The Toff at Camp

by John Creasey

Rollison used his pick-lock blade, and stepped inside. He wasn’t sure what he was looking for, only that he wanted a case against Beck which Beck couldn’t duck.

  He had no time to think, to be on guard. He had just time to feel fear—

  Two men leapt at him from behind the door as he closed it. A third rushed from a corner.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Three Could Die…

  As they came, Rollison covered up, fighting down his surging alarm. Beck was really clever, Beck had expected him. He caught the first ringing blow, a cosh on the side of the head. It hurt; and it made him savage. He sent one man back with a pile-driver, but he was crowded out, he couldn’t last long with the third man waiting to rush. Was Jolly—

  Glass smashed, splintered, and flew.

  ‘Stop this!’ a man said firmly. ‘Stop, or I fire.’

  The clear, precise voice affected the nerves of the assailants as an atom bomb might strike a Pacific atoll. All activity ceased. All venom and all viciousness was drained out of the trio. They gaped at the window, where the glass had broken in the shape of a large star. Framed in this was Jolly triumphant. His right hand and arm were thrust forward; there was no doubting the business end of the automatic pistol which he held.

  ‘I hope I’m not late, sir,’ he said apologetically. ‘As instructed, I waited in a nearby chalet, but the door stuck. Would you be good enough to open the door?’

  Rollison had only to move his hand.

  ‘Pleasure,’ he said.

  ‘Now if you will take the gun,’ Jolly said, still framed, ‘I will gladly come and render any assistance you may require.’

  He beamed.

  His voice had a song in it. He handed Rollison the gun, and disappeared. Three pairs of scared eyes transferred their gaze from Jolly, and the star of a frame, to Rollison. Two Campers came running, and Jolly was both earnest and convincing in his reassurances. They went off.

  Rollison opened the door wider, cheerfully. It was comforting to know that he could still think a move or two ahead of the Becks of the world; for Beck had obviously not expected Jolly to be waiting; and Beck himself would stay away, anxious not to get mixed up in trouble at the Camp.

  Poor Beck.

  ‘We don’t know these—ah—gentlemen, do we?’ asked Jolly; his tone was enough to make worms squirm.

  ‘We’ve met on the road,’ Rollison said lightly. ‘They tried this once before.’

  ‘How very foolish of them,’ Jolly murmured, and Rollison was sure that there was an amused gleam in his eyes. ‘They should realize that they will always come unstuck when they are opposing the Toff, shouldn’t they? Have you any instructions, sir?’

  ‘We’ll take them to your chalet, then make some long-term plans,’ Rollison decided.

  He looked at the gun. He looked at the men. As men, there was nothing particularly unusual about them, although one had a red scar on his right cheek and another a bald patch in frizzy yellow hair. They were just hoodlums. They had probably come from indifferent homes, won a scholarship to Borstal, and graduated by degrees to a life which was really a series of hops from one prison to another. There was little to suggest that they would ever know the meaning of repentance, although they would doubtless cringe and crawl in the hope of being let off lightly.

  ‘You,’ Rollison said to the man with a bald patch, ‘follow my man out of the hut. Don’t make any mistake, I’ll shoot if you run.’ He spoke quietly. He didn’t scowl or frown; he simply looked at them. The convincing factor was in his eyes; a threat, a menace, a promise that he meant exactly what he said.

  They started from the chalet.

  ‘Walk three abreast, and follow Jolly,’ Rollison ordered. There were times when most things went easily. This was one. Aird was in his office, alone. Yes, he could give them the key of an empty chalet – one which was used for emergencies. He sent the key to Rollison’s chalet. Another procession followed, to the empty one, which was to serve as a prison. At Rollison’s request, Aird’s messenger brought plenty of rope. Jolly appeared to take an almost indecent pleasure in tying the prisoners up; and now and again a trifle from the air from La Ronde burst, as it were, from his lips. All this, Rollison noticed without comment.

  He questioned the trio.

  He knew their names, from papers he took from their pockets. There was nothing else to help him. They swore that they received their orders from Clark – not Beck. Beck wasn’t mentioned. They successfully resisted trick questions, and there was no time to try strong-arm methods – yet. They could wait and, if necessary, could be used later, preferably after dark and probably when Bill Ebbutt – for long renowned for having the most disintegrating punch in the East End London – was here to assist.

