The Toff on Fire (13 page)

He was not prepared for any reprisals.

Rollison moved his hand, gripped the other's wrist, and twisted. The man screamed; it was a high-pitched, cut-off sound. Then he crashed against the wall. Half-way down from the porch step, Marling hesitated just long enough to give Rollison a chance to go for him – but Marling was fresh and he'd had warning.

“Don't try to run,” he said sharply. “If you do I'll send for—”

Rollison pulled the gas pistol out of his pocket. He was near enough to squirt the gas into Marling's face, to start him coughing and gasping. Marling began to sway as ammonia stung his eyes and nostrils.

The boxer, getting to his feet, unsteadily, gave one long gasp when Rollison fired another pellet close to his nostrils. Then he began to groan.

Rollison drew back, also gasping.

He saw headlights coming along the road, swaying up and down, the lights of a private car. The beams shone on to the doctor's house and the garden, and would soon shine upon him. He was already clearly visible in the light which came from the hall. He drew back hastily into shadow at the side of the house, but before he reached the corner the car came into sight, and on top of it was the blue and white sign:
Police.

Police car drivers didn't miss much. They would see the light here, and if they saw either of the staggering men they would come to investigate.

The car slowed down.

Rollison turned the corner of the house, then began to move across the back garden, but his head was throbbing, and he was still out of breath. A whiff or two of the ammonia had blown back at him, his eyes were smarting, and he could feel the gas biting at his nostrils and his mouth; yet he had to keep his mouth open to breathe.

He heard the car engine stop, a door slam, and footsteps. In a few seconds they would see the men on the ground, in a few seconds a police whistle would shrill out.

What chance would he have of getting away?

 

 

If he turned and ran, where would he go?

He had no reliable friends nearby; none who would not be too nervous of the police or of the Doc to give him sanctuary. He had the wall to jump, but was in no state to do much running. On this dark night there were police in a hundred places, in doorways, at corners, in cars, waiting and prowling, ready to catch any man who was on the run.

Rollison knew that if he cut and run for it, the odds would be heavily against him.

The two men came running from the police car. He stood close to the corner, peering round, and saw that one was a youthful-looking man, the other a middle-aged Divisional officer whom he knew slightly.

Once that whistle shrilled—

They were only a few feet away from Dr. Marling, who was leaning against the wall, Ms face buried in his hands, and from the other man on the ground, writhing and pretending to much more pain than he felt.

One of the policemen said sharply: “That's Dr. Marling.”

“Better nip back to the car and—”

They had no time.

Rollison came hurtling from the corner, gun in hand. Each man saw it. For a moment they were petrified with a fear which it was easy to understand, for all they knew this gun was loaded with bullets. One of them flung up his hands, and said harshly:

“Put that gun down!”

Rollison fired a burst at each man's face, then ran on towards the main road and the police car. He could hear them staggering about on the gravel of the path. Once one of them got his breath back he could use his whistle, but that wouldn't be for a few minutes.

Rollison reached the gate.

A big lorry was a few hundred yards down the right road, coming this way.

Rollison said: “Bill Grice, forgive me,” and slid into the driving seat. If his luck held, a key was still in the ignition. He felt for it, and found it. His laughter was almost shrill as he eased off the brakes. The engine roared. He drove past a lorry as it came towards him, and watched in his rear mirror once it was past. The driver showed no interest in what was going on outside Dr. Marling's house.

Rollison drove fast, beneath the safety badge of the police sign on the car roof.

A voice came into the car, out of silence.

“Calling Car 39, calling Car 39.” There was a pause, and then again: “Calling Car 39, for position and report. Calling Car 39—”

Just visible in the windscreen was the little label, marked 39. The Yard Information Room was calling, and the live radio suggested that the driver had called the Yard, and perhaps reported seeing the scuffle. And there would be several other patrol cars in the vicinity; the quicker he got out of this the better.

“Calling Car 39—”

He knew exactly how the transmission was worked, was almost as familiar with this as with his own Bristol. He flicked the control, and said in a rather hoarse voice: “This is Car 39, this is Car 39 reporting. Investigating burglary at house of Dr. Marling, Mile End Road, near Rex Cinema. Please send supporting cars. This is Car 39—”

“Calling Car 39,” the response came back. “Message received, supporting cars being sent to Dr. Marling's house, Mile End Road. End of message, message ends.”

