by John Creasey
When he did look he just stared. He saw nothing but the printed blur. He could hardly believe his eyes. Things like this didn’t happen. They couldn’t!
But this had.
Bristow lit a cigarette with a hand which trembled in spite of his efforts to control it, and not until he had drawn at it several times did he trust himself to read farther than the headlines. For the headlines — due to the fact that news was scarce and that there had been no real sensation for several weeks — were sprawled right across the front-page in heavy black letters:
THIEF CHALLENGES SCOTLAND YARD WHO IS THE BARON?
The Baron! Bristow muttered the name to himself a dozen times. The Baron! The name that had been on his tongue for months past, the elusive and, until that morning, secretive and comparatively unknown name of the thief who had started with the Dowager Countess of Kenton’s brooch and who had continued with a dozen or more thefts, completely hoodwinking the police every time, was now in black and white in front of him.
The Baron . . .
Bristow swore as he had rarely sworn in his life.
As he read the story he scowled. He was still inclined to think that he was dreaming, that this thing couldn’t be true, but the facts were there in front of him.
Centred beneath the headlines was a letter, printed in bold type, and obviously written very carefully. Before it was a statement that the Morning Star had the story on the best authority.
I have been working against the police for some months, without the slightest cause for worry. At the house of Colonel George Belton I took the pearl-necklace that has since caused so much publicity and speculation. My method was simple, which may explain the ease with which the burglary was accomplished. But simplicity begets monotony. It occurs to me that this letter may stir the police to greater efforts to apprehend.
THE BARON
Detective-Inspector William Bristow read this delightful effort three times. Finally he began to mutter. And then — it should be remembered that Old Bill always had a habit of doing the unexpected — he began to laugh.
He laughed until Mrs Bristow began to wonder whether he had finished going off his head — she felt sure that that early-morning tea had been the first stage — and she stumbled downstairs, clutching her dressing-gown about her, followed closely by Joan, their daughter. The sight of the Inspector, pyjama-clad, ruffled, and a little sleepy-eyed, but roaring with laughter, would have struck any policeman at the Yard as uproariously funny, but it made his family a little apprehensive.
“Bill,” said Mrs Bristow firmly, “stop it! You’ll have the whole street think you’re off your head.”
Bristow made a great effort to control himself.
“Street?” he gasped. “Only the street ? What about the rest of the town, m’dear? Look at that. Look at it!”
Mrs Bristow looked, and her comely face straightened into hard lines. She was very touchy on anything which affected the reputation of the police, but she knew her husband.
“You’re a hard nut,” she said, not without pride. “It would make me — mad!”
“It’ll make him mad before it’s finished,” said Old Bill obscurely. “How soon can you make breakfast, m’dear ? I’ll have to get to the Yard quickly. Lynch will be getting a mouthful ready after this, to say nothing of the Commissioner.”
“I can’t understand why you laughed,” admitted Mrs Bristow, as she investigated the larder.
“Can’t you?” asked Old Bill, pouring water from the kettle into his shaving-mug. “It’s simple, Anne. I laughed because it’s funny. The funniest thing I’ve ever seen.”
Superintendent Lynch, as large, placid, and red-faced as ever, was inclined to agree when, three-quarters of an hour later, Bristow reached the Yard. But Lynch wasn’t happy.
“Everyone doesn’t think with us, Bill. The A.C . . .”
It was nearly eleven o’clock, and Lynch had been at the Yard for some time. When the Assistant-Commissioner was brought into the conversation which Bristow had started with the Superintendent, Bristow knew that his worst fears were confirmed.
“He’s started on it already, has he ?” he asked. “What does he say?”
“Very stiff and very formal,” said Lynch cheerfully. “That man hasn’t smiled since he took over, two years ago.”
“Not even at this ?” asked the Inspector.
“Least of all at this,” said Lynch. “And, to make it worse, one of our own men — Wrightson — caused the trouble.”
