Meet The Baron (7 page)

They had turned completely round, facing each other all the time. Her back was towards the open strong-room door, and under the shadow of his hat his eyes gleamed suddenly. The strong-room, of course. He could shut her in there, and be sure she was safe and unable to stop his escape. It was the only way; not for a moment had he contemplated treating her as he had treated the guard.

The gun acted as spokesman again; she shrugged her shoulders, and backed a pace towards the strong-room. Two paces - And then she stopped, her face flushed suddenly. Mannering went rigid, but he forced himself not to look away from her, although the sound that had jarred through the silence came again - a rattling at the library door.

Then he heard Fauntley’s voice, high-pitched and half hysterical.

“Morgan - Morgan! Unlock the door - unlock it, I tell you!”

John Mannering knew that he had only a few minutes to get away; perhaps less than a minute, for Fauntley would raise an alarm immediately, and the windows would be guarded soon. He couldn’t think for some ten seconds, and then his mind cooled. For the first time he spoke to Lorna Fauntley, but he hardly recognised his own voice: it was a snarl, harsh and guttural.

“Get in, you!”

She was appalled by the sudden ferocity of his words, and she dropped back, pale-faced. He stepped after her, his left hand outstretched, but rather than let him touch her she turned and ran into the strong-room - a picture he would retain for many years. He had no time for smiling, though, and he slammed the door on her, turning the key in the lock quickly and leaving it there. Fauntley had called out twice, and then the sound of his footsteps had followed. As Mannering leapt towards the window a gong boomed out in the hall, loud and threatening.

That was the first alarm - and no one but Fauntley was likely to be about for another minute, while already Mannering was half-way through the window. He felt the asphalt beneath him as he jumped, balanced himself quickly, and raced, not towards the front entrance, but towards the rear, which opened on to a small street leading to Park Lane. As he ran through the garden he saw first one light at the top of the house blaze, then another and another. He was breathing hard, but running well within himself He reached the street safely. Should he turn right, towards Park Lane, or left?

He decided on the former, and shed his mackintosh as he went. In its pocket was the handkerchief with the false initials, and he had time to smile grimly as he dropped the coat to the ground, and then turned the brim of his hat up. He stopped running, and he was breathing more regularly when he reached Park Lane and turned towards Piccadilly. There was just one thing he wanted now - a taxi.

An empty one overtook him after two or three minutes, and he beckoned it thankfully, giving the driver instructions to drive to Victoria Station. As he sank back in the cab a film of sweat broke over his face and hands, and he shivered a little.

It was over: the ice was broken. He couldn’t call it a failure, for he had learned a great deal. As he cooled down he stopped shivering; and twice within the next five minutes he chuckled aloud.

“Nothing taken, thank God!” said Lord Fauntley to John Mannering some thirty-six hours later. They had met at the Carlton Club, and Fauntley was full of the burglary. “Lorna must have scared the thief, Mannering, before he had time to get at the combinations. I thought I heard something, and I wasn’t long moving.”

“No one hurt, I hope?” Mannering asked.

“Not seriously. The night guard was knocked unconscious, but nothing worse. Well, I’ll make sure in future, Mannering - two guards all the time.”

“It would be wiser,” admitted Mannering, proffering cigarettes. “Anything for the police to go on?”

“Police?” Fauntley snorted as he accepted a cigarette. “What do you expect from them, Mannering?” They actually had the man’s mackintosh, and a handkerchief marked with his initials - T.B. or something - but they haven’t found a thing. Still” - his lordship smiled cheerfully - ” they didn’t have to look for jewels, thank heavens! Well, we needn’t talk about that. Er - we spent a delightful evening, Mannering. If you’re free one day next week spend it with us. You can?”

“Delighted.”

“Then that’s fixed, that’s fixed,” said Fauntley jauntily. “We’ll be delighted, Mannering, delighted. Tuesday, if it’s all right with you? Splendid! And now I’ll have to be going.”

They shook hands, and Mannering smiled thoughtfully as the peer stumped out of the lounge. Obviously Fauntley didn’t suspect. But Lorna?

“I’ll take a chance,’ Mannering said to himself. “I don’t think she’ll have any idea - I don’t see how she can.”

