/London/ heard the news of John Flack’s escape and grew fearful or
indignant according to its several temperaments. A homicidal planner
of great and spectacular thefts was in its midst. It was not very
pleasant hearing for law-abiding citizens. And the news was more than
a week old: why had Scotland Yard not taken the public into its
confidence? Why suppress this news of such vital interest? Who was
responsible for the suppression of this important information?
Headlines asked these questions in the more sensational sheets. The
news of the Bennett Street outrage was public property: to his
enormous embarrassment, Mr. Reeder found himself a Matter of Public
Interest.
Mr. Reeder used to sit alone in his tiny bureau at the Public
Prosecutor’s Office and for hours on end do little more than twiddle
his thumbs and gaze disconsolately at the virgin white of his
blotting-pad.
In what private day-dreams he indulged, whether they concerned
fabulous fortunes and their disposition, or whether they centred about
a very pretty pink-and-white young lady, or whether indeed he thought
at all and his mind was not a complete blank, those who interrupted
his reveries and had the satisfaction of seeing him start guiltily had
no means of knowing.
At this particular moment his mind was, in truth, completely occupied
by his newest as well as his oldest enemy.
There were three members of the Flack gang originally--John, George,
and Augustus--and they began operations in the days when it was
considered scientific and a little wonderful to burn out the lock of a
safe.
Augustus Flack was killed by the night watchman of Carr’s Bank in
Lombard Street during an attempt to rob the gold vault; George Flack,
the youngest of the three, was sent to penal servitude for ten years
as the result of a robbery in Bond Street, and died there; and only
John, the mad master-mind of the family, escaped detection and arrest.
It was he who brought into the organisation one O. Sweizer, the Yankee
bank-smasher; he who recruited Adolphe Victoire; and those brought
others to the good work. For this was Crazy Jack’s peculiar
asset--that he could attract to himself, almost at a minute’s notice,
the best brains of the underworld. Though the rest of the Flacks were
either dead or gaoled, the organisation was stronger than ever, and
strongest because lurking somewhere in the background was this kinky
brain.
Thus matters stood when Mr. J. G. Reeder came into the case--being
brought into the matter not so much because the London police had
failed, but because the Public Prosecutor recognised that the breaking
up of the Flacks was going to be a lengthy business, occupying one
man’s complete attention.
Cutting the tentacles of the organisation was an easy matter,
comparatively.
Mr. Reeder took O. Sweizer, that stocky Swiss-American, when he and a
man unknown were engaged in removing a safe from the Bedford Street
post-office one Sunday morning. Sweizer was ready for fight, but Mr.
Reeder grabbed him just a little too quickly.
“Let up!” gasped Sweizer in Italian. “You’re choking me, Reeder.”
Mr. Reeder turned him on to his face and handcuffed him behind, then
he lifted him by the scruff of his neck and went to the assistance of
his admirable colleagues who were taking the other two men.
Victoire was arrested one night at the Charlton, when he was dining
with Denver May. He gave no trouble, because the police took him on a
purely fictitious charge and one which he knew he could easily
disprove.
“My dear Mr. Reeder,” said he in his elegant, languid way, “you are
making quite an absurd mistake, but I will humour you. I can prove
that when the pearls were taken from Hertford Street I was in Nice.”
This was on the way to the station.
They put him in the dock and searched him, discovering certain lethal
weapons handily disposed about his person, but he was only amused. He
was less amused when he was charged with smashing the Bank of Lens,
the attempted murder of a night watchman, and one or two other little
matters which need not be particularised.
They got him into the cells, and as he was carried, struggling and
raving like a lunatic, Mr. Reeder offered him a piece of advice which
he rejected with considerable violence.
“Say you were in Nice at the time,” he said gently.
Then one day the police pulled in a man in Somers Town, on the very
prosaic charge of beating his wife in public. When they searched him
they found a torn scrap of a letter, which was sent at once to Mr.
Reeder. It ran:
“Any night about eleven in Whitehall Avenue. Reeder is a man of medium
height, elderly-looking, sandy-greyish hair and side-whiskers rather
thick, always carries an umbrella. Recommend you to wear rubber boots
and take a length of iron to him. You can easily find out who he is
and what he looks like. Take your time… fifty on acc… der when the job
is finished…”
This was the first hint Mr. Reeder had that he was especially
unpopular with the mysterious John Flack.
The day Crazy Jack was sent down to Broadmoor had been a day of mild
satisfaction for Mr. Reeder. He was not exactly happy or even relieved
about it. He had the comfort of an accountant who had signed a
satisfactory balance-sheet, or the builder who was surveying his
finished work. There were other balance-sheets to be signed, other
buildings to be erected--they differed only in their shapes and
quantities.
One thing was certain, that on what other project Flack’s mind was
fixed, he was devoting a considerable amount of thought to J. G.
Reeder--whether in reprisal for events that had passed or as a
precautionary measure to check his activities in the future, the
detective could only guess: but he was a good guesser.
The telephone bell, set in a remote corner of the room, rang sharply.
