Terror keep
have found a finger-print on the panel of my door.”
He saw Daver’s face change.
“When I say I have found a finger-print, I have found something which
has the appearance of a finger-print, and I can only be sure if I
examine it by means of a dactyscope. Unfortunately, I did not imagine
that I should have need for such an instrument, and I am wondering if
you could send somebody to London to bring it down for me?”
“With all the pleasure in life,” said Daver, though his tone lacked
heartiness. “One of the men----”
“I was thinking of Miss Belman,” interrupted J. G. Reeder, “who is a
friend of mine and would, moreover, take the greatest possible care of
that delicate piece of mechanism.”
Daver was silent for a moment, turning this over in his mind.
“Would it not be better if a man… and the last train down----”
“She could come down by car: I can arrange that.”
Mr. Reeder fumbled his chin.
“Perhaps it would be better if I brought down a couple of men from the
Yard.”
“No, no,” said Daver quickly. “You can send Miss Belman. I haven’t the
slightest objection. I will tell her.”
Mr. Reeder looked at his watch.
“The next train is at eight thirty-five, and that is the last train, I
think. The young lady will be able to get her dinner before she
starts.”
It was he who brought the news to the astonished Margaret Belman.
“Of course I’ll go up to town; but don’t you think somebody else could
get this instrument for you, Mr. Reeder? Couldn’t you have it sent
down----”
She saw the look in his eyes and stopped.
“What is it?” she asked, in a lower voice.
“Will you do this for--um--me, Miss--um--Margaret?” said Mr. Reeder,
almost humbly.
He went to the lounge and scribbled a note, while Margaret telephoned
for the cab. It was growing dark when the closed landau drew up before
the hotel and J. G. Reeder, who accompanied her, opened the door.
“There’s a man inside,” he said, dropping his voice to a whisper.
“Please don’t scream: he’s an officer of police, and he’s going with
you to London.”
“But--but----” she stammered.
“And you’ll stay in London to-night,” said Mr. Reeder. “I will join
you in the morning--I hope.”
CHAPTER XII
/Mr. Reeder/ was in his room, laying out his moderate toilet
requirements on the dressing-table, and meditating upon the waste of
time involved in conforming to fashion--for he had dressed for
dinner--when there came a tap at the door. He paused, a well-worn
hairbrush in his hand, and looked round.
“Come in,” he said, and added: “if you please.”
The little head of Mr. Daver appeared round the opening of the door,
anxiety and apology in every line of his peculiar face.
“Am I interrupting you?” he asked. “I am terribly sorry to bother you
at all, but Miss Belman being away, you quite understand? I’m sure you
do…?”
Mr. Reeder was courtesy itself.
“Come in, come in, sir,” he said. “I was merely preparing for the
night. I am a very tired man, and the sea air----”
He saw the face of the proprietor fall.
“Then, Mr. Reeder, I have come upon a useless errand. The truth
is”--he slipped inside the door, closed it carefully behind him, as
though he had an important statement to make which he did not wish to
be overheard--“my three guests are anxious to play bridge, and they
deputed me to ask if you would care to join them?”
“With every pleasure in life,” said Mr. Reeder graciously. “I am an
indifferent player, but if they will bear with me, I will be down in a
few minutes.”
Mr. Daver withdrew, babbling his gratitude and apologies. The door was
hardly closed upon him before Mr. Reeder crossed the room and locked
it. Stooping, he opened one of the trunks, took out a long, flexible
rope-ladder, and dropped it through the open window into the darkness
below, fastening one end to the leg of the four-poster. Leaning out of
the window, he said something in a low voice, and braced himself
against the bed to support the weight of the man who came nimbly up
the ladder into the room. This done, he replaced the rope-ladder in
his trunk, locked it, and, walking to a corner of the room, pulled at
one of the solid panels. It hinged open and revealed the deep cupboard
which Mr. Daver had shown him.
“That is as good a place as any, Brill,” he said. “I’m sorry I must
leave you for two hours, but I have an idea that nobody will disturb
you there. I am leaving the lamp burning, which will give you enough
light.”
“Very good, sir,” said the man from Scotland Yard, and took up his
post.
Five minutes later Mr. Reeder locked the door of his room and went
downstairs to the waiting party.
They were in the big hall, a very silent and preoccupied trio, until
his arrival galvanised them into something that might pass for light
conversation. There was, indeed, a fourth present when he came in: a
sallow-faced woman in black, who melted out of the hall at his
approach, and he guessed her to be the melancholy Mrs. Burton. The two
men rose at his approach, and after the usual self-deprecatory
exchange which preceded the cutting for partners, Mr. Reeder found
himself sitting opposite the military-looking Colonel Hothling. On his
left was the pale girl; on his right the hard-faced Rev. Mr. Dean.
“What do we play for?” growled the Colonel, caressing his moustache,
his steely blue eyes fixed on Mr. Reeder.
“A modest stake, I hope,” begged that gentleman. “I am such an
indifferent player.”
“I suggest sixpence a hundred,” said the clergyman. “It is as much as
a poor parson can afford.”
“Or a poor pensioner either,” grumbled the Colonel, and sixpence a
hundred was agreed.
They played two games in comparative silence. Reeder was sensitive of
a strained atmosphere, but did nothing to relieve it. His partner was
surprisingly nervous for one who, as he remarked casually, had spent
his life in military service.
“A wonderful life,” said Mr. Reeder in his affable way.
