by John Creasey
They did not seem to be specially wired for alarms, but before he prised the catch he tested the space between the frames, with a thin file. The file touched nothing, and he felt satisfied. The catch moved easily, and he started to push the window up, very slowly at first, and then sharply.
There was a single squeak, echoing very loudly in his ears and he paused for a moment, listening intently. Only the strains of the music came, and nothing happened inside the room.
His heart was beating faster than usual now. It was a long time since he had forced an entry, and there was something unfamiliar about it, although he felt the allure of the past. Yet the job was hardly difficult enough to give him a real satisfaction, and the chance that it would prove a wild goose chase worried him.
He climbed through the window slowly.
First he felt round with his arms, to make sure there was no chair or table that he might stumble over. Nothing was on the path, but he found there was no carpet on the floor by the window. His rubber soles slithered a little on a high polish and once he almost lost his balance.
He reached the square of carpet in the middle of the room.
He had left the window open, in case of the need for a sudden retreat, and the wind was blowing in, light and cool. He knew that no one was likely to walk through the shrubbery close enough to see the open window.
Very slowly he clicked on his torch, pointing the beam towards the floor, and then cautiously lifting it.
It showed him a room sparsely furnished in the modern style, with the door directly opposite the window. Once he had found his direction he switched the light off, and slipped the torch in his pocket.
Then the scarf came into service.
He tied it about his mouth, nose and chin, so that only his eyes showed. His hat was pulled well down over his forehead. The mask was unpleasantly warm, despite the little slit over his mouth, but he kept it on as he reached the door to test the handle.
It did not squeak: the Jacksons obviously believed in oiling their windows and doors. Very slowly he tugged at the door: it opened, and he knew that he was getting an easy passage altogether. The window had been child’s play, the door was not even an obstacle.
The hall beyond was as dark as the room.
He stepped through, pulling the door behind him quietly. There was a slight click as the lock slipped in, and he stood by it, poised and waiting.
Still no sound came.
Again he used his torch, wishing that the light had been on, so that he could have made easier and quicker progress. He stabbed the beam round quickly, finding the stairs to his left. They were thickly carpeted, and wide. He reached them across the polished hall, avoiding a life-like tiger rug in the centre. The beam shone once or twice on trophies of the hunt on the walls, but Mannering did not see them. His pulse was hammering, as though he had never committed a burglarious entry.
Up—up—up.
He made no sound on the thick carpet. The torch was off, for he could guide himself to the top by the banisters. He found the top stair, and a small landing, then another flight of stairs, leading to the first big landing. Again the torch shone, a stab of brilliant white through the darkness. He turned it off.
Then, very suddenly, a door opened at the far end of the passage, and a light streamed through.
The Baron saw a girl outlined against the light, and the shadow of another. Their voices came sharp and clear.
“It won’t take a tick, Alice, and you know what he is if ’e don’t ’ave his things ready.”
“Don’t see why you couldn’t come up yerself,” complained the girl named Alice.
“Always gives me the creeps,” said the first speaker. “Come on, Lil, be a sport.”
“All right, there’s no hurry is there?” They were not the best of friends, obviously.
Mannering was pressing back against the wall, with the light casting a dim glow towards his end of the passage. He knew that the servants had come along the domestic staircase, and from the towels in the first girl’s hand he judged that they were going to the bathroom. Heels echoed sharply on a stained and polished floor.
Alice giggled suddenly.
“Remember the time when ’e brought ’is lady friend up and I poked my ’ead in? What a lark! You should’ve heard him afterwards, but he dassent tell his Pa I sauced him, in case there was a fuss. I wouldn’t trust Master Clive fer five minutes, Lil, would you?”
“Oh, I don’t know, he’s a nice boy to look at.”
Alice indicated her contempt of good looks, with Mannering, hardly daring to breathe, waiting in the shadows. He was backing a belief that they would not come as far as the landing, but he dared not move.
Alice, tall and thin and dressed in cap and apron, reached a door on the right and opened it. Another light clicked on, and Mannering saw the white tiles of a bathroom. The towels went in, and Alice exclaimed in annoyance:
“Now ’oo pinched the soap—oh, there it is. Arf a mo’, I’ll just ’ave a look in ‘is room an’ see if he’s got some fags. Some folks want looking after, don’t they?”
“Well, he pays yer for it, don’t he?”
“No, ’is old man do.” Another room, another light, closer to the Baron. It streamed in front of him, very bright; if he moved an inch it would shine on him.
Alice disappeared, Lil went after her. There were giggles and high-pitched laughter before the girls came out. Alice switched the bathroom light off, and they clattered towards the far end of the passage. The door clicked to, shutting off the light, making the darkness thicker and the silence sudden and profound.
Mannering was breathing hard, his lips parted.
Two seconds later and he would have been standing in the passage when the girls had appeared, the alarm would have been raised in a second, and the night’s adventure ruined. That was the appeal of the game, the fascination: one moment safety, the next danger. The success of an enterprise was balanced precariously on the chisel-edge of uncertainty. It was one of the things that had brought the Baron into existence.
