Salute the Toff (12 page)

 

The Toff said in a far-away voice: “I'm looking like that because Harrison did take me in. I thought he was playing a minor role. However, it's as well I let him go.
If
,” added the Toff slowly, “we can convince McNab that he's the liar and you're not.”

 

“Who's McNab?” asked Draycott.

“At the moment your worst enemy,” said the Toff, and explained. “Draycott,
were
you convinced that Harrison was helping you, and was in touch with the police? You'd no idea that he was double-crossing you?”

“I'd no idea, Rollison,” Draycott said in a low voice. “If I had—” He clenched his fists. “I've been all kinds of a fool, that's obvious.”

“Haven't we all?” asked the Toff. “How long will it take you to tell us just what you know is wrong?”

“Well,” said Draycott, “about half an hour, I suppose; it's pretty complicated. But I've got to be sure that I ought to tell you first. He stepped to the window of the empty, dusty front room into which they had gone. “You can't expect me to take you entirely on trust. I've known Harrison for years—since we were at school—and I have no reason for thinking he would try to double-cross me.” Draycott spoke quietly, and the Toff imagined that he was puzzling the situation out.

“Jolly, get outside and take the Frazer-Nash a mile or two up the road, or the nearest point where you can hide it. If the Morris I've brought along isn't here when you get back,” Rollison said, “make yourself scarce, because it means that McNab has finished with the cottage and is having a look here.”

“Very good, sir,” said Jolly.

If he was disappointed at the prospect of missing part of Draycott's story he did not say so. Draycott pushed a hand through his tousled hair and looked oddly at the Toff. “This
is
a bloody business.”

“I couldn't agree more,” said the Toff. “I'm going to give you a brief outline of the parts played by three people. Harrison—” he paused. “Miss Harvey is under arrest on, I suspect, a charge of being accessory after the fact to the murder you are supposed to have committed.” He paused again, and Draycott gasped: “Phyllis under arrest!”

“Yes.”

“I've never heard such nonsense in my life,” said Draycott “She's no idea where I am, and—”

“You didn't tell her you were at Allen Cottage?”

“Of course I didn't. Only Harrison knew that. What are you trying to say?”

The Toff looked at him, himself so startled that he hardly knew what to say.

“I'm beginning to see,” went on Draycott “Phyllis gave you my address, did she?”

“Yes.”

“Thank God for that!” said Jimmy Draycott.

Afterwards the Toff said that of all the surprises he had received during this strange affair, that was the greatest. He had half expected an indignant denial that Phyllis Harvey could in any way be implicated, or at least a fierce defence of her – the kind of defence a lover would make before he had heard the full accusation. Alternatively a longer silence would not have surprised him. But Draycott had said:
“Thank God for that!”

That was not the only surprising thing.

Until that moment Draycott had looked worried and anxious, except when the Toff had first arrived, but now seemed to smooth out the lines at his forehead and the frown; and he sat against the window-ledge, looking at the Toff.

“I suppose that sounds crazy too,” Draycott said. “I'm not going to try to explain now, Rollison, except that—well, I'd always thought that Phyllis was wholly wrapped up in me. But if she told you she
must
have been involved in the business somewhere. In Harrison's confidence, I mean.”

“That's likely,” said the Toff. “When all's said and done, she thought him a friend of yours, and she would hardly be surprised if he passed on the information.”

“You don't quite follow,” said Draycott. “I'm working on the assumption that you've been telling me the truth, and Harrison's a liar and a rogue. And he wouldn't tell Phyllis where I was unless he thought she would let it out.”

“Possibly not,” admitted the Toff.

“And Phyllis believes I'm wanted by the police, yet she makes no attempt to get in touch with me, and—she lets you know. It's such a hell of a mess,” said James Draycott, but he was smiling widely, as if it were nothing of the kind. “One
hell
of a mess, but it's going to let me out.”

“Out of what?” asked the Toff, baffled.

Draycott said as if to himself: “My engagement, of course.”

And even the Toff thought that was absolutely the limit; but a mental picture of Fay hovered in front of his mind's eye. He regarded Draycott for some seconds, then shrugged his shoulders.

“Well, you know what you know. And I know that in spite of what we've been saying this is no time for talk. Let's get out of here.”

It was as well that they moved then.

