To the top floor of a building in Regent Street Mr Reeder repaired for instruction and guidance.
‘It is not – er – a practice of mine to – er – accompany ladies to the theatre, and I am rather at a loss to know what is expected of me, the more so since the young lady is – er – a stranger to me.’
His frosty-visaged assistant sneered secretly. At Mr Reeder’s time of life, when such natural affections as were not atrophied should in decency be fossilized!
He jotted down her suggestions.
‘Chocolates indeed? Where can one procure – ? Oh, yes, I remember seeing the attendants sell them. Thank you so much, Miss – er–’
And as he went out, closing the door carefully behind him, she sneered openly.
‘They all go wrong at seventy,’ she said insultingly.
Margaret hardly knew what to expect when she came into the flamboyant foyer of the Orpheum. What was the evening equivalent to the aged bowler and the tightly-buttoned black jacket of ancient design which he favoured in the hours of business? She would have passed the somewhat elegantly dressed gentleman in the well-cut dinner jacket, only he claimed her attention.
‘Mr Reeder!’ she gasped.
It was indeed Mr Reeder: with not so much as a shirt stud wrong; for Mr Reeder, like many other men, dressed according to his inclination in business hours, but accepted blindly the instructions of his tailor in the matter of fancy raiment. Mr J G Reeder was never conscious of his clothing, good or bad – he was, however, very conscious of his strange responsibility.
He took her coat (he had previously purchased programmes and a large box of chocolates, which he carried by its satin ribbon). There was a quarter of an hour to wait before the curtain went up, and Margaret felt it incumbent upon her to offer an explanation.
‘You spoke about “somebody” else; do you mean Roy – the man who sometimes meets me at Westminster?’
Mr Reeder
had
meant that young man.
‘He and I were good friends,’ she said, ‘no more than that – we aren’t very good friends any more.’
She did not say why. She might have explained in a sentence if she had said that Roy’s mother held an exalted opinion of her only son’s qualities, physical and mental, and that Roy thoroughly endorsed his mother’s judgement but she did not.
‘Ah!’ said Mr Reeder unhappily.
Soon after this the orchestra drowned further conversation, for they were sitting in the first row near to the noisiest of the brass and not far removed from the shrillest of the woodwind. In odd moments, through the exciting first act, she stole a glance at her companion. She expected to find this man mildly amused or slightly bored by the absurd contrast between the realities which he knew and the theatricalities which were presented on the stage. But whenever she looked, he was absorbed in the action of the play; she could almost feel him tremble when the hero was near death; and when he was rescued on the fall of the curtain, she heard, with something like stupefaction, Mr Reeder’s quivering sigh of relief.
‘But surely, Mr Reeder, this bores you?’ she protested, when the lights in the auditorium went up.
‘This – you mean the play – bore me? Good gracious, no! I think it is very fine, remarkably fine.’
‘But it isn’t life, surely? The story is so wildly improbable, and the incidents – oh, yes, I’m enjoying it all; please don’t look so worried! Only I thought that you, who knew so much about criminology – is that the word? – would be rather amused.’
Mr Reeder was looking very anxiously at her.
‘I’m afraid it is not the kind of play–’
‘Oh, but it is – I love it. But doesn’t it strike you as being far-fetched? For instance, that man being chained to a plank, and the mother agreeing to her son’s death?’
Mr Reeder rubbed his nose thoughtfully.
‘The Bermondsey gang chained Harry Salter to a plank, turned it over and let him down, just opposite Billingsgate Market. I was at the execution of Tod Rowe, and he admitted it on the scaffold. And it was “Lee” Pearson’s mother who poisoned him at Teddington to get his insurance money so that she could marry again. I was at the trial and she took her sentence laughing – now what else was there in that act? Oh, yes, I remember: the villain tried to get the young lady to marry him by threatening to send her father to prison. That has been done hundreds of times – only in a worse way. There is really nothing very extravagant about a melodrama except the prices of the seats, and I usually get my tickets free!’
She listened, at first dumbfounded and then with a gurgle of amusement.
‘How queer – and yet – well, frankly, I have only met melodrama once in life, and even now I cannot believe it. What happens in the next act?’
