by John Creasey
The Toff went as silently downstairs with a hand at his pocket, and stepped towards the front door, which he had left ajar. He could hear the rustle of the other’s movement, and as he went behind the door it was pushed open an inch; another, then wide enough for the man to step through.
“Come right in,” invited the Toff.
The man whirled about, but the gun in the Toff’s hand stopped him from going for his own. Rollison left nothing to chance. He hit his man on the point, finding the nerve-centre that brought unconsciousness in a wink. He stopped him from falling, lowered him to the ground, and then ran through his pockets.
He did not stop to look at what he had found, but lifted the man, who was no more than five-feet-three or four, and light with it, to a small kitchen. Then he opened the back door and carried his burden out.
The cottage was not overlooked, for the bungalow was the nearest building. But not far away were trees, and a field in which cows were grazing. There was a deep ditch alongside the hedge, and the Toff worked fast. With cord he had brought with him he bound the man’s ankles and wrists, and with a handkerchief he gagged him. Then he tumbled him into the ditch – which was on the side of the hedge away from the cottage – and pulled a branch of a beech tree that had fallen near by so that it covered his prisoner completely.
Then he moved to the car, a Morris.
He first drove this as far as the bungalow, then returned for the Frazer-Nash, driving that into the garden of the bungalow, out of sight of the road. It would not have to stay there indefinitely, but for the time being was sufficiently under cover.
He had finished when he saw a car draw up outside the cottage. He was behind the hedge of the bungalow garden when it arrived, and he could not be seen. He saw McNab and Sergeant Wilson step out, and he watched them walk towards the front door.
He smiled obscurely as he turned to the bungalow, and was about to tap on the bungalow door when it opened and he saw Jolly. Then he saw Jimmy Draycott for the first time.
For the Toff it was a strange moment. His only picture of Draycott had been through Fay, and that had been biased. There was no preconceived notion in the Toff’s mind, yet nothing about Draycott really surprised him.
The estate agent looked about thirty. He was as tall as Jolly but three inches shorter than the Toff. His shoulders were square and his grey coat fitted him well, although it was badly creased, as were his trousers; both gave the impression that they had been slept in. No one could have called James Draycott thin, but neither was he fat. A well-built, well-knit man, in good condition and with considerable physical strength; that was the Toff’s estimate.
He had a likeable face – the kind of face which could explain Fay falling for him so suddenly and so completely. A homely face, yet in its way good-looking. His forehead was smooth, with the ruffled fair hair sticking up from it. His eyes were a cornflower blue, reminding the Toff of merry-eyed Pat Mullen of Mile Corner. His nose was short, a little blunt at the end, and his lips were full and well-enough shaped, with the upper lip short. His chin was aggressive and with a cleft, and just then covered with fair stubble.
Amongst other things, he needed a haircut
The Toff stepped in, and Jolly closed the door; and then Draycott and the Toff eyed each other, Draycott a little diffidently, and yet frankly enough, and the Toff smiling in a way which inspired trust in most men.
“Hallo, Draycott,” he said. “I’m glad to see you.”
Draycott hesitated as if in half surprise, and then he smiled; the smile was quick and merry, almost boyish, and yet clearly spontaneous; Draycott was that rare type, thought the Toff – a man who had no good idea of his looks or the impression he created.
“Well,” he said, in a voice neither deep nor too high, “I suppose I ought to be glad to see you, too, Mr. Rollison. I’ve an idea that I am now. Your” – he looked at Jolly – “man has been giving me an outline of the story.”
Jolly coughed.
“Mr. Draycott was a little restive, sir, and I felt it wise to entertain him.”
Draycott chuckled, and took out a packet of cigarettes. The Toff accepted one as Draycott said: “Restive is right! He had to keep me quiet with a gun, and I was wondering what the chances were of throwing him out when he started to pitch his yarn. Sorry to put it like that,” added Draycott apologetically, “but it does rather sound like one, doesn’t it? I don’t say I disbelieve all of it, but—”
“You can take it for gospel,” said the Toff.
