by John Creasey
‘Yes, I think they are, but three is my limit.’
‘Five?’ Bellamy said.
‘I can commit myself to three, but no more.’
Bellamy looked at Harrison with a comical gesture.
‘Well, Jim, he’s hard – but they didn’t cost me that much, did they? Three thousand pounds – all right, Mr. Mannering! Put them in your pocket, you can give me a cheque before you leave. Satisfied with your visit now?’
‘I’ll give you the cheque right away,’ said Mannering.
‘Sure, suit yourself,’ said Bellamy.
Mannering wrote out the cheque on the arm of his chair – a cheque for £3,000 to pay for jewels worth £10,000! He took the slip of paper to the fire to dry, conscious of the exchange of glances between the two men, needing no more telling that much was wrong. He had been prepared to pay £8,000, had offered an absurdly low figure to test Bellamy – and it hadn’t been easy to keep a poker face during the brief, too easy haggling.
No man in his senses would sell these for £3,000.
Did it mean that they knew he would never take them away from the house?
Bellamy gave him a receipt with a flourish.
‘Now we can enjoy our dinner. I wish everyone would close a deal as quickly as that.’
But the deal wasn’t closed.
Dinner was served in the next room, a vast, high-ceilinged chamber. Of two chandeliers, only one was lighted, so that the far end of the room was left in cavernous darkness. Mannering could just discern the shape of pictures hanging on the walls, and tall chairs, a vast sideboard, laden with silver. The table was long and narrow, with a dozen chairs standing close to it. Bellamy sat in his wheelchair, Harrison on one side of him, Mannering on the other. The light glistened on polished oak and gleaming silver. Lace tablemats made delicate white patterns on the wood. Harrison poured the wines – a dry sherry with the soup, a red Rhine wine with the fish; afterwards, champagne. A soft-footed butler waited on them. The meal was superb. Bellamy ate with a keen appetite; Harrison wolfed his food. Bellamy did most of the talking, and Mannering had only to say a word here and there, usually in answer to questions flung carelessly at him. He could not throw off the restraint which he had felt from the moment he had seen Harrrison; before, he had blamed it on the strange encounters. He didn’t now, for Bellamy and Harrison would have behaved like this in any case. He felt that they weren’t interested in him, didn’t care why he was so quiet; they had him here and that satisfied them.
But the Lake Emeralds nestled against his side. He could afford to smile.
Stella wasn’t mentioned.
‘I think we’ll have liqueurs in the other room,’ Bellamy said at last. ‘We’ll be more comfortable.’
Harrison jumped up to open the door, and Bellamy wheeled his chair swiftly into the hall. Mannering followed slowly. Neither of them had troubled to wait for him, but treated him with that remarkable casualness; almost indifference.
The butler appeared in the hall as Harrison opened the door of the smaller room.
‘What is it, Holmes?’ asked Bellamy.
‘I’m sorry to interrupt you, sir, but Mr. Lark has called,’ said the butler. ‘I told him you were engaged, but he—’
‘Sure, I’ll see him. You won’t mind, Mr. Mannering? Lark is a man who does some buying for me in London. Wonderful eye for a good thing—eh, Jim? He can pick out winners every time – our kind of winners, you understand, not horses!’ He grinned, and Harrison gave his staccato laugh. ‘But you know the game. If we paid the highest price for everything, we’d never have a penny to call our own. Send him in here, Holmes.’
‘Very good, sir.’ Holmes bent a curious, dark gaze on Mannering as he went silently out!
The fire was blazing; brandy glasses were warming in the hearth; liqueur bottles were on the small table, where an array of glasses twinkled and gleamed. Nothing had altered here, yet he was filled with great disquiet. They were mocking him; lying to him elaborately. ‘Mr. Lark had called.’ Who would just call at such a place as this? Miles from the nearest village, on a wild stormy night – yet Mr. Lark had ‘called.’
‘I can recommend the Courvoisier,’ Bellamy said, and touched a box of cigars. ‘And try one of these, Mr. Mannering. They’re real Havana, the very best.’
‘Thanks.’ Monosyllables were all they wanted from him.
‘We shan’t be long with Lark,’ Bellamy said; ‘ten minutes or so. You just relax.’
