Chapter Six

The Threats

 

Mannering did not alter his pace as he made his way back towards the Manor. He was acutely aware of the lights which suddenly flared out from the windows. He could not have been more vulnerable.

The footsteps continued.

Were there two men? Or just one? Was it Anstiss? With this uncertainty for company, Mannering had a vivid mental picture of Joanna Cunliffe as she had pleaded with him to let Anstiss go.

Why had she done so?

He was halfway between the cottage and the house, when several of the lights of the house went out. That helped a little. And whoever was behind him seemed to keep at a fair distance. But surely no one would follow him simply for the sake of seeing where he went?

Suddenly, startlingly, a man spoke.

‘Stop there, Mannering.’

Mannering went on.

‘Stop there if you don’t want a bullet in your back.’ The voice was low-pitched and clear; he thought it was Anstiss but was not sure.

A shot would be heard, and with so many people about someone would be bound to investigate. Mannering went on but he clenched his teeth.

‘I’ve warned you,’ the man behind him said; it was Anstiss. And now he seemed to be drawing nearer.

The threat to shoot was probably made to unnerve Mannering and to make him more vulnerable to some other form of attack. How would it come? Anstiss was a small man, but he might well carry a cosh or a stick, and he could leap forward and smash a blow down on Mannering’s head. Mannering keyed himself. If he ran he could reach the safety of the house – unless Anstiss did have a gun. But that would lose another chance of questioning the man. If he spun round and attacked …

A second man spoke out of the darkness on his right.

‘Stop there, Mannering.’

Mannering turned his head and saw a vague, dark shape, the pale blur of a face, and as he did so heard the man behind him running, sensed the moment when Anstiss leapt at him. He leaned forward, bending almost double, and Anstiss went flying over his shoulders. On the instant Mannering jumped towards the dark shape – the shape of a man – of a big man.

They collided.

The shock of the impact sent Mannering reeling back, sent the other staggering too. He was both big and heavy, and if youth were on his side, would have all the advantages. Mannering guessed that Anstiss would soon attack again; the obviously sensible thing was to run for the house. But even as the thought flashed through his mind, Mannering saw the big man clearly, judged his position and leapt forward, arms outstretched to grab his ankles and to pull him down. His hands opened and closed, and the man pitched backwards, leaving Mannering stretched on the ground at full length. Before he could start to get up, Anstiss leapt.

Mannering felt a kick in the side, another on the shoulder. The next moment he was struck savagely on the back of the head. Senses reeling, he tried to struggle to his feet, but another blow fell with the weight of a sledge-hammer, and he lost consciousness.

 

‘Watch him,’ muttered Anstiss.

The other man shrugged. ‘He’s dead to the world.’

‘He could be foxing.’

‘Don’t you believe it. Take his arms.’

Warily, Anstiss moved towards Mannering’s head, bending down and gripping his arms as the other took his legs. They lifted him, sagging in the middle, and carried him away from the drive and the lawns. Before they had gone fifty yards, Anstiss gasped:

‘I must rest.’

‘Just a breather.’

‘How far do we have to go?’

‘’Nother hundred yards.’

Twice more they lowered Mannering as they carried him through the trees towards a small hut. They were both gasping for breath when they reached it, dropped Mannering and opened the door. It made little sound. The big man went inside, flashing a torch, the beam falling on saws, a scything machine, ropes, canvas bags and two wire-netted cages half full of leaves. Anstiss followed him, and lit an oil lamp. There was only one window and a piece of sacking hung from it. Along one wall was a garden bench, with a broken arm rest.

‘Put him on that,’ the big man said. ‘Get a move on.’

 

When Mannering had fallen, the jolt had brought him back to consciousness. He was vaguely aware of the light inside the hut, but his head ached, and his body was too limp for him to make any effort to get away. He saw the men come out of the doorway, dark against the dim light, and closed his eyes. They picked him up again and carried him inside; he steeled himself against the pain of being dropped, but this time they placed him on the bench, his head at one end, his legs resting over the broken rail at the other. Then they sat down, one on an upturned drum, one on a coil of rope. There was a smell of oil, of new-mown grass, of decomposing leaves – and freshly, of tobacco smoke.

