The Stolen Legacy Read online

  “I didn’t hurt you, did I?”

  “Hurt—why, no,” she said hurriedly. “No, I—I’d had some bad news, that’s all. I’m all right. I’m sorry I’ve been a nuisance.”

  “You could walk around with your eyes shut all day without being a nuisance to me,” declared the young man. “And I promise I shall never again call you a bitch.” He smiled broadly; he had rather small and even teeth, and humour showed merry in his eyes. “How about coming and having that cuppa the old lecher suggested? You could hop on to the back of my bike, and I know a place not a thousand miles away which won’t be crowded.”

  She looked at him seriously, for the first time. Until then he had been just someone standing near her, and she had been vaguely grateful because of the way he had dealt with the man with the clammy fingers; but now she saw him for a curly-haired youth of about her own age. And she felt so miserably unhappy, so running over with disappointment.

  He took her arm with a grip very different from that of the middle-aged man.

  “Take a chance,” he urged. “I’m Terry McKay, with the purest mind of any man from County Mayo – and that was three generations back. The pillion’s comfortable, guaranteed spring and sponge rubber.” He glanced away from her to the constable, who had now crossed the road and was approaching. “I won’t be a jiff,” he said, apologetically. “I’m just making sure that I didn’t hurt the young lady – I nearly ran her down.”

  “I noticed who nearly ran who down,” the constable said. He wasn’t much older than the motorcyclist, and looked rather envious. “Don’t leave that death-trap in the kerb too long, will you?”

  “We’ve got to hurry,” Terry McKay urged Rebecca. “If the pillion isn’t comfortable, give one scream and I’ll let you get off.”

  Rebecca laughed …

  The policeman smiled.

  Ten minutes later, the motorcycle was parked in a narrow turning on the other side of Oxford Street, and Rebecca was sitting on a bamboo seat in front of a bamboo table, with wallpaper with a bamboo design and an occasional painted monkey all about her. At one end of the cafe, a glistening coffee-maker bubbled and grumbled, and an Italian girl with beautiful black eyes and a bouncy bosom sat reading La Giornale. There were only a few other customers. The motorcyclist sat with his back to the window, Rebecca half-facing him, for he had selected a corner position.

  A tall, black-haired young man with a soulful expression came towards them.

  “They do marvellous pastries here,” declared McKay. “Knock the French into the middle of next week. Like some?”

  “Er—”

  “Pastries, Luigi mio,” ordered McKay. “And tea with mucho mucho hotta wotta.”

  “Si, signor,” said Luigi, without a change in expression. He found his long-legged way back to the counter, while McKay leaned his elbows on the table, bent forward and looked into Rebecca’s eyes. He studied her for so long that it was almost embarrassing, and then said: “It’s a crime.”

  “What’s a crime?”

  “A girl like you trying to commit suicide.”

  “Don’t be absurd.”

  “So now I’m absurd?” He laughed at her. “I wish I knew how to work that miracle again.”

  She gave a funny kind of smile, puzzled and intrigued by him, still slightly embarrassed by the directness of his gaze, yet finding him wholly attractive.

  “What miracle?”

  “How to make you laugh.”

  “Laugh?” She frowned. “I don’t remember … oh, I remember now!” She laughed again, and a moment later went on: “I didn’t think I’d laugh for a long time.”

  “As a matter of fact, when I first noticed you, you looked as if you were going to burst into tears,” declared McKay. “It doesn’t take a great mind-reader to know that you’ve got plenty to worry about. Boss got fresh and fired you for non-cooperation?”

  She didn’t comment.

  “Boyfriend bowed out?” After a pause, McKay went on easily: “No, that can’t be the answer; no human male would be such a fool.” He gave her time to grasp what he meant, and went on again: “Of course you don’t have to tell me your name or where you come from or what it’s all about. It would be well-worth a dozen Italian cream pastries and imitation old English teas just to sit here for half an hour and look at you. How do you keep that complexion? Is it from bathing in milk?”

  “Oh, you fool!”

