by John Creasey
Rollison fingered his grimy stubble.
“Haven’t I shaved?”
“Not recently, sir.”
Rollison laughed. “I’m much more myself already. All right, I’ll do as I’m told. Better hover about while I eat, I can brief you then.” He went into the bathroom, caught sight of himself, and whistled. He had a hot shower, followed with a cold one, shaved and got into pyjamas which Jolly had laid out on the bed. He slipped into a dressing-gown of lustrous red silk, and went into the big room, where the dining-table in a small alcove near a window was already laid. There stood a Martini, with the shaker beside it for another if he wanted it. He sipped and smoked.
Jolly came in carrying a tray; and revealed his miracles with lamb chops, sauté potatoes and green peas. Rollison realised that he had not eaten since the previous night, and it was now nearly half-past five.
After the first onslaught, he talked, bringing Jolly up to date with everything. And: “Then you’d better telephone Miss Gale, and tell her that she won’t be hearing from me tonight, after all. Then talk to Grice. I bit his head off and he bit mine, so we’re level. He may be co-operative, or he may now put up the shutters. If he’s co-operative, I’d like a list of people whom he knows or thinks are on the Doc’s payroll. He’ll say officially that he hasn’t such a list, but reading between the lines I fancy that he’s been holding off attacking the small fry, in the hope of catching the Doc. Ask him not to pull anyone in yet if it’s possible to avoid it. And if he insists on being difficult,” went on Rollison, pulling towards him a bowl of fresh fruit salad and a jug of cream, “reason with him. Use your powers of persuasion. Tell him—”
“I will make the necessary representations to Mr. Grice,” said Jolly calmly. “I will tell him that you have a plan.”
Rollison chuckled.
“Will you retire now, sir?” asked Jolly.
“Retire?” echoed the Toff. “At my age? Why—”
“I mean, go to bed, sir.”
“Certainly not,” said Rollison, “I’m going to see Ebbutt and find out what’s on in his part of the world.”
“You would be much wiser, sir, if—”
“Tonight I’m not wise, there’s a job to do first,” said Rollison. “There’s one here, too.” He led the way into Jolly’s room and unlocked the wardrobe – and there was Galloway, in a kind of stupor.
Rollison spent ten minutes questioning him, without results. Then, his hands and feet still bound, the prisoner was carried into the spare room, and Rollison said to Jolly: “When you talk to Grice, tell him about Galloway and the egg on top of the wardrobe. Tell him the egg is likely to cause another fire if he isn’t very careful, too.”
“I will, sir,” Jolly said. “But are you sure you should go out again now?”
“Positive,” said Rollison. “It’s now or never.”
He went to the East End, but did not find Ebbutt, who was not at his public house, the Blue Dog, or in the gymnasium behind it – at once his pride and joy. He was said to be out with his wife, but it seemed at least possible that he was avoiding the Toff.
That hurt.
So did the aloofness of Ebbutt’s boxing cronies, and others whom Rollison did meet. He sensed that no one really wanted him here, that the Doc had spread his canard with telling effect. One thing became apparent; he would have to come back, later in the night, and try again; at least he had learned something of what he was up against.
He drove past Ebbutt’s place again on his way home, not knowing that he was within a stone’s throw of Dan Rickett.
Rickett was in a small cellar, chained to a wall. He had room to move, and there was a little light, as well as a bundle of straw to sit on. Most of the time he lay flat, staring at the wall, or at his chain; but as Rollison passed, Rickett heard a man approaching.
The door of the cellar opened, and a man whom Rickett had seen several times came in. Rickett did not even glance at him.
“One of these days the Doc will put you where you belong,” the new-comer said roughly.
Rickett still ignored him.
“And one of these days your wife will learn about a lot of things she won’t like.”
Rickett didn’t stir.
“Fat lot you think of her,” his tormentor sneered, “or you wouldn’t let the Doc—”
Rickett turned at last.
“You can’t frighten me that way,” he said. “If you or the Doc hurt Evie, you wouldn’t have a chance in a million of finding out where the stuff is. Remind the Doc about that.”
The man swore at him, and then went out.
Rickett gritted his teeth as he stared at his chain. For the moment, it was stalemate, and the Doc wasn’t likely to hurt Evie or the baby while he thought he could find those jewels, but sooner or later the stalemate would break.
Rollison was back at Gresham Terrace by eight o’clock. A whisky and soda did little to cheer him up, and Jolly’s report depressed him further. Grice had been here, taken Galloway, and gone off in a surly, even hostile mood.
“Well, we’ll survive,” Rollison said. “What did Miss Gale say?”
“She was out when I called her, sir, and rang through herself a little later, and appeared to be most disappointed that you were out, but I assured her you would get in touch with her at the first opportunity.”
“Hmm. That all?”
“Yes, sir.”
“All right. I’ll have an hour or two’s sleep, and then I’m going to see Ebbutt, even if it means dragging him out of bed. I’ll do the East End character act, that should fool any friends of the Doc who are interested in our Willum. You get the East End act clothes out—then, unless you’re too tired, I’ve another job for you.”
