Mr. J. G. Reeder Returns

by Edgar Wallace

  “I’m here, sir,” said Lidgett.

  “It is rather difficult to see. My eyesight has become a little defective.”

  The gentleman Mr Lidgett had found arrived by car the next morning. He went up more than a little nervously to the dying man’s bedroom, and was introduced with pathetic formality to the lawyer Mr Leonard had brought from London. He did not like lawyers, but the occasion demanded expert legal assistance.

  “This is my brother-in-law, Digby Olbude…”

  The will was signed and witnessed with some difficulty. It was characteristic of Lane Leonard that he did not even send for his heiress or leave any message of affection or tender farewell. To him she was a peg on which his theory was to hang – and it was not even his own theory.

  She was notified of his passing in a formal letter from her new guardian, and she received the notification on the very day that Larry O’Ryan decided upon adopting a criminal career.

  When Larry O’Ryan was expelled from a public school on a charge of stealing some eighty-five pounds from Mr Farthingale’s room, he could not only have cleared himself of the accusation, but he could also have named the culprit.

  He had no parents, no friends, being maintained at the school by a small annuity left by his mother. If Creed’s Bank had been a little more generous with his father, if the Panton Credit Trust had been honestly directed, if the Medway and Western had not forced a sale, Larry would have been rich.

  It was no coincidence that these immensely rich corporations were patrons of the Monarch Security Steel Corporation – Monarchs had a monopoly in this kind of work – but we will talk about that later.

  He hated the school, hated most the pompous pedagogue who was a friend of Mr Farthingale and used his study when the housemaster was out – but he said nothing. After all, what chance had his word against a master’s? He took his expulsion as an easy way of escaping from servitude, interviewed the lawyer who was his guardian and accepted the expressions of horror and abhorrence with which that gentleman favoured him.

  Anyway, the eighty-five pounds was restored; before he left the school Larry saw the terrified thief and said a few plain words.

  “I’ll take the risk of being disbelieved,” he said, “and I’ll go to the head and say I saw you open the cash-box just as I was going into the study. I don’t know why you wanted the money, but the people who investigate will find out.”

  The accused man thundered at him, reviled him, finally broke.

  It was a grotesque situation, a middle-aged master and a lanky sixth-form boy, bullying and threatening one another alternately. Larry did not cry; on the other hand, his protagonist grew maudlin. But he restored the money. Everybody thought that it was Larry or Larry’s lawyer-guardian who sent the notes by registered post; but it wasn’t.

  He went out into the world with the starkest outlook, looked round for work of sorts, was errand boy, office boy, clerk. No prospects. The army offered one, but the army stood for another kind of school discipline, housemasters who wore stripes on their sleeves.

  2

  Larry thought it over one Saturday night and decided on burglary as a profession. For a year he went to night classes and polished up his knowledge of ballistics. At the end of the year he got a job at a safe-makers and locksmith’s at Wolverhampton.

  It was one of the most famous of all safe-makers, a firm world-renowned. All that a young man could learn of locks and safety devices Larry learned. He was an eager pupil; having a pleasant and engaging manner, he made friends with oldish men who, in return for the respect he paid them, told him many things about locks and safe construction.

  He became an expert cutter of keys – had the use of a shed in the backyard of the widow with whom he lodged, and worked far into the night.

  A gymnasium attached to a boys’ club lent strength to skill.

  When he left Wolverhampton his successes were startling and, in a newspaper sense, sensational. Creed’s Bank lost forty thousand pounds in American currency held to liquidate certain demands which were due. Nobody saw the burglar come or go. The steel doors of the vault were opened with a key and locked with a key.

  Then the Panton Credit Trust suffered. A matter of a hundred thousand pounds went in less than a hundred and twenty minutes.

  At his third job he fell, due largely to the precautions taken on behalf of the Medway and Western Bank by a middle-aged detective who read the lessons of the earlier robberies aright; and had discovered that other banks had vault doors recently delivered and erected by the Monarch Safe Corporation.

