Chapter Eleven

Colonel Cunliffe Confides

 

I’ve been very worried about Joanna for over a year,’ said Cunliffe. He had taken Mannering to his upstairs library, a room of elegance and glowing beauty. Half of one wall was covered with miniatures, possibly by Nicholas Hilliard, and Mannering’s expert eye told him that this collection alone would fetch at least a hundred thousand pounds at any big auction. There was a Gainsborough portrait too, and on one narrow wall a magnificent painting of Nether Manor, almost certainly by Constable. ‘My sister puts it down to the fact that she lost her mother at an impressionable age,’ Cunliffe went on, ‘yet I am a long way from being sure that is the right explanation. I believe—’

He hesitated, and squared his shoulders as if to make a supreme effort.

‘What do you believe?’ asked Mannering sharply.

Cunliffe drew a deep breath. ‘I have reason to suspect that it is Joanna who has taken the paintings and replaced them by copies. I do not, I cannot, believe that she would do such things for personal gain, and so it follows that she must be—she must be ill. Mannering’ – Cunliffe paused and there was a film of tears in his eyes – ‘these paintings mean so much to me, as I told you. Two days ago I would never have believed that Joanna would touch them, whatever the circumstances. Now, I am not so sure.’

‘But that hideous attack on her,’ Mannering said slowly.

‘Surely—’

‘People who are mentally—mentally unbalanced’ – Cunliffe got the words out with an effort – ‘do strange things, Mannering. I’m very much afraid that Joanna may herself have—’ He broke off, glancing at a grand father clock in a corner of the room. ‘I should soon have a message from the hospital; Ignatzi promised to call the moment the specialist had seen her. Did you know that she was an amateur painter?’ he added abruptly.

Mannering had no wish to disclose, even to his host, his knowledge of the studio beneath the north gallery. ‘No, I didn’t,’ he said easily.

‘She spent a year at the Slade, and although she isn’t particularly good, she paints quite pleasantly. Some years ago my wife used to clean and frame the paintings here—it was her hobby and she was better than many professionals. Since she died, the workshop—beneath the north gallery—has been used as a studio by Joanna. I went down there this morning, to search for some clue as to her behaviour, her distress—and do you know what I found?’ He did not wait for an answer but went on unbelievingly: ‘I found smouldering rags and—and a plastic bag filled with petrol! Petrol! Mannering, if that had ignited, the whole house might have been burned down!’

‘Petrol!’ exclaimed Mannering, in assumed astonishment. ‘But Joanna couldn’t …’

‘I don’t know, Mannering. I simply don’t know. But I do know that no week, hardly a day, passes now without some fresh cause for anxiety. Mannering—there is a barrier between Joanna and me. There was a time when she would confide in me, but now she keeps everything to herself.’

‘Don’t you think a doctor, even a psychiatrist …?’ Mannering asked.

Cunliffe’s manner changed. His eyes flashed, and he sat erect in his chair, his hands clenched.

‘Psychiatrist? What the devil do you mean? Do you think my daughter is mad?’

‘That’s the last thing I meant,’ Mannering said soothingly. ‘It’s just that psychiatrists are experts in gaining a patient’s confidence.’ He paused for a moment, before asking suddenly: ‘Why do you allow a man like Lobb on the premises?’

He brought the name out casually and without the slightest warning, remembering the effect it had had on Joanna. But Cunliffe only frowned.

‘I know of no one named Lobb.’

‘What about Anstiss?’

‘The second footman?’

‘Yes.’

‘He is a very good servant. My daughter ‘

‘He is a thief,’ Mannering said quietly.

‘Anstiss—a thief?’

‘An art thief.’

‘Good God!’ exclaimed Cunliffe. ‘You really mean—’ He sank back in his chair. ‘But Joanna recommended him! She said he had worked for years for the family of a friend of hers, who were cutting down on staff. A—thief?’

‘I think you’ll find that he has a record.’

‘It’s—it’s unbelievable. Joanna couldn’t have known. She—’ Cunliffe broke off again, as if he had suddenly realised that in the circumstances it would not be surprising if his daughter had indeed known the truth about Anstiss. Very slowly he got up, and moved towards the window overlooking the ornamental garden. Two cedars of Lebanon stood out against a copse of green and copper beech.

‘I’ll be in my room—’ Mannering began.

‘Please don’t go,’ Cunliffe said. After a long pause, he went on: ‘Will you come and join me, Mannering?’ His voice had changed and become much softer. As Mannering reached his side he waved his hand towards the view, with its beauty, its colour, its grandeur. ‘Mannering,’ he went on, ‘Cunliffes have owned this land for generations. Cunliffes have ridden out from Nether Manor for a hundred selfless missions. Five men from our family died in the Crusades, two at Crecy and four at Agincourt. My father drove away from here for the First World War, and didn’t return. I left here for the Second World War, more fortunate than he, for I came home. There is’ – he gestured again, this time to the leather-bound tomes on one wall, larger books than most – ‘there is the written history of the family—illustrated works begun by monks who helped to build Salisbury Cathedral. Much Cunliffe money was spent in the cathedral; much of the wood for pews and choir-stalls, beams and reredos, was from trees felled in these grounds. You’ – Cunliffe paused, then turned slowly to face Mannering – ‘you are a man who can understand what such things as these mean; what a source of pride they are.’

