The Toff and the Stolen Tresses (15 page)

 

Behind Rollison, crowding the street and the porch, were the youths on whom Wallis depended. In front was Wallis himself, so huge and powerful, and with his eyes glittering – not only furious, but puzzled; like a bewildered bull. His wife was puzzled, too, and neither liked nor understood what was happening. Into the doorway of the front room came Ada Jepson looking tiny and quite adorable, her eyes bright as if touched by a kind of fear.

Then Donny appeared.

And all of these people stared at Rollison.

‘So they let you come away, did they,' said Rollison, as if that was the last thing he had expected. There was an edge to his voice: it would be easy for them to believe that he was acutely disappointed. ‘I thought you were certain—'

The puzzled look and the fury died from Wallis's eyes, and he grinned with a kind of savage triumph.

‘So you thought they'd remand me for eight days and you could go on playing your little game,' he said in a rough voice. The words carried to the gang outside, and won a ragged cheer. ‘It isn't the first time you've got things wrong with me, Mr. Bloody Toff, but it'll be the last.'

Rollison glanced quickly over his shoulder, as if he was suddenly scared. He dodged into the front room, as if to get away from the door – and bumped against the switch controlling the recorder.

Wallis grabbed his shoulder, and drew him back into the hall.

The youths hooted with laughter.

‘Don't you try any rough stuff,' Rollison said, and no one could doubt the note of fear in his voice. ‘The police know I'm here.'

‘Hear that, boys?' Wallis roared, and his voice reverberated through the narrow hall. ‘The police know he's here. Tell that to your wives and children, the so-called So-and-so Hero Toff is so scared he wants police protection! The police pulled him out of trouble last night, too. How about that for a caveman hero?'

The youths roared.

‘I'll tell you what I'll do,' Wallis bellowed. ‘I'll send him out for you to look after, be careful with him, he might get hurt.' There was a lilt of savage gloating in his voice. ‘Go on, Rollison, go and explain your mistake to my pals outside. See what happens to you.' He dropped his voice, and the savage note rasped. ‘They'll tear you to bits, that's what they're there for.'

Ada exclaimed: ‘Rolly, be careful!'

‘Being careful won't help him,' Wallis sneered, and added: ‘Anyone round the back?'

‘A dozen of us!' came a roar.

‘These boys are well-trained,' Wallis said gloating. ‘They know all the tricks, which is more than you do, Rollison.' He put his arm round his wife's shoulders, and squeezed, while she looked at Rollison as if she couldn't quite believe that everything was as it seemed. ‘He thought I was tucked away for eight days and was going to try to work on you. What were you hoping to do, you pretty hero? Hoping to make Stella and
Miss
Jepson and
Mr.
Sampson break down and tell you all about it? That the idea? Well, it didn't work, did it? And now the world knows that you were so scared of me that you tried to get me put inside while you got to work on my wife. You know what I'm going to do?' His voice was a rasping sound in Rollison's ear again. ‘I'm going to say I came back and found you trying to fool around with my wife, and my friends got so mad they tore you to bits. Now get out.'

His wife said: ‘Tiny, do you think—'

‘I think we've finished this smooth Mayfair type for good and all,' rasped Wallis, ‘and I shan't go into mourning.'

Rollison was backing away a little, as if still scared. Twice he darted swift glances over his shoulder, and twice the sea of faces seemed to split in two, and derisive laughter erupted.

‘Donny,' Rollison muttered, ‘you heard what he said. It's incitement to murder.'

‘Our Donny won't lift a finger to help you even if he could, and he won't say a word afterwards,' Wallis sneered, ‘And Little Ada won't, either.'

Rollison almost gasped: ‘They've got to! They're witnesses, you wouldn't dare—'

‘
They
won't dare,' Wallis said, and laughed triumphantly. ‘I've got them just where I want them. Haven't I, Ada?' He put out a hand and caught Ada's chin between his thumb and forefinger, and thrust her back, so that her little heart-shaped face was imprisoned. ‘You'll keep your pretty little trap shut because of what I can do to poor Reggie, won't you? Like to know where her kid brother is, Rollison?' He lowered his voice so that it could not carry outside; but the tape recorder was only a few feet away from him, and the door of the room was wide open. ‘Little Reggie didn't think he was getting enough from the Jepson business, so do you know what he started to do? He started to supply goods to one or two selected wholesalers who paid
him
in cash. No bills or invoices, and his signature was good enough on the orders. That's what little Reggie did. But he forgot to stop little Jimmy Jones from poking around, and Jones found out about Bishopps. Know what
I
did! I had Jones beaten up and his home smashed up, with plenty more to come if he ever talked. And then I fixed sweet Ada.'

