Читать книгу The Crook in Crimson - Edgar Wallace - Страница 5

Table of Contents

ON the following Saturday night, as Mr. Reeder was returning home, he saw two men fighting in Brockley Road. He had what is called in Portuguese a repugnancio to fighting men. When the hour was midnight and the day was Saturday, there was a considerable weight of supposition in favour of the combat being between two gentlemen who were the worse for intoxicating drink, and it was invariably Mr. Reeder's practice to cross, like the Philistine, to the other side of the road.

But the two young men who were engaged in such a short silent and bitter contest were obviously no hooligans of lower Deptford. Nevertheless, Mr Reeder hardly felt it was the occasion to act either as mediator or timekeeper.

He would have passed them by, and did in fact come level with them, when one walked across the road, leaving his companion—though that hardly seems the term to apply to one who had been so bruised and exhausted that he was hanging on to the railings—to recover as best he could. It was then that Mr. Reeder saw that one of the contestants was John Southers. He was husky and apologetic.

'I'm terribly sorry to have made a fuss like this,' he said. 'I hope my father didn't hear me. This fellow is intolerable.'

The intolerable man on the other side of the street was moving slowly towards where a car was parked by the pavement. They watched him in silence as he got in and, turning the car violently, went off towards the Lewisham High Road and, from the direction he took, central London.

'I've been to a dance,' said the young man, a little inconsequently.

'I hope,' said Mr. Reeder with the greatest gentleness, 'that you enjoyed yourself.'

Mr. Southers did not seem disposed at the moment to offer a fuller explanation. As they neared Reeder's gate he said:

'Thank God, Anna was inside before it started! He's been insulting to me all the evening. As a matter of fact, she asked me to call and take her home, otherwise I shouldn't have met him.'

There had been a dance somewhere in the City, at a livery hail. Anna had gone with Clive Desboyne, but the circumstances under which Johnny called for her were only vaguely detailed. Nor did Mr. Reeder hear what was the immediate cause of the quarrel which had set two respectable young men at fisticuffs in the reputable suburban thoroughfare.

To say that he was uninterested would not be true. The matter, however, was hardly pressing. He hoped that both parties to the little fracas might have forgotten the cause of their quarrel by the following morning.

He did not see Johnny again for the remainder of the week. Mr. Reeder went about his business, and it is doubtful whether Johnny occupied as much as five minutes of his thoughts, until the case of Joe Attymar came into his purview.

He was again called to Scotland Yard on a consultation. He found Gaylor and the Chief Constable together, and they were examining a very dingy-looking letter which had come to the Yard in the course of the day.

'Sit down, Reeder,' said the chief. 'Do you know a man called Attymar?'

Mr. Reeder shook his head. He had never heard of Joe Attymar.

'This is a thing we could do ourselves without any bother at all,' interrupted the Chief, 'but there are all sorts of complications which I won't bother you with. We believe there's a member of the staff of one of the Legations in this business, and naturally we want this fact to come out accidentally, and not as the result of any direct investigation by the police.'

Mr. Reeder then learned about Joe Attymar, the barge-master, of the little wharf at the end of Shadwick Lane, of the small house nearby, and the barge Allanuna that went up and down the Thames year in and year out and brought bricks. He did not hear at that moment, or subsequently, what part the Legation played, or which Legation it was, or if there was any Legation at all. In justice to his acumen it must be said that he doubted this part of the story from the first, and the theory at which he eventually arrived, and which was probably correct, was that the part he was called upon to play was to stampede Attymar and his associates into betrayal of their iniquity. For this was at a period when Mr. Reeder's name and appearance were known from one end of the river to the other, when there was hardly a bargee or tug-hand who could not have drawn, and did not draw, a passable caricature of that worthy man who had been instrumental in breaking up one of the best-organized gangs of river thieves that had ever amalgamated for an improper purpose.

Mr. Reeder scratched his nose and his lips drooped dolefully. 'I was hoping—um—that I should not see that interesting stream for a very long time.'

He sat down and listened patiently to a string of uninteresting facts. Joe Attymar brought bricks up the river—had been bringing them for many years—at a price slightly lower than his competitors. He carried for four builders, and apparently did a steady, if not too prosperous, trade. He was believed locally to be rolling in money, but that is a reputation which Shadwick Lane applied to any man or woman who was not forced at frequent intervals to make a call at the local pawn shop. He kept himself to himself, was unmarried, and had no apparent interests outside of his brick lighterage.

'Fascinating,' murmured Mr. Reeder. 'It sounds almost like a novel, doesn't it?'

After he had gone...

'I don't see what's fascinating about it,' said Mason, who did not know Mr Reeder very well.

'That's his idea of being funny,' said Gaylor.

It was a week later, and the Allanuna lay at anchor off Queensborough, when a small boat towed by a local boatman, carrying a solitary passenger, came slowly out, under the watchful and suspicious eye of Ligsey, the mate. The boat rowed alongside the barge, and Ligsey had a view of a man with a square hat and lopsided glasses, who sat in the stern of the boat, an umbrella between his legs, apparently making a meal of the big handle! And, seeing him, Ligsey, who knew a great deal about the river and its scandals, started up from his seat with an exclamation.

