Red Aces Read online

  “Oh!” said Gaylor, and then after a silence, “That will keep.”

  “So I thought,” said Mr Reeder. “Do you mind if I use your name rather freely today?”

  “So long as you don’t try to borrow money on it!” said Gaylor, who had a painful sense of humour.

  Reeder spent a long time after that searching a trade-telephone directory and ringing up various yachting agencies. He had become suddenly interested in pleasure cruisers. He drew a blank for the first nine enquiries, but the tenth rewarded him. It was not difficult to secure the answers he wanted, but when he called a sticky and uncommunicative agent he used the name of Gaylor with great freedom and invariably secured the information he required.

  The tenth call needed this incentive, but the result was beyond expectations. Mr Reeder spent a happy hour with his notes and a nautical almanac. By this time the two Scotland Yard men had arrived, and when soon after lunch a district messenger brought a square and heavy parcel, having the label of a West-End bookseller, they were very useful, for one of them had been for a year in the explosives department at Scotland Yard and had a sensitive ear for the faint ticking that came from within the parcel.

  “It’s a time bomb, but it may also have a make and break attachment.”

  They watched it sink heavily into a pail of water, and when, after half an hour, the Yard man took it out again, the ticking had ceased.

  “They’ve been getting ready for this racket for a long time,” said the detective. “That bomb wasn’t made in a hurry–”

  The telephone bell rang at that moment and Mr Reeder answered it.

  “Is that you, Reeder?” It was Gaylor’s voice and he was speaking very quickly. “I’m coming round to pick you up. We’ve found Gelpin.”

  “Eh?” said Mr Reeder.

  “Dead – shot through the heart. A ranger found his body in Epping Forest. Be ready.”

  The telephone clicked, but Mr Reeder still stood with the receiver in his hand, a terrifying frown on his face.

  “Anything wrong, sir?” asked the detective.

  J G nodded.

  “I’m wrong: if I had the brain of a – um – great man, I should have expected this.”

  What “this” was he did not elucidate. A few minutes later he was one of a party of five packed in a police tender and was heading for Epping.

  It was nearly dark when the car pulled up by the side of a forest by-road. A ranger led them to the spot where the body lay.

  It was that of a man above medium height, and more than ordinarily broad of shoulder.

  Though George Gelpin was between fifty and sixty, he had been in life a model of a man. He had been rider to hounds, a keen cricketer, something of an athlete.

  “Nothing in his pockets – no identification marks of any kind. If we hadn’t got his photograph and his description – they arrived this morning from Birmingham – we should have had the devil’s job in tracing him.”

  One of the group they had found standing about the body was a doctor. He supplied certain data which confirmed Mr Reeder in his opinion. But the chief confirmation came when he examined the outspread hands of the silent figure.

  There was no mark of car wheels, and the bushes behind which the man was found showed no evidence of crushing. It might have been an ordinary case of suicide, and the doctor ventured this opinion.

  A revolver had been found near the body. He must have been shot with the muzzle almost touching his coat, for it was burnt.

  “We haven’t got the number of the revolver, but we are making enquiries about it. I don’t think they are necessary. It will be a day or two before we can trace it. Did you get that gun?”

  One of the waiting detectives took it out of his pocket. It was a small six-chambered Colt.

  One of the detectives who had been on guard over the body when they arrived offered a piece of information.

  “There is an initial scratched on the back plate of the butt,” he said. “F S.”

  He took the weapon from his pocket and passed it across to Gaylor.

  “F S,” frowned the inspector. “That’s a pretty common initial.”

  “Frank Seafield, for example,” said Mr Reeder, and Gaylor gaped at him.

  “Why should it be Seafield? That’s wildly improbable, Reeder.”

  However, when they returned to town and Mr Reeder got into communication with Seafield’s late partner, Gaylor found that the surmise was not so wild. Tommy Anton called at Scotland Yard and saw and identified the weapon.

