by John Creasey
“You value your life cheaply, Baron. Had you said five thousand I might have been interested.”
Mannering leaned forward: it was time to start acting, and he began quickly, with a passion in his voice that could hardly fail to convince.
“All right—let’s stop joking! But I can’t find five thousand, nor the half of it. Fifteen hundred—”
The lip twitched again.
“In three years you have stolen—shall we say a quarter of a million pounds worth of jewels? And in three years you have spent all but fifteen hundred pounds! You will hardly expect me to believe that.”
Mannering was leaning further forward, and his eyes wide, his lips working a little.
“It’s true I tell you! I can’t sell for a tenth of what the stuff is worth and I’ve lived pretty high! I might find two thousand at a stretch—”
He hardly knew why, but he had a conviction that he was pleasing the dwarfed, grotesque little figure in front of him. That single green eye seemed to glow with pleasure, and the right lips were turned upwards. However, not once did he get a glimpse of the man’s teeth.
“So—you have lived high, and you are hard pressed for money.”
Mannering snapped out the next sentence harshly.
“Damn you, why should I be doing a fiddling little job like this if I wasn’t in need of ready? The big jobs cost money and they’re dangerous. I can’t try them too often—I can’t get the stuff. Look here, if you’re playing with me, get it over. Call the police and be damned to you!”
There was silence, and Kulper sat down slowly on the edge of a chair seven or eight feet from Mannering. He rested the gun on a small table next to him.
“Do not be careless, please. You see—” His right hand moved, so fast that Mannering hardly saw it, and a moment later the gun was pointing as steadily as ever. If he had ever had any tendency to doubt the capability of the man in front of him, it disappeared. The man could and would shoot, and the chances of making a successful fight were far too few.
Yet why was the other talking?
“Excellent: you are impressed.” Kulper shrugged. “Baron, you are entirely in my hands. You can get a long sentence in prison simply for being here. Your past record would mean, I should say, fifteen years in jail. You do not look young. You would be fifty perhaps when you came out—fifty, and a poor man on your own admission. You realise how completely you are at a disadvantage?”
Mannering tightened his lips, judging it policy to keep quiet.
“For my silence,” said Kulper, “I want ten thousand pounds.”
Mannering half-jumped from his chair.
The lightening-like movement came again, and he stared at the gun as though he were scared out of his life. He sank back, scowling, his lips working.
“Damn you, it’s hopeless! Ten thousand! Why, I haven’t got two!”
“There is another way,” said Kulper.
Mannering hesitated, and then showed a grudging interest.
“If you’re fooling—all right, what is it?”
“Some work for me, of the type you will doubtless admire, Baron. But before we go further, I will tell you the conditions. This room will be undisturbed until one o’clock, when its owner normally returns. You can, therefore, stay here until that hour, if necessary. I will arrange for a photographer—”
Mannering raised a clenched right hand, but he was trying to get at the idea in the other’s mind. The fellow was trying to corner him; there was no doubt of that: but why?
“Damn you, it’s a trap—”
“How absurdly melodramatic,” said Kulper. “It is a reasonable precaution. Baron. You see, I have not even asked your name. You will stay here until you are photographed. On the back of the photograph will be your signed statement that you were here with intent to steal. Once the police have a photograph of the Baron, they will be content. It would not be a long task for them to find you.”
“They’ve never seen me face to face.” Mannering’s heart was beating fast: the other believed that the police knew nothing of him, and his reputation was standing him in good stead. “It would mean prison—”
“Only if the police were given the photograph,” said Kulper.
Mannering stared.
“Look here, what—”
“Allow me. I shall retain the photograph, particularly the negative, while you will do certain work for me. You will be in excellent company, although you will perhaps hardly appreciate it. You understand?”
“You mean while I obey you I’m safe?”
“Exactly that. While you obey me, you are safe. I require nothing more than the photograph—perhaps the only one in existence of the Baron. Of his other self, perhaps—but then the police could find that much more easily than I.”
Mannering was scowling, although his pulse was steadier. He believed the urgency of the danger was past.
“All right, damn you. What do you want me to do?”
“That is the wrong spirit,” said Kulper, nodding his head to and fro like a grotesque doll, “it might cause you considerable harm. Tell me, you know the jewel collectors of this country reasonably well?”
“I know them very well.”
“Excellent. What do you know of Emmanuel Eldred?”
Mannering was really startled by that.
He knew Eldred slightly, and he knew of the house at Staines, and of the precautions Eldred had taken to make sure his collection was never stolen. Eldred did not announce everything, but there was an underground room, furnished and comfortable, but guarded so closely that the chances of a thief getting in and out were very remote. A year before, when the Baron had been working for gain and little else, he would have been interested in Eldred’s precautions: they constituted the type of challenge that the Baron had always found it difficult to resist.
Dare he try it now?
“I see you do,” said Kulper. “I am making arrangements to have Eldred’s house visited, Baron. I had arranged, in fact, for several people to help me, but now—the Baron can succeed where no one else could hope to get in. You see how great is your reputation?”
“It’s an impossible job!” Mannering’s voice was hoarse with well-feigned alarm. “You know it is!”
