Room 13
was the Welsh woman, and there came to his ears the clatter of plates
and cutlery, and he smiled.
He had hardly got back to his chair and his newspaper when the
telephone bell rang. It was the reception clerk.
“There’s a lady to see you. She asked if you’d come down. She says it
is very important.”
“Who is it?” asked Jeffrey, frowning.
“Miss Lila.”
“Lila!” He hesitated. “Send her up, please,” he said, and drew a heavy
velvet curtain across the door of Marney’s room.
At the first sight of Peter Kane’s maid he knew that she had left
Horsham in a hurry. Under the light coat she wore he saw the white
collar of her uniform.
“What’s the trouble with you, Lila?” he asked.
“Where is Marney?” she asked.
He nodded to the curtained room.
“Have you locked her in?”
“To be exact, she locked herself in,” said Jeff with a twisted smile.
The eyes of the woman narrowed.
“Oh, it’s like that, is it?” she asked harshly. “You haven’t lost much
time, Jeff.”
“Don’t get silly ideas in your nut,” he said coolly. “I told her who I
was, and there was a row--that’s all there is to it. Now, what’s the
trouble?”
“Peter Kane’s left Horsham with a gun in his pocket--that’s all,” she
said, and Jeffrey paled.
“Sit down and tell me just what you mean.”
“After you’d gone I went up to my room because I was feeling mighty
bad,” she said. “I’ve got my feelings, and there isn’t a woman
breathing that can see a man go away with another girl----”
“Cut out all the sentiment and let’s get right down to the facts,”
commanded Jeff.
“I’ll tell it in my own way if you don’t mind, Jeffrey Legge,” said
Lila.
“Well, get on with it,” he said impatiently.
“I wasn’t there long before I heard Peter in his room--it is
underneath mine--and he was talking to himself. I guess curiosity got
the better of my worry, and I went down and listened. I couldn’t hear
what he was saying, and so I opened the door of his room a little bit.
He had just changed. The moment I went in he was slipping the magazine
in the butt of a Browning--I saw him put it in his coat pocket, and
then I went downstairs. After a while he came down too, and, Jeff, I
didn’t like the look of his face. It was all grey and pinched, and if
ever I saw a devil in a man’s eyes I saw it in Peter Kane’s. I heard
him order the car, and then I went down into the kitchen, thinking he
was going at once. But he didn’t leave for about half an hour.”
“What was he doing?”
“He was in his own room, writing. I don’t know what he was writing,
because he always uses a black blotting-pad. He must have written a
lot, because I know there were half a dozen sheets of stationery in
the rack, and when I went in after he’d left they had all gone. There
was nothing torn up in the waste-paper basket, and he’d burnt nothing,
so he must have taken all the stuff with him. I tried to get you on
the phone, but you hadn’t arrived, and I decided to come up.”
“How did you come up--by train or car?”
“By taxi. There wasn’t a train for nearly two hours.”
“You didn’t overtake Peter by any chance?”
She shook her head.
“I wouldn’t. He was driving himself; his machine is a Spanz, and it
moves!”
Jeff bit his nails.
“That gun of Peter’s worries me a little,” he said after a while,
“because he isn’t a gunman. Wait.”
He took up the telephone and again called his father, and in a few
words conveyed the story which Lila had brought.
“You’ll have to cover me now,” he said anxiously. “Peter knows.”
A long pause.
“Johnny must have told him. I didn’t dream he would,” said Emanuel.
“Keep to the hotel, and don’t go out. I’ll have a couple of boys
watching both entrances, and if Peter shows his nose in Pall Mall he’s
going to be hurt.”
Jeff hung up the receiver slowly and turned to the girl.
“Thank you, Lila. That’s all you can do for me.”
“It is not all you can do for me,” said Lila. “Jeff, what is going to
happen now? I’ve tried to pin you down, but you’re a little too shifty
for me. You told me that this was going to be one of those high-class
platonic marriages which figure in the divorce courts, and, Jeff, I’m
beginning to doubt.”
“Then you’re a wise woman,” said Jeffrey calmly.
For a moment she did not understand the significance of the words.
“I’m a wise woman?” she repeated. “Jeff, you don’t mean----”
“I’m entitled to my adventures,” said Jeffrey, settling himself
comfortably in the big arm-chair and crossing his legs. “I have a dear
little wife, and for the moment, Lila, our little romance is
finished.”
“You don’t mean that?” she asked unsteadily. “Jeff, you’re kidding.
You told me that all you wanted was to get a share of Peter’s money,
and Emanuel told me the same. He said he was going to put the ‘black’
on Peter and get away with forty thousand.”
“In the meantime I’ve got away with the girl,” said Jeffrey
comfortably, “and there’s no sense in kicking up a fuss, Lila. We’ve
had a good time, and change is everything in life.”
She was on her feet now, glaring down at him.
“And have I been six months doing slavey work, nosing for you, Jeffrey
Legge, to be told that our little romance is finished?” she asked
shrilly. “You’ve double-crossed me, you dirty thief! And if I don’t
fix you, my name’s not Lila.”
