An Affair For the Baron

by John Creasey

  Mannering saw the aircraft which Ballas had promised to send for him at Fort Worth airport. He recognised Cyrus Lake, and went towards him. It was difficult to understand Cyrus’s expression when he said: “The Boss was the only one who thought you would come back.”

  “Did you need telling he was a judge of men?” demanded Mannering.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Terms…

  Ballas sat in the golden chair, exactly as he had done before, but this time Cyrus Lake, Tiger O’Leary, and two other men were with him; escape would be quite impossible. Mannering did not stand away from the inlaid desk but placed his hands on it, leaning forward. It was only three hours since the plane had taken off from Fort Worth for La Racienda.

  “Condition one: I want to see Ethel Alundo before I say a word about terms,” Mannering said.

  It was impossible to judge what was passing through Ballas’s mind, but almost at once he said to Cyrus Lake: “Send for her.”

  “She—she may not be awake.”

  “Bring her, whether she’s awake or not.”

  Cyrus said: “Sure.” He went out but another man stepped in, so that four still remained. Ballas looked tired, his eyes red-rimmed, his face set in an alabaster pallor. Slowly, his lids drooped. Mannering could only just discern the movement at his breast, none at all at his nostrils or lips. They must have sat in that silent stillness for seven or eight minutes before a buzz sounded at the door. Opening his eyes, Ballas touched a different spot from that of the knob Mannering had previously found. The door clicked open, and Cyrus Lake came in with Ethel.

  She was awake; just.

  Heavy-eyed and sluggish of movement, she showed no outward sign of injury. Her hair was dishevelled and her dress rumpled and creased, as if she had slept in it; there were some red ridges on her right forearm. She moistened her lips.

  “I want a drink of water.”

  “You can have a drink when you’ve spoken to Mr. Mannering,” Ballas said.

  She looked at Mannering. Slow recognition dawned in her eyes, but no indication followed that he meant anything to her. Inert, uncaring, the impression she gave was that of a woman only half awake, or drugged.

  “Hallo,” she said.

  “Hallo, Ethel,” Mannering said gently. “How are you?”

  “I—I’m thirsty.”

  “Have they hurt you?”

  “I don’t know what you mean,” Ethel said. Her pupils were pinpoints.

  “Your father sends his love.”

  “Oh, does he?” She could not have been more uninterested, she looked at Ballas. “I’m thirsty. Please can I have some water?”

  Ballas said to Mannering: “Are you satisfied?”

  “I’d like her to hear what we say.”

  “If it makes any difference,” Ballas said. “She was—obstreperous.” He used the word very carefully. “We had to keep her under sedation.” He motioned her away, and obediently she went to one side and sat down on a tapestry-covered carved stool. Cyrus Lake gave her some water from a vacuum jug close to Ballas’s hand.

  “You had to keep Ricardi quiet, too,” Mannering remarked when she was settled.

  Ballas’s lids drooped over his eyes again, and Mannering had the feeling that he was in physical pain. It was a long time before he said: “Yes. I’m afraid that was what upset Ethel. But it is possible to start something you can’t stop.”

  “When you can’t stop what you’ve started, you’re losing your grip.”

  “Yes,” admitted Ballas slowly. “I guess you’re right. A man can get old and tired. But I want to tell you something. You are as responsible as I for what happened to Ricardi.”

  “Because I escaped from here?”

  “Because you escaped.” Ballas repeated the words heavily. “Oh, I am not blaming you, but facts are facts.”

  “Here’s a fact,” Mannering said. “Let Ethel Alundo go, and I’ll do a deal with you over the film.”

  “What kind of deal?”

  “Better than the one you offered.”

  “I didn’t talk of terms,” Ballas said flatly.

  “You offered all you possessed,” Mannering said. “I will settle for less. I will settle for all there is in this room. Everything, under a deed of gift to anyone I name, for services rendered by me. Everything,” Mannering repeated, “except the chair you’re sitting on, the table in front of you and any one other piece you would like to keep.”