Ada said tensely: ‘Rolly, I simply had to do what he told me. He's hidden Reggie somewhere, I don't know where. He's got a lien on Reggie's holdings in the business. He owns nearly all the small wholesale firms we deal with, and—'

‘That's enough!' Wallis rasped. ‘Get going, Rollison. See what it's like when you start running this gauntlet.'

Three of the youths were in the doorway, and each wore a knuckle duster. One held a length of rope, with a noose tied, and soon he would throw and drop that noose over Rollison's shoulders.

‘Want them to come and get you?' Wallis rasped. ‘Why don't you take what's coming to you like a man?'

Rollison gulped. ‘Donny,' he said, and swallowed his words and then started again. ‘Donny, how did he get you?'

‘He got a hold on one of my sons,' Donny answered quietly. ‘The boy began by buying a lot of goods cheaply, including hair, but didn't tell me about it. Then we discovered that the hair had been cut off the girls' heads and stolen, but it was too late to go to the police. My boy was too deeply involved—he could never have proved he didn't know he was buying stolen goods. Wallis had blackmailed another of my sons into buying stolen goods for the shops, too. Whenever I or my family tried to fight back, we were threatened with violence or betrayal to the police. There was undoubtedly a strong case against us, Mr. Rollison. I was literally helpless. I hoped that if I said nothing to the police, Wallis would stop persecuting me, but—it became worse. He knew about my property. He began to blackmail me into selling some of it to him at low prices. He had me and my family absolutely in the thrall of terror, Mr. Rollison. And when you came to see me, he had Leah and Lila, my unmarried daughters, shorn of their hair, and threatened their lives if I told you the truth.'

‘I see,' said Rollison very softly. ‘It was Wallis himself who attacked that barber who wouldn't sell out, was it?'

‘I knew nothing of it until afterwards, Mr. Rollison. If you loved your children as I do, then—'

‘That's the boy, that's the doting parent,' Wallis sneered. ‘Any sacrifice for his kids. Know your trouble, Donny? You had too many kids, some of them had to be bad for you and good for me. Okay, Rollison, now you know it all. You can take your secret to the grave!'

He laughed on a deep, roaring note.

‘Now get going like I tell you!'

Rollison said in a different voice, and in a different manner, almost marvelling.

‘So that's it, is it? Well, well. The power behind Tiny Wallis is Tiny Wallis. You thought all this up for yourself. Very smart indeed, Tiny. I congratulate you. No one would believe that the man behind a plot like this would do his own strong-arm work. Brilliant. And nearly good enough, Tiny, but not quite.'

Wallis called roughly: ‘Take him, boys!' and pushed Rollison towards the trio in the front doorway. The rope curled through the air and fell over Rollison's shoulders. Wallis held him tightly so that it worked its way down his arms and pinioned them to his sides. The crowd was whooping in delight as the trio in the doorway pulled at the rope and dragged Rollison towards them.

Rollison said: ‘They might even hang you, Wallis. You'll be back in dock tomorrow, and you'll never get away.'

‘Shut your big mouth!'

‘Tiny,' his wife said in a scared voice, ‘supposing he means it?'

‘He'd like to,' Wallis said. ‘
Take him away!
'

The three youths tugged …

As they did so, car horns sounded not far off, and from the corner of the street there came the cry: ‘
The cops!
'
There was a moment of stillness; then car engines sounded, as if the drivers were in a hurry, and the crowd began to melt away.

But behind Rollison there was Micky Clay; so he had been released, too.

In front of him was Wallis.

And he himself was pinioned and helpless.

Clay spoke for the first time: ‘We can do him, Tiny. We don't need the others.'

