by John Creasey
Mannering hesitated: and then he nodded slowly.
“I think so. But you forgot part of the agreement, Kulper. If I succeed, I get the negatives back.”
“Of course, of course. You get your negatives,” said Kulper. He stood up slowly, gathering oddments from the desk in front of him. “It is now nearly three o’clock, and you have little enough time to prepare. Good luck, my friend.”
He offered his hand. Mannering deliberated quickly, and then took it. It was hot and dry, somehow what he expected, but the grip was quite firm.
Twenty-five minutes after he had entered, Mannering left the Status Billiard Hall and walked rapidly towards Aldgate. He felt relieved, and yet he was uneasy because of Kulper’s thoroughness. There was no possibility of manoeuvring for time, for getting out of the fix. He had no choice about Eldred’s strong-room, and he hated the yoke.
By five o’clock the Baron was admitting a reluctant admiration at Kulper’s efficiency. Nothing had been neglected, and Mannering, with his experience of following a plan, would be able to move about the Staines house without trouble. Even the major items of furniture that might have got in his way had been marked on the large scale drawings.
Mannering locked the papers in a drawer, and went into the bathroom. He proposed to leave by eight o’clock, and makeup somewhere in Staines, probably at the railway station.
Above the running of the water came a sharp ring at the door bell. He half expected to see Lorna, and he had prepared a way of disarming her suspicions: but he had prepared nothing for Chief-Inspector Bristow, who was standing outside.
Chapter Seventeen
The River House
“Hallo, Bill,” said John Mannering, and there was nothing in his smile to make Bristow suspicious of the thoughts in his mind. “I hardly expected you, but come in. How’re things?”
Bristow shook hands. Mannering was relieved when he smiled, for it suggested that the policeman was in friendly mood.
“Fair, fair, you know. They don’t alter much. Just going to bath?”
“I was, but there’s no hurry. Tea, or—”
“I’ve just had some, thanks.” Bristow sat down and accepted a cigarette. He was looking as spruce as ever, if a little tired about the eyes. “Well, Mannering, I’ve one or two questions.”
“Ask, and you may be told,” said Mannering.
“Perhaps,” said Bristow, in whom the power of repartee was not developed too strongly, “it’s about the Halliwell case.”
Mannering nodded.
“Your cut-and-dried affair, Bill? Sorry I couldn’t get to the inquest, but I don’t suppose it worried you. An adjournment, of course?”
Bristow nodded.
“Yes. Halliwell’s down for trial next month, and with a clear court, it will be fairly early. That key business isn’t important, Mannering, the marks might have been made by anyone. But Lynch put something up this morning, and it might make it awkward, for you.”
“For me? You can’t leave me out of it, can you?”
“You haven’t given us much chance in this job,” said Bristow bluntly. “Look here, Mannering, you’re the only man who can state that the key was found on the floor of the room. It means you will have to give evidence—”
“I’m not scared of a criminal court yet, Bill Bristow.”
“You ought to be,” flashed Bristow. “But the fact that the key was on the floor doesn’t necessarily mean Halliwell didn’t lock the door. It suggests he threw the key down to make sure he couldn’t fall to a sudden temptation to turn it in the lock again, and get out. Suicides often make sure against a last-minute repentance.”
“Beautiful,” murmured Mannering. “An answer for everything, and Hackett will enjoy that point. You know he’s taking the case?”
“Yes, that’s why I’ve come. He wouldn’t take it if he didn’t feel there was a reasonable chance, and thought Halliwell was innocent. How did you persuade him?”
“Exactly as I did you.”
“Nothing else?”
“Excepting that I told him I thought I knew the man who had sealed up the room, but I’m no means sure.”
Bristow was looking grim again, and rubbing his moustache.
“Look here, Mannering, if you know anything, you ought to tell us. It’s—”
“I haven’t the slightest reason for passing my theories on to you,” said Mannering. “If I did, and you caught the man, what would he do? Seal himself up as well as he did the room, and swear he’d never been to the hotel. It would do more harm to Halliwell than anything else, particularly as the gentleman I have in mind would probably be able to fake an excellent alibi.”
