by John Creasey
Larraby had said: “I fully understand, Mr. Mannering.”
Never take risks with your life, Josh.
Supposing he made the attempt to lock these men out, and failed? They would certainly make him suffer for it, and might kill. But would they let him live, even if he did what they wanted? He could identify them. He would be a damning witness against them, and because of that they would probably kill him before they left. He could take that almost for granted; they would use him to get inside the shop and the strong-room, and afterwards they would kill him. So he would not be taking risks with his life; the risk was already there. If he tried to shut these men out, however, he would be fighting for a chance to live.
Never take risks with your life, Josh.
Larraby felt the man named Fred breathing down his neck as he used the keys on the double lock, and pressed the secret mechanism which would allow him to open the door without an alarm going off. His one chance would be to thrust the door wide open without making any sound, then to hack at the man’s shins. He needed only a split second.
He felt the door yielding, under the pressure of his trembling hand.
Chapter Nine
Larraby Tries
Larraby knew that he had to make an attempt to save Quinns.
He felt the door yield, and steeled himself to thrust it wide open, and to kick backwards at the man just behind him. He had actually started to push when he felt a vicious kick at the back of his right leg. His knee gave way, and he almost fell. The man grabbed him by the arm, held him up, and pushed him inside the shop. He went staggering, fetched up against the corner of a Genoese silver table, and gasped as a corner cut into him. He managed to save himself from falling, and in the few seconds which followed saw the other two men come in, and heard the door close. They caught up with him. For a moment he thought that they would attack him then and there; but each man took an arm, and they hoisted him off the ground and carried him between them to the end of the shop. A light glowed there, to show patrolling police that all was well. Beyond this was the doorway to Mannering’s study; a small recess led to it. The two men pushed Larraby into the recess, and pressed against him, so that they could not be seen from the street.
The man with the hammer said: “Unlock Mannering’s office.”
“I—I can’t do it,” Larraby muttered. “I can’t—”
The man said: “You’ll open that office and then you’ll open the strong-room, and if you try any tricks you won’t live to see another day.”
Larraby’s hands were even more unsteady, and he kept shivering. Mannering’s instructions became very vivid in his mind, however, and for the first time tonight he began to wonder if these men would let him go; he began to hope that he might live. He knew exactly what keys to use for the door; he knew exactly how to open the strong-room door. Only he and Mannering had the secret of the electronics and the electrical control; as he began to insert his key in the door, he wished vainly that Mannering had never instructed him in their use.
The office door opened.
“Inside,” ordered the man with the hammer, and pushed Larraby in. The big, brutish man stepped in after him, quickly, and closed the door. The man named Fred was left outside, keeping watch; if there were any threat from the street, he would raise the alarm.
Larraby watched the thickset man with the hammer, which he kept weighing up and down in his hand.
“Now get busy, Larraby,” he said. “Just get busy.”
Everything in Larraby screamed out against what he was about to do, but all the time there was that insistent command of Mannering’s. Never take risks with your life, Josh. The place was fully insured, and in any case there was not a great deal of easily negotiable jewellery and small works of art in the strong-room. To have even a faint chance to live, Larraby knew, he had to open that door.
“Now!” the man rasped.
Larraby’s lips were working. He hated himself for what he was about to do, but – they might let him live. He did not really think they would, but if he disobeyed the man with the hammer he would throw what little chance there was away.
He kept muttering to himself, as if he were praying.
Mannering was still sitting in the bedroom, with Lorna, when the front door bell rang. Neither of them moved for a moment; they stared at each other in attempted mutual reassurance. Then Mannering got up, moved to the side of the bed, bent over his wife, and put his lips close to hers. “Sorry, my darling,” he said, and kissed her. He felt the pressure of her lips against his. Then he turned away abruptly, as the front door bell rang again. He felt sure that it was Ingleby, and he was right. Ingleby had two other men with him; Mannering recognised them both as from the Yard, men who usually worked with Bristow. He wondered glumly if Bristow had been consulted, and whether he was outside, as he let Ingleby in.
Ingleby took the search warrant from his pocket.
“All right, you carry on,” Mannering said. “Make as little mess as you can, won’t you?”
“I have no desire to exceed my duty,” Ingleby declared; in spite of his anxiety, Mannering could have laughed. “Has Mrs. Mannering retired?”
“Yes.”
“If she will be good enough to leave her room for a quarter of an hour we will get that done as quickly as we can,” Ingleby said formally.
Mannering went to tell Lorna.
They sat together in the study while the police moved about the apartment, the unfamiliar heavy footsteps sounding very loud.
Ethel, who had come in just before Ingleby, accepted the situation with a kind of scared good grace, and Mannering heard Ingleby questioning her. He wouldn’t get much change out of Ethel, who had worked for the Mannerings long enough to know that involvement in the investigation of crime was normal.
