by John Creasey
Copyright & Information
Double for the Toff
First published in 1961
© John Creasey Literary Management Ltd.; House of Stratus 1961-2014
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise), without the prior permission of the publisher. Any person who does any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.
The right of John Creasey to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted.
This edition published in 2015 by House of Stratus, an imprint of
Stratus Books Ltd., Lisandra House, Fore Street, Looe,
Cornwall, PL13 1AD, UK.
Typeset by House of Stratus.
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library and the Library of Congress.
EAN ISBN Edition
0755135563 9780755135561 Print
0755138899 9780755138890 Kindle
075513723X 9780755137237 Epub
0755145577 9780755145577 Epdf
This is a fictional work and all characters are drawn from the author’s imagination.
Any resemblance or similarities to persons either living or dead are entirely coincidental.
www.houseofstratus.com
About the Author
John Creasey – Master Storyteller - was born in Surrey, England in 1908 into a poor family in which there were nine children, John Creasey grew up to be a true master story teller and international sensation. His more than 600 crime, mystery and thriller titles have now sold 80 million copies in 25 languages. These include many popular series such as Gideon of Scotland Yard, The Toff, Dr Palfrey and The Baron.
Creasey wrote under many pseudonyms, explaining that booksellers had complained he totally dominated the ‘C’ section in stores. They included:
Gordon Ashe, M E Cooke, Norman Deane, Robert Caine Frazer, Patrick Gill, Michael Halliday, Charles Hogarth, Brian Hope, Colin Hughes, Kyle Hunt, Abel Mann, Peter Manton, J J Marric, Richard Martin, Rodney Mattheson, Anthony Morton and Jeremy York.
Never one to sit still, Creasey had a strong social conscience, and stood for Parliament several times, along with founding the One Party Alliance which promoted the idea of government by a coalition of the best minds from across the political spectrum.
He also founded the British Crime Writers’ Association, which to this day celebrates outstanding crime writing. The Mystery Writers of America bestowed upon him the Edgar Award for best novel and then in 1969 the ultimate Grand Master Award. John Creasey’s stories are as compelling today as ever.
Chapter One
The First Appeal
“But he didn’t do it,” said the woman.
“I’m positive he wouldn’t kill a man,” declared the girl. “You will try to help him, won’t you, Mr. Rollison?”
It would have been easy for the Honourable Richard Rollison, known to so many as the Toff, to promise that he would help, and so soothe and comfort the woman, who was the accused man’s mother, as well as the girl, his sweetheart. He could have sent them away easier in their minds if not reassured, made some perfunctory inquiries of the police, and forgotten the whole matter. If the girl had been as ugly as proverbial sin and the mother a hag, however, he would not have promised help and failed to give it. As it was, the girl was attractive enough to make him want to help her, in spite of rather too heavy make-up, and the mother sufficiently forthright for him to think that her faith in her son might be justified.
He knew nothing of the women, except their names: Mrs. Benning and Isobel Cole. They had arrived at his house in Mayfair in a taxi, and on arrival at his top-floor flat had been a little on edge and embarrassed; and beneath all this, desperately frightened. Within minutes of being greeted in his large room, their embarrassment had vanished. Now they sat in front of Rollison’s large, figured walnut desk, facing him. Each was sitting on the edge of her chair, each eyeing him with great intentness, as if he could save her man. The girl was dark-haired, blue-eyed, comely – or, in modern parlance, she was easy on the eye, and her statistics were undeniably vital. Her hands were clasped in her lap, and the way she sat, absolutely upright, made it obvious that she was terribly upset. She wasn’t really young – in the middle twenties, perhaps – she wore a linen two-piece suit, obviously bought from a low-price departmental store, and a little too “smart” and a little too loud a red. The older woman was smaller, much bigger at the bosom, yet with thinner features, a small and pointed nose, and thick grey hair. She wore her Sunday best: a navy blue suit and a white silk blouse, spotless and immaculate.