  Inquiries made at the works identified the enthusiastic young workman with a young gentleman who lived in a Jermyn Street flat and who had an account at the bank.

  “It was,” said Mr Reeder apologetically, “more by – um – luck than judgement that I succeeded in – er – anticipating this young man.”

  He liked Larry from the first interview he had with him, and that was in a cell at Bow Street. Larry was quite unlike any of the criminals with whom Mr Reeder had been brought into contact. He neither whined nor lied, neither boasted nor was evasive. Mr Reeder did not know his history and was unable to trace it.

  “It’s a great pity you’re so clever, Mr Reeder. This was to have been my final appearance as a burglar – hereafter I intended living the life of a well-to-do citizen, and hoped in course of time to become a Justice of the Peace!”

  Mr Reeder rarely smiled, but he did now.

  “The other incursions into the burglar’s profession were, I presume – um – Creed’s Bank and the Panton Trust?”

  It was Larry’s turn to smile.

  “That is a matter we will not discuss,” he said politely.

  Mr Reeder, however, was more anxious to keep the matter in discussion, for there was a sum of a hundred and forty thousand pounds to be recovered.

  “You will be ill-advised, Mr O’Ryan,” he said gently, “to withhold these very important facts, particularly the whereabouts of – um – a very considerable sum which was taken from these two institutions. A complete disclosure will make a very considerable difference to you when you – er – come before the judge. I do not promise this,” he added carefully; “I am merely going on precedents, but it is a fact that judges, in passing sentence, take into consideration the frankness with which an – um – accused person has dealt with his earlier depredations.”

  Larry O’Ryan laughed softly.

  “That’s a lovely word – depredations! It also makes me feel like one of the old robber barons of the Rhine. No, Mr Reeder – nicely but firmly, no! In the first place, the two – depredations was the word, I think, you used? – to which you refer, are not and cannot be traceable to me. I have read about them and I know the facts which have been revealed in the newspapers. Beyond that I am not prepared to admit the slightest knowledge.”

  J G Reeder was insistent in his amiable way. He revealed his own information. He knew that O’Ryan had been employed by the Monarch Security Steel Corporation, he knew that it was possible he might have secured an understanding of the locks which had been so scientifically defied; and since all three institutions had obtained their steel vaults, their unbreakable doors, their gratings and secret locking arrangements from this company, there was no doubt in his mind (he said) that O’Ryan was responsible for both burglaries. But Larry shook his head.

  “The burden of proof lies with the prosecution,” he said with mock solemnity. “I should like very much indeed to help you, Mr Reeder. I have heard of you, I admire you. Any man who in these days wears high-crowned felt hats and side-whiskers must have character, and I admire character. I hope that reference is not offensive to you; it is intended to be nothing but complimentary. I know quite a lot about you. You live in the Brockley Road, you keep chickens, you have an umbrella which you never open for fear it will be spoilt by the rain, and you smo
ke unspeakable cigarettes.”

  Again that rare smile of Mr Reeder’s.

  “You’re almost a detective,” he said. “Now, let us talk about Creed’s Bank–”

  “Let us talk about the weather,” said Larry.

  All Scotland Yard, and the Public Prosecutor’s Department, and Mr Reeder, and various narks and noses, and the parasites of the underworld were concerned in the search for the missing hundred and forty thousand pounds, even though there was not sufficient evidence to indict Larry for these two crimes.

  In due course he appeared before a judge at the Old Bailey, and pleaded guilty to being found on enclosed premises in possession of burglar’s tools, and to housebreaking (he had entered the bank at four o’clock on a Saturday afternoon) and, after a rather acrimonious trial, was found guilty and sentenced to a term of twelve months in prison.

