The Toff smiled darkly.
‘Steady,’ he cautioned. ‘There are two sides to this question now, Ugly one.’
Garrotty glared at him. The Yank was no fool, and he knew that the little bump in the Toff’s coat meant a gun; but he also knew that the gentlemen from Chicago were within call.
‘Feeling better?’ asked the Toff affably.
‘You kin start sayin’ your prayers,’ snarled Garrotty. And he called the girl by a foul name. ‘Keep where you are, you –’
The Toff clucked his tongue against the roof of his mouth as he looked at Dragoli.
‘Achmed, your American colleague doesn’t seem to understand. He may have a gun, but he can’t reach it without losing an appreciable part of his fingers. Because I’m something of a marksman, though I say it as shouldn’t. Tell him to calm down before I puncture his ribs. Then we can have the little chat I’ve been wanting.’
‘You take the very words from my mouth,’ said Dragoli suavely. His face was creased in a smile which had all the cunning of the East in it, and it did not deceive the Toff in the slightest. But it gave him time to think.
‘Garrotty,’ went on the Egyptian, with a peremptory motion of his hand, ‘won’t offend again, my friend. And now, if I am not asking too much, what do you want?’
‘The girl,’ said the Toff succinctly. ‘I hated to think of her at your tender mercy, Achmed, so I came to take her away.’
It was bluff, of course, but Dragoli could not know how much truth there was in it. It was the beginning of what the Toff called psychological terrorism.
Dragoli stood it well. His face was expressionless.
‘And nothing else?’ he asked.
‘Lots of other things,’ the Toff assured him calmly. ‘You – and Garrotty – and...’
That ‘and’ was a masterpiece. It flowed from the Toff’s lips and hung quivering in the air until the complacency of the Egyptian began to sag; which was what the Toff intended.
‘And,’ he repeated, as though once was not enough, ‘those pals of yours with the music-hall name, Achmed. The Black Circle, don’t they call themselves?’
The atmosphere seemed suddenly frigid.
Dragoli hardly seemed to breathe. His yellowish eyes blazed with a fury which consumed him. His body was actually quivering.
From his silence the Toff learned what he wanted.
Dragoli was definitely an agent of the Black Circle. And the last thing in the world he had expected was to be taunted with it. It stupefied him; it even made the sullen Garrotty uneasy.
The Toff saw the blazing eyes of the Egyptian, the thick lips of the gangster parted over broken teeth – and the girl, who was very near him now, staring at him in bewilderment. For the sensation which had been created’ was more like the consequences of an approaching earthquake than the slow voice of the Toff,
The Toff grinned at her, deciding that it was time to break the spell.
‘It looks,’ he drawled irritatingly, ‘as though I’ve spilled the salt in the gravy. ‘What’s the trouble, Achmed?’
He wondered for a moment whether the Egyptian could keep back his rage, and he moved the bulge in his pocket suggestively. It had a steadying effect.
‘So you know that, do you?’ breathed the Egyptian.
The Toff smiled cheerfully.
‘Say, but you’re smart. Not many men would have guessed it already.’ He winked at the girl. ‘Great minds are about us, Annabelle.’
And he said other things flippantly. Dragoli had confirmed what he had wanted to confirm – the complicity of the sinister Black Circle in the murder of Paul Goldman.
Dragoli spoke again, harping on the same chord.
‘So – you know about the Black Circle, do you, Rollison. And you find it amusing?’
‘Excruciatingly funny,’ agreed the Toff.
The Egyptian’s eyes flashed.
‘Goldman knew about it too,’ he said slowly. ‘In fact, Goldman belonged to it. And he was going to betray it, so he died.’
‘Oh yes,’ drawled the Toff, unimpressed. But if Dragoli’s words left him cold, they had a different effect on the girl. The Toff looked at her for a moment, and saw the horror in her eyes. He thought she would collapse.
‘Steady,’ he murmured, and touched her arm. He felt her body quivering; mention of Goldman’s death had broken through her wonderful self-control. Why?
The Toff was very curious, but this was no time for questions. What Goldman had meant to the girl would come out all in good time. For the moment the game was to bluff Dragoli into letting information slip.
He grinned mockingly,
‘I shan’t die,’ he said easily. ‘At least not for a long time. And I’m getting ready to leave you, Achmed.’
Dragoli’s teeth bared.
‘And your first step?’ he demanded suavely.
