Meet The Baron by John Creasey Read Free Book Online

the armed guard was sitting and waiting for the dawn to come. Mannering knew he had only to outwit the man and he was through. Only!
    Very softly, and with a set smile on his lips, he approached the window.
    Misgivings stronger than any that had attacked him before flooded through John Mannering’s mind as he came closer to the window. The odds against him seemed multiplied enormously; the slightest slip now, and he would be in the armed guard’s power; the police would be called; Fauntley would recognise him. He felt hot, and his hands trembled as he touched the window-sill.
    He told himself that he had been too impetuous: he should have taken more than a single afternoon to collect the things he would need for burglary; he wasn’t making capital of his advantages as he should have done; he was acting like a fool, making his first attempt as though he had been schooled in the East End by practised thieves. Before he was qualified to try to raid a place from the outside he would have to learn a lot in the art of safe-breaking, of forcing entries, of covering his tracks.
    On the other hand, once he was in the strong-room he could get at the one safe without any trouble. The combination ran through his mind time and time again, word-perfect. But he should have given up the idea when he had heard of the armed guard.
    The back of his neck and his forehead were sticky. He could see the guard in a far corner, and he wondered whether the man would shoot to kill if he met with an intruder. His courage seemed to ebb away . . .
    Three words that flashed across his mind halted the flight of his nerves, and made his smile more natural. He seemed to see Lorna Fauntley’s eyes, and hear her murmured “Even doing it.”
    He was capable of doing it. Damn it, he couldn’t go so far and then back out. The door of the strong-room was less than twenty feet away from him; he could see the polished brass of the door-knob, and a picture of the glittering cascade of the Gabrienne collection came to his mind. He breathed more steadily, and he dipped his gloved right hand into his pocket.
    He smiled more when he felt cold steel through the thin rubber of his gloves. The Army revolver, a relic of the days of the War - he had been in Flanders for the last year of it - rested there. He had been wise enough to bring it unloaded; to risk carrying loaded weapons would have been insane, for the authorities dealt harshly with armed thieves. Now the precautions he had taken and the preparations he had made seemed more reasonable.
    He left the revolver in his pocket, and took out one of the screwdrivers. Every pocket of his coat contained something that would help him - a file, a torch, the handkerchief marked T.B. He had no real idea of what tools he would want, but the screwdriver would be best for levering up the window.
    He glanced up, seeing that the top frame was open a little. The window was unlatched. Unless the bottom frame squeaked as he pushed it up there was a chance that he would get in without rousing the guard. Fauntley had unwittingly relieved him of several causes for anxiety. He knew that he could open the window without starting an alarm bell, for the only alarm was controlled by the strong-room door.
    He exerted a little pressure after wedging the chisel end of the screwdriver beneath the window, and felt it move a fraction of an inch. There was no sound at all. Very gently, and with his breath coming faster every second, he levered it up. There was an inch to spare now - ample room for his fingers.
    He replaced the screwdriver, and took the revolver from his pocket, resting it on the sill. All the time the noise of late traffic passing the Terrace came to his ears, while occasionally he heard the hurrying footsteps of a man or a woman, and he found it hard not to let these sounds distract him. But as he put his fingers beneath the window he forgot everything except the man sitting in the far corner, whose heavy features were thrown