“It isn’t,” said Jeffrey. He reached for a cigar and lit it. “And
never was. Your name’s Jane--that is, if you haven’t been telling me
lies. Now, Lila, be an intelligent human being. I’ve put aside five
hundred for you----”
“Real money, I hope,” she sneered. “No, you’re not going to get away
with it so easy, Mr. Jeffrey Legge. You’ve fooled me from beginning to
end, and you either carry out your promise or I’ll----”
“Don’t say you’ll squeak,” said Jeffrey, closing his eyes in mock
resignation. “You’re all squeakers. I’m tired of you! You don’t think
I’d give you anything to squeak about, do you? That I’d trust you
farther than I could fling you? No, my girl, I’m four kinds of a fool,
but not that kind. You know just as much about me as the police know,
or as Johnny Gray knows. You can’t tell my new wife, because she knows
too. And Peter knows--in fact, I shouldn’t be surprised if somebody
didn’t write a story about it in the newspapers to-morrow!”
He took out his pocket-case, opened it, and from a thick wad of notes
peeled five, which he flung on to the table.
“There’s your ‘monkey,’ and au revoir, beauteous maiden,” he said.
She took up the notes slowly, folded them, and slipped them into her
bag. Her eyes were burning fires, her face colourless.
If she had flown at him in a fury he would have understood, and was,
in fact, prepared. But she said nothing until she stood, the knob of
the door in her hand.
“There are three men after you, Jeffrey Legge,” she said, “and one
will get you. Reeder, or Johnny, or Peter--and if they fail, you look
out for me!”
And on this threat she took her departure, slamming the door behind
her, and Jeffrey settled down again to his newspaper, with the feeling
of satisfaction which comes to a man who has got through a very
unpleasant task.
CHAPTER XI
In a long, sedate road in suburban Brockley lived a man who had
apparently no fixed occupation. He was tall, thin, somewhat
cadaverous, and he was known locally as a furtive night-bird. Few had
seen him in the day-time, and the inquisitive who, by skilful
cross-examination, endeavoured to discover his business from a
reticent housekeeper learnt comparatively little, and that little
inaccurate. Policemen on night duty, morning wayfarers had seen him
walking up Brockley Road in the early hours, coming apparently from
the direction of London. He was known as Mr. J.G. Reeder. Letters in
that name came addressed to him--large blue letters, officially
stamped and sealed and in consequence it was understood in postal
circles that he held a Government position.
The local police force never troubled him. He was one of the subjects
which it was not permissible to discuss. Until the advent of Emanuel
Legge that afternoon, nobody ever remembered Mr. Reeder having a
caller.
Emanuel had come from prison to the affairs of the everyday world with
a clearer perception of values than his son. He was too old a criminal
to be under any illusions. Sooner or later, the net of the law would
close upon Jeffrey, and the immunity which he at present enjoyed would
be at an end. To every graft came its inevitable lagging. Emanuel,
wise in his generation, had decided upon taking the boldest step of
his career. And that he did so was not flattering to the
administration of justice; nor could it be regarded as a tribute to
the integrity of the police.
Emanuel had “straightened” many a young detective, and not a few
advanced in years. He knew the art of “dropping” to perfection. In all
his life he had only met three or four men who were superior to the
well-camouflaged bribe. A hundred here and there makes things easier
for the big crook; a thousand will keep him out of the limelight; but,
once the light is on him, not a million can disturb the inevitable
march of justice. Emanuel was working in the pre-limelight stage, and
hoped for success.
If his many inquiries were truthfully answered, the police had not
greatly changed since his young days. Secret service men were new to
him. He had thought, in spite of the enormous sums allocated to that
purpose in every year’s budget, that secret service was an invention
of the sensational novelist; and even now, he imagined Mr. Reeder to
be one who was subsidised from the comparatively private resources of
the banks rather than from the Treasury.
It was Emanuel’s action to grasp the nettle firmly. “In-fighting is
not much worse than hugging,” was a favourite saying of his, and once
he had located Mr. J.G. Reeder, the night-hawk--and that had been the
labour of months--the rest was easy. Always providing that Mr. Reeder
was amenable to argument.
The middle-aged woman who opened the door to him gave him an
unpromising reception.
“Mr. Reeder is engaged,” she said, “and he doesn’t want to see any
visitors.”
“Will you kindly tell him,” said Emanuel with his most winning smile
and a beam of benevolence behind his thick glasses, “that Mr. Legge
from Devonshire would like to see him on a very particular matter of
business?”
She closed the door in his face, and kept him so long waiting that he
decided that even the magic of his name and its familiar association
(he guessed) had not procured him an entry. But here he was mistaken.
The door was opened for him, closed and bolted behind him, and he was
led up a flight of stairs to the first floor.
The house was, to all appearance, well and comfortably furnished. The
room into which he was ushered, if somewhat bare and official-looking,
had an austerity of its own. Sitting behind a large writing-table, his
back to the fire-place, was a man whom he judged to be between fifty
and sixty. His face was thin, his expression sad. Almost on the end of
his nose was clipped a pair of large, circular pince-nez. His hair was
of that peculiar tint, red turning to grey, and his ears were large
and prominent, seeming to go away from his head at right angles. All
this Emanuel noted in a glance.
“Good morning, or good afternoon, Mr. Legge,” said the man at the
desk. He half rose and offered a cold and lifeless hand. “Sit down,
will you?” he said wearily. “I don’t as a rule receive visitors, but I
seem to remember your name. Now where have I heard it?”
He dropped his chin to his breast and looked over his spectacles
dolefully. Emanuel’s expansive smile struck against the polished
surface of his indifference and rebounded. He felt for the first time
the waste of expansiveness.
“I had a little piece of information I thought I’d bring to you, Mr.