The Greatest Thrillers of Edgar Wallace. Edgar Wallace

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СКАЧАТЬ I don’t like ReederI don’t like snakes, but I keep away from the Zoo.’

      So Lew Kohl went into new diggings on the top floor of an Italian’s house in Dean Street, and here he had leisure and inclination to brood upon his grievances and to plan afresh the destruction of his enemy. And new plans were needed, for the schemes which had seemed so watertight in the quietude of a Devonshire cell showed daylight through many crevices.

      Lew’s homicidal urge had undergone considerable modification. He had been experimented upon by a very clever psychologist-though he never regarded Mr. Reeder in this light, and, indeed, had the vaguest idea as to what the word meant. But there were other ways of hurting Reeder, and his mind fell constantly back to the dream of discovering this peccant detective’s hidden treasure.

      It was nearly a week later that Mr. Reeder invited himself into the Director’s private sanctum, and that great official listened spellbound while his subordinate offered his outrageous theory about Sir James Tithermite and his dead wife. When Mr. Reeder had finished, the Director pushed back his chair from the table.

      ‘My dear man,’ he said, a little irritably, ‘I can’t possibly give a warrant on the strength of your surmises-not even a search warrant. The story is so fantastic, so incredible, that it would be more at home in the pages of a sensational story than in a Public Prosecutor’s report.’

      ‘It was a wild night, and yet Lady Tithermite was not ill,’ suggested the detective gently. ‘That is a fact to remember, sir.’

      The Director shook his head.

      ‘I can’t do it-not on the evidence,’ he said. ‘I should raise a storm that’d swing me into Whitehall. Can’t you do anything-unofficially?’

      Mr. Reeder shook his head.

      ‘My presence in the neighbourhood has been remarked,’ he said primly. ‘I think it would be impossible to-er-cover up my traces. And yet I have located the place, and could tell you within a few inches-’

      Again the Director shook his head.

      ‘No, Reeder,’ he said quietly, ‘the whole thing is sheer deduction on your part. Oh, yes, I know you have a criminal mind-I think you have told me that before. And that is a good reason why I should not issue a warrant. You’re simply crediting this unfortunate man with your ingenuity. Nothing doing!’

      Mr. Reeder sighed and went back to his bureau, not entirely despondent, for there had intruded a new element into his investigations.

      Mr. Reeder had been to Maidstone several times during the week, and he had not gone alone; though seemingly unconscious of the fact that he had developed a shadow, for he had seen Lew Kohl on several occasions, and had spent an uncomfortable few minutes wondering whether his experiment had failed.

      On the second occasion an idea had developed in the detective’s mind, and if he were a laughing man he would have chuckled aloud when he slipped out of Maidstone station one evening and, in the act of hiring a cab, had seen Lew Kohl negotiating for another.

      Mr. Bride was engaged in the tedious but necessary practice of so cutting a pack of cards that the ace of diamonds remained at the bottom, when his former co-lodger burst in upon him, and there was a light of triumph in Lew’s cold eye which brought Mr. Bride’s heart to his boots.

      ‘I’ve got him!’ said Lew.

      Bride put aside the cards and stood up.

      ‘Got who?’ he asked coldly. ‘And if it’s killing, you needn’t answer, but get out!’

      ‘There’s no killing.’

      Lew sat down squarely at the table, his hands in his pockets, a real smile on his face.

      ‘I’ve been trailing Reeder for a week, and that fellow wants some trailing!’

      ‘Well?’ asked the other, when he paused dramatically.

      ‘I’ve found his stocking!’

      Bride scratched his chin, and was half convinced.

      ‘You never have?’

      Lew nodded.

      ‘He’s been going to Maidstone a lot lately, and driving to a little village about five miles out. There I always lost him. But the other night, when he came back to the station to catch the last train, he slipped into the waiting-room and I found a place where I could watch him. What do you think he did?’

      Mr. Bride hazarded no suggestion.

      ‘He opened his bag,’ said Lew impressively, ‘and took out a wad of notes as thick as that! He’d been drawing on his bank! I trailed him up to London. There’s a restaurant on the station and he went in to get a cup of coffee, with me keeping well out of his sight. As he came out of the restaurant he took out his handkerchief and wiped his mouth. He didn’t see the little book that dropped, but I did. I was scared sick that somebody else would see it, or that he’d wait long enough to find it himself. But he went out of the station and I got that book before you could say “knife.” Look!’

      It was a well-worn little notebook, covered with faded red morocco. Bride put out his hand to take it.

      ‘Wait a bit,’ said Lew. ‘Are you in this with me fifty-fifty, because I want some help?’

      Bride hesitated.

      ‘If it’s just plain thieving, I’m with you,’ he said.

      ‘Plain thieving-and sweet,’ said Lew exultantly, and pushed the book across the table.

      For the greater part of the night they sat together talking in low tones, discussing impartially the methodical bookkeeping of Mr. J.G. Reeder and his exceeding dishonesty.

      The Monday night was wet. A storm blew up from the southwest, and the air was filled with falling leaves as Lew and his companion footed the five miles which separated them from the village. Neither carried any impedimenta that was visible, yet under Lew’s waterproof coat was a kit of tools of singular ingenuity, and Mr. Bride’s coat pockets were weighted down with the sections of a powerful jemmy.

      They met nobody in their walk, and the church bell was striking eleven when Lew gripped the bars of the South Lodge gates, pulled himself up to the top and dropped lightly on the other side. He was followed by Mr. Bride, who, in spite of his bulk, was a singularly agile man. The ruined lodge showed in the darkness, and they passed through the creaking gates to the door and Lew flashed his lantern upon the keyhole before he began manipulation with the implements which he had taken from his kit.

      The door was opened in ten minutes and a few seconds later they stood in a low-roofed little room, the principal feature of which was a deep, grateless fireplace. Lew took off his mackintosh and stretched it over the window before he spread the light in his lamp, and, kneeling down, brushed the debris from the hearth, examining the joints of the big stone carefully.

      ‘This work’s been botched,’ he said. ‘Anybody could see that.’

      He put the claw of the jemmy into a crack and levered up the stone, and it moved slightly. Stopping only to dig a deeper crevice with a chisel and hammer he thrust the claw of the СКАЧАТЬ