The Baron at Large Read online

  The man lying there was asleep, his mouth open. The Baron saw who it was; and for a moment he stood unmoving, his breath coming fast.

  Mendleson was here.

  The discovery would have been stupefying but for the information he had received from Errol; slowly he drew his gas-pistol from his pocket.

  Mendleson made no move.

  The single charge – one of three in the pistol – would keep him unconscious for five minutes, long enough for Mannering to explore the room.

  Accustomed to the light now, he could see everything clearly. He lifted pictures from the walls, careful to make no sound, but found no wall-safe. The drawers of dressing-table, chest and wardrobe all opened, some squeaking a little and making him pause. They yielded nothing.

  So he had to find another room, and Mendleson must be kept quiet for twenty minutes or more. He slipped his hand into his pocket for the chloroform pad, drew it out—

  And then the light came on.

  It came with a devastating suddenness that sent a chill of fear through him. He turned sharply, but he knew in a moment that he was cornered; for the girl who stood there had a gun in her hand.

  She was tall and thin, a loose dressing-gown flung over silk pyjamas. Mannering did not see the beauty of her face, only the danger she threatened.

  Chapter Ten

  The Female Of The Species

  The future loomed, an abyss, in front of him. If he lost, if the police were called and he was captured, it meant the end of Mannering as well as the Baron. No explanation of motives would help him. Knowing this, he would have been prepared to tackle a man. That it was a woman made it more difficult.

  To the woman with the gun he was nothing but a shadowy figure holding a chloroform pad. Eyes, mouth, nose and chin were covered. Behind him Mendleson breathed sonorously.

  Why didn’t she call for help?

  Why did she step towards him, her tread cat-like? There was a feline grace in that slim body, and he saw hat her eyes were green. He stepped back a pace, and as he moved she spoke, her voice low but sharp.

  ‘Do not move!’

  There was nothing in her accent to suggest that she was foreign, unless it was too clear an intonation: ‘Do not’ instead of ‘don’t’; but he took it for granted that she was Gillison’s daughter, and remembered that his wife was French. He felt easier how that he was out of the line of the window, knowing that their shadows could not be seen from the street. Behind her the door was open. He was wondering whether the others had been aroused, how heavy the odds would be when he made his effort. Already he was overcoming the repugnance of tackling the woman as he waited for the inevitable moment when her alertness would relax.

  He kept still, and she spoke again. ‘Who are you?’

  Very simple and straightforward; almost childish, but she did not look like a child. She was playing for time, of course, until help came. Mannering’s muscles tensed.

  ‘I’m called many things—’

  ‘Your name, or I shall shoot you.’

  She moved the gun forward a fraction of an inch. She was no more than three yards from him, and a single movement would be enough to knock the gun out of her hand. But she would shoot, he sensed that; and there was the double danger of the explosion and of being wounded. And she had to be induced to come nearer.

  ‘My name isn’t important,’ he mumbled. ‘I’ll pay you—’

  As he expected she came a step nearer. Speaking in the same clear but soft voice, she said: ‘Take off the mask.’

  It was the moment he had been waiting, almost praying for. He lifted his hands to his mask, untied it slowly, and then as he pulled it away from his face he flung it at her. She gasped at the unexpected move, giving him time to grip her wrist in a paralysing clasp. It was child’s play to get the gun away with his left hand, and he was glad now that it had been a woman, more glad that there had been no need to hurt her.

  Why hadn’t she screamed?

  ‘Close the door, very quietly,’ he said, and the gun in his hand was a sufficient threat to make her obey. One moment afraid, facing what seemed hopeless odds, the next on top of the world: a hundred times the Baron had known that quick transition, it was all part of the desperate game.

  He took the chloroform pad out of its bag with his left hand, stepped backwards and, still training the gun on her, dropped the pad over Mendleson’s mouth. He left it for sixty seconds, then withdrew it. All the time the girl had watched, her breast heaving convulsively. Mannering knew that she was desperately afraid, and he believed he knew the reason.

