The Toff on Fire

by John Creasey

  “Oh, Doctor,” said Rollison reproachfully, “must we add lies to our ugly past? Take Esmeralda.” He waited until Ebbutt had taken the girl, handling her with surprising gentleness, and then he said: “Onward, please.” He drew level with Liz, and he put his arm round her shoulders—and the crowd gasped because the ‘egg’ quivered. “Come on, Liz,” Rollison encouraged, “remember the old saw, it’s always darkest before dawn.”

  “As God is my judge,” Liz Ebbutt said, “I didn’t know.”

  “Of course you didn’t know,” Rollison said. “But stand close, you’ll be all right now. Hey, Charlie,” he added to one of Ebbutt’s oldest cronies, “tell the boys to take the glad tidings outside, I’ve the most powerful egg in the universe raring to hatch.”

  The man gulped. “Sure, okay.” He grabbed two others. “Come on, you ’eard ’im.” They went across the gymnasium, and the people in there crouched away from Rollison, from Liz, and from Ebbutt and the girl. The little procession reached the battered door, and the bright daylight of the street. Ebbutt’s cronies went ahead, and the Doc’s men, crouching behind the barricade with their bottles of ammonia, their stink-bombs and everything they could use as missiles, heard what was said and looked round and drew fearfully back from the Toff.

  “Now pull one of the cars away,” Rollison ordered.

  Men hurried to obey.

  The crowd was silenced everywhere. No missiles were thrown. The only sound was the scraping of the roof of the car on the road, and the heavy breathing of the men who heaved at it. Soon there was a wide enough gap for Ebbutt and his wife to get through. Beyond this, Rollison saw Grice – and also saw Jolly, who looked as radiant as a child at Christmas. He had his hands clasped together, as if in thanksgiving.

  Grice came hurrying.

  “Take it easy, Bill,” Rollison urged. “I know you won’t believe any of it, but this little thing in my hand could cause a long queue at the funeral parlours. You might fix a few things for me, by the way—downstairs in the cellar there are all the pretty-pretties which used to be on my wall. I’d like them salvaged. There are probably some other little souvenirs as well—three more of these.”

  Grice looked at the ‘egg’.

  “Be careful with that,” he said, in a voice which sounded weak from this new shock. “I’ll get a container for it.” He gave a sergeant instructions, then looked away from Rollison towards Ebbutt and the pale figure of his wife, and he went on in a harder voice: “William Ebbutt, it is my duty to arrest you on a charge of inciting to violence, and I have to warn you that anything you say may be used in evidence.” He broke off, and moistened his lips, then turned to the Divisional man, who was just coming up. “Take the girl, will you, and then use the handcuffs on Eb—”

  “Not yet,” pleaded the Toff, “be gentle, William.” He gave first Grice and then Ebbutt a curious look, but Ebbutt did not notice it, and Grice seemed startled. “Ebbutt isn’t the Doc, you know,” the Toff went on. “He didn’t work for the Doc until a short while ago, when his granddaughter was kidnapped, and he was told that unless he did what he was told, she would never be seen alive again. Isn’t that so, Bill?”

  Ebbutt, who was easing Esmeralda into a policeman’s arms, swung round towards the Toff, with his eyes blazing with new hope. The constable took the girl. Two plainclothes men moved forward quickly, one of them flashing handcuffs. Liz still by her husband’s side, raised her hands towards the Toff in a kind of supplication.

  “Now, look, Rolly—” protested Grice.

  “Facts are facts and facts are stubborn things,” said Rollison prosily, “and I don’t mind admitting I could do with a drink and a cigarette. Take this damned thing away, will you?” He waited until one of the detectives came forward, carrying a box lined with yellow dusters, and took the ‘egg’ with great care. “Thanks. And don’t drop it,” Rollison added warningly, “it might break. Where was I? Oh, yes—this fabulous, fabled Doc. Not Bill Ebbutt. After all, Esmeralda Gale didn’t know our Bill, did she Bill? So when she wrote and told Jolly that she thought she could name the Doc, she didn’t mean him. I’d like to know how she found out, but I’m quite sure she found the right man.”

  Grice said abruptly: “Well, who?”

