In a moment Mr. Reeder was out of the room, flying downstairs, but when he came to the street, it was absolutely empty of pedestrians. A tram was moving towards London. He saw a slim figure of a young man leap upon the footboard. By the time he reached the corner of the road, the car was beyond pursuit. Mr. Reeder looked round for a taxicab, but there was none in sight, and with great reluctance and conscious that he was bareheaded and that a drizzling rain was falling, and, in consequence, he must look a little ridiculous, he made his way back to the house.
And yet for all his failure, there was a curious sense of elation in J.G. Reeder’s heart, for the mystery of certain strange disappearances was almost solved.
To Miss Gillette he was a great disappointment, for he seemed no longer interested in red-haired young men, or brooches, or even young ladies in plus-fours, and she went back to London, with her friend, her faith shaken in her employer.
With great care Mr. Reeder composed an agony column advertisement which he telephoned to four newspapers:
“Red-haired young man, please communicate with plus-four girl.”
The address that followed was that of his own office.
CHAPTER III
Miss Gillette arrived an hour late, which was not very remarkable. She had not seen the advertisements, so Mr. Reeder had nothing to explain. Her interest in his affairs had apparently waned completely.
At 12 o’clock she came into his room and announced that she had a luncheon engagement, and might not be back till three. He was not very sorry. He rather wished she would not come back till three o’clock on some date to be named by himself, and he wished that he had the courage to tell her so.
There was no response to his advertisement, and he regretted that his telephone number had not been included in his address.
Miss Gillette had hardly left before the first of Mr. Reeder’s visitors came. Inspector Gaylor was curious to know what had been the result of the visit to Brixton Prison.
“I am inclined to agree with you,” he said, when Reeder had sketched the conversation he had had with the prisoner. “At any rate, there is no evidence on which we could get a conviction. The pistol was of foreign make, and we have been able to trace one important fact—that when it was sold in Belgium, Alsby was still in prison. It might, of course, have been resold to him, but that’s unlikely.”
“Have you ever heard of the Pizarro Syndicate?” asked Mr. Reeder unexpectedly.
Gaylor had an excellent memory, possibly the better because he had been on that particular case.
“The Treasure Hunters,” he smiled. “It’s strange you should mention Pizarro. I was trying to trace a man named Gelpin, who was one of the biggest shareholders and one of the biggest dupes. I wanted him, to get particulars of a former clerk of his, but I just couldn’t find him, which is queer, since he was a fairly rich man.”
“Dead,” suggested Mr. Reeder.
Gaylor shook his head.
“No, he is abroad somewhere, I think, anyway he left the Midlands two years ago.”
Mr. Reeder pursed his lips and looked at the detective tragically.
“Left the Midlands two years ago,” he repeated mechanically. “Dear me.… Went abroad with a letter of credit, I am sure. How many people were there in the Pizarro Syndicate?”
Gaylor was looking at him suspiciously.
“What’s the idea? Has any other member of the Syndicate gone to live abroad?”
“Two, to my knowledge.” Then there was a dead silence which Mr. Reeder broke. “One was a young man called Seafield.”
Gaylor nodded.
“I remember that name, yes?”
“The other’s name was Ralph,” said Mr. Reeder slowly.
He took from his drawer a written précis that he had prepared that morning and passed it silently to the inspector. Gaylor read very slowly, and naturally so, since J.G.’s writing was not the most legible.
When he finished, he reached for the telephone.
“I happen to know that Gelpin’s bank was the Scottish and Midland in Birmingham. Do you mind if I put a trunk call through?”
He gave the urgent signal to the long distance operator and within five minutes he was talking to the bank. Mr. Reeder only heard the questions and the monosyllabic rejoinders.
Presently Gaylor hung up the receiver.
“£17,500 letter of credit,” he said shortly, “cashed in Paris, Budapest and Madrid. Since then the bank has had three cheques for considerable amounts. They had been cashed in foreign cities, and had been accompanied by letters from Mr. Gelpin. The bank manager says that Gelpin is a man who loves travel, so that he is not at all alarmed about it, and he has got a pretty good balance. He said one thing which may, or may not, have some bearing: that when Gelpin left, he announced his intention of going to Montreux.”
Mr. Reeder remembered instantly the little map on the wall of Litnoff’s room with the red irregular triangle.
Mr. Reeder rose at that moment to go to the door of the outer office to take in a cablegram from a Western Union messenger. He walked to the window, opened it and read the page of typescript. It was signed “Murphy” and was from the head of the New York Detective Department.
“Pizarro gang has not operated for past ten years. Pizarro in Sing-Sing serving life sentence. His right-hand man Kennedy was last heard of in California twelve years ago, believed to be reformed character. Nothing known here of new Pizarro enterprise.”
Gaylor read the telegram and handed it back to Reeder.
“Do you think this is a Pizarro stunt?”
“My unpleasant mind leads me to that conclusion,” said Mr. Reeder.
The Rev. Dr. Ingham came at two o’clock, at the moment when Mr. Reeder was eating one of the two large buns which he invariably purchased on his way to the office, and which as invariably served him for lunch.
He could almost sense the excited condition in which the cleric came by the rapidity and nervousness of his knock.
“My dear fellow… the most amazing thing has happened… Mr. Ralph has been found!”
J.G. Reeder should have been overjoyed by the intelligence instead he looked a little grieved.
“This is very pleasant news,” he said, “very pleasant indeed, h’m.”
The clergyman fished inside his clerical coat and produced a telegram.
“I happened to call on Miss Ralph this morning and whilst I was in the hotel this telegram came. Naturally the young lady is beside herself with relief—I confess that I also am feeling happier.”
Mr. Reeder took the telegram. It was handed in at Berlin West and was addressed to Joan Ralph, Haymarket Hotel.
“Shall be in Germany for a month. Write to me Hotel Marienbad Munich. Mark letter ‘await arrival.’ Love. Daddy.”
“Remarkable,” said Mr. Reeder.
“I thought so. I asked the young lady to let me have the wire to show you.”
“Remarkable,” said Mr. Reeder again.
“It is remarkable,” agreed Dr. Ingham. “And yet it isn’t. He may have been called away to Germany and had no time to communicate with his daughter——”
“I wasn’t referring to that,” said Mr. Reeder. “When I said it was remarkable, I was thinking that it was both odd and remarkable that he should have wired to her at an hotel where she has never stayed before.”
Dr. Ingham’s jaw dropped.
“Good heavens!” he gasped.
His face had gone pale; it was as though there had come to him a sudden realization of just what this telegram might signify.
“That did not occur to me.… She had never stayed there before—are you sure?”
Mr. Reeder nodded.
