John Creasey - The Toff and The Lady

“I suppose we did,” said Renfrew, slowly.

“Two things need immediate attention,” Rollison went on, briskly. “First, what really happened to Hilda? Yes, Gwen confirmed what I had guessed, her heart-attack had unusual causes. You took risks, didn’t you?”

“There wasn’t any danger to her,” said Renfrew, defensively, “and if we were right and David was behind the attack, well— what else could I do?”

“Not much,” said Rollison, “What really happened?”

“Someone gave her a powerful injection of adrenalin,” said Renfrew. “If she weren’t as strong as a horse—constitutionally, I mean—it would have been fatal, but she threw off the effects. Gwen sent for me pretty quickly.”

“An injection,” murmured Rollison.

“She took a strong sleeping draught last night,” said Renfrew, “anyone could have got into her room and pumped the stuff in without waking her. Rollison, I’m pretty sure that footman. Farrow, is up to no good.”

“Did you make up the sleeping draught?”

“Yes.”

“Who else knew about it?”

“Several people,” said Renfrew. “Gwen, of course, Hilda’s maid, the butler—I expect it was common gossip below stairs. There was nothing secret about the fact that there was trouble of some kind in the house, and that Hilda wasn’t sleeping well. I suppose the other thing you want settled,” went on Renfrew with an abrupt change of subject, “is that photograph. That wasn’t difficult”

“It was taken before she arrived at the Bal Masque,” Rollison reminded him.

“Oh, yes, a week before. The woman dining with David at a small restaurant in the West End. I have a small Leica.”

“They saw you, of course?”

“Yes,” said Renfrew.

“Did David seem put out?”

“No—there was no cause for him to be, several other people were in the party. No one I know,” he added, “I’ve tried to think where I’ve seen them before, but I haven’t succeeded.”

“How did you know they would be together?”

“I knew that David was going out to dinner, and knew where,” said Renfrew. “I’d been treating him for gastric trouble, and there was no secret about that. I went with my sister. It was all quite usual. I didn’t tell Gwen or Hilda, of course, I didn’t want them worried unnecessarily. Er—and I’m afraid I sent a note to the Countess in your name,” he added, with a rather nervous laugh. “I got a friend to meet her outside the nursing home and then sent her along to your flat. Er—no resentment, I hope.”

Rollison laughed. “It was one of your good deeds.”

“Thanks,” said Renfrew. “Well, what are you going to do now?”

Rollison told him that he was quite sure that the police should be in the house, to prevent further attacks on Gwendoline and Hilda. Renfrew raised no objection to the police being told about Hilda’s collapse—there was no reason why he should not become suddenly suspicious of the cause of the heart attack.

The decision seemed to ease his mind. He could not stay much longer, he said, for he had several calls to make.

“Then telephone the Yard and make the report,” said Rollison, “and tell them when you’ll be free. I’ll have a word with them afterwards.”

When Renfrew had finished speaking to an Inspector, Rollison took the telephone and suggested that a police-surgeon should be sent along at once to examine Mrs. Barrington-Ley. He also asked that two men be stationed in the house. There was no demur.

“You’re not taking many chances,” Renfrew said.

“We’ve taken too many already,” said Rollison.

“Yes, well. I must get off,” said Renfrew. “Er—I can’t thank you enough for the trouble you’re taking and—and the way you’re helping us.” He wrung Rollison’s hand, and hurried off.

Rollison was on edge to return to his flat or to the nursing home. Gwendoline did not come back, and after ten minutes, he went to the door. The hall was empty. The house was so large that Gwendoline was probably out of earshot. He waited for a few moments, and then moved towards the stairs.

He had not taken three steps before he heard Gwendoline’s voice, raised in alarm.

“Rolly! Rolly!”

He raced up the stairs, urged on by the urgency in her voice, and she suddenly appeared on the landing, running towards him. She stopped to get her breath and waited for him, talking as he approached.

“Mother’s door is locked, I can’t get in, I saw Farrow come out of it; Rolly, what can we do?”

“Show me her room,” said Rollison.

She turned and hurried along the passages, turning now right and now left, and then stopped outside a door which was too strong to be broken open by the pressure of a shoulder. Gwendoline banged on the door and called her step-mother’s name while Rollison examined the lock closely. It was more suited to the door of a safe deposit than a bedroom.

“Is there another way in?” he demanded.

“No,” gasped Gwendoline, “only the window. Father’s room is next to hers, but that’s always locked.”

