Held At Bay (8 page)

“Give and ye shall receive,” murmured Mannering to himself. Then he wondered what had prompted him to ask Leverson to keep the Delawney sapphires at hand.

Knoller, the detective who followed him, wondered why he was smiling, and conscientiously reported it to Bristow when he was relieved by Dyson. Mannering did not try to hide, but went into a Keith Prowse office and booked a passage on an evening flight to Paris. He had still several hours on his hands, and he went back to his flat, prepared for an afternoon of ease. He did not get it.

He started with surprise at sight of Juan de Castilla standing outside his flat door. The Spaniard's face was set, his eyes were flashing, his hands were clenched.

“Ah! John. Thank heavens to see you!”

“What's the trouble?” Mannering asked. The cooler he was, the cooler Juan de Castilla would be.

“Trouble!” exclaimed de Castilla as they entered the flat. “John, you remember telling me of Archibald Price, and the Sea of Fire robbery? Now Salmonson, who had the Desire Diamond, has been robbed. Both by the Baron! You understand?”

“I've been wondering whether it's a coincidence,” admitted the Baron.

“It's too much for coincidence!” cried de Castilla excitedly. “But that is no excuse for Anita, no excuse at all.”

Mannering's hands stopped moving, and his body was rigid as he stared at the Spaniard.

“What's Anita been up to?”

“She has gone mad, mad!” exclaimed de Castilla. “This morning she has flown to Paris, to see Panneraude about the Crown of Castile. With some fool of a man who told her he would help – to
steal
it if necessary. You understand, John, she says if others can steal the jewels,
she
can. She is mad, quite mad about this; those jewels mean more to her than to any of us. In a moment of excitement she confided in me, but I dare not tell Don Manuel, and I can do nothing to stop her. Is it possible, John, that you can persuade her it is madness?”

Chapter Eleven

Mannering Moves Fast

When Mannering had first contemplated the task of getting the five Jewels of Castilla it had seemed quite straightforward. A series of five burglaries would carry less danger than usual because only the Kelworthy syndicate knew of their connection.

But from the moment that he had discovered the ruthlessness of Granette, even to impersonation, he had faced complications – but none so alarming as Anita de Castilla playing with a mad notion like this, actually in Paris with a fool who had promised to help her break into Panneraude's place should the Frenchman refuse to sell the Crown! For a few seconds Mannering could only stand and stare at Juan, who was waiting as though for the oracle to speak. De Castilla had always looked on Mannering as a man who could work miracles.

Mannering's tension lessened, more for the other's sake than because he felt easier in his mind.

“My God, Juan, this is the most spirited thing I've heard.”

“Spirited!” choked Juan. “Spirited, when she will probably be in a French prison before the night is out; she has some idiot infatuated with her, men are always so ready to die for Anita. John, I'm sorry I had to come to you, but we have so few friends in England, and Don Manuel just is not well enough to stand the shock. I dare not tell him.”

“Take it easy,” said Mannering, across the spate of words. He stepped to the sideboard and poured a finger of whisky, for Juan was labouring under a greater nervous strain than he had realised. “There's no hurry. We can't – or I can't – get to Paris any sooner than my evening flight. If we charter a special it will make only a couple of hours' difference. Sit down, and tell me all about it.”

Juan stood with his whisky in his hand, a tense smile on his face and beads of perspiration on his forehead.

“
You
will go to Paris! John, I am tremendously obliged; I had hoped, yet hardly dared to suggest. Anita, she is a fool, but she will do most things for you. I think sometimes she is jealous of Lorna!”

Juan sat down abruptly, and took a sip of the whisky. He laughed a little awkwardly.

“I'm afraid I must have seemed an awful fool, John.” All his anxiety had gone, and he was in complete control of himself. “The only thing I could think of was rushing to you.”

Mannering laughed.

“There are worse ports in a storm, and I know Anita has a soft spot for me. Are you sure she wasn't simply talking?”

“Absolutely positive! She's had something on her mind for several days; I have sensed it. I know Anita,” added Juan with brotherly assurance. “And this fellow who she has been seeing secretly—”

“Do you know him?”

“I can tell you his name, but she has not introduced me,” said de Castilla. “She has been carrying on as though it's a love affair, but I suspected there was something else. I tried to make her talk, but she would not listen, until this morning while she was dressing and got ready to go to London airport.”

“Didn't you try to stop her?”

“Of course! I raced to the airport and reached there before any flight to Paris left. But—she was gone.”

“Gone?” Mannering was startled. “How could she manage it?”