They went out of the back door, and across a narrow garden chiefly remarkable for a large quantity of decayed cabbages, which smelt. At the bottom of the garden was a hedge some five feet high, untidy because it had not seen the shears for a long time. The Toff and Draycott reached it, and from beyond it they could see the cottage, both back and front.

McNab and Wilson were leaving the front door.

“We'll push the car,” said Rollison. “They won't hear the engine.”

There was a gravel path, wide enough for the small car and running the length of the garden. They pushed the Morris belonging to the man now in the ditch behind the hedge and sat in it. Through a gap in the hedge Rollison could just see the front gate of the bungalow.

McNab and Sergeant Wilson arrived, and the fact that they had a key to the bungalow proved that McNab had considered the possibility that he might find his quarry there. The Toff had looked about the floors and seen on them traces of dust, disturbed by footsteps which might have been made a week before. Only Draycott had smoked a whole cigarette, and the Toff had picked up the stub before leaving. There was no real reason why McNab should know that there had recently been occupants of the deserted bungalow.

They waited for twenty minutes, and then footsteps crunched on the gravel path. McNab said clearly: “We'll ask for a man from Winchester to watch the cottage, Wilson, but our bird's flown. Rolleeson will ha' warned him.”

“Are you sure Rollison knew, sir?” asked Wilson.

“The mon always knows,” said Chief Inspector McNab, with a hint of disgust.

Draycott eyed Rollison drolly, while the footsteps grew fainter along the path, and then echoed along the narrow road. Rollison opened the door of the Morris and stepped into the field behind the bungalow.

“That's that, for the moment. Are you convinced?”

“I am,” said Draycott.

“Then McNab's done some good. I—”

Then the Toff stopped, while Draycott was half in and half out of the Morris, and also became quite still. From the corner of the hedge which they had not visited came a man's voice, low-pitched and yet reaching them clearly: “Put your hands up, both of you.”

The Toff turned round, slowly, his hands as high as his shoulders, and he saw Harrison. The cricketer was standing with a gun in his hand, and with two other men, roughnecks both, by his side. Harrison was in untidy tweeds, and his glasses were half-way down his nose.

Draycott snapped: “Put that down, you swine!”

“Don't let's waste words,” said Harrison, “and don't shout for McNab. Rather than let them get you I'll shoot you both.” It was clear that he meant what he said, and he did not look kindly: in fact in Harrison's somewhat ugly face there was a viciousness which startled the Toff.

Rollison said: “So you've come back.”

“When
you
weren't expecting me,” sneered Harrison. “You have been very much overrated, Rollison; you're nothing but a cheap imitation. Get back to the bungalow.”

Draycott looked as if he would like to take a chance, but Rollison discouraged that with a shake of his head. One of the roughnecks led the way, and Harrison and the other followed them into the bungalow. By the door Rollison felt the muzzle of the gun in the small of his back. While it was there a roughneck ran through his pockets, and drew out the automatic he was carrying.

“That's drawn your teeth,” Harrison said. “What did you do with Gort?”

“And who is Gort?” asked the Toff.

“So that's another thing you don't know,” said Harrison. “The man who followed you here.”

“He and a ditch are keeping company.”

“So you can still be funny,” snapped Harrison. He pushed the Toff so that he almost stumbled into the small kitchen of the bungalow. “Well, you won't be for long. I wonder what McNab will think when he finds your body as well as Draycott's?”

The Toff said easily: “He would certainly come to the conclusion that he was wrong about Draycott being the murderer. That won't help you.”

“Don't be a bigger fool than you can help,” said Harrison. “I'm fixing this so that Draycott shoots you, and then kills himself. He's going to write a confession, too. All about the way Harvey's wife was unfaithful, and got mixed up with Lorne and was blackmailed, and how Draycott killed the blackmailer and so on and so on. Convincing, isn't it?”

“McNab might think so,” said the Toff. “But what is likely to happen while they look for you and Lorne?”

“Don't worry about us,” said Harrison. “Lorne will be out of the country by tomorrow night, and I'm quite covered. In fact,” he added suavely and looking at Draycott, “I'm going to get engaged very soon. I'll make Phyl a lot better husband than you, Jimmy.
And
I'll be the son-in-law of a very rich man. Oh, don't worry about me,” said Harrison, and his voice rose a shade. “And you won't have time to worry about yourselves. Get in that corner, Rollison.”

