Love for the Baron Read online

  Fiercely, Lucille demanded: “But if you had no wife?”

  “I would have found out who you were a long time ago,” Mannering said.

  “Why didn’t you?”

  “I dared not.”

  “Dared not,” Lucille breathed. “Because—” She broke off and for a moment her grip on his hands tightened. “There is no need to explain more. I understand. I understand even if I do not have to think you are right.”

  Mannering didn’t speak.

  “John,” Lucille said, “because of what I have told you – because of the feeling between us – will it be impossible to help me?”

  “I must help you,” Mannering said.

  “And you will?”

  “Even if all the police say you are a murderess and all the psychiatrists say you are not right in the head and even if I knew you had a thousand lovers, I will help you.”

  “You will buy the Collection?” she cried.

  “It wouldn’t be helping you if I bought the Collection, or found a buyer,” he said. “I want to know the real reason why you are being persecuted. Why your husband’s sons are behaving like this. Why a man should telephone me this evening and warn me that you destroy your lovers and kill your husbands!” He took her hands again as anger flared up in her eyes. “Where do they live, these step-sons of yours?”

  “That is a word I hate!”

  “Where do they live?”

  “One of them lives in the house at Ealing where Ezra and I used to live, and the other lives close by here, in Hampstead. I will give you their addresses, but John – what will you do?”

  “I don’t know yet,” Mannering said. “Will you write the addresses down?” As she moved to a small secretaire, he went on: “Do Harcourt, Pace and Pace represent them, as well?”

  “Not now,” she said.

  “When did they stop?”

  “When it became obvious six months ago that we could not settle anything amicably, they went to another firm. I do not know who they are, but perhaps I could find out.”

  “I’ll find out,” Mannering said, taking the slip of paper from her. He stood up, and looked down at her, adding: “One more thing, Lucille.”

  “What is that?” she asked.

  “No more following me.”

  “I will promise that, if you will promise to see me sometimes.”

  “On business, I shall have to!” He felt his heart lift as her eyes danced. “And still another thing: if you have any threats, any trouble, any visits from your step-sons let me know at once.”

  “That I will gladly do,” she said. “You cannot imagine how it will feel not to be alone again.”

  “You won’t be alone,” he said gruffly.

  He moved almost without realising what he was doing, took her in his arms, crushed her to him, crushed her lips – and then suddenly released her and swung away, out of the room, out of the flat and down the stairs.

  She did not follow.

  When he reached the street he looked up at her window and saw her there, but she did not wave or move.

  He went to his car, started the engine and eased out of the parking place, came within an ace of scraping the bumper of another car, and turned out of Northcote Square without looking – until an oncoming car’s headlights flashed and horn blared, and he jammed on his brakes. “Not fit to drive,” he jeered at himself, and edged round the corner towards St. John’s Wood Road and found an easy parking place.

  He pulled into it and took out a cigarette, realised he had his headlights full on, and turned them off savagely. “How the devil can I be sure she’s not lying?” he asked the empty car, and then a moment later said harshly: “I know she’s not lying.” He half-finished the cigarette and then stubbed it out. Feeling calmer, he started off again, but as he did so a police car turned the corner and he flashed his light at it. The car pulled across to him, and the young man he had seen twice before got out, exclaiming: “Mr. Mannering! We were just coming to see if you were still at Mrs. Peek’s.”

  “Why?” asked Mannering, much more mildly than he felt.

  “We wondered if you would, come and have a look at those two johnnies we brought away,” said the police constable. “Just to see if you’ve ever seen them before. Would you care to follow us?”

  “Certainly. To Divisional H.Q.?”

  “Yes. It’s only a short distance, sir.”

