The Toff And The Stolen Tresses - John Creasey

Now all we want is the Black Maria,” said Rollison brightly. “Eight more for the can, sergeant.” He recognised the plainclothes man in charge. “You’ll want a statement, of course, and it’s as simple as this ..

Half an hour later, the hall was almost free of the smell of ammonia, and that of a strong disinfectant helped to disguise it. The carpet was damp where it had been scrubbed, but there was no sign of damage anywhere; not even on the walls. The policemen and their prisoners had gone, Forbes and the other men were back in the domestic quarters, and Ada, her eyes still watering a little and her nose red where she had blown it so often, stood in front of Rollison and looked up at him, rather like an earnest canary.

“Did you expect that raid when you came?” she demanded.

“Didn’t dream of one,” Rollison told her, and sipped a long, soft drink; all alcohol mixed badly with his ammonia-tainted palate. “Ada.”

“Yes?”

“You must know why they came.”

“I haven’t the faintest idea,” Ada assured him earnestly. “Why, it’s absolutely crazy. What did they hope to gain by it? I’ve no enemies, and I’m sure Reggie hasn’t. When he hears about this he’ll come rushing back. I do hope it’s all over before he arrives, he does take such chances. Not that taking chances makes it much more dangerous, I suppose; after all you take enough.” She said that quite flatly and factually. “I really can’t believe the truth, Rolly, that they just came here to wreck the place. Apart from the wicked vandalism of it, it—it’s so pointless. Who could hate us like that?”

Rollison eyed her thoughtfully, wondering if she was really as innocent and ignorant as she pretended. He doubted whether anyone else in the world would have suspected that she might be hiding something, for she looked so like a solemn child. He squeezed her arm, and said:

“We’re on the way to finding out. You know what I’d think if I weren’t such a gullible beginner, don’t you?”

“You? A beginner? Don’t make me laugh, Rolly, tell me what you’d think.”

“That you didn’t come and ask me to find out who had attacked Jimmy Jones because you were so worried about him, and wanted him avenged, but because you knew that this kind of thing might happen, and were anxious to find out who was behind it.”

She shook her head, briskly.

“It might look like that, Richard, but it simply isn’t true.”

He looked at her sceptically for a long time. She met his gaze without wilting, and gave no sign that he had touched her on a sore spot. “Why is Reggie away just now?” he asked abruptly.

“I told you. He’s having a holiday.”

“Didn’t he have any holiday this winter?”

“I told you that too. But even if he had, he can have one in the summer and the autumn if he wants it.” She was quite sharp.

“Do you know why he chose to go just now?”

“No.”

“When did you know he was going?”

“Only a day or two before he left. I don’t like this kind of cross-examination, Richard.”

“I don’t like people being beaten up,” Rollison said. “I don’t like policemen being attacked on their beat. I don’t like homes being wrecked—not even yours. I don’t like young girls being terrified by hooligans who cut off their hair.” He went to the corner of the little room, bent down and picked up the two bricks with the tresses of hair tied to them, and saw Ada’s eyes widen. Probably she had forgotten them, and had only just realised that he hadn’t told the police about them. “In fact I don’t like any part of this, Ada, and I want to know the truth. Why did Reggie go away?”

“He was tired, he needed a rest! Must you keep calling me a liar?”

“He’s thirty-one years old and fighting fit, he had a month away in January—”

“What business is that of yours?” Ada cried. “I’m trying to find out,” Rollison said. “Was he being menaced or frightened?”

“No!”

“Do you know that he wasn’t, or are you just guessing?”

“It’s a ridiculous suggestion! I know that I asked you to try to find out who did that beastly thing to Jimmy Jones, but if you’re going to make this kind of wild accusation, the quicker you withdraw from the case the better.”

“I’m in it too deep to back out now,” Rollison said, and his voice was sharp and his expression almost accusing. “Let’s have the truth, Ada. Why did Reggie run away?”

“He didn’t run away!”

“He ran away and left you holding the baby, and you came to me hoping I might be able to take it from you.”

“You’re just making it up.”

“I’m trying to make sense of the facts,” Rollison said. “And I’m trying to make you realise that it’s no use holding anything back. What’s Reggie done? What made him run? What are you covering up for?”

He thought she would fly at him.

Instead, she spoke in a very quiet voice, and with a dignity which sat surprisingly well upon her.

