The Project Gutenberg eBook of Terror keep
Title: Terror keep
Author: Edgar Wallace
Release date: April 24, 2025 [eBook #75949]
Language: English
Original publication: London: Hodder and Stoughton Limited, 1927
Credits: an anonymous Project Gutenberg volunteer
TERROR KEEP
BY
EDGAR WALLACE
HODDER AND STOUGHTON
LIMITED LONDON
[DEDICATION]
TO
LESLIE FABER
(“The Ringer”)
CONTENTS
TERROR KEEP
FOREWARD
Rightly speaking, it is improper, not to say illegal, for those sadly privileged few who go in and out of Broadmoor Criminal Asylum, to have pointed out to them any particular character, however notorious he may have been or to what heights of public interest his infamy had carried him, before the testifying doctors and a merciful jury consigned him to this place without hope. But often had John Flack been pointed out as he shuffled about the grounds, his hands behind him, his chin on his breast, a tall, lean old man in an ill-fitting suit of drab clothing, who spoke to nobody and was spoken to by few.
“That is Flack—the Flack; the cleverest crook in the world… Crazy John Flack… nine murders…”
Men who were in Broadmoor for isolated homicides were rather proud of Old John in their queer, sane moments. The officers who locked him up at night and watched him as he slept had little to say against him, because he gave no trouble, and through all the six years of his incarceration had never once been seized of those frenzies which so often end in the hospital for some poor innocent devil, and a rubber-padded cell for the frantic author of misfortune.
He spent most of his time writing and reading, for he was something of a genius with his pen, and wrote with extraordinary rapidity. He filled hundreds of little exercise books with his great treatise on crime. The Governor humoured him; allowed him to retain the books, expecting in due course to add them to his already interesting museum.
Once, as a great concession, old Jack gave him a book to read, and the Governor read and gasped. It was entitled “Method of robbing a bank vault when only two guards are employed.” The Governor, who had been a soldier, read and read, stopping now and then to rub his head; for this document, written in the neat, legible hand of John Flack, was curiously reminiscent of a divisional order for attack. No detail was too small to be noted; every contingency was provided for. Not only were the constituents of the drug to be employed to “settle the outer watchman” given, but there was an explanatory note which may be quoted:
“If this drug is not procurable, I advise that the operator should call upon a suburban doctor and describe the following symptoms… The doctor will then prescribe the drug in a minute quantity. Six bottles of this medicine should be procured, and the following method adopted to extract the drug…”
“Have you written much like this, Flack?” asked the wondering officer.
“This?” John Flack shrugged his lean shoulders. “I am doing this for amusement, just to test my memory. I have already written sixty-three books on the subject, and those works are beyond improvement. During the six years I have been here, I have not been able to think of a single improvement to my old system.”
Was he jesting? Was this a flight of a disordered mind? The Governor, used as he was to his charges and their peculiar ways, was not certain.
“You mean you have written an encyclopaedia of crime?” he asked incredulously. “Where is it to be found?”
Old Flack’s thin lips curled in a disdainful smile, but he made no answer.
Sixty-three hand-written volumes represented the life work of John Flack. It was the one achievement upon which he prided himself.
On another occasion when the Governor referred to his extraordinary literary labours, he said:
“I have put a huge fortune in the hands of any clever man—providing, of course,” he mused, “that he is a man of resolution and the books fall into his hands at a very early date—in these days of scientific discovery, what is a novelty to-day is a commonplace to-morrow.”
The Governor had his doubts as to the existence of these deplorable volumes, but very soon after the conversation took place he had to revise his judgment. Scotland Yard, which seldom if ever chases chimerae, sent down one Chief-Inspector Simpson, who was a man entirely without imagination and had been promoted for it. His interview with Crazy John Flack was a brief one.
“About these books of yours, Jack,” he said. “It would be terrible if they fell into wrong hands. Ravini says you’ve got a hundred volumes hidden somewhere——”
“Ravini?” Old John Flack showed his teeth. “Listen, Simpson! You don’t think you’re going to keep me in this awful place all my life, do you? If you do, you’ve got another guess coming. I’ll skip one of these odd nights—you can tell the Governor if you like—and then Ravini and I are going to have a little talk.”
His voice grew high and shrill. The old mad glitter that Simpson had seen before came back to his eyes.
“Do you ever have day-dreams, Simpson? I have three! I’ve got a new method of getting away with a million: that’s one, but it’s not important. Another one is Reeder: you can tell J. G. what I say. It’s a dream of meeting him alone one nice, dark, foggy night, when the police can’t tell which way the screams are coming. And the third is Ravini. George Ravini’s got one chance, and that is for him to die before I get out!”
“You’re mad,” said Simpson.
“That’s what I’m here for,” said John Flack truthfully.
This conversation with Simpson and that with the Governor were two of the longest he ever had, all the six years he was in Broadmoor. Mostly when he wasn’t writing he strolled about the grounds, his chin on his chest, his hands clasped behind him. Occasionally he reached a certain place near the high wall, and it is said that he threw letters over, though this is very unlikely. What is more possible is that he found a messenger who carried his many and cryptic letters to the outer world and brought in exchange monosyllabic replies. He was a very good friend of the officer in charge of his ward, and one early morning this man was discovered with his throat cut. The ward door was open, and John Flack had gone out into the world to realise his day-dreams.
CHAPTER I
There were two subjects which irritated the mind of Margaret Belman as the Southern Express carried her towards Selford Junction and the branch-line train which crawled from the junction to Siltbury. The first of these was, not unnaturally, the drastic changes she now contemplated, and the effect they already had had upon Mr. J. G. Reeder, that mild and middle-aged man.
When she had announced that she was seeking a post in the country, he might at least have shown some evidence of regret: a certain glumness would have been appropriate at any rate. Instead he had brightened visibly at the prospect.
“I am afraid I shan’t be able to come to London very often,” she had said.
“That is good news,” said Mr. Reeder, and added some banality about the value of periodical changes of air and the beauty of getting near to nature. In fact, he had been more cheerful than he had been for a week, which was rather exasperating.
