by John Creasey
Then the Daimler had crashed over the cliff. “And the driver?” Mannering asked Bristow.
“He had too good a start for our man to catch him I’m afraid.”
“Any description?”
Bristow rubbed his chin. “You can’t get much of a description of a running man fifty yards ahead on a dark night, but our chap got the impression – only an impression, mind – that he was darkhaired, and doubled back to the Royal.”
“The Royal? That’s interesting.”
“Are you insinuating …” began Bunny Firth with dignity.
“Not at all,” cut in Bristow heartily. “But we can still think what we like. Now Mr Firth I must ask you to allow me every facility for finding out what happened to the chauffeur, and how the Daimler came to be driven by a different man.”
That was easy.
Dell’s chauffeur arrived, a distressed and harassed man, with a lump on the back of his head and rope-chafed wrists. Shortly after leaving Dacres he had been stopped by a man standing in the middle of the road. Another man – yes, he was sure there were two – had struck him from behind. He had come round to find himself bound and gagged, but neither job had been done well, and he had managed to get free and walk back. He could give no description of the man who had held him up, except that he was dark-haired.
It was curious, said Kay, that he had seen the hair but not the face. Bristow made no comment about this, and began questioning the staff. It appeared that Firth was the only one with an incomplete alibi.
He had been out for a walk in the grounds, he said, and there was ample evidence that this was a nightly practice. At Bristow’s continual probings, however, Bunny grew almost incoherent; he had told no one about Mannering’s coming visit, he had met no one in the grounds. His distress was evident, but he would not give way. Mannering was not surprised when Bristow abruptly stopped questioning him, and went to the telephone.
Then, with ostentatious deliberation, he beckoned to Kay. “Ask your men to see Mrs Kingham and find out where she has been all the evening.”
Bunny gasped: “No—no! You can’t—”
“What can’t I do?” growled Bristow. “Was she in the grounds with you?”
Firth gasped: “Yes, we went round together, but she didn’t know Mannering was coming, I swear—”
Bristow turned to Kay.
“Go and get Mrs Kingham, will you? Mr Firth, you’ll have to come with me.”
There being nothing more he could do Mannering walked back to the hotel. He was met by Lorna, distraught, angry, more than a little frightened. There had been a burglary. She had been threatened by a dark man with a gun. (“Always a dark man,” murmured Mannering.) He had been masked. The long and short of it was that the code numbers had gone.
Mannering rang up the police station at once. In a very short time they discovered that none of the Dells could have been the driver of the Daimler; all of the dark-haired members of the family could have taken the code numbers from Lorna.
“We’ll have to be satisfied for tonight,” Mannering said, “and I don’t mind admitting that I’m tired.” He was in the bedroom talking to Jeff and Lorna over a pot of tea which the amiable night porter had sent up to them.
“I can believe Charles put one across the Old Man, but Bunny – no, it’s nonsense,” Jeff reiterated for the tenth time.
“If it didn’t sound like nonsense, no thief or murderer would get away,” pointed out Mannering. “Someone – basking in an aura of innocence – killed Kingham and Clive, attacked Carol, and planned to send me over the cliff.”
“But why?” asked Lorna.
“I think I know why,” murmured Mannering.
They looked at him questioningly.
“It’s pretty obvious. There can’t be much doubt now. Someone stole the collection. The murderer is looking for that collection. He thinks Kingham had it. Or if you must have an alternative,” went on Mannering, “the murderer has the collection and wants to make sure that no one else knows about it. Killing is a defensive measure.”
“I suppose you’re right,” said Jeff, glumly.
“Which of your family would gloat over jewels, not caring much whether no one else saw them?” asked Mannering.
Jeff considered.
“I wouldn’t say that any of them, except the Old Man, fitted into that description.” He brooded a minute and then burst out: “I don’t care a damn about being a suspect myself, what I do care about is Bunny. Oh, well, I suppose I’d better try to get some sleep.”
