“It has got to end some day, and that would be a fine end, but I can’t quite see how it could be done.”
“What are you talking about?” asked the other curiously.
“I’m thinking about Peter – the respectable Mr Peter Kane. Not quite so respectable in that girl’s eyes as he used to be, but respectable enough to have busies to dinner, and that crook, Johnny Gray – Johnny will marry the girl, Jeff.”
Jeffrey Legge winced.
“She can marry the devil so far as I’m concerned,” he said.
“But she can’t marry without divorcing you. Do you realise that, my son? That’s the law. And she can’t divorce you without shopping you for bigamy. That’s the law too. And the question is, will she delay her action until Johnny’s made a bit, or will she start right in? If she gives me just the time I want, Jeff, you’ll have your girl and I’ll have Peter Kane. She’s your wife in the eyes of the law.”
There was a significance in his words that made the other man look at him quickly.
“What’s the great idea?” he asked.
“Suppose Peter was the Big Printer?” said Emanuel, speaking in a tone that was little above a whisper. “Suppose he was caught with the goods? It could be done. I don’t mean by planting the stuff in his house – nobody would accept that; but getting him right on the spot, so that his best friend at Scotland Yard couldn’t save him? How’s that for an idea?”
“It couldn’t be done,” said the other immediately.
“Oh, couldn’t it?” sneered Emanuel. “You can do any old thing you want, if you make up your mind to do it. Or if you’re game to do it.”
“That wouldn’t get me the girl.”
Emanuel turned his head slowly toward his heir.
“If they found the Big Printer, they’ll have to find the big printing,” he said deliberately. “That means we should all have to skip, and skip lively. We might have a few hours’ start, and in these days of aeroplanes, three hours is four hundred miles. Jeff, if we are caught, and they guess I’ve been in this printing all the time, I shall never see outside again. And you’ll go down for life. They can’t give you any worse than that – not if you took the girl away with you.”
“By force?” asked the other in surprise. The idea had not occurred to him.
The father nodded.
“If we have to skip, that’s the only thing for you to do, son. It’s no offence – remember that. She’s your wife.” He looked to left and right, to see if there was the faintest shadow of a chance that he would be overheard, and then: “Suppose we ask Peter and his girl and Johnny Gray to dinner? A nice little dinner-party, eh?”
“Where?” asked the other suspiciously.
“In Room 13,” said Emanuel Legge. “In Room 13, Jeff, boy! A nice little dinner. What do you think? And then two whiffs of sleep stuff–”
“You’re mad,” said the other angrily. “What’s the good of talking that way? Do you think he’s going to come to dinner and bring his girl? Oh, you’re nutty to think it!”
“Trust me,” said Emanuel Legge.
20
Walking down Regent Street one morning, Johnny Gray saw a familiar face – a man standing on the kerb selling penny trinkets. The face was oddly familiar, but he had gone on a dozen paces before he could recall where he had seen him before, and turned back. The man knew him; at any rate, his uncouth features twisted in a smile.
“Good morning, my lord,” he said. “What about a toy balloon for the baby?”
“Your name is Fenner, isn’t it?” said Johnny with a good-humoured gesture of refusal.
“That’s me, Captain. I didn’t think you’d recognised me. How’s business?”
“Quiet,” said Johnny conventionally. “What are you doing?”
The man shrugged his enormous shoulders.
“Selling these, and filling in the time with a little sluicing.”
Johnny shook his head reprovingly. ‘Sluicing’ in the argot indicates a curious method of livelihood. In public wash-places, where men strip off their coats to wash their hands for luncheon, there are fine pickings to be had by a man with quick fingers and a knowledge of human nature.
“Did you ever get your towelling[2]?”
“No,” said the other contemptuously and with a deep growl. “I knew they couldn’t, that’s why I coshed the screw. I was too near my time. If I ever see old man Legge, by God I’ll–”
Jimmy raised his finger. A policeman was strolling past, and was eyeing the two suspiciously. Apparently, if he regarded Fenner with disfavour, Johnny’s respectability redeemed the association.
“Poor old ‘flattie’!” said Fenner as the officer passed. “What a life!”
