John Creasey - Meet The Baron

The latter took a bottle of iodine from the medicine-chest and dabbed his grazed skin. He offered the bottle to the silent and sullen intruder, but his only reward was a snarl.

Mannering’s eyes hardened, although his voice was still gentle.

“You and I,” he said, “aren’t going to get on very well unless you mend your ways, my friend. You’ve got a nice new suit — try to live up to it.”

The man glanced down automatically towards his newly creased trousers. Mannering laughed, but there was a note in his voice that seemed to strike cold. It was no longer gentle.

“Now — spill it!” he snapped.

The man’s eyes met his, wavered, and finally turned away; he looked at the carpet, his feet shuffling.

“I ain’t saying nuthin’,” he grunted.

“No?” asked Mannering softly.

“No!” snarled the bruiser; “and if I git ‘arf a chance . . .” He stopped suddenly as Mannering moved, his lips twisted in a smile; the others eyes glinted with a sudden fear. “Where are you goin’, mister?”

To call the police,” said Mannering affably. “Perhaps you’ll know whether I should get in direct touch with Scotland Yard or . . .”

“You’re kiddin’!”

Mannering paused, with his hand on the telephone.

“Now, why,” he demanded, “should I be kidding? Try and remember the “g”, George.”

The man eyed him and the telephone with a fast-increasing fear. His hands were moving nervously, and his tongue slid along his thick lips. He was on tenterhooks, and Mannering was enjoying the situation.

“I — the boss said . . .” The bruiser started to speak, and then broke off uncertainly.

“Ah!” murmured Mannering. In his ear the telephone was burring; he replaced the receiver softly. His hand moved from the telephone, and the other’s eyes showed relief. “So someone sent you ? And I was thinking that you’d thought it all out in your own noodle. I’m disappointed, my friend.”

The man glared, goaded almost to a point of desperation.

“Never mind the funny stuff,” the bruiser snarled, momentarily forgetful of his fear.

“You honour me,” said Mannering politely.

“If I ever git my ‘ands rarnd . . .”

Mannering lifted the receiver off the hook again, and out of the corner of his eye he saw the man swallow hard, saw his tongue slide along his lip. The cracksman grinned as he dialled “O” and a moment later heard the voice of the Inquiries operator. She was likely to be irritated before he had finished, he realised, but she would merely put down yet another subscriber as unreasonable.

“Give me . . .” began Mannering for the other man’s benefit.

“For Gawd’s sake!” cried the bruiser. He seemed to realise for the first time that Mannering was serious, and his face was livid, his hands trembling.

“I beg your pardon,” said Mannering to the operator, “my friend doesn’t want the call alter all.” He replaced the receiver, and sauntered towards the other, who was standing by the fire-place. He grinned at him for a moment. Then: “Well, George, who sent you?”

“You know right enough,” grunted the bruiser.

Mannering laughed, and shook his head in well-feigned bewilderment.

“Is this a game?” he inquired. “You praise my humour, and now you tell me I can read your thoughts. I think . . .”

He broke off deliberately, for there was doubt in the other’s eyes.

“Straight, mister, don’t you know?”

“As man to man, no,” said Mannering. “All I know is that I sometimes keep a little packet of stones here, and I guess that your amiable boss thought he would try to rid me of one of them. Luck sent me when you were here.”

“And you ain’t got ‘em?”

“Got what?”

“The Rosas.”

“The Ros . . . By all the Jews in Jerusalem! I’ll wring that little sweep’s neck!” Mannering looked genuinely angry, and the pug’s eyes no longer held uncertainty; he believed what Mannering wanted him to believe. “So Lee sent you,” Mannering went on, “did he, because those ruddy stones were collared the other night? Where is Lee?”

“At — at Streatham.”

“What part, you idiot? The cricket pitch or the common?”

“Mister!” The crook’s eyes held appeal now, and his voice was thick with fear, instead of anger. “Don’t tell ‘im I told yer — don’t tell ‘im about the Rosas, don’t, mister . . .”

Mannering hesitated, and it seemed to his victim that he was cooling down. Actually he was enjoying himself.

“And why,” he demanded coldly, “should I do anything to save you from a nasty ten minutes with Septimus Lee ?”

The crook said nothing. Mannering eyed him for a moment in silence. Then he tossed his cigarette-case, which the other caught easily enough, despite his surprise.

“Or don’t you smoke?” asked Mannering.

“Well, I don’t mind, boss. . . .” The man was confused, unable to make head or tail of this sudden geniality.

