by John Creasey
Chiro’s, off Shaftesbury Avenue, was a cross between a night-club and a restaurant, with the amenities of the former, to those who were well-liked, and the prices of the latter. Merelli, the head waiter, ushered them to a table which the Toff demanded to be secluded, and asked solicitously about the Toff ’s health, while boasting of Chiro’s cellar. He took the order and disappeared, and it was after a grilled sole had made its appearance that Rollison said: ‘Australian?’
‘Right in one.’ The other spoke quickly, glad that the silence was past. ‘Have I passed your test?’
‘I think you’ll do,’ smiled Rollison. ‘But you mustn’t do that kind of thing in the East End; even nice-natured people might get cross with you. You’ve a name, I suppose?’
‘Brendon, Frank Brendon. Look here, who are you?’
‘You can call me Rollison,’ said the Toff, ‘and don’t believe all the rumours you hear about me, if there are any rumours. What took you to the “Steam Packet”?’
Brendon frowned.
‘Well, it’s a longish story, and I’m confoundedly hungry—’
He had a refreshing frankness.
‘All right, half an hour won’t hurt it, and we’ll go to my flat.’
‘Couldn’t we have gone there right away?’
‘We could,’ said Rollison. ‘I’ll tell you why we didn’t shortly.’
Brendon proved that his activities had not affected his appetite. Moreover, he was one of those young men who considered that food and conversation did not rightly go together.
Anyone who could lose his temper as he had done in the ‘Steam Packet’, face difficult odds and the possibility of a knife across his throat, get out quickly when told what to do, and then within two hours sit in Chiro’s and look as if he had been no further than the West End all the evening, had a quality towards which the Toff was normally sympathetic.
But Brendon had not been so outwardly contented at the ‘Steam Packet’ as he was now.
He was hiding the anxiety which he had shown then – and at the time the Toff had come to the conclusion that he was a much-worried man.
With coffee, Rollison said: ‘No longer worried, Brendon?’
The youngster eyed him squarely, and there was no suggestion of a smile on his lips.
‘Like hell I’m worried, but things have altered. I was coasting around on my own, and—well, that dump down East isn’t anybody’s home ground. If you’ve ever banged your head against a brick wall you’ll know what I was feeling like.’ Now that the moment had come to start talking, Brendon did so quickly and without any apparent diffidence. ‘I’ve been absolutely up against it, Rollison; I haven’t known whether I was on my head or my heels. I was ripe for a scrap with anyone, and that slimy little beast with the squint had already annoyed me more than once.’
‘When?’ asked Rollison.
‘Well—last night, and earlier this evening. Whether he just didn’t like my face, I don’t know. I didn’t realise,’ added Brendon soberly, ‘that it would turn out quite such a shindy. Do knives often fly about that way in London?’
‘Often enough,’ said the Toff. ‘But always with a purpose. Why should anyone want to kill you?’
Brendon stared.
‘Was—was that their game?’
‘They don’t use knives for petting parties,’ said the Toff. ‘Squint-Eye wanted you riled, so that he could have an excuse for going for you completely. If the worst had come to the worst it would have been put down to a pub-brawl, and Squint-Eye would have been covered by his friends; there would have been no evidence for the police.’
Brendon puckered his lips.
‘I didn’t quite realise—I say, you took a hell of a chance.’
‘I know the habits, and forewarned is thrice-armed. We will repeat the first question—why should anyone want you dead?’
‘I’m damned if I know.’
Rollison shrugged.
‘I hope you’re not going to try giving me half a story,’ he said gently. ‘It won’t help, and eventually it’ll land you in trouble as well as me. But you still haven’t explained why you’re less worried now than you were.’
Brendon smiled.
‘Isn’t it obvious? You certainly know how to handle those people, and I knew you’d be further interested in me, I had a feeling,’ he added, and he was serious again, while the Toff believed what he was saying, ‘that I could rely on you.’
‘You can,’ said Rollison, ‘as soon as I’m sure I can rely on you.’
Brendon shrugged.
‘You won’t take much convincing, I hope. But are we going to stay here, or can we go to your flat?’
