Poison For the Toff

by John Creasey

  The Rev. Ronald Kemp strode into the flat in some excitement, but his face dropped when he saw Lady Gloria, whom he knew slightly. His hair was dishevelled and his shoes were covered with dust. His hands, also, were far from clean.

  He bowed awkwardly to Lady Gloria.

  ‘Good evening, Mr Kemp,’ she said, and immediately got up. ‘I am glad you have come, because it makes me realise that I ought to have left an hour ago.’

  ‘Don’t go for me, please,’ said Kemp, insincerely.

  ‘I am going for myself,’ said Old Glory graciously. ‘The old need rest.’ Rollison led her into the hall, where Jolly was already telephoning for a taxi. ‘If the young man has come with another case, Rolly,’ she whispered, ‘I hope you won’t take it until this one is finished.’

  ‘Cross my heart,’ said Rollison with a grin.

  Kemp was sitting on the edge of the sofa, eager and boyish, when Rollison returned to the sitting-room. He burst out: ‘I say, Rolly, I think I’ve got something you will find useful.’

  ‘Good!’ said Rollison, cheerfully.

  ‘I’ve been keeping my eyes open,’ said Kemp. ‘Of course, I’ve followed the case in the newspapers and I think I know where the man with the hooked nose lives.’

  Rollison said: ‘What?’

  ‘And when I read that he was wanted for questioning and that he had last been seen at Mary Henderson’s flat, and before that at your birthday do, I really started to think,’ Kemp went on. ‘You see, I thought I’d seen him before when I saw him in your flat. You can’t forget a man with a nose like that, can you? The thing is, did he wear a wig?’

  ‘Not that I noticed,’ said Rollison.

  Jolly, who was standing by the door, said apologetically: ‘That was a point I was once going to raise myself, sir. I saw him more closely than you, and I wondered whether his hair was his own. His neck seemed too cleanly shaven. Quite a lot of men wear wigs nowadays, but it’s the neck that gives them away.’

  ‘Well, here’s corroboration!’ cried Kemp, rubbing his hands together in high glee. ‘Now, there’s a firm of jewellers in Whitechapel Road, quite a big firm, wholesale and retail, you know. They deal mostly in trash, but they’ve a small shop where they sell good stuff. I’m pretty sure that I’ve seen this hooked-nose Johnny there from time to time. If that is the chap, his name’s Jacobson.’

  ‘What’s the name of the firm?’ asked Rollison.

  ‘Waller and Kell,’ said Kemp, ‘and I’ll tell you another thing, Rolly. I think I’ve seen Mary Henderson go in there once or twice. I pass the shop half a dozen times a day and although I don’t know the poor child well, I remembered her when I saw her at the flat. I met Jacobson only this afternoon, that’s why it dawned on me. As a matter of fact,’ added Kemp, with a rather embarrassed laugh, ‘I followed him down to the docks, after dark. That’s why I’m in this mess.’

  ‘What did he do at the docks?’ asked Rollison swiftly, and he pointed to the telephone. Jolly immediately dialled Whitehall 1212, while Kemp said ruefully: ‘I can’t tell you that, because I lost him. There are several ships loading and unloading by floodlight, and so many people about that I lost him fairly soon. Of course, it might not be the same man,’ added Kemp, suddenly cautious, ‘but I shall be surprised if it isn’t.’

  ‘And so shall I be,’ said Rollison.

  ‘Inspector Hill is on the line,’ said Jolly sedately.

  ‘I’ll speak to him.’ Rollison went to the telephone, and was immediately greeted by a doleful voice. If Rollison wanted to know whether Katrina Morral had talked freely, he could have the answer forthwith: she had not. Nothing seemed to worry her, Hill went on, she practically ignored him and everyone who questioned her, and did not seem to be in the slightest degree alarmed.

  ‘Never mind Katrina Morral now,’ said Rollison.

  ‘But you advised us to pull her in!’ protested Hill.

  ‘Yes, and you were wise enough to detain her,’ said Rollison, ‘but that isn’t what’s worrying me at the moment.’ He sent a resigned look towards Jolly, and went on: ‘Do you know anything about the firm of Waller and Kell, in Whitechapel Road?’

  ‘The jewellers?’

