John Creasey - The Toff and The Sleepy Cowboy

“I do not,” Rollison said flatly.

“Can you be sure?”

“No,” Rollison admitted. “I can only say that the moment they met they seemed to be dazzled by each other. Why?”

“How well do you know Pamela?”

“Not at all,” Rollison said. “You gave her and her father and brother a good reference last night though.”

“She is occasionally used by the family business as a decoy,” Grice told him. “She’s a lovely-looking woman and can switch on charm like an electric current. I’ve never had the slightest reason to suspect her or her family of anything unlawful, but —”

“Decoy for what?” demanded Rollison.

“Oh, I’m sorry. A wife may come to the Browns for evidence of a husband’s infidelity. Pamela gets to work on the husband. If he starts making passes then he’s probably a man who will fall by the wayside with any attractive woman. If he doesn’t but is seriously in love with someone else, then the Browns simply tell the wife they won’t handle the case. Don’t ask me to explain what makes them tick,” Grice went on irritably. “I can only tell you what I know.”

“I don’t really see what you’re driving at,” Rollison protested.

“I’m not really sure myself,” admitted Grice, ruefully. “Did Pamela make a dead set at Loman on meeting because she know’s he’s going to inherit the fortune? Or did she fall in love?”

“I don’t know her well enough to be sure but I think she fell head over heels,” answered Rollison. “I still don’t see how this affects the main issue.”

“I don’t suppose you do,” Grice growled. “I’m not even sure it does. But I have an uneasy feeling that the Browns could be more deeply involved in this affair than I’ve suspected. Last night’s attack could have been a fake.”

“What?”

“The brother or the father could have attacked Loman and then Pamela,” Grice said. “Her injuries are superficial, it could have been an attempt to convince us that she’s in danger. Rolly, I just don’t know!” Grice pushed his chair back and stood up. “But I’m worried out of my wits. There have been two attempts to kill you, and they weren’t faked. The Rubicon House might have been mainly an attack on you, also. The Browns involved you, and their reasons are pretty specious. I have a feeling that I’m working in a nice, thick, smelly, pea-souper of a fog.” He gave a short laugh as he approached the wall to a small shelf on which stood a single hobnail boot. “It was foggy in that case, wasn’t it? I’d only just joined the force, and you were only just getting known.”

“Bill,” Rollison said quietly. “All fogs disperse sooner or later.”

“Oh, yes.” Grice turned back and leaned against a corner of the desk, closer to Rollison. “A man was picked up in the grounds of the Browns’ house last night — an American policeman whose identity is beyond all doubt. He came over on the same flight as Loman because he thought Loman might be a victim of a big luggage stealing racket at Kennedy Airport. He really came on a kind of hunch. The thing is, Rolly —”

“Yes?” Rollison’s voice was sharp.

“These are damned dangerous days. Hi-jacking of aircraft, the blowing-up of aircraft and government and police buildings are commonplace. We’ve got what looks Re a case of impersonation to get a large inheritance, but the tactics used are the same tactics as those used by terrorists. Those hand grenades are now known to contain high explosive and powerful incendiary material much more powerful than they had originally. Can you tell me what’s really going on, Roily?” Grice asked, and then leaned forward and demanded in a hard voice: “If you have the faintest idea you’ve got to tell me. You can’t fight a war against terrorists on your own.”

17

Ebbutt Warns

ROLLISON WAS SO STARTLED that In back sharply enough to bump his head against a hangman’s rope which dangled on a swivel; someone had moved it from the wall. He half-turned, pushed it back, then faced Grice again.

“No,” he said. “I can’t and I know I can’t. I have seldom, if ever before, been involved in a case about which I’ve told you everything from the beginning.”

“Everything?” Grice echoed, dubiously.

“Everything. Bill, this may be an offshoot of a baggage racket at Kennedy Airport. It could be an extension of terrorist activities — it had the look of that from the beginning, but if it is, I’ve no advance knowledge of it. And we may have a simple case of attempted fraud on a scale big enough to warrant all the violence. Did Jolly give you that tape yesterday?” he added abruptly.

“Yes.”

“That is everything I can tell you,” Rollison asserted. “But it doesn’t make sense,” protested Grice. “They are trying to kill you.”

“I was vaguely aware of that,” Rollison retorted. When Grice did not respond, he asked: “Have you learned anything from the prisoner?”

