Nest-Egg for the Baron Read online

  Mannering said, “I can believe it. Go on.”

  The girl turned and looked at Pendexter Smith, then moved towards him, as if she were troubled by his expression. He turned and smiled at her.

  “There isn’t much more,” he said, “but I know they want her treasures. Day wanted the nest-egg, desperately. Oh, not for the money, he gloated over rare and beautiful things, he had a storehouse filled with treasures. He was a miser for beauty, the craving almost drove him insane. That’s why he and Mortimer parted. Mortimer wanted to run a legal business, they’d done well and had the capital, but Day craved more and more and more precious things. I tell you, Mannering, he laughed himself sick when I said I’d gone to you! He said he’d got his eye on Quinns, that he had—”

  Suddenly, awfully, Miranda screamed.

  The scream cut across the old man’s words, made Mannering swing round, made Pendexter Smith jump up from his chair.

  Miranda screamed again, as she stared towards the door.

  Mannering saw a man with a scarf over his face, cap low over his eyes, standing in the open doorway with a gun in his right hand.

  Mannering leapt towards Miranda, pushed her behind the desk, and almost fell on top of her. The gun roared three times. Next moment, a man shouted, somewhere outside. Mannering heard the gunman turn, actually caught a glimpse of him rushing towards the door.

  The attack had come as swift as lightning, the danger was gone almost as swiftly.

  Mannering scrambled to his feet.

  Pendexter Smith was lying back in his chair, and the hole in his forehead was as neat and tidy as the hole that had been in Crummy Day’s.

  It hadn’t yet started to bleed.

  Mannering knew that it wasn’t worth losing a second to try to help Pendexter Smith. He reached the door, grabbed the handle, and pulled – then heard something he had never heard before, an unbelievable thing, strange and devastating.

  “Uncle Pen, Uncle Pen!” cried Miranda in a strange, painful voice. “What have they done to you, what have they done?”

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  The Real Dibben

  Miranda was on her knees beside the little old man, one hand clutching his, one holding the hair back from her forehead. She must know what had happened; she must know the full significance of the hole in his forehead.

  It was beginning to bleed.

  “Oh, no, no!” she cried, “Pen, Pen, don’t die, don’t leave me, don’t die.”

  She flung herself upon the frail, lifeless body.

  Outside, there was shouting; another shot; more shouting, then a thudding of footsteps on stairs and in the hall.

  A scream.

  “Pen, Pen, don’t die, don’t leave me,” sobbed Miranda. “I can’t stand it, I’ll kill myself, I’ll kill myself!”

  Then she stopped speaking.

  She straightened up and looked about the room, at the desk and the books and at two daggers, on the wall. She didn’t look towards the door and Mannering. She brushed her hair back again, in a strangely calm gesture, and moved towards the daggers. So great was the spell that Mannering let her go within a yard of them before he moved.

  “Miranda!” he cried.

  She paused and glanced round in sudden, startled fear. She could speak, she could hear; and the shock which could do this might cause her death. There was despair in her heart and a dagger within reach of her hand.

  She jumped to get it.

  Mannering leapt across the room. She touched the handle of a dagger, but couldn’t lift it off the hook. Mannering reached her, gripped her waist, and pulled her round. She kicked and struggled and fought to try to free herself, but he held her fast, without speaking or trying to soothe her. He could feel the wild beating of her heart, was still afraid lest this paroxysm of rage should bring about a fatal seizure.

  Gradually, she quietened.

  Suddenly, she went quite limp, and collapsed in his arms.

  And outside there had been another burst of shooting.

  In the room Mannering felt a gripping fear, lest Miranda was dead.

  “He says he’ll be here in two shakes of a lamb’s tail,” said the woman in the faded blue smock. “He’s a good doctor, I will say that for him. But whether he can help her—”

  She looked at Miranda with great compassion.

  Mannering had carried Miranda into her room, just across the landing. The woman had come hurrying up, had loosened Miranda’s clothes and kept her head remarkably well, much more concerned with Miranda than with anything else that had happened; she didn’t know, then, that Pendexter Smith had died. Now, she had telephoned for a doctor.

