Room 13 (16 page)

“You must have heard, in the course of your travels, a great deal about Mr Legge?” he suggested. “Possibly more has come to you since this unfortunate – indeed, dastardly – happening, of which I cannot remind you without inflicting unnecessary pain. Now, Mr Kane, don’t you think that you would be rendering a service to human society if–”

“If I squeaked,” said Peter Kane quietly. “I’ll put your mind at rest on that subject immediately. I know nothing of Jeffrey Legge except that he’s a blackguard. But if I did, if I had the key to his printing works, if I had evidence in my pocket of his guilt–” he paused.

“And if you had all these?” asked Mr Reeder gently.

“I should not squeak,” said Peter with emphasis, “because that is not the way. A squeak is a squeak, whether you do it in cold blood or in the heat of temper.”

Again Mr Reeder sighed heavily, took off his glasses, breathed on them and polished them with gentle vigour, and did not speak until he had replaced them.

“It is all very honourable,” he said sadly. “This – er – faith and – er – integrity… Again the poultry parallel comes to my mind. Certain breeds of chickens hold together and have nothing whatever to do with other breeds, and, though they may quarrel amongst themselves, will fight to the death for one another. Your daughter is well, I trust?”

“She is very well,” said Peter emphatically, “surprisingly so. I thought she would have a bad time – here she is.” He turned at that moment and waved his hand to the girl, who was coming down the steps of the terrace. “You know Mr Reeder?” said Peter as the girl came smiling toward the chicken expert with outstretched hand.

“Why, of course I know him,” she said warmly. “Almost you have persuaded me to run a poultry farm!”

“You might do worse,” said Mr Reeder gravely. “There are very few women who take an intelligent interest in such matters. Men are ever so much more interested in chickens.”

Peter looked at him sharply. There was something in his tone, a glint of unsuspected humour in his eyes, that lit and died in a second, and Peter Kane was nearer to understanding the man at that moment than he had ever been before.

And here Peter took a bold step.

“Mr Reeder is a detective,” he said, “employed by the banks to try and track down the people who have been putting so many forged notes on the market.”

“A detective!”

Her eyes opened wide in surprise, and Mr Reeder hastened to disclaim the appellation.

“Not a detective. I beg of you not to misunderstand, Miss Kane. I am merely an investigator, an inquiry agent, not a detective. ‘Detective’ is a term which is wholly repugnant to me. I have never arrested a man in my life, nor have I authority to do so.”

“At any rate, you do not look like a detective, Mr Reeder,” smiled the girl.

“I thank you,” said Mr Reeder gratefully. “I should not wish to be mistaken for a detective. It is a profession which I admire, but do not envy.”

He took from his pocket a large note-case and opened it. Inside, fastened by a rubber band in the centre, was a thick wad of banknotes. Seeing them, Peter’s eyebrows rose.

“You’re a bold man to carry all that money about with you, Mr Reeder,” he said.

“Not bold,” disclaimed the investigator. “I am indeed a very timid man.”

He slipped a note from under the elastic band and handed it to his wondering host. Peter took it.

“A fiver,” he said.

Mr Reeder took another. Peter saw it was a hundred before he held it in his hand.

“Would you cash that for me?”

Peter Kane frowned.

“What do you mean?”

“Would you cash it for me?” asked Mr Reeder. “Or perhaps you have no change? People do not keep such large sums in their houses.”

“I’ll change it for you with pleasure,” said Peter, and was taking out his own note-case when Mr Reeder stopped him with a gesture.

“Forged,” he said briefly.

Peter looked at the note in his hand.

“Forged? Impossible! That’s a good note.”

He rustled it scientifically and held it up to the light. The watermark was perfect. The secret marks on the face of the note which he knew very well were there. He moistened the corner of the note with his thumb.

“You needn’t trouble,” said Reeder. “It answers all the tests.”

“Do you mean to tell me this is ‘slush’ – I mean a forgery?”

The other nodded, and Peter examined the note again with a new interest. He who had seen so much bad money had to admit that it was the most perfect forgery he had ever handled.

“I shouldn’t have hesitated to change that for you. Is all the other money the same?”

Again the man nodded.

“But is that really bad money?” asked Marney, taking the note from her father. “How is it made?”

Before the evasive answer came she guessed. In a flash she pieced together the hints, the vague scraps of gossip she had heard about the Big Printer.

