Meet The Baron tbs-1

by John Creasey

  “Then what the devil’s the meaning of these ?” began Wagnall, and then relapsed into silence. All the men present looked at one another awkwardly, and it was Mannering who moved first. He picked up the necklace and held it close to his eyes for a moment; then he rolled the stones in his fingers thoughtfully. He had guessed what they were, even though he still could not understand how Long had come by them. Bui at least, he told himself, he could ease the tension.

  “They’re fakes,” he said quietly.

  In the silence that followed a pin dropping would have made a clatter. Only Mannering was fully under control, and his lips were twitching. The next man to recover himself was the Yard detective.

  “Fakes ?” His voice cracked. “Duds! But, hang it, Mr Mannering, the real stones are missing!”

  “Possibly they had dummies made for the show,” said Mannering easily.

  Wagnall and the Colonel shook their heads decisively.

  “Never! It might have caused a scandal,” Wagnall assured him.

  “All the same, these are dummies — culture-pearls at their best,” said Mannering, throwing the pearls into the air and catching them. “I’ll wager my opinion against anyone you care to bring, Mr Wagnall.”

  He looked inquisitively at the American, who seemed

  completely bewildered.

  “But — but why the dummies?” Wagnall was staring at Gerry Long, who was still looking uncertain, and creating an impression that he knew something, that there was at least some truth in this accusation. “Tarnation, Gerry, say something! You didn’t come by these things by accident Where’d you get them?”

  Wagnall’s voice had hardened, and his aggressive tone seemed to be the stimulant that Long wanted. The younger man’s eyes flashed, and he squared his shoulders, as though preparing for a physical effort.

  “I don’t know where I got them,” he said slowly. “They were in my pocket; they must have been put there. . .”

  The man from Dorman’s Agency laughed across the words.

  “A fine story! With all respect to you, Mr Wagnall, it’s as plain as the nose on my face. Mr Long took the original pearls, hoping to slip the dummies in their place later.”

  “When I’m needing your opinion,” said Wagnall coldly, “I’ll advise you.”

  The man from Dorman’s dropped back a pace. Every expression went from his face, saving a mask-like smile.

  “Very good, Mr Wagnall.”

  “And that,” thought Mannering, “is a fair specimen of the private detective.” He tried to remember the name of the Yard man, who was still inspecting the pearls, looking as though he was thoroughly pleased with himself — a remarkable thing, now that the situation was fogged instead of clear.

  Tring — Sergeant Tring, Mannering remembered, and he was glad to have even so small a thing to hold on to in this nightmare development.

  Sergeant Jacob Tring, or Tanker, was thoroughly enjoying himself. The pearls were undoubtedly missing, the obvious suspect was Long, a friend of Wagnall’s, and the whole affair presented complications that would have made the average policeman savage; Tanker was accordingly happy.

  “I’m thinking,” he said, after noting with malicious pleasure that the Dorman Agency man had been rapped over the knuckles, “that Mr Mannering’s correct, Mr Wagnall. These are dummies all right.”

  The American’s eyes glittered.

  “Surely,” he snapped, “you’ve reached a most important decision, officer? Perhaps you’ll tell me now what you propose to do to find the real pearls ?”

  Tanker was used to outbursts of all kinds, and he took them with a kind of gloomy joy.

  “Yes,” he said, and he said it with relish, “I propose to send for help, and make a thorough search, sir. I’ve telephoned for the Inspector.”

  “Bristow?” snapped Wagnall.

  “Yes, sir,” said Tanker.

  Colonel Belton, who had been standing by and showing remarkable restraint, took a step forward, as though the limit had been passed.

  “But it’s impossible, impossible! We can’t search — these — these people.”

  “The law’s the law, sir,” said Tanker, still with relish.

  Belton cleared his throat and glowered. Mannering knew that he was thinking of the celebrities still in the house, of the commotion and sensation a general search would cause. He felt sorry for the Colonel at that moment, because Belton was a man who believed in the thing being the thing, and whose sense of obligation to his guests was very strong. By no stretch of the imagination could this be blamed on to him, but he took it as a personal responsibility, ignoring the fact that the police barely troubled to consult him.

