The Treasure Hunt

There is a tradition in criminal circles that even the humblest of detective officers is a man of wealth and substance, and that his secret hoard was secured by thieving, bribery and blackmail. It is the gossip of the fields, the quarries, the tailor’s shop, the laundry and the bakehouse of fifty county prisons and three convict establishments, that all highly placed detectives have by nefarious means laid up for themselves sufficient earthly treasures to make work a hobby and their official pittance the most inconsiderable portion of their incomes.

Since Mr. J. G. Reeder had for over twenty years dealt exclusively with bank robbers and forgers, who are the aristocrats and capitalists of the underworld, legend credited him with country houses and immense secret reserves. Not that he would have a great deal of money in the bank. It was admitted that he was too clever to risk discovery by the authorities. No, it was hidden somewhere: it was the pet dream of hundreds of unlawful men that they would some day discover the hoard and live happily ever after. The one satisfactory aspect of his affluence (they all agreed) was that, being an old man⁠—he was over fifty⁠—he couldn’t take his money with him, for gold melts at a certain temperature and gilt-edged stock is seldom printed on asbestos paper.

The Director of Public Prosecutions was lunching one Saturday at his club with a judge of the King’s Bench⁠—Saturday being one of the two days in the week when a judge gets properly fed. And the conversation drifted to a certain Mr. J. G. Reeder, the chief of the Director’s sleuths.

“He’s capable,” he confessed reluctantly, “but I hate his hat. It is the sort that So-and-so used to wear,” he mentioned by name an eminent politician; “and I loathe his black frock-coat, people who see him coming into the office think he’s a coroner’s officer, but he’s capable. His side-whiskers are an abomination, and I have a feeling that, if I talked rough to him, he would burst into tears⁠—a gentle soul. Almost too gentle for my kind of work. He apologises to the messenger every time he rings for him!”

The judge, who knew something about humanity, answered with a frosty smile.

“He sounds rather like a potential murderer to me,” he said cynically.

Milord, in his extravagance, he did Mr. J. G. Reeder an injustice, for Mr. Reeder was capable of breaking the law⁠—quite. At the same time there were many people who formed an altogether wrong conception of J. G.’s harmlessness as an individual. And one of these was a certain Lew Kohl, who mixed banknote printing with elementary burglary.

Threatened men live long, a trite saying but, like most things trite, true. In a score of cases, when Mr. J. G. Reeder had descended from the witness stand, he had met the baleful eye of the man in the dock and had listened with mild interest to divers promises as to what would happen to him in the near or the remote future. For he was a great authority on forged banknotes and he had sent many men to penal servitude.

Mr. Reeder, that inoffensive man, had seen prisoners foaming at the mouth in their rage, he had seen them white and livid, he had heard their howling execrations and he had met these men after their release from prison and had found them amiable souls half ashamed and half amused at their nearly forgotten outbursts and horrific threats.

But when, in the early part of 1914, Lew Kohl was sentenced for ten years, he neither screamed his imprecations nor registered a vow to tear Mr. Reeder’s heart, lungs and important organs from his frail body.

Lew just smiled and his eyes caught the detective’s for the space of a second⁠—the forger’s eyes were pale blue and speculative, and they held neither hate nor fury. Instead, they said in so many words:

“At the first opportunity I will kill you.”

Mr. Reeder read the message and sighed heavily, for he disliked fuss of all kinds, and resented, in so far as he could resent anything, the injustice of being made personally responsible for the performance of a public duty.

Many years had passed, and considerable changes had occurred in Mr. Reeder’s fortune. He had transferred from the specialised occupation of detecting the makers of forged banknotes to the more general practice of the Public Prosecutor’s bureau, but he never forgot Lew’s smile.

The work in Whitehall was not heavy and it was very interesting. To Mr. Reeder came most of the anonymous letters which the Director received in shoals. In the main they were self-explanatory, and it required no particular intelligence to discover their motive. Jealousy, malice, plain mischief-making, and occasionally a sordid desire to benefit financially by the information which was conveyed, were behind the majority. But occasionally:

“Sir James is going to marry his cousin, and it’s not three months since his poor wife fell overboard from the Channel steamer crossing to Calais. There’s something very fishy about this business. Miss Margaret doesn’t like him, for she knows he’s after her money. Why was I sent away to London that night? He doesn’t like driving in the dark, either. It’s strange that he wanted to drive that night when it was raining like blazes.”

