by John Creasey
‘A most dangerous gentleman,’ murmured Hi Ling.
The man who had never heard of the Toff remembered a visiting-card, and then felt a sudden anger.
‘Goddam it, he’s a man! What’s scaring you?’
There was a short, almost dangerous, silence. Hi Ling’s face was smooth and expressionless, there was no smile on his lips. Nigger Dougall’s ham-like fists were clenched, and his voice was sharp.
‘Listen, we do your work and you pay us money—but we ain’t paid to be talked to like that. Understand? Maybe you think we’re scared, maybe you don’t. Which ever it is, don’t say it, we don’t like hearing you.’
The silence came again and Chamberlain broke it, but with an effort. He sensed the reason for the change of front, and he knew that Lowerby had spoken the truth; the Toff was a man to be feared because he was a man who was feared.
‘Aw, shucks, no offence was meant,’ he said. ‘I’m not hurting your feelings. But if this man gets going, and no one’ll put him away, we’re not on Easy Street.’
‘We could try,’ Hi Ling said, ‘because the money in this work is good, very good. But for this, for the Toff, who is very good also, the money must be even better.’
‘Shut your trap!’ grunted Nigger. ‘We can’t get him, it ain’t safe.’
Chamberlain’s eyes travelled from the negro to the Chinaman, feeling more of the influence of the Toff than he had dreamed possible in so short a time. He knew then that the man had to go, there was no alternative.
‘I’ll pay you five hundred pounds.’
‘Jeeze!’ Nigger was startled. ‘Dat’s—’
‘Each?’ said Hi Ling gently. ‘Each, and we will agree.’
Chamberlain swallowed hard, but did not hesitate for long.
‘You know how to drive a deal. Okay, five hundred apiece.’
‘It is good money,’ said Hi Ling softly, and as he rubbed his hands together it was possible to imagine the long, wide sleeves of a gown that he might have worn had he been born five hundred years before – or even worn today had he been ten thousand miles away. His yellow face, with the straggly beard that had made such an impression on several minds, was quite expressionless, and his almond-shaped eyes regarded Chamberlain with a kind of impersonal benevolence. ‘Yes, good money indeed, but I would be pleased to think we shall earn it quickly.’
‘We don’t oughta touch it,’ growled Nigger.
Chamberlain, despite his grey wig and his pince-nez, looked very much himself at that moment – and he also looked annoyed.
‘What is this talk about Rollison? Who’s he?’
‘Who is the devil?’ Hi Ling said, and then shrugged and smiled. ‘You say we exag’rate, and maybe it is so, but Rollison is well known, he has a way few others have.’
‘What is he, a private dick?’
‘Alas, no. That, perhaps, is the trouble.’ Hi Ling’s English was nearly perfect, only a faint singsong intonation characterised it, and the odd use of some words. ‘He is rich, he works not for money, and he can buy friends and information, so many friends, so much info’mation. It is true, Dougall?’
‘I’ll say it’s true.’ Nigger hunched his big shoulders: the seams of his coat threatened once again to burst. ‘I’m not aimin’ to have de Toff runnin’ on my tail. I guess we’ll move quick, maybe we’ll get through.’
‘We have not fought the Toff,’ said Hi Ling softly. ‘It is perhaps the sign that we should begin.’
‘Goddam you!’ snapped Chamberlain. ‘Stick a knife in his ribs, or use those hands Nigger’s so fond of. He’s human, isn’t he?’
‘It is said,’ Hi Ling murmured. ‘You do not know, you cannot know until you have met him. That is so, I give my word.’
It was uncannily similar to Lowerby’s remark, but there was no chance that Hi Ling was reaching a stale of nervous prostration through drugs or whisky. The negro might have superstitious fears, but Hi Ling was cold and implacable, a man of fact, not fancy.
Chamberlain rubbed his chin.
‘I guess I’d like to meet this man.’
‘How did you come to learn of him?’ demanded Hi Ling.
‘A friend told me,’ said Chamberlain shortly. ‘And then Rollison sent a card.’
‘With small drawings?’
‘Some crazy pencilled markings, yes, I—’
‘You tore it up,’ said Hi Ling, and he laughed mirthlessly. ‘The first one, it is always torn up. You will meet him, I can assure you of that.’
