Room 13 (14 page)

“I’m not especially fond of flowers,” said Jeffrey.

“What a pity!” said the other regretfully. “What a thousand pities! But there is no sea view from that establishment, no painted ships upon a painted ocean – which is a quotation from a well-known poem; no delightful sense of freedom; nothing really that makes life durable for a man under sentence, let us say, of fifteen or twenty years.”

Jeff did not reply.

“Do you love rabbits?” was the surprising question that was put to him.

“No, I can’t say that I do.”

Lila sat erect, motionless, all her senses trained to hear and understand.

Mr Reeder sighed.

“I am very fond of rabbits. Whenever I see a rabbit in a cage or in a hutch, I buy it, take it to the nearest wood and release it. It may be a foolish kindness, because, born and reared in captivity, it may not have the necessary qualities to support itself amongst its wilder fellows. But I like letting rabbits loose; other people like putting rabbits in cages.” He shook his finger in Jeffrey’s face. “Never be a rabbit in a cage, Mr Jeffrey – or is it Mr Legge? Yes, Mr Legge.”

“I am neither a rabbit, nor a chicken, nor a fox, nor a sky-lark,” said Jeffrey. “The cage hasn’t been built that could hold me.”

Again Mr Reeder sighed.

“I remember another gentleman saying that some years ago. I forget in what prison he was hanged. Possibly it was Wandsworth – yes, I am sure it was Wandsworth. I saw his grave the other day. Just his initials. What a pity! What a sad end to a promising career! He is better off, I think, for twenty long years in a prison cell, that is a dreadful fate, Mr Legge! And it is a fate that would never overtake a man who decided to reform. Suppose, let us say, he was forging Bank of England notes, and decided that he would burn his paper and his water-markers, dismiss all his agents… I don’t think we should worry very much about that type of person. We should meet him generously and liberally, especially if his notes were of such excellent quality that they were difficult for the uninitiated to detect.”

“What has happened to Golden?” asked Jeffrey boldly.

The eyes of the elderly man twinkled.

“Golden was my predecessor,” he said. “A very charming fellow, by some accounts–”

Again Jeffrey cut him short.

“He used to be the man who was looking after the ‘slush’ for the police. Is he dead?”

“He has gone abroad,” said Mr Reeder gravely. “Yes, Mr Golden could not stand this climate. He suffered terribly from asthma, or it may have been sciatica. I know there was an ‘a’ at the end of it. Did you ever meet him? Ah! You missed a very great opportunity,” said Mr Reeder. “Golden was a nice fellow – not as smart, perhaps, as he might have been, or as he should have been, but a very nice fellow. He did not work, perhaps, so much in the open as I do; and there I think he was mistaken. It is always an error to shut yourself up in an office and envelop yourself in an atmosphere of mystery. I myself am prone to the same fault. Now, my dear Mr Legge, I am sure you will take my parable kindly, and will give it every thought and consideration.”

“I would, if I were a printer of ‘slush’, but, unfortunately, I’m not,” said Jeffrey Legge with a smile.

“You’re not, of course,” the other hastened to say. “I wouldn’t dream of suggesting you were. But with your vast circle of acquaintances – and, I’m sure, admirers – you may perhaps be able to convey my simple little illustration. I don’t like to see rabbits in cages, or birds in cages, or anything else behind bars. And I think that Dartmoor is what shall I say? – unaesthetic. And it seems
such
a pity to spend all the years in Devonshire. In the spring; of course, it is delightful; in the summer it is hot; in the winter, unless you’re at Torquay, it is deplorable. Good morning, Mr Legge.”

He bowed low to the girl, and, bowing, his spectacles fell off. Stooping, he picked them up with an apology and backed away, and they watched him in silence till he had disappeared from view.

“What do you think of him for a busy?” asked Jeffrey contemptuously.

She did not answer. Contact with the man had frightened her. It was not like Lila to shiver in the presence of detectives.

“I don’t know what he is,” she said a little breathlessly. “He’s something like a…good-natured snake. Didn’t you feel that, Jeffrey?”

“Good-natured nothing,” said the other with a curl of his lip. “He’s worse than Golden. These big corporations fall for that kind of man. They never give a chance to a real clever busy.”

“Who was Golden?” she asked.

“He was an old fellow too. They fired him.” He chuckled to himself. “And I was responsible for firing him. Then they brought in Mr J G Reeder with a flourish of trumpets. He’s been on the game three years, and he’s just about as near to making a pull as he ever was.”

