Held At Bay by John Creasey

could not imagine how Leverson had spirited them away. He watched the search, and when the police started on the other room he glanced across at Leverson, his brows drawn anxiously.
    Leverson nodded slightly. Bristow caught their exchange of glances, tightened his lips and said nothing. He left them for a few minutes, but Mannering knew that he was watching through a crack in the door.
    Mannering and Leverson talked of trifles as the search went on. Tring, probably the most accomplished searcher at the Yard, came downstairs to report that there was nothing to show.
    Mannering and Leverson could hear them talking in the next room. The detective named Knoller was just outside, to make sure nothing was passed between the two men, or thrown out of the window.
    Would they find the stones?
    Bristow was saying: “They’re here somewhere, I’ll swear it. Mannering’s just brought them to Leverson. I’ve suspected that’s who fenced for him a long time. What room were they in before they went upstairs?”
    So Tring had seen them leave the back room, Mannering thought. His lips tightened and there was perspiration on his forehead. The helplessness was getting on his nerves, getting him worried.
    â€œThis one,” Tring said stolidly.
    â€œThen we’ll go through it again,” decided Bristow.
    Mannering could hear them pulling out drawers, heard the sound of a carpet being pulled up, the tapping on the boards and walls. Then there came a banging sound, as Bristow said: “Try the coal box, and see if the fireplace has any loose bricks.”
    â€œIt’s so blooming hot,” complained Tring. A pause, and: “Nothing in there, that’s for sure.” His voice trailed off, and Mannering squashed the butt of a cigarette and lit another. Even Leverson seemed to be more on the alert now, as though the fireplace meant something. There was a tapping again, a poker on the bricks. Mannering doubted whether he had ever spent a worse ten minutes.
    At last Bristow’s footsteps sounded outside the door. He entered, red in the face, with Tring redder and sweating. There was a streak of coal dust on the sergeant’s right cheek.
    â€œWe’ll search you,” Bristow said.
    Leverson shrugged his shoulders and stood up. Bristow spent five minutes satisfying himself that the fence was carrying nothing, and then turned to Mannering.
    â€œWell? Is it to be here, or at the station?”
    The little pulse was ticking in Mannering’s forehead, and his eyes were very hard, the mockery gone.
    â€œAt the station if anywhere, Bristow.”
    There was a silence that seemed electric. Bristow’s eyes did not flicker, nor did Mannering’s. The others played no part now, the duel was strictly between Mannering and the policeman.
    Bristow weighed up the position quickly. If he took Mannering to the station and found nothing, Mannering would almost certainly carry out his threat of complaining of wrongful arrest and detention, and Bristow knew how the Press would leap at the chance of a sensation. The truth was, he dared not do it on the flimsy evidence he possessed.
    He spoke very softly.
    â€œAll right, Mannering, but you’ll regret this.”
    â€œNot so much as you will if you keep playing the fool,” said Mannering. “I told you this morning that there are limits to patience.”
    There was unveiled hostility in his eyes as well as in Bristow’s. They had been friends in the past, and Bristow was acutely aware that Mannering had once literally saved his life. But time dimmed the memory of most things, and Bristow was desperately anxious to catch the Baron. His hostility was very clear, and Mannering knew that from that moment the relationship between him and Bristow was on a different footing.
    â€œAll right,” Bristow said. “You are lucky this time, Leverson.”
    Soon all four men were out of the house. Before long the detective at the end of