  ‘Yes.’

  They’re junk merchants,’ said Hill, his voice strengthening as he felt himself to be on firmer ground.

  ‘Do you know a chap called Jacobson, who works for them?’

  ‘I don’t know him personally,’ said Hill. ‘Wait a moment, Gibson probably does.’ Rollison heard him call: ‘Gibson!’ and then a muttered conversation, before Hill came on the line again. ‘Yes, Gibson knows him. He’s the general manager, and has been with them for years. I—what’s that?’ He was speaking to Gibson again, and when he came back to Rollison there was an excited note in his voice. ‘I say, Rollison, Gibson has had a report that Mary Henderson was sometimes seen to go into Waller and Kell’s. A constable recognised her photograph.’

  Rollison said: ‘Splendid! I think Jacobson’s our hooked- nosed man.’

  ‘But he’s as bald as a coot!’

  ‘Imagine him with a wig,’ said Rollison happily. ‘Will you hold him at once?’

  ‘Well,’ began Hill, and then added crisply: ‘Yes, of course, I can ask him about Mary Henderson’s visits.’

  ‘Hold him on any count, but hold him,’ begged Rollison. He replaced the receiver, and shook his head sadly. ‘If only Grice were on duty.’

  ‘I think Hill will act quickly enough, sir,’ said Jolly.

  ‘Oh, yes. More capable than he looks, and lacking only in confidence,’ said Rollison, absently. He smiled at Kemp. ‘You’ve been more help than you realise, old chap.’

  ‘I hoped I wasn’t making a fool of myself,’ said Kemp. ‘I wish I could stay, but I must fly, I put forward a church committee meeting to come and see you, but only by an hour. Let me know if there is anything I can do tomorrow, won’t you?’

  ‘I will,’ Rollison promised him. ‘How did you come?’

  ‘By car.’

  ‘Then will you give me a lift?’

  Kemp said he would be delighted to do so. He had a low two-seater, which snorted noisily and made conversation difficult. Kemp ignored the snorts, however, and pitching his voice to a bellow, asked innumerable questions. The evening papers said something about Florence Hardy being in hospital, was that another development in the case? He hoped she was not badly hurt, because he had known her for some time, and in a way was fond of her. He had heard a rumour that she was seeing a lot of Tippets; he had known Tippets before the war, at Oxford. Very sound fellow, Tippets, and a first-class bat. With Kemp, most things led eventually to cricket or boxing. Florence and Tips would make an excellent match, Kemp thought; was there anything in it?

  So he went on, until at last he put Rollison down near Whitechapel Church, and said regretfully: ‘I wish I could cut my meeting, Rolly, but I can’t.’

  ‘You’ve done all that could be asked of you,’ Rollison assured him, ‘and a good deal more. Which way is Waller and Kell’s?’

  ‘About fifty yards further up,’ said Kemp. ‘I thought you wouldn’t want to be dropped right outside.’

  ‘And you were right,’ said Rollison.

  He walked along the crowded road, jostled by the people, feeling a nostalgia for the East End, which he had deserted for so long, as Old Glory had pointedly reminded him. There was a quality about the people living in these mean, crowded streets which had always appealed to him. Dark-eyed, befurred Jewesses with plump, olive-skinned men escorting them, street arabs still up and about, hawkers doing surreptitious sales from their barrows, girls and young men strolling arm-in-arm past the bright lights of picture palaces and amusement saloons; all of these things held a value for him.

  Waller and Kell turned out to be a large establishment, with three double-fronted shop windows
, barred and bolted for the night, and covered with an iron grille. There were no lights inside the shop. Two or three men in plainclothes were standing by a side door. Among them was Hill.

  Rollison joined them.

  Hill gave him a wintery smile.

  ‘I thought you would turn up. I’m waiting until I get a message from the men at the back.’

  ‘There isn’t much sign of life,’ said one of the others, whom Rollison recognised as Sergeant Gibson. ‘Jacobson lives above the shop, I think.’

  ‘Think!’ said Hill, acidly.

  Obviously there was some tension among the police, and Rollison tactfully remained silent. Presently a plainclothes man came hurrying along the street, to say that the men were now stationed at the rear of the premises and that every door and window was covered.

