by John Creasey
He had to file three edges.
The lock didn’t turn when he tried it again; he touched the key with the file again, and put it back.
It opened.
He saw the bags with the day’s takings, the cash boxes, the account books; and none of this mattered; he put all of it aside. He found a large envelope which had no marking on the outside; it wasn’t sealed. He took out the contents.
There were two copies of the plan of the roof of Brook House. Several of the chimney stacks were marked, including one serving Joanna’s room, one the library; and under that was a note: ‘Strong-room through here’. He studied them quickly, and felt quite sure what they implied. Someone had been planning a burglary on a large scale at the house, had studied it closely and decided that the only way in was through the chimneys.
Liddicombe would have a job to get out of this. Mannering didn’t put the envelope back at once, but glanced through other papers with the plans. There were notes about Merrow, Joanna Woburn, Gedde and Garfield; notes about Mrs. Baddelow; the half-days of the servants; the habits and customs of the residents, the staff, all the day’s routine. Whoever had studied Brook House had meant to make quite sure that he knew everything.
Only one other document interested Mannering. It was a death certificate of a man named Holden, dated just over ten years ago.
Mannering studied it, shrugged, then put it back, with all the oddments he had taken out of the safe, closed and locked the door. No one would know that it had been open. The next thing to do was to tell Aymer that it would be worth looking into the safe.
Should he tell Aylmer?
He could worry about that later; first, he had to get away.
The dog was growling, deep in its throat; if it could have barked it could have brought the house down. Mannering actually stooped down to pat its head, then went to the door.
He opened it.
He heard someone coming down the stairs.
As Mannering opened the door, he put out the torch; so there was no light. He made no sound, and in that moment the dog was also silent. Whoever came down did not stop. He might not be coming into the office, might not have been disturbed, it could be a routine check.
Nonsense!
The footsteps drew nearer.
Mannering drew back into the room. He pulled the door to, but didn’t latch it; a clicking latch would give all the warning the man wanted. The danger now was from the dog; it had gone strangely quiet, as if it had also heard someone else.
He yelped!
The door opened.
Mannering was behind it; the handle actually pushed into his padded stomach. Light flashed on, flooding the room, showing the huge Alsatian on the floor, the safe which looked untouched, the desk and drawing-board.
“Jumbo!” Jeff Liddicombe cried, and darted towards the dog. He was wearing pyjamas, red and white stripes, and he looked huge. “What the hell—”
Mannering stepped from behind the door, for as easy a job as he was ever likely to have. He rapped Liddicombe on the back of the neck with the side of his hand, and as the innkeeper started up, arms raised convulsively, Mannering took his right wrist and thrust his arm up and behind him in a hammerlock.
“Don’t move, don’t shout,” he breathed.
Liddicombe tried desperately to turn round; but he couldn’t see who it was. He back heeled, and Mannering jerked his arm up sharply; he gasped with the pain, and went still.
Mannering said: “Now we’ll talk. Who’d you work for?”
Liddicombe was gasping for breath.
Mannering pushed the arm a fraction further. “Who do you work for?”
“Let go—my arm!”
“I’ll break it if you don’t answer. Who d’you work for?”
Liddicombe’s breathing was coming in short, sharp gasps. The dog was whining while trying desperately to get out of its bonds. There was too much noise, and only seconds to spare.
“Come on, let’s have it,” Mannering rasped, “when I say I’ll break—”
He didn’t hear a sound behind him.
He just felt the terrific blow on the back of the head.
The blow didn’t knock him out, but it knocked him silly. He let Liddicombe’s arm go, staggered to one side, came up against the drawing-board and set it rocking. He steadied, but he didn’t have time to save himself from another attack. He just saw the face of the man who was striking at him, and recognised one thing for certain; the cold, deliberate pleasure the man took in striking.
He still didn’t lose consciousness.
The blows stopped.
Mannering leaned against the drawing-board, gasping for breath, feeling his cut lips, his bruised cheeks, one eye swelling rapidly. The savagery of the attack made it hard to realise that it had stopped. He could only see a blur, but gradually shapes sorted themselves out.
Liddicombe was on his knees, by the side of the dog. The other man was standing in the doorway, watching sardonically. He’d been in the bar, Mannering knew.
The cords fell to one side, and the dog got slowly to its feet.
“Want to feel its fangs?” Liddicombe asked roughly. “Want them buried in your throat?”
The white teeth were shiny, the dog’s mouth was wide open with saliva dripping; and it was straining to leap at Mannering.
“If you don’t talk—” Liddicombe began but he didn’t finish. The other man snatched the scarf off Mannering’s face, and Liddicombe’s mouth drooped in surprise. “Richardson! From—” he gulped.
“Richardson, is it?” asked the other man softly. “What’s he got in his mouth?” He stretched out and hooked just a finger inside Mannering’s mouth; one of the cheek pads, dislodged by the blows, fell out. “Cheek pad,” he said, as softly. “Tie that dog up and go and hold this guy, Lid.”
Liddicombe said: “He doesn’t want tying up. Stay there, Jumbo, guard him.”
