The Baron at Large

by John Creasey

  Mannering said more easily: ‘I’ve been in worse.’

  Mervin shook his head.

  ‘You know, I find that difficult to believe. Where is Rogerson?’

  ‘Who?’

  Mervin’s eyes narrowed.

  ‘Such ignorance seems a trifle puerile, Baron. Rogerson, Mr. Mendleson’s so admirable secretary. Surely you know he has been to visit you?’

  ‘I do not,’ said the Baron sharply.

  The immediate shock was over. He was facing a gun, which was ominous enough, but something he could deal with in emergency. Mervin’s escape from the cords must be explained later. Meanwhile it was necessary to deny seeing Rogerson. He must do nothing to confirm the belief that Mannering was the Baron.

  ‘I—see,’ drawled Mervin. ‘Is it possible that our friend has made a mistake? When did you leave your flat?’

  ‘I haven’t got one.’

  ‘No? Rogerson said distinctly that he was to visit your flat, but he omitted to say where, and he omitted to mention your name. It sounds—’

  ‘Rogerson can’t know me,’ snapped the Baron.

  ‘No? And why?’

  ‘No one does.’

  ‘I see.’ Mervin nodded. ‘I soon will, my friend, very soon I’m afraid. However, it gives me some pleasure to believe that Rogerson and—ah—others have made a mistake, they are so hot-headed, so confident of their invulnerability. Not unlike yourself, perhaps. You have a long if dishonourable career behind you, and it will be a pity to spoil it. However—’

  ‘You can hardly go to the police,’ said Mannering, ‘with most of the stuff from Beverley here.’

  ‘Ah, but it won’t be here when the police come, my friend. Tell me—’ He dismissed the subject drily. ‘How did you know that I might have the jewels?’

  ‘I’d seen you going to Gillison’s place.’

  ‘And Rogerson?’

  ‘I don’t remember him.’

  ‘A rather fearsome-looking creature with a twisted lip.’

  ‘Oh, him!’ said the Baron with a convincing expression of surprise. ‘Lives in a house in South Audley Street. I don’t like City jobs’.

  ‘Well, well,’ murmured Mervin. ‘So there are some tasks too difficult even for the venturesome Baron?’

  ‘Supposing you cut the cackle,’ snapped Mannering.

  ‘A little worried?’ murmured Mervin. ‘Understandable, I suppose. If you will be good enough to hand me those cases, we will move on to the next development quickly.’

  Mannering hesitated.

  ‘At once,’ snapped Mervin, and the gun lifted.

  It was the one moment when the Baron had a chance, and he knew that no matter how slender, he had to take it. He shrugged his shoulders, and held the cases towards Mervin who stretched his free hand for them. Their fingers were touching when Mannering jerked his hand up, and the cases went into Mervin’s face. The man fired, but Mannering had dodged to one side. Before he could snatch the gun away Mervin had fired twice again, the bullets thudding into the rubber flooring. Mannering hit him.

  Mervin staggered, his head jolting back, the gun and cases falling to the floor. Mannering scooped them up, stuffing them into his pockets, then rushed into the next room shutting the door behind him. The key was in the lock, and he turned it. He felt reasonably sure there would be no immediate alarm, for the flat was virtually soundproof; the broken window might let the echoes of the bullet shots get outside, however, and he had no time to lose.

  Clara Mendleson had not moved, but Mervin’s cords were on the floor, burned through. On the small table next to the piano was a petrol lighter. The flame was burning, ample evidence of how the man had freed himself.

  Mannering swung towards the hall.

  As he went he saw that the front door was ajar, and before he reached it he heard footsteps pounding up the staircase, along the passage. Voices were raised, too, and Mannering realised his mistake. By leaving the front door on the latch he had destroyed the muffling effect of the rubber flanges. Mervin had not known that, or he would not have dared to shoot. It meant a police inquiry, and Mervin would have a lot to explain, but there was barely time for the Baron’s own getaway, which was his chief concern.

  He made for the opened window, climbing through to the fire-escape.

  He was in the courtyard before he saw a man’s head and shoulders against the light which had leapt into the window of Mervin’s flat. Moving fast he reached the doorway at the far end of the yard. He had examined the plan of the mansions and precincts, and knew that the alleyway led to some mews at the back of South Audley Street. The door was neither locked nor bolted. He went through, hearing the sharp impact of leather heels on the steel of the fire-escape.

