Chapter Eight

Police Work

This was Fenn’s cue to introduce himself, but he decided not to take it. His ability to fade into the background and become part of the furniture, as it were, was not the least of his craft. Bill Brash hardly knew that he was there, and no one took any notice of him.

And his silence was tantamount to a request: for Mannering to handle this.

“Do you know where I’m likely to find him?” Mannering asked Brash.

“Pendexter? At his hotel, I suppose. He always stays at The Glenn Hotel, Cromwell Road, when he’s in London. Look here, why did you bring Miranda here?”

“Pendexter Smith went off and didn’t come back.”

“Didn’t come back?”

“That’s what I said.”

“What did he go away for?”

“To get proof that Miss Miranda was the legal owner of the nest-egg he wanted me to buy.”

“So that was his game,” growled Brash. “I’d like to know what the old devil’s up to. He’s got Miranda where he wants her. She’s absolutely dependent on him. Whatever he says, she does. But it’s criminal!” He spat that word out. “She doesn’t know what he’s doing half the time, she trusts him completely. And—”

“You wouldn’t?”

“Trust Pendexter Smith? I’d rather go to bed with a cobra! But I don’t get this at all. You mean he went off to get proof that she owned the things, and didn’t come back.”

“That’s right.”

“Where’s the nest of eggs?” Brash’s eyes blazed with alarm, his cheeks turned bright red again. “Did he take that with him? He might have been attacked, might have been—”

“It’s in good keeping.”

“Oh, is it?” said Brash, relaxing. “Well, that’s something, anyhow. And he was dying to sell it to you. I don’t want to poke my nose into other people’s affairs, Mr. Mannering, but you be careful. He’s no right to sell it, and I wouldn’t trust him with the money he’ll get for it. What’s it worth?”

“Somewhere between ten and a hundred thousand pounds.”

“Somewhere between—” Brash broke off, looking puzzled; then he gave a quick grin which made him look more human and attractive. “You’re pretty cagey, aren’t you? The only thing that worries me is to make sure Smith doesn’t have the handling of the money. Is there a way of making sure?”

“I don’t know,” said Mannering, reasonably. “That’s a matter for the legal experts. If Miranda were found to be of unsound mind, then—”

“Don’t be a ruddy fool,” growled Brash. “She’s as sane as you or me.”

He paused for a moment, looking at her with distress in his eyes.

“She—she hasn’t always been like this. Something happened, and—”

“What happened?” Fenn asked, very quietly.

“I don’t know exactly. It was in France, I think. A car accident. She—she’s always like this, she’s forgotten everything, can’t talk or hear or read or write.”

“When did this happen?”

“Two years ago. She went off for a holiday with her father, and she came back like this. He said it was a car accident. They crashed, and there was an explosion and a fire. She’s seen psychiatrist after psychiatrist, here, on the Continent, and in America, but they haven’t been able to do a thing. Shock, they say—a nervous affliction, paralysis of certain nerve centres. There’s no way of telling whether she can ever be cured.” He spoke as if he were reciting something which he had learned off by heart; and it was easy to believe that he had repeated the phrases to himself time and time again, in a despairing effort to find some chink in the armour of failure. “She’s been wonderful, but—well, look at her.”

Miranda was looking at Brash.

The worst of the fear had gone from her eyes; she was almost as calm as when she had come into the shop. But she looked lost – lost, lonely, and so very lovely. Nothing that Brash said conveyed anything to her. Obviously she wasn’t deeply interested in him as a young man.

“How long have you known her?” Mannering asked, fighting against the spell she cast.

“Oh, years! We once lived in the same street.” he brushed that aside. “Mr. Mannering, can she stay here until Pendexter turns up? She’ll be happier with a woman about. As a matter of fact someone ought to break the hold which Pendexter has on her, she wants to mix more, try …”

His voice trailed off.

“Yes,” said Mannering, very quietly, “Miranda can stay here until Pendexter Smith turns up. Have you any idea where he would go to get the legal proof he wanted?”

