Red Aces Read online

  A few seconds later a square wooden case was heaved through the port and fell with a splash in the water. For a moment one sharp corner was in sight, then it sank slowly beneath the yellow flood. A small black buoy bobbed up and the waterman watched it with interest. To the buoy was attached a stout cord, and the cord was fastened to the case. He waited, moving his oars slowly, until the buoy was on the point of being sucked out of sight – then, with a turn of his wrist, he hooked an oar under the cord – literally hooked, for at the end of the short blade was a little steel crook.

  Pushing the boat forward, he reached for the buoy and drew this into the stern sheets, fastened the cord round a wooden pin, and, lifting his oars, allowed the tide to carry him under the steamer’s stern. Anchored in midstream was a dingy-looking barge and towards this he guided the skiff.

  A heavily built young man came from the aft deck, and, reaching down a boat-hook, drew the skiff alongside. The swarthy man held on to the side of the barge whilst the boat-hook was transferred to the taut line astern. The younger man did no more than fasten the soaking cord to a small bight. By this time the occupant of the skiff was on board.

  “Nobody about, Ligsey?” he asked gruffly.

  “Nobody, cap’n,” said the younger man.

  The captain said nothing more, but walked to the deck-house astern and disappeared down the companionway, pulling the hatch close after him. There he stayed till the estuary was a black void punctured with dim ships’ lights.

  Ligsey went forward to where his youthful assistant sat on an overturned bucket, softly playing a mouth-organ. He stopped being musical long enough to remark that the tide was turning.

  “We going up tonight?” he asked.

  Ligsey nodded. He had already heard the chuff-chuff of the motor in the stern of the barge, where the skipper was starting it.

  “What we hangin’ around here for?” asked the youth curiously. “We’ve missed one tide – we could have been up to Greenwich by now. Why don’t Captain Attymar–”

  “Mind your own business,” growled the mate.

  He heard the swarthy man calling him and went aft.

  “We’ll get that case in and stow it,” he said in a low voice. “I left a place in the bricks.”

  Together they pulled gingerly at the cord and brought the square, soaked packing-case to sight. Ligsey leaned over and gripped it with an instrument like a pair of huge ice-tongs, and the dripping case was brought to the narrow deck and stowed expeditiously in the well of the barge.

  The Allanuna invariably carried bricks between a little yard on the Essex coast and Tenny’s Wharf. Everybody on the river knew her for an erratic and a dangerous-steering craft. The loud chuffing of her engine was an offence. Even nippy tugboats gave her yawing bows a wide berth.

  The boy was called aft to take charge of the engine, and Ligsey took the tiller. It was five o’clock on a spring morning when she came to Tenny’s Wharf, which is at Rotherhithe.

  As a wharfage it had few qualities attractive to the least fastidious of bargees. It consisted of a confined space with room for two builder’s lorries to be backed side by side (though it required some manoeuvring to bring them into position) and the shabby little house where Joe Attymar lived.

  Through the weather-beaten gate which opened at intervals to admit the builders’ carts was Shadwick Lane. It had none of the picturesque character of the slum it used to be, when its houses were of wood, and water-butts stood in every backyard. Nowadays it consists of four walls, two on either side of the street. Bridging these is an inverted V of slate, which is called a roof, and at frequent intervals there are four red chimney-pots set on a small, square, brick tower. These denote roughly where lateral walls divide one hutch from another. Each partition is called a “house”, for which people pay rent when they can afford it. The walls which face the street have three windows and a doorway to each division.

  Joe Attymar’s house did not properly stand in the lane at all, and Shadwick Lane was only remotely interested in the barge-master, for the curious reason that he could reach his house and yard by Shadwick Passage, a tortuous alley that threaded a way between innumerable backyards, and, under the shadow of a high warehouse, to Tooley Street. Year after year the swarthy man with the little iron-grey beard and the shaggy eyebrows brought his barge up the river, always with a cargo of bricks. And invariably the barge went down empty and without his presence – for, for some reason, there was neither passenger nor crew on the down-river trip.