Mr. Reeder took up the instrument with a pained expression. The
operator of the office exchange told him that there was a call from
Horsham. He pulled a writing-pad towards him and waited. And then a
voice spoke, and hardly was the first word uttered when he knew his
man, for J. G. Reeder never forgot voices.
“That you, Reeder?… Know who I am?…”
The same thin, tense voice that had babbled threats from the dock of
the Old Bailey, the same little chuckling laugh that punctured every
second.
Mr. Reeder touched a bell and began to write rapidly on his pad.
“Know who I am?--I’ll bet you do! Thought you’d got rid of me, didn’t
you? but you haven’t!… Listen, Reeder, you can tell the Yard I’m
busy--I’m going to give them the shock of their lives. Mad, am I? I’ll
show you whether I’m mad or not… And I’ll get you, Reeder…”
A messenger came in. Mr. Reeder tore off the slip and handed it to him
with an urgent gesture. The man read and bolted from the room.
“Is that Mr. Flack?” asked Reeder softly.
“Is it Mr. Flack, you old hypocrite!… Have you got the parcel? I
wondered if you had. What do you think of it?”
“The parcel?” said Reeder, gentlier than ever, and before the man
could reply: “You will get into serious trouble for trying to hoax the
Public Prosecutor’s Office, my friend,” said Mr. Reeder reproachfully.
“You are not Crazy John Flack… I know his voice. Mr. Flack spoke with
a curious Cockney accent which is not easy to imitate, and Mr. Flack
at this moment is in the hands of the police.”
He counted on the effect of this provocative speech, and he had made
no mistake.
“You lie!” screamed the voice. “You know I’m Flack… Crazy Jack, eh?…
Crazy old John Flack… Mad, am I? You’ll learn!… you put me in that
hell upon earth, and I’m going to serve you worse than I treated that
damned dago…”
The voice ceased abruptly. There was a click as the receiver was put
down. Reeder listened expectantly, but no other call came through.
Then he rang the bell again and the messenger returned.
“Yes, sir, I got through straight away to the Horsham police station.
The inspector is sending three men in a car to the post-office.”
Mr. Reeder gazed at the ceiling.
“Then I fear he has sent too late,” he said. “The venerable bandit
will have gone.”
A quarter of an hour later came confirmation of his prediction. The
police had arrived at the post-office, but the bird had flown. The
clerk did not remember anybody old or wild-looking booking a call; he
thought that the message had not come from the post-office itself,
which was also the telephone exchange, but from an outlying call-box.
Mr. Reeder went in to report to the Public Prosecutor, but neither he
nor his assistant was in the office. He rang up Scotland Yard and
passed on his information to Simpson.
“I respectfully suggest that you should get into touch with the French
police and locate Ravini. He may not be in Paris at all.”
“Where do you think he is?” asked Simpson.
“That,” replied Mr. Reeder in a hushed voice, “is a question which has
never been definitely settled in my mind. I should not like to say
that he was in heaven, because I cannot imagine Georgio Ravini with
his Luck Stones----”
“Do you mean that he’s dead?” asked Simpson quickly.
“It is very likely; in fact, it is extremely likely.”
There was a long silence at the other end of the telephone.
“Have you had the parcel?”
“That I am awaiting with the greatest interest,” said Mr. Reeder, and
went back to his office to twiddle his thumbs and stare at his white
blotting-pad.
The parcel came at three o’clock that afternoon, when Mr. Reeder had
returned from his frugal lunch, which he invariably took at a large
and popular teashop in Whitehall. It was a very small parcel, about
three inches square; it was registered, and had been posted in London.
He weighed it carefully, shook it and listened, but the lightness of
the package precluded any possibility of there being concealed behind
the paper wrapping anything that bore a resemblance to an infernal
machine. He cut the paper tape that fastened it, took off the paper,
and there was revealed a small cardboard box such as jewellers employ.
Removing the lid, he found a small pad of cotton-wool, and in the
midst of this three gold rings, each with three brilliant diamonds. He
put them on his blotting-pad and gazed at them for a long time.
They were George Ravini’s Luck Stones, and for ten minutes Mr. Reeder
sat in a profound reverie, for he knew that George Ravini was dead,
and it did not need the card which accompanied the rings to know who
was responsible for the drastic and gruesome ending to Mr. Ravini’s
life. The sprawling “J. F.” on the little card was in Mr. Flack’s
writing, and the three words “Your turn next” were instructive, even
if they were not, as they were intended to be, terrifying.
Half an hour later Mr. Reeder met Inspector Simpson by appointment at
Scotland Yard. Simpson examined the rings curiously, and pointed out a
small, dark-brown speck at the edge of one of the Luck Stones.
“I don’t doubt that Ravini is dead,” he said. “The first thing to
discover is where he went when he said he was going to Paris.”
This task presented fewer difficulties than Simpson had imagined. He
remembered Lew Steyne and his association with the Italian, and a
telephone call put through to the City police located Lew in five
minutes.
