by John Creasey
“Please yourself,” said Mannering. “Yes, I would.”
“Would what?”
“Like to think that chap will live to talk.” When Ingleby didn’t respond, Mannering fought back a wave of irritability. “Supposing you tell me what’s on your mind, Ingleby? Then I might be able to get it off.”
Ingleby said: “Mr. Mannering, there are no bloodstains on the floor of the hall downstairs. There are none on the pavement, as far as my men have been able to discover – they’re getting special lights, to check by, and they’ll be reporting very soon. But at the moment there is nothing but your evidence to say that the man was injured when he arrived. There are not even any bloodstains or indications that he leaned against the wall outside the door. There are one or two spots of blood on the floor in here – there were, rather, before my men scraped them up, to test for the blood group. But anything found inside the flat would hardly help to corroborate your statement, would it?”
Mannering stared at him, his heart beginning to pound.
“No doubt you see the obvious implication,” Ingleby said.
After a pause, Mannering replied: “Oh, yes, I can see, the implication – that he wasn’t attacked outside at all, but was attacked in here.”
“Precisely.”
“By me?”
“No one else was here when I arrived, and you told me that no one else had been here this evening, except your maid.” Ingleby paused, and then added acidly: “She has conveniently gone out.”
“Very conveniently,” Mannering agreed heavily. This wasn’t the moment to say that Ethel had gone at her own request, but the time might come when it would be invaluable for her to say so. “So your guess is that this man came to see me here and that I hit him over the head.”
“I didn’t say that.”
“Didn’t you?” murmured Mannering. He resisted a temptation to get up and move about; that would make it look as if he were too much on edge. “And Rebecca Blest’s father was killed in the same way and with the same kind of weapon. Do you think I did that too?”
Ingleby didn’t answer.
“Now if you could only find the weapon—” Mannering began. “And if you could only find my fingerprints on it, then you really would have a case.”
Ingleby stared at him gravely for a long time; for so long and so intently that his gaze was disquieting. Mannering put his hand to his pocket for cigarettes, and took it away again. It was difficult not to look away from the C.I.D. man, but one or the other of them would have to, first. It was like playing the silly children’s game of staring-you-out. His own gaze was about to shift when Ingleby turned away for a moment, then looked back, and said crisply: “We have found the weapon.”
“What?”
“We have found the weapon, Mr. Mannering.”
“Don’t be absurd. It’s not here.”
“It was here.”
Mannering thought: I’m going crazy. Ingleby wouldn’t make a flat statement like that unless he was sure of himself, yet on the face of it, this looked like nonsense. There was one way to force the issue, and he used it.
“I don’t believe it.”
“There are three witnesses,” Ingleby declared. He opened his case, delved a hand inside, and brought out a short-handled hammer with a heavy iron head, daubed thick with blood and with hairs sticking to the blood. The handle was smeared with grey powder, and seemed to be quite clear of prints, but he couldn’t be sure of that.
Ingleby drew the weapon out by a piece of string which was tied round the shaft; a label was tied to it, too. He held it up in front of Mannering, dangling from the piece of string. “That was stuffed into the pocket of the injured man,” the detective asserted. “The pocket of his trousers was smeared with blood, too. The handle has been wiped clear of prints, so no positive identification of the person who last used it can be made, but—” he let the rest of what he was going to say hover in the air.
Mannering said: “So he hit himself, and stuffed that into his pocket.”
Ingleby jumped up. “No, Mr. Mannering, he didn’t hit himself, and if you think this is the propel moment for facetiousness, I don’t. One man brutally murdered, another as brutally attacked, the second man found in your apartment with the weapon cleaned of prints and stuffed into the victim’s pocket – is that funny? Go on, tell me, is that funny?” Ingleby’s eyes were glittering, he was swinging the hammer almost as if he would like to use it. “Now, let’s have the truth, Mannering – what have you been doing with the men involved in these crimes? Why is it happening?” He strode forward and thrust a pointing finger in front of Mannering’s nose. “Go on, tell me that? What have you been playing with fire for? Where are the Laker jewels? Come along, tell me – where are the jewels which Rett Laker stole, fifteen years ago, which he hid away, and sold to you after he came out of prison?”
Mannering said: “Take your hand away from my face.” He waited for a split second, then pushed Ingleby’s hand aside. “Raise your voice at me again and I’ll put you outside. Don’t think that being a policeman will help you.”
Ingleby glowered. “So now you’re threatening me.”
“I’m telling you to behave like a civilised human being.”
“There’s nothing civilised about smashing a man’s skull.”
“There’s nothing civilised about ranting like a pocket dictator, either.”
Ingleby drew further back, and his expression was livid. “My God,” he said. “If I ever get you for this, I’ll make you suffer.”
“You’d be a better policeman if you just worried about getting the murderer. No man in his senses would carry out a murderous attack when he was expecting the police.”
“He might, if the man he attacked could do him harm with the authorities.”
“If he feared that, he would make sure he was dead.”
“Or rely on convincing the police that he was innocent.”
“If you really think like this, you oughtn’t to be on the Force,” Mannering said sharply.
