Meet The Baron

Tring was saved from the necessity of a retort by the arrival of the doctor. Bristow’s last sight of Lorna Fauntley that day was of her hurrying into the bedroom, followed by the portly, grey-haired physician.

Gerry Long was satisfied to do what he was asked and to show no curiosity. He owed Mannering his life, and there was little that he would not do to pay the debt. When, after the affair of the morning — he had dropped the bullet into the Thames at Westminster — he received a telephone-message from Lorna Fauntley, he made no bones about doing what she asked.

It was a simple enough task. He had to go to the New Arts Hall and ask for the attache-case which had been left in a private cubicle on the previous night. The initials on the case were J. M. The job was accomplished successfully, and Long, still on Lorna’s instructions, took it to the Waterloo cloakroom and left it there under the name of James Mitchell. It was not until six months later that he realised that he had taken the Ramon jewels and Mannering’s gas-pistol to the station. Gerry Long was to learn a great many things in the next six months, but for the time being he was content to remain in the dark.

At his flat Mannering leaned back on his pillow and smiled at Lorna Fauntley.

The doctor had gone. After the straining it had received the wound was nasty, but it would yield to treatment, and neither of them was worried about it. Lorna was still worried, however, about the possibility of trouble from Bristow, but Mannering doubted whether it would come.

“He didn’t like his job after the window episode, my dear. I’ll be surprised if we hear anything more from him over this business. But that doesn’t mean we can do as we like in future. He’s a good fellow, but he’ll stick to his job. God,” he added, “but it was close ! If you hadn’t managed to get the pearls, Lorna, it would have been all up. Tring didn’t notice you?”

“No more than Bristow noticed you weren’t unconscious,” said Lorna, and her smile was bright.

Mannering closed his eyes for a moment, going over the affair in his mind.

He had known that apart from the bullet the only possible source of trouble was the Rosa pearls, and when he had regained consciousness and had seen Lorna alone with him he had told her where to find the key and the pearls. She had done the rest, coolly and capably. The Ramon jewels he had left at the New Arts Hall; the case had been locked, and was safer there than anywhere else. He did not think that Bristow was likely to look for them there.

So he had those gems and the Rosas. They would bring enough to keep him going for several months; if he could sell the Rosas, enough for a year or more. But in future he’d be more careful.

More careful!

He opened his eyes suddenly. A shock that was almost physical ran through him. He had realised, almost without thinking about it, that he had no thought of giving up the game: the idea hadn’t occurred to him. . . .

The Baron was still free.

But there was Lorna, he realised, and he smiled at her, speaking slowly of the things he had been tempted to ask many times before, until: “If I drop it,” he asked, “will you marry me?”

There was a short, tense silence. Her eyes, dark, sometimes mocking and mysterious, held nothing but deep sorrow.

“But I can’t,” she said, in a voice which he could hardly hear. “I’d give half my life to, John, but I can’t.”

As she finished speaking there was an absolute silence in the room for a period that seemed as if it would never end. Then Mannering stretched out his arms and took her hands in his. There was a soft smile on his lips, and a gleam in his eyes that she had seen so often and loved so much.

He was thinking, as he looked into her face, of the things she had said and done in the last few months — since the day when they had first met and she had appealed to him as “different”. He remembered her reputation; he knew that no men had interested her, that Fauntley had despaired of her ever marrying. Then he reminded himself of the hopelessness that had shone from her eyes sometimes, of the fits of depression she had, even though she had managed to lose them when they had been together. He recalled the time when he had discovered that she wanted money badly, yet dared not approach her father.

And now she said, “I’d give half my life to, John, but I can’t.”

It could mean only one thing, he knew, and now he felt that he had suspected it for a long time. He spoke at last, slowly, smiling, and giving her a confidence enough to repress the tears that were so close to the surface.

“So — you’re married?”

Lorna nodded, and said nothing. What could she say?

“And you’re paying — him — money to keep the marriage secret ?”

She nodded again, but spoke this time.

“Yes.” Her voice was very low, but he heard every word clearly. “I’ve been married for a long time. Oh, it seems a century ago! He went away soon afterwards, and we agreed to keep it a secret until he returned . . . God, what a fool I was!”

“Steady,” murmured Mannering, and his pressure on her hands increased.

“Thanks,” she said, and a smile flashed in her eyes, to disappear swiftly. “I don’t know what the past year would have been like without you, John. He came back just after I’d met you. He wanted money, and he was prepared to keep silent if I gave it to him. So” — she shrugged her shoulders, and her smile was gone now; she looked tragic, he told himself, but more beautiful than he had ever seen her — “I did all I could. That’s why I tried to take the Overndon necklace . . .”

Mannering had told himself a few minutes before that he knew all there was to know. Now, as her words came out slowly, they took several seconds to impress themselves on his mind. She had tried to take the Overndon necklace!

“Good God!” he gasped. “At the wedding — so the dummy pearls were yours!