  Miranda’s face was the colour of white wax. She was breathing, but so softly that there were moments when she seemed to have stopped completely, when death hovered about her.

  “What happened to cause it all?” the woman demanded.

  “Did you see anything?” Mannering asked.

  “I saw a man running out of the front door,” she said, “and I heard the shooting. Is Pendexter Smith—?”

  She broke off, shot a startled glance at Miranda, and seemed to realise what had caused the girl’s collapse. She moved away from the door and dropped heavily into an easy-chair, lowering her head into her hands.

  Some police were already in the grounds, searching for the killer. Others came to the house, and with them a breathless Wainwright. Cluttering was also in the grounds, searching.

  “I’ll never forgive myself,” Wainwright said, gaspingly. “I saw him, I actually saw him within a few yards and fired and—and missed.” He looked as if he couldn’t believe such a thing possible. “At a dozen yards, I missed. I’d followed him up the stairs, but he started shooting too soon for me.”

  Mannering had heard Wainwright’s footsteps on the landing.

  “Did you recognise him?” demanded a heavily built Midham sergeant, who was in uniform.

  “Well, I did and I didn’t,” said Wainwright, breathing a little more steadily. “I think it was a—ah—a fellow I’ve seen before.” He went red; almost as red as Brash. “A man named Dibben.”

  “Where’ve you seen him before?” demanded the sergeant.

  “He was a runner for Crummy Day, we’ve come across him in business several times.” Mannering came smoothly to Wainwright’s rescue. In fact Wainwright could only have seen Dibben here, but didn’t want the police to know that. “Which way did he go?”

  “I think he doubled back,” Wainwright said.

  “Well, he won’t get away,” said the constable, with heavy confidence. “We’ve got all roads blocked and all lanes covered. Never had such a cordon, Mr. Mannering. Only mistake we made was not having anyone close enough to the house itself, and that wasn’t exactly a mistake—we had one chap, who got caught napping and banged over the head. Well, I’d better be off, want everyone we can get outside.”

  “May I come?” Wainwright was eager.

  “If you want to.”

  “We’ll both go, Ned,” Mannering said. “Mind if we find our own way, Sergeant?”

  “Just as you like, sir.”

  He went out of the big room, a room no longer nearly empty and with the carpet rolled back, but crammed with the fantastic assortment of museum rejects. Mannering hadn’t given these much thought. There was Miranda, upstairs with the doctor and a nurse already in attendance, and Richardson on the way from London. The woman in the faded smock had sent to the village for emergency help. Local police were busy in the room where Pendexter Smith had been killed; his body, getting cold now, was lying on a big double bed in one of the old-fashioned bedrooms overlooking these lovely grounds.

  Mannering led the way to the front door.

  Wainwright said, “I could kill myself! To let him get away—”

  “Forget it, Ned.”

  “Not if I live to be a thousand,” Wainwright growled. “The swine’s after you, isn’t he? And—and if that weren’t enough, even if he hadn’t killed old Sylvester, look what he�
�s done to Miranda.” Wainwright gulped, and looked almost pleadingly, into Mannering’s eyes. “She will be all right, won’t she?”

  “We all hope so.”

  “Did she actually speak?”

  “Oh, yes.”

  “It would be wonderful if she recovered fully,” Wainwright said, in a husky voice. “Good would come out of evil after all.” He gave an embarrassed quirk of a smile, then scowled at nothing at all. “As for me—I’m going to take a course of lessons in pistol shooting. Fancy missing! He’d come up through the grounds, must’ve followed us, I should think. In an M.G. So I got behind him, but he knew a short cut and beat me by a couple of hundred yards. I just caught a glimpse of him climbing through a window. Recognised him right away. I suppose I ought to have shouted to warn you, but I was so anxious not to let him know he’d been seen. The truth is,” he added, with another flush, “I was trying to cover myself with glory. If I’d done the sensible thing—”

  “I told you to forget it.”

