John Creasey - The Toff And The Curate

“I’ve got nothing on which to hold him.”

Rollison smiled drily.

“Now what’s amusing you?” asked Chumley.

“A nice piece of fandoogling,” said Rollison. “I wondered why you were so careful to let Bray of the Yard detain him and only finish off yourself. You didn’t want to come a cropper, did you? The Yard did the dirty work, you handed Craik over to them.”

Chumley grinned, smugly.

“You weren’t satisfied that it was Craik even then?” asked Rollison.

“I was not.” Chumley was surprisingly emphatic. “I think I know this Division. I’ve been here for fifteen years and Joe Craik is one of the reliables. He might have punched O’Hara’s head but he wouldn’t use a knife. Young Bray was cocky, so I let him have his head. I thought it might give me a chance to do some quick uncovering but I’ve drawn a blank.”

“Except that you’ve been tipped off about the knife,” said Rollison. “Who told you?”

“A man who gave his name as Keller,” said Chumley and sat back, as if prepared to gloat over his sensation.

Rollison could not wholly hide his surprise.

“So you think Keller’s behind it, do you,” said Chumley.

Rollison said nothing.

“Don’t be afraid to speak up,” urged Chumley. “Rollison, I’ve not been asleep for llie last six months. I’ve never talked to Keller, in fact I’ve only once set eyes on him, hut I’ve had reports about him. There are times when we have to turn a blind eye down here. Keller’s associates have the reputation of having committed several ugly crimes but we’ve never been able to prove they were Keller’s men or that Keller knew anything about the crimes. It’s a remarkable fact that in every case the victims have been—”

“Bad men,” said Rollison, unexpectedly. “Swine.”

“What’s that?”

“I’m just quoting,” said Rollison, crossing to an easy chair. He sat on the arm. “There’s no evidence against Keller, and the crimes which rumour accredit to him have been—” he shrugged his shoulders, “—justifiable. Is that your opinion?”

“No, of course not! But they have been a kind of rough justice. You know something about that kind of thing, don’t you?”

“It has been said,” murmured Rollison. “You seem to be happy about it all, so why ask me to come here?”

“Why are you interested in the murder of O’Hara?” asked Chumley.

“I’m not,” answered Rollison. “I’m interested in the affairs of the new Curate at St Guy’s.”

Chumley rubbed his fleshy chin.

“You’re not seriously asking me to believe that?”

“It’s the truth,” Rollison assured him. “It might lead to other things, of course. For instance, why was Craik’s knife stolen? Was it to cast suspicion on Craik and even provide evidence against him? If so, why?”

“I can’t see any other explanation,” admitted Chumley, worriedly, “although why anyone should want Craik framed for a murder beats me. Rollison, you’ve been very active in the past twenty-four hours—surely you know something?”

“I’m a victim of mis-statements,” Rollison declared. “Or if you prefer it, I’ve been selected as a gullible stooge to help someone create the wrong impression. Did Harris tell you who paid him to take Craik’s knife?”

“He said it was Keller,” said Chumley, “and then he described Keller as a stocky man with big brown eyes. Possibly someone has been passing himself off as Keller who, I’m told, is a little man, and—great Scott!” exclaimed Chumley. “A stocky man with brown eyes! That fellow who spoke to you at the stadium answers the description—did you think he was Keller?”

“He told me he was,” said Rollison.

Chumley stared; and then he began to smile.

“And you believed him—I don’t think. That isn’t Keller! He might be the man who has been arranging these attacks, including the wrecking of the mission hall, but he certainly isn’t Kellef! I wonder why he wants to make out that he is?”

“To establish Keller as a crook, perhaps,” said Rollison. “In exactly the same way as he tried to frame Craik. Is that what you think?”

“It seems likely,” conceded Chumley. “Why didn’t you tell me about the mission hall trouble?”

“Not your battle, yet,” said Rollison. “It’s Kemp’s. But it will probably become yours. Now—to save you from asking why I arranged for Ebbutt to protect the Whiting family—I thought it would help you out as you’re short-staffed! The man who called himself Keller uttered violent threats against the Whitings, to stop Whiting from talking about the stolen knife. As the real Keller appears to have blown the gaff I doubt if the Whitings are in any danger, so that had better remain one of the things at which you wink a practised eye. Have you anyone in mind for the O’Hara murder?”

“Not yet,” said Chumley.

“Do you know why he was killed?”

“Not yet.”