“But, Mannering—”
“No ‘buts,’ Bill. I’m working it out myself.”
“You’re playing like a damned fool,” snapped Bristow angrily. “Look here, if you keep at it, you know what’s going to happen?”
Mannering’s eyes were mocking.
“Yes, Halliwell will get free.”
“Apart from that—especially because of that. You’re the biggest jewel-thief in England, and you take a big interest in Halliwell because someone else killed Kingley. It’s possible to assume it’s because you know who killed him, even if you weren’t at the place yourself, and don’t want an innocent man convicted. You see?”
Mannering did see.
He was telling himself that he had been blind in a dozen ways over this affair, that he had neglected yet another obvious angle. Of course, the police – perhaps not Bristow, but others – would suspect the Baron of doing just that. They would be prepared to believe that Kingley had been killed by the Baron, or through the Baron, who was fighting because of it.
His face was a little gaunt, his eyes very hard.
“I see. Bill. It’s one of those things that make me glad I’m not a policeman, but you’ve forgotten one important thing. I’m not a jewel-thief. You may think I am, but you’re wrong. Got it?”
“Oh, the old denials, but they won’t serve you. Lynch is working round it this way—”
“But he sent you here, or you wouldn’t say so.”
Bristow was beginning to look uncomfortable.
“All right, he did. He wants to find just what you know, Mannering, and why you’re sticking your nose into this business.”
Mannering laughed sharply and without humour.
“I get you. If I talk, I’m the white-headed boy, and there’s no need for me to worry. If I don’t, you’ll try and cook up something so that I find myself charged with complicity in the Kingley case. By doing that you’ll have a good opportunity for innuendo with your blasted ideas that I’m the Baron, and you’ll try to break me that way. All right, try. And I’ll have Hackett on a malicious prosecution case that will ruin you, Lynch, and any other policeman who takes part in it. Now it’s your turn to see.”
Bristow rubbed his chin slowly.
“We-ell—I can’t say I subscribe to the theory, Mannering. But it’s possible. You’re extremely anxious to clear Halliwell—”
“I’ve told you why, and the reason’s true. Take it or leave it, Bill, and try and remember my message verbatim, for Lynch. Shall I write it down?”
“Now listen—”
“I’ve just remembered an appointment, and I need a quick bath,” said Mannering shortly. “If you don’t get off, I’ll lose my temper and throw you out, and then you’d have a case for assault, but without a witness. Oh, don’t argue, man!”
Bristow stood up, shrugging his shoulders. As he reached the door Mannering laughed and followed him, resting a hand on the Inspector’s shoulder.
“Sorry, Bill. My tongue runs away with me, but it’s your confounded blindness over the Halliwell job that’s the trouble. I’ll make you an offer.”
Bristow looked relieved: for three years he had been trying to dislike John Mannering, and failing signally.
“What is it?”
“If I get what I want and can hand you Kingley’s murderer, I’ll do it.
No reprisals on my own part. But just at the moment it would ruin the chances to let you in on anything.”
Bristow eyed him steadily.
“Please yourself, Mannering. You’re playing with fire, but you’ve done it before. So—”
“My thoughts exactly,” said Mannering.
He felt depressed when Bristow had gone. The danger from the affair was worse than he had dreamed when he had started it. The police could be ruthless. They believed him to be the Baron, but if they could get him on another charge they would be satisfied.
The police on one side, Kulper on the other, and the link between them the photographs.
“Damn it all,” said Mannering aloud as he lowered himself in the bath, “I’ll be glad to get to Eldred’s place. It’ll be something to do. Next time I play Good Samaritan, it’s going to have nothing to do with jewels.”
