by John Creasey
Leverson had been able to assure the Baron that Matthew Lobjoit had a small strong-room in his offices, and did not use a safe-deposit or a bank for papers and deeds. It was a safety measure on Lobjoit’s part, in view of the dubious nature of some of his transactions. Knowing that, the Baron also knew that the job would be straightforward, if not easy.
Round his waist he carried a special set of tools and materials. The job was very different from the country-house burglaries in which he specialised, but it could be done.
He got off the taxi at Liverpool Street, slipped in at one entrance of the station and out of another. It was less than five-minute’s walk from there to Lobjoit’s office building. This was built on a corner, and, what was better from Mannering’s point of view, was part of an L-shaped block. To reach the rear of the premises he had to slip through a narrow alley, which led also to the unpretentious front door of a smaller, older block of offices. He had studied the position carefully.
The turning off Bishopsgate was the first move to call for caution.
Mannering was walking quickly, glancing ahead of him and behind from time to time. He could hear footsteps on the far side of the road, and slowed down a little as a girl hurried along. A hundred yards ahead a policeman walked along, trying the door-handles of shops and ground-floor offices. One shop had a porch, and the man disappeared. The only other human being in sight was a road cleaner. Silence seemed to drop over the City as the Baron slipped down the alleyway.
He went quickly, on his toes despite the fact that he was wearing rubber soles and heels on his otherwise perfect dress shoes. The blue mask was merely a scarf thrown loosely round his neck, beneath his coat. He was wearing thin gloves with rubber fingertips, which would enable him to get a grip without leaving fingerprints.
As he went down the alley his heart was beating faster than usual, his teeth were flashing. The L-shape of the building had its advantages; on the other hand, there was only one avenue of escape. When he reached the courtyard he paused, listening intently.
There was no sound nearby. From Bishopsgate the heavy plod-plod of the policeman’s feet came clearly, so did the tapping of high heels. Twice in as many seconds a car roared past. Then there was a lull.
Leverson had assured the Baron that the patrol on that beat looked at the courtyard twice, at half-past one and again at four o’clock. It was now ten-past twelve.
The Baron pulled his scarf up, knotting it over his mouth and chin so that it served to hide two things – his face and the white of his shirt-front. The gloves were blue, and he merged with the gloom, so that no one glancing casually from a window near would have seen him.
There were no lights on, no sound now, and Mannering stepped quickly across the courtyard to the lowest window.
It was barred; all the ground-floor windows were, an obvious precaution against forced entry. The Baron slipped the body-belt of tools and equipment from his waist and rested it gently on the ground. He picked out a small oil can, and squeezed some of its contents on the sockets of the upright bars. There were two of these, and to take one away would not have given space enough for him to squeeze through. He needed a good exit for the return journey; he had had more than enough of risky return journeys recently.
The oil can contained not oil but an acid which would take three minutes to crumble the cement and make it as pliable as fresh putty, a quick-working solvent that the Baron had used frequently before. He climbed on the low windowsill and started the difficult task, squirting the acid on the top sockets. It took him two minutes; he had three to spare.
He left the tool-kit where it was and hurried to the entrance of the next block of flats. No lights glowed. There was a watchman on Lobjoit’s premises, but a watchman who liked sleep and beer.
By the time he reached the window again he could start on the bars.
He waited until the plodding footsteps passed in Bishopsgate again, then for the hum of an approaching car engine. It came, growing louder every second. The Baron wrenched suddenly at the first bar, using both hands. There was a loud crack that was drowned by the car engine. Some of the cement had not softened as it should have done, but the bar came away in Mannering’s hands.
The noise of the car engine died away, and only occasional footsteps echoed loudly through the silence. Mannering waited for another car, examining the loosened bar as he did so.
It was chisel-shaped at both ends, and that was going to save him ten-minute’s work. He had known that to get in the building he would want to move the bars, and had planned to use one of them as a jemmy. He had done so before, but the tops of the bars had usually wanted filing to a chisel-edge. This time the work was done for him. It was a three-foot bar, long enough to give tremendous leverage, yet not too heavy for comfortable handling.
The silence was about him now, complete and enshrouding. Not even a footfall disturbed it. He waited until a lorry or bus roared near, then wrenched the second bar, which came more silently than the first.
Now for the window.
It was a heavy plate-glass pane, with the glass painted white on the inside. The glue-and-brown-paper method was useless against it. He would need a smith’s hammer to break it in any case, and it would have been practically impossible to cut it with a diamond. He ran his fingers down the hardened putty at the sides.
It was puttied on the outside fairly liberally, and he knew he could get through without much trouble.
His second tool was as humdrum as the oil can, a single-bladed clasp knife. He drew the blade down the sides of the window, breaking the putty away easily. A glazier had put the glass in within the past six months.
