Red Aces (4 page)

He saw a wastepaper basket and turned over its contents. Covers of little books apparently – there were five of them, but no contents. By the side of the fireplace was a dwarf bookcase. The books were dummies. He pulled one end of the case and it swung out, being hinged at the other end.

“H’m!” said Mr Reeder, and pushed the shelves back into their original position.

There was a cap on the floor by the table and he picked this up. It was wet. This he examined, thrust into his pocket, and turned his attention to the girl.

“How long have you been here, Miss–? I think you had better tell me your name.”

She was looking up at him; he saw her wet her dry lips.

“Half an hour. I don’t know…it may be longer.”

“Miss – ?” he asked again.

“Lynn – Margot Lynn.”

He pursed his lips thoughtfully.

“Margot Lynn. And you’ve been here half-an-hour. Who else has been here?”

“Nobody,” she said, springing to her feet. “What has happened? Did he – did they fight?”

He put his hand on her shoulder gently, and pressed her down into the chair.

“Did who fight whom?” asked Mr Reeder. His English was always very good on these occasions.

“Nobody has been here,” she said inconsequently.

Mr Reeder passed the question.

“You came from – ?”

“I came from Bourne End station. I walked here. I often come that way. I am Mr Wentford’s secretary.”

“You walked here at nine o’clock because you’re Mr Wentford’s secretary? That was a very odd thing to do.”

She was searching his face fearfully.

“Has anything happened? Are you a police detective? Has anything happened to Mr Wentford? Tell me, tell me!”

“He was expecting me: you knew that?”

She nodded. Her breath was coming quickly. He thought she found breathing a painful process.

“He told me – yes. I didn’t know what it was about. He wanted his lawyer here too. I think he was in some kind of trouble.”

“When did you see him last?”

She hesitated.

“I spoke to him on the telephone – once, from London. I haven’t seen him for two days.”

“And the person who was here?” asked Mr Reeder after a pause.

“There was nobody here! I swear there was nobody here!” She was frantic in her desire to convince him. “I’ve been here half-an-hour – waiting for him. I let myself in – I have a key. There it is.”

She fumbled with trembling hands in her bag and produced a ring with two keys, one larger than the other.

“He wasn’t here when I came in. I – I think he must have gone to town. He is very – peculiar.”

Mr J G Reeder put his hand in his pocket, took out two playing cards and laid them on the table.

“Why did he have those pinned to his door?”

She looked at him round-eyed.

“Pinned to his door?”

“The outer door,” said Mr Reeder, “or, as he would call it, the street door.”

She shook her head.

“I’ve never seen them before. He is not the kind of man to put up things like that. He is very retiring and hates drawing attention to himself.”

“He was very retiring,” repeated Mr Reeder, “and hated drawing attention to himself.”

>Something in his tone emphasized the tense he used. She shrank back.

“Was?” Her voice was a whisper. “He’s not dead…oh, my God! he’s not dead?”

Mr Reeder smoothed his chin.

“Yes, I’m afraid – um – he is dead.”

She clutched the edge of the table for support. Mr Reeder had never seen such horror, such despair in a human face before.

“Was it…an accident – or – or–”

“You’re trying to say ‘murder’,” said Reeder gently. “Yes, I’m very much afraid it was murder.”

He caught her in his arms as she fell, and, laying her on the sofa, went in search of water. The taps were frozen, but he found some water in a kettle, and, filling a glass with this, he returned to sprinkle it on her face, having a vague idea that something of the sort was necessary; but he found her sitting up, her face in her hands.

“Lie down, my dear, and keep quiet,” said Mr Reeder, and she obeyed meekly.

He looked round the room. The thing that struck him anew was the revolver which hung on the wall near the right-hand side of the fireplace just above the bookcase. It was placed to the hand of anybody who sat with his back to the window. Behind the armchair was a screen, and, tapping it, Mr Reeder discovered that it was of sheet iron.

