Accuse the Toff (16 page)

Many of the problems were settling themselves.

Subconsciously he realised that and, if he had not yet learned why a Commando had run amok or another man had pretended to, the threads were being disentangled, the worst confusion was in the human problem only then impressing itself on his mind.

The girl did not answer, and he repeated: ‘Why couldn't you open it, Patrushka?'

‘I—daren't,' she breathed. ‘I hadn't the key and if it's forced it will explode and kill anyone within a dozen yards. Brett boasted about that; he didn't mean anyone to get that evidence. I had to get the key as well as the case.'

Then she stopped and it was her turn to see dismay on Rollison's face. He stood staring at her, hard-eyed and with a cold hand gripping his vitals. He was thinking of Grice trying to force open the case.

 

 

‘What is it?' demanded Patrushka. ‘What's the matter?' As Rollison did not answer immediately, she leaned forward and stretched out a hand. ‘Who has the case? she breathed. ‘Where is it?'

In spite of the sudden surge of fear for Grice and others at the Yard and the total unexpectedness of the news, Rollison did not mention the police. He turned to the door, reaching it in one stride across the tiny room, saying: ‘Friends of mine are going to try to open it.'

‘They mustn't do that!' cried the girl. ‘It will be fatal, tell them to keep it closed!'

‘Fatal in two ways, yes,' said Rollison. ‘I'll be back.'

There was no light on the landing or downstairs in the little hall and he stumbled on the first stair, slipping but saving himself from falling by clutching the handrail. He made noise enough to make June Lancing call out in anxious inquiry and for light to shine suddenly as a door opened below. Mrs. Mee's voice came upwards urgently: ‘Who's that. What's happening?'

Rollison went down the rest of the stairs swiftly, calling as he went.

‘Where's the nearest telephone. Is it far away?'

‘There's a kee-osk outside Green's, the butcher's,' Mrs. Mee told him, staring at his strained face. ‘You can get there in ten minutes, sir.'

‘Too far,' said Rollison briefly. ‘Isn't there one at a private house?' He had the front door open by then and the woman hurried agitatedly towards him.

‘Oh, sir, please mind the blackout, they make a fuss.' She pushed the door to firmly and then went on: ‘Mr. Yateman
has
got one, but he's a miserable old—I mean he doesn't like the neighbours using it.'

‘I'm not a neighbour,' retorted Rollison. ‘Where is his house? This is urgent,' he added sharply as he pulled at the door.

His manner more than his words made her allow the door to open although light streamed into the street. Hurriedly she told him that Mr. Yateman lived two doors along on the same side of the road, that he was rather deaf.

Rollison reached the small gate before he paused. In his anxiety to get word to Grice he had overlooked the possibility that the girl might decide to take to flight again now that she had said so much. The approach of a dark figure in policeman's uniform helped to solve the difficulty.

‘Put that light out,' began the constable and the door closed abruptly.

Rollison spoke on the man's words, without preamble.

‘Go in there, constable and make sure that the young lady upstairs stays in her room—Mrs. Mee will tell you which young lady. I'm speaking for Superintendent Grice,' he added, then pushed past the policeman and reached the gate of the second house away. Visions of waiting and fuming on the doorstep faded for the door was opened quickly upon his ring; the faintest of faint lights showed a little man in silhouette.

‘May I use your telephone, please,' said Rollison, and added the
open sesame.
‘Police business.'

‘Eh?' said the little man, barring his path.

So he was deaf, thought Rollison and drew a deep breath preparatory to shouting, then thought better of it and leaned forward, putting his lips close to the man's right ear.

‘Telephone—urgent,' he said clearly.

‘Oh, no you don't,' said the deaf Mr. Yateman. ‘I won't be bothered by being called at this time of night to let people use the telephone. I—'

‘
Police!'
declared Rollison harshly.

‘Police!' echoed Mr. Yateman, backing a pace. ‘Oh, I see. Well, I suppose you'd better use it, then. Close the door,' he added, complainingly, ‘you'll need the light on, I suppose.'

He indicated the instrument in the hall and the Toff dialled Whitehall 1212, getting no immediate connection and fuming at the delay. When he thought dispassionately he considered the probability that Grice had already made the effort and, if Brett's declaration to the girl about the case were true, then there was little hope for the Superintendent or those who had been with him. Such a disaster would be too great and unexpected; the Toff found it inconceivable but the
brr-brr
of the ringing tone and the long time that it took for the answer made him fear that disaster had befallen the Yard. Surely there could be no other reasonable explanation of the delay? He dialled again, as Yateman made a
tcha-tcha
noise with his lips and then a cool voice announced: ‘Scotland Yard speaking, can I help you?'

