Meet The Baron

JOHN CREASEY

Meet The Baron

Copyright Note

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from back cover

John Manering (aka The Baron) makes his first appearance in this volume. Lord Fauntley cannot help showing off both his daughter and the security under which his precious jewels are kept. Mannering finds himself attracted to both . . . . Money is tight and so he plans a burglary, but this fails and unexpected consequnces result. The relationship with Lorna Fauntley flourishes, and a series of high profile thefts and adventures ensure Mannering's future, so he believes, until Lorna equates him with The Baron. One of the many further twists in this award winning novel occurs when the police appear to seek Mannering's help, only to have everything turned upside down as the plot develops . . . . .

Table of Contents

Copyright Note

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-One

Chapter Twenty-Two

Chapter Twenty-Three

CHAPTER ONE

A CAUSE

LADY MARY OVERNDON TICKLED THE END OF HER LONG AND patrician nose with a tortoiseshell lorgnette that was as old-fashioned as her bun-shaped coiffure. Thirty years before her long grey dress, with its flounces and its trimmings of fur and beads and its stiffened collar of fine muslin, might have been in the height of fashion; in this year of grace the only thing about Lady Mary in the height of fashion was her mind, and few were privileged to know much of its workings.

Colonel George Belton, her companion in the sunlit room overlooking the lawn and tennis-courts of Overndon Manor, studied her, and smiled to himself. She looked an arrogant old shrew — hard, embittered, and self-centred, as though sixty years in a fast-changing world had proved too much for her.

The Cornel laughed suddenly. Lady Mary looked at him, as he knew she would, and her grey eyes were sparkling. A man or woman of understanding had but to look into her deep grey eyes to know that her thin lips and pointed chin were lying. Her eyes bespoke humour and understanding. So did her voice — a rather slow, low voice.

“What’s the matter with you now, George?” she asked.

The Colonel smiled behind his bushy white moustache.

“I was thinking,” he said, “that, of all the men who’ve met you because of Marie, Mannering’s the only one who’s not been scared away. There are possibilities about that man, Mary.”

“I don’t think so, George, where Marie is concerned.”

Colonel Belton was surprised, and a little disappointed. He liked Mannering, he loved Lady Mary’s daughter, and he adored Lady Mary herself. His knowledge of the women, built up during the five years that he had been the Overndons’ next-door neighbour, had told him that John Mannering would make an admirable husband for Marie and an excellent son-in-law for Mary. True, none of them knew more than that Mannering was young — well, youngish: thirty-five, perhaps — handsome enough, apparently rich enough, and a member of a family as respected as the Overndons. But the Colonel had built for himself a pleasant little fairy-story with a happy ending. Marie was twenty-two, and the Colonel was old-fashioned enough to believe in early marriages for women. So he scowled, and demanded an explanation.

Lady Mary regarded the two people who had just left the tennis-court and were moving across the lawn towards the Manor. The Colonel whistled to himself, tor he knew that Lady Mary was sad, and for the life of him he couldn’t guess why.

“They make a handsome pair, don’t they?” he demanded doggedly. “What’s the matter with Mannering? This is the first time you’ve ever suggested anything against him. Damn it, and I . . .”

“George,” said Lady Mary gently, “you talk too much.”

There were some things that Colonel Belton took hardly, even from Lady Mary. He frowned, pursed his lips, and sulked.

Mannering, dressed in white flannels that were vivid against the sunlit green of the lawn, walked easily and carried his seventy-two inches well. Lady Mary could see him smiling as he talked to Marie, who hardly reached his shoulder. His face was tanned to the intriguing degree of brown that could make even a plain man distinguished, but he would have been presentable without that. Marie Overndon was small, dainty, and lovely. Her wide grey eyes, suggestive of her mother’s, looked out on the world with confessed enjoyment; she was alive. Slim, straight, and supple, she carried herself with easy grace as she walked with Mannering towards the house.i

They were within twenty yards when a “hallo” came from the end of the garden, and a man and a woman hurried through a wicket-gate, brandishing tennis-rackets and shouting as they came.

The Colonel scowled as the couple on the lawn turned to meet the newcomers. He continued to scowl as the four went to the tennis-court for a pre-arranged set and were lost to sight, hidden by a thick shrubbery. He took a pipe from his pocket and began to fill it with tobacco from a leather pouch. Not until the first puff did his face clear, and at the same moment Lady Mary laughed.

“What’s the matter with you?” demanded the Colonel explosively. “Damn it, Mary — why the blazes don’t you make up your mind and marry me?”

“So that you can put in more time at your club?”

“Bah!” said the Colonel.

“I’ll marry you,” said Lady Overndon, “when Marie’s married. Not before.”

“She’s a born spinster,” snapped the Colonel, “and you do your damnedest every time a likely fellow comes along to make him realise it, Mannering’s a bit old, perhaps, as today’s youth goes, but that’s almost an advantage; and they’re well matched, aren’t they? And they’re as much in love with each other as — as . . .”

“You with me?” suggested Lady Mary.

“There are times,” said the Colonel, “when I could bowstring you! Be fair, Mary. What’s Mannering done to upset you?”

Lady Mary used her lorgnette to scare a persistent fly from her small ear.

“Nothing,” she said, during the operation. “I like Mannering, George, and I can’t think of anyone I’d like better — for Marie, of course.”

“Then — then what the deuce are you driving at?”

“Shhh!” said Lady Overndon. “It’s hot, and you’ll get apoplexy — and burying you might be even more painful than marrying you. George, Mannering had a talk with me this morning.

“About Marie?”

“About Marie — and other things. He told me that he’s worth a bare thousand a year. No more, no less.”

The Colonel’s pipe dropped to the carpet, and the start of his outburst was spoiled somewhat by his hasty recovery of the brier. He was positively bristling as he spoke.

“A — a thousand ? Damn it, Mary, I thought he was — his father was rolling in it, wasn’t he?”

“His father didn’t gamble on the turf or off it.”

“And Mannering — Mannering’s lost his money?”

“Most of it.”

“Gambling? Horses?”

“George,” said Lady Mary severely, “there are times when I think you’ll get old long before your time. Yes, John Mannering lost most of his money. Not quite in the usual way; slow horses, yes, but not women. Or, at least, he says not and I believe him. Five years ago he reached his safety-line, left himself with capital enough to bring in a thousand a year, and retired into Somerset, where he plays cricket, rides when he can, reads a great deal, and is happy. He has a seven-roomed bungalow, one servant, two acres of land, and two horses. I’m telling you in his own words.”

The Colonel was breathing hard and scowling.

“He — he told you all this, and you — you told him to . . .”

“Are you reminding me I’m a Victorian mother, George? I didn’t tell him to go back to his bungalow; you ought to know me better.”

Colonel Belton heaved a great sigh, and smiled at last.

“Sorry, m’dear. I couldn’t see you in the part. Yet — you say there’ll be no marriage? Money isn’t so important. It’s a love-match, and quite a lot of people can live on a thousand a year, or so I’ve heard. He could give up things — one of the horses,” added the Colonel, as a man inspired

“I suppose a wife would be worth even that sacrifice,” said Lady Mary gently. “Well, now you know as much as I do, George. And I don’t think they’ll marry.”

“But that makes Marie a regular little — dammit — gold-digger !”

“Call it the wisdom of her age,” said Lady Mary. “I think I’m glad. Mannering and money could make her happy, but Mannering without it couldn’t I may be wrong, of course, but we’ll see.”

“My opinion,” said George Belton, a little bewildered, “is that you’re talking through your hat, m’dear.”

“And I’ve already said more than the modern hat could possibly cover,” said Lady Mary. “Let’s find some tea.”

Marie Overndon stood beneath the spreading branches of the oaks that bordered the lake in the Manor grounds and stared across the moonlit stretch of water. The moon shone on her, giving her a cold beauty that Mannering saw as if he were looking at something a long way off. She was very slim and straight, and she was motionless. Once Mannering moved, cracking a twig beneath his shoe. A light wind played with the leaves and the grass and the water, disturbing even Marie’s golden hair. But her lips, set tightly and more thinly than Mannering had ever seen them, did not move; nor did her eyes. The frigidity of her beauty, after its warmth of that afternoon, after those half-promises by look and gesture, spread to the man. The smile that had curved his lips, the gleam in his eyes, was gone. Understanding filled him.

“Well,” he said, after a silence that had seemed eternal, “you know everything, Marie. One thousand a year, one sizeable bungalow, all the love I can give you. Marie . . .”

He stepped forward, but the look in her eyes stopped him. He stood dead-still, a yard from her.

“Why didn’t you tell me this a month ago?”

“I hardly knew you. I didn’t dream that I’d fall in love with you. It’s not” — his lips curved, and the gleam in his hazel eyes brightened his face for a moment, but was soon gone — “it’s not a habit, Marie. In fact, it’s the first time I’ve ever proposed.”

“Is it?” She turned away from the lake, and away from Mannering, neither seeing nor caring for the look in his eyes. “I hope it won’t be the last, John. Now let’s forget it. I’m chilly, and we’d better get back.”

She had walked fifty yards before Mannering started to follow her. For a moment misery had lurked in his eyes, and he had stared after her, watching her disappear into the gloom of the September evening, fighting against himself, against the impulse to plead with her, to beg of her. And then the coldness of her beauty chilled him, even in retrospect, and he remembered the way in which her expression had altered as he had told her the story that earlier in the day he had told her mother. The thought fought with his memory of the past month, the nearness of her, the promise. He could remember with startling clarity the ripple of her laughter, the curving of her red lips, the fire in her grey eyes. God, what a fool he was! Not for a moment had he doubted her. When Lady Mary had said, that morning, “Try, John — you’ve my blessing,” he had told himself the battle was won. It hadn’t occurred to him that Marie would say no.

The muscles of his face moved, and his hands clenched at his sides. And then he swung round, with a bitter humour in his eyes, but a humour for all that.

“If I’d nine thousand a year more,” he mused, “I might have married her. Wild oats have their uses. Oi, Marie!” he called out, hearing her walking through the woods bordering the lake, but unable to see her.

“Yes?” Her voice was cold and clear, and she stopped moving.

“Better wait for me,” he said, making for a glimpse of white through the darkness, “or they’ll call this a lovers’ quarrel.”

He chuckled to himself as she moved again abruptly, and chuckled more when he realised she was hurrying back to the Manor. He followed, more leisurely, until he reached the lawn. Then the ghost of her laughter that afternoon mocked at him. He swung away, savagely, bitterly, blindly.

On the following morning the Colonel arrived late at the breakfast-table, to find Marie alone and on the point of finishing her meal. There was no sign of Mannering, and Marie did not mention his name. He waited impatiently until Lady Mary arrived and Marie had gone — where, no one knew. But even then the Colonel did not get his question out, for Lady Mary saw it in his eyes.

“He caught the morning train to town,” she said quietly. “I knew it, George. Marie’s money-mad. She always has been. And she’s selfish. . . . Don’t stand gaping there, man ! Sit down and light your pipe, and try to think of a millionaire whose waist-measurement isn’t more than forty-six and who . . .”

“Steady, m’dear, steady!” warned the Colonel.

“If I can’t let off steam with my prospective husband,” snapped Lady Mary, “what am I marrying him for? Give me a cigarette, or fetch me a drink, or slap my face . . . . Oh, George, you are a fool! Or am I ? I don’t know. But she broke something in Mannering — I know, I saw it this morning: in his eyes, on his lips. Oh, he took it all right — on top, but only on top.”

The Colonel grew suddenly wise. He slipped his arm round his lady’s shoulders and let her cry.

CHAPTER TWO

SOME EFFECTS

“ALL THIS,” GRUMBLED JIMMY RANDALL — SOMETIMES KNOWN as the Hon. James Randall, of Mortimer Hall, Yampton, Somerset, and 18 Dowden Square, London, W.1, “dates from the time you were with the Overndons, and two and two make four. No woman’s worth it.”

“Ah!” said John Mannering, smiling.

“Ah, yourself!” snapped Randall. “You’ve run through fifteen thousand pounds in the past twelve months . . .”

“Where did you get that information from?” demanded Mannering quickly.

Randall laughed, and left his chair in front of the log-fire. The two men had been talking for half an hour on the subject of Mannering’s activities during the past year. Randall had been pleading, angry and disgusted in turn, but until that moment Mannering had displayed a faint amusement, punctured with a cynicism or an occasional “Ah!” The mention of the money quickened his interest. Randall decided that achievement alone merited a drink, and he was smiling as he poured it.

Mannering sniffed the brandy, gazing thoughtfully at his friend as he cupped the glass.

“Good stuff,” he admitted. “But who told you of the fifteen thousand, Jimmy ?”

Randall sipped and inhaled the brandy, and then scowled at Mannering’s question — but he discussed the brandy first.

“Not so good as the Denie Mourice ‘75, and I’ve bought two cases, drat it. Toby Plender told me.”

“H’m,” murmured Mannering, holding his glass away from him and flicking it with his forefinger. “So you held a post-mortem before reading the Riot Act, did you?”

“Stop using that glass like a tuning-fork,” said Randall irritably. “Yes, we held a post-mortem, if you want it like that. You’re like a kid acting the goat . . .”

“Well said!” Mannering laughed. “You’ll go a long way before you crack a better one than that.”

Randall didn’t smile.

“That’s right, be bright. I’m telling you . . .”

“For the sixth time!”

“That you’re making a fool of yourself, and that all of Somerset and half of London is sharing the joke. Damn it, John — even the Continental’s taking you up. I was there last night . . .”

“Low music hall,” said Mannering sadly, “reflecting low taste. How did they work me in?”

“Mimi Rayford came on,” said Randall, with a sudden grin, “and the dummy in the stalls bellowed, “Mannering’s latest”. I . . .”

Mannering laughed, until the brandy spilt over the edge of his glass. Randall’s grin widened reluctantly.

“It was good,” he admitted.

“It was wrong,” said Mannering, recovering himself. “Mimi and I quarrelled two nights ago, and she had a smack at me. Never expect a fair dividend from a woman, Jimmy, however much you invest in her.”

Randall’s scowl came back.

“I haven’t seen the paper to-day,” he said, “but the gossip-columns will have it all right,” He looked hard at his friend, at those hazel eyes which could be humorous, lazy, quizzical, and mischievous in turn, but were now sardonic. “Why not drop it, John ? You had a bad break, I know, but not bad enough to — to squander every darned penny you’ve got on a crowd of gold-diggers.”

“That phrase went out with the flood,” said Mannering. “So because I told you and Toby Plender I was worth twenty thousand some time ago, you both think I’m approaching my limit, and you exhume me and read the Riot Act.”

“It is a tiling that worries us both a darned sight more than you seem to understand,” said Randall, with real seriousness. Damn it, neither Toby nor I want to see you go under.”

Mannering’s eyes twinkled, and he nodded.

“I know,” he said, “but what can you do with a man who’s tried the cure and found it doesn’t take ? You’ll only worry yourselves grey . . .”

“About you ?” asked Randall coldly.

“Oh, no. About the failure of your efforts to put me on the right path. And that reminds me, Jimmy, you’ve forgotten the racing and the boxing . . .”

“Forgotten nothing,” snapped Randall. “The only thing you haven’t sunk your money on during this last year is beer . . .”

“Make it alcohol in general,” murmured Mannering.

“And when you’re down to your last pound or so,” said Randall, “you’ll start that. For the last time — will you drop it?”

There was silence for a moment. Mannering’s eyes held his friend’s. He had known Randall for twenty years, through the hot enthusiasm of school-days, the blast years of Cambridge, the recklessness that had followed, and the calmer days of the past five years. He understood Randall; he understood the other member of the trio of friends, Toby Plender, who was also in London; but he did not understand himself, as he answered slowly: “No, Jimmy. Sorry. I’ve set my course, and I’ll stick to it. If I’m blown off it” — he shrugged his shoulders and grinned, that old, cheerful grin — “I’ll find another.”

“You’re a fool,” said Randall.

“We’ll celebrate a mutual understanding in a spot more brandy,” said Mannering.

Although he left Randall on that inconsequential note, Mannering was by no means pleased to learn that his friends were taking so close an interest in him. He felt that he wanted to do exactly as he liked, and the thought of interference annoyed him. On the other hand, he had the good sense to realise that neither Randall nor Plender would act — or talk — without the best of motives, and he did not propose to allow the affair to affect a friendship that had weathered many storms.

If his feeling of irritation left him as he walked towards the City — and Plender’s office — he did not intend to let Plender get away with the thing without some protest. True, it could hardly be called a breach of confidence that the solicitor had told Randall how low Mannering’s finances were, for the three of them had known for a long time most that there was to know about one another, while Plender could say to Randall things that he could say to no other man on earth.

He reached the solicitor’s office, and was taken to the junior partner’s room immediately. As the door closed, and before he sat down, he smiled sardonically at his friend.

“I’d like to know,” he said, with a show of annoyance not altogether discounted by the smile in his eyes, “whether you call yourself a solicitor or a talking parrot ? I suppose you didn’t tell Mimi Rayford that I was down to my last five thousand, did you ?”

“Never heard of Mimi Rayford,” said Toby Plender equably.

“Nor Jimmy Randall ?”

“That,” said Toby, pressing the tips of his fingers together, “was between friends.” He grinned, and pushed a box of cigarettes across the desk. “Well, what’s your trouble?”

“I’m going to change my solicitor,” said Mannering, put ting his hat and stick on the desk and clearing a corner for his feet. “Mind if I sit down ?”

Plender surveyed the size-ten shoes resting on his desk, shifted his gaze to Mannering’s quizzing eyes, and grinned.

“So you’re rattled enough to think of changing your solicitor?”

“Rattled, no. Careful, yes,” said Mannering. “And when I say change I mean cancel out entirely. Solicitors seem to me too solicitous.”

“H’m,” said Plender, “h’m. So you’re taking the last five thousand, are you ?”

“Yes, and putting it in a bank. It’s nice to feel you have my welfare at heart, Toby, but it’s a strain being the victim of good intentions.”

“I thought it would do it,” said Plender, half to himself. He was a small man, faultlessly dressed, with a hooked nose, a Punch of a chin, and a pair of disconcertingly direct grey eyes. At thirty-five Toby Plender had a reputation for being the smartest criminal lawyer in London, and he coupled this with the fact that he was nearly bald. His humour was dry when it was not caustic, and he shared with Jimmy Randall a regard for John Mannering and a growing concern for their friend’s recent activities.

“You thought it would do what?” asked Mannering.

“Make you think,” said Plender. “It’s time you did, John; time you thought hard, and stopped chucking away your cash.”

“D’you know,” said Mannering, “you and Jimmy should sing duets together — you both harp so on ancient ditties. Toby

Plender’s eyes were hard; he was taking this thing seriously, and Mannering’s flippancy annoyed him.

“Well?”

“Don’t try to reform me. I’ve had the itch for gambling since I was so high, and it’s been part of my make-up all the time, even though I kept it down for a while. So . . .”

“Supposing she’d married you ?” asked Plender.

“Supposing the dead could speak? They can’t. She didn’t. Have I made myself clear?”

Toby Plender nodded, and slid his hands into his pockets.

“Yes,” he said. “You’re a fool — and you deserve all you get.”

“Without trimmings,” said Mannering. That’s what Jimmy said. To make a start, I’ll have one of your cigarettes.”

He smiled, and Plender followed suit, a little reluctantly. He realised that Mannering had set his course and was not prepared to alter it.

“Any time I can keep you out of the divorce courts,” said the solicitor, watching the other take his feet from the desk, “let me know. You stopped just in time with Mimi.”

“And you said you’d never heard of her,” said Mannering sorrowfully. “Shall I tell you something, Toby?”

“Providing you remember my fee for an opinion is six-and-eightpence.”

“Too heavy by far,” riposted Mannering. “Well — Mimi’s husband hadn’t got a case. Nor have any of them. I thought I’d tell you, to ease your mind. Pass it on to Jimmy, will you?”