  This fact was unknown to the people of Shadwick Lane. They were even unaware that Joe Attymar did not sleep in his house more than one night every month. They knew, of course, from the muddy old motor-car, that he drove through the wide gates occasionally, that he went abroad, but guessed that he was engaged in the legitimate business of lighterman.

  There are certain minor problems which from time to time cause the chiefs of Scotland Yard to move uneasily and impatiently in their padded chairs, and say to their immediate subordinates: “Do something.” Mr Attymar, though he was blissfully unaware of the fact was one of these minor problems.

  There are gaming houses which harass the police, queer little clubs, and other establishments less easy to write about in a reputable magazine, but Mr Attymar was not associated with one of these. Such problems are, in one shape or another, perennial! Occasionally they grow acute, and just at that moment the question of systematic smuggling was worrying Scotland Yard considerably.

  Chief Constable Mason sent for Inspector Gaylor.

  “They’ve pulled in a fellow who was peddling dope in Lisle Street last night,” he said. “You might see him after his remand. I have an idea he will squeak.”

  But the man in question was no squeaker, though he had certainly given that impression when he was taken red-handed. He said enough, however, to the patient detective to suggest that he might say more.

  “All that I could find out,” said Gaylor, “is that this selling organization is nearly fool-proof. The gang that we rushed last year isn’t handling the output, but I’m satisfied that it still has the same governor.”

  “Get him,” said the chief, who was in the habit of asking for miracles in the same tone as he asked for his afternoon tea.

  And then a thought struck him.

  “Go along and see Reeder. The Public Prosecutor was telling me today that Reeder is available for any extra work. He may be able to help, anyway.”

  Mr Reeder heard the request, sighed and shook his head.

  “I’m afraid it is rather – um – outside my line of business. Dope? There used to be a man named Moodle. It may not have been his name, but he had associations with these wretched people–”

  “Moodle, whose name was Sam Oschkilinski, has been dead nearly a year,” said Gaylor.

  “Dear me!” said Mr Reeder, in a hushed voice appropriate to one who has lost a dear friend. “Of what did he die?”

  “Loss of breath,” said Gaylor vulgarly.

  Mr Reeder knew nothing more that he could recall about dope merchants.

  “Haven’t you some record on your files?” suggested Gaylor.

  “I never keep files, except – um – nail-files,” said Mr Reeder.

  “Perhaps,” suggested Gaylor, “one of your peculiar friends–”

  “I have no friends,” said Mr Reeder.

  But here he did not speak the exact truth.

  He was cursed with a community spirit and he had a tremendous sense of neighbourly obligations. Especially would he give up valuable time to diagnosing and curing the mysterious diseases which attacked the chickens in Brockley Road.

  Mr Reeder was an authority on poultry; he knew exactly why hens droop and cockerels’ combs go pink. He had a marvellous chicken farm in Kent – not large, but rare. Noble lords and ladies consulted him before they exhibited their birds
. He could wash and dry living chickens for the bench: the Poultry Show at the Crystal Palace was an event to which Mr Reeder looked forward for eleven months and two weeks.

  He would stand in his back garden for hours discussing with the man next door the eccentricities of laying hens, and his acquaintance with Johnny Southers began in a fowl-house. Johnny lived three doors from Mr Reeder. He was rather a nice young man, fair-haired and good-looking. He had in Mr Reeder’s eyes the overwhelming advantage of being a very poor conversationalist.

  Anna Welford lived in the house opposite, so that it may be said that the scene was set, for the curious tragedy of Joe Attymar, on a very small stage.

  It was through the unromantic question of a disease which attacked Johnny Southers’ prize Wyandottes that Mr Reeder met Anna. She happened to be in the Southers’ back garden when Mr Reeder was engaged in his diagnosis. She was a slim girl, rather dark, with amazing brown eyes. Her father was a retired fish merchant, who had made a lot of money and had sent her to a high class school at Brighton, where girls are taught to ride astride, use lipstick and adore the heroes of Hollywood.

