Love for the Baron

by John Creasey

  Quietly, he said: “Well, they haven’t killed me yet.”

  Lucille sprang round. Lorna stood up, and relief touched her face with sombre beauty. There was a moment of silence, in Lucille it seemed of stupefaction; then suddenly she ran across to him, and there was nothing he could do but cradle her in his arms.

  She began to cry.

  There was no way at all to find out if it were a genuine paroxysm, or whether she was able to act so well that it seemed so. Her arms were bent in front of her, her head was lowered to his chest, and her whole body shook. He found himself stroking the back of her head with one hand while holding her in the other arm. He looked across at Lorna.

  “How long?” he asked.

  “Over an hour,” Lorna replied.

  “Has she been like this all the time?”

  “In spasms,” Lorna answered, a little drily, “and if you think she’s acting, I don’t think she is.”

  “I hope she isn’t,” Mannering said. “If I thought she was, I—”

  “I didn’t realise that she had been living on her nerves so much,” Lorna said. “It leaves you no alternative but to help her.”

  “Yes,” he said. “If I can and when I’m sure I should.”

  “What makes you say that?”

  He did not answer for a moment, but stilled his hand on the back of Lucille’s head, which was bent so that he could see the nape of her neck and the ends of her hair lying in short, half-circular curls. She was still sobbing, but not so loudly, and it was possible that she could hear what he was saying. If there was guilt in her and if this was a fear born of guilt, then he wanted her to hear. If she were innocent then it could do no harm for her to know what he felt.

  “Because I’m not sure whether she is partly responsible for what’s happening,” he said. There was no change in Lucille’s movements, nothing to suggest that she heard him. “And I am going to find out who is responsible, even if I break their necks with my bare hands.”

  He waited, but there was no pause in the low-pitched sobbing or the near-convulsive movements of her body.

  “John,” Lorna said. “What’s happened? What’s got into you?”

  So she didn’t know about Josh.

  “I hate to have to tell you this,” he said, and gave a short, mirthless laugh, “when I haven’t even a free arm with which to comfort you, but this morning Josh was attacked and seriously injured. He’s in hospital now, and – it’s touch and go whether he lives or dies.”

  Lorna said: “Oh, dear God.”

  She rose slowly from the arm of her chair and moved towards him. He noticed without giving it much thought, that she limped. She drew nearer and he took his hand away from

  Lucille’s head and held it out to her.

  “And it really is—touch and go?”

  “I’ve just come from the hospital.”

  She drew his arm to her, and it was as if each of them was oblivious of Lucille, whose sobs were less convulsive now and whose body was less tense. This moment when she might indeed be listening, Mannering virtually ignored her.

  “But why?” asked Lorna, helplessly. “Why?”

  “It must be something to do with the Peek Collection,” Mannering said. “We are the only two who have examined every piece, and this persecution didn’t start until after we had finished. Josh is in the hospital and will be closely guarded, and in any case he won’t be able to talk for some time.” The words seemed to force themselves from his lips. “So presumably I am now the only target,” he added.

  Lorna said: “It’s hideous.” She released his hand and moved away; this time he was acutely aware that she was limping.

  “What’s the matter with your leg, darling?”

  “Oh, I’m so mad at myself I slipped coming down from the attic. It isn’t much but if I put more than a little weight on it—”

  “What have you done for it?” asked Mannering.

  “Oh, it—”

  “Cold water compress,” Mannering said, and he wished the elder policeman of the previous night was here, with his expert knowledge on first-aid.

  He felt Lucille stir, and took his hand away from her. She sniffed, then dabbed at her eyes and cheeks, forlorn and red-eyed.

