The Arrogant Artist

by John Creasey

  Chapter Nine

  The Icy Inspector

  The last words echoed in Mannering’s mind, as they must in Lorna’s. He had no doubt that they were intended to disturb her at least as much as they were to disturb him. From the moment Willison had come he had been coldly aggressive, and his flow of questions and comments, virtually a cross-examination, had been making Mannering not only angry but very wary. Both Lorna and he needed rest. She had suffered a shock which would have lain many women prostrate, and Willison knew this as well as the fact that Mannering had been working at extreme pressure and tension during the past few hours.

  Undoubtedly, Willison was pressing them because he knew they were on the point of exhaustion. As certainly, he held some sharp suspicions in reserve and was far from certain that he was being told all the truth. His icy cold manner had a knife-like edge. So had the expression in his eyes as he looked at Mannering without allowing his gaze to flicker towards Lorna. Something in his expression seemed to say: “Ah, I’ve got you,” as he waited for Mannering to reply.

  Slowly, very slowly, Mannering smiled: a broad, apparently good-natured smile, which certainly concealed any sign of perturbation.

  “You’re quite wrong,” he stated. “I do expect you to believe me. I expect any man, policeman or not, experienced or not, to assume that I am telling the truth unless he has a very good reason not to believe me.” He paused, his smile broadening at the policeman’s obvious surprise, and went on: “Have you any reason to believe that I am lying, Chief Inspector?”

  Willison tried to recover his ascendancy.

  “I am a police officer, and I—”

  Mannering’s voice sharpened.

  “Have you any reason to believe I am lying?”

  “I have some reason to doubt whether you have yet told me all you know.”

  “Inspector!” Mannering’s voice became loud and penetrating. All the men in the other rooms stopped and turned their heads. “You are arrogant and offensive, and I want either a sound reason for your assumption that I am lying about Julie Clarendon or an immediate apology.”

  Willison was suddenly a man at bay.

  One of the Fingerprint men coughed; someone else dropped a piece of equipment, which clattered very loudly. The silence seemed to drag on interminably, until Willison drew a deep breath and said with great precision: “I am sorry, Mr. Mannering. I took too much for granted.”

  Mannering’s voice at once became pleasant and normal. “Let’s forget it, shall we?” He moved to Lorna and took her arm. “Unless you’ve any more questions for my wife, I think she should have something to eat and go to bed.” He glanced at Lorna. “You must be tired out.”

  “I could drop,” she admitted.

  Willison did not respond immediately. Either he was simmering with resentment about the forced apology or there was something else on his mind. In the room which was being searched movement began again, the tension and the watching was over. Willison moistened his lips, then said with an obvious effort: “Would it be possible for you and Mrs. Mannering to stay with friends for the night?” His gaze didn’t falter but his mouth was set in a manner which reminded Mannering of his earlier aggressiveness, although he was no longer so forceful.

  What was in his mind?

  “Is that really necessary?” Lorna asked, in a vexatious tone; undoubtedly she had been looking forward to her own bed, to absolute relaxation, and she saw the hope of that vanishing.

  “It’s not vital and I can’t force you to go,” Willison said, “but I do advise it. We shall be in and out all night. There will be a lot of noise going on, the telephone will keep ringing. You would be much more comfortable with friends.”

  He was actually going a pale pink.

  Why? Mannering asked himself insistently. What was really in his mind? There was some truth in what he said, but before too long the work should be finished. There was only the study and the front door to examine; Good Lord, it shouldn’t take more than a couple of hours. What did Willison really want? He had made his apology, whatever else about the man he wasn’t stubborn to a point of adamancy; nor was he too stiff with pride. Yet he was pushing this to a point of another conflict.

  A thought flashed into Mannering’s mind, and he thought he saw the reason: Willison wanted to search this flat thoroughly: he really believed the Fiora Collection was here! It was on the tip of Mannering’s tongue to say this, but he checked the impulse. Other thoughts flashed now, his own manner and his mood changed. He turned to Lorna and said easily: “I think the Inspector’s right, darling, and it will be hours before we can settle down here. We’ll go along to the Club, that’s handiest now that they allow wives in! I’ll telephone them while you change.”

  “But dinner—” Lorna began.

  “The veal is overcooked already,” Mannering said, and for a moment was very close to her and his expression stopped the protest on her lips.

  “I really am sorry, Mrs. Mannering,” Willison said.

  “We can hardly blame you for doing your job,” Mannering said easily. Willison looked relieved if puzzled, and watched them as Mannering led Lorna to the bedroom, closed the door on her and then crossed to the telephone in the study. “All right for me to use this?” he asked, seeing it already daubed with grey powder for fingerprinting. “Yes,” answered Willison, and turned away.

