Mr. Reeder sidled into the room apologetically, closing the door
behind him.
“All alone, Mr. Legge?” he asked. “I thought you had company?”
“I had some friends, but they’ve gone.”
“Your son gone, too?” Reeder stared helplessly from one corner of the
room to the other. “Dear me, this is a disappointment, a great
disappointment.”
Emanuel was thinking quickly. In all probability the shabby detective
had been watching the front of the house, and would know that they had
not left that way. He took a bold step.
“They left a quarter of an hour ago. Peter and Johnny went down the
fire-escape--my boy’s car was in the yard. We never like to have a car
in front of the club premises; people talk so much. And after the
publicity we’ve had----”
Mr. Reeder checked him with a mild murmur of agreement.
“That was the car, was it? I saw it go and wondered what it was all
about--Number XC. 9712, blue painted limousine--Daimler--I may be
wrong, but it seemed like a Daimler to me; I know so little about
motor-cars that I could be very easily mistaken, and my eyesight is
not as good as it used to be.”
Emanuel cursed him under his breath.
“Yes, it was a Daimler,” he said, “one we bought cheap at the sales.”
The absent-minded visitor’s eyes were fixed on the table.
“Took their wine-glasses with them?” he asked gently. “I think it is a
pretty custom, taking souvenirs of a great occasion. I’m sure they
were very happy.”
How had he got in, wondered Emanuel? Stevens had strict orders to stop
him, and Fernando was at the end of the L-shaped passage. As if he
divined the thought that was passing through Legge’s mind, Mr. Reeder
answered the unspoken question.
“I took the liberty of coming up the fire-escape, too,” he said. “It
was an interesting experience. One is a little old to begin
experiments, and I am not the sort of man that cares very much for
climbing, particularly at night.”
Following the direction of his eyes, Emanuel saw that a small square
of the rusty trousers had been worn, and through the opening a bony
white knee.
“Yes, I came up the fire-escape, and fortunately the window was open.
I thought I would give you a pleasant surprise. By the way, the escape
doesn’t go any higher than this floor? That is curious, because, you
know, my dear Mr. Legge, it might well happen, in the event of fire,
that people would be driven to the roof. If I remember rightly, there
is nothing on the roof but a square superstructure--store-room, isn’t
it? Let me think. Yes, it’s a store-room, I’m sure.”
“The truth is,” interrupted Emanuel, “I had two old acquaintances
here, Johnny Gray and Peter Kane. I think you know Peter?”
The other inclined his head gently.
“And they got just a little too merry. I suppose Johnny’s not used to
wine, and Peter’s been a teetotaller for years.” He paused. “In fact,
they were rather the worse for drink.”
“That’s very sad.” Mr. Reeder shook his head. “Personally, I am a
great believer in prohibition. I would prohibit wine and beer, and
crooks and forgers, tale-tellers, poisoners”--he paused at the
word--“druggers would be a better word,” he said. “They took their
glasses with them, did they? I hope they will return them. I should
not like to think that people I--er--like would be guilty of so
despicable a practice as--er--the petty theft of--er--wine-glasses.”
Again his melancholy eyes fell on the table.
“And they only had soup! It is very unusual to get bottled before
you’ve finished the soup, isn’t it? I mean, in respectable circles,”
he added apologetically.
He looked back at the open door over his spectacles.
“I wonder,” he mused, “how they got down that fire-escape in the dark
in such a sad condition?”
Again his expressionless eyes returned to Emanuel.
“If you see them again, will you tell them that I expect both Mr. Kane
and Mr. Johnny--what is his name?--Gray, that is it! to keep an
appointment they made with me for to-morrow morning? And that if they
do not turn up at my house at ten o’clock…”
He stopped, pursing up his lips as though he were going to whistle.
Emanuel wondered what was coming next, and was not left long in doubt.
“Did you feel the cold very much in Dartmoor? They tell me that the
winters are very trying, particularly for people of an advanced age.
Of course,” Mr. Reeder went on, “one can have friends there; one can
even have relations there. I suppose it makes things much easier if
you know your son or some other close relative is living on the same
landing--there are three landings, are there not? But it is much nicer
to live in comfort in London, Mr. Legge--to have a cosy little suite
in Bloomsbury, such as you have got; to go where you like without a
screw following you--I think ‘screw’ is a very vulgar word, but it
means ‘warder,’ does it not?”
He walked to the door and turned slowly.