“Oh, Lord, yes,” said Bill Brash. “His solicitors—hers, too. Wilberry, May and Wilberry, Leadenhall Street. That’s almost certain. Too late to telephone them now, though, isn’t it? I wonder if he’s gone back to his hotel.”

Fenn took over, smoothly. He telephoned the Glenn Hotel; Pendexter Smith hadn’t returned. He telephoned Smith’s Sussex home, which had the intriguing name of Dragon’s End, spoke to a man who said that Smith might be away for several days. Then after a word outside with his sergeant, Fenn telephoned the Yard, and set a sergeant on the job of getting in touch with Smith’s solicitors at once.

That done, he turned to Brash.

“Can you name any of the psychiatrists who have seen Miss Smith?”

“Name ’em? No, I—wait a minute, though, there’s a chap with a name that rhymes with mine. Nash—that’s it, Nash.”

“Lancelot Nash,” Fenn said. “That’s fine. Thanks. Where do you live, Mr. Brash?”

Bill Brash had a small flat in Victoria. He said that he was a travelling salesman covering South London and part of the South of England for a firm of paper merchants. Fenn didn’t ask any more questions, and soon afterwards Brash left, obviously not easy in his mind.

Miranda showed no particular sign of regret; in a way she seemed to take him for granted.

“Now I’m going to get really busy,” Fenn said. He followed Mannering out of the room and into the drawing-room, which overlooked Green Street. He didn’t ask questions, but went with Mannering to the window, talking all the time. “Grimble’s downstairs, I told him to follow Brash. We’ll get after those solicitors and find that cabbie—he may be waiting at the Yard by now. Then I’ll see Nash. It’s time I had a talk with the prisoner, too.” He said all this calmly, while looking out.

Brash appeared, and walked across the road to a two-seater M.G. which looked as if it had had better days.

A Detective Officer from the Yard got into a small car farther along the street, and started after him.

A taxi moved in the wake of these two, towards the Embankment, and, craning his neck, Mannering could just see who was in the taxi.

Fenn grinned.

“Likely lad, young Wainwright,” he said, “qualifying for a job with us, apparently!”

“Not if I can stop him,” Mannering murmured.

Fenn laughed; he was in surprising good humour.

“He could do worse, he could stay with you! I seem to remember seeing him before.”

“Ominous reflection from a copper,” Mannering said. “You haven’t seen him, you’ve seen his father, Sir Jeremiah Wainwright. He died two years ago, and—”

Fenn snapped his fingers.

“I remember! Quite a collector of precious stones in his way, wasn’t he, with a magnificent collection of rubies. Didn’t he go bankrupt?”

“He was robbed, and hadn’t insured fully,” Mannering said. “He committed suicide.”

Fenn looked more sober.

“Yes, I recall it now. You helped to jail the thieves. Bad business. And you’re taking a benevolent interest in his son. You’re an odd chap, you know.”

Mannering’s smile flashed.

“More odd than you know! But this isn’t pure benevolence. Young Wainwright knows a lot about jewellery, and he’s showing a lot more gump than I expected,” Mannering added. “I thought his one desire in life was to brood over antiques and jewels. That crack over the head must have started something.”

Wainwright’s taxi turned the corner and disappeared.

“Nice-looking lad,” Fenn remarked. “Looks pretty fit, too. I hope he doesn’t make the mistake his boss is so fond of making.”

“I’ll buy it,” said Mannering.

“Trying to do the job that the police ought to do,” Fenn said mildly. “Mannering the Lone Wolf might get away with murder, but anyone trying to emulate him will land himself in trouble.”

Mannering just grinned.

“Do you know anything about the history of these eggs?” Fenn asked.

