John Creasey - Kill The Toff

“Have a go,” pleaded the cabby.

Rollison said: “All right, I’ll take a chance. Stay here, follow the two-seater if it leaves and let me know where it goes. If nothing’s happened by one o’clock, give it up. Know where to find me?”

“If I don’t I’ll ask Bill Ebbutt.”

“Oh-ho,” said Rollison and doubts about the man dimmed. “Be careful; they’re armed.”

“Your man told me so,” said the cabby. “You don’t have to worry, Mr Rollison. I’m one of Bert’s new drivers. Mr Jolly ‘phoned Bert and asked him to be at the Oxford Palace.” Bert was a taxi and garage owner in the East End who often did work for Rollison. “Bert’s got ‘flu, so he asked me to come along. You don’t have to worry. I’ll keep me lights off and follow them without them knowing I’m around. Done plenty of it in France but you don’t want to hear the story of what I did in the war, do you? Trouble is, what are you going to do?”

“I’m going to take a walk,” said Rollison.

“Coming back?”

“No, you’re in charge here.”

“Hope you get a lift okay,” said the cabby. “I—Ta, Mr Rollison!” His hand closed round five one-pound notes. “You didn’t have to do that but thanks a lot. I won’t let you down. Bert and Bill would tear a strip off me if I did.”

Rollison laughed softly and got out and walked towards the main road, a mile or so away.

*     *     *

He caught a bus after half an hour’s walking, reached Guildford just after eleven o’clock, found an all-night garage, hired a car and was hack at Gresham Terrace by midnight.

A light was on in the living-room and Jolly, who seemed to sense when he was coming in, opened the door.

“Made that medal?” asked Rollison.

“That is hardly deserved, sir, but—”

“Wrong. But you should have told me it was one of Bert’s men.”

“I thought you would prefer to judge the man yourself as he was a stranger,” said Jolly . “I instructed him not to advise you until—”

“He didn’t. Well, it’s been a good night. Waleski ended up—”

Jolly’s right hand sped to his lips. Rollison broke off—and then looked into the living-room, the door of which was ajar, and saw

Clarissa Arden.

*     *     *

“Well, well,” Rollison said, heavily. “The lovely lady who couldn’t take advice. How long has Miss Arden been here, Jolly?”

“For about an hour, sir.”

“Has she been difficult?”

“No, sir, quite placid.” Rollison chuckled and Clarissa laughed. Rollison went into the room, noticing that she had made up her face and most of the signs of her ordeal had disappeared. Her blouse was buttoned high at the neck, hiding the red marks and the weals. Her eyes were heavy as if with sleep but only a little bloodshot; there were no blotches on her skin. She was smoking and there was a drink beside her. She sat down as Rollison entered and for the third time looked at him through her lashes with her head held back.

“I’m beginning to think you’re good,” said Rollison.

“Did you find out where Waleski went?”

“Yes.”

“Where?”

“You haven’t found out yet,” said Rollison dryly.

“If we’re going to work together, I think I ought to be in your confidence—don’t you?”

A glass was warming by a tiny electric fire. Rollison picked it up and poured himself a little brandy, sniffed the bouquet, then whirled the golden liquid round and round in his glass, looking at her all the time.

“So from now on we’re buddies?”

“I think we’ll do better like that.”

“It’s largely a question of whether I agree,” said Rollison. “I might—when I know your story, Clarissa, and if you can convince me that all you say is true. That might be difficult.”

“I don’t think it will,” she said. “I’ve known for some time that someone is trying to murder my uncle. I’ve come to the conclusion that my cousin Geoffrey was murdered, that he didn’t die by accident. I’ve been trying for weeks to find out why it’s all been going on. That was why I spent so much time in Paris. I met Waleski in Paris. Would you like to hear about that, too?”

*     *     *

It was nearly two o’clock.

Rollison took Clarissa’s key and opened the front door of 7, Pulham Gate. Then they stood close together on the porch and after a pause she said:

“Why don’t you come in?”

“Fun later,” said Rollison.

“You don’t trust me, do you?”

“No, not quite, yet.”

Her hand moved, sought his, held it; and pulled him closer. Her breath was warm on his cheek, her eyes glowed in the light of a street-lamp.

“I’m quite trustworthy now. I doubted you before. Waleski tried to kill me, as he is trying to kill my uncle and as he did kill Geoffrey. I don’t know why; I don’t know much about it; but I do know that I’m fighting for my life.”

