John Creasey - Meet The Baron

He moved his revolver, gripping it by the barrel, and rapped quickly at the back of the guard’s close-cropped head. The man gasped and grunted, swaying a little uncertainly. Mannering pocketed his gun, swung the other round, and jerked an upper-cut that connected with a vicious snap. The guard’s body sagged, and his eyes rolled.

Mannering felt panic very close to him now, but he gritted his teeth and kept it at bay. He supported the heavy body, letting it drop softly to the floor, and then straightening the limbs comfortably. He felt for the pulse, and found it beating well enough; a smile of relief crossed his face. Then he sought for the man’s own handkerchief, and, rolling it into a ball, stuffed it into the ample mouth.

“He won’t be able to shout for a long time,” Mannering muttered, and his eyes gleamed. It was short work to complete the job, using the guard’s belt to secure his wrists behind him.

Now for the bureau — and the key.

Mannering searched quickly, finding what he wanted with little trouble; the lock needed little forcing. He felt no thrill as his fingers touched the key of the strong-room; and now he found he had to guard against an impulse to hurry. The one thought in his mind was to get the job over, and escape from the house. He felt it was stifling him; two sides of his nature were warring, the one contemptuous at the way he was betraying Fauntley’s trust, the other mocking, as he told himself it was just another way of gambling. . . .

He learned then, and was to prove it time and time again afterwards, that the thrill of the game ended when the obstacles were overcome. There was nothing to stop him now; it was a thousand-to-one chance against anyone else coming to the strong-room at this time of night. The difficult part was over, and Mannering wanted to get it finished.

He ignored the guard, and stepped to the door of the strong-room, smiling a little, but with the need for urgency in his mind. He slid the key into the hole . . .

Then lie went rigid, and alarm seared through him. Fauntley had warned him, yet he’d forgotten it — forgotten that if the library door wasn’t locked when the strong-room lock turned the alarm would clamour out in the silence l He was white-faced as he withdrew the key slowly; and not until it was safe in his pocket did he breathe freely. Then the spasm of panic — the third he had had that night — went quickly. He smiled again, crossed to the door, and turned the key in the lock.

“It would have been my own fault,” he muttered. “Gad, but it shakes your nerves!”

Despite his words his hand was steady as he turned the key and a few seconds later pulled open the heavy door of the room that held the priceless collection. His ears were strained, and he half-expected to find that Fauntley hadn’t told the truth — that the alarm would ring. But no sound came beyond the sighing from the door as it turned on its well-oiled hinges.

He was inside now.

A feeling of triumph overwhelmed every other thought. He stood in the open doorway, looking at the room with its walls lined with safes. The third safe on the right held his attention — the one that contained the Gabrienne collection and a dozen other smaller pieces.

Now he wanted the combination. It was on the tip of his tongue as he stepped to the safe.

“Four right — six left . . .”

He muttered each figure under his breath as he turned the knob, and the clicking of the tumblers seemed to fill the small room. The seconds dragged, and he was fretting with impatience. “Ten left — four right — eight left. . . .”

He heard the final click, and pulled the door. It yielded to his pressure, and in a moment he was looking at the leather cases. The Gabrienne collection was the nearest, and the temptation to take it was overwhelming. He argued with himself, and at last common sense won. Every stone in that collection was known throughout the world; he would never be able to dispose of it.

He didn’t bother to force open the smaller cases, but selected three that would fit easily into his pocket. He tucked them away, breathing very fast. There was no need to wait to shut the door, either of the strong-room or the safe; the bound and gagged guard would be evidence enough of the robbery.

He turned away from the open safe, and as he did so something slid down his leg. The unexpected movement made him jump, and the little thud as the thing hit the floor made him tighten his lips. He looked down.

Then he smiled, and passed his left hand across his fore-head. It was absurd, but one of the cases of gems had missed his pocket, and, as he had moved, had slipped to the floor. He was doing most of the things he shouldn’t do.

As he bent down to retrieve the case he saw the small gold plaque on it for the first time. He frowned a little, seeing an inscription. He read the words quickly, and as he did so his brows darkened, and his teeth showed for a moment in a mirthless smile.

For the inscription read, “To Lorna from Dad, Christmas, 1934.”