He went outside to look at the door, turning on the hall light. It was a very thick door, and the inside was made of quarter-inch steel plate, screwed firmly to the wood. Leading from the kitchen was the bedroom, evidently Wentford’s. The only light here was admitted from an oblong window near the ceiling. There were no other windows, and about the narrow window was a stout steel cage. On the wall by the bed hung a second pistol. He found a third weapon in the kitchen, and, behind a coat hanging in the hall, a fourth.

The cottage was a square box of concrete. The roof, as he afterwards learned, was tiled over sheet iron, and, except for the window through which he had squeezed, there was none by which ingress could be had.

He was puzzled why this man, who evidently feared attack, had left any window so large as that through which he had come. He afterwards found the broken wire which must have set an alarm bell ringing when the window was opened.

There was blood on the mat in the hall, blood in the tiny lobby. He came back to where the girl was lying and sniffed. There was no smell of cordite, and having seen the body, he was not surprised.

“Now, my dear.”

She sat up again.

“I am not a police officer; I am a – er – a gentleman called in by your friend, Mr Wentford – your late friend,” he corrected himself, “to do something – I know not what! He called me by ’phone; I gave him my – um – terms, but he offered me no reason why he was sending for me. You, as his secretary, may perhaps–”

She shook her head.

“I don’t know. He had never mentioned you before he spoke to me on the telephone.”

“I am not a policeman,” said Mr Reeder again, and his voice was very gentle; “therefore, my dear, you need have few qualms about telling me the truth, because these gentlemen, when they come, these very active and intelligent men, will probably discover all that I have seen, even if I did not tell them. Who was the man who went out of this house when I knocked at the door?”

Her face was deathly pale, but she did not flinch. He wondered if she was as pretty when she was not so pale. Mr Reeder wondered all sorts of queer little things like that; his mind could never stagnate.

“There was nobody – in this house – since I have been here–”

Mr Reeder did not press her. He sighed, closed his eyes, shook his head, shrugged his shoulders.

“It’s a great pity,” he said. “Can you tell me anything about Mr Wentford?”

“No,” she said in a low voice. “He was my uncle. I think you ought to know that. He didn’t want anybody to know, but that must come out. He has been very good to us – he sent my mother abroad; she is an invalid. I conducted his business.” All this very jerkily.

“Have you been here often?”

She shook her head.

“Not often,” she said. “We usually met somewhere by appointment, generally in a lonely place where one wouldn’t be likely to meet anybody who knew us. He was very shy of strangers, and he didn’t like anybody coming here.”

“Did he ever entertain friends here?”

“No.” She was very emphatic. “I’m sure he didn’t. The only person he ever saw was the police patrol, the mounted man who rides this beat. Uncle used to make him coffee every night. I think it was for the company – he told me he felt lonely at nights. The policeman kept an eye on him. There are two – Constable Steele and Constable Verity. My uncle always sent them a turkey at Christmas. Whoever was on duty used to ride up here. I was here late one night, and the constable escorted me to Bourne End.”

The telephone was in the bedroom. Mr Reeder remembered he had promised to ’phone. He got through to a police station and asked a few questions. When he got back, he found the girl by the window, looking between the curtains.

Somebody was coming up the path. They could hear voices, and, looking through the curtain, he saw a string of lanterns and went out to meet a local sergeant and two men. Behind them was Mr Enward. Reeder wondered what had become of Henry. Possibly he had been lost in the snow. The thought interested him.

“This is Mr Reeder.” Enward’s voice was shrill. “Did you telephone?”

“Yes, I telephoned. We have a young lady here – Mr Wentford’s niece.”

Enward repeated the words, surprised.

“His niece here? Really? I knew he had a niece. In fact–”

He coughed. It was an indelicate moment to speak of legacies. “She’ll be able to throw a light on this business,” said the sergeant, more practical and less delicate.

“She could throw no light on any business,” said Mr Reeder, very firmly for him. “She was not here when the crime was committed – in fact, she arrived some time after. She has a key which admitted her. Miss Lynn acts as her uncle’s secretary, all of which facts, I think, gentlemen, you should know.”

