Salute the Toff (11 page)

 

As the Toff had spoken the smile had disappeared from the Chief Inspector's face, and by the time the Toff had finished McNab was glowering.

“You're talking nonsense.”

“You think so?” said the Toff, and stood up. “Mac, it's a beautiful picture, a lovely story that holds together in parts, and might conceivably please your Assistant Commissioner. But if you act on it, if you get Draycott and Lorne and work on the basis of your theory, you're going to make one of the mistakes of your life.”

“I think that I can be the judge of that,” said McNab coldly.

“You think you can,” agreed the Toff. “The trouble is you can be the judge, and there's no one to stop you working on it your way. But you mustn't do it, Mac.”

“To suit some fool idea that ye've got?” said McNab. “I won't do it. I've the warrant for Draycott's arrest these past three days, and the call for Lorne went out last night. When I've got them both I've got everything.”

“I'll go, Mac. I'll go a long way away, and if it weren't for the fact that you're proposing to try to hang two innocent people I'd go for good. But whatever you do, remember I've warned you. You might give the right men the time they need to get away with their job.”

“I've nothing more to say,” said McNab.

The Toff, who was rarely so out of temper, left the office knowing that he could have smoothed McNab down.

He went at once to the offices of Draycott and Company. Fay was given his name, and she was standing up, eager-faced, when he entered her office.

“Any luck, Rolly?”

“I'm sorry, Fay,” he said. “I have just come from the police, and we are mutually unpopular. They've arrested Phyllis Harvey.”

“My goodness!” said Fay, and sat down abruptly.

As she sat she knocked against the vase of roses on her desk. The water spread over the carpet, and the roses spilled in all directions. The Toff went down on his knees to pick up the flowers, while Fay took a duster from her desk and mopped up the water. It took several minutes, and the Toff regained much of his equanimity. He was smiling when the flowers were back on the desk.

In bending down Fay's hair had become untidy, and as she brushed it back from her forehead, dark waves that were smooth and glossy in a shaft of sunlight coming through the window, the Toff acknowledged that there was a breathless loveliness about Fay which was not beauty, but something even greater.

“You've heard nothing more, I suppose?”

“I was hoping there would be a call or a letter from Jimmy, but there's nothing at all.”

“I see,” said the Toff. “There are things we may be able to do. Can you get me a list of the partners of Murray and Firth, and another of the directors of the Mid-Provincial Building Society?”

“Yes, but it will take some time.”

“This evening will do,” said the Toff. “If you do get word from Draycott, tell him to stay in hiding, but not to return to Allen Cottage.”

Fay nodded.

“One way and the other,” said the Toff, “I almost wish there was no Jimmy.”

Her cheeks lost colour, and he had further evidence of what she felt for Jimmy Draycott. But she cheered up considerably before he left the office, and promised to get the information quickly.

Rollison telephoned the agents in Romsey who had given Jolly the option on Allen Cottage. There was no telephone installed, although the wiring had been done and it would only be a day or two before the instrument could be fitted. The Toff arranged for them to take a message to Jolly, and was at some pains to concoct one that gave nothing away. He was satisfied that Jolly would get the message before the police reached the cottage. That Phyllis Harvey would, under slight pressure, divulge the address which Draycott had given her was as nearly certain as the fact that the sun shone in the heavens.

Next, the Toff made his way to Mile Corner.

He had seen Bat Mendoz, Tibby's brother, outside the office of Draycott and Company, and he felt sure that Fay was being carefully watched. He was thoughtful as he drove through the thick East End traffic towards Aldgate, and then along the Mile End Road. The public house was open, as was the gymnasium at the back. When the Toff went to the latter he saw Bert, in shirt-sleeves and smoking a shining new pipe, leaning on one post of a ring, while two lightweights danced and frolicked about on the canvas. Bert was deep in his self-appointed task.

“Keep that
left
movin', can't yer—don't dance like a chorus gel, Skiff, this ain't a ballroom, it's a boxing-ring. Now hit him —hit him! That's—
Why, Mr. Ar!'

