Hide the Baron

by John Creasey

  “I wondered who might guess that Garfield told Miss Woburn what to do if anything stopped him from doing it himself.”

  “I was talking to Superintendent Bristow of the Yard last night. You were mentioned, and he said there wasn’t a situation you couldn’t talk yourself out of.” Aylmer sounded rueful. “All I can say is, they’re murderous devils and that girl owes her life to you. What are you going to do now?”

  “What I’d like to do is talk to George Merrow,” Mannering said thoughtfully. “Is he well enough yet?”

  “As a matter of fact, that leg’s giving him trouble,” Aylmer demurred. “Haven’t talked to him properly myself yet. He says he doesn’t know a thing.” Aylmer sniffed. “Can’t tell, with you smooth types. When are you going to see Miss Woburn again?”

  “As soon as she’s better. No one’s going to worry her much now,” Mannering said; “the pair whom she can recognise won’t ask for trouble. I may come down tomorrow afternoon some time—now I’ll get back to Town, if that’s all right with you.”

  “Yes, I’d much rather the Yard had you to worry about,” Aylmer said dryly. “I must say they’ve got your measure.”

  Mannering chuckled.

  His car was parked on the verge fifty yards away. Aylmer walked to it with him, as if anxious to make sure that this time he did really leave. He was soon driving along the narrow road, seeing the police and the cars getting smaller and smaller in his driving mirror. He turned a corner, and they were cut off from sight.

  He drove through the defile, recently cut in brown sandstone rock. Beyond it, this road ran into the main London–Horsham Road, and there was much more traffic. He put on speed. No one took any interest in him and he had plenty of time to think.

  In fact, he knew little more than he’d told the police, and the one thing he had kept to himself would not have helped them. Jimmy Garfield, who had been a frequent visitor to Quinns before the accident to his spine, had telephoned Quinns ten days earlier, with a simple story. He said that he was being threatened by telephone and by letter, and that he didn’t want to ask the police for help. Would Mannering assist him?

  Mannering had been out of the country, with his wife.

  Garfield had telephoned his flat last night, when Mannering had been home only for a day. The story then wasn’t greatly different, except: “I’ve had a load on my conscience for twenty years, Mannering, and I think it’s catching up with me,” Garfield had said. “Time an old man like me made retribution, eh? Like your help. Could be dangerous. Come and see me, will you?”

  “I’m really sorry,” Mannering had said, “but I’m too busy for a week or more. I will, when …”

  “If you leave it, you’ll be in time for the inquest,” the old man had said cryptically.

  Had he meant an inquest on himself?

  Joanna Woburn would be a long time getting over the effect of what had happened; Garfield might never recover; the contents of the flat box might never be found.

  Face facts.

  Since the attack on Garfield last night, Garfield’s enemies had acted with a violent ruthlessness as effective as it was rare. The police weren’t keyed-up to cope. Mannering saw it as a desperate, daring attempt to get some major prize. It had been skilfully planned, too. The old car, recently stolen; the men to ward off traffic; and another, fast car at hand, to take the men out of immediate danger.

  Only he and Joanna Woburn had seen them.

  He didn’t take the danger from that seriously, then, although he didn’t ignore it.

  If Garfield recovered, he might learn much more.

  If Garfield died, he might never know anything else about the case.

  He could only guess –

  That Garfield’s enemies had meant to get the flat box at all costs, and having failed at the house, had planned the attack on Joanna –

  Guessing she would have the box?

  Or knowing.

  If anyone else at the house had been spying on her, word might have been sent through to her attackers. It was even possible that someone knew that Jimmy Garfield had taken her into his confidence, or had seen her take that box.

  If so, who?

  And where did he, Mannering, come in? If he had a commission, it was to ease Garfield’s conscience; and that might be much easier already.

  He didn’t see that there was much else he could do; certainly not now. The police were in full cry after the box and the ‘miniatures’; he didn’t know a thing about them, so it was useless making inquiries through the trade. Except that he had saved Joanna Woburn’s life – and he told himself that was an exaggeration, for the police had arrived only a few minutes later. They had been following the girl, not dreaming of trouble on the road, only interested in finding out where she went to.

  An old man, dying.

  A young man, crippled and out of action for weeks.

  A strikingly attractive woman with a strong sense of loyalty, presumably as much in the air as Mannering.

  It wasn’t the first and it wouldn’t be the last unsatisfactory job. He felt sorry for Joanna Woburn, but she wasn’t the type to feel sorry for herself for long. He began to whistle softly. If he had half a chance to help any of the people involved, he’d take it. Probably it would just fade out.

  He did not know that two men were plotting, at that moment, to kill both him and Joanna Woburn.

  Lucien Seale, a large, bony man who had a cold aloofness when meeting strangers, and who was almost a stranger to his intimates, carried the black box out of the taxi which had stopped at Horsham station, and went into the booking hall. The small man who had been with him during the attack on Joanna also got out, but they didn’t travel together. These two had left the escape car, in which the two red-flag men had driven off.

