Chapter Six

Cause For Suspicion

Half an hour later, Mannering’s doctor and the local police-surgeon left the flat in the wake of the ambulance men, who had just carried the injured man out of the hall. By the time the first doctor had arrived the man had been unconscious; and if medical opinion were vindicated, he was not likely to live through the night. Mannering could almost hear the doctor saying, as if to himself: “Can’t understand how he got up here – just can’t understand it.”

Ingleby had said very little, but had called the local police-surgeon, talked to the Yard and to the Division, and been briskly efficient. The hostility still existed, Mannering knew, although it was subdued. Ingleby had come by himself, which could be construed as a friendly gesture, but other C.I.D. men had since arrived. The familiar process of searching for clues, checking the polished boards and the rugs on them for blood stains, checking the landing outside for the same things, had gone on while the doctors bad been examining the injured man.

Now Ingleby was downstairs with the C.I.D. man, and for a few minutes Mannering was alone in the flat. It was nearly ten o’clock. He wondered what time Lorna would be home, and toyed with the idea of telephoning and warning her what to expect; but before he went to the telephone, Ingleby came in through the partly open door.

“Has he gone?” Mannering asked.

“Just been driven off,” said Ingleby. “Anxious about him?”

“I’d like to think he would live to talk.”

Ingleby asked: “Would you?”

The question was like the drip of iced water; cold and stinging. An ominous significance was hidden there. Mannering studied Ingleby as he stood with his back to the open door, stern-faced and hard-eyed; his hostility was as real as ever. Mannering said: “I don’t know what’s on your mind, but I can’t say I like the way it makes you behave. Come into the study, and have a drink.”

In the study, Ingleby said: “I won’t drink, thank you.” He sat rather stiffly in a William and Mary slung chair which had been darkened by years of polishing and use until it was almost black, while Mannering sat in a chair covered with wine-red mohair.

“Please yourself,” said Mannering. “Yes, I would.”

“Would what?”

“Like to think that chap will live to talk.” When Ingleby didn’t respond, Mannering fought back a wave of irritability. “Supposing you tell me what’s on your mind, Ingleby? Then I might be able to get it off.”

Ingleby said: “Mr. Mannering, there are no bloodstains on the floor of the hall downstairs. There are none on the pavement, as far as my men have been able to discover – they’re getting special lights, to check by, and they’ll be reporting very soon. But at the moment there is nothing but your evidence to say that the man was injured when he arrived. There are not even any bloodstains or indications that he leaned against the wall outside the door. There are one or two spots of blood on the floor in here – there were, rather, before my men scraped them up, to test for the blood group. But anything found inside the flat would hardly help to corroborate your statement, would it?”

Mannering stared at him, his heart beginning to pound.

“No doubt you see the obvious implication,” Ingleby said.

After a pause, Mannering replied: “Oh, yes, I can see, the implication – that he wasn’t attacked outside at all, but was attacked in here.”

“Precisely.”

“By me?”

“No one else was here when I arrived, and you told me that no one else had been here this evening, except your maid.” Ingleby paused, and then added acidly: “She has conveniently gone out.”

“Very conveniently,” Mannering agreed heavily. This wasn’t the moment to say that Ethel had gone at her own request, but the time might come when it would be invaluable for her to say so. “So your guess is that this man came to see me here and that I hit him over the head.”

“I didn’t say that.”

“Didn’t you?” murmured Mannering. He resisted a temptation to get up and move about; that would make it look as if he were too much on edge. “And Rebecca Blest’s father was killed in the same way and with the same kind of weapon. Do you think I did that too?”

Ingleby didn’t answer.

“Now if you could only find the weapon—” Mannering began. “And if you could only find my fingerprints on it, then you really would have a case.”

Ingleby stared at him gravely for a long time; for so long and so intently that his gaze was disquieting. Mannering put his hand to his pocket for cigarettes, and took it away again. It was difficult not to look away from the C.I.D. man, but one or the other of them would have to, first. It was like playing the silly children’s game of staring-you-out. His own gaze was about to shift when Ingleby turned away for a moment, then looked back, and said crisply: “We have found the weapon.”

“What?”

“We have found the weapon, Mr. Mannering.”

“Don’t be absurd. It’s not here.”

“It was here.”

Mannering thought: I’m going crazy. Ingleby wouldn’t make a flat statement like that unless he was sure of himself, yet on the face of it, this looked like nonsense. There was one way to force the issue, and he used it.

“I don’t believe it.”

“There are three witnesses,” Ingleby declared. He opened his case, delved a hand inside, and brought out a short-handled hammer with a heavy iron head, daubed thick with blood and with hairs sticking to the blood. The handle was smeared with grey powder, and seemed to be quite clear of prints, but he couldn’t be sure of that.

Ingleby drew the weapon out by a piece of string which was tied round the shaft; a label was tied to it, too. He held it up in front of Mannering, dangling from the piece of string. “That was stuffed into the pocket of the injured man,” the detective asserted. “The pocket of his trousers was smeared with blood, too. The handle has been wiped clear of prints, so no positive identification of the person who last used it can be made, but—” he let the rest of what he was going to say hover in the air.

