Taking the Blame Read online

  He said: “Talk, Clara. Where did you get these?”

  Her lips made writhing movements.

  “You’d better tell me, Popsie.” The harsh voice, no more like his own than his clothes were, carried menace. She was at breaking point. “These are very hot, and Jumpy Dale didn’t give them to you, he died before he could. Where did you get them from?”

  “I—I don’t know!” she gasped.

  “So you really want to be hurt.”

  The threat ought to be enough; she had lost her nerve. She fought for a few stifling moments and then burst out: “No, no, I’ll tell you!”

  “Make sure it’s on the level,” said Mannering. “Who gave them to you? George?”

  “Yes,” whispered Clara. “I saw him this afternoon, he said he had a little present for me, he gave me the case and told me to lock it away for a while, he—he said it was hot!” She couldn’t get the words out quickly enough. “Don’t tell him I told you, don’t tell him!”

  Mannering said gently: “We’ll see about that, Clara.”

  “Don’t tell him!” she repeated in a reedy voice. “I swore I wouldn’t let anyone see them yet, I promised—”

  “You needn’t worry,” said a man from the door. “He won’t tell anyone anything.”

  Mannering had heard nothing, had not seen the handle turn or the door open; nor had the girl. As Mannering looked round and backed swiftly towards the dressing-table with the emeralds making green fire in his hands, Clara stared at the door, and at the masked man who stood there. The newcomer was tall and well-built, dressed in a dark suit, with a scarf over his forehead. An automatic pistol in his hand pointed at Mannering.

  Clara made a curious noise in her throat. She collapsed and fell on her back, her eyes closed, her arms spread out.

  The masked man did not waste time looking at Clara as he closed the door behind him. His gun was pointing steadily at Mannering. It was an ordinary automatic, without a silencer; the noise of the shot would echo through the block of flats. The man wouldn’t be anxious to use it.

  Mannering put the jewels on the dressing-table, and his fingers closed round a powder-bowl. If the gunman noticed it, he said nothing, but looked at Mannering fixedly. Mannering could see only the narrow, glittering slits of his eyes, the top of his nose and the outline of his eyebrows.

  He was not unlike George Swanmore in build.

  The first tense minute ticked by. The masked man did not relax or lower the gun, as he asked: “How did you get in?”

  “I picked the lock.”

  “It isn’t an easy lock.”

  “Jumpy Dale wouldn’t have found much difficulty.”

  The man stiffened and his grip tightened on the gun.

  “So you’re a friend of Dale, are you?”

  Mannering said nothing.

  “Answer me, pal.”

  “I knew Dale,” said Mannering.

  “And he put you on to Clara, did he?”

  “Maybe,” said Mannering.

  “You’d better make it more than maybe,” said the masked man. “There’s nothing I’d like better than to beat you up.” He didn’t move. “Did Dale put you on to Clara?”

  “Yes.”

  The man grunted, as if with satisfaction.

  “Answering quickly will save us a lot of time and trouble,” he said. “What are you after?”

  “What Dale was after.”

  “What was that?”

  “The Swanmore Collection.”

  This time, the other relaxed; it was as if he knew that to be true but hadn’t expected to be told so. He moved across the room to a chair, and sat on the arm. Using his left hand, he took out a cigarettecase which was fitted with a lighter, extracted a cigarette, put it between a slit in the mask, lit it, puffed smoke towards the ceiling, and slid the case back. Every movement heightened the tension.

  Clara did not move.

  “So you knew Dale was going after Quinns, and he told you he’d fixed the job through Clara,” said the masked man, as if he were talking to himself, envisaging all that had happened. “When you heard of the murders, you decided to have a cut at Clara. Right?”

  “Yes,” said Mannering.

  “You don’t lack nerve.” The masked man sneered. “What can you do with Swanmore’s stuff, if you get it?”

  “It’s worth—” began Mannering.

  “I didn’t ask you what it’s worth. I asked you what you can do with it.” The man’s voice was slightly nasal; that might be to disguise it. “And don’t waste my time or yours.”