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Esmeralda’s Clue

  Grice’s ‘well, who?’ seemed to echo up and down the street, to be thrown back from the upturned cars and from the tense faces of the men and women in the crowd. Grice was no less on edge than any of them. Rollison didn’t answer at once, but looked at Esmeralda’s fair, curly hair – and then saw Dr. Jonathan Marling come from the edge of the crowd, allowed to pass by the police. He walked with long strides in a steady, confident manner. Grice saw the way Rollison looked at him, and motioned to two sergeants. They moved so that they could stand on either side of Marling when he drew level.

  “You sure?” asked Grice, sotto voce.

  “I’m sure that Esmeralda wants a doctor,” Rollison said, and saw the anxiety on Marling’s face fade as he drew level. “They aren’t strangers, either.” Marling heard that, glanced at him sharply, but didn’t speak until he was by Esmeralda’s side. Then he said in a taut voice: “Let me look at her.”

  “Dr. Marling—” Grice began.

  “Sorry if I misled you, Bill,” said Rollison, “I didn’t imply that I thought Marling is the Doc—in fact I agreed about the thing which made that almost certainly untrue from the beginning.” He watched as Marling felt for Esmeralda’s pulse and then lifted her eyelids, very gently. “If a real doctor was the Doc, then Doc was the one soubriquet he wouldn’t use. Don’t you think so?”

  Grice said: “Rolly, I know you’ve had a rough time and we’re grateful for what you’ve done, but don’t keep talking for the sake of it. If you know who the Doc is, say so. If you don’t—” his gaze shifted sharply, to the agonised Ebbutt.

  “I think I know,” Rollison said, drawing at the cigarette; and then someone came forward with a whisky flask, and he unscrewed the cap and took a swallow, gratefully. “Ah, wonderful. Scotland for aye. No, don’t take it away—I’ll want another in a minute! Where was I?” He looked at Grice, who had almost unending patience, and then he went on: “The first thing is really cheating. You weren’t present when Sir John Wylie saw Jessica Gay’s stocking on my trophy wall. A man can hide a great deal, but Wylie couldn’t hide the momentary glimpse of sheer hatred when he saw the stocking there. I didn’t let him see that I’d noticed, but from then on I began to wonder why he’d forced himself and his party on to me that evening. At first I’d blamed it on to Esmeralda, but looking back I could see that Wylie was really responsible. I’m pretty sure, now, that he’d heard a rumour that Rickett was coming to me for help, and hoped to find out all about it, posing as a kind of interested spectator. He’d threatened the Rickett baby, of course, and when he heard the child at the flat, he wouldn’t take long to guess whose it was.

  “When he virtually suggested that his wife should take care of the infant, I agreed because I felt sure that it wouldn’t come to any harm while it was at the house, and I thought the necessary precautions were taken against it disappearing. I’d misjudged his ingenuity, and the courage of some of the men who worked for him.”

  “Once the child was kidnapped, I had just one thing to do—get it back unharmed. I owed that child life.”

  “Still, I was after proof of Wylie’s guilt, and it took some finding, but when Esmeralda wrote and said she thought she knew the Doc, and when she disappeared—well, that seemed a straight pointer to Wylie, too.”

  Grice said harshly: “But the proof, Rolly?”

  Rollison looked at Esmeralda, who was still unconscious.

  “There,” he said.

  She came round, soon afterwards, and when she was able to talk she said almost in a crying voice: “Did you know—my uncle is the Doc?”

 
“It was pointing his way,” Rollison, “but what makes you so sure?”

  “I went to say goodbye to him before I left his house,” said Esmeralda. “Jane was out, he was in his dressing- room. There was a crumpled nylon stocking on the dressing table, I suppose he thought I’d believe it was Jane’s, but-—”

  “It was Jessica Gay’s,” said Rollison.

  “Yes, I knew it at once,” Esmeralda said, “there was a touch of scarlet nail varnish, for a run, and Jane only uses natural. I tried to pretend not to notice but could see that he knew I had. I expected him to try to scare me into saying nothing, or even to run away, but I didn’t dream of what he would do.”

  Grice turned and gave orders to men from the Yard, while ambulance men looked after Esmeralda.

