to hurt them both. She stood rigidly, neither yielding nor resisting, tense, breathless, pale. She knew! The realisation came to John Gray like a blow. She knew that this man was a liar and a villain. She knew the trick that had been played upon her father!

‘Happy, darling?’

‘Very – oh, very.’

There was a flutter in her voice, and now Johnny was hurt and the fight to hold himself in became terrific. It was Peter who for the moment saved the situation.

‘Johnny, I want you to know this boy. The best in the world. And I want you to think with me that he’s the best husband in the world for Marney.’

Jeff Legge laughed softly. ‘Mr Kane, you embarrass me terribly. I’m not half good enough for her – I’m just an awkward brute that doesn’t deserve my good luck.’

He bent and kissed the white-faced girl. Johnny did not take his eyes from the man. ‘Happy, eh? I’ll bet you’re happy; you rascal,’ chuckled Kane.

Marney pulled herself away from the encircling arm. ‘Daddy, I don’t think this is altogether amusing Johnny.’

Her voice shook. The man from Dartmoor knew that she was on the verge of tears.

‘It takes a lot to bore me.’ John Gray found his voice. ‘Indeed, the happiness of young people – I feel very old just now – is a joy. You’re a Canadian, Major Floyd?’

‘Yes – a French Canadian, though you wouldn’t guess that from my name. My people were habitant and went west in the ’sixties – to Alberta and Saskatchewan, long before the railway came. You ought to go to Canada; you’d like it better than the place you’ve been to.’

‘I’m sure I should.’

Peter had strolled away, the girl’s arm in his.

‘No lions in Canada, tame or wild,’ said Jeff, regarding him from under his drooped eyelids. Gray had lit a cigarette. He was steady now, steady of nerve and hand.

‘I should feel lonely without lions,’ he said coolly, and then: ‘If you will forgive my impertinence, Major Floyd, you have married a very nice girl.’

‘The very, very best.’

‘I would go a long way to serve her – a long way. Even back to the lions.’ Their eyes met. In the bridegroom’s was a challenge; in Johnny Gray’s cold murder. Jeff Legge’s eyes fell and he shivered. ‘I suppose you like – hunting?’ he said. ‘Oh, no, you said you didn’t. I wonder why a man of your – er – character went abroad?’

‘I was sent,’ said Johnny, and he emphasised every word. ‘Somebody had a reason for sending me abroad – they wanted me out of the way. I should have gone, anyhow, but this man hurried the process.’

‘Do you know who it was?’

The East African pretence had been tacitly dropped. Jeff might do so safely, for he would know that the cause of John Gray’s retirement from the world was no secret.

‘I don’t know the man. He was a stranger to me. Very few people know him personally. In his set – our set – not half a dozen people could identify him. Only one man in the police knows him –’

‘Who is that?’ interrupted the other quickly.

‘A man named Reeder. I heard that in prison – of course you knew I had come from Dartmoor?’

Jeff nodded with a smile.

‘That is the fellow who is called The Great Unknown,’ he said, striving to thin the contempt from his voice. ‘I’ve heard about him in the club. He is a very stupid person of middle age, who lives in Peckham. So he isn’t as much unknown as your mystery man.’

‘It is very likely,’ said the other. ‘Convicts invest their heroes and enemies with extraordinary gifts and qualities. I only know what I have been told. At Dartmoor they say Reeder knows everything. The Government gave him carte blanche to find the Big Printer –’

‘And has he found him?’ asked Jeff Legge innocently.

‘He’ll find him,’ said Johnny. ‘Sooner or later there will be a squeak.’

‘May I be there to hear it,’ said Jeff Legge, and showed his white teeth in a mirthless smile.

Chapter 5

Johnny was alone in the lower garden, huddled up on a corner of the marble bench, out of sight but not out of hearing of the guests who were assembling on the lawn. He had to think, and think quickly. Marney knew! But Marney had not told, and Johnny guessed why.

When had Jeff Legge told her? On the way back from the church, perhaps. She would not let Peter know – Peter, who deemed her future assured, her happiness beyond question. What had Jeff said? Not much, Johnny guessed. He had given her just a hint that the charming Major Floyd she had married was not the Major Floyd with whom she was to live.

Johnny was cool now – icy cold was a better description. He must be sure, absolutely sure, beyond any question of doubt. There might be some resemblance between Jeff Legge and this Major Floyd. He had only seen the crook once, and that at a distance.

He heard the rustle of skirts and looked round quickly. It was the maid he had seen quarrelling with Barney.

‘Mr Kane says, would you care to be in the group that is being photographed. Captain Gray?’ she asked.

He did not immediately reply. His eyes were scanning her with a new interest.

‘Tell him I’d rather not, and come back.’

‘Come back, sir?’ she repeated in astonishment.

‘Yes, I want to talk to you,’ said Johnny with a smile. ‘Have mercy on a disgruntled guest, who can find nobody to entertain him.’

She stood, hesitating. He could see the indecision in her face.

‘I don’t know if Mr Kane would like that,’ she said, and a smile trembled at the corner of her mouth. ‘Very well, I’ll come back.’

It was not till ten minutes later, when he judged the photograph had been taken and the guests had gone again to the house, that she appeared, demure but curious.

‘Sit down,’ said Johnny. He threw away his cigarette and moved to the end of the stone bench.

‘Don’t stop smoking for me, Captain Gray,’ she said.

‘How long have you been here?’ he asked.

‘With Mr Kane? About six months,’ she said.

‘Pretty good job?’ he asked carelessly.

‘Oh, yes, sir, very.’

‘What is your name?’

‘My name is Lila. Why do you ask?’

‘I think you and I ought to get better acquainted, Lila,’ he said, and took her unresisting hand.

Secretly she was amused; on the surface she showed some sign of being shocked.

‘I didn’t know you were that type of flirting man, Mr Gray – you’re a Captain, though, aren’t you?’

‘ “Captain” is a purely honorary title, Lila,’ said Johnny. ‘I suppose you’ll miss your lady?’

‘Yes, I shall miss her,’ said Lila.

‘A nice girl, eh?’ bantered Johnny.

‘And a very nice husband,’ she said tartly.

‘Do you think so?’

‘Yes, I suppose he is a nice fellow. I don’t know much about him.’

‘Good-looking?’ suggested Johnny.

The woman shrugged her shoulders.

‘I suppose he is.’

‘And very much in love with Miss Kane. That fellow adores her,’ said Johnny. ‘In fact, I don’t know that I’ve ever seen a man so much in love with a woman.’

She suppressed a sigh.

‘Oh, yes, I suppose he is,’ she said impatiently. ‘Do you want me any more, Captain Gray, because I’ve a lot of work to do?’

‘Don’t run away,’ said Johnny in his most gentle voice, ‘Weddings always make me romantic.’ He took up the thread where it was inter-rupted. ‘I don’t expect the Major will have eyes for any other girl for years,’ he said. ‘He’s head over heels in love, and why shouldn’t he be? I suppose,’ he said reminiscently, avoiding her eyes, ‘he is the sort of man who would have had many love affairs in the past.’ He shrugged his shoulders. ‘With the kind of girls that one picks up and puts down at pleasure.’

Now a flush, deep and even, had come to her face, and her eyes held a peculiar brightness.

‘I don’t know anything about Major Floyd,’ she said shortly, and was rising, but his hand fell upon her arm.

‘Don’t run away, Lila.’

‘I’m not going to stay,’ she said with sudden vehemence. ‘I don’t want to discuss Major Floyd or anybody else. If you want me to talk to you –’

‘I want to talk to you about the honeymoon. Can’t you picture them, say, on Lake Como, in a bower of roses? Can’t you imagine him forgetting all that’s past, all the old follies, all the old girls – ?’

She wrenched her arm from his grip and stood up, and her face was deadly white.

‘What are you getting at, Gray?’ she asked, all the deference, all the demureness, gone from her voice.

‘I’m getting at you, Miss Lila Sain,’ he said, ‘and if you attempt to get away from me, I’ll throttle you!’

She stared at him, her breath coming quickly. ‘You were supposed to be a gentleman, too,’ she said.

‘I’m supposed to be Johnny Gray from Dartmoor. Sit down. What’s the graft, Lila?’

‘I don’t understand what you’re talking about.’

‘What’s the graft?’ asked Johnny with deadly calm. ‘Jeff Legge put you here to nose the house for him, and keep him wise as to what was going on.’

‘I don’t know Jeff Legge,’ she faltered.

‘You’re a liar,’ said Johnny ungently. ‘I know you, Lila. You run with Legge and you’re a cheap squeak. I’ve seen you a dozen times. Who is Major Floyd?’

‘Go and ask him,’ she said defiantly.

‘Who is Major Floyd?’

The grip on her arm tightened.

‘You know,’ she said sullenly. ‘It’s Jeff Legge.’

‘Now listen, Lila. Come here.’ He had released her, and now he crooked his finger. ‘Go and blow to Jeff, and I’ll squeak on you both – you understand that? I’ll put Jeff just where I want him to be – there’s a vacant cell at Dartmoor, anyway. That gives you a twinge, doesn’t it? You’re keen on Jeff?’

She did not reply.

‘I’ll put him where I want him to be,’ he repeated slowly and deliberately, ‘unless you do as I tell you.’

‘You’re going to put the “black” on him?’ she said, her lips curling.

‘ “Black” doesn’t mean anything in my young life,’ said Johnny. ‘But I tell you this, that I’ll find Reeder and squeak the whole pageful unless I have my way.’

‘What do you want?’ she asked.

‘I want to know where they’re going, and where they’re staying. I want to know their plans for the future. Are you married to him, by any chance?’

A glance at her face gave him the answer.

‘You’re not? Well, you may be yet, Lila. Aren’t you tired of doing his dirty work?’

‘Perhaps I am and perhaps I’m not,’ she replied defiantly. ‘You can do nothing to him now, anyway, Johnny Gray. He’s got your girl, and if you squeaked like a garden of birds you couldn’t undo what that old God-man did this morning! Jeff’s too clever for you. He’ll get you, Gray –’

‘If he knows,’ said Johnny quietly. ‘But if he knows, Reeder knows too. Do you get that?’

‘What are you going to do?’ she asked after a silence.

‘I’m having one of my little jokes,’ said Johnny between his teeth. ‘A real good joke! It is starting now. I can’t tell Peter, because he’d kill your young man, and I have a particular objection to Peter going to the drop. And you can’t tell Jeff, because there’d be a case for a jury, and when Jeff came out you’d be an old woman. That’s not a good prospect, eh? Now tell me all you’ve got to tell, and speak slowly, because I don’t write shorthand.’

He whipped a small notebook from his pocket, and as she spoke, reluctantly, sulkily, yet fearfully, he wrote rapidly. When he had finished: ‘You can go now, my gentle child,’ he said, and she stood up, her eyes blazing with rage.

‘If you squeak, Johnny Gray, I’ll kill you. I never was keen on this marriage business – naturally. I knew old Legge wanted him to marry Peter’s daughter, because Legge wanted to get one back on him. But Jeff’s been good to me; and the day the busies come for Legge I’ll come for you, and I’ll shoot you stone dead, Johnny, as God’s my judge!’

‘Beat it!’ said Johnny tersely.

He waited till she was gone through one of the openings in the box hedge, then passed along to the other and stopped. Peter Kane was standing in the open, shielded from view by the thin box bush, and Peter’s face was inscrutable.

Chapter 6

‘Hallo, Johnny! Running for the compensation stakes?’

Johnny laughed. ‘You mean the maid? She is rather pretty, isn’t she?’

‘Very,’ said the other.

Had he heard? That was a question and a fear in Johnny’s mind. The marble bench was less than six feet from the bush where Peter Kane stood. If he had been there any time –

‘Been waiting long for me, Peter?’ he asked.

‘No! I just saw you take a farewell of Lila – very nice girl, that, Johnny – an extraordinarily nice girl. I don’t know when I’ve seen a nicer. What did you find to talk about?’

‘The weather, dicky-birds and the course of true love,’ said Johnny, as Kane took his arm and led him across the lawn.

‘Everything variable and flighty, eh?’ said Peter with a little smile. ‘Come and eat, Johnny. These people are going away soon. Marney is changing now. What do you think of my new son-in-law, eh?’

His old jovial manner held. When they came into the big reception-room, and Peter Kane’s arm went round his son-in-law’s shoulder, Johnny breathed a sigh of relief. Thank God he did not know! He had sweated in his fear of what might follow a discovery.

Thirty-six people sat down in the dining-room, and, contrary to convention, Marney, who sat at the head of the table, was wearing her going-away dress. John shot a quick glance at her as he came in, but she averted her eyes. Her father sat on her left; next to him was the clergyman who had performed the ceremony. Next came a girl friend, and then a man, by whose side Johnny sat.

He recognised the leathery features instantly.

‘Been away, Johnny?’ Detective-Superintendent Craig asked the question in a voice so carefully pitched that it did not reach any farther than the man to whom he spoke.

The chatter and buzz of conversation, the little ripples of laughter that ran up and down the table, did something to make the privacy of their talk assured.

As Old Barney bent over to serve a dish, Craig gave a sidelong glance at his companion.

‘Peter’s got old Barney still – keeping honest, Barney?’

‘I’m naturally that way,’ said Barney sotto voce. ‘It’s not meeting policemen that keeps me straight.’

The hard features of the detective relaxed.

‘There are lots of other people who could say that, Barney,’ he said, and when the man had passed to the next guest: ‘He’s all right. Barney never was a bad man. I think he only did one stretch – he wouldn’t have done that if he’d had Peter’s imagination, Johnny.’

‘Peter’s imagination?’

‘I’m not referring to his present imagination, but the gift he had fourteen – fifteen years ago. Peter was the cleverest of them all. The brilliant way his attack was planned, the masterly line of retreat, the wonderful alibis, so beautifully dovetailed into one another that, if we had pinched him, he’d not only have been discharged, but he would have got something from the poor box! It used to be the life ambition of every young officer to catch him, to find some error of judgment, some flaw in his plan. But it was police-proof and foolproof.’

‘He’d blush to hear you,’ said the other dryly.

‘But it’s true, Johnny! The clever letters he used to write, all to fool us. He did a lot of work with letters – getting people together, luring ’em to the place he wanted ’em and where their presence served him best. I remember how he got my chief to be at Charing Cross under the clock at ten-past nine, and showed up himself and made him prove his alibi!’ He laughed gently.

‘I suppose,’ said Gray, ‘people would think it remarkable that you and he are such good friends?’

‘They wouldn’t say it was remarkable; they’d say it was damned suspicious!’ growled the other. ‘Having a drink?’ he said suddenly, and pulled a wine bottle across the table.

‘No, thanks – I seldom drink. We have to keep a very clear head in our business. We can’t afford to dream.’

‘We can’t afford anything else,’ said Craig. ‘Why “our business”, old man? You’re out of that?’

Johnny saw the girl look toward him. It was only a glance – but in that brief flash he saw all that he feared to see – the terror, the bewilderment, the helplessness. He set his teeth and turned abruptly to the detective.

‘How is your business?’ he asked.

‘Quiet.’

‘I’m sorry to hear that,’ said John Gray with mock concern, ‘But trade’s bad everywhere, isn’t it?’

‘What sort of time did you have – in the country?’ asked Craig, and his companion grinned.

‘Wonderful! My bedroom wanted papering, but the service was quite good.’

Craig sighed.

‘Ah well, we live and learn,’ he said heavily. ‘I was sorry about it, Johnny, very sorry. It’s a misfortune, but there’s no use grieving about it. You were one of the unlucky ones. If all the people who deserved prison were in prison – why, there wouldn’t be any housing problems. I hear there were quite a lot of stars there,’ Craig went on. ‘Harry Becker, and young Lew Storing – why, old Legge must have been there in your time. And another fellow – now, what’s his name? The slush man – ah. Carper, that’s it. Ever see him?’

‘Yes; he and I were once harnessed to the same cart.’

‘Ah!’ said Craig encouragingly. ‘I’ll bet you heard a few things. He’d talk to you.’

‘He did.’

Craig bent toward him, lowering his voice.

‘Suppose I told you a certain party coppered you, and suppose I said I’ve reason to believe that your copper is the man I want. Now couldn’t we exchange confidences?’ he asked.

‘Yes, we might squeak together, and it would sound like one of those syncopated orchestras. But we won’t. Honestly, Craig, I can’t tell you about the Big Printer. Reeder ought to know all about him!’

‘Reeder!’ said the other scornfully. ‘An amateur! All this fal-de-lal about secret service men gets my goat! If they’d left the matter to the police, we’d have had the Big Printer – ever seen him, Johnny?’

‘No,’ said Johnny untruthfully.

‘Reeder, eh?’ said the thoughtful detective. ‘They used to have an office man named Golden once, an old fellow that thought he could catch slushers by sitting in an office and thinking hard. Reeder isn’t much better by all accounts. I saw him once, a soft fellow on the edge of senile decay!’

Craig sighed deeply, looked up and down the happy board with a bleak and grudging glance, and then: ‘Just for a little heart-to-heart talk, I know where you could get an easy “monkey”, Johnny,’ he said softly.

Johnny did not smile.

‘It would have to be a monkey on a stick, Craig –’

‘We’re both men of the world,’ interrupted the detective imploringly.

‘Yes,’ said Johnny Gray, ‘but not the same world, Craig.’

One last despairing effort the detective made, though he knew that, in angling for a squeak, he might as well have tried Peter himself.

‘The Bank of England will pay a thousand pounds for the information I want.’

‘And who can afford it better?’ said Johnny heartily. ‘Now, shut up, Craig; somebody’s going to make a speech.’

It was a mild and beatific oration delivered by the officiating clergyman. When it came to its machine-made peroration Craig, who was intensely interested in the sonorous platitudes, looked round and saw that his companion had gone from his side – later he saw him leaning over Peter’s chair, and Peter was nodding vigorously. Then Johnny passed through the door.

Somebody else was watching him. The bridegroom, twiddling the stem of his wineglass between his fingers, saw him go, and was more than ordinarily interested. He was sufficiently curious, at any rate, to catch the eye of the pretty maid and look significantly at the door. At that signal Lila followed Johnny Gray. He was not in the hall, and she went out into the road, but here saw no sign of the man she sought. There was, however, somebody else, and she obeyed his call to her.

‘Tell Jeff I want him before he starts on that honeymoon of his,’ snarled Emanuel Legge, glaring at her through the glasses. ‘He’s been talking to that girl – I saw her face. What did he say?’

‘How do I know?’ she snapped back. ‘You and your Jeff! I wish to the Lord I’d never come into this job. What’s the graft, anyway? That flash crook knows all about it, Legge.’

‘Wh – Johnny Gray? Is he here? He did come, then?’

She nodded.

‘What do you mean – “he knows”?’

‘He knows Jeff – recognised him first pop,’ said the girl inelegantly, and Emanuel Legge whistled.

‘Have you told Jeff that he has been recognised?’

The harsh features of Emanuel Legge were drawn and tense.

‘What is the use of asking me? I haven’t had a word with him. He’s so taken up with this girl –’

‘Forget it,’ said Legge with a gesture. ‘Tell me what this Johnny Gray says.’

‘I’ll tell you one thing that amused me,’ said the girl grimly. ‘He said he’d throttle me if I squeaked! And he’s got a fascinating pair of hands. I shouldn’t like to play rough with that fellow – there’s no use in tut-tutting me, Emanuel. I’ve told you all he said. He knows Jeff; he must have seen him before he went “over the Alps”.’

The old man was thinking, his brow furrowed, his lips pursed.

‘It’s pretty bad if he guesses, because he’s sweet on the girl, and there’s going to be trouble. Get Jeff out quick!’

‘If you stay here, Peter will see you,’ she warned him. ‘Go down the lane and turn into the private path. I’ll send Jeff to you in the lower garden.’

Nodding, he hurried away. It took her some time to find an opportunity, but presently she signalled the man with her eyes, and he followed her to the lawn.

‘The old man’s waiting down in the lower garden,’ she said in a low voice. ‘Hurry.’

‘What is wrong?’ he asked quickly, sensing trouble.

‘He’ll tell you.’

With a glance round Jeff hurried on to the terrace just as his father reached the rendezvous.

‘Jeff, Gray knows.’

The man drew a quick breath. ‘Me?’ he said incredulously. ‘He didn’t so much as bat a lid when I met him.’

Emanuel nodded.

‘That fellow’s hell cool – the most dangerous crook in the world. I was in the Awful Place with him, and I know his reputation. There’s nothing he’s afraid of. If he tells Peter . . . shoot first! Peter won’t be carrying a gun, but he’s sure to have one within travelling distance – and Peter is a quick mover. I’ll cover you; I’ve got two boys handy that mind me, and Johnny . . . well, he’ll get what’s coming.’

‘What am I to do?’

Jeff Legge was biting his nails thoughtfully.

‘Get the girl away – you’re due to leave by car, ain’t you? Get her to the Charlton Hotel. You’re supposed to stay there a week – make it a day. Clear to Switzerland tomorrow and stop her writing. I’ll fix Peter. He’ll pay.’

‘For what?’

‘To get his girl back; forty thousand – maybe more.’

Jeff Legge whistled.

‘I didn’t see that side of the graft before. It’s a new variety of “black”.’

‘It’s what I choose to call it!’ hissed his father. ‘You’re in fifty-fifty. You can have the lot so far as I care. You make that girl eat dirt, d’ye hear? Put her right down to earth, Jeff . . . Peter will pay.’

‘I promised Lila . . .’ began the other, hesitant.

‘Promise your Aunt Rebecca Jane!’ Emanuel almost screamed. ‘Lila! That trash, and you the big man, too – what are ye running? A girls’ refuge society? Get!’

‘What about Gray?’

‘I’ll fix Gray!’

Chapter 7

The old man made his way back to the road and passed quickly along until he came to the main highway. Two men were seated in the shade of a bush, eating bread and cheese. They came quickly enough when he whistled them, tall, broad-shouldered men whose heavy jowls had not felt a lather-brush for days.

‘Either of you boys know Johnny Gray?’ he asked.

‘I was on the “moor” with him,’ said one gruffly, ‘if he’s the fellow that went down for ringing in horses?’

Emanuel nodded.

‘He’s in the house, and it’s likely he’ll walk to the station, and likely enough take the short cut across the fields. That’ll be easy for you. He’s got to be coshed – you understand? Get him good, even if you have to do it in the open. If there’s anybody with him, get him in London. But get him.’

Emanuel came back to his observation post as the first of the cars went into the drive. Jeff was moving quickly – and there was need.

Presently the car came out. Emanuel caught a glimpse of Jeff and the frightened face of the girl, and rubbed his hands in an ecstasy of satisfaction. Peter was standing in the middle of the road, watching the car. If he knew! The smile vanished from the old man’s face. Peter did not know; he had not been told. Why? Johnny would not let her go, knowing. Perhaps Lila was lying. You can never trust women of that kind; they love sensation. Johnny . . . dangerous. The two words left one impression. And there was Johnny, standing, one hand in pocket, the other waving at the car as it came into brief view on the Shoreham road, as unconcerned as though he were the least interested.

A second car went in and came out. Some guests were leaving. Now, if Johnny had sense, he would be driven to London with a party. But Johnny hadn’t sense. He was just a poor sucker, like all cheap crooks are. He came out alone, crossed the road and went down the narrow passage that led to the field path.

Emanuel looked backward. His bulldogs had seen and were moving parallel to the unconscious Gray.

From the road two paths led to the field, forming a Y where they met. Johnny had passed the fork when he heard the footsteps behind him. Glancing back, he saw a familiar face and did some shrewd guessing. He could run and easily outdistance these clumsy men. He preferred to face them, and turned, holding his malacca cane in both hands.

‘ ’Lo, Gray,’ said the bigger of the men. ‘Where’n thunder are you going in such a hurry? I want to talk with you, you dirty squeaker! You’re the fellow that told the deputy I was getting tobacco in through a screw!’

It was a crude invention, but good enough to justify the rough house that was booked to follow. They carried sticks in their hands, pliable canes, shotted at the end.

The blow missed Johnny as he stepped back, and then something long and bright glittered in the afternoon sun. The scabbard of the sword cane he held defensively before him, the sword, thin and deadly, was pointed to the nearer of his enemies. They stopped, Saxon-like, appalled by the sight of steel.

‘Bad boy!’ said Johnny reproachfully.

The razor-pointed rapier flickered from face to face, and the men stumbled back, getting into one another’s way. One of the men felt something wet on his cheek, and put up his hand. When it came down it was wet and red.

‘Beast, you have my brand!’ said Johnny with deadly pleasantry. ‘Come when I call you.’

He clicked the sword back in its wooden sheath and strode away. His indifference, his immense superiority, was almost as tremendously impressive as his cold toleration.

‘He’s ice, that fellow,’ said the man with the cut cheek. A sob of rage softened the rasp of his voice. ‘By . . . I’ll kill him for that!’

But he made no attempt to follow, and his companion was glad.

John Gray increased his pace, and after a while emerged into the outskirts of the town. Here he found a Ford cab and reached the station in time to see the train pull out. He had made a mistake; the time-table had been changed that day, but in half an hour there was a fast train from Brighton that stopped only at Horsham.

He crossed the station yard to an hotel and was in the telephone booth for a quarter of an hour before he emerged, his collar limp, perspiration streaming down his face.

There was no sign of a familiar face when he came back to the platform. He expected to see Emanuel eventually, and here he was not disappointed, for Emanuel arrived a few minutes before the Brighton train came in.

Officially, it was their first meeting since they had been members of the same farm gang at Dartmoor, and Legge’s expression of sur-prise was therefore appropriate.

‘Why, if it isn’t Gray! Well, fancy meeting you, old man! Well, this is a surprise! When did you come out?’

‘Cease your friendly badinage,’ said Johnny shortly. ‘If we can get an empty compartment, I’ve got a few words to say to you, Emanuel.’

‘Been down to the wedding?’ asked the old man slyly. ‘Nice girl, eh? Done well for herself? They tell me he’s a Canadian millionaire. Ain’t that Peter’s luck! That fellow would fall off rock and drop in feathers, he’s that lucky.’

Johnny made no answer. When the train stopped and he found him-self opposite a first-class carriage, he opened the door and Emanuel hopped in.

‘If you’re short of money –’ began Legge.

‘I’m not,’ said the other curtly. ‘I’m short of nothing except bad company. Now listen, Emanuel,’ – the train was puffing slowly from the station when he spoke again – ‘I’m going to give you a chance.’

The wide-eyed astonishment of Emanuel Legge was very convincing, but Johnny was not open to conviction at the moment.

‘I don’t get you, Johnny,’ he said. ‘What’s all this talk about giving me a chance? Have you been drinking?’

Johnny had seated himself opposite the man, and now he leant forward and placed his hand upon the other’s knee.

‘Emanuel,’ he said gently, ‘call off that boy, and there’ll be no squeak. Take that wounded fawn look from your face, because I haven’t any time for fooling. You call off Jeff and send the girl back home tonight, or I squeak. Do you understand that?’

‘I understand your words, Johnny Gray, but what they mean is a mystery to me.’ Emanuel Legge shook his head. ‘What boy are you talking about? I’ve only got one boy, and he’s at college –’

‘You’re a paltry old liar. I’m talking about Jeff Legge, who married Peter’s daughter today. I’ve tumbled to your scheme, Emanuel. You’re getting even with Peter. Well, get even with him, but try some other way.’

‘She’s married him of her own free will,’ began the man. ‘There’s no law against that, is there, Johnny? Fell in love with him right on the spot! That’s what I like to see, Johnny – young people in love.’

If he hoped to rattle his companion he was disappointed.

‘Now he can unmarry of his own free will,’ said Johnny calmly. ‘Listen to me, Emanuel Legge. When you arrive in London, you’ll go straight away to the Charlton Hotel and talk very plainly to your son. He, being a sensible man, will carry out your instructions –’

‘Your instructions,’ corrected Emanuel, his mouth twisted in a permanent smile. ‘And what happens if I don’t, Johnny?’

‘I squeak,’ said Johnny, and the smile broadened.

‘They are married, old man. You can’t divorce ’em. You can turn a brown horse into a black ’un, but you can’t turn Mrs Jeffrey Legge into Miss Marney Kane, clever as you are.’

Johnny leant forward.

‘I can turn Mr Jeffrey Legge into Dartmoor Jail,’ he said unpleasantly, ‘and that’s what I propose to do.’

‘On what charge?’ Emanuel raised his eyebrows. ‘Give us a little rehearsal of this squeal of yours, Gray.’

‘He’s the Big Printer,’ said Johnny, and the smile slowly dissolved. ‘The Government has spent thousands to catch him; they’ve employed the best secret service men in the world to pull him down, and I can give them just the information they want. I know where his stuff is planted. I know where it is printed; I know at least four of his agents. You think Jeff’s secret is his own and yours, but you’re mistaken, Emanuel. Craig knows he’s the Big Printer; he told me so at lunch. All he wants is evidence, and the evidence I can give him. Old Reeder knows – you think he’s a fool, but he knows. I could give him a squeak that would make him the cleverest lad in the world.’

Emanuel Legge licked his dry lips.

‘Going in for the con business, Johnny?’ he asked banteringly. There was no amusement in his voice. ‘What a confidence man you’d make! You look like a gentleman, and talk like one. Why, they’d fall for you and never think twice! But that confidence stuff doesn’t mean anything to me, Johnny. I’m too old and too wide to be bluffed –’

‘There’s no bluff here,’ interrupted Johnny. ‘I have got your boy like that!’ He held out his hand and slowly clenched it.

For fully five minutes Emanuel Legge sat huddled in a corner of the compartment, staring out upon the flying scenery.

‘You’ve got him like that, have you, Johnny boy?’ he said gently. ‘Well, there’s no use deceiving you, I can see. Slush is funny stuff – they call it phoney in America. Did you know that? I guess you would, because you’re well educated. But it’s good slush, Johnny. Look at this. He’s a note. Is it good or bad?’

His fingers had gone into his waistcoat pocket and withdrew a thin pad of paper an inch square. Fold by fold he opened it out and showed a five-pound note. He caressed the paper with finger and thumb. The eyes behind the powerful glasses gleamed; the thin-lined face softened with pride.

‘Is it good or bad, Johnny?’

Though the day was bright and hot, and not a cloud was in the sky, the four electric lamps in the carriage lit up suddenly. In the powerful light of day they seemed pale ghosts of flame, queerly dim. As the sunshine fell upon them their shadows were cast upon the white cornice of the carriage.

‘There’s a tunnel coming,’ said Emanuel. ‘It will give you a chance of seeing them at their best – feel ’em, Johnny! The real paper; bankers have fallen for ’em . . .’

With a roar the train plunged into the blackness of the tunnel. Emanuel stood with his back to the carriage door, the note held taut between his hands.

‘There’s only one flaw – the watermark. I’m giving away secrets, eh? Look!’

He stretched his arms up until he held the note against one of the bracket lamps. To see, John Gray had to come behind him and peer over his shoulder. The thunder of the train in the narrow tunnel was almost deafening.

‘Look at the “F”,’ shouted Emanuel. ‘See . . . that “F” in “Five” – it’s printed too shallow . . .’

As Johnny bent forward the old man thrust at him with his shoulder, and behind that lurch of his was all the weight and strength of his body. Taken by surprise, John Gray was thrown from his balance. He staggered back against the carriage door, felt it give and tried to recover his equilibrium. But the thrust was too well timed. The door flew open, and he dropped into the black void, clutching as he did so the window ledge. For a second he swayed with the in and out swinging of the door. Then Legge’s clenched fist hammered down on his fingers, and he dropped . . .

Chapter 8

He struck a layer of thick sand and turned a complete somersault. The wall of the tunnel caught and almost dislocated his arm, and he rebounded toward the whirling wheels. One wheel flicked him back against the wall, and he slid, his arms covering his face, the flint ballast of the road ripping his sleeves to ribbons . . .

He was alive. The train had passed. He saw the red tail-lights closing to one another. Gingerly he moved first one leg and then the other; then he rolled over toward the wall and lay on his back without further movement. His heart was pounding furiously; he felt a soreness working through the numb overlay of shock. Shock . . . shock sometimes killed men. His heart was going faster yet; he experienced a horrible nausea, and he found himself trembling violently.

The proper thing to do was to inject a solution of gum-acacia into his veins (his thoughts were curiously well ordered). Doctors did that; he remembered the doctor telling him at Dartmoor.

But there was no gum-acacia to be had . . . Ten minutes later he lifted his body on his elbow and struggled to a sitting position. His head swam, but it did not ache; his arms . . . he felt them carefully. They were very sore, but no bones were broken.

A roadman at the exit of the tunnel nearly dropped with amazement as a grimy young man whose clothes were in rags emerged, limping.

‘I fell out,’ said Johnny. ‘Can you tell me if there is anywhere I can hire a car?’

The roadman was going off duty and was willing to act as guide. Johnny hobbled up the steep slopes of the railway cutting, and with the assistance of the interested workman, traversed a wide field to the road. And then came a blessed sportsman on his way back from Gatwick Races, and he was alone in his car.

At first he looked suspicious at the bruised and ragged figure that had held him up. In the end he flung open the door by his side.

‘Step up,’ he said.

To the railway worker Johnny had a few words to say.

‘Here’s five,’ he said. ‘Two for your help and three to stop your talking. I don’t want this business to be reported, you understand? The truth is, I had been looking on the wine when it was red and gaveth its colour aright.’

Johnny had evidently touched a sympathetic chord.

‘You mean you was boozed?’ said the man. ‘You can trust me.’

The angel who drove him to London was not a talkative angel. Beyond expressing the wish that something drastic had happened to him before he went racing, and the advancement of his view that all racing was crooked and all jockeys thieves, he contributed little to the entertainment of his passenger, and the passenger was glad.

At the first cab-rank they struck – it was in Sutton – Johnny insisting upon alighting.

‘I’ll take you home if you like,’ said his gloomy benefactor.

Gently the other declined.

‘My name is Lawford,’ said the motorist in a sudden outburst of confidence. ‘I’ve got an idea I know your face. Haven’t I seen you on the track?’

‘Not for some time,’ said Johnny.

‘Rather like a fellow I once met . . . well, introduced to . . . fellow named Gay or Gray . . . regular rascal. He got time.’

‘Thanks,’ said Johnny, ‘that was I!’ and the hitherto reticent Mr Lawford became almost conversational in his apologies.

The young man finished the journey in a Sutton taxi and reached Queen’s Gate late in the afternoon. Parker, who opened the door to him, asked no questions. ‘I have laid out another suit for you, sir,’ he returned to the study to say – the only oblique reference he made to his employer’s disorder.

As he lay in a hot bath, soaking the stiffness out of his limbs, Johnny examined his injuries. They were more or less superficial, but he had had a terribly narrow escape from death, and he was not wholly recovered from the violence of it. Emanuel had intended his destruction. The attempt did not surprise him. Men of Legge’s type worked that way. He met them in Dartmoor. They would go to a killing without fire of rage or frenzy of despair. Once he had seen a convict select with deliberation and care a large jagged stone and drop it upon the head of a man working in the quarry below. Fortunately, a warder had seen the act, and his shout saved the intended victim from mutilation. The assailant had only one excuse. The man he had attacked had slighted him in some way.

In the hearts of these men lived a cold beast. Johnny often pictured it, an obscene shape with pale, lidless eyes and a straight slit of a mouth. He had seen the beast staring at him from a hundred distorted faces, had heard its voice, had seen its hatefulness expressed in actions that he shivered to recall. Something of the beast had saturated into his own soul.

When he came from his bath, the masseur whom Parker had summoned was waiting, and for half an hour he groaned under the kneading hands.

The evening newspaper that Parker procured contained no news of the ‘accident’ – Emanuel was hardly likely to report the matter, even for his own protection. There were explanations he could offer – Johnny thought of several.

Free from the hands of the masseur, he rested in his dressing-gown.

‘Has anybody called?’ he asked.

‘A Mr Reeder, sir.’

Johnny frowned.

‘Mr Reeder?’ he repeated. ‘What did he want?’

‘I don’t know, sir. He merely asked for you. A middle-aged man, with rather a sad face,’ said Parker. ‘I told him you were not at home, and that I would take any message for you, but he gave none.’

His employer made no reply. For some reason, the call of the mysterious Mr Reeder worried him more than the memory of the tragic happening of that afternoon, more, for the moment, than the marriage of Marney Kane.

Chapter 9

Marney made her journey to London that afternoon in almost complete silence. She sat in a corner of the limousine, and felt herself separated from the man she had married by a distance which was becoming immeasurable. Once or twice she stole a timid glance at him, but he was so preoccupied with his thoughts that he did not even notice. They were not pleasant thoughts, to judge by his unchanging scowl. All the way up he nibbled at his nails, a wrinkle between his eyes.

It was not until the big car was bowling across one of the river bridges that the strain was relieved, and he turned his head, regarding her coldly.

‘We’re going abroad tomorrow,’ he said, and her heart sank.

‘I thought you were staying in town for a week, Jeff,’ she asked, trouble in her eyes. ‘I told father –’

‘Does it matter?’ he said roughly, and then she found courage to ask him a question that had been in her mind during that dreary ride.

‘Jeff, what did you mean this morning, on the way back from the church . . . ? You frightened me.’

Jeff Legge chuckled softly.

‘I frightened you, did I?’ he sneered. ‘Well, if that’s all that’s going to happen to you, you’re a lucky girl!’

‘But you’re so changed . . .’ she was bewildered. ‘I – I didn’t want to marry you . . . I thought you wanted . . . and father was so very anxious . . .’

‘Your father was very anxious that you should marry a man in good society with plenty of money,’ he said, emphasising every word. ‘Well, you’ve married him, haven’t you? When I told you this morning that I’d got your father like that’ – he put out his thumb suggestively – ‘I meant it. I suppose you know your father’s a crook?’

The beautiful face flushed and went pale again.

‘How dare you say that?’ she asked, her voice trembling with anger. ‘You know it isn’t true. You know!’

Jeffrey Legge closed his eyes wearily. ‘There’s a whole lot of revelations coming to you, my good girl,’ he said, ‘but I guess we’d better wait till we reach the hotel.’

Silence followed, until the car drew up before the awning of the Charlton, and then Jeff became his smiling, courteous self, and so remained until the door of their sitting-room closed upon them.

‘Now, you’ve got to know something, and you can’t know it too soon,’ he said, throwing his hat upon a settee. ‘My name isn’t Floyd at all. I’m Jeffrey Legge. My father was a convict until six months ago. He was put in prison by Peter Kane.’

She listened, open-mouthed, stricken dumb with amazement and fear.

‘Peter Kane is a bank robber--or he was till fifteen years ago, when he did a job with my father, got away with a million dollars, and squeaked on his pal.’

‘Squeaked?’ she said, bewildered.

‘Your father betrayed him,’ said Jeffrey patiently. ‘I’m surprised that Peter hasn’t made you acquainted with the technical terms of the business. He squeaked on his pal, and my father went down for twenty years.’

‘It is not true,’ she said indignantly. ‘You are inventing this story. My father was a broker. He never did a dishonest thing in his life. And if he had, he would never have betrayed his friend!’

The answer seemed to amuse Legge.

‘Broker, was he? I suppose that means he’s a man who’s broken into strong-rooms? That’s the best joke I’ve heard for a long time! Your father’s crook! Johnny knows he’s crook. Craig knows he’s crook. Why in hell do you think a broker should be a pal of a busy? And take that look off your face – a busy is a detective. Peter has certainly neglected your education!’

‘Johnny knows?’ she said, horror-stricken. ‘Johnny knows father is – I don’t believe it! All you have told me is lies. If it were so, why should you want to marry me?’

Suddenly she realised the truth, and stood, frozen with horror, staring back at the smiling man.

‘You’ve guessed, eh? We’ve been waiting to get under Peter’s skin for years. And I guess we’ve got there. And now, if you like, you can tell him. There’s a telephone; call him up. Tell him I’m Jeff Legge, and that all the wonderful dreams he has had of seeing you happy and comfortable are gone! Phone him! Tell him you never wanted to marry me, and it was only to make him happy that you did – you’ve got to break his heart, anyway. You might as well start now.’

‘He’d kill you,’ she breathed.

‘Maybe he would. And that’d be a fine idea too. We’d have Peter on the trap. It would be worth dying for. But I guess he wouldn’t kill me. At the sight of a gun in his hands, I’d shoot him like a dog. But don’t let that stop you telling him, Marney darling.’

‘You planned it all . . . this was your revenge?’

He nodded.

‘But Johnny . . . Johnny doesn’t know.’

She saw the change in the man’s face, that suave assurance of his vanish.

‘He does know.’

She pointed an accusing finger at him. ‘He knows!’

‘He knows, but he let you go, honey,’ said Jeff. ‘He’s one of us, and we never squeak. One of us!’ he repeated the words mechanically.

She sat down and covered her face with her hands, and Jeffrey, watching her, thought at first that she was crying. When she raised her face, her eyes were dry. And, more extraordinary to him, the fear that he had seen was no longer there.

‘Johnny will kill you,’ she said simply. ‘He wouldn’t let me go . . . like that . . . if he knew. It isn’t reasonable to suppose that he would, is it?’

It was Jeff Legge’s turn to be uncomfortable. Not at the menace of Johnny’s vengeance, but at her utter calmness. She might have been discussing the matter impartially with a third person. For a moment he lost his grip of the situation. All that she said was so obviously, so patently logical, and instinctively he looked round as though he expected to find Johnny Gray at his elbow. The absurdity of the situation struck him, and he chuckled nervously.

‘Johnny!’ he sneered. ‘What do you expect Johnny to do, eh? He’s just out of bird – that’s jail; it is sometimes called boob – I see there’s a whole lot of stuff you’ve got to learn before you get right into the family ways.’

He lounged toward her and dropped his hands on her shoulders.

‘Now, old girl,’ he said, ‘there are two things you can do. You can call up Peter and put him wise, or you can make the best of a bad job.’

‘I’ll call father,’ she said, springing up. Before she could reach the telephone, his arm was round her, and he had swung her back.

‘You’ll call nothing,’ he said. ‘There’s no alternative, my little girl. You’re Mrs Legge, and I lowered myself to marry the daughter of such a squealing old hound! Marney, give me a kiss. You’ve not been very free with your tokens of affection, and I haven’t pressed you, for fear of scaring you off. Always the considerate gentleman – that’s Jeff Legge.’

Suddenly she was in his arms, struggling desperately. He tried to reach her lips, but she buried her face in his coat, until, with a savage jerk that almost dislocated her shoulder, he had flung her at arm’s distance. She looked up at the inflamed face and shuddered.

‘I’ve got you, Marney.’ His voice was hoarse with triumph. ‘I’ve got you properly . . . legally. You’re my wife! You realise that? No man can come between you and me.’

He pulled her toward him, caught her pale face between his hands, and turned it up to his. With all the strength of utter horror and loathing, she tore herself free, fled to the door, flung it open, and stood back, wide-eyed with amazement.

In the doorway stood a tall, broad woman, with vividly red hair and a broad, good-humoured face. From her costume she was evidently one of the chambermaids of the hotel. From her voice she was most obviously Welsh.

‘What are you doing here?’ demanded Jeff. ‘Get out, damn you!’

‘Why do you talk so at me now, look you? I will not have this bad language. The maid of this suite I am!’

Marney saw her chance of escaping, and, running into the room, slammed the door and locked it.

Chapter 10

For a moment Jeff Legge stood, helpless with rage. Then he flung all his weight against the door, but it did not yield. He took up the telephone, but changed his mind. He did not want a scandal. Least of all did he wish to be advertised as Jeffrey Legge. Compromise was a blessed word – he knocked at the door.

‘Marney, come out and be sensible,’ he said, ‘I was only joking. The whole thing was just to try you –’

She offered no reply. There was probably a telephone in the bedroom, he thought. Would she dare call her father? He heard another door unlocked. The bedroom gave on to the corridor, and he went out, to see the big chambermaid emerging. She was alone, and no sooner was she outside the door than it was locked upon her.

‘I’ll report you to the management,’ he said furiously. He could have murdered her without compunction. But his rage made no impression upon the phlegmatic Welsh woman.

‘A good character I have, look you, from all my employers. To be in the bedroom, it was my business. You shall not use bad language to me, look you, or I will have the law on you!’

Jeffrey thought quickly. He waited in the corridor until the woman had disappeared, then he beckoned from the far end a man who was evidently the floor waiter.

‘Go down to the office and ask the manager, with my compliments, if I can have a second set of keys to my rooms,’ he said suavely. ‘My wife wishes to have her own.’

He slipped a bill into the man’s hand, of such magnitude that the waiter was overwhelmed.

‘Certainly, sir. I think I can arrange,’ he said.

‘And perhaps you would lend me your pass key,’ said Jeff carelessly.

‘I haven’t a pass key, sir. Only the management have that,’ replied the man; ‘but I believe I can get you what you want.’

He came back in a few minutes to the sitting-room with many apologies. There were no duplicate sets of keys.

Jeff closed the sitting-room door on the man and locked it. Then he went over to the bedroom door.

‘Marney!’ he called, and this time she answered him. ‘Are you going to be sensible?’

‘I think I’m being very sensible,’ was her reply.

‘Come out and talk to me.’

‘Thank you, I would rather remain here.’

There was a pause.

‘If you go to your father, I will follow and kill him. I’ve got to shoot first, you know, Marney, after what you’ve told me.’

There was a silence, and he knew that his words had impressed her.

‘Think it over,’ he suggested. ‘Take your time about it.’

‘Will you promise to leave me alone?’ she asked.

‘Why, sure, I’ll promise anything,’ he said, and meant it. ‘Come out, Marney,’ he wheedled. ‘You can’t stay there all day. You’ve got to eat.’

‘The woman will bring me my dinner,’ was the instant reply, and Jeffrey cursed her softly.

‘All right, have it your own way,’ he said. ‘But I tell you this, that if you don’t come out tonight, there will be trouble in your happy family.’

He was satisfied, even though she did not answer him, that Marney would make no attempt to communicate with her father – that night, at least. After that night, nothing mattered.

He got on to the telephone, but the man he sought had not arrived. A quarter of an hour later, as he was opening his second bottle of champagne, the telephone bell tinkled and Emanuel Legge’s voice answered him.

‘She’s giving me trouble,’ he said in a low voice, relating what had happened.

He heard his father’s click of annoyance and hastened to excuse his own precipitancy.

‘She had to know sooner or later.’

‘You’re a fool,’ snarled the old man. ‘Why couldn’t you leave it?’

‘You’ve got to cover me here,’ said Jeff urgently. ‘If she phones to Peter, there is going to be trouble. And Johnny –’

‘Don’t worry about Johnny,’ said Emanuel Legge unpleasantly. ‘There will be no kick coming from him.’

He did not offer any explanation, and Jeff was too relieved by the assurance in his father’s voice to question him on the subject.

‘Take a look at the keyhole,’ said Emanuel, ‘and tell me if the key’s in the lock. Anyway, I’ll send you a couple of tools, and you’ll open that door in two jiffs – but you’ve got to wait until the middle of the night, when she’s asleep.’

Half an hour later a small package arrived by district messenger, and Jeffrey, cutting the sealed cord, opened the little box and picked out two curiously wrought instruments. For an hour he practised on the door of the second bedroom leading from the saloon, and succeeded in turning the key from the reverse side. Toward dinner-time he heard voices in Marney’s bedroom, and, creeping to the door, listened. It was the Welsh woman, and there came to his ears the clatter of plates and cutlery, and he smiled. He had hardly got back to his chair and his newspaper when the telephone bell rang. It was the reception clerk.

‘There’s a lady to see you. She asked if you’d come down. She says it is very important.’

‘Who is it?’ asked Jeffrey, frowning.

‘Miss Lila.’

‘Lila!’ He hesitated. ‘Send her up, please,’ he said, and drew a heavy velvet curtain across the door of Marney’s room.

At the first sight of Peter Kane’s maid he knew that she had left Horsham in a hurry. Under the light coat she wore he saw the white collar of her uniform.

‘What’s the trouble with you, Lila?’ he asked.

‘Where is Marney?’ she asked.

He nodded to the curtained room.

‘Have you locked her in?’

‘To be exact, she locked herself in,’ said Jeff with a twisted smile.

The eyes of the woman narrowed. ‘Oh, it’s like that, is it?’ she asked harshly. ‘You haven’t lost much time, Jeff.’

‘Don’t get silly ideas in your nut,’ he said coolly. ‘I told her who I was, and there was a row – that’s all there is to it. Now, what’s the trouble?’

‘Peter Kane’s left Horsham with a gun in his pocket, that’s all,’ she said, and Jeffrey paled.

‘Sit down and tell me just what you mean.’

‘After you’d gone I went up to my room, because I was feeling mighty bad,’ she said. ‘I’ve got my feelings, and there isn’t a woman breathing that can see a man go away with another girl –’

‘Cut out all the sentiment and let’s get right down to the facts,’ commanded Jeff.

‘I’ll tell it in my own way if you don’t mind, Jeffrey Legge,’ said Lila.

‘Well, get on with it,’ he said impatiently.

‘I wasn’t there long before I heard Peter in his room – it is underneath mine – and he was talking to himself. I guess curiosity got the better of my worry, and I went down and listened. I couldn’t hear what he was saying, and so I opened the door of his room a little bit. He had just changed. The moment I went in he was slipping the magazine in the butt of a Browning – I saw him put it in his coat pocket, and then I went downstairs. After a while he came down too, and, Jeff, I didn’t like the look of his face. It was all grey and pinched, and if ever I saw a devil in a man’s eyes I saw it in Peter Kane’s. I heard him order the car, and then I went down into the kitchen, thinking he was going at once. But he didn’t leave for about half an hour.’

‘What was he doing?’

‘He was in his own room, writing. I don’t know what he was writing, because he always uses a black blotting-pad. He must have written a lot, because I know there were half a dozen sheets of stationery in the rack, and when I went in after he’d left they had all gone. There was nothing torn up in the waste-paper basket, and he’d burnt nothing, so he must have taken all the stuff with him. I tried to get you on the phone, but you hadn’t arrived, and I decided to come up.’

‘How did you come up – by train or car?’

‘By taxi. There wasn’t a train for nearly two hours.’

‘You didn’t overtake Peter by any chance?’ She shook her head.

‘I wouldn’t. He was driving himself; his machine is a Spanz, and it moves!’

Jeff bit his nails. ‘That gun of Peter’s worries me a little,’ he said after a while, ‘because he isn’t a gunman. Wait.’

He took up the telephone and again called his father, and in a few words conveyed the story which Lila had brought.

‘You’ll have to cover me now,’ he said anxiously. ‘Peter knows.’

A long pause. ‘Johnny must have told him. I didn’t dream he would,’ said Emanuel. ‘Keep to the hotel, and don’t go out. I’ll have a couple of boys watching both entrances, and if Peter shows his nose in Pall Mall he’s going to be hurt.’

Jeff hung up the receiver slowly and turned to the girl. ‘Thank you, Lila. That’s all you can do for me.’

‘It is not all you can do for me,’ said Lila. ‘Jeff, what is going to happen now? I’ve tried to pin you down, but you’re a little too shifty for me. You told me that this was going to be one of those high-class platonic marriages which figure in the divorce courts, and, Jeff, I’m beginning to doubt.’

‘Then you’re a wise woman,’ said Jeffrey calmly. For a moment she did not understand the significance of the words.

‘I’m a wise woman?’ she repeated. ‘Jeff, you don’t mean –’

‘I’m entitled to my adventures,’ said Jeffrey, settling himself comfortably in the big armchair and crossing his legs. ‘I have a dear little wife, and for the moment, Lila, our little romance is finished.’

‘You don’t mean that?’ she asked unsteadily. ‘Jeff, you’re kidding. You told me that all you wanted was to get a share of Peter’s money, and Emanuel told me the same. He said he was going to put the “black” on Peter and get away with forty thousand.’

‘In the meantime I’ve got away with the girl,’ said Jeffrey comfortably, ‘and there’s no sense in kicking up a fuss, Lila. We’ve had a good time, and change is everything in life.’

She was on her feet now, glaring down at him.

‘And have I been six months doing slavey work, nosing for you, Jeffrey Legge, to be told that our little romance is finished?’ she asked shrilly. ‘You’ve double-crossed me, you dirty thief! And if I don’t fix you, my name’s not Lila.’

‘It isn’t,’ said Jeffrey. He reached for a cigar and lit it. ‘And never was. Your name’s Jane – that is, if you haven’t been telling me lies. Now, Lila, be an intelligent human being. I’ve put aside five hundred for you –’

‘Real money, I hope,’ she sneered. ‘No, you’re not going to get away with it so easy, Mr Jeffrey Legge. You’ve fooled me from beginning to end, and you either carry out your promise or I’ll –’

‘Don’t say you’ll squeak,’ said Jeffrey, closing his eyes in mock resignation. ‘You’re all squeakers. I’m tired of you! You don’t think I’d give you anything to squeak about, do you? That I’d trust you farther than I could fling you? No, my girl, I’m four kinds of a fool, but not that kind. You know just as much about me as the police know, or as Johnny Gray knows. You can’t tell my new wife, because she knows too. And Peter knows – in fact, I shouldn’t be surprised if somebody didn’t write a story about it in the newspapers tomorrow!’

He took out his pocket-case, opened it, and from a thick wad of notes peeled five, which he flung on to the table. ‘There’s your “monkey”, and au revoir, beauteous maiden,’ he said.

She took up the notes slowly, folded them, and slipped them into her bag. Her eyes were burning fires, her face colourless. If she had flown at him in a fury he would have understood, and was, in fact, prepared. But she said nothing until she stood, the knob of the door in her hand.

‘There are three men after you, Jeffrey Legge,’ she said, ‘and one will get you. Reeder, or Johnny, or Peter – and if they fail, you look out for me!’

And on this threat she took her departure, slamming the door behind her, and Jeffrey settled down again to his newspaper, with the feeling of satisfaction which comes to a man who has got through a very unpleasant task.

Chapter 11

In a long sedate road in suburban Brockley lived a man who had apparently no fixed occupation. He was tall, thin, somewhat cadaverous, and he was known locally as a furtive night-bird. Few had seen him in the daytime, and the inquisitive who, by skilful cross-examination, endeavoured to discover his business from a reticent housekeeper learnt comparatively little, and that little inaccurate. Policemen on night duty, morning wayfarers, had seen him walking up Brockley Road in the early hours, coming apparently from the direction of London. He was known as Mr J. G. Reeder. Letters in that name came addressed to him – large blue letters, officially stamped and sealed, and in consequence it was understood in postal circles that he held a Government position.

The local police force never troubled him. He was one of the subjects which it was not permissible to discuss. Until the advent of Emanuel Legge that afternoon, nobody ever remembered Mr Reeder having a caller.

Emanuel had come from prison to the affairs of the everyday world with a clearer perception of values than his son. He was too old a criminal to be under any illusions. Sooner or later, the net of the law would close upon Jeffrey, and the immunity which he at present enjoyed would be at an end. To every graft came its inevitable lagging. Emanuel, wise in his generation, had decided upon taking the boldest step of his career. And that he did so was not flattering to the administration of justice; nor could it be regarded as a tribute to the integrity of the police.

Emanuel had straightened many a young detective, and not a few advanced in years. He knew the art of dropping to perfection. In all his life he had only met three or four men who were superior to the well-camouflaged bribe. A hundred here and there makes things easier for the big crook; a thousand will keep him out of the limelight; but, once the light is on him, not a million can disturb the inevitable march of justice. Emanuel was working in the pre-limelight stage, and hoped for success.

If his many enquiries were truthfully answered, the police had not greatly changed since his young days. Secret service men were new to him. He had thought, in spite of the enormous sums allocated to that purpose in every year’s budget, that secret service was an invention of the sensational novelist and even now, he imagined Mr Reeder to be one who was subsidised from the comparatively private resources of the banks rather than from the Treasury.

It was Emanuel’s action to grasp the nettle firmly. ‘Infighting is not much worse than hugging,’ was a favourite saying of his, and once he had located Mr J. G. Reeder, the night-hawk – and that had been the labour of months – the rest was easy. Always providing that Mr Reeder was amenable to argument.

The middle-aged woman who opened the door to him gave him an unpromising reception.

‘Mr Reeder is engaged,’ she said, ‘and he doesn’t want to see any visitors.’

‘Will you kindly tell him,’ said Emanuel with his most winning smile and a beam of benevolence behind his thick glasses, ‘that Mr Legge from Devonshire would like to see him on a very particular matter of business?’

She closed the door in his face, and kept him so long waiting that he decided that even the magic of his name and its familiar association (he guessed) had not procured him an entry. But here he was mistaken. The door was opened for him, closed and bolted behind him, and he was led up a flight of stairs to the first floor.

The house was, to all appearance, well and comfortably furnished. The room into which he was ushered, if somewhat bare and official-looking, had an austerity of its own. Sitting behind a large writing-table, his back to the fireplace, was a man whom he judged to be between fifty and sixty. His face was thin, his expression sad. Almost on the end of his nose was clipped a pair of large, circular pince-nez. His hair was of that peculiar tint, red turning to grey, and his ears were large and prominent, seeming to go away from his head at right angles. All this Emanuel noted in a glance.

‘Good morning, or good afternoon, Mr Legge,’ said the man at the desk. He half rose and offered a cold and lifeless hand. ‘Sit down, will you?’ he said wearily. ‘I don’t as a rule receive visitors, but I seem to remember your name. Now where have I heard it?’

He dropped his chin to his breast and looked over his spectacles dolefully. Emanuel’s expansive smile struck against the polished surface of his indifference and rebounded. He felt for the first time the waste of expansiveness.

‘I had a little piece of information I thought I’d bring to you, Mr Reeder,’ he said. ‘I suppose you know that I’m one of those unfortunate people who, through the treachery of others, have suffered imprisonment?’

‘Yes, yes, of course,’ said Mr Reeder in his weak voice, his chin still bent, his pale blue eyes fixed unwaveringly on the other. ‘Of course, I remember. You were the man who robbed the strong-room. Of course you were. Legge, Legge? I seem to remember the name too. Haven’t you a son?’

‘I have a son, the best boy in the world,’ said Emanuel fervently.

There was a telephone receiver at Mr Reeder’s right hand and throughout the interview he was polishing the black stem with the cuff of his alpaca coat, a nervous little trick which first amused and then irritated the caller.

‘He has never been in trouble, Mr Legge? Ah, that’s a blessing,’ he sighed. ‘So many young people get into trouble nowadays.’

If there was one person whom Legge did not want to discuss it was his son. He got off the subject as well as he could.

‘I understand, Mr Reeder, that you’re doing special work for the Government – in the police department?’

‘Not in the police department,’ murmured the other. ‘No, no, certainly not – not in the police department. I scarcely know a policeman. I see them often in the streets, and very picturesque figures they are. Mostly young men in the vigour and prime of youth. What a wonderful thing is youth, Mr Legge! I suppose you’re very proud of your son?’

‘He’s a good boy,’ said Emanuel shortly.

Mr Reeder sighed again. ‘Children are a great expense,’ he said. ‘I often wonder whether I ought to be glad that I never married. What is your son by occupation, Mr Legge?’

‘An export agent,’ said Emanuel promptly.

‘Dear, dear!’ said the other, and shook his head. Emanuel did not know whether he was impressed or only sympathising.

‘Being in Dartmoor, naturally I met a number of bad characters,’ said the virtuous Emanuel; ‘men who did not appeal to me, since I was perfectly innocent and only got my stretch – lagging – imprisonment through a conspiracy on the part of a man I’ve done many a good turn to –’

‘Ingratitude,’ interrupted Mr Reeder, drawing in his breath. ‘What a terrible thing is ingratitude! How grateful your son must be that he has a father who looks after him, who has properly educated him and brought him up in the straight way, in spite of his own deplorable lapses!’

‘Now, look here, Mr Reeder.’ Emanuel thought it was time to get more definitely to business. ‘I’m a very plain man, and I’m going to speak plainly to you. It has come to my knowledge that the gentlemen you are acting for are under the impression that my boy’s got to do with the printing of slush – counterfeit notes. I was never more hurt in my life than when I heard this rumour. I said to myself: “I’ll go straight away to Mr Reeder and discuss the matter with him. I know he’s a man of the world, and he will understand my feelings as a father.” Some people, Mr Reeder’ – his elbows were on the table and he leant over and adopted a more confidential tone – ‘some people get wrong impressions. Only the other day somebody was saying to me: “That Mr Reeder is broke. He’s got three county court summonses for money owed – ”

‘A temporary embarrassment,’ murmured Mr Reeder. ‘One has those periods of financial – er – depression.’ He was polishing the stem of the telephone more vigorously.

‘I don’t suppose you’re very well paid? I’m taking a liberty in making that personal statement, but as a man of the world you’ll understand. I know what it is to be poor. I’ve had some of the best society people in my office’ – Emanuel invented the office on the spur of the moment – ‘the highest people in the land, and if they’ve said: “Mr Legge, can you oblige me with a thousand or a couple of thousand?” why, I’ve pulled it out, as it were, like this.’

He put his hand in his pocket and withdrew it, holding a large roll of money fastened with a rubber band.

For a second Mr J. G. Reeder allowed his attention to be distracted, and surveyed the pile of wealth with the same detached interest which he had given to Emanuel. Then, reaching out his hand cautiously, he took the note from the top, felt it, fingered it, rustled it, and looked quickly at the watermark.

‘Genuine money,’ he said in a hushed voice, and handed the note back with apparent reluctance.

‘If a man is broke,’ said Legge emphatically, ‘I don’t care who he is or what he is, I say: “Is a thousand or two thousand any good to you?”’

‘And is it?’ asked Mr Reeder.

‘Is what?’ said Emanuel, taken off his guard.

‘Is it any good to him?’

‘Well, of course it is,’ said Legge. ‘My point is this; a gentleman may be very hard pressed, and yet be the most solvent person in the world. If he can only get a couple of thousand just when he wants it – why, there’s no scandal, no appearance in court which might injure him in his job –’

‘How very true! How very, very true!’ Mr Reeder seemed profoundly touched. ‘I hope you pass on these wise and original statements to your dear son, Mr Legge?’ he said. ‘What a splendid thing it is that he has such a father!’

Emanuel cursed him under his breath.

‘Two thousand pounds,’ mused Mr Reeder. ‘Now, if you had said five thousand pounds –’

‘I do say five thousand,’ said Emanuel eagerly. ‘I’m not going to spoil the ship for a ha’porth of tar.’

‘If you had said five thousand pounds,’ Mr Reeder went on, ‘I should have known that three thousand was slush, or shall we say phoney – because you only drew two thousand from the City and Birmingham Bank this morning, all in hundred pound notes, series GI.19721 to 19740. Correct me if I’m wrong. Of course, you might have some other genuine money stowed away in your little hotel, Mr Legge; or your dear boy may have given you another three thousand as a sort of wedding present – I forgot, though, a bridegroom doesn’t give wedding presents, does he? He receives them. How foolish of me! Put away your money, Mr Legge. This room is very draughty, and it might catch cold. Do you ever go to the Hilly Fields? It is a delightful spot. You must come to tea with me one Sunday, and we will go up and hear the band. It is a very inexpensive but satisfactory method of spending two hours. As to those judgment summonses’ – he coughed, and rubbed his nose with his long forefinger – ‘those summonses were arranged in order to bring you here. I did so want to meet you, and I knew the bait of my impecuniosity would be almost irresistible.’

Emanuel Legge sat, dumbfounded.

‘Do you know a man named “Golden”? Ah, he would be before your time. Have you ever heard of him? He was my predecessor. I don’t think you met him. He had a great saying – set a brief to catch a thief. We called a note a brief in those days. Good afternoon, Mr Legge. You will find your way down.’

Legge rose, and with that the sad-faced man dropped his eyes and resumed the work he had been at when the visitor had interrupted him.

‘I only want to say this, Mr Reeder –’ began Legge.

‘Tell my housekeeper,’ pleaded Reeder weakly, and he did not look up. ‘She’s frightfully interested in fairy stories – I think she must be getting towards her second childhood. Good afternoon, Mr Legge.’

Chapter 12

Emanuel Legge was half-way home before he could sort out his impressions. He went back to the Bloomsbury Hotel where he was staying. There was no message for him, and there had been no callers. It was now seven o’clock. He wondered whether Jeff had restrained his impatience. Jeff must be told and warned. Johnny Gray, dead or maimed in a hospital, had ceased to be a factor. Peter Kane, for all his cunning and his vengefulness, might be dismissed as a source of danger. It was Mr J. G. Reeder who filled his thoughts, the bored Civil Servant with a weak voice, who had such a surprising knowledge of things, and whose continuous pointed references to Jeffrey filled him with unquiet. Jeffrey must clear out of the country, and must go while the going was good. If he hadn’t been such a fool, he would have moved that night. Now, that was impossible.

Peter had not arrived at the Charlton, or the men whom Legge had set to watch would have reported. If it had not been for the disturbing interview he had had with Reeder, he would have been more worried about Peter Kane; for when Peter delayed action, he was dangerous.

At eight o’clock that night, a small boy brought him a note to the hotel. It was addressed ‘E. Legge’, and the envelope was grimy with much handling. Emanuel took the letter to his room and locked the door before he opened it. It was from a man who was very much on the inside of things, one of Jeff’s shrewd but illiterate assistants, first lieutenant of the Big Printer, and a man to be implicitly trusted.

There were six closely written pages, ill-spelt and blotted. Emanuel read the letter a dozen times, and when he finished, there was panic in his heart.

‘Johnny Gray got out of the tunnel all right, and he’s going to squeak to Reeder,’ was the dramatic beginning, and there was a great deal more . . .

Emanuel knew a club in the West End of London, and his name was numbered amongst the members, even in the days when he had little opportunity of exercising his membership. It was a club rather unlike any other, and occupied the third and fourth floor of a building, the lower floors being in the possession of an Italian restaurateur. Normally, the proprietor of a fairly popular restaurant would not hire out his upper floors to so formidable a rival; but the proprietors of the club were also proprietors of the building, the restaurant keeper being merely a tenant.

It suited the membership of the Highlow Club to have their premises a little remote. It suited them better that no stairway led from the lower to the upper floors. Members of the club went down a narrow passage by the side of the restaurant entrance. From the end of the passage ran a small elevator, which carried them to the third floor.The County Council, in granting this concession, insisted upon a very com-plete fire escape system outside the building – a command which very well suited the members. Some there were who found it convenient to enter the premises by this latter method, and a window leading into the club was left unfastened day and night against such a contingency.

On the flat roof of the building was a small superstructure, which was never used by the club members; whilst another part of the building, which also belonged exclusively to the Highlow, was the basement, to which the restaurant proprietor had no access – much to his annoyance, since it necessitated the building of a wine storage room in the limited space in the courtyard behind.

Stepping out of the elevator into a broad passage, well carpeted, its austere walls hung with etchings, Emanuel Legge was greeted respectfully by the liveried porter who sat behind a desk within sight of the lift. There was every reason why Emanuel should be respected at the Highlow, for he was, in truth, the proprietor of the club, and his son had exercised control of the place during many of the years his father had been in prison.

The porter, who was a big ex-prize fighter, expressly engaged for the purpose for which he was frequently required, hurried from his tiny perch to stand deferentially before his master.

‘Anybody here?’ asked Legge.

The man mentioned a few names.

‘Let me see the engagement book,’ said the other, and the man produced from beneath the ledge of his desk a small, red book, and Emanuel turned the pages. The old man’s hand ran down the list, and suddenly stopped.

‘Oh, yes,’ he said softly, closing the book and handing it back.

‘Are you expecting anybody, Mr Legge?’ asked the porter.

‘No, I’m not expecting anybody . . . only I wondered . . .’

‘Mr Jeffrey got married today, I hear, sir. I’m sure all the staff wish him joy.’

All the staff did not wish Mr Jeffrey Legge joy, for neither he nor his father were greatly popular, even in the tolerant society of the Highlow, and moreover, strange as it may appear, very few people knew him by sight.

‘That’s very good of you, very good indeed,’ murmured Emanuel absently.

‘Are you dining here, sir?’

‘No, no, I’m not dining here. I just looked in, that is all.’ He stepped back into the elevator, and the porter watched it drop with pleasure. It was half-past eight; the glow was dying in the sky, and the lights were beginning to twinkle in the streets, as Emanuel walked steadily towards Shaftesbury Avenue.

Providentially, he was at the corner of a side street when he saw Peter Kane. He was near enough to note that under his thin overcoat Peter was in evening dress. Slipping into the doorway, he watched the man pass. Peter was absorbed in thought; his eyes were on the ground, and he had no interest for anything but the tremendous problem which occupied his mind.

Legge came back to the corner of the street and watched him furtively. Opposite the club, Peter stopped, looked up for a while, and passed on. The watcher laughed to himself. That club could have no pleasant memories for Peter Kane that night; it was in the Highlow that he had met the ‘young Canadian officer’ and had ‘rescued’ him, as he had thought, from his dangerous surroundings. There had Peter been trapped, for the introduction of Jeff Legge was most skilfully arranged. Going into the club one night, Peter saw, as he thought, a young, good-looking soldier boy in the hands of a gang of cardsharpers, and the ‘rescued officer’ had been most grateful, and had called upon Peter at the earliest opportunity. So simple, so very simple, to catch Peter. It would be a more difficult matter, thought Emanuel, for Peter to catch him.

He waited until the figure had disappeared in the gloom of the evening, and then walked back to the Avenue. This comedy over, there remained the knowledge of stark tragedy, of danger to his boy, and the upsetting of all his plans, and, the most dreadful of all possibilities, the snaring of the Big Printer. This night would the battle be fought, this night of nights would victory or defeat be in his hands. Reeder – Johnny – Peter Kane – all opposed him, innocent of their co-operation, and in his hands a hostage beyond price – the body and soul of Marney Legge.

He had scarcely disappeared when another person known to him came quickly along the quiet street, turned into the club entrance, and, despite the expostulations of the elevator man, insisted upon being taken up. The porter had heard the warning bell and stood waiting to receive her when the door of the elevator opened.

‘Where’s Emanuel?’ she asked.

‘Just gone,’ said the porter.

‘That’s a lie. I should have seen him if he’d just gone.’

She was obviously labouring under some emotion, and the porter, an expert on all stages of feminine emotionalism, shrewdly diagnosed the reason for her wildness of manner and speech.

‘Been a wedding today, hasn’t there?’ he asked with heavy jocularity. ‘Now, Lila, what’s the good of kicking up a fuss? You know you oughtn’t to come here. Mr Legge gave orders you weren’t to be admitted whilst you were at Kane’s.’

‘Where is Emanuel?’ she asked.

‘I tell you he’s just gone out,’ said the porter in a tone of ponderous despair. ‘What a woman you are! You don’t believe anything!’

‘Has he gone back to his hotel?’

‘That’s just where he has gone. Now be wise, girl, and beat it. Anybody might be coming here – Johnny Gray was in last night, and he’s a pal of Peter’s.’

‘Johnny knows all about me,’ she said impatiently. ‘Besides, I’ve left Peter’s house.’

She stood undecidedly at the entrance of the open elevator, and then, when the porter was preparing some of his finest arguments for her rapid disappearance, she stepped into the lift and was taken down.

The Highlow was a curious club, for it had no common room. Fourteen private dining-rooms and a large and elegantly furnished card-room constituted the premises. Meals were served from the restaurant below, being brought up by service lift to a small pantry. The members of the club had not the club feeling in the best sense of the word. They included men and women, but the chief reason for the club’s existence was that it afforded a safe and not unpleasant meeting-place for members of the common class, and gave necess-ary seclusion for the slaughter of such innocents as came within the influence of its more dexterous members. How well its inner secrets were kept is best illustrated by the fact that Peter Kane had been a member for twenty years without knowing that his sometime companion in crime had any official connection with its control. Nor was it ever hinted to him that the man who was directing the club’s activities during Emanuel’s enforced absence, was his son.

Peter was a very infrequent visitor to the Highlow; and indeed, on the occasion of his first meeting with the spurious Major Floyd, he had been tricked into coming, though this he did not know.

The porter was busy until half-past nine. Little parties came, were checked off in the book, and then – he looked at his watch.

‘Twenty-five to ten,’ he said, and pushed a bell button.

A waiter appeared from the side passage.

‘Put a bottle of wine in No. 13,’ he said.

The waiter looked at him surprised.

‘No. 13?’ he said, as if he could not believe his ears.

‘I said it,’ confirmed the porter.

* * *

Jeffrey ate a solitary dinner. The humour of the situation did not appeal to him. On his honeymoon, he and his wife were dining, a locked door between them. But he could wait.

Again he tried the queer-shaped pliers upon the key of the second bedroom. The key turned readily. He put the tool into his pocket with a sense of power. The clatter of a table being cleared came to him from the other room, and presently he heard the outer door close and a click of the key turning. He lit his fourth cigar and stepped out on to the balcony, surveying the crowded street with a dispassionate interest. It was theatre time. Cars were rolling up to the Haymarket; the long queue that he had seen waiting at the doors of the cheaper parts of the house had disappeared; a restaurant immediately opposite was blazing with lights; and on a corner of the street a band of ex-soldiers were playing the overture of Lohengrin.

Glancing down into the street, he distinguished one of the ‘minders’ his father had put there for his protection, and grinned. Peter could not know; he would have been here before. As to Johnny . . . ? Emanuel had been very confident that Johnny presented no danger, and it rather looked as though Emanuel’s view was right. But if Peter knew, why hadn’t he come?

He strolled back to the room, looked at the girl’s door and walked toward it. ‘Marney!’ he called softly.

There was no answer. He knocked on the panel.

‘Marney, come along. I want to talk to you. You needn’t open the door. I just wanted to ask you something.’

Still there was no answer. He tried the door; it was locked.

‘Are you there?’ he called sharply, but she did not reply.

He pulled the pliers from his pocket, and, pushing the narrow nose into the keyhole, gripped the end of the key and turned it. Then, flinging open the door, he rushed in.

The room was empty, and the big bathroom that led out of the suite was empty also. He ran to the passage door: it was locked – locked from the outside. In a sweat of fear he flew through the saloon into the corridor, and the first person he saw was the floor waiter.

‘Madam, sir? Yes, she went out a little time ago.’

‘Went out, you fool? Where?’ stormed Jeff.

‘I don’t know, sir. She just went out. I saw her going along the corridor.’

Jeff seized his hat and went down the stairs three at a time. The reception clerk had not seen the girl, nor had any of the pages, or the porter on the door. Oblivious to any immediate danger, he dashed out into the street, and, looking up and down, saw the minder and called him.

‘She hasn’t come out this entrance. There’s another in Pall Mall, he explained. ‘Jimmy Low’s there.’

But the second man on the Pall Mall entrance had not seen her either. Jeff went back to interview the manager.

‘There is no other way out, sir, unless she went down the service stairs.’

‘It was that cursed maid, the Welsh woman,’ snarled Jeffrey. ‘Who is she? Can I see her?’

‘She went off duty this afternoon, sir,’ said the manager. ‘Is there anything I can do? Perhaps the lady has gone out for a little walk? Does she know London?’

Jeff did not stop to reply: he fled up the stairs, back to the room, and made a quick search. The girl’s dressing-case, which he knew had been taken into the bedroom, was gone. Something on the floor attracted his attention. He picked it up, and read the few scribbled lines, torn from a notebook; and as he read, a light came into his eyes. Very carefully he folded the crumpled sheet and put it into his pocket. Then he went back to his sitting-room, and sat for a long time in the big armchair, his legs thrust out before him, his hands deep in his trousers pockets, and his thoughts were not wholly unpleasant.

The light was now nearly gone, and he got up. ‘Room thirteen,’ he said. ‘Room thirteen is going to hold a few surprises tonight!’

Chapter 13

To Parker, the valet, as he laid out Johnny’s dress clothes, there was a misfortune and a tragedy deeper than any to which Johnny had been a spectator. Johnny, loafing into his bedroom, a long, black, ebonite cigarette-holder between his teeth, found his man profoundly agitated.

‘The buckle of your white dress waistcoat has in some unaccountable way disappeared,’ he said in a hushed voice. ‘I’m extremely sorry, sir, because this is the only white dress waistcoat you have.’

‘Be cheerful,’ said Johnny. ‘Take a happier view of life. You can tie the tapes behind. You could even sew me together, Parker. Are you an expert needle worker, or do you crochet?’

‘My needlework has been admired, sir,’ said Parker complacently. ‘I think yours is an excellent suggestion. Otherwise, the waistcoat will not sit as it should. Especially in the case of a gentleman with your figure.’

‘Parker,’ said Johnny, as he began to dress leisurely, ‘have you ever killed a man?’

‘No, sir, I have never killed a man,’ said Parker gravely. ‘When I was a young man, I once ran over a cat – I was a great cyclist in my youth.’

‘But you never killed a man? And, what is more, you’ve never even wanted to kill a man?’

‘No, sir, I can’t say that I ever have,’ said Parker after a few moments’ consideration, as though it were possible that some experience had been his which had been overlooked in the hurry of his answering.

‘It is quite a nice feeling, Parker. Is there a hip pocket to these – yes, there is,’ he said, patting his trousers.

‘I’m sorry there is,’ said Parker, ‘very sorry indeed. Gentlemen get into the habit of carrying their cigarette cases in the hip pocket, with the result that the coat tail is thrown out of shape. That is where the dinner jacket has its advantages – the Tuxedo, as an American gentleman once called it, though I’ve never understood why a dinner jacket should be named after a Scottish town.’

‘Tuxedo is in Dixie,’ said Johnny humorously, ‘and Dixie is America’s lost Atlantis. Don’t worry about the set of my coat tail. I am not carrying my cigarette case there.’

‘Anything more bulky would of course be worse, sir,’ said Parker, and Johnny did not carry the discussion any farther.

‘Get me a cab,’ he ordered.

When Parker returned, he found his master was fully dressed.

‘You will want your cane, sir. Gentlemen are carrying them now in evening dress. There is one matter I would like to speak to you about before you go – it is something that has been rather worrying me for the past few days.’

Johnny was leaving the room, and turned.

‘Anything serious?’ he asked, for a moment deceived.

‘I don’t like telling you, sir, but I have discussed the matter with very knowledgeable people, and they are agreed that French shapes are no longer worn in silk hats. You occasionally see them in theatrical circles –’

Johnny put up a solemn hand.

‘Parker, do not let us discuss my general shabbiness. I didn’t even know I had a hat of French shape.’ He took off his hat and looked at it critically. ‘It is a much better shape than the hat I was wearing a week ago, Parker, believe me!’

‘Of course I believe you, sir,’ agreed Parker, and turned to the door.

Johnny dismissed his cab in Shaftesbury Avenue and walked down toward the club. It was dark now; half-past nine had chimed as he came along Piccadilly.

It was a point of honour with all members of the Highlow that nobody drove up to the club, and its very existence was unknown to the taximen. That was a rule that had been made, and most faithfully adhered to; and the members of the Highlow observed their rules, for, if a breach did not involve a demand for their resignation, it occasionally brought about a broken head.

Just before he reached the club, he saw somebody cross the road. It was not difficult to recognise Jeff Legge. Just at that moment it would have been rather embarrassing for Johnny to have met the man. He turned and walked back the way he had come, to avoid the chance of their both going up in the elevator together.

Jeff Legge was in a hurry: the elevator did not move fast enough for him, and he stepped out on to the third floor and asked a question.

‘No, sir, nobody has come. If they do, I’ll send them along to you. Where will you be? You haven’t a room engaged – your own room is taken. We don’t often let it, but we’re full tonight, and Mr Legge raised no objection.’

‘No, I don’t object,’ said Jeff; ‘but don’t you worry about that. Let me see the book.’

Again the red-covered engagement book was opened. Jeff read and nodded.

‘Fine,’ he said. ‘Now tell me again who is here.’

‘There is Mr George Kurlu, with a party of friends in No. 3; there’s Mr Bob Albutt and those two young ladies he goes about with – they’re in No. 4.’ And so he recited until he came to No. 13.

‘I know all about No. 13,’ said Jeff Legge between his teeth. ‘You needn’t bother about me, however. That will do.’

He strode along the carpeted hallway, turned abruptly into the right-angled passage, and presently stopped before a door with a neat golden ‘13’ painted on its polished panel. He opened the door and went in. On the red-covered table was a bottle of wine and two glasses.

It was a moderately large room, furnished with a sofa, four dining chairs and a deep easy chair, whilst against one wall was a small buffet. The room was brilliantly lighted. Six bracket lamps were blazing; the centre light above the table, with its frosted bulbs, was full on. He did not shut the door, leaving it slightly ajar. There was too much light for his purpose. He first switched out the bracket lamps, and then all but one of the frosted bulbs in the big shaded lamp over the table. Then he sat down, his back to the door, his eyes on the empty fire-grate.

Presently he heard a sound, the whining of the elevator, and smiled. Johnny stepped out to the porter’s desk with a friendly nod.

‘Good evening. Captain,’ said the porter with a broad grin. ‘Glad to see you back, sir. I wasn’t here last night when you came in. Hope you haven’t had too bad a time in the country?’

‘Abroad, my dear fellow, abroad,’ murmured the other reproachfully, and the porter chuckled. ‘Same old crowd, I suppose?’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘Same old bolt down the fire-escape when the busies call – or have you got all the busies straightened?’

‘I don’t think there’s much trouble, sir,’ said the porter. ‘We often have a couple of those gentlemen in here to dinner. The club’s very convenient sometimes. I shouldn’t think they’ll ever shut us up.’

‘I shouldn’t think so, either,’ said Johnny. ‘Which of the busies do you get?’

‘Well, sir, we get Mr Craig, and – once we had that Reeder. He came here alone, booked a table and came alone! Can you beat it? Came and had his dinner, saw nobody and went away again. I don’t think he’s right up there’ – he tapped his forehead significantly. ‘Anything less like a busy I’ve never seen.’

‘I don’t know whether he is a detective,’ said Johnny carelessly. ‘From all I’ve heard, he has nothing whatever to do with the police.’

‘Private, is he?’ said the other in a tone of disappointment.

‘Not exactly private. Anyway,’ with a smile, ‘he’s not going to bother you or our honourable members. Anybody here?’

The porter looked to left and right, and lowered his voice.

‘A certain person you know is here,’ he said meaningly.

Johnny laughed.

‘It would be a funny club if there wasn’t somebody I knew,’ he said. ‘Don’t worry about me; I’ll find a little corner for myself . . .’

Jeff looked at his watch; it was a quarter to ten, and he glanced up at the light; catching a glimpse of himself in the mirror of the buffet, he was satisfied.

Room 13! And Marney was his wife! The blood surged up into his face, gorging the thick veins in his temples at the thought. She should pay! He had helped the old man, as he would help him in any graft, but he had never identified himself so completely with the plan as he did at that moment.

‘Put her down to the earth,’ had said Emanuel, and by God he would do it. As for Johnny Gray . . .

The door opened stealthily, and a hand came in, holding a Browning. He heard the creak of the door but did not look round, and then –

‘Bang!’

Once the pistol fired. Jeff felt a sharp twitch of pain, exquisite, unbearable, and fell forward on his knees.

Twice he endeavoured to rise, then with a groan fell in a huddled heap, his head in the empty fireplace.

Chapter 14

The doors and the walls of the private dining-rooms were almost sound-proof. No stir followed the shot. In the hall outside, the porter lifted his head and listened.

‘What was that?’ he asked the waiting elevator man.

‘Didn’t hear anything,’ said the other laconically. ‘Somebody slammed a door.’

‘Maybe,’ said the porter, and went back to his book. He was filling in the names of that night’s visitors, an indispensable record in such a club, and he was filling them in with pencil, an equally necessary act of caution, for sometimes the club members desired a quick expungement of this evidence.

In Room 13 silence reigned. A thin blue cloud floated to the ceiling; the door opened a little farther, and Johnny Gray came in, his right hand in his overcoat pocket.

Slowly he crossed the room to where the huddled figure lay, and, stooping, turned it upon its back. Then, after a brief scrutiny, his quick hands went through the man’s pockets. He found something, carried to it the light, read with a frown and pushed the paper into his own pocket. Going out, he closed the door carefully behind him and strolled back to the hall.

‘Not staying, Captain?’ asked the porter in surprise.

‘No, nobody I know here. Queer how the membership changes.’

The man on duty was too well trained to ask inconvenient questions.

‘Excuse me. Captain.’

He went over to Johnny and bent down. ‘You’ve got some blood on your cuff.’

He took out his handkerchief and wiped the stain clean. Then his frowning eyes met the young man’s.

‘Anything wrong, Captain?’

‘Nothing that I can tell you about,’ said Johnny. ‘Good night.’

‘Good night, sir,’ said the porter.

He stood by his desk, looking hard at the glass doors of the elevator, heard the rattle of the gate as it opened, and the whine of the lift as it rose again.

‘Just stay here, and don’t answer any rings till I come back,’ he said.

He hurried along the corridor into the side passage and, coming to No. 13, knocked. There was no answer. He turned the handle. One glance told him all he wanted to know. Gently he closed the door and hurried back to the telephone on his desk.

Before he raised the receiver he called the gaping lift-boy.

‘Go to all the rooms, and say a murder has been committed. Get everybody out.’

He was still clasping the telephone with damp hands when the last frightened guest crowded into the elevator, then: ‘Highlow Club speaking. Is that the Charing Cross Hospital? . . . I want an ambulance here . . . Yes, 38, Boburn Street . . . There’s been an accident.’

He rung off and called another number.

‘Highlow Club. Is that the police station? . . . It’s the porter at the Highlow Club speaking, sir. One of our members has shot himself.’

He put down the instrument and turned his face to the scared elevator man who had returned to the high level. At the end of the passage stood a crowd of worried waiters.

‘Benny,’ he said, ‘Captain Gray hasn’t been here tonight. You understand? Captain – Gray – has – not – been – here – tonight.’

The guest-book was open on the desk. He took his pencil and wrote, on the line where Johnny Gray’s name should have been, ‘Mr William Brown of Toronto’.

Chapter 15

The last of the guests had escaped, when the police came, and, simultaneously with the ambulance, Divisional-Inspector Craig, who had happened to be making a call in the neighbourhood. The doctor who came with the ambulance made a brief examination.

‘He is not dead, though he may be before he reaches hospital,’ he said.

‘Is it a case of suicide?’

The doctor shook his head.

‘Suicides do not, as a rule, shoot themselves under the right shoulder-blade. It would be a difficult operation: try it yourself. I should say he’d been shot from the open doorway.’

He applied a rough first dressing, and Jeffrey was carried into the elevator. In the bottom passage a stretcher was prepared, and upon this he was laid, and, covered with a blanket, carried through the crowd which had assembled at the entrance.

‘Murder, or attempted murder, as the case may be,’ said Craig. ‘Someone has tipped off the guests. You, I suppose, Stevens? Let me see your book.’

The inspector ran his finger down the list, and stopped at Room 13.

‘Mr William Brown of Toronto, Who is Mr Brown of Toronto?’

‘I don’t know, sir. He engaged a room by telephone, I didn’t see him go.’

‘That old fire-escape of yours still working?’ asked Craig sardonically. ‘Anybody else been here? Who is the wounded man? His face seemed familiar to me.’

‘Major Floyd, sir.’

‘Who?’ asked Craig sharply. ‘Impossible! Major Floyd is –’

It was Floyd! He remembered now. Floyd, with whom he had sat that day – that happily-married man!

‘What was he doing here?’ he asked. ‘Now, spill it, Stevens, unless you want to get yourself into pretty bad trouble.’

‘I’ve spilled all I know, sir,’ said Stevens doggedly. ‘It was Major Floyd.’ And then an inspiration came to him. ‘If you want to know who it was, it was Jeff Legge. Floyd’s his fancy name.’

‘Who?’ Craig had had many shocks in his life, but, this was the greatest he had had for years.

‘Jeff Legge? Old Legge’s son?’

Stevens nodded.

‘Nobody knows that but a couple of us,’ he said. ‘Jeff doesn’t work in the light.’

The officer nodded slowly.

‘I’ve never seen him,’ he admitted. ‘I knew Legge had a son, but I didn’t know he was running crook. I thought he was a bit of a boy.’

‘He’s some boy, let me tell you!’ said Stevens.

Craig sat down, his chin in his hands.

‘Mrs Floyd will have to be told. Good God! Peter Kane’s daughter! Peter didn’t know that he’d married her to Legge’s son?’

‘I don’t know whether he knew or not,’ said Stevens, ‘but if I know old Peter, he’d as soon know that she’d gone to the devil as marry her to a son of Emanuel Legge’s. I’m squeaking in a way,’ he said apologetically, ‘but you’ve got to know – Emanuel will tell you as soon as he gets the news.’

‘Come here,’ said Craig. He took the man’s arm and led him to the passage where the detectives were listening, opened the door of a private room, the table giving evidence of the hasty flight of the diners. ‘Now,’ he said, closing the door, ‘what’s the strength of this story?’

‘I don’t know it all, Mr Craig, but I know they were putting a point on Peter Kane a long time ago. Then one night they brought Peter along and kidded him into thinking that Jeff was a sucker in the hands of the boys. Peter had never seen Jeff before – as a matter of fact, I didn’t know he was Jeff at the time; I’d heard a lot about him, but, like a lot of other people, I hadn’t seen him. Well, they fooled Peter all right. He took the lad away with him. Jeff was wearing a Canadian officer’s uniform, and, of course, Jeff told the tale. He wouldn’t be the son of his father if he didn’t. That’s how he got to know the Kanes, and was taken to their home. When I heard about the marriage, I thought Peter must have known. I never dreamt they were playing a trick on him.’

‘Peter didn’t know,’ said Craig slowly. ‘Where’s the girl?’

‘I can’t tell you. She’s in London somewhere.’

‘At the Charlton,’ nodded the other. ‘Now, you’ve got to tell me, Stevens, who is Mr Brown of Toronto? It’s written differently from your usual hand – written by a man who has had a bad scare. In other words, it was written after you’d found the body.’

Stevens said nothing.

‘You saw him come out; who was he?’

‘If I die this minute –’ began Stevens.

‘You might in a few months, as “accessory after”,’ said the other ominously; ‘and that’s what you’ll do if you conceal a murderer. Who is Mr Brown?’

Stevens was struggling with himself, and after a while it came out.

‘Johnny was here tonight,’ he said huskily. ‘Johnny Gray.’

Craig whistled.

There was a knock at the door. A police officer, wanting instructions.

‘There’s a woman down below, pretty nigh mad. I think you know her, sir.’

‘Not Lila?’ blurted Stevens.

‘That’s the girl. Shall I let her come up?’

‘Yes,’ said Craig. ‘Bring her in here.’

She came in a minute, distracted, incoherent, her hair dishevelled, her hands trembling.

‘Is he dead?’ she gasped. ‘For God’s sake tell me. I see it in your face – he’s dead. Oh, Jeff, Jeff!’

‘Now you sit down,’ said the kindly Craig. ‘He’s no more dead than you or I are. Ask Stevens. Jeff’s doing very well indeed. Just a slight wound, my dear – nothing to worry about. What was the trouble? Do you know anything about it?’

She could not answer him.

‘He’s dead,’ she moaned. ‘My God, I killed him! I saw him and followed him here!’

‘Give her a glass of wine, Stevens.’

The porter poured out a glass of white wine from one of the many deserted bottles on the table, and put it to her chattering teeth.

