An Affair For the Baron

by John Creasey

  “He did indeed.”

  “Does he know of the microfilm?”

  Alundo said wearily: “There is no point in prevaricating. Yes, he knows. He is one of the few true workers for peace.”

  “There may be more than you realise,” Mannering said. “Couldn’t you trust him?”

  “I most certainly could,” said Alundo. “He is the only man I could trust. But these wicked men know of his friendship. To have asked him would have put him in deadly danger, whereas my daughter would not—should not—have been suspected. For her to visit me would seem quite normal.”

  “I suppose you’re right,” Mannering said, and went on abruptly: “I’m going now. You—”

  The telephone bell rang across his words. Alundo seemed to shrink back as if fearful. Mannering turned, picked up the receiver slowly, put a finger against his lips for silence, and spoke into the mouthpiece.

  No one would have recognised him.

  As quickly as he had acquired an American accent, now he spoke in Alundo’s voice – that rather high-pitched, slightly querulous tone.

  “Yes? Who is it?”

  “Pro—Professor,” a man said huskily. “Professor, they—”

  “Who is that? Speak up, please.”

  “Its—Ricky,” the other said, like a man in great pain. “They won’t—they won’t let her go without the—”

  Mannering broke in, still querulous but very anxious now.

  “Are you all right, Ricky? Where—”

  “They—they—they beat me up,” Ricardi answered. “And they flew me right back to Ballas’s private runway. I—I’m at one of the Lakeshore parks. In a call-box. Near the Planetarium.” He paused. “They pushed me out of a car. They won’t let Ethel go, unless you—”

  “Listen to me,” Mannering said. “Wait there. I will—”

  “Don’t come to me,” Ricardi said urgently. “Don’t take risks, Professor. But – it’s Ethel or the microfilm. Don’t make any mistake.”

  He rang off. Alundo, hardly crediting his own ears, sat staring at him. Mannering put the receiver down quickly.

  “That was Ricardi. He didn’t have any luck.”

  “I knew that he had no chance, I warned him. Is he all right?”

  “He’s alive,” Mannering said heavily. “How many policemen are outside?”

  “Two.”

  “I want you to call them in,” Mannering said. “Tell them you heard something in the back room, and you want them to search it.”

  He did not plead or argue, and he did not doubt that Alundo would obey.

  Two minutes later he stood by the open door of a clothes closet, hearing the two men come in, then hearing Alundo’s scared voice. He waited until voices and footsteps faded into the back room, went to the front door and peered out into the passage. No one was in sight. He went down two flights of stairs, then took the elevator to the second floor, got out and walked down the last flight of stairs. He glanced into the hall and saw the doorman talking to a thickset policeman who was stifling a yawn. He went out of the side door towards the car park, then along towards the main highway. Two taxis passed. He beckoned the third, and said: “Take me to the nearest car rental office, will you?”

  Twenty minutes later he was driving a Chevrolet along Lakeshore Drive. Every now and again there was a turn off to a bathing station and wooded park, and at each he stopped, got out of the car, and called “Ricardi”. There was no answer. At the fourth, he thought he heard a muffled cry, and taking a pencil-thin torch from his pocket, he flashed it across the ground. Its beam fell at last on the huddled figure of a man. Mannering shone the torchlight over his face – and it showed crimson.

  He caught his breath as he felt the other’s limbs firmly but carefully, passing his hand gently over the back of his head. As he laid him carefully back on to the ground, he heard a chink – and looking down, saw Ricardi’s key-ring, which had fallen from his pocket. Mannering picked it up, hesitated, then slipped it into his own pocket. Then he went to the booth, dialled the operator, and said in his American voice: “There’s a man lying near this telephone – Lakeside 8-1001. He’s taken a hell of a beating, he needs an ambulance real bad.”

  “I’ll connect you with the police, sir, if—”

  “You tell the cops, I don’t want any part of it.” Mannering replaced the receiver, got back into the Chevrolet, and waited. At last he heard the siren of an ambulance or a police car, and soon lights turned towards the call-box. He stayed long enough to see the vehicle stop and men get out, then he drove off.

