Red aces Being three cases of Mr. Reeder
may have made a mistake, but he has got a marvellous memory.” He
enlarged upon the memory of his parent, but Mr. Reeder was not
listening.
“Why Clerkenwell,” murmured Mr. Reeder. “Do you advertise?”
“We are the best advertised valuers in London,” said Benny proudly.
“That’s our speciality. I can’t tell you how upset the governor was
when I made a mistake. It sort of reflected on the firm. Oh, yes, we
carry big ads. in all papers. Valuation of jewellery. You must have
seen our name.”
Mr. Reeder nodded.
“That accounts for it,” he said.
He looked at the clock. The minute hand pointed to half past two.
Picking up the telephone, he called the nearest cab rank and gave his
address.
“I am going to take you home,” he said. “You’d better make a bundle of
your wet clothes while I dress.”
By the time the cab arrived, Mr. Reeder, feeling very much awake, was
ready. He went out first, but there was no need of his caution, less
need for the Colt automatic that he held in his pocket.
The journey to Pepys Road was uneventful. He waited until the young
man had entered his house, then he drove to the nearest police station
and had a consultation with the night officer.
When Benny Edelsheim looked out of his window the next morning he
found a uniformed policeman standing stolidly before the house, and
felt that for the first time his rates and his taxes were justified.
CHAPTER V
The morning brought a surprise to Mr. Reeder. When he arrived at his
office he found Miss Gillette already on duty. That in itself was a
notable event. She was entertaining in her room a very early caller in
Dr. Ingham, and from the solicitude in her tone it almost seemed that
she was mothering him. Miss Gillette was one of those uncomfortable
people whose maternal instinct was highly developed.
As Mr. Reeder paused at the half opened door, he heard her speaking.
“I shouldn’t worry about it, Dr. Ingham. Reeder will put a stop to any
of that sort of nonsense. He is much cleverer than he looks.”
Her maligned employer passed softly into his room and rang the bell.
“I didn’t hear you come in--you scare the life out of me sometimes,”
she complained, and added: “Mr. Ingham is here.”
“Dr. Ingham,” said Mr. Reeder reproachfully. “You are--um--a little
careless about--um--prefixes.”
“He’s been attacked--somebody tried to break into his house last
night,” said Miss Gillette. “Poor soul, he has a _terrible_ face!”
“Let me see it, please,” said J.G.
The clergyman had evidently passed a strenuous night. The bridge of
his handsome nose bore a strip of sticking plaster. One eye, at the
moment concealed behind a shade, was blue and swollen, and his lower
lip was badly cut.
“I’m afraid I look rather ghastly,” he said, as he shook hands with
the detective.
The undamaged portion of his face was white and drawn, and when he
said that he had had no sleep that night Mr. Reeder was not surprised.
He had gone back to St. Margaret’s on the previous night, and had
driven himself from Dover, arriving at his house at ten o’clock.
“Grayne Hall is built on the site of an old castle,” he said. “There
was not enough of the original structure to restore, so I had the
walls pulled down and erected a modern residence. Naturally it is very
isolated, but there is some very excellent timber, and I have made a
good garden. I returned before midnight, but I had hardly got to bed
before my wife said that she heard a noise below. I went down,
unarmed, of course, for I do not own so much as a shot gun. I had
reached the hall and was feeling for the light switch, when somebody
struck at me. I had a fearful blow on the face, but I managed to find
an old battle axe which hung on the wall--luckily for me. With this I
defended myself. My wife, who had heard the fracas in the hall,
screamed, and I heard one of my assailants say: ‘Run for it, Kennedy!’
Immediately after, the hall door was thrown open, and I saw two, or it
may have been three, people run into the garden and vanish.”
“Dear me,” said Mr. Reeder. “One of them said: ‘Run for it, Kennedy!’
You are sure it was that?”
“I could swear that was the name. Afterwards I remembered, or rather
my dear wife remembered, that a man named Kennedy had been a member of
the Pizarro gang.”
Mr. Reeder was examining the clergyman’s injuries thoughtfully.
“No weapon was used?”
Dr. Ingham smiled painfully.
“That’s a poor consolation!” he said with some acerbity. “No, I rather
think that I was struck by a fist that was holding a weapon. In the
darkness this rascal must have struck wildly.”
He had not sent for the police. Apparently he had no exalted opinion
about the Kentish constabulary, and he admitted a horror of figuring
in newspapers. Mr. Reeder could understand this: he also had a horror
of publicity.
“Whether these people were plain burglars who were disturbed at their
work, or whether revenge for some fancied injury was at the bottom of
their dastardly action, I cannot make up my mind. With Mrs. Ingham the
Pizarro case is an obsession. She is, by the way, looking forward with
great eagerness to meeting you. Now tell me, Mr. Reeder, what am I to
do? I will be guided entirely by your advice. To go to the police now
seems to be a fairly useless proceeding. I cannot describe the
men--except for a second when they were silhouetted in the open
doorway, I never saw them. My butler and my gardener made enquiries
this morning, but nobody else seems to have seen them. Not even the
coastguard who has a cottage quite close.”
Mr. Reeder sat with half-closed eyes, his large hands folded on his
lap.
“It is very odd,” he murmured at last. “Kennedy, Casius Kennedy. A
bad--um--egg. He inherited it from his mother, a lady with a
very--um--unpleasant history.”
He pursed his under lip, his eyes had drooped a little lower.
