Help From The Baron Read online

  One swift look round told her nothing.

  She hurried towards the steps leading down into the main entrance and the main road. Soon, she was crossing towards the Festival Hall. It was almost in darkness, but street-lights were on, and people were streaming from Hungerford Bridge - the footbridge - some running as if they feared that they would miss their train.

  Only a few walked in Francesca’s direction.

  None of these was behind her.

  She reached the entrance to the hall. Lights were on in the offices, people were working there, cleaners were sweeping, two men in bowler-hats and carrying furled umbrellas were deep in earnest conversation. She knew the exact spot where her father would meet her; beyond the shimmering entrance, nearer the terrace overlooking the river.

  There it was dark; but across the river, the squat tower of the Shell Mex House and the square mass of the Savoy were still floodlit, lightening the dark sky over the city. All the time people thronged down the steps from Hungerford Bridge; twice a train rumbled over the railway section.

  It was at the height of the rumbling that a man appeared close to Francesca, as if from nowhere.

  “Miss Lisle?”

  She spun round, hands raised, heart pounding. “Oh!”

  “I’m so sorry to frighten you.” He was well-spoken and he looked smart, dressed in a dark overcoat; a smiling man of thirty or so, wearing a trilby hat pulled forward over his face. “I think you’re expecting your father.”

  “Yes, I am, but . . .”

  “He’s over here,” the man said, and put a hand on her right arm.

  She clutched her handbag more tightly in her right hand. The pressure of the man’s fingers scared her, and she snatched her arm away.

  “Where . . .?”

  “If you want to see him alive again,” the man said, without a change of tone, “you’ll be wise to come with me. He’ll be all right if you do, and you’ll be all right too.”

  At first she hardly realised what he was saying. Then she sensed, she knew that he meant it. The threat shocked her into submission. She let him take her arm and draw her towards the terrace. She wanted to scream and pull herself free, but there was that awful fear of what would happen if she did. The fears she had felt all day, the fears which had grown so dark and frightening during the party, came to a head.

  Dozens of people were in sight, some certainly saw her. But what did they really see? A pretty girl and a young man, arm-in-arm now, moving out of the lighted footpath towards the darkness of the terrace.

  Suddenly Francesca was out of the range of the bridge lights; of all lights except those across the river.

  All she knew was fear.

  Then, swiftly, a gloved hand went over her mouth, pressed hard and thrust her backwards. She tried to bite the hand, but her teeth slid over shiny leather. She kicked out, without knowing whether she struck her assailant or not. She felt suffocated. Her ears were filled with roaring and her head felt light; there was a dreadful tightness at her breast, she just couldn’t breathe.

  She couldn’t breathe.

  It was like going under an anæsthetic, with the awful fear that she would never come round.

  She did not know when she lost consciousness. She did not know that she was lifted, carried towards the edge of the terrace, then down steps to a small landing-stage where water lapped softly, then lowered into the water and held under. There were two men. One pulled her coat off one arm and started on the other; as vultures would peck off carrion flesh.

  Then, abruptly, a third appeared.

  “Let her go,” he ordered softly. “Cops.”

  The men holding Francesca under the water gave her a quick shove. One thrust out his foot, to push her farther away from the steps. Then he turned and hurried after the others. A policeman, on patrol, not expecting to find sensational crime, but quite sure that he would have to move away some imprudent lovers clutching in the darkness, reached the head of the steps.

  The current had carried the girl out of sight.

  4: THE CHANCES OF SURVIVAL

  “What are her chances?” Jem Norton asked.

  He spoke to Sergeant Worraby as to an oracle, although the girl in the white dress had been lifted on to the landing-stage, and was already on a couch inside, with a doctor fiddling with a hypodermic syringe. Bright lights on the landing-stage which was snug against the embankment wall, showed Worraby as looking tired, with dark patches beneath his eyes.

  “Wouldn’t like to say,” said Worraby. “Out of our hands now, anyway, and why don’t you stop asking questions?” An Inspector came out of his office. From the habit of fifteen years as a regular soldier, Worraby drew himself up - but checked his salute, from the habit of twenty-three years as a policeman. “Evening, sir.”

