by John Creasey
“I don’t mind flag-waving,” Lorna retorted. “Nor do you. And there are personal things at stake, remember. We don’t exactly want to go home to a lawsuit, and a badly tarnished reputation, do we?”
Mannering forced a laugh.
“I see what you mean. When do you intend to go?”
Lorna’s eyes lit up.
“You don’t mind, then?”
“I’m afraid you might be running into trouble but I think you’re right in one way. Brutus won’t harm you while you’re up there.” Mannering wanted to add: “I wonder why you really want to go,” but he restrained himself. “And the police must know in advance.”
“Of course!” cried Lorna.
There was no shadow of doubt that she was genuinely eager to see Nathaniel Brutus. Mannering was a long way from certain that he knew the real reason.
“You go to Baratta,” he said. “I’ll go to Melbury.”
Lorna raised no objections, and seemed to think that was a good idea. Within ten minutes she was on the telephone, inquiring about a charter plane, while Mannering wondered what she would say if he had told her of Cartwright’s suspicion-that the real source of the trouble was at Melbury House.
Before they could speak again, the telephone bell rang. Mannering noticed that Lorna went tense as he stretched out for it.
“Mr. Mannering . . . this is the Australian Broadcasting Corporation’s Television News. We wonder if you could come along to the studios tonight, for ...”
Forty-eight hours later, Mannering turned a hired Rover into the Civic Centre at Canberra, and kept his eyes open for a parking place. He had had some trouble finding his way; now, as he saw the arcades on either side, vaguely like the Rue de Rivoli in Paris, he wondered if, in the city, it would be any easier. He slowed down at traffic lights, and a policeman came towards him.
“Good evening, sir.”
“Hallo,” said Mannering. “I haven’t done anything I shouldn’t, have I?”
“No, sir. We’ve been on the look out for you. There’s a message for you at headquarters from Superintendent Cartwright of Sydney. Have you booked your hotel?”
“No.”
“There’s a very good motel out on Federal Highway, the New Willows,” the policeman said. “I’d go along there and register first, if I were you; there’s a medical conference in town and the hotels are pretty booked up. Then if you would telephone this number and ask for Superintendent Horro.”
“Horror?”
“Without the third ‘r’ sir. Horr-o.”
“Thanks,” said Mannering. “And thanks for recognizing me.”
“Saw you on television last night, sir,” the policeman explained. “You’ll be recognized everywhere you go. Very good performance if I may say so.”
“Kind of you,” said Mannering.
He followed directions carefully, saw the way the receptionist at the New Willows Motel looked at him, humming and hah-ing until suddenly she said: “It is Mr. John Mannering, isn’t it?”
“Yes.”
“Well, you’re just lucky, sir ...”
It was a pleasant room, with everything he needed, but he wondered if it were pleasant enough to outweigh the disadvantage of being recognized wherever he went. He had taken it for granted the interview would be seen only in Sydney; he should have made sure. He called the number, and was put through to Superintendent Horro at once; obviously the call had been anticipated.
There were the usual pleasantries before the policeman said: “There’s no need for you to come out here, Mr. Mannering. I can tell you what Cartwright wants you to know. The five men concerned in the assault at your hotel all told the same story-that they were paid ten pounds each to rough you up. The man who paid them was an old boundary rider who comes into Sydney for a month every year.”
“From where?” asked Mannering.
“Baratta,” answered Horro.
“Brutus?”
“Brutus is the biggest station owner near Baratta, and the town lives off him, but a lot of shearers and boundary riders work for smaller stations. They’re the ones who don’t like regular work, seasonal hire suits them best.”
“Does Cartwright know where this man is now?”
“He went on a drunk, and God knows when or where he will turn up,” said Horro. “He’s probably bedded down with a bottle and a doll, and won’t be seen around for a couple of months.” After a pause, Horro went on: “Is your motel all right?”
“Very comfortable, thanks.”
