The Toff And The Stolen Tresses - John Creasey

“Mr. Sampson will see you in a very few minutes, Mr. Rollison.”

“Thank you,” said Rollison, very politely.

Donny was as good as his word. He appeared through one of the duck egg blue and gold painted doors, and although he was not really a stranger to Rollison he made a considerable impression. He was dressed in a white smock with a high collar, and the close fitting garment would have served a Spanish dancer, so small was Donny’s waist and so elegant his carriage. Yet it was his face and head which impressed one most. He was less handsome than distinguished, his complexion was perfect, and the years had mellowed his features, so that he no longer looked austere. He had beautiful silvery hair which waved a little as it swept back from his forehead; such a man would have held Michelangelo enthralled.

He smiled, courteously.

“Mr. Rollison, this really is a pleasure. It is over a year since I saw you last.” He held out his right hand.

Rollison took it.

“We mustn’t let that happen again,” he murmured. “I’d like to make a fortune, too.”

“Sufficient for the day,” said Donny, and his amber eyes turned towards Rollison so intently that it was hard to see evil here, or even associate with evil. Those eyes suggested too, that his hair had once been golden coloured; and it was still a lion’s mane. “I find it hard to believe you have come simply for a haircut.”

“I’d like a little chat, and know I need a trim,” said Rollison. “Can you and will you?”

“For you, of course,” said Donny. “This way, please.” He turned and glanced out of the front door, and Rollison did also; and what Rollison saw did nothing to reassure him. He might not have been followed, but plenty of people knew where he was. Across the road were several of the youths whom he had already seen once that day. They just lounged about, obviously interested only in Donny’s.

“Friends of yours?” inquired Rollison.

“Not friends, simply customers,” said Donny with a deprecatory shrug and a wave of his pale hands. “It isn’t always possible to pick and choose one’s customers, and you will admit that the young men’s hair looks well cared for.”

“By Donny’s?”

“I imagine so,” said Donny.

He led the way past a line of six barbers, each busy on a man’s hair, to a small room with only one chair. Here were all the appurtenances of a beauty parlour, and it was reserved for men. Here were the pomades and the lotions, the sprays and the powders, the special waves in the hair of unbeautiful would-be beaus. Round the walls were photographs of masculine heads of hair, all magnificently groomed.

“Please sit down,” said Donny, and when Rollison obeyed, went through the customary ritual. Rollison looked at his own reflection, which was rather like a member of the Klu Klux Klan without a witch’s hat. “I see that you have an excellent barber, and that your hair is naturally so good that you hardly need aids,” Donny observed.

“No aids to waves,” agreed Rollison, and saw the scissors glint and then snap in the man’s white fingers; a surgeon’s fingers. There was Donny’s reflection, too. “Donny.”

“Sir.”

“I didn’t know you were a bad man.”

“Perhaps we don’t mean the same thing by that expression,” the hairdresser said. “I didn’t know that I was, either.”

“And it’s unnecessary for a brilliantly successful man like you.”

Donny snipped and shrugged.

“I have done well, yes, but I am not yet a millionaire, Mr. Rollison. The secret of success lies in hard work.”

“And no competition.”

“One buys out competition.”

“Or drives it out.”

“Ah,” said Donny, and paused to look hard at Rollison’s reflection in the mirror; it was a strange way to meet a man’s eyes. a begin to understand what has brought you.”

“I don’t like to think of you hiring men like Tiny Wallis and Mick Clay,” said Rollison chidingly. “No one deserved roughing up like that because he wanted to buy a barber’s shop in your district.”

Snip.

“It was,” said Donny and paused and snipped; “unfortunate.”

“Do you know what happened to the man?”

“I am sorry,” Donny said, and kept snipping. “I was able to help him and his wife a little, and I do not think he will suffer very much.”

“Why employ Wallis at all?” asked Rollison, still mildly.

“Perhaps it was a mistake,” said Donny. Tut he had no instructions to use violence, only persuasion.”

“Under threat of violence?”

“I don’t think you always avoided violence,” murmured Donny. Rollison chuckled quite spontaneously, picturing his own wall and the many trophies of violent action. “All right,” he conceded. “I agree that there are times when action speaks louder than words. Why are you so anxious not to have any barber near you?”

Snip.

Pause.

