Red Aces

by Edgar Wallace

  “He was afraid of being cut off. The second one was connected by underground wires – it cost him an awful lot of money.” She heaved a deep, relieved sigh. “Now I’ve told everything, and my conscience is clear. Shall I get the keys?”

  “They are for Mr Gaylor,” said Mr Reeder hastily. “I think you had better keep them and give them to nobody else. Not even to the person who calls tonight.”

  “Who is calling tonight?” she asked.

  Mr Reeder avoided the question. He looked at Mrs Grible, grim and silent.

  “Would you mind – er – waiting outside?”

  The obedient woman melted from the room.

  “There is one point we ought to clear up, my dear young friend,” said Mr Reeder in a hushed voice. “How long had you been in your uncle’s house when Mr Kenneth McKay appeared?”

  If he had struck her she could not have wilted as she did. Her face went the colour of chalk, and she dropped into a chair.

  “He came through the window into the little lobby – I know all about that – but how long after you arrived?”

  She tried to speak twice before she succeeded.

  “A few minutes,” she said, not raising her eyes.

  Then suddenly she sprang up.

  “He knew nothing about the murder – he was stupidly jealous and followed me…and then I explained to him, and he believed me…I looked through the window and saw you and told him to go…that is the truth, I swear it is!”

  He patted her gently on the shoulder.

  “I know it is the truth, my dear – be calm, I beg of you. That is all I wanted to know.”

  He called Mrs Grible by name. As she came in, they heard the bell of the front door ring. It was followed by a gentle rat-tat.

  “Who would that be?” asked Margot. She was still trembling.

  “It may be a reporter – it may not be.” Mr Reeder rose. “If it is some stranger to see you on urgent business, perhaps you would be kind enough to mention the fact that you are quite alone.”

  He looked helplessly round.

  “That – ” He pointed to a door.

  “Is the drawing-room,” she said, hardly noticing his em-barrassment.

  “Very excellent.” He was relieved. Opening the door, he waved Mrs Grible to precede him. “If it should be reporters we will deal with them,” he said, and closed the door behind him.

  There was a second ring of the bell as Margot hurried to the door. Standing outside was a girl. She was elegantly dressed, was a little older than Margot, and unusually pretty.

  “Can I see you, Miss Lynn? It is rather important.”

  Margot hesitated.

  “Come in, please,” she said at last.

  The girl followed her into the sitting-room.

  “All alone?” she said lightly.

  Margot nodded.

  “You’re a great pal of Kenneth’s, aren’t you?”

  She saw the colour come into Margot’s face, and laughed.

  “Of course you are – and you’ve had an awful row?”

  “I have had no awful row,” said Margot quietly.

  “He’s a jealous boy – they all are, my dear. I always say there is no better proof that a man is gone on you. He’s a darling boy, and he’s in terrible trouble.”

  “Trouble – what kind of trouble?” asked Margot quickly.

  “Police trouble–”

  The girl swayed and caught at the back of a chair.

  “Don’t get upset.” Ena was enjoying her part. “He’ll be able to explain everything–”

  “But he said he believed me…” She was on the point of betraying the presence of the hidden Mr Reeder, but checked herself in time.

  “Who said so?” asked Ena curiously. “A copper – policeman, I mean? Don’t take any notice of that kind of trash. They’d lie to save a car fare! We know that Kenneth didn’t forge the cheque–”

  Margot’s eyes opened wide in amazement.

  “Forge a cheque – what do you mean? I don’t understand what you are talking about.”

  For a moment Ena was nonplussed. If this girl did not know about the forgery, what was agitating her? The solution of this minor mystery came in a flash. It was the murder! Kenneth was in it! She went cold at the thought.

  “Oh, my God! I didn’t think of that!” she gasped.

  “Tell me about this forgery – ” began Margot, and then her visitor remembered her errand.

  “I want you to come along and see Kenneth. He’s waiting for you at my flat – naturally he can’t come here. He’ll tell you everything.”

  Margot was bewildered.

  “Of course I’ll come, but–”

  “Don’t ‘but,’ my dear – just slip into your things and come along. Kenneth told me to ask you to bring all the keys you have – he said they can prove his innocence–”

  “Dear, dear, dear!” said a gentle voice, and Ena flung round, to face the man who had come into the room.

  She was trapped and knew it. That old devil!

  “The key of the larder now, would that be of any use to you?” asked Mr Reeder in his jocular mood. “Or the key of Wormwood Scrubbs?”

  “Hullo, Reeder!” The girl was coolness itself. “I thought you were alone, young lady. I did not know you were entertaining Mr and Mrs Reeder.”

  Such an outrageous statement made Mr Reeder blush, but it did not confuse him. Nor did Mrs Grible seem particularly distressed.

  “This lady is Mrs Grible, of my department,” he said gravely.

  “She must have some use,” said Ena. She picked up her coat which she had taken off. “I’ll ’phone you later, Miss Lynn.”

  “The cells at Bow Street police station are hygienically equipped, but they have no telephones,” said Mr Reeder, and for the first time in many years Ena lost her nerve.

