Meet The Baron by John Creasey Page A

death . . .
    Then something sweet and sickly came through the shop, something that made Bristow gasp and choke and stagger back. He recognised the fumes of ether gas as he heard the thief laugh, a harsh, unpleasant sound that grated, and saw old Levy drop to the floor, falling as though in slow motion on the screen. The Jew’s hand clawed the air, his mouth was twisted open. A vague shape loomed in front of Bristow’s eyes, and he struggled for a moment in an effort to regain his feet. Then the darkness swallowed him.
    The man in the tweed cap ran through the unconscious detective’s pockets quickly, found the Kenton brooch and stuffed it into his own pocket, and then hurried out of the shop, his shoulders hunched and his head buried in the collar of a frayed mackintosh.
    And a little later John Mannering chuckled to himself.
    As Bristow’s sergeant told him some time later, the detective and the pawnbroker might have been on the floor of the shop for hours but for the arrival of a woman who wanted to pledge a pair of boots. She saw the two bodies, and, not being used to such evidence of violence, even in the East End, screamed and rushed into the street, where she was caught and interrogated by a placid policeman a few minutes later.
    The policeman investigated, and then started to get things moving; he recognised the Inspector, and knew the slightest error would earn him a sharp rap over the knuckles. Consequently Bristow was revived without loss of time, and the policeman was relieved to find his superior was not seriously gassed.
    “Baron!” muttered a sick and furious Detective Inspector Bristow some two hours later. “Baron! It’ll be a long time before I forget that name, blast him. Did you find anything, Tanker?”
    Sergeant Jacob Tring of the plain-clothes force, known as Tanker because of his slow, ponderous, yet remarkably successful progress in his work, shook his head and regarded the pale face of his chief stolidly.
    “Not a thing. Levy was out as much as you’ and if it hadn’t been for that old woman who went in to pop a pair of boots you might have been there for hours. I shouldn’t smoke just yet, chief,” Tanker went on. “The innards are made for some things and not for others.”
    “You go to hell!” said Bristow snappily. “Well, we know something now. Send a call through for the Baron - T. Baron - to every station; get that pawn ticket run over for fingerprints - ”
    “There ain’t no pawn-ticket,” said Tanker. He brightened perceptibly as he made the statement, for he was a man cheered by bad news and depressed by good tidings. “He took it.”
    Bristow stared and then swallowed hard. His brow was black, and he started to speak in a way that Tanker had rarely heard before.
    “One day I’ll - ” he growled; and then suddenly and absurdly he laughed.
    It was a remarkable thing to do, but Tanker had known his superior for a long time, and was prepared for anything. The sergeant shrugged his shoulders and looked out of the window of Bristow’s small office at the Yard. A tall, lanky, doleful-looking man was the sergeant, dressed in shiny blue serge, patched but well-polished boots, and, even in the office, a bowler hat two sizes too large for him. Tanker’s hat was an institution at the Yard. Bristow was still laughing, and his assistant decided that there was such a thing as too much of a joke. He grunted.
    “Levy said you’d got the brooch in your pocket, chief, so we had a look. Nowt, of course. We tested’ everything in the pockets for prints, but there was none of them there, either.”
    “Next time you want to look in my pockets,” said Bristow, checking his laughter, “wait until I’m awake. Has her ladyship been through this morning yet?” “Twice”, ‘said Tanker.
    The smile left Bristow’s face, and he frowned. The cool effrontery of the trick had appealed, suddenly and unfailingly, to his sense of humour, but the task of making a report to the effect that