“Nice of you. Now, George” — Mannering went closer to his man and looked at him steadily — “I want the truth. Do you know what that is ?”

“I — kin make a guess, mister.” Obviously the bruiser was bewildered, but he was genuinely thankful for the cigarette, which he stuck between his lips. Mannering gravely offered him a lighter.

“Excellent,” he said, although whether he was referring to the cigarette or the other’s promise to try to find the truth was not obvious. “Now I know why you called, but I still want to know what you’ve taken.”

“But I ain’t . . .”

“Don’t forget that guess, George!”

The man swallowed hard at the wrong moment. Tobacco-smoke and oxygen mixed badly, and he choked, going red in the face and bending half-double.

“You are in the wars,” murmured Mannering sympathetically.

He waited for the fit of coughing to pass, and then repeated his question. After a moment’s hesitation the pug took a package from his pocket and handed it to his captor. The latter unwrapped two slim books, and whistled when he saw them. They were the last things he had expected.

“And he told you to take my bank pass-books, did he?” His voice was hard again.

“Yus.”

“And you looked at them?”

“I ain’t, mister, I ain’t, I swear. I wouldn’t understand them things if I did. I . . .”

“Ain’t,” said Mannering. He scowled. “You have.”

“But I . . .”

“I know. You ain’t. But you have, George. Just think a minute now. You looked at them, and one had four figures and the other four or five. You’re not sure which. You just glanced at them when I came in. Isn’t that so ?”

The pug’s eyes glistened.

“I — I git you, mister.”

“You’d better. Tell Mr Septimus Lee that: one book four figures, the other four or five. If you don’t — and I shall have little difficulty in finding whether you do or not — if you don’t, George, I shall whisper to Septimus the single word “Rosa”. You still get me?”

“I swear, mister . . .”

“So you don’t go to Sunday School, George ? Well, well. Now run along, will you? I want to think.”

If he spoke the truth, however, he derived little pleasure from his thoughts. He had convinced himself that the best thing to do was to let the burglar go, but as he pondered over the affair he realised that Lee was clever indeed. The Jew had not expected to get the pearls back, but he had tried to satisfy himself about the state of Mannering’s bank-balance.

Mannering was still flushed with his victory over the Jew, but he realised that the other was dangerous, more dangerous perhaps than the police. The one thing to do, he told himself, was to visit Lee; probably nothing else would be so convincing. He would stick to his promise: he would not tell Lee that the pug had mentioned the Rosas; but there was nothing to prevent him from putting two and two together after recognising the man as Lee’s chauffeur.

CHAPTER TEN

MANNERING SEES THE FUNNY SIDE

“I OWE YOU AN APOLOGY, MR MANNERING. I OFFER IT.”

“I owe you,” grunted John Mannering, “a beating up, brother to the one I handed out to that darned chauffeur of yours. Yes, I saw him outside as I came in. His nose is very sore, and I think you . . .”

You are not going to ask me to believe,” said Septimus Lee suavely, “that you will offer physical violence to a man so much older than yourself, Mr Mannering? I repeat, I offer you my apology. If you think deeply you will realise that it was a very natural thing for me to suspect . . .”

“Not unless you were a . . .”

Mannering broke off, and coloured. He did it well and a peculiar little smile hovered round Septimus Lee’s thin lips.

“You weren’t going to say “crook”, Mr Mannering? Such an awkward word, and — well, your interest in the Rosa pearls would have admitted a very strange construction, wouldn’t it? From the police, I mean, or even your friends.”

Mannering rubbed his chin in apparent agitation.

“Ye-es,” he admitted. He frowned. “All the same, I’ll make sure it’s the last business I ever do with you, Lee.”

“To my eternal regret,” murmured Lee.

Mannering glared at him for a moment, and then turned away, opening the door before the clerk could arrive. Septimus Lee smiled and sighed; his conviction, as Mannering went out, was that he had made a mistake about the man.

“And that,” Mannering told himself, “will keep Mr Lee off the grass for a little while. But he’s a crafty old devil. I’ll have to be careful.”

He did his best to forget the interview, and it was not long before he was thinking of a certain recent acquaintance. He smiled a little, and decided to pay a visit immediately.

Mr (late Herr) Karl Seltzer was a middle-aged, bullet-headed, placid, and kindly German, who specialised in the teaching of languages. In many ways Seltzer was unique. To hear him talk in English, French, German, Russian, or a dozen different languages, was a revelation. He sounded like a different man. Not only was the accent perfect, but he was able to adapt his voice to the very tones of the races whose language he was speaking.

