Meet The Baron
First published in 1937
Copyright: John Creasey Literary Management Ltd.; House of Stratus 1937-2010
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise), without the prior permission of the publisher. Any person who does any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.
The right of John Creasey to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted.
This edition published in 2010 by House of Stratus, an imprint of:
Stratus Books Ltd., Lisandra House, Fore Street, Looe,
Cornwall, PL13 1AD, UK.
Typeset by House of Stratus.
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library and the Library of Congress.
| EAN | ISBN | Edition | ||||
| 0755117751 | 9780755117758 | |||||
| 0755118707 | 9780755118700 | |||||
| 0755125576 | 9780755125579 | Kindle/Mobi | ||||
| 0755125584 | 9780755125586 | Epub |
This is a fictional work and all characters are drawn from the author’s imagination.
Any resemblance or similarities to persons either living or dead are entirely coincidental.
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John Creasey – Master Storyteller - was born in Surrey, England in 1908 into a poor family in which there were nine children, John Creasey grew up to be a true master story teller and international sensation. His more than 600 crime, mystery and thriller titles have now sold 80 million copies in 25 languages. These include many popular series such as Gideon of Scotland Yard, The Toff, Dr Palfrey and The Baron.
Creasy wrote under many pseudonyms, explaining that booksellers had complained he totally dominated the ‘C’ section in stores. They included:
Gordon Ashe, M E Cooke, Norman Deane, Robert Caine Frazer, Patrick Gill, Michael Halliday, Charles Hogarth, Brian Hope, Colin Hughes, Kyle Hunt, Abel Mann, Peter Manton, J J Marric, Richard Martin, Rodney Mattheson, Anthony Morton and Jeremy York.
Never one to sit still, Creasey had a strong social conscience, and stood for Parliament several times, along with founding the One Party Alliance which promoted the idea of government by a coalition of the best minds from across the political spectrum.
He also founded the British Crime Writers’ Association, which to this day celebrates outstanding crime writing. The Mystery Writers of America bestowed upon him the Edgar Award for best novel and then in 1969 the ultimate Grand Master Award. John Creasey’s stories are as compelling today as ever.
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 Colonel 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, for 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.
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 racquets 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 prearranged 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 to-day’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 bow-string 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 briar. 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.”
“Gamblin’? 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.”
“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.
All this,” grumbled Jimmy Randall - sometimes known as the Hon. James Randall, of Mortimer Hall, Yampton, Somerset, and 18 Dowden Square, London, W.I, “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.”
“Hm,” 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 papers 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 thing 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 blasé 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’11 stick to it. If I’m blown off it” - he shrugged his shoulders and grinned, that old, cheerful grin - “I’11 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, putting 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-eight pence.”
“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.”
I2.30 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 houseboat 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. Some one 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 countryside 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.
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. Hm! 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’ 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. “Come 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! She’s won Feodora, Feodora.” He remembered himself suddenly, and scowled. “Sorry, Mannering - excitement. Ha! 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.
“Hm-hm,” 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 half-way 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 soma 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’ll 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 to-night. 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 and angel and send Riddell over with the car. I’ve a dress here that I can wear. Bye-Bye.”
“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. Hm.”
“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 soufflé,” 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 safes 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. Hm. 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. . .