Nest-Egg for the Baron Page 15

  Mannering stood still for a breathtaking moment of time; and then he moved. He heard the bell as if it were a distant but menacing thing. He turned the key in the lock of Crummy Day’s door, then turned and ran towards the landing and the second staircase. He went up, not down. He heard a man bellow, then heard a woman’s voice. He reached Brash’s door, unlocked it, and stepped swiftly into one of the stock-rooms. No one could sleep through that din.

  He heard Brash shout, “What’s that, what’s the matter?” in the kind of voice a man might have in a nightmare. There were creaking sounds, followed by footsteps. Downstairs, the woman cried out. Then Brash’s door opened and he rushed to the stairs, calling, “What’s the matter, what is it?”

  Mannering crept out.

  Brash reached the foot of the stairs and disappeared. Mannering went after him …

  “Charlie, Charlie!” a woman screamed.

  “Crummy!” cried Brash. “No, don’t—no!” His voice screeched upwards.

  Two shots roared.

  Mannering heard the woman scream again, heard Brash shouting, heard the barking of the gun. Next came a thud, as if someone had fallen. He could see Brash staggering back in the hall. Suddenly Brash lurched forward, still shouting, but the woman was sobbing in a strange voice: “Charlie, Charlie, Charlie!”

  Mannering moved swiftly along the passage towards the landing. He saw the woman from the double bed on her knees, holding Crummy Day’s head in her lap. She was staring into the old man’s face, at the red mark in the middle of his forehead. Such despair and grief showed in the woman’s eyes that she reminded Mannering of Miranda.

  He went swiftly past.

  She didn’t look up, was oblivious of everything but the body of her husband.

  The door which Mannering had left ajar was wide open.

  Brash was rushing down the stairs, making the loose boards rattle, following a man who was just a shadowy figure against the poor light of the High Street.

  Brash moved to one side, and flattened himself against the wall. A bullet thudded into one of the stairs.

  Mannering waited, safe from bullets. Brash appeared against the light, a dark silhouette.

  “He’s dead!” wailed the woman. “He’s dead, they’ve killed my Charlie.”

  “Oh, no!” cried Brash. “No!”

  He turned back desperately.

  Mannering was now at the foot of the stairs; to Brash, he would be a stranger, even if Brash could see his face. Brash’s face showed in the light from the landing – terror filled it, he looked as if he didn’t know which way to turn.

  Mannering slipped round the foot of the stairs, hurried into the kitchen, and went out the back way.

  As he reached the back-yard, he heard a police whistle shrill out.

  He hurried towards the High Street, reached it, and saw light streaming out of the doorway at Crummy Day’s, and two uniformed policemen – and Bill Brash.

  Brash was trying to run, kicked out, and dodged to one side. A policeman grabbed him, the other pinioned his arms. Other police came running, and a patrol car screamed towards the spot.

  Mannering hid in a doorway.

  The sound of voices floated back; he didn’t hear the words, but could guess the gist of them. Brash, awakened from sleep, had run into murder – and into arrest.

  But he hadn’t killed Crummy Day.

  Did anyone but Mannering know that?

  Brash, under arrest. Crummy, dead. Brash on the burgled premises – of course he would deny that he had killed Crummy Day, but who would believe him? Who would give the slightest credence to the story of another intruder? Unless there was clear, unmistakable evidence, Bill Brash was heading for the nine-o’clock walk. Crude; but brutally true.

  Mannering was cleaning off the grease-paint in the garage at Victoria.

  He could tell the truth, and admit that he had been at the shop. No, that wasn’t so. He couldn’t tell the truth. If Brash were on the point of being hanged, if there were no other hope in the world of saving him, then – yes. But not yet. If Fenn discovered how Mannering had got in, if the law could prove what he had done, there would be an end to Quinns; to reputation; to life as he knew it; to all the things that were precious to him and to Lorna.

  Mannering couldn’t think of anything else.

  There might be some other way to save Brash; the killer had taken his gun away. Hadn’t he? Hadn’t he?

  The killer must have followed Mannering into the house, crept up, come to kill – who? Crummy Day? Brash? That was just guesswork.

  There was a lot of guesswork.

