“The safest way never to lose a thing is never to have it,” he said.
“I’m ready to try anything once,” said Lorna. “While I powder my nose, spread the good news among the parents, and try not to see the light in their eyes.”
She turned away easily, and walked towards the stairs. Mannering stood watching her, and his lips moved.
“A cat,” he said, “but a wild-cat. Lord, what a life! One Lucy and one Hugo produced her.
And she liked that “yet”.
At half-past one they left the Dernier Club, and Mannering handed Lorna into a taxi.
“Chelsea,” he asked, “or Langford Terrace?”
“Langford Terrace,” said Lorna. “Even for the West home’s best — and probably safest.”
Mannering instructed the driver and climbed into the cab.
“That remark,” he said, as they moved from the kerb, “was the fourth you’ve made to-night that wasn’t worthy of you.”
“Both your standards and your arithmetic sound horribly precise,” Lorna said.
“And need revising for the brave new world?” chuckled Mannering. “Well, was the Dernier nearer your standard ?”
“Divine — if only there’d been a decent floor, plenty of room, and a breath of air,” she answered.
“You’ve forgotten the negro band that should have been white,” said Mannering. “Are you trying to convince me you are typical of the variable feminine ?”
“I may be, but I wasn’t trying to convince you of anything. I think I’d like to paint you. Head and shoulders.”
“Thanks, but I prefer photographs.”
“They can only reflect what you look like, not what you are.”
“What am I?”
“I haven’t discovered — yet.”
Mannering chuckled.
“I liked that “yet”,” he said.
CHAPTER FOUR
JOHN MANNERINQ HAD ENJOYED THE EVENING, NOT SOLELY because of the discovery that Lorna Fauntley was what he called, for want of a better description, intriguing. The Fauntley strong-room remained in his thoughts like a sharp etching — something he could not forget. He remembered, for he had forced them into his mind, the numbers of the safe’s combination; and there was little about the precautions Fauntley took to guard his collection that Mannering? didn’t know. If there was one thing that really worried him, it was the armed guard.
By now Mannering had thoroughly accustomed himself to the thought that he would start a campaign of cracksman-ship, even though so far the thing was hazy in his mind, and he was tempted to laugh at it rather than take it seriously. What easier way of making money than as a gentleman-thief?
A thief? The word made him stop and think. “Cracksman” sounded more pleasant; it gave the project a Robin Hood gallantry; but if he was to be honest with himself, and it was absurd to be anything else, he would earn the name of thief — and deserve it.
As he thought of these things a sardonic smile curved the corners of his lips. If the word itself was hard to face, so were facts. Cash he must have, and quickly, or he would go under. Going under was the devil, whereas his very life gave him opportunities to steal in a hundred places — yes, and without the slightest risk of suspicion.
The decision that had been hovering in his mind came to a head on the afternoon following the dinner at the Fauntleys’. Mannering weighed up the chances coolly, and decided that the odds favoured him. In the Fauntley strongroom he had been presented with as near a “sitter” as a cracksman could pray for, and it was almost like looking a gift-horse in the mouth to refuse the opportunity.
The decision being reached, he did not propose to lose much time. The quicker he made the plunge the better.
He realised that there were several things he would need, but most important of all, he told himself, was a weapon to help him in emergency. He decided cheerfully that the most effective would be a gas-pistol with a load of diluted gas, but for the moment that was impossible. He had an old Army revolver, however, without ammunition to fit it; if he took it with him it might have a demoralising effect on anyone he met — it was absurd, he knew, to be sure that he would get through without some trouble — and if necessary its butt would come in useful as a club. Yes, the revolver was what he wanted.
The rest was comparatively easy.
Towards evening, with the prospect of the raid on the Fauntley house making his heart beat fast, he spent an hour making various small purchases. For tools he told himself he needed two small screwdrivers, two thin files, and a tiny hammer. He bought a pair of thin rubber gloves from a department-store, and later a pair of rubber-soled golf-shoes. Finally — and he chuckled when the idea came — he bought a handkerchief with the initials T.B. on it. The initials meant nothing to him then — and he had no idea what they were likely to mean; he proposed to use it simply as an admirable “clue” to leave behind for the police.
He was ready.
And he was going through with the first effort; he knew that until he did he would be restless; as much as anything else he was hungering for a gamble that carried a real risk, and, providing his victims were sufficiently
