Double for the Toff

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Double for the Toff Page 14

by John Creasey


  “Anythink up, Mr. Ar?”

  “We’ve got a present,” Rollison said. “Take this upstairs for me, will you?”

  “Isn’t that Dwight?”

  “A present for Kitty,” Rollison said, “but don’t let her know about this yet. Tell Jolly to put Dwight in my bedroom and lock the door.”

  “How did you know where to find him?” marvelled Wrightson, and there was the look of hero-worship on his strong face.

  Rollison grinned. “That’s the nicest compliment I’ve had in years,” he said. “But he was given to me, Percy; I didn’t find him. Jolly will be able to tell what’s keeping him under the weather, and will call a doctor if necessary, but I don’t think there’ll be any need.”

  Wrightson grinned, lifted Cedric, and took him in. Two people on the other side of the road stared curiously, but showed no surprise; obviously they knew who lived on the top floor of that particular house. Rollison drove back to the garage, still trying to work the situation out, and more sure than ever that Grice would be able to tell him a great deal that mattered.

  The Rolls-Bentley was ready, and Grice was in.

  “Well,” said Grice, after he had listened attentively, “they’re certainly pushing you around, Rolly. Aren’t you getting exhausted?”

  “Only in body,” said Rollison, virtuously. “The spirit is as resilient as ever. So are the suspicions. What are you up to, Bill?”

  “What did you say?”

  “The guileless air of candour doesn’t sit well on you,” said Rollison. “You’re letting me get away with too much. Why?”

  “You’re dreaming.”

  “Bill,” said Rollison firmly, “I think that you know what is behind all this, and for some reason you can’t do much about it, so—”

  “Oh, come,” protested Grice, almost too smoothly. “We know you’re good, but we haven’t reached the stage when the Yard has to stand by and leave everything to you.”

  “That wasn’t what I meant, and you know it,” Rollison said. “What’s ham-stringing you?”

  “You’re still dreaming.”

  “What did you find at Apex House last night?”

  Grice said: “An empty safe, and everything else just as you left it. We’ve got the three men on a charge of burglary, but we can’t prove that anything was actually stolen. We can send them down for six months or so, but that’s about all. No one was hurt, nothing really taken away, and they’ve no records.”

  “Ever heard of Kitty Dwight?”

  “I know what you mean,” said Grice. “We found the inevitable crop of fingerprints at the apartment, and gave them a routine check. A Kathleen Forsyth, convicted eighteen months ago for stealing from her employers, served six months’ imprisonment, and thereafter kept her nose clean, as far as we know—but they were her prints last night, and there was a photograph of her in the flat, too.”

  “Are you trying to say that you didn’t know Dwight was married?”

  “We didn’t know until to-day,” Grice said firmly. “They were married in a Registry Office, and we didn’t think they’d worried about marriage lines. I wonder if Dwight knew what he was marrying.”

  “She says he didn’t,” Rollison told him.

  “So you managed to make her talk,” said Grice, and went on quickly: “What about the man you’re holding at the flat? Have you got anything out of him?”

  “No.”

  “You’re slipping.”

  “Bill,” said Rollison, very softly, “you’re much too suave and calm this morning. Presumably you think you’ve got me on the end of a piece of string. What is it all about?”

  “If I knew anything, I would tell you,” Grice said.

  “Provided it didn’t break regulations.”

  “Naturally.”

  “Has Dwight got a record?” Rollison demanded, abruptly.

  “No.”

  “How prominent are his relatives?”

  “Fairly prominent industrial and commercial bankers,” Grice answered, “but not prominent enough to make us go warily.”

  “I still don’t get it,” said Rollison.

  “For almost as long as I’ve been at the Yard, you’ve been complaining that we didn’t give you enough rope,” Grice said, with a smile. “You’ve complained bitterly at times that if you were able to take the law into your own hands more you could use short cuts forbidden to us; and that if we’d just sit back and leave it to you, you would often be able to present us with a prisoner on a plate. That’s true, isn’t it?”

  “A qualified yes.”

