John Creasey - Meet The Baron

Mannering smiled a little, but his satisfaction at the success of the haul was marred by the discovery of the dummies. Someone else had had their eyes on the pearls, and he would have liked to know who it was; but there was one thing that helped him: the trail was so hopelessly confused that no one was likely to get near the genuine string; certainly he had nothing of which to complain.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

A SUSPECT

MANNERING WAS NOT SURPRISED ON THE FOLLOWING MORNING to find Gerry Long waiting for him in the lounge of the Elan. The American looked cheerful enough, but inwardly, Mannering thought, he was very worried. It was not long before he broached the affair of the previous afternoon, and Mannering knew that the other had been thinking about it a great deal.

“It’s all right, so far as it goes,” Long said, as the two men walked towards the Junior Carlton, “but I’m damned sure that Belton’s suspicious of me, Mannering. And I don’t quite know what to make of that detective. It’s not good enough.”

“You mean,” said Mannering thoughtfully, “that if you could find who really took the necklace you’d be able to clear yourself ?”

“That’s about the size of it,” admitted Long.

“How are you going to set about it?” asked Mannering.

The American shrugged his shoulders.

“How can I ?” he demanded. “If your police can’t . . .”

“You could employ a private detective,” suggested Mannering.

Long laughed, without much humour.

“Another specimen like that stuffed dummy Mason?”

“Well,” said Mannering with a short laugh, “the only other thing you can do is to hope that the Yard finds the thing. It isn’t as if you had any idea who took them.”

Long looked very grim; Mannering watched him and wondered at the set expression on his face, but he was not prepared for the bombshell that followed.

“But I have,” Long said.

Just for a moment Mannering’s face turned colour. They were walking along the Mall, and Mannering had been enjoying the walk and the conversation. He was sorry for Gerry Long, and he proposed making sure as soon as it was possible that the American suffered no consequences from the suspicion that had fallen on him. Apart from that little matter he had felt thoroughly happy and at peace with the world. Success was coming easily, and he was still unsuspected — or at least so He had thought.

But Long had an idea who’d taken the pearls!

To cover his momentary confusion Mannering coughed. He straightened up with a smile that cost him a great effort.

“Sorry,” he said. “Er — so you have an idea, have you? Well . . .”

“I’ve no objection to telling you,” said Long, and Mannering’s heart stopped thumping. “It seems absurd, but . . .”

“Who are you getting at?” demanded Mannering, intrigued, yet sure that Long’s suspicion was not very close to the mark.

The other’s words made him gasp. They came quickly, as though the American was afraid of ridicule, but there was no doubting their sincerity.

“Lady Kenton,” said Gerry Long.

Lady Kenton! For a moment Mannering felt beyond the power of speech. He stared at the American, and only the grimness of the other’s eyes and the obvious sincerity of the words stopped him from laughing.

“But why ?” he demanded helplessly.

“It’s pretty clear,” said Long, rather more nasal than he was usually, “that the old dame’s fall and the disappearance of the pearls coincided . . .”

“Not necessarily,” said Mannering quickly.

“But they sure did,” persisted Long. “Look — I know I didn’t take them. You know you didn’t. Who else? She was the only one in the room, apart from the policeman . . .”

“What about Mason, the agency man ?” asked Mannering quickly.

“I’ve thought of him,” said Long. “He wasn’t near the table. In fact, I think he was actually outside the door just then.”

Mannering nodded.

“So it was you, I, or Lady Kenton,” said Long. “We know it wasn’t either of us . . .”

“So it must cancel out to her ladyship,” murmured Mannering.

He was on the alert now, for Long was being very persistent on the “it wasn’t either of us” note. Was it possible that the American did suspect him, and was playing him subtly ?

“That’s as I see it,” said Long.

Was he being sincere, or was he hinting? Mannering would have given a great deal to have known that, but he could only wait until Long had given him a further lead.

“Well,” he said, after a short pause, “that’s all right from our point of view. But the police will suspect you as much as Lady Kenton, if they suspect any of us.”

“You don’t have to tell me what they think about me,” said Long.

There was such bitterness in the words that Mannering looked at the other sharply. In that moment he realised that Gerry Long, for all his apparent ease of manner, for all his carelessness, was taking the affair to heart. The American felt the suspicion keenly. Just for a moment he looked desperate, and the fact came as something of a shock to Mannering.

He had not known the other many weeks, but he had told himself that Gerry Long was the last man in the world to worry much about being under suspicion. He told himself, too, that the young American’s financial position was such that it made that suspicion absurd. But the fact remained that Gerry Long was suffering keenly, and Mannering was worried. He changed his mind about going to the club.

“Let’s get along to my flat,” he suggested. “We can talk this out, Gerry.”

Long agreed. He did not speak during the walk to the flat, and the impression of desperation that Mannering had gathered on the previous night and which he had seen that morning was heightened. There was something on Gerry Long’s mind that was worrying him a great deal more than seemed justifiable.