He was blinking stupidly at the occupant of the boat when Mr. Reeder came up to him.

'Good morning,' said Mr. Reeder.

Ligsey said nothing.

'I suppose I should say "afternoon,"' continued the punctilious Mr. Reeder. 'Is the captain aboard?'

Ligsey cleared his throat.

'No, sir, he ain't.'

'I suppose you wouldn't object if I came aboard?'

Mr. Reeder did not wait for the answer, but, with surprising agility, drew himself up on to the narrow deck of the barge. He looked round with mild interest. The hatches were off, and he had a good view of the cargo.

'Bricks are very interesting things,' he said pleasantly. 'Without bricks we should have no houses; without straw we should have no bricks. It seems therefore a very intelligent act to pack bricks in straw, to remind them, as it were, of what they owe to this humble—um—vegetable.'

Ligsey did not speak, but he swallowed.

'What I want to know,' Mr. Reeder went on, and his eyes were never still, 'is this. Would it be possible to hire this barge?'

'You'll have to ask the captain about that,' said Ligsey huskily.

His none too clean face was a shade paler. The stories of Reeder that had come down the river had gained in the telling. He was credited with supernatural powers of divination; his knowledge and perspicuity were unbounded. For the first time in years Ligsey found himself confronted with slowly-moving machinery of the law; it was a little terrifying and his emotions were not at all what he had anticipated. He used to tell Joe Attymar: '... If they ever come to me I'll give 'em a saucy answer.' And here 'they' had come to him, but no saucy answer hovered on his lips. He felt totally inadequate.

'When are you expecting the captain?' asked Mr. Reeder, in his blandest manner.

'Tonight or tomorrow—I don't know,' stammered Ligsey. 'He'll pick us up, I suppose.'

'Gone ashore for dispatches?' asked Mr. Reeder pleasantly. 'Or possibly to wire to the owners? No, no, it couldn't be that: he is the owner. How interesting! He'll be coming off in a few moments with sealed orders under his arm. Will you tell me'—he pointed to the hold—' why you leave that square aperture in the bricks? Is that one of the secrets of packing, or shall I say stowage?'

Ligsey went whiter.

'We always leave it like that,' he said, and did not recognize the sound of his own voice.

Mr. Reeder would have descended to the cabin, but the hatch was padlocked. He did invite himself down to the little cubby hole, in the bow of the boat, where Ligsey and the boy slept; and, strangely enough, Mr. Reeder carried in his pocket, although it was broad daylight, a very powerful torch which revealed every corner of Ligsey's living place as it had never been revealed before.

'Rather squalid, isn't it?' asked Mr. Reeder, 'A terrible thing to have to live in these circumstances and conditions. But of course one can live in a much worse place.'

He made this little speech after his return to the fresh air of the deck, and he was fanning himself with the brim of his high-crowned hat.

'One can live for example,' he went on, surveying the picturesque shore of Queensborough vacantly, 'in a nice clean prison. I know plenty of men who would rather live in prison than at—um—Buckingham Palace—though, of course, I have no knowledge that they've ever been invited to Buckingham Palace. But not respectable men, men with wives and families.'

Ligsey's face was a blank.

'With girls and mothers.'

Ligsey winced.

'They would prefer to remain outside. And, of course, they can remain outside if they're only sufficiently sensible to make a statement to the police.'

He took from his pocket-book a card and handed it almost timorously to Ligsey.

'I live there,' said Mr. Reeder, 'and I'll be glad to see you any time you're passing—are you interested in poultry?'

Ligsey was interested in nothing.

Mr. Reeder signalled to the boatman, who pulled the skiff alongside, and he stepped down into the boat and was rowed back to the shore.

There was one who had seen him come and who watched him leave by train. When night fell, Joe Attymar rowed out to the barge and found a very perturbed lieutenant.

'Old Reeder's been here,' blurted Ligsey, but Joe stopped him with a gesture.

'Want to tell the world about it?' he snarled. 'Come aft.'

The thickset young man followed his commander.

'I know Reeder's been here: I've seen him. What did he want?'

Briefly Ligsey told him quite a number of unimportant details about the visit. It was not remarkable that he did not make any reference to the card or to Mr. Reeder's invitation.

'That's done it,' said Ligsey when he had finished. 'Old Reeder's got a nose like a hawk. Asked me why we left that hole in the bricks. I've never had to deal with a detective before—'

'You haven't, eh?' sneered the other. 'Who was that water man who came aboard off Gravesend the other night? And why did I drop half-hundredweight of good stuff overboard, eh? You fool! We've had half a dozen of these fellows on board, all of 'em cleverer than Reeder. Did he ask you to tell him anything?'

'No,' said Ligsey instantly.

Joe Attymar thought for a little time, and then: 'We'll get up the anchor. I'm not waiting for the Dutch boat,' he said.

Ligsey's sigh of relief was audible at the other end of the barge.