“Bring him along in a taxi,” said Simpson, and, as he hung up the
receiver: “The question is, what is Crazy Jack’s coup? murder on a
large scale, or just picturesque robbery?”
“I think the latter,” said Mr. Reeder thoughtfully. “Murder, with Mr.
Flack, is a mere incidental to the--er--more important business of
money-making.”
He pinched his lip thoughtfully.
“Forgive me if I seem to repeat myself, but I would again remind you
that Mr. Flack’s specialty is bullion, if I remember aright,” he said.
“Didn’t he smash the strong room of the _Megantic_… bullion, hum!” He
scratched his chin and looked up over his glasses at Simpson.
The inspector shook his head.
“I only wish Crazy Jack was crazy enough to try to get out of the
country by steamer--he won’t. And the Leadenhall Bank stunt couldn’t
be repeated to-day. No, there’s no chance of a bullion steal.”
Mr. Reeder looked unconvinced.
“Would you ring up the Bank of England and find out if the money has
gone to Australia?” he pleaded.
Simpson pulled the instrument towards him, gave a number and, after
five minutes’ groping through various departments, reached an
exclusive personage. Mr. Reeder sat, with his hands clasped about the
handle of his umbrella, a pained expression on his face, his eyes
closed, and seemingly oblivious of the conversation. Presently Simpson
hung up the receiver.
“The consignment should have gone this morning, but the sailing of the
_Olanic_ has been delayed by a stevedore strike--it goes to-morrow
morning,” he reported. “The gold is taken on a lorry to Tilbury with a
guard. At Tilbury it is put into the _Olanic’s_ strong-room, which is
the newest and safest of its kind. I don’t suppose that John will
begin operations there.”
“Why not?” J. G. Reeder’s voice was almost bland; his face was screwed
into its nearest approach to a smile. “On the contrary, as I have said
before, that is the very consignment I should expect Mr. Flack to go
after.”
“I pray that you’re a true prophet,” said Simpson grimly. “I could
wish for nothing better.”
They were still talking of Flack and his passion for ready gold when
Mr. Lew Steyne arrived in the charge of a local detective. No crook,
however hardened, can step into the gloomy approaches of Scotland Yard
without experiencing some uneasiness, and Lew’s attempt to display his
indifference was rather pathetic.
“What’s the idea, Mr. Simpson?” he asked, in a grieved tone. “I’ve
done nothing.”
He scowled at Reeder, who was known to him, and whom he regarded, very
rightly, as being responsible for his appearance at this best-hated
spot.
Simpson put a question, and Mr. Lew Steyne shrugged his shoulders.
“I ask you, Mr. Simpson, am I Ravini’s keeper? I know nothing about
the Italian crowd, and Ravini’s scarcely an acquaintance.”
Mr. Reeder shook his head.
“You spent two hours with him last Thursday evening,” he said, and Lew
was a little taken aback.
“I had a little bit of business with him, I admit,” he said. “Over a
house I’m trying to rent----”
His shifty eyes had become suddenly steadfast; he was looking
open-mouthed at the three rings that lay on the table. Reeder saw him
frown, and then:
“What are those?” asked Lew huskily. “They’re not Georgio’s Luck
Stones?”
Simpson nodded and pushed the little square of white paper on which
they lay towards the visitor.
“Do you know them?” he asked.
Lew picked up one of the rings and turned it round in his hand.
“What’s the idea?” he asked suspiciously. “Ravini told me himself he
could never get these off.”
And then, as the significance of their presence dawned upon him, he
gasped.
“What’s happened to him?” he asked quickly. “Is he----”
“I fear,” said Mr. Reeder soberly, “that Georgio Ravini is no longer
with us.”
“Dead?” Lew almost shrieked the word. His yellow face went a chalky
white. “Where… who did it?…”
“That is exactly what we want to know,” said Simpson. “Now, Lew,
you’ve got to spill it. Where is Ravini? He said he was going to
Paris, I know, but actually where did he go?”
The thief’s eyes strayed to Mr. Reeder.
“He was after that ‘bird,’ that’s all I know,” he said sullenly.
“Which bird?” asked Simpson, but Mr. Reeder had no need to have its
identity explained.
“He was after--Miss Belman?”
Lew nodded.
“Yes, a girl he knew… she went down into the country to take a job as
hotel manager or something. I saw her go, as a matter of fact. Ravini
wanted to get better acquainted, so he went down to stay at the
hotel.”
Even as he spoke, Mr. Reeder had reached for the telephone, and had
given the peculiar code word which is equivalent to a command for a
clear line.
A high-pitched voice answered him.
“I am Mr. Daver, the proprietor… Miss Belman? I’m afraid she is out
just now. She will be back in a few minutes. Who is it speaking?”
Mr. Reeder replied diplomatically. He was anxious to get into touch
with George Ravini, and for two minutes he allowed the voluble Mr.
Daver to air a grievance.
“Yes, he went in the early morning, without paying his bill…”
“I will come down and pay it,” said Mr. Reeder.