Salute the Toff (6 page)

The Toff said sharply: “Draycott's what?”

“Fair-headed. Almost blond, in fact.” And then the Toff said slowly: “He is, is he? Well, the poor beggar at the flat was as dark as I am, so Draycott probably isn't dead.”

 

 

Harrison, sitting on the edge of the bed, stared at the Toff as if he could not believe his ears, and then said clearly that he had never come across such nonsense. Why hadn't the Toff said that the dead man was dark? Fay would have been saved a lot of anxiety.

“It didn't occur to me,” said the Toff. “I'm sorry about Fay. However, it was
prima facie
evidence which failed us for once, but it makes the problem greater. Where is Draycott, if he's not dead and hasn't been here?”

“The Lord knows,” said Harrison. “What are we going to do now?”

“We'll wait for George's report—or was it Harry?—and then we'll get back to London. I hope,” added the Toff very slowly, “that we didn't make a mistake in letting the girls go off on their own. If I've been followed so freely, they might also have been.”

Harrison stared with increasing anxiety.

“Rollison, Fay's not in danger, is she?”

“I hope not,” said the Toff. “But I've committed a grave sin of omission. What time is it?”

“Half past seven.”

“I'll call Anthea,” said the Toff.

There was little delay on the call to Kensington, but Anthea did not answer. Jamie, her husband did. No, there had been nothing out of the ordinary at 1023 Bayswater Road, and the two girls were sharing a room. Was he quite sure? Hadn't he seen them when he had said good night to his Anthea?

“Oh, all right,” he said when the Toff insisted that he look in the room again. “But I wish you wouldn't make such a fuss, Rolly.”

He was away only for a few seconds, and then said: “Ay, they're both there and sleeping soundly. You don't want to disturb them, do you?”

“I do not,” said the Toff. “But I do want you to tell Fay—if you've reached the stage of calling her Fay—that there's evidence that Draycott isn't dead.”

Jamie Fraser promised that he would tell her the moment she awakened, and that he was very glad indeed. That earnest young Scotsman rang off, and the Toff put through another call to Bert's Gymnasium. He did not discuss the fiasco of that morning, but asked Bert to have two men watching the Bays-water Road house. Bert agreed with alacrity, and the Toff rang off.

They breakfasted well, and the Toff had his clothes valeted. By that time several of the men who had been looking for Lorne had reported – through the still apologetic Harry – that they had found no trace of him. By noon there was still no word, and the Toff could only assume that Lorne had left the city by car; it was unlikely that he would stay in Manchester – unless he wanted to contact with the man who had passed himself off as Draycott.

Rollison did not talk much on the way back to London, which they reached just after six o'clock. In the last ten minutes of the journey, by cab to Gresham Terrace, Harrison said with feeling: “Well, it looks to me as if you'd better get the police searching for Draycott, Rollison. Or get him found somehow.”

“With Draycott alive, our old friend
prima facie
turns up again,” said the Toff. “Draycott could have killed the man at the flat, and McNab will certainly think it likely.”

“I suppose you're going to wait for something to turn up?”

“Plenty will, without my waiting for it. In fact I expect there'll be something on the doorstep when we get to Gresham Terrace,” said Rollison.

There was a police constable, with a request that Mr. Rollison visit Scotland Yard at once, and would he please telephone Inspector McNab that he was on the way? The Toff said that he would, while Harrison decided to get back to his own flat.

The Toff reached Scotland Yard, and nodded and smiled at the many who recognised him there. He did not need to send his card in, for he had telephoned, and McNab had sounded impatient to see him. McNab shared an office with three other Chief Inspectors, but owing to holidays he was alone.

As tall as the Toff but for an inch, big and chunky, fair-haired although going grey, and with heavy features that could be – and often were – aggressively hostile, McNab was sitting at a desk with a pile of buff-coloured papers in front of him. The Toff saw him signing one of them as he opened the door, and then McNab looked up and pushed his chair back. His face cleared for a moment, and then he scowled. But he shook hands.

“Sit down, Rolleeson. I'm glad ye've got here. Where the de'il have ye been?”

“Right up to Manchester to stay at the Queen's,” said the Toff.

“Ach, don't play the fule, mon,” said McNab, and settled back in a swivel chair. “What have ye been doing?”

“Well, I'm not sure,” said the Toff, “but supposing you tell me why you're so anxious to see me first?”

