Room 13

by Edgar Wallace

  He closed the door carefully behind him, and, with his great umbrella hooked on to his arm, passed along the corridor into the purview of the astounded Fernando, astounding the jailers on guard at the end.

  “Good evening,” murmured Mr Reeder as he passed.

  Fernando was too overcome to make a courteous reply.

  Stevens saw him as he came into the main corridor, and gasped.

  “When did you come in, Mr Reeder?”

  “Nobody has ever seen you come in, but lots of people see you go out,” said Reeder good-humouredly. “On the other hand, there are people who are seen coming into this club whom nobody sees go out. Mr Gray didn’t pass this way, or Mr Kane?”

  “No, sir,” said Stevens in surprise. “Have they gone?”

  Reeder sighed heavily.

  “Yes, they’ve gone,” he said. “I hope not for long, but they’ve certainly gone. Good night, Stevens. By the way, your name isn’t Stevens, is it? I seem to remember you” – he screwed up his eyes as though he had difficulty in recalling the memory – “I seem to remember your name wasn’t Stevens, let us say, eight years ago.”

  Stevens flushed.

  “It is the name I’m known as now, sir.”

  “A very good name, too, an excellent name,” murmured Mr Reeder as he stepped into the elevator. “And after all, we must try to live down the past. And I’d be the last to remind you of your-er-misfortune.”

  When he reached the street, two men who had been standing on the opposite sidewalk crossed to him.

  “They’ve gone,” said Mr Reeder. “They were in that car, as I feared. All stations must be warned, and particularly the town stations just outside of London, to hold up the car. You have its number. You had better watch this place till the morning,” he said to one of them.

  “Very good, sir.”

  “I want you especially to follow Emanuel, and keep him under observation until tomorrow morning.”

  The detective left on duty waited with that philosophical patience which is the greater part of the average detective’s equipment, until three o’clock in the morning; and at that hour, when daylight was coming into the sky, Emanuel had not put in an appearance. Stevens went off duty half an hour after Mr Reeder’s departure. At two o’clock the head waiter and three others left, Fernando locking the door. Then, a few minutes before three, the squat figure of Pietro, muffled up in a heavy overcoat, and he too locked the door behind him, disappearing in the direction of Shaftesbury Avenue. At half past three the detective left a policeman to watch the house, and got on the phone to Mr Reeder, who was staying in town.

  “Dear me!” said Mr Reeder, an even more incongruous sight in pyjamas which were a little too small for him, though happily there were no spectators of his agitation. “Not gone, you say? I will come round.”

  It was daylight when he arrived. The gate in the yard was opened with a skeleton key (the climb so graphically described by Mr Reeder was entirely fictitious, and the cut in his trousers was due to catching a jagged nail in one of the packing-cases with which the yard was littered), and he mounted the iron stairway to the third floor.

  The window through which he had made his ingress on the previous evening was closed and fastened, but, with the skill of a professional burglar, Mr Reeder forced back the catch and, opening the window, stepped in.

  There was enough daylight to see his whereabouts. Unerringly he made for Emanuel’s office. The door had been forced, and there was no need to use the skeleton key.

  There was no sign of Emanuel, and Reeder came out to hear the report of the detective, who had made a rapid search of the club.

  “All the doors are open except No. 13, sir,” he said. “That’s bolted on the inside. I’ve got the lock open.”

  “Try No. 12,” said Reeder. “There are two ways in – one by way of a door, which you’ll find behind a curtain in the corner of the room, and the other way through the buffet, which communicates with the buffet in No. 13. Break nothing if you can help it, because I don’t want my visit here advertised.”

  He followed the detective into No. 12, and found that there was no necessity to use the buffet entrance, for the communicating door was unlocked. He stepped into No. 13; it was in complete darkness.

  “Humph!” said Mr Reeder, and sniffed. “One of you go along this wall and find the switch. Be careful you don’t step on something.”

  “What is there?”

  “I think you’ll find…however, turn on the light.”

  The detective felt his way along the wall, and presently his finger touched a switch and he turned it down. And then they saw all that Mr Reeder suspected. Sprawled across the table was a still figure – a horrible sight, for the man who had killed Emanuel Legge had used the poker which, twisted and bloodstained, lay amidst the wreckage of rare glass and once snowy napery.

  28

  It was unnecessary to call a doctor to satisfy the police. Emanuel Legge had passed beyond the sphere of his evil activities.

  “The poker came from where?” mused Mr Reeder, examining the weapon thoughtfully. He glanced down at the little fireplace. The poker and tongs and shovel were intact, and this was of a heavier type than was used in the sitting-rooms.

  Deftly he searched the dead man’s pockets, and in the waistcoat he found a little card inscribed with a telephone number, ‘Horsham 98753’. Peter’s. That had no special significance at the moment, and Reeder put it with the other documents that he had extracted from the dead man’s pockets. Later came an inspector to take charge of the case.

  “There was some sort of struggle, I imagine,” said Mr Reeder. “The right wrist, I think you’ll find, is broken. Legge’s revolver was underneath the table. He probably pulled it, and it was struck from his hand. I don’t think you’ll want me any more, inspector.”

