Last Laugh for the Baron by John Creasey

Author:John Creasey
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Crime
Publisher: House Of Stratus
Published: 2014-07-15T00:00:00+00:00

12

THE SECOND KIDNAPPING

“My God!” breathed Eric Frewin. “You’ll pay for this!”

“Think so?” asked Mannering mildly. “You must talk it over with your friends when they come and join you.”

Maria Rocco managed to speak with praiseworthy calm, although her hands were tightly clenched and there could be no doubt of her fear.

“What—what are you trying to do? Why have you brought us here?”

“I am trying to find out the truth about a Mr. Bernard Yenn. I want to know where Mannering is involved, and I want to know what your parents have been up to,” said Mannering. He crowded them down into the first room, then into the second. “Don’t move,” he warned, and backed away, pressing the door control. Eric made a half-hearted attempt to push through the gap as the door closed, but soon thought better of it.

Mannering said almost light-heartedly: “Two in one, Josh – and Bruce Danizon is outside. I’ll have him here in a couple of jiffs.” He made for the steps leading to his office, saying: “I called myself Larraby and said that Mannering wanted to see them.”

“Very astute, sir,” murmured Larraby.

Believe it or not, mused Mannering, as he stepped out into Hart Row, Josh looks younger.

No one was in Hart Row.

He opened the boot of the old car and saw Danizon’s eyes open, dazedly. He helped the youth out and supported him into the building, then into the office, and half-pushed, half-dragged him down the stairs. He was still dazed from the drug. Mannering left him close to the wall separating the first and second rooms, pressed the control in the ceiling, and as the door began to open, called: “Look after your friend.”

He was back in the office with the main entrance sealed before they could have realised who their ‘friend’ was. Larraby was sitting on the side of the bow-fronted desk.

“An excellent start,” he remarked. “I’m no longer so apprehensive, sir.”

“Josh, we mustn’t let it fool us,” Mannering said. “The other three aren’t likely to be so easy. Are you all right?”

“I am very much enjoying the escapade,” Larraby assured him.

Mannering laughed without much humour, and went out; Larraby would press the electric control button which made the door impregnable. It was now a little after eight-thirty and the first faint shadows of evening were falling over London, creating an early dusk. A few lights showed, cars passed along Old Bond Street, but none turned into Hart Row, and there was no sign of anyone watching.

Mannering got into the car and drove away.

As he turned the corner he was thinking that someone had known the moment that Annabel Kitt had arrived, and had been lying in wait for her. Add this fact to the equally significant one that no one was visible in Hart Row, but that Quinns could not be overlooked from anywhere else, and one thing screamed at him.

The shop and all that went on there was being watched from some building in Hart Row.

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