Free The Riviera Connection by John Creasey Page B

Where’s my wife?”
    â€œWhat would I want but the jewels?” she asked. “You give me them, and your wife will be quite all right.”
    He could easily say the wrong thing and jump into trouble. He was doubly glad, now, that he had gone out to get a grip on himself.
    â€œI don’t know what jewels you’re talking about. If I did, you wouldn’t get one, my beauty, until my wife is back. Go and find your boyfriend. Tell him my wife must be here by . . .” he looked at his watch; it was a little after five-thirty. “Nine o’clock sharp.”
    â€œM. Mannering—”
    Now he could let himself go.
    â€œGet to hell out of here and tell him!” Mannering took the girl’s shoulders and bundled her out of the room. He heard her gasp for breath as she staggered away from the door, but he didn’t wait to listen. He flung himself across the room and snatched up the telephone.
    â€œHall porter, please.”
    â€œA moment, m’sieu.”
    Mannering waited, feverishly impatient; then the porter answered, and Mannering spoke in fluent French.
    â€œThere is a young lady coming downstairs, in a brown dress and wearing a fur wrap.”
    â€œYes, m’sieu.”
    â€œStop her, talk to her, ask her what she is doing in the hotel,” Mannering said. “Delay her for at least five minutes. It will be worth five thousand francs to you.”
    â€œMerci , m’sieu. And what shall I do after the five minutes?”
    â€œLet her go.”
    â€œI understand,” said the porter, almost as if he meant it. “Ah, she is here.”
    Mannering rang off.
    He jumped across the room, opened a case, and took a small make-up case from it. He stood in front of the mirror, using greasepaint, working cheek-pads into his mouth, broadening his nostrils with plastic pieces. There was no time at all for fineness. He snatched a blue polo sweater from the case, slipped into it, ruffled his hair, and pulled on a blue beret. Then he hurried downstairs.
    â€œMam’selle, I am so sorry,” the night porter was saying, “but I must know—”
    The girl was hemmed in by his desk, looking frantically right and left. Mannering dodged back out of sight, and went to the nearest telephone.
    In a moment, the hall porter said: “’Allo?”
    â€œLet her go in a few seconds,” Mannering said.
    He went out by a side door, and hurried across the road to the wide promenade. Several other people were there in the warmth of the brightening dawn.
    Lucille came running out.
    She hurried to the kerb, and flung her leg over a little green velocipede, dozens of which buzzed along every street by day. The engine stuttered as Mannering went quickly towards his Citroen. He was at the wheel when the girl was a few hundred yards ahead, going fast.
    She turned away from the sea, into a side street. Mannering raced round the corner, in time to see her disappear round another. That was into the narrow main road, where trams already clattered along the rails which stood up like welts in the cobbled road.
    There were several cars and four velocipedes. Mannering kept the girl in sight, until, a hundred yards ahead, she turned left. This was into a wide street of tall houses, mostly in need of paint.
    The girl was disappearing into a court-yard approached through green gates. Mannering drove straight past, but caught the number of the house from the corner of his eye. It was 27, painted white on a black circle on the drab green wall.
    At the end of the road, he saw the name – rue de l’Arbre; at that end the sea shimmered peacefully and the sky was blue delight.
    Mannering turned the corner, and stopped.
    If he went into the house now, he would probably run into serious trouble. Until he had Lorna safe, he couldn’t hand the Gramercys over to the police; they were his chief barter. He had to play this with agonising care, although it was like playing with