“Obviously, a special plane,” said de Castilla. “I inquired of the officials. Yes, there was a special charter plane, with a lady and gentleman; the description was Anita's. You see, she was taking no chances.”

“Ye–es,” said Mannering, pushing his hand through his hair. He was thinking that the arrangements sounded far too thorough to be Anita's, and certainly seemed beyond the scheming of a love-sick swain. Juan was right, there were a dozen men in London who would have been prepared for any daring escapade for Anita's sake. She was the type to sweep a man off his feet, and old enough to use her sex appeal to get what she wanted. Mannering was fond of Anita, but he knew that in the affair of the five jewels she would be unscrupulous.

“Who is the man, Juan?”

“A man named Lenville, Edward Lenville. He has a flat in Kensington, and—”

But the Baron stopped him quickly.

“Lenville! A broad-shouldered youngster, no more than twenty-five or six, with very fair hair?”

“The very man!” exclaimed de Castilla. “John, you are getting second sight.”

“You're fated to interrupt today,” said Mannering, but he was speaking more for the sake of saying something, and thinking fast. “I know Ted Lenville. His father was one of the bigger gem collectors, until his death, and young Lenville's been running through the money like wildfire. I thought he'd straightened up and was off the bottle.”

“I'd say he was sober enough,” said de Castilla, and he wondered why the Baron laughed.

“I daresay he is! But Lenville still has his father's jewel collection, or part of it. I'm wondering whether he's heard anything about your five jewels.”

De Castilla sat bolt upright in his chair.

“
Sapristi
! Then
he
is after the jewels,
he
is the man who has had all the others stolen? He is tricking Anita, making the fool of her? John, I cannot—”

“Steady on,” said Mannering. “You're going too fast. But Lenville is in jewels. I think I'd better have a charter plane after all.” He moved across the room and lifted the telephone, talking all the time. “I'd better go over alone, Juan; you'll be more useful over here. If Anita sees you it will put her back up, anyhow. I wish I knew Lenville well, but—hallo? Mr. Morrison, please.” He glanced at de Castilla. “Morrison's the man who will really get me service—hallo? Bob, John Mannering here. Thanks, I'm fine and I hope you are, and I'd like a small plane with a pilot for a rush trip to Paris. Can you have it ready in an hour and a half? Good man, goodbye.”

As he replaced the receiver, de Castilla jumped up.

“It really is good of you, John.”

“I'd rather not see Anita behind bars, it's not as though it's for you,” Mannering said drily. Juan frowned; then laughed.

“You Englishmen! How you hate any show of emotion. I wonder how you can ever say thanks to anyone for anything. Exactly what will you do?”

“Did Anita say where she was staying?”

“No, but we usually stay at the Rivol, and she—”

“The Rivol!” exclaimed Mannering. He remembered Lorna's telegram, and the information that Granette was staying there. “I know the hotel well.”

Happily de Castilla was far too engrossed in his own problem to realise that Mannering had been startled by his thoughts.

“Let's hope she's there,” Mannering went on. “In any case I'll find her if I have to get the Sûrété to call all the hotels.”

“I could do that from here,” de Castilla said eagerly.

“It might take some time, but try it,” agreed Mannering. “You'd better start with the Rivol, while I'm packing a bag.”

“I certainly will!” exclaimed de Castilla.

Mannering was in the middle of packing when de Castilla burst into the bedroom, fifteen minutes later.

“Found her?” Mannering inquired.

“Yes, not at the Rivol, but at the Bristol, in Rue de L'Opera. Lenville is staying at the Rivol.”

Mannering stared, and the seconds ticked by.

This time de Castilla realised there was something odd about Mannering's manner and the silence that followed. He broke off, while Mannering put a dress shirt carefully on the bed.

“So Lenville's staying at the Rivol.”

“Yes, but John—”

“My thoughts are playing me tricks,” said Mannering. “I'm more worried about this business than I'll admit.”

Lenville, the son of a friend of Lord Fauntley – a friend, of course, because of a mutual interest in precious stones – had offered to help Anita de Castilla rob Panneraude of the Crown of Castile. For the average young Englishman, even if he had sown wild oats when he had come into money, that was remarkable.

But it was strange that he should also be at the hotel where Jules Granette was staying.

Mannering tried to convince himself that the idea in his mind was too fantastic. If Ted Lenville was in love with Anita, it was reasonable to assume that he would offer to do anything if he could persuade Anita to marry him. He did not know Lenville well, but had heard of his reputation as a daredevil; and he knew also that Lenville was a record-holder at Brands Hatch.

