Mannering was so completely taken aback that he could only stare. Lady Mary gave a rather grim little chuckle.
“It’s surprising,” she said, “what some of us old ones are capable of, young man. I said it, and I meant it. Those pearls started the trouble, and if Emma Kenton had had more sense than to spend five thousand silly pounds on a paltry necklace this wouldn’t have happened.”
“But there were other things there,” protested Mannering.
“Don’t try and make me logical,” snapped Lady Mary. She smiled, robbing her words of any offence. “And don’t forget, young man, that she’s talked for weeks about these pearls. Anyone has had ample opportunity to get dummies made . . .”
“You seem to know the whole story,” said Mannering easily. Inwardly he was remarking on the publicity that Lady Kenton had given to the pearls. If Bristow wanted something else to heighten his suspicions of the Dowager here it was.
“I made George talk,” said Lady Mary, with a faint smile. “He’s a dear, is George, but he couldn’t keep a secret from anyone with two eyes in his head. It’s a nasty business, but it won’t hurt Marie, and it might do Emma a bit of good.”
Lady Kenton, thought Mannering, wasn’t very popular. He lit a cigarette, and a few moments later refused Lady Mary’s offer to stay for a day or two.
“I’ll wait until the Colonel gets back,” he said, “in case you’re feeling jumpy . . .”
“Jumpy?” snapped Lady Mary. “What have I got to feel jumpy about? Don’t talk nonsense, John! But I’d like you to stay.”
Mannering smiled to himself at her change of front. The next half-hour passed quickly, but he was glad when Belton and Wagnall returned, and when their congratulations on his rescue were over. The only remark which interested him, from those two gentlemen, was Wagnall’s: “But I wish I knew why he had those dummies, all the same.”
So did Mannering. He felt uneasy about the dummy pearls, and he puzzled over them for some time.
And then he reminded himself of the jolt the police would get on the following morning, and he smiled.
Gretham Street, Chelsea, where Detective-Inspector Bristow lived with his wife and family, looked very much the same that morning — the morning following Gerry Long’s unsuccessful attempt to commit suicide — as it did on every other morning. The other thirty-seven housewives dispatched their husbands to their daily tasks, and only the Bristow household continued to slumber.
Bristow had been working very late on the previous night, and he had persuaded his wife to forget the alarm-clock. It was nearly half-past eight when the detective turned over in bed, gazed dreamily out of the window, saw his wife sleeping very soundly, smiled, pressed his lips against her hair without disturbing her, and then crept very gently out of bed.
He was a very happy man in his home-life, and nothing pleased him more than to get his wife an early cup of tea without first waking her. He enjoyed himself so much that morning that he had taken the tea upstairs and enjoined his daughter to wake up — his two sons, at that time, were holidaying in North Wales — before looking at the paper.
When he did look he just stared. He saw nothing but the printed blur. He could hardly believe his eyes. Things like this didn’t happen. They couldn’t!
But this had.
Bristow lit a cigarette with a hand which trembled in spite of his efforts to control it, and not until he had drawn at it several times did he trust himself to read farther than the headlines. For the headlines — due to the fact that news was scarce and that there had been no real sensation for several weeks — were sprawled right across the front-page in heavy black letters:
THIEF CHALLENGES SCOTLAND YARD WHO IS THE BARON?
The Baron! Bristow muttered the name to himself a dozen times. The Baron! The name that had been on his tongue for months past, the elusive and, until that morning, secretive and comparatively unknown name of the thief who had started with the Dowager Countess of Kenton’s brooch and who had continued with a dozen or more thefts, completely hoodwinking the police every time, was now in black and white in front of him.
The Baron . . .
Bristow swore as he had rarely sworn in his life.
As he read the story he scowled. He was still inclined to think that he was dreaming, that this thing couldn’t be true, but the facts were there in front of him.
Centred beneath the headlines was a letter, printed in bold type, and obviously written very carefully. Before it was a statement that the Morning Star had the story on the best authority.
I have been working against the police for some months, without the slightest cause for worry. At the house of Colonel George Belton I took the pearl-necklace that has since caused so much publicity and speculation. My method was simple, which may explain the ease with which the burglary was accomplished. But simplicity begets monotony. It occurs to me that this letter may stir the police to greater efforts to apprehend.
THE BARON
Detective-Inspector William Bristow read this delightful effort three times. Finally he began to mutter. And then — it should be remembered that Old Bill always had a habit of doing the unexpected — he began to laugh.
He laughed until Mrs Bristow began to wonder whether he had finished going off his head — she felt sure that that early-morning tea had been the first stage — and she stumbled downstairs, clutching her dressing-gown about her, followed closely by Joan, their daughter. The sight of the Inspector, pyjama-clad, ruffled, and a little sleepy-eyed, but roaring with laughter, would have struck any policeman at the Yard as uproariously funny, but it made his family a little apprehensive.
“Bill,” said Mrs Bristow firmly, “stop it! You’ll have the whole street think you’re off your head.”
Bristow made a great effort to control himself.
“Street?” he gasped. “Only the street ? What about the rest of the town, m’dear? Look at that. Look at it!”
Mrs Bristow looked, and her comely face straightened into hard lines. She was very touchy on anything which affected the reputation of the police, but she knew her husband.
“You’re a hard nut,” she said, not without pride. “It would make me — mad!”
“It’ll make him mad before it’s finished,” said Old Bill obscurely. “How soon can you make breakfast, m’dear ? I’ll have to get to the Yard quickly. Lynch will be getting a mouthful ready after this, to say nothing of the Commissioner.”
“I can’t understand why you laughed,” admitted Mrs Bristow, as she investigated the larder.
“Can’t you?” asked Old Bill, pouring water from the kettle into his shaving-mug. “It’s simple, Anne. I laughed because it’s funny. The funniest thing I’ve ever seen.”
Superintendent Lynch, as large, placid, and red-faced as ever, was inclined to agree when, three-quarters of an hour later, Bristow reached the Yard. But Lynch wasn’t happy.
“Everyone doesn’t think with us, Bill. The A.C . . .”
It was nearly eleven o’clock, and Lynch had been at the Yard for some time. When the Assistant-Commissioner was brought into the conversation which Bristow had started with the Superintendent, Bristow knew that his worst fears were confirmed.
“He’s started on it already, has he ?” he asked. “What does he say?”
“Very stiff and very formal,” said Lynch cheerfully. “That man hasn’t smiled since he took over, two years ago.”
“Not even at this ?” asked the Inspector.
“Least of all at this,” said Lynch. “And, to make it worse, one of our own men — Wrightson — caused the trouble.”
Bristow frowned, without understanding.
“But the Baron . . .” he began.
“The Baron did have the decency to write to us,” said Lynch heavily. “Wrightson — he’s never liked you, Bill-opened the letter, and, like a damned fool, let the Morning Star man see it. If it had gone to the papers direct it would have been chucked in the waste-paper-basket, but, coming straight from the horse’s mouth . . . Anyhow,” Lynch broke off, with a shrug, “it’s no use worrying over spilt milk.”