Meet The Baron

“Oh, damn it!” muttered Old Bill, to the fence’s surprise, for Bristow was usually a good-tempered officer.

Whether it was the same man with a different voice, or whether Baron had passed the two pieces of jewellery to someone else for disposal. Old Bill didn’t know. He did know, however, that he was beginning to worry about Baron.

Small jewel-robberies were reported to the Yard frequently from various counties, and London’s Society suffered considerably from the same trouble. If there was anything remarkable about the thefts, Bristow told himself, it was that they all took place during a dance, dinner-party, or celebration of some kind or other. When he went over them more carefully with Superintendent Lynch he discovered two other things of interest.

The robberies seemed to follow the Fauntley family round England. Lord and Lady Fauntley, Lorna, John Mannering, the Dowager Countess of Kenton, and half a dozen other members of the same set were always present. And every time the theft was of a trinket of comparatively small value. No effort was made to take more valuable stones, such as Lady Fauntley’s Liska diamond.

“Get all the dope you can,” said Lynch, “on the servants of that crowd. It’s beginning to look like an inside job, Bill.”

“But there’s always definite proof that the man came from the outside,” said Bristow.

“Too definite,” said Lynch. Then, cautiously: “At least, it might be.”

Bristow put half a dozen men on to the task of following the history of the various servants, but little came of the investigation. There wasn’t a bad record — nor even a suspicious one — in the whole bunch.

“Ah, well,” said Lynch phlegmatically, “he’ll either give the game up before we get him or he’ll go too far.”

“That’s a useful contribution to the problem,” said Bill Bristow. “Wait until he starts on something big.”

“Funny thing,” said Lynch, “but that’s just what I am doing.”

Mannering was enjoying himself.

He had nothing against Detective-Inspector William Bristow; in fact, the rumours that he had heard from such sources as Red Flannagan, Flick Leverson, Levy Schmidt, and others, favoured the policeman. But some urge, some devilry which possessed him, had tempted him to try the pawnshop trick, in which Levy had been glad to help, for he had seen a way of buying good stuff at low prices, and at the same time proving his good-will towards the police. Levy, Mannering had discovered, was a fence of the highest class, and it was through the Jew that he had his introduction to other members of the profession. He needed the introductions. Not the least difficult part of his new life was the disposal of the gems, while he had realised after the Fauntley strong-room affair that he must have more than a rough knowledge of safes and locks. He prided himself on learning quickly, but the success of the pawnshop affair pleased him as much as that of the small robberies he had contrived at the expense of certain members of society.

Gambling had been in Mannering’s blood almost from the moment he had opened his eyes. The years of comparative peace in Somerset seemed now like a fantastic dream. The game was the thing.

Prior to the birth of the new idea he knew that there had been something lacking in the game. Staking a certain amount of money on a horse or the turn of a wheel had its attractions, but failed to quicken his blood; his own share was passive beyond the signing of cheques. But in this new game there were thrills and to spare. His freedom depended on his own quickness; his livelihood depended on his own thoroughness. It was his wits against the police.

Mannering had weighed everything up before he had started; the handicaps were heavy, but the rewards high. There was money and to spare, if he had the courage and the brains to keep away from the police; but he knew that the odds against beating the law were very much against him. Unless . . .

Unless he could get the police fighting against a shadow; unless he could create two or three different personalities, confront the police with two or three problems, all separate on the surface, but all connected through the man known as the Baron. Could he? Was it possible to set the police — Bristow and Lynch in particular — hunting shadows while he worked ?

It was possible, Mannering told himself.

At that time he judged pretty well how much the police knew. He guessed that suspicions had been aroused by the similarity between the house-party crimes, and he knew that the authorities connected the mysterious T. Baron with the Kia and the Kenton baubles. He even suspected that, wherever the Fauntley set moved, so would a member of the Force; the time was here when it would not be safe to use the same method — the brief dousing of the lights, the robbery, and the switching back of the lights, with the resulting confusion. It was necessary, he told himself, to change his methods, if only temporarily. If he persisted with them he realised that the police would start investigating the house-party crimes very carefully, and sooner or later they would discover the truth.

There was one thing that worried Mannering. Not for a moment was he troubled about using Fauntley as a dupe; most of the man’s money had been made during the War years, and Mannering held a very real objection to profiteers of his type. Certainly he would have no scruple at having another attempt at Fauntley himself.

But there was Lorna.

Mannering himself hardly knew what he thought of the girl. On the first few occasions on which he had met her she had intrigued him far more than any musical-comedy actress had ever done. But he was bitter. He thought rarely of Marie Overndon, but the cynicism that had followed the episode at the Manor remained. He told himself that she had spoiled him for serious attachments in the future, come who may.

Lorna was . . . different.

The Fauntley household, he told himself, would remain as his background. Nothing had been put into words, but it was generally accepted that between Lorna and himself there was an understanding, and the belief satisfied Fauntley. Lorna was enigmatical, erratic, and, her father believed, possessed of some foolish introspection which prevented her from giving Mannering a straight answer, but as Mannering had no complaint Lord Fauntley let things slide. His own concern was the making of money and more money, the collecting of precious stones and yet more stones.

The illusion of wealth that Mannering had so carefully created was a powerful one. No one, not even Randall or Plender, suspected that the fantastic turf wins he had made were imaginary, while the affair of the Klobber diamond shares had convinced Plender that Mannering was using his brains to make money, instead of relying on the turn of a wheel or the form of a horse. Mannering laughed to himself when he remembered the Klobber sensation. Actually