by John Creasey
He saw the man, with the raised knife glinting.
“John!” screamed Lorna.
The man lunged.
Mannering knew that he couldn’t avoid him, could only lessen the viciousness of the blow. He jumped forward. The knife swept down, and cut into his coat sleeve with a slicing movement; the sharp pain hardly counted. He tried to close with the man, who realised that he’d lost his first chance, and swerved to one side, knife raised again. He slashed.
Lorna was in the way.
“Jo—” began Lorna, and then her voice died away.
Mannering could see her face, pallor in the darkness, could even see the glitter in her eyes. She swayed. The man with the knife was racing along the emptiness of Green Street, and Mannering let him go, having no possible choice. Mannering didn’t speak, but moved to Lorna. She fell against him, a dead weight.
He felt an awful fear.
“Lorna, where is it?” he heard himself say. “Where did he hurt you?”
She didn’t answer.
“Where is it?” he asked savagely, but it was with the savagery of his own helplessness. He raised his voice: “Help!” he shouted. “Police, police!” Now, Lorna was leaning against him, and his hands were exploring desperately, fearfully. There was no blood at her back, none at her neck, none on her arms.
There was blood at her breast.
“Police, police!” he shouted.
She was still a dead weight against him, and would fall if he moved. He did not know what to do; just felt distraught. The suddenness of it, the fact that she had been cut down and might be dead.
“Fetch the police!” he cried desperately, but he wanted a doctor, and he wanted to be able to pad whatever wound there was. The numbness of the shock vanished as a man in a small car drew up, and got out nervously. “Get to a telephone, doctor wanted urgently!” Mannering cried, and the words nearly choked him.
Then he found the wound, on Lorna’s left side.
Three-quarters of an hour afterwards he walked out of the hospital in Tite Street, moving stiffly, looking straight ahead at the car park with a few cars dotted about. His own Rolls-Bentley wasn’t there, for he’d come with an ambulance.
They were operating, and there wasn’t a thing he could do. There was hardly a thing he could feel.
A car came along, swung round into the hospital car park, and drew up at the foot of the steps. A man jumped out, vivid in the light from the main entrance. He was tall, brisk-moving, dressed in pale grey. He saw Mannering and stopped. Mannering looked at him, knew who it was and, without a change of expression, went to meet him.
This was Superintendent Bristow, of New Scotland Yard.
Chapter Nine
Bristow of the Yard
That’s right, Mannering said savagely. She’s in the theatre now. There isn’t a man alive who can tell me whether she’ll ever come round. That’s how bad it is. An hour ago I was telling myself there wasn’t a thing I could do in this job, and now—” He broke off, swung round, and splashed whisky into a glass. “Another?” he barked.
“Mine’ll do, thanks.” Bristow was very quiet.
Mannering tossed his head back, the drink down.
“As it is now,” he went on as if he hadn’t paused, “I’ll live it and sleep it. Waking and sleeping, dreaming, thinking, eating and walking, I’ll be after them. This is my case. I don’t give a damn what you and every addle-pated ape of a policeman at the Yard says.”
“See what you mean,” said Bristow mildly.
Mannering said thinly, chokingly. “And you can see—” He broke off again. He looked at his half-empty glass for several seconds, then put it down with great care. As carefully, he lit a cigarette. All this time, his expression was unchanging; had a hardness but lacked the savagery he had shown a few minutes before. The glitter had gone out of his eyes, too, and hardness replaced it. His voice had changed, was flat and harsh. “All right, Bill. Sorry. What I’m saying is that I’m going after them with all I’ve got. You are, too. Never was a better job to work together.”
Bristow was looking at him steadily.
