Taking the Blame Read online

  The story was told; everything that Tubs and George had poured out to Mannering; the family troubles over a long period, George’s infatuation with Clara Harris – nothing was left out. Gordon took copious shorthand notes. Bristow prompted first one man and then the other, Mannering stood by the window, smoking cigarette after cigarette. The odds against his leaving here a free man were long; the constable who had been on duty downstairs was now framed in the doorway, as if to make sure that no one left the flat.

  At last, Bristow was satisfied he’d heard everything.

  Gordon closed his notebook.

  “Thank you, gentlemen,” said Bristow, and looked coldly at Mannering. “If you do know anything about Miss Swanmore’s disappearance, Mr. Mannering, and yet refuse to inform me, you will have even more cause to worry.”

  Mannering said: “I don’t know a thing.”

  “If you learn anything, I want to know at once,” said Bristow. “That’s all for now.” He turned to George again, and asked: “Do you know anyone who has reason to want to murder or injure you, Mr. Swanmore?”

  George muttered: “No, it’s crazy!” But the change of subject had made him forget his obsession about Mannering, and he offered no comment as Mannering went out of the room. This time, no one tried to stop him; but when he walked along the street he saw Gordon watching him from a window; and he was closely followed.

  Why had Bristow changed his mind? Because of second thoughts, or because of something in the Swanmore story?

  Lorna had been due to lunch with others at the exhibition, but when Mannering reached the Chelsea flat, a little before one o’clock, she opened the door. She studied his grave face and put a hand on his arm. They went into the study, Mannering sat down in a wide, winged arm-chair and Lorna pulled up a pouf, then went to a small corner cupboard, took out whisky and a syphon, and poured him a drink. He smiled at her as he took it, but didn’t speak until the drink was half-finished. Lorna sat on the pouf, with a cigarette between her lips and her hands clasped tightly in her lap.

  “I just can’t believe it’s as bad as it seems,” said Mannering, and gave an explosive little laugh. “It’s funny, when you look at it the right way. I’ve never played the fool less than I have in this job, yet Bristow’s going around as if he knows he has only to say the word, and I’ll be clapped into a police-cell. I wonder if he’s putting up an act?”

  “What’s happened?” asked Lorna.

  “Odd things. It’s less what’s happened than the way it’s being done. There’s a disconcerting confidence about Bill B. which I’ve never met before. No badinage, no attempts to trip me up, no fancy tricks at all—just a nasty implication that he’s only biding his time. It must be something to do with last night, and I can’t think—”

  He broke off.

  Lorna moved her position slightly. Ash fell from her cigarette on to her knee, but she didn’t brush it off.

  “You know,” went on Mannering in a soft voice, “I left some make-up kit and the old clothes I bought at Paddington. Too many police were about for me to chance carrying the stuff, I told you that, didn’t I? Normally, Bristow might have suspected that I’d used the clothes, but—can he know?”

  “Could he know that whoever wore the clothes was at Lark’s house?” asked Lorna.

  “I suppose so. Dust could be analysed. It could be proved that the dust on the clothes came from that bombed house. There might even have been something on the shoes which I picked up at Lark’s.”

  “I think Bristow does feel sure,” said Lorna slowly.

  “Has he been here?”

  “Yes.”

  Mannering put his glass down, and stood up, resting a hand on the mantel-piece of a tiny fireplace. Lorna didn’t get up, but she brushed off the fallen ash. The room was very quiet. The bell of one of the flats below rang sharply, a door opened, people talked for a moment, the door closed. Footsteps sounded on the stairs approaching their flat, but they didn’t move. There was a sound at the letter-box, something dropped, the letter-box clacked to again, and the footsteps receded. Neither of them glanced towards the door, neither was interested in what the postman had brought.

  “What time?” Mannering asked at last.

  “About an hour ago. He telephoned to say that he was coming. I left here late. He wanted—”

  She broke off.

  “Yes,” said Mannering tensely.

  Lorna’s hands clenched even more tightly.