  He had wanted to know what story the two men had told, and needed some distraction to force him to think of other things than Lucille. At least his control of the car was all right now, and he followed the police car without difficulty until they pulled up outside the Divisional Headquarters. Two uniformed men were on duty outside, three long-haired youths were in the charge room. The bright young policeman led Mannering upstairs, turned left along a narrow passage and then tapped at a door marked: Superintendent. A voice called “Come in” and Mannering was ushered in to see a youthful-looking man at the big, flat-topped desk and Bill Bristow, standing beside him.

  “Mr. Mannering,” the Superintendent said. “I’m Hardy, James Hardy.” They shook hands. “We couldn’t be more glad about the two men you caught for us tonight. Both men have records as long as your arm. Even Bill Bristow remembers them, they go as far back as that.”

  Everyone laughed, dutifully.

  “And John,” Bristow said, “they’ve admitted being paid to attack you.”

  “Did they know why?” asked Mannering.

  “If they know why they haven’t said so.” Hardy, who looked a very tough, rock-hard individual with bright blue eyes, had a crisp, authoritative voice. “They say they were given five hundred pounds apiece.”

  “So the price on my head is a thousand pounds,” said Mannering, with an attempt at lightness. “Dead or alive?”

  “I think, dead,” put in Bristow.

  “And I don’t think anyone would pay a thousand pounds simply to have you knocked on the head,” agreed Hardy. When he smiled it was with a kind of false, wolfish brilliance. “Why should anyone want to kill you so much, Mr. Mannering?”

  “I only wish I knew,” Mannering said. “Bill – what brought you here?”

  “Quite a coincidence,” Hardy answered for Bristow. “I was a Chief Inspector at Ealing when Ezra Peek died, and I actually handled the inquiries into his death. I knew him and his family well. So when Bill went over to Ealing to check, they referred him to me. It was a case of the long arm of the law of coincidence working together.”

  “Was there any suspicion of foul play over Peek’s death?” asked Mannering.

  “There was talk,” answered Hardy. “Anonymous telephone calls, accusations against his wife, enough to make a thorough investigation necessary. The conclusion was that Ezra Peek had died of natural causes. There were some suggestions that he had brought this on himself prematurely by marrying a comparatively young woman. There were others that his wife encouraged him to excessive activity—”

  Mannering asked flatly: “Sexual?”

  “Never more than by implication. No. Gardening, golf, walking, that kind of thing. But he had always gardened and golfed and was a mountain climber and potholer in his youth. So the rumours added up to gossip – no more.”

  Mannering felt a surge of relief spreading through him, until Hardy went on quietly: “There was one possibility which we considered, which wasn’t proved and I doubt if it could ever be proved now. That his medication was either held back or diluted. He was on a fairly regular dosage of digitalis. He either dosed himself or was dosed by his wife. But we found no evidence that less than the usual supplies had been bought, we found no surplus at the house. There was nothing at all for us to act on. The coroner’s verdict was natural causes. And until tonight I hadn’t given it any more thought.”

  “Was the rest of Peek’s family really hostile to his wife?”

  “Hostile is a mild word. They hated her.”

  “Did you discover any reasons? Material reasons?”

  “Only that
she would get some of the money they thought should be theirs,” answered Hardy. “I can’t pretend that the stepsons were a nice couple. Took after the first wife more than the old man, I’m told.” Hardy leaned back in his chair and eyed Mannering thoughtfully. “Are you working for Mrs. Peek?”

  “Yes.”

  Bristow looked more relaxed than he had since Mannering had come into the office, while Hardy asked: “Why? Are you selling the Collection?”

  “I’m trying to find out why the step-sons are so anxious to get it,” Mannering said.

  “You wouldn’t be tempted to poach on our preserves, would you?” asked Hardy, with a steely tone in his voice.

  “I wouldn’t hesitate to do so for a moment, if I thought it necessary,” Mannering answered, with a disarming smile. “Mrs. Peek is so scared of her husband’s family that she’s prepared to sell the Collection for a tenth of its value, in order to get away from them. I doubt if it’s a police matter yet, but—”

  “Do you think the attempt to kill you was to stop you from helping her?”