“He is a man named Simms, much older than he looks when he’s on his motor-cycle,” Grice replied. But he can’t, or won’t, give us any help. He lives in a one-room apartment in Notting Hill, and had twenty-one more of the grenades stacked in a cupboard. He’s admitted the attacks, denies that he is being paid by anyone and says he’s a revolutionary who thinks that everyone who lives in Mayfair should be executed.”

“Do you believe him?”

“No. But it could be true.”

“Did he say why he threw the bomb at Rubicon House?”

“He says he followed you and had seen you in the room.”

Rollison felt a shiver run down his spine.

“I hope there aren’t many more about like him,” he said, heavily. “Is there any word at all about Hindle?”

“No,”

“Or the actor, King?”

“No.”

“How’s his wife?” asked Rollison.

“She’s still under sedation,” answered Grice. “She came round once, and said she didn’t know where her husband was, she hadn’t seen him for two days. The baby is perfectly normal in every way according to the doctors and nurses,” he went on with a faint smile. “We still haven’t a line on King, although we’re keeping a teletype machine and five telephones open for com-munication with the newspapers, who are being inun-dated with calls from people saying they’ve seen him in a hundred different places at the same time. One or two are from people who’ve known him in the theatre or socially, and we’re following these up, of course.”

“Yes,” Rollison said, heavily.

“What’s on your mind?” asked Grice, and when Rollison didn’t answer immediately he went on: “Do you think they killed him once they knew the switch of individuals couldn’t work? So that he wouldn’t be able to talk, I mean.”

“It’s possible,” Rollison admitted.

“It’s everything I would have called melodramatic nonsense,” said Grice. “More American than British.”

“After the Kray brothers and the Great Train Robbery I don’t see how we can say that,” objected Rollison.

“Is there anything else at all you can tell me?” asked Grice, tacitly accepting defeat on that

“Nothing, but Bill Ebbutt telephoned in a mysterious mood, wanting me to go and see him,” Rollison told the Yard man. “One of his chaps might have picked something up. I’m going over to find out.”

“It’s a waste of time saying ‘be careful’,” Grice sighed, standing up slowly.

“It’s probably not even possible in this affair,” replied Rollison.

He saw Grice out, then went back to the big room to find Tommy G. Loman coming from the passage which led to his room, a savage look on his face. Rollison thought for a moment that he was annoyed because Grice had not seen him, but the tall man said in a voice cold with anger :

“I called Pam’s father, and can you imagine what he said?”

“What did he say?”

“He said if I go anywhere near his daughter he’ll horsewhip me.”

Rollison, smiling faintly, said: “I would like to see him try,” and rested a hand on the bony shoulder. “It’s bad enough as it is, I know, and worse because you can do nothing. All the same, I would prefer you to stay here. You might hear from a newspaper which really has a clue where we can find King”

Scowling, Tommy said: “You want to know some-thing, Toff ? I’m not staying in this apartment for ever.”

Rollison gave a mock shudder and said: “Heaven forbid!”

Tommy was actually laughing when Rollison went out.

Police and a few newspapermen were still in the street, and the windswept rain brought a faint odour of burning from the house which had been destroyed. A small fire tender and some firemen were outside the house. Rollison evaded the newspapermen but not the police, and went to the mews garage where the battered Bristol had been taken after the fire. The engine started at a touch, and he drove to Piccadilly and then through the heart of London to the East End. The heavy rain and gusty wind made driving unpleasant. He kept a police car in view in his driving mirror, and had no doubt that policemen along the route were on the alert ‘for him and would report his progress to the Yard’s Information Room. Once through the narrow streets of the City, past the great banking houses and the insurance companies, the Bank of England and the Stock Exchange, he drove through surprisingly light traffic through Aldgate and then the Mile End Road.

The police car kept close behind.

Policemen waved him on.

Soon he was in a section of old London’s dockland, where narrow streets of tiny houses without gardens looked drab as well as dank. At last he turned a corner where there was a big Victorian public house, The Blue Dog; an inn sign with a blue greyhound on it swung and groaned in the wind. He pulled round the corner, to a wooden building standing back from the road, emblazoned:

EBBUTT'S GYMNASIUM

Here, over the years, Bill Ebbutt had trained some of the best boxers of the British ring.

A little man with his coat collar turned up against the rain came hurrying towards Rollison, peaked cloth cap sodden.

“In the pub, Mr. Ar!” he called, and led the way to the backyard of the Blue Dog where huge barrels and stacks of beer bottle crates made a kind of maze. The back door opened as they appeared and Ebbutt stood beaming at his visitor, then gripped his hand.