‘We can,’ said Rollison, ‘and we will.’
In five minutes they were outside Chiro’s and stepping into a taxi. The Toff watched carefully as they started for Gresham Terrace, but he was satisfied that they were not followed. Brendon saw where he was looking and commented: ‘They’d hardly be watching this place for you, would they?’
‘They do so many things you wouldn’t expect,’ said Rollison, ‘and, like the Boy Scouts, I always try to be prepared. If my man and yours are the same, they’re tough customers, and well-trained in this business. I’m not unknown, and the fact that I was at Chiro’s would quickly get round. That we’re not followed doesn’t mean it’s not known—it only suggests that they’ve been worried enough for the time being.’
‘After tonight, I should think so!’
Rollison chuckled.
‘You only saw half of tonight. Anyhow …’
He did not talk seriously until they were in the flat, and Jolly had suggested sandwiches. Jolly was not abashed when the Toff told him it was too late, and suggested that he went for a walk for the sake of his health. The flat door closed, and Brendon frowned.
‘Why did you send him out?’
‘A walk for the sake of Jolly’s health means that I want him to keep his eyes open outside,’ said the Toff. ‘All part of the Rollison service! I hope I’ve convinced you that this business is as serious as it’s dangerous.’
‘You have,’ said Brendon, sitting back in an easy chair. ‘Well—my story first?’
‘Quite definitely first,’ said Rollison.
‘Right.’ Brendon’s expression hardened. ‘I warn you it’s a longish one, and in parts it won’t make sense, but there it is. I did think once or twice that I was making a mountain out of a molehill, but now—’
‘Get the preamble finished,’ said the Toff, ‘and come to the horses. I may be able to help you.’ He knew that Brendon was trying to marshal his thoughts in order to put the story most strongly, and from that he judged that there was little in the way of facts that the youngster could present. ‘Does a Mr. Arnold Chamberlain come into this business anywhere?’
Brendon looked startled.
‘How the devil did you know that?’
‘Not guesswork,’ said Rollison comfortably. He was satisfied now that Squint-Eye was the man who had called at the Putney garage, and he had confirmed that Brendon had been to the ‘Steam Packet’ on an errand similar to his own, if less clearly defined. ‘All right, go on.’
‘It’s so damned difficult to make any sense of it,’ said Brendon almost irritably. ‘Look here, Rollison, I’m kind of half-engaged—that is to say I will be, I hope, fairly soon. I came over from Australia a month after my—er—’
‘Girl-friend,’ smiled the Toff.
‘Surely, girl-friend. I couldn’t travel on the same ship, unfortunately, and she and her father were anxious to get here for the summer. The last I heard from Sylvia they were thinking of moving into a furnished fiat while looking round for a country house. They’d been recommended to a flat, apparently, by a man James Sanderson had met over here.’
‘James Sanderson being …?’
‘Sylvia’s father, of course.’
‘I’d gathered that, but what does he do for a living?’
‘Oh, he’s a big timber merchant in Sydney, and he runs
a small Australasian shipping line. Quite wealthy,’ Brendon went on. ‘He used to do a lot of sheep-farming, and he still has interests in some big ranches. I suppose you’d almost call him a stock-rearer made good.’
‘I’ve got the general outline. Well, this flat, or the man who recommended it?’
‘Sylvia wrote to me only ten days ago—I got the letter when we called at Marseilles. She wasn’t too happy about moving to the flat, for two reasons. She was anxious to find a place in the country, and she didn’t like Chamberlain—Arnold Chamberlain—who recommended it. What do you know about him, Rollison?’
‘Not enough, but I will,’ said the Toff softly. ‘Go on.’
‘The situation was more or less in abeyance,’ said Brendon. ‘There was some talk about the country house. Sylvia thought her father knew of one, but it was all kind of vague. As a matter of fact,’ Brendon went on with a burst of confidence, ‘the house was probably going to be Jim’s—I mean Mr. Sanderson’s—wedding present to us, so naturally we were more concerned with the house than anything else. But I’m still going round in circles. This is the point, Rollison: I reached here a week ago, but I couldn’t get immediately to London, and when I phoned the New Piccadilly, Sylvia wasn’t in.’