  Glittering had telephoned Mannering from Fleet Street, telling him about the murder. The police and the Press knew that there had been a second alarm system, which Crummy Day had set up in the bedroom. Mannering had probably disturbed him, and started the wild sequence of events.

  Who had killed Crummy? Did the police suspect that anyone else had been present? The gun had been found, Mannering knew; deliberately left behind by the killer.

  There was bright sunlight on a cool morning. Outside, the scene on the Embankment at Westminster hadn’t changed, except that there was no sultry, sulphurous yellow pall over the sky and the city. The sun glinted on the windows of London County Hall and, if Mannering cared to go to the window of Fenn’s office, on to the broad bosom of the Thames. Pleasure craft were moored in midstream, two launches moved downstream towards the Pool, all pennants flying.

  Mannering was waiting for Fenn.

  Fenn had sent for him. Not curtly or peremptorily, but through Sergeant Grimble, who had never seemed more reassuring; but he would probably look like that to a man he was going to arrest on a charge of murder.

  It was eleven o’clock.

  The morning papers had carried streamer headlines about the murder of Crummy Day and the arrest of Brash.

  Now Fenn, as if with intent to fray his nerves, kept Mannering waiting.

  Mannering smoked two cigarettes, then got up and looked out of the window. He had hardly reached it when footsteps came thudding along the passage, the door opened quickly and Fenn came in; alone.

  “You won’t believe it,” Fenn said, “but I’m sorry. I was called out while you were on the way up.”

  Mannering grinned; as might be expected of him.

  “The Assistant Commissioner, I presume.”

  “No,” said Fenn. “No.” He didn’t sit down, but moved so that he could see Mannering more clearly. With the light on his face, Mannering looked youthful and powerful; and if his eyes seemed a little tired, slightly red-rimmed, as much could be said of a lot of other people at Scotland Yard. For all Mannering could tell, Fenn might know, or think that he knew, that Mannering had been at Crummy Day’s the night before.

  “No,” Fenn repeated, while Mannering felt the strain of trying to look mildly expectant. “It wasn’t the Assistant Commissioner. It was that poor devil, Brash.”

  Mannering said softly, “Police sympathy for a killer?”

  “In a way,” agreed Fenn. “Yes, I feel sorry for him, although that’s not for publication.” He moved to his desk and the tension seemed to ease. “He said he wanted to make a statement. I had to be there. He’s being held at Cannon Row until the first hearing, and will be up before the beak in half an hour.”

  Fenn stopped.

  “Did he make a statement?” Mannering hoped that he sounded just as interested as he should be, and no more.

  “Oh, yes,” said Fenn. “He admits that he was at Dragon’s End the night before last, but denies murdering Revell. He says he handled an assegai which he tripped over. It was lying on the floor. He admits that he was at Crummy Day’s last night—he had to—but swears that he didn’t shoot Crummy. It’s almost pathetic and very nearly convincing. But—well, we found the gun in a corner, wiped clean of prints. He’d naturally do that. Day’s wife accused Brash, too. We’ll ask for an eight-day remand in custody, and get it. And in a week from now he’ll be committed for trial—unless we get
fresh evidence.”

  He stopped again.

  Questioningly?

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Remand

  “… unless we get fresh evidence,” Fenn had said. His brown eyes were turned intently towards Mannering, his pause seemed deliberate; as if he were inviting comment.

  The door opened unexpectedly, and Fenn looked away; Mannering had a moment’s respite. It wasn’t one that he enjoyed. The case against Brash must be overwhelming, or Fenn wouldn’t talk like this.

  The newcomer was a tall, melancholy faced Superintendent, Fisher.

  “Sorry, Nick, didn’t know you had distinguished company.” He grinned dolefully at Mannering. “Had anything more from Midham?”

  “No.”

  “Thought I’d tell you, only prints at Crummy’s place, apart from those we’d expect, are Brash’s and Pendexter Smith’s.” He put two sheets of paper, foolscap size, down in front of Fenn. “The fingerprints of these bad men always turn up sooner of later, don’t they, Mr. Mannering?”

  Mannering kept a straight face.

  “Invariably,” he said.

  Fisher chuckled, and went out.