  “Still keeping it up,” remarked the Inspector.

  “Trying to, sir.”

  “Nice work. You think she came in by the Festival Hall terrace, apparently.”

  “Ten to one on it, sir.”

  “You’re probably right. Nip across and have a look round, will you? A Squad car’s gone to have a look on the terrace, you’ll probably see them there and on the steps. No harm in having a word with them.”

  “Right, sir.”

  “How long do you think she’d been in?”

  “Not more’n an hour, sir, maybe not that,” said Sergeant Worraby; he was a great believer in formality when with a senior officer. “She had a bit of luck, rolled over on her back and fetched up against those old cement bags - you know, sir, the place where a barge foundered and ten tons of cement went hard as a rock. Kept her on her back, that and the current just there.”

  “Well, she needed some luck,” the Inspector said. “Anything else?”

  “This, sir.” Worraby shot out his right hand, opened it, and startled the Inspector and even made Jem Norton blink. Light stabbed from the grimy palm, so bright that it even surprised Worraby himself. He grinned. “Rolled out of the young woman’s person, sir.”

  “What?”

  “Neck of her dress, sir.”

  “Oh.” The Inspector took it. They stood beneath those bright lights which surrounded the stage; no light could have been better for the diamond. There it lay, the size of a peanut cut in a hundred or more tiny facets; and each facet scintillated, giving off a different light and a different hue. It silenced three hardened men for fully half a minute. Then: “Hum,” said the Inspector. “That might have been buried in the mud, that’s her second piece of luck. Or someone’s.” His hand closed over the diamond. “All right, nip across to the Terrace Steps, will you, or we’ll have those blasted landlubbers pinching all your glory.”

  Worraby kept a straight face. “Aye aye, sir,” he said, and turned smartly and stepped into the launch. It was soon chugging off across the dark breadth of the Thames.

  The Inspector turned away, his smile gone, and went towards the room where the girl lay. He went in. The doctor was not giving her an injection. The girl’s face was turned towards the door, and the Inspector’s thoughts were wrenched off the diamond. Even like that, mouth slack and eyes closed and a dribble of dirty Thames water coming out of her mouth, she was striking.

  “Only a kid,” he said, to no one in particular. “What are her chances?”

  The doctor grunted.

  “Eh?”

  “What - oh, never mind.” The Inspector glanced at the diamond, then looked back at the girl. He shook his head. He went into his office and telephoned the landlubbers, reporting the diamond. This was already a job for Scotland Yard, and the Yard would grouse like hell if any information were kept back even by half an hour. Once they had it they would probably sit on it all night, but there was no one to grouse at them.

  The job done, he went back into the other room.

  A policeman was covering the girl in blankets. The doctor stood against the wall, cigarette glowing at his lips, grey hair standing on end, sweat dropping from his forehead and upper lip. He had loosened his coll
ar and tie, and the collar was soaked with sweat.

  The Inspector’s voice quickened with excitement.

  “How is she?”

  “If she dies, it won’t be from drowning,” the doctor said. “Get her to hospital, they should pull her through.”

  In spite of the long years of practice, Worraby was neither truly cynical nor superficially blasé, but a somewhat earnest man with unexpected quirks of humour and a natural ability to divine whenever his leg was being pulled. Hence his “Aye, aye, sir” to the Inspector. As the launch went straight across the smooth Thames, the steady chug-chug of the engine and the even splash of the water against the bows and broadside-on the only nearby sounds, he was wondering about that girl. Some girls depended on paint and powder for their looks, some depended on their vitality, just now and again a real beauty turned up. Something to do with bone structure, and this girl had it. She was young, too. If those two things weren’t enough to make him ponder, there was the diamond.

  “Sarge,” said Jem Norton.

  “What’s up?”

  “How much do you reckon that diamond was worth? Show it to my old woman, and she’d faint.”

