Introducing The Toff (17 page)

And while Frensham was staring at the unfamiliar figure, the Toff said gently: ‘Can’t you obey orders, Frensham?’

Frensham stared.

‘Good God –
Rollison!’

‘The same,’ said the Toff, and his voice hardened a little. ‘What are you doing here, Sonny Jim?’

In the gloom, Frensham’s expression was not easy to see.

‘I – oh, hang it, I thought I’d have a look round. You didn’t seem to take it in about Willows and Kellson –’

‘In short, you tried to see what I was thinking,’ said the Toff, as though he was fully satisfied. ‘It’s a bad habit, but I won’t say I’m sorry you’re here. Know this part well?’

‘I know the bridge, of course, and –’

‘Then you’ll know the nearest telephone box. Call Inspector McNab, will you, and tell him to come here, and to come right in. And then, if you’re not too tired, slip round to Gresham Terrace, and we’ll have a war talk.’

Frensham stared, and then grinned.

‘Right-o. I don’t come back here?’

‘Not unless you want to get hurt,’ said the Toff, and Frensham had the choice of two ways of taking it. He seemed cheerful as he swung away, while the Toff lifted the man whom Frensham had knocked out, and went back to the arena. Now it was over he was beginning to understand the strength of the odds against him.

And then the Toff began to move.

The police – assuming Frensham did go for them – would be here in twenty minutes, and he particularly wanted to talk to the little spokesman without interference from the police. He would have liked to talk with the bowler-hatted man – in fact, with the whole bunch of prisoners – but one in the ‘River Tavern’ was better than all five at Scotland Yard.

Hurrying, and without the need for silence, the Toff managed to get the little man to Winkle’s place in just over five minutes. There were back ways where no one could see that the Toff was carrying his man, and Winkle showed his usual placid front when he promised to look after the ‘bloke’. The Toff hurried back to Willow and Kellson’s warehouse, to be challenged as he reached the doors.

‘Who’s that?’

‘The Colonel,’ grinned the Toff, and Frensham stepped out of the shadows. He had obviously taken on himself the task of guard. ‘Have you been inside?’

‘No, I thought I’d better stay here. I fixed it with the police.’

‘Learning about those orders?’ asked the Toff. ‘Well, we’ll try a little foraging expedition, Mac won’t be here for another ten minutes.’

Frensham raised no objections. The Toff, although by no means sure that he could rely on the man, took a chance. He was always taking chances, and if occasionally they let him down they were far more often the inspiring factors of his successes.

They reached the alley corner where he had parked the first of Garrotty’s guards, and Frensham laughed aloud, but with some amazement. The man was conscious, but the sticking-plaster over his lips prevented him from talking. The Toff slipped the noose from his ankles, and Frensham urged the fellow along towards the warehouse.

By the packing-cases the Toff stopped again.

“There’s another friend here,’ he said, and proceeded to lean over the case, lugging the second gangster up, feet first. In the dim light Frensham’s face was a study.

‘Damn it, you didn’t –’

‘You’d be surprised what can be done.’ said the Toff cheerfully. ‘And here are a brace of Garrotty’s boys who’ll probably be deported although they’d rather live in an English prison for the time being. Ah – reinforcements!’

It was the squealing of brakes, then the heavy clumping of feet, that broke the silence. Supporting a man apiece, Frensham and the Toff waited. Anne’s fiancé seemed to be entering into the spirit of the thing, and his grin disappeared as McNab came up, with Sergeant Owen and three detectives. McNab stopped short, glaring at the couple. He did not know Frensham, and no man in the world would have recognized the Toff in that get up, until the Toff spoke.

‘Who telephoned?’ demanded the Inspector, and the Toff jollied him gently.

‘A friend of mine, McNab, after a shindy that would have warmed your heart.’

‘Rolleeson!’

‘Better and busier than ever,’ said the Toff. ‘There are several more prisoners inside, Mac, and I can promise you interesting revelations when you get them to the Yard. Come on, now, put a move on.’

McNab, Owen and one detective followed Rollison and Frensham through the warehouse. Garrotty and the masked door-keeper were still there, with the man the Toff had shot through the thigh.

But that was all.

Bowler Hat had gone; and the Toff realized first that
Frensham
had had an opportunity of releasing the man.

