The Greatest Thrillers of Edgar Wallace. Edgar WallaceЧитать онлайн книгу.
is it not?’
He was not in court when the marble stealer was sternly admonished by the magistrate and discharged. All that interested Mr. J.G. Reeder was to learn that the woman had paid the mason and had carried away her marble chips in triumph to the pretty little detached residence in the Outer Circle of Regent’s Park. He had spent the morning at Somerset House, examining copies of wills and the like; his afternoon he gave up to the tracing of Mrs. Rebecca Alamby Mary Welford.
She was the relict of Professor John Welford of the University of Edinburgh, and had been left a widow after two years of marriage. She had then entered the service of Mrs. Telfer, the mother of Sidney, and had sole charge of the boy from his fourth year. When Mrs. Telfer died she had made the woman sole guardian of her youthful charge. So that Rebecca Welford had been by turns nurse and guardian, and was now in control of the young man’s establishment.
The house occupied Mr. Reeder’s attention to a considerable degree. It was a redbrick modern dwelling consisting of two floors and having a frontage on the Circle and a side road. Behind and beside the house was a large garden which, at this season of the year, was bare of flowers. They were probably in snug quarters for the winter, for there was a long greenhouse behind the garden.
He was leaning over the wooden palings, eyeing the grounds through the screen of box hedge that overlapped the fence with a melancholy stare, when he saw a door open and the big woman come out. She was bare-armed and wore an apron. In one hand she carried a dust box, which she emptied into a concealed ash-bin, in the other was a long broom.
Mr. Reeder moved swiftly out of sight. Presently the door slammed and he peeped again. There was no evidence of a marble path. All the walks were of rolled gravel.
He went to a neighbouring telephone booth, and called his office.
‘I may be away all day,’ he said.
There was no sign of Mr. Sidney Telfer, though the detective knew that he was in the house.
Telfer’s Trust was in the hands of the liquidators, and the first meeting of creditors had been called. Sidney had, by all accounts, been confined to his bed, and from that safe refuge had written a note to his secretary asking that ‘all papers relating to my private affairs’ should be burnt. He had scrawled a postscript: ‘Can I possibly see you on business before I go?’ The word ‘go’ had been scratched out and ‘retire’ substituted. Mr. Reeder had seen that letter-indeed, all correspondence between Sidney and the office came to him by arrangement with the liquidators. And that was partly why Mr. J.G. Reeder was so interested in 904, The Circle.
It was dusk when a big car drew up at the gate of the house. Before the driver could descend from his seat, the door of 904 opened, and Sidney Telfer almost ran out. He carried a suitcase in each hand, and Mr. Reeder recognised that nearest him as the grip in which the housekeeper had carried the stolen marble.
Reaching over, the chauffeur opened the door of the machine and, flinging in the bags, Sidney followed hastily. The door closed, and the car went out of sight round the curve of the Circle.
Mr. Reeder crossed the road and took up a position very near the front gate, waiting.
Dusk came and the veil of a Regent’s Park fog. The house was in darkness, no flash of light except a faint glimmer that burnt in the hall, no sound. The woman was still there-Mrs. Sidney Telfer, nurse, companion, guardian and wife. Mrs. Sidney Telfer, the hidden director of Telfers Consolidated, a masterful woman who, not content with marrying a weakling twenty years her junior, had applied her masterful but ill-equipped mind to the domination of a business she did not understand, and which she was destined to plunge into ruin. Mr. Reeder had made good use of his time at the Records Office: a copy of the marriage certificate was almost as easy to secure as a copy of the will.
He glanced round anxiously. The fog was clearing, which was exactly what he did not wish it to do, for he had certain acts to perform which required as thick a cloaking as possible.
And then a surprising thing happened. A cab came slowly along the road and stopped at the gate.
‘I think this is the place, miss,’ said the cabman, and a girl stepped down to the pavement.
It was Miss Margaret Belman.
Reeder waited until she had paid the fare and the cab had gone, and then, as she walked towards the gate, he stepped from the shadow.
‘Oh!-Mr. Reeder, how you frightened me!’ she gasped. ‘I am going to see Mr. Telfer-he is dangerously ill-no, it was his housekeeper who wrote asking me to come at seven.’
‘Did she now! Well, I will ring the bell for you.’
She told him that that was unnecessary-she had the key which had come with the note.
‘She is alone in the house with Mr. Telfer, who refuses to allow a trained nurse near him,’ said Margaret, ‘and-’
‘Will you be good enough to lower your voice, young lady?’ urged Mr. Reeder in an impressive whisper. ‘Forgive the impertinence, but if our friend is ill-’
She was at first startled by his urgency.
‘He couldn’t hear me,’ she said, but spoke in a lower tone.
‘He may-sick people are very sensitive to the human voice. Tell me, how did this letter come?’
‘From Mr. Telfer? By district messenger an hour ago.’
Nobody had been to the house or left it-except Sidney. And Sidney, in his blind fear, would carry out any instructions which his wife gave to him.
‘And did it contain a passage like this?’ Mr. Reeder considered a moment. ‘“Bring this letter with you”?’
‘No,’ said the girl in surprise, ‘but Mrs. Welford telephoned just before the letter arrived and told me to wait for it. And she asked me to bring the letter with me because she didn’t wish Mr. Telfer’s private correspondence to be left lying around. But why do you ask me this, Mr. Reederis anything wrong?’
He did not answer immediately. Pushing open the gate, he walked noiselessly along the grass plot that ran parallel with the path.
‘Open the door, I will come in with you,’ he whispered and, when she hesitated: ‘Do as I tell you, please.’
The hand that put the key into the lock trembled, but at last the key turned and the door swung open. A small nightlight burnt on the table of the wide panelled hall. On the left, near the foot of the stairs, only the lower steps of which were visible, Reeder saw a narrow door which stood open, and, taking a step forward, saw that it was a tiny telephone-room.
And then a voice spoke from the upper landing, a deep, booming voice that he knew.
‘Is that Miss Belman?’
Margaret, her heart beating faster, went to the foot of the stairs and looked up.
‘Yes, Mrs. Welford.’
‘You brought the letter with you?’
‘Yes.’
Mr. Reeder crept along the wall until he could have touched the girl.
‘Good,’ said the deep voice. ‘Will you call the doctor-Circle 743-and tell him that Mr. Telfer has had a relapse-you will find the booth in the hall: shut the door behind you, the bell worries him.’
Margaret looked at the detective and he nodded.
The woman upstairs wished to gain time for something-what?
The girl passed him: he heard the thud of the padded door close, and there was a click that made him spin round. The first thing he noticed was that there was no handle to the door, the second that the keyhole was covered by a steel disc, which he discovered later was felt-lined. He heard the girl speaking faintly, and put his ear to the keyhole.
‘The instrument is disconnected-I can’t open the door.’