  Rollison doubted if the trio knew much.

  Their task, they said, was simply to beat him up and to put him out of action for a few days. Virtuously and vehemently they swore that no such thing as murder had been contemplated. For their services they had been paid twenty-five pounds each, plus their expenses. They were staying at Pwllheli; Clark had sent for them and told them to wait for his orders, which they swore they had received by telephone.

  Beck had certainly given some, but probably they were frightened of Beck; too frightened to talk.

  ‘We’ll take their finger-prints,’ Rollison said, ‘and leave them. You brought the kit, didn’t you?’

  ‘Most assuredly, sir,’ said Jolly.

  A quarter of an hour later, the prints had been taken and the trio were locked in the chalet, securely bound. Rollison went alone to Beck’s chalet, which was still empty. He searched again.

  The dollar bills were still there. So was a small gas pistol and a number of tiny plastic phials containing the gas.

  Rollison began to hum to himself. He took the phials outside and, using an awl-blade of his knife pierced a tiny hole in each and then replaced them. Beck would be disappointed when next he used the gas pistol.

  ‘Jolly,’ said Rollison.

  ‘Sir,’ murmured Jolly.

  ‘Neat work nicely done.’

  ‘A pleasure, sir. I’m glad you advised me to carry a gun, and earnestly recommend that you do the same from now on.’

  ‘I will. Susan Dell’s dead.’

  The glow left Jolly’s eyes, the smile left his lips.

  They were in Rollison’s chalet. It was nearly two o’clock. Outside, the sun was hot, the afternoon would be uncomfortably warm, the sea and the baths would probably be invaded by an all-time record crowd. Already people were running about, laughing and joking, the afternoon fun and games were on, and—

  The radio started with the usual notices.

  Music followed.

  ‘I’m very sorry to hear about that, sir,’ Jolly said slowly. ‘It puts the finger down rather heavily, doesn’t it. What do you propose to do next?’

  ‘Tackle Beck. Openly.’

  Jolly didn’t approve or disapprove.

  ‘A false move from us, and three Redcoats might not live,’ Rollison said very slowly. ‘One thing to remember above the rest.’

  ‘Yes, sir,’ he said heavily. ‘There is, of course, one other thing which I expect you have considered.’

  ‘What’s that?’

  ‘They might already be dead. Beck might be—’

  ‘Bluffing. Yes. How many times have you seen him?’

  ‘Three.’

  ‘Impression?’

  ‘I get—’ Jolly hesitated, and then shrugged. ‘Perhaps I had best put it this way. I saw him once when I was with a lady from the reception desk, and without knowing who he was or that I was interested in him, my companion said: “That man gives me the creeps.” ’

  ‘I see what you mean,’ Rollison said. ‘He’s like an Old Testament prophet gone bad. No fool. And he’s managed to get his wife to change dining-tables, so that she now sits opposite me. I distrust the obvious move. Don’t you?’

  ‘Yes, sir,’ Jolly said. ‘I get—’ He paused.

  ‘Yes.’
>
  ‘I think that I said something of the kind earlier,’ said Jolly. ‘I get an impression of something very clever, cunning, deep—may I use the word sinister?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Rollison. ‘You may. Now get on the telephone to Grice at the Yard. If he’s not there, speak to Patton, of finger-prints. Give them the main points of the finger-prints, and post the prints themselves to the Yard. We want to know if any of the three has a record, and for what kind of job.’

  ‘I understand, sir,’ murmured Jolly.

  Rollison left the chalet a few minutes afterwards.

  On the playing-fields young girls were playing hand-ball with a vigour which made him feel hot looking at them. There were crowds everywhere. Shrieking came from the swimming-pools. On another playing-field Uncle Pi and the Aunts and several aides were staging some kind of beauty competition; there must have been five hundred children within reach of Uncle Pi. He seemed unflustered and cool; no one else was. He even caught sight of Rollison, and nodded.

  When Beck knew that his thugs had been tricked, what would he do?

  Decide that things were too hot?

  Rollison walked past some bushes. He wasn’t being followed. Could Beck call on more men to help him?

