The Main Chance Read Free

are you up to now?' Paula wondered.
    `Wait.' Tweed turned to Harry, back at his window. The Cockney was grinning.
    `Piece of cake. Drive runs straight to Buckingham Palace. I'll take the car into the undergrowth here, come round onto that track from behind. What's the game?'
    `I'm hoping I'll be near a window so I can signal you by flashing my lighter. That is if anyone leaves the manor by car while we're inside. If so, follow them discreetly.'
    `I'm always discreet. Have fun... Oh, there's a speaker-phone in the nearest pillar. Let's hope they think you're respectable enough to let in!'
    Tweed was on the move as Harry's car disappeared into a wilderness of undergrowth. Paula shivered. With the canopy of firs overhead it was chilly. Arriving opposite the tall gates, Tweed swung the car round ready for entrance.
    Wow!' exclaimed Paula. 'I see why he said Buckingham Palace.'
    A wide straight drive of small pebbles led straight across parkland for a couple of hundred yards to the manor. The HQ of the Main Chance Bank was an ancient and enormous house obviously built in Elizabethan times. Twirly chimneys reared up everywhere from the roof. At each end of the immense span of the manor projected small extensions, the roofs again supporting more palisades of corkscrew-shaped chimneys. Smoke coiled up from many of them into the windless sky.
    Tweed had opened his door to get out and approach the speaker-phone when a man's cut-glass voice exploded from the instrument.
    `Mr Tweed, Miss Grey, welcome to Hengistbury.'
    The gates were already swinging open inwards. Slowly Tweed drove forward. In his rear-view mirror he saw them already closing behind him.
    `Must be the finest example of Elizabethan architecture in England,' he commented.
    `Fabulous,' Paula almost gasped. 'And so is the park.'
    On either side of the drive stretched trim green lawn. On their left a tall fountain jetted high into the air, forming the letter 'H'. To their right the lawn was narrower, and beyond it The Forest's giant firs closed in as though ready to swallow up the park. Paula found them sinister.
    `Nothing disturbing, I'm sure,' Tweed remarked. `Don't be too sure,' Paula responded in a quiet voice.

    2

    Tweed parked near the base of a wide flight of marble steps leading up to a spacious terrace which ran the full length of the mansion. Other cars were parked nearby, including a large black stretch limousine. A uniformed chauffeur with a sneering expression stood by it and ignored the new arrivals.
    Arriving on the terrace with Paula, Tweed noted all the small windows had leaded lights. At the top of the staircase was the entrance, a pair of large heavy mahogany doors. The left-hand door opened, and a tall good-looking man in his thirties walked out briskly to greet them. He wore a smart black suit, the trousers sharply creased, the jacket almost reaching his knees and a stiff, peaked collar. The uniform of a servant.
    `Mr Tweed and Miss Grey, you are most welcome guests. I will lead the way. You could say I was the butler.'
    The voice was the same cut-glass accent which had called to them through the speaker-phone.
    `Isn't he sure of his status?' Paula whispered humorously as they followed the erect figure inside.
    `Shh,' Tweed reprimanded her as they entered a vast square hall with a woodblock floor. In three walls he could just make out closed mahogany doors. The butler led them to a door in the right-hand wall, paused, his hand on the door handle.
    `I am Snape, sir. You are most punctual. Mrs Bella Main sends her apologies. She will not be long but one of her important clients arrived without an appointment.' His tone was disapproving. 'She will send him packing very shortly. This is the library.'
    They entered another large room, the walls lined with bookcases, the shelves neatly stacked with leather-bound volumes. In an arch-shaped opening a log fire blazed and Paula welcomed the warmth: she was already finding the mansion claustrophobic. The only