  Seale made quite sure that no one took any particular interest in him, then booked a first-class single to Victoria. He strolled on to the platform. A train was due in ten minutes, and half a dozen people waited about. Seale bought an early London newspaper, and stood by the bookstall, from where he could see the ticket barrier on this platform and on the other side. No one who worried him arrived.

  With the box under his arm, wrapped in the Evening News, he caught the train. He had a first-class carriage to himself as far as Guildford, where a young couple and an old man got in. Beyond a first cursory glance, none of these looked at Lucien Seale.

  Inwardly, he relaxed.

  At Victoria, he was very careful indeed, and it was over a quarter of an hour before he left in a taxi which he picked up outside the station. When he reached his house, near Hampstead Heath, it was a little after eight o’clock, and nearly dark. No one else was there, and he let himself in with a key.

  The house was silent.

  He walked up to the first floor, with the flat box still under his arm, and entered a room which looked more like an office than a study; was furnished in sharp, modern fines. It had a window overlooking a long, narrow back garden, and the garden and house in the next road. Net curtains were placed across the window so that it was impossible for anyone to look in.

  He did not open the box.

  He had been in the house for five minutes when the telephone bell rang.

  “Hallo,” he said, and listened carefully. “Yes, come at once. Make sure you are alone.”

  He put the receiver down, and then went slowly to another room at the front of the house. This was also curtained so that it couldn’t be overlooked, but he could see out. The front garden was long and narrow, and on the other side of the road there were the walls of a large garden surrounding a big house, darkening in the evening light. No one stood watching.

  When the small man who had been with him at Horsham station arrived, he drove up in a small car.

  He wasn’t followed.

  He also let himself
in with a key, and the two men met at the head of the stairs.

  They made a sharp contrast.

  The large man’s face was very thin, had a bony, almost hungry look. His high cheekbones suggested that his ancestry wasn’t all British. He had a curious stealth of movement, and a fixed gaze. The impression that strangers had of him was his lack of humanity. He hardly looked real, but he was real enough, no one was ever likely to like him as a person.

  The other was round-faced, chubby, rather a pleasant-looking little man, with round eyes and a soft little mouth, and a bald spot in dark hair. He would have been at home in any bar or night club, or on any dance-floor. There was nothing robot-like about him, yet when he met the large man, there was similarity; one of tension.

  “Heard from the others?” the chubby man asked.

  “No.”

  “They’ll be all right.”

  “I am not at all sure that they’ll be all right,” said Lucien Seale. “I see no point in refusing to see the possibility of danger. If it had been handled properly, all would be well. I had arranged for Merrow to be attacked, and that the old man would do everything he could to save Merrow. And he would have. But when Pete lost his head, and killed Gedde and nearly killed the old man, we were in trouble. We wanted the old man alive, and—”

  “You know how it was,” Greer said slowly. “Gedde came along, Pete lost his head and hit the old man too hard. But you worry too much, Lucien.”

  “I always worry enough,” Lucien Seale told him, and his lips moved with great precision; greatly exaggerated, it would have looked like a ventriloquist’s doll talking. “And whether they are safe or not, we still have a grave problem. Mannering and the girl saw me.”

  ‘Me’.

  The man named Greer didn’t speak.

  “I dare not risk being recognised,” Seale said. “There is enough in that box to put me inside for the rest of my life. You know that. Mannering probably knows, as the old man sent for his help. The woman Joanna might know. I can’t take risks on being recognised. We have to decide how best and how quickly we can kill them.” That came out quite flatly. “Mannering must be dealt with first; he could be as dangerous as the police. He would search for me, I wouldn’t dare show my face. The girl—she can wait for a little while.” Seale placed one large, knuckly hand on the top of the newel post at the head of the stairs, and went on coldly: “We should deal with Mannering tonight.”

  “But he’ll be on the look-out,” Greer began. “He may not have seen the photostats, may not know—”

  “Tonight,” Seale said coldly. “It’s too big a risk, we can’t wait.”

  Chapter Eight

  The Mannerings

  Lorna Mannering heard the car turn into the street, looked out, recognised John’s Rolls-Bentley and stood at the window, looking down and feeling almost as eager as she had done when they had first come to live here; after their honeymoon. She craned her neck, so that she could see him get out, watched the way he closed the door and turned, glancing up as if hoping to catch a glimpse of her.

  He felt just about as she did.

  She was wearing a black cocktail dress, trimmed with red. She looked lovely, and knew it. If a few strands of grey touched her wavy dark hair, it didn’t matter; if there was a hint of wrinkles at her eyes, that didn’t matter. There was the quality of youthfulness about her. She moved to the door, and opened it as he came up the last flight of stairs. This studio flat was at the top of a narrow, four-storied house in Green Street, and it overlooked the distant Thames, for houses rased by the bombing hadn’t been rebuilt.

  Mannering paused, eyes widening. “My, my! Who’s been taking years off your age?”

  Lorna laughed; if he’d tried for a week he couldn’t have touched a better phrase.

  “Approved?”

  “Dior himself would approve.”

  “It’s a new dressmaker at a quarter of the price,” Lorna said; “I hope she isn’t discovered too soon, it’ll go to her head.” She kissed him. “We’re going out to dinner.”