  “What’s the idea – cells?” she demanded loudly. “You’ve got nothing on me–”

  “We shall see – will you step this way?” He opened the door of the drawing-room. “I should like to have a few words with you.”

  He heard a knock at the outer door and looked at Margot.

  “I shall be on hand,” he said.

  She went to the door – and fell back at the sight of her visitor. It was Kenneth McKay. He looked at her gravely, and without a word took her into his arms and kissed her. He had never kissed her that way before.

  “Can I see you?”

  She nodded and took him back to her room. The other three had disappeared.

  “It is only right that you should know, darling, that I’m in terrible trouble. I’ve just come from home, and I suppose the police are after me. They may be after my father, too. He knew Wentford – hated him. I didn’t dream that–”

  “Ken – what about you? Why do the police want you?”

  He looked at her steadily.

  “It is about a forged cheque. Some of the money has been traced to me. Darling, I’ve come to ask you something, and I want you to tell me the truth. Kingfether as good as told me I was a liar when I said I’d cashed it for a veiled woman. I don’t mind really what he says – he’s a crook, that fellow! Money has been missing from the bank – they sent old Reeder down weeks ago–”

  “How did they trace money to you?” she interrupted. “And what do you want me to tell you?”

  “You knew that I owed money – I told you.” She nodded. “And how worried I was about it. I can’t remember whether I told you how much I owed–”

  She shook her head.

  “You didn’t,” she said, and he drew a long breath.

  “Then it wasn’t you,” he said.

  He described the arrival of the letter containing the banknotes. “Two hundred pounds, and of course I w
anted the money badly.”

  “Who else knew that you were short of money?” she asked.

  “Oh, everybody.” He was in despair. “I blabbed about it – Kingfether said that he never ordered me to cash any cheque that came, and that the story of a veiled woman who arrived by car from London when he was out at lunch was all moonshine – hullo!”

  He saw the door of the drawing-room opening and gasped at the sight of Mr Reeder.

  “It wasn’t moonshine, my young friend,” said Mr Reeder. “In fact, I – er – have interviewed a garage keeper who filled up the tank of the lady’s car, and incidentally saw the lady.”

  He turned to the room and beckoned Ena. Kenneth stared at her.

  “Well?” she said defiantly. “Do you think you’ll know me again?”

  “I know you now!” he said huskily. “You’re the woman who cashed the cheque!”

  “That’s a damned lie!” she screamed.

  “S-sh!” said Mr Reeder, shocked.

  “I’ve never seen him before!” she added, and Margot gasped.

  “But you told me–”

  “I’ve never seen him before,” insisted the woman.

  “You’ll see him again,” said Mr Reeder gently. “You on one side – the wrong side – of the witness box, and he on the other!”

  Then she lost her head.

  “If there was a swindle, he was in it!” she said, speaking rapidly. “You don’t suppose any clerk would pay out six hundred pounds to somebody he had never seen before unless he had his instructions and got his corner! How did I know the cheque was forged? It seemed all right to me.”

  “May it continue to seem all right,” said Mr Reeder piously. “May you be consoled through the long period of your incarceration with the – er – comfort of a good conscience. I think you will get three years – but if your previous convictions influence the judge, I fancy you will get five!”

  Ena collapsed.

  “You can’t charge me,” she whimpered. “I didn’t forge anything.”

  “There is a crime called ‘uttering,’” said Mr Reeder. “‘Uttering – knowing to be forged.’ Will you take the young lady’s arm, Mrs Grible? I will take the other – probably we shall meet a policeman en route. And did I say anything about ‘conspiracy’? That is also an offence. Mind that mat, Mrs Grible.”

  10

  >There was some rather heavy play at Mr Machfield’s private establishment – heavier than usual, and this gave the proprietor of the house cause for uneasiness. If Mr Reeder had reported his visit that afternoon to the police, and they thought the moment expedient, there would be a raid tonight, and in preparation for this all the doors leading to the mews at the back were unfastened, and a very powerful car was waiting with its engine running. Mr Machfield might or might not use that method of escape. On the other hand, he could follow his invariable practice, which was to appear amongst those present as a guest: a fairly simple matter, because he was not registered as the proprietor of the house, and he could trust his servants.

  Certainly the car would have its uses, if everything went right and there was no untoward incident. Just lately, however, there had been one or two little hitches in the smooth running of his affairs, and, being superstitious, he expected more.

  He looked at his watch; his appointment with Ena was at midnight, but she had promised to ’phone through before then. At a quarter to nine, as he stood watching the players, there came a newcomer at the tail of three others. He was in evening dress, as were the majority of people round the board, and he looked strangely out of place in those surroundings, though his blue chin was newly shaved and his black hair was glossy with pomade, and in the lapel of his coat he wore a dazzling gardenia.

  Mr Machfield watched him wander aimlessly around the table, and then caught his eye and indicated that he wished to see him. Soon afterwards he walked out of the room and Mr Kingfether followed.

  “You’re rather silly to come tonight, K,” said Mr Machfield. “There’s just a chance of a raid – Reeder was here this afternoon.”

