John Creasey - The Toff and The Sleepy Cowboy

Grice, who had hurried back to the Yard and been given news of the attack, went to the waiting room where the accused was being held. In the good light he saw the evidence of strain and tension on the plump face, the suppressed anger in the fine dark eyes. This man had much strength of character, and gave the impression of one with some authority who was fighting hard to maintain his self-control.

“I tell you I’m Sergeant Tetano,” he insisted. “I came over on the same flight as Tommy Loman because I thought Loman was a victim of a luggage racket which has been causing trouble at Kennedy Airport for a long time. Too long,” he added, scowling. “Then I began to wonder if I was wrong, so I stalled for a while, just watching. I was going to see what happened when the

Brown dame reached home. Sure, I knew she was on the way with Loman, I was in Gresham Terrace tonight during the shenanigan there, and stayed around until they left. I drove my rental car round the house while they were in the garage, and went into the yard on foot.”

“Why?”

“I wanted to hear if they were in this together, they’d behaved like old lovers outside the garage, and — oh well, you don’t need telling you have to suspect every-body. All I heard was a pair of lovebirds.”

“And then?”

“Someone threw a rock at me,” Tetano said, pointing to an inflamed swelling on his forehead. “I guess it was the man who attacked the others. By then your cops were closing in and I tried to get away.”

“Why not stay behind and tell us what you’ve just explained?” demanded Grice.

“Are you kidding?” Tetano’s voice rose in a laconic note. “Who was going to believe me?”

“It would have been easier to believe you if you stayed where you were,” said Grice. “Did you get a good view of the assailant?”

“I didn’t see a thing that mattered. One moment I was listening to the lovebirds and the next a rock hit me,” answered the sergeant from Long Island Homi-cide. “Maybe that knocked the sense out of my head and I wouldn’t have run if it hadn’t hit me.”

“Perhaps,” Grice said. “Have you seen Mr. Loman before?”

“Sure — at Kennedy.”

“Just one moment,” Grice said. He went to the door, opened it, and stood aside for Tommy Loman to come in, and as the door closed he asked sharply: “Have you seen this man before, Mr. Loman?”

“Sure have,” Loman replied without any hesitation.

“Where?”

“At Kennedy Airport,” Loman said. “He’s one of the cops there.”

“Have you seen him in England?”

“No, sir, I have not.”

“Did you see the man who attacked you and Miss Brown tonight?” asked Grice.

Loman replied in a wondering voice : “No, I didn’t. I think the guy must have been hiding in the garage. All I know is something hit me in the groin and all I could think of was the pain. That was what I call agony. I didn’t see who it was or what hit me. All I know is that if your men hadn’t followed me, Superintendent, Pam and I both might be dead. How is she?” he added in a rougher voice.

“She’ll be all right in a day or two,” Grice tried to soothe.

“Are you sure, or —?”

“I am sure. She has been seen by her own doctor and by a police surgeon,” Grice replied. “Are you going back to Gresham Terrace? Or would you rather stay here for the night? We could find you a shake-down.”

“I promised Rollison I would go back.”

“I’ll have a car take you,” Grice volunteered. He called for a man on duty outside, and gave instructions. Next he turned to Luigi Tetano and spoke in a more relaxed way. “Mr. Tetano, I am inclined to accept your statement but I’ll need to keep you here overnight.”

“On a charge?” Luigi asked, ruefully.

“No. Until I hear from Long Island.”

“You’ll hear the simple truth,” Luigi assured him. “I thought it was the baggage racket and hopped the B.O.A.C. flight — all airlines will take a cop if he can prove he is one, and let him pay later. You will probably be told I’m absent without leave.” After a pause, he went on: “You can’t mean what I mean by a shake-down.”

“A camp bed,” Grice said. “The folding type. You surely have them in America.”

“A camp —” Tetano started off puzzled and then exclaimed: “Oh, a rollaway! Why sure, that’ll be fine! I didn’t know Scotland Yard was a hotel.”

Grice actually laughed.

“That Rollison,” Luigi Tetano went on in a wonder-ing tone. “He’s quite a guy.”

“Yes,” agreed Grice quietly. “He is quite a guy. I only hope —” He broke off, as if suddenly reluctant to say what was in his mind.

“Hope what?” asked Luigi.

“That he lives through this case,” Grice completed heavily, and looked the American straight in the eye. “I would hate him to die for a stranger he’d never heard of until this morning.”