  He had a few minutes to think.

  Now he had to face the fact that Ethel was a captive of Ballas, in Mexico, and that Ballas was still prepared to have a man viciously beaten up. He had two stories to reconcile, and was quite convinced that the secret of the microfilm in the locker at the Conrad Hilton was—deadly.

  Deadly?

  The word actually made him laugh.

  Could it all be true? Or was it conceivable that both Alundo and Ballas had been fooled?

  The only way to begin to find out was to get the packet. But supposing he ran the gauntlet of the police and Ballas’s men at the hotel, what good would it do him? He could study the film, he could even project it, but how could he be sure that it was genuine?

  He smiled wryly as he turned into another of the parks, where the light of a telephone booth glowed. He pulled up, then walked back to the booth, jingling coins in his pocket. He opened the telephone directory, and ran his forefinger down the H’s to Hennessy, found Hennessy, D.R.R., K.C.V.O., and dialled a Murray Hill number. The ringing sound went on for a long time.

  A man answered at last.

  “This is Sir Donald Hennessy’s residence.”

  “Tell him Mr. Toby Plender would like a word with him,” Mannering said.

  “Is it business, sir? Or personal? Sir Donald is at a meeting, and—”

  “Highly personal, highly business and extremely urgent,” Mannering said.

  He waited, heart thumping, wondering whether the message would reach Hennessy. Soon there were clicks on the line and a deep, resonant voice sounded with obvious pleasure.

  “Why, Toby! I’d no idea you were in Chicago!”

  “He’s not,” said Mannering. “I am.”

  There was a brief pause, before Hennessy said: “Who is that—” He broke off. “John!”

  “Hallo, Donald,” Mannering said. “Surprised?”

  “Surprised? That’s putting it mildly. My God, man, all the police in Chicago are looking for you!”

  “That’s my problem,” Mannering said lightly. “They won’t believe the story of my innocence until it’s too late. Donald—”

  “Why the deuce don’t you give yourself up?” demanded Hennessy.

  “The evidence against me is too strong.”

  “But in heaven’s name—”

  “Let me get a word in edgeways,” Mannering pleaded. “I want a simple piece of information which you may be able to give me.”

  “If I can I will,” promised Hennessy. “But I still think—oh, what is it?”

  “Has there been a major leak of a supremely important new weapon?” asked Mannering, quietly.

  “Wh—” Hennessy began, then broke off. He kept silent for a long time, while Mannering grew restless. Then in a calmer and more reasonable voice than he had yet used, he went on: “Yes. A discovery was made by two research physicists working for a commercial company. Both men were murdered – but one left a letter saying that two microfilms had been made of the discovery and the experiments leading up to it – both microfilms are now missing.” He paused. “John, what do you know about all this?”

  “I might have one of the microfilms,” Mannering said

  “What!”

  “Unintentionally,” Mannering explained hastily.

  “Is it safe?”

  “For the time being, yes. Donald, listen, I need free passage into the Conrad Hilton Hotel and protection by the police from some
men working for Mario Ballas—”

  “My God,” breathed Hennessy. “Do you want to get yourself killed three ways?”

  “And I want someone to take this microfilm and give me a replacement that looks exactly like it – and I want it by tomorrow morning.”

  “How in heaven’s name do you expect me to fix a thing like that?”

  “You can do it,” Mannering said. “One condition.”

  “You’re in no position to make conditions!”

  “I want freedom of movement in and out of Chicago for at least a week.”

  After another pause, Hennessy said: “If it’s the real thing, John, you’d deserve that, even if you’d killed a dozen Ballas’s. Where are you?”

  “I’ll call you every half-hour, on the half-hour,” Mannering promised. “Don’t let me down.”

  He called five times, from five different call-boxes.

  Each time, his heart beat very fast, at near suffocation point, he was so affected by the tension.

  It was not until the sixth call that he heard the welcome words: “Sir Donald would like to speak to you now, sir. Please hold on.”

