Terror Keep quotes

The governor had his doubts as to the existence of these deplorable volumes, but very soon after the conversation took place he had to revise his judgment.

Scotland Yard, which seldom if ever chases chimeras, sent down one Chief Inspector Simpson, who was a man entirely without imagination and had been promoted for it.

His interview with Crazy John Flack was a brief one. “About these books of yours, Jack,” he said. “It would be terrible if they fell into wrong hands. Ravini says you’ve got a hundred volumes hidden somewhere.”

It’s a dream of meeting him alone one nice, dark, foggy night, when the police can’t tell which way the screams are coming. And the third is Ravini: George Ravini’s got one chance, and that is for him to die before I get out!”

“That’s what I’m here for,” said John Flack truthfully.

This conversation with Simpson and that with the governor were two of the longest he ever had, all the six years he was in Broadmoor. Mostly when he wasn’t writing he strolled about the grounds, his chin on his chest, his hands clasped behind him.

Mr. Reeder shook his head sadly.

“Alas! how few modern women spend their time in a kitchen!”

he said, and made an impatient clucking noise, but whether this was a protest against the falling off of woman’s domestic qualities, or whether he “tchk’d” for some other reason, it was difficult to say, for he was a very preoccupied man.

I look forward to the day when I shall gather them all together under one roof. It will be a very pleasant morning for me, Mr. Simpson, when I can walk along the gallery, looking through the little peepholes and watch them sewing mail bags—

I know of no more sedative occupation than a little needlework!

In the meantime, watch your banks—Old John is seventy years of age and has no time to waste. History will be made in the City of London before many days are past! I wonder where in Paris I could find Ravini?”

In the meantime, watch your banks—Old John is seventy years of age and has no time to waste. History will be made in the City of London before many days are past! I wonder where in Paris I could find Ravini?”

George Ravini was not the type of man whose happiness depended upon the good opinion which others held of him. Otherwise, he might well have spent his life in abject misery.

As for Mr. Reeder—he discussed that interesting police official over a glass of wine and a good cigar in his Half Moon Street flat.

“I think it was,” said Olga Crewe coldly, and the rebuff was such that Margaret’s face went scarlet.

She was angry with herself when she went into her own room that night, and anger is a bad bedmate, and the most wakeful of all human emotions.

She tossed from side to side in her bed, tried to forget there were such persons as Olga Crewe and George Ravini, tried every device she could think of to induce sleep, and was almost successful when—

It was Mr. Reeder’s head that shook.

“The nature of criminals may change, but their vanities persist,” he said, in his precise, grandiloquent way.

“Mr. Flack prides himself not upon his murders but upon his robberies, and he will signify his return to freedom in the usual manner.”

“But how did you know there was anything?” asked Big Bill curiously.

“I have a criminal mind,” he said.

He went back to his flat in Bennett Street, his mind equally divided between Margaret Belman, safe in Sussex, and the ability of one normal lorry to carry a hundred and twenty thousand sovereigns. Such little details interested Mr. Reeder.

They got him into a cell, and as he was carried, struggling and raving like a lunatic, Mr. Reeder offered him a piece of advice which he rejected with considerable violence.

“Say you were in Nice at the time,” he said gently.

Then one day the police pulled in a man in Somers Town, on the very prosaic charge of beating his wife in public. When they searched him, they found a torn scrap of a letter which was sent at once to Mr. Reeder. It read:

Reeder, as he buttoned his waistcoat, “anything that pleases you. I am in the mood for stories. In this delightful atmosphere, amidst these beautiful surroundings, I should prefer—um—fairy stories—or shall we say ghost stories? Is Larmes Keep haunted, Mr. Daver?

Ghosts are my specialty. I have probably seen and arrested more ghosts than any other living representative of the law.

Sometime I intend writing a monumental work on the subject. Ghosts I Have Seen, or a Guide to the Spirit World, in sixty-three volumes. You were about to say—?”

“You are my idea of a guardian angel,” she smiled, though she was near to tears.

“I’ve never heard,” said Mr. Reeder, “of guardian angels with side whiskers.”

