THE LADY AT THE DOOR

Auckland Star, Volume LIX, Issue 141, 16 June 1928, Page 12 (Supplement)

THE LADY AT THE DOOR

BY EDGAR WALLACE

SYNOPSIS OF PREVIOUS CHAPTER&i \ MARGARET BELMAN, a WWU U twenty-thr«4, goes int» «ewtfy to appjw for a secretary'* post at Larmes Keep, Siltlwtry, which she understands is a hoter. Sb* there meets

MR. DAVBR, the proprietor, and' is engaged by him. He is a writer, and says I he chooses his guests, of whom there are then only three. As Margaret, who finds the place very comfortable, but is vaguely disturbed, loaves for London, she hears the housekeeper sobbing, and the cabman describes her as "a bit mad." On returning to Waterloo Margaret is accosted by GEORGE RAVINI, a well-dressed gang leader. He is pressing his attentions when he is pulled up by J. G. REEDER, detoctive to the Public Prosecutor's office, who is fond of Margaret. Reeder tells Margaret that he is worried over the escape of a murderer uamed FLACK, with whom llavini had had dealings. PI a <-k had a particular grudge against Reeder. Margaret goes to Larmes Keep to take up her duties. Here she met OLGA CREWE, who told her of dark deeds in the dungeons beneath the house, and told her that it was form»;»ly known as the House of Tears. The scene shifts back to London, where a determined attempt to kill Reeder by means of a spring gun is made by a lady who called herself MRS. FORNESSE. and who vanished just before the attempt failed. Ravini goes to Larities Keep as a boarder, but disappears in mysterious circumstances. Scotland Yard discusses the escape of Flack, and | another attempt is made on Reeder's life. Flack rings up Reeder and threatens to "do for lii.ii," and shortly afterwards Reeder receives a parcel containing ltavini's jewels, which shows that Rayini is dead. Reeder goes down to stay at Larmes Keep.

CHAPTER VIII. —Continued. Mr. Reeder nodded. "Ah, you remember?'' said Mr. Paver triumphantly. "Naturally you would. A lawyer named Biggerthorpe, who was called from his office one day on some excuse, and was never seen again. May I add"—he smiled good-humouredly— "that Mr. Biggerthorpe has never stayed here? Why should you imagine he had, Mr. Reeder ?" "I never did." Mr. Reeder gave blandness for blandness. "Biggerthorpe? I had forgotten him. ne was an important witness against Flack if he'd ever been caught —hum!" And then: '.'You are a student of criminal practices, JLr. Daver?" "A humble one," said Mr. Daver, and his humility was manifest in his attitude. And then he suddenly dropped his voice to a hoarse whisper. "Shall I tell you . something, Mr. Reeder?" "You may tell me," said Mr. Reeder, as he buttoned his waistcoat, "anything that [(leases you. I am in the mood for stories. In this delightful atmosphere, amidst these beautiful surroundings, I should prefer—urn—fairy Btories—or, shall we say, ghost stories? Is Larmes Keep hounted, Mr. Daver? Ghosts are my speciality. I have probably seen and arrested more ghosts than any other living representative of the law. Some time I intend writing a monumental work on the subject, 'Ghostß I Have Seen, or a Guide to the Spirit World,' in sixtythree volumes. You were about to say L »

"I was about to jay," said Mr. Daver, and his voice was curiously strained, "that in my opinion Flack himself once stayed here. I have not mentioned this fact to Miss Belman, but I am convinced in my mind that I am not in error. Seven years ago"—he was very impressive—"a grey-headed, rather thin-faced man came here at ten o'clock at night and asked for a lodging. He had plenty of money, butt this did not influence me. Ordinarily I should have asked him to make the usual application, but it was late, a bitterly cold and snowy night, and I hadn't the heart to turn one of his 'ige away from my door." "How long did he stay ?" asked Mr. Reeder. "And why do you think he was Flack?" "Beeause" —Daver's voice had sunk until it was an eerie moan —"he left just as Ravini left—early one morning, without paying his bill, and left his pyjamas behind him!" Very slowly Mr. Reeder turned his head and surveyed the host. "That comes into the category of humorous stories, and I am too hungry to laugh," lie said calmly. "What time do we dine?" ...

