Free Meet The Baron by John Creasey

went on, “that if you give me the first refusal of the sapphires I’ll see that you get the first chance of the Lubitz collection.”
    “You will?” Fauntley’s eyes sparkled. “But that’s damned good of you, Mannering, damned good! I’ll keep away from the Gembolts. Go and get them.”
    Mannering smiled, and picked up his hat and gloves from the table. If Lord Fauntley could have read the working of the mind behind that smile his own would have been blasted from his face.
     
    Jimmy Randall preferred Somerset to London, but he visited London occasionally, always making a point of seeing Toby Plender. Recently the mutual topic had been John Mannering. On the morning of the 9th of October - the date of the Fauntley Carnival Ball at the Five Arts Hall, Kensington - the topic was still Mannering, but it was viewed more cheerfully and more philosophically than before.
    “It amounts to this,” said Plender. “He’s found a winning slant, and he’s following it blindly. I don’t mean horses only; I don’t even mean the tables, although I’ve heard rumours that he’s been doing well at Denver’s Club and one or two private salons. But he’s touched two or three things like the Klobber Diamonds, and - ”
    “In other words,” said Randall cheerfully, “he’s turned his five thousand into fifty, and he can go to hell at his own pace.’
    Plender laughed, making his face more like Punch than ever.
    “I suppose so. 1 think he must have had something up his sleeve all the time, Jimmy. Anyhow, if you want to borrow anything try J.M.”
    “Let’s go and drink his health,” said Randall.
    “Y’know, I think if Marie Overndon had the chance now she’d take it.”
    “Let Marie Overndon,” said Plender amiably, “go to perdition. She very nearly - ”
    He broke off abruptly, for one of the first faces he saw as he entered the Junior Carlton was Mannering’s. Mannering waved and moved towards them.
    “This,” he said cheerfully, “must be the seventh post mortem in as many months. Are you eating or just drinking?”
    “We might eat,” said Toby Plender.
    “Idea,” said Jimmy Randall.
    “I’ve got a table,” said John Mannering.
    The flash of his white teeth against his dark skin, the glint of his hazel eyes, the grace of his lithe body as he moved towards the grill-room of the Junior Carlton, were parts of the Mannering of old, the Mannering of money. The thoughts in his mind were strange and mixed, tinged with a grim humour, coloured by a new devilry and a new purpose.
    At that time John Mannering was reputed to be wealthy beyond ordinary measure. While his balance at a certain bank was low, it was well known that he used several banks. While no broker had bought substantially for him in any shares, Klobber Diamonds or others, it was known that he operated through many brokers. While no jewel-merchant had sold him gems of exceptional value, it was known that he traded with many merchants - also, it was rumoured, through Lord Fauntley. Billy Tricker, hearing reports of Mannering’s exceptional winnings on the turf, was glad that he had taken his lucky bets elsewhere. Tricker, being a philosophical bookie, knew that his turn would come.
    At that time John Mannering’s assets were one thousand and fifty pounds, an idea that had grown into an obsession now, a belief in his ability to work the idea, and the love of Lorna Fauntley, of which he was unaware.
    No one knew, no one dreamed, that they would soon be meeting the Baron. When that gentleman’s exploits grew famous or notorious, according to the point of view, no one dreamed that John Mannering was the Baron.

 
6:   Rumours And Crimes
    Detective-Inspector William Bristow was a large boned man of medium height and middle age. He had spent twenty-five years in the Force - excepting, of course, for four years in Flanders - and those years were beginning to show in the grey of his grizzled hair and the lines in the corners of his eyes. Apart from