He preceded the bewildered Tommy up the stairs, turned on the landing light and threw open the door.
‘Behold –’ he said, and said no more.
‘Why, it is Mr Fenalow!’ said Mr J. G.
One hand held a packet of almost life-like rupee notes; as for the other hand –
‘You oughter known he carried a gun, you dam’ black baboon,’ hissed Tommy. ‘An’ to put him in a room where the stuff was, and a telephone!’
He was being driven to the local police station, and for the moment was attached to his companion by links of steel.
‘It was a mere jest or a piece of practical joking, as I shall explain to the judge in the morning,’ said Ras airily.
Tommy Fenalow’s reply was unprintable.
* * *
Three o’clock boomed out from St John’s Church as Mr Reeder accompanied an excited girl to the front door of her boarding-house.
‘I can’t tell you how I – I’ve enjoyed tonight,’ she said.
Mr Reeder glanced uneasily at the dark face of the house.
‘I hope – er – your friends will not think it remarkable that you should return at such an hour –’
Despite her assurance, he went slowly home with an uneasy feeling that her name had in some way been compromised. And in melodrama, when a heroine’s name is compromised, somebody has to marry her.
That was the disturbing thought that kept Mr Reeder awake all night.
The Green Mamba
The spirit of exploration has ruined more promising careers than drink, gambling or the smiles of women. Generally speaking, the beaten tracks of life are the safest, and few men have adventured into the uncharted spaces in search of easy money who have not regarded the discovery of the old hard road whence they strayed as the greatest of their achievements.
Mo Liski held an assured position in his world, and one acquired by the strenuous and even violent exercise of his many qualities. He might have gone on until the end of the chapter, only he fell for an outside proposition, and, moreover, handicapped himself with a private feud, which had its beginning in an affair wholly remote from his normal operations.
There was a Moorish grafter named El Rahbut, who had made several visits to England, travelling by the banana boats which make the round trip from London River to Funchal Bay, Las Palmas, Tangier and Oporto. He was a very ordinary, yellow-faced Moor, pock-marked and undersized, and he spoke English, having in his youth fallen into the hands of a well-meaning American missionary. This man Rahbut was useful to Mo because quite a lot of German drugs are shipped via Trieste to the Levant, and many a crate of oranges has been landed in the Pool that had, squeezed in their golden interiors, little metal cylinders containing smuggled saccharine, heroin, cocaine, hydrochlorate and divers other noxious medicaments.
Rahbut brought such things from time to time, was paid fairly and was satisfied. One day, in the saloon bar of the Four Jolly Seamen, he told Mo of a great steal. It had been carried out by a group of Anghera thieves working in Fez, and the loot was no less than the Emeralds of Suliman, the most treasured possession of Morocco. Not even Abdul Aziz in his most impecunious days had dared to remove them from the Mosque of Omar; the Anghera men being what they were, broke into the holy house, killed two guardians of the treasure, and had got away with the nine green stones of the great king. Thereafter arose an outcry which was heard from the bazaars of Calcutta to the mean streets of Marsi-Karsi. But the men of Anghera were superior to the voice of public opinion and they did no more than seek a buyer. El Rahbut, being a notorious bad character, came into the matter, and this was the tale he told to Mo Liski at the Four Jolly Seamen one foggy October night.
‘There is a million pesetas profit in this for you and me, Mr Good Man,’ said Rahbut (all Europeans who paid on the nail were ‘Mr Good Man’ to El Rahbut). ‘There is also death for me if this thing becomes known.’
Mo listened, smoothing his chin with a hand that sparkled and flashed dazzlingly. He was keen on ornamentation. It was a little outside his line, but the newspapers had stated the bald value of the stolen property, and his blood was on fire at the prospect of earning half a million so easily. That Scotland Yard and every police headquarters in the world were on the lookout for the nine stones of Suliman did not greatly disturb him. He knew the subterranean way down which a polished stone might slide; and if the worst came to the worst, there was a reward of £5,000 for the recovery of the jewels.
‘I’ll think it over; where is the stuff?’
