Mr. J. G. Reeder Returns

Mr. J. G. Reeder Returns by Edgar Wallace Read Free Book Online

Book: Mr. J. G. Reeder Returns by Edgar Wallace Read Free Book Online
Authors: Edgar Wallace
Tags: JG, reeder, wallace
examining documents in relation to a large and illicit importation of cocaine, when a messenger came in with a card. “Major Digby Olbude,” it read, and in the left-hand corner: “Lane Leonard Estate Office, Sevenways Castle, Sevenways, Kent”.
    Mr Reeder sat back in his chair, adjusted his unnecessary glasses and read the card again.
    “Ask Major Olbude to come up,” he said.
    Major Olbude was tall, florid, white of hair, rather pedantic of speech.
    “I have come to see you about the man Buckingham. I understand you are in charge of the investigations?”
    Mr Reeder bowed. It was not the moment to direct what might prove an interesting and informative caller to the man who was legitimately entitled to have first-hand information.
    “Will you sit down, Major?”
    He rose, pushed a chair forward for the visitor, and Major Olbude pulled up the knees of his creased trousers carefully and sat down.
    “I saw the portrait in this morning’s newspaper – at least, my niece drew my attention to it – and I came up at once, because I feel it is my duty, and the duty, indeed, of every good citizen to assist the police even in the smallest particular in a case of this importance.”
    “Very admirable,” murmured Mr Reeder.
    “Buckingham was in my service; he was one of the guards of what the local people call the treasure house of Sevenways Castle.”
    Again Mr Reeder nodded, as though he knew all that was to be known about Sevenways Castle.
    “As I say, my niece reads the newspapers, a practice in which I do not indulge, for in these days of sensationalism there is very little in newspapers in which an intellectual man finds the least pleasure and instruction. Buckingham had been in the employment of the late Mr Lane Leonard, and on Mr Lane Leonard’s death his services were transferred to myself, Mr Lane Leonard’s brother-in-law and his sole trustee. I might say that Mr Lane Leonard, as everybody knows, died very suddenly of heart failure and left behind a considerable fortune, eighty per cent of which was in bullion.”
    “In gold?” asked Mr Reeder, surprised.
    The major inclined his head.
    “That was my brother-in-law’s eccentricity. He had amassed this enormous sum of money by speculation, and lived in terror that it should be dissipated by his descendants – unhappily, he has only a daughter to carry on his name – in the same manner as it was amassed. He also took a very pessimistic view of the future of civilisation and particularly of the English race. He believed – and here I think he was justified – that for ten years there would be no industrial development in the country, and that English securities would fall steadily. He had a very rooted objection to banks, and the upshot of it all was that he accumulated in his lifetime a sum in gold equivalent to over a million and a half pounds. This was kept, and is still kept, in a chamber which he had specially built practically within the walls of the castle, and to guard which he engaged a staff of ex-policemen, one of whom is on duty every hour of the day and night. It is unnecessary for me to tell you, Mr Reeder, a man with a commercial knowledge, that by this method my brother-in-law was depriving his daughter of a very considerable income, the interest at five per cent on a million and a half pounds being seventy-five thousand pounds per annum. In ten years that would be three-quarters of a million, so that the provisions of this will mean that nearly four hundred thousand pounds is lost to my ward, and almost as much to the Treasury.”
    “Very distressing,” said Mr Reeder, and shook his head mournfully, as though the thought of the Treasury losing money cut him to the quick.
    “There is a separate fund invested in high-class government security,” the major went on, “on which my niece and myself live. Naturally, the custody of such an enormous sum is a source of constant anxiety to me – in fact, only two years ago I ordered an

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