He was three miles out of Chelmsford when he first saw the big car; and he thanked the fates for the light of the moon, which showed him the flying black shape at the top of a rise nearly a mile away. It carried no headlights, which at such a speed was a crime in itself.
‘It looks,’ murmured the Toff gently, ‘like a thoroughgoing road-hog. The fool must be travelling at seventy. It’s a night for optimism, but if we’re not darned careful there’ll be a smash with a capital ‘S’, and me in the middle of it.’
The Toff eased down the engine of his Frazer-Nash sports car, pushed his finger on the button of the electric horn, and kept it there. It blared out a long, continuous warning, urgent and imperative, through the quiet of the night.
‘That ought to steady him,’ thought the Toff.
But he prepared for the worst, braking to a standstill, levering his lean body from his seat and sizing up the chances of a leap out if the onrushing car didn’t slow down. Some men might have got out first and thought about it afterwards. Not so the Toff, who would stick it to the last minute. At a pinch he could jump clear of the bracken edge alongside the road; better a few scratches than a broken head.
In spite of the screeching of the Toff’s horn, the car still came on; and, as it came nearer, its ferocious speed grew more and more apparent. The little yellow orbs of its wing lamps were visible now, twisting and turning with the narrow road. Gradually the hum of its engine impinged itself on the Toff’s ears.
‘Not so good,’ he murmured, and sent out a series of long blasts on the electric horn. Would the fool of a driver pull up in time to prevent a smash?
Touch and go, anyhow.
The car – a Daimler he saw now – swung into the Toff’s straight stretch; only a hundred yards separated the two machines. Those little yellow orbs glowed weirdly in the pale light; the Daimler looked unreal, a ghostly monster of speed, ninety yards away – eighty – seventy.
‘The perishing fool must be blind or deaf,’ growled the Toff. ‘And I’d like to know why he’s cutting that speed. Something sharp must be biting him.’
But the time for speculation had gone; it was a matter of seconds now. The Toff pressed his horn again hurriedly and flexed the muscles of his calves. He saw the big car looming towards him, heard the great engine roaring, droning, saw the little yellow orbs rushing at his eyes.
Then suddenly he relaxed and slid back in his seat, the corners of his mouth turning down.
The driver of the Daimler – a vague silhouette of head and shoulders to the Toff – leaned forward and clutched at his brake. The night air howled with the screech as the big car stopped in its rush, leaped inches in the air, came down and slithered to a quivering standstill.
‘An end to that spot of bother,’ thought the Toff.
But for once in his life he was taken in, simply because he was not expecting trouble. As he groped for his clutch, intending to ease forward a yard or two and get within complaining distance of the driver, he was plunged suddenly into a blinding sea of light. Without a second’s warning the Daimler’s headlights were switched full on.
The Toff cursed, and darted his hands towards his eyes. It was the last thing he had expected, and the surprise, if it was intended for such, was completely successful. Momentarily the Toff forgot himself and he said things across the dazzle to the driver of the Daimler that would have made a Bowery tough turn pink.
But as quickly as it flared his anger evaporated; and as he cooled down he heard the soft purr of the Daimler’s engine. The big car was being eased forward through that ocean of blinding light.
For some reason the Toff felt strangely still. He sat motionless for a second, but for the widening of his eyes as the headlights dimmed, and then went out.
The moon prevented pitch darkness from coming, and the Toff looked about him very thoughtfully. It was a queer business, and queer things were the Toff’s stock-in-trade.
The radiator of the Daimler, steaming with the heat of the engine, was only a yard away. The driver was leaning out of the window, and the first impression that the Toff had of him was of yellowish eyes glowing balefully in the moonlight. Then the Toff saw the smooth dark beard, the rounded, regular features; and he knew that he was looking at a gentleman from the East.
But at that moment the Toff was more concerned with the man’s road-hogging than his appearance, yet for the Toff his protest was strangely mild.
‘You weren’t asking for trouble, were you? What would have happened if I hadn’t been looking?’
But his sarcasm was lost on the foreigner. The man’s head came forward; on closer inspection the Toff saw the crow’s-feet gathered in the corners of his queer eyes, and the furrows across his brow beneath the black Homburg hat, thrust too far back on his head.