  By then a crowd had gathered, a jostling but silent crowd, resentful of the police, inclined to be on the side of the wrongdoer. There was no active hostility, however, and Rollison, with his natural sense of the East End, took this to mean that Waller and Kell was not a popular establishment.

  Gibson had been ringing the door-bell, without response.

  ‘All right, let’s get in,’ said Hill.

  He was a much better man when he had something to do than when he was at the Yard, and his men trusted him. He himself used a skeleton key dexterously, and they heard the lock go back; but the door did not open.

  ‘Bolted,’ said Hill. ‘That’s hopeful.’

  It meant that there was probably someone inside. Rollison’s spirits rose as he watched two hefty policemen put their shoulders to the door, to the accompaniment of ironic applause from the crowd.

  Then Rollison saw an onlooker glance upwards, and nudge his neighbour.

  At the same moment the door crashed in.

  ‘I’ll go first,’ said Hill, and pushed his way into the hall. Rollison, acutely aware of the upward glance, backed into the crowd, craning his neck; he saw a man climbing from a window above the shop. He was trying to get from one flat to the next, and he was, at the moment, unaware that he had been seen.

  The man was Lorne.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  The End of a Handsome Man

  Rollison saw Lorne clearly in the light from an amusement saloon on the other side of the road. He hurried forward, and shouted down the passage along which Hill was already making his way: ‘Lorne’s at a third-floor window!’

  ‘Third?’ cried Hill, and raced up the stairs. ‘We’ll get him!’ Rollison went back into the street.

  The crowd had now transferred its interest to the man at the window, and there was no doubt where its sympathy lay. It was solidly behind Lorne, and suddenly there was a roar of encouragement, for he had managed to get from one window sill to another, and stood there precariously.

  For the first time, he looked down.

  There was fear on his handsome face, and he was obviously startled by the roar, for his foot slipped. The crowd drew in its breath.

  ‘He’ll fall!’

  ‘Careful!’

  ‘Give the man a chance!’

  ‘He’s wanted for murder,’ Rollison said, in a sharp voice. ‘A messy murder. Don’t waste your sympathy.’

  ‘Who the hell—’ a man began, and then his voice rose up in surprise, and he cried, ‘Strewth, it’s Mr Ar!’

  ‘Roll’son!’

  ‘Strike me if it ain’t the ruddy Torf!’

  ‘Cor strike a light, Guv’ner, ain’t you dead yet?’

  Rollison laughed. ‘I’m not so near it as the man up there. Can someone lay hands on some blankets, in case he falls? Tarpaulins would do.’

  ‘Askin’ for a lot, aincha?’ remarked someone, good- humouredly.

  ‘Bill! Mr Ar wants some blankets!’ piped a woman.

  ‘Okey-doke, Mr Ar.’

  Rollison stood watching, hardly aware of the fact that so many people knew him and that their attitude was wholly friendly. They were watching Lorne, who no longer had their sympathy. Several of them hurried away, to come back in a few minutes with blankets already unfolded. Half a dozen men held them out beneath Lorne, who was now swinging from one window sill to another.

  There was a sudden cheer; a policeman appeared at the first window, and climbed out, while the crowd began to shout conflicting advice. Lorne turned, and saw how close was his pursuer. He stood clutching a pipe with one hand while he put his hand to his pocket.

  Rollison shouted: ‘Careful! He’s armed!’

  Lorne glanced down. The lurid glare showed his eyes, feverishly bright, and his parted lips. He took an automatic out of his pocket and pointed it at the policeman, who could not back away.

  The crowd seemed to go mad with excitement.

  ‘Stow it!’ roared a man on the pavement.

  ‘Drop that gun!’

  ‘The ruddy tyke, I wish I could git my ‘ands on ‘im!’

  ‘Don’t shoot!’ roared Rollison. ‘Don’t shoot, Lorne!’

  Was it a waste of words? He waited, breathless, while Lorne seemed to hesitate. Then Lorne looked down again. He was looking for someone; he saw Rollison, and his lips tightened. He turned the gun downwards!

  ‘Look out!’ cried Rollison. ‘Scatter!’

  The crowd needed no telling.

