TERROR KEEP CHAPTER VIII
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 an Matter of Public Interest.
Mr. Reeder used to sit alone at his desk 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 had begun 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 a 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 they 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 jailed, the organisation was stronger than ever, and stronger 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 French. "You're choking me, Reeder."
Mr. Reeder turned him on to his face and handcuffed him behind; then he went to the assistance of his admirable colleagues who were taking the other two men.
Victoire was arrested one night at the Charlton, where 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 Lena, the attempted murder of a night watchman, and one or two other little matters which need not be particularized.
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 toward him and waited. And then a voice spoke, and hardly was the first word uttered than 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 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?" asked Reeder, more gently 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 them 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 Giorgio 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 use. 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 one 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 incident 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 toward 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 Giorgio's Luck Stones?"
Simpson nodded and pushed the little square of white paper on which they lay toward 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 Giorgio 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.