“You must help Bob,” the mother said, pleading. “He’s all I’ve got left.”
She was not near tears. She did not appear to know how often that kind of phrase had been used and how hackneyed it seemed. She simply stated a fact: her son was all she had left. That stirred both compassion and curiosity in Rollison, who sat looking very grave – no other expression would have been kind – with his back to his Trophy Wall. He realised that neither of his visitors had noticed that remarkable wall. All they cared about was whether he would help them to prove that Robert Charles Benning was not a murderer, in spite of the evidence piled high against him.
Rollison looked from the mother to the sweetheart, and back again; and then he asked: “Supposing you’re both wrong, and that he did kill this girl?”
“But he didn’t!” cried Isobel.
“You can’t prove what isn’t true,” said the mother, more calmly. “My boy may have done some silly things—what boys haven’t? But he wouldn’t have killed this girl, and I don’t believe he even knew her well.”
“He wouldn’t go around with another girl,” declared Isobel, tautvoiced. “Everyone who knows him knows that. I would trust him anywhere, with—with anybody.”
Her eyes were sparking with her faith and loyalty, and Rollison wasn’t surprised when she could sit still no longer. She jumped up and leaned over the desk, pressing against it, very close to him, obviously seeing him as a saviour instead of, simply, a remarkably handsome man.
Rollison glanced at Mrs. Benning, and wondered whether she shared that identical faith. Both felt positive that Bob was no murderer, but it would do no harm to talk to the mother on her own. That would have to come later, if at all.
“What makes you think I might be able to help?” asked Rollison, to ease the tension.
He succeeded, for the girl moved back to her chair and sat down again. He pressed a bell underneath the ledge of the desk – a signal to his man, Jolly, to bring in tea. Neither of the women noticed the movement, and it was the mother who spoke next. The mother was the thinker and the stronger personality of these two; at the moment the girl seemed younger than her years, naïve and simple despite the sophistication her suit and make-up tried to show.
That was why he thought “sweetheart”, and not “girl-friend”. There was something refreshingly old-fashioned about her.
“We couldn’t think of anyone else who might believe us and who might have some influence with the police,” Mrs. Benning answered. “Everyone’s heard of the Toff, and everyone knows that you’re as good a detective as anyone at Scotland Yard.” She was looking at him straightly. “You’re supposed to be a good man, too.”
This was so naïve that it might almost be a kind of simple cunning.
“Mother said she was sure you would help, and she absolutely made me come, although I’ve almost given up hope,” said Isobel. “The police just wouldn’t listen to us.” She jumped up again. “I’ve been round to our police station a dozen t
imes, I actually went to Scotland Yard yesterday, but they’re all the same. Oh, they’re ever so polite, I don’t say they’re rude, but they simply won’t do anything. After all, they want to get the murderer, and they think it’s Bob.”
“Do you know why they’re so sure?”
“They can’t be sure!” Isobel cried.
“Isobel, do sit down,” ordered Mrs. Benning, and the girl obeyed at once. If Rollison was any judge, the truth about Isobel Cole was that she was suffering very badly from shock. “I know a little about it, Mr. Rollison, but not much—the police don’t tell you much if they don’t want to,” Mrs. Benning went on. “They say that Bob had seen this Fryer girl two or three nights a week for the last month, and that he was with her on the night she was murdered. That’s last Monday. It’s Thursday now,” she added, and closed her eyes. They were glassy bright, and it was easy to believe that she had not slept since Tuesday morning, when her son had been arrested on his way to work. “Everything was quite normal, as far as I was aware. Bob got up on Tuesday morning at a quarter to seven, the same as usual, and an hour later a police car came with some detectives who wanted to search his room. They searched the whole flat, too,” she added, bitterly. “I’m not complaining about that. I just say that whatever else he did, my boy would not kill anyone.”
“And he wouldn’t go about with a girl like her,” declared Isobel.