“Why don’t you come for a drive round in the morning?” suggested Horro. “I’ll be glad to arrange a driver and a car. You needn’t take too long.” When Mannering didn’t answer at once, he added: “Do you have to be at Melbury House very early?”
“I’ve no appointment,” Mannering said. “I’d like that drive very much.”
Just after a trencherman’s lunch next day, he started off for Melbury House, along roads which were now familiar, over the artificial lake and the new bridge, the war memorials and the War Museum, the Government House and the new government buildings. This was still a city in embryo, yet one which was already growing fast. He had an impression of spaciousness and gracious nationalistic pride.
“A little flag-waving,” he had said to Lorna.
There was a lot of flag-waving here.
He wasn’t thinking of flags as he drove towards Melbourne, through empty dry-looking countryside sparsely covered with scrub and saplings, a few matured trees which looked stunted, as if they thirsted for water to make them grow. It was hot-hotter than he had so far known in Australia. The road was good if rather narrow. He came to a fork and turned left, then began to slow down. If he had taken the right direction, he would soon see a sign to Melbury House. It appeared against the skyline, just a pointing finger. As he approached it he could make out To melbury house in faded black lettering on weather-worn white paint. This road was very narrow, and of a dry, pale orange dirt. Dust billowed up behind the car and he began to understand why Cartwright had recommended flying.
For a while the road ran through a barren wilderness, but suddenly he breasted a rise, and found himself looking down over wooded land, in the middle of which was a vast clearing. The road ran stonily through eucalyptus trees, some of the trunks gnarled and massively contorted into all manner of writhing shapes.
Suddenly, Mannering drove into the clearing, which gave an impression of strange emptiness. The house was only a few hundred yards away, impressive, turreted, made of brick which must have been brought a long way. It was huge, a mansion in any country. The drive leading to it was paved, although the paving was badly holed and broken, showing all the encroaching signs of neglect. Two or three cars were parked in front of the house. There was no shade, just the glaring sunlight on shiny roof and bare earth. He pulled up by a flight of wide, shallow, stone steps, wondering whether he was being watched, and then suddenly sure that he was.
A woman was standing at the side of a window, half-concealed by long curtains. Probably she thought she could not be seen, but Mannering both saw and recognized her.
She was the woman he had talked to by the side of the Thames; the woman who had told him she was a reporter on the Talebearer.
12: PREVIEW
Mannering walked up the steps, half-expecting a footman to open the door, wondering whether the woman had expected him, whether she would hide. Was she, in fact, Venella Melbury, or had she spoken the truth at their brief encounter in England? And if she was a reporter on the Talebearer, then had she followed him from London, or was she here as a guest, on behalf of her magazine, or for some reason he didn’t yet know. The fine iron-studded doors were closed, as tightly as at any moated castle, and the bell was of the old-fashioned iron ‘pull’ type. He pulled, but instead of the bell ringing sonorously above his head, the door slowly opened. Beyond was an enormous hall, medieval in style, with a wide stone staircase leading up to a gallery. Impressive pictures lined the walls, at least a dozen of them. Ab
ove the fireplace, which looked as if it had been carved out of one piece of granite, was a head and shoulders portrait which sharply drew Mannering’s attention.
It was magnificent.
It was a masterpiece.
It was by Gainsborough.
He was so held by it that for at least a minute he stood staring up, trying to recall where he had seen it before. Only half-believing, he remembered an illustration of it in a book called ‘Great British Portraits’, and after a few moments he remembered the gist of the caption heading the photograph: The Fourth Duke of Melbury, in the Melbury Collection, Melbury Castle.
Melbury Castle was one of the finest old castles of England, one of the stately homes which had never been allowed to decay.
A woman spoke in a voice he knew he was unlikely to forget.
“So you really appreciate a great painting, Mr. Mannering.”