  In some respects her education had been neglected, for she returned to the dullness of Brockley a very sane, well-balanced young lady.

  She did not find Brockley a “hole”. She did not smoke or do anything which made life worth living, but settled down to the humdrum of a stuffy home as though she had never shared a room with an earl’s daughter or played hockey against an all-England team.

  Johnny did not fall in love with her at first sight. He had known her since she was so high: when he was a boy she was endurable to him. As a young man he thought her views on life were sound. He discovered he was in love with her as he discovered he was taller than his father. It was a subject for surprise.

  It was brought home to him when Mr Clive Desboyne called in his glittering coupé‚ to take Anna to a dinner-dance. He resented Mr Desboyne’s easy assurance, the proprietorial way he handed Anna into the car. He thought it was appalling bad manners for a man to smoke a cigar when he was driving a lady. Thereafter Johnny found himself opening and examining packing-cases and casks and barrels at the Customs House with a sense of inferiority and the hopelessness of his future.

  In such a mood he consulted his authority on poultry, and Mr Reeder listened with all the interest of one who was hearing a perfectly novel and original story that had never been told before by or to any human being.

  “I know so very little – um – about love,” said Mr Reeder awkwardly. “In fact – er – nothing. I would like to advise you to – um – let matters take their course.”

  Very excellent, if vague, advice. But matters took the wrong course, as it happened.

  2

  On the following Saturday night, as Mr Reeder was returning home, he saw two men fighting in Brockley Road. He had what is called in Portuguese a repugnancio to fighting men. When the hour was midnight and the day was Saturday, there was a considerable weight of supposition in favour of the combat being between two gentlemen who were the worse for intoxicating drink, and it was invariably Mr Reeder’s practice to cross, like the Philistine, to the other side of the road.

  But the two young men who were engaged in such a short, silent and bitter contest were obviously no hooligans of lower Deptford. They were both wearing evening dress, and gentlemen in evening dress do not as a rule wage war in the streets of Brockley. Nevertheless, Mr Reeder hardly felt it was the occasion to act either as mediator or timekeeper.

  He would have passed them by, and did in fact come level with them, when one walked across the road, leaving his companion – though that hardly seems the term to apply to one who had been so bruised and exhausted that he was hanging on to the railings – to recover as best he could. It was then that Mr Reeder saw that one of the contestants was Mr John Southers. He was husky and apologetic.

  “I’m terribly sorry to have made a fuss like this,” he said. “I hope my father didn’t hear me. This fellow is intolerable.”

  The intolerable man on the other side of the street was moving slowly towards where a car was parked by the sidewalk. They watched him in silence as he got in, and, turning the car violently, went off towards the Lewisham High Road, and, from the direction he took, London.

  “I’ve been to a dance,” said the young man, a little inconsequently.

  “I hope,” said Mr Reeder with the greatest gentleness, “that you enjoyed yourself.”

  Mr Southers did not seem disposed at the moment to offer a fuller explanation. As they neared Reeder’s gate he said: “Thank God, Anna was inside before it started! He has been beastly rude to me all the evening. As a matter of fact, she asked me to call and take her home, otherwise I shouldn’t have met him.”

  There had been a dance somewhere in the City, at a livery hall. Anna had gone with Mr Clive Desboyne, but the circumstances under which Johnny called for her were only vaguely detailed. Nor did Mr Reeder hear what was the immediate cause of the quarrel which had set two respectable young men at fisticuffs in the reputable suburban thoroughfare.

  To say that he was uninterested would not be true. The matter, however, was hardly pressing. He hoped that both parties to the little fracas might have forgotten the cause of their quarrel by the following morning.

  He did not see Johnny again for the remainder of the week. Mr Reeder went about his business, and it is doubtful whether Johnny occupied as much as five minutes of his thoughts, until the case of Joe Attymar came into his purview.