Had anyone else been near?

The Toff was watching Frensham, and the man’s expression did not change, he did not seem to be looking at Rollison apprehensively, as if he knew Rollison had expected to find an extra man. McNab, of course, had no opportunity of knowing that there was someone missing, and the Toff decided to keep his mouth closed for the time being.

He wished he had recognized Bowler Hat, but there was always the possibility that he would be able to get at the fellow through the girl. On the other hand the man he had paid to find out her address might have collected his half sovereign, and decided that it was easier to drink it than to follow the girl about. It would depend on his honesty of mind – which had nothing to do with his respect for the property of other people.

McNab looked round from the curtains. Frensham was against the wall; Owen and the other Yard man stared in astonishment.

‘Aweel,’ said McNab, ‘hoo’d ye do it, Rolleeson?’

‘As a matter of fact,’ said the Toff owlishly, ‘I felt a bit worried and I told them I was sending for McNab of the Yard. They looked, my Mac, like men preparing for the gallows.’

‘Och, they did, did they?’ demanded McNab suspiciously. He had known Rollison for many years, but had not yet been able to make sure when the man was serious or joking. ‘We’ll collect them. Who helped you?’

‘Mac!’ exclaimed the Toff reproachfully.

It was not until an hour later, when the crooks were lodged in Cannon Street, and Sir Ian Warrender was on the way to the Yard from his Enfield home – he had given orders to be called when any development out of the ordinary was reported – that McNab was convinced that the Toff had managed to do it single-handed. In fact, he was openly dubious when the Toff talked of the nine or ten who had skedaddled. Frensham could support the Toff there, and McNab looked as though he was fully prepared to think Frensham was lying too.

‘Aweel, if ye did, ye did. But, Rolleeson, ye should ha’ sent for me, we would ha’ had the whole body then.’

Rollison, lighting a cigarette, and sitting in McNab’s chair while the policeman kept standing, chuckled.

‘And they’d have been gone, Mac.’

‘Supposin’ they had? We could ha’ surrounded the warehouse by nights, and they’d have come again.’

That was possible, the Toff knew, but there was no reason why he should admit it.

‘Think so? Walls have ears, and every flatfoot in the cordon would have been located on the second night if not the first. Strike hard and hot when the chance comes, Mac. Waiting in this game will get you a bullet in the back, certainly not a brace of Garrotty’s men in the dock. Well, I’m off.’

‘Ye’ll stay to see Sir Ian again, mon! ‘

‘Give him my regards and regrets,’ said the Toff, who was still looking like a stevedore in his Sunday-best, ‘and tell him that I’m suffering from overwork after my recent illness, and the doctor ordered bed. So long.’

Chief-Inspector Horace McNab had long since given up trying to make the Toff do what he should. And McNab was prepared to admit that Rollison had pulled off a coup that would comprise the second big step towards the stopping of the activities of the Black Circle. The first, at the ‘Red Lion’, had also been the Toff’s doing.

McNab smiled, a, little reluctantly.’

‘Aweel, I’ve nae doot he’ll phone ye.’

‘I’ll lift the receiver off,’ said the Toff solemnly. ‘I need sleep, my Mac, and lots of it. Coming, young Frensham?’

Frensham went. A cab was passing the yard as they reached Parliament Street, and the Toff hailed it, directing the man to his flat. Frensham leaned back in the darkness of the taxi and said slowly: ‘Not so much of the “young Frensham”, Rollison. I –’

‘Not so much of the high horse,’ retorted the Toff. ‘If you’re going to start taking me seriously, we’ll dissolve partnership. Joking apart, your information was damned useful; I hope the next lot will be as good.’

Frensham scowled as he leaned forward.

‘Confound it, man, you don’t want any more?’

‘Don’t I? I told you earlier on that there are probably half a dozen places of assignation. Dragoli wasn’t there tonight, but that doesn’t mean he wasn’t somewhere else. This is a big thing, Frensham, and there are two points I commend to your attention. First, there were about a dozen present tonight. This organization is a lot stronger than that numerically.’

‘I suppose so.’ Frensham seemed a little grudging, and the Toff believed he was still annoyed. Genuinely, or because he was playing a part?