‘I must ask you to excuse me, sir.’ The voice was smooth, uncannily suggesting the swaying incantation of the East, though the English was word perfect. ‘I am in a very great hurry. Perhaps you will be good enough to reverse to a wider stretch of road?’
‘He doesn’t lack nerve,’ thought the Toff, and he was conscious of a sudden unreasoning antagonism. On top of the shilly-shallying with the headlights, the man’s manner caught him on the raw. He could have forgiven the haste but not the attitude and the negligible sincerity of the apology.
Perhaps because of that sudden feeling of hostility his voice was unusually mild.
‘I’m in a hurry too,’ he drawled. ‘You do the honours,’ and he smiled provokingly.
The baleful eyes narrowed. The Toff almost felt the other’s effort to restrain a rant of abuse, but he admitted that it was kept well in check.
‘I hope you will not insist, sir,’ said the driver. ‘Perhaps if I explain that I am a doctor you will better understand my fast driving. This is my third important case tonight. And it is extremely urgent.’
‘Is it?’ wondered the Toff.
The tired eyes, and the look of near-exhaustion, bore ample testimony to the man’s words. It was a reasonable explanation, but it didn’t ring true, perhaps because it was slick and plausible. It made the Toff very thoughtful and very polite, for to him there was something furtive and suspicious about that nearly catastrophic meeting.
But on the face of it there was only one thing to do. The Toff hated the thought of denying aid to the weak and ailing, and he said as much as he slipped the sports car into reverse. There was a wider patch of road a hundred yards or so back.
The little car slid backwards. The doctor let in his clutch, and the Daimler crawled forward, still no more than two yards away from the smaller car’s radiator. Whatever else, the man was certainly in a hurry – and thought the Toff, something was playing old Harry with his nerves. The twitching eyes and nostrils told of a state of high tension. And it occurred to the Toff that anyone who was doctored by him at the moment would have been in Queer Street.
But there were other things occupying the Toff’s wayward attention. As he moved backwards, without hurrying himself, he seemed to be staring hard into his driving mirror. Suspicion was taking a more definite shape in his mind, though it was vague enough. A little imp of doubt inside him grew restive; and one problem loomed larger than the rest.
Why had the self-styled doctor switched on the headlights?
The Toff, staring hard, centred his gaze on the grey curtains of the saloon immediately behind the driver. They gaped a trifle where they overlapped; and suddenly the Toff’s lips tightened; the little imp of doubt grinned widely.
If everything was straight and above-board, the doctor would hardly be carrying a passenger in the rear when the seat next to him was vacant. Yet twice the red glow of a cigarette spread for a second, and died down.
Someone was in the back of the Daimler; there was no shred of doubt about it.
‘Stranger and stranger,’ thought the Toff, and he was beginning to enjoy himself.
As the two cars crawled in ghostly succession, he formed an opinion in the manner that had made him the best-hated man in the shadier purlieus of the East End.
After the driver of the Daimler had jammed on his brakes and slithered to safety he had deliberately dazzled the Toff by switching on the headlights. Why? Obviously to give that mysterious passenger time to draw the curtains and hide his face. And the passenger was not overloaded with little grey cells; otherwise he would have doused the cigarette.
The Toff’s conjecture was not water-tight, but it was sound enough to rouse that curiosity. He had positive doubts of the doctor’s story, but he didn’t voice them. There might be more in this than met the eye, but it would not be revealed by slinging sudden questions. Nor, unless things happened quickly, would it be revealed that night.
The cars, still nose to nose, reached the wider stretch of road. The Toff swung his Frazer-Nash close to the hedge; brambles scratched along the wings as he smiled blandly at the man with the beard. A more affable, anger-appeased motorist would have been hard to find.
‘Here we are,’ the Toff said. ‘But go steady for the next half-mile. The road twists about a lot, and everybody doesn’t know it as well as I do.’
The ‘doctor’ ignored the thrust.
‘You have my very best thanks. I very much appreciate your courtesy, sir.’
‘Delighted,’ lied the Toff, and waved his hand.
