Chapter Eleven
Changed Man
Mannering paid off his taxi at the corner of Lots Road, Fulham, and walked briskly towards the great power station, a landmark here for as long as he could remember. The district itself had not changed, except to become even dirtier and more blackened with soot. Change, though, lay in the marked preponderancy of dark-skinned and non-British people.
None took any interest in him, beyond a sidelong glance.
He walked for three or four minutes, until he was convinced that he hadn’t been followed. Then he quickened his stride towards a cutting between two streets of houses. In the cutting was a row of wooden garages, and he went straight to one which was painted a drab brown, keys in hand. The door was secured with a padlock; this he unlocked. Inside was an old Austin, so big that there was hardly room to pass. He closed the doors, and switched on a light. Two mice scampered to cover.
At the back of the garage was a cupboard. He unlocked this, and took from it a black leather case.
It was a make-up set, beautifully appointed; with grease-paint, mirror, glue, false beard and moustaches, everything he needed for disguise. And in those years Bristow and Gordon had been talking about, he had become an expert in disguise.
He took off his jacket, collar and tie, tucked a thin towel round his shoulders, then set to work, propping the case on a wooden flap he pulled from beneath the cupboard.
Gradually, his appearance changed.
He became older-looking, and much less healthy. Tired. Sad. Every line he put on helped to change him and make him more satisfied with the effect. He opened a partition in the make-up box. Wrapped in cellophane was a set of rubber ‘teeth’ which he worked over his own. Next, he took out rubber suction pads, and inserted these in his cheeks.
For the first time since entering the garage, he spoke.
“Now get a move on, friend, you haven’t got all day.”
Even his voice had altered.
Satisfied, he took a tiny brush and applied a little spirit gum to his eyes, narrowing them; when the gum was set his eyes were uncomfortable, but he would get used to that. The whole cast of his face had changed. He peered at himself, from this angle and that, nodded approval, and then opened the door of the cupboard and took a suit from a nylon carrying bag. He changed into this. The suit was old-fashioned and ill-fitting, and built into the waist was padding which made him look at least three inches bigger round the middle; there was also a tool kit which contained a set of what could easily be used as house breaking instruments and a loop of nylon cord, strong enough to support his weight if he had to climb over walls or out of windows. He stood back.
“That’s about right,” he said aloud, and put the case away, hung his own clothes in the bag, and squeezed along the narrow gap between wall and car, and opened the doors. These he fastened back and then went to the driving seat.
The engine started at the third attempt.
He backed out, watched by two black children, closed and locked the doors, and at last started off. For the first time he looked at his watch; it was half-past two, the metamorphosis had taken just over an hour.
“Watch!” he exclaimed aloud.
It was one that anyone who knew him might recognise and he had forgotten to leave it behind.
He took it off and placed it in the dashboard pocket. Was there anything else he had forgotten? Shoes? He had changed them, these were a size larger and of much poorer quality than he usually wore. Underwear? He bought his from a popular store. Socks? They couldn’t be identified.
What on earth was he doing? Thinking as if he were bound to be caught!
Well, that was how he had learned to change himself: so that he could withstand the most gruelling scrutiny and not be recognised. In this very disguise he had been questioned by Bill Bristow at his most antagonistic, and not been suspected for his true self.
He drove past Green Street, with hardly a thought. He turned left at Sloane Square, heading across London towards Regent’s Park and Hall Crescent.
The curious thing was that up till now he had been acting almost automatically, preparing for a great endeavour without allowing that endeavour to crystallise in his mind. But of course it had been there. In spite of Lorna, in spite of Bristow, in spite of the odds, he was going to get Prince Hamid away from the Tarian Consulate. And he was going to do this because of a pair of quite unbelievably blue eyes.
He could picture them now, picture Rachel kneeling in front of him.
Still, he did not rule out the possibility that she and Hamid were seeking to make use of him; that both visits had been part of a plan to compromise him.
Bristow could well be right.
But Mannering did not think so, and this was above all a time to use his own judgment.
Bristow was frightened – well, nervous – of Gordon, of course.
As he drove along Hyde Park, just as he had the previous night, Mannering asked himself whether Bristow could have a reason for his nervousness that he hadn’t disclosed; some indication from a friend still at the Yard, for instance, that Gordon was going all out to get him, Mannering.
Well, supposing he was …
For the first time since this case had begun, Mannering felt a thrill of excitement; the thrill of the chase. At one time it had been part of daily living; challenging, defying the police, driving him on to take chances with the whole of his future. In some ways of course there had been much less to lose then than there was now, but – had he become so molly-coddled, so careful of his comforts that he would take no risks? If Gordon was out to get him—and for something he had not done!—then what choice was there but to fight back: to dictate the terms. He would be less of himself, less than a man, if he allowed Gordon to dictate them.
With one part of his mind Mannering was aware of the danger of such arguments. Disaster now would have terrible repercussions on Lorna, as well as on himself. He might pretend it was worth it, but he would, in reality, be appalled if everything he had was swept away from him because he had taken a desperate chance for a pair of blue eyes.
Nonsense!
