Salute the Toff

by John Creasey

  “Oh, I don’t charge much,” said the Toff.

  It was then that the little thug hit him.

  The punch was delivered with force towards the small of the Toff’s back, and landed heavily. But the Toff had seen it start, and held himself slack. The blow hurt, but not excessively, and as it landed he turned, ignoring Lorne and the gun, and took a chance which he knew might prove fatal.

  His right fist went like a piledriver for the man’s chin, taking him so much by surprise that he watched the blow coming but did not dodge. It struck him with a crack! that echoed through the room, lifted him from his feet and landed him on the floor two yards away. His eyes rolled, and he did not move.

  The Toff said: “I don’t want to lose my temper, Lorne, but your roughnecks aren’t helpful. Don’t imagine that gun will help you. The place will be raided at the first sound of a shot.”

  Lorne snapped: “This silencer will drown it. You can’t bluff me.”

  “No?” said the Toff inquiringly. “My dear fool, you don’t imagine that I came here unprepared? Or that I thought there was any chance of the real Draycott being here?”

  “I don’t care what you thought!”

  “It’s always a mistake to underrate your opponent,” said the Toff, and then – as throughout that strange interview – it was as if he had the gun and the upper hand, and was able to dictate the conversation. He slid one hand into his pocket, and Lorne raised the gun two inches.

  “Oh, don’t act like a school-kid!” said the Toff testily. “I’m here, and others will be soon. If you want a cut-and-dried case for murder against you, shoot and be damned. If you’d rather have a chance to avoid the Draycott charge, get out.”

  Lorne said: “You’re lying. And I didn’t kill Draycott.”

  “Really?” The Toff brought out his cigarette-case and his lighter, lit a cigarette and tossed the case gently towards Lorne. “Smoke?” he added.

  It was the simplest of things.

  The case curved an arc through the air, and was aimed to land about the region of Lorne’s waistband. Lorne either had to dodge or to make an attempt to catch it. He tried the latter, and for a moment the gun was pointing away from the Toff. Rollison moved his right hand to his trousers pocket and his own gun. He fired through his pocket. His bullet went wide, but the report was loud, and enough to make Lorne jump and then go pale.

  “Want another?” demanded the Toff, and his voice was very hard. “One to warn, and the other to mean business. We’ll shoot it out if you like.” Lorne said in a strangled voice: “Remember what I said about making a charge. If anyone comes, send them away!”

  The echo of the shot had faded, but there were footsteps outside. The Toff knew that Lorne was as desperate as ever he would be, and that if the door opened he would try to shoot his way out. There was no point in risking that: and for the moment the Toff preferred Lorne at large than in a police-station cell, although undoubtedly Chief Inspector McNab would have said that he was wrong. A sharp knock came on the door. The Toff said: “It’s all right, thanks.”

  “Ah heard shooting,” called a North-country voice. “Ah swear it coom from here, sir.”

  “It’s nothing to worry about,” said the Toff. “I’ll see you in ten minutes if you care to come back.” He did not seem to think it possible that whoever was outside would insist on coming in, and after a pause footsteps retreated from the door. Lorne was breathing hard, and his forehead was beaded with sweat. Quite slowly the Toff took his gun from his pocket, for Lorne had been intent on watching and covering the door. “Put that gun down,” Rollison ordered. Lorne took one look at him and obeyed. Harrison made a peculiar gasping noise, and sat straight up as if operated by a switch. He stared uncomprehendingly at the Toff and Lorne. “I’d rinse my face if I were you,” said the Toff easily. “Things have changed, and Lorne is now going to tell me a pretty story.”

  “I’m saying nothing!” cried Lorne.

  “You have a peculiar habit of talking in exclamation marks,” said the Toff. “However, I’m not going to waste a lot of time. You flew here, didn’t you?”

  “Supposing I did?”

  “Who told you I was on my way?”

  Lorne said, with a slight return of his earlier confidence: “I had you watched, but you didn’t realise it. You were followed to Euston, and I guessed where you’d be making for.”