‘Staying at the New Piccadilly, were they?’ Rollison made it a comment rather than a question, and found confirmation of the fact that Sanderson was wealthy: the New Piccadilly was not made for those with limited incomes. Behind the comment, moreover, was a thought which worried him considerably, and in his mind he knew the gist of what Brendon was going to say next.
He did.
‘When eventually I got to London, they’d left the hotel—on that same morning. It was rather queer, too. They’d not taken their baggage, but had sent a man and a car for it, together with the money to pay their bill. The reception clerk at the hotel didn’t seem to remember much, and the manager wasn’t very helpful—I just got the bare details.’
‘And you haven’t located them?’
‘I can’t find any sign of them at all,’ Brendon said, and now he made no effort to repress his anxiety. ‘Damn it, Sylvia wouldn’t be likely to run out on me like that, I’m sure she wouldn’t. Anyhow, I had only one name to work on—Chamberlain.’
‘What do you know about him?’
‘Well, apparently he was a fur importer,’ Brendon said. ‘Sylvia had persuaded a fur cape out of her father, and she mentioned it. So I was able to find the right man and went to see him. He was all right—smooth, though—as far as it went. He said he didn’t know them well, but had tried to help them. They’d decided not to take a house which he had recommended, apparently. Well, I couldn’t call him a liar, but I wasn’t happy about it.’ Brendon broke off with a laugh which held little humour. I didn’t think it worth going to the police, because Sylvia might have persuaded Jim to take a trip to the coast or somewhere. They might even have gone to a flat. I was playing with the idea of getting a private detective when—’
Brendon broke off again, and the Toff waited.
‘When,’ went on Brendon slowly, ‘I saw that little swine with the squint, I’d seen him before hanging about the Sandersons’ place in Australia. I was sure of it, and I am still.’
‘It widens the issue,’ Rollison said thoughtfully. ‘Well?’
‘I hardly needed more telling that there was something funny on the go,’ went on Brendon, ‘and I decided to follow Squint-Eye. That’s probably why he took a dislike to me. I suppose it was crazy not to go to the police, but I felt that I’d like to try handling the job myself. I didn’t want the police worrying Sylvia and her father for nothing, you see. I noticed that every time Chamberlain left Oxford Street—I hung about a bit, hoping something would turn up—the man with the squint was around.’
‘Definitely a point,’ said the Toff.
‘Ye-es,’ Brendon said, ‘but not a helpful one.’ He lifted his arms in a helpless gesture. ‘That’s about all there is to it. I followed Squint-Eye today, and twice before I went into the “Steam Packet” for a pick-me-up he’d warned me that it wasn’t a healthy neighbourhood. That rather got on my raw side and I lost my temper. The rest you know. If you hadn’t butted in, it seems I’d have been in Queer Street.’
The Toff nodded, thinking hard and thinking fast. He liked young Brendon, and the story seemed likely enough; too vague for a worked-up yarn. To hang about the Oxford Street shop, half hoping that his fiancée or Sanderson himself would visit the mysterious Mr. Arnold Chamberlain, was exactly what might have been expected of him.
Apart from the plausibility of the story, as such, there were other more worrying things. On the surface of it, James Sanderson and his daughter were both missing. It was possible, of course, that the girl wanted to avoid Brendon, but unless Brendon was pitching a deliberate fake, that was unlikely. And talking of a house as a probable wedding present was fairly convincing.
So that probably the Sandersons were missing.
It seemed all of London to Timbuctoo that Chamberlain knew something about their disappearance and – the Toff fought hard against his reasoning, but it persisted – if he was right, if the body had been different from that seen by the cyclist, if the hands had been mutilated in order to make the task of identification difficult, then here was a man who could fit into the circumstances. It could be a solution of the mystery of the nameless body.
Seeing the lines of anxiety beneath Brendon’s eyes, and the shadows in those steady eyes, the Toff wanted to see it differently, but he could not. It was more hunch than knowledge, and yet he did not believe himself wrong.
