Mannering felt the shock run through him, and he believed he had betrayed himself He could not repress the fear that came back, while he wondered whether it was possible that this call had nothing to do with the burglary. He told himself that it wasn’t, and felt the blood drain from his cheeks. There was a sudden change of expression on Bristow’s face, which had been creased in a pleasant enough smile.
Then Mannering sneezed.
He was used to the need for quick action, and he knew that suspicion would be sown in Bristow’s mind unless he explained the sudden change of expression. So the sneeze came quickly, and seemed natural. He had recovered by the time he looked up, and grinned an apology.
“Sorry, Inspector, sorry. That’s not much of a greeting.”
“Bristow smiled, and offered his hand. Mannering was forced to respond. He felt the muscles of his shoulder tearing as he gripped the other’s hand, and he kept back a wince of pain. But if that was all there was to worry him he was safe enough.
Bristow stepped into the first room, making no immediate comment. Mannering felt completely at a loss, but he motioned to a chair, and pushed a box of cigarettes towards the detective.
Bristow took one with a nod, and lit it.
“Thanks,” he said. Then he smiled a little, and half shrugged his shoulders. “Can you guess why I’ve come?” he asked.
“I can’t,” confessed Mannering, sitting down at the table. He realized suddenly that it was laid for two, and that the detective would be bound to notice it, but he couldn’t worry about that now. “Unless it’s this.” He tapped a paper lying front page upward on the table, next to Lorna’s knife and fork.
Bristow nodded, and his expression was grim. Mannering streamed smoke towards the ceiling, trying to look unconcerned, and wondering whether he succeeded. The suspense of this meeting was getting unbearable, but Bristow was apparently waiting for him to speak again. He made an effort.
“You think it’s another Baron job?”
“Not much doubt about it,” said Bristow. He crossed his legs and leaned back in his chair, looking at Mannering thoughtfully. Mannering was on edge; at any moment the policeman would see that second place at the table, a thought he could not get out of his mind. It affected Lorna, and Mannering meant to keep her name out of anything that might transpire - away from Bristow too, if it could be managed.
“Yes,” went on the policeman. “The blue mask was reported”
“Blue mask?” Mannering frowned, and thought uncomfortably that the mask was within three yards of Bristow. “I don’t remember that”
“I don’t think I ever mentioned it,” said Bristow.
“One of the regulars who admitted teaching the Baron spoke of the blue mask. But that’s by the way. It’s one of his jobs all right, because ether gas was used, and” - Bristow was very grim as he went on - “I’ve had a dose of that from the gentleman. That was the only time I met him face to face.”
Mannering’s fears collapsed like a pricked balloon, and in their place came real exhilaration. The sudden laughter in his eyes looked like eagerness as he leaned forward.
“You’ve actually met him and never told me? You’re a close dog, Bristow!”
Bristow grunted, hardly knowing whether to be pleased or offended. He decided on the former.
“I wouldn’t recognize him again,” he said, looking absently round the room. “But that’s by the way, too. I came along” - he laughed a little and coloured - “because I thought a chat with you would do me good, Mannering. The A.C. will be short-tempered again, and I thought …”
Bristow stopped, and the pleasant expression went from his face. In that moment Mannering’s fears returned, only to lose themselves in anxiety for Lorna.
That second place . . .
But the detective’s voice was very hard, and a warning that something had gone wrong ticked through Mannering’s mind. “You’ve read about the business, of course?”
Mannering tried to assume that the other was evading the matter of the two places at the table. He nodded, and wished Bristow would stop looking. For the detective was still staring at the one spot, and there was an expression on his face that puzzled the cracksman.
“He was surprised by a watchman, wasn’t he?” he asked with a big effort. “There was some shooting.”
“There was one shot,” said Detective-Inspector Bristow in a curiously stilted voice. “It was from a Webley thirty-two, Mannering, and we can’t find the bullet. The obvious solution to that little problem is that it lodged in the Baron.”
“Yes,” said Mannering, and his mouth was dry, Bristow was dangerously near the truth now.
“So we think,” said Bristow.
He was still staring at the table. Mannering felt that he must make some comment, or some move, that would cause the detective to shift his gaze. Bristow wasn’t being discreet. He needn’t make it so pointed that he’d seen the two places.