  “Don’t go,” Mannering checked him. “Have a look at that settle, will you, it’s really the safe. The books above are full of press cuttings.” He dialled as he spoke and almost immediately a woman answered. “John Mannering,” Mannering said. “I wonder if you can find a room for me and my wife tonight, we’ve been driven out of our home!” He smiled broadly at Willison, who hadn’t yet moved towards the settle. “You can – splendid! What time does the restaurant close? … Then we should just about make it. Thank you.” He replaced the receiver and went to the settle, talking briskly all the time, behaving as if he were on top of the world. So far, the settle hadn’t been touched but a man was prising at something in a panel. “Bullet there?” he asked, and then lifted the lid of the settle with one finger. “I mustn’t smear the other chap’s dabs, must I? Lorna literally took her life in her hands when she made this fall on to his fingers.” He stood back, and his tone changed and his expression became bleak and hard. “This man tried to kill her. The man who killed him probably came from the same gang. I won’t rest until he’s caught and the mystery’s solved. I hope you understand that.”

  Willison said in a grating voice: “Nor will I. But—”

  “These press cuttings books are very heavy,” Mannering remarked, bending down and lifting one. “Will you—”

  “Can I help, sir?” asked the man who was prising the bullet out.

  “You keep on with what you’re doing,” Willison ordered, and bent down for another book. Soon all nine were piled on a small gate-leg table which glowed from years of polishing. Mannering straightened the pile, and then explained: “The safe’s built into the false bottom, and the bottom can’t be moved – unless you know the trick – while the seat is up.” He lowered the seat and then pressed at some of the carving on the back; there was a slight crack of sound.

  He raised the seat again, and when they looked down part of the inside had moved, revealing the lock of a modern safe. “I had that lock specially made, but the secret panel came with the monks who made the settle three hundred years ago,” he went on, taking his keys from his pocket. He selected one and turned it in the lock; it moved a brass plate aside so that another, smaller, keyhole showed; he used a second key on this and then pulled at the handle which was set in the top of the safe. “Open sesame,” he said lightly, and had to pull hard. “I’ve had a million pounds worth of jewels here several times,” Mannering said. “Now it contains only my wife’s personal jewellery, some documents and, as you see, my will.”

  He stood back.

  Willison looked into the settle at a dozen small cases, all of black or red leather. The Fioras wou
ld have taken up every inch of the safe and much more besides. Mannering leaned forward again and took out two of the cases. “I may as well check that they’re all here,” he said musingly, and, opening them, handed both to Willison and then took out the others. An emerald necklace; emerald ear-rings, rubies in lovely settings were here, none of them wildly extravagant. “Thanks,” he said, as he put them back. “If our dead friend was looking for Fioras he would have been very disappointed with these, wouldn’t he?”

  And he looked straight into Willison’s eyes.

  “No doubt he would,” Willison agreed. “Is that the only safe here?”

  “Yes,” Mannering answered, standing back again. “Now it’s all yours to examine. At one time I kept a lot of jewels here and not at the shop, but now I use the strong room there and seldom bring anything home.” Again his tone and his expression changed, and he said grimly: “It is too dangerous for my wife.”

  “I quite understand,” Willison said. “One thing, Mr. Mannering.”

  “Yes?””

  “Where will you be tonight?”

  “The Eighteenth Century Club in Eton Square.”

  “Thank you.” Now Willison braced himself, and Mannering knew that a question of much greater importance was coming; and Willison seemed to have some difficulty in bringing it out; but at last he managed to ask: “Do you know Julie Clarendon?” The name seemed to stick on his lips, and sounded much more like ‘Clardon’. When Mannering didn’t answer at once, he went on with an effort. “My information is that she greeted you with very great affection in Riston Street. Three of the Divisional officers were all of the opinion that you and she were close friends. Are you—sir?”

  The ‘sir’ was obviously uttered with a great effort, proffered as a kind of olive branch in advance. “I have to ask but there’s nothing personal in it,” he seemed to say. And no one could have looked more directly, more challengingly.

  “The first time I met her was at Quinns, this morning,” Mannering stated with quiet emphasis. “That was the first time I’ve seen or heard of Tom Forrester, too. He wanted me to sponsor him, believing that patrons of the arts owe him a living. So far as I’m concerned the whole affair started from there.” After a brief pause, without comment from Willison, he went on: “Ex-Superintendent Bristow now manages Quinns, as you no doubt know.”

  “I do,” admitted Willison.

  “He prepares a report on everything of interest which happens at Quinns,” Mannering explained. “He’ll have one on today’s visitors by tomorrow afternoon. You are welcome to a copy.”

  “Thank you, Mr. Mannering,” Willison said formally.

  Mannering nodded, smiled, and turned away. When he looked into the bedroom Lorna was dressed in a tweed suit and wearing a wide-brimmed hat; obviously it had done her good to have to change. Her eyes were bright, too, and she looked at her best.

  “Ravishing,” he declared. “All ready?”

  “Yes. Are you going to change? I’ve packed an overnight case for us both,” Lorna added.

  “Then I’ll go just as I am,” said Mannering.

  Soon a police officer was standing aside at the door for them; the body was still in the flat. Seven or eight men were busy about the flat, so Willison was doing the most thorough job possible. A policeman in uniform was at the lift; another at the lift entrance on the street level hall; two more outside the house, where at least a dozen reporters and photographers waited.