Mannering went to bed soon afterwards. Lorna said little, hoping that he would get to sleep quickly. A vain hope.
The train of thought started almost as soon as his head touched the pillow, touched off by the fact that the dark-haired man who had held up the chauffeur had come to the Royal.
It was strange, when you thought of it, how very significant the hotel had become.
Kingham had forced entry without being noticed. His own room had been broken into with far too little trouble, as, in fact, had the thirty or forty rooms entered by Diver.
Had the locks been picked, or had the doors been opened with a master-key?
Jeff Dell had ‘borrowed’ a master-key from one of the maids, apparently it was easy enough. But master-keys should not be left about like that, there should be only one or two in the hands of the manager—
The manager—
Mannering sat bolt upright, and startled Lorna into wakefulness. “What is it, darling?”
“I have a sudden, overpowering desire to see Lloyd,” declared Mannering, getting out of bed, “or rather,” he added to himself, “of opening the hotel safe.”
He began to dress while Lorna watched him for a moment in silence.
“If you’re planning what I think you’re planning, you ought to tell Bristow,” she said at last.
“No. Not yet. There’s too much at stake. Things are not what they seem.”
“Darling,” said Lorna, with wifely candour, “if Bristow were to say that, you would laugh at him, and if Kay were to say it, you would call him a damned fool.”
But, surprisingly, Mannering was serious.
“At present Charles is the thief, Charles the murderer, Charles the villainous dark-haired man. It’s becoming much too obvious, overriding all other leads. Montagu Dell for one. I wish you had seen him when he opened those trays and found the jewels gone. The shock did worse than kill him, it took every spark of vitality out of him. If it was done by one of his sons it was diabolic, if it was done by someone outside the family, Dell must be told before he dies.”
After a long pause, Lorna said: “You’d better hurry.”
He leaned over her, kissed her, and went out.
As he approached the far end of the passage he took a dark silk scarf from his pocket and held it loosely in his right hand.
There was a bright light over the grey head of Sam the Porter, who was sitting back in his chair, asleep.
Mannering tied the scarf about his face, then pulled a cap low over his forehead. He walked quietly past Sam, who did not stir.
Lloyd’s office was a little way away from the reception desk. The door was locked. Mannering took the ‘penknife’ from his pocket and unlocked it. He glanced over his shoulder at Sam, who shifted from one side of his chair to the other. Mannering waited until he had settled down again, then stepped into the dark office.
He closed the door gently behind him. He knew that the safe was in a corner, a heavy-looking Landon. It was an old model, with a visible lock, and should not give much difficulty.
He examined it closely.
Soon he began to work. The six blades of the knife came into use one after another. His finger moved swiftly as he worked, intent on his task but with his ears strained to catch the slightest sound of approach.
He stopped abruptly, straightened up, and listened.
There were voices in the hall.
He stepped quickly behind a filing cabinet, and watched the door
. If it opened he would sink down on his knees, there was a fair chance of avoiding being seen, but his heart was thumping. The voices grew louder. Then came a hearty: “Goodnight!” and a quieter “Goodnight, sir,” Sam, obviously to a late guest. Footsteps sounded, then faded. A chair creaked.
Mannering went back to the safe. It was a pity that Sam was awake. If he looked towards the door he might see a glow of light. If he did that, he would certainly come over to investigate.
Mannering’s fingers flew. There were three locks which worked on an interlocking principle, and one was unfastened. He had been here for twenty minutes. He would not be long now—
The second lock shot back.
He straightened up, with a hand at his back, stiff from stooping. There was no sound from the hall, and his fear of immediate danger lessened. He returned to his task, using the longest of the tools. Beneath the mask his face was tense, and dripping with sweat. If he failed now it would take him another hour.
There was a sharp click!
He turned the handle and pulled the heavy door open.
He saw a couple of money bags and a pile of treasury notes on a shelf, and these he set aside. Jewels with the owners’ names and addresses were there, left in Lloyd’s custody. None of them interested him. Then he found the account books and papers connected with the Royal’s business, and he set them aside also.
