The Mind of Mr. J. G. Reeder (19 page)

He dozed in the big Windsor chair. At eight o’clock he returned to his own house and shaved and bathed, and when the Public Prosecutor arrived at his office he found Mr Reeder waiting for him in the corridor. It was a changed Mr Reeder, and the change was not due entirely to lack of sleep. His voice was sharper; he had lost some of that atmosphere of apology which usually enveloped him.

In a few words he told of Margaret Belman’s disappearance.

‘Do you connect de Silvo with this?’ asked his chief.

‘Yes, I think I do,’ said the other quietly, and then: ‘There is only one hope, and it is a very slender one – a very slender one indeed!’

He did not tell the Public Prosecutor in what that hope consisted, but walked down to the offices of the Mexican Syndicate.

Mr de Silvo was not in. Reeder would have been greatly surprised if he had been. He crossed the hallway to see the lawyer, and this time he found Mr Ernest Bracher present with his brother.

When Reeder spoke to the point, it was very much to the point.

‘I am leaving a police officer in Portugal Street to arrest de Silvo the moment he puts in an appearance. I feel that you, as his lawyers, should know this,’ he said.

‘But why on earth – ?’ began Mr Bracher, in a tone of astonishment.

‘I don’t know what charge I shall bring against him, but it will certainly be a very serious one,’ said Reeder. ‘For the moment I have not confided to Scotland Yard the basis for my suspicions, but your client has got to tell a very plausible story and produce indisputable proof of his innocence to have any hope of escape.’

‘I am quite in the dark,’ said the lawyer, mystified. ‘What has he been doing? Is his syndicate a fraud?’

‘I know of nothing more fraudulent,’ said the other shortly. ‘Tomorrow I intend obtaining the necessary authority to search his papers and to search the room and papers of Mr John Baston. I have an idea that I shall find something in that room of considerable interest to me.’

It was eight o’clock that night before he left Scotland Yard, and he was turning towards the familiar corner, when he saw a car come from Westminster Bridge towards Scotland Yard. Somebody leaned out of the window and signalled him, and the car turned. It was driven by Mr Joseph Bracher.

‘We’ve found de Silvo,’ he said breathlessly as he brought the car to a standstill at the kerb and jumped out.

He was very agitated and his face was pale. Mr Reeder could have sworn that his teeth were chattering.

‘There’s something wrong – very badly wrong,’ he went on. ‘My brother has been trying to get the truth from him – my God! If he has done these terrible things I shall never forgive myself.’

‘Where is he?’ asked Mr Reeder.

‘He came just before dinner to our house at Dulwich. My brother and I are bachelors and we live there alone now, and he has been to dinner before. My brother questioned him and he made certain admissions which are almost incredible. The man must be mad.’

‘What did he say?’

‘I can’t tell you. Ernest is detaining him until you come.’

Mr Reeder stepped into the car and in a few minutes they were flying across Westminster Bridge towards Camberwell. Lane House, an old-fashioned Georgian residence, lay at the end of a road which was, he found, a cul de sac. The house stood in grounds of considerable size, he noted as they passed up the drive and stopped before the porch. Mr Bracher alighted and opened the door, and Reeder passed into a well-furnished hail. One door was ajar.

‘Is that Mr Reeder?’ He recognized the voice of Ernest Bracher, and walked into the room.

The younger Mr Bracher was standing with his back to the empty fireplace; there was nobody else in the room.

‘De Silvo’s gone upstairs to lie down,’ explained the lawyer. ‘This is a dreadful business, Mr Reeder.’

He held out his hand and Reeder crossed the room to take it. As he put his foot on the square Persian rug before the fireplace, he realized his danger and tried to spring back, but his balance was lost. He felt himself falling through the cavity which the carpet hid, lashed out and caught for a moment the edge of the trap, but as the lawyer came round and raised his foot to stamp upon the clutching fingers, Reeder released his hold and dropped.

The shock of the fall took away his breath, and for a second he sprawled, half lying, half sitting, on the floor of the cellar into which he had fallen. Looking up, he saw the older of the two leaning over. The square aperture was diminishing in size. There was evidently a sliding panel which covered the hole in normal times.

‘We’ll deal with you later, Reeder,’ said Joseph Bracher with a smile. ‘We’ve had quite a lot of clever people here–’

Something cracked in the cellar. The bullet seared the lawyer’s cheek, smashed a glass chandelier to fragments, and he stepped back with a yell of fear. In another second the trap was closed and Reeder was alone in a small brick-lined cellar. Not entirely alone, for the automatic he held in his hand was a very pleasant companion in that moment of crisis.

From his hip pocket he took a flat torch, switched it on and surveyed his prison. The walls and floor were damp; that was the first thing he noticed. In one corner was a small flight of brick steps leading to a locked steel door, and then: ‘Mr Reeder.’

He spun round and turned his light upon the speaker. It was Margaret Belman, who had risen from a heap of sacks where she had been sleeping.

‘I’m afraid I’ve got you into very bad trouble,’ she said, and he marvelled at her calm.

‘How long have you been here?’

‘Since last night,’ she answered. ‘Mr Bracher telephoned me to see him and he picked me up in his car. They kept me in the other room until tonight, but an hour ago they brought me here.’

‘Which is the other room?’

She pointed to the steel door. She offered no further details of her capture, and it was not a moment to discuss their misfortune. Reeder went up the steps and tried the door; it was fastened from the other side, and opened inward, he discovered. There was no sign of a keyhole. He asked her where the door led and she told him that it was to an underground kitchen and coal cellar. She had hoped to escape, because only a barred window stood between her and freedom in the ‘little room’ where she was kept.