  “That’s fine,” the Toff said. “So you arranged for the fake Draycott to telephone Harrison from here, did you?”

  Lorne swore: “Why, you swine—!”

  “There you go into the purple again,” said the Toff, “and you still don’t impress. I wonder why you wanted to create the impression that Draycott was still alive? Perhaps you hoped that the body wouldn’t be discovered yet, and a call to the flat would have made it inevitable. You arranged for the call from here, but not until after Miss Gretton and I had looked in at Chelsea. Right?”

  “Supposing it is?”

  It was right, of course.

  Harrison bathed his head and face, dried himself on a soiled towel, and looked at the Toff with amazement.

  “How did you do this?”

  “Chiefly by persuasion,” said the Toff. “Lorne is a beginner, and beginners are always easy. We now know that Lorne was most anxious that Draycott’s body should not be found so soon. Too bad, wasn’t it? And of course,” he went on musingly, “he followed—or preceded—us up here because he was afraid I knew enough to put him inside for the murder. A very proper fear too,” added the Toff. “But what I said at Dring Mansions still holds good, Lorne. I want the bunch of you.”

  “You’ll never get us.” Lorne was very pale.

  “So there is a gang!” exclaimed Harrison.

  “And now you’re getting the exclamation-mark complex,” said the Toff. He put his head on one side and regarded Lorne thoughtfully. “I can’t make up my mind what to do with you. You can’t stay at liberty, and you certainly can’t stay here. I think perhaps you’ll talk more easily to me than to the police. I—”

  There was no tap on the door, but it opened abruptly, and he saw two men. They looked as if they knew which end of a boxing-glove should be used for the greatest effect. They were hefty and husky, and the first of them said: “Put that gun down, you!”

  The Toff did not obey; but neither did be use the gun, for a missile that he did not at first recognise came through the air from the second newcomer and struck his arm. The gun dropped, and then Lorne turned.

  Towards the windows!

  It was open at the bottom, and he pushed it up swiftly and climbed through. The Toff could do nothing, and when Harrison made a rush one of the newcomers caught his arm. Lorne scrambled outside, and from the fact that he stood upright the Toff guessed there was a fire-escape. The clanging of his footsteps proved it.

  It happened so quickly that it was hard to believe it was true, but the missile – a stone, as it turned out – had caught his funny-bone; and a simple thing like that could easily incapacitate him.

  “And that takes care of Lorne for the time being.” He regarded the two huskies calmly but without approval. He did not think that either man was armed, or the guns would have been shown by then. “Who are you?”

  The first man, taller, blunt-faced, and with a truly remarkable cauliflower ear, said slowly: “Was that Mr. Rollison’!”

  “Oh, my God!” exclaimed Harrison. “What is this?” And the Toff, very softly, laughed.

  “It’s a joke,” he said. “And if you can see it that way it’s funny. No, George. I’m Rollison.” The husky roared: “What’s that!”

  “I’m Rollison,” said the Toff, and went on: “and you, of course, are friends of Bert?”

  “That we are that,” said the speaker, and his villainous face took on an expression of such abject self-reproach that even Harri
son smiled. “Bert got on t’phoon and told us t’coom right here, after we’d seen a man come by t’airyplane from London. Meaning,” he added confusedly, “we were t’follow t’man, that’s so. We didn’t see him, mister, but we found that he’d coom up here—”

  “A case of mistaken identity, George.”

  “Ah’m Harry, if ye don’t mind.”

  “Of course not, George,” said the Toff. He talked for some thirty seconds, showing a real grasp of the essentials. He had wondered how Lorne had left London without the attentions of Bert Ebbutt’s men; but it had not happened. Lorne had been followed to the airfield, and Bert had telephoned Manchester friends to watch for his arrival. A slight mishap, and then misapprehension – and Lorne was at large in Manchester. Harry and his companion were full of apologies.

  “It fitted in with what I wanted,” Rollison said, and meant it. “But if you want to try to help, get some friends—as many as you like—and have the airfield and the stations watched for the man who got away. Will you?”

  “Ah will that!” said Harry dubbed George.

