item of a smuggled letter. He opened the envelope, keeping his eyes on the man’s face, took out the crumpled sheet and read the five or six lines of writing.
DEAR REEDER – Here is a bit of a riddle for you.
What other people have got, you can have. I haven’t got it, but it is coming to you. It’s red-hot when you get it, but you’re cold when it goes away.
Your loving friend,
IKE WALKER (doing a twelve stretch because you went on the witness stand and told a lot of lies.)
Mr. Reeder looked up and their eyes met. ‘Your friend is a little mad, one thinks?’ he asked politely.
‘He ain’t a friend of mine. A gent asked me to bring it,’ said the messenger.
‘On the contrary,’ said Mr. Reeder pleasantly, ‘he gave it to you in Dartmoor Prison yesterday. Your name is Mills; you have eight convictions for burglary, and will have your ninth before the year is out. You were released two days ago-I saw you reporting at Scotland Yard.’
The man was for the moment alarmed and in two minds to bolt. Mr. Reeder glanced along Brockley Road, saw a slim figure, that was standing at the corner, cross to a waiting tramcar, and, seeing his opportunity vanish, readjusted his timetable.
‘Come inside, Mr. Mills.’
‘I don’t want to come inside,’ said Mr. Mills, now thoroughly agitated. ‘He asked me to give this to you and I’ve give it. There’s nothing else-’
Mr. Reeder crooked his finger.
‘Come, birdie!’ he said, with great amiability. ‘And please don’t annoy me! I am quite capable of sending you back to your friend Mr. Walker. I am really a most unpleasant man if am upset.’
The messenger followed meekly, wiped his boots with great vigour on the mat and tiptoed up the carpeted stairs to the big study where Mr. Reeder did most of his thinking.
‘Sit down, Mills.’
With his own hands Mr. Reeder placed a chair for his uncomfortable visitor, and then, pulling another up to his big writing table, he spread the letter before him, adjusted his glasses, read, his lips moving, and then leaned back in his chair.
‘I give it up,’ he said. ‘Read me this riddle.’
‘I don’t know what’s in the letter-’ began the man.
‘Read me this riddle.’
As he handed the letter across the table, the man betrayed himself, for he rose and pushed back his chair with a startled, horrified expression that told Mr. Reeder quite a lot. He laid the letter down on his desk, took a large tumbler from the sideboard, inverted it and covered the scrawled paper. Then:
‘Wait,’ he said, ‘and don’t move till I come back.’
And there was an unaccustomed venom in his tone that made the visitor shudder.
Reeder passed out of the room to the bathroom, pulled up his sleeves with a quick jerk of his arm and, turning the faucet, let hot water run over his hands before he reached for a small bottle on a shelf, poured a liberal portion into the water and let his hands soak. This done, for three minutes he scrubbed his fingers with a nail-brush, dried them, and, removing his coat and waistcoat carefully, hung them over the edge of the bath. He went back to his uncomfortable guest in his shirtsleeves.
‘Our friend Walker is employed in the hospital?’ he stated rather than asked. ‘What have you had there-scarlet fever or something worse?’
He glanced down at the letter under the glass.
‘Scarlet fever, of course,’ he said, ‘and the letter has been systematically infected. Walker is almost clever.’
The wood of a fire was laid in the grate. He carried the letter and the blotting-paper to the hearth, lit the kindling and thrust paper and letter into the flames.
‘Almost clever,’ he said musingly. ‘Of course, he is one of the orderlies in the hospital. It was scarlet fever, I think you said?’
The gaping man nodded.
‘Of a virulent type, of course. How very fascinating!’
He thrust his hands in his pockets and looked down benevolently at the wretched emissary of the vengeful Walker.
‘You may go now, Mills,’ he said gently. ‘I rather think that you are infected. That ridiculous piece of oiled silk is quite inadequate-which means “quite useless”-as a protection against wandering germs. You will have scarlet fever in three days, and will probably be dead at the end of the week. I will send you a wreath.’
He opened the door, pointed to the stairway and the man slunk out.
Mr. Reeder watched him through the window, saw him cross the street and disappear round the corner into the Lewisham High Road, and then, going up to his bedroom, he put on a newer frockcoat and waistcoat, drew on his hands a pair of fabric gloves and went forth to his labours.
He did not expect to meet Mr. Mills again, never dreaming that the gentleman from Dartmoor was planning a ‘bust’ which would bring them again into contact. For Mr. Reeder the incident was closed.
That day news of another disappearance had come through from police headquarters, and Mr. Reeder was waiting at ten minutes before five at the rendezvous for the girl who, he instinctively knew, could give him a thread of the clue. He was determined that this time his inquiries should bear fruit; but it was not until they had reached the end of Brockley Road, and he was walking slowly up towards the girl’s boardinghouse, that she gave him a hint.
‘Why are you so persistent, Mr. Reeder?’ she asked, a little impatiently. ‘Do you wish to invest money? Because, if you do, I’m sorry I can’t help you. That is another agreement we made, that we would not introduce new shareholders.’
Mr. Reeder stopped, took off his hat and rubbed the back of his head (his housekeeper, watching him from an upper window, was perfectly certain he was proposing and had been rejected).
‘I am going to tell you something. Miss Belman, and I hope-er-that I shall not alarm you.’
And very briefly he told the story of the disappearances and the queer coincidence which marked every case-the receipt of a dividend on the first of every month. As he proceeded, the colour left the girl’s face.
‘You are serious, of course?’ she said, serious enough herself. ‘You wouldn’t tell me that unless-. The company is the Mexico City Investment Syndicate. They have offices in Portugal Street.’
‘How did you come to hear of them?’ asked Mr. Reeder.
‘I had a letter from their manager, Mr. de Silvo. He told me that a friend had mentioned my name, and gave full particulars of the investment.’
‘Have you that letter?’
She shook her head.
‘No; I was particularly asked to bring it with me when I went to see them. Although, in point of fact, I never did see them,’ smiled the girl. ‘I wrote to their lawyers-will you wait? I have their letter.’
Mr. Reeder waited at the gate whilst the girl went into the house and returned presently with a small portfolio, from which she took a quarto sheet. It was headed with the name of a legal firm, Bracher & Bracher, and was the usual formal type of letter one expects from a lawyer.
‘DEAR MADAM,’ it ran, ‘Re-Mexico City Investment Syndicate: We act as lawyers to this syndicate, and so far as we know it is a reputable concern. We feel that it is only due to us that we should say that we do not advise investments in any concern which offers such large profits, for usually there is a corresponding risk. We know, however, that this syndicate has paid 12 and a half per cent. and sometimes as much as 20 per cent., and we have had no complaints about them. We cannot, of course, as lawyers, guarantee the