“You didn’t realise that I was a woman of property?” she bantered him. “I receive ten pounds a month—my father left me a little house property when he died. I sold the cottages two years ago for a thousand pounds and found a wonderful investment.”
Mr. Reeder made a rapid calculation.
“You are drawing something like twelve and a half percent,” he said. “That is indeed a wonderful investment. What is the name of the company?”
She hesitated.
“I’m afraid I can’t tell you that. You see—well, it’s rather secret. It is to do with a South American syndicate that supplies arms to—what do you call them—insurgents! I know it is rather dreadful to make money that way—I mean out of arms and things, but it pays terribly well and I can’t afford to miss the opportunity.”
Reeder frowned.
“But why is it such a terrible secret?” he asked. “Quite a number of respectable people make money out of armament concerns.”
Again she showed reluctance to explain her meaning.
“We are pledged—the shareholders, I mean—not to divulge our connection with the company,” she said. “That is one of the agreements I had to sign. And the money comes regularly. I have had nearly £300 of my thousand back in dividends already.”
“Humph!” said Mr. Reeder, wise enough not to press his question. There was another day tomorrow.
But the opportunity to which he looked forward on the following morning was denied to him. Somebody played a grim “joke” on him—the kind of joke to which he was accustomed, for there were men who had good reason to hate him, and never a year passed but one or the other sought to repay him for his unkindly attentions.
“Your name is Reeder, ain’t it?”
Mr. Reeder, tightly grasping his umbrella with both hands, looked over his spectacles at the shabby man who stood at the bottom of the steps. He was on the point of leaving his house in the Brockley Road for his office in Whitehall, and since he was a methodical man and worked to a timetable, he resented in his mild way this interruption which had already cost him fifteen seconds of valuable time.
“You’re the fellow who shopped Ike Walker, ain’t you?”
Mr. Reeder had indeed “shopped” many men. He was by profession a shopper, which, translated from the argot, means a man who procures the arrest of an evildoer. Ike Walker he knew very well indeed. He was a clever, a too clever, forger of bills of exchange, and was at that precise moment almost permanently employed as orderly in the convict prison at Dartmoor, and might account himself fortunate if he held this easy job for the rest of his twelve years’ sentence.
His interrogator was a little hard-faced man wearing a suit that had evidently been originally intended for somebody of greater girth and more commanding height. His trousers were turned up noticeably; his waistcoat was full of folds and tucks which only an amateur tailor would have dared, and only one superior to the criticism of his fellows would have worn. His hard, bright eyes were fixed on Mr. Reeder, but there was no menace in them so far as the detective could read.
“Yes, I was instrumental in arresting Ike Walker,” said Mr. Reeder, almost gently.
The man put his hand in his pocket and brought out a crumpled packet enclosed in green oiled silk. Mr. Reeder unfolded the covering and found a soiled and crumpled envelope.
“That’s from Ike,” said the man. “He sent it out of stir by a gent who was discharged yesterday.”
Mr. Reeder was not shocked by this revelation. He knew that prison rules were made to be broken, and that worse things have happened in the best regulated jails than this 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.
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
