Held At Bay (13 page)

He followed Robierre, meeting Jean in the foyer.

“
M'sieu, c'est terrible! M'sieu L'lnspecteur,
he has left others to watch. What has happened,
M'sieu
Mannering?”

“We all make mistakes,” smiled the Baron, “and Robierre has made a big one. Jean, there's to be no mention of this to anyone else.”

“I am silent,
M'sieu,
as always.”

“I'll go up myself, Jean, and when
M'sieu
Robierre calls again, I'll be in my room. He has gone to make sure that I was at the
Cabaret des Belles Femmes.
”

Understanding flooded through the porter's mind, and his smile was more free.

“
Mais oui, M'sieu,
it is understood! I will telephone when
M'sieu
Robierre is on the way.”

“Thanks,” said the Baron, and he reached the automate lift. He went up to the second floor and unlocked the door, relocked it and turned round.

Facing him was Anita de Castilla, a gaily-coloured wrap thrown loosely over primrose yellow pyjamas. Fear was vivid in her eyes.

Chapter Seventeen

Complications

The Baron could hardly believe the fact that Anita was here. He stood still for a few seconds. She seemed afraid to speak, and Mannering forced words out. The Crown of Castile had to be safely hidden before Robierre's return, but he had to know what had happened to Anita.

“Do you always call as late as this?” he said.

Anita's body seemed to melt and before he realised it she was in front of him, her arms about him tightly and her lovely face upturned.

“John, something terrible has happened. You—you must help, you must!”

“If anyone can help,” said the Baron, easing her arms away and moving towards a settee.

She refused to release him altogether, and Mannering could feel her slim, soft limbs pressed close to his. Her imperiousness and coquettishness were gone, and Mannering knew she trusted him implicitly. It was pleasant to be trusted, but she was temptingly lovely.

He pushed the thought aside as he offered her cigarettes.

“What is it, then?” he asked.

She took a cigarette, and broke it in half between her twitching fingers.

“John – you will not be angry if I tell you?”

“I'll start the story. I came over today because Juan told me that you had come to try to steal the Crown, with young Lenville. I've been watching you, just to make sure that you didn't do anything too foolish. So you see, you weren't neglected.”

“So you know!” She was wildly excited. “Then it is easier for you to understand! Teddy went to Panneraude's house and tried to get the Crown—oh, fool that I was! I rang him again and again, but there has been trouble. Teddy is in such trouble. The police know of the burglary and are seeking him. John – it was I, not Teddy. I sent him there.

He must not go to prison or—”

“Steady on,” interrupted Mannering. He stood up, a dozen conflicting thoughts in his mind. He looked down on her pale cheeks thrown into vivid relief by her dark hair, her red lips open a little, glistening, white teeth just showing. The flawless lines of her throat, the provocative swell of her breasts, could easily go to a man's head. Mannering made himself concentrate on the entreaty in her eyes.

There was one leading question: who had telephoned her, telling her that Lenville was in trouble?

Unless Granette had been lying all the time, Lenville had not been near Panneraude's place. But Granette had tried once to compromise Anita, and he would probably try again. In fact Granette had telephoned her, getting her into this frenzy; there would have to be a showdown before long.

For the moment the urgent need was to get Anita back to her room.

“You don't know who phoned you?”

“No, he gave no name. It was a friend—”

“It was a liar,” said Mannering. “I've had a man watching Panneraude's house all the evening and although there was trouble, Lenville wasn't concerned.”

“
Dios
! Someone lied to me? John, are you sure?”

“I tell you that I had a private detective watching the house, to stop Lenville trying to get in.”

“Then this man, your detective, he stopped Teddy?”

“I expect so.” Mannering could not disillusion Anita just then, for Lenville obviously meant more to her than anyone had thought.

“Then where is Teddy? And why should a man tell me—”

“I promise you there's no need to worry about Lenville, and that the police will never know he was anywhere near Panneraude's place. I don't know that you deserve it—”

“And why?” She was up in arms at once.

“Because it was a foolish thing to do, Anita. If anything had happened to make the police charge you, what would Juan and your father have felt? What made you do it?”

She shrugged those slim shoulders, her eyes smouldering.

“The Crown, it is ours—
mine
! All my life I have loved that stone, and when I knew the Baron, he was after it, I was angry. And I would do it again!”

