Blood Red Read online

‘I’m glad I arranged to see this remarkable young woman,’ said Lorna dryly, but her blue eyes were laughing. ‘Wray was shaken when I guessed who he was; I’m glad you’d telephoned before he came through. I have a feeling that I’d like to take him down a peg or two.’

  ‘He’ll bob up if you do,’ said Mannering. ‘He’s quite irrepressible. He has an astounding reputation too. I’ve checked with the Yard and with Peggotty, of United Oils. He’s absolutely genuine, and wherever he goes he makes a fortune. He owns huge stretches of iron ore land in Australia, which he’s fond of calling his homeland; a lot of uranium deposits in South Africa and the African colonies; oil in South America, North Africa, Canada and’—Mannering found himself chuckling—’actually in Texas! He bought up about twenty thousand acres of land which had been drilled and found useless, and struck oil within two months. If ever there was a man with the Midas touch, it’s Theo Wray. Guess how old he is.’

  ‘Fifty-five?’

  ‘Nearer forty-five,’ said Mannering. ‘He does nearly everything by himself, except that he’s got a secretary-cum-body-guard named Charley. Real name, Charles Simpson. As far as I can trace he’s never been seriously involved with a woman, until this girl bowled him over. There are one or two stories told about the way a Hollywood stripper and a British blonde tried to inveigle him, and he stepped right out without batting an eye, but Rosamund Morrel’s different.’

  ‘How old is she?’

  ‘Oh – twenty-five or six,’ Mannering guessed.

  ‘Is she as genuine as you seem to think?’ murmured Lorna.

  ‘No one seems to know much about her,’ Mannering said. ‘They met at a cocktail party thrown by an old friend of Theo’s. The Press was along in strength, and Chitty tells me that he knows that half a dozen of the Soho boys were there with their girl friends, but no one made any impression on Theo except this girl.’

  ‘Who took her along?’ asked Lorna, standing up and taking her gloves from the corner of his desk. She was only half a head shorter than Mannering, and looked many years younger than she was.

  ‘As far as Chitty knows, she was taken by a friend who does a gossip column in one of the women’s weeklies. She’s still a bit of a mystery, but there hasn’t been much time to solve it. There has been time to find out that our office Thomas would gladly let her walk over him to keep her feet dry.’

  ‘After one meeting?’ Lorna looked wary. ‘I shall keep a close eye on you.’ She put her face up, and Mannering kissed her lightly. ‘Don’t be later home than half past five; you’ve got to change. When I said formal dress, he seemed overjoyed.’

  Mannering chuckled.

  ‘Will you take the Red Eye of Love?’ Lorna asked, a little uncertainly, and when Mannering didn’t answer at once, added rather hurriedly, ‘I’m never happy when you have jewels like that at the flat. If you’re going to, I’d like to have someone watching, to make sure there isn’t any bother.’

  ‘I’ll be taking it,’ Mannering said, ‘and there won’t be any bother.’

  ‘If that ring were stolen—’

  ‘It isn’t going to be stolen,’ Mannering assured her firmly. ‘You’ll be late if you don’t hurry.’

  Lorna went out, but obviously wasn’t easy in her mind. Mannering went to the door of Hart Row with her, passing Thomas, who stood almost at attention. She was only five minutes’ walk away from her rendezvous, and went off briskly.

  As Mannering turned back into the shop, a telephone bell rang. He heard Larraby announce, ‘This is Quinns,’ in his gentle voice, and as he reached the office, Larraby looked up. ‘It’s Mr Chittering, sir.’

  ‘Thanks,’ said Mannering, ‘I’ll take it here.’ He took the receiver from Larraby’s hand, said, ‘Hello, Chitty,’ and wondered what the crime reporter of the Daily Globe would have to tell him now.

  He felt sure that it would be something about Theodorus Wray.

  Chapter Five

  Bristow Of The Yard

  ‘John,’ said Chittering, in a deep voice which was obviously calculated to impress, ‘I have shattering news for you.’

  ‘I can bear it, provided you don’t tell me that Theo Wray is a fake.’

  ‘He’s no fake; he’s a man of flesh and oil. His little Rosamund has some odd friends, though.’

  ‘Oh,’ said Mannering, and felt a twinge of disappointment, although, from the moment he had met her, he had accepted the possibility that Rosamund Morrel was a little too perfect to be true. ‘Such as?’