‘Safe refuge for Anabelle,’ said the Toff, ‘and then renewed hostilities, Achmed. Any suggestions?’
‘What do you call – safe refuge?’
The Toff’s smile was ridiculously smug.
‘Scotland Yard, maybe, or a little cottage in the country. My dear Achmed, you’ve no idea how peaceful we can be in little old England – outside the “Steam Packet” and the Black Circle.’
‘And supposing,’ demanded Dragoli, without rising to the bait, ‘you don’t get out of the “Steam Packet”?’
‘Let’s suppose something infinitely more pleasant,’ suggested the Toff. ‘Friends of mine, for instance, will be actively interested in the “Steam Packet” if I don’t get out quite soon.’
‘Ah!’ muttered Dragoli, looking at the Toff doubtfully. Was it the truth?
The Toff did not enlighten him.
‘You see,’ he pursued, ‘our first meeting was accidental, and you got the best of it. And so I thought this one out first. Dragoli, said I to myself, must have been expecting me to call; otherwise he wouldn’t have sent the spider the other day. And he’ll let me go, because if he swats me he’ll never learn how much I know, which would be a pity. And so –’
‘Supposing I let you go?’ asked Dragoli.
“There isn’t any supposing about it,’ said the Toff with assurance.’ I’m going, Achmed, and I’m taking Annabelle with me.’
‘And after that?’
‘And after that,’ said the Toff, who was under no delusions as to Dragoli’s reason for prolonging the conversation, and who was aware that Garrotty was moving backwards until he leaned against a door which probably possessed an electric button, ‘it’s just possible that you might give me best. But I’d be disappointed if you did. And just to lure you on, Achmed, I’ll tell you that I don’t know why you killed Goldman.’
Dragoli was quiet for a moment. So was Garrotty. The only sound that broke the silence was a low gasp from the girl.
The Toff snatched a glance at her, and his eyes narrowed. Again the mention of Goldman broke through her self-control; she was deathly pale.
Dragoli’s voice made the Toff forget her.
‘No?’ queried the Egyptian, and there was a sharp edge to his voice, for which the Toff had been waiting.
‘But I shall find out,’ said the Toff smoothly.
And he was conscious of tension in the air.
Dragoli’s single ‘no’ had been a mistake, for the change from suavity to hostility suggested that reinforcements were at hand. Garrotty’s manner changed too. He moved a yard nearer the Toff, grinning evilly. It was his first encounter, so he had an excuse.
‘Clever, ain’t yah, fella?’
‘So clever,’ murmured the Toff, ‘that even you recognize it.’ He looked at the girl. ‘Annabelle, get right behind me and move towards the door. Don’t take any notice of anything or anybody excepting me.’
Then he grinned at Dragoli, who was standing up.
‘I shouldn’t move if I were you. Funny things happen – like that!’
It came out of the blue, or, more prosaically, from the Toff’s gun. He had seen a leg poke out from a gap which had appeared suddenly in the wall, and fired from his pocket. The shot echoed loudly as the bluish flame spat – and the leg disappeared, amidst cursing.
‘First blood,’ smiled the Toff, and laughed at the sudden rage in Dragoli’s face. ‘I warned you, Achmed. This isn’t a plaything, and I’ve used it before’
Then he dropped his voice so that only the girl just behind him heard his words.
‘Open the door. Cut across the lounge and get in the lift Count a hundred, and if I’m not out by then, press the button you’ll see on a level with your eyes, and when you get to the top yell for a policeman. O.K.?’
‘Yes,’ said Anne, and the Toff liked the quiet assurance of her voice. She was more self-possessed now.
He saw Garrotty rushing towards him like a great bull, fists whirling like flails. He saw a second pair of legs inserting themselves through the sliding wall. He saw the glint of steel in Dragoli’s hands.
His gun spoke. Dragoli whipped his hand from his pocket, and the gun clattered to the floor. Blood dropped from the Egyptian’s shattered fingers, and the Toff laughed mockingly.
‘I told you,’ he said, and his gun spoke again. The bullet whistled past Garrotty’s head, making the man flinch back – it was a lucky thing, the Toff thought at that moment, that he had caught Garrotty at a time when the gangster couldn’t get at his gun – and embedded itself in the thigh of a second man who was climbing through the hole in the wall. The man staggered back, his ugly face distorted with fury and pain.
