‘But Constable Burnett had had some pleasant exchanges with the daughter. Doubtless she had received instructions from her father to be as pleasant to him as possible. Burnett was a poetical young man, knew it was her birthday, and as he walked along the Street his foot struck an old horseshoe and the idea occurred to him that he should return, attach the horseshoe to some flowers, which the nurseryman had given him permission to pick, and leave his little bouquet, so to speak, at his lady’s feet – a poetical idea, and one worthy of the finest traditions of the Metropolitan Police Force. This he did, but it took some time; and all the while this young man was philandering – Arthur Crater was dying!
‘In a few seconds after lying down he must have passed from consciousness…the chloroform still dripped, and when the policeman eventually reached the bank ten minutes after he was due, the man was dead!’
The Public Prosecutor sat back in his padded chair and frowned at his new subordinate.
‘How on earth did you piece together all this?’ he asked in wonder.
Mr Reeder shook his head sadly.
‘I have that perversion,’ he said. ‘It is a terrible misfortune, but it is true. I see evil in everything…in dying rose bushes, in horseshoes – in poetry even. I have the mind of a criminal. It is deplorable!’
There is a tradition in criminal circles that even the humblest of detective officers is a man of wealth and substance, and that his secret hoard was secured by thieving, bribery and blackmail. It is the gossip of the fields, the quarries, the tailor’s shop, the laundry and the bakehouse of fifty county prisons and of every convict establishment, that all highly placed detectives have by nefarious means laid up for themselves sufficient earthly treasures to make work a hobby and their official pittance the most inconsiderable portion of their incomes.
Since Mr J G Reeder had for over twenty years dealt exclusively with bank robbers and forgers, who are the aristocrats and capitalists of the underworld, legend credited him with country houses and immense secret reserves. Not that he would have a great deal of money in the bank. It was admitted that he was too clever to risk discovery by the authorities. No, it was hidden somewhere: it was the pet dream of hundreds of unlawful men that they would some day discover the hoard and live happily ever after. The one satisfactory aspect of his affluence (they all agreed) was that, being an old man – he was over fifty – he couldn’t take his money with him, for gold melts at a certain temperature and gilt-edged stock is seldom printed on asbestos paper.
The Director of Public Prosecutions was lunching one Saturday at his club with a judge of the King’s Bench – Saturday being one of the two days in the week when a judge gets properly fed – and the conversation drifted to Mr J G Reeder.
‘He’s capable,’ the Director confessed reluctantly, ‘but I hate his hat. It is the sort that So-and-so used to wear,’ he mentioned by name an eminent politician; ‘and I loathe his clothes, people who see him coming into the office think he’s a coroner’s officer, but he’s capable. His side-whiskers are an abomination, and I have a feeling that, if I talked roughly to him, he would burst into tears – a gentle soul. Almost too gentle for my kind of work. He apologizes to the messenger every time he rings for him!’
The judge, who knew something about humanity, answered with a frosty smile.
‘He sounds rather like a potential murderer to me,’ he said cynically.
Here, in his extravagance, he did Mr J G Reeder an injustice, for Mr Reeder was incapable of breaking the law – quite. At the same time there were many people who formed an altogether wrong conception of J G’s harmlessness as an individual. And one of these was a certain Lew Kohl, who mixed banknote printing with elementary burglary.
Threatened men live long, a trite saying but, like most things trite, true. In a score of cases, when Mr J G Reeder had descended from the witness stand, he had met the baleful eye of the man in the dock and had listened with mild interest to divers promises as to what would happen to him in the near or the remote future. For he was a great authority on forged banknotes and he had sent many men to prison.
Mr Reeder, that inoffensive man, had seen prisoners foaming at the mouth in their rage, he had seen them white and livid, he had heard their howling execrations and he had met these men after their release from prison and had found them amiable souls half ashamed and half amused at their nearly forgotten outbursts and horrific threats.
But when Lew Kohl was sentenced to ten years, he neither screamed his imprecations nor registered a vow to tear Mr Reeder’s heart, lungs and important organs from his frail body.
Lew just smiled and his eyes caught the detective’s for the space of a second – the forger’s eyes were pale blue and speculative, and they held neither hate nor fury. Instead, they said in so many words:
‘At the first opportunity I will kill you.’