He bathed quickly, and spent twenty minutes at Swedish drill with particular variations of his own, to get limbered up for the night’s adventure. The rest of the affair was slowly fading from his mind; he made himself forget his anxiety, to get into the familiar buoyant mood of the Baron before a raid. He was the Baron, with the Baron’s work to do. He needed all the zest he could command, and there was fillip in the fact that he was attempting something that was almost impossible. He did not unduly stress the help of Kulper’s plans and information, for had he been carrying the whole thing through on his own he would have made similar arrangements: the preparations had been done for him, but the job itself was the thing that mattered.
For that night the only thing.
With the same disguise as that which he had used for the burglary at Jackson’s place, the Baron stood by the hedge bordering River House from the by-road that led to it. He was a shroudy figure in the shadows with his coat collar turned up and his hat pulled well down over his eyes. His tools were about his waist, the blue silk handkerchief in his pocket. He was wearing the rubber-tipped gloves that protected him against leaving finger-prints, while in a shoulder holster was his gas pistol, loaded with ether-gas – the only ammunition he used.
There was a slow ripple of sound, intensified by the silence. In the distance a car horn would sound occasionally, but about River House there was no noise but the slowly-flowing river. He could see it through the hedge, gleaming occasionally when the moon slipped between light billows of clouds.
From a nearby church tower midnight began to strike, sonorous and clear.
To the north a heavy bank of clouds was coming up, and Mannering was praying that they would not loosen when they reached this spot. He had no desire for the moon; with Eldred’s careful guards about it might be dangerous.
Five minutes passed. Still no sound came, and the clouds were beginning to cover the moon, shutting off its silvery glow. No light was burning in River House, and still no sound came to disturb the silence.
Slowly the clouds moved across the sky, spreading strange darkness.
There was a faint glow about the countryside, but barely enough for the Baron to distinguish the gate or the shape of the house. It was just right for his purpose, and he went through a gap in the hedge quickly. His heart was beating fast, his lips were parted as he reached a lawn bordering the house, and moved quickly towards the east side.
Emmanuel Eldred had built the place ten years before. It was not unduly large, and there were fifteen rooms on two floors. The entrance to the underground strong-room was at the end of the main passage hall, and near it one of the armed guards would be patrolling.
The east side held the drawing-room and dining-room. The best window, according to Kulper’s plan, was that of the dining-room, for it was closer to the ground than any of the others. It was wired, but Mannering would have expected that in any case.
He moved quickly, reaching the window in twenty seconds, with the grass deadening every sound of his footsteps. The window was of solid construction, and the glass stopped a foot from the ground. Mannering slipped his mask over his mouth and chin, and the Baron stood there, silent, tense.
He took a small pair of thin-mawed pincers from his toolkit, and slipped it between the frame of the window, running it round slowly, cautiously. Every second he expected to feel the light touch of wire, but he found none. It meant that the wire was inside, and he would have to get the window open to find it.
He shone his torch, with a wide, flat-nosed glass, over the whole surface of the window, but saw no wire on the other side. Frowning, he took a roll of brown paper from his kit, specially prepared with a sticky surface for the operation. He unrolled part of it against the glass, to which it adhered, and cut it across; a piece nearly a foot square was ready for use.
Then he tapped sharply with a small rubber-headed hammer.
To his straining ears the sound seemed magnified out of all proportion, and he dodged back into the shadows. No other sound came, and after thirty seconds he believed that no alarm had been raised; he went forward, quickly but without a sound.
The paper came away easily, bringing with it several spiked pieces of glass. The window was shattered in the shape of a large irregular star, and he lifted piece after piece out until there was room for him to climb through. According to the statements in the instructions, there was no outside patrol; the guards concentrated on the strong-room. There was no need to fear that the broken window would be seen by anyone passing by.
With the gap wide enough, he put his head and shoulders and one arm through. Keeping his balance by gripping the outside wall with his other hand, he groped for the wire. He dared not move quickly, for if he struck the wire sharply it would raise the alarm and the effort would be finished before it was properly started.
