Meet The Baron

It was a remarkable thing to do, but Tanker had known his superior for a long time, and was prepared for anything. The sergeant shrugged his shoulders and looked out of the window of Bristow’s small office at the Yard. A tall, lanky, dolelul-looking man was the sergeant, dressed in shiny blue serge, patched but well-polished boots, and, even in the office, a bowler-hat two sizes too large for him. Tanker’s hat was an institution at the Yard.

Bristow was still laughing, and his assistant decided that there was such a thing as too much of a joke. He grunted.

“Levy said you’d got the brooch in your pocket, chief, so we had a look. Nowt, of course. We tested everything in the pockets for prints, but there was none of them there, either.”

“Next time you want to look in my pockets,” said Bristow, checking his laughter, “wait until I’m awake. Has her ladyship been through this morning yet?”

“Twice,” said Tanker.

The smile left Bristow’s face, and he frowned. The cool effrontery of the trick had appealed, suddenly and unfailingly, to his sense of humour, but the task of making a report to the effect that he had actually had possession of the Kenton brooch sobered him. If the Dowager learned that, she would cause a great deal of bother and annoyance. He grew brisk.

“Well,” he said, “what are you standing there for, Tanker?” (Only Superintendents and higher officials called Sergeant Jacob Tring by his real name.) “Get that call out, man.”

The sergeant hurried out of the room, and for a while Bristow brooded alone. Then he took a deep breath and left his office for that of Superintendent Lynch. He found the Superintendent in, and made his report verbatim. Lynch, large, red-faced, placid, and cheerful, grinned slowly.

“Caught for a sucker, Bristow,” he said; “but what’d he stage a show like that for, I wonder ?”

“If I knew,” muttered Bristow, “I . . .”

“Ever seen the man before, or anything like him ?” asked Lynch, who rarely wasted time, especially at the start of a case.

You’ll find a dozen in any high street east of London.”

“Eyes? Complexion? Hair?”

“Eyes and hair covered, complexion dark.”

“Voice?”

“Harsh. I’d recognise it if I ever heard it again.”

“There seems to be a meaning behind that,” said Lynch placidly. “What is it. Bill?”

“He disguised his voice as easily as he did his handwriting,” said Bristow, “and he took them both away with him when he went.”

“Naturally,” said Lynch. “You don’t seem quite at your best, Bill. What did you say he called himself?”

“Baron. T. Baron,” said Bristow.

There was a sudden tightening of the lines at the Superintendent’s eyes, and a sudden pursing of his generous lips. Bristow frowned.

Lynch did not speak at once, but his brooding eyes contemplated the Inspector for several seconds.

“Now that,” he said at last, “is a very funny thing.”

“Levy thought so too,” said Bristow.

“But he wasn’t thinking what I’m thinking,” said Lynch slowly. “Are you feeling all right?”

Old Bill’s smile returned to his lips and eyes. He needed no telling that there was an idea at the back of Lynch’s mind, and he had a great regard for the Superintendent’s ideas.

“Ye-es. Injured more in the pride than the abdomen. Why?”

Lynch stood up and picked his hat from the peg on the door, placed his thumb and forefinger behind Bristow’s neck, and urged the detective into the passage. As they walked along — the Big and Little of It, according to those members of society who had thought of calling Bristow Old Bill — Lynch was saying, in his curiously gentle voice: “It’s a funny tiling, a very funny thing, Bill, that we pulled Charlie Dray inside this morning for trying to pass some of the stones from the Kia bracelet. You’ve heard of the Kia bracelet, Bill ?”

“Ye-es,” said Bristow, and then racked his brains. He did not recall the circumstances of the affair, although the name was familiar enough.

“Removed, so cleverly removed,” said Lynch, who had a bad habit of trying to be lyrical, “from Mrs Chunnley at the Pertland House Ball last February. Now we come to think of it, the lights went out, Mrs Chunnley felt the bracelet slip from her wrist, and, sesame, the lights came on again.”

I gather,” said Bristow, “that you think there’s a connection between the Kia bracelet and the Kenton brooch ?”

“How liberally you were endowed, Bill, with the power of reasoning! Yes, I do. Now we come to think of it — I’m generous, Bill, and include you — the two jobs were as near identical as any we’re likely to come across.”

“That’s true enough,” admitted Bristow, frowning.

“Thank you,” said Superintendent Lynch with heavy wit. “Now we go back to Charlie Dray — he’s at Bow Street, time being — who was trying to pass some of the stones from the Kia bracelet this morning. He said a thing that makes Mr Baron sound very funny.”

“Well,” said Bristow, when they had tucked themselves into a taxi — Lynch was notoriously lazy — and were humming towards Bow Street, “what about Dray’s story?”