Mannering glanced round at the woman whom he had seen at the window. She wore a light cotton wrap, and her legs were bare, her feet thrust into a pair of leather thongs, held on only by a single strap between her toes. Her hair was loose and she was altogether different from the heavily made up and beautifully dressed woman he had seen near the Thames.
“The sad thing is that no one can paint like that today,” he said.
“Not even your wife?”
“She would be the first to admit it.”
“But you’re not very gallant.”
“You know that already, surely.”
She laughed, gaily, naturally; in spite of her casual dress, this house seemed the right setting for her. Once again he had the impression that she was laughing at him.
“I should, shouldn’t I? Aren’t you seedling with curiosity?”
“About the treasures here-I’m overflowing.”
“I meant about me.”
Mannering smiled at her, and answered: “Well, no. Either you belong here, and were fooling me in England, or you’ve come here for your magazine or for one of the prospective buyers.”
“No other possibilities?”
“They seem the most likely.”
“Which one do you believe in most?”
“I suspect Melbury blood in you,” said Mannering. “Give me five minutes to consider, will you?” He moved away from her and stood in front of another portrait, then another and another, until suddenly he stopped by a full-length portrait of a youth in his teens, dressed in the fashion of the Regency. The likeness was unmistakeable.
“Now you know,” she said. “I am Venella Melbury.”
“Yes. Why the London deception?”
“It wasn’t wholly a deception. I do write. I am a freelance. I wanted to find out more about you, and the Talebearer Editor gave me an assignment. You didn’t let me find out much.”
“Why were you interested in me?”
“Because you’d done Nat Brutus down.”
“A lot of people might come to believe you,” said Mannering drily. “Why are you so interested in Brutus?”
“He’s a multi-millionaire.” Her eyes were brimming over with laughter.
“There are other multi-millionaires.”
“Not on my doorstep. Not with a yen for antiques. Not with a mind which will let him spend half-a-million pounds on jewels he’s hardly heard about.”
“All these things I can believe,” Mannering agreed.
“I would like him to buy most of the-what word did you use?”
“Treasures.”
“I would like him to buy most of the treasures here.”
“Why?”
“To keep them in Australia. Some of them have been here for a long time.”
“Why do you have to sell them?”
“To clear off family debts. It’s quite a family. I’ll tell you all about it one week when we have a few days together. In the simplest of terminology, George Melbury-my second cousin-came from a branch of the family which began on the wrong side of the blanket in about seventeen-eighty-one.”
“Ah.”
“I don’t wish to shock you,” Venella went on sweetly. “But our progenitor really was a bastard.”
“So were a lot of dukes’ and princes’.”
“Could you boast one in your family tree?”
“I daresay, if I tried hard enough.”
“Anyhow he didn’t get ducal rank as a birthright, and presumably he was hustled out of the country-I mean England-with a lot of sheep stealers, and stealers of bread,” Venella said.
“You’ve made your point. George’s forebear came with the first settlers.”
“Settlers!” Venella echoed, and laughed. “You know, I could get to like you!”
“I must be very careful,” Mannering said drily. “Was he transported with these paintings, too?”
“Most of them,” she answered. “His mother was a very highly placed lady and there might have been a lot of unpleasant scandal, even for that day and age, if the blow of transportation had not been softened by a good share of luxury. He was no fool, and it didn’t take him long to make a great deal of money. He acquired paintings and antiques and objets d’art worth hundreds of thousands of pounds. Unfortunately his four times great grandson. . .”
“I beg your pardon.”
“His great-great-great-great grandson, who was the last owner of this house and everything in it, was a great-great-great-great gambler too, in stocks and shares and prospecting and banking. He died in an air crash about a year ago, and left debts of three-and-a-half million pounds.”
Mannering caught his breath.
“Now I remember! He put a lot of money into Indo-Viet.”
“And the new Indo-Vietnese Government took everything over without compensation,” Venella finished for him. “He thought he’d bought the mineral rights, instead he bought some pretty pieces of paper.”
“I see,” said Mannering. “Hence the sale here.”
