Mr. J. G. Reeder Returns Read Online Free PDF Page A

have to, but I may have to; and when I do you’ll have something to talk about.”
    “I’m sure I shall,” said Mr Reeder.
    “There’s a time to be ’igh and mighty, and a time to be ’umble,” Buckingham went on mysteriously. “That’s all I’ve got to say – there’s a time to be ’igh and mighty, and a time to be ’umble!”
    The Oracle of Delphi could not have been more profound.
    A second later Mr Reeder saw him talking to a little man with a hard and unprepossessing face. Evidently the man was not a member of the audience, for later Mr Reeder saw him going out through the main entrance.
    “Who is he?” asked Larry when the man had gone.
    “I haven’t the least idea,” said Reeder, and Larry chuckled.
    “You’ve one thing in common at any rate,” he said; “you both think classical music is muck. I’m going to give up trying to educate you.”
    Mr Reeder was very apologetic after the concert. He liked music, but music of a kind. He had a weakness for the popular airs of twenty-five years ago, and confessed a little shamefacedly that he occasionally hummed these favourite tunes of his in his bath.
    “Not that I can sing.”
    “I’m sure of that,” said Larry.
    Two days later Mr Reeder saw the two men again. It was on the north side of Westminster Bridge. Immediately opposite the Houses of Parliament there was a traffic block. At this point the road was being repaired and the police were marshalling the traffic into a single line.
    Mr Reeder was waiting to cross the road and was examining the vehicles that passed. To say that he was examining them idly would not have been true. He never examined anything idly. He saw a new grey van and glanced up at the driver. It was the thin-faced man he had seen in the Queen’s Hall bar, and by his side sat Buckingham.
    Neither of the men saw him as they passed. Mr Reeder could guess by the movement of the body that the van carried a fairly heavy load, for the springs were strained and the strain on the engine was almost perceptible.
    Odd, thought Mr Reeder…van drivers and their assistants do not as a rule choose concert halls as meeting places. But then, so many things in life were odd. For example: it was a very curious friendship that had developed between himself and Larry. Reeder was the soul of rectitude. He had never in his life committed one act that could be regarded by the most rigid of moralists as dishonest. He had chosen, for the one friend he had ever had, a man who had only just escaped imprisonment, was undoubtedly a burglar, as undoubtedly the possessor of a large fortune which he had stolen from the interests which it was Mr Reeder’s duty to protect.
    Such thoughts occurred to J G Reeder in such odd moments of contemplation as when he shaved himself or was brushing his teeth; but he had no misgiving, was unrepentant. He looked upon all criminals as a normal-minded doctor looks upon patients; they were beings who required specialised attention when they were in the grip of their peculiar malady, and were amongst the normals of life when they were cured.
    And to be cured, from Mr Reeder’s point of view, was to undergo a special treatment in Wormwood Scrubbs, Dartmoor, Parkhurst, Maidstone, or whatever prison was adaptable for the treatment of those who suffered from, or caused, social disorders.
    The next time Larry called, which was on a Sunday a fortnight later, he had an adventure to tell.
    “Respect me as a reformed crook, and salute me as a hero,” he said extravagantly, as he hung up his coat. “I’ve saved a distressed damsel from death! With that rare presence of mind which is the peculiar possession of the O’Ryans, I was able–”
    “It wasn’t so much presence of mind as a lamp-post,” murmured Mr Reeder; “though I grant that you were – um – quick on the – shall I say, uptake? In this case ‘uptake’ is the right word.”
    Larry stared at him.
    “Did you see it?” he asked.
    “I was an interested