Reward For the Baron

by John Creasey

  Mannering swung round towards the chiffonier.

  Montagu Dell’s face was in his mind’s eye, the old man’s voice seemed to echo in his ears. “Even if a thief broke in, Mannering, he would never get out. There is a small engine fitted there, to give off carbon monoxide, the thief would soon become unconscious, and in a very short time he would be dead.”

  Firth was staring at him.

  “Get the police!” cried Mannering.

  He stretched out his arm and touched the ends of the chiffonier, trying to remember exactly where Dell had pressed, but it seemed a long time before he felt a piece of carving give beneath his pressure. He stood back. The chiffonier was slowly corning away from the wall.

  Mannering squeezed through the gap into the next room.

  The memory of Dell bringing him here was vivid in his mind’s eye, but there were moments of uncertainty – just where had Dell pressed to open the doorway near the fireplace that led to the inner room?

  He felt about with his fingers, forcing himself to act calmly. Nothing happened. Even if the police arrived within minutes, it would take hours to force the combination, unless he could remember the twists and turns which the old man had made.

  Desperately he worked on, his fingers pressing every minute piece of carving, every dent, every protuberance. Nothing happened.

  Inspiration came, swift as a thought. He looked down at the hearth, where Dell had been standing, he moved his foot along gently, pressing with his toes. Suddenly he heard a click, and as he stood back the opening appeared.

  Firth was behind him telling him that the police were coming.

  The opening widened. Mannering squeezed through to the first flight of stairs, where the stench met him, the green slime brushing his coat sleeves.

  He reached the false door at the end of the passage – and then he heard a sound. It was, unmistakably, the purr of an engine. An engine – the engine. He was sweating, yet he felt cold, chill horror within him.

  He went down on his knees and began pressing at the sides of a stone slab. He had closed this slab yet now he could not find the right place to exert pressure. The stone floor looked old and untouched, and he had not known what was beneath it he would not have dreamed of looking there.

  Sweat dropped from his forehead to the back of his hand.

  The steady beat of the engine went on and on.

  There was a sound of movement behind him, and then Firth’s voice.

  Shrill with horror: “The engine – listen!”

  Suddenly, at Mannering’s touch, the slab began to move. It seemed months, years, before the steel plate was revealed and the knob which could be turned so easily if only he knew the numbers.

  He touched the knob; he remembered that it had moved backwards first, but for how many turns? Dell had worked it so swiftly and smoothly that counting the clicks had been impossible. Was there even a chance of succeeding? Was there a ghost of a chance of getting the family out alive?

  He had seen the code and the last known combination.

  Someone had taken the copies from Lorna.

  Had that been Lloyd? Probably, but why? Because he did not want the strong-room entered? Or had it been one of the Dells? If so, which Dell? The questions gave him something on which to concentrate while he twisted and listened, but the clicking sound seemed drowned by the muffled beat of that infernal engine.

  People who died from carbon monoxide poisoning turned red, a brilliant red, almost crimson.

  Thud—thud—thud—thud—thud!

  He was wasting time, he would never happen on the combination by chance. But he had seen it, it had been in front of his eyes, it—

  Ah! The first letter was F, the first set of numerals 172. Memory came back that far, memory encouraged because he had let his mind wander on other things. As he turned the knob, he seemed to recall every click when Dell had turned it, these coincided.

  He felt suddenly very cool.

  “Gently,” he said aloud. “Gently.”

  There was a pain in his back, from the tension of bending. He stood up mechanically, his mind blankly receptive, waiting to receive the second set of numerals. They hovered, vanished, hovered again.

  He cried out: “A pencil, quickly!”

  Firth put a faltering hand to his pocket but it came away empty.

  “I haven’t—” he stopped, for Mannering was scratching on the green slime of the walls with his finger nail. Letters and numbers as his memory came back in a flash. He caught the fleeting vision until it was there on the wall in front of him, but – was it right? He could not be sure.