Mannering saw him let the dog go.
It looked as if nothing could stop it from leaping, it actually crouched back on all fours.
“Guard him!” Liddicombe cried.
The dog didn’t leap.
Liddicombe went behind Mannering, grabbed him by the wrist, and thrust his arm up in the hammerlock.
It wasn’t so much pain as despair which filled Mannering then.
The man who had struck him was of medium size, heavily built and pale-faced, moved with restrained roughness. He forced Mannering’s mouth open, and hooked out the other pad; then looked at his teeth. He took a bunch of keys from his pocket and scraped the teeth; the plastic covering wrinkled. He worked this loose, and tore it away.
Staring, he said: “Permanganate, probably, the usual stuff. We can soon rub that off. See anything familiar about him?”
Liddicombe let Mannering go. The dog growled. Liddicombe stepped in front of Mannering, and stared. Then: “No.”
“Sure?”
“Yes.”
The other man laughed on a deep, satisfied note.
“You’re slipping, Jeff! Won’t old Bony Face be pleased? We’ve found Mr. Ruddy Mannering, and he won’t get away. All we want now is the Woburn woman, and then Bony Face can do what he likes. I won’t be sorry when it’s over.” He paused, lit a cigarette slowly, and puffed the smoke into Mannering’s face with cruel insolence. “You’re a worker, I’ll say that for you,” he said, “it’s almost a pity you’re on the other side. What did you come for?
Mannering said heavily: “For a plan of the roof of Brook House.”
“What the hell made you come here for that?”Liddicombe demanded.
“You’re a good draughtsman, aren’t you?” Mannering said.
There was no point in refusing to answer, for obviously they daren’t let him go. The attack had been so savage and fierce
that he was still feeling the effect. The speed with which his assailant had spotted the disguise, once the cheek pad was loose, took hope away.
For those few minutes, he saw no hope at all.
“Told the police about this?” Liddicombe snapped.
Mannering didn’t answer. He just saw the possibility of worrying them, of lying, of making them think the police were after them.
The stranger said: “He wouldn’t tell the police about a job like this, he wants the kudos. Famous amateur ’tec beats the cops!” The gibe came sneeringly. “We don’t have to worry about this. We’ve only got one thing to worry about—do we kill him now or do we try to use him to get the woman?”
Chapter Twenty-One
Bait
Mannering tried not to look at either of them; tried not to show his fear. He felt better now than he had been a few seconds ago; he would be better still in five minutes, when he’d recovered from the shock. They needn’t see how much they had frightened him.
Liddicombe said: “How could we do that, Micky?”
“That’s our worry,” said the man named Micky. “We want the pair of them, don’t we, and it isn’t so easy to get at anyone in Brook House, unless we persuade your little Prissy to drop poison in the soup.”
Liddicombe snapped: “That’s out.”
“Nothing’s out if Seale gets really worked up,” retorted Micky smoothly. “But who’d want to see Priscilla in trouble, Jeff? We’ll find another way.” His grin was very broad. “Maybe Priscilla could give the Woburn woman a message.”
Liddicombe didn’t speak.
Mannering was thinking: “They’ll postpone it, whatever else.” The impending sense of death receded a little, he could breathe. But he couldn’t move. The dog still crouched on its haunches, watching from unwinking eyes.
“What kind of message?” the innkeeper asked at last.
“Maybe that Mannering wants to see her, maybe that Mr. Richardson does,” sneered Micky. “What do we have to do? Get her to drive—”
He broke off.
Liddicombe said: “We don’t take any risks with Priscilla, get that into your head.”
“Okay, Jeff, okay! But what’s eating you? This is what we do. We have Prissy tell the Woburn woman that Merrow wants to see her at the hospital. She’ll go running. And it’s one that the police will bite, too.
We’ll say that Richardson wants to talk to Merrow and Woburn at the hospital. So she’ll drive. The police car will follow her, as it always does, but why should that stop us? We’ll get both the police-car and the girl on the road. Now we’ve got Mannering, we can afford to do that—there’s only the one more chance to take. And afterwards—”
He broke off.
Liddicombe said: “So long as you leave my daughter out of it. She’s done plenty.”
“I’ll say—she’s done plenty,” Micky agreed, “and she’ll get plenty out of it, won’t she?”
Liddicombe didn’t answer.
Micky said: “What do we do with Mannering?” He gave a bark of a laugh, of gloating delight. “We really got Mannering, he walked right into our hands! Tell you what, old Bony Face will be glad to lose some beauty sleep over this, I’ll phone him and ask him what he says. Do we cut Mannering’s throat now, or has he any questions to ask him?”
“You don’t phone Bony Face from here, you can go into Orme in the morning and do that,” Liddicombe said firmly. “One sentence for the exchange to pick up and we’d be for it. We can put Mannering in the cellar under the barn, he’ll keep there.” Liddicombe wasn’t smiling; probably he still felt the effect of the shock. “We can’t afford to make any mistakes, see? If you throw a grenade at the woman’s car and get caught, the police will find out you’ve been staying here, and—”
“You’re a hell of a sight jittery,” Micky scoffed. “I was just staying near by, wasn’t I? No one will tie you up with this now that we’ve found Mannering. He’s nearly as good as they say he is!” He turned to Mannering, sneering, mocking. “You’re going to have a nice long rest. And here’s something to keep you company. If we want to get any information out of you, we’ll use a pal of ours to help us. Won’t we, Jumbo? You see that dog? Can you imagine anything he’d like more than to tear you to pieces. Eh, Jumbo?”