“I'll do that,” said McNab, and pulled at his upper lip. “Why did ye lie to me about the body at Chelsea?”

“Did I lie?”

“Ye know damned well that ye did. Ye told me it was a body named Draycott, an' ye knew it wasn't.”

“Omniscient though I would like to be,” said the Toff, “I'm not. I knew Draycott lived there and there was a letter addressed to him in the pocket. I took too much for granted, but I acted in good faith, and lost no time in telling you about it.”

“And let it be understood that ye must make a habit o' that, Rolleeson. However, I'm hopin' that ye know who the dead man is.”

“I wish I did.”

“Noo listen,” said McNab earnestly; “don't keep things tae yereself, Rolleeson, that matter's too important for that. If ye knew the murdered man, tell me.”

“I still don't,” said the Toff. “Well, where's Draycott?” demanded McNab. The Toff smiled, knowing that was the main question which McNab wanted to put. McNab kept his features expressionless, save for his eyes; and those, blue and at times frosty, could not hide his disappointment as the Toff sadly shook his head.

“Mac, that wasn't worthy of you, but I don't know where he is. Oddly enough, I've been trying to find him, but he wasn't in Manchester.”

“What made ye think he was?”

“I'll tell you,” said the Toff.

There was little that he need keep to himself, except the fact that he might have sent for the police and given Lorne in charge. He told the rest of the story, including the remarkable affair of the man who had chosen to jump from an express train rather than be taken captive; and he was not surprised when McNab fastened on that as the most important angle.

“Draycott's playing some deep game,” said McNab, who had a habit at times of talking as if police work was a continual international rugby scrum, and at others of talking in the most astonishing of understatements. “That will explain arranging for someone to impersonate him at Manchester. But for a man t'kill himself rather than be caught—it's verra bad, Rolleeson.”

“For once,” said the Toff, “we are agreed.”

“I'd heard of the affair,” said McNab. He had been advised by the Crewe police, and was sending Detective-Sergeant Wilson – who was usually his
aide
– to try to identify the body. But, “If we didna know him, Wilson isna likely to. Well, now, I've seen Draycott's fiancée and her family, an' they're reluctant to talk much. It wouldna surprise me,” added McNab, “if they knew that Draycott was hiding from us.”

The Toff said slowly: “It could be.”

“It's shouting at us. Draycott killed the man at the flat, and was hoping it wouldna be discovered until he had an alibi. But something's gone wrong wi' his arrangements, an' he'll need a mighty good alibi to save him now.”

“And I thought,” said the Toff, “that an Englishman was always innocent until he was proved guilty. However, I wasn't referring to Draycott's part in this. I meant that the Harvey family could know something about it.”

“What do ye know of them?” demanded McNab.

“Oddly enough, I haven't met them.”

“If I believed all ye tell me, ye've seen no one in the case,” said McNab sourly. “I wish I could believe ye more, Rolleeson, but ye tell such lies.”

“At which I should be affronted,” said the Toff. “Yet I'm not. Tell me more of the Harveys.”

McNab had not a lot to say. Mr. Mortimer Harvey was a wealthy man, who had recently retired from – and yet still took an interest in – the Mid-Provincial Building Society. A prominent society, and while he had been director Harvey had received a salary of some ten thousand pounds a year. McNab, for some reason, was always interested in salaries when they reached what he privately considered unjustifiable proportions.

There was the daughter, Phyllis; a son, Gerald; and the wife, whom McNab dismissed as of no importance. The son was away from England.

The Toff heard the story, leaned back in his chair, and said reflectively:

“And you think the Harveys know something about Draycott's whereabouts?”

“It wouldna surprise me.”

“I suppose Draycott met them in the way of business?”

“Ay, in a way. When Draycott worked for his uncle, Harvey was by way of being a friend of the family, and that's how they met. Graham Draycott—the uncle—was a much bigger agent than his nephew, until he went bankrupt. And thereafter it seems that Draycott had some difficulty in getting Harvey's approval of his courtship.” McNab rolled the word ‘courtship' round his tongue, as if to savour it fully.

“You haven't missed much, Mac. What are you doing about it?”

“I'm having the girl watched.”

“In the hope that she'll lead you to Draycott?”

“There could be less likely things than that,” said McNab aggressively. The Toff hastily agreed that many less likely things could happen.

“Don't you know the dead man?”

