Love for the Baron

by John Creasey

  Next time, there was no doubt: her eyes were opening.

  Soon after Mannering alias Mason had been locked in the cellar, Lorna switched oil television, went into the big room without switching on the lights and looked down into the street. Here the fog was patchy; she could see the ghostly glow about a nearby street lamp but, further away, she could see a light very clearly with little more than a halo about it.

  How would the fog affect John?

  How long would he be?

  And – the question which was always at the back of her mind when he was out on such an expedition – would he come back? It was never possible to calculate the risk that was always there.

  The amazing thing was that he could still go out on such a venture without hesitating; as if he did not know the meaning of fear. But he did. In his very early days when she had first known him she had believed that he was insensitive to fear, but now she knew that it was his courage that was undefeatable. He accepted fear, faced it and worked in spite of it. He had so often taken almost desperate chances for other people: sometimes simply because they were human beings in need, sometimes because they had been the victims of some great injustice, never simply for the sake of it.

  This time—

  Had he really gone because of Lucille?

  Would he have ventured out tonight simply because there was some mystery about the Peek Collection? Because two old men might have been killed by some unlawful acceleration of an illness from which they suffered and from which in any case they would soon die?

  Or had he gone because he was in love with Lucille?

  That was the first time she had used the phrase ‘in love with’ and it made her wince a little, but she could also smile at herself. There wasn’t room for her jealousy. There might be no way of avoiding it, but it could do no good. And she had thought herself almost proof against it. A few years ago each of them had felt the strong pull of an illicit attraction; she did not know whether John knew she had, for a while, had a lover; she did not know whether he had ever had a mistress but she did know that for a while the strain between them had been so great that the bonds of marriage had nearly snapped.

  But they endured, and in many ways become stronger than ever; or she had thought they had until the advent of Lucille.

  She could remember laughing as he had told her how the two of them had cannoned into each other. Normally, after such an encounter, they would have sprung apart, but she guessed, she knew that instead, his arms had gone protectively about Lucille and for a moment they had looked – perhaps felt – like lovers. Very soon afterwards Lorna noticed that her husband had been more preoccupied than usual. Several times she had seen Lucille, and had wondered, then, whether they were in the middle of an affaire. If they were, Lucille could hardly have been more indiscreet.

  Now she knew they had not been; but she was not sure that the situation was not worse, for obviously John was fighting against a surge of emotion which could engulf him. One part of her longed to cry out: go with her, take her, let it burn itself out, and the other part of her longed for assurance that it was only a passing interest, not even serious enough to smoulder.

  The telephone bell rang.

  She thought: John! and sprang up, forgetting her ankle, wincing when she put her full weight on it and dropping into a chair by the telephone in the study.

  “Mrs. Mannering,” she said, and held her breath in the hope of hearing his voice.

  “I’d like to speak to Mr. Mannering,” a man said. There was something in his voice which told her that this certainly was not an ordinary social call. “Urgently, please.”

  “I’m sorry, but my husband isn’t here.”

  After a moment’s pause the man muttered in a despairing voice: “Oh, my God,” and he was obviously so distressed that he filled her with alarm. “When—when will he be back?”

  “I’m not sure, but perhaps I can help,” Lorna said, urgently. “I know most—”

  “I must talk to him.” The man’s voice was filled with despair.

  “I may be able to help,” Lorna said. “I am in his confidence.” She just prevented herself from asking who he was for the question might scare him away. “I think he is looking for a Mrs. Peek—”

  “You know about Lucille?”

  “I really am in his confidence.” Lorna made herself sound so much calmer than she felt. “And if you will tell me what you want I may be able to help. He left me certain instructions.” That was no more than half true but it might help.

  “I can’t tell you who I am,” the man said, obviously lighting to control his agitation, “but this I can say. I’ve just shot a man named Stanley Peek, I was at the Peeks’ house. I saw a man there who said he worked for Mr. Mannering.”

  John, breathed Lorna.

  “He was carrying Lucille Peek, and she seemed unconscious,” the man went on. “There was shooting and I got away, but I know this man was taken prisoner, with Lucille—”

  “Was he hurt?” Lorna still contrived to keep her voice steady.

  “I don’t know for certain but I don’t think so. The house is in Ealing, 24 Cirencester Street. I wanted to tell Mr. Mannering that this other man and Lucille Peek were there. I couldn’t stay and help, it—it would have been impossible, there were five or six men in the grounds. Will you—will you be able to do anything?”

  “I can try,” Lorna said in a bleak voice. “Please get off the line.”

  She called Bristow and told him exactly what the caller had said; she did not need to add that Bristow was fully aware that the ‘man who worked for Mannering’ was Mannering himself. In a mood close to despair she wondered what Bristow could possibly do, what she could do. Bristow’s voice cut across her thoughts, sharp and incisive.

  “Hold tight, Lorna. I shall call the Yard and tell them I believe Lucille is being kept at the Peeks’ house against her will and that there’s been shooting in the grounds. Even if it hasn’t been reported I think they’ll send a search party. If they do find Lucille it will be half the battle. If they found John as his alter ego it will be up to him to get out of trouble. Better have to greet the police than the Peeks. Do you agree?”