The pounding of feet on the sawdust-covered canvas and the occasional slap of a large glove on a face or a glistening chest punctuated the conversation for the next five minutes. Bert had no positive information about the man named Kless, but was expecting word within the next half-hour. If Mr. Ar would wait, maybe it would arrive. Rollison said that he would.

“That's ri',” said Bert. “No use givin'
you
arf a story, I always think that. No more trouble, I 'ope?”

“Lashings of trouble,” said the Toff.

“Oh, dear,” said Bert surprisingly. “You look a bit orf, if you ask me. Things goin' wrong, are they?” Bert made a clicking noise of sympathy. “They're always doin' that, Mr. Ar. Take these boys o' mine. You get them up to a point where you reckon they'll take anything that comes, an' the first time you put 'em in a prize-ring—bah!” exclaimed Bert. “They loses their nerve, an' they flops.”

“‘Flops' is expressive,” said the Toff.

For once he obtained no pleasure from watching the youngsters in the ring, nor from Bert's colourful conversation. As it happened, there was not long to wait, for there was a sudden flurry at the entrance to the gymnasium, and a short man with powerful shoulders, one and a half cauliflower ears, a broken nose, square lips that had been sadly battered at frequent intervals, and a pair of the merriest blue eyes that ever shone from an Irishman, approached Bert and the Toff. “Back, then, Pat?” said Bert.

“Why, shure Oi'm back,” said Patrick Mullen, one-time lightweight champion of Great Britain, “and it's glad Oi am to see Mr. Ar, as iver was.” He shook hands warmly, and told what he had learned graphically.

What with the police watching 91 Gay Street, Bethnal Green, and an old shrew of a woman he had learned to be Kless's mother, it had not been easy. But that had not deterred Patrick Mullen, who had slipped over the back-garden wall – garden meant a small concrete-covered yard – under the very eyes of the police, and put the fear of death into Old Mother Kless. She had, it seemed, two sons; they kept her in gin and other things, but they had been missing for a day or more. One was Grab, who, the police said, had thrown himself out of a railway train, which she did not believe; and the other was Benny. “Benny!” exclaimed the Toff. Pat Mullen beamed.

“Och, Benny she said, an' she wouldn't lie to me, Mr. Ar, Oi'll assure ye of that. And then there were her lodgers.” The Toff said sharply: “Go on.”

“A big man, fair as a Scotsman,” said Mullen, “and another nasty little wop, the one ye told Tibby to watch for, Oi would not mind swearing if I swore at all, which I niver did an' niver will, the saints forgive me. They've been living there at odd times for a year, Mr. Ar, sometimes only staying for a night or two and sometimes a week, but always paying her. Which they havin't done for a month, she says, and she gets no pleasure from it.”

“Have the police been at her?” asked the Toff. “At her! Oi'll say she's raving good and mighty at thim, but she'll niver say a word,” said Patrick. “She's loyal in her way, and she hates the police, and Oi for one don't blame her. It cost me a pound as ever was and all the oaths I know that I wouldn't let on, Mr. Ar.”

“That's fine.” The Toff repaid the pound but not a penny more, for that would have given offence. “Bert, I want Ma Kless and her house watched closely. Will you make sure of that?”

“Why, sure,” said Bert.

“And I'll try to have a look at her tonight,” went on the Toff. “I want the big blond man or the little wop put away somewhere so that I can talk to them if they show up, but they won't while the police are watching.”

“You only 'ave to say the word, Mr. Ar. The dicks won't know we're watching, neither.”

“Keep at it, Bert,” Rollison said. “You're the best.”

He went off a few minutes afterwards, while Bert arranged for Ma Kless to be kept under close surveillance. Bert, and others like him in the East End, explained the power and the legend which had spread about the Toff, and the reason why he could so often do more than the police. There was little chance of the police getting information, for the ranks of the East End closed against them, and only a copper's nark stood any chance of giving them news; but the life of a nark was no sinecure, and his story was often only half true and usually late.

The Toff could and did get vital information, and frequently acted on it.