It was for a principle; and for a frightened boy Prince.
But was it? Or was it because John Mannering could not accept the situation without fighting back; could not simply turn the other cheek to Gordon?
In truth, it was that part of Mannering which was the Baron, his alter ego, which was driving him now – and had been driving him from the moment Prince Hamid had stepped into the office.
The Prince stood by the French windows of the room where he was kept a prisoner, staring out over the park. The window-glass was well-fitted, and he could hear little sound: occasionally, the hum of a car engine, once or twice the bark of a dog.
He looked pathetically young, yet his face was set in a frown of near despair, of experience beyond his years.
The room, one of two and a bathroom, was furnished with a luxurious opulence. Oriental rugs and tapestries added a touch of rare beauty to the comforts of a modern day.
Suddenly, there was a faint buzz of sound; someone was at the door. He spun round as it opened – and Rachel Guise came in.
This time she wore a short dress, having discarded the outmoded suit which previously she had apparently donned as some kind of disguise. She closed the door behind her as Hamid asked in a tense whisper: “Will he help?”
“He says he will try.”
“What good is it to try. Couldn’t you make him help?”
“Highness,” she said in a voice in which Mannering would have recognised the steely note. “I think he will help. I believe he will come here for you.”
“You needed to be certain! There is so little time.”
“If I had pushed him any further I believe he would have said no,” Rachel said quietly. “John Mannering is not a man to be pushed too far, but I think he will come.”
“He must come soon.”
“Highness,” Rachel said, “if he comes it will be taking a big risk. You know that. The police think he’s up to some trick, if he wasn’t a romantic he wouldn’t even dream of coming.”
“He must—”
“It won’t help you and it won’t help him if you go on like this,” the girl protested more sharply than before. “You’re not a boy any longer, and you’re not in your palace, either. You can’t just stamp your foot and demand what you want. You need to relax, because if you behave like this with John Mannering you are going to make him mad.” She paused and gave a half laugh. “Now wouldn’t that be something: to see John Mannering mad!”
Mannering turned into the gates approaching Hall Crescent.
He noticed a parking space twenty yards or so beyond Number 27. He slipped into this, positioning the car so that he could get away quickly; then got out.
The afternoon was pleasantly warm.
Cars passed, slowly. Two small boys who surely should have been in school were playing acrobatics on their bicycles. There was the sweet scent of new mown grass from a place somewhere out of sight, and the singing of birds and the humming of insects.
He was acutely aware of all of these things.
Was the sharpness of his perception due to a premonition that he would not enjoy them in full freedom for much longer? Or was it the excitement that still coursed through him?
He knew exactly what he was going to do.
He left the car and walked across to Hah Crescent, limping a little on his right leg. Anyone less like John Mannering it would be hard to imagine. He rounded his shoulders so as to take away from his height, and looked more at the ground than straight ahead. Yet he saw two men at windows, watching him.
Was someone always on guard at the Consulate?
He walked up the steps to the porch, passing the big, old-fashioned Rolls Royce with the green and gold flag of Taria, and rang the bell. No one answered.
He waited for at least a minute, and then pressed again.
This time the door opened quickly enough to startle him. A man stood there with the door wide open, a man who did not come much higher than Mannering’s shoulder. He was grey-haired, much older than Prince Hamid, but with the same cast of countenance.
“Good afternoon,” he said in good English. “I help you?”
“I want to see Mr. Kohari,” Mannering said.
“I regret, sir, Mr. Kohari is not in.”
“Mr. Kohari will be very sorry if he does not hear what I have to say,” said Mannering. “I will wait.”
He moved to go forward; but there were at least two others in the hall, either by accident or design, and when his path was blocked he made no attempt to push on.
“I regret,” the little man said. “Mr. Kohari can see no one without an appointment.”
“So it’s protocol, is it,” Mannering said, and looked at the cheap watch now on his wrist. It was a quarter-past three. “I would like to make an appointment to see Mr. Kohari at half-past three.”
“Half-past three,” the man echoed, as if this new tack had baffled him. “I will see. Please wait.” He stood aside and allowed Mannering to enter. There was only one other man here now but two doors led off on the right, both of them open. A second man could easily have disappeared into one of those rooms. Beyond the hall was a passage alongside a steep, narrow staircase, richly carpeted. On one side was a seat, and the man motioned Mannering to this, repeating: “Please wait.”
Mannering sat upright, for the seat was far from comfortable. He cast a professional eye about the furniture and thought of Sing Lee; how he would like—love!—some of these pieces. In a recess opposite Mannering, for instance, there were two small vases, slightly different in shape. Skilful lighting from inside the alcove showed the lustre of the porcelain, which was of duck-egg blue. To any collector of the rare and the beautiful these would be sheer joy.
He heard a door open at the head of the stairs and saw a young woman start down them. She had long, well-shaped legs, and from Mannering’s position her skirt seemed even shorter than it was. For a moment he reflected on the odd fact that a Tarian was allowed to wear such a skirt instead of the loose fitting trousers more commonly worn in their country.
Then he saw that she wasn’t Tarian. She was Rachel Guise, and she was looking straight at him.