by John Creasey
“Get anything out of Galloway, the man who was here?”
“No more than you did,” Grice said.
“What about Penn—the chap your fellows held in Throgmorton Square when the Rickett baby was kidnapped?”
“He won’t talk at all,” said Grice. “The general picture is identical, though. They contact the Doc at telephone numbers which are changed frequently, or they meet other men by appointment—as Galloway met the man who was with him at your flat—each having the same instructions. The Doc doesn’t exactly trust his followers.”
“Wisdom in villainy,” Rollison said. “What about that egg?”
“It’s still being studied at an Army Research station,” Grice said. “All I know is that it’s made up partly of flame thrower oil, with a detonator to set it off on the concussion principle. A kind of hand-grenade.”
“One word,” Rollison said. “Alarming.”
“That’s it. And that’s why I’m talking to you, and that’s why I’m asking you if you’ve any reason to believe that Dr. Jonathan Marling is associated with the Doc. Never mind whether you were there last night, or what reason you have for suspicion—just tell me whether you suspect him? If you do—”
There was a sharp ring at the front door of the flat, repeated almost before the echo had died. Jolly, hovering in the doorway, moved round; Grice, the thread of what he was saying broken, glanced at the door with annoyance, Rollison was now dressed except for collar, tie and coat.
The sound of Jolly’s footsteps across the flat faded; the door was opened.
Then: “Oh!” exclaimed Jolly, in a voice which seemed loaded with alarm.
Rollison was as near the door as Grice, and reached it a foot in front of him, brushing against him as he went out. He heard another man – realised that there were several people coming into the flat. He was prepared for anything; for the frontal attack which could quite easily come from the Doc – but there was Jolly, and if Jolly was in acute danger—
“Careful with her,” a man said gruffly.
Rollison reached the door through which he could see what was happening; and he froze to a standstill. Jolly was backing away from the open door. Several men, two of them carrying cameras, were outside, two were coming in – and between them they carried a woman.
Rollison didn’t recognise her.
She was half-conscious. Her face was bruised and battered. Some of her hair had been pulled out. Her clothes were torn. The two men who made a chair for her carried her gently across to a big couch, and laid her on it. As they did so, Rollison saw the cards which were pinned to her clothes.
They were his cards; the cards he had delivered the night before.
Chapter Eighteen
Threat
As the men put the woman down, she groaned. Rollison was already moving to the bureau where Dan Rickett had left his note and so begun all this. He lifted the telephone and dialled a number. Men streamed into the flat, and cameras were raised, flashlights made the room bright. There was a hum of talk, outside and inside the flat, but Rollison was oblivious of most of this. He studied the injured woman and the cards, and listened to the dialling sound.
He was answered. “This is Dr. Harrison’s residence.”
“Is Dr. Harrison in?” Rollison asked. “It’s Richard Rollison here.”
“Yes, sir, I’ll put you through.”
“Ask him to come across to my flat at once, will you?” asked Rollison. “An accident case.” He put down the receiver, and went quickly across to the woman. She had stopped moaning, and was looking about her. Jolly was coming from the bathroom, carrying a bowl of water and a sponge. Grice was standing over the couch, as if forbidding anyone to come nearer, but no one tried. More cameras clicked and flashed as Rollison drew near.
The woman was staring up at him.
“You—you—you’re Mr. Rollison,” she said, in a husky voice, as if it hurt her to speak. “You—you’re the Toff.”
In spite of the bruises, in spite of the bleeding, he recognised her. He had seen her photograph at Rose Cottage, where her mother and her father had been murdered. This was Evie Rickett, mother of the baby whom the police were looking after. She began to shiver, and someone said: “Bring a blanket,” but Rollison only heard that as if it had been uttered a long way off.
“Yes, I’m Richard Rollison,” he said, and went down on one knee beside the woman, and smiled. “I’ve some good news for you.”
She stared at him, her face puckering.
“Good news?”
“Very good,” he assured her, “your baby is quite safe and quite well. He’s in a nursing home, with a strong police guard. You will be with him soon, too.”
She tried to sit up, although obviously movement hurt her. She gripped his hands tightly, and seemed as if she meant to pull him towards her. Her eyes blazed with an indescribable radiance.
“Is that true, is—is Baby—”
“Quite safe. Quite well.”
“Oh, thank God,” she said, “thank God.”
Then, she began to cry, sinking back on to the cushions and putting her hands to her face; and it seemed as if she would never stop crying. Jolly came back with the blanket, and one of the women newspaper reporters came forward and picked up the sponge and wrung it out. Rollison hadn’t noticed their going, but several of the others had gone, now, in a rush to their newspapers or telephones. Two policemen had arrived, and were at the open door.
Grice touched Rollison’s shoulder.
“Yes, Bill?”
