Mr Reeder, tightly grasping his umbrella with both hands, looked over his glasses at the shabby man who stood at the bottom of the steps. He was on the point of leaving his house in the Brockley Road for his office in Whitehall, and since he was a methodical man and worked to a timetable, he resented in his mild way this interruption which had already cost him fifteen seconds of valuable time.
‘You’re the fellow who shopped Ike Walker, ain’t you?’
Mr Reeder had indeed ‘shopped’ many men. He was by profession a shopper, which, translated from the argot, means a man who procures the arrest of an evildoer. Ike Walker he knew very well indeed. He was a clever, a too clever, forger of bills of exchange, and was at that precise moment almost permanently employed as orderly in the convict prison at Dartmoor, and might account himself fortunate if he held this easy job for the rest of his twelve years’ sentence.
His interrogator was a little hard-faced man wearing a suit that had evidently been originally intended for somebody of greater girth and more commanding height. His trousers were turned up noticeably; his coat was full of folds and tucks which only an amateur tailor would have dared, and only one superior to the criticism of his fellows would have worn. His hard, bright eyes were fixed on Mr Reeder, but there was no menace in them so far as the detective could read.
‘Yes, I was instrumental in arresting Ike Walker,’ said Mr Reeder, almost gently.
The man put his hand in his pocket and brought out a crumpled packet enclosed in green oiled silk. Mr Reeder unfolded the covering and found a soiled and crumpled envelope.
‘That’s from Ike,’ said the man. ‘He sent it out of stir by a gent who was discharged yesterday.’
Mr Reeder was not shocked by this revelation. He knew that prison rules were made to be broken, and that worse things have happened in the best regulated jails than this item of a smuggled letter. He opened the envelope, keeping his eyes on the man’s face, took out the crumpled sheet and read the five or six lines of writing.
Dear Reeder
Here is a bit of a riddle for you. What other people have got, you can have. I haven’t got it, but it’s coming to you. It’s red-hot when you get it, but you’re cold when it goes away.
Your loving friend,
Ike Walker
(doing a twelve stretch because you went on the witness stand and told a lot of lies).
Mr Reeder looked up and their eyes met.
‘Your friend is a little mad, one thinks?’ he asked politely.
‘He ain’t a friend of mine. A gent asked me to bring it,’ said the messenger.
‘On the contrary,’ said Mr Reeder pleasantly, ‘he gave it to you in Dartmoor Prison yesterday when you were released. Your name is Mills; you have eight convictions for burglary, and will have your ninth before time year is out.’
The man was for the moment alarmed and in two minds to bolt. Mr Reeder glanced along Brockley Road, saw a slim figure, that was standing at the corner, cross to a waiting bus and, seeing his opportunity vanish, readjusted his timetable.
‘Come inside, Mr Mills.’
‘I don’t want to come inside,’ said Mr Mills, now thoroughly agitated. ‘He asked me to give this to you and I’ve give it. There’s nothing else–’
Mr Reeder crooked his finger.
‘Come, birdie!’ he said, with great amiability. ‘And please don’t annoy me! I am quite capable of sending you back to your friend Mr Walker. I am really a most unpleasant man if I am upset.’
The messenger followed meekly, wiped his shoes with great vigour on the mat and tiptoed up the carpeted stairs to the big study where Mr Reeder did most of his thinking.
‘Sit down, Mills.’
With his own hands Mr Reeder placed a chair for his uncomfortable visitor and then, seating himself at his big writing table, he spread the letter before him, adjusted his glasses and read, his lips moving; and then leaned back in his chair.
‘I give it up,’ he said. ‘Read me this riddle.’
‘I don’t know what’s in the letter–’ began the man.
‘Read me this riddle.’
As he handed the letter across the table, the man betrayed himself, for he rose and pushed back his chair with a startled, horrified expression that told Mr Reeder quite a lot. He laid the letter down on his desk, took a large tumbler from the sideboard, inverted it and covered the scrawled paper. Then: ‘Wait,’ he said, ‘and don’t move till I come back.’
And there was an unaccustomed venom in his tone that made the visitor shudder.