  “Listen, Mr. Mannering,” Wainwright said savagely, “I wouldn’t expect you to be anything but decent about it, but I ought to be hung, drawn, and quartered. If anything should happen to you I’d always blame myself. The only thing is, now—”

  He paused.

  “Yes?”

  “Well, now Dibben knows I recognised him too, you might not be in such danger,” said Wainwright. “He’ll guess that I’ve told the police. Obviously the reason why he wanted to kill you was because you recognised him and talked to him in the grounds the other night. That warning ’phone call you told me about was just to take suspicion off him.”

  “Could be,” said Mannering briskly. “We’ll find out. Which way would you say he went?”

  “Oh, over in that copse.” Wainwright pointed. “Not much doubt about that, sir. It’s the thickest wood for many a mile. The police are gathering there, too—ready to beat the copse and flush him out. I’d like to be there when they do, I’d teach—”

  “We want him alive,” Mannering said sharply.

  “Oh, I know,” Wainwright muttered. “I won’t do anything crazy. You mean—so that he’ll talk.”

  “Unless I’ve made a big mistake over Dibben,” said Mannering, “he isn’t the mind behind all this. He hasn’t that kind of ability.”

  “He could be a pretty cunning swine,” argued Wainwright.

  Mannering didn’t comment.

  They walked across the fields towards the copse. The evening sun shone on beech- and oak-trees, on the thickets and the undergrowth. On the far side Mannering saw the police converging; and there were police at a stile near him, police at every thin point in the hedges where a man might scramble through; at all the five-barred gates, too. There were road blocks everywhere; the sergeant hadn’t boasted idly, even though he may have boasted in vain.

  “Mind if I hurry on?” Wainwright said, abruptly. “We’re dragging a bit, sir.”

  “My old age,” Mannering said.

  He quickened his step, and Wainwright didn’t complain again. They reached the field with the big copse. Against the darkening skyline several policemen showed up. The ground rose sharply here, the going was heavier.

  Mannering began to breathe hard.

  Wainwright wasn’t finding it such easy going as it had been.

  Nearer the copse, they could hear the noises of the field and the whisper of wind through the trees. In places the undergrowth in front of them was so thick that it seemed impenetrable; if Dibben were hiding in one of these, he would take some finding.

  Mannering heard the braying of a dog.

  Wainwright snapped, “They’ve got bloodhounds out!”

  “It sounds like it.”

  Wainwright said, “So we’re going to get him.” The satisfaction in his voice had to be heard to be believed. “You don’t think he’ll be alone, do you?”

  “I’m not sure. I’m simply sure he doesn’t work alone. There could be someone else here with him,” Mannering went on, and put a hand to his pocket about the handle of his automatic pistol. It was gloomy in the copse; the sun was hidden by the crest of a hill not far away. It was difficult to see ahead clearly.

  There were the creaking, rustling noises, the baying of the dog, the murmur of police voices, an occasional sharp command. Police were at all the vantage points behind Mannering and Wainwright. If Dibben were flushed and ran across the meadows he would come into their arms. In two hours’ time or so, when darkness began to fall everywhere, they would have to bring up cars and searchlights; but the beat was on, and Dibben would probably be driven out before true dusk.

  A lull came in the gentle noises.

  There was a clearing straight ahead of Mannering, where it seemed brighter; and around the clearing, undergrowth much thicker than anywhere else.

  They came to a fork in the path they were following.

  “Which way, sir?” asked Wainwright. “Right or left?”

  “Any preference?”

  “No, I can’t say—” began Wainwright. “Supposing we split up.”

  “No,” said Mannering, “we’d better keep together.” He didn’t want to say in so many words that he didn’t trust Wainwright simply to stop Dibben, or try to catch him alive; he didn’t trust the youth to leave vengeance to the law. Wainwright had his own failure to wipe off the slate, too.

  “Right,” said Wainwright, obediently.

  They went on, slowly, stealthily now. The police weren’t far away, on the other side of the copse. If Dibben had run here for cover, he hadn’t much hope now; it wouldn’t be long before he was forced to run.

