Chapter One

THE BARON BREAKS IN

The only sound breaking the stillness of the room was the heavy breathing of the sleeper; the only light was an occasional gleam from a watery moon. The darkness grew impenetrable as the clouds gathered, and a wind came unexpectedly from the north, whistling and wailing through the leafy branches of the beeches near the north wall.

The man waiting beneath the shadows of the trees shivered in the sudden keenness of the wind. He eyed the lighted window of the top floor room impatiently.

It was characteristic of the Baron that he should know the top floor of the house was occupied by servants, and that the owner, a Mr. Augustus Teevens, was in the room immediately beneath the lighted window. It was as typical that, despite the urge to start climbing to the window, the Baron should wait for at least twenty minutes after the light had gone out, and spend those twenty minutes debating with himself whether or not the wind was an advantage.

It made his fingers cold and stiff; that was on the debit side. On the credit side, the branches of the trees creaked as they swayed, the leaves rustled like the pattering of heavy rain, so that any sound he made would be drowned; even the night-watchman’s dogs would not be able to hear him.

The Baron had a habit of smiling when working, but it did not necessarily mean that he was happy, more likely that his thoughts were fast but conflicting. He believed the home of Gus Teevens would prove a more difficult proposition than he had anticipated, which had provoked him. Somehow the Baron (who was well known by Gus Teevens as John Mannering, Mayfair bachelor and man about town) had not expected that big pasty-faced stockbroker to guard his valuables so carefully. Teevens had never hinted at such precautions, which served to prove that he was an extremely careful man. Teevens had no idea that Mannering was the Baron, the cracksman whose exploits often hit the headlines, and whose audacity and luck had made the police despair of catching him. The Baron was a legend, an almost fantastic figure about whom an aura of glamour and romance had spread during the past twelve months.

Mannering glanced at the illuminated dial of his watch, seeing that there were thirty seconds to go before the waiting interval was exhausted. His smile was more tense as he pulled the blue silk handkerchief that had been tied loosely round his neck, over his mouth and chin. He slipped his opera-hat into a large pocket of his overcoat and took the coat off; coats and opera-hats were hardly the ideal clothing for climbing trees and scaling walls, but he would need them later. The respectability of a man in evening dress at the wheel of a car was one of the things rarely questioned by the police even after a night alarm.

A gust of wind came shrieking through the branches as Mannering snapped his fingers, a gesture that had become a habit when he was starting a job, and stretched up towards the first hand-hold on the tree-trunk. The beech-trees, with their low branches and gnarled trunks, made climbing easy.

As he hauled himself up towards the first branch without a false move, an almost inexplicable transformation came over Mannering. Despite the oddness of his appearance in the grounds, he had still been John Mannering, dilettante – or so many folk said – connoisseur of more arts than one, and particularly of wine, lover of precious stones, and Society lion, whose photograph so often decorated the pages of the weekly illustrated papers. That was the popular conception of John Mannering. A great deal of it was deliberate pose, even more was thrust upon him, but he certainly lived up to the picture that most of Mayfair and all the gossip columns had of him.

Mannering, not the Baron, had heard that Augustus Teevens had boasted of the value of a diamond necklace recently accepted as payment of a debt. He did not know the debtor, except that she was young and attractive and trusting – and it was said that Teevens was not a man to be trusted. This debt had been incurred while Teevens had handled the debtor’s modest investments. Mannering was prepared to believe that most of the investments had been faked, and that Teevens’s foreclosure on the necklace was a wicked thing.

It was just the kind of case to interest Mannering as a human being, and his alter ego as a cracksman-adventurer, the Baron.

Ever thorough, he had spent a week prospecting the house and grounds, learning in which room Teevens slept, and the location of the servants’ bedrooms. Teevens was a bachelor who lived alone, although he did not always sleep in solitary state. Perhaps that was why he kept his safe in his bedroom. Mannering had heard of the night-watchman who patrolled the thirty-acre estate, and of the dogs, which would probably be ferocious if urged on by the watchman, although easily soothed when on their own. Mannering had weighed the pros and cons and decided that the necklace, worth fifty thousand pounds on the retail market, was a prize worthy of the adventure. And Teevens’s victim was a charming young thing.

So Mannering had prepared. His respectable-looking black Austin Cambridge was fifty yards from the window, hidden behind a copse, yet there was a straight drive to the road when the job was finished. If luck ran his way five minutes in Teevens’s room would be enough to get the diamonds; in ten he could be half a mile on the road to London.