Here was an excess of simple innocence, and it was hard to believe it was all natural. But then, Isobel would want to lay it on thick, so as to save her boy friend.
Rollison had read about the murder in the newspapers. It had not rated large headlines, except in one or two editions, for it seemed an ordinary and sordid enough crime. The murdered woman, Marjorie Fryer, had known a dozen boy-friends in a dozen weeks – a butterfly type to whom every man with money in his pocket was an attraction. According to report, she had been promiscuous and attractive. The official story, so far as it had appeared in the papers, was that Bob Benning had murdered her because she had threatened to tell Isobel of the association. Sordid was the obvious word; yet there was nothing remotely sordid about the devotion of these two women.
The door opened; both girl and woman turned, startled, and Jolly brought in a laden silver tray. He was a man of medium height, dressed in black coat, striped trousers, a grey cravat with a single diamond pin. His hair was grey and sparse, brushed to cover as much of his cranium as it could. He had a lined face, appeared to have a tendency towards dyspepsia, and moved with accomplished ease.
“All right, Jolly. I’ll pour out,” Rollison said, and stood up from his desk. Doing so, he touched the noose of a hempen rope which had once hanged a man and looked as if it could be used for that again; but although it swung to and fro, neither of Bob Benning’s champions seemed to notice. As Jolly went out, Rollison picked up the milk-jug. “If I agree to find out the truth, and it proves that you’re both wrong, what will you feel about it?” he asked, and in the same breath inquired. “Do you take milk?”
“You can’t prove what isn’t true,” insisted Mrs. Benning. She hesitated, and then seemed to have to force herself to add: “It couldn’t be any worse, anyhow. But—”
Isobel seemed to know what she was going to say, and interrupted swiftly: “I don’t care what it costs!”
“Isobel, it’s no use letting your heart run away with your head,” reproved Mrs. Benning. “I was going to say, sir, that we haven’t a lot of money, but everyone who reads the papers knows that you’re a professional detective these days, and we don’t need telling that your fee will be high. We can’t pay more than a hundred pounds now, but we both have good jobs, and we don’t want to skimp on this. How much will it cost, though?”
“Money only comes into a case if I’m helping to make or to save money for someone else,” Rollison said easily. “Expenses needn’t be very high.” Usually he referred anyone who talked of fees to Jolly, but that would place this matter on too formal a footing. He proffered a plate of wafer-thin brown bread-and-butter, and, after a moment’s hesitation, each of his visitors took a piece. “Now, I want a list of the names and addresses of Bob’s friends and acquaintances, details of where he worked, any club he belonged to—anything which might help me to find out where he was on Monday night. Unless you already know,” he added, mildly.
“I only wish we did,” said Isobel. “I was at my art tutor’s—I go to him Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. If it weren’t for that I would have been with Bob all the evening. On Mondays I always try to get my washing done; I never see him on Mondays; the other nights he’s always waiting for me when I’ve finished my lesson. I wish I’d never started. I wish—”
“Isobel, it’s no use getting hysterical,” Mrs. Benning said sharply, and obviously she was more sensitive to over-pleading the case than Isobel. “Mr. Rollison will think he’s wasting his time if you go on like that. I thought Bob had gone to the pictures, Mr. Rollison. He said he was going, but he was late in, and I didn’t ask him if he’d seen a good picture, so I’m not sure where he was.”
“All I know is, he wasn’t with Marjorie Fryer,” Isobel declared, more calmly. She sat back in her chair as if grimly determined to take the older woman’s advice. “Mr. Rollison, I can’t tell you how grateful I am, and I’ll do anything at all to help.”
“Anything,” echoed Mrs. Benning. “Shall we start making out that list while we’re here?”
