by John Creasey
Van Groot drew a deep breath.
“For the blue diamonds, one hundred thousand pounds.”
“One fifty,” said Kyneton, promptly.
The four dealers sat in armchairs in different parts of the room. Lorna was on the other side, watching. Rudra, the secretary, who had been at Patel’s house, was in a corner with a pad and pencil in front of him. The Maharajah kept standing all the time, looking from one man to another. The tension in the atmosphere was as great as when the shooting had started. The hush was brittle; something would break it at any moment. Van Groot sat upright, Kyneton gripped the arms of his chair, Petter was relaxed, Mannering’s eyes were closed and he looked half asleep.
He hadn’t made a bid.
Van Groot and Kyneton had done most of the bidding, with a casual nod from Petter coming now and again, after van Groot’s last figure. They had reached three hundred thousand pounds, and were going up in ten thousands. At first, van Groot had been swift off the mark, now he was hesitating. He looked from Kyneton to Petter, as if trying to read their minds; then he growled: “Three hundred and ten.”
“Twenty,” Kyneton said.
A long pause; then: “Thirty,” said van Groot.
Kyneton hesitated. Petter lit a cigarette and seemed to lose interest. Mannering took a hand out of his pocket and spoke for the first time.
“Four hundred,” he said.
It was as if he had dropped a bomb. Petter sat up abruptly, van Groot swivelled round in his chair and glared, Kyneton glowered. Only the Maharajah looked at Mannering with benign approval. Kyneton looked as if he wanted to protest.
“It is too much!” Van Groot’s words were almost inaudible. “I give up.”
The Maharajah looked hopefully at the Americans. Petter shook his head, Kyneton jumped up and went to a cocktail tray, took a whisky straight and drank half at one gulp.
The Maharajah bowed to Mannering, glanced at Lorna, smiled as if to himself, went to the round table and selected a diamond pendant from one of the other ten groups. He carried it to Lorna and placed it round her neck; it scintillated against the black dress, white fire with a dozen colours stabbing at it.
“With my good wishes, Mrs. Mannering.”
Mannering was smiling so broadly that Kyneton looked disgusted and van Groot insulted. They didn’t hear what Lorna said. They saw the Maharajah turn to the table and heard him say quietly: “Shall we go on with the others? I am quite prepared to wait until morning, should you wish.”
After a pause, Petter said: “Oh, let’s finish it.”
“As you wish.”
“Finish,” said van Groot.
“Sure,” said Kyneton.
“I’m not in this,” Mannering said, and went across and sat on the arm of Lorna’s chair.
The tension had gone, the sensation was over. Three business men bid against each other, with the Maharajah conducting the sale smoothly and Rudra making notes swiftly.
The bidding finished at half-past one.
At half-past three Mannering opened the door of his suite, glanced out, saw only Ramdhal, and went into the passage. Ramdahl looked at him without recognition; the man seemed puzzled as he came forward. He saw a Sikh, the man whom Chopra had created.
Mannering took him into his confidence. “All quiet?”
“Yes—yes, sahib.”
“No more talking,” said Mannering. “Are you sure that no one else is about?”
“All is silent.”
They walked towards the head of the wide staircase. If Ramdhal saw no one, Mannering certainly wouldn’t. He looked about him, and out of the window towards the stars. Then he led the way down to the room where the jewels had been displayed. There were no guards. He tried the door; it was locked. He didn’t waste time with a picklock, but felt the wall where he had seen the Maharajah touch it, just before the doors had slid too. He felt a knob beneath the electric switch, pressed, and heard the doors slide back.
He went in, beckoning Ramdhal.
He pressed another knob beneath the inside switch, and the doors closed; he examined the knob, pressed it again, and nothing happened; again, and the door opened.
“Go out and press the one outside,” Mannering said.
Ramdhal obeyed, and Mannering closed the doors and pressed the knob for the second time. He waited, but the doors didn’t open until he pressed for the third time. Ramdhal came in.
“Wouldn’t it open before?”
“No, sahib.”
“The second press locks it from the inside,” Mannering said. He put on the light. The room was empty; even the table had gone. He went slowly towards the centre, peering at the floor. He had heard a sliding sound here earlier. The carpet was richly coloured, closely patterned. He went down on his knees and ruffled the surface with his fingers, while Ramdhal watched impassively. He kept ruffling the pile until he saw what he was looking for – a piece let into the carpet. It was circular, about the size of the table. He put his fingers beneath it at one spot, and it came up. Ramdhal hurried to help.
They lifted the carpet aside; parquet flooring was beneath, smoothly polished, and cut round into a circle. Mannering sat down, cross-legged, and began to press each piece of the wood. Ramdhal, sitting on the other side, did the same thing; he needed little telling what to do.
It was Ramdhal who pressed the piece which set the circular patch of floor in motion. It began to sink beneath the level of the rest of the floor, slowly and without a sound.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
THE TUNNEL
Mannering moved forward steadily, stepping on to the centre of the moving floor. Ramdhal asked an unspoken question. Mannering shook his head. His weight made no difference to the speed with which the platform moved. It was an age before his head was on a level with Ramdhal’s feet.