The radio fell silent except for subdued crackling. Rollison drove on, grinning broadly and finding it difficult not to laugh aloud. He was going in one direction, the new cars would be going in the other. Things could only go wrong now if a second car came along this road towards him.

He sobered up.

He saw what he had not noticed before; a faint greyness in the sky. This was the second morning that he had been up to greet the dawn. Buses would soon be running, perhaps they were on the road already. Trains would be running on the tube. He saw three people come out of a street, coats buttoned up against the wind, and turn towards the nearest station – Aldgate East. He turned the car off the main road, and then down a little cul de sac where there were half a dozen small houses. Lights shone from the windows of three of them, but no one was about. He got out, left the car lights on and hurried away from the spot. The footsteps of several people were audible now, and he could hear the whirr of bicycle tyres, as someone came towards him. He had a moment's dread; that this might be a policeman on a bicycle, but he saw that it was someone in a uniformed cap, not a helmet.

He dabbed his cut lip dry, pulled his cap low, and walked off.

He reached Aldgate Station with a little crowd of others. They were shivering in the cold east wind, but he wasn't cold, he was almost too hot. He still wanted to laugh. He could picture Grice's face when Grice learned what had happened; he could imagine Grice jumping quickly to the conclusion that it had been the Toff, but—

Forget it.

He bought a newspaper, glanced at the headlines, and then stopped so abruptly that a man behind cannoned into him. The man grumbled. “Sorry,” said Rollison, gruffly, but didn't look up from the
Daily Globe.
There was the whole story of the fire at the hotel and the murder of Maggie Jeffson. The police had kept nothing back; this was one of the few occasions when they had given all known details to the Press, and had obviously asked them to beat the big drum.

The
Globe
had.

So had four other newspapers that Rollison bought, tossing a shilling to the old man at the stall and waiting for his change. A train rumbled nearby, there was a rush from behind him, and he joined in. The train roared into the station and he was half pushed into it. Yet there was plenty of room. He found a corner seat, began to look through the newspapers, and, conscious of the ever-curious eyes of other passengers, he looked at the sporting pages first. He didn't linger on them long.

Four of the front pages starred the Toff, and three carried photographs of him. But the thing which really took him off his balance were the photographs of Esmeralda.

She was as photogenic as a Hollywood star, and she smiled up at him with that demure look which somehow wasn't really demure; as if she was intent on making the world think she was.

Rollison put the newspapers down as the train drew into Temple Station. He would get out at Charing Cross, the next stop, and take a taxi. He had not yet fully absorbed the story about the Doc's reign of terror in the East End; and there was the story of the kidnapped baby, of the unnamed thief who had taken it to the Toff for sanctuary. It was all cleverly and smoothly done, and Esmeralda was there because—as she had clearly stated to the newspapers —she had been at Gresham Terrace when the baby had been discovered.

How had the newspapermen got on to her? And what had persuaded her to talk so freely?

“She probably likes seeing her picture in the paper,” Rollison said, and made a neighbouring passenger glance at him curiously; the train was now nearly full. Rollison gave a vacant smile, and then glanced at the Stop Press items. Three didn't interest him, but the fourth gave a few more details.

When he reached the street at Charing Cross, and waited for a taxi as a flowing crowd of people went up Villiers Street towards the Strand, he warned himself that the Press would be out in strength at Gresham Terrace. He hoped they wouldn't think of the fire escape.

A taxi driver looked at him suspiciously, but said nothing about his bruised and battered face.

He got out near the approach to the back of Gresham Terrace, and reached the kitchen of the flat at a little after half-past seven. The door was unlocked, which meant that Jolly expected him to come that way. Jolly was moving about further in the flat. There was a smell of freshly ground coffee, rashers of bacon lay in a frying pan, eggs waiting to be cracked, bread waiting to be toasted, a tray laid.

Rollison lit the gas under the coffee percolator, and went into the study.

“And how's the sleepless wonder?” he inquired.

Jolly jumped and half turned.

“I'm sorry, sir, I didn't hear you.” His tone suggested that he felt that he had been caught out in a heinous crime but soon he appraised the Toff, and raised one eyebrow when he saw the cut lip and swollen eye. “I hope that cut isn't painful, sir.”

“No more than I deserve. Coffee and breakfast first and first-aid afterwards—”

“If you don't mind, sir,” said Jolly firmly, “I think that we should bathe that lip at once. We need not put disinfectant on it yet, that would make the coffee unpalatable, but …” he dropped into one of his more garrulous moods, which was simply bluff, led Rollison to the bathroom, administered first-aid, and then left Rollison to wash.