‘Now, Lila, let’s get some sense out of you. I tell you, Jeff’s not dead. What is he to you, anyway?’

‘Everything,’ she muttered. She was shivering from head to foot. ‘I married him three years ago. No, I didn’t,’ she said in a sudden frenzy.

‘Go on; tell us the truth,’ said Craig. ‘We’re not going to pull him for bigamy, anyway.’

‘I married him three years ago,’ she said. ‘He wasn’t a bad fellow to me. It was the old man’s idea, his marrying this girl, and there was a thousand for me in it. He put me down in Horsham to look after her, and see that there were no letters going to Johnny. There wasn’t any need of that, because she never wrote. I didn’t like the marriage idea, but he swore to me that it was only to get Peter’s money, and I believed him. Then tonight he told me the truth, knowing I wouldn’t squeak. I wish to God I had now, I wish I had! He is dead, isn’t he? I know he’s dead!’

‘He’s not dead, you poor fish,’ said Craig impatiently. ‘I might be congratulating you if he was. No, he’s got a bit of a wound.’

‘Who shot him?’

‘That’s just what I want to know,’ said Craig. ‘Was it you?’

‘Me!’ Her look of horror supplied a satisfactory answer to his question. ‘No, I didn’t. I didn’t know he was here, or coming here. I thought he was at the hotel, till I saw him. Yet I had a feeling that he was coming here tonight, and I’ve been waiting about all evening. I saw Peter and dodged him.’

‘Peter? Has he been near the club?’

She shook her head.

‘I don’t know. He was on his way. I thought he was going to the Highlow. There’s nowhere else he’d go in this street – I saw him twice.’

Craig turned his bright, suspicious eyes upon the porter.

‘Peter been here? I didn’t see anything about Mr Brown of Montreal?’ he asked sarcastically.

‘No, he hasn’t. I haven’t seen Peter since the Lord knows when,’ said the porter emphatically. ‘That’s the truth. You can give the elevator boy permission to tell you all he knows, and if Peter was here tonight you can hang me.’

Craig considered for a long time.

‘Does Peter know his way in by the easy route?’ he asked.

‘You mean the fire-escape? Yes, Peter knows that way, but members never come in by the back nowadays. They’ve got nothing to hide.’

Craig went out of the room and walked down the passage, stopping at No. 13. Immediately opposite the door was a window, and it was wide open. Beyond was the grille of the fire-escape landing. He stepped out through the window and peered down into the dark yard where the escape ended. By the light of a street lamp he saw a stout gate, in turn pierced by a door, and this led to the street. The door was open, a fact which might be accounted for by the presence in the yard of two uniformed policemen, the flash of whose lanterns he saw. He came back into the corridor and to Stevens.

‘Somebody may have used the fire-escape tonight, and they may not,’ he said. ‘What time did Gray come in? Who came in first?’

‘Jeff came first, about five minutes before Gray.’

‘Then what happened?’

‘I had a chat with Captain Gray,’ said the porter, after a second’s hesitation. ‘He went round into the side passage –’

‘The same way that Jeff had gone?’

The porter nodded.

‘About a minute later – in fact, it was shorter than a minute – I heard what I thought was a door slammed. I remarked upon the fact to the elevator man.’

‘And then?’

‘I suppose four or five minutes passed after that, and Captain Gray came out. Said he might look in later.’

‘There was no sign of a struggle in Captain Gray’s clothes?’

‘No, sir. I’m sure there was no struggle.’

‘I should think not,’ agreed Craig. ‘Jeff Legge never had a chance of showing fight.’

The girl was lying on the sofa, her head buried in her arms, her shoulders shaking, and the sound of her weeping drew the detective’s attention to her.

‘Has she been here before tonight?’

‘Yes, she came, and I had to throw her out – Emanuel told me she was not to be admitted.’

Craig made a few notes in his book, closed it with a snap and put it in his pocket.

‘You understand, Stevens, that, if you’re not under arrest, you’re under open arrest. You’ll close the club for tonight and admit no more people. I shall leave a couple of men on the premises.’

‘I’ll lock up the beer,’ said Stevens facetiously.

‘And you needn’t be funny,’ was the sharp retort. ‘If we close this club you’ll lose your job – and if they don’t close it now they never will.’

He took aside his assistant.

‘I’m afraid Johnny’s got to go through the hoop tonight,’ he said. ‘Send a couple of men to pull him in. He lives at Albert Mansions. I’ll go along and break the news to the girl, and somebody’ll have to tell Peter – I hope there’s need for Peter to be told,’ he added grimly.

Chapter 16

A surprise awaited him when he came to the Charlton. Mrs Floyd had gone – nobody knew whither. Her husband had followed her some time afterwards, and neither had returned. Somebody had called her on the telephone, but had left no name.

‘I know all about her husband not returning,’ said Craig. ‘But haven’t you the slightest idea where the lady is?’

‘No.’

The negative reply was uncompromising.

‘Her father hasn’t been here?’

His informant hesitated.

‘Yes, sir; he was on Mrs Floyd’s floor when she was missing – in fact, when Major Floyd was down here making enquiries. The floor waiter recognised him, but did not see him come or go.’

Calling up the house at Horsham he learnt, what he already knew, that Peter was away from home. Barney, who answered him, had heard nothing of the girl; indeed, this was the first intimation he had had that all was not well. And a further disappointment lay in store for him. The detective he had sent to find Johnny returned with the news that the quarry had gone. According to the valet, his master had returned and changed in a hurry, and, taking a small suitcase, had gone off to an unknown destination.

An enquiry late that night elicited the fact that Jeff was still living, but unconscious. The bullet had been extracted, and a hopeful view was taken of the future. His father had arrived early in the evening, and was half mad with anxiety and rage.

‘And if he isn’t quite mad by the morning, I shall be surprised,’ said the surgeon. ‘I’m going to keep him here and give him a little bromide to ease him down.’

‘Poison him,’ suggested Craig.

When the old detective was on the point of going home, there arrived a telephone message from the Horsham police, whom he had enlisted to watch Peter’s house.

‘Mr Kane and his daughter arrived in separate motorcars at a quarter past twelve,’ was the report. ‘They came within a few minutes of one another.’

Craig was on the point of getting through to the house, but thought better of it. A fast police car got him to Horsham under the hour, the road being clear and the night a bright one. Lights were burning in Peter’s snuggery, and it was he himself who, at the sound of the motor wheels, came to the door.

‘Who’s that?’ he asked, as Craig came up the dark drive, and, at the sound of the detective’s voice, he came half-way down the drive to meet him.

‘What’s wrong, Craig? Anything special?’

‘Jeff’s shot. I suppose you know who Jeff is?’

‘I know, to my sorrow,’ said Peter Kane promptly. ‘Shot? How? Where?’

‘He was shot this evening between a quarter to ten and ten o’clock, at the Highlow Club.’

‘Come in. You’d better not tell my girl – she’s had as much as she can bear tonight. Not that I’m worrying a damn about Jeff Legge. He’d better die, and die quick, for if I get him –’

He did not finish his sentence, and the detective drew the man’s arm through his.

‘Now, listen, Peter, you’ve got to go very slow on this case, and not talk such a darned lot. You’re under suspicion too, old man. You were seen in the vicinity of the club.’

‘Yes, I was seen in the vicinity of the club,’ repeated Peter, nodding. ‘I was waiting there – well, I was waiting there for a purpose. I went to the Charlton, but my girl had gone – I suppose they told you – and then I went on to the Highlow, and saw that infernal Lila – by the way, she’s one of Jeff’s women, isn’t she?’

‘To be exact,’ said the other quietly, ‘she’s his wife.’

Peter Kane stopped dead.

‘His wife?’ he whispered. ‘Thank God for that! Thank God for that! I forgive her everything. Though she is a brute – how a woman could allow – but I can’t judge her. That graft has always been dirty to me. It is hateful and loathsome. But, thank God she’s his wife, Craig!’ Then: ‘Who shot this fellow?’

‘I don’t know. I’m going to pull Johnny for it.’

They were in the hall, and Peter Kane spun round, open-mouthed, terror in his eyes.

‘You’re going to pull Johnny?’ he said. ‘Do you know what you’re saying, Craig? You’re mad! Johnny didn’t do it. Johnny was nowhere near –’

‘Johnny was there. And, what is more, Johnny was in the room, either at the moment of the shooting or immediately after. The elevator boy has spoken what’s in his mind, which isn’t much, but enough to convict Johnny if this fellow dies.’

‘Johnny there!’ Peter’s voice did not rise above a whisper.

‘I tell you frankly, Peter, I thought it was you.’

Craig was facing him squarely, his keen eyes searching the man’s pallid face. ‘When I heard you were around, and that you had got to know that this fellow was a fake. Why were you waiting?’

‘I can’t tell you that – not now,’ said the other, after turning the matter over in his mind. ‘I should have seen Johnny if he was there. I saw this girl Lila, and I was afraid she’d recognise me. I think she did, too. I went straight on into Shaftesbury Avenue, to a bar I know. I was feeling queer over this – this discovery of mine. I can prove I was there from a quarter to ten till ten, if you want any proof. Oh, Johnny, Johnny!’

All this went on in the hall. Then came a quick patter of footsteps, and Marney appeared in the doorway.

‘Who is it – Johnny? Oh, it is you, Mr Craig. Has anything happened?’ She looked in alarm from face to face. ‘Nothing has happened to Johnny?’

‘No, nothing has happened to Johnny,’ said Craig soothingly. He glanced at Peter. ‘You ought to know this, Marney,’ he said. ‘I can call you Marney – I’ve known you since you were five. Jeff Legge has been shot.’

He thought she was going to faint, and sprang to catch her, but with an effort of will she recovered.

‘Jeff shot?’ she asked shakily. ‘Who shot him?’

‘I don’t know. That’s just what we are trying to discover. Perhaps you can help us. Why did you leave the hotel? Was Johnny with you?’

She shook her head. ‘I haven’t seen Johnny,’ she said, ‘but I owe him – everything. There was a woman in the hotel.’ She glanced timidly at her father. ‘I think she was an hotel thief or something of the sort. She was there to – to steal. A big Welsh woman.’

‘A Welsh woman?’ said Craig quickly. ‘What is her name?’

‘Mrs Gwenda Jones. Johnny knew about her, and telephoned her to tell her to take care of me until he could get to me. She got me out of the hotel, and then we walked down the Duke of York steps into the Mall. And then a curious thing happened – I was just telling daddy when you came. Mrs Jones – she’s such a big woman –’

‘I know the lady,’ said Craig.

‘Well, she disappeared. She wasn’t exactly swallowed up by the earth,’ she said with a faint smile, ‘and she didn’t go without warning. Suddenly she said to me: “I must leave you now, my dear. I don’t want that man to see me.” I looked round to find who it was that she was so terribly afraid of, and there seemed to be the most harmless lot of people about. When I turned, Mrs Jones was running up the steps. I didn’t wish to call her back, I felt so ridiculous. And then a man came up to me, a middle-aged man with the saddest face you could imagine. I told you that, daddy?’

He nodded.

‘He took his hat off – his hair was almost white – and asked me if my name was Kane. I didn’t tell him the other name,’ she said with a shiver. “May I take you to a place of safety, Miss Kane?” he said. “I don’t think you ought to be seen with that raw-boned female.” I didn’t know what to do, I was so frightened, and I was glad of the company and protection of any man, and, when he called a cab, I got in without the slightest hesitation. He was such a gentle soul, Mr Craig. He talked of nothing but the weather and chickens! I think we talked about chickens all the way to Lewisham.’

‘Are you sure it was Lewisham?’

‘It was somewhere in that neighbourhood. What other places are there there?

‘New Cross, Brockley –’ began Craig.

‘That’s the place – Brockley. It was the Brockley Road. I saw it printed on the corner of the street. He took me into his house. There was a nice, motherly old woman whom he introduced to me as his housekeeper.’

‘And what did he talk about?’ asked the fascinated Craig.

‘Chickens,’ she said solemnly. ‘Do you know what chickens lay the best eggs? I’m sure you don’t. Do you know the best breed for England and the best for America? Do you know the most economical chickens to keep? I do! I wondered what he was going to do with me. I tried to ask him, but he invariably turned me back to the question of incubators and patent feeds, and the cubic space that a sitting hen requires as compared with an ordinary hen. It was the quaintest, most fantastic experience. It seems now almost like one of Alice’s dreams! Then, at ten o’clock, I found a motor-car had come for me. “I’m sending you home, young lady,” he said.’

‘Were you with him all the time, by the way?’ asked Craig.

She shook her head.

‘No, some part of the time I was with his housekeeper, who didn’t even talk about chickens, but knitted large and shapeless jumpers, and sniffed. That was when he was telephoning. I knew he was telephoning because I could hear the drone of his voice.’

‘He didn’t bring you back?’

‘No, he just put me into the car and told me that I should be perfectly safe. I arrived just a few minutes ahead of daddy.’

The detective scratched his chin, irritated and baffled.

‘That’s certainly got me,’ he said. ‘The raw-boned lady I know, but the chicken gentleman is mysterious. You didn’t hear his name, by any chance?’

She shook her head.

‘Do you know the number of the house?’

‘Yes,’ she said frankly, ‘but he particularly asked me to forget it, and I’ve forgotten it.’ Then, in a more serious tone: ‘Is my – my –’

‘Your nothing,’ interrupted Peter. ‘The blackguard was married – married to Lila. I think I must have gone daft, but I didn’t realise this woman was planted in my house for a purpose. That type of girl wouldn’t come at the wages she did if she had been genuine. Barney was always suspicious of her, by the way.’

‘Have you seen Johnny?’ the girl asked Craig.

‘No, I haven’t seen him,’ said Craig carefully. ‘I thought of calling on him pretty soon.’

Then it came to her in a flash, and she gasped.

‘You don’t think Johnny shot this man? You can’t think that?’

‘Of course he didn’t shoot him,’ said Peter loudly. ‘It is a ridiculous idea. But you’ll understand that Mr Craig has to make enquiries in all sorts of unlikely quarters. You haven’t been able to get hold of Johnny tonight?’

A glance passed between them, and Peter groaned.

‘What a fool! What a fool!’ he said. ‘Oh, my God, what a fool!’

‘Father, Johnny hasn’t done this? It isn’t true, Mr Craig. Johnny wouldn’t shoot a man. Did anybody see him? How was he shot?’

‘He was shot in the back.’

‘Then it wasn’t Johnny,’ she said. ‘He couldn’t shoot a man in the back!’

‘I think, young lady,’ said Craig with a little smile, ‘that you’d better go to bed and dream about butterflies. You’ve had a perfect hell of a day, if you’ll excuse my language. Say the firm word to her, Peter. Who’s that?’ He turned his head, listening.

‘Barney,’ said Peter. ‘He has a distressing habit of wearing slippers. You can hear him miles away. He’s opening the door to somebody – one of your people, perhaps. Or he’s taking your chauffeur a drink. Barney has an enormous admiration for chauffeurs. They represent mechanical genius to him.’

The girl was calmer now.

‘I have too much to thank God for today, for this terrible thing to be true,’ she said in a low voice. ‘Mr Craig, there is a mistake, I’m sure. Johnny couldn’t have committed such a crime. It was somebody else – one of Jeffrey Legge’s associates, somebody who hated him. He told me once that lots of people hated him, and I thought he was joking; he seemed so nice, so considerate. Daddy, I was mad to go through that, even to make you happy.’

Peter Kane nodded.

‘If you were mad, I was criminal, girlie,’ he said. ‘There was only one man in the world for you –’

The door opened slowly, and Barney sidled in. ‘Johnny to see you folks,’ he said, and pulled the door wider.

John Gray was standing in the passage, and his eyes fell upon Craig with a look of quiet amusement.

Chapter 17

In another second the girl was in his arms, clinging to him, weeping convulsively on his shoulder, her face against his, her clasped hands about his neck.

Craig could only look, wondering and fearing. Johnny would not have walked into the net unwarned. Barney would have told him that he was there. What amazed Craig, as the fact slowly dawned upon him, was that Johnny was still in evening dress. He took a step toward him, and gently Johnny disengaged the girl from his arms.

‘I’ll like to see the right cuff of your shirt, Johnny,’ said Craig.

Without a word. Gray held up his arm, and the inspector scrutinised the spotless linen, for spotless it was. No sign of a stain was visible.

‘Either somebody’s doing some tall lying, or you’re being extraordinarily clever, Johnny. I’ll see that other cuff if I may.’

The second scrutiny produced no tangible result.

‘Didn’t you go home and change tonight?’

‘No, I haven’t been near my flat,’ he said.

Craig was staggered.

‘But your man said that you came in, changed, took a suitcase and went away.’

‘Then Parker has been drinking,’ was the calm reply ‘I have been enjoying the unusual experience of dining with the detective officer who was responsible for my holiday in Devonshire.’

Craig took a step back.

‘With Inspector Flaherty?’ he asked.

Johnny nodded.

‘With the good Inspector Flaherty. We have been exchanging confidences about our mutual acquaintances.’

‘But who was it went to your flat?’ asked the bewildered Craig.

‘My double. I’ve always contended that I have a double,’ said Johnny serenely.

He stood in the centre of the astounded group. Into Marney’s heart had crept a wild hope.

‘Johnny,’ she said, ‘was it this man who committed the crime for which you were punished?’

To her disappointment he shook his head.

‘No, I am the gentleman who was arrested and sent to Dartmoor – my double stops short of these unpleasant experiences, and I can’t say that I blame him.’

‘But do you mean to say that he deceived your servant?’

‘Apparently,’ said Johnny, turning again to the detective who had asked the question.

‘I take your word, of course, Johnny, as an individual.’

Johnny chuckled.

‘I like the pretty distinction. As an official, you want corroboration. Very well, that is not hard to get. If you take me back to Flaherty, he will support all I have told you.’

Peter and the detective had the good taste to allow him to take leave of the girl without the embarrassment of their presence.

‘It beats me – utterly beats me. Have you ever heard of this before, Peter?’

‘That Johnny had a double? No, I can’t say that I have.’

‘He may have invented the story for the sake of the girl. But there is the fact: he’s in evening dress, whilst his servant distinctly described him as wearing a grey tweed suit. There is no mark of blood on his cuff, and I’m perfectly certain that Stevens wouldn’t have tried to get Johnny in bad. He is very fond of the boy. Of course, he may be spinning this yarn for the sake of Marney, but it’ll be easy enough to corroborate. I’ll use your phone, Peter,’ he said suddenly. ‘I’ve got Flaherty’s number in my book.’

The biggest surprise of the evening came when a sleepy voice, undeniably Flaherty’s, answered him.

‘Craig speaking. Who have you been dining with tonight, Flaherty?’

‘You don’t mean to tell me that you’ve called me up in the middle of the night,’ began the annoyed Irishman, ‘to ask me who I’ve been dining with?’

‘This is serious, Flaherty. I want to know.’

‘Why, with Johnny, of course – Johnny Gray. I asked him to come to dinner.’

‘What time did he leave you?’

‘Nearer eleven than ten,’ was the reply. ‘No, it was after eleven.’

‘And he was with you all that time? He didn’t leave for a quarter of an hour?’

‘Not for a quarter of a minute. We just talked and talked . . .’

Craig hung up the receiver and turned away from the instrument, shaking his head.

‘Any other alibi would have hanged you, Johnny. But Flaherty’s the straightest man in the C.I.D.’

* * *

In view of what followed when Johnny reached his flat in the early hours of the morning, this testimony to the integrity of Inspector Flaherty seemed a little misguided.

‘Nobody else been here?’

‘No, sir,’ said Parker.

‘What did you do with the shirt I took off?’

‘I cut off the cuffs and burnt them, sir. I did it with a greater pleasure, because the rounded corner cuff is just a little – how shall I call it? – theatrical.’

‘The rest of the shirt – ?’

‘The rest of the shirt, sir,’ said Parker deferentially, ‘I am wearing. It is rather warm to wear two shirts, but I could think of no other way of disposing of it, sir. Shall I put your bath ready?’

Johnny nodded.

‘If you will forgive the impertinence, did you succeed in persuading the gentleman you were going to see, to support your statement?’

‘Flaherty? Oh, yes. Flaherty owes me a lot. Good night, Parker.’

‘Good night, sir. I hope you sleep well. Er – may I take that pistol out of your pocket, sir? It is spoiling the set of your trousers. Thank you very much.’

He took the Browning gingerly between his finger and thumb and laid it on Johnny’s writing-table.

‘You don’t mind my being up a little late, sir?’ he said. ‘I think I would like to clean this weapon before I retire.’

Chapter 18

Jeff Legge reclined in a long cane chair on a lawn which stretched to the edge of a cliff. Before him were the blue waters of the Channel, and the more gorgeous blue of an unflecked sky. He reached out his hand and took a glass that stood on the table by his side, sipped it with a wry face and called a name pettishly.

It was Lila who came running to his side.

‘Take this stuff away, and bring me a whisky-and-soda,’ he said.

‘The doctor said you weren’t to have anything but lime juice. Oh, Jeff, you must do as he tells you,’ she pleaded.

‘I’ll break your head for you when I get up,’ he snarled. ‘Do as you’re told. Where’s the governor?’

‘He’s gone into the village to post some letters.’

He ruminated on this, and then: ‘If that busy comes, you can tell him I’m too ill to be seen.’

‘Who – Craig?’

‘Yes,’ he growled, ‘the dirty, twisting thief! Johnny would have been in boob for this if he hadn’t straightened Craig. If he didn’t drop a thousand to keep off the moor, I’m a dead man!’

She pulled up a low chair to his side.

‘I don’t think Johnny did it,’ she said. ‘The old man thinks it was Peter. The window was found open after. He could have come in by the fire-escape – he knows the way.’

He grumbled something under his breath, and very discreetly she did not press home her view.

‘Where’s Marney – back with her father?’

She nodded.

‘Who told him I was married to you?’

‘I don’t know, Jeff,’ she said.

‘You liar! You told him; nobody else could have known. If I get bird for this marriage, I’ll kill you, Lila. That’s twice you’ve squeaked on me.’

‘I didn’t know what I was saying. I was half mad with worry.’

‘I wish you’d gone the whole journey,’ he said bitterly. ‘It isn’t the woman – I don’t care a damn about that. It’s the old man’s quarrel, and he’s got to get through with it. It’s the other business being disorganised that’s worrying me. Unless it’s running like clockwork, you’ll get a jam; and when you’ve got a jam, you collect a bigger crowd than I want to see looking at my operations. You didn’t squeak about that, I suppose?’

‘No, Jeff, I didn’t know.’

‘And that’s the reason you didn’t squeak, eh?’

He regarded her unfavourably. And now she turned on him.

‘Listen, Jeff Legge. I’m a patient woman, up to a point, and I’ll stand for all your bad temper whilst you’re ill. But you’re living in a new age, Jeff, and you’d better wake up to the fact. All that Bill Sikes and Nancy stuff never did impress me. I’m no clinger. If you got really rough with me, I’d bat you, and that’s a fact. It may not be womanly, but it’s wise. I never did believe in the equality of the sexes, but no girl is the weaker vessel if she gets first grip of the kitchen poker.’

Very wisely he changed the subject.

‘I suppose they searched the club from top to bottom?’ he said.

‘They did.’

‘Did they look in the loft?’

‘I believe they did. Stevens told me that they turned everything inside out.’

He grunted.

‘They’re clever,’ he said. ‘It must be wonderful to be clever. Who’s this?’ He scowled across the lawn at a strange figure that had appeared, apparently by way of the cliff gate.

She rose and walked to meet the stooping stranger, who stood, hat in hand, waiting for her and smiling awkwardly.

‘I’m so sorry to intrude,’ he said. ‘This is a beautiful place, is it not? If I remember rightly, this is the Dellsea Vicarage? I used to know the vicar – a very charming man. I suppose you have taken the house from him?’

She was half amused, half annoyed.

‘This is Dellsea Vicarage,’ she said curtly. ‘Do you want to see anybody?’

‘I wanted to see Mr Jeffrey’ – he screwed up his eyes and stared at the sky, as though trying to withdraw from some obscure cell of memory a name that would not come without special effort – ‘Mr Jeffrey Legge – that is the name – Mr Jeffrey Legge.’

‘He is very ill and can’t be seen.’

‘I’m sorry to hear that,’ said the stranger, his mild face expressing the intensest sympathy. ‘Very sorry indeed.’

He fixed his big, round glasses on the tip of his nose, for effect apparently, because he looked over them at her.

‘I wonder if he would see me for just a few minutes. I’ve called to enquire about his health.’

‘What is your name?’ she asked.

‘Reeder – J. G. Reeder.’

The girl felt her colour go, and turned quickly.

‘I will ask him,’ she said.

Jeff heard the name and pursed his lips.

‘That’s the man the bank are running – or maybe it’s the Government – to trail me,’ he said in a low tone. ‘Slip him along, Lila.’

Mr Reeder was beckoned across the lawn, and came with quick, mincing steps.

‘I’m so sorry to see that you’re in such a deplorable condition, Mr Legge,’ he said. ‘I hope your father is well?’

‘Oh, you’ve met the old man, have you?’ said Jeffrey in surprise.

Mr Reeder nodded.

‘Yes, I have met your father,’ he said. ‘A very entertaining and a very ingenious man. Very!’ The last word was spoken with emphasis.

Jeff was silent at this tribute to his parent’s amiability.

‘There has been a lot of talk in town lately about a certain nefarious business that is being carried on – surreptitiously, of course,’ said Mr Reeder, choosing his words with care. ‘I who live out of the world, and in the backwater of life, hear strange rumours about the distribution of illicit money – I think the cant term is slush or slosh – probably it is slush.’

‘It is slush,’ agreed Jeff, not knowing whether to be amused or alarmed, and watching the man all the time.

‘Now I feel sure that the persons who are engaged in this practice cannot be aware of the enormously serious nature of their offence,’ said Mr Reeder confidentially.

He broke off his lecture to look around the lawn and well-stocked garden that flanked it on either side.

‘How beautiful is the world, Mr Jeff – I beg your pardon, Mr Legge,’ he said. ‘How lovely those flowers are! I confess that the sight of bluebells always brings a lump to my throat. I don’t suppose they are bluebells,’ he added, ‘for it is rather late in the year. But that peculiar shade of blue! And those wonderful roses – I can smell them from here.’

He closed his eyes, raised his nose and sniffed loudly – a ludicrous figure; but Jeff Legge did not laugh.

‘I know very little, but I understand that in Dartmoor Prison there are only a few potted flowers, and that those are never seen by the prisoners, except by one privileged man whose task it is to tend them. A lifer, generally. Life without flowers must be very drab, Mr Legge.’

‘I’m not especially fond of flowers,’ said Jeffrey.

‘What a pity!’ said the other regretfully. ‘What a thousand pities! But there is no sea view from that establishment, no painted ships upon a painted ocean – which is a quotation from a well-known poem; no delightful sense of freedom; nothing really that makes life durable for a man under sentence, let us say, of fifteen or twenty years.’

Jeff did not reply.

‘Do you love rabbits?’ was the surprising question that was put to him.

‘No, I can’t say that I do.’

Lila sat erect, motionless, all her senses trained to hear and under-stand.

Mr Reeder sighed.

‘I am very fond of rabbits. Whenever I see a rabbit in a cage or in a hutch, I buy it, take it to the nearest wood and release it. It may be a foolish kindness, because, born and reared in captivity, it may not have the necessary qualities to support itself amongst its wilder fellows. But I like letting rabbits loose; other people like putting rabbits in cages.’ He shook his finger in Jeffrey’s face. ‘Never be a rabbit in a cage, Mr Jeffrey – or is it Mr Legge? Yes, Mr Legge.’

‘I am neither a rabbit, nor a chicken, nor a fox, nor a skylark,’ said Jeffrey. ‘The cage hasn’t been built that could hold me.’

Again Mr Reeder sighed.

‘I remember another gentleman saying that some years ago. I forget in what prison he was hanged. Possibly it was Wandsworth – yes, I am sure it was Wandsworth. I saw his grave the other day. Just his initials. What a pity! What a sad end to a promising career! He is better off, I think, for twenty long years in a prison cell, that is a dreadful fate, Mr Legge! And it is a fate that would never overtake a man who decided to reform. Suppose, let us say, he was forging Bank of England notes, and decided that he would burn his paper and his water-markers, dismiss all his agents . . . I don’t think we should worry very much about that type of person. We should meet him generously and liberally, especially if his notes were of such excellent quality that they were difficult for the uninitiated to detect.’

‘What has happened to Golden?’ asked Jeffrey boldly.

The eyes of the elderly man twinkled.

‘Golden was my predecessor,’ he said. ‘A very charming fellow, by some accounts –’

Again Jeffrey cut him short.

‘He used to be the man who was looking after the slush for the police. Is he dead?’

‘He has gone abroad,’ said Mr Reeder gravely. ‘Yes, Mr Golden could not stand this climate. He suffered terribly from asthma, or it may have been sciatica. I know there was an “a” at the end of it. Did you ever meet him? Ah! You missed a very great opportunity,’ said Mr Reeder. ‘Golden was a nice fellow – not as smart, perhaps, as he might have been, or as he should have been, but a very nice fellow. He did not work, perhaps, so much in the open as I do; and there I think he was mistaken. It is always an error to shut yourself up in an office and envelop yourself in an atmosphere of mystery. I myself am prone to the same fault. Now, my dear Mr Legge, I am sure you will take my parable kindly, and will give it every thought and consideration.’

‘I would, if I were a printer of slush, but, unfortunately, I’m not,’ said Jeffrey Legge with a smile.

‘You’re not, of course,’ the other hastened to say. ‘I wouldn’t dream of suggesting you were. But with your vast circle of acquaintances – and, I’m sure, admirers – you may perhaps be able to convey my simple little illustration. I don’t like to see rabbits in cages, or birds in cages, or anything else behind bars. And I think that Dartmoor is so – what shall I say? – unaesthetic. And it seems such a pity to spend all the years in Devonshire. In the spring, of course, it is delightful; in the summer it is hot; in the winter, unless you’re at Torquay, it is deplorable. Good morning, Mr Legge.’

He bowed low to the girl, and, bowing, his spectacles fell off. Stooping, he picked them up with an apology and backed away and they watched him in silence till he had disappeared from view.

Chapter 19

‘What do you think of him for a busy?’ asked Jeffrey contemptuously.

She did not answer. Contact with the man had frightened her. It was not like Lila to shiver in the presence of detectives.

‘I don’t know what he is,’ she said a little breathlessly. ‘He’s something like a . . . good-natured snake. Didn’t you feel that, Jeffrey?’

‘Good-natured nothing,’ said the other with a curl of his lip. ‘He’s worse than Golden. These big corporations fall for that kind of man. They never give a chance to a real clever busy.’

‘Who was Golden?’ she asked.

‘He was an old fellow too. They fired him.’ He chuckled to himself. ‘And I was responsible for firing him. Then they brought in Mr J. G. Reeder with a flourish of trumpets. He’s been on the game three years, and he’s just about as near to making a pull as he ever was.’

‘Jeff, isn’t there danger?’ Her voice was very serious.

‘Isn’t there always danger? No more danger than usual,’ he said. ‘They can’t touch me. Don’t worry! I’ve covered myself so that they can’t see me for overcoats! Once the stuff’s printed, they can never put it back on me.’

‘Once it’s printed.’ She nodded slowly. ‘Then you are the Big Printer, Jeff?’

‘Talk about something else,’ he said.

When Emanuel returned, as he did soon after, Lila met him at the gate and told him of Reeder’s visit. To her surprise, he took almost the same view as Jeff had taken.

‘He’s a fool, but straight – up to five thousand, anyway. No man is straight when you reach his figure.’

‘But why did he come to Jeff?’ she asked.

‘Doesn’t everybody in the business know that Jeff’s the Big Printer? Haven’t they been trying to put it on him for years? Of course he came. It was his last, despairing stroke. How’s the boy?’ he asked.

‘He’s all right, but a little touchy.’

‘Of course he’s a little touchy,’ said Emanuel indignantly. ‘You don’t suppose he’s going to get better in a day, do you? The club’s running again.’

‘Has it been closed?’

‘It hasn’t exactly been closed, but it has been unpopular,’ he said, showing his teeth in that smile of his. ‘Listen.’ He caught her arm on the edge of the lawn. ‘Get your mind off that shooting, will you? I’ll fix the man responsible for that.’

‘Do you know?’ she asked.

It was the first time he had ever discussed the matter calmly, for the very mention of the attack upon Jeff had hitherto been sufficient to drive him to an incoherent frenzy.

‘Yes, I know,’ he said gratingly. ‘It was Peter Kane, but you needn’t say anything about that – I’ll fix him, I tell you.’

‘Jeff thinks it was –’

‘Never mind what Jeff thinks,’ he said impatiently. ‘Do as I tell you.’

He sent her into the house to brew him a cup of tea – Emanuel was a great drinker of tea – and in her absence he had something to say to his son.

‘Jeff, there’s a big call for your stuff,’ he said. ‘I’ve had a letter from Harvey. He says there’s another man started in the north of England, and he’s turning out pretty good material. But they want yours – they can place half a million on the Continent right away. Jeff, what Harvey says is right. If there’s a slackening of supply while you’re ill, the busy fellows are going to tumble to you.’

‘I’ve thought of that,’ said Jeffrey. ‘You can tell anybody who’s interested that there’ll be a printing next week.’

‘Are you well enough to go up?’ asked his father anxiously.

Jeffrey nodded, and shifted himself more erect, but winced in the process.

‘Reeder’s been here: did she tell you?’

Emanuel nodded.

‘I’m not worried much about Reeder. Down in Dartmoor he’s a bogey, but then, they bogey any man they don’t know. And they’ve got all sorts of stories about him. It’s very encouraging to get near to the real thing.’

They laughed together, and for the rest of the day discussed ways and means.

Jeffrey had said no more than was true when he had told the girl he was well covered. In various parts of the country he had twelve banking accounts, each in a different name, and in one of the safe deposits, an enormous sum in currency, ready for emergency.

‘You’ve got to stop some time, I suppose,’ said his father, ‘but it is mighty tempting to carry on with those profits. It’s a bigger graft than I ever attempted, Jeff.’ And his son accepted this respectful tribute with a smirk.

The old man sat, his clasped hands between his knees, staring out over the sea.

‘It has got to end some day, and that would be a fine end, but I can’t quite see how it could be done.’

‘What are you talking about?’ asked the other curiously.

‘I’m thinking about Peter – the respectable Mr Peter Kane. Not quite so respectable in that girl’s eyes as he used to be, but respectable enough to have busies to dinner, and that crook, Johnny Gray – Johnny will marry the girl, Jeff.’

Jeffrey Legge winced.

‘She can marry the devil so far as I’m concerned,’ he said.

‘But she can’t marry without divorcing you. Do you realise that, my son? That’s the law. And she can’t divorce you without shopping you for bigamy. That’s the law too. And the question is, will she delay her action until Johnny’s made a bit, or will she start right in? If she gives me just the time I want, Jeff, you’ll have your girl and I’ll have Peter Kane. She’s your wife in the eyes of the law.’

There was a significance in his words that made the other man look at him quickly.

‘What’s the great idea?’ he asked.

‘Suppose Peter was the Big Printer?’ said Emanuel, speaking in a tone that was little above a whisper. ‘Suppose he was caught with the goods? It could be done. I don’t mean by planting the stuff in his house – nobody would accept that; but getting him right on the spot, so that his best friend at Scotland Yard couldn’t save him? How’s that for an idea?’

‘It couldn’t be done,’ said the other immediately.

‘Oh, couldn’t it?’ sneered Emanuel. ‘You can do any old thing you want, if you make up your mind to do it. Or if you’re game to do it.’

‘That wouldn’t get me the girl.’

Emanuel turned his head slowly toward his heir.

‘If they found the Big Printer, they’ll have to find the big printing,’ he said deliberately. ‘That means we should all have to skip, and skip lively. We might have a few hours start, and in these days of aeroplanes, three hours is four hundred miles. Jeff, if we are caught, and they guess I’ve been in this printing all the time, I shall never see outside again. And you’ll go down for life. They can’t give you any worse than that – not if you took the girl away with you.’

‘By force?’ asked the other in surprise. The idea had not occurred to him.

The father nodded.

‘If we have to skip, that’s the only thing for you to do, son. It’s no offence – remember that. She’s your wife.’ He looked to left and right, to see if there was the faintest shadow of a chance that he would be overheard, and then: ‘Suppose we ask Peter and his girl and Johnny Gray to dinner? A nice little dinner party, eh?’

‘Where?’ asked the other suspiciously.

‘In Room 13,’ said Emanuel Legge. ‘In Room 13, Jeff boy! A nice little dinner. What do you think? And then two whiffs of sleep stuff –’

‘You’re mad,’ said the other angrily. ‘What’s the good of talking that way? Do you think he’s going to come to dinner and bring his girl? Oh, you’re nutty to think it!’

‘Trust me,’ said Emanuel Legge.

Chapter 20

Walking down Regent Street one morning, Johnny Gray saw a familiar face – a man standing on the kerb selling penny trinkets. The face was oddly familiar, but he had gone on a dozen paces before he could recall where he had seen him before, and turned back. The man knew him; at any rate, his uncouth features twisted in a smile.

‘Good morning, my lord,’ he said. ‘What about a toy balloon for the baby?’

‘Your name is Fenner, isn’t it?’ said Johnny with a good-humoured gesture of refusal.

‘That’s me. Captain. I didn’t think you’d recognised me. How’s business?’

‘Quiet,’ said Johnny conventionally. ‘What are you doing?’

The man shrugged his enormous shoulders.

‘Selling these, and filling in the time with a little sluicing.’

Johnny shook his head reprovingly. Sluicing in the argot indicates a curious method of livelihood. In public wash-places, where men strip off their coats to wash their hands for luncheon, there are fine pickings to be had by a man with quick fingers and a knowledge of human nature.’

‘Did you ever get your towelling?’ [footnote: flogging]

‘No,’ said the other contemptuously and with a deep growl. ‘I knew they couldn’t, that’s why I coshed the screw. I was too near my time. If I ever see old man Legge, by God I’ll –’

Jimmy raised his fingers. A policeman was strolling past, and was eyeing the two suspiciously. Apparently, if he regarded Fenner with disfavour, Johnny’s respectability redeemed the association.

‘Poor old flattie!’ said Fenner as the officer passed. ‘What a life!’

The man looked him up and down amusedly.

‘You seem to have struck it, Gray,’ he said, with no touch of envy. ‘What’s your graft?’

Johnny smiled faintly.

‘It is one you’ll find difficult to understand, Fenner. I am being honest!’

‘That’s certainly a new one on me,’ said the other frankly. ‘Have you seen old Emanuel?’ His voice was now quite calm. ‘Great fellow, Emanuel! And young Emanuel – Jeffrey – what a lad!’

There was a glint in his eyes as he scrutinised Johnny that told that young man he knew much more of recent happenings than he was prepared to state. And his next words supported that view.

‘You keep away from the Legge lot, Captain,’ he said earnestly. ‘They are no good to anybody, and least of all to a man who’s had an education like yours. I owe Legge one, and I’ll pet him, but I’m not thinking about that so much as young Jeff. You’re the fellow he would go after, because you dress like a swell and you look like a swell – the very man to put slush about without anybody tumbling.’

‘The Big Printer, eh?’ said Johnny, with that quizzical smile of his.

‘The Big Printer,’ repeated the other gravely. ‘And he is a big printer. You hear all sorts of lies down on the moor, but that’s true. Jeff’s got the biggest graft that’s ever been worked in this country. They’ll get him sooner or later, because there never was a crook game yet that hadn’t got a squeak about it somewhere. And the squeak has started, judging by what I can read in the papers. Who shot him?’ he asked bluntly.

Johnny shook his head.

‘That is what is known as a mystery,’ he said, and, seeing the man’s eyes keenly searching his face, he laughed aloud. ‘It wasn’t me, Fenner. I’ll assure you on that point. And as to me being a friend of Jeff’ – he made a wry little face – ‘that isn’t like me either. How are you off for money?’

‘Rotten,’ said the other laconically, and Johnny slipped a couple of Treasury notes on to the tray. He was turning away when the man called him back. ‘Keep out of boob,’ he said significantly. ‘And don’t think I’m handing round good advice. I’m not thinking of Dartmoor. There are other boobs that are worse – I can tell you that, because I’ve seen most of them.’

He gathered up the money on the tray without so much as a word of thanks, and put it in his waistcoat pocket.

‘Keytown Jail is the worst prison in England,’ he said, not looking at his benefactor but staring straight ahead. ‘The very worst – don’t forget that. Gray. Keytown Prison is the worst boob in England; and if you ever find yourself there, do something to get out. So long!’

The mentality of the criminal had been a subject for vicarious study during Johnny’s stay in Dartmoor, and he mused on the man’s words as he continued his walk along Regent Street. Here was a man offering advice which he himself had never taken. The moral detachment of old lags was no new phenomenon to Johnny. He had listened for hours to the wise admonitions and warnings of convicts, who would hardly be free from the fusty cell of the prison before they would be planning new villainies, new qualifications for their return.

He had never heard of Keytown Jail before, but it was not remarkable that Fenner should have some special grudge against a particular jail. The criminal classes have their likes and their dislikes; they loathed Wandsworth and preferred Pentonville, or vice versa, for no especial reason. There were those who swore by Parkhurst; others regarded Dartmoor as home, and bitterly resented any suggestion that they should be transferred to the island prison.

So musing, he bumped into Craig. The collision was not accidental, for Craig had put himself in the way of the abstracted young man.

‘What are you planning, Johnny – a jewel robbery, or just ringing the changes on the Derby favourite?’

Johnny chuckled.

‘Neither. I was at that moment wondering what there was particularly bad about Keytown Jail. Where is Keytown Jail, by the way?’

‘Keytown? I don’t remember – oh, yes, I do. Just outside Oxford. Why?’

‘Somebody was telling me it was the worst prison in England.’

‘They are all the worst, Johnny,’ said Craig. ‘And if you’re thinking about a summer holiday, I can’t recommend either. Keytown was pretty bad,’ he admitted. ‘It is a little country jail, but it is no longer in the Prison Commissioners’ hands. They sold it after the war, when they closed down so many of these little prisons. The policy now is to enlarge the bigger places and cut out these expensive little boobs that cost money to staff. They closed Hereford Jail in the same way, and half a dozen others, I should think. So you needn’t bother about Keytown,’ he smiled bleakly. ‘One of your criminal acquaintances has been warning you, I guess?’

‘You’ve guessed right,’ said Johnny, and advanced no information, knowing that, if Craig continued his walk, he would sooner or later see the toy pedlar.

‘Mr Jeffrey Legge is making a good recovery,’ said the detective, changing the subject: ‘and there are great rejoicings at Scotland Yard. If there is one man we want to keep alive until he is hanged in a scientific and lawful manner, it is Mr Jeffrey Legge. I know what you’re going to say – we’ve got nothing on him. That is true. Jeffrey has been too clever for us. He has got his father skinned to death in that respect. He makes no mistakes – a rare quality in a forger; he carries no slush, keeps none in his lodgings. I can tell you that, because we’ve pulled him in twice on suspicion, and searched him from occiput to tendo achilles. Forgive the anatomical terms, but anatomy is my hobby. Hallo!’

He was looking across the street at a figure which was not unfamiliar to Johnny. Mr Reeder wore a shabby frock-coat and a somewhat untidy silk hat on the back of his head. Beneath his arm he carried a partially furled umbrella. His hands, covered in grey cotton gloves (at a distance Johnny thought they were suede), were clasped behind him. His spectacles were, as usual, so far down his nose that they seemed in danger of slipping over.

‘Do you know that gentleman?’

‘Man named Reeder, isn’t it? He’s a busy.’

Craig’s lips twitched.

‘He’s certainly a busy of sorts,’ he said dryly, ‘but not of our sort.’

‘He is a bank-man, isn’t he?’ asked Johnny, watching Mr Reeder’s slow and awkward progress.

‘He is in the employ of the bank,’ said the detective, ‘and he’s not such a fool as he looks. I happen to know. He was down seeing young Legge yesterday. I was curious enough to put a man on to trail him. And he knows more about young Legge than I gave him credit for.’

When Johnny parted from the detective, Mr Reeder had passed out of sight. Crossing Piccadilly Circus, however, he saw the elderly man waiting in a bus queue, and interestedly stood and watched him until the bus arrived and Mr Reeder boarded the machine and disappeared into its interior. As the bus drew away, Johnny raised his eyes to the destination board and saw that it was Victoria.

‘I wonder,’ said Johnny, speaking his thought aloud.

For Victoria is the railway station for Horsham.

Chapter 21

Mr Reeder descended from the bus at Victoria Station, bought a third-class return ticket to Horsham, and, going on to the bookstall, purchased a copy of the Economist and the Poultry World, and, thus fortified for the journey, passed through the barrier, and finding an empty carriage, ensconced himself in one corner. From thence onward, until the train drew into Horsham Station, he was apparently alternately absorbed in the eccentricities of Wyandottes and the fluctuations of the mark.

There were many cabs at the station, willing and anxious to convey him to his destination for a trifling sum; but apparently Mr Reeder was deaf to all the urgent offers which were made to him, for he looked through the taxi-men, or over their heads, as though there were no such things as grim mechanicians or drivers of emaciated horses; and, using his umbrella as a walking-stick, he set out to walk the distance intervening between the station and Peter Kane’s residence.

Peter was in his snuggery, smoking a meditative cigar, when Barney came in with the news.

‘There’s an old guy wants to see you, Peter. I don’t know who he is, but he says his name’s Reeder.’

Peter’s brows met.

‘Reeder?’ he said sharply. ‘What sort of man is he?’

‘An old fellow,’ said Barney. ‘Too shaky for a busy. He looks as if he’s trying to raise subscriptions for the old chapel organ.’

It was not an unfair description, as Peter knew.

‘Bring him here, Barney, and keep your mouth shut. And bear in mind that this is the busiest busy you are ever likely to meet.’

‘A copper?’ said Barney incredulously.

Peter nodded.

‘Where’s Marney?’ he asked quickly.

‘Up in her boojar,’ said Barney with relish. ‘She’s writing letters. She wrote one to Johnny. It started “Dear old boy”.’

‘How do you know?’ asked Peter sharply.

‘Because I read it,’ said Barney without shame. ‘I’m a pretty good reader: I can read things upside down, owing to me having been in the printing business when I was a kid.’

‘Bring in Mr Reeder,’ interrupted Peter ominously. ‘And remember, Barney, that if ever I catch you reading anything of mine upside down, you will be upside down! And don’t argue.’

Barney left the room, uttering a mechanical defiance which such threats invariably provoked.

Mr Reeder came in, his shabby hat in one hand, his umbrella in the other, and a look of profound unhappiness on his face.

‘Good morning, Mr Kane,’ he said, laying down his impedimenta. ‘What a beautiful morning it is for a walk! It is a sin and a shame to be indoors on a day like this. Give me a garden, with roses, if I may express a preference, and just a faint whiff of heliotrope . . .’

‘You’d like to see me in the garden, eh?’ said Peter. ‘Perhaps you’re wise.’

Barney, his inquisitive ears glued to the keyhole, cursed softly.

‘I was in a garden yesterday,’ murmured Mr Reeder, as they walked across the lawn toward the sunken terraces. ‘Such a lovely garden! One bed was filled with blue flowers. There is something about a blue flower that brings a lump into my throat. Rhododendrons infuriate me: I have never understood why. There is that about a clump of rhododendrons which rouses all that is evil in my nature. Daffodils, on the other hand, and especially daffodils intermingled with hyacinths, have a most soothing effect upon me. The garden to which I refer had the added attraction of being on the edge of the sea – a veritable Garden of Eden, Mr Kane, although’ – he wagged his head from side to side disparagingly – ‘there were more snakes than is customary. There was a snake in a chair, and a snake who was posting letters in the village, and another official snake who was hiding behind a clump of bushes and had followed me all the way from London – sent, I think, by that misguided gentleman, Mr Craig.’

‘Where were you, Mr Reeder?’

‘At a seaside villa, a beautiful spot. A truly earthly paradise,’ sighed Mr Reeder. ‘The very place an intelligent man would go to if he were convalescent, and the gentleman on the chair was certainly convalescent.’

‘You saw Jeff Legge, eh? Sit down.’

He pointed to the marble bench where Johnny had sat and brooded unhappily on a certain wedding day.

‘I think not,’ said Mr Reeder, shaking his head as be stared at the marble seat. ‘I suffer from rheumatism, with occasional twinges of sciatica. I think I would rather walk with you, Mr Kane.’ He glanced at the hedge. ‘I do not like people who listen. Sometimes one listens and hears too much. I heard the other day of a very charming man who happened to be standing behind a bush, and heard the direful character of his son-in-law revealed. It was not good for him to hear so much.’

Peter knew that the man was speaking about him, but gave no sign.

‘I owe you something, Mr Reeder, for the splendid way you treated my daughter –’

Mr Reeder stopped him with a gesture.

‘A very charming girl. A very lovely girl,’ he said with mild enthusiasm. ‘And so interested in chickens! One so seldom meets with women who take a purely sincere interest in chickens.’

They had reached a place where it was impossible they could be overheard. Peter, who realised that the visitor would not have called unless he had something important to say, waited for the next move. Mr Reeder returned to the subject of eavesdropping.

‘My friend – if I may call him my friend – who learnt by accident that his son-in-law was an infernal rascal – if you will excuse that violent expression – might have got himself into serious trouble, very serious trouble.’ He shook his head solemnly. ‘For you see,’ he went on, ‘my friend – I do hope he will allow me to call him my friend? – has something of a criminal past, and all his success has been achieved by clever strategy. Now, was it clever strategy’ – he did not look at Peter, and his faded eyes surveyed the landscape gloomily – ‘was it clever of my friend to convey to Mr Emanuel Legge the astounding information that at a certain hour, in a certain room – I think its number was thirteen, but I am not sure – Mr John Gray was meeting Mr J. G. Reeder to convey information which would result in Emanuel Legge’s son going to prison for a long period of penal servitude? Was it wise to forge the handwriting of one of Emanuel Legge’s disreputable associates, and induce the aforesaid Emanuel to mount the fire-escape at the Highlow Club and shoot, as he thought, Mr John Gray, who wasn’t Mr Gray at all, but his own son? I ask you, was it wise?’

Peter did not answer.

‘Was it discreet, when my friend went to the hotel where his daughter was staying, and found her gone, to leave a scribbled note on the floor, which conveyed to Mr Jeffrey Legge the erroneous information that the young lady was meeting Johnny Gray in Room 13 at nine-thirty? I admit,’ said Mr Reeder handsomely, ‘that by these clever manoeuvres, my friend succeeded in getting Jeffrey Legge just where he wanted him at the proper time; for Jeffrey naturally went to the Highlow Club in order to confront and intimidate his wife. You’re a man of the world, Mr Kane, and I am sure you will see how terribly indiscreet my friend was. For Jeffrey might have been killed.’ He sighed heavily. ‘His precious life might have been lost; and if the letters were produced at the trial, my friend himself might have been tried for murder.’

He dusted the arm of his frock-coat tenderly.

‘The event had the elements of tragedy,’ he said, ‘and it was only by accident that Jeff’s face was turned away from the door; and it was only by accident that Emanuel was not seen going out. And it was only by the sheerest and cleverest perjury that Johnny Gray was not arrested.’

‘Johnny was not there,’ said Peter sharply.

‘On the contrary, Johnny was there – please admit that he was there,’ pleaded Mr Reeder. ‘Otherwise, all my theories are valueless. And a gentleman in my profession hates to see his theories suffer extinction.’

‘I’ll not admit anything of the sort,’ said Peter sharply. ‘Johnny spent that evening with a police officer. It must have been his double.’

‘His treble perhaps,’ murmured the other. ‘Who knows? Humanity resembles, to a very great extent, the domestic fowl, gallus domesticus. One man resembles another – it is largely a matter of plumage.’

He looked up to the sky as though he were seeking inspiration from heaven itself.

‘Mr Jeffrey Legge has not served you very well, Mr Kane,’ he said. ‘In fact, I think he has served you very badly. He is obviously a person without principle or honour, and deserves anything that may come to him.’

Peter waited, and suddenly the man brought his eyes to the level of his.

‘You must have heard, in the course of your travels, a great deal about Mr Legge?’ he suggested. ‘Possibly more has come to you since this unfortunate – indeed, dastardly – happening, of which I cannot remind you without inflicting unnecessary pain. Now, Mr Kane, don’t you think that you would be rendering a service to human society if –’

‘If I squeaked,’ said Peter Kane quietly. ‘I’ll put your mind at rest on that subject immediately. I know nothing of Jeffrey Legge except that he’s a blackguard. But if I did, if I had the key to his printing works, if I had evidence in my pocket of his guilt –’ he paused.

‘And if you had all these?’ asked Mr Reeder gently.

‘I should not squeak,’ said Peter with emphasis, ‘because that is not the way. A squeak is a squeak, whether you do it in cold blood or in the heat of temper.’

Again Mr Reeder sighed heavily, took off his glasses, breathed on them and polished them with gentle vigour, and did not speak until he had replaced them.

‘It is all very honourable,’ he said sadly. ‘This – er – faith and – er – integrity. Again the poultry parallel comes to my mind. Certain breeds of chickens hold together and have nothing whatever to do with other breeds, and, though they may quarrel amongst themselves, will fight to the death for one another. Your daughter is well, I trust?’

‘She is very well,’ said Peter emphatically, ‘surprisingly so. I thought she would have a bad time – here she is.’ He turned at that moment and waved his hand to the girl, who was coming down the steps of the terrace. ‘You know Mr Reeder?’ said Peter as the girl came smiling toward the chicken expert with outstretched hand.

‘Why, of course I know him,’ she said warmly. ‘Almost you have persuaded me to run a poultry farm!’

‘You might do worse,’ said Mr Reeder gravely. ‘There are very few women who take an intelligent interest in such matters. Men are ever so much more interested in chickens.’

Peter looked at him sharply. There was something in his tone, a glint of unsuspected humour in his eyes, that lit and died in a second, and Peter Kane was nearer to understanding the man at that moment than he had ever been before.

And here Peter took a bold step.

‘Mr Reeder is a detective,’ he said, ‘employed by the banks to try and track down the people who have been putting so many forged notes on the market.’

‘A detective!’

Her eyes opened wide in surprise, and Mr Reeder hastened to disclaim the appellation.

‘Not a detective. I beg of you not to misunderstand, Miss Kane. I am merely an investigator, an inquiry agent, not a detective. “Detective” is a term which is wholly repugnant to me. I have never arrested a man in my life, nor have I authority to do so.’

‘At any rate, you do not look like a detective, Mr Reeder,’ smiled the girl.

‘I thank you,’ said Mr Reeder gratefully. ‘I should not wish to be mistaken for a detective. It is a profession which I admire, but do not envy.’

He took from his pocket a large note-case and opened it. Inside, fastened by a rubber band in the centre, was a thick wad of bank-notes. Seeing them, Peter’s eyebrows rose.

‘You’re a bold man to carry all that money about with you, Mr Reeder,’ he said.

‘Not bold,’ disclaimed the investigator. ‘I am indeed a very timid man.’

He slipped a note from under the elastic band and handed it to his wondering host. Peter took it.

‘A fiver,’ he said.

Mr Reeder took another. Peter saw it was a hundred before he held it in his hand.

‘Would you cash that for me?’

Peter Kane frowned.

‘What do you mean?’

‘Would you cash it for me?’ asked Mr Reeder. ‘Or perhaps you have no change? People do not keep such large sums in their houses.’

‘I’ll change it for you with pleasure,’ said Peter, and was taking out his own note-case when Mr Reeder stopped him with a gesture.

‘Forged,’ he said briefly.

Peter looked at the note in his hand.

‘Forged? Impossible! That’s a good note.’

He rustled it scientifically and held it up to the light. The watermark was perfect. The secret marks on the face of the note which he knew very well were there. He moistened the corner of the note with his thumb.

‘You needn’t trouble,’ said Reeder. ‘It answers all the tests.’

‘Do you mean to tell me this is slush – I mean a forgery?’

The other nodded, and Peter examined the note again with a new interest. He who had seen so much bad money had to admit that it was the most perfect forgery he had ever handled.

‘I shouldn’t have hesitated to change that for you. Is all the other money the same?’

Again the man nodded.

‘But is that really bad money?’ asked Marney, taking the note from her father. ‘How is it made?’

Before the evasive answer came she guessed. In a flash she pieced together the hints, the vague scraps of gossip she had heard about the Big Printer.

‘Jeffrey Legge!’ she gasped, going white. ‘Oh!’

‘Mr Jeffrey Legge,’ nodded Reeder. ‘Of course we can prove nothing. Now perhaps we can sit down.’

It was he who suggested that they should go back to the garden seat. Not until, in his furtive way, he had circumnavigated the clump of bushes that hid the lawn from view did he open his heart.

‘I am going to tell you a lot, Mr Kane,’ he said, ‘because I feel you may be able to help me, in spite of your principles. There are two men who could have engraved this note, one man who could manufacture the paper. Anybody could print it – anybody, that is to say, with a knowledge of printing. The two men are Lacey and Burns. They have both been in prison for forgery; they were both released ten years ago, and since then have not been seen. The third man is a paper maker, who was engaged in the bank-note works at Wellington. He went to penal servitude for seven years for stealing banknote paper. He also has been released a very considerable time, and he also has vanished.’

‘Lacey and Bums? I have heard of them. What is the other man’s name?’ asked Peter.

Mr Reeder told him.

‘Jennings? I never heard of him.’

‘You wouldn’t because he is the most difficult type of criminal to track. In other words, he is not a criminal in the ordinary sense of the word. I am satisfied that he is on the Continent because, to be making paper, it is necessary that one should have the most up-to-date machinery. The printing is done here.’

‘Where?’ asked the girl innocently, and for the first time she saw Mr Reeder smile.

‘I want this man very badly, and it is a matter of interest for you, young lady, because I could get him tomorrow – for bigamy.’ He saw the girl flush. ‘Which I shall not do. I want Jeff the Big Printer, not Jeff the bigamist. And oh, I want him badly!’

A sound of loud coughing came from the lawn, and Barney appeared at the head of the steps.

‘Anybody want to see Emanuel Legge?’

They looked at one another.

‘I don’t want to see him,’ said Mr Reeder decidedly. He nodded at the girl. ‘And you don’t want to see him. I fear that leaves only you, Mr Kane.’

Chapter 22

Peter was as cool as ice when he came into the drawing-room and found Emanuel examining the pictures on the wall with the air of a connoisseur. He turned, and beamed a benevolent smile upon the man he hated.

‘I didn’t think you’d come here again, Legge,’ said Peter with dangerous calm.

‘Didn’t you now?’ Emanuel seemed surprised. ‘Well, why not? And me wanting to fix things up, too! I’m surprised at you, Peter.’

‘You’ll put nothing right,’ said the other. ‘The sooner you recognise that fact and clear, the better it will be for everybody.’

‘If I’d known,’ Emanuel went on, unabashed, ‘if only I’d dreamt that the young woman Jeffrey had taken up with was your daughter, I would have stopped it at once, Peter. The boy had been brought up straight and never had met you. It is funny the number of straight people that never met Peter Kane. Of course, if he’d been on the crook, he’d have known at once. Do you think my boy would have married the daughter of a man who twisted his father? Is it likely, Peter? However, it’s done now, and what’s done can’t be undone. The girl’s fond of him, and he’s fond of the girl –’

‘When you’ve finished being comic, you can go,’ said Peter ‘I never laugh before lunch.’

‘Don’t you, Peter? And not after? I’ve come at a very bad time, it seems to me. Now listen, Peter. Let’s talk business.’

‘I’ve no business with you.’ Peter opened the door.

‘Haste was always your weakness, Peter,’ said Emanuel, not budging from where he stood. ‘Never lose your temper. I lost my temper once and shot a copper, and did fifteen years for it. Fifteen years, whilst you were sitting here in luxury, entertaining the lords and ladies of the neighbourhood, and kidding ’em you were straight. I’m going to ask you a favour, Peter.’

‘It is granted before you ask,’ said the other sardonically.

‘I’m going to ask you and Johnny boy to come and have a bit of dinner with me and Jeffrey, and let us fix this thing up. You’re not going to have this girl brought into the divorce court, are you? And you’ve got to get a divorce, whether he’s married or whether he isn’t. As a matter of fact, he isn’t married at all. I never dreamt you’d be such a mug as to fall for the story that Lila was properly married to Jeff. All these girls tell you the same thing. It’s vanity, Peter, a human weakness, if I may so describe it.’

‘Perhaps it was the vanity of the registrar who signed their marriage certificate, and the vanity of the people who witnessed the marriage,’ said Peter. ‘Your son was married to this girl at the Greenwich Registry Office; I’ve got a copy of the certificate – you can see it if you like.’

Still the smile on Emanuel’s face did not fade.

‘Ain’t you smart?’ he said admiringly. ‘Ain’t you the quickest grafter that ever grafted? Married or not, Peter, the girl’s got to go into the court for the marriage to be – what do you call it? – annulled, that’s the word. And she can’t marry till she does. And they’ll never annul the marriage until you get my boy caught for bigamy, and that you won’t do, Peter, because you don’t want to advertise what a damned fool you are. Take my advice, come and talk it over. Bring Johnny with you –’

‘Why should I bring Johnny? I can look after myself.’

‘Johnny’s an interested party,’ said the other. ‘He’s interested in anything to do with Marney, eh?’ He chuckled, and for a second Peter Kane had all his work to maintain his calm.

‘I’m not going to discuss Marney with you. I’ll meet you and the Printer, and I don’t suppose Johnny will mind either. Though what you can do that the law can’t do, I don’t know.’

‘I can give you evidence that you can’t get any other way,’ said the other. ‘The fact is, Peter, my poor boy has realised he’s made a mistake. He married a girl who was the daughter of a respectable gentleman, and when I broke it to him, Peter, that he’d married into a crook family, he was upset! He said I ought to have told him.’

‘I don’t know what funny business you’re going to try,’ said Peter Kane, ‘but I’m not going to run away from it. You want me to meet you and your son – where?’

‘What about the old Highlow?’ suggested Emanuel. ‘What about Room 13, where a sad accident nearly occurred?’

‘Where you shot your son?’ asked Peter coolly, and only for a second did the man’s self-possession leave him. His face turned a dusky red and then a pale yellow.

‘I shot my son there, did I? Peter, you’re getting old and dopy! You’ve been dreaming again, Peter. Shot my son!’

‘I’ll come to this fool dinner of yours.’

‘And Marney?’ suggested the other.

‘Marney doesn’t put her foot inside the doors of the Highlow,’ said Peter calmly. ‘You’re mad to imagine I would allow that. I can’t answer for Johnny, but I’ll be there.’

‘What about Thursday?’ suggested the old man.

‘Any day will suit me,’ said Peter impatiently. ‘What time do you want us?’

‘Half-past eight. Just a snack and a talk. We may as well have a bit of food to make it cheerful, eh, Peter? Remember that dinner we had a few days before we smashed the Southern Bank? That must be twenty years ago. You split fair on that, didn’t you? I’ll bet you did – I had the money! No taking a million dollars and calling it a hundred and twenty thousand pounds, eh, Peter?’

This time Peter stood by the door, and the jerk of his head told Emanuel Legge that the moment for persiflage had passed.

‘I want to settle this matter.’ The earnestness of his manner did not deceive Peter. ‘You see, Peter, I’m getting old, and I want to go abroad and take the boy with me. And I want to give him a chance too – a good-looking lad like that ought to have a chance. For I’ll tell you the truth – he’s a single man.’

Peter smiled.

‘You can laugh! He married Lila – you’ve got a record of that, but have you taken a screw at the divorce list? That takes the grin off your face. They were divorced a year after they were married. Lila got tired of the other man and came back to Jeff. You’re a looker-up; go and look up that! Ask old Reeder –’

‘Ask him yourself,’ said Peter ‘He’s in the garden.’

He had no sooner said the words than he regretted them. Emanuel was silent for a while.

‘So Reeder’s here, in the garden, is he? He’s come for a squeak. But you can’t, because you’ve nothing to squeak about. What does he want?’

‘Why don’t you ask him?’

‘That fellow spends his life wandering about other people’s gardens,’ grumbled Emanuel. A disinterested observer might have imagined that Mr Reeder’s passion for horticulture was the only grievance against him. ‘He was round my garden yesterday. I dare say he told you? Came worrying poor Jeff to death. But you always were fond of busies, weren’t you, Peter? How’s your old friend Craig? I can’t stand them myself, but then I am a crook. Thursday will suit you, Peter? That gives you six days.’

‘Thursday will suit me,’ said Peter. ‘I hope it will suit you.’

As he came back on to the lawn Reeder and the girl were coming into view up the steps, and without preliminary he told them what had passed.

‘I fear,’ said Mr Reeder, shaking his head sadly, ‘that Emanuel is not as truthful a man as he might be. There was no divorce. I was sufficiently interested in the case to look up the divorce court records.’ He rubbed his chin thoughtfully. ‘I think your dinner party at the Highlow – is that the name? – will be an interesting one,’ he said. ‘Are you sure he did not invite me?’ And again Peter saw that glint of humour in his eyes.

Chapter 23

Mr Emanuel Legge had a great deal of business to do in London. The closing of the club had sadly interfered with the amenities of the Highlow, for many of its patrons and members were, not unnaturally, reluctant to be found on premises subject, at any moment, to the visitation of inquisitive police officers. Stevens, the porter, had been reinstated, though his conduct, in Emanuel’s opinion, had been open to the gravest suspicion. In other ways he was a reliable man, and one whose services were not lightly to be dispensed with. To his surprise, when he had come to admonish the porter, that individual had taken the wind out of his sails by announcing his intention of retiring unless the staff was changed. And he had his way, the staff in question being the elevator boy, Benny.

‘Benny squeaked on me,’ said Stevens briefly, ‘and I’m not going to have a squeaker round.’

‘He squeaked to me, my friend,’ said Emanuel, showing his teeth unpleasantly. ‘He told me you tried to shield Johnny Gray.’

‘He’s a member, ain’t he?’ asked the porter truculently. ‘How do I know what members you want put away, and what members you want hidden? Of course I helped the Captain – or thought I was trying to help him. That’s my job.’

There was a great deal of logic in this. Benny, the elevator boy, was replaced.

Stepping out of the lift, Emanuel saw the prints of muddy boots in the hall, and they were wet.

‘Who is here?’ he asked.

‘Nobody in particular.’

Legge pointed to the footprints.

‘Somebody has been here recently,’ he said.

‘They’re mine,’ said Stevens without hesitation. ‘I went out to get a cab for Monty Ford.’

‘Are there any mats?’ snapped Emanuel.

Stevens did not answer.

There was a great deal of work for Emanuel to do. For example, there was the matter of a certain house in Berkeley Square to be cleared off. Though he was no longer in active work, he did a lot of crooked financing, and the house had been taken with his money. It was hired furnished for a year, and it was the intention of his associates to run an exclusive gambling club. Unfortunately, the owner, who had a very valuable collection of paintings and old jewellery, discovered the character of the new tenant (a dummy of Legge’s) and had promptly cancelled the agreement. Roughly, the venture had cost Emanuel a thousand, and he hated losing good money.

It was late that night when he left the club. He was sleeping in town, intending to travel down to his convalescent son by an early train in the morning. It had been raining heavily, and the street was empty when he went out of the club, pulling the collar of his macintosh about his neck.

He had taken two strides when a man stepped out of the shadow of a doorway and planted himself squarely in his path. Emanuel’s hand dropped to his pocket, for he was that rarest variety of criminal, an English gunman.

‘Keep your artillery out of action, Legge,’ said a voice that was strangely familiar.

He peered forward, but in the shadow he could not distinguish the stranger’s face.

‘Who are you?’

‘An old friend of yours,’ was the reply. ‘Don’t tell me you’ve forgotten all your pals! Why, you’ll be passing a screw in the street one of these days without touching your hat to him.’

And then it dawned upon Emanuel.

‘Oh . . . you’re Fenner, aren’t you?’

‘I’m Fenner,’ admitted the man. ‘Who else could I be? I’ve been waiting to see you, Mr Emanuel Legge. I wondered if you would remember a fellow you sent to the triangle . . . fifteen lashes I had. You’ve never had a bashing, have you, Legge? It’s not so nice as you’d think. When they’d took me back to my cell and put that big bit of lint on my shoulder, I laid on my face for a week. Naturally, that interfered with my sleeping, though it helped me a whole lot to think. And what I thought was this, Emanuel, that a thousand a stroke wouldn’t be too much to ask from the man who got it for me.’

Legge’s lip twisted in a sneer.

‘Oh, it’s the black you’re after, is it? Fifteen thousand pounds, is that your price?’

‘I could do a lot with fifteen thousand, Legge. I can go abroad and have a good time – maybe, take a house in the country.’

‘What’s the matter with Dartmoor?’ snarled Emanuel. ‘You’ll get no fifteen thousand from me – not fifteen thousand cents, not fifteen thousand grains of sand. Get out of my way!’

He lurched forward, and the man slipped aside. He had seen what was in the old man’s hand.

Legge turned as he passed, facing him and walking sideways, alert to meet any attempt which was launched.

‘That’s a pretty gun of yours, Legge,’ drawled the convict. ‘Maybe I shall meet you one of these days when you won’t be in a position to pull it.’

A thought struck Emanuel Legge, and he walked slowly back to the man, and his tone was mild, even conciliatory.

‘What’s the good of making a fuss, Fenner? I didn’t give you away. Half a dozen people saw you cosh that screw.’

‘But half a dozen didn’t come forward, did they?’ asked Fenner wrathfully. ‘You were the only prisoner; there was not a screw in sight.’

‘That’s a long time ago,’ said Emanuel after a pause. ‘You’re not going to make any trouble now, are you? Fifteen thousand pounds is out of the question. It is ridiculous to ask me for that. But if a couple of hundred will do you any good, why, I’ll send it to you.’

‘I’ll have it now,’ said Fenner.

‘You won’t have it now, because I haven’t got it,’ replied Emanuel. ‘Tell me where you’re to be found, and I’ll send a boy along with it in the morning.’

Fenner hesitated. He was surprised even to touch for a couple of hundred.

‘I’m staying at Rowton House, Wimborne Street, Pimlico.’

‘In your own name?’

‘In the name of Fenner,’ the other evaded, ‘and that’s good enough for you.’

Emanuel memorised the address.

‘It will be there at ten o’clock,’ he said. ‘You’re a mug to quarrel with me. I could put you on to a job where you could have made not fifteen, but twenty thousand.’

All the anger had died out of the burglar’s tone when he asked: ‘Where?’

‘There’s a house in Berkeley Square,’ said Emanuel quickly, and gave the number.

It was providential that he had remembered that white elephant of his. And he knew, too, that at that moment the house was empty but for a caretaker.

‘Just wait here,’ he said, and went back into the club and to his little office on the third floor.

Opening a drawer of his desk, he took out a small bunch of keys, the duplicates that had been made during the brief period that the original keys had been in his possession. He found Fenner waiting where he had left him.

‘Here are the keys. The house is empty. One of our people borrowed the keys and got cold feet at the last minute. There’s about eight thousand pounds’ worth of jewellery in a safe – you can’t miss it. It is in the principal drawing-room – in show cases – go and take a look at it. And there’s plate worth a fortune.’

The man jingled the keys in his hand.

‘Why haven’t you gone after it, Emanuel?’

‘Because it’s not my graft,’ said Emanuel. ‘I’m running straight now. But I want my cut, Fenner. Don’t run away with any idea that you’re getting this for nothing. You’ve got a couple of nights to do the job; after that, you haven’t the ghost of a chance, because the family will be coming back.’

‘But why do you give it to me?’ asked Fenner, still suspicious.

‘Because there’s nobody else,’ was the almost convincing reply. ‘It may be that the jewellery is not there at all,’ went on Emanuel frankly. ‘It may have been taken away. But there is plenty of plate. I wouldn’t have given it to you if I’d got the right man – I doubt whether I’m going to get my cut from you.’

‘You’ll get your cut,’ said the other roughly. ‘I’m a fool to go after this, knowing what a squeaker you are, but I’ll take the risk. If you put a point on me over this, Emanuel, I’ll kill you. And I mean it.’

‘I’m sick of getting news about my murder,’ said Emanuel calmly. ‘If you don’t want to do it, leave it. I’ll send you up a couple of hundred in the morning, and that’s all I’ll do for you. Give me back those keys.’

‘I’ll think about it,’ said the man, and turned away without another word.

It was one o’clock, and Emanuel went back to the club, working the automatic lift himself to the second floor.

‘Everybody gone, Stevens?’ he asked.

The porter stifled a yawn and shook his head.

‘There’s a lady and a gentleman’ – he emphasised the word – ‘in No. 8. They’ve been quarrelling since nine o’clock. They ought to be finished by now.’

‘Put my office through to the exchange,’ said Emanuel. Behind the porter’s desk was a small switchboard, and he thrust in the two plugs. Presently the disc showed him that Emanuel was through.

Mr Legge had many friends amongst the minor members of the Criminal Investigation Department. They were not inexpensive acquaintances, but they could on occasion be extremely useful. That night, in some respects, Emanuel’s luck was in, when he found Sergeant Shilto in his office. There had been a jewel theft at one of the theatres, which had kept the sergeant busy.

‘Is that you, Shilto?’ asked Legge in a low voice. ‘It’s Manileg.’ He gave his telegraphic address, which also served as a nom de plume when such delicate negotiations as these were going through.

‘Yes, Mr Manileg?’ said the officer, alert, for Emanuel did not call up police headquarters unless there was something unusual afoot.

‘Do you want a cop – a real one?’ asked Legge in a voice little above a whisper. ‘There’s a man named Fenner –’

‘The old lag?’ asked Shilto. ‘Yes, I saw him today. What’s he doing?’

‘He’s knocking off a little silver, from 973, Berkeley Square. Be at the front door: you’ll probably see him go in. You want to be careful, because he’s got a gun. If you hurry, you’ll get there in front of him. Good-night.’

He hung up the receiver and smiled. The simplicity of the average criminal always amused Emanuel Legge.

Chapter 24

Peter wrote to tell of the invitation which Legge had extended to him. Johnny Gray had the letter by the first post. He sat in his big armchair, his silk dressing-gown wrapped around him, his chin on his fists; and seeing him thus, the discreet Parker did not intrude upon his thoughts until Johnny, reading the letter again, tore it in pieces and threw it into the wastepaper-basket.

He had a whimsical practice of submitting most of his problems, either in parable form or more directly, to his imperturbable manservant.

‘Parker, if you were asked to take dinner in a lion’s den, what dress would you wear?’

Parker looked down at him thoughtfully, biting his lip.

‘It would largely depend, sir, on whether there were ladies to be present,’ he said. ‘Under those extraordinary circumstances, one should wear full dress and a white tie.’

Johnny groaned.

‘There have been such dinners, sir,’ Parker hastened to assure him in all seriousness. ‘I recall that, when I was a boy, a visiting menagerie came to our town, and one of the novelties was a dinner which was served in a den of ferocious lions; and I distinctly remember that the lion-tamer wore a white dress bow and a long tail coat. He also wore top boots,’ he said after a moment’s consideration, ‘which, of course, no gentleman could possibly wear in evening dress. But then, he was an actor.’

‘But supposing the lion-tamer had a working arrangement with the lions? Wouldn’t you suggest a suit of armour?’ asked Johnny without smiling, and Parker considered the problem for a moment.

‘That would rather turn it into a fancy-dress affair, sir,’ he said, ‘where, of course, any costume is permissible. Personally,’ he added, ‘I should never dream of dining in a den of lions under any circumstances.’

‘That’s the answer I’ve been waiting for; it is the most intelligent thing you’ve said this morning,’ said Johnny. ‘Nevertheless, I shall not follow your excellent advice. I will be dining at the Highlow Club on Thursday. Get me the morning newspaper: I haven’t seen it.’

He turned the pages apathetically, for the events which were at the moment agitating political London meant nothing in his life. On an inner page he found a brief paragraph which, however, did interest him. It was in the latest news column, and related to the arrest of a burglar, who had been caught red-handed breaking into a house in Berkeley Square. The man had given his name as Fenner. Johnny shook his head sadly. He had no doubt as to the identity of the thief, for burglary was Fenner’s graft. Since the news had come in the early hours of the morning, there were no details, and he put the paper aside and fell into a train of thought.

Poor Fenner! He must go back to that hell, which was only better than Keytown Jail. He would be spared the ordeal of Keytown, at any rate, if what Craig had said was true. Glancing at the clock, he saw that it was nearly eleven and jumped up. He was taking Marney to lunch and a matinée that day. Peter was bringing her up, and he was to meet them at Victoria.

Since his release from Dartmoor, Johnny had had no opportunity of a quiet talk with the girl, and this promised to be a red-letter day in his life. He had to wait some time, for the train was late; and as he stood in the broad hall, watching with abstracted interest the never-ceasing rush and movement and life about him, he observed, out of the corner of his eye, a man sidling toward him.

Johnny had that sixth sense which is alike the property of the scientist, the detective and the thief. He was immediately sensitive to what he called the approaching spirit, and long before the shabby stranger had spoken to him, he knew that he was the objective. Nearer at hand, he recognised the stranger as a man he had seen in Dartmoor, and remembered that he had come to prison at the same time as Fenner and for the same offence, though he had been released soon after Johnny had passed through that grim gateway.

‘I followed you down here, Mr Gray, but I didn’t like to talk to you in the street,’ said the stranger, apparently immersed in an evening newspaper, and talking, as such men talk, without moving his lips.

Johnny waited, wondering what was the communication, and not doubting that it had to do with Fenner.

‘Old Fenner’s been shopped by Legge,’ said the man, ‘He went to knock off some silver from a house in Berkeley Square, and Shilto was waiting in the hall for him.’

‘How do you know Legge shopped him?’ asked Johnny, interested.

‘It was a shop all right,’ said the other without troubling to explain. ‘If you can put in a good word for Fenner, he’d be much obliged.’

‘But, my dear fellow,’ said John with a little smile, ‘to whom can I put in a good word? In the present circumstances I couldn’t put a word in for my own maiden aunt. I’ll see what I can do.’

There was no need to tell the furtive man to go. With all a thief’s keen perceptions he had seen the eyes of Johnny Gray light up, and with a sidelong glance assured himself as to the cause. Johnny went toward the girl with long strides, and, oblivious to curious spectators and Peter Kane alike, took both her hands in his. Her loveliness always came to him in the nature of a glorious surprise. The grace and poise of her were indefinite quantities that he could not keep exactly in his mind, and inevitably she surpassed his impressions of her.

After he had handed the girl into a taxi, the older man beckoned him aside.

‘I’m not any too sure about this Highlow dinner,’ he said. ‘Love feasts are not Emanuel’s specialities, and there’s a kick coming somewhere, Johnny. I hope you’re prepared for it?’

Johnny nodded.

‘Emanuel isn’t usually so obvious,’ he said. ‘In fact, the whole thing is so patent and so crude that I can’t suspect anything more than an attempt to straighten matters as far as Marney is concerned.’

Peter’s face clouded.

‘There will be no straightening there,’ he said shortly. ‘If he has committed bigamy, he goes down for it. Understand that, Johnny. It will be very unpleasant because of Marney’s name being dragged into the light, but I’m going through with it.’

He turned away with a wave of his hand, and Johnny returned to the girl.

‘What is the matter with father?’ she asked as the taxi drew out of the station. ‘He is so quiet and thoughtful these days. I suppose the poor dear’s worrying about me, though he needn’t, for I never felt happier.’

‘Why?’ asked Johnny, indiscreetly.

‘Because – oh, well, because,’ she said, her face flushing the faintest shade of pink. ‘Because I’m unmarried, for one thing. I hated the idea, Johnny. You don’t know how I hated it. I understand now poor daddy’s anxiety to get me married into respectable society.’ Her sense of humour, always irrepressible, overcame her anxiety. ‘I wonder if you understand my immoral sense of importance at the discovery that poor father has done so many illegal things! I suppose it is the kink that he has transmitted to me.’

‘Was it a great shock to you, Marney?’ interrupted the young man quietly.

She nodded. ‘Yes, but shocks are like blows – they hurt and they fade. It isn’t pleasant to be twisted violently to another angle of view. It pains horribly, Johnny. But I think when I found –’ she hesitated.

‘When you found that I was a thief.’

‘When I found that you were – oh, Johnny, why did you? You had so many advantages; you were a University man, a gentleman – Johnny, it wasn’t big of you. There’s an excuse for daddy; he told me about his youth and his struggles and the fearful hardness of living. But you had opportunities that he never had. Easy money isn’t good money, is it, Johnny?’

He was silent, and then, with a quick, breath-catching sigh, she smiled again.

‘I haven’t come out to lecture you, and I shall not even ask you if, for my sake, you will go straight in the future. Because, Johnny’ – she dropped a cool palm on the back of his hand – ‘I’m not going to do anything like the good fairy in the storybooks and try to save you from yourself.’

‘I’m saved,’ said Johnny, with a quizzical smile. ‘You’re perfectly right: there was no reason why I should be a thief. I was the victim of circumstances. It was possibly the fascination of the game – no, no, it wasn’t that. One of these days I will tell you why I left the straight path of virtue. It is a long and curious story.’

She made no further reference to his fall, and throughout the lunch was her own gay self. Looking down at her hand, Johnny saw, with satisfaction, that the platinum wedding-ring she had worn had been replaced by a small, plain gold ring, ornamented with a single turquoise, and his breath came faster. He had first met her at a gymkhana, a country fair which had been organised for charity, and the ring had been the prize he had won at a shooting match, one of the gymkhana features – though it was stretching terminology to absurd lengths so to describe the hotch-potch of contests which went to the making of the programme – and had offered it to her as whimsically as it had been accepted. Its value was something under a pound. To Johnny, all the millions in the world would not have given him the joy that its appearance upon her finger gave him now.

After luncheon she returned to the unpleasant side of things.

‘Johnny, you’re going to be very careful, aren’t you? Daddy says that Jeff Legge hates you, and he is quite serious about it. He says that there are no lengths to which Jeffrey and his father will not go to hurt you – and me,’ she added.

Johnny bent over the table, lowering his voice. ‘Marney, when this matter is settled – I mean, the release from your marriage – will you take me – whatever I am?’

She met his eyes steadily and nodded. It was the strangest of all proposals, and Jeffrey Legge, who had watched the meeting at the station, had followed her, and now was overlooking them from one of the balconies of the restaurant, flushed a deeper red, guessing all that that scene meant.

Chapter 25

On Thursday afternoon, Emanuel Legge came out of the elevator at the Highlow Club, and, with a curt nod to Stevens, walked up the heavily carpeted corridor, unlocked the door of his tiny office and went in. For half an hour he sat before his desk, his hands clasped on the blotting-pad before him, motionless, his mind completely occupied by his thoughts. At last he opened his desk, pressed a bell by his side, and he had hardly taken his fingers from the push when the head waiter of the establishment, a tall, unpleasant-looking Italian, came in.

‘Fernando, you have made all the arrangements about the dinner tonight?’

‘Yes,’ said the man.

‘All the finest wines, eh? The best in the house?’

He peered at the waiter, his teeth showing in a smile.

‘The very best,’ said Fernando briskly.

‘There will be four: myself and Major Floyd, Mr Johnny Gray and Peter Kane.’

‘The lady is not coming?’ asked Fernando.

‘No, I don’t think she’ll be dining with us tonight,’ said Emanuel carefully.

When the waiter had gone, he rose and bolted the door and returned to an idle examination of the desk. He found extraordinary pleasure in opening the drawers and looking through the little works of reference which filled a niche beneath the pigeon-holes. This was Jeffrey’s desk, and Jeff was the apple of his eye.

Presently he rose and walked to a nest of pigeon-holes which stood against the wall, and, putting his hand into one, he turned a knob and pulled. The nest opened like a door, exposing a narrow, spiral staircase which led upward and downward. He left the secret door open and pulled down a switch, which gave him light above and below. For a second he hesitated whether he should go up or down, and decided upon the latter course.

At the foot of the stairs was another door, which he opened, passing into the cellar basement of the house. As the door moved, there came to him a wave of air so super-heated that for a moment he found difficulty in breathing. The cellar in which he found himself was innocent of furnishing, except for a table placed under a strong light, and a great, enclosed furnace which was responsible for the atmosphere of the room. It was like a Turkish bath, and he had not gone two or three paces before the perspiration was rolling down his cheeks.

A broad-shouldered, undersized man was sitting at the table, a big book open before him. He had turned at the sound of the key in the door, and now he came toward the intruder. He was a half-caste, and, beyond the pair of blue dungaree trousers, he wore no clothing. His yellow skin and his curiously animal face gave him a particularly repulsive appearance.

‘Got the furnace going, eh, Pietro?’ said Emanuel mildly, taking off his spectacles to wipe the moisture which had condensed upon the lenses.

Pietro grunted something and, picking up an iron bar, lifted open the big door of the furnace. Emanuel put up his hands to guard his face from the blast of heat that came forth.

‘Shut it, shut it!’ he said testily, and when this was done, he went nearer to the furnace.

Two feet away there ran a box-like projection, extending from two feet above the floor to the ceiling. A stranger might have imagined that this was an air shaft, introduced to regulate the ventilation. Emanuel was not a stranger. He knew that the shaft ran to the roof, and that it had a very simple explanation.

‘That’s a good fire you’ve got, eh, Pietro? You could bum up a man there?’

‘Burn anything,’ growled the other, ‘but not man.’

Emanuel chuckled.

‘Scared I’m going to put a murder point on you, are you? Well, you needn’t be,’ he said. ‘But it’s hot enough to melt copper, eh, Pietro?’

‘Melt it down to nothing.’

‘Burnt any lately?’

The man nodded, rubbing his enormous arms caressingly.

‘They came last Monday week, after the boss had been shot,’ said the other. He had a curious impediment in his speech which made his tone harsh and guttural. ‘The fellows upstairs knew they were coming, so there was nothing to see. The furnace was nearly out.’

Emanuel nodded.

‘The boss said the furnace was to be kept going for a week,’ said Pietro complainingly. ‘That’s pretty tough on me, Mr Legge. I feel sometimes I’d nearly die, the heat’s so terrible.’

‘You get the nights off,’ said Emanuel, ‘and there are weeks when you do no work. Tonight I shall want you . . . Mr Jeff has told you?’

The dwarf nodded. Emanuel passed through the door, closing it behind him; and, contrasted with the heat of the room, it seemed that he had walked into an ice wall. His collar was limp, his clothes were sticking to him, as he made his way up the stairs, and, passing the open door of his office, continued until he reached the tiny landing which scarcely gave him foothold. He knocked twice on the door, for of this he had no key. After a pause came an answering knock, a small spyhole opened and an enquiring and suspicious eye examined him.

When at last the door was opened, he found he was in a small room with a large skylight, heavily barred. At one end of the skylight was a rolled blind, which could be drawn across at night and effectively veil the glare of light which on occasions rose from this room.

The man who grinned a welcome was little and bald. His age was in the region of sixty, and the grotesqueness of his appearance was due less to his shabby attire and diminutive stature than to the gold-rimmed monocle fixed in his right eye.

In the centre of the room was a big table littered with paraphernalia, ranging from a small microscope to a case filled with little black bottles. Under the brilliant overhead light which hung above the table, and clamped to the wood by glass-headed pins, was an oblong copper plate, on which the engraver had been working – the engraving tool was in his hand as he opened the door.

‘Good morning, Lacey. What are you working at now?’ asked Emanuel with a benevolent air of patronage appropriate to the proprietor in addressing a favourite workman.

‘The new fives,’ said the other. ‘Jeff wants a big printing. Jeff’s got brains. Anybody else would have said, “Work from a photographic plate” – you know what that means. After a run of a hundred, the impression goes wrong, and before you know where you are, there’s a squeak. But engraving is engraving,’ he said with pride. ‘You can get all the new changes without photography. I never did hold with this new method – boobs are full of fellows who think they can make slush with a camera and a zinc plate!’

It was good to hear praise of Jeffrey, and Emanuel Legge purred. He examined the half-finished plate through his powerful glasses, and though the art of the engraver was one with which he was not well acquainted, he could admire the fine work which this expert forger was doing.

To the left of the table was an aperture like the opening of a service lift. It was a continuation of the shaft which led from the basement, and it had this value, that, however clever the police might be, long before they could break into the engraver’s room all evidence of his guilt would have been flung into the opening and consumed in the furnace fire. Jeffrey’s idea. ‘What a mind!’ said the admiring Lacey. ‘It reduces risk to what I might term a minimum. It is a pleasure working for Jeff, Mr Legge. He takes no chances.’

‘I suppose Pietro is always on the spot?’

Mr Lacey smiled. He took up a plate from the table and examined it back and front.

‘That is one I spoilt this morning,’ he said. ‘Spilt some acid on it. Look!’

He went to the opening, put in his hand, and evidently pressed a bell, for a faint tinkle came from the mouth of the shaft. When he withdrew his hand, the plate that it held had disappeared. There came the buzz of a bell from beneath the table.

‘That plate’s running like water by now,’ he said. ‘There’s no chance of a squeak if Pietro’s all right. Wide! That’s Jeffrey! As wide as Broad Street! Why, Mr Legge, would you believe that I don’t know to this day where the stuff’s printed? And I’ll bet the printer hasn’t got the slightest idea where the plates are made. There isn’t a man in this building who has got so much as a smell of it.’

Emanuel passed down to his own office, a gratified father, and, securely closing the pigeon-hole door, he went out into the club premises to look at Room 13. The table was already laid. A big rose-bowl, overflowing with the choicest blooms, filled the centre; an array of rare glass, the like of which the habitués of the club had never seen on their tables, stood before each plate.

His brief inspection of the room satisfied him, and he returned, not to his office but to Stevens, the porter.

‘What’s the idea of telling the members that all the rooms are engaged tonight?’ asked Stevens. ‘I’ve had to put off Lew Brady, and he pays.’

‘We’re having a party, Stevens,’ said Emanuel, ‘and we don’t want any interruption. Johnny Gray is coming. And you can take that look off your face; if I thought he was a pal of yours, you wouldn’t be in this club two minutes. Peter Kane’s coming too.’

‘Looks to me like a rough house,’ said Stevens. ‘What am I to do?’ he asked sarcastically. ‘Bring in the police at the first squeal?’

‘Bring in your friend from Toronto,’ snapped Emanuel, and went home to change.

Chapter 26

Johnny was the first of the guests to arrive, and Stevens helped him to take off his raincoat. As he did so, he asked in a low voice: ‘Got a gun, Captain?’

‘Never carry one, Stevens. It is a bad habit to get into.’

‘I never thought you were a mug,’ said Stevens in the same voice.

‘Any man who has been in prison is, ex officio, one of the Ancient Order of Muggery,’ said Johnny, adjusting his bow in the mirror by the porter’s desk. ‘What’s going?’

‘I don’t know,’ said the other, bending down to wipe the mud from Johnny’s boots. ‘But curious things have happened in No. 13; and don’t sit with your back to the buffet. Do you get that?’

Johnny nodded.

He had reached the end of the corridor when he heard the whine of the ascending lift, and stopped. It was Peter Kane, and to him in a low voice, Johnny passed on the porter’s advice.

‘I don’t think they’ll start anything,’ said Peter under his breath. ‘But if they do, there’s a nurse at Charing Cross Hospital who’s going to say: “What, you here again?”’

