John Creasey - The Toff In Town

“But how foolish!” cried Hilda.

“I shall never do this,” muttered Hans. That thing—it frightens me.” He glared at the microphone.

“Oh, yes you will,” said Wentworth reassuringly. “Now try again.” He read casually and fluently, and finished: “And you like it here in England?”

Hedley turned away from them, cutting them from Rollison’s view, and bending low near Allen.

“We must whisper,” he said. “Have you the alterations in the script?”

“Yes, they’re down here,” said Allen.

“Let me have a look at them.” Hedley took the script and began to read, scratching his chin as he did so. Wentworth, the boy and the girl continued to read, and Rollison judged that they were still giving trouble, the girl dropped her voice too much at the end of every sentence, the boy had a tendency to shout.

“Still determined on doing the alterations?” he asked Allen.

Allen nodded without speaking.

“Anyone here you know?” asked Rollison.

Allen shook his head, then looked at Hedley, as if to say that he knew this man, whom he had seen when he had called on Wednesday afternoon. Hedley kept nodding, and began to read in a whisper. The Danish couple reached the end of their few minutes” trial and Wentworth raised his voice, while everyone in the studio relaxed.

“That was very good—very good indeed,” said Wentworth. He looked through the glass partition, and one of the people with the head-phones beckoned. Wentworth called to Hedley: “Freddy wants a word with you, Mark—Mr. Allen ready yet?”

“No, we’ll have to have the last bit of his script re-typed, it’s been altered and affects your cues,” said Hedley. “Peggy!” he called one of the girls and gave her hasty instructions, then hurried out of the studio.

“How are you feeling?” asked Rollison.

“Hellish!” growled Allen.

Rollison shrugged his shoulders, stood up, and walked across the studio to listen from further away to the burly busker who sat in front of the microphone with every appearance of confidence. From here, Rollison could also study Allen more closely. His forehead was still plastered and his face scratched, but his sullen expression was most worrying.

One of the girls came into the studio, looked about her and made a bee-line for Alien.

Wentworth, at the mike, began to read: “Artists have the reputation of being unconventional people, and in the studio to-night is Mr. Arthur Mellor, whose pictures have been hung in the Royal Academy but who prefers to paint in a rather unusual fashion—in the leafy lanes and lovely villages of England. That is so, isn’t it, Mr. Mellor?”

The burly “busker” said crisply:

“That’s right. I dislike towns, and I don’t see why pictures I paint should hang on the walls of houses where only a few people can see them. If they’re worth looking at, then I think everyone, rich and poor, should have a chance to see them and if they’re not worth looking at, they ought to be burned. I paint inn-signs—have done for years.”

Rollison grimaced to himself.

The burly “busker” was the travelling artist and the neatly-dressed little man was presumably the real busker.

Then Rollison saw that the girl had given Allen a note; Allen was reading it, his hands clenched, his mouth tight. He gave an almost frightened, furtive glance, searching the faces of all the people near him, then looked back at the note. He crumpled it up and thrust it into his pocket.

The wandering artist talked on about his inn-signs . . .

Rollison let a few minutes pass and, when there was a break in the rehearsal, strolled across to Allen, who met him with a cold, hostile stare. It would be useless to ask him what the message said, and Rollison sat down as if he noticed nothing. They waited until the artist’s rehearsal was over, and the well-dressed man approached the other table, where Wentworth awaited him.

“All ready?” asked Wentworth.

“Yes—fire away.”

“This is a world of queues,” began Wentworth, “and weary queuers are often entertained by actors who prefer the road and the pavement to the stage itself. With us in the studio is . . .”

Rollison slid his right hand to Allen’s pocket, felt the crumpled paper, caught it between his middle finger and forefinger and gently drew it out. Allen was quite unaware of what he was doing. Rollison slipped the paper into his own pocket. The other girl came in, carrying some sheets of paper, and

Hedley took one from her and brought it to Alien.

“Just check this new script, will you?” he asked.

Allen read it and after a few minutes, Wentworth looked across at them inquiringly. Hedley gave the interviewer the sheet of the revised script, and Wentworth scanned it, then nodded.