The man looked him up and down amusedly.
“You seem to have struck it, Gray,” he said, with no touch of envy. “What’s your graft?”
Johnny smiled faintly.
“It is one you’ll find difficult to understand, Fenner. I am being honest!”
“That’s certainly a new one on me,” said the other frankly. “Have you seen old Emanuel?” His voice was now quite calm. “Great fellow, Emanuel! And young Emanuel – Jeffrey – what a lad!”
There was a glint in his eyes as he scrutinised Johnny that told that young man he knew much more of recent happenings than he was prepared to state. And his next words supported that view.
“You keep away from the Legge lot, Captain,” he said earnestly. “They are no good to anybody, and least of all to a man who’s had an education like yours. I owe Legge one, and I’ll get him, but I’m not thinking about that so much as young Jeff. You’re the fellow he would go after, because you dress like a swell and you look like a swell – the very man to put ‘slush’ about without anybody tumbling.”
“The Big Printer, eh?” said Johnny, with that quizzical smile of his.
“The Big Printer,” repeated the other gravely. “And he is a big printer. You hear all sorts of lies down on the moor, but that’s true. Jeff’s got the biggest graft that’s ever been worked in this country. They’ll get him sooner or later, because there never was a crook game yet that hadn’t got a squeak about it somewhere. And the squeak has started, judging by what I can read in the papers. Who shot him?” he asked bluntly.
Johnny shook his head.
“That is what is known as a mystery,” he said, and, seeing the man’s eyes keenly searching his face, he laughed aloud. “It wasn’t me, Fenner. I’ll assure you on that point. And as to me being a friend of Jeff” – he made a wry little face – “that isn’t like me either. How are you off for money?”
“Rotten,” said the other laconically, and Johnny slipped a couple of Treasury notes on to the tray.
He was turning away when the man called him back.
“Keep out of boob,” he said significantly. “And don’t think I’m handing round good advice. I’m not thinking of Dartmoor. There are other boobs that are worse – I can tell you that, because I’ve seen most of them.”
He gathered up the money on the tray without so much as a word of thanks, and put it in his waistcoat pocket.
“Keytown Jail is the worst prison in England,” he said, not looking at his benefactor but staring straight ahead. “The very worst – don’t forget that, Gray. Keytown Prison is the worst boob in England; and if you ever find yourself there, do something to get out. So long!”
The mentality of the criminal had been a subject for vicarious study during Johnny’s stay in Dartmoor, and he mused on the man’s words as he continued his walk along Regent Street. Here was a man offering advice which he himself had never taken. The moral detachments of old lags was no new phenomenon to Johnny. He had listened for hours to the wise admonitions and warnings of convicts, who would hardly be free from the fusty cell of the prison before they would be pla
nning new villainies, new qualifications for their return.
He had never heard of Keytown Jail before, but it was not remarkable that Fenner should have some special grudge against a particular jail. The criminal classes have their likes and their dislikes; they loathed Wandsworth and preferred Pentonville, or vice versa, for no especial reason. There were those who swore by Parkhurst; others regarded Dartmoor as home, and bitterly resented any suggestion that they should be transferred to the island prison.
So musing, he bumped into Craig. The collision was not accidental, for Craig had put himself in the way of the abstracted young man.
“What are you planning, Johnny – a jewel robbery, or just ringing the changes on the Derby favourite?”
Johnny chuckled.
“Neither. I was at that moment wondering what there was particularly bad about Keytown Jail. Where is Keytown Jail, by the way?”
“Keytown? I don’t remember – oh, yes, I do. Just outside Oxford. Why?”
“Somebody was telling me it was the worst prison in England.”
“They are all the worst, Johnny,” said Craig. “And if you’re thinking out a summer holiday, I can’t recommend either. Keytown was pretty bad,” he admitted. “It is a little country jail, but it is no longer in the Prison Commissioners’ hands. They sold it after the war, when they closed down so many of these little prisons. The policy now is to enlarge the bigger places and cut out these expensive little boobs that cost money to staff. They closed Hereford Jail in the same way, and half a dozen others, I should think. So you needn’t bother about Keytown,” he smiled bleakly. “One of your criminal acquaintances has been warning you, I guess?”
