by John Creasey
The front door banged before Rollison started to speak and there was little likelihood that Peveril had overheard the request. Rollison hurried to the ground floor and into the terrace, seeing Peveril striding towards the far end of the street, his great shoulders swinging and long legs covering the pavement with enormous strides. Rollison waited until the man turned the corner, seeing him glance back once, and then hurried in his wake. He wanted badly to know where Peveril would go and needed a talk with the man in circumstances different from those at the flat where too many people could listen in.
Reaching the corner, he saw a Scotland Yard sergeant in plain clothes who pulled up as the Toff appeared.
‘I can’t stop,’ said Rollison as he passed, assuming this was Grice’s man. ‘Carry on to the flat.’ He did not wait for a yea or a nay but reached Piccadilly in time to see Peveril going through the gates into Green Park.
Peveril walked like a man who knew exactly where he was going and who had a definite purpose in mind. His progress was so bull-headed that the Toff wondered whether it meant all that it appeared to on the surface. They crossed the park and soon were in Victoria Street, Peveril allowed to keep about thirty yards ahead all the time. At Vauxhall Bridge Road Peveril turned left, leaving the clock and the station on his right and walking several hundred yards before going left again into a street of tall, narrow houses, many of which had white cards announcing ‘Apartments’ or ‘Bed and Breakfast.’ Peveril entered the fifth house along and Rollison saw him disappear.
Rollison would have followed but for the man he saw at the other end of the street; it was Ibbetson.
Backing into the main road swiftly but peering round the wall of the corner house, the Toff watched Ibbetson raise his chubby hand in a gesture which brought the thick-set Fred from the porch of another house. Together they hurried to that which Peveril had entered, neither of them looking back nor giving the impression that they suspected that Peveril might have company.
‘I might hear something to my advantage here,’ mused the Toff and hummed the air from the Warsaw Concerto as he gave both men ample time to disappear into the house and then walked the length of the street, noting that the thoroughfare was called Queen’s Place and the house was Number 9.
No porch-way hid Charley or Mike, whom he considered with respect, and there were no loungers in a street which ran along the bottom of the thoroughfare. Satisfied that he was not likely to be taken by surprise, yet wondering whether his precautions were sufficient, he returned and entered in the wake of Peveril, Ibbetson, and Fred.
The first thing that surprised him was the silence.
In an apartment house at such a time there were usually sounds from the kitchen or else the murmur of voices. He heard nothing, not even the stealthiest of footsteps. He peered along a narrow passage to the closed door of what he presumed to be the kitchen and then glanced at the stairs; they were narrow but looked solid and boasted a thick carpet. Walking up them with little sound, he passed the empty first landing and then carefully approached the second; that, too, was empty. Moving with even greater stealth he approached the third, and last, landing. Half-way up the top flight of stairs he saw Ibbetson’s legs, clad in light grey, and those of another man, both standing against a door. The faintest of scratching sound followed and then Ibbetson moved forward; the door opened very slowly and the silence was like an enshrouding blanket.
Then a clear voice, filled with fury which was under control, said viciously: ‘I thought you’d fall for it. Come in and put your hands up!’
There was a gasp from Ibbetson and Fred turned and ran for the stairs. They had planned a surprise but been taken off their guard. Fred did not notice Rollison until he was nearly on him and then all the Toff needed to do was to put out a leg: Fred stumbled over it and crashed down the stairs while Peveril continued in the same sibilant voice: ‘Never mind him, it’s you I want.’
Ibbetson went into the room and the door closed, while the Toff vacillated between going up farther and listening in and hurrying down to Fred, who was lying on the floor with his eyes closed.
Chapter Twelve
Half Circle
The Toff had rarely wished more urgently for Jolly who could have taken Fred away and kept him in a safe place while the conference proceeded upstairs. The door of Peveril’s apartment had hardly closed, however, before he was moving downstairs. At all costs he must prevent his flank from being left open to attack; when Fred recovered the man was not likely to be idle.
Looking about him from the landing, the Toff saw a door standing ajar; in the poor light he read the white word BATH on a brown door.