“Mr. Rollison,” said Donny, “I think I ought to say that I do not recognise your right to ask such questions, and that I feel under no obligation to answer.” His reflection made him look rather like a saint. “However, I have no objection to making the picture clear for you. I am a family man. I have four sons and three daughters, and three of the sons and two of the daughters are married, while the others will be soon. Except for one son, all of my family is in the business. Each son and daughter and each in-law learns the trade, and then becomes a shop manager. With so many children, so many shops are needed.” He stood back, comb in one hand and scissors in the other. “It is a good thing that the grandchildren are not big enough yet.”

Rollison didn’t answer, and made no attempt to smile. Donny looked disappointed, but went on with his work. For several minutes there was nothing but the snipping, broken occasionally by the hum of an electric clipper. Donny worked quickly and with the grace and effectiveness of a master. When he had nearly finished, he stood back.

“Mr. Rollison,” he said, “you and I began life in very different ways. I was the son of poor parents, my mother was an Italian immigrant, my father spent much time in prison. When he was home, he was a barber. When I was ten, I was cutting the hair of the children of the neighbourhood, and when I was fifteen, I was in charge of the shop. I have been cutting hair in this part of London for over forty years, and I have seen my business grow and grow. It is not an exaggeration to say that it brightens the lives of many who would otherwise be drab. I turn no one away. I have special prices for those who cannot afford my normal charges. But I don’t want competition in this neighbourhood, Mr. Rollison, and if I can avoid it, I shall not have any. Once an old established barber wishes to give up, I pay him well for his business, and then either take over or close his shop. Is that unreasonable?”

“Breaking into a man’s home, smashing everything he possesses, kicking him so hard that he has three ribs broken and needs over twenty stitches in his head, terrifying his wife and probably scarring her mind for life—is that reasonable, Donny?”

There was a long silence.

“Just a little more off here,” said Donny, and snipped and stood back, and smiled; more like a picture-book saint than ever. “I think your regular barber will be satisfied—it is satisfying to work on a really good head of hair. I congratulate you, Mr. Rollison.”

“Yes?”

“I hope we are not going to be bad friends.”

“I hope not, too.”

Donny shrugged and whipped off the sheet, and brushed with a soft brush, talking all the time.

“Is there anything you would like, Mr. Rollison? Haircream, tonic, razor blades, shampoo lotion, toothpaste—anything at all?” He was smiling as he opened the door of a cupboard and showed a mass of expensive-looking goods. Rollison saw that most of them were marked in a way which he knew well: a monogrammed double J, in script writing; it was the monogram of Jepsons. “Or even,” went on Donny, “a wig?”

Rollison stood up.

“Not yet,” he said, “but I’ll know where to come if I want one, Donny.”

He broke off, for he heard a door slam. That seemed almost a sacrilege here. Then came running footsteps and voices, and a girl crying on a high-pitched note. Donny stepped swiftly to the door and opened it. A girl appeared, her eyes ablaze with rage and yet despair, a girl who would have been pretty but for her expression and for the disaster which had overtaken her hair.

She had been shorn.

Someone had hacked off her hair, as if with a pair of garden shears. One cut, close to the front of her head over the right eye, actually showed the white scalp beneath; one lock fell over her left ear.

“Look what they’ve done to my hair!” she cried. “Look what they’ve done to my hair! What am I going to do? Tell me, what am I going to do? I can’t stand it, I just can’t stand it, what am I going to do?”

CHAPTER SEVEN

Boys Will Be Boys

Rollison stood and watched the older man and the girl, and in Donny’s eyes he thought he saw the light of great compassion. No one could doubt the despair in the girl’s, and it was not all due to shock and distress; some deeper reason lay behind it.

“Don’t just stand there!” the girl cried. “What am I going to do?”

Donny put a pale hand gently on her shoulder.

“I will help you,” he said. “Leah, who did this to you?” Each word seemed to hang heavily on the air.

“I don’t know who they were. There was a gang of Teddy Boys hanging about near the shop, I didn’t know they were after me. I think it’s because I wouldn’t have anything to do with their leader, he tried to make a date—” at this Leah broke off, and hot tears flooded her eyes. “What am I going to do?” she asked brokenly, and seemed to fall towards Donny. “I can’t even enter for the competition now.”

Donny’s arms went round her shoulders as she cried. A saint? He looked at Rollison for the first time since the girl had come in, but he was not thinking of Rollison, only of this problem. Several assistants had come to see what was happening, two men with their hair only partly cut among them; but Donny took no more notice of these than he did of the Toff.