Margaret Belman’s pretty face puckered as she recalled her disappointment and chagrin. All thoughts of dropping this application of hers disappeared. Not that she imagined for one moment that a six-hundred-a-year secretaryship was going to fall into her lap for the mere asking. She was wholly unsuited for the job, she had no experience of hotel work, and the chances of her being accepted were remote.
As to the Italian man who had made so many attempts to make her acquaintance, he was one of the unpleasant commonplaces so familiar to a girl who worked for her living that in ordinary circumstances she would not have given him a second thought.
But that morning he had followed her to the station, and she was certain that he had heard her tell the girl who came with her that she was returning by the 6.15. A policeman would deal effectively with him—if she cared to risk the publicity. But a girl, however sane, shrinks from such an ordeal, and she must deal with him in her own way.
That was not a happy prospect, and the two matters in combination were sufficient to spoil what otherwise might have been a very happy or interesting afternoon. As to Mr. Reeder…
Margaret Belman frowned. She was twenty-three, an age when youngish men are rather tiresome. On the other hand, men in the region of fifty are not especially attractive; and she loathed Mr. Reeder’s side-whiskers, that made him look rather like a Scottish butler. Of course, he was a dear.…
Here the train reached the junction. She found herself at the surprisingly small station of Siltbury before she had quite made up her mind whether she was in love with Mr. Reeder or merely annoyed with him.
The driver of the station cab stopped his unhappy-looking horse before the small gateway and pointed with his whip.
“This is the best way in for you, miss,” he said. “Mr. Daver’s office is at the end of the path.”
He was a shrewd old man, who had driven many applicants for the post of secretary to Larmes Keep, and he guessed that this, the prettiest of all, did not come as a guest. In the first place, she brought no baggage, and then too the ticket-collector had come running after her to hand back the return half of the railway ticket which she had absent-mindedly surrendered.
“I’d better wait for you, miss…?”
“Oh, yes, please,” said Margaret Belman hastily as she got down from the dilapidated victoria.
“You got an appointment?”
The cabman was a local character, and local characters assume privileges.
“I ast you,” he explained carefully, “because lots of young wimmin have come up to Larmes without appointments and Mr. Daver wouldn’t see ’em. They just cut out the advertisement and come along, but the ad. says write. I suppose I’ve made a dozen journeys with young wimmin who ain’t got appointments. I’m telling you for your own good.”
The girl smiled.
“You might have warned them before they left the station,” she said good-humouredly, “and saved them the cab fare. Yes, I have an appointment.”
From where she stood by the gate she had a clear view of Larmes Keep. It bore no resemblance to an hotel and less to the superior boarding-house that she knew it to be. That part of the house which had been the original Keep was easily distinguished, though the grey, straight walls were masked with ivy that covered also part of the buildings which had been added in the course of the years.
She looked across a smooth green lawn, on which were set a few wicker chairs and tables, to a rose garden which, even in late autumn, was a blaze of colour. Behind this was a belt of pine trees that seemed to run to the cliff’s edge. She had a glimpse of a grey-blue sea and a blur of dim smoke from a steamer invisible below the straight horizon. A gentle wind carried the fragrance of the pines to her, and she sniffed ecstatically.
“Isn’t it gorgeous?” she breathed.
The cabman said it “wasn’t bad,” and pointed with his whip again.
“It’s that little square place—only built a few years ago. Mr. Daver is more of a writing gentleman than a boarding-house gentleman.”
She unlatched the oaken gate and walked up the stone path towards the sanctum of the writing gentleman. On either side of the crazy pavement was a deep border of flowers—she might have been passing through a cottage garden.
There was a long window and a small green door to the annexe. Evidently she had been seen, for, as her hand went up to the brass bell-push, the door opened.
It was obviously Mr. Daver himself. A tall, thin man of fifty, with a yellow, elf-like face and a smile that brought all her sense of humour into play. Very badly she wanted to laugh. The long upper lip overhung the lower, and except that the face was thin and lined, he had the appearance of some grotesque and foolish mascot. The staring, round, brown eyes, the puckered forehead, and a twist of hair that stood upright on the crown of his head, made him more brownie-like than ever.
“Miss Belman?” he asked, with a certain eagerness.
He lisped slightly, and had a trick of clasping his hands as if he were in an agony of apprehension lest his manner should displease.
“Come into my den,” he said, and gave such emphasis to the last word that she nearly laughed again.
The “den” was a very comfortably furnished study, one wall of which was covered with books. Closing the door behind her, he pushed up a chair with a little nervous laugh.
“I’m so very glad you came. Did you have a comfortable journey? I’m sure you did. And is London hot and stuffy? I’m afraid it is. Would you like a cup of tea? Of course you would.”
He fired question and answer so rapidly that she had no chance of replying, and he had taken up a telephone and ordered the tea before she could express a wish on the subject.
“You are young—very young,”—he shook his head sadly. “Twenty-four—no? Do you use the typewriter? What a ridiculous question to ask!”
“It is very kind of you to see me, Mr. Daver,” she said, “and I don’t suppose for one moment that I shall suit you. I have had no experience of hotel management, and I realise, from the salary you offer——”
“Quiet,” said Mr. Daver, shaking his head solemnly: “that is what I require. There is very little work, but I wished to be relieved even of that little. My own labours”—he waved his hand to a pedestal desk littered with papers—“are colossal. I need a lady to keep accounts—to watch my interests. Somebody I can trust. I believe in faces, do you? I see that you do. And in the character of handwriting? You believe in that also. I have advertised for three months and have interviewed thirty-five applicants. Impossible! Their voices—terrible! I judge people by their voices—so do you. On Monday when you telephoned I said to myself, ‘The Voice!’ ”
He was clasping his hands together so tightly that his knuckles showed white, and this time her laughter was almost beyond arrest.
“But, Mr. Daver, I know nothing of hotel management. I think I could learn, and I want the position, naturally. The salary is terribly generous.”
“ ‘Terribly generous,’ ” repeated the man in a murmur. “How curious those words sound in juxtaposition! My housekeeper. How kind of you to bring the tea, Mrs. Burton!”