‘That might be useful,’ he said sotto voce.
Stepping over the man’s unconscious figure he glanced into a bathroom so dingy that it looked as if the residents rarely used it. Little more than a square box-room with just room for the bath and small hand-basin, it was gloomy because the window was covered with blackout paper turned green in patches and torn in others. The bath itself was a tall, old-fashioned tub with water-marks of generations on its sides. Wrinkling his nose with distaste, Rollison went out after taking the key from the inside of the door and half-carried, half-dragged Ibbetson’s man into the bathroom. He took off the victim’s tie, bound his wrists behind him and then lifted him into the bath; it was not comfortable but there was little chance of the man escaping without outside help. Rollison gagged him with a handkerchief, tested the knot of the tie and went out and locked the door.
Going upstairs he put the key in his hip-pocket and took out his own key-case, selecting the skeleton key as he approached Peveril’s door. There he could hear a murmur of voices but he did not think they came from the room immediately beyond the door. He picked the lock, taking less than thirty seconds, a far more successful effort than when he had opened his own lounge.
The front room, a lounge of fair proportions, was empty; voices sounding much stronger but still not clear came from a door on the right. Rollison glanced about him and pulled a chair towards the door, jamming it under the handle and thus making sure that no one could enter furtively or surreptitiously.
By the second door he heard Peveril’s voice.
‘Shut your foul mouth! I’m doing the talking.’ Peveril paused as if to give Ibbetson an opportunity for defying him then went on: ‘If you worked for me, you congenital bungler, you’d be out on your neck in double-quick time. I thought you had the case but you let Rollison put one across you. It was a dummy. Understand that, you half-wit, it was a dummy! A fine story you’d have had to tell, if you’d got that far. Now you’ll have to go and whine to Lancaster and admit that I beat you to it. You won’t tell him that you were fooled but I’ll find a way of letting him know.’
Ibbetson put in unsteadily: ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about. Who—who’s Lancaster? I don’t know—’
A sound that seemed like a slap followed. Rollison imagined Ibbetson receiving the treatment he had so freely meted out and a pleased smile curved his lips.
‘I’m not dumb,’ snapped Peveril. ‘You work for Lancaster. The poor fool thinks that I’ll back out but I’ll beat him to it. My market for the case is bigger than yours. I don’t work for chicken-feed. Go back to him and tell him that if he doesn’t get out of the market and take you with him there’ll be more trouble brewing than he’ll want to take, the yellow-bellied numbskull.’ Peveril drew a deep breath, apparently to recover after the invective and then went on harshly: As for you, if you come near me again I’ll split your skull. And listen, keep clear of Rollison. I’ll handle him. There isn’t room for the two of us and the one who stands down isn’t going to be me, even if I don’t need a gang of cut-throats to do my work for me. Have you got all that?’
Ibbetson started to say something but was cut short by a bellow from Peveril. The Toff heard a heavy thud and then heavier footsteps. A sound of a scuffle followed
and the door shook. The Toff looked about him swiftly and saw another door, standing ajar. He retreated to it and went inside a small bedroom, disappearing as the first door opened after moving away the chair.
Peveril towered above Ibbetson, whom he held by the scruff of the neck with a casual ease which would have been funny in different circumstances. Ibbetson’s mouth was gaping like a fish, he looked as if he were choking. Peveril forced him across the room, held him while he opened the front door and then rushed him to the head of the stairs. The noise as the two men raced down shook the old house, fading only a little as they descended the first flight of stairs. A shout followed and then a greater rumbling noise; the Toff imagined that Ibbetson was being thrown down the bottom flight of steps.
Peveril bellowed abuse which must have reached the ears of passers-by; but the words were lost on the Toff who waited for a few moments then left his hiding-place and went into the room where Peveril and Ibbetson had been talking. It was a study with several easy chairs and a cocktail cabinet standing open and revealing an array of bottles rare in war time.
Footsteps on the stairs warned him that Peveril would soon return.