“She mentioned it casually last night just before she was leaving—I presume she told you she called on me? No, usually she stays at the hotel her father patronizes. She stayed at the Haymarket because it was close to Mr. Ralph’s office. At any rate, he would have telegraphed to Bishop’s Stortford.”
“It is strange,” said the clergyman after a pause.
“It is strange,” said Mr. Reeder. “It has assumed the appearance of—um—a case. Distinctly a case.”
For a long time he seemed totally absorbed in the rivulets of rain which trickled down the panes of his window.
“It is certainly bewildering,” said Dr. Ingham at last. “I confess I am becoming alarmed. This red-haired young man, for example——”
“Miss Ralph told you that?”
“Miss Gillette—your charming secretary. She arrived at the hotel with her brother——”
“Her young man,” corrected Mr. Reeder, and coughed.
“Really? She did not introduce him.”
“She never does anything that she should do,” said Mr. Reeder bitterly.
He swung round in his swivel chair as though forcing himself from the hypnotic attractions of wriggling rain drops.
“The red-haired young man is also remarkable. I am rather worried about him. He stands as it were on the threshold of—um—life. In a few years’ time he may be in the happy enjoyment of a red haired wife and—um—red haired children. To be cut off in his prime, and just because his father was ill and he under-valued a diamond brooch or clasp, would be grossly unfair.”
The doctor stared at him blankly.
“I don’t quite know what you mean. To be cut off… You don’t mean that this young man is in danger?”
“I wonder!” said Mr. Reeder.
For a long while they sat gloomily surveying each other.
“I am bewildered,” sighed Dr. Ingham at last. “I feel as if I had strayed into some terrible land of unreality. Mr. Reeder,” he leant forward, “are you ever in Kent?”
“I live there,” said Mr. Reeder, as indeed he did, for Brockley Road is situated on the London fringe of that county.
“I mean in the country. I have been discussing this matter with my wife—a woman of remarkable acumen. She has a theory which, I must confess, I regard as entirely fantastic. I should not have mentioned it to you, but for the doubts you have concerning this Berlin telegram, which, I imagined, cleared up the mystery. I said to her only last night ‘My dear, if you told Mr. Reeder your theory, he would think you had been reading detective literature!’ She is an invalid—very seldom leaves the house. I feel that it would be asking you a great deal if I suggested you should spend a week-end with us.”
Mr. Reeder hesitated.
“I seldom go out,” he said, “but what is your good lady’s theory?”
The doctor smiled.
“I feel I ought to apologize for even advancing such a suggestion. Years ago when I was in America I was swindled. The sum was insignificant, but it was a lesson to me. Here was I, an independent man, thanks to my dear father’s beneficence, and yet the cupidity which is latent in all of us overcame my scruples and I invested in a ridiculous get-rich-quick scheme… a sort of treasure hunt, organized by a rascal called Pizarro!”
Mr. Reeder nodded, but offered no comment.
“My dear wife has an idea that behind Mr. Ralph’s disappearance is some diabolical plot—exactly what it is I am at a loss to explain. The theory, fantastical as it is, has to do with Pizarro. Now I happen to know that Pizarro is in prison—at least that is my belief——”
Mr. Reeder raised a long forefinger; it might have been a gesture of warning. It was in truth an indication that he wished to speak.
“On Saturday afternoon I have nothing particular to do,” he said. “May I trespass on your hospitality? May I say with respect that your wife is a very intelligent lady, and I should like to meet her.”
Dr. Ingham would send his car to meet the Dover Express. The plan was agreeable to Mr. Reeder, but——
“I must return at night. I—um—never sleep in any bed but my own.”
Dr. Ingham understood this prejudice against strange beds. He had an alternative suggestion, namely that Mr. Reeder should make the whole journey by car.
“It will take a little longer, but it’s a very good road, and I could have you picked up at your place in Brockley which is on the way.”
Here again he found J.G. Reeder agreeable.
For the remainder of the day Mr. Reeder waited in vain for some communication from the red-haired youth, but none had come when Miss Gillette returned to the office, which was somewhere in the region of five o’clock. He was not exactly idle; an assistant whom he sometimes employed came to see him at his urgent request, and spent a profitable afternoon searching certain records at Somerset House.
By the time Miss Gillette returned he had a complete list of English subscribers of the Pizarro Syndicate, and, with three exceptions, had sent telegrams to their known addresses. He did not wire to Mr. Ralph, the missing Seafield, or yet to Mr. Gelpin.
Miss Gillette brought one item of news: she had spent the afternoon in committee with her fiancé and Joan Ralph, and they had come to the conclusion that something was wrong. It hardly seemed worth a committee meeting, thought Mr. Reeder, but he avoided trouble by refraining from making such provocative comment.
He left the office at six o’clock and wandered off to Scotland Yard and went immediately to Gaylor’s room.
“I could have saved you the trouble,” said Gaylor, when Reeder told him about the telegrams he had sent. “We have already been in touch with the local police and they are making enquiries. We have found two subscribers, but they are very poor people and not likely to be affected. I also had a look at that map in Schmidt’s flat, and have been on the telephone to the Montreux police. They say that the area marked out in red ink is a derelict farm, the property of a Russian. The police chief was very decent; he sent a couple of men climbing about Glion to investigate, and they report there is nobody there, the place is in a state of ruin, and it has not been occupied for a number of years. There used to be a caretaker, but he has been withdrawn. The Russian was of course Litnoff. Apparently he was there only once or twice in his life, and never lived at the farm. It’s a puzzling business.”
“To me it is as clear as the running water in the mountain stream,” said Mr. Reeder poetically, “but that, of course, is because I have a criminal mind.”
He returned to his office at nine that evening, after a frugal dinner. No telegrams had arrived. The only letter awaiting him was one from a former client, enclosing a cheque.
CHAPTER IV
The drizzle had turned to rain. It pelted down on Mr. Reeder’s mackintosh and flowed in spasmodic splashes from the brim of his high-crowned hat, as he trudged towards the nearest tramcar that would take him home.
It was not the sort of night when people would be abroad. Again he found the lounger in a yellow oilskin coat standing at the corner of Brockley Road, and another idler pacing leisurely up and down. This man turned at the sound of his steps and came towards him.
“Have you got a match, governor?” His voice was harsh and common, and did not somehow go with his respectable attire, for he had a blue trench coat buttoned up to his chin and belted about his waist. The point of Mr. Reeder’s umbrella came up until it pointed just above that belt.
“I haven’t a match. If I had, I would not be so foolish as to put my hands in my pocket so as to give it to you,” he said haranguingly. “Now, if you will kindly stand out of my way, you will save yourself a lot of trouble.”
“I asked you civilly, didn’t I?” growled the man.
“Your civility doesn’t amuse me,” said Mr. Reeder, and then suddenly his hand shot out and he got the man by the shoulder, exhibiting a strength which none would have suspected in him, and sent him flying toward the road.