  “I’d sell it,” said Mannering. “Who to?”

  Mannering’s lips curled, showing his discoloured teeth.

  “If I was to tell you, he wouldn’t buy anything else from me,” he said. “Be yourself.”

  “You’re in a bad spot,” said the masked man softly. “Don’t forget it.” He did not repeat the same question again but pondered, making a menacing quiet. Then he went on: “How much would you get for the lot?”

  “That would be up to him.”

  “How much would you sell for?”

  The man was trying to talk business.

  “Thirty thousand,” said Mannering promptly.

  “What the hell do you think they are? Jewels from a cheap store?”

  “He might spring forty,” Mannering said. “I doubt it. It’s so hot it will burn. Whoever bumped Dale off brought the price of that collection down by plenty. It was a crazy thing to do—anyone could have double-crossed Dale, but to kill him and put the dicks on a murder hunt—that was plain crazy.”

  “Maybe,” said the masked man flatly. “I’m not interested in your opinions. Where does this buyer live?”

  “In London.”

  “Listen,” said the other, standing up. His gun pointed towards the ground now, but it would move up in a second. “I’m the boss, you’re in a very bad spot—I don’t want to have to keep reminding you of that. Where’s this buyer?”

  This wasn’t bluff; it might mean that he had the collection but did not know how to turn it into money. He might be in desperate need of cash. If he had the collection, he was probably the murderer of Dale and Baldy Lock; that made him deadly; playing with him was like playing with a rattlesnake.

  “Well?” he growled.

  Mannering shrugged his shoulders, put the powder-bowl down so that the other could see what he was doing.

  “I know him and I know where to find him, but if I sent anyone else to see him, he wouldn’t do a deal. You ought to know a big boy won’t take chances. If a man he didn’t know offered him the Swanmore Collection or anything that was lifted from Quinns, do you know what he would do? He’d send for the police while he held the looney in the shop. He’d split on a stranger, but he’d deal with a friend—and I’m a good friend of his.”

  “You think you’re good,” sneered the masked man. “Like me to hand you the collection so you could go and peddle it?”

  Mannering grinned; that grin cost him a lot.

  “That wouldn’t be necessary,” he said. “I could take a piece, show it to him, and haggle over terms for the lot. You have to haggle with him. When we’d come to an agreement, I would fetch you and the stuff and he’d pay you, not me. I’d want—” he hesitated. Better not seem too greedy, but to ask for terms stiff enough to make it look as if he could really do what he said. “One third.” He snapped the words out.

  “So you think I’m dumb,” said the masked man. “I wouldn’t pay a third for the introduction. I might pay ten per cent.”

  “I wouldn’t introduce for ten.”

  The other hesitated, and then said softly: “Twenty. You’d better be satisfied with twenty.” Casually he raised the gun, and it pointed straight at Mannering’s chest. “Hear that—twenty?”

  Danger was receding fast, because this man was desperately anxious to sell.

  “It’s mean,” grumbled Mannering. “Look at the risk. It isn’t an ordinary risk. I wouldn’t mind taking a chance of a stretc
h, but a hanging—”

  “Twenty,” said the masked man thinly.

  “One day you might be too mean, mister.”

  “Think so?” The other laughed; it wasn’t nice to hear. “You just go into the big room and wait there, I’ll give you your orders in a minute.” He looked at the bed as he spoke, and Clara stirred. He went to the bed, and without waiting to see whether Mannering obeyed, he slapped Clara across the face. She reacted so quickly that she had probably been foxing, and had been conscious for some time. The masked man slapped her again, and said: “Sit up.” She obeyed at once, and he took her by the hair, pulled it taut, and went on in his even voice: “I ought to cut your throat, but I’ll give you a chance. Get up, get dressed, pack your clothes and clear out. You know where to go. Don’t leave there until I send for you—just wait and do exactly as you’re told. Understand?”

  “I—yes, yes, Bud!”

  ‘Bud,’ thought Mannering; odd little name, and one he wasn’t likely to forget very easily – ‘Bud.’

