Bowler Hat nodded. Daisy Lee sat back in her chair, showing a plentiful streak of silk stockings. There was silence in the room for several minutes, and the clock on the mantelpiece struck eleven.
Bowler Hat looked at his watch.
‘That’s a minute fast. We’ll hear from the “Steam Packet” any time. I’m scared of Rollison. He would have got me at the warehouse if I hadn’t an extra-thick skull, and managed to get away before the police came.’
Dragoli’s eyes were flaming.
‘Listen! Rollison is an unimportant detail in our arrangements! The organization is all-important, and it must go on whether Rollison lives or dies. There will always be interruptions, always be trouble, but while we remain free from the police we need have no fears. Remember the money in this, and –’
Daisy sneered.
‘Listen, Big Boy. You’re always talking big about money, but we don’t see much. I reckon we’ve handled a hell of a lot’ve snow for you in the last year, and we ain’t had more than enough to pay for our keep. Supposing you show more dough, and then talk business?’
Dragoli did not speak, but his eyes were murderous. Daisy ignored them, and went on viciously.
‘I’ve touted the stuff for you, an’ I’ve took a lot of the risks. I –’
‘You do not seem to understand,’ said Dragoli very carefully, ‘that in the past week we have been forced to close up several of our outlets. The addresses which the police could get to know from their prisoners, for instance, have been crossed off the list.’
‘Sure, they’ve been crossed off, but they’re a dozen or so, and we feed hundreds.
And
they pay cash on the nail.’
‘That’s true,’ said the man in the bowler hat, and he eyed Dragoli curiously. ‘You are not playing the fool with the Black Circle, are you, Dragoli? It wouldn’t pay you in the end. It’s a pretty wide organization, and you may be the kingpin in England, but there
are
other countries.’
The Egyptian was breathing very hard.
‘I see. There are other countries, and you would be prepared to operate in them? Perhaps you are afraid of the police, my friend. Have you forgotten that I first introduced you to the Black Circle? That without me it would never have started properly in England? Are you forgetting that I, and no one else, arranged with Willow and Kellson to handle the stuff for us in the first place, and then followed with others? Have you not the intelligence to realize that I stopped using Willow and Kellson as soon as possible, that I have twelve firms in England, each handling the stuff for one month in turn? That I have a fool-proof organization, of which you are members? Supposing this had been a Willow and Kellson month? The police would have found the stuff and would have been satisfied they had found how it was distributed. Would they have looked for another eleven firms? Have I not arranged centres in the biggest industrial parts of the country? We three are the only ones who know of that – and Kellson. He is too frightened to talk. He is so frightened that he has disappeared. Well?’ His lips were twisted, and he looked as though he would gladly have killed the man and the woman. ‘What
now?’
The man in the bowler hat was clenching his fingers nervously, but Daisy Lee’s hard eyes were fixed on Dragoli’s.
‘You’ve fergot something, pal. You’ve fergot the profits, and the shares we ain’t seen yet. Talk’s cheap, but I want my hands on some dough.’
Dragoli took a deep breath.
‘You have been well paid. When the arrangements for a distribution of profits come from the Stamboul headquarters, you would have been well rewarded. You –’
‘Would’a been!’ snarled Daisy, and she jumped up. But Dragoli had an automatic in his hand, and it covered the two of them. His eyes were glinting, and there was venom in his voice.
‘But you forgot a very important thing, my friends.
I
am the leader in England, and my recommendations are carried out. Naturally, I want as much as I can, and now – I am running the Black Circle’s business admirably. I don’t
need
you. And so . . .’
His gun moved a trifle. Fear was flaming in the girl’s eyes; she looked far worse than when she had acted so well with Rollison. And the man with the bowler hat was staring wide-eyed at the gun, was trying to speak.
‘I shall find it very profitable,’ murmured Dragoli. ‘This house, of course, is suspect. The police will eventually find it. I would prefer them to find it empty, but now they will find two bodies. You see how all my rivals go? Garrotty was useful, but he will never shoot again. So were his men. Some have suffered because I could not help them, but
everyone
who threatens Dragon’s safety, who might talk if they were paid well enough, goes the same way. Are you understanding now?’
