Introducing The Toff (21 page)

‘You’re clever, Rollison, or you think you are. You’ve made many mistakes—’

‘Whoever didn’t failed to make anything,’ paraphrased the Toff gently. ‘Don’t get fond of my mistakes, Achmed; I often make them on purpose. Well, what’s your next move? Or are you going to try and keep it secret?’

There was silence again: he wondered why Dragoli had telephoned, and hoped that he had not talked enough to prevent the man from delivering his message. The silence seemed to drag, and the Toff fidgeted on the table where he was sitting.

‘My next move.’ The words came very suddenly. ‘It has been made, Rollison.’

‘Surely not!’ scoffed the Toff.

‘It has. I have managed to secure a captive who will be of considerable interest to you.’

The Toff’s heart seemed to turn over. His eyes were very narrow, and again he had an image of Anne Farraway in his mind’s eye. But he kept his voice steady, and tinged with mockery.

‘Name, please, or don’t you want to give it?’

‘I telephoned you with that specific purpose,’ said Dragoli. ‘This morning I arranged for the disappearance of that young fool Frensham. He is meddling far too much – like you. Frensham is alive, so far. His girl – I think that is your term – knows it, and thinks she knows where he is. At the moment she is hurrying to him, having been warned of the foolishness of getting in touch with you. You are beginning to understand, perhaps?’

‘Perhaps,’ retorted the Toff, and he had to make a big effort to keep his voice steady. ‘You’ve made another of those admirable mistakes, my friend, but perhaps you meant it too. I was prepared to hand you to the police as a witness, but if by chance you’ve managed to hurt the girl again, I’ll deal with you myself. I’m something,’ added the Toff gently, ‘of a sadist when I’m roused, especially with Eastern squirts. The word was taken from Daisy Lee, but that won’t interest you. Listen, Dragoli—’

But Dragoli was talking again, as though he was anxious to finish what he was saying in a hurry.

‘Rollison, if you move against me again, I’ll murder them both. Understand? Both! Stay in your flat for the next day, and then arrange to go abroad. Otherwise—’

‘Dragoli,’ said the Toff very gently, ‘you almost convince me, against my will. Almost. Good-bye.’

He rang down, and for a moment he was staring at the wall, his face gaunt, and the expression in his eyes bleak. And then he moved across the room quickly. He pressed the bell for Jolly, and stepped back to the telephone. As he was dialling TOL he spoke to Jolly, who had opened the door promptly.

‘Get the Yard on the other phone, Jolly, and ask them to have a search made for Frensham – you know his full name. Also for Miss Farraway. And hurry!’

Jolly stared; and then the expression in the Toff’s eyes made him move. Meanwhile the toll operator was asking the Toff for a number; he called Tennant’s house.

There was a continual burr-burr, but no response.

He fidgeted, cursing, but still no reply came. Twice the girl changed the line, twice she came back with the same answer: ‘I’m sorry. There is no reply.’

The Toff hung up.

Jolly appeared in the threshold again, his face unusually animated.

‘I – I hope no harm has befallen Miss Farraway, sir.’

‘Do you?’ asked the Toff, and his voice was like a whip. ‘Do you? So do I. Listen, Jolly. Stay by the telephone, and if you get word from Mr. Tennant, phone me at the Yard right away. And ask him to call the Yard. Understand?’

‘Yes, sir. I will see to it, sir.’

The Toff’s bleak expression changed suddenly, and his smile flashed.

‘Good man. Dragoli is on the run, or he wouldn’t have tried this; but I ask you a question, Jolly. Who knew where Miss Farraway was?’

‘Well, sir – several people. But she
could
have been followed after she called here, sir.’

‘I had a good man on her heels all the time, and he reported nothing,’ said the Toff. ‘No, my son, whoever let Dragoli on to this also told him that I was still Rollison, and Browning was a myth. Good-bye.’

He hurried out of the flat, and although he kept hurrying, he was careful to see that none of the curtains on the opposite side of the road moved. None did. As far as he was able to see, no one was following him, and he reached the Yard in ten minutes after ignoring most of the rules of the road and earning a hundred curses.

Warrender was out: McNab looked up with alarm when his door burst open and the Toff dropped in.

‘Rolleeson—’

‘Mac, we’re narrowing it down. Dragoli knew where Miss Farraway was. That means the leakage was either from the Yard or from Frensham. None of the other suspects knew where she was staying. Get me?

‘But – but you’ve just asked me to keep a look-out for Frensham,’ protested McNab.