The Baron bent down and took her wrists in his fingers. He lifted her slowly towards him from the settee.

“I daresay you would, whether Lenville went to prison for it and the others suffered hell. It's time to grow up, Anita!”

“You deliberately insult me!” All her pride was in her voice, and she strained away from him.

“It's just the truth,” said Mannering, “but I love you for it.” Love? She was utterly desirable, and he had to force himself to go on: “If you're not back in your room quickly there'll be trouble. I've some friends coming up. If they find the daughter of Don Manuel y Alvarez de Castilla in a bachelor's Paris room at two-thirty in the morning—”

“What do I care?” she flashed. She squeezed his hand. “All right, I will hurry back.”

“Where's your room?”

“On the next floor.”

“I'll come as far as the stairs,” said Mannering. “Pull that wrap closer.”

For the first time she realised that her dressing-gown had been gaping. She coloured as Mannering opened the door, and was still flushed when she reached the stairs and sped upwards. At her landing she waved back.

Mannering turned, glancing down the two flights of stairs near his rooms, and the lift shaft. There was no one in sight, which meant that Robierre's men were concentrating on preventing him from leaving the Bristol, not watching his room. Half an hour had passed since Robierre had gone, and he would want no more than an hour. The Crown of Castile was still burning a hole in Mannering's pocket, but his lips curved as he thought of what Anita might have said had she realised that her heart had been so close to the diamond.

There was nowhere in the hotel rooms where he could safely leave the stone. He thought of the bathroom fittings and dismissed them as impracticable. The police here were as expert as Scotland Yard at searching, and the grilles would be the first places to be examined.

A glance round his rooms as he entered them again made him scowl. It was obvious that they had been searched already; that Robierre had paid a visit before Mannering had returned. That probably explained the porter's anxiety. Was it worth assuming that Robierre, with the alibi confirmed, would not trouble to search again?

A soft breeze coming through the partly-open window changed the trend of his thoughts. He reached the window in two strides and pulled it wide open. The shutters and the frames were of the conventional French type, and there was a small verandah outside little more than a yard wide. He stepped out, looking down over the narrow street below. Dingy buildings, dark and shadowy, yet with a silver sky above them, were opposite.

The Baron had asked for a back room, knowing that it would be quieter than one facing a main boulevard, and it was going to serve him in good stead. Upwards, the building stretched for another five storeys, with small verandahs jutting out from the wall. These were directly beneath each other, and shaped masonry ran in parallel, vertical lines from roof to foundation: the verandahs were built between each pile.

The Baron glanced quickly right and left, satisfying himself that the only light was coming from the street lamps. No one was likely to see him. He stepped to the edge of his verandah, stretching his arms towards the jutting pillars.

He could touch them with the palms of his hands and get a good hold. His heart was racing, but with exhilaration.

This kind of danger was like heady wine. He gripped the pillars and swung from the verandah. His whole weight came on to his arms and shoulders, but he was prepared for it. For a moment he hung swinging over the street, with a sheer drop of sixty feet to the concrete below.

He paused for a second, to make sure that his muscles were relaxed enough, and swung gently towards the next verandah. He was afraid to make any noise, for he might disturb the occupants of the next room, but his shoes grated sharply against the stone.

But he found purchase.

He stood slantwise now, from the pillar to the next verandah, gripping the pillar with his hands and forcing his feet against the granite, his knees bent a little. Again he paused. The cool night air seemed to force its way between his collar and his neck, sending shivers down his spine. The strain on his arms was painful, but he started again.

The possibility of crashing downwards was present all the time. A single slip and it would be all over. He repeated the manoeuvre twice, coming to rest on the verandah of a room two rooms away from his own.

He was breathing hard, but there was elation in his mind for Robierre would never dream of coming as far as this. The moon enabled him to see without a torch, and for a few seconds he crouched, waiting and tense, making sure no one had been alarmed.

The blinds of the room beyond the verandah were pulled to, and the windows tightly closed. Someone disliked fresh air. The Baron's main thought was that no one would hear him as he searched the verandah balcony for a break in the plaster or the granite.

