‘This is a very beautiful house you have, Mr Daver,’ he said.
‘You like it? I was sure you would!’ said Mr Daver enthusiastically. ‘Yes, it is a delightful property. To you it may seem a sacrilege that I should use it as a boarding-house, but perhaps our dear young friend Miss Belman has explained that it is a hobby of mine. I hate loneliness; I dislike intensely the exertion of making friends. My position is unique; I can pick and choose my guests.’
Mr Reeder was looking aimlessly towards the head of the stairs.
‘Did you ever have a guest named Holden?’ he asked.
Mr Daver shook his head.
‘Or a guest named Willington . . . ? Two friends of mine who may have come here about eight years ago?’
‘No,’ said Mr Daver promptly. ‘I never forget names. You may inspect our guest-list for the past twelve years at any time you wish. Would they be likely to come for any reason’ – Mr Daver was amusingly embarrassed – ‘in other names than their own? No, I see they wouldn’t.’
As he was speaking, a door at the far end of the corridor opened and closed instantly. Mr Reeder, who missed nothing, caught one glimpse of a figure before the door shut.
‘Whose room is that?’ he asked.
Mr Daver was genuinely embarrassed this time.
‘That,’ he said, with a nervous little cough, ‘is my suite. You saw Mrs Burton, my housekeeper – a quiet, rather sad soul, who has had a great deal of trouble in her life.’
‘Life,’ said Mr Reeder tritely, ‘is full of trouble,’ and Mr Daver agreed with a sorrowful shake of his head.
Now, the eyesight of J. G. Reeder was peculiarly good, and though he had not as yet met the housekeeper, he was quite certain that the rather beautiful face he had glimpsed for a moment did not belong to any sad woman who had seen a lot of trouble. As he dressed leisurely for dinner, he wondered why Miss Olga Crewe had been so anxious that she should not be seen coming from the proprietor’s suite. A natural and proper modesty, no doubt; and modesty was the quality in woman of which Mr Reeder most heartily approved.
He was struggling with his tie when Daver, who seemed to have constituted himself a sort of personal attendant, knocked at the door and asked permission to come in. He was a little breathless, and carried a number of press cuttings in his hand.
‘You were talking about two gentlemen, Mr Willington and Mr Holden,’ he said. ‘The names seemed rather familiar. I had the irritating sense of knowing them without knowing them, if you understand, dear Mr Reeder? And then I recalled the circumstances.’ He flourished the press cuttings. ‘I saw their names here.’
Mr Reeder, staring at his reflection in the glass, adjusted his tie nicely.
‘Here?’ he repeated mechanically, and, looking round, accepted the printed slips which his host thrust upon him.
‘I am, as you probably know, Mr Reeder, a humble disciple of Lombroso and of those other great criminologists who have elevated the study of abnormality to a science. It was Miss Belman who quite unconsciously directed my thoughts to the Flack organisation, and during the past day or two I have been getting a number of particulars concerning those miscreants. The names of Holden and Willington occur. They were two detectives who went out in search of Flack and never returned – I remember their disappearance very well now the matter is recalled to my mind. There was also a third gentleman who disappeared.’
Mr Reeder nodded.
‘Ah, you remember?’ said Mr Daver triumphantly. ‘Naturally you would. A lawyer named Biggerthorpe, who was called from his office one day on some excuse, and was never seen again. May I add’ – he smiled good-humouredly – ‘that Mr Biggerthorpe has never stayed here? Why should you imagine he had, Mr Reeder?’
‘I never did.’ Mr Reeder gave blandness for blandness. ‘Biggerthorpe? I had forgotten him. He was an important witness against Flack if he’d ever been caught – hum!’ And then: ‘You are a student of criminal practices, Mr Daver?’
‘A humble one,’ said Mr Daver, and his humility was manifest in his attitude.
And then he suddenly dropped his voice to a hoarse whisper.
‘Shall I tell you something, Mr Reeder?’