  “He wanted to know why you didn’t come to Merro’s last night, what message I received—they’d been at the commissionaire, of course—whether you were here at all. I said you were out most of the early evening, that you had a headache and hadn’t wanted to dine out—and he asked why you didn’t telephone a message instead of sending a messenger. He flung question after question at me, and—he scared me.”

  “Yes, he would,” said Mannering softly.

  “I don’t think I gave anything away,” Lorna went on. “But he knows that you weren’t here much last evening, and I couldn’t name anyone you were with. I think—” she broke off.

  “Go on, my sweet,”

  “I think that he’s trying to prove that you weren’t in any of your usual haunts last night,” said Lorna. “He was just making sure that you couldn’t produce an alibi. He’ll be after you again soon.”

  “I suppose so,” said Mannering. He bent down and picked up his drink, tossed down what remained, and went on: “Probably he’s found the Swanmore jewels. It’s easy to follow his mind if he has. The Collection was stolen from Quinns, and was found near Lark’s. I’m suspected of having been at Lark’s, therefore I took them to him. No use saying that Bristow ought to know better than to think I’d have anything to do with lifting the jewels out of my own shop, he’d assume I’d started something which got out of my control. And he’s got three murders to solve, he can’t slack, at best he probably thinks that I know who killed all three of them but daren’t say so. So he’ll have to try to get me, and I hope that I’ll talk to defend myself. Simple, isn’t it? And I went into this determined—”

  He broke off.

  “Determined that you wouldn’t go far enough to get Bristow after you,” said Lorna, wearily. “But it’s always the same—before you know where you are, a thing like this gets too big. It’s never possible to stop half-way. Supposing—” she stopped in turn.

  “Supposing what?” asked Mannering gently.

  “They could prove that you’d been to Lark’s and hid the jewels. How bad would it be?”

  Mannering said slowly: “More than just bad. I suppose they could build up a case that I was accessory to the murders. They might think that I took those notes to the taxi, and shot the constable. I was near by. They may have considered the chance that I was on the roof, but they’d also see the possibility that I’d escaped by the front door and left a stooge on the roof. Bud is shorter than I, but it was night, the street lights aren’t very good, he wore a heavy beard as disguise. I wouldn’t say it’s certain, but they could probably work up a case to prove that I was the gunman. Bristow might not like it, but the Assistant Commissioner and even the Public Prosecutor’s Office would go for me, especially if they have definite evidence that I was at Aldgate. I can’t help thinking that they have, and that Bristow is telling me so. I wouldn’t put it past Bill to be giving me a chance to cover myself. It’s about the only way he could put me on my guard. I thought once this morning that he was going to pull me in—”

  He told Lorna of the morning’s excitements.

  Their maid banged the brass gong in the hall, the booming note would have aroused a hotel. They went into the dining-room, still preoccupied. There was a letter at the side of Mannering’s plate, but before he opened it, he served a meat pie. The maid came in for her lunch, and Mannering picked up the letter. It was in a soiled envelope and addressed in pencil.

  “I don’t recognise the handwriting,” he said. “The post-mark is Hounslow. Whom do we know at Hounslow?”
r />   “No one I can think of,” said Lorna. “John, it’s almost as if someone was trying to involve you from the beginning. The robbery at Quinns, the fact that you’d just taken the collection to sell, the way Bristow changed, George Swanmore’s vindictiveness, this thing the police know—it all seems part of a pattern.”

  “Yes.” Mannering slit the envelope with a knife.

  Lorna stretched out her hand.

  “John, just a moment.” He looked at her, and saw her eyes clouded with doubts and fears. Her fingers were cold on his hand. She was so very lovely; but a furrow was deep between her eyebrows, and her forehead was lined. “John,” she repeated, “you’ve often started something without telling me about it; if you know what began this—”

  “Oh, my sweet!” Mannering jumped up, put his hands on her shoulders, hugged her. “Nothing like that. Not this time. I had no idea of anything until I went to Quinns, you know everything I know.”

  After a pause, she smiled; as if half the burden was gone.