“I slept most of the way on the journey, sir.”
“That I don’t believe, but I’ll let it pass. How many decorated visiting cards have we in stock?”
“A dozen or so, I should think.”
“We need more. Embellish a few while I’m lazing in bed, will you?”
“Yes, sir,” said Jolly.
Rollison slid down in the bed, and soon relaxed; he had trained himself to sleep almost at will, and now he was very tired. He had two hours for sleep at the most.
Exactly two hours later, he woke.
His ‘East End clothes’ were on a chair – a suit old, patched, worn, dirty and dusty. Grease spots decorated the trousers and the lapels. There was a faint but unmistakable odour in it, mingling beer and petrol. Rollison put this on, as if he had never been fastidious, and then put on a pair of old shoes, slightly down at heel, and also patched, and he finished with a muffler which he did up round his neck, choker fashion. He slapped an old cloth cap on the back of his head, studied himself in the mirror, and then pulled it forward.
Satisfied, he took his own automatic, the knife and a small transparent plastic box from the bottom of the wardrobe. This contained little pellets of ammonia gas, fired from a small air pistol. He tucked the pistol away, too, and then went into the study, where Jolly was sitting at the big desk, wielding a pencil almost casually.
Rollison picked up one of the visiting cards that he was ‘embellishing’. On one side was the simple legend:
The Hon. Richard Rollison,
22G, Gresham Terrace,
London, W.1.
On the other, in pencil, was a sketch of a faceless man – a top hat, a monocle, a dot for one eye, a cigarette jutting from a holder, and beneath all this a neat bow tie. The drawing was boldly and clearly done.
“I’ve finished thirty, sir, and there were seven in the drawer,” said Jolly.
“I’ll take twenty-five, we’ll keep the others in reserve,” said Rollison. “If I shouldn’t come back, let Grice know that I started out to pin Bill Ebbutt down, will you?”
“I
f you seriously think that there is a risk that you will not return, don’t you think—” began Jolly sombrely.
“No, I don’t,” said Rollison. “I think that I have to handle the Doc as I would anyone else. If I get nervous, he’ll find out. If I ask for police protection, he’ll hear about it, and my East End stock would be far below zero.” He paused, and then went on very softly: “We need to revive our friends’ faith, Jolly. We have to be bold and daring, we have—”
“Forgive me, sir,” interrupted Jolly, “but you may have overlooked one change in the conditions.”
“What change?”
“The passing of years, sir,” Jolly murmured.
Rollison’s grin broadened, and his eyes kindled.
“Before your very eyes you’re seeing the modern Peter Pan,” he declared, and rested a hand lightly on Jolly’s shoulder. “Of course you’re right. So am I. Either I get out of the East End and leave the Doc to the police, or I run true to form. I prefer to run true to form, As I was saying, if I don’t come back—or if you haven’t heard from me by nine o’clock in the morning, tell Grice.”
“Nine, sir?” Jolly pleaded silently for eight.
“Eight-thirty,” conceded Rollison, and grinned, squeezed Jolly’s shoulder, and then turned and left the flat.
Chapter Fourteen
Ebbutt
There were night trains on the underground.
Rollison stepped out of one on the platform of White-chapel East, and walked towards the stairs and the exit. There were several dozen people on the train, which stopped here for the night. He looked right among them, although as many wore bowlers as wore cloth caps, for there was an increasing white collar job representation among the East End workers. Two couples dawdled, and one of the girls had fair, curly hair, rather like Esmeralda. Rollison wondered what Esmeralda would do next, and whether he was wrong in thinking that she would want to take an active part when she realised that there was trouble.
He couldn’t quite make Esmeralda out.
That photograph …
The lamps were alight in Whitechapel Road, and one late bus rumbled along the cobbles. The small shops, with the dark, drab windows, were like the shops of a ghost city. Further away, the two and three story houses looked, at this hour of the night, as if they housed the dead. Here and there outside a café or a shop owned by an adventurous individual was a neon sign, but that was almost the only sign of life, apart from the people walking briskly towards their homes. Soon these would go through the little, narrow doorways into tiny, low ceilinged rooms, and the East End would be shut out. They would go to fond wives or to shrews, to mistresses or sluts, to children or to old folk.
None, or very few of them, would think of the Doc – any more than they would think of the Toff or of the police. But it was evident now that the Doc’s shadow lay dark upon this land, that the hand of the Doc fell heavily upon the shoulders of many in the East End.
Rollison wished that he knew much more; but he knew one thing beyond all doubt. If he was to throw the Doc back, he must attack now, and in a way which would turn the tide quickly; but before it could be turned, he had to know just how strong it was. There was plenty to disquiet him; and to disquiet many people. The attitude of the police, for one thing, and the fact that Grice – as shrewd an officer as the Yard had – had not realised how bold and ruthless the Doc could be. Grice and the Yard, undoubtedly, had believed that the Doc would start a kind of tribal war in the East End, and that it would end without much help from the police; let a mobster kill a mobster, and pick up the little pieces. It hadn’t worked out, and Grice knew, as the Toff knew, that the Doc had a very tight grip indeed.
How tight?