“Hence the sale.”
“Will it pay off the debts?”
“It should even leave some over for the members of the family.”
“Including you?”
Venella did not give a direct answer.
“Sooner or later you will come to believe me when I say that my real interest is to see that the treasures are kept in Australia. One man who might keep them in one place is Nathaniel Brutus. To persuade him, I would do anything.”
“Anything?”
“Yes,” Venella said simply. “Anything. I would write his biography as a great Australian, or sleep with him, or be his permanent mistress. I would even marry him. John- may I call you John?”
“Please. Conditionally.”
“What condition?”
“That I may call you. . .”
She laughed: “Bitch would do,” she interrupted. “Is my Australian outspokenness very shocking?”
“Your naivete is,” Mannering said. “After all, this branch of the family began because someone didn’t insist on the proprieties. Is Venella the name you’re called by?”
“Yes.”
“Venella, you were about to give me an awful warning.”
She frowned. “Warning? I. . .” her face cleared. “Oh, yes. I was telling you I would do anything to keep these treasures in Australia. And I mean anything.”
“Such as murder, for instance?”
“Such as murder.”
“I really believe you mean it,” Mannering said slowly.
“John, darling,” Venella Melbury said, “you can take it from me that I do mean it.” She slipped the buttons of the wrap open, and let it fall aside to show the briefest kind of bikini. She had a quite beautiful body, tanned to golden colour. “In my lust to keep these treasures in Australia I am quite ruthless, brazen, remorseless and unrepentant.”
“That I believe, now,” Mannering said. “And if you can seduce me you can afterwards blackmail me into not doing anything you don’t want me to.”
“How right,” Venella agreed cheerfully. “This house is full of suitable beds i
n rooms with peepholes and servants who take pretty pictures. I wouldn’t have told anyone else that but I’m sure you would guess. Would you like me to take you to your room now?”
“Please.”
She slipped her arm through Mannering’s, lightly, and tossed her wrap over a chair which had all the appearance of being a genuine William and Mary, polished by the seats of the mighty.
“I always assumed that I would be able to persuade you easily,” she went on, taking him towards the stairs. “I saw you as the typical Englishman, steeped in old-school-tie tradition and conventional behaviour, ready to do all the accepted things such as habitual unfaithfulness to your wife -you’re not at all what I expected.”
“I don’t know whether to be glad or sorry about that,” said Mannering.
“Nor do I, yet.”
They went up the magnificent staircase, past the walls made of blocks of stone which looked like granite. The windows were larger than those in any medieval castle, otherwise everything was there except the rushes, and to represent these were thick straw mats. Reaching the gallery, Mannering paused to look over the rail into the vast hall.
“Does it make you feel nostalgic?” Venella asked.
“In a way.”
She smiled, her face mysterious and powerful with the suppressed pleasure of a triumph as yet to be revealed.
Solemnly she opened a door in the centre of the gallery, leading him into a long room flanked with show-cases, a dozen of them, the panelled walls hung with beautifully displayed medieval sixteenth- and seventeenth-century weapons. In the show-cases were objets d’art of every conceivable kind, jewellery, small pieces of insignia, old scrolls, illuminated addresses, everything one might expect to find in a well maintained museum. As they walked slowly round the room, Mannering noted that a very large number of the exhibits were virtually priceless.
“And these are for sale?” he asked almost humbly.
“Buyers are coming from all corners of the world to carry them away,” Venella answered, with a sharp note in her voice. “If they have their way, that is.”
“Go on.”
“If they have their way, this collection will be split up into a hundred fragments. Some will go to Europe, some to America, some to Japan-most of the big cities will have a little, just one small item that will hardly matter to them. Each treasure will be lost in a miscellany-imagine any dozen of these in the British Museum. What difference would it make? What impact on the Londoners who waddle round on their big flat feet, or to the sticky-mouth kids who drop their ice-cream papers on the floor?”
