Chapter Seven

Lorna

Lorna did Mannering so much good that he could have laughed aloud. Instead, he put his hands to her and drew her into the flat, while Dickinson tried to look the other way, and Ingleby seemed bereft of words for the first time this night.

“Not exactly guests,” Mannering said. “They seem to think that I clouted a man over the head with a plumber’s hammer.”

“And didn’t you?” inquired Lorna.

“Not this time.”

“I never did believe in treating burglars too leniently,” Lorna said. “You mustn’t get sentimental about thieves or policemen, sweet. Must he, Mr. Ingleby? Are you coming or going?”

“He’s going,” said Mannering, “but he’s coming back shortly. With a search warrant.”

“How tiresome,” Lorna said. “I must get to bed quickly, then I’ll have an oasis of peace and quiet.”

Her bland good humour was too much for Ingleby and his men. Ingleby said something under his breath, and turned away and started down the stairs. The others followed. When they were halfway down Ingleby spoke in a muffled voice, but his words were clear enough; he was telling two of them to stay near the Mannerings’ flat, one on the first landing, one in the hall. All three of them disappeared.

Mannering drew Lorna further in, and closed the door. She was smiling at him, head on one side. But Mannering knew what Ingleby would not have guessed in a hundred years; she was very anxious, and that showed in her eyes.

Mannering said: “Come and have a drink, darling,” and led the way to the study, which was their living-room when they were on their own. “Or do you want to take your hat off first?”

“I think I’ll slip into a dressing-gown,” Lorna said. “Mary fed me far too well, and something at dinner was blowy-outy. Come and tell me all about it while I change.”

She led the way into their bedroom, where Ethel had already drawn the blinds, and switched on a subdued light. Mannering sat back in her sewing chair, and watched as she unfastened the zip at the back of her blouse, shrugged it over her shoulders, and then stepped out of her skirt. She was beautifully proportioned – not a small woman, not really slim, but certainly not heavy. She loosened the brassiere at her full, white breasts, and it dangled down tantalisingly as she went across to a cupboard for her dressing-gown. Her movements were quick and light. She put the dressing-gown on, turned her back on him, unzipped and then wriggled clear of her girdle. Then she pulled on a pair of pyjama trousers, and tied the dressing-gown; then buttoned it high at the neck.

“So that’s how it happened,” she said, drily.

“I haven’t said a word,” protested Mannering, and laughed. “All right, all right, I know that’s what you meant. I am what is called preoccupied.”

“You mean you’re worried.”

After a pause, Mannering responded quietly: “Yes, darling, I think I am. Partly because I don’t know what it’s all about. Care for that drink?”

“Just hand me some indigestion tablets,” Lorna pleaded.

As he went across to her dressing-table, to get a bottle, she went on: “Did I play the fool too much?”

Mannering laughed.

“If you hadn’t, I think I would have crowned Ingleby. I’d already thrown him out of the flat. You couldn’t have timed it better or eased the tension more.” He watched her sitting back on her bed, hitching the pillows behind her, and put his legs up on a stool. This was a late night and early morning habit of intimacy between them, although more often than not she was drinking tea when they sat like this. “It’s one of the oddest affairs,” Mannering began, and told her exactly what had happened.

He did not know that he impressed her most by the complete control that he had of the facts, the way he marshalled the details into their proper order; nothing could have made it more convincing that he was not only worried by the situation but had given it a great deal of intense thought. At least the tension was gone, and he was not continually looking over his shoulder towards the door; nor was he alert for the sound of the front door bell. Yet half an hour must have passed between Ingleby’s departure, and the time of the finishing of the recital.

Lorna said slowly: “And the man got upstairs, darling.” “He might have used the lift,” Mannering said. “He almost certainly did. Why didn’t you, by the way?”

“I saw a policeman downstairs and thought I heard voices up here, so it seemed better to listen and walk,” answered Lorna. “Do you think the man who came here was the one who telephoned you?”

“It’s possible.”

“Wasn’t his voice the same?”

“He didn’t really use his voice when he came here, he only muttered incoherently,” Mannering said. “The worst of the situation is that he couldn’t walk. He would never have got across the flat if I hadn’t helped him. He was leaning against the wall, almost as if someone had propped him there.” He caught his breath, and his eyes narrowed. “As if someone had propped him there,” he repeated, very softly. “That could be it. If someone wanted him to be found in the flat, badly injured and looking as if he’d been attacked here, that’s what they would do.”

“Darling,” Lorna said, and burped slightly. “Sorry.”

“Yes?”

“Why should anyone want to do that?”

“I can’t even begin to guess.”

“How serious is it?”