‘But the window was very thick,’ she said, ‘and of course I could do nothing with the bars.’

Reeder made another inspection of the cellar, then sent the light of his torch up at the ceiling. He saw nothing there except a steel pulley fastened to a beam that crossed the entire width of the cellar.

‘Now what on earth is he going to do?’ he asked thoughtfully, and as though his enemies had heard the question and were determined to leave him in no doubt as to their plans, there came the sound of gurgling water, and in a second he was ankle-deep.

He put the light on to the place whence the water was coming. There were three circular holes in the wall, from each of which was gushing a solid stream.

‘What is it?’ she asked in a terrified whisper.

‘Get on to the steps and stay there,’ he ordered peremptorily, and made investigation to see if it was possible to staunch the flow. He saw at a glance that this was impossible. And now the mystery of the disappearances was a mystery no longer.

The water came up with incredible rapidity, first to his knees, then to his thighs, and he joined her on the steps.

There was no possible escape for them. He guessed the water would come up only so far as would make it impossible for them to reach the beam across the roof or the pulley, the dreadful purpose of which he could guess. The dead must be got out of this charnel house in some way or other. Strong swimmer as he was, he knew that in the hours ahead it would be impossible to keep afloat.

He took off his coat and waistcoat and removed his tie. ‘You had better take off your skirt,’ he said, in a matter-of-fact tone. ‘Can you swim?’

‘Yes,’ she answered in a low voice.

He did not ask her the real question which was in his mind: for how long could she swim?

There was a long silence; the water crept higher; and then: ‘Are you very much afraid?’ he asked, and took her hand in his.

‘No, I don’t think I am,’ she said. ‘It’s wonderful having you with me – why are they doing this?’

He said nothing, but carried the soft hand to his lips and kissed it.

The water was now reaching the top step. Reeder stood with his back to the iron door, waiting. And then he felt something touch the door from the other side. There was a faint click, as though a bolt had been slipped back. He put her gently aside and held his palms to the door. There was no doubt now: somebody was fumbling on the other side. He went down a step and presently he felt the door yield and come towards him, and there was a momentary gleam of light. In another second he had wrenched the door open and sprung through.

‘Hands up!’

Whoever it was had dropped his torch, and now Mr Reeder focused the light of his own torch and nearly dropped.

For the man in the passage was Mills, the ex-convict who had brought the tainted letter from Dartmoor!

‘All right, guv’nor, it’s a cop,’ growled the man.

And then the whole explanation flashed upon the detective. In an instant he had gripped the girl by the hand and dragged her through the narrow passage, into which the water was now steadily overrunning.

‘Which way did you get in, Mills?’ he demanded authoritatively.

‘Through the window,’

‘Show me – quickly!’

The convict led the way to what was evidently the window through which the girl had looked with such longing. The bars had been removed; the window sash itself lifted from its rusty hinges; and in another second the three were standing on the grass, with the stars twinkling above them.

‘Mills,’ said Mr Reeder, and his voice shook, ‘you came here to “bust” this house.’

‘That’s right,’ growled Mills. ‘I tell you it’s a cop. I’m not going to give you any trouble.’

‘Skip!’ hissed Mr Reeder. ‘And skip fast! Now, young lady, we’ll go for a little walk.’

A few seconds later a patrolling constable was smitten dumb by the apparition of a middle-aged man in shirt and trousers, and a lady who was inadequately attired in a petticoat.

‘The Mexican company was Bracher & Bracher,’ explained Reeder to his chief. ‘There was no John Baston. His room was a passageway by which the Brachers could get from one room to the other. The clerk in the Mexican Syndicate’s office was, of course, blind; I spotted that the moment I saw him. There are a number of blind typists employed in the City of London. A blind clerk was necessary if the identity of de Silvo with the Brachers was to be kept a secret.

‘Bracher & Bracher had been going badly for years. It will probably be found that they have made away with clients’ money; and they hit upon this scheme of inducing foolish investors to put money into their syndicate on the promise of large dividends. Their victims were well chosen, and Joseph – who was the brains of the organization – conducted the most rigorous investigation to make sure that these unfortunate people had no intimate friends. If they had any suspicion about an applicant, Brachers would write a letter deprecating the idea of an investment and suggesting that the too-shrewd dupe should find another and a safer method than the Mexican syndicate afforded.

‘After they had paid one or two years’ dividends the wretched investor was lured to the house at Dulwich and there scientifically killed. You will probably find an unofficial cemetery in their grounds. So far as I can make out, they have stolen over a hundred and twenty thousand pounds in the past two years by this method.’

‘It is incredible,’ said the Prosecutor, ‘incredible!’

Mr Reeder shrugged.

‘Is there anything more incredible than the Burke and Hare murders? There are Burkes and Hares in every branch of society and in every period of history.’

‘Why did they delay their execution of Miss Belman?’

Mr Reeder coughed.

‘They wanted to make a clean sweep, but they did not wish to kill her until they had me in their hands. I rather suspect’ – he coughed again – ‘that they thought I had an especial interest in the young lady.’

‘And have you?’ asked the Public Prosecutor.

Mr Reeder did not reply.

Dates given are for year of first publication.

These Titles can be read as a series, or randomly as standalone novels

These Titles can be read as a series, or randomly as standalone novels