He found the alarm at last, his fingers touching it very lightly.
He shone his torch on the thin silver streak of the wire. In a flash he had severed it with the pincers, and then he had another nerve-racking period of waiting. Some wires gave the alarm when they were cut, as well as when they were being dragged: did Eldred’s?
A minute was enough for him to assume that it did not. He climbed quickly through the window, and stepped across to the door leading to the hall. It was locked with a double-mortice, a brute of a thing to open, and he needed skeleton keys, for the key of the door was not in the lock.
He worked in the darkness, the only sound the scratching of the pick-lock on the hard metal. Time seemed to stand still, the ticking of his wrist-watch was very clear.
Click!
He had it back, but the noise seemed deafening. Cautiously he opened the door a fraction of an inch. There was no light inside, no sound. He widened the gap and stepped through.
The hall, like the drawing-room, was thickly carpeted, but that was against the Baron as much as for him: it silenced the approach of others as well as himself. Everything seemed quiet, no gleam of light shone.
The Baron stood with his back to the drawing-room door, took two paces forward, and then turned left. That should leave him in the middle of the hall, and facing the passage leading to the strong-room. His eyes grew accustomed to the gloom, and he could make out the shape of the staircase that he had to pass. His right hand brushed against the hand-rail as he went forward, very slowly.
At the end of the passage were two steps, leading to a conservatory: Eldred had a passion for flowers as well as jewels, and the scent came strongly, a little sickly, in Mannering’s nostrils. He reached the steps, knowing that at any moment one of the guards might reach the place. The only door of the strong-room led from it.
The Baron waited. He wanted the man to come now, as he stood back in the shadows. He had to overpower him before he could go further, and he wondered whether it would mean a scuffle, or whether he could make the passage silently.
Then, very abruptly through the silence, he heard the opening of a door. A gleam of light shone, and a man’s figure snowed clearly in silhouette. He came unsuspectingly towards Mannering, and the Baron saw his right arm go out to switch on the light.
Mannering watched him, lynx-eyed.
The conservatory was flooded with light, and the Baron, crouching behind foliage and flowers, saw a tall, hard-faced man step forward, one hand in his pocket, the other carrying a truncheon. He was three yards from the Baron, and he came forward slowly, not warily, but by habit. Mannering spared no time for looking at the strong-room. He waited, with his gas-pistol poking through a gap in the foliage. The man would pass within a foot of him, and the ether-gas would daze him enough for Mannering’s purpose.
Two yards – one.
Mannering’s finger tightened on the trigger, and as it did so the guard turned, and the Baron looked straight into his eyes.
Chapter Eighteen
Strong-Room Underground
There was a slight hiss of the escaping ether gas, and Mannering saw the other’s lips open, knew from the expression in a pair of startled eyes, that he had been seen. The man staggered, and Mannering pushed past a tub of flowering chrysanthemums in time to stop his victim from falling with a thud that might have raised an alarm.
His man was sagging against him, only semi-conscious: the Baron slipped a pad treated with chloroform from his pocket, and pressed it tightly over the open mouth and nose. The guard gasped and struggled spasmodically, and then went still.
Mannering half-carried and half-dragged him to a corner in the shadows, and propped him against the wall. It would be an hour before the guard would come round, and the feeling of uncertainty and doubt faded. The Baron was working and winning, the old tricks were succeeding, and the odds were reduced by a third. He ran his hands over the guard’s clothes, finding two automatics and a black-jack, as well as the police truncheon.
Mr. Emmanuel Eldred did not propose to take the chance that his guards were under-armed, and Mannering knew that he had to be doubly careful: the guards would not worry whether their shooting had fatal effects or not, providing it stopped an intruder.
He found no keys, and confounded the fact as he stepped to the strong-room door. He left the light on for a few seconds, to examine the door more closely. It was a three-lock combination, by no means the most difficult obstacle the Baron had met, and the chances of getting through seemed rosier.