The Toff on Fire

by John Creasey

  Out came the pipe and, explosively: “Of course not! Regret, personally, we decided to come here. Very interesting trophy wall, though.” Wylie’s eyes did not twinkle and his face did not light up, but he did not need to add that the most interesting trophy was the one collected tonight. “I’ll have a word with Jane. Ah—’nother problem.”

  Oh, no!

  “Oh?”

  Wylie jerked the stem of the pipe towards the bedroom.

  “Needs woman’s care,” he announced.

  “Ah,” said Rollison very softly, and had one of his better moments. “You couldn’t be more right. Do you think that your wife—?”

  “Surprised if she won’t,” declared Wylie. “Might be an idea if you went along now—see how things are.” Back went the pipe, this time with finality, and he moved away towards his chair and a glass which was still half full of whisky and soda.

  Rollison put a cigarette to his lips, and stepped slowly towards the bedrooms. There were two at this side of the flat, his – which was large – and a spare one which was much smaller. He had taken it for granted that Jane was in his room, but soon realised that he was wrong. The light showed at the door of the spare room.

  That was unfortunate, but Rollison found himself smiling as he tapped at the door. If ever two were available to add to two, it was here. By accident – it was hard to believe that it was design – Jane had gone into this room. She would have looked about for things she needed for the baby, and would have found women’s clothes in the wardrobe, make-up in the dressing-table, a room that was much more boudoir than one would expect in any bachelor’s flat.

  Rollison went in.

  Esmeralda, her eyes still glistening and a kind of awe in her expression, stood by the dressing-table. Jane Wylie was sitting on the edge of a large single bed. The clothes had been turned down and the baby, still in the shawl, lay on it like a huge grey chrysalis. Pillows on either side were placed so that it could not roll off. Jane, frowning, looked up. She was a handsome woman and there was no doubt that she had a conscience: it seemed to be written in her eyes.

  “Jane,” said Rollison, firmly, “I’m in a bad spot, you don’t need telling that, and I need a little time to sort things out. If I ask my family or my friends for help, gossip will go on wings, and before I know where I am, the newspapers will get this story. So they will if I try to put the child in a nursing home. Will you come to my rescue?”

  Straight Jane looked at him squarely.

  “I don’t see why I should.”

  “Nor do I, but will you?”

  Esmeralda was handling a gold framed hand mirror, the back worked with beautiful petit point, and looking at herself in it. She glanced at Jane, but didn’t speak; she knew when silence was called for.

  “Someone has to look after the baby, I suppose,” Jane said practically. “I’d better have a word with John. I’ll look after him for the night, anyhow; I certainly shan’t leave him here.”

  Rollison gulped. “Him?”

  Jane raised her hands. “Do you seriously mean to say you didn’t know what sex—” she broke off, jumped up, and pushed past him angrily.

  When her voice was audible in the big room, Esmeralda looked seductively into Rollison’s eyes, and said cooingly: “Isn’t this a beautiful dressing table set?”

  “Yes, isn’t it?”

  “And what a lovely room.”

  “Beautiful.”

  “You know, Rolly, I’ve been thinking,” declared Esmeralda. She put the mirror down, and picked up a tiny scent spray and pressed the bulb gently. She half closed her eyes, as if in ecstasy. “A lot of people call you Rolly, a few call you Richard, and of course everyone knows that you’re called the Toff, but I have a new name for you.”

  “Oh.” It was easy to be suspicious of this child. “What?”

  “Lothario.”

  “One of these days I’m going to think up a new name for you,” said Rollison, “and it won’t be Calista. Esmeralda, I may need some help in the next day or two, and I’d want it from someone who knows about this, the fewer the better. Are you likely to be very busy?”

  “Lothario,” said Esmeralda, picking up the mirror and looking at herself again. She poked at her hair, put her head on one side, and at last seemed satisfied. “Lothario, if I can rely on an honorarium, say something like this, I’d be happy to help.”

  “And when it’s over I shall recommend you strongly to one of the political parties; you’ll be wasted outside the House of Commons. Are you staying with the Wylies?”

  The look in Esmeralda’s eyes was positively wicked.

  “Yes, for a few days, but I share a flat in Shepherd Market; I can go back there whenever I like—I’m having a holiday on John and Jane. But you know! Shall I telephone you?”

  “Please,” said Rollison, and rounded the bed and took the mirror away from her. “This is to be for a mission accomplished, not for promised help.”

  “I’ll remember,” Esmeralda said.

  Twenty minutes later, Rollison saw them all into the Rolls-Bentley, Jane in the back this time carrying the baby, Esmeralda sitting next to Wylie. The car moved off with only a whisper of sound, and as its red light disappeared, Rollison turned and hurried upstairs, to come back again within five minutes, carrying a camera with a special lens and a flashlight. Jolly, his man, was an accomplished amateur, and his equipment was always in the flat. Rollison bent down and focused, and a bright flash lit up the street – once, twice. Going back into the house, he wondered if Jim the policeman had noticed the flashes and was already on his way to investigate.

  That didn’t matter.

  He ran up to the flat, closed the door and went straight to the telephone. He dialled an East End number, and after a long pause, a man answered in a sleepy voice.

