“I’ll think it over; where is the stuff?”
“Here,” said Rahbut, to the other’s surprise. “In ten—twenty minutes I could lay them on your hands, Mr. Good Man.”
Here seemed a straightforward piece of negotiation; it was doubly unfortunate that at that very period he should find himself mixed up in an affair which promised no profit whatever—the feud of Marylou Plessy, which was to become his because of his high regard for the lady.
When a woman is bad, she is usually very bad indeed, and Marylou Plessy was an extremely malignant woman. She was rather tall and handsome, with black sleek hair, boyishly shingled, and a heavy black fringe that covered a forehead of some distinction.
Mr. Reeder saw her once: he was at the Central Criminal Court giving evidence against Bartholomew Xavier Plessy, an ingenious Frenchman who discovered a new way of making old money. His forgeries were well-nigh undetectable, but Mr. Reeder was no ordinary man. He not only detected them, but he traced the printer, and that was why Bartholomew Xavier faced an unimpassioned judge, who told him in a hushed voice how very wrong it was to debase the currency; how it struck at the very roots of our commercial and industrial life. This the debonair man in the dock did not resent. He knew all about it. It was the judge’s curt postscript which made him wince.
“You will be kept in penal servitude for twenty years.”
That Marylou loved the man is open to question. The probabilities are that she did not; but she hated Mr. Reeder, and she hated him not because he had brought her man to his undoing, but because, in the course of his evidence, he had used the phrase “the woman with whom the prisoner is associated.” And Mr. John Reeder could have put her beside Plessy in the dock had he so wished: she knew this too and loathed him for his mercifulness.
Mrs. Plessy had a large flat in Portland Street. It was in a block which was the joint property of herself and her husband, for their graft had been on the grand scale, and Mr. Plessy owned racehorses before he owned a number in Parkhurst Convict Establishment. And here Marylou entertained lavishly.
A few months after her husband went to prison, she dined tête-à-tête with Mo Liski, the biggest of the gang leaders and an uncrowned emperor of the underworld. He was a small, dapper man who wore pince-nez and looked rather like a member of one of the learned professions. Yet he ruled the Strafas and the Sullivans and the Birklows, and his word was law on a dozen racetracks, in a score of spieling clubs and innumerable establishments less liable to police supervision. People opposing him were incontinently “coshed”—rival leaders more or less paid tribute and walked warily at that. He levied toll upon bookmakers and was immune from police interference by reason of their two failures to convict him.
Since there are white specks on the blackest coat, he had this redeeming feature, that Marylou Plessy was his ideal woman, and it is creditable in a thief to possess ideals, however unworthily they may be disposed.
He listened intently to Marylou’s views, playing with his thin watchguard, his eyes on the embroidery of the tablecloth. But though he loved her, his native caution held him to reason.
“That’s all right, Marylou,” he said. “I dare say I could get Reeder, but what is going to happen then? There will be a squeak louder than a bus brake! And he’s dangerous. I never worry about the regular busies, but this old feller is in the Public Prosecutor’s office, and he wasn’t put there because he’s silly. And just now I’ve got one of the biggest deals on that I’ve ever touched. Can’t you ‘do’ him yourself? You’re a clever woman: I don’t know a cleverer.”
“Of course, if you’re scared of Reeder—!” she said contemptuously, and a tolerant smile twisted his thin lips.
“Me? Don’t be silly, dearie! Show him a point yourself. If you can’t get him, let me know. Scared of him! Listen! That old bird would lose his feathers and be skinned for the pot before you could say ‘Mo Liski’ if I wanted!”
In the Public Prosecutor’s office they had no doubt about Mr. Reeder’s ability to take care of himself, and when Chief Inspector Pyne came over from the Yard to report that Marylou had been in conference with the most dangerous man in London, the Assistant Prosecutor grinned his amusement.
“No—Reeder wants no protection. I’ll tell him if you like, but he probably knows all about it. What are you people doing about the Liski crowd?”
Pyne pulled a long face.
“We’ve had Liski twice, but well organised perjury has saved him. The Assistant Commissioner doesn’t want him again till we get him with the blood on his hands, so to speak. He’s dangerous.”
The Assistant Prosecutor nodded.
“So is Reeder,” he said ominously. “That man is a genial mamba! Never seen a mamba? He’s a nice black snake, and you’re dead two seconds after he strikes!”
The chief inspector’s smile was one of incredulity.
“He never impressed me that way—rabbit, yes, but snake, no!”
Later in the morning a messenger brought Mr. Reeder to the chief’s office, and he arrived with that ineffable air of apology and diffidence which gave the uninitiated such an altogether wrong idea of his calibre. He listened with closed eyes whilst his superior told him of the meeting between Liski and Marylou.
“Yes, sir,” he sighed, when the narrative came to an end. “I have heard rumours. Liski? He is the person who associates with unlawful characters? In other days and under more favourable conditions he would have been the leader of a Florentine faction. An interesting man. With interesting friends.”
“I hope your interest remains