Dispassionately the Toff had admired Peveril’s treatment of the plump crook but about their interview there had been something which rang false. He could not place it; nor could he reconcile Peveril’s mouthing and talk of violence with his comparatively mild treatment of Ibbetson: after such a threat something more than a run out of the flat would have been fitting.
Thinking of that, the Toff backed behind the door. He heard Peveril striding across the outer room and the door bounced back on him; he caught the handle to prevent it swinging to and making his presence obvious. Peveril stepped to a modern steel desk in front of a window and stood peering into the street for what seemed a long time. He had both hands thrust in his pockets and his attitude was not that of an elated man.
When he swung round his brows were knit and his scowl ferocious. That was until he saw the Toff; then his lips dropped open and he gaped.
‘G-good gad!’ he exclaimed.
‘That’s mild for you, isn’t it?’ asked the Toff amiably. ‘I thought you’d pull something out of the bag for a special occasion.’ He took his revolver from its holster slowly and deliberately and held it pointing towards the thick, dark brown carpet. All the time he watched the other’s face and, just as the recent interview had struck him as false, so did Peveril’s expression. The man’s slate-grey eyes held a cunning glint; he registered surprise so convincingly that it was overdone.
‘M-mild!’ gasped Peveril.
‘That’s what I said,’ said the Toff. ‘Do you know June Lancing? No? A pity, she’s a nice girl. I was telling her one day that when people don’t act true to form they become suspect. You aren’t running true to form. I wonder why?’
‘What—what did you expect?’ Peveril said thickly.
‘Oh, a fine old rodomontade of invective,’ said the Toff, ‘with an occasional reference to Confucius and Mohamet.’ He smiled widely, reaching a chair and leaning against it as he went on softly: ‘Do you know, Peveril, I’m beginning to rate you higher than I did at first. You expected me, didn’t you?’
‘Expected!’ ejaculated Peveril.
‘Expected,’ repeated the Toff. ‘You thought I would follow you and accordingly you treated Ibbetson mildly. Had you done him real violence with a third party in the neighbourhood it might have been risky. Not bad, Peveril, you do quite well.’
‘You’re talking a lot of nonsense!’ snapped Peveril. ‘Put that gun away, you don’t need it.’
‘You mean that you hope I won’t need to use it,’ corrected the Toff. ‘We’ll see. It depends on how you behave. Who are you working for?’
‘None of your business,’ said Peveril harshly.
‘I’m making it mine.’
‘You won’t find out anything from me.’
‘Oh, I don’t know,’ said Rollison, ‘you’ve told me a lot already. More perhaps than you realise but we’ll go further into that later. The question that really matters at the moment is: “How did you know I had the black case?”’
Peveril scowled but looked less aggressive, even surprised and a little sceptical.
‘You aren’t serious about that.’
‘I’m so serious that if you don’t tell me I shall get violent with you,’ Rollison assured him. ‘It’s a simple question: how did you know?’
‘By Jupiter, you’re serious! Why, Patrushka told me.’
‘Who?’ exclaimed Rollison, startled.
‘Patrushka.’
‘Oh,’ said Rollison blankly. ‘Of course, that explains everything but if I knew anyone named Patrushka it would be a help. As I don’t, you’ll have to try again. This time,’ he added with a firmer note in his voice, ‘don’t use a mental pin to stick in a name to pass on to me.’
‘But she did tell me!’ insisted Peveril. ‘I had to wring it out of her, she was as stubborn as a mule but I put a scare into her and she told me she’d sent it to you. I didn’t know that the little swine Ibbetson was listening in,’ continued Peveril darkly. ‘If I had, I’d have been at the flat a lot earlier than he was but you handled him all right.’
Rollison made no immediate comment but admitted the possibility that Peveril believed that what he was saying to be true. He raised an eyebrow above the other and then mused: ‘I shall have to get to know Patrushka but, before that, tell me a little more of what she told you.’
‘This is just damned silly!’ exploded Peveril and then went on quickly at the sight of a gleam in Rollison’s eye and the slight raising of the revolver. ‘Oh, all right. She told me that you were interested in the case and were looking after the case for her until she reclaimed it or sent a messenger for it. I thought it was going to be easy but Ibbetson stole my thunder. You would have had an uncomfortable morning if I’d arrived first. Ibbetson doesn’t know the first thing about persuasion.’
