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 specialty. 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.
“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 these 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 effort of 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 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 to 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 careful 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 morning, 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 and 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 clink 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 focussed 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 X
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 his 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 door-post, 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. “It will 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 to-night 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 XI
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 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 to-night, 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 peaked, 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 now 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 Crewe 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 fill 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 resealed 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 table 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 fortunate 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 downs 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 yourself 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 were 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 Simpson 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 at 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 non-committal 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 that 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 inquiry 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 dactyscope. 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 closed landau 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 to-night,” said Mr. Reeder. “I will join you in the morning—I hope.”