The girls had helped him: he knew Clive’s room, his Christian name, and the fact that he had a reputation with women. He was not above using his own home for his petites amours, he had looks good enough to appeal to some women, and he was a petty tyrant: somehow all the facts were in keeping with Mannering’s knowledge of that friend of Brian Halliwell’s.
Mannering’s mind flitted from the dark landing to the charge room at Cannon Row where he had seen Halliwell. The youngster would be in a cell now, suffering an ordeal that was worse if he had not killed Kingley.
The truth, or evidence for it, might be in this house. His resolve strengthened.
He reached the door of Jackson’s room, and at his touch it opened without a sound. He closed it behind him, and then stepped across to the windows. The room faced the house from which the music was coming, and the open window allowed a faint melody to float through. Mannering was more interested in the curtains and the blinds.
The latter were thin, little more than casement rollers but the curtains were either left from the previous winter, or the forerunner of the coming autumn. They were brown, dark, and heavy velvet. He pulled them on runners that clattered sharply, and he waited when the sound had died down, turned towards the door and ready for an alarm.
None came.
Softly he stepped across the room to the door. The light switch shone dully under the beam of his torch. Before he switched it on he pulled a large mat to the bottom of the door, and made sure that the light would not show through into the hall.
Then he was able to look about him.
He had a better idea of the nature of Clive Jackson when he saw the sitting-room. It was luxuriously furnished, in rich browns and orange. There were several bookcases, all modern with exotic contents, and a cigarette cabinet next to a cocktail bar on wheels. All that one might have expected in a Mayfair flat was here, to the thick pile carpet, the sober yet almost Eastern manner of furnishing, th
e photographs – four of the same man, several of different women, all easy to look at.
On a small bureau bookcase a cabinet photograph was resting. Across the bottom was signed:
“Clive Jackson—July 19—”
It was a first-class studio portrait, revealing the man’s features well. The rather full, sensuous lips, the dark, long-lashed eyes, the hair sweeping back from the smooth forehead suggested the voluptuary or the dreamer – or both. Clive Jackson had hardly reached maturity yet, Mannering fancied.
This wouldn’t do, though: he wanted the papers, anything that might help him to find the association between Jackson and Halliwell, and the murder and the burglaries.
The Baron started to work in earnest.
The drawers of the bureau were locked, but a small skeleton key from the tool-kit about his waist, was all that he needed for working. A few dexterous twists, with hardly a sound, and the first drawer fell open. A cheque book, a few five pound notes, and other odds and ends were revealed. Mannering glanced through them all, seeing nothing of interest.
The second drawer was filled with bills, and the Baron’s eyes widened.
Young Halliwell had admitted being hard pressed for money, but Jackson, despite the richness of the room, was in far worse straits. Three letters out of the first five were sharp and to the point. Unless Mr. Jackson settled the enclosed account within seven days, other action would be taken without further intimation. A bank manager’s note about an overdraft was couched in hardly less insistent terms. A jeweller’s bill for a hundred guineas fluttered to the floor: it was dated a year before, and across it was scrawled: “Long overdue!”
Tailors – two garages – a tobacconist, even a hotel: there were bills totalling at least a thousand pounds in the drawer. Clive Jackson was shortly going to find himself in trouble, unless he made immediate payment: and he would hardly have let the accounts stand for so long had he been able to pay before.
Yet he might have money to come if he had had anything to do with the Kingley murder.
Mannering finished searching the bureau, and two small cabinets in the room. Nothing else of interest was revealed, but the bedroom opened from the sitting-room. He might find something else.
He was surprised when he saw the wall-safe above the satin-quilted double bed. There was not even a picture over it.
The bedroom showed the same luxurious and exotic taste. Mannering grimaced behind the mask as he stepped to the safe, and made sure there were no wires that would give alarm. It was a simple job, a combination worked probably on a dozen letters.
The light from the room next door was all he wanted. Mannering’s gloved fingers worked quickly, smoothly. The tumblers clicked uncertainly, dropping in series or in ones. Right, left, right; Mannering lost himself in the task, and when at last the safe clicked open he drew a sharp inward breath.
“Got you, my friend.”
He pulled the door open, and shone his torch inside. For a few seconds he told himself that he had no reward, for the safe seemed empty …
There were two compartments: he could not properly see the top one without standing on tiptoe. When he did look into it he saw a little wash-leather bag at the back, and he was tense with excitement as he took it out, untied the string, and poured the contents into his right hand. He examined them quickly, and then drew a deep breath.
He knew that he had found the rest of the gems stolen from Halliwell at the Maycourt Hotel.
So Jackson was in it; there was ample reason now for believing Halliwell had told the truth.
Mannering dropped the stones back into the wallet and in his pocket. In a few seconds the safe was shut, and Mannering turned round.
Then, for the first time, he saw the small, almost dwarfed, figure of a man standing between the sitting-room and the bedroom, with an automatic in his right hand.