“Yes,” he said. “And no. There have been times when I’ve wished you in Timbuctoo, anywhere off a case. This one—” He shrugged. He had square shoulders, and was nicely tailored. He had rather a pale face because these days he spent most of his time in the office. His eyes were pale grey. His features were good, but seemed to lack character; in fact, he didn’t. His small, close-clipped moustache would have been iron grey like his smoothly brushed hair, but for the dark stain of nicotine at the centre, paling towards the corners of his lips. “What I mean, John, is that I almost wish they’d got you, too, instead of just your sleeve. Not badly; only enough to make you rest up until you’d got over the bad stage. Because in this mood, you’ll probably get yourself killed. That won’t help Lorna.”
Mannering said: “Straight from the shoulder, eh?”
“That’s right.”
“Bill,” Mannering said, “I saw those two men on the road near Orme. That’s the only possible reason for an attack. I know them both. So whatever I do, they’re after me. If I sit back and wait for it, they’ll have an easier job.”
“Don’t intend to argue,” Bristow said. “When you telephoned, you asked me to tell Aylmer, down at Orme. I did that, and he’s sending a man to watch Joanna Woburn. She should be all right.”
There was another pause, before Mannering said: “Under police protection, she ‘should’ be all right. Touching faith!” Mannering drew at his cigarette and stubbed it out, half-smoked. He sipped his whisky again, then put it down. He looked at the telephone, and although he had been warned that hours would pass before he could hope for news, the longing for it was in his eyes. “Know anything about this, Bill?” he asked abruptly.
Bristow tapped the side of his nose.
“Only what Aylmer told me. I’d warned him that you knew George Merrow, and that you didn’t always behave yourself, but that doesn’t matter now. What do you know? And if you hold anything back—”
“Nothing I knew helped.” Mannering told the Yard man about the story of a heavy weight on Jimmy Garfield’s conscience for twenty years, and went on: “Garfield knew that a crisis was coming, but didn’t expect it so soon. It came as soon as they got George Merrow out of the way. Merrow’s the one man who might be able to tell us something. And Merrow—”
“John,” Bristow interrupted, “I can’t stop you from trying to find who did it. I don’t even know that I want to. I only say that you’ll be crazy if you start while you’re in this mood. You’re half crazy with anger and you’re terrified in case Lorna should die. Plan what you like, say what you like, rage as much as you like, but don’t do anything yet. Cool off.”
The telephone bell rang.
Mannering, quite motionless just before the first sound, went to it like a bullet. He had the receiver off the platform as Bristow was turning round. Yet with the earpiece close to his head, he hesitated. Then he said slowly: “This is John Mannering.”
He paused, and relaxed. He pulled up a chair, and ropped on to it. “Yes, I’ll hold on,” he said, and looked across at Bristow. “It’s a call from Orme.” He waited without speaking, but fidgeting in his chair. He read Bristow’s attitude correctly; it was a kind of exasperated commiseration. He knew that all that Bristow said was true, the advice was sound, but –
“Hallo, is that Mr. Mannering?”
“Yes, speaking.”
“Miss Woburn would like a word with you, sir,” a man said. “Hold on a moment, please.”
There was another pause. In it, Mannering pictured the great house, with its grace, its spaciousness and its beauty. He could see the pictures, the tapestries, the suits of armour, the breastplates, the chain mail, the pikes and the huge swords which looked too massive and too heavy
for a man to wield.
“Mr. Mannering,” Joanna Woburn said, “I just felt that I had to telephone you. I—I’ve heard about what happened. Is—is there any news of your wife?”
“No, not yet,” Mannering said, and found it easier to speak than he had expected. “It’ll be several hours before I hear. Everything all right down there?”
“Oh, yes, it will be now the police are watching.”
Mannering said: “Don’t take a thing for granted, Miss Woburn. Watch what you do, where you go, whom you meet. Don’t go anywhere alone, don’t evade the police, don’t be fooled by false messages. You’ve seen what these people are prepared to do.”
“I’ll be careful,” she said. “I only wish I could help.”
“Don’t start blaming yourself,” Mannering said sharply. She had lifted him out of himself, although he didn’t realise it then. “Take care, and—” He paused.
After a moment she said: “Yes?”
“I think it would be a good idea if we had a talk about George Merrow,” Mannering said slowly. “Tomorrow, some time. Soon, anyhow.”