  The trial was acrimonious because the counsel for the prosecution took a personal and violent dislike to the prisoner. Why, nobody knew; it was one of those prejudices which occasionally upset the judgement of intelligent men. It was probably some flippant remark which Larry made in cross-examination, a remark which counsel regarded as personally offensive to himself. He was not a big man, and he was rather a self-willed man. In his address to the jury he referred to the Creed’s Bank robbery and the burglary at the Panton Trust. At the first reference to these affairs the judge stopped and warned him, but he was not to be warned. Although no evidence had been called, and no charge made, in relation to these crimes, he insisted upon drawing parallels. He emphasised the fact that the prisoner had been employed by the company which made the locks and steel doors of both vaults; and all the time Larry sat in the dock, his arms folded, listening with a smile, for he knew something about law.

  There was an appeal; the conviction was quashed on a technical point, and Larry O’Ryan went free.

  His first call was on Mr J G Reeder, and he prefaced his visit with a short note asking whether his presence was acceptable. Reeder asked him to tea, which was the equivalent of being asked by the Lord Mayor to his most important banquet. Larry came in the highest spirits.

  “May I say,” asked Mr Reeder, “that you are a very fortunate young man?”

  “And how!” said Larry. “Yes, I was lucky. But who would imagine that the idiot would make a mistake like that! Are you sure you don’t mind my calling?”

  Mr Reeder shook his head.

  “If you hadn’t come I should have invited you,” he said.

  With a pair of silver tongs he placed a muffin on Larry’s plate.

  “It would be a waste of time, Mr O’Ryan, and I rather think a breach of – um – hospitality, if I made any further reference to those other unfortunate happenings, the – um – Creed’s Bank and Panton Trust affairs. As a detective and an officer of state, I should be most happy if I could find one little string of a clue which would enable me to associate you with those – um – depredations is the word, I think, you like best?”

  “Depredations is my favourite word,” mumbled Larry through the muffin.

  “Somehow, I don’t think I shall ever be able to connect you,” Mr Reeder went on, “and in a sense I’m rather glad. That is a very immoral statement to make,” he added hastily, “and against all my – um – principles, as you probably know. What are you going to do for a living now, Mr O’Ryan?”

  “I am living on my income,” said Larry calmly. “I have investments abroad which will bring me in, roughly, seven thousand a year.”

  Mr Reeder nodded slowly.

  “In other words, five per cent on a hundred and forty thousand pounds,” he murmured. “A goodly sum – a very goodly sum.” He sighed.

  “You don’t seem very happy about it.” Larry’s eyes twinkled.

  Mr Reeder shook his head.

  “No, I am thinking of the poor shareholders of Creed’s Bank–”

  “There are no shareholders. The Creeds practically hold the shares between them. They tricked my father out of a hundred thousand pounds – a little more than that sum. I have never had the full particulars, but I know it was a hundred thousand – snapped it out of his pocket, and there was no possibility of getting back on them.”

  J G looked at the ceiling.

  “So it was an act of poetic justice!” he said slowly. “And Panton Trust?”

  “You know the Panton crowd,” said Larry quietly. “They have been living on the edge of highway robbery for the past twenty-five years. They’ve made most of their money out of crooked companies and tricky share dealing. They owe me much more than – they lost.”

  A beatific smile passed over Mr Reeder’s face.

  “You nearly said, ‘than I took’,” he said reproachfully.

  “I nearly didn’t say anything of the kind,” said Larry. “No, don’t waste your sympathy on them. And I could tell you something about the Medway and Western Bank that would interest you, but I won’t.”

  “Poetic justice again, eh? You are almost a romantic figure!”

  Mr Reeder grasped the teapot and refilled the young man’s cup.

  “I’ll promise you something; we’ll not discuss this matter again, but I’ll be very glad to see you any time you find life a little wearisome and would like to discover how really dull it can be. At the same time, I feel I should – um – warn you that if you – er – fall from grace and desire to wreak your poetic vengeance upon some other banking institution, these little visits will cease, and I shall do my best to put you behind locks which were not manufactured by the Monarch Security Steel Corporation!”