But the visitor’s coming had excited him and he couldn’t hide it; the visit was not just a casual one. Had it anything to do with Mannering?
The door opened again.
‘Mr. Lark, sir.’
A little brown-clay man entered, and at first glance Mannering thought of the man on the moor; but this one was younger and even thinner, and his suit was a different shade of brown. His highly polished shoes shone as he walked across the room, perky and self-confident. He was dressed ‘to kill,’ with square shoulders, an exaggerated waist, wide trousers, and a huge blue-and-white spotted bow tie. His thin, fair hair was brushed sleekly over his small, bony head. His ears stuck out. He was grotesquely thin.
‘Mr. Lark’ approached Bellamy with his hands outstretched and a shrill: ‘Well, Guv’nor, what a treat to see yer looking so well!’ He beamed with delight.
Luckily, the other two were looking at Lark and missed the flash of stupefaction which showed in Mannering’s eyes. The caller saw but took no notice of Mannering; and none of them knew that Mannering’s heart was thumping with a strange excitement.
His thoughts went back years; to the time when he had last seen this perky little man – who was one of the cleverest cracksmen in England.
Years ago—
A man bitter against a woman and society, restless, impatient with the pleasant easy gait of life, stirred by an inner compulsion to fling down the gauntlet and challenge the world.
John Mannering – who loved precious stones.
Their colour and brilliance fascinated him, drew him towards them, lusting for possession and not their value. He could remember now the day when he first planned to steal. The man then and Mannering now were not the same; he could look back dispassionately, feeling none of the old desire for the lovely illicit baubles, but his heart still quickened at the memory of the first daring, dangerous escapade; the incomparable thrill of success, and the wild exhilaration of escaping from the police.
About him there grew a legend.
The Baron was born.
The restlessness was stilled as the police hunted him, not then dreaming who he was, and the newspapers went wild about his daring. And irony of ironies, as John Mannering, he was consulted by the police because of his knowledge of jewels!
That phase hadn’t lasted long, but in it he learned the cracksman’s craft, as skilled as any; and, disguised, he consorted with rogues and vagabonds and found them to be people, and liked many of them as men – such as Lark.
Out of the first wild days had grown a different Baron.
The newspapers dubbed him Robin Hood, friend of the poor; the police recognised him as an ally against the uglier, vicious crimes of violence and blackmail, an aura of romanticism surrounded the Baron …
And one detective, Bristow by name, learned who he was, but could not prove it. A strange friendship was born, guarded by suspicion and fostered by pitting their wits against each other.
Through all this – Lorna.
A tumultuous love for a woman who had soothed the last trace of bitterness away. Marriage! Happiness marred only by the intrusion of the past into their lives; and by the longing, deep within him, to fling aside restraints and safety and do wild, crazy things.
Sometimes he thought that Lorna knew him better than he knew himself, and did not make him fight against the urge but let him go, and sometimes helped him.
Now? Today?
The Baron was never talked about, although he lingered in many people’s memory, and John Mannering had won for h
imself a reputation as a detective with an unrivalled knowledge of jewel thieves and their ways.
Lark was a jewel thief.
The police knew it, but he was always too smart for them. Mannering had seen him in a public house, sanctuary for ‘honest’ rogues, and knew his reputation well. A nice, little man with a plump, pretty wife, a ready wit and full of generous impulses – who would return jewels of sentimental value to then-owners with an impudent nourish. A brilliant screwsman – whom Bellamy greeted as an old friend.
‘Lor’ lumme, Guv’nor, I coulda died larfin’,’ cried Lark. ‘Looked him straight in the eye I did, and what do you think I said? I said, looking him straight in the eye, “Mister, that there’s a valuable work of art, I don’t mind admitting it,” I said, “in my opinion it’s a very fine picture, a very fine picture indeed.” Strewth! You shoulda seen his eyes. Neely popped out and hit me on the nose they did. “Reely!” he said, “and may I make so bold as to ask ‘ow much it’s worth to you?” “Mister,” I said, touching him on the shoulder like I’m touching you, “mister,” I said, “I’d be prepared to pay a hundred pounds for that work of art, a hundred pounds.”
