Meet The Baron

travelling at a generous forty miles an hour along the road. He recognised the dour face of Tanker Tring next to the driver, and he knew that the game was almost over.

Lorna saw his change of expression, and guessed why. Her eyes clouded, and for the life of her she could not have spoken.

“They’ll be here in a moment,” Mannering muttered. “I’ll give them a minute — no more. Why the hell doesn’t Long come?”

The question was useless. They waited and watched tensely, with their ears pricked to catch the slightest sound from the front of the flat. It was a matter of seconds now. Once the police arrived the chance was gone.

And then Mannering saw the thing he wanted most in the world just then. Gerry Long was hurrying along the alleyway and staring up at the window. The seconds passed like hours, and Mannering felt like a man possessed when the knock thundered on the front-door with the American barely within throwing-distance.

“Answer it,” Mannering said to Lorna very grimly.

Lorna moved away, fear clutching at her, a mad unreasoning fear that it was too late to save Mannering now. But Mannering, in that last tense moment, hardly noticed her. He saw that Long was hurrying, and he could see the anxiety on the American’s face. Long was in the small courtyard leading from the alley now. Mannering moved to the window, waved, and pressed a finger to his lips. He was trembling like a leaf as tossed the bullet down. Was it in time? . . .

Long waited below with his hands poised. The bullet dropped into them safely, and Mannering felt a tremendous relief. He was through!

And then Lorna’s voice came, raised in an agony of fear.

“John, be careful, be careful!”

Mannering swung round as the door was pushed open violently. He saw Bristow, conscious but wild-eyed, outlined in the doorway, and the policeman lunged towards him, cursing. Mannering stood back rigidly, watchfully, his face blank. Bristow saw the open window and guessed the rest. He leaped for the opening and stared out. In the distance he could see Gerry Long’s head and shoulders, but the American was too far away now to be recognised. But Bristow wasn’t finished. . . .

“I’ll get you,” he snapped. “Don’t make any mistake about that, Mannering.”

As he spoke he leaped towards the window.

Mannering knew what the other was going to do. The one chance that remained for Bristow to get the bullet was to catch the man who was running away. The one way to start was through the window; seconds counted, as much for the one man as the other.

Bristow hesitated for the fraction of a second to reconnoitre the position. There was no fire-escape near him, but immediately beneath the window was a Y-shaped drainpipe that offered a slender hold. Had Bristow not been groggy and aware only of the desperate need for catching the man in the alley he might have thought twice about trying to get down that way.

He hardly hesitated, however, and flung one leg over the sill. He rested his loot on the drain-pipe, and then lowered himself. Mannering realised the danger, and cried out in genuine alarm.

“Steady, Bristow — steady!”

And then Bristow slipped. Mannering heard a crack! and he knew in a flash that the drain-pipe had broken.

For a sickening moment Mannering thought that the other was over. It was a long drop to the courtyard below, a drop on to solid concrete, and there could be only one end if Bristow went down. Tragedy loomed in front of him. . . .

Then he saw the tips of the detective’s fingers on the window-ledge. He was at the window in two strides, and for a moment he forgot the wound in his shoulder; he had to. He leaned out and gripped the other’s left wrist as Bristow’s precarious hold was loosened. Every thought but that o. saving the detective was out of his mind now.

The full weight of Bristow’s body was thrown on Mannering’s injured shoulder. The pain stabbed through him, agonising, excruciating. For a moment he was afraid that he could not hold on. Sweat covered his forehead, and his teeth gritted against one another. But he hung on, with Bristow dangling below; and slowly he manoeuvred his left hand to the support of his right.

Grunting with pain, conscious only of the one task, he kept his hold. The pain seemed to be running through his whole body now, and he was wet with sweat. Bristow seemed to grow heavier as the seconds dragged by, but he came no higher. Then his wrist slipped an inch. . . .

Mannering groaned.

He didn’t see the door open, or Tanker Tring, with his face set in alarm, in the doorway. Tring gulped — and then he moved rapidly towards the window, taking the situation in at a glance. He leaned out, fastening his hands round Bristow’s wrists below Mannering’s. Mannering eased his hold, and stumbled back into the room, while Tanker raised his stentorian voice for the other men who had come with him. They were already in the room, but Mannering, leaning against the wall, didn’t see them as they hurried across; nor did he see the three of them haul Bristow up, slowly but easily.

Mannering felt like death.

His face was chalk-white. His eyes were closed, his breath was coming unsteadily. Lorna Fauntley, terrified in case the effort to get rid of the bullet had failed, hardly daring to look into the room, forced herself to enter, and saw Mannering.

Concern drove the fear from her eyes. She went forward quickly, and Mannering heard her voice, as if from a long way off.

“It’s all right, John — all right . . .”

Then Mannering fainted.