They had made the list, after much discussion and comparing of notes; there were ten names and addresses, only one of them even remotely familiar to Rollison, as himself or the Toff. The name was of a Captain Maude, whom he knew as a Salvation Army worker. The Army usually judged people well. There were also the details of the furniture factory in Shoreditch where Bob had worked as a carpenter apprentice for three years and a fully qualified carpenter for five; that showed steadiness and dependability. Bob Benning belonged to the Park Street Youth Club, which was Salvation Army sponsored, and he and Isobel spent many of their evenings together there. It was a normal record, and nothing at all suggested that the Bob of this record would ever become a murderer.
But his mother wasn’t really sure that he was wholly faithful to Isobel.
Would Isobel’s over-earnest manner tend to weary even a young lover?
Would a girl like Marjorie Fryer, who haunted pubs and drinking-clubs frequented by sailors, who made up skilfully, and who had the glitter and appeal of hard-bitten sophistication, have attracted Bob and made him lose his head? Was this simply a case of a young man sowing wild oats and trying to avoid reaping them? There was no reason in the world why it should not be. No mother would admit that her son might be a killer, and Mrs. Benning’s determination to come and see Rollison had probably been a last desperate effort to justify her faith.
As he saw them out, Rollison sensed the desperation in the older woman, and in a way he was more anxious for her than for Isobel, who would fall in love again.
It was probably all a waste of time, for the police might have positive proof that Bob Benning was a murderer. At least that should be fairly easy to find out. Rollison pressed the bell under his desk again, and when Jolly came in, said briskly: “Telephone Mr. Grice and tell him I’m on my way to see him, will you? If he’s out, find out what time he’s expected, but if he’s in, let him think I’m really on my way.”
“Very good, sir,” Jolly said, and picked up the telephone receiver and began to dial Whitehall 1212. He knew, as Rollison did, that if Grice believed that Rollison was on the way he would make time to see him.
Jolly was waiting for a response, and Rollison was filling his cigarette-case from a box on his desk and trying to decide what Isobel Cole did at her lessons, when there was a squeal of brakes out in the street. That was not uncommon for Gresham Terrace lent itself to speed, and many drivers reached the corner before they realised it. But the sound had the customary effect on Rollison, who stepped across to the window to look out. Jolly said into the telephone: “Superintenden
t Grice, please,” as Rollison reached the window.
At first glance he knew that this was no accident.
A small car was drawn up on the other side of the road, front wheels on the pavement. A man was climbing out, and looked as if he were desperately frightened. A motorcyclist was halfway along the street, swinging round in the road; he had just passed the little car, and would soon be heading back for it.
And the man getting out of it turned and dived towards the porch of a house nearly opposite the Toff’s.
The Toff flung up the window, leaned out, saw the gun in the motorcyclist’s hand, and bellowed: “Drop that gun!”
At least he might startle the motorcyclist long enough to make sure that he didn’t shoot at the man who now crouched in the doorway.
Chapter Two
The Second Appeal
There was hardly a moment to think.
Rollison saw the motorcyclist slowing down, and knew that he was preparing to take aim. The small car had covered its driver for a few yards, but now the motorcyclist had a clear view of the target. Two people were at the far end of the street and a Jaguar was parked nearer the scene of the attack; but that was all.
“Drop that gun!” roared the Toff again.
He saw the motorcyclist glance up, and the front wheel wobbled. If the man in the doorway had any sense he would run close to the car and save himself now; but he had no sense, and looked as if he were paralysed with fear. Rollison saw all this, and knew that Jolly had put down the receiver without talking to Grice and was crossing the room swiftly.
“Get me something to throw,” called Rollison, and heard the flurried movements as the man turned round.
Below, the motor-cycle was almost at a standstill. The driver was no longer looking up, but steadying his machine. The gun was plain to see in his right hand. The two people had stopped, and were staring; nervous. Nothing else moved. Given a second to shoot in, the motorcyclist could hardly miss his man, and this was no moment to marvel at the fact that cold-blooded murder was being attempted in broad daylight in a Mayfair street.