This particular letter was signed “A Friend.” Justice has many such friends.

“Sir James” was Sir James Tithermite, who had been a director of some new public department during the war and had received a baronetcy for his services.

“Look it up,” said the Director when he saw the letter. “I seem to remember that Lady Tithermite was drowned at sea.”

“On the nineteenth of December last year,” said Mr. Reeder solemnly. “She and Sir James were going to Monte Carlo, breaking their journey in Paris. Sir James, who has a house near Maidstone, drove to Dover, garaging the car at the Lord Wilson Hotel. The night was stormy and the ship had a rough crossing⁠—they were halfway across when Sir James came to the purser and said that he had missed his wife. Her baggage was in the cabin, her passport, rail ticket and hat, but the lady was not found, indeed was never seen again.”

The Director nodded.

“I see, you’ve read up the case.”

“I remember it,” said Mr. Reeder. “The case is a favourite speculation of mine. Unfortunately I see evil in everything and I have often thought how easy⁠—but I fear that I take a warped view of life. It is a horrible handicap to possess a criminal mind.”

The Director looked at him suspiciously. He was never quite sure whether Mr. Reeder was serious. At that moment, his sobriety was beyond challenge.

“A discharged chauffeur wrote that letter, of course,” he began.

“Thomas Dayford, of 179, Barrack Street, Maidstone,” concluded Mr. Reeder. “He is at present in the employ of the Kent Motorbus Company, and has three children, two of whom are twins and bonny little rascals.”

The Chief laughed helplessly.

“I’ll take it that you know!” he said. “See what there is behind the letter. Sir James is a big fellow in Kent, a Justice of the Peace, and he has powerful political influences. There is nothing in this letter, of course. Go warily, Reeder⁠—if any kick comes back to this office, it goes on to you⁠—intensified!”

Mr. Reeder’s idea of walking warily was peculiarly his own. He travelled down to Maidstone the next morning, and, finding a bus that passed the lodge gates of Elfreda Manor, he journeyed comfortably and economically, his umbrella between his knees. He passed through the lodge gates, up a long and winding avenue of poplars, and presently came within sight of the grey manor house.

In a deep chair on the lawn he saw a girl sitting, a book on her knees, and evidently she saw him, for she rose as he crossed the lawn and came towards him eagerly.

“I’m Miss Margaret Letherby⁠—are you from⁠—?” She mentioned the name of a well-known firm of lawyers, and her face fell when Mr. Reeder regretfully disclaimed connection with those legal lights.

She was as pretty as a perfect complexion and a round, not too intellectual, face could, in combination, make her.

“I thought⁠—do you wish to see Sir James? He is in the library. If you ring, one of the maids will take you to him.”

Had Mr. Reeder been the sort of man who could be puzzled by anything, he would have been puzzled by the suggestion that any girl with money of her own should marry a man much older than herself against her own wishes. There was little mystery in the matter now. Miss Margaret would have married any strong-willed man who insisted.

“Even me,” said Mr. Reeder to himself, with a certain melancholy pleasure.

There was no need to ring the bell. A tall, broad man in a golfing suit stood in the doorway. His fair hair was long and hung over his forehead in a thick flat strand; a heavy tawny moustache hid his mouth and swept down over a chin that was long and powerful.

“Well?” he asked aggressively.

“I’m from the Public Prosecutor’s office,” murmured Mr. Reeder. “I have had an anonymous letter.”

His pale eyes did not leave the face of the other man.

“Come in,” said Sir James gruffly. As he closed the door he glanced quickly first to the girl and then to the poplar avenue. “I’m expecting a fool of a lawyer,” he said, as he flung open the door of what was evidently the library.

His voice was steady; not by a flicker of eyelash had he betrayed the slightest degree of anxiety when Reeder had told his mission.

“Well⁠—what about this anonymous letter? You don’t take much notice of that kind of trash, do you?”

Mr. Reeder deposited his umbrella and flat-crowned hat on a chair before he took a document from his pocket and handed it to the baronet, who frowned as he read. Was it Mr. Reeder’s vivid imagination, or did the hard light in the eyes of Sir James soften as he read?

