The Baron Returns

by John Creasey

  ‘I’ll bet he is! I suppose I’d better go and calm your mother. Mannering, a nightcap before you go to your room? I’m sorry to have brought you into trouble like this.’

  ‘I wouldn’t call it trouble for me,’ said Mannering drily. ‘I’d be glad of a whisky-and-soda.’

  ‘Guy’ll look after you,’ said Didcotte. He still seemed dazed, as if the shock of the robbery affected him. ‘I’ll see you in the morning and we’ll chat about our little deal.’

  Mannering nodded. Guy Didcotte found him a whisky-and-soda, and seemed disposed to talk for the rest of the night, until Mannering yawned pointedly.

  ‘I guess you’re tired, sir. Your room is next to mine, so I’ll see you up. Did you bring a case?’

  ‘I came down on the spur of the moment,’ said Mannering.

  ‘Dad’s always catching folk on the hop,’ remarked Guy. ‘I’ll be glad to fix you up.’

  After lunch on the following day, Mannering left The Towers. He had talked with Didcotte, although the American had been busy with the police. Young Guy had developed something suspiciously like hero-worship for Mannering. His father, after promising a tearful wife the world, eyed his son thoughtfully.

  ‘You put up a good show, son; don’t let it worry you because you lost. You sure you didn’t get a look at this man’s face?’

  ‘No. He rather implied you knew him,’ answered Guy.

  ‘The gentleman cracksman, eh? Well, the stuff was insured, so we’re not going to worry too much if the police have no luck.’

  Didcotte saw Mannering off, and went back to his study. He was still worried by the papers. Teevens had sent enough of them to show that Didcotte’s millions were not altogether free from taint. That fact itself did not worry Didcotte, for he held a theory that all money made on Wall Street or the Stock Exchange – for that matter on the Bourse or a dozen other markets – had the same taint, and his winnings over the Krugen and Raviky affairs were as clean as most.

  The law would think differently, and he dared not let Teevens make any disclosures.

  Two days after the robbery at The Towers the newspaper headlines were quietening down, and even the insurance company was beginning to admit that it would be impossible to get any of the stones back. On the same morning Didcotte received a registered letter.

  He was alone in the library when it came, and he slit it open carefully, frowning as he did so. There was something bulky in it.

  Cotton-wool. Jewels!

  Didcotte stared at the diamonds, the rubies and the sapphires – mostly in rings and pendants – that were glittering and winking up at him. Then he stared at the note in block lettering and signed ‘The Baron’. He read it a dozen times:

  These look like personal items your wife would probably like back. If I were you I’d burn these papers.

  Jonathan Didcotte’s lips puckered as he drew out the incriminating documents and figures that Gus Teevens had managed to obtain twelve months before.

  Deputy Commander Lynch, of Scotland Yard, closed the Assistant Commissioner’s door with a decided snap, and stalked along to Bristow’s office.

  Lynch was a large, untidy man with an invariable dusting of cigarette ash down his right coat lapel. He was a man with a good reputation, a stolid, occasionally droll detective who took his work seriously and yet found time to laugh at it. He was not laughing that afternoon, however; nor was Bristow.

  Bristow was sprucer than ever, and the carnation in his buttonhole was a joy to see. But he looked glum when he saw Lynch.

  ‘He’s let you have it?’

  ‘Bill,’ said Superintendent Lynch gloomily, ‘I’ve had some rough passages in my time, but none like this. We’ve got to get the Baron. The A.C. says—well, damn what the A.C. says, but we’ve got to get Mannering.’

  Bristow’s eyes were hard.

  ‘I’m trying all I know. His flat is searched after every big job, and we’ve found nothing. How he managed to get Didcotte to put him up that night, I don’t know.’

  ‘Try and find out,’ urged Lynch.

  He also knew that Mannering was the Baron, but neither of them could prove it. They had no corroborative evidence; they had never succeeded in trapping Mannering into an admission, and they had kept their knowledge to themselves, without even making a note of their suspicions on the records. The Chief Commissioner was a good friend of John Mannering’s, and they had to be careful.

  ‘Where’s Tanker?’ Lynch asked.