Rollison reached a street which led to the Mile End Road and then, by two short cuts along dark, gloomy, echoing alleys, with cobbles which were snares for the unwary, he went to the Blue Dog, in the Mile End Road, where Bill Ebbutt lived and lorded it; but which he had deserted tonight.
Behind the public house, and taking up much more ground space, was the gymnasium, a large, corrugated iron building where the most likely young boxers of London learned how to take and to give punishment. Ebbutt had a dream: that one day, the heavyweight championship of the world would come to Britain, and he had worked for this dream for over thirty years, getting his nose broken and one magnificent cauliflower ear as a result of it. For twenty years he had trained boxers, and many of the best had started here. The pub closed, according to the law, at ten-thirty. The gymnasium, which was also a kind of club, was open until twelve-thirty, and very often Ebbutt and his cronies were there into the small hours, discussing boxing round the world and arguing about the merits of fighters who had passed out of the limelight; or were about to appear in it.
A light was on in the gymnasium now, although it was nearly one o’clock, but there was no noise. Rollison approached it from the mouth of the alley he had come through, and he studied it closely. Was that a man, standing in the shadows outside? Yes.
It would not have been surprising had two or three men stood there, gossiping; but why should one lurk on his own? A cigarette glowed, at a level with the face of a normal height man, and showed Rollison that this man was keeping deliberately in the shadows, as if he was watching everyone who went in or out.
Rollison went back to the alley, and the shadows and the safety they offered him. The light went out in the gymnasium.
There were footsteps, audible right across the street, and made by a heavy man walking on boards which could have been better sprung. Then, in the dim light of the narrow street, the massive figure of Ebbutt appeared, with his huge torso, his double chin, his round, almost bald head; that shone faintly in the light.
Ebbutt turned towards the Blue Dog, which was in darkness except for a lighted window on the first floor. He did not speak to the man in the shadows, but there was little doubt that he knew the man was there. He had only a few yards to walk before he reached the side and private door of the Blue Dog. Rollison heard the key scrape as it went into the lock. The figure in the shadows did not move.
The door closed.
The glow of the cigarette came again, but still the man stood unmoving.
Both doors which led to the Blue Dog were in this street, and could be seen from where the man was standing. So Ebbutt was being watched. Ebbutt was known as a friend of the Toff, was probably known to have been to see him that day.
It would be easy to take the watcher by surprise, and to overpower him; but when he came round he would report in a hurry, and the Doc wouldn’t be slow in putting two and two together.
There was another way into the Blue Dog; over the wall which surrounded the gymnasium on the other side, then over another wall into the tiny garden of the pub; then by the garden door, or a window. It would take time and it might make some noise, but it had to be attempted.
Rollison turned back along the alley, went the long way round to approach the gymnasium from the other side, and studied the wall. It was topped with broken glass stuck in cement, but by climbing carefully he got to the top, and jumped. He did the rest by easy stages, until he reached the garden door. A faint smell of beer came from barrels stacked ready for taking away by the brewers dray, and there was a tiny grass patch which Ebbutt’s wife tended with almost as much devotion as she attended her Salvation Army meetings at the nearby Citadel.
The light was still on at the back of the pub.
Rollison went to the door, shone a torch on it, and then began to work—
Two minutes later, he was inside the house.
He closed the door without a sound, and then stood by, listening intently, until he was sure that the watching man had heard nothing. Then he shone the torch towards the kitchen door, finding it open. Beyond was a narrow passage, a narrow hall and a staircase. He could see a glow of light upstairs. Now his task was to let Ebbutt k
now that he was here. He crept up the stairs, and as he reached the top, heard Ebbutt speak in a growling voice.
“Know wot I’m going to do, Liz? And you can ruddy well keep your trap shut; I’m not asking you, I’m telling you. I’m going to sell up and buy a country pub. That’s me. I’m fed right up wiv London. Why, I’m so fed up wiv London that—”
“Why don’t you stop talking such nonsense and go to sleep?” Liz Ebbutt had a tart voice.
“No nonsense abaht it,” Ebbutt said aggressively, “that’s wot I’m going to do—”
“Anyone would think that there hadn’t been a bighead like this Doc before,” said his wife sharply. “There’ve been plenty of them, and look what’s happened. They’ve had their day and then they’ve got too clever by half, and they’re all in prison or else they was hung. Not that I hold with capital punishment; it’s a nasty, horrid, barbaric hangover, that’s what I think of hanging, but you’ve got to face facts—”
“’Ere’s a fact,” Ebbutt said. “I can’t step into me own front door wiwout being watched. I can’t—”
“Just be patient,” Liz said, and there was a gentler note in her voice. “Now listen to me, Bill, you and me’s been together for—”
If there was a time for Rollison to reveal his presence, this was it, for what followed might be demonstrative. And the tone of Liz Ebbutt’s voice did not suggest that she was at a screaming pitch of nerves. Rollison went nearer the door, and then said softly but very clearly: “Much longer than he deserves, Liz.”
There was a gasp; a moment of silence; and then a vast creaking of bed springs.
“What’s that?” gasped Liz.