He passed through the little iron gate, slammed it behind him.
“And you can tell Kennedy from me he is wasting his time.”
“I don’t know what you are talking about,” snarled the man.
Mr. Reeder did not parley with him. He mounted the steps, fitted the key in the lock and entered. He stopped long enough to hang his wet mackintosh in the hall, remove his goloshes, and then went up to his room. He was in darkness. He did not switch on the light, and crossing the room, he pulled aside the heavy curtains and looked out.
The man in the blue trench coat was still standing in front of the house, but now he had been joined by the loiterer in the yellow oilskin coat, and they were talking together.
Mr. Reeder was cursed with a sense of humour which was peculiar to himself. He went into his bedroom, and from a shelf in the cupboard he took a small air pistol, and “breaking it,” inserted a pellet. At the distance which separated him from his two watchers an air pistol would not be dangerous, but it should be very painful. Gently lifting the sash, he took aim and pressed the trigger. He heard the man in the yellow oilskin yell and saw him leap into the air.
“What’s biting you?” demanded blue trench coat.
“Somep’n bit me.”
He was clasping his neck and rolling his head backwards and forwards in his pain.
Mr. Reeder broke the pistol again, put another pellet in the breech and took even more accurate aim.
“Say, listen,” said the man in the trench coat. He said no more. His hat went flying, and looking up in his bewilderment, he saw Mr. Reeder leaning out of the window.
“Go away,” said Mr. Reeder gently.
He did not hear the reply because he closed the window quickly. He objected to profanity on principle. But when a few minutes later he looked out again the two men had disappeared.
It was 11 o’clock when he went to bed. He was by no means a light sleeper, or he would have heard the first pebble that struck his window. The second woke him, and for a good reason: the stone was heavier and the pane smashed.
He got out of bed quickly and very cautiously went to the edge of the window and looked out. There was nobody in sight. Pushing open the casement he made a more careful survey: the street was empty. He could see no living soul, and then, as his eyes became accustomed to the gloom, he saw a figure moving in the shadow of the one laurel bush which decorated the front garden of his house.
This time Mr. Reeder did not take an air pistol, but a very business-like Browning in the pocket of his dressing gown. He went noiselessly down the stairs, unbolted the door, opened it and flashed a concentrated beam of a powerful spotlight into the garden. It was neither trench coat nor oilskin, but a bedraggled youth, hatless, whose wet clothes seemed skin tight.
From the darkness came a beseeching voice:
“Is that Mr. Reeder… For God’s sake take the light off me.”
“Oh, it’s you, is it?” said J.G. gently, and a little incongruously it sounded, even to himself. “Did you see my advertisement?”
The young man made a dart through the door into the hall. Mr. Reeder followed him, closed and bolted the door. He could almost hear his visitor trembling.
“Which way do I go, sir?” he whimpered.
J.G. led the way up the stairs into the study, and switched on the light.
The red-haired youth was a pitiable sight: his face streaked with blood, the knuckles of his hands were bleeding. He had neither collar nor tie, and as he stood, his soaked clothes formed an ever growing pool upon Mr. Reeder’s shabby carpet.
“I didn’t intend coming here, but after they tried to kill me——”
“I think you had better have a hot bath,” interrupted Mr. Reeder.
Fortunately the bathroom was on the first floor, and by some miracle the water was really hot. He left the trembling youth to divest himself of his sodden clothes, and going upstairs, collected a few articles of wearing apparel.
In his study he had a coffee-making machine and in the cupboard a large seed cake. He was partial to seed cake.
The coffee was brewed and the young man came into the room. He was not an attractive young man. He was very pale, he had a very large nose and a long and bony chin. He was very thin, and Mr. Reeder’s clothes did not so much fit as cover him.
He drank the coffee eagerly, looked at the seed cake, shuddered, but betook of it, whilst Mr. Reeder built up the dying fire.
“Now, Mr.——”
“Edelsheim, Benny Edelsheim,” said the young man. “I live in Pepys Road, New Cross. Did the young ladies tell you about me? I wish I had not run away that night you chased me. She’s a stunning looking girl, isn’t she? I don’t mean the blonde—the other one.”
“Have you wakened me up in the middle of the night to discuss the attractions of brunettes?” demanded Mr. Reeder gently. “Who hit you?”
The young man felt his head gingerly. He had tied about it a large handkerchief which Mr. Reeder had supplied.
“I don’t know, I think it was the fellow in the yellow coat.… There were two of them. I was just going into my house—my father’s house, when a man asked me if I had a match. I didn’t like the look of him, but I was feeling for the match when he hit me. There was a car half-way down the hill—Pepys Road is built on a hill—it used to be called Red Hill once.…”
“The topography is familiar to me,” said Mr. Reeder. “What did you do when he hit you?”
“I ran,” said the other simply. “I tried to shout, but I couldn’t, and then the other fellow, who was standing by the car, tripped me up.”
He looked at his knuckles. “That’s where I got that. I think there were three of them. The chauffeur was standing by the car and he made a dive at me, but I dodged and doubled up the hill—with the fellow in the yellow coat behind me.”
“What time was this?” asked Mr. Reeder.
“About nine. I was coming to see you, in fact I had made up my mind to. I knew where you lived, but I thought I would go home first and talk to the old man—my father. We have got a jeweller’s shop in the Clerkenwell Road, but he has been ill for nearly a year, and I have been running the business.”
“And you got away?” said Mr. Reeder, hastening the narrative.
“In a sense I did,” said Edelsheim. “I got over the top of the hill. I couldn’t see a policeman anywhere. It is disgraceful the rates we pay and no policemen! My God, it was awful. I didn’t see them for a bit, and thought I had slipped them, and then I saw the lights of the car coming. If I had any sense I would have knocked at the nearest house and gone in, and no policeman, Mr. Reeder!” His voice was thin and hysterical. “That’s what we pay rates and taxes for, and no so-and-so policemen in sight!”
He did not say “so-and-so,” but Mr. Reeder thought his profanity was excusable.
“As I saw the car, I got over the rails of a recreation ground or something. They must have seen me, because the car stopped right opposite the place where I had jumped. I didn’t see the man following, but I sort of felt him. Then I found I was in a cemetery. My God, it was awful dodging in and out the crosses and things! I climbed the wall and got out, and then I did meet a policeman. He thought I was drunk and wanted to take me to the hospital, so I bolted again.”
“Did you see the man in the yellow coat?”
“Not till I got here. It was nearer twelve than eleven. I was just thinking of calling you and of what you would say to me, when I saw them both. They were coming up from the Lewisham High Road, walking together. I dived into your front garden and hid behind the bush. One of them walked up the steps and tried the door. He had a lamp. I nearly died from fright. They were messing about here for an hour.”