  ‘Watching the Bloom Street flat.’

  ‘Send Morgan to relieve him. I’d like to talk to Tanker.’

  Detective Sergeant Tanker Tring, a tall, thin man, with a love of large bowlers under which he could tuck his jug ears, and a taste for bright brown shoes, entered the Deputy Commissioner’s office some forty-five minutes later. Bristow followed and shut the door.

  Tanker Tring, whose nickname had been earned because of his invariably slow but crushing progress on those cases which he handled with Bristow, looked gloomy. ‘You sent for me, sir?’

  ‘Why the hell would you come here if I hadn’t?’ demanded Lynch. ‘Tring, you’ve been watching Mr. Mannering on and off for how long?’

  ‘Eight months, sir.’

  ‘And you’ve a complete record of his habits?’

  ‘Yessir.’

  ‘Let’s have it.’

  Tring proceeded to recite a statement of John Mannering’s activities over the past eight months with a mechanical thoroughness which would have alarmed Mannering. Tanker talked rather like a gramophone record, but Lynch knew a good report when he heard one.

  ‘Very thorough, Tring. That’s good. Now it seems to me he’s got four regular ports of call. The Elan Hotel . . .’

  ‘Reg’lar, sir.’

  ‘His flat.’

  ‘Reg’lar.’

  ‘Mendor’s.’

  ‘Pretty often, Mr. Lynch.’

  ‘And Piccadilly Circus Station.’

  Tanker Tring nodded, and scratched his hair. ‘Funny about that, sir. He goes there once or twice a week when the Baron’s busy, but I can never find him. I ‘ad three men with me once, watching for him, and he slipped us. He’s a dark one, is Mr. Mannering. I hang about the gents’ there something cruel sometimes. Could ‘a swore he went in. but he don’t come out.’

  Lynch tapped the end of a pencil.

  ‘He loses you there, does he? Ever see anyone else come out – regular, Tring?’

  ‘What’s that, Mr. Lynch?’

  ‘Have you ever seen the same man come from the cloakroom?’

  ‘Caw!’ gasped Tanker Tring. ‘There’s an old codger about fifty, I reckon – who offen comes out. He carries a suitcase, too.’

  Lynch stood up, and there was a light of hope in his eyes and in Bristow’s.

  ‘You’ll be a sergeant all your life if you don’t wake up to things like that,’ Lynch said. ‘A middle-aged man with a case, which might contain Mannering’s clothes.’

  ‘But he’s fifteen years older’n Mr. Mannering!’

  ‘Go back to Mannering’s flat, and the next time he disappears at Piccadilly station telephone for me and Mr. Bristow. Is that understood?’

  ‘Perfectly, sir,’ said Tanker Tring, and retreated like a puppy denied a bone.

  Lynch regarded Bristow eagerly.

  ‘If I’m not in when Tring’s call comes through, have half a dozen of the best plain-clothes men round that station. If six or seven of you follow this old man of Tring’s you might learn something. Mannering’s got a hideout somewhere.’

  Bristow nodded, feeling almost hopeful.

  And as Bristow left the Deputy Commissioner’s office, Mannering was looking out of the window at the plain-clothes man who had relieved Tring, and was deciding that it was time he worked the quick-change ac
t from Mannering to Mr. Mayle – at Piccadilly Circus station – and spent a day or two at Wimbledon.

  The Didcotte jewels were in Mrs. Jenson’s care, although she did not know it.

  Chapter Fifteen

  BRISTOW COUNTS HIS CHICKENS

  As Mannering left his flat he saw the plain-clothes man outside, and he found the same man at Piccadilly Circus ten minutes later. He resisted a temptation to wink at the detective and slipped into the cloakroom with a large brown suitcase in his hand. He collected a blue one of similar size from the cloakroom assistant before changing. It was empty, but he wanted to make sure it could not be recognised by the waiting policeman when he left the cloakroom in the guise of Mr. Mayle, and thus arouse suspicion.