It was all so quiet, so callous. Rollison knew that he was very close to death, that Harrison would shoot him without a moment's compunction: Harrison was a far bigger rogue than he had dreamed, and to Rollison it seemed that he was to pay the penalty of underestimating an opponent. He thought of that in a detached manner, while he estimated the chances of besting Harrison in a rush at him. The chance was slim, but it was worth trying.

It was all so unreal and unnatural, and yet it was happening. There was no bluster, no histrionics, but simply a coldblooded plan for a double murder which was to look like murder and suicide, and so cover Harrison and others.

He saw Harrison lift the gun.

He tensed his muscles for a spring, but as he did so one of the roughnecks threw a chair at his legs. It caught him as he jumped, and he sprawled downwards.

Harrison swore, and: “You won't even go out quietly, won't you? Well—”

And he pointed the gun towards the Toff, who was lying on his back and quite helpless.

“Excuse me,” said Jolly, in a very loud voice, and he made Harrison jump wildly.

 

 

Draycott moved then.

For some reason nothing had been done to stop him from moving, perhaps because he was not considered dangerous. But he jumped at Harrison, and made the man swing round. A bullet actually grazed his cheeks while he collided with Harrison and sent the man staggering into one of the roughnecks. The noise of the falling men, the smell of the shot, and the clattering of the gun as it fell to the bare boards all merged together, and as they came the Toff reached his feet.

He saw the only man not in the
mêlée
with a cosh in his hand, and ready to strike Draycott, reached the man and sent him reeling. Draycott was lying on top of Harrison, who was fighting viciously, while the second roughneck was picking himself up and reaching towards his left shoulder.

The Toff grabbed the chair and flung it at him. It struck his shoulder, and as the man fell back the gun at which he was snatching fell from his fingers. It hit the floor, but did not go off; and as Harrison's gun had been fitted with a silencer there had been no sound likely to travel as far as McNab and Wilson.

There was no sign of Jolly.

Draycott was getting the better of Harrison, and the Toff left him to it. One of the roughnecks was on his feet again, but he did not stay there long, for the Toff went in with vigour and ruthlessness. It might have been the narrowness of his escape from death, or it might have been just that he had reached the end of his patience, but by the time he had finished two men were unconscious, and the knuckles of his hands were grazed and raw. His hair was falling in his eyes, and he brushed it back impatiently, to see Draycott standing up and breathing heavily. Harrison was unconscious: judging from the purplish colour of his face, Draycott had almost strangled him.

“Well, that's that,” Draycott said. “Thank God you're all right, Rollison.”

“Thanks to you,” said the Toff warmly. “You might dab at your cheek; it probably looks worse than it is, but it certainly looks nasty.”

Draycott was surprised at the blood on his handkerchief, but the wound was little more than a scratch. When he brushed his fingers through his hair he dabbed blood on his forehead and on the fair strands, and the Toff smiled crookedly.

“You look the villain of the piece,” he said. “Again—thanks more than I can say.”

“Oh,
that,”
said Draycott disparagingly. “You didn't expect me to let him shoot if I could help it, did you? Anyhow it was your chap. Wonder where he's gone. What are we going to do now, anyway?”

“We've four prisoners,” mused the Toff, “and we want them kept nice and safe until we can convince McNab that he's talking through the back of his neck. On the whole, I should say this place is as well as any for keeping them.”

“There's another bungalow—little more than a shed, really—half a mile across the fields,” said Draycott. “It's in a copse of trees, and they'd be a lot safer there.”

“We'll use it,” said the Toff.

It was then that they stopped short, and looked sharply at each other, for they heard a stealthy sound outside. The Toff motioned Draycott towards the door with a quick nod of his head, and himself followed the man behind it.

The footsteps drew nearer and remained stealthy.

The Toff, with Harrison's gun in his hand, waited tensely while the door was pushed wider open: and then he heard a sharp exclamation, and: “Is there anything more for me to do, sir?”

Draycott drew in a sharp breath. The Toff stepped into full sight and regarded Jolly, who had looked away from the men on the floor and was standing in the doorway.

“What happened to you?” asked Rollison.

“I couldn't have arrived in time, so I shouted from a tree in the back garden,” Jolly said. “Then I checked to make sure there were no others about.”

“Jolly,” Rollison said, “you have genius.”

