Help From The Baron (18 page)

“I’ll be seeing you,” Mannering said, and smiled at the man who, remarkably, had ceased to grin.

Mannering didn’t quicken his pace. He wasn’t followed. He wasn’t fooled. Simon Lessing’s place was named as a rendezvous, but if he started out for it he would be held up long before he got there. He was beginning to have deep if reluctant admiration for the tactics of Scoby and his men.

His car was still there.

It hadn’t been touched, as far as he could judge. He drove straight to Lessing’s flat, which was on the second floor, and immediately there was a movement inside.

Simon Lessing didn’t open the door; Susan Pengelly did. She looked surprised but not displeased. She opened her loose red mouth and showed those oddly small and wide-spaced teeth. The light from a window behind Mannering put a glint into the green of her eyes. She wore a smock, gay with colour and much too tight for her. It seemed to extend her massive figure almost to her knees.

“Hallo,” she said, “come in.” She stood aside. “Si, it’s the amateur detective genius.”

“Who?” Simon came hurrying from one of the three rooms in sight. He stopped abruptly. “So it’s you!”

“Honey,” Susan said, “the obvious may be left unsaid.”

“What do you want, Mannering?” Simon demanded.

The evidence of strain was in his glittering eyes. His hands weren’t as steady as they should have been, and as if to point to that, he had cut himself on the right cheek while shaving; there was a hair-thin red line. His lips were set tightly, and moved almost as a puppet’s; he wasn’t so good-looking this way.

“Well?” he snapped. “Are you going to play ball, or are you . . .?” Simon broke off. He lunged across the room to a baby grand piano, where several photographs stood in ebony frames. He grabbed one, swung round, and thrust it in front of Mannering’s eyes. “See that. That’s Joy. That’s the girl you’re sacrificing for those damnable jewels.”

It was an effective move. The photographer had caught Joy Lessing when she was beginning to smile, and when her eyes held a dawning light. Mannering remembered her very well indeed. Lovely; Kissable; crushable; kill-able.

“Well? You going to stand by and let her suffer?”

“No one should be judged too soon, Mr. Mannering might be an honest man,” Susan cooed.

“Honest my foot! He . . .”

“I know that you must be as worried as a man can be about Joy, but spluttering like a firework display’ won’t help you or Joy,” Mannering said mildly. “Do you want to try to find her, or don’t you?”

“He comes with the words of a cooing dove and adorns himself in the white petals of deception. Original.” Susan started a move into one of the rooms, a nicely-furnished living-room.

“Of course I want to find her,” Simon rasped. “And you are the one man who can . . .”

“No, I’m not,” said Mannering. “I haven’t the Fioras. But I know now that someone has been fooled into believing that I have. I am instructed to bring them here, tonight. That doesn’t give me long to look for them.”

Simon ejaculated: “What?”

Susan Pengelly slipped off the smock. Underneath, she wore a woollen jumper, obviously self-knitted, with big stitches and several knots where the wool had been badly joined. Incredibly, it fitted loosely.

“Who’d like a drink?” she asked.

“Have they been after you again?” Mannering asked.

Simon didn’t answer.

“Yes,” said Susan. “Blood-curdling threats uttered in the same kind of disarming voice as yours. It was a man he met in the street. What were the exact words, Si? And when you’ve time, tell me if you’d like a drink. We can offer,” she added, “whisky or gin, gin or whisky, and if you’re really particular, a little whisky or gin. No It, but there might be a spot of Noilly Praat.”

“The exact words,” said Simon speaking as if each breath were being dragged out of him, “were these, as nearly as I can remember them: ‘Make sure Mannering plays ball. If he doesn’t, your kid sister will be grown up all of a sudden.’ ” For a moment he was silent, then he blurted out: “The ruddy swine!”

Susan murmured: “Does anyone know which is better for blood-pressure - whisky or gin?”

Simon swung round on her. “Why don’t you shut up? You’ve been making cracks like that all the morning. If you can’t keep quiet, get to hell out of here.”

Susan Pengelly smiled . . .

But she wasn’t laughing with her eyes at all. His savage manner hurt her. It was impossible to tell whether he knew it, or whether he cared. She didn’t turn away, but watched him very closely. Then she spoke.

“What do you really want from us, Mr. Mannering?” She was almost subdued.

