John Creasey - Stars For The Toff

No one knew how she managed it, but there was always room to park outside the home of Lady Hurst.

As Rollison stood aside for Madam Melinska and Mona Lister to enter, she appeared at the foot of the stairs, tall, erect, Victorian in appearance and in severity of manner. Her plentiful near-white hair was swept upwards in Edwardian style, her skirts rustled, rows of pearls on the high neck of the grey silk dress were lustrous and somehow restful.

She came forward, arms outstretched, to greet Madam Melinska.

“My dear, how very nice to see you. And Mona, too. Come along in.” She turned to Rollison. “You, too, Richard.”

It was a command.

“If we can talk business,” Rollison said.

“Don’t you think that Madam Mel—”

“Aunt,” said Rollison firmly, “we’re in deep waters and if we’re to get out we need to use every minute.”

Lady Hurst fingered her horn-rimmed lorgnette.

“Very well,” she said, “but I hope you won’t be too long.”

They were moving towards a high-ceilinged, gracious room with beautifully-carved oak mantel-surround and ceiling of flowers and cherubim. Velvet curtains of pale blue draped the high windows. It was like a scene out of Jane Austen, Rollison reflected.

“Well, Richard,” his aunt said when they were settled.

“The police don’t bring a charge like this without some cause,” Rollison declared. “I haven’t studied the circumstances yet, but you seem to be convinced of Madam Melinska’s integrity. Why, then, did the police bring this charge?”

Mona clenched her hands in her lap. Madam Melinska smiled faintly.

Lady Hurst looked almost fearsome. “I was and am quite assured of good faith.”

“The charge says that Madam Melinska and Mona conspired together—”

“They did not conspire.”

“But Madam Melinska advised you to buy shares in Space Age Publishing, did she not? And now, not only has the money you invested disappeared, but the company is virtually insolvent.”

“It was not insolvent at the time she advised me to invest,” Lady Hurst stated, “was it, Madam Melinska?”

The way she asked that question seemed to suggest that a simple “no’ would be sufficient to satisfy her nephew, if not the law. Madam Melinska, hands resting on the arms of her chair, shook her head.

“Not to my knowledge,” she said.

“Did you advise people to buy them?”

“I don’t know,” said Madam Melinska quietly.

“You don’t know? You mean you don’t remember?”

“I do not recollect what I say when advice is being given through me. I am simply the channel through which the advice is given.”

“You mean you are in a trance?” Rollison asked faintly.

“Richard,” cautioned his aunt warningly. “Don’t sneer.”

“The last thing I’d do, Aunt. The very last thing. But were you advised by Madam Melinska when she was in a trance?”

“Yes.”

“And you took her advice?”

“Yes.”

“Goodness gracious,” Rollison said, in hollow tones. “Did Madam Melinska tell you that these shares were a good investment?”

“She did.”

“Did you pay her the money?”

“I sent a cheque to the company, but they say they never received it. The cheque was cashed and endorsed on the behalf of the company but the police say it didn’t go through the company’s books.”

“Well, it might help if we knew who cashed it,” said Rollison drily. “Have any of you any idea?”

“None at all,” said Madam Melinska. “None at all, Mr Rollison.”

“That is what you are to find out,” added Lady Hurst, severely.

Rollison frowned. “I’m sorry, Aunt. The whole thing sounds a complete cock-and-bull story, and that’s what the police think it is. The company was—”

“The company was, and should still be, a perfectly reliable one,” Lady Hurst said. “It has been established for over sixty years and I have known of it for most of that period. It was and should still be flourishing.”

Rollison looked thoughtful.

Before bringing Madam Melinska and Mona Lister to the Marigold Club, he had been busy telephoning newspaper friends as well as friends in the City, and he now knew most of the story. Space Age Publishing, Limited had once, as his aunt said, been a flourishing company. Then, quite recently it had been sold, and within a few months ugly rumours of bad debts, unpaid accounts and serious shortages in stocks began to circulate. It was now known that the company was virtually bankrupt.

“What went wrong doesn’t necessarily concern us,” said Rollison. “Nevertheless, this was the company in which Madam Melinska persuaded you, and others, to invest. Where did the money for those investments go? As I said, it appears to have completely disappeared—and it seems that the police think Madam Melinska and Mona have something to do with its disappearance.”

“The charge is absurd,” said Lady Hurst. “Why neither of them could even pay for their own bail.”