  ‘What—what have you done to him?’

  ‘Sent him to sleep for a while,’ the Baron assured her, lightly. Her eyes did not look away from his. ‘So you’re Yvonne Gillison?’

  She nodded.

  ‘How many others are in the house?’ The sharpness and the menace in his voice persuaded her. Her mother was away, she said, Gillison slept in the next room, and she had come from a room opposite. There were three women servants, and a manservant named Grant.

  All the time the unreality of the situation hovered about the Baron like a cloak: it was all too good to be true, there was something about her that he did not understand. A single cry, when she had first seen him, would have aroused both her father and the butler. Instead she had raised no alarm.

  The question kept echoing through his mind: why, why, why? But he worked on the facts, taking what advantage he could from them.

  How old was she? He had thought her near thirty when he had first seen her: now he wondered whether she was out of her teens. There was the indefinable look of the Parisienne about her.

  ‘Where does your father keep his valuables?’

  ‘In the safe.’

  ‘What room?’

  ‘His bedroom.’

  ‘Is it a combination safe?’

  ‘Yes – you turn the knob.’ Something of her fear had dropped away, as though when the tables had first been turned she had been afraid that he would shoot her. ‘What is it you want, why are you here?’

  ‘Shall we say that I would like to add some jewels to my little collection?’ asked the Baron softly.

  ‘Which one are you?’

  The question came as though she had been pondering it all the time. ‘Which one are you?’ The implications made the Baron’s lips tighten, but the need for working quickly was pressing, he wanted to lose no time.

  ‘You have never been here before,’ she went on slowly. ‘Of that I am sure. Smith I could understand. Or Mervin, or Rogerson, but you are a stranger.’

  ‘This is interesting,’ said the Baron, his voice hardening, ‘but I haven’t time to listen to it Yvonne!’ She jerked her head up and the fear came back. ‘Do—as—I—tell—you!’

  She nodded, her eyes feverishly bright.

  Mendleson would be unconscious for at least a quarter of an hour, and it was unlikely now that there would be an alarm. A quarter of an hour might be enough, provided he could find the combination of the safe.’

  ‘Open your father’s door, and make no sound.’

  She obeyed, turning the handle as softly as the Baron would have done. He was surprised when the door opened, and again misgivings filled him. Gillison was not likely to keep valuable gems in a room which was not locked. But it solved his first problem: he had been puzzling a way to open the door without giving the girl a chance to break away.

  ‘Step into the room, very quietly.’

  His whisper could hardly have reached her ears, but she went forward. The light shining from Mendleson’s room illuminated Gillison’s, and he could see the large mahogany furniture, the two beds, one neat and made-up the other with Gillison sleeping – as Mendleson had been – on his back. Even in the vague light the likeness between the two men was apparent.

  The window opened on to the back garden. Through it he could see a light in a house perhaps three hundred yards away, but there was no fear of being overlooked.

  She watched him, wide-eyed, as h
e moved towards the occupied bed. Her unnatural obedience, all lack of anger, worried him. But he had to take it on its face value for a while.

  She gasped as he pressed the gas-pistol into action. Gillison breathed heavily, and settled down on his pillow, a sure sign that the gas had taken effect. Mannering followed with the chloroform. He had only the servants to worry about now, and there seemed no reason why they should be disturbed.

  Gillison had made no attempt to hide the safe. It was between the two beds, the metal reflecting the subdued light. He was fast approaching the moment when he would have to send the girl to sleep for a while: a charge of ether gas would be enough, she was not likely to have more than a headache after it. But he wished he could understand her unnatural calm. It was all too good to be true, some subconscious sense carried a premonition of danger which he could not understand. He forced it away.

  ‘Do you know the combination?’

  ‘He keeps it in his wallet. Under his pillow.’