“Jeffrey Legge!” she gasped, going white. “Oh!”

“Mr Jeffrey Legge,” nodded Reeder. “Of course we can prove nothing. Now perhaps we can sit down.”

It was he who suggested that they should go back to the garden seat. Not until, in his furtive way, he had circumnavigated the clump of bushes that hid the lawn from view did he open his heart.

“I am going to tell you a lot, Mr Kane,” he said, “because I feel you may be able to help me, in spite of your principles. There are two men who could have engraved this note, one man who could manufacture the paper. Anybody could print it – anybody, that is to say, with a knowledge of printing. The two men are Lacey and Burns. They have both been in prison for forgery; they were both released ten years ago, and since then have not been seen. The third man is a paper-maker, who was engaged in the banknote works at Wellington. He went to penal servitude for seven years for stealing banknote paper. He also has been released a very considerable time, and he also has vanished.”

“Lacey and Burns? I have heard of them. What is the other man’s name?” asked Peter.

Mr Reeder told him.

“Jennings? I never heard of him.”

“You wouldn’t, because he is the most difficult type of criminal to track. In other words, he is not a criminal in the ordinary sense of the word. I am satisfied that he is on the Continent because, to be making paper, it is necessary that one should have the most up-to-date machinery. The printing is done here.”

“Where?” asked the girl innocently, and for the first time she saw Mr Reeder smile.

“I want this man very badly, and it is a matter of interest for you, young lady, because I could get him tomorrow – for bigamy.” He saw the girl flush. “Which I shall not do. I want Jeff the Big Printer, not Jeff the bigamist. And oh, I want him badly!”

A sound of loud coughing came from the lawn, and Barney appeared at the head of the steps.

“Anybody want to see Emanuel Legge?”

They looked at one another.

“I don’t want to see him,” said Mr Reeder decidedly. He nodded at the girl. “And you don’t want to see him. I fear that leaves only you, Mr Kane.”

Peter was as cool as ice when he came into the drawing-room and found Emanuel examining the pictures on the wall with the air of a connoisseur. He turned, and beamed a benevolent smile upon the man he hated.

“I didn’t think you’d come here again, Legge,” said Peter with dangerous calm.

“Didn’t you, now?” Emanuel seemed surprised. “Well, why not? And me wanting to fix things up, too! I’m surprised at you, Peter.”

“You’ll put nothing right,” said the other. “The sooner you recognise that fact and clear, the better it will be for everybody.”

“If I’d known,” Emanuel went on, unabashed, “If I’d only dreamt that the young woman Jeffrey had taken up with was your daughter, I would have stopped it at once, Peter. The boy had been brought up straight and never had met you. It is funny the number of straight people that never met Peter Kane. Of course, if he’d been on the crook, he’d have known at once. Do you think my boy would have married the daughter of a man who twisted his father? Is it likely, Peter? However, it’s done now, and what’s done can’t be undone. The girl’s fond of him, and he’s fond of the girl–”

“When you’ve finished being comic, you can go,” said Peter. “I never laugh before lunch.”

“Don’t you, Peter? And not after? I’ve come at a very bad time, it seems to me. Now listen, Peter. Let’s talk business.”

“I’ve no business with you.” Peter opened the door.

“Haste was always your weakness, Peter,” said Emanuel, not budging from where he stood. “Never lose your temper. I lost my temper once and shot a copper, and did fifteen years for it. Fifteen years, whilst you were sitting here in luxury, entertaining the lords and ladies of the neighbourhood, and kidding ’em you were straight. I’m going to ask you a favour, Peter.”

“It is granted before you ask,” said the other sardonically.

“I’m going to ask you and Johnny boy to come and have a bit of dinner with me and Jeffrey, and let us fix this thing up. You’re not going to have this girl brought into the divorce court, are you? And you’ve got to get divorced, whether he’s married or whether he isn’t. As a matter of fact, he isn’t married at all. I never dreamt you’d be such a mug as to fall for the story that Lila was properly married to Jeff. All these girls tell you the same thing. It’s vanity, Peter, a human weakness, if I may so describe it.”

“Perhaps it was the vanity of the registrar who signed their marriage certificate, and the vanity of the people who witnessed the marriage,” said Peter. “Your son was married to this girl at the Greenwich Registry Office; I’ve got a copy of the certificate – you can see it if you like.”

Still the smile on Emanuel’s face did not fade.