Rollison frowned. “Some people think that this is a sham—that Madam Melinska has the money but is pretending poverty in order to make the charge seem absurd.”

“Do you believe that, Mr Rollison?” asked Madam Melinska quietly.

Rollison looked at her without speaking, feeling an odd compulsion to say: “No.” But until there was proof of what had happened to the missing money, no one could be sure.

The dark, compelling eyes met his.

“If you help to find the truth you may be badly hurt, Mr Rollison, many of your friends may turn against you. But you will get help from unexpected sources.”

Rollison stared back, determined that her gaze should drop before his; but it did not. He was beginning to wonder how long he could keep this up, to wish that his aunt would make some kind of interruption, when there was a tap at the door. It was the auburn-haired manageress.

“I’m sorry, Lady Hurst, but there is a telephone call for Mr Rollison. A Mr Jolly. He says that it is extremely urgent.”

For Jolly to say that, it must be, thought Rollison.

There was no telephone in the drawing-room, and he got up, murmured an apology, and went out. He could feel the gaze of the three women, his aunt’s tinged with a slight hostility, Madam Melinska’s reproachful, the girl’s frightened. He picked up a telephone in the hall.

“Yes, Jolly?”

Jolly said: “It’s grave news, sir, I’m afraid.”

His pause underlined the statement, and Rollison caught his breath in sudden alarm. “Charlie Wray has been fatally injured—in a car accident, so-called. The car didn’t stop, but a passer-by took a description of it—and the police think it may well have been the car that tried to run down Lucifer Stride.”

*     *     *

From that moment, Rollison’s attitude towards the inquiry changed. Until then he had been involved almost in spite of himself. Now, he was involved because he meant to find out who had killed Charlie Wray.

The next few hours were a nightmare.

First, he went to Fulham, to see and identify the body.

Next, he drove to the East End, where Bill Ebbutt lived, massive, flabby, wheezy, generous Bill Ebbutt, who found “work’ for a dozen boxing has-beens at his gymnasium which was next to his pub, The Blue Dog, near the Mile End Road. As the Bentley turned the corner into the mean street of tiny terrace houses, men and women turned to stare and the whispers began.

“It’s the Toff . . . Toff . . . Toff . . .”

“TheToff’s here . . .”

Toff, Toff, Toff, To . . . Rollison felt that he could hear the soubriquet from a hundred lips. And he saw the men and women, brought by the bad news, gathered outside the wooden gymnasium. The entrance was lined with people, nearly all of them men—mostly friends of the dead Charlie, old sparring partners, old opponents of the ring.

Rollison slammed the door of the car and walked what seemed an unending gauntlet of sad and familiar faces. He had asked for help and it had been given cheerfully; and now one of their friends was dead.

The sun shone out of a clear blue sky. It shone on the open door of the gymnasium, and then on Bill Ebbutt, as he appeared, wearing a black polo-neck sweater and black trousers—as if he were in mourning. The clothes showed up the pallor of his face.

His big hand engulfed Rollison’s.

“Bill,” Rollison said, “I couldn’t be more sorry.”

“I know, Mr Ar,” said Ebbutt, hoarsely. “Helluva thing to happen. Any idea who did it?”

“Not yet.”

“Every mother’s son of us will help.”

“I know,” said Rollison. “As soon as I need help, I’ll tell you. Does Mrs Wray know?”

“Yeh.” Ebbutt gulped. “I told her.”

“Is she at home?”

“Yeh.”

“Come with me, Bill, will you?”

The little home in a narrow street of old grey hovels soon to be demolished was within walking distance. A dozen silent men followed Rollison and Ebbutt round half a dozen corners and then to a front door painted bright yellow—painted, quite recently, by Charlie Wray. Two or three neighbours were in the tiny front parlour which opened on to the street; they stood aside for Rollison and Ebbutt to enter.

Wray’s widow was small and slim, with hair which was still jet black despite her sixty-odd years. She stared at Rollison, her eyes red and swollen, her face streaked with tears.

“Get out of my house,” she said. “Don’t ever come here again.”

“Daisy—” Rollison began.

“Don’t speak to me. Don’t speak to me. If it wasn’t for you, he’d be alive. You killed him.”

“Now, Dais—” began Bill Ebbutt, in distress.

The woman ignored him, her eyes boring into Rollison with frightening intensity. “Get out of my house. Get out of my house, Mr Rollison. And remember—don’t ever come back.”