His fingers could have brushed the body of the Daimler as it squeezed past. Taking a cigarette from his case, the Toff struck a match as the doctor, in line with him, nodded with that touch of condescending arrogance which had annoyed the Toff before, and angered him again now beyond all reason.
The Toff bit back an acid comment. He made an ineffectual effort to see through the drawn curtains, and then shrugged his shoulders. It was a promising little mystery nipped in the bud. A pity.
And then suddenly his jaw hardened, and subconsciously his hand moved towards his fob pocket, where in days of ‘off’ business he parked his gun. For out of the corners of his eyes he saw the curtains widen; the mysterious passenger was curious.
The Toff was very wary, even before he saw the gun poking towards him from the rear window.
The Toff’s teeth snapped viciously and he ducked, grabbed for his own gun. But before he could draw, the air behind him was punctured by two yellow stabs of flame! Two soft ‘zutts’ told of an efficient silencer; lead nosed bullets potted into the rear of the sports car.
Tight-lipped with fury, the Toff found his gun and screwed round to take aim, still keeping under cover of his car’s hood. But before his finger touched the trigger the air was split again by two yellow flashes; a bullet plonked into the rear offside wheel, and the little car lurched on one side as the tyre burst with a deafening report.
The Toff felt the machine quiver from bonnet to tail-lamp; he stumbled helplessly forward, losing his grip on his gun and banging his nose painfully on the dashboard. Tears swam in his eyes, half-blinding him as he crouched out of the line of fire. He was burning to take a pot shot at the gunman, but he knew better than to show so much as the tip of his nose. For once in his life he had been caught for a sucker; there was no need to act like one!
He made a lightning review of the possibilities as he regained his automatic. Was the attack a deliberate and planned attempt on his life? It would not have been the first; there were a hundred rogues who hated him enough, for it. Or had Providence rocketed him into trouble coincidentally?
The latter, he fancied, but for the moment it did not count two peas. When the danger was past he could reason it out. Meanwhile, would the gunman in the Daimler take another blinder, or . . .
The sudden, fierce whirr of the Daimler’s engine answered him. The big car leapt into life, and the black roof, all that Rollison permitted himself to see, slid along the hedges.
‘They’re off,’ muttered the Toff, and his fingers tightened round the handle of his gun. A mad thought was scurrying through his mind, tempting, enticing. If he stood up from his cover and emptied his gun after the Daimler there was a sound chance of sending the big car into the hedge; what happened after that would be in the hands of the gods.
It was a beautiful thought. The Toff licked his lips over it, and his eyes sparkled. Nine times out of ten he would have taken the chance, and been coolly confident of getting away with it. But this time . . .
He had a hunch that there was something farther along the road, something from which the Daimler was flying hell for leather, and which the gunman was very anxious to hide for a while. It occurred to the Toff that it would be better to let the Daimler go, to hurry along the road as quickly as he could, and find what there was to find. So for once he played for safety.
Still crouching, he saw that flying roof twist with a bend in the road out of shooting range. The Daimler was a hundred yards away, still gathering speed, weird and ghostly beneath the moon. Watching it, the Toff felt a queer intuition that he was only on the fringe of trouble; and a question thudded into his head, urgent and worrying.
What would he find when he went on?
One thing was certain. The attack had much more behind it than the attempted annihilation of the Hon. Richard Rollison. Otherwise the shooting would have had a more personal note from the outset.
With which comforting thought the Toff stepped quickly into the road and surveyed the damage. A wing of his car was badly dented, a piece was chipped from the number-plate; but that, apart from the punctured tyre, was the extent of the trouble.
‘It might have been a lot worse,’ he consoled himself, dipping into the tool-box for the jack. He had a habit, when alone, of talking aloud, usually in the plural. It fortified him, he said.
He started to get the wheel off. ‘We ought to have the spare wheel on inside ten minutes,’ he told the world at large, ‘and then we shall see what they wanted to stop us from seeing. And it looks very much as though we shall be very busy in the not too distant future.’
And again, as he spoke, his eyes were like flints, and his shapely lips were pressed together in a thin line. Many things were passing through his mind as he worked, but he told the world nothing about them.