“This is a cock and bull story of somebody having seen my wife’s jewellery on sale in Paris,” he said. “There is nothing in it. I can account for every one of my poor wife’s trinkets. I brought back the jewel case after that awful night. I don’t recognise the handwriting: who is the lying scoundrel who wrote this?”

Mr. Reeder had never before been called a lying scoundrel, but he accepted the experience with admirable meekness.

“I thought it untrue,” he said, shaking his head. “I followed the details of the case very thoroughly. You left here in the afternoon⁠—”

“At night,” said the other brusquely. He was not inclined to discuss the matter, but Mr. Reeder’s appealing look was irresistible. “It is only eighty minutes’ run to Dover. We got to the pier at eleven o’clock, about the same time as the boat train, and we went on board at once. I got my cabin key from the purser and put her ladyship and her baggage inside.”

“Her ladyship was a good sailor?”

“Yes, a very good sailor; she was remarkably well that night. I left her in the cabin dozing, and went for a stroll on the deck⁠—”

“Raining very heavily and a strong sea running,” nodded Reeder, as though in agreement with something the other man had said.

“Yes⁠—I’m a pretty good sailor⁠—anyway, that story about my poor wife’s jewels is utter nonsense. You can tell the Director that, with my compliments.”

He opened the door for his visitor, and Mr. Reeder was some time replacing the letter and gathering his belongings.

“You have a beautiful place here. Sir James⁠—a lovely place. An extensive estate?”

“Three thousand acres.” This time he did not attempt to disguise his impatience. “Good afternoon.”

Mr. Reeder went slowly down the drive, his remarkable memory at work.

He missed the bus which he could easily have caught, and pursued an apparently aimless way along the winding road which marched with the boundaries of the baronet’s property. A walk of a quarter of a mile brought him to a lane shooting off at right angles from the main road, and marking, he guessed, the southern boundary. At the corner stood an old stone lodge, on the inside of a forbidding iron gate. The lodge was in a pitiable state of neglect and disrepair. Tiles had been dislodged from the roof, the windows were grimy or broken, and the little garden was overrun with docks and thistles. Beyond the gate was a narrow, weed-covered drive that trailed out of sight into a distant plantation.

Hearing the clang of a letter-box closing, he turned to see a postman mounting his bicycle.

“What place is this?” asked Mr. Reeder, arresting the postman’s departure.

“South Lodge⁠—Sir James Tithermite’s property. It’s never used now. Hasn’t been used for years⁠—I don’t know why; it’s a shortcut if they happen to be coming this way.”

Mr. Reeder walked with him towards the village, and he was a skilful pumper of wells, however dry; and the postman was not dry by any means.

“Yes, poor lady! She was very frail⁠—one of those sort of invalids that last out many a healthy man.”

Mr. Reeder put a question at random and scored most unexpectedly.

“Yes, her ladyship was a bad sailor. I know because every time she went abroad she used to get a bottle of that stuff people take for seasickness. I’ve delivered many a bottle till Raikes the chemist stocked it⁠—‘Pickers’ Travellers’ Friend,’ that’s what it was called. Mr. Raikes was only saying to me the other day that he’d got half a dozen bottles on hand and he didn’t know what to do with them. Nobody in Climbury ever goes to sea.”

Mr. Reeder went on to the village and idled his precious time in most unlikely places. At the chemist’s, at the blacksmith’s shop, at the modest building yard. He caught the last bus back to Maidstone, and by great good luck the last train to London.

And, in his vague way, he answered the Director’s query the next day with:

“Yes, I saw Sir James: a very interesting man.”

This was on the Friday. All day Saturday he was busy. The Sabbath brought him a new interest.

On this bright Sunday morning, Mr. Reeder, attired in a flowered dressing-gown, his feet encased in black velvet slippers, stood at the window of his house in Brockley Road and surveyed the deserted thoroughfare. The bell of a local church, which was accounted high, had rung for early Mass, and there was nothing living in sight except a black cat that lay asleep in a patch of sunlight on the top step of the house opposite. The hour was 7:30, and Mr. Reeder had been at his desk since six, working by artificial light, the month being March towards the close.

From the half-moon of the window bay he regarded a section of the Lewisham High Road and as much of Tanners Hill as can be seen before it dips past the railway bridge into sheer Deptford.

