Chapter Seventeen

Termagant

Mannering turned the Bristol into Green Street, and saw two policemen opposite his home, one of them at the wheel of a car, one standing by it. They were a different pair from those he had seen when he had left. He had to park fifty yards away, and walk back to the house. The lift was on the ground floor, and he was soon outside the apartment. He took out his keys as he approached the door, and paused when he heard a raised voice he recognised as Rachel’s.

“When is he coming? Why isn’t he here?”

Mannering slid the key into the hole, and quietly turned it without a sound. He pushed the door open cautiously as Rachel burst out: “You’re keeping me here deliberately, it’s a foul dingo trick, that’s what it is!”

“Then why don’t you leave?” asked Lorna quietly.

Good question, thought Mannering, and he pushed the door open wider. Judging from the sound of their voices Lorna and her unwelcome visitor were in the study, and the door was open.

“You don’t care a damn what happens to Hamid!” Rachel cried. “All you care about is your rotten husband. Why isn’t he here? What has he done with Hamid?”

Mannering said, from the door: “Put him out of your reach, Rachel.”

She spun round, her face livid. Lorna was just behind her, powerless to stop the sudden movement as Rachel leapt at him, clawing at his face. She caught his cheek just beneath his left eye with one finger-nail, and the scratch stung. She struggled frenziedly as Mannering gripped her wrists. She wore a pale green trouser suit which gave her plenty of freedom of movement, and sharp-toed shoes. One crack on the shin was enough. Mannering spun her round and pushed her arm up behind her back. He did not use half the pressure he would have done on a man but it was enough to make her stand still.

“Let me go!” she gasped.

“When you’ve learned to behave yourself.”

“Let me go – you’re hurting me.”

“Not enough,” Mannering said coldly.

“If you don’t let me go I’ll tell the police you know where the Tarian jewels are!”

“You mean you haven’t told them so already?” demanded Mannering.

“Of course I haven’t told them.”

“Then how is it they think they know?” asked Mannering.

Very gradually, he released his grip on her wrist and lowered her arm. Any moment he expected another attack, but it didn’t come. She turned round slowly and glared up at him, but she looked baffled.

“The police know?”

“They’ve been told I have them and they believe it,” Mannering said. “As a matter of fact it’s not true, but what makes you think I have?”

She said: “The Sultan told me.”

“And did he also tell Kohari?”

“Yes.”

“Rachel,” Mannering said, “get it into your head that I have never had the crown jewels or the royal collection of jade and porcelain. Any of the collection. If the Sultan told you I had, he was lying to you.”

“But—he wouldn’t lie. He was—dying.”

“And he wanted you and Kohari and the Prince to think I had the treasures?”

“He swore you had them.”

“Well, I haven’t. Why should—”

She screamed out: “Why should he want us to think you had?”

“And why should Kohari want the police to think I have?” demanded Mannering.

“You must have them! Where are they? If you don’t tell me—”

She leapt at him again, completely out of control. Mannering fended her off, saw Lorna’s bewildered expression, felt another scratch and this time picked her up bodily, staring at Lorna over the girl’s writhing body and whirling arms.

“We could try a cold shower,” he said.

“John, she isn’t sane.”

“She is what I think they call hopped up on a special Tarian drug,” Mannering said, “and with a little luck the effect will soon begin to wear off.” He eased his grip. “I think I’ll dump her in the bathroom until she quietens down.”

“Give her one more chance,” pleaded Lorna.

Mannering hesitated, then turned to the sofa and lowered the girl on to it. She began to twitch and writhe as if she were in convulsions, but showed no tendency to attack him again.

“Did she make any sense at all?” Mannering asked.

“Only that she had to see you – that the Prince had been taken away and you must know where he was.” Lorna drew a deep breath. “Do you, John?”

“Yes.”

“Is Bill under arrest?”

“Yes.”

“Do the police think you have the Tarian treasures?”

“Yes,” Mannering answered again, and forced a smile. “But I haven’t, if that’s any comfort! Did she make any other kind of sense?”

“Not really,” Lorna replied. “She seemed beside herself when she arrived, and after twenty minutes or so absolutely exploded. It was like watching somebody go berserk,” she went on, as if the recollection still alarmed her. “What are you going to do?”

“According to Gordon I’ve only a few hours in which to do anything,” Mannering told her. “Either deliver the Prince to the police, which means Kohari, or be arrested for my past misdeeds.” He saw the expression of shocked horror on Lorna’s face as he went on: “Gordon is in nearly as bad a condition as Rachel. Someone has been dosing them both.”

“But Gordon’s the most cold-blooded of men!”

“Not now,” Mannering assured her. “Darling, I—”

Two things happened at once.

