Help From The Baron (5 page)

“You keep away from things like it, too,” advised Bristow. “They usually lead to trouble.”

Cissie smiled with polite disbelief.

“Nothing else you can think of?” asked Bristow.

“Well, she did get a letter, a special messenger brought it,” Cissie said belatedly, “I don’t know if she took it with her.”

They searched the room, but found no trace of it.

Bristow opened the front door for the girl, who slept out, then went back to Francesca Lisle’s bedroom. He looked round, went from there to the hall, and was called by a Yard officer who was looking through the other rooms in the flat.

“Something worth seeing here, sir.”

“Is there?” Bristow saw the man at a door - that of Lisle’s bedroom. He went in. The carpet was turned back at a far corner, and a floorboard had been taken up and put back untidily.

“Carpet wouldn’t lie flat, and that’s the reason why,” said the Yard man. “Wonder what we’ve got here.”

“I wonder, too.” Bristow rubbed his chin, making the grey stubble rasp. “I’d like to know why Mannering was here.” He was talking as much to himself as to the detective officer. “Shall I tackle him tonight or leave him until the morning?”

“Pardon, sir?”

“Forget it.” Bristow grinned. His expression took ten years off his age. “Time I retired, I’ve started talking to myself! Well, now, we want a photograph of the girl and of her father, and while we’re here, any dope we can find about him.”

“Should say this is the chap, sir. I found this in the girl’s bedroom, brought it out because I thought we’d want it.” The detective officer produced a folder of wine-red Moroccan leather, opened it, and revealed a picture of a man in the middle-fifties. He had the looks to qualify him for a film star set in romantic mould.

Bristow studied the face.

“All we know is that he didn’t turn up tonight, but presumably he telephoned from somewhere nearby, and presumably she went off to meet him, in a taxi,” Bristow said. “We want that taxi. We want a lot of things.” Bristow took the end of the cigarette from his lips, studied it as smoke curled about his stained fingers, and decided: “I’ll leave him until the morning.”

“The taxi-driver?” asked his man.

“No, Mannering,” said Bristow.

John Mannering knew from the moment of waking when it was a morning for humming pianissimo in his bath or under the shower, for being sober if not solemn, and for having an early breakfast and leaving for the shop immediately afterwards. This was one of the penalties of being wedded to genius. Only occasionally, and then when prompted by a chance remark of someone whose opinion he valued, did he realise that his wife was exactly that.

Lorna painted.

Mannering collected and traded in precious stones, objets d’art, antiques of a highly specialised kind; they had to be rare.

The only intrusions into this state of connubial bliss were Lorna’s exhibitions and his peculiar curiosity allied to a strong sense of what the earnest sometimes called awareness of public duty. More truly, it was a sense of justice which had grown out of resentment at injustice. He enjoyed making mild jokes about it. He enjoyed listening to less mild jokes about himself - such as Simon Lessing’s “the most knowledgeable private eye who ever winked at Scotland Yard”, which was not original.

The truth was that Mannering lived zestfully, with many likes and a few dislikes, and he concentrated on those things which he liked. These included jewels for their own sake as well as their value, people and puzzles, especially if the puzzles concerned people and jewels.

Lorna also lived zestfully. It was not entirely her fault that she spent so much time painting the portraits of the fashionable. Because people were fashionable, they were not necessarily objectionable. She had many relatives, who enthusiastically recommended her eye for line, likeness, colour and “the spirit of a chap, if you know what I mean”; so she was always very busy.

Whenever she rebelled against this form of daily toil, she downed brush and palette and went out in search of a sitter who could really make her heart beat fast, one whom she longed to capture in paint.

On the morning alter the party thrown by Francesca Lisle, Mannering knew that Lorna was in revolt. Reason told him that she had seen someone at the party who had unsettled her. He couldn’t imagine whom, and did not ask her. There had been Joy Lessing, an elfin little creature, all gaiety and a kind of radiance - but no, she wasn’t

Lorna’s type of subject. The fat redhead . . .? Lorna was withdrawn but polite, floated rather than walked about the flat, and hovered between two worlds. Mechanically she asked if he would be in to lunch, and he said no; mechanically she asked if he would be at the shop all day, and he said he didn’t know; with great preoccupation she kissed him on the right cheek when he left for the shop, a little after nine.