Mannering told himself as he walked back to the Elan — even now he walked whenever possible, for he was essentially athletic, and fitness was almost an obsession with him — that he had cleared the air a great deal, and that on the whole Toby had taken it well. One thing was certain: no one in the world would know the state of his bank-balance, and it would be easy enough, if he so chose, to create the impression that he was making money. There were many ways of making it, although, in his experience, most of those methods were more likely to have the opposite effect.

There was no reason in his mind, just then, for the move. He was not even playing with the idea that was to seize him very soon with a force that he could not resist. Afterwards it seemed to him that the thing was forming even before he was conscious of it. He felt desperate — and he wanted to gamble; what the gamble was like didn’t matter, provided the stakes were high.

Well — he had five thousand pounds, and while any of it remained he did not propose to alter what Toby would have called “his ways”. He felt pleased at the step he had taken, even if he did not realise its far-reaching effect.

10.30 a.m. Sam, clerk to Billy Tricker, turf-accountant, lifted the telephone to his ear and gave his employer’s name wearily.

“Mannering,” said the man at the other end of the wire. “A hundred Blackjack, at sevens, to win . . .”

“Can’t do it. Sixes.”

“All right, sixes. Double any to come with Feodora, at fives.”

“She’s up — sixes too. The lot?”

“Yes,” said Mannering.

“O.K.,” said Sam, and wearily summarised: “One hundred on Blackjack, 2.30, Lingfield, to win; any to come Feodora, 4 o’clock. Both sixes. Thanks, Mr M.”

11.30 a.m. “Yes, Mr Mannering, I’ve several of your cards. Just a moment, Mr Mannering, I’ll make a note . . .”

Florette, florist of Bond Street, pulled an order-pad towards her. She repeated Mannering’s order in an expressionless voice, but there was a smile on her lips, for in the past twelve months she had taken similar instructions from Mannering so many times that she was beginning to see the funny side of it.

“Four white roses — four dozen, I beg your pardon — to Miss Alice Vavasour, at 7 Queen’s Gate, and two dozen red carnations to Miss Madaline Sayer, at the Lenville Theatre. Yes, Mr Mannering; thank you, Mr Mannering.”

12.30 p.m. “But I really can’t, John; I’m rehearsing this afternoon, and I’ve two shows to-morrow — idiot !”

“Did I hear the renowned Miss Vavasour say “idiot”?” asked Mannering.

“Only over the telephone. No, I can’t. I’ll see you in the dressing-room. John, be a darling. Yes, lunch and tea the day after to-morrow. And, darling, the roses were exquisite, but you shouldn’t. . . . Idiot, how could I help it? You’ll try and come round to-night?”

1.30 p.m. “They call this place,” said Mannering, “the Ritz, and you told me that you would meet me here at one o’clock. Explain, sweet Adeline, how that meant one-thirty.”

“A woman’s privilege to be late,” said Madaline Sayer, “and if you call me Adeline again I’ll scratch your face.”

“It’s no woman’s privilege,” said Mannering, “to give me indigestion. That’s our table. And Adeline’s a nicer name than Madaline; more popular too.”

Madaline Sayer laughed. She was a little woman with a pink-and-white fluffiness that passed for loveliness, and a genuine contralto that made her a popular star at the Lenville. On that day she was at peace with the world, for it was no mean achievement to take John Mannering from Mimi Rayford. Between Mimi of the Continental and Madaline of the Lenville there existed a rivalry in most things, especially the conquest of man. Conquest of John Mannering, Madaline knew, could only be temporary, but to get him direct from Mimi was just too ravishing.

“You’re a brute,” she said. “What’s this about indigestion? Ooo! John, look at the thing inside that frock . . .”

“I’ve to be at Lingfield at three-fifteen,” said Mannering, glancing idly at a debutante in a floral creation which had excited his companion’s envy and admiration, “which means that I must be away by two.”

“John! I thought we were going to have the whole afternoon. There’s that divine house-boat I’m longing to rent this summer . . .”

She pouted, while Mannering ordered lunch, and was still pouting when he laughed at her. The gleam of his teeth against his dark skin seemed to stab her. She looked round the room, and a dozen pairs of eyes turned quickly away, eyes directed at Mannering, not at her. She must play her cards carefully with him. He was as rich as Colossus, they said — or was it Croesus ? — and he was certainly the most exciting man in London. Someone had compared his smile with Rollson’s, but Rolly wasn’t in it.

She stopped pouting, and tapped his ankle gently beneath the table.

“Well, if you must I suppose you must. Couldn’t I. . .”

Her eyes sparkled, and her lips opened slightly in carefully simulated expectation. Mannering chuckled.

“My dear, you look adorable, but I’m going alone. And if we talk too much my digestion’s ruined.”

“Serve you right,” she snapped. She was angry for a moment, and her prettiness was spoiled. “You’ll never get to Lingfield in time, anyhow.”

“I’m flying from Croydon.”

“Trust you.”

“I couldn’t have lunched with you,” said Mannering, “if I’d planned to go by road, so . . .”

“John, you darling! Oo, and I forgot. The carnations were divine. How did you know that I liked them?”

“You must have let it slip out,” said Mannering dryly.

2.05 p.m. Mannering hurried towards the car waiting for him outside the Ritz, but stopped as Toby Plender’s voice hailed him.

You again,” he smiled. “Don’t tell me you’ve been lunching with the flighty.”

“A client,” said Plender. “I didn’t think it possible, J.M., to go lower than Mimi Rayford, but you win.”

“What’s this ? Another way of calling me a fool ?”

“There aren’t any other ways left,” said Plender amiably. “Where are you going?”

“Lingfield, via Croydon. Coming?”

“I earn my living.”

“I get mine honestly,” chuckled Mannering.

He travelled to Croydon by road, and in his haste to catch the plane that was going to the racecourse broke many speed-regulations, and spared little time for thinking. But in the air, with the country-side opening out beneath him like a large-scale relief map, and the sun burning into the cabin, he thought a great deal. Toby was still worrying the bone, even though the solicitor had no idea how close his friend was to the border-line. Even now Mannering was not conscious of the idea that was to master him so soon, but he did recognise that the need for finding a way of making money was increasingly urgent; he had not the slightest desire to go under. Of course, it was possible to make money on horses, but. . .

He smiled sardonically, and watched the teeming crowd below as the aeroplane circled over the course and then prepared to land in a near-by field. Despite the fact that he had taken a great deal of trouble to make sure he reached Lingfield, he did not feel the same fascination as he had done a few months before. There was something lacking in the appeal of racing and betting; only the gambler’s instinct in him urged him on.

4.00 p.m. Lord Fauntley — plain Hugo Fauntley a few years before — grey-hatted and grey-haired, was fretting nearly as much as the horses at the tape. Mannering, next to him, was smiling easily, hands in pockets and cigarette in the corner of his mouth. The crowd was humming; the raucous voices of the bookies laying their last-minute odds were high above the hum. The line of horses was level at last, and the tape went up.

The crowd roared, and Lord Fauntley bit his lip.

And then the din subsided until it was like distant thunder, with only those spectators near the rails catching the beat of the horses’ hoofs thudding against the sun-baked turf. Mannering heard Fauntley shifting from one foot to the other, and smiled.

“Where is she, Mannering, where is she?” Fauntley stammered. “I didn’t see — I’m still as nervous as a kitten at this game, and I’ve been in it more years than I can remember. Where

“She had number five,” said Mannering, “and started well. Blackjack dropped to fours, did he?”

“Yes — damn Blackjack !”

“But not Feodora.” Mannering grinned, and swept the course through his glasses. He saw the yellow and red of Simmons, on Feodora; he was riding his mount well. Feodora was running fourth, between a little bunch in the lead, and the rest of the field was huddled together twenty yards behind.

“Will she . . .” began Fauntley.

“She’s capable of it,” said Mannering. “She’s moving up. . . The Setter’s dropped behind . . .”

“Where are my glasses ?” muttered Fauntley. “I never can find the darned things.”

“Shouldn’t stuff ‘em in your pockets,” said Mannering.

He smiled to himself, knowing that Lord Fauntley, with five hundred on Feodora, could have laid five thousand or fifty thousand, and taken a loss without being worried. There would be a certain amusement to be derived from separating Lord Fauntley from the Liska diamond, for instance.

“You had a job getting the Liska,” Mannering said aloud.

“Damn the Liska! Where’s Feodora ?”

“Second at the mile and a half.”

“Second, eh ? And she’s a stayer — I know she’s a stayer.”

“Marriland is coming up,” said Mannering thoughtfully.

He was thinking less of Feodora and Marriland, battling now towards the two-mile post ready for the straight run home, than of Lord Fauntley and the Liska diamond. The Post that morning had recorded, with its superb indifference, that Fauntley had outbidden Rawson for the diamond at the figure of nine thousand seven hundred and fifty pounds. The Liska would eventually adorn the plump neck of the peeress, and it was difficult to imagine a less worthy resting-place — or so Mannering believed. H’m ! A particularly foolish train of thought.

Was it? Fauntley could stand the loss.

“Where is she?” muttered Fauntley irritably. “Damn it, Mannering, you know my eyes aren’t what they were.”

“Still second,” said Mannering, “and turning into the straight! Ah! Simmons is touching her. Good boy, Simmons ! She’ll do it.”

The excitement of the finish stirred him now. Feodora and Marriland pounded along the hard track, with the rest of the bunch fighting for third place. The murmur of the crowd was fiercer now, and the sea of white faces turned towards the two horses. Feodora’s jockey was using his whip, flicking his horse’s flank. Jackson, on Marriland, was hitting his mount. Mannering was watching the faces of the two jockeys through his glasses. Simmons’s tense, expectant, hopeful, and Jackson’s grim almost to fierceness. Yard by yard the battle was fought, with the winning-post within a hundred yards — ninety — eighty . . .”

“Neck-and-neck,” muttered Fauntley nervously.

“She’ll do it,” said Mannering. “Gome on, Simmons — another yard — you’re in the lead.”

Fifty yards to go — forty — thirty . . .

Lord Fauntley hopped on one foot, then on the other. Mannering’s eyes were very hard and bright. Simmons was almost home.

“Hey!” bellowed Lord Fauntley. “Hey! Hurray 1 She’s won! Feodora, Feodora . . .” He remembered himself suddenly, and scowled, “Sorry, Mannering — excitement. Hal She won, then, she won! Do well ?”

“Fair,” said Mannering. For some reason, one that he could hardly understand, he was tempted to exaggerate his winnings. “I had a thousand with Blackjack, doubled with Feodora.”

“A thousand? Doubled?” Fauntley choked.

“H’m-h’m,” said Mannering, and laughed.

7.00 p.m. “Met that astonishing fellow Mannering,” said Lord Fauntley, as he kissed his wife and dropped into an easy-chair. “Parker — a whisky, with plenty of soda. Astonishing fellow, m’dear — had six thousand on Feodora, and didn’t turn a hair.”

“Six thousand!” gasped Lady Fauntley. “Why, the man must be a — a veritable — mustn’t he ?”

“Seems so, seems so,” admitted Fauntley. “Parker, I want that to-day. Not a hair, m’dear — never seen anyone take it easier than he did. Talked about the Liska diamond hallway through the race. Parker!”

“Soda — and whisky, m’lord,” said Parker.

“Ha! Parker, Mr John Mannering will be here for dinner.”

“Very good, m’lord,” said Parker. He went downstairs to relate the latest information, knowing well that the visit of Mannering would pleasantly excite the feminine members of the staff.

Meanwhile Fauntley sipped his whisky and waited for his wife to voice appreciation of his effort.

“You invited him to dinner?” Lady Fauntley preened herself, and patted her husband’s hand. “That will show Emmy that she doesn’t have all the good fortune, Hugo. How thoughtful of you to invite him!”

“Always thoughtful for you, m’dear.” Fauntley patted his wife’s hand in turn, finished his whisky-and-soda, and smiled. “I think you could wear the Liska to-night. I didn’t know Mannering was interested in stones, but he seems to be, and if he is he’ll notice it.”

“I’m sure he will,” said Lady Fauntley. “Hugo, do you think we ought to phone Lorna and tell her ?”

“Lorna ?” Lord Hugo thought suddenly of his daughter, who was not merely single, but apparently satisfied to remain unnoticed by men, eligible or otherwise. She was the despair of the Fauntley family, for she had a distressing habit of saying what was in her mind, and caring nothing for consequences. “Well — I don’t want the fellah upset, m’dear. Lorna’s got some funny ways . . .”

“But she adores him! She said this morning that if we could find a man like Mannering she might think of — of . . . Of course, I’m not fond of her modern ideas, Hugo, but she means well; I’m sure she does. I’D telephone her, dear.”

7.15 p.m. The telephone in Lorna Fauntley’s studio rang as Lorna was deliberating over crimson lake or crimson pure for the sash on the portrait of Lady Anne Wrigley.

“Damn the phone!” said Lorna equably. “Lake would be a little too bright, perhaps. I’ll make it pure. Hallo?”

“Lorna, darling !”

“Mother, you ought to be shot. I was just in the middle of something that . . .”

“Yes, dear, I know how busy you are, but I thought you’d like to know that your father’s invited Mr Mannering tonight. I just wondered whether . . .”

“John Mannering?” asked Lorna.

“Who else?” asked Lady Fauntley. “Eight o’clock; but if you’d like to come I’ll keep dinner back a little while.”

“I’m a pig of a daughter,” said Lorna Fauntley, “and there are times when I’m ashamed of myself.”

“I understand you, Lorna.”

Lorna laughed. “I really think you do,” she said. “Be an angel and send Riddel! over with the car. I’ve a dress here that I can wear. Bye-bye.”

CHAPTER THREE

DINNER AND AN IDEA

“SO THAT’S FAUNTLEY’S DAUGHTER,” THOUGHT MANNERING.

During dinner he sat opposite the girl. There was something disturbing about her, he admitted, although he wasn’t sure what it was. She wasn’t beautiful; remarkable, he told himself, was a word that suited her. Her eyes were grey, thoughtful, and probing. Probing. She had nothing of her mother’s lumpiness, and she was taller than either of her parents. Her movements were graceful but unconsidered, almost like a challenge: “Here am I, whether you like the effect or you don’t.” Mannering did. She looked mutinous, he thought. Her chin was firm, square, and like a man’s.

“She’s at war with the world,” Mannering told himself, “and that means she’s unhappy, which suggests an affaire. She’s twenty-five, or a year or two older, and she’s cleverer than her years. H’m.”

“He’s cynical,” Lorna thought, “and I hate cynical men. He’s handsome, and I dislike handsome men. He’s clever, and knows it, and clever men are detestable. Why do I like him?”

“The most distinguished man I’ve ever seen,” thought Lady Fauntley. “So tall and strong, so reserved. Just the man for Lorna — no, I mustn’t think of such things.” Aloud: “Do try a little of that sauce with your fish, Mr Mannering. It’s very out of the ordinary.”

Mannering smiled and tried it.

“It is,” he acknowledged. “Delightful.”

“Wait till you try the Cockburn 1900,” said Fauntley. “A wine with body in it, real body!”

Mannering felt the girl’s eyes on him suddenly — smiling eyes. His own twinkled. Yes, he liked her. He told himself that he must spend an hour looking up the record of her painting. She had a reputation for strong work in the old style, despite her modern tendencies in everything but art. It would be strong work, of course. Everything about her suggested power.

“I hear you had a wonderful day,” said Lady Fauntley.

“Fair,” said Mannering, smiling secretly. More than ever he realised the good effect his reputation was creating. No one, not even his closest friends, had any idea that he was so low in money.

He quizzed his hostess for a moment, staring at the Liska diamond in her corsage, and noticing the reddening of her skin under his gaze.

“That’s a wonderful stone, Lady Fauntley,” he said at length.

“Recognised it, eh?” chuckled Fauntley. “I wondered whether you would. Old Rawson is cursing himself for letting it go, I’ll bet.”

“Are you interested in precious stones ?” asked Lorna.

Lady Fauntley noticed the sparkle in her daughter’s eyes, and was apprehensive. Lorna did say such dreadful things on occasions.

“Always, when they become their wearers,” said Mannering.

He was sorry, a moment later. The triteness of the words brought a flicker of amusement to Lorna’s eyes. There was something scornful about her expression.

“Almost like pressing button B, wasn’t it?” she said mockingly.

“Oh, my dear!” thought Lady Fauntley miserably.

“Darned little idiot!” stormed her husband inwardly, stabbing viciously at his fish.

Mannering laughed, and was glad of the answering laughter in the girl’s eyes.

“Touché!” he admitted. “As ye sow, so shall ye reap.”

“It doesn’t always follow,” said Lorna.

“Careful girl, careful,” muttered Fauntley to himself. He lived in perpetual fear of the offence Lorna would give to his many visitors. Lorna spoke her mind too much, and, to make things worse, had a mind to speak.

“So sweet not to take offence,” thought Lady Fauntley.

“I like him,” Lorna reaffirmed.

Mannering chuckled to himself.

“The Liska’s only one of many of yours, Isn’t it?” he asked, playing with a spoon. “I’ve heard rumours that your collection is unrivalled.”

“Only rumours ?” Fauntley chuckled, in rare good-humour. “It’s the truth, Mannering, take it from me. Like to see them ?”

“After dinner, dear,” said Lady Fauntley.

“Of course, of course.”

“Thanks,” said Mannering. His eyes challenged Lorna’s. She was dressed in a black Schiaparelli gown, gathered at the corsage with a single diamond clip, but otherwise she was innocent of jewels. The gleaming white satin of her skin needed none. “You don’t like gems ?” he asked her.

“A Roland for my Oliver,” thought Lorna. Aloud: “Not so much as I’m supposed to,” she admitted.

“But you’re free to choose,” said Mannering.

“Everything’s a darned sight too free-and-easy over here,” broke in Fauntley, whose recent political activities tempted him to mount the platform at the slightest opportunity. “Going to the dogs, that’s what I think, Mannering, and . . .”

“Do try that souffle,” pleaded Lady Fauntley.

Mannering smiled, and the imps of laughter in Lorna’s eyes matched his.

The meal passed as pleasantly as it had begun, and Mannering told himself that Lady Fauntley, passive as she was, had more in her to admire than her husband. But there was not the slightest hint of her in Lorna; the girl seemed of a different class. He was enjoying himself much more than he had expected.

They chatted for a while over the Cockburn 1900. Fauntley was jerky both in manner and speech, a little too self-important, as though he were anxious to prepare his guest for an honour indeed. Mannering smiled when he realised the peer’s pride in his possessions, and his heart beat faster when at last they moved — the two ladies had been with them all the time — from the dining-room to the library and thence to the strong-room, built in one corner. If Fauntley was to be believed the collection held so safely in the room was without parallel in England.

And what did the possession of it mean to Fauntley, beyond an outlet for boastfulness that was already more than annoying?

Mannering pushed the thoughts to the back of his mind as Fauntley opened the door of the strong-room and switched on the light.

“Come along in, Mannering — you’re one of the half-dozen who’ve ever been inside, so you can think yourself honoured. Careful with the door, Lorna; we might get shut in. No one else has a key, and our obituary notices would be out before we were. Ha! Don’t shiver so, Lucy — only my joke.”

Lady Fauntley glanced nervously at the steel door, while her husband played with the combination of one of the sales in the strong-room. Mannering looked round idly. It was as near burglar-proof as a place could be. First the strong-room, with its lock that only gelignite or a key could open. Then the safes inside the room. H’m. If a man wanted to separate Lord Fauntley from some of his precious stones it would be a task worth doing — but as near impossible as anything in the way of cracksmanship. Cracksmanship. . . .

The idea was there now, and growing apace.

Mannering felt tense and excited, and he could hardly keep his eyes off the peer’s fingers. Had ever a man had such an opportunity for learning the combination of a safe first-hand ?

The place was as nearly burglar-proof as it could be, but there were flaws in the system, and not the least was Lord Fauntley’s memory. Fauntley muttered under his breath, and then lost his patience and grumbled aloud.

“Damn the thing! Sorry, Lucy, but I never can remember the numbers. I’ve a note of them somewhere — they’re changed every week, Mannering, just as an added sale-guard.”