“Thanks.” Almost without a change of tone he added: “Is the water on in this place?”

“I don't think so, sir.”

“That's a pity, but we'll manage. How did you know there might be the need for stealth?”

While they bound the wrists and ankles of the prisoners Jolly explained that there was an old Buick behind the hedge on the left side of the bungalow, and that he had seen it as he had returned from parking the Frazer-Nash. He had approached stealthily in the hope of being useful, and he allowed himself to say that he had been considerably relieved when he had seen that Harrison and not the Toff was on the floor.

“You were not alone,” said the Toff.

They did not waste much more time talking, but bundled the four men – after retrieving Gort from the ditch – into the Morris, which Jolly drove to the shed in the copse. Except the cottage and the bungalow there was no building in sight, and as the country about them was mostly gorse-land, and some miles from the village itself, there was little chance of anyone seeing them.

The Toff made arrangements quickly.

Jolly was to stay as jailer, and if he would have preferred a more active part he did not say so. The Toff and Draycott were to return to town, after dark, in the Morris – using that car because it would be less conspicuous than the Frazer-Nash.

“And how long shall I stay here, sir?” asked Jolly.

“I hope to release you tomorrow,” said Rollison.

“Thank you. And if Harrison comes round, am I to endeavour to get his story?”

“Make him talk,” said the Toff.

“Very
good, sir,” said Jolly, and he smiled.

 

For some fifty miles Rollison drove the Morris towards London, and Jimmy Draycott sat next to him, making occasional comments. They were near Staines when his self-restraint broke down, and he said with feeling: “You know, Rollison, you and that man of yours are freaks. Anyone would think that this was everyday business with you.”

“That's very nearly true,” said the Toff.

“Do you mean to say that all the stuff written about you in the Press isn't a lot of make-believe?”

“Oddly enough, there is crime other than that involving you, and I do play parts in it. However, I wouldn't like them all to take similar wrong turnings. I'm still hazy about this business. You can put most of it right.”

“I
think
I can,” said Draycott cautiously.

“I hope you can,” said the Toff fervently. “First and foremost, they wanted to kill you.”

“And don't I know it! That's why I hoofed it, although if I'd known Harrison hadn't given the police everything I certainly would have stayed. I don't think I've ever been so surprised about a man.”

“Harrison can be left out for the moment. You heard the story he was trying to put over on the police, and it's remarkable that McNab had it off almost by heart. That suggests that McNab had been given an outline of the so-called mystery before. I don't like suggesting,” he added thoughtfully, “that McNab has only contacted with Miss Harvey, but—”

Draycott said shortly: “It certainly looks like that. What is your opinion of her?”

“I think she allowed herself to be arrested, knowing—or believing—that no charge will ever be carried as far as the jury. Alternatively, I would say that she has been told to do it, and has obeyed because she can't help herself. I had the impression that she was using drugs. Her manner was too unreal to be natural, and too genuine to be assumed.”

Draycott said: “I've thought she used drugs, for the last six months or so. She wouldn't admit it, of course, and—oh, Lord,” exclaimed Draycott, “it is a hell of a mess! Back at the cottage I thought everything was working out, but if she's under the influence of drugs, and controlled by someone else as a result, I can't let her down.”

“Meaning that you really would like to?”

“Like to!” exclaimed Draycott. “I—oh, damn it, I don't see why I should tell you, but you've a way with you. I've been wanting to get out of my engagement for a year. But she's had a bad time, what with her mother going off with people like Lorne—it wasn't the first
affaire
—and a pretty miserable home-life with her father, and her Aunt Charlotte ruling the roost, I hadn't the heart. And then the thing that really seemed to make it unavoidable happened. By ‘it' I mean marrying her,” added Draycott ingenuously.

“Meaning what?” asked the Toff.

“Well …” Draycott hesitated, and then said: “When it's all over she'll have to have help to recover.”

Rollison said very slowly: “Your private affairs are nothing to do with me, but if you're contemplating marriage on those grounds you're in for trouble.” They were driving along Chiswick High Street as he was speaking, but there was little traffic about. “You knew something that they wanted you dead for. Myra Harvey also knew it, and they killed her to make sure she said nothing—while she lived with Lorne there was no danger for her, but after the quarrel her murder was necessary.” Draycott had heard the full story; he nodded, and waited. “Harrison acted as a go-between for the two parties. Harvey and Lorne. Lorne was the active partner, doing all the necessary dirty work. Harvey pulled the financial strings. You knew that there was a big-scale fraud in the offing. So did Myra Harvey.”