  At the mews he turned towards South Audley Street, dropping to a brisk walk.

  The sounds of pursuit had died away.

  Breathing hard, and perspiring freely, he cut across the street to a narrow turning that would take him towards Park Lane. Five minutes of walking brought him out near Fuller Mansions.

  Less than half an hour after leaving Mervin, he was sitting in the flat of Mr. Moore, fingering the Kransit diamonds, which he had arranged with Leverson would be waiting for him. Quickly he addressed three envelopes, slipping a case into each, and went out to post them.

  Back in the flat, he was asleep inside ten minutes.

  Superintendent Lynch of Scotland Yard, large, placid and good-natured, blinked at Bristow. ‘Well, Bill, what’s new?’

  Bristow lit a cigarette, and eyed the smoke reflectively. ‘If the man’s to be trusted, the Baron visited him last night.’

  ‘Any reason why you shouldn’t believe him?’

  ‘Dozens. The flat gave me the horrors, and the certainty that Mervin is not a nice man to know. Opium, among other things. I’ve got full particulars, after an hour’s questioning. He’s independent – pretty well-off in fact – and an amateur musician. He has a fancy safe, in the form of a clock operated by mechanism, and tear-gas comes out when it is opened without a key.’

  Lynch leaned forward intently.

  ‘Did it come out last night?’

  ‘Yes. He says the Baron took it in his eyes. It played old Harry with the disguise, but I can’t get a worthwhile description. There had been a raid, but Mervin doesn’t seem clear on what’s missing. He’s much too vague.’ Bristow spoke irritably. ‘He might have dreamed the blue mask, but—well, there was a woman there. A queer business. She’d been dosed with ether gas, and he’d been chloroformed.’

  ‘It sounds like Mannering,’ said Lynch.

  ‘Could be, but I’d be happier if I didn’t think Mervin was a first-class liar. I think he’s hiding something. But there is one thing that makes me feel Mannering might have been there.’

  ‘Well?’

  ‘The woman was Mendleson’s wife.’

  Lynch sat up sharply.

  ‘So there’s a Beverley connection.’

  ‘I don’t know what to make of it,’ Bristow admitted irritably. ‘Apparently the Mendlesons don’t live together, but they keep up appearances when they go visiting. She and Mervin seem to have been intimate for some time. She’s got a voice, y’know, and he’s something of a pianist.’

  Lynch sniffed.

  ‘If the Baron went there, it’s almost certainly because he thinks Mervin was connected with the Beverley job. Mannering’s after those jewels. I wish—’ He hesitated.

  ‘All right, Bill, don’t be shy.’

  Bristow glanced up in annoyance.

  ‘I was going to say that I wish I could trust the Baron to send those jewels where they belong. If he did that I’d be inclined to let him have a run, up to a point. He got to Gillison at the same time as us, and he might get home first.’

  ‘No,’ Lynch said decisively, ‘we’re not giving the Baron any rope, Bill. He may be half-thief and half-detective these days, but if we can get him we’ve got to. Don’t slacken with Mannering. We’re not even sure he wasn’t party to the Towers
job, and afterwards double-crossed.’

  Bristow shrugged.

  ‘I doubt if he knew a thing about it, and I want to get some results. I know no more about Armstrong’s death, or the maid’s, than I did when we found the bodies.’

  ‘It’ll take time.’

  ‘It’s taken too much already. I thought Gillison was our man but I’m beginning to wonder.’

  ‘You’re trying to find a connection between Gillison and Mervin?’

  ‘Of course. But they’re shrewd beggars, and it won’t be easy. Mannering’s not at his flat, nor at the studio.’

  ‘Isn’t he, by Jove!’ Lynch looked thoughtful. ‘Then he’s hiding out until he can show a presentable face after the gas, Bill. I don’t see why you’re raising questions, it looks to me a certainty that Mannering was there last night. Have him watched the moment he gets back.’

  ‘He’ll probably prove he’s been to the North Pole,’ Bristow grunted. ‘Well, what about your end? What’s this new company of Mendleson’s?’

  Lynch pursed his lips.