“Very pretty,” murmured Rollison.

“So I’ve failed completely to convince you.”

“Oh, not completely. But there’s more at stake than you, Clarissa. A nice girl named Judith and a lad by the name of Mellor, who—”

“Mellor!” She dropped his hand, and drew back. “Mellor! Do you know that brute?”

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

More About Mellor

She wasn’t acting. One moment she had been pleading, using all her wiles and her beauty to break down Rollison’s resistance; then, at the mention of Mellor, she had been shocked, filled with a repugnance which rang clearly in her voice. Into the word ‘brute” she had put a world of loathing and contempt.

Rollison took her arm.

“I think I’ll come in, after all,” he said and led her inside, closed the door and went to the drawing-room.

When he switched on the light, he saw that she was pale and shaken; the effect of Mellor’s name was the same on her as it had been on Grice and Ebbutt. He mixed her a whisky-and-soda from a tray which had been left out.

She watched him intently without speaking.

“Here’s early death to the villain! Sit down, Clarissa, and tell me all about the brutality and villainy of Jim Mellor.”

“He’s—an unspeakable brute.”

“Who said so?”

“I say so. He—” She sipped her drink and sat down slowly; and Rollison was surprised that she flushed, as if at an embarrassing memory, I once knew him. My uncle had probably told you about my hankering after the flesh-pots.”

“He called it excitement.”

“Anything for a new sensation,” said Clarissa, as if talking to herself. “Yes, I suppose that’s right. Life’s unbearably dull—most good people are such fools, such bores. I suppose I was always restless and the war made it worse. I couldn’t settle to anything afterwards. It might have been different if Michael—”

She caught her breath and jumped up.

“I’m getting maudlin!”

“You’re becoming human,” Rollison murmured, i like it. You owe Waleski a lot, Clarissa. When he nearly choked the life out of you he scraped off that veneer of cynicism. Please don’t put it back again; it only smears the lily. Who was Michael?”

Tears were close to her eyes.

It was late; she had been near death; she had been shocked and shaken; and so it might be said that she wasn’t herself and had every excuse for breaking down. She didn’t answer at first but closed her eyes. Suddenly she sat erect, raised her head and finished her drink quickly. Then she spoke in sharp, staccato sentences.

“We were engaged. He was a Pathfinder and didn’t come back. You remind me of him. I couldn’t think who it was when you came here this evening. But the way you behaved at the hotel—yes, you remind me of him. But he’s dead, best forgotten. We were talking about my vices. Anything for a new sensation. That’s really why I started to probe into my uncle’s illness. I suspected that it was attempted murder. When my cousin died I think I was the only one who discovered that he’d spent a lot of time in the East End of London. I think he had your complex. He liked slumming— and new sensations. You do, too—don’t you?”

“Yes,” said Rollison gently.

“So I went down to the East End. Oh, I didn’t go as a ministering angel; it was a new kind of sight-seeing trip. I had an escort.”

“Who?”

“Does it matter?”

“Yes.”

“Billy Manson, the boxer,” said Clarissa and her lips twisted wryly. “Another of my sensations. Ugly men fascinate me, so does brute strength, and Billy had them both. I told him I wanted to see how the poor lived. He was born in Limehouse and isn’t ashamed of it, in spite of his fortune. He took me round. I was astonished at how many different people he knew. Criminals!” She laughed. “I wonder if you can imagine the thrill I got when I first met a man who had committed murder and got away with it.”

Rollison said: “I think so.”

“I almost believe you can. Billy did me proud but said there was one man in the East End I’d never be able to meet. Mellor. That was the first time I heard the name. It was impossible to meet him and of course I was determined to do the impossible. Billy was frantic, told me I was playing with fire—poor dear! He didn’t realise that I like fire. It wasn’t through Billy that I met Mellor, though; it was by accident. I went to a dance in Limehouse. It—it was dreadful! The crowd of sweating humanity—Oh, never mind. Mellor was there although I didn’t know it until I had a note from him. A kind of royal command. Billy was to have taken me to the dance but he had a heavy cold and his manager wouldn’t let him out, so I went with two friends of his. They shook at the knees when Mellor’s message came and advised me to leave. Leave! I laughed at them and met Mellor.”