Of course, thought Mannering, I’m all on edge, or I probably wouldn’t have noticed anything. But he is staring, there’s no doubt about it. Why?
He moved in his chair abruptly, and at last Bristow’s gaze shifted. Mannering, jerking his shoulder suddenly, winced with pain, and started to move his left hand towards the wound. He stopped quickly but Bristow saw it.
“Hurt yourself?” asked the Inspector. His voice seemed a thousand miles away, as though he was in a world of his own.
“Slipped last night at the Ramon Ball,” said Mannering, with a short laugh. He was very wary, very much afraid. It almost seemed that Bristow knew something; the man was getting at him.
“At the Ramon Ball, eh?” said Bristow. He still seemed a long way off, and his expression was certainly strained, almost incredulous. “Er - it wasn’t that which hurt you, was it?”
“That?” Mannering echoed the word, and turned round.
And then the colour drained from his face. He realized now that Bristow had not been looking at the second place at the table after all. He had been looking at the bullet, which was lying next to the morning paper!
“It looks like a Webley three-two,” said Bristow, like a man in a dream. “Let me see it, Mannering . . .”
The door of the bedroom was not quite closed, and Lorna Fauntley could see the spruce figure of Bristow as he sat opposite Mannering. She was glad that she had seen the detective before and could recognize him, for it enabled her to judge the position at a glance.
She could estimate the peril of that visit.
Mannering was not at his best. He had suffered considerably from loss of blood, and although his recovery had been speedy, and he had shown little sign of his overnight ordeal, the fact remained that he was less likely to be able to outwit the detective than if he had been uninjured. For a few moments Lorna felt really afraid. She knew nothing of the co-operation between Mannering and the police, and she could conceive of no reason for the early-morning visit, excepting a connexion with the burglary at the Ramons’ house. Her heart was beating as she stared tensely through the narrow opening of the door.
After a few seconds she breathed more easily. She could see that Bristow was friendly, and that Mannering was not perturbed. The conversation between the two men came to her ears. She realized for the first time that Mannering had been helping the detective, and the realization made her eyes dance. It was a situation that Mannering would use to perfection, and that few other men would have dared to try.
Satisfied that there was no need for alarm, she turned back into the bedroom. She looked rather sad and rather weary for a moment, very much as she had looked just before Bristow had entered the flat. She thought, with a wry smile, that Mannering would have known the truth - the worst - if the detective had delayed the visit for another five minutes.
Did she want him to know?
Until that morning she had not. But now she felt that it would be wiser if he did. He would understand, she believed; he was remarkable for his power of understanding. And he would say nothing, and make no protest against things as they were. He would wait.
She felt that she had been waiting for ever, instead of for five years. She felt, as she had a few days before, when she had taken the money from Mannering, and as she had felt when she had persuaded Lady Kenton to buy that picture for three hundred pounds, that she would know nothing of happiness. Just now and again, with Mannering, she had forgotten the truth, but memory came back all too swiftly; and if memory failed there was fact.
She shivered a little, and went back to the door. What she saw now made her eyes widen in alarm, and filled her with sudden dread. Her body went rigid.
Bristow was staring towards the table. He was speaking in a hard, dry voice, which had little or no friendliness in it. Of course, it was possible that he had realized that there was some one else in the flat, and that he had drawn his own - and the wrong - conclusions. There were men who would have looked askance at another who had been caught out in an affaire. Many men, in fact.
But she doubted whether Bristow would be affected by that.
Then she looked at the table, and her heart seemed to stop. She heard Bristow’s voice, stiff and far away.
“It looks like a Webley three-two. Let me see it, Mannering.”
And she knew that it was the bullet. She remembered that John had asked for it, and that she had brought it from the bathroom, intending to give it to him. And then she had seen the papers, which he had placed so that she would have to see the headlines, and she had put the tell-tale bullet down, forgetting it, thinking only of herself and Mannering, an association which she knew might end abruptly one day, or else which would go on and on, if their patience was everlasting.
And the bullet was on the table.
Her mind worked quickly. She saw Bristow stand up, saw his very jerky movements as he took the bullet and examined it. She saw Mannering’s expression too, and she realized that Mannering knew that he was caught.
He was caught. The police would be able to test that bullet, and prove that it had come from the revolver of the man who had been guarding the Ramon house on the previous night. That and the bullet wound in Mannering’s shoulder would be all the proof that the police would need to make their case sound.