It was the alter ego, the Baron, not really John Mannering, who started the climb.

It was a psychological change; everything but the job in hand faded from Mannering’s mind. He was here to get the necklace, and his memory only carried him to other houses he had burgled, other jobs as difficult. His senses would warn him of danger if danger was near; his nerves were trained to take everything calmly and never get flustered in emergency. A lithe, lean daredevil, the Baron had little thought of the past and none at all of the future.

He went up hand over fist to the first bough, tried his weight on it, decided it would stand his thirteen stone, and stretched upright to haul himself to the next branch.

The wind was stronger now he was off the ground, and the tree was swaying about him. Before he went on his eyes, trained to the darkness, calculated the chances of reaching a safer branch below if he should slip.

Teevens’s window was high, on the second floor of the house, which was built on a knoll. Mannering had to climb thirty feet through the rustling leaves and branches, but he had marked the spot he wanted from the ground, and he reached it without trouble.

He stopped for a moment, not to get his breath, for he was as fit as an Olympic four-miler, but to reconnoitre. A gleam of silver light from the moon showed him the window, less than twenty feet from where he was standing, five feet from the branch end. Teevens had recently had the trees lopped, and the branch did not taper off; it should be strong enough to carry a man all the way along.

He could hear nothing but the sighing and moaning of the wind and the rustling of the leaves as he peered towards the watchman’s box, a wooden shed choc-a-bloc with garden tools and ladders, some fifty yards away. He would have given a great deal for a ladder, but the tree was a good next best thing.

There was no sign of the watchman or the dogs, although he knew the dogs usually waited outside when the watchman was indoors. That meant the man was on his rounds and should be away from this side of the house for fifteen minutes or so.

‘Just what I wanted,’ thought the Baron, and started the final climb along the bough. Teevens’s window was open a few inches at the top, and that promised to make the job quicker and easier. The bough was swaying ominously and as Mannering, now going along monkey-fashion, reached a point five feet from the lopped end, a fierce gust of wind sent him lurching back.

The bough moved no more than six inches, but at that height it seemed two yards. His right foot slipped, for a moment he thought he was off. He hurtled through the branches, but he kept his head, and his fingers tightened round the bough. He tensed himself to take the shock when his weight was thrown on his shoulders.

The jolt was almost enough to tear his arms from their sockets. He winced as he swayed up and down. But the bough steadied, and he was safe, waiting until the stabs of pain had ceased. He started to pull himself up again; he could take any strain he was prepared for without taxing his muscles although he hated to think what would happen if he tore a ligament.

Never mind ligaments! If he stayed here much longer the watchman would come, and the man carried a .33 revolver.

Mannering exerted every ounce of strength to haul himself up, cocked a knee on the branch, swayed for a moment, brought his second leg up – and was safe! He was breathing hard, mostly from excitement. The narrow escape seemed to offer a challenge, and he was worked up to a pitch of excitement.

The window was still ten feet away, but he wriggled along the branch inch by inch, looking downward for the watchman and straining his ears to catch any sound of the man’s approach. The wind was growing more blustery, and some gusts were strong. Who was the fool who’d said a cracksman prayed for a windy night? He would have given the world for silence.

The moon helped again, shining silvery light over the well-kept grounds. No one was in sight. He could see for a hundred yards, and believed he had at least five minutes to work in.

There were six feet now between the swaying branch end where he crouched and the window-ledge, a solid, dependable-looking ledge. He stood up, swaying to keep his balance, with his arms outstretched. Jumping the gap would really be dangerous; he would fall forward, and the length of his body would carry him to the ledge, if once he could get a steady, standing start.

The wind dropped momentarily, and for a moment Mannering was motionless. He drew a deep breath, tensed his muscles and plunged forward.

If he missed his hold it would mean a thirty-foot drop to the hard ground, but he did not give a thought to falling. The ledge loomed nearer. He gripped it with his fingers like a vice, dropped from the bough, and took his weight on his shoulders, prepared this time for the sudden jolt.

But he was home! He hauled himself up on the ledge until he was kneeling, with plenty of room to spare. A glance towards the left showed a clear stretch to the corner of the house, and he thanked his stars for the watchman’s slow progress.

The window was comparatively easy to force. Not for the first time the Baron found that the actual entry into a house held no fears. He pulled the bottom half of the window up quickly. It squeaked enough to wake the dead, but he completed the job without pausing. If Teevens stirred now it would be awkward, and speed was of the essence.