‘You may tell me,’ said Mr Reeder, as he buttoned his waistcoat, ‘anything that pleases you. I am in the mood for stories. In this delightful atmosphere, amidst these beautiful surroundings, I should prefer – um – fairy stories – or shall we say ghost stories? Is Larmes Keep haunted, Mr Daver? Ghosts are my speciality. I have probably seen and arrested more ghosts than any other living representative of the law. Some time I intend writing a monumental work on the subject. Ghosts I have seen, or a Guide to the Spirit World, in sixty-three volumes. You were about to say – ?’
‘I was about to say,’ said Mr Daver, and his voice was curiously strained, ‘that in my opinion Flack himself once stayed here. I have not mentioned this fact to Miss Belman, but I am convinced in my mind that I am not in error. Seven years ago’ – he was very impressive – ‘a grey-bearded, rather thin-faced man came here at ten o’clock at night and asked for a lodging. He had plenty of money, but this did not influence me. Ordinarily I should have asked him to make the usual application, but it was late, a bitterly cold and snowy night, and I hadn’t the heart to turn one of his age away from my door.’
‘How long did he stay?’ asked Mr Reeder. ‘And why do you think he was Flack?’
‘Because’ – Daver’s voice had sunk until it was an eerie moan – ‘he left just as Ravini left – early one morning, without paying his bill, and left his pyjamas behind him!’
Very slowly Mr Reeder turned his head and surveyed the host.
‘That comes into the category of humorous stories, and I am too hungry to laugh,’ he said calmly. ‘What time do we dine?’
The gong sounded at that moment.
Margaret Belman usually dined with the other guests at a table apart. She went red and felt more than a little awkward when Mr Reeder came across to her table, dragging a chair with him, and ordered another place to be set. The other three guests dined at separate tables.
‘An unsociable lot of people,’ said Mr Reeder as he shook out his napkin and glanced round the room.
‘What do you think of Mr Daver?’
J. G. Reeder smiled gently. ‘He is a very amusing person,’ he said, and she laughed, but grew serious immediately.
‘Have you found out anything about Ravini?’
Mr Reeder shook his head. ‘I had a talk with the hall porter: he seems a very honest and straightforward fellow. He told me that, when he came down the morning after Ravini disappeared, the front door had been unbolted and unlocked. An observant fellow. Who is Mrs Burton?’ he asked abruptly.
‘The housekeeper.’ Margaret smiled and shook her head. ‘She is rather a miserable lady, who spends quite a lot of time hinting at the good times she should be having, instead of being “buried alive” – those are her words – at Siltbury.’
Mr Reeder put down his knife and fork. ‘Dear me!’ he said mildly. ‘Is she a lady who has seen better days?’
Margaret laughed softly. ‘I should have thought she had never had such a time as she is having now,’ she said. ‘She’s rather common and terribly illiterate. Her accounts that come up to me are fearful and wonderful things! But seriously, I think she must have been in good circumstances. The first night I was here I went into her room to ask about an account I did not understand – of course it was a waste of time, for books are mysteries to her – and she was sitting at a table admiring her hands.’
‘Hands?’ he said.
She nodded. ‘Yes. They were covered with the most beautiful rings you could possibly imagine,’ said Margaret, and was satisfied with the impression she made, for Mr Reeder dropped knife and fork to his plate with a crash.
‘Rings . . . ?’<
br />
‘Huge diamonds and emeralds. They took my breath away. The moment she saw me she put her hand behind her, and the next morning she explained that they were presents given to her by a theatrical lady who had stayed here, and that they had no value.’
‘Props, in fact,’ said Mr Reeder.
‘What is a prop?’ she asked curiously, and Mr Reeder waggled his head, and she had learnt that when he waggled his head in that fashion he was advertising his high spirits and good humour.
After dinner he sent a waitress to find Mr Daver, and when that gentleman arrived Mr Reeder had to tell him that he had a lot of work to do, and request the loan of blotting-pad and a special writing-table for his room. Margaret wondered why he had not asked her, but she supposed that it was because he did not know that such things came into her province.
