Last Laugh for the Baron

by John Creasey

  “Keep going,” Mannering ordered. “Let it pass when it wants to.”

  “Right, sir.”

  But the other car did not pass but turned into Brook Street, heading for the heart of Mayfair. Mannering’s driver took another left turn just ahead, and they caught up with it a few moments later; soon they reached Shepherd Market, under the shadow of the Washington Hotel and the building which housed the Christian Science Reading Room. The first car made another turn, to the right.

  “That’s a dead end, sir,” said Mannering’s driver. “Sir Richard Danizon’s place.”

  The brake lights of the first car went on, and the car pulled up. Mannering’s car slowed down as it passed the end of the street, and Mannering opened the door and jumped out, going forward a few paces before recovering his balance. He doubled back.

  The trio were entering a house on the right hand side of the street, a larger house than most, standing in its own grounds. The chauffeur was pulling into a gateway at one side, which appeared to lead to the garage. No one looked back. The door of the big house opened, light was shining out brightly; then it closed, and brought near darkness, broken only by the yellow beams of the old-fashioned gas lamps – this street must be at least two hundred years old, thought Mannering. The small name plate on the wall of a corner house said: Lamb Street.

  Slowly, he went back to his car.

  He could stay and watch, but there seemed little point in doing this. Everything the trio had done had been so normal, there was not the slightest reason to think that any one of them would come out again. Mannering debated with himself as to what he should do now.

  “They seem to have gone in for the night. The older man may be staying there,” the chauffeur said, hopefully.

  Mannering said: “How well do you know Lamb Street?”

  “Very well, sir—I used to be chauffeur-valet to a gentleman who lived in this very street itself. That’s how I came to know the Danizon family.”

  “I see. Is there a back way out?”

  “No, sir. There used to be, but Sir Richard Danizon had it blocked up. It’s a very unusual house for the heart of London, sir, with a wall all round it except at the front, where there are iron railings. The garage is right at the back, but everyone has to come out of the main gate or the gate where the car went.”

  “Will you wait and watch for an hour, in case anyone comes in or out?”

  “Glad to, sir, but . . .” The man hesitated.

  “Yes?” asked Mannering.

  “There can’t be any funny business with the Danizon family, surely. Unless—unless you’re worried about their guest. Is that it, sir?”

  “That’s it,” Mannering assured him. “The Danizons are above reproach, then?”

  “I would think so, sir. A family with all that money. As a matter of fact, sir, I often have a drink with the butler. I can tell you that Sir Richard and his wife are on holiday at the moment. His daughter’s still there, sir – and has a lot of guests. I—er—I’m not talking out of place, am I?”

  “No,” Mannering assured him. “The more you can tell me the better.” As he listened, he sensed the note almost of awe in the chauffeur’s voice, and was puzzled because he had not known of the Danizons until that day. The chauffeur seemed to regard the family as part of the history of London.

  “. . . very wealthy indeed, sir—why, they say that Lady Danizon wears half-a-million pounds’ worth of jewellery when she goes to special functions, and always has a special police guard – if you care to pay for it you can always arrange that. Did you know, sir?”

  “I seem to have heard something to that effect,” Mannering said drily. “You keep watch, then.”

  “How will you get back, sir?”

  “I’ll find a cab,” Mannering said. “Call me at my home number, will you?”

  “In exactly an hour, sir?”

  “In exactly an hour,” confirmed Mannering, and as he spoke a taxi with its for hire sign illuminated turned the corner.

  After a ten minute drive along the now deserted streets, Mannering was dropped at his own front door. There was no light at the top windows, but he didn’t really expect Lorna to be back yet. He went up in the lift, stepped out and took his keys from his pocket. He could not make up his mind what to do, but there was a possibility running through his mind which at once excited and appalled him. He was past the age of taking dangerous chances, yet if Aristide had followed those two men, if they had gone to Lamb Street, if they had taken him inside, there was only one way to find out.

  That was to go and see for himself.

  He took a long step towards the front door of his flat – and stubbed a foot against something heavy on the floor. He tripped, pitched forward, saving himself only by pushing out a hand against the door. He became aware that he had stumbled over a man but all he could see were arms, hands, legs and feet and the back of a head.

  A head of long, dark, wavy hair – like Aristide Smith’s.

  He straightened up, gasping for breath, and then slowly, almost fearfully, bent down and turned the man round so that he could see the face.

  It was Aristide.

  And his face had a pallor which made Mannering think of death.

  4

  MAN ASLEEP

  Very carefully, Mannering turned Aristide over on his back. No limbs seemed broken and there were no blemishes on his skin. Yet he did not seem to be breathing. Mannering lifted his wrist.

  Aristide’s pulse was beating very slowly, but quite steadily. Tremendously relieved, Mannering opened the door of his apartment and stepped inside. A light was on in the kitchen, spreading a glow through the hall and the rooms with open doors. Lorna always liked to leave a welcoming light.