Mannering had heard of him casually, and, realising that it was essential to be able to control — and if necessary change — his voice on occasions, he had started a course of lessons. The inflection was a matter of practice, and Seltzer was happy to find so adept a pupil; what he would have thought if he had known why Mannering was so anxious to be able to control the timbre and tone of his voice, Mannering preferred not to ask himself.

The German’s square face brightened as Mannering entered his office in Wardour Street, for Mannering was amiable as well as intelligent.

“A pleasure to see you, Mr Mannering,” he greeted.

“And not so bad to see you,” smiled Mannering. “I’ve just popped in for ten minutes,” he added, “to learn to be a Frenchman.”

“To learn the voice of a Frenchman,” corrected the tutor. “It would be a very difficult matter, Mr Mannering, to make you look anything but English.”

“That’s something,” Mannering murmured, but he grinned to himself. Seltzer would go a long way before delivering so effective a back-hander.

After twenty minutes Mannering left the office and surprised himself by asking for cigarettes in fluent French. The girl at the kiosk looked at him bemusedly and demanded, “Ai?”

“I beg your pardon,” said Mannering, with a smile that made her think of him on and off for the rest of the day. “Fifty Virginia Fives, please.”

He paid for the cigarettes, smiled again, and walked on, thinking of the effectiveness of Seltzer’s lessons. The possibility that he might spoil his ability to act quickly in an emergency by developing technique too much did not worry him a great deal. The occasion for using two or three entirely different-sounding voices did not come frequently, it was true, but it was an angle of his new profession that he found fascinating. He wondered how many years would pass before he was really confident of himself in every way.

Then he put the thought on one side and dwelt pleasantly on the next few hours. He was meeting Lorna at the Elan, and he had been looking forward to it all day. He saw her frequently — almost too frequently for his peace of mind — and there had been no meeting yet that he had not enjoyed thoroughly. He believed she could say the same.

He walked slowly towards the hotel, knowing that he was in good time. He felt at peace with the world. A warm sun was shining, but London was not too hot. The inevitable streaming crowds passed him, coming from heaven knew where. He wondered what they would think if they knew who was passing.

He reached the Elan, and forgot the subject, for Lorna followed almost on his heels.

“Am I late or are you early?” she asked, as they shook hands.

“We’re both marvels of punctuality,” said Mannering. “Shall we eat here, or do you know of a better manger?”

“Here, I’m afraid. I must be home by half-past two.”

“Duty calling — or parents,” chuckled Mannering.

As she peered at the menu he studied her thick, well-marked brows, the delicacy of her skin, the upward curve of her lips. Not for the first time he wondered why she so often was quiet almost to sullenness, why the expression in her fine eyes was so often mutinous. She seemed to bear a grudge against life, although there were moments when she forgot it, and when he forgot everything but the fact that they were together.

A week never passed that he did not see her; usually they met three or four times. The verbal fencing of the first meeting had gone. They spoke little to each other, but both enjoyed the long silences of real companionship. The ghost of Marie Overndon was dimming.

“Still keeping busy?” he asked, as they waited.

“Plenty to do,” she said. “I’m still waiting to paint you.”

“I still prefer photographs,” Mannering laughed.

“I think I’ll have the clear soup,” said Lorna obscurely.

Mannering looked about him during the meal. The Elan, at that time, was reaching the peak of its fame. Twice in as many months foreign royalties had graced it with their presence, and the crowd of moneyed hopefuls, hangers-on, and dilettanti grew larger week by week. Although it had the largest exclusive-dining-floor in London only a table here and there was unoccupied, and two Cabinet Ministers were present.

“What’s attracting you ?” Lorna asked suddenly.

Mannering smiled, and motioned to a far corner.

“I was looking at the Countess,” he said. “She’s telling someone about a brooch . . .”

“Emma? Is she here?” Lorna Fauntley looked round, and smiled as she saw the Dowager Countess of Kenton talking animatedly with three companions at a table near the orchestra.

“With the Americans,” Lorna added, a moment later.

“Newcomers ?”

“H’m-h’m. I believe they’ve already been asked to meet the fascinating Mr Mannering.”

Mannering chuckled. His companion saw the flash of his white teeth, the fascinating — that was the right word! — gleam in his eyes. A cloud passed through hers, lingering for a few moments.