  Rollison stopped again, and this time he didn’t have any of the whisky, but he lit another cigarette. The police were getting control of the crowd, and other police were removing the barriers, after a chain of arrests which would keep the magistrates very busy next morning, and the prison gates swinging briskly. Grice and the other C.I.D. men seemed prepared to wait for Rollison to go on.

  Instead, Ebbutt said: “I swear I never did a ring for ’im until Maisie’s kid was snatched, and then he told me he was going to use me cellar. I just ’adn’t the guts to say no, Mr. Ar. I didn’t tell no one, not even Liz.”

  “It comes to something when a man can’t confide in the woman who’s been his lawful wedded spouse for twenty-nine years,” barked Liz Ebbutt. “Don’t be such a fool again.”

  “He won’t,” said Rollison, and added curiously: “Bill, is it true you spend a fortune in pensioning off has-beens?”

  “I don’t spend any more than you do, Mr. Ar,” said Ebbutt flatly. “I make a profit aht of the gym and promoting a few fights, and the pub looks arter me and Liz. We’ve got enough, so we gives the rest away.”

  “I want to make sure that Grice knows that,” said Rollison.

  Marling joined the group near him, and the Ebbutts drew away. There was unstinting admiration in Marling’s eyes when he spoke.

  “Now I really have a story for my young brother,” he said. “I hope they give you the George Medal. I even forgive you for not waiting for me, too. That couldn’t have been because you didn’t trust me, could it?”

  “Couldn’t it?” asked Rollison, lightly. “You, or your odd job man, Luke—I thought it much more likely that Luke was the Doc’s man, that your surgery was used for taking messages and serving as a kind of clearing house, when you weren’t there. But whether I suspected you or not, this was a job I had to do on my own.”

  “Or for ever hide your head in shame,” agreed Marling. “You’ll rise as high as a shooting star after this. Mind telling me if Ebbutt was the only one who seemed to point a finger at me?”

  “Oh, no,” said Rollison. “Esmeralda did. She had your photograph and you had hers.” He grinned as he realised what an admission he had made when he revealed his knowledge of that. “Early on, remember, Esmeralda might have told the Doc where to find the baby. Your sister pointed to you, too, as your photograph was in her apartment, and hers was here.”

  Marling’s smile faded.

  “I see,” he said.

  “Doc Marling,” said Rollison gently, “you shouldn’t take that too hard. You hadn’t seen much of Maggie for a long time. Being your twin, it hurt the more, but—if she’d lived she would be in a lot of trouble now, and you wouldn’t enjoy what you’d have to hear about her. Now the police and the newspapers will be much more interested in the living than the dead.”

  “I suppose you’re right,” Marling conceded, slowly. “Thanks, Toff.”

  Then, Jolly, who had been hovering, came up and made himself felt, insisting that it was past time that Mr. Rollison had a meal. It did not greatly matter where, but—

  Ebbutt said huskily: “Mr. Ar, you wouldn’t like to come an’ ’ave a bite wiv us, would you?”

  “Can Jolly come too?” asked the Toff, and then to Grice: “See if you can make one of them tell you where Rickett is, Bill.”

  Rickett was found in a small room at the gymnasium, his nose broken, his body black and blue from ‘persuasion’. He had not told Vic or any of the Doc’s men where he had hidden the big haul, but when he saw Rollison and heard what had happened, he said thickly.

  “I’ll make a statement, Mr. Rollison, and get it over. You’ll try to make it easy for me, won’t you?”

  “Yes. So will the police,” Rollison assured him.

  “That’s maybe,” Rickett said, and went on abruptly: “Sure Evie’s okay?”

  “She’s like the baby. Fine.”

  Rickett screwed his bruised face into a smile.

  Then a messenger came hurrying.

  “Mr. Grice would like a word with you on the radio telephone, sir.”

  “Thanks,” said Rollison, and hurried to a police car. As he drew within sight of the crowd which was several thousands strong, there was a burst of cheering. For years, nothing had done him so much good as that.

  He waved, and ducked into the car.

  “In trouble, Bill?” he asked, mildly.

  That surprised Grice into a chuckle.