“Yes,” Mannering said at once. “I remembered the story when I really thought about the eggs. They come from a remote part of Indonesia. The story goes that the King of a country now absorbed and almost forgotten married the loveliest woman of his kingdom, but she did not bear him a son; and without a son, the dynasty would perish. So each year, at the Feast of Fertility, the King offered a gift to tire gods of fertility—of a jewelled egg, a gift as splendid and as symbolic as he could conceive. And the nest was their resting place.”

Mannering stopped.

“Did he get his son?” asked Fenn.

“The dynasty’s dead, and the legend doesn’t say.”

“Where did you learn about it?”

“I vaguely recalled there was a story about them when I first set eyes on them,” said Mannering, “and I looked it up before I left Quinns.”

“Have you heard of these since the dynasty died?”

“If you mean, do I know of any modern owner, no. I don’t think they’ve ever passed through the hands of the trade before.”

Fenn went out soon afterwards, purposeful, and in a hurry.

Chief Inspector Nicholas Fenn sat at his desk, taking telephone calls, studying reports, listening to men who were reporting in person. It was a never-ending stream. For an hour after he returned to the Yard, he hardly had time to breathe. Gradually, an incomplete picture formed itself in his mind; and he put the relevant on paper, to make sure that the picture didn’t fade.

Pendexter Smith had not been to the solicitor’s office. He had left his taxi at one end of Leadenhall Street, given the cabbie a sixpenny tip, and been forgotten. The driver did not even remember which way Smith had walked. It would be the next day before porters, commissionaires, and passers-by could be questioned, but a call for information about the man was sent round to all London Divisions.

It could have been wilful disappearance.

The Midham police had been helpful, too.

Pendexter Smith and Miranda, also named Smith and his only brother’s daughter, had lived in or near Midham for many years. Pendexter had been a wanderer in his youth, his brother, Mortimer, had married, made money with the Midas touch, mostly on the Stock Exchange, and bought a big old house on the outskirts of the town.

“Proper museum, that place is now,” the Midham superintendent had told Fenn. “He collects everything from Chinese dragons to snuff-boxes. Mortimer began it, and Pendexter kept it going. Couple of freaks, of course, every one down here knew them well. Then Mortimer popped off—”

“When?”

“Two years ago.”

“Natural causes?”

“Motor accident.”

“H’m,” Fenn had said, and rubbed his nose on the shiny black of the telephone. “And Pendexter took over.”

“Yes,” said the Midham man. “Miranda, poor kid, in heritted the fortune. She—”

“How much?”

“Eh? Oh, the fortune? Well, the estate was finally valued at two hundred thousand, but I don’t think it was the lot. No one could be sure of the value of some of the stuff at Dragon’s End.”

“Was that always the name of the house?”

“No. Mortimer’s name for it. What was I saying? Oh, yes, Miranda inherited, and Pendexter managed the estate for her. All open and above board, and she always liked her uncle. Beauty and the beast, new version. And since her accident, he’s been her ears and her mouth. Tragic business.” The Superintendent’s voice echoed real distress. “But to go back to the beginning, I’ve heard nothing about Pendexter or Dragon’s End lately. Everything’s been going on as usual, as far as I can find out. Can’t imagine why she was in such need of big money, I’d say that Miranda was one of the wealthiest young women I know. But I’ll see what I can find out.”

“I’ll be glad if you will,” Fenn had said and then added: “Ever heard of a man named Mannering—John Mannering, of Quinns?”

“Who hasn’t?” asked the Midham man. “Big dealer, isn’t he, always showing Bill Bristow how to do his job!”

“That’s the chap. He’ll probably be down to see you. He isn’t anybody’s fool,” Fenn went on. “I should let him have plenty of rope, if I were you.”

“What’s his interest?”

Fenn said, “Partly business, partly sentiment, if I’m seeing straight. I can’t see that this is much of a job for us yet. If Mannering likes to probe, it might save us the bother. Has Miranda any friends down there?”

“Not really friends,” the Midham man said. “They’ve always been a bit aloof, and she hadn’t been back from finishing school in France more than six months when she had the accident. She’s only twenty-one, now. And Pendexter’s a freak. Miranda’s only friend, as such, is a young chap named Brash, Bill Brash. The forlorn and faithful lover kind.”