  ‘I don’t know. It seems genuine enough. Fauntley and Sharron are on the board. I don’t trust Mendleson far, but this may be one of his genuine jobs.’

  ‘If he has any.’

  ‘As you say. Well, Gillison and his girl are being watched, you’ll look out for Mannering and you won’t lose Mendleson, by the way, I take it you had no luck at The Pitcher last night?’

  ‘I didn’t,’ Bristow admitted. ‘Neither Mannering nor Leverson turned up. But I’ll keep tapping the wires, although I fancy they put one across us there.’

  ‘Well, keep at it, Bill. I’ve a feeling that this isn’t going to be one of the unsolved crimes. I—hallo, the old man wants me. I thought he was out.’

  Lynch stood up, massive and placid, and went to the Assistant Commissioner’s office. Sir David Ffoulkes, gaunt and at first sight forbidding, but at one with his subordinates, was sitting at his desk studying the ceiling with elaborate intensity. Without looking at Lynch he said: ‘Is Bristow there?’

  ‘Should be passing—ah.’ Lynch reopened the door, to find Bristow coming along the passage. ‘Just a moment, Inspector.’

  They stood in front of Ffoulkes, enduring one of his many irritating silences, knowing that it promised good news. At last he looked at them.

  ‘Any trace of the Beverley jewels yet, Bristow?’

  ‘Nothing definite, sir.’

  ‘Hmm. Well, some of them have turned up.’

  ‘What!’

  ‘Yes,’ nodded Ffoulkes. ‘Both Crane and Fauntley have telephoned me. They’ve each received a postal package, containing their missing stones. Better find out if Sharron and the others have been visited by the same good fairy.’ After a short pause he added drily: ‘I wonder where the Baron found them?’

  Chapter Eighteen

  Rest Cure

  ‘I’ve never been so pleased in my life, it’s come just at the right time, when everything looked so black, but I always did say you ought to look on the bright side, don’t you agree, Lorna?’ Lady Fauntley beamed happily about her, while the firelight in that early winter afternoon played on the three women sitting in the lounge of Fauntley’s Portland Place house.

  Fay said tensely: ‘How does this affect Bill?’

  ‘Well, my dear, you can’t expect everything at once, but this is a step in the right direction. The police didn’t manage to find the jewels but someone did.’ She began to pour tea. ‘Have you seen John today, Lorna?’

  Lorna was looking thoughtfully into the fire.

  ‘No, not yet.’

  ‘Busy on the case I expect,’ said Lady Fauntley gently, but with an inflection in her voice that made Lorna look round sharply. Her mother’s placid eyes met hers, apparently without guile. ‘I wonder if the others were as lucky as Hugo. I expect so. I always expect the best. It makes things so much easier.’

  ‘It makes it damned hard when you’re wrong,’ said Fay.

  ‘Well, yes, but we have to take that chance, don’t we? Clara, for instance, is the last person I would have expected to behave in such a way.’

  ‘What’s she been doing?’

  ‘Didn’t you know? My dear, it’s all over London by now, René Crane phoned me only a quarter of an hour ago. It appears that the Baron was at a flat in South Audley Street, and when the police got there poor Clara was unconscious, and the man, Merlin I think his name was, was knocked out. Apparently she and her husband only go about together for appearances. And this Merlin or whatever his name is plays the piano rather wonderfully. René says she knows him well.’

  ‘Clara of all people with a lover,’ said Fay. ‘And the Baron?’

  ‘But of course the Baron got away, he always does, doesn’t he?’ Lorna’s hands relaxed.

  Fay said: ‘In a way he’s rather wonderful, don’t you think?’

  ‘Wonderful?’ Lady Fauntley considered. ‘Well, clever perhaps, but one can hardly approve. I’ve asked Rene and Mr. Crane to come round for dinner, Lorna. I thought it would be nice. I hope John comes in, if he ‘phones up you’ll ask him I know, he always makes an evening go somehow.’

  She broke off as the door opened silently, and Parker’s voice came quietly through the firelit room.

  ‘Mr. Mannering, Ma’am.’

  ‘Why John!’ exclaimed Lady Fauntley. ‘I was just talking about you, hoping you would come to dinner tonight. Do sit down. There’s plenty of tea and you like it strong, don’t you?’

