The Baron Again Read online

  What was more important, however, was that Mannering would satisfy the craving for action that he had felt and yet repressed from the moment he had read the ‘agony’ appeal. That had struck a deep chord in him which would not be silenced, hard though he tried. He told himself grimly that the job ahead would show him whether he was being a fool, or whether by backing himself against the police he could find some measure of satisfaction. If he found an answer to that problem, the risk would be worth while.

  Then he forgot everything but the task of getting into Halliwell’s room under the eyes of the police.

  The Maycourt Hotel was in Bray Crescent, a turning that ran parallel with the Bayswater Road. The long series of terraced houses, four and five stories high, looked drab and yet were imposing enough to suggest occupation by people of comfortable means. The keynote of the district was respectability, and the Maycourt was no exception.

  Only a single sign, in discreet letters bracketed to the wall and stretching across three houses, advertised the fact that it was a hotel and not a private residence. Through the glass doors Mannering could see the reception desk, a uniformed porter and an imposing array of palms.

  The porter came to the door as Mannering appeared, and took the case with a quiet: “Allow me, sir.” A middle-aged woman at the desk was pleasant and helpful. He booked a room for one night only, and as he signed as Julian Morgan, keeping to his own initials, he looked for Halliwell’s signature in the register.

  Halliwell had been in Room 32. Mannering’s was 53, and that suggested he would be reasonably near his objective. His heart turned over when he saw that he was on the same floor, and that the two rooms adjoining 32 had their doors slightly open. Were the police using them? The porter broke across his thoughts. “Is there anything you need at the moment, sir?”

  “I’d like some coffee,” said Mannering, “and an early lunch. You start at twelve?”

  “Twelve-thirty, sir, but it can be arranged any time, if—”

  “Twelve-thirty will do me,” smiled Mannering, and the porter went out. Mannering lit a cigarette, and left the room immediately afterwards.

  He slipped back along the corridor. There was one turn, to the left, between his room and that which Halliwell had occupied. Halliwell’s door was closed tightly, but Mannering did not try the handle, although he was listening intently. He heard the slightest rustle of movement in Room 33, and his conviction that the police were there grew stronger.

  The bathrooms were further along the corridor, and to reach them he had to pass his objective. It would be easy to approach.

  By the time Mannering had finished the reconnoitre and was in the room again, a trim-looking middle-aged maid arrived with coffee and biscuits.

  “Thanks,” said Mannering, and as the woman turned he laughed. “I’ve just remembered that you’ve been in the newspapers here lately. I—”

  “It’s been dreadful, sir!” Obviously it was a popular topic, for the woman’s eyes shone. “What with newspaper gentleman and police and gentlemen from the insurance companies poor Mrs. Watson hasn’t known what to do. And such a respectable hotel, sir, Mrs. Watson’s never had a breath of scandal before, and we’ve been rushed off our feet, that we have, sir!”

  “Well, the police aren’t likely to worry you much now,” said Mannering, pouring out coffee.

  “That they wi—” began the maid, but she stopped abruptly. “It’s to be hoped not, sir.” She turned colour, and hurried out of the room. Obviously she had had orders not to talk of the police who were on the premises.

  “It’s working very well indeed,” Mannering soliloquised. “Almost too well. I wonder what the windows are like?”

  His own room looked into Bray Crescent, and Halliwell’s room over the small garden of the hotel. He could not get directly from one window to the other.

  It took him ten minutes to discover that the rooms on the floor above were identical in lay-out with his own, and above Halliwell’s apartment was Room 72. Its door was open, and a maid was stripping the bed. Mannering tripped deliberately over a mat, and the woman dropped a pillow and came towards him.

  “Hurt yourself, sorr?”

  “No, I’m all right.” Mannering smiled ruefully as he picked himself up, managing to get just inside the room. There was no luggage that he could see. “I suppose they keep you busy?”