  Larry became a fairly frequent visitor to the house in Brockley Road. Some people might have suspected Mr Reeder of maintaining the acquaintance in order to secure further information about the earlier robberies. But Larry did not suspect Mr Reeder of anything of the sort, and J G appreciated this compliment more than the young man knew.

  Larry got into the habit of calling at night, and particularly when an interesting crime had been committed. He knew very little of the so-called underworld, and surprised Mr Reeder when he told him that he had never met a crook until he was arrested.

  This oddly matched pair had another interest in common; the British Museum. A visit to the museum was Larry’s favourite recreation. Mr Reeder, whenever he could find the time, invariably spent his Saturday afternoons in its heavily instructive atmosphere. And they both found their interest in the same psychology. Mr Reeder loved to stand before the Elgin marbles and picture the studio in old Greece where these figures grew under the chisel of the master. He would stand for hours, looking down at a mummy, reconstructing the living woman who lay swathed behind the bandages. What was her life, her interests, her friends? How did she amuse herself? Had she children? What were they called? Did she find life boring or amusing? Did she have trouble with her servants?

  Larry’s mind ran in the same direction. They would stand before some ancient missal and conjure up a picture of the tonsured monk who worked in his cell, illuminating and writing with great labour the black lettering which was there under their eyes. When he opened the cell door and walked out into the world, what kind of a world was it? To whom did he speak?

  Sometimes they varied their Saturday afternoons by a visit to the Tower. Who put that stone upon the other? What was his name? Where did he live? In what hovel? Who were his friends? A Norman artisan, brought by William across the seas. Possibly his name was Pierre, Mr Reeder would hazard after a long, long silence.

  “Gaston,” suggested Larry.

  Only once did they even speak of Larry’s grisly past. It was an evening which they spent together in town. Mr Reeder had just completed the evidence in the Central Bank robbery and was weary. They were dining in a little restaurant in Soho, when Larry asked: “Do you know anything about the Lane Leonard estate?”

  Mr Reeder took off his glasse
s, polished them, put them on again and allowed them to sag and drop.

  “Before I answer that question will you be good enough to tell me what you mean by that inquiry?”

  Larry grinned.

  “There’s no need to be cautious. I’ll tell you what brought the subject up – that iron grille before the cashier’s desk. It’s almost the same pattern as one we made for the Lane Leonard estate. I suppose they’ve got trust deeds to guard. They’ve certainly got one of the strongest steel vaults that’s ever been supplied to a corporation that wasn’t a bank.”

  Mr Reeder beckoned a waiter and ordered coffee.

  “The Lane Leonard estate is presumably the estate of the late John Lane Leonard. He was a millionaire who died three years ago, leaving an immense fortune to his stepdaughter – I forget the exact amount, but it was somewhere between one and two million pounds.”

  “He wasn’t a banker?” asked Larry curiously.

  Mr Reeder shook his head.

  “No, he was not a banker. So far as I know, he was an American stockbroker, who was a very heavy speculator in shares, a man who had the intelligence to keep the money he had won on the Stock Exchange. He had a vault made, you say?”

  Larry nodded.

  “The strongest I’ve ever seen. Not large, but triple steel-plated walls and two doors, and all the tricks and safeguards that money could buy. I looked it over when it was completed, and I had a talk with the men who assembled it.”

  He thought for a moment.

  “That must have been just before he died. It was just over three years ago. He must have had some pretty hefty securities, but why shouldn’t they be kept at the bank?”

  Mr Reeder looked at him reproachfully.

  “There are many reasons why securities should not be kept at the bank,” he said, “and you are – er – one of them.”

  Mr Reeder thought of the Lane Leonard estate on his way back to Brockley. Unusual happenings fascinated him. He tried to recall the particulars of the Lane Leonard will. He had read it at the time, but he could not recall that there was anything remarkable about it.