  He was again called to Scotland Yard on a consultation. He found Gaylor and the Chief Constable together, and they were examining a very dingy-looking letter which had come to the Yard in the course of the day.

  “Sit down, Reeder,” said the chief. “Do you know a man called Attymar?”

  Mr Reeder shook his head. He had never heard of Joe Attymar.

  “This is a thing we could do ourselves without any bother at all,” interrupted the chief, “but there are all sorts of complications which I won’t bother you with. We believe there’s a member of the staff of one of the Legations in this business, and naturally we want this fact to come out accidentally, and not as the result of any direct investigation by the police.”

  Mr Reeder then learned about Joe Attymar, the barge-master, of the little wharf at the end of Shadwick Lane, and the barge Allanuna that went up and down the Thames year in and year out and brought bricks. He did not hear at that moment, or subsequently, what part the Legation played, or which Legation it was, or if there was any Legation at all. In justice to his acumen it must be said that he doubted this part of the story from the first, and the theory at which he eventually arrived, and which was probably correct, was that the part he was called upon to play was to stampede Attymar and his associates into betrayal of their iniquity. For this was at a period when Mr Reeder’s name and appearance were known from one end of the river to the other, when there was hardly a bargee or tug-hand who could not have drawn, and did not draw, a passable caricature of that worthy man who had been instrumental in breaking up one of the best organized gangs of river thieves that had ever amalgamated for an improper purpose.

  Mr Reeder scratched his nose and his lips drooped dolefully. “I was hoping – um – that I should not see that interesting stream for a very long time.”

  He sat down and listened patiently to a string of uninteresting facts. Joe Attymar brought bricks up the river – had been bringing them for many years – at a price slightly lower than his competitors. He carried for four builders, and apparently did a steady, if not too prosperous, trade. He was believed locally to be rolling in money, but that is a reputation which Shadwick Lane applied to any man or woman who was not forced at frequent intervals to make a call at the local pawnshop. He kept himself to himself, was unmarried, and had no apparent interests outside of his brick lighterage.

  “Fascinat
ing,” murmured Mr Reeder. “It sounds almost like a novel, doesn’t it?”

  After he had gone…

  “I don’t see what there is fascinating about it,” said Mason, who did not know Mr Reeder very well.

  “That’s his idea of being funny,” said Gaylor.

  It was a week later, and the Allanuna lay at anchor off Queensborough, when a small boat rowed by a local boatman, carrying a solitary passenger, came slowly out, under the watchful and suspicious eye of Ligsey. The boat rowed alongside the barge, and Ligsey had a view of a man with a square hat and lopsided pince-nez, who sat in the stern of the boat, an umbrella between his legs, apparently making a meal of the big handle! And, seeing him, Ligsey, who knew a great deal about the river and its scandals, started up from his seat with an exclamation.

  He was blinking stupidly at the occupant of the boat when Mr Reeder came up to him.

  “Good morning,” said Mr Reeder.

  Ligsey said nothing.

  “I suppose I should say ‘afternoon’,” continued the punctilious Mr Reeder. “Is the captain aboard?”

  Ligsey cleared his throat.

  “No, sir, he ain’t.”

  “I suppose you wouldn’t object if I came aboard?”

  Mr Reeder did not wait for the answer, but, with surprising agility, drew himself up on to the narrow deck of the barge. He looked round with mild interest. The hatches were off, and he had a good view of the cargo.

  “Bricks are very interesting things,” he said pleasantly. “Without bricks we should have no houses; without straw we should have no bricks. It seems therefore a very intelligent act to pack bricks in straw, to remind them, as it were, of what they owe to this humble – um – vegetable.”

  Ligsey did not speak, but swallowed something.

  “What I want to know,” Mr Reeder went on, and his eyes were never still, “is this. Would it be possible to hire this barge?”

  “You’ll have to ask the captain about that,” said Ligsey huskily.