  “It could have been.”

  “Then it’s a police matter all right,” Hardy said grimly. He stood up, glanced at Bristow and then went on to Mannering in a different tone of voice, one touched almost with apology. “There—ah—is one thing you should perhaps know about Lucille Peek if you are trying to help her.”

  “What is that?” asked Mannering.

  “She takes a very liberal attitude on sex.”

  “Yes,” Mannering said, more lightly than he felt. “So she told me. Apparently it quite shocked her husband’s family!” He allowed the others time to recover from this broadside before going on: “Will the two assailants be charged in the morning?”

  “Yes – you’ll be in court, won’t you?”

  “Yes,” replied Mannering in turn, and then he asked easily: “Do you know the Peek solicitors – Harcourt, Pace and Pace?”

  “Yes,” answered Hardy briskly.

  “Do you know he suffers from heart trouble and nearly collapsed this afternoon? I wonder if he has regular digitalis treatment, and whether anybody tampers with his doses.”

  “I can tell you that he has the same ailment and the same form of treatment as Ezra Peek had,” Bristow said. “I managed to have a word with one of his managing clerks. He had these short-term collapses quite often.”

  “Surely that must be coincidence,” Hardy exclaimed.

  “Well, it certainly might be,” Mannering said.

  A few minutes later he was outside the police station with Bristow, whose car was parked behind the building, while Mannering’s was at the kerb. Neither man felt like talking, but Mannering said lightly: “She’s quite a woman, isn’t she, Bill?”

  “I have a feeling you ought to be very careful with her,” declared Bristow cautiously. He laughed, in the way people do when they wish to ameliorate the seriousness of what they had said.

  Mannering took the wheel of his Allard and drove towards the West End, the quickest way to reach his Chelsea home. It was now half-past ten and Lorna would be home. He was back at the question: how much to tell her? All? Or nothing? Before deciding, he wanted more time to consider his own reactions, to be quite sure how he felt. And the very fact that he took it seriously enough to need to think seriously appalled him.

  It would be pointless to put off going home.

  He smiled grimly to himself as he parked the car and went back along Green Street towards his house. Lorna was at home, there were lights shining from the top windows. He took out his keys to open the front door, and was suddenly aware of how similar this situation was to the one at Northcote Square. The feeling came so strongly that he actually turned round.

  A man was leaping towards him: and in his hand was a knife.

  A split second later, and it would have been too late: the blade would have buried itself in his back. As it was, he shot out his left leg and caught the wrist of the hand in which the knife was held. He heard a gasp, saw the man stagger away, then was aware of a second man leaping towards him from the cover of parked cars. He flung himself forward, suddenly certain that this man too, held a knife.

  On that instant a car swung into the street from King’s Road, headlights carving a wide beam. The man with whom he was struggling pulled himself free, and both assailants raced towards the other end of the street. The police siren blared out as the car passed Mannering, who stood in the entrance to the house, breathing hard, aware of something warm on the back of his hand and on his forehead. He looked down. The street lighting was good enough to show blood welling up out of a cut; there must be a cut on his forehead, too. He fumbled for a handkerchief. The police siren faded but the car had not stopped: he wondered if the men had escaped.

  He opened the street door and passed through the lobby, to the lift. Catching a glimpse of himself in a wall mirror he was appalled, for one side of his forehead and much of his cheek was glistening with blood. If Lorna saw him like this, without warning, she would have a shock which might upset her for days. Yet she may have heard the lift; all he could do was dab at his cheek and temple with a padded handkerchief as he opened the door of the flat.

  The hall light and the kitchen light were on; but there was no sound. Had she dropped off to sleep while waiting? He went quietly to the kitchen and saw a note propped up against a teapot on a tray which was always ready. It read:

  Darling, I’ve come home with such a sickening headache I’m going straight to bed. Forgive.

  His first reaction was that he would not have to tell her a thing tonight, would have a chance first to think and then decide on what to say.