The door had opened and a woman bearing a silver tray came in. She was dressed very neatly in black. The faded eyes scarcely looked at Margaret as she stood meekly waiting whilst Mr. Daver spoke.
“Mrs. Burton, this is the new secretary to the company. She must have the best room in the Keep—the Blue Room. But—ah!”—he pinched his lip anxiously—“blue may not be your colour?”
Margaret laughed.
“Any colour is my colour,” she said. “But I haven’t decided——”
“Go with Mrs. Burton; see the house—your office, your room. Mrs. Burton!”
He pointed to the door, and before the girl knew what she was doing she had followed the housekeeper through the door. A narrow passage connected the private office of Mr. Daver with the house, and Margaret was ushered into a large and lofty room which covered the superficial area of the Keep.
“The Banquittin’ ’All,” said Mrs. Burton in a thin, Cockney voice remarkable for its monotony. “It’s used as a lounge. We’ve only got three boarders. Mr. Daver’s very partic’lar. We get a lot in for the winter.”
“Three boarders isn’t a very paying proposition,” said the girl.
Mrs. Burton sniffed.
“Mr. Daver don’t want it to pay. It’s the company he likes. He only turned it into a boardin’ house because he likes to see people come and go without having to talk to ’em. It’s a nobby.”
“A what?” asked the puzzled girl. “Oh, you mean a hobby?”
“I said a nobby,” said Mrs. Burton, in her listless, uncomplaining way.
Beyond the hall was a small and cosier sitting-room with French windows opening on to the lawn. Outside the window three people sat at tea. One was an elderly clergyman with a strong, hard face. He was eating toast and reading a church paper, oblivious of his companion. The second of the party was a pale-faced girl about Margaret’s own age. In spite of her pallor she was extraordinarily beautiful. A pair of big, dark eyes surveyed the visitor for a moment and then returned to her companion, a military-looking man of forty.
Mrs. Burton waited until they were ascending the broad stairway to the upper floor before she “introduced” them.
“The clergyman’s a Reverend Dean from South Africa, the young lady’s Miss Olga Crewe, the other gent is Colonel Hothling—they’re boarders. This is your room, miss.”
It was indeed a gem of an apartment; the sort of room that Margaret Belman had dreamt about. It was exquisitely furnished, and, like all the other rooms at Larmes Keep (as she discovered later), was provided with its private bathroom. The walls were panelled to half their height, the ceilings heavily beamed. She guessed that beneath the parquet underneath was the original stone-flagged floor.
Margaret looked and sighed. It was going to be very hard to refuse this post—and why she should think of refusing at all she could not for the life of her understand.
“It’s a beautiful room,” she said, and Mrs. Burton cast an apathetic eye round the apartment.
“It’s old,” she said. “I don’t like old houses. I used to live in Brixton——”
She stopped abruptly, sniffed in a deprecating way, and jingled the keys that she carried in her hand.
“You’re suited, I suppose?”
“Suited? You mean am I taking the appointment? I don’t know yet.”
Mrs. Burton looked round vaguely. The girl had the impression that she was trying to say something in praise of the place—something that would prejudice her in favour of accepting the appointment. Then she spoke.
“The food’s good,” she said, and Margaret smiled.
When she came back through the hall she saw the three people she had seen at tea. The colonel was walking by himself; the clergyman and the pale-faced girl were strolling across the lawn talking to one another. Mr. Daver was sitting at his desk, his high forehead resting on his palm, and he was biting the end of a pen as Mrs. Burton closed the door on them.
“You like the room: naturally. You will start—when? Next Monday week, I think. What a relief! You have seen Mrs. Burton.” He wagged a finger at her roguishly. “Ah! Now you know! It is impossible! Can I leave her to meet the duchess and speed the duke? Can I trust her to adjust the little quarrels that naturally arise between guests? You are right—I can’t. I must have a lady here—I must, I must!”
He nodded emphatically, his impish brown eyes fixed on hers, the bulging upper lip grotesquely curved in a delighted grin.
“My work suffers, as you say: constantly to be brought from my studies to settle such matters as the fixing of a tennis net—intolerable!”
“You write a great deal?” she managed to ask. She felt she must postpone her decision to the last possible moment.
“A great deal. On crime. Ah, you are interested? I am preparing an encyclopaedia of crime!” He said this impressively, dramatically.
“On crime?”
He nodded.
“It is one of my hobbies. I am a rich man and can afford hobbies. This place is a hobby. I lose four thousand a year, but I am satisfied. I pick and choose my own guests. If one bores me I tell him to go—that his room has been taken. Could I do that if they were my friends? No. They interest me. They fill the house; they give me company and amusement. When will you come?”
She hesitated.
“I think——”
“Monday week? Excellent!” He shook her hand vigorously. “You need not be lonely. If my guests bore you, invite your own friends. Let them come as the guests of the house. Until Monday!”
She was walking down the garden path to the waiting cabman, a little dazed, more than a little undecided.
“Did you get the place, miss?” asked the friendly cabman.
“I suppose I did,” replied Margaret.
She looked back towards Larmes Keep. The lawns were empty, but near at hand she had one glimpse of a woman. Only for a second, and then she disappeared in a belt of laurel that ran parallel with the boundary wall of the property. Evidently there was a rough path through the bushes, and Mrs. Burton had sought this hiding-place. Her hands covered her face as she staggered forward blindly, and the faint sound of her sobs came back to the astonished girl.
“That’s the housekeeper—she’s a bit mad,” said the cabman calmly.
CHAPTER II
George Ravini was not an unpleasant-looking man. From his own point of view, which was naturally prejudiced, he was extremely attractive, with his crisp brown hair, his handsome Neapolitan features, his height, and his poise. And when to his natural advantages were added the best suit that Savile Row could create, the most spotless of grey hats, and the malacca sword-stick on which one kid-gloved hand rested as upon the hilt of a foil, the shiniest of enamelled shoes and the finest of grey silk socks, the picture was well framed and embellished. Greatest embellishment of all were George Ravini’s Luck Rings. He was a superstitious man and was addicted to charms. On the little finger of his right hand were three gold rings, and in each ring three large diamonds. The Luck Stones of Ravini were one of the traditions of Saffron Hill.
