Meet The Baron Read Free Page A

have my welfare at heart, Toby, but it’s a strain being the victim of good intentions.”
    “I thought it would do it,” said Plender, half to himself. He was a small man, faultlessly dressed, with a hooked nose, a Punch of a chin, and a pair of disconcertingly direct grey eyes. At thirty-five Toby Plender had a reputation for being the smartest criminal lawyer in London, and he coupled this with the fact that he was nearly bald. His humour was dry when it was not caustic, and he shared with Jimmy Randall a regard for John Mannering and a growing concern for their friend’s recent activities.
    “You thought it would do what?” asked Mannering.
    “Make you think,” said Plender. “It’s time you did, John; time you thought hard, and stopped chucking away your cash.”
    “D’you know,” said Mannering, “you and Jimmy should sing duets together - you both harp so on ancient ditties. Toby - ”
    Plender’s eyes were hard; he was taking this thing seriously, and Mannering’s flippancy annoyed him.
    “Well?”
    “Don’t try to reform me. I’ve had the itch for gambling since I was so high, and it’s been part of my make-up all the time, even though I kept it down for a while. So - ”
    “Supposing she’d married you?” asked Plender.
    “Supposing the dead could speak? They can’t. She didn’t. Have I made myself clear?”
    Toby Plender nodded, and slid his hands into his pockets.
    “Yes,” he said. “You’re a fool - and you deserve all you get.”
    “Without trimmings,” said Mannering. “That’s what Jimmy said. To make a start, I’ll have one of your cigarettes.”
    He smiled, and Plender followed suit, a little reluctantly. He realised that Mannering had set his course and was not prepared to alter it.
    “Any time I can keep you out of the divorce courts,” said the solicitor, watching the other take his feet from the desk, “let me know. You stopped just in time with Mimi.”
    “And you said you’d never heard of her,” said Mannering sorrowfully. “Shall I tell you something, Toby?”
    “Providing you remember my fee for an opinion is six-and-eight pence.”
    “Too heavy by far,” riposted Mannering. “Well - Mimi’s husband hadn’t got a case. Nor have any of them. I thought I’d tell you, to ease your mind. Pass it on to Jimmy, will you?”
    Mannering told himself as he walked back to the Elan - even now he walked whenever possible, for he was essentially athletic, and fitness was almost an obsession with him - that he had cleared the air a great deal, and that on the whole Toby had taken it well. One thing was certain: no one in the world would know the state of his bank balance, and it would be easy enough, if he so chose, to create the impression that he was making money. There were many ways of making it, although, in his experience, most of those methods were more likely to have the opposite effect.
    There was no reason in his mind, just then, for the move. He was not even playing with the idea that was to seize him very soon with a force that he could not resist. Afterwards it seemed to him that the thing was forming even before he was conscious of it. He felt desperate - and he wanted to gamble; what the gamble was like didn’t matter, provided the stakes were high.
    Well - he had five thousand pounds, and while any of it remained he did not propose to alter what Toby would have called ‘his ways.’ He felt pleased at the step he had taken, even if he did not realise its far-reaching effect.
     
    10.30 a.m. Sam, clerk to Billy Tricker, turf accountant, lifted the telephone to his ear and gave his employer’s name wearily.
    “Mannering,” said the man at the other end of the wire. “A hundred Blackjack, at sevens, to win - ”
    “Can’t do it. Sixes.”
    “All right, sixes. Double any to come with Feodora, at fives.”
    “She’s up - sixes too. The lot?”
    “Yes,” said Mannering.
    “O.K.” said Sam, and wearily summarised: “One hundred on