‘You’re a great writer, Mr Reeder – he, he!’ Daver was convulsed at his own little joke. ‘So am I! I am never happy without a pen in my hand. Tell me, as a matter of interest, do you do your best work in the morning or in the evening? Personally, it is a question that I have never decided to my own satisfaction.’
‘I shall now write steadily till two o’clock,’ said Mr Reeder, glancing at his watch. ‘That is a habit of years. From nine to two are my writing hours, after which I smoke a cigarette, drink a glass of milk – would you be good enough to see that I have a glass of milk put in my room at once? – and from two I sleep steadily till nine.’
Margaret Belman was an interested and somewhat startled audience of this personal confession. It was unusual in Mr Reeder to speak of himself, unthinkable that he should discuss his work. In all her life she had not met an individual who was more reticent about his private affairs. Perhaps the holiday spirit was on him, she thought. He was certainly younger-looking that evening than she had ever known him.
She went out to find Mrs Burton and convey the wishes of the guest. The woman accepted the order with a sniff.
‘Milk? He looks the kind of person who drinks milk. He’s nothing to be afraid of!’
‘Why should he be afraid?’ asked Margaret sharply, but the reproach was lost upon Mrs Burton.
‘Nobody likes detectives nosing about a place – do they, Miss Belman? And he’s not my idea of a detective.’
‘Who told you he was a detective?’
Mrs Burton looked at her for a second from under her heavy lids, and then jerked her head in the direction of Daver’s office.
‘He did,’ she said. ‘Detectives! And me sitting here, slaving from morning till night, when I might be doing the grand in Paris or one of them places, with servants to wait on me instead of me waiting on people. It’s sickening!’
Twice since she had been at Larmes Keep, Margaret had witnessed these little outbursts of fretfulness and irritation. She had an idea that the faded woman would like some excuse to make her a confidante, but the excuse was neither found nor sought. Margaret had nothing in common with this rather dull and terribly ordinary lady, and they could find no mutual interest which would lead to the breakdown of the barriers. Mrs Burton was a weakling; tears were never far from her eyes or voice, nor the sense of her mysterious grievances against the world far from her mind.
‘They treat me like dirt,’ she went on, her voice trembling with her feeble anger, ‘and she treats me worst of all. I asked her to come and have a cup of tea and a chat in my room the other day, and what do you think she said?’
‘Whom are you talking about?’ asked Margaret curiously. It did not occur to her that the ‘she’ in question might be Olga Crewe – it would have required a very powerful imagination to picture the cold and worldly Olga talking commonplaces with Mrs Burton over a friendly cup of tea; yet it was of Olga that the woman spoke. But at the very suggestion that she was being questioned her thin lips closed tight.
‘Nobody in particular . . . milk, did you say? I’ll take it up to him myself.’
Mr Reeder was struggling into a dressing-jacket when she brought the milk to him. One of the servants had already placed pen, ink and stationery on the table, and there were two fat manuscript books visible to any caller, and anticipating eloquently Mr Reeder’s literary activities.
He took the tray from the woman’s hand and put it on the table.
‘You have a nice house, Mrs Burton,’ he said encouragingly. ‘A beautiful house. Have you been here long?’
‘A few years,’ she answered.
She made to go, but lingered at the door. Mr Reeder recognised the symptoms. Discreet she might be, a gossip she undoubtedly was, aching for human converse with any who could advance a programme of those trivialities which made up her conversational life.
‘No, sir, we never get many visitors here. Mr Daver likes to pick and choose.’
‘And very wise of Mr Daver. By the way, which is his room?’
She walked through the doorway and pointed along the corridor.
‘Oh, yes, I remember, he told me. A charming situation. I saw you coming out this evening.’
‘You have made a mistake – I never go into his room,’ said the woman sharply. ‘You may have seen –’ She stopped, and added: ‘ – somebody else. Are you going to work late, sir?’
Mr Reeder repeated in detail his plans for the evening.
‘I would be glad if you would tell Mr Daver that I do not wish to be interrupted. I am a very slow thinker, and the slightest disturbance to my train of thought is fatal to my – er – power of composition,’ he said, as he closed the door upon her and, waiting until she had time to get down the stairs, locked it and pushed home the one bolt.