“Not yet.”

“And you've found no motive?”

“I've had less than twenty-four hours,” protested McNab. “I canna pairform mireecles, even if ye think ye can. All the same,” added McNab more quietly, “the part the man Lorne is playing is peculiar. Would ye put him down as a man who's used to crime?”

“I would.”

“And he appears to employ a number of men,” said McNab. “It's a complication I didna want, Rolleeson. I was thinking it was a nice cut-and-dried murder with a personal motive. But it looks as if it might be bigger than that.”

“Again we are agreed,” said the Toff.

He left soon afterwards and walked back to Gresham Terrace.

It was the first time since he had admitted Fay to the flat that he had been left alone for more than a few minutes. He intended to spend at least an hour at Gresham Terrace, trying to grapple with the many problems, and particularly the many apparently disconnected angles of the affair. On the one hand it looked a self-contained crime: Draycott having murdered a man at his flat and now being intent only on escaping from the police. The Lorne angle widened it; the man who had jumped from the train made it yet wider, and the fact that to McNab it seemed that the Harveys were hiding something.

Rollison reached 55 Gresham Terrace and went upstairs slowly, his mind already working smoothly and the various factors appearing
en masse,
ready to be sorted out and as nearly as possible put in their right categories. But he was doomed to disappointment, for he found that Jolly had returned, and that there was a visitor.

She was in the small lounge, and: “She has been waiting for half an hour, sir, although I was compelled to advise her that I had no certain knowledge of the likely time of your return.”

“Patience being a virtue, she's none the worse of that,” said the Toff, and then, a little hesitantly: “It isn't Madam Litinov, Jolly?”

“In view of your freely expressed determination to have nothing more to do with the lady, sir, I should not have admitted her had she called.” Jolly was dry and impersonal, and yet his eyes were smiling. “It is a Miss Harvey, sir.”

The Toff stared.

“Harvey?”
A pause. “Sure?”

“I did not have the temerity to ask for proof, sir, but that is the name on her card.”

And the Toff took the card, which told him that Miss Phyllis Harvey lived at 9 Park Street, St. John's Wood, raised one eyebrow above the other in silent contemplation of Jolly.

“I'll see to her, Jolly. And by the way, does the name Draycott mean anything to you?”

“I cannot recall it, sir.”

“I was afraid not,” said the Toff. “All right, we'll do this in style. Announce me, and keep your ears open.”

 

 

To say that the Toff was surprised was only partly true. He was at once surprised and pleased and puzzled. He had wanted to meet Draycott's fiancee, and had wondered how it could be contrived.

He had another surprise as he saw the girl.

Harrison had done her much less than justice. Nothing had prepared the Toff for so lovely a creature, and yet as he shook hands he wondered whether Harrison was not right after all; for Phyllis Harvey had a Madonna-like beauty of feature, with eyes large and blue and appealing, with soft lips barely touched with lipstick, cheeks a creamy pink and white which appeared to owe little to rouge, and dark hair drawn back severely from her broad forehead and set in plaits. A beautiful picture, and yet as expressionless as one drawn to scale and not by inspiration. Even when she spoke the Toff gained an impression that she was speaking carefully and deliberately although her voice was low-pitched and could be called ‘sweet'. She was of medium height, and by no means thin. She wore a black ‘cocktail gown'. She was hatless, and had a sable stole drooping back from her shoulders.

The Toff believed that she took drugs; the irises of her eyes were strangely minute, and her manner strengthened the suspicion.

“I do hope,” she said, “that I am not disturbing any of your arrangements, Mr. Rollison?”

The Toff assured her that his arrangements were always flexible. She did not smile, but went on: “Thank you. You will, of course, guess why I am here?”

She was talking like a book, thought the Toff; a textbook and not one for an advanced class. He had a peculiar impression that she was speaking as if she had rehearsed a lesson and that every word needed a conscious effort of memory. She was the reverse of natural – and so the reverse of Fay Gretton.

“Is ‘guess' the word?” asked the Toff. “It's about Mr. Draycott, I take it?”

“That is so.” She was silent for a moment, and her lips quivered. Then: “I am so distressed, Mr. Rollison. I hardly know what to do, nor whom to consult. I was advised by a friend that you would most likely be able to help me.”

“Who was it?”

