His lordship nodded slowly.
‘My nephew knew. He came to my house two days ago to borrow money. He has a small income from his late mother’s estate, but insufficient to support him in his reckless extravagance. He admitted frankly to me that he had come back from Monte Carlo broke. How long he had been in London I am unable to tell you, but he was in my library when my secretary came in with the money which I had drawn from the bank in preparation for paying the bill when it became due. Very foolishly I explained why I had so much cash in the house and why I was unable to oblige him with the thousand pounds which he wanted to borrow,’ he added dourly.
Mr Reeder scratched his chin.
‘What am I to do?’ he asked.
‘I want you to find Carlin,’ Lord Sellington almost snarled. ‘But most I want that money back – you understand, Reeder? You’re to tell him that unless he repays–’
Mr Reeder was gazing steadily at the cornice moulding.
‘It almost sounds as if I am being asked to compound a felony, my lord,’ he said respectfully. ‘But I realize, in the peculiar circumstances, we must adopt peculiar methods. The black-bearded gentleman who called for the money would appear to have been’ – he hesitated – ‘disguised?’
‘Of course he was disguised,’ said the other irritably.
‘One reads of such things,’ said Mr Reeder with a sigh, ‘but so seldom does the bearded stranger appear in real life! Will you be good enough to tell me your nephew’s address?’
Lord Sellington took a card from his pocket and threw it across the table. It fell to the floor, but he did not apologize. He was that kind of man.
‘Jermyn Mansions,’ said Mr Reeder as he rose. ‘I will see what can be done.’
Lord Sellington grunted something which might have been a tender farewell, but probably was not.
Jermyn Mansions is a very small, narrow-fronted building and, as Mr Reeder knew – and he knew a great deal – was a block of residential flats, which were run by an ex-butler who was also the lessee of the establishment. By great good fortune, as he afterwards learned, Harry Carlin was at home, and in a few minutes the man from the Public Prosecutor’s office was ushered into a shabby drawing-room that overlooked Jermyn Street.
A tall young man stood by the window, looking disconsolately into that narrow and lively thoroughfare, and he turned as Mr Reeder was announced. Thin faced, narrow-headed, small-eyed, if he possessed any of the family traits and failings, the most marked was perhaps his too ready irritation.
Mr Reeder saw, through an open door, a very untidy bedroom, caught a glimpse of a battered trunk covered with Continental labels.
‘Well, what the devil do you want?’ demanded Mr Carlin. Yet, in spite of his tone, there was an undercurrent of disquiet which Mr Reeder detected.
‘May I sit down?’ said the detective and, without waiting for an invitation, pulled a chair from the wall and sat down gingerly, for he knew the quality of chairs in furnished apartments.
His self-possession, the hint of authority he carried in his voice, increased Mr Harry Carlin’s uneasiness; and when Mr Reeder plunged straight into the object of his visit, he saw the man go pale.
‘It is a difficult subject to open,’ said Mr Reeder, carefully smoothing his knees, ‘and when I find myself in that predicament I usually employ the plainest language.’
And plain language he employed with a vengeance. Half way through Carlin sat down with a gasp.
‘What – what!’ he stammered. ‘Does that old brute dare – ! I thought you came about the bills – I mean–’
‘
I
mean,’ said Mr Reeder carefully, ‘that if you have had a little fun with your relative, I think that jest has gone far enough. Lord Sellington is prepared, when the money is refunded, to regard the whole thing as an over elaborate practical joke on your part–’
‘But I haven’t touched his beastly money!’ the young man almost screamed. ‘I don’t want his money–’
‘On the contrary, sir,’ said Reeder gently, ‘you want it very badly. You left the Hotel Continental without paying your bill; you owe some six hundred pounds to various gentlemen from whom you borrowed that amount; there is a warrant out for you in France for passing cheques which are usually described by the vulgar as er – “dud”. Indeed’ – again Mr Reeder scratched his chin and looked thoughtfully out of the window – ‘indeed I know no gentleman in Jermyn Street who is so badly in need of money as your good self.’
Carlin would have stopped him, but the middle-aged man went on remorselessly.