As Johnny had expected, his two hosts were waiting in Room 13. The silence which followed their arrival was, for one member of the party, an awkward one.

‘Glad to see you, Peter,’ said Emanuel at last, though he made no pretence of shaking hands. ‘Old friends ought to keep up acquaintances. There’s my boy, Jeffrey. I think you’ve met him,’ he said with a grin.

‘I’ve met him,’ said Peter, his face a mask.

Jeffrey Legge had apparently recovered fully from his unpleasant experience.

‘Now sit down, everybody,’ said Emanuel, bustling around, pulling out the chairs. ‘You sit here, Johnny.’

‘I’d rather face the buffet; I like to see myself eat,’ said Johnny, and, without invitation, sat down in the position he had selected.

Not waiting, Peter seated himself on Johnny’s left, and it was Emanuel himself, a little ruffled by this preliminary upset to his plans, who sat with his back to the buffet. Johnny noticed the quick exchange of glances between father and son; he noticed, too, that the buffet carried none of the side dishes for which it was designed, and wondered what particular danger threatened from that end of the room.

By the side of the sideboard, in one corner, hung a long, blue curtain, which, he guessed, hid a door leading to No. 12. Peter, who was better acquainted with the club, knew that No. 12 was the sitting-room, and that the two made one of those suites which were very much in request when a lamb was brought to the killing.

‘Now, boys,’ said Emanuel with spurious joviality, ‘there is to be no bickering and quarrelling. We’re all met round the festive board, and we’ve nothing to do but find a way out that leaves my boy’s good name unsullied, if I may use that word.’

‘You can use any word you like,’ said Peter. ‘It’ll take more than a dinner party to restore his tarnished reputation.’

‘What long words you use, Peter!’ said Emanuel admiringly. ‘It’s my own fault that I don’t know them, because I had plenty of time to study when I was away over the Alps. Never been over the Alps, have you, Peter? Well, when they call it time, they use the right word. The one thing you’ve got there is time!’

Peter did not answer, and it was Jeffrey who took up the conversation.

‘See here, Peter,’ he said, ‘I’m not going to make a song about this business of mine. I’m going to put all my cards on the table. I want my wife.’

‘You know where Lila is better than I,’ said Peter. ‘She’s not in my employment now.’

‘Lila nothing!’ retorted Jeffrey. ‘If you fall for that stuff, you’re getting soft. I certainly married Lila, but she was married already, and I can give you proof of it.’

The conversation flagged here, for the waiter came in to serve the soup.

‘What wine will you have, sir?’

‘The same as Mr Emanuel,’ said Peter.

Emanuel Legge chuckled softly.

‘Think I’m going to knock you out, eh, Peter? What a suspicious old man you are!’

‘Water,’ said Johnny softly when the waiter came to him.

‘On the water-wagon, Johnny? That’s good. A young man in your business has got to keep his wits about him. I’ll have champagne, Fernando, and so will Major Floyd. Nothing like champagne to keep your heart up,’ he said.

Peter watched, all his senses alert, as the wine came, bubbling and frothing, into the long glasses.

‘That will do, Fernando,’ said Emanuel, watching the proceedings closely.

As the door closed, Johnny could have sworn he heard an extra click.

‘Locking us in?’ he asked pleasantly, and Emanuel’s eyebrows rose.

‘Locking you in, Johnny? Why, do you think I’m afraid of losing you, like you’re afraid of losing Marney?’

Johnny sipped the glass of water, his eyes fixed on the old man’s face. What was behind that buffet? That was the thought which puzzled him. It was a very ordinary piece of furniture, of heavy mahogany, a little shallow, but this was accounted for by the fact that the room was not large, and, in furnishing, the proprietors of the club had of necessity to economise space.

There were two cupboard doors beneath the ledge on which the side dishes should have been standing. Was it his imagination that he thought he saw one move the fraction of an inch?

‘Ever been in bird before, Johnny?’

It was Emanuel who did most of the talking.

‘I know they gave you three years, but was that your first conviction?’

‘That was my first conviction,’ said Johnny.

The old man looked up at the ceiling, pulling at his chin.

‘Ever been in Keytown?’ he demanded. ‘No good asking you, Peter, I know. You’ve never been in Keytown or any bad boob, have you? Clever old Peter!’

‘Let us talk about something else,’ said Peter. ‘I don’t believe for one moment the story you told me about Lila having been married before. You’ve told me a fresh lie every time the matter has been discussed. I’m going to give you a show, Emanuel, for old times’ sake. You’ve been a swine, and you’ve been nearer to death than you know, for, if your plan had come off as you expected it would, I’d have killed you.’

Emanuel chuckled derisively.

‘Old Peter’s going to be a gunman,’ he said. ‘And after all the lectures you’ve given me! I’m surprised at you, Peter. Now I’ll tell you what I’m going to do.’ He rested his elbows on the table and cupped his chin in his hands, his keen eyes, all the keener for the magnification of his spectacles, fixed hardly upon his sometime friend. ‘By my reckoning, you owe me forty thousand pounds, and I know I’m not going to get it without a struggle. Weigh in with that money, and I’ll make things easy for my son’s wife.’ He emphasised the last word.

‘You can cut that out!’

It was Jeffrey whose rough interruption checked his father’s words.

‘There’s no money in the world that’s going to get Marney from me. Understand that.’ He brought his hand down with a crash upon the table. ‘She belongs to me, and I want her, Peter. Do you get it? And what is more, I’m going to take her.’

Johnny edged a little farther from the table, and folding his arms across his chest, his lips parted in a smile. His right hand reached for the gun that he carried under his armpit: a little Browning, but a favourite one of Johnny’s in such crises as these. For the cupboard door had moved again, and the door of the room was locked: of that he was certain. All this talk of Marney was sheer blind to keep them occupied.

It had long passed the time when the plates should have been cleared and the second course make its appearance. But there was to be no second course, at that dinner. Emanuel was speaking chidingly, reproachfully.

‘Jeffrey, my boy, you mustn’t spoil a good deal,’ he said. ‘The truth is –’

And then all the lights of the room went out. Instantly Johnny was on his feet, his back to the wall, his gun fanning the dark.

‘What’s the game?’ asked Peter’s voice sharply. ‘There’ll be a real dead man here if you start fooling.’

‘I don’t know,’ said Emanuel, speaking from the place where he had been. ‘Ring the bell, Jeff. I expect the switch has gone.’

There was somebody else in the room: Johnny felt the presence instinctively – a stealthy somebody who was moving toward him. Holding out one hand, ready to pounce the moment it touched, he waited. A second passed – five seconds – ten seconds – and then the lights went on again.

Peter was also standing with his back to the wall, and in his hand a murderous looking Webley. Jeffrey and his father were side by side in the places they had been when the lights went out. There was no fifth man in the room.

‘What’s the game?’ asked Peter suspiciously.

‘The game, my dear Peter? What a question to ask! You don’t make me responsible for the fuses, do you? I’m not an electrician. I’m a poor old crook who has done time that other people should have done – that’s all,’ said Emanuel pleasantly. ‘And look at the hardware! Bad idea, carrying guns. Let an old crook give you a word of advice, Peter,’ he bantered. ‘I’m not surprised at Johnny, because he might be anything. Sit down, you damned fools,’ he said jocularly. ‘Let’s talk.’

‘I’ll talk when you open that door,’ said Johnny quietly. ‘And I’ll put away my gun on the same condition.’

In three strides, Emanuel was at the door. There was a jerk of his wrist, and it flew open.

‘Have the door open if you’re frightened,’ he said contemptuously. ‘I guess it’s being in boob that makes you scared of the dark. I got that way myself.’

As he had turned the handle, Johnny had heard a second click. He was confident that somebody stood outside the door, and that the words Legge had uttered were intended for the unknown sentry. What was the idea?

Peter Kane was sipping his champagne, with an eye on his host. Had he heard the noise, too? Johnny judged that he had. The extinguishing of the lights had not been an accident. Some secret signal had been given, and the lights cut off from the controlling switchboard. The doors of the buffet cupboard were still. Turning his head, Johnny saw that Jeffrey’s eyes were fixed on his with a hard concentration which was significant. What was he expecting?

The climax, whatever it might be, was at hand.

‘It’s a wonder to me, Gray, that you’ve never gone in for slush.’ Jeffrey was speaking slowly and deliberately. ‘It’s a good profession, and you can make money that you couldn’t dream of getting by faking racehorses.’

‘Perhaps you will tell me how to start in that interesting profession,’ said Johnny coolly.

‘I’ll put it on paper for you, if you like. It’ll be easier to make a squeak about. Or, better still, I’ll show you how it’s done. You’d like that?’

‘I don’t know that I’m particularly interested, but I’m sure my friend Mr Reeder –’

‘Your friend Mr Reeder!’ sneered the other. ‘He’s a pal of yours too, is he?’

‘All law-abiding citizens are pals of mine,’ said Johnny gravely.

He had put his pistol back in his jacket pocket, and his hand was on it.

‘Well, how’s this for a start?’

Jeffrey rose from the table and went to the buffet. He bent down and must have touched some piece of mechanism; for, without any visible assistance, the lid of the buffet turned over on some invisible axis, revealing a small but highly complicated piece of machinery, which Johnny recognised instantly as one of those little presses employed by banknote printers when a limited series of notes, generally of a high denomination, were being made.

The audacity of this revelation momentarily took his breath away.

‘You could pull that buffet to pieces,’ continued Jeffrey, ‘and then not find it.’

He pressed a switch, and the largest of the wheels began to spin, and with it a dozen tiny platens and cylinders. Only for a few minutes, and then he cut off the current, pressed the hidden mechanism again, and the machine turned over out of sight, and the two astonished men stared at the very ordinary looking surface of a very ordinary buffet.

‘Easy money, eh, Gray?’ said Emanuel, with an admiring smirk at his son. ‘Now listen, boys,’ His tone grew suddenly practical and businesslike as he came back to his chair. ‘I want to tell you something that’s going to be a lot of good to both of you, and we’ll leave Marney out of it for the time being.’

Johnny raised his glass of water, still watchful and suspicious.

‘The point is –’ said Emanuel, and at that moment Johnny took a long sip from the glass.

The liquid had hardly reached his throat when he strove vainly to reject it. The harsh tang of it he recognised, and, flinging the glass to the floor, jerked out his gun.

And then some tremendous force within him jerked at his brain, and the pistol dropped from his paralysed hand.

Peter was on his feet, staring from one to the other.

‘What have you done?’

He leapt forward, but before he could make a move, Emanuel sprang at him like a cat. He tried to fight clear, but he was curiously lethargic and weak. A vicious fist struck him on the jaw, and he went down like a log.

‘Got you!’ hissed Emanuel, glaring down at his enemy. ‘Got you, Peter, my boy! Never been in boob, have you? I’ll give you a taste of it!’

Jeffrey Legge stooped and jerked open the door of the cupboard, and a man came stooping into the light. It was a catlike Pietro, grinning from ear to ear in sheer enjoyment of the part he had played. Emanuel dropped his hand on his shoulder.

‘Good boy,’ he said. ‘The right stuff for the right man, eh? To every man his dope, Jeff. I knew that this Johnny Gray was going to be the hardest, and if I’d taken your advice and given them both a knock-out, we’d have only knocked out one. Now they know why the lights went out. Pick ’em up.’

The little half-caste must have been enormously strong, for he lifted Peter without an effort and propped him into an armchair. This done, he picked up the younger man and laid him on the sofa, took a little tin box from his pocket, and, filling a hypodermic syringe from a tiny phial, looked round for instructions.

Jeffrey nodded, and the needle was driven into the unfeeling flesh. This done, he lifted the eyelid of the drugged man and grinned again.

‘He’ll be ready to move in half an hour,’ he said. ‘My knock-out doesn’t last longer.’

‘Could you get him down the fire-escape into the yard?’ asked Emanuel anxiously. ‘He’s a pretty heavy fellow, that Peter. You’ll have to help him, Jeff boy. The car’s in the yard. And, Jeff, don’t forget you’ve an engagement at two o’clock.’

His son nodded.

Again the half-caste swung up Peter Kane, and Jeffrey, holding the door wide, helped him to carry the unconscious man through the open window and down the steel stairway, though he needed very little help, for the strength of the man was enormous.

He came back, apparently unmoved by his effort, and hoisted Johnny on to his back. Again unassisted, he carried the young man to the waiting car below, and flung him into the car.

He was followed this time by Jeffrey, wrapped from head to foot in a long waterproof, a chauffeur’s cap pulled down over his eyes. They locked both doors of the machine, and Pietro opened the gate and glanced out. There were few people about, and the car swung out and sped at full speed toward Oxford Street.

Closing and locking the gate, the half-caste went up the stairs of the fire-escape two at a time and reported to his gratified master.

Emanuel was gathering the coats and hats of his two guests into a bundle. This done, he opened a cupboard and flung them in, and they immediately disappeared.

‘Go down and burn them,’ he said laconically. ‘You’ve done well, Pietro. There’s fifty for you tonight.’

‘Good?’ asked the other laconically.

Emanuel favoured him with his benevolent smile. He took the two glasses from which the men had drunk, and these followed the clothes. A careful search of the room brought to light no further evidence of their presence. Satisfied, Emanuel sat down and lit a long, thin cigar. His night’s work was not finished. Jeff had left to him what might prove the hardest of all the tasks.

From a small cupboard he took a telephone, and pushed in the plug at the end of a long flex. He had some time to wait for the number, but presently he heard a voice which he knew was Marney’s.

‘Is that you, Marney?’ he asked softly, disguising his voice so cleverly that the girl was deceived.

‘Yes, daddy. Are you all right? I’ve been so worried about you.’

‘Quite all right, darling. Johnny and I have made a very interesting discovery. Will you tell Barney to go to bed, and will you wait up for me – open the door yourself?’

‘Is Johnny coming back with you?’

‘No, no, darling; I’m coming alone.’

‘Are you sure everything is all right?’ asked the anxious voice.

‘Now, don’t worry, my pet. I shall be with you at two o’clock. When you hear the car stop at the gate, come out. I don’t want to come into the house. I’ll explain everything to you.’

‘But –’

‘Do as I ask you, darling,’ he said, and before she could reply had rung off.

But could Jeff make it? He would like to go himself, but that would mean the employment of a chauffeur, and he did not know one he could trust. He himself was not strong enough to deal with the girl, and, crowning impossibility, motor-car driving was a mystery – that was one of the accomplishments which a long stay in Dartmoor had denied to him.

But could Jeff make it? He took a pencil from his pocket and worked out the times on the white tablecloth. Satisfied, he put away his pencil, and was pouring out a glass of champagne when there was a gentle tap-tap-tap at the door. He looked up in surprise. The man had orders not under any circumstances to come near Room 13, and it was his duty to keep the whole passage clear until he received orders to the contrary.

Tap-tap-tap.

‘Come in,’ he said.

The door opened. A man stood in the doorway. He was dressed in shabby evening clothes; his bow was clumsily tied; one stud was missing from his white shirt-front.

‘Am I intruding upon your little party?’ he asked timidly.

Emanuel said nothing. For a long time he sat staring at this strange apparition. As if unconscious of the amazement and terror he had caused, the visitor sought to readjust his frayed shirt-cuffs, which hung almost to the knuckles of his hands. And then –

‘Come in, Mr Reeder,’ said Emanuel Legge a little breathlessly.

Chapter 27

Mr Reeder sidled into the room apologetically, closing the door behind him.

‘All alone, Mr Legge?’ he asked. ‘I thought you had company?’

‘I had some friends, but they’ve gone.’

‘Your son gone, too?’ Reeder stared helplessly from one corner of the room to the other. ‘Dear me, this is a disappointment, a great disappointment.’

Emanuel was thinking quickly. In all probability the shabby detective had been watching the front of the house, and would know that they had not left that way. He took a bold step.

‘They left a quarter of an hour ago. Peter and Johnny went down the fire-escape – my boy’s car was in the yard. We never like to have a car in front of the club premises; people talk so much. And after the publicity we’ve had –’

Mr Reeder checked him with a mild murmur of agreement.

‘That was the car, was it? I saw it go and wondered what it was all about – Number XC 9712, blue-painted limousine – Daimler – I may be wrong, but it seemed like a Daimler to me. I know so little about motor-cars that I could be very easily mistaken, and my eyesight is not as good as it used to be.’

Emanuel cursed him under his breath.

‘Yes, it was a Daimler,’ he said, ‘one we bought cheap at the sales.’

The absent-minded visitor’s eyes were fixed on the table.

‘Took their wine-glasses with them?’ he asked gently. ‘I think it is a pretty custom, taking souvenirs of a great occasion. I’m sure they were very happy.’

How had he got in, wondered Emanuel? Stevens had strict orders to stop him, and Fernando was at the end of the L-shaped passage. As if he divined the thought that was passing through Legge’s mind, Mr Reeder answered the unspoken question.

‘I took the liberty of coming up the fire-escape, too,’ he said. ‘It was an interesting experience. One is a little old to begin experiments, and I am not the sort of man that cares very much for climbing, particularly at night.’

Following the direction of his eyes, Emanuel saw that a small square of the rusty trousers had been worn, and through the opening a bony white knee.

‘Yes, I came up the fire-escape, and fortunately the window was open. I thought I would give you a pleasant surprise. By the way, the escape doesn’t go any higher than this floor? That is curious, because, you know, my dear Mr Legge, it might well happen, in the event of fire, that people would be driven to the roof. If I remember rightly, there is nothing on the roof but a square superstructure – store-room, isn’t it? Let me think. Yes, it’s a store-room, I’m sure.’

‘The truth is,’ interrupted Emanuel, ‘I had two old acquaintances here, Johnny Gray and Peter Kane. I think you know Peter?’

The other inclined his head gently.

‘And they got just a little too merry. I suppose Johnny’s not used to wine, and Peter’s been a teetotaller for years.’ He paused. ‘In fact, they were rather the worse for drink.’

‘That’s very sad.’ Mr Reeder shook his head. ‘Personally, I am a great believer in prohibition. I would prohibit wine and beer, and crooks and forgers, tale-tellers, poisoners’ – he paused at the word – ‘druggers would be a better word,’ he said. ‘They took their glasses with them, did they? I hope they will return them. I should not like to think that people I – er – like would be guilty of so despicable a practice as – er – the petty theft of – er – wine-glasses.’

Again his melancholy eyes fell on the table.

‘And they only had soup! It is very unusual to get bottled before you’ve finished the soup, isn’t it? I mean, in respectable circles,’ he added apologetically.

He looked back at the open door over his spectacles.

‘I wonder,’ he mused, ‘how they got down that fire-escape in the dark in such a sad condition?’

Again his expressionless eyes returned to Emanuel.

‘If you see them again, will you tell them that I expect both Mr Kane and Mr Johnny – what is his name? – Gray, that is it! to keep an appointment they made with me for tomorrow morning? And that if they do not turn up at my house at ten o’clock . . .’

He stopped, pursing up his lips as though he were going to whistle. Emanuel wondered what was coming next, and was not left long in doubt.

‘Did you feel the cold very much in Dartmoor? They tell me that the winters are very trying, particularly for people of an advanced age. Of course,’ Mr Reeder went on, ‘one can have friends there; one can even have relations there. I suppose it makes things much easier if you know your son or some other close relative is living on the same landing – there are three landings, are there not? But it is much nicer to live in comfort in London, Mr Legge – to have a cosy little suite in Bloomsbury, such as you have got; to go where you like without a screw following you – I think screw is a very vulgar word, but it means warder, does it not?’

He walked to the door and turned slowly.

‘You won’t forget that I expect to meet Mr Peter Kane and Mr John Gray tomorrow at my house at half-past ten – you won’t forget, will you?’

He closed the door carefully behind him, and, with his great umbrella hooked on to his arm, passed along the corridor into the purview of the surprised Fernando and astounded the jailers on guard at the end.

‘Good evening,’ murmured Mr Reeder as he passed.

Fernando was too overcome to make a courteous reply.

Stevens saw him as he came into the main corridor, and gasped.

‘When did you come in, Mr Reeder?’

‘Nobody has ever seen you come in, but lots of people see you go out,’ said Reeder good-humouredly. ‘On the other land, there are people who are seen coming into this club whom nobody sees go out. Mr Gray didn’t pass this way, or Mr Kane?’

‘No, sir,’ said Stevens in surprise. ‘Have they gone?’

Reeder sighed heavily.

‘Yes, they’ve gone,’ he said. ‘I hope not for long, but they’ve certainly gone. Good night, Stevens. By the way, your name isn’t Stevens, is it? I seem to remember you’ – he screwed up his eyes as though he had difficulty in recalling the memory – ‘I seem to remember your name wasn’t Stevens, let us say, eight years ago.’

Stevens flushed.

‘It is the name I’m known as now, sir.’

‘A very good name, too, an excellent name,’ murmured Mr Reeder as he stepped into the elevator. ‘And after all, we must try to live down the past. And I’d be the last to remind you of your – er – misfortune.’

When he reached the street, two men who had been standing on the opposite sidewalk crossed to him.

‘They’ve gone,’ said Mr Reeder. ‘They were in that car, as I feared. All stations must be warned, and particularly the town stations just outside of London, to hold up the car. You have its number. You had better watch this place till the morning,’ he said to one of them.

‘Very good, sir.’

‘I want you especially to follow Emanuel, and keep him under observation until tomorrow morning.’

The detective left on duty waited with that philosophical patience which is the greater part of the average detective’s equipment, until three o’clock in the morning; and at that hour, when daylight was coming into the sky, Emanuel had not put in an appearance. Stevens went off duty half an hour after Mr Reeder’s departure. At two o’clock the head waiter and three others left, Fernando locking the door. Then, a few minutes before three, the squat figure of Pietro, muffled up in a heavy overcoat, and he too locked the door behind him, disappearing in the direction of Shaftesbury Avenue. At half-past three the detective left a policeman to watch the house, and got on the ’phone to Mr Reeder, who was staying in town.

‘Dear me!’ said Mr Reeder, an even more incongruous sight in pyjamas which were a little too small for him, though happily there were no spectators of his agitation. ‘Not gone, you say? I will come round.’

It was daylight when he arrived. The gate in the yard was opened with a skeleton key (the climb so graphically described by Mr Reeder was entirely fictitious, and the cut in his trousers was due to catching a jagged nail in one of the packing-cases with which the yard was littered), and he mounted the iron stairway to the third floor.

The window through which he had made his ingress on the previous evening was closed and fastened, but, with the skill of a professional burglar, Mr Reeder forced back the catch and, opening the window, stepped in.

There was enough daylight to see his whereabouts. Unerringly he made for Emanuel’s office. The door had been forced, and there was no need to use the skeleton key. There was no sign of Emanuel, and Reeder came out to hear the report of the detective, who had made a rapid search of the club.

‘All the doors are open except No. 13, sir,’ he said. ‘That’s bolted on the inside. I’ve got the lock open.’

‘Try No. 12,’ said Reeder. ‘There are two ways in – one by way of a door, which you’ll find behind a curtain in the corner of the room, and the other way through the buffet, which communicates with the buffet in No. 13. Break nothing if you can help it, because I don’t want my visit here advertised.’

He followed the detective into No. 12, and found that there was no necessity to use the buffet entrance, for the communicating door was unlocked. He stepped into No. 13; it was in complete darkness.

‘Humph!’ said Mr Reeder, and sniffed. ‘One of you go along this wall and find the switch. Be careful you don’t step on something.’

‘What is there?’

‘I think you’ll find . . . however, turn on the light.’

The detective felt his way along the wall, and presently his finger touched a switch and he turned it down. And then they saw all that Mr Reeder suspected. Sprawled across the table was a still figure – a horrible sight, for the man who had killed Emanuel Legge had used the poker which, twisted and bloodstained, lay amidst the wreckage of rare glass and once snowy napery.

Chapter 28

It was unnecessary to call a doctor to satisfy the police. Emanuel Legge had passed beyond the sphere of his evil activities.

‘The poker came from – where?’ mused Mr Reeder, examining the weapon thoughtfully. He glanced down at the little fireplace. The poker and tongs and shovel were intact, and this was of a heavier type than was used in the sitting-rooms.

Deftly he searched the dead man’s pockets, and in the waistcoat he found a little card inscribed with a telephone number, ‘Horsham 98753.’ Peter’s. That had no special significance at the moment, and Reeder put it with the other documents that he had extracted from the dead man’s pockets. Later came an inspector to take charge of the case.

‘There was some sort of struggle, I imagine,’ said Mr Reeder. ‘The right wrist, I think you’ll find, is broken. Legge’s revolver was underneath the table. He probably pulled it, and it was struck from his hand. I don’t think you’ll want me any more, inspector.’

He was examining the main corridor when the telephone switchboard at the back of Stevens’s little desk gave him an idea. He put through a call to Horsham, and, in spite of the earliness of the hour, was almost immediately answered.

‘Who is that?’ he asked.

‘I’m Mr Kane’s butler,’ said a husky voice.

‘Oh, is it Barney? Is your master at home yet?’

‘No, sir. Who is it speaking?’

‘It is Mr Reeder . . . Will you tell Miss Kane to come to the telephone?’

‘She’s not here either. I’ve been trying to get on to Johnny Gray all night, but his servant says he’s out.’

‘Where is Miss Kane?’ asked Reeder quickly.

‘I don’t know, sir. Somebody came for her in the night in a car, and she went away, leaving the door open. It was the wind slamming it that woke me up.’

It was so long before Mr Reeder answered that Barney thought he had gone away.

‘Did nobody call for her during the evening? Did she have any telephone messages?’

‘One, sir, about ten o’clock. I think it was her father, from the way she was speaking.’

Again a long interval of silence, and then: ‘I will come straight down to Horsham,’ said Mr Reeder, and from the pleasant and conversational quality of his voice, Barney took comfort; though, if he had known the man better, he would have realised that Mr Reeder was most ordinary when he was most perturbed.

Mr Reeder pushed the telephone away from him and stood up.

So they had got Marney. There was no other explanation. The dinner party had been arranged to dispose of the men who could protect her. Where had they been taken?

He went back to the old man’s office, which was undergoing a search at the hands of a police officer.

‘I particularly want to see immediately any document referring to Mr Peter Kane,’ he said ‘any road maps which you may find here, and especially letters addressed to Emanuel Legge by his son. You know, of course, that this office was broken into? There should be something in the shape of clues.’

The officer shook his head. ‘I’m afraid, Mr Reeder, we won’t find much here,’ he said. ‘So far, I’ve only come across old bills and business letters which you might find in any office.’

The detective looked round.

‘There is no safe?’ he asked.

All the timidity and deference in his manner had gone. He was patently a man of affairs.

‘Yes, sir, the safe’s behind that panelling. I’ll get it open this morning. But I shouldn’t imagine that Legge would leave anything compromising on the premises. Besides, his son has had charge of the Highlow for years. Previous to that, they had a manager who is now doing time. Before him, if I remember right, that fellow Fenner, who has been in boob for burglary.’

‘Fenner?’ said the other sharply. ‘I didn’t know he ever managed this club.’

‘He used to, but he had a quarrel with the old man. I’ve got an idea they were in jug together.’

Fenner’s was not the type of mentality one would expect to find among the officers of a club, even a club of the standing of the Highlow: but there was this about the Highlow, that it required less intelligence than sympathy with a certain type of client.

Reeder was assisting the officer by taking out the contents of the pigeon-holes, when his hand touched a knob.

‘Hallo, what is this?’ he said, and turned it.

The whole desk shifted slightly, and, pulling, he revealed the door to the spiral staircase.

‘This is very interesting,’ he said. He ascended as far as the top landing. There was evidently a door here, but every effort he made to force it ended in failure. He came down again, continuing to the basement, and this time he was joined by the inspector in charge of the case.

‘Rather hot,’ said Mr Reeder, as he opened the door. ‘I should say there is a fire burning here.’

It took him some time to discover the light connections, and when he did, he whistled. For, lying by the side of the red-hot stove, he saw a piece of shining metal and recognised it. It was an engraver’s plate, and one glance told him that it was the finished plate from which £5 notes could be printed.

The basement was empty, and for a second the mystery of the copper plate baffled him.

‘We may not have found the Big Printer, but we’ve certainly found the Big Engraver,’ he said. ‘This plate was engraved somewhere upstairs.’ He pointed to the shaft. ‘What is it doing down here? Of course!’ He slapped his thigh exultantly. ‘I never dreamt he was right – but he always is right!’

‘Who?’ asked the officer.

‘An old friend of mine, whose theory was that the plates from which the slush was printed were engraved within easy reach of a furnace, into which, in case of a police visitation, they could be pushed and destroyed. And, of course, the engraving plant is somewhere upstairs. But why they should throw down a perfectly new piece of work, and at a time when the attendant was absent, is beyond me. Unless . . . Get me an axe; I want to see the room on the roof.’

The space was too limited for the full swing of an axe, and it was nearly an hour before at last the door leading to the engraver’s room was smashed in. The room was flooded with sunshine, for the sky-light had not been covered. Reeder’s sharp eyes took in the table with a glance, and then he looked beyond, and took a step backward. Lying by the wall, dishevelled, mud-stained, his white dress-shirt crumpled to a pulp, was Peter Kane, and he was asleep!

They dragged him to a chair, bathed his face with cold water, but even then he took a long time to recover.

‘He has been drugged: that’s obvious,’ said Mr Reeder, and scrutinised the hands of the unconscious man for a sign of blood. But though they were covered with rust and grime, Reeder found not so much as one spot of blood; and the first words that Peter uttered, on recovering consciousness, confirmed the view that he was ignorant of the murder.

‘Where is Emanuel?’ he asked drowsily. ‘Have you got him?’

‘No; but somebody has got him,’ said Reeder gently, and the shock of the news brought Peter Kane wide awake.

‘Murdered!’ he said unbelievingly. ‘Are you sure? Of course, I’m mad to ask you that.’ He passed his hand wearily across his forehead. ‘No, I know nothing about it. I suppose you suspect me, and I don’t mind telling you that I was willing to murder him if I could have found him.’

Briefly he related what had happened at the dinner.

‘I knew that I was doped, but dope works slowly on me, and the only chance I had was to sham dead. Emanuel gave me a thump in the jaw, and that was my excuse for going out. They got me downstairs into the yard and put me into the car first. I slipped out the other side as soon as the nigger went up to get Johnny. There were a lot of old cement sacks lying about, and I threw a couple on to the floor, hoping that in the darkness they would mistake the bundle for me. Then I lay down amongst the packing-cases and waited. I guessed they’d brought down Johnny, but I was powerless to help him. When the car had gone, and Pietro had gone up again, I followed. I suppose the dope was getting busy, and if I’d had any sense, I should have got over the gate. My first thought was that they might have taken my gun away and left it in the room. I tried to open the door, but it was locked.’

‘Are you sure of that, Peter?’

‘Absolutely sure.’

‘How long after was this?’

‘About half an hour. It took me all that time to get up the stairs, because I had to fight the dope all the way. I heard somebody moving about, and slipped into one of the other rooms, and then I heard the window pulled down and locked. I didn’t want to go to sleep, for fear they discovered me; but I must have dozed, for when I woke up, it was dark and cold, and I heard no sound at all. I tried the door of thirteen again, but could make no impression on it. So I went to Emanuel’s office. I know the place very well: I used to go in there in the old days, before Emanuel went to jail, and I knew all about the spiral staircase to the roof. All along I suspected that the hut they’d put on the roof was the place where the slush was printed. But here I was mistaken, for I had no sooner got into the room than I saw that it was where the engraver worked. There was a plate on the edge of a shaft. I suppose I was still dizzy, because I fumbled at it. It slipped through my hand, and I heard a clang come up from somewhere below.’

‘How did you get into this room?’

‘The door was open,’ was the surprising reply. ‘I have an idea that it is one of those doors that can only be opened and closed from the inside. The real door of the room is in the room in Emanuel’s office. It is the only way in, and the only way out, both from the basement and the room on the roof. I don’t know what happened after that. I must have lain down, for by now the dope was working powerfully. I ought to let Marney know I’m all right. She’ll be worried . . .’

He saw something in the detective’s face, something that made his heart sink.

‘Marney! Is anything wrong with Marney?’ he asked quickly.

‘I don’t know. She went out last night – or rather, early this morning – and has not been seen since.’

Peter listened, stricken dumb by the news. It seemed to Mr Reeder that he aged ten years in as few minutes.

‘Now, Kane, you’ve got to tell me all you know about Legge,’ said Reeder kindly. ‘I haven’t any doubt that Jeffrey’s taken her to the big printing place. Where is it?’

Peter shook his head.

‘I haven’t the least idea,’ he said. ‘The earlier slush was printed in this building; in fact, it was printed in Room 13. I’ve known that for a long time. But as the business grew, young Legge had to find another works. Where he has found it is a mystery to me, and to most other people.’

‘But you must have heard rumours?’ persisted Reeder.

Again Peter shook his head.

‘Remember that I mix very little with people of my own profession, or my late profession,’ he said. ‘Johnny and old Barney are about the only crooks I know, outside of the Legge family. And Stevens, of course – he was in jail ten years ago. I’ve lost touch with all the others, and my news has come through Barney, though most of Barney’s gossip is unreliable.’

They reached Barney by telephone, but he was unable to give any information that was of the slightest use. All that he knew was that the printing works were supposed to be somewhere in the West.

‘Johnny knows more about it than I do, or than anybody. All the boys agree as to that,’ said Barney. ‘They told him a lot in boob.’

Leaving Peter to return home, Mr Reeder made a call at Johnny’s flat. Parker was up. He had been notified earlier in the morning of his master’s disappearance, but he had no explanation to offer.

He was preparing to give a list of the clothes that Johnny had been wearing, but Reeder cut him short impatiently.

‘Try to think of Mr Gray as a human being, and not as a tailor’s dummy,’ he said wrathfully. ‘You realise that he is in very grave danger?’

‘I am not at all worried, sir,’ said the precise Parker. ‘Mr Gray was wearing his new sock suspenders –’

For once Mr Reeder forgot himself.

‘You’re a damned fool, Parker,’ he said.

‘I hope not, sir.’ said Parker as he bowed him out.

Chapter 29

It was five minutes past two in the morning when Marney, sitting in the drawing-room at the front of the house, heard the sound of a motor-car stop before the house. Going into the hall, she opened the door, and, standing on the step, peered into the darkness.

‘Is that you, father?’ she asked.

There was no reply, and she walked quickly up the garden path to the gate. The car was a closed coupé, and as she looked over the gate, she saw a hand come out and beckon her, and heard a voice whisper. ‘Don’t make a noise. Come in here; I want to talk to you. I don’t want Barney to see me.’

Bewildered, she obeyed. Jerking open the door, she jumped into the dark interior, by the side of the man at the wheel.

‘What is it?’ she asked.

Then, to her amazement, the car began to move toward the main road. It had evidently circled before it had stopped.

‘What is the matter, father?’ she asked.

And then she heard a low chuckle that made her blood run cold.

‘Go into the back and stay there. If you make a row, I’ll spoil that complexion of yours, Marney Legge!’

‘Jeffrey!’ she gasped.

She gripped the inside handle of the door and had half turned it when he caught her with his disengaged hand and flung her into the back of the car.

‘I’ll kill you if you make me do that again.’ There was a queer little sob of pain in his voice, and she remembered his wound.

‘Where are you taking me?’ she asked.

‘I’m taking you to your father,’ was the unexpected reply. ‘Will you sit quiet? If you try to get away, or attempt to call assistance, I’ll drive you at full speed into the first tree I see and we’ll finish the thing together.’

From the ferocity of his tone she did not doubt that he would carry his threat into execution. Mile after mile the car sped on, flashing through villages, slowing through the sparsely peopled streets of small towns. It was nearing three o’clock when they came into the street of a town and, looking through the window, she saw a grey façade and knew she was in Oxford.

In ten minutes they were through the city and traversing the main western road. And now, for the first time, Jeffrey Legge became communicative.

‘You’ve never been in boob, have you, angel?’ he asked.

She did not answer.

‘Never been inside the little bird-house with the other canaries, eh? Well, that’s an experience ahead of you. I am going to put you in jail, kid. Peter’s never been in jail either, but he nearly had the experience tonight.’

‘I don’t believe you,’ she said. ‘My father has not broken the law.’

‘Not for a long time, at any rate,’ agreed Jeffrey, dexterously lighting a cigarette with one hand. ‘But there’s a little boob waiting for him all right now.’

‘A prison,’ she said, incredulously. ‘I don’t believe you.’

‘You’ve said that twice, and you’re the only person living that’s called me a liar that number of times.’

He turned off into a side road, and for a quarter of an hour gave her opportunity for thought.

‘It might interest you to know that Johnny is there,’ he said. ‘Dear little Johnny! The easiest crook that ever fell – and this time he’s got a lifer.’

The car began to move down a sharp declivity, and, looking through the rain-spattered windscreen, she saw a squat, dark building ahead.

‘Here we are,’ he said, as the car stopped.

Looking through the window she saw, with a gasp of astonishment, that he had spoken the truth. They were at the door of a prison. The great, black, iron-studded gates were opening as she looked, and the car passed through under the deep archway and stopped.

‘Get down,’ said Jeff, and she obeyed.

A narrow black door led from the archway, and, following her, he caught her by the arm and pushed her through. She was in a narrow room, the walls of which were covered with stained and discoloured whitewash. A large fireplace, overflowing with ashes, a rickety chair and a faded board screwed to the wall were the only furniture. In the dim light of a carbon lamp she saw the almost indistinguishable words: ‘His Majesty’s Prison, Keytown’, and beneath, row after row of closely set regulations. A rough-looking, powerfully-built man had followed her into the room, which was obviously the gate-keeper’s lodge.

‘Have you got the cell ready?’

‘Yes, I have.’ said the man. ‘Does she want anything to eat?’

‘If she does, she’ll want,’ said Jeff curtly.

He took off his greatcoat and hung it on a nail, and then, with Jeffrey’s hand gripping her arm, she was led again into the archway and across a small courtyard, through an iron grille gate and a further door. A solitary light that burnt in a bracket near the door, showed her that she was in a small hall. Around this, at the height of about nine feet from the ground, ran a gallery, which was reached by a flight of iron stairs. There was no need to ask what was the meaning of those two rows of black doors that punctured the wall. They were cells. She was in a prison!

While she was wondering what it all meant, a door near at hand was unlocked, and she was pushed in. The cell was a small one, the floor of worn stone, but a new bedstead had been fitted up in one corner. There was a washstand; and, as she was to discover, the cell communicated with another containing a stone bath and washplace.

‘The condemned cell,’ explained Jeffrey Legge with relish. ‘You’ll have plenty of ghosts to keep you company tonight, Marney.’

In her heart she was panic-stricken, but she showed none of her fear as she faced him.

‘A ghost would be much less repulsive to me than you, Jeffrey Legge,’ she said, and he seemed taken aback by the spirit she displayed.

‘You will have both,’ he said, as he slammed the door on her and locked it.

The cell was illuminated by a feeble light that came through an opaque pane of glass by the side of the door. Presently, when her eyes grew accustomed to the semi-darkness, she was able to take stock of her surroundings. The prison must have been a very old one, for the walls were at one place worn smooth, probably by the back of some condemned unfortunate who had waited day after day for the hour of doom. She shuddered, as her imagination called to her the agony of soul which these four walls had held.

By standing on the bed she could reach a window. That also was of toughened glass, set in small, rusty frames. Some of the panes were missing, but she guessed that the outlook from the window would not be particularly promising, even supposing she could force the window.

The night had been unusually cold and raw for the time of year, and pulling a blanket from the bed, she wrapped it about her and sat down on the stool, waiting for the light to grow.

And so, sitting, her weary eyes closing involuntarily, she heard a stealthy tapping. It came from above, and her heart fluttered at the thought that possibly, in the cell above her, her father was held . . . or Johnny.

Climbing on to the bed, she rapped with her knuckles on the stone ceiling. Somebody answered. They were tapping a message in Morse, which she could not understand. Presently the tapping ceased. She heard footsteps above. And then, looking by chance at the broken pane of the window, she saw something come slowly downward and out of view. She leapt up, gripping the window pane, and saw a piece of black silk.

With difficulty two fingers touched it at last and drew it gently in through the window pane. She pulled it up, and, as she suspected, found a piece of paper tied to the end. It was a bank-note. Bewildered, she gazed at it until it occurred to her that there might be a message written on the other side. The pencil marks were faint, and she carried the note as near to the light as she could get.

Who is there? Is it you, Peter? I am up above. Johnny.

She suppressed the cry that rose to her lips. Both Johnny and her father were there. Then Jeffrey had not lied.

How could she answer? She had no pencil. Then she saw that the end of the cotton was weighted by a small piece of pencil, the kind that is found attached to a dance programme. With this unsatisfactory medium she wrote a reply and pushed it through the window, and after a while she saw it drawn up. Johnny was there – and Johnny knew. She felt strangely comforted by his presence, impotent though he was.

For half an hour she waited at the window, but now the daylight had come, and evidently Johnny thought it was too dangerous to make any further communications.

Exhausted, she lay down on the bed, intending to remain awake, but within five minutes she was sleeping heavily. The sound of a key in the lock made her spring to her feet. It was the man she had seen in the early morning; he was carrying a big tray, set with a clumsy cup and saucer, six slices of bread and butter, and an enormous teapot. He put it down on the bed, for want of a table, and without a word went out. She looked at the little platinum watch on her wrist: it was ten o’clock. Half an hour later the man came and took away the tray.

‘Where am I?’ she asked.

‘You’re in boob,’ he said with quiet amusement. ‘But it is better than any other boob you’ve ever been in, young lady. And don’t try to ask me questions, because you’ll not get a civil answer if you do.’

At two o’clock came another meal, a little more tastily served this time. It seemed, from the appearance of the plate, that Jeffrey had sent into Oxford for a new service specially for her benefit. Again she attempted to discover what had happened to her father, but with no more satisfactory result.

The weary day dragged through; every minute seemed an hour, every hour interminable. Darkness had fallen again when the last of the visits was made, and this time it was Jeffrey Legge. At the sight of his face, all her terror turned to wonder. He was ghastly pale, his eyes burnt strangely, and the hand that came up to his lips was trembling as though he were suffering from a fever. ‘What do you want?’ she asked.

‘I want you,’ he said brokenly. ‘I want you for the life of my father!’

‘What do you mean?’ she gasped.

‘Peter Kane killed my father last night,’ he said.

‘You’re mad,’ she gasped. ‘My father is here – you told me.’

‘I told you a lie. What does it matter what I told you, anyway? Peter Kane escaped on the way to Keytown, and he went back to the club and killed my father!’

Chapter 30

The girl looked at him, speechless.

‘It isn’t true!’ she cried.

‘It’s not true, isn’t it?’ Jeffrey almost howled the words. He was mad with hate, with grief, with desire for cruel vengeance. ‘I’ll show you whether it’s not true, my lady. You’re my wife – do you understand that? If you don’t, you’re going to.’

He flung out of the cell, turning to voice his foul mind, and then the door clanged on her, and he strode out of the hall into the little house that was once the Governor’s residence, and which was now the general headquarters of the Big Printer.

He poured himself out a stiff dose of whisky and drank it undiluted, and the man who had accompanied him watched him curiously.

‘Jeff, it looks to me as if it’s time to make a get-away. We can’t keep these people here very long. The men are scared, too.’

‘Scared, are they?’ sneered Jeffrey Legge. ‘I guess they’d be more scared if they were in front of a judge and jury.’

‘That’s the kind of scare they’re anxious to avoid,’ said his lieutenant calmly. ‘Anyway, Jeff, we’re getting near the end, and it seems to me that it’s the time for all sensible men to find a little home on the other side of the water.’

Legge thought for a long time, and when he spoke his voice was more calm.

‘Perhaps you’re right,’ he said. ‘Tell them they can clear tonight.’

The other man was taken aback by the answer.

‘Tonight?’ he said. ‘Well, I don’t know that there’s that hurry.’

‘Tell ’em to clear tonight. They’ve got all the money they want. I’m shutting this down.’

‘Who killed your father?’

‘Peter Kane,’ snarled Legge. ‘I’ve got the full strength of it. The police are hiding him up, but he did the killing all right. They found him on the premises in the morning.’

He sat awhile, staring moodily at the glass in his hand.

‘Let them go tonight,’ he said, ‘every one of them. I’ll tell them myself.’

‘Do you want me to go?’ asked the other.

Legge nodded.

‘Yes; I want to be alone. I’m going to fix two people tonight,’ he said, between his teeth, ‘and I’m fixing them good.’

‘Some of the men like Johnny Gray; they were in boob with him,’ suggested his assistant, but Jeffrey stopped him with an oath.

‘That’s another reason they can get out,’ he said, ‘and they can’t know too soon.’

He jumped to his feet and strode out of the room, the man following at a distance.

There were two halls to the prison, and it was into the second that he turned. This was brilliantly illuminated. The doors had been removed from most of the cells, and several of them were obviously sleeping-rooms for the half a dozen men who sat about a table playing cards. At only four places were the cell doors intact, for behind these were the delicate printing presses which from morning till night were turning out and numbering French, American and English paper currency. There was not one of the men at the table, or who came to the doors of their cubicles, attracted by the unusual appearance of Legge, who had not served long terms of imprisonment on forgery charges. Jeffrey had recruited them as carefully as a theatrical producer recruits his beauty chorus. They were men without homes, without people, mainly without hope; men inured to the prison system, and who found, in this novel method of living, a delightful variation of the life to which they were most accustomed.

It was believed by the authorities that Keytown Jail was in the hands of a syndicate engaged in experimental work of a highly complicated character, and no obstacle had been placed in the way of laying power cables to the ‘laboratories’. Jeff had found the safest asylum in the land, and one which was more strongly guarded than any he could have built.

His speech was short and to the point.

‘Boys, I guess that the time has come when we’ve got to make the best of our way home. You’ve all enough money to live comfortably on for the rest of your lives, and I advise you to get out of the country as soon as you can. You have your passports; you know the way; and there’s no time like the present.’

‘Do you mean that we’ve got to go tonight, Jeff?’ asked a voice.

‘I mean tonight. I’ll have a car run you into London, but you’ll have to leave your kit behind; but you can afford that.’

‘What are you going to do with the factory?’

‘That’s my business,’ said Jeff.

The proposal did not find universal favour, but they stood in such awe of the Big Printer that, though they demurred, they obeyed. By ten o’clock that night the prison was empty, except for Jeffrey and his assistant.

‘I didn’t see Bill Holliss go,’ said the latter; but Jeffrey Legge was too intent upon his plans to give the matter a moment’s thought.

‘Maybe you’ll see yourself go now, Jenkins,’ said he. ‘You can take your two-seater and run anywhere you like.’

‘Let me stay till the morning,’ asked the man.

‘You’ll go tonight. Otherwise, what’s the use of sending the other fellows away?’

He closed the big gate upon the car. He was alone with his wife and with the man he hated. He could think calmly now. The madness of rage had passed. He made a search of a little storeroom and found what he was looking for. It was a stout rope. With this over his arm, and a storm-lamp in his hand, he went out into the yard and came to a little shed built against the wall. Unlocking the rusty padlock, he pulled the doors apart. The shed was empty; the floor was inches thick with litter, and, going back, he found a broom and swept it clean. With the aid of a ladder he mounted to a beam that ran transversely across the roof, and fastened one end of the rope securely. Coming down, he spent half an hour in making a noose.

He was in the death-house. Under his feet was the fatal trap that a pull of the rusty lever would spring. He wanted to make the experiment, but the trap would take a lot of time to pull up. His face was pouring with perspiration when he had finished. The night was close, and a flicker of lightning illuminated for a second the gloomy recesses of the prison yard.

As he entered the hall a low growl of thunder came to him, but the storm in his heart was more violent than any nature could provide.

He tiptoed up the iron stairs to the landing, and came at last to No. 4 and hesitated. His enemy could wait. Creeping down the stairs again, his heart beating thunderously, he stood outside the door of the condemned cell. The key trembled as he inserted it in the lock. No sound broke the stillness as the door opened stealthily, and he slipped into the room.

He waited, holding his breath, not knowing whether she were awake or asleep, and then crept forward to the bed. He saw the outline of a figure.

‘Marney,’ he said huskily, groping for her face.

And then two hands like steel clamps caught him by the throat and flung him backward.

‘I want you, Jeffrey Legge,’ said a voice – the voice of Johnny Gray.

Chapter 31

Johnny Gray came to consciousness with a violent headache and a sense of suffocating restriction, which he discovered was due to his wing collar holding tightly in spite of the rough usage that had been his. This fact would have been pleasing to Parker, but was intensely discomforting to the wearer, and in a minute he had stripped the offending collar from his throat and had risen unsteadily to his feet.

The room in which he was had a familiar appearance. It was a cell, and – Keytown Jail! He remembered Fenner’s warning. So Fenner knew! Keytown Jail, sold by the Government to – Jeffrey Legge! The idea was preposterous; but why not? A timber merchant had bought a jail at Hereford; a firm of caterers had purchased an old prison in the North of England, and were serving afternoon teas in the cells.

Now he understood. Keytown Prison was the headquarters of the Big Printer. The one place in the world that the police would never dream of searching, particularly if, as he guessed, Jeffrey Legge had offered some specious excuse for his presence and the presence of his company in this isolated part of the world.

The sound of voices came faintly up to him, and he heard a door bang and the clicking of locks; and with that sound he recalled the happenings of the evening. It must be Peter: they had got him too. In spite of his discomfiture, in spite of the awful danger in which he knew he was, he laughed softly to himself.

Above his bed was a window with scarcely a whole pane. But there was no escape that way. A thought struck him, and, leaning down, he tapped a Morse message on the floor. If it was Peter, he could understand. He heard the answering tap which came feebly, and when he signalled again he knew that whoever was in the cell below had no knowledge of the Morse code. He searched his pockets and found a tiny scrap of pencil, but could find no paper, except a bundle of five-pound notes, which his captors had not troubled to remove. Here was both stationery and the means of writing, but how could he communicate with the occupant of the cell below? Presently a plan suggested itself, and he tore off the lapel of his dinner-jacket and unravelled the silk. Tying the pencil to the end to give it weight, he slowly lowered his message, hoping, though it seemed unlikely, that his fellow-prisoner would be able to see the paper.

To his joy he felt a tug, and when, a few minutes later, he carefully drew up the message, it was to find, written underneath his own, one which left him white and shaking. Marney here! He groaned aloud at the thought. It was too light now to risk any further communication. There was a ewer of water and a basin in the cell, and with this he relieved the aching in his head; and when breakfast came, he was ready.

The man who brought in the tray was a stranger to him, as also was the man who stood on guard at the door, revolver in hand.

‘What’s the great idea?’ asked Johnny coolly, sitting on the bed and swinging his legs. ‘Has Jeff bought a jail to practise in? Wouldn’t it have been cheaper to have gone over the Alps?’

‘You shut up, Johnny Gray,’ growled the man. ‘You’ll be sorry for yourself before you’re out of here.’

‘Who isn’t?’ asked Johnny. ‘How is Peter?’

‘You know damned well Peter has escaped,’ said the other before he could check himself.

‘Escaped!’ said the delighted Johnny. ‘You don’t mean that?’

‘Never mind what I mean,’ growled the man, realising he had said too much. ‘You keep a civil tongue in your head, Gray, and you’ll be treated square. If you don’t, there are plenty of men on the spot to make Dartmoor a paradise compared with Keytown.’

The door slammed in Johnny Gray’s face, but he was so absorbed in the news which the man had unwillingly given to him that he had to force himself to eat.

Soon after the man came to take away the tray.

‘What’s your name, bo’, anyway?’ said Johnny carelessly. ‘I hate calling you “face” – it’s low.’

‘Bill’s my name,’ said the man, ‘and you needn’t call me Bill either. You say “sir” to me.’

‘Woof!’ said Johnny admiringly. ‘You’re talking like a real screw!’

The door slammed in his face. He had further time to consider his plans. They had taken away his watch and chain, his gold cigarette-case and the small penknife he carried, but these losses did not worry him in the slightest. His chief anxiety was to know the exact character of Keytown Prison. And that he determined to learn at the earliest opportunity.

It was late in the afternoon; he guessed it was somewhere in the neighbourhood of four when his lunch came, and he was quite ready to eat it, though a little suspicious of its possible accessories.

‘No poison in this, Bill?’ he asked pleasantly as he took the bread and cheese from the man’s hand.

‘There’s no need to poison you; we could starve you, couldn’t we?’ said the other. ‘If Jeff was here, maybe I’d get a rapping for giving you anything.’

‘Gone away, has he? Well, prisons are more pleasant when the governor’s away. Am I right. Bill? Now, what do you say to a couple of hundred of real money?’

‘For what?’ asked the man, stopping at the door. ‘If you mean it’s for letting you make a get-away, why, you’re silly! You’re going to stay here till Jeff fixes you.’

All the day Johnny had heard, or rather felt, a peculiar whirr of sound coming from some remote quarter of the prison.

‘Got electric light here, Bill?’ he said conversationally.

‘Yes, we have,’ said the other. ‘This is a model boob, this is.’

‘I’ll bet it is,’ said Johnny grimly. ‘Are you running any electric radiators in my cell tonight, or do you want all the power for the press?’ He saw the man’s face twitch. ‘Of course, you’re running the slush factory here – everybody knows that. Take my advice, Bill – go whilst the going’s good. Or the bulls will have you inside the realest boob you’ve seen.’ He had made the guard more than a little uncomfortable, as he saw, and sought to press home the impression he had created. ‘Jeffrey’s going to shop you sooner or later, because he’s a natural born shopper. And he’s got the money. Bill, to get away with, and the motor-cars and aeroplanes. You haven’t got that. You’ll have to walk on your own pads. And the bulls will get you half-way over the field.’

‘Oh, shut up!’ said the man uncomfortably, and the conversation ended, as in the morning, with the slamming of the door.

Presently a little spy-hole in the cell door opened.

‘What made you think this is a print-shop?’ asked Bill’s voice.

‘I don’t think anything about it; I know,’ said Johnny decisively. ‘If you like to come to me this evening I’ll tell you the name of every worker here, the position of every press, and the length of the lagging you’ll get.’

The cover of the spy-hole dropped.

Jeffrey was away; that was all to the good. If he remained away for the whole of the night . . . He was worried about Marney, and it required all his strength of will not to fret himself into a state of nerves.

In an hour Bill returned, and this time he brought no guard but himself, but, for safety’s sake, carried on his conversation through a little grille in the door.

‘You’re bluffing, Johnny Gray. We’ve got a fellow here who was in boob with you, and he says you’re the biggest bluffer that ever lived. You don’t know anything.’

‘I know almost everything,’ said Johnny immodestly. ‘For instance, I know you’ve got a young lady in the cell below. How’s she doing?’

The man was taken aback for a moment.

‘Who told you?’ he asked suspiciously. ‘Nobody else has been here, have they?’

‘Nobody at all. It is part of my general knowledge. Now listen, Bill. How are you treating that lady? And your life hangs on your answer – don’t forget it.’

‘She’s all right,’ said Bill casually. ‘They’ve given her the condemned cell, with a bathroom and all, and a proper bed – not like yours. And you can’t scare me, Gray.’

‘I’ll bet I can’t,’ said Johnny. ‘Bring me some water.’

But the water was not forthcoming, and it was dark before the man made his reappearance. Johnny listened at the door; he was coming alone. Johnny pulled up the leg of his trousers and showed those suspenders which were Parker’s pride. But they were not ordinary suspenders. Strapped to the inside of the calf was a small holster. The automatic it carried was less than four inches in length, but its little blunt-nosed bullets were man-stoppers of a peculiarly deadly kind.

The door swung open, and Bill stepped in.

‘Jeff’s back –’ he began, and then –

‘Step in, and step lively,’ said Johnny.

His arm had shot out, and the pistol hand of the jailer was pinned to his side.

‘This gun may look pretty paltry, but it would blow a square inch out of your heart, and that’s enough to seriously inconvenience you for the remainder of your short life.’ With a turn of his wrist he wrenched the revolver from the man’s grasp. ‘Sit over there,’ he said. ‘Is anybody in the hall?’

‘For God’s sake, don’t let Jeff see you. He’ll kill me,’ pleaded the agitated prisoner.

‘I’d hate for him to do that,’ said Johnny. He peeped out into the hall: it was empty, and he went back to his prisoner. ‘Stand against the wall. I’m going to give you the twice-over.’

His hands searched quickly but effectively. The key he was putting in his pocket when he noticed the design of the ward. ‘Pass-key, I fancy. Now, don’t make a fuss. Bill, because you’ll be let out first thing in the morning, and maybe I’ll have a good word to say for you at the Oxford Assizes. There’s something about you that I like. Give me the simple criminal, and the Lord knows you’re simple enough!’

He stepped out of the cell, snapped the lock of the door, and, keeping in the shadow, walked swiftly along the gallery until he came to the open stairway on to the floor below.

The hall was untenanted. Apparently Bill was the only jailer. He had reached the floor when the door at the end of the hall opened and somebody came in. He flattened himself in one of the recessed cell doorways. Two men entered, and one, he guessed, was Jeff. One, two, three, four – the fourth door from the end. That was Marney’s door, immediately under his own. He saw Jeffrey stop, heard the too-familiar grind of the lock, and his enemy disappeared, leaving the second man on guard outside.

If Jeffrey had made an attempt to close the door behind him, Johnny would have shot down the guard and taken the consequences. But the man was absent for only a few minutes. When he came out, he was shouting incoherently threats that made the hair rise on Johnny Gray’s neck. But they were only threats.

The hall door closed on Jeffrey Legge and Johnny moved swiftly to No. 4. As the door opened, the girl shrank back against the wall.

‘Don’t touch me!’ she cried.

‘Marney!’

At the sound of his voice she stood, rooted to the spot. The next second she was laughing and weeping in his arms.

‘But, Johnny, how did you get here? . . . where were you? . . . you won’t leave me?’

He soothed her and quietened her as only Johnny Gray could. ‘I’ll stay . . . I think this fellow will come back. If he does, he will wish he hadn’t!’

And Jeffrey came. As the grip of strong hands closed on his throat, and the hateful voice of his enemy came to his ears, Johnny’s prophecy was justified.

Chapter 32

For a second Legge was paralysed with rage and fear. Then, in the wildness of his despair, he kicked at the man, who had slipped from the bed and was holding him. He heard an exclamation, felt for a second the fingers relax; and, slipping like an eel from the grasp, flew to the door and closed it. He stood, breathless and panting by the doorway, until he heard the sound of steel against the inner keyhole, and in a flash realised that Johnny had secured the pass-key. Quick as lightning, he slipped his own key back into the lock and turned it slightly, so that it could not be pushed out from the other side.

Johnny Gray! How had he got there? He fled up the stairs and hammered on the door of the cell where he thought his prisoner was held safe. A surly voice replied to him.

‘You swine!’ he howled. ‘You let him go! You twister! You can stay there and starve, damn you!’

‘I didn’t let him go. He held me up. Look out, Jeff, he’s got a gun.’

The news staggered the man. The search of Johnny’s clothing had been of a perfunctory nature, but he had thought that it was impossible that any kind of weapon could have been concealed.

‘Let me out, guv’nor,’ pleaded the prisoner. ‘You’ve got a key.’

There was a third key in his house, Jeffrey remembered. Perhaps this man might be of use to him. He was still weak from his wound, and would need assistance.

‘All right, I’ll get the key. But if you shopped me –’

‘I didn’t shop you, I tell you. He held me up –’

Legge went back to his room, found the key, and, taking another stiff dose of whisky, returned and released his man.

‘He’s got my gun, too,’ explained Bill. ‘Where are all the fellows? We’ll soon settle with him.’

‘They’ve gone,’ said Jeffrey.

What a fool he had been! If he had had the sense to keep the gang together only for a few hours – But he was safe, unless Johnny found a means of getting through the window.

‘In my room you’ll find a pistol; it is in the top right-hand corner of my desk,’ he said quickly. ‘Take it and get outside Johnny’s cell – on the yard side. If he tries to escape that way, shoot. Because, if he escapes, you’re going a long journey, my friend.’

Inside the cell, a chagrined Johnny Gray sat down on the girl’s bed to consider the possibilities of the position.

‘My dear, there’s going to be serious trouble here, and I don’t want you to think otherwise,’ he said. ‘I should imagine there were quite a number of men in this prison, in which case, though I shall probably get two or three of them, they’ll certainly get me in the end.’

She sat by his side, holding his hand, and the pressure of her fingers was eloquent of the faith she had in him.

‘Johnny, dear, does it matter very much what happens now? They can’t come in, and we can’t get out. How long will it take to starve us to death?’

Johnny had already considered that problem.

‘About three days,’ he said, in such a matter-of-fact tone that she laughed. ‘My only hope, Marney, is that your father, who, as I told you, has escaped, may know more about this place than he has admitted.’

‘Did you know anything about it?’ she asked.

He hesitated.

‘Yes, I think I did. I wasn’t sure, though I was a fool not to locate it just as soon as Fenner warned me against Keytown Jail. These chaps like to speak in parables, and mystery is as the breath of their nostrils. Besides, I should have been certain that Fenner knew the jail had been taken over from the Government.’

He made a careful examination of the bars about the window, but without instruments or tools to force them, he knew that escape that way was impossible. When, in the early hours of the morning, he saw the patient figure of Bill, he realised the extent of the impossibility.

‘Good morning, William. I see you’re out,’ he greeted the scowling sentry, who immediately jumped to cover, flourishing his long-barrelled weapon.

‘Don’t you show your nose, or I’ll blow it off,’ he threatened. ‘We’ve got you, Mr Gray.’

‘They’ve got you, alas, my poor William,’ said Johnny sadly. ‘The busies will be here at nine o’clock – you don’t suppose that I should have let myself come into a trap like this? Of course I didn’t. I squeaked! It was my only chance, William. And your only chance is to sneak away at the earliest opportunity, and turn State’s evidence. I’m addressing you as a friend.’

‘You’ll never get away from here alive,’ said the man. ‘Jeff’s going to fix you.’

‘Indeed?’ the prisoner began politely, when a scream made him turn.

‘Johnny!’

The shutter which hid the grille in the door was swung back, and the muzzle of Jeffrey’s Browning had been pushed through one of the openings. As Johnny dropped flat on the bed, he was stunned by the deafening sound of an explosion. Something hit the wall, ricocheted to the roof, and fell almost at the girl’s feet. Before the pistol could be withdrawn, Johnny Gray had fired. A jagged end of iron showed where his bullet struck.

‘The time for persiflage,’ said Johnny cheerfully, ‘is past. Now you will sit in that corner, young lady, and will not budge without permission.’ He pointed to the wall nearest the door, which afforded perfect cover, and, dragging up a stool, he seated himself by her side. ‘Jeffrey’s got quite a tough proposition,’ he said in his conversational tone. ‘He can’t burn the prison, because there’s nothing to burn. He can’t come in, and he mustn’t go out. If he would only for one moment take away that infernal key –’

‘There is another door going out from the bathroom,’ she said suddenly. ‘I think it leads to an exercise ground. You can just see a little railed-off space through the window.’

Johnny went into the bathroom and examined the door. Screwing his head, he could see, through a broken pane, ten square yards of space, where in olden times a condemned prisoner took his exercise, removed from the gaze of his fellows. He tried the key, and to his delight, it turned. Another minute and he was in the little paved yard.

Looking round, he saw a high and narrow gateway, which seemed to be the only exit from the courtyard. And on the other side of that gateway was William, the sentry, well armed and sufficiently terrified to be dangerous. Slipping off his boots, Johnny crept to the gate and listened. The sound of the man’s footsteps pacing the flagged walk came to him. Stooping, he squinted through the keyhole, and saw Bill standing, his back toward him, some six yards away. There was no time to be lost. He inserted the key, and the gate was opened before the man could turn to face the levelled revolver.

‘Don’t shout,’ whispered Johnny. ‘You’re either discreet or dead. Hand over that gun, you unfortunate man.’ He moved swiftly toward the terrified criminal, and relieved him of his weapon. With a gesture, Johnny directed him to the exercise yard. ‘Get in and stay,’ he said, and locked the door, and for the second time. Bill (his other name, Johnny never discovered, was Holliss) was a prisoner.

Skirting the building, he came to the entrance of the hall. The door was open, and with his hand on the uplifted hammer of the gun, and his finger pressing the trigger, Johnny leapt into the building. ‘Hands up!’ he shouted.

At the words, Jeffrey Legge spun round. There was a boom of sound, something whistled past Gray’s face, and he fired twice. But now the man was running, zigzagging to left and right, and Johnny hesitated to fire. He disappeared through the door at the farther end of the hall, shutting it behind him, and Johnny raced after him.

He was in the courtyard now, facing the grille-covered archway. As he came into view, Jeffrey disappeared through the lodge-keeper’s door. Johnny tried the grille, but in vain, for a pass-key operates on all locks save the lock of the entrance gate of a prison. That alone is distinct, and may not be opened save by the key that was cut for it.

Covering the lodge-keeper’s door with his gun, Johnny waited, and, waiting, heard a rumbling sound. Something was coming down the centre of the archway. The straight line of it came lower and lower. A hanging gate! He had forgotten that most old country prisons were so equipped. Under the cover of this ancient portcullis, Legge could escape, for it masked the entrance of the lodge.

He turned back to the girl.

‘Keep out of sight. He’s got away,’ he warned her. ‘This fellow isn’t finished yet.’

The gate was down. Jeffrey put on the overcoat he had left in the lodge, slipped his pistol into his pocket and opened the great gates. He had at least a dozen hours’ start, he thought, as he stepped into the open . . .

‘Please do not put your hand in your pocket, Mr Jeffrey,’ said a plaintive voice. ‘I should so hate to shoot a fellow-creature. It would be a deed utterly repugnant to my finest feelings.’

Jeffrey raised his hands to their fullest extent, for Mr Reeder was not alone. Behind him were four armed policemen, a cordon of mounted constabulary, spread in a semicircle, cutting off all avenues of escape. And most ominous of all was the deadly scrutiny of Peter Kane, who stood at Reeder’s right hand.

Chapter 33

For the first time Jeffrey Legge felt the cold contact of handcuffs. He was led back to the porter’s lodge, whilst two of the policemen worked at the windlass that raised the hanging gate.

‘It’s a cop, Craig,’ he said, for the inspector in charge was that redoubtable thief-catcher. ‘But I’m going to squeak all I know. Johnny Gray is in this. He’s been working my slush for years. You’ll find the presses in the second hall, but the other birds have done some quick flying.’

‘They’ve all flown into the police station at Oxford,’ said Craig, ‘and they’re singing their pretty little songs merrily. The Oxford police took a whole carload of them about eleven o’clock last night. Unfortunately, they weren’t so ready to squeak as you.’

‘Johnny Gray’s in it, I tell you.’

‘Oh, how can you say such a thing?’ said the shocked Mr Reeder. ‘I’m perfectly sure Mr Gray is quite innocent.’

Jeffrey regarded him with a sneer of contempt.

‘You’re a pretty funny busy. I suppose Craig brought you here?’

‘No,’ murmured Mr Reeder, ‘I brought myself here.’

‘The only thing I can say about you,’ said Jeffrey Legge, ‘is that you’re smarter than old Golden – and that’s not saying much.’

‘Not very much,’ murmured Mr Reeder.’

‘But you’re not smart enough to know that Johnny Gray has been in this business for years.’

‘Even while he was in prison?’ suggested Mr Reeder innocently. ‘The opportunities are rather restricted, don’t you think? But don’t let us quarrel, Mr Jeffrey.’

The portcullis was raised now, and in a few minutes the girl was in her father’s arms.

‘Johnny, you’ve had a narrow squeak,’ said Craig, as he shook the man’s hand, ‘and there’s some talk about you being in this slush business, but I’ll not believe it till I get proof.’

‘Who killed old Legge?’ asked Johnny.

The detective shook his head.

‘We don’t know. But Stevens has disappeared, and Stevens was Fenner’s brother. I got it from Mr Reeder, who seems to have remarkable sources of information.’

‘Not at all,’ disclaimed the apologetic Reeder. ‘I certainly have a remarkable source of information, and to that all credit must go. But I think you will confirm my statement, John, that Stevens is Fenner’s brother?’

To Peter’s surprise, Johnny nodded. ‘Yes, I knew they were brothers; and it is unnecessary to say that their name was neither Stevens nor Fenner. It is pretty well established that the old man gave away Fenner – shopped him for the Berkeley Square job – and possibly Stevens got to know of this, and had been waiting his opportunity to settle accounts with Emanuel. Have you caught him?’

‘Not yet,’ said Craig.

‘I hope you won’t,’ said Johnny. ‘What are you going to do about me, Peter?’

He put his arm round the girl’s shoulder, and Peter smiled. ‘I suppose I’ll have to let her marry you, Johnny, whether you’re a crook or honest. I want you to go straight, and I’ll make it worth while –’

‘That I can promise you.’ It was Mr Reeder who spoke. ‘And may I offer an apology. I’m rather a wolf in sheep’s clothing, or a sheep in wolf’s clothing. The truth is, my name is Golden.’

‘Golden!’ gasped Craig. ‘But I thought Golden was out of this business?’

‘He is out of it, and yet he is in it,’ explained Mr Reeder carefully. ‘I am an excellent office man,’ he confessed, in that mincing manner of his, staring owlishly over his glasses, ‘but a very indifferent seeker of information, and although, when Mr John Gray Reeder was appointed over me as chief inspector of my department –’

‘Here, stop!’ said the dazed Craig. ‘John Gray Reeder? Who is Inspector John Gray Reeder?’

Mr Golden’s hand went out in the direction of the smiling Johnny.

‘Johnny! You a busy!’ said the bewildered Peter. ‘But you went to jail sure enough?’

‘I certainly went to jail,’ said Johnny. ‘It was the only place I could get any news about the Big Printer, and I found out all I wanted to know. It was a trying two years, but well worth it, though I nearly lost the only thing in the world that made life worth living,’ he said. ‘You’ve got to forgive me, Peter, because I spied on you – a good spy doesn’t play favourites. I’ve been watching you and every one of your pals, and I watched Marney most of all. And now I’m going to watch her for years and years!’

‘You see,’ said Mr Golden, who seemed most anxious to exculpate himself from any accusation of cleverness, ‘I was merely the listener-in, if I may use a new-fangled expression, to the information which John broadcasted. I knew all about this marriage, and I was the person who appointed a woman detective to look after her at the Charlton Hotel – but on Johnny’s instructions. That is why he was able to prove his alibi, because naturally, that section of the police which knows him, is always ready to prove alibis for other officers of the police who are mistakenly charged with being criminals.’

‘How did you guess about the prison?’

‘Fenner squeaked,’ said Mr Golden with a gesture of deprecation. ‘ “Squeak” is not a word I like, but it is rather expressive. Yes, Fenner squeaked.’

Two happy people drove home together in the car which had brought Marney to Keytown. The country between Oxford and Horsham is the most beautiful in the land. The road passes through great aisles of tall trees, into which a car may be turned and be hidden from the view of those who pass along the road. Johnny slowed the machine at an appropriate spot, and put it toward the thickest part of the wood. And Marney, who sat with folded hands by his side, did not seek any explanation for his eccentricity.

THE END

THE MIND OF MR J. G. REEDER

The Poetical Policeman

The day Mr Reeder arrived at the Public Prosecutor’s office was indeed a day of fate for Mr Lambton Green, Branch Manager of the London Scottish and Midland Bank.

That branch of the bank which Mr Green controlled was situate at the corner of Pell Street and Firling Avenue on the ‘country side’ of Ealing. It is a fairly large building and, unlike most suburban branch offices, the whole of the premises were devoted to banking business, for the bank carried very heavy deposits, the Lunar Traction Company, with three thousand people on its pay-roll, the Associated Novelties Corporation, with its enormous turnover, and the Laraphone Company being only three of the L.S.M.’s customers.

On Wednesday afternoons, in preparation for the pay days of these corporations, large sums in currency were brought from the head office and deposited in the steel and concrete strong-room, which was immediately beneath Mr Green’s private office, but admission to which was gained through a steel door in the general office. This door was observable from the street, and to assist observation there was a shaded lamp fixed to the wall immediately above, which threw a powerful beam of light upon the door. Further security was ensured by the employment of a night watchman, Arthur Malling, an army pensioner.

The bank lay on a restricted police beat which had been so arranged that the constable on patrol passed the bank every forty minutes. It was his practice to look through the window and exchange signals with the night watchman, his orders being to wait until Malling appeared.

On the night of October 17th Police Constable Burnett stopped as usual before the wide peep-hole and glanced into the bank. The first thing he noticed was that the lamp above the strong-room door had been extinguished. The night watchman was not visible, and, his suspicions aroused, the officer did not wait for the man to put in an appearance as he would ordinarily have done, but passed the window to the door, which, to his alarm, he found ajar. Pushing it open, he entered the bank, calling Malling by name.

There was no answer.

Permeating the air was a faint, sweet scent which he could not locate. The general offices were empty and, entering the manager’s room in which a light burnt, he saw a figure stretched upon the ground. It was the night watchman. His wrists were handcuffed, two straps had been tightly buckled about his knees and ankles.

The explanation for the strange and sickly aroma was now clear. Above the head of the prostrate man was suspended, by a wire hooked to the picture-rail, an old tin can, the bottom of which was perforated so that there fell an incessant trickle of some volatile liquid upon the thick cotton pad which covered Malling’s face.

Burnett, who had been wounded in the war, had instantly recognised the smell of chloroform and, dragging the unconscious man into the outer office, snatched the pad from his face and, leaving him only long enough to telephone to the police station, sought vainly to bring him to consciousness.

The police reserves arrived within a few minutes, and with them the divisional surgeon who, fortunately, had been at the station when the alarm came through. Every effort to restore the unfortunate man to life proved unavailing.

‘He was probably dead when he was found,’ was the police doctor’s verdict. ‘What those scratches are on his right palm is a mystery.’

He pulled open the clenched fist and showed half a dozen little scratches. They were recent, for there was a smear of blood on the palm.

Burnett was sent at once to arouse Mr Green, the manager, who lived in Firling Avenue, at the corner of which the bank stood; a street of semi-detached villas of a pattern familiar enough to the Londoner. As the officer walked through the little front garden to the door he saw a light through the panels, and he had hardly knocked before the door was opened and Mr Lambton Green appeared, fully dressed and, to the officer’s discerning eye, in a state of considerable agitation. Constable Burnett saw on a hall chair a big bag, a travelling rug and an umbrella.

The little manager listened, pale as death, whilst Burnett told him of his discovery.

‘The bank robbed? Impossible!’ he almost shrieked. ‘My God! this is awful!’

He was so near the point of collapse that Burnett had to assist him into the street.

‘I – I was going away on a holiday,’ he said incoherently, as he walked up the dark thoroughfare towards the bank premises. ‘The fact is – I was leaving the bank. I left a note explaining to the directors.’

Into a circle of suspicious men the manager tottered. He unlocked the drawer of his desk, looked and crumpled up.

‘They’re not here!’ he said wildly. ‘I left them here – my keys – with the note!’

And then he swooned. When the dazed man recovered he found himself in a police cell and, later in the day, he drooped before a police magistrate, supported by two constables and listened, like a man in a dream, to a charge of causing the death of Arthur Malling, and further, of converting to his own use the sum of £100,000.

It was on the morning of the first remand that Mr John G. Reeder, with some reluctance for he was suspicious of all Government departments, transferred himself from his own office on Lower Regent Street to a somewhat gloomy bureau on the top floor of the building which housed the Public Prosecutor. In making this change he advanced only one stipulation: that he should be connected by private telephone wire with his old bureau.

He did not demand this – he never demanded anything. He asked, nervously and apologetically. There was a certain wistful helplessness about John G. Reeder that made people feel sorry for him, that caused even the Public Prosecutor a few uneasy moments of doubt as to whether he had been quite wise in substituting this weak-appearing man of middle age for Inspector Holford – bluff, capable and heavily mysterious.

Mr Reeder was something over fifty, a long-faced gentleman with sandy-grey hair and a slither of side whiskers that mercifully distracted attention from his large outstanding ears. He wore half-way down his nose a pair of steel-rimmed pince-nez, through which nobody had ever seen him look – they were invariably removed when he was reading. A high and flat-crowned bowler hat matched and yet did not match a frockcoat tightly buttoned across his sparse chest. His boots were square-toed, his cravat – of the broad, chest-protector pattern – was ready-made and buckled into place behind a Gladstonian collar. The neatest appendage to Mr Reeder was an umbrella rolled so tightly that it might be mistaken for a frivolous walking cane. Rain or shine, he carried this article hooked to his arm, and within living memory it had never been unfurled.

Inspector Holford (promoted now to the responsibilities of Superintendent) met him in the office to hand over his duties, and a more tangible quantity in the shape of old furniture and fixings.

‘Glad to know you, Mr Reeder. I haven’t had the pleasure of meet-ing you before, but I’ve heard a lot about you. You’ve been doing Bank of England work, haven’t you?’

Mr Reeder whispered that he had had that honour, and sighed as though he regretted the drastic sweep of fate that had torn him from the obscurity of his labours. Mr Holford’s scrutiny was full of misgivings.

‘Well,’ he said awkwardly, ‘this job is different, though I’m told that you are one of the best-informed men in London, and if that is the case this will be easy work. Still, we’ve never had an outsider – I mean, so to speak, a private detective – in this office before, and naturally the Yard is a bit –’

‘I quite understand,’ murmured Mr Reeder, hanging up his immaculate umbrella. ‘It is very natural. Mr Bolond expected the appointment. His wife is annoyed – very properly. But she has no reason to be. She is an ambitious woman. She has a third interest in a West End dancing club that might be raided one of these days.’

Holford was staggered. Here was news that was little more than a whispered rumour at Scotland Yard.

‘How the devil do you know that?’ he blurted.

Mr Reeder’s smile was one of self-depreciation.

‘One picks up odd scraps of information,’ he said apologetically. ‘I – I see wrong in everything. That is my curious perversion – I have a criminal mind!’

Holford drew a long breath.

‘Well – there is nothing much doing. That Ealing case is pretty clear. Green is an ex-convict, who got a job at the bank during the war and worked up to manager. He has done seven years for conversion.’

‘Embezzlement and conversion,’ murmured Mr Reeder. ‘I – er – I’m afraid I was the principal witness against him: bank crimes were rather – er – a hobby of mine. Yes, he got into difficulties with moneylenders. Very foolish – extremely foolish. And he doesn’t admit his error.’ Mr Reeder sighed heavily. ‘Poor fellow! With his life at stake one may forgive and indeed condone his pitiful prevarications.’

The inspector stared at the new man in amazement.

‘I don’t know that there is much “poor fellow” about him. He has cached £100,000 and told the weakest yarn that I’ve ever read – you’ll find copies of the police reports here, if you’d like to read them. The scratches on Malling’s hand are curious – they’ve found several on the other hand. They are not deep enough to suggest a struggle. As to the yarn that Green tells –’

Mr J. G. Reeder nodded sadly.

‘It was not an ingenious story,’ he said, almost with regret. ‘If I remember rightly, his story was something like this: he had been recognised by a man who served in Dartmoor with him, and this fellow wrote a blackmailing letter telling him to pay or clear out. Sooner than return to a life of crime, Green wrote out all the facts to his directors, put the letter in the drawer of his desk with his keys, and left a note for his head cashier on the desk itself, intending to leave London and try to make a fresh start where he was unknown.’

‘There were no letters in or on the desk, and no keys,’ said the inspector decisively. ‘The only true part of the yarn was that he had done time.’

‘Imprisonment,’ suggested Mr Reeder plaintively. He had a horror of slang. ‘Yes, that was true.’

Left alone in his office, he spent a very considerable time at his private telephone, communing with the young person who was still a young person, although the passage of time had dealt unkindly with her. For the rest of the morning he was reading the depositions which his predecessor had put on the desk.

It was late in the afternoon when the Public Prosecutor strolled into his room and glanced at the big pile of manuscript through which his subordinate was wading.

‘What are you reading – the Green business?’ he asked, with a note of satisfaction in his voice. ‘I’m glad that is interesting you, though it seems a fairly straightforward case. I have had a letter from the president of the man’s bank, who for some reason seems to think Green was telling the truth.’

Mr Reeder looked up with that pained expression of his which he invariably wore when he was puzzled.

‘Here is the evidence of Policeman Burnett,’ he said. ‘Perhaps you can enlighten me, sir. Policeman Burnett stated in his evidence – let me read it:

Some time before I reached the bank premises I saw a man standing at the corner of the street, immediately outside the bank. I saw him distinctly in the light of a passing mail van. I did not attach any importance to his presence, and I did not see him again. It was possible for this man to have gone round the block and come to 120, Firling Avenue without being seen by me. Immediately after I saw him, my foot struck against a piece of iron on the sidewalk. I put my lamp on the object and found it was an old horseshoe. I had seen children playing with this particular shoe earlier in the evening. When I looked again towards the corner, the man had disappeared. He would have seen the light of my lamp. I saw no other person, and so far as I can remember, there was no light showing in Green’s house when I passed it.

Mr Reeder looked up.

‘Well?’ said the Prosecutor. ‘There’s nothing remarkable about that. It was probably Green, who dodged round the block and came in at the back of the constable.’

Mr Reeder scratched his chin.

‘Yes,’ he said thoughtfully, ‘ye-es.’ He shifted uncomfortably in his chair. ‘Would it be considered indecorous if I made a few enquiries, independent of the police?’ he asked nervously. ‘I should not like them to think that a mere dilettante was interfering with their lawful functions.’

‘By all means,’ said the Prosecutor heartily. ‘Go down and see the officer in charge of the case: I’ll give you a note to him – it is by no means unusual for my officer to conduct a separate investigation, though I am afraid you will discover very little. The ground has been well covered by Scotland Yard.’

‘It would be permissible to see the man?’ hesitated Reeder.

‘Green? Why, of course! I will send you up the necessary order.’

The light was fading from a grey, blustering sky, and rain was falling fitfully, when Mr Reeder, with his furled umbrella hooked to his arm, his coat collar turned up, stepped through the dark gateway of Brixton Prison and was led to the cell where a distracted man sat, his head upon his hands, his pale eyes gazing into vacancy.

‘It’s true; it’s true! Every word.’ Green almost sobbed the words.

A pallid man, inclined to be bald, with a limp yellow moustache, going grey. Reeder, with his extraordinary memory for faces, recognised him the moment he saw him, though it was some time before the recognition was mutual.

‘Yes, Mr Reeder, I remember you now. You were the gentleman who caught me before. But I’ve been as straight as a die. I’ve never taken a farthing that didn’t belong to me. What my poor girl will think –’

‘Are you married?’ asked Mr Reeder sympathetically.

‘No, but I was going to be – rather late in life. She’s nearly thirty years younger than me, and the best girl that ever –’

Reeder listened to the rhapsody that followed, the melancholy deepening in his face.

‘She hasn’t been into the court, thank God, but she knows the truth. A friend of mine told me that she has been absolutely knocked out.’

‘Poor soul!’ Mr Reeder shook his head.

‘It happened on her birthday, too,’ the man went on bitterly.

‘Did she know you were going away?’

‘Yes, I told her the night before. I’m not going to bring her into the case. If we’d been properly engaged it would be different; but she’s married and is divorcing her husband, but the decree hasn’t been made absolute yet. That’s why I never went about with her or saw much of her. And of course, nobody knew about our engagement, although we lived in the same street.’

‘Firling Avenue?’ asked Reeder, and the bank manager nodded despondently.

‘She was married when she was seventeen to a brute. It was pretty galling for me, having to keep quiet about it – I mean, for nobody to know about our engagement. All sorts of rotten people were making up to her, and I had just to grind my teeth and say nothing. Impossible people! Why, that fool Burnett, who arrested me, he was sweet on her; used to write her poetry – you wouldn’t think it possible in a policeman, would you?’

The outrageous incongruity of a poetical policeman did not seem to shock the detective.

‘There is poetry in every soul, Mr Green,’ he said gently, ‘and a policeman is a man.’

Though he dismissed the eccentricity of the constable so lightly, the poetical policeman filled his mind all the way home to his house in the Brockley Road, and occupied his thoughts for the rest of his waking time.

It was a quarter to eight o’clock in the morning, and the world seemed entirely populated by milkmen and whistling newspaper boys, when Mr J. G. Reeder came into Firling Avenue.

He stopped only for a second outside the bank, which had long since ceased to be an object of local awe and fearfulness, and pursued his way down the broad avenue. On either side of the thoroughfare ran a row of pretty villas – pretty although they bore a strong family resemblance to one another; each house with its little forecourt, sometimes laid out simply as a grass plot, sometimes decorated with flower-beds. Green’s house was the eighteenth in the road on the right-hand side. Here he had lived with a cook-housekeeper, and apparently gardening was not his hobby, for the forecourt was covered with grass that had been allowed to grow at its will.

Before the twenty-sixth house in the road Mr Reeder paused and gazed with mild interest at the blue blinds which covered every window. Evidently Miss Magda Grayne was a lover of flowers, for geraniums filled the window-boxes and were set at intervals along the tiny border under the bow window. In the centre of the grass plot was a circular flower-bed with one flowerless rose tree, the leaves of which were drooping and brown.

As he raised his eyes to the upper window, the blind went up slowly, and he was dimly conscious that there was a figure behind the white lace curtains. Mr Reeder walked hurriedly away, as one caught in an immodest act, and resumed his peregrinations until he came to the big nursery gardener’s which formed the corner lot at the far end of the road.

Here he stood for some time in contemplation, his arm resting on the iron railings, his eyes staring blankly at the vista of greenhouses. He remained in this attitude so long that one of the nurserymen, not unnaturally thinking that a stranger was seeking a way into the gardens, came over with the laborious gait of the man who wrings his living from the soil, and asked if he was wanting anybody.

‘Several people,’ sighed Mr Reeder; ‘several people!’

Leaving the resentful man to puzzle out his impertinence, he slowly retraced his steps. At No. 412 he stopped again, opened the little iron gate and passed up the path to the front door. A small girl answered his knock and ushered him into the parlour.

The room was not well furnished; it was scarcely furnished at all. A strip of almost new linoleum covered the passage; the furniture of the parlour itself was made up of wicker chairs, a square of art carpet and a table. He heard the sound of feet above his head, feet on bare boards, and then presently the door opened and a girl came in.

She was pretty in a heavy way, but on her face he saw the marks of sorrow. It was pale and haggard; the eyes looked as though she had been recently weeping.

‘Miss Magda Grayne?’ he asked, rising as she came in.

She nodded.

‘Are you from the police?’ she asked quickly.

‘Not exactly the police,’ he corrected carefully. ‘I hold an – er – an appointment in the office of the Public Prosecutor, which is analogous, to, but distinct from, a position in the Metropolitan Police Force.’

She frowned, and then: ‘I wondered if anybody would come to see me,’ she said. ‘Mr Green sent you?’

‘Mr Green told me of your existence: he did not send me.’

There came to her face in that second a look which almost startled him. Only for a fleeting space of time, the expression had dawned and passed almost before the untrained eye could detect its passage.

‘I was expecting somebody to come,’ she said. Then: ‘What made him do it?’ she asked.

‘You think he is guilty?’

‘The police think so.’ She drew a long sigh. ‘I wish to God I had never seen – this place!’

He did not answer; his eyes were roving round the apartment. On a bamboo table was an old vase which had been clumsily filled with golden chrysanthemums, of a peculiarly beautiful variety. Not all, for amidst them flowered a large Michaelmas daisy that had the forlorn appearance of a parvenu that had strayed by mistake into noble company.

‘You’re fond of flowers?’ he murmured.

She looked at the vase indifferently.

‘Yes, I like flowers,’ she said. ‘The girl put them in there.’ Then: ‘Do you think they will hang him?’

The brutality of the question, put without hesitation, pained Reeder.

‘It is a very serious charge,’ he said. And then: ‘Have you a photograph of Mr Green?’

She frowned.

‘Yes; do you want it?’

He nodded.

She had hardly left the room before he was at the bamboo table and had lifted out the flowers. As he had seen through the glass, they were roughly tied with a piece of string. He examined the ends, and here again his first observation had been correct: none of these flowers had been cut; they had been plucked bodily from their stalks. Beneath the string was the paper which had been first wrapped about the stalks. It was a page torn from a notebook; he could see the red lines, but the pencilled writing was indecipherable.

As her foot sounded on the stairs, he replaced the flowers in the vase, and when she came in he was looking through the window into the street.

‘Thank you,’ he said, as he took the photograph from her.

It bore an affectionate inscription on the back.

‘You’re married, he tells me, madam?’

‘Yes, I am married, and practically divorced,’ she said shortly.

‘Have you been living here long?’

‘About three months,’ she answered. ‘It was his wish that I should live here.’

He looked at the photograph again.

‘Do you know Constable Burnett?’

He saw a dull flush come to her face and die away again.

‘Yes, I know the sloppy fool!’ she said viciously. And then, realis-ing that she had been surprised into an expression which was not altogether ladylike, she went on, in a softer tone: ‘Mr Burnett is rather sentimental, and I don’t like sentimental people, especially – well, you understand, Mr –’

‘Reeder,’ murmured that gentleman.

‘You understand, Mr Reeder, that when a girl is engaged and in my position, those kind of attentions are not very welcome.’

Reeder was looking at her keenly. Of her sorrow and distress there could be no doubt. On the subject of the human emotions, and the ravages they make upon the human countenance, Mr Reeder was almost as great an authority as Mantegazza.

‘On your birthday,’ he said. ‘How very sad! You were born on the seventeenth of October. You are English, of course?’

‘Yes, I’m English,’ she said shortly. ‘I was born in Walworth – in Wallington. I once lived in Walworth.’

‘How old are you?’

‘Twenty-three,’ she answered.

Mr Reeder took off his glasses and polished them on a large silk handkerchief.

‘The whole thing is inexpressibly sad,’ he said. ‘I am glad to have had the opportunity of speaking with you, young lady. I sympathise with you very deeply.’

And in this unsatisfactory way he took his departure.

She closed the door on him, saw him stop in the middle of the path and pick up something from a border bed, and wondered, frowning, why this middle-aged man had picked up the horseshoe she had thrown through the window the night before. Into Mr Reeder’s tail pocket went this piece of rusted steel and then he continued his thoughtful way to the nursery gardens, for he had a few questions to ask.

* * *

The men of Section 10 were parading for duty when Mr Reeder came timidly into the charge room and produced his credentials to the inspector in charge.

‘Oh, yes, Mr Reeder,’ said that officer affably. ‘We have had a note from the P. P.’s office, and I think I had the pleasure of working with you on that big slush case [footnote: slush = forged Bank of England notes] a few years ago. Now what can I do for you? . . . Burnett? Yes, he’s here.’

He called the man’s name and a young and good-looking officer stepped from the ranks.

‘He’s the man who discovered the murder – he’s marked for promotion,’ said the inspector. ‘Burnett, this gentleman is from the Public Prosecutor’s office and he wants a little talk with you. Better use my office, Mr Reeder.’

The young policeman saluted and followed the shuffling figure into the privacy of the inspector’s office. He was a confident young man: already his name and portrait had appeared in the newspapers, the hint of promotion had become almost an accomplished fact, and before his eyes was the prospect of a supreme achievement.

‘They tell me that you are something of a poet, officer,’ said Mr Reeder.