  “I had to be sure. Bristow kept asking me if you’d been behaving oddly lately, if I knew everything you’d been doing. I couldn’t get it out of my mind. Sorry, my darling.”

  Mannering kissed her, and laughed.

  “No need to be sorry, my sweet, you’ve reason to think I’ve been up to dark deeds, but Bristow can’t dig out anything that happened before the robbery. Better start your lunch, it’ll get cold.” He glanced down, but didn’t see the letter; he had knocked it off the table when jumping up.

  He bent down for it.

  He was not thinking of the letter, only of Lorna’s doubts and fears, and the fact that Bristow had been here and was leaving nothing undone. It would be comparatively easy for Bristow to prove that he had no alibi for the previous night. He had none for the night of the burglary and the murders at Quinns, either. He and Lorna had spent the night at the flat listening to Grieg and Beethoven on gramophone records. The maid had been out.

  Yes, a case could build up.

  He took out the letter and glanced at the signature. All thought of Bristow’s manner and Lorna’s fears went out of his mind, for the signature was Patricia.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Appeal From Patricia

  “What is it?” Lorna asked.

  “A letter from Patricia.” Mannering didn’t look up.

  Lorna came across and read the letter from his side. It was written on one side of a sheet of thick but crumpled paper. The pencilled handwriting was scrawled, here and there a word was only half-finished, some ran off the paper completely. But the gist of the message was there.

  John, you must help me. See father, he’s in terrible danger. Don’t worry about me, but make su … nothing happens to him and Geor … I’m sure they mean to mur … him. Please don’t tell the police un … you must. Patricia S.

  Lorna put her hand out as if to touch the letter, but Mannering held her wrist.

  “I shouldn’t touch it. There might be some prints.” He moved the letter away from him, so that she could see it more clearly. The hard pencil had torn the paper in places; in others, where Patricia had made a full stop, there were tiny holes. The envelope was in little better condition.

  Lorna said: “It’s always the same—‘please don’t tell the police. Never mind what happens to you, look after me and mine!’ What do they think you are?”

  Mannering sensed the bitterness in her voice, and let it pass.

  “I’d say that the note was written when she was in a car, and probably when she was blindfolded, or the pencil wouldn’t have run off the side so often. She hadn’t anything hard to write on, and probably held it on her knee, that’s why the pencil went right through. I wonder how she managed to get it posted?”

  He looked at the twopenny and a halfpenny stamp. It was soiled, as if the letter had been trodden on, and handled by several people.

  “I suppose she threw it out of a car.” Lorna’s bitterness was less obvious.

  “That may be it,” agreed Mannering. “I—”

  The maid opened the door and looked in, to see if they had finished and frowned when she saw their full plates.

  “We’d better get on with lunch,” Mannering said. They began to eat, but the letter was like a magnet. They said little more, until they went back to the study, where coffee was waiting.

  “What are you going to do?” asked Lorna, and when Mannering did not answer immediately, she went on quietly: “It will be madness not to tell Bristow. It may be another part of the pattern …” she broke off.

  Mannering said: “Tricks from Tricia?”

  “You’ve never seen Patricia’s handwriting, and even if you had, I doubt if you could be sure that she wrote that,” said Lorna. “Anyone could have scrawled it, made it look as if it were written under difficulties, and posted it. It shouts danger, darling: don’t be fooled by it.”

  Mannering said: “No point in holding this back. Bristow knows a lot about the Swanmores, George kept nothing back—and probably told Bristow more than he’d told me. I’ll see that Bristow gets this; the question is how to make the best use of it?”

  “Why not just take it along to Scotland Yard?”

  “And hand it to Bristow on a plate?” Mannering’s eyes held an amused gleam. “We want to find out what Bristow has against me, and if I can exchange this for a spot of information—oh, not a straightforward barter!” He chuckled. “I might be able to produce this at the right place and the right time to get some information out of Bill, or even out of Gordon. Through a third party, for instance, such as Chittering.”

