Red Aces Read Free

pallid, middle-aged valet who spoke English with no trace of a foreign accent, prepared a meal that justified the praise of his master. In the middle of the dinner the subject of Mr Reeder arose again.
    “What brought him to Beaconsfield – is there anything wrong at your bank?”
    Rufus saw the young man’s face go red.
    “Well – there has been money missing; not very large sums. I have my own opinion, but it isn’t fair to – well, you know.”
    He was rather incoherent, and Mr Machfield did not pursue the enquiry.
    “I hate the bank anyway – I mean the work. But I had to do something, and when I left Uppingham the governor put me there – in the bank, I mean. Poor dear, he lost his money at Monte Carlo or somewhere – enormous sums. You wouldn’t dream that he was a gambler. I’m not grousing, but it is a little trying sometimes.”
    Mr Machfield accompanied him to the door that night and shivered.
    “Cold – shouldn’t be surprised if we had snow,” he said.
    In point of fact the snow did not come until a week later. It started as rain and became snow in the night, and in the morning people who lived in the country looked out upon a white world: trees that bore a new beauty and hedges that showed their heads above sloping drifts.
     
2
     
    There was a car coming from the direction of Beaconsfield. The horseman, sitting motionless in the centre of the snowy road, watched the lights grow brighter and brighter. Presently, in the glare of the headlamps, the driver of the car saw a mounted policeman in the centre of the road, saw the lift of his gloved hand, and stopped the machine. It was not difficult to stop, for the wheels were racing on the surface of the road, which had frozen into the worst qualities of glass. And snow was falling on top of this.
    “Anything wrong–”
    The driver began to shout the question, and then he saw the huddled figure on the ground. It lay limply like a fallen sack; seemed at first glimpse to have nothing of human shape or substance.
    The driver jumped out and went ploughing through the frozen snow.
    “I just spotted him when I saw you,” said the policeman. “Do you mind turning your car just a little to the right – I want the lamps full on him.”
    He swung himself to the ground and went, heavy-footed, to where the man lay.
    The second inmate of the car got to the wheel and turned the machine with some difficulty so that the light blazed on the dreadful thing. The policeman’s horse strayed to the side of the car and thrust in his nodding head – he alone was unconcerned.
    Taking his bridle with a shaking hand, the second man stepped out of the car and joined the other two.
    “It is old Wentford,” said the policeman.
    “Wentford…good God!”
    The first of the two motorists fell on his knees by the side of the body and peered down into the grinning face.
    Old Benny Wentford!
    “Good God!” he said again.
    He was a middle-aged lawyer, unused to such a horror. Nothing more terrible had disturbed the smooth flow of his life than an occasional quarrel with the secretary of his golf club. Now here was death, violent and hideous – a dead man on a snowy road…a man who had telephoned to him two hours before, begging him to leave a party and come to him, though the snow had begun to fall all over again.
    “You know Mr Wentford – he has told me about you.”
    “Yes, I know him. I’ve often called at his house – in fact, I called there tonight but it was shut up. He made arrangements with the Chief Constable that I should call…h’m!”
    The policeman stood over the body, his hands on his hips.
    “You stay here – I’ll go and ’phone the station,” he said.
    He hoisted himself into the saddle.
    “Er…don’t you think we’d better go?” Mr Enward, the lawyer, asked nervously. He had no desire to be left alone in the night with a battered corpse and a clerk whose trembling was almost audible.
    “You couldn’t turn your car,” said the policeman