  Grice grinned. “It doesn’t need qualifying. That’s what you’ve meant, even if you haven’t actually said it. And I’ve often agreed with you, although the great men at the top haven’t. A good amateur who’ll take chances can do a lot of things quicker than we can. Now here’s a case where we’re not using all the regulations to hold you up. You can go on at your own pace, and get results as quickly as you like. That’s what you’ve always wanted, and now you complain because of it. Why aren’t you more consistent, Rolly?”

  “I give up,” Rollison said, and rose to his feet. “Found anything else about the raid on Ebbutt’s place?”

  “The Razzo boys were paid two hundred pounds to wreck it, and they were told to follow the two men who attacked Ebbutt,” Grice answered, no longer smiling. “They say that the man whose neck was broken paid them the money and they didn’t see the second man closely, so they can’t identify him. A typical cover-up, and I don’t think we’ll be able to uncover it.”

  “Did they know why Ebbutt’s place was to be wrecked?”

  “They said they hadn’t any idea.”

  “Do you think it could have been to try to stop Ebbutt’s men from helping me?”

  “Obviously it is possible, but it’s only guesswork,” Grice said. He glanced down at some documents on his desk, and a new, grimmer note entered his voice. “We’ve more information about young Benning which you can have, Rolly. It isn’t good. We’ve tried five of the pubs where he met Marjorie Fryer, and in each case he left first, and she afterwards showed the money which he’d given her.”

  “Was he seen handing it to her?”

  “I couldn’t produce an eye-witness, but there’s such a thing as circumstantial evidence,” Grice said. “That’s one of the things that we poor police have to take into account. We can get a conviction against Benning without the slightest trouble, and I think you’re wasting your time on him.”

  “Have you checked if any motorcyclist was about when the Fryer girl was killed?”

  “We haven’t traced any or heard of any.”

  “Sure that a man on a motor-cycle didn’t kill her and nip off?”

  “If you can prove one did, I’d be astonished,” Grice said.

  “I think we’ll prove it,” declared Rollison, but he felt frustrated; felt sure that there was more behind the attitude of the police than he could fathom.

  The one possible source of information now were Ebbutt’s men.

  He left Grice and drove along the Embankment to Blackfriars and then through the crowded City streets. A heavy bank of clouds was blowing up, and there was quite a wind; it might blow up into a bad storm. It was beginning to rain, big, heavy spots, when he pulled up outside the gymnasium. Usually it was almost deserted at this hour of the day, for most of Ebbutt’s boys were part-timers, who trained in the evening. Now there were five or six small cars, a dozen motorcycles, and as many cycles outside; he had never seen more people here during the day. He heard a noise of hammering, too, and as he hurried from the Rolls-Bentley, knowing that children were already rushing up to see it, he heard a man calling out: “Careful with it. Don’t drop it.”

  He reached the doorway.

  Thirty men or more were inside the big, low-roofed building, and every one seemed to be in a frenzy of activity. Men were hammering, banging, sawing, screwing-up. The wall-bars on one side were repaired and back in place. The vaulting horses were acquiring new legs. T
he punch-balls were without their deflated tops, but the stands looked sound again. Five men were rolling out a stretch of canvas, for the ring itself; the torn and ripped canvas had already been taken away.

  Nothing would do Ebbutt more good than the knowledge of this; and nothing did Rollison more good than the sight of it. He stood and watched, exhilarated, touched by the qualities in these men who were so rough and ready, so crude and so often rude.

  Then he saw Lil Ebbutt, in her uniform and wearing her hat on the back of her head, a pencil poking from her grey hair, standing in the doorway of the office and waving across at him; and smiling.

  Sam, whose other name was Mitchell, came across, grinned, said: “How’s this for a bit of all right?” and added: “Lil wants you. She’s picked up a bit about young Benning from one of the Army lassies. Never can tell, can you?”

