The Baron at Large

by John Creasey

  ‘We don’t even know they did.’

  Mannering forced his voice to keep steady. ‘Meaning?’

  ‘There isn’t any need to beat about the bush,’ said Bristow quietly. ‘Your word isn’t evidence I can rely on, Mr. Mannering, This is a queer affair: it doesn’t look like the Baron, but that doesn’t mean it wasn’t you.’

  ‘Can I never convince you that I’m not the Baron?’

  Bristow lilted his hands impatiently.

  ‘All right then, it doesn’t mean it wasn’t the Baron! The actual theft was thorough and typical of you—him. If it weren’t for the fact that others saw the two men I’d doubt their existence. As it is I am doubting whether I’ve had a straight story from you.’

  Mannering stood up.

  ‘An appropriate moment for finishing the interview, I think.’

  ‘No, it isn’t,’ snapped Bristow. ‘I want to know what the girl told you.’

  ‘You think my word’s reliable there?’

  ‘It can be corroborated,’ said Bristow grimly.

  Mannering hesitated, and then recounted his conversation with Fay. If Bristow had it from him, it might make it easier for the girl afterwards. But he was cursing the inevitability of police suspicion as he talked.

  Bristow appeared to have forgotten their sharp exchange, and listened in silence, to say when Mannering finished: ‘Yes. It gives a tenable theory, anyhow. He helped the thieves, took his share and started off alone. The kind of thing a young man with socialist tendencies might well do if he lost his head. But Errol shot him, and he knew he couldn’t explain the wounds away, so he decided to end it.’

  ‘Not a nice way of committing suicide,’ said Mannering. ‘There was the obvious risk of freezing to death.’

  ‘Well, there’s no other apparent explanation,’ said Bristow abruptly, and Mannering knew that he was not satisfied. ‘I can’t understand why he didn’t go off in the car with the others – that’s the natural thing for him to have planned.’

  ‘It’s not, and you know it’s not. The natural thing for him to have planned was to hide whatever jewels he had, and get back to the house. But if that was so, he couldn’t return because Errol wounded him, and so the theory must be that he got to the Quarry and threw himself over.’

  Bristow nodded without enthusiasm.

  ‘Certainly he had the time, opportunity, motive; but dammit, you know how much stuff was taken. What I can’t understand is why he was satisfied with trinkets. It’s reasonable proof that he helped the thieves, But it wasn’t much pay.’

  Mannering shared Bristow’s doubts. Would a man in Armstrong’s position endanger everything he possessed and loved for such a small reward? He said thoughtfully: ‘If we assume that he had more when he left the house, we’re also saying it’s possible that he was pushed over.’

  Bristow changed the subject, too abruptly to be convincing.

  ‘Well, what are you going to do about your supposed loss?’ he asked.

  ‘How childish you are, Bill. Naturally I’m going to wait for the police to get it back for me.’

  Bristow said sourly: ‘Well, if you’re not in this thing, don’t start working on your own. If you do, we’ll get you before you’ve properly started.’

  ‘Think so? After all, every man has a right to look for his own property, and I was fond of the Glorias. I bought them from Galinet of Paris; if you’d care to see the receipt call at Brook Street any time. However, I’ll probably be too busy.’

  ‘You’d better be,’ said Bristow grimly.

  He left Mannering soon afterwards, and the Baron sat back in an easy chair to take stock of the situation. The evidence pointed strongly to Armstrong’s complicity: he did not know enough of the young man to believe one thing or the other about him, but it was significant that Fay should not put the theft past him.

  Yet was it likely he would have taken such a risk for five or six thousand pounds’ worth of jewels with a ‘stolen goods’ value of less than half that sum? No wonder Bristow was uneasy!

  There was another point. Bristow might doubt his story, but the two men had turned back. Supposing the whole robbery had been finished before Errol saw the thieves? Supposing the two men he had nearly stopped had put the bulk of the haul in the case, left it in the shrubbery and gone back to see Armstrong? Supposing Armstrong had had other jewels but been robbed of them in turn?