“Do you know anything about him?”

“Not much,” said Chumley. “He was an Irishman from Eire, one of the many dock-workers who came over from there. There’s a sizeable colony of them in Whitechapel. O’Hara was not a leading spirit, in fact rather more timid than most. He’d been in this country about six months. Nothing was known against him and there’s nothing at his lodgings to suggest a motive. If I didn’t know the cause of the quarrel, I’d say he’d been killed in a drunken brawl.”

“Now you know he was killed so that Craik could be framed,” said Rollison, crisply. “Or don’t you look on it that way?”

“I am inclined to,” said Chumley. “Is that your considered opinion?”

“It’s a considered possibility,” said Rollison. “I wouldn’t put it any higher. You’ll follow up the two lines, I suppose—why frame Craik or, if that were incidental, why kill O’Hara?”

“Naturally,” said Chumley. “This brown-eyed man—do you know anything against him?”

“Nothing very much,” said Rollison. “Uttering threats might do as a charge but—you don’t like making arrests when the accused has to be released for lack of evidence, do you?”

Chumley chuckled. “You won’t forget that for a long time!”

“I shall mark it up against you,” declared Rollison. “You’re slyer than I knew. If you should happen to find out the real name of the brown-eyed gentleman, and cared to tell me, I’d be grateful.”

“I will, provided you undertake to advise me if he does anything which is indictable.”

“I always report indictable offences,” said Rollison, reprovingly. “The days when I carried out trial and sentence myself are gone—and they existed mostly in your imagination!”

He stood up and Chumley did not press him to stay. Rollison was smiling broadly as he reached the street. Three quarters of an hour later, he let himself into his flat and the first thing he saw was a light under the kitchen door. He opened it and made Jolly start.

Jolly wore a white apron over his best clothes and was operating with a yellow powder which Rollison suspected had something to do with eggs. He also had a frying pan on the electric stove, from which came a smell of sizzling fat.

“What it is to have an instinct!” approved Rollison. “I only had a bun and a piece of cheese for dinner. Good evening, Jolly. Aren’t you tired after your day’s journeying?”

“Not exceptionally so, sir, and as you have not had dinner, I will reconstitute a little more egg and make two omelettes. Good evening, sir.”

“While reconstituting, you might also reconstruct,” said Rollison. “Let’s have the diary of a day in the life of one, Jolly.”

“I am afraid I have had a disappointing time, sir,” said Jolly, mixing powder and water industriously. “At one time I hoped that I would have information of first importance but I was disappointed. You will remember that when I telephoned you, I left somewhat hurriedly?”

“Yes,” said Rollison.

“I saw a man whom I had been following all day,” said Jolly. “He had gone into an inn and I thought he would stay there for a while but he came out and hurried to a bus and I thought it better to continue to follow him.”

“Who was he?” asked Rollison.

“Not Keller but his companion, sir.”

Thoughtfully, Rollison lit a cigarette.

“Keller isn’t Keller, according to my latest information. You mean you followed the owner of the cultured voice?”

“Yes. Are you sure the other man is not Keller?” Jolly looked puzzled.

“I’m keeping an open mind,” admitted Rollison, “but the police are confident and Chumley isn’t easy to fool.”

While Jolly made the omelettes, Rollison told him of the events of the evening. Jolly only occasionally looked up from the frying pan. He had laid a small table in the kitchen for his own supper and Rollison brought in a chair from the dining-room and they ate together. Since Jolly’s day had been disappointing, Rollison was anxious to get his own story into the right perspective and he knew of no better way than discussing it with Jolly.

“And what is your view of Chumley’s opinions?” asked the valet, as Rollison finished. “Are they genuine or are they intended to mislead you?”

“The main problem, yes,” said Rollison. “You’re good, Jolly, sometimes you’re very good. Chumley is showing unsuspected cunning, although he doesn’t like being called sly. There always seemed to be something fishy about the detention and arrest and he was making sure that he didn’t take what raps were coming. I don’t know Sergeant Bray,” added Rollison. “It might do him good to be on the carpet but it wasn’t a friendly thing for Chumley to do.”

“On the surface, no, sir,” said Jolly, getting up and taking the coffee percolator from the stove.

“But Chumley doesn’t stop there,” went on Rollison. “He knows that he is in deep waters. Very ingenuously, he wanted my opinion, hoping that I would either prove or disprove his own arguments. I couldn’t do either but he doesn’t know that. The curious feature is the identity of Keller.”