“You may be badly hurt, Mr Rollison, many of your friends may turn against you

“Daisy,” Rollison said, very quietly, “if I were in your place I would feel exactly as you do. I’m desperately sorry.”

He turned and walked into a street which was now crowded. Many of the faces he saw were those of strangers, although there were some he knew, mostly from Bill Ebbutt’s gymnasium. A little grey-haired woman, struggling to see over the shoulders of those in front of her, shook her fist.

“You as good as killed poor Charlie!” she called out. “You sent him to his death!”

Uneasily, a man said: “Shut up, Ma.”

“I’ll shut up when you’ve shut him up.”

Ebbutt glared at her.

Rollison gripped his arm. “It’s all right, Bill.”

But it wasn’t all right. The silence was too noticeable, the coolness much too marked, as he walked away. There was hatred in his heart for Charlie Wray’s killers, and dismay at the attitude of the people here, so many of them his former friends.

*     *     *

“It’s crazy, Mr Ar,” Ebbutt said, “but the talk started even before you got here. They started to say you should have done the job yourself, not got someone else to do your dirty work. I—hey! I didn’t mean that the way it sounded, I meant . . .”

Bill Ebbutt floundered.

Rollison put a hand on his arm and said: “Don’t worry, Bill.”

He got into the Bentley and drove away, half expecting something to be thrown at the car; but nothing was thrown. The people just stared blankly and the last he saw of them was a miniature of set, troubled faces in the driving mirror. He turned into the Mile End Road and the roar and throb of traffic. Before he reached the tall spire of Whitechapel Church he knew that this was going to be a case that only he should handle.

Or he and Jolly should handle. He must telephone Jolly.

*     *     *

“The body was found only fifty yards from the house where Mrs Abbott lives,” said Jolly. “Do you think you should go and see her?”

“Yes,” said Rollison crisply. “What about Lucifer Stride?”

“He seems to have vanished,” Jolly said, glumly. He paused for a moment, and then added: “There is one other thing, sir. Have you seen the evening newspaper?”

“No.”

“It has a full report of the hearing, and of your generous gesture, sir. As a result there are a great number of people gathered outside, showing very considerable enthusiasm. You might well be advised to come in by the fire escape.”

“Oh,” said Rollison, taken by surprise. “I’ll think about that. Do I hear the other telephone bell ringing?”

“Incessantly, sir,” said Jolly. “Incessantly.”

When Rollison put the telephone down it was with unexpected lightness of heart. And he seemed to hear a gentle voice saying: “. . . but you will get help from unexpected sources.”

CHAPTER EIGHT

Home Of The Angry Woman

No one was near 12 Tillson Street, the street in which Charlie Wray had died. On the roadway and the pavement close to a cracked and broken lamp-post was a telltale patch of fresh sand and dampness from the water used to hose away the signs of death. It was a short street, shaped like a shallow crescent between two longer ones. The houses were all three storeys high, with steps leading down to gloomy-looking basements; there were bars at the basement and ground-floor windows of Number 12, and black paint on the bars and the rail about the house. In the middle of the basement area was a large bowl of dead and dying tulips; otherwise the place seemed well-kept. It was flanked on either side by FOR SALE boards outside houses much more dilapidated.

Rollison stepped to the front door, and glanced behind him. There was no one in sight—only a small black car parked fifty yards or so along the road.

On the side of the door were four bells, and beneath each bell-push a name. The third one from the bottom had: “Mrs Abbott” in faded ink on a dirty white card.

He pressed Mrs Abbott’s bell, and waited. There was no answer. He pressed again with the same result. He did not know why he was surprised, but he was; and uneasiness merged into his surprise. He inspected the lock; it was easy to force, and he did not lose a moment. The blade of a special knife, a few dexterous twists—and the latch clicked back. Rollison pushed the door open and stepped inside.

At once he detected a strong smell of burning.

Burning?

He saw stairs disappearing downwards into a well of darkness; more stairs leading up, the walls drab with faded paper. It was from these that the smell of burning seemed to be coming. He hurried upwards, passed a doorway marked 2, and reached the next landing. Beneath the 3 on the door now facing him was the name Mrs Abbott. This door had an old-fashioned type lock, no more difficult to force than that on the main entrance. The smell of fire was much stronger now, and Rollison worked quickly. Suddenly the lock clicked back, and he flung the door open.