Burnett blushed.

‘Why, yes, sir. I write a bit,’ he confessed.

‘Love poems, yes?’ asked the other gently. ‘One finds time in the night – er – for such fancies. And there is no inspiration like – er – love, officer.’

Burnett’s face was crimson.

‘I’ve done a bit of writing in the night, sir,’ he said, ‘though I’ve never neglected my duty.’

‘Naturally,’ murmured Mr Reeder. ‘You have a poetical mind. It was a poetical thought to pluck flowers in the middle of the night –’

‘The nurseryman told me I could take any flowers I wanted,’ Burnett interrupted hastily. ‘I did nothing wrong.

Reeder inclined his head in agreement.

‘That I know. You picked the flowers in the dark – by the way, you inadvertently included a Michaelmas daisy with your chrysanthemums – tied up your little poem to them and left them on the doorstep with – er– a horseshoe. I wondered what had become of that horseshoe.’

‘I threw them up on to her – to the lady’s window-sill,’ corrected the uncomfortable young man. ‘As a matter of fact, the idea didn’t occur to me until I had passed the house –’

Mr Reeder’s face was thrust forward.

‘This is what I want to confirm,’ he said softly. ‘The idea of leaving the flowers did not occur to you until you had passed her house? The horseshoe suggested the thought? Then you went back, picked the flowers, tied them up with the little poem you had already written, and tossed them up to her window – we need not mention the lady’s name.’

Constable Burnett’s face was a study.

‘I don’t know how you guessed that, but it is a fact. If I’ve done anything wrong –’

‘It is never wrong to be in love,’ said Mr J. G. Reeder soberly. ‘Love is a very beautiful experience – I have frequently read about it.’

Miss Magda Grayne had dressed to go out for the afternoon and was putting on her hat, when she saw the queer man who had called so early that morning, walking up the tessellated path. Behind him she recognised a detective engaged in the case. The servant was out; nobody could be admitted except by herself. She walked quickly behind the dressing-table into the bay of the window and glanced up and down the road. Yes, there was the taxicab which usually accompanies such visitations, and, standing by the driver, another man, obviously a ‘busy’.

She pulled up the overlay of her bed, took out the flat pad of bank-notes that she found, and thrust them into her handbag, then, stepping on tiptoe, she went out to the landing, into the unfurnished back room, and, opening the window, dropped to the flat roof of the kitchen. In another minute she was in the garden and through the back gate. A narrow passage divided the two lines of villas that backed on one another. She was in High Street and had boarded a car before Mr Reeder grew tired of knocking. To the best of his knowledge Mr Reeder never saw her again.

* * *

At the Public Prosecutor’s request, he called at his chief’s house after dinner and told his surprising story.

‘Green, who had the unusual experience of being promoted to his position over the heads of his seniors, for special services he rendered during the war, was undoubtedly an ex-convict, and he spoke the truth when he said that he had received a letter from a man who had served a period of imprisonment with him. The name of this blackmailer is, or rather was, Arthur George Crater, whose other name was Malling!’

‘Not the night watchman?’ said the Public Prosecutor, in amazement.

Mr Reeder nodded.

‘Yes, sir, it was Arthur Malling. His daughter, Miss Magda Crater, was, as she very truly said, born at Walworth on the 17th of October, 1900. She said Wallington after, but Walworth first. One observes that when people adopt false family names, they seldom change their given names, and the ‘Magda’ was easy to identify.

‘Evidently Malling had planned this robbery of the bank very carefully. He had brought his daughter, in a false name, to Ealing, and had managed to get her introduced to Mr Green. Magda’s job was to worm her way into Green’s confidence and learn all that she could. Possibly it was part of her duty to secure casts of the keys. Whether Malling recognised in the manager an old prison acquaintance, or whether he obtained the facts from the girl, we shall never know. But when the information came to him, he saw, in all probability, an opportunity of robbing the bank and of throwing suspicion upon the manager.

The girl’s role was that of a woman who was to be divorced, and I must confess this puzzled me until I realised that in no circumstances would Malling wish his daughter’s name to be associated with the bank manager.

‘The night of the seventeenth was chosen for the raid. Malling’s plan to get rid of the manager had succeeded. He saw the letter on the table in Green’s private office, read it, secured the keys – although he had in all probability a duplicate set – and at a favourable moment cleared as much portable money from the bank vaults as he could carry, hurried them round to the house in Firling Avenue, where they were buried in the central bed of the front garden, under a rose bush – I rather imagined there was something interfering with the nutrition of that unfortunate bush the first time I saw it. I can only hope that the tree is not altogether dead, and I have given instructions that it shall be replanted and well fertilised.’

‘Yes, yes,’ said the Prosecutor, who was not at all interested in horticulture.

‘In planting the tree, as he did in some haste, Malling scratched his hand. Roses have thorns – I went to Ealing to find the rose bush that had scratched his hand. Hurrying back to the bank, he waited, knowing that Constable Burnett was due at a certain time. He had prepared the can of chloroform, the handcuffs and straps were waiting for him, and he stood at the corner of the street until he saw the flash of Burnett’s lamp; then, running into the bank and leaving the door ajar, he strapped himself, fastened the handcuffs and lay down, expecting that the policeman would arrive, find the open door and rescue him before much harm was done.

‘But Constable Burnett had had some pleasant exchanges with the daughter. Doubtless she had received instructions from her father to be as pleasant to him as possible. Burnett was a poetical young man, knew it was her birthday, and as he walked along the street his foot struck an old horseshoe and the idea occurred to him that he should return, attach the horseshoe to some flowers, which the nurseryman had given him permission to pick, and leave his little bouquet, to so speak, at his lady’s feet – a poetical idea, and one worthy of the finest traditions of the Metropolitan Police Force. This he did, but it took some time; and all the while this young man was philandering – Arthur Crater was dying!

In a few seconds after lying down he must have passed from con-sciousness . . . the chloroform still dripped, and when the policeman eventually reached the bank, ten minutes after he was due, the man was dead!’

The Public Prosecutor sat back in his padded chair and frowned at his new subordinate.

‘How on earth did you piece together all this?’ he asked in wonder.

Mr Reeder shook his head sadly.

‘I have that perversion,’ he said. ‘It is a terrible misfortune, but it is true. I see evil in everything . . . in dying rose bushes, in horseshoes – in poetry even. I have the mind of a criminal. It is deplorable!’

The Treasure Hunt

There is a tradition in criminal circles that even the humblest of detective officers is a man of wealth and substance, and that his secret hoard was secured by thieving, bribery and blackmail. It is the gossip of the fields, the quarries, the tailor’s shop, the laundry and the bakehouse of fifty county prisons and three convict establishments, that all highly placed detectives have by nefarious means laid up for themselves sufficient earthly treasures to make work a hobby and their official pittance the most inconsiderable portion of their incomes.

Since Mr J. G. Reeder had for over twenty years dealt exclusively with bank robbers and forgers, who are the aristocrats and capitalists of the underworld, legend credited him with country houses and immense secret reserves. Not that he would have a great deal of money in the bank. It was admitted that he was too clever to risk discovery by the authorities. No, it was hidden somewhere: it was the pet dream of hundreds of unlawful men that they would some day discover the hoard and live happily ever after. The one satisfactory aspect of his affluence (they all agreed) was that, being an old man – he was over 50 – he couldn’t take his money with him, for gold melts at a certain temperature and gilt-edged stock is seldom printed on asbestos paper.

The Director of Public Prosecutions was lunching one Saturday at his club with a judge of the King’s Bench – Saturday being one of the two days in the week when a judge gets properly fed. And the conversation drifted to a certain Mr J. G. Reeder, the chief of the Director’s sleuths.

‘He’s capable,’ he confessed reluctantly, ‘but I hate his hat. It is the sort that So-and-so used to wear,’ he mentioned by name an eminent politician; ‘and I loathe his black frock-coat; people who see him coming into the office think he’s a coroner’s officer, but he’s capable. His side-whiskers are an abomination, and I have a feeling that, if I talked rough to him, he would burst into tears – a gentle soul. Almost too gentle for my kind of work. He apologises to the messenger every time he rings for him!’

The judge, who knew something about humanity, answered with a frosty smile.

‘He sounds rather like a potential murderer to me,’ he said cynically.

Here, in his extravagance, he did Mr J. G. Reeder an injustice, for Mr Reeder was incapable of breaking the law – quite. At the same time there were many people who formed an altogether wrong conception of J. G.’s harmlessness as an individual. And one of these was a certain Lew Kohl, who mixed bank-note printing with elementary burglary.

Threatened men live long, a trite saying but, like most things trite, true. In a score of cases, when Mr J. G. Reeder had descended from the witness stand, he had met the baleful eye of the man in the dock and had listened with mild interest to divers promises as to what would happen to him in the near or the remote future. For he was a great authority on forged bank-notes and he had sent many men to penal servitude.

Mr Reeder, that inoffensive man, had seen prisoners foaming at the mouth in their rage, he had seen them white and livid, he had heard their howling execrations, and he had met these men after their release from prison and had found them amiable souls half ashamed and half amused at their nearly forgotten outbursts and horrific threats.

But when, in the early part of 1914, Lew Kohl was sentenced for ten years, he neither screamed his imprecations nor registered a vow to tear Mr Reeder’s heart, lungs and important organs from his frail body.

Lew just smiled and his eyes caught the detective’s for the space of a second – the forger’s eyes were pale blue and speculative, and they held neither hate nor fury. Instead, they said in so many words: ‘At the first opportunity I will kill you.’

Mr Reeder read the message and sighed heavily, for he disliked fuss of all kinds, and resented, in so far as he could resent anything, the injustice of being made personally responsible for the performance of a public duty.

Many years had passed, and considerable changes had occurred in Mr Reeder’s fortune. He had transferred from the specialised occupation of detecting the makers of forged bank-notes to the more general practice of the Public Prosecutor’s bureau, but he never forgot Lew’s smile.

The work in Whitehall was not heavy and it was very interesting. To Mr Reeder came most of the anonymous letters which the Director received in shoals. In the main they were self-explanatory, and it required no particular intelligence to discover their motive. Jealousy, malice, plain mischief-making, and occasionally a sordid desire to benefit financially by the information which was conveyed, were behind the majority. But occasionally –

Sir James is going to marry his cousin, and it’s not three months since his poor wife fell overboard from the Channel steamer crossing to Calais. There’s something very fishy about this business. Miss Margaret doesn’t like him, for she knows he’s after her money. Why was I sent away to London that night? He doesn’t like driving in the dark, either. It’s strange that he wanted to drive that night when it was raining like blazes.

This particular letter was signed ‘A Friend’. Justice has many such friends.

‘Sir James’ was Sir James Tithermite, who had been a director of some new public department during the war and had received a baronetcy for his services.

‘Look it up,’ said the Director when he saw the letter. ‘I seem to remember that Lady Tithermite was drowned at sea.’

‘On the nineteenth of December last year,’ said Mr Reeder solemnly. ‘She and Sir James were going to Monte Carlo, breaking their journey in Paris. Sir James, who has a house near Maidstone, drove to Dover, garaging the car at the Lord Wilson Hotel. The night was stormy and the ship had a rough crossing – they were half-way across when Sir James came to the purser and said that he had missed his wife. Her baggage was in the cabin, her passport, rail ticket and hat, but the lady was not found, indeed was never seen again.’

The Director nodded.

‘I see you’ve read up the case.’

‘I remember it,’ said Mr Reeder. ‘The case is a favourite speculation of mine. Unfortunately I see evil in everything and I have often thought how easy – but I fear that I take a warped view of life. It is a horrible handicap to possess a criminal mind.’

The Director looked at him suspiciously. He was never quite sure whether Mr Reeder was serious. At that moment, his sobriety was beyond challenge.

‘A discharged chauffeur wrote that letter, of course,’ he began.

‘Thomas Dayford, of 179, Barrack Street, Maidstone,’ concluded Mr Reeder. ‘He is at present in the employ of the Kent Motor-Bus Company, and has three children, two of whom are twins and bonny little rascals.’

The Chief laughed helplessly.

‘I’ll take it that you know!’ he said. ‘See what there is behind the letter. Sir James is a big fellow in Kent, a Justice of the Peace, and he has powerful political influences. There is nothing in this letter, of course. Go warily, Reeder – if any kick comes back to this office, it goes on to you – intensified!’

Mr Reeder’s idea of walking warily was peculiarly his own. He travelled down to Maidstone the next morning, and, finding a bus that passed the lodge gates of Elfreda Manor, he journeyed comfortably and economically, his umbrella between his knees. He passed through the lodge gates, up a long and winding avenue of poplars, and presently came within sight of the grey manor house.

In a deep chair on the lawn he saw a girl sitting, a book on her knees, and evidently she saw him, for she rose as he crossed the lawn and came towards him eagerly.

‘I’m Miss Margaret Letherby – are you from — ?’ She mentioned the name of a well-known firm of lawyers, and her face fell when Mr Reeder regretfully disclaimed connection with those legal lights.

She was as pretty as a perfect complexion and a round, not too intellectual, face could, in combination, make her.

‘I thought – do you wish to see Sir James? He is in the library. If you ring, one of the maids will take you to him.’

Had Mr Reeder been the sort of man who could be puzzled by anything, he would have been puzzled by the suggestion that any girl with money of her own should marry a man much older than herself against her own wishes. There was little mystery in the matter now. Miss Margaret would have married any strong-willed man who insisted.

‘Even me,’ said Mr Reeder to himself, with a certain melancholy pleasure.

There was no need to ring the bell. A tall, broad man in a golfing suit stood in the door-way. His fair hair was long and hung over his forehead in a thick flat strand; a heavy tawny moustache hid his mouth and swept down over a chin that was long and powerful.

‘Well?’ he asked aggressively.

‘I’m from the Public Prosecutor’s office,’ murmured Mr Reeder. ‘I have had an anonymous letter.’

His pale eyes did not leave the face of the other man.

‘Come in,’ said Sir James gruffly. As he closed the door he glanced quickly first to the girl and then to the poplar avenue. ‘I’m expecting a fool of a lawyer,’ he said, as he flung open the door of what was evidently the library.

His voice was steady; not by a flicker of eyelash had he betrayed the slightest degree of anxiety when Reeder had told his mission.

‘Well – what about this anonymous letter? You don’t take much notice of that kind of trash, do you?’

Mr Reeder deposited his umbrella and flat-crowned hat on a chair before he took a document from his pocket and handed it to the baronet, who frowned as he read. Was it Mr Reeder’s vivid imagination, or did the hard light in the eyes of Sir James soften as he read?

‘This is a cock and bull story of somebody having seen my wife’s jewellery on sale in Paris,’ he said. ‘There is nothing in it. I can account for every one of my poor wife’s trinkets. I brought back the jewel case after that awful night. I don’t recognise the handwriting: who is the lying scoundrel who wrote this?’

Mr Reeder had never before been called a lying scoundrel, but he accepted the experience with admirable meekness.

‘I thought it untrue,’ he said, shaking his head. ‘I followed the details of the case very thoroughly. You left here in the afternoon –’

‘At night,’ said the other brusquely. He was not inclined to discuss the matter, but Mr Reeder’s appealing look was irresistible. ‘It is only eighty minutes’ run to Dover. We got to the pier at eleven o’clock, about the same time as the boat train, and we went on board at once. I got my cabin key from the purser and put her ladyship and her baggage inside.’

‘Her ladyship was a good sailor?’

‘Yes, a very good sailor; she was remarkably well that night. I left her in the cabin dozing, and went for a stroll on the deck –’

‘Raining very heavily and a strong sea running,’ nodded Reeder, as though in agreement with something the other man had said.

‘Yes – I’m a pretty good sailor – anyway, that story about my poor wife’s jewels is utter nonsense. You can tell the Director that, with my compliments.’

He opened the door for his visitor, and Mr Reeder was some time replacing the letter and gathering his belongings.

‘You have a beautiful place here. Sir James – a lovely place. An extensive estate?’

‘Three thousand acres.’ This time he did not attempt to disguise his impatience. ‘Good afternoon.’

Mr Reeder went slowly down the drive, his remarkable memory at work.

He missed the bus which he could easily have caught, and pursued an apparently aimless way along the winding road which marched with the boundaries of the baronet’s property. A walk of a quarter of a mile brought him to a lane shooting off at right angles from the main road, and marking, he guessed, the southern boundary. At the corner stood an old stone lodge, on the inside of a forbidding iron gate. The lodge was in a pitiable state of neglect and disrepair. Tiles had been dislodged from the roof, the windows were grimy or broken, and the little garden was overrun with docks and thistles. Beyond the gate was a narrow, weed-covered drive that trailed out of sight into a distant plantation.

Hearing the clang of a letter-box closing, he turned to see a postman mounting his bicycle.

‘What place is this?’ asked Mr Reeder, arresting the postman’s departure.

‘South Lodge – Sir James Tithermite’s property. It’s never used now. Hasn’t been used for years – I don’t know why; it’s a short cut if they happen to be coming this way.’

Mr Reeder walked with him towards the village, and he was a skilful pumper of wells, however dry; and the postman was not dry by any means.

‘Yes, poor lady! She was very frail – one of those sort of invalids that last out many a healthy man.’

Mr Reeder put a question at random and scored most unexpectedly.

‘Yes, her ladyship was a bad sailor. I know because every time she went abroad she used to get a bottle of that stuff people take for sea-sickness. I’ve delivered many a bottle till Raikes the chemist stocked it – “Pickers’ Travellers’ Friend”, that’s what it was called. Mr Raikes was only saying to me the other day that he’d got half a dozen bottles on hand and he didn’t know what to do with them. Nobody in Climbury ever goes to sea.’

Mr Reeder went on to the village and idled his precious time in most unlikely places. At the chemist’s, at the blacksmith’s shop, at the modest building yard. He caught the last bus back to Maidstone, and by great good luck the last train to London.

And, in his vague way, he answered the Director’s query the next day with: ‘Yes, I saw Sir James: a very interesting man.’

This was on the Friday. All day Saturday he was busy. The Sabbath brought him a new interest.

On this bright Sunday morning, Mr Reeder, attired in a flowered dressing-gown, his feet encased in black velvet slippers, stood at the window of his house in Brockley Road and surveyed the deserted thoroughfare. The bell of a local church, which was accounted high, had rung for early Mass, and there was nothing living in sight except a black cat that lay asleep in a patch of sunlight on the top step of the house opposite. The hour was 7.30, and Mr Reeder had been at his desk since six, working by artificial light, the month being March towards the close.

From the half-moon of the window bay he regarded a section of the Lewisham High Road and as much of Tanners Hill as can be seen before it dips past the railway bridge into sheer Deptford.

Returning to his table, he opened a carton of the cheapest cigarettes and, lighting one, puffed in an amateurish fashion. He smoked cigarettes rather like a woman who detests them but feels that it is the correct thing to do.

‘Dear me,’ said Mr Reeder feebly.

He was back at the window, and he had seen a man turn out of Lewisham High Road. He had crossed the road and was coming straight to Daffodil House – which frolicsome name appeared on the door-posts of Mr Reeder’s residence. A tall, straight man, with a sombre brown face, he came to the front gate, passed through and beyond the watcher’s range of vision.

‘Dear me!’ said Mr Reeder, as he heard the tinkle of a bell.

A few minutes later his housekeeper tapped on the door.

‘Will you see Mr Kohl, sir?’ she asked.

Mr J. G. Reeder nodded.

Lew Kohl walked into the room to find a middle-aged man in a flamboyant dressing-gown sitting at his desk, a pair of pince-nez set crookedly on his nose.

‘Good morning. Kohl.’

Lew Kohl looked at the man who had sent him to seven and a half years of hell, and the corner of his thin lips curled.

‘Morning, Mr Reeder.’ His eyes flashed across the almost bare surface of the writing-desk on which Reeder’s hands were lightly clasped. ‘You didn’t expect to see me, I guess?’

‘Not so early,’ said Reeder in his hushed voice, ‘but I should have remembered that early rising is one of the good habits which are inculcated by penal servitude.’

He said this in the manner of one bestowing praise for good conduct.

‘I suppose you’ve got a pretty good idea of why I have come, eh? I’m a bad forgetter, Reeder, and a man in Dartmoor has time to think.’

The older man lifted his sandy eyebrows, the steel-rimmed glasses on his nose slipped further askew.

‘That phrase seems familiar,’ he said, and the eyebrows lowered in a frown. ‘Now let me think – it was in a melodrama, of course, but was it Souls in Harness or The Marriage Vow?’

He appeared genuinely anxious for assistance in solving this problem.

‘This is going to be a different kind of play,’ said the long-faced Lew through his teeth. ‘I’m going to get you, Reeder – you can go along and tell your boss, the Public Prosecutor. But I’ll get you sweet! There will be no evidence to swing me. And I’ll get that nice little stocking of yours, Reeder!’

The legend of Reeder’s fortune was accepted even by so intelligent a man as Kohl.

‘You’ll get my stocking! Dear me, I shall have to go barefooted,’ said Mr Reeder, with a faint show of humour.

‘You know what I mean – think that over. Some hour and day you’ll go out, and all Scotland Yard won’t catch me for the killing! I’ve thought it out –’

‘One has time to think in Dartmoor,’ murmured Mr J. G. Reeder encouragingly. ‘You’re becoming one of the world’s thinkers, Kohl. Do you know Rodin’s masterpiece – a beautiful statue throbbing with life –’

‘That’s all.’ Lew Kohl rose, the smile still trembling at the corner of his mouth. ‘Maybe you’ll turn this over in your mind, and in a day or two you won’t be feeling so gay.’

Reeder’s face was pathetic in its sadness. His untidy sandy-grey hair seemed to be standing on end; the large ears, that stood out at right angles to his face, gave the illusion of quivering movement.

Lew Kohl’s hand was on the door-knob.

‘Womp!’

It was the sound of a dull weight striking a board; something winged past his cheek, before his eyes a deep hole showed in the wall, and his face was stung by flying grains of plaster. He spun round with a whine of rage.

Mr Reeder had a long-barrelled Browning in his hand, with a barrel-shaped silencer over the muzzle, and he was staring at the weapon open-mouthed.

‘Now how on earth did that happen?’ he asked in wonder.

Lew Kohl stood trembling with rage and fear, his face yellow-white.

‘You – you swine!’ he breathed. ‘You tried to shoot me!’

Mr Reeder stared at him over his glasses.

‘Good gracious – you think that? Still thinking of killing me, Kohl?’

Kohl tried to speak but found no words, and, flinging open the door, he strode down the stairs and through the front entrance. His foot was on the first step when something came hurtling past him and crashed to fragments at his feet. It was a large stone vase that had decorated the window-sill of Mr Reeder’s bedroom. Leaping over the debris of stone and flower mould, he glared up into the surprised face of Mr J. G. Reeder.

‘I’ll get you!’ he spluttered.

‘I hope you’re not hurt?’ asked the man at the window in a tone of concern. ‘These things happen. Some day and some hour –’

As Lew Kohl strode down the street, the detective was still talking.

Mr Stan Bride was at his morning ablutions when his friend and sometime prison associate came into the little room that overlooked Fitzroy Square.

Stan Bride, who bore no resemblance to anything virginal, being a stout and stumpy man with a huge, red face and many chins, stopped in the act of drying himself and gazed over the edge of the towel.

‘What’s the matter with you?’ he asked sharply. ‘You look as if you’d been chased by a busy. What did you go out so early for?’

Lew told him, and the jovial countenance of his room-mate grew longer and longer –

‘You poor fish!’ he hissed. ‘To go after Reeder with that stuff! Don’t you think he was waiting for you? Do you suppose he didn’t know the very moment you left the Moor?’

‘I’ve scared him, anyway,’ said the other, and Mr Bride laughed.

‘Good scout!’ he sneered. ‘Scare that old person!’ (He did not say ‘person’.) ‘If he’s as white as you, he is scared! But he’s not. Of course he shot past you – if he’d wanted to shoot you, you’d have been stiff by now. But he didn’t. Thinker, eh – he’s given you somep’n’ to think about.’

‘Where that gun came from I don’t –’

There was a knock at the door and the two men exchanged glances.

‘Who’s there?’ asked Bride, and a familiar voice answered.

‘It’s that busy from the Yard,’ whispered Bride, and opened the door.

The ‘busy’ was Sergeant Allford, C.I.D., an affable and portly man and a detective of some promise.

‘Morning, boys – not been to church, Stan?’

Stan grinned politely.

‘How’s trade, Lew?’

‘Not so bad.’ The forger was alert, suspicious.

‘Come to see you about a gun – got an idea you’re carrying one, Lew – Colt automatic R.7/94318. That’s not right, Lew – guns don’t belong to this country.’

‘I’ve got no gun,’ said Lew sullenly.

Bride had suddenly become an old man, for he also was a convict on licence, and the discovery might send him back to serve his unfinished sentence.

‘Will you come a little walk to the station, or will you let me go over you?’

‘Go over me,’ said Lew, and put out his arms stiffly whilst the detective rubbed him down.

‘I’ll have a look round,’ said the detective, and his ‘look round’ was very thorough.

‘Must have been mistaken,’ said Sergeant Allford. And then, suddenly: ‘Was that what you chucked into the river as you were walking along the Embankment?’

Lew started. It was the first intimation he had received that he had been ‘tailed’ that morning.

Bride waited till the detective was visible from the window crossing Fitzroy Square; then he turned in a fury on his companion.

‘Clever, ain’t you! That old hound knew you had a gun – knew the number. And if Allford had found it you’d have been “dragged” and me too!’

‘I threw it in the river,’ said Lew sulkily.

‘Brains – not many but some!’ said Bride, breathing heavily. ‘You cut out Reeder – he’s hell and poison, and if you don’t know it you’re deaf! Scared him? You big stiff! He’d cut your throat and write a hymn about it.’

‘I didn’t know they were tailing me,’ growled Kohl; ‘but I’ll get him! And his money too.’

‘Get him from another lodging,’ said Bride curtly. ‘A crook I don’t mind, being one; a murderer I don’t mind, but a talking jackass makes me sick. Get his stuff if you can – I’ll bet it’s all invested in real estate, and you can’t lift houses – but don’t talk about it. I like you, Lew, up to a point; you’re miles before the point and out of sight. I don’t like Reeder – I don’t like snakes, but I keep away from the Zoo.’

So Lew Kohl went into new diggings on the top floor of an Italian’s house in Dean Street, and here he had leisure and inclination to brood upon his grievances and to plan afresh the destruction of his enemy. And new plans were needed, for the schemes which had seemed so watertight in the quietude of a Devonshire cell showed daylight through many crevices.

Lew’s homicidal urge had undergone considerable modification. He had been experimented upon by a very clever psychologist – though he never regarded Mr Reeder in this light, and, indeed, had the vaguest idea as to what the word meant. But there were other ways of hurting Reeder, and his mind fell constantly back to the dream of discovering this peccant detective’s hidden treasure.

It was nearly a week later that Mr Reeder invited himself into the Director’s private sanctum, and that great official listened spellbound while his subordinate offered his outrageous theory about Sir James Tithermite and his dead wife. When Mr Reeder had finished, the Director pushed back his chair from the table.

‘My dear man,’ he said, a little irritably, ‘I can’t possibly give a warrant on the strength of your surmises – not even a search warrant. The story is so fantastic, so incredible, that it would be more at home in the pages of a sensational story than in a Public Prosecutor’s report.’

‘It was a wild night, and yet Lady Tithermite was not ill,’ suggested the detective gently. ‘That is a fact to remember, sir.’

The Director shook his head.

‘I can’t do it – not on the evidence,’ he said. ‘I should raise a storm that’d swing me into Whitehall. Can’t you do anything – unofficially?’

Mr Reeder shook his head.

‘My presence in the neighbourhood has been remarked,’ he said primly. ‘I think it would be impossible to – er – cover up my traces. And yet I have located the place, and could tell you within a few inches –’

Again the Director shook his head.

‘No, Reeder,’ he said quietly, ‘the whole thing is sheer deduction on your part. Oh, yes, I know you have a criminal mind – I think you have told me that before. And that is a good reason why I should not issue a warrant. You’re simply crediting this unfortunate man with your ingenuity. Nothing doing!’

Mr Reeder sighed and went back to his bureau, not entirely despondent, for there had intruded a new element into his investigations.

Mr Reeder had been to Maidstone several times during the week, and he had not gone alone; though seemingly unconscious of the fact that he had developed a shadow, for he had seen Lew Kohl on several occasions, and had spent an uncomfortable few minutes wondering whether his experiment had failed.

On the second occasion an idea had developed in the detective’s mind, and if he were a laughing man he would have chuckled aloud when he slipped out of Maidstone station one evening and, in the act of hiring a cab, had seen Lew Kohl negotiating for another.

Mr Bride was engaged in the tedious but necessary practice of so cutting a pack of cards that the ace of diamonds remained at the bottom, when his former co-lodger burst in upon him, and there was a light of triumph in Lew’s cold eye which brought Mr Bride’s heart to his boots.

‘I’ve got him!’ said Lew.

Bride put aside the cards and stood up.

‘Got who?’ he asked coldly. ‘And if it’s killing, you needn’t answer, but get out!’

‘There’s no killing.’

Lew sat down squarely at the table, his hands in his pockets, a real smile on his face.

‘I’ve been trailing Reeder for a week, and that fellow wants some trailing!’

‘Well?’ asked the other, when he paused dramatically.

‘I’ve found his stocking!’

Bride scratched his chin, and was half convinced.

‘You never have?’

Lew nodded.

‘He’s been going to Maidstone a lot lately, and driving to a little village about five miles out. There I always lost him. But the other night, when he came back to the station to catch the last train, he slipped into the waiting-room and I found a place where I could watch him. What do you think he did?’

Mr Bride hazarded no suggestion.

‘He opened his bag,’ said Lew impressively, ‘and took out a wad of notes as thick as that! He’d been drawing on his bank! I trailed him up to London. There’s a restaurant on the station and he went in to get a cup of coffee, with me keeping well out of his sight. As he came out of the restaurant he took out his handkerchief and wiped his mouth. He didn’t see the little book that dropped, but I did. I was scared sick that somebody else would see it, or that he’d wait long enough to find it himself. But he went out of the station and I got that book before you could say “knife”. Look!’

It was a well-worn little notebook, covered with faded red morocco. Bride put out his hand to take it.

‘Wait a bit,’ said Lew. ‘Are you in this with me fifty-fifty, because I want some help?’

Bride hesitated.

‘If it’s just plain thieving, I’m with you,’ he said.

‘Plain thieving – and sweet,’ said Lew exultantly, and pushed the book across the table.

For the greater part of the night they sat together talking in low tones, discussing impartially the methodical book-keeping of Mr J. G. Reeder and his exceeding dishonesty.

The Monday night was wet. A storm blew up from the south-west, and the air was filled with falling leaves as Lew and his companion footed the five miles which separated them from the village. Neither carried any impedimenta that was visible, yet under Lew’s waterproof coat was a kit of tools of singular ingenuity, and Mr Bride’s coat pockets were weighted down with the sections of a powerful jemmy.

They met nobody in their walk, and the church bell was striking eleven when Lew gripped the bars of the South Lodge gates, pulled himself up to the top and dropped lightly on the other side. He was followed by Mr Bride, who, in spite of his bulk, was a singularly agile man. The ruined lodge showed in the darkness, and they passed through the creaking gates to the door and Lew flashed his lantern upon the keyhole before he began manipulation with the implements which he had taken from his kit.

The door was opened in ten minutes and a few seconds later they stood in a low-roofed little room, the principal feature of which was a deep, grateless fire-place. Lew took off his mackintosh and stretched it over the window before he spread the light in his lamp, and, kneeling down, brushed the debris from the hearth, examining the joints of the big stone carefully.

‘This work’s been botched,’ he said. ‘Anybody could see that.’

He put the claw of the jemmy into a crack and levered up the stone, and it moved slightly. Stopping only to dig a deeper crevice with a chisel and hammer he thrust the claw of the jemmy farther down. The stone came up above the edge of the floor and Bride slipped the chisel underneath.

‘Now together,’ grunted Lew.

They got their fingers beneath the hearth-stone and with one heave hinged it up. Lew picked up the lamp and, kneeling down, flashed a light into the dark cavity. And then.

‘Oh, my God!’ he shrieked.

A second later two terrified men rushed from the house into the drive. And a miracle had happened, for the gates were open and a dark figure stood squarely before them.

‘Put up your hands, Kohl!’ said a voice, and hateful as it was to Lew Kohl, he could have fallen on the neck of Mr Reeder.

At twelve o’clock that night Sir James Tithermite was discussing matters with his bride-to-be: the stupidity of her lawyer, who wished to safeguard her fortune, and his own cleverness and foresight in securing complete freedom of action for the girl who was to be his wife.

‘These blackguards think of nothing but their fees,’ he began, when his footman came in unannounced, and behind him the Chief Constable of the county and a man he remembered seeing before.

‘Sir James Tithermite?’ said the Chief Constable unnecessarily, for he knew Sir James very well.

‘Yes, Colonel, what is it?’ asked the baronet, his face twitching.

‘I am taking you into custody on a charge of wilfully murdering your wife, Eleanor Mary Tithermite.’

* * *

‘The whole thing turned upon the question as to whether Lady Tithermite was a good or a bad sailor,’ explained J. G. Reeder to his chief. ‘If she were a bad sailor, it was unlikely that she would be on the ship, even for five minutes, without calling for the stewardess. The stewardess did not see her ladyship, nor did anybody on board, for the simple reason that she was not on board! She was murdered within the grounds of the Manor; her body was buried beneath the hearthstone of the old lodge, and Sir James continued his journey by car to Dover, handing over his packages to a porter and telling him to take them to his cabin before he returned to put the car into the hotel garage. He had timed his arrival so that he passed on board with a crowd of passengers from the boat train, and nobody knew whether he was alone or whether he was accompanied, and, for the matter of that, nobody cared. The purser gave him his key, and he put the baggage, including his wife’s hat, into the cabin, paid the porter and dismissed him. Officially, Lady Tithermite was on board, for he surrendered her ticket to the collector and received her landing voucher. And then he discovered she had disappeared. The ship was searched, but of course the unfortunate lady was not found. As I remarked before –’

‘You have a criminal mind,’ said the Director good-humouredly. ‘Go on, Reeder.’

‘Having this queer and objectionable trait, I saw how very simple a matter it was to give the illusion that the lady was on board, and I decided that, if the murder was committed, it must have been within a few miles of the house. And then the local builder told me that he had given Sir James a little lesson in the art of mixing mortar. And the local blacksmith told me that the gate had been damaged, presumably by Sir James’s car – I had seen the broken rods and all I wanted to know was when the repairs were effected. That she was beneath the hearth in the lodge I was certain. Without a search warrant it was impossible to prove or disprove my theory, and I myself could not conduct a private investigation without risking the reputation of our department – if I may say “our”,’ he said apologetically.

The Director was thoughtful.

‘Of course, you induced this man Kohl to dig up the hearth by pretending you had money buried there. I presume you revealed that fact in your notebook? But why on earth did he imagine that you had a hidden treasure?’

Mr Reeder smiled sadly.

‘The criminal mind is a peculiar thing,’ he said, with a sigh. ‘It harbours illusions and fairy stories. Fortunately, I understand that mind. As I have often said –’

The Troupe

There was a quietude and sedateness about the Public Prosecutor’s office which completely harmonised with the tastes and inclinations of Mr J. G. Reeder. For he was a gentleman who liked to work in an office where the ticking of a clock was audible and the turning of a paper produced a gentle disturbance.

He had before him one morning the typewritten catalogue of Messrs Willoby, the eminent estate agents, and he was turning the leaves with a thoughtful expression. The catalogue was newly arrived, a messenger having only a few minutes before placed the portfolio on his desk.

Presently he smoothed down a leaf and read again the flattering description of a fairly unimportant property, and his scrutiny was patently a waste of time, for, scrawled on the margin of the sheet in red ink was the word ‘Let’, which meant that Riverside Bower was not available for hire. The ink was smudged, and ‘Let’ had been obviously written that morning.

‘Humph!’ said Mr Reeder.

He was interested for many reasons. In the heat of July riverside houses are at a premium: at the beginning of November they are somewhat of a drug on the market. And transatlantic visitors do not as a rule hire riverside cottages in a month which is chiefly distinguished by mists, rain and general discomfort.

Two reception: two bedrooms: bath, large dry cellars, lawn to river, small skiff and punt. Gas and electric light. Three guineas weekly or would be let for six months at 2 guineas.

He pulled his table telephone towards him and gave the agents’ number.

‘Let, is it – dear me! To an American gentleman? When will it be available?’

The new tenant had taken the house for a month. Mr Reeder was even more intrigued, though his interest in the ‘American gentleman’ was not quite as intensive as the American gentleman’s interest in Mr Reeder.

When the great Art Lomer came on a business trip from Canada to London, a friend and admirer carried him off one day to see the principal sight of London.

‘He generally comes out at lunch time,’ said the friend, who was called ‘Cheep’, because his name was Sparrow.

Mr Lomer looked up and down Whitehall disparagingly, for he had seen so many cities of the world that none seemed as good as the others.

‘There he is!’ whispered Cheep, though there was no need for mystery or confidence.

A middle-aged man had come out of one of the narrow doorways of a large grey building. On his head was a high, flat-crowned hat, his body was tightly encased in a black frock coat. A weakish man with yellowy-white side-whiskers and eyeglasses, that were nearer to the end than the beginning of his nose.

‘Him?’ demanded the amazed Art.

‘Him,’ said the other, incorrectly but with emphasis.

‘Is that the kind of guy you’re scared about? You’re crazy. Why, that man couldn’t catch a cold! Now, back home in T’ronto –’

Art was proud of his home town, and in that spirit of expansiveness which paints even the unpleasant features of One’s Own with the most attractive hues, he had even a good word to say about the Royal Canadian Police – a force which normally, and in a local atmosphere, he held in the greatest detestation.

Art ‘operated’ – he never employed a baser word – from Toronto, which, by its proximity to Buffalo and the United States border, gave him certain advantages. He had once ‘operated’ in Canada itself, but his line at that period being robbery of a kind which is necessarily accompanied by assault, he had found himself facing a Canadian magistrate, and a Canadian magistrate wields extraordinary powers. Art had been sent down for five years and, crowning horror, was ordered to receive twenty-five lashes with a whip which has nine tails, each one of which hurts. Thereafter he cut out violence and confined himself to the formation of his troupe – and Art Lomer’s troupe was famous from the Atlantic to the Pacific.

He had been plain Arthur Lomer when he was rescued from a London gutter and a career of crime and sent to Canada, the charitable authorities being under the impression that Canada was rather short on juvenile criminals. By dint of great artfulness, good stage management and a natural aptitude for acquiring easy money, he had gained for himself a bungalow on the islands, a flat in Church Street, a six-cylinder car and a New England accent which would pass muster in almost any place except New England.

‘I’ll tell the world you fellows want waking up! So that’s your Reeder? Well, if Canada and the United States was full of goats like him, I’d pack more dollars in one month than Hollywood pays Chaplin in ten years. Yes, sir. Listen, does that guy park a clock?’

His guide was a little dazed.

‘Does he wear a watch? Sure!’

Mr Art Lomer nodded.

‘Wait – I’ll bring it back to you in five minutes – I’m goin’ to show you sump’n’.’

It was the maddest fool thing he had ever done in his life; he was in London on business, and was jeopardising a million dollars for the sake of the cheap applause of a man for whose opinion he did not care a cent.

Mr Reeder was standing nervously on the sidewalk, waiting for what he described as ‘the vehicular traffic’ to pass, when a strange man bumped against him.

‘Excuse me, sir,’ said the stranger.

‘Not at all,’ murmured Mr Reeder. ‘My watch is five minutes fast – you can see the correct time by Big Ben.’

Mr Lomer felt a hand dip into his coat pocket, saw, like one hypnotised, the watch go back to J. G. Reeder’s pocket.

‘Over here for long?’ asked Mr Reeder pleasantly.

‘Why – yes.’

‘It’s a nice time of the year.’ Mr Reeder removed his eyeglasses, rubbed them feebly on his sleeve and replaced them crookedly. ‘But the country is not quite so beautiful as Canada in the fall. How is Leoni?’

Art Lomer did not faint; he swayed slightly and blinked hard, as if he were trying to wake up. Leoni was the proprietor of that little restaurant in Buffalo which was the advanced base of those operations so profitable to Art and his friends.

‘Leoni? Say, mister –’

‘And the troupe – are they performing in England or – er – resting? I think that is the word.’

Art gaped at the other. On Mr Reeder’s face was an expression of solicitude and enquiry. It was as though the well-being of the troupe was an absorbing preoccupation.

‘Say – listen –’ began Art huskily.

Before he could collect his thoughts, Reeder was crossing the road with nervous glances left and right, his umbrella gripped tightly in his hand.

‘I guess I’m crazy,’ said Mr Lomer, and walked back very slowly to where he had left his anxious cicerone.

‘No – he got away before I could touch him,’ he said briefly, for he had his pride. ‘Come along, we’ll get some eats, it’s nearly twel –’

He put his hand to his pocket, but his watch was gone! So also was the expensive platinum albert. Mr Reeder could be heavily jocular on occasions.

‘Art Lomer – is there anything against him?’ asked the Director of Public Prosecutions, whose servant Mr J. G. Reeder was.

‘No, sir, there is no complaint here. I have come into – er – possession of a watch of his, which I find, by reference to my private file, was stolen in Cleveland in 1921 – it is in the police file of that date. Only – um – it seems remarkable that this gentleman should be in London at the end of the tourist season.’

The Director pursed his lips dubiously.

‘M–m. Tell the people at the Yard. He doesn’t belong to us. What is his speciality?’

‘He is a troupe leader – I think that is the term. Mr Lomer was once associated with a theatrical company in – er – a humble capacity.’

‘You mean he is an actor?’ asked the puzzled Director.

‘Ye – es, sir; a producer rather than actor. I have heard about his troupe, though I have never had the pleasure of seeing them perform. A talented company.’

He sighed heavily and shook his head. ‘I don’t quite follow you about the troupe. How did his watch come into your possession, Reeder?’

Mr Reeder nodded. ‘That was a little jest on my part,’ he said, lowering his voice. ‘A little jest.’

The Director knew Mr Reeder too well to pursue the subject.

Lomer was living at the Hotel Calfort, in Bloomsbury. He occupied an important suite, for, being in the position of a man who was after big fish, he could not cavil at the cost of the groundbait. The big fish had bitten much sooner than Art Lomer had dared to hope. Its name was Bertie Claude Staffen, and the illustration was apt, for there was something very fishlike about this young man with his dull eyes and his permanently opened mouth. Bertie’s father was rich beyond the dreams of actresses. He was a pottery manufacturer, who bought cotton mills as a side-line, and he had made so much money that he never hired a taxi if he could take a bus, and never took a bus if he could walk. In this way he kept his liver (to which he frequently referred) in good order and hastened the degeneration of his heart.

Bertie Claude had inherited all his father’s meanness and such of his money as was not left to faithful servants, orphan homes and societies for promoting the humanities, which meant that Bertie inherited almost every penny. He had the weak chin and sloping forehead of an undeveloped intellect, but he knew there were twelve pennies to a shilling and that one hundred cents equalled one dollar, and that is more knowledge than the only sons of millionaires usually acquire.

He had one quality which few would suspect in him: the gift of romantic dreaming. When Mr Staffen was not occupied in cutting down overhead charges or speeding up production, he loved to sit at his ease, a cigarette between his lips, his eyes half closed, and picture himself in heroic situations. Thus, he could imagine dark caves stumbled upon by acident, filled with dusty boxes bulging with treasure; or he saw himself at Deauville Casino, with immense piles of mille notes before him, won from fabulously rich Greeks, Armenians – in fact, anybody who is fabulously rich. Most of his dreams were about money in sufficient quantities to repay him the death duties on his father’s estate which had been iniquitously wrung from him by thieving revenue officers. He was a very rich man, but ought to be richer – this was his considered view.

When Bertie Claude arrived at the Calfort Hotel and was shown into Art’s private sitting-room, he stepped into a world of heady romance. For the big table in the centre of the room was covered with specimens of quartz of every grade, and they had been recovered from a brand-new mine located by Art’s mythical brother and sited at a spot which was known only to two men, one of whom was Art Lomer and the other Bertie Claude Staffen.

Mr Staffen took off his light overcoat and, walking to the table, inspected the ore with sober interest.

‘I’ve had the assay,’ he said. ‘The johnny who did it is a friend of mine and didn’t charge a penny; his report is promising – very promising.’

‘The company –’ began Art, but Mr Staffen raised a warning finger.

‘I think you know, and it is unnecessary for me to remind you, that I do not intend speculating a dollar in this mine. I’m putting up no money. What I’m prepared to do is to use my influence in the promotion for a quid pro quo. You know what that means?’

‘Something for nothing!’ said Art, and in this instance was not entirely wide of the mark.

‘Well, no – stock in the company. Maybe I’ll take a directorship later, when the money is up and everything is plain sailing. I can’t lend my name to a – well, unknown quantity.’

Art agreed.

‘My friend has put up the money,’ he said easily. ‘If that guy had another hundred dollars he’d have all the money in the world – he’s that rich. Stands to reason, Mr Staffen, that I wouldn’t come over here tryin’ to get money from a gentleman who is practically a stranger. We met in Canada – sure we did! But what do you know about me? I might be one large crook – I might be a con man or anything!’

Some such idea had occurred to Bertie Claude, but the very frankness of his friend dispelled something of his suspicions.

‘I’ve often wondered since what you must have thought of me, sittin’ in a game with that bunch of thugs,’ Art went on, puffing a reflective cigar. ‘But I guess you said to yourself, “This guy is a man of the world – he’s gotta mix.” An’ that’s true. In these Canadian mining camps you horn in with some real tough boys – yes, sir. They’re sump’n’ fierce.’

‘I quite understood the position,’ said Bertie Claude, who hadn’t. ‘I flatter myself I know men. If I haven’t shown that in Homo Sum then I’ve failed in expression.’

‘Sure,’ said Mr Lomer lazily, and added another ‘Sure!’ to ram home the first. ‘That’s a pretty good book. When you give it to me at King Edward Hotel I thought it was sump’n’ about arithmetic. But ’tis mighty good poetry, every line startin’ with big letters an’ the end of every line sounding like the end word in the line before. I said to my secretary, “That Mr Staffen must have a brain.” How you get the ideas beats me. That one about the princess who comes out of a clam –’

‘An oyster – she was the embodiment of the pearl,’ Bertie hastened to explain. ‘You mean “The White Maiden”?’

Lomer nodded lazily.

‘That was grand. I never read poetry till I read that; it just made me want to cry like a great big fool! If I had your gifts I wouldn’t be loafin’ round Ontario prospecting. No, sir.’

‘It is a gift,’ said Mr Staffen after thought. ‘You say you have the money for the company?’

‘Every cent. I’m not in a position to offer a single share – that’s true. Not that you need worry about that. I’ve reserved a few from promotion. No, sir, I never had any intention of allowing you to pay a cent.’

He knocked off the ash of his cigar and frowned.

‘You’ve been mighty nice to me, Mr Staffen,’ he said slowly, ‘and though I don’t feel called upon to tell every man my business, you’re such a square white fellow that I feel sort of confident about you. This mine means nothing.’

Bertie Claude’s eyebrows rose.

‘I don’t quite get you,’ he said.

Art’s smile was slow and a little sad.

‘Doesn’t it occur to you that if I’ve got the capital for that property, it was foolish of me to take a trip to Europe?’

Bertie had certainly wondered why.

‘Selling that mine was like selling bars of gold. It didn’t want any doing; I could have sold it if I’d been living in the Amaganni Forest. No, sir, I’m here on business that would make your hair stand up if you knew.’

He rose abruptly and paced the room with quick, nervous strides, his brow furrowed in thought.

‘You’re a whale of a poet,’ he said suddenly. ‘Maybe you’ve got more imagination than most people. What does the mine mean for me? A few hundred thousand dollars’ profit.’ He shrugged his shoulders. ‘What are you doing on Wednesday?’

The brusqueness of the question took Bertie Claude aback.

‘On Wednesday? Well, I don’t know that I’m doing anything.’

Mr Lomer bit his lip thoughtfully.

‘I’ve got a little house on the river. Come down and spend a night with me, and I’ll let you into a secret that these newspapers would give a million dollars to know. If you read it in a book you wouldn’t believe it. Maybe one day you can write it. It would take a man with your imagination to put it over. Say, I’ll tell you now.’

And then, with some hesitation, Mr Lomer told his story.

‘Politics, and all that, I know nothing about. There has been a sort of revolution in Russia by all accounts, and queer things have been happenin’. I’m not such a dunce that I don’t know that. My interest in Russia was about the same as yours in Piketown, Saskatchewan. But about six months ago I got in touch with a couple of Russkis. They came out of the United States in a hurry, with a sheriff’s posse behind them, and I happened to be staying on a farm near the border when they turned up. And what do you think they’d been doing?’

Mr Staffen shook his head.

‘Peddling emeralds,’ said the other soberly.

‘Emeralds? Peddling? What do you mean – trying to sell emeralds?’

Art nodded.

‘Yes, sir. One had a paper bag full of ’em, all sizes. I bought the lot for twelve thousand dollars, took ’em down to T’ronto and got them valued at something under a million dollars.’

Bertie Claude was listening open-mouthed.

‘These fellows had come from Moscow. They’d been peddlin’ jewellery for four years. Some broken-down Prince was acting as agent for the other swells – I didn’t ask questions too closely, because naturally I’m not inquisitive.’

He leant forward and tapped the other’s knee to emphasise his words.

‘The stuff I bought wasn’t a twentieth of their stock. I sent them back to Russia for the rest of the loot, and they’re due here next I week.’

‘Twenty million dollars!’ gasped Bertie Claude. ‘What will it cost you?’

‘A million dollars – two hundred thousand pounds. Come down to my place at Marlow, and I’ll show you the grandest emeralds you ever saw – all that I’ve got left, as a matter of fact. I sold the biggest part to a Pittsburg millionaire for – well, I won’t give you the price, because you’ll think I robbed him! If you like any stone you see – why, I’ll let you buy it, though I don’t want to sell. Naturally, I couldn’t make profit out of a friend.’

Bertie Claude listened, dazed, while his host catalogued his treasures with an ease and a shrewd sense of appraisement. When Mr Staffen left his friend’s room, his head was in a whirl, though he experienced a bewildered sense of familiarity with a situation which had often figured in his dreams.

As he strode through the hall, he saw a middle-aged man with a flat-topped felt hat, but beyond noticing that he wore a ready-made cravat, that his shoes were square-toed and that he looked rather like a bailiff’s officer, Bertie Claude would have passed him, had not the old-fashioned gentleman stood in his way.

‘Excuse me, sir. You’re Mr Staffen, are you not?’

‘Yes,’ said Bertie shortly.

‘I wonder if I could have a few moments’ conversation with you on – er – a matter of some moment?’

Bertie waved an impatient hand.

‘I’ve no time to see anybody,’ he said brusquely. ‘If you want an appointment you’d better write for it.’

And he walked out, leaving the sad-looking man to gaze pensively after him.

Mr Lomer’s little house was an isolated stone bungalow between Marlow and the Quarry Wood, and if he had sought diligently, Mr Lomer could not have found a property more suitable for his purpose. Bertie Claude, who associated the river with sunshine and flannelled ease, shivered as he came out of the railway station and looked anxiously up at the grey sky. It was raining steadily, and the station cab that was waiting for him dripped from every surface.

‘Pretty beastly month to take a bungalow on the river,’ he grumbled.

Mr Lomer, who was not quite certain in his mind what was the ideal month for riverside bungalows, agreed.

‘It suits me,’ he said. ‘This house of mine has got the right kind of lonesomeness. I just hate having people looking over me.’

The road from the station to the house followed parallel with the line of the river. Staring out of the streaming windows, Mr Staffen saw only the steel-grey of water and the damp grasses of the meadows through which the road ran. A quarter of an hour’s drive, however, brought them to a pretty little cottage which stood in a generous garden. A bright fire burnt in the hall fire-place, and there was a general air of cosiness and comfort about the place that revived Bertie’s flagging spirits. A few seconds later they were sitting in a half-timbered dining-room, where tea had been laid.

Atmosphere has an insensible appeal to most people, and Bertie found himself impressed alike by the snugness of the place and the unexpected service, for there was a trim, pretty waiting maid, a sedate, middle-aged butler, and a sober-faced young man in footman’s livery, who had taken off his wet mackintosh and had rubbed his boots dry before he entered the dining-room.

‘No, the house isn’t mine: it is one I always hire when I’m in England,’ said Mr Lomer, who never told a small and unnecessary lie, because small and unnecessary lies are so easily detected. ‘Jenkins, the butler, is my man, so is the valet; the other people I just hired with the house.’

After tea he showed Bertie up to his bedroom, and, opening a drawer of his bureau, took out a small steel box, fastened with two locks. These he unfastened and lifted out a shallow metal tray covered with a layer of cotton-wool.

‘You can have any of these that take your eye,’ he said. ‘Make me an offer and I’ll tell you what they’re worth.’

He rolled back the cotton-wool and revealed six magnificent stones.

‘That one?’ said Mr Lomer, taking the largest between his finger and thumb. ‘Why that’s worth six thousand dollars – about twelve hundred pounds. And if you offered me that sum for it, I’d think you were a fool, because the only safe way of getting emeralds is to buy ’em fifty per cent. under value. I reckon that cost me about’ – he made a mental calculation – ‘ninety pounds.’

Bertie’s eyes shone. On emeralds he was something of an expert, and that these stones were genuine, he knew.

‘You wouldn’t like to sell it for ninety pounds?’ he asked carelessly.

Art Lomer shook his head.

‘No, sir. I’ve gotta make some profit even from my friends! I’ll let you have it for a hundred.’

Bertie’s hand sought his inside pocket.

‘No, I don’t want paying now. What do you know about emeralds anyway? They might be a clever fake. Take it up to town, show it to an expert –’

‘I’ll give you the cheque now.’

‘Any time will do.’

Art wrapped up the stone carefully, put it in a small box and handed it to his companion.

‘That’s the only one I’m going to sell,’ he explained as he led the way back to the dining-room.

Bertie went immediately to the small secretaire, wrote the cheque and, tearing it out, handed it to Mr Lomer. Art looked at the paper and frowned.

‘Why, what do I do with this?’ he asked. ‘I’ve got no bank account here. All my money’s in the Associated Express Company.’

‘I’ll make it “pay bearer”,’ said Bertie obligingly.

Still Mr Lomer was dubious.

‘Just write a note telling the President, or whoever he is, to cash that little bit of paper. I hate banks anyway.’

The obliging Bertie Claude scribbled the necessary note. When this was done, Bertie came to business, for he was a business man. ‘Can I come in on this jewel deal?’

Art Lomer shook his head reluctantly. ‘Sorry, Mr Staffen, but that’s almost impossible. I’ll be quite frank with you, because I believe in straightforward dealing. When you ask to come in on that transaction, you’re just asking me for money!’

Bertie made a faint noise of protest.

‘Well, that’s a mean way of putting it, but it comes to the same thing. I’ve taken all the risk, I’ve organised the operation – and it’s cost money to get that guy out of Russia: aeroplanes and special trains and everything. I just hate to refuse you, because I like you, Mr Staffen. Maybe if there’s any little piece to which you might take a fancy, I’ll let you have it at a reasonable price.’

Bertie thought for a moment, his busy mind at work.

‘What has the deal cost you up to now?’ he asked.

Again Mr Lomer shook his head. ‘It doesn’t matter what it’s cost me – if you offered me four times the amount of money I’ve spent – and that would be a considerable sum – I couldn’t let you in on this deal. I might go so far as giving you a small interest, but I wouldn’t take money for that.’

‘We’ll talk about it later,’ said Bertie, who never lost hope.

The rain had ceased, and the setting sun flooded the river with pale gold, and Bertie was walking in the garden with his host, when from somewhere above them came the faint hum of an aeroplane engine. Presently he saw the machine circling and disappearing behind the black crown of Quarry Wood. He heard an exclamation from the man at his side and, turning, saw Art’s face puckered in a grimace of annoyance and doubt.

‘What’s the matter?’ he asked.

‘I’m wondering,’ said Art slowly. ‘They told me next week . . . why, no, I’m foolish.’

It was dark. The butler had turned on the lights and drawn the blinds when they went indoors again, and it was not difficult for Bertie to realise that something had happened which was very disturbing to his host. He was taciturn, and for the next half-hour scarcely spoke, sitting in front of the fire gazing into the leaping flames and starting at every sound.

Dinner, a simple meal, was served early, and whilst the servants were clearing away, the two men strolled into the tiny drawing-room.

‘What’s the trouble, Lomer?’

‘Nothing,’ said the other with a start, ‘only –’

At that moment they heard the tinkle of a bell, and Art listened tensely. He heard the parley of voices in the hall, and then the footman came.

‘There’s two men and a lady to see you, sir,’ he said.

Bertie saw the other bite his lip.

‘Show them in,’ said Art curtly, and a second later a tall man, wearing the leather coat and helmet of an airman, walked into the room.

‘Marsham! What in hell – !’

The girl who followed instantly claimed Bertie Claude’s attention. She was slim and dark, and her face was beautiful, despite the pallor of her cheeks and the tired look in her eyes. The second of the men visitors was hardly as prepossessing: a squat, foreign-looking individual with a short-clipped beard, he was wrapped to his neck in an old fur overcoat, and his wild-looking head was bare.

Art closed the door.

‘What’s the great idea?’ he asked.

‘There’s been trouble,’ said the tall man sulkily. ‘The Prince has had another offer. He has sent some of the stuff, but he won’t part with the pearls or the diamonds until you pay him half of the money you promised. This is Princess Pauline Dimitroff, the Prince’s daughter,’ he explained.

Art shot an angry look at the girl.

‘Say, see here, young lady,’ he said, ‘I suppose you speak English?’

She nodded.

‘This isn’t the way we do business in our country. Your father promised –’

‘My father has been very precipitate,’ she said, with the slightest of foreign accent, which was delightful to Bertie’s ear. ‘He has taken much risk. Indeed, I am not sure that he has been very honest in the matter. It is very simple for you to pay. If he has your money tonight –’

‘Tonight?’ boomed Art. ‘How can I get the money for him tonight?’

‘He is in Holland,’ said the girl. ‘We have the aeroplane waiting.’

‘But how can I get the money tonight?’ repeated the Canadian angrily. ‘Do you think I carry a hundred thousand pounds in my pistol pocket?’

Again she shrugged, and, turning to the unkempt little man, said something to him in a language which was unintelligible to Mr Staffen. He replied in his hoarse voice, and she nodded.

‘Pieter says my father will take your cheque. He only wishes to be sure that there is no –’ She paused, at a loss for an English word.

‘Did I ever double-cross your father?’ asked Art savagely. ‘I can’t give you either the money or the cheque. You can call off the deal – I’m through!’

By this time the aviator had unrolled the package he carried under his arm, placed it on the table, and Bertie Claude grew breathless at the sight of the glittering display that met his eyes. There were diamonds, set and unset; quaint and ancient pieces of jewellery that must have formed the heirlooms of old families; but their historical value did not for the moment occur to him. He beckoned Art aside.

‘If you can keep these people here tonight,’ he said in a low voice, ‘I’ll undertake to raise all the money you want on that collection alone.’

Art shook his head.

‘It’s no use, Mr Staffen. I know this guy. Unless I can send him the money tonight, we’ll not smell the rest of the stuff.’

Suddenly he clapped his hands.

‘Gee!’ he breathed. ‘That’s an idea! You’ve got your cheque-book.’

Cold suspicion showed in the eyes of Bertie Claude.

‘I’ve got my cheque-book, certainly,’ he said, ‘but –’

‘Come into the dining-room.’ Art almost ran ahead of him, and when they reached the room he closed the door. ‘A cheque can’t be presented for two or three days. It certainly couldn’t be presented tomorrow,’ he said, speaking rapidly. ‘By that time we could get this stuff up to town to your bankers, and you could keep it until I redeem it. What’s more, you can stop payment of the cheque tomorrow morning if the stones aren’t worth the money.’

Bertie looked at the matter from ten different angles in as many seconds.

‘Suppose I gave them a post-dated cheque to make sure?’ he said.

‘Post-dated?’ Mr Lomer was puzzled. ‘What does that mean?’ And when Bertie explained, his face brightened. ‘Why, sure!’ he said. ‘That’s a double protection. Make it payable the day after tomorrow.’

Bertie hesitated no more. Sitting down at the table he took out his cheque-book and a fountain pen, and verified the date.

‘Make it “bearer”,’ suggested Art, when the writer paused, ‘same as you did the other cheque.’

Bertie nodded and added his signature, with its characteristic underlining.

‘Wait a second.’

Art went out of the room and came back within a minute.

‘They’ve taken it!’ he said exultantly. ‘Boy,’ he said, as he slapped the gratified young man on the shoulder, ‘you’ve gotta come in on this now and I didn’t want you to. It’s fifty-fifty – I’m no hog. Come along, and I’ll show you something else that I never intended showing a soul.’

He went out into the passage, opened a little door that led down a flight of stone steps to the cellar, switching on the light as he went down the stairs. Unlocking a heavy door, he threw it open.

‘See here,’ he said, ‘did you ever see anything like this?’

Bertie Claude peered into the dark interior.

‘I don’t see –’ he began, when he was so violently pushed into the darkness that he stumbled.

In another second the door closed on him; he heard the snap of a lock and shrieked: ‘I say, what’s this!’

‘I say, you’ll find out in a day or two,’ said the mocking voice of Mr Lomer.

Art closed the second door, ran lightly up the stairs and joined foot-man, butler, trim maid and the three visitors in the drawing-room.

‘He’s well inside. And he stays there till the cheque matures – there’s enough food and water in the cellar to last him a week.’

‘Did you get him?’ asked the bearded Russian.

‘Get him! He was easy,’ said the other scornfully. ‘Now, you boys and girls, skip, and skip quick! I’ve got a letter from this guy to his bank manager, telling him to –’ he consulted the letter and quoted – ‘ “to cash the attached cheque for my friend Mr Arthur Lomer”.’

There was a murmur of approval from the troupe.

‘The aeroplane’s gone back, I suppose?’

The man in the leather coat nodded.

‘Yes,’ he said, ‘I only hired it for the afternoon.’

‘Well, you can get back too. Ray and Al, you go to Paris and take the C. P. boat from Havre. Slicky, you get those whiskers off and leave honest from Liverpool. Pauline and Aggie will make Genoa, and we’ll meet at Leoni’s on the fourteenth of next month and cut the stuff all ways!’

* * *

Two days later Mr Art Lomer walked into the noble offices of the Northern Commercial Bank and sought an interview with the manager. That gentleman read the letter, examined the cheque and touched a bell.

‘It’s a mighty big sum,’ said Mr Lomer, in an almost awe-stricken voice.

The manager smiled. ‘We cash fairly large cheques here,’ he said, and, to the clerk who came at his summons: ‘Mr Lomer would like as much of this in American currency as possible. How did you leave Mr Staffen?’

‘Why, Bertie and I have been in Paris over that new company of mine,’ said Lomer. ‘My! it’s difficult to finance Canadian industries in this country, Mr Soames, but we’ve made a mighty fine deal in Paris.’

He chatted on purely commercial topics until the clerk returned and laid a heap of bills and bank-notes on the table. Mr Lomer produced a wallet, enclosed the money securely, shook hands with the manager and walked out into the general office. And then he stopped, for Mr J. G. Reeder stood squarely in his path.

‘Pay-day for the troupe, Mr Lomer – or do you call it “treasury”? My theatrical glossary is rather rusty.’

‘Why, Mr Reeder,’ stammered Art, ‘glad to see you, but I’m rather busy just now –’

‘What do you think has happened to our dear friend, Mr Bertie Claude Staffen?’ asked Reeder anxiously.

‘Why, he’s in Paris.’

‘So soon!’ murmured Reeder. ‘And the police only took him out of your suburban cellar an hour ago! How wonderful are our modern systems of transportation! Marlow one minute, Paris the next, and Moscow, let us say, the next.’

Art hesitated no longer. He dashed past, thrusting the detective aside, and flew for the door. He was so annoyed that the two men who were waiting for him had the greatest difficulty in putting the handcuffs on his wrists.

* * *

‘Yes, sir,’ said Mr Reeder to his chief, ‘Art always travels with his troupe. The invisibility of the troupe was to me a matter for grave suspicion, and of course I’ve had the house under observation ever since Mr Staffen disappeared. It is not my business, of course,’ he said apologetically, ‘and really I should not have interfered. Only, as I have often explained to you, the curious workings of my mind –’

The Stealer of Marble

Margaret Belman’s chiefest claim to Mr Reeder’s notice was that she lived in the Brockley Road, some few doors from his own establishment. He did not know her name, being wholly incurious about law-abiding folk, but he was aware that she was pretty, that her complexion was that pink and white which is seldom seen away from a magazine cover. She dressed well, and if there was one thing that he noted about her more than any other, it was that she walked and carried herself with a certain grace that was especially pleasing to a man of aesthetic predilections.

He had, on occasions, walked behind her and before her, and had ridden on the same street car with her to Westminster Bridge. She invariably descended at the corner of the Embankment, and was as invariably met by a good-looking young man and walked away with him. The presence of that young man was a source of passive satisfaction to Mr Reeder, for no particular reason, unless it was that he had a tidy mind, and preferred a rose when it had a background of fern and grew uneasy at the sight of a saucerless cup.

It did not occur to him that he was an object of interest and curiosity to Miss Belman.

‘That was Mr Reeder – he has something to do with the police, I think,’ she said.

‘Mr J. G. Reeder?’

Roy Master looked back with interest at the middle-aged man scampering fearfully across the road, his unusual hat on the back of his head, his umbrella over his shoulder like a cavalryman’s sword.

‘Good Lord! I never dreamt he was like that.’

‘Who is he?’ she asked, distracted from her own problem.

‘Reeder? He’s in the Public Prosecutor’s Department, a sort of a detective – there was a case the other week where he gave evidence. He used to be with the Bank of England –’

Suddenly she stopped, and he looked at her in surprise.

‘What’s the matter?’ he asked.

‘I don’t want you to go any farther, Roy,’ she said. ‘Mr Telfer saw me with you yesterday, and he’s quite unpleasant about it.’

‘Telfer?’ said the young man indignantly. ‘That little worm! What did he say?’

‘Nothing very much,’ she replied, but from her tone he gathered that the ‘nothing very much’ had been a little disturbing.

‘I am leaving Telfers,’ she said unexpectedly. ‘It is a good job, and I shall never get another like it – I mean, so far as the pay is concerned.’

Roy Master did not attempt to conceal his satisfaction.

‘I’m jolly glad,’ he said vigorously. ‘I can’t imagine how you’ve endured that boudoir atmosphere so long. What did he say?’ he asked again, and, before she could answer: ‘Anyway, Telfers are shaky. There are all sorts of queer rumours about them in the City.’

‘But I thought it was a very rich corporation!’ she said in astonishment.

He shook his head.

‘It was – but they have been doing lunatic things – what can you expect when a halfwitted weakling like Sidney Telfer is at the head of affairs? They underwrote three concerns last year that no brokerage business would have touched with a barge-pole, and they had to take up the shares. One was a lost treasure company to raise a Spanish galleon that sank three hundred years ago! But what really did happen yesterday morning?’

‘I will tell you tonight,’ she said, and made her hasty adieux.

Mr Sidney Telfer had arrived when she went into a room which, in its luxurious appointments, its soft carpet and dainty etceteras, was not wholly undeserving of Roy Masters’s description.

The head of Telfers Consolidated seldom visited his main office on Threadneedle Street. The atmosphere of the place, he said, depressed him; it was all so horrid and sordid and rough. The founder of the firm, his grandfather, had died ten years before Sidney had been born, leaving the business to a son, a chronic invalid, who had died a few weeks after Sidney first saw the light. In the hands of trustees the business had flourished, despite the spasmodic interferences of his eccentric mother, whose peculiarities culminated in a will which relieved him of most of that restraint which is wisely laid upon a boy of sixteen.

The room, with its stained-glass windows and luxurious furnishing, fitted Mr Telfer perfectly, for he was exquisitely arrayed. He was tall and so painfully thin that the abnormal smallness of his head was not at first apparent. As the girl came into the room he was sniffing delicately at a fine cambric handkerchief, and she thought that he was paler than she had ever seen him – and more repellent.

He followed her movements with a dull stare, and she had placed his letters on his table before he spoke.

‘I say, Miss Belman, you won’t mention a word about what I said to you last night?’

‘Mr Telfer,’ she answered quietly, ‘I am hardly likely to discuss such a matter.’

‘I’d marry you and all that, only . . . clause in my mother’s will,’ he said disjointedly. ‘That could be got over – in time.’

She stood by the table, her hands resting on the edge.

‘I would not marry you, Mr Telfer, even if there were no clause in your mother’s will; the suggestion that I should run away with you to America –’

‘South America,’ he corrected her gravely. ‘Not the United States; there was never any suggestion of the United States.’

She could have smiled, for she was not as angry with this rather vacant young man as his startling proposition entitled her to be.

‘The point is,’ he went on anxiously, ‘you’ll keep it to yourself? I’ve been worried dreadfully all night. I told you to send me a note saying what you thought of my idea – well, don’t!’

This time she did smile, but before she could answer him he went on, speaking rapidly in a high treble that sometimes rose to a falsetto squeak.

‘You’re a perfectly beautiful girl, and I’m crazy about you, but . . . there’s a tragedy in my life . . . really. Perfectly ghastly tragedy. An’ everything’s at sixes an’ sevens. If I’d had any sense I’d have brought in a feller to look after things. I’m beginning to see that now.’

For the second time in twenty-four hours this young man, who had almost been tongue-tied and had never deigned to notice her, had poured forth a torrent of confidences, and in one had, with frantic insistence, set forth a plan which had amazed and shocked her. Abruptly he finished, wiped his weak eyes, and in his normal voice: ‘Get Billingham on the ’phone; I want him.’

She wondered, as her busy fingers flew over the keys of her typewriter, to what extent his agitation and wild eloquence was due to the rumoured ‘shakiness’ of Telfers Consolidated.

Mr Billingham came, a sober little man, bald and taciturn, and went in his secretive way into his employer’s room. There was no hint in his appearance or his manner that he contemplated a great crime. He was stout to a point of podginess; apart from his habitual frown, his round face, unlined by the years, was marked by an expression of benevolence.

Yet Mr Stephen Billingham, managing director of the Telfer Consolidated Trust, went into the office of the London and Central Bank late that afternoon and, presenting a bearer cheque for one hundred and fifty thousand pounds, which was duly honoured, was driven to the Crédit Lilloise. He had telephoned particulars of his errand, and there were waiting for him seventeen packets, each containing a million francs, and a smaller packet of a hundred and forty-six mille notes. The franc stood at 74.55 and he received the eighteen packages in exchange for a cheque on the Crédit Lilloise for £80,000 and the 150 thousand-pound notes which he had drawn on the London and Central.

Of Billingham’s movements thenceforth little was known. He was seen by an acquaintance driving through Cheapside in a taxicab which was traced as far as Charing Cross – and there he disappeared. Neither the airways nor the waterways had known him, the police theory being that he had left by an evening train that had carried an excursion party via Havre to Paris.

‘This is the biggest steal we have had in years,’ said the Assistant Director of Public Prosecutions. ‘If you can slip in sideways on the inquiry, Mr Reeder, I should be glad. Don’t step on the toes of the City police – they are quite amiable people where murder is concerned, but a little touchy where money is in question. Go along and see Sidney Telfer.’

Fortunately, the prostrated Sidney was discoverable outside the City area. Mr Reeder went into the outer office and saw a familiar face.

‘Pardon me, I think I know you, young lady,’ he said, and she smiled as she opened the little wooden gate to admit him.

‘You are Mr Reeder – we live in the same road,’ she said, and then quickly: ‘Have you come about Mr Billingham?’

‘Yes.’ His voice was hushed, as though he were speaking of a dead friend. ‘I wanted to see Mr Telfer, but perhaps you could give me a little information.’

The only news she had was that Sidney Telfer had been in the office since seven o’clock and was at the moment in such a state of collapse that she had sent for the doctor.

‘I doubt if he is in a condition to see you,’ she said.

‘I will take all responsibility,’ said Mr Reeder soothingly. ‘Is Mr Telfer – er – a friend of yours. Miss – ?’

‘Belman is my name.’ He had seen the quick flush that came to her cheek: it could mean one of two things. ‘No, I am an employee, that is all.’

Her tone told him all he wanted to know. Mr J. G. Reeder was something of an authority on office friendships.

‘Bothered you a little, has he?’ he murmured, and she shot a suspicious look at him. What did he know, and what bearing had Mr Telfer’s mad proposal on the present disaster? She was entirely in the dark as to the true state of affairs; it was, she felt, a moment for frankness.

‘Wanted you to run away! Dear me!’ Mr Reeder was shocked. ‘He is married?’

‘Oh, no – he’s not married,’ said the girl shortly. ‘Poor man, I’m sorry for him now. I’m afraid that the loss is a very heavy one – who would suspect Mr Billingham?’

‘Ah! who indeed!’ sighed the lugubrious Reeder, and took off his glasses to wipe them; almost she suspected tears. ‘I think I will go in now – that is the door?’

Sidney jerked up his face and glared at the intruder. He had been sitting with his head on his arms for the greater part of an hour.

‘I say . . . what do you want?’ he asked feebly. ‘I say . . . I can’t see anybody . . . Public Prosecutor’s Department?’ He almost screamed the words. ‘What’s the use of prosecuting him if you don’t get the money back?’

Mr Reeder let him work down before he began to ply his very judicious questions.

‘I don’t know much about it,’ said the despondent young man. ‘I’m only a sort of figurehead. Billingham brought the cheques for me to sign and I signed ’em. I never gave him instructions; he got his orders. I don’t know very much about it. He told me, actually told me, that the business was in a bad way – half a million or something was wanted by next week . . . . Oh, my God! And then he took the whole of our cash.’

Sidney Telfer sobbed his woe into his sleeve like a child. Mr Reeder waited before he asked a question in his gentlest manner.

‘No, I wasn’t here: I went down to Brighton for the weekend. And the police dug me out of bed at four in the morning. We’re bankrupt. I’ll have to sell my car and resign from my club – one has to resign when one is bankrupt.’

There was little more to learn from the broken man, and Mr Reeder returned to his chief with a report that added nothing to the sum of knowledge. In a week the theft of Mr Billingham passed from scare lines to paragraphs in most of the papers – Billingham had made a perfect getaway.

In the bright lexicon of Mr J. G. Reeder there was no such word as holiday. Even the Public Prosecutor’s office has its slack time, when juniors and sub-officials and even the Director himself can go away on vacation, leaving the office open and a subordinate in charge. But to Mr J. G. Reeder the very idea of wasting time was repugnant, and it was his practice to brighten the dull patches of occupation by finding a seat in a magistrate’s court and listening, absorbed, to cases which bored even the court reporter.

John Smith, charged with being drunk and using insulting language to Police Officer Thomas Brown; Mary Jane Haggitt, charged with obstructing the police in the execution of their duty; Henry Robinson, arraigned for being a suspected person, having in his possession housebreaking tools, to wit, one cold chisel and a screwdriver; Arthur Moses, charged with driving a motor-car to the common danger – all these were fascinating figures of romance and legend to the lean man who sat between the press and railed dock, his square-crowned hat by his side, his umbrella gripped between his knees, and on his melancholy face an expression of startled wonder.

On one raw and foggy morning, Mr Reeder, self-released from his duties, chose the Marylebone Police Court for his recreation. Two drunks, a shop theft and an embezzlement had claimed his rapt attention, when Mrs Jackson was escorted to the dock and a rubicund policeman stepped to the witness stand, and, swearing by his Deity that he would tell the truth and nothing but the truth, related his peculiar story.

‘P. C. Ferryman No. 9717 L. Division,’ he introduced himself conventionally. ‘I was on duty in the Edgware Road early this morning at 2.30 a.m. when I saw the prisoner carrying a large suitcase. On seeing me she turned round and walked rapidly in the opposite direction. Her movements being suspicious, I followed and, overtaking her, asked her whose property she was carrying. She told me it was her own and that she was going to catch a train. She said that the case contained her clothes. As the case was a valuable one of crocodile leather I asked her to show me the inside. She refused. She also refused to give me her name and address and I asked her to accompany me to the station.’

There followed a detective sergeant.

‘I saw the prisoner at the station and in her presence opened the case. It contained a considerable quantity of small stone chips –’

‘Stone chips?’ interrupted the incredulous magistrate. ‘You mean small pieces of stone – what kind of stone?’

‘Marble, your worship. She said that she wanted to make a little path in her garden and that she had taken them from the yard of a monumental mason in the Euston Road. She made a frank statement to the effect that she had broken open a gate into the yard and filled the suitcase without the mason’s knowledge.’

The magistrate leant back in his chair and scrutinised the charge sheet with a frown.

‘There is no address against her name,’ he said.

‘She gave an address, but it was false, your worship – she refuses to offer any further information.’

Mr J. G. Reeder had screwed round in his seat and was staring open-mouthed at the prisoner. She was tall, broad-shouldered and stoutly built. The hand that rested on the rail of the dock was twice the size of any woman’s hand he had ever seen. The face was modelled largely, but though there was something in her appearance which was almost repellent, she was handsome in her large way. Deep-set brown eyes, a nose that was large and masterful, a well-shaped mouth and two chins – these in profile were not attractive to one who had his views on beauty in women, but Mr J. G. Reeder, being a fair man, admitted that she was a fine-looking woman. When she spoke it was in a voice as deep as a man’s, sonorous and powerful.

‘I admit it was a fool thing to do. But the idea occurred to me just as I was going to bed and I acted on the impulse of the moment. I could well afford to buy the stone – I had over fifty pounds in my pocket-book when I was arrested.’

‘Is that true?’ and, when the officer answered, the magistrate turned his suspicious eyes to the woman. ‘You are giving us a lot of trouble because you will not tell your name and address. I can understand that you do not wish your friends to know of your stupid theft, but unless you give me the information, I shall be compelled to remand you in custody for a week.’

She was well, if plainly, dressed. On one large finger flashed a diamond which Mr Reeder mentally priced in the region of two hundred pounds. ‘Mrs Jackson’ was shaking her head as he looked.

‘I can’t give you my address,’ she said, and the magistrate nodded curtly.

‘Remanded for inquiry,’ he said, and added, as she walked out of the dock: ‘I should like a report from the prison doctor on the state of her mind.’

Mr J. G. Reeder rose quickly from his chair and followed the woman and the officer in charge of the case through the little door that leads to the cells.

‘Mrs Jackson’ had disappeared by the time he reached the corridor, but the detective-sergeant was stooping over the large and handsome suitcase that he had shown in court and was now laying on a form.

Most of the outdoor men of the C.I.D. knew Mr J. G. Reeder, and Sergeant Mills grinned a cheerful welcome.

‘What do you think of that one, Mr Reeder? It is certainly a new line on me! Never heard of a tombstone artist being burgled before.’

He opened the top of the case, and Mr Reeder ran his fingers through the marble chips.

‘The case and the loot weighs over a hundred pounds,’ said the officer. ‘She must have the strength of a navvy to carry it. The poor officer who carried it to the station was hot and melting when he arrived.’

Mr J. G. was inspecting the case. It was a handsome article, the hinges and locks being of oxidised silver. No maker’s name was visible on the inside, or owner’s initials on its glossy lid. The lining had once been of silk, but now hung in shreds and was white with marble dust.

‘Yes,’ said Mr Reeder absently, ‘very interesting – most interesting. Is it permissible to ask whether, when she was searched, any – er – document – ?’ The sergeant shook his head. ‘Or unusual possession?’

‘Only these.’

By the side of the case was a pair of large gloves. These also were soiled, and their surfaces cut in a hundred places.

‘These have been used frequently for the same purpose,’ murmured Mr J. G. ‘She evidently makes – er – a collection of marble shavings. Nothing in her pocket-book?’

‘Only the bank-notes: they have the stamp of the Central Bank on their backs. We should be able to trace ’em easily.’

Mr Reeder returned to his office and, locking the door, produced a worn pack of cards from a drawer and played patience – which was his method of thinking intensively. Late in the afternoon his telephone bell rang, and he recognised the voice of Sergeant Mills.

‘Can I come along and see you? Yes, it is about the bank-notes.’

Ten minutes later the sergeant presented himself.

‘The notes were issued three months ago to Mr Telfer,’ said the officer without preliminary, ‘and they were given by him to his housekeeper, Mrs Welford.’

‘Oh, indeed?’ said Mr Reeder softly, and added, after reflection: ‘Dear me!’

He pulled hard at his lip.

‘And is “Mrs Jackson” that lady?’ he asked.

‘Yes. Telfer – poor little devil – nearly went mad when I told him she was under remand – dashed up to Holloway in a taxi to identify her. The magistrate has granted bail, and she’ll be bound over tomorrow. Telfer was bleating like a child – said she was mad. Gosh! that fellow is scared of her – when I took him into the waiting-room at Holloway Prison she gave him one look and he wilted. By the way, we have had a hint about Billingham that may interest you. Do you know that he and Telfer’s secretary were very good friends?’

‘Really?’ Mr Reeder was indeed interested. ‘Very good friends? Well, well!’

‘The Yard has put Miss Belman under general observation: there may be nothing to it, but in cases like Billingham’s it is very often a matter of cherchez la femme.’

Mr Reeder had given his lip a rest and was now gently massaging his nose.

‘Dear me!’ he said. ‘That is a French expression, is it not?’

He was not in court when the marble stealer was sternly admonished by the magistrate and discharged. All that interested Mr J. G. Reeder was to learn that the woman had paid the mason and had carried away her marble chips in triumph to the pretty little detached residence in the Outer Circle of Regent’s Park. He had spent the morning at Somerset House, examining copies of wills and the like; his afternoon he gave up to the tracing of Mrs Rebecca Alamby Mary Welford.

She was the relict of Professor John Welford of the University of Edinburgh, and had been left a widow after two years of marriage. She had then entered the service of Mrs Telfer, the mother of Sidney, and had sole charge of the boy from his fourth year. When Mrs Telfer died she had made the woman sole guardian of her youthful charge. So that Rebecca Welford had been by turns nurse and guardian, and was now in control of the young man’s establishment.

The house occupied Mr Reeder’s attention to a considerable degree. It was a red-brick modern dwelling consisting of two floors and having a frontage on the Circle and a side road. Behind and beside the house was a large garden which, at this season of the year, was bare of flowers. They were probably in snug quarters for the winter, for there was a long green-house behind the garden.

He was leaning over the wooden palings, eyeing the grounds through the screen of box hedge that overlapped the fence with a melancholy stare, when he saw a door open and the big woman come out. She was bare-armed and wore an apron. In one hand she carried a dust box, which she emptied into a concealed ash-bin, in the other was a long broom.

Mr Reeder moved swiftly out of sight. Presently the door slammed and he peeped again. There was no evidence of a marble path. All the walks were of rolled gravel.

He went to a neighbouring telephone booth, and called his office. ‘I may be away all day,’ he said.

There was no sign of Mr Sidney Telfer, though the detective knew that he was in the house.

Telfer’s Trust was in the hands of the liquidators, and the first meeting of creditors had been called. Sidney had, by all accounts, been confined to his bed, and from that safe refuge had written a note to his secretary asking that ‘all papers relating to my private affairs’ should be burnt. He had scrawled a postscript: ‘Can I possibly see you on business before I go?’ The word ‘go’ had been scratched out and ‘retire’ substituted. Mr Reeder had seen that letter – indeed, all correspondence between Sidney and the office came to him by arrangement with the liquidators. And that was partly why Mr J. G. Reeder was so interested in 904, The Circle.

It was dusk when a big car drew up at the gate of the house. Before the driver could descend from his seat, the door of 904 opened, and Sidney Telfer almost ran out. He carried a suitcase in each hand, and Mr Reeder recognised that nearest him as the grip in which the housekeeper had carried the stolen marble.

Reaching over, the chauffeur opened the door of the machine and, flinging in the bags, Sidney followed hastily. The door closed, and the car went out of sight round the curve of the Circle.

Mr Reeder crossed the road and took up a position very near the front gate, waiting.

Dusk came and the veil of a Regent’s Park fog. The house was in darkness, no flash of light except a faint glimmer that burnt in the hall, no sound. The woman was still there – Mrs Sidney Telfer, nurse, companion, guardian and wife. Mrs Sidney Telfer, the hidden director of Telfers Consolidated, a masterful woman who, not content with marrying a weakling twenty years her junior, had applied her masterful but ill-equipped mind to the domination of a business she did not understand, and which she was destined to plunge into ruin. Mr Reeder had made good use of his time at the Records Office: a copy of the marriage certificate was almost as easy to secure as a copy of the will.

He glanced round anxiously. The fog was clearing, which was exactly what he did not wish it to do, for he had certain acts to perform which required as thick a cloaking as possible.

And then a surprising thing happened. A cab came slowly along the road and stopped at the gate.

‘I think this is the place, miss,’ said the cabman, and a girl stepped down to the pavement.

It was Miss Margaret Belman.

Reeder waited until she had paid the fare and the cab had gone, and then, as she walked towards the gate, he stepped from the shadow.

‘Oh! – Mr Reeder, how you frightened me!’ she gasped. ‘I am going to see Mr Telfer – he is dangerously ill – no, it was his housekeeper who wrote asking me to come at seven.’

‘Did she now! Well, I will ring the bell for you.’

She told him that that was unnecessary – she had the key which had come with the note.

‘She is alone in the house with Mr Telfer, who refuses to allow a trained nurse near him,’ said Margaret, ‘and –’

‘Will you be good enough to lower your voice, young lady?’ urged Mr Reeder in an impressive whisper. ‘Forgive the impertinence, but if our friend is ill –’

She was at first startled by his urgency.

‘He couldn’t hear me,’ she said, but spoke in a lower tone.

‘He may – sick people are very sensitive to the human voice. Tell me, how did this letter come?’

‘From Mr Telfer? By district messenger an hour ago.’

Nobody had been to the house or left it – except Sidney. And Sidney, in his blind fear, would carry out any instructions which his wife gave to him.

‘And did it contain a passage like this?’ Mr Reeder considered a moment. ‘ “Bring this letter with you”?’

‘No,’ said the girl in surprise, ‘but Mrs Welford telephoned just before the letter arrived and told me to wait for it. And she asked me to bring the letter with me because she didn’t wish Mr Telfer’s private correspondence to be left lying around. But why do you ask me this, Mr Reeder – is anything wrong?’

He did not answer immediately. Pushing open the gate, he walked noiselessly along the grass plot that ran parallel with the path.

‘Open the door, I will come in with you,’ he whispered and, when she hesitated: ‘Do as I tell you, please.’

The hand that put the key into the lock trembled, but at last the key turned and the door swung open. A small night-light burnt on the table of the wide panelled hall. On the left, near the foot of the stairs, only the lower steps of which were visible, Reeder saw a narrow door which stood open, and, taking a step forward, saw that it was a tiny telephone-room.

And then a voice spoke from the upper landing, a deep, booming voice that he knew.

‘Is that Miss Belman?’

Margaret, her heart beating faster, went to the foot of the stairs and looked up.

‘Yes, Mrs Welford.’

‘You brought the letter with you?’

‘Yes.’

Mr Reeder crept along the wall until he could have touched the girl.

‘Good,’ said the deep voice. ‘Will you call the doctor – Circle 743 – and tell him that Mr Telfer has had a relapse – you will find the booth in the hall: shut the door behind you, the bell worries him.’

Margaret looked at the detective and he nodded.

The woman upstairs wished to gain time for something – what?

The girl passed him: he heard the thud of the padded door close, and there was a click that made him spin round. The first thing he noticed was that there was no handle to the door, the second that the keyhole was covered by a steel disc, which he discovered later was felt-lined. He heard the girl speaking faintly, and put his ear to the keyhole.

‘The instrument is disconnected – I can’t open the door.’

Without a second’s hesitation, he flew up the stairs, umbrella in hand, and as he reached the landing he heard a door close with a crash. Instantly he located the sound. It came from a room on the left immediately over the hall. The door was locked.

‘Open this door,’ he commanded, and there came to him the sound of a deep laugh.

Mr Reeder tugged at the stout handle of his umbrella. There was a flicker of steel as he dropped the lower end, and in his hand appeared six inches of knife blade.

The first stab at the panel sliced through the thin wood as though it were paper. In a second there was a jagged gap through which the black muzzle of an automatic was thrust.

‘Put down that jug or I will blow your features into comparative chaos!’ said Mr Reeder pedantically.

The room was brightly lit, and he could see plainly. Mrs Welford stood by the side of a big square funnel, the narrow end of which ran into the floor. In her hand was a huge enamelled iron jug, and ranged about her were six others. In one corner of the room was a wide circular tank, and beyond, at half its height, depended a large copper pipe.

The woman’s face turned to him was blank, expressionless.

‘He wanted to run away with her,’ she said simply, ‘and after all I have done for him!’

‘Open the door.’

Mrs Welford set down the jug and ran her huge hand across her forehead.

‘Sidney is my own darling,’ she said. ‘I’ve nursed him, and taught him, and there was a million – all in gold – in the ship. But they robbed him.’

She was talking of one of the ill-fated enterprises of Telfers Consolidated Trust – that sunken treasure ship to recover which the money of the company had been poured out like water. And she was mad. He had guessed the weakness of this domineering woman from the first.

‘Open the door; we will talk it over. I’m perfectly sure that the treasure ship scheme was a sound one.’

‘Are you?’ she asked eagerly, and the next minute the door was open and Mr J. G. Reeder was in that room of death.

‘First of all, let me have the key of the telephone-room – you are quite wrong about that young lady: she is my wife.’

The woman stared at him blankly.

‘Your wife?’ A slow smile transfigured the face. ‘Why – I was silly. Here is the key.’

He persuaded her to come downstairs with him, and when the frightened girl was released, he whispered a few words to her, and she flew out of the house.

‘Shall we go into the drawing-room?’ he asked, and Mrs Welford led the way.

‘And now will you tell me how you knew – about the jugs?’ he asked gently.

She was sitting on the edge of a sofa, her hands clasped on her knees, her deep-set eyes staring at the carpet.

‘John – that was my first husband – told me. He was a professor of chemistry and natural science, and also about the electric furnace. It is so easy to make if you have power – we use nothing but electricity in this house for heating and everything. And then I saw my poor darling being ruined through me, and I found how much money there was in the bank, and I told Billingham to draw it and bring it to me without Sidney knowing. He came here in the evening. I sent Sidney away – to Brighton, I think. I did everything – put the new lock on the telephone box and fixed the shaft from the roof to the little room – it was easy to disperse everything with all the doors open and an electric fan working on the floor –’

She was telling him about the improvised furnace in the green-house when the police arrived with the divisional surgeon, and she went away with them, weeping because there would be nobody to press Sidney’s ties or put out his shirts.

Mr Reeder took the inspector up to the little room and showed him its contents.

‘This funnel leads to the telephone box –’ he began.

‘But the jugs are empty,’ interrupted the officer.

Mr J. G. Reeder struck a match and, waiting until it burnt freely, lowered it into the jug. Half an inch lower than the rim the light went out.