He could just see the great bulk of the man, covered with an eiderdown, looking quite mountainous. Teevens’s face was turned towards the window and his mouth was gaping. His eyes were closed, which was more important. Mannering climbed through the window and stepped on the floor.

All the precepts of his cracksmanship had gone by the board that night. Normally he entered a house by the ground floor, opening the front doors for a quick method of escape and then sailed into the fray. This time the way back was through the window, offering a poor chance of a getaway. He pulled the window down a little, to prevent the watchman noticing anything when he passed.

There was still no sign of the watchman, the Baron’s luck seemed in. He was as lucky by night as John Mannering was reputed to be by day, and felt confident and satisfied as he stepped towards the bed.

His right hand was in his pocket, on the butt of the gas-pistol, which was the only weapon he ever used and which invariably told the police the Baron had been busy.

Teevens was six feet away. His heavy breathing was enough to cover unexpected sounds. The Baron frowned at that realisation. Damn it, the night had been full of the unexpected . . .

Nothing had been so unexpected as the way Gus Teevens moved!

He was up in a flash, grabbing at a gun lying on a table at his bedside. Mannering saw the little eyes open and had hardly time to think. He jumped at the bed in a flash, and crashed his clenched fist into Teevens’s mouth.

The fat man dropped back on the pillows with a gasp, his hand moving away from the gun. Mannering hit him again. He had no relish for this side of the job, but it was catch-as-catch-can always, and a moment’s soft-heartedness could lead to seven years behind bars. Teevens’s head cracked against the wooden panel of the bed. Mannering saw his eyes roll, and was sure that the gas-pistol was not needed. Teevens would be unconscious for ten minutes or so.

Outside the wind was rising, and half-a-dozen times in as many seconds he believed he heard footsteps. But there was no one outside the window when he looked, and no sound came from above.

He swung back into the room, keenly alive to the need for speed. Teevens’s foxing had worried him and he was jumpy, but the necklace was somewhere in the room almost within his grasp. He glanced round, saw the two pictures most likely to hide a wall-safe, and found what he wanted directly opposite the window.

He glanced at the safe and told himself it would be comparatively easy to open, a combination mechanism which had once proved a stumbling-block to professionals, but had recently proved quite simple. He turned the handle, listening to the clicking of the tumblers with a practiced ear. Right . . . left . . . right . . . left. It seemed ages as he stood there, yet only seconds passed.

Twice he thought he heard the safe open; twice he was disappointed. But the comparative silence from outside steadied him, and he was absorbed in the task. Teevens was still breathing heavily; he would have a sore head when he woke up.

Ah! The tumblers dropped with a sharper click than usual, and as Mannering pulled at the handle the safe door moved. There would be a second door, of course, but it could be opened easily, and the Baron’s work would be done.

He slipped a pick-lock from his waistcoat pocket, and set to work. The thin piece of steel slipped in easily, and he cast round for the lock, his gloved fingers working as dexterously and decisively as ever.

The second lock clicked back, and he chuckled aloud. He did not realise that his forehead was damp and the palms of his hands wet as he pulled open the second door. There were a dozen things inside, but the case with the diamonds was all he wanted. He slipped it out, prised it open quickly with a screwdriver, and saw the diamonds. Even in the gloom they scintillated up at him.

‘Well, you beauties, you’ll soon be back on a pretty neck,’ murmured the Baron, who sometimes found it helped when he talked to himself. ‘A much prettier neck than Teevens’s.’

He took the other things out of the safe for a quick inspection. There were odds and ends of jewellery worth a cracksman’s attention, and a small bundle of one-pound notes. Mannering pocketed the jewels and most of the wad before closing the safe again.

He had been inside the room just five minutes; it was surprising how many things could happen in a short time. Teevens was still unconscious and would be helpless for another five at least. The difficulties of the job seemed to fade away as the Baron stepped quickly towards the window.

The two things happened at the same moment.

The watchman and his two dogs were almost level with the window, and the man glanced up. The moon, until then a friend to the Baron, broke from the clouds. He stood very clear in its silvery light, and saw the watchman’s lips open as the cry of alarm came.

‘Hi, there! Hi!’

The Baron dodged back out of sight, but as he moved he saw the man level his gun; he was much too quick for the Baron to hope he was dealing with a slow-witted rustic. The explosion came with a devastating suddenness, and the shot rattled against the window, cracking the glass in a dozen places.

The Baron’s lips tightened as he swung round towards the door, his only means of escape. As he reached it he heard windows banging on the floor below. Men’s voices were raised, and the barking of the dogs, frantic and deep-throated, added to the din.