An Affair For the Baron

by John Creasey

  He was immediately above the sitting-room window.

  He looked over the ledge, very intently. Heights did not worry him but he did not want to take a single unnecessary risk. The ground was a long way down, and it was a sheer drop. He studied the masonry where it jutted, but there was very little to offer in the way of foothold. At this height, eighteen storeys up, all trucks, cars and people below looked minute to the point of distortion.

  He could almost hear Alundo’s voice again, as he had heard it the second time he had called him.

  “There are men outside the apartment, Mannering.” And a moment later: “There are men at the emergency exit door.”

  Men.

  Policemen or Ballas’s men made no difference for the moment, Mannering decided. Either were likely to stop him from seeing Alundo, and he wanted urgently to talk to the Professor without anyone knowing.

  He hitched up his shirt, and unwound from his waist a rope of thin, strong nylon. There were knots in it, and at one end a loop. He placed the loop over a rail, and tightened it, then made a loop at the other end, and slipped it round his waist. Two cars passed, followed by a police car, which drew up outside the building; one of the men inside got out and entered the lobby. He was there for four or five minutes before he climbed back into the car.

  Police, thought Mannering, probably waiting for the suspect for the murder of Enrico Ballas. How long ago that seemed! And how far away La Racienda and San Antonio! Distance, of time and space, leant to them the unreality of a dream – but there was nothing dreamlike about Ballas or about Steven Marshall.

  The police car moved off and the noise of its engine faded.

  Mannering climbed over the parapet.

  Gripping the rope above one of the knots, he gradually eased himself downwards, bracing himself by pushing his feet against the wall. If anyone looked up, he might be seen; but there was a fair chance he would be hidden by the corner-stones and window-ledges.

  There was a light in Ricardi’s sitting-room.

  Mannering went down very slowly, until he was opposite the room. The venetian blinds were half-drawn, but he could see through the slats. All doubts dissolved when he saw Alundo poring over a desk. Mannering lowered himself still farther, and made sure no one else was in the room. At last his feet touched the window ledge.

  He could knock and warn Alundo, who would surely let him in, but he preferred complete surprise. Firsthand knowledge of the old man’s reactions to an emergency would be useful to him. So, gripping the edge of the window frame, he waited. Soon, Alundo got up, without glancing at the window, and went out. Mannering took his tools from his pocket, and worked on the window. At this height they were usually simple. This was a sliding affair with a straightforward catch, which was unlocked. All he had to do was force it to one side. Prising gently with a screwdriver, he made room for the tips of his fingers, then pushed one half behind the other. It made a sharp squeak; that was all.

  Mannering wriggled out of the rope, and climbed inside.

  Nothing suggested that Alundo had been alarmed, and Mannering walked about, easing his cramped legs and flexing his arms. When he heard the man coming back, he switched on the microphone hanging round his neck, and moved swiftly behind the door.

  Alundo came into the room slowly. His face was pale, his grey hair ruffled. As if making a conscious effort, he sat down and picked up the papers he had been studying. Mannering moved forward. The sheets were typewritten, but too far away for him to make sense of them. He crept nearer, until he was able to read over Alundo’s shoulder.

  Notes for San Antonio Speech.

  At the head was the word MISTAKES. The paragraphs beyond this were in smaller typeface. Halfway down was the word ADDITIONS, and near the bottom of the page EMPHASISE. There seemed little doubt that these really were lecture notes, and that Alundo wanted to make the HemisFair lecture foolproof, but – how did this square with a man who was supposed to be almost frantic about his daughter; a man about to trade a deadly secret with a foreign power?

  Alundo turned a page.

  “More mistakes?” Mannering inquired.

  Alundo started so violently that several papers fell to the floor. He did nothing to save them, simply twisted round in his seat, stunned by surprise.

  Mannering bent to pick them up. “First mistake – to lie to me,” he observed, handing them back to Alundo. “Why didn’t you tell me your daughter knew Ricardi in England?”

  Alundo seemed too shocked to utter a word.

