Chapter Nineteen

At Crummy Day’s

The Baron stepped into the kitchen at the back of the pawnbroker’s shop.

The only sound came from the High Street – faint, echoing noises of traffic, footsteps, and passing cars and buses. An aeroplane, its lights showing, droned overhead when he turned to close the window. The only light came from the stars and from a house, a few doors away; and that made a dim glow.

There was no blind; no curtains.

He moved to the back door, and examined it carefully in the light of his torch. There was a burgler-alarm cable, delicately adjusted, as there had been at the window. He had moved that carefully, nerves on edge, until he had been able to climb in without jolting it. He still listened, trying to make sure that it hadn’t been touched, that no one was lying in wait.

He studied the alarm-cable fastenings carefully, then prised the staples out with a claw tool, laid the cable down gently and doublefolded it alongside the wall. Next he went to the door. The bottom of the door cleared the insulated wire by a fraction of an inch.

He unlocked the door, then drew the bolts.

The pawnbroker obviously relied on his burglar-alarm system, the lock and the bolts were old-fashioned, had probably been there when the premises had been built, eighty-odd years ago.

Mannering closed the door, but could open it at a touch; a means of escape was ready. He didn’t leave the kitchen at first, but waited in a corner, looking intently through the window. No one approached. If anyone had seen him and had waited to lull him into a false sense of security, they would have come by now.

If the police had been watching—

Surely this was the one time when he need not worry about the police.

There was doubt about Fenn; he felt it, Lorna felt it. He wished he hadn’t thought of Lorna then. Lorna came between him as the Baron and as Mannering, made him too human, weakened his resolve. His nerve had been steady until that moment; now it began to quiver.

He moved; and movement helped.

The kitchen led into a passage; on the right was a room with a window overlooking a narrow alley and the yard he’d come through. A storeroom; a junk room, if it came to that. He could smell the fusty junk, could make out the shapes of cardboard cartons, show-cases, pictures. This was part of the stock-in-trade that Crummy Day used to make it look as if he ran just a genuine business.

Next to this was the shop.

The door leading to it from the passage was heavily bolted; Mannering didn’t think that was to stop anyone from getting into the shop, but to prevent them from getting out if they broke into the shop from the street. He went to the front door, at the side of the shop, shone his torch on it, and whistled softly.

The burglar alarm here was cleverly fitted, and the lock was intricate and strong; few men would be able to force it.

The Baron turned to the staircase – and had his first shock.

The staircase had been walled off at landing level, and at the head of the stairs was another door, as strongly protected as the street door. This explained why the back entrance had been easy to force; and told its own story. Crummy Day kept his valuables behind that locked door at the head of the first flight of stairs.

The Baron shone the torch on the lock.

It was the latest Landon; he’d seen several like it, knew that many of them were electrically controlled; this might be electrified. He tested this out by tossing a tiny piece of fuse wire; there was no flash, nothing to suggest that the metal was alive.

Inside the house there was a strange quiet; outside, the traffic noises and people laughing and a drunk breaking the calm by singing raucously.

The Baron bent down and looked at the stairs themselves. They seemed solid, and were covered with linoleum that had been down for ages.

If he went out again and tried to get into the first floor by a window, he would probably run up against strong defences. And he would increase the risk of being seen. He didn’t want to go back. He squatted, studying the stairs, as patient as if he had a day and a night to spare.

He murmured softly, “I think this is it.”

He unwound his tool-kit from his waist, laid it on the floor, put the torch into position so that it gave him some light, and selected a knife. He cut the linoleum off two stair treads, then the upright piece between them. He put these aside carefully, making sure that they didn’t lie so that they could trip him up if he were in a hurry.

He fitted a bit in to a brace, fingers moving quickly and dexterously; just a craftsman who seemed intent on what he was doing. He began to drill. The wood was deal, soft and yielding; and the oiled bit went in almost as smoothly as a knife into cheese; the only sound was the softly whirring drill.

After drilling each hole, the Baron paused.