“I—” She hesitated, as if the question had caught her unawares and she had not rehearsed an answer; if that was so she made an impromptu quickly and convincingly: “I hardly like to mention names, but it was a friend of my father's, a Mr. Seward.”

“Ah!” said the Toff. He knew a Geoffrey Seward, and Seward lived in St. John's Wood. It was as likely a way of introduction as any, and he passed it by. “And what can I do?”

“I don't know,” Phyllis Harvey said, and she began to talk swiftly, yet without feeling; from time to time she paused, and her lips quivered. The Toff wondered whether he had misjudged her earlier manner, and whether it was explained not by careful rehearsal, but by the fact that she was distraught.

She told him that her fiancé had left London unexpectedly, and without warning her, but that on the following day he had telephoned and told her that he might be kept from London for several weeks. Seeing that he was planning to be married within ten days, that startled the Toff. But, said Phyllis Harvey, James Draycott made it clear that the matter was one in which his personal safety was threatened. He had told her no more than that, but asked her to be patient. Only when she had insisted had he given her an address where she could contact him in emergency.

The Toff was sharply interested.

“And you have that address?”

“It is that which causes me so much distress,” said Phyllis Harvey slowly. “After—after the visit from the police, and the tragic discovery at James's flat, I feel torn two ways. Justice demands that I advise the police where to find him, but my personal loyalty says otherwise. What
must
I do?”

“How far are you prepared to trust me?”

“That is a difficult question. I think that I could safely say that I am prepared to abide by your decision. If you think I should tell the police I will do so.”

The Toff said sharply: “You think Draycott committed the murder, don't you?”

For a moment he wondered whether his sharpness would do more harm than good. The girl opened her mouth with a quick intake of breath, showing him for the first time that her teeth were as perfect as the rest of her features. Her eyes showed she was afraid, but it might be mental fear, anguish that her silence had forced on her.

“Why should you suggest that?”

“I didn't suggest it, I asked a question.”

“It—it isn't wholly true,” she said, and he breathed more easily when he saw that he had not closed her up. He imagined that she could be obstinate. More softly, he said: “I think it must be, Miss Harvey. Either you believe in him or you don't. What reason have you for thinking that he committed it?”

“I—I hardly know.”

“Try to think,” urged the Toff.

He was conscious then of a peculiar fact: he was out of patience with Phyllis Harvey, and it was not often he was out of patience with a beautiful woman. Her manner irritated him, although he tried to persuade himself that it was because he was tired.

“Well, I know that he has been—how
shall
I put it?—very worried at times. There has always been something which he has not discussed with me, and that made him seem” – she paused –
“afraid.
And it was a week ago that he received a letter while I was with him, at his office. He said: ‘I'll kill the swine before I've finished.'”

“And then!” asked the Toff, for she stopped.

“He laughed it off,” said Phyllis Harvey. “He said it was a lot of nonsense. It was some trouble with a business transaction, in which I believe he had been bested.”

“By whom?”

“I have no idea.”

“It was a large one?”

“I inferred so.”

“I see,” said the Toff, and he stood up, his hand thrust deep in his trouser pocket. “Well, my advice is that you do not give the police the address for another forty-eight hours, Miss Harvey, but that you do tell me.”

“I will do that,” she said.

She had come prepared, for she took a card from her handbag, a silver chain affair, and handed it to him. The Toff glanced at the address, which ran:

 

ALLEN COTTAGE, HURLEY

HANTS.

 

“Thank you,” said the Toff, and as she stood up he assured her that if it were possible he would find the precise truth before the police learned where to find Draycott. In the same mechanical manner with which she had started that peculiar interview she thanked him, and he showed her to the door, then hurried after her so that he could get her a taxi. She gave her father's St. John's Wood address. The Toff went back, to find that Jolly had prepared sandwiches and coffee. They talked while he ate.

“And so, Jolly, we come to the most peculiar fact of all.”

“Through Miss Harvey, sir?”

“Yes. Haven't you seen it?”

“Not yet, sir,” admitted Jolly. “If you will give me a moment or two for further consideration—”

“I'll tell you, and watch the effect with gratification.” The Toff bit a sandwich, and went on: “She greeted me by saying that of course I guessed why she had come. But there was no reason why I should guess, as far as I was concerned. No one except Miss Gretton, Mr. Harrison, Bert—and we can count Bert out—and the police know that I was aware that Draycott was missing. So why should Phyllis think I should guess?”