“I want to find out how anxious Lessing really is to get his sister back,” Mannering said, “and I want to know more about her. There hasn’t been time to probe. I know . . .” He told them what Bristow had told him. During the telling, Susan brought him a gin-and-French, and put a different-shaped glass with a different-coloured liquid into Simon’s hand. “How well did Joy know the Lisles?”

“The two Lisles?” Simon looked at his drink. “I don’t think she knew Bernard Lisle very well. She met him at Francesca’s place once or twice, and once in France, I believe. But it was Francesca she was interested in. They are inseparable. What Franky will say . . .”

“We’ll look after Francesca,” Mannering said. “Did Francesca often confide in Joy?”

“Suppose you tell us what you’re getting at,” Simon demanded.

“I want to know why these people kidnapped Joy.”

“You know why. So that I could be forced to make you . . .”

“Simple Simon,” Susan gurgled. She did not remain subdued for long. “Even I knew that was phoney. They had Joy and they used her that way, but no one in their senses would ever believe that you, Simon Lessing Esquire, could bring pressure to bear on Mannering. Phoney as they come. I wondered when Mannering would get round to this particular question, even I can see that it may be important. I could venture an opinion, of course, but I’m not sure that it would be welcome.”

“May we have it?” Mannering invited.

“Will you protect me?” asked Susan mockingly. “From the wrath to come, I mean. I think that Francesca told Joy something in confidence, and that as a result it wasn’t safe for these hoodlums to let Joy run round loose. I think that Francesca’s father was a crook. Spelt C-R-O-O-K. That he had these diamonds, and that thief is trying to rob thief. I also think that Francesca knew all this, and . . .”

“I told you to shut up.” Simon rounded on her savagely, eyes glittering. “Now you’ve gone a damned sight too far. All I ever get from you are foul innuendoes about Francesca and her father. The trouble with you is a mind like a sewer, you can’t imagine anyone being decent and straightforward. You - you ought to have been born in the gutter five hundred years ago. Now get out, and don’t come back.”

She was startled enough to plead.

“Si, don’t be . . .”

“Get out!”

She closed her mouth tightly; there was just a bright red slash beneath her nose. She looked at Simon from narrowed eyes, and the green in them seemed to be shimmering in the light of an emotion which it was hard to understand.

Then she went to the sideboard, poured herself out a finger of neat whisky, drank it as if she were pouring medicine down her throat and, without another look at Simon or at Mannering, went out.

The room door and the outer door closed quietly.

Simon said: “There are times when I hate the sight of her!” He snatched out his pipe and stuck it, empty, between his fine teeth. “Oh, forget her. What do you really want to know?”

“Whether Francesca could have told Joy anything which made Joy dangerous to these people,” Mannering said mildly. “Or whether Joy found anything out, unknowingly. Did she hint of anything like that to you?”

“That Lisle was a fence, you mean? No, she didn’t. Susan’s hinted at it for weeks. But then, anything Susan could do to discredit Francesca was as good as done. Sometimes she scares me.”

Mannering murmured: “If she could hate as well as she can love you’d be in hell, my son.”

Simon looked startled, but went on quickly: “That’s exactly what I mean. The devil of it is that I’m never myself when Sue’s around. She makes me feel vicious. I don’t know what it is. She’s always needling me in some way or other, and since I’ve - I’ve become so fond of Francesca, it’s got much worse.”

“How long is that?”

“Oh, the better part of a year.”

Simon began to fill his pipe. He smoked a broad-cut mixture with a sweet smell. He looked as if he had a blinding headache; there was a tell-tale shiny kind of brightness in his eyes. Like Bristow, he hadn’t slept much; and to a degree much more than Bristow’s he was living on his nerves.

“If you haven’t got the jewels, what the devil are we going to do?” he asked abruptly.

Mannering said: “I could pretend that I have. They’ll probably be in touch with you again, soon, and may make even uglier threats about Joy. Do you think your nerve can stand up to more strain?”

“Oh, I can take the strain, it’s being so helpless that gives me hell.”

“When they ask again, give them a message. Say I told you that I’d been ordered to bring the jewels here. Say that I told you their offer was chicken-feed, and that in any case I wouldn’t go to them, they’d have to come to me. In other words, let them feel more sure than ever that I have the jewels.”

Simon said: “I don’t get it.”