“You’d better handle her,” Grice said. “I shouldn’t think she’s dangerously hurt, and if we can get a statement before she’s taken to a nursing-home—”
“No nursing-home, unless it’s essential—she stays here,” said Rollison gruffly. “I think the injuries are superficial, too. Just to impress us. How the devil she got here—”
“I’ve just been told,” Grice said, “she was thrown out of a car at the end of the street. A reporter chased the car, we haven’t heard whether it has been traced yet. She kept saying the same thing over and over again, she had to see you, it was a matter of life and death, and the newspapermen decided they’d better bring her up.”
“Good thing she wasn’t worse than she is,” Rollison said. He spoke almost absently, while taking out cigarettes. “Here’s Harrison, we’ll soon know the score.” He went to the doorway to greet a middle-aged, bullet-headed man dressed in dark grey, and who carried a large black box-like case. He had florid cheeks and bright blue eyes, and seemed to regard everything that he saw here with complete equanimity.
“Thanks, Charles,” Rollison said. “Here she is. I’d like her to stay here, if a nurse is all she needs for a bit, and we’d like her to talk.”
“Really matter?”
“Yes.”
“All right,” said Harrison, and went across to Evie Rickett, who was still crying.
Twenty minutes later, she looked better. Her face had been bathed and the bruises and the cuts treated. She was a mass of sticking plaster, but no stitches had been necessary. Her hair was drawn back from her forehead, throwing her pleasant features into sharper relief. Jolly had taken the cards from her dress, one by one and with great care, and they were on the bureau. Two C.I.D. men had arrived, and Grice was giving them instructions – to look for the reporter who had followed the car, and to have the cards tested for fingerprints.
Harrison said: “No reason to move her, get her into that spare room of yours, that’s all. I’ll arrange for a nurse—”
“We’ll do that,” Grice said, quickly.
“Please yourself,” said Harrison, “all that matters is that she feels secure. In spite of Rolly here, I’d have guards back and front, and a couple on the roof if I were you.”
“Thanks,” said Grice, dryly.
“I will.”
Rollison said: “Thanks, Charles, you’re always on the spot.” Then he forgot Harrison, and turned back to the couch. Evie Rickett’s swollen eyes and puffy lips would have told their tale without the cuts and bruises; but she was much calmer, and didn’t hesitate to speak.
“You won’t let anything happen to Baby, will you? You won’t let him be—be taken again.”
“You haven’t a thing to worry about with him,” Rollison said, “he’s as safe as the Crown Jewels.” He won a smile.
“I’d like to know what happened to you after you left here,” he said gently. “Will you try to tell us?”
She hesitated. Tears were very close to her eyes, and Rollison wondered whether she would be able to bring herself to talk; but gradually she began, and the story unfolded graphically and in a way which made all the people present feel a deep and bitter hatred towards the man who had caused this suffering.
She did not say that she knew her husband was a crack, burglar, or that he had the proceeds of a big robbery hidden away. She just said that the Doc wanted something from him, and he would not give it up. The Doc had threatened the baby, and:
“We just had to get him away,” Evie said, “we knew the Doc’s men were after us, and we couldn’t get far. Dan said you’d see that Baby was all right, he said he’d back you against the Doc any day, so we brought him to you, and—”
She broke off, choking.
No one spoke, before she went on: “Then we had to get down to my Ma and Pa, at Guild ford, we was flat broke, and we knew they’d lend us a bit of ready. Dan was all for getting out of the country, but—”
She nearly broke down again.
Gradually, the whole story came out. The old couple getting the money from a hiding-place, while Dan Rickett was working on the motor-cycle, which had been missing badly. Desperately anxious to make sure that her child was all right, Evie had called Rollison.
“And then Dan started blowing his horn, so I knew something was up. A car came up, nearly crashed into Dan it did, and men jumped out and come at me. My mum tried to stop him—”
The men had killed both the old folk, and carried her and Dan away, with the motor-cycle fastened inside the boot of the big car. She hadn’t seen Dan since they’d been taken out of the car an hour or so later, blindfolded so that they could not see where they were.
Now the story was told, Evie looked so white that she might faint at any moment.
“Evie, just tell us this,” Rollison said. “Where have they kept you?”
“I don’t know,” Evie said wearily, “it’s been in a big cellar, that’s all I know, I think it was beneath a pub.” She paused again, and pressed the heels of her hands into her eyes. “There was a smell of beer and spirits, you can’t mistake it, I—but what does it matter? They kept threatening Baby, they said if they couldn’t make Dan do what they wanted, they’d kill Baby.”
“What do they want so badly?” asked Rollison.
Evie’s reddened, roughened hands clenched, and her shoulder squared. She looked at him levelly, and it was obvious that she had no thought for herself, only for her husband. She looked at Grice and at the two policemen, swift, fleeting glances, and then she said with great deliberation: “It’s no use asking me, I don’t know.”
She knew.
She would probably deny it even under threat of death, but she knew that her Dan was a thief, she knew that he had made a big haul which the Doc wanted from him; but she would not betray her man.
“All right,” said Rollison, and smiled as if he believed her. “What else can you tell us, Evie? Have you seen any of the men at this place that smells like a pub?”