Sanderson, the Australian timber merchant in England with his daughter, had been murdered. Why? And why the trick with the body?
Brendon broke the silence which had lasted for several minutes.
‘What’s in your mind, Rollison?’
‘Many things.’
‘Don’t hedge, please! I can take it.’
‘I can’t give you any information at all,’ said Rollison, ‘and I’m not going to feed you on half-stories. I’d never heard of the Sandersons until you mentioned them.’
‘All right.’ Brendon shrugged. ‘What were you doing at the “Steam Packet”?’
It was a natural and fair question, but the Toff had no intention of confiding his suspicions at that moment. If Sanderson was dead, what of his daughter? Young Brendon would suffer mental torture if he knew how the Toff ’s mind was working. As the Toff connected the murder of a tramp with the missing Australian merchant, it was advisable as well as merciful to wait for facts rather than hunches. At least for the moment.
‘Well,’ he said, ‘I make a hobby of studying Londoners in the rough, and you won’t find them rougher anywhere than in that particular pub. It’s the hottest spot in the hottest corner of—’
‘In other words,’ said Brendon resignedly, ‘you don’t want to talk. Well—’
‘I’ll give you all the help I can,’ said Rollison, ‘but you’ll have to take me on trust, and you’ll have to do what I tell you.’
Few people saw the long, lean figure, the bronzed face, and the eyes with their steady gleam, without liking the Toff. Brendon had already made up his mind about that.
‘I’m on,’ he said. ‘I’m no good at all on my own, anyhow.’
‘You’ll be a big help.’ said Rollison slowly. ‘We can now work from both ends. I don’t think Chamberlain’s a nice gent, and hope to prove it. Finding your Sylvia and her father may show me the way. At all events,’ he added reflectively, ‘after the show-down at the “Steam Packet” there’s going to be action—and quickly.’
Chapter Ten
Attack!
Four sullen, and disgruntled men lounged in the bar of the ‘Steam Packet’, mostly with temporary repairs to features that had been damaged in the encounter with the Toff and young Brendon.
They were worried for two reasons.
The fight had shown them that they were facing someone who knew the methods of the East En
d, and they were no longer convinced that it had been a chance encounter when the lounger had come to Brendon’s assistance. But the other thing was more important: Nigger Dougall and Hi Ling paid good wages but expected good work. They could not claim that their work that night had been good.
Consequently they awaited further orders with trepidation.
Four equally worried men were in the underground room, for Squint-Eye had been admitted to the counsel of the others. He was badly bruised and considerably frightened. He knew that he had escaped serious injury more by a miracle than anything else, and the moment when he had been flying through the air had been the worst experience of a not uneventful life.
Chamberlain was talking.
‘Where did you first see the younger man, Jaggers?’
‘He started to foller you,’ said Jaggers, ‘and he musta seen through the dodge at the barfs, but he lorst yer down ’ere. I told him to scram—’
‘Why talk to him at all?’
Jaggers saw the expression in his employer’s eyes and did not like it. There was a whine in his voice as he went on: ‘He mighta’ seen yer comin’ away, Boss, and yer didn’t want ’im squealin’ around the place, did yer?’
‘It wouldn’t have been wise.’ Chamberlain realised that his bodyguard had acted for the best. ‘Young Brendon will have to go. You’ll arrange it, Dougall?’
Nigger nodded, but this time he did not grin. He was still shaken – physically by the impact of Jaggers on his solar plexus, mentally by memory of the Toff ’s card, and the first interview.
Hi Ling, now dressed in a well-cut suit of blue serge, but contriving to look even more Oriental than before, spoke softly: ‘But his fliend? The other man?’
‘If I ever see ’im again,’ began Jaggers viciously, ‘I’ll slit ‘is blastid froat! I’ll—’
He made a motion across his neck.
‘You did not succeed with your knife tonight,’ said Hi Ling softly. ‘He showed so remarkable ability for a fight did that strange man.’
Dougall stared uneasily.
‘What’s on yuhr mind, Ling?’
‘Only once,’ said Hi Ling imperturbably, ‘have I seen such grey eyes before. Only once, my fliend.’