“All set?” asked Hedley, and Allen went slowly, almost nervously, to the table. He sat down, and Hedley took the seat he had just vacated.

“Very nervous, isn’t he—much more than I thought he’d be, when I saw him the other day,” he remarked. “He looks as if he’s had an accident.”

“He has, and it shook him up a bit,” said Rollison, “but he’ll be all right once the stage-fright’s over.”

“Mike-fright,” corrected Hedley absently. “Hallo, here are the Lundys.” He hurried across the studio as a couple in evening dress entered. The man was tall and good-looking, dressed in tails, a fitting foil to his wife, who wore a gown of blue sequins—a handsome woman. Neither of them looked like the comic turn they were on stage and screen.

Allen was talking freely enough, in a low-pitched, well modulated voice.

Rollison took out the note, and read: “Don’t forget you’re being watched in the studio. If you get a word wrong, you won’t leave the room alive.”

Rollison asked the girl where the note had come from, and was told that a commissionaire had given it to her. The commissionaire had said that a boy had brought it in—and Rollison needed no more telling that the messenger had been Max. He went into the street, and saw Perky Lowe a little way along. He strolled to the cab. Perky’s cap hid the adhesive plaster patch on the back of his head.

“Going places?” he asked.

“Not yet, Perky,” said Rollison. “Are there any more like you?”

“Cabbies, yer mean?”

“Yes, who’ll take a risk.”

“Make it worth their while?” asked Perky.

“Certainly.”

“How many do you want?”

“One will do,” said Rollison. “Ask him to come here right away, and if Allen comes out, to take him on. You wait for four minutes and then follow if I haven’t turned up. Is that clear?”

“Okay,” said Perky. “I’ll “ave ter fix it wiv me mate, so’s I can pick ‘im up, if “e “as free or four minutes’ start, but it’ll be okay. Why Allen, Mr. Ar?”

“Just an idea,” said Rollison.

He returned to the studio, where the Lundys were at the microphone, cracking away and keeping everyone, except the Italians, in fits of laughter.

“Not a doubt they’re good,” Hedley enthused, “it’s a good programme this week, isn’t it?”

“Very,” agreed Rollison, and added as an after-thought: “Who makes the Lundys’ films?”

“He was just telling me,” said Hedley. “They were with a Rank firm, but they’re just going over to some new people, the Meritor Company.”

CHAPTER TWENTY

ALL PRESENT

THE studio clock on the wall above the glass partition showed that it was five minutes to six.

The studio itself seemed a different place. It was warmer, and there were more people; the friends and relatives of some of the broadcasters had come, and chairs were set a few yards away from the microphone, so that they could listen without walking about the studio during the broadcasts. Rollison detected a slightly harassed air in Hedley, Wentworth and the tired-looking man, as the hour for going on the air drew near, but they had succeeded in putting the “performers” at their ease.

Everyone had been downstairs to the underground café and had tea; that interlude had helped them to get together. They now seemed like old friends. Rollison marvelled at the way in which he had come to know not only what the people looked like, but so much of their past lives. For each had rehearsed several times, until Rollison knew their life-stories almost off by heart. The busker and the artist were chatting freely in one corner, the Italians were congratulating themselves in another, and now and again the pianist strummed the keys. Hedley and the official staff were having a hurried consultation and looking at the tenor. The Danes, and several of the visitors, were chatting together. The Lundys and two other people in evening-dress were sitting in a row, swapping stories. Allen, who had rehearsed twice and seemed word and voice perfect, had lost something of his tension. Rollison, who had tucked the note back into his pocket, had watched every man and woman, every official who had entered the studio, but saw no one who appeared to take the slightest interest in Allen. Lundy certainly didn’t

Yet the note had been clear-cut:

“Don’t forget you’re being watched in the studio. If you get a word wrong, you won’t leave the room alive.” Little wonder that Allen was nervous!

He wasn’t sure whether Allen knew who was here, working for Pauline, but every time the door opened Allen glanced towards it, drawing in his breath.

McMahon breezed in, caught Hedley’s eye, grinned and nodded, saw Rollison and gave an almost imperceptible wink, and made straight for the Lundys. They obviously knew him. Someone asked what he was doing there and he turned the question aside easily.