It was a mean advantage to take of her, yet he was ridiculously pleased as he repeated his little jeu d’esprit to himself in the seclusion of his room.

“Why, sir, you haven’t undressed!” she said.

“I seldom undress,” said Mr. Reeder, sitting up and taking the tea from her. “It is such a waste of time. For no sooner are your clothes off than it is necessary to put them on again.”

She looked at him hard, but he did not smile.

“Criminals have a perverted sense of humour,” said Mr. Reeder airily. “The whole thing was—um—an elaborate jest designed to frighten me.

One expects such things. They are the examination papers which are set to test one’s intelligence from time to time.

”

“I didn’t know you were a swimmer,” smiled the girl.

“I am the merest tyro in most things,” said Mr. Reeder modestly.

He went up to his room, undressed and slipped into a bathing suit, over which he put his overcoat. Olga Crewe and Mr. Daver had gone down to Siltbury.

“What a strange world this is!” he remarked sententiously. “How like a game of cards!”

Those who were best acquainted with Mr. Reeder knew that he was most dangerous when he was most philosophical.

The three people who sat about the table heard only a boring commonplace, in keeping with their conception of this somewhat dull-looking man.

Those who were best acquainted with Mr. Reeder knew that he was most dangerous when he was most philosophical. The three people who sat about the table heard only a boring commonplace, in keeping with their conception of this somewhat dull-looking man.

“There are some people,” mused Mr. Reeder, looking up at the lofty ceiling, “who are never happy unless they have all the aces. I, on the contrary, am most cheerful when I have in my hand all the knaves.”

“You play a very good game, Mr. Reeder.”

Mr. Reeder glared across the desk, and despite his hardihood Inspector Simpson winced.

“Staying with hell!” hissed Reeder.

Simpson was seeing the real and unsuspected J. G. Reeder and was staggered.

“Pah!” Old John Flack almost spat the word. “

An unimaginative commoner with the soul of a housekeeper!

She has looked after you well? Good. All the better for her. I would never have forgiven her if she had neglected you. And Daver? He has been respectful? He has given you all the money you wanted?”

One of these days it will collapse like froth on a glass of beer! I heard Daver say so, and the mad fellow agreed. Mad? I wish I had his brain! He’s going to dispose of Reeder, is he?

The cemeteries are full of people who’ve tried to dispose of Reeder!

”

It was, she guessed, made of stout oak, and the surface had been so cunningly camouflaged with splinters of rock that it differed in no respect from the walled recess into which Brill had broken.

Curiosity is dominant in the most rational of individuals, and, despite her terrible danger, Margaret was curious to see the inside of that rocky home of the Flacks.

With the utmost caution she peeped round. She was surprised at the size of the room and a little disappointed in its furnishing. She had pictured rich rugs and gorgeous furniture, the walls perhaps covered with silken hangings.

She did not know, at any rate, that she was a widow.

Mr. Reeder derived a certain amount of gruesome satisfaction from the superiority of his intelligence.

“Where is he now? Your father, I mean?”

Mr. Reeder heard the sound of a sob.

Mrs. Burton cried rather easily.

“He’s only stopping to get Reeder,” she whimpered. “What a fool trick! That silly old man! Why, I could have got him myself if I was wicked enough!”

“I’m very sorry, Mr. Reeder,” said the penitent detective. “I had no idea—”

“Ideas!” said Mr. Reeder accurately.

One bullet struck to the left of him, the other passed exactly between him and Gray. He was lying down now, with a small projection of rock for cover.

Holding on to a rung of the ladder, he put out his hand. The opposite wall, which should have been well beyond his reach, was at less than arm’s length away!

The well was bulging under unexpected and tremendous stresses.

“Why have you stopped?” asked Gray anxiously.

“Why have you stopped?” asked Gray anxiously.

“To scratch my head,” snarled Reeder. “Hurry!”

They climbed another forty or fifty feet, when from below came a rumble and a crash that set the whole well shivering.

“To h⸺ with you and your big things!” stormed Reeder, in a fury.

“What big things do I want, my man, but the big thing I have lost?”

Very wisely, Big Bill Gordon made no attempt to argue the matter.