  ‘Micky Odell.’

  ‘Oh,’ repeated Mannering, in a very different tone of voice – the tone that a man might use if he had been told that he had lost a fortune. ‘Sure they’re associates?’

  ‘Nice distinction,’ Chittering chuckled. ‘I know for certain that she has been to several cocktail parties with him. They’re not close friends, but they often run around in the same kind of group. It’s true that not all of Micky’s group are as black as Micky, but those who touch dirt get dirty, don’t they?’

  ‘Can you find out more?’ said Mannering. ‘I’d hate Wray to be taken for a ride.’

  ‘I’ve already found out more,’ Chittering assured him. ‘From the time that Theodorus Wray came into this country, he was taken under the wing of an old friend, a school buddy, one of the few people he’s kept in touch with. This chap, Norman Kilham, is a City accountant, and he’s looked after some of Wray’s interests here. He has a sound reputation, but recently he’s been working for Micky Odell. Micky is known to be on the borderline of income and surtax trouble, and this Norman Kilham has kept him in the clear. On the surface, it’s simply a professional association, but Micky doesn’t usually give business to anyone but buddies. So Norman Kilham threw a cocktail party, and two or three of Micky’s crowd were there, including Rosamund Morrel – if we can say that she’s of the crowd. It seems to add up.’

  ‘It could,’ agreed Mannering.

  ‘Micky sent the loveliest of the luscious things he keeps in tow,’ went on Chittering brightly. ‘Vital statistics all in order, cleavage according to custom. Rosamund was odd girl out; she doesn’t rely on statistics for her sex appeal, and nearly always wears high-necked dresses. It looks to me as if Micky Odell tried to make sure that one of them got their hooks into the modern Midas, and that sooner or later Theo Wray would lose a lot of money.’

  ‘Could be,’ mused Mannering. ‘Can you check the girl anymore?’

  ‘I’m checking. So,’ went on Chittering, with a laugh in his voice, ‘is Scotland Yard. They’re keeping an eye on Wray now that they know Micky Odell is interested, because there’s no one they’d love to get their claws into more than Micky. It’s all being done very carefully, of course. Micky himself is still right in the background.’

  ‘I see,’ said Mannering. ‘Thanks, Chitty.’

  ‘You mind your little pieces of coloured glass. If Micky Odell is very interested he might try to take some of them away,’ Chittering warned. ‘He’s a man of catholic tastes. All he asks is that what he collects should be worth a lot of money.’

  Mannering smiled as he rang off.

  He went into his office, sat at his desk, and looked up at a picture of a laughing cavalier on the wall opposite, and so looked into a face that was the image of his own ten years ago. Then he plucked up the telephone, dialled Whitehall 1212, and asked for Superintendent Bristow.

  ‘One moment, sir,’ the Scotland Yard operator said.

  One moment grew into many. Someone came into the shop and Larraby went forward to wait on him. The Red Eye of Love, temporarily in a small safe built into Mannering’s desk and unsuspected by most people, seemed to be on the desk, looking at him as if it was in fact an eye. Then William Bristow, one of the Yard’s senior superintendents, came on the line.

  ‘Did I get it right? That you, John?’

  ‘Your chaps are getting almost efficient,’ Mannering said dryly. ‘Yes, Bill. Hungry?’

  ‘I was just going across to the pub for lunch.’

&nbs
p; ‘How about meeting me at the Club?’

  ‘Sorry,’ Bristow said, ‘but I have to be on tap; one or two jobs are pending. They can fetch me from the pub.’

  ‘Think they’ll let me in there too?’

  ‘I’ll use my influence.’

  ‘I’ll be there in twenty minutes,’ said Mannering. ‘If you care to let yourself ponder over Theodorus Wray, his lady love and friends—’

  ‘So that’s it,’ Bristow said dryly. ‘I’ll look forward to seeing you.’

  Mannering went out, leaving Larraby talking to a middle-aged, yellow-skinned man from Iraq, who had come to sell and not to buy, and Thomas and Sylvester with a swarthy Venezuelan millionaire and his sultry wife, who had come to buy. Mannering took a taxi, and was soon held up in a traffic block.

  He wondered whether it would have been quicker to walk, but at least he had time for a little reflection. Bristow had given nothing away, but that wasn’t surprising. Bristow was both an old friend and old adversary: there wasn’t a shrewder man at the Yard. No one in the police knew as much about precious stones.

