by John Creasey
Chapter Twenty
The Baron Denies
Chief Inspector William Bristow was even more worried these days than he had been during the time the Baron had operated solely in England. He was convinced that Mannering had not robbed Archibald Price at Chelsea, but Mannering had been in France at the time of the Panneraude robbery, and there was good reason to believe that he was now in New York.
Bristow had determined to stop Mannering, but could not bring himself to believe that Mannering would use the violence that had been used on Van Royton.
To make the situation worse, the Assistant-Commissioner, Sir David Ffoulkes, complained without bitterness but with considerable effect that Mannering should never have been allowed to go to France without having a man on his heels, and that Bristow should have known it. Superintendent Lynch came in for a similar reproof. Both men, sitting in the A.C.’s office, were feeling glum. The Baron had been a shadow over their lives for a long time past and he seemed likely to become darker than ever.
Bristow was able to point to his cable to Paris as his chief line of defence. Ffoulkes nodded. He was a youngish, thorough and likeable man, who looked older than he was because of his greying hair and an oddly wrinkled face.
“I suppose you can’t be blamed, but it is going too far. I presume there’s no doubt that it is Mannering?”
Bristow pointed out Mannering’s recent movements.
“Too much for coincidence, I suppose. He must have travelled from Cherbourg, without coming back to England. When was he last seen at the Bristol, in Paris?”
“The night of the Panneraude burglary,” said Bristow.
“He’s had plenty of time, you see. Of course, there was that fake robbery at Chelsea, but—” Bristow stopped.
Lynch, in the act of lighting a cigar, stopped also, and Ffoulkes, whose back was to the door, looked up in surprise. He saw them staring towards the door, the astonishment on their faces, and twisted round in his chair. As he did so the door opened more widely, and John Mannering stood there.
He was smiling a little, his tall frame as immaculate as ever in dark grey. He walked slowly towards the desk while a portly and worried sergeant hesitated on the threshold. He had always allowed Mr. Mannering to visit Bristow, but had never dreamed the man would interrupt the Assistant-Commissioner.
Ffoulkes said sharply: “All right, sergeant, close the door and get off. Hallo, Mannering, I hardly expected you.”
“Didn’t you?” Mannering nodded to Bristow and Lynch. They had doubtless been convinced that Mannering was in New York, yet he could not have come back since the Van Royton burglary, even by jet. “I’ve been recuperating, and I thought I’d look you up. I’m not interrupting, I hope?”
Ffoulkes drew a deep breath.
He had known Mannering since his schooldays, liked the man and yet agreed with Bristow and Lynch that he might be daring enough to be the Baron. For Mannering to walk in now, completely at ease and nonchalant, seemed to be defiance itself.
“No,” said Ffoulkes slowly, “you’re not interrupting. It’s time you and I had a talk, John.”
The Baron looked puzzled as Ffoulkes offered cigarettes.
“Always a pleasure, David, always ready for service.” He eyed Bristow and Lynch, and his eyes were gleaming. “I hope you haven’t been bitten by the Bristow bug? Find Mannering and you’ve found the Baron?”
Bristow simply lit a cigarette.
“We won’t bandy words,” said Ffoulkes, harshly. “We think you’re the Baron. You know that well enough.”
“To my cost,” agreed Mannering. “I’m hoping the canard will be scotched after today. Have you seen the newspapers?”
“I have,” said Ffoulkes. “And the Baron—”
“Is busy in the United States. I’ve been in Sussex for the last week. That rather punctures Bristow’s pet theory. Doesn’t it, Bill?”
“Er,” Bristow grunted, and bristled. “I know what it looks like.”
“You’re still as obstinate as the law, Bill. Well, the Baron is giving you a tousing, one way and the other. Changing his methods, isn’t he, and getting quite violent?”
Ffoulkes waved his hand impatiently.
“John, I don’t like this but I’ll have to have a complete record of your movements in the past three weeks.”