The gong sounded at that moment. Margaret Belinan usually dined" with the other guests, but at a table apart. She flushed and felt more than a little awkward when Mr. Reeder came across to her table, dragging a chair with him, and ordered another,place to be set. The other three guests dined at sepai ate tables. "An unsociable lot of people," said Mr. Reeder as he shook out his napkin and glanced round the room. "What do you think of Mr. Daver ?" J. G. Reeder smiled gently. "He is a very amusing person," he said, and she laughed, but grew serious immediately. "Have you found out anything about Ravini 1" Mr. Reeder shook his head. "I had a talk with the hall porter: he seems a very honest and straightforward fellow. He told me that when he came down the morning after Ravini disappeared tlje. frpnt d,oor had heen unbolted and unlocked. An observant fellow. Who is Mrs. Burton?" he asked abruptly. "The housekeeper." Margaret smiled and shook her head. "She is rather a miserable lady, who spends quite a lot of time hinting" at the good time she should be having, instead of being 'buried alive' —those are her words —at Siltbury." Mi". Reeder put down his knife and fork. "Dear me!" he said mildly. "Is she a lady who has seen better days?" Margaret laughed softly. "I should have thought she had never had such a time as she is having now," she said. "She's rather common and terribly illiterate. Her accounts that come up to me are fearful and wonderful things! But seriously, I think she must have been in good circumstances. The first tilght I was here I went into her room- to ask about an account. I did not understand—of course it was a waste of time, for books are mysteries to her— and she was sitting at a table admiring her hands."

"Hands?" he said. Slie nodded. "They were covered with, the most beautiful rings you could possibly imagine," said Margaret, and was satisfied with the impression she made, for Mr. Reeder dropped knife and fork to his plate with a crash. "Rftgs?"

dNawdi afrd emeralds. They took my * away.. The moment she law me she put her hand behind her, and the next morning she explained that they were presents given to ker by a theatrical lady who had stayed here and that they had no value." »»

"Props, in fact," said Mr. Reeder. "What is a prop?" she asked curiously, and Mr. Reeder waggled his head, and she had learnt that when he waggled his head in that fashion he was advertising his high spirits and good humour.

After dinner he sent a waitress to find Mr. Daver, and when that gentleman arrived, Mr. Reeder had to tell him that he had a lot of work to do and requested the loan of blotting-pad and a special writing table for his room. Margaret wondered why he had not asked her, but she supposed that it was because he did not know that such things came into her province.

"You're a great writer, Mr. Reeder— he, he!" Daver was convulsed at his own little joke. "So am I! lam never happy without a pen in my hand. Tell me, as a matter of interest, do you do your best work in the morning or in the evening? Personally, it is a question that I have never decided to my own satisfaction." "I shall now write steadily till two o'clock," said Mr. Reeder, glancing at his watch. "That is a habit of years. Prom nine to two are my writing hours, after which I smoke a cigarette, drink a glass of milk—would you be good enough to see that I have a glass of milk put in my room at once? —and from two I sleep steadily till nine."

Margaret Belman was an interested and somewhat startled audience of this personal confession. Jt Mas unusual in Mr. Reeder to speak of himself, unthinkable that he should discuss his work. In all her life she had not met an individual who was more reticent about his private affairs. Perhaps the holiday spirit was on him, she thought. He was certainly younger looking that evening than she had ever known him. She went out to find Mrs. Burton and convey the wishes of the guest. The woman accepted the order,with a sniff. Milk? He looks the kind of person who drinks milk! He's nothing to be afraid oil" "Why should he bo all aid?" asked Margaret sharply, but the reproach was lost upon Mrs. Burton. "Nobody likes detectives nosing about a place do they, Miss Belman? And he's not my idea of a detective!" "Who told you he was a detective?" Mrs. Burton looked at her for a second from under lier heavy lids, and then jerked her head in the direction of Daver's office. "He did," she. said. "Detectives! And me sitting here, slaving from morning till night, when I might be doing the grand in Paris or one of them places, with servants to wait on me, instead of me waiting on people. It's sickening!" Twice since she had been at Larmes Keep Margaret had witnessed these little outbursts of fretfulness and irritation. She had an idea that the faded woman would like some excuse to make her a confidante, but the excuse was neither found nor sought. Margaret had nothing in common with this rather dull and terribly ordinary lady, and they could find no mutual interest which would lead to the breakdown of the barriers. Mrs. Burton was a weakling; tears were never far from her eyes or voice nor the sense of her mysterious grievances against the world far from her mind.