Returning to his table, he opened a carton of the cheapest cigarettes and, lighting one, puffed in an amateurish fashion. He smoked cigarettes rather like a woman who detests them but feels that it is the correct thing to do.

“Dear me,” said Mr. Reeder feebly.

He was back at the window, and he had seen a man turn out of Lewisham High Road. He had crossed the road and was coming straight to Daffodil House⁠—which frolicsome name appeared on the doorposts of Mr. Reeder’s residence. A tall, straight man, with a sombre brown face, he came to the front gate, passed through and beyond the watcher’s range of vision.

“Dear me!” said Mr. Reeder, as he heard the tinkle of a bell.

A few minutes later his housekeeper tapped on the door.

“Will you see Mr. Kohl, sir?” she asked.

Mr. J. G. Reeder nodded.

Lew Kohl walked into the room to find a middle-aged man in a flamboyant dressing-gown sitting at his desk, a pair of pince-nez set crookedly on his nose.

“Good morning. Kohl.”

Lew Kohl looked at the man who had sent him to seven and a half years of hell, and the corner of his thin lips curled.

“Morning, Mr. Reeder.” His eyes flashed across the almost bare surface of the writing-desk on which Reeder’s hands were lightly clasped. “You didn’t expect to see me, I guess?”

“Not so early,” said Reeder in his hushed voice, “but I should have remembered that early rising is one of the good habits which are inculcated by penal servitude.”

He said this in the manner of one bestowing praise for good conduct.

“I suppose you’ve got a pretty good idea of why I have come, eh? I’m a bad forgetter, Reeder, and a man in Dartmoor has time to think.”

The older man lifted his sandy eyebrows, the steel-rimmed glasses on his nose slipped further askew.

“That phrase seems familiar,” he said, and the eyebrows lowered in a frown. “Now let me think⁠—it was in a melodrama, of course, but was it Souls in Harness or The Marriage Vow?”

He appeared genuinely anxious for assistance in solving this problem.

“This is going to be a different kind of play,” said the long-faced Lew through his teeth. “I’m going to get you, Reeder⁠—you can go along and tell your boss, the Public Prosecutor. But I’ll get you sweet! There will be no evidence to swing me. And I’ll get that nice little stocking of yours, Reeder!”

The legend of Reeder’s fortune was accepted even by so intelligent a man as Kohl.

“You’ll get my stocking! Dear me, I shall have to go barefooted,” said Mr. Reeder, with a faint show of humour.

“You know what I mean⁠—think that over. Some hour and day you’ll go out, and all Scotland Yard won’t catch me for the killing! I’ve thought it out⁠—”

“One has time to think in Dartmoor,” murmured Mr. J. G. Reeder encouragingly. “You’re becoming one of the world’s thinkers, Kohl. Do you know Rodin’s masterpiece⁠—a beautiful statue throbbing with life⁠—”

“That’s all.” Lew Kohl rose, the smile still trembling at the corner of his mouth. “Maybe you’ll turn this over in your mind, and in a day or two you won’t be feeling so gay.”

Reeder’s face was pathetic in its sadness. His untidy sandy-grey hair seemed to be standing on end; the large ears, that stood out at right angles to his face, gave the illusion of quivering movement.

Lew Kohl’s hand was on the doorknob.

“Womp!”

It was the sound of a dull weight striking a board; something winged past his cheek, before his eyes a deep hole showed in the wall, and his face was stung by flying grains of plaster. He spun round with a whine of rage.

Mr. Reeder had a long-barrelled Browning in his hand, with a barrel-shaped silencer over the muzzle, and he was staring at the weapon open-mouthed.

“Now how on earth did that happen?” he asked in wonder.

Lew Kohl stood trembling with rage and fear, his face yellow-white.

“You⁠—you swine!” he breathed. “You tried to shoot me!”

Mr. Reeder stared at him over his glasses.

“Good gracious⁠—you think that? Still thinking of killing me, Kohl?”

Kohl tried to speak but found no words, and, flinging open the door, he strode down the stairs and through the front entrance. His foot was on the first step when something came hurtling past him and crashed to fragments at his feet. It was a large stone vase that had decorated the windowsill of Mr. Reeder’s bedroom. Leaping over the debris of stone and flower mould, he glared up into the surprised face of Mr. J. G. Reeder.

“I’ll get you!” he spluttered.