Reeder passed out of the room to the bathroom, pulled up his sleeves with a quick jerk of his arm and, turning the faucet, let hot water run over his hands before he reached for a small bottle on a shelf, poured a liberal portion into the water and let his hands soak. This done, for three minutes he scrubbed his fingers with a nailbrush, dried them and, removing his coat and waistcoat carefully, hung them over the edge of the bath. He went back to his uncomfortable guest in his shirt sleeves.
‘Our friend Walker is employed in the hospital?’ he stated rather than asked. ‘What have you had there – smallpox or something worse?’
He glanced down at the letter under the glass.
‘Smallpox, of course,’ he said, ‘and the letter has been systematically infected. Walker is almost clever.’
The wood of a fire was laid in the grate. He carried the letter and the blotting-paper to the hearth, lit the kindling and thrust paper and letter into the flames.
‘Almost clever,’ he said musingly. ‘Of course, he is one of the orderlies in the hospital. It was smallpox, I think you said?’
The gaping man nodded.
‘Of a virulent type, of course. How very fascinating!’ He thrust his hands in his pockets and looked down benevolently at the wretched emissary of the vengeful Walker.
‘You may go now, Mills,’ he said gently. ‘I rather think that you are infected. That ridiculous piece of oiled silk is quite inadequate – which means “quite useless” – as a protection against wandering germs. You will have smallpox in three days, and will probably be dead at the end of the week. I will send you a wreath.’
He opened the door, pointed to the stairway and the man slunk out.
Mr Reeder watched him through the window, saw him cross the street and disappear round the corner into the Lewisham High Road and then, going up to his bedroom, he put on a newer jacket and waistcoat, and went forth to his labours.
He did not expect to meet Mr Mills again, never dreaming that the gentleman from Dartmoor was planning a ‘bust’ which would bring them again into contact. For Mr Reeder the incident was closed.
That day news of another disappearance had come through from police headquarters, and Mr Reeder was waiting at ten minutes before five at the rendezvous for the girl who, he instinctively knew, could give him a thread of the clue. He was determined that this time his inquiries should bear fruit; but it was not until they had reached the end of Brockley Road, and he was walking slowly up towards the girl’s boarding-house, that she gave him a hint.
‘Why are you so persistent, Mr Reeder?’ she asked, a little impatiently. ‘Do you wish to invest money? Because, if you do, I’m sorry I can’t help you. That is another agreement we made, that we wouldn’t introduce new shareholders.’
Mr Reeder stopped, took off his hat and rubbed the back of his head (his housekeeper, watching him from an upper window, was perfectly certain that he was proposing and had been rejected).
‘I am going to tell you something, Miss Belman, and I hope – er – that I shall not alarm you.’
And very briefly he told the story of the disappearances and the queer coincidence which marked every case – the receipt of a dividend on the first of every month. As lie proceeded, the colour left the girl’s face.
‘You’re serious, of course?’ she said. ‘You wouldn’t tell me that unless – The company is the Mexico City Investment Syndicate. They have offices in Portugal Street.’
‘How did you come to hear of them?’ asked Mr Reeder.
‘I had a letter from their manager, Mr de Silvo. He told me that a friend had mentioned my name, and gave full particulars of the investment.’
‘Have you kept the letter?’
She shook her head.
‘No; I was particularly asked to bring it with me when I went to see them. Although, in point of fact, I never did see them,’ smiled the girl. ‘I wrote to their lawyers – will you wait? I have their letter.’
Mr Reeder waited at the gate whilst the girl went into the house and returned presently with a small portfolio, from which she took a quarto sheet. It was headed with the name of a legal firm, Bracher & Bracher, and was the usual formal type of letter one expects from a lawyer.
Dear Madam [it ran],
Re
Mexico City Investment Syndicate: We act as lawyers to this syndicate, and so far as we know it is a reputable concern. We feel that it is only due to us that we should say that we do not advise investments in any concern which offers such large profits, for usually there is a corresponding risk. We know, however, that this syndicate has paid 12½ per cent, and sometimes as much as 20 per cent, and we have had no complaints about them. We cannot, of course, as lawyers, guarantee the financial soundness of any of our clients, and can only repeat that, in so far as we have been able to ascertain, the syndicate conducts a genuine business and enjoys a very sound financial backing.
Yours faithfully,
Bracher & Bracher
‘You say you never saw de Silvo?’