He drew the heavy curtains across the open windows, pushed the writing-table against the curtains, so that they could not blow back, and, opening the two exercise books, so placed them that they formed a shade that prevented the light falling upon the bed. This done, he changed quickly into a lounge suit, and, lying on the bed, pulled the coverlet over him and was asleep in five minutes.
Margaret Belman had it in her mind to send up to his room after eleven, before she herself had retired, to discover whether there was anything he wanted, but fortunately she changed her mind – fortunately, because Mr Reeder had planned to snatch five solid hours’ sleep before he began his unofficial inspection of the house, or alternatively before the period arrived when it would be necessary that he should be wide awake.
At two o’clock on the second he woke and sat up on the edge of the bed, blinking at the light. Opening one of his trunks, he took out a small wooden box from which he drew a spirit stove and the paraphernalia of tea-making. He lit the little lamp, and while the tiny tin kettle was boiling he went to the bathroom, undressed, and lowered his shivering body into a cold bath. He returned fully dressed, to find the kettle boiling.
Mr Reeder was a very methodical man; he was, moreover, a care-ful man. All his life he had had a suspicion of milk. He used to wander round the suburban streets in the early hours of the morn-ing, watch the cans hanging on the knockers, the bottles deposited in corners of doorsteps, and ruminate upon the enormous possibilities for wholesale murder that this light-hearted custom of milk delivery presented to the criminally minded. He had calculated that a nimble homicide, working on systematic lines, could decimate London in a month.
He drank his tea without milk, munched a biscuit, and then, methodically clearing away the spirit-stove and kettle, he took from his grip a pair of thick-soled felt slippers and drew them on his feet. In his trunk he found a short length of stiff rubber, which, in the hands of a skilful man, was as deadly a weapon as a knife. This he put in the inside pocket of his jacket. He put his hand in the trunk again and brought out something that looked like a thin rubber sponge-bag, except that it was fitted with two squares of mica and a small metal nozzle. He hesitated about this, turning it over in his hand, and eventually this went back into the trunk. The st
ubby Browning pistol, which was his next find, Mr Reeder regarded with disfavour, for the value of firearms, except in the most desperate circumstances, had always seemed to him to be problematical.
The last thing to be extracted was a hollow bamboo, which contained another, and was in truth the fishing-rod for which he had once expressed a desire. At the end of the thinner was a spring loop, and after he had screwed the two lengths together he fitted upon this loop a small electric hand-lamp and carefully threaded the thin wires through the eyelets of the rod, connecting them up with a tiny switch at the handle, near where the average fisherman has his grip. He tested the switch, found it satisfactory, and when this was done he gave a final look round the room before extinguishing the table lamp.
In the broad light of day he would have presented a somewhat comic figure, sitting cross-legged on his bed, his long fishing-rod reaching out to the middle of the room and resting on the footboard; but at the moment Mr J. G. Reeder had no sense of the ridiculous, and moreover there were no witnesses. From time to time he swayed the rod left and right, like an angler making a fresh cast. He was very wide awake, his ears tuned to differentiate between the normal noises of the night – the rustle of trees, the soft purr of the wind – and the sounds which could only come from human activity.
He sat for more than half an hour, his fishing-rod moving to and fro, and then he was suddenly conscious of a cold draught blowing from the door. He had heard no sound, not so much as the click of a lock; but he knew that the door was wide open.
Noiselessly he drew in the rod till it was clear of the posts of the bed, brought it round towards the door, paying out until it was a couple of yards from where he sat – with one foot on the ground now, ready to leap or drop, as events dictated.
The end of the rod met with no obstruction. Reeder held his breath . . . listening. The corridor outside was heavily carpeted. He expected no sound of footsteps. But people must breathe, thought Mr Reeder, and it is difficult to breathe noiselessly. Conscious that he himself was a little too silent for a supposedly sleeping man, he emitted a lifelike snore and gurgle which might be expected from a middle-aged man in the first stages of slumber . . .
The Casefiles of Mr J. G. Reeder Page 42