Once or twice he detected the girl’s hand, as she held the cards,
tremble ever so slightly. Only the clergyman remained still and
unmoved, and, incidentally, played without error.
It was after an atrocious revoke on the part of his partner, a revoke
which gave his opponents the game and rubber, that Mr. Reeder pushed
back his chair.
“What a strange world this is!” he remarked sententiously. “How like a
game of cards!”
Those who were best acquainted with Mr. Reeder knew that he was most
dangerous when he was most philosophical. The three people who sat
about the table heard only a boring commonplace, in keeping with their
conception of this somewhat dull-looking man.
“There are some people,” mused Mr. Reeder, looking up at the lofty
ceiling, “who are never happy unless they have all the aces. I, on the
contrary, am most cheerful when I have in my hand all the knaves.”
“You play a very good game, Mr. Reeder.”
It was the girl who spoke, and her voice was husky, her tone hesitant,
as though she were forcing herself to speak.
“I play one or two games rather well,” said Mr. Reeder. “Partly, I
think, because I have such an extraordinary memory--I never forget
knaves.”
There was a silence. This time the reference was too direct to be
mistaken.
“There used to be in my younger days,” Mr. Reeder went on, addressing
nobody in particular, “a Knave of Hearts, who eventually became a
Knave of Clubs, and drifted down into heaven knows what other welters
of knavery! In plain words, he started his professional--um--life as a
bigamist, continued his interesting and romantic career as a tout for
gambling hells, and was concerned in a bank robbery in Denver. I have
not seen him for years, but he is colloquially known to his associates
as ‘The Colonel’; a military-looking gentleman with a pleasing
appearance and a glib tongue.”
He was not looking at the Colonel as he spoke, so he did not see the
man’s face go pale.
“I have not met him since he grew a moustache, but I could recognise
him anywhere by the peculiar colour of his eyes and by the fact that
he has a scar at the back of his head, a souvenir of some unfortunate
fracas in which he was engaged. They tell me that he became an expert
user of knives--I gather he sojourned a while in Latin America--a
knave of clubs and a knave of hearts--hum!”
The Colonel sat rigid, not a muscle of his face moving.
“One supposes,” Mr. Reeder continued, looking at the girl
thoughtfully, “that he has by this time acquired a competence which
enables him to stay at the very best hotels without any fear of police
supervision.”
Her dark eyes were fixed unwaveringly on his. The full lips were
closed, the jaws set.
“How very interesting you are, Mr. Reeder!” she drawled at last. “Mr.
Daver tells me you are associated with the police force?”
“Remotely, only remotely,” said Mr. Reeder.
“Are you acquainted with any other knaves, Mr. Reeder?”
It was the cool voice of the clergyman, and Mr. Reeder beamed round at
him.
“With the Knave of Diamonds,” he said softly. “What a singularly
appropriate name for one who spent five years in the profitable
pursuit of illicit diamond-buying in South Africa, and five
unprofitable years on the Breakwater in Capetown, becoming, as one
might say, a knave of spades from the continuous use of that necessary
and agricultural implement, and a knave of pickaxes too, one supposes!
He was flogged, if I remember rightly, for an outrageous assault upon
a warder, and on his release from prison was implicated in a robbery
in Johannesburg. I am relying on my memory, and I cannot recall at the
moment whether he reached Pretoria Central--which is the colloquial
name for the Transvaal prison--or whether he escaped. I seem to
remember that he was concerned in a banknote case which I once had in
hand. Now what was his name?”
He looked thoughtfully at the clergyman.
“Gregory Dones! That is it--Mr. Gregory Dones! It is beginning to come
back to me now. He had an angel tattooed on his left forearm, a piece
of decoration which one would have imagined sufficient to keep him to
the narrow paths of virtue, and even to bring him eventually within
the fold of the church.”
The Rev. Mr. Dean got up from the table, put his hand in his pocket
and took out some money.
“You lost the rubber, but I think you win on points,” he said. “What
do I owe you, Mr. Reeder?”
“What you can never pay me,” said Mr. Reeder, shaking his head.
“Believe me, Gregory, your score and mine will never be wholly settled
to your satisfaction!”
With a shrug of his shoulders and a smile, the hard-faced clergyman
strolled away. Mr. Reeder watched him out of the corner of his eye and
saw him disappear towards the vestibule.
“Are all your knaves masculine?” asked Olga Crewe.
Reeder nodded gravely.
“I hope so, Miss Crewe.”
Her challenging eyes met his.
“In other words, you don’t know me?” she said bluntly. And then, with
sudden vehemence: “I wish to God you did! I wish you did!”
Turning abruptly, she almost ran from the hall.
Mr. Reeder stood where she had left him, his eyes roving left and
right. In the shadowy entrance of the hall, made all the more obscure
by the heavy dark curtains which covered it, he saw a dim figure
standing. Only for a second, and then it disappeared. The woman
Burton, he thought.
It was time to go to his room. He had taken only two steps from the
table when all the lights in the hall went out. In such moments as
these Mr. Reeder was a very nimble man. He spun round and made for the
nearest wall, and stood waiting, his back to the panelling. And then
he heard the plaintive voice of Mr. Daver.
“Who on earth has put the lights out? Where are you, Mr. Reeder?”
“Here!” said Mr. Reeder, in a loud voice, and dropped instantly to the
ground. Only in time: he heard a whistle, a thud, and something struck