He was there before most of the staff, relaxed, mildly amused, still trying to guess who had transfixed Lorna’s artistic eye. Not Francesca herself, or she would have said so weeks ago. The good-looking youngster, Simon Lessing, who had paid such open court to Francesca? Francesca had not shown that she had been really aware of him, except for a few minutes when he had said something to make her blush. Lessing had a quality Mannering recognised; he wasn’t just another young man, but a fighter. One or two of the young things talked too shrilly, and hero-worshipped with a curious detachment, reminding him of the Existentialists of the Paris cellars - now happily a dying race.

He gave speculation up.

He parked his black Rolls-Bentley in a bombed-site parking ground at the end of Hart Row, which was a narrow turning off Mayfair’s New Bond Street, and wondered, as he wondered often, where he would park the car when rebuilding started here. The bombs had fallen a long time ago, now.

He approached his shop, Quinns, from the opposite side of the road. This was because he still enjoyed pride of possession, and because he liked to see his pride as others saw it. He was never sure whether the single treasure on display in the window would be the one which had been there the previous afternoon; this was in the hands of his manager, a quite remarkable man. This man was remotely associated with European royalty, bred in London’s East End, possessed of a passion for precious stones which had once led him to theft and imprisonment. He was now manager of Quinns and in sole charge of display. Occasionally, as a concession, he consulted Mannering about the window; it was never more than a formality.

This jewel of a manager, Larraby, was in the window, leaning forward with his arms outstretched to centre the day’s exhibit. It was different from yesterday’s; in fact, the whole window had changed overnight. Instead of being lined in its narrow depth with some dark-hued velvet, it was lined with gold brocade, itself beautiful enough to be made into a gown fit for a queen.

Upon this was set a crown of jade, with necklace, earrings, pendant and brooches to match. With unerring instinct, Larraby had chosen the one thing likely to attract the attention of a certain Senhor Fernandes do Costelho, a wealthy Portuguese with one of the finest private collections of jade in the world.

Larraby drew back, judicially. He had curly, iron-grey hair and a face which might have been lifted from a Michelangelo mural. How a man could be nearly sixty and still possess the face of a cherub was Larraby’s proud secret.

He glanced up and saw Mannering, and withdrew smilingly. When Mannering reached the shop door, Larraby was opening it.

“Good morning, sir. Do you like the contrast?”

“Perfect, and I like the timing better.”

“I have a feeling that the gentleman from Lisbon will be calling,” said Larraby, with a serene smile. “I don’t think it is quite centred, I wonder if you’ll be good enough to indicate any change necessary.”

“Go ahead,” said Mannering.

He stood outside the single window, the woodwork stained dark brown, with a huge oak beam for a fascia board on which the name was printed in gilt, and in Old English lettering. Larraby fiddled, Mannering signalled, soon the pieces were in perfect alignment. Mannering went inside.

For ten minutes he and Larraby discussed the morning’s mail, and Larraby carefully tore off all stamps from letters overseas, and tucked them away for a grandchild now approaching collector’s age.

“That’s a very fine Japanese specimen,” he observed, folding his wallet.

“It would have been better if the writer hadn’t wanted something for nothing,” Mannering said dryly.

It was an object lesson to see him examining the letters. He began each with a kind of hawk-like eagerness which would be maintained if it were exciting; such as news of a Ming vase or a piece of primitive African bronze, or a rare collection newly on the market.

Ordinary run-of-the-mill letters received a thorough but casual reading. Begging letters, or those from the unreliable or the ill-informed, obviously bored him; and he had an uncanny knack of sensing the true value of a letter from the opening paragraph.

When he dictated, it was into a dictaphone; usually he gave Larraby notes from which to write. No single letter warranted a dictated answer that morning; most of them bored him.

Larraby went into the shop, to see Trevor and two other youthful assistants, over whom he ruled as a priest over his acolytes. All of them had a real feeling for antiques, jewels and odd pieces, but as Mannering listened to Larraby giving instructions about a tiny amulet believed to have been unearthed from the ruins of Pyramids built long before the time of the Pharaohs, he found it easy to smile.

