Mr. J. G. Reeder Returns Read Online Free Page A

cell, illuminating and writing with great labour the black lettering which was there under their eyes. When he opened the cell door and walked out into the world, what kind of a world was it? To whom did he speak?
    Sometimes they varied their Saturday afternoons by a visit to the Tower. Who put that stone upon the other? What was his name? Where did he live? In what hovel? Who were his friends? A Norman artisan, brought by William across the seas. Possibly his name was Pierre, Mr Reeder would hazard after a long, long silence.
    “Gaston,” suggested Larry.
    Only once did they even speak of Larry’s grisly past. It was an evening which they spent together in town. Mr Reeder had just completed the evidence in the Central Bank robbery and was weary. They were dining in a little restaurant in Soho, when Larry asked: “Do you know anything about the Lane Leonard estate?”
    Mr Reeder took off his glasses, polished them, put them on again and allowed them to sag and drop.
    “Before I answer that question will you be good enough to tell me what you mean by that inquiry?”
    Larry grinned.
    “There’s no need to be cautious. I’ll tell you what brought the subject up – that iron grille before the cashier’s desk. It’s almost the same pattern as one we made for the Lane Leonard estate. I suppose they’ve got trust deeds to guard. They’ve certainly got one of the strongest steel vaults that’s ever been supplied to a corporation that wasn’t a bank.”
    Mr Reeder beckoned a waiter and ordered coffee.
    “The Lane Leonard estate is presumably the estate of the late John Lane Leonard. He was a millionaire who died three years ago, leaving an immense fortune to his stepdaughter – I forget the exact amount, but it was somewhere between one and two million pounds.”
    “He wasn’t a banker?” asked Larry curiously.
    Mr Reeder shook his head.
    “No, he was not a banker. So far as I know, he was an American stockbroker, who was a very heavy speculator in shares, a man who had the intelligence to keep the money he had won on the Stock Exchange. He had a vault made, you say?”
    Larry nodded.
    “The strongest I’ve ever seen. Not large, but triple steel-plated walls and two doors, and all the tricks and safeguards that money could buy. I looked it over when it was completed, and I had a talk with the men who assembled it.”
    He thought for a moment.
    “That must have been just before he died. It was just over three years ago. He must have had some pretty hefty securities, but why shouldn’t they be kept at the bank?”
    Mr Reeder looked at him reproachfully.
    “There are many reasons why securities should not be kept at the bank,” he said, “and you are – er – one of them.”
    Mr Reeder thought of the Lane Leonard estate on his way back to Brockley. Unusual happenings fascinated him. He tried to recall the particulars of the Lane Leonard will. He had read it at the time, but he could not recall that there was anything remarkable about it.
    When he got home he looked up a work of reference. Miss Lane Leonard, the heiress, lived at Sevenways Castle, in Kent; Sevenways being a little village in the Isle of Thanet. He could recollect nothing about the family which was in any way interesting, or that had interested him. He had never seen the place, for duty had not brought him into the neighbourhood; but he remembered dimly having seen a photograph of an imposing mansion, and had a faint idea that at some time it had been a royal property, that of the seventh or eighth Henry.
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    It was shortly after this little talk that J G Reeder made the acquaintance of Mr Buckingham. It was made in a public place, to Mr Reeder’s embarrassment, for he hated publicity. On that same day he had had an exchange of words with the Assistant Public Prosecutor. That official had sent for him and was a little embarrassed.
    “I don’t want to bother you, Mr Reeder,” he said, “particularly as I know you have your own peculiar