She stood by the table, her hands resting on the edge. ‘I would not marry you, Mr Telfer, even if there were no clause in your mother’s will; the suggestion that I should run away with you to America–’
‘South America,’ he corrected her gravely. ‘Not the United States; there was never any suggestion of the United States.’
She could have smiled, for she was not as angry with this rather vacant young man as his startling proposition entitled her to be.
‘The point is,’ he went on anxiously, ‘you’ll keep it to yourself? I’ve been dreadfully worried all night. I told you to send me a note saying what you thought of my idea – well, don’t!’
This time she did smile, but before she could answer him he went on, speaking rapidly in a high treble that sometimes rose to a falsetto squeak:
‘You’re a perfectly beautiful girl, and I’m crazy about you, but…there’s a tragedy in my life…really. Perfectly ghastly tragedy. And everything’s at sixes and sevens. If I’d had any sense I’d have brought in a fellow to look after things. I’m beginning to see that now.’
For the second time in twenty-four hours this young man, who had been almost tongue-tied and had never deigned to notice her, had poured forth a torrent of confidences; and on the first occasion had, with frantic insistence, set forth a plan which had amazed and shocked her. Abruptly he finished, wiped his weak eyes, and in his normal voice:
‘Get Billingham on the phone; I want him.’
She wondered, as her busy fingers flew over the keys of her typewriter, to what extent his agitation and wild eloquence was due to the rumoured ‘shakiness’ of Telfers Consolidated.
Mr Billingham came, a sober little man, bald and taciturn, and went in his secretive way into his employer’s room. There was no hint in his appearance or his manner that he contemplated a great crime. He was stout to a point of podginess; apart from his habitual frown, his round face, unlined by the years, was marked by an expression of benevolence.
Yet Mr Stephen Billingham, managing director of the Telfer Consolidated Trust, went into the office of the London and Central Bank late that afternoon, presented a bearer cheque for one hundred and fifty thousand pounds, which was duly honoured, and was driven to the Credit Lilloise. He had telephoned particulars of his errand and there were waiting for him seventeen large packets and one smaller one. He received the eighteen packages in exchange for a cheque on the Credit Lilloise for £80,000 and the £150,000 which he had drawn on the London and Central.
Of Billingham’s movements thenceforth little was known. He was seen by an acquaintance driving through Cheapside in a taxi which was traced as far as Charing Cross – and there he disappeared. Neither the airways nor the waterways had known him, the police theory being that he had left by an evening train that had carried an excursion party via Havre to Paris.
‘This is the biggest steal we’ve had in years,’ said the Assistant Director of Public Prosecutions. ‘If you can slip in sideways on the inquiry, Mr Reeder, I should be glad. Don’t step on the toes of the City police – they’re quite amiable people where murder is concerned, but a little touchy where money is in question. Go along and see Sidney Telfer.’
Fortunately, the prostrated Sidney was discoverable outside the City area. Mr Reeder went into the outer office and saw a familiar face.
‘Pardon me, I think I know you, young lady,’ he said, and she smiled as she opened the little wooden gate to admit him.
‘You’re Mr Reeder – we live in the same road,’ she said, and then quickly: ‘Have you come about Mr Billingham?’
‘Yes.’ His voice was hushed, as though he were speaking of a dead friend. ‘I wanted to see Mr Telfer, but perhaps you could give me a little information.’
The only news she had was that Sidney Telfer had been in the office since nine o’clock and was at the moment in such a state of collapse that she had sent for the doctor.
‘I doubt if he’s in a condition to see you,’ she said.
‘I will take all responsibility,’ said Mr Reeder soothingly. ‘Is Mr Telfer – er – a friend of yours, Miss – ?’
‘Belman is my name.’ He had seen the quick flush that came to her cheek: it could mean one of two things. ‘No, I am an employee, that is all.’
Her tone told him all he wanted to know. Mr J G Reeder was something of an authority on office friendships.
‘Bothered you a little, has he?’ he murmured, and she shot a suspicious look at him. What did he know, and what bearing had Mr Telfer’s mad proposal on the present disaster? She was entirely in the dark as to the true state of affairs; it was, she felt, a moment for frankness.
‘Wanted you to run away! Dear me!’ Mr Reeder was shocked. ‘He is married?’
