The Casefiles of Mr J. G. Reeder Read online

  ‘If they lumbered you with the crime, it was because you was a mug,’ said old Lal complacently. ‘That’s what mugs are for – to be lumbered. What did old Kane say?’

  ‘I didn’t see Mr Kane.’ said Johnny shortly.

  ‘He’d think you was a mug, too,’ said Lal with satisfaction – ‘hand me a brick. Gray, and shut up! That nosey screw’s coming over.’ The ‘nosey screw’ was no more inquisitive than any other warder. He strolled across, the handle of his truncheon showing from his pocket, the well-worn strap dangling. ‘Not so much talking,’ he said mechanically.

  ‘I was asking for a brick, sir,’ said Lal humbly. ‘These bricks ain’t so good as the last lot.’

  ‘I’ve noticed that,’ said the warder, examining a half-brick with a professional and disapproving eye.

  ‘Trust you to notice that, sir,’ said the sycophant with the right blend of admiration and awe. And, when the warder had passed, ‘That boss-eyed perisher don’t know a brick from a gas-stove,’ said Lal without heat. ‘He’s the bloke that old Legge got straightened when he was in here – used to have private letters brought in every other day. But then, old Legge’s got money. Him and Peter Kane smashed the strong-room of the Orsonic and got away with a million dollars. They never caught Peter, but Legge was easy. He shot a copper and got life.’

  Johnny had heard Legge’s biography a hundred times, but Lal Morgon had reached the stage of life when every story he told was new.

  ‘That’s why he hates Peter,’ said the garrulous bricklayer. ‘That’s why young Legge and him are going to get Peter. And young Legge’s hot! Thirty years of age by all accounts, and the biggest printer of slush in the world! And it’s not ord’nary slush. Experts get all mixed up when they see young Legge’s notes – can’t tell ’em from real Bank of England stuff. And the police and the secret service after him for years – and then never got him!’

  The day was warm, and Lal stripped off his red and blue striped working jacket. He wore, as did the rest of the party, the stained yellow breeches faintly stamped with the broad arrow. Around his calves were buttoned yellow gaiters. His shirt was of stout cotton, white with narrow blue stripes, and on his head was a cap adorned with mystic letters of the alphabet to indicate the dates of his con­victions. A week later, when the letters were abolished, Lal Morgon had a grievance. He felt as a soldier might feel when he was deprived of his decorations.

  ‘You’ve never met young Jeff?’ stated rather than asked Lal, smooth­­ing a dab of mortar with a leisurely touch.

  ‘I’ve seen him – I have not met him,’ said Johnny grimly, and something in his tone made the old convict look up.

  ‘He “shopped” me,’ said Johnny, and Lal indicated his surprise with an inclination of his head that was ridiculously like a bow.

  ‘I don’t know why, but I do know that he “shopped” me,’ said Johnny. ‘He was the man who fixed up the fake, got me persuaded to bring the horse on to the course, and then squeaked. Until then I did not know that the alleged Spider King was in reality Boy Saunders cleverly camouflaged.’

  ‘Squeaking’s hidjus,’ said the shocked Lal, and he seemed troubled. ‘And Emanuel Legge’s boy, too! Why did he do it – did you catch him over money?’

  Johnny shook his head.

  ‘I don’t know. If it’s true that he hates Peter Kane he may have done it out of revenge, knowing that I’m fond of Peter, and . . . well, I’m fond of Peter. He warned me about mixing with the crowd I ran with –’

  ‘Stop that talking, will you?’ They worked for some time in silence. Then: ‘That screw will get somebody hung one of these days,’ said Lal in a tone of quiet despair. ‘He’s the feller that little Lew Morse got a bashing for – over clouting him with a spanner in the black­smith’s shop. He was nearly killed. What a pity! Lew wasn’t much account, an’ he’s often said he’d as soon be dead as sober.’

  At four o’clock the working-party fell in and marched or shuffled down the narrow road to the prison gates.

  Parcere Subjectis

  Johnny looked up and winked at the grim jest, and he had the illusion that the archway winked back at him. At half-past four he turned into the deep-recessed doorway of his cell, and the yellow door closed on him with a metallic snap of a lock.

