Meet The Baron by John Creasey

he signed?” asked the Inspector.
    “Vy, yeth, I forgot, vould you pelieve it? Vun moment, Misther Inthpector, vun - ”
    The old Jew’s voice quavered away as he waddled out of the parlour towards the shop. Bristow could hear him pulling out a drawer beneath the counter, and heard him muttering to himself. Bristow scowled, trying to sort the thing out in his mind. Levy should have held the man somehow, he told himself
    “Here ve are, here ve are,” said Levy, limping down the stairs into the parlour. “Vunny kind of name, Misther Inthpector.”
    Bristow took it, and looked casually at the signature, little dreaming how often he was to look on the name and curse it. His attention tightened, however, when he saw that the signature was little more than a series of block letters joined together; it suggested illiteracy or cunning - or both.
    “Hm,” he muttered, “T. Baron. What strikes you as funny about that, you old gas-bag?”
    “Vell,” muttered Levy, “vell - high and mighty, vot? Hey! Just a minute, misther, the thop - ”
    Bristow nodded as he heard footsteps in the shop beyond. He waited for two or three minutes, with growing impatience. Levy was muttering, and the other voice, low-pitched and harsh, was travelling into the parlour, the tone, not the words, being distinguishable. Levy was haggling, and the other was losing his temper. Bristow started to frown. His frown deepened as he heard a shuffle of footsteps and a rapped: “No, you don’t. Stay there!”
    Bristow stopped scowling. He stood up slowly and fingered the steel of the handcuffs in his pocket. It was absurd, of course, but the probability remained that the would-have-been pawner of the Kenton brooch had returned. Bristow knew that the gods were generous at times, and a fool was born every minute.
    Keeping close to the row of clothes in the passage, and out of sight of the men in the shop, he went up the stairs.
    He saw the man suddenly, and grinned. Levy’s description had been brief but good. Tall, dark-skinned, with a tweed cap pulled low over his eyes, reaching almost to the bridge of his nose, and the collar of a dilapidated rainproof coat turned up above his chin, the thief of the Kenton brooch - providing the case was as plain as it appeared to be - was staring at Levy, who was crouching back against the wall behind the desk. Bristow could just see the tip of Levy’s nose and forelock of white, greasy hair.
    I tell you, Levy was muttering, “that vot I thay ith . . .”
    “Can that!” snapped the man in the tweed cap. And then, without the slightest change of expression in his voice, he said, “Bristow, come out of there!”
    The silence in the pawnshop could be felt. Bristow himself felt as if he had been punched in the stomach; his wits were wool-gathering, his legs and arms felt weak. He could just hear the soft breathing of the Jew and the ticking of half a dozen clocks.
    “Levy,” said the man in the tweed cap, breaking the silence harshly, “you’ve split to the narks enough, I reckon. Are you religious?”
    Levy muttered something deep in his throat. The detective felt a peculiar tightening of the muscles at the pit of his stomach, and a coldness seemed to have spread through the shop, despite the heat of the day. He shivered.
    “Because,” went on the man in the tweed cap, “unless Bristow decides to come into sight you’re going on a long, long journey. So - ”
    Bristow swallowed a lump in his throat and moved forward. Levy was shivering against the wall, and the man in the tweed cap was holding something in his right hand, holding it loosely and pointing it towards the policeman; he seemed to ignore Levy.
    “You’ll get a heavier sentence for this,” said Bristow, keeping his voice steady. “Put that gun away and - ”
    The man lifted the gun. For a moment Bristow’s eyes narrowed, but his coldness increased. It all happened in a fraction of a second. Bristow had just time to think in a queer, hazy way of