Mr Reeder read the message and sighed heavily, for he disliked fuss of all kinds, and resented, in so far as he could resent anything, the injustice of being made personally responsible for the performance of a public duty.
Many years had passed, and considerable changes had occurred in Mr Reeder’s fortune. He had transferred from the specialized occupation of detecting the makers of forged banknotes to the more general practice of the Public Prosecutor’s bureau, but he never forgot Lew’s smile.
The work in Whitehall was not heavy and it was very interesting. To Mr Reeder came most of the anonymous letters which the Director received in shoals. In the main they were self-explanatory; and it required no particular intelligence to discover their motive. Jealousy, malice, plain mischief-making; and occasionally a sordid desire to benefit financially by the information which was conveyed, were behind the majority. But occasionally:
Sir James is going to marry his cousin, and it’s not three months since his poor wife fell overboard from the Channel steamer crossing to Calais. There’s something very fishy about this business. Miss Margaret doesn’t like him, for she knows he’s after her money. Why was I sent away to London that night? He doesn’t like driving in the dark, either. It’s strange that he wanted to drive that night when it was raining like blazes.
This particular letter was signed
A Friend
. Justice has many such friends.
‘Sir James Tithermite,’ said the Director when he saw the letter. ‘I seem to remember that Lady Tithermite was drowned at sea.’
‘On the nineteenth of December last year,’ said Mr Reeder solemnly. ‘She and Sir James were going to Monte Carlo, breaking their journey in Paris. Sir James, who has a house near Maidstone, drove to Dover, garaging the car at the Lord Wilson Hotel. The night was stormy and the ship had a rough crossing – they were half way across when Sir James came to the purser and said that he had missed his wife. Her luggage was in the cabin, her passport, rail ticket and hat, but the lady was not found, indeed was never seen again.’
The Director nodded.
‘I see, you’ve read up the case.’
‘I remember it,’ said Mr Reeder. ‘The case is a favourite speculation of mine. Unfortunately I see evil in everything and I have often thought how easy – but I fear that I take a warped view of life. It is a horrible handicap to possess a criminal mind.’
The Director looked at him suspiciously. He was never quite sure whether Mr Reeder was serious. At that moment, his sobriety was beyond challenge.
‘A discharged chauffeur wrote that letter, of course,’ he began.
‘Thomas Dayford, of 179, Barrack Street, Maidstone,’ concluded Mr Reeder. ‘He is at present in the employ of the Kent Bus Company, and has three children, two of whom are twins.’
The Director laughed helplessly.
‘I’ll take it that you
know!
’ he said. ‘See what there is behind the letter. Sir James is a big fellow in Kent, a Justice of the Peace, and he has powerful political influences. There is nothing in this letter, of course. Go warily, Reeder – if any kick comes back to this office, it goes on to you – intensified!’
Mr Reeder’s idea of walking warily was peculiarly his own. He travelled down to Maidstone the next morning and, finding a bus that passed the lodge gates of Elfreda Manor, he journeyed comfortably and economically, his umbrella between his knees. He passed through the lodge gates, up a long and winding avenue of poplars, and presently came within sight of the grey manor house.
In a deep chair on the lawn he saw a girl sitting, a book on her knees. When she saw him, she rose and came towards him eagerly.
‘I’m Miss Margaret Letherby – are you from – ?’ She mentioned the name of a well-known firm of lawyers, and her face fell when Mr Reeder regretfully disclaimed connexion with those legal lights.
She was as pretty as a perfect complexion and a round, not too intellectual, face could, in combination, make her.
‘I thought – do you wish to see Sir James? He’s in the library. If you ring, one of the maids will take you to him.’
Had Mr Reeder been the sort of man who could be puzzled by anything, he would have been puzzled by the suggestion that any girl with money of her own should marry a man much older than herself against her own wishes. There was little mystery in the matter now. Miss Margaret would have married any strong willed man who insisted.
‘Even me,’ said Mr Reeder to himself, with a certain melancholy pleasure.
There was no need to ring the bell. A tall, broad man in tweeds stood in the doorway. His fair hair was long and hung over his forehead in a thick flat strand; his mouth was determined and his chin was long and powerful.