  The manager’s jaw dropped.

  “Is he here now?” he asked, and Mr Machfield smiled at the foolishness of the question.

  “No, and he won’t be coming tonight, unless he arrives with a flying squad. We’ll keep that bird out at any rate.”

  “Where is Ena?” asked Kingfether.

  “She’ll be in later,” lied Machfield. “She had a bit of a headache, and I advised her not to come.”

  The bank manager helped himself to a whisky from a decanter on the sideboard.

  “I’m very fond of that girl,” said Kingfether.

  “Who isn’t?” asked the other.

  “To me” – there was a tremor in the younger man’s voice – “she is something outside of all my experience. Do you think she’s fond of me, Machfield?”

  “I am sure she is,” said the other heartily; “but she’s a woman of the world, you know, my boy, and women of the world do not carry their hearts on their sleeves.”

  He might have added, that, in the case of Ena she carried the business equivalent of that organ up her sleeve, ready for exhibition to any susceptible man, young or old.

  “Do you think she’d marry me, Machfield?”

  Mr Machfield did not laugh. He had played cards a great deal and had learned to school his countenance. Ena had two husbands, and had not gone through the formality of freeing herself from either. Both were officially abroad, the foreign country being that stretch of desolate moorland which lies between Ashburton and Tavistock. Here, in the gaunt convict establishment of Princeton, they laboured for the good of their souls, but with little profit to the tax–payers who supported them, and even supplied them with tobacco.

  “Why shouldn’t she? But mind, she’s an expensive kind of girl, K,” said Machfield very seriously. “She costs a lot of money to dress, and you’d have to find it from somewhere – five hundred a year doesn’t go far with a girl who buys her dresses in Paris.”

  Kingfether strode up and down the apartment, his hands in his pockets, his head on his chest, a look of gloom on a face that was never touched with brightness.

  “I realize that,” he said, “but if she loved me she’d help to make both ends meet. I’ve got to cut out this business of the bank; I’ve had a fright, and I can’t take the risk again. In fact, I thought of leaving the bank and setting up a general agency in London.”

  Mr Machfield knew what a general agency was when it was run by an inexperienced man. An office to which nobody came except bill collectors. He didn’t, however, wish to discourage his client; for the matter of that, Kingfether gave him little opportunity for comment.

  “There is going to be hell’s own trouble about that cheque,” he said. “I had a letter from head office – I have to report to the general manager in the morning and take McKay with me. That is the usual course.”

  Such details were distasteful to Mr Machfield. He needed all the spare room in his mind for other matters much more weighty than the routine of the Great Central Bank, but he was more than interested in the fate of McKay.

  Kingfether came back to Ena, because Ena filled his horizon.

  “The first time I ever met her,” he said, “I knew she was the one woman in the world for me. I know she’s had a rough time and that she’s had a battle to live. But who am I to judge?”

  “Who, indeed?” murmured Mr Machfield, with considerable truth. And then, pursuing his thought, “What will happen to Mr Kenneth McKay?”

  Only for a moment did the manager look uncomfortable.

  “He is not my concern,” he said loudly. “There is no doubt at all that the signature on the cheque–”

  “Oh, yes, yes,” said the other impatiently. “We don’t want to discuss that, do we? I mean, not between friends. You
paid me the money you owed me, and there was an end to it so far as I am concerned. I took a bit of a risk myself, sending Ena down – I mean, letting Ena go,” he corrected, when he saw the look on the other’s face. “What about young McKay?”

  The manager shrugged his shoulders.

  “I don’t know and I really don’t care. When I got back to the bank this afternoon he’d gone, though I’d left instructions that he was to stay until I returned. Of course, I can’t report it, because I did wrong to go away myself, and it was rather awkward that one of our bank inspectors called when I was out. I shall have to work all night to make up arrears. McKay might have helped me. In fact, I told him–”

  “Oh, he came back, did he?”

  “For five minutes, just before six o’clock. He just looked in and went out again. That is how I knew the inspector had called. I had to tell this pup about the cheque and the banknotes. By the way, that is a mystery to me how the notes came into his hands at all – I suppose there is no mistake about them? If he was in the habit of coming here he might have got them from the table. He doesn’t come here, does he?”

  “Not often.” Mr Machfield might have added that nobody came to that place unless they had a certain amount of surplus wealth, or the means by which easy money could be acquired.

  There were quite a number of his clients who were in almost exactly the same position as Mr Kingfether – people in positions of trust, men who had the handling of other people’s money. It was no business of Machfield’s how that money was obtained, so long as it was judiciously spent. It was his boast that his game was straight; as indeed it was – up to a point. He had allowed himself throughout life a certain margin of dishonesty, which covered both bad luck and bad investments. Twice in his life he had gone out for big coups. Once he had failed, the other time he had succeeded but had made no money.

  He was not persona grata in all the countries of the world. If he had arrived at Monte Carlo he would have left by very nearly the next train, or else the obliging police would have placed a motor-car at his disposal to take him across to Nice, a resort which isn’t so particular as to the character of her temporary visitors.