Mannering went back to his office.

The morning newspapers were ready for any caller who had to wait in the shop. He skimmed them through. The finding of a girl, whose initials were F. L., in the river near Waterloo Bridge was in the stop press of three papers and reached the front page of two others, after a hurried squeeze. F. L.: Francesca Lisle? He had seen Francesca gay and happy; but she hadn’t been very gay last night. Her father had let her down badly, which was a great pity, because it had been obvious that she was very fond of him. Lisle, Bernard Lisle, didn’t appear to be a very sociable animal; he had ducked two invitations to the Green Street flat, and that wasn’t exactly customary.

F. L. Odd thing, coincidence. And in one newspaper, she was given fair hair and a white dress.

Larraby looked in. “Those two el Grecos are going out, sir, the van’s just arrived.”

“Oh, lor’,” said Mannering. “Pity. I’ll come and attend the obsequies.” He got up and went upstairs to one of the small store-rooms on the next floor up. Hanging on the wall were the two el Grecos, saintly heads in a style which no one in the world could mistake, and as genuine as any hoarded at Toledo or elsewhere in Spain. You either liked or disliked them, but could never deny the genius of their painter.

“I will slip them into their crates,” Larraby said.

Mannering left him to it. The crating was simple; just a question of putting the framed pictures in, and bending some metal pieces to fasten the end. Trevor carried one downstairs, Larraby the other. A man from the Fine Art Carriers was waiting at the door, and took the crate from Larraby.

He let it slip, and bumped a corner.

Metamorphosis took on its full meaning.

“You clumsy lump of pudding, what the ruddy hell do you think you’re doing?” roared Larraby, suddenly not even remotely cherubic. “Give me that picture, I wouldn’t trust you with a calendar from Woolworth’s.” He grabbed the crate and elbowed the carrier’s man aside; and so great was his reputation that the man followed meekly, apologising.

Trevor, looking round, winked at Mannering. Trevor knew that Mannering would see the funny side whenever one existed. One could be one’s natural self with Mannering, too.

Another man appeared at the door. Mannering would not have seen him at once, if the door hadn’t been open. He was tall, young, alert-looking. His brown hair was bare, and as he looked at Larraby and the vanman he smiled appreciation of Larraby’s remarkable argot. His full lips curved as if smiling came easily. He was dressed in a suit of light-brown serge; well-dressed but not foppishly.

It was Simon Lessing.

Francesca Lisle.

Change the name and not the letter, change for the worse and not for better. Silly doggerel, and why should a doggerel about marriage occur to Mannering when he saw Simon Lessing?

Trevor came hurrying.

“All right,” Mannering said, going towards the door, “I’ll see him. Simon Lessing, isn’t it?”

“Yes,” said Lessing. He looked just as wholesome at close quarters. His eyes were greeny-grey, an unusual colour, somehow suggestive of a hot temper. He still smiled, but gave the impression that he was only smiling with his lips. “Nice of you to remember me, but could you spare me a few minutes in private?”

“I think so,” Mannering said. “Let’s go into my office.”

“Thanks. Don’t be alarmed,” Lessing went on, “I haven’t come for a job, a reference, money, guidance or something wholesale - and for that matter,” he went on with the smile touching his eyes, “I don’t even want Mrs. Mannering to paint my portrait!”

Mannering eyed him up and down.

“Unique,” he said, and pushed open the office door. “Won’t you sit down?”

Lessing said: “Thanks,” and when Mannering looked at him across the bow-shaped Queen Anne desk in the small, narrow office, he looked almost embarrassed, his cheeks were a little flushed, and certainly he was on edge; a young man who would get very intense, was probably strong-willed and almost certainly fiery-tempered. “I don’t know why it is, but whenever I want to create a good impression, I let something slip out like that. No insolence meant.”

Mannering grinned. “None taken! Perhaps you want some tips on how to win the lady.”

It didn’t get the expected reaction: a quick grin. He didn’t get resentment, either. Lessing gulped, and his uncertain, worried expression returned. He was silent for a few seconds, fidgeting with his hands until Mannering offered him cigarettes.

“No, I don’t use them, but - er - would you mind if I smoked a pipe?”