Terror Keep/Chapter 2

was not an unpleasant-looking man. From his own point of view, which was naturally prejudiced, he was extremely attractive, with his crisp brown hair, his handsome Neapolitan features, his height and his poise. And when to his natural advantages were added the best suit that Savile Row could create, the most spotless of grey hats, and the malacca sword-stick on which one kid-gloved hand rested as upon the hilt of a foil, the shiniest of enamelled shoes, and the finest of grey silk socks, the picture was well framed and embellished. Greatest embellishment of all were George Ravini's Luck Rings. He was a superstitious man and addicted to charms. On the little finger of his right hand were three gold rings, and in each ring three large diamonds. The Luck Stones of Ravini were one of the traditions of Saffron Hill.

Most of the time he had the half-amused, half-bored smile of a man for whom life held no mysteries and could offer in experience little that was new. And the smile was justified, for George knew most of the things that were happening in London or likely to happen. He had worked outward from a one-room house in Saffron Hill, where he first saw the light; had enlarged the narrow horizons which surrounded his childhood so that now, in place of the poverty-stricken child who had shared a bed with his father's performing monkey, he was not only the possessor of a classy flat in Half Moon Street, but the owner of the block in which it was situate. His balance at the Continental Bank was a generous one; he had securities which brought him an income beyond his needs, and a larger revenue from the two night clubs and spieling houses which he controlled, to say nothing of the perquisites which came his way from a score of other sources. The word of Ravini was law from Leyton to Clerkenwell; his fiats were obeyed within a mile radius of Fitzroy Square; and no other gang leader in London might raise his head without George's permission save at the risk of waking in the casualty ward of the Middlesex Hospital entirely surrounded by bandages.

He waited patiently on the broad space of Waterloo Station, occasionally consulting his gold wrist watch, and surveyed with a benevolent and proprietorial eye the stream of life that flowed from the barriers.

The station clock showed a quarter after six: he glanced at his watch and scanned the crowd that was debouching from No. 7 platform. After a few minutes' scrutiny, he saw the girl, and with a pat to his cravat and a touch to the brim of his hat which set it tilting, he strolled to meet her.

Margaret Belman was too intent with her own thoughts to be thinking about the debonair and youngish man who had so often sought an introduction by the conventional method of pretending they had met before. Indeed, in the excitement of her visit to Larmes Keep, she had forgotten that this pestiferous gallant existed or was likely to be waiting for her on her return from the country.

George Ravini stopped and waited for her approach, smiling his approval. He liked slim girls of her colouring: girls who dressed rather severely and wore rather nice stockings and plain little hats. He raised his hat; the Luck Stones glittered beautifully.

"Oh!" said Margaret Belman, and stopped, too.

"Good-evening, Miss Belman," said George, flashing his white teeth. "Quite a coincidence, meeting you again."

As she attempted to walk past him, he fell in by her side.

"I wish I had my car here, I might have driven you home," he said conversationally. "I've got a new 20 Rolls—rather a neat little machine. I don't use it a great deal—I like to walk from Half Moon Street."

"Are you walking to Half Moon Street now?" she asked quietly.

But George was a man of experience.

"Your way is my way," he said.

She stopped.

"What is your name?" she asked.

"Smith—Anderton Smith," he answered readily. "Why do you want to know?"

"I want to tell the next policeman we meet," she said, and Mr. Ravini, not unaccustomed to such threats, was amused.

"Don't be a silly little girl," he said. "I'm doing no harm and you don't want to get your name in the newspapers. Besides, I should merely say that you asked me to walk with you and that we were old friends."

She looked at him steadily.

"I may meet a friend very soon who will need a lot of convincing," she said. "Will you please go away?"

George was pleased to stay, as he explained.

"What a foolish young lady you are!" he began. "I'm merely offering you the common courtesies"

A hand gripped his arm and slowly pulled him round—and this in broad daylight on Waterloo Station, under the eyes of at least two of his own tribe. Mr. Ravini's dark eyes snapped dangerously.

And yet seemingly his assailant was a most inoffensive man. He was tall and rather melancholy-looking. He wore a frock coat buttoned tightly across his breast and a high, flat-crowned, hard felt hat. On his biggish nose a pair of steel-rimmed pince-nez were set at an awkward angle. A slither of sandy side whiskers decorated his cheek, and hooked to his arm was a lightly furled umbrella. Not that George examined these details with any care: they were rather familiar to him. He knew Mr. J.G. Reeder, Detective to the Public Prosecutor's office, and the fight went out of his eyes.

"Why, Mr. Reeder!" he said, with a geniality that almost sounded sincere. "This is a pleasant surprise. Meet my young lady friend Miss Belman—I was just taking her along"

"Not to the Flotsam Club for a cup of tea?" murmured Mr. Reeder in a tone of pain. "Not to Harraby's Restaurant? Don't tell me that, Giorgio! Dear me! How interesting either experience would be!"

He beamed upon the scowling Italian.

"At the Flotsam," he went on, "you would have been able to show the young lady where your friends caught young Lord Fallen for three thousand pounds only the night before last—so they tell me. At Harraby's you might have shown her that interesting little room where the police come in by the back way whenever you consider it expedient to betray one of your friends. She has missed a treat!"

George Ravini's smile did not harmonise with his sudden pallor.

"Now, listen, Mr. Reeder"

"I'm sorry I can't, Giorgio." Mr. Reeder shook his head mournfully. "My time is precious. Yet, I will spare you one minute to tell you that Miss Belman is a very particular friend of mine. If her experience of to-day is repeated, who knows what might happen, for I am, as you probably know, a malicious man." He eyed the Italian thoughtfully. "Is it malice, I wonder, which inhibits a most interesting revelation which I have on the tip of my tongue? I wonder. The human mind, Mr. Ravini, is a curious and complex thing. Well, well, I must be getting along. Give my regards to your criminal associates, and if you find yourself shadowed by a gentleman from Scotland Yard, bear him no resentment. He is doing his duty. And do not lose sight of my—um—warning about this lady."

"I have said nothing to this young lady that a gentleman shouldn't."

Mr. Reeder peered at Ravini.

"If you have," he said, "you may expect to see me some time this evening—and I shall not come alone. In fact"—this in a most confidential tone—"I shall bring sufficient strong men with me to take from you the keys of your box in the Fetter Lane Safe Deposit."

That was all he said, and Ravini reeled under the threat. Before he had quite recovered, Mr. J. G. Reeder and his charge had disappeared into the throng.