  Mannering turned into the dining room of the public house in Cannon Row, only a step from New Scotland Yard. He looked round, saw that nearly everyone noticed him, and many nudged, then espied Bristow sitting alone in a corner. He went across, and Bristow stood up, a lean man of middle age, quite grey hair cut short, good-looking in a curiously inanimate way. His grey eyes held a smile as he shook hands.

  He was immaculately dressed: the Yard’s dandy. In his coat lapel was a white gardenia which was not showing the slightest sign of fading. His grey moustache was stained yellow to dark brown with nicotine, and he had a cigarette alight on an ashtray on the table.

  A waitress came up.

  As they ordered steak-and-kidney pudding, beer in pewter tankards appeared before them as if by magic. They let the froth settle while they chatted about wives, business, the Government, income tax, and cricket, then drank deeply and launched immediately into the topic most on Mannering’s mind.

  ‘I hear that Theodorus Wray wants to buy the Red Eye for this Morrel girl, and so far she hasn’t let him do it,’ Bristow said.

  ‘Someone must have been talking.’

  ‘Chittering, for one,’ said Bristow, ‘and we’re watching Wray. We had a chap in Hart Row this morning, and when the ring was taken out of the window—’ He shrugged. Soup arrived, steaming hot and thick. ‘Ah,’ he went on, and picked up his spoon. ‘I’m famished.’

  Mannering was hungry too, but Bristow had hardly finished dabbing his lips before he went on, ‘Do you know that Micky Odell seems interested, and that an accountant named Kilham, an old school friend of Wray’s, works for Odell?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I don’t think there’s a man in the country we’d rather put inside than Micky Odell,’ Bristow said earnestly. ‘He’s run his racket for so long that you’d think he would have slipped up by now, but he’s as careful today as he was when he began five years ago.’ There was a glint almost of admiration in Bristow’s voice. ‘He’s got some of the loveliest girls in London working for him, and his method’s always the same. They find the rich fool to work on, and get expensive presents like diamond necklaces and all kinds of jewellery out of him. When they’ve fleeced the old fool enough they give him the air. Micky handles the sale of their loot, so that everyone except the victim is satisfied. But there’s one odd thing.’

  The waitress brought their steak-and-kidney pudding. The steaming brown meat brought a glint to Bristow’s eyes. ‘Always did make good puddings at this place,’ he remarked. ‘Just as good as pre-war.’ He tucked in, his enthusiasm fading only when the plate was nearly empty. ‘Now, where was I?’

  ‘You were talking about an odd thing,’ Mannering prompted.

  Bristow screwed up his face. ‘Odd thing, odd thing, odd thing. Oh, yes! When we started looking into Mickey Odell’s activities, we thought he was on a different kind of racket, call-girl angle, that kind of thing. But he isn’t. All the girls he uses are show-girls or models with good reputations. Nothing morally nasty about it at all. He has them at his cocktail parties, he introduces them to the victim, who makes his own choice, and doesn’t use any pressure as far as I can find out.’

  ‘Kind words from a hardhearted cop.’

  ‘Never did see any point in exaggerating or blinking at facts,’ said Bristow, and paused while he finished the pudding. He sat back and sipped his beer. ‘Mind if I smoke?’ He was beginning to light up already, remembered to offer cigarettes, then went on. ‘Odell relies on the oldest law of all: that the man who makes a fool of himself doesn’t want to admit it. The few who have complained to the police haven’t been able to supply evidence of specific crime, but we don’t like to feel that Micky Odell is laughing at us. We’re pretty sure he deals in other stolen jewels too. But you know that as well as I do.’

  ‘I know he’s a good judge of precious stones,’ said Mannering mildly. ‘I wouldn’t like to go any further, Bill. Sure that Rosamund Morrel is one of his decoy birds?’

  ‘No,’ replied Bristow, ‘but she’s been going to these cocktail parties on and off for nearly a year. She’s not the ordinary type, of course – all my chaps who’ve seen her say they think that Micky’s saving her for a really special client. No one could be more special than Theodorus Wray.’

  The waitress came up, and Bristow looked at the menu, frowned, hesitated, and said, ‘Fruit salad, cheese and biscuits, or jam roll. Oh, to hell with my waistline, jam roll. John?’

