Call for the Baron

by John Creasey

  ‘Has there been any trouble here, Tring?’ Bristow’s voice was sharp.

  ‘None, to my knowledge, sir.’

  Morency turned impatiently towards the door. Bristow unlocked it. Beyond the second door they found a sleepy-eyed man sitting on a kitchen chair, gun in his hand.

  ‘Everything all right, Wilson?’ said Bristow.

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  Bristow turned to Morency. ‘Do you wish to see the papers, sir?’

  ‘No, that won’t be necessary.’ Morency, his anxiety set at rest, went off in search for his colleagues, while Bristow returned to the stricken Anderson.

  The man still looked dazed, but he was on his feet. He said at once: ‘I’m sorry, sir, but I was just too late.’

  ‘All right,’ said Bristow quietly. ‘I don’t suppose you let him go on purpose. What happened?’

  Anderson explained: he had been patrolling, and had seen a man, fully dressed, come along the passage. He had heard no sound of approach, and both of them had been startled. Then he had reached for his gun. At that point Anderson rubbed his chin ruefully.

  ‘I’m afraid he got me first, sir.’

  ‘Hmm,’ said Bristow. ‘Could you identify him?’

  ‘No, sir,’ said Anderson frankly. ‘He was wearing a hat, and a scarf as a mask.’

  Bristow said, almost casually: ‘Are you quite sure, Anderson? Would he be about the build of Mr Mannering, for instance?’

  So that was why Bristow had wanted him!

  Mannering’s heart turned over, but he forced himself to face Anderson.

  ‘I think, sir,’ the sergeant looked at him closely. He said slowly, ‘that it was a shorter man than Mr Mannering. And he was fully dressed.’

  ‘Thank you, Anderson.’ Bristow showed neither disappointment nor surprise. ‘You’d better get some rest. Oh, what way did he come?’

  ‘Along that passage, sir.’ Anderson pointed to the direction from which Mannering had come.

  ‘You didn’t see which way he went, I suppose?’

  ‘No, sir.’

  Bristow watched the man walking off, and then turned to Mannering. ‘Well, Mannering – so you didn’t take my advice.’

  Mannering said evenly: ‘I hope you’re not going to start that again. You might remember that the man was fully dressed, and I’m not. I was here two minutes after the shot.’

  Bristow shrugged. ‘And it only needed two minutes to get rid of them.’

  ‘I don’t like your manner,’ said Mannering sharply. ‘It would be well to improve it. Someone broke in: that’s obvious.’

  ‘Obvious to whom?’ said Bristow dryly. It was clear that he was convinced it was Mannering who had hit Anderson. ‘We’ll leave it for now. I wonder where—’

  And then Bristow stopped.

  He had been looking towards the hall, and Mannering saw his expression alter, saw a gleam in his eyes that was one of sheer disbelief. Then without a word he turned for the stairs and raced down.

  Mannering stayed on the landing, leaning over the balustrade. He saw the diamond which Bristow had seen, saw Bristow pick it up, and then look about him.

  ‘Do you want any help, Bill?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Bristow sharply. ‘See if you can find any more of these.’ He showed two diamond rings in his hands, and Mannering nodded and looked about the hall. It was Mannering who found the Deverell necklace behind a settee, and he called out sharply: ‘Bill – this is your lucky day. Here’s the star piece!’

  Bristow stopped searching, and stepped towards Mannering. He picked up the necklace, his lips set tightly and his eyes hard, then he looked into Mannering’s.

  ‘My lucky day, did you say?’

  ‘Well, isn’t it?’

  Bristow snapped: ‘You know damned well it isn’t. I wanted to find these where the Grey woman had put them. Now anyone in the blasted house might have taken them—’ He broke off, then went on more calmly: ‘Oh well, I might have expected it from you.’

  ‘Bill, if—’

  ‘Oh, don’t try to blarney me!’ snapped Bristow. ‘I saw from the start that you didn’t propose to leave this job alone. Understand this, Mannering. That woman robbed her stepmother, and afterwards arranged to keep Woolf in the light while someone else shot him. By helping her you’re helping a murderer to escape – perhaps two murderers. Where did you find them?’