‘Here,’ said Rahbut, to the other’s surprise. ‘In ten-twenty minutes I could lay them on your hands, Mr Good Man.’
Here seemed a straightforward piece of negotiation; it was doubly unfortunate that at that very period he should find himself mixed up in an affair which promised no profit whatever – the feud of Marylou Plessy, which was to become his because of his high regard for the lady.
When a woman is bad, she is usually very bad indeed, and Marylou Plessy was an extremely malignant woman. She was rather tall and handsome, with black sleek hair, boyishly shingled, and a heavy black fringe that covered a forehead of some distinction.
Mr Reeder saw her once: he was at the Central Criminal Court giving evidence against Bartholomew Xavier Plessy, an ingenious Frenchman who discovered a new way of making old money. His forgeries were well-nigh undetectable, but Mr Reeder was no ordinary man. He not only detected them, but he traced the printer, and that was why Bartholomew Xavier faced an unimpassioned judge, who told him in a hushed voice how very wrong it was to debase the currency; how it struck at the very roots of our commercial and industrial life. This the debonair man in the dock did not resent. He knew all about it. It was the judge’s curt postscript which made him wince.
‘You will be kept in penal servitude for twenty years.’
That Marylou loved the man is open to question. The probabilities are that she did not; but she hated Mr Reeder, and she hated him not because he had brought her man to his undoing, but because, in the course of his evidence, he had used the phrase ‘the woman with whom the prisoner is associated’. And Mr John Reeder could have put her beside Plessy in the dock had he so wished: she knew this too and loathed him for his mercifulness.
Mrs Plessy had a large flat in Portland Street. It was in a block which was the joint property of herself and her husband, for their graft had been on the grand scale, and Mr Plessy owned race-horses before he owned a number in Parkhurst Convict Establishment. And here Marylou entertained lavishly.
A few months after her husband went to prison, she dined tête-à-tête with Mo Liski, the biggest of the gang leaders and an uncrowned emperor of the underworld. He was a small, dapper man who wore pince-nez and looked rather like a member of one of the learned professions. Yet he ruled the Strafas and the Sullivans and the Birklows, and his word was law on a dozen race-tracks, in a score of spieling clubs and innumerable establishments less liable to police supervision. People opposing him were incontinently ‘coshed’ – rival leaders more or less paid tribute and walked warily at that. He levied toll upon bookmakers and was immune from police interference by reason of their two failures to convict him.
Since there are white specks on the blackest coat, he had this redeeming feature, that Marylou Plessy was his ideal woman, and it is creditable in a thief to possess ideals, however unworthily they may be disposed.
He listened intently to Marylou’s views, playing with his thin watchguard, his eyes on the embroidery of the tablecloth. But though he loved her, his native caution held him to reason.
‘That’s all right, Marylou,’ he said. ‘I dare say I could get Reeder, but what is going to happen then? There will be a squeak louder than a bus brake! And he’s dangerous. I never worry about the regular busies, but this old feller is in the Public Prosecutor’s office, and he wasn’t put there because he’s sil
ly. And just now I’ve got one of the biggest deals on that I’ve ever touched. Can’t you “do” him yourself? You’re a clever woman: I don’t know a cleverer.’
‘Of course, if you’re scared of Reeder – !’ she said contemptuously, and a tolerant smile twisted his thin lips.
‘Me? Don’t be silly, dearie! Show him a point yourself. If you can’t get him, let me know. Scared of him! Listen! That old bird would lose his feathers and be skinned for the pot before you could say “Mo Liski” if I wanted!’
In the Public Prosecutor’s office they had no doubt about Mr Reeder’s ability to take care of himself, and when Chief Inspector Pyne came over from the Yard to report that Marylou had been in conference with the most dangerous man in London, the Assistant Prosecutor grinned his amusement.
‘No – Reeder wants no protection. I’ll tell him if you like, but he probably knows all about it. What are you people doing about the Liski crowd?’
Pyne pulled a long face.
‘We’ve had Liski twice, but well organised perjury has saved him. The Assistant Commissioner doesn’t want him again till we get him with the blood on his hands, so to speak. He’s dangerous.’