Back at Gresham Street he was thinking with satisfaction of the fact that Lorne and the little man he had followed to Fulham were lodgers at the house of Grab and Benny Kless. Grab was the man who had killed himself, and Benny the murderer of Myra Harvey: so much was certain.

And it was likely that they would return once the police lost interest in the house.

For the first time he felt that he was moving in the right direction but it did not cheer him much, for he was still worried by the possibility of the police finding Draycott formulating a charge which might ruin Draycott. He was still thinking that when he entered the flat, to hear the telephone ringing. He picked it up, and he heard Jolly's voice.

“I am glad you have returned, sir,” said Jolly. “I have been trying to get you for some time. Mr. Draycott is here. I thought you would like to know.”

 

 

Even from a master of understatement that made the Toff gulp; but he was not affected for long, and he said sharply: “At the cottage, Jolly?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Is he all right?”

“He is somewhat out of temper but otherwise I do not think that he can complain.”

“All right. I'll come down at once, but you're to leave the cottage immediately. You've had my message?”

“Yes, sir. And I have made arrangements. There is another small place, a bungalow, sir” – Jolly appeared to sniff – “some half a mile from here. It is empty, but I have persuaded Mr. Draycott for the time being that it will be wise to stay there. Is that in order?”

“Give me the address and directions for reaching the bungalow,” said the Toff, “and do nothing that might make either of you conspicuous. I expect McNab down there at any time.”

“I shall have the situation well in hand, sir.”

“Right,” said the Toff, and he rang off.

He did not lose much time in going from the flat and taking the Frazer-Nash from the garage. He watched the road behind him, but did not think he was followed. That did not prevent him from being watchful, but it was not until he was on the other side of Winchester that he had any reward.

A small car pulled out of a side-road and turned after him. The Toff could see the face of the driver in his mirror; and he knew that it was the little man who had led him to Fulham, and afterwards escaped with Lorne and the grey-haired woman. He was cheered by the discovery, and yet puzzled. The man had certainly not followed him from London, but must have been stationed in the by-road after receiving a report that he was on the way.

Suddenly the Toff said aloud: “My only aunt,
am
I sane? They've been watching Jolly. Of course they've been watching Jolly!”

He did not try to shake his man off, but went to Allen Cottage. The place was shut up, and the ‘To Let, Furnished' notice was still fastened to the gate. He looked under a door-mat in the porch, and found the key; Jolly had left it in case he called there.

He went inside, and lost no time going upstairs. From the front bedroom window he saw his follower. The man had drawn his car up a hundred yards along a narrow lane, where the cottage and a bungalow were situated – some half a mile apart. The turning was off the main Romsey-Southampton Road.

The driver walked slowly and silently up the narrow garden path.

The Toff went as silently downstairs with a hand at his pocket, and stepped towards the front door, which he had left ajar. He could hear the rustle of the other's movement, and as he went behind the door it was pushed open an inch; another, then wide enough for the man to step through.

“Come right in,” invited the Toff.

The man whirled about, but the gun in the Toff's hand stopped him from going for his own. Rollison left nothing to chance. He hit his man on the point, finding the nerve-centre that brought unconsciousness in a wink. He stopped him from falling, lowered him to the ground, and then ran through his pockets.

He did not stop to look at what he had found, but lifted the man, who was no more than five-feet-three or four, and light with it, to a small kitchen. Then he opened the back door and carried his burden out.

The cottage was not overlooked, for the bungalow was the nearest building. But not far away were trees, and a field in which cows were grazing. There was a deep ditch alongside the hedge, and the Toff worked fast. With cord he had brought with him he bound the man's ankles and wrists, and with a handkerchief he gagged him. Then he tumbled him into the ditch – which was on the side of the hedge away from the cottage – and pulled a branch of a beech tree that had fallen near by so that it covered his prisoner completely.

Then he moved to the car, a Morris.

He first drove this as far as the bungalow, then returned for the Frazer-Nash, driving that into the garden of the bungalow, out of sight of the road. It would not have to stay there indefinitely, but for the time being was sufficiently under cover.