After twenty minutes, Lorna was told that she could return to her bedroom. Mannering closed the door on her and went to the drawing-room, a long, narrow chamber of green and gold, which had already been searched. Two pictures were askew, an indication that every picture had been moved, while the cushions on the chairs and couches weren’t exactly as Lorna would have liked them. No damage had been done, however. Ingleby was making sure that there was no cause for complaint.
Mannering felt more edgy with every passing minute, although he felt reasonably sure that nothing but the hammer had been found on the injured man. As the work went on, and there were no sensations, he began to feel convinced that nothing would be discovered at the flat – so, nothing had been hidden here.
If the police were prepared to take action on the strength of what they had discovered so far, surely they would have charged him, and carried out this search when he was in a police cell.
The trouble was that he could not be sure, and his mood of disquiet increased. He would be less troubled if he could discern some pattern in all that had happened, see some reason for anyone to suggest that he was handling the Rett Laker jewels.
It was half-past eleven when Ingleby came to the door of the room.
“We’ve finished, Mr. Mannering.”
“And drawn a complete blank, I trust.”
“Didn’t you expect us to?”
“I didn’t expect you to find a hammer in the injured man’s pocket. Do you know how he is?”
“The last I heard he was undergoing a brain operation,” Ingleby answered. “There isn’t likely to be any report of the result until tomorrow morning. I have another search warrant, Mr. Mannering.” Ingleby seemed to use that as a threat.
Mannering said heavily: “The shop?”
“Yes.”
“And you want me there,” said Mannering. He thought of Josh Larraby, wondered fleetingly whether he should try to persuade the police to use Josh as their guide, and then changed his mind. It would be wiser to go himself.
Mannering sat beside Ingleby in a police car, with a plainclothes driver who took no chances but lost no time. Except for a few couples, and one or two people on their own and walking briskly, no one
was about, and New Bond Street’s windows were either in darkness or garishly bright. As they swung round the corner into Hart Row, Ingleby exclaimed without warning: “Slow down!”
The driver’s foot was on the brake in an instant. Mannering turned his gaze away from Quinns, to see Ingleby twisting round in his seat and looking towards the side of the road.
“Turn round and let’s get a good look at that chap over there,” Ingleby ordered. “It looks like Tommy Glee. If he’s out tonight, it isn’t for fun.”
“Who’s Tommy Glee?” inquired Mannering, as the driver reversed with practised speed, and drove up New Bond Street again.
“A fur thief,” Ingleby answered tersely.
They passed a solitary little man on the right hand side of the road; he was hurrying, and they could hear the sharp tap-tap of steel heel protectors. He turned his head towards a shop-window, and the driver said: “That’s Tommy all right.”
“Flash the Yard,” said Ingleby. “They’ll keep tabs on him.”
Mannering felt helpless as he sat listening to the squeaks and squawks, the buzzing and the voices on the radio. The message was received, and flashed to another car by the time this car reached Oxford Street’s brighter lights. In all, they had lost no more than four minutes, but that was enough to give Mannering a vivid sense of the bustle of activity at the Yard, a glimpse of the long arm of the law stretching out in a dozen directions at once.
Quinns looked normal when they arrived.
Mannering opened the street door, and switched on some of the side lights which threw show cases into relief; jewels showed, fiery and bright, behind plate glass. The rest of the shop seemed shadowy and dark. Mannering led the way, with Ingleby just behind and keeping pace for pace, as if to make sure that Mannering could not steal a march. They reached the office, and Mannering stood in the doorway, before unlocking it. He was frowning.
“What’s the matter?” demanded Ingleby.
“Can you smell tobacco smoke?”
“Faintly.”
“No one should have been in here since half-past six,” Mannering declared.
“Smoke hangs about for a long time,” Ingleby pointed out.
Mannering said: “It doesn’t stay as fresh as this for long.” He switched on another light, which shone on to the office doorway, bent down, and inspected the brass escutcheon plate closely.
“Well?” demanded Ingleby.
“It’s not been touched,” Mannering said.
Ingleby gave a kind of snort, an indication of impatience. The other policemen were by the door, and Mannering was acutely conscious of the way they watched him. In spite of his efforts to keep absolutely steady, or perhaps because of them, he scraped the key on the plate. When he turned it, he did so too sharply, and the door did not open first time. He was behaving as if he had something on his conscience, whereas in fact only the mysteries of the night were heavy on his mind – and this latest pressed most heavily. He was virtually certain that someone had smoked in here within the last half-hour or so.
What would he find?
He opened the door at last, hesitated, put a hand to the light switch, and pressed it down; the light came on quite normally. He looked across at the corner, where shelves filled with heavy books concealed the entrance to the strong-room. As the policemen came in after him, big men who seemed to tread very heavily, he could smell tobacco smoke more pungent than ever.
Then he saw that two of the books which controlled the ACTIVE switch of the electronic control were a few inches out of place on the middle shelf, standing out from the other books. Now he was certain that something was badly wrong.
Only Larraby knew about those particular books.
“Someone’s been in here since the shop was closed tonight,” Mannering insisted.
“I’ve known smoke to hang about for days,” declared Ingleby.