“I hope you’re not hurt?” asked the man at the window in a tone of concern. “These things happen. Some day and some hour⁠—”

As Lew Kohl strode down the street, the detective was still talking.

Mr. Stan Bride was at his morning ablutions when his friend and sometime prison associate came into the little room that overlooked Fitzroy Square.

Stan Bride, who bore no resemblance to anything virginal, being a stout and stumpy man with a huge, red face and many chins, stopped in the act of drying himself and gazed over the edge of the towel.

“What’s the matter with you?” he asked sharply. “You look as if you’d been chased by a busy. What did you go out so early for?”

Lew told him, and the jovial countenance of his roommate grew longer and longer⁠—

“You poor fish!” he hissed. “To go after Reeder with that stuff! Don’t you think he was waiting for you? Do you suppose he didn’t know the very moment you left the Moor?”

“I’ve scared him, anyway,” said the other, and Mr. Bride laughed.

“Good scout!” he sneered. “Scare that old person!” (He did not say “person.”) “If he’s as white as you, he is scared! But he’s not. Of course he shot past you⁠—if he’d wanted to shoot you, you’d have been stiff by now. But he didn’t. Thinker, eh⁠—he’s given you somep’n’ to think about.”

“Where that gun came from I don’t⁠—”

There was a knock at the door and the two men exchanged glances.

“Who’s there?” asked Bride, and a familiar voice answered.

“It’s that busy from the Yard,” whispered Bride, and opened the door.

The “busy” was Sergeant Allford, C.I.D., an affable and portly man and a detective of some promise.

“Morning, boys⁠—not been to church, Stan?”

Stan grinned politely.

“How’s trade, Lew?”

“Not so bad.” The forger was alert, suspicious.

“Come to see you about a gun⁠—got an idea you’re carrying one, Lew—Colt automatic R.7/94318. That’s not right, Lew—guns don’t belong to this country.”

“I’ve got no gun,” said Lew sullenly.

Bride had suddenly become an old man, for he also was a convict on licence, and the discovery might send him back to serve his unfinished sentence.

“Will you come a little walk to the station, or will you let me go over you?”

“Go over me,” said Lew, and put out his arms stiffly whilst the detective rubbed him down.

“I’ll have a look round,” said the detective, and his “look round” was very thorough.

“Must have been mistaken,” said Sergeant Allford. And then, suddenly: “Was that what you chucked into the river as you were walking along the Embankment?”

Lew started. It was the first intimation he had received that he had been “tailed” that morning.

Bride waited till the detective was visible from the window crossing Fitzroy Square; then he turned in a fury on his companion.

“Clever, ain’t you! That old hound knew you had a gun⁠—knew the number. And if Allford had found it you’d have been ‘dragged’ and me too!”

“I threw it in the river,” said Lew sulkily.

“Brains⁠—not many but some!” said Bride, breathing heavily. “You cut out Reeder⁠—he’s hell and poison, and if you don’t know it you’re deaf! Scared him? You big stiff! He’d cut your throat and write a hymn about it.”

“I didn’t know they were tailing me,” growled Kohl; “but I’ll get him! And his money too.”

“Get him from another lodging,” said Bride curtly. “A crook I don’t mind, being one; a murderer I don’t mind, but a talking jackass makes me sick. Get his stuff if you can⁠—I’ll bet it’s all invested in real estate, and you can’t lift houses⁠—but don’t talk about it. I like you, Lew, up to a point; you’re miles before the point and out of sight. I don’t like Reeder⁠—I don’t like snakes, but I keep away from the Zoo.”

So Lew Kohl went into new diggings on the top floor of an Italian’s house in Dean Street, and here he had leisure and inclination to brood upon his grievances and to plan afresh the destruction of his enemy. And new plans were needed, for the schemes which had seemed so watertight in the quietude of a Devonshire cell showed daylight through many crevices.

Lew’s homicidal urge had undergone considerable modification. He had been experimented upon by a very clever psychologist⁠—though he never regarded Mr. Reeder in this light, and, indeed, had the vaguest idea as to what the word meant. But there were other ways of hurting Reeder, and his mind fell constantly back to the dream of discovering this peccant detective’s hidden treasure.