He had finished when he saw a car draw up outside the cottage. He was behind the hedge of the bungalow garden when it arrived, and he could not be seen. He saw McNab and Sergeant Wilson step out, and he watched them walk towards the front door.

He smiled obscurely as he turned to the bungalow, and was about to tap on the bungalow door when it opened and he saw Jolly. Then he saw Jimmy Draycott for the first time.

 

For the Toff it was a strange moment. His only picture of Draycott had been through Fay, and that had been biased. There was no preconceived notion in the Toff's mind, yet nothing about Draycott really surprised him.

The estate agent looked about thirty. He was as tall as Jolly but three inches shorter than the Toff. His shoulders were square and his grey coat fitted him well, although it was badly creased, as were his trousers; both gave the impression that they had been slept in. No one could have called James Draycott thin, but neither was he fat. A well-built, well-knit man, in good condition and with considerable physical strength; that was the Toff's estimate.

He had a likeable face – the kind of face which could explain Fay falling for him so suddenly and so completely. A homely face, yet in its way good-looking. His forehead was smooth, with the ruffled fair hair sticking up from it. His eyes were a cornflower blue, reminding the Toff of merry-eyed Pat Mullen of Mile Corner. His nose was short, a little blunt at the end, and his lips were full and well-enough shaped, with the upper lip short. His chin was aggressive and with a cleft, and just then covered with fair stubble.

Amongst other things, he needed a haircut

The Toff stepped in, and Jolly closed the door; and then Draycott and the Toff eyed each other, Draycott a little diffidently, and yet frankly enough, and the Toff smiling in a way which inspired trust in most men.

“Hallo, Draycott,” he said. “I'm glad to see you.”

Draycott hesitated as if in half surprise, and then he smiled; the smile was quick and merry, almost boyish, and yet clearly spontaneous; Draycott was that rare type, thought the Toff – a man who had no good idea of his looks or the impression he created.

“Well,” he said, in a voice neither deep nor too high, “I suppose I ought to be glad to see you, too, Mr. Rollison. I've an idea that I am now. Your” – he looked at Jolly – “man has been giving me an outline of the story.”

Jolly coughed.

“Mr. Draycott was a little restive, sir, and I felt it wise to entertain him.”

Draycott chuckled, and took out a packet of cigarettes. The Toff accepted one as Draycott said: “Restive is right! He had to keep me quiet with a gun, and I was wondering what the chances were of throwing him out when he started to pitch his yarn. Sorry to put it like that,” added Draycott apologetically, “but it does rather sound like one, doesn't it? I don't say I disbelieve
all
of it, but—”

“You can take it for gospel,” said the Toff.

While Draycott looked at him sceptically, it seemed to the Toff that this was surely the most remarkable part of an amazing affair. There was Draycott, as cool and calm and casual as if he had not been hiding from the police on a charge of murder. Not far away McNab and Wilson would be making a complete inventory of the cottage; not quite so far away the unknown man was either unconscious or very uncomfortable in a ditch.

And Draycott was throwing doubt on Jolly's story!

“Well,” said Draycott at last, “if it is, I'm sorry I've caused such a lot of trouble.”

“Tell me,” said the Toff gently, “has Jolly told you that the police are anxious to see you in order to prefer a charge of murder against you?”

Draycott stiffened.

“I don't believe that.”

“It's true,” said the Toff. “There was a body at your flat, and it started all the trouble.”

Draycott pushed a hand through his overlong hair, stared, and said in complete bewilderment: “But this is nonsense! Jolly—you did say Jolly?—tells me that Ted Harrison had been with you some of the time. He knows better than that. I mean, I arranged with him to tell the whole story to the police. He told me the police considered I would be doing the best thing by staying under cover. It seemed crazy, but I'm not up in these things, and it's such a big affair that I wasn't altogether surprised. I—what are you looking like that for?”

The Toff was dwelling with bitterness on the duplicity of Ted Harrison: Harrison had known where Draycott was, and officially was liaison officer between Draycott and the police!