Red aces Being three cases of Mr. Reeder
Mr. Reeder broke the pistol again, put another pellet in the breech
and took even more accurate aim.
“Say, listen,” said the man in the trench coat. He said no more. His
hat went flying, and looking up in his bewilderment, he saw Mr. Reeder
leaning out of the window.
“Go away,” said Mr. Reeder gently.
He did not hear the reply because he closed the window quickly. He
objected to profanity on principle. But when a few minutes later he
looked out again the two men had disappeared.
It was 11 o’clock when he went to bed. He was by no means a light
sleeper, or he would have heard the first pebble that struck his
window. The second woke him, and for a good reason: the stone was
heavier and the pane smashed.
He got out of bed quickly and very cautiously went to the edge of the
window and looked out. There was nobody in sight. Pushing open the
casement he made a more careful survey: the street was empty. He could
see no living soul, and then, as his eyes became accustomed to the
gloom, he saw a figure moving in the shadow of the one laurel bush
which decorated the front garden of his house.
This time Mr. Reeder did not take an air pistol, but a very
business-like Browning in the pocket of his dressing gown. He went
noiselessly down the stairs, unbolted the door, opened it and flashed
a concentrated beam of a powerful spotlight into the garden. It was
neither trench coat nor oilskin, but a bedraggled youth, hatless,
whose wet clothes seemed skin tight.
From the darkness came a beseeching voice:
“Is that Mr. Reeder… For God’s sake take the light off me.”
“Oh, it’s you, is it?” said J.G. gently, and a little incongruously it
sounded, even to himself. “Did you see my advertisement?”
The young man made a dart through the door into the hall. Mr. Reeder
followed him, closed and bolted the door. He could almost hear his
visitor trembling.
“Which way do I go, sir?” he whimpered.
J.G. led the way up the stairs into the study, and switched on the
light.
The red-haired youth was a pitiable sight: his face streaked with
blood, the knuckles of his hands were bleeding. He had neither collar
nor tie, and as he stood, his soaked clothes formed an ever growing
pool upon Mr. Reeder’s shabby carpet.
“I didn’t intend coming here, but after they tried to kill me----”
“I think you had better have a hot bath,” interrupted Mr. Reeder.
Fortunately the bathroom was on the first floor, and by some miracle
the water was really hot. He left the trembling youth to divest
himself of his sodden clothes, and going upstairs, collected a few
articles of wearing apparel.
In his study he had a coffee-making machine and in the cupboard a
large seed cake. He was partial to seed cake.
The coffee was brewed and the young man came into the room. He was not
an attractive young man. He was very pale, he had a very large nose
and a long and bony chin. He was very thin, and Mr. Reeder’s clothes
did not so much fit as cover him.
He drank the coffee eagerly, looked at the seed cake, shuddered, but
betook of it, whilst Mr. Reeder built up the dying fire.
“Now, Mr.----”
“Edelsheim, Benny Edelsheim,” said the young man. “I live in Pepys
Road, New Cross. Did the young ladies tell you about me? I wish I had
not run away that night you chased me. She’s a stunning looking girl,
isn’t she? I don’t mean the blonde--the other one.”
“Have you wakened me up in the middle of the night to discuss the
attractions of brunettes?” demanded Mr. Reeder gently. “Who hit you?”
The young man felt his head gingerly. He had tied about it a large
handkerchief which Mr. Reeder had supplied.
“I don’t know, I think it was the fellow in the yellow coat.… There
were two of them. I was just going into my house--my father’s house,
when a man asked me if I had a match. I didn’t like the look of him,
but I was feeling for the match when he hit me. There was a car
half-way down the hill--Pepys Road is built on a hill--it used to be
called Red Hill once.…”
“The topography is familiar to me,” said Mr. Reeder. “What did you do
when he hit you?”
“I ran,” said the other simply. “I tried to shout, but I couldn’t, and
then the other fellow, who was standing by the car, tripped me up.”
He looked at his knuckles. “That’s where I got that. I think there
were three of them. The chauffeur was standing by the car and he made
a dive at me, but I dodged and doubled up the hill--with the fellow in
the yellow coat behind me.”
“What time was this?” asked Mr. Reeder.
“About nine. I was coming to see you, in fact I had made up my mind
to. I knew where you lived, but I thought I would go home first and
talk to the old man--my father. We have got a jeweller’s shop in the
Clerkenwell Road, but he has been ill for nearly a year, and I have
been running the business.”
“And you got away?” said Mr. Reeder, hastening the narrative.
“In a sense I did,” said Edelsheim. “I got over the top of the hill. I
couldn’t see a policeman anywhere. It is disgraceful the rates we pay
and no policemen! My God, it was awful. I didn’t see them for a bit,
and thought I had slipped them, and then I saw the lights of the car
coming. If I had any sense I would have knocked at the nearest house
and gone in, and no policeman, Mr. Reeder!” His voice was thin and
hysterical. “That’s what we pay rates and taxes for, and no so-and-so
policemen in sight!”
He did not say “so-and-so,” but Mr. Reeder thought his profanity was
excusable.
“As I saw the car, I got over the rails of a recreation ground or
something. They must have seen me, because the car stopped right
opposite the place where I had jumped. I didn’t see the man following,
but I sort of felt him. Then I found I was in a cemetery. My God, it
was awful dodging in and out the crosses and things! I climbed the
wall and got out, and then I did meet a policeman. He thought I was
drunk and wanted to take me to the hospital, so I bolted again.”