  ‘Find what?’ asked Mannering blankly.

  Bristow turned on his heel.

  Mannering called after him: ‘Dare I point out that Lady Usk didn’t hear anything – or apparently didn’t?’

  ‘You have proved that you will dare anything,’ said Bristow testily. ‘As it happens she took a sleeping draught after dinner.’

  ‘Nevertheless,’ said Mannering cheerfully, ‘don’t you think you ought to wake her? She’ll be delighted to hear that her jewels are back.’

  Bristow said evenly: ‘If you like to take her the glad tidings, pray do so.’

  Mannering shrugged and started slowly up the stairs. The elation of the moment had passed: he had outwitted Bristow, he had escaped when the danger had been so acute that for a few seconds he had believed himself finished. It was ungrateful not to feel more thankful.

  He decided to look into Lady Usk’s room. Mannering tapped on the door, received no answer, and tapped again. Still there was silence. He tried the handle, and the door opened easily.

  Mannering stepped into the bedroom.

  The woman was lying on her side, on one of the twin beds. Her face was half-buried in the pillow, and she was so still that Mannering decided not to disturb her.

  For some seconds he stood almost equally motionless while all the time he felt his blood drumming through his ears, felt his heart beating faster.

  Was it imagination? Or was there no sign at all of movement?

  There was none: he was sure of it, and he stepped forward quickly, released from a paralysis that had kept him still. Gently he turned the coverlet back, saw the waxen whiteness of her face. He put a hand on her arm: the flesh was warm. He sought for the pulse, and there was no sign of life.

  He hardly knew why it came as such a shock.

  He had known that her life was threatened, had known of her fear, but to see her lying dead, beyond all hope, was too much to realise.

  Peering more closely, he saw the faint bruises on her throat, saw the unmistakable signs that, despite the naturalness of her position, proclaimed that she had been strangled.

  She had been dead before her husband had left the room, but Mannering had heard him quarrelling with her less than an hour before.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Part of the Truth

  Had Usk killed her?

  Thoughts flashed fast upon each other in Mannering’s mind. Of Usk’s hatred towards his wife, the unexpected visit, the quarrel that had broken out within an hour of the peer’s arrival. Mannering’s suspicion that Usk had sent the threatening notes grew sharper, but no man in his senses would commit murder in this way, with the circumstantial evidence so strong against him.

  Yet Usk would not know that a quarrel had been overheard in the early hours; and Mannering could not report it without rendering himself liable to dangerous questions.

  There were other things.

  Usk was an expert shot with a revolver: Woolf had been killed by a dead shot – and his wife had been frightened of Woolf. Was there a connection there? Could Woolf and Usk have been trying together or separately, to terrorise the woman? Woolf could have discovered enough against Usk to become dangerous enough to kill.

  Mannering thought back. Lorna had told him that Usk had slipped out of the drawing room a few minutes before the thunder. The peer could have gone straight to the grounds, killed the private detective and slipped back. The man who had escaped by car, still remained to be explained, but granting the premise that Usk had a motive for the first murder, other things fitted into place.

  To be implicated in the major robbery, Usk would have needed
an accomplice at Vere House, however. Cecilie might fill that bill, but judging from the evidence of the work on the picture rail in her room, Cecilie had been helped by someone else on the premises.

  Someone else?

  Mannering stepped away from the dead woman. In a dressing table drawer there were a pair of loose gloves. He slipped them on. The safe was locked, but Usk’s clothes were lying over a chair. Mannering ran through his pockets. He found a wallet, and in it a hotel bill. His breath quickened.

  Usk, then, had been staying at the White Angel for the past two days, near enough to take part in the robbery!

  With it was a typewritten letter addressed to Usk from the Woolf Inquiry Bureau. Mannering read with increasing tension:

  My Lord,

  In accordance with your wishes, Operator Logan will call to see you at the White Angel, Winchester, on September 20th, bringing with him a full report of her Ladyship’s recent movements.

  Yours respectfully,

  B. A. Woolf,

  Principal.

  Mannering put the letter down and stared ahead of him. He could have heard, then, that she had been to the police about the loss. She had not been able to hide her fear that he should know; and her manner when she had staggered to the stairs had betrayed a fear little short of terror.