  Mannering lit a cigarette.

  “On the evidence we have, Brash will hang all right, but I’ve an uneasy feeling that we don’t know everything,” Fenn said. “Crummy Day’s wife is venomous against Brash. I think she could gladly have killed him when we let them meet, early this morning. If we can take what she says as gospel, Crummy helped Brash out of the goodness of his heart, and for some unknown reason, Brash killed him. She’s quite sure that the killer was Brash, but there was plenty to suggest that it was an outside job.”

  Mannering kept a poker face.

  “Was there?”

  Fenn said, “A hole in the stairs, back door forced—nice job of burglary. But Brash could have fixed all that.”

  “Why should he?” Mannering asked.

  He was thinking of Bristow, who was in South Africa. Bristow would have been after him by now, suspicious, menacing, knowing that the evidence of burglary at Crummy Day’s shop had the hallmark of the Baron. Fenn didn’t know. Fenn wasn’t high-pressuring him. Fenn had a ready-made suspect in Brash, and was vaguely uneasy, that was all.

  New evidence was needed to save Brash.

  Was Mannering the only man who could give it?

  “If Crummy Day knew that Brash killed Revell, he could have been deadly to Brash,” Fenn said. “Can you see why I’m worried?”

  “Pendexter Smith’s prints?”

  “That’s it. He was at the Aldgate shop. We found a hand kerchief of his, and several letters—I was pretty sure be fore we got the prints. You know that he swears he doesn’t know what happened, but went dizzy, was helped by a stranger, and woke up at Dragon’s End. No doubt he was at Day’s, but whether he knew it or not, I don’t know.”

  “Does Brash mention him?”

  “Brash hates the sight of him,” Fenn said. “He says that Pendexter Smith is afraid that he, Brash, can get Miranda Smith free from his influence, and that Pendexter Smith would kill in order to keep his hold on her. That’s anyone’s guess. We knew that Pendexter was held at Crummy Day’s and that Brash was on the scene of both murders. I’d like to make Pendexter Smith tell all he knows,” Fenn added, with rare feeling.

  Mannering said evenly, “Did Brash say why he went to Dragon’s End?”

  “He tells a story—that he thought that Pendexter was trying to get legal control of all Miranda’s fortune, and wanted to find out. He’d an idea that Smith was seeking power of attorney.”

  “Was he?”

  “I’ve no evidence.”

  “How long had Brash and Crummy been working together?” asked Mannering.

  “I don’t know. Mrs. Day says that Crummy was fond of Brash, that they didn’t work together—were more like father and son. I can’t find a motive to explain why Brash should do all this, unless—”

  Mannering said for him, “Unless he’s after Miranda’s fortune, blackening Pendexter Smith’s reputation as he goes. If he thought Smith was going to get power of attorney, then he’d want to act fast.”

  “That’s it,” said Fenn. “Brash hates Smith, Smith hates Brash, either could be after Miranda’s money. And Brash might have killed Revell because Revell caught him at Dragon’s End and because Crummy knew about that. We now know that the two prisoners and Dibben have been on Crummy Day’s pay-roll, but Brash could have hired them for a special job—”

  Mannering said, “There’s an angle I don’t think you’ve seen.”

  “What’s that?” Fenn almost barked.

  “Brash went to Dragon’s End. Crummy could have sent him there and planned to frame him. That would give Brash a motive against Crummy Day.”

  “Where does Smith come in?”

  “He was at Crummy’s. Did he work with Crummy? Were they conspiring together, and did Brash find out? Is that it?”

  “Could be,” Fenn conceded. “But why did Pendexter Smith come to you to sell the nest-egg? He just says they wanted it turned into cash—but he was in a big hurry, according to you.”

  “He was in a hurry,” Mannering asserted dryly.

  “I know, I know, we haven’t got the truth out of him yet,” Fenn said. “But if he’s a crook, why did he come to you? There’s the big flaw in your theory.”

  Mannering said, “Don’t I know it.”

  “I’ve a theory, too,” grunted Fenn. He rubbed his nose. “You’ll hoot.” He rubbed his nose again. “Have you considered the possibility that Miranda Smith is putting on an act?”

