John Creasey - The Toff and The Sleepy Cowboy

“He’s a friend of Derek,” Hindle declared.

Rollison spun round, his expression changing on the instant: “He knows you! Why, he can give this away in five minutes!”

“Take it easy,” Derek said, sneering. “He doesn’t know me. I’ve supplied his pusher for a year or two, that’s all.”

“Pusher? Heroin?”

“Anything that comes,” said Derek. “But it was too dangerous to go on with, and he couldn’t find the dough so he had to do this deal. Don’t worry about him or anyone.”

Rollison put the cigarette to his lips and struck a match.

“There’s just one person I worry about now.”

“If you mean Effie —”

“I don’t mean Effie,” Rollison said. “I mean Tommy G. Loman. Is he alive or is he dead. When did you make the switch?” He smiled into Hindle’s eyes. “Alec George King has done a wonderful job, he’s fooled everybody except me, and if I hadn’t realised he was King and not Loman, I would never have been able to make this deal. But for the record — where is he now?”

*     *     *

Outwardly, he looked so calm and self-possessed. Inwardly, he was seething with anxiety, not only for himself, but for the real Tommy G. Loman.

Was he alive?

Or was he dead?

20

Switch In Time

THE TWO HINDLES stood silent.

The match burned low in Rollison’s fingers and he shook it out, glanced about for an ashtray, and moved to one on a table against the wall. Hindle moved uneasily, and Derek said:

“Forget him.”

“Don’t be silly,” said Rollison sharply. “I can’t put all this through if the real Loman can appear out of the blue at any time.”

“You said there were other ways to keep a man quiet than killing him,” Hindle said.

“Not where Loman is concerned,” Rollison replied sharply. “I want to see him, alive or dead.” He laughed, without any humour. “That’ an apt phrase in the circumstances. Wanted Thomas G. Loman, alive or dead, with a million pounds on his head. Where is he? Where was the switch made?”

“You’re so clever, why don’t you guess?” sneered Derek. “Pop, we don’t tell Rollison anything else, he knows plenty. I’m not so sure he isn’t bluffing, that we’re not falling for a big confidence trick. I —”

He broke off, as a telephone bell rang.

Tension, eased until Rollison had switched the subject, demanding to see the real Thomas G. Loman, came screaming back. The harsh ringing of the bell made it worse. The elder Hindle raised the gun again as Derek moved towards a telephone standing on a table near a doorway on the right.

He said hoarsely : “Don’t move, Rollison.”

“Your son isn’t safe to have around,” Rollison said, the unlighted cigarette still in his mouth.

Derek reached the telephone and snatched up the receiver. Veins stood out on his forehead; so did blobs of sweat. He was so beside himself that he picked the receiver up while standing awkwardly to cover the Toff : for a moment the muzzle actually pointed at his own head.

“Yes?” he rasped; there was a moment’s pause and he went on: “Yes, Alec?”

Alec.

Alec — Alec — Alec — Alec!

That was the moment when Rollison knew the whole truth; the moment he had fought for, staked his life on.

He had been as sure as he could be since Pamela had been attacked here that her companion had attacked her, not an unseen man. There had been time before her rescuers arrived; just time. Had they been half a minute later then her newfound lover would have choked her to death. He had felt certain that the man whom he had at first believed to be Thomas G. Loman was in fact Alec George King. And from the moment of realisation there had been only one concern in his mind: to find the real Thomas G.

Now, a man named Alec was on the telephone, knowing the Hindles were at the Browns’ house.

Derek listened.

He twisted round, and his lips twisted in rare malevolence.

“Shoot him in the guts!” he cried. “He’s conning us — one of Grice’s men let it out, Alec heard them.” Alec George King, alias Thomas G. Loman, at Gresham Terrace. “He’s conning —”

Rollison blew the phial of tear gas into Hindle’s face before he realised what his son was saying. Derek twisted round, caught a wrist in the telephone cable, and jerked it free and levelled his gun, but before he touched the trigger Rollison used the small gun and a bullet caught the younger man in the shoulder. Derek grunted and jerked back, and Rollison shot him again with greater calculation, in the back of his gun hand.