‘What?’
‘First he send his card, then he comes,’ said Hi Ling. ‘It is the way of Rollison. But of course, we shall be busy at once, it is possible he dies first.’
‘Me, I think we should back right out’ve this,’ growled Dougall. ‘I’m reckoning, sah—’
He stopped, for a buzzer set somewhere in the wall burred out and made Chamberlain jump. The eyes of the negro and the Chinaman turned towards the door. Above it they saw a small green light, while Chamberlain followed their gaze and frowned.
‘What’s that?’
‘A warning when the first stair is touched,’ said Hi Ling. ‘The green light, it means a friend who knows the way to enter is coming. Enter, please.’ He raised his voice as a tap came on the door, and waited. Chamberlain rubbed his chin, and said with evident admiration: ‘You do take care. I—’
He stopped, and Nigger swore. Only Hi Ling seemed unaffected by the little man who entered. A normal enough little man, in shirt-sleeves and a green baize apron, a mop of reddish hair and the sharp features typical of so many Cockneys. It was not his general appearance so much as the expression in his face – an expression of either fear or alarm, or both.
In a large and knuckly right hand he held a small slip of pasteboard, as if afraid it would bite him.
‘Tommy, why do you come?’ asked Hi Ling gently.
‘A—a cove gimme this,’ said Tommy, and handed the card with evident relief to Hi Ling. ‘It wasn’t Rawlison, you don’t ’ave to worry about that; ’e slipped it inter me ‘and—’
‘Rollison!’ snapped Chamberlain.
Hi Ling turned and shrugged his shoulders, and flicked the card across to Chamberlain. It was identical with that which the fur importer had already received, except that across the proper side were scrawled the words:
Who owns the Austin?
‘You can go,’ Hi Ling said to the barman. He turned to Dougall, who was darting his tongue along his lips, and shrugged. ‘We have no choice now, my friend, the Toff knows us; it is the Toff or us.’
‘But how?’ demanded Chamberlain sharply. ‘How’d he know you? How did—’
‘So many questions, so few answers,’ said the Toff.
His voice floated from the door, which was partly opened, but all they saw of him was his gun and the right hand that held it. Chamberlain clenched both hands and thumped them on the desk, even though he did not recognise the drawling mockery in his tone, nor the lilt that was never far away.
‘Hands right away from pockets, please,’ continued the Toff as amiably. ‘Especially you, Hi Ling; that little knife of yours slips so easily.’ He came through and kicked the door to behind him. He was dressed in a dinner-jacket suit, and on his head was a top-hat set at a slightly rakish angle. From his left eye dangled a monocle – on such expeditions he used one, but the glass inside was plain: it was part of the legend he had built about himself. He was smiling and debonair, and yet he created an impression of restrained force; all that was dynamic about the Toff revealed itself then.
‘Why, yuh—’ snarled Nigger.
‘Because I wanted to meet you all,’ said the Toff genially. ‘Don’t slip, my friend, I always have disliked black corpses. And who is our grey-haired gentleman with so benevolent an aspect?’ He regarded Chamberlain with mocking appraisal, and Chamberlain felt himself sweating, forgot that he was wearing his grey wig, and that in other ways he differed from his normal appearance.
‘It is always the pleasure to meet you, Mis
ter Rollison.’ Hi Ling had taken the intrusion more calmly than the others, but his eyes were narrowed to mere slits, and his right hand was not far from his pocket.
‘Mutual accord then?’ murmured the Toff. ‘I wonder. I also wonder why you killed the tramp.’
With the last words his voice dropped, was low-pitched and cold – and accusing. He saw Chamberlain flinch, saw Hi Ling’s eyes flare with a quick fury – and he saw Dougall jump.
The negro moved with a lightning speed, swearing as he leapt, murder within him. He reached the Toff, who did not shoot – for it was the Toff ’s preference to do the unexpected.
Hi Ling’s right hand moved to his pocket.
The Toff side-stepped and Dougall’s whirling fists missed him. He cracked a right to the negro’s stomach, and the gasp echoed through the room. He ducked – and from Hi Ling a knife hurtled, its shining blade curving a vicious arc through the air. As the blade struck the wall and splintered, the Toff put out his foot and sent the negro sprawling. And then he stood quite still by the closed door, his gun pointing towards Hi Ling, who was standing disarmed and helpless, and Chamberlain.