  Fantastic. Everything was being done for him. He forgot that in any case he would have searched under the pillow after putting Gillison to sleep, that her arrival had in fact slowed his progress. Was she willing to help him? Or was there a trick?

  ‘Get the wallet, find the combination, and put it on the dressing-table.’

  White hands with polished nails moved towards the pillow. They made no sound. From a small notebook in the wallet the girl tore a page and put it on the dressing-table obediently.

  ‘It is today’s,’ she said. ‘He alters it each night.’

  ‘Thanks. Now—’

  Something in her expression startled him. Her lips opened, he was prepared for a scream, and he thrust the automatic forward. But when she spoke her voice was pitched on a low key. But it was vibrant with an undercurrent of passion.

  ‘The money, let me have the money! I must get away, understand that, I must get away! You can have everything else, everything, but get me away!’

  So that was it, and that explained her fear, her whole behaviour. She was frightened of her father, or of the house, and she wanted his help to escape. He said slowly: ‘We’ll see. Can you open the safe?’

  ‘Yes, yes!’ She clutched the paper and read it, muttering the numbers aloud. Her hands seemed to fly as she twisted the knob this way and that. The tumbrils clicked clearly through a silence otherwise broken only by her quick breathing.

  A final click, and she pulled the door open, then swung round on him fiercely. ‘A hundred pounds, that will be enough, please!’

  ‘I think I can promise you that,’ said the Baron. His mind was in a whirl. He had met some strange developments before, but never the daughter of a victim who helped him willingly, and then pleaded for his help. He decided to take a chance on her genuineness. Laying the gun on the dressing-table within easy reach of his hand he took a sheaf of notes from the safe, and then three jewel-cases. His hands were steady as he opened the first case, but his breath was coming quickly. All the time he felt the gaze of the girl towards the wad of notes on the bed, near Gillison’s arm. The clasp opened easily.

  He looked at the necklace inside, and his first thought was of disappointment: they were not the Glorias, nor were they part of the Kallinovs. Again a warning reared up in his mind, a premonition that things were not as they seemed. He stared down at the diamonds: to a casual eye they would have been convincing, but he suspected they were paste.

  He looked more closely.

  Paste, without doubt. His lips tightened, and he opened the second case. It was empty. The third had pearls, so obviously cultured that he spared them only a quick glance, and then looked sharply at the girl.

  ‘Does he keep stuff anywhere else?’

  ‘There—there in his study.’

  ‘Another safe?’

  ‘No. His desk.’

  It was hardly likely that Gillison would keep the real valuables in a desk when the safe was available, and yet he knew Smith had brought the Glorias here. Of course, Gillison might have sent or taken them somewhere else, but the Baron could not avoid the feeling that this visit was a futile one, that it would end in frustration if not in disaster.

  Yvonne’s green eyes were uncanny in their appeal.

  ‘Well go down,’ he said. ‘Is it on the ground floor?’

  ‘No, no, above! They are his offices, above them the servants—’

  ‘Let’s move,’ snapped the Baron.

  They had spent seven minutes in the room: Gillison and Mendleson were good for another seven.

  They reached the study on the third floor.

  Only one drawer was locked, and that not with a patent. The girl watched Mannering slip his skeleton key in, twist dexterously for ten seconds, and heard the lock click back. The drawer slid open. Inside was a cash box: but it contained less than thirty pounds in banknotes, and a small bag of silver. There was nothing else of importance.

  How much longer dared he stay?

  The vague fear that something was wrong kept worrying him. What explained it? It was not the girl, it was nothing that had happened here. He went through the conversation with Errol, wondering if there was something in that.

  His eyes sharpened.

  He knew the trouble now, for the first time he was able to locate that source of apprehension, explain the undercurrent of nervousness. Errol had said that the Yard had once suspected Mendleson.

  It was never safe to be at a house where the police might come.