The drunken singer’s voice was farther away at each pause. Traffic was getting quieter. There were no sounds in the house.

When he had drilled four holes, close together, he put the drill away. He didn’t leave it ready for further use; he might have to up and off in sudden alarm. Long practice and the thorough self-training of bygone years were a great stand-by.

Even listening for sounds came automatically; so long to listen, so long to work. When actually using the tools he could thing over anything that seemed different – any changes in the atmosphere, any hint of sounds.

He screwed a cup-hook into the upright piece between the treads, then fitted a blade into a small saw-handle, and used this instead of the brace and bit. It made little more noise. He didn’t stop so often, but sawed through the supporting piece between the two threads, and the saw bit swiftly into the soft wood.

At last, he was able to move a large piece, pulling it away with the cup-hook.

He laid it aside.

Getting at the treads above and below was easy, then. He had room to squeeze through here, and he looked down into a cupboard built beneath the stairs; at coats and hats, a set of golf-clubs, walking-sticks, all the oddments one might expect to find.

He wasn’t interested in the cupboard.

The joists supporting the weight of the floorboards above the cupboard were thick, but also of deal. It wasn’t so easy to saw through these, he had to keep his hands at a tension; but he got through.

He listened for longer stretches now, for the noise he was making was nearer the living-quarters above the shop, and more likely to be heard. That light had been on in a front room; he wasn’t sure that it was out.

Next came the landing floorboards, and with these he had his first real luck. They had been cut two or three times, for gas pipes; he was able to push two or three up with little trouble. That meant the floor covering was loose. He held his breath as he pushed one or two boards aside.

Dim light came from the landing.

He kept very still.

The light was steady, and he heard no sound. He shifted a board. It scraped a little, and the noise seemed worse to him than it did in the landing. He paused, then moved another.

Soon there was room for him to climb up into the living-quarters.

He hauled himself from the staircase cupboard.

He had his tool-kit round his waist again, everything else in his pockets, he was ready to run; but there was no hint of alarm. The boards creaked, but he didn’t slow down. First his head and shoulders, then his chest, were above the level of the landing floor. He got a leg up and over, a moment later was standing up, breathing softly, heart racing.

The light came from a bulb fitted against the wall just above a door; it was a low-powered, very small bulb. He didn’t doubt that it was a kind of night-light.

High on the wall was a square wooden box, like the kind used for electric fuses. He opened this carefully, standing on a chair. Inside was a powerful burglar-alarm bell. He smiled with satisfaction as he disconnected the hammer, climbed off the chair, and felt much happier.

He put the floorboards back loosely, opened the flat door from the inside, and left it ajar. Now there was no need to fear an alarm; and a way out was ready.

He looked about the landing.

It was spacious, the boards were polished, there were three skin rugs and several old oak pieces of furniture; this was like the entrance to the flat of a wealthy man who had good taste.

A passage led to the right; and three doors led off the landing itself.

The Baron studied the layout, and found another, narrow staircase, at the end of the passage. He went up this, keeping close to the wall by force of habit and so lessening the danger of creaking boards.

The top landing was much smaller, and didn’t seem so well furnished. Here were three doors. One led to a big room, obviously used as a stock-room – and here the Baron’s torch moved slowly round, the beam shining on lovely things, treasures which would not have been out of place at Quinns. There were ordinary run-ofthe-mill antiques, too, it wasn’t exactly a treasure house, but it was more a dealer’s stock-room than the storeroom of a pawnbroker.

In another room there were empty show-cases. He hadn’t found the safe.

He went into the third room on this floor, and as he opened the door, his senses whispered a warning. He stopped instantly. In that moment he was tense but very calm; he could hear anything.

What he did hear was breathing.

His heart began to pound, from the reaction. He heard no other sound at all. When he was steadier, he pushed the door wider open. The window of the room was not curtained, no blind was drawn, and lights from the High Street filled it with a soft glow. He didn’t need to use his torch. He went towards the bed, where a man lay sleeping.

He recognised Bill Brash.