by John Creasey
“Sara,” he said, “I don’t think that makes sense.”
She did not seem to notice that he had used her first name.
“Doesn’t it?”
“It doesn’t make sense because your uncle is a very rich man.”
“Is he?” she asked.
The feeling had gone out of her voice, and he felt more sure than ever that the story had frightened her; it was too early yet to begin to ask himself why. He had to remind himself of the man who had telephoned and asked him not to do what the girl wanted, a matter of life and death.
“You know very well that he’s wealthy,” Mannering said sharply.
She looked at him, her eyes quite dull.
“I know that he’s supposed to be.”
“Can you prove that he isn’t?” demanded Mannering. “Listen to me, Sara. I could telephone a dozen different people and ask if they would accept Lord Gentian’s note of hand for any given sum, and they would all say that they would take it without limit. In London you don’t win a reputation like that unless you are really rich. A name, a title, a tradition, a past – none of these things is important. Your uncle is known to be one of the wealthiest private individuals in the country. By going to Somerset House you can see how much he inherited, and by studying the increase in land values in London in the past twenty years, you will be able to judge how much the value of his London estates is today. Don’t try to tell me, and above all don’t try to tell anyone else outside this room that your uncle isn’t financially sound. Don’t even suggest that he stole the Sword, or stole anything at all. Because if you do suggest that and it’s spread around, you’ll be guilty of serious slander.” When the girl didn’t respond, Mannering went on flatly: “And if the slander was spread around, your uncle would have to challenge you. You would have to withdraw the charges, or you might find yourself in court. Do you understand that?”
All the time she had been listening, she had watched his eyes. He still felt sure she was frightened by the recital of her uncle’s story, and he doubted whether she took in what he had been saying. She was at once so old and so young; so full of vitality and yet so still.
“Yes,” she said at last. “I understand. You mean that you—you won’t tell him what I’ve said.”
“I will not.”
“Thank you, Mr Mannering. I’m afraid I let my tongue run away with me. I feel it so strongly, you see.” She stood up, quite slowly. “I think he did steal the other sword, and I think he is in serious financial difficulties. If he isn’t, why should he steal—” she broke off.
“Sara,” said Mannering, “where have you been living for the past few years?”
“I beg your pardon?”
“Where have you been?”
“In London, part of the time. In France, in Switzerland – what makes you ask?”
“You sound rather as if you’ve been living in a convent.”
That startled her into unexpected laughter. With her head thrown back and her mouth open and those red lips, it seemed to be a ridiculous thing for Mannering to have said; it might help her to see what he meant.
“I assure you I have not! I’ve been with friends – what my uncle calls living the life of a licentious butterfly. He seems to think that if you are young, you must be emotionally disturbed and sexually abnormal, and that only the old can be good or wise.” When Mannering didn’t respond, she went on: “I suppose I’ve been doing what you might call the modern version of huntin’, shootin’, and fishin’. I’ve been flyin’, drivin’, and ski-in’.” There was an edge of defiance in her manner.
“With the smart set?”
“With a set which is called smart by the gossip columnists. But you must know this – you do read the newspapers, don’t you?”
“I don’t believe all I read in them,” said Mannering drily. “You don’t seem to have any knowledge at all of comparative values, in spite of all this. Your uncle inherited a fortune of four million pounds which is probably worth twenty million today. The value of the Mogul Swords of Victory might possibly be a hundred thousand pounds – a lot of the stones are very small, and there are many semi-precious stones among them. Perhaps a hundred thousand, then if the pair were offered together, you would have a little over twice as much as for one by itself. The money for one of the swords can’t be of vital importance to a man whose fortune runs into millions.”
Her eyes were very clear.
“A penny matters to a miser,” she said. “That sword belongs to the family, not to him.”
“Can you prove that, legally?”
“Oh, legally. I think he pretended it had been stolen, and sold it. He certainly had no moral right to.” Sara Gentian moved quickly towards the door, as if determined to reach it before Mannering. At the door she turned and looked at him accusingly. “You sold the other one for him, didn’t you? Just as you’re going to sell this one.”
She had the door ajar as she spoke, and her voice was carried outside. Mannering saw a movement – possibly Larraby, but he thought he saw a splash of colour. The girl stared at him with a curious mixture of nervousness and defiance.
“I neither saw nor touched the first sword, and I’ve told you why your uncle brought this one to me,” Mannering said. “Don’t keep telling yourself that the truth is false. You’ll get all twisted up in your mind if you do.”
She pulled the door wider open and stepped out. Mannering saw Larraby, near the door, and Lorna just behind the manager, wearing a vivid red suit.
Sara Gentian did not appear to see Lorna, but walked with long, anxious – angry? – strides towards the door.
4
MYSTERY
“Hallo, darling,” Lorna said lightly. “Doesn’t she love you?”