“And you need plenty,” Mannering said easily.

“I look after that,” Fauntley said, rooting through his pockets. He brought out a slim black note-book at last, flicked over the pages, and muttered, “Four right — six left — seven right — ten left — four — eight.” He snapped the book to, and returned it briskly to his pocket.

Mannering deliberately looked away from him, but the numbers were turning over in his mind. He could not stop them — he was by no means sure he wanted to.

“Four right — six left — seven right — ten left.” He’d lost the last two, but, providing he looked back in time to see Fauntley’s final turning, he could pick them up again.

His eyes felt hot, and his chest was constricted. With an effort he forced a smile as Lorna’s eyes looked into his, twinkling. What would these people think if they knew what was passing through his mind?

The tumblers were clicking over now. Left, they dropped slowly to ten. Right, one — two — three — four. Left, seven or eight, he wasn’t sure which, for Fauntley broke out: “That’s got him. It needs to be secure, Mannering, but you can leave that to me. My strong-room’s the nearest thing to perfection of its kind in London — and that means the world, let me tell you. For instance” — Fauntley reached for a large leather case in the safe that yawned open now, and made Mannering’s fingers itch — “you noticed I was careful to lock the library door behind us when we came in?”

“Yes.” Mannering looked calm, even though his heart was thumping.

“To warn the servants you were on the prowl ?” mocked Lorna.

“Quiet, my dear. Also to cut off the alarms at the strongroom. I’ve left strict instructions that the library door must never be locked, because when it’s open any touching of the sale or strong-room would send the alarm off — and it’s some row, I can tell you! Ingenious, eh ?”

“Most,” admitted Mannering, and something more than the humour of the situation was gleaming in his eyes.

“Supposing a man came through the window?” asked Lorna.

“It doesn’t make any difference, my dear. I tell you the door’s never locked unless I’m here. Still, that doesn’t matter now. Mannering, have a look at these. . . .”

While he talked, and while Mannering recovered from the effect of the “that doesn’t matter” — could anything matter as much to him as that comprehensive explanation of the first essential for getting at the strong-room without sending the alarm off? — Fauntley had been manipulating the leather case. Now he unlocked it, with a key taken from a ring in his pocket. The light from the single electric lamp in the strong-room seemed to shiver and give fire. The room was a blaze of twinkling lights, of gold and silver and a thousand colours that were never still.

The light shone on diamonds set in the black velvet of the case. A single-piece tiara held the centre, glittering and blazing; rings surrounded it, while beneath it was a necklace, bordered by bracelets that dangled so often on Lady Fauntley’s plump wrists. The room was alive!

“Well?” breathed Fauntley.

“Terrific!” muttered Mannering. “I’d no idea you’d anything like this, Fauntley. Wonderful!”

“Watch this,” said Fauntley.

He was a bundle of excitement as he peered at the stones, and his hands trembled. Lady Fauntley was breathless. Lorna said nothing, and the fire danced from the diamonds to her eyes. Mannering found the spell of the diamonds almost too much for him; for the first time he stopped repeating to himself the numbers of the combination. He’d never forget them now. God! What an idea — cracksmanship!

Fauntley took a pocket-lamp from a shelf in the room and flicked the light on as he held the glass close to the stones. As it travelled, within a few inches of the collection, the diamonds seemed to move like living fire. Shimmering and cascading, fascinating and compelling, they lived.

Fauntley broke the silence at last.

“There you are, Mannering — the Gabrienne collection, reckoned the purest stones found during the early nineteenth century. It’s my prize piece. I’ve others, of course, but in ones and twos; there’s no collection to match this. I’m talking of diamonds, of course. The Karenz rubies are matchless too, and the Deveral sapphires. Let me see . . .” The peer rubbed his forehead and frowned. “You must see the rubies — I think they’re in the third safe.”

Mannering saw them, and a dozen other examples of the jewel-setter’s art that made his eyes agate-hard. He could take gems from this room worth ten or twenty thousand pounds, and Fauntley would hardly notice they were gone. In the safe where the Gabrienne collection was kept there were half a dozen other cases of smaller stones; and he knew the combination! If he managed to get them it might be months before Fauntley missed what had been taken.

He was nearing the end of his run, he knew. The Black-jack-Feodora double helped a little, but unless he stopped gambling his resources would last another month, perhaps; two at the outside. It was absurd, he admitted, to rely on winning enough to keep going; he would soon touch bottom.

What did that mean ?

It meant absolute poverty, the loss of position, the loss of friends, the loss of pleasures. It meant going without clothes — real clothes — and perhaps without food. He had realised all that before, of course, but he had not faced it. He had determined to strain the flesh-pots of indulgence to their utmost, and then let Fate make of him what it wanted. In fact, he admitted, he had never faced what would happen after the crash; he had only known that the crash would come, and that anything was better than the life he had been leading over the past five years. Until the month at Overndon he had been contented enough. He admitted it. But the Overndon month had split him asunder.

What followed had been an interesting experiment.

Mimi Rayford, Madaline Sayer, Alice Vavasour, all had been interesting, up to a point. They had been amusing, up to the same point. Betting was at once interesting, amusing, and occasionally exciting, and consequently was a point above Mimi, Madaline, and Alice; and, of course, there were other people and other things.

They had all been intriguing and amusing and had made life pleasantly varied; occasionally they had even given a notable kick to the business of living. But there had been nothing vital. Vital!

Mannering looked away from the Karenz rubies, and saw Lorna Fauntley’s eyes quizzing his. His lips curved, and hers responded. The mutiny, the mockery, the boredom, in her eyes were lost for a moment, and her teeth flashed.

“Impressed, Mr Mannering?”

“Overwhelmed,” said Mannering truthfully.

“Not the first nor the last,” said Lord Fauntley, locking his precious rubies in their safe. “Well, that’s the lot. Just a minute, Lucy, my dear; you’re in the way. Ha! Well, Mannering? Not many people would like to try conclusions with that strong-room, and an armed man on guard while the best stones are inside. Lucy! Don’t unlock the library door until the strong-room’s closed. All right now, my dear.”

They walked slowly across the library, and Mannering’s mind was humming with the words “and an armed man”. That was something he hadn’t expected. He looked about him, and caught sight of the man sitting unobtrusively in a corner of the room. He was reading, and didn’t look up, even when Fauntley went to a bureau near him, unlocked it, and dropped a key into a drawer. Then he locked the drawer and turned towards the others.

But Mannering knew what had happened, and he could scarcely believe that luck was breaking his way so much. Fauntley kept the key of the strong-room in that bureau. Of course, in many ways it was safe; few people would look for it there, unless they knew it could be found.

Mannering knew; and he was telling himself that the bureau-drawer could be prised open in a few seconds.

He glanced again at the guard, a short, stocky fellow who would be difficult to get past; difficult, but not impossible by any means. . . .

“What are you going to do after that?” asked Lorna.

Mannering, leaning against the marble mantelpiece of the lounge, surveyed his companion silently for several seconds. Lord and Lady Fauntley, abruptly conscious of the duties of parenthood, had disappeared on some mysterious errand, and Mannering had been with their daughter for several minutes. Neither had spoken until that question.

Mannering shrugged his shoulders at last.

“Do I satisfy?” Lorna asked suddenly.

“Y’know, you shouldn’t have said that,” said Mannering. “You’re not made for peddling the obvious.”

“Isn’t this isolation of the young with the eligible just as obvious?” demanded Lorna, her eyes smouldering. “Or do you still preserve your innocence in a world of matchmaking parents?”

“Sometimes it’s folly to be wise,” said Mannering, and took a deep breath. “I like your mother.”

“Poor Dad!”

“Rich, I thought the better word. In more ways than one.”

A tinge of colour flooded the girl’s cheeks. In the soft light of the lounge she had a loveliness that a harsher light might have mocked.

“And are you considering your verdict?” she asked with an effort. “While mother’s saying, “I wonder if” and Dad’s grunting, “Not a chance, m’dear; the little fool’s got no sense.”

“It’s a regular performance, then?”

“Almost a vicious habit. But lately it’s been . . . I’ve been away more often. You may have heard” — her eyes danced — “that I paint.”

He smiled and nodded.

“I’ve heard it rumoured.”

“Of course. So many of your friends belong to the studio set, don’t they?”

Mannering laughed, and took his cigarette-case from his waistcoat-pocket. Lorna shook her head as he proffered it.

“You keep saying what you’re not feeling,” Mannering said, as he selected a cigarette and poised it in the air. “It seems out of character to me. There are pretty cats and pretty women, each admirable of their species, but when a woman turns cat she seems all claws — from the man’s point of view.”

“Some men’s. Anyhow” — she flushed — “I’m sorry. What were you thinking of in there?”

“You want the truth?”

“It’s not entirely out of fashion — even in our age.”

“I was wondering what your eyes would look like if a lamp was held in front of them, as it was held over the diamonds.”

“Ye-es. You’re capable of thinking like that. What else ?”

“I was wondering what the chances were of breaking into the strong-room,” said Mannering, laughing. He hardly knew what dare-devil spirit prompted the statement; it came almost unbidden.

She stared at him for a moment, and he was puzzled by the expression in her eyes.

Finally her lips curved.

“Ye-es,” she said again; “I believe you’re capable of that too.”

“Of thinking of it?”

“Even doing it.”

Mannering lit his cigarette, glad of the chance to keep his eyes averted. God! She was near the mark! And he was a fool to have mentioned the idea.

“H’m. Well, it’s a good job I can resist that temptation,” he said. “I’m not thinking of trying it yet. And now, with the night still young, what next ?”

“I liked that “yet”,” she said.

“Forget it.”

“I doubt if I ever shall, so be careful. As for the rest of the evening, I’d rather like to dance in a crowd, where there’s no room to move or breathe, the noise negroid, and the band to match. But I think it would be fairer to go back to my studio.”

“You sleep there?”

“The question and answer could be misconstrued,” Lorna said, “but I’ll risk it. Yes, sometimes.”

“Why would it be fair?”

“Fairer, I said. Because I dislike rousing false hopes in fond parents.”

Mannering laughed, and smoke streamed from his lips.

“Frankness can be almost a vice,” he said. “But I rarely wonder what others will think. If I’m amused, I’m satisfied.”

“You think I’ve possibilities, then?”

“I’d like to prove it.”

Lorna laughed, but the mockery was back in her eyes.

“Do you ever think of anything but amusement ?”

“Why, yes. I think so. I study Ruff’s Guide.”

“That’s an evasion.”

“Naturally,” acknowledged Mannering, chuckling. “Is there time these days to cope with anything but amusement ? It’s a life’s work to watch for every variety.”

“I believe, too, you even work overtime.”

“I wasn’t thinking of musical comediennes.” Mannering smiled. “They’re the novice grades. There are endless other things — and I’ve found them all wanting.”

“It may have been you who were wanting.”

“More than likely, but my education’s not finished. Well, it’s something past ten. How does the Dernier suggest itself?”

“No other dates?”

“Two. One I’ve already missed; the other I’m willing to forget.”

“H’m.” Her eyes held his, with a glimmer of mingled amusement, mockery, and challenge. “Should I trust myself to such a memory ?”

Mannering laughed as he crushed his cigarette into a tray.

“The safest way never to lose a thing is never to have it,” he said.

“I’m ready to try anything once,” said Lorna. “While I powder my nose, spread the good news among the parents, and try not to see the light in their eyes.”

She turned away easily, and walked towards the stairs. Mannering stood watching her, and his lips moved.

“A cat,” he said, “but a wild-cat. Lord, what a life! One Lucy and one Hugo produced her. Her!”

And she liked that “yet”.

At half-past one they left the Dernier Club, and Mannering handed Lorna into a taxi.

“Chelsea,” he asked, “or Langford Terrace?”

“Langford Terrace,” said Lorna. “Even for the West home’s best — and probably safest.”

Mannering instructed the driver and climbed into the cab.

“That remark,” he said, as they moved from the kerb, “was the fourth you’ve made to-night that wasn’t worthy of you.”

“Both your standards and your arithmetic sound horribly precise,” Lorna said.

“And need revising for the brave new world?” chuckled Mannering. “Well, was the Dernier nearer your standard ?”

“Divine — if only there’d been a decent floor, plenty of room, and a breath of air,” she answered.

“You’ve forgotten the negro band that should have been white,” said Mannering. “Are you trying to convince me you are typical of the variable feminine ?”

“I may be, but I wasn’t trying to convince you of anything. I think I’d like to paint you. Head and shoulders.”

“Thanks, but I prefer photographs.”

“They can only reflect what you look like, not what you are.”

“What am I?”

“I haven’t discovered — yet.”

Mannering chuckled.

“I liked that “yet”,” he said.

CHAPTER FOUR

TOUCH-AND-GO

JOHN MANNERINQ HAD ENJOYED THE EVENING, NOT SOLELY because of the discovery that Lorna Fauntley was what he called, for want of a better description, intriguing. The Fauntley strong-room remained in his thoughts like a sharp etching — something he could not forget. He remembered, for he had forced them into his mind, the numbers of the safe’s combination; and there was little about the precautions Fauntley took to guard his collection that Mannering  didn’t know. If there was one thing that really worried him, it was the armed guard.

By now Mannering had thoroughly accustomed himself to the thought that he would start a campaign of cracksman-ship, even though so far the thing was hazy in his mind, and he was tempted to laugh at it rather than take it seriously. What easier way of making money than as a gentleman-thief?

A thief? The word made him stop and think. “Cracksman” sounded more pleasant; it gave the project a Robin Hood gallantry; but if he was to be honest with himself, and it was absurd to be anything else, he would earn the name of thief — and deserve it.

As he thought of these things a sardonic smile curved the corners of his lips. If the word itself was hard to face, so were facts. Cash he must have, and quickly, or he would go under. Going under was the devil, whereas his very life gave him opportunities to steal in a hundred places — yes, and without the slightest risk of suspicion.

The decision that had been hovering in his mind came to a head on the afternoon following the dinner at the Fauntleys’. Mannering weighed up the chances coolly, and decided that the odds favoured him. In the Fauntley strongroom he had been presented with as near a “sitter” as a cracksman could pray for, and it was almost like looking a gift-horse in the mouth to refuse the opportunity.

The decision being reached, he did not propose to lose much time. The quicker he made the plunge the better.

He realised that there were several things he would need, but most important of all, he told himself, was a weapon to help him in emergency. He decided cheerfully that the most effective would be a gas-pistol with a load of diluted gas, but for the moment that was impossible. He had an old Army revolver, however, without ammunition to fit it; if he took it with him it might have a demoralising effect on anyone he met — it was absurd, he knew, to be sure that he would get through without some trouble — and if necessary its butt would come in useful as a club. Yes, the revolver was what he wanted.

The rest was comparatively easy.

Towards evening, with the prospect of the raid on the Fauntley house making his heart beat fast, he spent an hour making various small purchases. For tools he told himself he needed two small screwdrivers, two thin files, and a tiny hammer. He bought a pair of thin rubber gloves from a department-store, and later a pair of rubber-soled golf-shoes. Finally — and he chuckled when the idea came — he bought a handkerchief with the initials T.B. on it. The initials meant nothing to him then — and he had no idea what they were likely to mean; he proposed to use it simply as an admirable “clue” to leave behind for the police.

He was ready.

And he was going through with the first effort; he knew that until he did he would be restless; as much as anything else he was hungering for a gamble that carried a real risk, and, providing his victims were sufficiently wealthy to sustain the financial loss, his conscience would not trouble him.

He felt cool enough as he approached the Fauntley home that night, and his nerves seemed steadier than ever as he walked towards Langford Terrace and entered the grounds of the house by the side-entrance. It was shadowed there, and he was hidden from the street by a thick hedge. The situation was perfect, for one of the library windows opened on to this side of the house.

And there was a light coming from it, given by the reading-lamp in one corner, where the armed guard was sitting and waiting for the dawn to come. Mannering knew he had only to outwit the man and he was through. Only!

Very softly, and with a set smile on his lips, he approached the window.

Misgivings stronger than any that had attacked him before flooded through John Mannering’s mind as he came closer to the window. The odds against him seemed multiplied enormously; the slightest slip now, and he would be in the armed guard’s power; the police would be called; Fauntley would recognise him. He felt hot, and his hands trembled as he touched the window-sill.

He told himself that he had been too impetuous: he should have taken more than a single afternoon to collect the things he would need for burglary; he wasn’t making capital of his advantages as he should have done; he was acting like a fool, making his first attempt as though he had been schooled in the East End by practised thieves. Before he was qualified to try to raid a place from the outside he would have to learn a lot in the art of safe-breaking, of forcing entries, of covering his tracks.

On the other hand, once he was in the strong-room he could get at the one safe without any trouble. The combination ran through his mind time and time again, word-perfect. But he should have given up the idea when he had heard of the armed guard.

The back of his neck and his forehead were sticky. He could see the guard in a far corner, and he wondered whether the man would shoot to kill if he met with an intruder. His courage seemed to ebb away. . . .

Three words that flashed across his mind halted the flight of his nerves, and made his smile more natural. He seemed to see Lorna Fauntley’s eyes, and hear her murmured “Even doing it”.

He was capable of doing it. Damn it, he couldn’t go so far and then back out. The door of the strong-room was less than twenty feet away from him; he could see the polished brass of the door-knob, and a picture of the glittering cascade of the Gabrienne collection came to his mind. He breathed more steadily, and he dipped his gloved right hand into his pocket.

He smiled more when he felt cold steel through the thin rubber of his gloves. The Army revolver, a relic of the days of the War — he had been in Flanders for the last year of it — rested there. He had been wise enough to bring it unloaded; to risk carrying loaded weapons would have been insane, for the authorities dealt harshly with armed thieves. Now the precautions he had taken and the preparations he had made seemed more reasonable.

He left the revolver in his pocket, and took out one of the screwdrivers. Every pocket of his coat contained something that would help him — a file, a torch, the handkerchief marked T.B. He had no real idea of what tools he would want, but the screwdriver would be best for levering up the window.

He glanced up, seeing that the top frame was open a little. The window was unlatched. Unless the bottom frame squeaked as he pushed it up there was a chance that he would get in without rousing the guard. Fauntley had unwittingly relieved him of several causes for anxiety. He knew that he could open the window without starting an alarm-bell, for the only alarm was controlled by the strongroom door.

He exerted a little pressure after wedging the chisel-end of the screwdriver beneath the window, and felt it move a fraction of an inch. There was no sound at all. Very gently, and with his breath coming faster every second, he levered it up. There was an inch to spare now — ample room for his -fingers.

He replaced the screwdriver, and took the revolver from his pocket, resting it on the sill. All the time the noise of late traffic passing the Terrace came to his ears, while occasionally he heard the hurrying footsteps of a man or a woman, and he found it hard not to let these sounds distract him. But as he put his fingers beneath the window he forgot everything except the man sitting in the far corner, whose heavy features were thrown into strong relief by the reading-lamp.

Mannering pushed the window up another inch, fraction by fraction. Suddenly the man in the corner moved. Mannering stopped, his limbs suddenly very cold. The guard lifted his head, looking towards the window, and darted his hand towards his pocket.

“God,” thought Mannering, “it’s all up!”

He couldn’t have turned away if he had wanted to; he felt there was no strength at all in his limbs. He stared, fascinated by the approaching disaster.

And then he saw the handkerchief in the guard’s hand, saw his head go back, and heard a sneeze that seemed to shatter the silence. Mannering’s heart turned over — or so he thought — and then his mind worked very quickly; he saw how he could turn the absurd development to advantage. He was still cold after the moment of fear, but he pushed at the window less cautiously now.

The guard sneezed three times, and by the time he had stopped the window was up two feet or more, and moving noiselessly. Mannering pushed it another foot, and then, as the other put his handkerchief back into his pocket, backed away from the window, taking shelter by the walls. He could see his man, saw the quick glance round the room . . . .

“Close,” Mannering muttered under his breath. “Thank the Lord for that sneeze! . . .”