  “Yes,” Lorna said. “Yes.” But she thought frantically that in one way it might conceivably be worse. For how would he explain his presence at the house, and in disguise?

  Chief Superintendent Gordon of New Scotland Yard was on duty when Bristow telephoned. At one time one of Bristow’s Chief Assistants, now the Yard’s specialist on precious stones, there had been a time when he had been bitterly hostile to Mannering. But those days were past, and he listened intently and responded without hesitation.

  “All right, Bill. I’ll talk to Ealing and I’ll send some of our men along, too. Why don’t we meet you there?”

  About the same time as this, George Peek was looking at his brother, who was sitting up in bed, his left arm and shoulder heavily bandaged. The doctor who had come to dress the wound had left, and now Stanley looked pale but relaxed in spite of an underlying tension which affected the two of them.

  “One day we’ll get Pace,” he said, “but there’s no need to worry about him now. What we have to worry about are the police.”

  “If they come, we’ll do what I said before,” replied George. “We caught a burglar and he shot his way out. We’ve sealed off the washroom; no one is going to find the cellar.”

  “Mannering’s man did,” Stanley put in thinly.

  “That must have been a fluke. We’ve taken the gun away from downstairs—”

  “George,” Stanley interrupted, “it wouldn’t matter if you had a hundred guns rigged up downstairs provided the police don’t find the cellar. If they do we’re done for. If they don’t we’ll be O.K. once Lucille’s mouth is shut forever, and the man’s as well. And Mannering’s, he probably guesses too much already.”

  George said heavily: “Mannering’s one thing, the two downstairs another. They can rot to death. I tell you we don’t need to wor
ry. All the police will find is you in bed with a bullet wound, and me with a bruise on my chest where that swine kicked me – there’s the evidence. I’ve sent the boys home, they’ll stay put until we want them again. There’s nothing to worry about provided you don’t panic.”

  He stopped speaking and for a few moments there was silence; a silence broken abruptly by the ringing of the front door bell, heavy banging on the knocker and, from outside, the wailing of a police siren.

  “I’ll go and let them in,” George said. He got up hurriedly and made for the stairs. The manservant was already at the door, wearing a dressing-gown over his pyjamas, and all George Peek had to do was pull back the top bolt.

  Four policemen stood outside on the porch.

  There were four more on the drive, still more at the back, all of them vague and misty figures in the fog. George complained bitterly about how long they had been in coming, lied smoothly when claiming that he had sent for them soon after the shooting, told the carefully prepared story he and his brother had rehearsed.

  The police searched every room, all the outhouses including the old-fashioned wash-house, the garages, every place they could find. Neither of the Peeks questioned Bristow’s presence, both appeared to give all the help they could.

  Absolutely nothing was found.

  “Absolutely nothing was found,” Bristow said to Lorna, at the Chelsea flat. “It looks to me as if John worked one of his miracles, and got away with Lucille. You might hear from him at any time. But just in case of new developments Gordon left two men in the grounds, with orders to keep a lookout, and to make another search in the morning. Not that they’ll be able to, unless the log clears,” he added gruffly. “It’s like an old-fashioned peasouper outside. Mind if I use your spare room?”

  What he really meant was that he did not want to leave Lorna here alone for the night: and he was as anxious as she to know the moment John telephoned.

  If he telephoned.

  Mannering lay on the long crate, with Lucille by his side. She was asleep, but it was a natural sleep now, and it would not take much to wake her. All but one light was out, and that was behind them, so there was no strain on their eyes. Physically more relaxed, he had time to go over and over again the whole affair from his very first encounter with Lucille.

  It was strange, to feel so close and yet be aware of no desire.

  Perhaps it was the pressures of the day. Perhaps he was just physically exhausted. Perhaps some change had taken place in him, emotionally. Whatever the cause, her beauty, her desirability, left him untouched, his heart growing heavier with every moment. It was two o’clock, his wristwatch said. The police were certainly not coming tonight.

  But the police had come, and gone.

  20

  Way Out?

  There must be a way out.

  He had been locked into strong-rooms before, and found some outlet; he had been in prisons, and escaped. He had run the gauntlet of a hundred policemen in the same building searching for him, and they had not caught him. He had been in foul and evil-smelling dungeons, and was a free man – until today. There must be a way out.

  He felt Lucille move, and knew that she had woken. He felt her body stir, and saw her turn her head. There was enough light for her to take in the shelves and their contents, for her to know where she was. Suddenly she saw Mannering and gave a convulsive start.

  “It’s all right,” he said. “No need to be scared.”

  It was not until he spoke that she realised who he was. She stared, holding her breath. Awareness had come too soon after waking; she began to shiver. For the first time he put his arm about her.

  She gulped, and moistened her lips.

  “We—we are in the cellar.”

  “Yes.”

  “In the cellar,” she repeated in a tone as of horror.

  “Lucille,” he said, “do you know a way out – except by the main door?”

