John Creasey - Meet The Baron

An empty one overtook him after two or three minutes, and he beckoned it thankfully, giving the driver instructions to drive to Victoria Station. As he sank back in the cab a film of sweat broke over his face and hands, and he shivered a little.

It was over: the ice was broken. He couldn’t call it a failure, for he had learned a great deal. As he cooled down he stopped shivering: and twice within the next five minutes he chuckled aloud.

“Nothing taken, thank God!” said Lord Fauntley to John Mannering some thirty-six hours later. They had met at the Carlton Club, and Fauntley was full of the burglary. “Lorna must have scared the thief, Mannering, before he had time to get at the combinations. I thought I heard something, and I wasn’t long moving.”

“No one hurt, I hope ?” Mannering asked.

“Not seriously. The night-guard was knocked unconscious, but nothing worse. Well, I’ll make sure in future, Mannering — two guards all the time.”

“It would be wiser,” admitted Mannering, proffering cigarettes. “Anything for the police to go on?”

“Police?” Fauntley snorted as he accepted a cigarette. “What do you expect from them, Mannering ? They actually had the man’s mackintosh, and a handkerchief marked with his initials — T.B. or something — but they haven’t found a thing. Still” — his lordship smiled cheerfully — “they didn’t have to look for jewels, thank heavens! Well, we needn’t talk about that. Er — we spent a delightful evening, Mannering. If you’re free one day next week, spend it with us. You can ?”

“Delighted.”

“Then that’s fixed, that’s fixed,” said Fauntley jauntily. “We’ll be delighted, Mannering, delighted. Tuesday, if it’s all right with you? Splendid! And now I’ll have to be going.”

They shook hands, and Mannering smiled thoughtfully as the peer stumped out of the lounge. Obviously Fauntley didn’t suspect. But Lorna ?

“I’ll take a chance,” Mannering said to himself. “I don’t think she’ll have any idea — I don’t see how she can.”

He was prepared to swear, after dinner on the following Tuesday, that she had no idea at all that he had been in the strong-room. She talked more on that second night, mostly of the burglary. Her sympathies, Mannering discovered, were inclined to be with the burglar, but she had been scared when he had snarled at her.

“What made you go down?” he asked, as they drove towards their second tete- á -tete at the Dernier Club. “It must have been late ? Three or four o’clock ?”

“Not more than hall-past two,” Lorna said. “I had been to the Ran-Tan, and I was back late . . .”

“You’re developing a negroid complex.” Mannering smiled.

“Don’t joke with a serious subject. I went to the back-door — Dad doesn’t like leaving the front unbolted — and I saw the light in the library. So I looked in . . .”

“You were asking for trouble,” said Mannering.

“I nearly got it. That man’s gun was the most cold-blooded tiling I’ve ever seen. But” — she brushed her hand through her hair and smiled, without much humour — “let’s forget it. I’ve told the story to the police and to Dad and to every Tom, Dick, and Harry I haven’t been able to dodge. Let’s dance.”

They danced; and for a second time Mannering enjoyed an evening with her. But all the time he felt that there was something she wanted to say, yet held back.

CHAPTER FIVE

AN ADVENTURE IN SHARES

“FOR BETTER OR WORSE,” GRUNTED TOBY PLENDER, “AND naturally you’ve chosen worse. Somewhere in the back of my mind, J. M., one or two words are jogging round. They’re not very clear, and they sound suspiciously like Kipling when I want to use ‘em. . . .”

He broke off, eyeing Mannering evenly.

“I’ve an idea,” grinned Mannering, “that they begin with P-T-G. A soul-stirring poem, Toby. Play up, play up, and play . . . No, I can’t say ‘em. They stick.”

“They ought to.” snapped Plender.

It was a month after Mannering’s attempt on the Fauntley jewels, and a great many things had happened in the interval concerning Mannering and the Fauntleys. Mannering had met Plender that morning, and the solicitor had suggested lunch at his flat; Mannering, smiling to himself, had accepted the invitation. As he had expected, Plender was harping on the old theme.

“Then that’s all right,” said Mannering. “They ought to, and they do. What are you worrying about?”

“You,” said Plender, “and — well, never mind the “and”. . . . I suppose you’ve been on the winning end for a week or two?”

“If you mean that I’ve been winning money,” said Mannering, “I have. Heavily. Only don’t ask my bank-manager how much. He’s a funny fellow, with a peculiar objection to disclosing the state of my account.”

Plender rubbed the tip of his hooked nose.

“So you’re still rattled about that, are you?”

“Toby,” said Mannering, “you misunderstand me. You and Jimmy acted with the best of intentions, and anything but gratitude would be out of the question. And that’s by the way; it’s past now.”

“It’s a pity,” said Plender, “that you’ve struck a good patch. One or two heavy losses just now might have made you see sense. As it is, I’m afraid you’re hopeless.”

Mannering grinned, and lit a cigarette.

“I always have been,” he said. “Now — what’s on your mind?”

Plender sat back in his chair, looking more like Punch than ever.

“Of course,” he said, “it’s no business of mine, but — is it the thing, John, this new — new . . .”

“ Let me say it for you,” suggested Mannering sympathetically. “What’s my game with Lorna Fauntley ? Right?”

“Right.”

“What idea is biting you? Do you think I’m going to try blackmail ?”

Plender grinned. “You were a born fool, J.M. No. I don’t suppose there’s anything you could use against her, anyhow. But her father’s a rich man. You might — I say might — be thinking of . . .”

“Let me help you again,” suggested Mannering. “Cashing in. Marrying for money. Right?”

“Right.”

“You’re a bigger mutt than I, Toby,” said Mannering. “I don’t really know why I don’t collar you two and bang your silly heads together. For the love of Mike stop doing the Victorian father on me, and watch me knock the bottom out of the betting market. Another thing. Use your legal training a little more, and realise the inconsistency of god-damning me when I ride with the Mimi Rayford bunch and when I run blamelessly with the daughter of a peer of the realm. Another thing. I’m going to buy five thousand Klobber Diamond Mines shares, and if you want a good thing, get in on that. And, Toby . . .”

“H’m-h’m?” muttered Toby Plender.

“I’m not such a fool as I look.”

Mannering took his leave soon afterwards, smiling to himself. It had been an ordeal, but it was over. Several times he had felt as though Plender knew, he chuckled at the fear now, and wondered what Plender would have said if he had known of the raid on the Fauntley strong-room.

Well, he was in it now for better or worse.

A few minutes later Toby Plender rubbed the end of his nose and looked thoughtfully out of the window of his flat after the retreating figure of his friend as he walked up the street.

Twenty years was a long stretch; in twenty years he had known J.M. play the ass to the limit, but he had never known him play the rogue. A smile curved Toby Plender’s square lips.

“He’s leading us by the nose,” he muttered to himself. “All of us. Klobber Diamond Mines . . .”