by John Creasey
“I don’t think so,” Mannering answered.
“In that case, I would like to ask some questions. First, your name and address, please.”
Mannering gave it, solemnly, before telling the story of what had happened, even including the visit to Quinns and so his reason for coming to Fulham. The only point he did not raise was the doubt about Forrester’s suicide bid; they would soon begin to suspect that it might have been attempted murder. Even as he talked and the rustic-looking officer took copious notes in shorthand, Mannering wondered more and more why Julie should be so anxious not to tell the police that she – and presumably her Tom – had been frightened lest Tom might be murderously attacked.
At last, he finished.
Almost without a pause, the dark-haired policeman turned to Julie, and asked without a change of tone: “Now may I have your name, please?”
She hesitated. She coloured. She sat up on the bed next to Tom, and answered quietly but without hesitation and without a quiver in her voice:
“My name is Julie Clarendon, and this is my address.” Tom Forrester lay so still, not watching, not hearing; and both of the detectives as well as the uniformed policeman, looked beyond Julie to the man. As policemen they had no moral duties, had simply to take down what facts they knew, and to find out all that were relevant. But as men—
Mannering had the impression that they were all sorry for the girl but had no time at all for Forrester.
Julie told her story, which coincided so accurately with Mannering’s that it was almost a carbon copy. Why the police had allowed her to listen to his statement there was no way of telling, but it eased the situation, and when she had finished she looked much less tense and worried. The detective sergeant relaxed, smiled, and remarked: “Do you feel nervous, Miss Clarendon?”
“Yes,” she answered.
“We’ll have men on duty for the rest of the night,” Joslin said. “And when Mr. Forrester comes round we can find out from him what really happened. You’ll be in London, won’t you, Mr. Mannering?”
“Yes,” Mannering answered. “And I’d better be going.” He turned to Julie and promised again: “If I can help Tom I will. And just in case you need my home address—” he took a card from his inside breast pocket and handed it to her. “If I’m not in, my wife will almost certainly be. Good night, Julie.”
“Good night,” she echoed.
And she put her face up, to be kissed.
Mannering was smiling crookedly when he went down the stairs, but was brought sharply back to consider the more public aspect of the situation. Thirty or more people were still hanging about, half of them in their early teens. Paget had gone but his wife, no longer carrying the baby, was among the crowd. A policeman stood in the doorway, and wished Mannering good night as Mannering went towards his car. Immediately, camera lights flashed and two other men levelled cameras, while a man with a nearly bald head moved from the side of the station wagon.
“Good evening, Mr. Mannering. Had some excitements, I’m told.”
“Great excitements,” Mannering agreed, for it would be ill-advised to make the Press hostile. “I came to see Tom Forrester’s paintings and someone tried to choke the life out of me with a noose at the end of a rope … Yes, of course you can quote me … No, I hadn’t seen either of them – Julie or Tom Forrester – until they came to Quinns today … They wanted me to sponsor Forrester, whom they both hope is a genius … I don’t even begin to know whether he is or not … I didn’t have much time to look but some of the paintings are interesting … I’ve no idea at all why I was attacked and can’t dream one up … Was I hurt? A scratch or two, that’s all, the most painful one was a splinter in a finger.” He held his hand up and extended the finger as far as he could. “Anyone like a photograph?” There was a general chuckle and one camera-light flashed. Mannering joined in the laughter, and went on: “Now I’d like to go and have my dinner, if you don’t mind. Good night.”
He climbed into the car and drove off, suddenly aware that it was nearly half-past eight, and Lorna would have been expecting him for an hour at least. He should have telephoned to tell her he was late. He paused impatiently at the corner of this street and Wandsworth Bridge Road, then swung left. He lived less than ten minutes’ drive away, in Chelsea not far from the Embankment and not far from King’s Road. So there was no point in stopping to telephone.
As he turned, he saw Clive Paget approaching in his bright green M.G. on the near side of the road.
Lorna Mannering thought, he can’t be much longer, surely.
She was in the kitchen of the Mannering’s apartment at the top of an old Georgian house in Green Street, Chelsea, one of two standing after a night of bombing during the war. Now there were new houses to the right of them and small blocks of flats which looked like beehives to the back, and buildings of all kinds surrounding them, but none too close. Since some old buildings had been demolished for a new housing project, there was a distant view of trees, spreading their bright foliage wide, and even on the far side of the river.
She wore a bottle green housecoat which fell almost to her ankles, and was slim-waisted with more than a touch of elegance. Her dark hair, with a few streaks of grey, was drawn back in wings from her forehead. She was a strikingly handsome woman, and the years touched her with dignity. Her grey eyes were very clear, her complexion very good indeed.
She had water boiling for spring greens and new potatoes, and a small joint of stuffed veal in the oven, sizzling very slightly. She normally put the vegetables on when John came in, for they would cook while he had a wash or a shower and a drink. The veal would taste none the worse for being overdone, and her only concern was for John. It was rare for him to be in later than half-past six unless he telephoned beforehand. Now, it was nearly half-past eight. If she didn’t hear very soon she would put in a call to Bristow.