When Rollison had finished, breakfast was ready in the window alcove, and coffee was cooling. Rollison took a cup and sipped and looked out of the window, careful to keep to one side so that he could not be seen. There were at least twenty people outside, including several women, and half a dozen of them had cameras.

“How cheap is fame,” murmured Rollison, and sat down to his bacon and eggs. “Do you think you annoyed Miss Gale, or is it all my own work?”

“I have to admit, sir, that she did say that she had a very important decision to make, and that she would welcome your advice, and possibly it was a decision about what to say to the newspapers. And we are well aware,” went on Jolly in his most pontificial manner, “that newspapermen show a remarkable cunning in eliciting information from people who are not used to their methods.”

“Yes. So Esmeralda Gale made a hit with you.”

“I am simply looking at both sides of the question, sir.”

“Or three sides. Jolly—”

Rollison ate and talked, almost without stopping, and when he had finished there was little that Jolly did not know. The recital served as much to get everything clear in his own mind as it was to keep Jolly informed. When events moved as fast as they had that night, it was easy to get them out of order and out of perspective, and Jolly was adept at getting the right perspective, or at least pointing it out to Rollison.

This time, he said: “I presume you will not use the services that the Ebbutts offered, sir.”

“No.”

“What was your impression of Dr. Marling?”

“I didn't have time to form one, but I'd like to know why he had a bruiser on the doorstep, as it were.” Rollison fingered his lip gently, then got up and looked at himself in a mirror; and to reach the mirror he had to look at the blank wall. He scowled at it. Then he scowled at himself. “In spite of the bruises I'm going to see Marling this morning, then I really will get an impression. And some answers, I hope. I'll see Esmeralda first and Marling soon afterwards.”

“I hope you will make that this afternoon, sir,” Jolly said. “By that time it might be possible to get some indication of the impact that your cards made on the—ah—Doc's associates. You really cannot manage without sleep, sir. I know,” went on Jolly before Rollison could speak, “that you have every desire to be up and about, but I hope you will agree that for the time being it will be better to let things come to the boil—if I may use that simile. You will be much better placed to decide on your next step this afternoon, than you are now.”

Rollison looked at him, with his head on one side, and then inquired:

“In what circumstances will you wake me, Jolly?”

“In any justifiable emergency, sir.”

“All right,” said Rollison, and then yawned, looked out of the window again, and shook his head. “What they will do for sensation. Oh, Jolly.”

“Sir?”

“I think I see Ronsey, of the
Globe
down there.”

“Do you, sir?”

“Yes. He knows the East End better than most. If you can get at him without letting the other wolves know, ask him if he'll find out if there's been any reaction in the East End—whether he can find out if anything odd happened there last night. Promise him a story later, if he'll dig for us now.”

“I'll do that, sir,” said Jolly. “I think I am as eager as you to know what happened when your cards were discovered. Good night, sir.”

It was then just after nine o'clock.

It was a little after nine o'clock, at a house in Whitechapel, when a tall, lean man with a sneering twist to his lips, got out of bed and scratched his head and then went along the narrow passage to the front door. Newspapers were jutting through the letter box, and there were several letters. Still yawning, he began to pick the letters up, and found that one was just a visiting card. It was dark in the hall, and he couldn't see clearly, but he saw the drawing of the faceless man, and drew in a sharp, hissing breath.

His colour faded.

Half an hour later, he went out, and stepped into the first telephone kiosk. He called a number, and reported; and the man who answered him said: “That's the
fifteenth.”

“Fif-teen?”

“That's what I said.”

The man with the sneery twist to his lips said in a flat voice: “What will
he
say?”

“I don't know how he'll say it, but I know just what he'll say,” the other said. “He'll say that we've got to get the so-and-so, today. I—hold on a minute, the other phone's ringing, it might be him.”

The man waited, in the telephone kiosk, while a few children and several women passed him. It was a quiet, bright morning, with a few fleecy clouds high above the tiny grey houses in the narrow grey streets.

“Vic, you there?”

“Yeh.”

“We're to pick up that girl who's spread all over the front pages this morning. See her picture?”

“Yeh,” said Vic, “I've seen it. Want me to lay it on?”

“Yes,” said the man at the other end of the telephone, “and if I were you I wouldn't lose any time. She's at a flat in Shepherd Market, Number 39 …”

The lean-faced man listened, with his right eye screwed up against the smoke from his cigarette.