  Those golden-coloured eyes looked frantically into his; and her breathing grew uneven.

  “There is no way,” she said. “Oh, John, why did you come here?”

  “I came to find out what was happening,” he said. “And I have found out.”

  “If you had stayed away—”

  “You would still have been a prisoner here.”

  “I am not important,” she said, impatiently. “I did not want to ruin—” She broke off and closed her eyes; and it was like the turning off of a light. Her voice was dull and despairing as she repeated: “There is no other way out.”

  “There has to be,” he said.

  She did not speak but moistened her lips again, and he realised that she must be parched. He must get her some water. He eased himself away from her and went to the little cloakroom, ran a paper cup of cold water and as he ran the tap and turned it off there was a rattling of sound in the pipes. An air-lock, perhaps—

  “My God!” he breathed.

  He carried the water back to her, then pulled a smaller crate immediately beneath the ceiling ventila tion shaft. The grill itself was easy to take off now that he had loosened it. There was little or no dust about the edges. He could see only a few inches inside, not far enough to discern what the sides of the airduct were made of. Metal, porcelain or brick? He tapped with the nails of his right hand. A little tinny echo returned to him. He tried more sharply with a bent finger, and now there was a kind of boom.

  Lucille called: “John!”

  He thought: Not now, not now! Here was a way of getting a message up to the surface, and this must surely lead to an open space in the garden.

  “John, take this!”

  This? He glanced down impatiently, saw that she was handing him a sheathed knife: metal! He took it and tapped several times and the sound was clear and loud – but could it be heard above ground? And if it were, who would hear it? George or Stanley Peek, or their men, or—

  He changed the beat to the S.O.S. signal, so easy to make and familiar to millions – if there was only one of those millions to hear it.

  S.O.S.

  He kept on slowly and deliberately until his arm was too tired to continue. Then Lucille took over.

  Two policemen on duty in the grounds heard the tapping but were not sure what it was.

  George Peek, sleeping in a room close to the ventilation grid, heard it first in his sleep, and then gradually into his consciousness.

  S.O.S.

  For a few minutes he lay in bed, recognising the sound without immediately identifying it, but gradually it impinged itself on his mind.

  S.O.S.

  “My God!” he rasped, and pushed the bedclothes back and went to the window. Here it was, a clear and unmistakable sound, for the shaft was immediately below the window and a drainpipe seemed to pick it up and magnify it.

  S.O.S. S.O.S.

  He pulled on trousers and a top coat over his pyjamas and slipped down the stairs and out the back way. The noise was still unmistakable, but not so loud here – although loud enough. He went straight to the garages and opened the middle one, got into the wheel of a Jaguar and started the engine. He backed out slowly, knowing exactly what he had to do, sure that it could not fail. He reversed until the exhaust pipe was just above the ventilation grille so that the exhaust fumes struck the wall of the house and were thrown back beneath the car and into the grille and the duct. The engine idled quietly. The stink of the exhaust was bad even ten yards from the car. George Peek moved away.

  It was too cold to stay out, and he had no idea how long it would take the carbon-monoxide to take effect in the cellar. The fumes would be too strong in his own room for him to go back to bed but there was a small room across the courtyard where he could hear the beat of the engine, and through it the interminable tap-tap-tap-tap of the call for help. He reached the room and opened the window a fraction. Both sounds were quite audible.

  “Half-an-hour ought to be enough,” he said to himself, and he sat in an armchair and put his feet up on a smaller chair, with the light ful
l on. Whatever happened, he mustn’t go to sleep.

  Mannering was the first to smell the exhaust fumes, for they began during one of his periods of tapping out the message, but within a few minutes Lucille, too, was just as acutely aware of what was happening. She looked up at him, her face drawn and white.

  “How long will it take, John?”

  “There’s no way of telling. George or Stanley must have heard us – so someone else might.”

  “It is no use to lie to ourselves,” Lucille said, with the unnatural calmness of one prepared to die, “I am only sorry that I involved you in this.” She watched as he continued to tap, and then went on: “But this I can tell you. My husband planned this fraud before he died: but he had no intention of sharing it with his sons. I am desolated because his hatred of them stemmed from their hatred of me.”

  She broke off; coughing. And Mannering, too, began to cough, fighting to check himself, knowing that it could so easily grow into a paroxysm which he could not stop.

  Lucille went on, her voice growing hoarse and uncertain: “I believe they killed him because of it, and I believe they killed Mr. Harcourt because Stanley told him. And they tried to prevent me from telling you and tried to kill you after you had been to my flat, in case I had told you. They have always had men who worked for them, hired thieves and killers, desperate men whom they paid well. They live in a small house near here and come whenever they are wanted, willing to do whatever they are told.”

  Mannering began to cough again, and for a moment paused in his tapping.

  “John,” Lucille said, “it is not worth going on.” She clung to him. “I wanted the real Collection, they wanted me to have the fake one, and wanted me to sell it. I had your valuation, on such a word as yours every buyer would be satisfied. And I must tell you I would have agreed if I had not fallen in love with you.

  “All those other reasons I gave you were false, John.