The Riviera Connection Read Online Free

she said. “I know you’ll do your best. Everyone will. Dick’s been—” she broke off, her voice suddenly hoarse, tears flooding her eyes.”Dick’s been wonderful. But they’ll hang Tony. I’ve got an awful feeling that nothing can save him.”
    Mannering knew that the evidence was so overwhelming that it was frightening. If he told the girl that she was wrong, he might worsen the situation for her later. He could encourage faint hope but dare not go further.
    â€œBristow’s thorough,” he said. “And everything I can do, and the police for that matter, is being done. If we could be sure where Tony was that night—”
    â€œWe just can’t,” said Hilda, and closed her eyes. “I’ve told you just what he told me, Mr. Mannering. We were going to the pictures. Then someone telephoned him, said that he had a wonderful chance to buy some jewels very cheaply. You know what Tony is for business. He just dropped everything and hurried to Watford, where he was to meet this customer. He didn’t tell me who it was. He’d been off on hurried trips like that before.”
    She paused.
    Mannering passed her a cup of tea.
    â€œAnd he was waylaid and drugged,” Hilda went on. “When he came round it was early morning. He drove home . . .”
    It was an odd, unconvincing story. The customer who was supposed to have telephoned Tony Bennett had been found – a jewel merchant with an extensive trade, who had a reputation second to none. He was emphatic that he hadn’t telephoned Tony; that story was false.
    It was possible that Tony had been to see another girl, Mannering knew; possible, but unlikely. He stuck to his guns, swore that the message had come from the dealer. The Watford police, Bristow and Mannering had tried to break the dealer’s story; it just wouldn’t break. The evidence that the dealer had not even been near a telephone at the time of the call was overwhelming.
    â€œTony assumed someone thought he’d had the jewels on him,” the girl went on wearily, as if she were reciting a lesson painfully learned. “He didn’t want to disturb me, or worry me. He slept in the spare room. But there was the bullet hole in the roof of the car . . .”
    Yes; his car had been used by the murderer, and there had been plenty of time for him to go to Dale’s house and get back. He said he’d been forced to swallow a tablet which had sent him to sleep, but had not seen his assailant.
    There could hardly be a taller story.
    Dick Britten, Hilda’s solicitor and a family friend, fetched her from Quinn’s half an hour later. He looked as if he hated the task of trying to comfort her.
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    â€œI just don’t believe that Tony did it,” Mannering said to Lorna, a few days later, “and Bristow can yap from now until Christmas without convincing me. If they hang him . . .”
    Lorna said slowly: “You’re afraid that they will, aren’t you?”
    â€œI can’t see a loophole,” Mannering growled. “Tony knew the Gramercy jewels were at the flat. He had a key to the flat. He’s a locksmith as well as a jewel-merchant, and he could have forced that safe. It’s just a question of being sure that he shouldn’t hang, yet not seeing a ghost of a chance of saving him.”
    â€œHow is his wife?”
    â€œI gather that she’s almost prostrate.” Mannering lit a cigarette. “Dick Britten will be here soon – he’s with her now. He’s having a hell of a time, too.”
    Britten, he knew, was Bernard Dale’s brother-in-law; his ex-wife’s brother. That had been characteristic of Bernard Dale – to be faithful and loyal to old friends.
    â€œSo Britten couldn’t be busier,” Mannering went on. He drew deeply on the cigarette and moved to the window of their Chelsea flat. He could see the shimmering waters of the