Mr. Reeder stepped out into the rain and reached to close the door.
‘The female also-come, miss!’
‘Here-what’s the game-you told me the New Cross Road was blocked.’ It was the cabman talking.
‘Here is a five-keep your mouth shut.’
The masked man thrust a note at the driver.
‘I don’t want your money-’
‘You require my bullet in your bosom perchance, my good fellow?’ asked Ras Lal sardonically.
Margaret had followed her escort into the road by this time. The car had stopped just behind the cab. With the muzzle of the pistol stuck into his back, Mr. Reeder walked to the open door and entered. The girl followed, and the masked man jumped after them and closed the door. Instantly the interior was flooded with light.
‘This is a considerable surprise to a clever and intelligent police detective?’
Their captor sat on the opposite seat, his pistol on his knees. Through the holes of the black mask a pair of brown eyes gleamed malevolently. But Mr. Reeder’s interest was in the girl. The shock had struck the colour from her face, but he observed with thankfulness that her chief emotion was not fear. She was numb with amazement, and was stricken speechless.
The car had circled and was moving swiftly back the way they had come. He felt the rise of the Canal bridge, and then the machine turned abruptly to the right and began the descent of a steep hill. They were running towards Rotherhithe-he had an extraordinary knowledge of London’s topography.
The journey was a short one. He felt the car wheels bump over an uneven roadway for a hundred yards, the body rocking uncomfortably, and then with a jar of brakes the machine stopped suddenly.
They were on a narrow muddy lane. On one side rose the arches of a railway aqueduct, on the other an open space bounded by a high fence. Evidently the driver had pulled up short of their destination, for they had to squelch and slide through the thick mud for another fifty yards before they came to a narrow gateway in the fence. Through this they struck a cinder-path leading to a square building, which Mr. Reeder guessed was a small factory of some kind. Their conductor flashed a lamp on the door, and in weatherworn letters the detective read:
‘The Storn-Filton Leather Company.’
‘Now!’ said the man, as he turned a switch. ‘Now, my false-swearing and corrupt police official, I have a slight bill to settle with you.’
They were in a dusty lobby, enclosed on three sides by matchboard walls.
‘“Account” is the word you want, Ras Lal,’ murmured Mr. Reeder.
For a moment the man was taken aback, and then, snatching the mask from his face:
‘I am Ras Lal! And you shall repent it! For you and for your young missus this is indeed a cruel night of anxiety!’
Mr. Reeder did not smile at the quaint English. The gun in the man’s hand spoke all languages without error, and could be as fatal in the hands of an unconscious humorist as if it were handled by the most savage of purists.
And he was worried about the girl: she had not spoken a word since their capture. The colour had come back to her cheeks, and that was a good sign. There was, too, a light in her eyes which Reeder could not associate with fear.
Ras Lal, taking down a long cord that hung on a nail in the wooden partition, hesitated.
‘It is not necessary,’ he said, with an elaborate shrug of shoulder; ‘the room is sufficiently reconnoitred-you will be innocuous there.’
Flinging open a door, he motioned them to pass through and mount the bare stairs which faced them. At the top was a landing and a large steel door set in the solid brickwork.
Pulling back the iron bolt, he pushed at the door, and it opened with a squeak. It was a large room, and had evidently been used for the storage of something inflammable, for the walls and floor were of rough-faced concrete and above a dusty desk an inscription was painted, ‘Danger. Don’t smoke in this store.’ There were no windows except one some eighteen inches square, the top of which was near the ceiling. In one corner of the room was a heap of grimy paper files, and on the desk a dozen small wooden boxes, one of which had been opened, for the nail-bristling lid was canted up at an angle.
‘Make yourself content for half an hour or probably forty minutes,’ said Ras Lal, standing in the doorway with his ostentatious revolver. ‘At that time I shall come for your female; tomorrow she will be on a ship with me, bound for-ah, who knows where?’
‘Shut the door as you go out,’ said Mr. J.G. Reeder; ‘there is an unpleasant draught.’
Mr. Tommy Fenalow came on foot at two o’clock in the morning and, passing down the muddy lane, his electric torch suddenly revealed car marks. Tommy stopped like a man shot. His knees trembled beneath him and his heart entered his throat at the narrowest end. For a while he was undecided whether it would be better to run or walk away. He had no intention of going forward. And then he heard a voice. It was Ras Lal’s assistant, and he nearly swooned with joy. Stumbling forward, he came up to the shivering man.
‘Did that fool boss of yours bring the car along here?’ he asked in a whisper.
‘Yas-Mr. Ras Lal,’ said Ram with whom the English language was not a strong point.
‘Then he’s a fool!’ growled Tommy. ‘Gosh! he put my heart in my mouth!’
Whilst Ram was getting together sufficient English to explain what had happened, Tommy passed on. He found his client sitting in the lobby, a black cheroot between his teeth, a smile of satisfaction on his dark face.
‘Welcome!’ he said, as Tommy closed the door. ‘We have trapped the weasel.’
‘Never mind about the weasel,’ said the other impatiently. ‘Did you find the rupees?’
Ras Lal shook his head.
‘But I left them in the store-ten thousand notes. I thought you’d have got them and skipped before this,’ said Mr. Fenalow anxiously.
‘I have something more important in the store-come and see my friend.’
He preceded the bewildered Tommy up the stairs, turned on the landing light and threw open the door.
‘Behold-’ he said, and said no more.
‘Why, it is Mr. Fenalow!’ said Mr. J.G.
One hand held a packet of almost lifelike rupee notes; as for the other hand —
‘You oughter known he carried a gun, you dam’ black baboon,’ hissed Tommy. ‘An’ to put him in a room where the stuff was, and a telephone!’
He was being driven to the local police station, and for the moment was attached to his companion by links of steel.
‘It was a mere jest or a piece of practical joking, as I shall explain to the judge in the morning,’ said Ras airily.
Tommy Fenalow’s reply was unprintable.
Three o’clock boomed out from St. John’s Church as Mr. Reeder accompanied an excited girl to the front door other boardinghouse.
‘I can’t tell you how I-I’ve enjoyed tonight,’ she said.
Mr. Reeder glanced uneasily at the dark face of the house.
‘I hope – er – your friends will not think it remarkable that you should return at such an hour –’
Despite her assurance, he went slowly home with an uneasy feeling that her name had in some way been compromised. And in melodrama, when a heroine’s name is compromised, somebody has to marry her.
That was the disturbing thought that kept Mr. Reeder