CHAPTER IV

The drizzle had turned to rain. It pelted down on Mr. Reeder’s mackintosh and flowed in spasmodic splashes from the brim of his high-crowned hat, as he trudged towards the nearest tramcar that would take him home.

It was not the sort of night when people would be abroad. Again he found the lounger in a yellow oilskin coat standing at the corner of Brockley Road, and another idler pacing leisurely up and down. This man turned at the sound of his steps and came towards him.

“Have you got a match, governor?” His voice was harsh and common, and did not somehow go with his respectable attire, for he had a blue trench coat buttoned up to his chin and belted about his waist. The point of Mr. Reeder’s umbrella came up until it pointed just above that belt.

“I haven’t a match. If I had, I would not be so foolish as to put my hands in my pocket so as to give it to you,” he said haranguingly. “Now, if you will kindly stand out of my way, you will save yourself a lot of trouble.”

“I asked you civilly, didn’t I?” growled the man.

“Your civility doesn’t amuse me,” said Mr. Reeder, and then suddenly his hand shot out and he got the man by the shoulder, exhibiting a strength which none would have suspected in him, and sent him flying toward the road.

He passed through the little iron gate, slammed it behind him.

“And you can tell Kennedy from me he is wasting his time.”

“I don’t know what you are talking about,” snarled the man.

Mr. Reeder did not parley with him. He mounted the steps, fitted the key in the lock and entered. He stopped long enough to hang his wet mackintosh in the hall, remove his goloshes, and then went up to his room. He was in darkness. He did not switch on the light, and crossing the room, he pulled aside the heavy curtains and looked out.

The man in the blue trench coat was still standing in front of the house, but now he had been joined by the loiterer in the yellow oilskin coat, and they were talking together.

Mr. Reeder was cursed with a sense of humour which was peculiar to himself. He went into his bedroom, and from a shelf in the cupboard he took a small air pistol, and “breaking it,” inserted a pellet. At the distance which separated him from his two watchers an air pistol would not be dangerous, but it should be very painful. Gently lifting the sash, he took aim and pressed the trigger. He heard the man in the yellow oilskin yell and saw him leap into the air.

“What’s biting you?” demanded blue trench coat.

“Somep’n bit me.”

He was clasping his neck and rolling his head backwards and forwards in his pain.

Mr. Reeder broke the pistol again, put another pellet in the breech and took even more accurate aim.

“Say, listen,” said the man in the trench coat. He said no more. His hat went flying, and looking up in his bewilderment, he saw Mr. Reeder leaning out of the window.

“Go away,” said Mr. Reeder gently.

He did not hear the reply because he closed the window quickly. He objected to profanity on principle. But when a few minutes later he looked out again the two men had disappeared.

It was 11 o’clock when he went to bed. He was by no means a light sleeper, or he would have heard the first pebble that struck his window. The second woke him, and for a good reason: the stone was heavier and the pane smashed.

He got out of bed quickly and very cautiously went to the edge of the window and looked out. There was nobody in sight. Pushing open the casement he made a more careful survey: the street was empty. He could see no living soul, and then, as his eyes became accustomed to the gloom, he saw a figure moving in the shadow of the one laurel bush which decorated the front garden of his house.

This time Mr. Reeder did not take an air pistol, but a very business-like Browning in the pocket of his dressing gown. He went noiselessly down the stairs, unbolted the door, opened it and flashed a concentrated beam of a powerful spotlight into the garden. It was neither trench coat nor oilskin, but a bedraggled youth, hatless, whose wet clothes seemed skin tight.

From the darkness came a beseeching voice:

“Is that Mr. Reeder… For God’s sake take the light off me.”

“Oh, it’s you, is it?” said J.G. gently, and a little incongruously it sounded, even to himself. “Did you see my advertisement?”

The young man made a dart through the door into the hall. Mr. Reeder followed him, closed and bolted the door. He could almost hear his visitor trembling.

“Which way do I go, sir?” he whimpered.

J.G. led the way up the stairs into the study, and switched on the light.

The red-haired youth was a pitiable sight: his face streaked with blood, the knuckles of his hands were bleeding. He had neither collar nor tie, and as he stood, his soaked clothes formed an ever growing pool upon Mr. Reeder’s shabby carpet.

“I didn’t intend coming here, but after they tried to kill me----”

“I think you had better have a hot bath,” interrupted Mr. Reeder.

Fortunately the bathroom was on the first floor, and by some miracle the water was really hot. He left the trembling youth to divest himself of his sodden clothes, and going upstairs, collected a few articles of wearing apparel.