“Come soon,” he called.
The chamber below was small and bare, there was no furniture.
The moving platform drew level with the floor of the chamber, but didn’t stop. There was darkness beneath him. Mannering kept quite still, but shone his pencil torch. Soon he was able to see bare stone walls; the tunnel was cut out of solid rock. A long way above, Ramdhal stared over the top of the hole.
The movement ceased.
Mannering shone the torch round. He was in a larger chamber with rock walls close on three sides, nothing near on the other. The darkness here stretched so far that the light of the torch was lost. Mannering stepped off his perch cautiously, shone the torch on to the parquet platform and pressed the spot which Ramdhal had found.
It began to move upwards.
Mannering waited until it was above the level of his head, then shone the torch towards the ground and walked about. The floor was solid, hard, stony. A steel pillar ran up to the room where the jewels had been displayed, and the moving section of the floor went up and down on that, electrically controlled.
He was utterly alone.
He went twenty yards into the void before the thin beam of light shone on the far wall – and on a door. The door was open. It led to a tunnel which stretched a long way in the darkness. Mannering went back to the pillar and waited; five minutes afterwards, he saw the platform moving through the ceiling immediately above his head. Ramdhal appeared. Mannering gave him a hand off the platform before it reached the floor.
Mannering led the way towards the door and then into the tunnel. Twenty yards along there was a recess. The table on which the jewels had been shown stood in the recess, covered with its black velvet, but the jewels weren’t there. Mannering studied the wall, and saw that there was a false surface made to look like solid rock. This was a new kind of strong-room. He shone the torch round and it fell on light switches.
“We should make sure no one else is near,” Ramdhal said.
“There won’t be,
this end,” said Mannering. “If there were guards, they would be here by now.” He pressed on the switch. A good light showed, revealing the wall, which looked more as if it had been carved out of solid rock. He examined it closely, pressing gently everywhere. He found out where the rock was solid and where the surface was false; the pattern was slightly different.
Ramdhal said: “I would like to go further along, sahib.”
“All right. Be careful.”
Ramdhal went off into the darkness of the tunnel.
Mannering turned back to the wall. There were some boxes and sacks here – rice, canned food and biscuits. He left them, returned to the wall, and kept pressing. Now and again he thought that something gave, but when he pressed more firmly nothing happened. He worked for ten or fifteen minutes before a piece of rock moved. He pressed all round; nothing happened. He unwound the tool-kit from his waist, selected a screwdriver, fixed the handle and levered against the piece of rock.
It came away on a hinge.
Behind it was the lock of a safe.
The Maharajah might have a trick or two in store for thieves, Mannering knew. He stood to one side and examined the lock. It looked impossible to open without the right tools, but he had the tools. He started working, slowly. He could hear Ramdhal’s soft, fading footsteps, but nothing else except the noise of his drill.
After ten minutes he had the lock back.
He stood to one side as he opened the door. Nothing happened; it was just the door of a strong-room.
He stepped inside, looked round for the light switch, touched it, and took his hand away. He used the pencil torch for light. He studied the light switch, and saw two cables leading from it; one might be to an alarm.
The torch-light showed the strong-room to be large – fifteen or twenty feet in each direction. Two safes stood against one wall, big but old-fashioned; he would need half an hour to open each. A smaller safe on a shelf would be much easier.
He wasn’t only interested in the safes.
There were wooden crates round the walls – two or three dozen of them, piled on top of each other. One of the crates was open, and inside were brown-paper packets. He went across, picked out a packet, and unfastened it; the ends were sealed with gummed tape and he was careful not to tear it. Inside was a white powder.
He wetted his finger on his tongue, dabbed the finger on the powder, and put it to his tongue again. He hardly needed to make the test.
This was cocaine.
Mannering stood looking at the crates and their foul cargo. Here was the connection between Patel and Ganpore; this explained old Patel’s scornful rejection of the idea that he worked for someone else.
Here was illusory delight and years of torment for hundreds of thousands of people.
Mannering went to the smaller safe; in five minutes it was unlocked. There were papers inside, mostly bills and lists of machine parts and water-pipes, all charged to Ganpore. In fact, they were for the cocaine.
They were from Patel’s company in Bombay.
Mannering went back to the tunnel. Footsteps were drawing nearer now, but only those of one man. He saw Ramdhal’s torch-light shining towards the floor. It was cold and dank; he shivered.
Ramdhal loomed up.
“This way,” Mannering said.
He still didn’t touch the switch, but led the way; the two torches gave a bright light. He shone his on to the open packet. Ramdhal started when he saw it, hurried forward, and made exactly the same test. He swung round.
“You know, sahib?”
“I know,” said Mannering.
“Did you know before?”
“It was half a guess. How long will it take you to get out of Ganpore to somewhere from where you can safely telephone Kana?”