  “And glad I am it is so!” The maid nodded an untidy red bead vigorously. “Only five rooms in the hotel empty, sorr, an’ this one booked again from tomorrow night. ’Tis not me who worries about working!”

  “I can see that,” smiled Mannering. “But I seem to have got to the wrong floor—room fifty-three—”

  “The floor below indade, sorr. Along thayer an’ take the stairs, or the lift is a little further along, sorr.”

  Mannering escaped, more satisfied than ever with his discoveries. In a full hotel there would be the constant passing to and fro of residents, and he would not be particularly noticeable. The doors were fitted with easy locks, and it would take him only a few seconds to get into the room above Halliwell’s.

  He did not want to wait until the evening, and his opportunity would come between one o’clock and two, the main luncheon hour. He telephoned the desk for lunch at twelve-fifteen, and then settled down to work out the details.

  Before going to the dining-room he studied the back of the hotel from a bathroom. He found that he looked out on the backs of a row of shops. Some floors seemed furnished as living quarters, but most of them appeared to be store-rooms, judging from dirty and curtainless windows. The small gardens at the back of the hotel offered little danger; few people strolling in them would think of looking up.

  He was aching with impatience to get busy, and when he saw a youthful, alert-looking man enter the dining-room just before one o’clock, his impatience increased. He recognised a Yard man named Ward, and he was reasonably certain that Ward was watching from one of the rooms next to Halliwell’s.

  There would be another man on duty, of course, but he need face only one instead of two during that crucial hour.

  When he went back, Room 31 was closed: 33 was still open. Mannering decided on the instant to take a chance. It was always wise to know his opposition.

  He went into the room quickly, and closed the door behind him. Not until it was shut did he appear to see a man sitting on a chair by the bed. His heart seemed to turn over, for he recognised Detective-Sergeant Tanker Tring, Bristow’s regular assistant.

  “I—I beg your pardon!” He altered his voice so that there was no chance of Tring recognising it, but he was feeling hot and cold. “I must have taken the wrong room, unless you—”

  “You’re wrong, sir,” said Tring, in his habitual matter-of-fact and rather gloomy way. He eyed Mannering without any evidence of recognition or suspicion. Mannering kept up his part to the life.

  “But I could have sworn—fifty-three—”

  “Thirty-three,” said Tring sorrowfully.

  “Oh, good Lord!” exclaimed Mannering. “I really am sorry, sir, I—”

  “That’s all right,” said Tring, and leaned back in his chair.

  Mannering was sure that he had not been recognised, and that was reassuring evidence of the quality of his disguise, but he was hot when he got outside and went up to Room 72.

  There was no sound as he bent over the lock, after trying the handle. He held a pick-lock and thin cotton gloves to prevent fingerprints. There was a thrill through his veins as metal touched metal. The first escapade of the Baron for over six months had started.

  He had not lost his touch. The lock eased back quickly, and he heard it click. He turned the handle and opened the door; but before getting inside he heard footsteps at the end of the passage.

  A single glance to his right showed an oldish woman leaning heavily on a stick. Mannering went into the room, leaving the door ajar, and the woman hobbled past. He heard a door close further along. He was sweating freely, after the sudden alarm, but he went st
raight to the window. He pushed it up slowly; it squeaked once or twice, enough to make his pulse race faster.

  Leaning out, he could see the wide sill of Halliwell’s room below. It was a matter of seconds to unwind a thin rope ladder from his waist, hook it on the window ledge inside and let it fall. It dangled just as far as Halliwell’s sill.

  Mannering swung himself through the window.

  The danger would be most acute for the few seconds that he would be on the ladder, but he went down sure-footed. The rope swayed but gave him no serious trouble, and he was outside Halliwell’s window ten seconds after he had left Room 72.

  He breathed more easily when he saw that the room was empty.

  Every thought was gone from his mind but the task at hand. He looked through the window, and there seemed nothing unusual inside. An open case was on the bed, with its contents tumbled. The window was closed, and the catch was down.