  He went back to his task, of screwing in parallel bars, while Rollison pushed his way across towards Lil, marvelling that she should smile and have such courage – and that she might have hope not only for herself but for another woman.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Army Lass

  “I wasn’t doing no good at the ’ospital,” said Lil, lapsing into her broadest Cockney. “The nurses was doing all they could. I thought I was more use ’ere, Mr. Ar, and I must say that this ’as done me a world of good. Never would ’ave believed these men would put their backs into a job like this. Love your neighbour in practice, that’s what it is. I always told Bill ’e was wasting ’is time with a crowd of lazy loafers, but after all this—well, a woman’s got every right to change ’er mind, ’asn’t she?”

  “If she’s got the grace to, Lil.”

  “Funny thing,” Ebbutt’s wife went on, and there was a suspicion of moisture at her eyes, “but until you nearly lose someone, you don’t even evalooate them properly. I’ve always loved Bill, of course, but the times I’ve tried to make ’im give up this gym, and the pub, and make ’im take up sunning I said was respectable. I’ll tell you one thing, Mr. Ar: I’ll never do it again. I was telling the General about it last night; ’e come to see me at the ’ospital. Spiritual pride, he called it.” Something had brought Lil up sharply to a realisation of the broadness of her speech, and she became more cautious and careful, and so a little less natural. “If there’s as much good as this in this crowd of men, God wouldn’t want me to stop Bill from knowing them.”

  Rollison grinned. “Nor would Bill!”

  Lil surprised him by bursting out with laughter.

  “Now I don’t want none of that, Mr. Ar! If you got down on your knees and prayed a bit more often it wouldn’t do you no harm. Do you know what I’ve found out this morning?”

  “No, Lil.”

  “Come in here,” she ordered, and took his arm and led him into the small office. On the littered desk was a pair of steel-rimmed spectacles, one of the arms bound round with cotton; these were Bill’s, as he had put them down last night. His books were spread out on the desk. He had a spidery handwriting, and often used pencil when ink would have shown up much more boldly, but the general effect was neat enough. “I always thought he was paying these men to hang about and do nothing but try to break a man’s nose,” Lil went on. “What do I find, Mr. Ar?”

  He wanted to know what she had found out about Benning, but did not try to force the question then.

  “What, Lil?”

  “I find that there’s a list as long as your arm of people he’s helping—seven women get money from him whose men are in prison to my certain knowledge. Most of these chaps don’t get the money for themselves; he gives it to them to take to people suffering hardship. Did you know, Mr. Ar?”

  “I knew a lot about it, Lil.”

  “I come across some very interesting entries in a bank book,” went on Lil. “Every now and again there’s a credit of a few hundred pounds—twice it’s as high as seven hundred and fifty. It’s not from Bill’s own account. I know he makes money from stocks and shares and things, and buys and sells land, but those accounts are all in the book, for the income-tax people. These are marked ‘Anonymous Donor’, and they all go into what he calls his Hard Cases account. Do you know the name of the anonymous donor, Mr. Ar?”

  Her eyes were very bright.

  “Lil,” said Rollison obtusely, “what’s this about a message from a lassie about young Benning?”

  “I thought as much,” said Lil, slowly. “Mr. Ar is seenonymous with Mr. Anonymous.” She looked a little bewildered, as if she thought there was something wrong with the phrase, but went on without a pause: “I don’t mind admitting that there’s been times when I thought that a gentleman like you, with your education, ought to know better than to hobnob with these types, and always start worrying Bill to find you men to help you. But I can see what it is now. You and Bill have a lot in common, haven’t you?”

  “A lot, Lil.”

  “This Bob Benning,” Lil announced, abruptly. “Some of my Army friends made inquiries, like you asked. Bob was in the Army once, or jolly near it.”

  “Your Army?” Rollison was surprised, until he recalled the expression on Bob Benning’s face; he wasn’t really surprised.

  “It’s the only one worth talking about,” declared Lil, with a flash of her usual spirit; for years she had been the most intolerant person in the East End. “The Army never gives up; you oughter know that. If there’s the slightest hope of getting a young man or a girl to join, we keep after them. That Isobel Cole, now, she’s another—just on the fringe, you might say; she thinks she’d like to join, but she can’t make herself give everything.”

  “What can you tell me, Lil?”