  “That’s Frank’s,” he said immediately. “He always carried a revolver. I used to chaff him about it. He had no reason to, so far as I know, and I rather think that carrying the gun was a bit of swank. He was a little on the theatrical side.”

  Joan Ralph had gone back to Bishop’s Stortford. They reached her by telephone. She too had seen the revolver and described it accurately.

  “I know Frank carried it, and Daddy used to be very sarcastic about it. Frank used to carry big sums of money about the country, buying second-hand cars, and he said he had to deal with some very tough people. Why do you want to know?”

  Mr Reeder, who had no desire to alarm the young lady, lied gracefully.

  “That beats me,” said Gaylor.

  Mr Reeder put down the ’phone. They were sitting in the inspector’s room at Scotland Yard, where a meal had been brought to them from a neighbouring restaurant.

  “It doesn’t beat me, possibly because I am over sanguine,” said Mr Reeder, “possibly because my peculiar mentality leads me astray.”

  “But suppose it is suicide – ” began Gaylor, and stopped.

  “You were thinking that it is quite usual that a suicide tries to remove all marks of his identification?” said Mr Reeder. “That is perfectly true. Will you tell me this: why is the suit he was wearing so old and stained and shabby, and why was he wearing slippers?”

  “Boots,” Gaylor broke in. “Elastic-sided boots.”

  “Slippers,” insisted Mr Reeder. “And why was there no mud on them? And why was the front of him wet and the back on which he lay almost dry? It rained all last night and he could not have walked through the forest without getting soaked to the skin?”

  Gaylor pinched his long upper lip, looked moodily at the remains of his dinner.

  “Tennant tells me that they tried to bomb you this afternoon. It’s the Pizarro gang, of course. Kennedy?”

  “His very self,” said Mr Reeder, flippantly and ungrammatically. “And I should not be surprised if almost anything happened. I told my housekeeper to go home to her mother. Most housekeepers have mothers to go home to. I shall stay in town tonight.”

  “Where?” asked Gaylor curiously.

  “That’s my secret,” said Mr Reeder gravely.

  They went out of the Yard together, when Gaylor had an idea: “If you want to get out of the way, I should go down to St Margaret’s Bay. I think you will be safe there.”

  “An excellent idea,” said Mr Reeder. “A very excellent idea, but unfortunately the doctor is still in town.”

  He went to his office, accompanied by one of the two detectives who had been appointed to watch over him. The other was still in Miss Gillette’s room – Mr Reeder suspected that he was asleep, for it was some time before he opened the door to him.

  “There is a wire for you,” he said, and handed it to Mr Reeder. It was from Dr Ingham. Would he (Mr Reeder) come down as soon as he could? There had been remarkable developments at Grayne.

  The telegram had been despatched from Dover. Mr Reeder sent his reply over the telephone. He would arrive on the following afternoon at three o’clock. Then, strangely enough, contrary to all his expressed intentions, he went home to his housekeeperless establishment in the Brockley Road and slept alone in his silent home. An
d more strangely still, he slept most peacefully.

  If he had not gone home he would have missed the letter which came by the morning post. It was from Miss Gillette. She was leaving him. Mr Reeder sighed happily.

  “I think I ought to help Mr Anton,” she wrote. “The Rev. Dr Ingham has promised to help him start a new business. Dr Ingham has been most kind and I shall never be sufficiently grateful to you for having been unconsciously instrumental in bringing Mr Anton into touch with him. He wrote to Tommy before he left London yesterday, suggesting that I might help in creating the new business, and I think you would like to see his postscript so I have torn it off.”

  She remained ever his sincerely.

  The slip of paper which accompanied the letter was in the doctor’s handwriting.

  “P.S. I shall never forgive myself if I have robbed Mr Reeder of his secretary. He is a man for whom I have the very highest regard.”

  “H’m,” said Mr Reeder, “how very nice…how extraordinarily kind!” He spoke aloud to his coffee machine and his electric toaster, but he was never so loquacious as when he was addressing an inanimate audience.

