Red aces Being three cases of Mr. Reeder
hotel and disappeared. There may be explanations, but it is very
difficult to tell a young lady----”
“Very,” Mr. Reeder coughed discreetly, and said “very” again. “She
suggested that you should come to me?”
The clergyman nodded. He appeared to be embarrassed by the nature of
his mission.
“To be exact, she wished to come herself--I thought it was a friendly
thing to interview you on her behalf. I am not a poor man, Mr. Reeder;
I am, in fact, rather a rich man, and I feel that I should render
whatever assistance is possible to this poor young lady. My dear wife
would, I am sure, heartily endorse my action--I have been married
twenty-three years, and I have never found myself in disagreement with
the partner of my joys and sorrows. You, as a married man----”
“Single,” said Mr. Reeder, not without a certain amount of
satisfaction. “Alas! Yes, I am--um--single.”
He looked at his new client glumly.
“The young lady is staying----”
“In town, yes,” nodded the other. “At Haymarket Central Hotel. You
will take this case?”
Mr. Reeder pulled at his nose and fingered his close-clipped
sidewhiskers. He settled his glasses on his nose and took them off
again.
“Which case?” he asked.
Dr. Ingham was pained.
“The case I have outlined.” He groped beneath his clerical coat and
produced a card. “I have written Mr. Lance Ralph’s office address on
the back of my card----”
J.G. took the card and read its written inscription; turned it over
and read the printed inscription. This gentleman was a doctor of
divinity, and lived at Grayne Hall, near St. Margaret’s Bay, in the
County of Kent.
“There isn’t a case,” said Mr. Reeder with the tenderness of one who
is breaking bad news. “People are entitled to--um--disappear. Quite a
number of people, my dear Dr. Ingham, refuse to exercise that right, I
am sorry to say. They disappear to Brighton, to Paris, but re-appear
at later intervals. It is a common phenomenon.”
The cleric looked at him anxiously, and passed his umbrella from one
hand to the other.
“Perhaps I haven’t told you everything that should have been told,” he
said. “Miss Ralph had a fiancé--a young man in a prosperous business,
as she tells me, who also vanished, leaving his partner----”
“You are referring to Mr. Seafield?” But to his surprise, and perhaps
to his annoyance, the clergyman showed no sign of amazement.
“Joan has a great friend in your office. Am I right in surmising it is
the young lady who opened the door to me? This is how your name came
up. We were discussing whether she should go to the police, when she
mentioned your name. I thought you were the least unpleasant
alternative, if you don’t mind that description.”
Mr. Reeder bowed graciously. He did not mind.
There followed an uncomfortable lacuna of silence, which neither of
the men seemed inclined to fill. Mr. Reeder ushered the visitor to the
door and went back to his desk, and for five minutes scribbled
aimlessly on his blotting pad. He had a weakness for making grotesque
drawings, and he was putting an extra long nose upon the elongated
head of one of his fanciful sketches when Miss Gillette came in
unannounced.
“Well, what do you think of that,” she asked.
Mr. Reeder stared at her.
“What do I think of what, Miss Gillette?” he demanded.
“Poor Joan, and she is such a darling. We have kept our friendship all
through the Seafield business----”
“But how did you know about it?”
Mr. Reeder was very seldom bewildered, but he was frankly bewildered
now.
“I was listening at the door,” said Miss Gillette shamelessly. “Well,
not exactly listening, but I left my door open and he talks very
loudly; parsons get that way, don’t they?”
J.G. Reeder’s face wore an expression that was only comparable to that
of a wounded fawn.
“It is very--um--wrong to listen,” he began, but she dismissed all
questions of propriety with an airy wave of her hand.
“It doesn’t matter whether it’s right or wrong. Where is Joan
staying?”
This was a moment when Mr. J.G. Reeder should have risen with dignity,
opened the door, pressed a fortnight’s wages into her hand, and
dismissed her to the outer darkness, but he allowed the opportunity to
pass.
“Can I bring Tommy to see you?”
She leant upon the table, resting her palms on the edge. Her
enthusiasm was almost infectious.
“Tommy doesn’t look clever, but he really is, and he’s always had a
theory about Seafield’s bolting. Tommy says that Frank Seafield would
never have bought a letter of credit----”
“Did he have a letter of credit? I thought you told me that he drew
the money out of the bank?”
Miss Gillette nodded.
“It was a letter of credit,” she said emphatically, “for £6,300.
That’s how we knew he had gone abroad. The letter was cashed in Berlin
and Vienna.”
For a long time Mr. J.G. Reeder looked out of the window.
“I should like to talk with Tommy,” he said gravely, and when he
looked round Miss Gillette had gone.
For a quarter of an hour he sat with his hands folded on his lap, his
pale eyes fixed vacantly on the chimney-pot of a house on the opposite
side of the street, and then he heard a knock on the outer door.
Rising slowly, he went out and opened it. The last person he expected
to see was Inspector Gaylor.
“The Litnoff murder--are you interested?”
Mr. Reeder was interested in all murders, but not especially in the
Litnoff case.
“Do you know that Jake Alsby was on his way to see you?”
Jake Alsby--Mr. Reeder frowned; he knew the name, and, going over the
file of his mind, could place him.
“So far as my own opinion goes, Jake is a dead man,” said Gaylor. “He
had been drinking with the Russian, who had quite a lot of money in
his possession. A few minutes after they left the bar Litnoff was
shot, and Jake, bolting for his life, was found in possession of a
loaded pistol. Men have been hanged on less evidence than that.”