  “It’s unthinkable,” he muttered; “it’s — it’s not done J”

  Apparently Wagnall did not agree.

  “Why?” he said laconically. “What other choice have we?”

  There was a pause; conflicting emotions in the room were very strong. The only man of whom Mannering was not sure was Gerry Long. Gerry was leaning against the table, smiling a little, and now thoroughly at ease. Where a few minutes before he had looked guilty and afraid of consequences, he now created the impression that he hadn’t a care in the world. Belton was very red in the face, worried and annoyed. Wagnall was making the best of a bad job, and taking the thing well. Sergeant Tanker Tring and the other police-constable seemed to be looking forward to their task with considerable pleasure, while Mason, the agency man, was also pleased — maliciously.

  Mannering was disappointed in Sergeant Tring.

  The obvious thing, if a general search was needed, was to make sure that no one in the house was allowed to leave.

  The fact that the damage was done in this direction should have made the policeman realise at once the futility of his suggestion.

  He had underestimated Tring.

  The Yard man believed, reasonably enough, that Long had arranged to slip the false pearls into the place of the originals and to hide or pass on to an associate the genuine string. It was the obvious solution to the mystery, and if the associate was in the house a search would reveal him — or her. On the other hand, Tring knew “that the guests had already started to leave. He doubted whether Long, who had not been in the reception-room, knew that, and, by proposing a general search, hoped to trap the young American into an admission of sorts.

  Long refused the bait, but he broke the silence.

  “I’m sorry that you don’t feel you can take my word for it,” he said. “But I’m telling you that the first time I saw those pearls” — he pointed to the string in Tring’s hand — “was when they were taken from my pocket. The only time.”

  “Nons . . .” started Bel ton, and thought better of it.

  “Is that true, Gerry ?” asked Wagnall evenly.

  Gerry Long flushed a little, but his voice was steady.

  “I’m saying it is,” he said.

  Wagnall took a deep breath. Mannering, watching him, could easily understand why the man had risen to considerable heights in the commercial world. He had a way with him that created the impression that his word was the obvious law, and no one could have taken the theft more coolly.

  “That’s good enough for me,” he said.

  “But not for me, I’m afraid,” said Tring respectfully.

  Wagnall looked at the sergeant as though he was nonexistent.

  “I’ll talk with the Inspector,” he said.

  Tring coloured, and muttered under his breath. Mannering, now that he felt that there was little or no likelihood of trouble arising for Gerry Long, felt easier in his mind, and more able to appreciate the humours of the situation.

  “Meanwhile — the search?” he suggested.

  Tring’s respect for him suffered a reverse, but the sergeant was used to the reactions of the untrained mind, and certainly he did not appreciate the depth of Mannering’s remarks.

  “Now we think of it,” said the sergeant quietly, “it won’t be much good, gentlemen. Half the guests are
away by now.”

  Mannering whistled, and his surprise seemed perfectly real.

  “The devil ! So they are!”

  Colonel George Belton looked his relief, but had wits enough left not to speak of it. Frank Wagnall shrugged his shoulders, and Gerry Long seemed to realise that the storm had blown over for him. He was smiling in real amusement now.

  It was in this atmosphere that Detective-Inspector William Bristow found himself when he arrived in response to Tring’s telephone-call. The detective heard the story, briefly outlined by Tring. The accident to Lady Kenton — how he hated the sound of that woman’s name! — the check-up on the gifts, suggested by Mannering, the discovery that the pearls were missing, the finding of the lakes on Gerry Long a few minutes later. Tring was very brisk and official throughout his recital.

  “What made you think Long had them?” Bristow demanded pertinently.

  Tanker shrugged his shoulders.

  “He happened to be just outside, sir, when I opened the door. “Trouble?” he asked. “Pearls gone,” ses I, and he moved his hand towards his pocket, sir. I just slipped mine in after he’d stopped thinking about it and found ‘em.”

