Free An Affair For the Baron by John Creasey Page B

driver sitting at the wheel just beyond the drive exit. He would understand a gesture to follow the Impala, but at this distance there was no way of warning him that the Irishman might be dangerous.
    The man with the briefcase started his car and moved off.
    Mannering, an expert with all locks and keys, was taking out his penknife which had a wire attachment – then noticed that the Westerner had been so preoccupied that he had forgotten to remove the ignition key. He started the Chrysler, stalled, started again, and went out slowly: the Impala turned right, and the driver was now out of earshot. The taxi driver put his head out of the window; that was the first time Mannering had noticed that he was cross-eyed.
    â€œOkay?”
    â€œThe man in the Impala could be a killer.”
    â€œSo he could.”
    â€œCan you find out where he goes, without getting involved?”
    The taxi driver was already sliding forward. “For how much?”
    â€œFifty dollars.”
    â€œFive hundred to my wife if I don’t come back.” The man grinned, as if he could wring a wry amusement even from the thought of disaster. His tyres squealed as he moved off. Mannering turned back into the driveway, watched by the bewildered doorman.
    â€œPark the car for me,” Mannering said, as he jumped out and hurried to the elevators.
    It was not until he reached the seventeenth floor and was re-approaching Apartment 1701 that he began to feel really apprehensive. Until then, events had moved at a speed which had prevented anything but reaction; constructive thought had been impossible.
    Now he began to fear what he might find inside the apartment.
    He pressed the bell, but there was no response; when he pressed again there was still no sound of movement.
    A strange change came over John Mannering in the few moments that he stood waiting; a kind of metamorphosis. It was a change that had come over him before, and would again – a change always the same and always of brief duration – one with which he was well familiar, even though he did not, at the time, realise it was taking place.
    Many half-forgotten years ago, he had been an embittered man with a particular hate against society, and this hatred had turned him into a jewel-thief whom the world had come to know as “The Baron”. Gradually, he had found that the excitement of breaking into the houses of the wealthy had become more important to him than his hatred; as gradually, he had found himself robbing the rich to help the poor, and others who had been ostracised or victimised by society.
    In those days he had learned the secrets of a burglar’s trade; of disguising his face, his body, even his voice.
    It was all so long ago; yet it was this that had led him to the love of jewels, of antiques, of objets d’art, that was now part of his life. And his business, at Quinns in London, Boston, Paris and New York, had really been built on all he had learned as the Baron.
    This lock should not give him too much trouble …
    No conscious thought of the old days entered his head, as he bent over the door of Apartment 1701; only fear of what he might find inside. He took out the knife which had many blades and small tools – a set of tools, in fact, which would have made any policeman suspicious.
    It looked like a straightforward Yale lock, and he selected one of the blades – a strip of strong mica which would gradually work through the key-hole, forcing the lock back once the pressure on each side was equal – and began to use it. Pushing it through seemed to take an age, and his heart was in his mouth when at last the lock clicked back. But nothing either slowed down or hastened the speed of his movements. He opened the door a few inches, stepped to one side, and called: “Ethel!”
    There was no answer.
    â€œEthel!”
    There was still no answer, no sound.
    Mannering pushed the door wide open and stepped inside – then