“You won’t forget that I expect to meet Mr. Peter Kane and Mr. John
Gray to-morrow at my house at half-past ten--you won’t forget, will
you?”
He closed the door carefully behind him, and, with his great umbrella
hooked on to his arm, passed along the corridor into the purview of
the astounded Fernando, astounding the jailers on guard at the end.
“Good evening,” murmured Mr. Reeder as he passed.
Fernando was too overcome to make a courteous reply.
Stevens saw him as he came into the main corridor, and gasped.
“When did you come in, Mr. Reeder?”
“Nobody has ever seen you come in, but lots of people see you go out,”
said Reeder good-humouredly. “On the other hand, there are people who
are seen coming into this club whom nobody sees go out. Mr. Gray
didn’t pass this way, or Mr. Kane?”
“No, sir,” said Stevens in surprise. “Have they gone?”
Reeder sighed heavily.
“Yes, they’ve gone,” he said. “I hope not for long, but they’ve
certainly gone. Good night, Stevens. By the way, your name isn’t
Stevens, is it? I seem to remember you”--he screwed up his eyes as
though he had difficulty in recalling the memory--“I seem to remember
your name wasn’t Stevens, let us say, eight years ago.”
Stevens flushed.
“It is the name I’m known as now, sir.”
“A very good name, too, an excellent name,” murmured Mr. Reeder as he
stepped into the elevator. “And after all, we must try to live down
the past. And I’d be the last to remind you of your--er--misfortune.”
When he reached the street, two men who had been standing on the
opposite sidewalk crossed to him.
“They’ve gone,” said Mr. Reeder. “They were in that car, as I feared.
All stations must be warned, and particularly the town stations just
outside of London, to hold up the car. You have its number. You had
better watch this place till the morning,” he said to one of them.
“Very good, sir.”
“I want you especially to follow Emanuel, and keep him under
observation until to-morrow morning.”
The detective left on duty waited with that philosophical patience
which is the greater part of the average detective’s equipment, until
three o’clock in the morning; and at that hour, when daylight was
coming into the sky, Emanuel had not put in an appearance. Stevens
went off duty half an hour after Mr. Reeder’s departure. At two
o’clock the head waiter and three others left, Fernando locking the
door. Then, a few minutes before three, the squat figure of Pietro,
muffled up in a heavy overcoat, and he too locked the door behind him,
disappearing in the direction of Shaftesbury Avenue. At half-past
three the detective left a policeman to watch the house, and got on
the ’phone to Mr. Reeder, who was staying in town.
“Dear me!” said Mr. Reeder, an even more incongruous sight in pyjamas
which were a little too small for him, though happily there were no
spectators of his agitation. “Not gone, you say? I will come round.”
It was daylight when he arrived. The gate in the yard was opened with
a skeleton key (the climb so graphically described by Mr. Reeder was
entirely fictitious, and the cut in his trousers was due to catching a
jagged nail in one of the packing-cases with which the yard was
littered), and he mounted the iron stairway to the third floor.
The window through which he had made his ingress on the previous
evening was closed and fastened, but, with the skill of a professional
burglar, Mr. Reeder forced back the catch and, opening the window,
stepped in.
There was enough daylight to see his whereabouts. Unerringly he made
for Emanuel’s office. The door had been forced, and there was no need
to use the skeleton key.
There was no sign of Emanuel, and Reeder came out to hear the report
of the detective, who had made a rapid search of the club.
“All the doors are open except No. 13, sir,” he said. “That’s bolted
on the inside. I’ve got the lock open.”
“Try No. 12,” said Reeder. “There are two ways in--one by way of a
door, which you’ll find behind a curtain in the corner of the room,
and the other way through the buffet, which communicates with the
buffet in No. 13. Break nothing if you can help it, because I don’t
want my visit here advertised.”
He followed the detective into No. 12, and found that there was no
necessity to use the buffet entrance, for the communicating door was
unlocked. He stepped into No. 13; it was in complete darkness.
“Humph!” said Mr. Reeder, and sniffed. “One of you go along this wall
and find the switch. Be careful you don’t step on something.”
“What is there?”
“I think you’ll find… however, turn on the light.”
The detective felt his way along the wall, and presently his finger
touched a switch and he turned it down. And then they saw all that Mr.
Reeder suspected. Sprawled across the table was a still figure--a
horrible sight, for the man who had killed Emanuel Legge had used the
poker which, twisted and bloodstained, lay amidst the wreckage of rare
glass and once snowy napery.