John Creasey - Meet The Baron

As he threw them he moved a little, and this time he actually covered the button. Mannering could hardly keep his eyes off the danger-spot, and when Tanker shitted an inch away relief went through him. But it was not long-lived, and in the next moment his fears returned tenfold.

That’s that,” snapped Tring, and there was a glint in his eyes. “Now I’m going to search you, Grayson — and your pal.”

Mannering’s eyes narrowed with the shock, but he kept cool. He shifted his chair back, half-rising from it more to hide his own anxiety than anything else.

“Cut that!” he grunted. “You ain’t got no warrant to search me, mister, and I ain’t being searched, see?”

Tring eyed him levelly.

“I’ve a warrant to search this office,” he said, quietly enough, “and you’re in it. You’re a big fellow — but don’t try any tricks, or you’ll spend the night in the lock-up, cooling your heels.”

Mannering glowered, keeping his eyes as narrow as he could, hoping hard that Tring wouldn’t look at them too closely. It was a tense moment. Mannering’s spine was cold, for there was something very threatening about the sergeant.

“Well?” snapped Tring.

“Better let ‘em,” advised Grayson quickly.

Mannering shrugged his shoulders and grunted. For the first time in his life he was searched. He was hard put to it to keep steady, and the seconds dragged like minutes, but there was one thing that cheered him. He knew that he was carrying nothing that might connect him with Mannering, and the only thing in his pockets of interest to Tring was the rubber container in which he had carried the pearls.

There was an ironic twist on his lips as Tring held the bag up and peered into it. An hour before he would have seen one of the things he was desperately anxious to find, and the career of the Baron would have come to an abrupt end. Now . . .

“What’s this?” Tring asked, looking at the big man’s blackened teeth. “A tooth-brush container?”

Mannering’s lips curled savagely.

“Clever, ain’t yer?” he muttered.

Tring shrugged, and dropped the bag on to the table, where half a dozen oddments were heaped. Mannering’s pockets had been completely emptied, and he had never been more thankful in his life that he had taken another man’s advice. Flick Leverson had told him never to carry Brown’s stuff in his pockets when he was pretending to be Smith. The philosophical fence’s experience was very full.

Tring grunted suddenly, easing the tension.

“Let him have it back,” he said. “Now you, Grayson.”

The reward was the same after Grayson had submitted — nothing. Tring shrugged his shoulders, but now his dis-appointment was obvious.

“Have you quite finished ?” asked Grayson softly.

Tring nodded.

“Well,” said the pink-and-white man, “let me advise you, Tring, to behave a little differently in the future. If you ever come into this office and forget to call me “mister”, if you come here pretending that you know I’m crooked, treating me and my visitors as if we were old lags, I’ll have you run out of the Force. There’s things you can do and things you can’t. You’ve overstepped the mark. Don’t do it again.”

There was a complete silence in the room for a moment, while Sergeant Tring’s face turned a deep red.

“All right,” he said at last, and beckoned to his men. “But I’ll bear that little speech in mind, Grayson.”

Grayson watched the three detectives go out of the room, and on Mannering’s face there was a grin of real triumph. But even as the door closed Grayson lifted his hand warningly. Mannering was puzzled, but knew the reason a moment later.

“That’s the first time I’ve ever been insulted like that,” boomed Grayson, “and I’m damned if I’m going to take it. Who is Tring, anyhow, the impertinent upstart? I’ll see that he wishes he hadn’t. . .”

“I’d like to get my ‘ands rarnd ‘is throat,” muttered Mannering, playing up quickly, “the mucky . . .”

He broke off as the door opened suddenly. Sergeant Tring entered the office, looking very apologetic, but grinning a little.

“I left my note-book,” he said, picking it up from the desk. “Thanks. Good-bye.”

The door closed on him again, and Grayson swore. Mannering went to the window and looked out. Not until the detectives were walking across the yard below did either of them speak.

“That was close,” Mannering muttered.

Grayson nodded, but he was smiling.

“They think they’re smart, those fellows, but they don’t know everything.” He tapped the slot in the desk, which was still concealed, and his smile widened. “He was sitting right on it, and didn’t think of running the desk over for a button. Policemen . . .”

The fence stopped, with a shrug.

“Anyway, we got away with it. But you’d better not take the cash out with you, in case they’re watching. I’ll post it. Where shall I send it to?”

Mannering hesitated, half-afraid that there was a catch; but he had to admit the wisdom of the manoeuvre, and he nodded.

“Mayle,” he said. “Strand G.P.O.”

Grayson nodded, and rubbed his plump hands together, well satisfied with life.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

PROFIT AND LOSS

MANNERING KNEW, LATER IN THE DAY, THAT HE HAD MADE a mistake. He had told Grayson to send the money to the Strand post office, and he saw that it would have been wiser to have had it sent to Aldgate, where he could have collected it while in his Mayle disguise without trouble. As it was, he was faced with the need of sending a messenger or braving the journey from Aldgate, where Harry Pearce gave him his disguise, during the daytime, for there was the possibility that Grayson’s curiosity would encourage the fence to watch the post office. Mayle, not Mannering, must call there.

He did not fancy sending a messenger to collect twelve hundred pounds. The only thing was to do it himself.

“There’s one thing,” he told himself, as he regarded his face in the mirror and smiled the villainous smile which the cleverly made false teeth created — teeth which fitted over his real ones like a thin rubber cover, “no one who knows Mannering will want to know me.”

Nevertheless he was on tenterhooks the next morning

when he journeyed from Aldgate by bus and walked along the Strand towards the post office. The chance of meeting acquaintances was considerable. Toby Plender might be there, Jimmy Randall frequently visited a fine-art shop near the post office, and a dozen of his friends had business or pleasure in the neighbourhood. It was another test, another thing to make him realise his own limitations.

He was sorely tempted to keep looking about him, to keep a watch for anyone whom he knew, but he resisted the temptation. He slouched along, looking at his feet, relieved to see that he was by no means die worst-clad man in the Strand. In fact, he told himself, the standard was very low. He grew more confident, but before he entered the office he had a shock.

A big man was walking a few yards in front of him, a man who seemed vaguely familiar. Mannering tried to place him from the back-view, and was irritated because he could not. And then the big man swung round suddenly, and Mannering was face-to-face with him.

For a moment a pair of keen eyes swept him up and down.

Mannering’s heart seemed to stop as he recognised his man. It was Superintendent Lynch.

That temptation to speak, to acknowledge the other, almost gave him away. He fought it back. The Superintendent showed no signs of recognition, but was muttering to himself and going through his pockets. He had obviously forgotten some papers, and his sudden turn had been caused by the recollection of them.