Meet The Baron

“Will you keep quiet a minute?” demanded Lynch testily.

Bristow grinned and was silent. Lynch said nothing more until they were confronting Charlie Dray in the charge-room at Bow Street some twenty minutes later.

Charlie Dray was a weedy, pale-faced, ginger-haired man who had once earned fame as a cracksman of exceptional ability. No lock had been too cunning for his art, and only a domestic quarrel had led to his undoing, for Charlie had been shopped for nearly being unfaithful. After five years’ penance he had forsworn married life and his profession, and he earned a living by selling lozenges to football crowds during the winter and ice-cream to race crowds during the summer. Not once during the three years of his freedom had he trespassed against the law, so far as Superintendent Lynch knew. Yet that morning . . .

“Charlie,” said Lynch gently, “I’ve no wish to see you in uniform again, so I want you to spill your story again, and fully, to Old Bill and me. Don’t laugh, Charlie!”

Dray chuckled; his good-humour was notorious.

“You will have yours, woncha — little joke I mean? Now, listen, if I strike me dead I speak the truth . . .”

“Pardon?” said Lynch politely.

Charlie guffawed. “But, joking apart, sir, wot I told you was the nothing but, strike me, Superintendent. Bloke comes to me a month ago and says, “Charlie, I’ve heard it said you know something about locks.” “Then,” says I, “you looked up an out-of-date reference-book, mister.” “Now,” says he, “I wouldn’t disturb your morals . . .” ”

“Did he say morals, Charlie?” asked Lynch severely. “Did I tell you I was telling you the nothing but?” demanded Charlie aggrievedly. “Morals he says, and morals I says, because, if you look at it that way, sir, it’s a laugh. Howso. “For anything in the world,” he says, “but I’ve just bought a lot of old safes, and some of ‘em are locked, and I want to open them.” “On the level ?” asks I. “If so I’ll do ‘em.” “On the level,” says he, so we goes along to a place in Brick Street. . .”

“Can you remember the place?” said Lynch. “Eyes shut and three parts over,” said Charlie, “and the Izzy who was selling him the safes. “There they are,” he says, “so you can see I’ve bought ‘em. Now I’m going to take them, and you, to a little place in Lambeth, and you can open them for me.” ”

“And you can remember the Lambeth place?” asked Lynch.

“Would I recognise my mother? Sir, we went there, and I opened the safes, and then he takes the locks out . . .”

“Out?” echoed Bill Bristow, who had been listening with an increasing sense of wonder and perturbation.

“I can see,” said Charlie, with dignity, “that you ain’t used to assorting with gentlemen, Inspector. Yes. They were his property, weren’t they, and he could do what he liked. “How’d you do it?” he says, and I shows him, and he tries it a bit himself, and one way and another he picks it up pretty quick.”

“Meaning,” said Bristow heavily, “that you taught him how to pick locks, did you?”

Charlie Dray’s eyes were pools of innocence. “His own locks, Mr Bristow.”

“What kind?” asked Lynch.

“Well,” said Charlie cheerfully, “there was a pretty good selection. Eight, I think. There was a Chubb Major and a Yale 20 and half a dozen combinations. He was a dab at ‘em by the time we’d finished. Howso. Two quid, he gives me, and them little things you lifted this morning, Mr Lynch.”

“He gave them to you ?” asked Lynch.

Charlie sniffed, but there was a crafty glint in his eyes.

“On the up-and-up and the nothing but, mister. A present, he said, and may there be many more! Now ‘ow was I to know — W was any honest man to know . . .”

“Charlie,” said Lynch gently, “you’re a god-damned liar, and if you don’t know what that means you ought to.”

The little man’s eyes narrowed.

“S’elp me,” he muttered uneasily, “I never lifted ‘em, mister. I ain’t done a job since I came out.”

“Seven years,” said Lynch dreamily, “for the Kia bracelet. You wouldn’t get off with anything less. But I’d do what I could for you, Charlie, if you’ll take us to the place where he bought the safes and the place where you unlocked them for him.”

“Now, listen,” said Charlie Dray earnestly, “I’d do that for a friend like you any day, Mr Lynch.”

Lynch turned to a local sergeant, an interested and amused spectator.

“Let me have a man, will you,” he said, “to tote this along with us?” As the man turned Lynch grinned at Bristow. “See what I’m driving at?” he asked.

Bristow nodded, and took a case from his pocket.

“Smoke ? If you’ve done what you always do — left the thing that matters out. . .” he said, “the name of Charlie’s friend was Baron.”

“So logical,” sighed Lynch, “you ought to have been a Frenchman. Ta. Give Charlie one, Bill; give Charlie one.”

Several hours later a weary Bristow and a worn-out Lynch returned to Scotland Yard. The temperature during the afternoon had topped the eighty mark, and both men were hot, dusty, thirsty, and disappointed. Charlie Dray’s story had been substantiated — up to a point. The second-hand-safe-dealer had certainly sold the safes to a Mr T. Baron, whose description tallied with that of the man in the tweed cap at Levy’s shop. The office-building where the safes had been unlocked and the lessons in lock-breaking had been given was in the hands of house-breakers, and the firm of agents which had let the rooms to the man Baron remembered the man well, but only by name. All the business had been done by post and telephone.