  A man stepped from the bushes, and fell into step beside him. Rollison didn’t glance round, but was sharply aware of the man. Beck. They walked twenty yards before they came to the end of a chalet line, and the sun fell upon them. Rollison’s shadow was tall; the shadow of the man beside him was inches taller.

  They stopped.

  Beck said: ‘Where are my men?’

  Rollison said: ‘Resting. Didn’t I warn you?’

  ‘I warned you,’ Beck said, in the flat voice which sounded much the same as it had when it had been muffled the night before. ‘Three Redcoats could have their throats cut.’

  ‘A girl could be pushed over the cliffs, too,’ Rollison said very gently. ‘And your neck could be stretched. I’d like to select your hanging rope for you.’

  Beck sneered. He had small, yellow, wide-spaced teeth; his eyes burned. That was a trick, of course. He was all the things that a Lyceum melodrama of the 1900s would have wanted of its villain; his villainy should be laughable.

  Rollison had a creepy feeling of disquiet.

  ‘She fell,’ Beck said. ‘Listen, you’re making a nuisance of yourself. I don’t want to have more trouble with you. Those three Redcoats are alive. They happened to notice something I didn’t want them to notice. When I’ve finished, they can come back and organize things for Billy Butlin’s. But if you don’t stop, I’ll slit their throats. I’d never be hanged for it. No one would ever find their bodies.’

  He grinned.

  The worst thing was the effect he had; a clammy kind of effect; stifling, oppressive. It was difficult to be flippant. It was easy to believe that he could carry out his threat; easier to see that he would. He felt on top, and could stay that way for a while. It might do him good to feel that Rollison was unnerved; give him an erroneous idea that he was winning.

  So Rollison did not answer back.

  ‘So clear out,’ Beck said, as if he felt that he could throw his weight about. ‘Or go and find yourself a bit of stuff and have fun with her. Don’t worry me any more. And—’ He stopped. He looked down on Rollison. He went on very slowly: ‘Let my three men go, see. Or else—’

  He drew his forefinger across his throat. It was a revolting gesture; it had all the trimmings of the old stage props, yet was horribly real. He even made a vicious noise in the back of his throat; and Rollison, who had heard the death rattle often enough, recognized that for a good simulation.

  ‘See,’ Beck leered, and turned, and would have walked on.

  He was falling for this bluff.

  Rollison said: ‘All right, Beck, if that’s the way you want it. There are jobs I can’t handle.’

  Beck turned, and grinned.

  ‘So I’ll turn it in,’ Rollison said, and kept a poker face, ‘and pass it on. The police might be able to do it better.’

  Beck’s grin faded. He moistened his lips. He was a forbidding scarecrow of a man, at least six feet four inches tall. In their deep sockets, his eyes seemed to reflect the burning glow of the sun.

  ‘I don’t talk,’ he said. ‘I act. I left orders. If I run into trouble—’ He made the revolting gesture again; made the noise like a death rattle. ‘See?’

  He turned and walked away.

  He behaved as if he were quite sure that Rollison would not go to the police.

  He probably wouldn’t be feeling so happy if he knew that the gas phials were empty.

  Rollison would have been much happier if he could have been sure that Elizabeth was safe.

  He went towards his chalet.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Decision

  It was so hot that every movement was an effort. A few people walked about, limply; and many children ran. Rollison could feel envious towards them, but envy was unimportant. Cyrus Beck and his false hopes were vital.

  He reached his chalet.

  ‘If I were you, sir,’ said Jolly, from the communicating door, ‘I should have a swim, it is the only way to keep really cool. Don’t you agree?’

  ‘I don’t think I feel like swimming,’ Rollison said, and looked up. ‘What—’ He stopped.

  He said, afterwards, that the one thing which really kept his mind alert during those few days was the remarkable transformation of his man. He had never known Jolly so skittish or so buoyant, and this was a revelation; and he had never before seen Jolly in a swim-suit. For some ridiculous, ludicrous reason, it was scarlet. It covered his impudent chest and torso, but his bony back was bare. His arms and legs, surprisingly plump, had the whiteness of legs which normally never see the light of day or feel the warmth of the sun.

  Jolly, about to put on a bathing-wrap, looked mildly embarrassed.

  ‘I have telephoned the Yard, sir,’ Jolly said. ‘One of the three sets of prints is identified—belonging to a Fred Morse, a cat-burglar who had done—ah—time. He specialized in jewels.’