  As she spoke, Clara scrambled from the bed. Without taking any notice of Mannering or Bud, she flashed open the zip fastener of her house-coat, and stripped it off. She wore a peach-coloured brassiere and French knickers of the same sheeny satin. She hurried across the room to the wardrobe.

  Bud said: “I told you to go into the next room, didn’t I?”

  “Yes, I’m going,” said Mannering. Out of the man’s sight, he might have a chance to—

  He opened the door to the hall, and saw a man lounging against the closed front door of the flat.

  Chapter Nine

  Bargain

  The man’s lean figure and sandy-coloured hair were like Gordon’s, but he was a stranger. He kept his right hand in his pocket, as if he were holding a gun, and looked towards the open door.

  “Okay, Bud?” he called out in a slow voice.

  “Make him wait in the sitting room,” Bud ordered, and the lanky man nodded his head towards the open door. Mannering went into the big room, glad to be on his own. He sat down in front of the fire, which was still full on, leaned forward and switched it off and sat staring into the fading red of the elements. Clara was hurrying and scurrying about the bedroom, and now and again she asked Bud to pass her something from the dressing-table. She was desperately anxious to obey his orders, and – she knew where to go.

  Mannering pondered.

  He might be able to overpower first the lanky man and then Bud. It would be possible to climb out of the window and down to the street. In either case he would have a chance to follow Clara, but it would ruin his chances of doing a deal with Bud. The excitement as well as the value of running with the hare and chasing with the hounds offered much more scope. Bud had fallen into an old trap. Disposing of the loot was always the most difficult and dangerous part of a job. Bud would probably come to terms, and be wary, for fear of betrayal. Stringing along with him and finding where the jewels were kept, would need finesse and nerve; Mannering felt keyed up to a high pitch of excitement at the prospect.

  Clara suddenly cried: “But I can’t carry three cases!”

  “Okay, he’ll bring two down,” said Bud in that curiously nasal and expressionless voice. “Clara, when you get there, don’t make any trouble with the other girl.”

  “Other girl?” echoed Clara.

  Mannering stared at the dead elements. Other girl? Patricia Swanmore?

  “That’s what I said,” said Bud.

  “Who—”

  “Never mind,” Bud said. “You talk too much. Come straight up when you’ve got her away,” he added to the lanky man. “Drive her away from here first, so she can’t be traced. Hurry.”

  “Oke,” said the lanky man, lethargically.

  “Good-bye, Bud,” said Clara, with a catch in her voice. “Thanks ever so.”

  Bud didn’t answer. The front door opened and closed, and the flat was silent – so silent that tiny noises could be heard, of creaking in the floor and the ceiling. Sounds outside, which Mannering had not noticed before, now seemed very loud. The packing paper of the box of chocolates rustled suddenly for no reason at all, Mannering continued to stare at the electric fire, and did not look round even when he heard stealthy footsteps.

  Bud was coming to make sure that he was not trying to escape through the window. Was he? Mannering felt as if a thousand spiders were crawling over him; Dale and Lock had been shot in the back.

  “So you’re still here,” Bud said.

  “Where you told me to come.” Mannering turned his head, to see Bud lolling against the door with another cigarette jutting between the slit in the mask, and his right eye screwed up because of the smoke. Bud’s right hand was in his coat pocket, and the gun in it made a bulge.

  “You always do what I tell you, and you’ll be okay,” said Bud. “How long will it take you to find this fence you think will buy Swanmore’s stuff?”

  “An hour or two,” said Mannering. “I know he’s in London—he might be out, but he won’t stay out long, he never does. Say by—” he looked at a silver clock on the mantel-piece – “nine o’clock. I could be back here by ten with his answer, but—”

  “You won’t come back here,” said Bud, “I’m closing this place up. I’ll meet you somewhere else.”

  “Where?”

  “I haven’t decided yet,” said Bud. “Maybe I’ll change my mind. Maybe I’ll come to the conclusion that you’d rat on me.”

  “Don’t be a fool,” said Mannering harshly.

  “So I’d be a fool, would I?” Bud still lounged against the door. “We’ll see about that. You want a piece of the collection to show him, don’t you?”

