Threatened men live long, a trite saying but, like most things trite, true. In a score of cases, when Mr. J. G. Reeder had descended from the witness stand, he had met the baleful eye of the man in the dock and had listened with mild interest to divers promises as to what would happen to him in the near or the remote future. For he was a great authority on forged banknotes and he had sent many men to penal servitude.
Mr. Reeder, that inoffensive man, had seen prisoners foaming at the mouth in their rage, he had seen them white and livid, he had heard their howling execrations and he had met these men after their release from prison and had found them amiable souls half ashamed and half amused at their nearly forgotten outbursts and horrific threats.
But when, in the early part of 1914, Lew Kohl was sentenced for ten years, he neither screamed his imprecations nor registered a vow to tear Mr. Reeder’s heart, lungs and important organs from his frail body.
Lew just smiled and his eyes caught the detective’s for the space of a second—the forger’s eyes were pale blue and speculative, and they held neither hate nor fury. Instead, they said in so many words:
“At the first opportunity I will kill you.”
Mr. Reeder read the message and sighed heavily, for he disliked fuss of all kinds, and resented, in so far as he could resent anything, the injustice of being made personally responsible for the performance of a public duty.
Many years had passed, and considerable changes had occurred in Mr. Reeder’s fortune. He had transferred from the specialised occupation of detecting the makers of forged banknotes to the more general practice of the Public Prosecutor’s bureau, but he never forgot Lew’s smile.
The work in Whitehall was not heavy and it was very interesting. To Mr. Reeder came most of the anonymous letters which the Director received in shoals. In the main they were self-explanatory, and it required no particular intelligence to discover their motive. Jealousy, malice, plain mischief-making, and occasionally a sordid desire to benefit financially by the information which was conveyed, were behind the majority. But occasionally:
“Sir James is going to marry his cousin, and it’s not three months since his poor wife fell overboard from the Channel steamer crossing to Calais. There’s something very fishy about this business. Miss Margaret doesn’t like him, for she knows he’s after her money. Why was I sent away to London that night? He doesn’t like driving in the dark, either. It’s strange that he wanted to drive that night when it was raining like blazes.”
This particular letter was signed “A Friend.” Justice has many such friends.
“Sir James” was Sir James Tithermite, who had been a director of some new public department during the war and had received a baronetcy for his services.
“Look it up,” said the Director when he saw the letter. “I seem to remember that Lady Tithermite was drowned at sea.”
“On the nineteenth of December last year,” said Mr. Reeder solemnly. “She and Sir James were going to Monte Carlo, breaking their journey in Paris. Sir James, who has a house near Maidstone, drove to Dover, garaging the car at the Lord Wilson Hotel. The night was stormy and the ship had a rough crossing—they were halfway across when Sir James came to the purser and said that he had missed his wife. Her baggage was in the cabin, her passport, rail ticket and hat, but the lady was not found, indeed was never seen again.”
The Director nodded.
“I see, you’ve read up the case.”
“I remember it,” said Mr. Reeder. “The case is a favourite speculation of mine. Unfortunately I see evil in everything and I have often thought how easy—but I fear that I take a warped view of life. It is a horrible handicap to possess a criminal mind.”
The Director looked at him suspiciously. He was never quite sure whether Mr. Reeder was serious. At that moment, his sobriety was beyond challenge.
“A discharged chauffeur wrote that letter, of course,” he began.
“Thomas Dayford, of 179, Barrack Street, Maidstone,” concluded Mr. Reeder. “He is at present in the employ of the Kent Motorbus Company, and has three children, two of whom are twins and bonny little rascals.”
The Chief laughed helplessly.
“I’ll take it that you know!” he said. “See what there is behind the letter. Sir James is a big fellow in Kent, a Justice of the Peace, and he has powerful political influences. There is nothing in this letter, of course. Go warily, Reeder—if any kick comes back to this office, it goes on to you—intensified!”
Mr. Reeder’s idea of walking warily was peculiarly his own. He travelled down to Maidstone the next morning, and, finding a bus that passed the lodge gates of Elfreda Manor, he journeyed comfortably and economically, his umbrella between his knees. He passed through the lodge gates, up a long and winding avenue of poplars, and presently came within sight of the grey manor house.
In a deep chair on the lawn he saw a girl sitting, a book on her knees, and evidently she saw him, for she rose as he crossed the lawn and came towards him eagerly.
“I’m Miss Margaret Letherby—are you from—?” She mentioned the name of a well-known firm of lawyers, and her face fell when Mr. Reeder regretfully disclaimed connection with those legal lights.
She was as pretty as a perfect complexion and a round, not too intellectual, face could, in combination, make her.
“I thought—do you wish to see Sir James? He is in the library. If you ring, one of the maids will take you to him.”
Had Mr. Reeder been the sort of man who could be puzzled by anything, he would have