“And you were afraid to ring for fear that they saw you?”
“That’s right. I waited until they had gone and I started chucking stones. I have broken two or three windows in this room, too.”
Mr. Reeder poured out another cup of coffee, and from the warming effect of the fire and the hot drink Mr. Benny Edelsheim grew a little more confident.
“Is she here?” he asked. “The dark haired one?”
“She is not here,” said Mr. Reeder severely.
Then suddenly the young man became plaintive again.
“What’s it all about?” he demanded. “I saw your advertisement when I was reading to-night. I did not see how it could be anything to do with that, and yet when I was dodging in and out of the cemetery, the idea came to me that these fellows were after me because of that advertisement and the clasp and everything, and what I said to the young lady. Have I done anything wrong? I am sorry. I do not, as a rule, talk to young ladies without an introduction. I have been brought up as well as any man. If I have offended her relations—you are not her father, are you?”
“I am not a father,” said Mr. Reeder emphatically.
“I didn’t think you were,” said Edelsheim, “because I knew about you. You are a detective. My old man—my father says you are the most wonderful detective of the age. I wanted to come and explain to you that I didn’t mean any harm.”
Mr. Reeder pushed forward the plate of seed cake.
“You, my dear young friend,” he said, “are no more, as it were, than a cog in a wheel of a very complicated machine. I can quite understand how you had embarrassed the employers of those two ferocious men. Now let us get to the really important point—just tell me what you said, why you addressed those young ladies in the restaurant.”
Benny munched the seed cake with an agonized expression; it was obvious he did not like seed cake, but his hunger had compelled him to overcome his scruples.
“I recognized her the moment I saw her. She is in my thoughts night and day, Mr. Reeder. There are some faces that hit you right in the eye, so to speak, that sort of make an impression upon you—she is not married, is she?” he asked anxiously.
“Practically,” said Mr. Reeder.
The young man’s face assumed an expression of acute pain.
“She is engaged,” explained Mr. Reeder, in haste to remove any wrong impression he might have created.
“I shall never see another face like that,” said Benny dismally. “I am romantic, Mr. Reeder, I don’t mind admitting it. I fell in love with her the moment I saw her photograph. She was wearing plus-fours. Cute! You have no idea what I felt like when I saw that picture. I thought here is the woman for me, and I only saw it for half a tick. He opened his pocket book on the counter, the gentleman who called at the shop, and he took out the photograph, because the clasp was in the same compartment, wrapped up in tissue paper, so I had a good look at the picture, and I said to myself——”
“Yes, yes,” said Mr. Reeder with a certain testiness, “Please don’t bother about your emotions at the moment, Mr. Edelsheim. Tell me something about the clasp.”
“The clasp, oh, yes. You want to know about that? It was a very pretty thing, half a buckle of diamonds and emeralds. I know a lot about stones. I was in Hatton Garden for eighteen months. My old man—my father believed in starting me at the bottom of the ladder——”
“Did he want to sell the clasp?”
Benny shook his head.
“No, he wanted it valued. We do a lot of valuation work, and I am supposed to be pretty good at it. We have got a very big business, half a dozen assistants, and we have a branch at Bristol.”
“You valued it?” said Mr. Reeder.
“I valued it at £1,250, but I made a mistake. Even the best of us make mistakes. I remember, once——”
“You have undervalued it by £100?”
“That’s right. I told the young lady so when I met her. I thought she would tell her friend——”
“Her father,” corrected Mr. Reeder.
“Oh, was that her father?” Benny was more interested in the parentage of his ideal than in the sordid question of a diamond and emerald clasp.
“Yes, I undervalued it £100. What he really wanted to know was whether the stones were genuine, and, of course, I could tell him that. I don’t think he would have worried about the wrong valuation, and I should not have spoken about it, but I wanted a sort of introduction to the young lady—you are a man of the world, Mr. Reeder——”
“What time did he come into the shop?”
Benny, his mouth full of seed cake, looked thoughtful.
“About five o’clock in the evening.”
“And when you valued the clasp, what happened?”
“He wrapped it up and took it away with him. I asked him if he wanted to sell it, and he said no.”
“You never saw him again?”
Benny shook his head.
“That was last Wednesday week?”
“Tuesday,” said Benny promptly. “I happen to know that, because I had a date—an engagement to take a certain party to the pictures, and I was anxious to shut up the shop and get away.”
Mr. Reeder jotted down a few notes on his blotting pad.
“Have you ever valued that clasp before?”
Benny Edelsheim looked at him with an open mouth.
“It’s a curious thing that you should ask that, Mr. Reeder. I haven’t, but my father has. I was describing the piece to him, and he said he was certain he had valued the same piece six months ago. Of course, he may have made a mistake, but he has got a marvellous memory.” He enlarged upon the memory of his parent, but Mr. Reeder was not listening.
“Why Clerkenwell,” murmured Mr. Reeder. “Do you advertise?”
“We are the best advertised valuers in London,” said Benny proudly. “That’s our speciality. I can’t tell you how upset the governor was when I made a mistake. It sort of reflected on the firm. Oh, yes, we carry big ads. in all papers. Valuation of jewellery. You must have seen our name.”
Mr. Reeder nodded.
“That accounts for it,” he said.
He looked at the clock. The minute hand pointed to half past two. Picking up the telephone, he called the nearest cab rank and gave his address.
“I am going to take you home,” he said. “You’d better make a bundle of your wet clothes while I dress.”
By the time the cab arrived, Mr. Reeder, feeling very much awake, was ready. He went out first, but there was no need of his caution, less need for the Colt automatic that he held in his pocket.
The journey to Pepys Road was uneventful. He waited until the young man had entered his house, then he drove to the nearest police station and had a consultation with the night officer.
When Benny Edelsheim looked out of his window the next morning he found a uniformed policeman standing stolidly before the house, and felt that for the first time his rates and his taxes were justified.
CHAPTER V
The morning brought a surprise to Mr. Reeder. When he arrived at his office he found Miss Gillette already on duty. That in itself was a notable event. She was entertaining in her room a very early caller in Dr. Ingham, and from the solicitude in her tone it almost seemed that she was mothering him. Miss Gillette was one of those uncomfortable people whose maternal instinct was highly developed.
As Mr. Reeder paused at the half opened door, he heard her speaking.
“I shouldn’t worry about it, Dr. Ingham. Reeder will put a stop to any of that sort of nonsense. He is much cleverer than he looks.”
Her maligned employer passed softly into his room and rang the bell.
“I didn’t hear you come in—you scare the life out of me sometimes,” she complained, and added: “Mr. Ingham is here.”
“Dr. Ingham,” said Mr. Reeder reproachfully. “You are—um—a little careless about—um—prefixes.”