In his study he had a coffee-making machine and in the cupboard a large seed cake. He was partial to seed cake.

The coffee was brewed and the young man came into the room. He was not an attractive young man. He was very pale, he had a very large nose and a long and bony chin. He was very thin, and Mr. Reeder’s clothes did not so much fit as cover him.

He drank the coffee eagerly, looked at the seed cake, shuddered, but betook of it, whilst Mr. Reeder built up the dying fire.

“Now, Mr.----”

“Edelsheim, Benny Edelsheim,” said the young man. “I live in Pepys Road, New Cross. Did the young ladies tell you about me? I wish I had not run away that night you chased me. She’s a stunning looking girl, isn’t she? I don’t mean the blonde--the other one.”

“Have you wakened me up in the middle of the night to discuss the attractions of brunettes?” demanded Mr. Reeder gently. “Who hit you?”

The young man felt his head gingerly. He had tied about it a large handkerchief which Mr. Reeder had supplied.

“I don’t know, I think it was the fellow in the yellow coat.… There were two of them. I was just going into my house--my father’s house, when a man asked me if I had a match. I didn’t like the look of him, but I was feeling for the match when he hit me. There was a car half-way down the hill--Pepys Road is built on a hill--it used to be called Red Hill once.…”

“The topography is familiar to me,” said Mr. Reeder. “What did you do when he hit you?”

“I ran,” said the other simply. “I tried to shout, but I couldn’t, and then the other fellow, who was standing by the car, tripped me up.”

He looked at his knuckles. “That’s where I got that. I think there were three of them. The chauffeur was standing by the car and he made a dive at me, but I dodged and doubled up the hill--with the fellow in the yellow coat behind me.”

“What time was this?” asked Mr. Reeder.

“About nine. I was coming to see you, in fact I had made up my mind to. I knew where you lived, but I thought I would go home first and talk to the old man--my father. We have got a jeweller’s shop in the Clerkenwell Road, but he has been ill for nearly a year, and I have been running the business.”

“And you got away?” said Mr. Reeder, hastening the narrative.

“In a sense I did,” said Edelsheim. “I got over the top of the hill. I couldn’t see a policeman anywhere. It is disgraceful the rates we pay and no policemen! My God, it was awful. I didn’t see them for a bit, and thought I had slipped them, and then I saw the lights of the car coming. If I had any sense I would have knocked at the nearest house and gone in, and no policeman, Mr. Reeder!” His voice was thin and hysterical. “That’s what we pay rates and taxes for, and no so-and-so policemen in sight!”

He did not say “so-and-so,” but Mr. Reeder thought his profanity was excusable.

“As I saw the car, I got over the rails of a recreation ground or something. They must have seen me, because the car stopped right opposite the place where I had jumped. I didn’t see the man following, but I sort of felt him. Then I found I was in a cemetery. My God, it was awful dodging in and out the crosses and things! I climbed the wall and got out, and then I did meet a policeman. He thought I was drunk and wanted to take me to the hospital, so I bolted again.”

“Did you see the man in the yellow coat?”

“Not till I got here. It was nearer twelve than eleven. I was just thinking of calling you and of what you would say to me, when I saw them both. They were coming up from the Lewisham High Road, walking together. I dived into your front garden and hid behind the bush. One of them walked up the steps and tried the door. He had a lamp. I nearly died from fright. They were messing about here for an hour.”

“And you were afraid to ring for fear that they saw you?”

“That’s right. I waited until they had gone and I started chucking stones. I have broken two or three windows in this room, too.”

Mr. Reeder poured out another cup of coffee, and from the warming effect of the fire and the hot drink Mr. Benny Edelsheim grew a little more confident.

“Is she here?” he asked. “The dark haired one?”

“She is not here,” said Mr. Reeder severely.

Then suddenly the young man became plaintive again.

“What’s it all about?” he demanded. “I saw your advertisement when I was reading to-night. I did not see how it could be anything to do with that, and yet when I was dodging in and out of the cemetery, the idea came to me that these fellows were after me because of that advertisement and the clasp and everything, and what I said to the young lady. Have I done anything wrong? I am sorry. I do not, as a rule, talk to young ladies without an introduction. I have been brought up as well as any man. If I have offended her relations--you are not her father, are you?”

“I am not a father,” said Mr. Reeder emphatically.

“I didn’t think you were,” said Edelsheim, “because I knew about you. You are a detective. My old man--my father says you are the most wonderful detective of the age. I wanted to come and explain to you that I didn’t mean any harm.”

Mr. Reeder pushed forward the plate of seed cake.