An hour later Mannering told himself that the American left the flat in a more cheerful frame of mind than when he had reached it. But Mannering was still worried. Long had discussed the theft thoroughly, but he had given Mannering no clue to the reason for his anxiety; yet that anxiety was very real, Mannering was sure.

“And all,” murmured the cracksman to himself, “for Lady Kenton’s pearls.”

There was a sardonic smile on his lips as he unlocked the small desk against the wall and took the pearls from their hiding-place.

His words to Lady Kenton on the previous night had not been entirely empty. The string was beautifully graduated, worth every penny of five thousand pounds, and he wondered at the Dowager’s extravagance. It had been an exceptional present, and there seemed no real reason for it. Certainly he was half wishing now that she had chosen something more modest.

He slipped it back into the hiding-place, lit his cigarette, prepared himself a small lunch, and then went to see Bristow. He had intended to call at the Yard in any case, but his talk with Gerry Long had made him precipitate the visit. He was worried about Long, and it was possible that he could clear the situation after a talk with Bristow.

Bristow was his usual cheerful self, and Sergeant Tring, looking rather pleased with life, touched his forehead and hoped that Mannering wasn’t feeling tired after the previous day’s exertions.

“No,” said Mannering, “and I’ve never seen anyone exert himself less than you do. Why didn’t you order the doors to be shut?”

“Too late when we discovered the stuff missing,” said Tring briefly.

When the sergeant had gone, closing the door quietly behind him, the detective offered cigarettes, and smiled grimly.

“We didn’t have much luck on our first job together,” he said, as Mannering struck a match.

Mannering laughed, a little uncertainly.

“You seem confoundedly happy about it,” he countered.

Bristow shrugged. Mannering gained another insight into the character of the man whom he was rapidly beginning to like and to admire.

“There isn’t much use in getting all het-up,” said the detective. “It doesn’t help us, nor anyone else. Besides, we always get our man in the long run.”

“Always ?” Mannering’s brows went up.

“Ninety-nine times in a hundred, anyhow,” said Bristow cheerfully.

“That suggests,” Mannering said slowly, “that you believe last night’s job was another one from your man — the Baron?”

Bristow nodded, and the other noticed the glint of admiration in the detective’s eyes. Bristow was so used to finding herself dealing with men of very moderate intellect that it was a pleasure to talk with someone who grasped the essentials quickly.

“I mean just that,” he said. “I think Baron — or the Baron; call him what you like — did the job. The dummies were slipped into Long’s pocket to make him seem . . .”

“Guilty?” asked Mannering.

“Well, to give that impression at first sight,” said Bristow. “You don’t have to look far before you realise Long was there for the other man to hang a hat on. While Tring and the others were worrying about the American, off goes the real thief.”

“A servant or a guest?”

Bristow rubbed his chin. He looked at Mannering thought-fully, as though wondering just how far he could trust his amateur helper. Apparently his decision was favourable.

“Well,” he said, “I’m not really sure, of course. But there’s one guest who’s being watched very carefully, Mannering, and whose bank-balance might not be quite so high as we think.”

Mannering felt just the same fear as he had when he had been with Gerry Long. This time he managed to control himself, and he did not change colour; but he took another cigarette from his case and stuck it between his lips, glad of the cover it gave. It was disconcerting to be faced with a statement like that, and he did not enjoy it. His heart was beating fast, and several seconds passed before he spoke.

“Yes ?” he said, and he was surprised that his voice sounded natural.

“Yes,” said Bristow heavily. “It seems fantastic, of course, but have you noticed, Mannering, that Lady Kenton has been present at every robbery ?”

“Lady Kenton ? ”

Mannering stared at his man, completely dumbfounded; there was no need at all for the simulation of surprise; Long, then Bristow, with the same fantastic notion!

“Look at it through plain glasses,” said Bristow, a little disgruntled by Mannering’s obvious astonishment, “and you can see what I mean, can’t you? There was that paltry brooch. She worried the life out of me about the thing, and it doesn’t need a very long stretch of imagination to believe that she did it to keep me worrying about her as a victim. And she has been at every robbery.”

Mannering took a deep breath, and forced himself to make the obvious rejoinder.

“So have I,” he said.

Bristow grinned.

“Yes,” he admitted, “I’m not forgetting you, but I’m hoping for the best. Seriously, though, why did she fall on that table last night? Did you see anything in the way for her to stumble over?”

Mannering shook his head. There was more relish in these conversations with the detective than in anything else he could remember, and he was beginning to enjoy himself thoroughly.

“There you are,” said Bristow triumphantly. “She says that she doesn’t know what caused her to slip, but she knows that something was in her way. Well — it’s a tall story.”

Mannering remembered, very vividly, how he had stretched his foot for the Countess to fall over.