  Chapter Seventeen

  Catastrophic

  “John,” Hennessy said, “we know that two copies of those films existed. You’ve just told me that you think Ballas has one copy; and that Alundo had the other but that you removed it from Ethel Alundo’s briefcase and put it in a locker at the Conrad Hilton. Enough is known about the nature of this discovery to enable the experts to check if the film you have is genuine. And it’s on an Italian film seldom used in England.”

  “Good,” said Mannering. “You’ll be able to prove that I’m not lying. Where can it be checked?”

  “Here in Chicago. An F.B.I, team and two of the War Department experts are on their way from Washington. Where will you meet them?”

  “Am I free to move about?”

  “The hounds are off you, but tell me where you are, and you’ll be looked after.”

  “Donald,” Mannering said, “this isn’t so simple, and I can’t explain why. I want to meet the F.B.I, team where it’s impossible for me to be followed without knowing it.”

  “Where?”

  “Why not a station on the elevated?”

  “Why not? Which station?”

  “Chicago Avenue. If they wear a red flower in the left lapel and carry a newspaper in their right hand, I’ll recognise them.”

  “At ten o’clock,” Hennessy promised. “What are you going to do meanwhile?”

  “Eat.”

  “For God’s sake be careful.”

  “I’ll be careful,” Mannering said. “Thanks, Donald.”

  He put down the receiver and stepped out of the box. The pale glow of his watch dial showed eight-thirty. He got into the car and drove downtown, watching the lights of every car behind him. None followed – of course none followed, who would possibly recognise him? Yet he was on edge. He turned into a car parking lot on a corner of State Street, with the great girders of the elevated railway and the huge pillars supporting them overhead. A train rumbled above. The sound was deafening, but dozens of people walked by as if they did not hear it. Getting out of the car, he strolled along the brightly lit street, one of hundreds but still very watchful. Now and again he had a mental picture of Ricardi in his mind’s eye. Poor devil.

  What kind of a man had Ballas become? And what had possessed him, Mannering, almost to warm to the man?

  He turned in to a drug store, bright with neon lighting, filled with cheap goods. The pharmaceutical section was at one end, a long soda fountain bar along one side. He bought some simple make-up accessories, as if a present for a woman, and went out. Next he bought a postcard of the Planetarium, begged an envelope, and wrote on the postcard:

  If I’m prevented from keeping my appointment ask the Room Clerk at the Conrad Hilton for the key given to him by Mr. Mendelsohn. It is for a locker in the lower lobby.

  He signed this with his own name, and sealed the envelope, addressing it to the Chief of Police, Chicago, then pushed it quickly into a posting box. Seeing a men’s room, he slipped unobtrusively inside, unwrapped the make-up he had just purchased, and worked steadily on his face for twenty minutes. He was still wearing the Western-style clothes – and when he had finished with the make-up, John Mannering, to all outward appearances, had disappeared.

  Still checking carefully that no one followed him, he left the drug store, and turned in to a restaurant with a charcoal fire glowing in the window and half-a-dozen steaks sizzling on the bars. A huge notice read STEAK DINNER ONE DOLLAR NINETY-FIVE CENTS. ALL YOU CAN EAT. He had a table for four to himself. A pert waitress put a double portion of butter into his baked Idaho potato, hovering invitingly as she refilled his coffee cup. The steak was good, but he made himself eat slowly.

  At five minutes to ten, he walked up the iron steps to the station. A dozen people were standing about, forlornly. No one who might be his men were there. He stood at a corner of the shelter, then, as he waited, saw first one, then another well-dressed man appear. Each had a red carnation in his left lapel, each carried a newspaper in his right hand. So far, so good. Mannering made no move towards them as they began to walk to and fro, showing no interest in him or in anybody.

  Caution warned: wait.

  Mannering waited.

  And as he waited, two more men appeared. One of them, looming massive and brutal in the poor light of the station, was Tiger O’Leary.

  It was useless to ask how Ballas’s men came to be here; they were an ever-present threat. It was obvious that Ballas ran a kind of ferry service between La Racienda and Chicago, and as obvious that O’Leary would like nothing better than to kill him, Mannering.