“You’ve guessed right,” said Johnny, and advanced no information, knowing that, if Craig continued his walk, he would sooner or later see the toy pedlar.
“Mr Jeffrey Legge is making a good recovery,” said the detective, changing the subject; “and there are great rejoicings at Scotland Yard. If there is one man we want to keep alive until he is hanged in a scientific and lawful manner, it is Mr Jeffrey Legge. I know what you’re going to say – we’ve got nothing on him. That is true. Jeffrey has been too clever for us. He has got his father skinned to death in that respect. He makes no mistakes – a rare quality in a forger; he carries no ‘slush’, keeps none in his lodgings. I can tell you that, because we’ve pulled him in twice on suspicion, and searched him from occiput to tendo achilles. Forgive the anatomical terms, but anatomy is my hobby. Hallo!”
He was looking across the street at a figure which was not unfamiliar to Johnny. Mr Reeder wore a shabby frock – coat and a somewhat untidy silk hat on the back of his head. Beneath his arm he carried a partially furled umbrella. His hands, covered in grey cotton gloves (at a distance Johnny thought they were suede) were clasped behind him. His spectacles were, as usual, so far down his nose that they seemed in danger of slipping over.
“Do you know that gentleman?”
“Man named Reeder, isn’t it? He’s a ‘busy’.”
Craig’s lips twitched.
“He’s certainly a ‘busy’ of sorts,” he said dryly, “but not of our sort.”
“He is a bank-man, isn’t he?” asked Johnny, watching Mr Reeder’s slow and awkward progress.
“He is in the employ of the bank,” said the detective, “and he’s not such a fool as he looks. I happen to know. He was down seeing young Legge yesterday. I was curious enough to put a man on to trail him. And he knows more about young Legge than I gave him credit for.”
When Johnny parted from the detective, Mr Reeder had passed out of sight. Crossing Piccadilly Circus, however, he saw the elderly man waiting in a bus queue, and interestedly stood and watched him until the bus arrived and Mr Reeder boarded the machine and disappeared into its interior. As the bus drew away, Johnny raised his eyes to the destination board and saw that it was Victoria.
“I wonder,” said Johnny, speaking his thought aloud. For Victoria is the railway station for Horsham.
21
Mr Reeder descended from the bus at Victoria Station, bought a third-class return ticket to Horsham, and, going on to the bookstall, purchased a copy of the Economist and the Poultry World, and, thus fortified for the journey, passed through the barrier, and, finding an empty carriage, ensconced himself in one corner. From thence onward, until the train drew into Horsham station, he was apparently alternately absorbed in the eccentricities of Wyandottes and the fluctuations of the mark.
There were many cabs at the station, willing and anxious to convey him to his destination for a trifling sum; but apparently Mr Reeder was deaf to all the urgent offers which were made to him, for he looked through the taxi-men, or over their heads, as though there were no such things as grimy mechanicians or drivers of emaciated horses; and, using his umbrella as a walking-stick, he set out to walk the distance intervening between the station and Peter Kane’s residence.
Peter was in his snuggery, smoking a meditative cigar, when Barney came in with the news.
“There’s an old guy wants to see you, Peter. I don’t know who he is, but he says his name’s Reeder.”
Peter’s brows met.
“Reeder?” he said sharply. “What sort of man is he?”
“An old fellow,” said Barney. “Too shaky for a ‘busy’. He looks as if he’s trying to raise subscriptions for the old chapel organ.”
It was not an unfair description, as Peter knew.
“Bring him here, Barney, and keep your mouth shut. And bear in mind that this is the busiest ‘busy’ you are ever likely to meet.”
“A copper?” said Barney incredulously.
Peter nodded.
“Where’s Marney?” he asked quickly.
“Up in her boojar,” said Barney with relish. “She’s writing letters. She wrote one to Johnny. It started ‘Dear old boy’.”
“How do you know?” asked Peter sharply.