“You won’t get it,” said the Baron, and he looked almost sorrowfully at Ffoulkes. “You’ve no grounds at all for asking for it, and if you read the code book you’ll know that well. But I’ll meet you halfway. I was in Paris until a week ago. In Paris I ran across a man who could use foils better than I, and I was careless about a guard. That,” added the Baron, leaning forward and pulling his collar down, “is the result. See it, Bill?”
The scar from Granette’s knife was plain enough, although the wound had healed cleanly. All three men regarded it as they would have done the Crown of Castile, before Ffoulkes broke the silence.
“So you’ve been recuperating.”
“With Lorna, a gem of a housekeeper, and the whole village of Listington to bear witness,” smiled Mannering. “And the Baron is in New York. This is the first time when circumstances haven’t made things look black against me as the Baron.”
Bristow’s grey eyes met his, in annoyance, anger, but with a hint of relief.
The Baron was here in front of them, proving that he had not been in New York, showing them that the Baron was being impersonated!
Who else would have dared to come here? Would have pushed past the sergeant and into the A.C.’s room on such an errand? Even Ffoulkes, looking at Mannering’s face, knew that same reluctant admiration for the Baron as Lynch, Bristow and Detective Sergeant Tring felt from time to time.
“That’s fine,” said Mannering gently. “Have we had our talk, David, or is there anything else?”
“No,” said Ffoulkes, slowly.
“Fine,” repeated Mannering. “Then I’ll be moving. Oh, Bill, don’t be surprised if you get your man for the Price and Van Royton robberies. So long.”
He moved so quickly towards the door that they hardly realised he had gone before the door closed. There was a moment’s tense silence and then Ffoulkes swore.
“He’s just stringing us,” said Lynch. Nothing disturbed the Superintendent’s coolness of mind, and he sat back in a chair almost hidden by his bulk, dropping half an inch of cigarette ash on his coat lapel. “But he’s proved to my satisfaction that the Baron wasn’t in New York.”
“Which is what he set out to do,” said Ffoulkes.
“I wonder what he meant with that talk of getting our man,” said Bristow. “He knows who’s impersonating him, of course.”
Lynch grunted.
“If he does and it comes to a showdown, there won’t be much left to arrest one way or the other. It’ll be the Baron or the other fellow, and my betting is on the other fellow. Then we’ll have murder on Mannering.”
“He’d prove self-defence,” said Bristow. “I wonder who is doing it?”
Lynch widened his sleepy eyes.
“I wonder where he got that cut throat. The fencing yarn was too thin, no foil would cut like that. And the man in New York used a knife.”
Ffoulkes was listening and staring at Lynch, but it was Bristow who made the only pertinent revelation.
“I only know one good jewel man who handles a knife,” he said, “although I’ve never been able to get anything on him. Granette, of the Kelworthy crowd. I’ll find out if he’s in London. If he’s not, we’ll radio his description to New York. With your permission, sir?”
“Carry on,” said Ffoulkes, “the quicker the better.”
In the next hour Bristow learned that Jules Granette had been out of England for two days, and that during these two days he had been seen in Paris. Bristow felt the glow that always followed a good guess, and cabled Granette’s description, with his known record, to the Police Bureau in New York.
At the same time Mannering was wondering how he could check if Gran
ette was flying back.
He was turning this problem over in his mind that evening when he walked from his flat to the Elan, where he was to dine with Lorna. He had deliberately walked, and he felt thoroughly fit again. The croaking of a newsboy broke his reverie, bringing the gleam to his eyes and the old zest to his mind. He paid for the paper with a sixpence and opened it, standing by Fortnum and Mason’s as he read the Evening Wire’s report.
IS THE BARON IN ENGLAND? AMAZING LETTER TO
“EVENING WIRE”
“The facsimile printed below, of a sensational letter received this afternoon and purporting to come from the cracksman who has styled himself the Baron, is exactly the same as other letters received in the past, after some of the most stupefying of the Baron’s exploits. The ‘Evening Wire’ believes it to be genuine. If this is so, then someone in France and in America is impersonating the Baron, someone—”
Mannering chuckled and read through his own letter, printed in block letters and reproduced faithfully as he had written it on the cottage table that morning. It was a brief statement that the Baron had been in England for the past week, that he had never seen Mr. Van Royton, and had not been in America for four years. It also pointed out that he had not been near Chelsea on the night of the burglary at Archibald Price’s house.
