by John Creasey
Then he heard a sound, for once the most welcome in the world.
A police whistle blew.
Ebbutt heard that through a kind of dynamo whirring in his head. The blast was maintained for a long time, and seemed to come from inside as well as outside the gymnasium. The man on his back jumped off, and the sudden lightening sent Ebbutt staggering; but he did not fall. He stood grasping the rope, swaying, seeing everything as through a mist; a red mist, because of a cut above his right eye. He saw men rushing for the two exits, and several lay on the floor, as if unconscious. He saw great gaping holes in the canvas floor of the ring; the slashed vaulting horses, punctured punch-balls which looked like deflated bladders, splintered wall-bars and splintered chairs. He was breathing more wheezily than ever, and there were moments when he felt as if he would never be able to breathe freely again.
Then he felt a sudden, excruciating pain at his chest; at the left side of his chest.
He cried out.
He did not know whether anyone heard him. The pain was so great that he could not think beyond it. He wanted to scream, but although his mouth was wide open, no sound came. The pain grew worse, worse, worse; it was as if something inside him were bursting and spreading all over him. He was unaware of the pain at his hands now, oblivious of everything except this awful, choking constriction. His legs began to sag. The light began to go dim, and now it was a pale red. He knew that he was falling, and believed that he was dying.
There was a strange silence where there had been uproar. Ebbutt felt as if there was a great stillness also. The pain was easing, but the fear and the despair were still with him. He became aware of a new sound, of a voice, of his wife – Lil. He could see her. She looked very young. He could see her as when she had been young, standing in a circle in the Mile End Road, singing with her high-pitched, pure voice, with the drum beating and the trumpets blowing, the cymbals crashing and the trombone playing. Salvation Army lass and publican had met and fallen in love, and wed – and lived their lives together. She had come almost to hate the pub and the gymnasium, or to say that she did; and as boxing was his first love, the Army was undoubtedly hers. Now she was by his side, her hands upon him, and he knew that she was praying; and she seemed to be praying to him.
There were other sounds.
He could not move, and felt a strange peacefulness still, but he did not want to go. This was the place he loved; this was the woman and these the people. This was his home, created out of nothing. This was his life. He did not want to leave it. He set his teeth, as he had often done in the ring when he had known that the fight was going to be long and tough, and that he might not win.
He heard someone say urgently: “Here’s a doctor.”
Lil was on her knees beside him. Suddenly, sharp-voiced, she was telling the doctor what to do, and was calling for an ambulance. Ebbutt did not know how long he had been here, he only knew that he would soon be gone.
Then he heard a different and yet familiar voice, and his eyes opened wide for the first time.
Richard Rollison was coming towards him. The Toff. He saw the strain and anxiety on Rollison’s face, and tried to smile reassuringly, but that was more than he could do. He heard Rollison say “How is he?” and heard Lil answer: “He’s ill, he’s terribly ill.” Then Rollison was kneeling beside him, Lil standing by his side, and the handsome man from Mayfair was smiling into the face of the ugly man from the East End, saying: “You get better, Bill. I’ll get them.”
Chapter Nine
Wreckage
Rollison heard men call “Mind your backs,” and “Ambulance,” and he stood aside from Ebbutt. His right hand rested lightly on Lil Ebbutt’s shoulder; he could feel her trembling, and knew that it was because she was suppressing her tears. It was hard to look upon the face of the ex-prize fighter, so drawn, so tinged with blue, so near the mask of death. There was the ugly gash across his right hand, too, and the blood on the floor. Near him, unconscious, was a thick-set man with a knuckle-duster on his right hand.
Rollison put his arm round Lil’s shoulder, and moved her to one side. The ambulance men came, with their stretcher, and were brisk and businesslike, untroubled by the weight and bulk of their patient. A doctor came, felt Ebbutt’s pulse, seemed to take no more than a perfunctory interest as he stood up and watched the men. The little group was surrounded by dozens of people now, from the pub and from the streets as well as from the gymnasium. Suddenly two helmeted policemen appeared in the doorway, and pushed their way through. But no one spoke, and the silence was strange and uncanny. None of Ebbutt’s cronies had ever been at ease with his wife, and now she stood, a pathetic figure in the dusty blue of her uniform and the old-fashioned bonnet with its red trimming and the Salvation Army name proudly at the front.
Suddenly she exclaimed: “Why don’t you do something?” she shrugged herself free from Rollison and stepped towards the doctor, who was young, and looked a little bored, perhaps, more fairly, tired. He was a small man, with corn-coloured hair and bright blue eyes which reminded Rollison of Isobel Cole’s.
He smiled; and his face was transformed.
“We’ll do everything we can, Major, be sure of that.” There seemed such warmth in his voice and wisdom in his manner, and he silenced Lil Ebbutt’s criticism with those few words. “And we’ll pull him through; you don’t get rid of a man like your husband very easily.”
Lil said, now faltering: “He—he will be all right, won’t he?”
“There isn’t a thing we won’t do,” the young doctor promised. “Are you going with the ambulance?”
“Don’t try to keep me away,” Lil said.