To Lorna! The girl’s eyes, humorous and resentful in turn, mocking and somehow suggesting disillusion, seemed to be in front of him as he stared at the inscription. Very slowly, and hardly able to explain the weariness that was passing through his limbs, he took the other wallets, expecting what he found. Both of them were Lorna’s, one from her mother, the other from Fauntley himself

Mannering’s eyes held mockery of himself just then. He knew that he could no more take the girl’s jewels than he could take the Gabrienne collection, and for a stronger reason. Call it chivalry, call it what he liked — he couldn’t force himself to rob her.

But there was still no humour in his smile as he turned back to the safe, although he laughed silently as he ran through the wallets one by one. The only jewels in there, apart from the Gabrienne collection, were Lorna Fauntley’s. . . .

“And I don’t know the combination of any of the others,” he said, his lips twisted. “I’m damned if I’ll take these.”

He felt the temptation to go back on that decision, and he shut and locked the safe-door quickly. A glance towards the guard showed that the man was still unconscious, and there was no sound from outside. He had plenty of time to try one of the other combinations. It wasn’t impossible to get them by experimenting.

He turned from the door of the strong-room, but as he did so he caught, for the first time, the faintest rustle of sound. His body went rigid, and he stared towards the window, A dozen questions flashed pell-mell through his mind. Was it a policeman — a late servant — or his imagination?

No — there was someone at the window. The sound came again, softly, warningly. As it reached his ears he acted, switching off the strong-room light to put himself into shadows, and moving very fast across the room, his gun clasped in his hand. His palm was sticky.

Not until he was half-way to the window did he see who it was; and then he pulled up short, and the realisation that he was seen — recognised — flashed through his mind. Recognised — by Lorna Fauntley!

She was standing by the open window, staring in, and even in the gloom he imagined he could see the smouldering mockery in her eyes. She was looking squarely at him. . . . God, what a tool he war I Of course she couldn’t recognise him: he had pulled the handkerchief over his mouth and chin, his eyes were hidden by the brim of his hat, and the mackintosh made his figure unrecognisable. She couldn’t know him. But if not, why didn’t she move ? She was standing motionless, almost as if she were challenging him.

It wasn’t until then that he realised that he had his gun trained on her, that it had been directed towards her from the moment he had turned round. She daren’t move without risking a bullet, and that discovery put another thought into Mannering’s mind. If she’d seen through his disguise she would have spoken; certainly she would not have been afraid of the gun. As it was, the gun was bidding her to be silent.

He smiled beneath the handkerchief, and now the zest for the game returned to him. There was danger here, and more than a spice of it, a difficulty to get past, a chance to exercise his wits — the Lord knew they needed it after tonight. Well, the gun had been the only talker so far, and it could keep talking for a while. He was ten feet or more from the window, and lie could see her clearly, even to the steady rising and falling of her breast. He motioned with the gun, beckoning her towards him.

She hesitated, and he took a threatening step forward; it carried the necessary persuasion, for she spoke at last.

“All right” — she might have been talking over the dinner-table for all the nervousness in her voice — “I’ll come.”

She climbed in, easily and gratefully, and Mannering had a fleeting glimpse of a slim, silk-clad leg and a trim ankle. The next moment she was in the room, and he jerked the gun, motion her back from the window. She obeyed, slowly, and now he could sec her eyes more clearly, and feel her contempt. It stung him, and beneath his mask his face went red, but he brushed the thought from his mind quickly.

They had turned completely round, facing each other all the time. Her back was towards the open strong-room door, and under the shadow of his hat his eyes gleamed suddenly. The strong-room, of course. He could shut her in there, and be sure she was safe and unable to stop his escape. It was the only way; not for a moment had he contemplated treating her as he had treated the guard.

The gun acted as spokesman again; she shrugged her shoulders, and backed a pace towards the strong-room. Two paces . . .

And then she stopped, her face flushed suddenly. Mannering went rigid, but he forced himself not to look away from her, although the sound that had jarred through the silence came again — a rattling at the library door.

Then he heard Fauntley’s voice, high-pitched and half-hysterical.

“Morgan — Morgan! Unlock the door — unlock it, I tell you!”

John Mannering knew that he had only a few minutes to get away; perhaps less than a minute, for Fauntley would raise an alarm immediately, and the windows would be guarded soon. He couldn’t think for some ten seconds, and then his mind cooled. For the first time he spoke to Lorna Fauntley, but he hardly recognised his own voice: it was a snarl, harsh and guttural.

