Meet The Baron

“An old flame,” mused Mannering. “Muni, Madaline, Alice

Randall shook his head, and Mannering scowled, uncertain whether this was a further display of the other’s humour. The idea seeped into his mind slowly, and the smile gradually disappeared. He hardly realised that his body had gone rigid, and that his face was set very grimly. Then he laughed — a forced laugh without a trace of humour.

“You mean — Marie Overndon ?”

“Yes,” said Randall, eyeing his friend closely. Mannering was smiling easily enough; after that first moment he seemed to have complete control over himself, and Randall breathed more freely.

“Everything else apart,” he said, “I thought I’d better tell you. Every time she’s been in town lately you’ve been away, but now . . .”

“Mere chance that I’ve missed her,” said Mannering. “But what’s the real trouble?”

Randall shrugged his shoulders, and Mannering knew that there was something more than the fact of Marie Overndon’s visit to London.

“She’s getting married,” Randall blurted out at last, and he coloured furiously.

Mannering widened his eyes and laughed, fully under control now.

“The devil she is! And the man?”

“One of Lady Kenton’s new Americans.”

“Speed !” Mannering laughed, and lit another cigarette. “Money and . . .” Randall grinned, reassured now. “Anyhow, if you’d like to go down to Somerset for a week or two, old boy, use me. I mean, the Kentons and the Fauntleys are pretty thick, and you’ll never be able to side-step the wedding and what-not So . . .”

“Now, that wedding,” said Mannering, cheerfully and hopefully, “should be something special, with Lady Mary on the one side, the Dowager on the other, and the almighty dollar overlooking all. It ought to be terrific, Jimmy !”

“But I thought,” said Randall, “that you . . .”

“Would wilt under the blow.” Mannering’s smile told nothing. “I might have; I won’t now.”

“You’re a funny animal,” said Jimmy Randall judicially. “I can’t make you out lately.”

“It’s my complex,” said Mannering comfortingly, “and your digestion. Have you seen Toby lately?”

“Yes, and then again no,” said Randall. “I went along to see him this morning, but I was beaten by a short head by some police fellow. Bloke named Bristow.”

“Bristow?” Mannering echoed the word, and the room seemed misty. “I seem to know the name . . .” He grinned, making an effort that he would not have believed himself capable of a few weeks before. Bristow and Plender together — good God! “Of course, the Kenton brooch fellow. Have you heard about that, Jimmy . . .”

“Has anybody in London escaped it?” groaned Randall. Mannering sat and smoked for twenty minutes alter his friend’s departure, and there was only one thought in his mind. He voiced it to himself slowly.

“Now, why is Bristow visiting Toby?” he demanded. “There can’t be any connection, of course, but . . .”

He stuck at that “but”. There was no reason for imagining Bristow’s visit to the lawyer was not a coincidence, but at that time Mannering’s immersion into the cold water of his game was comparatively new; frequently it made him shiver. He waited at the hotel for half an hour, almost expecting the telephone-bell to ring or Bristow and Plender to enter the apartment. It was sheer funk, he admitted to himself The robbery at Streatham, the jewels he had sold to Grayson, the affair of Bristow at the pawnshop, all seemed to carry the very letters of his name. He had. been concerned in them. It was absurd to think that Bristow and the others had been hoodwinked, madness to think that the name Baron deceived them.

“For God’s sake,” he muttered suddenly, “get on top of yourself! If you must do something telephone Toby, talk to him, get it over . . .”

For the third time that afternoon he looked at himself in the mirror, and now he saw the film of sweat on his forehead. He smiled suddenly, and the mirror grinned back at him sardonically.

“Your biggest trouble,” he said, “is going to be keeping yourself in hand, J. M.”

He felt steadier as he acted on his decision, left the hotel, and taxied to the Chancery Lane offices of Toby Plender. Plender was in, cheerful and more Punch-like than ever.

“I suppose you couldn’t get mixed up in a scandal of some kind, could you?” he inquired, as they shook hands. “It would look good. Solicitors to Mr John Mannering — Plender, Son, and Plender. A little notoriety helps even sober lawyers.”

“I’m so hectically idle these days that I couldn’t fit it in,” Mannering said. “And, anyhow, I sacked my solicitor a long time ago.”

Plender smiled at the thrust. His eyes bored into Mannering — or so Mannering thought.

“Did you, then ?” he said, and shrugged his shoulders. “By the way . . .”

For some reason Mannering’s mouth was dry, and his face, although Plender noticed nothing, was very drawn.

“I had a visit from a would-be friend of yours this morning,” Plender finished.

Mannering stared. He tried to make the stare look intelligent, but something was hammering inside his mind, an insistent warning. It had come as a shock, even though he told himself he had half-expected it. But why was Toby so friendly ?

“A would-be what ?” he managed to ask at last.