‘Cor lumme,’ gasped Lark, ‘he looked as if he would drop through the floor! Couldn’t wrap it up fast enough for me. Larf! I haven’t larfed so much since the Gold Rush, I ain’t reely.’
Bellamy chuckled.
‘Very good, Lark, very good indeed.’
‘I’ll say it was good,’ said Lark smugly. ‘Worth every penny of five thousand. Mind you, I coulda got it for a fiver, but that wouldn’t’ve been fair.’
‘You always want to be fair,’ said Bellamy gravely.
‘That’s me all over. The guy who sold me that picture ‘adn’t seen a hundred nicker all the same time in his natural. Next time I go there I’ll be like a long-lost brother. Not that he’ll pick up anything more like that, Guv’nor, you can’t expect two miracles in a lifetime.’
‘I’d expect anything from you,’ purred Bellamy. ‘What do you think of that for astuteness, Mr. Mannering?’
‘I should say there was a fair profit in it,’ murmured Mannering dryly.
‘Wot?’ exclaimed Lark. ‘Fair—cor lumme, that’s good, that is. Fair profit – ‘ear him, Guv’nor!’
Lark laughed so heartily that his whisky and soda spilt over the side of the glass. Mannering sat back, scorched by the blazing fire, cupping a brandy glass in his hands. Now and again he sniffed the bouquet and sipped. Harrison sprawled back in an easy chair opposite him, fair hair ruffled and cheeks red. He had been drinking heavily, and his eyes were glittering; but he was not by any means drunk. The ‘ten minutes’ had spread to an hour, and Lark showed no sign of leaving. He had not been easy on the whisky, but Bellamy appeared to be amused by the little crook.
‘That’s one o’ the best I’ve heard for a long time,’ said Lark again. ‘In the trade, Mister?’
‘Er—yes, in a way,’ said Mannering.
Bellamy chuckled.
‘Lark, you’ve dropped a brick. Mr. Mannering is one of the best-known men in the—er—trade. If he hadn’t heard your story, he might have bought that Genoese panel you’re telling us about. It would look very well in the window of Quinn’s, wouldn’t it?’
‘I might buy it even now,’ murmured Mannering, looking thoughtfully at Lark.
Lark’s manner changed at mention of Quinn’s. Now he sat very still, holding his glass carefully in front of him, and although he appeared to be looking at Harrison, he was in fact studying Mannering. The others were conscious of the change; Bellamy seemed even more deeply amused. Harrison said: ‘Ha!’ in that curious snort, the beginning of a laugh that never matured.
‘Did you say Mr. Mannering of Quinn’s?’ asked Lark, after a long pause.
‘That’s right,’ said Bellamy.
‘Well, I never,’ said Lark. ‘Well, I never!’
He was uneasy for the next five minutes, and soon jumped up, saying that he must go.
Mannering heard the bark of a motor-cycle engine and then its staccato roar as Lark made off into the dark night.
Chapter Four
Night at the House
Mannering pondered over possible reasons for the little crook’s change of manner, while he listened to Bellamy and Harrison talking animatedly about paintings on wood. Lark undoubtedly knew that the owner of Quinn’s had been consulted occasionally by the police, and had helped many men behind bars; enough to make any thief uneasy. But that wasn’t all. Strange rumours floated about that part of the East End where crooks foregathered, and news was spread furtively. That part of London was a whispering gallery of secrets.
Some crooks believed that Mannering was the Baron. Lark might be one of them.
There was plenty to worry about, without that. He had accepted the passive role which Bellamy and Harrison had allotted to him, for it gave him time to think. Thinking brought one all-important question: why had they brought him here? Certainly not to sell him the emeralds at a giveaway price, although he would not have come but for his old customer’s eagerness to get the gems.
He knew the game too well to take Bellamy on his face value, and had made some inquiries. Bellamy was well known in the world of fine art; a cosmopolitan with a mysterious background – which was not unusual in the jewel business – whose reputation was quite sound. The first warning of trouble had been the mud splashing against his windshield.
There was one good thing; Lorna hadn’t been able to come here with him.
He thought fleetingly of her, and smiled grimly at what she would think of this. At least, he wasn’t to blame for it. Bellamy’s voice broke through his thoughts. ‘You look amused, Mr. Mannering.’
Lorna faded.