The big man looked at his companion. ‘You sure he brought them away?’

‘He must have done.’

‘You didn’t see him with them.’

‘No, but—’

‘So they could have gone up in smoke.’ The man’s voice was coarse, but he spoke with authority while Anstiss was on the defensive.

‘He wouldn’t let them burn—not Mannering.’

‘He let the cottage burn.’

Anstiss sounded almost desperate. ‘What’s the matter with you? I put the petrol up there and started the rags smouldering; no one could stop the place going up in smoke. What are you getting at, Lobb?’

Lobb.

The big man spoke with great deliberation. ‘If he didn’t take the paintings, who did?’

‘But he must have taken them. There was no one else.’

‘No one?’ asked Lobb, coldly.

There was a long silence, followed by a belated gasp from Anstiss.

‘Are you suggesting I took them?’ ‘I’m asking who did, if Mannering didn’t?’

‘I’m not a double-crosser!’

‘I hope not,’ said Lobb quietly. ‘It would go hard on anyone who double-crossed me, Annie, and don’t you forget it.’ After another pause, Mannering heard a stirring of movement as if the big man were getting up. ‘Let’s see if he’s awake,’ he added, in the same laconic yet menacing way.

Mannering, now fully conscious, sensed that the man was approaching stealthily and sensed the viciousness in his tone. He opened his eyes a fraction. Lobb was drawing at a cigarette and making it glow very red.

Taking the cigarette from his lips, he began to lower it. Through his lashes, Mannering could see the way his thin mouth was twisting, had the impression that the prospect of what he was about to do gave Lobb real pleasure.

Mannering waited until the cigarette was only six inches above his forehead, then shot his right arm up, clenching the other’s wrist in a vicious twist. Lobb leapt in the air with surprise and pain, cannoned into Anstiss and they both went sprawling. Mannering swung himself off the bench, snatched up a moss rake and thrust it against Lobb’s chest, pinning Anstiss beneath him. Wriggling free, Anstiss jumped for the door, but Mannering, driven by a sense of desperation and knowing that he must win, caught him and flung him against the wall. Thinking and acting with controlled speed, he picked up a coil of rope. Standing over the man he made a noose and, almost in the same movement, dropped it over Anstiss’s shoulders.

‘No!’ shrieked Anstiss. ‘Don’t—don’t hang …!’

Mannering jerked the rope down as far as his elbows, inch by inch, and drew it tight, made a double knot, then wound the end of the rope round a big hook in the wall. All the time he kept watch on Lobb, who was slowly recovering but still nursing his wrist. The expression in his eyes warned Mannering, who saw him move stealthily towards a scythe, its blade glistening from recent use. Mannering swung round, pushing the rake against his chest.

‘Touch that scythe and I’ll claw your face with this.’

Lobb went still.

He was a powerful, ruggedly good-looking man, with attractive curly hair, pale grey eyes and a square chin with a deep cleft. Only his thin mouth spoiled him. He was dressed in a thick, knee-length coat, open at the neck to show a collar and tie. Despite his stillness, there was no fear in his gaze, only wariness.

‘Get in the corner behind that mowing machine,’ Mannering ordered.

Lobb didn’t move.

‘Now,’ Mannering said, very softly and he drew the rake through the air, inches from Lobb’s face. Lobb glanced towards the machine, half turned as if to go for it, then grabbed the handle of the rake just above the prongs and pulled savagely.

Mannering let the rake go. Lobb’s strength was such that he pulled the head with great force against his neck, and for a moment must have been in agony. He dropped the rake. It clattered to the cement floor and Mannering stepped over it, took Lobb’s right arm, twisted it behind him and thrust it upwards in a hammer-lock. Pushing his captive behind the mower, Mannering manoeuvred the heavy machine so that Lobb couldn’t get out without climbing over it. Then, back at the bench, he picked up the rake.