‘Carbon monoxide,’ he said, ‘which is made by steeping marble chips in hydrochloric acid – you will find the mixture in the tank. The gas is colourless and odourless – and heavy. You can pour it out of a jug like water. She could have bought the marble, but was afraid of arousing suspicion. Billingham was killed that way. She got him to go to the telephone box, probably closed the door on him herself, and then killed him painlessly.’

‘What did she do with the body?’ asked the horrified officer.

‘Come out into the hot-house,’ said Mr Reeder, ‘and pray do not expect to see horrors: an electric furnace will dissolve a diamond to its original elements.’

Mr Reeder went home that night in a state of mental perturbation, and for an hour paced the floor of his large study in Brockley Road.

Over and over in his mind he turned one vital problem: did he owe an apology to Margaret Belman for saying that she was his wife?

Sheer Melodrama

It was Mr Reeder who planned the raid on Tommy Fenalow’s snide shop and worked out all the details except the composition of the raiding force. Tommy had a depot at Golders Green whither trusted agents came, purchasing Treasury notes for £7 10s. per hundred, or £70 a thousand. Only experts could tell the difference between Tommy’s currency and that authorised by and printed for H.M. Treasury. They were the right shades of brown and green, the numbers were of issued series, the paper was exact. They were printed in Germany at £3 a thousand, and Tommy made thousands per cent. profit.

Mr Reeder discovered all about Tommy’s depot in his spare time, and reported the matter to his chief, the Director of Public Prosecutions. From Whitehall to Scotland Yard is two minutes’ walk, and in just that time the information got across.

‘Take Inspector Greyash with you and superintend the raid,’ were his instructions.

He left the inspector to make all the arrangements, and amongst those who learnt of the projected coup was a certain detective officer who made more money from questionable associations than he did from Government. This officer ‘blew’ the raid to Tommy, and when Mr Reeder and his bold men arrived at Golders Green, there was Tommy and three friends playing a quiet game of auction bridge, and the only Treasury notes discoverable were veritable old masters.

‘It is a pity,’ sighed J. G. when they reached the street; ‘a great pity. Of course I hadn’t the least idea that Detective-Constable Wilshore was in our party. He is – er – not quite loyal.’

‘Wilshore?’ asked the officer, aghast. ‘Do you mean he “blew” the raid to Tommy?’

Mr Reeder scratched his nose and said gently, that he thought so.

‘He has quite a big income from various sources – by the way, he banks with the Midland and Derbyshire, and his account is in his wife’s maiden name. I tell you this in case – er – it may be useful.’

It was useful enough to secure the summary ejection of the unfaithful Wilshore from the force, but it was not sufficiently useful to catch Tommy, whose parting words were: ‘You’re clever, Reeder; but you’ve got to be lucky to catch me!’

Tommy was in the habit of repeating this scrap of conversation to such as were interested. It was an encounter of which he was justifiably proud, for few dealers in ‘slush’ and ‘snide’ have ever come up against Mr J. G. and got away with it.

‘It’s worth a thousand pounds to me – ten thousand! I’d pay that money to make J. G. look sick, anyway, the old dog! I guess the Yard will think twice before it tries to shop me again, and that’s the real kick in the raid. J. G.’s name is Jonah at headquarters, and if I can do anything to help, it will be mud!’

To a certain Ras Lal Punjabi, an honoured (and paying) guest, Mr Fenalow told this story, with curious results.

A good wine tastes best in its own country, and a man may drink sherry by the cask in Jerez de la Frontena and take no ill, whereas if he attempted so much as a bottle in Fleet Street, he would suffer cruelly. So also does the cigarette of Egypt preserve its finest bouquet for such as smoke it in the lounge of a Cairo hotel.

Crime is yet another quantity which does not bear transplanting. The American safe-blower may flourish in France just so long as he acquires by diligent study, and confines himself to, the Continental method. It is possible for the European thief to gain a fair livelihood in oriental countries, but there is no more tragic sight in the world than the Eastern mind endeavouring to adapt itself to the complexities of European roguery.

Ras Lal Punjabi enjoyed a reputation in Indian police circles as the cleverest native criminal India had ever produced. Beyond a short term in Poona Jail, Ras Lal had never seen the interior of a prison, and such was his fame in native circles that, during this short period of incarceration, prayers for his deliverance were offered at certain temples, and it was agreed that he would never have been convicted at all but for some pretty hard swearing on the part of the police commissioner sahib – and anyway, all sahibs hang together, and it was a European judge who sent him down.

He was a general practitioner of crime, with a leaning towards specialisation in jewel thefts. A man of excellent and even gentlemanly appearance, with black and shiny hair parted at the side and curling up over one brow in an inky wave, he spoke English, Hindustani and Tamil very well indeed, had a sketchy knowledge of the law (on his visiting cards was the inscription ‘Failed Ll.B.’) and a very full acquaintance with the science of precious stones.

During Mr Ras Lal Punjabi’s brief rest in Poona, the police commissioner sahib, whose unromantic name was Smith, married a not very good-looking girl with a lot of money. Smith Sahib knew that beauty was only skin deep and that she had a kind heart, which is notoriously preferable to the garniture of coronets. It was honestly a love match. Her father owned jute mills in Calcutta, and on festive occasions, such as the Governor-General’s ball, she carried several lakhs of rupees on her person; but even rich people are loved for themselves alone.

Ras Lal owed his imprisonment to an unsuccessful attempt he had made upon two strings of pearls, the property of the lady in question, and when he learnt, on his return to freedom, that Smith Sahib had married the resplendent girl and had gone to England, he very naturally attributed the hatred and bitterness of Smith Sahib to purely personal causes, and swore vengeance.

Now in India the business of every man is the business of his serv-ants. The preliminary enquiries, over which an English or American jewel thief would spend a small fortune, can be made at the cost of a few annas. When Ras Lal came to England he found that he had overlooked this very important fact.

Smith, sahib and memsahib, were out of town; they were, in fact, on the high seas en route for New York when Ras Lal was arrested on the conventional charge of ‘being a suspected person’. Ras had shadowed the Smiths’ butler, and, having induced him to drink, had offered him immense sums to reveal the place, receptacle, drawer, safe, box or casket wherein ‘Mrs Commissioner Smith’s’ jewels were kept. His excuse for asking, namely, that he had had a wager with his brother that the jewels were kept under the Memsahib’s bed, showed a lamentable lack of inventive power. The butler, an honest man, though a drinker of beer, informed the police. Ras Lal and his friend and assistant Ram were arrested, brought before a magistrate, and would have been discharged but for the fact that Mr J. G. Reeder saw the record of the case and was able to supply from his own files very important particulars of the dark man’s past. Therefore Mr Ras Lal was sent down to hard labour for six months, but, what was more maddening, the story of his ignominious failure was, he guessed, broadcast throughout India.

This was the thought which distracted him in his lonely cell at Wormwood Scrubs. What would India think of him? – he would be the scorn of the bazaars, ‘the mocking point of third-rate mediocrities,’ to use his own expression. And automatically he switched his hate from Smith Sahib to one Mr J. G. Reeder. And his hate was very real, more real because of the insignificance and unimportance of this Reeder Sahib, whom he likened to an ancient cow, a sneaking weasel, and other things less translatable. And in the six months of his durance he planned desperate and earnest acts of reprisal.

Released from prison, he decided that the moment was not ripe for a return to India. He wished to make a close study of Mr J. G. Reeder and his habits, and, being a man with plenty of money, he could afford the time, and, as it happened, could mix business with pleasure.

Mr Tommy Fenalow found means of getting in touch with the gentleman from the Orient whilst he was in Wormwood Scrubs, and the handsome limousine that met Ras Lal at the gates of the Scrubs when he came out of jail was both hired and occupied by Tommy, a keen businessman, who had been offered by his German printer a new line of one-hundred-rupee notes that might easily develop into a most profitable side-line.

‘You come along and lodge at my expense, boy,’ said the sympathetic Tommy, who was very short, very stout, and had eyes that bulged like a pug dog’s. ‘You’ve been badly treated by old Reeder, and I’m going to tell you a way of getting back on him, with no risk and a ninety per cent profit. Listen, a friend of mine –’

It was never Tommy who had snide for sale: invariably the hawker of forged notes was a mysterious ‘friend’.

So Ras was lodged in a service flat which formed part of a block owned by Mr Fenalow, who was a very rich man indeed. Some weeks after this, Tommy crossed St James’s Street to intercept his old enemy.

‘Good morning, Mr Reeder.’

Mr J. G. Reeder stopped and turned back.

‘Good morning, Mr Fenalow,’ he said, with that benevolent solicitude which goes so well with a frock coat and square-toed shoes. ‘I am glad to see that you are out again, and I do trust that you will now find a more – er – legitimate outlet for your undoubted talents.’

Tommy went angrily red.

‘I haven’t been in “stir” and you know it, Reeder! It wasn’t for want of trying on your part. But you’ve got to be something more than clever to catch me – you’ve got to be lucky! Not that there’s anything to catch me over – I’ve never done a crook thing in my life, as you well know.’

He was so annoyed that the lighter exchanges of humour he had planned slipped from his memory.

He had an appointment with Ras Lal, and the interview was entirely satisfactory. Mr Ras Lal made his way that night to an uncomfortably situated rendezvous and there met his new friend.

‘This is the last place in the world old man Reeder would dream of searching,’ said Tommy enthusiastically, ‘and if he did he would find nothing. Before he could get into the building, the stuff would be put out of sight.’

‘It is a habitation of extreme convenience,’ said Ras Lal.

‘It is yours, boy,’ replied Tommy magnificently. ‘I only keep this place to get in and put out. The stuff’s not here for an hour and the rest of the time the store’s empty. As I say, old man Reeder has gotta be something more than clever – he’s gotta be lucky!’

At parting he handed his client a key, and with that necessary instrument tendered a few words of advice and warning.

‘Never come here till late. The police patrol passes the end of the road at ten, one o’clock and four. When are you leaving for India?’

‘On the twenty-third,’ said Ras, ‘by which time I shall have uttered a few reprisals on that cad Reeder.’

‘I shouldn’t like to be in his shoes,’ said Tommy, who could afford to be sycophantic, for he had in his pocket two hundred pounds’ worth of real money which Ras had paid in advance for a vaster quantity of money which was not so real.

It was a few days after this that Ras Lal went to the Orpheum Theatre, and it was no coincidence that he went there on the same night that Mr Reeder escorted a pretty lady to the same place of amusement.

When Mr J. G. Reeder went to the theatre (and his going at all was contingent upon his receiving a complimentary ticket) he invariably chose a melodrama, and preferably a Drury Lane melodrama, where to the thrill of the actors’ speeches was added the amazing action of wrecked railway trains, hair-raising shipwrecks and terrific horse-races in which the favourite won by a nose. Such things may seem wildly improbable to blasé dramatic critics – especially favourites winning – but Mr Reeder saw actuality in all such presentations.

Once he was inveigled into sitting through a roaring farce, and was the only man in the house who did not laugh. He was, indeed, such a depressing influence that the leading lady sent a passionate request to the manager that ‘the miserable-looking old man in the middle of the front row’ should have his money returned and be requested to leave the theatre. Which, as Mr Reeder had come in on a free ticket, placed the manager in a very awkward predicament.

Invariably he went unaccompanied, for he had no friends, and fifty-two years had come and gone without bringing to his life romance or the melting tenderness begot of dreams. In some manner Mr Reeder had become acquainted with a girl who was like no other girl with whom he had been brought into contact. Her name was Belman, Margaret Belman, and he had saved her life, though this fact did not occur to him as frequently as the recollection that he had imperilled that life before he had saved it. And he had a haunting sense of guilt for quite another reason.

He was thinking of her one day – he spent his life thinking about people, though the majority of these were less respectable than Miss Margaret Belman. He supposed that she would marry the very good-looking young man who met her street car at the corner of the Embankment every morning and returned with her to the Lewisham High Road every night. It would be a very nice wedding, with hired motor-cars, and the vicar himself performing the ceremony, and a wedding breakfast provided by the local caterer, following which bride and bridegroom would be photographed on the lawn surrounded by their jovial but unprepossessing relatives. And after this, one specially hired car would take them to Eastbourne for an expensive honeymoon. And after that all the humdrum and scrapings of life, rising through villadom to a little car of their own and Saturday afternoon tennis parties.

Mr Reeder sighed deeply. How much more satisfactory was the stage drama, where all the trouble begins in the first act and is satisfactorily settled in the last. He fingered absently the two slips of green paper that had come to him that morning. Row A, seats 17 and 18. They had been sent by a manager who was under some obligation to him. The theatre was the Orpheum, home of transpontine drama, and the play was The Fires of Vengeance. It looked like being a pleasant evening.

He took an envelope from the rack, addressed it to the box office, and had begun to write the accompanying letter returning the surplus voucher, when an idea occurred to him. He owed Miss Margaret Belman something, and the debt was on his conscience. He had once, for reasons of expediency, described her as his wife. This preposterous claim had been made to appease a mad woman, it is true, but it had been made. She was now holding a good position – a secretaryship at one of the political head-quarters, for which post she had to thank Mr J. G. Reeder, if she only knew it.

He took up the ’phone and called her number, and, after the normal delay, heard her voice.

‘Er – Miss Belman,’ Mr Reeder coughed, ‘I have – er – two tickets for a theatre tonight. I wonder if you would care to go?’

Her astonishment was almost audible.

‘That is very nice of you, Mr Reeder. I should love to come with you.’

Mr J. G. Reeder turned pale.

‘What I mean is, I have two tickets – I thought perhaps that your – er – your – er – that somebody else would like to go – what I mean was –’

He heard a gentle laugh at the other end of the phone.

‘What you mean is that you don’t wish to take me,’ she said, and for a man of his experience he blundered badly.

‘I should esteem it an honour to take you,’ he said, in terror that he should offend her, ‘but the truth is, I thought –’

‘I will meet you at the theatre – which is it? Orpheum – how lovely! At eight o’clock.’

Mr Reeder put down the instrument, feeling limp and moist. It is the truth that he had never taken a lady to any kind of social function in his life, and as there grew upon him the tremendous character of this adventure he was overwhelmed and breathless. A murderer waking from dreams of revelry to find himself in the condemned cell suffered no more poignant emotions than Mr Reeder, torn from the smooth if treacherous currents of life and drawing nearer and nearer to the horrid vortex of unusualness.

‘Bless me,’ said Mr Reeder, employing a strictly private expression which was reserved for his own crises.

He employed in his private office a young woman who combined a meticulous exactness in the filing of documents with a complete absence of those attractions which turn men into gods, and in other days set the armies of Perseus moving towards the walls of Troy. She was invariably addressed by Mr Reeder as ‘Miss’. He believed her name to be ‘Oliver’. She was in truth a married lady with two children, but her nuptials had been celebrated without his knowledge.

To the top floor of a building in Regent Street Mr Reeder repaired for instruction and guidance.

‘It is not – er – a practice of mine to – er – accompany ladies to the theatre, and I am rather at a loss to know what is expected of me, the more so since the young lady is – er – a stranger to me.’

His frosty-visaged assistant sneered secretly. At Mr Reeder’s time of life, when such natural affections as were not atrophied should in decency be fossilised!

He jotted down her suggestions.

‘Chocolates indeed? Where can one procure – ? Oh, yes, I remember seeing the attendants sell them. Thank you so much, Miss – er –’

And as he went out, closing the door carefully behind him, she sneered openly.

‘They all go wrong at seventy,’ she said insultingly.

Margaret hardly knew what to expect when she came into the flamboyant foyer of the Orpheum. What was the evening equivalent to the square-topped derby and the tightly-buttoned frock coat of ancient design which he favoured in the hours of business? She would have passed the somewhat elegantly dressed gentleman in the correct pique waistcoat and the perfectly tied butterfly bow, only he claimed her attention.

‘Mr Reeder!’ she gasped.

It was indeed Mr Reeder: with not so much as a shirt-stud wrong; with a suit of the latest mode, and shoes glossy and V-toed. For Mr Reeder, like many other men, dressed according to his inclination in business hours, but accepted blindly the instructions of his tailor in the matter of fancy raiment. Mr J. G. Reeder was never conscious of his clothing, good or bad – he was, however, very conscious of his strange responsibility.

He took her cloak (he had previously purchased programmes and a large box of chocolates, which he carried by its satin ribbon). There was a quarter of an hour to wait before the curtain went up, and Margaret felt it incumbent upon her to offer an explanation.

‘You spoke about “somebody” else; do you mean Roy – the man who sometimes meets me at Westminster?’

Mr Reeder had meant that young man. ‘He and I were good friends,’ she said, ‘no more than that – we aren’t very good friends any more.’

She did not say why. She might have explained in a sentence if she had said that Roy’s mother held an exalted opinion of her only son’s qualities, physical and mental, and that Roy thoroughly endorsed his mother’s judgment, but she did not.

‘Ah!’ said Mr Reeder unhappily. Soon after this the orchestra drowned further conversation, for they were sitting in the first row near to the noisiest of the brass and not far removed from the shrillest of the woodwind. In odd moments, through the thrilling first act, she stole a glance at her companion. She expected to find this man mildly amused or slightly bored by the absurd contrast between the realities which he knew and the theatricalities which were presented on the stage. But whenever she looked, he was absorbed in the action of the play; she could almost feel him tremble when the hero was strapped to a log and thrown into the boiling mountain stream, and when the stage Jove was rescued on the fall of the curtain, she heard, with something like stupefaction, Mr Reeder’s quivering sigh of relief.

‘But surely, Mr Reeder, this bores you?’ she protested, when the lights in the auditorium went up.

‘This – you mean the play – bore me? Good gracious, no! I think it is very fine, remarkably fine.’

‘But it isn’t life, surely? The story is so wildly improbable, and the incidents – oh, yes, I’m enjoying it all; please don’t look so worried! Only I thought that you, who knew so much about criminology – is that the word? – would be rather amused.’

Mr Reeder was looking very anxiously at her.

‘I’m afraid it is not the kind of play –’

‘Oh, but it is – I love melodrama. But doesn’t it strike you as being – far-fetched? For instance, that man being chained to a log, and the mother agreeing to her son’s death?’

Mr Reeder rubbed his nose thoughtfully.

‘The Bermondsey gang chained Harry Salter to a plank, turned it over and let him down, just opposite Billingsgate Market. I was at the execution of Tod Rowe, and he admitted it on the scaffold. And it was “Lee” Pearson’s mother who poisoned him at Teddington to get his insurance money so that she could marry again. I was at the trial and she took her sentence laughing – now what else was there in that act? Oh, yes, I remember: the proprietor of the saw-mill tried to get the young lady to marry him by threatening to send her father to prison. That has been done hundreds of times – only in a worse way. There is really nothing very extravagant about a melodrama except the prices of the seats, and I usually get my tickets free!’

She listened, at first dumbfounded and then with a gurgle of amusement.

‘How queer – and yet – well, frankly, I have only met melodrama once in life, and even now I cannot believe it. What happens in the next act?’

Mr Reeder consulted his programme.

‘I rather believe that the young woman in the white dress is captured and removed to the harem of an Eastern potentate,’ he said precisely, and this time the girl laughed aloud.

‘Have you a parallel for that?’ she asked triumphantly, and Mr Reeder was compelled to admit that he knew no exact parallel, but – ‘It is rather a remarkable coincidence,’ he said, ‘a very remarkable coincidence!’

She looked at her programme, wondering if she had overlooked anything so very remarkable.

‘There is at this moment, watching me from the front row of the dress circle – I beg you not to turn your head – one who, if he is not a potentate, is undoubtedly Eastern; there are, in fact, two dark-complexioned gentlemen, but only one may be described as important.’

‘But why are they watching you?’ she asked in surprise.

‘Possibly,’ said Mr Reeder solemnly, ‘because I look so remarkable in evening dress.’

One of the dark-complexioned gentlemen turned to his companion at this moment.

‘It is the woman he travels with every day; she lives in the same street, and is doubtless more to him than anybody in the world, Ram. See how she laughs in his face and how the old so-and-so looks at her! When men come to his great age they grow silly about women. This thing can be done tonight. I would sooner die than go back to Bombay without accomplishing my design upon this such-and-such and so-forth.’

Ram, his chauffeur, confederate and fellow jail-bird, who was cast in a less heroic mould, and had, moreover, no personal vendetta, suggested in haste that the matter should be thought over.

‘I have cogitated every hypothesis to its logical conclusions,’ said Ras Lal in English.

‘But, master,’ said his companion urgently, ‘would it not be wise to leave this country and make a fortune with the new money which the fat little man can sell to us?’

‘Vengeance is mine,’ said Ras Lal in English.

He sat through the next act which, as Mr Reeder had truly said, depicted the luring of an innocent girl into the hateful clutches of a Turkish pasha and, watching the development of the plot, his own scheme underwent revision. He did not wait to see what happened in the third and fourth acts – there were certain preparations to be made.

‘I still think that, whilst the story is awfully thrilling, it is awfully impossible,’ said Margaret, as they moved slowly through the crowded vestibule. ‘In real life – in civilised countries, I mean – masked men do not suddenly appear from nowhere with pistols and say “Hands up!” – not really, do they, Mr Reeder?’ she coaxed.

Mr Reeder murmured a reluctant agreement.

‘But I have enjoyed it tremendously!’ she said with enthusiasm, and looking down into the pink face Mr Reeder felt a curious sensation which was not entirely pleasure and not wholly pain.

‘I am very glad,’ he said.

Both the dress-circle and the stalls disgorged into the foyer, and he was looking round for a face he had seen when he arrived. But neither Ras Lal nor his companion in misfortune was visible. Rain was falling dismally, and it was some time before he found a cab.

‘Luxury upon luxury,’ smiled Margaret, when he took his place by her side. ‘You may smoke if you wish.’

Mr Reeder took a paper packet of cigarettes from his waistcoat pocket, selected a limp cylinder, and lit it.

‘No plays are quite like life, my dear young lady,’ he said, as he carefully pushed the match through the space between the top of the window and the frame. ‘Melodramas appeal most to me because of their idealism.’

She turned and stared at him.

‘Idealism?’ she repeated incredulously.

He nodded.

‘Have you ever noticed that there is nothing sordid about a melodrama? I once saw a classical drama – Oedipus – and it made me feel sick. In melodrama even the villains are heroic and the inevitable and unvarying moral is “Truth crushed to earth will rise again” – isn’t that idealism? And they are wholesome. There are no sex problems; unpleasant things are never shown in an attractive light – you come away uplifted.’

‘If you are young enough,’ she smiled.

‘One should always be young enough to rejoice in the triumph of virtue,’ said Mr Reeder soberly.

They crossed Westminster Bridge and bore left to the New Kent Road. Through the rain-blurred windows J. G. picked up the familiar landmarks and offered a running commentary upon them in the manner of a guide. Margaret had not realised before that history was made in South London.

‘There used to be a gibbet here – this ugly-looking goods station was the London terminus of the first railways – Queen Alexandra drove from there when she came to be married – the thoroughfare on the right after we pass the Canal bridge is curiously named Bird-in-Bush Road –’

A big car had drawn level with the cab, and the driver was shouting something to the cabman. Even the suspicious Mr Reeder suspected no more than an exchange of offensiveness, till the cab suddenly turned into the road he had been speaking about. The car had fallen behind, but now drew abreast.

‘Probably the main road is up,’ said J. G., and at that moment the cab slowed and stopped.

He was reaching out for the handle when the door was pulled open violently, and in the uncertain light Mr Reeder saw a broad-shouldered man standing in the road.

‘Alight quickly!’

In the man’s hand was a long, black Colt, and his face was covered from chin to forehead by a mask.

‘Quickly – and keep your hands erect!’

Mr Reeder stepped out into the rain and reached to close the door.

‘The female also – come, miss!’

‘Here – what’s the game – you told me the New Cross Road was blocked.’ It was the cabman talking.

‘Here is a five – keep your mouth shut.’

The masked man thrust a note at the driver.

‘I don’t want your money –’

‘You require my bullet in your bosom perchance, my good fellow?’ asked Ras Lal sardonically.

Margaret had followed her escort into the road by this time. The car had stopped just behind the cab. With the muzzle of the pistol stuck into his back, Mr Reeder walked to the open door and entered. The girl followed, and the masked man jumped after them and closed the door. Instantly the interior was flooded with light.

‘This is a considerable surprise to a clever and intelligent police detective?’

Their captor sat on the opposite seat, his pistol on his knees. Through the holes of the black mask a pair of brown eyes gleamed malevolently. But Mr Reeder’s interest was in the girl. The shock had struck the colour from her face, but he observed with thankfulness that her chief emotion was not fear. She was numb with amazement, and was stricken speechless.

The car had circled and was moving swiftly back the way they had come. He felt the rise of the Canal bridge, and then the machine turned abruptly to the right and began the descent of a steep hill. They were running towards Rotherhithe – he had an extraordinary knowledge of London’s topography.

The journey was a short one. He felt the car wheels bump over an uneven roadway for a hundred yards, the body rocking uncomfortably, and then with a jar of brakes the machine stopped suddenly.

They were on a narrow muddy lane. On one side rose the arches of a railway viaduct, on the other an open space bounded by a high fence. Evidently the driver had pulled up short of their destination, for they had to squelch and slide through the thick mud for another fifty yards before they came to a narrow gateway in the fence. Through this they struck a cinder-path leading to a square building, which Mr Reeder guessed was a small factory of some kind. Their conductor flashed a lamp on the door, and in weatherworn letters the detective read:

THE STORN-FILTON LEATHER COMPANY

‘Now!’ said the man, as he turned a switch. ‘Now, my false-swearing and corrupt police official, I have a slight bill to settle with you.’

They were in a dusty lobby, enclosed on three sides by matchboard walls.

‘ “Account” is the word you want, Ras Lal,’ murmured Mr Reeder.

For a moment the man was taken aback, and then, snatching the mask from his face: ‘I am Ras Lal! And you shall repent it! For you and for your young missus this is indeed a cruel night of anxiety!’

Mr Reeder did not smile at the quaint English. The gun in the man’s hand spoke all languages without error, and could be as fatal in the hands of an unconscious humourist as if it were handled by the most savage of purists.

And he was worried about the girl: she had not spoken a word since their capture. The colour had come back to her cheeks, and that was a good sign. There was, too, a light in her eyes which Reeder could not associate with fear.

Ras Lal, taking down a long cord that hung on a nail in the wooden partition, hesitated.

‘It is not necessary,’ he said, with an elaborate shrug of shoulder; ‘the room is sufficiently reconnoitred – you will be innocuous there.’

Flinging open a door, he motioned them to pass through and mount the bare stairs which faced them. At the top was a landing and a large steel door set in the solid brickwork.

Pulling back the iron bolt, he pushed at the door, and it opened with a squeak. It was a large room, and had evidently been used for the storage of something inflammable, for the walls and floor were of rough-faced concrete and above a dusty desk an inscription was painted, ‘Danger. Don’t smoke in this store.’ There were no windows except one some eighteen inches square, the top of which was near the ceiling. In one corner of the room was a heap of grimy paper files, and on the desk a dozen small wooden boxes, one of which had been opened, for the nail-bristling lid was canted up at an angle.

‘Make yourself content for half an hour or probably forty minutes,’ said Ras Lal, standing in the doorway with his ostentatious revolver. ‘At that time I shall come for your female; tomorrow she will be on a ship with me, bound for – ah, who knows where?’

‘Shut the door as you go out,’ said Mr J. G. Reeder; ‘there is an unpleasant draught.’

Mr Tommy Fenalow came on foot at two o’clock in the morning and, passing down the muddy lane, his electric torch suddenly revealed car marks. Tommy stopped like a man shot. His knees trembled beneath him and his heart entered his throat at the narrowest end. For a while he was undecided whether it would be better to run or walk away. He had no intention of going forward. And then he heard a voice. It was Ras Lal’s assistant, and he nearly swooned with joy. Stumbling forward, he came up to the shivering man.

‘Did that fool boss of yours bring the car along here?’ he asked in a whisper.

‘Yas – Mr Ras Lal,’ said Ram, with whom the English language was not a strong point.

‘Then he’s a fool!’ growled Tommy. ‘Gosh! he put my heart in my mouth!’

Whilst Ram was getting together sufficient English to explain what had happened, Tommy passed on. He found his client sitting in the lobby, a black cheroot between his teeth, a smile of satisfaction on his dark face.

‘Welcome!’ he said, as Tommy closed the door. ‘We have trapped the weasel.’

‘Never mind about the weasel,’ said the other impatiently. ‘Did you find the rupees?’

Ras Lal shook his head.

‘But I left them in the store – ten thousand notes. I thought you’d have got them and skipped before this,’ said Mr Fenalow anxiously.

‘I have something more important in the store – come and see, my friend.’

He preceded the bewildered Tommy up the stairs, turned on the landing light and threw open the door.

‘Behold –’ he said, and said no more.

‘Why, it is Mr Fenalow!’ said Mr J. G.

One hand held a packet of almost life-like rupee notes; as for the other hand –

‘You oughter known he carried a gun, you dam’ black baboon,’ hissed Tommy. ‘An’ to put him in a room where the stuff was, and a telephone!’

He was being driven to the local police station, and for the moment was attached to his companion by links of steel.

‘It was a mere jest or a piece of practical joking, as I shall explain to the judge in the morning,’ said Ras airily.

Tommy Fenalow’s reply was unprintable.

* * *

Three o’clock boomed out from St John’s Church as Mr Reeder accompanied an excited girl to the front door of her boarding-house.

‘I can’t tell you how I – I’ve enjoyed tonight,’ she said.

Mr Reeder glanced uneasily at the dark face of the house.

‘I hope – er – your friends will not think it remarkable that you should return at such an hour –’

Despite her assurance, he went slowly home with an uneasy feeling that her name had in some way been compromised. And in melodrama, when a heroine’s name is compromised, somebody has to marry her.

That was the disturbing thought that kept Mr Reeder awake all night.

The Green Mamba

The spirit of exploration has ruined more promising careers than drink, gambling or the smiles of women. Generally speaking, the beaten tracks of life are the safest, and few men have adventured into the uncharted spaces in search of easy money who have not regarded the discovery of the old hard road whence they strayed as the greatest of their achievements.

Mo Liski held an assured position in his world, and one acquired by the strenuous and even violent exercise of his many qualities. He might have gone on until the end of the chapter, only he fell for an outside proposition, and, moreover, handicapped himself with a private feud, which had its beginning in an affair wholly remote from his normal operations.

There was a Moorish grafter named El Rahbut, who had made several visits to England, travelling by the banana boats which make the round trip from London River to Funchal Bay, Las Palmas, Tangier and Oporto. He was a very ordinary, yellow-faced Moor, pock-marked and undersized, and he spoke English, having in his youth fallen into the hands of a well-meaning American missionary. This man Rahbut was useful to Mo because quite a lot of German drugs are shipped via Trieste to the Levant, and many a crate of oranges has been landed in the Pool that had, squeezed in their golden interiors, little metal cylinders containing smuggled saccharine, heroin, cocaine, hydrochlorate and divers other noxious medicaments.

Rahbut brought such things from time to time, was paid fairly and was satisfied. One day, in the saloon bar of the Four Jolly Seamen, he told Mo of a great steal. It had been carried out by a group of Anghera thieves working in Fez, and the loot was no less than the Emeralds of Suliman, the most treasured possession of Morocco. Not even Abdul Aziz in his most impecunious days had dared to remove them from the Mosque of Omar; the Anghera men being what they were, broke into the holy house, killed two guardians of the treasure, and had got away with the nine green stones of the great king. Thereafter arose an outcry which was heard from the bazaars of Calcutta to the mean streets of Marsi-Karsi. But the men of Anghera were superior to the voice of public opinion and they did no more than seek a buyer. El Rahbut, being a notorious bad character, came into the matter, and this was the tale he told to Mo Liski at the Four Jolly Seamen one foggy October night.

‘There is a million pesetas profit in this for you and me, Mr Good Man,’ said Rahbut (all Europeans who paid on the nail were ‘Mr Good Man’ to El Rahbut). ‘There is also death for me if this thing becomes known.’

Mo listened, smoothing his chin with a hand that sparkled and flashed dazzlingly. He was keen on ornamentation. It was a little outside his line, but the newspapers had stated the bald value of the stolen property, and his blood was on fire at the prospect of earning half a million so easily. That Scotland Yard and every police headquarters in the world were on the lookout for the nine stones of Suliman did not greatly disturb him. He knew the subterranean way down which a polished stone might slide; and if the worst came to the worst, there was a reward of £5,000 for the recovery of the jewels.

‘I’ll think it over; where is the stuff?’

‘Here,’ said Rahbut, to the other’s surprise. ‘In ten-twenty minutes I could lay them on your hands, Mr Good Man.’

Here seemed a straightforward piece of negotiation; it was doubly unfortunate that at that very period he should find himself mixed up in an affair which promised no profit whatever – the feud of Marylou Plessy, which was to become his because of his high regard for the lady.

When a woman is bad, she is usually very bad indeed, and Marylou Plessy was an extremely malignant woman. She was rather tall and handsome, with black sleek hair, boyishly shingled, and a heavy black fringe that covered a forehead of some distinction.

Mr Reeder saw her once: he was at the Central Criminal Court giving evidence against Bartholomew Xavier Plessy, an ingenious Frenchman who discovered a new way of making old money. His forgeries were well-nigh undetectable, but Mr Reeder was no ordinary man. He not only detected them, but he traced the printer, and that was why Bartholomew Xavier faced an unimpassioned judge, who told him in a hushed voice how very wrong it was to debase the currency; how it struck at the very roots of our commercial and industrial life. This the debonair man in the dock did not resent. He knew all about it. It was the judge’s curt postscript which made him wince.

‘You will be kept in penal servitude for twenty years.’

That Marylou loved the man is open to question. The probabilities are that she did not; but she hated Mr Reeder, and she hated him not because he had brought her man to his undoing, but because, in the course of his evidence, he had used the phrase ‘the woman with whom the prisoner is associated’. And Mr John Reeder could have put her beside Plessy in the dock had he so wished: she knew this too and loathed him for his mercifulness.

Mrs Plessy had a large flat in Portland Street. It was in a block which was the joint property of herself and her husband, for their graft had been on the grand scale, and Mr Plessy owned race-horses before he owned a number in Parkhurst Convict Establishment. And here Marylou entertained lavishly.

A few months after her husband went to prison, she dined tête-à-tête with Mo Liski, the biggest of the gang leaders and an uncrowned emperor of the underworld. He was a small, dapper man who wore pince-nez and looked rather like a member of one of the learned professions. Yet he ruled the Strafas and the Sullivans and the Birklows, and his word was law on a dozen race-tracks, in a score of spieling clubs and innumerable establishments less liable to police supervision. People opposing him were incontinently ‘coshed’ – rival leaders more or less paid tribute and walked warily at that. He levied toll upon bookmakers and was immune from police interference by reason of their two failures to convict him.

Since there are white specks on the blackest coat, he had this redeeming feature, that Marylou Plessy was his ideal woman, and it is creditable in a thief to possess ideals, however unworthily they may be disposed.

He listened intently to Marylou’s views, playing with his thin watchguard, his eyes on the embroidery of the tablecloth. But though he loved her, his native caution held him to reason.

‘That’s all right, Marylou,’ he said. ‘I dare say I could get Reeder, but what is going to happen then? There will be a squeak louder than a bus brake! And he’s dangerous. I never worry about the regular busies, but this old feller is in the Public Prosecutor’s office, and he wasn’t put there because he’s silly. And just now I’ve got one of the biggest deals on that I’ve ever touched. Can’t you “do” him yourself? You’re a clever woman: I don’t know a cleverer.’

‘Of course, if you’re scared of Reeder – !’ she said contemptuously, and a tolerant smile twisted his thin lips.

‘Me? Don’t be silly, dearie! Show him a point yourself. If you can’t get him, let me know. Scared of him! Listen! That old bird would lose his feathers and be skinned for the pot before you could say “Mo Liski” if I wanted!’

In the Public Prosecutor’s office they had no doubt about Mr Reeder’s ability to take care of himself, and when Chief Inspector Pyne came over from the Yard to report that Marylou had been in conference with the most dangerous man in London, the Assistant Prosecutor grinned his amusement.

‘No – Reeder wants no protection. I’ll tell him if you like, but he probably knows all about it. What are you people doing about the Liski crowd?’

Pyne pulled a long face.

‘We’ve had Liski twice, but well organised perjury has saved him. The Assistant Commissioner doesn’t want him again till we get him with the blood on his hands, so to speak. He’s dangerous.’

The Assistant Prosecutor nodded.

‘So is Reeder,’ he said ominously. ‘That man is a genial mamba! Never seen a mamba? He’s a nice black snake, and you’re dead two seconds after he strikes!’

The chief inspector’s smile was one of incredulity.

‘He never impressed me that way – rabbit, yes, but snake, no!’

Later in the morning a messenger brought Mr Reeder to the chief’s office, and he arrived with that ineffable air of apology and diffidence which gave the uninitiated such an altogether wrong idea of his calibre. He listened with closed eyes whilst his superior told him of the meeting between Liski and Marylou.

‘Yes, sir,’ he sighed, when the narrative came to an end. ‘I have heard rumours. Liski? He is the person who associates with unlawful characters? In other days and under more favourable conditions he would have been the leader of a Florentine faction. An interesting man. With interesting friends.’

‘I hope your interest remains impersonal,’ warned the lawyer, and Mr Reeder sighed again, opened his mouth to speak, hesitated, and then: ‘Doesn’t the continued freedom of Mr Liski cast – um – a reflection upon our department, sir?’ he asked.

His chief looked up: it was an inspiration which made him say: ‘Get him!’

Mr Reeder nodded very slowly.

‘I have often thought that it would be a good idea,’ he said. His gaze deepened in melancholy. ‘Liski has many acquaintances of a curious character,’ he said at last. ‘Dutchmen, Russians, Jewish persons – he knows a Moor.’

The chief looked up quickly.

‘A Moor – you’re thinking of the Nine Emeralds? My dear man, there are hundreds of Moors in London and thousands in Paris.’

‘And millions in Morocco,’ murmured Mr Reeder. ‘I only mention the Moor in passing, sir. As regards my friend Mrs Plessy – I hope only for the best.’

And he melted from the room.

The greater part of a month passed before he showed any apparent interest in the case. He spent odd hours wandering in the neighbourhood of Lambeth, and on one occasion he was seen in the members’ enclosure at Hurst Park race-track – but he spoke to nobody, and nobody spoke to him.

One night Mr Reeder came dreamily back to his well-ordered house in Brockley Road, and found waiting on his table a small flat box which had arrived, his housekeeper told him, by post that afternoon. The label was addressed in typewritten characters ‘John Reeder, Esq.’ and the postmark was Central London.

He cut the thin ribbon which tied it, stripped first the brown paper and then the silver tissue, and exposed a satiny lid, which he lifted daintily. There, under a layer of paper shavings, were roll upon roll of luscious confectionery. Chocolate, with or without dainty extras, had an appeal for Mr Reeder, and he took up a small globule garnished with crystallised violets and examined it admiringly.

His housekeeper came in at that moment with his tea-tray and set it down on the table. Mr Reeder looked over his large glasses.

‘Do you like chocolates, Mrs Kerrel?’ he asked plaintively.

‘Why, yes, sir,’ the elderly lady beamed. ‘So do I,’ said Mr Reeder. ‘So do I!’ and he shook his head regretfully, as he replaced the chocolate carefully in the box. ‘Unfortunately,’ he went on, ‘my doctor – a very excellent man – has forbidden me all sorts of confectionery until they have been submitted to the rigorous test of the public analyst.’

Mrs Kerrel was a slow thinker, but a study of current advertisement columns in the daily newspaper had enlarged to a very considerable extent her scientific knowledge.

‘To see if there is any vitamines in them, sir?’ she suggested.

Mr Reeder shook his head.

‘No, I hardly think so,’ he said gently. ‘Vitamines are my sole diet. I can spend a whole evening with no other company than a pair of these interesting little fellows, and take no ill from them. Thank you, Mrs Kerrel.’

When she had gone, he replaced the layer of shavings with punctilious care, closed down the lid, and as carefully re-wrapped the parcel. When it was finished he addressed the package to a department at Scotland Yard, took from a small box a label printed redly ‘Poison’. When this was done, he scribbled a note to the gentleman affected, and addressed himself to his muffins and his large teacup.

It was a quarter-past six in the evening when he had unwrapped the chocolates. It was exactly a quarter-past eleven, as he turned out the lights preparatory to going to bed, that he said aloud: ‘Marylou Plessy – dear me!’

Here began the war.

This was Wednesday evening; on Friday morning the toilet of Marylou Plessy was interrupted by the arrival of two men who were waiting for her when she came into the sitting-room in her negligée. They talked about fingerprints found on chocolates and other such matters.

Half an hour later a dazed woman sat in the cells at Harlboro Street and listened to an inspector’s recital of her offence. At the following sessions she went down for two years on a charge of ‘conveying by post to John Reeder a poisonous substance, to wit aconite, with intent to murder.’

To the last Mo Liski sat in court, his drawn haggard face testifying to the strength of his affection for the woman in the dock. After she disappeared from the dock he went outside into the big, windy hall, and there and then made his first mistake.

Mr Reeder was putting on his woollen gloves when the dapper man strode up to him.

‘Name of Reeder?’

‘That is my name, sir.’

Mr Reeder surveyed him benevolently over his glasses. He had the expectant air of one who has steeled himself to receive congratulations.

‘Mine is Mo Liski. You’ve sent down a friend of mine –’

‘Mrs Plessy?’

‘Yes – you know! Reeder, I’m going to get you for that!’

Instantly somebody behind him caught his arm in a vice and swung him round. It was a City detective.

‘Take a walk with me,’ he said.

Mo went white. Remember that he owed the strength of his position to the fact that never once had he been convicted: the register did not bear his name.

‘What’s the charge?’ he asked huskily. ‘Intimidation of a Crown witness and using threatening language,’ said the officer.

Mo came up before the Aldermen at the Guildhall the next morning and was sent to prison for three weeks, and Mr Reeder, who knew the threat would come and was ready to counter with the traditional swiftness of the mamba, felt that he had scored a point. The gang leader was, in the parlance of the law, ‘a convicted person’.

‘I don’t think anything will happen until he comes out,’ he said to Pyne, when he was offered police protection. ‘He will find a great deal of satisfaction in arranging the details of my – um – “bashing”, and I feel sure that he will postpone action until he is free. I had better have that protection until he comes out –’

‘After he comes out, you mean?’

‘Until he comes out,’ insisted Mr Reeder carefully. ‘After – well – um – I’d rather like to be unhampered by – um – police protection.’

Mo Liski came to his liberty with all his senses alert. The cat-caution which had, with only one break, kept him clear of trouble, dominated his every plan. Cold-bloodedly he cursed himself for jeopardising his emerald deal, and his first step was to get into touch with El Rahbut.

But there was a maddening new factor in his life: the bitter consciousness of his fallibility and the fear that the men he had ruled so completely might, in consequence, attempt to break away from their allegiance. There was something more than sentiment behind this fear. Mo drew close on fifteen thousand a year from his racecourse and club-house victims alone. There were pickings on the side: his ‘crowd’ largely controlled a continental drug traffic worth thousands a year. Which may read romantic and imaginative, but was true. Not all the ‘bunce’ came to Mo and his men. There were pickings for the carrion fowl as well as for the wolves.

He must fix Reeder. That was the first move. And fix him so that there was no recoil. To beat him up one night would be an easy matter, but that would look too much like carrying into execution the threat which had put him behind bars. Obviously some ingenuity was called for; some exquisite punishment more poignant than the shock of clubs.

Men of Mr Liski’s peculiar calling do not meet their lieutenants in dark cellars, nor do they wear cloaks or masks to disguise their identities. The big six who controlled the interests serving Mo Liski came together on the night of his release, and the gathering was at a Soho restaurant, where a private dining-room was engaged in the ordinary way.

‘I’m glad nobody touched him whilst I was away,’ said Mo with a little smile. ‘I’d like to manage this game myself. I’ve been doing some thinking whilst I was in bird, and there’s a good way to deal with him.’

‘He had two coppers with him all the time, or I’d have coshed him for you, Mo,’ said Teddy Alfield, his chief of staff.

‘And I’d have coshed you, Teddy,’ said Mr Liski ominously. ‘I left orders that he wasn’t to be touched, didn’t I? What do you mean by “you’d have coshed him”?’

Alfield, a big-shouldered man whose speciality was the ‘knocking-off’ of unattended motor-cars, grew incoherent.

‘You stick to your job,’ snarled Mo. ‘I’ll fix Reeder. He’s got a girl in Brockley; a young woman who is always going about with him – Belman’s her name and she lives nearly opposite his house. We don’t want to beat him up – yet. What we want to do is to get him out of his job, and that’s easy. They fired a man in the Home Office last week because he was found at the “95” Club after drinking hours.’

He outlined a simple plan.

Margaret Belman left her office one evening and, walking to the corner of Westminster Bridge and the Embankment, looked around for Mr Reeder. Usually, if his business permitted, he was to be found hereabouts, though of late the meetings had been very few, and when she had seen him he was usually in the company of two glum men who seated themselves on either side of him.

She let one car pass, and had decided to catch the second which was coming slowly along the Embankment, when a parcel dropped at her feet. She looked round to see a pretty, well-dressed woman swaying with closed eyes, and had just time to catch her by the arm before she half collapsed. With her arm round the woman’s waist she assisted her to a seat providentially placed hereabouts.

‘I’m so sorry – thank you ever so much. I wonder if you would call me a taxi?’ gasped the fainting lady.

She spoke with a slightly foreign accent, and had the indefinable manner of a great lady, so Margaret thought.

Beckoning a cab, she assisted the woman to enter.

‘Would you like me to go home with you?’ asked the sympathetic girl.

‘It would be good of you,’ murmured the lady, ‘but I fear to inconvenience you – it was so silly of me. My address is 105, Great Claridge Street.’

She recovered sufficiently on the journey to tell Margaret that she was Madame Lemaire, and that she was the widow of a French banker. The beautiful appointments of the big house in the most fashionable part of Mayfair suggested that Madame Lemaire was a woman of some wealth. A butler opened the door, a liveried footman brought in the tea which Madame insisted on the girl taking with her.

‘You are too good. I cannot be thankful enough to you, mademoiselle. I must know you better. Will you come one night to dinner? Shall we say Thursday?’

Margaret Belman hesitated. She was human enough to be impressed by the luxury of her surroundings, and this dainty lady had the appeal of refinement and charm which is so difficult to resist.

‘We will dine tête-à-tête, and after – some people may come for dancing. Perhaps you have a friend you would like to come?’

Margaret smiled and shook her head. Curiously enough, the word ‘friend’ suggested only the rather awkward figure of Mr Reeder, and somehow she could not imagine Mr Reeder in this setting.

When she came out into the street and the butler had closed the door behind her, she had the first shock of the day. The object of her thoughts was standing on the opposite side of the road, a furled umbrella hooked to his arm.

‘Why, Mr Reeder!’ she greeted him.

‘You had seven minutes to spare,’ he said, looking at his big-faced watch. ‘I gave you half an hour – you were exactly twenty-three minutes and a few odd seconds.’

‘Did you know I was there?’ she asked unnecessarily.

‘Yes – I followed you. I do not like Mrs Annie Feltham – she calls herself Madame something or other. It is not a nice club.’

‘Club!’ she gasped.

Mr Reeder nodded.

‘They call it the Muffin Club. Curious name – curious members. It is not nice.’

She asked no further questions, but allowed herself to be escorted to Brockley, wondering just why Madame had picked upon her as a likely recruit to the gaieties of Mayfair.

And now occurred the succession of incidents which at first had so puzzled Mr Liski. He was a busy man, and almost regretted that he had not postponed putting his plan of operation into movement. That he had failed in one respect he discovered when by accident, as it seemed, he met Mr Reeder face to face in Piccadilly.

‘Good morning, Liski,’ said Mr Reeder, almost apologetically. ‘I was so sorry for that unfortunate contretemps, but believe me, I bear no malice. And whilst I realise that in all probability you do not share my sentiments, I have no other wish than to live on the friendliest terms with you.’

Liski looked at him sharply. The old man was getting scared, he thought. There was almost a tremble in his anxious voice when he put forward the olive branch.

‘That’s all right, Mr Reeder,’ said Mo, with his most charming smile. ‘I don’t bear any malice either. After all, it was a silly thing to say, and you have your duty to do.’

He went on in this strain, stringing platitude to platitude, and Mr Reeder listened with evidence of growing relief.

‘The world is full of sin and trouble,’ he said, shaking his head sadly; ‘both in high and low places vice is triumphant, and virtue thrust, like the daisies, underfoot. You don’t keep chickens, do you, Mr Liski?’

Mo Liski shook his head.

‘What a pity!’ sighed Mr Reeder. ‘There is so much one can learn from the domestic fowl! They are an object lesson to the unlawful. I often wonder why the Prison Commissioners do not allow the convicts at Dartmoor to engage in this harmless and instructive hobby. I was saying to Mr Pyne early this morning, when they raided the Muffin Club – what a quaint title it has –’

‘Raided the Muffin Club?’ said Mo quickly. ‘What do you mean? I’ve heard nothing about that.’

‘You wouldn’t. That kind of institution would hardly appeal to you. Only we thought it was best to raid the place, though in doing so I fear I have incurred the displeasure of a young lady friend of mine who was invited to dinner there tomorrow night. As I say, chickens –’

Now Mo Liski knew that his plan had miscarried. Yet he was puzzled by the man’s attitude.

‘Perhaps you would like to come down and see my Buff Orpingtons, Mr Liski? I live in Brockley.’ Reeder removed his glasses and glared owlishly at his companion. ‘Say at nine o’clock tonight; there is so much to talk about. At the same time, it would add to the comfort of all concerned if you did not arrive – um – conspicuously: do you understand what I mean? I should not like the people of my office, for example, to know.’

A slow smile dawned on Liski’s face. It was his faith that all men had their price, whether it was paid in cash or terror; and this invitation to a secret conference was in a sense a tribute to the power he wielded.

At nine o’clock he came to Brockley, half hoping that Mr Reeder would go a little farther along the road which leads to compromise. But, strangely enough, the elderly detective talked of nothing but chickens. He sat on one side of the table, his hands clasped on the cloth, his voice vibrant with pride as he spoke of the breed that he was introducing to the English fowl-house, and, bored to extinction, Mo waited.

‘There is something I wanted to say to you, but I fear that I must postpone that until another meeting,’ said Mr Reeder, as he helped his visitor on with his coat. ‘I will walk with you to the corner of Lewisham High Road: the place is full of bad characters, and I shouldn’t like to feel that I had endangered your well-being by bringing you to this lowly spot.’

Now, if there is one place in the world which is highly respectable and free from the footpads which infest wealthier neighbourhoods, it is Brockley Road. Liski submitted to the company of his host, and walked to the church at the end of the road.

‘Goodbye, Mr Liski,’ said Reeder earnestly. ‘I shall never forget this pleasant meeting. You have been of the greatest help and assistance to me. You may be sure that neither I nor the department I have the honour to represent will ever forget you.’

Liski went back to town, a frankly bewildered man. In the early hours of the morning the police arrested his chief lieutenant, Teddy Alfield, and charged him with a motor-car robbery which had been committed three months before.

That was the first of the inexplicable happenings. The second came when Liski, returning to his flat off Portland Place, was suddenly confronted by the awkward figure of the detective.

‘Is that Liski?’ Mr Reeder peered forward in the darkness. ‘I’m so glad I’ve found you. I’ve been looking for you all day. I fear I horribly misled you the other evening when I was telling you that Leghorns are unsuitable for sandy soil. Now on the contrary –’

‘Look here, Mr Reeder, what’s the game?’ demanded the other brusquely.

‘The game?’ asked Reeder in a pained tone.

‘I don’t want to know anything about chickens. If you’ve got anything to tell me worth while, drop me a line and I’ll come to your office, or you can come to mine.’

He brushed past the man from the Public Prosecutor’s Department and slammed the door of his flat behind him. Within two hours a squad from Scotland Yard descended upon the house of Harry Merton, took Harry and his wife from their respective beds, and charged them with the unlawful possession of stolen jewellery which had been traced to a safe deposit.

A week later, Liski, returning from a vital interview with El Rahbut, heard plodding steps overtaking him, and turned to meet the pained eye of Mr Reeder.

‘How providential meeting you!’ said Reeder fervently. ‘No, no, I do not wish to speak about chickens, though I am hurt a little by your indifference to this noble and productive bird.’

‘Then what in hell do you want?’ snapped Liski. ‘I don’t want anything to do with you, Reeder, and the sooner you get that into your system the better. I don’t wish to discuss fowls, horses –’

‘Wait!’ Mr Reeder bent forward and lowered his voice. ‘Is it not possible for you and me to meet together and exchange confidences?’

Mo Liski smiled slowly.

‘Oh, you’re coming to it at last, eh? All right. I’ll meet you anywhere you please.’

‘Shall we say in the Mall near the Artillery statue, tomorrow night at ten? I don’t think we shall be seen there.’

Liski nodded shortly and went on, still wondering what the man had to tell him. At four o’clock he was wakened by the telephone ringing furiously, and learnt, to his horror, that O’Hara, the most trustworthy of his gang leaders, had been arrested and charged with a year-old burglary. It was Carter, one of the minor leaders, who brought the news.

‘What’s the idea, Liski?’ And there was a note of suspicion in the voice of his subordinate which made Liski’s jaw drop.

‘What do you mean – what’s the idea? Come round and see me. I don’t want to talk over the phone.’

Carter arrived half an hour later, a scowling, suspicious man.

‘Now what do you want to say?’ asked Mo, when they were alone.

‘All I’ve got to say is this,’ growled Carter; ‘a week ago you’re seen talking to old Reeder in Lewisham Road, and the same night Teddy Alfield is pinched. You’re spotted having a quiet talk with this old dog, and the same night another of the gang goes west. Last night I saw you with my own eyes having a confidential chat with Reeder – and now O’Hara’s gone!’

Mo looked at him incredulously.

‘Well, and what about it?’ he asked.

‘Nothing – except that it’s a queer coincidence, that’s all,’ said Carter, his lip curling. ‘The boys have been talking about it: they don’t like it, and you can’t blame them.’

Liski sat pinching his lip, a far-away look in his eyes. It was true, though the coincidence had not struck him before. So that was the old devil’s game! He was undermining his authority, arousing a wave of suspicion which, if it were not checked, would sweep him from his position.

‘All right, Carter,’ he said, in a surprisingly mild tone. ‘It never hit me that way before. Now I’ll tell you, and you can tell the other boys just what has happened.’

In a few words he explained Mr Reeder’s invitations.

‘And you can tell ’em from me that I’m meeting the old fellow tomorrow night, and I’m going to give him something to remember me by.’

The thing was clear to him now, as he sat, after the man’s departure, going over the events of the past week. The three men who had been arrested had been under police suspicion for a long time, and Mo knew that not even he could have saved them. The arrests had been made by arrangement with Scotland Yard to suit the convenience of the artful Mr Reeder.

‘I’ll “artful” him!’ said Mo, and spent the rest of the day making his preparations.

At ten o’clock that night he passed under the Admiralty Arch. A yellow mist covered the park, a drizzle of rain was falling, and save for the cars that came at odd intervals towards the palace, there was no sign of life.

He walked steadily past the Memorial, waiting for Mr Reeder. Ten o’clock struck and a quarter past, but there was no sign of the detective.

‘He’s smelt a rat,’ said Mo Liski between his teeth, and replaced the short life-preserver he had carried in his pocket.

It was at eleven o’clock that a patrolling police-constable fell over a groaning something that lay across the sidewalk, and, flashing his electric lamp upon the still figure, saw the carved handle of a Moorish knife before he recognised the pain-distorted face of the stricken Mo Liski.

* * *

‘I don’t quite understand how it all came about,’ said Pyne thoughtfully. (He had been called into consultation from headquarters.) ‘Why are you so sure it was the Moor Rahbut?’

‘I am not sure,’ Mr Reeder hastened to correct the mistaken impression. ‘I mentioned Rahbut because I had seen him in the afternoon and searched his lodgings for the emeralds – which I am perfectly sure are still in Morocco, sir.’ He addressed his chief. ‘Mr Rahbut was quite a reasonable man, remembering that he is a stranger to our methods.’

‘Did you mention Mo Liski at all, Mr Reeder?’ asked the Assistant Public Prosecutor.

Mr Reeder scratched his chin.

‘I think I did – yes, I’m pretty certain that I told him that I had an appointment with Mr Liski at ten o’clock. I may even have said where the appointment was to be kept. I can’t remember exactly how the subject of Liski came up. Possibly I may have tried to bluff this indigenous native – “Bluff” is a vulgar word, but it will convey what I mean – into the belief that unless he gave me more information about the emeralds, I should be compelled to consult one who knew so many secrets. Possibly I did say that. Mr Liski will be a long time in hospital, I hear? That is a pity. I should never forgive myself if my incautious words resulted in poor Mr Liski being taken to the hospital – alive!’

When he had gone, the chief looked at Inspector Pyne. Pyne smiled.

‘What is the name of that dangerous reptile, sir?’ asked the inspector. ‘ “Mamba”, isn’t it? I must remember that.’

The Strange Case

In the days of Mr Reeder’s youth, which were also the days when hansom cabs plied for hire and no gentleman went abroad without a nosegay in the lapel of his coat, he had been sent, in company with another young officer from Scotland Yard, to arrest a youthful inventor of Nottingham who earned more than a competence by methods which were displeasing to Scotland Yard. Not machines nor ingenious contrivances for saving labour did this young man invent – but stories. And they were not stories in the accepted sense of the word, for they were misstatements designed to extract money from the pockets of simple-minded men and women. Mr Eiter employed no fewer than twenty-five aliases and as many addresses in the broadcasting of his fiction, and he was on the way to amassing a considerable fortune when a square-toed Nemesis took him by the arm and led him to the seat of justice. An unsympathetic judge sent Mr Eiter to seven years’ penal servitude, describing him as an unconscionable swindler and a menace to society – at which Willie Eiter smiled, for he had a skin beside which the elephant’s was gossamer silk.

Mr Reeder remembered the case chiefly because the prosecuting attorney, commenting upon the various disguises and subterfuges which the prisoner had adopted, remarked upon a peculiarity which was revealed in every part which the convict had played – his inability to spell ‘able’ which he invariably wrote as though he were naming the victim of Cain’s envy.

‘There is this identity to be discovered in every criminal, however ingenious he may be,’ the advocate had said. ‘Whatever his disguise, no matter how cleverly he dissociates one role or pose from another, there is a distinguishable weakness common to every character he affects, and especially is this observable in criminals who live by fraud and trickery.’

This Mr Reeder remembered throughout his useful life. Few people knew that he had ever been associated with Scotland Yard. He himself evaded any question that was put to him on the subject. It was his amiable trait to pretend that he was the veriest amateur and that his success in the detection of wrongdoing was to be traced to his own evil mind that saw wrong very often where no wrong was.

He saw wrong in so many apparently innocent acts of man that it was well for his reputation that those who were acquainted with and pitied him because of his seeming inadequacy and unattractive appearance did not know what dark thoughts filled his mind.

There was a very pretty girl who lived in Brockley Road at a boarding-house. He did not like Miss Margaret Belman because she was pretty, but because she was sensible: two terms which are as a rule antagonistic. He liked her so well that he often travelled home on the cars with her, and they used to discuss the Prince of Wales, the Labour Government, the high cost of living, and other tender subjects with great animation. It was from Miss Belman that he learned about her fellow-boarder, Mrs Carlin, and once he travelled back with her to Brockley – a frail, slim girl with experience in her face and the hint of tragedy in her fine eyes.

So it happened that he knew all about Mr Harry Carlin long before Lord Sellington sent for him, for Mr Reeder had the gift of evoking confidences by the suggestion rather than the expression of his sympathy.

She spoke of her husband without bitterness – but also without regret. She knew him – rather well, despite the shortness of their married life. She hinted once, and inadvertently, that there was a rich relation to whose wealth her husband would be heir if he were a normal man. Her son would, in due course, be the possessor of a great title – and penniless. She was at such pains to rectify her state-ment that Mr Reeder, suspicious of peerages that come to Brockley, was assured of her sincerity, however great might be her error. Later he learned that the title was that borne by the Right Honourable the Earl of Sellington and Manford.

There came a slack time for the Public Prosecutor’s office, when it seemed that sin had gone out of the world; and Mr Reeder sat for a week on end in his little room, twiddling his thumbs or reading the advertisement columns of The Times, or drawing grotesque men upon his blotting-pad, varying these performances with the excursions he was in the habit of making to those parts of London which very few people choose for their recreation. He loved to poke about the slum areas which lie in the neighbourhood of the Great Surrey Docks; he was not averse from frequenting the north side of the river, again in the dock areas; but when his chief asked him whether he spent much time at Limehouse, Mr Reeder replied with a pathetic smile.

‘No, sir,’ he said gently, ‘I read about such places – I find them infinitely more interesting in the pages of a – er – novel. Yes, there are Chinese there, and I suppose Chinese are romantic, but even they do not add romance to Limehouse, which is the most respectable and law-abiding corner of the East End.’

One morning the Public Prosecutor sent for his chief detective, and Mr Reeder obeyed the summons with a light step and a pleasant sense of anticipation.

‘Go over to the Foreign Office and have a talk with Lord Sellington,’ said the Prosecutor. ‘He is rather worried about a nephew of his. Harry Carlin. Do you know the name?’

Mr Reeder shook his head; for the moment he did not associate the pale girl who typed for her living.

‘He’s a pretty bad lot,’ explained the Prosecutor, ‘and unfortunately he’s Sellington’s heir. I rather imagine the old gentleman wants you to confirm his view.’

‘Dear me!’ said Mr Reeder, and stole forth.

Lord Sellington, Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, was a bachelor and an immensely rich man. He had been rich in 1912 when, in a panic due to certain legislation which he thought would affect him adversely as a great landowner, he sold his estates and invested the larger bulk of his fortune (against all expert advice) in American industrial stocks. The war had trebled his possessions. Heavy investments in oil lands had made him many times a millionaire. He was a philanthropist, gave liberally to institutions devoted to the care of young children; he was the founder of the Eastleigh Children’s Home, and subscribed liberally to other similar institutions. A thin, rather sour-faced man, he glared up under his shaggy eyebrows as Mr Reeder sidled apologetically into his room.

‘So you’re Reeder, eh?’ he grumbled, and was evidently not very much impressed by his visitor. ‘Sit down, sit down,’ he said testily, walked to the door as though he were not certain that Mr Reeder had closed it, and came back and flopped into his chair on the other side of the table. ‘I have sent for you in preference to notifying the police,’ he said. ‘Sir James speaks of you, Mr Reeder, as a gentleman of discretion.’

Mr Reeder bowed slightly, and there followed a long and awkward pause, which the Under-Secretary ended in an abrupt, irritable way.

‘I have a nephew – Harry Carlin. Do you know him?’

‘I know of him,’ said Mr Reeder truthfully; in his walk to the Foreign Office he had remembered the deserted wife.

‘Then you know nothing good of him!’ exploded his lordship. ‘The man is a blackguard, a waster, a disgrace to the name he bears! If he were not my brother’s son I would have him under lock and key tonight – the scoundrel! I have four bills in my possession –’

He stopped himself, pulled open a drawer savagely, took out a letter and slammed it on the table.

‘Read that,’ he snapped.

Mr Reeder pulled his glasses a little farther up his nose (he always held them very tight when he was really using them) and perused the message. It was headed ‘The Eastleigh Home for Children’, and was a brief request for five thousand pounds, which the writer said he would send for that evening, and was signed ‘Arthur Lassard’.

‘You know Lassard, of course?’ said his lordship. ‘He is the gentleman associated with me in my philanthropic work. Certain monies were due for land which we purchased adjoining the home. As you probably know, there are lawyers who never accept cheques for properties they sell on behalf of their clients, and I had the money ready and left it with my secretary, and one of Lassard’s people was calling for it. That it was called for, I need hardly tell you,’ said his lordship grimly. ‘Whoever planned the coup planned it well. They knew I would be speaking in the House of Lords last night; they also knew that I had recently changed my secretary and had engaged a gentleman to whom most of my associates are strangers. A bearded man came for the money at half-past six, produced a note from Mr Lassard, and that was the end of the money, except that we have discovered that it was changed this morning into American bills. Of course, both letters were forged: Lassard never signed either, and made no demand whatever for the money, which was not needed for another week.’

‘Did anybody know about this transaction?’ asked Mr Reeder.

His lordship nodded slowly.

‘My nephew knew. He came to my house two days ago to borrow money. He has a small income from his late mother’s estate, but insufficient to support him in his reckless extravagance. He admitted frankly to me that he had come back from Aix broke. How long he had been in London I am unable to tell you, but he was in my library when my secretary came in with the money which I had drawn from the bank in preparation for paying the bill when it became due. Very foolishly I explained why I had so much cash in the house and why I was unable to oblige him with the thousand pounds which he wanted to borrow,’ he added dourly.

Mr Reeder scratched his chin.

‘What am I to do?’ he asked.

‘I want you to find Carlin,’ Lord Sellington almost snarled. ‘But most I want that money back – you understand, Reeder? You’re to tell him that unless he repays –’

Mr Reeder was gazing steadily at the cornice moulding.

‘It almost sounds as if I am being asked to compound a felony, my lord,’ he said respectfully. ‘But I realise, in the peculiar circumstances, we must adopt peculiar methods. The black-bearded gentleman who called for the money would appear to have been’ – he hesitated – ‘disguised?’

‘Of course he was disguised,’ said the other irritably.

‘One reads of such things,’ said Mr Reeder with a sigh, ‘but so seldom does the bearded stranger appear in real life! Will you be good enough to tell me your nephew’s address?’

Lord Sellington took a card from his pocket and threw it across the table. It fell to the floor, but he did not apologise. He was that kind of man.

‘Jermyn Mansions,’ said Mr Reeder as he rose. ‘I will see what can be done.’

Lord Sellington grunted something which might have been a tender farewell, but probably was not.

Jermyn Mansions is a very small, narrow-fronted building and, as Mr Reeder knew – and he knew a great deal – was a block of residential flats, which were run by an ex-butler who was also the lessee of the establishment. By great good fortune, as he afterwards learned, Harry Carlin was at home, and in a few minutes the man from the Public Prosecutor’s office was ushered into a shabby drawing-room that overlooked Jermyn Street.

A tall young man stood by the window, looking disconsolately into that narrow and lively thoroughfare, and turned as Mr Reeder was announced. Thin-faced, narrow-headed, small-eyed, if he possessed any of the family traits and failings, the most marked was perhaps his too ready irritation.

Mr Reeder saw, through an open door, a very untidy bedroom, caught a glimpse of a battered trunk covered with Continental labels.

‘Well, what the devil do you want?’ demanded Mr Carlin. Yet, in spite of his tone, there was an undercurrent of disquiet which Mr Reeder detected.

‘May I sit down?’ said the detective and, without waiting for an invitation, pulled a chair from the wall and sat down gingerly, for he knew the quality of lodging-house chairs.

His self-possession, the hint of authority he carried in his voice, in-creased Mr Harry Carlin’s uneasiness; and when Mr Reeder plunged straight into the object of his visit, he saw the man go pale.

‘It is a difficult subject to open,’ said Mr Reeder, carefully smoothing his knees, ‘and when I find myself in that predicament I usually employ the plainest language.’

And plain language he employed with a vengeance. Half-way through Carlin sat down with a gasp.

‘What – what!’ he stammered. ‘Does that old brute dare – ! I thought you came about the bills – I mean –’

‘I mean,’ said Mr Reeder carefully, ‘that if you have had a little fun with your relative, I think that jest has gone far enough. Lord Sellington is prepared, on the money being refunded, to regard the whole thing as an over-elaborate practical joke on your part –’

‘But I haven’t touched his beastly money!’ the young man almost screamed. ‘I don’t want his money –’

‘On the contrary, sir,’ said Reeder gently, ‘you want it very badly. You left the Hotel Continental without paying your bill; you owe some six hundred pounds to various gentlemen from whom you borrowed that amount; there is a warrant out for you in France for passing cheques which are usually described by the vulgar as – er – “dud”. Indeed’ – again Mr Reeder scratched his chin and looked thoughtfully out of the window – ‘indeed I know no gentleman in Jermyn Street who is so badly in need of money as your good self.’

Carlin would have stopped him, but the middle-aged man went on remorselessly.

‘I have been for an hour in the Record Department of Scotland Yard, where your name is not unknown, Mr Carlin. You left London rather hurriedly to avoid – er – proceedings of an unpleasant character. “Bills”, I think you said? You are known to have been the associate of people with whom the police are a little better acquainted than they are with Mr Carlin. You were also associated with a race-course fraud of a peculiarly unpleasant character. And amongst your minor delinquencies there is – er – a deserted young wife, at present engaged in a City office as typist, and a small boy for whom you have never provided.’

Carlin licked his dry lips.

‘Is that all?’ he asked, with an attempt at a sneer, though his voice shook and his trembling hands betrayed his agitation.

Reeder nodded.

‘Well, I’ll tell you something. I want to do the right thing by my wife. I admit I haven’t played square with her, but I’ve never had the money to play square. That old devil has always been rolling in it, curse him! I’m the only relation he has, and what has he done? Left every bean to these damned children’s homes of his! If somebody has caught him for five thousand I’m glad! I shouldn’t have the nerve to do it myself, but I’m glad if they did – whoever they may be. Left every penny to a lot of squalling, sticky-faced brats, and not a bean to me!’

Mr Reeder let him rave on without interruption, until at last, almost exhausted by his effort, he dropped down into a deep chair and glared at his visitor.

‘Tell him that,’ he said breathlessly; ‘tell him that!’

Mr Reeder made time to call at the little office in Portugal Street wherein was housed the headquarters of Lord Sellington’s various philanthropic enterprises. Mr Arthur Lassard had evidently been in communication with his noble patron, for no sooner did Reeder give his name than he was ushered into the plainly furnished room where the superintendent sat.

It was not unnatural that Lord Sellington should have as his assistant in the good work so famous an organiser as Mr Arthur Lassard. Mr Lassard’s activities in the philanthropic world were many. A broad-shouldered man with a jolly red face and a bald head, he had survived all the attacks which come the way of men engaged in charitable work, and was not particularly impressed by a recent visit he had had from Harry Carlin.

‘I don’t wish to be unkind,’ he said, ‘but our friend called here on such a lame excuse that I can’t help feeling that his real object was to secure a sheet of my stationery. I did, in fact, leave him in the room for a few minutes, and he had the opportunity to purloin the paper if he desired.’

‘What was his excuse?’ asked Mr Reeder, and the other shrugged.

‘He wanted money. At first he was civil and asked me to persuade his uncle; then he grew abusive, said that I was conspiring to rob him – I and my “infernal charities”!’

He chuckled, but grew grave again.

‘The situation is mysterious to me,’ he said. ‘Evidently Carlin has committed some crime against his lordship, for he is terrified of him!’

‘You think Mr Carlin forged your name and secured the money?’

The superintendent spread out his arms in despair.

‘Who else can I suspect?’ he asked.

Mr Reeder took the forged letter from his pocket and read it again.

‘I’ve just been on the phone to his lordship,’ Mr Lassard went on. ‘He is waiting, of course, to hear your report, and if you have failed to make this young man confess his guilt, Lord Sellington intends seeing his nephew tonight and making an appeal to him. I can hardly believe that Mr Carlin could have done this wicked thing, though the circumstances seem very suspicious. Have you seen him, Mr Reeder?’

‘I have seen him,’ said Mr Reeder shortly. ‘Oh, yes, I have seen him!’

Mr Arthur Lassard was scrutinising his face as though he were trying to read the conclusion which the detective had reached, but Mr Reeder’s face was notoriously expressionless.

He offered a limp hand and went back to the Under-Secretary’s house. The interview was short and on the whole disagreeable.

‘I never dreamt he would confess to you,’ said Lord Sellington with ill-disguised contempt. ‘Harry needs somebody to frighten him, and, my God! I’m the man to do it! I’m seeing him tonight.’

A fit of coughing stopped him and he gulped savagely from a little medicine bottle that stood on his desk.

‘I’ll see him tonight,’ he gasped, ‘and I’ll tell him what I intend doing! I’ve spared him hitherto because of his relationship and because he inherits the title. But I’m through. Every cent I have goes to charity. I’m good for twenty years yet, but every penny –’

He stopped. He was a man who never disguised his emotion, and Mr Reeder, who understood men, saw the struggle that was going on in Sellington’s mind.

‘He says he hasn’t had a chance. I may have treated him unfairly – we shall see.’ He waved the detective from his office as though he were dismissing a strange dog that had intruded upon his privacy, and Mr Reeder went out reluctantly, for he had something to tell his lordship.

It was peculiar to him that, in his more secretive moments, he sought the privacy of his old-fashioned study in Brockley Road. For two hours he sat at his desk calling a succession of numbers – and curiously enough, the gentlemen to whom he spoke were bookmakers. Most of them he knew. In the days when he was the greatest expert in the world on forged currency notes, he had been brought into contact with a class which is often the innocent medium by which the forger distributed his handicraft – and more often the instrument of his detection.

It was a Friday, a day on which most of the principals were in their offices till a late hour. At eight o’clock he finished, wrote a note and, phoning for a messenger, sent his letter on its fateful errand.

He spent the rest of the evening musing on past experiences and in refreshing his memory from the thin scrap-books which filled two shelves in his study.

What happened elsewhere that evening can best be told in the plain language of the witness-box. Lord Sellington had gone home after his interview with Mr Reeder suffering from a feverish cold, and was disposed, according to the evidence of his secretary, to put off the interview which he had arranged with his nephew. A telephone message had been sent through to Mr Carlin’s hotel, but he was out. Until nine o’clock his lordship was busy with the affairs of his numerous charities, Mr Lassard being in attendance. Lord Sellington was working in a small study which opened from his bedroom.

At a quarter-past nine Carlin arrived and was shown upstairs by the butler, who subsequently stated that he heard voices raised in anger. Mr Carlin came downstairs and was shown out as the clock struck half-past nine, and a few minutes later the bell rang for Lord Sellington’s valet, who went up to assist his master to bed.

At half-past seven the next morning, the valet, who slept in an adjoining apartment, went into his master’s room to take him a cup of tea. He found his employer lying face downward on the floor; he was dead, and had been dead for some hours. There was no sign of wounds, and at first glance it looked as though this man of sixty had collapsed in the night. But there were circumstances which pointed to some unusual happening. In Lord Sellington’s bedroom was a small steel wall-safe, and the first thing the valet noticed was that this was open, papers were lying on the floor, and that in the grate was a heap of paper which, except for one corner, was entirely burnt.

The valet telephoned immediately for the doctor and for the police, and from that moment the case went out of Mr Reeder’s able hands.

Later that morning he reported briefly to his superior the result of his enquiries.

‘Murder, I am afraid,’ he said sadly. ‘The Home Office pathologist is perfectly certain that it is a case of aconitine poisoning. The paper in the hearth has been photographed, and there is no doubt whatever that the burnt document is the will by which Lord Sellington left all his property to various charitable institutions.’

He paused here.

‘Well?’ asked his chief, ‘what does that mean?’

Mr Reeder coughed.

‘It means that if this will cannot be proved, and I doubt whether it can, his lordship died intestate. The property goes with the title –’

‘To Carlin?’ asked the startled Prosecutor.

Mr Reeder nodded.

‘There were other things burnt; four small oblong slips of paper, which had evidently been fastened together by a pin. These are quite indecipherable.’ He sighed again. The Public Prosecutor looked up.

‘You haven’t mentioned the letter that arrived by district messenger after Lord Sellington had retired for the night.’

Mr Reeder rubbed his chin.

‘No, I didn’t mention that,’ he said reluctantly.

‘Has it been found?’

Mr Reeder hesitated.

‘I don’t know. I rather think that it has not been,’ he said.

‘Would it throw any light upon the crime, do you think?’

Mr Reeder scratched his chin with some sign of embarrassment.

‘I should think it might,’ he said. ‘Will you excuse me, sir? Inspector Salter is waiting for me.’ And he was out of the room before the Prosecutor could frame any further enquiry.

Inspector Salter was striding impatiently up and down the little room when Mr Reeder came back. They left the building together. The car that was waiting for them brought them to Jermyn Street in a few minutes. Outside the flat three plain-clothes men were waiting, evidently for the arrival of their chief, and the Inspector passed into the building, followed closely by Mr Reeder. They were half-way up the stairs when Reeder asked: ‘Does Carlin know you?’

‘He ought to,’ was the grim reply. ‘I did my best to get him penal servitude before he skipped from England.’

‘Humph!’ said Mr Reeder. ‘I’m sorry he knows you.’

‘Why?’ The Inspector stopped on the stairs to ask the question.

‘Because he saw us getting out of the cab. I caught sight of his face, and –’

He stopped suddenly. The sound of a shot thundered through the house, and in another second the Inspector was racing up the stairs two at a time and had burst into the suite which Carlin occupied.

A glimpse of the prostrate figure told them they were too late. The Inspector bent over the dead man.

‘That has saved the country the cost of a murder trial,’ he said.

‘I think not,’ said Mr Reeder gently, and explained his reasons.

Half an hour later, as Mr Lassard walked out of his office, a detective tapped him on the shoulder.

‘Your name is Eiter,’ he said, ‘and I want you for murder.’

* * *

‘It was a very simple case really, sir,’ explained Mr Reeder to his chief. ‘Eiter, of course, was known to me personally, but I remembered especially that he could not spell the word “able”, and I recognised this peculiarity in our friend the moment I saw the letter which he wrote to his patron asking for the money. It was Eiter himself who drew the five thousand pounds; of that I am convinced. The man is, and always has been, an inveterate gambler, and I did not have to make many enquiries before I discovered that he was owing a large sum of money and that one bookmaker had threatened to bring him before Tattersall’s Committee unless he paid. That would have meant the end of Mr Lassard, the philanthropic custodian of children. Which, by the way, was always Eiter’s role. He ran bogus charitable societies – it is extraordinarily easy to find dupes who are willing to subscribe for philanthropic objects. Many years ago, when I was a young man, I was instrumental in getting him seven years. I’d lost sight of him since then until I saw the letter he sent to Lord Sellington. Unfortunately for him, one line ran: “I shall be glad if you are abel to let my messenger have the money” – and he spelt “able” in the Eiter way. I called on him and made sure. And then I wrote to his lordship, who apparently did not open the letter till late that night.

‘Eiter had called on him earlier in the evening and had had a long talk with him. I only surmise that Lord Sellington had expressed a doubt as to whether he ought to leave his nephew penniless, scoundrel though he was; and Eiter was terrified that his scheme for getting possession of the old man’s money was in danger of failing. Moreover, my appearance in the case had scared him. He decided to kill Lord Sellington that night, took aconitine with him to the house and introduced it into the medicine, a bottle of which always stood on Sellington’s desk. Whether the old man destroyed the will which disinherited his nephew before he discovered he had been poisoned, or whether he did it after, we shall never know. When I had satisfied myself that Lassard was Eiter, I sent a letter by special messenger to Stratford Place –’

‘That was the letter delivered by special messenger?’

Mr Reeder nodded.

‘It is possible that Sellington was already under the influence of the drug when he burnt the will, and burnt too the four bills which Carlin had forged and which the old man had held over his head as a threat. Carlin may have known his uncle was dead; he certainly recognised the Inspector when he stepped out of the cab, and, thinking he was to be arrested for forgery, shot himself.’

Mr Reeder pursed his lips and his melancholy face grew longer.

‘I wish I had never known Mrs Carlin – my acquaintance with her introduces that element of coincidence which is permissible in stories but is so distressing in actual life. It shakes one’s confidence in the logic of things.’

The Investors

There are seven million people in Greater London and each one of those seven millions is in theory and practice equal under the law and commonly precious to the community. So that, if one is wilfully wronged, another must be punished; and if one dies of premeditated violence, his slayer must hang by the neck until he be dead.

It is rather difficult for the sharpest law-eyes to keep tag of seven million people, at least one million of whom never keep still and are generally unattached to any particular domicile. It is equally difficult to place an odd twenty thousand or so who have domiciles but no human association. These include tramps, aged maiden ladies in affluent circumstances, peripatetic members of the criminal classes and other friendless individuals.

Sometimes uneasy enquiries come through to headquarters. Mainly they are most timid and deferential. Mr X has not seen his neighbour, Mr Y, for a week. No, he doesn’t know Mr Y. Nobody does. A little old man who had no friends and spent his fine days pottering in a garden overlooked by his more gregarious neighbour. And now Mr Y potters no more. His milk has not been taken in; his blinds are drawn. Comes a sergeant of police and a constable who breaks a window and climbs through, and Mr Y is dead somewhere – dead of starvation or a fit or suicide. Should this be the case, all is plain sailing. But suppose the house empty and Mr Y disappeared. Here the situation becomes difficult and delicate.

Miss Elver went away to Switzerland. She was a middle-aged spinster who had the appearance of being comfortably circumstanced. She went away, locked up her house and never came back. Switzerland looked for her; the myrmidons of Mussolini, that hatefully efficient man, searched North Italy from Domodossola to Montecatini. And the search did not yield a thin-faced maiden lady with a slight squint.

And then Mr Charles Boyson Middlekirk, an eccentric and overpowering old man who quarrelled with his neighbours about their noisy children, he too went away. He told nobody where he was going. He lived alone with his three cats and was not on speaking terms with anybody else. He did not return to his grimy house.

He too was well off and reputedly a miser. So was Mrs Athbell Marting, a dour widow who lived with her drudge of a niece. This lady was in the habit of disappearing without any preliminary announcement of her intention. The niece was allowed to order from the local tradesmen just sufficient food to keep body and soul together, and when Mrs Marling returned (as she invariably did) the bills were settled with a great deal of grumbling on the part of the payer, and that was that. It was believed that Mrs Marting went to Boulogne or to Paris or even to Brussels. But one day she went out and never came back. Six months later her niece advertised for her, choosing the cheapest papers – having an eye to the day of reckoning.

‘Queer sort of thing,’ said the Public Prosecutor, who had before him the dossiers of four people (three women and a man) who had so vanished in three months.

He frowned, pressed a bell and Mr Reeder came in. Mr Reeder took the chair that was indicated, looked owlishly over his glasses and shook his head as though he understood the reason for his summons and denied his understanding in advance. ‘What do you make of these disappearances?’ asked his chief.

‘You cannot make any positive of a negative,’ said Mr Reeder carefully. ‘London is a large place full of strange, mad people who live such – um – commonplace lives that the wonder is that more of them do not disappear in order to do something different from what they are accustomed to doing.’

‘Have you seen these particulars?’

Mr Reeder nodded.

‘I have copies of them,’ he said. ‘Mr Salter very kindly –’

The Public Prosecutor rubbed his head in perplexity.

‘I see nothing in these cases – nothing in common, I mean. Four is a fairly low average for a big city –’

‘Twenty-seven in twelve months,’ interrupted his detective apologetically.

‘Twenty-seven – are you sure?’ The great official was astounded.

Mr Reeder nodded again.

‘They were all people with a little money; all were drawing a fairly large income, which was paid to them in bank-notes on the first of every month – nineteen of them were, at any rate. I have yet to verify eight – and they were all most reticent as to where their revenues came from. None of them had any personal friends or relatives who were on terms of friendship, except Mrs Marting. Beyond these points of resemblance there was nothing to connect one with the other.’

The Prosecutor looked at him sharply, but Mr Reeder was never sarcastic. Not obviously so, at any rate.

‘There is another point which I omitted to mention,’ he went on. ‘After their disappearance no further money came for them. It came for Mrs Marting when she was away on her jaunts, but it ceased when she went away on her final journey.’

‘But twenty-seven – are you sure?’

Mr Reeder reeled off the list, giving name, address and date of disappearance.

‘What do you think has happened to them?’

Mr, Reeder considered for a moment, staring glumly at the carpet.

‘I should imagine that they were murdered,’ he said, almost cheerfully, and the Prosecutor half rose from his chair.

‘You are in your gayest mood this morning, Mr Reeder,’ he said sardonically. ‘Why on earth should they be murdered?’

Mr Reeder did not explain. The interview took place in the late afternoon, and he was anxious to be gone, for he had a tacit appointment to meet a young lady of exceeding charm who at five minutes after five would be waiting on the corner of Westminster Bridge and Thames Embankment for the Lee car.

The sentimental qualities of Mr Reeder were entirely unknown. There are those who say that his sorrow over those whom fate and ill-fortune brought into his punitive hands was the veriest hypocrisy. There were others who believed that he was genuinely pained to see a fellow-creature sent behind bars through his efforts and evidence.

His housekeeper, who thought he was a woman-hater, told her friends in confidence that he was a complete stranger to the tender emotions which enlighten and glorify humanity. In the ten years which she had sacrificed to his service he had displayed neither emotion nor tenderness except to enquire whether her sciatica was better or to express a wish that she should take a holiday by the sea. She was a woman beyond middle age, but there is no period of life wherein a woman gives up hoping for the best. Though the most perfect of servants in all respects, she secretly despised him, called him, to her intimates, a frump, and suspected him of living apart from an ill-treated wife. This lady was a widow (as she had told him when he first engaged her) and she had seen better – far better – days.

Her visible attitude towards Mr Reeder was one of respect and awe. She excused the queer character of his callers and his low acquaintances. She forgave him his square-toed shoes and high, flat-crowned hat, and even admired the ready-made Ascot cravat he wore and which was fastened behind the collar with a little buckle, the prongs of which invariably punctured his fingers when he fastened it. But there is a limit to all hero-worship, and when she discovered that Mr Reeder was in the habit of waiting to escort a young lady to town every day, and frequently found it convenient to escort her home, the limit was reached.

Mrs Hambleton told her friends – and they agreed – that there was no fool like an old fool, and that marriages between the old and the young invariably end in the divorce court (December v. May and July). She used to leave copies of a favourite Sunday newspaper on his table, where he could not fail to see the flaring head-lines.

OLD MAN’S WEDDING ROMANCE

Wife’s perfidy brings grey hair in sorrow to the Law Courts

Whether Mr Reeder perused these human documents she did not know. He never referred to the tragedies of ill-assorted unions, and went on meeting Miss Belman every morning at nine o’clock, and at five-five in the afternoons whenever his business permitted.

He so rarely discussed his own business or introduced the subject that was exercising his mind that it was remarkable he should make even an oblique reference to his work. Possibly he would not have done so if Miss Margaret Belman had not introduced (unwillingly) a leader of conversation which traced indirectly to the disappearances.

They had been talking of holidays: Margaret was going to Cromer for a fortnight.

‘I shall leave on the second. My monthly dividends (doesn’t that sound grand?) are due on the first –’

‘Eh?’

Reeder slewed round. Dividends in most companies are paid at half-yearly intervals.

‘Dividends, Miss Margaret?’

She flushed a little at his surprise and then laughed.

‘You didn’t realise that I was a woman of property?’ she bantered him. ‘I receive ten pounds a month – my father left me a little house property when he died. I sold the cottages two years ago for a thousand pounds and found a wonderful investment.’

Mr Reeder made a rapid calculation.

‘You are drawing something like 12.5 per cent.,’ he said. ‘That is indeed a wonderful investment. What is the name of the company?’

She hesitated.

‘I’m afraid I can’t tell you that. You see – well, it’s rather secret. It is to do with a South American syndicate that supplies arms to – what do you call them – insurgents! I know it is rather dreadful to make money that way – I mean out of arms and things, but it pays terribly well and I can’t afford to miss the opportunity.’

Reeder frowned.

‘But why is it such a terrible secret?’ he asked. ‘Quite a number of respectable people make money out of armament concerns.’

Again she showed reluctance to explain her meaning.

‘We are pledged – the shareholders, I mean – not to divulge our connection with the company,’ she said. ‘That is one of the agreements I had to sign. And the money comes regularly. I have had nearly £300 of my thousand back in dividends already.’

‘Humph!’ said Mr Reeder, wise enough not to press his question. There was another day tomorrow.

But the opportunity to which he looked forward on the following morning was denied to him. Somebody played a grim ‘joke’ on him – the kind of joke to which he was accustomed, for there were men who had good reason to hate him, and never a year passed but one or the other sought to repay him for his unkindly attentions.

‘Your name is Reeder, ain’t it?’

Mr Reeder, tightly grasping his umbrella with both hands, looked over his spectacles at the shabby man who stood at the bottom of the steps. He was on the point of leaving his house in the Brockley Road for his office in Whitehall, and since he was a methodical man and worked to a timetable, he resented in his mild way this interruption which had already cost him fifteen seconds of valuable time.

‘You’re the fellow who shopped Ike Walker, ain’t you?’

Mr Reeder had indeed ‘shopped’ many men. He was by profession a shopper, which, translated from the argot, means a man who procures the arrest of an evildoer. Ike Walker he knew very well indeed. He was a clever, a too clever, forger of bills of exchange, and was at that precise moment almost permanently employed as orderly in the convict prison at Dartmoor, and might account himself fortunate if he held this easy job for the rest of his twelve years’ sentence.

His interrogator was a little hard-faced man wearing a suit that had evidently been originally intended for somebody of greater girth and more commanding height. His trousers were turned up noticeably; his waistcoat was full of folds and tucks which only an amateur tailor would have dared, and only one superior to the criticism of his fellows would have worn. His hard, bright eyes were fixed on Mr Reeder, but there was no menace in them so far as the detective could read.

‘Yes, I was instrumental in arresting Ike Walker,’ said Mr Reeder, almost gently.

The man put his hand in his pocket and brought out a crumpled packet enclosed in green oiled silk. Mr Reeder unfolded the covering and found a soiled and crumpled envelope.

‘That’s from Ike,’ said the man. ‘He sent it out of stir by a gent who was discharged yesterday.’

Mr Reeder was not shocked by this revelation. He knew that prison rules were made to be broken, and that worse things have happened in the best regulated jails than this item of a smuggled letter. He opened the envelope, keeping his eyes on the man’s face, took out the crumpled sheet and read the five or six lines of writing.

Dear Reeder – Here is a bit of a riddle for you.

What other people have got, you can have. I haven’t got it, but it is coming to you. It’s red-hot when you get it, but you’re cold when it goes away.

Your loving friend,

Ike Walker

(doing a twelve stretch because you went on the witness stand and told a lot of lies)

Mr Reeder looked up and their eyes met. ‘Your friend is a little mad, one thinks?’ he asked politely.

‘He ain’t a friend of mine. A gent asked me to bring it,’ said the messenger.

‘On the contrary,’ said Mr Reeder pleasantly, ‘he gave it to you in Dartmoor Prison yesterday. Your name is Mills; you have eight convictions for burglary, and will have your ninth before the year is out. You were released two days ago – I saw you reporting at Scotland Yard.’

The man was for the moment alarmed and in two minds to bolt. Mr Reeder glanced along Brockley Road, saw a slim figure, that was standing at the corner, cross to a waiting tramcar, and, seeing his opportunity vanish, readjusted his timetable.

‘Come inside, Mr Mills.’

‘I don’t want to come inside,’ said Mr Mills, now thoroughly agitated. ‘He asked me to give this to you and I’ve give it. There’s nothing else –’

Mr Reeder crooked his finger.

‘Come, birdie!’ he said, with great amiability. ‘And please don’t annoy me! I am quite capable of sending you back to your friend Mr Walker. I am really a most unpleasant man if am upset.’

