away.”
“Monro – that’s in Scotland somewhere.”
Just then Gaylor was called into court.
Later in the evening, as he glanced through his evening newspaper, he read an account of the police court proceedings. It was headed:
DRUNKEN MAN'S BRIBE OFFER TO POLICE
TEN THOUSAND POUND BROOCH THAT WAS DECLINED
“…PC Smith stated that the prisoner had offered him a ten thousand pound brooch to let him go.
The Magistrate: Did he have this brooch in his possession?
Witness: No, your Worship. In his imagination. (Laughter.)”
“Now Reeder would see something very peculiar about that,” said Gaylor to his young wife, and she smiled.
She liked Mr J G Reeder, and, quite mistakenly, was sorry for him. He seemed so pathetically inefficient and helpless compared with the strong, capable men of Scotland Yard. Many people were sorry for Mr Reeder – but there were quite a number who weren’t.
Jake Alsby, for example, was sorry for nobody but himself. He used to sit in his cell during the long winter evenings on Dartmoor and think of Mr Reeder in any but a sympathetic mood. It was a nice, large, comfortable cell with a vaulted roof. It had a bed, with gaily coloured blankets, and was warm on the coldest day. He had the portrait of his wife and family on a shelf. The family ranged from a hideous little boy of ten to an open-mouthed baby of six months. Jake had never seen the baby in the flesh. He did not mind whether he saw his lady wife or family again, but the picture served as a stimulant to his flagging animosities. It reminded Jake that the barefaced perjury of Mr J G Reeder had torn him from his family and cast him into a cold dungeon. A poetical fancy, but none the less pleasing to a man who had never met the truth face to face without bedecking the reality with ribbons of fiction.
It was true that Jake forged Bank of England notes, had been caught with the goods and his factory traced; it was true that he had been previously convicted for the same offence, but it was not true (as Mr Reeder had sworn) that he had been seen near Marble Arch on the Monday before his arrest. It was Tuesday. Therefore Mr Reeder had committed perjury.
To Jake came a letter from one who had been recently discharged from the hospitality of HM Prison at Princeton. It contained a few items of news, one of which was:
“…saw your old pal reeder yesterday he was in that machfield case him that done in the old boy at born end reeder don’t look a day older he asked me how you was and I said fine and he said what a pity he only got seven he oughter got ten and I said…”
What his literary friend said did not interest the enraged man. There and then he began to think up new torments for the man who had perjured an innocent man (it was Tuesday, not Monday) into what has been picturesquely described as a “living hell”.
Three months after the arrival of this letter Jake Alsby was released, a portion of his sentence having been remitted for good conduct: that is to say, he had never once been detected in a breach of prison regulations. The day he was released, Jake went to London, to find his family in the workhouse, his wife having fled to Canada with a better man. Almost any man was better than Jake.
“This is Reeder’s little joke!” he said.
He fortified himself with hot spirits and went forth to find his man.
He did not follow a direct path to Mr Reeder’s office, because he had calls to make, certain acquaintances to renew. In one of these, a most reputable hostelry, he came upon a bearded man who spoke alternately in English and in a queer elusive language. He wore no collar or tie – when Vladimir reached his fourth whisky he invariably discarded these – and he spoke loudly of a diamond clasp of fabulous value. Jake lingered, fascinated. He drank with the man, whose language might be Russian but whose money was undoubtedly English, as was his language occasionally.
“You ask me, my frien’,
“Monro – that’s in Scotland somewhere.”
Just then Gaylor was called into court.
Later in the evening, as he glanced through his evening newspaper, he read an account of the police court proceedings. It was headed:
DRUNKEN MAN'S BRIBE OFFER TO POLICE
TEN THOUSAND POUND BROOCH THAT WAS DECLINED
“…PC Smith stated that the prisoner had offered him a ten thousand pound brooch to let him go.
The Magistrate: Did he have this brooch in his possession?
Witness: No, your Worship. In his imagination. (Laughter.)”
“Now Reeder would see something very peculiar about that,” said Gaylor to his young wife, and she smiled.
She liked Mr J G Reeder, and, quite mistakenly, was sorry for him. He seemed so pathetically inefficient and helpless compared with the strong, capable men of Scotland Yard. Many people were sorry for Mr Reeder – but there were quite a number who weren’t.
Jake Alsby, for example, was sorry for nobody but himself. He used to sit in his cell during the long winter evenings on Dartmoor and think of Mr Reeder in any but a sympathetic mood. It was a nice, large, comfortable cell with a vaulted roof. It had a bed, with gaily coloured blankets, and was warm on the coldest day. He had the portrait of his wife and family on a shelf. The family ranged from a hideous little boy of ten to an open-mouthed baby of six months. Jake had never seen the baby in the flesh. He did not mind whether he saw his lady wife or family again, but the picture served as a stimulant to his flagging animosities. It reminded Jake that the barefaced perjury of Mr J G Reeder had torn him from his family and cast him into a cold dungeon. A poetical fancy, but none the less pleasing to a man who had never met the truth face to face without bedecking the reality with ribbons of fiction.
It was true that Jake forged Bank of England notes, had been caught with the goods and his factory traced; it was true that he had been previously convicted for the same offence, but it was not true (as Mr Reeder had sworn) that he had been seen near Marble Arch on the Monday before his arrest. It was Tuesday. Therefore Mr Reeder had committed perjury.
To Jake came a letter from one who had been recently discharged from the hospitality of HM Prison at Princeton. It contained a few items of news, one of which was:
“…saw your old pal reeder yesterday he was in that machfield case him that done in the old boy at born end reeder don’t look a day older he asked me how you was and I said fine and he said what a pity he only got seven he oughter got ten and I said…”
What his literary friend said did not interest the enraged man. There and then he began to think up new torments for the man who had perjured an innocent man (it was Tuesday, not Monday) into what has been picturesquely described as a “living hell”.
Three months after the arrival of this letter Jake Alsby was released, a portion of his sentence having been remitted for good conduct: that is to say, he had never once been detected in a breach of prison regulations. The day he was released, Jake went to London, to find his family in the workhouse, his wife having fled to Canada with a better man. Almost any man was better than Jake.
“This is Reeder’s little joke!” he said.
He fortified himself with hot spirits and went forth to find his man.
He did not follow a direct path to Mr Reeder’s office, because he had calls to make, certain acquaintances to renew. In one of these, a most reputable hostelry, he came upon a bearded man who spoke alternately in English and in a queer elusive language. He wore no collar or tie – when Vladimir reached his fourth whisky he invariably discarded these – and he spoke loudly of a diamond clasp of fabulous value. Jake lingered, fascinated. He drank with the man, whose language might be Russian but whose money was undoubtedly English, as was his language occasionally.
“You ask me, my frien’,
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