“No, they—they put some drops in my eyes, I couldn’t see, it wasn’t until this morning that I could see,” she said, “and then they put a bandage round my eyes. Someone took it off after I was thrown out, and—”
“That’s right, sir, according to a statement I was given,” a policeman said to Grice.
Grice nodded.
“What’s the point in me lying?” asked Evie Rickett, and she looked almost scornfully at the speaker. “I just haven’t seen anyone, Mr. Rollison. It’s no use asking me. If—if I could do anything to help you catch the swine, do you think I wouldn’t?”
“You’d help,” Rollison said, and hesitated before he asked her: “Did you have to bring any message for me?”
“Yes,” she said, huskily.
“What was it?”
She drew a deep breath.
“I was to tell you that if you didn’t throw your hand in, Esmeralda Gale would get a lot worse than I got. That’s the message, that’s all I can tell you.” Evie drew back, now, and closed her eyes and her voice dropped to a whisper. “I can’t talk any more, I just can’t talk, but—I want to see my baby. Please can I see my baby?”
Chapter Nineteen
Allegations
The flat was quiet, as Grice and Rollison eyed each other, across the big desk.
Evie Rickett was asleep in the spare room, with a police nurse waiting by her side, ready to take down anything else she said, and to give her any help she needed. Outside the house, both back and front, there were C.I.D. men. All the newspapermen and women had gone, and their legacy would be in the early papers. Grice had spent some time on the telephone to the Yard, and Rollison knew that much of the time he had been talking to the Assistant Commissioner.
The Globe man had telephoned to tell Rollison that the East End was agog with the news that the Toff was fighting back, and the story of the visiting cards was the best joke for years.
There was laughter, now, against the Doc.
He wouldn’t like it. He would sense the danger behind it. He had pinned those cards on to poor Evie Rickett and sent her to Rollison, hoping to make Rollison hold his hand, fearing harm to others.
The Doc was on the defensive at last.
And he’d kept Evie in the cellar of a pub.
“Well, what’s on your mind, Bill?” Rollison asked. “Am I ordered to keep my hands off the job?” There was a glint in his eyes. “Because nothing you could say would stop me, and little you could do.”
“I’m not sure that I want you off the job,” Grice said. “The Doc wants that, so why should I?”
“Nice logic.”
“Rolly,” said Grice, “there are one or two things that you probably don’t know, and at least one you won’t agree with me about.”
“We might compromise,” murmured Rollison.
“Not on this. First—I don’t believe that any man would do what the Doc is doing, unless he intended to finish it quickly. He would know that he can’t stage what amounts to a reign of terror and get away with it for long. A few days grace is the most he can hope for. He’s got this collection of contact men who do exactly what he tells them, and he covers his traces with most of them, but someone must know who he is. The woman Jeffson must have been killed because she knew him, or else could give us an idea where to find him. He’s been working quietly and thoroughly, and he’s got a stranglehold on many people, but this open clash with us is something different. Either a crisis had been forced upon him, or one has developed beyond his control. I think he will probably stop this killing once the crisis is over. Agree?” Grice flashed.
“Up to a point,” Rollison said. “I think he might be staging this simply as a demonstration. If he can challenge the police openly and get away with it once, his influence will grow much stronger. And it’s already strong enough.”
“Could be,” agreed Grice. “Now, look at our point of view. We daren’t let him get away with it. We must catch him, and we’re going to. I think we can do it quicker with your help.”
“Thanks,” Rollison said. “How?”
“You haven’t told us why you suspect Marling.”
“He was named last night as a possible Doc.”
“Who named him?”
“An old friend of mine.”
“I thought so,” Grice said, and he smoothed his chin, while his look gave Rollison the impression that he didn’t relish what he was going to say next. “Was it Ebbutt, of the Blue Dog?”
“Yes.”
“How did he come to suspect Marling?”
“It’s on the local grapevine.”
“Listen, Rolly,” Grice said very tensely, “your mind is usually as sharp as they come, what’s blunting it now? You know that the Doc is unknown to everyone. Very few of his own contacts have any idea who he is. How do you think Ebbutt or anyone else can get hold of a rumour like that?”
“Ebbutt keeps his ear to the ground,” Rollison said.
“Yes,” snapped Grice, “and he may keep a lot more underground. I know that he’s a friend of yours, but I also know that he isn’t a friend of ours. He’s run that boxing business of his for over twenty-five years. He’s had thousands of people through the gymnasium, and half of them have been men just out of jail, or men who ought to be in jail. We’ve suspected for a long time that it’s been a clearing house of crime—whether Ebbutt was aware of it or not.”
Rollison was sitting very still.
“Go on, Bill.”
“I’m going on. We’ve been investigating the affairs of that gymnasium and that pub very closely. Ebbutt’s got a remarkable lot of money. He will often give young boxers well-paid jobs at the gymnasium, just to train them. He has a kind of pension list for old boxers and that must cost him a fortune. As nearly as we can estimate, Bill Ebbutt has a payroll of over two hundred pounds a month. Think the profits at the Blue Dog cover that?”