The messenger followed meekly, wiped his boots with great vigour on the mat and tiptoed up the carpeted stairs to the big study where Mr Reeder did most of his thinking.

‘Sit down, Mills.’

With his own hands Mr Reeder placed a chair for his uncomfortable visitor, and then, pulling another up to his big writing table, he spread the letter before him, adjusted his glasses, read, his lips moving, and then leaned back in his chair.

‘I give it up,’ he said. ‘Read me this riddle.’

‘I don’t know what’s in the letter –’ began the man.

‘Read me this riddle.’

As he handed the letter across the table, the man betrayed himself, for he rose and pushed back his chair with a startled, horrified ex-pression that told Mr Reeder quite a lot. He laid the letter down on his desk, took a large tumbler from the sideboard, inverted it and covered the scrawled paper. Then: ‘Wait,’ he said, ‘and don’t move till I come back.’

And there was an unaccustomed venom in his tone that made the visitor shudder.

Reeder passed out of the room to the bathroom, pulled up his sleeves with a quick jerk of his arm and, turning the faucet, let hot water run over his hands before he reached for a small bottle on a shelf, poured a liberal portion into the water and let his hands soak. This done, for three minutes he scrubbed his fingers with a nail-brush, dried them, and, removing his coat and waistcoat carefully, hung them over the edge of the bath. He went back to his uncomfortable guest in his shirt-sleeves.

‘Our friend Walker is employed in the hospital,’ he stated rather than asked. ‘What have you had there – scarlet fever or something worse?’

He glanced down at the letter under the glass.

‘Scarlet fever, of course,’ he said, ‘and the letter has been systematically infected. Walker is almost clever.’

The wood of a fire was laid in the grate. He carried the letter and the blotting-paper to the hearth, lit the kindling and thrust paper and letter into the flames.

‘Almost clever,’ he said musingly. ‘Of course, he is one of the orderlies in the hospital. It was scarlet fever, I think you said?’

The gaping man nodded.

‘Of a virulent type, of course. How very fascinating!’

He thrust his hands in his pockets and looked down benevolently at the wretched emissary of the vengeful Walker.

‘You may go now, Mills,’ he said gently. ‘I rather think that you are infected. That ridiculous piece of oiled silk is quite inadequate – which means “quite useless” – as a protection against wandering germs. You will have scarlet fever in three days, and will probably be dead at the end of the week. I will send you a wreath.’

He opened the door, pointed to the stairway and the man slunk out.

Mr Reeder watched him through the window, saw him cross the street and disappear round the corner into the Lewisham High Road, and then, going up to his bedroom, he put on a newer frock-coat and waistcoat, drew on his hands a pair of fabric gloves and went forth to his labours.

He did not expect to meet Mr Mills again, never dreaming that the gentleman from Dartmoor was planning a ‘bust’ which would bring them again into contact. For Mr Reeder the incident was closed.

That day news of another disappearance had come through from police headquarters, and Mr Reeder was waiting at ten minutes before five at the rendezvous for the girl who, he instinctively knew, could give him a thread of the clue. He was determined that this time his enquiries should bear fruit; but it was not until they had reached the end of Brockley Road, and he was walking slowly up towards the girl’s boarding-house, that she gave him a hint.

‘Why are you so persistent, Mr Reeder?’ she asked, a little impatiently. ‘Do you wish to invest money? Because, if you do, I’m sorry I can’t help you. That is another agreement we made, that we would not introduce new shareholders.’

Mr Reeder stopped, took off his hat and rubbed the back of his head (his housekeeper, watching him from an upper window, was perfectly certain he was proposing and had been rejected).

‘I am going to tell you something, Miss Belman, and I hope – er – that I shall not alarm you.’

And very briefly he told the story of the disappearances and the queer coincidence which marked every case – the receipt of a dividend on the first of every month. As he proceeded, the colour left the girl’s face.

‘You are serious, of course?’ she said, serious enough herself. ‘You wouldn’t tell me that unless – the company is the Mexico City Investment Syndicate. They have offices in Portugal Street.’

‘How did you come to hear of them?’ asked Mr Reeder.

‘I had a letter from their manager, Mr de Silvo. He told me that a friend had mentioned my name, and gave full particulars of the investment.’

‘Have you that letter?’

She shook her head.

‘No; I was particularly asked to bring it with me when I went to see them. Although, in point of fact, I never did see them,’ smiled the girl. ‘I wrote to their lawyers – will you wait? I have their letter.’

Mr Reeder waited at the gate whilst the girl went into the house and returned presently with a small portfolio, from which she took a quarto sheet. It was headed with the name of a legal firm, Bracher & Bracher, and was the usual formal type of letter one expects from a lawyer.

Dear Madam [it ran]

Re – Mexico City Investment Syndicate:

We act as lawyers to this syndicate, and so far as we know it is a reputable concern. We feel that it is only due to us that we should say that we do not advise investments in any concern which offers such large profits, for usually there is a corresponding risk. We know, however, that this syndicate has paid 12^1⁄2 per cent. and sometimes as much as 20 per cent., and we have had no complaints about them. We cannot, of course, as lawyers, guarantee the financial soundness of any of our clients, and can only repeat that, in so far as we have been able to ascertain, the syndicate conducts a genuine business and enjoys a very sound financial backing.

Yours faithfully,

Bracher & Bracher

‘You say you never saw de Silvo?’

She shook her head.

‘No; I saw Mr Bracher, but when I went to the office of the syndicate, which is in the same building, I found only a clerk in attendance. Mr de Silvo had been called out of town. I had to leave the letter because the lower portion was an application for shares in the syndicate. The capital could be withdrawn at three days’ notice, and I must say that this last clause decided me; and when I had a letter from Mr de Silvo accepting my investment, I sent him the money.’

Mr Reeder nodded.

‘And you’ve received your dividends regularly ever since?’ he said.

‘Every month,’ said the girl triumphantly. ‘And really I think you’re wrong in connecting the company with these disappearances.’

Mr Reeder did not reply. That afternoon he made it his business to call at 179, Portugal Street. It was a two-storey building of an old-fashioned type. A wide flagged hall led into the building; a set of old-fashioned stairs ran up to the ‘top floor’, which was occupied by a China merchant; and from the hall led three doors. That on the left bore the legend ‘Bracher & Bracher, Solicitors’, and immediately facing was the office of the Mexican Syndicate. At the far end of the passage was a door which exhibited the name ‘John Baston’, but as to Mr Baston’s business there was no indication.

Mr Reeder knocked gently at the door of the syndicate and a voice bade him come in. A young man, wearing glasses, was sitting at a typewriting table, a pair of dictaphone receivers in his ears, and he was typing rapidly.

‘No, sir, Mr de Silvo is not in. He only comes in about twice a week,’ said the clerk. ‘Will you give me your name?’

‘It is not important,’ said Reeder gently, and went out, closing the door behind him.

He was more fortunate in his call upon Bracher & Bracher, for Mr Joseph Bracher was in his office: a tall, florid gentleman who wore a large rose in his buttonhole. The firm of Bracher & Bracher was evidently a prosperous one, for there were half a dozen clerks in the outer office, and Mr Bracher’s private sanctum, with its big partner desk, was a model of shabby comfort.

‘Sit down, Mr Reeder,’ said the lawyer, glancing at the card.

In a few words Mr Reeder stated his business, and Mr Bracher smiled.

‘It is fortunate you came today,’ he said. ‘If it were tomorrow we should not be able to give you any information. The truth is, we have had to ask Mr de Silvo to find other lawyers. No, no, there is nothing wrong, except that they constantly refer their clients to us, and we feel that we are becoming in the nature of sponsors for their clients, and that, of course, is very undesirable.’

‘Have you a record of the people who have written to you from time to time asking your advice?’

Mr Bracher shook his head.

‘It is a curious thing to confess, but we haven’t,’ he said; ‘and that is one of the reasons why we have decided to give up this client. Three weeks ago, the letter-book in which we kept copies of all letters sent to people who applied for a reference most unaccountably disappeared. It was put in the safe overnight, and in the morning, although there was no sign of tampering with the lock, it had vanished. The circumstances were so mysterious, and my brother and I were so deeply concerned, that we applied to the syndicate to give us a list of their clients, and that request was never complied with.’

Mr Reeder sought inspiration in the ceiling.

‘Who is John Baston?’ he asked, and the lawyer laughed.

‘There again I am ignorant. I believe he is a very wealthy financier, but, so far as I know, he only comes to his office for three months in the year, and I have never seen him.’

Mr Reeder offered him his flabby hand and walked back along Portugal Street, his chin on his breast, his hands behind him dragging his umbrella, so that he bore a ludicrous resemblance to some strange tailed animal.

That night he waited again for the girl, but she did not appear, and although he remained at the rendezvous until half-past five he did not see her. This was not very unusual, for sometimes she had to work late, and he went home without any feeling of apprehension. He finished his own frugal dinner and then walked across to the boarding-house. Miss Belman had not arrived, the landlady told him, and he returned to his study and telephoned first to the office where she was employed and then to the private address of her employer.

‘She left at half-past four,’ was the surprising news. ‘Somebody telephoned to her and she asked me if she might go early.’

‘Oh!’ said Mr Reeder blankly.

He did not go to bed that night, but sat up in a small room at Scotland Yard, reading the brief reports which came in from the various divisions. And with the morning came the sickening realisation that Margaret Belman’s name must be added to those who had disappeared in such extraordinary circumstances.

He dozed in the big Windsor chair. At eight o’clock he returned to his own house and shaved and bathed, and when the Public Prosecutor arrived at his office he found Mr Reeder waiting for him in the corridor. It was a changed Mr Reeder, and the change was not due entirely to lack of sleep. His voice was sharper; he had lost some of that atmosphere of apology which usually enveloped him.

In a few words he told of Margaret Belman’s disappearance.

‘Do you connect de Silvo with this?’ asked his chief.

‘Yes, I think I do,’ said the other quietly, and then: ‘There is only one hope, and it is a very slender one – a very slender one indeed!’

He did not tell the Public Prosecutor in what that hope consisted, but walked down to the offices of the Mexican Syndicate.

Mr de Silvo was not in. He would have been very much surprised if he had been. He crossed the hallway to see the lawyer, and this time he found Mr Ernest Bracher present with his brother.

When Reeder spoke to the point, it was very much to the point.

‘I am leaving a police officer in Portugal Street to arrest de Silvo the moment he puts in an appearance. I feel that you, as his lawyers, should know this,’ he said.

‘But why on earth – ?’ began Mr Bracher, in a tone of astonishment.

‘I don’t know what charge I shall bring against him, but it will certainly be a very serious one,’ said Reeder. ‘For the moment I have not confided to Scotland Yard the basis for my suspicions, but your client has got to tell a very plausible story and produce indisputable proof of his innocence to have any hope of escape.’

‘I am quite in the dark,’ said the lawyer, mystified. ‘What has he been doing? Is his syndicate a fraud?’

‘I know nothing more fraudulent,’ said the other shortly. ‘Tomorrow I intend obtaining the necessary authority to search his papers and to search the room and papers of Mr John Baston. I have an idea that I shall find something in that room of considerable interest to me.’

It was eight o’clock that night before he left Scotland Yard, and he was turning towards the familiar corner, when he saw a car come from Westminster Bridge towards Scotland Yard. Somebody leaned out of the window and signalled him, and the car turned. It was a two-seater coupe and the driver was Mr Joseph Bracher.

‘We’ve found de Silvo,’ he said breathlessly as he brought the car to a standstill at the kerb and jumped out.

He was very agitated and his face was pale. Mr Reeder could have sworn that his teeth were chattering.

‘There’s something wrong – very badly wrong,’ he went on. ‘My brother has been trying to get the truth from him – my God! if he has done these terrible things I shall never forgive myself.’

‘Where is he?’ asked Mr Reeder.

‘He came just before dinner to our house at Dulwich. My brother and I are bachelors and we live there alone now, and he has been to dinner before. My brother questioned him and he made certain admissions which are almost incredible. The man must be mad.’

‘What did he say?’

‘I can’t tell you. Ernest is detaining him until you come.’

Mr Reeder stepped into the car and in a few minutes they were flying across Westminster Bridge towards Camberwell. Lane House, an old-fashioned Georgian residence, lay at the end of a countrified road which was, he found, a cul de sac. The house stood in grounds of considerable size, he noted as they passed up the drive and stopped before the porch. Mr Bracher alighted and opened the door, and Reeder passed into a cosily furnished hall. One door was ajar.

‘Is that Mr Reeder?’ He recognised the voice of Ernest Bracher, and walked into the room.

The younger Mr Bracher was standing with his back to the empty fire-place; there was nobody else in the room.

‘De Silvo’s gone upstairs to lie down,’ explained the lawyer. ‘This is a dreadful business, Mr Reeder.’

He held out his hand and Reeder crossed the room to take it. As he put his foot on the square Persian rug before the fire-place, he realised his danger and tried to spring back, but his balance was lost. He felt himself falling through the cavity which the carpet hid, lashed out and caught for a moment the edge of the trap, but as the lawyer came round and raised his foot to stamp upon the clutching fingers, Reeder released his hold and dropped.

The shock of the fall took away his breath, and for a second he sprawled, half lying, half sitting, on the floor of the cellar into which he had fallen. Looking up, he saw the older of the two leaning over. The square aperture was diminishing in size. There was evidently a sliding panel which covered the hole in normal times.

‘We’ll deal with you later, Reeder,’ said Joseph Bracher with a smile. ‘We’ve had quite a lot of clever people here –’

Something cracked in the cellar. The bullet seared the lawyer’s cheek, smashed a glass chandelier to fragments, and he stepped back with a yell of fear. In another second the trap was closed and Reeder was alone in a small brick-lined cellar. Not entirely alone, for the automatic pistol he held in his hand was a very pleasant companion in that moment of crisis.

From his hip pocket he took a flat electric hand-lamp, switched on the current and surveyed his prison. The walls and floor were damp; that was the first thing he noticed. In one corner was a small flight of brick steps leading to a locked steel door, and then –

‘Mr Reeder.’

He spun round and turned his lamp upon the speaker. It was Margaret Belman, who had risen from a heap of sacks where she had been sleeping.

‘I’m afraid I’ve got you into very bad trouble,’ she said, and he marvelled at her calm.

‘How long have you been here?’

‘Since last night,’ she answered. ‘Mr Bracher telephoned me to see him and he picked me up in his car. They kept me in the other room until tonight, but an hour ago they brought me here.’

‘Which is the other room?’

She pointed to the steel door. She offered no further details of her capture, and it was not a moment to discuss their misfortune. Reeder went up the steps and tried the door; it was fastened from the other side, and opened inward, he discovered. There was no sign of a keyhole. He asked her where the door led and she told him that it was to an underground kitchen and coal-cellar. She had hoped to escape, because only a barred window stood between her and freedom in the ‘little room’ where she was kept.

‘But the window was very thick,’ she said, ‘and of course I could do nothing with the bars.’

Reeder made another inspection of the cellar, then sent the light of his lamp up at the ceiling. He saw nothing there except a steel pulley fastened to a beam that crossed the entire width of the cellar.

‘Now what on earth is he going to do?’ he asked thoughtfully, and as though his enemies had heard the question and were determined to leave him in no doubt as to their plans, there came the sound of gurgling water, and in a second he was ankle-deep.

He put the light on to the place whence the water was coming. There were three circular holes in the wall, from each of which was gushing a solid stream.

‘What is it?’ she asked in a terrified whisper.

‘Get on to the steps and stay there,’ he ordered peremptorily, and made investigation to see if it was possible to staunch the flow. He saw at a glance that this was impossible. And now the mystery of the disappearances was a mystery no longer.

The water came up with incredible rapidity, first to his knees, then to his thighs, and he joined her on the steps.

There was no possible escape for them. He guessed the water would come up only so far as would make it impossible for them to reach the beam across the roof or the pulley, the dreadful purpose of which he could guess. The dead must be got out of this charnel house in some way or other. Strong swimmer as he was, he knew that in the hours ahead it would be impossible to keep afloat.

He slipped off his coat and vest and unbuttoned his collar.

‘You had better take off your skirt,’ he said, in a matter-of-fact tone. ‘Can you swim?’

‘Yes,’ she answered in a low voice.

He did not ask her the real question which was in his mind: for how long could she swim?

There was a long silence; the water crept higher; and then: ‘Are you very much afraid?’ he asked, and took her hand in his.

‘No, I don’t think I am,’ she said. ‘It is wonderful having you with me – why are they doing this?’

He said nothing, but carried the soft hand to his lips and kissed it.

The water was now reaching the top step. Reeder stood with his back to the iron door, waiting. And then he felt something touch the door from the other side. There was a faint click, as though a bolt had been slipped back. He put her gently aside and held his palms to the door. There was no doubt now: somebody was fumbling on the other side. He went down a step and presently he felt the door yield and come towards him, and there was a momentary gleam of light. In another second he had wrenched the door open and sprung through.

‘Hands up!’

Whoever it was had dropped his lamp, and now Mr Reeder focused the light of his own torch and nearly dropped.

For the man in the passage was Mills, the ex-convict who had brought the tainted letter from Dartmoor!

‘All right, guv’nor, it’s a cop,’ growled the man.

And then the whole explanation flashed upon the detective. In an instant he had gripped the girl by the hand and dragged her through the narrow passage, into which the water was now steadily overrunning.

‘Which way did you get in, Mills?’ he demanded authoritatively.

‘Through the window.’

‘Show me – quick!’

The convict led the way to what was evidently the window through which the girl had looked with such longing. The bars had been removed; the window sash itself lifted from its rusty hinges; and in another second the three were standing on the grass, with the stars twinkling above them.

‘Mills,’ said Mr Reeder, and his voice shook, ‘you came here to “bust” this house.’

‘That’s right,’ growled Mills. ‘I tell you it’s a cop. I’m not going to give you any trouble.’

‘Skip!’ hissed Mr Reeder. ‘And skip quick! Now, young lady, we’ll go for a little walk.’

A few seconds later a patrolling constable was smitten dumb by the apparition of a middle-aged man in shirt and trousers, and a lady who was inadequately attired in a silk petticoat.

* * *

‘The Mexican company was Bracher & Bracher,’ explained Reeder to his chief. ‘There was no John Baston. His room was a passage-way by which the Brachers could get from one room to the other. The clerk in the Mexican Syndicate’s office was, of course, blind; I spotted that the moment I saw him. There are any number of blind typists employed in the City of London. A blind clerk was necessary if the identity of de Silvo with the Brachers was to be kept a secret.

‘Bracher & Bracher had been going badly for years. It will probably be found that they have made away with clients’ money; and they hit upon this scheme of inducing foolish investors to put money into their syndicate on the promise of large dividends. Their victims were well chosen, and Joseph – who was the brains of the organisation – conducted the most rigorous investigation to make sure that these unfortunate people had no intimate friends. If they had any suspicion about an applicant, Brachers would write a letter deprecating the idea of an investment and suggesting that the too-shrewd dupe should find another and a safer method than the Mexican syndicate afforded.

‘After they had paid one or two years’ dividends the wretched investor was lured to the house at Dulwich and there scientifically killed. You will probably find an unofficial cemetery in their grounds. So far as I can make out, they have stolen over a hundred and twenty thousand pounds in the past two years by this method.’

‘It is incredible,’ said the Prosecutor, ‘incredible!’

Mr Reeder shrugged.

‘Is there anything more incredible than the Burke and Hare murders? There are Burkes and Hares in every branch of society and in every period of history.’

‘Why did they delay their execution of Miss Belman?’

Mr Reeder coughed.

‘They wanted to make a clean sweep, but did not wish to kill her until they had me in their hands. I rather suspect’ – he coughed again – ‘that they thought I had an especial interest in the young lady.’

‘And have you?’ asked the Public Prosecutor.

Mr Reeder did not reply.

THE END

TERROR KEEP

To Leslie Faber

(‘The Ringer’)

Terror Keep

Rightly speaking, it is improper, not to say illegal, for those sadly privileged few who go in and out of Broadmoor Criminal Asylum, to have pointed out to them any particular character, however notorious he may have been or to what heights of public interest his infamy had carried him, before the testifying doctors and a merciful jury consigned him to this place without hope. But often had John Flack been pointed out as he shuffled about the grounds, his hands behind him, his chin on his breast, a tall, lean old man in an ill-fitting suit of drab clothing, who spoke to nobody and was spoken to by few.

‘That is Flack – the Flack; the cleverest crook in the world . . . Crazy John Flack . . . nine murders . . .’

Men who were in Broadmoor for isolated homicides were rather proud of Old John in their queer, sane moments. The officers who locked him up at night and watched him as he slept had little to say against him, because he gave no trouble, and through all the six years of his incarceration had never once been seized of those frenzies which so often end in the hospital for some poor innocent devil, and a rubber-padded cell for the frantic author of misfortune.

He spent most of his time writing and reading, for he was something of a genius with his pen, and wrote with extraordinary rapidity. He filled hundreds of little exercise books with his great treatise on crime. The Governor humoured him; allowed him to retain the books, expecting in due course to add them to his already interesting museum.

Once, as a great concession, old Jack gave him a book to read, and the Governor read and gasped. It was entitled ‘Method of robbing a bank vault when only two guards are employed’. The Governor, who had been a soldier, read and read, stopping now and then to rub his head; for this document, written in the neat, legible hand of John Flack, was curiously reminiscent of a divisional order for attack. No detail was too small to be noted; every contingency was provided for. Not only were the constituents of the drug to be employed to ‘settle the outer watchman’ given, but there was an explanatory note which may be quoted.

If this drug is not procurable, I advise that the operator should call upon a suburban doctor and describe the following symptoms . . . The doctor will then prescribe the drug in a minute quantity. Six bottles of this medicine should be procured, and the following method adopted to extract the drug . . .’

‘Have you written much like this, Flack?’ asked the wondering officer.

‘This?’ John Flack shrugged his lean shoulders. ‘I am doing this for amusement, just to test my memory. I have already written sixty-three books on the subject, and those works are beyond improvement. During the six years I have been here, I have not been able to think of a single improvement to my old system.’

Was he jesting? Was this a flight of a disordered mind? The Governor, used as he was to his charges and their peculiar ways, was not certain.

‘You mean you have written an encyclopaedia of crime?’ he asked incredulously. ‘Where is it to be found?’

Old Flack’s thin lips curled in a disdainful smile, but he made no answer.

Sixty-three hand-written volumes represented the life work of John Flack. It was the one achievement upon which he prided himself.

On another occasion when the Governor referred to his extraordinary literary labours, he said: ‘I have put a huge fortune in the hands of any clever man – providing, of course,’ he mused, ‘that he is a man of resolution and the books fall into his hands at a very early date – in these days of scientific discovery, what is a novelty today is a commonplace tomorrow.’

The Governor had his doubts as to the existence of these deplorable volumes, but very soon after the conversation took place he had to revise his judgment. Scotland Yard, which seldom if ever chases chimera, sent down one Chief-Inspector Simpson, who was a man entirely without imagination and had been promoted for it. His interview with Crazy John Flack was a brief one.

‘About these books of yours, Jack,’ he said. ‘It would be terrible if they fell into wrong hands. Ravini says you’ve got a hundred volumes hidden somewhere –’

‘Ravini?’ Old John Flack showed his teeth. ‘Listen, Simpson! You don’t think you’re going to keep me in this awful place all my life, do you? If you do, you’ve got another guess coming. I’ll skip one of these odd nights – you can tell the Governor if you like – and then Ravini and I are going to have a little talk.’

His voice grew high and shrill. The old mad glitter that Simpson had seen before came back to his eyes.

‘Do you ever have daydreams, Simpson? I have three! I’ve got a new method of getting away with a million: that’s one, but it’s not important. Another one is Reeder: you can tell J. G. what I say. It’s a dream of meeting him alone one nice, dark, foggy night, when the police can’t tell which way the screams are coming. And the third is Ravini. George Ravini’s got one chance, and that is for him to die before I get out!’

‘You’re mad,’ said Simpson.

‘That’s what I’m here for,’ said John Flack truthfully.

This conversation with Simpson and that with the Governor were two of the longest he ever had, all the six years he was in Broadmoor. Mostly when he wasn’t writing he strolled about the grounds, his chin on his chest, his hands clasped behind him. Occasionally he reached a certain place near the high wall, and it is said that he threw letters over, though this is very unlikely. What is more possible is that he found a messenger who carried his many and cryptic letters to the outer world and brought in exchange monosyllabic replies. He was a very good friend of the officer in charge of his ward, and one early morning this man was discovered with his throat cut. The ward door was open, and John Flack had gone out into the world to realise his daydreams.

Chapter 1

There were two subjects which irritated the mind of Margaret Belman as the Southern Express carried her towards Selford Junction and the branch-line train which crawled from the junction to Siltbury. The first of these was, not unnaturally, the drastic changes she now contemplated, and the effect they already had had upon Mr J. G. Reeder, that mild and middle-aged man.

When she had announced that she was seeking a post in the country, he might at least have shown some evidence of regret: a certain glumness would have been appropriate at any rate. Instead he had brightened visibly at the prospect.

‘I am afraid I shan’t be able to come to London very often,’ she had said.

‘That is good news,’ said Mr Reeder, and added some banality about the value of periodical changes of air and the beauty of getting near to nature. In fact, he had been more cheerful than he had been for a week, which was rather exasperating.

Margaret Belman’s pretty face puckered as she recalled her disappointment and chagrin. All thoughts of dropping this application of hers disappeared. Not that she imagined for one moment that a six-hundred-a-year secretaryship was going to fall into her lap for the mere asking. She was wholly unsuited for the job, she had no experience of hotel work, and the chances of her being accepted were remote.

As to the Italian man who had made so many attempts to make her acquaintance, he was one of the unpleasant commonplaces so familiar to a girl who worked for her living that in ordinary circumstances she would not have given him a second thought.

But that morning he had followed her to the station, and she was certain that he had heard her tell the girl who came with her that she was returning by the 6.15. A policeman would deal effectively with him – if she cared to risk the publicity. But a girl, however sane, shrinks from such an ordeal, and she must deal with him in her own way.

That was not a happy prospect, and the two matters in combination were sufficient to spoil what otherwise might have been a very happy or interesting afternoon. As to Mr Reeder . . .

Margaret Belman frowned. She was twenty-three, an age when youngish men are rather tiresome. On the other hand, men in the region of fifty are not especially attractive; and she loathed Mr Reeder’s side-whiskers, that made him look rather like a Scottish butler. Of course, he was a dear . . .

Here the train reached the junction. She found herself at the surprisingly small station of Siltbury before she had quite made up her mind whether she was in love with Mr Reeder or merely annoyed with him.

The driver of the station cab stopped his unhappy-looking horse before the small gateway and pointed with his whip.

‘This is the best way in for you, miss,’ he said. ‘Mr Daver’s office is at the end of the path.’

He was a shrewd old man, who had driven many applicants for the post of secretary to Larmes Keep, and he guessed that this, the prettiest of all, did not come as a guest. In the first place, she brought no baggage, and then too the ticket-collector had come running after her to hand back the return half of the railway ticket which she had absent-mindedly surrendered.

‘I’d better wait for you, miss . . . ?’

‘Oh, yes, please,’ said Margaret Belman hastily as she got down from the dilapidated victoria.

‘You got an appointment?’

The cabman was a local character, and local characters assume privileges.

‘I ast you,’ he explained carefully, ‘because lots of young wimmin have come up to Larmes without appointments, and Mr Daver wouldn’t see ’em. They just cut out the advertisement and come along, but the ad says write. I suppose I’ve made a dozen journeys with young wimmin who ain’t got appointments. I’m telling you for your own good.’

The girl smiled.

‘You might have warned them before they left the station,’ she said good-humouredly, ‘and saved them the cab fare. Yes, I have an appointment.’

From where she stood by the gate she had a clear view of Larmes Keep. It bore no resemblance to an hotel and less to the superior boarding-house that she knew it to be. That part of the house which had been the original keep was easily distinguished, though the grey, straight walls were masked with ivy that covered also part of the buildings which had been added in the course of the years.

She looked across a smooth green lawn, on which were set a few wicker chairs and tables, to a rose garden which, even in late autumn, was a blaze of colour. Behind this was a belt of pine trees that seemed to run to the cliff’s edge. She had a glimpse of a grey-blue sea and a blur of dim smoke from a steamer invisible below the straight horizon. A gentle wind carried the fragrance of the pinks to her, and she sniffed ecstatically.

‘Isn’t it gorgeous?’ she breathed.

The cabman said it ‘wasn’t bad’, and pointed with his whip again.

‘It’s that little square place – only built a few years ago. Mr Daver is more of a writing gentleman than a boarding-house gentleman.’

She unlatched the oaken gate and walked up the stone path towards the sanctum of the writing gentleman. On either side of the crazy pavement was a deep border of flowers – she might have been passing through a cottage garden.

There was a long window and a small green door to the annexe. Evidently she had been seen, for, as her hand went up to the brass bell-push, the door opened.

It was obviously Mr Daver himself. A tall thin man of fifty, with a yellow, elf-like face and a smile that brought all her sense of humour into play. Very badly she wanted to laugh. The long upper lip overhung the lower, and except that the face was thin and lined, he had the appearance of some grotesque and foolish mascot. The staring, round, brown eyes, the puckered forehead, and a twist of hair that stood upright on the crown of his head, made him more brownie-like than ever.

‘Miss Belman?’ he asked, with a certain eagerness.

He lisped slightly, and had a trick of clasping his hands as if he were in an agony of apprehension lest his manner should displease.

‘Come into my den,’ he said, and gave such emphasis to the last word that she nearly laughed again.

The ‘den’ was a very comfortably furnished study, one wall of which was covered with books. Closing the door behind her, he pushed up a chair with a little nervous laugh.

‘I’m so very glad you came. Did you have a comfortable journey? I’m sure you did. And is London hot and stuffy? I’m afraid it is. Would you like a cup of tea? Of course you would.’

He fired question and answer so rapidly that she had no chance of replying, and he had taken up a telephone and ordered the tea before she could express a wish on the subject.

‘You are young – very young ’ – he shook his head sadly. ‘Twenty-four – no? Do you use the typewriter? What a ridiculous question to ask!’

‘It is very kind of you to see me, Mr Daver,’ she said, ‘and I don’t suppose for one moment that I shall suit you. I have had no experience of hotel management, and I realise, from the salary you offer –’

‘Quiet,’ said Mr Daver, shaking his head solemnly, ‘that is what I require. There is very little work, but I wished to be relieved even of that little. My own labours’ – he waved his hand to a pedestal desk littered with papers – ‘are colossal. I need a lady to keep accounts – to watch my interests. Somebody I can trust. I believe in faces, do you? I see that you do. And in the character of handwriting? You believe in that also. I have advertised for three months and have interviewed thirty-five applicants. Impossible! Their voices – terrible! I judge people by their voices – so do you. On Monday when you telephoned I said to myself, “The Voice!”’

He was clasping his hands together so tightly that his knuckles showed white, and this time her laughter was almost beyond arrest.

‘But, Mr Daver, I know nothing of hotel management. I think I could learn, and I want the position, naturally. The salary is terribly generous.’

‘ “Terribly generous,”’ repeated the man in a murmur. ‘How curious those words sound in juxtaposition! My housekeeper. How kind of you to bring the tea, Mrs Burton!’

The door had opened and a woman bearing a silver tray came in. She was dressed very neatly in black. The faded eyes scarcely looked at Margaret as she stood meekly waiting whilst Mr Daver spoke.

‘Mrs Burton, this is the new secretary to the company. She must have the best room in the Keep – the Blue Room. But – ah!’ – he pinched his lip anxiously – ‘blue may not be your colour?’

Margaret laughed.

‘Any colour is my colour,’ she said. ‘But I haven’t decided –’

‘Go with Mrs Burton; see the house – your office, your room. Mrs Burton!’

He pointed to the door, and before the girl knew what she was doing she had followed the housekeeper through the door. A narrow passage connected the private office of Mr Daver with the house, and Margaret was ushered into a large and lofty room which covered the superficial area of the Keep.

‘The Banquittin’ ’All,’ said Mrs Burton in a thin Cockney voice re-markable for its monotony. ‘It’s used as a lounge. We’ve only got three boarders. Mr Daver’s very partic’lar. We get a lot in for the winter.’

‘Three boarders isn’t a very paying proposition,’ said the girl.

Mrs Burton sniffed.

‘Mr Daver don’t want it to pay. It’s the company he likes. He only turned it into a boardin’ house because he likes to see people come and go without having to talk to ’em. It’s a nobby.’

‘A what?’ asked the puzzled girl. ‘Oh, you mean a hobby?’

‘I said a nobby,’ said Mrs Burton, in her listless, uncomplaining way.

Beyond the hall was a small and cosier sitting-room with French windows opening on to the lawn. Outside the window three people sat at tea. One was an elderly clergyman with a strong, hard face. He was eating toast and reading a church paper, oblivious of his companions. The second of the party was a pale-faced girl about Margaret’s own age. In spite of her pallor she was extraordinarily beautiful. A pair of big, dark eyes surveyed the visitor for a moment, and then returned to her companion, a military-looking man of forty.

Mrs Burton waited until they were ascending the broad stairway to the upper floor before she ‘introduced’ them.

‘The clergyman’s a Reverend Dean from South Africa, the young lady’s Miss Olga Crewe, the other gent is Colonel Hothling – they’re boarders. This is your room, miss.’

It was indeed a gem of an apartment; the sort of room that Margaret Belman had dreamt about. It was exquisitely furnished, and, like all the other rooms at Larmes Keep (as she discovered later), was provided with its private bathroom. The walls were panelled to half their height, the ceilings heavily beamed. She guessed that beneath the parquet was the original stone-flagged floor.

Margaret looked and sighed. It was going to be very hard to refuse this post – and why she should think of refusing at all she could not for the life of her understand.

‘It’s a beautiful room,’ she said, and Mrs Burton cast an apathetic eye round the apartment.

‘It’s old,’ she said. ‘I don’t like old houses. I used to live in Brixton –’

She stopped abruptly, sniffed in a deprecating way, and jingled the keys that she carried in her hand.

‘You’re suited, I suppose?’

‘Suited? You mean am I taking the appointment? I don’t know, yet.’

Mrs Burton looked round vaguely. The girl had the impression that she was trying to say something in praise of the place – something that would prejudice her in favour of accepting the appointment. Then she spoke.

‘The food’s good,’ she said, and Margaret smiled.

When she came back through the hall she saw the three people she had seen at tea. The colonel was walking by himself; the clergyman and the pale-faced girl were strolling across the lawn talking to one another. Mr Daver was sitting at his desk, his high forehead resting on his palm, and he was biting the end of a pen as Mrs Burton closed the door on them.

‘You like the room: naturally. You will start – when? Next Monday week, I think. What a relief! You have seen Mrs Burton.’ He wagged a finger at her roguishly. ‘Ah! Now you know! It is impossible! Can I leave her to meet the duchess and speed the duke? Can I trust her to adjust the little quarrels that naturally arise between guests? You are right – I can’t. I must have a lady here – I must, I must!’

He nodded emphatically, his impish brown eyes fixed on hers, the bulging upper lip grotesquely curved in a delighted grin.

‘My work suffers, as you say: constantly to be brought from my studies to settle such matters as the fixing of a tennis net – intolerable!’

‘You write a great deal?’ she managed to ask. She felt she must postpone her decision to the last possible moment.

‘A great deal. On crime. Ah, you are interested? I am preparing an encyclopaedia of crime!’ He said this impressively, dramatically.

‘On crime?’

He nodded.

‘It is one of my hobbies. I am a rich man and can afford hobbies. This place is a hobby. I lose four thousand a year, but I am satisfied. I pick and choose my own guests. If one bores me I tell him to go – that his room has been taken. Could I do that if they were my friends? No. They interest me. They fill the house; they give me company and amusement. When will you come?’

She hesitated.

‘I think –’

‘Monday week? Excellent!’ He shook her hand vigorously. ‘You need not be lonely. If my guests bore you, invite your own friends. Let them come as the guests of the house. Until Monday!’

She was walking down the garden path to the waiting cabman, a little dazed, more than a little undecided.

‘Did you get the place, miss?’ asked the friendly cabman.

‘I suppose I did,’ replied Margaret.

She looked back towards Larmes Keep. The lawns were empty, but near at hand she had one glimpse of a woman. Only for a second, and then she disappeared in a belt of laurel that ran parallel with the boundary wall of the property. Evidently there was a rough path through the bushes, and Mrs Burton had sought this hiding-place. Her hands covered her face as she staggered forward blindly, and the faint sound of her sobs came back to the astonished girl.

‘That’s the housekeeper – she’s a bit mad,’ said the cabman calmly.

Chapter 2

George Ravini was not an unpleasant-looking man. From his own point of view, which was naturally prejudiced, he was extremely attractive, with his crisp brown hair, his handsome Neapolitan features, his height, and his poise. And when to his natural advantages were added the best suit that Savile Row could create, the most spotless of grey hats, and the malacca sword-stick on which one kid-gloved hand rested as upon the hilt of a foil, the shiniest of enamelled shoes and the finest of grey silk socks, the picture was well framed and embellished. Greatest embellishment of all were George Ravini’s Luck Rings. He was a superstitious man and was addicted to charms. On the little finger of his right hand were three gold rings, and in each ring three large diamonds. The Luck Stones of Ravini were one of the traditions of Saffron Hill.

Most of the time he had the half-amused, half-bored smile of a man for whom life held no mysteries and could offer, in experience, little that was new. And the smile was justified, for George knew most of the things that were happening in London or likely to happen. He had worked outward from a one-room home in Saffron Hill, where he first saw the light, had enlarged the narrow horizons which surrounded his childhood, so that now, in place of the poverty-stricken child who had shared a bed with his father’s performing monkey, he was not only the possessor of a classy flat in Half Moon Street but the owner of the block in which it was situated. His balance at the Continental Bank was a generous one; he had securities which brought him an income beyond his needs, and a larger revenue from the two night clubs and spieling houses which were in his control, to say nothing of the perquisites which came his way from a score of other sources. The word of Ravini was law from Leyton to Clerkenwell, his fiats were obeyed within a mile radius of Fitzroy Square, and no other gang leader in London might raise his head without George’s permission save at the risk of waking in the casualty ward of the Middlesex Hospital entirely surrounded by bandages.

He waited patiently on the broad space of Waterloo Station, occasionally consulting his gold wrist-watch, and surveyed with a benevolent and proprietorial eye the stream of life that flowed from the barriers.

The station clock showed a quarter after six: he glanced at his watch and scanned the crowd that was debouching from No. 7 platform. After a few minutes’ scrutiny he saw the girl, and with a pat to his cravat and a touch to the brim of his hat which set it tilting, he strolled to meet her.

Margaret Belman was too intent with her own thoughts to be thinking about the debonair and youngish man who had so often sought an introduction by the conventional method of pretending they had met before. Indeed, in the excitement of her visit to Larmes Keep, she had forgotten that this pestiferous gallant existed or was likely to be waiting for her on her return from the country.

George Ravini stopped and waited for her approach, smiling his approval. He liked slim girls of her colouring: girls who dressed rather severely and wore rather nice stockings and plain little hats. He raised his hat; the Luck Stones glittered beautifully.

‘Oh!’ said Margaret Belman, and stopped, too.

‘Good evening, Miss Belman,’ said George, flashing his white teeth. ‘Quite a coincidence meeting you again.’

As she went to walk past him he fell in by her side.

‘I wish I had my car here, I might have driven you home,’ he said conversationally. ‘I’ve got a new Rolls – rather a neat little machine. I don’t use it a great deal – I like to walk from Half Moon Street.’

‘Are you walking to Half Moon Street now?’ she asked quietly.

But George was a man of experience.

‘Your way is my way,’ he said.

She stopped.

‘What is your name?’ she asked.

‘Smith – Anderton Smith,’ he answered readily. ‘Why do you want to know?’

‘I want to tell the next policeman we meet,’ she said, and Mr Ravini, not unaccustomed to such threats, was amused.

‘Don’t be a silly little girl,’ he said. ‘I’m doing no harm, and you don’t want to get your name in the newspapers. Besides, I should merely say that you asked me to walk with you and that we were old friends.’

She looked at him steadily.

‘I may meet a friend very soon who will need a lot of convincing,’ she said. ‘Will you please go away?’

George was pleased to stay, as he explained.

‘What a foolish young lady you are!’ he began. ‘I’m merely offering you the common courtesies –’

A hand gripped his arm and slowly pulled him round – and this in broad daylight on Waterloo Station, under the eyes of at least two of his own tribe, Mr Ravini’s dark eyes snapped dangerously.

And yet seemingly his assailant was a most inoffensive man. He was tall and rather melancholy-looking. He wore a frock-coat buttoned tightly across his breast, and a high, flat-crowned, hard felt hat. On his biggish nose a pair of steel-rimmed pince-nez were set at an awkward angle. A slither of sandy side-whiskers decorated his cheek, and hooked to his arm was a tightly furled umbrella. Not that George examined these details with any care: they were rather familiar to him, for he knew Mr J. G. Reeder, Detective to the Public Prosecutor’s Office, and the fight went out of his eyes.

‘Why, Mr Reeder!’ he said, with a geniality that almost sounded sincere. ‘This is a pleasant surprise. Meet my young lady friend, Miss Belman – I was just taking her along –’

‘Not to the Flotsam Club for a cup of tea?’ murmured Mr Reeder in a tone of pain. ‘Not to Harraby’s Restaurant? Don’t tell me that, Georgio! Dear me! How interesting either experience would be!’

He beamed upon the scowling Italian.

‘At the Flotsam,’ he went on, ‘you would have been able to show the young lady where your friends caught young Lord Fallen for three thousand pounds only the night before last – so they tell me. At Harraby’s you might have shown her that interesting little room where the police come in by the back way whenever you consider it expedient to betray one of your friends. She has missed a treat!’

George Ravini’s smile did not harmonise with his sudden pallor.

‘Now listen, Mr Reeder –’

‘I’m sorry I can’t, Georgio.’ Mr Reeder shook his head mournfully. ‘My time is precious. Yet, I will spare you one minute to tell you that Miss Belman is a very particular friend of mine. If her experience of today is repeated, who knows what might happen, for I am, as you probably know, a malicious man.’ He eyed the Italian thoughtfully. ‘Is it malice, I wonder, which inhibits a most interesting revelation which I have on the tip of my tongue? I wonder. The human mind, Mr Ravini, is a curious and complex thing. Well, well, I must be getting along. Give my regards to your criminal associates, and if you find yourself shadowed by a gentleman from Scotland Yard, bear him no resentment. He is doing his duty. And do not lose sight of my – um – warning about this lady.’

‘I have said nothing to this young lady that a gentleman shouldn’t.’

Mr Reeder peered at Ravini.

‘If you have,’ he said, ‘you may expect to see me some time this evening – and I shall not come alone. In fact’ – this in a most confidential tone – ‘I shall bring sufficient strong men with me to take from you the keys of your box in the Fetter Lane Safe Deposit.’

That was all he said, and Ravini reeled under the threat. Before he had quite recovered, Mr J. G. Reeder and his charge had disappeared into the throng.

Chapter 3

‘An interesting man,’ said Mr Reeder as the cab crossed Westminster Bridge. ‘He is in fact the most interesting man I know at this particular moment. It was fate that I should walk into him as I did. But I wish he wouldn’t wear diamond rings!’

He stole a sidelong glance at his companion. ‘Well, did you – um – like the place?’

‘It is very beautiful,’ she said, without enthusiasm, ‘but it is rather far away from London.’

His face fell.

‘Have you declined the post?’ he asked anxiously.

She half turned in the seat and looked at him. ‘Mr Reeder, I honestly believe you wish to see the back of me!’

To her surprise Mr Reeder went very red. ‘Why – um – of course I do – I don’t, I mean. But it seems a very good position, even as a temporary position.’ He blinked at her. ‘I shall miss you, I really shall miss you, Miss – um – Margaret. We have become such’ – here he swallowed something – ‘good friends, but the – a certain business is on my mind – I mean, I am rather perturbed.’

He looked from one window to the other as though he suspected an eavesdropper riding on the step of the cab, and then, lowering his voice –

‘I have never discussed with you, my dear Miss – um – Margaret, the rather unpleasant details of my trade; but there is, or was, a gentleman named Flack – F-l-a-c-k,’ he spelt it. ‘You remember?’ he asked anxiously, and when she shook her head: ‘I hoped that you would. One reads about these things in the public press. But five years ago you would have been a child –’

‘You’re very flattering,’ she smiled. ‘I was in fact a grown-up young lady of eighteen.’

‘Were you really?’ asked Mr Reeder in a hushed voice. ‘You surprise me! Well . . . Mr Flack was the kind of person one so frequently reads about in the pages of the sensational novelist – who has not too keen a regard for the probabilities and facts of life. A master criminal, the organiser of – um – a confederation, or, as vulgar people would call it, gang.’

He sighed and closed his eyes, and she thought for one moment he was praying for the iniquitous criminal.

‘A brilliant criminal – it is a terrible thing to confess, but I have a reluctant admiration for him. You see, as I have so often explained to you, I am cursed with a criminal mind. But he was mad.’

‘All criminals are mad: you have explained that so often,’ she said, a little tartly, for she was not anxious that the conversation should drift from her immediate affairs.

‘But he was really mad,’ said Mr Reeder with great earnestness, and tapped his forehead deliberately. ‘His very madness was his salvation. He did daring things, but with the cunning of a madman. He shot down two policemen in cold blood – he did this at midday in a crowded City street and got away. We caught him at last, of course. People like that are always caught in this country. I – um – assisted. In fact, I – well, I assisted! That is why I am thinking of our friend Georgio; for it was Mr Ravini who betrayed him to us for two thousand pounds. I negotiated the deal, Mr Ravini being a criminal . . .’

She stared at him open-mouthed.

‘That Italian man? You don’t mean that?’

Mr Reeder nodded. ‘Mr Ravini had dealings with the Flack gang, and by chance learnt of Old John’s whereabouts. We took old John Flack in his sleep.’ Mr Reeder sighed again. ‘He said some very bitter things about me. People, when they are arrested, frequently exaggerate the shortcomings of their – er – captors.’

‘Was he tried?’ she asked.

‘He was tried,’ said Mr Reeder, ‘on a charge of murder. But, of course, he was mad. “Guilty but insane” was the verdict, and he was sent to Broadmoor Criminal Lunatic Asylum.’

He searched feebly in his pockets, produced a very limp packet of cigarettes, extracted one and asked permission to smoke. She watched the damp squib of a thing drooping pathetically from his lower lip. His eyes were staring sombrely through the window at the green of the park through which they were passing, and he seemed entirely absorbed in his contemplation of nature.

‘But what has that to do with my going into the country?’

Mr Reeder brought his eyes round to survey her.

‘Mr Flack was a very vindictive man,’ he said. ‘A very brilliant man – I hate confessing this. And he has – um – a particular grudge against me, and being what he is, it would not be long before he discovered that I – er – I – am rather attached to you, Miss – Margaret.’

A light dawned on her, and her whole attitude towards him changed as she gripped his arm. ‘You mean, you want me out of London in case something happens? But what could happen? He’s in Broadmoor, isn’t he?’

Mr Reeder scratched his chin and looked up at the roof of the cab.

‘He escaped a week ago – hum! He is, I think, in London at this moment.’

Margaret Belman gasped.

‘Does this Italian – this Ravini man – know?’

‘He does not know,’ said Mr Reeder carefully, ‘but I think he will learn – yes, I think he will learn.’

A week later, after Margaret Belman had gone, with some misgivings, to take up her new appointment, all Mr Reeder’s doubts as to the location of John Flack were dissipated.

* * *

There was some slight disagreement between Margaret Belman and Mr Reeder, and it happened at lunch on the day she left London. It started in fun – not that Mr Reeder was ever kittenish – by a certain suggestion she made. Mr Reeder demurred. How she ever summoned the courage to tell him he was old-fashioned, Margaret never knew – but she did.

‘Of course, you could shave them off,’ she said scornfully. ‘It would make you look ten years younger.’

‘I don’t think, my dear – Miss – um – Margaret, that I wish to look ten years younger,’ said Mr Reeder.

A certain tenseness followed, and she went down to Siltbury feeling a little uncomfortable. Yet her heart warmed to him as she realised that his anxiety to get her out of London was dictated by a desire for her own safety. It was not until she was nearing her destination that she realised that he himself was in no ordinary danger. She must write and tell him she was sorry. She wondered who the Flacks were; the name was familiar to her, though in the days of their activity she gave little or no attention to people of their kind.

Mr Daver, looking more impish than ever, gave her a brief interview on her arrival. It was he who took her to her bureau and very briefly explained her duties. They were neither heavy nor complicated, and she was relieved to discover that she had practically nothing whatever to do with the management of Larmes Keep, That was in the efficient hands of Mrs Burton.

The staff of the hotel were housed in two cottages about a quarter of a mile from the Keep, only Mrs Burton living on the premises.

‘This keeps us more select,’ said Mr Daver. ‘Servants are an abominable nuisance. You agree with me? I thought you would. If they are needed in the night, both cottages have telephones, and Grainger, the porter, has a pass-key to the outer door. That is an excellent arrangement, of which you approve? I am sure you do.’

Conversation with Mr Daver was a little superfluous. He supplied his own answers to all questions.

He was leaving the bureau when she remembered his great study.

‘Mr Daver, do you know anything about the Flacks?’

He frowned.

‘Flax? Let me see, what is flax –’

She spelt the name.

‘A friend of mine told me about them the other day,’ she said. ‘I thought you would know the name. They are a gang of criminals –’

‘Flack! To be sure, to be sure! Dear me, how very interesting! Are you also a criminologist? John Flack, George Flack, Augustus Flack’ – he spoke rapidly, ticking them off on his long, tobacco-stained fingers. ‘John Flack is in a criminal lunatic asylum; his two brothers escaped to the Argentine. Terrible fellows, terrible, terrible fellows! What a marvellous institution is our police force! How wonderful is Scotland Yard! You agree with me? I was sure you would. Flack!’ He frowned and shook his head ‘I thought of dealing with these people in a short monograph, but my data are not complete. Do you know them?’

She shook her head smilingly.

‘No, I haven’t that advantage.’

‘Terrible creatures,’ said Mr Daver. ‘Amazing creatures. Who is your friend, Miss Belman? I would like to meet him. Perhaps he could tell me something more about them.’

Margaret received the suggestion with dismay.

‘Oh, no, you’re not likely to meet him,’ she said hurriedly, ‘and I don’t think he would talk even if you met him – perhaps it was indiscreet of me to mention him at all.’

The conversation must have weighed on Mr Daver’s mind, for just as she was leaving her office that night for her room, a very tired girl, he knocked at the door, opened it at her invitation and stood in the doorway.

‘I have been going into the records of the Flacks,’ he said, ‘and it is surprising how little information there is. I have a newspaper cutting which says that John Flack is dead. He was the man who went into Broadmoor. Is he dead?’

Margaret shook her head.

‘I couldn’t tell you,’ she replied untruthfully. ‘I only heard a casual reference to him.’

Mr Daver scratched his round chin.

‘I thought possibly somebody might have told you a few facts which you, so to speak – a laywoman!’ – he giggled – ‘might have regarded as unimportant, but which I –’

He hesitated expectantly.

‘That is all I know, Mr Daver,’ said Margaret.

She slept soundly that night, the distant hush-hush of the waves as they rolled up the long beach of Siltbury Bay lulling her to dreamless slumber.

Her duties did not begin till after breakfast, which she had in her bureau, and the largest part was the checking of the accounts. Apparently Mrs Burton attended to that side of the management, and it was only at the month’s end, when cheques were to be drawn, that her work was likely to be heavy. In the main her day was taken up with correspondence. There were some hundred and forty applicants for her post who had to be answered; there were in addition a number of letters from people who desired accommodation at Larmes Keep. All these had to be taken to Mr Daver, and it was remarkable how fastidious a man he was. For example –

‘The Reverend John Quinton? No, no; we have one parson in the house, that is enough. Tell him we are very sorry, but we are full up. Mrs Bagley wishes to bring her daughter? Certainly not! I cannot have children distracting me with their noise. You agree? I see you do. Who is this woman . . . ‘coming for a rest cure’? That means she’s ill. I cannot have Larmes Keep turned into a sanatorium. You may tell them that there will be no accommodation until after Christmas. After Christmas they can all come – I am going abroad.’

The evenings were her own. She could, if she desired, go into Siltbury, which boasted two cinemas and a pierrot party, and Mr Daver put the hotel car at her disposal for the purpose. She preferred, however, to wander through the grounds. The estate was a much larger one than she had supposed. Behind, to the south of the house, it extended for half a mile, the boundary to the east being represented by the cliffs, along which a breast-high rubble wall had been built, and with excellent reason, for here the cliff fell sheer two hundred feet to the rocks below. At one place there had been a little landslide, the wall had been carried away and the gap had been temporarily filled by a wooden fence. Some attempt had been made to create a nine-hole golf course, she saw as she wandered round, but evidently Mr Daver had grown tired of this enterprise, for the greens were knee-deep in waving grasses.

At the south-west corner of the house, and distant a hundred yards, was a big clump of rhododendrons, and this she explored, following a twisting path that led to the heart of the bushes. Quite unexpectedly she came upon an old well. The brickwork about it was in ruins; the well itself was boarded in. On the weather-beaten roof-piece above the windlass was a small wooden notice-board, evidently fixed for the enlightenment of visitors.

This well was used from 935 to 1794. It was filled in by the present owners of the property in May, 1914, one hundred and thirty-five cartloads of rock and gravel being used for the purpose.

It was a pleasant occupation, standing by that ancient well and picturing the collar serfs and bare-footed peasants who through the ages had stood where she was standing. As she came out of the bushes she saw the pale-faced Olga Crewe.

Margaret had not spoken either to the colonel or to the clergyman; either she had avoided them, or they her. Olga Crewe she had not seen, and now she would have turned away, but the girl moved across to intercept her.

‘You are the new secretary, aren’t you?’

Her voice was musical, rather alluring. ‘Custardy’ was Margaret’s mental classification.

‘Yes, I’m Miss Belman.’

The girl nodded. ‘My name you know, I suppose? Are you going to be terribly bored here?’

‘I don’t think so,’ smiled Margaret. ‘It is a beautiful spot.’

The eyes of Olga Crewe surveyed the scene critically.

‘I suppose it is: very beautiful, yes, but one gets very tired of beauty after a few years.’

Margaret listened in astonishment.

‘Have you been here so long?’

‘I’ve practically lived here since I was a child. I thought Joe would have told you that: he’s an inveterate old gossip.’

‘Joe?’ She was puzzled.

‘The cab-driver, news-gatherer, and distributor.’

She looked at Larmes Keep and frowned.

‘Do you know what they used to call this place, Miss Belman? The House of Tears – the Château des Larmes.’

‘Why ever?’ asked Margaret.

Olga Crewe shrugged her pretty shoulders.

‘Some sort of tradition, I suppose, that goes back to the days of the Baron Augernvert, who built it. The locals have corrupted the name to Larmes Keep. You ought to see the dungeons.’

‘Are there dungeons?’ asked Margaret in surprise, and Olga nodded. For the first time she seemed amused.

‘If you saw them and the chains and the rings in the walls and the stone floors worn thin by bare feet, you might guess how its name arose.’

Margaret stared back towards the Keep. The sun was setting behind it, and silhouetted as it was against the red light there was something ominous and sinister in that dark, squat pile.

‘How very unpleasant!’ she said, and shivered.

Olga Crewe laughed.

‘Have you seen the cliffs?’ she said, and led the way back to the long wall, and for a quarter of an hour they stood, their arms resting on the parapet, looking down into the gloom.

‘You ought to get someone to row you round the face of the cliff. It’s simply honeycombed with caves,’ she said. ‘There’s one at the water’s edge that tunnels under the Keep. When the tides are unusually high they are flooded. I wonder Daver doesn’t write a book about it.’

There was just the faintest hint of a sneer in her tone, but it did not escape Margaret’s attention.

‘That must be the entrance,’ she said, pointing down to a swirl of water that seemed to run right up to the face of the cliff.

Olga nodded.

‘At high tide you wouldn’t notice that,’ she said, and then, turning abruptly, she asked the girl if she had seen the bathing-pool.

This was an oblong bath, sheltered by high box hedges and lined throughout with blue tiles; a delightfully inviting plunge.

‘Nobody uses it but myself. Daver would die at the thought of jumping in.’

Whenever she referred to Mr Daver if was in a scarcely veiled tone of contempt. She was not more charitable when she referred to other guests. As they were nearing the house Olga said, apropos of nothing –

‘I shouldn’t talk too much to Daver if I were you. Let him do the talking: he likes it.’

‘What do you mean?’ asked Margaret quietly; but at that moment Olga left her side without any word of farewell and went towards the colonel, who was standing, a cigar between his teeth, watching their approach.

The House of Tears!

Margaret remembered the title as she was undressing that night, and, despite her self-possession, shivered a little.

Chapter 4

The policeman who stood on the corner where Bennett Street meets Hyde Lane had the world to himself. It was nearing three o’clock on a sultry spring morning, airless, unpleasantly warm. Somewhere in South London there was a thunderstorm; the hollow echoes of it came at odd intervals. The good and bad of Mayfair slept – all, apparently, except Mr J. G. Reeder, Friend of the Law and Terror of Criminals. Police-Officer Dyer saw the yellow light behind the casemented window and smiled benevolently.

It was so still a night that when he heard a key turn in a lock he looked over his shoulder, thinking the noise was from the house immediately behind him. But the door did not move. Instead he saw a woman appear on the top doorstep five houses away. She wore a flimsy negligée.

‘Officer!’

The voice was low, cultured, very urgent. He moved more quickly towards her than policemen usually move.

‘Anything wrong, miss?’

Her face, he noticed in his worldly way, was ‘made up’; the cheeks heavily rouged, the lips a startling red for one who was afraid. He supposed her to be pretty in normal circumstances, but was doubtful as to her age. She wore a long black dressing-gown, fastened up to her chin. Also he saw that the hand that gripped the railing which flanked the steps glittered in the light of the street lamps.

‘I don’t know . . . quite. I am alone in the house and I thought I heard . . . something.’

Three words to a breath. Obviously she was terrified. ‘Haven’t you any servants in the house?’ The constable was surprised, a little shocked.

‘No. I only came back from Paris at midnight – we took the house furnished – I think the servants I engaged mistook the date of my return. I am Mrs Granville Fornese.’

In a dim way he remembered the name. It had that value of familiarity which makes even the most assured hesitate to deny acquaintance. It sounded grand, too – the name of a Somebody. And Bennett Street was a place where Somebodies live. The officer peered into the dark hall. ‘If you would put the light on, madame, I will look round.’

She shook her head: he almost felt the shiver of her. ‘The lights aren’t working. That is what frightened me. They were quite all right when I went to bed at one o’clock. Something woke me . . . I don’t know what . . . and I switched on the lamp by the side of my bed. And there was no light. I keep a little portable battery lamp in my bag. I found this – and turned it on.’

She stopped, set her teeth in a mirthless smile. Police-Officer Dyer saw the dark eyes were staringly wide.

‘I saw . . . I don’t know what it was . . . just a patch of black, like somebody crouching by the wall. Then it disappeared. And the door of my room was wide open. I closed and locked it when I went to bed.’

The officer pushed open the door wider, sent a white beam of light along the passage. There was a small hall table against the wall, where a telephone instrument stood. Striding into the hall, he took up the instrument and lifted the hook: the ’phone was dead. ‘Does this –’ So far he got with the question, and then stopped.

From somewhere above he heard a faint but sustained creak – the sound of a foot resting on a faulty floorboard. Mrs Fornese was still standing in the open doorway, and he went back to her.

‘Have you a key to this door?’ he asked, and she shook her head.

He felt along the inner, surface of the lock and found a stop-catch, pushed it up.

‘I’ll have to ’phone from somewhere. You’d better . . .’

What had she best do? He was a plain police-constable, and was confronted with a delicate situation.

‘Is there anywhere you could go . . . friends?’

‘No.’ There was no indecision in that word. And then: ‘Doesn’t Mr Reeder live opposite? Somebody told me . . .’

In the house opposite a light showed. Mr Dyer surveyed the lighted window dubiously. It stood for the elegant apartment of one who held a post superior to chief constables. No. 7, Bennett Street had been at a recent period converted into flats, and into one of these Mr Reeder had moved from his suburban home. Why he should take a flat in that exclusive and interesting neighbourhood, nobody knew. He was credited by criminals with being fabulously rich; he was undoubtedly a snug man.

The constable hesitated, searched his pocket for the smallest coin of the realm, and, leaving the lady on the doorstep, crossed the road and tossed a ha’penny to the window. A second and the casement window was pushed open.

‘Excuse me, Mr Reeder, could I see you for a second?’

The head and shoulders disappeared, and in a very short time Mr Reeder appeared in the doorway. He was so fully dressed that he might have been expecting the summons.

‘Anything wrong, constable?’ he asked gently.

‘Could I use your phone? There is a lady over there – Mrs Fornese . . . alone . . . heard somebody in the house. I heard it, too . . .’

He heard a short scream . . . a crash, and jumped round. The door of No. 4 was closed. Mrs Fornese had disappeared.

In six strides Mr Reeder had crossed the road and was at the door. Stooping, he pressed in the flap of the letter-box and listened. No noise but the ticking of a clock . . . a faint sighing sound.

‘Hum!’ said Mr Reeder, scratching his long nose thoughtfully. ‘Hum . . . would you be so kind as to tell me all about this – um – happening?’

The police-constable repeated the story, more coherently.

‘You fastened the spring lock so that it would not move? A wise precaution.’

Mr Reeder frowned. Without another word he crossed the road and disappeared into his flat. There was a small drawer at the back of his writing bureau, and this he unlocked. Taking out a leather hold-all, he unrolled this, and selecting three curious steel instruments that were not unlike small hooks, fitted one into a wooden handle and returned to the constable.

‘This, I fear, is . . . I will not say “unlawful”, for a gentleman of my position is incapable of an unlawful act . . . Shall I say “unusual”?’

All the time he talked in his soft, apologetic way he was working at the lock, turning the instrument first one way and then the other. Presently with a click the lock turned and Mr Reeder pushed open the door.

‘I think I had best borrow your lamp – thank you.’

He took the electric lamp from the constable’s hand and flung a white circle of light into the hall. There was no sign of life. He cast the beam up the stairs, and, stooping his head, listened. There came to his ear no sound, and noiselessly he stepped further into the hall.

The passage continued beyond the foot of the stairs, and at the end was a door which apparently gave to the domestic quarters of the house. To the policeman’s surprise, it was this door which Mr Reeder examined. He turned the handle, but the door did not move, and, stooping, he squinted through the keyhole.

‘There was somebody . . . upstairs,’ began the policeman with respectful hesitation.

‘There was somebody upstairs,’ repeated Mr Reeder absently. ‘You heard a creaky board, I think.’

He came slowly back to the foot of the stairs and looked up. Then he cast his lamp along the floor of the hall.

‘No sawdust,’ he said, speaking to himself, ‘so it can’t be that.’

‘Shall I go up, sir?’ said the policeman, and his foot was on the lower tread when Mr Reeder, displaying unexpected strength in so weary-looking a man, pushed him back.

‘I think not, constable,’ he said firmly. ‘If the lady is upstairs she will have heard our voices. But the lady is not upstairs.’

‘Do you think she’s in the kitchen, sir?’ asked the puzzled policeman.

Mr Reeder shook his head sadly.

‘Alas! how few modern women spend their time in a kitchen!’ he said, and made an impatient clucking noise, but whether this was a protest against the falling off of woman’s domestic qualities, or whether he ‘tchk’d’ for some other reason, it was difficult to say, for he was a very preoccupied man.

He swung the lamp back to the door.

‘I thought so,’ he said, with a note of relief in his voice. ‘There are two walking-sticks in the hall-stand. Will you get one of them, constable?’

Wondering, the officer obeyed, and came back, handing a long cherrywood stick with a crooked handle to Mr Reeder, who examined it in the light of his lamp.

‘Dust-covered, and left by the previous owner. The spike in place of the ferrule shows that it was purchased in Switzerland – probably you are not interested in detective stories and have never read of the gentleman whose method I am plagiarising?’

‘No, sir,’ said the mystified officer.

Mr Reeder examined the stick again.

‘It is a thousand pities that it is not a fishing-rod,’ he said. ‘Will you stay here? – and don’t move.’

And then he began to crawl up the stairs on his knees, waving his stick in front of him in the most eccentric manner. He held it up, lifting the full length of his arm, and as he crawled upwards he struck at imaginary obstacles. Higher and higher he went, silhouetted against the reflected light of the lamp he carried, and Police Constable Dyer watched him open-mouthed.

‘Don’t you think I’d better –’

He got as far as this when the thing happened. There was an explosion that deafened him; the air was suddenly filled with flying clouds of smoke and dust; he heard the crackle of wood and the pungent scent of something burning. Dazed and stupefied, he stood stock still, gaping up at Mr Reeder, who was sitting on a stair, picking little splinters of wood from his coat.

‘I think you may come up in perfect safety,’ said Mr Reeder with great calmness.

‘What – what was it?’ asked the officer.

The enemy of criminals was dusting his hat tenderly, though this the officer could not see.

‘You may come up.’

P. C. Dyer ran up the stairs and followed the other along the broad landing till he stopped and focused in the light of his lamp a queer-looking and obviously home-made spring gun, the muzzle of which was trained through the banisters so that it covered the stairs up which he had ascended.

‘There was,’ said Mr Reeder carefully, ‘a piece of black thread stretched across the stairs, so that any person who bulged or broke that thread was certain to fire the gun.’

‘But – but the lady?’

Mr Reeder coughed.

‘I do not think she is in the house,’ he said, ever so gently. ‘I rather imagine that she went through the back. There is a back entrance to the mews, is there not? And that by this time she is a long way from the house. I sympathise with her – this little incident has occurred too late for the morning newspapers, and she will have to wait for the sporting editions before she learns that I am still alive.’

The police-officer drew a long breath.

‘I think I’d better report this, sir.’

‘I think you had,’ sighed Mr Reeder. ‘And will you ring up Inspector Simpson and tell him that if he comes this way I should like to see him?’

Again the policeman hesitated.

‘Don’t you think we’d better search the house? . . . they may have done away with this woman.’

Mr Reeder shook his head.

‘They have not done away with any woman,’ he said decisively. ‘The only thing they have done away with is one of Mr Simpson’s pet theories.’

‘But, Mr Reeder, why did this lady come to the door –’

Mr Reeder patted him benignantly on the arm, as a mother might pat a child who asked a foolish question.

‘The lady had been standing at the door for half an hour,’ he said gently; ‘on and off for half an hour, constable, hoping against hope, one imagines, that she would attract my attention. But I was looking at her from a room that was not – er – illuminated. I did not show myself because I – er – have a very keen desire to live!’

On this baffling note Mr Reeder went into his house.

Chapter 5

Mr Reeder sat at his ease, wearing a pair of grotesquely painted velvet slippers, a cigarette hanging from his lips, and explained to the detective inspector, who had called in the early hours of the morning, his reason for adopting a certain conclusion.

‘I do not imagine for one moment that it was my friend Ravini. He is less subtle, in addition to which he has little or no intelligence. You will find that this coup has been planned for months, though it has only been put into execution today. No. 307, Bennett Street, is the property of an old gentleman who spends most of his life in Italy. He has been in the habit of letting the house furnished for years: in fact, it was vacated only a month ago.’

‘You think, then,’ said the puzzled Simpson, ‘that the people, whoever they were, rented the house –’

Mr Reeder shook his head.

‘Even that I doubt,’ he said. ‘They have probably an order to view, and in some way got rid of the caretaker. They knew I would be at home last night, because I am always at home – um – on most nights since . . .’ Mr Reeder coughed in his embarrassment. ‘A young friend of mine has recently left London . . . I do not like going out alone.’

And, to Simpson’s horror, a pinkish flush suffused the sober countenance of Mr Reeder.

‘A few weeks ago,’ he went on, with a pitiable attempt at airiness, ‘I used to dine out, attend a concert or one of those exquisite melodramas which have such an appeal for me.’

‘Whom do you suspect?’ interrupted Simpson, who had not been called from his bed in the middle of the night to discuss the virtues of melodrama. ‘The Gregorys or the Donovans?’ He named two groups that had excellent reason to be annoyed with Mr Reeder and his methods. J. G. Reeder shook his head.

‘Neither,’ he said. ‘I think – indeed I am sure – that we must go back to ancient history for the cause.’

Simpson opened his eyes. ‘Not Flack?’ he asked incredulously. ‘He’s hiding – he wouldn’t start anything so soon.’

Mr Reeder nodded.

‘John Flack. Who else could have planned such a thing? The art of it! And, Mr Simpson’ – he leaned over and tapped the inspector on the breast – ‘there has not been a big robbery in London since Flack went to Broadmoor. You’ll get the biggest of all in a week! The coup of coups! His mad brain is planning it now!’

‘He’s finished,’ said Simpson with a frown.

Mr Reeder smiled wanly.

‘We shall see. This little affair of tonight is a sighting shot – a mere nothing. But I am rather glad I am not – er – dining out in these days. On the other hand, our friend Georgio Ravini is a notorious diner-out – would you mind calling up Vine Street police station and finding out whether they have any casualties to report?’

Vine Street, which knew the movements of so many people, replied instantly that Mr Georgio Ravini was out of town; it was believed he was in Paris.

‘Dear me!’ said Mr Reeder in his feeble, aimless way. ‘How very wise of Georgio – and how much wiser it will be if he stays there!’

Inspector Simpson rose and shook himself. He was a stout, hearty man who had that habit.

‘I’ll get down to the Yard and report this,’ he said ‘It may not have been Flack after all. He’s a gang leader and he’d be useless without his crowd, and they are scattered. Most of them are in the Argentine –’

‘Ha, ha!’ said Mr Reeder, without any evidence of joy.

‘What the devil are you laughing about?’

The other was instantly apologetic.

‘It was what I would describe as a sceptical laugh. The Argentine! Do criminals really go to the Argentine except in those excellent works of fiction which one reads on trains? A tradition, Mr Simpson, dating back to the ancient times when there was no extradition treaty between the two countries. Scattered, yes. I look forward to the day when I shall gather them all together under one roof. It will be a very pleasant morning for me, Mr Simpson, when I can walk along the gallery, looking through the little peep-holes, and watch them sewing mail-bags – I know of no more sedative occupation than a little needlework! In the meantime, watch your banks – old John is seventy years of age and has no time to waste. History will be made in the City of London before many days are past! I wonder where I could find Mr Ravini?’

* * *

George Ravini was not the type of man whose happiness depended upon the good opinion which others held of him. Otherwise, he might well have spent his life in abject misery. As for Mr Reeder – he discussed that interesting police official over a glass of wine and a good cigar in his Half Moon Street flat. It was a showy, even a flashy, little ménage, for Mr Ravini’s motto was everything of the best and as much of it as possible, and his drawing-room was rather like an over-ornamented French clock – all gilt and enamel where it was not silk and damask. To his subordinate, one Lew Steyne, Mr Ravini revealed his mind.

‘If that old So-and-so knew half he pretends to know, I’d be taking the first train to Bordighera,’ he said. ‘But Reeder’s a bluff. He’s clever up to a point, but you can say that about almost any bogey you ever met.’

‘You could show him a few points,’ said the sycophantic Lew, and Mr Ravini smiled and stroked his trim moustache.

‘I wouldn’t be surprised if the old nut is crazy about that girl. May and December – can you beat it!’

‘What’s she like?’ asked Lew. ‘I never got a proper look at her face.’

Mr Ravini kissed the tips of his fingers ecstatically and threw the caress to the painted ceiling.

‘Anyway, he can’t frighten me. Lew – you know what I am: if I want anything I go after it, and I keep going after it till I get it! I’ve never seen anybody like her. Quite the lady and everything, and what she can see in an old such-and-such like Reeder licks me!’

‘Women are funny,’ mused Lew. ‘You wouldn’t think that a typist would chuck a man like you –’

‘She hasn’t chucked me,’ said Mr Ravini curtly. ‘I’m simply not ac-quainted with her, that’s all. But I’m going to be. Where’s this place?’

‘Siltbury,’ said Lew. He took a piece of paper from his waistcoat pocket, unfolded it and read the pencilled words.

‘Larmes Keep, Siltbury – it’s on the Southern. I trailed her when she left London with her boxes – old Reeder came down to see her off, and looked about as happy as a wet cat.’

‘A boarding-house,’ mused Ravini. ‘That’s a queer sort of job.’

‘She’s secretary,’ reported Lew. (He had conveyed this information at least four times, but Mr Ravini was one of those curious people who like to treat old facts as new sensations.)

‘It’s a posh place, too,’ said Lew. ‘Not like the ordinary boarding-house – only swells go there. They charge twenty guineas a week for a room, and you’re lucky if you get in.’

Ravini thought on this, fondling his chin.

‘This is a free country,’ he said. ‘What’s to stop me staying at – what’s the name of the place? Larmes Keep? I’ve never taken “No” from a woman in my life. Half the time they don’t mean it. Anyway, she’s got to give me a room if I’ve the money to pay for it.’

‘Suppose she writes to Reeder?’ suggested Lew.

‘Let her write!’ Ravini’s tone was defiant, whatever might be the state of his mind. ‘What’ll he have on me? It’s no crime to pay your rent at a boarding-house, is it?’

‘Try her with one of your Luck Rings,’ grinned Lew.

Ravini looked at them admiringly.

‘I couldn’t get ’em off,’ he said, ‘and I’d never dream of parting with my luck that way. She’ll be easy as soon as she knows me – don’t you worry.’

By a curious coincidence, as he was turning out of Half Moon Street the next morning he met the one man in the world he did not wish to see. Fortunately, Lew had taken his suitcase on to the station, and there was nothing in Mr Ravini’s appearance to suggest that he was setting forth on an affair of gallantry.

Mr Reeder looked at the man’s diamonds glittering in the daylight. They seemed to exercise a peculiar fascination on the detective.

‘The luck still holds, Georgio,’ he said, and Georgio smiled complacently. ‘And whither do you go on this beautiful September morning? To bank your nefarious gains, or to get a quick visa to your passport?’

‘Strolling round,’ said Ravini airily. ‘Just taking a little constitutional.’ And then, with a spice of mischief: ‘What’s happened to that busy you were putting on to tail me up? I haven’t seen him.’

Mr Reeder looked past him to the distance.

‘He has never been far from you, Georgio,’ he said gently. ‘He followed you from the Flotsam last night to that peculiar little party you attended in Maida Vale, and he followed you home at 2.15 a.m.’

Georgio’s jaw dropped.

‘You don’t mean he’s –’ He looked round. The only person visible was a benevolent-looking man who might have been a doctor, from his frock coat and top hat.

‘That’s not him?’ frowned Ravini.

‘He,’ corrected Mr Reeder. ‘Your English is not yet perfect.’

Ravini did not leave London immediately. It was two o’clock before he had shaken off the watcher, and five minutes later he was on the Southern express. The same old cabman who had brought Margaret Belman to Larmes Keep carried him up the long, winding hill road through the broad gates to the front of the house, and deposited him under the portico. An elderly porter, in a smart, well-fitting uniform, came out to greet the stranger.

‘Mr – ?’

‘Ravini,’ said that gentleman. ‘I haven’t booked a room.’

The porter shook his head.

‘I’m afraid we have no accommodation,’ he said. ‘Mr Daver makes it a rule not to take guests unless they’ve booked their rooms in advance. I will see the secretary.’

Ravini followed him into the spacious hall and sat down on one of the beautiful chairs. This, he decided, was something outside the usual run of boarding-houses. It was luxurious even for an hotel. No other guests were visible. Presently he heard a step on the nagged floor and rose to meet the eyes of Margaret Belman. Though they were unfriendly, she betrayed no sign of recognition. He might have been the veriest stranger.

‘The proprietor makes it a rule not to accept guests without previous correspondence,’ she said. ‘In those circumstances I am afraid we cannot offer you accommodation.’

‘I’ve already written to the proprietor,’ said Ravini, never at a loss for a glib lie. ‘Go along, young lady, be a sport and see what you can do for me.’

Margaret hesitated. Her own inclination was to order his suitcase to be put in the waiting cab; but she was part of the organisation of the place, and she could not let her private prejudices interfere with her duties.

‘Will you wait?’ she said, and went in search of Mr Daver.

That great criminologist was immersed in a large book and looked up over his horn-rimmed spectacles.

‘Ravini? A foreign gentleman? Of course he is. A stranger within our gate, as you would say. It is very irregular, but in the circumstances – yes, I think so.’

‘He isn’t the type of man you ought to have here, Mr Daver,’ she said firmly. ‘A friend of mine who knows these people says he is a member of the criminal classes.’

Mr Daver’s ludicrous eyebrows rose. ‘The criminal classes! What an extraordinary opportunity to study, as it were, at first hand! You agree? I knew you would! Let him stay. If he bores me, I will send him away.’

Margaret went back, a little disappointed, feeling rather foolish if the truth be told. She found Ravini waiting, caressing his moustache, a little less assured than he had been when she had left him.

‘Mr Daver said you may stay. I will send the housekeeper to you,’ she said, and went in search of Mrs Burton, and gave that doleful woman the necessary instructions.

She was angry with herself that she had not been more explicit in dealing with Mr Daver. She might have told him that if Ravini stayed she would leave. She might even have explained the reason why she did not wish the Italian to remain in the house. She was in the fortunate position, however, that she had not to see the guests unless they expressed a wish to interview her, and Ravini was too wise to pursue his advantage.

That night, when she went to her room, she sat down and wrote a long letter to Mr Reeder, but thought better of it and tore it up. She could not run to J. G. Reeder every time she was annoyed. He had a sufficiency of trouble, she decided, and here she was right. Even as she wrote, Mr Reeder was examining with great interest the spring gun which had been devised for his destruction.

Chapter 6

To do Ravini justice, he made no attempt to approach the girl, though she had seen him at a distance. He had passed her on the lawn the second day after his arrival with no more than a nod and a smile, and, indeed, he seemed to have found another diversion, if not another objective, for he was scarcely away from Olga Crewe’s side. Margaret saw them in the evening, leaning over the cliff wall, and George Ravini seemed remarkably pleased with himself. He was exhibiting his famous Luck Stones to Olga. Margaret saw her examine the rings and evidently make some remark upon them which sent Ravini into fits of laughter.

It was on the third day of his stay that he spoke to Margaret. They met in the big hall, and she would have passed on, but he stood in her way.

‘I hope we’re not going to be bad friends, Miss Belman,’ he said. ‘I’m not giving you any trouble, and I’m ready to apologise for the past. Could a gentleman be fairer than that?’

‘I don’t think you’ve anything to apologise for, Mr Ravini,’ she said, a little relieved by his tone, and more inclined to be civil. ‘Now that you have so obviously found another interest in life, are you enjoying your stay?’

‘It’s perfectly marvellous,’ he said conventionally, for he was a man who loved superlatives. ‘And say, Miss Belman, who is this young lady staying here, Miss Olga Crewe?’

‘She’s a guest: I know nothing about her.’

‘What a peach!’ he said enthusiastically, and Margaret was amused.

‘And a lady, every inch of her,’ he went on. ‘I must say I’m putty in the hands of real ladies! There’s something about ’em that’s different from shop-girls and typists and people of that kind. Not that you’re a typist,’ he went on hastily. ‘I regard you as a lady too. Every inch of one. I’m thinking about sending for my Rolls to take her for a drive round the country. You’re not jealous?’

Anger and amusement struggled for expression, but Margaret’s sense of humour won, and she laughed long and silently all the way to her office.

Soon after this Mr Ravini disappeared. So also did Olga. Margaret saw them coming into the hall about eleven, and the girl looked paler than usual, and, sweeping past her without a word, ran up the stairs. Margaret surveyed the young man curiously. His face was flushed, his eyes of an unusual brightness.

‘I’m going up to town tomorrow,’ he said. ‘Early train . . . you needn’t ’phone for a cab: I can walk down the hill.’ He was almost incoherent.

‘You’re tired of Larmes Keep?’

‘Eh? Tired? No, by God I’m not! This is the place for me!’

He smoothed back his dark hair and she saw his hand trembling so much that the Luck Stones flickered and flashed like fire. She waited until he had disappeared, and then she went upstairs and knocked at Olga’s door. The girl’s room was next to hers.

‘Who’s that?’ asked a voice sharply.

‘Miss Belman.’

The key turned, the door opened. Only one light was burning in the room, so that Olga’s face was in shadow.

‘Do you want anything?’ she asked.

‘Can I come in?’ asked Margaret. ‘There’s something I wish to say to you.’

Olga hesitated. Then, ‘Come in,’ she said. ‘I’ve been snivelling. I hope you don’t mind.’

Her eyes were red, the stains of tears were still on her face.

‘This damned place depresses me awfully,’ she excused herself as she dabbed her cheeks with a handkerchief. ‘What do you want to see me about?’

‘Mr Ravini. I suppose you know he is a – crook?’

Olga stared at her and her eyes went hard.

‘I don’t know that I am particularly interested in Mr Ravini,’ she said slowly. ‘Why do you come to tell me this?’

Margaret was in a dilemma.

‘I don’t know . . . I thought you were getting rather friendly with him . . . it was very impertinent of me.’

‘I think it was,’ said Olga Crewe coldly, and the rebuff was such that Margaret’s face went scarlet.

She was angry with herself when she went into her own room that night, and anger is a bad bedmate, and the most wakeful of all human emotions. She tossed from side to side in her bed, tried to forget there were such persons as Olga Crewe and George Ravini, tried every device she could think of to induce sleep, and was almost successful when . . .

She sat up in bed. Fingers were scrabbling on the panel of her door; not exactly scratching nor tapping. She switched on the light, and, getting out of bed, walked to the door and listened. Somebody was there. The handle turned in her hand.

‘Who’s there?’ she asked.

‘Let me in, let me in! . . .’

It was a frantic whisper, but she recognised the voice – Ravini!

‘I can’t let you in. Go away, please, or I’ll telephone . . .’

She heard a sound, a curious muffled sound . . . sobbing . . . a man! And then the voice ceased. Her heart racing madly, she stood by the door, her ear to the panel, listening, but no other sound came. She spent the rest of the night sitting up in bed, a quilt about her shoulders, listening, listening . . .

Day broke greyly; the sun came up. She lay down and fell asleep. It was the maid bringing tea that woke her, and, getting out of bed, she opened the door. Something attracted her attention.

‘A nice morning, miss,’ said the fresh-faced country girl brightly.

Margaret nodded. As soon as the girl was gone she opened the door again to examine more closely the thing she had seen. It was a triangular patch of stuff that had been torn and caught in one of the splinters of the old oaken door. She took it off carefully and laid it in the palm of her hand. A jagged triangle of pink silk. She put it on her dressing-table wonderingly. There must be an end to this. If Ravini was not leaving that morning, or Mr Daver would not ask him to go, she would leave for London that night.

As she left her room she met the housemaid.

‘That man in No. 7 has gone, miss,’ the woman reported, ‘but he’s left his pyjamas behind.’

‘Gone already?’

‘Must have gone last night, miss. His bed hasn’t been slept in.’

Margaret followed her along the passage to Ravini’s room. His bag was gone, but on the pillow, neatly folded, was a suit of pink silk pyjamas, and, bending over, she saw that the breast was slightly torn. A little triangular patch of pink silk had been ripped out!

Chapter 7

When a nimble old man dropped from a high wall at midnight and, stopping only to wipe the blood from his hands – for he had come upon a guard patrolling the grounds in his flight – and walked briskly towards London, peering into every side lane for the small car that had been left for him, he brought a new complication into many lives and for three people at least marked the date of their passing in the Book of Fate.

Police headquarters were not slow to employ the press to advertise their wants. But the escape from Broadmoor of a homicidal maniac is something which is not to be rushed immediately into print. Not once, but many times had the help of the public been enlisted in a vain endeavour to bring old John Flack to justice. His description had been circulated, his haunts notified, without there being any successful issue to the broadcast.

There was a conference at Scotland Yard, which Mr Reeder attended; and they were five very serious men who gathered round the superintendent’s desk, and mainly the talk was of bullion and of ‘noses’, by which inelegant term is meant the inevitable police informer.

Crazy John ‘fell’ eventually through the treachery of an outside helper. Ravini, the most valuable of gang leaders, had been employed to ‘cover’ a robbery at the Leadenhall Bank. Bullion was John Flack’s speciality: it was not without its interest for Mr Ravini.

The theft had been successful. One Sunday morning two cars drove out of the courtyard of the Leadenhall Bank. By the side of the driver of each car sat a man in the uniform of the Metropolitan Police – inside each car was another officer. A city policeman saw the cars depart, but accepted the presence of the uniformed men and did not challenge the drivers. It was not an unusual event: transfers of gold or stocks on Sunday morning had been witnessed before, but usually the City authorities were notified. He called Old Jewry station on the telephone to report the occurrence, but by this time John Flack was well away.

It was Ravini, cheated, as he thought, of his fair share of the plunder, who betrayed the old man – the gold was never recovered.

England had been ransacked to find John FIack’s headquarters, but without success. There was not an hotel or boarding-house keeper who had not received his portrait – nor one who recognised him in any guise.

The exhaustive enquiries which followed his arrest did little to increase the knowledge of the police. FIack’s lodgings were found – a furnished room in Bloomsbury which he had occupied at rare intervals for years. But here were discovered no documents which gave the slightest clue to the real headquarters of the gang. Probably they had none. They were chosen and discarded as opportunity arose or emergency dictated, though it was clear that the old man had something in the nature of a general staff to assist him.

‘Anyway,’ said Big Bill Gordon, Chief of the Big Five, ‘he’ll not start anything in the way of a bullion steal – his mind will be fully occupied with ways and means of getting out of the country.’

It was Mr Reeder’s head which shook.

‘The nature of criminals may change, but their vanities persist,’ he said, in his precise, grandiloquent way. ‘Mr Flack does not pride himself upon his murders, but upon his robberies, and he will signify his return to freedom in the usual manner.’

‘His gang is scattered –’ began Simpson. J. G. Reeder silenced him with a sad, sweet smile.

‘There is plenty of evidence, Mr Simpson, that the gang has coagulated again. It is – um – an ugly word, but I can think of no better. Mr FIack’s escape from the – er – public institution where he was confined shows evidence of good team-work. The rope, the knife with which he killed the unfortunate warder, the kit of tools, the almost certainty that there was a car waiting to take him away, are all symptomatic of gang work. And what has Mr Flack –’

‘I wish to God you wouldn’t call him “Mr Flack”,’ said Big Bill explosively.

J. G. Reeder blinked.

‘I have an ineradicable respect for age,’ he said in a hushed voice, ‘but a greater respect for the dead. I am hoping to increase my respect for Mr Flack in the course of the next month.’

‘If it’s gang work,’ interrupted Simpson, ‘who are with him? The old crowd is either gaoled or out of the country. I know what you’re thinking about, Mr Reeder: you’ve got your mind on what happened last night. I’ve been thinking it over, and it’s quite likely that the man-trap wasn’t fixed by Flack at all, but by one of the other crowd. Do you know Donovan’s out of Dartmoor? He has no reason for loving you.’

Mr Reeder raised his hand in protest.

‘On the contrary, Joe Donovan, when I saw him in the early hours of this morning, was a very affable and penitent man, who deeply regretted the unkind things he said of me as he left the Old Bailey dock. He lives at Kilburn, and spent last evening at a local cinema with his wife and daughter – no, it wasn’t Donovan. He is not a brainy man. Only John Flack, with his dramatic sense, could have staged that little comedy which was so nearly a tragedy.’

‘You were nearly killed, they tell me, Reeder?’ said Big Bill.

Mr Reeder shook his head.

‘I was not thinking of that particular tragedy. It was in my mind before I went up the stairs to force the door into the kitchen. If I had done that, I think I should have shot Mr Flack, and there would have been an end of all our speculations and troubles.’

Mr Simpson was examining some papers that were on the table before him.

‘If Flack’s going after bullion he’s got very little chance. The only big movement is that of a hundred and twenty thousand sovereigns which goes to Tilbury tomorrow morning or the next day from the Bank of England, and it is impossible that Flack could organise a steal at such short notice.’

Mr Reeder was suddenly alert and interested.

‘A hundred and twenty thousand sovereigns,’ he murmured, rubbing his chin irritably. ‘Ten tons. It goes by train?’

‘By lorry, with ten armed men – one per ton,’ said Simpson humorously, ‘I don’t think you need worry about that.’

Mr J. G. Reeder’s lips were pursed as though he were whistling, but no sound issued. Presently he spoke.

‘Flack was originally a chemist,’ he said slowly. ‘I don’t suppose there is a better criminal chemist in England than Mr Flack.’

‘Why do you say that?’ asked Simpson with a frown.

Mr Reeder shrugged his shoulders.

‘I have a sixth sense,’ he said, almost apologetically, ‘and invariably I associate some peculiar quality with every man and woman who – um – passes under review. For example, Mr Simpson, when I think of you, I have an instinctive, shadowy thought of a prize ring where I first had the pleasure of seeing you.’ (Simpson, who had been an amateur welter-weight, grinned appreciatively.) ‘And my mind never rests upon Mr Flack except in the surroundings of a laboratory with test tubes and all the paraphernalia of experimental chemistry. As for the little affair last night, I was not unprepared for it, but I suspected a trap – literally a – um – trap. Some evilly-disposed person once tried the same trick with me; cut away the landing so that I should fall upon very unpleasant sharp spikes. I looked for sawdust the moment I went into the house, and when that was not present I guessed the gun.’

‘But how did you know there was anything?’ asked Big Bill curiously.

Mr Reeder smiled.

‘I have a criminal mind,’ he said.

He went back to his flat in Bennett Street, his mind equally divided between Margaret Belman, safe in Sussex, and the ability of one normal trolley to carry a hundred and twenty thousand sovereigns. Such little details interested Mr Reeder. Almost the first thing he did when he reached his flat was to call up a haulage contractor to discover whether such trucks were in use. For somehow he knew that if the Flack gang were after this shipment to Australia, it was necessary that the gold should be carried in one vehicle. And why he should think this, not even Mr Reeder knew. But he had, as he said, a criminal mind.

That afternoon he addressed himself to a novel and not unpleasing task. It was a letter – the first letter he had written to Margaret Belman – and in its way it was a curiosity.

My dear Miss Margaret [it began], I trust you will not be annoyed that I should write to you: but certain incidents which disfigured perhaps our parting, and which may cause you (I say this, knowing your kind heart) a little unhappiness, induce this letter –

Mr Reeder paused here to discover a method by which he could convey his regret at not seeing her, without offering an embarrassing revelation of his more secret thoughts. At five o’clock, when his servant brought in his tea, he was still sitting before the unfinished letter. Mr Reeder took up the cup, carried it to his writing-table, and stared at it as though for inspiration.

And then he saw, on the surface of the steaming cup, a thread-like formation of froth which had a curious metallic quality. He dipped his forefinger delicately in the froth and put his finger to his tongue.

‘Hum!’ said Mr Reeder, and rang the bell.

His man came instantly.

‘Is there anything you want, sir?’ He bent his head respectfully, and for a long time Mr Reeder did not answer.

