“I shall be leaving London soon after eleven,” said Mannering. “If you care to leave it until next week . . .”
Lee shook his head, as Mannering had expected. Lee was not a man to keep a deal of this nature hanging fire.
“Ten o’clock, then,” the Jew said.
“Excellent,” said Mannering.
A few minutes later he took his leave of the financier, knowing that both of them were — so far — well satisfied with the interview. Mannering perhaps with more justification than the other.
Septimus Lee was a clever man, but there were things he did not know. He was unaware, for instance, that he was followed for the rest of the day by a man he would not have recognised even if he had seen him.
Mannering had little faith in disguises, but a beard was a simple arrangement, and he was not likely to be examined carefully while he affected it. His chief complaint was that it made his face hot and sticky, for the weather was still warm, but he bore the discomfort philosophically.
Septimus Lee went from the offices of the Severell Trust, in the Strand, to a safe-deposit in Southampton Row. He travelled in a Daimler saloon that purred through the evening traffic, while Mannering, bearded and in a Frazer- Nash, kept it in sight. Just for a moment, when the little Jew stepped out of the Daimler outside the deposit, Mannering thought he had slipped up. Then he smiled. Septimus Lee was too careful to hold the deposit-key under his own name.
But it was clever, Mannering admitted. The only likeness between the Jew who had stepped into the Daimler and the Jew who had stepped out of it was in stature. The first man had been old and wrinkled, while the second appeared to be young and smooth-faced. It was a remarkable transformation, and had he not actually followed the Daimler Mannering would never have recognised Lee in his disguise.
After twenty minutes Lee reappeared, and the Daimler moved off. In the brief interval Mannering had hurried to a near-by garage and complained that his Frazer-Nash was going badly, leaving the two-seater for repair while hiring a Vauxhall-Six. After leaving the garage at the wheel of the larger car Mannering also changed his beard for a heavy moustache typical of the Victorian era. No matter how keen Septimus Lee’s eyes were he could not have suspected the identity of the driver of the Vauxhall which left the kerb a moment after the Daimler.
The rest of the chase was uneventful. Septimus Lee owned a small house standing in its own grounds on the edge of Streatham Common. Mannering watched the chauffeur garage the Daimler and smiled to himself when he saw the stooping figure of the real Septimus Lee approach the front-door of the house. A clever old scoundrel was Septimus Lee.
Mannering drove back to town thoughtfully. It was just possible, of course, that Lee had not collected the Rosa pearls from the safe-deposit, but it was reasonable to assume that he had, and that for the one night they would be at his Streatham house. That, at all events, was what Mannering had tried to ensure by insisting on the early hour for the deal. If he had agreed to the midday appointment Lee could have got the Rosas in the morning.
For the first time since the Fauntley affair Mannering was faced with the task of breaking into a house and cracking a crib. In a way it was his real d?but; before he had known the strong-room and combination of the safe. Moreover, it was a long time ago, and his preparation had been absurdly inadequate. Now at least he had the rudiments of the craft at his finger-tips.
He had chosen his baptism carefully. If by any chance he was caught, it would be in circumstances that would make it impossible — or at least unlikely — for Lee to call the police.
But he did not propose to let Lee catch him. Unless . . .
Mannering was worried. He admitted it to himself as he let himself into his flat and foraged in the kitchenette for a light meal. There was something too easy about the affair. There was a catch in it somewhere, known only by Septimus Lee. What was it?
CHAPTER EIGHT
MANNERING FELT EASIER, FIVE HOURS LATER, WHEN HE HAD finished his inspection of the windows and the doors on the ground-floor of Septimus Lee’s house. Every window was shut and locked; every door was bolted. Obviously Lee was taking no chances, and Mannering was glad that his entry would not be too easy.
Using a pick-lock with a facility that would have earned the admiration of Charlie Dray, he made short work of the door of the kitchen-quarters. A row of trees at the edge of the garden afforded him excellent cover, and the rumble of an occasional night tram on the main road was the only thing that broke the silence.
The lock was only the first task. The bolts remained, and they were likely to be much more difficult. Mannering took a small chisel from the assortment of tools in his pockets and chipped a fragment of wood from the door. After ten minutes lie had bared the bolts sufficiently to get a purchase on them with a pair of thin-mawed pincers. He replaced the chisel and fingered the pincers. Something he could not explain warned him against using them. He felt that trouble would result; he sensed again the peculiar premonition that had worried him after he had traced Septimus Lee to and from the safe-deposit. It was absurd, but it was there.
Mannering breathed hard, and replaced the pincers. He must take every precaution, for the slightest slip would mean failure. He took his small pocket-lamp and stabbed a pencil of light at the top bolt. It looked innocent enough, but he repeated the action with the bottom bolt.
Then his eyes narrowed, and he smiled, without humour.
“I wonder who’s the patron saint of cracksmen ?” he muttered. “Wired up, all nicely set for an alarm.”
There was no doubt about it. A thin piece of wire ran along the bolt, the wire of an electric burglar-alarm. It was something for which he had not been prepared, and for a moment he was nonplussed.
“But I should have expected it,” he muttered. “Well, there’s a way of getting round that difficulty, but I can’t think of it. If the door’s opened, or if the bolts are drawn back, there’ll be the devil to pay. That is to say, if the bolts are drawn while the alarm-wires are connected. But if they’re broken . . .”
He smiled with more humour, and shrugged his shoulders. It would have been more satisfactory if he could have entered the house without spending time in cutting through the steel bolts, but the job had to be done. Fitting a thin, well-oiled blade to the handle of his outfit, he started work on the bolts. There was no sound beyond a low- pitched