There was a ring at the front door bell, and Rachel rolled over so that if Mannering hadn’t sprung to the rescue she would have fallen off the couch. He steadied her and shifted her back. Her eyes were closed and her breathing was quick and shallow. Mannering said: “Watch her for a minute, I’ll see who’s at the door,” and went out of the room. He heard an unexpected noise – the twanging of a guitar, and needed no more telling who this was. But he kept the door on the chain as he opened it.

“Rupert?”

“Hope I’m not late, sir.”

“Perfect timing,” Mannering said, unfastening the chain.

Rupert looked very different from his elegant self in Quinns. He wore a bright orange shirt and a black bolero, bell-bottom trousers, and a flower in his hair. In his right hand was the make-up case, in his left a capacious suede bag, and he held both of these out to Mannering as he came in. On the landing was a man whom Mannering didn’t know, holding a guitar under his arm.

“We came in over the next door roof,” reported Rupert. “Hope that was all right, sir.”

“I didn’t know you knew about the roof entrance.”

“Mr. Bristow briefed us a few weeks ago,” explained Rupert cheerfully. “Er—half-a-dozen of our friends have gone with Brian to that address you gave. We’ll look after the T.T. until you give us the all clear.”

T.T., treasure trove, thought Mannering, with an inward smile.

“Good,” he said. “How’s the V.I.P.”

“I think we managed to cheer him up,” replied Rupert, hopefully. “They are great ones for string music in Taria and Malaysia, and we rounded up two or three young people who know some of the folk songs. We left them singing. I hope that was right.”

“Couldn’t be more so,” Mannering approved. “Did he send any message?”

“Just one,” answered Rupert, and for the first time he sounded serious. “He says that above everything else he mustn’t go back to Taria. He says they’ll simply make him a puppet king, and they’ll do to him what they did to his father—” Rupert drew a deep, sighing breath, and went on: “He thinks they kept the old Sultan under their thumb by the use of a drug called neri. He says they’ve started to use it on him – it must have been put in his food. He says he sometimes gets fantastic visions and at other times he’s unable to control his temper.” Rupert broke off, and then remarked feelingly: “Odd affair, sir, isn’t it?”

“Odder than you know,” Mannering said. “Ah right, Rupert. Thank you.”

Rupert said diffidently: “Perhaps I ought to add, sir – I’ve an enormous admiration for you. So has Brian. Just call on us for anything at any time.”

Mannering went back into the flat, and found Lorna still looking down at Rachel, who was lying relaxed and unconscious. She was also looking quite beautiful, and, Mannering judged, safe enough for the time being.

“Will you cope, darling?”

“Of course,” Lorna said. “Who was that?”

“Rupert,” Mannering said with a reminiscent smile. “A young man of great resource. He brought me my make-up case and a change of clothes. I’m sure Rachel will be ah right for half-an-hour – come and help me look like the hippiest hippy of them all!”

They went up to the attic, and Lorna, as deft as Mannering, began to help with the transformation.

For the second time that day Mannering became a different man. While he was being transformed, a small van painted in psychedelic profligacy, in all the colours of the rainbow plus a half-dozen or so more, came to the back entrance of 7 Garley Place. Only a few servants noticed it; the police had long since left, on Mannering’s heels. In all there were four young men within the van, all dressed in the would-be original attire of hippy folk. Three were admitted to the house and one stayed at the wheel of the van.

Very soon, the young men re-appeared – carrying small cartons. They needed three visits before they had finished loading the van, and it started off with two of them sprawled over the packed silver, strumming their guitars to the amusement or the disgust of many who passed by.

In his room Sing Lee sat alone, facing the empty bamboo display piece.

Mannering stood in the attic, hearing Lorna as she went down the last few steps of the loft ladder.

He could still feel her lips as she had kissed him with a passion which told of near despair. Her footsteps faded.

He moved to the rooflight, which he had left open on his first expedition, checked that he had money, skeleton keys, the tool kit and the nylon rope round his waist. Then he pulled a high stool into position beneath the light, and began to haul himself up. A sharp pain at his shoulder caused him to fall back. He shifted most of the weight to his other arm, and tried again. Soon, he was on the roof.

It was a clear, warm evening.

He could see in the far distance the spires of churches standing like needles against the cloudless sky.

He crossed the roofs and went down in the next door lift, recalling that Bristow had briefed both Rupert and Brian about this way of avoiding the interest of the police. So even from behind cell bars Bristow stretched out to help.

Could they have put Bristow in a cell?

He pushed the thought away. Already he seemed a thousand miles from his own flat and from Quinns. A thousand miles and a quarter of a century of years. In the days of the Baron, anyone dressed as he was now, would have been judged an actor or a freak. But in these trendy times he would attract little attention, and many who saw him would not even vaguely remember doing so.

As he stepped out of the doorway of the house next door, a Land Rover pulled up. Next moment Mannering saw the big face and massive body of Farmer Hugo Blount.