Bristow frowned, without understanding.
“But the Baron . . .” he began.
“The Baron did have the decency to write to us,” said Lynch heavily. “Wrightson — he’s never liked you, Bill-opened the letter, and, like a damned fool, let the Morning Star man see it. If it had gone to the papers direct it would have been chucked in the waste-paper-basket, but, coming straight from the horse’s mouth . . . Anyhow,” Lynch broke off, with a shrug, “it’s no use worrying over spilt milk.”
“No,” said Bristow grimly, “but I’ll give Wrightson something to worry about one day.”
Lynch shrugged his shoulders, although he could sympathise with the Inspector. Between Bristow and Wrightson — one of the new school on whose toes Old Bill had trodden several times for breaches of police-regulations — there was no love lost, and although it was impossible to suggest that Wrightson had deliberately let the letter get into the Press, Bristow was prepared to believe that that had happened.
Bristow forced himself away from thoughts of the other Inspector, however, and returned to the pressing subject.
“So the A.G. is really nasty?”
Lynch shrugged his heavy shoulders again.
“He says, and we can’t argue, that we’ve been too slack over the Baron, and that if we don’t get our man within the week we’ll be the laughing-stock of London.”
“I shouldn’t be surprised,” admitted Bristow, a little glumly. “But I would be more surprised if we did it. He’ll be very careful for the next few weeks.”
“You sound as cheerful as Tanker,” said Lynch.
“You know these jobs as well as I do,” said Bristow.
The Superintendent pulled a face at the comment.
“All right,” he said. “Do all you can. Er — that man Mannering. He’s helping you ?”
Bristow flushed a little. “How’d you know?”
“I’ve seen you talking to him,” said Lynch, “and I’ve assumed you weren’t questioning him, so . . . Anyhow, he’s the type who might be useful.”
“He’s got his head screwed on properly,” said Bristow slowly. “He didn’t make any bones about saying young Long wasn’t in the pearls job, and it certainly looks as if he’s right.”
“Unless Long’s the Baron,” suggested Lynch, folding his arms across his great waistcoat.
“No luck,” said Bristow. “The first half-dozen Baron jobs started back in March and April. Long’s only been in England since early May. We can rule him out on that count. But . . .”
The Inspector hesitated. Lynch waited patiently, partly because he was a patient man, and partly because he knew that Bristow was arguing with himself. The big Superintendent was a student of men, and he knew just how to get the best out of his own.
“But,” went on Bristow at last, “there’s one other possibility. Mannering doesn’t think much of it.”
“Who have you got in mind ?” asked Lynch.
“The Dowager Lady Kenton,” said Bristow, eyeing his Superintendent evenly. “I know it sounds against ail reason, but . . .”
“I’ll see what I can find out about her bank-balance,” said Lynch placidly. “It still beats me why she paid five thousand pounds for that wedding-present.”
Bristow was surprised — not for the first time, by a long way — at the comprehensiveness of Lynch’s grasp of his job. And he began to think very seriously of that rather short-tempered but not unpopular lady the Dowager. She was not really unpopular, that is, in any place b
ut the Yard, where her name was very nearly poison.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
LORNA OFFERS A BARGAIN
EMMA KENTON HAD READ OF THE ROBBERY IN AN EVENING paper, and she claimed that it was Fate that had made her send out for one when usually she preferred all her news in the morning. She had been too overcome to make any protest to the police or anyone else at first, and she had taken a strong sleeping-draught, hoping to awaken next morning fresh for the fray. She was a persistent woman, as Bristow could have testified, and at times she could be militant; she felt the loss of the pearls very keenly.
The morning paper — she took the Morning Star — brought the story of the Baron’s letter to the Yard.
Lady Kenton stared at it for fully five minutes; then, as though in a daze, she reached for the telephone and called for Lady Fauntley, feeling the need of someone to talk to.