  It was a big, vaulted cell, and the colour of the folded blanket ends gave it a rakish touch of gaiety. On a shelf in one corner was a photo-graph of a fox terrier, a pretty head turned enquiringly toward him. He poured out a mugful of water and drank it, looking up at the barred window. Presently his tea would come, and then the lock would be put on for eighteen and a half hours. And for eighteen and a half hours he must amuse himself as best he could. He could read whilst the light held – a volume of travel was on the ledge that served as a table. Or he could write on his slate, or draw horses and dogs, or work out interminable problems in mathematics, or write poetry . . . or think. That was the worst exercise of all. He crossed the cell and took down the photograph. The mount had worn limp with much handling, and he looked with a half-smile into the big eyes of the terrier.

  ‘It is a pity you can’t write, old Spot,’ he said. Other people could write, and did, he thought as he replaced the photograph. But Peter Kane never once mentioned Marney, and Marney had not written since . . . a long time. It was ominous, informative, in some ways decisive. A brief reference, ‘Marney is well’, or ‘Marney thanks you for your enquiry’, and that was all.

  The whole story was clearly written in those curt phrases, the story of Peter’s love for the girl, and his determination that she should not marry a man with the prison taint. Peter’s adoration of his daughter was almost a mania – her happiness and her future came first, and must always be first. Peter loved him – Johnny had sensed that. He had given him the affection that a man might give his grown son. If this tragic folly of his had not led to the entanglement which brought him to a convict prison, Peter would have given Marney to him, as she was willing to give herself. ‘That’s that,’ said Johnny, in his role of philosopher. And then came tea and the final lock-up, and silence . . . and thoughts again.

  Why did young Legge trap him? He had only seen the man once; they had never even met. It was only by chance that he had ever seen this young printer of forged notes. He could not guess that he was known to the man he ‘shopped’,for Jeff Legge was an illusive person. One never met him in the usual rendezvous where the half-under­world foregather to boast and plot or drink and love.

  A key rattled in the lock, and Johnny got up. He forgot that it was the evening when the chaplain visited him. ‘Sit down. Gray.’ The door closed on the clergyman, and he seated himself on Johnny’s bed. It was curious that he should take up the thread of Johnny’s interrupted thoughts.

  ‘I want to get your mind straight about this man Legge . . . the son, I mean. It is pretty bad to brood on grievances, real or fancied, and you are nearing the end of your term of imprisonment, when your resentment will have a chance of expressing itself. And, Gray, I don’t want to see you here again.’

  Johnny Gray smiled.

  ‘You won’t see me here!’ he emphasised the word. ‘As to Jeff Legge, I know little about him, though I’ve done some fairly fluent guessing and I’ve heard a lot.’

  The chaplain shook his head thoughtfully.

  ‘I have heard a little; he’s the man they call the Big Printer, isn’t he? Of course, I know all about the flooding of Europe with spurious notes, and that the police had failed to catch the man who was putting them into circulation. Is that Jeff Legge?’

  Johnny did not answer, and the chaplain smiled a little sadly. ‘Thou shalt not squeak’ – the eleventh commandment, isn’t it?’ he asked good-humouredly. ‘I am afraid I have been indiscreet. When does your sentence end?’

  ‘In six months,’ replied Johnny, ‘and I’ll not be sorry.’

  ‘What a
re you going to do? Have you any money?’

  The convict’s lips twitched.

  ‘Yes, I have three thousand a year,’ he said quietly. ‘That is a fact which did not come out at the trial, for certain reasons. No, padre, money isn’t my difficulty. I suppose I shall travel. I certainly shall not attempt to live down my grisly past.’

  ‘That means you’re not going to change your name,’ said the chaplain with a twinkle in his eye. ‘Well, with three thousand a year, I can’t see you coming here again.’ Suddenly he remembered. Putting his hand in his pocket, he took out a letter. ‘The Deputy gave me this, and I’d nearly forgotten. It arrived this morning.’