The girl was on her feet, swaying a little to and fro, her eyes wide open. The man was shivering from head to foot. There was murder in Dragoli’s words, in his eyes: death in the automatic. It moved again, and there was a grin on the man’s sallow face, as though he enjoyed seeing their fear and was reluctant to finish his play.
‘You – you yellow swine! You worked for this!’
‘I did, Daisy. I have worked very carefully, and I can honestly report that the Black Circle will find danger from you if you live. So –’
And then the interruption came, from the door. It was a man’s voice, harsh and clipped. Dragoli swung round with his gun, and fired towards the door on sight. But the man standing there fired first, and the bullet took Dragoli’s hand – the hand that the Toff had shot badly at the ‘Steam Packet’ in Lambeth.
Dragoli’s oath quivered and his gun dropped as Daisy gasped: ‘Frens –
Frensham!
How did
you
get out?’
Frensham was breathing hard. His coat was torn, his hair bloodstained, and there was an ugly wound down his right cheek. But his voice was steady enough.
‘Never mind how I managed it. Stay right where you are, Colliss!’
And the man in the bowler hat stood still as though rooted to the spot. His heavy mouth and heavy chin were revealed as the muffler dropped away. Colliss, archaeologist and special agent of the police in Stamboul, was gaping at the other man’s gun.
And then another voice came.
It was different. There was a mocking lilt in it, and it seemed to make their blood run cold.
‘The answer to my Daisy’s prayer, little one, thanks for showing me the way. No, I didn’t believe you. Dragoli, I found three men and Daisy’s chauffeur downstairs, and they relieved me of a lot of worry. I offered them money to skedaddle without making a fight and alarming you: and they went. You should pay good wages, and you’d get better service. But after hearing Daisy’s complaint, it’s understandable: greed, my Achmed, is the lowest common denominator of the crooked race, and if you’d been more open-handed you might have lived instead of getting hanged. With your men gone I freed Frensham, and he took the door while I waited by the window.’
The Toff, smiling cheerfully, stepped through the open window from the top of a ladder. Frensham’s gun did not move, and none of the trio made the slightest move to escape.
They hadn’t recovered from their shock yet.
‘Rol – Rollison!’ gasped Daisy Lee. ‘But – but the “Steam Packet”, you were going –’
‘I repeat, I guessed you were lying, and I followed you. I’ll also repeat that I’ve heard the whole story, and it doesn’t show any of you up in a good light. But do tell me one thing: why in the name of Allah did Garrotty attack Colliss if Colliss was working for you? It was the one thing that made me think our archaeologist was honest.’
Colliss spoke in a dead voice.
There had been a few seconds of silence, as though the trio were trying to convince themselves that this was true. The Toff, as immaculate and smiling as ever, looked like a ghost to Daisy Lee and Achmed Dragoli. They did not look towards Frensham.
‘Dragoli – didn’t know,’ Colliss said. ‘Until afterwards. I didn’t join until I got to Stamboul –’
The Toff’s eyes glinted.
‘And they discovered you were a police agent, did they? So they doped you with cocaine until you had to have more and more – and then you joined them. Is that it?’
‘That’s – it,’ admitted Colliss, still in that dead voice.
‘Fine!’ The Toff’s voice was rollicking. ‘And thanks to your thick skull you escaped the other night. And you, Daisy, while we’re learning things? You’ve been a distributing agent, have you? And when Colliss was going to the meeting, you had to arrange for him to be taken there so that you could be sure the police weren’t giving him watch-dogs. Very nicely arranged. And after you’d played me up the garden, you rigged the shooting in Randle Street. Another question, little one – why scream and warn me?’
The woman’s eyes were venomous.
‘The fool was too slow! There were people in the street and I wanted them to tell the narks I tried to warn you. But you dropped down instead of turning round and he missed you. I wish to Gawd he’d shot your brains out!’
‘Now, now,’ murmured the Toff. ‘And after I’ve saved you from Dragoli, too. A nice fellow, our Achmed.’
It was then that Dragoli and Colliss moved.
They seemed to work in unison, although Dragoli started a fraction of a second before the other man. They grabbed the table and uplifted it, hurtling it towards the Toff. Colliss flashed a gun from his pocket and emptied it towards Frensham. The fair-haired man dodged, away from the door, and Dragoli and Colliss reached it. Daisy was a foot or two behind them, the Toff was on the floor, making no effort to get up; Frensham was pressing behind a sideboard.
