by John Creasey
And it had always been so.
Now, she felt almost as if Brutus was about to do and say the same thing. He drew a pace nearer, without shifting his gaze; suddenly his eyes blazed, and it was as if he had to exert physical strength not to move.
“I’ll tell you one thing,” he said. “You’re a very beautiful woman.”
He strode past her, and out of the room. She heard a door slam. She did not know where it was, she did not move, just stared at the spot where he had been sitting.
She did not know how long she sat there, but suddenly she became aware of a man’s footsteps and the clatter of horse’s hoofs. So Brutus was going to ride. She had some conception of the tremendous effort he had made to walk past her, and she felt her heart beating very fast. The horse was clip-clopping about, as if Brutus were saddling it; she had seen him ride a grey mare only that morning, fast as the wind. She jumped to her feet and went on to the patio, one part of her mind saying: “Don’t be a fool, don’t be a fool,” the other giving way to an impulse. As she reached the front of the patio, Brutus came in sight at the side of the house, walking the horse carefully across the iron-hard turf.
Lorna stood very still, half-hoping that he would not notice her, half-yearning for him to turn and look round. He passed, and she thought he had gone. In spite of herself, her heart dropped. She gripped one of the columns of the patio tightly.
Suddenly, Brutus said: “Hold it, Sarah, hold it.” He twisted round in the saddle, and looked towards Lorna; there was no doubt at all that he saw her, the only question was what he would do. For what seemed a long time, she was in doubt. Then he turned the horse’s head towards her, and approached. He reached a spot a few yards from the patio, his figure clear in the moonlight but his face in the shadows.
“What now?” he demanded in a taut voice.
“Do you always ride alone?”
“I do by night.”
“How often do you start out like this by night?”
She thought she saw his lips curve in a grin.
“Never like this.”
“Then how do you ride?”
“Sometimes I’m tired of my own company. So I talk to the stars.”
“And your only companion is your horse.”
“There’s one thing about a horse,” Brutus said.
“What’s that?”
“You can always be sure he’s not after your money.”
“And that’s not true of people?”
“It’s true of a god-damned small minority of people. Especially women.”
“I’m not after your money,” Lorna said.
After a long pause, he rasped: “What are you after?”
She didn’t know. She simply did not know.
Or was it that she knew, and that she was fighting against acknowledging the truth. It was a kind of moon-madness; what else could it be?
“Lost your voice?” Brutus demanded.
What had she lost.
“Listen,” he said thickly, “I don’t know the score in England, sport, but out here a man is a man and a woman is a woman, and when they get the chance they go places together. I walked out on you once, and let me tell you I ain’t walking out on you again. You still have the chance to walk out on me, but don’t take too long, I might forget my manners, Brutus, they called me. I didn’t have a name, so Brutus stuck. Poor little bastard, they used to say, poor little brute. It’s not far from Brute to Brutus, or didn’t you know that?”
Lorna said: “Why do you torment yourself so much? You’re not a brute. You have so much that other men can never have. Don’t you realize that?” After a pause she went on: “I don’t mean money, either.”
“No,” Brutus said very slowly. “I know you don’t mean money. What are you trying to do? Prove my heart of gold and my code of honour? Don’t try me too far.” He leaned forward in the saddle and growled at her: “Because you might regret it. You’re everything I can’t have. You’re a member of the bloody English ruling classes, you’re out of the top drawer, you’re out of a world I don’t know anything about except that it’s as cold as bloody ice. My God! I can’t get into your world, that’s what your precious husband made me understand. Have you come with yourself as a consolation prize?”
“Brutus,” Lorna said, and it did not occur to her that she was using his surname. “There’s one thing you ought to have learned by now.”
“What particular tiling?” he demanded.
“Nothing is unattainable,” she said. “There aren’t really two worlds, only two halves of the same one.”
“My God,” he said, thickly, and he sprang down.
“My God” he breathed as he reached her.
In the morning he had gone.
In the morning, when a little aborigine girl brought Lorna tea in bed, it was seven o’clock.
At half-past seven, she saw him astride the mare, close to the stables.
“I’d like to paint you as you are,” she said. “Not on the horse but otherwise just as you are.” She had her paints all ready, and it was easy to rig up a make-do easel. As she worked there was magic in her fingers, a magic which passed from them to the brushes and from the brushes to the canvas.
Nathaniel Brutus did not stir during the sitting; he stared at her, and was still staring when a station hand came to report that an aircraft had just signalled that it was about to land.
16: THE PORTRAIT
“There it is,” Venella said. “We’ll be down in five minutes.”
Mannering, sitting behind her in the Avro 2, edged to one side so that he could see more clearly over the arid, orange-coloured land, dotted with spindly scrub. Now and again he was able to pick out a little flock of sheep, searching forlornly for food. In the distance he saw a spread of buildings. The early afternoon sun shone on a lorry window, reflecting light. Soon he was able to pick out the modern T-shaped main house, dozens of smaller buildings and one or two sheds on the perimeter.
Venella put the stick down to land.
