Held At Bay by John Creasey Page A

the garden had been moved, and in fifteen minutes Janet came back from a visit to the shops in the High Street, to report that only one policeman was watching the end of the road, obviously to follow Mannering.
    â€œThat’s good,” Leverson said, and he smiled at Mannering. “All right, Janet, thank you. Care for lunch, Mannering?”
    â€œI think it deserves a celebration of sorts,” said Mannering, his spirits soaring. “But how the devil did you do it?”
    â€œI’ll show you,” said Leverson.
    Janet went to the kitchen, while Mannering followed Leverson into the back room, and watched the fence pick up the coal tongs. Damn it, wasn’t the room hot enough?
    Then he saw the red-hot asbestos box lifted from the burning coals. He stared, speechless, while Leverson rested it on the hearthbricks, and slipped the catch with the poker. The heat from the glowing asbestos seared Mannering’s face, but he was filled with admiration when Leverson lifted the lid, and the glittering collection inside scintillated up.
    Leverson laughed, and shut the box.
    â€œOne of several methods, Mannering, and probably the best. I promise you Bristow will never find anything here. The only time they held me, as you know, I was walking along the High Street with the stuff in my pockets, and someone shopped me. That someone”—Leverson’s eyes met Mannering’s gravely—“was never really identified, but I have an idea that his name was Kelworthy.”
    Mannering hardly knew why the name came as such a shock. He realised that in the past twenty-four hours he had been so busy with Salmonson that the part Kelworthy and Granette were playing in this affair had faded. Now he caught a sudden vision of Kelworthy’s scraggy face and figure, Granette’s dark, bright-eyed good looks, and Olling’s florid face.
    â€œHe’ll probably regret it very soon,” he said. Then he explained the reason for the trouble with the Kelworthy syndicate. Leverson warned him again to be careful of Granette. Then: “I’ve a really good sherry, Mannering, that you must try. Let’s forget business and become gourmets. Among other things, Janet is as good as a Cordon bleu.”
    â€œDid she put the stones in the fire?”
    â€œYes.”
    â€œI don’t know whether to congratulate you or say you’re lucky.”
    â€œCongratulate me,” said Leverson. “I helped her mother some years back, when the father was inside. Janet is not the type to forget. Apart from her work here, she is fanatically honest, and I pay her enough to make sure her father needn’t go back to Parkhurst. Gratitude’s a queer thing, Mannering, but when it’s real it’s the strongest bond of any.”
    Mannering looked with new interest at Janet, cool, clean, completely self-possessed. There was a fine irony in the thought of her keeping a would-be criminal father on the proceeds of her work with Leverson, who was a law-breaker a dozen times as dangerous to the police as ever the father could be.
    The lunch was perfect, a chicken roasted with a wine sauce and a sherry that was exactly right. Mannering left Leverson’s house almost reluctantly, sure that the two Castilla jewels were quite safe, and realising that although he had given a great deal away in this affair, he had made a net profit of over eighteen thousand pounds.
    â€œGive and ye shall receive,” murmured Mannering to himself. Then he wondered what had prompted him to ask Leverson to keep the Delawney sapphires at hand.
    Knoller, the detective who followed him, wondered why he was smiling, and conscientiously reported it to Bristow when he was relieved by Dyson. Mannering did not try to hide, but went into a Keith Prowse office and booked a passage on an evening flight to Paris. He had still several hours on his hands, and he went back to his flat, prepared for an afternoon of ease. He did not get