While Draycott looked at him sceptically, it seemed to the Toff that this was surely the most remarkable part of an amazing affair. There was Draycott, as cool and calm and casual as if he had not been hiding from the police on a charge of murder. Not far away McNab and Wilson would be making a complete inventory of the cottage; not quite so far away the unknown man was either unconscious or very uncomfortable in a ditch.
And Draycott was throwing doubt on Jolly’s story!
“Well,” said Draycott at last, “if it is, I’m sorry I’ve caused such a lot of trouble.”
“Tell me,” said the Toff gently, “has Jolly told you that the police are anxious to see you in order to prefer a charge of murder against you?”
Draycott stiffened.
“I don’t believe that.”
“It’s true,” said the Toff. “There was a body at your flat, and it started all the trouble.”
Draycott pushed a hand through his overlong hair, stared, and said in complete bewilderment: “But this is nonsense! Jolly—you did say Jolly?—tells me that Ted Harrison had been with you some of the time. He knows better than that. I mean, I arranged with him to tell the whole story to the police. He told me the police considered I would be doing the best thing by staying under cover. It seemed crazy, but I’m not up in these things, and it’s such a big affair that I wasn’t altogether surprised. I—what are you looking like that for?”
The Toff was dwelling with bitterness on the duplicity of Ted Harrison: Harrison had known where Draycott was, and officially was liaison officer between Draycott and the police!
Chapter Twenty-Two
No Time For Talk
The Toff said in a far-away voice: “I’m looking like that because Harrison did take me in. I thought he was playing a minor role. However, it’s as well I let him go. If,” added the Toff slowly, “we can convince McNab that he’s the liar and you’re not.”
“Who’s McNab?” asked Draycott.
“At the moment your worst enemy,” said the Toff, and explained. “Draycott, were you convinced that Harrison was helping you, and was in touch with the police? You’d no idea that he was double-crossing you?”
“I’d no idea, Rollison,” Draycott said in a low voice. “If I had—” He clenched his fists. “I’ve been all kinds of a fool, that’s obvious.”
“Haven’t we all?” asked the Toff. “How long will it take you to tell us just what you know is wrong?”
“Well,” said Draycott, “about half an hour, I suppose; it’s pretty complicated. But I’ve got to be sure that I ought to tell you first. He stepped to the window of the empty, dusty front room into which they had gone. “You can’t expect me to take you entirely on trust. I’ve known Harrison for years—since we were at school—and I have no reason for thinking he would try to double-cross me.” Draycott spoke quietly, and the Toff imagined that he was puzzling the situation out.
“Jolly, get outside and take the Frazer-Nash a mile or two up the road, or the nearest point where you can hide it. If the Morris I’ve brought along isn’t here when you get back,” Rollison said, “make yourself scarce, because it means that McNab has finished with the cottage and is having a look here.”
“Very good, sir,” said Jolly.
If he was disappointed at the prospect of missing part of Draycott’s story he did not say so. Draycott pushe
d a hand through his tousled hair and looked oddly at the Toff. “This is a bloody business.”
“I couldn’t agree more,” said the Toff. “I’m going to give you a brief outline of the parts played by three people. Harrison—” he paused. “Miss Harvey is under arrest on, I suspect, a charge of being accessory after the fact to the murder you are supposed to have committed.” He paused again, and Draycott gasped: “Phyllis under arrest!”
“Yes.”
“I’ve never heard such nonsense in my life,” said Draycott “She’s no idea where I am, and—”
“You didn’t tell her you were at Allen Cottage?”
“Of course I didn’t. Only Harrison knew that. What are you trying to say?”
The Toff looked at him, himself so startled that he hardly knew what to say.
“I’m beginning to see,” went on Draycott “Phyllis gave you my address, did she?”
“Yes.”