The sergeant was not quite sure about the propriety of noticing Mr Reeder. To him he was almost a civilian, a man without authority, and his presence was therefore irregular. Nevertheless, some distant echo of J G Reeder’s fame had penetrated into Buckinghamshire. The police officer seemed to remember that Mr Reeder either occupied or was about to occupy a semi-official position remotely or nearly associated with police affairs. If he had been a little clearer on the subject he would also have been more definite in his attitude. Since he was not so sure, it was expedient, until Mr Reeder’s position became established, to ignore his presence – a peculiarly difficult course to follow when an officially absent person is standing at your elbow, murmuring flat contradictions of your vital theories.

“Perhaps you will tell me why you are here, sir?” said the sergeant with a certain truculence.

Mr Reeder felt in his pocket, took out a large leather case and laid it carefully on the table, first dusting the table with the side of his hand. This he unfolded, and took out, with exasperating deliberation, a thick pad of telegrams. He fixed his glasses and examined the telegrams one by one, reading each through. At last he shook one clear and handed it to the officer. It ran:

Wish to consult with you tonight on very important matter. Call me Woburn Green 971. Very urgent. Wentford.

“You’re a private detective, Mr Reeder?”

“More intimate than private,” murmured that gentleman. “In these days of publicity one has little more than the privacy of a goldfish in his crystal habitation.”

The sergeant saw something in the wastepaper basket and pulled it out. It was a small loose-leafed book. There was another, indeed, many. He piled five on the table; but they were merely the covers and nothing more.

“Diaries,” said Mr Reeder gently. “You will observe that each one is dingier than the other.”

“But how do you know they’re diaries?” demanded the police officer testily.

“Because the word ‘diary’ is printed on the inside covers,” said Mr Reeder, more gently than ever.

This proved to be the case, though the printing had been overlooked. Mr Reeder had not overlooked it; he had not even overlooked the two scraps of burnt paper on the hearth, all that remained of those diaries.

“There is a safe let into the wall behind that bookcase.” He pointed. “It may or may not be full of clues. I should imagine it is not. But I shouldn’t touch it if I were you, sergeant,” he said hastily, “not without gloves. Those detestable fellows from Scotland Yard will be here eventually, and they’ll be ever so rude if they photograph a fingerprint and find it is yours.”

Gaylor of the Yard came at half-past two. He had been brought out of his bed through a blinding snowstorm and along a road that was thoroughly vile.

The young lady had gone home. Mr Reeder was sitting meditatively before the fire which he had made up, smoking the cheapest kind of cigarette.

“Is the body here?”

Mr Reeder shook his head.

“Have they found that mounted policeman, Verity?”

Again Mr Reeder signalled a negative.

“They found his horse. He was discovered on the Beaconsfield Road. It had bloodstains on the saddle.”

“Bloodstains?” said the startled officer.

“Stains of blood,” explained Mr Reeder.

He was staring into the fire, the cigarette drooping limply from his mouth, on his face an air of unsettled melancholy; he did not even turn his head to address Inspector Gaylor.

“The young lady has gone home, as I said. The local constabulary gave you particulars of the lady, of course. She acted as secretary to the late Mr Wentford, and he appears to have been very fond of her, since he has left his fortune as to two-thirds to the young lady and one-third to his sister. There is no money in the house as far as can be ascertained, but he banks with the Great Central Bank, Beaconsfield branch.” Reeder fumbled in his pocket. “Here are the two aces.”

“The two what?” asked the puzzled inspector.

“The two aces.” Mr Reeder passed the playing cards over his shoulder, his eyes still upon the fire. “The ace of diamonds, and I believe the ace of hearts – I'm not very well acquainted with either.”

“Where did you get these?”

The other explained, and he heard Gaylor’s exasperated chuckle.

“What’s this, a magazine story murder?” he asked contemptuously.

“I seldom read magazine stories,” said Mr Reeder between yawns, “but these cards were put up after the murder.”

The detective examined the aces interestedly.

“Why are you so sure of that – why shouldn’t they have been put up before?”

J G groaned at his scepticism, and, reaching out, took a pack of cards from a little table.

“You will find the two aces missing from this pack. You would have also found that two cards had been stuck together. Blood does that. No fingerprints. I should imagine the cards were sorted over after the untimely demise of Mr Wentford, and the two significant aces extracted and exhibited.”