“He’s been attacked—somebody tried to break into his house last night,” said Miss Gillette. “Poor soul, he has a terrible face!”
“Let me see it, please,” said J.G.
The clergyman had evidently passed a strenuous night. The bridge of his handsome nose bore a strip of sticking plaster. One eye, at the moment concealed behind a shade, was blue and swollen, and his lower lip was badly cut.
“I’m afraid I look rather ghastly,” he said, as he shook hands with the detective.
The undamaged portion of his face was white and drawn, and when he said that he had had no sleep that night Mr. Reeder was not surprised.
He had gone back to St. Margaret’s on the previous night, and had driven himself from Dover, arriving at his house at ten o’clock.
“Grayne Hall is built on the site of an old castle,” he said. “There was not enough of the original structure to restore, so I had the walls pulled down and erected a modern residence. Naturally it is very isolated, but there is some very excellent timber, and I have made a good garden. I returned before midnight, but I had hardly got to bed before my wife said that she heard a noise below. I went down, unarmed, of course, for I do not own so much as a shot gun. I had reached the hall and was feeling for the light switch, when somebody struck at me. I had a fearful blow on the face, but I managed to find an old battle axe which hung on the wall—luckily for me. With this I defended myself. My wife, who had heard the fracas in the hall, screamed, and I heard one of my assailants say: ‘Run for it, Kennedy!’ Immediately after, the hall door was thrown open, and I saw two, or it may have been three, people run into the garden and vanish.”
“Dear me,” said Mr. Reeder. “One of them said: ‘Run for it, Kennedy!’ You are sure it was that?”
“I could swear that was the name. Afterwards I remembered, or rather my dear wife remembered, that a man named Kennedy had been a member of the Pizarro gang.”
Mr. Reeder was examining the clergyman’s injuries thoughtfully.
“No weapon was used?”
Dr. Ingham smiled painfully.
“That’s a poor consolation!” he said with some acerbity. “No, I rather think that I was struck by a fist that was holding a weapon. In the darkness this rascal must have struck wildly.”
He had not sent for the police. Apparently he had no exalted opinion about the Kentish constabulary, and he admitted a horror of figuring in newspapers. Mr. Reeder could understand this: he also had a horror of publicity.
“Whether these people were plain burglars who were disturbed at their work, or whether revenge for some fancied injury was at the bottom of their dastardly action, I cannot make up my mind. With Mrs. Ingham the Pizarro case is an obsession. She is, by the way, looking forward with great eagerness to meeting you. Now tell me, Mr. Reeder, what am I to do? I will be guided entirely by your advice. To go to the police now seems to be a fairly useless proceeding. I cannot describe the men—except for a second when they were silhouetted in the open doorway, I never saw them. My butler and my gardener made enquiries this morning, but nobody else seems to have seen them. Not even the coastguard who has a cottage quite close.”
Mr. Reeder sat with half-closed eyes, his large hands folded on his lap.
“It is very odd,” he murmured at last. “Kennedy, Casius Kennedy. A bad—um—egg. He inherited it from his mother, a lady with a very—um—unpleasant history.”
He pursed his under lip, his eyes had drooped a little lower.
“It is odd, extremely odd.”
Dr. Ingham drew a long breath.
“What am I to do?” he demanded.
“Ask for police protection,” said Mr. Reeder. “Have an officer sleeping in the house and another stationed on the grounds. I hope to see you on Saturday.”
He rose with startling abruptness and jerked out his hand.
“Till Saturday,” he said, and Dr. Ingham went out, a very dissatisfied man.
Mr. Reeder was no angel that morning. He was in a mood the like of which Miss Gillette could not remember. She discovered this very soon.
“What did you tell the doctor?” she asked.
“When I want you, I will ring for you, young lady,” he snapped.
She went out, a little dazed by his mutiny. She heard the key turn in his lock and when she got through to him by telephone, he was most unpleasant.
“I think I will go home, Mr. Reeder,” she said.
“I will send you your wages by post,” said he.
She went out of the office, slamming the door behind her, which (apart from the slam) was exactly what he intended she should do.
The door to the corridor he locked in the same fashion before he rang up Inspector Gaylor.
“I want a couple of men,” he said. “I’m nervous, or, shall I say, apprehensive.”
“I wondered when you’d start getting that way,” said Gaylor. “I’m having young Edelsheim shadowed. Thanks for your letter. Is there any other development?”
Mr. Reeder told him of the doctor’s unpleasant adventure.
“Oh!” said Gaylor, and then after a silence, “That will keep.”
“So I thought,” said Mr. Reeder. “Do you mind if I use your name rather freely to-day?”
“So long as you don’t try to borrow money on it!” said Gaylor, who had a painful sense of humour.
Reeder spent a long time after that searching a trade-telephone directory and ringing up various yachting agencies. He had become suddenly interested in pleasure cruisers. He drew blank for the first nine enquiries, but the tenth rewarded him. It was not difficult to secure the answers he wanted, but when he called a sticky and uncommunicative agent he used the name of Gaylor with great freedom and invariably secured the information he required.
The tenth call needed this incentive, but the result was beyond expectations. Mr. Reeder spent a happy hour with his notes and a nautical almanac. By this time the two Scotland Yard men had arrived, and when soon after lunch a district messenger brought a square and heavy parcel, having the label of a west-end bookseller, they were very useful, for one of them had been for a year in the explosives department at Scotland Yard and had a sensitive ear for the faint ticking that came from within the parcel.
“It’s a time bomb, but it may also have a make and break attachment.”
They watched it sink heavily into a pail of water, and when, after half an hour, the Yard man took it out again, the ticking had ceased.
“They’ve been getting ready for this racket for a long time,” said the detective. “That bomb wasn’t made in a hurry——”
The telephone bell rang at that moment and Mr. Reeder answered it.
“Is that you, Reeder?” It was Gaylor’s voice and he was speaking very quickly. “I’m coming round to pick you up. We’ve found Gelpin.”
“Eh?” said Mr. Reeder.
“Dead—shot through the heart. A ranger found his body in Epping Forest. Be ready.”
The telephone clicked, but Mr. Reeder still stood with the receiver in his hand, a terrifying frown on his face.
“Anything wrong, sir?” asked the detective.
J.G. nodded.
“I’m wrong: if I had the brain of a—um—great man, I should have expected this.”
What “this” was he did not elucidate. A few minutes later he was one of a party of five packed in a police tender and was heading for Epping.
It was nearly dark when the car pulled up by the side of a forest by-road. A ranger led them to the spot where the body lay.
It was that of a man above medium height, and more than ordinarily broad of shoulder.
Though George Gelpin was between fifty and sixty, he had been in life a model of a man. He had been rider to hounds, a keen cricketer, something of an athlete.