Mannering saw two people walking towards the yellow and white streamer which fluttered from a tall pole, moving all the time in wind created by a pumping fan worked by electricity. The colour of nearly everything in sight was bleached by the sun, but Lorna’s dark hair showed clearly.
As the aircraft made a slow turn, Mannering caught sight of a movement which at first he didn’t understand; Brutus had moved closer to Lorna. The next moment the couple were cut off from sight, but something which Mannering had seen out of the corner of his eyes made him lean to the other side.
Brutus had his right arm round Lorna’s waist, and he drew her to him. For a moment they stared at each other, oblivious of the world. Ice seemed to enter in Mannering’s heart. The next moment, Brutus moved away.
Venella glanced at Mannering, as if to see whether he had noticed; he was aware of her movement but didn’t look round. She turned back and went in for a landing. She put the little aircraft down perfectly; after a slight bump or two it taxied towards the banner and to the couple now standing a yard apart and looking towards it. Slowly, smoothly, Venella brought it to a standstill, and a station hand came forward with chocks, then a ladder. Mannering, hardly aware of what was passing through his mind, was the first to climb down. Lorna stood waiting, Brutus came forward, his hands by his side, his lips twisted in a sardonic smile. The chiselled regularity of his features, his rather over-thin face, the curiously clear skin which seemed to glow with health, the fine eyes, were all apparent to Mannering in stark clarity.
“So you had to send a goodwill messenger ahead of you,” he said.
“Goodwill?” Mannering repeated.
“You’re a lucky man,” Brutus said. He hadn’t done more than glance at Venella. “She pleaded your case well.”
Mannering could not stop himself from saying: “Not too well, I hope.”
“Well enough,” Brutus declared. They reached Lorna, and there was a momentary hesitation before they touched hands; he kissed her on th
e cheek. “Hallo, Ella,” Brutus went on. “Have you sold yourself to Mannering?”
Mannering caught his breath.
Venella said in a startled voice: “Have I what?”
“Don’t you go with Melbury House?” Brutus asked drily.
“I haven’t bought Melbury House yet,” Mannering answered. “The idea is that you should buy it, lock, stock and barrel.”
“I will say you two haven’t lost much time getting down to business,” Lorna put in. Mannering thought she was looking at him with guilty intentness, as if wondering whether he had noticed anything unusual.
He introduced Venella to Lorna and they sauntered towards the house, the sun blazing down on them and heat mirage rippling off the corrugated iron roofs of the sheds. Two children played in the shade of a carport where half-a-dozen cars stood. They crossed the patio and entered the cool room; bottles, ice and glasses stood waiting. Mannering went straight up to the Picasso.
Brutus said: “Your wife said I was cheated over it.”
Would a man who had bought a stolen picture talk like that? Mannering asked himself.
He looked intently at the painting, thinking of all the Sydney policeman had told him about it. He was aware of Lorna, at his side, and of Venella, by the glasses, a bottle already in her hand; she had shown no particular surprise at seeing the painting here.
“I can believe you were cheated,” Mannering said. “You’re easy to cheat.”
“What the hell do you mean by that?” demanded Brutus.
Mannering asked almost casually “Did you want those Alda jewels?”
“By God I wanted them!”
“Why?”
“I liked the look of them.”
“Did you know one from another?”
“What are you driving at?” Brutus demanded. As Mannering turned to look at him, he went on: “And you’re supposed to be the gentleman of this outfit-you’re supposed to be the aristocratic son-of-a-bitch who. . .”
Mannering thrust his left arm out, gripped Brutus by the shoulder, and held him at arm’s length. He saw bewilderment in the brilliant blue eyes. He felt Lorna touch him, heard her catch her breath, knowing she had wanted to say something, but managed to stop herself. Venella, a glass in one hand, a cube of ice in tongs in the other, was watching.
Mannering had an almost overwhelming impulse to smash his fist into Brutus’s face. He had a vivid mental image of the way the man had put his arm round Lorna, and the possessiveness of his manner; the impulse became a burning desire.
He said: “Take that back.”
“What the hell are you talking about?”
“You may be Australia’s gift to sheep but you don’t call me a son-of-a-bitch, now or at any time in my hearing.” When Brutus didn’t respond but stood there as if he were baffled, Mannering gripped his shoulder even more tightly. His urge to strike the other had faded, but he knew that if Brutus did nothing to back down then he would have to strike him. Then, suddenly, the whole situation appeared utterly ludicrous; and in that same instant he knew why he had flown into such a rage.
He was jealous of Lorna-wildly jealous.
What would she feel if she knew that last night-?
Brutus was saying something, and Mannering made himself listen, and let the other go.
“-in Australia son-of-a-bitch is often meant as a compliment,” Brutus was saying. “Can’t you take a compliment?”
Venella called: “Who’s for a drink?”
“I’m for a drink,” Brutus said. He went on with a grin which took the sting out of his words: “That’s when I’ve made this son-of-a-bitch tell me why he’s asking so many questions.” They all moved towards Venella, and Lorna crossed to help her; it was strange, Mannering thought, but Lorna seemed almost as if she were the mistress of his house.
That was a lunatic thought.
“I’ll have a gin and lime, long,” he said gruffly.