  “You reminded us how often our lassies go into the pubs with the War Cry,” said Lil, “but probably you don’t know how many of us go in for a lemonade just so’s to find out what’s going on. Sometimes they can stop a young man or a girl from falling too far down the slippery slopes. Once they’re on the way it’s hard to stop them, but if you can get at ’em before they really start, then you’ve got a chance.”

  “No one ever fooled you for long,” Rollison remarked.

  “I’m beginning to wonder,” said Lil. “Well, this Bob Benning was one we’ve bin watching.”

  Rollison felt his heart begin to beat faster. There might be much more in this than he had hoped at first. The Army was tenacious and the Army was thorough. If there were one or two Army witnesses in the box on Bob Benning’s behalf it would be a great help for the defence.

  “Go on,” he urged.

  “Well, this girl Marjorie Fryer followed Bob around. He tried to get away from her, but she just wouldn’t keep away. She kept asking him to buy her drinks, and now and again he did, more’s the pity. Sometimes she invited him to bed with her. No point in mincing matters,” Lil went on, brusquely, “and that’s the truth. I dunno whether you realise it, but some people get worse when anyone is trying to do them a bit of good. An extra bit of nastiness seems to come out. Marjorie Fryer couldn’t stand the Army. If any one of us got near her she would say all kinds of things, and use dreadful language, as if she wanted to get under our skin. Not that there’s any fear of that; we don’t send anyone who’s sensitive out to the pubs,” Lil asserted. “Two or three times she was heard talking really bad to young Bob Benning, though.”

  “Did he respond?” asked Rollison.

  “Mr. Rollison, every time our people went out and followed them,” said Lil. “If he’d looked like going with her, they would have remonstrated with him, and tried to draw him back from the yawning pit. Well, he never did. He always went off on his own.”

  Rollison exclaimed eagerly: “Even on the night of the murder?”

  “Yes.”

  “Lil, you’ll never know how much this means,” said Rollison, and actually gripped her arm. “Who followed them that night?”

  “Jane Martin’s husband,” Lil answered. “They live at 91, The Green; you know where that is as well as I do. I saw Jane this morning—she was on her wa
y to the mission—and I asked her. Yes, she said, her Fred had told her about it. Fred’s a long-distance lorry driver, and he went off early the morning after, so he didn’t know anything about the murder. You can take it from me, Mr. Ar, that he’s the witness you want.” Lil gave a swift, bright smile, looked up into his face and said: “I’m nearly as good as Bill, aren’t I, Mr. Ar?”

  “Lil,” said Rollison, fervently, “you’re better. When is Fred Martin due home?”

  “Should be there now; he’s only had a Birmingham job,” answered Lil. “He usually gets back to the depot about two o’clock, Jane said, and knocks off right away—three days on duty, one day off; that’s how he works.”

  “Thanks, Lil,” Rollison said. “I’ll go and have a talk to him.”

  “And don’t forget to tell young Bob Benning who told you,” Lil said. “If that boy’s got any sense he’ll join up with us and bring the girl along, too. That Isobel’s a bit too fond of make-up and dancing, but that’s natural enough in the young.”

  “The Army might be the making of her,” Rollison said solemnly. “Lil, when did you last hear about Bill?”

  “Just before you come in, when Mr. Jolly telephoned. Bill’s going to pull through,” the woman added quietly. “Last night I nearly gave up hope, but this morning I feel different. It’s like a Phoenix rising from the ashes,” she added, and looked out of the open doorway. “That’s right, isn’t it? I don’t believe God would be so cruel as to stop my Bill from seeing all this. Mind you, he’ll have to go slow, Mr. Ar. You off to see Fred right away?”

  “I can’t get there fast enough,” Rollison said.

  He gripped her hands, and then turned and went out, seeing that the work was going on with just as much vigour as before. Nothing could be more heartening; and nothing pleased him more than the news he would soon have for Isobel and Mrs. Benning.

  He remembered Fred Martin, whom he had met at Lil’s flat from time to time, when she held meetings there. A big, burly, hard-voiced man, he had seemed the type likely to burst out in a torrent of foul language at the slightest provocation. It had been startling to see him blowing a trombone lustily to the glory of God.

 

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