He stopped muttering, and his eyes gleamed. He saw the guard glance towards the window again, and he realised that the other man was probably feeling a draught. Even as the thought flashed through his mind he saw the other move, and he realised that the open window would shout suspicion.

And then Mannering saw how it would also help him.

Breathing very softly, he drew into the shadows, waiting, as the guard came soft-footed towards the window. He could just see the man as he reached the window, and he saw him peer suspiciously. He could almost hear him thinking, asking himself whether he had for once forgotten to close the window or whether it had just been pushed up.

Mannering took just time enough to measure the distance, and then he acted. With the muzzle of the revolver in his hand he swung his right arm. The butt of the gun crashed into the man’s solar plexus; there was a single gasp, not loud enough to make itself heard more than a few yards away, and the guard staggered back.

In an instant Mannering was alter him. But as he climbed into the room his coat caught, and he wasted precious seconds. The guard had recovered sufficiently to dart his hand towards his own gun when Mannering looked up. His hand moved, and his unloaded gun was very threatening. The guard hesitated.

“Put your hands up,” said Mannering very softly.

The words were low, but the guard heard them while his fingers were dipping into his pocket. He stopped, seeing the gun in Mannering’s hand for the first time, seeing too a tall, heavily-built man clad from chin to knees in a mackintosh, with a trilby pulled low over his eyes and a handkerchief tied loosely round his neck. Mannering knew he might need to pull that up as a mask later, but while it was necessary to talk he couldn’t use it.

He drew his right leg into the room and straightened up. The guard stared, without moving, his eyes on the gun. Mannering’s lips curved a little as he realised that the other was prepared to take many chances, but not to risk his life even for the Fauntley jewels. His hands were level with his ears.

“Put them right up,” Mannering said, still softly and in a voice that Lord Fauntley himself would not have recognised. “Now stand up.”

The other obeyed without a word. Mannering’s eyes danced, and for a moment he was tempted to count his chickens too soon. Gad! This was child’s play.

He stopped smiling, and walked slowly across the room until he was within ten feet of his victim. Then he ordered again: Turn round and face the wall — and keep those hands up!”

It was like watching a film; Mannering couldn’t get it into his mind that it was really happening, that he’d made his first step. But if there was unreality about it at least his brain worked quickly, and prompted him to step quickly to the guard as the man’s back was turned towards him. Nor did he hesitate as he reached within striking-distance. This was the worst part of the job, but it couldn’t be avoided.

He moved his revolver, gripping it by the barrel, and rapped quickly at the back of the guard’s close-cropped head. The man gasped and grunted, swaying a little uncertainly. Mannering pocketed his gun, swung the other round, and jerked an upper-cut that connected with a vicious snap. The guard’s body sagged, and his eyes rolled.

Mannering felt panic very close to him now, but he gritted his teeth and kept it at bay. He supported the heavy body, letting it drop softly to the floor, and then straightening the limbs comfortably. He felt for the pulse, and found it beating well enough; a smile of relief crossed his face. Then he sought for the man’s own handkerchief, and, rolling it into a ball, stuffed it into the ample mouth.

“He won’t be able to shout for a long time,” Mannering muttered, and his eyes gleamed. It was short work to complete the job, using the guard’s belt to secure his wrists behind him.

Now for the bureau — and the key.

Mannering searched quickly, finding what he wanted with little trouble; the lock needed little forcing. He felt no thrill as his fingers touched the key of the strong-room; and now he found he had to guard against an impulse to hurry. The one thought in his mind was to get the job over, and escape from the house. He felt it was stifling him; two sides of his nature were warring, the one contemptuous at the way he was betraying Fauntley’s trust, the other mocking, as he told himself it was just another way of gambling. . . .

He learned then, and was to prove it time and time again afterwards, that the thrill of the game ended when the obstacles were overcome. There was nothing to stop him now; it was a thousand-to-one chance against anyone else coming to the strong-room at this time of night. The difficult part was over, and Mannering wanted to get it finished.

He ignored the guard, and stepped to the door of the strong-room, smiling a little, but with the need for urgency in his mind. He slid the key into the hole . . .

Then lie went rigid, and alarm seared through him. Fauntley had warned him, yet he’d forgotten it — forgotten that if the library door wasn’t locked when the strong-room lock turned the alarm would clamour out in the silence l He was white-faced as he withdrew the key slowly; and not until it was safe in his pocket did he breathe freely. Then the spasm of panic — the third he had had that night — went quickly. He smiled again, crossed to the door, and turned the key in the lock.

“It would have been my own fault,” he muttered. “Gad, but it shakes your nerves!”

Despite his words his hand was steady as he turned the key and a few seconds later pulled open the heavy door of the room that held the priceless collection. His ears were strained, and he half-expected to find that Fauntley hadn’t told the truth — that the alarm would ring. But no sound came beyond the sighing from the door as it turned on its well-oiled hinges.

He was inside now.

A feeling of triumph overwhelmed every other thought. He stood in the open doorway, looking at the room with its walls lined with safes. The third safe on the right held his attention — the one that contained the Gabrienne collection and a dozen other smaller pieces.

Now he wanted the combination. It was on the tip of his tongue as he stepped to the safe.

“Four right — six left . . .”

He muttered each figure under his breath as he turned the knob, and the clicking of the tumblers seemed to fill the small room. The seconds dragged, and he was fretting with impatience. “Ten left — four right — eight left. . . .”

He heard the final click, and pulled the door. It yielded to his pressure, and in a moment he was looking at the leather cases. The Gabrienne collection was the nearest, and the temptation to take it was overwhelming. He argued with himself, and at last common sense won. Every stone in that collection was known throughout the world; he would never be able to dispose of it.

He didn’t bother to force open the smaller cases, but selected three that would fit easily into his pocket. He tucked them away, breathing very fast. There was no need to wait to shut the door, either of the strong-room or the safe; the bound and gagged guard would be evidence enough of the robbery.

He turned away from the open safe, and as he did so something slid down his leg. The unexpected movement made him jump, and the little thud as the thing hit the floor made him tighten his lips. He looked down.

Then he smiled, and passed his left hand across his fore-head. It was absurd, but one of the cases of gems had missed his pocket, and, as he had moved, had slipped to the floor. He was doing most of the things he shouldn’t do.

As he bent down to retrieve the case he saw the small gold plaque on it for the first time. He frowned a little, seeing an inscription. He read the words quickly, and as he did so his brows darkened, and his teeth showed for a moment in a mirthless smile.

For the inscription read, “To Lorna from Dad, Christmas, 1934.”

To Lorna! The girl’s eyes, humorous and resentful in turn, mocking and somehow suggesting disillusion, seemed to be in front of him as he stared at the inscription. Very slowly, and hardly able to explain the weariness that was passing through his limbs, he took the other wallets, expecting what he found. Both of them were Lorna’s, one from her mother, the other from Fauntley himself

Mannering’s eyes held mockery of himself just then. He knew that he could no more take the girl’s jewels than he could take the Gabrienne collection, and for a stronger reason. Call it chivalry, call it what he liked — he couldn’t force himself to rob her.

But there was still no humour in his smile as he turned back to the safe, although he laughed silently as he ran through the wallets one by one. The only jewels in there, apart from the Gabrienne collection, were Lorna Fauntley’s. . . .

“And I don’t know the combination of any of the others,” he said, his lips twisted. “I’m damned if I’ll take these.”

He felt the temptation to go back on that decision, and he shut and locked the safe-door quickly. A glance towards the guard showed that the man was still unconscious, and there was no sound from outside. He had plenty of time to try one of the other combinations. It wasn’t impossible to get them by experimenting.

He turned from the door of the strong-room, but as he did so he caught, for the first time, the faintest rustle of sound. His body went rigid, and he stared towards the window, A dozen questions flashed pell-mell through his mind. Was it a policeman — a late servant — or his imagination?

No — there was someone at the window. The sound came again, softly, warningly. As it reached his ears he acted, switching off the strong-room light to put himself into shadows, and moving very fast across the room, his gun clasped in his hand. His palm was sticky.

Not until he was half-way to the window did he see who it was; and then he pulled up short, and the realisation that he was seen — recognised — flashed through his mind. Recognised — by Lorna Fauntley!

She was standing by the open window, staring in, and even in the gloom he imagined he could see the smouldering mockery in her eyes. She was looking squarely at him. . . . God, what a tool he war I Of course she couldn’t recognise him: he had pulled the handkerchief over his mouth and chin, his eyes were hidden by the brim of his hat, and the mackintosh made his figure unrecognisable. She couldn’t know him. But if not, why didn’t she move ? She was standing motionless, almost as if she were challenging him.

It wasn’t until then that he realised that he had his gun trained on her, that it had been directed towards her from the moment he had turned round. She daren’t move without risking a bullet, and that discovery put another thought into Mannering’s mind. If she’d seen through his disguise she would have spoken; certainly she would not have been afraid of the gun. As it was, the gun was bidding her to be silent.

He smiled beneath the handkerchief, and now the zest for the game returned to him. There was danger here, and more than a spice of it, a difficulty to get past, a chance to exercise his wits — the Lord knew they needed it after tonight. Well, the gun had been the only talker so far, and it could keep talking for a while. He was ten feet or more from the window, and lie could see her clearly, even to the steady rising and falling of her breast. He motioned with the gun, beckoning her towards him.

She hesitated, and he took a threatening step forward; it carried the necessary persuasion, for she spoke at last.

“All right” — she might have been talking over the dinner-table for all the nervousness in her voice — “I’ll come.”

She climbed in, easily and gratefully, and Mannering had a fleeting glimpse of a slim, silk-clad leg and a trim ankle. The next moment she was in the room, and he jerked the gun, motion her back from the window. She obeyed, slowly, and now he could sec her eyes more clearly, and feel her contempt. It stung him, and beneath his mask his face went red, but he brushed the thought from his mind quickly.

They had turned completely round, facing each other all the time. Her back was towards the open strong-room door, and under the shadow of his hat his eyes gleamed suddenly. The strong-room, of course. He could shut her in there, and be sure she was safe and unable to stop his escape. It was the only way; not for a moment had he contemplated treating her as he had treated the guard.

The gun acted as spokesman again; she shrugged her shoulders, and backed a pace towards the strong-room. Two paces . . .

And then she stopped, her face flushed suddenly. Mannering went rigid, but he forced himself not to look away from her, although the sound that had jarred through the silence came again — a rattling at the library door.

Then he heard Fauntley’s voice, high-pitched and half-hysterical.

“Morgan — Morgan! Unlock the door — unlock it, I tell you!”

John Mannering knew that he had only a few minutes to get away; perhaps less than a minute, for Fauntley would raise an alarm immediately, and the windows would be guarded soon. He couldn’t think for some ten seconds, and then his mind cooled. For the first time he spoke to Lorna Fauntley, but he hardly recognised his own voice: it was a snarl, harsh and guttural.

“Get in, you!”

She was appalled by the sudden ferocity of his words, and she dropped back, pale-faced. He stepped after her, his left hand outstretched, but rather than let him touch her she turned and ran into the strong-room — a picture he would retain for many years. He had no time for smiling, though, and he slammed the door on her, turning the key in the lock quickly and leaving it there. Fauntley had called out twice, and then the sound of his footsteps had followed. As Mannering leapt towards the window a gong boomed out in the hall, loud and threatening.

That was the first alarm — and no one but Fauntley was likely to be about for another minute, while already Mannering was half-way through the window. He felt the asphalt beneath him as he jumped, balanced himself quickly, and raced, not towards the front-entrance, but towards the rear, which opened on to a small street leading to Park Lane. As he ran through the garden he saw first one light at the top of the house blaze, then another and another. He was breathing hard, but running well within himself. He reached the street safely. Should he turn right, towards Park Lane, or left?

He decided on the former, and shed his mackintosh as he went. In its pocket was the handkerchief with the false initials, and he had time to smile grimly as he dropped the coat to the ground, and then turned the brim of his hat up. He stopped running, and he was breathing more regularly when he reached Park Lane and turned towards Piccadilly. There was just one thing he wanted now — a taxi.

An empty one overtook him after two or three minutes, and he beckoned it thankfully, giving the driver instructions to drive to Victoria Station. As he sank back in the cab a film of sweat broke over his face and hands, and he shivered a little.

It was over: the ice was broken. He couldn’t call it a failure, for he had learned a great deal. As he cooled down he stopped shivering: and twice within the next five minutes he chuckled aloud.

“Nothing taken, thank God!” said Lord Fauntley to John Mannering some thirty-six hours later. They had met at the Carlton Club, and Fauntley was full of the burglary. “Lorna must have scared the thief, Mannering, before he had time to get at the combinations. I thought I heard something, and I wasn’t long moving.”

“No one hurt, I hope ?” Mannering asked.

“Not seriously. The night-guard was knocked unconscious, but nothing worse. Well, I’ll make sure in future, Mannering — two guards all the time.”

“It would be wiser,” admitted Mannering, proffering cigarettes. “Anything for the police to go on?”

“Police?” Fauntley snorted as he accepted a cigarette. “What do you expect from them, Mannering ? They actually had the man’s mackintosh, and a handkerchief marked with his initials — T.B. or something — but they haven’t found a thing. Still” — his lordship smiled cheerfully — “they didn’t have to look for jewels, thank heavens! Well, we needn’t talk about that. Er — we spent a delightful evening, Mannering. If you’re free one day next week, spend it with us. You can ?”

“Delighted.”

“Then that’s fixed, that’s fixed,” said Fauntley jauntily. “We’ll be delighted, Mannering, delighted. Tuesday, if it’s all right with you? Splendid! And now I’ll have to be going.”

They shook hands, and Mannering smiled thoughtfully as the peer stumped out of the lounge. Obviously Fauntley didn’t suspect. But Lorna ?

“I’ll take a chance,” Mannering said to himself. “I don’t think she’ll have any idea — I don’t see how she can.”

He was prepared to swear, after dinner on the following Tuesday, that she had no idea at all that he had been in the strong-room. She talked more on that second night, mostly of the burglary. Her sympathies, Mannering discovered, were inclined to be with the burglar, but she had been scared when he had snarled at her.

“What made you go down?” he asked, as they drove towards their second tete-á-tete at the Dernier Club. “It must have been late ? Three or four o’clock ?”

“Not more than hall-past two,” Lorna said. “I had been to the Ran-Tan, and I was back late . . .”

“You’re developing a negroid complex.” Mannering smiled.

“Don’t joke with a serious subject. I went to the back-door — Dad doesn’t like leaving the front unbolted — and I saw the light in the library. So I looked in . . .”

“You were asking for trouble,” said Mannering.

“I nearly got it. That man’s gun was the most cold-blooded tiling I’ve ever seen. But” — she brushed her hand through her hair and smiled, without much humour — “let’s forget it. I’ve told the story to the police and to Dad and to every Tom, Dick, and Harry I haven’t been able to dodge. Let’s dance.”

They danced; and for a second time Mannering enjoyed an evening with her. But all the time he felt that there was something she wanted to say, yet held back.

CHAPTER FIVE

AN ADVENTURE IN SHARES

“FOR BETTER OR WORSE,” GRUNTED TOBY PLENDER, “AND naturally you’ve chosen worse. Somewhere in the back of my mind, J. M., one or two words are jogging round. They’re not very clear, and they sound suspiciously like Kipling when I want to use ‘em. . . .”

He broke off, eyeing Mannering evenly.

“I’ve an idea,” grinned Mannering, “that they begin with P-T-G. A soul-stirring poem, Toby. Play up, play up, and play . . . No, I can’t say ‘em. They stick.”

“They ought to.” snapped Plender.

It was a month after Mannering’s attempt on the Fauntley jewels, and a great many things had happened in the interval concerning Mannering and the Fauntleys. Mannering had met Plender that morning, and the solicitor had suggested lunch at his flat; Mannering, smiling to himself, had accepted the invitation. As he had expected, Plender was harping on the old theme.

“Then that’s all right,” said Mannering. “They ought to, and they do. What are you worrying about?”

“You,” said Plender, “and — well, never mind the “and”. . . . I suppose you’ve been on the winning end for a week or two?”

“If you mean that I’ve been winning money,” said Mannering, “I have. Heavily. Only don’t ask my bank-manager how much. He’s a funny fellow, with a peculiar objection to disclosing the state of my account.”

Plender rubbed the tip of his hooked nose.

“So you’re still rattled about that, are you?”

“Toby,” said Mannering, “you misunderstand me. You and Jimmy acted with the best of intentions, and anything but gratitude would be out of the question. And that’s by the way; it’s past now.”

“It’s a pity,” said Plender, “that you’ve struck a good patch. One or two heavy losses just now might have made you see sense. As it is, I’m afraid you’re hopeless.”

Mannering grinned, and lit a cigarette.

“I always have been,” he said. “Now — what’s on your mind?”

Plender sat back in his chair, looking more like Punch than ever.

“Of course,” he said, “it’s no business of mine, but — is it the thing, John, this new — new . . .”

“Let me say it for you,” suggested Mannering sympathetically. “What’s my game with Lorna Fauntley ? Right?”

“Right.”

“What idea is biting you? Do you think I’m going to try blackmail ?”

Plender grinned. “You were a born fool, J.M. No. I don’t suppose there’s anything you could use against her, anyhow. But her father’s a rich man. You might — I say might — be thinking of . . .”

“Let me help you again,” suggested Mannering. “Cashing in. Marrying for money. Right?”

“Right.”

“You’re a bigger mutt than I, Toby,” said Mannering. “I don’t really know why I don’t collar you two and bang your silly heads together. For the love of Mike stop doing the Victorian father on me, and watch me knock the bottom out of the betting market. Another thing. Use your legal training a little more, and realise the inconsistency of god-damning me when I ride with the Mimi Rayford bunch and when I run blamelessly with the daughter of a peer of the realm. Another thing. I’m going to buy five thousand Klobber Diamond Mines shares, and if you want a good thing, get in on that. And, Toby . . .”

“H’m-h’m?” muttered Toby Plender.

“I’m not such a fool as I look.”

Mannering took his leave soon afterwards, smiling to himself. It had been an ordeal, but it was over. Several times he had felt as though Plender knew, he chuckled at the fear now, and wondered what Plender would have said if he had known of the raid on the Fauntley strong-room.

Well, he was in it now for better or worse.

A few minutes later Toby Plender rubbed the end of his nose and looked thoughtfully out of the window of his flat after the retreating figure of his friend as he walked up the street.

Twenty years was a long stretch; in twenty years he had known J.M. play the ass to the limit, but he had never known him play the rogue. A smile curved Toby Plender’s square lips.

“He’s leading us by the nose,” he muttered to himself. “All of us. Klobber Diamond Mines . . .”

The Klobber Mines, Plender discovered twenty minutes later, were as nearly defunct as horse-drawn cabs. His informant was Gus Teevens, one of the biggest and most picturesque brokers on the Exchange. Gus was a giant of a man, fat, smooth-faced, innocent to look at, and possessing a deep, rich, unctuous voice that could have swayed a multitude if its owner had so chosen, either in the political arena or in the Church. He had chosen finance as his medium, however, and he used his voice for the benefit of those few friends who sought his advice.

“Plender,” he said solemnly, “don’t buy Klobbers. Klobber himself was a rogue. He died. His mines were a frost. They died. His shares are drawn in pretty colours and look good. Have you ever seen an embalmed body ?”

“So you don’t like the sound of them?” said Plender.

Teevens shook his massive head and wriggled his massive body in the swivel-chair in front of his desk. His office was a large one, furnished barely on the modern principle, but he seemed to fill it.

“Plender,” he said, “you have a fair portion of this world’s goods. Cling to it. Whoever was the misguided oaf who in-troduced you to Klobber Diamonds, shun him as you would the plague. Must you go?”

“I must,” said Toby Plender, grinning. “What are Klobbers standing at?”

“Shares one pound at par, two-and-threepence on the market.”

Plender hesitated. He smiled inwardly as he realised that after trying to dissuade Mannering from gambling he was being tempted to take a chance on Mannering’s opinion. He decided to take it, and smiled.