“You, my dear young friend,” he said, “are no more, as it were, than a cog in a wheel of a very complicated machine. I can quite understand how you had embarrassed the employers of those two ferocious men. Now let us get to the really important point--just tell me what you said, why you addressed those young ladies in the restaurant.”

Benny munched the seed cake with an agonized expression; it was obvious he did not like seed cake, but his hunger had compelled him to overcome his scruples.

“I recognized her the moment I saw her. She is in my thoughts night and day, Mr. Reeder. There are some faces that hit you right in the eye, so to speak, that sort of make an impression upon you--she is not married, is she?” he asked anxiously.

“Practically,” said Mr. Reeder.

The young man’s face assumed an expression of acute pain.

“She is engaged,” explained Mr. Reeder, in haste to remove any wrong impression he might have created.

“I shall never see another face like that,” said Benny dismally. “I am romantic, Mr. Reeder, I don’t mind admitting it. I fell in love with her the moment I saw her photograph. She was wearing plus-fours. Cute! You have no idea what I felt like when I saw that picture. I thought here is the woman for me, and I only saw it for half a tick. He opened his pocket book on the counter, the gentleman who called at the shop, and he took out the photograph, because the clasp was in the same compartment, wrapped up in tissue paper, so I had a good look at the picture, and I said to myself----”

“Yes, yes,” said Mr. Reeder with a certain testiness, “Please don’t bother about your emotions at the moment, Mr. Edelsheim. Tell me something about the clasp.”

“The clasp, oh, yes. You want to know about that? It was a very pretty thing, half a buckle of diamonds and emeralds. I know a lot about stones. I was in Hatton Garden for eighteen months. My old man--my father believed in starting me at the bottom of the ladder----”

“Did he want to sell the clasp?”

Benny shook his head.

“No, he wanted it valued. We do a lot of valuation work, and I am supposed to be pretty good at it. We have got a very big business, half a dozen assistants, and we have a branch at Bristol.”

“You valued it?” said Mr. Reeder.

“I valued it at £1,250, but I made a mistake. Even the best of us make mistakes. I remember, once----”

“You have undervalued it by £100?”

“That’s right. I told the young lady so when I met her. I thought she would tell her friend----”

“Her father,” corrected Mr. Reeder.

“Oh, was that her father?” Benny was more interested in the parentage of his ideal than in the sordid question of a diamond and emerald clasp.

“Yes, I undervalued it £100. What he really wanted to know was whether the stones were genuine, and, of course, I could tell him that. I don’t think he would have worried about the wrong valuation, and I should not have spoken about it, but I wanted a sort of introduction to the young lady--you are a man of the world, Mr. Reeder----”

“What time did he come into the shop?”

Benny, his mouth full of seed cake, looked thoughtful.

“About five o’clock in the evening.”

“And when you valued the clasp, what happened?”

“He wrapped it up and took it away with him. I asked him if he wanted to sell it, and he said no.”

“You never saw him again?”

Benny shook his head.

“That was last Wednesday week?”

“Tuesday,” said Benny promptly. “I happen to know that, because I had a date--an engagement to take a certain party to the pictures, and I was anxious to shut up the shop and get away.”

Mr. Reeder jotted down a few notes on his blotting pad.

“Have you ever valued that clasp before?”

Benny Edelsheim looked at him with an open mouth.

“It’s a curious thing that you should ask that, Mr. Reeder. I haven’t, but my father has. I was describing the piece to him, and he said he was certain he had valued the same piece six months ago. Of course, he may have made a mistake, but he has got a marvellous memory.” He enlarged upon the memory of his parent, but Mr. Reeder was not listening.

“Why Clerkenwell,” murmured Mr. Reeder. “Do you advertise?”

“We are the best advertised valuers in London,” said Benny proudly. “That’s our speciality. I can’t tell you how upset the governor was when I made a mistake. It sort of reflected on the firm. Oh, yes, we carry big ads. in all papers. Valuation of jewellery. You must have seen our name.”

Mr. Reeder nodded.

“That accounts for it,” he said.

He looked at the clock. The minute hand pointed to half past two. Picking up the telephone, he called the nearest cab rank and gave his address.

“I am going to take you home,” he said. “You’d better make a bundle of your wet clothes while I dress.”

By the time the cab arrived, Mr. Reeder, feeling very much awake, was ready. He went out first, but there was no need of his caution, less need for the Colt automatic that he held in his pocket.

The journey to Pepys Road was uneventful. He waited until the young man had entered his house, then he drove to the nearest police station and had a consultation with the night officer.

When Benny Edelsheim looked out of his window the next morning he found a uniformed policeman standing stolidly before the house, and felt that for the first time his rates and his taxes were justified.