  “And for all this, you will give me the microfilm?” Ballas asked flatly.

  Mannering did not know why he hesitated. To lie would have been so simple; and if ever there was a man to whom to lie would have been forgivable it was Ballas. Yet he did hesitate; and the pause dragged on and on until the moment came when he realised that he had lost his chance to lie.

  Had there ever been one?

  Mannering had a sense of knowing this old man’s mind; in some odd way he felt almost as if there were some strange affinity between them. He himself could divine when some people lied to him and Ballas probably had the same gift. At a lift of his finger, Ballas could set these men on to him, to do exactly what they had done to Ricardi – or worse.

  “No,” he said. “It’s too important to be in the hands of any one individual.”

  “And you expect me to pay you for—nothing?”

  “Not for nothing,” Mannering said. “For the absolute certainty that this weapon can never be used.”

  “There can be no certainty.”

  “If I convince you that there is, will you deal?”

  “I cannot be convinced,” Ballas said wearily. “Had you never escaped from me, had you never dealt with the F.B.I., had you never attacked my men on the elevated railway – then you might have convinced me. Not now.”

  “I can try,” Mannering said.

  “Yes, you may try.”

  Mannering put his hand to his breast pocket but before he actually touched it, two revolvers were trained on him. He looked at each, shrugging, glanced at Ethel, who seemed to take no notice but was playing with her glass, and took out his wallet. He extracted the locker key he had brought from the hotel and placed it on the desk in front of Ballas.

  “That’s a locker at the Conrad Hilton Hotel,” he said. “The nearest one to the shoe-shine parlour. In it there is a fake film – one which I once thought of trying to pass off to you as the real one.”

  Ballas put out a hand and touched the key.

  “Mario,” Cyrus Lake said, “he’s everything O’Leary said. Don’t let him fool you again.”

  “Cyrus,” said Mannering, “I’m disappointed in you.”

  “I’m not disappointed in you.” Cyrus moved so that he could see Mannering more closely, and the half-amused smile on the well-shaped lips, the gleam in the fine eyes. “You’re the best we’ve come up against in all the thirty years I’ve worked with Mario Ballas. And if I can prevent it, no one is going to sell him down the river. You’ve gone nearer than any man we’ve ever met. Hasn’t he, Mario?”

  “Yes,” Ballas said. “Tell Mannering what you know, Cyrus.”

  “I’ve had three reports,” Cyrus said. “You’ve spent time with the F.B.I. agents you met at the elevated. They drove you first to the Conrad Hilton, then to the Palmer House Hotel. The next morning you went back to the Conrad Hilton – Mannering, there isn’t an hotel in Chicago where we haven’t a man. If you thought you could throw us off the scent by dealing with Tiger and a phoney cowboy suit, you were wrong.”

  “So I was wrong,” Mannering said. “And what else?”

  “You talked to Captain Pollitzer of San Antonio Police Headquarters.”

  “What about?”

  “That I don’t know.”

  “Perhaps I will tell you,” Mannering said. “Is there more?”

  “You’ve been to see Alundo, and Alundo has a guest from England. The doorman at Lake View keeps us informed.”

  “Now I’m keeping you informed,” Mannering said. “The man from England is Lord
Fentham, Chairman of the Peace Group Alundo belongs to. They don’t trust America not to use this weapon – nor do they trust Russia. They don’t believe that any one country should have it, nor any group of countries. Alundo is due to make his Peace Lecture at the HemisFair in San Antonio next week, and he wants to destroy both copies of the microfilm in front of his audience. He—”

  Ballas’s eyes were blazing, his hands were clenching and unclenching – that tell-tale sign of anger. Once or twice his lips moved, and at last he could contain himself no longer.

  “You’re mad, Mannering! I’ve told you the facts about Alundo.”

  “He says exactly the same thing about you.”

  “To hell with what he says! He’s in the pay of the Communists, he’ll do whatever they tell him to do.”