  Crouching on the window-sill, Mannering used a thin-bladed screwdriver, forcing it through the join of the windows and scratching at the catch. The seconds seemed like minutes as he levered it upwards, and all the time he was glancing at the door.

  Less than ten yards away Tring was leaning back in an easy chair, ready to move at any sound from Room 32.

  Nothing happened to alarm the Baron.

  The catch went back, and the click sounded very clearly while the glass of the window shook a little. He paused, waiting tensely, but no sound came.

  He began to raise the window.

  He gritted his teeth as he pushed, waiting almost desperately for a loud squeak. Inch by inch he opened it; a foot; then eighteen inches.

  There was room to squeeze through, and he decided to wait no longer. He wanted at least ten minutes for a search, and every second counted.

  There was no sound at all as he climbed through and stepped silently to the door. It was locked; no one would be able to take him by surprise: the only place he had to watch was the window.

  Then he started to work.

  Halliwell had left two suits and an assortment of odds and ends in the room, which was evidence enough that he had not premeditated flight. Mannering looked through the pockets quickly. There were a few letters—two from Marion Delray, one from Kingley’s, and several personal notes, but none with any bearing on Halliwell’s recent activities.

  Mannering started to go through the drawers and the wardrobe. He had never worked faster, the only seconds he lost were in making sure he made no noise.

  As he worked he grew more convinced that he would find nothing. The fitted carpet showed no signs of being recently disturbed, the bricks at the fireplace seemed firm and sound, and he could find no false partitions in any of the furniture.

  He came last to the double wooden bedstead, and he stripped it quickly. The wood of the spring mattress was bound round in places, as though to prevent the overlay from rubbing.

  Mannering tore off the bindings. These revealed only the bare wood, and he was telling himself that the effort had been wasted.

  Then the fourth binding came off, and he saw the wood had been recently cut in the bed. With heightening excitement, he prised at it with the screwdriver. A piece nearly a foot long came up slowly, and Mannering’s fingers were unsteady as he started to explore the cavity he had revealed.

  Chapter Five

  Contradictory Evidence

  In the moment of finding the cavity, Mannering forgot the dangers under which he was working. He had set out to find whether Halliwell was implicated, and now it seemed probable that he had succeeded.

  He did not hear the sound at the door as he searched the hole.

  His fingers rubbed only against rough wood, and he took a torch from his pocket and shone it inside. Nothing was there. The hiding-place might have been used by Halliwell, or by any other occupant of the room, and it proved nothing.

  Mannering forced back his disappointment as he re-bound the bedstead, and then straightened up to replace the clothes, anxious to leave the room without a trace of his presence.

  As he stood up, he saw the door-handle turning. For a moment he felt panic.

  The turning stopped. Mannering heard a faint scratching at the door, much as he would have made himself had he been trying to force an entry. For the first time it occurred to him that it was not the police outside, but it made no vital difference to his actions. He made for the window, and squeezed through the gap. Crouching on the sill he pushed the window down, slowly and noiselessly. All the time he was watching the door.

  It was still closed when he had the window shut. He used the screwdriver again, to get the catch back, still trying to make sure his way of entry was not discovered.

  The catch went back.

  Mannering straightened up, taking hold of the rope-ladder. As he did so he moved aside, so that he could see into the room without being seen. The door began to open slowly, and he saw a man enter. The lower part of his face was covered in a white handkerchief.

  Was it Halliwell?

  Mannering saw him close the door and go towards the bed. He reached the hidden cavity.

  And then out of the corner of his eyes Mannering saw two people standing and staring in the garden of the hotel.

  Mannering swung up the rope-ladder as fast as he had ever moved in his life. He had been desperately anxious to see the intruder’s reaction on finding the hiding-place empty, but the danger was acute. The seconds seemed unending before he reached Room 72, and climbed through, expecting an alarm at any moment. He left the window, unhooked the rope-ladder and stuffed it under his coat as he went towards the door.