“Then buy me a block of a thousand,” he said.

Gus Teevens shook his head sadly, as a man looking on a ruined world.

“Plender,” he said, “I have warned you.”

“And sell them,” said Plender, “when they’ve reached par.”

He left the office of the stockbroker, smiling to himself a little crookedly. No one could have been more definite than Teevens; no one could be more unreliable than Mannering.

In his office Gus Teevens lifted the receiver off one of five telephones and put in a call, later conducting a conversation which might, for all its intelligibility to the layman, have been in a foreign language. Massive and deliberate as ever, Teevens finished his call, then made others on the five telephones. For twenty minutes he was talking, and as the minutes went by his face grew redder, and little bands of sweat gathered on his smooth forehead. In different ways to different people he said, “Buy Klobbers.”

Lord Fauntley was in a bad temper one morning shortly after Plender’s talk with Gus Teevens. His lordship told himself he had good reason to be annoyed, but his staff sighed when they realised that the chances of another bad day in the office were strong. He sorted through the post quickly, and then rang for his secretary, Gregory. It was a rule in Fauntley’s business life always to open private correspondence himself, for he worked on the basis that no one else could be trusted.

Gregory came in silently, and bowed.

“Good morning, my lord.”

“Look here, Gregory” — Fauntley rarely allowed himself to bandy words, about the weather or anything else, with the men who worked for him — “Klobbers. Yesterday they were bad, and to-day . . .”

“Sixteen-and-eightpence, my lord,” said Gregory. “Mr Marshall told me himself that he can’t buy them lower. They were fourteen-and-three yesterday. Shall we continue to buy, my lord ?”

“Of course, you fool, buy! Buy all you can while they’re below par, and then stop. But, listen, Gregory, if I thought you knew anything about this leakage . . .”

Gregory had been secretary to Lord Fauntley too long to take exception to the remark or the manner of it. He was a tall, pale-faced man of fifty, a confirmed bachelor, and a chronic dyspeptic.

“I assure you, my lord, the sharp rise was as much a surprise to me as to you. I was particularly careful to issue instructions only to the safest of brokers, and I think it can be safely assumed that the leakage in information was through sources other than our own. Is there anything else, my Lord ?”

“Oh, get out,” muttered Lord Fauntley.

“Shall I send Mr Mannering in, my lord ?”

“Mannering? Oh — oh, yes.”

Fauntley summoned a smile, but was not entirely successful in hiding his irritation. It was rare, even for the managing-director of the Fauntley Financial Trust, to find a thing like the Klobber Diamond Mines, and he had expected to get the whole fruit for himself. The fact that he had been compelled to share it was maddening. His profits were cut from forty thousand to twenty-five thousand, and he was reminding himself that fifteen thousand was a lot of money.

He stopped brooding as a figure darkened the doorway.

“Ha! Come in, Mannering, come in. Glad to see you.”

Mannering, immaculate and polished as ever, entered the office, shook hands with his lordship, inquired after her ladyship, and accepted a suggestion that he should dine at Langford Terrace that evening.

Under the warming influence of Mannering’s flattery Lord Fauntley confided that he had been stung by some darned cheap-jack of a broker, but, by Jove, he’d be more careful in the future. Then he succeeded in forcing his worries away, and chuckled.

“Still laying heavily on the winners, Mannering?”

Mannering smiled at his lordship’s eagerness.

“I was on Tanamount yesterday,” he said, “doubled with Portia. But I really came to see you about the stones, Fauntley.”

Fauntley swallowed hard. Some thirty years before he had been a clerk in the offices of a Greenwich bookmaker, whose heaviest stakes had rarely topped the hundred pounds. By unquestioned shrewdness he had climbed the backs of the masses to become a financial power, but in many ways he retained the outlook of his early days. He was unable to comprehend the coolness of Mannering in the face of sub-stantial wins and — so far as the peer could see — only occasional losses. Mannering’s nonchalance was a thing that Fauntley discussed at any and every opportunity. “An astonishing fellow. Money doesn’t matter with him. Ever met him? Come along to my daughter’s Carnival Ball — you’ll find Mannering there.” Or, to his wife: “Amazing fellow, Mannering. Fascinating. And — business with pleasure, m’dear — I think that idea of a ball is a good one. It’s time Lorna took a little interest in her old father, and a lot of people will come: surprising how much can be done at a time like that. Mannering will draw them.”

Very often Mannering told himself that he could not have a better publicity-agent, and there was an ironical gleam in his eyes when he wondered what Fauntley’s reaction would be if the peer knew just what he was doing.

“Stones?” echoed his lordship, breaking across Mannering’s thoughts.

Mannering nodded, as he proffered cigarettes.

“Yes. I’ve heard that the Lubitz diamonds will be in the market within a week or two, and . . .”

“Lubitz !” Lord Fauntley’s eyes glittered. “My heavens, Mannering, but the Lubitz collection and the Gabrienne collection would be — would be unique, unique ! You’re sure of this?”

“So sure that I thought of buying them,” said Mannering.

The peer’s face dropped ludicrously.

“Ha! Of course. I’d forgotten you collect. Yes. Well, you won’t go far wrong with the Lubitz diamonds, that’s certain enough.”

“But,” said Mannering, frowning a little, “I’m more anxious to get the Gembolt sapphires, and I was thinking . . .”

He stopped, as Lord Fauntley’s lips tightened.

The Gembolt sapphires, Fauntley knew, were up for offer at the Garton Sale Rooms, at an auction to be held on the following morning. He, Fauntley, had them in his pocket, since money was tight, and he expected to get them for five or six thousand. But if anyone — Mannering, for instance — was going to bid against him, it would be a different matter.

“I was thinking,” Mannering went on, “that if you give me the first refusal of the sapphires I’ll see that you get the first chance of the Lubitz collection.”

“You will?” Fauntley’s eyes sparkled. “But that’s damned good of you, Mannering, damned good! I’ll keep away from the Gembolts. Go and get them.”

Mannering smiled, and picked up his hat and gloves from the table. If Lord Fauntley could have read the working of the mind behind that smile his own would have been blasted from his face.

Jimmy Randall preferred Somerset to London, but he visited London occasionally, always making a point of seeing Toby Plender. Recently the mutual topic had been John Mannering. On the morning of the 9th of October — the date of the Fauntley Carnival Ball at the Five Arts Hall,

Kensington — the topic was still Mannering, but it was viewed more cheerfully and more philosophically than before.

“It amounts to this,” said Plender. “He’s found a winning slant, and he’s following it blindly. I don’t mean horses only; I don’t even mean the tables, although I’ve heard rumours that he’s been doing well at Denver’s Club and one or two private salons. But he’s touched two or three things like the Klobber Diamonds, and . . .”

“In other words,” said Randall cheerfully, “he’s turned his five thousand into fifty, and he can go to hell at his own pace.”

Plender laughed, making his face more like Punch than ever.

“I suppose so. I think he must have had something up his sleeve all the time, Jimmy. Anyhow, if you want to borrow anything, try J.M.”

“Let’s go and drink his health,” said Randall. “Y’know, I think if Marie Overndon had the chance now she’d take it.”

“Let Marie Overndon,” said Plender amiably, “go to perdition. She very nearly . . .”

He broke off abruptly, for one of the first faces he saw as he entered the Junior Carlton was Mannering’s. Mannering waved and moved towards them.

“This,” he said cheerfully, “must be the seventh postmortem in as many months. Are you eating or just drinking?”

“We might eat,” said Toby Plender.

“Idea,” said Kimmy Randall.

“I’ve got a table,” said John Mannering.

The flash of his white teeth against his dark skin, the glint of his hazel eyes, the grace of his lithe body as he moved towards the grill-room of the Junior Carlton, were parts of the Mannering of old, the Mannering of money. The thoughts in his mind were strange and mixed, tinged with a grim humour, coloured by a new devilry and a new purpose.

At that time John Mannering was reputed to be wealthy beyond ordinary measure. While his balance at a certain bank was low, it was well known that he used several banks. While no broker had bought substantially for him in any shares, Klobber Diamonds or others, it was known that he operated through many brokers. While no jewel-merchant had sold him gems of exceptional value, it was known that he traded with many merchants — also, it was rumoured, through Lord Fauntley. Billy Tricker, hearing reports of Mannering’s exceptional winnings on the turf, was glad that he had taken his lucky bets elsewhere. Tricker, being a philosophical bookie, knew that his turn would come.

At that time John Mannering’s assets were one thousand and fifty pounds, an idea that had grown into an obsession now, a belief in his ability to work the idea, and the love of Lorna Fauntley, of which he was unaware.

No one knew, no one dreamed, that they would soon be meeting the Baron. When the gentleman’s exploits grew famous or notorious, according to the point of view, no one dreamed that John Mannering was the Baron.

CHAPTER SIX

RUMOURS AND CRIMES

DETECTIVE-INSPECTOR WILLIAM BRISTOW WAS A LARGE-BONED man of medium height and middle age. He had spent twenty-five years in the Force — excepting, of course, for four years in Flanders — and those years were beginning to show in the grey of his grizzled hair and the lines in the corners of his eyes. Apart from those two signs he might have been twenty-eight, not forty-eight. His back was as straight as a rod, his stomach flat, his biceps passably hard, even when relaxed, and his eyes, flinty grey beneath almost white brows, were as keen and shrewd as ever. His lips smiled less often, perhaps, but his eyes laughed more.

At times he was called the Philosopher, because he appeared to let nothing worry him. At other times he was called the Posh William, because he dressed fastidiously, and wore a button-hole on every possible occasion. At other times still he was called the Mug, because every Commissioner selected him for the most difficult, tiring, intricate, and unlikely problems. The imagination of his fellow-officers — and subordinates — at Scotland Yard was not, then, as fertile nor as subtle as it might have been.

There was one compensation, however. Certain members of the fraternity that takes its pleasures and earns its living at the expense of more orderly members of society revealed greater subtlety by calling him Old Bill.

It might have been possible for them to have selected a man more antithetical of Bairnsfather’s creation, but few people would have believed it. Bristow’s face was square, tight-skinned, and alert, while his moustache was a neat military-cum-Colman attachment. Bristow fingered it a great deal, as though endeavouring to remove the yellow stains of nicotine that soiled the greyness of it. By habit he smoked cigarettes heavily, drank beer a little and spirits usually by invitation, and shaved night and morning when the trials of his job permitted. The thirty-seven housewives who lived in Gretham Street, Chelsea — excluding his own wife — believed that he was a commercial traveller. He had two sons approaching maturity and a daughter of fifteen. Perhaps one of the most significant things about him was that he adored his wile.

One morning in the August of 1936 Old Bill walked rapidly along Mile End Road, acknowledging an occasional friendly grin from the enemy who were at times his friends, frowning, wishing for winter — or at least for a temperature below seventy-five degrees — and confounding the Dowager Countess of Kenton.

The Countess had lost an emerald brooch valued at seven hundred and fifty pounds. That had been on the Monday, three days before this visit of the Inspector’s to Limehouse. At ten o’clock on the night of the loss she had telephoned Scotland Yard to lodge her complaint, and, allowing for the six hours she apparently slept at night, she had telephoned Scotland Yard every other hour afterwards.

The theft had been a neat one, but not exceptionally clever. During a dance — the Dowager had an unattached daughter — the lights had been cut off for thirty seconds, and the brooch had been snatched from the Dowager’s corsage. Before she had stopped screaming the lights had been switched on again, whereat she had fainted, and no one had kept a cool head in the ensuing confusion.

A ladder leading to the windows at the rear of No. 7 Portland Square revealed the means of ingress, an unconscious housekeeper near the electric-main switch — which in turn was near the window — revealed the burglar’s preparedness to use violence, and the fact that no one of the party had switched the light on again proved the raider, who must have done it himself, to have been of unusual daring and nerve.

The detective liked nerve, and, knowing that the house-keeper was not badly hurt, was amused. On the third day he disliked the Dowager so much that he was disappointed when Levy Schmidt, a pawnbroker in the Mile End Road, telephoned him to say that a client had tried to pass the Kenton brooch. That is to say, the human element in the detective was disappointed; the official element was pleased.

Bristow turned into the small, ill-lit shop and stood waiting amidst a row of second-hand dresses, a soiled heap of more intimate garments, a collection of cheap clocks, vases, and ornaments. After a few minutes Levy limped into his cubicle, saw his visitor, and lifted his scraggy old hands in dismay.

“Vy, Misther Bristhow, tho thorry, tho thorry! Vy didn’t you come in the private entranth, Misther Bristhow ? Come thith vay, thith vay, and mind the stheps — vun — two — three . . .”

Bristow followed the Jew into the grimy parlour at the rear of the pawnshop, and marvelled to himself that a man as rich as Levy Schmidt could live in such filth. He shrugged the thought away. Levy had a perfect right to handle his own money and affairs as he liked; and Levy, moreover, was a valuable informant.

The parlour was as gloomy as it was dismal, despite the brilliance of the sun outside. It was heaped with more second-hand clothes, odd articles of furniture, crockery, and cutlery. Nothing that could be pawned was missing. Mile End patronised Levy frequently and exhaustively from sheer necessity.

“Now vot, Misther Bristhow — thit down, pleath — can I do for you ? Can it be . . .”

“What a lot more you’d say if you didn’t talk so much!” said Bristow cheerfully. “The Kenton brooch, Levy. You’ve got it?”

Levy nodded. His dirty, scrawny face was lined with years, and his brown, hooded eyes gleamed as he regarded the detective with satisfaction. He turned away and limped towards a square steel safe in the corner of the parlour.

“Vy, yeth, Misther Bristhow, vould you pelieve it, I forgot? Mind you,” the pawnbroker added hastily, “I voth forthed to pay ten poundth for it, Inthpector; he vould not leave it viddout a pit of money. You come back ven I haff more in the thafe, I thaid, and he promithed he vould,

Inthpector — just vun minute more. Hey! The Kenton brooch, hey!”

Bristow took the bauble in his fingers and peered at it. The lambent green fires in the stones greeted even the dim light of the shop-parlour. Bristow pulled a photograph from his pocket and compared it with the jewel in his hand. It was the genuine Kenton brooch, he was prepared to swear.

He slipped it into his pocket, wrapped in tissue-paper, and nodded at the Jew.

“That’s it,” he said. “Now who was the man ? Know him ?”

“Never thet eyeth on him before in me life, misther!”

“What did he look like?”

“Veil — it’th dark in the thop, Inthpector. Tall and dark and vot you might call viciouth, hey? Not a nithe man to know, hey? And his coat-collar voth turned up — like thith.” Levy put his scrawny hand behind his neck and hunched his shoulders expressively.

“Coat or overcoat ?” asked Bristow.

“Overcoat, and a day like thith!” Levy lifted his hands to the ceiling. “Vy, didn’t it thout thuthpithion?”

“Why didn’t you telephone for a couple of policemen ?” asked the Inspector a little irritably.

“Veil” — Levy shrugged his shoulders until the miscellaneous collection inside the pocket of his once black, now green coat jingled together — “vot could an old man like me do, Inthpector? Get the brooch, I thaid — that wath the firth thing. And then telephone you, hey?”

Not by a word or sign did Levy betray that he knew more than he said. True, he had given the only description of the visitor he possessed; but Levy had no love for the police, and he had a great love for jewels of the quality of the Kenton stone. Between him and the visitor who had brought the jewel there had passed a conversation that Bristow would have given a lot to have heard.

“I’m not grumbling,” the Inspector said, knowing that if he grumbled he would get little or no information. “What was his voice like?”

“Not a nithe voith,” said old Levy. “Hard, misther, vid the corner-mouth talk, hey?”

“H’m,” said Bristow, and his mind worked automatically.

“An old lag, but not a Londoner, or he’d know Levy. The light business shows his nerve, and he’ll probably be known in the Midlands or up north. Broke, or he wouldn’t have taken ten pounds and an excuse for the brooch. He won’t come back, of course.”

“Where’s the ticket he signed?” asked the Inspector.

“Vy, yeth, I forgot, vould you pelieve it? Vun moment, Misther Inthpector, vun . . .”

The old Jew’s voice quavered away as he waddled out of the parlour towards the shop. Bristow could hear him pulling out a drawer beneath the counter, and heard him muttering to himself. Bristow scowled, trying to sort the thing out in his mind. Levy should have held the man somehow, he told himself.

“Here ve are, here ve are,” said Levy, limping down the stairs into the parlour. “Vunny kind of name, Misther Inthpector.”

Bristow took it, and looked casually at the signature, little dreaming how often he was to look on the name and curse it. His attention tightened, however, when he saw that the signature was little more than a series of block letters joined together; it suggested illiteracy or cunning — or both.

“H’m,” he muttered, “T. Baron. What strikes you as funny about that, you old gas-bag?”

“Veil,” muttered Levy, “veil — high and mighty, vot ? Hey! Just a minute, misther, the thop . . .”

Bristow nodded as he heard footsteps in the shop beyond. He waited for two or three minutes, with growing impatience. Levy was muttering, and the other voice, low-pitched and harsh, was travelling into the parlour, the tone, not the words, being distinguishable. Levy was haggling, and the other was losing his temper. Bristow started to frown. His frown deepened as he heard a shuffle of footsteps and a rapped: “No, you don’t. Stay there!”

Bristow stopped scowling. He stood up slowly and fingered the steel of the handcuffs in his pocket. It was absurd, of course, but the probability remained that the would-have-been pawner of the Kenton brooch had returned. Bristow knew that the gods were generous at times, and a fool was bom every minute.

Keeping close to the row of clothes in the passage, and out of sight of the men in the shop, he went up the stairs.

He saw the man suddenly, and grinned. Levy’s description had been brief but good. Tall, dark-skinned, with a tweed cap pulled low over his eyes, reaching almost to the bridge of his nose, and the collar of a dilapidated rainproof coat turned up above his chin, the thief of the Kenton brooch — providing the case was as plain as it appeared to be — was staring at Levy, who was crouching back against the wall behind the desk. Bristow could just see the top of Levy’s nose and a forelock of white, greasy hair.

“I tell you,” Levy was muttering, “that vot I thay ith . . .”

“Can that !” snapped the man in the tweed cap. And then, without the slightest change of expression in his voice, he said, “Bristow, come out of there!”

The silence in the pawnshop could be felt. Bristow himself felt as if he had been punched in the stomach; his wits were wool-gathering, his legs and arms felt weak. He could just hear the soft breathing of the Jew and the ticking of half a dozen clocks.

“Levy,” said the man in the tweed cap, breaking the silence harshly, “you’ve split to the narks enough, I reckon. Are you religious?”

Levy muttered something deep in his throat. The detective felt a peculiar tightening of the muscles at the pit of his stomach, and a coldness seemed to have spread through the shop, despite the heat of the day. He shivered.

“Because,” went on the man in the tweed cap, “unless Bristow decides to come into sight you’re going on a long, long journey. So . . .”

Bristow swallowed a lump in his throat and moved forward. Levy was shivering against the wall, and the man in the tweed cap was holding something in his right hand, holding it loosely and pointing it towards the policeman; he seemed to ignore Levy.

“You’ll get a heavier sentence for this,” said Bristow, keeping his voice steady. “Put that gun away and . . .”

The man lifted the gun. For a moment Bristow’s eyes narrowed, but his coldness increased. It all happened in a fraction of a second. Bristow had just time to think in a queer, hazy way of death. . . .

Then something sweet and sickly came through the shop, something that made Bristow gasp and choke and stagger back. He recognised the fumes of ether gas as he heard the thief laugh, a harsh, unpleasant sound that grated, and saw old Levy drop to the floor, falling as though in slow motion on the screen. The Jew’s hand clawed the air, his mouth was twisted open. A vague shape loomed in front of Bristow’s eyes, and he struggled for a moment in an effort to regain his feet. Then the darkness swallowed him.

The man in the tweed cap ran through the unconscious detective’s pockets quickly, found the Kenton brooch and stuffed it into his own pocket, and then hurried out of the shop, his shoulders hunched and his head buried in the collar of a frayed mackintosh.

And a little later John Mannering chuckled to himself.

