Help From The Baron (6 page)

“Carry on.”

“Thanks!” That was almost effusive. “Er - you meant Francesca Lisle, of course. Funny you should refer to her. I’m a bit anxious. No right to be, I’m not even sure that there’s any cause, but - well, mind if I tell you what’s happened?”

Mannering said: “No.” In his mind’s eye, he was seeing the stop-press notices about a fair-haired girl with the initials F. L. found in the river - no newspaper had said whether she was dead or alive.

“Francesca was very worried last night because her father didn’t turn up,” Lessing said. “You knew that, of course. I - er - I stayed until after ten, couldn’t decently stay any longer. The maid was there, everything seemed all right. But I was uneasy. I suppose - oh, what’s the point in trying to fool you, I was looking for an excuse to call Francesca! So I rang her up this morning, ostensibly to ask her if her father had come home. You know - anything to start the ball rolling.”

Mannering was very still.

“I know.”

“Well, she wasn’t there. Hadn’t been home all night. The maid answered, a rather excitable creature, you may have noticed her. Named Cissie. She said that the police called last night, and were calling again this morning. Francesca hadn’t telephoned to explain, or anything like that. She’d just rushed out after getting a telephone call. The maid thinks it was from Bernard Lisle - that’s Francesca’s father.”

“Yes,” said Mannering, “I know.” He was lighting a cigarette; Lessing was fiddling with his pipe, but the bowl was empty. “Is that all the maid told you?”

“I’m pretty sure it’s all she knew.”

“I see,” said Mannering. Studying Simon Lessing, he seemed to be challenging the younger man to meet his eyes.

Lessing did. He had a square jaw, looking set now; could he take bad news well? Or news which might be bad? Mannering picked up the Express, which had the longest paragraph about the girl F. L., and turned it so that Lessing could read; then ringed the paragraph round in pencil.

Lessing read: “White cocktail gown - fair-haired - aged about twenty - my God, that’s her!” He jumped to his feet, eyes flashing; blazing. “No, look, this isn’t possible! Francesca couldn’t . . .” He stopped. Suddenly he was issuing a challenge, seemed to defy Mannering to tell him that Francesca was dead. “You can’t think she’s dead!”

“I neither think nor know anything yet.” Mannering picked up the telephone and dialled a number, looking hard at Lessing as he rang. “I’m calling the Express, I know a sub-editor there who’ll probably know what the F. L. stands for, and how she is.”

Lessing nodded curtly. From this angle, his chin was massive and thrusting.

The Express answered, Mannering asked for his man, held on, heard his man’s voice.

“Hallo, Dick, John Mannering here. Do you know anything about a young woman, taken out of the river near Waterloo Bridge last night, and . . .?”

The sub-editor interrupted with a chuckle which gave way to words.

“. . . you never lose much time, do you? She’s alive and likely to be all right, I gather. Francesca Lisle’s the name, it’ll be in our later editions, and if there’s anything in this for me . . .”

“Not now,” said Mannering. “Anyhow, not yet.” He covered the mouthpiece with the palm of his hand and said to Lessing: “It was her, but she’s all right.” He took his hand away. “What’s that, Dick?”

The sub-editor said: “The moment I heard that it was a jewel job, I wagered two to one you’d be sniffing around it. Bill Bristow’s in charge, of course, and playing dumb with the Press, so if you can let a few words pass your sealed lips, thanks.”

“I’ll try,” promised Mannering. “Thanks, Dick.”

He rang off. Lessing had dropped into his chair, and was sweating; not very much, but enough to have a tiny film of moisture on his forehead. He had lost colour, too. Now he forced a smile, cleared his throat, and would have spoken had the telephone bell not rung.

Sorry,” Mannering said, and lifted the receiver. It was Larraby. “Hallo?”

“I’m sorry to interrupt you,” Larraby said, “but Mr. Bristow’s here, from Scotland Yard.”

Superintendent William Bristow, who incidentally was an Officer of the Order of the British Empire, Civil Division, was occasionally seen by his friends as tired, almost peevish and even irascible. They knew him to be haunted by a keen sense of his own limitations. He was probably the only senior officer at New Scotland Yard who was better in achievement than in his assessment of himself.

Seen by strangers, or by anyone at the beginning of a case, Bristow groomed himself to be father confessor and sword of justice in the one spare frame. He dressed well, nearly always in light grey, and liked to wear a Homburg a shade or two darker. He also liked to have a gardenia in his button-hole, and his brown shoes to shine.