She went into the small study, where they usually had a pre-dinner drink, and coffee and brandy afterwards. It was a panelled room with dark oak furniture, mostly Jacobean, each piece a gem. Two Dutch panels, one by Vermeer, were over a fireplace so intricately carved that it seemed more Italian than English, although the carving had been done by monks of an Abbey long since fallen into decay.
For years past they had managed, happily, without a living-in maid. They had a good daily who would come soon after Lorna had prepared breakfast, so that Lorna could go up to the attic studio which was six times as large as the one in Riston Street – the one Lorna did not know. She enjoyed cooking dinner, enjoyed the quiet evenings which usually followed; theirs had become a very happy life although for a brief and alarming spell a few years ago grave emotional dangers had threatened.
That kind of danger was unthought-of, now.
So, she consoled herself, were most others. While months would pass without threat of violence, without circumstances goading John into action which might mean conflict with the police, or else lead to the physical danger which John scoffed at but she took very seriously indeed.
Nothing could have happened out of the blue, could it? she worried herself. A small porcelain French clock surrounded by angels in the study chimed, and she watched it as she moved towards the telephone. I’ll call Bill right away, she thought, and on that instant, the front door bell rang, and she changed her direction and her pace and went at once to answer it. Until then she had been aware of danger, but the everyday commonplace of the door bell ringing drove thought of it out of her mind. She even thought, with a glow of relief, that John might have forgotten his keys; it wouldn’t be the first time he had left them at Quinns.
She opened the door.
A man stood there with a stocking drawn over his head and face, and with a gun in his hand. As she tried to slam the door on him, he stuck his foot out so that it swung back on her. Then he pushed her roughly aside, stepped in and closed the door.
“You’ve got the Fiora jewels here,” he stated in a hoarse voice from behind the grotesque mask. “I want them.
And I’ll get them or I’ll kill you. Don’t make any mistake about that.”
Chapter Seven
Thief
Lorna backed into the hall, and the man followed, the gun only a few inches away from her. She could not see his features because they were so squashed by the stocking but she could sense his menace and felt that he wasn’t lying; if he didn’t get what he wanted he would kill her.
He kicked the door to with his heel.
“Come on,” he said. “Give.”
She knew, with an awful sense of hopelessness, that the Fiora jewels were not here.
The police knew they were back in London and were on the ‘market’, but John had not bought them and they were not at the flat.
But would the man believe her?
Heart thumping, breath coming in shallow gasps, she watched him. Suddenly he raised his free hand and slapped her across the face. The blow stung. She staggered to one side and put out a hand to support herself against the wall, as he caught her other hand and twisted the wrist painfully.
“Come on,” he repeated. “Where are they?”
What could she say even to gain time? And what could she do even if she gained it? She searched desperately for some kind of answer, and suddenly one came; one which he might conceivably believe.
“I only know where they might be,” she said, and her tongue clove to the roof of her mouth, the words merging with one another.
“Don’t mumble!” he rasped. “What did you say?”
She felt so utterly alone, and so afraid. There was no hope of help, nothing could be done unless she did it herself, and she did not know what she could possibly do. She repeated what she had said very slowly and deliberately, although she had never known her tongue or her lips more dry.
“I only know where they might be.”
“What the hell do you mean by that?” He twisted her wrist again, and the pain made her gasp. “Play it straight or you’ll be sorry.”
The mask pressed tight against his mouth and nose, squashing them. It squeezed his hair and his eyebrows, his cheeks and his chin. It was as if she were looking at a half-formed creature who would never become old. But the fine nylon did not press against his eyelashes or his eyes. The lashes were short, black, stubby, and his eyes might be any colour with the pale stocking superimposed but there was a scar on the pupil of one of them; on the pupil itself. She would never fail to recognise it, a tiny little white dot about the size of a pin-head.
If she lived.
“My—my husband didn’t tell me he had the Fiora jewels here,” she said.
“That’s a bloody lie!”
“If you won’t believe what I tell you, what is the use of my saying anything?” she demanded.
She thought he was going to strike her again. His jerky manner and gasped sentences made it seem as if he were so much on edge that he could hardly control himself. The grip on her arm tightened, but he actually backed a pace.
“You know where he would put them, don’t you?”
“I only know of one hiding place here,” she said.
He let her go, but gave her a little shove and ordered: “Show me!”
Very slowly, she turned round. There was only one place where John would conceal valuables, unless he were deliberately hiding them from her; that was in the settle in his study. As this realisation came she began to recover from the shock, and her mind began to work more freely. Several things became certain.
John had not brought the Fiora jewels here, or he would have told her.
There were other jewels, some being held for customers at Quinns as well as her own jewellery, in the settle, which was a carefully disguised safe and had to be opened with a key. She had a key, but this man didn’t know that she had, and it would hardly be surprising if Mannering kept it with him.
As these thoughts ran through her mind, the man was breathing very hard. He had hurried to get here, and in his way was as nervous as she. If she were careful, very careful, she could outwit him. But if she failed then she had little doubt that he would kill her.