As Bristow’s sergeant told him some time later, the detective and the pawnbroker might have been on the floor of the shop for hours but for the arrival of a woman who wanted to pledge a pair of boots. She saw the two bodies, and, not being used to such evidence of violence, even in the East End, screamed and rushed into the street, where she was caught and interrogated by a placid policeman a few minutes later.

The policeman investigated, and then started to get things moving; he recognised the Inspector, and knew the slightest error would earn him a sharp rap over the knuckles. Consequently Bristow was revived without loss of time, and the policeman was relieved to find his superior was not seriously gassed.

“Baron!” muttered a sick and furious Detective-Inspector Bristow some two hours later. “Baron! It’ll be a long time before I forget that name, blast him. Did you find anything. Tanker?”

Sergeant Jacob Tring of the plain-clothes force, known as Tanker because of his slow, ponderous, yet remarkably successful progress in his work, shook his head and regarded the pale face of his chief stolidly.

“Not a thing. Levy was out as much as you, and if it hadn’t been for that old woman who went in to pop a pair of boots you might have been there for hours. I shouldn’t smoke just yet, chief,” Tanker went on. “The innards are made for some things and not for others.”

“You go to hell!” said Bristow snappily. “Well, we know something now. Send a call through for the Baron — T. Baron — to every station; get that pawn-ticket run over for fingerprints . . .”

“There ain’t no pawn-ticket,” said Tanker. He brightened perceptibly as he made the statement, for he was a man cheered by bad news and depressed by good tidings. “He took it.”

Bristow stared and then swallowed hard. His brow was black, and he started to speak in a way that Tanker had rarely heard before.

“One day I’ll . . .” he growled; and then suddenly and absurdly he laughed.

It was a remarkable thing to do, but Tanker had known his superior for a long time, and was prepared for anything. The sergeant shrugged his shoulders and looked out of the window of Bristow’s small office at the Yard. A tall, lanky, dolelul-looking man was the sergeant, dressed in shiny blue serge, patched but well-polished boots, and, even in the office, a bowler-hat two sizes too large for him. Tanker’s hat was an institution at the Yard.

Bristow was still laughing, and his assistant decided that there was such a thing as too much of a joke. He grunted.

“Levy said you’d got the brooch in your pocket, chief, so we had a look. Nowt, of course. We tested everything in the pockets for prints, but there was none of them there, either.”

“Next time you want to look in my pockets,” said Bristow, checking his laughter, “wait until I’m awake. Has her ladyship been through this morning yet?”

“Twice,” said Tanker.

The smile left Bristow’s face, and he frowned. The cool effrontery of the trick had appealed, suddenly and unfailingly, to his sense of humour, but the task of making a report to the effect that he had actually had possession of the Kenton brooch sobered him. If the Dowager learned that, she would cause a great deal of bother and annoyance. He grew brisk.

“Well,” he said, “what are you standing there for, Tanker?” (Only Superintendents and higher officials called Sergeant Jacob Tring by his real name.) “Get that call out, man.”

The sergeant hurried out of the room, and for a while Bristow brooded alone. Then he took a deep breath and left his office for that of Superintendent Lynch. He found the Superintendent in, and made his report verbatim. Lynch, large, red-faced, placid, and cheerful, grinned slowly.

“Caught for a sucker, Bristow,” he said; “but what’d he stage a show like that for, I wonder ?”

“If I knew,” muttered Bristow, “I . . .”

“Ever seen the man before, or anything like him ?” asked Lynch, who rarely wasted time, especially at the start of a case.

You’ll find a dozen in any high street east of London.”

“Eyes? Complexion? Hair?”

“Eyes and hair covered, complexion dark.”

“Voice?”

“Harsh. I’d recognise it if I ever heard it again.”

“There seems to be a meaning behind that,” said Lynch placidly. “What is it. Bill?”

“He disguised his voice as easily as he did his handwriting,” said Bristow, “and he took them both away with him when he went.”

“Naturally,” said Lynch. “You don’t seem quite at your best, Bill. What did you say he called himself?”

“Baron. T. Baron,” said Bristow.

There was a sudden tightening of the lines at the Superintendent’s eyes, and a sudden pursing of his generous lips. Bristow frowned.

Lynch did not speak at once, but his brooding eyes contemplated the Inspector for several seconds.

“Now that,” he said at last, “is a very funny thing.”

“Levy thought so too,” said Bristow.

“But he wasn’t thinking what I’m thinking,” said Lynch slowly. “Are you feeling all right?”

Old Bill’s smile returned to his lips and eyes. He needed no telling that there was an idea at the back of Lynch’s mind, and he had a great regard for the Superintendent’s ideas.

“Ye-es. Injured more in the pride than the abdomen. Why?”

Lynch stood up and picked his hat from the peg on the door, placed his thumb and forefinger behind Bristow’s neck, and urged the detective into the passage. As they walked along — the Big and Little of It, according to those members of society who had thought of calling Bristow Old Bill — Lynch was saying, in his curiously gentle voice: “It’s a funny tiling, a very funny thing, Bill, that we pulled Charlie Dray inside this morning for trying to pass some of the stones from the Kia bracelet. You’ve heard of the Kia bracelet, Bill ?”

“Ye-es,” said Bristow, and then racked his brains. He did not recall the circumstances of the affair, although the name was familiar enough.

“Removed, so cleverly removed,” said Lynch, who had a bad habit of trying to be lyrical, “from Mrs Chunnley at the Pertland House Ball last February. Now we come to think of it, the lights went out, Mrs Chunnley felt the bracelet slip from her wrist, and, sesame, the lights came on again.”

I gather,” said Bristow, “that you think there’s a connection between the Kia bracelet and the Kenton brooch ?”

“How liberally you were endowed, Bill, with the power of reasoning! Yes, I do. Now we come to think of it — I’m generous, Bill, and include you — the two jobs were as near identical as any we’re likely to come across.”

“That’s true enough,” admitted Bristow, frowning.

“Thank you,” said Superintendent Lynch with heavy wit. “Now we go back to Charlie Dray — he’s at Bow Street, time being — who was trying to pass some of the stones from the Kia bracelet this morning. He said a thing that makes Mr Baron sound very funny.”

“Well,” said Bristow, when they had tucked themselves into a taxi — Lynch was notoriously lazy — and were humming towards Bow Street, “what about Dray’s story?”

“Will you keep quiet a minute?” demanded Lynch testily.

Bristow grinned and was silent. Lynch said nothing more until they were confronting Charlie Dray in the charge-room at Bow Street some twenty minutes later.

Charlie Dray was a weedy, pale-faced, ginger-haired man who had once earned fame as a cracksman of exceptional ability. No lock had been too cunning for his art, and only a domestic quarrel had led to his undoing, for Charlie had been shopped for nearly being unfaithful. After five years’ penance he had forsworn married life and his profession, and he earned a living by selling lozenges to football crowds during the winter and ice-cream to race crowds during the summer. Not once during the three years of his freedom had he trespassed against the law, so far as Superintendent Lynch knew. Yet that morning . . .

“Charlie,” said Lynch gently, “I’ve no wish to see you in uniform again, so I want you to spill your story again, and fully, to Old Bill and me. Don’t laugh, Charlie!”

Dray chuckled; his good-humour was notorious.

“You will have yours, woncha — little joke I mean? Now, listen, if I strike me dead I speak the truth . . .”

“Pardon?” said Lynch politely.

Charlie guffawed. “But, joking apart, sir, wot I told you was the nothing but, strike me, Superintendent. Bloke comes to me a month ago and says, “Charlie, I’ve heard it said you know something about locks.” “Then,” says I, “you looked up an out-of-date reference-book, mister.” “Now,” says he, “I wouldn’t disturb your morals . . .” ”

“Did he say morals, Charlie?” asked Lynch severely. “Did I tell you I was telling you the nothing but?” demanded Charlie aggrievedly. “Morals he says, and morals I says, because, if you look at it that way, sir, it’s a laugh. Howso. “For anything in the world,” he says, “but I’ve just bought a lot of old safes, and some of ‘em are locked, and I want to open them.” “On the level ?” asks I. “If so I’ll do ‘em.” “On the level,” says he, so we goes along to a place in Brick Street. . .”

“Can you remember the place?” said Lynch. “Eyes shut and three parts over,” said Charlie, “and the Izzy who was selling him the safes. “There they are,” he says, “so you can see I’ve bought ‘em. Now I’m going to take them, and you, to a little place in Lambeth, and you can open them for me.” ”

“And you can remember the Lambeth place?” asked Lynch.

“Would I recognise my mother? Sir, we went there, and I opened the safes, and then he takes the locks out . . .”

“Out?” echoed Bill Bristow, who had been listening with an increasing sense of wonder and perturbation.

“I can see,” said Charlie, with dignity, “that you ain’t used to assorting with gentlemen, Inspector. Yes. They were his property, weren’t they, and he could do what he liked. “How’d you do it?” he says, and I shows him, and he tries it a bit himself, and one way and another he picks it up pretty quick.”

“Meaning,” said Bristow heavily, “that you taught him how to pick locks, did you?”

Charlie Dray’s eyes were pools of innocence. “His own locks, Mr Bristow.”

“What kind?” asked Lynch.

“Well,” said Charlie cheerfully, “there was a pretty good selection. Eight, I think. There was a Chubb Major and a Yale 20 and half a dozen combinations. He was a dab at ‘em by the time we’d finished. Howso. Two quid, he gives me, and them little things you lifted this morning, Mr Lynch.”

“He gave them to you ?” asked Lynch.

Charlie sniffed, but there was a crafty glint in his eyes.

“On the up-and-up and the nothing but, mister. A present, he said, and may there be many more! Now ‘ow was I to know — W was any honest man to know . . .”

“Charlie,” said Lynch gently, “you’re a god-damned liar, and if you don’t know what that means you ought to.”

The little man’s eyes narrowed.

“S’elp me,” he muttered uneasily, “I never lifted ‘em, mister. I ain’t done a job since I came out.”

“Seven years,” said Lynch dreamily, “for the Kia bracelet. You wouldn’t get off with anything less. But I’d do what I could for you, Charlie, if you’ll take us to the place where he bought the safes and the place where you unlocked them for him.”

“Now, listen,” said Charlie Dray earnestly, “I’d do that for a friend like you any day, Mr Lynch.”

Lynch turned to a local sergeant, an interested and amused spectator.

“Let me have a man, will you,” he said, “to tote this along with us?” As the man turned Lynch grinned at Bristow. “See what I’m driving at?” he asked.

Bristow nodded, and took a case from his pocket.

“Smoke ? If you’ve done what you always do — left the thing that matters out. . .” he said, “the name of Charlie’s friend was Baron.”

“So logical,” sighed Lynch, “you ought to have been a Frenchman. Ta. Give Charlie one, Bill; give Charlie one.”

Several hours later a weary Bristow and a worn-out Lynch returned to Scotland Yard. The temperature during the afternoon had topped the eighty mark, and both men were hot, dusty, thirsty, and disappointed. Charlie Dray’s story had been substantiated — up to a point. The second-hand-safe-dealer had certainly sold the safes to a Mr T. Baron, whose description tallied with that of the man in the tweed cap at Levy’s shop. The office-building where the safes had been unlocked and the lessons in lock-breaking had been given was in the hands of house-breakers, and the firm of agents which had let the rooms to the man Baron remembered the man well, but only by name. All the business had been done by post and telephone.

“And Charlie Dray,” mused Lynch, “either can’t or won’t remember much about Baron’s face. H’m. Y’know, Bill, I don’t believe in hunches, but I’ve a nasty tickle in the diaphragm over this bloke Baron. He’s cool. He’s clever. He’s well educated . . .”

“But yet he sounded . . .” Bristow hesitated and shrugged. “His voice was . . .”

“You’re not well,” said Lynch gently. “His voice and his handwriting were disguised. Out of your own mouth, Bill.”

Bristow thought, but he did not say what he thought, and it did not altogether concern Mr Baron.

John Mannering told himself that he had every reason to be satisfied with the way things were going. The comparative failure of the raid on the Fauntley strong-room was a thing of the past now, and the thefts of the Kia bracelet and the Kenton bauble had been perfectly managed; others, too, had gone through as easily, and if occasionally he felt the pricking of conscience at the fact that he was robbing men and women whose company and trust he enjoyed, he Forced it away from him. The risks he stood more than made up for the way in which he was playing his double role.

Certainly he did not feel the slightest awkwardness when he met and talked with the Dowager Countess of Kenton; in fact, he told himself that he had given the Dowager such grounds for complaint and discussion that she was in his debt.

At one of the Fauntley dinner-parties-growing larger and more comprehensive week by week — Lady Kenton spied him, unaccompanied, and buttonholed him. There was nothing she liked better than an attentive male audience, and Mannering was perfect in that respect. His smile as he approached her made her forget her loss, but she remembered it before long.

“And these policemen,” she mourned, “they’re so helpless, Mr Mannering. That man Bristow — I’m convinced he said something under his breath when I saw him this evening.”

“It wouldn’t surprise me,” admitted Mannering, smiling, “but he’s probably doing his best. He’s after a clever rogue, and . . .”

“Clever!” snorted Lady Kenton. “Clever! A sneaking, cowardly cat-burglar who robs a poor, helpless woman! Clever! The scoundrel! If I could only find him, Mr Mannering, I’d — I’d . . .”

“Cocktail, m’lady?” said her ladyship’s footman. “Dinner in half an hour, m’lady.”

Lady Kenton lifted her glass to Mannering, and told herself that he had quite the most fascinating smile she had ever seen. What a lucky girl Lorna Fauntley was, if Loma only knew it!

Lorna moved from a small group of people gathered round the television-set in the corner of the room; her dark hair was still a little unruly, her eyes were still mutinous and still probing, although they cleared as she reached the Dowager and Mannering.

“I was just saying . . .” began the Dowager.

“I believe with a little prompting I could almost guess,” laughed Lorna. “It’ll be something to do with a burglary . . .”

Lady Kenton looked offended, John Mannering laughed, until the Dowager’s frown cleared. Lorna squeezed the older woman’s hand and accepted a cocktail.

CHAPTER SEVEN

A TALK WITH A GENTLEMAN

OTHER RUMOURS FLOATED INTO SCOTLAND YARD ABOUT THE man who called himself Baron. An expert safe-breaker whose fingers were still nimble but who was nearing the end of his career volunteered the information that a man in a tweed cap and a long mackintosh had asked for lessons in the cracksman’s art. Of course, the old lag said virtuously, he’d called at the wrong house; but Bristow doubted it. Then Red Flannagan, who preferred the modern method of cracking safes with the use of gelignite, admitted that a man in a black suit, wearing a trilby hat pulled down over his eyes, had called on him and suggested lessons. “An’ at no correspondence-school prices, neither,” said Red. “I told ‘im where to go, Bill.”

“Don’t be familiar,” snapped Bill Bristow; “and if you haven’t been working and you didn’t take his money, how is it you’re so flush lately?”

“Yer can’t prove nothin’,” snarled Red.

That tells me a lot,” said Bristow thoughtfully.

He grew a little closer to Baron when Flick Leverson was caught trying to smuggle a little packet of precious stones out of the country. All the gems were stolen property, and Bristow knew that Flick was a fence of high degree. He was elated when he discovered that the bigger stones from the Kia bracelet and the Kenton brooch were in Flick’s packet.

“It’ll go easier for you,” Bristow told the fence, “if you’ll give me a description of the man you bought those two things from — and tell me everything you know about him.”

“Then it won’t go easier for me,” said Flick philosophically. “He wore a mask, Bill, a tweed cap, a mackintosh, and rubber-soled shoes. I’ve never seen him before nor since. I don’t know where he came from.”

“What kind of mask?” asked Bristow.

“A handkerchief over his mouth and nose.”

“Colour?”

“Blue or black. It was after dark when I saw him.”

“How did he know about you ?”

“No idea,” said Leverson, and Bristow knew that the fence would not talk a great deal.

“Voice ?” he snapped.

“Up in the air,” said Flick. “Squeaky and . . .”

“Oh, damn it!” muttered Old Bill, to the fence’s surprise, for Bristow was usually a good-tempered officer.

Whether it was the same man with a different voice, or whether Baron had passed the two pieces of jewellery to someone else for disposal. Old Bill didn’t know. He did know, however, that he was beginning to worry about Baron.

Small jewel-robberies were reported to the Yard frequently from various counties, and London’s Society suffered considerably from the same trouble. If there was anything remarkable about the thefts, Bristow told himself, it was that they all took place during a dance, dinner-party, or celebration of some kind or other. When he went over them more carefully with Superintendent Lynch he discovered two other things of interest.

The robberies seemed to follow the Fauntley family round England. Lord and Lady Fauntley, Lorna, John Mannering, the Dowager Countess of Kenton, and half a dozen other members of the same set were always present. And every time the theft was of a trinket of comparatively small value. No effort was made to take more valuable stones, such as Lady Fauntley’s Liska diamond.

“Get all the dope you can,” said Lynch, “on the servants of that crowd. It’s beginning to look like an inside job, Bill.”

“But there’s always definite proof that the man came from the outside,” said Bristow.

“Too definite,” said Lynch. Then, cautiously: “At least, it might be.”

Bristow put half a dozen men on to the task of following the history of the various servants, but little came of the investigation. There wasn’t a bad record — nor even a suspicious one — in the whole bunch.

“Ah, well,” said Lynch phlegmatically, “he’ll either give the game up before we get him or he’ll go too far.”

“That’s a useful contribution to the problem,” said Bill Bristow. “Wait until he starts on something big.”

“Funny thing,” said Lynch, “but that’s just what I am doing.”

Mannering was enjoying himself.

He had nothing against Detective-Inspector William Bristow; in fact, the rumours that he had heard from such sources as Red Flannagan, Flick Leverson, Levy Schmidt, and others, favoured the policeman. But some urge, some devilry which possessed him, had tempted him to try the pawnshop trick, in which Levy had been glad to help, for he had seen a way of buying good stuff at low prices, and at the same time proving his good-will towards the police. Levy, Mannering had discovered, was a fence of the highest class, and it was through the Jew that he had his introduction to other members of the profession. He needed the introductions. Not the least difficult part of his new life was the disposal of the gems, while he had realised after the Fauntley strong-room affair that he must have more than a rough knowledge of safes and locks. He prided himself on learning quickly, but the success of the pawnshop affair pleased him as much as that of the small robberies he had contrived at the expense of certain members of society.

Gambling had been in Mannering’s blood almost from the moment he had opened his eyes. The years of comparative peace in Somerset seemed now like a fantastic dream. The game was the thing.

Prior to the birth of the new idea he knew that there had been something lacking in the game. Staking a certain amount of money on a horse or the turn of a wheel had its attractions, but failed to quicken his blood; his own share was passive beyond the signing of cheques. But in this new game there were thrills and to spare. His freedom depended on his own quickness; his livelihood depended on his own thoroughness. It was his wits against the police.

Mannering had weighed everything up before he had started; the handicaps were heavy, but the rewards high. There was money and to spare, if he had the courage and the brains to keep away from the police; but he knew that the odds against beating the law were very much against him. Unless . . .

Unless he could get the police fighting against a shadow; unless he could create two or three different personalities, confront the police with two or three problems, all separate on the surface, but all connected through the man known as the Baron. Could he? Was it possible to set the police — Bristow and Lynch in particular — hunting shadows while he worked ?

It was possible, Mannering told himself.

At that time he judged pretty well how much the police knew. He guessed that suspicions had been aroused by the similarity between the house-party crimes, and he knew that the authorities connected the mysterious T. Baron with the Kia and the Kenton baubles. He even suspected that, wherever the Fauntley set moved, so would a member of the Force; the time was here when it would not be safe to use the same method — the brief dousing of the lights, the robbery, and the switching back of the lights, with the resulting confusion. It was necessary, he told himself, to change his methods, if only temporarily. If he persisted with them he realised that the police would start investigating the house-party crimes very carefully, and sooner or later they would discover the truth.