The Assistant Prosecutor nodded.
‘So is Reeder,’ he said ominously. ‘That man is a genial mamba! Never seen a mamba? He’s a nice black snake, and you’re dead two seconds after he strikes!’
The chief inspector’s smile was one of incredulity.
‘He never impressed me that way – rabbit, yes, but snake, no!’
Later in the morning a messenger brought Mr Reeder to the chief’s office, and he arrived with that ineffable air of apology and diffidence which gave the uninitiated such an altogether wrong idea of his calibre. He listened with closed eyes whilst his superior told him of the meeting between Liski and Marylou.
‘Yes, sir,’ he sighed, when the narrative came to an end. ‘I have heard rumours. Liski? He is the person who associates with unlawful characters? In other days and under more favourable conditions he would have been the leader of a Florentine faction. An interesting man. With interesting friends.’
‘I hope your interest remains impersonal,’ warned the lawyer, and Mr Reeder sighed again, opened his mouth to speak, hesitated, and then: ‘Doesn’t the continued freedom of Mr Liski cast – um – a reflection upon our department, sir?’ he asked.
His chief looked up: it was an inspiration which made him say: ‘Get him!’
Mr Reeder nodded very slowly.
‘I have often thought that it would be a good idea,’ he said. His gaze deepened in melancholy. ‘Liski has many acquaintances of a curious character,’ he said at last. ‘Dutchmen, Russians, Jewish persons – he knows a Moor.’
The chief looked up quickly.
‘A Moor – you’re thinking of the Nine Emeralds? My dear man, there are hundreds of Moors in London and thousands in Paris.’
‘And millions in Morocco,’ murmured Mr Reeder. ‘I only mention the Moor in passing, sir. As regards my friend Mrs Plessy – I hope only for the best.’
And he melted from the room.
The greater part of a month passed before he showed any apparent interest in the case. He spent odd hours wandering in the neighbourhood of Lambeth, and on one occasion he was seen in the members’ enclosure at Hurst Park race-track – but he spoke to nobody, and nobody spoke to him.
One night Mr Reeder came dreamily back to his well-ordered house in Brockley Road, and found waiting on his table a small flat box which had arrived, his housekeeper told him, by post that afternoon. The label was addressed in typewritten characters ‘John Reeder, Esq.’ and the postmark was Central London.
He cut the thin ribbon which tied it, stripped first the brown paper and then the silver tissue, and exposed a satiny lid, which he lifted daintily. There, under a layer of paper shavings, were roll upon roll of luscious confectionery. Chocolate, with or without dainty extras, had an appeal for Mr Reeder, and he took up a small globule garnished with crystallised violets and examined it admiringly.
His housekeeper came in at that moment with his tea-tray and set it down on the table. Mr Reeder looked over his large glasses.
‘Do you like chocolates, Mrs Kerrel?’ he asked plaintively.
‘Why, yes, sir,’ the elderly lady beamed. ‘So do I,’ said Mr Reeder. ‘So do I!’ and he shook his head regretfully, as he replaced the chocolate carefully in the box. ‘Unfortunately,’ he went on, ‘my doctor – a very excellent man – has forbidden me all sorts of confectionery until they have been submitted to the rigorous test of the public analyst.’
Mrs Kerrel was a slow thinker, but a study of current advertisement columns in the daily newspaper had enlarged to a very considerable extent her scientific knowledge.
‘To see if there is any vitamines in them, sir?’ she suggested.
Mr Reeder shook his head.
‘No, I hardly think so,’ he said gently. ‘Vitamines are my sole diet. I can spend a whole evening with no other company than a pair of these interesting little fellows, and take no ill from them. Thank you, Mrs Kerrel.’
When she had gone, he replaced the layer of shavings with punctilious care, closed down the lid, and as carefully re-wrapped the parcel. When it was finished he addressed the package to a department at Scotland Yard, took from a small box a label printed redly ‘Poison’. When this was done, he scribbled a note to the gentleman affected, and addressed himself to his muffins and his large teacup.