‘I have been for an hour in the Record Department of Scotland Yard, where your name is not unknown, Mr Carlin. You left London rather hurriedly to avoid – er – proceedings of an unpleasant character. “Bills”, I think you said? You are known to have been the associate of people with whom the police are a little better acquainted than they are with Mr Carlin. You were also associated with a racecourse fraud of a peculiarly unpleasant character. And amongst your minor delinquencies there is – er – a deserted young wife, at present engaged in a city office as typist, and a small boy for whom you have never provided.’
Carlin licked his dry lips.
‘Is that all?’ he asked, with an attempt at a sneer, though his voice shook and his trembling hands betrayed his agitation.
Reeder nodded.
‘Well, I’ll tell you something. I want to do the right thing by my wife. I admit I haven’t played square with her, but I’ve never had the money to play square. That old devil has always been rolling in it, curse him! I’m the only relation he has, and what has he done? Left everything to these damned children’s homes of his! If somebody has caught him for five thousand I’m glad! I shouldn’t have the nerve to do it myself, but I’m glad if they did – whoever they may be. Left every penny to a lot of squalling, sticky-faced brats, and not a penny to me!’
Mr Reeder let him rave on without interruption, until at last, almost exhausted by his effort, he dropped down into a deep chair and glared at his visitor.
‘Tell him that,’ he said breathlessly; ‘tell him that!’ Mr Reeder made time to call at the little office in Portugal Street wherein was housed the headquarters of Lord Sellington’s various philanthropic enterprises. Mr Arthur Lassard had evidently been in communication with his noble patron, for no sooner did Reeder give his name than he was ushered into the plainly furnished room where the superintendent sat.
It was not unnatural that Lord Sellington should have as his assistant in the good work so famous an organizer as Mr Arthur Lassard. Mr Lassard’s activities in the philanthropic world were many. A broad-shouldered man with a jolly red face and a bald head, he had survived all the attacks which come the way of men engaged in charitable work, and was not particularly impressed by a recent visit he had had from Harry Carlin.
‘I don’t wish to be unkind,’ he said, ‘but our friend called here on such a lame excuse that I can’t help feeling that his real object was to secure a sheet of my stationery. I did, in fact, leave him in the room for a few minutes, and he had the opportunity to take the paper if he desired.’
‘What was his excuse?’ asked Mr Reeder, and the other shrugged.
‘He wanted money. At first he was civil and asked me to persuade his uncle; then he grew abusive, said that I was conspiring to rob him – I and my “infernal charities”!’
He chuckled, but grew grave again.
‘I don’t understand the situation,’ he said. ‘Evidently Carlin has committed some crime against his lordship, for he is terrified of him!’
‘You think Mr Carlin forged your name and secured the money?’
The superintendent spread out his arms in despair.
‘Who else can I suspect?’ he asked.
Mr Reeder took the forged letter from his pocket and read it again.
‘I’ve just been on the phone to his lordship,’ Mr Lassard went on. ‘He is waiting, of course, to hear your report, and if you have failed to make this young man confess his guilt, Lord Sellington intends seeing his nephew tonight and making an appeal to him. I can hardly believe that Mr Carlin could have done this wicked thing, though the circumstances seem very suspicious. Have you seen him, Mr Reeder?’
‘I have seen him,’ said Mr Reeder shortly. ‘Oh, yes, I have seen him!’
Mr Arthur Lassard was scrutinizing his face as though he were trying to read the conclusion which the detective had reached, but Mr Reeder’s face was notoriously expression less.
He offered a limp hand and went back to the Under Secretary’s house. The interview was short and on the whole disagreeable.
‘I never dreamt he would confess to you,’ said Lord Sellington with ill-disguised contempt. ‘Harry needs somebody to frighten him, and, my God! I’m the man to do it! I’m seeing him tonight.’
A fit of coughing stopped him and he gulped savagely from a little medicine bottle that stood on his desk.
‘I’ll see him tonight,’ he gasped, ‘and I’ll tell him what I intend doing! I’ve spared him so far because of his relationship and because he inherits the title. But I’m through. Every cent I have goes to charity. I’m good for twenty years yet, but every penny–’
He stopped. He was a man who never disguised his emotion, and Mr Reeder, who understood men, saw the struggle that was going on in Sellington’s mind.
