(The music comes up.)
Edgar Wallace’s best detective is J. G. Reeder, a character well-known to American mystery addicts. Perhaps Wallace’s next-best detective character is Chief Inspector O. Rater, known familiarly (from his name) as the Orator, whose exploits have never been published in America. Here is a sturdy, clever example of the Orator’s detective work — in an Edgar Wallace short story given to the American public for the first time in any form whatsoever.
The Man Next Door
by Edgar Wallace
When Mr. Giles walked into Chief Inspector O. Rater’s room, he did so with a cheerful assurance. His attitude proclaimed the fact that he had nothing whatever to fear from Scotland Yard or its genii; there was a smile on his red face and a frank geniality in his blue eyes which would have been proper to a man whose past was beyond reproach.
“Good morning, Mr. Rater: it’s very good of you to see me, I’m sure. When I wrote, I said to myself: ‘I wonder if the gov’nor will spare me a minute?’ The fact is, I’ve been trying to make up my mind to write to you for some time.”
“Sit down, Farmer,” said the Orator, gently. He whose rubicund countenance and expansive manner, no less than the accident of his surname, had earned him the nickname, smiled wider than ever and drew a chair to the inspector’s table.
“You know what things are, Mr. Rater! When a man’s had a little bit of trouble with the police and is starting all over again to build up his reputation, he sort of shrinks from getting in touch with the police or authorities, if I may use that expression.”
“Straight now, Farmer?”
The Orator’s steady eyes were coldly sceptical.
“Ab-so-lutely! The other game doesn’t pay, Mr. Rater. You know that. Yes, I’ve had a bit of luck. An uncle of mine set me up in business. Naturally, he doesn’t know the jokes I’ve been up to—”
“What kind of business?”
“Farmer” Giles dived into a pocket and extracted a pocket-case. The Orator took the large card which was handed across to him:
“ ‘Agent’ tells me everything!” said Mr. Rater. “What are you — a bookmaker?”
But it appeared that the Farmer was the proprietor of a prosperous general agency.
“The business is increasing every month,” he said, enthusiastically. “I’ve worked it up in eighteen months to double what it used to be. My uncle — well, I’ll tell you the truth, Mr. Rater — I bought it with my own money. Twelve hundred of the best. I’ve always been a very careful man, as you know, and I’ve put money aside. What’s the use of my telling you lies? It was my own money, got on the cross, most of it... you’re too wide to believe it wasn’t. I’ve been making up my mind to come and have a chat with you—”
“I recognised you in the city, and you know I recognised you,” interrupted the Orator. “Yes, the business is O.K. I’ve had you taped up.”
The Farmer beamed.
“Trust you! I said to my wife — quite a lady, Mr. Rater — she was in business herself when I picked her up — I said: ‘Molly, if there’s anybody wider than Mr. Rater, I don’t want to meet him!’ My very words!”
“Married, eh?”
Mr. Giles nodded.
“Eighteen months. I’d like you to come down to tea one Sunday. She’s as pretty as a picture. It’s not much of a neighbourhood — 908 Acacia Street — and we’ve got a few queer birds living in our road. One of these days I’ll get a flat up West, but I always say ‘Creep before you crawl!’ ”
He was a man given to the employment of trite maxims.
“908 Acacia Street!”
The Orator had two causes for astonishment. Acacia Street he knew. It was a long avenue of very small houses, the last thoroughfare in which you might expect to find the residence of J. Giles & Co. (late Olney, Brown & Stermer), Merchants of the City of London.
“This is my point, gov’nor.” The Farmer was anxious to explain the modesty of his habitation. “I’m trying to make an honest living. I’m earning good money, but what happens if I come up West and take a flash flat? First of all, the police start making enquiries; secondly, I meet my old friends, and that starts me wrong.”
“Very creditable,” murmured Inspector Rater; “also you’re not known in Brockley.”
“Exactly!” said the other.
He took up his hat from the floor where he had placed it and smoothed the crown.
“Do you know a man called Smith — George Smith?” he asked.
The Orator looked at the ceiling.
“It’s an uncommon name,” he said; and the Farmer grinned.
“You will have your joke, gov’nor! He lives next door to me, and I wouldn’t be surprised if he wasn’t a lag. He’s a sanctimonious sort of fellow, and goes to church; but all I know is that the night the boys did that jog at Blackheath and got away with eight thousand quid worth of sparklers, he was out all night; I happened to know because I saw him come home at five.”
“You having worked at your office all night?” murmured the Inspector, and for a moment the caller was disconcerted.
“No. To tell you the truth, I’m an early riser.”
“You always were, Farmer,” said Mr. Rater, and offered a limp hand.
908 Acacia Street! And at 910 lived a certain man who was a wood carver by trade and who dabbled in electrical contrivances.
A coincidence: a portent, probably — Mr. Rater found material for speculation.
Giles went back to his office in Cannon Street. He had some rooms on the second floor of a business block, and attended to the more intimate side of his affairs. He had in truth purchased the wreckage of a once prosperous concern, but with little intention of putting it to a legitimate use. Even when that remarkable order had been cabled to him from a client of the old firm, and he had been notified by the bankers that £6,000 had been placed to his credit for the purpose of making the purchase, his first inclination had been to draw the money and vanish gracefully. He had, however, taken over two clerks with the business, and one of these explained that the money could only be drawn on presentation of the invoices for the goods; thereupon Mr. Giles most virtuously, and with the assistance of the clerk who knew something about the execution of orders, carried out his duties, received his small commission and was more or less content.
It so happened that the order he filled was an advantageous one, and at the end of six months’ trading he found his clientele had increased threefold.
He was only mildly interested in the phenomenon, for his interests lay elsewhere than in the pure paths of commerce. J. Giles & Co. was really the head clerk, who conducted all negotiations and did no more than bring cheques to be endorsed or signed (the former operation was carried out by Mr. Giles willingly, the latter suspiciously), and he left to his employer other negotiations more delicate than the head clerk imagined.
The shipping of second-hand motor-cars to India and the Far East is a lucrative business, if you do not pay too much for the cars. And Mr. Giles paid next to nothing. He had a stabling yard adjacent to the London Docks, where cars would be crated, and it was on the shipment of these machines that his fortune was founded. He had got the strength of this graft from a man he met in Dartmoor, and he might have accumulated a fortune on the disposal of the stolen machines — he was on his way to being the biggest car fence in London — and from the legitimate profits of his business, if that unfortunate spirit of adventure which was his downfall had remained dormant.