Mannering knew that nine people out of ten who read it would believe him. Lorna found him absent-minded that night, and they separated just before ten o’clock. Mannering knew that Tanker Tring was on his trail, and he amused himself by giving the sergeant an extra mile walk before he turned into Clarges Street.
At the entrance to the house he stopped, and Tring realised he had been spotted. The sergeant came up slowly, half uncertainly, and with his face set in its usual gloom. He had bought a new bowler, and for once it fitted him without touching his ears.
“You must be tired, Tanker,” said the Baron sympathetically. “Coming up for a drink?”
“No, sir, thank you, it’s against orders. Are you fully recovered, sir? Mr. Bristow was saying you’d been ill.”
“And you’ve been wishing I would stay like it,” said Mannering. “All right, Tanker, give your wife a present.” He slipped a five pound note in the astonished Tring’s hand, and went off. He was feeling in fine fettle as he put the key in the lock, turned it and pushed open the door.
But he did not close it immediately, for he found himself looking at someone who should not have been there.
The surprise was as great as when Anita had been in his rooms at the Bristol, but there was no risk with the proprieties this time.
Edward Lenville, his light hair ruffled, his pugnacious face flushed, half ran across the room towards him.
“Mannering, I’ve been waiting hours! Anita—”
“What about Anita?” asked Mannering sharply.
Lenville’s lips were quivering.
“It’s Kelworthy! At his Hampstead place, and he—he sent me with a message. He gave me the key to your flat. He wants the three gems you’ve got, or—”
“Or what,” said the Baron, and he felt like ice.
“Or Anita will never have them!” cried Lenville. “He says he’ll kill her first. You’ve got to help her, you’ve got to, even if it means giving up those blasted jewels! Mannering, hurry, for God’s sake hurry!”
Chapter Twenty-One
Kelworthy Boasts
The Baron stood where he was for perhaps five seconds, and Lenville hated the expression on his face. He could guess some of the thoughts that were passing through Mannering’s mind, but Mannering spoke coolly enough.
“Is Anita at Kelworthy’s place?”
“Yes.”
“Taken by force?”
“No, I wouldn’t do that. Kelworthy wanted to see her, and I took her along. She—I—”
“You unspeakable rat,” said the Baron very softly. Lenville’s pale face, his bright eyes and his ruffled corn-coloured hair seemed a blur to Mannering, yet when his mind cleared he could not credit that this clean-looking youngster could have trapped Anita.
Then an idea flashed into the Baron’s mind. He nodded abruptly at the door.
“Get outside and wait there. I’ll be down in five minutes. Kelworthy wants me, of course?”
“Yes – but unless you have the stones—”
“What did he tell you about me?”
“Not—not much,” muttered Lenville, and Mannering doubted if Kelworthy had been free with the information that he was the Baron. As Lenville left the room the Baron was scowling, but there was a grim smile on his lips when he finished telephoning Flick Leverson.
He found Lenville waiting outside the house, and on the opposite side of the road was Tanker Tring. Mannering waved, took a last cigarette from a packet and tossed it away. Lenville muttered under his breath. Granette and Kelworthy had been right when they had said that he was dangerous. But what the devil was Mannering to do with this?
They reached Piccadilly and Mannering ordered a cabby to go to Aldgate Pump. Lenville protested with one foot on the running-board.
“But that’s a long way round.”
“I thought I had to collect something,” said Mannering.
He left the cab alone, at Aldgate Pump, and Lenville saw another man approach him, and a small package change hands. The other three diamonds, thought Lenville, and he shivered. Kelworthy was getting his own way, Kelworthy would always get his own way, and the years ahead were bleak for Lenville.
Mannering looked grim when he returned to the cab, and ordered the driver to go to Kelworthy’s Hampstead house in Ridersay Drive. Neither he nor Lenville spoke until they reached the carriageway. Mannering paid off the cabby and they walked to the porch.