A young daredevil then, with money to burn, might well see this as a glorious spree, not having the sense to realise the inevitable disaster if he failed, or to count the odds against him. On the other hand Lenville was interested in precious stones. Was it possible that he and Granette were known to each other? He frowned, wondering how he could get rid of de Castilla for a while.

“Juan, damn it, I'm practically out of cigarettes. Will you slip to Piccadilly – it won't take you five minutes – and get me a hundred Virginia 3's? Bring a cab back, and we can get to the airport right away.”

“A pleasure!” de Castilla jumped up before Mannering could hand him a coin for the cigarettes, and oblivious of a full packet of fifty lying on Mannering's suitcase. The door closed as Mannering lifted the receiver and dialled a Holborn number.

After some delay he was talking to a Mr. Toby Plender, a solicitor in Chancery Lane. Plender had been at Cambridge with Mannering, and at the same school before that, and Plender had once tried to stop Mannering from making a heavy money loss. Plender had never borne malice because his advice had not been followed. His dry voice came over the wires.

“Hello, John, I'd been thinking you were dead these days, we never see anything of you. What do you want? Money?”

“No, thanks,” said Mannering, “I like my money clean. Let me see if I can make a solicitor break his vows of silence. Don't you handle young Lenville's affairs?”

Plender's voice took on a more distant note.

“Yes. What there is left of them. He's thrown most of his money away, and what little he didn't throw, ran. I don't think that's breaking a confidence, a dozen people know. Why?”

That little pulse was beating in Mannering's forehead. Lenville was not a rich young fool with money to burn.

“He's interested in a girl friend of mine,” Mannering said.

“If she's the type to hold him she would do him the world of good,” Plender said. “He's an attractive beggar, but he's mixed with a bad crowd. Like you did a few years back! But he hasn't your luck.”

“You never know,” said Mannering with a chuckle. “Thanks, Toby. The information is for me alone, of course. I'll let the young miss work out her own fate.”

“When are you coming to dinner?” asked Plender.

“When I come back from Paris,” said Mannering. “Give my love to Mary.”

He put the telephone down, and stood aside, his lips puckered. The notion that Granette and Lenville were connected was no longer absurd. He was a young fool but a likeable one, mixing with bad company. Mannering found it hard to believe there could be worse company than Granette's. Mannering wished there was a way of finding whether Granette had been on Lenville's list of friends, but there was no time to spare, for the quicker he saw Anita the better it would be.

Juan was back by the time Mannering had finished packing. They had an hour to reach the airport, which gave them ample time. By five o'clock Mannering would be in Paris. Other things which he could not have imagined were happening while he was shaking hands with de Castilla, and stuffing cotton-wool into his ears before climbing into the cabin: he was always sensitive to the roar of the engines.

A neatly dressed man waiting by the aerodrome saw him approach, and watched him climb into the plane. A few seconds later he was at a telephone kiosk, calling Chief Inspector William Bristow.

“It's Walker here, sir. I've just seen Mannering board a privately chartered plane. I understand he is going to Paris, and his luggage is addressed to the Hotel Bristol.”

At the other end of the wire Bristow's eyes gleamed. He was still feeling badly about his two interviews with Mannering. He thanked Walker, replaced the receiver, and took a sheet of paper. He spent some time wording the message, for he wanted to say a great deal without committing himself. It would have been easier to an English town, he had to be very careful with a message to the
Sûrété Nationale.

Happily, thought Bristow, Georges Robierre, of the
Sûrété Nationale
was a good friend who would treat the information in confidence. Bristow finished at last, sat back and read it, then pressed a bell for a messenger.

The telegram read:

“Chief Inspector's Office,
Scotland Yard, London, W.1.

Message to Inspector Georges Robierre,
Sûrété Nationale,
Paris, France.

Information received that jewel thief known as the Baron recently operating in London has left England for Paris. Should necessity arise I have reason to believe Mr. John Mannering, who left London today for Paris, and has booked at the Hotel Bristol, might be in possession of certain information regarding the Baron's movements.

William A. Bristow, Chief Inspector.”

Half an hour later, while Mannering was in the plane as it crossed French coastal waters, Inspecteur Georges Robierre received the message, uncoded it, read it several times and alternatively smiled and scowled.

He was a mercurial little man with a tremendous store of logic and understanding. He knew Bristow well, and often had reason to thank the Chief Inspector for information that led to arrest.

“So,” he muttered, “M'sieu Mannering,
hein
? Now I wonder if Beel opines Mannering to be the Baron? Mannering, Mannering, I ‘ave hear the name.
Nom de bon Dieu,
I ‘ave hear the name so often! The gambler, the gentleman who cleans up the table at Monte Carlo not so many months ago. John Mannering, of course! Beel, it is absurd!”