“Which is his?” asked Rollison.

She pointed towards the right, and then called her stepmother’s name again, but there was no response. A maid came hurrying along, greatly alarmed, and up the stairs ran a white-haired man, the butler, followed by a younger man whom Rollison had not seen before.

Rollison pushed past the maid and reached the door on the left of Hilda’s bedroom. It was ajar. He entered a small sitting-room, hurried across it, opened the window and looked out. It was a long drop to the ground, but there were window-ledges and cornices on which he could stand and get a grip.

He climbed out as Gwendoline came in with the butler and the maid close behind her.

“Put a ladder beneath Hilda’s window,” Rollison called.

He was clinging to the window sill with both hands, his head and shoulders above the level of the sill. He touched the top of the window below with his feet, let it take his weight, and then measured the distance to the next window—one which looked too small for Hilda’s room but might be a bathroom or dressing-room. There would be no great difficulty in getting to that, nor from it to the next room. He caught a glimpse of Renfrew behind Gwendoline, as he leaned sideways. He kept one hand on the sill—and, as he was groping for a hold on the next window ledge, he felt a sharp pain in the hand with which he was keeping his balance, a pain so sharp and so unexpected that he released his hold.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

NEAR THING

ROLLISON toppled backwards.

He had no grip with either hand, but he was standing on the ledge below; but for that he would have fallen without a chance of recovery. He tried to sway forward and grasped at a ledge, but it slipped from the tips of his fingers. By then he was almost upright, and his feet were still on the ledge; so he leapt backwards, in the hope of falling on his feet.

There was a lawn, with a stone path criss-crossing it, immediately beneath him.

He hit the lawn with his heels and pitched backwards. The back of his head struck the lawn, not two inches from the path, and the pain shot across his head, so violent that he gasped aloud. He felt a queer whirring sound in his head as his senses reeled. He was incapable of conscious effort, but instinctively tried to sit up, only to fail and to collapse again.

Out of the dimness and the growing darkness, he heard a voice.

“Don’t move, Guv’nor, don’t move, yer ruddy fool!” A hand pressed his shoulder to the grass, and then he was conscious of fingers touching his head. He felt no great pain. After a pause, the same voice came again. “Well, nothing’s broke, anyway.”

Someone else spoke. Rollison thought it was Gwendoline, but he did not know for certain. He felt himself being lifted to a sitting position, and there seemed to be nothing but voices and people crowding about him. He opened his eyes, and could see the people vaguely: two men in uniform, Gwendoline, the old butler and the younger man, who was putting a ladder beneath a window. There were other men in plain clothes. It dawned on him that the police had arrived.

A stocky man bent over him and he heard a gruff voice say:

“You can’t keep out of trouble, can you?”

It was Cray, the police-surgeon.

“Fell right on “is ‘ead, ‘e did,” said the man who had first spoken, and Rollison recognized the driver of his taxi.

“Head, eh?” said Cray. “All right, Rollison, I won’t hurt.” His fingers pressed Rollison’s cranium. “Now—feel anything?” Rollison shook his head and the pressure moved to another spot. “Anything there? . . .  Or there? . . .  What about that?”

Rollison drew in his breath and forced himself to speak.

“I’m—all—right. Get into—Hilda’s—room.”

“Hilda?” echoed Cray, and looked up at one of the plainclothes men, an inspector from Scotland Yard.

“He means Mrs. Barrington-Ley, sir,” said the butler, out of breath.

“Get to her!” gasped Rollison.

The Inspector and others turned, and, as Rollison sat up, supported by the taxi driver who was on his knees behind him, he saw a policeman start to climb the ladder. A little comedy was enacted then, when the Inspector pulled at the man’s coat and told him to come down, then began to go up first.

“Take it easy, man,” said Cray, still standing in front of Rollison. “They’ll do what they can.”

“Help me up,” said Rollison.

“You’ll be much better” began Cray.

“Help me up!”

The taxi driver put his hands beneath Rollison’s arm-pits and Cray took his forearms. Rollison was dizzy as he reached his feet and would have fallen but for their support. He stared towards the window, where the Inspector was peering in. The uniformed policeman was half-way up the ladder, behind him.

Then the Inspector bent his elbow and cracked it against the glass. The report as the glass broke was like a pistol shot.

The man would not have done that unless faced with an emergency. Slowly, Rollison moved towards the house, and the cabby and Cray went with him, one on either side.