“Ain’t you smart?” he said admiringly. “Ain’t you the quickest grafter that ever grafted? Married or not, Peter, the girl’s got to go into the court for the marriage to be – what do you call it? – annulled, that’s the word. And she can’t marry till she does. And they’ll never annul the marriage until you get my boy caught for bigamy, and that you won’t do, Peter, because you don’t want to advertise what a damned fool you are. Take my advice, come and talk it over. Bring Johnny with you–”

“Why should I bring Johnny? I can look after myself.”

“Johnny’s an interested party,” said the other. “He’s interested in anything to do with Marney, eh?” He chuckled, and for a second Peter Kane had all his work to maintain his calm.

“I’m not going to discuss Marney with you. I’ll meet you and the Printer, and I don’t suppose Johnny will mind either. Though what you can do that the law can’t do, I don’t know.”

“I can give you evidence that you can’t get any other way,” said the other. “The fact is, Peter, my poor boy has realised he’s made a mistake. He married a girl who was the daughter of a respectable gentleman, and when I broke it to him, Peter, that he’d married into a crook family, he was upset! He said I ought to have told him.”

“I don’t know what funny business you’re going to try,” said Peter Kane, “but I’m not going to run away from it. You want me to meet you and your son – where?”

“What about the old Highlow?” suggested Emanuel. “What about Room 13, where a sad accident nearly occurred?”

“Where you shot your son?” asked Peter coolly, and only for a second did the man’s self-possession leave him. His face turned a dusky red and then a pale yellow.

“I shot my son there, did I? Peter, you’re getting old and dopy! You’ve been dreaming again Peter. Shot my son!”

“I’ll come to this fool dinner of yours.”

“And Marney?” suggested the other.

“Marney doesn’t put her foot inside the doors of the Highlow,” said Peter calmly. “You’re mad to imagine I would allow that. I can’t answer for Johnny, but I’ll be there.”

“What about Thursday?” suggested the old man.

“Any day will suit me,” said Peter impatiently. “What time do you want us?”

“Half past eight. Just a snack and a talk. We may as well have a bit of food to make it cheerful, eh, Peter? Remember that dinner we had a few days before we smashed the Southern Bank? That must be twenty years ago. You split fair on that, didn’t you? I’ll bet you did – I had the money! No taking a million dollars and calling it a hundred and twenty thousand pounds, eh, Peter?”

This time Peter stood by the door, and the jerk of his head told Emanuel Legge that the moment for persiflage had passed.

“I want to settle this matter.” The earnestness of his manner did not deceive Peter. “You see, Peter, I’m getting old, and I want to go abroad and take the boy with me. And I want to give him a chance too – a good-looking lad like that ought to have a chance. For I’ll tell you the truth – he’s a single man.”

Peter smiled.

“You can laugh! He married Lila – you’ve got a record of that, but have you taken a screw at the divorce list? That takes the grin off your face. They were divorced a year after they were married. Lila got tired of the other man and came back to Jeff. You’re a looker-up; go and look up that! Ask old Reeder–”

“Ask him yourself,” said Peter. “He’s in the garden.”

He had no sooner said the words than he regretted them. Emanuel was silent for a while.

“So Reeder’s here, in the garden, is he? He’s come for a squeak. But you can’t, because you’ve nothing to squeak about. What does he want?”

“Why don’t you ask him?”

“That fellow spends his life wandering about other people’s gardens,” grumbled Emanuel.

A disinterested observer might have imagined that Mr Reeder’s passion for horticulture was the only grievance against him.

“He was round my garden yesterday. I dare say he told you? Came worrying poor Jeff to death. But you always were fond of busies, weren’t you, Peter? How’s your old friend Craig? I can’t stand them myself, but then I am a crook. Thursday will suit you, Peter? That gives you six days.”

“Thursday will suit me,” said Peter. “I hope it will suit you.”

As he came back on to the lawn Reeder and the girl were coming into view up the steps, and without preliminary he told them what had passed.

“I fear,” said Mr Reeder, shaking his head sadly, “that Emanuel is not as truthful a man as he might be. There was no divorce. I was sufficiently interested in the case to look up the divorce court records.” He rubbed his chin thoughtfully. “I think your dinner-party at the Highlow – is that the name? – will be an interesting one,” he said. “Are you sure he did not invite me?” And again Peter saw that glint of humour in his eyes.