“Nothing in his pockets—no identification marks of any kind. If we hadn’t got his photograph and his description—they arrived this morning from Birmingham—we should have had the devil’s job in tracing him.”
One of the group they had found standing about the body was a doctor. He supplied certain data which confirmed Mr. Reeder in his opinion. But the chief confirmation came when he examined the outspread hands of the silent figure.
There was no mark of car wheels, and the bushes behind which the man was found showed no evidence of crushing. It might have been an ordinary case of suicide, and the doctor ventured this opinion.
A revolver had been found near the body. He must have been shot with the muzzle almost touching his coat, for it was burnt.
“We haven’t got the number of the revolver, but we are making enquiries about it. I don’t think they are necessary. It will be a day or two before we can trace it. Did you get that gun?”
One of the waiting detectives took it out of his pocket. It was a small six-chambered Colt.
One of the detectives who had been on guard over the body when they arrived offered a piece of information.
“There is an initial scratched on the back plate of the butt,” he said. “F.S.”
He took the weapon from his pocket and passed it across to Gaylor.
“F.S.,” frowned the inspector. “That’s a pretty common initial.”
“Frank Seafield, for example,” said Mr. Reeder, and Gaylor gaped at him.
“Why should it be Seafield? That’s wildly improbable, Reeder.”
However, when they returned to town and Mr. Reeder got into communication with Seafield’s late partner, Gaylor found that the surmise was not so wild. Tommy Anton called at Scotland Yard and saw and identified the weapon.
“That’s Frank’s,” he said immediately. “He always carried a revolver. I used to chaff him about it. He had no reason to, so far as I know, and I rather think that carrying the gun was a bit of swank. He was a little on the theatrical side.”
Joan Ralph had gone back to Bishop’s Stortford. They reached her by telephone. She too had seen the revolver and described it accurately.
“I know Frank carried it, and Daddy used to be very sarcastic about it. Frank used to carry big sums of money about the country, buying second-hand cars, and he said he had to deal with some very tough people. Why do you want to know?”
Mr. Reeder, who had no desire to alarm the young lady, lied gracefully.
“That beats me,” said Gaylor.
Mr. Reeder put down the phone. They were sitting in the inspector’s room at Scotland Yard, where a meal had been brought to them from a neighbouring restaurant.
“It doesn’t beat me, possibly because I am over sanguine,” said Mr. Reeder, “possibly because my peculiar mentality leads me astray.”
“But suppose it is suicide—” began Gaylor, and stopped.
“You were thinking that it is quite usual that a suicide tries to remove all marks of his identification?” said Mr. Reeder. “That is perfectly true. Will you tell me this: why is the suit he was wearing so old and stained and shabby, and why was he wearing slippers?”
“Boots,” Gaylor broke in. “Elastic-sided boots.”
“Slippers,” insisted Mr. Reeder. “And why was there no mud on them? And why was the front of him wet and the back on which he lay almost dry? It rained all last night and he could not have walked through the forest without getting soaked to the skin?”
Gaylor pinched his long upper lip, looked moodily at the remains of his dinner.
“Tennant tells me that they tried to bomb you this afternoon. It’s the Pizarro gang, of course. Kennedy?”
“His very self,” said Mr. Reeder, flippantly and ungrammatically. “And I should not be surprised if almost anything happened. I told my housekeeper to go home to her mother. Most housekeepers have mothers to go home to. I shall stay in town to-night.”
“Where?” asked Gaylor curiously.
“That’s my secret,” said Mr. Reeder gravely.
They went out of the Yard together, when Gaylor had an idea:
“If you want to get out of the way, I should go down to St. Margaret’s Bay. I think you will be safe there.”
“An excellent idea,” said Mr. Reeder. “A very excellent idea, but unfortunately the doctor is still in town.”
He went to his office, accompanied by one of the two detectives who had been appointed to watch over him. The other was still in Miss Gillette’s room—Mr. Reeder suspected that he was asleep, for it was some time before he opened the door to him.
“There is a wire for you,” he said, and handed it to Mr. Reeder. It was from Dr. Ingham. Would he (Mr. Reeder) come down as soon as he could? There had been remarkable developments at Grayne.
The telegram had been despatched from Dover. Mr. Reeder sent his reply over the telephone. He would arrive on the following afternoon at three o’clock. Then, strangely enough, contrary to all his expressed intentions, he went home to his housekeeperless establishment in the Brockley Road and slept alone in his silent home. And more strangely still, he slept most peacefully.
If he had not gone home he would have missed the letter which came by the morning post. It was from Miss Gillette. She was leaving him. Mr. Reeder sighed happily.
“I think I ought to help Mr. Anton,” she wrote. “The Rev. Dr. Ingham has promised to help him start a new business. Dr. Ingham has been most kind and I shall never be sufficiently grateful to you for having been unconsciously instrumental in bringing Mr. Anton into touch with him. He wrote to Tommy before he left London yesterday, suggesting that I might help in creating the new business, and I think you would like to see his postscript so I have torn it off.”
She remained ever his sincerely.
The slip of paper which accompanied the letter was in the doctor’s handwriting.
“P.S. I shall never forgive myself if I have robbed Mr. Reeder of his secretary. He is a man for whom I have the very highest regard.”
“H’m,” said Mr. Reeder, “how very nice… how extraordinarily kind!” He spoke aloud to his coffee machine and his electric toaster, but he was never so loquacious as when he was addressing an inanimate audience.
His housekeeper returned during the morning with the “daily” servants who constituted his household, and she packed his battered suit-case under his personal supervision. Mr. Reeder had one surprising weakness: dress clothes. However antiquated his daily attire might be, his evening suits were cut by the most fashionable of tailors, and he wanted to look his best at Grayne Hall. He went to town before lunch, met Gaylor by appointment at the office, and handed to him the batch of telegrams which had arrived during the morning. Gaylor examined them casually.
“I know all about these,” he said. “Nine of the seventeen English subscribers to Pizarro’s scheme are missing. I can tell you more—with ’em went the best part of eighty thousand pounds. By-the-way, I am offering no further evidence against Jake Alsby. I’ve got him inside for his own safety, but he will be discharged next week.”
Gaylor came to the station to see him off.
“Have a good time. If the Pizarro crowd chase you to Dover, send me a postcard.”
Inspector Gaylor, as has already been stated, had a perverted sense of humour.
Throughout the journey Mr. Reeder read a book which was entitled The Thousand Funniest After-Dinner Stories. He read them all, the whole thousand, and never smiled once.
He had a trick of moving his lips as he read. The military-looking man who sat opposite him had never seen Mr. Reeder at close quarters before and was silently amused. Once he tried to start a conversation, but Mr. Reeder was not a great conversationalist on a railway journey and the attempted affability faded to silence.
