Red aces Being three cases of Mr. Reeder
member of the--um--Criminal Investigation Department; I was merely
called in to deal with this man’s smuggling--and he seems to have
smuggled pretty extensively. It is distressing that young Southers is
implicated. He seems a nice lad, and has rather a sane view of the
care of chickens. For example, he was telling me that he had an
incubator…”
At the end of the meal he asked permission to take away the notes for
study, and this favour was granted.
He was at the house in Shadwick Lane half an hour later. Gaylor, who
had arranged to meet him there, had not arrived, and Mr. Reeder had
two men who had had semi-permanent jobs on the wharf. It was the duty
of one to open and close the gates and pilot the lorries to their
positions. He had also, as had his companion, to assist at the
loading.
They had not seen much of Attymar all the years they had been there.
He usually came in on one of the night or early morning tides. Ligsey
paid them their wages.
“There was never any change,” said one mournfully. “We ain’t had the
gates painted since I’ve bin here--we’ve had the same little anvil to
keep the gate open----”
He looked round first one side and then the other. The same little
anvil was not there.
“Funny,” he said.
Mr. Reeder agreed. Who would steal a rusty little anvil? He saw the
place where it had lain; the impression of it still stood in the dusty
earth.
Later came Gaylor, in a hurry to show him over the other rooms of the
house. There was a kitchen, a rather spacious cellar, which was closed
by a heavy door, and one bedroom that had been divided into two
unequal parts by a wooden partition. The bedroom was simply but
cleanly furnished. There was a bed and bedstead, a dressing-table with
a large mirror, and a chest of drawers, which was empty. Indeed, there
was no article of Attymar’s visible, except an old razor, a stubbly
shaving brush and six worn shirts that had been washed until they were
threadbare. From the centre of the ceiling hung an electric light with
an opalescent shade; another light hung over a small oak desk, in
which, Gaylor informed him, most of the documents in the case had been
found. But Mr. Reeder’s chief interest was in the mirror, and in the
greasy smear which ran from the top left hand corner almost along the
top of the mirror. The glass itself was supported by two little
mahogany pillars, and to the top of each of these was attached a piece
of string.
“Most amusing,” said Mr. Reeder, speaking his thoughts aloud.
“Remind me to laugh,” said Mr. Gaylor heavily. “What is amusing?”
For answer Mr. Reeder put up his hand and ran the tip of his finger
along the smear. Then he began to prowl around the apartment obviously
looking for something, and as obviously disappointed that it could not
be found.
“No, nothing has been taken out of here,” said Gaylor in answer to his
question, “except the papers. Here’s something that may amuse you
more.”
He opened a door leading to the bedroom. Here was a cupboard--it was
little bigger. The walls and floor were covered with white tiles, as
also was the back of the door. From the ceiling projected a large
nozzle, and in one of the walls were two taps.
“How’s that for luxury? Shower bath--hot and cold water. Doesn’t that
make you laugh?”
“Nothing makes me laugh except the detectives in pictures,” said Mr.
Reeder calmly. “Do you ever go to the pictures, Gaylor?”
The inspector admitted that occasionally he did.
“I like to see detectives in comic films, because they always carry
large magnifying glasses. Do they make you laugh?”
“They do,” admitted Mr. Gaylor, with a contemptuous and reminiscent
smile.
“Then get ready to howl,” said Mr. Reeder, and from his pocket took
the largest reading glass that Gaylor had ever seen.
Under the astonished eyes of the detective Reeder went down on his
knees in the approved fashion, and began carefully to scrutinize the
floor. Inch by inch he covered, stopping now and again to pick up
something invisible to the Scotland Yard man, and placed it in an
envelope which he had also taken from his pocket.
“Cigar-ash?” asked Gaylor sardonically.
“Almost,” said Mr. Reeder.
He went on with his search, then suddenly he sat back on his heels,
his eyes ablaze, and held up a tiny piece of silver paper, less than a
quarter of an inch square. Gaylor looked down more closely.
“Oh, it is a cigarette you’re looking for?”
But Mr. Reeder was oblivious to all sarcasm. Inside the silver was a
scrap of transparent paper, so thin that it seemed part of the tinsel.
Very carefully, however, he separated the one from the other, touched
its surface and examined his finger-tips.
“Where’s the fireplace?” he asked suddenly.
“There’s a fireplace in the kitchen--that’s the only one.”
Mr. Reeder hurried downstairs and examined this small apartment. There
were ashes in the grate, but it was impossible to tell what had been
burnt.
“I should like to say,” said Gaylor, “that your efforts are wasted,
for we’ve got enough in the diary to hang Southers twice over. Only I
suspect you when you do things unnecessarily.”
“The diary?” Mr. Reeder looked up.
“Yes, Attymar’s.”
“So he kept a diary, did he?” Mr. Reeder was quite amused. “I should
have thought he would, if I had thought about it at all.”
Then he frowned.
“Not an ordinary diary, of course? Just an exercise book. It
begins--let me see--shall we say two weeks ago, or three weeks?”
Gaylor gazed at him in amazement.
“Mason told you?”
“No, he didn’t tell me anything, partly because he hasn’t spoken to
me. But, of course, it would be in a sort of exercise book. An
ordinary printed diary that began on the first of January would be
unthinkable. This case is getting so fascinating that I can hardly
stop laughing!”