  Then a man out of sight shouted, “There he is!”

  A whistle shrilled out.

  Wainwright gasped, “Careful, sir!”

  “He’s going right,” shouted a policeman out of sight, “over towards those copper beeches.”

  “Here!” gasped Wainwright, pointing to the great beeches. “We’d better—”

  Then a man broke through the thicket.

  It was Dibben, and he had a gun.

  Mannering saw him, and jumped for the cover of a tree. But Wainwright didn’t seem to think of taking cover, just ran towards Dibben, shouting:

  “Look out, Mannering, look out!”

  Dibben turned towards him, face twisted, rage easy to see, even in that gloom. Wainwright dodged to one side, then fired twice. Dibben’s bullet went close to his head. Wainwright’s first bit into Dibben’s chest, the second into his forehead.

  A small round hole, a familiar-looking hole, seemed to leap into the forehead. Dibben fell, his eyes rolling, and died as Crummy Day and Pendexter Smith had.

  Police came crashing through the undergrowth, but were still out of sight.

  And Wainwright bent down, grabbed Dibben’s gun, and turned it towards Mannering.

  Only then did Mannering understand the truth.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Hornet’s Nest

  The truth was in Wainwright’s expression, in the speed of his movement, in the way he turned with the gun and covered Mannering. It ought to have been easy, but two things saved Mannering; a flash of insight and a flash of memory. He fired first. His bullet struck Wainwright’s wrist, and the man looked baffled, horrified.

  His gun dropped.

  “Over there!” a policeman was shouting, and the crashing through the undergrowth came louder, drew nearer.

  Wainwright’s breathing was louder, too.

  “Keep still, Ned,” Mannering said, in a voice he hardly recognised as his own. “Keep quite still.”

  “To hell with you, I’ll get you yet!” Wainwright slid his uninjured left hand into his pocket, and turned towards the thicket.

  Mannering shot him again.

  Then the armed police burst into sight, and Wainwright, face distorted with pain, blood dripping from his right hand and down from his left shoulder, made an ineffectual effort to get away.

  The police caught him.

  Mannering didn’t move.
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  Three minutes later, a policeman came out of the undergrowth at the spot where Dibben had appeared, and reported that he’d found a hollow tree; obviously it had been used as a hiding-place and a rendezvous.

  Wainwright heard this, but didn’t speak.

  Dead Dibben didn’t hear.

  A Midham Inspector came hurrying up, looked at Mannering intently, began to speak, but stopped. That was because of the way Mannering was looking at Wainwright, with a strange pain in his eyes.

  Wainwright just glared.

  Mannering turned away.

  It seemed a very long and lonely drive back, later that evening.

  Mannering turned into Green Street, and wasn’t surprised to see Fenn’s car pulled up outside the house. Fenn wasn’t in it. A sergeant, walking up to him, said that the Chief Inspector had been upstairs for half an hour.

  What had he been saying to Lorna?

  Did it matter?

  Lorna had heard or seen Mannering’s car from the window, and was at the flat door to greet him. He forced a smile for her, and was glad of the firm, understanding grip of her, hands. She didn’t speak.

  “All over,” Mannering said. “Fenn amiable?”

  “Very. So he should be.”

  “Yes,” said Mannering. “I suppose so. You’ll sit in with us, darling.” He didn’t want to talk to Fenn alone, although he would have found it difficult to give a reason. They went into the drawing-room, where Fenn was standing by the screened fire-place, a whisky-and-soda in his hand. His smile was full and free, his body quite convex as he moved forward, hand outstretched.

  “Good to see you,” he said. “Thanks for everything.”

  “Thanks? I ought to see a psychiatrist,” Mannering growled. “Once I knew, everything told me the truth. And the time it became so obvious that I should be kicked for missing it, was after Wainwright shot Pendexter Smith. He told me he’d recognised Dibben when we saw him in the grounds at Dragon’s End. He couldn’t have; it was dark, he didn’t see the man’s face, he actually held him with his hands behind him. I was the only one who saw Dibben. So, it was a lie.”