  He went, with his companion, at the double; and the Toff went downstairs, paying Lorne’s bill to prevent an inquiry. Lorne, it proved, had booked a room by telephone and had arrived in at three o’clock that morning, omitting to sign the register after booking the room under the name of Williams. But, what was more important to the Toff and Harrison, the maids and the waiters at the Queen’s remembered ‘Mr. Draycott’ well. A tall, thin, dark-haired gentleman who had arrived late three nights before. On the previous night he had had dinner in his room again – he had taken all his meals there. And he had asked for his bill early that morning.

  “But Draycott’s fair-headed, Rollison,” Harrison said. “It was someone else, and that means Draycott is dead.” This when they were in Room 41, which the Toff was allowed to use after saying that he was proposing to wait for Draycott, but if the latter did not arrive he would pay the bill.

  The Toff said sharply: “Draycott’s what?”

  “Fair-headed. Almost blond, in fact.” And then the Toff said slowly: “He is, is he? Well, the poor beggar at the flat was as dark as I am, so Draycott probably isn’t dead.”

  Chapter Ten

  Talk Of Draycott

  Harrison, sitting on the edge of the bed, stared at the Toff as if he could not believe his ears, and then said clearly that he had never come across such nonsense. Why hadn’t the Toff said that the dead man was dark? Fay would have been saved a lot of anxiety.

  “It didn’t occur to me,” said the Toff. “I’m sorry about Fay. However, it was prima facie evidence which failed us for once, but it makes the problem greater. Where is Draycott, if he’s not dead and hasn’t been here?”

  “The Lord knows,” said Harrison. “What are we going to do now?”

  “We’ll wait for George’s report—or was it Harry?—and then we’ll get back to London. I hope,” added the Toff very slowly, “that we didn’t make a mistake in letting the girls go off on their own. If I’ve been followed so freely, they might also have been.”

  Harrison stared with increasing anxiety.

  “Rollison, Fay’s not in danger, is she?”

  “I hope not,” said the Toff. “But I’ve committed a grave sin of omission. What time is it?”

  “Half past seven.”

  “I’ll call Anthea,” said the Toff.

  There was little delay on the call to Kensington, but Anthea did not answer. Jamie, her husband did. No, there had been nothing out of the ordinary at 1023 Bayswater Road, and the two girls were sharing a room. Was he quite sure? Hadn’t he seen them when he had said good night to his Anthea?

  “Oh, all right,” he said when the Toff insisted that he look in the room again. “But I wish you wouldn’t make such a fuss, Rolly.”

  He was away only for a few seconds, and then said: “Ay, they’re both there and sleeping soundly. You don’t want to disturb them, do you?”

  “I do not,” said the Toff. “But I do want you to tell Fay—if you’ve reached the stage of calling her Fay—that there’s evidence that Draycott isn’t dead.”

  Jamie Fraser promised that he would tell her the moment she awakened, and that he was very glad indeed. That earnest young Scotsman rang off, and the Toff put through another call to Bert’s Gymnasium. He did not discuss the fiasco of that morning, but asked Bert to have two men watching the Bays-water Road house. Bert agreed with alacrity, and the Toff rang off.

  They breakfasted well, and the Toff had his clothes valeted. By that time several of the men who had been looking for Lorne had reported – through the still apologetic Harry – that they had found no trace of him. By noon there was still no word, and the Toff could only assume that Lorne had left the city by car; it was unlikely that he would stay in Manchester – unless he wanted to contact with the man who had passed himself off as Draycott.

  Rollison did not talk much on the way back to London, which they reached just after six o’clock. In the last ten minutes of the journey, by cab to Gresham Terrace, Harrison said with feeling: “Well, it looks to me as if you’d better get the police searching for Draycott, Rollison. Or get him found somehow.”

  “With Draycott alive, our old friend prima facie turns up again,” said the Toff. “Draycott could have killed the man at the flat, and McNab will certainly think it likely.”

  “I suppose you’re going to wait for something to turn up?”

  “Plenty will, without my waiting for it. In fact I expect there’ll be something on the doorstep when we get to Gresham Terrace,” said Rollison.