  He heard a faint buzzing, almost a whirring sound, but did not let it stop him from putting on more lights and opening the spare room door wide. Then he went back for Aristide. Lifting him in his arms, he was surprised how heavy he was; there was much more muscle and sinew in this slender youth than he had suspected. He hitched him up higher and was halfway towards the spare room when a man began to laugh.

  Mannering was so startled that he almost dropped his burden.

  “Where the devil are you?” he called out, across the laughter.

  The laughing did not cease, but grew louder, as if the man were coming nearer. But no one was in sight and there were no shadows. Mannering gritted his teeth, hoisted Aristide up again and carried him into the spare room, placing him on the bed.

  The laughter went on and on.

  Still clenching his teeth, Mannering made himself take off Aristide’s shoes, unfasten his belt and waistband and loosen his collar. All this time the laughter continued, and all this time the young man slept.

  Slept? wondered Mannering. Was Aristide in a drugged sleep, or in a coma?

  Turning from the bed, he went cautiously to the hall, and paused.

  The laughter came from his small study, through the partly open door. Mannering went towards it, not sure there was anyone inside; the sound might well come from a tape-recorder, but only a fool would take that for granted. He picked up a heavy candlestick, then, holding it as a club, approached the study.

  “I’m coming in,” he called.

  The only answer was the continued laughter.

  He called again: “I’m armed—and I’m coming in.”

  The laughter, uninterrupted, seemed to take on a note of mockery – and suddenly Mannering stopped short in his tracks.

  In his concern over Aristide, he had heard the laughter and yet he hadn’t heard it. But now realisation came to him like a flash of light.

  The laughter he now heard was the laughter of Belle Danizon’s companion at the Charity Ball.

  Mannering flung the door wider open, and it cracked back against the wall. As it
did so there was a sharp bang, and vapour billowed out, gas bit at Mannering’s eyes and nose and mouth. He staggered back, gasping, his whole face stinging, and the deep, echoing, chuckling laughter went on and on. He groped towards the bathroom, reached the hand basin and ran cold water. It splashed all over him as he put his cupped hands beneath the tap and then doused his face.

  It could be as simple as tear gas – it smelt like it and stung like it – but it could be much more harmful. Gradually the pain eased, and soon Mannering could just make out the shape of the bathroom stool, a cabinet, the door, and even oddments in the hall beyond.

  There was no need for panic; this gas was not really harmful.

  He dried his face gently, eyes, nose and mouth still smarting; then, suddenly, he turned his head and listened.

  The laughter had stopped.

  Mannering waited motionless for a few moments, but heard nothing. Cautiously, he crept back to the study. There was a faint smell of gas, and his foot crunched on something brittle. Looking down, he saw a broken glass phial. This must have been balanced on the top of the door, thought Mannering. Pushing the glass aside with his foot, he went cautiously inside.

  The room was empty.

  He went over to the window and flung it open, then crossed to the kitchen and the main bedroom, opening those windows, too, hoping to clear the flat of gas before Lorna came back.

  Then he went back to search the study.

  There was nothing on the settle, the chiffonier or the table, nothing on the chairs, nothing on the oak panelling. But as he turned to the door, he saw a tiny tape-recorder attached to a back panel. He examined it closely, but did not touch it. There was no doubt of the viciousness of the attack. The police might well want to take fingerprints.

  He left the study, and as he did so, heard the whine of the lift; this would be Lorna. He was relieved that she had not come earlier, and would have been even more so had she been a little later, for he needed time to relax, and assess the situation. Above all things, he was anxious to reassure her, and that wouldn’t be easy with Aristide’s unconscious body to account for.

  The lift stopped, and Lorna’s voice came to him, pitched to a note of determined finality. “Thank you, Tommy.”

  “Don’t say I’m not invited for a nightcap,” Tommy protested.

  “It’s too late, and I’m so tired—”

  “Oh, nonsense, old girl! A nightcap and a—”

  “Tommy, I am tired.”

  Lorna broke off. There was a curious little sound, almost a scuffle, and then silence, a silence which seemed to last for a long time. Mannering stood on the inside of the door, having no doubt about what was happening: Tommy was acting the gay Lothario. And Lorna? In his half-dazed, unsettled mood he could not really think clearly, could not be sure that her effort to dismiss Tommy hadn’t been half-hearted. He was a good-looking, lively man-of-the-world, and fifteen years younger than Mannering.

  If they came together—

  There was a gasp of sound; a footstep or two. Then: “Let me have your key,” Tommy said.

  There was silence – no sound at all, until the scratching of a key came on the lock. Mannering backed swiftly away. It was accident, not design, that put him into a position behind the door where he couldn’t be seen when it opened.

  Slowly, it swung towards him.

  “Your castle, Madam,” Tommy said with elaborate solemnity. “I—ooch!”

  There was a thud, then the sound of flurrying footsteps, and Lorna swept in, key in her hand. A great relief spread through Mannering, and he felt like laughing. With an expression half-angry, half-resigned, Lorna moved on towards the main bedroom; Mannering still hidden from her. She was halfway across the hall when she stopped, head back, sniffing.

  “Hallo, darling,” Mannering said. “It’s only tear gas.”