The only thing he had not examined, after five minutes searching was a black metal deed box. It was locked, and of a make which would take some time to force. He took it to the desk, so that he could step behind the door in an emergency, and worked on it. He could hear Sam snoring faintly; otherwise quiet reigned. He opened the deed box at last and found it filled with papers, and jewel cases. The jewels were ‘hot’, recently stolen from a London house, and damning evidence.
Mannering unfolded the top papers and found that they were receipts, signed by Montagu Dell, made out to Kingham; these must be the receipts which Jeff Dell had mentioned, the incriminating documents on which Kingham had depended so much. He thrust them into his pocket and looked through the other documents. None was of great interest, until he found a copy of a private agreement between David Lloyd and William Kingham.
Lloyd was a partner in Kingham’s business.
Then Mannering came across letters, love letters, in a flamboyant hand on scented paper, addressed to Dave, signed, ‘Lucy’. Some were in envelopes, and the postmarks gave him the dates; these letters had been coming to Lloyd for three years, the agreement with Kingham was five years old.
“I don’t think I need much more,” murmured Mannering.
He put the papers and jewels back in the deed box, fastened but did not lock it, and then made for the door. It gave a slight squeak as he opened it. Sam was sunk deep in his chair. Mannering re-locked the door and walked softly past him, towards the stairs.
He reached the first floor landing, and now felt safe enough to put up a hand to pull down the scarf. Then, as he did so, the door of Mrs Kingham’s room opened and Lloyd, brisk, alert, but quite unsuspecting, came out.
Chapter Twenty-One
Lloyd
There was no time to draw back, Lloyd’s appearance had come with the shock of complete surprise. Mannering paused on the landing. Lloyd, too, stopped dead. His voice came sharply.
“Stay where you are!”
Mannering stood still.
Flight would be foolish, for Lloyd would give chase, and there would be little chance of getting to his room, unobserved. Lloyd probably had no idea that the deed box was his own, thinking he was merely apprehending a casual hotel thief. He did not lack courage, for he came on swiftly. In that light he looked quite handsome, his dark hair shining in the slanting light.
Mannering backed away, as if in alarm. Lloyd, full of confidence, following, when Mannering with a lightning movement, struck him full on the jaw, he was taken completely off his guard. Staggering sideways he went down with surprisingly little sound. Mannering dragged his unconscious body into a maid’s pantry, made him as comfortable as he could, and slipped out quickly.
Upstairs, Lorna was sitting motionless, waiting, as women have always waited for their men to return from dangerous missions. Her relief at seeing him was so evident, that he turned away guiltily.
“Is everything all right?”
“I knocked Lloyd cold. He didn’t recognise me. And he’s now sleeping the sleep of the unjust.”
Lorna said nothing.
“And I think we’ve got everything we want about that gentleman. An affaire with Lucy Kingham lasting for three years, an unofficial partnership with Kingham, Montagu Dell’s receipts, which Lucy doubtless took away from the curio shop, and some ‘hot’ jewels – it wasn’t a bad hour’s work.”
“What will you do with them?”
Mannering put an arm about her shoulder. “I shall send them anonymously to Bristow, or to make the job complete, to Kay. But not just yet.”
“I was afraid of that,” said Lorna.
Mannering said: “It’s getting far too exciting for me to hand it over now. You can’t expect it. Why, anything might happen!”
“John,” said Lorna, in a tone which meant that she had made up her mind, “I know one thing that isn’t going to, and that is the deed box staying here. It must go.”
“Well of course,” said Mannering, disarmingly. “Any suggestions?”
“Plenty. But I should think the neatest would be to get rid of it as quickly as possible by posting it somewhere.”
“Right. We’ll do that. There’s no need to lose our heads over it. Tomorrow morning will be soon enough, addressed to Y. Z. Smith, c/o G.P.O. Larmouth, and Bristow can be told all about it when the time comes.”
