Police Headquarters were not slow to employ the press to advertise their wants. But the escape from Broadmoor of a homicidal maniac is something which is not to be rushed immediately into print. Not once but many times had the help of the public been enlisted in a vain endeavour to bring Old John Flack to justice. His description had been circulated, his haunts had been watched, without there being any successful issue to the search.
There was a conference at Scotland Yard, which Mr. Reeder attended; and they were five very serious men who gathered round the superintendent’s desk, and mainly the talk was of bullion and of “noses,” by which inelegant term is meant the inevitable police informer.
Crazy John “fell” eventually through the treachery of an outside helper. Ravini, the most valuable of gang leaders, had been employed to “cover” a robbery at the Leadenhall Bank. Bullion was John Flack’s specialty; it was not without its interest for Mr. Ravini.
The theft had been successful. One Sunday morning two cars drove out of the courtyard of the Leadenhall Bank. By the side of the driver of each car sat a man in the uniform of the Metropolitan Police; inside each car was another officer. A City policeman saw the cars depart, but accepted the presence of the uniformed men and did not challenge the drivers. It was not an unusual event; transfers of gold or stocks on Sunday morning had been witnessed before, but usually the City authorities had been notified. He called Old Jewry station on the telephone to report the occurrence, but by this time John Flack was well away.
It was Ravini, cheated, as he thought, of his fair share of the plunder, who betrayed the old man; the gold was never recovered.
England had been ransacked to find John Flack’s headquarters, but without success. There was not a hotel or boardinghouse keeper who had not received his portrait, or one who recognized him in any guise.
The exhaustive inquiries which followed his arrest did little to increase the knowledge of the police. Flack’s lodgings were found—a furnished room in Bloomsbury which he had occupied at rare intervals for years. But here were discovered no documents which gave the slightest clue to the real headquarters of the gang. Probably they had none. They were chosen and discarded as opportunity arose or emergency dictated, though it was clear that the old man had something in the nature of a general staff to assist him.
“Anyway,” said Big Bill Gordon, chief of the Big Five, “he’ll not start anything in the way of a bullion steal. His mind will be fully occupied with ways and means of getting out of the country.”
It was Mr. Reeder’s head that shook.
“The nature of criminals may change, but their vanities persist,” he said, in his precise, grandiloquent way. “Mr. Flack prides himself not upon his murders but upon his robberies, and he will signify his return to freedom in the usual manner.”
“His gang is scattered—” began Simpson.
J. G. Reeder silenced him with a sad, sweet smile.
“There is plenty of evidence, Mr. Simpson, that the gang has coagulated again. It is—um—an ugly word, but I can think of no better. Mr. Flack’s escape from the—er—public institution where he was confined shows evidence of good team work. The rope, the knife with which he killed the unfortunate warder, the kit of tools, the almost certainty that there was a car waiting to take him away, are all symptomatic of gang work. And what has Mr. Flack—”
“I wish to God you wouldn’t call him ‘Mr.’ Flack!” said Big Bill explosively.
J. G. Reeder blinked.
“I have an ineradicable respect for age,” he said in a hushed voice, “but a greater respect for the dead. I am hoping to increase my respect for Mr. Flack in the course of the next month.”
“If it’s gang work,” interrupted Simpson, “who are with him? The old crowd is either jailed or out of the country. I know what you’re thinking about, Mr. Reeder: you’ve got your mind on what happened last night. I’ve been thinking it over, and it’s quite likely that the man trap wasn’t fixed by Flack at all, but by one of the other crowd. Do you know Donovan’s out of Dartmoor? He has no reason for loving you.”
Mr. Reeder raised his hand in protest.
“On the contrary, Joe Donovan, when I saw him in the early hours this morning, was a very affable and penitent man who deeply regretted the unkind things he said of me as he left the Old Bailey dock. He lives at Kilburn and spent last evening at a local cinema with his wife and daughter. No, it wasn’t Donovan. He is not a brainy man. Only John Flack, with his dramatic sense, could have staged that little comedy which was so nearly a tragedy.”
“You were nearly killed, they tell me, Reeder?” said Big Bill.
Mr. Reeder shook his head.
“I was not thinking of that particular tragedy. It was in my mind before I went up the stairs to force the door into the kitchen. If I had done that, I think I should have shot Mr. Flack, and there would have been an end of all our speculations and troubles.”
Mr. Simpson was examining some papers that were on the table before him.
“If Flack’s going after bullion, he’s got very little chance. The only big movement is that of a hundred and twenty thousand sovereigns for Australia which goes by way of Tilbury tomorrow morning or the next day from the Bank of England, and it is impossible that Flack could organize a steal at such short notice.”
Mr. Reeder was suddenly alert and interested.
“A hundred and twenty thousand sovereigns,” he murmured, rubbing his chin irritably. “Ten tons. It goes by train?”
“By lorry, with ten armed men—one per ton,” said Simpson