‘I can indeed,’ Mannering told him.

‘A source of pride,’ Cunliffe repeated in a far-away voice. ‘Mannering, if you were to read those books, the history of this family, you would find the truth in them. There have been dishonourable members of the family. One was hanged, for treason, another burned at the stake for heresy. Some have been judged mad.’ This time Mannering did not speak.

‘Yes,’ said Cunliffe, huskily. ‘There has always been a streak of madness in the family.’ His lips twisted. ‘You will better understand why I was so sensitive just now.’ Mannering nodded but did not interrupt. ‘I have this grave anxiety about Joanna, whom I so dearly love. If I am right and she is—is double-dealing, is it because she is unbalanced? Or is it because she has inherited those qualities which can bring dishonour?’

Mannering looked grave. ‘I don’t know,’ he said slowly.

‘The possibility of either torments me.’ Cunliffe passed a hand wearily across his forehead. ‘I am the last surviving member of the male line. All that I have, all that the family has, will go to my eldest grandson, should I be fortunate enough to have one. But neither of my daughters is yet married, and I may well be the last Cunliffe to own Nether Manor. I cannot go to the police about those missing pictures, Mannering. Nor can I ask a psychiatrist to examine my daughter. If the police were to discover a criminal streak, or the doctors to find evidence of mental instability in any one of the family—’

He paused, as if at a loss for words, and in that instant the telephone bell rang. Cunliffe did not move to answer it at first; then, as if awakened from a trance, he snatched up the receiver.

‘Colonel Cunliffe.’ To Mannering, he mouthed: ‘It might be about Joanna.’ Tense and still, he stood beside his desk. ‘Yes, yes … oh, is there any—any immediate danger?’ Anxiety leapt expressively to his mouth, his eyes. ‘There isn’t … Thank you, thank you for calling.’

He rang off, moistening his lips, and turned to Mannering.

‘They are going to keep her at the Infirmary, under observation.’

‘The best thing that could happen,’ Mannering said reassuringly. ‘What she needs is a complete rest.’

While touched by Colonel Cunliffe’s obvious distress, he could not bring himself to believe that Joanna was in fact mentally unbalanced. Far more likely, he thought, that, as he had originally suspected, the girl was being blackmailed. As Colonel Cunliffe had himself said, so many strange things had happened, and Joanna could hardly be responsible for them all.

No, something very sinister was going on in the village of Nether Wylie, and while anxious not to abuse his host’s hospitality, Mannering knew he would be unable to rest until he had discovered exactly what it was.

Half an hour later, he was back in his own room. Nothing had been touched; it was possible that no one had yet noticed that Joanna’s pictures had been taken from the studio. But as he lifted them from beneath the mattress, the telephone bell rang – he never seemed to be able to touch them without some interruption, Mannering thought resignedly, as he reached for the receiver.

‘A call for you from London, sir,’ a girl said. The next moment Josh Larraby was on the line.

‘Mr. Mannering?’

‘Yes, Josh.’ Mannering felt excitement stirring.

‘So far as the first is concerned, the answer is in the affirmative,’ Larraby said. So Anstiss did have a police record. ‘I can discover nothing about the other matter.’

‘Keep trying,’ urged Mannering. ‘It’s even more important.’

He rang off, picked up the pictures and carried them under his arm down to the car. It was now after four o’clock and he wanted to go into Salisbury and visit The Kettle before seeing Dr. Ignatzi. Before starting off, he told Middleton that he would be back soon after eight o’clock. The afternoon was warm and pleasant, and the little car hummed smoothly; he had so much on his mind that it was a good thing the car almost drove itself.

He went through the gateway leading on to the main road, taking his time. He saw a lorry coming from Salisbury, but there was plenty of room to turn towards the city and it did not occur to him to wait.

As he reached the road, the lorry swung towards him.

One moment he was completely free from fear; the next, terror leapt to his heart, to his throat. The front of the huge vehicle towered crushingly above him; if it struck it would demolish the little car and hurl him to death.

He swung the wheel to the left, in desperation.

He saw the lorry loom up like a monster, but its front wheels passed him; he still had a chance.

Then the lorry caught the back of the Mini and spun it round in wild gyrations. A door flew open and he was flung on to the thick grass of the verge. Pieces of the car flew past him; something smacked into the ground only inches from his head.

The roar of the lorry’s engine, menacing, inexorable, screamed a warning to his ear.