  If there were two of Ballas’s men, would there be others?

  As Mannering waited, listening to the growing roar of an approaching train, O’Leary passed within a yard of him. Mannering was more than ever aware of Ricardi as he had last seen him, his face bloody and battered. The train roared nearer, blaring into sight, great headlight blazing. Mannering walked towards the platform edge, as if ready to board the train. He had a sense of great urgency; a sense that every second counted. He stood within a foot or two of O’Leary, knowing the man was waiting for the passengers to alight, his whole attention diverted from those round him. The train ground to a standstill. Suddenly, unexpectedly, he swung round on O’Leary for the second time, and brought his knee up into the pit of the man’s stomach. O’Leary gasped. His eyes rolled and he collapsed on to the platform, but his companion’s right hand flew upwards, moving towards the gun in his shoulder holster. Mannering struck him beneath the chin, hard enough to lift him off his feet and rock him against the side of the train. A few people were jumping off, others were getting in, no one but the F.B.I. men appeared to see what was happening. Mannering spun round towards them.

  “They came from Ballas,” he said, distinctly. “Catch me up – I’ll be in the drug store across the road.”

  He turned and ran down the steps, footsteps clattering, still not sure that there was none of Ballas’s men on the other side of the track. The train began to move out, drowning the sounds he made. He raced across the street through a gap in the traffic, and into the doorway of the drug store. Two or three people watched him curiously, but no one showed any active interest. Almost at once, the two men with the red carnations appeared. They were held up by a stream of traffic, but no one followed them down the steps.

  Mannering waited for them to cross. The first one touched the kerb, saying: “Get in the Buick.” He pointed.

  A black sedan stood just round the corner, a driver at the wheel. Mannering reached it a few yards ahead of the two men, turned to watch the station, was reassured, and got in. The others almost fell on top of him, and the car moved before the door was closed.

  “Nice to know you can hurry,” Mannering said.

  One of the others eased himself into a more comfortable position before saying grimly: “What�
�s got into you, Mr. Mannering?”

  “Ballas’s man, O’Leary,” Mannering said. “I’d met him before.”

  “Why didn’t he recognise you on the station?”

  “He recognised you.”

  “What?”

  “Must have, Ken,” interpolated the second man. He was very thickset, with heavy features relieved by a smile which played about his lips all the time. The other man was taller, thinner, grimmer. The peak of his hat pushed back, showing a frontal baldness. “We were picked up and followed.”

  The man named Ken asked: “Did he come on to the station behind us?”

  Mannering nodded.

  “Don’t fight the odds, Ken,” the shorter man said. “We led them to Mannering and Mannering led us away. Glad to know you, Mr. Mannering.”

  “Do you think we can feel safe now?” Mannering asked gruffly.

  “No one followed, and this time we were looking.”

  “Where do we go?” asked the man named Ken.

  “Gentlemen,” Mannering said, “may I see your identification papers, please?”

  Ken, the lean one, stared then broke into a laugh. Each man took out a card. The tall man was Kennedy J. Silver, the short one Piet Vandorn. Each had a photograph attached to the card which was signed by J. Edgar Hoover. As they tucked them away, Mannering said: “You go to the Conrad Hilton, and …” He told them how to get the manuscript. “How long will it take to check the film?”

  “Maybe two hours.”

  “What I would like to do is go to my hotel room and sleep,” Mannering said. “I’ve a lot to catch up. But not the Conrad Hilton – one of Ballas’s men may have been there. I’ve booked in at the Palmer House.”

  Ten minutes later, the F.B.I. men walked out of the Conrad Hilton and stepped into the car, Ken carrying the manuscript. He handed this to Mannering, who ruffled through it, feeling a momentary panic lest the strips of microfilm had disappeared. But they were still there.

  With a sigh of relief he handed it over. “Don’t lose it.”

  “We won’t lose it, and we won’t lose you,” Ken said. “You’re coming with us, Mannering.”

  “Don’t be silly,” Mannering said.