Red Aces Read Free Page B

vicinity.
    “Policeman?” The square-hatted man was surprised. “No, I passed no policeman. At my rate of progress it was very difficult to pass anything–”
    “Going towards you…on horseback…a mounted policeman,” said Mr Enward rapidly. “He said that he would be back soon. My name is Enward – solicitor – Enward, Caterham and Enward.”
    He felt it was a moment for confidence.
    “Delighted!” murmured the other. “We’ve met before. My name – er – is Reeder – R, double E, D, E, R.”
    Mr Enward took a step forward.
    “Not the detective? I thought I’d seen you…look!”
    He stepped out of the light and the heap on the ground emerged from shadow. The lawyer made a dramatic gesture. Mr Reeder came forward slowly.
    He stooped over the dead man, took an electric torch from his pocket and shone it steadily on the face. For a long time he looked and studied. His melancholy face showed no evidence that he was sickened or pained.
    “H’m!” he said, and got up, dusting the snow from his knee. He fumbled in the recesses of his overcoat, produced a pair of eyeglasses, set them crudely on his nose and surveyed the lawyer over their top.
    “Very – um – extraordinary. I was on my way to see him.”
    Enward stared.
    “ You were on your way? So was I! Did you know him?”
    Mr Reeder considered this question.
    “I – er – didn’t – er – know him. No, I had never met him.”
    The lawyer felt that his own presence needed some explanation. “This is my clerk, Mr Henry Green.”
    Mr Reeder bowed slightly.
    “What happened was this…”
    He gave a very detailed and graphic description, which began with the recounting of what he had said when the telephone call came through to him at Beaconsfield, and how he was dressed, and what his wife had said when she went to find his boots (her first husband had died through an ill-judged excursion into the night air on as foolish a journey), and how much trouble he had had in starting the car, and how long he had had to wait for Henry.
    Mr Reeder gave the impression that he was not listening. Once he walked out of the blinding light and peered back the way the policeman had gone; once he went over to the body and looked at it again; but most of the time he was wandering down the lane, searching the ground with his hand-lamp, with Mr Enward following at his heels lest any of the narrative be lost.
    “Is he dead… I suppose so?” suggested the lawyer.
    “I – er – have never seen anybody – er – deader,” said Mr Reeder gently. “I should say, with all reverence and respect, that he was – er – extraordinarily dead.”
    He looked at his watch.
    “At nine-fifteen you met the policeman? He had just discovered the body? It is now nine thirty-five. How did you know that it was nine-fifteen?”
    “I heard the church clock at Woburn Green strike the quarter.”
    Mr Enward conveyed the impression that the clock struck exclusively for him. Henry halved the glory: he also had heard the clock.
    “At Woburn Green – you heard the clock? H’m…nine-fifteen!”
    The snow was falling thickly now. It fell on the heap and lay in the little folds and creases of his clothes.
    “He must have lived somewhere about here?”
    Mr Reeder asked the question with great deference.
    “My directions were that his house lay off the main road…you would hardly call this a main road…fifty yards beyond a notice-board advertising land for sale – desirable building land.”
    Mr Enward pointed to the darkness.
    “Just there – the notice-board. Curiously enough, I am the – er – solicitor for the vendor.”
    His natural inclination was to emphasize the desirability of the land, but he thought it was hardly the moment. He returned to the question of Mr Wentford’s house.
    “I’ve only been inside the place once – two years ago, wasn’t it, Henry?”
    “A year and nine months,” said Henry exactly.
    His feet were cold, his spine chilled. He felt