“Why about Mr. Merrow?”
“Would Jimmy Garfield confide in him?”
Joanna confessed: “I just don’t know, I’d only be guessing if I said one way or the other.” She sounded flat and miserable; and there was nothing surprising about that. “I do hope that—”
She just couldn’t finish.
Mannering put the receiver back; and automatically lit another cigarette. He filled in the outline which Bristow had already heard. He felt less restless, and saw Bristow and his arguments more clearly.
He could drink himself into forgetfulness and it wouldn’t help. He could take some wild chance that would bring another attack, and if Lorna did recover –
He had to accept the possibility that she might not.
He moved from spot to spot, aware of Bristow’s steady gaze, and saying nothing. Tension came into the room, and both men were sharply aware of it.
Bristow broke the silence.
“All right, John,” he said. “You’re going to feel like this for a long way. Hot and cold. Now I’m going to tell you what I’m going to do. One of the best men I’ve got will be on your tail every minute from now on. If you slip him, it will be your own fault, and I shan’t mourn so much at your funeral. Now for one or two general principles.” He gave a quick, unamused smile. “We know they are killers. We know that they plan very carefully. We know that they’re daring. We know that they wanted that box of Garfield’s desperately enough to kill, plan and take big risks. I don’t know of anyone running loose at the moment who fits all those categories, which means that we’re probably up against someone we’ve never come across before. They’ll have new tricks, new hide-outs, possibly new methods. That’s going to make it tough. They want to be able to move about freely, or it wouldn’t matter so much to them that they’d been seen. Whatever they’re doing isn’t finished yet—if it were, they’d almost certainly have made plans to get out of the country as soon as this job was over.” Bristow lit a cigarette from the stub of the one he was smoking, and when it was drawing smoothly, went on in the same level voice: “So when we say we don’t know a thing about these people, we actually know a lot. There are some other things you may have forgotten about. We’ve got the big black Packard, and we’re working on that. We know that this Woburn woman fired a shot at a small car, and scored a hit, so somewhere or other there’s a little car with a bullet mark in the back. We have the descriptions of the men, which you can give, and while they may not be all that detailed they’ll help.” He paused again, and then flung out: “Ever taken the trouble to estimate the number of policemen in this country?”
He looked so aggressive that it cracked Mannering’s stiffness.
“No, Bill.”
“It runs into a hundred thousand odd. Every one of them is getting ready to go for these people. Don’t run away with the idea that if you can’t catch ’em, no one can. Now and again, on a highly specialised job, you can pull out that little extra that we haven’t got. I’m not sure you can on this. And,” added Bristow, moving closer and compelling Mannering to look straight into his eyes, “if that isn’t enough, I don’t want you dead. Will you help us to keep an eye on you?”
Mannering said: “All right, Bill. Thanks.” He was much more himself, and a hint of a smile played at his lips. “Impressive tally you’ve made, and there’s only one thing you’ve missed.”
“What’s that?” Bristow looked taken aback.
“Whatever was in that box, it wasn’t miniatures; at least, not only miniatures,” Mannering asserted. “I’ve been checking. I may have missed a few rare collections, but the box was about twelve inches by fourteen, according to Miss Woburn, and quite flat. Miniatures of any value wouldn’t be packed without protection, so there isn’t a big collection. The biggest one in the world wouldn’t be valuable enough to justify what’s happened.”
Bristow rubbed his nose. “See what I mean by your specialised knowledge?”
“There may be half a dozen collections worth a fortune, but not money enough to justify the risks these people take,” Mannering went on, as if he wanted to emphasise that reasoning for his own benefit as well as Bristow’s. “I suppose it’s arguable that Garfield’s whole fortune would be worth the gamble—any idea how much he’s actually worth?”
“No.” Bristow shrugged. “Millions.”
“Two or twenty?” Mannering asked. “That’s something to find out. Do we know whom he’ll leave it to, who would have the handling of it when he’s dead? He’s seventy now. Would a man of seventy be careless enough to leave no will? Any will found?”