The ambulance men lifted Ebbutt, and Lil returned to Rollison as if to the one man on whom she could rely for help. The crowd made a path. The two policemen, here so belatedly, stood near the door, as if at least they could attend to the obsequies. And whatever the yellow-haired doctor said, Bill Ebbutt looked a dying man.
They carried him out, and Rollison went with Lil to see her man put into the ambulance. Then Lil looked round at the people, mostly her husband’s friends, and at the wreckage. Nothing seemed to be in one piece. Here was a large room, which she had seldom entered because she had disapproved of Bill’s cronies and his boxing. Her life had been in the streets with the Army band, calling in pubs and clubs with the War Cry, serving in the hostels near the docks, doing spells of duty in the West End, among the girls who were lured there by the hope of excitement and the promise of glamour. This was a strange place to her, and yet as she looked upon the wreckage it was obvious that she felt the same kind of love for it that her husband had felt; that it had held her in its thrall, in spite of her apparent disapproval; and sight of it like this hurt her beyond words.
Then the small man who had rushed to the telephone came forward, and broke the silence.
“We’ll have it right again by the time Bill comes out’ve ’orspital,” he promised confidently. “No need to worry about that.”
“I daresay you will,” said Lil, and turned to Rollison again, while the ambulance men tucked Bill in, carefully. “Mr. Rollison,” Lil said, “I’m a Christian woman, and I’m not vindictive, but I want those devils caught and punished. If you don’t get them, I’ll never forgive you.”
“I’ll get them,” Rollison promised, simply.
“Ready, mum,” an ambulance man said, and Rollison helped Lil up, beside her Bill.
When the ambulance moved off, Rollison turned to the man who had promised to have the gymnasium put right, and asked: “Did you telephone me, Sam?”
Sam was perky and thin, with bright, beady eyes.
“Yep. And I also knew where Bill kept a police whistle. Had a hell of a job finding it, but as soon as I did, the swine disappeared as if I’d brought an army.”
“Did you see them?”
“Every mother’s son.”
“Recognise them?”
“Most of them were the Razzo boys,” Sam declared, and talked of one of the
racecourse gangs who would wreck any place – theatre, cinema, mission hall, club, or pub – for a consideration. They had been paid to come here and do this, and the chief problem was to find out who had paid them. The unconscious man might give the police all the answers they wanted, but, if not, he, Rollison, would start searching, even if it meant that he had three jobs to do at the same time. Ebbutt probably had more friends than anyone east of Aldgate Pump; every other man, woman, and child would help, and there would be no hope for the perpetrators of this savage crime.
One of the constables turned towards the door as there was a bustle of movement, and two plain-clothes officers from the Division came hurrying in. These were big men in their thirties, who knew the district well and knew also that Ebbutt was one of its best citizens.
They stopped short when they saw the chaos; but came on again as Rollison put his arm round Lil Ebbutt’s waist, and went towards them.
“Know anything about this, Mr. Rollison?”
“I arrived when it was all over.”
“Any idea who started it?”
“I think it’s your motor-cycle mob,” Rollison answered. “Shall we compare notes later?”
“All right.”
“There’s a job you can do,” Rollison said, more calmly than he felt. “Ask the Division to keep an eye on my flat—my man’s there on his own.”
“I’ll fix it,” the other promised.
Policemen made a path for Rollison. Men who had often fought and trained in here, rough-looking, tough-looking, bruised, and battered, loud and raucous men who were quite silent; but waves of sympathy and understanding for the Ebbutts came from each one.
It was cool outside, and only a few yards to the back entrance to the Blue Dog. A middle-aged woman was hurrying along the street, for it was still daylight, and she called out: “What’s up, Mr. Ar? What’s ’appened to Lil?”
Rollison recognised a neighbour who was also in the Army and who would be able to give Lil great comfort when she returned. Now he went up to the flat over the pub, explaining what had happened. There had been a smell of beer and spirits on the ground floor, but the only smell in the flat above was of furniture polish. It was Victorian in its fussiness, but spotlessly clean; as if Lil made sure that every shiny surface had a polish every day.
“Bill will be all right, won’t he?” the woman asked.
“Bill won’t let us down,” Rollison assured her, and smiled as if he really believed it.
And at all costs, he mustn’t let Bill down.
There was Robert Benning, his mother and his Isobel, desolate and desperate for help.
There was young Cedric Dwight, with his so-called delusions and his genuine fear – and the fact that he had been taken away and was in the hands of men who might not kill, but could terrify.
And now there was Bill Ebbutt to avenge.
Rollison found himself standing in the yard of the Blue Dog, surrounded by crates of beer, by barrels, by empty bottles, and the smell of beer. There was a buzz of talk from the street, and light blazed both from the pub and from the gymnasium, but no one was in sight here, and he was solitary and very much on his own. He felt almost as if he were the only man in the world, aloof from all the violence and the viciousness which had shown themselves this day, remote and somehow dispassionate in spite of the depth of his feeling. He knew the cause, of course; he was suffering from cumulative shock. There had been hardly a moment to breathe. The tempo had been normal enough until he had visited Grice, but since—
Grice and the attack outside Scotland Yard had started it, shaking him badly. The discovery at the flat had forced a flurry of activity which he had not felt like making, but that had been mild compared with this disaster; and the drive here in a taxi, whose driver had really understood the word “hurry”, had been tempestuous.