‘Remembering his efforts on me, I’m glad you were late,’ said the Toff ironically. ‘So I was looking after the case for the unknown Patrushka. She—’ He stopped abruptly, drew a deep breath and then snapped: ‘What does she look like? Has she got cloudy blue eyes, dark hair worn in a page-boy bob, short upper lip and nose? And does she dress well and—’ he paused and found inspiration, ‘wear a three-diamond ring on her engagement finger?’
‘Now what the devil are you trying to do?’ demanded Peveril. ‘If this is your idea of getting me confused, it won’t work. Of course that’s Patrushka. Who do you think it is?’
The Toff did not confide that he thought the girl was June Lancing.
Chapter Thirteen
The Tribulations Of Jolly
If the Toff’s expression relaxed enough for Peveril to see that his equanimity was momentarily shaken, Peveril made no comment. The Toff rubbed the fingers of his left hand along the barrel of his revolver, making the other back a pace and knock against the window.
‘Are you really as frightened as all that of a gun?’ murmured the Toff. ‘It isn’t like you; too many people aren’t acting as they should. Including Patrushka.’ Much of what had happened was beginning to make sense and he contemplated the wisdom of forcing the interview with Peveril a stage further when there was a sudden, high-pitched scream from beneath the flat.
It came so abruptly and with so little warning that even Rollison turned his head. But Peveril was too startled to turn the carelessness to his advantage.
‘What’s that?’ he demanded hoarsely. ‘What was it?’
‘We needn’t worry,’ said the Toff but altered his mind when there came a loud pattering on the stairs and a woman’s voice raised hysterically.
‘Murder, murder! Help! Police! Murder, murder!’
‘What the devil’s happened?’ snapped Peveril. ‘We can’t stay here doing not
hing!’
‘I shouldn’t let it worry you,’ said the Toff. ‘Someone has chosen this afternoon, of all times, to have a bath.’ He cut short Peveril’s abrupt interruption, adding sharply: ‘I used the bathroom for Ibbetson’s bosom friend, Fred. I also locked the door.’
‘All the tenants have keys,’ muttered Peveril, turning pale. ‘Was— was he all right?’
‘He wasn’t dead when I left him, if that’s what you mean,’ said Rollison. ‘Nor was he conscious or comfortable. I wish that woman would stop screaming,’ he added testily.
The woman’s cries remained shrill and high-pitched although they sounded farther away. Heavier footsteps followed on the stairs and a door banged open. Then a man’s voice came after a moment of silence so acute that it made Rollison and Peveril stare at each other, animosity forgotten in uncertainty.
‘My God!’ exclaimed the speaker. ‘Get away, Lucy, you don’t want to see this. Send—send for the police.’
With one accord Rollison and Peveril stepped through the lounge to the landing. Hurrying down the stairs to the bathroom, they saw the door wide open. A woman in a dressing-gown of bright hues was hurrying down the next flight of stairs while a man’s shoulders blocked the door. Rollison reached him and asked mildly: ‘Can I help?’
‘Eh?’ A heavily-built man with two or three days’ growth of stubble on his face, dressed in the uniform of the AFS, turned sharply. His eyes reflected shock and horror and his lips twitched. ‘Er—no, I don’t think so. Look at that.’
Over his shoulder both Rollison and Peveril peered towards the bath: only the torso and legs of Ibbetson’s “Fred” were visible at first but on the top of the dirty sides of the bath were bright red stains. Tight-lipped, Rollison craned his neck so that he could see the man’s head and shoulders.
Someone had cut Fred’s throat.
Whoever had committed the crime had made no nicely-judged cut but had slashed with vigour. Rollison saw the man’s head lolling backwards, remembered how he had bundled him into the bath and left him helpless. While he had been talking to Peveril the murderer had stalked; and Rollison could conceive only one reason for the murder: Fred as a prisoner, perhaps under arrest, might have talked: that risk had been liquidated.