  “Sorry, darling,” Mannering said. “This won’t take long.” He answered questions as they were flung at him, posed for photographers with Lorna, and then took the wheel of his station wagon, parked close by, and drove off. There was not much traffic, and it took only ten minutes for them to reach Eton Square. Here, six adjoining houses had been converted to a residential club fifty years ago, and Mannering had been a member for over half of that period.

  It was like stepping into yesterday.

  The doorman was more like a footman, the furniture was more suited to a home than to a club, there was an atmosphere of the Eighteenth Century, with paintings by English, Dutch and French masters, and furniture of the period. Their room had a huge bathroom leading off, and also an alcove where, if they preferred, they could prepare breakfast or any light meal. A maid was on floor duty, and she was unpacking when they left for the restaurant on the ground floor, a room of warmth and comfort which seemed to shut out much of the day.

  They ate, leisurely, and talked desultorily about what had happened.

  Lorna looked tired again when they were in the lounge, a club lounge more than one of a hotel, drinking coffee.

  “John,” she said, “just one question.”

  “Yes, my love?”

  “Do you know more than you’ve told me?”

  He smiled with amused understanding.

  “No, darling,” he answered. “There are some details about what happened at Quinns and at Fulham but no dark secrets. I hadn’t heard of the Fioras turning up again until the Yard asked to borrow Bristow to examine some pieces believed to be from the collection. I’d never heard of Julie or her Thomas, as I’ve just told Willison. I don’t know what this is all about, but—” he hesitated, and looked intently at her: “but I’m going to have to help to find out.”

  “Must you?” she asked, almost hopelessly.

  “Yes.”

  “Why?”

  “Apart from what happened to you and the fact that someone tried to hang or choke the life out of me,” Mannering replied quietly, “it seems possible that I may well be taken for a ride. It also seems probable that the police as well as the man who attacked you had been tipped off to believe that I have the Fioras. I want to find out why,” Mannering finished simply. “Even you wouldn’t want to stop me, would you?”

  Lorna actually laughed.

  “If I thought there was half-a-chance I would,” she said. “But there isn’t.” There was comprehension in her expression as she went on: “So that’s what Willison wanted us away for: he’s searching the flat for the Fioras!”

  “Precisely!”

  “Why on earth did you let him?”

  “Because he can’t possibly find them,” Mannering answered, “and hopefully that will be good for his soul and for his future attitude towards me.” Before Lorna could interrupt, he went on: “I don’t know what to make of him yet, but I’m going to have to make up my mind and learn from experience. If he’s the man who’s going to step into Bristow’s shoes, I’ll often be in touch with him. That’s almost inevitable. And I didn’t want to start off on the wrong foot. So once I realised what he was after, I decided to co-operate fully.”

  “He’ll never be like Bristow,” Lorna said, frowning.

  “Bill and I were at each other’s throats for years,” Mannering reminded her. “You didn’t exactly love him in the early days, either. You can’t have forgotten.”

  “He was never a cold fish like Willison,” Lorna replied, and stifled a yawn which came unbidden. “No doubt you’ll handle him in your own inimitable way, dear. I wish it had never happened, but I do know that you won’t rest until you’ve discovered what it’s all about.” She pushed her chair back, and Mannering stood up quickly and drew it away from her.

  It wasn’t until she was in bed, watching Mannering as he put on his pyjamas, that she said sleepily: “I hope he doesn’t turn the place upside down.”

  “I think you’ll find that he’s a very neat and tidy man,” Mannering replied, and slipped into bed.

  Chief Inspector Leonard Willison was, in fact, an immaculate man in personal habits and in his work. Those who had carried out investigations with him before knew this. They all regarded Willison as a cold fish but they respected him, and they knew better than to be slapdash or untidy. So the search of the flat in Green Street, while thorough, left every room, every drawer and every cupboard exactly as Lorna herself had left it. Yet even carpets were taken up and floorboards checked for any which had been lifted recently, and might conceal a
hiding place.

  He found nothing at all to suggest that Mannering had lied, everything to indicate that things had happened as Mannering and his handsome wife had said. The bullet in the panelling had come from the gun which had only the dead man’s fingerprints on it, an old-fashioned .30 Webley.

  It was nearly two o’clock when the search was finished, and the men were all obviously tired. The body had been removed, the hall and the outside of the door checked for fingerprints and other clues; even the newspapermen had been given a statement and except for one man, on the National Echo, they had gone home. While his men were packing up, Willison sat on the arm of a big Regency chair, Mannering’s favourite, and for the first time, began to turn the pages of one of the press cuttings books.

  On the instant, he felt a shock of surprise: a kind of intuition.

  For this book had press cuttings which went back well over twenty years, and mostly concerned the exploits of the Baron.

  Willison began to read, closely; fascinated, enthralled.

  He read about the Baron, soubriquet for a Raffles-like thief who had a constant duel with then Chief Inspector William Bristow. His men were packed up and ready to go but none made a move to disturb him, for they saw from the intensity with which he read that he was absorbed.