Rollison asked: “Where did it happen?” as if that mattered now.

“Please—” Donny began.

“It happened just round the corner,” said a little woman who stood with the crowd; short, thin, with sharp features and very bright, browny eyes. “The devils! If I had my way I’d horsewhip them. There must have been a dozen of them, and when I saw them set about her out there in the open, I thought the world was coming to an end. Two of them held her arms behind her and one pushed her hair over her face and made it hang down while another one used a pair of shears.” She gave that word a touch of horror. “I thought they were going to murder her!”

“Do the police know yet?” asked Rollison.

“There were two just round the corner, but it was done so quick no one had a chance to call them. You know what’ll happen, don’t you? Those devils will cover up for each other, the cops won’t be able to pin a thing on to any of them.”

Throughout all this, Leah went on sobbing. Now Donny turned and led her into the room where he had cut the Toff s hair. He closed the door. He did not tell the others to go back to the salons, but one after another they went, and the little woman talked angrily to the queen at the cash desk. Rollison joined them, and when he had a chance, asked quietly:

“Who is the girl, do you know?”

“Oh, yes. That’s Donny’s Leah.”

“I don’t quite understand you.”

“His daughter,” the little woman said tartly. “The youngest of his kids. Proper apple of his eye, Leah is.”

“What was she to enter?” Rollison asked.

“Oh, the Beautiful Hair competition,” answered the queen, and touched a leaflet close to her till, then picked one up and handed it to Rollison. “She had such lovely hair, Leah did, she really had a chance to win, and she’d set her heart on it.” The queen looked really distressed.

Then, two policemen arrived. . . .

Rollison left them to their task, and went out to his Rolls-Bentley. No one was near it, for the crowd was gathered about the doorway of the shop, hopeful of sensation and excitement. Rollison did not get into the car at once, but walked briskly to a telephone kiosk some fifty yards away. He saw no youths, and no one appeared to take any interest in him. He dialled Whitehall 1212 and asked for Superintendent Grice; soon another man came on the line.

“I’m sorry, sir, Mr. Grice is out. Who is that, please?”

“Rollison.”

“Oh, hallo, Mr. Rollison!” The voice brightened into eagerness. “I don’t think Mr. Grice will be long, and I know he’s hoping to hear from you. Where can he call you?”

“I’ll call him again,” said Rollison. “Meanwhile here’s a message for him. One of Donny Sampson’s daughters was attacked just now, and all her hair cut off. Ask Mr. Grice to ask the Division not to make too much fuss about it, will you?”

“Why not, sir?”

“I think it might have been done to impress me,” said Rollison, “but it might be a good idea to let everyone think it was a personal quarrel between Leah Sampson and some Teddy Boys.”

“I’ll pass the message on, sir, but why do you think it might have been done for your benefit?”

“That’s just one of the problems,” said Rollison, mildly. “Good-bye.” He rang off, and went out and turned towards the Rolls-Bentley. Even from here he saw that the door was open, and next moment he saw two small boys bouncing up on the seats, one at the front and one at the back. He remembered turning the key in the lock; so how had they got in?

As Rollison drew nearer, one of the boys turned and spotted him. Each was out of the car in a flash, and went racing along the road towards the nearest corner and out of sight.

“Little devils,” Rollison said, but wasn’t even slightly amused, for he was still sure he had locked the car. Had a car thief forced the lock?

He reached the Rolls-Bentley.

He stopped short, as if someone had hit him.

The upholstery had been ripped time and time again, with long, sharp knives. The leather was a criss cross of deep cuts, and in places the foam rubber seating showed through. The insides of the door panels had been broken, and lay on the floor, sticking in an oozy, snow-white lake; obviously a tin of paint had been turned upside down; it was impossible to put a foot on the floor near the steering wheel without stepping on to the tacky mess.

Rollison stared towards the street corner.

He would not be able to recognise those boys again, and doubted whether anyone else would. They had been paid for this, of course, and given the tools and the paint. This was of a piece with the raid on Jimmy Jones’s home and the destruction done at the other places: this had the mark of beasts upon it, the mark of Tiny Wallis and Mick Clay.

He closed the car doors quietly, went back to the telephone, called Jolly, and told him all about it.

“I’m very sorry indeed to hear of this vandalism, sir,” Jolly said. “I will arrange for a garage to come and tow the car away. You may lock it up again, sir, I will give the men the spare key, and I’ll send a hired car for you.”