There was one thing that worried Mannering. Not for a moment was he troubled about using Fauntley as a dupe; most of the man’s money had been made during the War years, and Mannering held a very real objection to profiteers of his type. Certainly he would have no scruple at having another attempt at Fauntley himself.

But there was Lorna.

Mannering himself hardly knew what he thought of the girl. On the first few occasions on which he had met her she had intrigued him far more than any musical-comedy actress had ever done. But he was bitter. He thought rarely of Marie Overndon, but the cynicism that had followed the episode at the Manor remained. He told himself that she had spoiled him for serious attachments in the future, come who may.

Lorna was . . . different.

The Fauntley household, he told himself, would remain as his background. Nothing had been put into words, but it was generally accepted that between Lorna and himself there was an understanding, and the belief satisfied Fauntley. Lorna was enigmatical, erratic, and, her father believed, possessed of some foolish introspection which prevented her from giving Mannering a straight answer, but as Mannering had no complaint Lord Fauntley let things slide. His own concern was the making of money and more money, the collecting of precious stones and yet more stones.

The illusion of wealth that Mannering had so carefully created was a powerful one. No one, not even Randall or Plender, suspected that the fantastic turf wins he had made were imaginary, while the affair of the Klobber diamond shares had convinced Plender that Mannering was using his brains to make money, instead of relying on the turn of a wheel or the form of a horse. Mannering laughed to himself when he remembered the Klobber sensation. Actually he had profited from those supposedly defunct diamond-mines to the tune of a few hundred pounds, but when he had passed on the hint — obtained through a careless word from Fauntley — to Plender, it had done him more good than a substantial monetary profit. It had fostered the illusion of his wealth to such an extent that he almost believed in it himself.

He faced the prospect of the future with a coolness that sometimes made him laugh aloud. The rules were simple. He would take what he could, where he could, from anyone who would not suffer a great deal from the loss. The Dowager Countess of Kenton, who had outlived two husbands, was fabulously wealthy. The owner of the Kia bracelet could have bought gems ten times its value without batting an eye. Others who had contributed to his banking-account were very wealthy themselves. No one suffered, except in pride of possessions, Mannering told himself time and time again, although with Bristow it was his personal pride.

In the first months of his career Mannering had made one or two mistakes that might easily have cost him his freedom, but his carefulness in the matter of his dress and voice had saved him. For one thing, when he had hired Charlie Dray to teach him the elements of safe-breaking, he had not allowed for the possibility of Charlie being an expert pickpocket. Some stones of the Kia bracelet had been neatly pinched. So had Charlie, but fortunately the latter’s knowledge of his pupil’s appearance had been slight.

Against Charlie Dray Mannering bore a grudge. One day, he promised himself, Charlie would suffer a severe pain in the neck. To Levy Schmidt, on the other hand, Mannering was grateful.

It was inevitable that, in his guise as Mr T. Baron, Mannering should meet and talk with many strange people, most of whom were members of the profession in some way or other. To some he could talk in complete confidence; others created the impression that if they could get any information on which to turn King’s evidence they would do so without the slightest qualms. Mannering was forced to go warily with those he talked to and dealt with, but as lie never gave an address and rarely saw the men more than once or twice — with certain necessary exceptions in whom he believed he could place implicit trust — he did not worry.

It was late in July when he first heard the rumour of the Rosa pearls.

Some three years before the Rosa pearls had been stolen from their rightful owner in America, and since then there had been not the slightest clue to their whereabouts; Randenberg, the victim of the theft, had been amply covered by insurance, but he mourned the Rosa pearls as the prize piece in a collection that rivalled that of Fauntley in England. Mannering had known of this many months before he had thought of turning to cracksmanship for a livelihood, for the Randenbergs had spent two seasons in England, and he had met them several times.

It was a mere whisper of the pearls that came his way when he was trying to dispose of a small ring that he had stolen from an Essex household during a visit. So far as he knew the ring had not been missed. The fence with whom he dealt with very small stuff grinned when he saw the ring; it was higher quality than he usually handled.

“Reckon,” he said, paying out promptly, “you’ll be after the Rosas one of these days, son.”

“What’s them ?” Mannering demanded harshly.

“ ‘E don’t even know ‘em!” The fence leered, and then for a moment his face grew crafty. “But I reckon Sep Lee knows a lot, if you arsk me. ‘Im an’ ‘is “pusiness”! Pah!”

Mannering, wearing a slouch cap and his inevitable mackintosh, affected to take no notice, but the germ of an idea was in his mind. The Rosa pearls would be worth an immense sum, even as illegal gems; the man he knew vaguely as Sep Lee might prove interesting. He made certain inquiries, and the more he learned the more he realised the possibility that the fence might be right.

One morning towards the end of that sweltering August Mannering went into the offices of the Severell Trust, a financial syndicate with fingers in most pies, and asked for Mr Septimus Lee. Mannering was recognised by the clerks who received him, and was treated with the respect demanded by a man of his reputed wealth and standing. It was not unusual for wealthy men to visit Septimus Lee, although no one apart from Lee himself and one other knew the purpose of those visits.

Lee was a Jew, a thin, scraggy little man, with a beak of a nose and dark, lank hair. His shrewd eyes peered up at Mannering as the latter sat down, adjusted his trousers fastidiously, and said: “You know me, Mr Lee?”

“Put, of course. Who vould not ?” Lee’s smile was unctuous.

Mannering smiled to himself at the compliment, but outwardly ignored it.

“Have you any idea why I called on you ?” he asked quietly.

“Vell . . .” Lee shrugged his shoulders and lifted his hands high. “How should I know, Mr Mannering? So many famous people come to see me, for so many reasons.”

Mannering smiled; lights were sparkling in his eyes.

“Mostly to borrow, don’t they?”

“Vell” — a smile flitted across the Jew’s face and the old eyes gleamed — “sometimes I can oplige vith a little temporary help, yeth? You are in need, Mr Mannering, of such . . .”

Mannering shook his head decisively, and there was a subtle change in the expression in Lee’s eyes.

“No. I haven’t come to borrow, Mr Lee. I’ve come about some — rumours, shall we say?”

Mannering spoke casually, but there was a barb in the words. Lee knew it, and his eyes narrowed. His lined face was expressionless.

“Strange things rumours, yes?”

“So strange that usually it doesn’t pay to believe them,” said Mannering. “But this one was very intriguing. It concerned the Rosa pearls, Mr Lee.”

There was no mistaking Lee’s interest now, and there was a hint of alarm in his eyes. It went quickly, and he shrugged his shoulders. “So . . .”

“Now, the Rosa pearls,” went on Mannering casually, “were stolen from the Randenbergs, in New York, three years ago. I’ve heard a rumour — you won’t be interested in where it came from, Mr Lee — that they are now in London.”

“Ye-esss,” murmured Lee.

“Very beautiful things,” murmured Mannering. “The rose-tinted queen pearls in the centre and the famous Rosa graduation. Quite the most famous pearls in America, weren’t they?”

“Ye-esss,” murmured Lee again.

“And there is a certain collector,” said Mannering, with a widening smile, “who would be willing to pay good money for them; within reason, of course. Working on the hypothesis that the Rosa pearls were in the market, how much would you think they were worth, Mr Lee ?”

The Jew was rubbing his thumb across the bridge of his nose, and the expression in his eyes was remarkably cunning.

“Veil,” he said smoothly, “vorking on that strange hypothesis, my tear Mr Mannering, I might say — twenty thousand pounds.”

Mannering’s lips twitched at the corners.

“And now carry the hypothesis a little further. Supposing they were available in London as stolen property, and not in the open market? How much then, Mr Lee?”

Septimus Lee spread his blue-veined hands across his desk, and peered into Mannering’s laughing eyes. He was on his guard, Mannering knew: their swords were crossed.

“Vell — should ve say fifteen thousand ?”

“A little high,” said Mannering judicially. “If I — of course I’m no expert in pearls, Mr Lee — but if I were to estimate a figure for the Rosa pearls in those circumstances I shouldn’t go a pound higher than twelve thousand five hundred.”

“No?”

“Not a pound.”

Lee took his hands from his desk, and rubbed them together with a faint sliding noise. His eyes were half closed.

“Perhaps twelve thousand five hundred, Mr Mannering, and a percentage of commission for the middle-man, eh?”

“Come,” said Mannering cheerfully, “I’m assuming that only two people would know anything about the sale — the two principals. Would that figure be — er — acceptable, do you think?”

For a moment there was no sound nor movement in the room. Then Lee bent forward, with a little exclamation.

“Just how much do you know, Mr Mannering?”

“Just as much as I seem to,” said Mannering. The smile was still on his lips, but it had gone from his eyes. “You have the Rosas, Mr Lee. No one besides yourself and one other knows they are in England.”

“Two others,” said Lee thoughtfully. “My colleague — and yourself.”

Mannering nodded, and the laughter came back to his eyes; he had made his final thrust and scored well.

“Yes, of course. But I didn’t know until you confirmed it, Mr Lee. Shall I lay all my cards on the table?”

“It is an idea,” admitted Lee.

“H’m. Well, I was one of many who were prepared to purchase the Rosa pearls from the Randenbergs, and one of many who were disappointed when they were stolen. A friend of mine in America whispered — just whispered, Mr Lee — that sometimes you were in possession of gems which had — er — left the United States, and I put two and two together.”

“Because you were still interested in them?”

“Precisely.”

“Vell,” said the Jew slowly, “I vill not ask questions, Mr Mannering, although it would seem that you have strange friends. Just the one question I would ask. You are acquainted with the police?”

Mannering’s expression did not change.

“I am a collector of precious stones, Mr Lee.”

The Jew seemed to think for a moment. His eyes closed and his fingers intertwined slowly, tenuously. At last: “This twelve thousand five hundred pounds, Mr Mannering. The transaction would be cash, of course?”

“My cheque is as good as cash,” said Mannering.

“Ye-es, of course. But in transactions of this kind . . .”

“Mr Lee,” said Mannering gently, “I have every respect for you and your methods, but I would not bring twelve thousand pounds in cash into your office or your home for any purpose whatsoever. I heard a rumour that you have the pearls. Others might hear it too. My cheque against the Rosas.”

Again Lee seemed to lose himself in his thoughts, and there was silence for several minutes. He came out of his reverie, and nodded. Quick decisions, he knew, were essential.

“Shall we consider the matter settled ?”

“Time and place?” asked Mannering.

“These offices, Mr Mannering, to-morrow, at twelve noon.”

“To-morrow is all right,” said Mannering, “but twelve is too late. Ten o’clock . . .”

“Must it be so early?” Lee questioned.

“I shall be leaving London soon after eleven,” said Mannering. “If you care to leave it until next week . . .”

Lee shook his head, as Mannering had expected. Lee was not a man to keep a deal of this nature hanging fire.

“Ten o’clock, then,” the Jew said.

“Excellent,” said Mannering.

A few minutes later he took his leave of the financier, knowing that both of them were — so far — well satisfied with the interview. Mannering perhaps with more justification than the other.

Septimus Lee was a clever man, but there were things he did not know. He was unaware, for instance, that he was followed for the rest of the day by a man he would not have recognised even if he had seen him.

Mannering had little faith in disguises, but a beard was a simple arrangement, and he was not likely to be examined carefully while he affected it. His chief complaint was that it made his face hot and sticky, for the weather was still warm, but he bore the discomfort philosophically.

Septimus Lee went from the offices of the Severell Trust, in the Strand, to a safe-deposit in Southampton Row. He travelled in a Daimler saloon that purred through the evening traffic, while Mannering, bearded and in a Frazer-Nash, kept it in sight. Just for a moment, when the little Jew stepped out of the Daimler outside the deposit, Mannering thought he had slipped up. Then he smiled. Septimus Lee was too careful to hold the deposit-key under his own name.

But it was clever, Mannering admitted. The only likeness between the Jew who had stepped into the Daimler and the Jew who had stepped out of it was in stature. The first man had been old and wrinkled, while the second appeared to be young and smooth-faced. It was a remarkable transformation, and had he not actually followed the Daimler Mannering would never have recognised Lee in his disguise.

After twenty minutes Lee reappeared, and the Daimler moved off. In the brief interval Mannering had hurried to a near-by garage and complained that his Frazer-Nash was going badly, leaving the two-seater for repair while hiring a Vauxhall-Six. After leaving the garage at the wheel of the larger car Mannering also changed his beard for a heavy moustache typical of the Victorian era. No matter how keen Septimus Lee’s eyes were he could not have suspected the identity of the driver of the Vauxhall which left the kerb a moment after the Daimler.

The rest of the chase was uneventful. Septimus Lee owned a small house standing in its own grounds on the edge of Streatham Common. Mannering watched the chauffeur garage the Daimler and smiled to himself when he saw the stooping figure of the real Septimus Lee approach the front-door of the house. A clever old scoundrel was Septimus Lee.

Mannering drove back to town thoughtfully. It was just possible, of course, that Lee had not collected the Rosa pearls from the safe-deposit, but it was reasonable to assume that he had, and that for the one night they would be at his Streatham house. That, at all events, was what Mannering had tried to ensure by insisting on the early hour for the deal. If he had agreed to the midday appointment Lee could have got the Rosas in the morning.

For the first time since the Fauntley affair Mannering was faced with the task of breaking into a house and cracking a crib. In a way it was his real d£but; before he had known the strong-room and combination of the safe. Moreover, it was a long time ago, and his preparation had been absurdly inadequate. Now at least he had the rudiments of the craft at his finger-tips.

He had chosen his baptism carefully. If by any chance he was caught, it would be in circumstances that would make it impossible — or at least unlikely — for Lee to call the police.

But he did not propose to let Lee catch him. Unless . . .

Mannering was worried. He admitted it to himself as he let himself into his flat and foraged in the kitchenette for a light meal. There was something too easy about the affair. There was a catch in it somewhere, known only by Septimus Lee. What was it?

CHAPTER EIGHT

THE ROSA PEARLS

MANNERING FELT EASIER, FIVE HOURS LATER, WHEN HE HAD finished his inspection of the windows and the doors on the ground-floor of Septimus Lee’s house. Every window was shut and locked; every door was bolted. Obviously Lee was taking no chances, and Mannering was glad that his entry would not be too easy.

Using a pick-lock with a facility that would have earned the admiration of Charlie Dray, he made short work of the door of the kitchen-quarters. A row of trees at the edge of the garden afforded him excellent cover, and the rumble of an occasional night tram on the main road was the only thing that broke the silence.

The lock was only the first task. The bolts remained, and they were likely to be much more difficult. Mannering took a small chisel from the assortment of tools in his pockets and chipped a fragment of wood from the door. After ten minutes lie had bared the bolts sufficiently to get a purchase on them with a pair of thin-mawed pincers. He replaced the chisel and fingered the pincers. Something he could not explain warned him against using them. He felt that trouble would result; he sensed again the peculiar premonition that had worried him after he had traced Septimus Lee to and from the safe-deposit. It was absurd, but it was there.

Mannering breathed hard, and replaced the pincers. He must take every precaution, for the slightest slip would mean failure. He took his small pocket-lamp and stabbed a pencil of light at the top bolt. It looked innocent enough, but he repeated the action with the bottom bolt.

Then his eyes narrowed, and he smiled, without humour.

“I wonder who’s the patron saint of cracksmen ?” he muttered. “Wired up, all nicely set for an alarm.”

There was no doubt about it. A thin piece of wire ran along the bolt, the wire of an electric burglar-alarm. It was something for which he had not been prepared, and for a moment he was nonplussed.

“But I should have expected it,” he muttered. “Well, there’s a way of getting round that difficulty, but I can’t think of it. If the door’s opened, or if the bolts are drawn back, there’ll be the devil to pay. That is to say, if the bolts are drawn while the alarm-wires are connected. But if they’re broken . . .”

He smiled with more humour, and shrugged his shoulders. It would have been more satisfactory if he could have entered the house without spending time in cutting through the steel bolts, but the job had to be done. Fitting a thin, well-oiled blade to the handle of his outfit, he started work on the bolts. There was no sound beyond a low-pitched burr as the saw worked. Still the night trams rattled along the high road, and the trees afforded him complete shelter.

Ten minutes — fifteen — twenty minutes.

He was beginning to sweat, and his thumb and fingers were stiff with the constant movement, but the top bolt was through at last, and the wire parted with it. The bottom bolt was easier; all that needed cutting was the electric wire, which he could see as he looked downward. Less than five minutes sufficed. Then he used the pincers and drew the bolt back, slowly, carefully.

No sound came.

Mannering was breathing hard through clenched teeth. Once he stubbed his foot against the door, and the rumble that followed sounded like thunder. He waited, his heart beating fast, but there was no movement inside the house.

He used the pick-lock again. The lock clicked open, and he turned the handle. It squeaked a little, and he went rigid for a moment, only to curse his own nervousness. Then he pushed the door open. . . .

His heart seemed to stop as he peered into the darkness of the room beyond!

Something glowed, green and fierce, through the darkness. There was no sound, but two points of fire were there, unwinking. His hands seemed to freeze on the handle of the door, and his body went taut. The smile that curved his lips was frozen too.

“A dog,” he muttered, “and a well-trained one. Remember — electric alarms and dogs. I don’t mind breaking the alarm, but. . .”

He shrugged, and his heart beat more evenly. The dog still glared at him, without making a sound. Mannering dropped his hand into his pocket and drew out the gun he had used on Detective-Inspector Bristow a few weeks before. It was loaded with concentrated ether gas, reckoned to create unconsciousness quicker than anything else he could conveniently — and safely — use.

Mannering knew that he was taking a big chance. Unless he was within a foot of the dog the gas would be slow in its effect — and Mannering needed speed. But if he went too close the brute would probably jump at him.

“It’s worth it,” he muttered. “Now . . .”

With his gun-arm outstretched he went forward. The eyes did not flicker, but the rumbling in the throat of the brute warned him of the coming leap. The green eyes moved . . .

Mannering touched the trigger.

There was the slight hiss of the escaping gas and a choking gasp from the dog as it came at him. Just for a moment he was afraid that he had failed, but the outstretched legs were stiff when they touched him; there was a dull thud as the brute dropped down.

Mannering was hot, then cold, as the perspiration on his head and neck cooled in the keen night air. He shivered several times, and had to clench his teeth to stop himself. But there was a gleam in his eyes, a wild, exultant beating in his heart. He was through!

Carefully and silently he closed the door behind him and dragged a curtain over the single window of the room. The distant lights of the high road were shut out. For a moment Mannering stood in the black darkness. Then the pencil of light from his torch stabbed out, and went eerily round the room until he found the electric-light switch, and flooded the room with light.

His first glance was for the dog. It was breathing softly and regularly, its great mouth gaping a little to show sharp, white teeth, its eyes closed. He wondered that it had kept so quiet; when he saw it was a Great Dane he knew why. But for the ether gas he would have stood little chance; the dog would have brought him down and kept him down with hardly a sound; they were quiet beasts, easy to train.

The slightest of grim smiles lit Mannering’s eyes. Mr Septimus Lee was certainly a man in a thousand; he had even trained his dog to tackle an intruder in silence. It seemed that he was prepared for night-attacks on the house, and he was equally prepared to keep knowledge of them from the police, who might have been alarmed by the baying of the Dane. Lee wanted no inquiries, Mannering guessed, and his admiration for the Jew’s shrewdness increased.

The darkness of the rest of the house was appalling and Mannering dared not switch on the lights, for he had no idea whether the curtains were drawn, and there was no time to waste in trying each window. He kept the white beam of his torch trained towards the ground, where it would prevent him from stumbling on any unseen obstacle, while being invisible from outside.

It took him five minutes to locate Septimus Lee’s bedroom, a large, airy chamber on the second — and top — floor. The door was unlocked — the easiest job he had had so far.

For the first time Mannering used his mask, a dark-blue cloth that covered his mouth, chin, and nose, and he pulled on thin rubber gloves to make sure that he left no fingerprints. A silent, shadowy figure, he crept into the room and reached the bed. The Jew was sleeping on his back, with one crooked arm over the coverlet, the other hand at the back of his neck.