  He lay full length on his stomach, and touched the knob, and now the numbers seemed burned deep into his mind. He could not forget them and he repeated them aloud over and over again. One set to go, only one set to go, and he would know whether he were right or whether the memory had been a mirage.

  “Mannering!” cried Firth, “Mannering, stop!”

  Mannering glared round. “Keep quiet.”

  “You must stop!” The words came in a rush. “There’s electricity there! He once told me that if anyone opened the door, the moment they got it open, enough current would come through to kill.”

  Mannering snatched his hand away from the knob. “There are other little tricks” Dell had said. He was a fool to think that Dell had shown him everything. He turned sharply to Firth.

  “Go and turn the current off at the main. Bring candles.”

  He waited. Electricity, of course, the simplest form of protection. And so nearly, so very nearly, the termination of his last act on earth.

  Why didn’t Firth hurry? Carbon monoxide was being pumped steadily into that airless, underground room – how long had the engine been working? Every second was valuable and every second seemed an age. The steady thud—thud seemed to get louder, grow quicker, nearer, until it was beating inside his head and, to his over-strained nerves, it seemed as if the old man was shouting close to his ear: “Mine will be enough—mine will be enough, mine will—” so that he looked over his shoulder, involuntarily and, as he did so, the light went out and the sound of the engine ceased.

  He was plunged into darkness and silence, eerie and unnatural.

  Dell’s voice began to whisper round him—was he losing his senses?—whisper that Firth had left him there, in the darkness, to die.

  A cold sweat broke out on his forehead. He had an insane desire to grope his way up and see if the door were still open, as blank horror possessed him and swamped all reasoning power.

  There were footsteps.

  A faint light showed and he heard Firth’s voice saying: “I’m coming, I’m coming!” So Mannering had misjudged him! With his relief, his energy returned as suddenly as it had left him.

  He muttered his thanks as Firth put a torch on the floor near him.

  One more number – a B number, backwards.

  Mannering touched the knob, and then memory deserted him, he could not think of the number. He tried to look up at the wall but could not, and he gasped:

  “Read the last number, Firth. Hurry!”

  Firth took a torch. The beam shone on the wall, up and down, up and down, as he searched for the numbers. It was unbearable.

  “B 785,” said Firth at last. “B 78 – it might be 3.”

  “No,” said Mannering. “It was 5, I remember now.”

  Back—seven—eight—five.

  He stood up.

  “Take that side,” he said to Firth. “Try and get your fingers under it as I pull at the handle.

  He exerted all his strength, and the steel door moved, just enough for Firth to get his finger beneath it and to stand the strain. Slowly, slowly, a fraction of an inch at a time, it came up.

  “I’ll go first,” said Mannering. “Bring water and towels – hurry!”

  “W—water?” stammered Firth.

  “To cover our faces,” said Mannering. Why didn’t the fool understand?

  It was difficult to speak in the foul air
which rose from the strong-room. Firth ran towards the stone steps as Mannering faced the wooden stairs again. He could not see the foot of them, could not see into the strong-room beyond the stairs.

  He went down, a step at a time, holding his breath at first, then breathing at intervals only.

  They were all there.

  They looked – dead.

  Matthew and Jeff were at the foot of the stairs, as if they had tried to force the door. The old man was in the easy chair, the pretty wife of Charles was on her knees in front of him, as if she had collapsed while making a desperate appeal. Charles was leaning against an empty safe, Mark and Thomas were bowed over the desk where the empty trays stood, dark and significant.

  Stupidly, Mannering thought: “They can’t all be dead.”

  Firth was coming, he heard footsteps and then saw him, carrying a pail of water, with towels over his shoulder. He was not alone. The footman, the old servant and the chunky chauffeur followed him, scared but eager to help. Mannering thrust a towel in the water and wrapped it about his face. He was thinking that in spite of everything he had forgotten to send for a doctor; perhaps Firth had thought of that. Perhaps the police would bring one.

  Were all these people dead?