“Ever get the idea that he might be after her money?”

The superintendent hesitated.

“No,” he said, slowly, “I can’t say I did. Still, you never know. I’ll keep my eyes open, and let you know if anything else turns up. Sure Mannering will be down here?”

“Pretty sure,” said Nicholas Fenn, confidently.

He rang off.

He sat back, lighting a cigarette, looking at a photograph of a cricket XI on the wall. Superintendent Bill Bristow was in it. Bristow was now enjoying himself in South Africa, and deserved a break. Before leaving, he had gone over a lot of ground with Fenn, and something had brought Mannering into the conversation.

“Between you and me,” Bristow had said, “Mannering’s a lot better than most of us think he is. He just won’t give up once he’s started. He doesn’t do much these days, often has to be persuaded to start looking round, but once he starts, that’s it. He’s an amazing chap. Can pick a lock with any cracksman we’ve ever put inside, and keeps up-to-date with safe and strong-room locks and mechanism. There isn’t much he doesn’t know about burglar-alarm systems, electric rays, and all the rest. Between you and me,” Bristow had repeated in a sudden burst of confidence, “he was once a menace. A woman played fast and loose with him, and something snapped. Heard of the Baron?”

Fenn, thinking fast, could remember the shock which the name had given him; could remember, ten years or so ago, when he had been on the beat, hating the sound of the name Baron, dreaming a dream of catching the thief red-handed, yet forced into reluctant admiration for a thief whose exploits had set London by the ears, and given the police in Paris and Rome, Berlin and Budapest, too much to think about. The Baron had previously won a place in the heart of most people, for those he robbed had been not only wealthy but also of ill-repute; and the desperately poor had received great gifts from the man who was known as the Baron.

It was many years since he had worked as the Baron, and he had never been caught. As far as Fenn had then known, no one ever knew who he was. He had vanished off the pages of the newspapers, and the police had lost a thorn in the flesh.

“I’ve heard of the Baron all right,” Fenn had said softly.

“Take it from me,” Bristow had told him, “Mannering was the Baron. The Man in the Blue Mask, as we called him sometimes. He had the courage of the Devil, was as slippery as an eel, and—oh, but you know. Then he settled down, after marrying Lord Fauntley’s daughter. But if you study the records, you’ll see that as the Baron faded out, so Mannering came in as a private eye. Natural development—he turned a new leaf, but crime and jewels held him like a magnet. I’d trust him anywhere and with anyone now, but—well, he was lucky he didn’t go inside.”

Fenn hadn’t spoken.

“If you get anything that looks like a Mannering job, let him in,” Bristow had advised. “Especially if it’s a sticky one. He’ll take chances and risk his neck doing things we can’t. And once he gets moving—phew!”

Just for ten minutes, Fenn had seen Mannering moving. He wanted to see more.

Fenn went down to see the prisoner, who was scared but refused to talk. He had no papers on him, and wouldn’t give his name and address. Fenn worked on him for twenty minutes, then left him to stew. Back in his office, Fenn telephoned Lancelot Nash, a psychiatrist well known in London and the provinces.

Nash didn’t need reminding about Miranda Smith.

“As a case, a complete failure,” he said. “There’s nothing organically wrong, but her nerve-centres just don’t work. She can’t articulate or hear, at times I wonder if she’s really half-witted. Electric-shock treatment has failed, everything’s failed.

“Still trying?” Fenn asked.

“She’s with a Swiss chap now,” Nash said. “Or she was two months ago. Why—what’s her trouble with you?”

“I want to find out if she’s under undue influence.”

Nash said, “You mean Pendexter Smith? She’d be in a mess without him; he’s almost the only person who’s able to establish communication with her. Afraid I can’t help you there.”

Fenn said, “Well, thanks for trying,” and rang off.

A picture of Miranda Smith hovered in front of his mind’s eye.