“None reported yet,” Bristow said. “What do you know about Garfield?”
“Not much. He used to be a customer of mine, but stopped buying from me about ten years ago. He had an accident, and injured his spine. When he recovered enough to be wheeled about, he went to Brook House, which he’d bought a year before but never lived in. He took in a big staff, mostly local people; the only one of his old servants was his butler, Gedde. He turned the place into a museum, and seldom left it. He didn’t ever come to London, just shut himself up with his hoard.”
Bristow asked: “D’you think he has a hoard of stolen goods?”
“I just don’t know,” Mannering said evenly.
“I’m going to find out,” Bristow announced.
“Take a look at other aspects of the set-up,” urged Mannering. He wasn’t anything like so restless now that his mind was working and probing. “A seventy-year-old man living in a house fit for the Middle Ages, one butler, a housekeeper and several local servants, and a nephew who appeared out of the blue about two months ago—just before Joanna Woburn arrived, I gather. Finally, Joanna herself. There’s so much to work on that there’s ample room for us both, Bill, whether Jimmy Garfield cut himself off from reputable dealers because of stolen goods or not.”
Bristow said slowly: “That sounds more like you. But don’t have a relapse.” He hesitated. “I must get back to the Yard, there’s another job needing a lot of attention. Have you told your friends the Plenders about this yet?”
“They’re in Italy.”
“Larraby?”
“He flew over to Paris for a sale for me, and it’ll last a week.”
“Not a man with many close friends, are you?” Bristow remarked. “I don’t think you’re the right man to be here on your own. Anyone you can think of to call on?”
“No wet-nurse, thanks,” Mannering said, and unexpectedly clapped Bristow on the shoulder. “Sometimes I think you’re a better man than the Yard deserves! Thanks.”
Bristow shrugged.
He went out, and Mannering watched him from the front door. Bristow’s grey head vanished beneath a turn in the stairs. His footsteps sounded cle
arly, gradually getting quieter. Soon, they echoed from the hall, and a moment afterwards the front door opened and closed.
Mannering turned back into the flat.
As he closed the door, he knew exactly what Bristow meant. Its emptiness seemed to strike at him. Fear of bad news was like the engulfing wave of a boisterous sea. He fought against the mood and beat it back, but knew that it would never be faraway.
Now, he had to wait.
He looked at the telephone in his study, then pulled up an armchair and sat down. In his mind’s eye there was a picture of white-coated surgeons and white-clad nurses, the bright light over Lorna, the flashing of steel, the quiet.
And somewhere in the sprawling mass of London was the man who had struck her down, and those whom he served.
Chapter Ten
Morning
Lucien Seale slept with his left hand above his head, his right beneath the bedclothes. He lay slightly on his left side, giving him freedom of movement. He appeared to sleep very soundly but a faint click at the door made him open his eyes. Apart from that, he didn’t move; but he could see the door.
Someone tapped.
Seale closed his eyes, but looked through his lashes. Like that, he looked even more unreal, like a mummy into which a kind of life had been breathed. His hair was greying and untidy, that was the only human look about him. His nostrils were distended. The light falling upon his face showed some of the tiny marks which were almost inseparable from skin grafting.
The tap came again, more loudly.
He opened his eyes wide, but didn’t sit up. A watch ticked at the bedside table. He looked at the handle of the door, and listened intently, hearing only distant sounds, and nothing from the door.
Then whoever was out there in the passage turned and walked away.
Seale relaxed.
He sat up in bed, in a pair of washed-out pyjamas which had once been bright blue. He rubbed his eyes, and then stretched out for the watch; it was half-past seven. He got out of bed. He moved freely enough, it was the deliberation which touched the movements with a kind of artificiality. At the window, he stared into the front garden, saw two cyclists and a bus pass, the morning sun making the bus’s red paint look like fresh blood. Then Seale looked across the green quiet of the Heath.