At Dover station, Mr. Reeder got out and his companion followed. Three men lounged up to Mr. Reeder’s fellow-passenger, and with a nod he indicated the detective, who was passing through the barrier.
“That’s your man,” he said, “keep close to him.”
The car which was waiting for Mr. Reeder had scarcely left the station yard, when the four entered a closed limousine and followed.
The drive from Dover to St. Margaret’s Bay was not a comfortable one. Heavy gusts of wind-borne rain drove across the downs. Below, as the car mounted the cliff road, he could see breakers creaming the yellow-green waters of the Straits, and out at sea a little coasting tramp was taking water over her bows in alarming quantities.
Grayne Hall was not in the residential area of St. Margaret’s Bay. It stood aloof in a fold of the downs and within a very short distance of the cliff’s edge. A red brick building, with squat chimneys that were not at all in harmony with the Elizabethan architecture of the house.
“We used to have high twisted chimneys, but the wind blew them down. You’ve no idea what the wind is like here,” explained Dr. Ingham before dinner.
The car passed through a pair of ornamental iron gates and up a broad drive to the portico before the door. The doctor was waiting and with him a tall slight woman, who looked very young until she was seen closer at hand. Even then she might deceive any but the most critical, for her brown hair had a glint of gold in it, and the beauty of her face had not entirely faded.
“Welcome!” Dr. Ingham had a bandage over one eye and his injured nose was still covered with plaster. But he was in a pleasantly jovial mood. Perhaps he was relieved at the sight of his visitor, for he subsequently admitted that he had been expecting a wire from Mr. Reeder, regretting his inability to put in an appearance.
“I want you to persuade Mrs. Ingham that this is not the most forsaken spot on the face of the earth, my dear Reeder. And if you can allay her fears about a repetition of the attack upon me I shall be completely grateful.”
Mrs. Ingham’s red lips curled in a smile. She was, Mr. Reeder discovered, a well-read, knowledgeable woman. As she showed him round the lovely grounds (the spring flowers were a joy to the eye) she gave him every opportunity to study her. He himself said little—she gave him no chance, for she never stopped talking. Her voice was low but monotonous. She had definite views on almost every subject. She told him that she was a graduate of a famous New England university—she was obviously proud of this and repeated the information twice. She was pretty, probably nearer forty than thirty. She had deep dark brown eyes, the most delicate of features, and jet black eyebrows which contrasted attractively with the colour of her hair.
“… I remember the Pizarro case—I had just left college and naturally I was thrilled because he came from our home town. And, Mr. Reeder, I’m sure that all these disappearances have something to do with the Pizarro outfit. I have been racking my brains all day trying to think how my husband has offended them. Maybe he preached against them. I’ve a kind of recollection that he had a threatening letter when we were in Boston soon after we married. Not that my husband would worry about threatening letters.…”
There was much to see in the grounds: here and there a crumbling ruin of a wall to remind the observer of the dead glories of Grayne Castle. One interesting feature Mr. Reeder discovered was a flight of steps leading down the face of the cliff. It was guarded by an iron hand rail and gave the occupants of Grayne Hall a private way to the beach.
“If anybody wants to bathe on pebbles,” said Mrs. Ingham.
The room allotted to Mr. Reeder’s use gave him a beautiful view of the sea and the flower garden before the house. It was furnished with rare taste—he saw in the decorations Mrs. Ingham’s hand. A pleasant retreat, but in many, many ways a dangerous one. He went up to his room after tea and found his dress clothes laid out for him by his host’s valet. Later came the individual to assist Mr. Reeder. A bathroom opened from the bedroom and Mr. Reeder was under the shower when the valet knocked. He came out, to find the man folding the discarded day clothes and hanging them neatly in the wardrobe.
The contents of his pockets were placed neatly on the dressing table.
“Thank you,” murmured Mr. Reeder. “I—um—shall not require you any more. I will ring if I do.”
He closed the door on the retiring valet, turned the key and began to dress at his leisure. Mr. Reeder liked the routine of well run country houses and Grayne Hall was extraordinarily well run. He came down to find himself alone in the drawing room. A fine aromatic cedar log burnt on the open grate, above which was a picture which might have been a Rembrandt.
The soft hangings of the room, the austere furnishings, the pastel coloured walls, were very soothing. Dr. Ingham, wearing the evening dress of the laity, came in to rub his hands before the fire.
“I suppose Elsa gave you the full benefit of her theories? There may be something in them. I’ve been trying to think how I might have offended these birds. A sermon maybe. I used to be a powerful preacher—took current events as my text. Come into my study and have a drink. Elsa won’t be down for hours.”
He conducted Mr. Reeder across the panelled hall, through a deeply recessed door into as comfortable a room as the heart of man could desire.
Deep armchairs, a low divan before the fire, walls covered with bookshelves, and a big empire desk were the main features of the room.
“Comfort, comfort, comfort!” said the cleric as he opened a walnut cabinet and took out a silver tray laden with glasses. To these he added a square decanter and a syphon.
“Say when.”
He splashed the soda into the brown whisky and Mr. Reeder sipped daintily.
“Elsa wants me to keep firearms in the house. Now you, as a detective, I suppose would think nothing of that. To me it is an abhorrent practice. I may not be a great preacher, but I am, I hope, a good Christian, and the idea of taking life—ugh!”
Mr. Reeder tried to raise a complimentary shudder, but failed. For his part he believed in taking life. He was old-fashioned enough to regard the gallows as an instrument of the highest social value.
“I presume you carry a gun?”
Mr. Reeder shook his head.
“On occasions that dreadful necessity has been forced upon me,” he said. “I dislike the practice. I have—er—two such weapons, but I have never had to use them. One is at my office and one at my private residence.”
The doctor made a little face.
“You disappoint me, Mr. Reeder. I am not a nervous man, but in view of what happened the other night”—he touched his injured face—“I should have felt a little safer. Hello, sweetness.”
Sweetness wore a perfectly cut gown of deep crimson velvet. Mr. Reeder thought that she looked twenty-four and not a day over, and had he the courage of a lady’s man—a quality he much envied—he would have said as much.
“What were you talking about?” she asked.
“We were talking of guns,” said Mr. Reeder loudly, “um—revolvers.”
She smiled at this.
“And my husband was giving his well-known views on the sanctity of human life,” she said scornfully.
Mr. Reeder smiled.
“Rather I was giving a bit of my mind, my dear madam,” he said.
“My dear,” broke in the host, “all this arose from a question I asked Mr. Reeder: whether he carried weapons. He doesn’t.”
“I expect poor Thomas was terribly disappointed,” said Mrs. Ingham. “When he unpacked your bag he had expected to find it full of pistols and handcuffs.”
She took them back to the drawing room, but either she thought it was a painful subject, or she wanted to postpone the discussion till after dinner, for she made no reference to her husband’s experience.