“So? You remember the English Museum, some years back? The Hatton Garden robbery? The affair of Didcotte—all equally ‘impossible’ tasks, yet successfully accomplished by the Baron. But—” Kulper leaned forward a little, and he actually managed to seem almost human. “We need not quarrel. Get Eldred’s stuff—a quarter of a million they say—and for your freedom and the negative, we will divide. You will not be working for nothing. Half of the proceeds, and you get the negative. You understand, my friend? And it can be the forerunner of many other ventures, especially profitable. I can help the Baron where he finds it difficult. Information—plans—explosives—tools, even men for the rougher work. I have made my offer, my friend, and now—your answer.”
Kulper lifted his left hand, took the gun in his right, and rested small, wizened fingers on the telephone. The two men eyed each other while the seconds ticked by.
Chapter Thirteen
Decision
Mannering was thinking fast and coolly, faced once again with a vital decision. He was sure of two things. The man in front of him meant what he said: his suggestion had been made in all seriousness. The fellow could call the police, shoot the Baron, and be away and out of reach without the slightest danger.
There were other possibilities, sound theories, if not facts.
The Baron believed that he was looking at the man who had arranged Kingley’s murder, who probably employed Clive Jackson, who had perhaps employed Brian Halliwell. Bristow had spoken of organised jewel-robberies. The man in front of him had spoken of ‘good company’ for the Baron.
More effectively than he had expected Mannering had jumped into the middle of the affair. It was no longer a matter of detached interest, no longer a fight for Halliwell and Marion Delray, but a figh
t for himself, and a grim one.
If he refused it meant death, or the police.
If he accepted the offer, a photograph of him – in a disguise that the man with the scarred face had not suspected – would be in existence. Naturally a man would hardly expect a disguise to be covered by a mask: few people would have expected it. The photograph, had it been of John Mannering, would have been damning. Even as it was, the man in front of him would have a piece of evidence that would be dangerous to a point; the Yard might be able to get measurements of the face to compare with Mannering. It would be serviceable to the police only as secondary evidence, but by itself would not be enough to cause arrest.
The writing on the back – Kulper would make Mannering do that – might also be dangerous, but no man had been convicted on handwriting alone, and from a negative it would be practically valueless, even to experts; certainly it would not be a point that a prosecution dared submit to judge and jury without substantial corroboration.
So if he agreed to the proposal he would be free for the time being. He could consider the Staines burglary, and if he decided against it, he could lose the fellow with the scar. That small, uncanny man would doubtless have the Baron followed, but Mannering did not feel purturbed by that.
“Well?” said Kulper slowly.
Mannering drew a deep breath, like a man accepting a thing against his will.
“All right, but Eldred’s place is impossible I tell you. It’ll be suicide.”
“Your suicide,” murmured Kulper. “And I am sure that when you are fighting for your freedom and safety you will find a way of overcoming the apparently insuperable obstacles. Excellent, my friend. I am going to call some colleagues of mine, don’t be alarmed.”
Mannering nodded and stood up. Kulper did not move for his gun, and the Baron knew the other believed he was dealing with a beaten man.
“Where’s the whisky,” Mannering made his voice hoarse.
“Not so well fortified, after all? I thought perhaps you would find that. There is a cabinet over there.”
He did not warn the Baron against trying to make a reprisal, and Mannering admired the man’s subtlety as he helped himself to a strong whisky, to impress his captor – and heard him speak softly after dialling a number that Mannering had not been able to follow.
“Greene. Send a man with a good camera to Jackson’s place, will you? Yes, yes, at once. Do you know where Jackson is?”
“He’s with McLeish, at the Hula Club.” Greene’s voice echoed clearly enough from the earpiece for Mannering to hear each word faintly.
“Good, good. Get him, ask him to accompany the photographer, otherwise we might have the servants alarmed. It is urgent, Greene, an hour at the most.”
Mannering found the next half-hour unnerving in the extreme. His companion did not smoke, drink nor speak. He seemed completely spiritless, but there was a menace in his silence and his confidence. Mannering was beginning to wonder where he had under-estimated the situation.
He had no chance to fight, whether he thought it necessary or not.
The gun was there all the time, and he knew that it would be suicide to jump, or to throw a glass at the other. After thirty minutes he broke a long silence with a curse, and: “Look here, after I’ve gone tonight, what happens?”
“You will call on me.”
“Where?”
“At the Status Billiard Hall, Mile End Road.” Kulper’s lips twitched. “Should you imagine others than yourself would care to know where to find me, remember you do not know my name, nor can you be sure that my unhappy disfigurement is not carefully assumed, like your mask. You will call—shall I say Monday? All arrangements should be made by then. At two o’clock in the afternoon, and you will ask for the private saloon. Is that understood?”
“I’ve got it,” said Mannering jerkily.
“That is good. Now quiet, please, I want to think.”
Certainly Kulper had every reason to believe that he had scored a complete success. Mannering looked and acted like a badly worried man, and when at last there came a tap on the door he jumped round nervously.
“It is all right,” said Kulper, and raised his voice. “Come in.”
Mannering watched the two men who entered carefully, on the alert all the time.