Hindle was reeling about helplessly, hands at his streaming eyes.

Rollison listened intently but heard nothing upstairs. He picked up the telephone as the man named Alec called:

“Derek, what’s happened? Are you there, are you there?”

Rollison simply rang off, and held the receiver down for a moment, then dialled 999 — the Emergency number. He was answered at once, and in seconds was speaking to Grice.

“Bill, there’s a freelance newspaperman named Jack Fisher, attached to the construction side of London Air-port. He was doing an inside story on a building strike when Tommy G. Loman’s plane arrived. Find Fisher and I think you’ll find the real Tommy G. Loman . . . No, not the man at my flat, that’s King . . . The switch must have been made at London Airport and the real Tommy G. smuggled out through the new building work . . .He might still be there, there are plenty of places to hide a man at London Airport.”

He did not add: “And hide a body.”

“What about you?” demanded Grice.

“I’m fine. The Browns are as innocent as doves, the Hindle family is here waiting for your chaps to come and pick them up. We may need an ambulance and we cer-tainly need a doctor for the older Brown — he was thrown down the stairs.”

Grice said: “Wait a moment.” His voice faded and in the distance Rollison heard him say on another telephone: “London Airport Police, quickly . . .” Then in a louder voice he went on to Rollison : “I can’t believe it. I can’t believe the man at your flat isn’t the real American.”

“Brilliant act, isn’t it?” asked Rollison.

“Brilliant. It —” There was another pause before Grice went on: “I’m going to take your word for it, but I still don’t believe it. When — when did you begin to think —?” Grice broke off again, helplessly.

“There were a lot of indications, given hindsight,” said Rollison, “but can’t they keep? I want to tell Jolly, and get King himself. He is still at my flat, I take it?”

“No doubt at all,” answered Grice. “Jolly was on the telephone only twenty minutes ago, and Loman himself —” Grice gulped — “I mean, King alias Loman picked up an extension and said: ‘You find the Toff, do you hear? You find the Toff.’ Yes,” went on Grice, “he’s there all right. Are you going straight to the flat?”

“As soon as I’ve tidied up here,” Rollison said.

As he spoke, there was a rat-tat-tat at the front door; the first of three police cars had arrived. Rollison left the Hindles to them, told them about Mrs. Hindle, up-stairs, and went to the cupboard beneath the stairs. The one thing above all others that he hated was the need to tell Pamela the truth about her Tommy, but at least the time was not yet.

“The police are in possession,” he told her and her brother. “The Hindles are under arrest, and we know where to find King.” He helped Pamela into the big hall, saying : “I had to discover where he was, and couldn’t find the whole truth any other way.”

“Richard,” Pamela said. “I will never forgive myself for not trusting you.” Then her tone changed. “How soon will a doctor be here for Daddy ?”

“One’s on the way,” Rollison reassured her. “I don’t think he broke any bones, and he’s probably suffering from severe concussion.”

“As soon as I know that for sure,” Pamela said, “I want to go and see Tommy.”

“Mr. Rollison!” a police sergeant called from the door. Rollison had never been more glad of an interruption.

As he pulled up outside 25g Gresham Terrace, three-quarters of an hour later, Grice opened the door of a car which was double-parked and approached him. He might have news of Fisher as well as the real Tommy Loman. Rollison’s heart pounded for the sake of a man whom he had never seen. But Grice was relaxed, and his stride was springy; he did not have the manner of a man bringing bad news.

“Alive?” asked Rollison.

“Alive.” Grice stated, simply. “He was kept in an old hut on the building site. I’m pretty sure they were going to keep him alive until cement was being poured at the next section of the new terminal — they would have killed and buried him in double quick time. They kept him alive on bread and water, but he seems able to walk under his own steam. The switch was made with the connivance of a nurse, who was well paid. He’s now at the airport hospital.”

“Wonderful,” Rollison breathed. “And Fisher?”

“He was picked up in Fleet Street,” answered Grice. “He had one accomplice, another of the bomb throwing baskets. The moment he was arrested he began to blame Derek Hindle. He said Hindle forced him to do whatever he wanted by withholding heroin which he couldn’t do without.”

