“Ah!” murmured Mannering. In his ear the telephone was burring; he replaced the receiver softly. His hand moved from the telephone, and the other’s eyes showed relief. “So someone sent you ? And I was thinking that you’d thought it all out in your own noodle. I’m disappointed, my friend.”
The man glared, goaded almost to a point of desperation.
“Never mind the funny stuff,” the bruiser snarled, momentarily forgetful of his fear.
“You honour me,” said Mannering politely.
“If I ever git my ‘ands rarnd . . .”
Mannering lifted the receiver off the hook again, and out of the corner of his eye he saw the man swallow hard, saw his tongue slide along his lip. The cracksman grinned as he dialled “O” and a moment later heard the voice of the Inquiries operator. She was likely to be irritated before he had finished, he realised, but she would merely put down yet another subscriber as unreasonable.
“Give me . . .” began Mannering for the other man’s benefit.
“For Gawd’s sake!” cried the bruiser. He seemed to realise for the first time that Mannering was serious, and his face was livid, his hands trembling.
“I beg your pardon,” said Mannering to the operator, “my friend doesn’t want the call alter all.” He replaced the receiver, and sauntered towards the other, who was standing by the fire-place. He grinned at him for a moment. Then: “Well, George, who sent you?”
“You know right enough,” grunted the bruiser.
Mannering laughed, and shook his head in well-feigned bewilderment.
“Is this a game?” he inquired. “You praise my humour, and now you tell me I can read your thoughts. I think . . .”
He broke off deliberately, for there was doubt in the other’s eyes.
“Straight, mister, don’t you know?”
“As man to man, no,” said Mannering. “All I know is that I sometimes keep a little packet of stones here, and I guess that your amiable boss thought he would try to rid me of one of them. Luck sent me when you were here.”
“And you ain’t got ‘em?”
“Got what?”
“The Rosas.”
“The Ros . . . By all the Jews in Jerusalem! I’ll wring that little sweep’s neck!” Mannering looked genuinely angry, and the pug’s eyes no longer held uncertainty; he believed what Mannering wanted him to believe. “So Lee sent you,” Mannering went on, “did he, because those ruddy stones were collared the other night? Where is Lee?”
“At — at Streatham.”
“What part, you idiot? The cricket pitch or the common?”
“Mister!” The crook’s eyes held appeal now, and his voice was thick with fear, instead of anger. “Don’t tell ‘im I told yer — don’t tell ‘im about the Rosas, don’t, mister . . .”
Mannering hesitated, and it seemed to his victim that he was cooling down. Actually he was enjoying himself.
“And why,” he demanded coldly, “should I do anything to save you from a nasty ten minutes with Septimus Lee ?”
The crook said nothing. Mannering eyed him for a moment in silence. Then he tossed his cigarette-case, which the other caught easily enough, despite his surprise.
“Or don’t you smoke?” asked Mannering.
“Well, I don’t mind, boss. . . .” The man was confused, unable to make head or tail of this sudden geniality.
“Nice of you. Now, George” — Mannering went closer to his man and looked at him steadily — “I want the truth. Do you know what that is ?”
“I — kin make a guess, mister.” Obviously the bruiser was bewildered, but he was genuinely thankful for the cigarette, which he stuck between his lips. Mannering gravely offered him a lighter.
“Excellent,” he said, although whether he was referring to the cigarette or the other’s promise to try to find the truth was not obvious. “Now I know why you called, but I still want to know what you’ve taken.”
“But I ain’t . . .”
“Don’t forget that guess, George!”
The man swallowed hard at the wrong moment. Tobacco-smoke and oxygen mixed badly, and he choked, going red in the face and bending half-double.
“You are in the wars,” murmured Mannering sympathetically.
He waited for the fit of coughing to pass, and then repeated his question. After a moment’s hesitation the pug took a package from his pocket and handed it to his captor. The latter unwrapped two slim books, and whistled when he saw them. They were the last things he had expected.
“And he told you to take my bank pass-books, did he?” His voice was hard again.
“Yus.”
“And you looked at them?”
“I ain’t, mister, I ain’t, I swear. I wouldn’t understand them things if I did. I . . .”
“Ain’t,” said Mannering. He scowled. “You have.”
“But I . . .”
“I know. You ain’t. But you have, George. Just think a minute now. You looked at them, and one had four figures and the other four or five. You’re not sure which. You just glanced at them when I came in. Isn’t that so ?”
The pug’s eyes glistened.
“I — I git you, mister.”
“You’d better. Tell Mr Septimus Lee that: one book four figures, the other four or five. If you don’t — and I shall have little difficulty in finding whether you do or not — if you don’t, George, I shall whisper to Septimus the single word “Rosa”. You still get me?”
“I swear, mister . . .”
“So you don’t go to Sunday School, George ? Well, well. Now run along, will you? I want to think.”
If he spoke the truth, however, he derived little pleasure from his thoughts. He had convinced himself that the best thing to do was to let the burglar go, but as he pondered over the affair he realised that Lee was clever indeed. The Jew had not expected to get the pearls back, but he had tried to satisfy himself about the state of Mannering’s bank-balance.
Mannering was still flushed with his victory over the Jew, but he realised that the other was dangerous, more dangerous perhaps than the police. The one thing to do, he told himself, was to visit Lee; probably nothing else would be so convincing. He would stick to his promise: he would not tell Lee that the pug had mentioned the Rosas; but there was nothing to prevent him from putting two and two together after recognising the man as Lee’s chauffeur.
CHAPTER TEN
MANNERING SEES THE FUNNY SIDE
“I OWE YOU AN APOLOGY, MR MANNERING. I OFFER IT.”
“I owe you,” grunted John Mannering, “a beating up, brother to the one I handed out to that darned chauffeur of yours. Yes, I saw him outside as I came in. His nose is very sore, and I think you . . .”
You are not going to ask me to believe,” said Septimus Lee suavely, “that you will offer physical violence to a man so much older than yourself, Mr Mannering? I repeat, I offer you my apology. If you think deeply you will realise that it was a very natural thing for me to suspect . . .”
“Not unless you were a . . .”
Mannering broke off, and coloured. He did it well and a peculiar little smile hovered round Septimus Lee’s thin lips.
“You weren’t going to say “crook”, Mr Mannering? Such an awkward word, and — well, your interest in the Rosa pearls would have admitted a very strange construction, wouldn’t it? From the police, I mean, or even your friends.”
Mannering rubbed his chin in apparent agitation.
“Ye-es,” he admitted. He frowned. “All the same, I’ll make sure it’s the last business I ever do with you, Lee.”
“To my eternal regret,” murmured Lee.
Mannering glared at him for a moment, and then turned away, opening the door before the clerk could arrive. Septimus Lee smiled and sighed; his conviction, as Mannering went out, was that he had made a mistake about the man.
“And that,” Mannering told himself, “will keep Mr Lee off the grass for a little while. But he’s a crafty old devil. I’ll have to be careful.”
He did his best to forget the interview, and it was not long before he was thinking of a certain recent acquaintance. He smiled a little, and decided to pay a visit immediately.