Luigi Tetano put his head on one side, and then asked softly :

“Are you sure of that, Superintendent? Are you sure Mr. Rollison has told you everything he knows or suspects in this case? Maybe you are but I am not. No, sir, I am not. I am a long way from it.”

*     *     *

Oblivious of what had been going on, and of Luigi Tetano’s doubts, Rollison slept the sleep of the sedated. It was Jolly who let Tommy into the flat, able to assure him that a police message had confirmed that Pamela Brown really was only slightly hurt.

Outside the police kept watch, while the empty house smouldered.

16

Hero!

ROLLISON WOKE TO VAGUE NOISES, turned over and blotted them out.

He woke again, to quiet, turned over ‘and lay snug but did not get to sleep. Before long, he turned on to his back, and looked up at the ceiling; and as suddenly as new thought he remembered what had happened. He gave a little shiver. No one would ever know how much it cost to stand and wait for a little piece of metal which might blow one to smithereens. That shiver was the last of his conscious reaction to the previous night. He began to think, clearly and lucidly, about all that had happened. Glimmerings of ideas, not yet even half-formed, chased one another across his mind.

There was the obvious question : what was worth this series of vicious attacks?

A million pounds?

Yes, it could be; worse crimes had been committed for less reward, but there was a cold-blooded deliberateness about this affair which was rare.

What could be worth this series of vicious attacks? His, Richard Rollison’s, death?

Each attack had been on him

That wasn’t really true about the blowing up at Rubicon House. The grenade had been tossed into the first-floor flat to destroy the evidence, but at the airport and in Gresham Terrace there had been only one obvious purpose: to kill him. Why? What did he know?

What damage could he do to these desperate men?

He began to feel restless; it was time he was up and doing, finding out what else had happened, if anything; whether the newspapers had really gone to town in their hunt for Alec George King, whether the prisoner had changed his mind, and talked. With the telepathic understanding or awareness which had developed over the years, Jolly appeared silently at the door.

“Good morning, sir.”

“Good morning, Jolly.”

“I’ll bring tea and the newspapers immediately, sir.”

“Have they done us justice?” inquired Rollison.

“I think you will think so, sir.” Jolly withdrew and Rollison hitched himself up on the pillows. Rain spattered the windows like tears from a thousand weeping giants, and the slate roofs of houses opposite glistened beneath grey skies. It was much colder than yesterday, too. He draped a dressing-gown round his shoulders as Jolly came in with the tea tray and several newspapers under his arm. This was one of Rollison’s luxuries; tea and the newspapers, in bed.

“How is our guest?” he asked. “Fully satisfied with the newspapers, sir!”

“Good. And you?”

“Very well and hopeful, sir.”

“Better,” remarked Rollison as Jolly poured tea and he opened the first newspaper : the Globe.

There he was, staring up at himself! And there was King, also on the front page, remarkably like Loman but with some noticeable differences — Loman’s nostrils were wider, for instance. Beneath his photograph was the one word: Hero. Beneath King’s there was the simple question: Have you seen this man? The story of what had happened at Rubicon House and at Gresham Terrace was vividly related, and inside were action photogarphs of the fire. He put the Globe aside, sipped hot tea and opened the Echo. Here, the action photograph was on the front page: there he was, hands cupped as if to catch a cricket ball, elbows tucked in close to his body; and there was the hand grenade, like a black egg! Someone must have been at the window of a house opposite to get such a picture.

Ten minutes later he put down the last newspaper and took his final swallow of now luke-warm tea. He had to wait only for a few moments before Jolly came back.

“Has Grice been calling?” asked Rollison. “Yes, sir — he will be here at eleven o’clock.” Rollison shot a glance at a bedside clock, and relaxed.

“So I’ve an hour.”

“I came in as early as I did because I felt sure you would want to see him, sir. He had nothing to report. Three newspapers have been on the telephone to say they are inundated with reports from readers who say they’ve seen King, but of course there is no positive evidence yet. Mr. Grice did say that the man Hindle hasn’t been found.” Jolly allowed a decent pause, before asking: “Shall I run your bath?”

“Please. Has Mr. Loman had breakfast?”

“He elected to wait for you, sir,” Jolly said.

Something in his manner warned Rollison that all was not yet well; or at least, that Jolly was holding something back. He would not do this for long, and would not delay at all if the matter were grave or needed immediate thought or action. Rollison pushed back the bedclothes, did a few muscle and lung stretching exercises in front of the window open to the rain, had his bath and shaved and dressed, all in twenty-five minutes. It was half-past ten exactly when he went into the big room, breakfast bacon and eggs murmuring on the hot plate and the appetising smell of coffee wafting from the dining alcove.