  “Show it to mine, and she’d clout me, which is nothing to what I’d do to her,” said Worraby, and sniffed. “I dunno. Thousand quid, probably.”

  “Blimey! Wholesale?”

  “How the hell do you think I know if it’s wholesale or retail, you mutton-headed son of a - and look here, what’s the matter with you tonight? Anyone would think I was paid to answer the damn-fool questions of a damn-fool copper who - what’s that?”

  They were near the Terrace Steps. Two or three men were moving about at the top of the steps, and a light had been rigged up and was shining down into the water near the spot where the girl had been found. So the water shimmered. Worraby saw a dark patch in the midst of brightness, and spoke and moved as if he were twenty years younger. Before Norton realised what he was doing, Worraby was prodding at the something with a boat-hook.

  Excitement faded.

  “Only a cloth or something,” Worraby said. “Heavy, though.” He drew the thing close to the launch. “See what it is, a fur coat. Sealskin, ain’t it? Gimme a hand, you clot.” They hauled the dripping coat on board, then spread it out. Worraby ran the light of a torch over it, found a pocket and, trying to avoid kneeling on the sodden fur, inserted two fingers into the pocket.

  Inside was a small purse of Moroccan leather, inside the purse a notice from the Slade school addressed to Miss Francesca Lisle, of 99b Riverside Walk, Chelsea. There was also a letter, in its envelope and sealed, addressed to the same person.

  “You know, I wouldn’t be surprised if that isn’t hers,” said Worraby, thoughtfully.

  “Found anything down there?” bellowed a Squad car man from the terrace. He stood at full height, outlined against the flaming red of an advertisement for Oxo, and no grizzly bear could have looked more formidable.

  “What’s that?” shouted Worraby. “Jem, put that stuff from the coat safe somewhere, will you?”

  Jem Norton took the purse and dropped the letter when a man from the terrace yelled again: “Found anything?”

  “’Course we’ve found something, why don’t you chaps keep your eyes open?” Worraby called back.

  The Squad man chuckled.

  “Blind 0’Riley if it isn’t Sarge Worraby! Okay, sarge, you can keep it. After the lot we’ve found, we don’t even want any more.”

  “Here, Jem,” said Worraby to the man at the tiller, “get her alongside, I want a look-see.” He kicked against the boat-hook, bent down to put it in its fixing, and didn’t notice the letter that it fastened down.

  The men on the Terrace hadn’t found very much. There was a piece of cotton-wool, which looked as if something round and hard had been inside it for a long time; there was a little indentation on the inside. A cigarette-end, still damp, a few footprints made when a man had stepped into a muddy pool some way along, and some marks which looked as if a woman had been dragged along, with small heels scraping the ground.

  The night was brightened with vivid flashes as they took photographs. Two men from the Division arrived with some plaster of Paris, hoping for casts of the footprints. Worraby and the Squad men chatted, all about shop, and Worraby talked of the diamond.

  “That cotton-wool could have been wrapped round some sparklers,” a Squad man said. “Might be some more of them. This looks like your big chance, Sarge, you might get promotion after all!”

  Worraby didn’t smile even faintly.

  “Who wants promotion?” he asked. “All you have to do is try to teach a lot of dimwits like you. Better shove off, I think. Goo’-night.”

  He took the sealskin coat and the purse straight back to the landing-stage, together with the story of the cotton wool and the other finds. Before he handed this over, he asked about the girl; he was really anxious.

  “Got a good chance,” said the Inspector, who was looking at a nylon slip. All the girl’s wet clothes, including the cocktail dress, were on the bench. “Initials on this are F. L., nothing else was marked. She . . .”

  “Francesca Lisle!” Worraby exploded.

  “Got second sight now?”

  Worraby handed over the purse, with the notice from the Slade, then remembered the letter. Jem Norton hadn’t given it to him. He didn’t say anything of it, but went back to look.

  They searched everywhere, but couldn’t find the letter. Worraby shifted everything in the thwarts, by the engine, on the seats, and Norton did the same as a double-check.