‘Oh, no – he’s not married,’ said the girl shortly. ‘Poor man, I’m sorry for him now. I’m afraid that the loss is a very heavy one – who would suspect Mr Billingham?’
‘Ah! who indeed!’ sighed the lugubrious Reeder, and took off his glasses to wipe them; almost she suspected tears. ‘I think I’ll go in now – that is the door?’
Sidney jerked up his face and glared at the intruder. He had been sitting with his head on his arms for the greater part of an hour.
‘I say…what do you want?’ he asked feebly. ‘I say I can’t see anybody…Public Prosecutor’s Department?’ He almost screamed the words. ‘What’s the use of prosecuting him if you don’t get the money back?’
Mr Reeder waited for him to calm down before he began to ply his very judicious questions.
‘I don’t know much about it,’ said the despondent young man. ‘I’m only a sort of figurehead. Billingham brought the cheques for me to sign and I signed ’em. I never gave him instructions; he got his orders. I don’t know very much about it. He told me, actually told me, that the business was in a bad way – half a million or something was wanted by next week… Oh, my God! And then he took the whole of our cash.’
Sidney Telfer sobbed his woe into his sleeve like a child. Mr Reeder waited before he asked a question in his gentlest manner.
‘No, I wasn’t here: I went down to Brighton for the weekend. And the police dug me out of bed at four in the morning. We’re bankrupt. I’ll have to sell my car and resign from my club – one has to resign when one’s bankrupt.’
There was little more to learn from the broken man, and Mr Reeder returned to his chief with a report that added nothing to the sum of knowledge. In a week the theft of Mr Billingham passed from scare lines to paragraphs in most of the papers – Billingham had made a perfect getaway.
In the bright lexicon of Mr J G Reeder there was no such word as holiday. Even the Public Prosecutor’s office has its slack time, when juniors and sub-officials and even the Director himself can go away on vacation, leaving the office open and a subordinate in charge. But to Mr J G Reeder the very idea of wasting time was repugnant, and it was his practice to brighten the dull patches of occupation by finding a seat in a magistrate’s court and listening, absorbed, to cases which bored even the court reporter.
John Smith, charged with being drunk and using insulting language to Police Officer Thomas Brown; Mary Jane Haggitt, charged with obstructing the police in the execution of their duty; Henry Robinson, arraigned for being a suspected person, having in his possession housebreaking tools, to wit, one cold chisel and a screwdriver; Arthur Moses, charged with driving a motor car to the common danger – all these were fascinating figures of romance and legend to the lean man who sat between the Press and railed dock, his hat by his side, his umbrella gripped between his knees, and on his melancholy face an expression of startled wonder.
On one raw and foggy morning, Mr Reeder, self-released from his duties, chose the Marylebone Police Court for his recreation. Two drunks, a shop theft and an embezzlement had claimed his rapt attention, when Mrs Jackson was escorted to the dock and a rubicund policeman stepped to the witness stand and, swearing by his Deity that he would tell the truth and nothing but the truth, related his peculiar story.
‘PC Perryman, No. 9717 L Division,’ he introduced himself conventionally. ‘I was on duty in the Edgware Road early this morning at 2.30 a.m. when I saw the prisoner carrying a large suitcase. On seeing me she turned round and walked rapidly in the opposite direction. Her movements being suspicious, I followed and overtook her, and asked her whose property she was carrying. She told me it was her own and that she was going to catch a train. She said that the case contained her clothes. As the case was a valuable one of crocodile leather I asked her to show me the contents. She refused. She also refused to give me her name and address and I asked her to accompany me to the station.’
There followed a detective-sergeant.
‘I saw the prisoner at the station and in her presence I opened the case. It contained a considerable quantity of small stone chips–’
‘Stone chips?’ interrupted the incredulous magistrate. ‘You mean small pieces of stone – what kind of stone?’
‘Marble, your worship. She said that she wanted to make a little path in her garden and that she had taken them from the yard of a monumental mason in the Euston Road. She made a frank statement to the effect that she had broken open a gate into the yard and filled the suitcase without the mason’s knowledge.’
The magistrate leant back in his chair and scrutinized the charge sheet with a frown.
‘There is no address against her name,’ he said.
‘She gave an address, but it was false, your worship – she refuses to offer any further information.’