Chapter Twelve
Red-Handed
He only sound in the room was the Baron’s hard breathing. His hands were away from his pocket, and the gas-pistol that he always carried was inside his coat: he could not get at it without inviting a bullet from the gun of the man standing there.
He did not move.
Nor did the little man in the doorway. He was against the light, and Mannering could not see his face clearly. He was wearing a bowler hat that looked a little too large for him, and he did not seem to be breathing.
Mannering moved his right hand a fraction, and then he heard that slow, emotionless voice for the first time, without knowing it belonged to a man named Kulper.
“Stay exactly where you are.”
The Baron obeyed: he had to, and yet he was praying that the man would come nearer, and present a chance for using his fists. The gun itself at close quarters was nothing like so dangerous as it was at a five yards range.
“The Baron.” The voice was uncanny because of the lack of any kind of emotion, surprise or satisfaction. “Caught red-handed.”
Mannering drew a sharp breath.
“It looks like it,” he said, and he put all the effort he knew into trying to sound flippant. “But it’s looked like it before. Who are you, my friend?”
Kulper lifted his left hand.
“Does it matter? Come into this room immediately, and do not think I shall hesitate to shoot. I have every right to be here: you have none. There is such a thing as shooting a thief in self-defence. You understand me?”
“Perfectly,” murmured the Baron.
The moment of surprise was gone, and his mind was working swiftly. He felt instinctively that the man with the gun could be ruthless, and therefore dangerous, but he doubted the claim to having a right to be in the Jacksons’ house. Why had it been necessary to say so if it was a fact?
“That is good,” said Kulper. “Slowly, please, with your hands uplifted. That is right.”
He stepped back into the other room as the Baron came forward. Slowly, like a grotesque picture, the light shone over the face. Mannering saw the disfigurement first: then the thin lips, the ghastly eye that was closed up, the other staring at him without expression. Mannering felt cold.
“Sit down,” said Kulper. “And make no noise.”
Mannering lowered himself into an easy chair. He was more convinced than ever that the other man had no right here, but that gave little relief.
“Thanks. Can I offer you a drink?”
“I do not drink, thank you. Perhaps you had better have one. You will probably need it.”
“I came out well fortified,” said the Baron. “I’m all right. Do you come here often?”
“Often enough.’ Why are you here?”
Mannering frowned, forgetting that the other could not see it behind the mask.
“Why, should you think? I heard that the Jacksons had a little store of gems.”
“This isn’t their main room. It’s the son’s.”
“The son’s—good Lord! No wonder I found damn-all!”
“You probably found a small wash-leather bag, with a dozen small stones in it,” said Kulper. “Sit back in your chair! Well, how does it feel to be caught?”
“I’ve never tried it,” said the Baron.
If the man would only smile or swear or look vicious it would have been better: that rigid, expressionless voice was something different in the Baron’s experience, and he was not enjoying it. He had always relied on taking advantage of the human failings of his adversaries: this man did not look human.
“You are flippant, my friend. You are caught, and you cannot possibly get away. Under this cover near my arm is a telephone. A word to the police and you are finished.”
“Well?” asked the Baron, and he was trying to fight against the panic in his mind.
“If you should struggle or move without my telling you, I will shoot,” said Kulper. “I shall shoot straight, and the police would have a dead captive instead of a live one. I do not think that would cause them a great deal of annoyance. Put your left arm along the arm of the chair.”
&
nbsp; Mannering obeyed, slowly, trying to work out a plan of action.
“Untie your scarf with your right hand. Remember, it will not be wise to make a false move.”
Then the Baron knew it; he had never felt more helpless, never so much at a man’s mercy. But there was one consolation, when his mask came off no one could recognise him as Mannering, and the suffused light of the room would not reveal the make-up. He undid the knot slowly. The scarf dropped from his face, and on to his neck and chest. He kept his eyes narrowed – the one feature he could not disguise – as he returned that frigid scrutiny.
“So. I am looking at the Baron—the great Baron.” Kulper rolled the words round his tongue, and yet they seemed lifeless. “What is it worth to you, if I allow you to go?”
Mannering leaned back a little in his chair. A smile played at the corners of his mouth: Kulper would never know the effort it cost.
“Oh-ho! You’re going to try and make on it, my friend. Supposing you call the police? They might be interested to see you as well as me.”
“They would not.” Mannering was forced to believe the man, for there was conviction in the way in which the words were uttered. “I should be known as a friend of Jackson’s. I have a key, and he has given it to me. If I prefer not to be seen by the police, I can shoot and leave you here. They might look for me: it is doubtful whether they would find me.”
“You’re experienced in the ways of the lawless?” demanded Mannering still flippantly.
“In the ways of the world, my friend Baron. I repeat, what is it worth if I allow you to go?” Mannering hesitated.
He had not the slightest desire to let the man believe he had come here for a special reason. It had been assumed that he had come on a straightforward job, and that point needed pressing home. If he refused to try to deal, it would suggest he was bluffing too hard.
“Shall we say—five hundred pounds?”
The right side of the man’s mouth curled a little, the first time he had even tried to smile.