  It took only a few minutes to change into the Mayle clothes, which were in the case he had brought with him. Then he put the ‘Mannering’ suit into it and stood it aside, ready for the attendant. He would collect it and reverse the change later. The padded suit of Mr. Mayle, with narrow-cut trousers, helped to give a false impression of his height.

  Then came the more ticklish part of the job.

  Mannering had taken lessons with several experts on the art of make-up, but he rarely felt too confident. First he used a pair of rubber cheek-pads, giving his face a transfiguring fullness; next he brilliantined his hair, brushing it from the parting to the right, instead of straight back from the forehead.

  In a small pocket mirror, used for the transformation, he studied the effect. A touch of grease-paint beneath his eyes made them seem pouchy; a line or two at his lips and chin altered the set of his face surprisingly. He dabbed rouge on either cheek, rubbing it well in to make him look fresh-complexioned and nothing like John Mannering.

  ‘I’m improving,’ he told himself as he began to put three small rubber casings over the teeth at the side of his mouth. He worked the casings down carefully, and then smiled into the mirror. His perfect teeth were marred by three that looked brown and discoloured.

  The shirt-sleeved attendant grunted when the brown case took its turn for storage. Mannering tipped him sixpence – as much as Mr. Mayle would be likely to give – and left the cloakroom with the blue case in his hand.

  The policeman was still outside.

  So was Tanker Tring and three other plain-clothes men, while Bristow was lurking in a telephone kiosk which gave him a good view of the cloakroom entrance. Mannering did not see them, he had no suspicion of their presence.

  Bristow saw the case and realised it was a different colour from that which Mannering had taken in. That was one of the things that decided Bristow not to act there and then.

  Mannering made no attempt to conceal himself. The plain-clothes man who had followed him from the flat was standing near the cloakroom looking bored, and took no notice when the plump man passed. Mannering told himself that there was no need to worry about the police.

  As usual when acting Mr. Mayle, he took a train to Putney Bridge station. A Yard man who had never before worked on the Baron case followed him overheard his destination and booked to Wimbledon.

  Behind them came Tring and Bristow, and two other plain-clothes men unknown to Mannering. The net was closing, while Mannering remained quite oblivious.

  Bristow left the booking to Tring and hurried down the escalators and steps. He saw his portly quarry turning towards the Piccadilly line. Mannering took up his position near the middle of the platform, next to the Yard man whose ticket took him to Wimbledon. Mannering caught no glimpse of Bristow and Tring at the far end of the platform, hiding behind two automatic machines and a waste-bin. The train rumbled into the station; Mannering and the nearest detective entered the carriage, two Yard men hurried to the front of the train, while Bristow and Tring took the last smoker.

  Tanker Tring, a man who rarely showed emotion, was looking as solemn as ever. Bristow was congratulating himself, and very close to elation.

  ‘I think we’ve got him, Tanker; we’ve got him this time!’

  ‘Maybe we have,’ said Tanker Tring cautiously.

  ‘Don’t be a Jonah,’ growled Bristow.

  Tring went to the door at each station, looking along the platform and making sure the portly man did not slip out without being seen. At Earl’s Court he beckoned Bristow, and they left the train. Mannering alias Mayle was going towards the escalators and the District Line, passing the time of day with the Yard man who had booked to Wimbledon.

  That astute detective said, among other things, that he collected butterflies. Mannering knew nothing about butterflies and the Yard man realised he could safely discuss them. He created the impression that he was a fanatical collector, and to Mannering he seemed pleasant and harmless.

  At Putney Bridge Mannering left the train without recognising the two policemen walking in front of him, without seeing Bristow and Tring following him. The collector of butterflies said goodbye, waited in the carriage until Mannering had disappeared down the steps and then jumped from the moving train.

  ‘He lives near Wimbledon Common,’ he snapped to Bristow.

  ‘Get anything else?’

  ‘Says he’s a travelling representative, but won’t say what for.’

  ‘All right,’ said Bristow. ‘You come with us.’

  By this time Mannering was standing in the approach to Putney Bridge station, waiting for a bus. When one lumbered up, he boarded it quickly. The two Yard men who had preceded him went to the top deck, while Bristow signalled urgently to the only cab waiting at the station.

  The cabby was old but intelligent.

