Red Aces (23 page)

“I could call up for it in the morning,” said Mr Reeder, and his voice was surprisingly brisk.

Mr Desboyne gazed at him in startled astonishment. It was as though this weary man with the drooping lips and tired eyes had suddenly received a great mental tonic.

“You made notes? Not one man in ten would have thought of that,” said Mr Reeder. “I thought I was the only person who did it.”

Clive Desboyne laughed.

“I’ve given you the impression that I’m terribly methodical,” he said, “and that isn’t quite exact.”

He looked at the watch on his wrist.

“It’s too late to ask you to breakfast.”

“Breakfast is my favourite meal,” said Mr Reeder gaily. Late as was the hour, he was standing before the polished mahogany door of 974, Memorial Mansions, Park Lane, at nine o’clock next morning. Mr Desboyne was not so early a riser, and indeed had doubted whether the detective would keep his promise. Mr Reeder was left standing in the hall whilst the servant went to inquire exactly how this strangely appearing gentleman should be disposed of.

There was plenty to occupy Mr Reeder’s attention during her absence, for the wide hall was hung with photographs which gave some indication of Desboyne’s wide sporting and theatrical interests. There was one interesting photograph, evidently an enlargement of a snapshot, showing the House of Commons in the background, which held Mr Reeder’s attention, the more so as the photograph also showed the corner of Westminster Bridge across which motor-buses were moving. He was looking at this when Clive Desboyne joined him.

“Here is a piece of detective work,” said Mr Reeder triumphantly, pointing to the photograph. “I can tell you almost the week that picture was taken. Do you see those two omnibuses bearing the names of two plays? I happen to know there was only one week in the year when they were both running together.”

“Indeed,” said Desboyne, apparently not as impressed by this piece of deduction as Mr Reeder had expected.

He led the way to the dining-room, and Reeder found by the side of his plate three foolscap sheets covered with writing.

“I don’t know whether you’ll be able to read it,” said Desboyne, “but you’ll notice there one or two things that I forgot to tell you at our interview. I think on the whole they favour Southers, and I’m glad I made a note of them. For example, he said he had never seen Southers and only knew him by name. That in itself is rather curious.”

“Very,” said Mr Reeder. “Regarding that photograph in the hall – it must have been in May last year. I remember some years ago, by a lucky chance, I was able to establish the date on which a cheque was passed, as distinct from the date on which it was drawn, by the fact that the drawer had forgotten to sign one of his initials.”

It was surprising how much Mr Reeder, who was not as a rule a loquacious man, talked in the course of that meal. Mostly he talked about nothing. When Clive Desboyne led him to the murder Mr Reeder skilfully edged away to less unpleasant topics.

“It doesn’t interest me very much, I confess,” he said. “I am not a member of the – um – Criminal Investigation Department; I was merely called in to deal with this man’s smuggling – and he seems to have smuggled pretty extensively. It is distressing that young Southers is implicated. He seems a nice lad, and has rather a sane view of the care of chickens. For example, he was telling me that he had an incubator…”

At the end of the meal he asked permission to take away the notes for study, and this favour was granted.

He was at the house in Shadwick Lane half an hour later. Gaylor, who had arranged to meet him there, had not arrived, and Mr Reeder had two men who had had semi-permanent jobs on the wharf. It was the duty of one to open and close the gates and pilot the lorries to their positions. He had also, as had his companion, to assist at the loading.

They had not seen much of Attymar all the years they had been there. He usually came in on one of the night or early morning tides. Ligsey paid them their wages.

“There was never any change,” said one mournfully. “We ain’t had the gates painted since I’ve bin here – we’ve had the same little anvil to keep the gate open–”

He looked round first one side and then the other. The same little anvil was not there.

“Funny,” he said.

Mr Reeder agreed. Who would steal a rusty little anvil? He saw the place where it had lain; the impression of it still stood in the dusty earth.