  Was it not possible that they had been with him when he had been shot? They could have pushed him over the edge, knowing he had stuff enough to incriminate him. The plentiful trees and shrubs would have hidden them from Errol, who admitted he had lost them – as Mannering had done later.

  Had there been time for that, between the shooting and the moment he had looked out of the window?

  Three minutes would have been ample – and Sharron had delayed him that long, if not more. It seemed likely to be generally assumed that Armstrong had committed suicide; would the police rest on that assumption?

  Could he find the truth, and at the same time the Glorias?

  He stood up, trying to force the thought away from him. Bristow was right, he would be a fool to meddle with the business. He might try to trace the stuff, through fences known to the Baron, but that must be the limit of his activities. The Baron was dead, and had to stay dead.

  He felt the old, familiar pull towards the Baron, the call for action. There was the thrill of a chase, too, and something of the fire that had started the Baron on his brief, exhilarating career came back: if he acted on impulse he would be in the middle of the affair before he knew what had happened, despite Bristow’s warning.

  ‘Keep right out of it,’ Mannering said virtuously. ‘Yes? Come in.’

  Forbes entered his room with letters in his hand. ‘I thought you would like your post, sir.’

  ‘Oh yes, thanks.’

  Mannering glanced at them. One was from Lorna. He read it first, and stood musing for a few minutes afterwards, with the letter in his hand.

  The second was from Kingleys of Hatton Garden. The Wellborough emeralds were on the market, and Mr. Mannering had expressed his interest in them some while before. Was he still interested? Mannering made a mental note to call on Kingleys; and opened the third letter, also typewritten.

  And then he stared down, narrow-eyed, at the last thing he had expected – a challenge and a threat to the Baron, startling in their abruptness.

  ‘What’s it feel like, Baron? And won’t Bristow be glad when he finds you’ve got the Kransit diamonds?’

  Chapter Five

  Challenge?

  ‘And won’t Bristow be glad when he finds you’ve got the Kransit diamonds?’

  The first sentence was unimportant, everything else which had happened faded into insignificance when compared with those thirteen words. Even the fact that someone who had been a party to the burglary knew him as the Baron seemed not to matter.

  The first moment of realisation brought him almost to a pitch of panic, and the colour drained away from his cheeks. He felt his fingers trembling, saw the letter shaking. His earlier fears had not been groundless, then. He was in acute danger.

  He had no idea where Fauntley’s Kransits were, but the letter implied that they were likely to be found somewhere likely to incriminate him.

  The first possibility was that they had been hidden somewhere in his room, but he pushed it aside quickly. They were not at the Towers, for the police had already made a search of his room, and Bristow would have acted by now if he had found them. The only other likely place was his Brook Street flat.

  The thieves could have put them there quite easily – but why had they warned him? Why had they not let Bristow search the flat, make the discovery, and pounce on the Baron? A word to the police would have ensured an immediate search at Brook Street.

  One idea occurred to him. In all probability they would prefer to keep away from the police, even from telephone contact. But they might intend to lure him from the Towers, tempt him to make a fast run
to London, knowing that he would be watched, and in all likelihood followed. It seemed almost too ingenious, but it was a tenable theory.

  The possibility made him sweat.

  If the Kransits were at the flat and he moved from the Towers with any apparent haste, it would be an open invitation to Bristow to telephone Scotland Yard. The resultant police visit to the flat would be over before he was halfway to London.

  ‘It’s clever,’ he muttered, ‘it’s a damned sight too clever. And it’s an even bet that Bristow is having these telephones tapped.’

  There were four exchange lines from the Towers, and three of them had extensions, but if the police were listening-in it would be done from outside, so that no one at the Towers would have reason to suspect it. He had to get to a telephone free from all risk of police surveillance, and he hurried out.

  No one was in the passage, but Crane was alone in his room, looking through a magazine. ‘Hello, John, in a hurry?’

  God, thought Mannering, I’m showing it as clearly as that! Aloud he laughed.

  ‘Yes and no, Theo! I’m fed right up with staying in. What about a brisk walk?’