‘Now, what were you saying?’

‘My God,’ cried Lobb hoarsely, ‘I’ll see you under the ground for this!’

‘No doubt those are your amiable intentions; whether they’re carried out or not is another matter. Who are you acting for?’

‘If you think you can make me talk—’

‘If I can’t make you talk I can make sure you get three years for assault, five years if you’ve a record. Who pays you?’

‘I pay myself.’

‘Lobb,’ said Mannering slowly, I’ve only to open that door and shout, and I can have the police here in twenty minutes. Miss Joanna might have persuaded me to let Anstiss go, but no one will persuade me to let you go until I know what this is all about. Who pays you?’

The pale light gave Lobb’s eyes a baleful gleam. He tightened his lips until they almost disappeared, and breathed heavily through his nostrils. Mannering sat back on the bench, ankles crossed, rake to hand. Startlingly through the quiet came the hooting of an owl.

‘Made up your mind?’ he asked at last.

‘So you want to know who pays me,’ Lobb said harshly.

‘I mean to know.’

‘Nobody pays me.’

‘That’s true!’ gasped Anstiss.

‘I get what I can where I can find it and I sell to the highest bidder,’ said Lobb flatly. ‘You’re in the trade, you don’t need telling how many dealers and collectors will buy without asking questions. I’m my own boss.’

‘He is, at that!’ cried Anstiss.

‘And I use a lot of little men like Anstiss to do my running for me,’ Lobb went on. ‘They find out where the paintings are, I give them the once-over, and if I know where I can place them quickly, I buy. Anything else you want to know?’

‘What makes you think you’re a judge of paintings?’

‘Fifteen years in the biggest gallery in Europe.’ Lobb gave a curiously one-sided grin. ‘I was an art student at the Slade, I was at the Beaux Arts in Paris, I can copy nearly everything anyone puts down on canvas, but it’s hard work. I got tired of doing copies for a pittance while other men made fortunes out of them, so I went into the business myself. Don’t make any mistake, Mannering. I know paintings; I’m an expert. Got a job for me at Quinns?’ The grin became a leer. ‘And I’m not an old lag, like your manager Larraby.’

If he knew that about Larraby, how much more did he know? Mannering wondered.

‘He’s telling you the gospel truth,’ Anstiss muttered.

‘Who do you want Colonel Cunliffe’s paintings for?’

‘No one special,’ said Lobb. He straightened up and there was boldness in his manner. ‘How about an even split, Mannering?’

Mannering didn’t answer.

‘Don’t tell me you’re as honest as they say you are,’ Lobb jeered. ‘Otherwise, what brought you down to look over that old woman’s paintings?’ When Mannering still did not answer, Lobb went on: ‘Shy of committing yourself?’

‘Which of you attacked Eliza Doze?’ demanded Mannering coldly.

‘I didn’t meant to hurt her, just put the wind up her,’ gabbled Anstiss. ‘I wouldn’t have touched her if she hadn’t come for me with a poker; it was self-defence, really, that’s what it was—self-defence.’

‘What was the idea?’ asked Mannering. ‘Steal the paintings and then set fire to the place and pretend everything was destroyed?’

‘Now why should we do that?’ sneered Lobb.

‘For insurance,’ said Mannering.

‘He’s bright, Mannering is,’ said Lobb. ‘The only one who’d get the insurance money would be the Colonel; where would I come in?’ He gave a snort of a laugh, and glanced at Anstiss almost gloatingly. ‘He doesn’t know, see? I told you he didn’t. Okay, Mannering, we’ve talked enough. Hand over the paintings and go back to London and I’ll let bygones be bygones. Make any more trouble and the first thing I’ll do is prove it was Miss Joanna who stole those pictures. Make a nice juicy scandal, wouldn’t it? Take it from me, if I go to jail, she will too.’ When Mannering said nothing, he went on: ‘I’ll do a deal. I’ll pay you twenty-five per cent of the proceeds. How about it, Mannering?’