Later came Gaylor, in a hurry to show him over the other rooms of the house. There was a kitchen, a rather spacious cellar, which was closed by a heavy door, and one bedroom that had been divided into two unequal parts by a wooden partition. The bedroom was simply but cleanly furnished. There was a bed and bedstead, a dressing-table with a large mirror, and a chest of drawers, which was empty. Indeed, there was no article of Attymar’s visible, except an old razor, a stubbly shaving brush and six worn shirts that had been washed until they were threadbare. From the centre of the ceiling hung an electric light with an opalescent shade; another light hung over a small oak desk, in which, Gaylor informed him, most of the documents in the case had been found. But Mr Reeder’s chief interest was in the mirror, and in the greasy smear which ran from the top left hand corner almost along the top of the mirror. The glass itself was supported by two little mahogany pillars, and to the top of each of these was attached a piece of string.

“Most amusing,” said Mr Reeder, speaking his thoughts aloud.

“Remind me to laugh,” said Mr Gaylor heavily. “What is amusing?”

For answer Mr Reeder put up his hand and ran the tip of his finger along the smear. Then he began to prowl around the apartment obviously looking for something, and as obviously disappointed that it could not be found.

“No, nothing has been taken out of here,” said Gaylor in answer to his question, “except the papers. Here’s something that may amuse you more.”

He opened a door leading to the bedroom. Here was a cupboard – it was little bigger. The walls and floor were covered with white tiles, as also was the back of the door. From the ceiling projected a large nozzle, and in one of the walls were two taps.

“How’s that for luxury? Shower bath – hot and cold water. Doesn’t that make you laugh?”

“Nothing makes me laugh except the detectives in pictures,” said Mr Reeder calmly. “Do you ever go to the pictures, Gaylor?”

The inspector admitted that occasionally he did.

“I like to see detectives in comic films, because they always carry large magnifying glasses. Do they make you laugh?”

“They do,” admitted Mr Gaylor, with a contemptuous and reminiscent smile.

“Then get ready to howl,” said Mr Reeder, and from his pocket took the largest reading glass that Gaylor had ever seen.

Under the astonished eyes of the detective Reeder went down on his knees in the approved fashion, and began carefully to scrutinize the floor. Inch by inch he covered, stopping now and again to pick up something invisible to the Scotland Yard man, and placed it in an envelope which he had also taken from his pocket.

“Cigar-ash?” asked Gaylor sardonically.

“Almost,” said Mr Reeder.

He went on with his search, then suddenly he sat back on his heels, his eyes ablaze, and held up a tiny piece of silver paper, less than a quarter of an inch square. Gaylor looked down more closely.

“Oh, it is a cigarette you’re looking for?”

But Mr Reeder was oblivious to all sarcasm. Inside the silver was a scrap of transparent paper, so thin that it seemed part of the tinsel. Very carefully, however, he separated the one from the other, touched its surface and examined his fingertips.

“Where’s the fireplace?” he asked suddenly.

“There’s a fireplace in the kitchen – that’s the only one.”

Mr Reeder hurried downstairs and examined this small apartment. There were ashes in the grate, but it was impossible to tell what had been burnt.

“I should like to say,” said Gaylor, “that your efforts are wasted, for we’ve got enough in the diary to hang Southers twice over. Only I suspect you when you do things unnecessarily.”

“The diary?” Mr Reeder looked up.

“Yes, Attymar’s.”

“So he kept a diary, did he?” Mr Reeder was quite amused. “I should have thought he would, if I had thought about it at all.”

Then he frowned.

“Not an ordinary diary, of course? Just an exercise book. It begins – let me see–shall we say two weeks ago, or three weeks?”

Gaylor gazed at him in amazement.

“Mason told you?”

“No, he didn’t tell me anything, partly because he hasn’t spoken to me. But, of course, it would be in a sort of exercise book. An ordinary printed diary that began on the first of January would be unthinkable. This case is getting so fascinating that I can hardly stop laughing!”

He was not laughing; he was very serious indeed, as he stood in the untidy yard before the little house and threw his keen glance across its littered surface.

“There is no sign of the tender that brought Ligsey here? The little boy on the barge was much more informative than he imagined! I’ll tell you what to look for, shall I? A black, canoe-shaped motor-boat which might hold three people at a pinch. Remember that – a canoe-shaped boat, say ten feet long.”

“Where shall I find it?” asked the fascinated Gaylor.