Most of the time he had the half-amused, half-bored smile of a man for whom life held no mysteries and could offer, in experience, little that was new. And the smile was justified, for George knew most of the things that were happening in London or likely to happen. He had worked outward from a one-room home in Saffron Hill, where he first saw the light, had enlarged the narrow horizons which surrounded his childhood, so that now, in place of the poverty-stricken child who had shared a bed with his father’s performing monkey, he was not only the possessor of a classy flat in Half Moon Street but the owner of the block in which it was situate. His balance at the Continental Bank was a generous one; he had securities which brought him an income beyond his needs, and a larger revenue from the two night clubs and spieling houses which were in his control, to say nothing of the perquisites which came his way from a score of other sources. The word of Ravini was law from Leyton to Clerkenwell, his fiats were obeyed within a mile radius of Fitzroy Square, and no other gang leader in London might raise his head without George’s permission save at the risk of waking in the casualty ward of the Middlesex Hospital entirely surrounded by bandages.
He waited patiently on the broad space of Waterloo Station, occasionally consulting his gold wrist-watch, and surveyed with a benevolent and proprietorial eye the stream of life that flowed from the barriers.
The station clock showed a quarter after six: he glanced at his watch and scanned the crowd that was debouching from No. 7 platform. After a few minutes’ scrutiny he saw the girl, and with a pat to his cravat and a touch to the brim of his hat which set it tilting, he strolled to meet her.
Margaret Belman was too intent with her own thoughts to be thinking about the debonair and youngish man who had so often sought an introduction by the conventional method of pretending they had met before. Indeed, in the excitement of her visit to Larmes Keep, she had forgotten that this pestiferous gallant existed or was likely to be waiting for her on her return from the country.
George Ravini stopped and waited for her approach, smiling his approval. He liked slim girls of her colouring: girls who dressed rather severely and wore rather nice stockings and plain little hats. He raised his hat; the Luck Stones glittered beautifully.
“Oh!” said Margaret Belman, and stopped too.
“Good evening, Miss Belman,” said George, flashing his white teeth. “Quite a coincidence meeting you again.”
As she went to walk past him he fell in by her side.
“I wish I had my car here, I might have driven you home,” he said conversationally. “I’ve got a new 20 Rolls—rather a neat little machine. I don’t use it a great deal—I like to walk from Half Moon Street.”
“Are you walking to Half Moon Street now?” she asked quietly.
But George was a man of experience.
“Your way is my way,” he said.
She stopped.
“What is your name?” she asked.
“Smith—Anderton Smith,” he answered readily. “Why do you want to know?”
“I want to tell the next policeman we meet,” she said, and Mr. Ravini, not unaccustomed to such threats, was amused.
“Don’t be a silly little girl,” he said. “I’m doing no harm, and you don’t want to get your name in the newspapers. Besides, I should merely say that you asked me to walk with you and that we were old friends.”
She looked at him steadily.
“I may meet a friend very soon who will need a lot of convincing,” she said. “Will you please go away?”
George was pleased to stay, as he explained.
“What a foolish young lady you are!” he began. “I’m merely offering you the common courtesies——”
A hand gripped his arm and slowly pulled him round—and this in broad daylight on Waterloo Station, under the eyes of at least two of his own tribe. Mr. Ravini’s dark eyes snapped dangerously.
And yet seemingly his assailant was a most inoffensive man. He was tall and rather melancholy-looking. He wore a frock coat buttoned tightly across his breast, and a high, flat-crowned, hard felt hat. On his biggish nose a pair of steel-rimmed pince-nez were set at an awkward angle. A slither of sandy side-whiskers decorated his cheek, and hooked to his arm was a lightly furled umbrella. Not that George examined these details with any care: they were rather familiar to him, for he knew Mr. J. G. Reeder, Detective to the Public Prosecutor’s Office, and the fight went out of his eyes.
“Why, Mr. Reeder!” he said, with a geniality that almost sounded sincere. “This is a pleasant surprise. Meet my young lady friend, Miss Belman—I was just taking her along——”
“Not to the Flotsam Club for a cup of tea?” murmured Mr. Reeder in a tone of pain. “Not to Harraby’s Restaurant? Don’t tell me that, Georgio! Dear me! How interesting either experience would be!”
He beamed upon the scowling Italian.
“At the Flotsam,” he went on, “you would have been able to show the young lady where your friends caught young Lord Fallon for three thousand pounds only the night before last—so they tell me. At Harraby’s you might have shown her that interesting little room where the police come in by the back way whenever you consider it expedient to betray one of your friends. She has missed a treat!”
George Ravini’s smile did not harmonise with his sudden pallor.
“Now listen, Mr. Reeder——”
“I’m sorry I can’t, Georgio.” Mr. Reeder shook his head mournfully. “My time is precious. Yet, I will spare you one minute to tell you that Miss Belman is a very particular friend of mine. If her experience of to-day is repeated, who knows what might happen, for I am, as you probably know, a malicious man.” He eyed the Italian thoughtfully. “Is it malice, I wonder, which inhibits a most interesting revelation which I have on the tip of my tongue? I wonder. The human mind, Mr. Ravini, is a curious and complex thing. Well, well, I must be getting along. Give my regards to your criminal associates, and if you find yourself shadowed by a gentleman from Scotland Yard, bear him no resentment. He is doing his duty. And do not lose sight of my—um—warning about this lady.”
“I have said nothing to this young lady that a gentleman shouldn’t.”
Mr. Reeder peered at Ravini.
“If you have,” he said, “you may expect to see me some time this evening—and I shall not come alone. In fact,”—this in a most confidential tone—“I shall bring sufficient strong men with me to take from you the keys of your box in the Fetter Lane Safe Deposit.”
That was all he said, and Ravini reeled under the threat. Before he had quite recovered, Mr. J. G. Reeder and his charge had disappeared into the throng.