And then Chamberlain flashed a gun from his shoulder-holster.
Chapter Eight
Says The Toff
It was a foolish thing for any man to do, although in extenuation there was the fact that Chamberlain had never seen the Toff in action. It seemed impossible that he could handle Dougall, dodge the knife, and yet be in time to counter shot for shot. The Toff ’s speed of movement was one of those things in which no one believed until they had seen it. Then, of course, they magnified it out of all recognition, and it attained a quality of fantasy.
Two shots snapped out.
Both guns were silenced, there was little sound as two stabs of flame a foot long spat towards each other. Chamberlain’s was a fraction of a second behind the Toff ’s; his bullet travelled upwards, for the hand that held the gun was suddenly filled with an excruciating pain, and the gun went flying from his grasp, struck by the Toff ’s bullet.
The Toff moved aside, safe from the dazed Dougall, whose head had cracked against the wall and was not proof against plaster-covered brick and mortar.
‘Not friendly,’ said the Toff, ‘especially at a first meeting. But I won’t insist on apologies. Go back to the table there, Hi Ling, Dougall, get after him. You needn’t move, my grey-haired gunman. How long have you been away from Sing-Sing?’
Chamberlain licked his lips.
Dougall picked himself up unsteadily and joined Hi Ling by the table. It was Hi Ling who answered; the Chinaman was going to present the greatest danger, thought the Toff.
He could have forced the issue then.
He could have sent word for McNab, and the negro and the Chinaman might have been identified. When the police started their routine inquiries, much would come to light. But the Toff was by no means sure that the circumstantial evidence so far available would hang either man – and he was quite sure they both needed hanging.
Nor could he be sure that he would discover just what Chamberlain and Lowerby were doing.
They were dangerous when at liberty, but liable to make mistakes – and at that time the Toff knew of no one but himself who might be a likely victim of their attentions. He wanted to scare them now – and with Dougall and the grey-haired man probably that would not be difficult – and force them afterwards into mistakes that would mean a complete capitulation.
Hi Ling said softly: ‘You are quick, my friend. Too quick for some.’
‘Much too quick,’ said the Toff, ‘although I doubt whether you meant it quite that way. How long have you been working with Arnold Chamberlain?’
It was not a good break for the Toff.
He had not seen Chamberlain, he had no idea that the man with the grey hair was the fur importer. And all he gathered from the expressions on their faces was that they knew of the man. He saw sweat beading the gunman’s forehead, and it pleased him.
‘How long?’ he repeated. ‘Or could I be mistaken?’
‘You are quite mistaken,’ Hi Ling said evenly. ‘The name means nothing to us, Rollison.’
‘No? A pity. I don’t like guessing wrong. However …’ He leaned back against the door negligently, and the gun seemed to drop towards the floor, although none of them showed signs of taking advantage of it. In the brief mêlée his hat had reached a more rakish angle, and his monocle had dropped from his eye. Neither fact worried him.
‘However,’ he repeated, ‘I have some home-truths. A tramp, some say, was murdered, and the murderers aren’t far from here. One day they will swing. There is a lot of dope around in London, and that might not concern the tramp, but the pedlars aren’t far from here either. Seeing that they’ll swing, they can’t serve fifteen years, but they can be made to feel sorry for themselves. Very sorry,’ he added gently. ‘Am I understood?’
Quite clearly he was understood.
But there was something else in the face of Dougall, if not the others, that puzzled him. He felt as he watched them that they knew something that he had not touched, that they were waiting for yet further indirect accusations. It was an unpleasant feeling in its way. It suggested he had not plumbed the depths of their villainy nor the limits of their activities, and it worried him. From the first he had known that the association of a negro and a Chinaman would be blacker than most; now he had proof of it, but not a proof to serve in any court of law.
‘Words, they are so cheap,’ said Hi Ling.
‘Aren’t they?’ said the Toff, and he had to force himself not to show his annoyance – an essential plank in his psychological warfare was to appear unruffled and unperturbed whatever the circumstances, whatever he was feeling. ‘Both sides, Hi Ling. There are, of course, other things.’