  “Granted,” said McKay, and leaned back as the black-eyed girl came up with a plate of huge, gooey-looking cakes, the oozing cream from which was obviously fresh, and two large mugs of steaming tea. McKay offered Rebecca the cakes, took a large one himself, and scooped off some cream and jam. “Better than ever,” he declared. “Now—”

  Half an hour later, she had told him the story that she had told Mannering, as well as the facts which Mannering had told her. She had also eaten two mammoth cream cakes and finished a second mug of tea. Several other customers had come and gone, and the tiny dark-haired waitress was now reading a colourful woman’s magazine.

  Rebecca felt very much better, partly because she had had time to absorb the situation, partly because it had been so easy to talk to Terry McKay. He had been a good listener, prompting her with the odd question here and there, but never showing the slightest inclination to take over or to guide the narrative. Now he sat with his back against the window, while the traffic outside built up and became noisy with a kind of frenzied frustration, and people stamped or pattered along the pavement as if they dared not stop.

  “So that’s it,” Terry remarked, heavily.

  “I just don’t know what to do,” Rebecca said.

  “This chap Mannering?”

  “Yes.”

  “Could he be fooling you?”

  “I don’t think so for one minute.”

  “Be a bit late to think so if he’s been pulling a fast one,” said McKay drily. “If Sotheby’s recommended him, he ought to be all right, but I’ve read some queer things about these Mayfair art and antique dealers. I think you ought to get another valuation of the jewels, you know. Where are they?”

  “I left them with him – but he gave me a receipt,” Rebecca replied hurriedly. He was beginning to alarm her, although she tried to reassure herself. She opened the shiny handbag. “Here it is, and here’s the letter he gave me for my father, telling him it would take a few days and perhaps a week or more to get a true valuation.”

  “Could be just a stall,” remarked McKay, musingly.

  “But I asked him for it!”

  “Yes, I remember,” said McKay, and suddenly he closed his right hand over hers. “Becky, I’m sorry. I’m putting the wind up you more than ever, and there may be no cause for it. I wish you hadn’t left the baubles with Mannering, though, then it would be easy to get another approximate valuation. I know – I once had to sell some old jewellery of my mother’s, when we were on lean days, and it took the chap about thirty seconds.” He glanced at a wrist watch. “It’s nearly half-past five. Think it would be worth going back to the shop and asking him if you can have them back? That way you would be safe, wouldn’t you?”

  “It will look so odd,” objected Rebecca.

  McKay leaned further back, in his seat, his eyes narrowed, his fingers drumming a tattoo on the bamboo table-top. It was warm in here, and his slightly snub nose and his forehead were shiny. As Rebecca watched him she began to feel even more uneasy, but suddenly his expression cleared.

  “Got it!” he exclaimed.

  “What have you got?”

  “The answer to this little problem,” declared McKay. “I have a brother-in-law who works in the distribution department of the Daily Globe, and his sister is a girl friend of one of the chief reporters. Sit here a minute while I check on this Mannering!”

  McKay’s cool hand closed over Rebecca’s again, as he slid out of his seat towards a telephone in a corner of the cafe. Left on her own, she was puzzled, a little alarmed, and very heavy-hearted again. She did not seri
ously doubt that Mannering’s opinion was authentic, but there was now an edge of uncertainty; she hardly knew whether to be worried or hopeful about that. Pennies clanked into the prepayment call box, and she wondered whether McKay’s brother-in-law would still be at his office. Then she thought of her father, waiting, so sure of himself, so patient, so content.

  She bit her lips again.

  Mannering was sitting in his office, thumbing through some old sale catalogues, and looking for items of jewellery which resembled the pieces which the girl had brought in. They had reminded him vaguely of jewels he had seen before, either at an exhibition, in a shop, or in a catalogue.

  If he was right, and they had been sold at some auction or offered for sale, it would be a little peculiar if they had been handed down by Rebecca Blest’s relatives. His telephone bell rang as he flipped over the pages, and he lifted the receiver.

  “Mannering.”

  “It’s Tom, Mr. Mannering,” announced Wainwright, the young assistant who had brought Rebecca to him. “A rather unexpected thing has happened, and I thought you ought to know at once.”

  “Go on, Tom.”