‘The milk, of course!’ he said.

‘The milk, sir?’ said the puzzled servant. ‘The milk’s fresh, sir: it came this afternoon.’

‘You did not take it from the milkman, naturally. It was in a bottle outside the door.’

The man nodded.

‘Yes, sir.’

‘Good!’ said Mr Reeder, almost cheerfully. ‘In future will you arrange to receive the milk from the milkman’s own hands? You have not drunk any yourself, I see?’

‘No, sir. I have had my tea, but I don’t take milk with it, sir,’ said the servant, and Mr Reeder favoured him with one of his rare smiles.

‘That, Peters,’ he said, ‘is why you are alive and well. Bring the rest of the milk to me, and a new cup of tea. I also will dispense with the lacteal fluid.’

‘Don’t you like milk, sir?’ said the bewildered man.

‘I like milk,’ replied Mr Reeder gently, ‘but I prefer it without strychnine. I think, Peters, we’re going to have a very interesting week. Have you any dependants?’

‘I have an old mother, sir,’ said the mystified man.

‘Are you insured?’ asked Mr Reeder, and Peters nodded dumbly.

‘You have the advantage of me,’ said J. G. Reeder. ‘Yes, I think we are going to have an interesting week.’ And his prediction was fully justified.

Chapter 8

London heard the news of John FIack’s escape and grew fearful or indignant according to its several temperaments. A homicidal planner of great and spectacular thefts was in its midst. It was not very pleasant hearing for law-abiding citizens. And the news was more than a week old: why had Scotland Yard not taken the public into its confidence? Why suppress this news of such vital interest? Who was responsible for the suppression of this important information? Headlines asked these questions in the more sensational sheets. The news of the Bennett Street outrage was public property: to his enormous embarrassment, Mr Reeder found himself a Matter of Public Interest.

Mr Reeder used to sit alone in his tiny bureau at the Public Prosecutor’s Office and for hours on end do little more than twiddle his thumbs and gaze disconsolately at the virgin white of his blotting-pad.

In what private daydreams he indulged, whether they concerned fabulous fortunes and their disposition, or whether they centred about a very pretty pink-and-white young lady, or whether indeed he thought at all and his mind was not a complete blank, those who interrupted his reveries and had the satisfaction of seeing him start guiltily had no means of knowing.

At this particular moment his mind was, in truth, completely occupied by his newest as well as his oldest enemy.

There were three members of the Flack gang originally – John, George, and Augustus – and they began operations in the days when it was considered scientific and a little wonderful to burn out the lock of a safe. Augustus Flack was killed by the night watchman of Carr’s Bank in Lombard Street during an attempt to rob the gold vault. GeorgeFlack, the youngest of the three, was sent to penal servitude for ten years as the result of a robbery in Bond Street, and died there; and only John, the mad master-mind of the family, escaped detection and arrest.

It was he who brought into the organisation one O. Sweizer, the Yankee bank-smasher; he who recruited Adolphe Victoire; and those brought others to the good work. For this was Crazy Jack’s peculiar asset – that he could attract to himself, almost at a minute’s notice, the best brains of the underworld. Though the rest of the Flacks were either dead or gaoled, the organisation was stronger than ever, and strongest because lurking somewhere in the background was this kinky brain.

Thus matters stood when Mr J. G. Reeder came into the case – being brought into the matter not so much because the London police had failed, but because the Public Prosecutor recognised that the breaking up of the Flacks was going to be a lengthy business, occupying one man’s complete attention.

Cutting the tentacles of the organisation was an easy matter, comparatively.

Mr Reeder took O. Sweizer, that stocky Swiss-American, when he and a man unknown were engaged in removing a safe from the Bedford Street post-office one Sunday morning. Sweizer was ready for fight, but Mr Reeder grabbed him just a little too quickly.

‘Let up!’ gasped Sweizer in Italian. ‘You’re choking me, Reeder.’

Mr Reeder turned him on to his face and handcuffed him behind, then he lifted him by the scruff of his neck and went to the assistance of his admirable colleagues who were taking the other two men.

Victoire was arrested one night at the Charlton, when he was dining with Denver May. He gave no trouble, because the police took him on a purely fictitious charge and one which he knew he could easily disprove.

‘My dear Mr Reeder,’ said he in his elegant, languid way, ‘you are making quite an absurd mistake, but I will humour you. I can prove that when the pearls were taken from Hertford Street I was in Nice.’

This was on the way to the station.

They searched him and put him in the dock, discovering certain lethal weapons handily disposed about his person, but he was only amused. He was less amused when he was charged with smashing the Bank of Lens, the attempted murder of a night watchman, and one or two other little matters which need not be particularised.

They got him into the cells, and as he was carried, struggling and raving like a lunatic, Mr Reeder offered him a piece of advice which he rejected with considerable violence.

‘Say you were in Nice at the time,’ he said gently.

Then one day the police pulled in a man in Somers Town, on the very prosaic charge of beating his wife in public. When they searched him they found a torn scrap of a letter, which was sent at once to Mr Reeder. It ran –

Any night about eleven in Whitehall Avenue. Reeder is a man of medium height, elderly-looking, sandy-greyish hair and side-whiskers rather thick, always carries an umbrella. Recommendation to wear rubber boots and take a length of iron to him. You can easily find out who he is and what he looks like. Take your time . . . fifty on acc . . . der when the job is finished.

This was the first hint Mr Reeder had that he was especially unpopular with the mysterious John Flack.

The day Crazy Jack was sent down to Broadmoor had been a day of mild satisfaction for Mr Reeder. He was not exactly happy or even relieved about it. He had the comfort of an accountant who had signed a satisfactory balance-sheet, or the builder who was surveying his finished work. There were other balance-sheets to be signed, other buildings to be erected – they differed only in their shapes and quantities.

One thing was certain, that on what other project Flack’s mind was fixed, he was devoting a considerable amount of thought to J. G. Reeder – whether in reprisal for events that had passed or as a precautionary measure to check his activities in the future, the detective could only guess: but he was a good guesser.

The telephone bell, set in a remote corner of the room, rang sharply. Mr Reeder took up the instrument with a pained expression. The operator of the office exchange told him that there was a call from Horsham. He pulled a writing-pad towards him and waited. And then a voice spoke, and hardly was the first word uttered when he knew his man, for J. G. Reeder never forgot voices.

‘That you, Reeder? . . . Know who I am? . . .’

The same thin, tense voice that had babbled threats from the dock of the Old Bailey, the same little chuckling laugh that punctured every second.

Mr Reeder touched a bell and began to write rapidly on his pad.

‘Know who I am – I’ll bet you do! Thought you’d got rid of me, didn’t you, but you haven’t! . . . Listen, Reeder, you can tell the Yard I’m busy – I’m going to give them the shock of their lives. Mad, am I? I’ll show you whether I’m mad or not . . . And I’ll get you, Reeder . . .’

A messenger came in. Mr Reeder tore off the slip and handed it to him with an urgent gesture. The man read and bolted from the room.

‘Is that Mr Flack?’ asked Reeder softly.

‘Is it Mr Flack, you old hypocrite! . . . Have you got the parcel? I wondered if you had. What do you think of it?’

‘The parcel?’ said Reeder, gentlier than ever, and before the man could reply: ‘You will get into serious trouble for trying to hoax the Public Prosecutor’s Office, my friend,’ said Mr Reeder reproachfully. ‘You are not Crazy John Flack . . . I know his voice. Mr Flack spoke with a curious Cockney accent which is not easy to imitate, and Mr Flack at this moment is in the hands of the police.’

He counted on the effect of this provocative speech, and he had made no mistake.

‘You lie!’ screamed the voice. ‘You know I’m Flack . . . Crazy Jack, eh? . . . Crazy old John Flack . . . Mad, am I? You’ll learn! . . . you put me in that hell upon earth, and I’m going to serve you worse than I treated that damned dago . . .’

The voice ceased abruptly. There was a click as the receiver was put down. Reeder listened expectantly, but no other call came through. Then he rang the bell again and the messenger returned.

‘Yes, sir, I got through straight away to the Horsham police station. The inspector is sending three men in a car to the post-office.’

Mr Reeder gazed at the ceiling. ‘Then I fear he has sent too late,’ he said. ‘The venerable bandit will have gone.’

A quarter of an hour later came confirmation of his prediction. The police had arrived at the post office, but the bird had flown. The clerk did not remember anybody old or wild-looking booking a call; he thought that the message had not come from the post office itself, which was also the telephone exchange, but from an outlying call-box.

Mr Reeder went in to report to the Public Prosecutor, but neither he nor his assistant was in the office. He rang up Scotland Yard and passed on his information to Simpson.

‘I respectfully suggest that you should get into touch with the French police and locate Ravini. He may not be in Paris at all.’

‘Where do you think he is?’ asked Simpson.

‘That,’ replied Mr Reeder in a hushed voice, ‘is a question which has never been definitely settled in my mind. I should not like to say that he was in heaven, because I cannot imagine Georgio Ravini with his Luck Stones –’

‘Do you mean that he’s dead?’ asked Simpson quickly.

‘It is very likely; in fact, it is extremely likely.’

There was a long silence at the other end of the telephone.

‘Have you had the parcel?’

‘That I am awaiting with the greatest interest,’ said Mr Reeder, and went back to his office to twiddle his thumbs and stare at his white blotting-pad.

The parcel came at three o’clock that afternoon, when Mr Reeder had returned from his frugal lunch, which he invariably took at a large and popular teashop in Whitehall. It was a very small parcel, about three inches square; it was registered, and had been posted in London. He weighed it carefully, shook it and listened, but the lightness of the package precluded any possibility of there being concealed behind the paper wrapping anything that bore a resemblance to an infernal machine. He cut the paper tape that fastened it, took off the paper, and there was revealed a small cardboard box such as jewellers employ. Removing the lid, he found a small pad of cotton-wool, and in the midst of this three gold rings, each with three brilliant diamonds. He put them on his blotting-pad, and gazed at them for a long time.

They were George Ravini’s Luck Stones, and for ten minutes Mr Reeder sat in a profound reverie, for he knew that George Ravini was dead, and it did not need the card which accompanied the rings to know who was responsible for the drastic and gruesome ending to Mr Ravini’s life. The sprawling ‘J. F.’ on the little card was in Mr Flack’s writing, and the three words ‘Your turn next’ were instructive, even if they were not, as they were intended to be, terrifying.

Half an hour later Mr Reeder met Inspector Simpson by appointment at Scotland Yard. Simpson examined the rings curiously, and pointed out a small, dark-brown speck at the edge of one of the Luck Stones.

‘I don’t doubt that Ravini is dead,’ he said. ‘The first thing to discover is where he went when he said he was going to Paris.’

This task presented fewer difficulties than Simpson had imagined. He remembered Lew Steyne and his association with the Italian, and a telephone call put through to the City police located Lew in five minutes.

‘Bring him along in a taxi,’ said Simpson, and, as he hung up the receiver: ‘The question is, what is Crazy Jack’s coup? Murder on a large scale, or just picturesque robbery?’

‘I think the latter,’ said Mr Reeder thoughtfully. ‘Murder, with Mr Flack, is a mere incidental to the – er – more important business of money-making.’

He pinched his lip thoughtfully.

‘Forgive me if I seem to repeat myself, but I would again remind you that Mr Flack’s speciality is bullion, if I remember aright,’ he said. ‘Didn’t he smash the strong room of the Megantic . . . bullion, hum!’ He scratched his chin and looked up over his glasses at Simpson.

The inspector shook his head.

‘I only wish Crazy Jack was crazy enough to try to get out of the country by steamer – he won’t. And the Leadenhall Bank stunt couldn’t be repeated today. No, there’s no chance of a bullion steal.’

Mr Reeder looked unconvinced.

‘Would you ring up the Bank of England and find out if the money has gone to Australia?’ he pleaded.

Simpson pulled the instrument towards him, gave a number and, after five minutes’ groping through various departments, reached an exclusive personage. Mr Reeder sat, with his hands clasped about the handle of his umbrella, a pained expression on his face, his eyes closed, and seemingly oblivious of the conversation. Presently Simpson hung up the receiver.

‘The consignment should have gone this morning, but the sailing of the Olanic has been delayed by a stevedore strike – it goes tomorrow morning,’ he reported. ‘The gold is taken on a lorry to Tilbury with a guard. At Tilbury it is put into the Olanic’s strong-room, which is the newest and safest of its kind. I don’t suppose that John will begin operations there.’

‘Why not?’ J. G. Reeder’s voice was almost bland; his face was screwed into its nearest approach to a smile. ‘On the contrary, as I have said before, that is the very consignment I should expect Mr Flack to go after.’

‘I pray that you’re a true prophet,’ said Simpson grimly. ‘I could wish for nothing better.’

They were still talking of Flack and his passion for ready gold when Mr Lew Steyne arrived in the charge of a local detective. No crook, however hardened, can step into the gloomy approaches of Scotland Yard without experiencing some uneasiness, and Lew’s attempt to display his indifference was rather pathetic.

‘What’s the idea, Mr Simpson?’ he asked, in a grieved tone. ‘I’ve done nothing.’

He scowled at Reeder, who was known to him, and whom he regarded, very rightly, as being responsible for his appearance at this best-hated spot.

Simpson put a question, and Mr Lew Steyne shrugged his shoulders.

‘I ask you, Mr Simpson, am I Ravini’s keeper? I know nothing about the Italian crowd, and Ravini’s scarcely an acquaintance.’

Mr Reeder shook his head.

‘You spent two hours with him last Thursday evening,’ he said, and Lew was a little taken aback.

‘I had a little bit of business with him, I admit,’ he said. ‘Over a house I’m trying to rent –’

His shifty eyes had become suddenly steadfast; he was looking open-mouthed at the three rings that lay on the table. Reeder saw him frown, and then: ‘What are those?’ asked Lew huskily. ‘They’re not Georgio’s Luck Stones?’

Simpson nodded and pushed the little square of white paper on which they lay towards the visitor.

‘Do you know them?’ he asked,

Lew picked up one of the rings and turned it round in his hand.

‘What’s the idea?’ he asked suspiciously. ‘Ravini told me himself he could never get these off.’

And then, as the significance of their presence dawned upon him, he gasped.

‘What’s happened to him?’ he asked quickly. ‘Is he –’

‘I fear,’ said Mr Reeder soberly, ‘that Georgio Ravini is no longer with us.’

‘Dead?’ Lew almost shrieked the word. His yellow face went a chalky white. ‘Where . . . who did it? . . .’

‘That is exactly what we want to know,’ said Simpson. ‘Now, Lew, you’ve got to spill it. Where is Ravini? He said he was going to Paris, I know, but actually where did he go?’

The thief’s eyes strayed to Mr Reeder.

‘He was after that bird, that’s all I know,’ he said sullenly.

‘Which bird?’ asked Simpson, but Mr Reeder had no heed to have its identity explained.

‘He was after – Miss Belman?’

Lew nodded. ‘Yes, a girl he knew . . . she went down into the country to take a job as hotel manager or something. I saw her go, as a matter of fact. Ravini wanted to get better acquainted, so he went down to stay at the hotel.’

Even as he spoke, Mr Reeder had reached for the telephone, and had given the peculiar code word which is equivalent to a command for a clear line.

A high-pitched voice answered him.

‘I am Mr Daver, the proprietor . . . Miss Belman? I’m afraid she is out just now. She will be back in a few minutes. Who is it speaking?’

Mr Reeder replied diplomatically. He was anxious to get in touch with George Ravini and for two minutes he allowed the voluble Mr Daver to air a grievance.

‘Yes, he went in the early morning, without paying his bill . . .’

‘I will come down and pay it,’ said Mr Reeder.

Chapter 9

‘The point is,’ said Mr Daver, ‘the only point – I think you will agree with me here – that really has any interest for us, is that Mr Ravini left without paying his bill. This was the point I emphasised to a friend of his who called me on the telephone this morning. That is to me the supreme mystery of his disappearance – he left without paying his bill!’

He leaned back in his chair and beamed at the girl in the manner of one who had expounded an unanswerable problem. With his finger-tips together he had an appearance which was oddly reminiscent.

‘The fact that he left behind a pair of pyjamas which are practically valueless merely demonstrates that he left in a hurry. You agree with me? I am sure you do. Why he should leave in a hurry is naturally beyond my understanding. You say he was a crook: possibly he received information that he had been detected.’

‘He had no telephone calls and no letters while he was here,’ insisted Margaret.

Mr Daver shook his head. ‘That proves nothing. Such a man would have associates. I am sorry he has gone. I hoped to have an opportunity of studying his type. And by the way, I have discovered something about Flack – the famous John Flack – did you know that he had escaped from the lunatic asylum? I gather from your alarm that you didn’t. I am an observer, Miss B. Years of study of this fascinating subject have produced in me a sixth sense – the sense of observation, which is atrophied in ordinary individuals.’

He took a long envelope from his drawer and pulled out a small bundle of press cuttings. These he sorted on to his table, and presently unfolded a newspaper portrait of an elderly man and laid it before her.

‘Flack,’ he said briefly.

She was surprised at the age of the man; the thin face, the grizzled moustache and beard, the deep-set, intelligent eyes suggested almost anything rather than that of a confirmed and dangerous criminal.

‘My press-cutting agency supplied these,’ he said. ‘And here is another portrait which may interest you, and in a sense the arrival of this photograph is a coincidence. I am sure you will agree with me when I tell you why. It is a picture of a man called Reeder.’

Mr Daver did not look up or he would have seen the red come to the girl’s face.

‘A clever old gentleman attached to the Public Prosecutor’s Department –’

‘He is not very old,’ said Margaret coldly.

‘He looks old,’ said Mr Daver, and Margaret had to agree that the newspaper portrait was not a very flattering one.

‘This is the gentleman who was instrumental in arresting Flack, and the coincidence – now what do you imagine the coincidence is?’

She shook her head.

‘He’s coming here today!’

Margaret Belman’s mouth opened in amazement.

‘I had a wire from him this afternoon saying he was coming tonight, and asking if I could accommodate him. But for my interest in this case I should not have known his name or had the slightest idea of his identity. In all probability I should have refused him a room.’

He looked up suddenly.

‘You say he is not so old: do you know him? I see that you do. That is even a more remarkable coincidence. I am looking forward with the utmost delight to discussing with him my pet subject. It will be an intellectual treat.’

‘I don’t think Mr Reeder discusses crime,’ she said. ‘He is rather reticent on the subject.’

‘We shall see,’ said Mr Daver, and from his manner she guessed that he at any rate had no doubt that the man from the Public Prosecutor’s Office would respond instantly to a sympathetic audience.

Mr Reeder came just before seven, and to her surprise he had abandoned his frock-coat and curious hat and was almost jauntily attired in grey flannels. He brought with him two very solid and heavy-looking steamer trunks.

The meeting was not without its moment of embarrassment.

‘I trust you will not think, Miss – um – Margaret, that I am being indiscreet. But the truth is, I – um – am in need of a holiday.’

He never looked less in need of a holiday; compared with the Reeder she knew, this man was most unmistakably alert.

‘Will you come to my office?’ she said, a little unsteadily.

When they reached her bureau, Mr Reeder opened the door reverently. She had a feeling that he was holding his breath, and she was seized with an almost uncontrollable desire to laugh. Instead, she preceded him into her sanctum. When the door closed, ‘I was an awful pig to you, Mr Reeder,’ she began rapidly. ‘I ought to have written . . . the whole thing was so absurd . . . the quarrel, I mean.’

‘The disagreement,’ murmured Mr Reeder. ‘I am old-fashioned, I admit, but an old man –’

‘Forty-eight isn’t old,’ she scoffed. ‘And why shouldn’t you wear side-whiskers? It was unpardonable of me . . . feminine curiosity: I wanted to see how you looked.’

Mr Reeder raised his hand. His voice was almost gay.

‘The fault was entirely mine, Miss Margaret. I am old-fashioned. You do not think – er – it is indecorous, my paying a visit to Larmes Keep?’

He looked round at the door and lowered his voice.

‘When did Mr Ravini leave?’ he asked.

She looked at him amazed.

‘Did you come down about that?’

He nodded slowly.

‘I heard he was here. Somebody told me. When did he go?’

Very briefly she told him the story of her night’s experience, and he listened, his face growing longer and longer, until she had finished.

‘Before that, can you remember what happened? Did you see him the night before he left?’

She knit her forehead and tried to remember.

‘Yes,’ she said suddenly, ‘he was in the grounds, walking with Miss Crewe. He came in rather late –’

‘With Miss Crewe?’ asked Reeder quickly. ‘Miss Crewe? Was that the rather interesting young lady I saw playing croquet with a clergyman as I came across the lawn?’

She looked at him in surprise.

‘Did you come across the lawn? I thought you drove up to the front of the house –’

‘I descended from the vehicle at the top of the hill,’ Mr Reeder hastily explained. ‘At my age a little exercise is vitally necessary. The approaches to the Keep are charming. A young lady, rather pale, with dark eyes . . . hum!’

He was looking at her searchingly, his head a little on one side. ‘So she and Ravini went out. Were they acquainted?’

She shook her head. ‘I don’t think Ravini had met her until he came here.’

She went on to tell him of Ravini’s agitation, and of how she had found Olga Crewe in tears.

‘Weeping . . . ah!’ Mr Reeder fondled his nose. ‘You have seen her since?’ And, when the girl shook her head: ‘She got up late the next morning – had a headache possibly?’ he asked eagerly, and her eyes opened in astonishment.

‘Why, yes. How did you know –’

But Mr Reeder was not in an informative mood.

‘The number of your room is – ?’

‘No. 4. Miss Crewe’s is No. 5.’

Reeder nodded.

‘And Ravini was in No. 7: that is two doors away.’ Then, suddenly: ‘Where have you put me?’

She hesitated.

‘In No. 7. Those were Mr Daver’s orders. It is one of the best rooms in the house. I warn you, Mr Reeder, the proprietor is a criminologist, and is most anxious to discuss his hobby.’

‘Delighted,’ murmured Mr Reeder, but he was thinking of something else. ‘Could I see Mr Daver?’

The quarter-of-an-hour gong had already sounded, and she took him along to the office in the annexe. Mr Daver’s desk was surprisingly tidy. He was surveying an account-book through large horn-rimmed spectacles, and looked up enquiringly as she came in.

‘This is Mr Reeder,’ she said, and withdrew.

For a second they looked at one another, the detective and the Puck-faced little proprietor; and then, with a magnificent wave of his hand, Mr Daver invited his visitor to a seat.

‘This is a very proud moment for me, Mr Reeder,’ he said, and bent himself double in a profound bow. ‘As an humble student of those great authorities whose works, I have no doubt, are familiar to you, I am honoured at this privilege of meeting one whom I may describe as a modern Lombroso. You agree with me? I was certain you would.’

Mr Reeder looked up at the ceiling.

‘Lombroso?’ he repeated slowly. ‘An – um – Italian gentleman, I think? The name is almost familiar.’

Margaret Belman had not quite closed the door, and Mr Daver rose and shut it, returned to his chair with an outflung hand, and seated himself.

‘I am glad you have come. In fact, Mr Reeder, you have relieved my mind of a great unease. Ever since yesterday morning I have been wondering whether I ought not to call up Scotland Yard, that splendid institution, and ask them to despatch an officer to clear up this strange and possibly revolting mystery.’

He paused impressively.

‘I refer to the disappearance of Mr George Ravini, a guest of Larmes Keep, who left this house at a quarter to five yesterday morning and was seen making his way into Siltbury.’

‘By whom?’ asked Mr Reeder.

‘By an inhabitant of Siltbury, whose name for the moment I forget. Indeed, I never knew. I met him quite by chance walking down into the town.’

He leaned forward over his desk and stared owlishly into Mr Reeder’s eyes.

‘You have come about Ravini, have you not? Do not answer me: I see you have! Naturally, one did not expect you to carry, so to speak, your heart on your sleeve. Am I right? I think I am.’

Mr Reeder did not confirm this conclusion. He seemed strangely unwilling to speak, and in ordinary circumstances Mr Daver would not have resented this diffidence.

‘Very naturally I do not wish a scandal to attach to this house,’ he said, ‘and I may rely upon your discretion. The only matter which touches me is that Ravini left without paying his bill; a small and unimportant aspect of what may possibly be a momentous case. You see my point of view? I am certain that you do.’

He paused, and now Mr Reeder spoke. ‘At a quarter to five,’ he said thoughtfully, as though speaking to himself, ‘it was scarcely light, was it?’

‘The dawn was possibly breaking o’er the sea,’ said Mr Daver poetically.

‘Going to Siltbury? Carrying his bag?’

Mr Daver nodded.

‘May I see his room?’

Daver came to his feet with a flourish. ‘That is a request I expected, and it is a reasonable request. Will you follow me?’

Mr Reeder followed him through the great hall which was occupied solely by a military-looking gentleman, who cast a quick sidelong glance at him as he passed. Mr Daver was leading the way to the wide stairs when Mr Reeder stopped and pointed. ‘How very interesting!’ he said. The most unlikely things interested Mr Reeder. On this occasion the point of interest was a large safe – larger than any safe he had seen in a private establishment. It was six feet in height and half that width, and it was fitted under the first flight of stairs.

‘What is it?’ asked Mr Daver, and turned back.

His face screwed up into a smile when he saw the object of the detective’s attention.

‘Ah! My safe! I have many rare and valuable documents which I keep here. It is a French model, you will observe – too large for my modest establishment, you will say? I agree. Sometimes, however, we have very rich people staying here . . . jewels and the like . . . it would take a very clever burglar to open that, and yet I, with a little key –’

He drew a chain from his pocket and fitted one of the keys at the end into a thin keyhole, turned a handle, and the heavy door swung open.

Mr Reeder peeped in curiously. On the two steel shelves at the back of the safe were three small tin boxes – otherwise the safe was empty. The doors were of an extraordinary thickness, and their inner face smooth except for a slab of steel the object of which apparently was to back and strengthen the lock. All this he saw at once, but he saw something else. The white enamelled floor of the safe was brighter in hue than the walls. Only a man of Mr Reeder’s powers of observation would have noticed this fact. And the steel slab at the back of the lock? Mr Reeder knew quite a lot about safes.

‘A treasure-house – it almost makes me feel rich,’ chuckled Mr Daver as he locked the door and led the way up the stairs. ‘The psychology of it will appeal to you, Mr Reeder!’

At the head of the stairs they came to a broad corridor; Daver, stopping before the door of No. 7, inserted a key.

‘This is also your room,’ he explained. ‘I had a feeling, which amounted almost to a certainty, that your visit was not wholly unconnected with this curious disappearance of Mr Ravini, who left without paying his bill.’ He chuckled a little and apologised. ‘Excuse me for my insistence upon this point, but it touches me rather nearly.’

Mr Reeder followed his host into the big room. It was panelled from ceiling to floor and furnished with a luxury which surprised him. The articles of furniture were few, but there was not one which a connoisseur would not have noted with admiration. The four-poster bed was Jacobean; the square of carpet was genuine Teheran; a dressing-table with a settle before it was also of the Jacobean period.

‘That was his bed, where the pyjamas were found.’

Mr Daver pointed dramatically. But Mr Reeder was looking at the casement windows, one of which was open.

He leaned out and looked down, and immediately began to take in the view. He could see Siltbury lying in the shadow of the downs, its lights just then beginning to twinkle; but the view of the Siltbury road was shut out by a belt of firs. To the left he had a glimpse of the hill road up which his cab had climbed.

Mr Reeder came out from the room and cast his eyes up and down the corridor.

‘This is a very beautiful house you have, Mr Daver,’ he said.

‘You like it? I was sure you would!’ said Mr Daver enthusiastically. ‘Yes, it is a delightful property. To you it may seem a sacrilege that I should use it as a boarding-house, but perhaps our dear young friend Miss Belman has explained that it is a hobby of mine. I hate loneliness; I dislike intensely the exertion of making friends. My position is unique; I can pick and choose my guests.’

Mr Reeder was looking aimlessly towards the head of the stairs.

‘Did you ever have a guest named Holden?’ he asked.

Mr Daver shook his head.

‘Or a guest named Willington . . . ? Two friends of mine who may have come here about eight years ago?’

‘No,’ said Mr Daver promptly. ‘I never forget names. You may inspect our guest-list for the past twelve years at any time you wish. Would they be likely to come for any reason’ – Mr Daver was amusingly embarrassed – ‘in other names than their own? No, I see they wouldn’t.’

As he was speaking, a door at the far end of the corridor opened and closed instantly. Mr Reeder, who missed nothing, caught one glimpse of a figure before the door shut.

‘Whose room is that?’ he asked.

Mr Daver was genuinely embarrassed this time.

‘That,’ he said, with a nervous little cough, ‘is my suite. You saw Mrs Burton, my housekeeper – a quiet, rather sad soul, who has had a great deal of trouble in her life.’

‘Life,’ said Mr Reeder tritely, ‘is full of trouble,’ and Mr Daver agreed with a sorrowful shake of his head.

Now, the eyesight of J. G. Reeder was peculiarly good, and though he had not as yet met the housekeeper, he was quite certain that the rather beautiful face he had glimpsed for a moment did not belong to any sad woman who had seen a lot of trouble. As he dressed leisurely for dinner, he wondered why Miss Olga Crewe had been so anxious that she should not be seen coming from the proprietor’s suite. A natural and proper modesty, no doubt; and modesty was the quality in woman of which Mr Reeder most heartily approved.

He was struggling with his tie when Daver, who seemed to have constituted himself a sort of personal attendant, knocked at the door and asked permission to come in. He was a little breathless, and carried a number of press cuttings in his hand.

‘You were talking about two gentlemen, Mr Willington and Mr Holden,’ he said. ‘The names seemed rather familiar. I had the irritating sense of knowing them without knowing them, if you understand, dear Mr Reeder? And then I recalled the circumstances.’ He flourished the press cuttings. ‘I saw their names here.’

Mr Reeder, staring at his reflection in the glass, adjusted his tie nicely.

‘Here?’ he repeated mechanically, and, looking round, accepted the printed slips which his host thrust upon him.

‘I am, as you probably know, Mr Reeder, a humble disciple of Lombroso and of those other great criminologists who have elevated the study of abnormality to a science. It was Miss Belman who quite unconsciously directed my thoughts to the Flack organisation, and during the past day or two I have been getting a number of particulars concerning those miscreants. The names of Holden and Willington occur. They were two detectives who went out in search of Flack and never returned – I remember their disappearance very well now the matter is recalled to my mind. There was also a third gentleman who disappeared.’

Mr Reeder nodded.

‘Ah, you remember?’ said Mr Daver triumphantly. ‘Naturally you would. A lawyer named Biggerthorpe, who was called from his office one day on some excuse, and was never seen again. May I add’ – he smiled good-humouredly – ‘that Mr Biggerthorpe has never stayed here? Why should you imagine he had, Mr Reeder?’

‘I never did.’ Mr Reeder gave blandness for blandness. ‘Biggerthorpe? I had forgotten him. He was an important witness against Flack if he’d ever been caught – hum!’ And then: ‘You are a student of criminal practices, Mr Daver?’

‘A humble one,’ said Mr Daver, and his humility was manifest in his attitude.

And then he suddenly dropped his voice to a hoarse whisper.

‘Shall I tell you something, Mr Reeder?’

‘You may tell me,’ said Mr Reeder, as he buttoned his waistcoat, ‘anything that pleases you. I am in the mood for stories. In this delightful atmosphere, amidst these beautiful surroundings, I should prefer – um – fairy stories – or shall we say ghost stories? Is Larmes Keep haunted, Mr Daver? Ghosts are my speciality. I have probably seen and arrested more ghosts than any other living representative of the law. Some time I intend writing a monumental work on the subject. Ghosts I have seen, or a Guide to the Spirit World, in sixty-three volumes. You were about to say – ?’

‘I was about to say,’ said Mr Daver, and his voice was curiously strained, ‘that in my opinion Flack himself once stayed here. I have not mentioned this fact to Miss Belman, but I am convinced in my mind that I am not in error. Seven years ago’ – he was very impressive – ‘a grey-bearded, rather thin-faced man came here at ten o’clock at night and asked for a lodging. He had plenty of money, but this did not influence me. Ordinarily I should have asked him to make the usual application, but it was late, a bitterly cold and snowy night, and I hadn’t the heart to turn one of his age away from my door.’

‘How long did he stay?’ asked Mr Reeder. ‘And why do you think he was Flack?’

‘Because’ – Daver’s voice had sunk until it was an eerie moan – ‘he left just as Ravini left – early one morning, without paying his bill, and left his pyjamas behind him!’

Very slowly Mr Reeder turned his head and surveyed the host.

‘That comes into the category of humorous stories, and I am too hungry to laugh,’ he said calmly. ‘What time do we dine?’

The gong sounded at that moment.

Margaret Belman usually dined with the other guests at a table apart. She went red and felt more than a little awkward when Mr Reeder came across to her table, dragging a chair with him, and ordered another place to be set. The other three guests dined at separate tables.

‘An unsociable lot of people,’ said Mr Reeder as he shook out his napkin and glanced round the room.

‘What do you think of Mr Daver?’

J. G. Reeder smiled gently. ‘He is a very amusing person,’ he said, and she laughed, but grew serious immediately.

‘Have you found out anything about Ravini?’

Mr Reeder shook his head. ‘I had a talk with the hall porter: he seems a very honest and straightforward fellow. He told me that, when he came down the morning after Ravini disappeared, the front door had been unbolted and unlocked. An observant fellow. Who is Mrs Burton?’ he asked abruptly.

‘The housekeeper.’ Margaret smiled and shook her head. ‘She is rather a miserable lady, who spends quite a lot of time hinting at the good times she should be having, instead of being “buried alive” – those are her words – at Siltbury.’

Mr Reeder put down his knife and fork. ‘Dear me!’ he said mildly. ‘Is she a lady who has seen better days?’

Margaret laughed softly. ‘I should have thought she had never had such a time as she is having now,’ she said. ‘She’s rather common and terribly illiterate. Her accounts that come up to me are fearful and wonderful things! But seriously, I think she must have been in good circumstances. The first night I was here I went into her room to ask about an account I did not understand – of course it was a waste of time, for books are mysteries to her – and she was sitting at a table admiring her hands.’

‘Hands?’ he said.

She nodded. ‘Yes. They were covered with the most beautiful rings you could possibly imagine,’ said Margaret, and was satisfied with the impression she made, for Mr Reeder dropped knife and fork to his plate with a crash.

‘Rings . . . ?’

‘Huge diamonds and emeralds. They took my breath away. The moment she saw me she put her hand behind her, and the next morning she explained that they were presents given to her by a theatrical lady who had stayed here, and that they had no value.’

‘Props, in fact,’ said Mr Reeder.

‘What is a prop?’ she asked curiously, and Mr Reeder waggled his head, and she had learnt that when he waggled his head in that fashion he was advertising his high spirits and good humour.

After dinner he sent a waitress to find Mr Daver, and when that gentleman arrived Mr Reeder had to tell him that he had a lot of work to do, and request the loan of blotting-pad and a special writing-table for his room. Margaret wondered why he had not asked her, but she supposed that it was because he did not know that such things came into her province.

‘You’re a great writer, Mr Reeder – he, he!’ Daver was convulsed at his own little joke. ‘So am I! I am never happy without a pen in my hand. Tell me, as a matter of interest, do you do your best work in the morning or in the evening? Personally, it is a question that I have never decided to my own satisfaction.’

‘I shall now write steadily till two o’clock,’ said Mr Reeder, glancing at his watch. ‘That is a habit of years. From nine to two are my writing hours, after which I smoke a cigarette, drink a glass of milk – would you be good enough to see that I have a glass of milk put in my room at once? – and from two I sleep steadily till nine.’

Margaret Belman was an interested and somewhat startled audience of this personal confession. It was unusual in Mr Reeder to speak of himself, unthinkable that he should discuss his work. In all her life she had not met an individual who was more reticent about his private affairs. Perhaps the holiday spirit was on him, she thought. He was certainly younger-looking that evening than she had ever known him.

She went out to find Mrs Burton and convey the wishes of the guest. The woman accepted the order with a sniff.

‘Milk? He looks the kind of person who drinks milk. He’s nothing to be afraid of!’

‘Why should he be afraid?’ asked Margaret sharply, but the reproach was lost upon Mrs Burton.

‘Nobody likes detectives nosing about a place – do they, Miss Belman? And he’s not my idea of a detective.’

‘Who told you he was a detective?’

Mrs Burton looked at her for a second from under her heavy lids, and then jerked her head in the direction of Daver’s office.

‘He did,’ she said. ‘Detectives! And me sitting here, slaving from morning till night, when I might be doing the grand in Paris or one of them places, with servants to wait on me instead of me waiting on people. It’s sickening!’

Twice since she had been at Larmes Keep, Margaret had witnessed these little outbursts of fretfulness and irritation. She had an idea that the faded woman would like some excuse to make her a confidante, but the excuse was neither found nor sought. Margaret had nothing in common with this rather dull and terribly ordinary lady, and they could find no mutual interest which would lead to the breakdown of the barriers. Mrs Burton was a weakling; tears were never far from her eyes or voice, nor the sense of her mysterious grievances against the world far from her mind.

‘They treat me like dirt,’ she went on, her voice trembling with her feeble anger, ‘and she treats me worst of all. I asked her to come and have a cup of tea and a chat in my room the other day, and what do you think she said?’

‘Whom are you talking about?’ asked Margaret curiously. It did not occur to her that the ‘she’ in question might be Olga Crewe – it would have required a very powerful imagination to picture the cold and worldly Olga talking commonplaces with Mrs Burton over a friendly cup of tea; yet it was of Olga that the woman spoke. But at the very suggestion that she was being questioned her thin lips closed tight.

‘Nobody in particular . . . milk, did you say? I’ll take it up to him myself.’

Mr Reeder was struggling into a dressing-jacket when she brought the milk to him. One of the servants had already placed pen, ink and stationery on the table, and there were two fat manuscript books visible to any caller, and anticipating eloquently Mr Reeder’s literary activities.

He took the tray from the woman’s hand and put it on the table.

‘You have a nice house, Mrs Burton,’ he said encouragingly. ‘A beautiful house. Have you been here long?’

‘A few years,’ she answered.

She made to go, but lingered at the door. Mr Reeder recognised the symptoms. Discreet she might be, a gossip she undoubtedly was, aching for human converse with any who could advance a programme of those trivialities which made up her conversational life.

‘No, sir, we never get many visitors here. Mr Daver likes to pick and choose.’

‘And very wise of Mr Daver. By the way, which is his room?’

She walked through the doorway and pointed along the corridor.

‘Oh, yes, I remember, he told me. A charming situation. I saw you coming out this evening.’

‘You have made a mistake – I never go into his room,’ said the woman sharply. ‘You may have seen –’ She stopped, and added: ‘ – somebody else. Are you going to work late, sir?’

Mr Reeder repeated in detail his plans for the evening.

‘I would be glad if you would tell Mr Daver that I do not wish to be interrupted. I am a very slow thinker, and the slightest disturbance to my train of thought is fatal to my – er – power of composition,’ he said, as he closed the door upon her and, waiting until she had time to get down the stairs, locked it and pushed home the one bolt.

He drew the heavy curtains across the open windows, pushed the writing-table against the curtains, so that they could not blow back, and, opening the two exercise books, so placed them that they formed a shade that prevented the light falling upon the bed. This done, he changed quickly into a lounge suit, and, lying on the bed, pulled the coverlet over him and was asleep in five minutes.

Margaret Belman had it in her mind to send up to his room after eleven, before she herself had retired, to discover whether there was anything he wanted, but fortunately she changed her mind – fortunately, because Mr Reeder had planned to snatch five solid hours’ sleep before he began his unofficial inspection of the house, or alternatively before the period arrived when it would be necessary that he should be wide awake.

At two o’clock on the second he woke and sat up on the edge of the bed, blinking at the light. Opening one of his trunks, he took out a small wooden box from which he drew a spirit stove and the paraphernalia of tea-making. He lit the little lamp, and while the tiny tin kettle was boiling he went to the bathroom, undressed, and lowered his shivering body into a cold bath. He returned fully dressed, to find the kettle boiling.

Mr Reeder was a very methodical man; he was, moreover, a care-ful man. All his life he had had a suspicion of milk. He used to wander round the suburban streets in the early hours of the morn-ing, watch the cans hanging on the knockers, the bottles deposited in corners of doorsteps, and ruminate upon the enormous possibilities for wholesale murder that this light-hearted custom of milk delivery presented to the criminally minded. He had calculated that a nimble homicide, working on systematic lines, could decimate London in a month.

He drank his tea without milk, munched a biscuit, and then, methodically clearing away the spirit-stove and kettle, he took from his grip a pair of thick-soled felt slippers and drew them on his feet. In his trunk he found a short length of stiff rubber, which, in the hands of a skilful man, was as deadly a weapon as a knife. This he put in the inside pocket of his jacket. He put his hand in the trunk again and brought out something that looked like a thin rubber sponge-bag, except that it was fitted with two squares of mica and a small metal nozzle. He hesitated about this, turning it over in his hand, and eventually this went back into the trunk. The stubby Browning pistol, which was his next find, Mr Reeder regarded with disfavour, for the value of firearms, except in the most desperate circumstances, had always seemed to him to be problematical.

The last thing to be extracted was a hollow bamboo, which contained another, and was in truth the fishing-rod for which he had once expressed a desire. At the end of the thinner was a spring loop, and after he had screwed the two lengths together he fitted upon this loop a small electric hand-lamp and carefully threaded the thin wires through the eyelets of the rod, connecting them up with a tiny switch at the handle, near where the average fisherman has his grip. He tested the switch, found it satisfactory, and when this was done he gave a final look round the room before extinguishing the table lamp.

In the broad light of day he would have presented a somewhat comic figure, sitting cross-legged on his bed, his long fishing-rod reaching out to the middle of the room and resting on the footboard; but at the moment Mr J. G. Reeder had no sense of the ridiculous, and moreover there were no witnesses. From time to time he swayed the rod left and right, like an angler making a fresh cast. He was very wide awake, his ears tuned to differentiate between the normal noises of the night – the rustle of trees, the soft purr of the wind – and the sounds which could only come from human activity.

He sat for more than half an hour, his fishing-rod moving to and fro, and then he was suddenly conscious of a cold draught blowing from the door. He had heard no sound, not so much as the click of a lock; but he knew that the door was wide open.

Noiselessly he drew in the rod till it was clear of the posts of the bed, brought it round towards the door, paying out until it was a couple of yards from where he sat – with one foot on the ground now, ready to leap or drop, as events dictated.

The end of the rod met with no obstruction. Reeder held his breath . . . listening. The corridor outside was heavily carpeted. He expected no sound of footsteps. But people must breathe, thought Mr Reeder, and it is difficult to breathe noiselessly. Conscious that he himself was a little too silent for a supposedly sleeping man, he emitted a lifelike snore and gurgle which might be expected from a middle-aged man in the first stages of slumber . . .

Something touched the end of the rod, pushing it aside. Mr Reeder turned the switch and a blinding ray of light leapt from the lamp and focused in a circle on the opposite wall of the corridor.

The door was open, but there was nothing human in sight.

And then, despite his wonderful nerve, his flesh began to go goosey, and a cold sensation tingled up his spine. Somebody was there – hiding . . . waiting for the man who carried the lamp, as they thought, to emerge.

Reaching out at full arm’s-length, he thrust the end of the rod through the doorway into the corridor.

Swish!

Something struck the rod and snapped it. The lamp fell on the floor, lens uppermost, and flooded the ceiling of the corridor. In an instant Reeder was off the bed, moving swiftly, till he came to the cover afforded by the wide-open door. Through the crack he had a limited view of what might happen outside.

There was a deadly silence. In the hall downstairs a clock ticked solemnly, whirred and struck the quarter to three. But there was no movement; nothing came within the range of the upturned lamp, until . . .

He had just a momentary flash of vision. The thin, white face, the hairy lips parted in a grin, wild, dirty white hair, and a bald crown, a short bristle of white beard, a claw-like hand reaching for the lamp . . .

Pistol or rubber? Mr Reeder elected for the rubber. As the hand closed over the lamp he left the cover of the room and struck. He heard a snarl like that of a wild beast, then the lamp was extinguished as the apparition staggered back, snapping the thin wire.

The corridor was in darkness. He struck again and missed; the violence of the stroke was such that he overbalanced and fell on one knee, and the truncheon flew from his grasp. He threw out his hand, gripped an arm, and with a quick jerk brought his capture into the room and switched on the light.

A round, soft hand, covered with a silken sleeve . . .

As the lights leapt to life, he found himself looking into the pale face of Olga Crewe!

Chapter 10

For a moment they stared at one another, she fearful, he amazed. Olga Crewe!

Then he became conscious that he was still gripping the arm, and let it drop. The arm fascinated Mr Reeder; he scarcely looked at anything else.

‘I am very sorry,’ said Mr Reeder. ‘Where did you come from?’

Her lips were quivering; she tried to speak, but no words came. Then she mastered her momentary paralysis and began to speak, slowly, laboriously.

‘I – heard – a noise – in – the – corridor – and – came – out. A noise – I – was – frightened.’

She was rubbing her arm mechanically; he saw a red weal where his hand had gripped. The wonder was that he had not broken her arm.

‘Is – anything – wrong?’

Every word was created and articulated painfully. She seemed to be considering its formation before her tongue gave it sound.

‘Where is the light-switch in the hall?’ asked Mr Reeder. This was a more practical matter – he lost interest in her arm.

‘Opposite my room.’

‘Turn it on,’ he said, and she obeyed meekly.

Only when the corridor was illuminated did he step out of the room, and even then in some doubt, if the Browning in his hand meant anything.

‘Is anything wrong?’ she asked again. By now she had taken command of herself. A little colour had come to her white face, but the live eyes were still beholding terrible visions.

‘Did you see anything in the passage?’ he answered.

She shook her head slowly.

‘No, I saw nothing – nothing. I heard a noise and I came out.’

She was lying; he did not trouble to doubt this. She had had time to pull on her slippers and find the flimsy wrap she wore, and the fight had not lasted more than two seconds. Moreover, he had not heard her door open; therefore it had been open all the time, and she had been spectator or audience of all that had happened.

He went down the corridor, retrieved his rubber truncheon, and came back to her. She was half standing, half leaning against the doorpost, rubbing her arm. She was staring past him so intently that he looked round, though there was nothing to be seen.

‘You hurt me,’ she said simply.

‘Did I? I’m sorry.’

The mark on the white flesh had gone blue, and Mr Reeder was naturally a sympathetic man. Yet, if the truth be told, there was nothing of sorrow in his mind at that moment. Regret, yes. But the regret had nothing to do with her hurt.

‘I think you’d better go to your bed, young lady. My nightmare is ended. I hope yours will end as quickly, though I shall be surprised if it does. Mine is for the moment; yours, unless I am greatly mistaken, is for life!’

Her dark, inscrutable eyes did not leave his face as she spoke.

‘I think it must have been a nightmare,’ she said. ‘Will it last all my life? I think it will!’

With a nod she turned away, and presently he heard her door close and the lock fasten. Mr Reeder went back to the far side of his bed, pulled up a chair and sat down. He did not attempt to close the door. Whilst his room was in darkness and the corridor lighted, he did not expect a repetition of his bad and substantial dream.

The rubber truncheon was a mistake, he admitted regretfully. He wished he had not such a repugnance to a noisier weapon. He laid the pistol on the cover of the bed within reach of his hand. If the bad dream came again –

Voices!

The murmur of a whispered colloquy and a fierce, hissing whisper that dominated the others. Not in the corridor, but in the hall below. He tiptoed to the door and listened.

Somebody laughed under his breath, a strange, blood-curdling little mutter of a laugh; and then he heard a key turn and a door open and a voice demand: ‘Who is there?’

It was Margaret. Her room faced the head of the stairs, he remembered. Slipping the pistol into his pocket, he ran round the end of the bed and into the corridor. She was standing by the banisters, looking down into the dark. The whispering voices had ceased. She saw him out of the corner of her eye and turned with a start.

‘What is wrong, Mr Reeder? Who put the corridor light on? I heard somebody speaking in the vestibule.’

‘It was only me.’

His smile would in ordinary circumstances have been very reassuring, but now she was frightened, childishly frightened. She had an insane desire to cling to him and weep.

‘Something has been happening here,’ she said. ‘I’ve been lying in bed listening, and haven’t had the courage to get up. I’m horribly scared, Mr Reeder.’

He beckoned her to him, and as she came, wondering, he slipped past her and took her place at the banisters. She saw him lean over and the light from a hand-lamp sweep the space below.

‘There’s nobody there,’ he said airily.

She was whiter than he had ever seen her.

‘There was somebody there,’ she insisted. ‘I heard their feet moving on the tiled paving after you put on your flash-lamp.’

‘Probably Mrs Burton,’ he suggested. ‘I thought I heard her voice –’

And now came a newcomer on the scene. Mr Daver had appeared at the end of the corridor. He wore a flowered silk dressing-gown buttoned up to his chin.

‘Whatever is the matter, Miss Belman?’ he asked. ‘Don’t tell me that he tried to get into your window! I’m afraid you’re going to tell me that! I hope you’re not, but I’m afraid you will! Dear me, what an unpleasant thing to happen!’

‘What has happened?’ asked Mr Reeder.

‘I don’t know, but I have an uncomfortable feeling that somebody has been trying to break into this house,’ said Mr Daver.

He was genuinely agitated; the girl could almost hear his teeth chatter.

‘I heard somebody trying the catch of my window and looked out, and I’ll swear I saw – something! What a dreadful thing to happen! I have half a mind to telephone for the police.’

‘An excellent idea,’ murmured Mr Reeder, suddenly his old deferential and agreeable self. ‘You were asleep, I suppose, when you heard the noise?’

Mr Daver hesitated.

‘Not exactly asleep,’ he said. ‘Between sleeping and waking. I was very restless tonight for some reason.’

He put his hand to his throat, his dressing-gown had gaped for a second. He was not quite quick enough.

‘You were probably restless,’ said Mr Reeder softly, ‘because you omitted to take off your collar and tie. I know of nothing more disturbing.’

Mr Daver made a characteristic grimace.

‘I dressed myself rather hurriedly –’ he began.

‘Better to undress yourself hurriedly,’ chided Mr Reeder, almost playfully. ‘People who go to bed in stiff white collars occasionally choke themselves to death. And there is sorrow in the home of the cheated hangman. Your burglar probably saved your life.’

Daver made as though to speak, suddenly retreated and slammed the door.

Margaret was looking at Mr Reeder apprehensively.

‘What is the mystery – was there a burglar? – Oh, please tell me the truth! I shall get hysterical if you don’t!’

‘The truth,’ said Mr Reeder, his eyes twinkling, ‘is very nearly what that curious man told you – there was somebody in the house, somebody who had no right to be here, but I think he has gone, and you can go to bed without the slightest anxiety.’

She looked at him oddly.

‘Are you going to bed, too?’

‘In a very few moments,’ said Mr Reeder cheerfully.

She held out her hand with an impulsive gesture. He took it in both of his.

‘You are my idea of a guardian angel,’ she smiled, though she was near to tears.

‘I’ve never heard,’ said Mr Reeder, ‘of guardian angels with side-whiskers.’

It was a mean advantage to take of her, yet he was ridiculously pleased as he repeated his little jeu d’esprit to himself in the seclusion of his room.

Chapter 11

Mr Reeder closed the door, put on the lights, and set himself to unravel the inexplicable mystery of its opening. Before he went to bed he had shot home the bolt, had turned the key in the lock, and the key was still on the inside. It struck him, as he turned it, that he had never heard a lock that moved so silently, or a bolt that slipped so easily into its groove. Both lock and bolt had been recently oiled. He began a scrutiny of the inside face of the door, and found a simple solution of the somewhat baffling incident of its opening.

The door consisted of eight panels, carved in small lozenge-shaped ornaments. The panel immediately above the lock moved slightly when he pressed it, but it was a long time before he found the tiny spring which held it in place. When that was found, the panel opened like a miniature door. He could thrust his hand through the aperture and slide back the bolt with the greatest ease.

There was nothing very unusual or sinister about this. He knew that many hotels and boarding-houses had methods by which a door could be unlocked from the outside – a very necessary precaution in certain eventualities. Mr Reeder wondered whether he would find a similar safety panel on the door of Margaret Belman’s room.

By the time he had completed his inspection it was daylight, and, pulling back the curtains, he drew a chair to the window and made a survey of as much of the grounds as lay within his line of vision.

There were two or three matters which were puzzling him. If Larmes Keep was the headquarters of the Flack gang, in what manner and for what reason had Olga Crewe been brought into the confederation? He judged her age at twenty-four; she had been a constant visitor, if not a resident, at Larmes Keep for at least ten years, and he knew enough of the ways of the underworld to realise that they did not employ children. Also she had been to a public school of some kind, and that would have absorbed at least four of the ten years – Mr Reeder shook his head in doubt.

Nothing would happen now until dark, he decided and, stretching himself upon the bed, he pulled the coverlet over him and slept till a tapping at the door announced the coming of the maid with his morning tea.

She was a round-faced woman, just past her first youth, with a disagreeable Cockney accent and the brusque and familiar manner of one who was an indispensable part of the establishment. Mr Reeder remembered that the girl had waited on him at dinner.

‘Why, sir, you haven’t undressed!’ she said.

‘I seldom undress,’ said Mr Reeder, sitting up and taking the tea from her. ‘It is such a waste of time. For no sooner are your clothes off than it is necessary to put them on again.’

She looked at him hard, but he did not smile.

‘You’re a detective, ain’t you? Everybody at the cottage knows that you are. What have you come down about?’

Mr Reeder could afford to smile cryptically. There was a suppressed anxiety in the girl’s voice.

‘It is not for me, my dear young lady, to disclose your employer’s business.’

‘He brought you down? Well, he’s got a nerve!’

Mr Reeder put his finger to his lips.

‘About the candlesticks?’

He nodded.

‘He still thinks somebody in the house took them?’

Her face was very red, her eyes snapped angrily. Here was exposed one of the minor scandals of the hotel.

It was not an uninteresting sidelight. For if ever guilt was written on a woman’s face it was on hers. What these candlesticks were and how they disappeared, Mr Reeder could guess. Petty larceny runs in well-defined channels.

‘Well, you can tell him from me –’ she began shrilly, and he raised a solemn hand.

‘Keep the matter to yourself – regard me as your friend,’ he begged.

He was in his lighter moments a most mischievous man, a weakness that few suspected in Mr J. G. Reeder. Moreover, he wanted badly some inside information about the household, and he had an idea that this infuriated girl who flounced out and slammed the door behind her would supply him with that information. In his most optimistic moments he could not dream that in her raw hands she held the secret of Larmes Keep.

As soon as he came down, Mr Reeder decided to go to Daver’s office; he was curious to learn the true story of the missing candlesticks. The sound of an angry voice reached him, and as his hand was raised to knock at the door it was opened by somebody who was holding the handle on the inside, and he heard a woman’s angry voice.

‘You’ve treated me shabbily: that’s all I can say to you, Mr Daver! I’ve been working for you five years and I’ve never said a word about your business to anybody! And now you bring a detective down to spy on me! I won’t be treated as if I was a thief or something! If you think that’s behaving fair and square, after all I’ve done for you, and minding my own business . . . yes, I know I’ve been well paid, but I could get just as much money somewhere else . . . I’ve got my pride, Mr Daver, the same as you have . . . and I think you’ve been very underhand, the way you’ve treated me . . . I’ll go tonight, don’t you worry!’

The door was flung open and a red-faced girl of twenty-five flounced out and dashed past the eavesdropper, scarcely noticing him in her fury. The door shut behind her; evidently Mr Daver was in as bad a temper as the girl – a fortunate circumstance, as it proved, and Mr Reeder decided it might be inadvisable to advertise that he had overheard the whole or part of the conversation.

When he strolled out into the sunlit grounds, of all the people who had been disturbed during the night he was the brightest and showed the least sign of fatigue. He met the Rev. Mr Dean and the Colonel, who was carrying a golf-bag, and they bade him a gruff good morning. The Colonel, he thought, was a little haggard; Mr Dean gave him a scowl as he passed.

Walking up and down the lawn, he examined the front of the house with a critical eye. The lines of the Keep were very definite: harsh and angular, not even the Tudor windows, that at some remote period had been introduced to its stony face, could disguise its ancient grimness.

Turning an angle of the house, he reached the strip of lawn which faced his own window. Behind the lawn was a mass of rhododendron bushes, which might serve a useful purpose, but which in certain circumstances might also be a danger-point.

Immediately beneath his window was an angle of the drawing-room, a circumstance which gave him cause for satisfaction. Mr Reeder’s experience favoured a bedroom which was above a public apartment.

He went back on his tracks and came to the other end of the block. Those three windows, brightly curtained, were evidently Mr Daver’s private suite. The wall was black beneath them, the actual stone being obscured by a thick growth of ivy. He wondered what this lightless and doorless space contained.

As he returned to the front of the house he saw Margaret Belman. She was standing in front of the doorway, shading her eyes from the sun, evidently searching her limited landscape for somebody. Seeing him, she came quickly to meet him.

‘Oh, there you are!’ she said, with a sigh of relief. ‘I wondered what had happened to you – you didn’t come down to breakfast.’

She looked a little tired, he thought. Evidently she had not rounded off the night as agreeably as he.

‘I haven’t slept since I saw you,’ she said, answering his unspoken question. ‘What happened, Mr Reeder? Did somebody really try to get into the house – a burglar?’

‘I think they tried, and I think they succeeded,’ said Mr Reeder carefully. ‘Burglaries happen even in – um – hotels, Miss – um – Margaret. Has Mr Daver notified the police?’

She shook her head.

‘I don’t know. He has been telephoning all the morning – I went to his room just now and it was locked, but I heard his voice. And, Mr Reeder, you didn’t tell me the terrible thing that happened the night I left London. I saw it in the newspaper this morning.’

‘Terrible thing?’ J. G. Reeder was puzzled. Almost he had forgotten the adventure of the spring gun. ‘Oh, you mean the little joke?’

‘Joke!’ she said, shocked.

‘Criminals have a perverted sense of humour,’ said Mr Reeder airily. ‘The whole thing was – um – an elaborate jest designed to frighten me. One expects such things. They are the examination papers which are set to test one’s intelligence from time to time.’

‘But who did it?’ she asked.

Mr Reeder’s gaze wandered absently over the placid countryside. She had a feeling that it bored him even to recall so trivial an incident in a busy life.

‘Our young friend,’ he said suddenly, and, following the direction of his eyes, she saw Olga Crewe.

She was wearing a dark grey knitted suit and a big black hat that shaded her face, and there was nothing of embarrassment in the half smile with which she greeted her fellow guest.

‘Good morning, Mr Reeder. I think we have met before this morning.’ She rubbed her arm good-humouredly.

Mr Reeder was all apologies.

‘I don’t even know what happened,’ she said; and Margaret Belman learnt for the first time what had occurred before she had made her appearance.

‘I never thought you were so strong – look!’ Olga pulled back her sleeve and showed a big blue-black patch on her forearm, cutting short his expression of remorse with a little laugh.

‘Have you shown Mr Reeder all the attractions of the estate?’ she asked, a hint of sarcasm in her tone. ‘I almost expected to find you at the bathing-pool this morning.’

‘I didn’t even know there was a bathing-pool,’ said Mr Reeder. ‘In fact, after my terrible scare last night, this – um – beautiful house has assumed so sinister an aspect that I expect to bathe in nothing less dramatic than blood!’

She was not amused. He saw her eyes close quickly, and she shivered a little.

‘How gruesome you are! Come along, Miss Belman.’

Inwardly, Margaret resented the tone, which was almost a command, but she walked by their side. Clear of the house, Olga stopped and pointed.

‘You must see the well. Are you interested in old things?’ asked Olga as she led the way to the shrubbery.

‘I am more interested in new things, especially new experiences,’ said Mr Reeder, quite gaily. ‘And new people fascinate me!’

Again that quick, frightened smile of hers. ‘Then you should be having the time of your life, Mr Reeder,’ she said, ‘for you’re meeting people here whom you’ve never met before.’

He screwed up his forehead in a frown. ‘Yes, there are two people in this house I have never met before,’ he said, and she looked round at him quickly.

‘Only two? You’ve never met me before?’

‘I’ve seen you,’ said Mr Reeder, ‘but I have never met you.’

By this time they had arrived at the well, and he read the inscription slowly, before he tested with his foot the board that covered the top of the well.

‘It has been closed for years,’ said the girl. ‘I shouldn’t touch it,’ she added hastily, as Reeder stooped and, catching the edge of a board, swung it back trap fashion, leaving an oblong cavity.

The trap did not squeak or creak as he turned it back; the hinges were oiled; there was no accumulation of dust between the two doors. Going on to his hands and knees, he looked down into the darkness.

‘How many loads of rubble and rock were used to stop up this well?’ he asked.

Margaret read from the little notice-board.

‘Hum!’ said Mr Reeder, searched in his pockets, brought out a two-shilling piece, poised the silver coin carefully and let it drop.

For a long, long time he listened, and then a faint metallic tinkle came up to him.

‘Nine seconds!’ He looked up into Olga’s face. ‘Deduct from the velocity of a falling object the speed at which sound travels, and tell me how deep this hole is?’

He got up to his feet, dusted the knees of his trousers, and carefully dropped the trap into position.

‘Rock there may be,’ he said, ‘but there is no water. I must work out the number of loads requisite to fill this well entirely – it will be an interesting morning’s occupation for one who in his youth was something of a mathematical genius.’

Olga Crewe led the way back to the shrubbery in silence. When they came to the open: ‘I think you had better show Mr Reeder the rest of the establishment,’ she said. ‘I’m rather tired.’

And with a nod she turned away and walked towards the house, and Mr Reeder gazed after her with something like admiration in his eyes.

‘The rouge would, of course, make a tremendous difference,’ he said, half speaking to himself, ‘but it is very difficult to disguise voices – even the best of actors fail in this respect.’

Margaret stared at him.

‘Are you talking to me?’

‘To me,’ said Mr Reeder humbly. ‘It is a bad habit of mine, peculiar to my age, I fear.’

‘But Miss Crewe never uses rouge.’

‘Who does – in the country?’ asked Mr Reeder, and pointed with his walking-stick to the wall along the cliff. ‘Where does that lead? What is on the other side?’

‘Sudden death,’ said Margaret, and laughed.

For a quarter of an hour they stood leaning on the parapet of the low wall, looking down at the strip of beach below. The small channel that led to the cave interested him. He asked her how deep it was. She thought that it was quite shallow, a conclusion with which he did not agree. ‘Underground caves sound romantic, and that channel is deeper than most. I think I must explore the cave. How does one get down?’

He looked left and right. The beach was enclosed in a deep little bay, circled on one side by sheer cliff, on the other by a high reef of rock that ran far out to sea. Mr Reeder pointed to the horizon.

‘Sixty miles from here is France.’

He had a disconcerting habit of going off at a tangent.

‘I think I will do a little exploring this afternoon. The walk should freshen me.’

They were returning to the house when he remembered the bathing-pool and asked to see it.

‘I wonder Mr Daver doesn’t let it run dry,’ she said. ‘It is an awful expense. I was going through the municipality’s account yesterday, and they charge a fabulous sum for pumping up fresh water.’

‘How long has it been built?’

‘That is the surprising thing,’ she said. ‘It was made twelve years ago, when private swimming-pools were things unheard of in this country.’

The pool was oblong in shape; one end of it was tiled and obviously artificially created. The further end, however, had for its sides and bottom natural rock. A great dome-shaped mass served as a diving platform. Mr Reeder walked all round, gazing into the limpid water. It was deepest at the rocky end, and here he stayed longest, and his inspection was most thorough. There seemed a space – how deep he could not tell – at the bottom of the bath, where the rock overhung.

‘Very interesting,’ said Mr Reeder at last. ‘I think I will go back to the house and get my bathing suit. Happily, I brought one.’

‘I didn’t know you were a swimmer,’ smiled the girl.

‘I am the merest tyro in most things,’ said Mr Reeder modestly.

He went up to his room, undressed and slipped into a bathing suit, over which he put his overcoat. Olga Crewe and Mr Daver had gone down to Siltbury. To his satisfaction he saw the hotel car descending the hill road cautiously in a cloud of dust.

When Mr Reeder threw off his coat to make the plunge there was something comically ferocious in his appearance, for about his waist he had fastened a belt to which was attached in a sheath a long-bladed hunting knife, and in addition there dangled a waterproof bag in which he had placed one of the many little hand-lamps that he invariably carried about with him. He made the most human preparations: put his toes into the cold water and shivered ecstatically before he made his plunge. Losing no time in preliminaries, he swam along the bottom to the slit in the rock which he had seen.

It was about two feet high and eight feet in length, and into this he pulled his way, gripping the roof to aid his progress. The roof ended abruptly; he found nothing but water above him, and he allowed himself to come to the surface, catching hold of a projecting ledge to keep himself afloat whilst he detached the waterproof bag from his belt, and, planting it upon the shelf, took out his flash-lamp.

He was in a natural stone chamber, with a broad, vaulted roof. He was in fact inside the dome-shaped rock that formed one end of the pool. At the farthermost corner of the chamber was an opening about four feet in height and two feet in width. A rock passage that led downward, he saw. He followed this for about fifty yards, and noted that although nature had hewn or worn this queer corridor at some remote age – possibly it had been an underground waterway before some gigantic upheaval of nature had raised the land above water-level – the passage owed something of its practicability to human agency. At one place there were marks of a chisel; at another, unmistakable signs of blasting. Mr Reeder retraced his steps and came back to the water. He fastened and re-sealed his lamp, and, drawing a long breath, dived to the bottom and wormed his way through the aperture to the bath and to open air. He came to the surface to gaze into the horror-stricken face of Margaret Belman.

‘Oh, Mr Reeder!’ she gasped. ‘You – you frightened me! I heard you jump in, but when I came here and found the bath empty I thought I must have been mistaken . . . Where have you been? You couldn’t stay under water all that time . . .’

‘Will you hand me my overcoat?’ said Mr Reeder modestly, and when he had hastily buttoned this about his person: ‘I have been to see that the County Council’s requirements are fully satisfied,’ he said solemnly.

She listened, dazed.

‘In all theatres, as you probably know, my dear Miss – um – Margaret, it is essential that there should be certain exits in case of necessity – I have already inspected two this morning, but I rather imagine that the most important of all has so far escaped my observation. What a man! Surely madness is akin to genius!’

He lunched alone, and apparently no man was less interested in his fellow guests than Mr J. G. Reeder. The two golfers had returned and were eating at the same table. Miss Crewe, who came in late and favoured him with a smile, sat at a little table facing him.

‘She is uneasy,’ said Mr Reeder to himself. ‘That is the second time she has dropped her fork. Presently she will get up, sit with her back to me . . . I wonder on what excuse?’

Apparently no excuse was necessary. The girl called a waitress towards her and had her glass and plate shifted to the other side. Mr Reeder was rather pleased with himself.

Daver minced into the dining-room as Mr Reeder was peeling an apple.

‘Good morning, Mr Reeder. Have you got over your nightmare? I see that you have! A man of iron nerve. I admire that tremendously. Personally, I am the most dreadful coward, and the very hint of a burglar makes me shiver. You wouldn’t believe it, but I had a quarrel with a servant this morning, and she left me shaking! You are not affected that way? I see that you are not! Miss Belman tells me that you tried our swimming-pool this morning. You enjoyed it? I am sure you did!’

‘Won’t you sit down and have coffee?’ asked Mr Reeder politely, but Daver declined the invitation with a flourish and a bow.

‘No, no, I have my work – I cannot tell you how grateful I am to Miss Belman for putting me on the track of the most fascinating character of modern times. What a man!’ said Mr Daver, unconsciously repeating J. G. Reeder’s tribute. ‘I’ve been trying to trace his early career – no, no, I’ll stand: I must run away in a minute or two. Is anything known about his early life? Was he married?’

Mr Reeder nodded. He had not the slightest idea that John Flack was married, but it seemed a moment to assert the universality of his knowledge. He was quite unprepared for the effect upon Daver. The jaw of the yellow-faced man dropped.

‘Married?’ he squeaked. ‘Who told you he was married? Where was he married?’

‘That is a matter,’ said Mr Reeder gravely, ‘which I cannot discuss.’

‘Married!’ Daver rubbed his little round head irritably, but did not pursue the subject. He made some inane reference to the weather and bustled out of the room.

Mr Reeder settled himself in what he called the banqueting-hall with an illustrated paper, awaiting an opportunity which he knew must present itself sooner or later. The servants he had passed under review. Girls were employed to wait at table, and these lived in a small cottage on the Siltbury side of the estate. The men servants, including the hall porter, seemed above suspicion. The porter was an old army man with a row of medals across his uniform jacket; his assistant was a chinless youth recruited from Siltbury. He apparently was the only member of the staff that did not live in one of the cottages. In the main the women servants were an unpromising lot – the infuriated waitress was his only hope, although as likely as not she would talk of nothing but her grievances.

From where he sat he had a view of the lawn. At three o’clock the Colonel and the Rev. Mr Dean and Olga Crewe passed out of the main gate, evidently bound for Siltbury, He rang the bell, and to his satisfaction the aggrieved waitress came and took his order for tea.

‘This is a nice place,’ said Mr Reeder conversationally.

The girl’s ‘Yes, sir’ was snappy.

‘I suppose,’ mused Mr Reeder, looking out of the window, ‘that this is the sort of situation that a lot of girls would give their heads to get and break their hearts to lose?’

Evidently she did not agree.

‘The upstairs work isn’t so bad,’ she said, ‘and there’s not much to do in the dining-room. But it’s too slow for me. I was at a big hotel before I came here. I’m going to a better job – and the sooner the better.’

She admitted that the money was good, but she had a longing for that imponderable quantity which she described as ‘life’. She also expressed a preference for men guests.

‘Miss Crewe – so called – gives more trouble than all the rest of the people put together,’ she said. ‘I can’t make her out. First she wants one room, then she wants another. Why she can’t stay with her husband I don’t know.’

‘With her – ?’ Mr Reeder looked at her in pained surprise. ‘Perhaps they don’t get on well together?’

‘They used to get on all right. If they weren’t married I could understand all the mystery they’re making – pretending they’re not, him in his room and she in hers, and meeting like strangers. When all that kind of deceit is going on, things are bound to get lost,’ she added inconsequently.

‘How long has this been – er – going on?’ asked Mr Reeder.

‘Only the last week or so,’ said the girl viciously. ‘I know they’re married, because I’ve seen her marriage certificate – they’ve been married six years. She keeps it in her dressing-case.’

She looked at him with sudden suspicion.

‘I oughtn’t to have told you that. I don’t want to make trouble for anybody, and I bear them no malice, though they’ve treated me worse’n a dog,’ she said. ‘Nobody else in the house but me knows. I was her maid for two years. But if people don’t treat me right I don’t treat them right.’

‘Married six years? Dear me!’ said Mr Reeder.

And then he suddenly turned his head and faced her.

‘Would you like fifty pounds?’ he asked. ‘That is the immense sum I will give you for just one little peep at that marriage certificate.’

The girl went red.

‘You’re trying to catch me,’ she said, hesitated, and then: ‘I don’t want to get her into trouble.’

‘I am a detective,’ said Mr Reeder, ‘but I am working on behalf of the Chief Registrar, and we have a doubt as to whether that marriage was legal. I could, of course, search the young lady’s room and find the certificate for myself, but if you would care to help me, and fifty pounds has any attraction for you –’

She paused irresolutely and said she would see. Half an hour later she came into the hall with the news that she had been unsuccessful in her search. She had found the envelope in which the certificate had been kept, but the document itself was gone.

Mr Reeder did not ask the name of the bridegroom, nor was he mentioned, for he was pretty certain that he knew that fort-unate man. He put a question, and the girl answered as he had expected.

‘There is one thing I would like to ask you: do you remember the name of the girl’s father?’

‘John Crewe, merchant,’ she said promptly. ‘The mother’s name was Hannah. He made me swear on the Bible I’d never tell a soul that I knew they were married.’

‘Does anybody else know? You said “nobody”, I think?’

The girl hesitated.

‘Yes, Mrs Burton knows. She knows everything.’

‘Thank you,’ said Mr Reeder, and, opening his pocket-book, took out two five-pound notes. ‘What was the husband’s profession: do you remember that?’

The woman’s lips curled.

‘Secretary – why call himself secretary, I don’t know, and him an independent gentleman!’

‘Thank you,’ said Mr Reeder again.

He telephoned to Siltbury for a taxicab.

‘Are you going out?’ asked Margaret, finding him waiting under the portico.

‘I am buying a few presents for friends in London,’ said Mr Reeder glibly; ‘a butter-dish or two, suitably inscribed, would, I feel sure, be very acceptable.’

The taxi did not take him to Siltbury. Instead, he followed a road which ran parallel to the sea coast, and which eventually landed him in an impossible sandy track, from which the ancient taxi was extricated with some difficulty.

‘I told you this led nowhere, sir,’ said the aggrieved driver.

‘Then we have evidently reached our destination,’ replied Mr Reeder, applying his weight to push the machine to a more solid foundation.

Siltbury was not greatly favoured by London visitors, the driver told him on the way back. The town had a pebbly beach, and people preferred sand.

‘There are some wonderful beaches about here,’ said the driver, ‘but you can’t reach ’em.’

They had taken the left-hand road, which would bring them eventually to the town and had been driving for a quarter of an hour when Mr Reeder, who sat by the driver, pointed to a large scar in the face of the down on his right.

‘Siltbury quarries,’ explained the cabman. ‘They’re not worked now: there are too many holes.’

‘Holes?’

‘The downs are like a sponge,’ said the man. ‘You could lose your-self in the caves. Old Mr Kimpon used to work the quarries many years ago, and it broke him. There’s a big cave there you can drive a coach-and-four into! About twenty years ago three fellows went in to explore the caves and never come out again.’

‘Who owns the quarry now?’

Mr Reeder wasn’t very interested, but when his mind was occupied with a pressing problem he had a trick of flogging along a conversation with appropriate questions, and if he was oblivious of the answers they produced, the sound of the human voice had a sedative effect.

‘Mr Daver owns it now. He bought it after the people were lost in the caves, and had the entrance boarded up. You’ll see it in a minute.’

They were climbing a gentle slope. As they came to the crest he pointed down a tidy-looking roadway to where, about two hundred yards distant, Reeder saw an oblong gap in the white face of the quarry. Across this, and filling the cavity except for an irregular space at the top, was a heavy wooden gate.

‘You can’t see it from here,’ said the driver, ‘but the top hole is blocked with barbed wire.’

‘Is that a gate or a hoarding he has fixed across?’

‘A gate, sir. Mr Daver owns all the land from here to the sea. He used to farm about a hundred acres of the downs, but it’s very poor land. In those days he kept his wagons inside the cave.’

‘When did he give up farming?’ asked Mr Reeder, interested.

‘About six years ago,’ was the reply, and it was exactly the reply Mr Reeder had expected. ‘I used to see a lot of Mr Daver before then,’ said the driver. ‘In the old times I had a horse cab, and I was always driving him about. He used to work like a galley slave – on the farm in the morning, down in the town buying things in the afternoon. He was more like a servant than a master. He used to meet all the trains when visitors arrived – and they had a lot of visitors in those days, more than they have now. Sometimes he went up to London to bring them down – he always went to meet Miss Crewe when the young lady was at school.’

‘Do you know Miss Crewe?’

Apparently the driver had seen her frequently, but his acquaintance with her was very limited.

Reeder got down from the cab and climbed the barred gate on to the private roadway. The soil was chalky and the road had the appearance of having been recently overhauled. He mentioned this fact to the cabman, and learnt that Mr Daver kept two old men constantly at work making up the road, though why he should do so he had no idea.

‘Where would you like to go now, sir?’

‘To a quiet place where I can telephone,’ said Mr Reeder.

These are the facts that he carried with him, and vital facts they were. During the past six years the life of Mr Daver had undergone a considerable change. From being a harassed man of affairs, ‘more like a servant than a master’, he had become a gentleman of leisure. The mystery of the Keep was a mystery no longer. He got Inspector Simp-son on the telephone and conveyed to him the gist of his discovery.

‘By the way,’ said Simpson at the finish, ‘the gold hasn’t been sent to Australia yet. There has been trouble in the docks. You don’t seriously anticipate a Flack “operation”, do you?’

Mr Reeder, who had forgotten all about the gold convoy, made a cautious and noncommittal reply.

By the time he returned to Larmes Keep the other guests had returned. The hall porter said they were expecting a ‘party’ on the morrow, but as he had volunteered that information on the previous evening, Mr Reeder did not take it very seriously. He gathered the man spoke in good faith, without any wish to deceive, but he saw no signs of unusual activity; nor, indeed, was there accommodation at the Keep for more than a few more visitors.

He looked round for the aggrieved servant and missed her. A discreet enquiry revealed the fact that she had left that afternoon.

Mr Reeder went to his room, locked the door, and busied himself in the examination of two great scrap-books which he had brought down with him. They were the official records of Flack and his gang. Perhaps ‘gang’ was hardly a proper description, for he seemed to use and change his associates as a theatrical manager uses and changes his cast. The police knew close on a score of men who from time to time had assisted John Flack in his nefarious transactions. Some had gone to prison, and had spent the hours of their recovered liberty in a vain endeavour to re-establish touch with so generous a paymaster. Some, known to be in his employ, had vanished, and were generally supposed to be living in luxury abroad.

Reeder went through the book, which was full of essential facts, and jotted down the amounts which this strange man had acquired in the course of twenty years’ depredations. The total was a staggering one. Flack had worked feverishly, and though he had paid well he had spent little. Somewhere in England was an enormous reserve. And that somewhere, Mr Reeder guessed, was very close to his hand.

For what had John Flack worked? To what end was this accumulation of money? Was the sheer greed of the miser behind his thefts? Was he working aimlessly, as a madman works, towards some visionary objective? Flack’s greed was proverbial. Nothing satisfied him. The robbery of the Leadenhall Bank had been followed a week later by an attack upon the London Trust Syndicate, carried out, the police discovered, by an entirely new confederation, gathered within a few days of the robbery and yet so perfectly rehearsed that the plan was carried through without a hitch.

Mr Reeder locked away his books and went downstairs in search of Margaret Belman. The crisis was very near at hand, and it was necessary for his peace of mind that the girl should leave Larmes Keep without delay.

He was half-way down the stairs when he met Daver coming up, and at that moment he received an inspiration.

‘You are the very gentleman I wished to meet,’ he said. ‘I wonder if you would do me a great favour?’

Daver’s careworn face wreathed in smiles.

‘My dear Mr Reeder,’ he said enthusiastically, ‘do you a favour? Command me!’

‘I have been thinking about last night and my extraordinary experience,’ said Mr Reeder.

‘You mean the burglar?’ interrupted the other quickly.

‘The burglar,’ agreed Mr Reeder. ‘He was an alarming person, and I am not disposed to let the matter rest where it is. Fortunately for me, I have found a finger-print on the panel of my door.’

He saw Daver’s face change.

‘When I say I have found a finger-print, I have found something which has the appearance of a finger-print, and I can only be sure if I examine it by means of a dactyloscope. Unfortunately, I did not imagine that I should have need for such an instrument, and I am wondering if you could send somebody to London to bring it down for me?’

‘With all the pleasure in life,’ said Daver, though his tone lacked heartiness. ‘One of the men –’

‘I was thinking of Miss Belman,’ interrupted J. G. Reeder, ‘who is a friend of mine and would, moreover, take the greatest possible care of that delicate piece of mechanism.’

Daver was silent for a moment, turning this over in his mind. ‘Would it not be better if a man . . . and the last train down –’

‘She could come down by car: I can arrange that.’ Mr Reeder fumbled his chin. ‘Perhaps it would be better if I brought down a couple of men from the Yard.’

‘No, no,’ said Daver quickly. ‘You can send Miss Belman. I haven’t the slightest objection. I will tell her.’

Mr Reeder looked at his watch. ‘The next train is at eight thirty-five, and that is the last train, I think. The young lady will be able to get her dinner before she starts.’

It was he who brought the news to the astonished Margaret Belman.

‘Of course I’ll go up to town; but don’t you think somebody else could get this instrument for you, Mr Reeder? Couldn’t you have it sent down –’

She saw the look in his eyes and stopped.

‘What is it?’ she asked in a lower voice.

‘Will you do this for – um – me, Miss – um – Margaret?’ said Mr Reeder, almost humbly.

He went to the lounge and scribbled a note, while Margaret telephoned for the cab. It was growing dark when the taxi drew up before the hotel and, J. G. Reeder, who accompanied her, opened the door.

‘There’s a man inside,’ he said, dropping his voice to a whisper. ‘Please don’t scream: he’s an officer of police, and he’s going with you to London.’

‘But – but –’ she stammered.

‘And you’ll stay in London tonight,’ said Mr Reeder. ‘I will join you in the morning – I hope.’

Chapter 12

Mr Reeder was in his room, laying out his moderate toilet requirements on the dressing-table, and meditating upon the waste of time involved in conforming to fashion – for he had dressed for dinner – when there came a tap at the door. He paused, a well-worn hairbrush in his hand, and looked round.

‘Come in,’ he said, and added: ‘if you please.’

The little head of Mr Daver appeared round the opening of the door, anxiety and apology in every line of his peculiar face.

‘Am I interrupting you?’ he asked; ‘I am terribly sorry to bother you at all, but Miss Belman being away, you quite understand? I’m sure you do . . .’

Mr Reeder was courtesy itself.

‘Come in, come in, sir,’ he said. ‘I was merely preparing for the night. I am a very tired man, and the sea air –’

He saw the face of the proprietor fall.

‘Then, Mr Reeder, I have come upon a useless errand. The truth is’ – he slipped inside the door, closed it carefully behind him, as though he had an important statement to make which he did not wish to be overheard – ‘my three guests are anxious to play bridge, and they deputed me to ask if you would care to join them?’

‘With every pleasure in life,’ said Mr Reeder graciously. ‘I am an indifferent player, but if they will bear with me, I will be down in a few minutes.’

Mr Daver withdrew, babbling his gratitude and apologies. The door was hardly closed upon him before Mr Reeder crossed the room and locked it. Stooping, he opened one of the trunks, took out a long, flexible rope ladder, and dropped it through the open window into the darkness below, fastening one end to the leg of the four-poster. Leaning out of the window, he said something in a low voice, and braced himself against the bed to support the weight of the man who came nimbly up the ladder into the room. This done, he replaced the rope ladder in his trunk, locked it, and, walking to a corner of the room, pulled at one of the solid panels. It hinged open and revealed the deep cupboard which Mr Daver had shown him.

‘That is as good a place as any, Brill,’ he said. ‘I’m sorry I must leave you for two hours, but I have an idea that nobody will disturb you there. I am leaving the lamp burning, which will give you enough light.’

‘Very good, sir,’ said the man from Scotland Yard, and took up his post.

Five minutes later Mr Reeder locked the door of his room and went downstairs to the waiting party.

They were in the big hall, a very silent and preoccupied trio, until his arrival galvanised them into something that might pass for light conversation. There was, indeed, a fourth present when he came in: a sallow-faced woman in black, who melted out of the hall at his approach, and he guessed her to be the melancholy Mrs Burton. The two men rose at his approach, and after the usual self-deprecatory exchange which proceeded the cutting for partners, Mr Reeder found himself sitting opposite the military-looking Colonel Hothling. On his left was the pale girl; on his right the hard-faced Rev. Mr Dean.

‘What do we play for?’ growled the Colonel, caressing his moustache, his steely blue eyes fixed on Mr Reeder.

‘A modest stake, I hope,’ begged that gentleman. ‘I am such an indifferent player.’

‘I suggest sixpence a hundred,’ said the clergyman. ‘It is as much as a poor parson can afford.’

‘Or a poor pensioner either,’ grumbled the Colonel, and sixpence a hundred was agreed.

They played two games in comparative silence. Reeder was sensitive of a strained atmosphere, but did nothing to relieve it. His partner was surprisingly nervous for one who, as he remarked casually, had spent his life in military service.

‘A wonderful life,’ said Mr Reeder in his affable way. Once or twice he detected the girl’s hand, as she held the cards, tremble ever so slightly. Only the clergyman remained still and unmoved, and, incidentally, played without error.

It was after an atrocious revoke on the part of his partner, a revoke which gave his opponents the game and rubber, that Mr Reeder pushed back his chair.

‘What a strange world this is!’ he remarked sententiously. ‘How like a game of cards!’

Those who were best acquainted with Mr Reeder knew that he was most dangerous when he was most philosophical. The three people who sat about the table heard only a boring commonplace, in keeping with their conception of this somewhat dull-looking man.

‘There are some people,’ mused Mr Reeder, looking up at the lofty ceiling, ‘who are never happy unless they have all the aces. I, on the contrary, am most cheerful when I have in my hand all the knaves.’

‘You play a very good game, Mr Reeder.’

It was the girl who spoke, and her voice was husky, her tone hesitant, as though she were forcing herself to speak.

‘I play one or two games rather well,’ said Mr Reeder. ‘Partly, I think, because I have such an extraordinary memory – I never forget knaves.’

There was a silence. This time the reference was too direct to be mistaken.

‘There used to be in my younger days,’ Mr Reeder went on, addressing nobody in particular, ‘a Knave of Hearts, who eventually became a Knave of Clubs, and drifted down into heaven knows what other welters of knavery! In plain words, he started his professional – um – life as a bigamist, continued his interesting and romantic career as a tout for gambling hells, and was concerned in a bank robbery in Denver. I have not seen him for years, but he is colloquially known to his associates as “The Colonel”; a military-looking gentleman with a pleasing appearance and a glib tongue.’

He was not looking at the Colonel as he spoke, so he did not see the man’s face go pale.

‘I have not met him since he grew a moustache, but I could recognise him anywhere by the peculiar colour of his eyes and by the fact that he has a scar at the back of his head, a souvenir of some unfortunate fracas in which he was engaged. They tell me that he became an expert user of knives – I gather he sojourned a while in Latin America – a knave of clubs and a knave of hearts – hum!’

The Colonel sat rigid, not a muscle of his face moving.

‘One supposes,’ Mr Reeder continued, looking at the girl thoughtfully, ‘that he has by this time acquired a competence which enables him to stay at the very best hotels without any fear of police supervision.’

Her dark eyes were fixed unwaveringly on his. The full lips were closed, the jaws set.

‘How very interesting you are, Mr Reeder!’ she drawled at last. ‘Mr Daver tells me you are associated with the police force?’

‘Remotely, only remotely,’ said Mr Reeder.

‘Are you acquainted with any other knaves, Mr Reeder?’

It was the cool voice of the clergyman, and Mr Reeder beamed round at him.

‘With the Knave of Diamonds,’ he said softly. ‘What a singularly appropriate name for one who spent five years in the profitable pursuit of illicit diamond-buying in South Africa, and five unprofitable years on the Breakwater in Capetown, becoming, as one might say, a knave of spades from the continuous use of that necessary and agricultural implement, and a knave of pickaxes too, one supposes! He was flogged, if I remember rightly, for an outrageous assault upon a warder, and on his release from prison was implicated in a robbery in Johannesburg. I am relying on my memory, and I cannot recall at the moment whether he reached Pretoria Central – which is the colloquial name for the Transvaal prison – or whether he escaped. I seem to remember that he was concerned in a banknote case which I once had in hand. Now what was his name?’

He looked thoughtfully at the clergyman.

‘Gregory Dones! That is it – Mr Gregory Dones! It is beginning to come back to me now. He had an angel tattooed on his left forearm, a piece of decoration which one would have imagined sufficient to keep him to the narrow paths of virtue, and even to bring him eventually within the fold of the church.’

The Rev. Mr Dean got up from the table, put his hand in his pocket and took out some money.

‘You lost the rubber, but I think you win on points,’ he said. ‘What do I owe you, Mr Reeder?’

‘What you can never pay me,’ said Mr Reeder, shaking his head. ‘Believe me, Gregory, your score and mine will never be wholly settled to your satisfaction!’

With a shrug of his shoulders and a smile, the hard-faced clergyman strolled away. Mr Reeder watched him out of the corner of his eye and saw him disappear towards the vestibule.

‘Are all your knaves masculine?’ asked Olga Crewe.

Reeder nodded gravely. ‘I hope so, Miss Crewe.’ Her challenging eyes met his.

‘In other words, you don’t know me?’ she said bluntly. And then, with sudden vehemence; ‘I wish to God you did! I wish you did!’ Turning abruptly, she almost ran from the hall. Mr Reeder stood where she had left him, his eyes roving left and right. In the shadowy entrance of the hall, made all the more obscure by the heavy dark curtains which covered it, he saw a dim figure standing. Only for a second, and then it disappeared. The woman Burton, he thought.

It was time to go to his room. He had taken only two steps from the table when all the lights in the hall went out. In such moments as these Mr Reeder was a very nimble man. He spun round and made for the nearest wall, and stood waiting, his back to the panelling. And then he heard the plaintive voice of Mr Daver.

‘Who on earth has put the lights out? Where are you, Mr Reeder?’

‘Here!’ said Mr Reeder, in a loud voice, and dropped instantly to the ground. Only just in time: he heard a whistle, a thud, and something struck the panel above his head.

Mr Reeder emitted a deep groan and crawled rapidly and noiselessly across the floor. Again came Daver’s voice: ‘What on earth was that? Has anything happened, Mr Reeder?’

The detective made no reply. Nearer and nearer he was crawling towards where Daver stood. And then, as unexpectedly as they had been extinguished, the lights went up. Daver was standing in front of the curtained doorway, and on the proprietor’s face was a look of blank dismay as Mr Reeder rose at his feet.

Daver shrank back, his big white teeth set in a fearful grin, his round eyes wide open. He tried to speak, and his mouth opened and closed, but no sound issued. From Reeder his eyes strayed to the panelled wall – but Reeder had already seen the knife buried in the wood.

‘Let me think,’ he said gently. ‘Was that the Colonel or the highly intelligent representative of the church?’

He went across to the wall and with an effort pulled out the knife. It was long and broad.

‘A murderous weapon,’ said Mr Reeder.

Daver found his voice. ‘A murderous weapon,’ he echoed hollowly. ‘Was it – thrown at you, Mr Reeder? . . . how very terrible!’

Mr Reeder was gazing at him sombrely.

‘Your idea?’ he asked, but by now Mr Daver was incapable of replying.

Reeder left the shaken proprietor lying limply in one of the big armchairs, and walked up the carpeted stairs to the corridor. And if against his black coat the automatic was not visible, it was nevertheless there.

He stopped before his door, unlocked it, and threw it wide open. The lamp by the side of the bed was still burning. Mr Reeder switched on the wall light, peeped through the crack between the door and the wall before he ventured inside.

He shut the door, locked it, and walked over to the cupboard.

‘You may come out, Brill,’ he said. ‘I presume nobody has been here?’

There was no answer, and he pulled open the cupboard door quickly.

It was empty!

‘Well, well,’ said Mr Reeder, and that meant that matters were everything but well.

There was no sign of a struggle; nothing in the world to suggest that Detective Brill had not walked out of his own free will and made his exit by the window, which was still open.

Mr Reeder tiptoed back to the light-switch and turned it; stretched across the bed and extinguished the lamp; and then he sidled cautiously to the window and peeped round the stone framing. It was a very dark night, and he could distinguish no object below.