‘I know so,’ said the Toff, his voice hardening a little. ‘And there’s something else. A child could have got through that place tonight, knowing the password. I was not impressed by the level of the intelligence that made the precautions. It’s not up to Dragoli standard, and so –

Frensham started, everything forgotten but the inference in the Toff’s words.

‘But –’

‘No buts,’ said the Toff. ‘I think it’s quite possible that we’ve hit a false trail. It was far, far too easy. In fact, I’m prepared to swear that no cocaine will be found at the warehouse, and that Willow and Kellson will be mightily indignant when they hear that their place has been used by the gentry. No, I’m too tired to argue,’ he said, smiling a little. ‘We’ll sleep on it. Using my spare bed, or . . .?’

‘I’ve booked at the Regal,’ said Frensham. He seemed a little perturbed, and Rollison did not find it hard to reason why. Frensham, if he was genuine, had a great deal to learn about the way crime wars were waged.

‘Right-o – I’ll say good night.’

The Toff left the cab at Gresham Terrace, and went upstairs. But despite his protestations of weariness, he looked alert and full of beans when he reached his flat. He changed quickly, and in ten minutes he was dressed in silver greys and was looking at his reflection in the mirror. No trace of the stevedore remained.

It took him ten minutes more to leave the flat.

He had reason to believe that he might be watched, but as far as he could see, there was no one after him that night. He would not have been surprised to see Frensham, but the big man was gone.

The Toff took another cab, and presented himself, just before midnight, to Winkle.

The fat man was in the back parlour of the pub. His daughter was preparing a snack, and she looked up at Rollison with a wide smile. The Toff, not for the first time, was taken by the elfin beauty of the girl. She was small and slight, with a perfect complexion that it did not seem possible to retain in the East End. Her blue eyes were very large and clear.

She had no illusions now, about life. But she was grateful to the Toff, even though she held no romantic notions about him.

‘Hallo, folk,’ said Rollison cheerfully, and sat down at Winkle’s invitation. ‘I’m afraid this isn’t a social call. Where’s the boy-friend?’

‘Upstairs,’ said Winkle, who spoke as little as he could, and whom a stranger would have called surly in the extreme. ‘I had a messich, Mr. Rollison.’

The Toff’s eyes widened hopefully.

‘You did, eh? From . . .?’

‘The Weasel,’ said Winkle. ‘A pick-pocket.’ He made a habit of speaking out of East End slang when he was with the Toff, a tribute to the fact that the Toff came from the West, and therefore should not know the other language. ‘Here.’

He handed the Toff a slip of paper, on which was written:

Daisy Lee,

10 Randle Street,

Lambeth.

‘The spelling’s all right,’ said Rollison, ‘the Weasel must be educated, Wink,’

‘They do say,’ said Winkle with an effort, ‘he was eddicated at a publick skule, Mr. Rollison. You was wanting to see the man upstairs?’

‘I was,’ affirmed the Toff.

Half an hour afterwards he came down again, dissatisfied and puzzled. The little man, without his mask, proved to have monkey like features, a yellowish skin, and a pair of incredibly venomous eyes. But all the Toff’s methods of persuasion – and he knew plenty – failed to make the man talk. Methods used against a Londoner, or Garrotty, were useless against the stoicism of the East, and the Toff did not waste a great deal of time.

But he had picked a loser.

He went back to the flat, still cautiously; no one seemed to be watching him, but the Toff did not believe that Dragoli would let him go without being tailed. That suggested there was someone in a flat opposite on guard, and the Toff promised himself to investigate the next day.

And there was another investigation that he wanted to do before the next day.

If the police had not already aroused Messrs. Willow and Kellson, they would be at the offices first thing on the following morning. Rollison, with the help of a telephone directory, located them, by telephoning gentlemen of the same name and with the same initials. And he hardly knew whether to be surprised when he discovered that they were both at Willow’s house in St. John’s Wood. And, in response to the Toff’s urgent pleading, they agreed to see him if he called within half an hour.

Kellson had done the talking and had consulted Willow at every half a dozen words. Rollison had an impression that the man was a little apprehensive, but the Toff stuck to his first statement – that his business was of vital importance, and could not be conducted over the telephone.

A great deal had happened in a few hours; less than four had passed from the moment when the Toff had left the ‘River Tavern’ to when he rang at the bell of Willow’s house, in Dane Street, St. John’s Wood.