  Twice Lorne fired, and the crowd swayed outwards and then broke up. Men and women dashed back into the road, narrowly escaping the passing traffic. Rollison moved quickly against the window, out of Lorne’s line of vision. The trouble was, in this position, he could not see the man. People on the other side of the road were now bellowing at Lorne, and someone was lying hurt on the pavement. A woman rushed towards him, calling a name. Two or three men joined her, while others stood shaking their fists at Lorne. Then came a cry.

  ‘He’s dropped it!’

  Rollison stepped forward. Something hit the ground close to him, and there was a flash of flame and a sharp report; then a crash, as a bullet from Lorne’s gun crashed into a plate-glass window. As the din faded, Rollison went back to the

  kerb. He saw that Lorne was trying to get back to the window sill, and that the policeman was now at the next window.

  Someone brought a ladder.

  Several eager helpers placed it into position, and a policeman came hurrying forward.

  ‘My job,’ said Rollison.

  Lorne had now managed to regain a footing on the sill, and was standing bent over, and breathing heavily. Rollison began to climb the ladder, his sole purpose being to prevent Lorne from grappling with the policeman, who was now leaning forward in an attempt to reach Lorne’s sill.

  Lorne tried to grip the top rung of the ladder. The crowd gasped. Rollison went steadily upwards; then the policeman shot out a hand. As it touched Lorne’s arm he gave a violent jerk; and slipped.

  ‘Ahhhh!’ sighed the crowd.

  Rollison saw the fall, but was powerless either to avert or dodge it. Lorne turned over in the air, touched the ladder but did not shift it, and then hit the ground, head first.

  Hill was disconsolate. The first time they really got at close grips with the devils, he said, Lorne had to fall and break his neck. If that wasn’t bad enough, Jacobson had left earlier in the evening, his destination unknown. Because Ronald Kemp had seen him go to the docks, the police were searching all ships which were loading or unloading, and that was no easy task. There were no crates at Waller and Kell’s of the size for which they were searching, nothing useful in the way of evidence except, in a safe which they had to cut open with an oxy-acetylene burner, a book containing a list of names and addresses, alongside of which were money entries.

  One of the names was Mary Henderson’s.

  ‘And we already knew she was in the business,’ said Hill, a trifle petulantly. ‘I can’t see anything else in i
t, can you?’

  ‘Not yet,’ said Rollison, ‘but you’ll find it useful, old chap. Don’t be too glum, we are making progress.’

  ‘We ougsaaqht to have got here days ago.’

  ‘We could have been later,’ said Rollison, soothingly. ‘Who’s in charge at the docks?’

  ‘Cartwright, the Divisional man. But looking for Jacobson there will be like looking for a drunk in a pub.’

  Rollison laughed. ‘Not as bad as that, surely. Let’s go and find out what ships are loading.’

  Lorne’s body had been taken to the mortuary, and the police were still in possession of Waller and Kell’s shops and warehouses, which they were systematically going through in search of the missing jewels. Among the thousands of boxes of cheap jewellery, it was possible that some valuable loot could be hidden, and every piece, however trumpery, would be examined before the police were finished.

  ‘Well, why are we going to the docks?’ demanded Hill. ‘We know Cartwright won’t miss Jacobson, if he’s there.’

  ‘Is Cartwright looking for a ship that’s going to the Far East?’ asked Rollison.

  ‘Why should he?’ demanded Hill, and then more quickly: ‘Oh, I see! I ought to have seen it before. You think they might be sending those relics back to Siam, do you?’

  ‘It’s possible,’ Rollison said.

  ‘But what about that brooch?’

  ‘They would want some pickings in London,’ Rollison said, and went on thoughtfully: ‘It has been almost too ruthless to be the work of jewel thieves, Hill. I’ve wondered from time to time if there isn’t something deeper in it. Religion strikes deep, you know, and these things come from temples which have been inviolate for years. But I’m only guessing,’ he added, with a laugh. He felt in high fettle, in spite of Lorne’s death; it seemed to him that they would not be much longer in the dark. He was keenly aware that he had been lucky not to be injured by Lorne’s shooting. The only man who had been hurt had a flesh wound in the thigh, and was not in danger.

  ‘Your guesses usually go pretty near the mark,’ said Hill, with grudging approval. ‘Well, here we are – and there’s Cartwright.’