All of these things passed through her mind as she moved towards the study. There, the soft lights from wall fittings glowed on the dark panels, on the furniture, on the decanters and the glasses standing by John’s chair; on the leather pouffe she liked to sit on.
“Where?” hissed the man behind her.
She pointed to the settle: “In there. He—”
“Get the other end of it,” he ordered. “Where I can keep my eye on you.” He motioned to her with the gun. “Go on!”
She did exactly what he told her, and keeping the gun covering her, he crouched down to get at the settle.
“How does it open?”
“The seat’s open now,” she told him.
“Don’t talk to me about an unlocked safe!”
“The safe is built into the bottom,” she told him, which was the simple truth.
Very slowly, still gasping for breath, still covering her, he went down on one knee and put the fingers of his free hand on the overlapping ledge of the settle. He tried the seat, and it moved, and she sensed new tension grow in him. He raised the seat up slowly, and let it rest against the back of the settle.
“Don’t you move!” He thrust the gun closer her, then looked into the settle. All he could see were big books, bound in calf. They were press cuttings books containing cuttings spread over twenty or more years: cuttings about the John who had been, so long ago, and later, cuttings about Quinns. Recently, two more had been added: press notices about her, Lorna’s, early paintings.
In all there were nine books, and before anyone could get at the fitted safe, each book had to be taken out.
“What the hell’s this?” the man cried, swivelling round and thrusting the gun forward.
And as she had expected, he kept his free hand on the edge of the seat.
Here was her chance! Her heart thumped in dread lest she should fail, but the moment was here and she dare not let it pass. He was glaring up into her face, and all she had to do was move her left hand a few inches and tip the hinged seat forward on to his fingers.
“Wha—what do you mean?” she managed to say.
“These are old books! This isn’t a safe!”
“The books are on top of the safe,” she said with difficulty, and moved her hand as if to show what she meant; she was only an inch from the seat, and his hand still rested on the edge. “Look, the safe’s at the bottom.”
He stared at her in a kind of hatred, then glanced into the settle. As he did so, she tipped the seat forward with her fingers. It made no sound as it fell but it seemed an age before it toppled. Even if he snatched his hand away he would be off balance if not hurt and she would still have a chance.
The seat fell, missing his forehead by inches. But for the stocking mask he might have seen the shadow. He simply peered into the settle and the seat struck his fingers with crushing force. There was a split-second of silence, before the pain spread through his hand and arm and body.
He screamed.
And he pulled the trigger, as Lorna darted to one side.
The gun flashed and barked, the bullet hit one of the panels with a cracking, splintering sound. Then the man pulled his hand away and reeled about the room, still holding the gun but having no control of it. She could try to snatch it from him; instead, she ran to the door and into the hall, slammed the door and turned the key in the lock. She could hear her prisoner gasping, swearing, screeching, roaring. She leaned against the door, knowing that she was safe, and suddenly she began to shiver from head to foot.
She did not hear the front door open or see Mannering stride in.
As the small lift stopped at the top floor, Mannering felt quite relaxed and content. He had made the journey in less than ten minutes, and in a few seconds he would see Lorna and there would be the deep pleasure of that as well as the relief of knowing that she had no cause for anxiety. Before long he would be in a warm bath, he needed that to eas
e the aches and bruises; then he would relax with a whisky-and-soda, with Lorna sitting on the pouffe while he related those events of the day he thought it wise for her to hear.
The lift door slid open, with hardly a sound.
He heard the crack of a shot.
It came as he was poised to go forward. It stopped him in his tracks, sending alarm screaming through him, but that was only a momentary pause before he plunged forward, caught his foot as the door began to close, digging into his pocket as he staggered forward, taking out his keys.
He thought: Oh, dear God!
He heard no footsteps, which would surely have sounded had a man rushed towards the door.
He selected the right Yale key with great care, thrust it into the key hole, then flung the door back and strode inside.
The first sight gave a moment of relief, followed by swift, searing fear. Lorna was leaning against the study door, head drooping, body shivering; and he thought she must be hurt. Shot? He moved swiftly towards her, then heard the man beyond the door, swearing and groaning. He reached Lorna and put his arms round her, and at once she raised her head; at least there was no outward sign of injury. Her teeth were chattering and her body still shaking, but her eyes were open wide, almost staring.
“He—he’s got a gun,” she muttered.
“Are you hurt?” Mannering made himself say.
“No. Just—just scared. He’s got a gun.”
“Yes, I heard,” Mannering said. “He sounds—” he broke off, put his arms more closely about her waist and shoulders and led her away from the door. “Wait in the kitchen.”
“John, be careful! He’s armed!”
“I’ll be careful,” Mannering promised.
Above the sounds of the man’s swearing and moaning there came the roar of a shot, and the study door quivered as a bullet burst through it just above the lock. A second earlier and it would have struck Lorna at waist height. Mannering half-pushed, half-carried her to the kitchen and spun round as another shot roared. This time the door sagged, the ancient lock shattered by the two bullets. Mannering flattened himself against the wall as the man inside kicked the door open. He still held the gun. He still had the stocking over his head. He was glaring and staring, as he said: “Where are you, you bitch?”