“Not as much as I love you,” Mannering said. He put his hands at Lorna’s shoulders, shifted her to one side, said: “See you,” and hurried towards the foot of the winding staircase which led to the upper floors of this building, which was three centuries old. The stairs, twisting like a corkscrew, and without sufficient head clearance, made haste almost impossible. Mannering did the best he could. He strode across a storeroom and showroom set aside for the glittering elegance of Regency furniture, and reached the tiny window. On either side of this was a mirror, fixed so that he could see the street without being seen.
Sara Gentian was walking quickly towards New Bond Street. There was vigour as well as vitality in her movements; she took long, raking strides. Her hair bobbed up and down with every step. There was something about the way she held her head up which suggested not arrogance but anger.
A taxi passed the end of Hart Row; she hailed it, but it passed. She reached the corner, and turned as if to look towards Quinns. She was biting her underlip. Another taxi came along, and slowed down; the last Mannering saw of Sara was her slender leg drawing into the cab.
Mannering turned round from the window.
“I think she could get you into a lot of trouble,” Lorna said from the doorway. She came in, a tall, handsome woman, not statuesque but not slender in the Sara Gentian way. The red suit set off her colouring, the still dark hair and almost olive complexion, to perfection. She looked lovely. The suit jacket had a trim mink collar and trim mink cuffs – she could not have been better turned out if she had stepped straight out of Dior or Balmain.
“I think she’s in a lot of trouble already,” Mannering countered.
“Seriously, Sir Galahad?”
Mannering left the window, went up to his wife, slid his arms round her, and gave her a hug.
“I daren’t kiss you,” he said. “That make-up wasn’t meant for the likes of me. Where are you going?”
“I’m going to have tea with Topsy Lewis,” Lorna announced, “and I might need some money.”
“Doesn’t sound like tea, it sounds more like a shop
ping spree. How much?”
“Just be generous, darling.”
Mannering took out his wallet, which was nearly empty, put it back, and said: “We’ll ask Josh for some.” They went downstairs, holding hands, Lorna a step in front of Mannering; after twenty years of married life they could still behave like this, and take it for granted that they would. “Josh,” Mannering called, “can you find thirty or forty pounds in change? Mrs Mannering wants to cash a cheque.”
“Mean brute,” Lorna complained.
“Of course,” replied Larraby. “Will forty be enough, Mrs Mannering?”
“I think so,” Lorna said. “As I’m spending my own money.” She led the way into the office, but stopped before Mannering could follow, as if the vision of the sword blinded her. The light was different here, and picked out much of the glistening beauty. Mannering actually heard Lorna’s intake of breath. At last, she moved towards it, very slowly; without looking round, she said: “This could get you into a lot of trouble, too.”
“It’s getting someone into trouble already,” Mannering agreed. “Cup of tea, sweet? – oh, no, you’re on the way to a slap up affair.” He contemplated the sword. “Striking, isn’t it?”
“It—” Lorna hesitated, searching for the right word, looked round at him, then back at the sword and decided: “It’s barbaric.”
“Precisely the right description,” agreed Mannering. “Barbaric.”
“Did she want to sell it to you?”
“If I told you all that Sara Gentian wanted I would make you late for tea and spending,” Mannering said. “I’ll tell you the whole story tonight.”
Lorna looked at him, half frowning; then her face cleared. As Larraby came into the office with the money in five and one pound notes, she said: “I was going to warn you not to get too deeply involved, but it would be a waste of breath, wouldn’t it? I’ll be back soon after six. Try to be home.”
She touched his hand, turned, and hurried out; she seemed to take some of the brightness of the office with her, but the jewelled sword glowed and sparkled. Larraby stood at the doorway, looking at it. One of the younger assistants came and looked over his shoulder; he moistened his lips. This was David Levinson, who had been working as an apprentice at Quinns for a little over a year. He had many qualifications, apart from an inborn love of old, rare, and beautiful objects; he had a social background which gained him entrée anywhere, and he knew several languages. Now he looked rather young and awestruck. He was not particularly massive or stocky, but had a lot of wiry strength.
“Not bad, David,” Mannering remarked.
“Er—not bad at all,” Levinson gulped.
“Do you know Sara Gentian?”
“I’ve met her at the odd party, but I can’t pretend that I know her.”
“Does she know you?”
“Shouldn’t think she could tell me from a dozen others.”
“Then you’re just the man we need. I think she shares a mews flat with a girlfriend. Check on that, will you, and then find out what you can about her, who are her real friends, how rich or poor she is, what her reputation is like.”
Levinson’s eyes were already bright.
“Shall I start right away?”
“I can’t understand why you haven’t started already.”
Levinson laughed, spun round, and seized a telephone directory from Larraby’s desk.
The other assistant then on duty, a smaller but rather older man with a pronounced limp, from childhood poliomyelitis, glanced at the front door as some people reached the window and started to talk. The second assistant, Morris Gadby, was dark and pale, with a very high forehead; he looked like an intellectual who had stepped out of the pages of Balzac.
“Are we keeping that here?” inquired Larraby.