Mannering said grimly: “Serious enough for Ingleby to get a warrant for my arrest if that’s the way the police want it. Look at the situation cold-bloodedly, sweet.” As he spoke, the full significance of the words struck at him. He felt his heart beginning to pound again, and saw the deepening anxiety in Lorna’s eyes. Cold-bloodedly was the only way he could look at the situation, and seen like that, it scared him. “This man couldn’t walk. The two doctors didn’t say much, but they both said: ‘I can’t imagine how he managed to get here.’ That must have started Ingleby’s mind ticking over, and for some reason he already thought that I was interested in a cache of jewels which the man Laker had stashed away. A man so badly wounded that he could not have walked up those stairs and probably could not have operated the automatic lift, was found in this flat, with the weapon in his pocket, wiped clear of prints. Imagine what I would think if I heard this about someone else.”

Lorna said: “I don’t want to.”

“I know what we both want,” Mannering said. “And what I need most is two or three days in which to move around and find out what’s going on, but it wouldn’t surprise me if the police make sure that I can’t.”

“Have they really enough to make a charge?”

“Yes, I think they could justify one. A defence counsel might be able to make hay of it, but – well, grant that the injured man could implicate me in a serious crime, and had to be silenced, and there’s a case.”

“But he isn’t dead!”

“The police could argue that I thought he was.” When Lorna made no comment, Mannering went on: “The only bright spot is the fact that Ingleby was ready to wait for a search warrant. If they found any of these jewels on the premises I’d spend the night in a police station cell.” He moistened his lips, and looked round at the door, then back at Lorna; and he knew that the same question was forming in her mind.

She uttered it.

“They can’t find any of the jewels here, can they?”

“If you’d asked me an hour ago, I would have said that they couldn’t find a man with a smashed skull here, or that you couldn’t find the hammer used to hit him with. I’d he flabbergasted if any jewels were found, but—”

He broke off, and caught his breath. Lorna asked quickly: “What is it, John?” When he didn’t answer, she leaned forward and demanded again: “What have you thought of?” Mannering said: “If that hammer was in the injured man’s pocket, some jewels could have been, too. I don’t know what he was coming to see me about. If it was the man who telephoned for an appointment in Hyde Park, he might have had the real Blest jewellery.”

“But surely—” Lorna broke off, equally aghast.

“Yes?”

“But surely if Ingleby had found anything like that in the man’s pockets, he would have told you by now – or else he would have taken you with him.”

“Not necessarily,” Mannering said. “He might judge it wiser to take them to the Yard for identification. Jewels as jewels wouldn’t be significant. They would matter only if they were stolen.” He stood up from the sewing chair, went to Lorna’s long mirror, looked at his reflection in it, and saw Lorna’s reflection, too. She was quite beautiful, but pale and very anxious – nearly as anxious as he. He felt as if a net was tightening round him, and that there was nothing at all he could do to free himself – he could not even see where the next strand of the net would tighten. “I’d give a lot to know what they’re thinking at the Yard,” he went on. “There isn’t much doubt that they could put me on a charge.”

Chief Inspector Ingleby had worked at New Scotland Yard long enough to feel no awkwardness whenever he went there from the Division. Most of the senior and many of the junior officers were old friends of his, and usually he enjoyed an excuse for a visit. He was not greatly enjoying himself tonight. His suspicions of Mannering were very strong and fully justified, and yet there were imponderable factors which made him uneasy and uncertain of himself. Mannering’s reputation, for instance, was so good that it was almost inconceivable that he would allow himself to become involved in dealing in stolen jewels, and with murder – but certain pieces of evidence were irrefutable. After leaving Mannering’s flat, Ingleby had radioed the Yard and asked if it would be possible to see Chief Superintendent William Bristow, Bristow was the doyen of Yard superintendents, he was the specialist in precious stones, and he knew Mannering very well. Some said that the two men were close friends.

What Ingleby did not know – and what very few at the Yard even suspected – was that in their early days Bristow and Mannering had been on opposite sides of the fence. Bristow was the one person in England who was quite sure that Mannering had once been a jewel thief known as the Baron. There had never been proof; but all his life Bristow had believed that one day events might establish that proof, probably when it was least expected.

Ingleby went into a small office which had been made available for him for the evening, and immediately asked a detective sergeant on duty: “Is Mr. Bristow coming?”

“He’s on his way.”

“Good,” said Ingleby. “That means I’d better look slippy.” He sat down at a bare-topped table, and made notes in a good, flowing hand, putting them in chronological order much as Mannering had done for Lorna. Finished, Ingleby telephoned the Westminster Hospital, where the injured man had been taken. A policeman on duty there to answer inquiries reported: “They’re operating, Mr. Ingleby, but no news has come through yet.”

“Telephone me at the Yard if there’s any word,” Ingleby said. “Extension 524 – and if I’m not there, ask for Mr. Bristow.”

“Right, sir.”

Ingleby rang off.