She shook her head.
‘No, I saw Mr Bracher, but when I went to the office of the syndicate, which is in the same building, I found only a clerk in attendance. Mr de Silvo had been called out of town. I had to leave the letter because the lower portion was an application for shares in the syndicate. The capital could be withdrawn at three days’ notice, and I must say that this last clause decided me; and when I had a letter from Mr de Silvo accepting my investment, I sent him the money.’
Mr Reeder nodded.
‘And you’ve received your dividends regularly ever since?’ he said.
‘Every month,’ said the girl triumphantly. ‘And really I think you’re wrong in connecting the company with these disappearances.’
Mr Reeder did not reply. The following afternoon he made it his business to call at 179, Portugal Street. It was a two-storey building of an old-fashioned type. A wide flagged hall led into the building; a set of old-fashioned stairs ran up to the top floor, which was occupied by a china merchant; and from the hall led three doors. That on the left bore the legend ‘Bracher & Bracher, Solicitors’, and immediately facing was the office of the Mexican Syndicate. At the far end of the passage was a door which exhibited the name ‘John Baston’, but as to Mr Baston’s business there was no indication.
Mr Reeder knocked gently at the door of the syndicate and a voice bade him come in. A young man, wearing glasses, was sitting at a desk; from a stethoscope headset, wires led to a machine on the table and he was typing rapidly.
‘No, sir, Mr de Silvo is not in. He only comes in about twice a week,’ said the clerk. ‘Will you give me your name?’
‘It is not important,’ said Reeder gently, and went out, closing the door behind him.
He was more fortunate in his call upon Bracher & Bracher, for Mr Joseph Bracher was in his office: a tall, florid gentleman who wore a large rose in his buttonhole. The firm of Bracher & Bracher was evidently a prosperous one, for there were half a dozen clerks in the outer office, and Mr Bracher’s private sanctum, with its big partner desk, was a model of shabby comfort.
‘Sit down, Mr Reeder,’ said the lawyer, glancing at the card.
In a few words Mr Reeder stated his business, and Mr Bracher smiled.
‘It is fortunate you came today,’ he said. ‘If it were tomorrow we should not be able to give you any information. The truth is, we have had to ask Mr de Silvo to find other lawyers. No, no, there is nothing wrong, except that they constantly refer their clients to us, and we feel that we are becoming in the nature of sponsors for their clients and that, of course, is very undesirable.’
‘Have you a record of the people who have written to you from time to time asking your advice?’
Mr Bracher shook his head.
‘It is a curious thing to confess, but we haven’t,’ he said; ‘and that is one of the reasons why we have decided to give up this client. Three weeks ago, the file in which we kept copies of all letters sent to people who applied for a reference most unaccountably disappeared. It was put in the safe overnight, and in the morning, although there was no sign of tampering with the lock, it had vanished. The circumstances were so mysterious, and my brother and I were so deeply concerned, that we applied to the syndicate to give us a list of their clients, and that request was never complied with.’
Mr Reeder sought inspiration in the ceiling.
‘Who is John Baston?’ he asked, and the lawyer laughed.
‘There again I am ignorant. I believe he is a very wealthy financier but, so far as I know, he only comes to his office for three months in the year, and I have never seen him.’
Mr Reeder offered him his flabby hand and walked back along Portugal Street, his chin on his chest, his hands behind him dragging his umbrella, so that he bore a ludicrous resemblance to some strange tailed animal.
That night he waited again for the girl, but she did not appear, and although he remained at the rendezvous until half past five he did not see her. This was not very unusual, for sometimes she had to work late, and he went home without any feeling of apprehension. He finished his own frugal dinner and then walked across to the boarding-house. Miss Belman had not arrived, the landlady told him, and he returned to his study and telephoned first to the office where she was employed and then to the private address of her employer.
‘She left at half past four,’ was the surprising news. ‘Somebody telephoned to her and she asked me if she might go early.’
‘Oh!’ said Mr Reeder blankly.
He did not go to bed that night, but sat up in a small room at Scotland Yard, reading the brief reports which came in from the various divisions. And with the morning came the sickening realization that Margaret Belman’s name must be added to those who had disappeared in such extraordinary circumstances.