Allen watched the newspaper man closely, suspiciously, having no idea who he was.

Rollison, now sitting next to him, asked quietly:

“Recognise anyone yet?”

“No.”

“Still determined to go on with it?”

“Of course I am. I can’t hold out any longer at this pressure. Don’t be a fool.”

Rollison said: “All right. Let me have another look at your script, will you?”

Allen hesitated, then held it out, Rollison read it as Hedley came up to Allen with the tired-looking man who had a friendly twinkle in his eyes and who had not raised his voice or shown any sign of impatience during the early, trying period of the rehearsals. He was the producer.

“All ready for your piece, Mr. Allen?” he asked “You’ve been word-perfect in rehearsals, and absolutely right with volume. You’ve a slight tendency to lower your voice at the end of a paragraph, and you might try to keep it up.”

“All right,” said Allen.

“I did wonder whether you’d care to start, instead of wind up,” said the producer.

“It would be over then—you’re a bit nervous, aren’t you?”

“I’d rather be the last performance,” said Allen with a sickly grin. “I—er—I telephoned my wife and told her that I wasn’t on until the end, she might miss part of it if I start too early. If you don’t mind——”

“No, no, that’s quite all right. It’s just as you prefer.” The produced glanced at the clock. “Ten minutes to go—Signer Toni, perhaps you will have one more rehearsal——”

“Si, si, signore.” Toni jumped towards the mike, gripped it, measured it, stared it in the eye and then took up his stance. The little comedy was played through again and went without a flaw, the purity of his voice held every one enthralled. McMahon looked at the Italian thoughtfully; in fact, everyone watched him, and so no one noticed the door open and Jolly put his head inside the room.

Rollison caught sight of him when he had been there for a couple of minutes, and immediately stood up and tip-toed across to him. Hedley turned and put his hand to his mouth for silence—Hedley and the producer were noticeably more touchy now that they were approaching the big moment

Rollison whispered: “What is it, Jolly?”

“I’m sorry to worry you now, sir, but I thought I ought to come,” said Jolly. “Mr. Higginbottom just telephoned.”

“Oh,” said Rollison heavily.

“He said that we were not to be intimidated because he was in difficulties,” went on Jolly. “But I gather from what he said, that he has been told to tell us to make sure the Mr. Allen broadcasts the new version. In fact, the woman came on the line and repeated her threat that we would not see Mr. Higgin-bottom again unless the broadcast went through perfectly. What are we to do, sir?”

Rollison said: “We must find out who’s watching Allen. There’s no other way.”

“I suppose not, sir,” said Jolly. “How—how do you propose to interfere with the broadcast, and make Mr. Allen say the wrong words?”

Jolly spoke carefully, as if he had difficulty in getting his words out. And between the lines, Rollison read his plea: “Can’t we let it go through? Can’t we give Snub this chance?”

The producer came up and spoke sharply.

“Come in if you’re coming, please—and no talking when the red light’s showing, we’ll be on the air then.”

“Sorry,” murmured Rollison. “Far corner, Jolly,” They tiptoed across the studio.

Allen was on an end seat of the front row. He glanced at Jolly without any great show of interest, and kept looking hard at McMahon. There was much hustle and bustle in the studio. The artist was at one table, the young Danes already sitting at the other one. The interviewer would move from the first to the second table to carry out successive interviews, being given time to move by an announcer, who would speak for a few seconds between each “act”. Only a few minutes remained. There was a sudden hush; everyone stared at the green light which glowed near the clock, waiting for it to turn red. A tall, good-looking young man arrived, one obviously known to the staff.

He moved to the upright microphone, buttoned his jacket, coughed and, without a glance at the script in his hand, began to speak.

He had been so casual that the others hardly noticed that the red light had replaced the green. In a voice so familiar that it seemed as if it came from a friend, he spoke briskly:

“This is the B.B.C. Home Service.”

Nothing happened when he stopped. Rollison looked about him in surprise, Jolly peered at the announcer, everyone waited and seemed to think some catastrophe had befallen the programme—and then Rollison saw that the announcer was looking through the glass partition and realised that the programme’s signature tune, the Knightsbridge March, was being played on a gramophone in the control room. The tall young man turned away and began to speak again.