“Jeff, isn’t there danger?” Her voice was very serious.

“Isn’t there always danger? No more danger than usual,” he said. “They can’t touch me. Don’t worry! I’ve covered myself so that they can’t see me for overcoats! Once the stuff’s printed, they can never put it back on me.”

“Once it’s printed.” She nodded slowly. “Then you
are
the Big Printer, Jeff?”

“Talk about something else,” he said.

When Emanuel returned, as he did soon after, Lila met him at the gate and told him of Reeder’s visit. To her surprise, he took almost the same view as Jeff had taken.

“He’s a fool, but straight-up to five thousand, anyway. No man is straight when you reach his figure.”

“But why did he come to Jeff?” she asked.

“Doesn’t everybody in the business know that Jeff’s the Big Printer? Haven’t they been trying to put it on him for years? Of course he came. It was his last, despairing stroke. How’s the boy?” he asked.

“He’s all right, but a little touchy.”

“Of course he’s a little touchy,” said Emanuel indignantly. “You don’t suppose he’s going to get better in a day, do you? The club’s running again.”

“Has it been closed?”

“It hasn’t exactly been closed, but it has been unpopular,” he said, showing his teeth in that smile of his. “Listen.” He caught her arm on the edge of the lawn. “Get your mind off that shooting will you? I’ll fix the man responsible for that.”

“Do you know?” she asked.

It was the first time he had ever discussed the matter calmly, for the very mention of the attack upon Jeff had hitherto been sufficient to drive him to an incoherent frenzy.

“Yes, I know,” he said gratingly. “It was Peter Kane, but you needn’t say anything about that – I’ll fix him, I tell you.”

“Jeff thinks it was–”

“Never mind what Jeff thinks,” he said impatiently. “Do as I tell you.”

He sent her into the house to brew him a cup of tea – Emanuel was a great drinker of tea – and in her absence he had something to say to his son.

“Jeff, there’s a big call for your stuff,” he said. “I’ve had a letter from Harvey. He says there’s another man started in the north of England, and he’s turning out pretty good material. But they want yours – they can place half a million on the Continent right away. Jeff, what Harvey says is right. If there’s a slackening of supply while you’re ill, the busy fellows are going to tumble to you.”

“I’ve thought of that,” said Jeffrey. “You can tell anybody who’s interested that there’ll be a printing next week.”

“Are you well enough to go up?” asked his father anxiously.

Jeffrey nodded, and shifted himself more erect, but winced in the process.

“Reeder’s been here: did she tell you?”

Emanuel nodded.

“I’m not worried much about Reeder. Down in Dartmoor he’s a bogey, but then, they bogey any man they don’t know. And they’ve got all sorts of stories about him. It’s very encouraging to get near to the real thing.”

They laughed together, and for the rest of the day discussed ways and means.

Jeffrey had said no more than was true when he had told the girl he was well covered. In various parts of the country he had twelve banking accounts, each in a different name, and at one of the safe deposits, an enormous sum in currency ready for emergency.

“You’ve got to stop some time, I suppose,” said his father, “but it is mighty tempting to carry on with those profits. It’s a bigger graft than I ever attempted, Jeff.” And his son accepted this respectful tribute with a smirk.

The old man sat, his clasped hands between his knees, staring out over the sea.

“It has got to end some day, and that would be a fine end, but I can’t quite see how it could be done.”

“What are you talking about?” asked the other curiously.

“I’m thinking about Peter – the respectable Mr Peter Kane. Not quite so respectable in that girl’s eyes as he used to be, but respectable enough to have busies to dinner, and that crook, Johnny Gray – Johnny will marry the girl, Jeff.”

Jeffrey Legge winced.

“She can marry the devil so far as I’m concerned,” he said.

“But she can’t marry without divorcing you. Do you realise that, my son? That’s the law. And she can’t divorce you without shopping you for bigamy. That’s the law too. And the question is, will she delay her action until Johnny’s made a bit, or will she start right in? If she gives me just the time I want, Jeff, you’ll have your girl and I’ll have Peter Kane. She’s your wife in the eyes of the law.”

There was a significance in his words that made the other man look at him quickly.

“What’s the great idea?” he asked.

“Suppose Peter was the Big Printer?” said Emanuel, speaking in a tone that was little above a whisper. “Suppose he was caught with the goods? It could be done. I don’t mean by planting the stuff in his house – nobody would accept that; but getting him right on the spot, so that his best friend at Scotland Yard couldn’t save him? How’s that for an idea?”