  Crane was ready, and five minutes later they were heading for Beverley. So was a plain-clothes man, as Crane remarked with a grimace.

  ‘To be suspect is an experience anyhow. That man Bristow obviously thinks that there’s an accomplice in or near the Towers. I saw him go into your room, by the way, what did he have to talk about?’

  ‘You’re right about his views on an accomplice, but apparently Bristow had decided that he – if it is a he – is no longer at the Towers. These flatfoots are behind us merely as a matter of form.’

  ‘A consolation,’ said Crane. ‘To lose the Riantis and the Kallinov rubies one night, and be in jail for stealing them the next, isn’t my idea of a joke!’

  Half an hour’s brisk walking had brought them to the outskirts of Beverley. They had passed a telephone by twenty yards when Mannering turned sharply on his heel.

  ‘Damnation! That reminds me – Lorna was thinking of coming down this afternoon, and she won’t want to land in this mess, I should have phoned her before. How are you for change?’

  Crane found some sixpences and coppers, and watched Mannering curiously as he turned to the kiosk.

  In three minutes Mannering heard Lorna’s deep voice at the other end of the wire.

  ‘Hallo?’

  ‘Lorna, darling,’ said Mannering quickly, ‘this is going to be serious. Can you go out at once?’

  He heard the quick intake of her breath.

  ‘Yes – I will do. What’s happened?’

  ‘A burglary here, and some stuff planted at Brook Street, I suspect. Will you get there, look round thoroughly, and if you find the stuff telephone Leverson to send a man for it?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Lorna.

  ‘Bless you! I—on second thoughts, phone Leverson from the studio and ask him to send a man to Brook Street at once, the said man to call every quarter of an hour; that will make sure he’s at hand if you want him. I’ll get up as quickly as I can.’

  ‘Is it dangerous?’ Lorna wanted to know.

  ‘I wish I knew,’ said Mannering with feeling.

  He sensed Lorna’s anxiety, but there was little he could do to reassure her: he hated the fact that he had to incur the risk of her being involved, but a search at the flat without loss of time was essential. He left the kiosk, smiling cheerfully and apologetically at Crane.

  Crane claimed that he was feeling hungry.

  They made their way back to the Towers, and as they neared the drive they saw Bristow’s Morris 12 turning from the gates. Bristow raised a hand in salute, and drove past. Mannering, his nerves on edge, saw danger in the Yard man’s early departure, but forced himself to act as though there was nothing on his mind.

  At the Towers he was in a quandary.

  Bristow had left for London, and Horroby had returned to Winchester, leaving Glenn in charge. The guests were free to leave when they liked, and most of them were going immediately after luncheon.

  On the surface it was satisfactory enough, but had Bristow sent a message for his, Mannering’s, flat to be searched? Did he know anything about the suggestion that the Baron had the Kransits?

  It was an unbearable hour, and Manner was sweating when at last he took leave of the others and, driving alone in his Lagonda, left for London. He drove fast, the fear of impending disaster at his heels, and after averting a collision by a hair’s-breadth, he muttered aloud: ‘This won’t do, damn you! Get a hold of yourself.’

  He forced himself to consider the possibility of Armstrong’s accomplice – assuming Armstrong was guilty in part, which seemed established – being one of the guests, or even one of the Sharron family. The same unknown knew him for the Baron, and that narrowed the issue.

  Fauntley? Most unlikely. That narrowed it down to Sharron, Mendleson and Crane.

  He remembered that Mendleson had been less perturbed than any of the victims. But Mendleson, reputed to be one of the ten richest men in England? No, it was absurd!

  Crane and Sharron seemed equally unlikely.

  He frowned, for he had forgotten young Reggie. He knew him well enough: once or twice when the Baron had been busy he had cursed Reggie Sharron for calling at his flat. He recalled that Reggie was frequently in need of money, and when borrowing complained that his father was tight-fisted. Reggie was twenty-seven, old enough to have a reasonable allowance, but he did not get it. Nor was Sharron anxious for his son to do anything but assist in the management of the Beverley estate.

  Taking the facts as they appeared on the surface, Reggie was the most promising suspect. A hard-up, rather stubborn and self-willed youngster with a grievance.

