Danger for the Baron: (Writing as Anthony Morton) by John Creasey

Author:John Creasey
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: House of Stratus

Chapter Fifteen

More about Korra

The girl just stared at Mannering, with dread in her eyes, her hands thrust forward as if to fend off some evil thing. He could have driven her into an admission by working on her fear, but he didn’t want her like this; he wanted her to talk. So he went nearer, took her hands, and said quietly: “Was it David?”

“No!” she cried. “No, it couldn’t—David wouldn’t—”

“Do these men exist?”

“Yes! Of course they do. They—”

“Did they say David killed Blane?”

She began to tremble. Mannering put an arm round her shoulders, meaning to comfort her. He drew the truth out of her, slowly at first, then more freely. Once he’d forced the issue, and she knew there was nothing she could hide, she was almost eager to talk.

David had been jealous of Blane; David was supposed to be in the north, she hadn’t seen him, but the men had told her David had killed Blane, and would hang. If she wanted to save him, she must name Mannering. The overwhelming passion of her love for David had made her do it, given her strength to fool the police.

How long could she have kept that up?

It didn’t matter. She was calmer; but she needed help. Mannering stood away from her.

“They traded on your fear that David had killed him,” he said. “Did they offer any proof?”

“They said—they said they’d seen him at the house.”

“I doubt if they’d hurry to tell the police,” Mannering said dryly. “They wanted to frame me – they may have framed David. Don’t take anything for granted.” Judy didn’t speak.

“Finding out who did kill Blane means plenty to me,” Mannering said, easily. “We’ll work on this together, Judy. I’ve done this kind of job before.”

“Oh, I know!”

“Good. Let’s see what we can work out. Why did you want to see me in the first place? What did you hear Blane and me talking about to make you so anxious to talk to me?”

He didn’t think she would lie again. He thought she had told the truth about Blane, about everything; and there would be time to find out.

She hardly hesitated.

“It was about the jewels and Jacob Korra.”

He didn’t want her to think that he had an especial interest in Korra yet, so he spoke easily: “The jewels were Korra’s in the first place, weren’t they? And Korra wanted them back.”

“Yes.”

“How did you come to know that?”

“Mr. Blane told me. I don’t think he kept anything from me, Mr.—Mr. Mannering.” She hadn’t used his name before, since she had recognised him. “Mr. Blane thought that Korra was one of the—of the really bad men.” She spoke half defiantly, as if knowing that she sounded naive. “Mr. Blane had a very simple philosophy – a man was either good or bad, and Korra was bad. He knew Korra wanted the jewels back and was determined never to let him have them. I don’t think he would have sold them to you even if you’d named someone else as your client, he would have been afraid that Korra was behind it.

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