  “I am sorry,” she said. “It is my fault – it happened when I came, I kept my finger on the bell. Now, though, I can help, I am – I was – a nurse.” She went down on her knees in front of Lorna and took the left foot into her hand. “It is I think a sprain, perhaps it would be best to go into the bathroom.” She straightened up and offered her arm to Lorna for support. “John, will you please lead the way?” He found himself obeying, and once in the bathroom, running cold water, putting a stool in position for Lorna to sit on. “If you have bandages I can make a compress,” she said, and looked up. There were tears in her eyes as she went on: “Please let me do something for you.”

  He gave her what she wanted, then stood watching as she set to work. First she bathed the ankle, and then bound it firmly, resting Lorna’s foot on her knee. Then she plunged the foot and ankle into cold water, dried it partially, and pulled on an ankle support. The whole task had taken less than ten minutes, and in those ten minutes much of the tension as well as much of Mannering’s anger had eased.

  “No, please, do not use the leg any more than you can help. Your very domesticated husband must cook for you. Or else—” Suddenly her eyes danced and she said the last thing Mannering dreamt of hearing. “Or better, perhaps, I come here and look after you both.

  You are familiar with the way the great Dumas introduced his women? ‘This,’ he would say, ‘is the wife of my bed! And this,’ he would say turning to another, ‘is the wife of my kitchen!’” She looked intently at Mannering whose expression had changed. “Oh, please, do not take me so serious, I only joke. I—”

  She stopped and turned to Lorna; Mannering, too, looked at his wife. Quite suddenly and uncontrollably she began to laugh.

  “John,” Lucille said, “you are a very lucky man. Where is the best place for Lorna to rest?”

  “The study,” Lorna managed to gasp. “Help me there, darling.” She fought back another spasm of laughter. “If you could only have seen your face!”

  “Obviously he does not think a ménage à trois a good idea,” Lucille said. In anyone else it would have sounded brazen, but she said it so lightly and matter-of-factly that Mannering found himself near laughter, too. He helped Lorna into a comfortable chair, and then made himself speak sharply: “Lucille, nothing is funny about this.”

  “I know,” she admitted, eyes downcast.

  “Why did you come here?”

  “To see you – to warn you.”

  “About more attacks?”

  “Of course, what else?” Lucille replied. She sat on a pouffe, one which Lorna often sat on when she and John were alone in the evening. “After you went last night I received telephone calls, and again this morning. A man told me he would not rest until you were dead.”

  “What man?” Mannering demanded.

  She hesitated before saying: “I am not sure.”

  “Do you think you know?”

  “Oh yes, I think I know,” admitted Lucille. “But I must not tell you, or you will go and see him and he will kill you.”

  “Doesn’t it occur to you that I might kill him?”

  She shook her head. “Most certainly not. If you ever kill a man it will be by accident, but this one – he will kill because he hates, or because someone might get in his way. Am I not right about your husband?” She shot the question at Lorna, but went on before there was time for an answer. “John, I have decided what to do.”

  “Oh, have you,” Mannering said drily.

  “Yes. I am going to give the Collection to Ezra’s sons. When they have it there will be no more trouble, I am quite sure of that. I will not allow risk to you or to other innocent people.” She held her hands out towards him, appealingly. “You will understand, it is mostly for you. If I love you, and this I d
o, I will not allow bad things to happen.” Again she turned to Lorna and asked frankly: “Would you allow such things to happen to him?”

  “Not if I could avoid it,” Lorna answered.

  “You see?” Lucille turned back in triumph to Mannering. “I can prevent it, so I do. I want you please to have no more to do with this affair. To allow the sons of my husband to take the Collection, and then – the trouble will be over.”

  “And you?” asked Lorna.

  “I will go away from England,” Lucille said quietly. “It would not be good for me to stay here, especially in London. It would not be easy, and John has such a woman for his wife! I will tell you this,” she added, turning to Lorna, “I hoped very much I would not like you. I would not mind what I attempted to do if I did not like you. But I like you very much, and I see that John is everything to you. So, John, please—”

  “Why did you come here?” demanded Mannering.

  “I came to plead with your wife to make you stop working for me.”

  Lorna said: “That’s exactly what she asked me, John.”

