The Toff And The Stolen Tresses - John Creasey

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“If that lorry had crashed goodness knows how many would have been killed and injured,” the woman said.

Two uniformed police came hurrying.

“Ah,” said Grice, and smiled at the woman. “I wonder if you will make a report and any recommendation you feel wise to one of these officers. Thank you, madam. Morris, get to your radio, will you, and ask Information to flash a call to Division to find out from Jepsons which of their vans is out and unaccounted for. Did you get a good look at the lorry driver?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Give his description and put out a call for him. Then go straight to the Yard, and wait for me. Tell whoever is on duty that I don’t want you out on patrol until I’ve seen you. If you feel a bit shaky, get yourself a nip. Right! I’ll be seeing you.”

Grice’s crispness and control of the situation worked wonders. The woman began to talk to the uniformed men. The driver of the little car was elderly, in fact, had obviously not realized what had happened. He was allowed to go on, while Morris and his driver went back to Grice’s own car.

“We’d better get on,” Grice said to Rollison. They got back into the car, and started off. “That lorry which nearly caught you the other day was dark green, too. Could be that Wallis has a Jepson lorry at his disposal,” Grice said. “I know, I know. It could have been stolen. Anyhow, it’s time I saw Miss Jepson myself.”

“You tackle the despatch department or the transport department about the lorries, but leave Ada to me for a while, will you?”

“Once she knows the Yard is after her—”

“Remember what you said about Wallis?” Rollison interrupted. “Ada is another one who won’t talk unless she wants to, and you won’t be able to scare her into talking. Leave her to me for a bit.”

“I may not be able to, I have to take orders,” Grice said dryly.

“But you’ll try,” said Rollison. “Thanks.” He sat back by traffic lights on the other side of Putney Bridge, and was surprised that he felt so I              calm; but it was a false calm. “How about standing me breakfast at the canteen when we get to the Yard? Then let me check the names and addresses of Wallis’s known victims.”

“I don’t know why I should buy your bacon and eggs,” Grice said, “but I suppose I will.”

“Thanks,” said Rollison, a little more than an hour later.

At eleven o’clock, he was still in Grice’s office. Except that all Jepsons’ transport was accounted for, and the inescapable indication that the killer-lorry had been painted to look like a Jepson vehicle, nothing new had come in. Rollison had studied the list of the people who had suffered at Wallis’s hands in the past few weeks. None was a thief, and none appeared to have been robbed; one or two had squealed on lesser crooks at some time.

“Have a go at making them talk,” Grice said, “but don’t blame them if they won’t. Wallis is always standing at their shoulder.”

“Right,” Rollison said, and added very softly: “Before it’s over, we may have to make Wallis himself talk.”

“You watch your step,” Grice warned. “I should think he hates you enough to kill you.”

“The feeling could be mutual. Have you a spare photograph of him, and one of Clay?”

“I can send for them,” Grice said, and had them in the office within five minutes.

Rollison left the Yard with the photographs in his pocket.

A C.I.D. man whom he recognised was sitting at the wheel of a small car near the end of Gresham Terrace. This man nodded to Rollison; and would certainly have called out if there were any reason for alarm. Rollison went up to the flat. He walked slowly, and felt jaded; it had been a night of drugged sleep and he would probably feel heavy-headed all day. He opened the front door of the flat with the caution which was now habitual; but it was empty.

There were several letters on the mat, as well as the newspapers. None of the letters mattered. Each of the newspapers except The Times carried the story of the hair thief, and of the attack on Rollison. One had scooped the story of the slashed Rolls-Bentley. A photograph, obviously taken in the garage, showed the damage and the white paint.

Rollison put the papers aside, and telephoned Jepsons.

“I’ll see if Miss Ada is in, Mr. Rollison,” a girl operator said.

Ada might still be annoyed, and this was the way to find out.

There was a long wait, before Ada herself came on the line, and spoke as if coldly.

“It is no use talking about it any more, Richard. I have nothing to add to what I said last night.”

“Well, I have,” said Rollison, then warned himself that it wouldn’t help to lose his temper. “I’ve some new facts to show.”

“I don’t see how they can affect the matter.”

“This one for a start,” continued Rollison. “I was driving down Putney Hill with Superintendent Grice this morning. A lorry nearly crashed into the back of us, after the driver deserted his cabin. But for a policeman with a lot of guts, Grice and I would be in hospital. So would a lot of other people.”

“I don’t need telling that this is serious business,” Ada said, sarcastically.