Ramdhal said: “There are tons of it. Tons!”
“Yes. How long?”
Ramdhal licked his lips. “What did you say, sahib?”
“How long will it take you to get to a place from where you can safely telephone Kana?”
Ramdhal hesitated. “I am not sure. A day, at most. I could leave here now and walk to the town. I could get a car; yes, I have sufficient money. I should not be recognised in the town, and in any case I have friends who would help me. I could get to the border of the state by tomorrow afternoon and telephone soon after that. Sahib, even if Kana acts at once, he will first need special authority. It will be three days before police could reach here in strength. Perhaps more.”
“We can’t spare three days. Two.”
“I can ask, sahib.”
“Kana will manage it in two,” said Mannering. Kana might even come earlier. “But first, tell Kana everything.” He was smiling tautly. “What did you find?”
“A door which I could not open – a steel door.”
“It probably leads to the tomb,” said Mannering, half to himself. “We’re facing east; the tomb is due east from the palace. The tomb is sealed, I suppose.”
“Always.”
“So we can’t get you out that way. We’ll get back. Take this.” Mannering pushed the packet of cocaine into Ramdhal’s hand as they moved towards the door. In the tunnel, he spoke softly. “You start, Ramdhal; get out of the palace as soon as you can. Send the lift back for me.”
“I shall wait for you.”
“You won’t. I’ve a lot of work to do.”
Ramdhal said: “I will go.”
Mannering stood alone, outside the wall of the strong-room. It was closed and locked. If anyone examined it they would see that it had been forced; there was nothing he could do about that. He pushed the piece of wall which concealed the lock into position, then turned towards the tunnel and the ‘lift’. There had been no sound since Ramdhal had gone, nearly half an hour ago.
Mannering had done nothing but close the doors and set the lock again; it could not be opened without keys now; it would need a close inspection to show that it had been forced. He walked towards the platform lift, and the coldness caught at him. He shivered, partly from reaction. He went out of the narrow tunnel into the wider chamber. The platform was waiting. He stepped on to it and pressed the piece of parquet with his foot. It began to rise.
There was no need for alarm, yet alarm was in him. It had all gone so smoothly, too smoothly.
He passed through the first chamber.
His head was on a level with the floor of the room where all of them had gathered a few hours ago. He was facing the door. He watched it tensely as the floor raised him. He was waist high, when he climbed out. He went to the corner of the room, level with the door. Now he watched the circular platform rising; now he watched the door.
He heard voices, footsteps.
He felt his heart thumping. The platform wasn’t yet in position. If anyone came in and saw it rising, they would know that he had been below. He found himself gripping his gun tightly, with clammy fingers.
The voices were just outside.
The platform came to a stop.
Mannering moved swiftly, facing the door all the time, bent down and pulled the carpet into position. A piece of it folded under, it seemed an agony of time before he got it straight. He stood up and went to the door, stood just behind it, against the wall.
The voices continued, a muttering in the language of the state. He couldn’t understand a word.
Had Ramdhal been caught?
He felt tension increasing, and fought against it. He watched the door, as if it magnetised him, and he saw it sliding back. Of course – Ramdhal had not been able to lock it from the inside.
The door opened wide. One of the dark-skinned men came in; another followed; a third. They went straight to the middle of the room without looking at the door. He stepped slowly towards the passage. If one glanced round, he would be seen. Once the alarm was raised, the safe
and the strong-room would be examined, the forced lock would be found.
He reached the passage, stepped to the right, and was out of sight of the men in the room. He walked quickly but without hurrying to the stairs, then ran up them; the carpet muffled the sound. He stopped at the landing. Leaning over the banisters, he could see into the passage, and the door of the showroom.
The men came out, without haste, the door slid to and the men went off – two in one direction, one in the other. None of them approached the stairs.
Mannering stopped at the door of his own room and turned the handle slowly and almost fearfully. Could he get away with it? Would something go wrong now?
He stepped inside.
The outer room was empty.
He locked the door, leaned against it for a moment, and then went across to the cocktail cabinet, poured himself a neat whisky, and tossed it down. He dropped into a chair and sat there for five minutes. At last he crept into the bedroom. Lorna was lying with one arm crooked above her head, peaceful as a child. He went into the bathroom and began to clean off the make-up. Now that he was so near safety, his nerves tore at him savagely.
Mannering went back into the bedroom in his pyjamas. Lorna hadn’t moved. He got into bed and switched off the little light which had been on all the time. He lay on his back. It was nearly half-past five, and the household was stirring; he heard sounds inside and outside. He wondered if Ramdhal had got his car. He wondered what would happen in the morning. How Duval was. Whether a trick would be played with the blue diamonds. Neither Kyneton nor Petter had complained about the way he had jumped from three hundred and forty thousand pounds to four hundred thousand. Kyneton would certainly complain bitterly that he could have got them for much less, that van Groot had reached his limit.
He found himself smiling.
He went to sleep.