“Beer,” said Brutus. When the glasses were in their hands, he went on: “Goodo, Mannering. Let’s get on with your shock tactics. What makes it so easy to cheat me?”
“You,” Mannering answered.
“Nat,” said Venella, as she put a glass to her lips, “don’t try to outsmart John Mannering with words. No one ever succeeds. I tried to, and I make a living out of using words.”
“He can twist them better, can he?” Brutus asked drily.
Mannering chuckled; it was easy, after all.
“John,” Lorna said, “don’t get off on the wrong foot again.” She looked at him almost pleadingly. “I think that Mr. Brutus is now convinced that you hadn’t any ulterior motive at Catesby’s.”
“I can even believe you had some unselfish ones,” Brutus declared. “What’s the matter, John?” He drawled the name, making it sound rather like ‘Jahn’. “Have you run out of reasons?”
“Could you tell one piece of the insignia from another? Distinguish the Order of Chivalry from the Order of Valour, for instance? Distinguish the jewelled Sword of Desire from the Sword of the Flesh? Tell the Spanish from the Polish honours? Or. . .”
“Don’t parade my poor bloody ignorance in public.” Brutus was suddenly tight-lipped.
“Meaning you couldn’t?”
“You know damned well I couldn’t.”
“That’s why you’re so easy to cheat,” Mannering said quietly. “You couldn’t tell the difference, so you put yourself in the hands of a dealer whom you didn’t know at all and who was recommended to you by someone you didn’t know very well-Venella here. Right?”
“Right.”
“So I could have taken you for a fortune.”
“But you had your reputation,” Brutus objected. There was a puzzled expression in his eyes.
“Ever bought sheep?” demanded Mannering.
“Too right I’ve bought sheep.”
“On whose advice?”
“My own, cully.”
“Before you knew anything about sheep?”
Slowly, Brutus said: “I went to a reliable sheep man.”
“Did you know him?”
“Too right I knew him-I made sure he couldn’t fool me or. . .” Brutus broke off and frowned, then laughed, tossed the rest of his beer down, and turned to Lorna. “You sure picked yourself a husband! All right, so I was in a hurry, so I didn’t take as much care as I should have done.” When Mannering didn’t comment, he went on: “I laid myself wide open.”
“For six hundred thousand pounds sterling,” said Mannering. “You couldn’t even be sure that bidding wasn’t rigged, could you?”
“It wasn’t.”
“Could you be sure?”
“No, except. . .”
“Nathaniel,” Mannering said quietly, “you were dealing in hundreds of thousands, and you were ready to spend the money for the wrong motives.”
“The hell I was. It was my own money.”
“So you wanted to throw it away?”
“If I’d brought those jewels to Australia they would belong here.”
“But a lot of other things wouldn’t. If you’d spent three-quarters of a million pounds on the Alda insignia, you would have three-quarters of a million pounds less to spend on a much wider variety of antiques and paintings and objets d’art. With that money you could fill a whole museum which would interest a city-instead of filling a single display-case which would interest a few connoisseurs and mean no more to anyone else than a collection of fake costume jewellery.”
Venella, who had kept remarkably quiet, raised her head and looked at the two men through her lashes. Lorna moved to one side as if recognizing that there was no point in trying to intervene, this argument could only be settled by the men themselves.
“You finished?” Brutus asked, but there was no truculence in his manner.
“Yes,” said Mannering, as quietly.
“Like me to be honest with you, sport?”
“Yes.”
“You’re a bloody lying son-of-a-bitch.” Brutus articulated the
words with great precision. “That’s what you are.”
Lorna gasped: “John!”
Mannering said quietly: “What makes you think so?”
“Your tall.”
“I don’t understand you.”
“I don’t use enough four-lettered words,” said Brutus seethingly. “You didn’t stop bidding for those reasons. You’ve thought them up since.”
“That is so.”
“You admit it?” Brutus gasped.
“I never have too much trouble admitting the truth,” Mannering said. “I don’t mind fooling you but I don’t want to fool myself. I didn’t say these were the reasons which made me put a spanner in the works, but after the event they make good sense.” When Brutus didn’t interrupt, Mannering went on: “Want me to try to explain? Or shall we call it a day?”
“Explain,” said Brutus promptly.
“Very well, I was in a sweat at Catesby’s. I knew what you wanted but I didn’t know why, and it seemed utterly wrong. Even bidding up to six hundred thousand seemed wrong, and the ‘seven hundred’ didn’t really sink in until the auction was over. I didn’t enjoy what happened afterwards. The whole affair blew up in my mind until it became an obsession. So I came out here ostensibly to look at the Melbury Collection, but actually to find out if you were really interested in buying beautiful things, owning them, gloating over them for their beauty-or whether you simply wanted the satisfaction of possession.” Mannering paused, acutely aware of the women looking at him, and added roughly, “I’m here to find out. If Lorna gave you the impression I was on my way to make my peace with you, she was quite wrong. Until half an hour ago I couldn’t have told you why I came, but I know now. I came to find out if you simply worship money, or whether treasures like the Alda insignia, like those at Melbury House, really mean anything to you.”