  She spun round.

  “John!”

  “Yes,” he said. “All in one piece, too.”

  “John, did you—?” She broke off as the whining sound came from the lift. “Did you hear—?”

  “Poor Tommy,” he said. “I feel for him.”

  They looked at each other for a few moments, and then, half-smiling, Mannering moved towards her. She said in a puzzled voice:

  “Tear gas?”

  “Nasty stuff but in a very small dose.”

  “John, what happened?”

  “Aristide was returned here,” Mannering told her. “And a joker with a rather nasty sense of humour seems to have been busy. But no one is hurt – at least not seriously,” he added, placing an arm round Lorna’s shoulder. “Let me tell you from the beginning.” Sitting in the graceful Queen Anne bedroom, he told her the whole story. Then: “And Tommy provided the finest of anti-climaxes, darling. You were positively magnificent.”

  “John – who is this man?” Lorna sounded worried.

  “I think you may have seen him tonight.”

  “You really think—?”

  “I’m very nearly sure,” said Mannering. “Like to hear that tape played back?”

  After a moment’s hesitation, she said: “I think I’ll make some tea and listen to it later. Is Aristide unhurt?”

  “Let’s go and make sure,” Mannering said.

  Aristide had not moved. He looked very pale, very young, almost effeminate. Lorna eased his right arm a little and put a blanket over him, as Mannering lifted his right eyelid.

  “Pupil normal,” he said. “He wasn’t drugged with one of the opiates. Yet it’s obviously a drug.”

  “Shouldn’t he see a doctor?” asked Lorna, uneasily.

  “I think we’ll wait until morning,” Mannering said.

  “Have you any idea what it’s all about?”

  “Absolutely no idea at all,” answered Mannering. “Aristide was sent back with somebody’s compliments – as a kind of warning, I presume,” he repeated, more sharply. “Almost as if—”

  “As if someone were trying to scare you,” Lorna said. She turned round and suddenly took his face in her hands, kissing his cheek. “They don’t know you!” She let him go. “Will you put the kettle on?”

  “Yes,” he said. “You get into bed.”

  Ten minutes later he was sitting by the side of the bed, tea tray on a small table, the tape-recorder now on another table; he had decided not to worry about fingerprints. He had rewound the tape and as they sipped tea, the laughter came again.

  Lorna listened intently.

  “It is the man at the ball,” she said suddenly. “I could almost swear to it.”

  “Almost won’t help much,” Mannering said ruefully.

  They listened again for fully two minutes, and still the laughter continued.

  “John!” exclaimed Lorna.

  “Yes?”

  “Whoever arranged that tape-recorder must have broken in.”

  “Clever girl,” murmured Mannering.

  “I don’t like this at all,” Lorna said, uneasily. She drank her tea and put the cup on the tray. “No more, darling, thanks. What—what are you going to do?”

  “Try to fit the pieces together,” Mannering told her.

  She looked at him in a way that he knew well. A little wary, a little worried, a little frightened. He had seen this expression so often that he could guess what she was going to say, but tonight it was a long time before she said it. He studied her, closely, and with the understanding and warmth of a long life together, threatened only once or twice by conflicts which had brought them almost to breaking. He felt a love for her which he knew would never again be shaken, and was confident that her love for him was almost as great.

  But all their shared years had been darkened, at times, by the shadow which touched them now.

  And she looked – beautiful. Beautiful with a touch of
the sombre, a kind of sullenness about her full, well-shaped lips. Her grey eyes, heavy with tiredness now, regarded him gravely.

  “John,” she said at last, “please don’t go out again tonight. And please don’t try to fit the pieces together by yourself.”

  He put out his hands and touched hers, gently.

  “I won’t go out until I’ve slept on the situation,” he promised. “And there’s the whole weekend to think about it.”

  Going to see Aristide again, he found his colour was better and his pulse beating more strongly.

  Half-an-hour later Mannering went to sleep, thankful that Lorna was already sleeping, a little uneasy about Aristide, wondering whether he should have called a doctor.

  Aristide, awake, unshaven, anxious to a point of apprehension, stood over him in the quiet room, whispering.

  “Sir—

  “Mr. Mannering—

  “I’m sorry to wake you, sir, but—”

  Mannering became aware of a great relief, and then acutely aware of Lorna in the next bed, who must not be wakened. He pointed to the bedroom door, and as the young man turned away, flung the blankets back, picked up his dressing-gown and followed Aristide out of the room. He pulled the door to but did not latch it. Aristide, very much on edge, was now hovering in the kitchen doorway.

  “I—er—put a kettle on, sir. I felt like a cup and I—er —I wondered if you would like a cup of tea.”

  “The only thing I’d like more is to know what happened to you,” said Mannering. “Make the tea, I’ll be back with you in two minutes.” He went into the bathroom, sluiced his face with cold water, and returned. It was broad daylight, and he saw from the kitchen clock that it was half-past eight. So he had had four hours sleep.

  Aristide had a tea tray ready and the kettle was boiling. Milk, sugar, cups and saucers were on a tray.