  Lorna did not move, while Fay looked up into Mannering’s eyes, her own filled with questions. Mannering smiled, and sent a message, unspoken but clear to Lorna. She felt a deep relief after the suspense of the day.

  ‘Any—news?’ Fay said.

  ‘Nothing definite I’m afraid,’ said Mannering, ‘but I’ve a feeling that we’re moving on the right lines.’

  ‘What do you think about it now?’

  ‘I’m more convinced than ever that it was murder,’ said Mannering, ‘and I think Bristow will be able to prove it before long. What’s all this about the jewels?’

  Lady Fauntley told him, cheerfully. Mannering assured her that a policeman acquaintance had told him a garbled story that all the Beverley Towers gems had been restored, but he had not yet received his own. It was half an hour before he went up to Lorna’s sitting-room, and as the door closed behind them Lorna gripped his arm fiercely.

  ‘John, you scared me that time.’

  ‘No need,’ he said, his arms tight about her. ‘I’m sorry, darling, but I should have let you know. I overslept.’

  ‘You did what?’ asked Lorna faintly.

  ‘Overslept, for the second time,’ said the Baron ruefully. ‘As Mr. Moore. I was home about half-past four, I suppose, and in bed at five. It was turned two before I woke up. Do my eyes look presentable?’

  ‘Yes, why?’

  Smiling, he told her of the escapade. She seemed content to sit on the arm of his chair and listen, and when he stopped there was silence for some minutes, the pleasant, companionable silence that had come to mean so much to them both.

  ‘Well,’ she said at last, ‘you found the jewels?’

  ‘All except the Kransits and the Glorias, but there were other things, Mervin’s diary among them,’ Mannering answered. ‘Cryptic, but I think pretty damning. He was at Beverley for three days – or near enough to have got there quickly.’

  ‘Anything about Bill Armstrong?’

  Mannering shook his head.

  ‘So you’ll have to go on?’

  He nodded. He could have told her that his own life was now in danger. But there was the chance that only Rogerson knew him, and he had no desire to worry her. His own quest for the Glorias had faded into insignificance beside the wider issues.

  Lorna said slowly: ‘Is Mendleson clear, or any of the others?’

  ‘Mendleson may be, but I’m not sure yet. I sent the jewels back to the two men who are reasonably sound.’

  ‘Do you feel sure about Cr
ane?’

  Mannering stirred uneasily.

  ‘I like Theo, and I’ve known him a long time. It’s difficult to believe that he would play any part in it.’

  ‘Yes, I know, but all the members of the gang need not have been a party to the actual murder. Armstrong’s at least – if it was murder – was done on impulse.’

  ‘We only think so, it might have been prearranged. And there was no impulse about the murder of the girl Sanders.’

  ‘No. Well, let’s go back a bit.’ Lorna suggested. ‘Are you sure of Crane?’

  ‘He hasn’t been checked up.’

  ‘I thought not. As a matter of fact it wasn’t until this afternoon, that I wondered if he was concerned – or both of them, for that matter.’

  ‘Steady!’ exclaimed the Baron. ‘Let’s keep it within bounds.’

  ‘Can we?’ Lorna frowned. ‘Who would have expected to find Mrs. Mendleson where she was?’

  Mannering looked surprised.

  ‘Is that known already? The papers haven’t arrived, have they?’

  ‘No.’ Lorna was looking at him fixedly. ‘It’s what made me wonder about the Cranes. You know them well, but we’re only casual acquaintances. So why should she ring Mother immediately the papers were out, and start a scandal about Clara Mendleson? If it were just for gossip she’d choose a friend; or you’d think so.’

  ‘But what object could she have had?’

  ‘I don’t even know that there was an object, it merely made me thoughtful. And it made me think of something that we both appear to have missed.’

  ‘What was it?’ Mannering asked uneasily.

  ‘Well,’ Lorna spoke slowly. ‘Crane rebuilt the Towers, didn’t he? He designed all the modernisation, and knew the place inside out. You must see that he – discounting Sharron – had the best opportunity.’

  Chapter Nineteen

  Action For Slander?

  ‘Everything considered it’s the most astonishing business in my experience,’ said Theo Crane, his lined face set and serious. Fauntley and Mannering sat opposite to him. ‘Jewels like that, returned by ordinary letter post, without any idea who sent them.’