"They treat ine like dirt," she went on, her voice trembling with her feeble anger, "and she treats me worst of all. I asked her to come and have a cup of tea and a chat in my room the other day. and what do you think she said?" "Whom are you talking about?" asked Margaret curiously. It did not occur to her that the "she" in question might be Olga Crewe—it would have required a very powerful effort of imagination to picture the cold and worldly Olga talking' commonplaces with Mrs. Burton over a friendly cup of tea; yet it was of Olga that the woman spoke. But at the very suggestion that she was being questioned her thin lips closed tight. "Nobody in particular—milk, did you say? I'll take it up to him myself!" Mr. Reeder was struggling mto a dressing-jacket when she. brought the milk to him. One of the servants had already placed pen, ink and stationery on the table, and there were two fat manuscript books visible to any caller, and anticipating eloquently Mr. Reeder's literary activities.

He took the tray from the woman's hand and put it on the table. "You have a nice house, Mrs. Burton," he encouragingly. "A beautiful house.' Have you been here long?" "A few years," she answered. She made to go, but lingered at the door. Mr. Reeder recognised the symptoms. Discreet she might be, a gossip she undoubtedly was, aching for human converse with any who could advance a programme of thoFc trivialities which made up her conversational life. "No, sir, we never get many visitors here. Mr. Daver likes to pick and choose." "And very wise of Mr. Daver. By the way, which is his room ?" She walked through the doorway and pointed along the corridor. "Oh, yes, I remember, he told me. A charming situation. I saw yon coming out this evening." "You have made a mistake—L never go into his room," said the woman sharply. "You may have seen " She stopped, and added: "Somebody else. Are you going to work late, sir ?" Mr. Reeder repeated in detail his plans for the evening. -• "I would be glad if you would tell Mr. Daver that I do not wish to be interrupted. I am a very slow thinker, and the slightest disturbance to my train of thought is fatal to my—er —power of composition," he. said, as be closed the door upon her, and, waiting until .she had time to get d'owh the stairs, locked it and pushed home the one bolt. He drew the heavy curtains across the open windows, pushed the writing-table against the curtains so that they could not blow back, and, opening, the two exercise books, so placed them that they formed a shade that prevented the light falling upon the bed. This done, he changed quickly into a lounge suit, and, lying on the bed, pulled the coverlet over him and was asleep in five minutes.

Margaret Belman had it in her mind to send tip to his room after eleven, before she herself retired, to discover whether there was anything he wanted, but fortunately she changed her mind—fortunately because Mr. Reeder had planned to snatch five solid hours' sleep before he began his unofficial inspection of the house, or alternatively before tb3 period arrived when it would be necessary that he skjuld be wide awake,

At two o'clock to the second he woke and sat up on the edge of the bed, blinking at the light. Opening one of his trunks, he took out a small wooden box, from which he drew a spirit stove and the paraphernaliar of tea-making. He lit the little lamp, and while the tiny tin-kettle was boiling he went to the bathroom, undressed, wd lowered his •hivering Jgsue a cold bath. He returggs fsHy dressed, t>» find the kettle feoiTtng.