The doors of prison seemed to be closing round John Mannering at that moment. Lorna Fauntley hardly knew how to think. But there must be something she could do - there must be some way out
Her eyes narrowed suddenly as an idea came. There was a way, difficult, perhaps, dangerous enough to implicate her as well as Mannering if it failed.
But if it succeeded both of them would be safe, and she was prepared to take the risk; it did not even make her stop to think.
The whole affair rested on that bullet. It was concrete evidence. It could be shown in court and could be matched up with the revolver, the turning-point of the evidence against Mannering. If there was no bullet, she reasoned, there was no evidence. Bristow could think what he liked, but thinking was no use in a court of law. She could swear that Mannering had been with her at the New Arts Hall from nine o’clock until half past twelve, and others would support her, believing it to be the truth; the papers recorded the time of the crime as half-past eleven, and the alibi would be sufficient; but it would be useless in the face of that bullet.
So it must go.
Very suddenly, and with a smile on her face that baffled Mannering and puzzled Bristow, she opened the door of the bedroom and entered the living room.
Mannering paled. Bristow looked round in surprise.
Lorna stopped, as if startled to find two men instead of one. Just for a moment she looked alarmed, and Mannering was forced to admire her self-control. Then her smile returned, and she looked at Bristow.
“I didn’t know we had company,” she said. “Has John suggested tea, or don’t you believe in two breakfasts?”
Bristow could not think of anything to say. His mind had been jerked away from contemplation of the bullet between his fingers, and he hardly realized that it was still there as he stared at Lorna.
“Two breakfasts?”
Lorna laughed lightly. Mannering, for all his admiration of her self-possession, could not for the life of him understand what she was driving at. But he knew she was playing with an idea. She looked at him once, quickly, but with a wealth of meaning. The helplessness that had surged through him when Bristow had seen the bullet and picked it from the table disappeared. There was a chance, faint perhaps, but definitely there. And Lorna was playing her hand confidently. If anyone could work the miracle she could. He felt his pulse quicken.
“I assume you’ve eaten once,” said Lorna, still smiling. She seemed blissfully unaware of the tension in the air, and looked at Bristow, who hesitated for a moment. Mannering caught his eye, and flashed an appeal to the policeman. He realized that Lorna wanted him to back her up; she wanted him to persuade Bristow not to broach the subject while she was there. It was expecting a great deal, but there was a faint possibility that Bristow could be induced to drop it, if only for a short while, and thus save Mannering from being unmasked in front of a woman.
Bristow fingered his moustache awkwardly. He read the appeal, and nodded slowly, while Lorna took another cup and saucer from a small cupboard, asked him how much sugar and whether any milk. He answered automatically. The seconds seemed to drag like hours.
Lorna filled three cups, and handed one to him, as if nothing was out of the ordinary.
Mannering marvelled again at her self-possession, but he was still puzzled. She knew about the bullet, and she must realize the situation, but she was carrying herself superbly. Bristow couldn’t know for certain whether she had overheard any of the conversation.
The detective reached for the cup, and then realized that he couldn’t take it while the bullet was in his hand.
He didn’t know that Lorna was gambling on the belief that he would not give up the evidence he held, and he drew back quickly. But he was a fraction of a second too late. Lorna uttered a little cry of alarm
Mannering saw that she actually pushed the cup and saucer against the detective’s hand; it was the crucial moment, and he almost cried out in suspense. The cup tilted and went over. The tea, scalding hot, poured over Lorna’s fingers and over Bristow’s.
The detective gasped, and dropped the bullet as the tea stung his flesh. It wasn’t until a moment later that he realized that he had been tricked.
Lorna bent down like a flash, and Mannering realized what she was doing. He seemed to be laughing to himself, irrationally, at the cleverness of the ruse. And she was still playing a part, still fighting.
“I’m awfully sorry,” she said. “I really should have been more careful. No - I’ll pick it up . . .”
But Bristow was alert now.
“Get up!” he snapped, and his voice was harder than Mannering had ever heard it before.
Lorna stood up, holding the cup and saucer, neither of which had broken; her expression was icy as she eyed the detective. Many a man would have been deceived by her words and her tone.
“I don’t quite understand,” she said.
Bristow grunted, and his eyes were like agate.