Ingleby swung round. “All right,” he growled. “You’ve asked for it.” He reached the half-open door, and Mannering remembered that the landing door was also ajar. “Dickinson!” called Ingleby, his voice still thick with anger. “Come in and get started.” Ingleby stood with his back to Mannering, who was almost certain what the unknown Dickinson was to start. “Bring the others in, and get a move on.”
Mannering jumped to his feet, strode across the room, saw Ingleby start to turn round, hearing him; pushed the C.I.D. man vigorously to one side, and ran across the hall. He reached the door as it began to open wider. A thickset plainclothes man was standing just outside, looking down the stairs to two others who came hurrying up. Mannering said savagely: “Mind your hand,” and slammed the door; Dickinson snatched his hand away from the doorway just in time. Mannering fastened the catch of the door, and turned round to see Ingleby staring towards him, eyes glittering with rage.
“Have you gone crazy? Impeding the police in the course of—”
“Have you a search warrant?”
“I don’t need a search warrant after finding that man here.”
“You’ve got the man, you’ve got the weapon. From now on you need a search warrant.”
Ingleby was momentarily shaken.
“I can damned soon get one.”
“Then go and get one, and when you’ve got it signed by a magistrate you can come here and search,” Mannering said, harshly. “Provided you behave like a human being instead of like an idiot.”
“Mannering, you’ll regret this.”
“Ingleby,” Mannering said, in a low-pitched but very clear voice, “the only thing I have to regret is that I once gave you a helping hand. Try to get some simple facts into your head. I have never heard of Rett Laker’s jewels. I had never heard of Laker until this afternoon. I had never met his niece until this afternoon either, and then I saw her at her own request. I had never met Samuel Blest until after his death. While yo
u’re getting your search warrant you might try reciting those facts until you’ve learned them off by heart.”
He unlatched the door, opened it wide, and stood aside for Ingleby to go out. Dickinson and two other plainclothes men, who must have heard every word, were standing on the landing, obviously not sure what to do, and waiting for instructions. Mannering was still seething, but at the same time telling himself that it would not help if he lost his temper, or if he stood too much on his dignity. But he had taken this stand, and couldn’t shift his ground.
He heard the whining sound of the lift, and wondered who was coming up. It stopped at a floor below, and the silence seemed intense. Ingleby was breathing hard through his nostrils, as if he could not make up his mind what attitude to adopt. Every moment he lost was a moment’s gain for Mannering, although if Ingleby went for a search warrant, when he came back he would be ruthlessly thorough.
Then Mannering heard footsteps on the stairs.
Ingleby said: “Wait outside here, sergeant. I’ll be back with that warrant in less than half an hour. Make sure that no one comes in or goes out of the flat, by the back or the front.”
From the foot of the flight of stairs, Lorna Mannering called: “Does that include me, Mr. Ingleby?”
Lorna turned the bend in the stairs, and came towards them. She was tall and slim, with a good figure, and just now she was beautifully dressed in a suit which had come from Patelli; a ridiculously attractive little hat seemed to throw up her dark hair to glossy perfection. She moved as lightly and easily as she spoke, and she was smiling as if knowing that only she could hope to break this tension.
“Because I belong here,” she said, and reached the landing. She looked at Mannering. “Hallo, darling, I didn’t know that you had guests.”
Chapter Seven
Lorna
Lorna did Mannering so much good that he could have laughed aloud. Instead, he put his hands to her and drew her into the flat, while Dickinson tried to look the other way, and Ingleby seemed bereft of words for the first time this night.
“Not exactly guests,” Mannering said. “They seem to think that I clouted a man over the head with a plumber’s hammer.”
“And didn’t you?” inquired Lorna.
“Not this time.”
“I never did believe in treating burglars too leniently,” Lorna said. “You mustn’t get sentimental about thieves or policemen, sweet. Must he, Mr. Ingleby? Are you coming or going?”
“He’s going,” said Mannering, “but he’s coming back shortly. With a search warrant.”
“How tiresome,” Lorna said. “I must get to bed quickly, then I’ll have an oasis of peace and quiet.”
Her bland good humour was too much for Ingleby and his men. Ingleby said something under his breath, and turned away and started down the stairs. The others followed. When they were halfway down Ingleby spoke in a muffled voice, but his words were clear enough; he was telling two of them to stay near the Mannerings’ flat, one on the first landing, one in the hall. All three of them disappeared.
Mannering drew Lorna further in, and closed the door. She was smiling at him, head on one side. But Mannering knew what Ingleby would not have guessed in a hundred years; she was very anxious, and that showed in her eyes.
Mannering said: “Come and have a drink, darling,” and led the way to the study, which was their living-room when they were on their own. “Or do you want to take your hat off first?”
“I think I’ll slip into a dressing-gown,” Lorna said. “Mary fed me far too well, and something at dinner was blowy-outy. Come and tell me all about it while I change.”
