Into the Trap

by John Creasey

  He said: “Perhaps you are now prepared to suspect someone else besides Nigel.”

  She nodded.

  “Did you know that the woman was spying on you?”

  “If I had she wouldn’t have stayed.”

  “How long has she worked for you?”

  “Several years,” said Thelma quietly. “I thought that she was quite trustworthy.”

  “That’s a habit of yours. Allingham might be a big mistake, too.”

  “You’ve made that possibility clear,” she said. “Need we shout at each other?”

  “She was spying, and she was very anxious to know what we had to say. It was all laid on. I was expected – you’d made sure she knew that – and she had been in touch with her employers. They told her what to do – listen, and get away if she were discovered. They promised that someone would be waiting outside to take care of her. How much do you know about this murder gang?”

  “Nothing at all.”

  “I doubt it. I doubt if there’s been a word of truth in anything you’ve said so far.”

  “You’ll find there’s been a great deal.”

  “One day you’ll discover that you have to act the truth as well as speak it. Anyhow, are you satisfied now that your hated stepson isn’t the chief villain of the piece?”

  “I’ve never thought he was.” She smiled serenely, and sat down opposite him. “Nigel hasn’t the quality which makes a big man – good or bad. I thought someone might have been using him. I still think that’s possible. So will you, when you’ve recovered from this shock. Do you always feel responsible for everything that goes wrong?”

  “Responsible enough to think it’s my job to put the rest right.”

  “I see,” she said; there was warmth and understanding in her expression. “I wish I’d come to see you sooner, John Mannering. I’d heard so much about you but I didn’t believe a tenth of it. What do you want to do now?”

  “Quite a lot of things. Give you instructions, for a start.”

  “Well?”

  Mannering said: “You think that Nigel is being blackmailed into doing things that these people want him to do. Right?”

  “Yes.”

  “If he hadn’t any debts he couldn’t be blackmailed. Right?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then pay his debts. When he’s free from them he might talk. Until he is he’ll lie to cover up and to save himself. Give Nigel another break. If you’re prepared to do that, I’ll begin to believe that you really want to get to the bottom of this business, and that you’re not in it up to your own lovely neck.”

  She laughed.

  “That’s the nearest approach to a compliment you’ve paid me. How much does he owe?”

  “Between nine and ten thousand pounds.”

  “Do you know where he is?”

  “Yes.”

  “I’ll be back in a minute,” she said, and went out. He was glad to be alone.

  The first attack of anger was subsiding, helped by the whisky. He was human; no human could fail to be affected by this room, this woman with her calm confidence, her absolute composure and her perfect poise. She knew exactly what she wanted. In spite of the fact that he had twice shaken her badly, she was as confident as ever – and he didn’t know whether she was telling the truth or lying like a trooper. If she thought that lies would help her, she would lie. She would do anything to get what she wanted; he couldn’t be sure whether what she wanted was good or bad.

  She came back, moving gracefully as ever. She put a pink slip of paper into his hand.

  It was a cheque drawn out in Nigel Courtney’s favour, endorsed: ‘Pay Cash’ and signed.

  “Satisfied?” she asked.

  “Satisfied that you want my help, yes. For what? The diamond jewellery business is all my eye – you know and I know that the chance of getting those jewels back now, if they were really stolen, is negligible. You wouldn’t waste your money or my time trying to get them or find out who stole them. What did you really want when you came to my flat last night?”

  She said: “I wanted to find out if Nigel had stolen them himself or whether he was working for someone else. That’s obvious, isn’t it?”

  “Yes, but only part of it.”

  “You know the rest, too. I wanted to find out if the Carla collection is really on the market or whether it’s at the Grange. I didn’t want to alarm my husband, and I don’t know how to get into those vaults. I wanted to find someone whom I could trust to get into them, someone who would be able to find the cracksman who could force his way into the vaults and make sure that the pearls were still there. Does the job appeal to you?”

  Chapter Fourteen

  Decision

  Allingham had said that he wanted Mannering to sell the Carla collection. Thelma Courtney wanted to make sure that they were still safe – or so she said. They were two entirely different reasons for wanting his help, but by stretching his imagination a little it was easy to see how they could become one.

  Was she working with Allingham?

  Had Allingham tried to scare the wits out of him, to prepare him for what was to come? Did Allingham think that he could put his hands on a cracksman capable of stealing those jewels? Had he, Mannering, upset their plans by bursting in on Thelma and Gerald Allingham and thus forced this change of approach?

  He didn’t know.

  It was possible that everything that had happened from the time he had left the Grange had been deliberately designed to lead to this challenge – to goad him into finding out if the Carla collection was still at the Grange.

  Assume, for the sake of argument, that Thelma Courtney and Allingham were working together. Assume that they knew he must not suspect that. Then the rest fitted in. Allingham had tried to blackmail him into promising to handle the pearls; Thelma Courtney had challenged and, in a way, bribed him to get the pearls out of the vault. In that was an inverted process, which became clear enough once it was seen the right way up.

  He could go on from there.