He had recovered from his exasperation and annoyance, and wondered whether Mannering realised that he had deliberately heightened the tension between them, acting as if he was much more angry than he had in fact been; his sole purpose had been to try to make Mannering lose his temper. He hadn’t succeeded altogether. Now Ingleby lit a cigarette, thought longingly of the drink Mannering had offered, and browsed a little nostalgically about being stationed at the Yard. It was the hub of the Metropolitan C.I.D. and a Divisional job would never be quite the same.

The door opened, and Bristow came in.

He was a man of medium height, not particularly massive, with regular features which somehow failed to make him good-looking. He had a close-clipped grey moustache, the middle of which was stained yellow with nicotine, and in his well-cut grey jacket he wore a fresh-looking gardenia. Bristow’s nicotined moustache and his gardenia were bywords at the Yard, and no one here now took the slightest notice of them. He had a quick, brisk manner and brisk movements; he shook hands briefly with Ingleby, pulled up an armchair, and invited: “Tell me all about it.”

Ingleby reported, making frequent references to his notes. It was quite impossible to judge Bristow’s reaction. The Yard man smoked a cigarette and a half during the recital, and the only movement he made was to take a cigarette from his mouth and tap the ash off into the fireplace.

“… and that’s about it,” Ingleby said, at last. “I had Mannering worried, I’m quite sure about that.” When Bristow made no comment, he went on almost uneasily: “The question is, sir, is there enough for a charge against Mannering?” “Good God, yes!”

“That’s what I thought,” said Ingleby.

“Wouldn’t put it past Mannering to have hit that man if he’d come to raid the flat,” Bristow went on, and lit a third cigarette from the stub of his second. “But his story sounds reasonable – and it’s hardly the kind of yarn he would spin if he were trying to cover up some crime.”

“You mean, you believe it?”

“Too early to say what I believe yet,” said Bristow. “You say that you think Mannering was badly shaken when you pointed out the fact that this injured man might have been attacked in his flat.”

“He was shaken all right.”

“Wouldn’t be likely to be so shaken if he really had done the thing,” Bristow pointed out, reasonably. “But that isn’t much to do with whether we ought to charge him or not. Apart from the hammer, did you find anything else on the injured man?”

Ingleby pointed to some oddments placed out on a small table: keys, money, wallet, ticket, some letters, two handkerchiefs, a book of matches, a shoe-lace, and a piece of white chalk.

“That’s the lot, sir. His name’s Joe Farmer.”

“Any record?”

“No, nothing known against him. I checked just before you arrived. And he’s still alive.”

“If he dies, Mannering could find himself on a murder charge,” Bristow said. “The only charge we could prefer if we pulled him in now would be causing grievous bodily harm. I’d have been happier if we could have found some jewels at Mannering’s place. If this chap could have proved him a fence, then Mannering might have taken the risk and attacked him. It would be more convincing if the man was dead, but he may have looked pretty dead, and if it happened that way Mannering would have been racing against time. He’s pretty cagey, you know; there isn’t any way he can get stuff out of his flat, is there?”

“I think I’ve made sure of that,” answered Ingleby.

“Good. The first thing is to get that search warrant, and while we’re at it, we’ll get one for Quinns,” Bristow decided. “If we find anything, we’ll hold Mannering for the night at least. What else have you done?”

“Else?” Ingleby looked startled. “Well—”

“This girl, Rebecca Blest.”

“She’s being looked after by the neighbours downstairs, some people named Ashton. There’s a daughter of about Rebecca Blest’s age to keep her company.” Ingleby seemed pleased with this report. “Young Terence McKay has gone home. To make sure there’s no collusion between them and Mannering, I’ve started to check if they knew one another before. As far as I can find out, the girl did go to Mannering with these jewels of Laker’s, only to find that they were false, and Terence McKay did meet the girl for the first time this afternoon – I haven’t discovered any evidence that they knew each other before. That part of everybody’s story seems to be true.”

“Any motive established for the murder of Samuel Blest?”

“Nothing at all.”

“Right,” said Bristow, crisply. “You go and fix that search warrant, and say I’m ready to support it. I’ll lay on a couple of good men to go along with you – men who know Mannering’s flat,” Bristow added drily. “And when the flat’s been searched, you can go over to Quinns.”

“Mr. Bristow,” Ingleby said, and then hesitated.

“Yes?”

“You’re not at all sure about Mannering being in the clear, are you?”

“It wouldn’t be the first time that Mannering had got himself into a jam by trying to be quixotic,” Bristow said gruffly, “and it wouldn’t be the first time that Mannering handled stolen jewels in a kind of juggling act. I wouldn’t put it past him to be trying to get the real jewels back in place of the false ones for this Rebecca Blest girl. Unusual name, isn’t it? What’s she like?”

“She’s a sweetie,” Ingleby said. “About twenty-three, and just the kind of girl I’d like my son to marry.”

“Couldn’t give me a better description,” Bristow said. “You couldn’t describe a better bait for Mannering, either. I wonder if these crooks are making a fool out of him.” Under his breath he added what he so often thought: “One of these days his past will catch up with him.”