The door was flung open; and then Dragoli saw
the police.
He stood there for a fraction of a second and then swung round. Colliss turned with him, firing towards the Toff, while Dragoli used a second gun, with his left hand, for Frensham. But the Toff was shooting, and he found their forearms. He was still amongst the litter from the table. Frensham was out of the line of fire behind the sideboard.
Dragoli, both arms useless, made a mad dash for the window, but the Toff sprang then, as though released by a spring. He tripped the Egyptian up, and as Colliss tried to hit him the Toff’s fist crashed under his chin. Colliss went sprawling, and when he did get to his feet he was surrounded by policemen.
McNab and Warrender were with the Toff.
The Toff’s eyes were still very grim.
‘That’s a nice parcel for you, Mac, and I can give you the whole racket. It was neatly worked out, I’ll admit that. Daisy or Colliss will tell you of the other firms they’re using. But – have you had anything from Miss Farraway?’
Warrender looked awkward.
‘Not a word, Rollison.’
Frensham swore. He looked a mess, but the Toff knew he was prepared to go on until he dropped.
‘All right, I’m going to the “Steam Packet” –’
It was Daisy Lee who spoke, sullenly, on his words.
‘You needn’t, Rollison. She ain’t there. We never had the little squirt; we only played that on you. We tried to get her with Frensham as bait, but she’d left the place when we went, so we worked on that. Got me?’
The Toff this time was convinced that she was telling the whole truth. With no object for lying, Dragoli and Colliss confirmed it. They had tried to get Anne Farraway, but she had left the Tennant’s house before they had succeeded.
Two hours afterwards, when the ‘Steam Packet’ was raided, and Blind Sletter, with the two remaining gangsters of Garrotty’s brigade, were taken into custody – after a complete rout, for none of them had expected the raid as late as it came: Dragoli had told them it would probably be about ten o’clock – the Toff was forced to the conclusion that the girl had gone off on her own.
‘But where?’ asked Frensham helplessly. ‘She must have had some reason.’
The Toff said nothing.
He was ‘thinking, bitterly, that the only two uncertain things now were the parts played by Anne Farraway and Mark Kellson. No other angle was open. Kellson, it seemed, had been frightened by Dragoli and fled the country.
Had Anne had reason for doing the same?
At three o’clock, with Frensham at his side, he reached the Gresham Terrace flat. Warrender and McNab were at the Yard, with the prisoners. Rollison had grown tired of answering questions. How he had believed Daisy up to a point, but when she had claimed to have been allowed to see the ‘prisoners’, even accidentally, he had found it too much to swallow, and realized she was in the racket – a racket, as they had known, to distribute cocaine throughout the country.
Using different distributing centres, like Willow and Kellson’s, at different times, Dragoli had reduced the chances of a complete discovery to a minimum. Had he lost one place there were eleven others to fall back on; with Daisy Lee and Colliss dead, Dragoli would have been the only man in England to know everything. Ali – still a prisoner at the ‘River Tavern’ – had known a little, but not enough to do lasting damage to the Black Circle’s English organization.
The one-ounce packets of boracic acid had been a clever stall. Other Black Circle agents ordered them from abroad so that every so often the cocaine could be substituted without arousing suspicion.
Well, it was over. Frensham was cleared of suspicion, Owen and the police – excepting Colliss, who had fallen a victim to snow so easily – were equally clear. Colliss, of course, had passed on the police news to Dragoli.
And there remained Anne Farraway.
The Toff seemed to see an image of her gleaming eyes, teasing him a little, as he entered the flat. Frensham had not spoken for over an, hour. He seemed to the Toff like a dead man.
And then the Toff saw Jolly, fully dressed.
‘Good Lord, man, can’t you sleep? But as you’re up, some strong coffee, and –’
But Jolly for once ignored an order. He closed the door, and then opened that of the Toff’s bedroom. And on the threshold stood Anne Farraway, smiling a little just as the Toff had imagined.
‘Apart from these personal pleasantries,’ said the Toff with some irony, and feeling very much wider awake, ‘what happened, young woman? I don’t like having things put across me.’