“Someone not only tried to kill Grice and me, but apparently tried to involve Jepsons by using one of their lorries,” Rollison told her, and explained more fully. “Here’s another fact: Jolly was attacked last night. He will take much longer to recover than Jimmy Jones did.”

Ada drew in her breath sharply.

“I’m going to drop a note into your office in the next half hour and it will have several names and addresses on it,” Rollison said. “I’d like you to have those names and addresses checked, and if there’s any direct association between any of them and Jepsons, let me know. They might work for Jepsons, or buy from them. Check every kind of possible association with the firm, too.”

Ada could ask why.

She said in a subdued voice. “All right, I’ll get it done right away. I’m sorry about—”

She didn’t finish.

“Ada,” Rollison said softly, “I don’t want to rub anything in. But it’s a fact that you asked me to start on this job, and that as a direct result, Jolly is where he is now. I’m going to find out what lies behind it and who is behind it. I don’t care who gets hurt. I don’t care who gets in my way. You, Reggie, anyone in the world, I’m going to find what it’s all about.”

“I see,” Ada said, soberly.

“Good-bye,” Rollison said.

He rang off, took the list of Wallis’s victims, put a portable typewriter on his desk, and at fair speed typed the list out with three carbon copies. He slipped one copy into an envelope addressed to Ada, sealed it, and put it with the others in his pocket. He was getting up when the telephone bell rang, and he picked the receiver up slowly. He felt as if he was at half pressure, and could not be sure that it was wholly because of the heavy sleep. The fact that he knew so little nagged at him; the fact that he couldn’t see the next move clearly seemed to sneer at him. That was the trouble; he had never been so desperately anxious to hit back hard: and he couldn’t see how to do it yet.

“Rollison speaking.”

“Mr. Ar.” No one could imitate Bill Ebbutt’s voice, or the asthmatic way he breathed when he was agitated on the telephone. “Mr. Ar, is that right about Jolly? There’s a rumour going around that—”

“It’s right, yes.”

“He’s not dead?”

“He’s got a fighting chance.”

“Well,” said Ebbutt after a pause, “if that’s the case, my money’s on Jolly. If ever there was a fighter, ‘e’s one. You okay?”

“So far, Bill.”

“Mr. Ar, why don’t you let me do something to ‘elp?” pleaded Ebbutt. “I know the argument, and I couldn’t agree wiv you more, you don’t want to spark off a lot of gang fighting between my chaps and these Teddy Boys or Wallis’s chaps, but this is above that kind’ve fing, Mr. Ar. This is personal. Any attack on Jolly is.”

“Here’s something you can do,” said Rollison, quietly. “Send a couple of chaps to my flat, to stay here and take telephone calls and messages, and hand out treatment if any one tries to do what they shouldn’t.”

“I know, the kind wot c’n read and write,” said Ebbutt brightly. “That’s okay, they’ll be on their way in a brace of shakes. Next?”

“I’m going to see Donny Sampson when I leave here, and I’ll have a list of names and addresses with me—Wallis’s recent victims. Study it, get your chaps to have a look at it, and try to find out any unusual connection among them—among all or any of them.”

“Okay,” said Ebbutt. “Will you drop the list in?”

“Have someone to pick it up outside Donny’s, will you? I’ll put a key of the flat in the same envelope.”

“We’ll pick it up.”

“Thanks a lot, Bill.”

“I don’t mind so long as I c’n do somefink,” Ebbutt said. “I don’t like sitting back and watching you being pushed arahnd.” Then unexpectedly he chuckled. “Mind you, I can’t say I’m pessimistic, not after what ‘appened to Stella Wallis and Wallis hisself yesterday. That kind’ve fing’s never happened to him before.” Then came the sting in the tale. “But ‘e’ll get you arter this, Mr. Ar. Don’t take the slightest chance, will you?”

Rollison said: “I’ll take every chance that looks as if it might come off, Bill. Did you know that the firm Jepsons was involved in any way?”

“First I’ve ‘eard of it, except that one of their lorries was used yesterday morning, I meant to tell yer. My chaps saw the name on it. Could’ve bin stolen or borrowed, though. Watch out, Mr. Ar.”

“Thanks, Bill,” Rollison said.

Ten minutes later, he delivered the list at Jepson Buildings, and went from there to the barber’s where Jimmy Jones had had his hair cut. Two chairs were full, but a bright-faced Italian-looking man was standing idle and hopeful. Rollison saw the Hair Stylist and some of the competition entry forms, took several of these from under the barber’s nose, then thrust the photographs of Wallis and Clay under the man’s nose.