  “And when you could not be found I thought that already you had been killed,” went on Lucille. “For some awful minutes I believed you to be dead, it was – it was awful for me, and I could not stand it. These past few months have been so hard, and the one friend I had is now dead, or so near death they do not think he will live one more day.”

  “Norman Harcourt?”

  “Yes,” she said, quietly. “It is better I should go, John. Lorna, she will agree with me, won’t you Lorna?”

  Lorna did not reply immediately. The other woman had simply glanced at her as if assuming her agreement but when Lorna did not speak Lucille frowned and looked at her more intently. Mannering, sure what was in Lorna’s mind, dropped into an armchair. He had a headache and was tired, suddenly sick of the whole scene.

  Lorna said at last: “No.”

  “But I do not understand,” Lucille protested.

  “You don’t even begin to understand John if you think he would allow you to do this,” Lorna said. “Does she, John?”

  “But it is madness! I can go out of your lives. And there will be no danger. There is no other choice.” Lucille’s eyes flashed, momentarily touched with anger. “Lorna, you cannot mean—”

  “I mean these men not only attacked John but tried to kill an old friend, a very old friend,” Lorna said. “Neither of us could rest if we just did nothing.”

  “And you are not afraid of me?”

  “I am not at all afraid of you,” Lorna said gently.

  Lucille looked from one to the other as if she could not believe what she was hearing.

  “Lucille,” Mannering said. “Who do you think telephoned you?”

  “I—I do not want to tell you.”

  “I might get badly hurt trying to find out,” Mannering said mildly. “Who made you change your mind?”

  After a long pause, with her eyes half-closed and her hands clenched, Lucille said: “I do not want you to be killed. Please don’t make me tell you.”

  “If you don’t tell me I shall believe you are lying,” Mannering said.

  “Lying?” she echoed. “Lying? For what reason should I lie? For a little while I think you are the man who will help me, then I fall in love with you – after last night, more, so much more than ever before. Because I know you are a good man, that because a beautiful woman throws herself at your head you do not think only of taking her to bed, you do not think of that at all! Such a man! I do not—”

  “Who was the man who telephoned?” demanded Mannering. “Or do you really want me to get impatient?”

  He thought she would go on arguing, but something in his expression and perhaps in the intent way in which Lorna was staring at her, made her change her mind. She waved her hands above her head in a gesture of helplessness, then sprang to her feet and cried: “It was George Peek, the eldest son. The one who lives at Ealing.”

  “And how long has George Peek been a criminal?” demanded Mannering.

  “I do not understand. Why do you say he is a criminal?”

  “You cannot get four, or even two, assassins to commit murder for you just by snapping your fingers,” Mannering said drily. “You must have friends in the trade. Hired killers are not so easy to come by in England even among the criminal classes. So George must be involved in crime, and probably his brother also. Are they? Is that the heart of this matter, Lucille? Are the Peek brothers, and was their father, involved in crime – not just over the Collection but for a long period?” He stood up and put a hand peremptorily on her shoulder. “Is that what Norman Harcourt was trying to tell me?” He stared down into Lucille’s golden eyes as he shook her. “Is that why you killed him? Is that what he was really trying to say?”

  She did not answer.

  He shook her again but she did not answer and she did not try to pull herself free. And it seemed to Mannering at that moment that her actions, her fears, were built out of guilt.

  15

  Gang Of Thieves

  “John,” Lorna said into the quiet which followed his questions, “you’re hurting her. Let her go.”

  Mannering did not appear to hear Lorna’s appeal. Nor did he shift his grip or change his own bleak and savage expression.

  “Come on. Let’s have the truth. Is the Peek family just a gang of thieves? Is that Collection stolen? Tell me!”

  “John, please.”

  Lucille said explosively: “Yes. All that is true.” She seemed, to Lorna, to be a woman who did nothing by half measures. What, she thought in dismay, was going to be revealed now? “They are a gang of thieves. All of them. My husband, and his sons. My husband was – I do not know the word you use.”