“You are quite mistaken, Richard, and I’m sorry that I can’t make you see it. My only purpose in asking you to find these men was to try to make sure that what had happened to Jimmy couldn’t happen to anyone else. This attack here is as much a mystery to me as it is to you. If you won’t believe that, there is nothing I can do about it. Now I hope you’ll go. I’m feeling very tired.”

That was dismissal with a vengeance.

“I’ll go,” Rollison said, and weighed the bricks in each hand, the raven black tress hanging from his left, the fair one from the right. The lights in that were like spun gold, and the feel of the hair was silky and soft, as if he were touching the hair upon a woman’s head. “Did you say that this forlorn love of Jimmy Jones’s was golden-haired?”

“Yes.”

“Her name is Evelyn Day, and she’s called Goldilocks. Do you know where she lives?”

“As it happens, I do,” said Ada, coolly. “She was sick a few weeks ago, and I always write a card to sick members of the staff—I do it from here. Her address will be in my book.” She went to a writing cabinet, opened it, looked at a leather-bound address book, and then said: “She lives at 88 Chester Street, Ealing.”

“Thanks,” said Rollison, more easily. “All right, Ada, I’ll tell you when there’s anything else to report.”

She didn’t answer.

“And I hope you’ll tell me when you realise that it isn’t any use dodging issues any longer,” Rollison went on. “It won’t be long before the police start asking these same questions. Once they begin to wonder what is worrying Reggie, and why this house was selected, they won’t be put off very easily.”

Ada said coldly: “There is nothing I can tell you, the police, or anyone.”

Rollison shrugged and nodded and turned away. Ada was still looking at him when he went out of the room, but not when he reached the front door. Forbes, with the precision of a good butler, was at the door to open it for him, to wish him a formal good night, and to watch him step into the lamplit square, into the fresh air, into the orbit of the two plainclothes men now watching the house. Rollison said good night to them as he went to his car. Opening the door, he wondered if this had been slashed, like the Rolls-Bentley.

It had not.

He let in the clutch and drove off, and was quite sure that no one followed him. It was early, but London seemed empty in these residential squares and also seemed ill-lit. Here were places for thieves to lurk, for wreckers to lie in wait, for vicious men to strike.

Where next?

Why the Jepsons’ home?

Why had Reggie gone away with so little warning? That was an angle: to find out what he had been doing lately, whom he had mixed with, whether he had seemed scared of unknown dangers. For a while pride would stop Ada from talking, and it was possible that she really knew nothing. The fact that Rollison had upset her didn’t greatly matter; the fact that she had shown how angry she was suggested that she might have a guilty conscience.

Rollison reached his flat.

Jolly should soon be back from taking Stella Wallis away, but now the flat was in darkness. The police still had a man in Gresham Terrace, but no one else was about. Rollison went upstairs, slowly and thoughtfully, trying to decide what he should do next.

If only he knew the motive; if only he could find the connection between the seven people—eight people now—whose homes and premises had been wrecked, and who could so easily have been ruined.

Was Donny Sampson the reason?

Rollison turned the key in the lock of his front door, opened the door a fraction, and listened intently; but he heard no sound. It would not be the first time that men had lain in wait for him, and he wanted to make sure that no one had avoided the police.

No one had.

As Jolly wasn’t back, there were no messages, nothing to keep Rollison here, and there was plenty for him to do.

He went downstairs again, got into the hired car and proved that its acceleration was as good as the driver had promised. It was nearly ten o’clock, and Jolly had been gone a long time; but he mustn’t start worrying about Jolly, who could look after himself.

Rollison drove to Chester Street, Ealing, where a light was on in the hall of Number 88. He rang. A man opened the door almost at once, stared at him in surprise, took a stubby pipe from his lips and said:

“Thought it were our ‘Arry,” in a voice that had been acquired on the broad Yorkshire moors.

“Is Miss Evelyn Day in?” asked Rollison.

“Who wants her?” There was sharp suspicion in the deep voice. “If you’re another policeman . . .”

“What have policemen been after her for?” demanded Rollison sharply.

Before the man could answer there were swift footsteps in the hall. A girl appeared, with a towel fastened turbanwise round her head. Her eyes were swollen and red with crying.

“Why don’t you find out who did it?” she cried. “Why don’t you find my hair?”

She had been attacked coming home from the pictures, and held by two men while a third had cut off her hair.