  His housekeeper returned during the morning with the “daily” servants who constituted his household, and she packed his battered suit-case under his personal supervision. Mr Reeder had one surprising weakness: dress clothes. However antiquated his daily attire might be, his evening suits were cut by the most fashionable of tailors, and he wanted to look his best at Grayne Hall. He went to town before lunch, met Gaylor by appointment at the office, and handed to him the batch of telegrams which had arrived during the morning. Gaylor examined them casually.

  “I know all about these,” he said. “Nine of the seventeen English subscribers to Pizarro’s scheme are missing. I can tell you more – with ’em went the best part of eighty thousand pounds. By-the-way, I am offering no further evidence against Jake Alsby. I’ve got him inside for his own safety, but he will be discharged next week.”

  Gaylor came to the station to see him off.

  “Have a good time. If the Pizarro crowd chase you to Dover, send me a postcard.”

  Inspector Gaylor, as has already been stated, had a perverted sense of humour.

  Throughout the journey Mr Reeder read a book which was entitled The Thousand Funniest After-Dinner Stories. He read them all, the whole thousand, and never smiled once.

  He had a trick of moving his lips as he read. The military-looking man who sat opposite him had never seen Mr Reeder at close quarters before and was silently amused. Once he tried to start a conversation, but Mr Reeder was not a great conversationalist on a railway journey and the attempted affability faded to silence.

  At Dover station, Mr Reeder got out and his companion followed. Three men lounged up to Mr Reeder’s fellow-passenger, and with a nod he indicated the detective, who was passing through the barrier.

  “That’s your man,” he said, “keep close to him.”

  The car which was waiting for Mr Reeder had scarcely left the station yard, when the four entered a closed limousine and followed.

  The drive from Dover to St Margaret’s Bay was not a comfortable one. Heavy gusts of wind-borne rain drove across the downs. Below, as the car mounted the cliff road, he could see breakers creaming the yellow-green waters of the Straits, and out at sea a little coasting tramp was taking water over her bows in alarming quantities.

  Grayne Hall was not in the residential area of St Margaret’s Bay. It stood aloof in a fold of the downs and within a very short distance of the cliff’s edge. A red brick building, with squat chimneys that were not at all in harmony with the Elizabethan architecture of the house.

  “We used to have high twisted chimneys, but the wind blew them down. You’ve no idea what the wind is like here,” explained Dr Ingham before dinner.

  The car passed through a pair of ornamental iron gates and up a broad drive to the portico before the door. The doctor was waiting and with him a tall slight woman, who looked very young until she was seen closer at hand. Even then she might deceive any but the most critical, for her brown hair had a glint of gold in it, and the beauty of her face had not entirely faded.

  “Welcome!” Dr Ingham had a bandage over one eye and his injured nose was still covered with plaster. But he was in a pleasantly jovial mood. Perhaps he was relieved at the sight of his visitor, for he subsequently admitted that he had been expecting a wire from Mr Reeder, regretting his inability to put in an appearance.

  “I want you to persuade Mrs Ingham that this is not the most forsaken spot on the face of the earth, my dear Reeder. And if you can allay her fears about a repetition of the attack upon me I shall be completely grateful.”

  Mrs Ingham’s red lips curled in a smile. She was, Mr Reeder discovered, a well-read, knowledgeable woman. As she showed him round the lovely grounds (the spring flowers were a joy to the eye) she gave him every opportunity to study her. He himself said little – she gave him no chance, for she never stopped talking. Her voice was low but monotonous. She had definite views on almost every subject. She told him that she was a graduate of a famous New England university – she was obviously proud of this and repeated the information twice. She was pretty, probably nearer forty than thirty. She had deep dark brown eyes, the most delicate of features, and jet black eyebrows which contrasted attractively with the colour of her hair.