  Thelma Courtney and Allingham, working together, had first taken the jewels and cashed in. Why? They were her jewels, but only while she remained with her husband. Supposing she was planning to leave him and live with Allingham? She would want money; and the jewels could easily be turned into money. There was no reasonable argument in favour of her discovering the loss and deliberately saying nothing about it, unless it was to her advantage to keep quiet. Get that clear – it could be greatly to her advantage if she and Allingham were building up a fortune on which to live when she left her husband.

  Into this careful scheme there intruded a third faction; not Nigel alone, but men working through Nigel. He had started the breach in the Allingham-Thelma wall by stealing the fake diamonds. He was only the tool of the real bad men; and Allingham and Thelma might believe that they were after the Carla collection and the diamonds were merely a lead up. So she had to find out. She also had to have a plausible reason for acting as she had done. She had built that reason up round the domestic circumstances – an elaborate form of sob-story.

  But the men behind Nigel were stronger than she had realised.

  They had their spy in the maid, who knew something of what was going on; who had been instructed to find out exactly what passed between her and Mannering that evening. They – this mysterious ‘they’ – were prepared to take big risks to get the collection; and jewels worth nearly half a million pounds justified risks. So she had a two-fronted battle on her hands.

  Was this reasoned argument? Or was he crazy?

  The argument could be sound. Granted that its foundation was right, then the rest could easily follow. The foundation was that she and Allingham were working together but most anxious not to let anyone realise it. They knew he had come close to realising it and so a plan to take care of that had been quickly evolved. They had pretended to quarrel and be on bad terms; Allingham’s manner at the shop might have been put on. It had been a strange transformation from a man arrogan
t in his confidence to one nervous enough to be obsequious.

  The rest would stand on that foundation, too. Thelma had given Mannering a plausible reason why it was impossible to be sure that the Carla pearls were in the vaults; and she asked him to find out, and admitted that it meant that he would have to employ a thief, a specialist cracksman, to do it.

  Allingham had believed that he was a fence and associate of thieves; Thelma believed that he could find the man to break into vaults at the Grange. The two things could be complementary; based on a mutual estimate of Mannering’s position in the half-world of precious stones and crime.

  But what if the foundation on which he built all this was wrong? Thelma Courtney said: “Will you have another drink?”

  “No thanks.”

  “What are you going to do?”

  “Think about it,” said Mannering. “If it’s ‘yes’ I shall need a detailed plan of the Grange, showing the position of the vaults and all possible information about the way they’re protected.”

  “I shall tell you everything I know,” she promised.

  “And I should want Allingham and the rest of the staff away for the night.”

  “I think I can arrange that there aren’t many there. At least I can tell you how to make sure that the staff doesn’t interfere with your friends.”

  “Friends?”

  “The cracksmen,” she said. “Isn’t that the word?”

  Mannering laughed. “There’s another. Now, let’s get it straight. All you want is the assurance that the collection is still in the vaults untouched. You don’t want it moved, you don’t want anything done?”

  “Nothing at all.”

  “These friends of mine would prefer to work for a profit.”

  She laughed. “I can well understand that, Mr. Mannering. Pay them what you think it’s worth; I’ll refund it.”

  “Money no object?”

  “None at all,” said Thelma Courtney, “but—” she stood up, suddenly. Her body was soft, warm, enticing; she seemed to yield herself completely, it was a form of submission which made more vivid those early hints of attainability. “You must find out the truth. And afterwards—”

  Her face was close to his; her hands were cool and firm on his.

  “Well?” It wasn’t easy to get the word out.

  “Afterwards, you can name your own price,” she said.

  Circe in new guise?

  Circe prepared to offer everything to get what she wanted?

  Or was it a simple fact that she had to find out, for the reasons she had given, whether the pearls were at the Grange?

  Lorna opened the door before he reached the top of the stairs and said: “I’d almost given you up.”

  “You don’t know how right you were,” said Mannering. He slid his arm through hers, and sniffed. “No appetising smell? I’ve never been hungrier.”

  “Doesn’t she feed her victims?”

  “Not at this stage. She just pours whisky into them and holds their hands. How is Nigel?”

  “He woke up once and has gone off to sleep again.”

  “No more violence?”

  “Not yet. But there’s a policeman outside.”

  “I noticed him. Here to watch Nigel, if not to watch me. Anything else?”

  “Bristow has telephoned twice and wants you to call him at his flat.”

  “After dinner will do.”

  “I should ring up while it’s being served,” said Lorna, “you could do worse than be nice to Bristow for the next day or two. Did she scratch you so badly as all that?” She looked at his right hand.

  “No, she employs others to do that for her. You go and help Ethel. I’ll be through in five minutes.”

  Bristow answered the telephone himself; he wanted to know why he’d received the message about the road smash. Mannering talked, to the point and seriously. When he finished, he looked up to see Lorna standing in the study with the door closed.

  “It all sounds wonderful,” she said.

  “Wonderful’s one word.”

  “Now you are picked up by strange young women who get shot at while you’re in the car, and—” Lorna broke off, came quickly towards him, and gripped his hands. “I hate this job!”

  “You’ll feel better after dinner,” said Mannering.

