Meet The Baron

against things as they were. He would wait

Wait. . .

She felt that she had been waiting for ever, instead of for five years. She felt, as she had a few days before, when she had taken the money from Mannering, and as she had felt when she had persuaded Lady Kenton to buy that picture for three hundred pounds, that she would know nothing of happiness. Just now and again, with Mannering, she had forgotten the truth, but memory came back all too swiftly; and if memory failed there was fact.

She shivered a little, and went back to the door.

What she saw now made her eyes widen in alarm, and filled her with sudden dread. Her body went rigid.

Bristow was staring towards the table. He was speaking in a hard, dry voice, which had little or no friendliness in it Of course, it was possible that he had realised that there was someone else in the flat, and that he had drawn his own — and the wrong — conclusions. There were men who would have looked askance at another who had been caught out in an affaire. Many men, in fact.

But she doubted whether Bristow would be affected by that.

Then she looked at the table, and her heart seemed to stop. She heard Bristow’s voice, stiff and far away.

“It looks like a Webley three-two. Let me see it, Mannering.”

And she knew that it was the bullet. She remembered that John had asked for it, and that she had brought it from the bathroom, intending to give it to him. And then she had seen the papers, which he had placed so that she would have to see the headlines, and she had put the tell-tale bullet down, forgetting it, thinking only of herself and Mannering, an association which she knew might end abruptly one day, or else which would go on and on, if their patience was everlasting.

And the bullet was on the table.

Her mind worked quickly. She saw Bristow stand up, saw his very jerky movements as he took the bullet and examined it. She saw Mannering’s expression too, and she realised that Mannering knew that he was caught

He was caught. The police would be able to test that bullet, and prove that it had come from the revolver of the man who had been guarding the Ramon house on the previous night. That and the bullet-wound in Mannering’s shoulder would be all the proof that the police would need to make their case sound.

The doors of prison seemed to be closing round John Mannering at that moment. Lorna Fauntley hardly knew how to think. But there must be something she could do — there must be some way out. . . .

Her eyes narrowed suddenly as an idea came.

There was a way, difficult, perhaps, dangerous enough to implicate her as well as Mannering if it tailed. But if it succeeded both of them would be sale, and she was prepared to take the risk; it did not even make her stop to think.

The whole affair rested on that bullet. It was concrete evidence. It could be shown in court and could be matched up with the revolver, the turning-point of the evidence against Mannering. If there was no bullet, she reasoned, there was no evidence. Bristow could think what he liked, but thinking was no use in a court of law. She could swear that Mannering had been with her at the New Arts Hall from nine o’clock until half-past twelve, and others would support her, believing it to be the truth; the papers recorded the time of the crime as half-past eleven, and the alibi would be sufficient; but it would be useless in the face of that bullet. So it must go.

Very suddenly, and with a smile on her face that baffled Mannering and puzzled Bristow, she opened the door of the bedroom and entered the living-room.

Mannering paled. Bristow looked round in surprise.

Lorna stopped, as if startled to find two men instead of one. Just for a moment she looked alarmed, and Mannering was forced to admire her self-control. Then her smile returned, and she looked at Bristow.

“I didn’t know we had company,” she said. “Has John suggested tea, or don’t you believe in two breakfasts ?”

Bristow could not think of anything to say. His mind had been jerked away from contemplation of the bullet between his fingers, and he hardly realised that it was still there as he stared at Lorna.

“Two breakfasts?”

Lorna laughed lightly. Mannering, for all his admiration of her self-possession, could not for the life of him understand what she was driving at. But he knew she was playing with an idea. She looked at him once, quickly, but with a wealth of meaning. The helplessness that had surged through him when Bristow had seen the bullet and picked it from the table disappeared. There was a chance, faint perhaps, but definitely there. And Lorna was playing her hand confidently. If anyone could work the miracle she could. He felt his pulse quicken.

“I assume you’ve eaten once,” said Lorna, still smiling. She seemed blissfully unaware of the tension in the air, and looked at Bristow, who hesitated for a moment. Mannering caught his eye, and flashed an appeal to the policeman. He realised that Lorna wanted him to back her up; she wanted him to persuade Bristow not to broach the subject while she was there. It was expecting a great deal, but there was a faint possibility that Bristow could be induced to drop it, if only for a short while, and thus save Mannering from being unmasked in front of a woman.

Bristow fingered his moustache awkwardly. He read the appeal, and nodded slowly, while Lorna took another cup and saucer from a small cupboard, asked him how much sugar and whether any milk. He answered automatically. The seconds seemed to drag like hours.

Lorna filled three cups, and handed one to him, as if nothing was out of the ordinary.

Mannering marvelled again at her self-possession, but he was still puzzled. She knew about the bullet, and she must realise the situation, but she was carrying herself superbly. Bristow couldn’t know for certain whether she had overheard any of the conversation.

The detective reached for the cup, and then realised that he couldn’t take it while the bullet was in his hand. He didn’t know that Lorna was gambling on the belief that he would not give up the evidence he held, and he drew