“Thank God for that!” said Jimmy Draycott.
Afterwards the Toff said that of all the surprises he had received during this strange affair, that was the greatest. He had half expected an indignant denial that Phyllis Harvey could in any way be implicated, or at least a fierce defence of her – the kind of defence a lover would make before he had heard the full accusation. Alternatively a longer silence would not have surprised him. But Draycott had said: “Thank God for that!”
That was not the only surprising thing.
Until that moment Draycott had looked worried and anxious, except when the Toff had first arrived, but now seemed to smooth out the lines at his forehead and the frown; and he sat against the window-ledge, looking at the Toff.
“I suppose that sounds crazy too,” Draycott said. “I’m not going to try to explain now, Rollison, except that—well, I’d always thought that Phyllis was wholly wrapped up in me. But if she told you she must have been involved in the business somewhere. In Harrison’s confidence, I mean.”
“That’s likely,” said the Toff. “When all’s said and done, she thought him a friend of yours, and she would hardly be surprised if he passed on the information.”
“You don’t quite follow,” said Draycott. “I’m working on the assumption that you’ve been telling me the truth, and Harrison’s a liar and a rogue. And he wouldn’t tell Phyllis where I was unless he thought she would let it out.”
“Possibly not,” admitted the Toff.
“And Phyllis believes I’m wanted by the police, yet she makes no attempt to get in touch with me, and—she lets you know. It’s such a hell of a mess,” said James Draycott, but he was smiling widely, as if it were nothing of the kind. “One hell of a mess, but it’s going to let me out.”
“Out of what?” asked the Toff, baffled.
Draycott said as if to himself: “My engagement, of course.”
And even the Toff thought that was absolutely the limit; but a mental picture of Fay hovered in front of his mind’s eye. He regarded Draycott for some seconds, then shrugged his shoulders.
“Well, you know what you know. And I know that in spite of what we’ve been saying this is no time for talk. Let’s get out of here.”
It was as well that they moved then.
They went out of the back door, and across a narrow garden chiefly remarkable for a large quantity of decayed cabbages, which smelt. At the bottom of the garden was a hedge some five feet high, untidy because it had not seen the shears for a long time. The Toff and Draycott reached it, and from beyond it they could see the cottage, both back and front.
McNab and Wilson were leaving the front door.
“We’ll push the car,” said Rollison. “They won’t hear the engine.”
There was a gravel path, wide enough for the small car and running the length of the garden. They pushed the Morris belonging to the man now in the ditch behind the hedge and sat in it. Through a gap in the hedge Rollison could just see the front gate of the bungalow.
McNab and Sergeant Wilson arrived, and the fact that they had a key to the bungalow proved that McNab had considered the possibility that he might find his quarry there. The Toff had looked about the floors and seen on them traces of dust, disturbed by footsteps which might have been made a week before. Only Draycott had smoked a whole cigarette, and the Toff had picked up the stub before leaving. There was no real reason why McNab should know that there had recently been occupants of the deserted bungalow.
They waited for twenty minutes, and then footsteps crunched on the gravel path. McNab said clearly: “We’ll ask for a man from Winchester to watch the cottage, Wilson, but our bird’s flown. Rolleeson will ha’ warned him.”
“Are you sure Rollison knew, sir?” asked Wilson.
“The mon always knows,” said Chief Inspector McNab, with a hint of disgust.
Draycott eyed Rollison drolly, while the footsteps grew fainter along the path, and then echoed along the narrow road. Rollison opened the door of the Morris and stepped into the field behind the bungalow.
“That’s that, for the moment. Are you convinced?”
“I am,” said Draycott.
“Then McNab’s done some good. I—”
Then the Toff stopped, while Draycott was half in and half out of the Morris, and also became quite still. From the corner of the hedge which they had not visited came a man’s voice, low-pitched and yet reaching them clearly: “Put your hands up, both of you.”
