The Greatest Thrillers of Edgar Wallace. Edgar Wallace

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      ‘This is a cock and bull story of somebody having seen my wife’s jewellery on sale in Paris,’ he said. ‘There is nothing in it. I can account for every one of my poor wife’s trinkets. I brought back the jewel case after that awful night. I don’t recognise the handwriting: who is the lying scoundrel who wrote this?’

      Mr. Reeder had never before been called a lying scoundrel, but he accepted the experience with admirable meekness.

      “I thought it untrue,’ he said, shaking his head. ‘I followed the details of the case very thoroughly. You left here in the afternoon-’

      ‘At night,’ said the other brusquely. He was not inclined to discuss the matter, but Mr. Reeder’s appealing look was irresistible. ‘It is only eighty minutes’ run to Dover. We got to the pier at eleven o’clock, about the same time as the boat train, and we went on board at once. I got my cabin key from the purser and put her ladyship and her baggage inside.’

      ‘Her ladyship was a good sailor?’

      ‘Yes, a very good sailor; she was remarkably well that night. I left her in the cabin dozing, and went for a stroll on the deck-’

      ‘Raining very heavily and a strong sea running,’ nodded Reeder, as though in agreement with something the other man had said.

      ‘Yes-I’m a pretty good sailor-anyway, that story about my poor wife’s jewels is utter nonsense. You can tell the Director that, with my compliments.’

      He opened the door for his visitor, and Mr. Reeder was some time replacing the letter and gathering his belongings.

      ‘You have a beautiful place here. Sir James-a lovely place. An extensive estate?’

      ‘Three thousand acres.’ This time he did not attempt to disguise his impatience. ‘Good afternoon.’

      Mr. Reeder went slowly down the drive, his remarkable memory at work.

      He missed the bus which he could easily have caught, and pursued an apparently aimless way along the winding road which marched with the boundaries of the baronet’s property. A walk of a quarter of a mile brought him to a lane shooting off at right angles from the main road, and marking, he guessed, the southern boundary. At the corner stood an old stone lodge, on the inside of a forbidding iron gate. The lodge was in a pitiable state of neglect and disrepair. Tiles had been dislodged from the roof, the windows were grimy or broken, and the little garden was overrun with docks and thistles. Beyond the gate was a narrow, weed-covered drive that trailed out of sight into a distant plantation.

      Hearing the clang of a letterbox closing, he turned to see a postman mounting his bicycle.

      ‘What place is this?’ asked Mr. Reeder, arresting the postman’s departure.

      ‘South Lodge-Sir James Tithermite’s property. It’s never used now. Hasn’t been used for years-I don’t know why; it’s a short cut if they happen to be coming this way.’

      Mr. Reeder walked with him towards the village, and he was a skilful pumper of wells, however dry; and the postman was not dry by any means.

      ‘Yes, poor lady! She was very frail-one of those sort of invalids that last out many a healthy man.’

      Mr. Reeder put a question at random and scored most unexpectedly.

      ‘Yes, her ladyship was a bad sailor. I know because every time she went abroad she used to get a bottle of that stuff people take for seasickness. I’ve delivered many a bottle till Raikes the chemist stocked it-”Pickers’ Travellers’ Friend,” that’s what it was called. Mr. Raikes was only saying to me the other day that he’d got half a dozen bottles on handy and he didn’t know what to do with them. Nobody in Climbury ever goes to sea.’

      Mr. Reeder went on to the village and idled his precious time in most unlikely places. At the chemist’s, at the blacksmith’s shop, at the modest building yard. He caught the last bus back to Maidstone, and by great good luck the last train to London.

      And, in his vague way, he answered the Director’s query the next day with:

      ‘Yes, I saw Sir James: a very interesting man.’

      This was on the Friday. All day Saturday he was busy. The Sabbath brought him a new interest.

      On this bright Sunday morning, Mr. Reeder, attired in a flowered dressing-gown, his feet encased in black velvet slippers, stood at the window of his house in Brockley Road and surveyed the deserted thoroughfare. The bell of a local church, which was accounted high, had rung for early Mass, and there was nothing living in sight except a black cat that lay asleep in a patch of sunlight on the top step of the house opposite. The hour was 7.30, and Mr. Reeder had been at his desk since six, working by artificial light, the month being March towards the close.

      From the half-moon of the window bay he regarded a section of the Lewisham High Road and as much of Tanners Hill as can be seen before it dips past the railway bridge into sheer Deptford.

      Returning to his table, he opened a carton of the cheapest cigarettes and, lighting one, puffed in an amateurish fashion. He smoked cigarettes rather like a woman who detests them but feels that it is the correct thing to do.

      ‘Dear me,’ said Mr. Reeder feebly.

      He was back at the window, and he had seen a man turn out of Lewisham High Road. He had crossed the road and was coming straight to Daffodil House-which frolicsome name appeared on the doorposts of Mr. Reeder’s residence. A tall, straight man, with a sombre brown face, he came to the front gate, passed through and beyond the watcher’s range of vision.

      ‘Dear me!’ said Mr. Reeder, as he heard the tinkle of a bell.

      A few minutes later his housekeeper tapped on the door.

      ‘Will you see Mr. Kohl, sir?’ she asked.

      Mr. J.G. Reeder nodded.

      Lew Kohl walked into the room to find a middle-aged man in a flamboyant dressing-gown sitting at his desk, a pair of pince-nez set crookedly on his nose.

      ‘Good morning. Kohl.’

      Lew Kohl looked at the man who had sent him to seven and a half years of hell, and the corner of his thin lips curled.

      ‘Morning, Mr. Reeder.’ His eyes flashed across the almost bare surface of the writing-desk on which Reeder’s hands were lightly clasped. ‘You didn’t expect to see me, I guess?’

      ‘Not so early,’ said Reeder in his hushed voice, ‘but I should have remembered that early rising is one of the good habits which are inculcated by penal servitude.’

      He said this in the manner of one bestowing praise for good conduct.

      ‘I suppose you’ve got a pretty good idea of why I have come, eh? I’m a bad forgetter, Reeder, and a man in Dartmoor has time to think.’

      The older man lifted his sandy eyebrows, the steel-rimmed glasses on his nose slipped further askew.

      ‘That phrase seems familiar,’ he said, СКАЧАТЬ