  Mannering positively gaped.

  “I have not.”

  “No physical or psychiatric explanation of her affliction,” Fenn said gruffly. “Oh, I know I’m crazy. But could she be playing one man off against another?”

  “For Pete’s sake, why?”

  Fenn said, “There’s a catch in her father’s will. She inherits, but until she’s twenty-five, she can only touch capital with Pendexter Smith’s approval. It just makes me wonder if she’s all she seems. Supposing she and Brash—”

  “Forget it,” Mannering said brusquely.

  But it wasn’t so easy.

  Nor was it easy to forget that Brash was being held on a capital charge and that he, Mannering, could clear him only by damning himself.

  Only?

  Now the hope was Pendexter Smith.

  Mannering had to see him soon.

  Chittering of the Record stood at the door, smiling cherubically, looking angelic. His fair hair was turning slightly grey, but that showed very little. He wore an old raincoat and a battered trilby on the back of his head, for he liked to ape the casual reporter of the screen.

  “Hi, Maestro,” he greeted, as Mannering got up from a chair in the office of Quinns, a little after two o’clock that afternoon. “Busy?”

  “Clearing up a few odds and ends,” Mannering said.

  “So Ned Wainwright gave me to understand,” said Chittering, squatting on a corner of the desk. That meant that his face was just a little too close to Mannering’s for comfort, and Mannering couldn’t move away without bumping the back of his head against the wall. “John, how’s the silent beauty?”

  “Miranda? About the same.”

  “I have been doing considerable research,” declared Chittering, “and I don’t know how much Fenn’s told you, but so has he. Researched, I mean. Into the past of our Miranda. Or your Miranda. Or just Miranda. Even before the accident, she used to visit Crummy Day quite often. And I think there’s a lot of evidence that Crummy Day used to sell a lot of hot stuff to Mortimer Smith, down at Dragon’s End. It wouldn’t surprise me to know that Miranda was a go-between. Have you had another shot at Pendexter Smith?”

  “I’m going this afternoon.”

  “Taking Miranda?”

  “Yes.”

  “John on the target,” said Chittering mildly. “I’ve a feeling that if Pen Smith told you the real reason why he came her
e in the first place, you’d have the answer to a lot of puzzling questions. Set one or two innocent traps for Miranda,” urged Chittering. “Just make sure that she is as deaf as she makes out.”

  Mannering said flatly, “She’s deaf.”

  “I hope she isn’t fooling us,” said Chittering, as if he meant it. “By the way, heard what happened to Brash?”

  “An eight-day remand.”

  “And a hangman’s rope already dangling over his head. It’s an odd business. I can’t find anything else against Brash. He lives within his modest income, has a good record, seems just to be another young man in love with a girl who won’t have anything to do with him. Taken by and large, I like the bashful, blushing Billy Brash. I’d like to find another villain. Mind if I come down to Dragon’s End with you?”

  “Why don’t you follow?” Mannering asked.

  Chittering chuckled, but Mannering found it difficult to be flippant. The fate of young Bill Brash was heavy on his mind. This was much more than a vengeful search for Sylvester’s killer; for the murderer of the others; or for explanation of Miranda Smith’s affliction.

  He had told Lorna everything, but they hadn’t talked much about it. She also knew that there was only one answer: find the truth, and pray that it would clear Brash of Crummy Day’s murder. That – or full confession.

  Pendexter Smith must be made to talk.

  Miranda?

  Fenn was a realist, Chittering was also down to earth. Neither had any reason for wanting to damn Miranda; no personal motive, anyway. Both were seekers after the truth, both had a soft spot for Bill Brash.

  Mannering rang the bell, and Wainwright came to the office at the double.

  “Yes, sir?”

  “Ned, I’m going down to Dragon’s End, with Miranda Smith. I want you to follow. You do drive, don’t you?”

  “Oh, lord, yes!”

  “Hire something nippy and fast from Bladdon’s, the garage near me at Bell Street. Follow us, at a distance. Chittering may follow too, but don’t worry about him. I don’t know what else to expect, I’m not even sure that I expect anything, but keep your eyes open.”

  “Think they’ll have another crack at you?” Wainwright asked.