In one corner the plaster of the wall had been chipped away, where a hanging sign had once been fixed, and there was a hole no bigger than a pigeon's egg beneath it. The Baron slipped the Crown of Castile from his pocket, wrapped in cotton-wool, and pushed it into the hole.

It was a tight fit, and he stood back a moment, trying to judge whether the white would show up too clearly against the drab wall. To lessen the risk he took his fountain-pen from his pocket, pressed the filler and squirted ink over the fingers of his right-hand glove. It took only a moment to smear the ink over the cotton-wool so that nothing showed white, and the Baron was smiling as he replaced the pen and started the hazardous journey back.

With the knowledge that the diamond was safe, and the fear that Robierre would return before he had finished gone, he quickly returned. Once his right foot slipped against a pillar, and his heart seemed to turn over as he swung over eternity. He found purchase again, but his forehead was wet with sweat, the palms of his hands were sticky.

“Too bloody close,” he muttered.

Then very clearly from his open window he heard the ringing of the telephone bell.

He was at the next balcony, minutes must pass before he reached his own room, yet Robierre was on the way up, or Jean would not be ringing! He knew he would have to take the biggest risk he had ever dared.

Robierre must not find him by the window or the game would be up. The one way to get in quickly was to jump from balcony to balcony.

The balconies were so narrow that he would have to keep close to the wall as he went; he could not have his hands outstretched to give himself balance. And the gap was eight feet or more, long enough at any time for a single jump.

Could he do it?

For a split second Mannering hesitated. The chance of success seemed remote, and the sixty feet to the ground seemed to have grown into hundreds. He drew a short, sharp breath, tensed his muscles and jumped – with the telephone bell ringing loud in his ears.

For a moment he was flying through space, his left hand close to his side and brushing against the wall, his right hand stretched ahead of him. The balcony loomed closer. He was clear of both of them and falling, falling. His left hand shot up to support the right, and desperately his fingers clutched about the ledge, and the strain of his thirteen stone came suddenly on his shoulders.

The pain that shot through them was excruciating, but he had no time to rest, and in the exhilaration of knowing he was safe he hardly needed any. He pulled himself up, reached the balcony wall with one knee, and half-fell on to the balcony. He was sweating, his head was aching, and the telephone bell was still ringing, very loudly.

He stepped through the window and pushed it to behind him. He took off his gloves as he hurried to the bedroom, then his coat and shoes. The bell had stopped now, but footsteps were coming along the passage.

The toes of the Baron's shoes were scratched, and there was a coating of grey dust on his coat sleeve and trousers. He brushed the cloth quickly, flung the coat on the bed and then realised that the ink on his glove fingers was still wet.

That would do for the shoes.

As he picked the glove from the bed he heard a tap at the door, light and discreet. He was in a ferment of anxiety, but every move he made was cool and deliberate. The ink darkened the white patches where the patent leather had been scratched from the toe-caps and he put the shoes quietly by the end of the bed before grabbing a dressing-gown. He dropped on to the bed, full length, and as his muscles relaxed the tap came again, sharper, more imperious.

Mannering drew a deep breath, and called out thickly: “Hallo, there?”

“
M'sieu,
it is I, Robierre.”

“
Robierre!”
Mannering's voice was suddenly clearer. He raised himself from the bed, making sure the springs creaked and pushed a pillow to the floor. Only the bedside lamp was burning when he opened the door and stifled a convincing yawn.

“Sorry. I was dozing.”

“Yes,” said Robierre, and in the dim light the Baron thought the policeman looked more menacing. Perhaps it was because he had heard the telephone ringing and guessed that Jean had warned Mannering.

“Well?” Mannering demanded.

“I have made sure,
M'sieu
Mannering. You were at the
Cabaret des Belles Femmes, ce soir.
”

“Good,” said the Baron enthusiastically. “I can go to bed?”

“A thousand pardons,
M'sieu,
but I have my duty. With your permission I will search the rooms. It is a little thing, you understand.” Robierre's English was suffering badly, and told Mannering that the other disliked this job.

Mannering laughed, and offered cigarettes.

“If you've really got to.”

“
Bien
! It is good you have no objection,
M'sieu.
I am gratified. My men, they are outside. With your permission—”

Mannering rested on the bed while the rooms were searched, occasionally stifling a yawn. When a diminutive French detective picked up the scratched shoes, he drew a deep breath.