“Above everything else, they want the diamonds. While they think I have them, there’s a hope that they’ll string along. And they’ll probably go easy on Joy.”

Simon said in a strangled voice: “Probably!”

“That’s right,” Mannering said, “and I think they will. If you can fool them.”

“I’ll fool them,” Simon said.

The trouble for the time being was that Mannering knew that he couldn’t take the offensive. Now Scoby had just vanished, it was as simple as that.

They were up to all the tricks.

Mannering drove to Quinns, where Larraby reported a blank day of inquiries, too.

“All right, Josh,” Mannering said. “Give up the shop for the day, and keep an eye on young Lessing. He’ll be approached again, and might be told to go and see Scoby and company. Try to trail Lessing. The police are doing it, but he probably knows that, and it’s easy to dodge a man you know about.”

“He won’t dodge me,” Larraby said, as if he had turned from cherub to avenging angel.

Mannering drove to Green Street, with the windows of the car right down. The wind off the river was almost balmy. He turned the corner, and wasn’t altogether surprised to see Susan Pengelly standing on the pavement, outside his house. She didn’t smile at him, but waited until he got out and approached. Then she said smoothly “I’m sorry you were inflicted with Simon’s tantrums, but I suppose I had it coming to me. He is evidently not for me.” Her eyes brooded. “All the same, I don’t want him to get into more trouble. I think Francesca spells trouble for him and for anyone she touches. Including you.”

“She might,” Mannering said mildly. “I’ve known the angels be satanic and the ones born bad become angelic.” His eyes laughed at her. “Why do you hate Francesca so much, Sue? Because she’s taking Simon away from you?”

“No,” she said. “Someone was going to do that, anyway, he’s not for me. I just don’t trust the goody-goods, and I didn’t like the effect Francesca had on Joy. Joy worshipped her. She was always with her. I didn’t think it was healthy. I think you’ve got something when you say that Francesca or her father said something in Joy’s hearing and put Joy in this spot. Do you think there’s any chance of saving her?”

The question came very sharply; almost fearfully.

Mannering said: “I don’t know. I simply don’t know.”

Lorna was in Mannering’s study, looking through a book of beautifully coloured plates - all pictures of diamonds. She hadn’t heard him come in, and looked round with a start when he said: “You won’t find the Fioras in that, sweetheart!”

“Is there a picture here at all?”

“No, only at the office. How’s Francesca?”

“She wanted to go home, but the policewoman and I persuaded her to rest here for a bit. I gave her two of those sleeping-tablets I had last month, and she dropped off in ten minutes or so. The policewoman’s gone.” Lorna was frowning; when frowning, she looked almost sullen. “She was absolutely distracted. Her father complex is so strong that she’ll probably get worse and become a psychiatric case. Men like Bernard Lisle ought to be . . .” She broke off.

“He could have lost a beloved wife, become a psychopathic case himself, and shifted all his love to Francesca.”

“That’s what did happen, obviously.” Lorna could be as illogical as anyone. “It couldn’t be more cruel.”

“Francesca may be tougher than you think,” Mannering said hopefully. “Some women are!” He slid his arm round her waist. “When she comes round, get her to talk about Joy Lessing.”

“Will it help?”

“It might,” said Mannering. “Three questions of varying importance keep nagging me - and nagging Bristow, who is himself again. Who said I had them and why? What happened between the time Francesca was attacked and when her body was found . . .”

“Don’t say ‘her body’ like that!”

“You’re being too squeamish, my sweet.” But Mannering’s expression made it clear that he didn’t really think so. “And third, why was Joy kidnapped? Sometimes I think that’s more important than anything else. Finding Joy might be a good thing for its own sake.”

“Do you really think they’ll hurt her?”

Mannering simply squeezed her waist again. Then the telephone bell rang, and he went across to it, saying “I had a bad time for food yesterday, see what Ethel can manage now, will you?” He lifted the telephone, and Lorna got up but didn’t go out of the room, just stood and watched. “Oh yes, put him through.” He put the mouthpiece against his chest. “Bristow.”

He paused.

There were footsteps outside. “Excuse me, mum . . .”

“Yes, Ethel, we’re ready. Dish up, will you?”

“Yes’m. I didn’t want to hurry you, but you know what saddle of mutton is if it’s overdone, can’t do anything with it. Will Mr. Mannering carve, or shall I?” Ethel hovered in the doorway.