TERROR KEEP CHAPTER XII
Mr. Reeder was in his room, laying out his moderate toilet requirements on the dressing table, and meditating upon the waste of time involved in conforming to fashion—for he had dressed for dinner—when there came a tap at the door. He paused, a well-worn hairbrush in his hand, and looked around.
"Come in," he said, and added: "if you please."
The little head of Mr. Daver appeared around the opening of the door, anxiety and apology in every line of his peculiar face.
"Am I interrupting you?" he asked. "I am terribly sorry to bother you at all, but Miss Belman being away, you quite understand? I'm sure you do...?"
Mr. Reeder was courtesy itself.
"Come in, come in, sir," he said. "I was merely preparing for the night. I am a very tired man, and the sea air"
He saw the face of the proprietor fall.
"Then, Mr. Reeder, I have come upon a useless errand. The truth is"—he slipped inside the door, closed it carefully behind him as though he had an important statement to make which he did not wish to be overheard—"my three guests are anxious to play bridge, and they deputed me to ask if you would care to join them?"
"With pleasure," said Mr. Reeder graciously. "I am an indifferent player, but if they will bear with me, I shall be down in a few minutes."
Mr. Daver withdrew, babbling his gratitude and apologies. The door was hardly closed upon him before Mr. Reeder crossed the room and locked it. Stooping, he opened one of the trunks, took out a long, flexible rope-ladder, and dropped it through the open window into the darkness below, fastening one end to the leg of the four-poster. Leaning out of the window, he said something in a low voice, and braced himself against the bed to support the weight of the man who came nimbly up the ladder into the room. This done, he replaced the rope-ladder in his trunk, locked it, and, walking to a corner of the room, pulled at one of the solid panels. It hinged open and revealed the deep cupboard which Mr. Daver had shown him.
"That is as good a place as any, Brill," he said. "I'm sorry I must leave you for two hours, but I have an idea that nobody will disturb you there. I am leaving the lamp burning, which will give you enough light."
"Very good, sir," said the man from Scotland Yard, and took up his post.
Five minutes later, Mr. Reeder locked the door of his room and went downstairs to the waiting party.
They were in the big hall, a very silent and preoccupied trio, until his arrival galvanised them into something that might pass for light conversation. There was indeed a fourth present when he came in: a sallow-faced woman in black, who melted out of the hall at his approach, and he guessed her to be the melancholy Mrs. Burton. The two men rose at his approach, and after the usual self-deprecatory exchange which preceded the cutting for partners, Mr. Reeder found himself sitting opposite the military-looking Colonel Hothling. On his left was the pale girl; on his right, the hard-faced Rev. Mr. Dean.
"What do we play for?" growled the Colonel, caressing his moustache, his steely blue eyes fixed on Mr. Reeder.
"A modest stake, I hope," begged that gentleman. "I am such an indifferent player."
"I suggest sixpence a hundred," said the clergyman. "It is as much as a poor parson can afford."
"Or a poor pensioner either," grumbled the Colonel, and sixpence a hundred was agreed.
They played two games in comparative silence. Reeder was sensitive of a strained atmosphere but did nothing to relieve it. His partner was surprisingly nervous for one who, as he remarked casually, had spent his life in military service.
"A wonderful life," said Mr. Reeder in his affable way. Once or twice he detected the girl's hand, as she held the cards, tremble never so slightly. Only the clergyman remained still and unmoved, and incidentally played without error.
It was after an atrocious revoke on the part of his partner, a revoke which gave his opponents the game and rubber, that Mr. Reeder pushed back his chair.
"What a strange world this is!" he remarked sententiously. "How like a game of cards!"
Those who were best acquainted with Mr. Reeder knew that he was most dangerous when he was most philosophical. The three people who sat about the table heard only a boring commonplace, in keeping with their conception of this somewhat dull-looking man.
"There are some people," mused Mr. Reeder, looking up at the lofty ceiling, "who are never happy unless they have all the aces. I, on the contrary, am most cheerful when I have in my hand all the knaves."