“I understand you now,” he said. “This isn’t going to be quite the picnic you seem to think, young lady. Where’s that bullet?”
“Bullet?” Lorna’s tone, the question in her voice, the expression on her face, and the apparent mystification in her eyes were perfect. She stared at Bristow, waiting for him to answer.
The detective swore beneath his breath, nonplussed for a moment.
Mannering was feeling an absurd relief The reaction tended to make him feel light headed, but he realized his weakness, and knew that he must do something to support Lorna without spoiling her ruse.
He looked towards the floor at the pool of tea, and then into Bristow’s eyes.
“Did you mention a bullet?” he asked, and his voice sounded unnatural, even to himself “I”
Bristow snapped his fingers with a gesture of more than annoyance. He was bristling with anger, but beneath the anger was common sense and a knowledge of the strength of the powers behind him. He had been outwitted, but only temporarily. The bullet was still in the room, almost certainly in Lorna Fauntley’s slim hand.
“Don’t try to be funny,” he snapped, and his eyes flamed as he looked at Mannering. “There are some things which are out of bounds, Mannering, and that’s one of them.”
Mannering flushed, but laughed.
“You’re beside yourself,” he said easily. “You’ve come here excited, and you don’t know what you’re saying - or doing.”
“Excited!” Bristow blared the word. “Do you mean to tell me that there wasn’t a bullet?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” said Mannering. The gleam in his eyes belied the words, but his lips were steady and serious. “Do you, Lorna?”
The girl shook her head; her eyes were inscrutable.
“He’s being abominably rude,” she said. “If he’s a specimen of the Yard policemen I’m inclined to agree with Lady Kenton.”
Mannering kept a straight face with difficulty. He knew, Bristow knew, and Lorna knew that unless that bullet were produced Bristow had no kind of a charge against him. The bullet was in Lorna’s hand. Bristow daren’t try to use force, and he would have to wait until a woman came from the Yard. That would give them half an hour or more to get rid of the bullet effectively.
God, what a situation!
Bristow’s eyes hardened. He realized that he was being baited in the hope that he would do something foolish. But he was too seasoned an officer to take chances. His voice was harsh.
“So that’s how you’d like to make it, is it?” he snapped. “Well, you can’t get away with it, Mannering. You’re the Baron. That bullet will prove it. Now - where’s your telephone?”
Mannering indicated a stand in the corner of the. There was no object in trying to evade Bristow on that point, but the detective needn’t reach the instrument.
A moment later Mannering felt a quick revulsion of feeling, and again the situation swung round.
Bristow dipped his hand into his pocket, and pulled out a gun. There was a grim smile on his face, tinged with triumph.
“Yes, I know it’s against regulations,” he said, “but it pays to take a chance at times. I took this in case I bumped into the Baron - into you - last night. It’ll serve its purpose now. Get into the corner - both of you!”
Mannering hesitated. Lorna’s eyes widened, and fear tugged at her heart. This was a development neither of them had anticipated.
“I shouldn’t take any chances,” grunted Bristow. He was hard and implacable, and he seemed to have changed into granite. “If this goes off it’ll be because you were resisting me in the execution of my duty. I’ve nothing to worry about, and you stand to risk another bullet.”
There was a tense silence as he stopped. Then Mannering uttered a short, high-pitched laugh.
“Let’s humour him,” he said to Lorna, and he hardly knew how to keep his voice level, for his heart was thumping fast.
Bristow’s eyes glinted. He watched the couple move towards the corner, and the glint changed from one of annoyance to satisfaction at Mannering’s words. Keeping his gun trained on his prisoners, he reached for the telephone. It was one of the new type, and he had no difficulty in talking and keeping his captives under his eyes. They were caught. Mannering might have moved and taken a chance, but he would not risk Lorna.
“Scotland Yard,” Bristow grunted. There was a pause. Then: “Sergeant Tring? Oh, Tring, come along to Mannering’s flat, in Brook Street, with two plain-clothes men and a woman. Yes, a woman. That’s all. Don’t lose any time.”
He replaced the receiver with a flourish.
“That just about finished you,” he said evenly, and he smiled, more like the old Bill Bristow well known and liked in the East End. “I’ll admit you gave me a shock, Mannering, and I’ll admit it was luck that I found you, but - we always get our man.”