Both Hugo Fauntley and his wife were out of town, but Lorna was in.
“My dear,” gasped Lady Kenton, “I just can’t — it’s too much — I don’t really know — how . . .”
“But it needn’t worry you,” said Lorna soothingly, realising what the trouble was. “It’s Marie’s loss, not yours.”
“It’s the principle of the thing,” mourned Lady Kenton. “Lorna dear, could you pop in for half an hour? It’s all so upsetting, and your mother . . .”
“I’ll come,” said Lorna.
“Good girl,” said Lady Kenton.
At the other end of the line Lord Fauntley’s very strong-willed daughter sat looking bleakly ahead of her. Many people who knew her would have said that she was in a “black” mood, which meant that she would probably retire to the Chelsea studio for days on end, and paint or mope.
She did nothing of the kind this morning.
After replacing the receiver she rang for her maid, and half an hour later was ready for the visit to Lady Kenton. She was not looking forward to it, but it presented one possible way out of a difficulty — and an unforeseen difficulty. Lorna laughed, a high-pitched, rather defiant laugh. She looked overpoweringly beautiful at that moment, but her eyes, dark, probing, restless, held uneasiness.
“If Mr Mannering should call,” she told her maid, “I expect to be back for lunch.”
“Very good, ma’am.”
Lorna left the Langford Terrace house and walked briskly to Regent’s Park, where she found Lady Kenton — whose home was one of the most imposing in that district — distracted almost to tears.
“It’s such a deliberate affront,” complained Lady Kenton for the fourth time in ten minutes. “I always did know that foolish policeman wasn’t any good, but this is too much. It’s the last word, my dear.”
“You can’t very well blame the policeman,” said Lorna, with a quick smile. “He’s probably feeling as badly about this as you. Or worse.”
“Worse! I should think that he feels the smallest thing on — on — I should think he feels insignificant. If I see him again I’ll let him know . . . Oh, bother die girl! What is it, Morgan?”
My lady’s maid was used to the differing tempers of her mistress, and kept a straight face as she entered the room and announced Inspector Bristow.
Lorna also contrived not to smile while Lady Kenton swallowed hard, straightened the shawl she insisted on wearing in the privacy of her home, and said, “Send him up.”
Lorna could see the light of battle in the older woman’s eyes; she was amused, but not so much as she would have been if she could have forgotten the fact that she wanted something desperately from Lady Kenton. She was anxious to humour Emma, but her sympathies in the coming interview would be with the Inspector, who would doubtless get through a trying half-hour with admirable patience.
The Inspector looked sprucer than ever. His shoes were polished until they were almost blue, his suit was perfectly cut, his tie, socks, and shirt matched well, and his trim moustache, yellowed in the centre with the smoke of his interminable cigarettes, was freshly cropped.
He bowed to the two ladies so punctiliously that the older woman was slightly appeased, and he addressed himself to Emma Kenton. The smile on his lips was exactly right.
“I very much dislike bothering you, m’lady, but there are one or two points . . .”
Lady Kenton’s brow was dark, and the question she had been preparing from the moment that Bristow had been announced seemed to burst from her.
“Why wasn’t I told, Inspector?”
Bristow obviously expected something of the sort, and he answered quickly.
“You mean about the robbery, m’lady?”
“What else could I mean?” demanded Lady Kenton. “It’s outrageous, Inspector, outrageous! I should have been told immediately — immediately!”
“I don’t quite see,” said Bristow gently, “how it was necessary to worry you before, m’lady.”
Lorna silently applauded him, and her regard for his diplomacy rose considerably. Bristow, as Mannering could have told her, was a likeable man.
“But why . . .” began Lady Kenton.
Bristow interrupted, without apparent intent to stop her.
“I understand it was a gift from you to Mrs Wagnall,” he said, and Lorna had a slight shock; it was the first time she had heard Marie Overndon given her new tide. “And as it was that lady’s property, it was not a matter I could very well report to you, m’lady.”
