Red aces Being three cases of Mr. Reeder
and I rather think that carrying the gun was a bit of swank. He was a
little on the theatrical side.”
Joan Ralph had gone back to Bishop’s Stortford. They reached her by
telephone. She too had seen the revolver and described it accurately.
“I know Frank carried it, and Daddy used to be very sarcastic about
it. Frank used to carry big sums of money about the country, buying
second-hand cars, and he said he had to deal with some very tough
people. Why do you want to know?”
Mr. Reeder, who had no desire to alarm the young lady, lied
gracefully.
“That beats me,” said Gaylor.
Mr. Reeder put down the phone. They were sitting in the inspector’s
room at Scotland Yard, where a meal had been brought to them from a
neighbouring restaurant.
“It doesn’t beat me, possibly because I am over sanguine,” said Mr.
Reeder, “possibly because my peculiar mentality leads me astray.”
“But suppose it is suicide--” began Gaylor, and stopped.
“You were thinking that it is quite usual that a suicide tries to
remove all marks of his identification?” said Mr. Reeder. “That is
perfectly true. Will you tell me this: why is the suit he was wearing
so old and stained and shabby, and why was he wearing slippers?”
“Boots,” Gaylor broke in. “Elastic-sided boots.”
“Slippers,” insisted Mr. Reeder. “And why was there no mud on them?
And why was the front of him wet and the back on which he lay almost
dry? It rained all last night and he could not have walked through the
forest without getting soaked to the skin?”
Gaylor pinched his long upper lip, looked moodily at the remains of
his dinner.
“Tennant tells me that they tried to bomb you this afternoon. It’s the
Pizarro gang, of course. Kennedy?”
“His very self,” said Mr. Reeder, flippantly and ungrammatically. “And
I should not be surprised if almost anything happened. I told my
housekeeper to go home to her mother. Most housekeepers have mothers
to go home to. I shall stay in town to-night.”
“Where?” asked Gaylor curiously.
“That’s my secret,” said Mr. Reeder gravely.
They went out of the Yard together, when Gaylor had an idea:
“If you want to get out of the way, I should go down to St. Margaret’s
Bay. I think you will be safe there.”
“An excellent idea,” said Mr. Reeder. “A very excellent idea, but
unfortunately the doctor is still in town.”
He went to his office, accompanied by one of the two detectives who
had been appointed to watch over him. The other was still in Miss
Gillette’s room--Mr. Reeder suspected that he was asleep, for it was
some time before he opened the door to him.
“There is a wire for you,” he said, and handed it to Mr. Reeder. It
was from Dr. Ingham. Would he (Mr. Reeder) come down as soon as he
could? There had been remarkable developments at Grayne.
The telegram had been despatched from Dover. Mr. Reeder sent his reply
over the telephone. He would arrive on the following afternoon at
three o’clock. Then, strangely enough, contrary to all his expressed
intentions, he went home to his housekeeperless establishment in the
Brockley Road and slept alone in his silent home. And more strangely
still, he slept most peacefully.
If he had not gone home he would have missed the letter which came by
the morning post. It was from Miss Gillette. She was leaving him. Mr.
Reeder sighed happily.
“I think I ought to help Mr. Anton,” she wrote. “The Rev. Dr. Ingham
has promised to help him start a new business. Dr. Ingham has been
most kind and I shall never be sufficiently grateful to you for having
been unconsciously instrumental in bringing Mr. Anton into touch with
him. He wrote to Tommy before he left London yesterday, suggesting
that I might help in creating the new business, and I think you would
like to see his postscript so I have torn it off.”
She remained ever his sincerely.
The slip of paper which accompanied the letter was in the doctor’s
handwriting.
“P.S. I shall never forgive myself if I have robbed Mr. Reeder of his
secretary. He is a man for whom I have the very highest regard.”
“H’m,” said Mr. Reeder, “how very nice… how extraordinarily kind!” He
spoke aloud to his coffee machine and his electric toaster, but he was
never so loquacious as when he was addressing an inanimate audience.
His housekeeper returned during the morning with the “daily” servants
who constituted his household, and she packed his battered suit-case
under his personal supervision. Mr. Reeder had one surprising
weakness: dress clothes. However antiquated his daily attire might be,
his evening suits were cut by the most fashionable of tailors, and he
wanted to look his best at Grayne Hall. He went to town before lunch,
met Gaylor by appointment at the office, and handed to him the batch
of telegrams which had arrived during the morning. Gaylor examined
them casually.
“I know all about these,” he said. “Nine of the seventeen English
subscribers to Pizarro’s scheme are missing. I can tell you more--with
’em went the best part of eighty thousand pounds. By-the-way, I am
offering no further evidence against Jake Alsby. I’ve got him inside
for his own safety, but he will be discharged next week.”
Gaylor came to the station to see him off.
“Have a good time. If the Pizarro crowd chase you to Dover, send me a
postcard.”
Inspector Gaylor, as has already been stated, had a perverted sense of
humour.
Throughout the journey Mr. Reeder read a book which was entitled _The
Thousand Funniest After-Dinner Stories_. He read them all, the whole
thousand, and never smiled once.
He had a trick of moving his lips as he read. The military-looking man
who sat opposite him had never seen Mr. Reeder at close quarters
before and was silently amused. Once he tried to start a conversation,
but Mr. Reeder was not a great conversationalist on a railway journey
and the attempted affability faded to silence.
