Red aces Being three cases of Mr. Reeder
“The--um--police rather fancy that Mr. Ligsey is dead,” he said, and
there was a note of irritation in his voice as though he resented the
police holding any theory at all. “Quite dead--um--murdered, in fact.”
There was a long pause here. He knew instinctively that she had come
to make some request, but it was not until she rose to go that she
spoke her thoughts.
“Clive wished to see you himself to make a proposition. He said that
he did not think you were engaged on the--official side of the case,
and he’s got a tremendous opinion of your cleverness, Mr. Reeder, and
so of course have I. Is it humanly possible for you to take up this
case… on Johnny’s side, I mean? Perhaps I’m being silly, but just now
I’m clutching at straws.”
Mr. Reeder was looking out of the window, his head moving slowly from
side to side.
“I’m afraid not,” he said. “I really am afraid not! The people on
your--um--friend’s side are the police. If he is innocent, I am
naturally on his side, with them. Don’t you see, young lady, that when
we prove a man’s guilt we also prove everybody else’s innocence?”
It was a long speech for Mr. Reeder, and he had not quite finished. He
stood with his hands deep in his pockets, his eyes half closed, his
body swaying to and fro.
“Let me see now… if Ligsey were alive?… A very dense and stupid young
man, quite incapable, I should have thought, of--um--so many things
that have happened during the last twenty-four hours.”
After Anna had left, he went to Southers’ house and interviewed
Johnny’s father. The old man was bearing his sorrow remarkably well.
Indeed, his principal emotion was a loud fury against the people who
dared accuse his son.
He led the way to the tool-shed in the yard and showed the detective
just where the box had been hidden.
“Personally, I never go into the shed. It’s Johnny’s little cubby
hutch,” he said. “The lad is fond of gardening, and, like you, Mr.
Reeder, has a fancy for poultry.”
“Is the shed kept locked?”
“No, I’ve never seen it locked,” said old Southers.
The place from which the box had been extracted was at the far end of
the shed. It had been concealed behind a bag of chicken-seed.
Mr. Reeder took a brief survey of the garden: it was an oblong strip
of ground, measuring about a hundred yards by twenty. At the further
end of the garden was a wall which marked the boundary of the garden
which backed on to it. The garden could be approached either from the
door leading to a small glass conservatory, or along a narrow gravel
strip which ran down one side of the house. Ingress, however, was
barred by a small door stretched across the narrow path.
“But it’s seldom locked,” said Southers. “We leave it open for the
milkman; he goes round to the kitchen that way in the morning.”
Mr. Reeder went back to the garden and walked slowly along the gravel
path which ran between two large flower-beds. At the farther end was a
wired-in chicken run. Mr. Reeder surveyed the flower-beds
meditatively.
“Nobody has dug up the garden?” he asked, and, when the other replied
in the negative: “Then I should do a bit of digging myself if I were
you, Mr. Southers,” he said gently; “and whether you tell the police
what you find, or do not tell the police, is entirely a matter for
your own conscience.”
He looked up at the sky for a long time as though he were expecting to
see an aeroplane, and then:
“If it is consistent with your--um--conscience to say nothing about
your discovery, and if you removed it or them to a safe place where it
or they would not be found, it might be to the advantage of your son
in the not too distant future.”
Mr. Southers was a little agitated, more than a little bewildered,
when Mr. Reeder took his leave. He was to learn that the ban on his
activities in regard to the Attymar murder had been strengthened
rather than relaxed, and he experienced a gentle but malignant
pleasure in the thought that in one respect he had made their task a
little more difficult.
It was Gaylor who brought the news.
“I spoke to the chief about your seeing Southers in Brixton, but he
thought it was best if you kept out of the case until the witnesses
are tested.”
Mr. Reeder’s duties in the Public Prosecutor’s Department were to
examine witnesses prior to their appearance in court, to test the
strength or the weakness of their testimony, and he had been employed
in this capacity before his official connection with the department
was made definite.
“At the same time,” Gaylor went on, “if you can pick up anything we’ll
be glad to have it.”
“Naturally,” murmured Mr. Reeder.
“I mean, you may by accident hear things--you know these people: they
live in the same street: and I think you know the young lady Southers
is engaged to?”
Mr. Reeder inclined his head.
“There’s another thing, Mr. Reeder.” Gaylor evidently felt he was
treading on delicate ground, having summarily declined and rejected
the assistance of his companion. “If you should hear from Ligsey----”
“A voice from the grave,” interrupted Mr. Reeder.
“Well, there is a rumour about that he’s not dead. In fact, the boy on
the barge, Hobbs, says that Ligsey came alongside last night in a
skiff and told him to keep his mouth shut about what he’d seen and
heard. My own opinion is that the boy was dreaming, but one of
Ligsey’s pals said he’d also seen him or heard him--I don’t know
which. That’s a line of investigation you might take on for your own
amusement----”
“Investigation doesn’t amuse me,” said Mr. Reeder calmly; “it bores
me. It wearies me. It brings me in a certain--um--income, but it
doesn’t amuse me.”
“Well,” said the detective awkwardly, “if it interests you, that’s a
line you might take up.”
“I shall not dream of taking up any line at all. It means work, and I
do not like work.”
Here, however, he was permitting himself to romance.
That afternoon he spent in the neighbourhood which Ligsey knew best.