  Mannering ran through the other contents of the wallet, but there was nothing more of interest barring a pencilled note on the back of a creased envelope.

  See Wrexford, Thursday.

  So Usk knew Wrexford – a man now under arrest on a charge of espionage. It involved Usk yet further, showing him to be connected with every angle of the mystery. Mannering saw Usk as both dangerous and ruthless.

  Bristow must have these papers without loss of time.

  He put them altogether in the wallet and stepped towards the bedroom. Not until then was he aware that he was being watched. For Usk stood there, and behind him was Logan pointing an automatic straight at Mannering.

  Usk’s lips were twisted, and his eyes were glittering as he spoke.

  ‘Surely, Mr Mannering, you’ve learnt the dangers of being too curious?’

  ‘Supposing you tell me what you’re talking about?’ Mannering found it hard to keep his voice steady as the two men came farther into the room, for the particular tone in which Usk had spoken, was the one which Mannering had heard on the telephone at the White Angel, in the voice which had tried to warn Wrexford.

  ‘You should know,’ Usk said. ‘Logan caught you with the necklace, Mannering – not knowing Woolf had entered and put it there. You were proving awkward with your inquiries, and it presented an easy way to make you silent. But you followed Logan, didn’t you? And you visited Wrexford and left him helpless for the police.’

  ‘You’re talking nonsense!’ Mannering flashed.

  ‘I think not,’ said Usk. ‘My dear wife had such faith in you, but you will regret that you tried to help her. You see, Mannering, she is dead – and you will be locked in the room with her. That will be very difficult for you to explain.’

  Mannering was appalled by Usk’s expression, by the savagery with which the peer’s words were uttered; Usk seemed beside himself, as though things he had bottled up for years were coming out, almost against his will, as if he knew that this was no time for talk but could not keep the words back.

  ‘It will be my word against yours,’ he sneered, ‘and under the circumstances yours is unlikely to be believed. Logan will not be here – he will leave the country when we have secured the papers. I will follow later. Those papers will yield ample profit, and I shall no longer need to live on her!’ His eyes turned towards the dead woman, and there was cold hatred in them. ‘I’ve made full preparations, Mannering, although your interference nearly upset them. That, and Woolf’s obstinacy. Such a pity Woolf had a sense of patriotism. Had he been wise he would have been alive now.’

  ‘So you’ve two murders on your conscience,’ Mannering said.

  ‘That doesn’t worry me,’ said Usk. ‘I’ve planned to kill her for years. And as for your reputation for detection, that’s taken a knock, hasn’t it? You were so convinced of Cecilie’s guilt.’

  ‘You think so?’ said Mannering. He counted his chances of escape as being negligible, nevertheless every minute Usk could be delayed might bring help. Such men were vain, he would play on that vanity. ‘I could present some sound theories that might startle you,’ he went on. ‘For instance, you staged the robberies to keep the police away from the main motive – the papers. Yes?’

  ‘Really,’ said Usk. ‘You improve.’

  ‘You used Woolf and Logan, after you knew your wife was hiring them, and then you threw a scare into Woolf, but he disliked betraying his country.’

  ‘Certainly you are right so far,’ said Usk complacently. ‘Once he learned what Wrexford was really after he tried to retreat, but earlier I had persuaded him to replace the real necklace with the fake. As you had the replica I had to put the real one back through Logan – Bristow would never have been satisfied with part of the haul. But Woolf was not loyal enough to risk his freedom, and he tried to make my wife help him, not knowing she could not. When it failed he insisted on meeting Cecilie. I encouraged that,’ said Usk. ‘It drew attention to Cecilie so conveniently. And Cecilie suspected Mr Armitage, and even tried to open his safe to find out. Logan put that to her,’ said Usk smoothly. ‘It gave the police their first suspicion, and then the evidence they needed so badly. Had you not chosen to visit her room tonight, and found the jewels where Logan had put them, the evidence that Cecilie was the thief would have been conclusive.’

  ‘So you shot Woolf?’ Mannering asked.