She fell silent again and Rollison gave her a cigarette and lit it for her. She hardly noticed what she was doing; she was re-living the meeting with Mellor in a scene which Rollison knew so well. A dance-hall, dusty, festooned with grimy coloured paper flags, crowded with Lascars, seamen, dockers, factory workers; beer flowing freely, rowdyism, wild dances— and one man who held a kind of court and whom everyone in the room feared. The only remarkable thing about it was the speed with which Mellor had won this position. Rollison had spent some time in the East End only six months ago and had not heard of Mellor then.

He asked: “How long ago was this?”

“About six months. I met Mellor,” she repeated. “I can’t explain how I felt. It was as if I were meeting someone I’d known before and whom I knew to be corrupt. He was quite young. To make himself look older and more manly, he wore a beard. In anyone else it would have been laughable but in Mellor—I’d never met a man who frightened me before and I haven’t met one since. It was in the way he spoke, the way he ordered others about, the way he attacked that girl.”

She clenched her hands in her lap.

“We danced, of course. He was one of the hold-you-tight type, sexy, domineering. A silly little tipsy girl was dancing with a glass of beer in her hand and she tripped up and spilt it over my dress. He seemed to go wild, snatched the glass out of her hand and smashed it in her face. I shall never forget that moment. He just smashed it into her face, cut her cheeks and mouth. It was a miracle she wasn’t blinded. She screamed and tried to run away but he caught her hair and bashed her with his fist— and no one came to her aid. I tried to but they held me back. I did try.”

She sounded almost piteous.

“Yes, I’m sure you did.”

“She was unconscious when he flung her away. Her friends took her out. I was told afterwards that she was in hospital for a month. But—” Clarissa shuddered. “It was quite horrible. The first new sensation that revolted me. I walked out, of course. I haven’t been back to the East End since that night and I don’t want to go again. I stopped trying to find out why my cousin went there so often. I told myself it didn’t matter and I suppose it didn’t. I hardly knew my cousin. He was at school when I left England during the war and we didn’t meet after that. I tried to forget the whole business but couldn’t. It was so obvious that someone was trying to kill my uncle as well. So I worked on Waleski. I’ve told you about that.”

“Tell me again,” said Rollison.

She didn’t object.

“I knew my uncle had business in Paris and he kept hearing from Waleski. I read one of Waleski’s letters and saw the signature. It was an innocuous kind of letter, just saying that he was continuing the investigations and hoped to have some news later. I wondered what the investigations were, whether my uncle realised he was in line for murder. Waleski wrote from the Hotel de Paris so I went and stayed there. He wasn’t a difficult man to meet and—well, you’ve seen him. Ugliness still fascinates me. He wanted to get information out of me about my uncle; and he kept talking about a second son. I still don’t know whether my uncle ever had another son but Waleski talked as if there were no doubt. Waleski” —she laughed, a curious, brittle laugh— “thought that I was interested because if a second son appeared I’d probably get little or nothing from my uncle’s will. I didn’t tell him that I couldn’t care less. I pretended that it mattered. I was to go through the papers at Pulham Gate and the Guildford house, looking for evidence about this love-child and tell Waleski what I’d found. Then Waleski was called to London. I followed after a few days and he called me today and asked me to meet him at the Oxford Palace. He was disappointed that I hadn’t discovered anything yet and I—oh, I suppose I lost my head.” She leaned back and looked at Rollison from beneath her lashes: the familiar trick; she was feeling much more herself now.

“I told him that he’d better be careful or the great Toff would discover his little game. He went mad. He was holding his cigarette-case in his hand, grabbed my hair and struck me with the case. That’s all I remember, all I can tell you. Does it—” She smiled; yes, she was much more herself— “Does it tally with what I told you at the flat?”

“Near enough,” said Rollison.

“It’s the truth. And I still want to work with you.”

“We’ll talk about that in the morning,” Rollison promised.

“Don’t leave it too late,” said Clarissa. She stood up and approached him, taking his hands. “Have I bored you?”

“Terribly!”

“That’s where you’re like Michael: you won’t be serious when I want to be.”

“If I were called on to advise, I’d say: think more about Michael instead of trying to forget him,” said Rollison gently. “There’s more than one man cast in the same mould but not a lot of women like you, Clarissa. I think we can work together. In fact, there’s a job I want you to do in the morning. Go and get some sleep; you might be busy tomorrow.”

“Yes, papa.” She gripped his hands tightly. “Why did you mention Mellor?”

“I think there are two Mellors. We don’t mean the same one,” said Rollison. “We’ll see.”

“I think you’re lying but I don’t really mind,” said Clarissa. “You’ve done me a world of good. Thank you, Richard.”