  For a moment something akin to panic seized him: he forced it back, but he’d decided to get away at once. From the upstairs safe he had taken five hundred pounds, and he had no need of it. If Yvonne’s manner was a token, she would give her heart for half the amount.

  Perfunctorily he looked through the other rooms. They were furnished as offices. To make a thorough search would take him an hour at least, and the warning to be away was growing more insistent.

  ‘Downstairs,’ he said briefly.

  With a desperate appeal in her eyes she watched him dose the two men again, more lightly this time. As he took the pad from Gillison’s face he said slowly: ‘Why do you want to go?’

  ‘That doesn’t matter, I—’

  ‘It matters a lot. Why?’

  She shrugged her shoulders, her breast heaving under the stress of fierce emotion.

  ‘I hate them all! Thieves, rogues, I hate them! And—and then they killed him, they killed him!’

  Something clicked in Mannering’s mind. He forced the thought away from him as absurd, but it returned, and he said sharply: ‘Who?’

  ‘Oh, you don’t know. Bill—’

  Mannering turned his face away abruptly. Even disguised he could not keep the stupefaction out of his eyes. Bill, Bill, Bill!

  Armstrong!

  A dozen pieces of the jigsaw seemed to drop into place.

  Armstrong, a friend of Yvonne, and with an open door at Beverley Towers. In all likelihood a familiar of Gillison’s. How easily Gillison would have been able to persuade him to do what he wanted; a bribe of a substantial reward, a knowledge of the younger man’s tormented mind and need of wealth.

  He said: ‘Why did they kill him?’

  ‘Oh, don’t ask, don’t!’

  And then she stopped.

  Mannering swung round towards the door.

  There was no one in the passage: but the ringing had come clearly. Not the insistent burring of the telephone, but a single sharp ring, from downstairs.

  The girl had turned colour, a hand went to her throat.

  ‘The front door. Who—’

  Mannering was halfway to the door, speaking as he went.

  ‘Is there a back staircase?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Show me quickly!’ He had stuffed the money into his pockets. ‘See me tomorrow at the Lyons tea-shop in Putney High Street. You know it?’

  ‘Yes, but—’

  ‘I’ll see you get what you want then. You mustn’t have it now, they might find it, suspect you. Go back to
your room, pretend you’ve heard nothing, seen nothing.’

  And then he realised that her fingerprints would be very clear on the safe. At the same moment the ringing came again, longer this time. He knew that he could not leave her to stand the racket for the theft, and he swung round at the head of the stairs.

  ‘Go down, open the door. Tell whoever it is that the ring woke you, you’ve seen nothing, understand, nothing.’

  ‘Yes. yes!’

  ‘And tomorrow afternoon at four o’clock, Lyons.’

  ‘I will be there.’

  Footsteps were coming, from the stairs above them. Mannering knew from the heavy, deliberate tread, that it was the manservant; panic threatened again, but opposite Gillison’s room he spoke again in an urgent whisper.

  ‘Go down with him, keep them downstairs for five minutes, understand?’

  She nodded, and went along. Mannering felt jumpy; there were so many things he wanted to do, another five minutes would have given him ample time. Now he wiped the safe, and the dressing-table clear of prints, and slipped Gillison’s wallet in his pocket. There was nothing else she had handled and which might incriminate her.

  He heard voices from the hall. Gillison and Mendleson were quite unconscious, there was nothing to fear from them. But who were the callers, and was it safe to get out the back way?

  A moment later he heard a sharp, precise voice, and he knew that all his vague fears had been justified, knew that the sixth sense which had saved him so often from disaster had tried to warn him again, but been ignored.

  For it was Bristow’s voice.

  Chapter Eleven

  Lies Of A Lady

  The Baron had come to Barnes with a conviction that even if he were caught there would be no danger from the police. Reasoning that he would not need a car for a quick escape, he had come by bus. There was a certain danger, too, in leaving a car parked in a public road after midnight, inviting, as it might, the curiosity of the patrol police.