The man on the motor-cycle who had “shot” at Cedric Dwight might have been one of the two motorcyclists who had attacked him on the Embankment. Were the two men who had come to see Ebbutt members of the same group? That was one of the first things Rollison had to find out. He could act quickly once that was known. Shadowy figures were moving about the street outside, girls were giggling, a man was singing a tuneless song and breaking off every now and again to say; “Thank you, thank you.” Wherever crowds existed there were the itinerant beggars; Ebbutt had drawn such men to him, for he had been as open-handed as a saint.
The street opposite the gymnasium was crowded with at least five hundred people. Policemen were controlling these, and all the cars, bicycles, and motor-cycles in sight.
Motor-cycles.
There was one, propped up near the entrance to the gymnasium, which made him stop and stare. This was an old grey Norton; the machine from which Dwight had been attacked had been grey and old-looking, too. There was a driving-mirror on the handle-bars; there was the same streamlining, and this looked like the same machine. Rollison felt a rush of excitement as he went to it, sat astride it, and felt the springiness of the seat. He studied the registration plate and saw that there were two, fitted into slots – as plates which had to be changed quickly would be. He moved his hands about the controls, looking right and left; no one took any notice of him. He found the self-starter pedal, and rammed his foot on it; the engine started. He eased off the brake and moved towards the crowd, and people made way for him, but no one stopped him. If the owner had been among the crowd, surely he would have realised what was happening by now.
Rollison turned the machine at the first corner, knowing there was a builder’s yard just along there. He drove into this, put the motor-cycle into a corrugated-iron shed, and studied the plates. Yes: there were two, and they could be changed at the touch of a switch; a very neat job. Neither registration number would be genuine, of course. He went back to the street. No one appeared to have followed him. Now he hurried, cheered up by the fact that he had found a line of action. Some of the people were coming away from the gymnasium now, the sensation over. More police were about. Here and there men recognised Rollison and called out. The very thin man, tall, melancholy looking, and once a first-class middle-weight, stopped him and said: “Bill will get over it, Mr. Ar, won’t ’e?”
“Keep praying, Charlie,” Rollison said.
“Was it ’is ’eart?”
“It looked like it to me.”
“’Ad a coupla ’ttacks lately,” the old boxer said. “’Eknew ’e never ought to exert ’imself. You going after the swine, Mr. Ar?”
“With everything I’ve got,” promised Rollison.
“That’s the ticket.” The man’s eyes brightened. “Anything I can do?”
“Yes,” said Rollison, promptly. “Get as many of Bill’s boys as possible at the gym by ten o’clock.” It was then half-past nine, he knew. “We’ll have a council of war.”
“That’s what I like to ’ear,” Charlie enthused, and rubbed his hands together briskly. “I’ll pass the word, Mr. Ar. That right they got one of the devils?”
“Bill did.”
“Trust Bill!” beamed Charlie.
Rollison pushed his way through the thicker crowds at the entrance to the gymnasium. It was nearly dark now, and the lights seemed brighter. Although he had seen all this once before, sign of the wreckage made him stand and stare: nothing had been left whole except the lights which hung from the low ceiling, and the little office where Ebbutt had been when Rollison had telephoned him.
One fear nagged at Rollison: that this attack, and therefore Ebbutt’s desperate plight, might be due to him. He did not see how, but the possibility was there, discerned by a kind of sixth sense. Supposing, for instance, the men who had kidnapped Dwight knew that he would go to Ebbutt for help; supposing they had meant to make sure that Ebbutt and his men could give him no help. In short, could this be a kind of decoy raid, to get his mind off Cedric Dwight and his delusions, and on to the problem of finding out who had attacked Ebbutt?
Rollison accepted it as a possibility; that was all.
&n
bsp; Then he saw a police surgeon whom he knew slightly bending over the unconscious man whom Ebbutt had attacked. Divisional C.I.D. men were standing by, Sam, and more of Ebbutt’s men. There was something in the atmosphere which told of more trouble, and when Rollison saw the inert figure on the boards by the side of the canvas ring, he realised what it was.
This man hadn’t moved since he had been here.
Rollison asked, sharply: “Is he dead?”
“Broke his neck,” the police surgeon said, standing up slowly. “He must have gone out like a light.”
“The hell of it is he’s the only hope we had of making someone talk,” said Sam, gloomily. “He paid the Razzo boys to join in. A cuppla them told us so. There were two of these so-and-so’s, and the other one got away.”
Chapter Ten
Council Of War
Not long after Rollison’s arrival, the body of the motorcyclist had been taken away, the police surgeon had gone, and the plain-clothes men were with Rollison and Sam. No one else was in the gymnasium, and no one was likely to come in until the police had left. There was no war between Ebbutt’s friends and the police, but a kind of natural wariness. The larger of the two Divisional men was dressed in a well-cut suit of navy blue, and he looked almost as spruce as a matinee idol. He was Detective Inspector Forrest, and on his report would depend what action the police took.