  “Second mistake – to pretend you’re a man of peace when in fact you don’t care whether Communism wins by peaceful means or by war.”

  Alundo’s lips began to work.

  “Mannering! Is it—is it you?” His incredulous glance roved over the fancy jeans.

  “Are you a Red – or are you just playing one side against the other?” demanded Mannering, ignoring his question. “If there’s one thing I can’t stand, it’s a man who will sell out his country, for—”

  Strength flowed back into Alundo, and he leapt up, incredulity forgotten, fists flying like a furious little boy who could think of nothing else but striking out. And although Mannering fended him off easily enough, he came on again and again, his blows falling inaccurately and without skill.

  Hoarse with rage, his voice rose and fell with sobbing persistence: “Call me a traitor!—all I want is peace—you imbecile, I don’t want money—my God, only a man soaked in money would dare to think—” He kept on and on, the words echoing and re-echoing, sometimes audible, sometimes incoherent. Finally spent, his strength ebbing, he drew back, as pallid now as Mario Ballas. Words, however, still poured from him in a voice so muffled that Mannering feared the microphone might miss them.

  “You must be a fool. I’ve spent all my life, seeking peace. Do you know what peace is? I’ll tell you. It’s freedom from fear and freedom from want. It’s the freedom to say what you like and do what you like without being afraid someone will blow you to pieces or kill you with radiation. My God! Have you ever been to Japan? Have you seen what radiation can do? Do you know what would happen to the world if there was a nuclear explosion?”

  When he paused, his breathing sounded as if he were gasping for breath, but he would not stop for long.

  “Me, a traitor? I’ve devoted my whole life to England. I’ve tried to make English people become the hope of the world, but now—look at us. Look at us. At the mercy of two great powers, neither of them capable of winning peace. If America could win it, I’d do everything, everything, to help. And I’d help Russia, as God’s in His heaven I would do everything to help Russia, if I thought she wanted world peace. If. Oh, she’ll say she does. Like America, she’ll say she wants peace. But they both mean the same thing. They mean they want peace if their country is top dog. Do you know what happens when there’s a top dog? Some other dog waits and waits until there’s a chance to spring and pull the top dog down.

  “It means war, war, hideous bloody war! But if I can help it”—he almost choked—“there won’t be any war. I think I can stop it. Given half-a-dozen men of goodwill, I know I can. Because what I’ve discovered is a weapon too fearful for anyone to use. I’ve got it, Mannering. I’ve got—”

  He broke off, choking again. For a moment Mannering thought he was going to stop breathing. Slowly, gaspingly, he went on: “Or I did have it, until it was stolen from me. If you know where it is, find it and give it to me. Do you understand? Find and give me the microfilm. It holds a secret which can destroy all the people in the world.”

  Sweat ran down his forehead. There was a beading of it on his upper lip and about his neck. His lips were aquiver, his whole body ashake, and slowly, as if wearily, he wiped his face.

  Gently, Mannering asked: “And if you had it, what would you do with it?”

  “That—that is my business.”

  “You will never get that microfilm unless you tell me,” Mannering said.

  “It’s my business! It—”

&
nbsp; “What would you do with it?” Mannering insisted. “What have you been planning? Is it so important that you’ve even forgotten that your daughter is in danger?”

  Alundo seemed to pull up in his tracks, and a look of horror spread over his face. His lips moved after a few seconds, forming a word which he did not utter, but soon Mannering could just hear him whispering “Ethel. Ethel. Ethel.” His eyes glistened with tears, and he raised his hands towards Mannering as if in supplication.

  “Where—where is she, Mannering? Have you—have you found her?”

  “Mario Ballas says that he has her,” Mannering said flatly. “He wants to exchange her for the microfilm.”

  Alundo stared at him blankly. “Ballas? That gangster? Oh my poor, poor Ethel.” He turned away, pressing a hand to his forehead, as if fighting a stupendous battle within himself. Then, suddenly, he swung back to face Mannering.

