This is a collection of short stories with protagonist JG Reeder.
They say here that he’s over 50, but he’ll be nearly 50 in next book Terror Keep :p
The first one is so short, you’ve barely met the characters and it’s alread over.
The poetical policeman ITAil poliziotto poeta
It’s really short. In a bank, the policeman making his nightly round finds the guards tied up and gagged with chloroformio, and dead because of it.
All suspicions are on the bank director because this Green has been in prison once. Of course he says he didn’t do it, he wanted to get married and live a normal life, but someone blackmailed him into going away or he’ll reveal his past.
Reeder is not a policeman, he’s a private investigator, but he’s asked to work for the Director of Public Prosecutions.
He talks to Green and then meets his girl Magda. He looks at her flowers, and then picks up the horse shoe outside her house. Next he talks to Burnett, the cop that discovered the crime. he was making his round when he saw the horse shoe, and got the idea of using it to send some flowers with one of his poems to Magda, he threw it on to her window sill, or something.
After this, Reeder knows everything and tells us all. Green had been in jail. He made it to bank director, now, and wanted to marry Magda as soon as she got her divorce. A letter scared Green into running away. The bank guardian was the one. He wrote him that letter, to use him as scapegoat. He was also Magda’s father, and had told her to get informations on Green. He had planned it all; he took the money then waited for Burnett to make his round. As soon as he saw Burnett’s torch light, he ran into the bank, tied himself up and laid down, and I guess he also put the chloroform…
Anyway, Burnett also liked Magda, and had talked to her before, and so eh knew that it was her birthday, and so when he found the horseshoe, he got the idea and went to get some flowers.
So he got to the bank a good ten minutes later than he should have, and the guardian was dead.
The treasure hunt ITa caccia al tesoro
The police always receive lots of anonymous letters, and one of these brings Reeder to meet Sir James. His wife died at sea, but the letter puts blame on him.
Reeder looks around and talks to the people in town, learning that she always got seasick, and that a certain part fo Sir James’ property was never again used, stuff like that. He is sure that he killed his wife before going on that boat, and hid her body. A simple search would prove Reeder’s theory, but he’s got not enough proof to get a search warrant.
Now, there’s Lew Kohl, a man he put in prison years ago and that swore vengeance, and there’s te fact that everyone thinks Reeder has a fortune hidden somewhere. This is because in the criminal world they think that every cop who reaches a certain position must have put together a good deal of money from his corruption and such. So Reeder leads Lew to believe that he hid his m oney in there, so that it would be Kohl to go there and dig.
The troupe ITA la squadra
Mah, it’s very short and quite plain. Reeder learns that an American rented a house by a lake. It’s Art Lomer, a con-man from Canada who works with a group of people. This time, he convinces a rich man that he has a huge deal ongoing regarding precious stones, diamonds and emeralds, and manages to get a check from him. As soon as he cashes the money, Reeder is outside the bank to get him.
The stealer of marble ITA il furto del marmo
It’s when Reeder meets Margaret Belman, who lives near him, like, on the same road or something, and works as a secretary for Sydney Telfer. He’s been left in charge of the company too young, and doesn’t know what to do.
It appears that Mr Billingham robbed him of all his cash: he was the man that managed the company.
When a woman is arrested on suspicious circumstances, she refuses to give her name or her address. She had with her a big suitcase, quite an expensive one, and it was full of marble rocks. The police finds out her identity, she works for Sydney, sort of raised him, and Reeder guesses the truth and finds the papers to prove it. The woman, quite crazy, convinced Sydney to marry her, and now she has power over the company. It was her that asked Billingham to get the money, and then she killed him. Now she wants to kill Margaret because Sydney wanted to run away with her. Margaret had told him no, but this doesn’t seem to matter to her, if she even knows it. At the end, she locks Margaret in a room, but Reeder entered the house too, and now he convinces her to let Margaret go because she’s ‘his wife’ and therefore would not run away with anybody. Reeder calls the police to explain: the crazy woman had learned from an ex-husband who was a chemist, or something like that, interesting things, like how to make poisonous gar from burned marble…
Anyway, she’s arrested, Margaret is free, and Reeder now can’t stop asking himself if he should or not apologise to Margaret for calling her his wife…
Sheer melodrama ITA vero melodramma
Reeder has free tickets to see a melodrama, so he calls Margaret Belman to give her both tickets, but she encourages him to take her. They have a lovely time, but the some guy that served time because of Reeder wants to have his revenge, so kidnaps both him and Margaret and locks them in his house, and he’s so stupid to lock him in the same room where the fake money were, plus a telephone!