Mr Reeder consulted his programme.
‘I rather believe that the young woman in the white dress is captured and removed to the harem of an Eastern potentate,’ he said precisely, and this time the girl laughed aloud.
‘Have you a parallel for that?’ she asked triumphantly, and Mr Reeder was compelled to admit that he knew no exact parallel, but –
‘It is rather a remarkable coincidence,’ he said, ‘a very remarkable coincidence!’
She looked at her programme, wondering if she had overlooked anything so very remarkable.
‘There is at this moment, watching me from the front row of the dress circle – I beg you not to turn your head – one who, if he is not a potentate, is undoubtedly Eastern; but there are, in fact, two dark-complexioned gentlemen, but only one may be described as important.’
‘But why are they watching you?’ she asked in surprise.
‘Possibly,’ said Mr Reeder solemnly, ‘because I look so remarkable in a dinner jacket.’
One of the dark-complexioned gentlemen turned to his companion at this moment.
‘It’s the woman he travels with every day; she lives in the same street, and is doubtless more to him than anybody in the world, Ram. See how she laughs in his face and how the old so-and-so looks at her. When men come to his great age they grow silly about women. This thing can be done tonight. I would sooner die than go back to Bombay without accomplishing my design upon this such-and-such and so-forth.’
Ram, his chauffeur, confederate and fellow jailbird, who was cast in a less heroic mould and had, moreover, no personal vendetta, suggested in haste that the matter should be thought over.
‘I have cogitated every hypothesis to their logical conclusions,’ said Ras Lal in English.
‘But, master,’ said his companion urgently, ‘would it not be wise to leave this country and make a fortune with the new money which the fat little man can sell to us?’
‘Vengeance is mine,’ said Ras Lal in English.
He sat through the next act which, as Mr Reeder had truly said, depicted the luring of an innocent girl into the hateful clutches of an easterner and, watching the development of the plot, his own scheme underwent revision. He did not wait to see what happened in the third and fourth acts – there were certain preparations to be made.
‘I still think that, whilst the story is awfully exciting, it’s awfully impossible,’ said Margaret, as they moved slowly through the crowded vestibule. ‘In real life – in civilized countries, I mean – masked men do not suddenly appear from nowhere with guns and say “Hands up!” – not really, do they, Mr Reeder?’ she coaxed.
Mr Reeder murmured a reluctant agreement.
‘But I have enjoyed it tremendously!’ she said with enthusiasm, and looking down into the pink face Mr Reeder felt a curious sensation which was not entirely pleasure and not wholly pain.
‘I am very glad,’ he said.
Both the dress circle and the stalls disgorged into the foyer, and he was looking round for a face he had seen when he arrived. But neither Ras Lal nor his companion in misfortune was visible. Rain was falling dismally, and it was some time before he found a cab.
‘Luxury upon luxury,’ smiled Margaret, when he took his place by her side.
Mr Reeder took a paper packet of cigarettes from his pocket, dubiously offered her one and when she refused selected a limp cylinder, and lit it.
‘No plays are quite like life, my dear young lady,’ he said, as he carefully pushed the match through the space between the top of the window and the frame. ‘Melodramas appeal most to me because of their idealism.’
She turned and stared at him.
‘Idealism?’ she repeated incredulously.
He nodded.
‘In melodrama even the villains are heroic and the inevitable and unvarying moral is “Truth crushed to earth will rise again” – isn’t that idealism? And unpleasant things are never shown in an attractive light – you come away uplifted.’
‘If you are young enough,’ she smiled.
‘One should always be young enough to rejoice in the triumph of virtue,’ said Mr Reeder soberly.
They crossed Westminster Bridge and bore left to the New Kent Road. Through the rain-blurred windows J G picked up the familiar landmarks and offered a running commentary upon them in the manner of a guide. Margaret had not realized before that history was made in South London.
‘There used to be a gibbet here – this ugly-looking goods station was the London terminus of the first railways – Queen Alexandra drove from there when she came to be married – the thoroughfare on the right after we pass the Canal bridge is curiously named Bird-in-Bush Road–’
A big car had drawn level with the taxi, and the man at the wheel was shouting something to the taxi driver. Even the suspicious Mr Reeder suspected no more than an exchange of offensiveness, till the cab suddenly turned into the road he had been speaking about. The car had fallen behind, but now drew abreast.
