The Mind of Mr. J. G. Reeder Page 14

  ‘Queer sort of thing,’ said the Public Prosecutor, who had before him the dossiers of four people (three women and a man) who had so vanished in three months.

  He frowned, pressed a bell and Mr Reeder came in. Mr Reeder took the chair that was indicated, looked owlishly over his glasses and shook his head as though he understood the reason for his summons and denied his understanding in advance.

  ‘What do you make of these disappearances?’ asked his chief.

  ‘You cannot make any positive of a negative,’ said Mr Reeder carefully. ‘London is a large place full of strange, mad people who live such – um – commonplace lives that the wonder is that more of them do not disappear in order to do something different from what they are accustomed to doing.’

  ‘Have you seen these particulars?’

  Mr Reeder nodded.

  ‘I have copies of them,’ he said. ‘Mr Salter very kindly–’

  The Public Prosecutor rubbed his head in perplexity. ‘I see nothing in these cases – nothing in common, I mean. Four is a fairly low average for a big city–’

  ‘Twenty-seven in twelve months,’ interrupted his detective apologetically.

  ‘Twenty-seven – are you sure?’ The great official was astounded.

  Mr Reeder nodded again.

  ‘They were all people with a little money; all were drawing a fairly large income, which was paid to them in banknotes on the first of every month – nineteen of them were, at any rate. I have yet to verify eight – and they were all most reticent as to where their revenues came from. None of them had any personal friends or relatives who were on terms of friendship, except Mrs Marting. Beyond these points of resemblance there was nothing to connect one with the other.’

  The Prosecutor looked at him sharply, but Mr Reeder was never sarcastic. Not obviously so, at any rate.

  ‘There is another point which I omitted to mention,’ he went on. ‘After their disappearance no further money came for them. It came for Mrs Marting when she was away on her jaunts, but it ceased when she went away on her final journey.’

  ‘But twenty-seven – are you sure?’

  Mr Reeder reeled off the list, giving name, address and date of disappearance.

  ‘What do you think has happened to them?’

  Mr Reeder considered for a moment, staring glumly at the carpet.

  ‘I should imagine that they were murdered,’ he said, almost cheerfully, and the Prosecutor half rose from his chair.

  ‘You are in your gayest mood this morning, Mr Reeder,’ he said sardonically. ‘Why on earth should they be murdered?’

  Mr Reeder did not explain. The interview took place in the late afternoon, and he was anxious to be gone, for he had a tacit appointment to meet a young lady of exceeding charm who at five minutes after five would be waiting on the corner of Westminster Bridge and Thames Embankment for the Lee bus.

  The sentimental qualities of Mr Reeder were entirely unknown. There are those who say that his sorrow over those whom fate and ill-fortune brought into his punitive hands was the veriest hypocrisy. There were others who believed that he was genuinely pained to see a fellow-creature sent behind bars through his efforts and evidence.

  His housekeeper, who thought he was a woman-hater, told her friends in confidence that he was a complete stranger to the tender emotions which enlighten and glorify humanity. In the ten years which she had sacrificed to his service he had displayed neither emotion nor tenderness except to inquire whether her sciatica was better or to express a wish that she should take a holiday by the sea. She was a woman beyond middle age, but there is no period of life wherein a woman gives up hoping for the best. Though the most perfect of servants in all respects, she secretly despised him, called him, to her intimates, a frump, and suspected him of living apart from an ill-treated wife. This lady was a widow (as she had told him when he first engaged her) and she had seen better – far better – days.

  Her visible attitude towards Mr Reeder was one of respect and awe. She excused the queer character of his callers and his low acquaintances. She forgave him his old-fashioned shoes and his aged bowler, and even admired the ready-made tie he wore and which was fastened behind the collar with a little buckle, the prongs of which invariably punctured his fingers when he fastened it. But there is a limit to all hero-worship, and when she discovered that Mr Reeder was in the habit of waiting to escort a young lady to town every day, and frequently found it convenient to escort her home, the limit was reached.

  Mrs Hambleton told her friends – and they agreed – that there was no fool like an old fool, and that marriages between the old and the young invariably end in the divorce court (December v. May and July). She used to leave copies of a favourite Sunday newspaper on his table, where he could not fail to see the flaring headlines:

  Old Man's Wedding Romance Wife's Deceit brings Grey Hair in Sorrow to the Law Courts

  Whether Mr Reeder perused these human documents she did not know. He never referred to the tragedies of ill-assorted unions, and went on meeting Miss Belman every morning at nine o’clock, and at five-five in the afternoons whenever his work permitted.

  He so rarely discussed his own business or introduced the subject that was exercising his mind that it was remarkable he should make even an oblique reference to his work. Possibly he would not have done so if Miss Margaret Belman had not introduced (unwillingly) a leader of conversation which traced indirectly to the disappearances.

  They had been talking of holidays: Margaret was going to Cromer for a fortnight.

  ‘I shall leave on the second. My monthly dividends – doesn’t that sound grand? – are due on the first–’

  ‘What!’

  Reeder turned in surprise. Dividends in most companies are paid at half-yearly intervals.

  ‘Dividends, Miss Margaret?’

  She flushed a little at his surprise and then laughed.

  ‘You didn’t realize that I was a woman of property?’ she teased him. ‘I receive ten pounds a month – my father left me a small country cottage. I sold it two years ago for a thousand pounds and found a wonderful investment.’

  Mr Reeder made a rapid calculation.

  ‘You are drawing something like 12½ per cent,’ he said. ‘That is indeed a wonderful investment. What is the name of the company?’

  She hesitated.

  ‘I’m afraid I can’t tell you that. You see – well, it’s rather secret. It’s to do with a South American syndicate that supplies arms to – what do you call them – insurgents! I know it’s rather dreadful to make money that way – I mean out of arms and things, but it pays terribly well and I can’t afford to miss the opportunity.’

  Reeder frowned.

  ‘But why is it such a terrible secret?’ he asked. ‘Quite a number of respectable people make money out of armament concerns.’

  Again she showed reluctance to explain her meaning.

  ‘We are pledged – the shareholders, I mean – not to divulge our connexion with the company,’ she said. ‘That is one of the agreements I had to sign. And the money comes regularly. I have had nearly £300 of my thousand back in dividends already.’

  ‘Humph!’ said Mr Reeder wise enough not to press his question. There was another day tomorrow.

  But the opportunity to which he looked forward on the following morning was denied to him. Somebody played a grim ‘joke’ on him – the kind of joke to which he was accustomed, for there were men who had good reason to hate him, and never a year passed but one or the other sought to repay him for his unkindly attentions.

  ‘Your name’s Reeder, ain’t it?’

  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 Wh
itehall, 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 Reed
er.

  ‘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.’