  It was a little unorthodox, Bristow thought, but the end had justified the means, and he took the situation in hand immediately. He left Tring and the other Yard man to watch the library, asked Mason to guard the door against the unlikely eventuality of a further raid, and suggested to the Colonel that they should have a quiet talk.

  Ten minutes after the detective had arrived all five men were sitting in the Colonel’s study, one of the few rooms in the house which had not been delivered up to the celebrations.

  The Colonel, much more cheerful now that the possibility of a scandal had disappeared, rang for whisky. Mannering watched the reactions of Gerry Long very carefully, and he was more puzzled than ever.

  He told himself that Long had been eager for that stimulant. The American knew something. What was it ?

  They didn’t find out that evening. Bristow asked a dozen catch-questions, but Long stuck to his story. The dummy necklace, he maintained, must have been slipped into his pocket. It was possible, of course, that it had been inserted after Lady Kenton’s fall, but it might have been before that. From his knowledge of precious stones he was inclined to believe that the pearls he had commented upon to Lady Kenton had been genuine, but the light had been poor, and he had not touched them; he couldn’t be certain.

  “You’re sure you didn’t touch them?” asked Bristow.

  “Ask Mannering,” said Long, with a quick smile.

  Mannering smiled and nodded.

  “That’s beyond doubt,” he said. “Neither of them touched the pearls — nor did I, for that matter. We were too anxious to rescue Lady Kenton.”

  Bristow managed a smile, but his expression was sour.

  “Well, gentlemen,” he said, “we’ve no real proof that the pearls were stolen during that little episode. They might have disappeared any time during the day. It looks,” he added thoughtfully, “as if someone exchanged the real pearls for dummies, and afterwards slipped the dummies into Mr. Long’s pocket.”

  “Thanks,” drawled Gerry.

  “But why remove the dummies at all ?” demanded Mannering.

  Bristow shrugged his shoulders.

  “I just can’t say,” he said. “I will do everything I can, Mr Wagnall, to recover the pearls, but I can promise nothing. It’s been cleverly done — very cleverly.”

  Mannering smiled a little, but his satisfaction at the success of the haul was marred by the discovery of the dummies. Someone else had had their eyes on the pearls, and he would have liked to know who it was; but there was one thing that helped him: the trail was so hopelessly confused that no one was likely to get near the genuine string; certainly he had nothing of which to complain.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  A SUSPECT

  MANNERING WAS NOT SURPRISED ON THE FOLLOWING MORNING to find Gerry Long waiting for him in the lounge of the Elan. The American looked cheerful enough, but inwardly, Mannering thought, he was very worried. It was not long before he broached the affair of the previous afternoon, and Mannering knew that the other had been thinking about it a great deal.

  “It’s all right, so far as it goes,” Long said, as the two men walked towards the Junior Carlton, “but I’m damned sure that Belton’s suspicious of me, Mannering. And I don’t quite know what to make of that detective. It’s not good enough.”

  “You mean,” said Mannering thoughtfully, “that if you could find who really took the necklace you’d be able to clear yourself ?”

  “That’s about the size of it,” admitted Long.

  “How are you going to set about it?” asked Mannering.

  The American shrugged his shoulders.

  “How can I ?” he demanded. “If your police can’t . . .”

  “You could employ a private detective,” suggested Mannering.

  Long laughed, without much humour.

  “Another specimen like that stuffed dummy Mason?”

  “Well,” said Mannering with a short laugh, “the only other thing you can do is to hope that the Yard finds the thing. It isn’t as if you had any idea who took them.”

  Long looked very grim; Mannering watched him and wondered at the set expression on his face, but he was not prepared for the bombshell that followed.

  “But I have,” Long said.