  “It isn’t—it isn’t possible,” he cried hoarsely. “Even if you do find the film, you mustn’t do it, Mannering. Do you understand? You—must—not—do—this—thing.”

  “Professor,” Mannering said, “she is your daughter.”

  “She is—my only child.”

  “Ballas is a man quite capable of killing her.”

  “Oh yes. Yes, I know. He may well kill her.”

  “Professor—”

  “Why don’t you listen to me?” Alundo cried. There was a new strength in his voice, and a ring of true authority, too. “You must not make the exchange. Should you find the film, you must not let that man have it.”

  “And your own daughter—”

  “Oh, you fool, you ten thousand times a fool! What shall it profit a man if he should save his own flesh and blood and spill the blood of millions? If Ethel has to be sacrificed, or you, or I – then it must be so, but that film must not fall into Mario Ballas’s hands. Do you hear me?” The old man’s voice rang out now, as if he were a prophet declaiming the dangers of hell. “Whatever the cost, whatever the sacrifice, he must not get it.”

  So Alundo didn’t know that Ballas already had a copy of the film, thought Mannering. And neither Ballas nor Alundo knew that he, Mannering, had Alundo’s copy. Into the strange silence which followed, he asked: “Why not, Alundo?”

  “If you knew the man, you would not have to ask. He is evil incarnate. I tell you he is—” Alundo raised his clenched hands, his eyes afire, his voice quivering with passion. “He is the most evil man in the world.”

  As he spoke, another voice rang in Mannering’s inner ear, a voice as strained with emotion, as thick with barely controlled rage, as that of Alundo. It was almost as if Alundo’s words were a direct echo of those uttered by Ballas.

  Mannering frowned; then shrugged the thought away.

  “He is a gangster, yes. And he will not, I imagine, be over-kind to Ethel.”

  Once again Alundo’s face showed signs of inner turmoil. And once again, or so it seemed to Mannering, watching him closely, he fought and won (or lost, wondered Mannering) some secret conflict within himself.

  For several moments neither man spoke. Then Alundo looked levelly at Mannering. His eyes, at first expressionless, took on a new intensity.

  “This means that it wasn’t one of Ballas’s men who stole the briefcase. I thought at first it might have been – especially after what happened on the train. But Ricardi told me—”

  “Ricardi,” Mannering interrupted him. “How long have you known Ricardi?”

  “From the first time I gave the Peace Lecture, in Dallas, eighteen months ago,” Alundo said. “He was one of the few who understood, who put his money, his influence, his intelligence, at my disposal. If there were a thousand more like him, what a nation of idealists this country would be!”

  What would Alundo say if he knew that Ricardi had been admitted into Ballas’s hideaway so freely?

  “We can use idealists,” Mannering said dryly, and then asked abruptly: “What’s this talk you’re to give to San Antonio? And when is it?”

  “It is a week tomorrow,” answered Alundo. “And it will be my Peace Prize Lecture.”

  “How is it you can give a peace lecture at a World Fair?”

  “It is a better place than most,” the old man said. “My Peace Prize Lecture was honoured, two years ago, although the world has forgotten. Last year’s winner is sick, this year’s winner died two months ago, so—I am to speak. And when I speak—Mannering! Listen to me. When I speak I want to tell the world that I have destroyed that microfilm. That is why I must have it. If you have any heart, if you have any conscience, if you have any love for mankind, find the film and give it to me.

  “If you do not – the curse of all mankind be on your head.”

  Chapter Sixteen

  The Curse …

  “The curse of all mankind be on your head.”

  The words echoed and re-echoed in Mannering’s mind as he watched Alundo. As they came out, the man had seemed afire, but the flame slowly died, the light faded from his eyes, his body sagged. He backed a pace and dropped on to the couch, almost in a state of collapse. Suddenly he looked very, very old. Mannering crossed to a small bar, poured out a brandy and brought it to him. The Professor’s hand quivered as he drank. Finished, he said in a voice which was hardly audible: “What’s the use? What is the use?” He shook his head, wearily. “No one ever listens. No one really cares. If I was to shout from the housetops that the world was coming to an end, no one would pause to listen. Unless I have something to prove what I say in the Peace Lecture, no one will listen. The audience will nod and doze and wake up to applaud, and then drop off again. The politicians talk only in asinine platitudes. Sometimes I think all I talk are platitudes.”