CHAPTER III
“An interesting man,” said Mr. Reeder, as the cab crossed Westminster Bridge. “He is in fact the most interesting man I know at this particular moment. It was fate that I should walk into him as I did. But I wish he wouldn’t wear diamond rings!”
He stole a sidelong glance at his companion.
“Well, did you—um—like the place?”
“It is very beautiful,” she said, without enthusiasm, “but it is rather far away from London.”
His face fell.
“Have you declined the post?” he asked anxiously.
She half turned in the seat and looked at him.
“Mr. Reeder, I honestly believe you wish to see the back of me!”
To her surprise Mr. Reeder went very red.
“Why—um—of course I do—I don’t, I mean. But it seems a very good position, even as a temporary position.” He blinked at her. “I shall miss you, I really shall miss you, Miss—um—Margaret. We have become such”—here he swallowed something—“good friends, but the—a certain business is on my mind—I mean, I am rather perturbed.”
He looked from one window to the other as though he suspected an eavesdropper riding on the step of the cab, and then, lowering his voice:
“I have never discussed with you, my dear Miss—um—Margaret, the rather unpleasant details of my trade; but there is, or was, a gentleman named Flack—F-l-a-c-k,” he spelt it. “You remember?” he asked anxiously, and when she shook her head: “I hoped that you would. One reads about these things in the public press. But five years ago you would have been a child——”
“You’re very flattering,” she smiled. “I was in fact a grown-up young lady of eighteen.”
“Were you really?” asked Mr. Reeder in a hushed voice. “You surprise me! Well… Mr. Flack was the kind of person one so frequently reads about in the pages of the sensational novelist—who has not too keen a regard for the probabilities and facts of life. A master criminal, the organiser of—um—a confederation, or, as vulgar people would call it, gang.”
He sighed and closed his eyes, and she thought for one moment he was praying for the iniquitous criminal.
“A brilliant criminal—it is a terrible thing to confess, but I have had a reluctant admiration for him. You see, as I have so often explained to you, I am cursed with a criminal mind. But he was mad.”
“All criminals are mad: you have explained that so often,” she said, a little tartly, for she was not anxious that the conversation should drift from her immediate affairs.
“But he was really mad,” said Mr. Reeder with great earnestness, and tapped his forehead deliberately. “His very madness was his salvation. He did daring things, but with the cunning of a madman. He shot down two policemen in cold blood—he did this at midday in a crowded City street and got away. We caught him at last, of course. People like that are always caught in this country. I—um—assisted. In fact, I—well, I assisted! That is why I am thinking of our friend Georgio; for it was Mr. Ravini who betrayed him to us for two thousand pounds. I negotiated the deal, Mr. Ravini being a criminal…”
She stared at him open-mouthed.
“That Italian man? You don’t mean that?”
Mr. Reeder nodded.
“Mr. Ravini had dealings with the Flack gang, and by chance learnt of Old John’s whereabouts. We took old John Flack in his sleep.” Mr. Reeder sighed again. “He said some very bitter things about me. People, when they are arrested, frequently exaggerate the shortcomings of their—er—captors.”
“Was he tried?” she asked.
“He was tried,” said Mr. Reeder, “on a charge of murder. But of course he was mad. ‘Guilty but insane’ was the verdict, and he was sent to Broadmoor Criminal Lunatic Asylum.”
He searched feebly in his pockets, produced a very limp packet of cigarettes, extracted one and asked permission to smoke. She watched the damp squib of a thing drooping pathetically from his lower lip. His eyes were staring sombrely through the window at the green of the park through which they were passing, and he seemed entirely absorbed in his contemplation of nature.
“But what has that to do with my going into the country?”
Mr. Reeder brought his eyes round to survey her.
“Mr. Flack was a very vindictive man,” he said. “A very brilliant man—I hate confessing this. And he has—um—a particular grudge against me, and being what he is, it would not be long before he discovered that I—er—I—am rather attached to you, Miss—Margaret.”
A light dawned on her, and her whole attitude towards him changed as she gripped his arm.
“You mean, you want me out of London in case something happens? But what could happen? He’s in Broadmoor, isn’t he?”
Mr. Reeder scratched his chin and looked up at the roof of the cab.
“He escaped a week ago—hum! He is, I think, in London at this moment.”
Margaret Belman gasped.
“Does this Italian—this Ravini man—know?”
“He does not know,” said Mr. Reeder carefully, “but I think he will learn—yes, I think he will learn.”
A week later, after Margaret Belman had gone, with some misgivings, to take up her new appointment, all Mr. Reeder’s doubts as to the location of John Flack were dissipated.
* * * * *
There was some slight disagreement between Margaret Belman and Mr. Reeder, and it happened at lunch on the day she left London. It started in fun—not that Mr. Reeder was ever kittenish—by a certain suggestion she made. Mr. Reeder demurred. How she ever summoned the courage to tell him he was old-fashioned, Margaret never knew—but she did.
“Of course, you could shave them off,” she said scornfully. “It would make you look ten years younger.”
“I don’t think, my dear—Miss—um—Margaret, that I wish to look ten years younger,” said Mr. Reeder.
A certain tenseness followed, and she went down to Siltbury feeling a little uncomfortable. Yet her heart warmed to him as she realised that his anxiety to get her out of London was dictated by a desire for her own safety. It was not until she was nearing her destination that she realised that he himself was in no ordinary danger. She must write and tell him she was sorry. She wondered who the Flacks were; the name was familiar to her, though in the days of their activity she gave little or no attention to people of their kind.
Mr. Daver, looking more impish than ever, gave her a brief interview on her arrival. It was he who took her to her bureau and very briefly explained her duties. They were neither heavy nor complicated, and she was relieved to discover that she had practically nothing whatever to do with the management of Larmes Keep. That was in the efficient hands of Mrs. Burton.
The staff of the hotel were housed in two cottages about a quarter of a mile from the Keep, only Mrs. Burton living on the premises.
“This keeps us more select,” said Mr. Daver. “Servants are an abominable nuisance. You agree with me? I thought you would. If they are needed in the night, both cottages have telephones, and Grainger, the porter, has a pass-key to the outer door. That is an excellent arrangement, of which you approve? I am sure you do.”