Margaret still had a lovely time, but Reeder is seriously troubled by how late she went home, as if this might compromise her…
The green mamba ITA il mamba verde
Two inspectors talk about Reeder: the one who knows him better calls him a mamba, apparently small and harmless, but actually very poisonous. This story is there to prove it.
Mo Linski had never been in prison because they failed to prove his guilt. He’s quite smug about that.
A man called Plessy is put in prison, and his evil wife Marylou hates Reeder for it. Not because she partcularly loves her husband, evil as she is, she just hates him for who he is and because he could have put her in prison too and didn’t. So she sends him poisoned chocolates. This time he has her pu in prison.
Her friend Mo is quite angry, and threatens him quite publicly, giving them an excuse to imprison him too.
Mo can’t think of anything other than revenge on Reeder now.
First, they try to use Margaret to lure him into some kind of club: a thing like that might be enough to ruin a man’s career, but Reeder has the police raid the place. He’s the one to tell Mo, with many apologies, and invites the man home to talk about chickens. Mo thinks he’s getting scared and looking for peace, and accepts.Twice more Reeder stops him for a chat, and all three times a man connected to Mo got arrested the next day.
Reeder sets a fourth appointment, but Mo is injured by another man, who had knows from Reeder of the appointment. All his men were now convinced that he was selling them to Reeder.
The strange case ITA Lo strano caso.
A very short thing: Reeder likes to spend time with Margaret, and on one occasion he mets her roommate. He learns that she’s the abandoned wife of a man named Carlin.
Reeder is called for a case: Lord Sellington is a rich man, and Carlin’s uncle. Since Carlin is not a respectable man, his uncle will leave him only the title, but not the money. Now Lord Sellington thinks that Carlin stole money from him, because his associate Lassard told him he never asked for that money and never took it.
When Lord Sellington is killed, poisoned, Reeder goes to see Carlin with another policeman, well known to Carlin. This means that when Carlin saw them through the window, he thought he’d be accused of murder and shot himself.
Truth is, Lassard is the guilty one. He’s actually Elter, a criminal that Reeder knew years ago, a con-man with many names and skills, but that always made the same mistake: he couldn’t write a certain word the correct way. Reeder saw this mistake in a letter and understood.
The investors ITA Il mistero degli azionisti scomparsi
Firsst, there’s a little side story, of a certain Mills that got out of prison and delivered to Reeder an envelope written by an inmate who had a grudge against him. Reeder understands from the riddle that the letter is contaminated with scarlet fever, which was a very serious thing back then, and they’re adults too, so he cleans up throughly and changes clothes, and sends Mills away with a warning that he might have it too now.
the real case is that some people seem to disappear, and nobody ever knows anything about them anymore. Adults, men and women, and according to Reeder it’s been going on for at least a year. These were people with their little bit of money, but no family or relations. One thing they had in common, they got dividends on the first day of the months, but after their disappearance the money stopped coming.
Now, Reeder keep enjoying his walks with Margaret Belman, he waits for her in the morning when she goes to work and in the evenings when she comes back, he rather likes her because she’snot only pretty, but she has an healthy dose of common sense, and I’d say also a good head on her shoulders.
When she tells Reeder that she too receives dividends every first day of the month, he’s suspicious and worried, asks questions and explains the situation, and she tells him all she knows. A secretive Mexican company chose carefully its investors, making them swear not to talk about it to anyone. The company’s lawyers reassured her it was alright, and so far she had received money every month. Reeder starts asking questions, goes to the lawyers and to the company’s office.
When Margaret disapears too he becomes more serious and determined, and informs the lawyers that the company’s men will be arrested as soon as he can get his hands on them, and shortly after the lawyers tell him that this mysterious DeSilvo has been found and is now at their house, they’re keeping him talking until he can get there.
I guess he still had no suspicions, because he got caught quite easily, he crossed the room to shake the lawyer’s hand, and didn’t notice that the carpet covered a trap. He fell down, and found Margaret there, prisoner as he was.
This is how they did it, because their firm was going very badly: they took money from people with a fake company idea, and after giving them money for a while they murdered them and kept all the rest. How: this underground cell starts to fill with water, and Reeder knows this is how they killed all the others, because there’s no escape.
Margaret doesn’t panic or lose her head, thankfully, she follows his instructions promptly, and when a door opens Reeder is quick to get her out.
It turns out that it was Mills, the man had come to rob the house, and instead had saved both their lives. Reeder lets him go, tells him to run away, and walks Margaret away.
Reeder tells the police that the lawyers kept her alive to get him too, or something, because they thought he was rather sweet on her… and he add nothing more.
ITA L’astuzia di Mr Reeder