‘I did – and a good one, for the love of Mike. Frensham might be for or against us – I’ll explain the reasoning some other time – and I want him badly. Very badly. Meanwhile, where’s Sergeant Owen?’

‘Off – off duty,’ said McNab. ‘Rolleeson, ye’ll not be trying to say—’

‘Has Colliss been to the Yard lately?’

‘Aweel – yes. He was in consultation with Sir Ian only yesterday, Rollison. But he—’

‘Oh, he’s reliable! So is Owen, and so should Frensham be, perhaps. Did Colliss know where Miss Farraway was staying?’

‘He – he micht ha’ done,’ admitted McNab.

‘Then he micht ha’ told, my Scotsman. Ask him to come up to London pronto, will you?’

‘But—’

‘Oh, a fig on you and your buts!’ roared the Toff, and McNab had never seen the man nearer to anger. ‘Get him up, man, I want to talk to him. And if there’s a suggestion from any of the others, let me know about it. I—’

The telephone rang, and then McNab looked up after a moment.

‘For you,’ he said, and as the Toff grabbed the telephone McNab dabbed his forehead. The sight of energy like the Toff’s made him sweat.

The Toff was listening to the deep voice of Bob Tennant; a worried voice loo.

‘Jolly’s just been through,’ said Tennant. ‘Never mind about you’re being dead – I can’t find Anne.’

The Toff said things that he should not have done, and: ‘What happened?’

‘Pat and I went for a stroll. Anne was doing some mending, and said she wouldn’t worry to come. We were out for only twenty minutes, and when we got back there was no sign of her, and she’d taken a hat and coat. I called the exchange, and they told me she had had two telephone calls.’

The Toff hesitated, and again the bleakness was in his eyes.

‘I get you, Bob. Well, it can’t be helped—’

‘But damn it!’ exclaimed Tennant. ‘I—’

‘Just stand by, and if you happen to see her again, don’t let her out of your sight,’ said the Toff.

He replaced the receiver, and stared down on McNab without smiling. The inspector looked worried, and the Toff suddenly laughed, but there was no humour in the sound.

‘I’ll be seeing you,’ he said.

It was half an hour later when he reached the ‘River Tavern’. The pub was closed, but Rene opened the side door, smiling widely when she saw who the visitor was; her smile disappeared when she saw the expression on his face.

‘Gracious, Mr. Rollison—’

‘Not now,’ said the Toff. ‘Is the little boy-friend still upstairs?’

‘Yes – yes sir.’ Rene hesitated, and then as the Toff started for the stairs she exclaimed: ‘But I must tell you, sir! There’s a tar – girl here, asking for you. Name o’ Lee. She says she’s got an urgent message, and she’s waitin’.’

Daisy Lee seemed a little defiant, a great deal scared, and considerably more anxious for haste. She looked as though she had dressed in a greater hurry than usual, and she spoke quickly, stumbling now and again over her words.

The Toff heard her out.

How she had been to Blind Sletter’s place, how, at the ‘Steam Packet’, she had seen two more of Garrotty’s gangsters, and several other men, including a Turk. ‘’E wus a Turk,’ Daisy reiterated several times, as though she expected the Toff to disbelieve her. And there was also a prisoner, a tall fair-haired cove, whose face had been bleeding something awful.

‘How did you know they were prisoners?’ demanded the Toff.

The girl’s eyes did not drop as he stared into them.

‘I know my way about the “Packet”, see? And the boys are liable to fergit me. I see them, the fella and the girl, in one o’ the bedrooms – cross my throat!’

‘I believe you,’ said the Toff. ‘Did you speak to them?’

Daisy shook her head, her lips twisting.

‘What am I – askin’ for it? Mister, I’ve took a chance, comin’ t’see you. I—’

‘You took a hell of a chance,’ admitted the Toff, and his mind was working like lightning, probing into the improbabilities and the possibilities of the situation. ‘I’ll pay you well for it, don’t worry.’

Daisy looked satisfied, and for the first time she smiled. The Toff did not pause to wonder at the cupidity of the lady, but went on: ‘You’d better stay here until it’s over.’

‘What’s over?’

The police raid on the “Steam Packet”, with me present,’ snapped the Toff, and as he spoke something seemed to crack inside him. Even Winkle was astonished at the man’s inward fury – a fury that he did not voice but which seemed to emanate from him.

‘Blimey!’ Daisy gasped, stopped, and then rushed on: ‘Mister, I reckin I c’n look arter meself, an’ I’ve got a date with my boy-friend. We’re going out inter the country; you don’t have to worry about me.’

‘That’s a relief,’ said the Toff, without smiling. ‘All right, scram.’