It was a quarter-past six in the evening when he had unwrapped the chocolates. It was exactly a quarter-past eleven, as he turned out the lights preparatory to going to bed, that he said aloud: ‘Marylou Plessy – dear me!’
Here began the war.
This was Wednesday evening; on Friday morning the toilet of Marylou Plessy was interrupted by the arrival of two men who were waiting for her when she came into the sitting-room in her negligée. They talked about fingerprints found on chocolates and other such matters.
Half an hour later a dazed woman sat in the cells at Harlboro Street and listened to an inspector’s recital of her offence. At the following sessions she went down for two years on a charge of ‘conveying by post to John Reeder a poisonous substance, to wit aconite, with intent to murder.’
To the last Mo Liski sat in court, his drawn haggard face testifying to the strength of his affection for the woman in the dock. After she disappeared from the dock he went outside into the big, windy hall, and there and then made his first mistake.
Mr Reeder was putting on his woollen gloves when the dapper man strode up to him.
‘Name of Reeder?’
‘That is my name, sir.’
Mr Reeder surveyed him benevolently over his glasses. He had the expectant air of one who has steeled himself to receive congratulations.
‘Mine is Mo Liski. You’ve sent down a friend of mine –’
‘Mrs Plessy?’
‘Yes – you know! Reeder, I’m going to get you for that!’
Instantly somebody behind him caught his arm in a vice and swung him round. It was a City detective.
‘Take a walk with me,’ he said.
Mo went white. Remember that he owed the strength of his position to the fact that never once had he been convicted: the register did not bear his name.
‘What’s the charge?’ he asked huskily. ‘Intimidation of a Crown witness and using threatening language,’ said the officer.
Mo came up before the Aldermen at the Guildhall the next morning and was sent to prison for three weeks, and Mr Reeder, who knew the threat would come and was ready to counter with the traditional swiftness of the mamba, felt that he had scored a point. The gang leader was, in the parlance of the law, ‘a convicted person’.
‘I don’t think anything will happen until he comes out,�
� he said to Pyne, when he was offered police protection. ‘He will find a great deal of satisfaction in arranging the details of my – um – “bashing”, and I feel sure that he will postpone action until he is free. I had better have that protection until he comes out –’
‘After he comes out, you mean?’
‘Until he comes out,’ insisted Mr Reeder carefully. ‘After – well – um – I’d rather like to be unhampered by – um – police protection.’
Mo Liski came to his liberty with all his senses alert. The cat-caution which had, with only one break, kept him clear of trouble, dominated his every plan. Cold-bloodedly he cursed himself for jeopardising his emerald deal, and his first step was to get into touch with El Rahbut.
But there was a maddening new factor in his life: the bitter consciousness of his fallibility and the fear that the men he had ruled so completely might, in consequence, attempt to break away from their allegiance. There was something more than sentiment behind this fear. Mo drew close on fifteen thousand a year from his racecourse and club-house victims alone. There were pickings on the side: his ‘crowd’ largely controlled a continental drug traffic worth thousands a year. Which may read romantic and imaginative, but was true. Not all the ‘bunce’ came to Mo and his men. There were pickings for the carrion fowl as well as for the wolves.
He must fix Reeder. That was the first move. And fix him so that there was no recoil. To beat him up one night would be an easy matter, but that would look too much like carrying into execution the threat which had put him behind bars. Obviously some ingenuity was called for; some exquisite punishment more poignant than the shock of clubs.
Men of Mr Liski’s peculiar calling do not meet their lieutenants in dark cellars, nor do they wear cloaks or masks to disguise their identities. The big six who controlled the interests serving Mo Liski came together on the night of his release, and the gathering was at a Soho restaurant, where a private dining-room was engaged in the ordinary way.
‘I’m glad nobody touched him whilst I was away,’ said Mo with a little smile. ‘I’d like to manage this game myself. I’ve been doing some thinking whilst I was in bird, and there’s a good way to deal with him.’
The Casefiles of Mr J. G. Reeder Page 30