  The letter was opened, as were all letters that came to convicts, and Johnny glanced carelessly at the envelope. It was not, as he had expected, a letter from his lawyer. The bold handwriting was Peter Kane’s – the first letter he had written for six months. He waited until the door had closed upon the visitor, and then he took the letter from the envelope. There were only a few lines of writing.

  Dear Johnny

  I hope you are not going to be very much upset by the news I am telling you. Marney is marrying Major Floyd, of Toronto, and I know that you’re big enough and fine enough to wish her luck. The man she is marrying is a real good fellow who will make her happy.

  Johnny put down the letter on to the ledge, and for ten minutes paced the narrow length of his cell, his hands clasped behind him. Marney to be married! His face was white, tense, his eyes dark with gloom. He stopped and poured out a mugful of water with a hand that shook, then raised the glass to the barred window that looked eastward.

  ‘Good luck to you, Marney!’ he said huskily, and drank the mug empty.

  Chapter 2

  Two days later, Johnny Gray was summoned to the Governor’s office and heard the momentous news.

  ‘Gray, I have good news for you. You are to be released immed­iately. I have just had the authority.’

  Johnny inclined his head.

  ‘Thank you, sir,’ he said.

  A warder took him to a bathroom, where he stripped, and, with a blanket about him, came out to a cubicle, where his civilian clothes were waiting. He dressed with a queer air of unfamiliarity, and went back to his cell. The warder brought him a looking-glass and a safety-razor, and he completed his toilet.

  The rest of the day was his own. He was a privileged man, and could wander about the prison in his strangely-feeling attire, the envy of men whom he had come to know and to loathe; the half madmen who for a year had been whispering their futilities into his ear.

  As he stood there in the hall at a loose end, the door was flung open violently, and a group of men staggered in. In the midst of them was a howling, shrieking thing that was neither man nor beast, his face bloody, his wild arms gripped by struggling warders.

  He watched the tragic group as it made its way to the punishment cells.

  ‘Fenner,’ said somebody under his breath. ‘He coshed a screw, but they can’t give him another bashing.’

  ‘Isn’t Fenner that twelve-year man, that’s doing his full time?’ asked Johnny, remembering the convict. ‘And he’s going out to­morrow, too!’

  ‘That’s him,’ said his informant, one of the hall sweepers. ‘He’d have got out with nine, but old Legge reported him. Game to the last, eh? They can’t bash him after tomorrow, and the visiting justices won’t be here for a week.’

  Johnny remembered the case. Legge had been witness to a brutal assault on the man by one of the warders, who had since been discharged from the service. In desperation the unfortunate Fenner had hit back, and had been tried. Legge’s evidence might have saved him from the flogging which followed, but Legge was too good a friend of the warders – or they were too good friends of his – to betray a ‘screw’. So Fenner had gone to the triangle, as he would not go again.

  He could not sleep the last night in the cell. His mind was on Marney. He did not reproach her for a second. Nor did he feel bitter toward her father. It was only right and proper that Peter Kane should do what was best for his girl. The old man’s ever-present fear for his daughter’s future was almost an obsession. Johnny guessed that when this presentable Canadian had come along, Peter had done all in his power to further the match.

  Johnny Gray walked up the steep slope for the last time. A key turned in the big lock, and he stood outside the gates, a free man. The red-bearded head warder put out his hand.

  ‘Good luck to you,’ he said gruffly. ‘Don’t you come over the Alps again.’

  ‘I’ve given up mountain climbing,’ said Johnny.

  He had taken his farewell of the Governor, and now the only thing to remind him of his association with the grim prison he had left was the warder who walked by his side to the station. He had some time to wait, and Johnny tried to get some information from another angle.

  ‘No, I don’t know Jeff Legge,’ said the warder, shaking his head. ‘I knew the old man: he was here until twelve months ago – you were here, too, weren’t you, Gray?’

  Johnny nodded.

  ‘Mr Jeff Legge has never been over the Alps, then?’ he asked sardonically.

  ‘No, not in this prison, and he wasn’t in Parkhurst or Portland, so far as I can remember. I’ve been at both places. I’ve heard the men talking about him. They say he’s clever, which means that he’ll be putting out his tins one morning. Goodbye, Gray, and be good!’