"You play a very good game, Mr. Reeder."
It was the girl who spoke, and her voice was husky, her tone hesitant, as though she was forcing herself to speak.
"I play one or two games rather well," said Mr. Reeder. "Partly, I think, because I have such an extraordinary memory—I never forget knaves."
There was a silence. This time the reference was too direct to be mistaken.
"There used to be in my younger days," Mr. Reeder went on, addressing nobody in particular, "a Knave of Hearts, who eventually became a Knave of Clubs, and drifted down into heaven knows what other welters of knavery! In plain words, he started his professional—um—life as a bigamist, continued his interesting and romantic career as a tout for gambling hells, and was concerned in a bank robbery in Denver. I have not seen him for years, but he is colloquially known to his associates as 'The Colonel': a military-looking gentleman with a pleasing appearance and a glib tongue."
He was not looking at the Colonel as he spoke, so he did not see the man's face go pale.
"I have not met him since he grew a moustache, but I could recognise him anywhere by the peculiar colour of his eyes and by the fact that he has a scar at the back of his head, a souvenir of some unfortunate fracas in which he became engaged. They tell me that he became an expert user of knives—I gather he sojourned a while in Latin America—a knave of clubs and a knave of hearts—hum!"
The Colonel sat rigid, not a muscle of his face moving.
"One supposes," Mr. Reeder continued, looking at the girl thoughtfully, "that he has by this time acquired a competence which enables him to stay at the very best hotels without any fear of police supervision."
Her dark eyes were fixed unwaveringly on his. The full lips were closed, the jaws set.
"How very interesting you are, Mr. Reeder!" she drawled at last. "Mr. Daver tells me you are associated with the police force?"
"Remotely, only remotely," said Mr. Reeder.
"Are you acquainted with any other knaves, Mr. Reeder?"
It was the cool voice of the clergyman, and Mr. Reeder beamed around at him.
"With the Knave of Diamonds," he said softly. "What a singularly appropriate name for one who spent five years in the profitable pursuit of illicit diamond-buying in South Africa, and five unprofitable years on the breakwater in Capetown, becoming, as one might say, a knave of spades from the continual use of that necessary and agricultural implement, and a knave of pickaxes, too, one supposes. He was flogged, if I remember rightly, for an outrageous assault upon a warder, and on his release from prison was implicated in a robbery in Johannesburg. I am relying on my memory, and I cannot recall at the moment whether he reached Pretoria Central—which is the colloquial name for the Transvaal prison—or whether he escaped. I seem to remember that he was concerned in a bank-note case which I once had in hand. Now, what was his name?"
He looked thoughtfully at the clergyman.
"Gregory Dones! That is it—Mr. Gregory Dones! It is beginning to come back to me now. He had an angel tattooed on his left forearm, a piece of decoration which one would have imagined sufficient to keep him to the narrow paths of virtue, and even to bring him eventually within the fold of the church."
The Rev. Mr. Dean got up from the table, put his hand in his pocket and took out some money.
"You lost the rubber, but I think you win on points," he said. "What do I owe you, Mr. Reeder?"
"What you can never pay me," said Mr. Reeder, shaking his head. "Believe me, Gregory, your score and mine will never be wholly settled to your satisfaction!"
With a shrug of his shoulders and a smile, the hard-faced clergyman strolled away. Mr. Reeder watched him out of the corner of his eye and saw him disappear toward the vestibule.
"Are all your knaves masculine?" asked Olga Crewe.
Reeder nodded gravely.
"I hope so, Miss Crewe."
Her challenging eyes met his.
"In other words, you don't know me?" she said bluntly. And then, with sudden vehemence: "I wish to God you did! I wish you did!"
Turning abruptly, she almost ran from the hall.
Mr. Reeder stood where she had left him, his eyes roving left and right. In the shadowy entrance of the hall, made all the more obscure by the heavy dark curtains which covered it, he saw a dim figure standing. Only for a second, and then it disappeared. The woman Burton, he thought.