“How’s the conquering hero this morning?” he inquired in a wheezy whisper. “Come in, Mr. Ar.” He led the way to a parlour at the back of the main bars. On the table were two tankards, in a corner a wooden barrel, marked XXXX — the best beer brewed in Britain, Ebbutt claimed. It stood on a trestle made of unpolished oak.

As he turned the faucet, and raised and lowered the tankards to get the proper head of beer, he said:

“Lil’s asleep — sprained her ankle and the — doctor gave her a sedative.” He handed Rollison his tankard and raised his own, his small eyes sparkling in anticipation. “Here’s to the conquering hero,” he toasted. “Blimey, that was a job you did last night, Mr. Ar.”

“Bill,” said Rollison. “I’m sure you didn’t ask me here just to tell me how brave I am.”

Ebbutt’s expression changed. He drank more beer, wiped his lips with the back of his hand, and slowly shook his head. Rollison waited in the now familiar mood of disquiet.

“Mr. Ar,” Ebbutt said, “I don’t trust that Pamela Brown.”

“Oh,” said Rollison, taken completely by surprise.

“I don’t trust her no farther than I can see her,” Ebbutt went on. “She’s a living doll all right, they don’t come any prettier and I don’t say that when I was younger I wouldn’t have liked a date or two with her. But I don’t trust her an inch.” Ebbutt drank again and repeated the motion of wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. “She did a job on old Sonny Tucker, two or three years ago. He’d been out on the old razzle-dazzle and his wife wanted evidence. You know the kind of thing. Pamela Brown got everything out of the poor old geezer, where he’d been, who he’d been with.”

“Did his wife divorce him?”

“Divorce? Who said anything about divorce? Old Sonny’s been under his wife’s thumb since that very day.” Ebbutt squeezed his huge bulk in a shabby old armchair, and went on above the wheezing in his chest; it was almost as if there were two men inside him; or Ebbutt and his echo. “Well, your American buddy has fallen for her hook, line and sinker, hasn’t he?”

“How do you know?” asked Rollison.

“My boys keep their eyes open,” Ebbutt said, “and all I can tell you is that she’s up to no good. You take my word for it.” Ebbutt drained his tankard before going on: “I couldn’t come and see you, seeing as Lil was laid up, and telephones ‘ave ears.”

Rollison said slowly: “And your boys have eyes.”

“That’s right,” said Ebbutt, clasping the arms of his chair with fat hands. His tone and his mood changed again. “All I can say, Mr. Ar, is you be very careful where those Browns are concerned. They’re dynamite.”

The word seemed to hover in the air. There was no doubt Ebbutt had used it deliberately; the steady gaze, the sombre expression, told Rollison that. Pamela Brown was dynamite.

“Bill,” Rollison said, “are you telling me that you seriously think the Brown family could be behind the bombing?”

“All I know is that I wouldn’t trust any one of them an inch, and I wouldn’t trust your American friend with them, either. Beauty’s only skin deep, that’s what I always say.” Then Ebbutt leaned forward, both hands outstretched, and his manner as well as the tone of his voice were beseeching.

“Be careful, Mr. Ar. That wasn’t funny last night. You was about ten seconds, maybe less, between staying in one piece and being blown to smithereens. I don’t want nothing to happen to you, Mr. Ar. It turned me inside out when I realised what was happening.”

Ebbutt paused, then spread his hands, then added with great depth of feeling:

“Can’t you give this one up. Get out while you’ve still got a whole skin? A hell of a lot of people would breathe a lot easier if you’d drop out. Mr. Ar. I’ve never said a truer word.”

*     *     *

First Grice. Then Ebbutt.

If he didn’t know them better he would think they had been in collusion over this; if by chance they had then each believed beyond all doubt in the acuteness of his danger.

But even if he wanted to, how could he ‘give this one up’? He didn’t really know what it was, yet in all that had happened there must be the vital clues which, when seen and properly understood, would explain everything.

Why had the Browns told Tommy Loman to go to him? Clearly, so as to involve him. Was Pamela’s ex-planation’ right or was there another? Was there the slightest possibility that there had been a faked attack on her by one of her family? If so, what possible reason could there be?

Or would Brown Senior threaten to choke the life out of him, too?

Rollison, sitting at the wheel of the Bristol in dense traffic near the Bank of England, with the stench of car exhaust fumes and the growl of car engines all about him, went very still. The car behind him honked, and he realised a light had turned green. He drove on, going towards Blackfriars Bridge and the Embankment, the quickest way to Fleet Street. He found a parking place between Evening News delivery vans and as he did so a car drew up alongside him.