‘Well?’ he asked aggressively.
‘I’m from the Public Prosecutor’s office,’ murmured Mr Reeder. ‘I have had an anonymous letter.’
His pale eyes did not leave the face of the other man.
‘Come in,’ said Sir James gruffly.
As he closed the door he glanced quickly first to the girl and then to the poplar avenue.
‘I’m expecting a fool of a lawyer,’ he said, as he flung open the door of what was evidently the library.
His voice was steady; not by a flicker of eyelash had he betrayed the slightest degree of anxiety when Reeder had told his mission.
‘Well – what about this anonymous letter? You don’t take much notice of that kind of trash, do you?’
Mr Reeder deposited his umbrella and flat-crowned hat on a chair before he took a document from his pocket and handed it to the baronet, who frowned as he read. Was it Mr Reeder’s vivid imagination, or did the hard light in the eyes of Sir James soften as he read?
‘This is a cock and bull story of somebody having seen my wife’s jewellery on sale in Paris,’ he said. ‘There’s nothing in it. I can account for every one of my poor wife’s trinkets. I brought back the jewel case after that awful night. I don’t recognize the handwriting: who is the lying scoundrel who wrote this?’
Mr Reeder had never before been called a lying scoundrel, but he accepted the experience with admirable meekness.
‘I thought it untrue,’ he said, shaking his head. ‘I followed the details of the case very thoroughly. You left here in the afternoon–’
‘At night,’ said the other brusquely. He was not inclined to discuss the matter, but Mr Reeder’s appealing look was irresistible. ‘It’s only eighty minutes’ run to Dover. We got to the pier at eleven o’clock, about the same time as the boat train and we went on board at once. I got my cabin key from the purser and put her ladyship and her luggage inside.’
‘Her ladyship was a good sailor?’
‘Yes, a very good sailor; she was remarkably well that night. I left her in the cabin dozing, and went for a stroll on the deck–’
‘Raining very heavily and a strong sea running,’ nodded Reeder, as though in agreement with something the other man had said.
‘Yes – I’m a pretty good sailor – anyway, that story about my poor wife’s jewels is utter nonsense. You can tell the Director that, with my compliments.’
He opened the door for his visitor, and Mr Reeder was some time replacing the letter and gathering up his belongings.
‘You have a beautiful place here, Sir James – a lovely place. An extensive estate?’
‘Three thousand acres.’ This time he did not attempt to disguise his impatience. ‘Good afternoon.’
Mr Reeder went slowly down the drive, his remarkable memory at work.
He missed the bus which he could easily have caught, and pursued an apparently aimless way along the winding road which marched with the boundaries of the baronet’s property. A walk of a quarter of a mile brought him to a lane shooting off at right angles from the main road, and marking, he guessed, the southern boundary. At the corner stood an old stone lodge, on the inside of a forbidding iron gate. The lodge was in a pitiable state of neglect and disrepair. Tiles had been dislodged from the roof, the windows were grimy or broken, and the little garden was overrun with docks and thistles. Beyond the gate was a narrow, weed-covered drive that trailed out of sight into a distant plantation.
Hearing the clang of a letterbox closing, he turned to see a postman mounting his bicycle.
‘What place is this?’ asked Mr Reeder, arresting the postman’s departure.
‘South Lodge – Sir James Tithermite’s property. It’s never used now. Hasn’t been used for years – I don’t know why; it’s a short cut if they happen to be coming this way.’
Mr Reeder walked with him towards the village, and he was a skilful pumper of wells, however dry; and the postman was not dry by any means.
‘Yes, poor lady! She was very frail – one of those sort of invalids that last out many a healthy man.’
Mr Reeder put a question at random and scored most unexpectedly.
‘Yes, her ladyship was a bad sailor. I know because every time she went abroad she used to get a bottle of that stuff people take for seasickness. I’ve delivered many a bottle till Raikes the chemist stocked it – “Travellers’ Friend”, that’s what it was called. Mr Raikes was only saying to me the other day that he’d got half a dozen bottles on hand, and he didn’t know what to do with them. Nobody in Climbury ever goes to sea.’