He talked with carmen and van boys, little old women who kept tiny and
unremunerative shops, and the consequence of all his oblique
questionings was that he made a call in Little Calais Street, where
lived an unprepossessing young lady who had gained certain social
recognition--her portrait would appear in the next morning’s
newspapers--because she had been engaged to the missing man. She had,
in fact, walked out with him, amongst others, for the greater part of
a year.
Miss Rosie Loop did not suggest romance; she was short, rather stout,
had bad teeth and a red face; but for the moment she was important,
and might not have seen Mr. Reeder but for the mistaken idea she had
that he was associated with the press.
“Who shall I say it is?” asked her blowsy mother, who answered the
door.
“The editor of _The Times_,” said Mr. Reeder without hesitation.
In the stuffy little kitchen where the bereaved fiancée was eating
bread and jam, Mr. Reeder was given a clean Windsor chair, and sat
down to hear the exciting happening of the previous night.
“I haven’t told the press yet,” said Rosie, who had a surprisingly
shrill voice for one so equipped by nature for the deeper tones. “He
come last night. I sleep upstairs with mother, and whenever he used to
anchor off the crik he used to come ashore, no matter what time it
was, and throw up a couple of stones to let me know he was here. About
’arf past two it was last night, and lord! it gave me a start.”
“He threw up the stones to let you know he was there?” suggested Mr.
Reeder.
She nodded violently.
“And was it Mr. Ligsey?”
“It was him!” she said dramatically. “I wouldn’t go to the window for
a long time, but mother said ‘Don’t be such a fool, a ghost carn’t
hurt yer,’ and then I pulled up the sash and there he was in his old
oilskin coat. I asked him where he’d bin, but he was in a ’urry. Told
me not to get worried about him as he was all right.”
“How did he look?” asked Mr. Reeder.
She rolled her head impatiently.
“Didn’t I tell yer it was the middle of the night? But that’s what he
said--‘Don’t get worried about anything’--and then he popped off.”
“And you popped in?” said Mr. Reeder pleasantly. “He didn’t have a
cold or anything, did he?”
Her mouth opened.
“You’ve seen him? Where is he?”
“I haven’t seen him, but he had a cold?”
“Yes, he had,” she admitted, “and so would you ’ave if you ’ad to go
up and down that river all day and night. It’s a horrible life. I hope
he’s going to give it up. He’s bound to get some money if he comes
forward and tells the police the truth. It was very funny, me thinkin’
he was dead. We’d bin to buy our black--hadn’t we, mother?”
Mother offered a hoarse confirmation.
“And all the papers sayin’ he was dead, an’ dragging the river for
him, an’ that Captain Attymar. He used to treat Ligsey like a dog.”
“He hasn’t written to you?”
She shook her head.
“He was never a one for writing.”
“What time was this?”
She could tell him exactly, because she had heard Greenwich Church
striking the half-hour.
Mr. Reeder might be bored with investigation, but he found some
satisfaction in boredom.
The _Allanuna_ still lay off Greenwich, and he hired a boat to take
him to the barge. The disconsolate Master Hobbs was still on board,
and even the fact that he was now commander did not compensate him for
his loneliness, though apparently the police had supplied him with
food and had arranged to relieve him that evening.
He was very emphatic about the visitation of Ligsey. He had rowed
alongside and whistled to the boy--the whistle had wakened him. From
under the companion steps he had looked over and seen him sitting in
the boat, a big white bandage round his head. Miss Rosie had said
nothing about the white bandage, but, calling on his way home, Reeder
had confirmation.
“Yes, I forgot to tell you about that,” said Rosie. “I see it under
’is ’at. I said ‘What’s that white round your head?’ Fancy me
forgettin’ to tell you that!”
As a matter of form, Mr. Reeder, when he got home that night, jotted
down certain sequences.
At some time after eight on the night of the murder, Attymar had come
in a launch, had collected Ligsey and taken him towards London. At
nine-thirty Johnny Southers had called at Attymar’s house, and,
according to his story, had been sent on a fool’s errand to Highgate.
At some time about eleven o’clock the murder had been discovered----
Mr. Reeder put down his pen and frowned.
“I am getting old and stupid,” he said, reached for the telephone and
called a number to which he knew Gaylor would certainly be attached at
that hour.
It was Gaylor’s clerk who answered him, and, after about four minutes’
wait, Gaylor himself spoke.
“Have you found anything, Mr. Reeder?”
“I find I am suffering from a slight softening of the brain,” said Mr.
Reeder pleasantly. “Do you realize I never asked how the murder was
discovered?”
He heard Gaylor laugh.
“Didn’t I tell you? It was very simple. A policeman on his beat found
the wicket door open, saw the lantern on the ground and the other
lantern burning in the lobby of the house--what’s the matter?”
Mr. Reeder was laughing.
“Pardon me,” he said at last. “Are you sure there wasn’t an alarm bell
ringing?”
“I didn’t hear of any alarm bell--in fact, I don’t know that there is
one.”
Mr. Reeder exchanged a few commonplaces, denied that he was making any
enquiries about Ligsey, and, hanging up the receiver, sat back in his
chair, his hands clasped about his middle and real amusement in his
eyes.
Later he had a call from the solicitor engaged to defend young
Southers. He also suggested that Mr. Reeder should place his services
at the call of the defence; but again he refused.
Opening the telephone directory, he found the number of Mr. Clive