“Did you see the man in the yellow coat?”
“Not till I got here. It was nearer twelve than eleven. I was just
thinking of calling you and of what you would say to me, when I saw
them both. They were coming up from the Lewisham High Road, walking
together. I dived into your front garden and hid behind the bush. One
of them walked up the steps and tried the door. He had a lamp. I
nearly died from fright. They were messing about here for an hour.”
“And you were afraid to ring for fear that they saw you?”
“That’s right. I waited until they had gone and I started chucking
stones. I have broken two or three windows in this room, too.”
Mr. Reeder poured out another cup of coffee, and from the warming
effect of the fire and the hot drink Mr. Benny Edelsheim grew a little
more confident.
“Is she here?” he asked. “The dark haired one?”
“She is not here,” said Mr. Reeder severely.
Then suddenly the young man became plaintive again.
“What’s it all about?” he demanded. “I saw your advertisement when I
was reading to-night. I did not see how it could be anything to do
with that, and yet when I was dodging in and out of the cemetery, the
idea came to me that these fellows were after me because of that
advertisement and the clasp and everything, and what I said to the
young lady. Have I done anything wrong? I am sorry. I do not, as a
rule, talk to young ladies without an introduction. I have been
brought up as well as any man. If I have offended her relations--you
are not her father, are you?”
“I am not a father,” said Mr. Reeder emphatically.
“I didn’t think you were,” said Edelsheim, “because I knew about you.
You are a detective. My old man--my father says you are the most
wonderful detective of the age. I wanted to come and explain to you
that I didn’t mean any harm.”
Mr. Reeder pushed forward the plate of seed cake.
“You, my dear young friend,” he said, “are no more, as it were, than a
cog in a wheel of a very complicated machine. I can quite understand
how you had embarrassed the employers of those two ferocious men. Now
let us get to the really important point--just tell me what you said,
why you addressed those young ladies in the restaurant.”
Benny munched the seed cake with an agonized expression; it was
obvious he did not like seed cake, but his hunger had compelled him to
overcome his scruples.
“I recognized her the moment I saw her. She is in my thoughts night
and day, Mr. Reeder. There are some faces that hit you right in the
eye, so to speak, that sort of make an impression upon you--she is not
married, is she?” he asked anxiously.
“Practically,” said Mr. Reeder.
The young man’s face assumed an expression of acute pain.
“She is engaged,” explained Mr. Reeder, in haste to remove any wrong
impression he might have created.
“I shall never see another face like that,” said Benny dismally. “I am
romantic, Mr. Reeder, I don’t mind admitting it. I fell in love with
her the moment I saw her photograph. She was wearing plus-fours. Cute!
You have no idea what I felt like when I saw that picture. I thought
here is the woman for me, and I only saw it for half a tick. He opened
his pocket book on the counter, the gentleman who called at the shop,
and he took out the photograph, because the clasp was in the same
compartment, wrapped up in tissue paper, so I had a good look at the
picture, and I said to myself----”
“Yes, yes,” said Mr. Reeder with a certain testiness, “Please don’t
bother about your emotions at the moment, Mr. Edelsheim. Tell me
something about the clasp.”
“The clasp, oh, yes. You want to know about that? It was a very pretty
thing, half a buckle of diamonds and emeralds. I know a lot about
stones. I was in Hatton Garden for eighteen months. My old man--my
father believed in starting me at the bottom of the ladder----”
“Did he want to sell the clasp?”
Benny shook his head.
“No, he wanted it valued. We do a lot of valuation work, and I am
supposed to be pretty good at it. We have got a very big business,
half a dozen assistants, and we have a branch at Bristol.”
“You valued it?” said Mr. Reeder.
“I valued it at £1,250, but I made a mistake. Even the best of us
make mistakes. I remember, once----”
“You have undervalued it by £100?”
“That’s right. I told the young lady so when I met her. I thought she
would tell her friend----”
“Her father,” corrected Mr. Reeder.
“Oh, was that her father?” Benny was more interested in the parentage
of his ideal than in the sordid question of a diamond and emerald
clasp.
“Yes, I undervalued it £100. What he really wanted to know was
whether the stones were genuine, and, of course, I could tell him
that. I don’t think he would have worried about the wrong valuation,
and I should not have spoken about it, but I wanted a sort of
introduction to the young lady--you are a man of the world, Mr.
Reeder----”
“What time did he come into the shop?”
Benny, his mouth full of seed cake, looked thoughtful.
“About five o’clock in the evening.”
“And when you valued the clasp, what happened?”
“He wrapped it up and took it away with him. I asked him if he wanted
to sell it, and he said no.”
“You never saw him again?”
Benny shook his head.
“That was last Wednesday week?”
“Tuesday,” said Benny promptly. “I happen to know that, because I had
a date--an engagement to take a certain party to the pictures, and I
was anxious to shut up the shop and get away.”
Mr. Reeder jotted down a few notes on his blotting pad.
“Have you ever valued that clasp before?”
Benny Edelsheim looked at him with an open mouth.
“It’s a curious thing that you should ask that, Mr. Reeder. I haven’t,
but my father has. I was describing the piece to him, and he said he
was certain he had valued the same piece six months ago. Of course, he