Thirty seconds were enough for the operation. He left a few inches down one side, to make sure the window did not fall until he was ready, then tapped the top of it gently drawing the bottom towards him with a vacuum rubber tip which had sufficient force to hold it.
As the top went inward the bottom came outward, and in a few seconds he had the pane of glass far enough from the frame to grip it on both sides. He lifted it out and put it carefully inside the passage on which it opened.
There was still no sound of anyone near.
He stepped into the passage quickly, a dark, wraith-like figure, and lifted the glass back into position after he had brought his tools inside. A little putty along the edges and some gummed paper would deceive a casual observer.
He went through on the ground floor, and turned towards the right. A second, wider passage took him to the front hall. As he reached it the headlights of a car sent a pale glow of light through the windows. He could see the stairs and the lift, and wished the lift was workable. It was not automatic, he knew, but hand-operated.
Three flights of stairs, made of concrete and free from creaking, but the pressure of his rubber soles made a soft padding noise that echoed through the silence. Twice he passed small windows, and the light from the Bishopsgate lamps filtered through.
He reached the third floor; Lobjoit’s floor.
There were five doors leading from the T-shaped passage, two marked ‘General’, three marked ‘Private’, all with the names of the occupants. Lobjoit’s was at the far end of the right side of the T, where the darkness was inky. For the first time the Baron needed his torch, a flat one with a long, narrow magnifying glass, fitted with three bulbs.
He shone it on the lock, and scowled. It was a double Yale, and not easy to open; with a pick-lock it was next door to impossible. He had half expected this, and was prepared to make some noise, but it was disappointing.
If Flick Leverson was a true informer the watchman would be on the ground floor until twelve-thirty, when he would make his first tour of inspection – providing he was awake. Mannering had ten minutes to work in, and it was hardly enough.
He spent five minutes trying to pick the lock, but it defeated him. He was still working when a
man’s singing sounded from somewhere behind and below him.
A musical watchman is something of a rarity and the cracksman’s true friend. Mannering left his tools on the floor by Lobjoit’s door, and crept along to the head of the stairs. The watchman was carrying a storm-lantern, which he swung from side to side, singing in a low-pitched croon, and occasionally muttering to himself for variety. Mannering waited while the man came up step by step, then slipped into one branch of the T as the man walked into the other. He waited for a cursory inspection, then went down the stairs, pressing close against the wall as the watchman walked across the landing and to Lobjoit’s room.
Would he see the tools?
The home-made jemmy was lying in the corner of the wall and floor. The man would never notice that, but the other tools might attract attention, by the wall and door. If they did, the watchman would have to be dealt with.
Mannering’s gas-pistol was ready.
There was a grunt, a high-pitched line of a popular song, and the lantern began to swing again. Mannering slipped back to his first hiding-place. Singing and muttering alternately, the watchman passed the landing; his words came clearly.
‘My, I c’d do with a drop! Tra-la! Dom-dom, dom-dom—’
The Baron could have laughed aloud.
He waited until the singing watchman was out of earshot, and then hurried back to his tools. There was much less need for stealth now. He was well away from the street, there were no windows, and the watchman could not hear three flights of stairs away.
The iron bar jemmy was heavier than he thought, but the wedge-end slipped between the door and the upright. Mannering levered on it. Wood splintered, and he forced the jemmy farther in expertly. It was just above the lock as he exerted what pressure he could, pushing downward.
The noise seemed enough to wake the dead, but it probably travelled no farther than the second floor. The Baron worked on it steadily, increasing his pressure all the time, not working in short jerks. He could hear the metal of the lock scraping against the bar, and then a sudden crack.
He put the jemmy down quickly and, moving with great speed and sureness, tried the handle. The door opened, and the Baron stepped in, taking his tools with him. He left the door open wide enough to hear any sound from outside.
Lobjoit’s big roll-top desk was in one corner by the only window, a small one that was little better than a fanlight. Doors led to the right and left as well as behind the Baron.
Deed-boxes were on shelves that ran round the room, and the Baron glanced at the names, one after the other. He did not see Fauntley’s – that was too much to expect – but he did discover that Matthew Lobjoit had a large number of influential clients.
Both doors had locks as sound as the one which the Baron had just broken. That leading to the left was no use to him, for it went into the clerk’s office. The other, on the right, should lead to the strong-room.
He used the jemmy again, and had even less trouble. The door opened in less than three minutes, and he stepped inside.
This was the strong-room all right.
The Baron stood on the threshold with the wide stream of light from his torch swinging round and about, the blue mask over his face, the opera-hat aslant on his head. His heart was beating fast as he examined the lock of the big safe in one corner. It did not take long to realise that it would have to be blown. Gelignite or oxyacetylene were needed, and the Baron seldom used a burner.
He took a small stick of gelignite from his tool-kit. Once the safe door was open, five minutes would see him safely back in Bishopsgate. It could also see him on the way to gaol.
