Meet The Baron Read Online Free PDF Page B

it, while beneath it was a necklace, bordered by bracelets that dangled so often on Lady Fauntley’s plump wrists. The room was alive!
    “Well?” breathed Fauntley.
    “Terrific!” muttered Mannering. “I’d no idea you’d anything like this, Fauntley. Wonderful!”
    “Watch this,” said Fauntley.
    He was a bundle of excitement as he peered at the stones, and his hands trembled. Lady Fauntley was breathless. Lorna said nothing, and the fire danced from the diamonds to her eyes. Mannering found the spell of the diamonds almost too much for him; for the first time he stopped repeating to himself the numbers of the combination. He’d never forget them now. God! What an idea - cracksmanship!
    Fauntley took a pocket-lamp from a shelf in the room and flicked the light on as he held the glass close to the stones. As it travelled, within a few inches of the collection, the diamonds seemed to move like living fire. Shimmering and cascading, fascinating and compelling, they lived.
    Fauntley broke the silence at last.
    “There you are, Mannering - the Gabrienne collection, reckoned the purest stones found during the early nineteenth century. It’s my prize piece. I’ve others, of course, but in ones and twos; there’s no collection to match this. I’m talking of diamonds, of course. The Karenz rubies are matchless too, and the Deveral sapphires. Let me see “The peer rubbed his forehead and frowned.” You must see the rubies - I think they’re in the third safe.”
    Mannering saw them, and a dozen other examples of the jewel-setter’s art that made his eyes agate-hard. He could take gems from this room worth ten or twenty thousand pounds, and Fauntley would hardly notice they were gone. In the safe where the Gabrienne collection was kept there were half a dozen other cases of smaller stones; and he knew the combination! If he managed to get them it might be months before Fauntley missed what had been taken.
    He was nearing the end of his run, he knew. The Blackjack-Feodora double helped a little, but unless he stopped gambling his resources would last another month, perhaps; two at the outside. It was absurd, he admitted, to rely on winning enough to keep going; he would soon touch bottom.
    What did that mean?
    It meant absolute poverty, the loss of position, the loss of friends, the loss of pleasures. It meant going without clothes - real clothes - and perhaps without food. He had realised all that before, of course, but he had not faced it. He had determined to strain the flesh-pots of indulgence to their utmost, and then let Fate make of him what it wanted. In fact, he admitted, he had never faced what would happen after the crash; he had only known that the crash would come, and that anything was better than the life he had been leading over the past five years. Until the month at Overndon he had been contented enough. He admitted it. But the Overndon month had split him asunder.
    What followed had been an interesting experiment.
    Mimi Rayford, Madaline Sayer, Alice Vavasour, all had been interesting, up to a point. They had been amusing, up to the same point. Betting was at once interesting, amusing, and occasionally exciting, and consequently was a point above Mimi, Madaline, and Alice; and, of course, there were other people and other things.
    They had all been intriguing and amusing and had made 1ife pleasantly varied; occasionally they had even given a notable kick to the business of living. But there had been nothing vital. Vital!
    Mannering looked away from the Karenz rubies, and saw Lorna Fauntley’s eyes quizzing his. His lips curved, and hers responded. The mutiny, the mockery, the boredom, in her eyes were lost for a moment, and her teeth flashed.
    “Impressed, Mr Mannering?”
    “Overwhelmed,” said Mannering truthfully.
    “Not the first nor the last,” said Lord Fauntley, locking his precious rubies in their safe. “Well, that’s the lot. Just a minute, Lucy, my dear; you’re in the way. Ha!