  “Yes, and—”

  “And what? Don’t ask for too much.”

  Mannering said hesitatingly; “You aren’t dealing with a fool, my man knows his way about. And he’s sure to ask—” he broke off, while Bud stood away from the door. The bulge in his pocket appeared to grow larger, and he thrust his head forward.

  “Ask what?”

  “About the rest of the stolen stuff,” Mannering said hastily. He made himself sound reluctant to broach that question. “You know—the rest of the stuff you took from Quinns.”

  Bud said: “Don’t you jump to conclusions. I know where the stuff is, that’s all. You can take your friend some of Mannering’s junk, if you like—a small piece. Listen to me—and don’t forget a single thing I tell you. You’ll leave here when I give the word, and go to Piccadilly Circus station. Stand near the Lower Regent Street subway. You’ll be given the samples while you’re there. Don’t follow the man who gives them to you—don’t try any tricks at all, because you’ll be watched. Take the samples and make the best deal you can, but I won’t take less than thirty thousand. I’ll want it in smackers and I’ll want it tonight. Understand that?”

  “It might not be easy—”

  “If he wants the collection he can find the cash,” said Bud. “He must be a big boy or he wouldn’t be in the market for stuff like that. Come back with his answer and—” he broke off.

  This was the difficult part for him. He would not want to deal through a third party when it came to handing over the gems for cash – and yet Mannering had told him that the fence might shop a stranger. The pause was a long one; obviously Bud wanted to say the last word, and was still thinking hard, seeking a plan of action to satisfy both the fence and himself.

  He barked a question: “Can you bring him with you?”

  “I—I’ll have to tell him I’ve known you some time, I’ll have to vouch for you.” Mannering sounded uneasy.

  “You can put that over, can’t you?” said Bud.

  “Maybe I can put it over,” Mannering agreed. “But how do I know I can trust you?”

  Bud sneered: “You don’t know, you just have to take a chance. There’s another way out for you.” He took the gun from his pocket; now a small rubber silencer was fitted to the barrel; it would make little more noise than an air gun. “Get me?” he asked.r />
  “I’ll try and arrange it,” Mannering muttered.

  The spiders began to crawl again. It wouldn’t have surprised him if Bud had changed his mind. He was on a knife edge of fear as he went to the door.

  The man let him go.

  He was followed from the flats; he recognised the lanky man in the light of a street lamp a few hundred yards away from the entrance to the block. He showed no sign that he knew, as he walked to Victoria Street and then towards Parliament Square. He threw his left leg a little as he walked, with a stiffness of movement alien to John Mannering. Now and again he glanced round; he was still followed. He walked past the great grey ministry buildings in Whitehall, past the Cenotaph which showed ghostly white, as if to make sure that none who saw it forgot, even by night, the war dead whom it honoured. Cars and buses passed swiftly. Where Whitehall opened into Trafalgar Square many more people walked about, the lions sat sphinx-like beneath Nelson’s towering column; the pigeons were asleep. The Strand was brightly lit. He left it on his right, pondering.

  He had to tell Lorna that he would not be at Merro’s at eight o’clock.

  He had two appointments at the restaurant, the second with Patricia for half-past eight.

  Had Bud meant Patricia when he had talked of the other girl?

  He crossed Trafalgar Square and went along the Strand and turned into the Corner House near Charing Cross station. Several of the restaurant floors were open, and there were queues at them all. The self-service floor had the shortest queue, so he joined that. After a quarter of an hour, he moved into the restaurant, selected some sandwiches and a piece of pie and went to a table. The lanky man did not come in, but looked in from the door, at the chattering crowd. It was hot in here. Mannering ate leisurely, but his mind was moving fast, probing every point. He knew several fences in London, but none who was likely to work with him or whom he could trust – the one man who might have served him best tonight was dead.

  Only Lorna could help.

  He couldn’t telephone her; if he were to make a call and be observed, that would put paid to his hope of fooling Bud. He could ‘lose’ the lanky man, and make him just as suspicious.