  “…I remember the Pizarro case – I had just left college and naturally I was thrilled because he came from our home town. And, Mr Reeder, I’m sure that all these disappearances have something to do with the Pizarro outfit. I have been racking my brains all day trying to think how my husband has offended them. Maybe he preached against them. I’ve a kind of recollection that he had a threatening letter when we were in Boston soon after we married. Not that my husband would worry about threatening letters…”

  There was much to see in the grounds: here and there a crumbling ruin of a wall to remind the observer of the dead glories of Grayne Castle. One interesting feature Mr Reeder discovered was a flight of steps leading down the face of the cliff. It was guarded by an iron hand rail and gave the occupants of Grayne Hall a private way to the beach.

  “If anybody wants to bathe on pebbles,” said Mrs Ingham.

  The room allotted to Mr Reeder’s use gave him a beautiful view of the sea and the flower garden before the house. It was furnished with rare taste – he saw in the decorations Mrs Ingham’s hand. A pleasant retreat, but in many, many ways a dangerous one. He went up to his room after tea and found his dress clothes laid out for him by his host’s valet. Later came the individual to assist Mr Reeder. A bathroom opened from the bedroom and Mr Reeder was under the shower when the valet knocked. He came out, to find the man folding the discarded day clothes and hanging them neatly in the wardrobe.

  The contents of his pockets were placed neatly on the dressing table.

  “Thank you,” murmured Mr Reeder. “I – um – shall not require you any more. I will ring if I do.”

  He closed the door on the retiring valet, turned the key and began to dress at his leisure. Mr Reeder liked the routine of well run country houses and Grayne Hall was extraordinarily well run. He came down to find himself alone in the drawing-room. A fine aromatic cedar log burnt on the open grate, above which was a picture which might have been a Rembrandt.

  The soft hangings of the room, the austere furnishings, the pastel coloured walls, were very soothing. Dr Ingham, wearing the evening dress of the laity, came in to rub his hands before the fire.

  “I suppose Elsa gave you the full benefit of her theories? There may be something in them. I’ve been trying to think how I might have offended these birds. A sermon maybe. I used to be a powerful preacher – took current events as my text. Come into my study and have a drink. Elsa won’t be down for hours.”

  He conducted Mr Reeder across the panelled hall, through
a deeply recessed door into as comfortable a room as the heart of man could desire.

  Deep armchairs, a low divan before the fire, walls covered with bookshelves, and a big empire desk were the main features of the room.

  “Comfort, comfort, comfort!” said the cleric as he opened a walnut cabinet and took out a silver tray laden with glasses. To these he added a square decanter and a syphon.

  “Say when.”

  He splashed the soda into the brown whisky and Mr Reeder sipped daintily.

  “Elsa wants me to keep firearms in the house. Now you, as a detective, I suppose would think nothing of that. To me it is an abhorrent practice. I may not be a great preacher, but I am, I hope, a good Christian, and the idea of taking life – ugh!”

  Mr Reeder tried to raise a complimentary shudder, but failed.

  For his part he believed in taking life. He was old-fashioned enough to regard the gallows as an instrument of the highest social value.

  “I presume you carry a gun?”

  Mr Reeder shook his head.

  “On occasions that dreadful necessity has been forced upon me,” he said. “I dislike the practice. I have – er – two such weapons, but I have never had to use them. One is at my office and one at my private residence.”

  The doctor made a little face.

  “You disappoint me, Mr Reeder. I am not a nervous man, but in view of what happened the other night” – he touched his injured face–” I should have felt a little safer. Hello, sweetness.”

  Sweetness wore a perfectly cut gown of deep crimson velvet. Mr Reeder thought that she looked twenty-four and not a day over, and had he the courage of a lady’s man – a quality he much envied – he would have said as much.

  “What were you talking about?” she asked.

  “We were talking of guns,” said Mr Reeder loudly, “um – revolvers.”

  She smiled at this.

  “And my husband was giving his well-known views of the sanctity of human life,” she said scornfully.

  Mr Reeder smiled.

  “Rather I was giving a bit of my mind, my dear madam,” he said.