Events were moving only a little faster than he had anticipated; for this, however, he was responsible. He had forced the hands of the Flack confederation, and they were extremely able hands.

He was unlocking the trunk when he heard a faint sound of steel against steel. Somebody was fitting a key into the lock, and he waited, his automatic covering the door. Nothing further happened, and he went forward to investigate. His flash-lamp showed him what had happened. Somebody outside had inserted a key, turned it and left it in the lock, so that it was impossible for the door to be unlocked from the inside.

‘I am rather glad,’ said Mr Reeder, speaking his thoughts aloud, ‘that Miss – um – Margaret is on her way to London!’

He pursued his lips reflectively. Would he be glad if he also was at this moment en route for London? Mr Reeder was not very certain about this.

On one point he was satisfied – the Flacks were going to give him a very small margin of time, and that margin must be used to the best advantage.

So far as he could tell, the trunks had not been opened. He pulled out the rope-ladder, groped down to the bottom, and presently withdrew his hand, holding a long white cardboard cylinder. Crawling under the window, he put up his hand and fixed an end of the cylinder in one of the china flower-pots that stood on the broad window-sill and which he had moved to allow the ingress of Brill. When this had been done to his satisfaction, he struck a match and, reaching up, set fire to a little touch-paper at the cylinder’s free end. He brought his hand down just in time; something whizzed into the room and struck the panelling of the opposite wall with an angry smack. There was no sound of explosion. Whoever fired was using an air pistol. Again and again in rapid succession came the pellets, but by now the cylinder was burning and spluttering, and in another instant the grounds were brilliantly illuminated as the flare burst into a dazzling red flame that, he knew, could be seen for miles.

He heard a scampering of feet below, but dared not look out. By the time the first tender-load of detectives had come flying up the drive, the grounds were deserted.

With the exception of the servants, there were only two people at Larmes Keep when the police began their search. Mr Daver and the faded Mrs Burton alone remained. ‘Colonel Hothling’ and ‘the Rev. Mr Dean’ had disappeared as though they had been whisked from the face of the earth.

Big Bill Gordon interviewed the proprietor. ‘This is Flack’s headquarters, and you know it. You’ll be well advised to spill everything and save your own skin.’

‘But I don’t know the man; I’ve never seen him!’ wailed Mr Daver. ‘This is the most terrible thing that has happened to me in my life! Can you make me responsible for the character of my guests? You’re a reasonable man? I see you are! If these people are friends of Flack, I have never heard of them in that connection. You may search my house from cellar to garret, and if you find anything that in the least incriminates me, take me off to prison. I ask that as a favour. Is that the statement of an honest man? I see you are convinced!’

Neither he nor Mrs Burton nor any of the servants who were questioned in the early hours of the morning could afford the slightest clue to the identity of the visitors. Miss Crewe had been in the habit of coming every year and of staying four and sometimes five months. Hothling was a newcomer, as also was the parson. Enquiries made by telephone of the chief of the Siltbury police confirmed Mr Daver’s statement that he had been the proprietor of Larmes Keep for twenty-five years, and that his past was blameless. He himself produced his title-deeds. A search of his papers, made at his invitation, and of the three tin boxes in the safe, produced nothing but support for his protestations of innocence.

Big Bill interviewed Mr Reeder in the hall over a cap of coffee at three o’clock in the morning.

‘There’s no doubt at all that these people were members of the Flack crowd, probably engaged in advance against his escape, and how they got away the Lord knows! I have had six men on duty on the road since dark, and neither the woman nor the two men passed me.’

‘Did you see Brill?’ asked Mr Reeder, suddenly remembering the absent detective.

‘Brill?’ said the other in astonishment. ‘He’s with you, isn’t he? You told me to have him under your window –’

In a few words Mr Reeder explained the situation, and together they went up to No. 7. There was nothing in the cupboard to afford the slightest clue to Brill’s whereabouts. The panels were sounded, but there was no evidence of secret doors – a romantic possibility which Mr Reeder had not excluded, for this was the type of house where he might expect to find them.

Two men were seat to search the grounds for the missing detective, and Reeder and the police chief went back to finish their coffee.

‘Your theory has turned out accurate so far, but there is nothing to connect Daver.’

‘Daver’s in it,’ said Mr Reeder. ‘He was not the knife-thrower: his job was to locate me on behalf of the Colonel. But Daver brought Miss Belman down here in preparation for Flack’s escape.’

Big Bill nodded.

‘She was to be hostage for your good behaviour.’ He scratched his head irritably. ‘That’s like one of Crazy Jack’s schemes. But why did he try to shoot you up? Why wasn’t he satisfied with her being at Larmes Keep?’

Mr Reeder had no immediate explanation. He was dealing with a madman, a thing of whims. Consistency was not to be expected from Mr Flack.

He passed his fingers through his scanty hair.

‘It is all rather puzzling and inexplicable,’ he said. ‘I think I’ll go to bed.’

He was sleeping dreamlessly, under the watchful eye of a Scotland Yard detective, when Big Bill came bursting into the room.

‘Get up, Reeder!’ he said roughly.

Mr Reeder sat up in bed, instantly awake.

‘What is wrong?’ he asked.

‘Wrong! That gold-lorry left the Bank of England this morning at five o’clock on its way to Tilbury and hasn’t been seen since!’

Chapter 13

At the last moment the bank authorities had changed their mind, and overnight had sent £53,000 worth of gold for conveyance to the ship. They had borrowed for the purpose an army lorry from Woolwich, a service which is sometimes claimed by the national banking institution.

The lorry had been accompanied by eight detectives, the military driver being also armed. Tilbury was reached at half-past eleven o’clock at night, and the lorry, a high-powered Lassavar, had returned to London at two o’clock in the morning and had been loaded in the bank courtyard under the eyes of the officer, sergeant, and two men of the guard which is on duty on the bank premises from sunset to sunrise. A new detachment of picked men from Scotland Yard, each carrying an automatic pistol, loaded the lorry for its second journey, the amount of gold this time being £73,000 worth. After the boxes had been put into the van, they had climbed up and the lorry had driven away from the bank. Each of the eight men guarding this treasure was passed under review by a high officer of Scotland Yard who knew everyone personally. The lorry was seen in Commercial Road by a detective-inspector of the division, and its progress was also noted by a police-cyclist patrol who was on duty at the junction of the Ripple and Barking roads.

The main Tilbury road runs within a few hundred yards of the village of Rainham, and it was at this point, only a few miles distant from Tilbury, that the lorry disappeared. Two motor-cyclist policemen who had gone out to meet the gold-convoy, and who had received a telephone message from the Ripple road to say that it had passed, grew uneasy and telephoned to Tilbury.

It was an airless morning, with occasional banks of mist rising in the hollows, and part of the road, especially near the river, was patchily covered with white fog, which dispersed about eight o’clock in the morning under a south-easterly wind. The mist had almost disappeared when the search party from Tilbury pursued their investigations and came upon the one evidence of tragedy which the morning was to reveal. This was an old Ford motor car that had evidently run from the road, miraculously missed a telegraph pole, and ditched itself. The machine had not overturned; there were no visible marks of injury; yet the man who sat at the wheel was stone dead when he was found. An immediate medical examination failed to discover an injury of any kind to the man, who was a small farmer of Rainham, and on the face of it, it looked as though he had died of a heart attack whilst on his way to town.

Just beyond the place where he was found the road dips steeply between high banks. It is known as Coles Hollow, and at its deepest part the cutting is crossed by a single-track bridge which connects two portions of the farm through which the road runs. The dead farmer and his machine had been removed when Reeder and the chief of Scotland Yard arrived on the spot. No news of any kind had been received of the lorry; but the local police, who had been following its tracks, had made two discoveries. Apparently, going through the cutting, the front wheels of the trolley had collided with the side, for there was a deep scoop in the clayey soil which the impact had hollowed out.

‘It almost appears,’ said Simpson, who had been put in charge of the case, ‘that the trolley swerved here to avoid the farmer’s car. There are his wheel tracks, and you notice they were wobbling from side to side. Probably the man was already dying.’

‘Have you traced the trolley tracks from here?’ asked Reeder.

Simpson nodded, and called a sergeant of the Essex Constabulary, who had charted the tracks.

‘They seem to have turned up north towards Becontree,’ he said. ‘As a matter of fact, a policeman at Becontree said he saw a large trolley come out of the mist and pass him, but that had a tilt on it and was going towards London. It was an army trolley, too, and was driven by a soldier.’

Mr Reeder had lit a cigarette and was holding the flaming match in his hand, staring at it solemnly.

‘Dear me!’ he said, and dropped the match and watched it extinguish.

And then he began what seemed to be a foolish search of the ground, striking match after match.

‘Isn’t there light enough for you, Mr Reeder?’ asked Simpson irritably.

The detective straightened his back and smiled. Only for a second was he amused, and then his long face went longer than ever.

‘Poor fellow!’ he said softly. ‘Poor fellow!’

‘Who are you talking about?’ demanded Simpson, but Mr Reeder did not reply. Instead, he pointed up to the bridge, in the centre of which was an old and rusted water-wagon, the type which certain English municipalities still use. He climbed up to the bank and examined the iron tank, opened the hatches and groped inside, lighting matches to aid his examination. ‘Is it empty?’ asked Simpson.

‘I am afraid it is,’ said Mr Reeder, and inspected the worn hose leading from its iron spindles. He descended the cutting, more melancholy than ever.

‘Have you ever thought how easy it is to disguise an ordinary army lorry?’ he asked. ‘A tilt, I think the sergeant said, and on its way to London.’

‘Do you think that was the gold-van?’

Mr Reeder nodded.

‘I’m certain,’ he said.

‘Where was it attacked?’

Mr Reeder pointed to the mark of the wheels on the side of the road.

‘There,’ he said simply, and Simpson growled impatiently.

‘Stuff! Nobody heard a shot fired, and you don’t think our people would go down without a fight, do you? They could have held their own against five times their number, and no crowd has been seen on this road!’

Mr Reeder nodded.

‘Nevertheless, this is where the convoy was attacked and overcome,’ he said. ‘I think you ought to look for the trolley with the tilt, and get on to your Becontree man and get a closer description of the machine he saw.’

In a quarter of an hour the police car brought them to the little Essex village, and the policeman who had seen the wagon was interviewed. It was a few minutes before he went off duty, he said. There was a thick mist at the time, and he heard the rumble of the lorry wheels before it came into sight. He described it as a typical army wagon. So far as he could tell, it was grey, and had a black tilt with ‘W. D.’ and a broad-arrow painted on the side, ‘W. D.’ standing for War Department, the broad-arrow being the sign of Government. He saw one soldier driving and another sitting by his side. The back of the tilt was laced up and he could not see into the interior. The soldier as he passed had waved his hand in greeting, and the policeman had thought no more about the matter until the robbery of the gold-convoy was reported.

‘Yes, sir,’ he said, in answer to Reeder’s enquiry, ‘I think it was loaded. It went very heavily on the road. We often get these trolleys coming up from Shoeburyness.’

Simpson had put through a telephone enquiry to the Barking police, who had seen the military wagon. But army convoys were no unusual sight in the region of the docks. Either that or one similar was seen entering the Blackwall Tunnel, but the Greenwich police, on the south side of the river, had failed to identify it, and from there on all trace of the lorry was lost.

‘We’re probably chasing a shadow anyway,’ said Simpson. ‘If your theory is right, Reeder – it can’t be right! They couldn’t have caught these men of ours so unprepared that somebody didn’t shoot, and there’s no sign of shooting.’

‘There was no shooting,’ said Mr Reeder, shaking his head.

‘Then where are the men?’ asked Simpson.

‘Dead,’ said Mr Reeder quietly.

It was at Scotland Yard, in the presence of an incredulous and horri-fied Commissioner, that Mr J. G. Reeder reconstructed the crime.

‘Flack is a chemist: I think I impressed it upon you. Did you notice, Simpson, on the bridge, across the cutting, was an old water-cart? I think you have since learnt that it does not belong to the farmer who owns the land, and that he has never seen it before. It may be possible to discover where that was purchased. In all probability you will find that it was bought a few days ago at the sale of some municipal stores. I noticed in The Times there was an advertisement of such a sale. Do you realise how easy it would be not only to store under pressure, but to make, in that tank, large quantities of a deadly gas, one important element of which is carbon monoxide? Suppose this, or, as it may prove, a more deadly gas, has been so stored, do you realise how simple a matter it would be on a still, breathless morning to throw a big hose over the bridge and fill the hollow with the gas? That is, I am sure, what happened. Whatever else was used, there is still carbon monoxide in the cutting, for when I dropped a match it was immediately extinguished, and every match I burnt near the ground went out. If the car had run right through and climbed the other slope of the cutting, the driver and the men inside the trolley might have escaped death. As it was, rendered momentarily unconscious, the driver turned his wheel and ran into the bank, stopping the trolley. They were probably dead before Flack and his associate, whoever it was, jumped down, wearing gas masks, lifted the driver back into the trolley and drove on.’

‘And the farmer –’ began the Commissioner.

‘His death probably occurred some time after the trolley had passed. He also descended into that death hollow, but the speed at which his car was going carried him up nearer the cutting, though he must have been dead by the time he got out.’

He rose and stretched himself wearily. ‘Now I think I will go and interview Miss Belman and set her mind at rest,’ he said. ‘Did you send her to the hotel, as I asked you, Mr Simpson?’

Simpson stared at him in blank astonishment. ‘Miss Belman?’ he said. ‘I haven’t seen Miss Belman!’

Chapter 14

Her head in a whirl, Margaret Belman had stepped into the cab that was waiting at the door of Larmes Keep. The door was immediately slammed behind her, and the cab moved off. She saw her companion: he had shrunk into a corner, and greeted her with a little embarrassed grin. He did not speak until the cab was some distance from the house.

‘My name’s Gray,’ he said. ‘Mr Reeder hadn’t a chance of introducing me. Sergeant Gray, C. I. D.’

‘Mr Gray, what does all this mean? This instrument I am to get . . . ?’

Gray coughed. He knew nothing about the instrument, he explained, but his instructions were to put her into a car that would be waiting at the foot of the hill road.

‘Mr Reeder wants you to go up by car. You didn’t see Brill anywhere, did you?’

‘Brill?’ she frowned. ‘Who is Brill?’

He explained that there had been two officers inside the grounds, himself and the man he had mentioned.

‘But what is happening? Is there anything wrong at Larmes Keep?’ she asked.

She had no need to ask the question. That look in J. G. Reeder’s eyes had told her that something indeed was very wrong.

‘I don’t know, miss,’ said Gray diplomatically. ‘All I know is that the Chief Inspector is down here with a dozen men, and that looks like business. I suppose Mr Reeder wanted to get you out of it.’

She didn’t ‘suppose’ – she knew, and her heart beat a little quicker. What was the mystery of Larmes Keep? Had all this to do with the disappearance of Ravini? She tried hard to think calmly and logically, but her thoughts were out of control.

The station fly stopped at the foot of the hill, and Gray jumped out. A little ahead of him she saw the tail light of a car drawn up by the side of the roadway.

‘You’ve got the letter, miss? The car will take you straight to Scotland Yard, and Mr Simpson will look after you.’

He followed her to the car and held open the door for her, and stood in the roadway watching till the tail light disappeared round a bend of the road.

It was a big car, and Margaret made herself comfortable in the corner, pulled the rug over her knees, and settled down to the two hours’ journey. The air was a little close: she tried unsuccessfully to pull down one of the windows, then tried the other. Not only was there no glass to the windows, but the shutters were immovable. Something scratched her knuckle. She felt along the frame of the window . . . Screws, recently inserted. It was a splinter of the raw wood which had cut her.

With growing uneasiness she felt for the inside handle of the door, but there was none. A search of the second door revealed a like state of affairs.

Her movements must have attracted the attention of the driver, for the glass panel was pushed back and a harsh voice greeted her.

‘You can sit down and keep quiet! This isn’t Reeder’s car: I’ve sent it home.’

The voice went into a chuckle that made her blood run cold.

‘You’re coming with me . . . to see life . . . Reeder’s going to weep tears of blood. You know me, eh? . . . Reeder knows me, I wanted to get him tonight. But you’ll do, my dear.’

Suddenly the glass panel was shut to. He turned off the main road and was following a secondary, his object being, she guessed, to avoid the big towns and villages en route. She put out her hand and felt the wall of the car. It was an all-weather body with a leather back. If she had a knife she might cut –

She gasped as a thought struck her, and, reaching up, she felt the metal fastening that kept the leather hood attached. Exerting all her strength, she thrust back the flat hook and, bracing her feet against the front of the machine, dragged at the leather hood. A rush of cold air came in as the hood began slowly to collapse. The closed car was now an open car. She could afford to lose no time. The car was making thirty miles an hour, but she must take the risk of injury. Scrambling over the back of the hood, she gripped tight at the edge, and let herself drop into the roadway.

Although she turned a complete somersault, she escaped injury in some miraculous fashion, and, coming to her feet, cold with fear and trembling in every limb, she looked round for a way of escape. The hedge on her left was high and impenetrable. On her right was a low wooden fence, and over this she climbed as she heard the squeak of brakes and saw the car come to a standstill.

Even as she fled, she was puzzled to know what kind of land she was on. It was not cultivated; it was more like common land, for there was springy down beneath her feet, and clumps of gorse bushes sent out their spiny fingers to clutch at her dress as she flew past. She thought she heard the man hailing her, but fled on in the darkness.

Somewhere near at hand was the sea. She could smell the fragrance of it. Once when she stopped to take breath she could hear the distant thunder of the waves as they rolled up some unseen beach. She listened, almost deafened by the beating of her heart. ‘Where are you? Come back, you fool . . .’ The voice was near at hand. Not a dozen yards away she saw a black figure moving, and had all her work to stifle the scream that rose in her throat. She crouched down behind a bush and waited, and then to her horror she saw a beam of light spring from the darkness. He had an electric lamp and was fanning it across the ground.

Detection was inevitable, and, springing to her feet, she ran, doubling from side to side in the hope of outwitting her pursuer. Now she found the ground sloping under her feet, and that gave her additional speed. She had need of it, for he saw her against the skyline, and came on after her, a babbling, shrieking fury of a man. And now capture seemed inevitable. She made one wild leap to escape his outstretched hands, and her feet suddenly trod on nothing. Before she could recover, she was falling, falling. She struck a bush, and the shock and pain of the impact almost made her faint. She was falling down a steep slope, and her wild hands clutched tree and sand and grass, and then, just as she had given up all hope, she found herself rolling over and over on a level plateau, and came to rest with one leg hanging over a sheer drop of two hundred feet. Happily, it was dark.

Margaret Belman did not realise how near to death she had been till the dawn came up.

Below her was the sea and a slither of yellow sand. She was looking into a little bay that held no human dwelling so far as she could see. This was not astonishing, for the beach was only approachable from the water. Somewhere on the other side of the northern bluff, she guessed, was Siltbury. Beneath her a sheer fall over the chalky face of the cliff; above her, a terribly steep slope, but which might be negotiated, she thought hopefully.

She had lost one shoe in her fall, and after a little search found this, so near to the edge of the cliff that she grew dizzy as she stooped to pick it up.

The plateau was about fifty yards long, in the shape of a half-moon, and was almost entirely covered with gorse bushes. The fact that she found dozens of nests was sufficient proof that this spot was not visited even by the most daring of cliff-climbers. She understood now the significance of the low rail on the side of the road, which evidently followed the sea-coast westwards for some miles. How far was she from Larmes Keep? she wondered – until the absurdity of considering such a matter occurred to her. How near was she to starvation and death was a more present problem.

Her task was to escape from the plateau. There was a chance that she might be observed from the sea, but it was a remote one. The few pleasure-boats that went out from Siltbury did not go westward; the fishing fleet invariably tacked south. Lying face downward, she looked over the edge, in the vain hope that she would find an easy descent, but none was visible. She was hungry, but, though she searched the nests, there were no eggs to be found.

There was nothing to be done but to make a complete exploration of the plateau. Westward it yielded nothing, but on the eastern side she discovered a scrub-covered slope which apparently led to yet another plateau, not so broad as the one she was on.

To slide down was an easy matter; to check herself so that she did not go beyond the plateau offered greater difficulty. With infinite labour she broke off two stout branches of a thick furze bush, and, using these as a skier uses her stick to check her progress, she began to shuffle down, feet first. She could move slowly enough when the face of the declivity was composed of sand or loam, or when there were friendly bushes to hold, but there were broad stretches of weatherworn rock to slide across, and on these the stick made no impression and her velocity increased at an alarming rate.

And then, to her horror, she discovered that she was not keeping direction; that, try as she did, she was slipping to the left of the plateau, and though she strove desperately to move further to the right, she made no progress. The bushes that littered the upper slope were more infrequent here. There was indication of a recent landslide, which might continue down to the sea-level or might end abruptly and disastrously over the edge of some steep cliff. Slipping, sometimes on her back, sometimes sideways, sometimes on her face, she felt her momentum increase with every yard she covered. The ends of the ski-sticks were frayed to feathery splinters, and already the desired plateau was above her. Turning her head, she saw the white face of it dropping to the unseen deeps.

Now she knew the worst. The slope twisted round a huge rock and dropped at an acute angle into the sea. Almost before she could realise the danger ahead, she was slipping faster and faster through the loam and sand, the centre of a new landslide she had created. Boulders of a terrifying size accompanied her – by a hair’s-breadth she escaped being crushed under one.

And then without warning she was shot into the air as from a catapult. She had a swift vision of tumbling green below, and in another second the water had closed over her and she was striking out with all her strength . . .

It seemed almost an eternity before she came to the surface. Fortunately, she was a good swimmer, and, looking round, she saw that the yellow beach was less than fifty yards away. But it was fifty yards against a falling tide, and she was utterly exhausted when she dragged herself ashore and fell on the sand.

She ached from head to foot; her hands and limbs were lacerated. She felt that her body was one huge bruise. As she lay recovering her breath she heard one comforting sound, the splash of falling water. Half-way down the cliff face was a spring, and, staggering across the beach, she drank eagerly from her cupped hands. She was parched; her throat was so dry that she could hardly articulate. Hunger she might bear, but thirst was unendurable. She might remain alive for days, supposing she were not discovered before that time.

There was now no need for her to make a long reconnaissance of the beach: the way of escape lay open to her. A water-hollowed tunnel led through the bluff and showed her yet another beach beyond. Siltbury was not in sight. She had no idea how far she was from that desirable habitation of human people, and did not trouble to think. After she had satisfied her thirst she took off her shoes and stockings and made for the tunnel.

The second bay was larger and the beach longer. There were, she found, small masses of rocks jutting far into the sea that had to be negotiated with bare feet. The beach was longer than she had thought, and so far as she could see there was no outlet, nor did the cliff diminish in height. She had expected to find a cliff path, and this hope was strengthened when she discovered the rotting hull of a boat drawn high and dry on the beach. It was, she judged, about eight o’clock in the morning. She had started wet through, but the warm September sun dried her rags--for rags they were. She had all the sensations of a shipwrecked mariner on a desert island, and after a while the loneliness and absence of all kinds of human society began to get on her nerves.

Before she reached the end of the beach she saw that the only way into the next bay was by swimming to where the rocky barrier was low enough to be climbed. She could with great comfort to herself have discarded what remained of her clothes, but beyond these rocks might lie civilisation, and, tying her wet shoes and stockings together, she made fast her shoes, and, knotting them about her waist, waded into the sea and swam steadily, looking for a likely place to land. This she found – a step-shaped pyramid of rocks that looked easier to negotiate than in fact they were. By dint of hard climbing she came to the summit.

The beach here was shorter, the cliff considerably higher. Across the shoulder of rock running to the sea she saw the white houses of Siltbury, and the sight gave her courage. Descending from the rocky ridge was even more difficult than climbing, and she was grateful when at last she sat upon a flat ledge and dangled her bruised feet in the water.

Swimming back to the land taxed her strength to the full. It was nearly an hour before her feet touched firm sand and she staggered up the beach. Here she rested, until the pangs of hunger drove her towards the last visible obstacle.

There was one which was not visible. After a quarter of an hour’s walk she found her way barred by a deep sea river which ran under the overhung cliff. She had seen this place before: where was it? And then she remembered, with an exclamation.

This was the cave that Olga had told her about, the cave that ran under Larmes Keep. Shading her eyes, she looked up. Yes, there was the little landslide; part of the wall that had been carried away protected from a heap of rubble on the cliff side.

Suddenly Margaret saw something which made her breath come faster. On the edge of the deep channel which the water had cut in the sand was the print of a boot, a large, square-toed boot with a rubber heel. It had been recently made. She looked farther along the channel and saw another: it led to the mouth of the cave. On either side of the rugged entrance was a billow of firm sand left by the retreating waters, and again she saw the footprint. A visitor to the cave, perhaps, she thought. Presently he would come out and she would explain her plight, though her appearance left little need for explanation.

She waited, but there was no sign of the man. Stooping, she tried to peer into its dark depths. Perhaps, if she were inside out of the light, she could see better. She walked gingerly along the sand ledge, but as yet her eyes, unaccustomed to the darkness, revealed nothing.

She took another step, passed into the entrance of the cave; and then, from somewhere behind, a bare arm was flung round her shoulder, a big hand closed over her mouth. In terror she struggled madly, but the man held her in a grip of iron, and then her senses left her and she sank limply into his arms.

Chapter 15

Mr Reeder was not an emotional man. For the first time in his life Inspector Simpson learnt that behind the calm and imperturbable demeanour of the Public Prosecutor’s chief detective lay an immense capacity for violent language. He fired a question at the officer, and Simpson nodded.

‘Yes, the car returned. The driver said that he had orders to go back to London. I thought you had changed your plans. You’re staying with this bullion robbery, Reeder?’

Mr Reeder glared across the desk, and despite his hardihood Inspector Simpson winced.

‘Staying with hell!’ hissed Reeder. Simpson was seeing the real and unsuspected J. G. Reeder and was staggered. ‘I’m going back to interview that monkey-faced criminologist, and I’m going to introduce him to forms of persuasion which have been forgotten since the Inquisition!’

Before Simpson could reply, Mr Reeder was out of the door and flying down the stairs.

* * *

It was the hour after lunch, and Daver was sitting at his desk, twiddling his thumbs, when the door was pushed open unceremoniously and Mr Reeder came in. He did not recognise the detective, for a man who in a moment of savage humour slices off his side-whiskers brings about an amazing change in his appearance. And with the vanishing of those ornaments there had been a remarkable transformation in Mr Reeder’s demeanour. Gone were his useless pince-nez which had fascinated a generation of law-breakers; gone the gentle, apologetic voice, the shyly diffident manner.

‘I want you, Daver!’

‘Mr Reeder!’ gasped the yellow-faced man, and turned a shade paler.

Reeder slammed the door to behind him, pulled up a chair with a crash, and sat down opposite the hotel proprietor.

‘Where is Miss Belman?’

‘Miss Belman?’

Astonishment was expressed in every feature. ‘Good gracious, Mr Reeder, surely you know? She went up to get your dactyloscope – is that the word? I intended asking you to be good enough to let me see this –’

‘Where – is – Miss – Belman? Spill it, Daver, and save yourself a lot of unhappiness.’

‘I swear to you, my dear Mr Reeder –’

Reeder leaned across the table and rang the bell.

‘Do – do you want anything?’ stammered the manager.

‘I want to speak to Mrs Flack – you call her Mrs Burton, but Mrs Flack is good enough for me.’

Daver’s face was ghastly now. He had become suddenly wizened and old.

‘I’m one of the few people who happen to know that John Flack is married,’ said Reeder; ‘one of the few who know he has a daughter! The question is, does John Flack know all that I know?’

He glowered down at the shrinking man.

‘Does he know that after he was sent to Broadmoor his sneaking worm of a secretary, his toady and parasite and slave, decided to carry on in the Flack tradition, and used his influence and his knowledge to compel the unfortunate daughter of mad John Flack to marry him?’

A frenzied, almost incoherent voice wailed: ‘For God’s sake . . . don’t talk so loud . . . !’

But Mr Reeder went on.

‘Before Flack went to prison he put into the care of his daughter his famous encyclopaedia of crime. She was the only person he trusted: his wife was a weak slave whom he had always despised. Mr Daver, the secretary, got possession of those books a year after Flack was put in gaol. He organised his own little gang at Flack’s old headquarters, which were nominally bought by you. Ever since you knew John Flack was planning an escape – an escape in which you had to assist him – you’ve been living in terror that he would discover how you had double-crossed him. Tell me I’m a liar and I’ll beat your miserable little head off! Where is Margaret Belman?’

‘I don’t know,’ said the man sullenly. ‘Flack had a car waiting for her: that’s all I know.’

Something in his tone, something in the shifty slant of his eyes, infuriated Reeder. He stretched out a long arm, gripped the man by the collar and jerked him savagely across the desk. As a feat of physical strength it was remarkable; as a piece of propaganda of the frightfulness that was to follow, it had a strange effect upon Daver. He lay limp for a second, and then, with a quick jerk of his collar, he wrenched himself from Reeder’s grip and fled from the room, slamming the door behind him. By the time Reeder had kicked an overturned chair from his path and opened the door, Daver had disappeared.

When Reeder reached the hall it was empty. He met none of the servants (he learnt later that the majority had been discharged that morning, paid a month’s wages and sent to town by the first train). He ran out of the main entrance on to the lawn, but the man he sought was not in sight. The other side of the house drew a blank. One of the detectives on duty in the grounds, attracted by Mr Reeder’s hasty exit, came running into the vestibule as he reached the bottom of the stairs.

‘Nobody came out, sir,’ he said, when Reeder explained the object of his search.

‘How many men are there in the grounds?’ asked Reeder shortly. ‘Four? Bring them into the house. Lock every door, and bring back a crowbar with you. I am going to do a little investigation that may cost me a lot of money. No sign of Brill?’

‘No, sir,’ said the detective, shaking his head sadly. ‘Poor old Brill! I’m afraid they’ve done him. The young lady get to town all right, sir?’

Mr Reeder scowled at him. ‘The young lady – what do you know about her?’ he asked sharply.

‘I saw her to the car,’ said Detective Gray.

Reeder gripped him by the coat and led him along the vestibule.

‘Now tell me, and tell me quickly, what sort of car was it?’

‘I don’t know, Mr Reeder,’ said the man in surprise. ‘An ordinary car kind of, except that the windows were shuttered, but I thought that was your idea.’

‘What sort of body was it?’

The man described the machine as accurately as possible; he had only made a superficial inspection. He thought, however, it was an all-weather body. The news was no more than Reeder had expected – neither added to nor diminished his anxiety. When Gray had gone back to his companions and the door was locked, Mr Reeder, from the landing above, called them up to the first floor. A very thorough search had already been made by the police that morning; but, so far, Daver’s room had escaped anything but superficial attention. It was situated at the far end of the corridor, and was locked when the search-party arrived. It took less than two minutes to force an entrance. Mr Daver’s suite consisted of a sitting-room, a bedroom, and a handsomely-fitted bathroom. There was a number of books in the former, a small Empire table on which were neatly arranged a pile of accounts, but there was nothing in the way of documents to reveal his relationship with the Flack gang.

The bedroom was beautifully furnished. Here, again, from Reeder’s point of view, the search was unsatisfactory.

The suite formed one of the angles of the old Keep, and Reeder was leaving the room when his eyes, roving back for a last look round, were arrested by the curious position of a brown leather divan in one corner of the room. He went back and tried to pull it away from the wall, but apparently it was a fixture. He kicked at the draped side and it gave forth a hollow wooden sound.

‘What has he got in that divan?’ he asked.

After considerable search Gray found a hidden bolt, and, this thrown back, the top of the divan came up like the lid of a box. It was empty.

‘The rum thing about this house, sir,’ said Gray as they went downstairs together, ‘is that one always seems on the point of making an important discovery, and it always turns out to be a dud.’

Reeder did not reply: he was too preoccupied with his growing distress. After a while he spoke.

‘There are many queer things about this house –’

And then there came a sound which froze the marrow of his bones. It was a shrill shriek; the scream of a human soul in agony.

‘Help! . . . Help, Reeder!’

It came from the direction of the room he had left, and he recognised Daver’s voice.

‘Oh, God . . . !’

The sound of a door slamming. Reeder took the stairs three at a time, the detectives following him. Daver’s door he had left ajar, but in the short time he had been downstairs, it had been shut and bolted.

‘The crowbar, quick!’

Gray had left it below, and, flying down, returned in a few seconds.

No sound came from the room. Pushing the claw of the crowbar between architrave and door at the point where he had seen the bolt, Reeder levered it back and the door flew open with a crash. One step into the apartment and then he stood stock still, glaring at the bed, unable to believe his eyes.

On the silken counterpane, sprawled in an indescribable attitude, his round, sightless eyes staring at the ceiling, was Daver. Mr Reeder knew that he was dead before he saw the terrible wound, or the brown-hilted knife that stuck out from his side.

Reeder listened at the heart – felt the pulse of the warm wrist, but it was a waste of time, as he knew. He made a quick search of the clothing. There was an inside pocket in the waistcoat, and here he found a thick pad of banknotes.

‘All thousands,’ said Mr Reeder, ‘and ninety-five of them. What’s in that packet?’

It was a little cardboard folder, and contained a steamship ticket from Southampton to New York, made out in the name of ‘Sturgeon’; and in the coat pocket Reeder found a passport which was stamped by the American Embassy and bore the same name.

‘He was ready to jump – but he delayed it too long,’ he said. ‘Poor devil!’

‘How did he get here, sir?’ asked Gray. ‘They couldn’t have carried him –’

‘He was alive enough when we heard him,’ said Reeder curtly. ‘He was being killed when we heard him shriek. There is a way into this room we haven’t discovered yet. What’s that?’

It was the sound of a muffled thud, as if a heavy door had been closed. It seemed to come from somewhere in the room. Reeder took the crowbar from the detective’s hand and attacked the panel behind the settee. Beneath was solid wall. He ripped down another strip, with no more enlightening result. Again he opened the divan. Its bottom was made of a thin layer of oak. This too was ripped off; beneath this again was the stone floor.

‘Strip it,’ said Reeder, and when this was done he stepped inside the divan and see-sawed gingerly from one end to the other.

‘There’s nothing here,’ he said. ‘Go downstairs and ’phone Mr Simpson. Tell him what has happened.’

When the man had gone he resumed his examination of the body. Daver had carried, attached to one of the buttons of his trousers, a long gold chain. This was gone: he found it broken off close to the link, and the button itself hanging by a thread. It was whilst he was making his examination that his hand touched a bulky package in the dead man’s hip pocket. It was a worn leather case, filled with scraps of memoranda, mostly undecipherable. They were written in a formless hand, generally with pencil, and the writing was large and irregular, whilst the paper used for these messages was of every variety. One was a scrawled chemical formula: another was a brief note which ran –

House opposite Reeder to let. Engage or get key. Communicate usual place.

Some of these notes were understandable, some beyond Mr Reeder’s comprehension. But he came at last to a scrap which swept the colour from his cheeks. It was written in the same hand on the selvedge of a newspaper, and was crumpled into a ball –

Belman fell over cliff 6 miles west Larme. Send men to get body before police discover.

Mr J. G. Reeder read, and the room spun round.

Chapter 16

When Margaret Belman recovered consciousness she was in the open air, lying in a little recess, effectively hidden from the mouth of the cave. A man in a torn shirt and ragged trousers was standing by her side, looking down at her. As she opened her eyes she saw him put his finger to his mouth, as though to signal silence. His hair was unkempt; streaks of dried blood zigzagged down his face, and the hair above, she saw, was matted. Yet there was a certain kindliness in his disfigured face which reassured her as he knelt down and, making a funnel of his hands, whispered: ‘Be quiet! I’m sorry to have frightened you, but I was scared you’d shout if you saw me. I suppose I look pretty awful.’ His grin was very reassuring.

‘Who are you?’ she asked in the same tone.

‘My name’s Brill, C.I.D.’

‘How did you get here?’ she asked.

‘I’d like to be able to tell you,’ he answered grimly. ‘You’re Miss Belman, aren’t you?’

She nodded. He lifted his head, listening, and, flattening himself against the rock, craned out slowly and peeped round the edge of his hiding-place. He did not move for about five minutes, and by this time she had risen to her feet. Her knees were dreadfully shaky; she felt physically sick, and once again her mouth was dry and parched. Apparently satisfied, he crept back to her side. ‘I was left on duty in Reeder’s room. I thought I heard him calling from the window – you can’t distinguish voices when they whisper – and asking me to come out quick, as he wanted me. I’d hardly dropped to the ground before – cosh!’ He touched his head gingerly and winced. ‘That’s all I remember till I woke up and found myself drowning. I’ve been in the cave all the morning – naturally.’

‘Why naturally?’ she whispered.

‘Because the beach is covered with water at high tide and the cave’s the only place. It is a little too densely populated for me just now.’

She stared at him in amazement.

‘Populated? What do you mean?’

‘Whisper!’ he warned her, for she had raised her voice.

Again he listened.

‘I’d like to know how they got down – Daver and that old devil.’

She felt herself going white.

‘You mean . . . Flack?’

He nodded.

‘Flack’s only been here about an hour, and how he got down God knows. I suppose our fellows are patrolling the house?’

‘The police?’ she asked in astonishment.

‘Flack’s headquarters – didn’t you know it? I suppose you wouldn’t. I thought Reeder – I mean Mr Reeder – told you everything.’

He was rather a talkative young man, more than a little exuberant at finding himself alive, and with good reason.

‘I’ve been dodging in and out the cave all the morning. They’ve got a sentry on duty up there ’ – he nodded towards Siltbury. ‘It’s a marvellous organisation. They held up a gold convoy this morning and got away with it – I heard the old man telling his daughter. The funny thing is that, though he wasn’t there to superintend the steal, his plan worked out like clockwork. It’s a curious thing, any crook will work for old Flack. He’s employed the cleverest people in the business, and Ravini is the only man that ever sold him.’

‘Do you know what has happened to Mr Ravini?’ she asked, and he shook his head.

‘He’s dead, I expect. There are a lot of things in the cave that I haven’t seen, and some that I have. They’ve got a petrol boat in-side . . . as big as a church! . . . the boat, I mean . . . hush!’

Again he shrank against the cliff. Voices were coming nearer and nearer. Perhaps it was the peculiarity of the cave which gave him the illusion that the speakers were standing almost at their elbow. Brill recognised the thin, harsh voice of the old man and grinned again, but it was not a pleasant smile to see.

‘There’s something wrong, something damnably wrong. What is it, Olga?’

‘Nothing, father.’

Margaret recognised the voice of Olga Crewe.

‘You have been very good and very patient, my love, and I would not have planned to come out, but I wanted to see you settled in life. I am very ambitious for you, Olga.’

A pause, and then –

‘Yes, father.’

Olga Crewe’s voice was a little dispirited, but apparently the old man did not notice this.

‘You are to have the finest husband in the land, my dear. You shall have a house that any princess would envy. It shall be of white marble with golden cupolas . . . you shall be the richest woman in the land, Olga. I have planned this for you. Night after night as I lay in bed in that dreadful place I said to myself: “I must go out and settle Olga’s future.” That is why I came out – only for that reason. All my life I have worked for you.’

‘Mother says –’ began the girl.

‘Pah!’ Old John Flack almost spat the word. ‘An unimaginative commoner, with the soul of a housekeeper! She has looked after you well? Good. All the better for her. I would never have forgiven her if she had neglected you. And Daver? He has been respectful? He has given you all the money you wanted?’

‘Yes, father.’

Margaret thought she detected a catch in the girl’s voice.

‘Daver is a good servant. I will make his fortune. The scum of the gutter – but faithful. I told him to be your watch-dog. I am pleased with him. Be patient a little while longer. I am going to see all my dreams come true.’

The voice of the madman was tender, so transfigured by love and pride that it seemed to be a different man who was speaking. Then his voice changed again.

‘The Colonel will be back tonight. He is a trustworthy man . . . Gregory also. They shall be paid like ambassadors. You must bear with me a little while, Olga. All these unpleasant matters will be cleared up. Reeder we shall dispose of. Tomorrow at high tide we leave . . .’

The sound of the voices receded until they became an indistinguishable murmur. Brill looked round at the girl and smiled again.

‘Can you beat him?’ he asked admiringly. ‘Crazy as a barn coot! But he has the cleverest brain in London: even Reeder says that. God! I’d give ten years’ salary and all my chance of promotion for a gun!’

‘What shall we do?’ she asked after a long silence.

‘Stay here till the tide turns, then we’ll have to take our chance in the cave. We’d be smashed to pieces if we waited on the beach.’

‘There’s no way up the cliff?’

He shook his head. ‘There’s a way out through the cave if we can only find it,’ he said. ‘One way? A dozen! I tell you that this cliff is like a honeycomb. One of these days it will collapse like froth on a glass of beer. I heard Daver say so, and the mad fellow agreed. Mad? I wish I had his brain! He’s going to dispose of Reeder, is he? The cemeteries are full of people who’ve tried to dispose of Reeder!’

Chapter 17

It seemed an eternity before the tide turned and began slowly to make its noisy way up the beach. Most of the time she was alone in the little recess, for Brill made periodical reconnaissances into the mouth of the cave. She would have accompanied him, but he explained the difficulties she would find.

‘It is quite dark until the tide comes in, and then we get the reflected light from the water and you can see your way about quite easily.’

‘Is there anybody there?’

He nodded.

‘Two chaps who are tinkering about with a boat. She’s high and dry at present on the bed of the channel, but she floats out quite easily.’

The first whirl of water was around them when he came out from the cave and beckoned her.

‘Keep close to the wall,’ he whispered, ‘and hold fast to my sleeve.’

She obeyed and followed him and they slipped round to the left, following a fairly level path. Before they had come into the cave, he had warned her that under no circumstances must she speak, not even whisper, except through hollowed hands placed against his ear. The properties of the cave were such that the slightest sound was magnified.

They went a long way to the left, and she thought that they were following a passage; it was not until later that she discovered the huge dimensions of this water-hollowed cavern. After a while he reached back and touched her right hand, as a signal that he was turning to the right.

Whilst they were waiting on the beach he had drawn a rough plan in the sand, and assured her that the ledge on which they now walked offered no obstacle. He pressed her hand to warn her he was stopping, and, bending down, he groped at the rocky wall where he had left his shoes. Up and up they went; she began to see dimly now, though the cave remained in darkness and she was unable with any accuracy to pick out distant objects. His arm came back and she found herself guided into a deep niche, and he patted her shoulder to tell her she could sit down.

They had to wait another hour before a thin sheet of water showed at the mouth of the cave, and then, as if by magic, the interior was illuminated by a ghostly green light. The greatest height of the cave it was impossible to tell from where she sat, because just above them was a low and jagged roof. The farther side of the cave was distant fifty yards, and here the rocky wall seemed to run straight down from the roof to the sandy bottom. It was under this that she saw the motor boat, a long grey craft, entirely devoid of any superstructure. It lay heeled over on its side, and she saw a figure walk along the canted deck and disappear down a hatchway. The farther the water came into the cave, the brighter grew the light. He circled his two hands about her ear and whispered: ‘Shall we stay here or try to find a way out?’

And she replied in like fashion: ‘Let’s try and find a way out.’

He nodded and silently led the way. It was no longer necessary for her to hold on to him. The path they were following had undoubtedly been shaped by human hands. Every dozen yards was a rough-hewn block of stone put across the path step fashion. They were ascending, and now had the advantage of being screened by the cave from people on the boat, for on their right rose a jagged screen of rock.

They had not progressed a hundred yards before screen and wall joined, and beyond this point progress seemed impossible. The passage was in darkness. Apparently Brill had explored the way, for, taking the girl by the arm, he moved to the right, feeling along the uneven wall. The path beneath was more difficult, and the rocky floor made walking a pain. She was near to exhaustion when she saw, ahead of her, an irregular patch of grey light. Apparently this curious gallery led back to the far end of the cave, but before they reached the opening Brill signalled her to halt.

‘You’d better sit down,’ he whispered. ‘We can put on our shoes.’

The stockings that she had knotted about her waist were still wet, and her shoes two soggy masses, but she was glad to have some protection for her feet. Whilst she was putting them on, Brill crept forward to the opening and took observation.

The water which had now flooded the cave was some fifty feet below them, and a few paces would bring them to a broad ledge of rock which formed a natural landing for a flight of steps leading down from the misty darkness of the roof to water-level. The steps were cut in the side of the bare rock; they were about two feet in breadth and were unprotected even by a makeshift handrail. It would be, he saw, a nerve-racking business for the girl to attempt the climb, and he was not even sure that it would be worth the attempt. That they led to one of the many exits from the cave, he knew, because he had seen people climbing up and down those steps and disappearing in the darkness at the top. Possibly the stairs broadened nearer the roof, but even so it was a very severe test for a half-starved girl, who he guessed was on the verge of hysteria; he was not quite certain that he himself would not be attacked by vertigo if he made the attempt.

There was a space behind the steps that brought him to the edge of the rock, part of the floor of the cave, and it was this way that he intended to guide Margaret. There was no sound; far away to his right the men on the launch were apparently absorbed in their work, and, returning, he told the girl his plan, and she accompanied him to the foot of the steps. At the sight of that terrifying stairway she shuddered.

‘I couldn’t possibly climb those,’ she whispered as he pointed upwards into the gloom.

‘I have an idea there is a sort of balcony running the width of the cave, and it was from there I was thrown,’ he said. ‘I have reason to know that there is a fairly deep pool at the foot of it. When the tide is up, the water reaches the back wall – that is where I found myself when I came to my senses.’

‘Is there any other way from the cave?’ she asked.

He shook his head. ‘I’m blest if I know. I’ve only had a very hasty look round, but there seems to be a sort of tunnel at the far end. It’s worth while exploring – nobody is about, and we are too far from the boat for them to see us.’

They waited for a while, listening, and then, Brill walking ahead, they passed the foot of the stairs and followed a stony path which, to the girl’s relief, broadened as they progressed.

Margaret Belman never forgot that nightmare walk, with the towering rock face on her left, the straight drop to the floor of the cave on her right hand.

They had now reached the limit of the rocky chamber, and found themselves confronted by the choice of four openings. There was one immediately facing them, another – and this was also accessible – about forty feet to the right, and two others which apparently could not be reached. Leaving Margaret, Brill groped his way into the nearest. He was gone half an hour before he returned with a story of failure.

‘The whole cliff is absolutely bored with rock passages,’ he said. ‘I gave it up because it is impossible to go far without a light.’

The second opening promised better. The floor was even, and it had this advantage, that it ran straight in line with the mouth of the cave, and there was light for a considerable distance. She followed him along this passage.

‘It is worth trying,’ he said, and she nodded her agreement.

They had not gone far before he discovered something which he had overlooked on his first trip. At regular intervals there were niches in the wall. He had noticed these, but had failed to observe their extraordinary regularity. The majority were blocked with loose stone, but he found one that had not been so guarded, and felt his way round the wall. It was a square, cell-like chamber, so exactly proportioned that it must have been created by the hand of man. He came back to announce his intention of exploring the next of the closed cells.

‘These walls haven’t been built up for nothing,’ he told her, and there was a note of suppressed excitement in his voice.

The farther they progressed, the poorer and more inadequate was the light. They had to feel their way along the wall until the next recess was reached. Flat slabs of rock, laid one on the other, had been piled up in the entrance, and the work of removing the top layers was a painful one. Margaret could not help him. She sat with her back to the wall and fell into the uneasy sleep of exhaustion. She had almost ceased to be hungry, though her throat was parched with a maddening thirst. She woke heavily and found Brill shaking her shoulder.

‘I’ve been inside’ – his voice was quavering with excitement. ‘Hold out your hands, both together!’

She obeyed mechanically, and felt something cold drip into her palms, and, drooping her head, drank. The sting of the wine took her breath away.

‘Champagne,’ he whispered. ‘Don’t drink too much or you’ll get tight!’

She sipped again. Never had wine tasted so delicious. ‘It’s a storehouse; boxes of food, I think, and hundreds of bottles of wine. Hold your hands.’

He poured more wine into her palms; most of it escaped through her fingers, but she drank eagerly the few drops that remained. ‘Wait here.’

She was very much awake now; peered into the darkness towards the place where he had disappeared. Ten minutes, a quarter of an hour passed, and then, to her joy, there appeared from behind the stony barrier, revealing in silhouette the hole through which Brill had crawled, a white and steady light. She heard the crack and crash of a box being opened, saw the bulk of the detective as he appeared in the hole, and in a second he was by her side.

‘Biscuits,’ he said. ‘Luckily the box was labelled.’

‘What was the light?’ she asked as she seized the crackers eagerly.

‘A small battery lantern; I knocked it over as I was groping. The place is simply stocked with grub! Here’s a drink for you.’

He handed her a flat, round tin, guided her finger to the hole he had punched. ‘Preserved milk – German and good stuff,’ he said.

She drank thirstily, not taking her lips from the tin until it was empty.

‘This seems to be the ship’s store,’ he said, ‘but the great blessing is the lamp. I’m going in to see if I can find a box of refills; there isn’t a great deal of juice left in the battery.’

His search occupied a considerable time, and then she saw the light go out and her heart sank, until the light flashed up again, this time more brilliant than ever. He scrambled out and dropped down the rugged wall and pushed something heavy into her hand.

‘A spare lamp,’ he said. ‘There are half a dozen there, and enough refills to last us a month.’

He struck the stone wall with something that clanged.

‘A case-opener,’ he explained, ‘and a useful weapon. I wonder which of these storehouses holds the guns?’

The exploration of the passage could now be made in comparative comfort. There was need of the lamps, for a few yards farther on the tunnel turned abruptly to the right, and the floor became more irregular. Brill turned on his light and showed the way. Now the passage turned to the left, and he pointed out how smooth were the walls.

‘Water action,’ he said. ‘There must have been a subterranean river here at some time.’

Twisting and turning, the gallery led now up, now down, now taking almost a hairpin turn, now sweeping round in an almost perfect curve, but leading apparently nowhere.

Brill was walking ahead, the beam of his lamp sweeping along the ground, when she saw him stop suddenly, and, stooping, he picked something from the ground.

‘How the dickens did this get here?’

On the palm of his hand lay a bright silver florin, a little battered at the edge, but unmistakably a two-shilling piece.

‘Somebody has been, here –’ he began, and then she uttered a cry.

‘Oh!’ gasped Margaret. ‘That was Mr Reeder’s!’

She told him of the incident at the well; how J. G. Reeder had dropped the coin to test the distance. Brill put the light of his lamp on the ceiling; it was solid rock. And then he sent the rays moving along, and presently the lamp focused on a large round opening.

‘Here is the well that never was a well,’ he said grimly; and flashing the light upward, looked open-mouthed at the steel rungs fitted every few inches in the side of the well.

‘A ladder,’ he said slowly. ‘What do you know about that?’

He reached up, standing on tiptoe, but the nearest rung was at least a yard beyond his hand, and he looked round for some loose stones which he could pile up, and from the top of which he could reach the lowest bar of the ladder. But none was in sight, except a few splinters of stone which were valueless for his purpose. And then he remembered the case-opener; it had a hook at the end, and, holding this above his head, he leapt. The first time he missed; the second time the hook caught the steel rung and the handle slipped from his grip, leaving the case-opener dangling. He rubbed his hands on the dusty floor and sprang again. This time he caught and held, and with a superhuman effort pulled himself up until his hand gripped the lower ring. Another struggle, and he had drawn himself up hand over hand till his feet rested on the bar.

‘Do you think if I pulled you up you have strength to climb?’ he asked.

She shook her head. ‘I’m afraid not. Go up alone; I will wait here.’

‘Keep clear of the bottom,’ he warned her. ‘I may not fall, but as likely as not I shall dislodge a few chunks of rock in my progress.’

The warning was well justified, she found. There was a continuous shower of stone and earth as he progressed. From time to time he stopped to rest. Once he shouted down something which she could not distinguish. It was probably a warning, for a few seconds later a mass of rock as large as a man’s head crashed down and smashed on the floor, sending fragments flying in all directions.

Peeping up from time to time, she could see the glimmer of his lamp growing fainter; and now, left alone, she began to grow nervous, and for company switched on her light. She had hardly done so when she heard a sound which brought her heart to her mouth. It was the sound of footsteps; somebody was walking along the passage towards her.

She turned the switch of the lamp and listened. The old man’s voice! Only his, and none other. He was talking to himself, a babble of growling sound that was becoming more and more distinct. And then, far away, she saw the glow of a reflected light, for the passage swept round at this point and he would not be visible until he was upon her.

Slipping off her shoes, she sped along in the darkness, tumbling and sliding on the uneven pathway. After a while panic left her and she stopped and looked back. The light was no longer visible; there was neither sound nor sign of him; and, plucking up courage, after a few minutes she retraced her steps. She dared not put on the light, and must guess where the well opening was. In the darkness she passed it, and she was soon a considerable distance beyond the place where Brill had left her.

Where had Flack gone? There were no side passages. She was standing by one of the recesses, her hand resting on the improvised stone screen, when, to her horror, she felt it moving away from her, and had just time to shrink back when she saw a crack of light appear on the opposite wall and broaden until there was outlined the shape of a doorway.

‘ . . . Tonight, my dear, tonight . . . I’m going up to see Daver. Daver is worrying me . . . you are sure nothing has happened that might shake my confidence in him?’

‘Nothing, father. What could have happened?’ It was Olga Crewe’s voice. She said something else which Margaret could not hear, and then she heard the chuckling laugh of the old man.

‘Reeder? He’s busy in London! But he’ll be back tonight . . .’

Again a question which Margaret could not catch. ‘The body hasn’t been found. I didn’t want to hurt the girl, but she was useful . . . my best card . . . I could have caught Reeder with her – had it all arranged.’

Another question.

‘I suppose so. The tide is very high. Anyway, I saw her fall . . .’

Margaret knew they were talking about her, but this interested her less than the possibility of discovery. She walked backward, step by step, hoping and praying that she would find a niche into which she could shrink. Presently she found what she wanted.

Flack had come out into the passage and was standing talking back into the room.

‘All right, I’ll leave the door open . . . imagination. There’s plenty of air. The well supplies that. I’ll be back this evening.’

She dared not look, but after a while his footsteps became fainter. The door was still open, and she saw a shadow growing larger on the opposite wall, as Olga approached the entrance. Presently she heard a sigh; the shadow became small again, and finally disappeared. Margaret crept forward, hardly daring to breathe, until she came behind the open door.

It was, she guessed, made of stout oak, and the surface had been so cunningly camouflaged with splinters of rock that it differed in no respect from the walled recess into which Brill had broken.

Curiosity is dominant in the most rational of individuals, and, despite her terrible danger, Margaret was curious to see the inside of that rocky home of the Flacks. With the utmost caution she peeped round. She was surprised at the size of the room and a little disappointed in its furnishing. She had pictured rich rugs and gorgeous furniture, the walls perhaps covered with silken hangings. Instead, she saw a plain deal table on which stood a lamp, a strip of threadbare carpet, two basket chairs, and a camp bed. Olga was standing by the table, looking down at a newspaper; her back was towards the girl, and Margaret had time to make a more prolonged scrutiny. Near the table were three or four suitcases, packed and strapped as though in preparation for a journey. A fur coat lay across the bed, and that was the only evidence of luxury in this grim apartment. There was a second person in the room. Margaret distinguished in the shadow the drooping figure of a woman – Mrs Burton.

She took a step forward to see better; her feet slipped upon the smooth surface of the rock, and she fell forward against the door, half closing it.

‘Who is there? Is that you, father?’

Margaret’s heart nearly stopped beating, and for a moment she stood paralysed, incapable of movement. Then, as Olga’s footsteps sounded, she turned and fled along the passage, gripping tight her lantern. Olga’s voice challenged her, but on and on she ran. The corridor was growing lighter, and with a gasp of horror she realised that in the confusion of the moment she had taken the wrong direction and she was running towards the great cave, possibly into the old madman’s hands.

She heard the quick patter of footsteps behind her, and flew on. And now she was in the almost bright light of the huge cavern. There was nobody in sight, and she followed the twisting ledge that ran under the wall of rock until she came to the foot of the long stairs. And then she heard a shout. Somebody on the boat had seen her. As she stood motionless with fear, mad John Flack appeared. He was coming towards her through the passage by which she and Brill had reached the interior of the cave. For a second he stared at her as though she were some ghastly apparition of his mad dreams, and then with a roar he leapt towards her.

She hesitated no longer. In a second she was flying; up that awful staircase, death on her right hand, but a more hideous fate behind. Higher and higher, up those unrailed stairs . . . she dared not look, she dared not think, she could only keep her eyes steadfastly upwards into the misty gloom where this interminable Jacob’s ladder ended on some solid floor. Not for a fortune would she have looked behind, or vertigo would have seized her. Her breath was coming in long sobs; her heart beat as though it would burst. She dared pause for an infinitesimal time to recover breath before she continued her flight. He was an old man; she could outdistance him. But he was a madman, a thing of terrible and abnormal energy. Panic was leaving her; it exhausted too much other strength. Upward and upward she climbed, until she was in gloom, and then, when it seemed that she could get no farther, she reached the head of the stairs. A broad, flat space, with a rocky roof which, for some reason, had been strengthened with concrete pillars. There were dozens of these pillars . . . once she had taken a fortnight’s holiday in Spain; there was a cathedral in Cordova, of which this broad vault reminded her . . . all sense of direction was lost now. She came with terrifying suddenness to a blank wall; ran along it until she came to a narrow opening where there were five steps, and here she stopped to turn on her light. Facing her was a steel door with a great iron handle, and the steel door was ajar.

She pulled it towards her, ran through, pulled the door behind her; it fastened with a click. It had something attached to its inner side, a steel projection . . . as she shut the door a box fell with a crash. There was yet another door before her, and this was immovable. She was in a tiny white box of a room, three feet wide, little more in depth. She had no time to continue her observations. Someone was fumbling with the handle of the door through which she had come. She gripped in desperation at the iron shelf and felt it slide a little to the right. Though she did not know this, the back part of the shelf acted as a bolt. Again she heard the fumbling at the handle and the click of a key turning, but the steel door remained immovable, and Margaret Belman sank in a heap to the ground.

Chapter 18

J. G. Reeder came downstairs, and those who saw his face realised that it was not the tragedy he had almost witnessed which had made him so white and drawn.

He found Gray in Daver’s office, waiting for his call to London. It came through as Reeder entered the room, and he took the instrument from his subordinate’s hand. He dismissed the death of Daver in a few words, and went on.

‘I want all the local policemen we can muster, Simpson, though I think it would be better if we could get soldiers. There’s a garrison town five miles from here; the beaches have to be searched, and I want these caves explored. There is another thing: I think it would be advisable to get a destroyer or something to patrol the water before Siltbury. I’m pretty sure that Flack has a motor-boat – there’s a channel deep enough to take it, and apparently there is a cave that stretches right under the cliff . . . Miss Belman? I don’t know. That is what I want to find out.’

Simpson told him that the gold-wagon had been seen at Sevenoaks, and it required a real effort on Mr Reeder’s part to bring his mind to such a triviality.

‘I think soldiers will be best. I’d like a strong party posted near the quarry. There’s another cave there where Daver used to keep his wagons. I have an idea you might pick up the money tonight. That,’ he added, a little bitterly, ‘will induce the authorities to use the military!’

After the ambulance had come and the pitiable wreck of Daver had been removed, he returned to the man’s suite with a party of masons he had brought up from Siltbury. Throwing open the lid of the divan, he pointed to the stone floor.

‘That flag works on a pivot,’ he said, ‘but I think it is fastened with a bolt or a bar underneath. Break it down.’

A quarter of an hour was sufficient to shatter the stone flooring, and then, as he had expected, he found a narrow flight of stairs leading to a square stone room which remained very much as it had been for six hundred years. A dusty, bare apartment, which yielded its secret. There was a small open door and a very narrow passage, along which a stout man would walk with some difficulty, and which led to behind the panelling of Daver’s private office. Mr Reeder realised that anybody concealed here could hear every word that was spoken. And now he understood Daver’s frantic plea that he should lower his voice when he spoke of the marriage. Crazy Jack had learnt the secret of his daughter’s degradation – from that moment Daver’s death was inevitable.

How had the madman escaped? That required very little explanation. At some remote period Larmes Keep had evidently been used as a show-place. He found an ancient wooden inscription fixed to the wall, which told the curious that this was the torture-chamber of the old Counts of Larme; it added the useful information that the dungeons were immediately beneath and approached through a stone trap. This the detectives found, and Mr Reeder had his first view of the vaulted dungeons of Larmes Keep.

It was neither an impressive nor a thrilling exploration. All that was obvious was that there were three routes by which the murderer could escape, and that all three ways led back to the house, one exit being between the kitchen and the vestibule.

‘There is another way out,’ said Reeder shortly, ‘and we haven’t found it yet.’

His nerves were on edge. He roamed from room to room, turning out boxes, breaking open cupboards, emptying trunks. One find he made: it was the marriage certificate, and it was concealed in the lining of Olga Crewe’s dressing-bag.

At seven o’clock the first detachment of troops arrived by motor van. The local police had already reported that they had found no trace of Margaret Belman. They pointed out that the tide was falling when the girl left Larmes Keep, and that, unless she was lying on some invisible ledge, she might have reached the beach in safety. There was, however, a very faint hope that she was alive. How faint, J. H. Reeder would not admit.

A local cook had been brought in to prepare dinner for the detectives, but Reeder contented himself with a cup of strong coffee – food, he felt, would have choked him.

He had posted a detachment in the quarry, and, returning to the house, was sitting in the big hall pondering the events of the day, when Gray came flying into the room. ‘Brill!’ he gasped.

J. G. Reeder sprang to his feet with a bound. ‘Brill?’ he repeated huskily. ‘Where is Brill?’ There was no need for Gray to point. A dishevelled and grimy figure, supported by a detective, staggered through the doorway.

‘Where have you come from?’ asked Reeder. The man could not speak for a second. He pointed to the ground, and then, hoarsely: ‘From the bottom of the well . . . Miss Belman is down there now!’

Brill was in a state of collapse, and not until he had had a stiff dose of brandy was he able to articulate a coherent story. Reeder led a party to the shrubbery, and the windlass was tested.

‘It won’t bear even the weight of a woman, and there’s not sufficient rope,’ said Gray, who made the test.

One of the officers remembered that, in searching the kitchen, he had found two window cleaners’ belts, stout straps with a safety hook attached. He went in search of these, whilst Mr Reeder stripped his coat and vest.

‘There’s a gap of four feet half-way down,’ warned Brill. ‘The stone came away when I put my foot on it, and I nearly fell.’

Reeder, his lamp slung round his neck, peered down into the hole.

‘It’s strange I didn’t see this ladder when I saw the well before,’ he said, and then remembered that he had only opened one half of the flap.

Gray, who was also equipped with a belt, descended first, as he was the lighter of the two. By this time half a company of soldiers were on the scene, and by the greatest of good fortune the unit that had been turned out to assist the police was a company of the Royal Engineers. Whilst one party went in search of ropes, the other began to extemporise a hauling gear.

The two men worked their way down without a word. The lamps were fairly useless, for they could not show them the next rung, and after a while they began to move more cautiously. Gray found the gap and called a halt whilst he bridged it. The next rung was none too secure, Mr Reeder thought, as he lowered his weight upon it, but they passed the danger zone with no other mishap than that which was caused by big pebbles dropping on Reeder’s head.

It seemed as though they would never reach the bottom, and the strain was already telling upon the older man, when Gray whispered: ‘This is the bottom, I think,’ and sent the light of his lamp downwards. Immediately afterwards he dropped to the rocky floor of the passage, Mr Reeder following.

‘Margaret!’ he called in a whisper.

There was no reply. He threw the light first one way and then the other, but Margaret was not in sight, and his heart sank.

‘You go farther along the passage,’ he whispered to Gray. ‘I’ll take the other direction.’

With the light of his lamp on the ground, he half walked, half ran along the twisting gallery. Ahead of him he heard the sound of a movement not easily identified, and he stopped to extinguish the light. Moving cautiously forward, he turned an angle of the passage and saw at the far end indication of daylight. Sitting down, he looked along, and after a while he thought he saw a figure moving against this artificial skyline. Mr Reeder crept forward, and this time he was not relying upon a rubber truncheon. He thumbed down the safety-catch of his Browning and drew nearer and nearer to the figure. Most unexpectedly it spoke.

‘Olga, where has your father gone?’

It was Mrs Burton, and Reeder showed his teeth in an unamused grin.

He did not hear the reply: it came from some recessed place, and the sound was muffled.

‘Have they found that girl?’

Mr Reeder listened breathlessly, craning his neck forward. The ‘No’ was very distinct.

Then Olga said something that he could not hear, and Mrs Burton’s voice took on her old whine of complaint.

‘What’s the use of hanging about? That’s the way you’ve always treated me . . . Nobody would think I was your mother . . . I wonder I’m not dead, the trouble I’ve had . . . I wouldn’t be surprised if he didn’t murder me some day, you mark my words!’

There came an impatient protest from the hidden girl.

‘If you’re sick of it, what about me?’ said Mrs Burton shrilly. ‘Where’s Daver? It’s funny your father hasn’t said anything about Daver. Do you think he’s got into trouble?’

‘Oh, damn Daver!’

Olga’s voice was distinct now. The passion and weariness in it would have made Mr Reeder sorry for her in any other circumstances. He was too busy being sorry for Margaret Belman to worry about this fateful young woman.

She did not know, at any rate, that she was a widow. Mr Reeder derived a certain amount of gruesome satisfaction from the superiority of his intelligence.

‘Where is he now? Your father, I mean?’

A pause as she listened to a reply which was not intelligible to Mr Reeder.

‘On the boat? He’ll never get across. I hate ships, but a tiny little boat like that . . . ! Why couldn’t he let us go when we got him out? I begged and prayed him to . . . we might have been in Venice or somewhere by now, doing the grand.’

The girl interrupted her angrily, and then Mrs Burton apparently melted into the wall.

There was no sound of a closing door, but Mr Reeder guessed what had happened. He came forward stealthily till he saw the bar of light on the opposite wall, and, reaching the door, listened. The voices were clear enough now; clearer because Mrs Burton did most of the talking.

‘Do you think your father knows?’ She sounded rather anxious. ‘About Daver, I mean? You can keep that dark, can’t you? He’d kill me if he knew. He’s got such high ideas about you – princes and dukes and such rubbish! If he hadn’t been mad he’d have cleared out of this game years ago, as I told him, but he’d never take much notice of me.’

‘Has anybody ever taken any notice of you?’ asked the girl wearily. ‘I wanted the old man to let you go. I knew you would be useless in a crisis.’

Mr Reeder heard the sound of a sob. Mrs Burton cried rather easily.

‘He’s only stopping to get Reeder,’ she whimpered. ‘What a fool trick! That silly old man! Why, I could have got him myself if I was wicked enough!’

From farther along the corridor came the sound of a quick step.

‘There’s your father,’ said Mrs Burton, and Reeder pulled back the jacket of his Browning, sacrificing the cartridge that was already in the chamber, in order that there should be no mistake.

The footsteps stopped abruptly, and at the same time came a booming voice from the far end of the passage. It was asking a question. Evidently Flack turned back: his footsteps died away. Mr Reeder decided that this was not his lucky day.

Lying full length on the ground, he could see John Flack clearly. A pressure of his finger, and the problem of this evil man would be settled eternally. It was a fond idea. Mr Reeder’s finger closed around the trigger, but all his instincts were against killing in cold blood.

Somebody was coming from the other direction, Gray, he guessed. He must go back and warn him. Coming to his feet, he went gingerly along the passage. The thing he feared happened. Gray must have seen him, for he called out in stentorian tones: ‘There’s nothing at the other end of the passage, Mr Reeder –’

‘Hush, you fool!’ snarled Reeder, but he guessed that the mischief was done. He turned round, stooped again and looked. Old John Flack was standing at the entrance of the tunnel, his head bent. Somebody else had heard the detective’s voice. With a squeak of fear, Mrs Burton had bolted into the passage, followed by her daughter – an excursion which effectively prevented the use of the pistol, for they completely masked the man whose destruction J. G. Reeder had privately sworn.

By the time he came to the end of the passage overlooking the great cave, the two women and Flack had disappeared.

Mr Reeder’s eyesight was of the keenest. He immediately located the boat, which was now floating on an even keel, and presently saw the three fugitives. They had descended to the water’s edge by a continuance of the long stairway which led to the roof, and were making for the rocky platform which served as a pier for the craft . . .

Something smacked against the rock above his head. There was a shower of stone and dust, and the echoes of the explosion which followed were deafening.

‘Firing from the boat,’ said Mr Reeder calmly. ‘You had better lie down. Gray – I should hate to see so noisy a man as you reduced to compulsory silence.’

‘I am very sorry, Mr Reeder,’ said the penitent detective. ‘I had no idea –’

‘Ideas!’ said Mr Reeder accurately.

Smack! . . . smack!

One bullet struck to the left of him, the other passed exactly between him and Gray. He was lying down now, with a small projection of rock for cover.

Was Margaret on the boat? Even as the thought occurred to him, he remembered ‘Mrs Burton’s’ enquiry. As he saw another flash from the deck of the launch, he threw forward his hand. There was a double explosion which reverberated back from the arched roof, and although he could not see the effect of his shots, he was satisfied that the bullets fell on the launch.

She was pushing off from the side. The three Flacks were aboard. And now he heard the crackle and crash of her engine as her nose swung round to face the cave opening. And then into his eyes from the darkening sea outside the cave flashed a bright light that illuminated the rocky shelf on which he lay, and threw the motor-boat into relief.

The destroyer!

‘Thank God for that!’ said Mr Reeder fervently. Those on the motor-launch had seen the vessel and guessed its portent. The launch swung round until her nose pointed to where the two detectives lay, and from her deck came a roar louder than ever. So terrible was the noise in that confined space that for a second Mr Reeder was too dazed even to realise that he was lying half buried in a heap of debris, until Gray pulled him back to the passage. ‘They’re using a gun, a quick-firer!’ he gasped.

Mr Reeder did not reply. He was gazing, fascinated, at something that was happening in the middle of the cave, where the water was leaping at irregular intervals from some mysterious cause. Then he realised what was taking place. Great rocks, disturbed by the concussion, were falling from the roof. He saw the motor-boat heel over to the right, swing round again, and head for the open. It was less than a dozen yards from the cave entrance when, with a sound that was indescribable, so terrific, so terrifying, that J. G. Reeder was rooted to the spot, the entrance to the cave disappeared!

Chapter 19

In an instant the air was filled with choking dust. Roar followed roar as the rocks continued to fall.

‘The mouth of the cave has collapsed!’ roared Reeder in the other’s ear. ‘And the subsidence hasn’t finished.’

His first instinct was to fly along the passage to safety, but somewhere in that awful void were two women. He switched on his light and crept gingerly back to the bench whence he had seen the catastrophe. But the rays of the lamp could not penetrate into the fog of dust for more than a few yards.

Crawling forward to the edge of the platform, he strove to pierce the darkness. All about him, above, below, on either side, a terrible cracking and groaning was going on, as though the earth itself was in mortal pain. Rocks, big and small, were falling from the roof; he heard the splash of them as they struck the water – one fell on the edge of the platform with a terrific din and bounded into the pit below.

‘For God’s sake, don’t stay here, Mr Reeder. You will be killed.’

It was Gray shouting at him, but J. G. Reeder was already feeling his way towards the steps which led down to where the boat had been moored, and to which he guessed it would drift. He had to hold the lamp almost at his feet. Breathing had become a pain. His face was covered with powder; his eyes smarted excruciatingly; dust was in his mouth, his nose; but still he went on, and was rewarded.

Out of the dust-mist came groping the ghostly figure of a woman. It was Olga Crewe.

He gripped her by the arm as she swayed, and pushed her against the rocky wall.

‘Where is your mother?’ he shouted.

She shook her head and said something; he lowered his ear to her mouth.

‘ . . . boat . . . great rock . . . killed.’

‘Your mother?’

She nodded. Gripping her by the arm, he half led, half dragged her up the stairs. He found Gray waiting at the top. As easily as though she were a child, Mr Reeder caught her up in his arms and staggered the distance that separated them from the mouth of the passage.

The pandemonium of splintering rock and crashing boulder was continuous. The air was thicker than ever. Gray’s lamp went out, and Mr Reeder’s was almost useless. It seemed a thousand years before they pushed into the mouth of the tunnel. The air was filled with dust even here, but as they progressed it grew clearer, more breatheable.

‘Let me down: I can walk,’ said the husky voice of Olga Crewe, and Reeder lowered her gently to her feet.

She was very weak, but she could walk with the assistance that the two men afforded. They stopped at the entrance of the living-room. Mr Reeder wanted the lamp – wanted more the water which she suggested would be found in that apartment. A cold draught of spring water worked wonders on the girl too.

‘I don’t know what happened,’ she said; ‘but when the cave opening fell in, I think we drifted towards the stage . . . we always called that place the stage. I was so frightened that I jumped immediately to safety, and I’d hardly reached the rock when I heard a most awful crash. I think a portion of the wall must have fallen on to the boat. I screamed, but hardly heard myself in the noise. This is punishment – this is punishment! I knew it would come! I knew it, I knew it!’

She covered her grimy face with her hands, and her shoulders shook in the excess of her sorrow and grief.

‘There’s no sense in crying.’ Mr Reeder’s voice was sharp and stern. ‘Where is Miss Belman?’

She shook her head.

‘Where did she go?’

‘Up the stairway . . . father said she escaped. Haven’t you seen her?’ she asked, raising her tearful face as she began slowly to realise the drift of his question.

He shook his head, his narrowed eyes surveying her steadily.

‘Tell me the truth, Olga Flack. Did Margaret Belman escape, or did your father – ?’

She was shaking her head before he had completed his sentence, and then, with a little moan, she drooped and would have fallen had not Gray supported her.

‘We had better leave the questioning till later.’

Mr Reeder seized the lamp from the table and went out into the tunnel. He had hardly passed the door before there was a crash, and the infernal noises which had come from the cave were suddenly muffled. He looked backward, but could see nothing. He guessed what had happened.

‘There is a general subsidence going on in this mass of earth,’ he said. ‘We shall be lucky if we get away.’

He ran ahead to the opening of the well, and a glad sight met his eyes. On the floor lay a coil of new rope, to which was attached a body belt. He did not see the thin wire which came down from the mouth of the well, but presently he detected a tiny telephone receiver that the engineers had lowered. This he picked up, and his hail was immediately answered.

‘Are you all right? Up here it feels as if there’s an earthquake somewhere.’

Gray was fastening the belt about the girl’s waist, and after it was firmly buckled: ‘You mustn’t faint – do you understand. Miss Crewe? They will haul you up gently, but you must keep away from the side of the well.’

She nodded, and Reeder gave the signal. The rope grew taut, and presently the girl was drawn up out of sight.

‘Up you go,’ said Reeder.

Gray hesitated.

‘What about you, sir?’

For answer Mr Reeder pointed to the lowest rung, and, stooping, gripped the leg of the detective and, displaying an unsuspected strength, lifted him bodily so that he was able to grip the lower rung.

‘Fix your belt to the rod, hold fast to the nearest rung, and I will climb up over you,’ said Mr Reeder.

Never an acrobat moved with greater nimbleness than this man who so loved to pose as an ancient. There was need for hurry. The very iron to which he was clinging trembled and vibrated in his grasp. The fall of stone down the well was continuous and constituted a very real danger. Some of the rungs, displaced by the earth tremors, came away in their grasp. They were less than half-way up when the air was filled with a sighing and a hissing that brought Reeder’s heart to his mouth.

Holding on to a rung of the ladder, he put out his hand. The opposite wall, which should have been well beyond his reach, was at less than arm’s-length away!

The well was bulging under unexpected and tremendous stresses.

‘Why have you stopped?’ asked Gray anxiously.

‘To scratch my head,’ snarled Reeder. ‘Hurry!’

They climbed another forty or fifty feet, when from below came a rumble and a crash that set the whole well shivering.

They could see starlight now, and distant objects, which might be heads, that overhung the mouth of the well.

‘Hurry!’ breathed J. G. Reeder, and moved as rapidly as his younger companion.

Boom!

The sound of a great gun, followed by a thunderous rumbling, surged up the well.

J. G. Reeder set his teeth. Please God Margaret Belman had escaped from that hell – or was mercifully dead!

Nearer and nearer to the mouth they climbed, and every step they took was accompanied by some new and awful noise from behind them. Gray’s breath was coming in gasps.

‘I can’t go any further!’ croaked the detective. ‘My strength has gone!’

‘Go on, you miserable . . . !’ yelled Reeder, and whether it was the shock of hearing such violent language from so mild a man, or the discovery that he was within a few feet of safety, Gray took hold of himself, climbed a few more rungs, and then felt hands grip his arm and drag him to safety.

Mr Reeder staggered out into the night air and blinked at the ring of men who stood in the light of a naphtha flare. Was it his imagination, or was the ground swaying beneath his feet?

‘Nobody else to come up, Mr Reeder?’ The officer in charge of the Engineers asked the question, and Reeder shook his head.

‘Then all you fellows clear!’ said the officer sharply. ‘Move towards the house and take the road to Siltbury – the cliff is collapsing in sections.’

The flare was put out, and the soldiers, abandoning their apparatus, broke into a steady run towards Larmes Keep.

‘Where is the girl – Miss Crewe?’ asked Reeder, suddenly remembering her.

‘They’ve taken her to the house,’ said Big Bill Gordon, who had made a mysterious appearance from nowhere. ‘And, Reeder, we have captured the gold-convoy! The two men in charge were a fellow who calls himself Hothling and another named Dean – I think you know their real names . . . Caught them just as the trolley was driving into the quarry cave. This means a big thing for you –’

‘To hell with you and your big things!’ stormed Reeder in a fury. ‘What big things do I want, my man, but the big thing I have lost?’

Very wisely, Big Bill Gordon made no attempt to argue the matter.

They found the banqueting-hall crowded with policemen, detectives, and soldiers. The girl had been taken into Daver’s office, and here he found her in the hands of the three women servants who had been commandeered to run the establishment whilst the police were in occupation. The dust had been washed from her face, and she was conscious, but still in that half-bemused condition in which Reeder had found her.

She stared at him for a long time as though she did not recognise him and was striving to recall that portion of her past in which he had figured. When she spoke, it was to ask a question.

‘There is no news of – father?’

‘None,’ said Reeder, almost brutally. ‘I think it will be better for you, young lady, if he is dead.’

She nodded, and: ‘He is dead,’ she said with conviction. And then, rousing herself, she struggled to a sitting position and looked at the servants. Mr Reeder interpreted that glance and sent the women away.

‘I don’t know what you are going to do with me,’ she said, ‘but I suppose I am to be arrested – I should be arrested, for I have known all that was happening, and I tried to lure you to your death.’

‘In Bennett Street, of course,’ said Mr Reeder. ‘I recognised you the moment I saw you here – you were the lady with the rouged face.’

She nodded and continued.

‘Before you take me away, I wish you would let me have some papers that are in the safe,’ she said. ‘They have no value to anybody but myself.’

He was curious enough to ask her what they were.

‘They are letters . . . in the big flat box that is locked . . . Even Daver did not dare open that. You see, Mr Reeder’ – her breath came more quickly – ‘before I met my – husband, I had a little romance – the sort of romance that a young girl has when she is innocent enough to dream and has enough faith in God to hope. Is my husband arrested?’ she asked suddenly.

Mr Reeder was silent for a moment. Sooner or later she must know the truth, and he had an idea that this awful truth would not cause her very much distress.

‘Your husband is dead,’ he said.

Her eyes opened wider.

‘Did my father –’

‘Your father killed him – I suppose so. I am afraid I was the cause. Coming back to find Margaret Belman, I told Daver all that I knew about your marriage. Your father must have been hiding behind the panelling and heard.’

‘I see,’ she said simply. ‘Of course it was father who killed him – I knew that would happen as soon as he learnt the truth. Would you think I was heartless if I said I am glad? I don’t think I am really glad. I’m just relieved. Will you get the box for me?’

She put her hand down her blouse, and pulled out a gold chain at the end of which were two keys.

‘The first of these is the key of the safe. If you want to see the – the letters, I will show them to you, but I would rather not.’

At that moment he heard hurrying footsteps in the passage outside; the door was pulled open, and a young officer of Engineers appeared.

‘Excuse me, sir,’ he said, ‘but Captain Merriman thinks we ought to abandon this house. I’ve got out all the servants and we’re rushing them down to Siltbury.’

Reeder stooped down and drew the girl to her feet ‘Take this lady with you,’ he said, and, to Olga: ‘I will get your box, and I may not – I am not quite sure – ask you to open it for me.’

He waited till the officer had gone, and added: ‘Just now I am feeling rather – tender towards young lovers. That is a concession which an old lover may make to youth.’

His voice had grown husky. There was something in his face that brought the tears to her eyes. ‘Was it . . . not Margaret Belman?’ she asked in a hushed voice, and she knew before he answered that she had guessed well.

Tragedy dignified this strange-looking man, so far past youth, yet holding the germ of youth in his heart. His hand fell gently on her shoulder. ‘Go, my dear,’ he said. ‘I will do what I can for you – perhaps I can save you a great deal of unhappiness.’

He waited until she had gone, then strolled into the deserted lounge. What an eternity had passed since he had sat there, munching his toast and drinking his cup of tea, with an illustrated newspaper on his knees!

The place in the half gloom seemed full of ancient ghosts. The House of Tears! These walls had held sorrows more poignant, more hopeless than his.

He went to the panelled wall and rubbed his finger down the little scar in the wood that a thrown knife had made, and smiled at the triviality of that offence.

He had reason to remember the circumstances, without the dramatic reminder which nature gave. Suddenly the floor beneath him swayed, and the two lights went out. He guessed that the earth tremors were responsible for the snapping of wires, and he hurried into the vestibule, and had passed from the house, when he remembered Olga Crewe’s request.

The lantern was still hanging about his neck. He switched it on and went back to the safe and inserted the key. As he did so, the house swayed backwards and forwards like a drunken man. The clatter of glass, the crackle of overturned wardrobes, startled him, so that he almost fled with his mission unperformed. He even hesitated; but a promise was a promise to J. G. Reeder. He put the key in again, turned the lock and pulled open one of the great doors – and Margaret Belman fell into his arms!

Chapter 20

He stood, holding the half-swooning girl, peering into the face he could only see by the reflected light of his lantern, and then suddenly the safe fell back from him without warning, leaving a gaping cavern. He lifted her in his arms, ran across the vestibule into the open air. Somebody shouted his name in the distance, and he ran blindly towards the voice. Once he stumbled over a great crack that had appeared in the earth, but managed to recover himself, though he was forced to release his grip of the girl.

She was alive . . . breathing . . . her breath fanned his cheek and gave him new strength . . .

The sound of falling walls behind him; immense, hideous roarings and groanings; thunder of sliding chalk and rock and earth – he heard only the breathing of his burden, felt only the faint beating of her heart against his breast.

‘Here you are!’

Somebody lifted Margaret Belman from his arms. A big soldier pushed him into a wagon, where he sprawled at full length, breathless, more dead than alive, by the side of the woman he loved; and then, with a whir of wheels, the ambulance sped down the hillside towards safety. Behind him, in the darkness, the House of Tears shivered and crackled, and the work of ancient masons vanished piecemeal, tumbling over new cliffs, to be everlastingly engulfed and hidden from the sight of man.

Dawn came and showed to an interested party that had travelled by road and train to the scene of the great landslide, one grey wall, standing starkly on the edge of a precipice. A portion of the wrecked floor still adhered to the ruins, and on that floor the blood-stained bed where old man Flack had laid his murdered servant . . .

The story which Olga Flack told the police, which appears in the official records of the place, was not exactly the same as the story she told to Mr Reeder that afternoon when, at his invitation, she came to the flat in Bennett Street. Mr Reeder, minus his glasses and his general air of respectability, which his vanished side-whiskers had so enhanced, was at some disadvantage.

‘Yes, I think Ravini was killed,’ she said, ‘but you are wrong in supposing that I brought him to my room at the request of my father. Ravini was a very quickwitted man, and recognised me. He came to Larmes Keep because he’ – she hesitated – ‘well, he was rather fond of Miss Belman. He told me this, and I was rather amused. At that time I did not know his name, although my husband did, and I certainly did not connect him with my father’s arrest. He revealed his identity, and I suppose there was something in my attitude, or something I said, which recalled the schoolgirl he had met years before. The moment he recognised me as John Flack’s daughter, he also recognised Larmes Keep as my father’s headquarters.

‘He began to ask me questions: whether I knew where the Flack bullion, as he called it, was hidden. And of course I was horrified, for I knew why Daver had allowed him to come.

‘My father had recently escaped from Broadmoor, and I was worried sick for fear he knew the trick that Daver had played. I wasn’t normal, I suppose, and I came near to betraying my father, for I told Ravini of his escape. Ravini did not take this as I had ex-pected – he rather overrated his own power, and was very confident. Of course, he did not know that father was practically in the house, that he came up from the cave every night.’

‘The real entrance to the cave was through the safe in the vestibule,’ said Mr Reeder. ‘That was an ingenious idea. I must confess that the safe was the last place in the world I should have considered.’

‘My father had it put there twenty years ago,’ she said. ‘There always was an entrance from the centre of the Keep to the caves below, many of which were used as prisons or as burying-places by the ancient owners of Larmes.’

‘Why did Ravini go to your room?’ asked Mr Reeder. ‘You will excuse the – um – indelicacy of the question, but I want –’

She nodded.

‘It was a last desperate effort on my part to scare Ravini from the house – I took it on my way back that night. You mustn’t forget that I was watched all the time; Daver or my mother were never far from me, and I dared not let them know, and through them my father, that Ravini was being warned. Naturally, Ravini, being what he was, saw another reason for the invitation. He had decided to stay on until I made my request for an interview, and told him that I wanted him to leave by the first train in the morning after he learnt what I had to tell him.’

‘And what had you to tell him?’ asked Mr Reeder. She did not answer immediately, and he repeated the question.

‘That my father had decided to kill him –’

Mr Reeder’s eyes almost closed.

‘Are you telling me the truth, Olga?’ he asked gently, and she went red and white. ‘I am not a good liar, am I?’ Her tone was almost defiant. ‘Now, I’ll tell you. I met Ravini when I was little more than a child. He meant . . . a tremendous lot to me, and I don’t think I meant very much to him. He used to come down to see me in the country where I was at school . . .’

‘He’s dead?’

She could only nod her head. Her lips were quivering.

‘That is the truth,’ she said at last. ‘The horror of it was that he did not recognise me when he came to Larmes Keep. I had passed completely from his mind, until I revealed myself in the garden that night.’

‘Is he dead?’ asked Mr Reeder for the second time.

‘Yes,’ she said. ‘They struck him down outside my room . . . I don’t know what they did with him. They put him through the safe, I think.’ She shuddered.

J. G. Reeder patted her hand.

‘You have your memories, my child,’ he said to the weeping girl, ‘and your letters.’

It occurred to him after Olga had gone that Ravini must have written rather interesting letters.

Chapter 21

Miss Margaret Belman decided to take a holiday in the only pleasure resort that seemed worth while or endurable. She conveyed this intention to Mr Reeder by letter.

There are only two places in the world where I can feel happy and safe. [she said] One place is London and the other New York, where a policeman is to be found at every corner, and all the amusements of a country life are to be had in an intensified form. So, if you please, can you spare the time to come with me to the theatres I have written down on the back of this sheet, to the National Gallery, the British Museum, the Tower of London (no, on consideration I do not think I should like to include the Tower of London: it is too mediaeval and ghostly), to Kensington Gardens and similar centres of hectic gaiety. Seriously, dear J. G. (the familiarity will make you wince, but I have cast aside all shame), I want to be one of a large, sane mass – I am tired of being an isolated, hysterical woman.

There was much more in the same strain. Mr Reeder took his engagement book and ran a blue pencil through all his appointments before he wrote, with some labour, a letter which, because of its caution and its somewhat pompous terminology, sent Margaret Belman into fits of silent laughter.

She had not mentioned Richmond Park, and with good reason, one might suppose, for Richmond Park in the late autumn, when chilly winds abound, and the deer have gone into winter quarters – if deer ever go into winter quarters – is picturesque without being comfortable, and only a pleasure to the aesthetic eyes of those whose bodies are suitably clothed in woollen underwear.

Yet, one drab, grey afternoon, Mr Reeder chartered a taxicab, sat solemnly by the side of Miss Margaret Belman as the cab bumped and jerked down Clarence Lane, possibly the worst road in England, before it turned through the iron gates of the park.

They came at last to a stretch of grass land and bush, a place in early summer of flowering rhododendrons, and here Mr Reeder stopped the cab and they both descended and walked aimlessly through a little wood. The ground sloped down to a little carpeted hollow. Mr Reeder, with a glance of suspicion and some reference to rheumatism, seated himself by Miss Belman’s side.

‘But why Richmond Park?’ asked Margaret.

Mr Reeder coughed.

‘I have – um – a romantic interest in Richmond Park,’ he said. ‘I remember the first arrest I ever made –’

‘Don’t be gruesome,’ she warned him. ‘There’s nothing romantic about an arrest. Talk of something pretty.’

‘Let us then talk of you,’ said Mr Reeder daringly; ‘and it is exactly because I want to talk of you, my dear Miss – um – Margaret . . . Margaret, that I have asked you to come here.’

He took her hand with great gentleness as though he were handling a rare objet d’art, and played with her fingers awkwardly.

‘The truth is, my dear –’

‘Don’t say “Miss”,’ she begged.

‘My dear Margaret’ – this with an effort – ‘I have decided that life is too – um – short to delay any longer a step which I have very carefully considered – in fact’ – here he floundered hopelessly into a succession of ‘ums’ which were only relieved by occasional ‘ers’.

He tried again: ‘A man of my age and peculiar temperament should perhaps be considering matters more serious – in fact, you may consider it very absurd of me, but the truth is –’

Whatever the truth was could not be easily translated into words.

‘The truth is,’ she said quietly, ‘that you think you’re in love with somebody?’

First Mr Reeder nodded, then he shook his bead with equal vigour.

‘I don’t think – it has gone beyond the stage of hypothesis. I am no longer young – I am in fact a confirmed – no, not a confirmed, but – er –’

‘You’re a confirmed bachelor,’ she helped him out.

‘Not confirmed,’ he insisted firmly.

She half turned and faced him, her hands on his shoulders, looking into his eyes.

‘My dear,’ she said, ‘you think of being married, and you want somebody to marry you. But you feel that you are too old to blight her young life.’

He nodded dumbly.

‘Is it my young life, my dear? Because, if it is –’

‘It is.’ J. G. Reeder’s voice was very husky.

‘Please blight,’ said Margaret Belman.

And for the first time in his life Mr J. G. Reeder, who had had so many experiences, mainly unpleasant, felt the soft lips of a woman against his.

‘Dear me!’ said Mr Reeder breathlessly, a few seconds later. ‘That was rather nice.’

THE END

Table of Contents

INTRODUCTION

ROOM 13

THE MIND OF MR J. G. REEDER

The Poetical Policeman

The Treasure Hunt

The Troupe

The Stealer of Marble

Sheer Melodrama

The Green Mamba

The Strange Case

The Investors

TERROR KEEP