  Rollison just stared at him, and said: ‘Where on earth did you get that outfit?’

  ‘The suit I bought from the Camp Store,’ said Jolly primly, ‘and the wrap I borrowed from a—ah—friend, sir.’

  ‘Can you swim?’

  ‘Oh, yes,’ said Jolly. ‘In my youth I was considered by my tutors to be most promising.’ He stopped.

  He looked into Rollison’s eyes, and sobered. His own eyes asked questions which Rollison recognized and answered.

  ‘If he were the devil himself, Beck couldn’t be more sure that he’s going to get away with it,’ he said.

  ‘I think I know what you mean, sir.’

  ‘He even demands his three thugs back.’

  ‘Are you going to release them?’ asked Jolly. He volunteered no opinion as to whether that would be good or bad tactics.

  ‘No,’ Rollison said. ‘Not yet. We have to draw a line. We don’t mind Beck deducing that we’re nervous, but he doesn’t have to think we’re palsied with fear. Beck as Beck is a musical-comedy crook, but baiting him isn’t the end of it.’ Rollison was almost gloomy as he lit a cigarette.

  ‘One can obtain a certain zest from risking one’s own life, but risking others is a very different matter,’ Jolly said, earnestly.

  ‘“Never send to know for whom the bell tolls”,’ Rollison quoted glumly. ‘“It tolls for thee.” Yes. And Susan Dell’s eyes will never glow with laughter again.’ He drew deeply at the cigarette. ‘What’s wrong, Jolly? I can’t get a grip. Clark’s an ex-jewel-thief, so is another of Beck’s boys, there are a lot of dollars about, but the rest is guesswork. As for people—Middleton is elusive and vague; Elizabeth Cherrell is like a wraith. They aren’t like real people, they’re—’

  ‘Dictated to by fears,’ Jolly said soberly. ‘Terrified.’

  ‘Fear of Beck.’

  ‘He could affect some people like that.’ Jolly was c
autious.

  ‘I’ve checked on Middleton and Elizabeth today,’ Rollison went on, abruptly. ‘They’ve met twice. Nothing’s happened. Elizabeth had the morning off, but is helping to supervise the Beauty Contest this afternoon. None of the other Redcoats appear to be affected— except possibly Uncle Pi, who is in love with Elizabeth.’

  ‘You haven’t yet had a heart-to-heart talk with Uncle Pi, have you?’ Jolly murmured.

  ‘Think it’s worthwhile?’

  ‘I think I do, sir,’ Jolly hazarded. ‘I have a little information of some interest. It was camp staff gossip that Miss Cherrell and the missing Redcoat Campion were very friendly.’

  ‘Oh, were they.’

  ‘Yes, sir. I am now doing all I can to find out more about other men who appear to have been attracted by Miss Cherrell. So far we know that Campion, Wray—or Uncle Pi—and Middleton have all been attracted.’

  ‘In love with her do you mean?’ Rollison eyed his man intently. ‘Are you trying to make out that Liz Cherrell is a kind of femme fatale?’

  ‘Hardly that, sir. But Campion was certainly attracted to her before he disappeared, Middleton is clearly fearful of some disaster while being in love with her, and we may find that Miss Cherrell is in fact the common factor.’

  Jolly smoothed down his sparse grey hair, and darted a glance at the clock on his dressing-chest. That was unheard of; it was epochal, even revolutionary – Jolly never eyed the clock when he was with Rollison, for he had no time of his own.

  ‘In a hurry, Jolly?’ asked Rollison, with hardly perceptible sarcasm.

  ‘Not exactly in a hurry,’ Jolly said blandly, ‘but I am keeping a lady waiting, and she has been extremely helpful. Arrangements are now made for Ebbutt and his men to have accommodation. But she will understand, I’m sure.’ Jolly was earnest as he moved forward. ‘May I suggest, sir, that the chief reason you find it difficult to get a grip is the nature of the conditions here? Everyone is having a wonderful time, everyone is concentrating on enjoyment, the gaiety is non-stop, and yet there is this stalking fear, this eeriness, the awareness of impending disaster. It doesn’t seem real, and because of the touch of fantasy, it worries you more than you need be worried.’