Mannering shrugged his shoulders. He contrived to smile, but he felt no humour. The end was coming, quickly, undramatically. His recent burglaries and his successes seemed to lose a great deal of their glitter.
He seemed to picture the crowded court, the judge and jury, the droning voice of the prosecutor. It would be child’s play for the Crown. There was hardly a possible line of defence. Even Toby Plender wouldn’t be able to do anything, clever though he was.
Mannering felt physically sick.
Bristow seemed to realize it, and naturally felt a malicious pleasure. It rankled deeply that he had been made such a complete fool, and even now he was wondering what Lynch’s comment would be.
“It’ll be in your favour,” he said, “that you didn’t try force, Mannering. And it’s luck for you that you don’t carry firearms.”
Mannering shrugged his shoulders again, and Lorna’s eyes were very wide. She was gripping Mannering’s sound arm, and he could feel her fingers trembling. Neither of them spoke.
“I suppose you wouldn’t like to tell me where I’ll find the stuff?” suggested Bristow, fingering his moustache. “It would save a lot of time.”
Mannering made a big effort.
“What stuff?” he asked. His voice was remarkably steady, and he surprised even himself.
There was a gleam of admiration in Bristow’s eyes.
“You’re game,” he said grudgingly.
Lorna broke out as the words left the Inspector’s lips. Her poise had gone now, and her breast was heaving.
“John - don’t let it happen! Take a chance. You can get away; you must, you must! You mustn’t let them get you. John”
Mannering gripped her arm soothingly; her outburst gave him new strength.
“Steady,” he said. “There’s no sense in losing your head, my dear. Bristow’s got an idea that I’m the Baron, and he won’t be satisfied until it’s been proved to the contrary. So...”
Lorna swallowed hard. She looked up at the man at her side, and saw his face set in a strange smile. He would fight to the last, of course.
There was a fleeting expression of doubt in Bristow’s eyes, but it was gone in a flash. He laughed rather harshly, and moved his gun.
“That’ll cut no ice when we’ve found the stuff you took from Ramon’s,” he said. “And the bullet.”
“No?” Mannering was very cool. His mind was working at top speed, on one thing and one thing only. The bullet.
How could he get round that substantial piece of evidence? Was there a way out, other than losing the bullet? Must this be the end?
“No,” snapped Bristow.
Mannering bent his head suddenly, until his lips were very close to Lorna’s ear. Bristow’s gun moved a fraction of an inch threateningly.
“No tricks,” he warned.
“Try and slip it in my pocket,” whispered Mannering. “Don’t answer.” He straightened up, and grinned at Bristow. “Couldn’t we sit down now?” he demanded.
The detective was bristling with suspicion.
“I’ve warned you,” he said, “and if you try any tricks, Mannering, you’ll make acquaintance with another bullet. I’ve had more than enough of the Baron - a lot more.”
“I find him a little too universal myself,” smiled Mannering.
As he spoke he moved, and Lorna slipped the bullet from her hand into his pocket. Or almost into it. At the critical moment he moved again, and the little lump of lead dropped to the floor. The plop came as Lorna gasped out in consternation. Bristow’s eyes glittered, and he made his first mistake.
He darted towards the bullet. Mannering saw him, loosed his left arm, and swung it at the detective with every ounce of strength in his body. Bristow realized the ruse a fraction of a second too late. He saw the clenched fist loom in front of his eyes, and then there came the sickening thud of fist on bone and flesh. Bristow went sprawling, his eyes rolling as he fell.
Lorna seemed petrified; the thing had happened so swiftly. Mannering swung towards the telephone while Bristow was still dropping to the floor. He had dialled his number before Bristow’s head dropped back, but he need not have worried, for his man was unconscious.
Mannering was almost frenzied with excitement, and his eyes were gleaming. The wait for the response to his call seemed never-ending. But a voice came at last, a rather sleepy and irritable voice.
“Hallo, there! Yes, yes?”
The Colonel, thought Mannering. And: “Let me speak to Gerry,” he said, keeping his voice steady with a great effort. “Yes, Gerry Long; quickly.”
“A minute,” grunted Colonel Belton at the other end of the wire.
The minute seemed age-long.
Bristow was still stretched out, unconscious. Lorna seemed to break through the stupefaction which had gripped her when she had seen the policeman go down, and her eyes brightened.
“What shall we do with it?” she demanded.