‘I am! I’m thinking of Lark’s deal with the panel. Likeable little rogue, isn’t he? I like a man who pays a hundred when he could get what he wants for a fiver. By George, it’s warm in here,’ Mannering said, pushing his chair back. ‘You know how to build a fire. No fuel troubles?’
‘We overcome them. But you’re right, it is hot.’ Bellamy looked at his wrist-watch. ‘Well, I’ll be jiggered! It’s nearly half-past ten; I didn’t realise it was so late. I reckon to get to bed early, Mr. Mannering, but you stay down here as long as you like. Show Mr. Mannering some of our little oddments, Jim.’
‘I think I’ll get to bed, I can see the oddments in the morning,’ said Mannering. ‘I’ve had a long drive, you know.’
‘Surely – I’m sorry if we’ve kept you up,’ said Bellamy, with solicitude. ‘You take Mr. Mannering to his room, Jim.’
‘Oh, I can find my way.’
‘No, no – Jim will take you. Good night, Mr. Mannering. I hope you sleep well.’
But if Mannering stayed awake through a restless night, it would amuse him.
Harrison uncoiled himself from his chair and led the way out of the room. He strode through the dimly lighted hall to the staircase, with Mannering a little way behind. Mannering’s mind was alert, noticing everything. The huge grandfather clock which was ticking on with its curious hollow sound; the heavy furniture and chairs stood against the walls; a large Indian carpet lost in the vast hall. There was no covering on the stone floor near the front of the stairs, where Harrison’s footsteps rang out clearly. The soft pile of the staircarpet; the carved, highly polished balustrade; the square landing, with two wide passages at right-angles to each other – he noted all these.
Harrison had gone along the passage leading to Mannering’s room when he had tapped at Stella Bellamy’s door.
Which was her room?
His was the third – and last – along the passage. The first door was ajar, and he saw a man’s clothes flung carelessly over the end of a double bed. Firelight flickered about the walls. That was Harrison’s; then, presumably, the girl was in the middle room. As they passed the door, Mannering saw that the key was on the outside. Was she locked in?
‘Here we are,’ said Harrison. ‘You’ll be as snug as a bug in a
rug here, Mannering! Wonderful rooms, aren’t they? Have a look at the plaster-work on the ceiling – superb!’ He was back at the over-hearty stage. ‘Anything else you want, now? Hot-water bottle? Another drink – but you’ll find that in the wardrobe, door on the right. They brought your case up, didn’t they?’
‘Yes, thanks,’ said Mannering. ‘I—oh, confound it!’ He looked angry with himself.
‘What?’ Harrison, his hand on the switch, seemed suddenly huge, shadowy, and sinister. ‘Forgotten something?’
‘There’s a small case in my car that I’ll need up here,’ said Mannering. ‘Tell me where the garage is—’
‘I’ll send for it.’
‘I’d better get it myself. I know just where to put my hand on it.’
That didn’t please, but Harrison led the way downstairs again, and turned into a long, stone-floored passage opposite the front door. Two oil lamps in brackets gave a dim, flickering light, and a cold draught swept along. At the end, they entered a small, square hall. A short, thick-set man was standing by another door, and on a chair near him was a heavy service revolver.
Harrison glanced at Mannering.
‘Precautions against burglars.’ Crisp, abrupt, none-of-your-business.
‘So I notice,’ said Mannering dryly.
‘Open the door,’ said Harrison to the guard.
Mannering stepped into the grounds, and the wind shrieked down on him. He shivered. Was it because of the sudden cold or because of the armed man standing by the door? Were all the doors guarded? Probably. Against burglars? Or to prevent him from getting out?
Four cars stood abreast in the huge garage – a Rolls Phantom 111, a Bentley, the Austin in which Harrison had met Mannering, and the Sunbeam-Talbot. A motor-cycle was propped up in a corner. Harrison stood by the door as Mannering went to his car, put on the roof-light, and pulled a small, heavy attaché case from underneath the driving seat. He was soon back with Harrison.
‘Got everything this time?’
‘Yes, thanks.’
Harrison was silently annoyed on the way back, said ‘Good night’ brusquely at Mannering’s door, and strode off. Downstairs, Mannering heard him talking to a man who had not been in the hall when they had come up. Another guard?