It was time to go to his room. He had taken only two steps from the table when all the lights in the hall went out. In such moments as these Mr. Reeder was a very nimble man. He spun round and made for the nearest wall, and stood waiting, his back to the panelling. And then he heard the plaintive voice of Mr. Daver.
"Who on earth has put the lights out? Where are you, Mr. Reeder?"
"Here!" said Mr. Reeder, in a loud voice, and dropped instantly to the ground. Only in time; he heard a whistle, a thud, and something struck the panel above his head.
Mr. Reeder emitted a deep groan and crawled rapidly and noiselessly across the floor.
Again came Daver's voice.
"What on earth was that? Has anything happened, Mr. Reeder?"
The detective made no reply. Nearer and nearer he was crawling toward where Daver stood. And then, as unexpectedly as they had been extinguished, the lights went on. Daver was standing in front of the curtained doorway, and on the proprietor's face was a look of blank dismay, as Mr. Reeder rose at his feet.
Daver shrank back, his big white teeth set in a fearful grin, his round eyes wide open. He tried to speak and his mouth opened and closed, but no sound issued. From Reeder his eyes strayed to the panelled wall—but Reeder had already seen the knife buried in the wood.
"Let me think," he said gently. "Was that the Colonel or the highly intelligent representative of the Church?"
He went across to the wall and with an effort pulled out the knife. It was long and broad.
"A murderous weapon," said Mr. Reeder.
Daver found his voice.
"A murderous weapon," he echoed hollowly. "Was it—thrown at you, Mr. Reeder? ... How very terrible!"
Mr. Reeder was gazing at him sombrely.
"Your idea?" he asked, but by now Mr. Daver was incapable of replying.
Reeder left the shaken proprietor lying limply in one of the big arm-chairs and walked up the carpeted stairs to the corridor. And if against his black coat the automatic was not visible, it was nevertheless there.
He stopped before his door, unlocked it, and threw it wide open. The lamp by the side of the bed was still burning. Mr. Reeder switched on the wall light, peeped through the crack between the door and the wall before he ventured inside.
He shut the door, locked it, and walked over to the cupboard.
"You may come out, Brill," he said. "I presume nobody has been here?"
There was no answer, and he pulled open the cupboard door quickly.
It was empty!
"Well, well," said Mr. Reeder, and that meant that matters were everything but well.
There was no sign of a struggle; nothing in the world to suggest that Detective Brill had not walked out of his own free will and made his exit by the window, which was still open.
Mr. Reeder tiptoed back to the light-switch and turned it; stretched across the bed and extinguished the lamp; and then he sidled cautiously to the window and peeped round the stone framing. It was a very dark night, and he could distinguish no object below.
Events were moving only a little faster than he had anticipated: for this, however, he was responsible. He had forced the hands of the Flack confederation, and they were extremely able hands.
He was unlocking the trunk when he heard a faint sound of steel against steel. Somebody was fitting a key into the lock, and he waited, his automatic covering the door. Nothing further happened, and he went forward to investigate. His flash-lamp showed him what had happened. Somebody outside had inserted a key, turned it and left it in the lock, so that it was impossible for the door to be unlocked from the inside.
"I am rather glad," said Mr. Reeder, speaking his thoughts aloud, "that Miss—um—Margaret is on her way to London!"
He pursued his lips reflectively. Would he be glad if he also was at this moment en route for London? Mr.Reeder was not very certain about this.
On one point he was satisfied—the Flacks were going to give him a very small margin of time, and that margin must be used to the best advantage.