The Toff turned round, slowly, his hands as high as his shoulders, and he saw Harrison. The cricketer was standing with a gun in his hand, and with two other men, roughnecks both, by his side. Harrison was in untidy tweeds, and his glasses were half-way down his nose.
Draycott snapped: “Put that down, you swine!”
“Don’t let’s waste words,” said Harrison, “and don’t shout for McNab. Rather than let them get you I’ll shoot you both.” It was clear that he meant what he said, and he did not look kindly: in fact in Harrison’s somewhat ugly face there was a viciousness which startled the Toff.
Rollison said: “So you’ve come back.”
“When you weren’t expecting me,” sneered Harrison. “You have been very much overrated, Rollison; you’re nothing but a cheap imitation. Get back to the bungalow.”
Draycott looked as if he would like to take a chance, but Rollison discouraged that with a shake of his head. One of the roughnecks led the way, and Harrison and the other followed them into the bungalow. By the door Rollison felt the muzzle of the gun in the small of his back. While it was there a roughneck ran through his pockets, and drew out the automatic he was carrying.
“That’s drawn your teeth,” Harrison said. “What did you do with Gort?”
“And who is Gort?” asked the Toff.
“So that’s another thing you don’t know,” said Harrison. “The man who followed you here.”
“He and a ditch are keeping company.”
“So you can still be funny,” snapped Harrison. He pushed the Toff so that he almost stumbled into the small kitchen of the bungalow. “Well, you won’t be for long. I wonder what McNab will think when he finds your body as well as Draycott’s?”
The Toff said easily: “He would certainly come to the conclusion that he was wrong about Draycott being the murderer. That won’t help you.”
“Don’t be a bigger fool than you can help,” said Harrison. “I’m fixing this so that Draycott shoots you, and then kills himself. He’s going to write a confession, too. All about the way Harvey’s wife was unfaithful, and got mixed up with Lorne and was blackmailed, and how Draycott killed the blackmailer and so on and so on. Convincing, isn’t it?”
“McNab might think so,” said the Toff. “But what is likely to happen while they look for you and Lorne?”
“Don’t worry about us,” said Harrison. “Lorne will be out of the country by to
morrow night, and I’m quite covered. In fact,” he added suavely and looking at Draycott, “I’m going to get engaged very soon. I’ll make Phyl a lot better husband than you, Jimmy. And I’ll be the son-in-law of a very rich man. Oh, don’t worry about me,” said Harrison, and his voice rose a shade. “And you won’t have time to worry about yourselves. Get in that corner, Rollison.”
It was all so quiet, so callous. Rollison knew that he was very close to death, that Harrison would shoot him without a moment’s compunction: Harrison was a far bigger rogue than he had dreamed, and to Rollison it seemed that he was to pay the penalty of underestimating an opponent. He thought of that in a detached manner, while he estimated the chances of besting Harrison in a rush at him. The chance was slim, but it was worth trying.
It was all so unreal and unnatural, and yet it was happening. There was no bluster, no histrionics, but simply a coldblooded plan for a double murder which was to look like murder and suicide, and so cover Harrison and others.
He saw Harrison lift the gun.
He tensed his muscles for a spring, but as he did so one of the roughnecks threw a chair at his legs. It caught him as he jumped, and he sprawled downwards.
Harrison swore, and: “You won’t even go out quietly, won’t you? Well—”
And he pointed the gun towards the Toff, who was lying on his back and quite helpless.
“Excuse me,” said Jolly, in a very loud voice, and he made Harrison jump wildly.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Information From Draycott
Draycott moved then.
For some reason nothing had been done to stop him from moving, perhaps because he was not considered dangerous. But he jumped at Harrison, and made the man swing round. A bullet actually grazed his cheeks while he collided with Harrison and sent the man staggering into one of the roughnecks. The noise of the falling men, the smell of the shot, and the clattering of the gun as it fell to the bare boards all merged together, and as they came the Toff reached his feet.