The dog growled.
“Okay,” said Micky. He snatched a cushion from the easy chair, and thrust it into Mannering’s face; Mannering, half suffocated, couldn’t do a thing to save himself. They took the cushion away and tied a scarf roughly round his mouth, drawing it tightly enough to force his lips wide open; then they tied his hands behind his back. Next they led him out of the room, along a passage, to a flight of narrow stairs.
The smell of beer, unpleasant because it was so concentrated and stale, was heavy on the air. Mannering went down the stone steps, and in the cellar he had ample room to stand upright. Liddicombe was forcing him along, and they reached the wall at the far end. Passages within the cellar led right and left, with wine bins on either side.
The wall at the end seemed blank.
Micky stretched up, and pulled at one of the bricks just above his head. It moved. He pulled again, and a part of the wall moved silently on oiled hinges. Beyond it was pitch dark.
There was a scuffling sound of rats.
“We’ll leave Jumbo outside to make sure that Mannering doesn’t get a chance,” Micky said. “Don’t mind having your breakfast down here, Jumbo, do you?”
The dog growled.
“In he goes,” Micky said.
Liddicombe gave Mannering a push. He stumbled against the bricks at the foot of the doorway, and couldn’t save himself. The side of the ‘door’ saved him. He stepped through, into the darkness – and one of the men pushed him off his balance.
He fell, helplessly, twisting his body to save his face. He hit the floor with his shoulder and temple, and lay half stunned.
When he began to come round, it was pitch dark.
They had taken his tools; his gun; nearly everything from his pockets. This was a cellar, and almost certainly had only one entry; the walled-up entry which no one knew about. Outside, the Alsatian would be on guard, and there was nothing the dog would like more than to savage him.
Mannering lay there for long, helpless minutes.
Then he began to pick himself up; with his arms tied behind him, it wasn’t easy. A few minutes in the darkness told him how utterly black it was; Stygian gloom, if ever he had known it. He moved cautiously until he kicked against a wall. Although he had headed for one, it caught him by surprise; he banged his knee and his nose.
“Damn!” he exclaimed.
He leaned against the wall. He felt very weak, his face was painful, his right eye still swelling and feeling tight. His nose stung. His ears were filled with buzzing noises. He knew that there was not the slightest chance of either of these men relenting; he had only a few hours to live, if they had their way. He knew that they could kill Joanna Woburn, and giving her a message from Merrow was the certain way to lure her from the house.
The police might check, to make sure that the message was genuine; if they didn’t—”
All this, and the best he could manage was “Damn!”
He giggled.
Across the giggling came the realisation that he was very near the point of despair, and that hysteria had been born out of it. The prospect of escape was as black as the darkness of the cellar, but the quick way to death was the way of despair. He might die; he could at least try to find a way out; to get a warning to Joanna; to tell the police.
Above him, the men were back in their rooms.
Outside the door, the dog lay with its nose between its paws, staring at the brickwork of the door.
Mannering began to move about the cellar, keeping his shoulder against the wall to make sure that he d
idn’t get away from the wall and begin to move in circles.
At Brook House, Joanna Woburn woke a little after seven o’clock, and lay still, realising that something was unusual, unfamiliar – and welcome. Then she realised it was the simple fact that she had no headache. She relaxed, revelling in that sense of freedom. For several days she had felt all the time as if her head would burst; now, there was hope that she was over the effects of the shock.
She looked at a bedside clock; it was half-past seven.
Five minutes afterwards she got up and went to the window. There was a mist over the parkland, which suggested that it would be warm later on. She saw one of the maids running along the vegetable garden, and that reminded her of Priscilla and of George. It didn’t hurt as it had done, something had eased the burden.
Perhaps things would get better from now on.
She rang the bell for tea. Mrs. Baddelow brought it, full of plaints. Priscilla had gone to the ‘Grey Mare’, her father had been taken ill, or some such nonsense, just at the busiest time of the day they were a maid short; Mrs. Baddelow talked as if that were a major tragedy.
“And such a nice morning,” she said bitterly.
Joanna was glad when she had gone.
She sat in an easy chair looking out of the window, and knowing that Orme, the hospital and George were straight across country from here. It was good to be able to think about George Merrow without hurt. She found herself dwelling on all the things he had said, on his talk of being in love with her.
She knew one thing for certain: she was in love with him.
At eight, she bathed.
At nine, she was having breakfast.
At half-past, Priscilla came somewhat diffidently into the dining-room. Priscilla could be demure, timid or truculent; this was her timid mood; in fact she was almost nervous. The sun shone on her hair and Joanna found herself thinking: “She’s really quite lovely. With the proper make-up and good clothes—”