“Get in, you!”

She was appalled by the sudden ferocity of his words, and she dropped back, pale-faced. He stepped after her, his left hand outstretched, but rather than let him touch her she turned and ran into the strong-room — a picture he would retain for many years. He had no time for smiling, though, and he slammed the door on her, turning the key in the lock quickly and leaving it there. Fauntley had called out twice, and then the sound of his footsteps had followed. As Mannering leapt towards the window a gong boomed out in the hall, loud and threatening.

That was the first alarm — and no one but Fauntley was likely to be about for another minute, while already Mannering was half-way through the window. He felt the asphalt beneath him as he jumped, balanced himself quickly, and raced, not towards the front-entrance, but towards the rear, which opened on to a small street leading to Park Lane. As he ran through the garden he saw first one light at the top of the house blaze, then another and another. He was breathing hard, but running well within himself. He reached the street safely. Should he turn right, towards Park Lane, or left?

He decided on the former, and shed his mackintosh as he went. In its pocket was the handkerchief with the false initials, and he had time to smile grimly as he dropped the coat to the ground, and then turned the brim of his hat up. He stopped running, and he was breathing more regularly when he reached Park Lane and turned towards Piccadilly. There was just one thing he wanted now — a taxi.

An empty one overtook him after two or three minutes, and he beckoned it thankfully, giving the driver instructions to drive to Victoria Station. As he sank back in the cab a film of sweat broke over his face and hands, and he shivered a little.

It was over: the ice was broken. He couldn’t call it a failure, for he had learned a great deal. As he cooled down he stopped shivering: and twice within the next five minutes he chuckled aloud.

“Nothing taken, thank God!” said Lord Fauntley to John Mannering some thirty-six hours later. They had met at the Carlton Club, and Fauntley was full of the burglary. “Lorna must have scared the thief, Mannering, before he had time to get at the combinations. I thought I heard something, and I wasn’t long moving.”

“No one hurt, I hope ?” Mannering asked.

“Not seriously. The night-guard was knocked unconscious, but nothing worse. Well, I’ll make sure in future, Mannering — two guards all the time.”

“It would be wiser,” admitted Mannering, proffering cigarettes. “Anything for the police to go on?”

“Police?” Fauntley snorted as he accepted a cigarette. “What do you expect from them, Mannering ? They actually had the man’s mackintosh, and a handkerchief marked with his initials — T.B. or something — but they haven’t found a thing. Still” — his lordship smiled cheerfully — “they didn’t have to look for jewels, thank heavens! Well, we needn’t talk about that. Er — we spent a delightful evening, Mannering. If you’re free one day next week, spend it with us. You can ?”

“Delighted.”

“Then that’s fixed, that’s fixed,” said Fauntley jauntily. “We’ll be delighted, Mannering, delighted. Tuesday, if it’s all right with you? Splendid! And now I’ll have to be going.”

They shook hands, and Mannering smiled thoughtfully as the peer stumped out of the lounge. Obviously Fauntley didn’t suspect. But Lorna ?

“I’ll take a chance,” Mannering said to himself. “I don’t think she’ll have any idea — I don’t see how she can.”

He was prepared to swear, after dinner on the following Tuesday, that she had no idea at all that he had been in the strong-room. She talked more on that second night, mostly of the burglary. Her sympathies, Mannering discovered, were inclined to be with the burglar, but she had been scared when he had snarled at her.

“What made you go down?” he asked, as they drove towards their second tete-á-tete at the Dernier Club. “It must have been late ? Three or four o’clock ?”

“Not more than hall-past two,” Lorna said. “I had been to the Ran-Tan, and I was back late . . .”

“You’re developing a negroid complex.” Mannering smiled.

“Don’t joke with a serious subject. I went to the back-door — Dad doesn’t like leaving the front unbolted — and I saw the light in the library. So I looked in . . .”

“You were asking for trouble,” said Mannering.

“I nearly got it. That man’s gun was the most cold-blooded tiling I’ve ever seen. But” — she brushed her hand through her hair and smiled, without much humour — “let’s forget it. I’ve told the story to the police and to Dad and to every Tom, Dick, and Harry I haven’t been able to dodge. Let’s dance.”

They danced; and for a second time Mannering enjoyed an evening with her. But all the time he felt that there was something she wanted to say, yet held back.