Very much against her will Lorna finally gave way to the box being locked in the wardrobe.
She lay sleepless for a long time, and then her voice whispered a little forlornly: “Awake, John?”
He opened one eye. “I am now.”
“Haven’t you proved what you wanted?”
“No. A Dell might be implicated.”
“Why are you so concerned about the Dells?”
“Someone has Montagu’s collection,” said Mannering. “If it’s a Dell, we must know which. Before, the case was strong against Charles, now it’s equally strong against Lloyd and Mrs Kingham. In fact it’s stronger, but – I don’t think we’ve reached the end of it yet.”
“Surely you’ve done enough.”
“In some ways too much,” Mannering said. “Someone thinks so or wouldn’t have planned to send me over the cliff. And I am still a possible suspect for the first murder. We must see it through.”
Lorna said, slowly: “You may be right.”
She was far from convinced, but after all, she was asleep first and he heard a clock strike three before he dropped off.
The curtains were drawn and the sun was shining before he woke. Mannering looked at the wardrobe.
“It’s still there,” said Lorna.
“What time did you wake up?”
“Only ten minutes ago.” Lorna poured out the morning tea, without speaking of the deed box again, but both were vividly aware of it. Then Mannering, coming back from a cold bath and feeling thoroughly refreshed, had an idea. It had, he thought, the brilliance of simplicity. First taking out the incriminating evidence, he nipped along with the deed box under his dressing-gown to the nearest bathroom. The bath was large but not built-in and he was able to slide it underneath, close to the wall.
Before breakfast he went out, bought a stiff envelope, put in the papers and jewels and posted them to Mr Y. Z. Smith, c/o G.P.O. Larmouth.
Lorna was dressed and waiting when he got back, relieved now that the stuff was out of the room.
It was after ten o’clock before they got down to breakfast. The room was nearly empty, but Jeff Dell was there, lingering over his last cup of coffee. In a talkative mood, he told them he was about to call at Dacres for the latest health bulletin, after which he
proposed to take Carol out to lunch. It was fairly obvious, as he fixed his eyes self-consciously on the marmalade jar, which of these two engagements was the more important to him.
“I think the police are watching Carol,” he added. His voice was light but there was an underlying note of anxiety in it, impossible to miss. “It sounds crazy, but I think they might start suspecting her. Do you happen to know what the position is?”
“I shouldn’t worry too much,” said Mannering soothingly. “How’s the family?”
“In secret session again,” said Jeff, smiling. “They’ve heard about Bunny. First they united to save me, and now they’re uniting to save Bunny. Odd things, families. Well, it doesn’t seem as if I’m going to learn much more from you, I’ll leave you to your toast and marmalade.” Lorna looked straight at Mannering and, when Jeff had gone out, asked quietly:
“He’s unexpectedly cheerful. What did he want to know?”
“That’s the question,” said Mannering. “He’s the only one of the sons who could place those jewels, you know. I don’t think he did murder, but he might have. And he and Carol together might conceivably have done away with Kingham. By now, I expect Bristow and Kay are busy on that possibility. There are far too many of them.”
“I wonder why they released Mrs Kingham?”
“Probably to watch her,” said Mannering. “I doubt whether it is Carol being followed by the police. She went to work with Mrs K, who is certainly being shadowed. Whether Jeff really thinks it’s Carol they’re after or whether he just wanted to pump us, I don’t know.”
It was another bright, crisp morning, and they walked to the cliffs. Returning, pleasantly tired, they met Lloyd in the hall. He greeted them with a bright smile, one jaw slightly swollen.
‘’I suppose you’ve no idea when everything will be finished, Mr Mannering?”
“Meaning the investigations?”
“Indeed yes. The police are behaving in their usual obscure manner,” he went on chattily.
“First Mr Geoffrey Dell was arrested, then released. They questioned Mrs Kingham last night, for some absurd reason. They detained Mr Firth, and let him go. It makes no sense to me, and I should say, none to them.”
