I should never forgive myself if my incautious words resulted in poor Mr. Liski being taken to the hospital-alive!’
When he had gone, the chief looked at Inspector Pyne. Pyne smiled.
‘What is the name of that dangerous reptile, sir?’ asked the inspector. ‘“Mamba,” isn’t it? I must remember that.’
Chapter 7
The Strange Case
In the days of Mr. Reeder’s youth, which were also the days when hansom cabs plied for hire and no gentleman went abroad without a nosegay in the lapel of his coat, he had been sent, in company with another young officer from Scotland Yard, to arrest a youthful inventor of Nottingham who earned more than a competence by methods which were displeasing to Scotland Yard. Not machines nor ingenious contrivances for saving labour did this young man invent-but stories. And they were not stories in the accepted sense of the word, for they were misstatements designed to extract money from the pockets of simple-minded men and women. Mr. Eiter employed no fewer than twentyfive aliases and as many addresses in the broadcasting of his fiction, and he was on the way to amassing a considerable fortune when a square-toed Nemesis took him by the arm and led him to the seat of justice. An unsympathetic judge sent Mr. Eiter to seven years’ penal servitude, describing him as an unconscionable swindler and a menace to society-at which Willie Eiter smiled, for he had a skin beside which the elephant’s was gossamer silk.
Mr. Reeder remembered the case chiefly because the prosecuting attorney, commenting upon the various disguises and subterfuges which the prisoner had adopted, remarked upon a peculiarity which was revealed in every part which the convict had played-his inability to spell ‘able’ which he invariably wrote as though he were naming the victim of Cain’s envy.
‘There is this identity to be discovered in every criminal, however ingenious he may be,’ the advocate had said. ‘Whatever his disguise, no matter how cleverly he dissociates one role or pose from another, there is a distinguishable weakness common to every character he affects, and especially is this observable in criminals who live by fraud and trickery.’
This Mr. Reeder remembered throughout his useful life. Few people knew that he had ever been associated with Scotland Yard. He himself evaded any question that was put to him on the subject. It was his amiable trait to pretend that he was the veriest amateur and that his success in the detection of wrongdoing was to be traced to his own evil mind that saw wrong very often where no wrong was.
He saw wrong in so many apparently innocent acts of man that it was well for his reputation that those who were acquainted with and pitied him because of his seeming inadequacy and unattractive appearance did not know what dark thoughts filled his mind.
There was a very pretty girl who lived in Brockley Road at a boardinghouse. He did not like Miss Margaret Belman because she was pretty, but because she was sensible: two terms which are as a rule antagonistic. He liked her so well that he often travelled home on the cars with her, and they used to discuss the Prince of Wales, the Labour Government, the high cost of living, and other tender subjects with great animation. It was from Miss Belman that he learned about her fellow-boarder, Mrs. Carlin, and once he travelled back with her to Brockley-a frail, slim girl with experience in her face and the hint of tragedy in her fine eyes.
So it happened that he knew all about Mr. Harry Carlin long before Lord Sellington sent for him, for Mr. Reeder had the gift of evoking confidences by the suggestion rather than the expression of his sympathy.
She spoke of her husband without bitterness-but also without regret. She knew him-rather well, despite the shortness of their married life. She hinted once, and inadvertently, that there was a rich relation to whose wealth her husband would be heir if he were a normal man. Her son would, in due course, be the possessor of a great title-and penniless. She was at such pains to rectify her statement that Mr. Reeder, suspicious of peerages that come to Brockley, was assured of her sincerity, however great might be her error. Later he learned that the title was that borne by the Right Honourable the Earl of Sellington and Manford.
There came a slack time for the Public Prosecutor’s office, when it seemed that sin had gone out of the world; and Mr. Reeder sat for a week on end in his little room, twiddling his thumbs or reading the advertisement columns of The Times, or drawing grotesque men upon his blottingpad, varying these performances with the excursions he was in the habit of making to those parts of London which very few people choose for their recreation. He loved to poke about the slum areas which lie in the neighbourhood of the Great Surrey Docks; he was not averse from frequenting the north side of the river, again in the dock areas; but when his chief asked him whether he spent much time at Limehouse, Mr. Reeder replied with a pathetic smile.
‘No, sir,’ he said gently, ‘I read about such places-I find them infinitely more interesting in the pages of a-er-novel. Yes, there are Chinese there, and I suppose Chinese are romantic, but even they do not add romance to Limehouse, which is the most respectable and law-abiding corner of the East End.’
One morning the Public Prosecutor sent for his chief detective, and Mr. Reeder obeyed the summons with a light step and a pleasant sense of anticipation.
‘Go over to the Foreign Office and have a talk with Lord Sellington,’ said the Prosecutor. ‘He is rather worried about a nephew of his. Harry Carlin. Do you know the name?’
Mr. Reeder shook his head; for the moment he did not associate the pale girl who typed for her living.
‘He’s a pretty bad lot,’ explained the Prosecutor, ‘and unfortunately he’s Sellington’s heir. I rather imagine the old gentleman wants you to confirm his view.’
‘Dear me!’ said Mr. Reeder, and stole forth.
Lord Sellington, UnderSecretary of State for Foreign Affairs, was a bachelor and an immensely rich man. He had been rich in 1912 when, in a panic due to certain legislation which he thought would affect him adversely as a great landowner, he sold his estates and invested the larger bulk of his fortune (against all expert advice) in American industrial stocks. The war had trebled his possessions. Heavy investments in oil lands had made him many times a millionaire. He was a philanthropist, gave liberally to institutions devoted to the care of young children; he was the founder of the Eastleigh Children’s Home, and subscribed liberally to other similar institutions. A thin, rather sour-faced man, he glared up under his shaggy eyebrows as Mr. Reeder sidled apologetically into his room.
‘So you’re Reeder, eh?’ he grumbled, and was evidently not very much impressed by his visitor. ‘Sit down, sit down,’ he said testily, walked to the door as though he were not certain that Mr. Reeder had closed it, and came back and flopped into his chair on the other side of the table. ‘I have sent for you in preference to notifying the police,’ he said. ‘Sir James speaks of you, Mr. Reeder, as a gentleman of discretion.’
Mr. Reeder bowed slightly, and there followed a long and awkward pause, which the UnderSecretary ended in an abrupt, irritable way.
‘I have a nephew-Harry Carlin. Do you know him?’
‘I know of him,’ said Mr. Reeder truthfully; in his walk to the Foreign Office he had remembered the deserted wife.
‘Then you know nothing good of him!’ exploded his lordship. ‘The man is a blackguard, a waster, a disgrace to the name he bears! If he were not my brother’s son I would have him under lock and key tonight-the scoundrel! I have four bills in my possession-’
He stopped himself, pulled open a drawer savagely, took out a letter and slammed it on the table.
‘Read that,’ he snapped.
Mr. Reeder pulled his glasses a little farther up his nose (he always held them very tight when he was really using them) and perused the message. It was headed ‘The Eastleigh Home for Children,’ and was a brief request for five thousand pounds, which the writer said he would send for that evening,