She led the way into their bedroom, where Ethel had already drawn the blinds, and switched on a subdued light. Mannering sat back in her sewing chair, and watched as she unfastened the zip at the back of her blouse, shrugged it over her shoulders, and then stepped out of her skirt. She was beautifully proportioned – not a small woman, not really slim, but certainly not heavy. She loosened the brassiere at her full, white breasts, and it dangled down tantalisingly as she went across to a cupboard for her dressing-gown. Her movements were quick and light. She put the dressing-gown on, turned her back on him, unzipped and then wriggled clear of her girdle. Then she pulled on a pair of pyjama trousers, and tied the dressing-gown; then buttoned it high at the neck.
“So that’s how it happened,” she said, drily.
“I haven’t said a word,” protested Mannering, and laughed. “All right, all right, I know that’s what you meant. I am what is called preoccupied.”
“You mean you’re worried.”
After a pause, Mannering responded quietly: “Yes, darling, I think I am. Partly because I don’t know what it’s all about. Care for that drink?”
“Just hand me some indigestion tablets,” Lorna pleaded.
As he went across to her dressing-table, to get a bottle, she went on: “Did I play the fool too much?”
Mannering laughed.
“If you hadn’t, I think I would have crowned Ingleby. I’d already thrown him out of the flat. You couldn’t have timed it better or eased the tension more.” He watched her sitting back on her bed, hitching the pillows behind her, and put his legs up on a stool. This was a late night and early morning habit of intimacy between them, although more often than not she was drinking tea when they sat like this. “It’s one of the oddest affairs,” Mannering began, and told her exactly what had happened.
He did not know that he impressed her most by the complete control that he had of the facts, the way he marshalled the details into their proper order; nothing could have made it more convincing that he was not only worried by the situation but had given it a great deal of intense thought. At least the tension was gone, and he was not continually looking over his shoulder towards the door; nor was he alert for the sound of the front door bell. Yet half an hour must have passed between Ingleby’s departure, and the time of the finishing of the recital.
Lorna said slowly: “And the man got upstairs, darling.” “He might have used the lift,” Mannering said. “He almost certainly did. Why didn’t you, by the way?”
“I saw a policeman downstairs and thought I heard voices up here, so it seemed better to listen and walk,” answered Lorna. “Do you think the man who came here was the one who telephoned you?”
“It’s possible.”
“Wasn’t his voice the same?”
“He didn’t really use his voice when he came here, he only muttered incoherently,” Mannering said. “The worst of the situation is that he couldn’t walk. He would never have got across the flat if I hadn’t helped him. He was leaning against the wall, almost as if someone had propped him there.” He caught his breath, and his eyes narrowed. “As if someone had propped him there,” he repeated, very softly. “That could be it. If someone wanted him to be found in the flat, badly injured and looking as if he’d been attacked here, that’s what they would do.”
“Darling,” Lorna said, and burped slightly. “Sorry.”
“Yes?”
“Why should anyone want to do that?”
“I can’t even begin to guess.”
“How serious is it?”
Mannering said grimly: “Serious enough for Ingleby to get a warrant for my arrest if that’s the way the police want it. Look at the situation cold-bloodedly, sweet.” As he spoke, the full significance of the words struck at him. He felt his heart beginning to pound again, and saw the deepening anxiety in Lorna’s eyes. Cold-bloodedly was the only way he could look at the situation, and seen like that, it scared him. “This man couldn’t walk. The two doctors didn’t say much, but they both said: ‘I can’t imagine how he managed to get here.’ That must have started Ingleby’s mind ticking over, and for some reason he already thought that I was interested in a cache of jewels which the man Laker had stashed away. A man so badly wounded that he could not have walked up those stairs and probably could not have operated the automatic lift, was found in this flat, with the weapon i
n his pocket, wiped clear of prints. Imagine what I would think if I heard this about someone else.”
Lorna said: “I don’t want to.”
“I know what we both want,” Mannering said. “And what I need most is two or three days in which to move around and find out what’s going on, but it wouldn’t surprise me if the police make sure that I can’t.”
“Have they really enough to make a charge?”
“Yes, I think they could justify one. A defence counsel might be able to make hay of it, but – well, grant that the injured man could implicate me in a serious crime, and had to be silenced, and there’s a case.”
“But he isn’t dead!”
“The police could argue that I thought he was.” When Lorna made no comment, Mannering went on: “The only bright spot is the fact that Ingleby was ready to wait for a search warrant. If they found any of these jewels on the premises I’d spend the night in a police station cell.” He moistened his lips, and looked round at the door, then back at Lorna; and he knew that the same question was forming in her mind.
She uttered it.
“They can’t find any of the jewels here, can they?”
“If you’d asked me an hour ago, I would have said that they couldn’t find a man with a smashed skull here, or that you couldn’t find the hammer used to hit him with. I’d he flabbergasted if any jewels were found, but—”
He broke off, and caught his breath. Lorna asked quickly: “What is it, John?” When he didn’t answer, she leaned forward and demanded again: “What have you thought of?” Mannering said: “If that hammer was in the injured man’s pocket, some jewels could have been, too. I don’t know what he was coming to see me about. If it was the man who telephoned for an appointment in Hyde Park, he might have had the real Blest jewellery.”
“But surely—” Lorna broke off, equally aghast.
“Yes?”
“But surely if Ingleby had found anything like that in the man’s pockets, he would have told you by now – or else he would have taken you with him.”