‘Probably the main road is up,’ said J G, and at that moment the taxi slowed and stopped.
He was reaching out for the handle when the door was pulled open violently, and in the uncertain light Mr Reeder saw a broad-shouldered man standing in the road.
‘Alight quickly!’
In the man’s hand was a long, black Colt, and his face was covered from chin to forehead by a mask.
‘Quickly – and keep your hands erect!’
Mr Reeder stepped out into the rain and reached to close the door.
‘The female also – come, miss!’
‘Here – what’s the game – you told me the New Cross Road was blocked.’ It was the cabman talking.
‘Here is a five – keep your mouth shut.’
The masked man thrust a note at the driver.
‘I don’t want your money–’
‘You require my bullet in your bosom perchance, my good fellow?’ asked Ras Lal sardonically.
Margaret had followed her escort into the road by this time. The car had stopped just behind the cab. With the muzzle of the pistol stuck into his back, Mr Reeder walked to the open door and entered. The girl followed, and the masked man jumped after them and closed the door. Instantly the interior was flooded with light.
‘This is a considerable surprise to a clever and intelligent police detective?’
Their captor sat on the opposite seat, his gun on his knees. Through the holes of the black mask a pair of brown eyes gleamed malevolently. But Mr Reeder’s interest was in the girl. The shock had struck the colour from her face, but he observed with thankfulness that her chief emotion was not fear. She was numb with amazement, and was stricken speechless.
The car had circled and was moving swiftly back the way they had come. He felt the rise of the Canal bridge, and then the vehicle turned abruptly to the right and began the descent of a steep hill. They were running towards Rotherhithe – he had an extraordinary knowledge of London’s topography.
The journey was a short one. He felt the wheels bump over an uneven roadway for a hundred yards, the body rocking uncomfortably, and then with a jar of brakes the car stopped suddenly.
They were on a narrow muddy lane. On one side rose the arches of a railway aqueduct, on the other an open space bounded by a high fence. Evidently the driver had pulled up short of their destination, for they had to squelch and slide through the thick mud for another fifty yards before they came to a narrow gateway in the fence. Through this they struck a cinder path leading to a square building, which Mr Reeder guessed was a small factory of some kind. Their conductor flashed a torch on the door, and in weatherworn letters the detective read:
‘The Storn-Filton Leather Company.’
‘Now!’ said the man, as he turned a switch. ‘Now, my false-swearing and corrupt police official, I have a slight bill to settle with you.’
They were in a dusty lobby, enclosed on three sides by plasterboard walls.
‘“Account” is the word you want, Ras Lal,’ murmured Mr Reeder.
For a moment the man was taken aback, and then, snatching the mask from his face:
‘I am Ras Lal! And you shall repent it! For you and for your young missus this is indeed a cruel night of anxiety!’
Mr Reeder did not smile at the quaint English. The gun in the man’s hand spoke all languages without error, and could be as fatal in the hands of an unconscious humorist as if it were handled by the most savage of purists. And he was worried about the girl: she had not spoken a word since their capture. The colour had come back to her cheeks, and that was a good sign. There was, too, a light in her eyes which Reeder could not associate with fear.
Ras Lal, taking down a long cord that hung on a nail in the wooden partition, hesitated.
‘It is not necessary,’ he said, with an elaborate shrug of shoulder; ‘the room is sufficiently reconnoitred – you will be innocuous there.’
Flinging open a door, he motioned them to pass through and mount the bare stairs which faced them. At the top was a landing and a large steel door set in the solid brickwork.
Pulling back the iron bolt, he pushed at the door, and it opened with a squeak. It was a large room, and had evidently been used for the storage of something inflammable, for the walls and floor were of rough-faced concrete and above a dusty desk an inscription was painted, ‘Danger. Don’t smoke in this store.’ There were no windows except one some eighteen inches square, the top of which was near the ceiling. In one corner of the room was a heap of grimy paper files, and on the desk a dozen small wooden boxes, one of which had been opened, for the nail-bristling lid was canted up at an angle.