He was not laughing; he was very serious indeed, as he stood in the
untidy yard before the little house and threw his keen glance across
its littered surface.
“There is no sign of the tender that brought Ligsey here? The little
boy on the barge was much more informative than he imagined! I’ll tell
you what to look for, shall I? A black, canoe-shaped motor-boat which
might hold three people at a pinch. Remember that--a canoe-shaped
boat, say ten feet long.”
“Where shall I find it?” asked the fascinated Gaylor.
“At the bottom of the river,” said Mr. Reeder calmly, “and in or near
it you will find a little anvil which used to keep the gate open!”
Mr. Reeder had a very large acquaintance with criminals, larger
perhaps than the average police officer, whose opportunities are
circumscribed by the area to which he is attached; and he knew that
the business of detection would be at a standstill if there were such
a thing in the world as a really clever criminal. By the just workings
of providence, men who gain their living by the evasion of the law are
deprived of the eighth sense which, properly functioning, would keep
them out of the hands of the police.
He made yet another survey of the house before he left, pointed out to
Gaylor something which that officer had already noticed, namely, the
bloodstains on the floor and the wall of a small lobby which connected
the main living room with the yard.
“Naturally I saw it,” said Gaylor, who was inclined to be a little
complacent. “My theory is that the fight started in the sitting-room;
they struggled out into the passage----”
“That would be impossible,” murmured Mr. Reeder.
CHAPTER VI
John Southers made a brief appearance at the Tower of London Police
Court--a dazed, bewildered young man, so overwhelmed by his position
that he could do no more than answer the questions put to him by the
magistrate’s clerk.
Gaylor had seen him earlier in the morning.
“He said nothing except that he went to Attymar’s house--oh, yes, he
admits that--by appointment. He says Attymar kept him waiting for some
time before he opened the door, and then only allowed him to come into
the lobby. He tells some rambling story about Attymar sending him to
meet a man at Highgate. In fact, it’s the usual Man story.”
Mr. Reeder nodded. He was not unacquainted with that mysterious man
who figures in the narratives of all arrested persons. Sometimes it
was a man who gave the prisoner the stolen goods in the possession of
which he had been found; sometimes it was the man who asked another to
cash a forged cheque; but always it was a vague Somebody who could
never be traced. Half the work of investigation which occupied the
attention of the detective force consisted of a patient search for men
who had no existence except in the imaginations of prisoners under
remand.
“Did he see him?” asked Mr. Reeder.
Gaylor laughed.
“My dear chap, what a question!”
Mr. Reeder fondled his bony chin.
“Is it possible to--um--have a little chat with our friend Southers?”
Gaylor was dubious, and had reason for his doubt. Chief Constable
Mason and the high men at Headquarters were at the moment writhing
under a periodical wave of criticism which sweeps across Scotland Yard
at regular intervals; and their latest delinquency was the
cross-examination of a man under suspicion of a serious crime. There
had been questions in Parliament, almost a Royal Commission.
“I doubt it,” said Gaylor. “The Chief is feeling rather sick about
this Hanny business, and as the kick has come down from your
department it isn’t likely that they’ll make an exception. I’ll ask
Mason and let you know.”
Mr. Reeder was home that afternoon when Anna Welford called. She was
most amazingly calm. Mr. Reeder, who had shown some hesitation about
receiving her, was visibly relieved.
“Have you seen Johnny?” was the first question she asked.
Mr. Reeder shook his head, and explained to her that in the strictest
sense he was not in the case, and that the police were very jealous of
interference.
“Clive has been to see me,” she said when he had finished, “and he has
told me everything--he is terribly upset.”
“Told you everything?” repeated Mr. Reeder.
She nodded.
“About Ligsey, and the story that Clive told you. I understood--in a
way. He is doing everything he can for Johnny; he has engaged a lawyer
and briefed counsel.”
For the second time Mr. Reeder motioned her to a chair, and, when she
was seated, continued his own restless pacing.
“If there was any truth in that story, your Johnny should be rather
well off,” he said. “The wages of sin are rather--um--high. Yet his
father told me this morning--I had a brief interview with him--that
young Mr. Southers’ bank balance is not an excessive one.”
He saw her lower her eyes and heard the quick little sigh.
“They’ve found the money--I thought you knew that,” she said in a low
voice.
Mr. Reeder halted in his stride and peered down at her.
“They’ve found the money?”
She nodded.
“The police came and made a search about an hour ago, and they found a
box in the tool-shed, with hundreds of pounds in it, all in notes.”
Mr. Reeder did not often whistle; he whistled now.
“Does Mr. Desboyne know this?” he asked.
She shook her head.
“Clive doesn’t know. It happened after he had left. He’s been terribly
nice--he’s made one confession that isn’t very flattering to me.”
Reeder’s eyes twinkled.
“That he is--um--engaged to somebody else?” he suggested, and she
stared at him in amazement.
“Do you know?”
“One has heard of such things,” said Mr. Reeder gravely.
“I was very glad,” she went on. “It removed the”--she
hesitated--“personal bias. He really is sorry for all he has said and
done. Johnny’s trouble has shaken him terribly. Clive thinks that the
murder was committed by this man Ligsey.”
“Oh!” said Mr. Reeder. “That is interesting.”
He stared down at her, pursing his lips thoughtfully.