  11

  Relief …

  Mannering felt an intense relief.

  It was absurd, the whole affair was ridiculous, but the relief was real enough to make him forget everything else for a few minutes. He went into the bathroom, turned on the taps, and gazed at himself in the mirror – lord, he was in a mess! Blood had run down to his shirt collar, but the damage was not as much as it looked. He stripped to the waist then bathed the cuts in his forehead and the back of his hand. When cleaned they looked little more than scratches, but if he had caught the full force of either blow – phew!

  Looking for a roll of bandage the thought flashed across his mind that the police car must have been following him, that other police might be here at any moment. He spun round, hearing the faint whine of the lift. As he moved into the hall the doors opened and two police patrolmen stepped out. Mannering put a finger to his lips and as they drew nearer, said softly: “I don’t want to wake my wife.”

  “Quite understand, sir,” the first man said. He looked little more than a boy but the other must be in his thirties.

  “You’ll need some help with that cut,” he said authoritatively.

  “Oh, it’s nothing,” Mannering said.

  “I’d like to have a look at it, sir.” They went together to the bathroom, all three large men making hardly a sound. The older of the others washed his hands beneath the tap and then examined Mannering’s temple and forehead. “They really were after you, sir, weren’t they? Second time tonight, I understand.”

  “So it’s been broadcast.” Mannering watched the smaller man open the bathroom cabinet.

  “Only to the police, sir. We were on the lookout for your car, just came to see you were all safely tucked up in bed.”

  “Did you get them?”

  “They had a car waiting at the end of the street, with a driver,” declared the other. “This will sting a bit, sir.”

  “Sting on. So they both got away.”

  “We’ve another car after them and there’s a general call. With a bit of luck we’ll pick them up before long.” As he busied himself with the cuts, there was a brisk efficiency in all he did, and Mannering gave him top marks for first-aid. “Did you recognise them, sir?”

  “I didn’t get a real look at them, but – no, I don’t think we were old friends.”

  The younger man ch
uckled. “You can say that again.”

  “Care to make a statement?” asked the older man. He fastened a bandage in position carefully and then turned to Mannering’s hand.

  “I was about to enter the house when two men attacked me.”

  “Any idea why, sir?”

  “None at all – unless it is connected with the earlier attack, and it’s hardly likely two lots would be after me in one night.”

  “You can’t tell, with a gentleman of your reputation. Any ideas why the other attack was made?”

  “None. And I’ve made a statement about that to St. John’s Wood Superintendent,” Mannering said. He watched the other fasten another bandage over his hand, and said warmly: “I don’t know what I would have done without your help.”

  “Feel O.K., sir?”

  “Tired, that’s all.”

  “Can we get you anything? Cup of tea, or—”

  “Do you know, tea would be just right,” Mannering said. “And I’m going to use the spare room tonight – my wife went to bed early with a headache.”

  The policeman asked: “Have you seen her since you came back, sir?”

  “No, but—”

  Mannering stopped, and the possible significance of the question hit him like a sledge-hammer. For a moment dizziness swept over him, then, shaking it off, he moved swiftly towards the larger bedroom. The door was ajar but there was no light on. He pushed the door wider, and peered at the bed, and now there was sufficient light to show Lorna lying on her side, her face serene and peaceful. He backed out, saying: “You had me scared for a moment!”

  “Just as well to be sure, sir,” said the older man comfortably.

  The other was already making tea …

  Ten minutes afterwards they left him in the spare room, already in pyjamas, a bottle of aspirins on the tea-tray as well as tea and biscuits. “Are you domesticated?” Lucille had asked him, and he found himself smiling. These two policemen certainly were. And the older man really knew his business. Mannering drank a cup of tea, started on another, then pushed the tray away, suddenly caught in a yawn which seemed to lift the top of his head right off and to start it aching furiously. Yet he could not have been awake and aware of that for more than five minutes before he dropped off.