  “Not so deeply as some people,” he said. “Rolly, we’ve got Wylie. He tried to bluff it out, but the nylon stocking beat him—he still had it in a suit in his wardrobe. Not much doubt he was desperately in love with Jessica Gay, and—but I can give you details later. I—”

  “Anything else on Wylie?”

  “Oh, yes, plenty. Lists of names and addresses including your man Vic, Jessica Gay, Maggie Jeffson and others we picked up this afternoon.”

  “His wife?” Rollison asked, quietly.

  “I don’t think she was really surprised,” Grice said. “And I think we’ll find that Jessica Gay wasn’t his first and Maggie Jeffson wasn’t his last mistress. Lady Wylie knew he wasn’t exactly a faithful husband. From what we’ve pieced together so far, he went into it years ago, looking for easy money, and began to see himself as an underworld king. The old, old story, lust for power.”

  “Yes,” Rollison said, “I see.”

  “I can tell you why he wanted your trophies,” Grice went on. “You’d taken them as souvenirs of cases which ended like the case of Jessica Gay. He wanted Jessica’s stocking, but he didn’t want to take that alone. Take one, take all. He was going to make a public bonfire of them, and make a fool of you.”

  “He probably doesn’t know how close he was,” Rollison said. “Thanks again, Bill.”

  He left the police car, and another cheer was raised, but he felt subdued in spirit, and was cheered up only by sight of Esmeralda, looking almost herself again, and leaning on Marling’s arm.

  Rollison told her what he had heard from Grice.

  “I must go to Jane, quickly,” Esmeralda said. “Darling, is your car—”

  “Before you go,” said Rollison quietly, “tell me why you first called on Jonathan Marling. Not the charity appeal excuse—the real reason.”

  Esmeralda did not hesitate.

  “It’s really very simple,” she said. “I knew that my uncle often had affaires, and I saw him in a restaurant with a very lovely woman—this Maggie. It wasn’t very hard to scrape an acquaintance with her. I was going to plead with her to give uncle up, but—well, I didn’t get round to it. For one thing, she was so nice, and Aunt—well, anyway, I didn’t. One day, she introduced me to her brother, and somehow he was the only one of the family who mattered from then on.”

  Marling’s fingers were very tight about her arm; and they looked at each other as if there was no one else in the world. But Marling said: “Please God it always stays that way, but—now we’ve got to go to your Aunt Jane.”

  There wasn’t much else, Rollison reflected, a day or two later. The story
was already fading from the headlines, but no one was ever likely to know all the details. Perhaps they didn’t matter. There were the good things. Dan Rickett, was likely to get a short sentence for his theft, for he had returned everything he had stolen; he would keep as straight as his Evie could keep him, when he came out. There was Esmeralda and her doctor. It was known, now, that Marling’s surgery was used a great deal for the other Doc’s men to meet, exchange messages and pass on orders – that was why they had all been on Marling’s roll of patients. Luke had been in charge of this, completely unsuspected by Marling.

  When Rollison reached Gresham Terrace, much later, it was dusk, and street lights were already on. He went quietly up to his flat, and as he reached the door, Jolly opened it.

  “So you still have eyes at the back of your head,” said Rollison, mildly. “Always keep them open, they can come in useful.”

  “I’ll certainly try, sir,” said Jolly, and he followed Rollison into the study-cum-living-room.

  Rollison stopped abruptly, and surveyed the trophy wall. Jolly had arranged another miracle, for the whole wall had been re-papered; he had been busy, too, fitting brackets and generally preparing for the ceremony of replacing the trophies.

  “I trust you approve of the plain cream background, sir, I thought that the exhibits themselves would add all the colour that is required,” he said. “Ebbutt telephoned early this morning, and I took the liberty of saying that he and Mrs. Ebbutt will be welcome this evening, sir—subject to postponement if you should have any other engagement, of course—and I understand that they are to bring everything that was taken away from here. Nothing was seriously damaged.”

  “That’s fine,” said Rollison. “In fact, that’s wonderful. What—er—trophy do you suggest for this case, Jolly?”

  “If you will allow,” said Jolly, “I would mount and frame a photograph of the Rickett infant. Tinted, perhaps, and quite small. Will that serve, sir?”