‘Cheer up, Handsome,’ taunted the Toff. ‘That was only a taster. Now for the real thing –’
For Garrotty was on him. The Toff heard the hiss of the brute’s harsh breathing, saw a fist like a leg of mutton shoot out, covered with a brass knuckle-duster.
The Toff stepped lightly to one side, and Garrotty’s hand hummed past him. In a split-second the Toff’s fist jabbed out – and Garrotty felt as though an elephant had kicked him in the tender part of the neck.
‘That’s for puncturing my tyre,’ muttered the Toff.
Garrotty swore, shaking his great head. He went back a pace, and then lunged brutally with his foot. And as the foot swept up, the Toff saw Dragoli standing by the table holding another gun in his uninjured left hand.
The Toff ducked and swerved at the same time. A bullet whistled over his head and plonked into the wall. Garrotty’s knee swept in front of his eyes.
The Toff shot out his hand and gripped the gangster’s knee-cap. He twisted hard, the harder as Garrotty snorted with agony and swayed helplessly on one leg, then the Toff loosened his hold and shot up a pile-driver which caught his man on the point of the jaw. Garrotty rocketed backwards, thudding to the floor.
‘That,’ murmured the Toff, ‘is for what you did to Annabelle. And there’s more to come.’
His eyes swept round the room. Dragoli was finding it difficult to control the gun in his left hand, and his right arm hung loosely at his side. Garrotty was reaching for the gun on the floor. A third man was climbing through the hidden panel in the wall. The odds were overwhelming.
‘Time to go,’ the Toff told himself.
With that smooth speed which startled all who came in contact with him, he slipped backwards out of the room. Banging the door to, he grabbed the back of a heavy armchair and overturned it. On the instant something thudded on the other side and rattled against it, tap-tap-tap, tap-tap-tap, remorseless, ominous!
A machine-gun was in harness, which was what the Toff had expected and why he had been discreet.
‘Not today, baker,’ he said cheerfully, for he was very pleased with himself.
In the lounge, Anne Farraway was waiting, tense with excitement. The gun-fire on the other side of the door made her afraid. Already the panels of the door were sagging and splintering under the fusillade.
The Toff reached her, and smiled encouragingly.
‘Quick’s the word, old lady. Achmed and the boys are getting crosser every minute, and Garrotty’s too full for words.’
He stepped into the lift and pressed the control button. The cage moved upwards, tantalizingly slow. Before they were out of sight the man and the girl saw the wood of the door give way and a hail of lead spatter across the lounge.
The girl’s breath came fast between parted lips. The Toff knew that she was thinking of what would have happened had they been down there, helpless against the shooting. He cheered her up.
‘Trouble isn’t trouble, cherub, until it gets you in the middle. Sletter and the folk upstairs are out. Once we’re up top, we’ll be in the street in two ticks, and all the machine-guns in Chicago won’t hurt us. How are you feeling?’
Anne Farraway made a big effort.
‘Fine,’ she said, and smiled tremulously.
I’ll say you are!’ breathed the Toff.
He grinned at her, seeing the flurry of auburn hair about her forehead, and the deep blue of her eyes. A strange sense of satisfaction filled him.
Then he put her out of his immediate thoughts and wondered what would happen when the lift reached Setter’s office. He handled his gun, just for safety, he told Anne.
But their luck held. The office, sliding gradually into view, was as empty as when the Toff had first entered it.
He hopped out of the lift before it stopped, helped the girl out and, putting his hand to her elbow, propelled her towards the door. He touched the handle.
‘The last barrier,’ he said with a smile.
The door opened easily. Outside, the passage was empty. A gleam of relief shone in his eyes as they hurried along it.
‘Through the kitchen and home, little one. And then you can tell all your troubles to Uncle Richard.’
Which might have seemed optimistic, but the Toff had little fear of trouble from the kitchen staff. And he was justified. A cook and a maid goggled, and he waved his hand to them. A waiter started to speak, but the Toff snapped his fingers in his face.
And the next thing Anne Farraway saw was a stretch of York Road, a tram, and a policeman. Somehow the Toff got her into a taxi, and settled her in a corner.
‘You’re a good girl,’ he said. ‘And I believe I’ve a shoe which might be yours.’
The Toff, helped by an outraged Jolly, prepared the spare room at the flat to accommodate Anne. It was not surprising that the girl was in a state of collapse. Her eyes widely dilated, and her slim body trembled. Dangerously near hysteria, thought the Toff, and called in a doctor, who diagnosed fatigue and severe nervous strain.