Daisy hesitated.

‘Got a bit on account, mister?’

The Toff eyed her uncertainly; Winkle rubbed his fat cheek as though he was prepared for the Toff to do violence. And then the Toff smiled with one side of his mouth.

‘I get you. In case I don’t get out, is that it?’

‘A girl’s gotta take care of herself,’ said Daisy sullenly, but her eyes gleamed when the Toff took out his wallet. He selected four five-pound notes, rustled them between his fingers and then pushed them towards her. She took them eagerly, grunted ‘ta’, and turned from the back parlour. Her high-heeled shoes rapped on the linoleum as she walked along the passage. The side door of the ‘River Tavern’ opened and slammed to.

The Toff moved as the echoes quivered.

‘I’ll be seeing you, Winkle, and look after Ali upstairs, he’s going to be wanted soon. So long.’

‘’Ere!’ started Winkle, but before he could move his ponderous body the Toff had gone in the wake of Daisy Lee.

A big man, with his mouth and chin muffled up, and a bowler hat on his head despite the fact that he was indoors, looked into Achmed Dragoli’s amber eyes and shrugged his shoulders impatiently.

‘I tell you we’ve got to get Rollison! The man’s more dangerous than the rest put together –’

‘I could have advised you of that, my dear sir.’ Dragoli, still clean-shaven, did not move his eyes. ‘We shall get Rollison and we shall do it quickly. In fact, even now –’

He stepped to the window of the house in Camberley, and looked out. He had the patience of the devil, and the man behind him stirred. Dragoli lifted his hand.

‘They’re coming,’ he said.

In less than three minutes a woman and a man had descended from the car he had seen, and a servant opened the doors. Dragoli and the man in the bowler hat waited. The woman who came in was Daisy Lee, and she flung her hat on a chair as she half-shouted: ‘He bit – he’s raidin’ the “Steam Packet”! With the cops! ‘

‘So,’ said Dragoli. ‘He told you the police would raid the “Steam Packet”, did he?’

The girl laughed; her voice high-pitched. She looked uglier even than when she had stood in front of the Toff, waiting for her money, wondering whether she had succeeded in convincing him or not.

‘That’s it, I’ve fixed him.’

‘If he works true to his past efforts,’ murmured Dragoli, ‘he will go alone. He will be afraid that we shall get warning of the police, and he will try to rescue the girl and Frensham – alone. He is very brave, is Rollison.’

There was a sneer in the Egyptian’s voice, but the man in the bowler hat looked dissatisfied. He pushed his hat back, revealing his very wide grey eyes.

‘Look here, Dragoli, he might have meant it, and if the police go to the “Steam Packet” –’

‘They will find Blind Sletter and perhaps some others, but no one who can give them any useful information.

But I think you are wrong in expecting Rollison to send the police there. Despite his manner on the telephone to me, I feel that he was disturbed. The thought of that poor young girl –’

‘Not so much of the gab!’ snapped Daisy Lee. ‘What’s the layout, Dragoli, if we get the Toff? He’s smart.’

‘And yet,’ murmured Dragoli, ‘you were able to deceive him so easily on two occasions.’

The girl laughed mockingly.

‘I know his sort, that’s why. But if he gets away –’

‘It’s not likely,’ said Dragoli, ‘that he will get away. But if he does, we will find another means of ending his career. Don’t worry about Rollison. Of far more concern are our own plans.’ He looked at the man with the bowler hat, his eyes expressionless. ‘You have made arrangements to replace the warehouse at Blackfriars?’

‘That’s all right,’ said Bowler Hat ‘I’ll find a place.’

‘But have you?’

‘Not yet! Kellson’s disappearance has made it awkward, Dragoli, but we’ll find him. What are
you
laughing at, my sweet?’ He drawled the words sarcastically as he looked at a giggling Daisy, and the girl stopped laughing.

‘Don’t mind me, brother. I was laughing when Rollison showed me that photo and I said you were Kellson.’

The man’s lips curved a little in a reluctant smile.

‘I see. I won’t be annoyed with you, Daisy, because you really have managed very well. To tell Rollison that Frensham was with the girl was a clever touch, I’ll admit it.’

‘And yet,’ said Dragoli slowly, ‘we have not yet faced facts, despite these clever touches. Whether we get Rollison tonight or not, we have to admit that he has robbed us of several members. They must be replaced. And the warehouse is no longer usable. That must be replaced. And with Kellson gone, we have to find a new method of distributing some of our stuff. On all those points we could do well with more clever touches, my friends.’