  “I followed the girl, and she nearly walked into a motorcyclist,” announced Tom. “They had a little heart-to-heart talk, and then she went off with him on the back of his bike. I wasn’t near enough to hear what they said, but it looked like a pretty slick pick-up. On the other hand, it could have been prearranged. I managed to get a cab, and they’re having tea in a cafe near Portman Square. The motorcyclist is telephoning, and the girl’s sitting on her own.”

  “How does she look?”

  “Pretty fed-up.”

  “Stand by and see what happens next,” ordered Mannering. “I shall be leaving here in about twenty minutes, and going straight home. Call me there if you think there’s any need.”

  “Right, sir,” said Tom. “If the affair fizzles out, I’ll go home and report in the morning – will that be all right?”

  “Yes,” said Mannering.

  He rang off, thumbed through more shiny pages without finding what he wanted, and then studied a note which he had made when the girl had been with him; a note about a Mr. Rett Larker, her uncle. Like the jewellery, the name rang a bell rather vaguely, and before long he lifted the telephone, dialled a Fleet Street number, and was answered promptly by a girl who announced: “Daily Globe.”

  “Is Mr. Chittering in, please?”

  “Hold on,” the girl said, and left him holding on for several minutes, before he heard a man say casually: “Chittering here,” in a disembodied-sounding voice. Then the voice became deeper. “Who’s that? … Oh, John,” went on Chittering, with an explosive laugh. “If it was anyone else I’d call it the long arm of coincidence, but as it’s you I’ll bet there’s something sinister going on. One of our Distribution Department managers called me five minutes ago to find out if you were trustworthy and honest. Are you?”

  “Use your own judgement,” Mannering retorted. “What was it all about?”

  “Some highly fanciful story about a sister-in-law or equally vague kind of relation wanting to check on your reliability on the valuation of old and venerable jools,” declared Chittering, and Mannering’s eyebrows shot up. “Breathe easy, I gave you a good reference. My conscience can answer for that in the next world. What can I do for you?”

  “Does the name of Rett Larker mean anything to you?” inquired Mannering.

  “Larker, Larker, there was Rhett Butler in Gone With The Wind … There’s Sir James Larkin … There’s … Did you say Rett Larker?”

  “Yes.”

  “Not Larker – short ‘a’. Lay-ker.”

  “She didn’t spell the name, that could be it,” said Mannering. “If you could stop being flippant for half a minute it would help.”

  “It’s just my mood,” said Chittering apologetically. “I’m trying to cheer myself up, but I think you may have managed to. Rett Laker was released from Her Majesty’s Prison at Dartmoor about seven months ago, after serving fifteen years for murder, and having a life sentence commuted. That the chap you mean?”

  Chapter Three

  Did The Lady Lie?

  “Well, well,” said Mannering, into the telephone. “And she didn’t tell me.”

  “Who didn’t tell you what?” demanded Chittering. “What’s it all about, John? Another of your damsel in distress escapades? The more I know, the more I may be able to help.”

  “So you could,” said Mannering, drily. “Yes. I’ll keep in touch. Thanks.” He rang off deliberately, hearing Chittering calling his name urgently; at that moment he did not want to have to concentrate on the newspaperman.

  He sat back and pictured Rebecca Blest’s face, especially her clear eyes, and told himself that it was difficult to believe that she had lied, even by implication. He recalled the jittery way she had spoken of her uncle, and her tense: “It’s almost as if he had stretched out from the grave to hurt my father.” Grave, not prison. Had she passed over the fact that Uncle Rett had spent a long time in prison because of embarrassment, or family pride, or shame? When she had learned that the jewels were faked, wasn’t her normal reaction likely to be that an ex-jail bird uncle knew something about it – and in the kind of mood any honest girl would have been in, wouldn’t she have confided in him?

  “I’d like to find out,” Mannering said in a thoughtful voice, and then the telephone bell rang on his desk. Was it Chittering, trying again? Fleet Street bred a race of men who never gave up. He heard Larraby, his manager, speak on the extension, and a moment later there was a tap at the door.

  “It’s Mrs. Mannering, sir.”

  “Oh, thanks,” said Mannering, and picked up the receiver as Larraby’s grey head disappeared from the doorway. A warm note came into his voice, “Hallo, darling. If this is to inquire why I’m not home, I’m nearly on my way.”