“Lose it, with luck,” snapped Mannering. “If this man keeps me waiting much longer I’ll …”
“But why can’t I take it?” Lorna almost cried the words. “I could get to the river, drop it down a drain.”
“And have the police pestering you, questioning you and your father, your mother and - ”
“But it doesn’t matter. You’ll be all right.”
Mannering’s eyes were very warm.
“You’re very dear,” he said. “But I think we can get away with it . . . Ah! Gerry . . .” He swung round to the telephone; and Gerry Long, cheerful again now, answered quickly.
“Hm-hm. Want me, Mannering?”
“Come to my flat,” snapped Mannering, “the back way. You came once before - remember?”
“Yes.” Long seemed to realize the urgency in the other’s tone. There was crispness in his voice at the other end of the wire.
“Stand in the courtyard,” snapped Mannering, “and catch the thing I’m going to throw out of the window. Then lose it. A drain, or the river, somewhere. And for God’s sake be here inside five minutes - less if you can make it.”
“Right,” said Long, and Mannering heard the click of the receiver.
He swung round towards the girl, and his eyes were dancing with hope. But there was anxiety in his expression, for time was precious.
“I think we’ll do it,” he muttered. “I wish to heaven you weren’t here, my dear, but it’ll be best for you to stop now.”
Lorna nodded. She did not know why, but she accepted Mannering’s assurance without question. But there was one thing worrying her, and she pointed towards Bristow, who was lying at full length, still motionless.
“What about - him?”
Mannering could see the rise and fall of the detective’s chest, and he believed that the other would regain consciousness in a few minutes, none the worse for his knock-out, but very bad-tempered and with a stronger dislike of the Baron than ever.
“He’ll be all right,” he grunted. “The thing is - will Gerry get here first, or Tanker - the policeman?”
“Oh, my dear . . .”
He broke off, white to the lips. There was a thud of heavy feet on the landing outside the front door of the flat. Mannering’s face paled, but his voice was steady.
He held out the bullet to the girl.
“I’ll go,” he said. “If it’s the police get into the bedroom, wait for Gerry, and throw that down when he comes. I’ll keep them out - somehow.”
But he doubted whether he could. He knew that Sergeant Jacob (Tanker) Tring was a shrewd officer, and would have no hesitation in breaking into every room in the flat when he saw his superior lying unconscious; and if Tring got into the room in time to see Gerry Long outside the game was up.
As he turned the handle of the door he was wishing that he had let Lorna take the bullet out of the flat. She would have had time to get away; the proof would have been missing. But before he had opened the door he knew that he had done the only thing. It lessened the chance of dragging Lorna’s name through the mud, and if it was humanly possible that had to be avoided.
He pulled the door open, his face set to greet Tring.
And then he stood very still for a moment, staring at a large, solemn-faced man who was resting a heavy attaché-case on the floor, and who was proffering packets of notepaper and envelopes.
“Would you care to buy” The man’s opening words came smoothly.
“I’ll make you a gift,” said Mannering, recovering from the surprise and acting quickly.
The man’s face brightened at the sight of a free half crown, but darkened as the door was shut in his face abruptly. He pocketed the coin, and walked on to the next flat, shrugging his shoulders and lugging his case, knowing nothing of the alarm he had caused.
Mannering hurried towards Lorna, who was standing by the door. She had known from his words that it had been a false alarm. Quickly he explained, and went to the window anxiously. The alleyway along which Gerry Long would have to come was empty.
And then Mannering’s face hardened; this time there was no mistake. He could just see into Brook Street, for his flat was near a corner, and he saw the police car, which was travelling at a generous forty miles an hour along the road. He recognized the dour face of Tanker Tring next to the driver, and he knew that the game was almost over.
Lorna saw his change of expression, and guessed why. Her eyes clouded, and for the life of her she could not have spoken.
“They’ll be here in a moment,” Mannering muttered. “I’ll give them a minute - no more. Why the hell doesn’t Long come?”
The question was useless. They waited and watched tensely, with their ears pricked to catch the slightest sound from the front of the flat. It was a matter of seconds now. Once the police arrived the chance was gone.
And then Mannering saw the thing he wanted most in the world just then. Gerry Long was hurrying along the alleyway and staring up at the window. The seconds passed like hours, and Mannering felt like a man possessed when the knock thundered on the front door with the American barely within throwing distance.
