“How old are you?”
“Twenty-three,” she answered.
Mr. Reeder took off his glasses and polished them on a large silk handkerchief.
“The whole thing is inexpressibly sad,” he said. “I am glad to have had the opportunity of speaking with you, young lady. I sympathise with you very deeply.”
And in this unsatisfactory way he took his departure.
She closed the door on him, saw him stop in the middle of the path and pick up something from a border bed, and wondered, frowning, why this middle-aged man had picked up the horseshoe she had thrown through the window the night before. Into Mr. Reeder’s tail pocket went this piece of rusted steel and then he continued his thoughtful way to the nursery gardens, for he had a few questions to ask.
The men of Section 10 were parading for duty when Mr. Reeder came timidly into the charge room and produced his credentials to the inspector in charge.
“Oh, yes, Mr. Reeder,” said that officer affably. “We have had a note from the P.P.’s office, and I think I had the pleasure of working with you on that big slush1 case a few years ago. Now what can I do for you? … Burnett? Yes, he’s here.”
He called the man’s name and a young and good-looking officer stepped from the ranks.
“He’s the man who discovered the murder—he’s marked for promotion,” said the inspector. “Burnett, this gentleman is from the Public Prosecutor’s office and he wants a little talk with you. Better use my office, Mr. Reeder.”
The young policeman saluted and followed the shuffling figure into the privacy of the inspector’s office. He was a confident young man: already his name and portrait had appeared in the newspapers, the hint of promotion had become almost an accomplished fact, and before his eyes was the prospect of a supreme achievement.
“They tell me that you are something of a poet, officer,” said Mr. Reeder.
Burnett blushed.
“Why, yes, sir. I write a bit,” he confessed.
“Love poems, yes?” asked the other gently. “One finds time in the night—er—for such fancies. And there is no inspiration like—er—love, officer.”
Burnett’s face was crimson.
“I’ve done a bit of writing in the night, sir,” he said, “though I’ve never neglected my duty.”
“Naturally,” murmured Mr. Reeder. “You have a poetical mind. It was a poetical thought to pluck flowers in the middle of the night—”
“The nurseryman told me I could take any flowers I wanted,” Burnett interrupted hastily. “I did nothing wrong.”
Reeder inclined his head in agreement.
“That I know. You picked the flowers in the dark—by the way, you inadvertently included a Michaelmas daisy with your chrysanthemums—tied up your little poem to them and left them on the doorstep with—er—a horseshoe. I wondered what had become of that horseshoe.”
“I threw them up on to her—to the lady’s windowsill,” corrected the uncomfortable young man. “As a matter of fact, the idea didn’t occur to me until I had passed the house—”
Mr. Reeder’s face was thrust forward.
“This is what I want to confirm,” he said softly. “The idea of leaving the flowers did not occur to you until you had passed her house? The horseshoe suggested the thought? Then you went back, picked the flowers, tied them up with the little poem you had already written, and tossed them up to her window—we need not mention the lady’s name.”
Constable Burnett’s face was a study.
“I don’t know how you guessed that, but it is a fact. If I’ve done anything wrong—”
“It is never wrong to be in love,” said Mr. J. G. Reeder soberly. “Love is a very beautiful experience—I have frequently read about it.”
Miss Magda Grayne had dressed to go out for the afternoon and was putting on her hat, when she saw the queer man who had called so early that morning, walking up the tessellated path. Behind him she recognised a detective engaged in the case. The servant was out; nobody could be admitted except by herself. She walked quickly behind the dressing-table into the bay of the window and glanced up and down the road. Yes, there was the taxicab which usually accompanies such visitations, and, standing by the driver, another man, obviously a “busy.”
She pulled up the overlay of her bed, took out the flat pad of banknotes that she found, and thrust them into her handbag, then, stepping on tiptoe, she went out to the landing, into the unfurnished back room, and, opening the window, dropped to the flat roof of the kitchen. In another minute she was in the garden and through the back gate. A narrow passage divided the two lines of villas that backed on one another. She was in High Street and had boarded a car before Mr. Reeder grew tired of knocking. To the best of his knowledge Mr. Reeder never saw her again.
At the Public Prosecutor’s request, he called at his chief’s house after dinner and told his surprising story.
“Green, who had the unusual experience of being promoted to his position over the heads of his seniors, for special services he rendered during the war, was undoubtedly an ex-convict, and he spoke the truth when he said that he had received a letter from a man who had served a period of imprisonment with him. The name of this blackmailer is, or rather was, Arthur George Crater, whose other name was Malling!”
“Not the night watchman?” said the Public Prosecutor, in amazement.
Mr. Reeder nodded.
“Yes, sir, it was Arthur Malling. His daughter, Miss Magda Crater, was, as she very truly said, born at Walworth on the 17th of October, 1900. She said Wallington after, but Walworth first. One observes that when people adopt false family names, they seldom change their given names, and the ‘Magda’ was easy to identify.
“Evidently Malling had planned this robbery of the bank very carefully. He had brought his daughter, in a false name, to Ealing, and had managed to get her introduced to Mr. Green. Magda’s job