  His face dropped.

  “Oh, Lor’. Not social?”

  “Alone,” said Lorna. “Ethel twisted her ankle this afternoon. It’s nothing serious, but she ought to rest up for a few days. So we’ll snack whenever we’re at home, and have the main meals out.”

  “Oh, well,” said Mannering resignedly. “I suppose we can’t have everything in one seductive body, painter, wife and cook.” He went into his study and opened a cocktail cabinet which was in fact an old Jacobean court cupboard. “Need I change?”

  “No. You look a bit down, darling.”

  “Things went wrong, and I can’t see any way of putting ’em right.” Mannering poured whisky for himself, sherry for Lorna, and as they drank, told her what had happened and what conclusion he had reached. She knew that the case would nag at him until it died a natural death or until he saw some way of helping the injured man or Joanna Woburn.

  “As far as I can tell they’ve got what they wanted, and they’ll lie low for a bit and then come up for air again,” Mannering said. “If the police pick ’em up I’ll be able to identify them, but—” He shrugged.

  “’Nother?”

  “No, thanks. You have a quick one, and I’ll drive!”

  He grinned. “We’ll go by taxi.”

  In fact, they went by taxi, so that there would be no parking problem. The ‘Lion and the Lamb’, in Grex Street, Soho, was small, reputable, amiable and had excellent food and a really good band. But Mannering wasn’t dancing as he could and should be. By half-past eleven, Lorna said:

  “Let’s get home, darling.”

  “Mind?”

  “I could do with an early night, too.”

  “Fine,” Mannering said, and paid the bill and left, with the proprietor begging him to return and half a dozen youngsters pointing him out as the John Mannering, “the antique-dealer detective, you know”. They stepped into the warm, starlit evening, and Mannering hailed a taxi. They got in.

  A man on a motor-cycle followed them.

  The one cure for the doldrums, Mannering knew well, was Lorna. The dancing hadn’t helped; sitting back in the cab, with Lorna’s hand in his, helped a lot. The simple delights. They were near Chelsea Town Hall when he tapped at the glass partition, and told the driver to take them to the Embankment. It was a good night for a walk; cool, pleasant. He noticed the motor-cycle roar past them, and had been vaguely aware of one pop-popping in his ear for some time. Motor-cycles were two a penny and he didn’t give this one a second thought.

  A motor-cycle was parked against the wall of a house when they reached the Embankment. He noticed this, without giving it a thought, either. The massive block of the Battersea Power Station, just across the river, was showing clearly in floodlighting. Dense white smoke rolled from one of its huge chimneys. The floodlighting reflected on the Thames. So did the fairy lights at the Pleasure Garden, sole surviving relic this far up river of the great Festival. Lights of all colours were still on their stands, but seemed to dance in the water.

  Lights from the bridges in sight were reflected too. A launch, probably with police in it, was moving slowly up-river. Odd traffic passed up and down the Embankment, including several motor-cycles; and he gave none of these a thought.

  They strolled towards Green Street, watching the river.

  They did not see the man who walked on the pavement across the road, sometimes ahead of them, and sometimes a few yards behind them.

  “It’s a perfect night,” Lorna said quietly. “Just right.” She spoke for the sake of speaking, for words didn’t really matter. Mannering’s arm was round her waist, his hand resting lightly. They walked in step, very conscious of one another’s nearness. Mannering murmured something which didn’t count. The stars looked down on them, the traffic passed, and death drew nearer.
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br />   Green Street was only a hundred yards away. Had there been a light in his study, the kitchen or the studio, they would have been able to see it; but they could not yet see even the outline of the top of the house. They kept near the parapet, where it was reinforced after the floods of a year or two before, reluctant to cross over. The mood would probably break as soon as they got indoors, and Lorna longed for some way of preserving it.

  Reluctantly she said: “Case still on your mind?”

  “It is, rather.”

  “You might see daylight tomorrow.”

  He smiled unexpectedly: “Ever the optimist! I don’t think so, I’m afraid—”

  He didn’t finish.

  The spell was broken, and without another word, they turned towards the road. Mannering still had Lorna’s arm in his, and was thinking as much about her as the case. He didn’t notice the man on the other side of the road, lurking in the shadows. They crossed, stepping out as a car approached. Green Street was only twenty yards or so away from here. There was a large waste patch, where the houses had been rased; this was now in utter darkness; darkness which could hide murder.

  They neared it.

  The man behind them drew closer, and still made no sound. When he drew his knife, he hid the blade up his sleeve. He was only two yards behind, near enough to strike, when they actually reached the corner; a low wall prevented them from crossing the waste patch. He turned, also. In the distant fight of a street lamp, he could see Mannering’s figure clearly, and he knew where to strike, knew exactly what thrust was needed to reach the heart.

  Two yards …

  He kicked against a stone.

  The noise broke startlingly across the quiet. It burst upon the Mannerings, who were ambling, sharing those troubled thoughts. It made Lorna exclaim, with the alarm that unexpected noises always created; and it made Mannering spin round.