Conversation with Mr. Daver was a little superfluous. He supplied his own answers to all questions.
He was leaving the bureau when she remembered his great study.
“Mr. Daver, do you know anything about the Flacks?”
He frowned.
“Flax? Let me see, what is flax——”
She spelt the name.
“A friend of mine told me about them the other day,” she said. “I thought you would know the name. They are a gang of criminals——”
“Flack! To be sure, to be sure! Dear me, how very interesting! Are you also a criminologist? John Flack, George Flack, Augustus Flack”—he spoke rapidly, ticking them off on his long, tobacco-stained fingers. “John Flack is in a criminal lunatic asylum; his two brothers escaped to the Argentine. Terrible fellows, terrible, terrible fellows! What a marvellous institution is our police force! How wonderful is Scotland Yard! You agree with me? I was sure you would. Flack!” He frowned and shook his head. “I thought of dealing with these people in a short monograph, but my data are not complete. Do you know them?”
She shook her head smilingly.
“No, I haven’t that advantage.”
“Terrible creatures,” said Mr. Daver. “Amazing creatures. Who is your friend, Miss Belman? I would like to meet him. Perhaps he could tell me something more about them.”
Margaret received the suggestion with dismay.
“Oh no, you’re not likely to meet him,” she said hurriedly, “and I don’t think he would talk even if you met him—perhaps it was indiscreet of me to mention him at all.”
The conversation must have weighed on Mr. Daver’s mind, for just as she was leaving her office that night for her room, a very tired girl, he knocked at the door, opened it at her invitation and stood in the doorway.
“I have been going into the records of the Flacks,” he said, “and it is surprising how little information there is. I have a newspaper cutting which says that John Flack is dead. He was the man who went into Broadmoor. Is he dead?”
Margaret shook her head.
“I couldn’t tell you,” she replied untruthfully. “I only heard a casual reference to him.”
Mr. Daver scratched his round chin.
“I thought possibly somebody might have told you a few facts which you, so to speak—a laywoman!”—he giggled—“might have regarded as unimportant, but which I——”
He hesitated expectantly.
“That is all I know, Mr. Daver,” said Margaret.
She slept soundly that night, the distant hush-hush of the waves as they rolled up the long beach of Siltbury Bay lulling her to dreamless slumber.
Her duties did not begin till after breakfast, which she had in her bureau, and the largest part was the checking of the accounts. Apparently Mrs. Burton attended to that side of the management, and it was only at the month’s end, when cheques were to be drawn, that her work was likely to be heavy. In the main her day was taken up with correspondence. There were some 140 applicants for her post who had to be answered; there were in addition a number of letters from people who desired accommodation at Larmes Keep. All these had to be taken to Mr. Daver, and it was remarkable how fastidious a man he was. For example:
“The Reverend John Quinton? No, no; we have one parson in the house, that is enough. Tell him we are very sorry, but we are full up. Mrs. Bagley wishes to bring her daughter? Certainly not! I cannot have children distracting me with their noise. You agree? I see you do. Who is this woman… ‘coming for a rest cure’? That means she’s ill. I cannot have Larmes Keep turned into a sanitorium. You may tell them all that there will be no accommodation until after Christmas. After Christmas they can all come—I am going abroad.”
The evenings were her own. She could, if she desired, go into Siltbury, which boasted two cinemas and a pierrot party, and Mr. Daver put the hotel car at her disposal for the purpose. She preferred, however, to wander through the grounds. The estate was a much larger one than she had supposed. Behind, to the south of the house, it extended for half a mile, the boundary to the east being represented by the cliffs, along which a breast-high rubble wall had been built, and with excellent reason, for here the cliff fell sheer two hundred feet to the rocks below. At one place there had been a little landslide, the wall had been carried away and the gap had been temporarily filled by a wooden fence. Some attempt had been made to create a nine-hole golf course, she saw as she wandered round, but evidently Mr. Daver had grown tired of this enterprise, for the greens were knee-deep in waving grasses.
At the south-west corner of the house, and distant about a hundred yards, was a big clump of rhododendrons, and this she explored, following a twisting path that led to the heart of the bushes. Quite unexpectedly she came upon an old well. The brickwork about it was in ruins; the well itself was boarded in. On the weather-beaten roof-piece above the windlass was a small wooden notice-board, evidently fixed for the enlightenment of visitors:
“This well was used from 935 to 1794. It was filled in by the present owners of the property in May 1914, one hundred and thirty-five cart-loads of rock and gravel being used for the purpose.”
It was a pleasant occupation, standing by that ancient well and picturing the collar serfs and bare-footed peasants who through the ages had stood where she was standing. As she came out of the bushes she saw the pale-faced Olga Crewe.
Margaret had not spoken either to the colonel or to the clergyman; either she had avoided them, or they her. Olga Crewe she had not seen, and now she would have turned away, but the girl moved across to intercept her.
“You are the new secretary, aren’t you?”
Her voice was musical, rather alluring. “Custardy” was Margaret’s mental classification.
“Yes, I’m Miss Belman.”
The girl nodded.
“My name you know, I suppose? Are you going to be terribly bored here?”
“I don’t think so,” smiled Margaret. “It is a beautiful spot.”
The eyes of Olga Crewe surveyed the scene critically.
“I suppose it is: very beautiful, yes, but one gets very tired of beauty after a few years.”
Margaret listened in astonishment.
“Have you been here so long?”
“I’ve practically lived here since I was a child. I thought Joe would have told you that: he’s an inveterate old gossip.”
“Joe?” She was puzzled.
“The cab-driver, news-gatherer, and distributor.”
She looked at Larmes Keep and frowned.
“Do you know what they used to call this place, Miss Belman? The House of Tears—the Château des Larmes.”
“Why ever?” asked Margaret.
Olga Crewe shrugged her pretty shoulders.
“Some sort of tradition, I suppose, that goes back to the days of the Baron Augernvert, who built it. The locals have corrupted the name to Larmes Keep. You ought to see the dungeons.”