Mr J G Reeder had turned round in his seat and was staring open-mouthed at the prisoner. She was tall, broad-shouldered and stoutly built. The hand that rested on the rail of the dock was twice the size of any woman’s hand he had ever seen. The face was modelled largely, and, although there was something in her appearance which was almost repellent, she was handsome in her large way. Deep-set brown eyes, a nose that was large and masterful, a well-shaped mouth and two chins – these in profile were not attractive to one who had his views on beauty in women, but Mr J G Reeder, being a fair man, admitted that she was a fine-looking woman. When she spoke it was in a voice as deep as a man’s, sonorous and powerful.
‘I admit it was a fool thing to do. But the idea occurred to me just as I was going to bed and I acted on the impulse of the moment. I could well afford to buy the stone – I had over fifty pounds in my notecase when I was arrested.’
‘Is that true?’ and, when the officer answered, the magistrate turned his suspicious eyes to the woman. ‘You are giving us a lot of trouble because you will not tell your name and address. I can understand that you do not wish your friends to know of your stupid theft, but unless you give me the information, I shall be compelled to remand you in custody for a week.’
She was well, if plainly, dressed. On one large finger flashed a diamond which Mr Reeder mentally priced in the region of two hundred pounds. ‘Mrs Jackson’ was shaking her head as he looked.
‘I can’t give you my address,’ she said, and the magistrate nodded curtly.
‘Remanded for inquiry,’ he said, and added, as she walked out of the dock: ‘I should like a report from the prison doctor on the state of her mind.’
Mr J G Reeder rose quickly from his chair and followed the woman and the officer in charge of the case through the little door that leads to the cells.
‘Mrs Jackson’ had disappeared by the time he reached the corridor, but the detective-sergeant was stooping over the large and expensive suitcase which he had shown in court and which was now laying on a form.
Most of the outdoor men of the CID knew Mr J G Reeder, and Sergeant Mills grinned a cheerful welcome.
‘What do you think of that one, Mr Reeder? It’s certainly a new line on me! Never heard of a tombstone artist being burgled before.’
He opened the top of the case, and Mr Reeder ran his fingers through the marble chips.
‘The case and the loot weigh over a hundred pounds,’ said the officer. ‘She must have the strength of a navvy to carry it. The poor officer who carried it to the station was hot and melting when he arrived.’
Mr J G was inspecting the case. It was a handsome article, the hinges and locks being of silver. No maker’s name was visible on the inside, or owner’s initials on its glossy lid. The lining had once been of silk, but flow hung in shreds and was white with marble dust.
‘Yes,’ said Mr Reeder absently, ‘very interesting – most interesting. Is it permissible to ask whether, when she was searched, any – er – document – ?’ The sergeant shook his head. ‘Or unusual possession?’
‘Only these.’
By the side of the case was a pair of large gloves. These also were soiled, and their surfaces cut in a hundred places.
‘These have been used frequently for the same purpose,’ murmured Mr J G. ‘She evidently makes – er – a collection of marble shavings. Nothing in her notecase?’
‘Only the banknotes: they have the stamp of the Central Bank on their backs. We should be able to trace ’em easily.’
Mr Reeder returned to his office and, locking the door, produced a worn pack of cards from a drawer and played patience – which was his method of thinking intensively. Late in the afternoon his telephone bell rang, and he recognized the voice of Sergeant Mills.
‘Can I come along and see you? Yes, it’s about the banknotes.’
Ten minutes later the sergeant presented himself. ‘The notes were issued three months ago to Mr Telfer,’ said the officer without preliminary, ‘and they were given by him to his housekeeper, Mrs Welford.’
‘Oh, indeed?’ said Mr Reeder softly, and added, after reflection: ‘Dear me!’
He pulled hard at his lip.
‘And is “Mrs Jackson” that lady?’ he asked.
‘Yes. Telfer – poor chap – nearly went mad when I told him she was under remand – dashed up to Holloway in a taxi to identify her. The magistrate has granted bail, and she’ll be bound over tomorrow. Telfer was bleating like a child – said she was mad. Gosh! that fellow is scared of her – when I took him into the waiting-room at Holloway Prison she gave him one look and he wilted. By the way, we’ve had a hint about Billingham that may interest you. Did you know that he and Telfer’s secretary were very good friends?’