  There was no one outside.

  He stepped into the passage, closed the door, and then sped towards the staircase. As he reached it he heard voices, high-pitched, and excited, travelling up the lift-shaft nearby.

  The alarm was on!

  Mannering took to the stairs, reaching the next floor and hurrying towards his own room.

  Halfway along the passage he came face to face with Sergeant Tring. Mannering’s heart seemed to stop, but Tring looked at him and past him, before going on. No sound came from Halliwell’s room, but the man with the white handkerchief was probably still there, unaware of the alarm.

  Mannering reached his own room, stuffed the ladder back in his case with the tools, and locked it. He was in the room less than four minutes, but as he went out he heard voices closer at hand, and a thumping at a door. As he turned the corner he saw Tring and Ward, with two or three other men outside Halliwell’s door. Ward was barging at it with his shoulder. There was a loud creak and then a crash as the door tumbled inwards, Ward falling forward with it.

  Mannering was in time to catch a glimpse of the man with the handkerchief mask, dropping from the window. Ward had lost his balance. Tring went inwards blindly, stumbled against his colleague, and fell down with a thud. The face at the window had disappeared.

  Mannering went past trying to appear unconcerned, using the stairs and not the lift. Neither the porter nor the woman at the desk were in sight. He put a pound note under a telephone, and then left the hotel. Every moment he was afraid that someone would shout after him, but he reached the end of the road, and rounded the corner.

  He could now see the back of the Maycourt.

  A rope was dangling from Halliwell’s window. Ward, clearly outlined against the window, started to climb down it, and at the same moment Mannering saw a man poised on top of the far wall of the hotel garden. He was there only for a moment, and Mannering gained no clear impression before the figure disappeared.

  The only question in Mannering’s mind was the identity of the second burglar; if it had been Halliwell, the Baron was out of the chase.

  Just thirty minutes afterwards, Detective-Sergeant Tring and Detective Ward, of Scotland Yard, were facing Chief-Inspector Bristow. Tring was speaking.

  “I thought I heard a disturbance along the corridor, sir, and I went to investigate. I made sure that Halliwell’s door was locked. At the end of the
passage I found an old wo—lady, sir, who’d broken the stick she walked with. She wanted to get downstairs, and I helped her, sir. I wasn’t away more than four minutes.”

  “And in that four minutes,” snapped Bristow, “someone, probably Halliwell, got into the room—”

  “He wouldn’t have had time to do anything, sir. The alarm was raised too soon.”

  “He had time to strip the bed and get away,” growled Bristow. “I put two men on to wait for this, and you make a hash of it. You hadn’t searched the bed before, had you?”

  “No, sir. We left it, on instructions—”

  “All right, all right,” said Bristow testily. Angered though he was by the development, and convinced that Halliwell had almost fallen into the trap, he knew that Tring had been the victim of a carefully planned burglary. “Get downstairs and see if you can trace the woman with the stick. She’s probably gone, too,” he added bitterly. “Ward, take the bindings off that bed.”

  By the time Tring had discovered that the woman was missing, and realised how completely he had been duped, Bristow had found the cavity: and John Mannering was in the cloakroom at Bayswater Road station, getting rid of the grease-paint and the cheek pads.

  He was still jittery. It had been a closer shave than he had expected, but it had been made worse by the fact that someone else had been inspired by the same idea, and had chosen the lunch-hour period. It seemed all odds on the man in the handkerchief being Halliwell. The idiocy of such an attempt to return seemed to make contradictory evidence, but perhaps Halliwell had worked with someone else.

  The only possible reason for a return would be to get at jewels or money. Mannering was virtually certain that the room hid nothing. That left open another remote possibility: that someone else had been to the room before the man in the mask.

  “But damn it,” muttered Mannering to himself, “Tring’s not sleepy enough to let them make a habit of it. How the devil did anyone get in through the door at all? Why was Tring in the passage and not his room?”