  He told her everything during the meal, including Thelma Courtney’s chief request. Lorna looked at him unhappily.

  “I suppose you’re going to do it,” she said at last.

  “I’d like to know if the pearls are still there.”

  “John, you can’t break into that place yourself! It might lead to—anything. If they want to get hold of the pearls, they’ll be waiting. As soon as you’re inside they’ll attack you; you’ll be left holding the baby. You can’t get someone else to do it for you. You’d never stand for that.”

  “I could get help.”

  “You never liked working with someone else and you won’t like it over this. Drop it, John.”

  “And what then?”

  “At least you won’t be risking your neck.”

  “But it’s been risked. Men who’ll kill as they killed that girl will come again if they think it’s necessary. They know she ran; they know she ran away from me. They’ll chalk my name up on their elimination notice board. I can’t get out of it by washing my hands of the whole affair. You know that it wouldn’t work. Apart from anything else, there’s Alicia Hill. How happy do you think I feel about her?”

  “Leave her to the police.”

  Mannering said: “If I did, you’d be restless within twenty-four hours. You don’t like it any more than I do, but you know it has to be done.”

  Lorna said slowly, bitterly: “Oh yes. It has to be done. To help a girl you hardly know, to work for a woman you’ve met twice – that’s vital. It doesn’t matter that I shall be in hell while you’re doing it.”

  “Not quite hell,” said Mannering. “I shall need help. I don’t fancy using any old lag, and Larraby isn’t up to this. What about you?”

  Lorna just stared.

  “Seriously,” said Mannering. “Come and hold a watching brief for me.”

  She stood quite still, looking down on him. “When?”

  “Tonight, of course,” said Mannering. “Certainly not when sweet Thelma knows that I’m going; that would be asking for trouble.”

  “But you can’t! You don’t know anything about the vaults or the house. You must study the place beforehand; you’ve always made a point—”

  “I’ve been there. I’ll study the rest at hand,” said Mannering. “We’ve a guest, haven’t we? Nigel ought to know plenty about that house and those vaults. When he gets the little present that I’ve got for him, he’ll talk as if his life depended on it, all in the name of gratitude. If I get him on to the Carla pearls he’ll talk all out. A little careful prompting and we’ll know everything he knows about the Grange. Yes?”

  Lorna said: “You’re incredible!”

  They laughed …

  He felt a strange sense of exaltation.

  Nigel woke just after ten o’clock. Mannering made him eat, preparing him for unexpected news, and presented him with the cheque. He looked as if the world had been lifted off his shoulders.

  Mannering said: “Nigel, listen to me. Who will get this money? Are you in debt to one person or several?”

  “Only—only one, now.”

  “Who?”

  “A man I’ve only met once. He offered to stake me. I’d met him at a club; he knew I was being dunned. His name’s Smith.”

  Mannering said: “I see. Smith. What’s he like?”

  “Well – vague sort of chap. Fair, and well, average.”

  “Like his name. Did he put you up to stealing the diamonds? For heaven’s sake don’t prevaricate! Did he?”

  “Yes! But I didn’t see why he should get them. I—”

  “He was the man you were scared of?”

  “Yes!”

  “That’ll do for now
,” said Mannering. “Smith” was the man behind all this; and Nigel his tool. The foundation of his story had some substance.

  Lorna came into the study, after Nigel had left the flat, and said: “The detective followed him.”

  “No one else about?”

  “Not to notice.”

  “We’ll make sure later, but I think Bristow is going to give me my head over this. A sure sign that the job is a big one and he hasn’t told us the half yet. Still want to come?”

  “I’m coming.”

  Mannering said “That’s fine. We’ve a pretty clear idea of the layout at the Grange. We know where the servants sleep, where to find Allingham, how many there are on the staff, and the fact that we haven’t to worry about a night-watchman. I’m probably a criminal lunatic for letting you come along with me – you’ll have to make yourself up pretty heavily; you mustn’t be recognisable.”

  “That’s easy.”

  Mannering said: “Here’s the general plan of action. I’ll change first, take the car and hire one which won’t be recognised. At midnight you’ll meet me at Hammersmith Broadway underground station. Wear a pair of flat-heeled shoes and slacks. Of course, you ought to have your hair cut off.”

  “For that woman?”

  Mannering laughed. “All right, my sweet! While you’re changing try to think up a nice alibi for us, will you?”

  He led the way into the bedroom and sat in front of the dressing-table with a theatrical make-up box at hand.

  Although Lorna had seen him working on a disguise a dozen times, the metamorphosis never failed to amaze her. She watched him now as he placed the cheek pads and thin rubber ‘teeth’ in position. The shape of his eyes, even the bone formation of his cheeks, seemed different. No one, catching a casual glimpse of him, would be likely to recognise him.

  It took three-quarters of an hour.

  As he wiped off the last touch of superfluous greasepaint the telephone rang. He was relieved to hear the prim voice of Larraby from Quinn’s.

  “Hallo, Larraby. News?”

  “Not a great deal, sir. I have inquired most exhaustively, and all I can say is that Mrs. Courtney has been looking at diamonds and talking about pearls. I’m sorry it’s no more.”