  Yet it was Mendleson’s face which kept appearing in front of Mannering’s mind’s eye. Awareness of the financier’s peculiar reputation in the City would not fade. Mendleson was reputed always to get what he wanted.

  Had he wanted the Kallinovs?

  It was not a question of finding the actual thief among the house party, but simply a matter of finding whether the thieves had been inspired by one or the other of the five men. Mannering was compelled to admit that himself apart he could not be positive that any one of them was clear.

  He reached the Great West Road, and thereafter the traffic kept him too busy to puzzle the situation out. As he neared the West End something of the earlier panic returned: it grew into an obsession, and when he swung into Brook Street he scanned each side of the road for plain-clothes men.

  He saw one, and he jammed on the brakes so hard that the Lagonda jolted him forward against the windscreen.

  There was no mistaking the gangling, melancholy Sergeant Tring. Tring was so obviously a policeman that his calling could be recognised in an instant. His speciality was fingerprints and searching, and he was Bristow’s regular aide.

  Tring ambled towards the car, and Mannering steeled himself to talk lightly.

  ‘Hallo, Tanker, after some more bad men?’

  ‘Always plenty of them about, Mr. Mannering. Been away?’

  ‘Of course you can’t guess where I’ve been,’ retorted Mannering.

  ‘Come to think, I do remember something about being at Beverley,’ said Tring with a near approach to a smile. ‘What a do! Matter o’ fact, Mr. Mannering, there’s a suspicious character been calling at your flat on and off today.’

  Tring jerked his head, and Mannering glanced along the pavement to see a short, thin man looking at the numbers of the houses as though in search of a port of call. Mannering did not recognise him, but he guessed that he was Flick Leverson’s man. Leverson, a fence extraordinary, was a good friend of the Baron’s.

  But Leverson had failed him by sending a man Tring recognised.

  ‘Called three times,’ said Tring confidentially. ‘I thought you ought to know.’

  Mannering turned towards the house, and his first-floor flat. Tring walked by his side.

  ‘I�
��d better make sure everything’s all right, sir, we don’t want you to lose any more stuff, do we?’

  Sarcasm from Tring was so rare that Mannering knew there was something behind it. Did Tring know why the other man had come, and who he was from? Had the flat already been searched, and was there a trap waiting for him when he reached it?

  The temptation to turn tail and fly assailed him, but he showed nothing of it as he inserted the key in the lock, Tring at his shoulder.

  The flat seemed in perfect order, and there was no sign of Lorna. Mannering closed the door, and stepped through to his bedroom.

  Tring looked in the doorway.

  ‘Everything O.K. here, Mr. Mannering?’

  ‘You might look under the bed for me, Tanker,’ murmured the Baron.

  Tanker Tring, least imaginative of men, went down on his knees and lifted the coverlet of the bed. It would have been amusing but for the fact that Mannering was aware of a faint, lingering perfume, immediately recognisable as Lorna’s.

  So she had been here.

  And Leverson’s man was still outside, which suggested she had found nothing. He saw her suddenly.

  She was pressing close against the wall, on the far side of the wardrobe, tall, dark, dressed with simple perfection, her flawless skin given greater emphasis by her luxuriant dark hair. Some said that her expression was too close to sullenness for her to be called beautiful, but Mannering would have none of it; pretty she was not, but beautiful she certainly was.

  And now there was an expression of urgency, of alarm, on her face.

  Mannering was on tenterhooks, afraid that Tring would go further into the room: if he saw Lorna he would know there was something wrong.

  ‘I suppose everything is O.K.,’ said Tring. ‘I—’

  Mannering went rigid, staring into the living-room. Tring followed his gaze, and Mannering’s voice was no more than a whisper.

  ‘Did that handle turn?’

  Tring stepped towards the door, and Mannering followed him. Cautiously they crept through, towards an imaginary intruder.

  Mannering’s heart turned over.

  For someone was there, opening the outside door of the flat, and as they approached he saw Bristow. Bristow and Tring together could mean only one thing.