Mannering used his gas-pistol quickly, regulating the gas this time; the only effect it appeared to have was to make Lee breathe more deeply, and the Jew’s body seemed to shrink back into the bed.

“Peautiful!” murmured Mannering, emphasising the “p”. His heart was beating fast now, and his eyes were glistening; he was more than half-way to success.

Rapidly he ran through the man’s clothes, searching for keys. If he could find them it would save him a great deal of time — and time had never been so precious.

Nothing that might have opened the safe was there, however. He rubbed his chin disappointedly as he looked round the room, but his eyes glinted when he saw a small deed-box resting on a chair near the bed.

Using a pick-lock, he opened the lock of the box without any trouble, and found what he was expecting to find — a bunch of intricately cut keys. He smiled, jubilant again.

Now for the safe.

There was a peculiar feeling of depression in Mannering’s breast a few seconds later. He had told himself that he was thoroughly prepared for the sterner tasks o his newly chosen profession, but the affairs of that night proved how badly he had misjudged the difficulties. To get into a house was one thing. To get into it without the vaguest notion of where to find the safe was another. In future, he told himself, he must prepare the ground more thoroughly beforehand. For the time being — where was the safe ?

A wall-safe, almost certainly, and in the bedroom. Lee was not a man to keep valuables in another part of the house at night.

Mannering tried every picture, to find the blank wall behind them. The feeling of depression grew heavier — until he looked intently at the bed, the last possible place. And then that curve at the corners of his lips came, and his eyes gleamed.

Septimus Lee’s bed was a double one, with a large head-panel of walnut, very close to the wall. Mannering went to it, bent over the unconscious figure of the Jew, and examined the centre of the panel. It was very intricately carved — too intricately carved for its purpose. Mannering ran his fingers — gloved fingers — over the smooth surface. Luck was with him. There came the slightest of clicks! And the centre of the panel began to slide . . .

And then the shock came!

The room, the house, was filled with noise, the strident clatter of a low-pitched electric alarm. The very air seemed to shiver with the sound. For a split second Mannering stood still, his muscles tensed, his lips compressed. Then, above the alarm, came the sudden banging of a door!

Mannering looked at the window of the bedroom and resisted the biggest temptation of his life. A few seconds, a climb down the walls of the house, would mean freedom, escape. But escape, he told himself, without the Rosa pearls. . . .

The temptation, the thought, and the first ringing of the alarm took no longer than a few seconds. It seemed almost in one movement that Mannering stiffened and then leapt towards the unlocked door. The key was on the inside, thank God! Mannering turned it as footsteps echoed along the passage outside. Before the cracksman had reached the head of the bed again there was a thud on the door, and a low-pitched voice came through to the room.

“Mr Lee — you all right, Mr Lee?”

Mannering ignored it. He tried key after key in the lock of the safe, quickly but with steady fingers; the filth one opened it. He was still laced with the combination beyond the first door, and as the thudding on the door grew louder he told himself that he would have to give up. Desperately now he twisted the knob, right, left, right again, hearing the numbers clicking, working with raging impatience, not knowing whether he was close to his goal or not. Suddenly there was a loud click, and with new hope he pulled at the door.

It opened!

But Mannering’s satisfaction was tinged with anxiety; even though success was near he was not out of the wood yet.

The man outside had stopped calling, but another, more ominous sound came. A second key was being poked through the keyhole. As Mannering turned round he saw the first key moving slowly, drooping towards the floor.

Another mistake! The realisation flashed through his mind as he crossed the room again. He should have put something heavy against the door when he had locked it; he should have been prepared for this development. Now it would be touch-and-go whether he succeeded or not.

He pressed his left side against the door and stretched out for a stiff-backed chair with his right arm. As the door thudded against him he pulled the chair into position, jabbing its top rail beneath the knob of the door. In the respite that followed he pulled a heavy arm-chair from a corner of the room and upturned it, leaving its weight to support the first chair.

“Three minutes, with luck,” he muttered, sotto voce. There was a queer relief in talking to himself, and he kept murmuring under his breath as he worked.

He reached the open safe again and searched for the contents. There were several bundles of papers, one or two small trinkets, and a leather case. The case was locked, but by now Mannering had finished with finesse. He took a screwdriver from his pocket and forced the hinges from the leather, snapping them off.

The lustre of pearls shone for a moment in the dim light of the room. . . .

The excitement was almost too much for him, but he resisted the temptation to stare at his prize. The Rosa pearls were his, but the danger was still about him. He stuffed the case in his pocket, while his eyes were glistening and his lips parted. Quickly he moved towards the window. It was shut and locked, but he opened it without trouble, and looked below. To the garden it was a fair drop, but a drain-pipe and a sill at the window beneath promised foothold. Mannering climbed out quickly.

Even to the last his luck — and his caution — held.

As he went down, easily enough, he kept his ears wide-open for the slightest sound. For a few moments there was silence; then something moved beneath him. He turned his head in time to see the burly figure of a man waiting in the shadow of the trees that had befriended him, Mannering, a short while before.

There was trouble both ways now, and Mannering had to fight hard to keep his self-control. One thing was certain: he had to get down.

As he went, cautiously, his coat caught round the drainpipe, and the temporary delay gave him an idea. At the next staple he stopped again, tugging at his coat. He was within a few feet of the ground now, and he judged that the man in the shadows would come forward, believing the climber to be in his power.

Mannering judged rightly. The man ran towards the figure on the wall, and Mannering waited, timing his backward jump to a nicety. With every muscle in his body taut, he went down!

The man did not see the manoeuvre until it was too late to avoid the crushing weight. Mannering dropped plumb on to the other’s head and shoulders! The man crumpled up, and Mannering went flying, turning his shoulder to the ground as he fell. He took the fall well, and scrambled breathlessly to his feet. The other was scrabbling the gravel path with his feet and moaning.

“Knocked out,” muttered Mannering. He told himself, forcing down a fear that there was anything more the matter with the victim of his attack than temporary unconsciousness, that it was the last time he would break into a place without knowing just how many occupants it was likely to have. But it was over; now for the car.

He ran lightly towards the spot where he had left the hired Vauxhall, keeping his eyes open all the time in ease there was a third member of Septimus Lee’s house-guard. He saw no one.

The engine of the Vauxhall purred sweetly as he pressed the self-starter, and the wheels turned.

Sweat oozed from every pore in his body. His breath was coming, short and harsh, between his parted lips. His head was buzzing, and his limbs were trembling. Mannering felt that he had gone through the worst five minutes of intense action that a man could possibly endure; yet he had succeeded.

And then, as he turned the Vauxhall off the common road towards the main road and looked into the driving-mirror, he groaned.

You fool !” he muttered. “You fool!”

But he was laughing a moment later. Right to the last he had made mistakes — even as he had turned into the high road he had been wearing his mask! He slipped it off, and took a cigarette from the dashboard-pocket with lingers that trembled.

And then he settled down to the task of getting home.

CHAPTER NINE

SEPTIMUS LEE AND ANOTHER

AT FTVE MINUTES TO TEN ON THE FOLLOWING MORNING THE same suave-voiced clerk received the same immaculate, smiling John Mannering, and ushered him into the office of Mr Septimus Lee. The Jew’s blue-veined hands were pressed together, with the skinny fingers intertwining.

The lids of his large, slant-set eyes were a little lower, if anything, than on the previous day, but otherwise he looked the same, was dressed the same, and smiled as invitingly.

“Clever,” murmured Mannering to himself, “and cool. I’d give half the Rosa pearls, nevertheless, to know what’s going on in his mind.”

He spoke amiably, however.

“Well, Mr Lee. Need we use a theoretical basis for discussion to-day, or can we . . .”

Lee waved his hands.

“We understand each other, understand each other perfectly, Mr Mannering. But for one unfortunate mishap our deal could be completed to-day . . .”

Mannering’s brow went up.

“Mishap?” he questioned.

“Regrettably, yes.” Septimus Lee lifted his hands, chin-high, and shrugged his shoulders, but there was no quiver in his voice. “I had — er — visitors last night, Mr Mannering.”

Lee paused. Mannering’s eyes widened, his lace-muscles relaxed. The suggestion of incredulity he created was convincing even from Septimus Lee’s point of view.

“Visitors?” His voice was hard. You mean someone made a better offer than mine?”

“No offer at all,” said Lee. “I was robbed.”

“Robbed?” Mannering uttered the single word with emphatic scepticism.

“Yes — last night of all nights,” said the Jew softly.

A frown crossed Mannering’s lace. His chin was a shade more aggressive than it had been a minute before, and his voice was harder.

“If this is what you call bargaining finesse, Mr Lee, I’m sorry you take me for that sort of mug. I’m disappointed in you.”

Lee smiled, and once more Mannering was forced to admire him.

“A very natural supposition,” said the Jew, “but an erroneous one, Mr Mannering. However, as I cannot show you the Rosa pearls, there is little point in continuing the interview.”

“Look here” — Mannering realised that he could not stress his disbelief too much — “I’m willing to go a little higher with my offer. Shall we say thirteen thousand pounds, and make the deal ?”

“I can quite understand your point of view,” said Septimus Lee, “and I sympathise with you. You are a collector, and you reckoned to have a rare — a unique — piece; but you have been balked. My apologies could not be more sincere, Mr Mannering, but I was robbed.”

Mannering stared at him for a moment, and then rubbed his chin ruefully.

“Damn it,” he said, “I believe it’s the truth after all! But, hang it, Mr Lee, only you and I and one other in England knew of the existence of the necklace. It seems absurd . . .”

“My own mpression exactly,” said Lee. His tone was silky, and there was an undercurrent of something in his voice which Mannering did not understand. Yet robbed I was. Of course others may have heard the same rumour as you. And now, if you will excuse me . . .”

Mannering shrugged, smiled, picked up his hat and gloves, and was ushered out of the office by the clerk, who had arrived in answer to Lee’s ring. That was over.

“Now what,” asked Mannering of himself as he walked into the Strand beneath the white glare of the sun does Mr Lee know — or guess ? I’m not happy in my mind about that man. And there was something different about him to-day. He was keeping himself in check, of course, but there was something else.”

Two things happened in the next two minutes that told Mannering what he wanted to know. They were both innocent things, and directly connected with each other, but connected in no way with the Baron or Septimus Lee. But . . .

“Middie speshais!” bellowed a newspaper-seller in his ear.

“Midday specials,” came another voice, a few moments later.

The difference in the two voices was ludicrous. Mannering looked at both men. The one was old, sharp-featured, and dressed in dirty rags; the other was younger dressed poorly but neatly, and with a rather intelligent lace; disillusioned perhaps, but intelligent.

“As different to look at,” he thought, “as they sounded different. Sounded different . . .”

He bought a Standard from the younger man and walked on, smiling. Had it been later in the day the news-seller might have wondered how much Mannering had won, for he looked pleased with himself and with life. He was pleased. The voice of Septimus Lee. that day, had been different from the voice on the previous day. There had been little or no accent, while before there had been a definite Jewish inflection, more difficulty with the w’s and s’s.

“So he changes his voice,” thought Mannering, “to suit himself. Strange.”

Half an hour later he thought it stranger still.

He was looking at the Rosa pearls, wondering how to dispose of them and whether it was the genuine string. He was faced immediately with two of the major problems of his new life — how to sell what he had stolen, and how to make sure that he had genuine stones, not artificial ones.

There was a connection between the two problems, he knew. Once he found a reliable buyer — or fence — he would also find a reliable judge — a man who would not purchase dud stuff as the genuine article. It was not altogether satisfactory, but for the time being it would serve.

He remembered Flick Leverson, who had purchased one or two small trinkets from him before his. Flick’s, unfortunate apprehension by Bill Bristow.

“I can take the small stuff,” Flick had told him, “but if you ever get any big stuff don’t try me; try Levy Schmidt.”

Mannering had smiled at the time, for Levy had recommended Flick. Moreover, he had been warned by several gentlemen of the fraternity to avoid Levy Schmidt like the plague. Levy was reputed to be a police-informer. Mannering had said as much.

“He’s a snout,” Flick Leverson had admitted, “on the little boys, bo’. He puts the dicks on to the rats while he gets away with the big boys himself. You take my word for it. Levy Schmidt’s all right if your stuff’s big.”

Mannering had tried Levy out with the Kenton brooch. Contrary to Detective-Inspector Bristow’s belief. Levy had not given the tweed-capped man away; he had played a part, suggested by Mannering, that had completely hoodwinked the detective. In other words. Flick Leverson had been right.

Mannering naturally thought of Levy Schmidt in connection with the Rosa pearls. Levy would probably refuse to part with more than live thousand pounds for them, but at that time Mannering’s exchequer was in sad need of replenishment. He would rather sell to Levy at half the value (illegal value) of the pearls, and get his cash immediately, than wait until he found someone with whom he could deal direct. In any event, direct dealing in a case like this might have unforeseen results; it was foolish to take undue risks.

“Levy it is,” said Mannering, leaving the pearls on the table while he brewed himself tea at the service-flat which he used as a place of retreat. John Mannering, man-about-town, lived at the Elan Hotel, for the sake of his reputation.

“Levy it shall be,” he said, as he drank the tea. “Levy to-night,” he murmured tunefully, for he was still very pleased with the success of his raid on the previous night.

And then he became very thoughtful.

At eight o’clock that night a man in a tweed cap waited near Levy Schmidt’s pawnshop in the Mile End Road until the pawnbroker, grey and bent and weary-looking, left his shop, locked it, and began to walk slowly towards the nearest tram-stop. The man in the tweed cap followed him, even on to a tram travelling towards Aldgate. At Aldgate Levy clambered off it awkwardly, and the man with the tweed cap jumped off in time to see Levy disappear into that most unlikely of places — the Oriem Turkish Baths.

The man in the tweed cap waited on a corner opposite the baths, from where he could see both entrances to the building. Twice a policeman viewed him suspiciously, and once he looked frankly into the constable’s face, to avoid suspicion.

“Fixture, ain’t I ?” he said. “She works over there. Oughter be out soon.”

The bobby smiled to himself sentimentally and walked on.

Ten minutes later a Daimler car drew up outside the Oriem Turkish Baths, chauffeured by a burly man in a peaked cap and a blue uniform. Five minutes later still Mr Septimus Lee left the Oriem Turkish Baths and hurried to the Daimler. The Daimler moved off into the stream of traffic going towards the City.

“Now that,” muttered the man in the tweed cap, pulling its peak farther over his face and slouching towards a bus, apparently forgetful of “she”, “is a beautiful piece of luck. If you don’t do well at this game, J.M., it’ll be your own darned fault.”

For Septimus Lee and Levy Schmidt were one and the same!

Mannering had made a list of receivers of stolen goods — known in the vernacular as “fences” and by Flick Leverson’s more up-to-date colloquialism as “smashers” — supplied by that philosophical fence, for Flick had realised that it was possible he would be nobbled, and his fears had been justified. Mannering had little desire to try these men with the stuff — or, to use Flick’s term again, the “sparks” — that was being watched for by the police. Others besides Levy

Schmidt might be informers on big stuff or small; and, n any case, he could not expect such co-operation from them as he had received from Levy.

His discovery of the Jew’s dual personality intrigued him. The man’s cunning was astonishing — and too thorough, the Baron decided, to be matched — yet.

As pawnbroker and fence Lee would be waiting warily for the Rosa pearls; as the financial head of the Severell Trust he would probably be watching Mannering carefully. Mannering was not, in those first months, sure enough of the effectiveness of his tweed-cap disguise, even with variations, to try it out again with Lee as Levy. So it had to be someone else.

Mannering decided to try a warehouse-owner by the name of Grayson, a pink-and-white doll of a man with a devastating bass voice. Grayson controlled two or three coastal steamers which disgorged goods at his East End warehouse and carried other cargoes to the North of England and occasionally to Holland. He was able to smuggle stolen goods from one country to the other, and Flick Leverson had said: “He’ll swindle you. Levy’s a tight swine, but Grayson will do you down worse than Levy. But he’s straight.”

A tribute, Mannering had thought, to the honour among thieves that he would put to the test.

Three days later the robbery at Septimus Lee’s house a swarthy, big muscled man visited the warehouse offices of Grayson — Dicker Grayson — and asked for the boss. In view of the many sides to his business Grayson made a point of interviewing all callers, and the big-muscled man was admitted to his private office.

“Well?” boomed Grayson. “What d’you want? A job?”

The other shook his head. His brown eyes — hazel eyes — looked sullen, and he spoke gruffly and awkwardly, as though suffering from a slight impediment. He looked a man who was frightened of a coming trick, and certainly no one — not even Randall — would have recognised him as John Mannering.

“No,” he muttered; “I’ve come from Flick. Know Flick?”

Grayson’s little eyes narrowed. His pump hands tightened on the arms of his chair, for he knew a man from Flick Leverson could mean only one thing.

Mannering was conscious of a keen scrutiny; Grayson was at once trying to remember whether he had ever seen him before and making sure that he would always recognise him in the future. Beneath that pink-and-white face and those small puffy eyes was a mind at once shrewd and alert.

“Never seen him in my life,” thought Grayson. “A North Countryman, by his voice. Fat face, full lips — don’t fit in with his eyes, somehow, although perhaps they do.” He was quiet for a moment, deliberately trying the other’s nerve, but the big man seemed prepared to stare him out for ever.

“What do you want from Flick?” he demanded at last.

“He’s gone away for a year or two,” The big-muscled man grinned suddenly, and then that furtive, half-fearful expression returned to his face. “Listen, Mr Grayson — Flick said you’d buy some stuff from me. I’m stuck. Got me?”

Grayson nodded, and his grin widened. He did not doubt the man’s genuineness, for Flick Leverson was a straight dealer; arrested or not, he would never have turned copper’s nark. Moreover, something seemed to tell Grayson that this man would take very little for his goods.

“What is it ?” he demanded.

“You’re on the level?” The swarthy man’s eyes narrowed; his fear was very evident now.

“You know I am or you wouldn’t have come to me,” said Grayson.

The other seemed satisfied by the bluntness of the assurance, and pulled an oilskin bag from his fob-pocket. He dropped it on the desk in front of the fence, and Grayson opened it, expecting to find the proceeds of a smash-and-grab raid or a “snatch”. When he saw the first thing — a pearl ear-ring which had adorned the ear of Lady Dane Fullarth a few weeks before — the fat man’s eyes widened. When he saw the second, a scintillating diamond pendant strung on platinum links, his eyes bulged. When he saw the third, a sapphire ring with a centre stone as large as Grayson’s little finger-nail, he gasped, startled out of his calm.

“Where’d you get these ?” His voice, for once, was low.

The dark-faced man looked ugly.

“That’s my pigeon, mister. Are you buying or aren’t you? That’s all I wanter know.”

Grayson swallowed hard. He ran through the remainder of the stuff, and reckoned quickly that he would sell them for two thousand, perhaps five hundred more. The seller was frightened and in need of money. He calculated swiftly, his one concern not to offer too much.

“I’ll give you two-fifty,” he said.

The man didn’t speak, and the silence dragged.

“Well ?” snapped the fence.

“Why, sure,” said the big-muscled man, standing up and stretching his hand out for the bag. “I’ll find someone who’ll like ‘em as a present, mister. Deal’s off.”

In that moment Grayson saw two things. One, the man wore gloves, to make sure that no one saw his bare hands. Two, that the best haul of genuine stones which he’d seen in years was disappearing. He cleared his throat, and waved his podgy fingers.

“Now wait a minute,” he protested. “There’s a big risk handling that stuff, and you know it. Four hundred. Not a penny more.”

The other grinned knowingly.

“I tell you I’ll give em away,” he said gruffly. “Fifteen hundred, and I’ll listen to you.”

“You’re crazy !” snapped Grayson.

“Maybe — but not as crazy as that,” said the other.

“Seven-fifty. That’s my final offer.”

“Sure it is. Jumped up pritty quick, ain’t it? I’ll wait until Flick comes out. “He’ll give me two thousand, and reckon he’s got a bargain. Let’s have ‘em.”