“At the bottom of the river,” said Mr Reeder calmly, “and in or near it you will find a little anvil which used to keep the gate open!”

Mr Reeder had a very large acquaintance with criminals, larger perhaps than the average police officer, whose opportunities are circumscribed by the area to which he is attached; and he knew that the business of detection would be at a standstill if there were such a thing in the world as a really clever criminal. By the just workings of providence, men who gain their living by the evasion of the law are deprived of the eighth sense which, properly functioning, would keep them out of the hands of the police.

He made yet another survey of the house before he left, pointed out to Gaylor something which that officer had already noticed, namely, the bloodstains on the floor and the wall of a small lobby which connected the main living-room with the yard.

“Naturally I saw it,” said Gaylor, who was inclined to be a little complacent. “My theory is that the fight started in the sitting-room; they struggled out into the passage–”

“That would be impossible,” murmured Mr Reeder.

John Southers made a brief appearance at the Tower of London Police Court – a dazed, bewildered young man, so overwhelmed by his position that he could do no more than answer the questions put to him by the magistrate’s clerk.

Gaylor had seen him earlier in the morning.

“He said nothing except that he went to Attymar’s house – oh, yes, he admits that – by appointment. He says Attymar kept him waiting for some time before he opened the door, and then only allowed him to come into the lobby. He tells some rambling story about Attymar sending him to meet a man at Highgate. In fact, it’s the usual Man story.”

Mr Reeder nodded. He was not unacquainted with that mysterious man who figures in the narratives of all arrested persons. Sometimes it was a man who gave the prisoner the stolen goods in the possession of which he had been found; sometimes it was the man who asked another to cash a forged cheque; but always it was a vague Somebody who could never be traced. Half the work of investigation which occupied the attention of the detective force consisted of a patient search for men who had no existence except in the imaginations of prisoners under remand.

“Did he see him?” asked Mr Reeder.

Gaylor laughed.

“My dear chap, what a question!”

Mr Reeder fondled his bony chin.

“Is it possible to – um – have a little chat with our friend Southers?”

Gaylor was dubious, and had reason for his doubt. Chief Constable Mason and the high men at Headquarters were at the moment writhing under a periodical wave of criticism which sweeps across Scotland Yard at regular intervals; and their latest delinquency was the cross-examination of a man under suspicion of a serious crime. There had been questions in Parliament, almost a Royal Commission.

“I doubt it,” said Gaylor. “The chief is feeling rather sick about this Hanny business, and as the kick has come down from your department it isn’t likely that they’ll make an exception. I’ll ask Mason and let you know.”

Mr Reeder was home that afternoon when Anna Welford called. She was most amazingly calm. Mr Reeder, who had shown some hesitation about receiving her, was visibly relieved.

“Have you seen Johnny?” was the first question she asked.

Mr Reeder shook his head, and explained to her that in the strictest sense he was not in the case, and that the police were very jealous of interference.

“Clive has been to see me,” she said when he had finished, “and he has told me everything – he is terribly upset.”

“Told you everything?” repeated Mr Reeder. She nodded.

“About Ligsey, and the story that Clive told you. I understood – in a way. He is doing everything he can for Johnny; he has engaged a lawyer and briefed counsel.”

For the second time Mr Reeder motioned her to a chair, and, when she was seated, continued his own restless pacing.

“If there was any truth in that story, your Johnny should be rather well off,” he said. “The wages of sin are rather – um – high. Yet his father told me this morning – I had a brief interview with him – that young Mr Southers’ bank balance is not an excessive one.”

He saw her lower her eyes and heard the quick little sigh.

“They’ve found the money – I thought you knew that,” she said in a low voice.

Mr Reeder halted in his stride and peered down at her.

“They’ve found the money?”

She nodded.

“The police came and made a search about an hour ago, and they found a box in the tool-shed, with hundreds of pounds in it, all in notes.”

Mr Reeder did not often whistle; he whistled now.

“Does Mr Desboyne know this?” he asked.

She shook her head.

“Clive doesn’t know. It happened after he had left. He’s been terribly nice – he’s made one confession that isn’t very flattering to me.”