“Yes,” said Mannering, “we’ll tuck it away down in the strongroom when I’ve finished looking at it. Better call the insurance office and tell them that it’s here, they like to know about the expensive items. When you’ve finished, come in with me, will you?” He turned towards the door, and added: “No one followed the girl away from here, although I half expected her to have company.”
“It’s a puzzling affair, sir, isn’t it?”
“Puzzling?” echoed Mannering.
“Yes, it’s certainly puzzling,” he went on five minutes later, when Larraby was in the office, with the door firmly closed behind him. He held the sword in his hands while examining it closely beneath the lamp which was now pulled down as far as it would come. The brightness of the scintillas actually hurt the eye. Larraby screwed a glass up into his right eye, and drew closer. “Josh,” Mannering confided, after a minute of absolute silence. “It is real.”
“I’m sure there isn’t any doubt about it, sir – there is no possibility of a fake. That is one thing established.”
“The girl wanted it back at Gentian House so badly that I thought there might be a special reason – that it might be a copy which she wanted to put back before I’d discovered the deception. Perhaps she really feels that if it isn’t put back soon it never will be. I don’t think she told me everything, by a long way.” Mannering talked as he placed the sword into Larraby’s hands and picked up the leather sheath. This was an outer covering, used only for carrying or storing the weapon. Made of calf leather, it was pliable, and rather like a slender golf club bag, with a cap which fitted over the head of the hilt. Larraby pushed the sword into its scabbard, then slowly into this sheath, and the brilliance gradually faded.
Mannering fastened the cap. “It fits pretty snugly,” he observed. “The outer sheath is fairly new, I would say – made in the last ten or twelve years, I think.”
“Didn’t she give any real reason why she was so anxious to get the sword back?” Larraby asked.
“Only sentimental reasons.”
“May I ask why Lord Gentian brought it here?” asked Larraby.
Mannering explained as he took the sword out again, and examined every inch of it, pressing it with his fingernails, looking and feeling for any kind of trick hiding place. He found nothing; the sword seemed solid. He examined the sheath as closely, pushing a long cane into it and moving it round and round inside, to make sure that nothing was inside the sheath.
“Still a puzzle,” he said, musingly. “Let’s put it away, Josh.”
They locked the office door, then removed two books from a shelf behind the desk – the first step necessary to open the strongroom, which was electronically controlled. Very few people could open it; and Mannering did not think it could be opened except by someone who knew the secrets of its control. Soon, boards in a corner of the floor slid apart – the centuries-old floor had been cunningly adapted – and revealed a narrow flight of cement steps. Light came on automatically. Mannering went down, leaving Larraby upstairs in the office.
He had a strange feeling, which would not leave him; that he was holding danger in his hands.
Lorna had felt it, too, and Larraby had been uneasy almost from the moment that he had seen the sword. Call it premonition, call it excess of caution, call it foolishness – whatever the explanation, the fact remained that he wished the sword was not here.
He opened one of ten safes standing against the wall, using a key and two electronic control switches. There was ample room inside for the Mogul Sword of Victory. He placed it inside, stood back for a moment, closed the door and set the controls again. He was still uneasy; it was almost as if he expected to run into trouble when he reached the top of the steps.
Larraby, studying the leather-bound book, sat at Mannering’s desk. His hair looked like a cluster of fresh fallen snow. He was reading quite small print without glasses, and was very intent. He glanced up, and jumped to his feet.
“I didn’t hear you coming, sir.”
“Reading all about the sword’
s history?” asked Mannering. He watched as Larraby pushed the books back into position, and as the opening to the strongroom closed. There was a faint click before the room became quite normal again, looking as if it had not been disturbed for years.
“I recollect hearing more about the swords than it gives us in the book,” Larraby said. “I can’t remember very clearly. I think there was some kind of scandal about them, when I was very young. When Lord Gentian was young, too. Do you remember reading about it?”
“No. Find out what you can, will you?”
“I will indeed. I’ve been thinking over what you told me, sir. This warning telephone call was quite remarkable, wasn’t it – with this talk about a matter of life and death.”
“Very remarkable,” Mannering agreed.
“Could Lord Gentian have put him up to that?” suggested Larraby. When Mannering didn’t answer, the manager went on: “Lord Gentian obviously wanted to get the sword away from his house tonight, and Miss Gentian was as anxious to get it back. There must be special significance in that.”
“Not a doubt,” Mannering agreed.
“May I ask you, sir, whether you are more inclined to believe his lordship or his lordship’s niece?”
“I’d like to believe ‘em both,” Mannering said. “But there isn’t much more we can do now, Josh. Let’s forget it until we hear from David.”
It was not so easy to forget. First the old man, then the lovely girl, their conflicting stories, the tensions and fears – and his own and Larraby’s disquiet. Mannering remembered Lorna’s quick reaction – she would soon be uneasy if she let herself go. He wondered what she was buying, and what she had really thought of Sara Gentian.