  There was a police constable, with a request that Mr. Rollison visit Scotland Yard at once, and would he please telephone Inspector McNab that he was on the way? The Toff said that he would, while Harrison decided to get back to his own flat.

  The Toff reached Scotland Yard, and nodded and smiled at the many who recognised him there. He did not need to send his card in, for he had telephoned, and McNab had sounded impatient to see him. McNab shared an office with three other Chief Inspectors, but owing to holidays he was alone.

  As tall as the Toff but for an inch, big and chunky, fair-haired although going grey, and with heavy features that could be – and often were – aggressively hostile, McNab was sitting at a desk with a pile of buff-coloured papers in front of him. The Toff saw him signing one of them as he opened the door, and then McNab looked up and pushed his chair back. His face cleared for a moment, and then he scowled. But he shook hands.

  “Sit down, Rolleeson. I’m glad ye’ve got here. Where the de’il have ye been?”

  “Right up to Manchester to stay at the Queen’s,” said the Toff.

  “Ach, don’t play the fule, mon,” said McNab, and settled back in a swivel chair. “What have ye been doing?”

  “Well, I’m not sure,” said the Toff, “but supposing you tell me why you’re so anxious to see me first?”

  “I’ll do that,” said McNab, and pulled at his upper lip. “Why did ye lie to me about the body at Chelsea?”

  “Did I lie?”

  “Ye know damned well that ye did. Ye told me it was a body named Draycott, an’ ye knew it wasn’t.”

  “Omniscient though I would like to be,” said the Toff, “I’m not. I knew Draycott lived there and there was a letter addressed to him in the pocket. I took too much for granted, but I acted in good faith, and lost no time in telling you about it.”

  “And let it be understood that ye must make a habit o’ that, Rolleeson. However, I’m hopin’ that ye know who the dead man is.”

  “I wish I did.”

  “Noo listen,” said McNab earnestly; “don’t keep things tae yereself, Rolleeson, that matter’s too important for that. If ye knew the murdered man, tell me.”

  “I still don’t,” said the Toff. “Well, where’s Draycott?�
�� demanded McNab. The Toff smiled, knowing that was the main question which McNab wanted to put. McNab kept his features expressionless, save for his eyes; and those, blue and at times frosty, could not hide his disappointment as the Toff sadly shook his head.

  “Mac, that wasn’t worthy of you, but I don’t know where he is. Oddly enough, I’ve been trying to find him, but he wasn’t in Manchester.”

  “What made ye think he was?”

  “I’ll tell you,” said the Toff.

  There was little that he need keep to himself, except the fact that he might have sent for the police and given Lorne in charge. He told the rest of the story, including the remarkable affair of the man who had chosen to jump from an express train rather than be taken captive; and he was not surprised when McNab fastened on that as the most important angle.

  “Draycott’s playing some deep game,” said McNab, who had a habit at times of talking as if police work was a continual international rugby scrum, and at others of talking in the most astonishing of understatements. “That will explain arranging for someone to impersonate him at Manchester. But for a man t’kill himself rather than be caught—it’s verra bad, Rolleeson.”

  “For once,” said the Toff, “we are agreed.”

  “I’d heard of the affair,” said McNab. He had been advised by the Crewe police, and was sending Detective-Sergeant Wilson – who was usually his aide – to try to identify the body. But, “If we didna know him, Wilson isna likely to. Well, now, I’ve seen Draycott’s fiancée and her family, an’ they’re reluctant to talk much. It wouldna surprise me,” added McNab, “if they knew that Draycott was hiding from us.”

  The Toff said slowly: “It could be.”

  “It’s shouting at us. Draycott killed the man at the flat, and was hoping it wouldna be discovered until he had an alibi. But something’s gone wrong wi’ his arrangements, an’ he’ll need a mighty good alibi to save him now.”

  “And I thought,” said the Toff, “that an Englishman was always innocent until he was proved guilty. However, I wasn’t referring to Draycott’s part in this. I meant that the Harvey family could know something about it.”