Mr. Reeder was a very mefchodicall man; he was, moreover, a careful man.) All his life he had had a suspicion of milk. He used to wander round the suburban streets in the early hours of the morning, watch the cans hanging on the knockers, the bottles deposited in corners of doorsteps, and ruminate upon the enormous possibilities for wholesale murder that this light-hearted custom of milk delivery presented to the criminally minded. He had calculated that a nimble homicide, working on a systematic line, could decimate London in a month. /

He drank liis tea without milk, munched a biscuit, and then, methodically clearing away the spirit stove and kettle, hp took from his grip a pair of thick-soled felt slippers, and drew them on his feet. In his trunk he found a short length of stiff rubber, which, in the hands of a skilful man, was as deadly a weapon as a knife. This lie put in the inside pocket of his jacket. He put his hand in the trunk again, and brought out something that looked like a thin rubber sponge bag except that it was fitted with two squares of mica and a small metal nozzle- He hesitated about this, turning it over and over in his hand, and eventually this went back into the trunk. The stubby Browning pistol, which was his next find, Mr. Reeder regarded with disfavour, for the value of firearms, except in the most desperate circumstances, had always seemed to him to be problematical. % The last thing to be extracted was a hollow bamboo, which contained another, and was in truth the'fislung rod for which he had once expressed a'desire. At the end of the thinner was a spring loop, and after he had screwed the two lengths together he fitted upon this loop a small electric hand lamp, and carefully threaded the thin wires through the eyelets of the rod, connecting them up with a tiny switch at the handle, near where the average fisherman has his grip. He tested the switch, found it satisfactory, and when this was done he gave a final look round the room before extinguishing the table lamp. In the broad light of day he would have presented a somewhat comic figure, sitting cross-legged on his bed, his long fishing-rod reaching out to the middle of the room and resting on the footboard; but at the moment Mr. J. G. Reeder had no sense of the ridiculous, and, moreover, there were no witnesses. From time to time he swayed the rod left and right, like an angler making a fresh cast. He was very wide awake, his cars tuned to differentiate between the normal noises of the night —the rustle of trees, the soft purr of the wind—and the sounds which could only come from human activity. He sat for more than hulf-an-hour, his fishing-rod moving to and fro, and then he was suddenly conscious of a cold draught blowing from the door. Ho had heard no sound, not so much as the clink pf a lock, but he knew that the door was wide open.

Noiselessly he drew in the rod till it was clear of the posts of the bed, brought it round towards the door, paying out until it was a couple of yards from where ho sat —with one foot on the ground now, ready to leap or drop, as events dictated. The end of the rod met with no obstruction. Reeder held hifc breath.... listening,, The corridor outside was heavily carpeted. He expected no sound of footsteps. But people must breathe, thought Air. Reeder, and it is difficult to breathe noiselessly. Conscious that he himself was a little too silent for a supposedly sleeping man, he emitted a lifelike snore and gurgle which might be expected from a middle-aged man in the first stages of slumber. Something touched the eud of the rod, pushing it aside. Air. Reeder turned the switch, and a blinding ray of light leapt from the lamp and focussed in a circle on the opposite wall of the corridor.

The door was. open, but there was nothing human in sight. And then, despite his wonderful nerve, his flesh began to go goosey, and a cold sensation tingled up his spine. Somebody was there —hiding, waiting for the man who carried the lamp, as they thought, to emerge. Reaching out at full arm's length, lie thrust the end of the rod through the doorway into the corridor! Swish! Something struck the rod and snapped it. The lamp fell on the floor, lens uppermost, and flooded the ceiling of the corridor. In an instant Reeder was off the bed, moving swiftly till he came to the cover afforded by the wide-open door. Through the crack he had a limited view of what might happen outside. There was a deadly silence. In the hall downstairs a clock ticked solemnly, whirred, and struck the quarter-to-three. But there was no movement; nothing came within the range of the upturned lamp, uutil - . . He had just a momentary flash of vision. The thin, white face, the hairy lips parted in a grin, wild, dirty white hair, and a bald crown, a short bristle of white beard, a claw-like hand reaching for the lamp. Pistol or rubber? Mr. Reeder selected the rubber. As the hand closed over the lamp he left the cover of the room and struck. He heard a snarl like that of a wild beaset, then the lamp was extinguished as the apparition staggered back, snapping the tliin wire. The corridor was in darkness. He struck again and missed; the violence of the stroke was such that he overbalanced and fell on one knee, and the truncheon flew from his grasp. He threw out his hand, gripped an arm, and with a quick jerk brought his capture into the room and switched on the light. A round, soft hand, covered with a silken sleeve. As the lights leapt to life he found himself looking into the pale face of Olga Crewe! (To be continued Saturday next.)