“I don’t mean only the smoke,” Mannering said, and explained about the books. Ingleby was obviously sceptical, and the other two stared at him unbelievingly – unless his imagination was playing him tricks?
“Are you saying that you can’t open the strong-room door?” demanded Ingleby.
“I can open it,” Mannering said. “I think the place has been broken into already.”
“You’ll soon know,” Ingleby said tartly, and the driver coughed.
Mannering pulled the books right out, his mind working very fast, but also in agitation. He did not believe that anyone could have stumbled upon the secret by chance; and Larraby would never have talked about it. There seemed only one answer to the urgent questions. Larraby had been forced to open the strong-room – and so as to warn Mannering at the earliest possible moment, had left those particular books out of position.
It was no use trying to persuade Ingleby of that.
That wasn’t the only anxiety, for – where was Larraby?
Mannering switched off the electronic control, and the electric locking and alarm devices, then used two keys in the double lock in the wall behind the two books. He stood back.
“Well?” Ingleby demanded harshly.
“I press the last control switch, and the wall pivots open,” Mannering explained, and pressed. A section of the bookshelves moved, the top going backwards, the bottom forward. Through the gap at the bottom they could see a flight of stairs leading downwards.
“This is as near burglar-proof as anything I know,” said Ingleby, grudgingly. “I’ll go first, please.”
Mannering let him, and followed after, putting on the light, fearful of seeing Larraby injured or dead, or some sign of a raid. There was none. The individual safes were all closed, and presumably locked. Small works of art and some less valuable pieces stood on shelves, pictures hung from the ceiling along two sides, and the big day safe, in which goods were put for temporary custody, did not appear to have been tampered with.
Then those two books –
“Open the big one first, will you?” asked Ingleby.
Mannering obeyed, pulled open the heavy door, and stood to one side. Among the first of the pieces which Ingleby took out were some of those which Rebecca Blest had brought – the simple move which had begun all this.
One of them, the bracelet, flashed with light so brilliant that it made Ingleby move nearer to a lamp, and one of the men exclaim.
Mannering stood thunderstruck.
That bracelet wasn’t a fake. It was the real thing.
He stood stiff, and unbelieving, as Ingleby took out more of Rebecca Blest’s collection. Piece after piece was passed from one policeman to another, and then tension developed into fierce excitement.
Mannering knew why.
All these jewels were real; even the settings were genuinely old. Ingleby and his men were fully aware of that, and also knew that these were some of the jewels stolen by Rett Laker.
The police had found exactly what they had hoped to find – all the evidence they needed that Quinns was being used to harbour stolen goods. No one would be convinced when Mannering told the truth – that fake jewellery had been taken away from here and the genuine put in its place.
Chapter Ten
Arrest
Ingleby held a necklace close to his eyes, and seemed to linger over the stones lovingly, as if touched by a kindred passion to that which Larraby and Mannering felt for precious stones. He stood very still for a long time, then handed the jewels to one of the others, who took them almost reverently. The third policeman gave a nervous snort of a laugh.
At last, Ingleby spoke.
“Are these the fake jewels, Mr. Mannering?”
Mannering said: “No, they’re not fakes.” After the first moment of shock, he felt more able to cope; now that he knew the worst he was in much more control of himself, and his voice was steadier. “They’re genuine – the jewels as well as the settings.”
“And yet you—”
“I’ve never seen them before,” Mannering asserted.
The policeman who had given the snort of
a laugh did so again.
“You’ve never seen jewellery which was safely locked away in your own strong-room?” asked Ingleby; his voice dripped with disbelief. “Perhaps you could explain how they came to be here.”
Only Josh Larraby could have opened the strong-room and left so little sign that anyone had raided it, Mannering reminded himself. Josh. Loyal Josh. Mannering remembered all that had happened between them in the past, in a single swift kaleidoscopic vision – Josh, straight from jail, deeply grateful for a chance to rehabilitate himself, winning a reputation for honesty, and at last fully trusted in the trade.
“Can you, Mr. Mannering?” insisted Ingleby.
Mannering said: “No, not yet.”
“You never will,” muttered the snorter.
“But I’ve never seen them before,” Mannering repeated. Even to him this sounded ridiculous. “Miss Blest brought me roughly made glass replicas of all these, set in imitation settings. I put them in this strong-room myself.” He remembered the grubby little bags and grubby cotton wool in which the stones had been wrapped, and now began to ask himself questions. The first and obvious one was: why should anyone put the real jewels in place of the old? Robbery in reverse did not make sense. But somewhere behind all this lurked sense: a cold, cunning, considered intelligence had directed this thing.
“Take that statement down, sergeant, will you?” ordered Ingleby. Immediately, one of the men made a great fuss of taking a notebook and pencil from his pocket. “Mr. Mannering states that these jewels are unfamiliar to him – is that it, Mr. Mannering?”
“Let’s have it right,” Mannering said. “I have never seen the jewels before, but I have seen imitations which were brought to me by Miss Rebecca Blest this afternoon.”