  ‘I’ll have a piece of Camembert,’ Mannering said.

  ‘Just as fattening,’ declared Bristow, who looked as if he hadn’t a spare ounce of flesh on him. ‘Where do you come in on this?’

  ‘Only as the man who owns the ring that Wray wants for his girl friend,’ said Mannering. ‘I should say Wray’s deeply in love with the girl, the way a man in his forties will fall for the young and the lovely. I should hate to sell the ring to him if he’s going to be fleeced as well as disappointed in Rosamund.’

  ‘Nice to know you’re so civic-minded,’ said Bristow, and rubbed his hands as the baked jam roll, its rich golden pastry oozing red jam and thick custard, was placed in front of him. ‘If you can help us to stop Micky Odell’s little game, we’ll strike a special medal for you.’

  ‘First we want to know exactly what the little game is,’ observed Mannering. Then he chuckled, enough to make Bristow stop eating. ‘I wonder if the simple thing wouldn’t be to turn Theo loose on Micky Odell. The result could be spectacular.’

  Bristow nodded, went back to eating, was reflectively slow until he said thoughtfully, ‘Be interesting to see if the Morrel girl accepts the ring. If she does, then we can say her earlier refusals have been phony, just to make Wray more eager. And also to make sure that the world knows it was a free gift,’ he added, almost gloomily.

  ‘Think she’ll take it?’

  ‘I’ll know before the night’s out,’ Mannering said, and finished the ripe Camembert.

  Chapter Six

  One Man’s Fury

  ‘Come away from the window,’ Mannering said to Lorna, ‘it’s not yet twenty-five past.’

  ‘It wouldn’t have surprised me if he’d arrived early,’ Lorna said. ‘He gave me the impression that he couldn’t get here fast enough.’ She continued to stare out of the window into Green Street, and Mannering joined her, carrying her gin, and his own whisky and soda. She was wearing a dark green cocktail dress, off the shoulder but with a high neckline. She had lovely shoulders, and her dark hair, with a few strands of grey, was luxuriant and had a natural wave. She wore a green jade necklace and green jade earrings.

  ‘Here they are!’ she exclaimed as a car turned into the street and slowed down.

  ‘Not on your life,’ said Mannering. “Theo will come in his scarlet Cadillac, and turn that corner on two wheels.’ He stared with idle curiosity at the other car, a one-and-a-half litre Jaguar, but he couldn’t see the driver, couldn’
t even be sure how many people were in the car. It pulled up a little way along, where there was an empty patch of land, for many of the houses in this terrace had been demolished by bombing, and had still not been replaced. There were rumours that a block of mansion flats was to be erected here. If it were true, the Mannerings would soon have to move.

  A man got out of the car.

  He was young, small, and well-dressed in pale grey, and his sleek dark hair seemed to shine in the evening sun. So did his brown shoes. He strolled towards this house and looked upwards, an ordinary enough fellow, except for the unmistakable cut and quality of his clothes.

  He could not see the Mannerings, although they could see him.

  ‘Chitty would say he’s casing the joint,’ Mannering murmured.

  Lorna looked round. ‘Do you think he is?’

  ‘Let’s assume that there won’t be any trouble,’ Mannering said. ‘Josh has put our Tom downstairs, and a man at the back into the bargain, just to soothe your fears.’

  Lorna said thanks by squeezing his hand.

  Then she looked towards the corner, and Mannering stared, too. For another car had arrived. It was not the Cadillac, but Mannering felt quite sure that it was Theodorus Wray’s. This was a Rolls Bentley in a dual tone of grey, a beautiful car with superb lines. It turned the corner with the grace of an antelope, and although it moved quite fast, there was nothing jolty or jerky. It slowed down as it neared the house.

  The little man from the Jaguar stood only a few yards away.

  Lorna shot an anxious glance at Mannering. ‘Oh, what a nuisance he’s there, I want to see Theo.’

  ‘There he is,’ said Mannering.

  Theodorus Wray climbed out of the Rolls Bentley. He wore a pale mauve tuxedo and black or dark blue trousers, and compared with him the little man looked as if his clothes had been bought off the peg. Wray appeared for a moment, so foreshortened that they could only see the top of his head, and his short hair – going thin on top, it proved. Then he leaned inside the back of the car; obviously Rosamund was there.