A maid opened the door, recognised Lenville and stood aside. Lenville led the way to the drawing-room where the Baron had surprised Kelworthy, Granette and Olling three weeks before. Mannering’s smile was taut as he opened the door, and saw Kelworthy sitting in his favourite chair, with Olling perched as usual on the couch, his head jutting forward and a cigar poking from the corner of his square mouth.
The tension in the atmosphere of the room was greater than any the Baron had known for a long time past. Yet he seemed to control it, after the maid closed the door. Lenville stood miserably behind him, and Olling produced an automatic pistol. Mannering had expected that.
Kelworthy seemed to be dreaming. He wore the same loose coat, the same baggy morning trousers, and his bony feet were poked into a shapeless pair of slippers.
“You can put that gun away, Olling, this isn’t the time to make trouble,” Mannering said. “Where’s Miss de Castilla?”
“Keep the gun out!” snapped Kelworthy. Mannering saw his watery eyes staring towards him from behind the gold-rimmed pince-nez. “Keep it very steady, we don’t want any tricks. Well, Mister Mannering”—there was a change in the tone, a cackling note of triumph—“so you’re here again? Not quite the happy circumstances of your last visit perhaps.”
“I asked for Miss de Castilla!”
Lenville moved into the Baron’s sight, and Olling’s hand trembled about the butt of his automatic. Mannering wished the red-faced man’s hands were steadier, for automatics were no things to go off by accident.
“My dear Mannering – you didn’t believe that? How strange, a man of such accomplishments, and yet hoodwinked by a little lie. Lenville must have done it very nicely indeed.”
The Baron’s eyes blazed as he half-turned towards Lenville. Olling snapped: “Keep still,” and the gun trembled even more. Mannering’s eyes seemed like fire, but inwardly he was smiling, for the idea he had had at the flat was that Lenville’s story was a ruse to get him here. The Baron had decided to oblige.
“You liar – she’s not here?”
“Certainly not. Abduction is rather a precarious game with Scotland Yard so well-manned,” said Kelworthy. “I relied on your chivalry—how well known is your chivalry, Mannering!—to get you here. And Teddy’s tongue, of course. He
has the making of an excellent con-man. So convincing, under that boyish exterior of his.” Kelworthy paused.
“So you won, Kelworthy,” said Mannering slowly. “What good will it do you? You won’t get anything.”
“Won’t I?” bellowed Kelworthy, and he stood up for the first time, tall, scraggy, untidy, his arms waving. “Won’t I indeed? Olling, keep that gun very steady. Lenville, what happened since you left Mannering’s flat?”
Lenville told of the taxi journey and the encounter at Aldgate Pump. Kelworthy was all smiles, and his bony hands were rubbing together.
“Excellent, my boy! So you even brought the stones, Mannering, thinking you could barter them for Miss de Castilla in person. How romantic and quixotic of you! Hand them over!”
The change in the tone would have scared most men, but Mannering laughed.
Kelworthy leapt, and Mannering was startled at the strength in that thin frame. A clenched fist swung past Mannering’s ear, another caught him on the chin. He went backwards apparently taken off his guard, and Kelworthy stood glaring at him, murder in those watery eyes. This man was as dangerous as Granette.
“The stones, give me the stones!”
Mannering was pressing back towards the wall, apparently scared and uncertain. He put his right hand to his vest pocket, while Olling moved from the settee, making sure that Mannering was in line with the gun.
Mannering drew out the packet he had taken from Flick Leverson at Aldgate.
Kelworthy snatched it away, Mannering seemed tempted to grab at it, and then drew back. Lenville told himself that even Mannering, in a tight corner, re-acted very much as he himself had done with Kelworthy.
Kelworthy was pressing the envelope, and glaring at the Baron. The three shapes of three precious stones showed against the white. Kelworthy laughed, and the laugh made Lenville shiver.
“We have these three, the fourth is in my safe – oh, what beautiful preparations were made in that safe for you! But Granette made a mess of you, didn’t he? And now Granette’s got Van Royton’s stone, we’ve got all five, and we can get just what we want from de Castilla. Say half a million. Do you think he can rise to that?”