He saw the grey-haired man stiffen.
Dougall licked his lips.
‘Just what?’ asked Hi Ling softly.
‘A matter,’ said the Toff, ‘for further discussion; I haven’t time now. But it’s there.’ He paused, and then he shrugged and said easily, ‘That other body.’
It was Dougall who let him see that he was near if not right on the mark. Chamberlain had recovered, and Hi Ling had lost his self-control only for a brief spell. The Toff did not let them see that Dougall had in part betrayed himself, but laughed.
The laugh was light, but made it seem as if the Toff was thoroughly enjoying himself – which, perhaps, he was. It was the kind of thing that was more valuable than quick shooting or heavy punching. It worried the other side and would keep worrying them.
He waved, and opened the door without looking away from the trio. He stepped out, and the door closed with a sharp click.
‘The—’ swore Dougall, and rushed at the door as if he would break it down. Chamberlain had risen from his chair, and Hi Ling was about to speak sharply to Dougall.
He had no need.
The door opened as abruptly as it had closed. The wooden panel rapped sharply against the negro’s head, and Dougall dropped back with a grunt of pain. The Toff beamed.
‘Too bad,’ he drawled; ‘it would be such a relief if you could always be sure where I was, wouldn’t it? My love to Chamberlain.’
He closed the door again, and meant it this time. Before Hi Ling could summon Tommy the barman to see where the Toff went, the Toff was in the ill-lighted streets outside and walking with speed away from the ‘Steam Packet’.
With the confirmation that he had left the pub, which he had contrived to enter unostentatiously by a side-door, the atmosphere in the converted cellar at the ‘Steam Packet’ eased. Chamberlain lit a cigar, scraping the match viciously against the side of the box.
‘So that’s Rollison, and he still thinks he’s clever.’
‘You do not agree?’ asked Hi Ling.
‘He didn’t know me,’ snapped Chamberlain. ‘The goddamned fool would have the wind taken out of his sails if he knew he’d been speaking to “Chamberlain”. I—’
‘It was a mistake,’ Hi Ling admitted, ‘but one easy to make. Do not believe Rollison has a habit of making them. Certainly he knows you are connected with the Sanderson murder.’
‘No one knows Sanderson is murdered!’ snapped Chamberlain. ‘Keep quiet about that!’
‘We are safe here, we will not be overheard,’ said Hi Ling.
‘Safe? He got in—’
‘I had not then locked the doors,’ said the Chinaman. ‘I have now pressed a button, and the locks are quite, quite safe.’
‘Well, keep off the Sanderson touch,’ snapped Chamberlain. ‘A tramp died, not him. We’ve ditched his Rolls where it won’t be found for a long time, if it’s found at all—he’s just disappeared, with the girl.’
‘It is your business, not mine,’ said Hi Ling offhandedly, ‘what you do with the girl—I, I think more of Rollison. It is quite sure now that Dougall and I will have to handle him, do not worry on that score. And now’ – he shrugged – ‘you will go, and we shall as always be at your service.’
Some ten minutes afterwards, Mr. Arnold Chamberlain left the ‘Steam Packet’. In the interval between that and the Toff ’s disappearance the Toff had performed a quick-change act in a room of a friend nearby – the Toff had friends in most places – and appeared in the saloon bar of the ‘Steam Packet’. The difference between the saloon bar and the four-ale was negligible – class distinction did not operate in that part of Aldgate.
The Toff was mufflered, wore a peak cap, a dirty shirt, down-at-heel shoes, and a suit that had seen many better days. He had also made minor alterations to his face with greasepaint, and he looked not unlike a stevedore who had been working in the hold of a coal-steamer. He had the swagger of the East Ender, one hand in his pocket and the other swinging at his side.
Tommy the barman, still jittery after the card incident, served him with half a pint and was surly. Rollison commented on the fact, and allowed it to be known be was out of a job.
‘Well, this ain’t no hemployment hexchange,’ growled Tommy. ‘And you can’t put nuthin’ on the slate.’
‘I’d like to rub your nose on the ruddy floor,’ snarled the Toff. He retired with his glass to a far corner – a corner from which he could see both outside and inside, for it was close to the window – and sipped his beer.