It was Mr. Reeder who brought up that matter. They were passing through the hall on their way to the dining room—
“Which axe was it you used?” he asked.
The panelled walls were entirely innocent of armour or battle axes.
“We have had them moved,” said Mrs. Ingham. “It occurred to me afterwards that these dreadful people might have used the battle axe instead of my husband.”
They had passed the broad stairs on which the battle between Dr. Ingham and his midnight intruders had been fought, and Mr. Reeder tried to visualize the scene. But there were occasions when his imagination failed, and this was one.
The dining room had been fashioned like an Elizabethan banqueting hall in miniature. There was a big Tudor fireplace, a minstrel gallery, and he noticed with surprise that the floor was of flag-stones.
“That is the original floor of the old castle,” said Mrs. Ingham proudly. “The builders unearthed it whilst they prepared the foundation, and my husband insisted that it should remain. Of course we had it levelled, and in some cases the flags had to be replaced. But it was in a marvellous state of preservation. It used to belong to the De Boisy family——”
Mr. Reeder nodded.
“De Tonsin,” he said gently. “The De Boisys were related by marriage, and only one De Boisy occupied the castle in 1453.”
She was a little taken aback by his knowledge.
“Yes, I have made a study of this place,” Mr. Reeder went on. “I am something of a student of archæology.”
He beamed up and down the room approvingly.
“Dirty work.”
Mrs. Ingham lifted her eyebrows.
“I don’t quite get you?”
“On this floor,” said Mr. Reeder almost jovially, “wicked old barons were slicing off their enemies’ heads and were dropping them into the deepest dungeon beneath the—um.” No, he had never heard of a moat. It could not well be that, could it?
As the footman placed a cup of soup before him, and the tall butler poured him out a glass of wine, Mr. Reeder looked at the glass, held it up to the light.
“That’s good stuff. I can quite imagine,” he said reminiscently, “that dramatic scene when Geoffrey De Boisy induced his old rival to come to dinner. How he must have smiled as his varlets ended—um—the unfortunate gentleman with wine from a poisoned flagon.”
He finished the scrutiny of the wine and put it down untasted.
Mrs. Ingham was amused.
“You have a mediæval mind, Mr. Reeder.”
“A criminal mind,” said that gentleman.
He did not drink throughout the meal, and Dr. Ingham remembered that he had merely sipped his whisky in the study.
“Yes, I am a teetotaller in a sense,” said Mr. Reeder, “but I find life so completely exciting that I require no other stimulant.”
He had observed that the man who had valeted him was also the footman.
He waited till the two servants were at the other end of the room, and then:
“Your man is looking rather ill. Has he also been injured in the fight?”
“Thomas? No, he did not appear on the scene until it was all over,” said Dr. Ingham, in surprise. “Why?”
“I thought I saw a bandage round his throat.”
“I haven’t noticed it,” said the host.
The conversation flagged. The coffee was served on the table, and Mr. Reeder helped himself liberally to sugar. He refused a cigar, and, apologizing for his bad manners, took one of his own cigarettes.
“Matches, Thomas,” said Dr. Ingham, but before the footman could obey, Mr. Reeder had taken a box from his pocket and struck a match.
It was no ordinary match: the light of it blazed blindingly white so that he had to screw up his eyes to avoid the glare. Only for a moment, then it died down, leaving the party blinking.
“What was that?” asked Ingham.
Mr. Reeder stared hopelessly at the box.
“Somebody has been playing a joke on me,” he said. “I am terribly sorry.”
They were very ordinary looking matches. He passed the box across to his host, who struck one, but produced nothing more startling than a mild yellow flame.
“I have never seen anything so extraordinary,” said the beautiful lady who sat on his left. “It was almost like a magnesium flare. We see them sometimes when ships are in distress.”
The incident of the match passed. It was the doctor who led the conversation to the Pizarros and Mrs. Ingham who elaborated her theory. J.G. Reeder sat listening, apparently absorbed.
“I don’t think he was a really bad man,” Mrs. Ingham was saying when he interrupted.
“Pizarro was a blackguard,” said Mr. Reeder. “But he had the kind of nature one would have expected in a half-bred Dago.”
If he saw Mrs. Ingham stiffen, he gave no sign.
“Kennedy, his confederate,” he went on, “was, as I said this afternoon, a man to be pitied. His mother was a moral leper, a woman of no worth, the merest chattel.”
Dr. Ingham’s face had gone white and tense, his eyes glowed like red coals, but J.G. Reeder, sitting there with his hands thrust into his trouser pockets, his cigarette hanging limply from his lower lip, continued as though he had the fullest approval of the company.
“Kennedy was really the brain of the gang, if you can call it a brain, the confidence man with some sort of college education. He married Pizarro’s daughter, who was not a nice young lady. He was, I think, her fourth lover before he married her—if they were married at all…”
“Take that back, you damned liar!”
The woman was on her feet, glowering down at him, her shrill voice almost a scream.
“You liar, you beast!”
“Shut up!”
It was Dr. Ingham’s voice—harsh, commanding. But the injunction came too late. One of Mr. Reeder’s hands had come out from his pocket and it held an automatic of heavy calibre. He came to his feet so quickly that they were unprepared for the manœuvre.
Mr. Reeder pushed the chair behind, and leant back against the wall. Thomas, the footman, had come in running, but stopped now at the sight of the pistol. Mr. Reeder addressed him: “I’m afraid I hurt you Thursday night,” he said, pleasantly. “A pellet from an air pistol can be very painful. I owe you an apology—I intended it to be for your friend.”
He nodded towards the butler.
“It was very stupid of you, Dr. Ingham, to allow your two men to come to London, and it led to very unpleasant consequences. I saw the dead man to-day. Rather a powerful looking fellow named Gelpin. The knuckles of his hand were bruised. I presume that, in an unguarded moment, you went too near to him without your body-guard.”
He reached one of the long windows, and with a quick movement of his hand he drew the curtain aside. The window was open. The military looking man who had accompanied him from London climbed through. Then followed the three who had followed Mr. Reeder to the house. Dr. Ingham stood paralysed to inaction.
Suddenly he turned and darted towards the small door in a corner of the room. Mr. Reeder’s pistol exploded and the panel of the door split noisily. Ingham stood stock still—a pitiable, panic-stricken thing, and he came staggering back.
“It wasn’t my idea, Reeder,” he said. “I will tell you everything. I can prove I had nothing to do with it. They are all safe, all of them.”
Stooping, almost beneath his feet he turned back the heavy carpet, and Reeder saw a large stone flag in which was inserted a heavy metal ring.
“They are all alive… every one of them. I shot Gelpin in self defence. He would have killed me if I hadn’t killed him.”
“And Litnoff?” asked Mr. Reeder, almost good humouredly.