That was all he said, and Ravini reeled under the threat.
Before he had quite recovered, Mr. J. G. Reeder and his charge had disappeared into the throng.
III
“An interesting man,” said Mr. Reeder, as the cab crossed Westminster Bridge. “He is, in fact, the most interesting man I know at this particular moment. It was fate that I should walk into him as I did. But I wish he wouldn’t wear diamond rings!”
He stole a sidelong glance at his companion.
“Well, did you—um—like the place?”
“It is very beautiful,” she said; without enthusiasm, “but it is rather far away from London.”
His face fell.
“Have you declined the post?” he asked anxiously.
She half turned in the seat and looked at him.
“Mr. Reeder, I honestly believe you wish to see the back of me!”
To her surprise, Mr. Reeder went very red.
“Why—um—of course I do—I don’t, I mean. But it seems a very good position, even as a temporary position.” He blinked at her. “I shall miss you, I really shall miss you, Miss—um—Margaret. We have become such”—here he swallowed something—“good friends, but the—a certain business is on my mind—I mean, I am rather perturbed.”
He looked from one window to the other as though he suspected an eavesdropper riding on the step of the cab, and then, lowering his voice:
“I have never discussed with you, my dear Miss—um—Margaret, the rather unpleasant details of my trade; but there is, or was, a gentleman named Flack—F-l-a-c-k,” he spelt it. “You remember?” he asked anxiously, and when she shook her head: “I hoped that you would. One reads about these things in the public press. But five years ago you would have been a child—”
“You’re very flattering,” she smiled. “I was, in fact, a grown-up young lady of eighteen.”
“Were you really?” asked Mr. Reeder in a hushed voice. “You surprise me! Well, Mr. Flack was the kind of person one so frequently reads about in the pages of the sensational novelist—who has not too keen a regard for the probabilities and facts of life. A master criminal, the organizer of—um—a confederation, or, as vulgar people would call it, gang.”
He sighed and closed his eyes, and she thought for one moment he was praying for the iniquitous criminal.
“A brilliant criminal—it is a terrible thing to confess, but I have had a reluctant admiration for him. You see, as I have so often explained to you, I am cursed with a criminal mind. But he was mad.”
“All criminals are mad: you have explained that so often,” she said, a little tartly, for she was not anxious that the conversation should drift from her immediate affairs.
“But he was really mad,” said Mr. Reeder with great earnestness, and tapped his forehead deliberately. “His very madness was his salvation. He did daring things, but with the cunning of a madman. He shot down two policemen in cold blood—he did this at midday in a crowded City street and got away. We caught him at last, of course. People like that are always caught in this country. I—um—assisted. In fact, I—well, I assisted! That is why I am thinking of our friend Giorgio; for it was Mr. Ravini who betrayed him to us for two thousand pounds. I negotiated the deal, Mr. Ravini being a criminal—”
She stared at him open-mouthed.
“That Italian? You don’t mean that?”
Mr. Reeder nodded.
“Mr. Ravini had dealings with the Flack gang, and by chance learned of Old John’s whereabouts. We took old John Flack in his sleep.” Mr. Reeder sighed again. “He said some very bitter things about me. People, when they are arrested, frequently exaggerate the shortcomings of their—er—captors.”
“Was he tried?” she asked.
“He was tried,” said Mr. Reeder, “on a charge of murder. But of course he was mad. ‘Guilty but insane’ was the verdict, and he was sent to Broadmoor Criminal Lunatic Asylum.”
He searched feebly in his pockets, produced a very limp packet of cigarettes, extracted one, and asked permission to smoke. She watched the damp squib of a thing drooping pathetically from his lower lip. His eyes were staring sombrely through the window at the green of the park through which they were passing, and he seemed entirely absorbed in his contemplation of nature.
“But what has that to do with my going into the country?”
Mr. Reeder brought his eyes round to survey her.
“Mr. Flack was a very vindictive man,” he said, “a very brilliant man—I hate confessing this. And he has—um—a particular grudge against me, and being what he is, it would not be long before he discovered that I—er—I—am rather attached to you, Miss—Margaret.”
A light dawned on her, and her whole attitude toward him changed as she gripped his arm.
“You mean, you want me out of London in case something happens? But what could happen? He’s in Broadmoor, isn’t he?”
Mr. Reeder scratched his chin and looked up at the roof of the cab.
“He escaped a week ago—hum! He is, I think, in London at this moment.”
Margaret Belman gasped.
“Does this Italian—this Ravini man—know?”
“He does not know,” said Mr. Reeder carefully, “but I think he will learn—yes, I think he will learn.”
A week later, after Margaret Belman had gone, with some misgivings, to take up her new appointment, all Mr. Reeder’s doubts as to the location of John Flack were dissipated.
There was some slight disagreement between Margaret Belman and Mr. Reeder, and it happened at lunch on the day she left London. It started in fun—not that Mr. Reeder was ever kittenish—by a certain suggestion she made. Mr. Reeder demurred. How she ever summoned the courage to tell him he was old-fashioned, Margaret never knew—but she did.
“Of course you could shave them off,” she said scornfully. “It would make you look ten years younger.”
“I don’t think, my dear—Miss—um—Margaret, that I wish to look ten years younger,” said Mr. Reeder.
A certain tenseness followed, and she went down to Siltbury feeling a little uncomfortable. Yet