  “Must ‘a fallen overboard,” Norton muttered. “I could kick myself, Sarge.”

  “Forget it,” Worraby said, uneasily.

  He didn’t forget it, but reported verbally to his chief, without naming Norton as the culprit. His chief made a note, and told him not to worry about it. Worraby didn’t; duty done as well as it could be now, he went on with his job.

  That was the last thing that the River Police did in the investigation proper, but the Inspector, Worraby’s chief, spoke to the Yard again. This time he found himself talking to the Yard’s expert on precious stones, an old hand in Superintendent William Bristow.

  Bristow was really an expert; and all who knew him voted him a man worth knowing. He was conscious of his own shortcomings, a sensitivity which actually helped to make him a good officer.

  Bristow looked what he was; thorough, conscientious, human. His one bad habit was chain-smoking; a glance at his brown fingers and browned moustache - which was now grey in its natural state, betrayed that. He smoked a lot because he worried about his jobs; lived, ate, slept and had his leisure with difficult cases.

  Bristow sent men to 99b Riverside Walk, found the maid - Cissie - in sole possession, the party chaos still chaos after a fashion, the odour of tobacco smoke and spirits heavy everywhere. No one had thought of throwing a window up and letting some fresh air in.

  The maid behaved well, when told a little of what had happened. She had a fairly straightforward story which might not help, but did enable Bristow to get a picture of a Francesca Lisle keenly disappointed because her father hadn’t arrived for the party which had mattered so much, and rushing off when she’d had a telephone message.

  “I feel sure it was from her dad, sir,” the maid said.

  “You’re probably right.” At times Bristow could be the most affable man at the Yard. “How many guests were there, do you say?”

  “Oh, exactly fifty-three, sir. Miss Francesca wanted to have as many as she could, that’s why it was a cocktail party. We couldn’t seat more than a dozen at the table, and she has such a lot of friends, she’s ever so nice.” Real praise, from a maid. “I do hope she’s all right, sir.”

  “Oh, I’m sure she’ll be back after a day or so, she’s not badly hurt,” Bristow said, glibly. The maid didn’t look reassured; but she did seem tired, almost ready to drop. It was half-past twelve, and she’d had quite a day. Should he postpone questioning her? He
temporised: “Is there a list of the guests?”

  “Oh, yes, Miss Francesca had two copies. She ticked off all the people who accepted, and I expect it will be in her bedroom.” That all came out in a breathless hurry. “She has a writing-bureau in there.” Cissie led the way into that charming bedroom overlooking the river. “Oo, look, it’s right on top!”

  The list was written in very neat block capitals, with little red ticks against most of the names. Bristow ran his eye down these, and then suddenly started.

  “Did Mr. Mannering come?”

  “Oh, yes,” breathed the maid, “he was here.”

  Bristow put up a commendable show, but could not hide the fact that the name of Mannering had startled him.

  At that moment Bristow looked a tired sixty, with grey hair, thin, regular features, the short but bristly moustache which would have been silvery but for the yellow stain of nicotine. He lit a cigarette from the stub of another as he smiled at the maid.

  “All right, Cissie, you can get off to bed. We’ll look after everything, there’s no need to worry.” He let the girl reach the door, and then called: “Oh, just one little thing. Ever seen this before?”

  He held out the diamond.

  Cissie’s eyes grew positively huge.

  “Oo, isn’t that lovely. Isn’t it beaut-i-ful! Oo, I’ve never seen anything like that in my life.”

  “You keep away from things like it, too,” advised Bristow. “They usually lead to trouble.”

  Cissie smiled with polite disbelief.

  “Nothing else you can think of?” asked Bristow.

  “Well, she did get a letter, a special messenger brought it,” Cissie said belatedly, “I don’t know if she took it with her.”

  They searched the room, but found no trace of it.

  Bristow opened the front door for the girl, who slept out, then went back to Francesca Lisle’s bedroom. He looked round, went from there to the hall, and was called by a Yard officer who was looking through the other rooms in the flat.