Читать книгу The Guv'nor and Other Stories - Edgar Wallace - Страница 6

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AFTER his sentence Joe asked if he could see Mr. J.G. Reeder, and Mr. Reeder, who had no qualms whatever about meeting men for whose arrest and conviction he was responsible, went down to the cells under the court and found Red Joe handcuffed in readiness for his departure by taxi-cab to Wormwood Scrubbs.

Such occasions as these can be very painful, and it was not unusual for a prisoner to express his frankest opinions about the man who had brought him to ruin. But Joe was neither offensive nor reproachful. He was a spare man of medium height, and was in the late thirties or the early forties. His neatly brushed hair was flaming red—hence his nickname.

He met the detective with a little smile and asked him to sit down.

"I've no complaints, Mr. Reeder—you gave me a square deal and told no lies about me, and now I want to ask you a favour. I've got a boy at a good school; he doesn't know anything about me and I don't want him to know. I had the sense to put a bit of money aside and tie up the interest so that the bank will pay his fees, and give him all the pocket money he wants while I'm away. And a good friend of mine is going to keep an eye on him. The police don't know anything about the boy or his school. They're fair, I admit it, but they might go nosing around and find out that he's my son. They're fair, but they're clumsy, and it might happen that they'd give away the fact that his father was in stir."

"It's very unlikely, Joe," said Reeder, and the prisoner nodded.

"It's unlikely but it happens," he said. "If it does I want you to step in and look after the boy's interests. You can stop them going too far."

"Who is your 'good friend'?" asked Reeder, and the man hesitated.

"I can't tell you who he is—for reasons," he said.

There was something of uneasiness in his tone; only for the briefest moment did he reveal his doubt.

"I've known him years; in fact, he and I courted the same lady—my poor little wife, who's dead and gone. But he's a good scout and he's got over all that."

"Is he straight?" asked Mr. Reeder.

Joe was silent, pondering this question.

"With me, yes. Bob Kressholm—well, you know him, but he's never been 'inside.'"

Mr. Reeder said nothing.

"He's clever too. One of the wisest men in this country."

Reeder turned his grave eyes upon the man.

"I'd like to help you, Joe; but you'd be wise to give me the name of the school. I might do a little bit of overlooking myself."

Joe shook his head.

"I can't do that—I've asked Bob, and it would look as if I didn't trust him. All I want to ask you to do is to cover up the kid if anything comes out. I want that boy never to know what a crooked thing is."

The detective nodded, and they rose together. The taxi-cab was waiting and two warders stood by the open door. Joe changed the subject and considered his own and immediate misfortune.

"I can't understand how you got me," he said. "I thought I was well away with that second caravan. I hand it to you, you're smart."

Mr. Reeder offered him no enlightenment, nor did he ask the name of the boy. He knew that to the wild-eyed girl Red Joe was just "Danny's father." The next day he went in search of Bob Kressholm.

He found Bob sipping an absinthe frappé in a café near Piccadilly Circus. He was a lithe, dark man, who, in his confidence, surveyed the approach of the detective without apprehension; but when Mr. Reeder sat down by his side with a weary little sigh, Kressholm edged away from him.

"I saw a friend of yours yesterday, Mr.—um—Kressholm."

"Red Joe—yuh! I saw he'd gone down."

"Looking after his son, eh? Guardian of innocent childhood, H'm?"

Kressholm moved uneasily.

"Why not? Joe's a pal of mine. Grand feller, Joe. We only quarrelled twice—about women both times."

"You're a good hater," said Mr. Reeder gently.

He knew nothing then about Wenna Haddin and her ready knife. Nor what she had said to him about Danny.

He saw the man's face twitch.

"I've forgotten all about it—women do not interest me really."

Mr. Reeder sat, his umbrella between his knees, his bony hands gripping the crooked handle.

"H'm," he said, "a good hater. Joe wanted to know how he was caught. I didn't tell him that somebody called me up on the 'phone and told me all about the second caravan."

Kressholm turned his scowling face to the other.

"Who called you up?" he demanded truculently.

"You did," said Mr. Reeder softly. "You were under observation at the time—you didn't know that, but you were. I knew you were a friend of Brady's. I believe you were in the graft but I could never prove it. And you were seen to telephone to me from a public booth in the Piccadilly Tube at eleven twenty-seven one night—that was the hour at which the information came to him. Be careful what you do with that boy, Mr. Kressholm. That is all."

He got up, stood for a moment staring down at the uneasy man, and made his leisurely way from the restaurant.

Kressholm left London a week later, and very rarely returned; in the years that followed he proved himself an excellent organiser.

Danny Brady went out to him in less than a year.

In some mysterious way the story of his father's antecedents had reached the headmaster of his select school, and his guardian was asked to remove him. The boy came to see Wenna Haddin when the fair was at Nottingham. She was less depressed by his expulsion (for it was no less) than exhilarated by the prospect of his going to Paris.

A tall stripling, with dark auburn hair, he had grown since the girl had seen him last. She listened gravely to the recital of his plans, and her heart ached a little. If she did not like Mr. Reeder she hated Bob Kressholm.

"He's a queer man, Danny. I hope you'll be all right."

"Stuff! Of course I'll be all right," he scoffed. "Bob's a grand man—he wants me to call him Bob. Besides, he's a great friend of my father's."

She did not reply to this. Wenna was older than her years, knew men instinctively, and bitterly regretted all she had said about Danny that day in the wood, when she put into words the fantastical marriage plan of Danny's father.

So Danny went out; he came back a year later, a man, a careless, worldly young man, who had plenty of money to spend and had odd ideas about men and women, and the rights of property.

She used to correspond with him. Sometimes he answered her letters, sometimes months went past before he wrote to her.

Years went on, and Wenna seemed not a day older to him when he came back under a strange name. The old troth was re-plighted. He had had some experience in love-making. She felt curiously a stranger.

Two days after he left she heard of a big jewel robbery in Hatton Garden, and, for no reason at all, knew that he was the "tall, slight man" who had been seen to leave the office of a diamond merchant before his unconscious figure was found huddled up behind his desk. For by now Danny was an able lieutenant of the Governor.