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is one man, only one, and we are three,” said Granette.
    â€œYou seemed scared enough of him,” said Olling, his red face shiny.
    â€œYou confuse being scared and being careful,” retorted Jules Granette. “We have to be up so early to catch the Baron, but that is no reason why it should not be done. For the moment – the other four Jewels of Castilla. The Baron will go after them quickly, hein ?”
    Kelworthy’s eyes flickered. He was quiet and cool again now that his first anger had simmered down. Granette knew that in this mood Kelworthy was always at his best.
    â€œThat is right,” Kelworthy said. “And we know that the second stone is at Archibald Price’s house, in Chelsea. Can you get there tonight, Granette?”
    â€œI can try.” Granette spread his hands out, palms downwards. “It is ten o’clock. I will be there at midnight, and by two o’clock I shall telephone you, of success or not. Olling had perhaps best go home, he is in need of rest.”
    Olling was in a ferment of anxiety as he drove to his house at St. Albans, while Jules Granette was as confident as always as he made his way towards the Chenny Street house of a Mr. Archibald Price, in Chelsea. But the stealing of the Sea of Fire, the emerald among the five wanted jewels, took a secondary place in his thoughts. He was far more anxious to get at the Baron, and to make sure he died.

Chapter Three
    The Five Jewels Of Castilla
    The Baron had the Isabella Diamond, one of the famous five Jewels of Castilla, in his pocket, the Delawney sapphires and three hundred pounds taken from Kelworthy’s safe. As he turned the car towards the West End he felt on top of the world.
    There was every reason for the Kelworthy syndicate to be scared of him, for in two years he had rocketed to the heights of notoriety. The police of most counties in England were guessing, working and cursing, and his fame had spread overseas. When he was discussed without heat by Chief Inspector William Bristow, of Scotland Yard, and Superintendent Lynch, the Baron was admittedly the most efficient and elusive jewel thief in modern history.
    Superintendent Lynch would point out half-jocularly that the Baron’s success was not all luck by any means, and Bristow – who handled all the Baron cases in the Metropolitan area – was prepared to admit that. The Baron was skilled and daring. Bristow had forced him into many tight corners but never known him lose his nerve.
    Bristow and Lynch could have confirmed Granette’s belief that the Baron was one Mr. John Mannering.
    Several hundreds of people would have scoffed at the suggestion or been aghast had they been offered proof, for John Mannering was something more than a figure in London society; he was the reigning lion. He had a reputation for immense wealth, a circle of aristocratic friends that could not be surpassed, and was a man-about-town in the old Edwardian style. It was known that he gambled heavily and was abnormally successful, that he collected precious stones, that no social function was complete without him, and that no man in the past five years had turned so many hearts and heads. Yet people who met him for the first time were surprised by his naturalness, disarmed by his easy smile and courtesy, and amused by his lively wit.
    In another sphere the Baron’s reputation was as enviable, but there seemed nothing in common between the thief and the man-about-town, no reason why John Mannering should be the Baron.
    Few knew that two years before he had been down to his last few hundred pounds, that in the bitterness that had followed a love affair, something had seemed to eat into his mind until he had found relief in cracksmanship. The zest for excitement, the tension of pitting his wits against the police and the people, the need for walking on a tightrope all the time, had saved him from disaster. Mannering was still the Baron, but the bitterness