  ‘I want that bus followed,’ Bristow said. ‘Do you know its route?’

  ‘Oh, yes,’ said the old one. ‘Up the hill, acrorst the Common . . .’

  ‘Let it overtake you before it gets to Wimbledon Common, and then follow it.’ Bristow waited a strategic moment before he added the magic word ‘Police!’

  The bus started out of the station approach two minutes after the cab. Ten minutes later, half-way up Putney Hill, the cabby allowed the bus to pass him. Bristow saw the portly man sitting in the back seat. He was itching to use the handcuffs. For over a year the Baron had been burning his fingers, and now it looked as though Bristow had a chance of lighting the match himself.

  When he saw the portly man get off the bus opposite a medium-sized detached house backing on to Wimbledon Common, Bristow left the car a hundred yards along the road, with Tanker Tring and the butterfly collector. The two Yard men in the bus alighted a minute later, and the house was being approached from both sides.

  Mannering disappeared into the drive of The Grove.

  He noticed the cab, but there were several large houses near by, and cabs were by no means unusual just there. A glance right and left told him there was no one he knew in sight, and when he caught a glimpse of Mrs. Jenson, outlined against a second-floor window, he smiled and waved. She hurried downstairs and was panting cheerfully when she opened the door.

  ‘Why, Mr. Mayle, sir! I didn’t expect you – that I didn’t!’

  ‘I hardly expected myself,’ chuckled Mr. Mayle. ‘But I dare hope you’ll be able to find me some lunch.’

  ‘Oh, I’ll manage that, sir, but I’ll have to pop out for some chops. Shall I go now?’

  ‘As soon as you like,’ said Mr. Mayle.

  She fetched a hat and coat and hurried out of the house, waving frantically to stop a bus. The bus pulled up, Mannering glanced out of the hall window, and saw the housekeeper scrambling on to the step. Still he did not see Bristow and Tring, for they were hidden by the red monster. He went upstairs whistling with good spirits, opened the blue case and spread the Didcotte jewels on the coverlet.

  It was difficult to assess their value, but Mannering told himself they gave him the best haul he had ever made. The insurance companies would probably have to pay Didcotte forty thousand pound
s out on them, which meant that Mannering should get fifteen thousand at the least, with a reasonable chance of reaching twenty-five.

  ‘Most satisfactory,’ said Mr. Mayle to Mannering.

  And then he looked out of the window, every muscle in his body rigid.

  For Bristow and Sergeant Tanker Tring were walking along the short drive towards the house.

  Mannering was appalled. He had been confident that he had made the change-over successfully once again, but here was irrefutable proof that he had failed. He could see Bristow’s face, set grimly but with a little smile at the corners of his lips. He saw the gloomy face of Tanker Tring, his bowler hat well down over his ears. The odds seemed overwhelming, and the shock of the surprise itself was enough to unsteady the Baron.

  The two policemen were out of range from the window before Mannering moved, and a moment later the noise of their knocking echoed through the house. Mannering began scooping the Didcotte jewels into his pockets. There was nothing on the premises to connect him with John Mannering, and although Bristow could suspect a lot, proof was all that mattered.

  He heard the second rat-tat-tat as he started down the stairs, breathing very hard. Beneath the grease-paint he was pale, but there was nothing in the manner of the portly Mr. Mayle, who opened the door a moment later, to suggest he was John Mannering. The transformation was so complete that even Bristow, now face to face with his man, was momentarily afraid of another mistake.

  Then he saw Mannering’s hazel eyes.

  He spoke heavily yet jubilantly. No man could hide or disguise his eyes, and Mannering had made a single mistake – he had left his thick-lensed glasses upstairs.

  ‘Well, Mannering,’ Bristow said. ‘I’ve come for you at last.’

  Shock tactics, thought Mannering, and he frowned.

  ‘I beg your pardon?’ The voice was high-pitched and unfamiliar.

  ‘You needn’t try to fool me this time,’ Bristow said. ‘You’ve managed it too often.’

  ‘There seems,’ said Mr. Mayle, in that high-pitched voice, ‘to be some mistake. Who are you, sir?’