  “I don’t believe it,” Mannering stated flatly. He turned to Ethel, who was no longer drooping on the stool but sitting upright. The effects of the drug were quickly wearing away, Mannering noticed. “And what do you think?” he asked her.

  She leaned forward. “I—I don’t know” she said helplessly. “I’ve never liked his work for peace – I thought he was getting too involved. Then when he telephoned me and asked me to bring the package—” She broke off.

  “Did you know what was in it?” Mannering asked quietly.

  “Not until after that man attacked us in Ricky’s apartment,” said Ethel. “Oh, it was all such a muddle. I hadn’t seen Ricky since he came to England to ask Daddy to speak at the HemisFair – when he burst into your room at the Conrad Hilton and said Daddy had sent him to collect the package, he signalled to me to pretend I didn’t know him—oh why did he and Daddy have to make such a mystery out of everything! I didn’t know who to believe, who to trust. Ricky told me a little bit about it on the way round to his apartment, but not all – then, as soon as we got there, that man attacked us – he’d already knocked Daddy out – and stole the briefcase. You must have arrived just afterwards. Daddy told me the rest – what the microfilm really was – after you’d gone—”

  “And then I persuaded her to come and talk to me about it – I wanted to convince her that I would make better use of the film than her father would,” Ballas interpolated. “The film wasn’t in the briefcase, and I thought she – or her father – had tricked me. I know now that it was you. What did you do with that film, Mannering? Where is it now?” Ballas’s voice was low, and by that lowness created a greater sense of urgency, of menace.

  Mannering ignored him, turning back to Ethel.

  “So you came to see Ballas, thinking that he had the film and hoping that you might be able to get it back from him. And so that your father would not be too disappointed if you failed you told him that you were going to see me.” Ethel nodded.

  “And then you found that Ballas didn’t have it after all – and that he intended to keep you prisoner, hoping to get the film in exchange for your safety. And Ricardi guessed what had happened and tried to rescue you.”

  “Mannering,” Ballas interpolated, “Ricardi used to work for me – that’s how he knew how anxious I was to get Alundo’s copy of the film. But he changed sides and started to help Alundo. Instead of giving me information, he kept it back and lied to me. Don’t blame Ethel for what happened to Ricardi – it didn’t happen because he came to rescue her.”

  Almost wearily, Mannering said: “No, I won’t blame Ethel for that or anything. Not even for telling the police I was on the Broadway Limited when Enrico was killed. You did do that, didn’t you Ethel?”

  “I told Mario,” she answered.

  “And I told the police,” Ballas finished. He sounded very tired. “I knew a lot about you, Mannering, and I didn’t want the added risk of tangling with you. I had plenty to do already. Oh, I knew you hadn’t murdered Enrico – but it suited me, for a time at least, to pretend that I thought you had.”

  “Do you know who did murder your nephew?”

  Slowly, steadily, Mario Ballas looked at each man in the room. Did his gaze linger a little longer on Tiger O’Leary, Mannering wondered. Then he leaned back.

  “Mannering, I’ve finished talking. Either you give me the film or tell me how to get it, or I shall have to make you talk. I don’t want to,” he went on bleakly. “But if I must, believe me I won’t fail.”

  Mannering said very quietly: “Well have to find that out. But before we do, there are one or two things you ought to know. When I came here I had a miniature tape recorder in my pocket. It was taken away. Where is it?”

  “I’ve got it,” Cyrus Lake put in.

  “Play it, will you?” Mannering said. “If you can’t operate it, I will.”

  “I can operate it.”

  “Cyrus,” Ballas said, “he’s the kind of madman who would blow himself up so as to blow us up.”

  “I’ve checked it for explosive, Mario.”

  “It could be a booby trap which goes off while it’s being played.”

  “I ran a spare tape through it,” Cyrus said.

  “Play it,” ordered Ballas.

  Cyrus plugged the little machine into a point near the desk, and Mannering sat back. The three men there to watch him stood impassively: they were morons, this scene, or probably any other, meant nothing to them. O’Leary coughed occasionally, the sound a short bark of protest. Ballas kept his eyes closed, but his tension showed in his expression, in the way he clenched his hands on the desk.