  The colour of their skin frightened him, but he did not know whether any of them were breathing, he had only one thought in his mind – to get them out of that chamber of horror to the fresh air of the big rooms upstairs.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Touch and Go

  When talking to Bristow on the telephone, Firth had babbled of carbon monoxide. Bristow knew when to act drastically. Doctors nurses and ambulances sped to Dacres. Headlamps lit up the hideous house with their sweeping glare. A policeman stood in the middle of the road, directing traffic, as the Dells were taken out one by one, motionless figures on stretchers.

  Lorna arrived as the last ambulance moved out. She sat tense and motionless, fighting her fears that one of the ambulances contained Mannering. At last she could stand the suspense no longer. She jumped out of the taxi and hurried along the drive, dazzled by the lights, stumbling over the grass verge and over flower beds, blundering into bushes.

  Police were everywhere.

  In the hall stood Tanker Tring.

  Quietly, unobtrusively, guessing her fear, his voice boomed out reassurance.

  “Hallo, Mrs Mannering! Mr Mannering’s upstairs.”

  Lorna swung round. “Is he all right?”

  “Bless you, yes,” said Tring, with a smile. “A bit tired, that’s all, but then he did a job of work.” He led her into the big room, where Bristow, Kay, two or three other men and a doctor stood about. The chiffonier was still away from the wall, and there were sounds from the other room.

  Mannering was sitting back drinking hot coffee. Lorna hurried to him, gripping his hands. He looked flushed, his eyes too bright, his clothes creased and dirty.

  “I asked them to telephone you,” he said. “Did they?”

  “Yes,” said Loma, “they said – well, I thought they might be breaking bad news gently.” She sat down abruptly in a chair which Bristow pushed up. “Where—I mean, what happened?”

  “The kindest thing is to say that Montagu Dell went mad and tried to murder his family and commit suicide.”

  The police surgeon, said brusquely: “That isn’t only kind, it’s true.”

  Lorna said, with a catch in her voice: “The others?”

  “Touch and go,” said Mannering. She looked at the police surgeon.

  “I think the younger people will recover,” he said. “The older sons and their wives have less chance.”

  “Charles and Mark,” murmured Lorna. The horror was taking hold of her, although she did not know the whole of it.

  Mannering turned restlessly in his chair. “We can’t be really sure of any of them living. We can’t even be sure if Montagu was right or not in his belief.”

  “His belief?” faltered Lorna.

  “He thought the whole family had conspired against him,” said Mannering harshly. “It was I who implanted the first suspicion against Charles.”

  He turned bleakly to Bristow. “Do you know the truth?”

  “I’m not sure yet,” said Bristow. “Lloyd and Mrs Kingham say that they worked for Charles. They also mentioned the others. I’ve no doubt that it was Mrs Kingham who really put the idea into Montagu’s head.”

  “But why?”

  “Isn’t it obvious?” asked Bristow.

  “Not to me,” Mannering sat up, ignoring the warning look on Lorna’s face.

  “You’d better get back to the Royal for some sleep,” said Bristow. He was more friendly, he was deeply concerned. Even Kay, a subdued Kay, had admitted to him that even if Mannering were the Baron, they owed him a great deal. Had the strong-room been shut up until the police arrived, there would have been no hope of the Dells survival at all.

  “Sleep!” said Mannering scornfully. “No sleep for me until I know which Dells will recover.” He patted Lorna’s arm. “No peace either until I’ve sorted things out.”

  She did not try to dissuade him.

  “Bill,” said Mannering, “Mrs Kingham and Lloyd were in this together. No doubt about that. We don’t know for certain whether they robbed Montagu Dell. Has Firth told you what was missing?”

  “A pretty big collection of jewels, I gather.”

  “Many of which were stolen in the first place,” said Mannering. “Dell bought some of them, not knowing this. Kingham then revealed the truth, blackmailed Dell into going on with it. There’s your motive for trouble at Dacres. Have you found any other jewels?”

  “Yes. Firth showed them to us. But he said they were a secondary collection.”