Mannering said: “So he hit himself, and stuffed that into his pocket.”

Ingleby jumped up. “No, Mr. Mannering, he didn’t hit himself, and if you think this is the propel moment for facetiousness, I don’t. One man brutally murdered, another as brutally attacked, the second man found in your apartment with the weapon cleaned of prints and stuffed into the victim’s pocket – is that funny? Go on, tell me, is that funny?” Ingleby’s eyes were glittering, he was swinging the hammer almost as if he would like to use it. “Now, let’s have the truth, Mannering – what have you been doing with the men involved in these crimes? Why is it happening?” He strode forward and thrust a pointing finger in front of Mannering’s nose. “Go on, tell me that? What have you been playing with fire for? Where are the Laker jewels? Come along, tell me – where are the jewels which Rett Laker stole, fifteen years ago, which he hid away, and sold to you after he came out of prison?”

Mannering said: “Take your hand away from my face.” He waited for a split second, then pushed Ingleby’s hand aside. “Raise your voice at me again and I’ll put you outside. Don’t think that being a policeman will help you.”

Ingleby glowered. “So now you’re threatening me.”

“I’m telling you to behave like a civilised human being.”

“There’s nothing civilised about smashing a man’s skull.”

“There’s nothing civilised about ranting like a pocket dictator, either.”

Ingleby drew further back, and his expression was livid. “My God,” he said. “If I ever get you for this, I’ll make you suffer.”

“You’d be a better policeman if you just worried about getting the murderer. No man in his senses would carry out a murderous attack when he was expecting the police.”

“He might, if the man he attacked could do him harm with the authorities.”

“If he feared that, he would make sure he was dead.”

“Or rely on convincing the police that he was innocent.”

“If you really think like this, you oughtn’t to be on the Force,” Mannering said sharply.

Ingleby swung round. “All right,” he growled. “You’ve asked for it.” He reached the half-open door, and Mannering remembered that the landing door was also ajar. “Dickinson!” called Ingleby, his voice still thick with anger. “Come in and get started.” Ingleby stood with his back to Mannering, who was almost certain what the unknown Dickinson was to start. “Bring the others in, and get a move on.”

Mannering jumped to his feet, strode across the room, saw Ingleby start to turn round, hearing him; pushed the C.I.D. man vigorously to one side, and ran across the hall. He reached the door as it began to open wider. A thickset plainclothes man was standing just outside, looking down the stairs to two others who came hurrying up. Mannering said savagely: “Mind your hand,” and slammed the door; Dickinson snatched his hand away from the doorway just in time. Mannering fastened the catch of the door, and turned round to see Ingleby staring towards him, eyes glittering with rage.

“Have you gone crazy? Impeding the police in the course of—”

“Have you a search warrant?”

“I don’t need a search warrant after finding that man here.”

“You’ve got the man, you’ve got the weapon. From now on you need a search warrant.”

Ingleby was momentarily shaken.

“I can damned soon get one.”

“Then go and get one, and when you’ve got it signed by a magistrate you can come here and search,” Mannering said, harshly. “Provided you behave like a human being instead of like an idiot.”

“Mannering, you’ll regret this.”

“Ingleby,” Mannering said, in a low-pitched but very clear voice, “the only thing I have to regret is that I once gave you a helping hand. Try to get some simple facts into your head. I have never heard of Rett Laker’s jewels. I had never heard of Laker until this afternoon. I had never met his niece until this afternoon either, and then I saw her at her own request. I had never met Samuel Blest until after his death. While you’re getting your search warrant you might try reciting those facts until you’ve learned them off by heart.”

He unlatched the door, opened it wide, and stood aside for Ingleby to go out. Dickinson and two other plainclothes men, who must have heard every word, were standing on the landing, obviously not sure what to do, and waiting for instructions. Mannering was still seething, but at the same time telling himself that it would not help if he lost his temper, or if he stood too much on his dignity. But he had taken this stand, and couldn’t shift his ground.

He heard the whining sound of the lift, and wondered who was coming up. It stopped at a floor below, and the silence seemed intense. Ingleby was breathing hard through his nostrils, as if he could not make up his mind what attitude to adopt. Every moment he lost was a moment’s gain for Mannering, although if Ingleby went for a search warrant, when he came back he would be ruthlessly thorough.

Then Mannering heard footsteps on the stairs.

Ingleby said: “Wait outside here, sergeant. I’ll be back with that warrant in less than half an hour. Make sure that no one comes in or goes out of the flat, by the back or the front.”

From the foot of the flight of stairs, Lorna Mannering called: “Does that include me, Mr. Ingleby?”

Lorna turned the bend in the stairs, and came towards them. She was tall and slim, with a good figure, and just now she was beautifully dressed in a suit which had come from Patelli; a ridiculously attractive little hat seemed to throw up her dark hair to glossy perfection. She moved as lightly and easily as she spoke, and she was smiling as if knowing that only she could hope to break this tension.

“Because I belong here,” she said, and reached the landing. She looked at Mannering. “Hallo, darling, I didn’t know that you had guests.”