“I--um--doubt it. Not the fact that men have been--er--hanged on
insufficient evidence, but that our poor friend was the guilty person.
Jake is a ‘regular,’ and regulars do not carry guns--not in this
country.”
Gaylor smiled significantly.
“He was searching for you,” he said. “He admits as much, and that
makes his present attitude a little queer. For now he wants you to get
him out of his trouble!”
“Dear me!” said Mr. Reeder, faintly amused.
“He thinks if he could see you for a few minutes and tell you what
happened, you would walk out of Brixton Prison and lay your hand upon
the man who committed the murder. There’s a compliment for you!”
“Seriously?” J.G. Reeder was frowning again.
Gaylor nodded.
“It’s rum, isn’t it? The fellow was undoubtedly on his way to give you
hell and yet the first thing he does when he gets into trouble is to
squeak to you for help! Anyway, the Public Prosecutor says he would
like you to see him. Brixton has been notified. They know you there,
and if you feel like listening to a few more or less fantastic lies,
you ought to have an interesting evening.”
He had in his pocket-book two press cuttings which fairly covered the
Litnoff shooting. Mr. Reeder accepted them with every evidence of
gratitude, although he had very complete particulars of the case in
the drawer of his writing table.
Gaylor had one quality which Mr. Reeder admired--he was no “lingerer.”
There were many interesting people in the world who did not know where
their interest ended: men who outstayed the excuse for their presence
and dawdled from subject to subject. Gaylor was blessed with a sense
of drama and could make his abrupt exit upon an effective line. He
made such an exit now.
“You needn’t ask him to tell you about the diamond clasp,” he said.
“He’ll tell you that! But don’t forget that the last time Litnoff was
charged that bizarre note came into the evidence.”
Inspector Gaylor was a well read man and used words like “bizarre”
without self-conscious effort.
When he had gone, Mr. Reeder fixed his glasses and read the cuttings
which the detective had left. He found nothing that he did not already
know. Jake Alsby was, as he had said, a ‘regular’, an habitual
criminal with a working knowledge of the common law in so far as it
affected himself. No old lag carries firearms, especially an old lag
who is a convict on licence, and is liable to be arrested at sight.
Judges are most unsympathetic in their attitude toward armed
criminals, and Jake and his fellows knew too well the penalties of
illicit armament to take the dreadful risk of being found in
possession of an automatic pistol.
J.G. had a criminal mind. He knew exactly what he would have done had
he been Jake Alsby and had shot his companion. He would have thrown
away the pistol before he bolted. That Jake had not done so was proof
to him that he was unaware that the pistol was in his pocket.
He was musing on this matter when he heard the door of the outer
office open and the sound of low voices. A moment later Miss Gillette
came in, a little out of breath. She closed the door behind her.
“I’ve brought them both,” she said rapidly. “I ’phoned to Joan--she
was just going out.… Can I ask them to come in?”
He felt that it was almost an act of humility that she should ask his
permission, and bowed his assent.
Tommy Anton was a tall young man; the sort that perhaps two women in
the course of the years would regard as good-looking, but the rest
would scarcely notice. Joan Ralph, on the other hand, was distinctly
pretty and unusual. She was dark and clear-skinned, and had one of
those supple figures that gave Mr. Reeder the impression that its
owner did not wear sufficient clothes for warmth or safety.
“This is Tommy, and this is Joan.” Miss Gillette introduced them
unnecessarily, for Mr. Reeder could hardly have mistaken one for the
other.
The moment he saw them, he knew they would have nothing new to tell
him if they were left to tell their own stories. He listened with
great patience to the repetition of all he knew.
Tommy Anton gave a graphic description of his own amazement,
consternation and emotions when he had discovered that his partner had
vanished. He paid a loyal tribute to the character and qualities of
the missing man----
“Did Mr. Seafield ever talk to you about a diamond brooch?”
interrupted Mr. Reeder.
Tommy stared at him.
“No--we were in the car trade. He seldom discussed his private
affairs. Of course, I knew about Joan----”
“Did your father ever speak of a diamond brooch or clasp?” Mr. Reeder
addressed the girl, and she shook her head.
“Never… he never spoke about jewellery except--that was years ago when
I first met Frank--Daddy put some money into the Pizarro expedition
and so did Frank; they were awfully enthusiastic about it.”
Mr. Reeder looked up at the ceiling and went rapidly over the folders
of his memory. When she was on the point of explaining, he stopped her
with a gesture.
“Pizarro expedition… 1923… to recover the buried treasure of the
Incas. It was organized by Antonio Pizarro, who claimed to be a
descendant of the conqueror of Peru… his real name was Bendini--a New
York Italian with three convictions for high-class swindles… the
company was registered in London, and all the people who put money
into the scheme lost it--isn’t that right?”
He beamed at her triumphantly and she smiled.
“I don’t know so much about it as you. Daddy put five hundred pounds
into it and Frank put a hundred--he was at Oxford then. I know they
lost their money. Frank didn’t mind very much, but Daddy was annoyed,
because he was sure there were great treasure houses in Peru that had
yet to be discovered.”
“And was there a talk of diamond brooches?” asked Mr. Reeder.
She hesitated.
“Jewels--I don’t remember that there was anything said about
brooches.”