“Ever cut this man’s hair?” he asked, and a pound note appeared as if by magic in his hand.

The barber took one look at the photographs, and backed away.

“No, I haven’t! I have nevair seen heem!” Fear was in his voice, the kind that Wallis always engendered.

The other barbers swore that they had never seen Wallis or Clay, either, but Rollison did not believe them.

They might be made to talk, but that could wait until everything else failed.

A little after one o’clock, Rollison reached Donny’s. A tall, elderly man wearing a cap to cover a completely bald head, a grey polo sweater and a pair of old, patched but spotless grey flannels, was waiting outside.

“You got that note for Bill, Mr. Ar?”

“Yes, Micky. How are you keeping?”

“Oh, I don’t get no worse,” the man said, wrinkling his big nose, “and I don’t get no better. I can still walk.” He smiled and turned and hobbled off, a Bill Ebbutt pensioner suffering grievously from rheumatoid arthritis.

Rollison went into the shop.

Obviously it was very busy. Machines hummed, each chair in sight through open doors was occupied, smartly-dressed and well-made-up girls were flitting about. It was equally obvious that there was tension here. The queen of yesterday was not behind the desk; another girl was wearing a turban round her head, almost as if she had just had her hair washed; but Donny would not allow the staff or a customer to sit like that behind the cash desk.

Rollison said: “Good morning. Is Mr. Sampson in?”

The girl didn’t answer at once, but stared with her eyes narrowed, her lips set tightly; the way that Ada might have looked had he met her this morning; or Stella Wallis, last night. It seemed a long time before she spoke.

“Why don’t you go back to your part or London and forget the slumming?” she asked bitterly.

“I’d prefer to see Donny,” Rollison said mildly.

“He doesn’t want to see you. None of us wants to see you any more. If you hadn’t put your big nose in, this wouldn’t have happened.”

“What wouldn’t have happened?” asked Rollison in the same mild voice, but now his heart was beginning to thump again: there seemed no end to the trouble that came without him knowing.

She snatched off the towelling turban and showed her fair hair, cropped close to the scalp. A woman without hair could look more naked than a nude.

“Now perhaps you’re satisfied,” she said viciously. “If you hadn’t—”

“I’m not satisfied by a long way,” Rollison told her softly. “Are you another of Donny’s daughters?”

“It doesn’t matter who I am, and I’ve talked to you quite long enough.” She twisted the turban back expertly, and became a normal woman again. “It’s happened to Leah and it’s happened to me. Don’t tell me you don’t know why.”

“I don’t know why.”

“Because you came to question Donny,” the girl said with the same bitterness. She leaned forward and pointed a red-tipped finger at him. “Because someone thinks Donny could help you, and they’ve got to make sure he doesn’t. They cut Leah’s hair off and then they cut off mine, just to make sure he keeps his mouth shut. I’m his third daughter, if you really want to know: I’m Lila. I don’t know what else they told Donny, but they threatened him with a lot worse than this if he has anything more to do with you. So why don’t you go and buy yourself a long holiday?”

Two customers were coming out, and they stood listening. Another coming in, stopped to stare. The machines whirred busily. Someone was talking in one of the cubicles, traffic passed noisily outside.

Then Donny appeared.

He looked older even than he had yesterday, and much more lined. There was sadness in his fine amber eyes and sadness in his gentle voice, too. He gazed with that familiar compassion at his daughter Lila, then turned to Rollison and said gravely:

“You must forgive Lila, she is so upset that she doesn’t know what she is saying. I will gladly talk to you, but I cannot help you. I have no idea why such a thing as this should happen, no idea at all.”

He did not smile; he looked saint-like, the kind of man to whom a lie would be not simply abhorrent but almost impossible.

But was he lying?

His daughter said with tears in her eyes: “You’re crazy! You ought to kick him out.”

“I’ll go without being kicked when I know where you get the hair for your wigs and toupees,” Rollison said to Donny. “How about it?”

Donny’s expression did not change.

“Please come with me,” he said, and Rollison went, aware of the girl staring at him as if she hated him.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

Wig-Maker

Donny walked past the door of the room where Rollison had sat yesterday, and led the way through a doorway at the end of the passage, and then up a short flight of steps. The paintwork was a more ordinary cream colour here, but the place was spotless; Donny did not just put up a front. As Rollison followed him along a narrow landing, seeing the bowed shoulders beneath the snow-white barber’s coat, he found himself trying to reconcile two conflicting things.