“Of them all Derek is undoubtedly the nastiest,” Rollison said. They were half-way up the stairs then, and went the rest of the way in silence. The flat door opened, and Jolly came forward, eagerly, while Alec George King alias Thomas G. Loman peered from high above his head.

“Thank God you’re all right, sir,” Jolly said feelingly. “When you were so late back, without sending a message, I became very alarmed indeed.”

“I’ll say he did,” confirmed ‘Tommy’. “If you’d been much longer, Richard, you would have found him in bed in a state of collapse. Where have you been, partner?”

“At the Browns’ house,” Rollison answered, mildly. ‘Tommy’ stared.

Then he gulped, and backed a pace.

Then he dropped his right hand to his pocket, but before he could pull it out again Rollison covered him with the small gun. Jolly simply gaped. Grice made a swift movement, drawing a pair of handcuffs from his pocket, while Rollison lifted a stiletto from ‘Tommy’s’ —one of the weapons from the Trophy Wall. There were moments of almost screaming tension, before Alec George King alias Tommy G. Loman asked in a husky voice quite free from American accent:

“How did you guess ?”

“Too many police were at the Browns’ house when you took Pamela home for anyone to have attacked her and got away. It had to be you. The only prisoner caught was Luigi Tetano, a policeman from Long Island, and the only other man about was you. Would you have choked the life out of Pamela if the police hadn’t been there, I wonder?”

King managed to retort: “I wonder.”

“Once I realised you were the wrong Tommy I saw all the other indications. That nothing fitted if you were the real man, everything did if you were not. That your reaction to London was too naive for anyone from the far west, you had to be putting on an act. You were prepared to stay here, snug and safe, although the man you pretended to be would never have stayed. As I told the Superintendent, it is easy with hindsight.”

“Clever Toff,” King half-sneered. “I thought I’d got away with it.”

“I can hardly believe all this,” Jolly said, in a hollow voice. “When — when was the switch made, sir ?”

“Oh, in the airport hospital,” Raison said. “That one’s easy.” He explained about the nurse, and then added: “The ward was left empty two or three times, the new extension was being built behind a canvas and plastic screen. It was very simple. In fact it was all beautifully simple — even Jack Fisher arriving on the scene to find out what Pamela had told me, and to ingratiate himself so that he could come to the flat and keep the false Tommy up to date with what was happening.”

There were so many more details, among them that Loman’s baggage had been stolen so that Alec George King could have all his identification papers and his clothes and credits. That Alec had known of Tetano’s identity because Fisher had picked up the news from London Airport police.

Later that day the police learned that the Hindles, once on the run, simply took over the Browns’ house. They had feared the Toff most, and Pamela next, because sooner or later they might have discovered the truth about ‘Tommy’. And Alec George King had made his fierce, overwhelming conquest to find out what she knew. He would not have killed her, he swore, simply overpowered her and taken her into the house where her father and brother were held captive.

Later that evening, too, Rollison went to see Pamela Brown.

She had been kept at the house by the police, she said with great indignation; or she would have been at Gresham Terrace on their heels. And, with fresh indignation, she demanded of Rollison :

“Why isn’t he here with you? Why didn’t you bring him?”

“Pamela,” Rollison said as he put his hand on her arm and led her into the hall where a few hours ago he had been so near death, “try not to hate me.”

“Hate you? Why on earth should I?”

“For what I have to tell you,” Rollison said.

Her eyes were so huge and bright but they held no radiance. Her lips were parted, but she uttered no words although three words formed on them, easy to read:

“He’s — not — dead?”

“No,” Rollison told her, “he’s not dead, Pam, but I think perhaps he deserves to be.”

Gently, he told her.

He did not know whether it was good or bad that she listened, and made no comment, and showed no sign of tears.

When he had done, and waited a while, Rollison went on: “There’s one deep cause for satisfaction, Pamela. You and your family did what you set out to do: you saved the life and fortune of the real Tommy G. Loman.”

*     *     *

When he saw that real Tommy G., the next day, he found him pleasant and likeable. But Rollison knew and Jolly knew and Pamela would soon know that as a personality he wasn’t a patch on the false Tommy G. Loman: and never would be.

THE END