‘Keep your hands off him,' Wallis snapped hurriedly. ‘It was okay if the boys did it, they couldn't blame me for that, but we can't fix him here. Keep your hands off!' Clay looked like a disappointed cretin. ‘Rollison,' Wallis went on, ‘don't get ideas. You've worked with the police for once, but they won't be able to protect you all the time, and Donny won't talk and nor will Ada. Not now or any time. Because they know I've got everything laid on, if they pull me down, they pull all the rest down. And everything I've done is legal, see. Donny's made over half his property to me, Reggie Jepson will make over his shares in Jepsons or I'll show the world he's a bigger crook than I am. His sister wouldn't like that—would you, Ada? I'm going to be one of the Big City Boys. Don't try to get in my way any more.'

The police were at the door. Two cars were outside. The youths had gone, and the neighbours who watched from the other side of the street kept close to their windows and doors. The Divisional man, Harrison, was at the head of the police.

Wallis said: ‘What do you want? If you've got a warrant to search the house, okay. If you haven't, get out.'

He waited and when Harrison looked at Rollison, went on roughly: ‘That aristocratic playboy can't help you. Get out.'

Rollison said: ‘I won't be a moment, Harrison.' He worked the rope off his arms and pushed past Ada and Donny into the front room. He stretched up for the tape recorder, took it down, closed it, and handed it to Harrison. ‘You've got everything, everything there you can possibly need. If you want a temporary charge to hold him on, I charge him with being in possession of property knowing it to have been stolen.'

‘It's a crazy lie!' Wallis roared. ‘I never keep any hot stuff here.'

‘And you'll find it hidden behind the books in the front room,' Rollison said coldly.

For a moment, no one spoke.

Then Wallis raised his fists and leapt at Rollison, leaving his scared wife. But Harrison and two other policemen closed with him, and bore him down.

 

Ada was crying.

Donny's eyes were moist.

Rollison said to them: ‘Whatever Reggie's done, whatever your sons have done, we can prove that it was under threat of force. You needn't worry any more. And Wallis can't do another thing. He can't touch your family, Donny. He can't touch Jones or anyone who might help you, Ada. He'll be inside for at least ten years, and possibly twice as long.

‘Get that into your heads. He's finished once and for all.'

‘Oh, yes, Wallis is finished,' Grice said, some two hours later. He was in his office at the Yard, and Rollison was sitting back in an easy chair, on the other side of the desk. ‘We didn't know exactly what he was doing, but knew it was big, and we knew that funny things were happening at both Jepsons and Donny's. We thought that one or the other was employing Wallis, and when Donny virtually admitted it by refusing to deny it—'

Rollison interrupted mildly: ‘Nice example of psychological terrorism. It used to apply to some of the bad boys, but I'd almost forgotten the phrase. Find a weakness, work on it, and remember that the strongest human emotion is fear for the safety of loved ones. Simple human philosophy, even if you do say it's corny.'

‘The affair seems to have started about a year ago, when Reggie Jepson needed some money,' Grice said, ‘and began as a little racket with a wholesaler. The world thought that young Jepson was worth millions, but all he had until he was thirty was the interest from his shares, and from a trust fund. Not enough for a young blood, and—' Grice shrugged. ‘Well, you'll see it in the depositions, we needn't go into everything now. Whenever anyone involved in the racket was on the point of talking, Wallis stopped them. The man Rickett was one. Each of Wallis's victims knew about the stolen goods. But before the thefts were reported to the police, Wallis had so influenced Reginald Jepson that he threw his weight into Jepsons buying Bishopps, and Ada agreed. That way it became a transfer of goods, not theft. There isn't any doubt,' went on Grice quietly, ‘that Wallis thought he could eventually take over both Jepsons and Donny's. And so he might. No one would have suspected what he was up to, would always have assumed he was employed by someone else. Didn't you take it for granted that either Donny or Reginald Jepson was behind him?'

‘Absolutely,' said Rollison. ‘Have you found Reggie Jepson?'

‘He's in Switzerland, and on his way home,' said Grice. ‘Wallis had sent him out of the way.'

‘I wonder why men as clever as Wallis make mistakes,' Rollison mused. ‘He beat Jones up without making sure that Jones knew why. If Jones—'