  ‘He was so awkward,’ Usk said. ‘I had just time – and I was careful to have a man make off in a car to further confuse the issue. I then sent Cecilie a note that the jewels were in her room. She told you, of course, and you found them instead of Bristow. Very gallant of you, but a little unwise. I shall tell Bristow that I saw you coming out of her room before you met the policeman. I shall hint that my wife told me she knew the thief, and that will provide ample motive for her murder – by you,’ said Usk suavely. ‘It is most unlikely that Bristow will find out that it was I who sent the threats to my poor wife. I shall blame Woolf for that. It’s most comprehensive, Mannering, don’t you think? My word against yours – and the evidence on my side.’

  Mannering said quietly: ‘You are very confident Usk. Perhaps, too confident.’ But he knew that the scheme Usk had outlined would damn him. He could see no loophole in it, no way of evading a charge of murder as well as robbery; and his mind was sick at the thought of the papers Usk was so confident he could get.

  ‘A mastermind has the right to be confident,’ Usk said sharply. ‘And now I’m going to lock you in here, and take the key. You can shout as much as you like but you will rouse no one in the servants’ quarters, and even if you do, they’re locked up in their wing, Mannering, and I’ve a man guarding the doors.’

  ‘You seem to have a lot of men,’ Mannering said bleakly.

  ‘I have enough,’ said Usk. ‘I’ve planned this carefully. I should not be wasting time talking to you but for the fact that the crisis has developed faster than I expected. I’ve had to send to Winchester for a locksmith – you would call him a burglar – who will get into the strong-room, you see. The police guards inside and outside have been looked after. They’re in the drawing room now – with the others.’

  Mannering stiffened: ‘Usk, only a bloody fool would try this with so many police about.’ But there was an edge of despair in his heart.

  ‘You think so? You don’t know everything, Mannering. I sent to Defoe and Gresham and their secretaries and told them Bristow wanted them in the drawing room. Everyone but the servants is in that room, the telephone is disconnected, the doors are locked and barricaded, and a car has been driven to the window to block it. There is just no way they can get out or raise an alarm, you see. And if you should say that there was a man in the str
ong-room let me disabuse you. There was. The police were attacked when they were relieving him. Bristow had the keys: he managed to throw them into the grounds when he realised what was happening. They’re in the shrubbery and if I don’t find them quickly my expert will be here within an hour. Most comprehensive, you see, Mannering. The strong-room is at my disposal. When it is over I, battered and perhaps bloody, will release the fools!’

  Mannering felt sick.

  There was nothing Usk had missed, nothing that was not explained; and there appeared no way of foiling the plan. He stared at the peer who was tightening the sash of his dressing gown.

  He said slowly: ‘Usk, these papers are probably vital to the Allies. If they’re lost—’

  ‘They won’t be lost!’ snarled Usk, and the flame of hatred Mannering had seen in his eyes returned: he looked demonical, he raised a clenched fist and shook it furiously. ‘They’ll be sold where I want them to be sold! Don’t whine to me about patriotism! I’d sell my soul to see England crushed. I’m Irish, Mannering. Centuries of oppressing the Irish have bred hatred. Logan hates your guts as much as I, the others are members of what you call the illegal I.R.A.!’ He was trembling with hatred, with a passion that appalled.

  At that moment the butt of Logan’s gun descended with sickening force on the nape of Mannering’s neck. His legs doubled under him and he fell without a cry. Logan and Usk slipped quickly out of the room.

  The key turned sharply in the lock.

  Mannering had no idea how long he had been unconscious.

  He awakened with a splitting pain in his head and sickness in his stomach. The light was on, but it was painful to open his eyes. He straightened his legs slowly, and then memory began to creep back. Usk – the dead woman – Logan – Usk’s story …

  He remembered Usk’s suave recapitulation of his preparations, the thoroughness of the plan to get documents of vital value. Mannering staggered to his feet, almost blinded by the pain in his head, and dragged himself to the bathroom. He ran cold water, dousing his face and head. The water was like ice on his throbbing forehead and temples.

  One thought was going through his mind: he had to try to prevent the robbery. Usk had missed one important factor – he did not know how easily Mannering could get out of the room, without the key.