He was prepared to swear, after dinner on the following Tuesday, that she had no idea at all that he had been in the strong-room. She talked more on that second night, mostly of the burglary. Her sympathies, Mannering discovered, were inclined to be with the burglar, but she had been scared when he had snarled at her.

“What made you go down?” he asked, as they drove towards their second tête-à-tête at the Dernier Club. “It must have been late? Three or four o’clock?”

“Not more than half-past two,” Lorna said. “I had been to the Ran-Tan, and I was back late - ”

“You’re developing a negroid complex.” Mannering smiled.

“Don’t joke with a serious subject. I went to the back door - Dad doesn’t like leaving the front unbolted - and I saw the light in the library. So I looked in . . .”

“You were asking for trouble,” said Mannering.

“I nearly got it. That man’s gun was the most cold-blooded thing I’ve ever seen. But” - she brushed her hand through her hair and smiled, without much humour - “let’s forget it. I’ve told the story to the police and to Dad and to every Tom, Dick, and Harry I haven’t been able to dodge. Let’s dance.”

They danced; and for a second time Mannering enjoyed an evening with her. But all the time he felt that there was something she wanted to say, yet held back.

For better or worse,” grunted Toby Plender, “and naturally you’ve chosen worse. Somewhere in the back of my mind, J.M., one or two words are jogging round. They’re not very clear, and they sound suspiciously like Kipling when I want to use ‘em . . .”

He broke off, eyeing Mannering evenly.

“I’ve an idea,” grinned Mannering, “that they begin with P-T-G. A soul-stirring poem, Toby. Play up, play up, and play. No, I can’t say ‘em. They stick.”

“They ought to,” snapped Plender.

It was a month after Mannering’s attempt on the Fauntley jewels, and a great many things had happened in the interval concerning Mannering and the Fauntleys. Mannering had met Plender that morning, and the solicitor had suggested lunch at his flat; Mannering, smiling to himself, had accepted the invitation. As he had expected, Plender was harping on the old theme.

“Then that’s all right,” said Mannering. “They ought to, and they do. What are you worrying about?”

“You,” said Plender, “and - well, never mind the ‘and.’. . . I suppose you’ve been on the winning end for a week or two?”

“If you mean that I’ve been winning money,” said Mannering, “I have. Heavily. Only don’t ask my bank manager how much. He’s a funny fellow, with a peculiar objection to disclosing the state of my account.”

Plender rubbed the tip of his hooked nose.

“So you’re still rattled about that, are you?”

“Toby,” said Mannering, “you misunderstand me. You and Jimmy acted with the best of intentions, and anything but gratitude would be out of the question. And that’s by the way; it’s past now.”

“It’s a pity,” said Plender, “that you’ve struck a good patch. One or two heavy losses just now might have made you see sense. As it is, I’m afraid you’re hopeless.”

Mannering grinned, and lit a cigarette.

“I always have been,” he said. “Now - what’s on your mind?”

Plender sat back in his chair, looking more like Punch than ever.

“Of course,” he said, “it’s no business of mine, but - is it the thing, John, this new - new”

“Let me say it for you,” suggested Mannering sympathetically. “What’s my game with Lorna Fauntley? Right?”

“Right.”

“What idea is biting you? Do you think I’m going to try blackmail?”

Plender grinned. “You were a born fool, J.M. no. I don’t suppose there’s anything you could use against her, anyhow. But her father’s a rich man. You might - I say might - be thinking of - ”

“Let me help you again,” suggested Mannering. “Cashing in. Marrying for money. Right?”

“Right.”

“You’re a bigger mutt than I, Toby,” said Mannering. “I don’t really know why I don’t collar you two and bang your silly heads together. For the love of Mike stop doing the Victorian father on me, and watch me knock the bottom out of the betting market. Another thing. Use your legal training a little more, and realise the inconsistency of goddamning me when I ride with the Mimi Rayford bunch and when I run blamelessly with the daughter of a peer of the realm. Another thing. I’m going to buy five thousand Klobber Diamond Mines shares, and if you want a good thing get in on that. And, Toby - ”

“Hm-hm?” muttered Toby Plender.

“I’m not such a fool as I look.”

Mannering took his leave soon afterwards, smiling to himself. It had been an ordeal, but it was over. Several times he had felt as though Plender knew; he chuckled at the fear now, and wondered what Plender would have said if he had known of the raid on the Fauntley strong-room.