  Just for a moment Mannering’s face turned colour. They were walking along the Mall, and Mannering had been enjoying the walk and the conversation. He was sorry for Gerry Long, and he proposed making sure as soon as it was possible that the American suffered no consequences from the suspicion that had fallen on him. Apart from that little matter he had felt thoroughly happy and at peace with the world. Success was coming easily, and he was still unsuspected — or at least so He had thought.

  But Long had an idea who’d taken the pearls!

  To cover his momentary confusion Mannering coughed. He straightened up with a smile that cost him a great effort.

  “Sorry,” he said. “Er — so you have an idea, have you? Well . . .”

  “I’ve no objection to telling you,” said Long, and Mannering’s heart stopped thumping. “It seems absurd, but . . .”

  “Who are you getting at?” demanded Mannering, intrigued, yet sure that Long’s suspicion was not very close to the mark.

  The other’s words made him gasp. They came quickly, as though the American was afraid of ridicule, but there was no doubting their sincerity.

  “Lady Kenton,” said Gerry Long.

  Lady Kenton! For a moment Mannering felt beyond the power of speech. He stared at the American, and only the grimness of the other’s eyes and the obvious sincerity of the words stopped him from laughing.

  “But why ?” he demanded helplessly.

  “It’s pretty clear,” said Long, rather more nasal than he was usually, “that the old dame’s fall and the disappearance of the pearls coincided . . .”

  “Not necessarily,” said Mannering quickly.

  “But they sure did,” persisted Long. “Look — I know I didn’t take them. You know you didn’t. Who else? She was the only one in the room, apart from the policeman . . .”

  “What about Mason, the agency man ?” asked Mannering quickly.

  “I’ve thought of him,” said Long. “He wasn’t near the table. In fact, I think he was actually outside the door just then.”

  Mannering nodded.

  “So it was you, I, or Lady Kenton,” said Long. “We know it wasn’t either of us . . .”

  “So it must cancel out to her ladyship,” murmured Mannering.

  He was on the alert now, for Long was being very persistent on the “it wasn’t either of us” note. Was it possible that the American did suspect him, and was playing him subtly ?

  “That’s as I see it,” said Long.

  Was he being sincere, or was he hinting? Mannering would have given a great deal to have
known that, but he could only wait until Long had given him a further lead.

  “Well,” he said, after a short pause, “that’s all right from our point of view. But the police will suspect you as much as Lady Kenton, if they suspect any of us.”

  “You don’t have to tell me what they think about me,” said Long.

  There was such bitterness in the words that Mannering looked at the other sharply. In that moment he realised that Gerry Long, for all his apparent ease of manner, for all his carelessness, was taking the affair to heart. The American felt the suspicion keenly. Just for a moment he looked desperate, and the fact came as something of a shock to Mannering.

  He had not known the other many weeks, but he had told himself that Gerry Long was the last man in the world to worry much about being under suspicion. He told himself, too, that the young American’s financial position was such that it made that suspicion absurd. But the fact remained that Gerry Long was suffering keenly, and Mannering was worried. He changed his mind about going to the club.

  “Let’s get along to my flat,” he suggested. “We can talk this out, Gerry.”

  Long agreed. He did not speak during the walk to the flat, and the impression of desperation that Mannering had gathered on the previous night and which he had seen that morning was heightened. There was something on Gerry Long’s mind that was worrying him a great deal more than seemed justifiable.

  An hour later Mannering told himself that the American left the flat in a more cheerful frame of mind than when he had reached it. But Mannering was still worried. Long had discussed the theft thoroughly, but he had given Mannering no clue to the reason for his anxiety; yet that anxiety was very real, Mannering was sure.

  “And all,” murmured the cracksman to himself, “for Lady Kenton’s pearls.”

  There was a sardonic smile on his lips as he unlocked the small desk against the wall and took the pearls from their hiding-place.

  His words to Lady Kenton on the previous night had not been entirely empty. The string was beautifully graduated, worth every penny of five thousand pounds, and he wondered at the Dowager’s extravagance. It had been an exceptional present, and there seemed no real reason for it. Certainly he was half wishing now that she had chosen something more modest.