When he entered Mannering’s office he looked at his best; a spruce five feet eleven. His manner had a confidence that would have seemed like cockiness in a smaller man. It was easy for Simon Lessing not to notice the wrinkles under his eyes, and to be fooled into thinking he was nearer forty than fifty-five.

He was almost hearty.

“Good morning, Mr. Mannering, I hope I’m not disturbing big business.” He hardly seemed to glance at Lessing.

“I never have any big business,” Mannering said. “I have to slave.”

Bristow grinned at Lessing. “Hark at him!”

“Mr. Simon Lessing, Superintendent William Bristow,” murmured Mannering. “Mr. Lessing called to see me about Francesca Lisle, Bill.”

Bristow couldn’t have moved more quickly if he’d been pricked with a pin. Suspicion poured into him; he glanced from one to the other, and finished up by concentrating on Simon Lessing.

“May 1 ask why?”

“He was worried because Francesca didn’t sleep at home last night, and the police had been talking to her maid.” Mannering brushed that aside as unimportant. “I take it that you know I was at the party.”

Bristow grunted. “Yes. Yes, I know.” He wasn’t as happy as he had been, but was very much the detective.

“What time did you last see Miss Lisle, Mr. Lessing?”

“Just after ten o’clock.”

“Can you be more precise?”

“Well - no,” said Lessing, and looked awkward. “I know it was about ten. After, because the clock struck in the hall just before I left. A few minutes after ten, say.”

“And I left at twenty minutes past eight,” Mannering murmured. If the light of battle were in his eyes, it was very dim. “What time was she found?”

“Half-past eleven or so,” said Bristow, “she . . .”

“If you could be more precise . . .”

Bristow jerked his head up, glared; and then became the man whom Mannering knew well, human, probing, always keeping at his job if not always on top of it. A man who was always trying to do three things at once, quick on the up-take but slowed down by the weight of routine and the difficulties of being a detective.

“Very glad you two were there last night, you may be able to help. Do you know Miss Lisle well, Mr. Lessing?”

“Fairly well, but my sister Joy knows her better.”

“Family friend, eh? Do you know Mr. Lisle?”

“I’ve never met him.”

“Mannering?” Bristow switched with a snap.

“No,” said Mannering, “Francesca’s been to Green Street occasionally, that’s all. You’ve discovered that she has the same obsession as my wife, I imagine.” He had a deep voice, a dry way of talking, a quirk at his lips which suggested that it wouldn’t take much to make him smile at the follies of the world and of C.I.D. men. “Do you know how she got into the river?”

“Pushed.”

“Sure?”

“Yes.”

“Pushed!” exclaimed Lessing, and jumped up. “Good God, do you mean someone tried to murder her?”

“Know anyone who might want to?” Bristow flashed.

“Do I? Lord, no! Look here . . .”

“It’s all right,” Mannering said, “this is simply the Scotland Yard process of riling you. Any idea why it was done, Bill?”

Bristow had taken something out of his waistcoat pocket. It was just a fluffy piece of cotton-wool. He rolled and squashed it between his finger and thumb, glancing at Lessing as he did so. He looked at Lessing for a long time, giving the impression that he wasn’t sure what to make of him, nor what question to ask next.

“Did Miss Lisle possess many jewels, d’you know?”

“No idea,” Lessing said. He was quieter, and getting over the shock. “No, I don’t remember . . .” He broke off.

Bristow was quick to pounce. “What is it you do remember?”

“As a matter of fact, she was wearing a jewelled cross last night,” Lessing said. “It was really something. But Mr. Mannering . . .”

“See it?” Bristow asked Mannering.

“Yes, Bill.”

“Valuable?”

“Very.”

“Ever seen this?” Bristow seemed to snap his fingers, and send the cotton-wool floating to the floor. He revealed the round diamond. The beautiful gem did as it would always do where there was light; seized that light, and threw it back in the room a hundred times brighter.

Bristow rolled it along the desk, as he might a marble, and it made a trail like a meteorite touched by a rainbow.

Mannering stopped it.

Bristow was looking at Lessing.

“Mr. Lessing?”

The question was unnecessary, for Lessing’s expression made it obvious that the sight of the diamond bewildered him; and it wasn’t the bewilderment of a man who had something to hide. There was wonderment, too.