At Dover station, Mr. Reeder got out and his companion followed. Three
men lounged up to Mr. Reeder’s fellow-passenger, and with a nod he
indicated the detective, who was passing through the barrier.
“That’s your man,” he said, “keep close to him.”
The car which was waiting for Mr. Reeder had scarcely left the station
yard, when the four entered a closed limousine and followed.
The drive from Dover to St. Margaret’s Bay was not a comfortable one.
Heavy gusts of wind-borne rain drove across the downs. Below, as the
car mounted the cliff road, he could see breakers creaming the
yellow-green waters of the Straits, and out at sea a little coasting
tramp was taking water over her bows in alarming quantities.
Grayne Hall was not in the residential area of St. Margaret’s Bay. It
stood aloof in a fold of the downs and within a very short distance of
the cliff’s edge. A red brick building, with squat chimneys that were
not at all in harmony with the Elizabethan architecture of the house.
“We used to have high twisted chimneys, but the wind blew them down.
You’ve no idea what the wind is like here,” explained Dr. Ingham
before dinner.
The car passed through a pair of ornamental iron gates and up a broad
drive to the portico before the door. The doctor was waiting and with
him a tall slight woman, who looked very young until she was seen
closer at hand. Even then she might deceive any but the most critical,
for her brown hair had a glint of gold in it, and the beauty of her
face had not entirely faded.
“Welcome!” Dr. Ingham had a bandage over one eye and his injured nose
was still covered with plaster. But he was in a pleasantly jovial
mood. Perhaps he was relieved at the sight of his visitor, for he
subsequently admitted that he had been expecting a wire from Mr.
Reeder, regretting his inability to put in an appearance.
“I want you to persuade Mrs. Ingham that this is not the most forsaken
spot on the face of the earth, my dear Reeder. And if you can allay
her fears about a repetition of the attack upon me I shall be
completely grateful.”
Mrs. Ingham’s red lips curled in a smile. She was, Mr. Reeder
discovered, a well-read, knowledgeable woman. As she showed him round
the lovely grounds (the spring flowers were a joy to the eye) she gave
him every opportunity to study her. He himself said little--she gave
him no chance, for she never stopped talking. Her voice was low but
monotonous. She had definite views on almost every subject. She told
him that she was a graduate of a famous New England university--she
was obviously proud of this and repeated the information twice. She
was pretty, probably nearer forty than thirty. She had deep dark brown
eyes, the most delicate of features, and jet black eyebrows which
contrasted attractively with the colour of her hair.
“… I remember the Pizarro case--I had just left college and naturally
I was thrilled because he came from our home town. And, Mr. Reeder,
I’m sure that all these disappearances have something to do with the
Pizarro outfit. I have been racking my brains all day trying to think
how my husband has offended them. Maybe he preached against them. I’ve
a kind of recollection that he had a threatening letter when we were
in Boston soon after we married. Not that my husband would worry about
threatening letters.…”
There was much to see in the grounds: here and there a crumbling ruin
of a wall to remind the observer of the dead glories of Grayne Castle.
One interesting feature Mr. Reeder discovered was a flight of steps
leading down the face of the cliff. It was guarded by an iron hand
rail and gave the occupants of Grayne Hall a private way to the beach.
“If anybody wants to bathe on pebbles,” said Mrs. Ingham.
The room allotted to Mr. Reeder’s use gave him a beautiful view of the
sea and the flower garden before the house. It was furnished with rare
taste--he saw in the decorations Mrs. Ingham’s hand. A pleasant
retreat, but in many, many ways a dangerous one. He went up to his
room after tea and found his dress clothes laid out for him by his
host’s valet. Later came the individual to assist Mr. Reeder. A
bathroom opened from the bedroom and Mr. Reeder was under the shower
when the valet knocked. He came out, to find the man folding the
discarded day clothes and hanging them neatly in the wardrobe.
The contents of his pockets were placed neatly on the dressing table.
“Thank you,” murmured Mr. Reeder. “I--um--shall not require you any
more. I will ring if I do.”
He closed the door on the retiring valet, turned the key and began to
dress at his leisure. Mr. Reeder liked the routine of well run country
houses and Grayne Hall was extraordinarily well run. He came down to
find himself alone in the drawing room. A fine aromatic cedar log
burnt on the open grate, above which was a picture which might have
been a Rembrandt.
The soft hangings of the room, the austere furnishings, the pastel
coloured walls, were very soothing. Dr. Ingham, wearing the evening
dress of the laity, came in to rub his hands before the fire.
“I suppose Elsa gave you the full benefit of her theories? There may
be something in them. I’ve been trying to think how I might have
offended these birds. A sermon maybe. I used to be a powerful
preacher--took current events as my text. Come into my study and have
a drink. Elsa won’t be down for hours.”
He conducted Mr. Reeder across the panelled hall, through a deeply
recessed door into as comfortable a room as the heart of man could
desire.
Deep armchairs, a low divan before the fire, walls covered with
bookshelves, and a big empire desk were the main features of the room.
“Comfort, comfort, comfort!” said the cleric as he opened a walnut
cabinet and took out a silver tray laden with glasses. To these he
added a square decanter and a syphon.
“Say when.”
He splashed the soda into the brown whisky and Mr. Reeder sipped
daintily.