“Identity but also character, sir.”

“Enlarge on that,” invited Rollison.

“As I see it, sir,” said Jolly, stirring his coffee, “Keller has built for himself a reputation of being something of a Robin Hood—an avenger, one might say, almost on the lines of your own activities some years ago! He has selected victims who would get no sympathy from the people or the police.”

“Good point,” admitted Rollison. “Chumley went as far as to say that only rumour links the crimes with Keller. With the arrival of the pseudo-Keller, an explanation dawns. The beatings-up have been done not by the real Keller but by the impersonator.”

“Undoubtedly the situation is very complicated,” murmured Jolly.

“Foggy, yes,” said Rollison. “But intriguing. Going further and guessing wildly, we might say that (a) the reputation for Keller was deliberately built up by his vis-a-vis, that (b) the assaults on the “swine” were initiated so that when a victim was ready for attack, the police would be reluctant to assume that it was one of the same series and (c) that it has all been built up with great and admirable cunning, in order to confuse the police, confuse the people, and—”

“Rid the district of Mr Kemp,” Jolly completed.

Rollison did not smile.

“Do you think that’s possible?”

“I do, sir. As I listened to you, I came to the conclusion that it is the most likely explanation. I hold no brief for Mr Kemp but it is a fact that he has been in the district for six months, that the Keller-crimes, as we may perhaps dub them, have also been in operation for six months. That is right, sir?”

Rollison began to smile.

“I’m glad we think alike. You see where this takes us?”

“If my memory serves me, Mr Cartwright has been ill for nine or ten months and he had been without a curate for some months before that,” Jolly said. “It is just possible that—”

“Stealing thunder,” said Rollison, “but go on.”

“Thank you, sir. I was about to say,” Jolly went on with gentle reproof, “that as I understand your surmise, between the time that Mr Cartwright fell ill and the time that Mr Kemp arrived, some crime, or series of crimes, was planned and put into effect. I do not think that they are necessarily the individual acts of violence. They are more likely to prove something of much greater importance or, perhaps I should say, much greater profit. The arrival of Mr Kemp made it possible that the crimes would be discovered and perhaps prevented, so it was decided to get rid of him. Is that your opinion, sir?”

“You know very well it is.”

“I certainly share it,” said Jolly, warmly. “I must say that I think it a great pity, Mr Kemp—”

“You needn’t worry about Kemp,” said Rollison, with satisfaction.

“I don’t understand you, sir.”

Tonight, he lasted nine rounds against Billy the Bull and four thousand people saw him. Forty thousand know about it by now. If you’re thinking of going to St Guy’s on Sunday, you’d better reserve a pew!”

“Mr Kemp—and Billy the Bull?” gasped Jolly.

“So you can be surprised,” said Rollison, cheerfully.

“But I can’t believe it, sir! How could such a contest be arranged? How on earth did Mr Kemp realise the possibilities of such a— oh, I see, sir! You had a hand in it!”

He broke off and they began to laugh. When they sobered up Jolly told his story.

He had made some fruitless inquiries during the morning and had then gone to the dockside pub, The Docker, understanding that one of the men whom Rollison had caught the previous night had said that Keller had once lived there. Jolly had seen the man with the cultured voice coming out and had decided to follow him.

The unknown had gone first to Barking, where he had had lunch in a small coffee-shop, and then made his way by bus to Loughton, where he had paid a visit to an inn, then gone from Loughton to Epping which was not far away. There he had had a drink at another pub and visited two more before he had returned, on the last bus, to London. There the black-out had swallowed him up, near Piccadilly.

“A protracted pub-crawl,” said Rollison. “But you’ve made a note of the names of the pubs and other places he called at, I hope?”

“I noted each one down, sir.”

“Good!” said Rollison, briefly. “Now to bed, Jolly.”

“I hope we are not disturbed, sir,” said Jolly. “But for that coffee, I would have had great difficulty in keeping awake.” He stifled a yawn, apologised, and asked Rollison what he intended to do next day.

“In the evening, I hope to see Joe Craik,” said Rollison. “Two things to ponder, Jolly. The warning to Kemp was misspelt, a ‘here’ without its aspirate and other glaring errors but ‘clear’ spelt correctly and not with the double-ee which might have been expected. Would a man who knew where to put commas fail to know where to put an ‘h’?”

“It isn’t likely, sir. It was a further attempt to confuse, perhaps?”