  “The incorrigible conspirator,” Lorna said.

  “At least I can make sure that it won’t do any harm and it might do a lot of good,” Mannering laughed again. “We’re doing nicely. The heartless Mannerings! Neither of us has given a thought to poor Patricia.”

  “I’m not at all sure she wrote it.”

  “The ‘don’t worry about me’ is rather in character.” Mannering blew smoke towards the fireplace, and watched the grey-blue cloud grow larger and gradually float up to the ceiling. “This case is divided into two parts. Bud, the murders and the theft on the one side, and the Swanmores. The parts come together at the jewels. Bud had the jewels once. If that was all he’s been after, why should he play tricks with Tricia? Why harass the Swanmores? It’s beginning to look as if there might be a vendetta against the Swanmores, and that this is part of it. Supposing, for instance—”

  He broke off.

  Lorna saw the change in him, a transformation which she had often seen before but which always astonished her. He had been uncertain, anxious, worried by the morning’s interviews with Bristow. Since the letter had arrived, he had gradually altered. He was smiling now, and there was a gleam in his eyes, a hint of the devil-may-care gaiety which had been so much a part of the Baron. She at once hated and loved it; this was the man with whom she had fallen in love, yet he might throw caution to the winds and take desperate chances.

  It both exhilarated and frightened her.

  “Now a vendetta would explain a great deal,” Mannering said in a soft voice. “A simple matter of vengeance. Look at the indications. Swanmore and his whole family affected by the death of the mother. Gradual break-up of the family. Swanmore changes from a man who cuts a big social figure to a lonely soul who becomes almost a recluse. He gets his son and daughter out of the house; no accident that, he worked for it. Then he loses money—not in the ordinary way of business, but because of some particular trouble, possibly blackmail, as Tricia suggested. See how it’s working up, my sweet?”

  Lorna nodded.

  “We can go further,” Mannering went on. “Oh, much further! Dissension in the family over the collection. Swanmore wants to sell, Tricia doesn’t greatly care except that it’s one of the causes of her father’s troubles, George hates the very thought of it. Assume someone in the background who dislikes the family, who is determined to make each member suffer untold anguish. Imagine him standing and l
ooking on while Swanmore brings the jewels to me, and then having them lifted from the strong-room. He’s done pretty well, hasn’t he? Forced Swanmore to the point of selling, and then robbed him. Even the insurance business fits in very nicely. And not only does the villain steal, but he kills. Then—then, my sweet—he gets away. He knows that the police will soon discover that George didn’t want the collection sold outside the family, and was eager to buy it, but couldn’t afford to. The villain knows that George is already on the way down consorting with a luscious lady not unknown in criminal circles. Suspicion could so easily fall on George.”

  Lorna said nothing; he was not really asking a question.

  “So Swanmore is in danger of losing a lot of money, perhaps enough finally to break him,” Mannering went on. “And George, the fool who’s been going to pieces, is a prominent suspect. There remains only one member of the family who isn’t in trouble—Patricia. Oh, she’s worried about the others, but that doesn’t quite satisfy our imaginary villain, so—he kidnaps her. By doing that, he adds to George’s worries and makes him crack; he most certainly adds to Swanmore’s anxiety, and he also confuses the case for the police, strewing the trail with red herrings.” Mannering stopped, and looked at Lorna. “Where have I gone wrong?”

  Lorna sat with her hands on her lap, in a pose which he loved; frowning slightly, very lovely – and less frightened because he’d set her mind working. “It sounds plausible, but there are two misses.”

  “Name them.”

  “If this mysterious avenger is only anxious to make them suffer, why should he be so desperate for money—desperate enough to try to sell the jewels the next night? He’d know how hot they’d be, and that the police would be on the look-out everywhere, that every fence who dealt in precious stones would be specially watched. Wouldn’t he?”

  “Good point,” said Mannering, “but he might be hard up, quite apart from his vendetta. The Swanmores might be responsible for his being hard-up. Very good motive for revenge, isn’t it? Remember, we’re only guessing.”