  First came Mannering’s voice, then Alundo’s; next Alundo’s in anger, then Alundo telling Mannering exactly what he would do at the HemisFair, calling Ballas evil incarnate, speaking with a controlled passion which seemed to be more effective as it came out of the box – detached from the anger and the wildness in Alundo’s eyes. For the first time the faint smile was wiped from Cyrus Lake’s face, and something of the tension touched him, too.

  At last, Alundo’s voice and Mannering’s faded.

  Chapter Twenty

  The Speech

  Mannering leaned forward and switched the recorder off, then sat back and waited. Cyrus began to walk about, dabbing at the back of his neck with a very white handkerchief. Ballas sat hunched in his chair. Ethel was standing very erect, still holding her glass; she had listened, fascinated, as her father’s voice had come into the room.

  “And you believe, if he gets it back, he will destroy the microfilm?” Ballas asked slowly.

  “Yes,” said Mannering, “I do believe it. I don’t think you are right about Alundo. I think he’s an idealist who believes he can save the peace of the world in this way. And I think he should have a chance to try.”

  Ballas shrugged.

  “And I don’t believe he will endanger that peace,” Mannering added. “After all, you do know that that wasn’t a sell-out to the Russians – or to anyone else.”

  Ballas was brooding.

  “Mario,” Cyrus said. “Mannering could still be lying to you.”

  “He’s not lying,” said Ballas, with quiet certainty. “He’s keeping plenty back, but he’s not lying. Tell me what happens if I refuse the deal, Mannering.”

  “You will be raided.”

  “Where?”

  “Here.”

  “The Mexican police will never come here for me.”

  “They’ll come for me,” Mannering said simply.

  Ballas said softly: “So.”

  “They’ll come for me,” Mannering repeated, “and they will come into this room. I have told them how to. I’ve told them if needs be they can blow a hole through the roof. It would be sacrilege, but—what do you think of Pollitzer?” he added almost casually.

  Nothing could keep the smile away from Cyrus Lake’s lips for long.

  Ballas said without feeling: “He is a dedicated man.”

  “Dedicated to putting you in prison.”

  “There is nothing he would like more.”

  “Pollitzer might do it,” Cyrus Lake breathed.

  “Pollitzer will send Mexican police here if I am not out with Ethel
at the stroke of seven o’clock,” Mannering said. “I made a deal with him, too. If Ethel and I get out, he won’t contact the Mexican police. And you can enjoy your treasures for as long as—”

  “I live,” Ballas interrupted, dryly. “To whom would you want me to leave them, Mannering?”

  Mannering said quietly: “The one thing Alundo has always wanted is a World Peace Foundation with some teeth in it. These”—he spread his arms—“must be worth twenty or twenty-five million dollars. Endow a Peace Foundation. If you haven’t lied to me,” Mannering went on softly, “that is basically what you want.”

  “I believe in America,” Ballas said thinly.

  “America needs peace as much as anyone,” Mannering replied. He smiled at Cyrus Lake. “You could give your name to the foundation – yours, and Alundo’s. Your memory would really be revered then, instead of—”

  “I don’t need telling how I shall be regarded after my death,” Ballas interrupted. “Can you guarantee that Alundo will behave as you think he will?”

  “No.”

  “Mario,” Cyrus said, “look at this straight. You don’t stand to gain a thing. Not a damned thing. You give all, you take nothing. Mannering’s putting over a big confidence trick—my God, Yellow Kid Wiel never thought up one as big as this. Give me everything you’ve got, he says, and I won’t give you anything in return.” Cyrus dabbed at his neck.

  Mannering said: “You have about ten minutes to make up your mind. If I walk out of this house and radio San Antonio within ten minutes, you can live in peace for the rest of your life, enjoy living, and even get a lot of fun out of the fact that you’re a kind of partner to Alundo—”

  Ballas laughed, a strange, not entirely unamused, thread of sound.