“Must get upstairs,” Rollison muttered.

He thought the stairs would be too much for him, and he had to rest three times on the way up, but when he reached the landing he felt steadier. The butler had come behind them, and now he went ahead and led the way towards Hilda’s room. When they reached it the door was standing open and a police-constable was on duty outside. He stood aside for Rollison and Cray to enter, but refused admittance to the cabby, who called out that he would wait outside.

Cray stepped swiftly to the bed on which Hilda lay.

It was a magnificent room, magnificently furnished, but Rollison had eyes only for Hilda, who was on her back, her face a bluish grey, her eyes closed and her body motionless.

Rollison muttered:

“It’s probably adrenalin, injected. I know she’s had one dose.”

Cray opened his bag, took out his wallet and scribbled a few words on a card. He handed it to the policeman who had climbed the ladder, and said:

“Get this made up at the nearest chemist, and tell them it is urgent.”

“Right, sir.” The man hurried out, and Cray began to examine Hilda, who did not stir. Rollison sat on the arm of a chair, staring at the bed; the Inspector stood on the far side. A few moments later, Gwendoline came in. She stifled a scream, moved slowly to Rollison’s side, and stood watching. Renfrew did not appear.

Only then was Rollison again aware of pain in his right hand. Looking down, he saw that there was a cut, still bleeding slightly, on the fleshy part of the wrist.

There was a big bump at the back of Rollison’s head, which was tender when he touched it and which prevented him from wearing a hat; apart from that, and a piece of lint and sticking plaster on his hand, he did not feel much ill-effect from his fall. He sat back in the easy chair by his desk, with Jolly pouring out tea, and the Lady of Lost Memory staring at him anxiously.

It was twenty-four hours since his fall. In the interim, he had been in no state to talk or think, and his head still ached.

When he had left Barrington House, Dr. Cray had said that there was a fair chance of Hilda recovering. She had been moved to hospital, and Rollison was reasonably certain that she would be in no further danger. The footman, Farrow, had disappeared from Barrington House. Gwendoline and Renfrew had told their story to the police, who had been non-committal, but Rollison knew that a search was already being made for Farrow.

He had not yet heard Jolly’s story, nor heard from Grice. The friendly cabby had brought him to the flat. Policemen remained at Barrington House with Gwendoline and Renfrew.

“Are you sure that you won’t have a tot of whisky or brandy in the tea sir?” asked Jolly.

“No thanks,” said Rollison. I’m all right.”

“All right!” exclaimed the Lady of Lost Memory. “You look on the point of death!”

She was wearing a tweed suit, which Jolly had obtained from a theatrical costumier’s, was bare-headed and very lovely. It was not imagination that her eyes were filled with alarm. Rollison looked at her, and sipped his tea before he spoke.

“I’m not quite as bad as that. You lock delightful, and much better.”

“Oh, please!” she said. “Mr. Rollison, what happened? Was it to do with me?”

“Only indirectly,” said Rollison. “It’s a long and complicated story, and I don’t feel up to telling it just now.”

“I think you should go back to bed,” she declared.

“I think I will turn in for an hour or two. You won’t go out again, will you?”

“Not if you wish me to stay here.”

“I do.” Rollison stood up cautiously, went towards the doer, and then turned towards her. “One small thing—Mrs. Barrington-Ley is ill, I wonder if you would care to write a note of regret?”

“Of course,” she said. “Is she seriously ill?”

“I think she will soon be all right,” said Rollison. “Jolly will take the letter round.” He nodded and smiled, looking very woebegone, and then entered the bedroom. Jolly closed the door, and regarded Rollison with mild surprise.

“I don’t want her to go out again and I can’t shut her up in her own room,” said Rollison, “so field headquarters are moved into here. What happened at the nursing home?”

“I saw Miss Armitage through the window, sir, but she was most adamant in her refusal to speak to me, and consequently there was nothing I could do. The police were there very soon after me. Had the young woman been amenable I might have obtained useful information.”

“She was right enough,” said Rollison. “I like to think that she’s usually right. I hope Grice will soon turn up with the full story. You know what happened, I suppose?”

“I understand that the matron was murdered, sir.”

“Who told you that?”

“I waited until the Superintendent was there, and then managed to overhear a little of what was said,” said Jolly.

“I see. Well, plenty was doing at Barrington House. I got off lightly. Are you in a receptive mood?”