It was nearly a week later that Mr. Reeder invited himself into the Director’s private sanctum, and that great official listened spellbound while his subordinate offered his outrageous theory about Sir James Tithermite and his dead wife. When Mr. Reeder had finished, the Director pushed back his chair from the table.

“My dear man,” he said, a little irritably, “I can’t possibly give a warrant on the strength of your surmises⁠—not even a search warrant. The story is so fantastic, so incredible, that it would be more at home in the pages of a sensational story than in a Public Prosecutor’s report.”

“It was a wild night, and yet Lady Tithermite was not ill,” suggested the detective gently. “That is a fact to remember, sir.”

The Director shook his head.

“I can’t do it⁠—not on the evidence,” he said. “I should raise a storm that’d swing me into Whitehall. Can’t you do anything⁠—unofficially?”

Mr. Reeder shook his head.

“My presence in the neighbourhood has been remarked,” he said primly. “I think it would be impossible to⁠—er⁠—cover up my traces. And yet I have located the place, and could tell you within a few inches⁠—”

Again the Director shook his head.

“No, Reeder,” he said quietly, “the whole thing is sheer deduction on your part. Oh, yes, I know you have a criminal mind⁠—I think you have told me that before. And that is a good reason why I should not issue a warrant. You’re simply crediting this unfortunate man with your ingenuity. Nothing doing!”

Mr. Reeder sighed and went back to his bureau, not entirely despondent, for there had intruded a new element into his investigations.

Mr. Reeder had been to Maidstone several times during the week, and he had not gone alone; though seemingly unconscious of the fact that he had developed a shadow, for he had seen Lew Kohl on several occasions, and had spent an uncomfortable few minutes wondering whether his experiment had failed.

On the second occasion an idea had developed in the detective’s mind, and if he were a laughing man he would have chuckled aloud when he slipped out of Maidstone station one evening and, in the act of hiring a cab, had seen Lew Kohl negotiating for another.

Mr. Bride was engaged in the tedious but necessary practice of so cutting a pack of cards that the ace of diamonds remained at the bottom, when his former co-lodger burst in upon him, and there was a light of triumph in Lew’s cold eye which brought Mr. Bride’s heart to his boots.

“I’ve got him!” said Lew.

Bride put aside the cards and stood up.

“Got who?” he asked coldly. “And if it’s killing, you needn’t answer, but get out!”

“There’s no killing.”

Lew sat down squarely at the table, his hands in his pockets, a real smile on his face.

“I’ve been trailing Reeder for a week, and that fellow wants some trailing!”

“Well?” asked the other, when he paused dramatically.

“I’ve found his stocking!”

Bride scratched his chin, and was half convinced.

“You never have?”

Lew nodded.

“He’s been going to Maidstone a lot lately, and driving to a little village about five miles out. There I always lost him. But the other night, when he came back to the station to catch the last train, he slipped into the waiting-room and I found a place where I could watch him. What do you think he did?”

Mr. Bride hazarded no suggestion.

“He opened his bag,” said Lew impressively, “and took out a wad of notes as thick as that! He’d been drawing on his bank! I trailed him up to London. There’s a restaurant on the station and he went in to get a cup of coffee, with me keeping well out of his sight. As he came out of the restaurant he took out his handkerchief and wiped his mouth. He didn’t see the little book that dropped, but I did. I was scared sick that somebody else would see it, or that he’d wait long enough to find it himself. But he went out of the station and I got that book before you could say ‘knife.’ Look!”

It was a well-worn little notebook, covered with faded red morocco. Bride put out his hand to take it.

“Wait a bit,” said Lew. “Are you in this with me fifty-fifty, because I want some help?”

Bride hesitated.

“If it’s just plain thieving, I’m with you,” he said.

“Plain thieving⁠—and sweet,” said Lew exultantly, and pushed the book across the table.

For the greater part of the night they sat together talking in low tones, discussing impartially the methodical bookkeeping of Mr. J. G. Reeder and his exceeding dishonesty.

The Monday night was wet. A storm blew up from the southwest, and the air was filled with falling leaves as Lew and his companion footed the five miles which separated them from the village. Neither carried any impedimenta that was visible, yet under Lew’s waterproof coat was a kit of tools of singular ingenuity, and Mr. Bride’s coat pockets were weighted down with the sections of a powerful jemmy.

