He counted on the effect of this provocative speech, and he had made no mistake.
“You lie!” screamed the voice. “You know I’m Flack—Crazy John, eh?—Crazy Old John Flack—mad, am I? You’ll learn!—You put me in that hell upon earth, and I’m going to serve you worse than I treated that damned Dago—”
The voice ceased abruptly. There was a click as the receiver was put down.
Reeder listened expectantly, but no other call came through. Then he rang the bell again and the messenger returned.
“Yes, sir, I got through straight away to the Horsham police station. The inspector is sending three men in a car to the post office.”
Mr. Reeder gazed at the ceiling.
“Then I fear he has sent them too late,” he said. “The venerable bandit will have gone.”
A quarter of an hour later came confirmation of his prediction. The police had arrived at the post office, but the bird had flown. The clerk did not remember anybody old or wild-looking booking a call; he thought that the message had not come from the post office itself, which was also the telephone exchange, but from an outlying call box.
Mr. Reeder went in to report to the Public Prosecutor, but neither he nor his assistant was in the Office. He rang up Scotland Yard and passed on his information to Simpson.
“I respectfully suggest that you should get into touch with the French police and locate Ravini. He may not be in Paris at all.”
“Where do you think he is?” asked Simpson.
“That,” replied Mr. Reeder in a hushed voice, “is a question which has never been definitely settled in my mind. I should not like to say that he was in heaven, because I cannot imagine Giorgio Ravini with his luck stones—
“Do you mean that he’s dead?” asked Simpson quickly.
“It is very likely; in fact, it is extremely likely.”
There was a long silence at the other end of the telephone.
“Have you had the parcel?”
“That I am awaiting with the greatest interest,” said Mr. Reeder, and went back to his office to twiddle his thumbs and stare at his white blotting pad.
The parcel came at three o’clock that afternoon, when Mr. Reeder had returned from his frugal lunch, which he invariably took at a large and popular tea shop in Whitehall. It was a very small parcel, about three inches square; it was registered and had been posted in London. He weighed it carefully, shook it and listened, but the lightness of the package precluded any possibility of there being concealed behind the paper wrapping anything that bore a resemblance to an infernal machine. He cut the paper tape that fastened it, took off the paper, and there was revealed a small cardboard box such as jewellers use. Removing the lid, he found a small pad of cotton-wool, and in the midst of this three gold rings, each with three brilliant diamonds. He put them on his blotting pad and gazed at them for a long time.
They were George Ravini’s luck stones, and for ten minutes Mr. Reeder sat in a profound reverie, for he knew that George Ravini was dead, and it did not need the card which accompanied the rings to know who was responsible for the drastic and gruesome ending to Mr. Ravini’s life. The sprawling “J. F.” on the little card was in Mr. Flack’s writing, and the three words, “Your turn next,” were instructive, even if they were not, as they were intended to be, terrifying.
Half an hour later Mr. Reeder met Inspector Simpson by appointment at Scotland Yard. Simpson examined the rings curiously and pointed out a small, dark-brown speck at the edge of one of the luck stones.
“I don’t doubt that Ravini is dead,” he said. “The first thing to discover is where he went when he said he was going to Paris.”
This task presented fewer difficulties than Simpson had imagined. He remembered one Lew Steyne and his association with the Italian, and a telephone call put through to the City police located Lew in five minutes.
“Bring him along in a taxi,” said Simpson, and, as he hung up the receiver: “The question is, what is Crazy John’s coup—murder on a large scale, or just picturesque robbery?”
“I think the latter,” said Mr. Reeder thoughtfully. “Murder, with Mr. Flack, is a mere incident to the—er—more important business of moneymaking.”
He pinched his lip thoughtfully.
“Forgive me if I seem to repeat myself, but I would again remind you that Mr. Flack’s specialty is bullion, if I remember aright,” he said. “Didn’t he smash the strong room of the Megantic … bullion, hum!” He scratched his chin and looked up over his glasses at Simpson.
The inspector shook his head.
“I only wish Crazy John was crazy enough to try to get out of the country by steamer—he won’t. And the Leadenhall Bank stunt couldn’t be repeated today. No, there’s no chance of a bullion steal.”
Mr. Reeder looked unconvinced.
“Would you ring up the Bank of England and find out if the money has gone to Tilbury?” he pleaded.
Simpson pulled the instrument toward him, gave a number and, after five minutes’ groping through various departments, reached an exclusive personage. Mr. Reeder sat, with his hands clasped about the handle of his umbrella, a pained expression on his face, his eyes closed, and seemingly oblivious of the conversation. Presently Simpson hung up the receiver.
“The consignment should have gone this morning, but the sailing of the Olanic has been delayed by a stevedore strike—it goes tomorrow morning,” he reported. “The gold is taken on a lorry to Tilbury with a guard. At Tilbury it is put into the Olanic’s strong room, which is the newest and safest of its kind. I don’t suppose that John will begin operations there.”
“Why not?” J. G. Reeder’s voice was almost bland; his face was screwed into its nearest approach to a smile. “On the contrary, as I have said before,