“You're getting warm,” Draycott said with a wry smile. “Only warm?” said the Toff. “Then we come to Phyllis Harvey. I'm assuming that she was and is drugged. Drugged, she did what her father told her. She came to me in order to lure me down to Allen Cottage, where you were hiding. I don't doubt that the idea was to kill us both and for you to leave a confession—forged, of course—to cover the murder at Grey Street as well.”

“You're making Phyllis out a pretty bad lot,” said Draycott uncomfortably.

“Possibly she did it only under threat. Certainly she tried to get me down to the cottage earlier than I went. But what
is
the game?” demanded the Toff. “I can work out the way it was being worked, I can easily see the careful establishing of a ‘blackmail-cum-passion' series of crime, and have done so. But I don't know what is behind it.” Draycott said: “I doubt if anyone in the world could, from your angle. I've known Mortimer Harvey for several years, and I was taken in for nearly six months. I stumbled across the truth by accident, and at first I couldn't believe what was happening. I got proof item by item, and then, like a fool, I confided in Harrison not knowing he was involved. Of course, that's why I was suddenly attacked—I was nearly killed when a car crashed into mine, and then shot at. I went into hiding. You see, I'd made notes from time to time and kept them on file in my desk. I meant to get Fay Gretton to find the file for me, but decided against it. I was afraid of involving her, and that's the last thing that I wanted to happen.”

“Understood. Next?”

“Sorry,” said Draycott. “It's so hard to believe. Er—Harvey was ill about a year ago. He went to France to recuperate, and—”

The Toff said, with a sudden hardness in his voice: “Oh, my Lord! And it's as simple as that I”

“So you've guessed,” said Draycott quietly.

The Toff had guessed; and yet for several minutes as he drove along Piccadilly he could hardly bring his mind to believe it. The solution of the mystery was so simple, given the key, that it was incredible he had never thought of it. It explained Phyllis Harvey's addiction to drugs, and suggested she had not taken them in the first place willingly. It explained the need for the death of Myra Harvey, and it explained why Harvey himself had employed Lorne and his desperate gang of thugs to ensure that the truth did not get out.

But it
was
out.

“Ye-es,” said the Toff very slowly, “I've guessed. Harvey
isn't
Harvey.”

“That's right,” said Draycott after a pause. “The man who came back from France was remarkably like him—even to mannerisms. I was taken in until I found that he didn't know much about the Mid-Provincial Building Society, from which he'd retired. When he lost me the agency it made me think even harder, and gradually I got the proof together. I'm not sure, but I think the man now calling himself Mortimer Harvey is a brother. I know Mortimer Harvey had one. It's going to be a devil of a thing to prove, though.”

“Perhaps,” said the Toff. “Perhaps. I—oh, damn, I've missed the turning!” He braked abruptly, backed a little, and then turned into Gresham Terrace. He drew up outside No. 55, his mind still revolting against the thing which he had learned and yet which seemed so incredible. And then his obsession was rudely shattered, for there were two cars standing outside No. 55.

One was Jamie Fraser's, and the other a large T-model Ford, by the side of which Bert of Mile Corner was standing.

The Toff braked, and opened the door. Draycott followed him to the pavement, while the Toff said to Bert: “What's the trouble?”

“Strike me, I 'ardly knows 'ow to tell yer,” said Bert, and in the light from a street lamp it was clear that he was labouring under some strong emotion. “The dicks 'ave gorn from Gay Street an' Ma Kless's place, Mr. Ar.”

“Well?” snapped the Toff.

But he did not get his answer then, for he heard a door open, and saw light streaming into the street. Running down the short flight of steps from No. 55 was Anthea, with Jamie on her heels.

“Rolly!” she exclaimed. “Rolly, thank God you've come! They've got Fay again. They—”

“Mr. Ar!” put in Bert urgently, “that's wot I've been tryin' to tell yer. They've took 'er to Ma Kless's. Arrived there an hour ago, she did.”

And then, into the short silence, Draycott said: “If they hurt that girl I'll kill them. I'll kill each one with my bare hands.”

It did not seem to the Toff an extravagant thing to say.