  He was examining the main corridor when the telephone switchboard at the back of Stevens’ little desk gave him an idea. He put through a call to Horsham, and, in spite of the earliness of the hour, was almost immediately answered.

  “Who is that?” he asked.

  “I’m Mr Kane’s servant,” said a husky voice.

  “Oh, is it Barney? Is your master at home yet?”

  “No, sir, Who is it speaking?”

  “It is Mr Reeder… Will you tell Miss Kane to come to the telephone?”

  “She’s not here either. I’ve been trying to get on to Johnny Gray all night, but his servant says he’s out.”

  “Where is Miss Kane?” asked Reeder quickly.

  “I don’t know, sir. Somebody came for her in the night in a car, and she went away, leaving the door open. It was the wind slamming it that woke me up.”

  It was so long before Mr Reeder answered that Barney thought he had gone away.

  “Did nobody call for her during the evening? Did she have any telephone messages?”

  “One, sir, about ten o’clock. I think it was her father, from the way she was speaking.”

  Again a long interval of silence, and then:

  “I will come straight down to Horsham,” said Mr Reeder, and from the pleasant and conversational quality of his voice, Barney took comfort; though, if he had known the man better, he would have realised that Mr Reeder was most ordinary when he was most perturbed.

  Mr Reeder pushed the telephone away from him and stood up.

  So they had got Marney. There was no other explanation. The dinner-party had been arranged to dispose of the men who could protect her. Where had they been taken?

  He went back to the old man’s office, which was undergoing a search at the hands of a police officer.

  “I particularly want to see immediately any document referring to Mr Peter Kane,” he said, “any road maps which you may find here, and especially letters addressed to Emanuel Legge by his son. You k
now, of course, that this office was broken into? There should be something in the shape of clues.”

  The officer shook his head.

  “I’m afraid, Mr Reeder, we won’t find much here,” he said. “So far, I’ve only come across old bills and business letters which you might find in any office.”

  The detective looked round.

  “There is no safe?” he asked.

  All the timidity and deference in his manner had gone. He was patently a man of affairs.

  “Yes, sir, the safe’s behind that panelling. I’ll get it open this morning. But I shouldn’t imagine that Legge would leave anything compromising on the premises. Besides, his son has had charge of the Highlow for years. Previous to that, they had a manager who is now doing time. Before him, if I remember right, that fellow Fenner, who has been in boob for burglary–”

  “Fenner?” said the other sharply. “I didn’t know he ever managed this club.”

  “He used to, but he had a quarrel with the old man. I’ve got an idea they were in jug together.”

  Fenner’s was not the type of mentality one would expect to find among the officers of a club, even a club of the standing of the Highlow; but there was this about the Highlow, that it required less intelligence than sympathy with a certain type of client.

  Reeder was assisting the officer by taking out the contents of the pigeon-holes, when his hand touched a knob.

  “Hallo, what is this?” he said, and turned it.

  The whole desk shifted slightly, and, pulling, he revealed the door to the spiral staircase.

  “This is very interesting,” he said. He ascended as far as the top landing. There was evidently a door here, but every effort he made to force it ended in failure. He came down again, continuing to the basement, and this time he was joined by the inspector in charge of the case.

  “Rather hot,” said Mr Reeder as he opened the door. “I should say there is a fire burning here.”

  It took him some time to discover the light connections, and when he did, he whistled. For, lying by the side of the red-hot stove, he saw a piece of shining metal and recognised it. It was an engraver’s plate, and one glance told him that it was the finished plate from which £5 notes could be printed.

  The basement was empty, and for a second the mystery of the copper plate baffled him.

  “We may not have found the Big Printer, but we’ve certainly found the Big Engraver,” he said. “This plate was engraved somewhere upstairs.” He pointed to the shaft. “What is it doing down here? Of course!” He slapped his thigh exultantly. “I never dreamt he was right – but he always is right!”

  “Who?” asked the officer.

  “An old friend of mine, whose theory was that the plates from which the slush was printed were engraved within easy reach of a furnace, into which, in case of a police visitation, they could be pushed and destroyed. And, of course, the engraving plant is somewhere upstairs. But why they should throw down a perfectly new piece of work, and at a time when the attendant was absent, is beyond me. Unless… Get me an axe; I want to see the room on the roof.”

  The space was too limited for the full swing of an axe, and it was nearly an hour before at last the door leading to the engraver’s room was smashed in. The room was flooded with sunshine, for the skylight had not been covered. Reeder’s sharp eyes took in the table with a glance, and then he looked beyond, and took a step backward. Lying by the wall, dishevelled, mud-stained, his white dress-shirt crumpled to a pulp, was Peter Kane, and he was asleep!

  They dragged him to a chair, bathed his face with cold water, but even then he took a long time to recover.

  “He has been drugged: that’s obvious,” said Mr Reeder, and scrutinised the hands of the unconscious man for a sign of blood. But though they were covered with rust and grime, Reeder found not so much as one spot of blood; and the first words that Peter uttered, on recovering consciousness, confirmed the view that he was ignorant of the murder.

  “Where is Emanuel?” he asked drowsily. “Have you got him?”