Well, he was in it now for better or worse.

A few minutes later Toby Plender rubbed the end of his nose and looked thoughtfully out of the window of his flat after the retreating figure of his friend as he walked up the street.

Twenty years was a long stretch; in twenty years he had known J.M. play the ass to the limit, but he had never known him play the rogue. A smile curved Toby Plender’s square lips.

“He’s leading us by the nose,” he muttered to himself “All of us. Klobber Diamond Mines . . .”

The Klobber Mines, Plender discovered twenty minutes later, were as nearly defunct as horse-drawn cabs. His informant was Gus Teevens, one of the biggest and most picturesque brokers on the Exchange. Gus was a giant of a man, fat, smooth-faced, innocent to look at, and possessing a deep, rich, unctuous voice that could have swayed a multitude if its owner had so chosen, either in the political arena or in the Church. He had chosen finance as his medium, however, and he used his voice for the benefit of those few friends who sought his advice.

“Plender,” he said solemnly, “don’t buy Klobbers. Klobber himself was a rogue. He died. His mines were a frost. They died. His shares are drawn in pretty colours and look good. Have you ever seen an embalmed body?

“So you don’t like the sound of them?” said Plender.

Teevens shook his massive head and wriggled his massive body in the swivel chair in front of his desk. His office was a large one, furnished barely on the modern principle, but he seemed to fill it.

“Plender,” he said, “you have a fair portion of this world’s goods. Cling to it. Whoever was the misguided oaf who introduced you to Klobber Diamonds shun him as you would the plague. Must you go?”

“I must,” said Toby Plender, grinning. “What are Klobbers standing at?”

“Shares one pound at par, two-and-threepence on the market.”

Plender hesitated. He smiled inwardly as he realised that after trying to dissuade Mannering from gambling he was being tempted to take a chance on Mannering’s opinion. He decided to take it, and smiled.

“Then buy me a block of a thousand,” he said.

Gus Teevens shook his head sadly, as a man looking on a ruined world.

“Plender,” he said, “I have warned you.”

“And sell them,” said Plender, “when they’ve reached par.”

He left the office of the stockbroker, smiling to himself a little crookedly. No one could have been more definite than Teevens; no one could be more unreliable than Mannering.

In his office Gus Teevens lifted the receiver off one of five telephones and put in a call, later conducting a conversation which might, for all its intelligibility to the layman, have been in a foreign language. Massive and deliberate as ever, Teevens finished his call, then made others on the five telephones. For twenty minutes he was talking, and as the minutes went by his face grew redder, and little bands of sweat gathered on his smooth forehead. In different ways to different people he said, “Buy Klobbers.”

Lord Fauntley was in a bad temper one morning shortly after Plender’s talk with Gus Teevens. His lordship told himself he had good reason to be annoyed, but his staff sighed when they realised that the chances of another bad day in the office were strong. He sorted through the post quickly, and then rang for his secretary, Gregory. It was a rule in Fauntley’s business life always to open private correspondence himself, for he worked on the basis that no one else could be trusted.

Gregory came in silently, and bowed.

“Good morning, my lord.”

“Look here, Gregory” - Fauntley rarely allowed himself to bandy words, about the weather or anything else, with the men who worked for him - “Klobbers. Yesterday they were bad, and to-day - ”

“Sixteen-and-eightpence, my lord,” said Gregory. `’Mr Marshall told me himself that he can’t buy them lower. They were fourteen-and-three yesterday. Shall we continue to buy, my lord?”

“Of course, you fool, buy! Buy all you can while they’re below par, and then stop. But, listen, Gregory, if I thought you knew anything about this leakage - ”

Gregory had been secretary to Lord Fauntley too long to take exception to the remark or the manner of it. He was a tall, pale-faced man of fifty, a confirmed bachelor, and a chronic dyspeptic.

“I assure you, my lord, the sharp rise was as much a surprise to me as to you. I was particularly careful to issue instructions only to the safest of brokers, and I think it can be safely assumed that the leakage in information was through sources other than our own. Is there anything else, my lord?”

“Oh, get out,” muttered Lord Fauntley.

“Shall I send Mr Mannering in, my lord?”

“Mannering? Oh - oh, yes.”