“Because I read it,” said Barney without shame. “I’m a pretty good reader: I can read things upside down, owing to me having been in the printing business when I was a kid.”
“Bring in Mr Reeder,” interrupted Peter ominously. “And remember, Barney, that if ever I catch you reading anything of mine upside down, you will be upside down! And don’t argue.”
Barney left the room, uttering a mechanical defiance which such threats invariably provoked.
Mr Reeder came in, his shabby hat in one hand, his umbrella in the other, and a look of profound unhappiness on his face.
“Good morning, Mr Kane,” he said, laying down his impedimenta. “What a beautiful morning it is for a walk! It is a sin and a shame to be indoors on a day like this. Give me a garden, with roses, if I way express a preference, and just a faint whiff of heliotrope…”
“You’d like to see me in the garden, eh?” said Peter. “Perhaps you’re wise.”
Barney, his inquisitive ears glued to the keyhole, cursed softly.
“I was in a garden yesterday,” murmured Mr Reeder, as they walked across the lawn toward the sunken terraces. “Such a lovely garden! One bed was filled with blue flowers. There is something about a blue flower that brings a lump into my throat. Rhodo-dendrons infuriate me: I have never understood why. There is that about a clump of rhododendrons which rouses all that is evil in my nature. Daffodils, on the other hand, and especially daffodils intermingling with hyacinths, have a most soothing effect upon me. The garden to which I refer had the added attraction of being on the edge of the sea – a veritable Garden of Eden, Mr Kane, although” – he wagged his head from side to side disparagingly – “there were more snakes than is customary. There was a snake in a chair, and a snake who was posting letters in the village, and another official snake who was hiding behind a clump of bushes and had followed me all the way from London – sent, I think, by that misguided gentleman, Mr Craig.”
>
“Where were you, Mr Reeder?”
“At a seaside villa, a beautiful spot. A truly earthly paradise,” sighed Mr Reeder. “The very place an intelligent man would go to if he were convalescent, and the gentleman on the chair was certainly convalescent.”
“You saw Jeff Legge, eh? Sit down.”
He pointed to the marble bench where Johnny had sat and brooded unhappily on a certain wedding day.
“I think not,” said Mr Reeder, shaking his head as he stared at the marble seat. “I suffer from rheumatism, with occasional twinges of sciatica. I think I would rather walk with you, Mr Kane.” He glanced at the hedge. “I do not like people who listen. Sometimes one listens and hears too much. I heard the other day of a very charming man who happened to be standing behind a bush, and he heard the direful character of his son-in-law revealed. It was not good for him to hear so much.”
Peter knew that the man was speaking about him, but gave no sign.
“I owe you something, Mr Reeder, for the splendid way you treated my daughter–”
Mr Reeder stopped him with a gesture.
“A very charming girl. A very lovely girl,” he said with mild enthusiasm. “And so interested in chickens! One so seldom meets with women who take a purely sincere interest in chickens.”
They had reached a place where it was impossible they could be overheard. Peter, who realised that the visitor would not have called unless he had something important to say, waited for the next move. Mr Reeder returned to the subject of eavesdropping.
“My friend – if I may call him my friend – who learnt by accident that his son-in-law was an infernal rascal – if you will excuse that violent expression – might have got himself into serious trouble, very serious trouble.” He shook his head solemnly. “For you see,” he went on, “my friend – I do hope he will allow me to call him my friend? – has something of a criminal past, and all his success has been achieved by clever strategy. Now, was it clever strategy” – he did not look at Peter, and his faded eyes surveyed the landscape gloomily – “was it clever of my friend to convey to Mr Emanuel Legge the astounding information that at a certain hour, in a certain room – I think its number was thirteen, but I am not sure – Mr John Gray was meeting Mr J G Reeder to convey information which would result in Emanuel Legge’s son going to prison for a long period of penal servitude? Was it wise to forge the handwriting of one of Emanuel Legge’s disreputable associates, and induce the aforesaid Emanuel to mount the fire-escape at the Highlow Club and shoot, as he thought, Mr John Gray, who wasn’t Mr Gray at all, but his own son? I ask you, was it wise?”
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