  “A fence?”

  “That is a man who buys stolen goods?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then that is the word.”

  “Well, well,” Mannering breathed, letting her go. “And you are one of them.”

  “John!” cried Lorna, “that’s enough!”

  Again he ignored her, and in those minutes he did not seem to be the man she knew; he was harder, more unyielding, there was nothing that could be reached by appeal. There appeared to be no understanding in him.

  “Tell me,” he rasped. “You are one of them and you’ve fallen out. Is that the truth?”

  He seemed to see old Norman Harcourt on his death bed pleading with him to help Lucille, saying that ‘they’ accused her of killing her husband, of being mad. Saying that he feared they would kill her. Had he really believed in her? Could he have lied, knowing he was soon to die? Had he been trying, earlier, to warn Mannering about the family and had something made him change at the last moment?

  How could he tell?

  Lucille said: “I was his wife. I was under obligation to his sons. Yes, I was one of them. But I did not know then that they were what you call a gang of thieves. Afterwards, yes, I found out, but at the time I did not know. We always hated each other, the sons and I. We pretended to be friends for his sake. This I will say to you: they loved their father. They had great admiration and respect for him. But now – they want everything, they want me to have nothing.”

  “You have an annuity.”

  “Oh, I have a little. But—” She turned away from him. “But I tell you the best thing now is for me to agree. I do not want you killed. I do not want your friends killed. It was a bad thing that I asked for your help. If I go now I can make terms – and if you allow them to have the Collection there will be no more trouble.” She swung away from Mannering and thrust her arms out towards Lorna. “You make him see sense, please. Please.”

  “There isn’t any way to make him,” Lorna said.

  “Then he will be killed!”

  “He has been in danger before,”. Lorna told her. “And now he is fully warned.”

  “You would let him go out to this danger—”

  “I would let him do whatever he thinks is right,” Lorna said, and s
he took one of Lucille’s hands in her own. “Come and sit down, and do what you yourself suggested. Stay here until it is all over. I do need help and John says you are a superb cook. The house is guarded and probably no one knows you’re here. Stay for a while, Lucille.” She looked up at her husband. “Isn’t that what you think she should do, John?”

  “I’m quite sure it is,” Mannering said.

  “I do not think I shall ever be able to understand you two people,” said Lucille. “But – John, will you tell the police all this?”

  “Not yet,” Mannering said. “What will you do?”

  “Among other things have a talk with your stepsons, who—”

  He broke off as the telephone bell rang, and for a moment hesitated. Then he stretched out for the extension near him. The fear that sprang to his mind was that this was news of Josh, and if news came so quickly it was almost certain to be bad. He held his breath before giving his name.

  “Mannering.”

  He heard the voice of the man who had spoken to him on the telephone about Lucille; it was so filled with venom and with hate that he could not fail to recognise it – might never be able to forget it.

  “John Mannering,” the voice said. “I’ve got news for you. If Lucille doesn’t come out of your flat in the next half-an-hour we’re going to come and get her. It wouldn’t make any difference if you had forty coppers instead of four, they wouldn’t be able to stop us. Just send her out.”

  As Mannering put the receiver down, both Lorna and Lucille looked at him intently. He knew that his expression must have given away the fact that it had been an ugly call. He had to decide quickly what to tell them. If the truth, then he thought Lucille would want to leave at once; if a half-truth, neither of them would be convinced. The sound of the man’s voice echoed within his head, ‘… we’ll come and get her. It wouldn’t make any difference if you had forty coppers. ‘

  That could only be bluff.

  Unless ‘they’ virtually used an army there was no way in which they could break into the flat and get Lucille. And they could not send as many men as that. Did ‘We’ll come and get her’ mean just that, or … that wasn’t exactly what the man had said, though. ‘We’re going to come and get her’ – that was it. The rest was unimportant.