‘He says he hasn’t had a chance. I may have treated him unfairly – we shall see.’
He waved the detective from his office as though he were dismissing a strange dog that had intruded upon his privacy, and Mr Reeder went out reluctantly, for he had something to tell his lordship.
It was peculiar to him that, in his more secretive moments, he sought the privacy of his old-fashioned study in Brockley Road. For two hours he sat at his desk calling a succession of numbers – and curiously enough, the gentlemen to whom he spoke were bookmakers. Most of them he knew. In the days when he was the greatest expert in the world on forged currency notes, he had been brought into contact with a class which is often the innocent medium by which the forger distributes his handicraft – and more often the instrument of his detection.
It was a Friday, a day on which most of the principals were in their offices till a late hour. At eight o’clock he finished, wrote a note and, phoning for a messenger, sent his letter on its fateful errand.
He spent the rest of the evening musing on past experiences and in refreshing his memory from the thin scrapbooks which filled two shelves in his study.
What happened elsewhere that evening can best be told in the plain language of the witness box. Lord Sellington had gone home after his interview with Mr Reeder suffering from a feverish cold; and he was disposed, according to the evidence of his secretary, to put off the interview which he had arranged with his nephew but Mr Carlin was not at his flat and could not be contacted. Until nine o’clock his lordship was busy with the affairs of his numerous charities, Mr Lassard being in attendance. Lord Sellington was working in a small study which opened from his bedroom.
At a quarter past nine Carlin arrived and was shown upstairs by the butler, who subsequently stated that he heard voices raised in anger. Mr Carlin came downstairs and was shown out as the clock struck half past nine, and a few minutes later the bell rang for Lord Sellington’s valet, who went up to assist his master to bed.
At half past seven the next morning, the valet, who slept in an adjoining apartment, went into his master’s room to take him a cup of tea. He found his employer lying face downwards on the floor; he was dead, and had been dead for some hours. There was no sign of wounds, and at first glance it looked as though this man of sixty had collapsed in the night. But there were circumstances which pointed to some unusual happening. In Lord Sellington’s bedroom was a small steel wall-safe, and the first thing the valet noticed was that this was open, papers were lying on the floor, and in the grate was a heap of paper which, except for one corner, was entirely burnt.
The valet telephoned immediately for the doctor and Mr Reeder scratched his chin with some sign of embarrassment, for the police, and from that moment the case went out of Mr Reeder’s able hands.
Later that morning he reported briefly to his superior the result of his inquiries.
‘Murder, I am afraid,’ he said sadly. ‘The Home Office pathologist is perfectly certain that it is a case of aconitine poisoning. The paper in the hearth has been photographed, and there is no doubt whatever that the burnt document is the will by which Lord Sellington left all his property to various charitable institutions.’
He paused here.
‘Well?’ asked his chief, ‘what does that mean?’
Mr Reeder coughed.
‘It means that if this will cannot be proved, and I doubt whether it can, his lordship died intestate. The property goes with the title–’
‘To Carlin?’ asked the startled Prosecutor.
Mr Reeder nodded.
‘There were other things burnt; four small oblong slips of paper, which had evidently been fastened together by a pin. These are quite indecipherable.’ He sighed again. The Public Prosecutor looked up.
‘You haven’t mentioned the letter that arrived by district messenger after Lord Sellington had retired for the night.’
Mr Reeder rubbed his chin.
‘No, I didn’t mention that,’ he said reluctantly.
‘Has it been found?’
Mr Reeder hesitated.
‘I don’t know. I rather think that it has not been,’ he said.
‘Would it throw any light upon the crime, do you think?’
Mr Reeder scratched his chin with some sign of embarrassment.
‘I should think it might,’ he said. ‘Will you excuse me, sir? Inspector Salter is waiting for me.’ And he was out of the room before the Prosecutor could frame any further inquiry.
Inspector Salter was striding impatiently up and down the little room when Mr Reeder came back. They left the building together. The car that was waiting for them brought them to Jermyn Street in a few minutes. Outside the flat three plain-clothes men were waiting, evidently for the arrival of their chief, and the inspector passed into the building, followed closely by Mr Reeder. They were half way up the stairs when Reeder asked: ‘Does Carlin know you?’