Free Held At Bay by John Creasey Page B

past six months. Mannering had once used a house backing on Wimbledon Common, under the name of Mr. Mayle, but Bristow had ferreted him out. The day would probably come when Lanchester Street would be useless, but for the time being it was safe.
    His housekeeper, a prim-faced, unbending woman of fifty-odd, believed that he was a travelling representative. Mannering found her aloof, almost unfriendly, as though she suspected the worst from young middle-aged bachelors, but she was houseproud, civil and polite, and she could grill steaks to perfection.
    The front door opened half an hour after he had arrived, and he went to the door of his study. Mrs. Hawkes, dressed in faded black, gave him a tight-lipped smile of welcome, her nearest approach to frivolity.
    â€œGood evening, Mr. Miller. I didn’t expect you.”
    â€œThat’s all right,” said Mannering. “I didn’t expect myself. I’ll only be staying for a few hours, I needed the post.” He waved to the desk, and smiled. “If you can find me a snack meal in an hour, I’d be glad.”
    â€œVery good, sir.” She never departed from the formula.
    Mannering put her out of his mind as he sat at his desk and emptied his pocket of the gems. They sparkled like living fire beneath the single electric lamp, and he felt the magic of their beauty – fascinating magic. But he had to resist it. He separated the three stones that Salmonson had come by honestly as far as he knew, and the Delawney sapphires, put these in a box and wrapped it up carefully in brown paper. He addressed it in block lettering to Mr. Richard Leverson, at 17 Wine Street, Aldgate, and then he turned his attention to the list of names and addresses, and the stones that Salmonson had taken from twenty-one foolish women. He took just under the hour to finish his task, and he was ready for the steak that Mrs. Hawkes must have had in the deep freeze.
    The Duchess of Plazan had never been known to fail in any of the thousand and one obligations that her rank and position gave her. She was a magnificent-looking woman, retaining more than a hint of the beauty of her youth. Her Portland Square house ran without the slightest hitch, despite the testy, choleric nature of her husband and the boisterous behaviour of her children and then grandchildren.
    No one could have dreamed that for nearly two years she had been in a state of mental anguish.
    Her oldest daughter was married to a young politician, whose career would have been smashed by the slightest breath of scandal. Charlotte, Duchess of Plazan, had never dreamed of the complications that would arise when she had learned that Mabel had been foolish enough to have an affaire with an attaché of the French Embassy, a gentleman who had left London a year before and was now in Saigon.
    The upshot had been that Salmonson had taken the Duchess’s necklace, the string which had been in the family of Plazan for three hundred years, and supplied a paste replica for use on great occasions. For keeping his knowledge secret, Salmonson had accepted a thousand pounds a year, making a firm offer for the return of the necklace on payment of twenty thousand pounds. Thirty years before the figures would not have worried Charlotte. Now it was difficult enough to keep the Huntingdon estate as well as the Portland Square house, and every extra hundred pounds was a strain on the exchequer.
    If her husband learned of the affair, she knew that he would insist on charging Salmonson. That might ruin the jewel merchant, but it would also ruin Mabel and the promising career of Captain Ronald Aiding. Between them they had managed to pay Salmonson his thousand a year. The third payment was due in a few days and the Duchess was still unable to find the money. Mabel had gone to Cannes, with Ronald – nothing had been said that might arouse suspicions.
    On the morning following the Baron’s visit to Salmonson’s office, the Duchess