Men of Mr. Liski’s peculiar calling do not meet their lieutenants in dark cellars, nor do they wear cloaks or masks to disguise their identities. The big six who controlled the interests serving Mo Liski came together on the night of his release, and the gathering was at a Soho restaurant, where a private diningroom was engaged in the ordinary way.
‘I’m glad nobody touched him whilst I was away,’ said Mo with a little smile. ‘I’d like to manage this game myself. I’ve been doing some thinking whilst I was in bird, and there’s a good way to deal with him.’
‘He had two coppers with him all the time, or I’d have coshed him for you, Mo,’ said Teddy Alfield, his chief of staff.
‘And I’d have coshed you, Teddy,’ said Mr. Liski ominously. ‘I left orders that he wasn’t to be touched, didn’t I? What do you mean by “you’d have coshed him”?’
Alfield, a big-shouldered man whose speciality was the ‘knocking-off’ of unattended motorcars, grew incoherent.
‘You stick to your job,’ snarled Mo. ‘I’ll fix Reeder. He’s got a girl in Brockley; a young woman who is always going about with him-Belman’s her name and she lives nearly opposite his house. We don’t want to beat him up-yet. What we want to do is to get him out of his job, and that’s easy. They fired a man in the Home Office last week because he was found at the “95” Club after drinking hours.’
He outlined a simple plan.
Margaret Belman left her office one evening and, walking to the corner of Westminster Bridge and the Embankment, looked around for Mr. Reeder. Usually, if his business permitted, he was to be found hereabouts, though of late the meetings had been very few, and when she had seen him he was usually in the company of two glum men who seated themselves on either side of him.
She let one car pass, and had decided to catch the second which was coming slowly along the Embankment, when a parcel dropped at her feet. She looked round to see a pretty, well-dressed woman swaying with closed eyes, and had just time to catch her by the arm before she half collapsed. With her arm round the woman’s waist she assisted her to a seat providentially placed hereabouts.
‘I’m so sorry-thank you ever so much. I wonder if you would call me a taxi?’ gasped the fainting lady.
She spoke with a slightly foreign accent, and had the indefinable manner of a great lady; so Margaret thought.
Beckoning a cab, she assisted the woman to enter.
‘Would you like me to go home with you?’ asked the sympathetic girl.
‘It would be good of you,’ murmured the lady, ‘but I fear to inconvenience you-it was so silly of me. My address is 105, Great Claridge Street.’
She recovered sufficiently on the journey to tell Margaret that she was Madame Lemaire, and that she was the widow of a French banker. The beautiful appointments of the big house in the most fashionable part of Mayfair suggested that Madame Lemaire was a woman of some wealth. A butler opened the door, a liveried footman brought in the tea which Madame insisted on the girl taking with her.
‘You are too good. I cannot be thankful enough to you, mademoiselle. I must know you better. Will you come one night to dinner? Shall we say Thursday?’
Margaret Belman hesitated. She was human enough to be impressed by the luxury other surroundings, and this dainty lady had the appeal of refinement and charm which is so difficult to resist.
‘We will dine tete-a-tete, and after-some people may come for dancing. Perhaps you have a friend you would like to come?’
Margaret smiled and shook her head. Curiously enough, the word ‘friend’ suggested only the rather awkward figure of Mr. Reeder, and somehow she could not imagine Mr. Reeder in this setting.
When she came out into the street and the butler had closed the door behind her, she had the first shock of the day. The object of her thoughts was standing on the opposite side of the road, a furled umbrella hooked to his arm.
‘Why, Mr. Reeder!’ she greeted him.
‘You had seven minutes to spare,’ he said, looking at his big-faced watch. ‘I gave you half an hour-you were exactly twentythree minutes and a few odd seconds.’
‘Did you know I was there?’ she asked unnecessarily.
‘Yes-I followed you. I do not like Mrs. Annie Feltham-she calls herself Madame something or other. It is not a nice club.’
‘Club!’ she gasped.
Mr. Reeder nodded.
‘They call it the Muffin Club. Curious name-curious members. It is not nice.’
She asked no further questions, but allowed herself to be escorted to Brockley, wondering just why Madame had picked upon her as a likely recruit to the gaieties of Mayfair.
And now occurred the succession of incidents which at first had so puzzled Mr. Liski. He was a busy man, and almost regretted that he had not postponed putting his plan of operation into movement. That he had failed in one respect he discovered when by accident, as it seemed, he met Mr. Reeder face to face in Piccadilly.
‘Good morning, Liski,’ said Mr. Reeder, almost apologetically. ‘I was so sorry for that unfortunate contretemps, but believe me, I bear no malice. And whilst I realise that in all probability you do not share my sentiments, I have no other wish than to live on the friendliest terms with you.’
Liski looked at him sharply. The old man was getting scared, he thought. There was almost a tremble in his anxious voice when he put forward the olive branch.
‘That’s all right, Mr. Reeder,’ said Mo, with his most charming smile. ‘I don’t bear any malice either. After all, it was a silly thing to say, and you have your duty to do.’
He went on in this strain, stringing platitude to platitude, and Mr. Reeder listened with evidence of growing relief.
‘The world is full of sin and trouble,’ he said, shaking his head sadly; ‘both in high and low places vice is triumphant, and virtue thrust, like the daisies, underfoot. You don’t keep chickens, do you, Mr. Liski?’
Mo Liski shook his head.
‘What a pity!’ sighed Mr. Reeder. ‘There is so much one can learn from the domestic fowl! They are an object lesson to the unlawful. I often wonder why the Prison Commissioners do not allow the convicts at Dartmoor to engage in this harmless and instructive hobby. I was saying to Mr. Pyne early this morning, when they raided the Muffin Club-what a quaint title it has-’
‘Raided the Muffin Club?’ said Mo quickly. ‘What do you mean? I’ve heard nothing about that.’
‘You wouldn’t. That kind of institution would hardly appeal to you. Only we thought it was best to raid the place, though in doing so I fear I have incurred the displeasure of a young lady friend of mine who was invited to dinner there tomorrow night. As I say, chickens—’
Now Mo Liski knew that his plan had miscarried. Yet he was puzzled by the man’s attitude.
‘Perhaps you would like to come down and see my Buff Orpingtons, Mr. Liski? I live in Brockley.’ Reeder removed his glasses and glared owlishly at his companion. ‘Say at nine o’clock tonight; there is so much to talk about. At the same time, it would add to the comfort of all concerned if you did not arrive-um-conspicuously: do you understand what I mean? I should not like the people of my office, for example, to know.’
A slow smile dawned on Liski’s face. It was his faith that all men had their price, whether it was paid in cash or terror; and this invitation to a secret conference was in a sense a tribute to the power he wielded.
At