“Answer it,” Mannering said to Lorna very grimly.
Lorna moved away, fear clutching at her, a mad unreasoning fear that it was too late to save Mannering now. But Mannering, in that last tense moment, hardly noticed her. He saw that Long was hurrying, and he could see the anxiety on the American’s face. Long was in the small courtyard leading from the alley now. Mannering moved to the window, waved, and pressed a finger to his lips. He was trembling like a leaf as he tossed the bullet down. Was it in time?
Long waited below with his hands poised. The bullet dropped into them safely, and Mannering felt a tremendous relief He was through!
And then Lorna’s voice came, raised in an agony of “John, be careful, be careful!”
Mannering swung round as the door was pushed open violently. He saw Bristow, conscious but wild-eyed, outlined in the doorway, and the policeman lunged towards him, cursing. Mannering stood back rigidly, watchfully, his face blank. Bristow saw the open window and guessed the rest. He leaped for the opening and stared out. In the distance he could see Gerry Long’s head and shoulders, but the American was too far away now to be recognized. But Bristow wasn’t finished
“I’ll get you,” he snapped. “Don’t make any mistake about that, Mannering.”
As he spoke he leaped towards the window.
Mannering knew what the other was going to do The one chance that remained for Bristow to get the bullet was to catch the man who was running away. The one way to start was through the window; seconds counted, as much for the one man as the other.
Bristow hesitated for the fraction of a second to reconnoitre the position. There was no fire-escape near him, but immediately beneath the window was a Y-shaped drain-pipe that offered a slender hold. Had Bristow not been groggy and aware only of the desperate need for catching the man in the alley he might have thought twice about trying to get down that way.
He hardly hesitated, however, and flung one leg over the sill. He rested his foot on the drain-pipe, and then lowered himself Mannering realized the danger, and cried out in genuine alarm.
“Steady, Bristow - steady!”
And then Bristow slipped. Mannering heard a crack! and he knew in a flash that the drain-pipe had broken.
For a sickening moment Mannering thought that the other was over. It was a long drop to the courtyard below, a drop on to solid concrete, and there could be only one end if Bristow went down. Tragedy loomed in front of him . . .
Then he saw the tips of the detective’s fingers on the window-ledge. He was at the window in two strides, and for a moment he forgot the wound in his shoulder; he had to. He leaned out and gripped the other’s left wrist as Bristow’s precarious hold was loosened. Every thought but that of saving the detective was out of his mind now.
The full weight of Bristow’s body was thrown on Mannering’s injured shoulder. The pain stabbed through him, agonizing, excruciating. For a moment he was afraid that he could not hold on. Sweat covered his forehead, and his teeth gritted against one another. But he hung on, with Bristow dangling below; and slowly he manoeuvred his left hand to the support of his right.
Grunting with pain, conscious only of the one task, he kept his hold. The pain seemed to be running through his whole body now, and he was wet with sweat. Bristow seemed to grow heavier as the seconds dragged by, but he came no higher. Then his wrist slipped an inch . . .
Mannering groaned.
He didn’t see the door open, or Tanker Tring, with his face set in alarm, in the doorway. Tring gulped - and then he moved rapidly towards the window, taking the situation in at a glance. He leaned out, fastening his hands round Bristow’s wrists below Mannering’s.
Mannering eased his hold, and stumbled back into the room, while Tanker raised his stentorian voice for the other men who had come with him. They were already in the room, but Mannering, leaning against the wall, didn’t see them as they hurried across; nor did he see the three of them haul Bristow up, slowly but easily.
Mannering felt 1ike death.
His face was chalk-white. His eyes were closed, his breath was coming unsteadily. Lorna Fauntley, terrified in case the effort to get rid of the bullet had failed, hardly daring to look into the room, forced herself to enter, and saw Mannering.
Concern drove the fear from her eyes. She went forward quickly, and Mannering heard her voice, as if from a long way off.
“It’s all right, John - all right - ”
Then Mannering fainted.
Almost at the same moment the policemen by the window dragged Bristow into the room. Tanker Tring was wondering what in heaven’s name had happened, but he concentrated on taking charge of the situation as it was. He found a decanter of whisky and poured a generous portion between Bristow’s lips. He grunted as his superior spluttered and coughed, and absentmindedly tasted the spirits. He’d learn everything soon enough.