So far as he could tell, the trunks had not been opened. He pulled out the rope-ladder, groped down to the bottom, and presently withdrew his hand, holding a long white cardboard cylinder. Crawling under the window, he put up his hand and fixed an end of the cylinder in one of the china flower-pots that stood on the broad window-sill and which he had moved to allow the ingress of Brill. When this had been done to his satisfaction, he struck a match and, reaching up, set fire to a little touch-paper at the cylinder's free end. He brought his hand down just in time; something whizzed into the room and struck the panelling of the opposite wall with an angry smack. There was no sound of explosion. Whoever fired was using an air pistol. Again and again, in rapid succession, came the pellets, but by now the cylinder was burning and spluttering, and in another instant the grounds were brilliantly illuminated as the flare burst into a dazzling red flame that, he knew, could be seen for miles.
He heard a scampering of feet below, but dared not look out. By the time the first tender-load of detectives had come flying up the drive, the grounds were deserted.
With the exception of the servants, there were only two persons at Larmes Keep when the police began their search. Mr. Daver and the faded Mrs. Burton alone remained. "Colonel Hothling" and "the Rev. Mr. Dean" had disappeared as though they had been whisked from the face of the earth.
Big Bill Gordon interviewed the proprietor.
"This is Flack's headquarters, and you know it. You'll be well advised to spill everything and save your own skin."
"But I don't know the man; I've never seen him!" wailed Mr. Daver. "This is the most terrible thing that has happened to me in my life! Can you make me responsible for the character of my guests? You're a reasonable man? I see you are! If these people are friends of Flack, I have never heard of them in that connection. You may search my house from cellar to garret, and if you find anything that in the least incriminates me, take me off to prison. I ask that as a favour. Is that the statement of an honest man? I see you are convinced!"
Neither he nor Mrs. Burton nor any of the servants who were questioned in the early hours of the morning could afford the slightest clue to the identity of the visitors. Miss Crewe had been in the habit of coming every year and of staying four and sometimes five months. Hothling was a newcomer, as also was the parson. Inquiries made by telephone of the chief of the Siltbury police confirmed Mr. Daver's statement that he had been the proprietor of Larmes Keep for twenty-five years, and that his past was blameless. He himself produced his title deeds. A search of his papers, made at his invitation, and of the three tin boxes in the safe, produced nothing but support for his protestations of innocence.
Big Bill interviewed Mr. Reeder in the hall over a cup of coffee at three o'clock in the morning.
"There's no doubt at all that these people were members of the Flack crowd, probably engaged in advance against his escape, and how they got away the Lord knows! I have had six men on duty on the road since dark, and neither the woman nor the two men passed me."
"Did you see Brill?" asked Mr. Reeder, suddenly remembering the absent detective.
"Brill?" said the other in astonishment. "He's with you, isn't he? You told me to have him under your window"
In a few words Mr. Reeder explained the situation, and together they went up to No. 7. There was nothing in the cupboard to afford the slightest clue to Brill's whereabouts. The panels were sounded, but there was no evidence of secret doors—a romantic possibility which Mr. Reeder had not excluded, for this was the type of house where he might expect to find them.
Two men were sent to search the grounds for the missing detective, and Reeder and the police chief went back to finish their coffee.
"Your theory has turned out accurate so far, but there is nothing to connect Daver."
"Daver's in it," said Mr. Reeder. "He was not the knifet-hrower; his job was to locate me on behalf of the Colonel. But Daver brought Miss Belman down here in preparation for Flack's escape."
Big Bill nodded.
"She was to be hostage for your good behaviour." He scratched his head irritably. "That's like one of Crazy Jack's schemes. But why did he try to shoot you up? Why wasn't he satisfied with her being at Larmes Keep?"
Mr. Reeder had no immediate explanation. He was dealing with a madman, a person of whims. Consistency was not to be expected from Mr. Flack.
He passed his fingers through his scanty hair.
"It is all rather puzzling and inexplicable," he said. "I think I'll go to bed."
He was dreaming sleeplessly, under the watchful eye of a Scotland Yard detective, when Big Bill came bursting into the room.
"Get up, Reeder!" he said roughly.
Mr. Reeder sat up in bed, instantly awake.
"What is wrong?" he asked.
"Wrong! That gold-lorry left the Bank of England this morning at five o'clock on its way to Tilbury and hasn't been heard from since!"