  “No; but somebody has got him,” said Reeder gently, and the shock of the news brought Peter Kane wide awake.

  “Murdered!” he said unbelievingly. “Are you sure? Of course, I’m mad to ask you that.” He passed his hand wearily across his forehead. “No, I know nothing about it. I suppose you suspect me, and I don’t mind telling you that I was willing to murder him if I could have found him.”

  Briefly he related what had happened at the dinner.

  “I knew that I was doped, but dope works slowly on me, and the only chance I had was to sham dead. Emanuel gave me a thump in the jaw, and that was my excuse for going out. They got me downstairs into the yard and put me into the car first. I slipped out the other side as soon as the nigger went up to get Johnny. There were a lot of old cement sacks lying about, and I threw a couple on to the floor, hoping that in the darkness they would mistake the bundle for me. Then I lay down amongst the packing-cases and waited. I guessed they’d brought down Johnny, but I was powerless to help him. When the car had gone, and Pietro had gone up again, I followed. I suppose the dope was getting busy, and if I’d had any sense, I should have got over the gate. My first thought was that they might have taken my gun away and left it in the room. I tried to open the door, but it was locked.”

  “Are you sure of that, Peter?”

  “Absolutely sure.”

  “How long after was this?”

  “About half an hour. It took me all that time to get up the stairs, because I had to fight the dope all the way. I heard somebody moving about, and slipped into one of the other rooms, and then I heard the window pulled down and locked. I didn’t want to go to sleep, for fear they discovered me; but I must have dozed, for when I woke up it was dark and cold, and I heard no sound at all. I tried the door of thirteen again, but could make no impression on it. So I went to Emanuel’s office. I know the place very well: I used to go in there in the old days, before Emanuel went to jail, and I knew all about the spiral staircase to the roof. All along I suspected that the hut they’d put on the roof was the place where the slush was printed. But here I was mistaken, for I had no sooner got into the room than I saw that it was where the engraver worked. There was a plate on the edge of a shaft. I suppose I was still dizzy, because I fumbled at it. It slipped through my hand, and I heard a clang come up from somewhere below.”

  “How did you get into this room?”

  “The door was open,” was the surprising reply. “I have an idea that it is one of those doors that can only be opened and closed from the inside. The real door of the room is in the room in Emanuel’s office. It is the only way in, and the only way out, both from the basement and the room on the roof. I don’t know what happened after that. I must have laid down, for by now the dope was working powerfully. I ought to let Marney know I’m all right. She’ll be worried…”

  He saw something in the detective’s face, something that made his heart sink.

  “Marney! Is anything wrong with Marney?” he asked quickly.

  “I don’t know. She went out last night – or rather, early this morning – and has not been seen since.”

  Peter listened, stricken dumb by the news. It seemed to Mr Reeder that he aged ten years in as few minutes.

  “Now, Kane, you’ve got to tell me all you know about Legge,” said Reeder kindly. “I haven’t any doubt that Jeffrey’s taken her to the big printing place. Where is it?”

  Peter shook his head.

  “I haven’t the least idea,” he said. “The earlier slush was printed in this building; in fact, it was printed in Room 13. I’ve known that for a long time. But as the business grew, young Legge had to find another works. Where he has found it is a mystery to me, and to most other people.”

  “But you must have heard rumours?” persisted Reeder.


  Again Peter shook his head.

  “Remember that I mix very little with people of my own profession, or my late profession,” he said. “Johnny and old Barney are about the only crooks I know, outside of the Legge family. And Stevens, of course he was in jail ten years ago. I’ve lost touch with all the others, and my news has come through Barney, though most of Barney’s gossip is unreliable.”

  They reached Barney by telephone, but he was unable to give any information that was of the slightest use. All that he knew was that the printing works were supposed to be somewhere in the west.

  “Johnny knows more about it than I do, or than anybody. All the boys agree as to that,” said Barney. “They told him a lot in ‘boob’.”

  Leaving Peter to return home, Mr Reeder made a call at Johnny’s flat. Parker was up. He had been notified earlier in the morning of his master’s disappearance, but he had no explanation to offer.

  He was preparing to give a list of the clothes that Johnny had been wearing, but Reeder cut him short impatiently.

  “Try to think of Mr Gray as a human being, and not as a tailor’s dummy,” he said wrathfully. “You realise that he is in very grave danger?”

  “I am not at all worried, sir,” said the precise Parker. “Mr Gray was wearing his new sock suspenders–”

  For once Mr Reeder forgot himself.

  “You’re a damned fool, Parker,” he said.

  “I hope not, sir,” said Parker, as he bowed him out.

  29

  It was five minutes past two in the morning when Marney – sitting in the drawing-room at the front of the house, heard the sound of an auto stop before the house. Going into the hall, she opened the door, and, standing on the step, peered into the darkness.

  “Is that you, father?” she asked.

  There was no reply, and she walked quickly up the garden path to the gate. The car was a closed coupé, and as she looked over the gate she saw a hand come out and beckon her, and heard a voice whisper:

  “Don’t make a noise. Come in here; I want to talk to you. I don’t want Barney to see me.”