John Creasey - Meet The Baron

Centred beneath the headlines was a letter, printed in bold type, and obviously written very carefully. Before it was a statement that the Morning Star had the story on the best authority.

I have been working against the police for some months, without the slightest cause for worry. At the house of Colonel George Belton I took the pearl-necklace that has since caused so much publicity and speculation. My method was simple, which may explain the ease with which the burglary was accomplished. But simplicity begets monotony. It occurs to me that this letter may stir the police to greater efforts to apprehend.

THE BARON

Detective-Inspector William Bristow read this delightful effort three times. Finally he began to mutter. And then — it should be remembered that Old Bill always had a habit of doing the unexpected — he began to laugh.

He laughed until Mrs Bristow began to wonder whether he had finished going off his head — she felt sure that that early-morning tea had been the first stage — and she stumbled downstairs, clutching her dressing-gown about her, followed closely by Joan, their daughter. The sight of the Inspector, pyjama-clad, ruffled, and a little sleepy-eyed, but roaring with laughter, would have struck any policeman at the Yard as uproariously funny, but it made his family a little apprehensive.

“Bill,” said Mrs Bristow firmly, “stop it! You’ll have the whole street think you’re off your head.”

Bristow made a great effort to control himself.

“Street?” he gasped. “Only the street ? What about the rest of the town, m’dear? Look at that. Look at it!”

Mrs Bristow looked, and her comely face straightened into hard lines. She was very touchy on anything which affected the reputation of the police, but she knew her husband.

“You’re a hard nut,” she said, not without pride. “It would make me — mad!”

“It’ll make him mad before it’s finished,” said Old Bill obscurely. “How soon can you make breakfast, m’dear ? I’ll have to get to the Yard quickly. Lynch will be getting a mouthful ready after this, to say nothing of the Commissioner.”

“I can’t understand why you laughed,” admitted Mrs Bristow, as she investigated the larder.

“Can’t you?” asked Old Bill, pouring water from the kettle into his shaving-mug. “It’s simple, Anne. I laughed because it’s funny. The funniest thing I’ve ever seen.”

Superintendent Lynch, as large, placid, and red-faced as ever, was inclined to agree when, three-quarters of an hour later, Bristow reached the Yard. But Lynch wasn’t happy.

“Everyone doesn’t think with us, Bill. The A.C . . .”

It was nearly eleven o’clock, and Lynch had been at the Yard for some time. When the Assistant-Commissioner was brought into the conversation which Bristow had started with the Superintendent, Bristow knew that his worst fears were confirmed.

“He’s started on it already, has he ?” he asked. “What does he say?”

“Very stiff and very formal,” said Lynch cheerfully. “That man hasn’t smiled since he took over, two years ago.”

“Not even at this ?” asked the Inspector.

“Least of all at this,” said Lynch. “And, to make it worse, one of our own men — Wrightson — caused the trouble.”

Bristow frowned, without understanding.

“But the Baron . . .” he began.

“The Baron did have the decency to write to us,” said Lynch heavily. “Wrightson — he’s never liked you, Bill-opened the letter, and, like a damned fool, let the Morning Star man see it. If it had gone to the papers direct it would have been chucked in the waste-paper-basket, but, coming straight from the horse’s mouth . . . Anyhow,” Lynch broke off, with a shrug, “it’s no use worrying over spilt milk.”

“No,” said Bristow grimly, “but I’ll give Wrightson something to worry about one day.”

Lynch shrugged his shoulders, although he could sympathise with the Inspector. Between Bristow and Wrightson — one of the new school on whose toes Old Bill had trodden several times for breaches of police-regulations — there was no love lost, and although it was impossible to suggest that Wrightson had deliberately let the letter get into the Press, Bristow was prepared to believe that that had happened.

Bristow forced himself away from thoughts of the other Inspector, however, and returned to the pressing subject.

“So the A.G. is really nasty?”

Lynch shrugged his heavy shoulders again.

“He says, and we can’t argue, that we’ve been too slack over the Baron, and that if we don’t get our man within the week we’ll be the laughing-stock of London.”

“I shouldn’t be surprised,” admitted Bristow, a little glumly. “But I would be more surprised if we did it. He’ll be very careful for the next few weeks.”

“You sound as cheerful as Tanker,” said Lynch.

“You know these jobs as well as I do,” said Bristow.

The Superintendent pulled a face at the comment.

“All right,” he said. “Do all you can. Er — that man Mannering. He’s helping you ?”

Bristow flushed a little. “How’d you know?”

“I’ve seen you talking to him,” said Lynch, “and I’ve assumed you weren’t questioning him, so . . . Anyhow, he’s the type who might be useful.”

“He’s got his head screwed on properly,” said Bristow slowly. “He didn’t make any bones about saying young Long wasn’t in the pearls job, and it certainly looks as if he’s right.”

“Unless Long’s the Baron,” suggested Lynch, folding his arms across his great waistcoat.

“No luck,” said Bristow. “The first half-dozen Baron jobs started back in March and April. Long’s only been in England since early May. We can rule him out on that count. But . . .”

The Inspector hesitated. Lynch waited patiently, partly because he was a patient man, and partly because he knew that Bristow was arguing with himself. The big Superintendent was a student of men, and he knew just how to get the best out of his own.

“But,” went on Bristow at last, “there’s one other possibility. Mannering doesn’t think much of it.”

“Who have you got in mind ?” asked Lynch.

“The Dowager Lady Kenton,” said Bristow, eyeing his Superintendent evenly. “I know it sounds against ail reason, but . . .”

“I’ll see what I can find out about her bank-balance,” said Lynch placidly. “It still beats me why she paid five thousand pounds for that wedding-present.”

Bristow was surprised — not for the first time, by a long way — at the comprehensiveness of Lynch’s grasp of his job. And he began to think very seriously of that rather short-tempered but not unpopular lady the Dowager. She was not really unpopular, that is, in any place but the Yard, where her name was very nearly poison.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

LORNA OFFERS A BARGAIN

EMMA KENTON HAD READ OF THE ROBBERY IN AN EVENING paper, and she claimed that it was Fate that had made her send out for one when usually she preferred all her news in the morning. She had been too overcome to make any protest to the police or anyone else at first, and she had taken a strong sleeping-draught, hoping to awaken next morning fresh for the fray. She was a persistent woman, as Bristow could have testified, and at times she could be militant; she felt the loss of the pearls very keenly.

The morning paper — she took the Morning Star — brought the story of the Baron’s letter to the Yard.

Lady Kenton stared at it for fully five minutes; then, as though in a daze, she reached for the telephone and called for Lady Fauntley, feeling the need of someone to talk to.

Both Hugo Fauntley and his wife were out of town, but Lorna was in.