“No,” he said slowly. “You mean, have I seen it before? No. Was that Francesca’s?”

“Ever seen it before, Mannering?” asked Bristow, and settled back in his chair. “That’s why I’m here, of course, for expert advice - and 1 don’t know anyone with a greater knowledge of precious stones than you.” He almost purred.

“Don’t you?” murmured Mannering, in that gently sardonic voice. He opened a middle drawer in the desk and took out a small black case; opened this and showed a pair of tweezers, some needles and a fragile-looking pair of calipers. Then he turned round and took a set of tiny brass scales from the shelf behind him, a set more likely to be found in a scientist’s laboratory than in an office.

To Lessing, this was all new ground; to Bristow, it was almost routine; and to them both, it was fascinating. That was due less to anything Mannering did than to his obvious and utter absorption in what he was doing. It was as if only he and the diamond were in the room.

He picked it up in the tweezers and placed it on the scale. The tiny needle of the scale pointed to 4.7 carats. He jotted this down on a note-pad, then placed the diamond on the desk, next measured diameter and circumference with the callipers. All the time, the scintillas of fiery light chased one another in brilliant, changing colours. Still completely absorbed, Mannering switched on an Angle-poise light and swung it round. It did the impossible, and gave the diamond more brilliance. He took a watch-maker’s glass from a drawer, screwed it into his right eye with the speed of long practice and, holding the diamond in the tweezers, took his time over inspecting it.

Bristow, obviously used to performances like this, sat and smoked.

Simon Lessing looked and felt bewildered. This wasn’t his world. The reassuring thing was the evidence that Mannering knew exactly what he was doing, and that a highly placed Yard official came here for his opinion. It added to the legends he had heard of Mannering, brought the fabulous down to earth.

Mannering dropped the watch-glass and caught it, put the diamond down, and grinned at Lessing.

“It isn’t really mumbo-jumbo,” he said, “no one waves any wands. Bill, can you reach that book called Seventeenth-Century Cuttings and Styles? Thanks.” Bristow’s chair creaked as he stretched for the book. “I think you’ll find this stone was cut by van Heldt, of Amsterdam, I’ve never seen smaller facets, and he holds the record. If it’s his, it’s probably listed.” He opened the book. There were several pages of very small print, then plate after plate of pictures all of jewels. Most of the plates were coloured.

Lessing watched as Mannering flipped over the pages; he had lean, brown hands, strong-looking, the nails a good filbert shape. He stopped moving at a page in which diamonds were shown against a black background. At a swift glance, Lessing saw other jewels, brooches, rings, pendants, a tiara, a cross. On one side were lists of measurements.

“Ah,” said Mannering, and allowed himself a moment’s vocal satisfaction. “I think that’s it. The Fiora Collection.”

Lessing could see that the words held some deep significance; that showed in Mannering’s eyes. Bristow grabbed the book, then shot a swift, suspicious glance at Mannering.

“Are you sure?”

“Nearly. See the cross, too. Francesca Lisle wore that last night, or one remarkably like that. True, I didn’t recognise it then. Put the main tiara stone - this one - and the cross together, and I don’t think it’s coincidence.”

Bristow was studying the measurements, his cigarette dropping from the corner of his lips, one eye screwed up against the smoke. Lessing sat very still, and Mannering now seemed to be avoiding his eye.

Bristow put the book down.

“So the Fioras have cropped up again,” he said, and let smoke trickle down his nostrils. “Now we’re really going to be busy. The girl had both these . . .” Bristow snapped a question at Lessing. “Did she say where she got that cross?”

“Yes, she . . .” began Lessing; and stopped abruptly.

When he flushed, as now, his freckles seemed to grow darker. He didn’t avoid Bristow’s eye; just stopped speaking. Bristow had plenty of patience, and Lessing’s eyes dropped first. He said emphatically: “I don’t want to do anything that might make difficulties for Miss Lisle.”

“Reasonable enough, but take it from me you won’t help her or make her difficulties less by keeping facts from us,” Bristow said. “We use facts to prove more facts, not to make difficulties for innocent people. Where did she say she got the jewelled cross?”

Lessing glanced at Mannering, asking a silent: “Shall I?”

Mannering nodded.

“It was her twenty-first birthday yesterday,” Lessing said, “and her father gave it to her as a birthday present. He said it was her mother’s.”