Greene was tall, florid-faced, dressed in a green suit, and wearing green suede shoes. His red neck bulged a little above his tight-fitting green-striped collar. He was wearing a pork-pie hat that he did not trouble to take off, and carrying a Leica.
The second man was an exquisite, and Mannering’s eyes narrowed, partly in disgust. He wore black. Instead of a tie he affected a long, flowing bow. He was carrying his Homburg hat, and his waving black hair was perfectly arranged, probably marcelled. He wore patent leather shoes, and walked with a silent, easy grace contrasting absurdly with Greene’s brisk but bovine movements.
So this was Jackson.
Mannering had managed to make the jittery porter at Renman’s confide in him. The porter had testified to seeing ‘a proper pansy’ enter the hotel soon after ‘Mr. Johnson’. There was no longer any doubt in Mannering’s mind of Jackson’s visit to the hotel.
Greene glared round. Jackson saw Mannering, kept his eyes on him, and closed the door. Mannering was prepared to be wary of the expression in those sloe-black eyes, an expression almost of recognition.
Mannering’s heart began to bump.
“What is this, Kulper?” Jackson spoke.
Mannering was uncertain whether to be elated by learning the name or scared of Jackson’s manner. He was ready in those seconds to make a do-or-die attempt if necessary.
“A friend who called to see you,” said Kulper slowly. “The Baron, Jackson, who is needing small change. We were talking of him only this afternoon, and now we have him with us. Yes, he has agreed to join us, for a consideration. Excellent, don’t you agree?”
Greene pushed his hand through his short hair and stared.
“Well I’m damned! The very fella—”
“Why was he here?” asked Jackson, and still his eyes did not move from Mannering. Did the exquisite recognise him? Or had he discovered that he was wearing a disguise of sorts? Mannering’s heart was thumping as Kulper replied sharply.
“I have told you. He burgled the house. I came and caught him, making the position excellent for us. Now don’t begin to raise objections, Jackson.”
Jackson looked sullen, and Mannering’s fears quietened.
“It looks damned funny to me. What does the Baron want to come here for?”
“Why does he want to visit a hundred houses like this?” demanded Kulper, and Mannering was laughing to himself, although there was an edge to his laughter. Kulper was defending him, Jackson was dubious. For a reason, or …?
“What are you going to do?” asked Jackson, adjusting the fall of his trousers as he sat down.
“Photograph him,” said Kulper quickly. “Back, front and side face. Get his signature to a statement of tonight’s burglary—and then if he should later change his mind about joining us, it would be useful as a method of persuasion. Who is going to take the pictures, Greene?”
“Me,” said Greene with a wide grin, and he licked his square lips. “Kulper, I hand it to you.”
Kulper nodded, showing neither appreciation nor disapproval.
“Step forward, Baron. Get to work, Greene. Now Jackson, sit back and behave yourself. You are beginning to be a nuisance.”
Jackson’s lips twisted, and Mannering no longer considered him dangerous.
“I am, am I? Why the devil did you come here tonight?”
“Because I had an impression this afternoon that you were thinking of trying to retire, and I wanted to reason with you. Remember you would be in an awkward position, should I decide to use all my knowledge.” Kulper was suave and confident. “I feel that Halliwell’s arrest makes it all the more important that we stay together—and I am prepared to use pressure, much though I would dislike it.”
“You damned blackmailer,” Jackson flared. “I—”
“Strong words, my friend,” Kulper’s eyes rather than his words made Jackson sit back, in silence. “Is the light good enough, Greene?”
Mannering was beginning to sweat. It was damnable that the two ends of the affair should bring them together, but he was in no frame of mind to appreciate the irony of it. He had the cheek pads in his mouth, and they would hardly suspect it. Nor would the rubber film over his teeth be suspected. But the grease-paint and the lines – very few it was true, but enough to notice – would surely be seen, especially when Greene stretched up and took a shade from the lamp. The brilliance made Mannering blink, for his nerves were at breaking point.
“It is all right now,” said Greene complacently.
He knew his job, and took his time. Mannering was still sweating when the eighth photograph – two from four angles – was taken. Then Greene closed the camera with a snap and grunted his satisfaction.
“Now that admission,” murmured Kulper.
It was over in ten minutes. Mannering, as he had expected, was told to write it himself. He had taught himself to write several different kinds of hands, and the brief admission to the burglary at Byways – from which Kulper dictated, he had been released by Clive Jackson on the understanding that he did not repeat the burglary – looked nothing like the script Mannering would have used. The police would of course suspect there was a different motive, but if they had a good chance of getting the Baron they would not press or inquire too far.
He blotted it, and handed it to Kulper. The man with the scar smiled for the first time, showing the teeth at the right side of his mouth. The disfigurement was real enough, there was no disguise about it.
“Is that all right?”
“Excellent, thank you,” Kulper said.
“That’s all you want?”
“What about his name?” demanded Jackson, still sullenly. Mannering fancied he was more concerned with Kulper’s real reason for being here than with the Baron.
Kulper shrugged his shoulders.
“Would he give a real one, Jackson? A false name and address means nothing to us. These photographs are exactly what we want, he cannot fake them.”