“It couldn’t be done,” said the other immediately.

“Oh, couldn’t it?” sneered Emanuel. “You can do any old thing you want, if you make up your mind to do it. Or if you’re game to do it.”

“That wouldn’t get me the girl.”

Emanuel turned his head slowly toward his heir.

“If they found the Big Printer, they’ll have to find the big printing,” he said deliberately. “That means we should all have to skip, and skip lively. We might have a few hours’ start, and in these days of aeroplanes, three hours is four hundred miles. Jeff, if we are caught, and they guess I’ve been in this printing all the time, I shall never see outside again. And you’ll go down for life. They can’t give you any worse than that – not if you took the girl away with you.”

“By force?” asked the other in surprise. The idea had not occurred to him.

The father nodded.

“If we have to skip, that’s the only thing for you to do, son. It’s no offence – remember that. She’s your wife.” He looked to left and right, to see if there was the faintest shadow of a chance that he would be overheard, and then: “Suppose we ask Peter and his girl and Johnny Gray to dinner? A nice little dinner-party, eh?”

“Where?” asked the other suspiciously.

“In Room 13,” said Emanuel Legge. “In Room 13, Jeff, boy! A nice little dinner. What do you think? And then two whiffs of sleep stuff–”

“You’re mad,” said the other angrily. “What’s the good of talking that way? Do you think he’s going to come to dinner and bring his girl? Oh, you’re nutty to think it!”

“Trust me,” said Emanuel Legge.

Walking down Regent Street one morning, Johnny Gray saw a familiar face – a man standing on the kerb selling penny trinkets. The face was oddly familiar, but he had gone on a dozen paces before he could recall where he had seen him before, and turned back. The man knew him; at any rate, his uncouth features twisted in a smile.

“Good morning, my lord,” he said. “What about a toy balloon for the baby?”

“Your name is Fenner, isn’t it?” said Johnny with a good-humoured gesture of refusal.

“That’s me, Captain. I didn’t think you’d recognised me. How’s business?”

“Quiet,” said Johnny conventionally. “What are you doing?”

The man shrugged his enormous shoulders.

“Selling these, and filling in the time with a little sluicing.”

Johnny shook his head reprovingly. ‘Sluicing’ in the argot indicates a curious method of livelihood. In public wash-places, where men strip off their coats to wash their hands for luncheon, there are fine pickings to be had by a man with quick fingers and a knowledge of human nature.

“Did you ever get your towelling
[2]
?”

“No,” said the other contemptuously and with a deep growl. “I knew they couldn’t, that’s why I coshed the screw. I was too near my time. If I ever see old man Legge, by God I’ll–”

Jimmy raised his finger. A policeman was strolling past, and was eyeing the two suspiciously. Apparently, if he regarded Fenner with disfavour, Johnny’s respectability redeemed the association.

“Poor old ‘flattie’!” said Fenner as the officer passed. “What a life!”

The man looked him up and down amusedly.

“You seem to have struck it, Gray,” he said, with no touch of envy. “What’s your graft?”

Johnny smiled faintly.

“It is one you’ll find difficult to understand, Fenner. I am being honest!”

“That’s certainly a new one on me,” said the other frankly. “Have you seen old Emanuel?” His voice was now quite calm. “Great fellow, Emanuel! And young Emanuel – Jeffrey – what a lad!”

There was a glint in his eyes as he scrutinised Johnny that told that young man he knew much more of recent happenings than he was prepared to state. And his next words supported that view.

“You keep away from the Legge lot, Captain,” he said earnestly. “They are no good to anybody, and least of all to a man who’s had an education like yours. I owe Legge one, and I’ll get him, but I’m not thinking about that so much as young Jeff. You’re the fellow he would go after, because you dress like a swell and you look like a swell – the very man to put ‘slush’ about without anybody tumbling.”

“The Big Printer, eh?” said Johnny, with that quizzical smile of his.

“The Big Printer,” repeated the other gravely. “And he is a big printer. You hear all sorts of lies down on the moor, but that’s true. Jeff’s got the biggest graft that’s ever been worked in this country. They’ll get him sooner or later, because there never was a crook game yet that hadn’t got a squeak about it somewhere. And the squeak has started, judging by what I can read in the papers. Who shot him?” he asked bluntly.