“Are there dungeons?” asked Margaret in surprise, and Olga nodded. For the first time she seemed amused.
“If you saw them and the chains and the rings in the walls and the stone floors worn thin by bare feet, you might guess how its name arose.”
Margaret stared back towards the Keep. The sun was setting behind it, and silhouetted as it was against the red light there was something ominous and sinister in that dark, squat pile.
“How very unpleasant!” she said, and shivered.
Olga Crewe laughed.
“Have you seen the cliffs?” she said, and led the way back to the long wall, and for a quarter of an hour they stood, their arms resting on the parapet, looking down into the gloom.
“You ought to get some one to row you round the face of the cliff. It’s simply honeycombed with caves,” she said. “There’s one at the water’s edge that tunnels right under the Keep. When the tides are unusually high they are flooded. I wonder Daver doesn’t write a book about it.”
There was just the faintest hint of a sneer in her tone, but it did not escape Margaret’s attention.
“That must be the entrance,” she said, pointing down to a swirl of water that seemed to run right up to the face of the cliff.
Olga nodded.
“At high tide you wouldn’t notice that,” she said, and then, turning abruptly, she asked the girl if she had seen the bathing-pool.
This was an oblong bath, sheltered by high box hedges and lined throughout with blue tiles; a delightfully inviting plunge.
“Nobody uses it but myself. Daver would die at the thought of jumping in.”
Whenever she referred to Mr. Daver it was in a scarcely veiled tone of contempt. She was not more charitable when she referred to the other guests. As they were nearing the house Olga said, à propos of nothing:
“I shouldn’t talk too much to Daver if I were you. Let him do the talking: he likes it.”
“What do you mean?” asked Margaret quietly; but at that moment Olga left her side without any word of farewell and went towards the colonel, who was standing, a cigar between his teeth, watching their approach.
The House of Tears!
Margaret remembered the title as she was undressing that night, and, despite her self-possession, shivered a little.
CHAPTER IV
The policeman who stood on the corner where Bennett Street meets Hyde Lane had the world to himself. It was nearing three o’clock on a sultry spring morning, airless, unpleasantly warm. Somewhere in South London there was a thunderstorm; the hollow echoes of it came at odd intervals. The good and bad of Mayfair slept—all, apparently, except Mr. J. G. Reeder, Friend of the Law and Terror of Criminals. Police-Officer Dyer saw the yellow light behind the casemented window and smiled benevolently.
It was so still a night that when he heard a key turn in a lock, he looked over his shoulder, thinking the noise was from the house immediately behind him. But the door did not move. Instead he saw a woman appear on the top doorstep five houses away. She wore a flimsy négligée.
“Officer!”
The voice was low, cultured, very urgent. He moved more quickly towards her than policemen usually move.
“Anything wrong, miss?”
Her face, he noticed in his worldly way, was “made up”; the cheeks heavily rouged, the lips a startling red for one who was afraid. He supposed her to be pretty in normal circumstances, but was doubtful as to her age. She wore a long black dressing-gown, fastened up to her chin. Also he saw that the hand that gripped the railing which flanked the steps glittered in the light of the street lamps.
“I don’t know… quite. I am alone in the house and I thought I heard… something.”
Three words to a breath. Obviously she was terrified.
“Haven’t you any servants in the house?”
The constable was surprised, a little shocked.
“No. I only came back from Paris at midnight—we took the house furnished—I think the servants I engaged mistook the date of my return. I am Mrs. Granville Fornese.”
In a dim way he remembered the name. It had that value of familiarity which makes even the most assured hesitate to deny acquaintance. It sounded grand, too—the name of a Somebody. And Bennett Street was a place where Somebodies live.
The officer peered into the dark hall.
“If you would put the light on, madam, I will look round.”
She shook her head: he almost felt the shiver of her.
“The lights aren’t working. That is what frightened me. They were quite all right when I went to bed at one o’clock. Something woke me… I don’t know what… and I switched on the lamp by the side of my bed. And there was no light. I keep a little portable battery lamp in my bag. I found this and turned it on.”
She stopped, set her teeth in a mirthless smile. Police-Officer Dyer saw the dark eyes were staringly wide.
“I saw… I don’t know what it was… just a patch of black, like somebody crouching by the wall. Then it disappeared. And the door of my room was wide open. I closed and locked it when I went to bed.”
The officer pushed open the door wider, sent a white beam of light along the passage. There was a small hall table against the wall, where a telephone instrument stood. Striding into the hall, he took up the instrument and lifted the hook: the ’phone was dead.
“Does this——”
So far he got with the question, and then stopped. From somewhere above him he heard a faint but sustained creak—the sound of a foot resting on a faulty floor-board. Mrs. Fornese was still standing in the open doorway, and he went back to her.
“Have you a key to this door?” he asked, and she shook her head.
He felt along the inner surface of the lock and found a stop-catch, pushed it up.
“I’ll have to ’phone from somewhere. You’d better…”
What had she best do? He was a plain police-constable, and was confronted with a delicate situation.
“Is there anywhere you could go… friends?”
“No.” There was no indecision in that word. And then: “Doesn’t Mr. Reeder live opposite? Somebody told me…”
In the house opposite a light showed. Mr. Dyer surveyed the lighted window dubiously. It stood for the elegant apartment of one who held a post superior to chief constables. No. 7 Bennett Street had been at a recent period converted into flats, and into one of these Mr. Reeder had moved from his suburban home. Why he should take a flat in that exclusive and interesting neighbourhood, nobody knew. He was credited by criminals with being fabulously rich; he was undoubtedly a snug man.
The constable hesitated, searched his pocket for the smallest coin of the realm, and, leaving the lady on the doorstep, crossed the road and tossed a ha’penny to the window. A second and the casement window was pushed open.
“Excuse me, Mr. Reeder, could I see you for a second?”
The head and shoulders disappeared, and in a very short time Mr. Reeder appeared in the doorway. He was so fully dressed that he might have been expecting the summons. The frock coat was as tightly buttoned, on the back of his head his flat-topped felt hat, on his nose the pince-nez through which he never looked were askew.