They met nobody in their walk, and the church bell was striking eleven when Lew gripped the bars of the South Lodge gates, pulled himself up to the top and dropped lightly on the other side. He was followed by Mr. Bride, who, in spite of his bulk, was a singularly agile man. The ruined lodge showed in the darkness, and they passed through the creaking gates to the door and Lew flashed his lantern upon the keyhole before he began manipulation with the implements which he had taken from his kit.

The door was opened in ten minutes and a few seconds later they stood in a low-roofed little room, the principal feature of which was a deep, grateless fireplace. Lew took off his mackintosh and stretched it over the window before he spread the light in his lamp, and, kneeling down, brushed the debris from the hearth, examining the joints of the big stone carefully.

“This work’s been botched,” he said. “Anybody could see that.”

He put the claw of the jemmy into a crack and levered up the stone, and it moved slightly. Stopping only to dig a deeper crevice with a chisel and hammer he thrust the claw of the jemmy farther down. The stone came up above the edge of the floor and Bride slipped the chisel underneath.

“Now together,” grunted Lew.

They got their fingers beneath the hearthstone and with one heave hinged it up. Lew picked up the lamp and, kneeling down, flashed a light into the dark cavity. And then:

“Oh, my God!” he shrieked.

A second later two terrified men rushed from the house into the drive. And a miracle had happened, for the gates were open and a dark figure stood squarely before them.

“Put up your hands, Kohl!” said a voice, and hateful as it was to Lew Kohl, he could have fallen on the neck of Mr. Reeder.

At twelve o’clock that night Sir James Tithermite was discussing matters with his bride-to-be: the stupidity of her lawyer, who wished to safeguard her fortune, and his own cleverness and foresight in securing complete freedom of action for the girl who was to be his wife.

“These blackguards think of nothing but their fees,” he began, when his footman came in unannounced, and behind him the Chief Constable of the county and a man he remembered seeing before.

“Sir James Tithermite?” said the Chief Constable unnecessarily, for he knew Sir James very well.

“Yes, Colonel, what is it?” asked the baronet, his face twitching.

“I am taking you into custody on a charge of wilfully murdering your wife, Eleanor Mary Tithermite.”

“The whole thing turned upon the question as to whether Lady Tithermite was a good or a bad sailor,” explained J. G. Reeder to his chief. “If she were a bad sailor, it was unlikely that she would be on the ship, even for five minutes, without calling for the stewardess. The stewardess did not see her ladyship, nor did anybody on board, for the simple reason that she was not on board! She was murdered within the grounds of the Manor; her body was buried beneath the hearthstone of the old lodge, and Sir James continued his journey by car to Dover, handing over his packages to a porter and telling him to take them to his cabin before he returned to put the car into the hotel garage. He had timed his arrival so that he passed on board with a crowd of passengers from the boat train, and nobody knew whether he was alone or whether he was accompanied, and, for the matter of that, nobody cared. The purser gave him his key, and he put the baggage, including his wife’s hat, into the cabin, paid the porter and dismissed him. Officially, Lady Tithermite was on board, for he surrendered her ticket to the collector and received her landing voucher. And then he discovered she had disappeared. The ship was searched, but of course the unfortunate lady was not found. As I remarked before⁠—”

“You have a criminal mind,” said the Director good-humouredly. “Go on, Reeder.”

“Having this queer and objectionable trait, I saw how very simple a matter it was to give the illusion that the lady was on board, and I decided that, if the murder was committed, it must have been within a few miles of the house. And then the local builder told me that he had given Sir James a little lesson in the art of mixing mortar. And the local blacksmith told me that the gate had been damaged, presumably by Sir James’s car⁠—I had seen the broken rods and all I wanted to know was when the repairs were effected. That she was beneath the hearth in the lodge I was certain. Without a search warrant it was impossible to prove or disprove my theory, and I myself could not conduct a private investigation without risking the reputation of our department⁠—if I may say ‘our,’ ” he said apologetically.

The Director was thoughtful.

“Of course, you induced this man Kohl to dig up the hearth by pretending you had money buried there. I presume you revealed that fact in your notebook? But why on earth did he imagine that you had a hidden treasure?”

Mr. Reeder smiled sadly.

“The criminal mind is a peculiar thing,” he said, with a sigh. “It harbours illusions and fairy stories. Fortunately, I understand that mind. As I have often said⁠—”