  “He was right. Only the big lot was stolen. The question is by whom? Lloyd and Mrs Kingham wanted the Dells blamed. No wonder! But there’s a thing you don’t know. The strong-room combination code and keys to the safe were in that pendant. Charles had it, the inference was that Charles had stolen it and therefore that he had robbed the strong-room. Both Montagu Dell and I thought that the evidence was strong enough to determine his guilt. It wasn’t. Do you remember being annoyed because I didn’t tell you that we found Kingham in Charles’s room?”

  “I do,” said Bristow.

  “Looking for the pendant, I thought at the time,” said Mannering. “But he might have been doing the exact opposite. That is, putting the pendant in Charles’s room.” Mannering paused for a moment, while everyone looked towards him! “That, I see now, is more than a probability. I plump for it.”

  “Go on,” said Bristow, slowly.

  “There’s much more,” said Mannering. He was speaking in clipped sentences, his eyes over-bright, his face flushed. “We’ve assumed all along that Kingham was the king-pin of the original crooks, that Lloyd and Mrs Kingham helped him. Why? Could it not be that Lloyd was the chief mover, that Kingham, having dealt legitimately with the Dells for years, would have been content to compromise? If so, he would be the vulnerable spot in the rapacious plans of Lloyd and Mrs Kingham. They would get him to secrete the pendant in Charles’s room, and then kill him. Then Jeff and I turned up with Kingham. Good! A wonderful opportunity, to frame one of the Dells. I went downstairs on an errand of inquiry. A telephone call took Jeff away. That left Carol. Carol always went out for a short while, after lunch, and did so then. Perfect. They killed Kingham, leaving by the back way, but—did Carol see them? They thought so. They must get rid of Carol. They tried and failed. Lloyd was seen by Clive. So they killed Clive. Lloyd found out that I was working for the Dells, and that the old man had also asked me to find his pendant. I was a great danger. So kill me. They tried.”

  Mannering paused, but no one spoke. The banging of a door outside seemed very loud.

  “They rested on their performance. Mrs Kingham made up to Carol, and doubtless learned that she did not suspect the truth, so there was no danger from her. Wisely they kept very quiet. Everything was working up nicely ag
ainst the Dells. Montagu was convinced he knew the truth, and meant to avenge himself. They knew that. Remember all the things they knew about Montagu Dell, won’t you? They’re important. The Dells would be wiped out, or else the evidence against them would be so strong they wouldn’t have a chance of escaping the law. Even when Lloyd lost the papers which would make trouble for them, they were not alarmed. They thought the thief was a Dell, they could handle the Dells. The Dells guilty, Mrs Kingham and Lloyd sitting pretty with the collection. The police would assume the Dells had salted it away, and would not be surprised that they couldn’t find it. And Lloyd, as Kingham’s partner – partner of a well-known fence – could dispose of the collection item by item. Is it working out?”

  “Yes,” said Bristow. “Go on.”

  “There isn’t much more,” said Mannering, sombrely. “It went wrong where they least expected it. The whole set-up looked perfect. Human frailty betrayed them. Remember how much they knew about Montagu? How confident they were? Why? Because they knew that Montagu Dell was going to wipe out his family. How did they learn? He didn’t tell them. But he told one man, or gave that one man reason for thinking that was his plan. The one man passed it on, as he had passed on everything else. He had telephoned Kingham when Jeff and I were at the shop, to tell Jeff of Montagu’s seizure. Someone, then, from Dacres. Then came the real test. Montagu Dell started his punishment. One man stayed here, knowing what was happening, knowing that the Dells were downstairs, dying. Dying. It frayed his nerves beyond endurance. And he had to cover himself. So he telephoned me, not the police, he telephoned me. Bunny Firth, of course,” Mannering added, and a sigh seemed to come from everyone in the room.

  “Bunny Firth,” repeated Mannering. “The go-between. The innocent, the nice young man whom everyone liked. He pretended to be a victim of Mrs Kingham’s blandishments, he thought he had covered himself nicely in every way, but, in the end, he couldn’t stand the strain of waiting, and sent for me too soon. They won’t all die.”

  After a long silence, Bristow said slowly:

  “I think you’re right, but – what was his motive?”