Loman was putting down the receiver of the telephone.

“Good morning,” Rollison greeted.

“Hi,” responded Loman, in a tone so flat that here, obviously, was the source of trouble. “Jolly says you had a good night.”

“Oh, I did,” Rollison said. “Come and have breakfast. You must be hungry.”

“My stomach’s flapping,” agreed Loman, and they went to the table together.

Rollison fought back an impulse to ask what the trouble was, the bacon was crisp and the eggs as he liked them, each on a piece of fried bread : it was fascinating to watch how quickly Tommy demolished a huge plate of bacon and eggs. They were nearly through this main course before he said:

“Richard, you are more right than you know.”

“Possibly,” Rollison said. “I was once before, I’m told. What have I been prescient about now?”

“You shouldn’t have let me take Pamela home last night.”

Suddenly very still, Rollison asked: “Why not?”

Tommy told him the whole story, not once avoiding his gaze, and he finished by saying that he had just talked to Pamela’s father, and learned that Pamela was awake, and apart from having a stiff neck and a lump on the back of her head, was unharmed.

“Someone tried to choke the life out of her,” Tommy said bleakly. “He fixed me so that I didn’t even know what was happening. If you hadn’t made sure that the police and those friends of yours had followed, she would be dead. And I guess I would, too — he would have killed me after killing Pam.”

“You may well be right but no one was killed or seriously hurt, and things could have been a lot worse.” But the news added another question to those which already teased Rollison. Why try to kill him, why attack Pamela and Tommy, when it was so glaringly obvious that the impersonation attempt had failed?

Twice as they had been at the table the telephone bell had rung but Jolly had answered from the kitchen and not disturbed them. Now it rang again; and almost at once Jolly came in, to plug in a telephone so that Rollison could speak while at the table.

Rollison’s eyes asked: “Who?”

“Mr. Ebbutt, sir,” Jolly repeated.

“Ah, Bill!” Rollison spoke warmly into the telephone. “I hope you’re all right after last night.”

“Not so bad, Mr. Ar, not so bad at all,” said Ebbutt, his wheezing very pronounced. “Glad to hear from his nibs that you’re okay. Lucky you’re not in Kingdom Come, if you don’t mind me saying so. Mr. Ar, I got something on me mind about last night and I can’t get it off until I talk to you.”

“On the telephone?”

“If you could come over to the Blue Dog it would be better,” Ebbutt said. “Lil’s got a bad leg, Mr. Ar, and the doctor’s coming to see ‘er and I want to talk to him when he comes.”

“I’ll be over by one o’clock,” promised Rollison.

“I’ll be waiting for you,” Ebbutt declared. “So long.”

Then he added hastily: “You’ll come alone, woncher?”

“Yes,” Rollison promised.

Ebbutt rang off, leaving Rollison mystified and un-easy. Ebbutt was usually the most open-minded and frank of men; why was he reluctant to say all he wanted to over the telephone? Rollison replaced the receiver as Tommy stood up and poured himself more coffee. Every time he stood ‘to his full height it was startling. Rollison pushed his chair back and Jolly waited for both men to leave the alcove, then drew a curtain which divided it, when not in use, from the rest of the big room.

At eleven o’clock to the minute there was a ring at the front door bell, and Grice appeared on the periscope mirror. Rollison opened the door and sensed on the instant that Grice wasn’t pleased with life. What on earth had gone wrong with everyone this morning? Grice stood close to Rollison as the door closed, and said in a whisper:

“I want to talk in confidence, Rolly, not with Loman present.”

“If I know Loman, he will make his excuses as soon as you’ve said hallo,” remarked Rollison. The feeling of uneasiness increased, for Ebbutt had said much the same thing.

Only Jolly was in the big living-room-cum-study.

“Mr. Loman has gone to his room,” he informed them, “but he will be glad to join you if he should be needed.”

“Thanks,” said Rollison, and motioned Grice to a chair on the far side of the desk, while he sat in his padded swivel chair, back to the Trophy Wall. “I gather things went very badly last night,” he said to Grice.

“I don’t know how badly they went,” said Grice, gruffly. “Rolly — answer a straight question.”

“I will.”

“Do you think Pamela Brown and Loman knew each other before they met here?”