  “Whossat?”

  “Bill,” said Rollison, “I’m sorry to worry you now, but could you send a couple of men to Throgmorton Square for me?”

  There was a pause.

  Ebbutt, the man at the other end of the line, was an old friend of the Toff, a man of influence in the East End, and of many parts. He had often done such things as this – but now his hesitation seemed very marked.

  Then: “What’s the trouble, Mr. Ar?”

  “I just want a house watched—there’s a possible baby-snatch in the offing.”

  “Oh,” said Ebbutt. “Sure, okay, Mr. Ar. I’ll fix it. What’s the number of the ’ouse?”

  He did not sound as enthusiastic as he often had in the past, but Rollison put that down to his being, woken out of .a heavy sleep.

  Rollison pushed the telephone away, lit a cigarette and poured himself another brandy and soda. He sat back in an armchair facing the trophy wall, and closed his eyes, but he had seldom been further from sleep at four o’clock in the morning.

  The Doc was putting on the black again – so much seemed obvious, but that wasn’t the matter of first importance. The man who had forced these locks held pride of place.

  Rollison knew that strata of London known as the ‘underworld’ almost as well as the most knowledgeable officials at Scotland Yard; and one by one he conjured up mental images of men who could force locks as expertly as his had been forced.

  He narrowed the number down to seven. Two of these he ruled out because they were old, and not likely to have a vested interest in a baby and certainly not likely to ride about on a motor-cycle. Two more he ruled out because he knew that they were in jail. That left him with three.

  Suddenly, he opened his eyes wide, finished his drink, and jumped up.

  “I’ll check with the Yard in the morning,” he told himself, “and then get busy. There probably isn’t more than one motor-cycling safe breaker.”

  He was humming to himself as he went into the bathroom – and then he stopped abrup
tly. In the bath were damp-looking babies’ napkins, and from the towel rail a towel was missing.

  “And practical too,” he said, laughed, spread another towel over the heap of soggy napkins, and began to brush his teeth.

  He was on the point of getting into bed, at twenty minutes to five, when the telephone bell rang.

  Chapter Five

  Fear By Phone

  There was a telephone at the side of Rollison’s bed, but he was so awkwardly placed that he could not get at it quickly, and it gave four more sharp bursts of ringing before he could lift the receiver. By then he was sitting on the side of the bed, in front of a large dressing-table mirror, which showed his hair standing on end after the scramble to answer the call.

  “Richard Rollison here,” he said.

  There was no answer.

  “Hallo, there. This is Richard Rollison.”

  There was no answer, but there were sounds, a kind of hissing noise, one that he associated with someone out of breath. It seemed close to the mouthpiece, and came very clearly.

  “Hallo,” he said, very distinctly and sharply.

  Then, a woman’s voice came.

  “Is—is that—is that the Toff?”

  The voice was very faint, but unmistakably a woman’s. There was nothing special about it, except a trace of Cockney in the last word, making ‘Toff’ sound almost ‘Torf’. Yet the manner of her speaking told him much more than the words, for it spoke of fear. Fear and a breathless woman and a call so early in the morning.

  “Yes,” he said carefully, “this is the Toff. Can I help you?”

  Silence.

  This time, there was not even the hiss of agitated breathing, only the stillness. He had heard no sound of the receiver being replaced, or being dropped. He held on, no longer speaking, looking at the dial on his telephone and wishing for the days of manual exchanges, when it would have been easy to trace this call.

  A motor horn brayed a clear warning. It must be very close to the telephone at the other end, which placed it as a telephone kiosk call near a road. He heard other sounds, and fancied that one was of someone running.

  The woman spoke again, urgently.

  “Why don’t you answer, is that—”

  “This is the Toff speaking. Who—”

  She cut right across his words.

  “Listen, mister, look after my baby, please! Make sure he has a good home.” Now, the woman cried. “They’re going to kill me, I’m sure they’re going to—”

  “Stop a moment!” said the Toff with sudden and sharp vehemence, and so made her break off. “Listen carefully now. Give me your name and tell me exactly where you are.”

  “I—I don’t know that I can, I—” there was another pause, another voice in the background. It wasn’t possible to be sure whether the second voice was hostile or friendly; it was just that of a man speaking quickly, using words which Rollison couldn’t distinguish, although he caught: ‘Get a move on.’ Then there was a new sound, the last Rollison wanted to hear just then; the clatter as the receiver was banged down.

  He put his down, slowly.

  The frightened woman might be anywhere in London – anywhere within the London dialling district, and the kiosk might be any one of several thousand. Rollison sat quite still, looking at his reflection without noticing his set expression or, for that matter, his royal blue pyjamas. A frightened woman with a slightly Cockney voice, a desperate mother, a man who had left the baby and the note about the Doc. Add it all up. Add it all up, yes, and look for the thing he hadn’t yet seen, something which was on the edge of his mind, something he had missed. It was that faculty, of being sensitive to factors he knew existed but couldn’t place, which made him what he was.

  Suddenly, he snapped his fingers.