  “It’s to explain why I’m not home,” said Lorna Mannering. “John—”

  “Hmm?”

  “Could you stand an evening on your own?”

  “Oh, I should think so,” said Mannering airily. “I haven’t been to the Soho Strip area for a few weeks, and—”

  “You stay away from Soho strips and strippers unless you take me with you,” Lorna ordered. “Darling, Meg Ustley wants me to do a portrait of her seven-year-olds, and to talk about it over dinner. I think she might be able to persuade me.”

  “You go and be persuaded,” Mannering encouraged. “I’ll eat at the club, and—”

  “Ethel’s home, and she’ll have dinner ready,” Lorna said. “I’ll call and tell her that I won’t be in. Must rush, darling – ’bye.”

  Mannering said: “Stipulate a big fat fee” – and rang off much more slowly than he had from Chittering.

  He glanced up at Lorna’s portrait of him, feeling mild pleasure at the fact that she had found a subject which she was eager to paint, and then thought of Rebecca Blest as she might be if Lorna put her on canvas. Very beautiful, with a touch of Millais of the Bubbles era. Pretty? It wasn’t exactly the word. Simple? Was she so simple, if she had lied even by implication?

  He glanced at his notes, and saw her address next to the name of Samuel Blest. If Blest were a true name, then Rett Laker was her mother’s brother; Mannering was never very good at working out other people’s family trees, and wasn’t quite sure where that came in. He memorised the address: 127, Mapperley Street, Notting Hill. But for Lorna’s telephone call he would not have thought of going there, but the news from Chittering had piqued him, and if he appeared on the doorstep, he might startle the girl into telling the whole truth. It was now half-past six; he could be at Notting Hill by half-past seven, and back at his flat by eight, for dinner.

  He locked his desk, went out, and saw Larraby getting up from a long desk-like counter behind the shop. From here he could see the whole length of the shop itself, but could not be seen from the window or from the front door.

  “Time you went home, Josh,” Mannering said.
r />   “I’m in no hurry,” said Larraby. “Shall I lock up?”

  “Will you?” asked Mannering, and as an afterthought he added: “I’m going to see the girl Blest. I think she might be trying to dangle me on a piece of string.”

  “I didn’t get that impression,” said Larraby.

  Mannering smiled. “Nor did Tom!”

  He left Larraby to the ‘locking-up’; which meant switching on the current which was the first defence against burglars, and putting the electronic devices, the second defence, on Active. As he moved away from Larraby, he heard a woman’s voice: “Darling, that’s absolutely beautiful.”

  The depth of feeling, almost of emotion, could not be mistaken. The electric relay system carried conversation from outside the window into the shop, for thieves had been known to confide in accomplices just before making a raid, and many had been thwarted without knowing that their plotting could be overheard.

  Mannering saw a couple standing at the narrow window, looking at the single diamond watch which lay there against a background of black velvet. The watch had been made for an ill-fated Queen of France, and was now nearly priceless, although some collector would probably buy it and lock it away so that he could gloat over his riches and his rarities.

  “… I’ve never seen anything like it,” the woman was saying.

  Mannering stepped out into Hart Row. The man glanced at him; heavily-built, well-dressed, wearing a curly-brimmed bowler hat. He gave Mannering a rueful half-smile; his wife was absorbed in the watch.

  “… I can’t guess how much it would be,” she said, almost sighing.

  Mannering murmured: “When it was sold at Christie’s seven years ago, the reserve price was twenty-one thousand pounds.”

  “Twenty-one thousand!” The woman spun round.

  “I’ll have two of them,” said her husband, airily. “One for each wrist.”

  Mannering touched his hat to the woman, and went on, annoyed by the man’s flippancy although he had no good cause to be; but a watch like that, any genuine antique or really old jewellery, any objet d’art, was a thing to reverence, not to joke about. He was wondering rather wryly: “how pompous can one get?” as he walked along to his car. It was parked at the end of Hart Row, at a small site which would soon be built on, so giving him a parking problem. The car, a silver grey Bristol, was being admired by two youngsters, who backed away hurriedly as he approached.