“Anything wrong, constable?” he asked gently.
“Could I use your ’phone? There is a lady over there—Mrs. Fornese… alone… heard somebody in the house. I heard it too…”
He heard a short scream… a crash, and jumped round. The door of No. 4 was closed. Mrs. Fornese had disappeared.
In six strides Mr. Reeder had crossed the road and was at the door. Stooping, he pressed in the flap of the letter-box and listened. No noise but the ticking of a clock… a faint sighing sound.
“Hum!” said Mr. Reeder, scratching his long nose thoughtfully. “Hum… would you be so kind as to tell me all about this—um—happening?”
The police-constable repeated the story, more coherently.
“You fastened the spring lock so that it would not move? A wise precaution.”
Mr. Reeder frowned. Without another word he crossed the road and disappeared into his flat. There was a small drawer at the back of his writing bureau, and this he unlocked. Taking out a leather hold-all, he unrolled this, and selecting three curious steel instruments that were not unlike small hooks, fitted one into a wooden handle and returned to the constable.
“This, I fear, is… I will not say ‘unlawful,’ for a gentleman of my position is incapable of an unlawful act.… Shall I say ‘unusual’?”
All the time he talked in his soft, apologetic way he was working at the lock, turning the instrument first one way and then the other. Presently with a click the lock turned and Mr. Reeder pushed open the door.
“I think I had best borrow your lamp—thank you.”
He took the electric lamp from the constable’s hand and flung a white circle of light into the hall. There was no sign of life. He cast the beam up the stairs, and, stooping his head, listened. There came to his ear no sound, and noiselessly he stepped further into the hall.
The passage continued beyond the foot of the stairs, and at the end was a door which apparently gave to the domestic quarters of the house. To the policeman’s surprise, it was this door which Mr. Reeder examined. He turned the handle, but the door did not move, and, stooping, he squinted through the keyhole.
“There was somebody… upstairs,” began the policeman with respectful hesitation.
“There was somebody upstairs,” repeated Mr. Reeder absently. “You heard a creaky board, I think.”
He came slowly back to the foot of the stairs and looked up. Then he cast his lamp along the floor of the hall.
“No sawdust,” he said, speaking to himself, “so it can’t be that.”
“Shall I go up, sir?” said the policeman, and his foot was on the lower tread when Mr. Reeder, displaying unexpected strength in so weary-looking a man, pushed him back.
“I think not, constable,” he said firmly. “If the lady is upstairs she will have heard our voices. But the lady is not upstairs.”
“Do you think she’s in the kitchen, sir?” asked the puzzled policeman.
Mr. Reeder shook his head sadly.
“Alas! how few modern women spend their time in a kitchen!” he said, and made an impatient clucking noise, but whether this was a protest against the falling-off of woman’s domestic qualities, or whether he “tchk’d” for some other reason, it was difficult to say, for he was a very preoccupied man.
He swung the lamp back to the door.
“I thought so,” he said, with a note of relief in his voice. “There are two walking-sticks in the hall stand. Will you get one of them, constable?”
Wondering, the officer obeyed, and came back, handing a long cherrywood stick with a crooked handle to Mr. Reeder, who examined it in the light of his lamp.
“Dust-covered, and left by the previous owner. The spike in place of the ferrule shows that it was purchased in Switzerland—probably you are not interested in detective stories and have never read of the gentleman whose method I am plagiarising?”
“No, sir,” said the mystified officer.
Mr. Reeder examined the stick again.
“It is a thousand pities that it is not a fishing-rod,” he said. “Will you stay here?—and don’t move.”
And then he began to crawl up the stairs on his knees, waving his stick in front of him in the most eccentric manner. He held it up, lifting the full length of his arm, and as he crawled upwards he struck at imaginary obstacles. Higher and higher he went, silhouetted against the reflected light of the lamp he carried, and Police-Constable Dyer watched him open-mouthed.
“Don’t you think I’d better——”
He got as far as this when the thing happened. There was an explosion that deafened him; the air was suddenly filled with flying clouds of smoke and dust; he heard the crackle of wood and the pungent scent of something burning. Dazed and stupefied, he stood stock still, gaping up at Mr. Reeder, who was sitting on a stair, picking little splinters of wood from his coat.
“I think you may come up in perfect safety,” said Mr. Reeder, with great calmness.
“What—what was it?” asked the officer.
The enemy of criminals was dusting his hat tenderly, though this the officer could not see.
“You may come up.”
P.-C. Dyer ran up the stairs and followed the other along the broad landing till he stopped and focussed in the light of his lamp a queer-looking and obviously home-made spring gun, the muzzle of which was trained through the banisters so that it covered the stairs up which he had ascended.
“There was,” said Mr. Reeder carefully, “a piece of black thread stretched across the stairs, so that any person who bulged or broke that thread was certain to fire the gun.”
“But—but the lady?”
Mr. Reeder coughed.
“I do not think she is in the house,” he said, ever so gently. “I rather imagine that she went through the back. There is a back entrance to the mews, is there not? And that by this time she is a long way from the house. I sympathise with her—this little incident has occurred too late for the morning newspapers, and she will have to wait for the sporting editions before she learns that I am still alive.”
The police-officer drew a long breath.
“I think I’d better report this, sir.”
“I think you had,” sighed Mr. Reeder. “And will you ring up Inspector Simpson and tell him that if he comes this way I should like to see him?”
Again the policeman hesitated.
“Don’t you think we’d better search the house?… they may have done away with this woman.”
Mr. Reeder shook his head.
“They have not done away with any woman,” he said decisively. “The only thing they have done away with is one of Mr. Simpson’s pet theories.”
“But, Mr. Reeder, why did this lady come to the door——”
Mr. Reeder patted him benignantly on the arm, as a mother might pat a child who asked a foolish question.
“The lady had been standing at the door for half-an-hour,” he said gently; “on and off for half-an-hour, constable, hoping against hope, one imagines, that she would attract my attention. But I was looking at her from a room that was not—er—illuminated. I did not show myself because I—er—have a very keen desire to live!”
On this baffling note Mr. Reeder went into his house.