  Johnny gripped the outstretched hand of the man, and, when he was in the carriage, took out his silk handkerchief and wiped his hand of the last prison contact.

  His servant was waiting for him at Paddington when he arrived that afternoon, and with him, straining at a leash, a small, lop-eared fox terrier, who howled his greeting long before Johnny had seen the group. In another second the dog was struggling in his arms, licking his face, his ears and his hair, and whining his joy at the reunion. There were tears in Johnny’s eyes when he put the dog down on the platform.

  ‘There are a number of letters for you, sir. Will you dine at home?’

  The excellent Parker might have been welcoming his master from a short sojourn at Monte Carlo, so very unemotional was he.

  ‘Yes, I’ll dine at home,’ said Johnny. He stepped into the taxicab that Parker had hired, and Spot leapt after him.

  ‘There is no baggage, sir?’ asked Parker gravely through the open window.

  ‘There is no baggage,’ said Johnny as gravely. ‘You had better ride back with me, Parker.’

  The man hesitated.

  ‘It would be a very great liberty, sir,’ he said.

  ‘Not so great a liberty as I have had taken with me during the past year and nine months,’ said Johnny.

  As the cab came out into dismal Chapel Street, the greatly daring Parker asked: ‘I hope you have not had too bad a time, sir?’

  Johnny laughed.

  ‘It has not been pleasant, Parker. Prisons seldom are.’

  ‘I suppose not, sir,’ agreed Parker, and added unnecessarily: ‘I have never been in prison, sir.’

  Johnny’s flat was in Queen’s Gate, and at the sight of the peaceful luxury of his study he caught his breath.

  ‘You’re a fool,’ he said aloud to himself.

  ‘Yes, sir,’ said the obliging Parker.

  That night many men came furtively to the flat in Queen’s Gate, and Johnny, after admitting the first of these, called Parker into his small dining-room.

  ‘Parker, I am told that during my absence in the country even staid men have acquired the habit of attending cinema performances?’

  ‘Well, sir, I like the pictures myself,’ admitted Parker.

  ‘Then go and find one that lasts until eleven o’clock,’ said Johnny.

  ‘You mean, sir – ?’

  ‘I mean I don’t want you here toni
ght.’

  Parker’s face fell, but he was a good servant.

  ‘Very good, sir,’ he said, and went out, wondering sorrowfully what desperate plans his master was hatching.

  At half-past ten the last of the visitors took his leave.

  ‘I’ll see Peter tomorrow,’ said Johnny, tossing the end of his cigar­ette into the hall fireplace. ‘You know nothing of this wedding, when it is to take place?’

  ‘No, Captain. I only know Peter slightly.’

  ‘Who is the bridegroom?’

  ‘A swell, by all accounts – Peter is a plausible chap, and he’d pull in the right kind. A major in the Canadian Army, I’ve heard, and a very nice man. Peter can catch mugs easier than some people can catch flies –’

  ‘Peter was never a mug-catcher,’ said John Gray sharply.

  ‘I don’t know,’ said the other. ‘There’s one born every minute.’

  ‘But they take a long time to grow up, and the women get first pluck,’ said Johnny good-humouredly.

  Parker, returning at 11.15, found his master sitting before a fire­place which was choked with burnt paper.

  Johnny reached Horsham the next afternoon soon after lunch, and none who saw the athletic figure striding up the Horsham Road would guess that less than two days before he had been the inmate of a convict cell.

  He had come to make his last desperate fight for happiness. How it would end, what argument to employ, he did not know. There was one, and one only, but that he could not use.

  As he turned into Down Road he saw two big limousines standing one behind the other, and wondered what social event was in progress.

  Manor Hill stood aloof from its suburban neighbours, a sedate, red-brick house, its walls gay with clematis. Johnny avoided the front gates and passed down a side path which, as he knew, led to the big lawn behind, where Peter loved to sun himself at this hour.

  He paused as he emerged into the open. A pretty parlourmaid was talking to an elderly man, who wore without distinction the livery of a butler. His lined face was puckered uncomfortably, and his head was bent in a listening attitude, though it was next to impossible for a man totally deaf to miss hearing all that was said.