Rollison turned into Gresham Terrace again, glanced up, and felt sure that he would see a light on in his living room, the sign that Jolly was home; but the window was dark. He saw the Yard man coming towards him.

“Everything’s quiet, sir, I don’t think you’ll have any more trouble with those devils.”

“My man isn’t back, then?”

“Seen no one, sir, except the couple from the ground floor. They’d been out at the pictures, and they satisfied me as to their identity.”

“Ah, thanks,” said Rollison, and walked briskly upstairs, leaving the car parked in Gresham Terrace, feeling much more uneasy than he looked. He had expected Jolly back just after nine o’clock at the latest. For the first time since seeing poor Goldilocks Day, he forgot her and her little tragedy.

He made cautious entry into the flat, checked the time with an electric clock, and looked worriedly at the telephone. It was twenty minutes past eleven, and Jolly would certainly have telephoned if this were an accidental delay.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

Jolly

Jolly sat with Stella Wallis in the back of the large, smooth-running car which had been sent from the hire service. He had told the driver where to go, and the woman hadn’t protested, hadn’t yet spoken a word. Either events had stunned her, or she was beginning to succumb to the sleeping dose which Rollison had put into her drink.

The light from street lamps showed that her eyes were wide open. Jolly glanced at her from time to time, aware of the pleasant scent she used, and not unaware of her closeness. He kept hoping that her head would loll forward as she lost consciousness, but ten minutes after they had started out, her eyes were still wide open.

He felt her hand move into his.

She squeezed.

It was a long time since any woman had behaved like that with Jolly, and it not only startled but shook him. He drew his hand away and glanced at her less with embarrassment than with dry amusement. She was smiling at him. Her eyes were narrowed now, but open quite wide enough, and her lips were parted, too; he could see the polish of the lipstick and the gleam of her white teeth. She was a good-looking woman, and knew what she was about.

She pressed his leg, gently.

He could ease away; or he could pretend that he had noticed nothing; or he could tell her to sit back in her corner. He took the line of least resistance, telling himself that if he made no response, she would soon get tired of this little game. He stared straight ahead. She squeezed his leg gently, and then moved so that she was cuddled close against him. Her right hand went to his cheek.

She didn’t speak; but he could feel her warm breath on his face.

He sat absolutely motionless for a moment, then he freed his hand, and said with strained courtesy:

“You are wasting your time, I assure you.”

He took her hand away from his cheek, but she went on pressing close against his side, as if determined that he would not be unaware of her nearness or her charms.

“Mrs. Wallis, please be good enough to realise that this is quite pointless,” he said more firmly.

The chauffeur in front of the glass partition could not hear any of this.

“Mrs. Wallis!” Now Jolly was sharp.

She let him go, but before he realised what she was going to do, moved again, seized his face between her hands, pulled his head down, and kissed him. He felt the soft warmth of her lips, the sharpness of her teeth as he struggled to free his head, but she had him in a hold that was hard to break.

“You’re so sweet,” she said, cooingly, “you’re so quaint, darling, why don’t you relax a little? No one would mind if you just relaxed.” She kissed him again, lingeringly, and his head was still imprisoned. He could not free himself without hurting her. “Just relax, darling,” she breathed, and he could only just see her face and her eyes as she looked at him.

He could stand outside himself, as it were, and see all this, the absurdity of it, the ludicrousness. He, Jolly, in charge of this woman, helpless under her grasp, fighting against her blandishments. He felt worse than he had ever felt in his life. He must stop her nonsense, it mustn’t matter if he hurt her. He took her wrist at last, and twisted sharply, and she gasped and fell back.

“I am sorry,” he said stiffly. “You left me no choice.”

She looked at him intently, showing no resentment.

“Poor, poor darling,” she said in that soft, cooing voice. “Aren’t you allowed any life of your own? Do you have to do everything that Rollison tells you? Won’t he even let you have a kiss or a little cuddle without permission? Why don’t you be a man, Jolly?”

“This discussion is quite pointless.”

Stella Wallis gave a curiously cooing laugh, and Jolly felt its barb and knew that in a way she was right: he was behaving like a pompous prig. He had to. He was serving Rollison, and had to take this woman to the cottage. She did not exist as a woman, simply as a prisoner of the Toffs, so he dare not relax. It did not matter how much of a fool she made him feel. At least there was only half an hour or so longer.