Chapter Eight
THE DISCOMFITURE OF MR. TEEVENS
The Baron was never happy about the need for using an explosive. It was risky and did not always bring results. But that night everything seemed to be breaking with him. Gus Teevens’s face seemed to loom in front of him.
He had two small sticks of gelignite and two small fuses with him, but the difficult part of the job was preventing the sound from travelling outside, not blowing the safe open.
Lobjoit’s office might have been made for the purpose. The strong-room was built into the wall, a cell little more than nine feet by six. It had no windows, and after the Baron had lighted a five-minute fuse and put the gelignite stick in the keyhole he stepped out of the strong-room and closed the door.
Thirty seconds of the five minutes were gone. He took a large roll of inch-wide adhesive tape from his tool-kit and began to seal the crevices of the door, starting at the top and running down each side, pressing the tape to the door and the framework. Three minutes passed before both sides were done. He was working against time, quickly and smoothly.
The whole task was completed before the explosion came. The strong-room was sealed as thoroughly as a sick room after harbouring a fever patient. Mannering’s watch told him he had ten seconds to wait.
The boom! came on the eighth second.
In that small office it was devastating. The door of the strong-room creaked, most of the adhesive tape was wrenched away, a dull thud sounded from inside the room. The Baron waited grimly as the noise settled down. Sixty seconds passed before he tore the rest of the tape away and opened the door.
He could have laughed aloud!
The safe could not have been opened more cleanly with a key. The door was standing open, and there was a gaping hole where the lock had been.
His confidence that this was his night increased. He pulled the door of the safe open wider and started to lift the boxes and files one by one, piling them on to the floor.
A small typewritten slip of paper on a corner of each gave him what he wanted. He went through them quickly. Some of the most famous names in Society were here; commerce also had suffered from the Teevens-Lobjoit depredations; the stage and the film world had had their share of misfortunes.
Mannering would have given a lot to have glanced through the contents of some of the boxes, but there were three he was particularly anxious to get – Fauntley’s, Alice Purnall’s and that of the man named Didcotte.
He still did not know who Didcotte was, but hoped to find out here.
He found Alice Purnall’s file first in a single sheaf of papers. Fauntley’s box was a different proposition, and Mannering took out a screwdriver, inserted the wedge-point between the lid and the box, and forced the lock.
It snapped with a crack louder in his ears than the explosion, and he jumped up as the lid gaped open, for there seemed to be an echo from outside. He slipped back to the landing, his ears strained to catch the slightest sound.
None came.
‘Nerves,’ said Mannering to himself.
A quick glance through the papers in Fauntley’s box showed him the deeds and other things that might be interesting, but the deeds were the pièce de resistance. He bundled them with the Purnall papers and the rest of the stuff, then searched for the name Didcotte.
He soon found it, a box as securely locked as Fauntley’s. He forced the lock and put the papers with the others, stuffed the lot into the capacious inner pocket of his coat. So far there had not been a hitch, it was almost too good to be true.
He closed the strong-room door, gathered his tools together, and left the offices. His rubber-soled shoes made no sound louder than a soft padding as he hurried. In two minutes he would be outside; in four, he would be in Bishopsgate; in six, in a taxi at Liverpool Street station.
As he reached the ground floor he heard the crooning watchman, and resisted a temptation to wish the man good night. He reached the window within sixty seconds of leaving the suite of offices. Nothing had been touched; the pane of glass was still stuck in with stiff brown paper. He was working fast now, and his lips were set, for this was the one point in his plan which he had not been able to guarantee as safe, the one time in the night’s venture when
he would have liked an accomplice to sound the all-clear.
He lifted the pane of glass and rested it inside the passage. Keeping the blue handkerchief about his face, he stepped out of the window.
He had his tool-kit round his waist, and his gas-pistol for emergency in his right hand. He went cautiously, glancing quickly right and left.
No one was there, no sound came. The Baron drew a deep breath, and there was perspiration on his forehead. He approached the alley quickly and hurried along it, his fingers at his mask to take it down when he reached the street.
A faint light from a street lamp at the alley’s entrance cast a dim glow. The Baron reached the end, his heart still thumping, the tension of that thirty seconds’ walk greater than any he had experienced during the whole expedition.
The street at last, and safety . . .
The Baron was actually starting to take his mask off, becoming Mannering again, when he caught sight of the shadow of someone, pressed close against the wall. He stopped; an involuntary gasp escaped his lips, and as it came the men converged on him. There were three of them, all in police uniform!
He had walked into a trap.
He stood absolutely motionless for perhaps two seconds, and by that time the first of the policemen was on him, a big man with his truncheon drawn.
‘Where have you been, sir?’
The Baron answered, but not with words.
He drove his clenched left fist into the policeman’s middle like a battering-ram, and as the man gave ground, staggering, the Baron swung round like a whirling tornado, dodging the flaying truncheons of the other two.
He could not use his gas-pistol, for he could not get close enough; it was brute force or nothing.