“It is odd, extremely odd.”
Dr. Ingham drew a long breath.
“What am I to do?” he demanded.
“Ask for police protection,” said Mr. Reeder. “Have an officer
sleeping in the house and another stationed on the grounds. I hope to
see you on Saturday.”
He rose with startling abruptness and jerked out his hand.
“Till Saturday,” he said, and Dr. Ingham went out, a very dissatisfied
man.
Mr. Reeder was no angel that morning. He was in a mood the like of
which Miss Gillette could not remember. She discovered this very soon.
“What did you tell the doctor?” she asked.
“When I want you, I will ring for you, young lady,” he snapped.
She went out, a little dazed by his mutiny. She heard the key turn in
his lock and when she got through to him by telephone, he was most
unpleasant.
“I think I will go home, Mr. Reeder,” she said.
“I will send you your wages by post,” said he.
She went out of the office, slamming the door behind her, which (apart
from the slam) was exactly what he intended she should do.
The door to the corridor he locked in the same fashion before he rang
up Inspector Gaylor.
“I want a couple of men,” he said. “I’m nervous, or, shall I say,
apprehensive.”
“I wondered when you’d start getting that way,” said Gaylor. “I’m
having young Edelsheim shadowed. Thanks for your letter. Is there any
other development?”
Mr. Reeder told him of the doctor’s unpleasant adventure.
“Oh!” said Gaylor, and then after a silence, “That will keep.”
“So I thought,” said Mr. Reeder. “Do you mind if I use your name
rather freely to-day?”
“So long as you don’t try to borrow money on it!” said Gaylor, who had
a painful sense of humour.
Reeder spent a long time after that searching a trade-telephone
directory and ringing up various yachting agencies. He had become
suddenly interested in pleasure cruisers. He drew blank for the first
nine enquiries, but the tenth rewarded him. It was not difficult to
secure the answers he wanted, but when he called a sticky and
uncommunicative agent he used the name of Gaylor with great freedom
and invariably secured the information he required.
The tenth call needed this incentive, but the result was beyond
expectations. Mr. Reeder spent a happy hour with his notes and a
nautical almanac. By this time the two Scotland Yard men had arrived,
and when soon after lunch a district messenger brought a square and
heavy parcel, having the label of a west-end bookseller, they were
very useful, for one of them had been for a year in the explosives
department at Scotland Yard and had a sensitive ear for the faint
ticking that came from within the parcel.
“It’s a time bomb, but it may also have a make and break attachment.”
They watched it sink heavily into a pail of water, and when, after
half an hour, the Yard man took it out again, the ticking had ceased.
“They’ve been getting ready for this racket for a long time,” said the
detective. “That bomb wasn’t made in a hurry----”
The telephone bell rang at that moment and Mr. Reeder answered it.
“Is that you, Reeder?” It was Gaylor’s voice and he was speaking very
quickly. “I’m coming round to pick you up. We’ve found Gelpin.”
“Eh?” said Mr. Reeder.
“Dead--shot through the heart. A ranger found his body in Epping
Forest. Be ready.”
The telephone clicked, but Mr. Reeder still stood with the receiver in
his hand, a terrifying frown on his face.
“Anything wrong, sir?” asked the detective.
J.G. nodded.
“I’m wrong: if I had the brain of a--um--great man, I should have
expected this.”
What “this” was he did not elucidate. A few minutes later he was one
of a party of five packed in a police tender and was heading for
Epping.
It was nearly dark when the car pulled up by the side of a forest
by-road. A ranger led them to the spot where the body lay.
It was that of a man above medium height, and more than ordinarily
broad of shoulder.
Though George Gelpin was between fifty and sixty, he had been in life
a model of a man. He had been rider to hounds, a keen cricketer,
something of an athlete.
“Nothing in his pockets--no identification marks of any kind. If we
hadn’t got his photograph and his description--they arrived this
morning from Birmingham--we should have had the devil’s job in tracing
him.”
One of the group they had found standing about the body was a doctor.
He supplied certain data which confirmed Mr. Reeder in his opinion.
But the chief confirmation came when he examined the outspread hands
of the silent figure.
There was no mark of car wheels, and the bushes behind which the man
was found showed no evidence of crushing. It might have been an
ordinary case of suicide, and the doctor ventured this opinion.
A revolver had been found near the body. He must have been shot with
the muzzle almost touching his coat, for it was burnt.
“We haven’t got the number of the revolver, but we are making
enquiries about it. I don’t think they are necessary. It will be a day
or two before we can trace it. Did you get that gun?”
One of the waiting detectives took it out of his pocket. It was a
small six-chambered Colt.
One of the detectives who had been on guard over the body when they
arrived offered a piece of information.
“There is an initial scratched on the back plate of the butt,” he
said. “F.S.”
He took the weapon from his pocket and passed it across to Gaylor.
“F.S.,” frowned the inspector. “That’s a pretty common initial.”
“Frank Seafield, for example,” said Mr. Reeder, and Gaylor gaped at
him.
“Why should it be Seafield? That’s wildly improbable, Reeder.”
However, when they returned to town and Mr. Reeder got into
communication with Seafield’s late partner, Gaylor found that the
surmise was not so wild. Tommy Anton called at Scotland Yard and saw
and identified the weapon.
“That’s Frank’s,” he said immediately. “He always carried a revolver.
I used to chaff him about it. He had no reason to, so far as I know,