  “Think again, now you’ve got all that off your chest,” Mannering said. “What do you want most? Your daughter’s safety, or the microfilm.”

  Alundo’s eyes took on a little of their former fire.

  “I have no choice,” he said. “The film is all important.” Then he added: “I haven’t really a chance, have I? You don’t know where—”

  Mannering said: “How long have you been working for peace?”

  “Most of my life,” answered Alundo, with a proud lift of his head.

  “How often have you given up hope?”

  Frowning, the old man answered: “Never.”

  “Why give it up now?”

  “I am an old man, Mannering.”

  “With less time than a young one, and so more need of faith. What were you doing when I came in?”

  “I was revising notes for my lecture.”

  “Why don’t you go on revising them?” Mannering said. “You’ve nearly eight days.”

  Alundo blinked at him, frowned again, then clasped his hands together very firmly. He did not speak. After a long time, he nodded. A curious transformation came on his lined face, a kind of peacefulness. Finally, he smiled, and turned away. He was holding his notes, and putting on a pair of thick-lensed glasses, when suddenly he said, in alarm: “Mr. Mannering!”

  “Yes?”

  “The police are looking for you.”

  “Yes, I know.”

  “But they’re outside—outside this very door.”

  “I daresay they are.”

  “Then how did you get in?”

  Mannering smiled. “Perhaps it’s as well we don’t know everything. Exactly what happened to Ethel?”

  “She—she went off, early this morning.”

  “Did she say where she was going?”

  “I understood—I understood she was going to look for you. Ricardi has gone to find her, but I have heard nothing from him.”

  “Did he know there was danger from Ballas?”

  “Yes, yes,” said Alundo. He fiddled with his glasses. “It was from Ricardi that I learned that the danger did come from Ballas. There were interruptions at my lecture in Chicago, and Ricardi traced the source – men paid by Ballas to discredit me. And it has gone on and on. At some of my lectures there have been
hooligans who have interrupted, shouted me down. Some of the newspapers have been full of bitter attacks on me. Ballas owns some of these newspapers and can influence others. I tell you, he is evil incarnate.”

  “Do you trust Ricardi?”

  Very slowly, Alundo said: “I do not trust anyone, not even my own daughter. It is a time of false ideologies. The poison of nationalism and the poison of Communism are equally virulent. Families are divided by them, husbands and wives are split asunder. Until there can be trust again, there can be no hope of peace.”

  “You trusted Ethel to bring the package over.”

  “In moments of crisis one is sometimes forced to take dangerous risks to escape those of a greater danger. I had intended to go back myself but I was too closely followed. Whenever I went to a public call-box, men came up to me and I—I was frightened. There was no time to write – no certainty that a letter would reach her. I was not even sure that my telephone call was untapped, and—certainly it was discovered that Ethel brought the film here—”

  “Who knew?”

  “If my line was tapped, anyone could have known.”

  “If it wasn’t?”

  Alundo gulped, but did not hesitate.

  “Ricardi.”

  “Only Ricardi?”

  “Yes,” Alundo assured him. “There could have been no one else. He has greatly admired Ethel for months. Even while she was in England he talked about her a great deal. He has several photographs of her. We—we do not always see eye-to-eye and she does not share my—my passionate views. But after all, she is my only child. We have not always got on very well, she is impetuous and imperious, so like her mother. And no doubt I am old and stubborn. Ethel has no patience with my attempts to put the world right, she thinks one should live for oneself alone.”

  “I see,” said Mannering, and then asked casually: “How well do you know Lord Fentham?”

  In surprise, Alundo answered: “Very well indeed, he is one of the financial sponsors of my tour – a great man, a very great man. What made you ask?”

  “Did he know you were in trouble?”