Lady Kenton looked at him doubtfully. Her chief complaint was that she had not been consulted the moment the robbery had been discovered, and now Bristow had disarmed her completely. But she would not give in without a fight.
“My interest was obvious,” she said coldly.
The next move was plainly Bristow’s, and he handled it deftly.
“Of course,” he said, “and I am hoping you will be able to help me a great deal. It’s just possible,” he added before the Dowager could interrupt, “that the robbery took place while — or immediately after — you were in the room with the presents, m’lady. There are one or two questions . . .”
“Questions?” snapped Lady Kenton.
“That I would appreciate your answering,” said the Inspector, gently but firmly.
Looking at the other woman, Lorna told herself that Emma was getting old. The Dowager looked careworn and a little faded at that moment. The questions threatened to bother her.
The Inspector was wondering whether it was possible that this little old woman could be the Baron. He was also beginning to tell himself that it wasn’t, and he doubted even whether he had ever seriously thought so.
“Just what happened when you slipped against the table?” he asked.
Lady Kenton clasped her hands together, and her expression was acid.
“Surely you’ve heard all that could be said about that?”
“It’s necessary,” said Bristow, “to check up on every statement, m’lady. A slight difference between two separate statements might mean a great deal. You appreciate that, I am sure.”
Her ladyship nodded now, as if to suggest that she fully understood the reason for the Inspector’s call, but didn’t consider it a sufficient one.
“I slipped,” she said.
“Against what?”
“The table, of course.”
Bristow accepted the words patiently.
“What made you slip?” he asked next.
“I don’t know,” said her ladyship. “I just slipped.”
“But it isn’t likely that you fell over without striking something first,” said Bristow.
“I stubbed my foot on the table-leg,” said Lady Kenton, bristling.
The Inspector rubbed his chin, and Lorna thought that he was beginning to feel exasperated.
“That was what I understood,” he said, “but I don’t quite see how it was possible, Lady Kenton. We have examined the table, and there was nothing projecting from it to cause you to stumble. It is a period piece, supported by a centre leg only,”
“It might have been the carpet,” said Lady Kenton, an
noyed beyond measure at discovering that the policeman knew a period piece when he saw one.
“It’s parquet flooring,” said the Inspector, “and it was not carpeted that day,”
Her ladyship glared at him.
“Are you suggesting that I’m lying?” she demanded, and her voice sounded very strident in the small room.
Bristow’s doubts came back with a rush. His manner grew more placating than ever, but he was on the alert for the slightest slip she might make.
“Nothing of the kind,” he assured her quickly. “It is just possible that you slipped on the polished floor, m’lady.”
“It is,” snapped Lady Kenton.
“Yet you remember stubbing your foot against something,” persisted Bristow.
“Distinctly,”
“It wasn’t the carpet or a table-leg,” said the Inspector very carefully. “Can you remember . . .”
“It might have been Gerry Long’s foot,” said Lady Kenton, “or Mr Mannering’s. I really don’t think that it’s important, Inspector, and if you don’t mind . . .”
The Inspector accepted his dismissal without a protest.
He knew that Lady Kenton had the ear of a number of prominent politicians, and he did not desire to be rebuked for zeal in that quarter. If events developed to give him a substantial charge against her ladyship it would be a different matter.
But as he went into the street he was very doubtful whether he would ever have such a charge to make. It didn’t seem feasible that the frail, bad-tempered old woman could have organised a robbery of that nature; it seemed less likely that she could have sent that letter to the Yard. He did wonder, however, whether she was thinking of shielding someone else. That would explain a great deal.
As he hurried towards Scotland Yard in a taxi he felt more worried than he had been all day. The effect of that challenge in the Morning Star was exasperating him. The disapproval of the A.G. was unpleasant.
“I’ll get him,” muttered the Inspector — of the Baron — suddenly. I’ll get him !”