  “Didn’t hear her press Button A,” he said, and immediately lifted the receiver, “so it might not have been a dial call.” He dialled ‘O’, asked for the telephone supervisor, and found her helpful and quick.

  “… yes, that’s right, sir, there was a call to your number from Guildford, about five minutes ago. It will take a few minutes to get further particulars, if you would care to hold on—”

  “I won’t hold on,” said Rollison in his friendliest voice, “but if you’ll find out where the call came from, also getting the address if possible, I’ll call you back.”

  “If it’s a private number, sir, I shall not be allowed to disclose any information except the number.”

  “That’s all right,” Rollison said. “I’ll call back in ten minutes.”

  He rang off again, and sat quite still until he stretched out for a cigarette, and lit it slowly.

  He could call Scotland Yard, and be reasonably sure that they would help; but they would also be curious. Did he want the police to be curious, yet? He couldn’t escape from one piece of reasoning; that if the parents of the child had thought that the police could help, they would have called on them. Add it up. A man who could pick locks like this one wasn’t likely to have many friends among or liking for the police, even if the Doc was putting pressure on him. If he had a record, as was probably the case, he would want to keep away from authority – more especially if he was on the run.

  Rollison looked at himself in the mirror, and put his head on one side.

  “You are slipping,” he announced. “Of course they’re on the run, and they hadn’t anywhere to park the baby. Not much chance of getting away from the police while carrying an infant of that age, so—”

  What of the woman’s fear?

  If this had been planned cold-bloodedly, if parents simply wanted to be free from the child, would the woman have sounded so frightened? And remember the talk of the Doc.

  Rollison reached a decision.

  He lifted the receiver again, and dialled Whitehall 1212. When a brisk-voiced operator said: “Scotland Yard,” he asked at once:

  “Superintendent Grice isn’t there by any chance, is he?”

  “No, sir, I’m afraid not.”

  “Chief Inspector Worley?”

  “No, sir.”

  “Chief Inspector Knott?”

  “Yes, sir, he’s in his office. Who shall I tell him is calling?”

  “Richard Rollison.”

  “Richard Rol—” echoed the operator, and then stopped abruptly, only to go on in a different tone: “Mr. Rollison, yes sir. I’ll put you through at once.”

  “Thanks very much,” said Rollison warmly.

  Knott was a youngish man, only recently promoted, and was particularly well-disposed, because a few months earlier he had arrested a murderer in what was generally accepted as a very smart piece of work; hence his promotion. He was well aware that he would not have made the arrest but for the Toff, and was not likely to stand on ceremony.

  “Hallo, Rollison, can’t you sleep?” Knott had a lively voice. “What’s the trouble?”

  “It’s my guilty conscience and a curious telephone call,” said Rollison mildly.

  “Can’t do anything about your conscience,” said Knott; it was easy to imagine his grin. “What information do you want about the telephone call?”

  “The number in Guildford, hence the address,” Rollison told him. “The Supervisor is getting both, but won’t confide in an ordinary humble citizen. If I tell her to refer to the Yard, she might decide to trust me.”

  “And she might also check with us,” said Knott dryly. “All right, you can give us as a reference. What’s it all about?”

  “When I’ve found out, I’ll tell you.”

  “I hope you mean that! How did the American trip go, by the way? I read bits and pieces about you; you seem to have taken New York by storm.”

  “In fact they took me by the seat of my pants, but I survived,” said Rollison, and took advantage of Knott
’s expansive mood. “The trouble is that I’m out of touch over here, just now.”

  “Exactly what else do you want to know?”

  Rollison chuckled.

  “Go on like this, and I’ll begin to think you earned your promotion after all! What kind of a reputation has the Doc won for himself lately?”

  There was a long pause, so long that it seemed ominous. Then at last: “Nasty,” said Knott, and his voice sharpened noticeably. “There was another ugly killing in Shadwell five weeks ago, not much doubt that the Doc did it, or else he was behind it. We didn’t put an end to him when we hanged Jessie Gay. Is this—”

  “Know who he is, yet?”

  “No.”

  “We must find out,” said Rollison, earnestly. “Chief Inspector, I can’t thank you enough, and if anything happens that is likely to interest you, I’ll pass it on.”

  “Mind you do,” said Knott. He did not sound quite so amiable now; mention of the Doc had obviously troubled him. “Take my advice, and make sure what you’re doing before you tackle anything that the Doc’s involved in. He’s reputed to have said he’ll break you, for catching Jessie Gay.”

  “Oh, has he?” said Rollison heavily. That woman’s fear had been real fear, remember. “I’ll be very careful indeed,” he promised. “Goodbye.”

  He rang off, stubbed out the cigarette, which he had drawn at only three or four times, and called the exchange again. The Supervisor was obviously waiting for him, and when he referred her to Scotland Yard, she said at once: “I don’t think that will be necessary, I’ll just put a note on my report, Mr. Rollison.” So she had been busy, and had identified him. Bless his reputation! “The call came from Guildford 05691, and the name and address of the subscriber is Robertson, Rose Cottage, Horsham Road.”

  “You’re very good,” Rollison said, “thank you very much indeed.”

  She gave a little, self-conscious laugh.