‘It's Richard Rollison here,' said the Toff quickly, his forehead cold with perspiration. ‘Get every line you can working for a call for Superintendent Grice. Tell him that Rollison says that the black case must be kept closed until I've seen him. It must be. Is that clear?' ‘Black case, sir?' queried the operator. ‘The little black one that I gave him.' ‘I'll do what you ask at once, sir. Will you hold on?' ‘I will,' said Rollison, oblivious to further
tcha-tchas
from Yateman and also to the fact that he retained the blanket which was about his shoulders and also dangling to his feet, likely to trip him if he moved again. A clock struck half-past eight; and the waiting seemed interminable.

 

That the case remained unopened as late as eight o'clock that evening was against all Grice's inclinations. It would have been forced at a much earlier hour had it not offered difficulties which Grice himself had found insuperable. He had sent for Sergeant MacAdam whose speciality was the opening of recalcitrant locks and the dismantling of complicated mechanisms. The sergeant soon admitted himself temporarily beaten and asked permission to take it to his workroom.

‘I'll come with you,' Grice said.

That had been at three o'clock in the afternoon when the paper on and about the case had been thoroughly tested for fingerprints; it had yielded several, one set of a woman's fingers. Another set of prints belonged to a certain Charley Day who had a lengthy police record, always associated with crimes of moderate violence.

A call had been put out for Charley Day immediately.

Then other news had come in.

Grice, a reasonable man in most things, did not want the case opened except in his presence and, when he heard of the murder at Victoria and the message from Rollison, he went to the apartment house himself, leaving instructions for work on the black case to be suspended. At Victoria he found the local police coping with Peveril who was insisting that he had urgent business and must be off at once. His blustering served only to stiffen Grice's manner and the Superintendent told Peveril acidly that he would be allowed to go only when the police were satisfied that he knew nothing of the murder; meanwhile his flat would be searched.

Peveril raved and stormed and finally lost his self-control enough to aim a blow at a sergeant. Grice snapped: ‘That's more than enough. Take him to Cannon Row, sergeant, charged with attempting to impede the police in the course of their duty.'

The self-styled solicitor was led away, becoming so violent that he was handcuffed before being put into a taxi and taken to the police cells in the station adjoining Scotland Yard. Grice did not set too much store by the show of violence but gave his men instructions to search the two-roomed apartment carefully, even to raising the carpets and examining the floorboards. While that was being done, photographers and fingerprint men were busy in the bathroom and the doors of the other apartments while Grice had a short session with the police-surgeon.

During those diversions, Grice completely forgot the black case but the nimble-fingered MacAdam, who had it on the bench, kept glancing at the clock and hoping that Old Gricey would not be long; the case presented a challenge which the sergeant was anxious to take up. He even went so far as to finger it once or twice and peer at the tiny slit which appeared to be all that there was for a lock. He put it down when a colleague came in with a watch battered after a case of robbery with violence; the watch had to be taken to pieces and so the case lay untouched.

Grice was longer at Peveril's apartment than he expected and did not get away until nearly six o'clock. He went to Gresham Terrace but Rollison had left.

The only things found in Peveril's bureau that proved of interest were some photographs with names beneath them: amongst them was an old, nearly bald, thin-faced but handsome man, familiar to many economists and business experts as Lancelot Brett. Another was a partner of Brett in several business enterprises, Sir Gregory Lancaster. A third was of a fair-haired man in uniform, smiling and looking very different from Lancelot Brett, although he was Brett's son, Lionel. A fourth was of a girl, a personable-looking girl, who was named – on the photograph – ‘Patrushka Tonesco.' Grice frowned at that and stared hard for Tonesco was a Rumanian name and he had an obsession about aliens: he wondered why the Russian ‘Patrushka' should be allied to ‘Tonesco' and then passed on to the next photograph, one of Jacob Ibbetson. He looked plump, smiling, the picture of a good-natured and amiable man of the world. There were other photographs and Grice selected one of them and nodded slowly.

‘Found something, sir?' asked the sergeant with him at the Yard where he was going through Peveril's effects before interviewing the man.

‘Isn't that the dead man?' asked Grice and held up a head-and-shoulders photograph of Fred who had died in the bath. The sergeant nodded, frowned and reflected.

‘Mr. Rollison said that Peveril was with him all the time, didn't he?'

‘Ye-es,' said Grice reluctantly.

‘Of course, sir, Mr. Rollison has been known to make misleading statements, hasn't he?'

‘Has he?' asked Grice, non-commitally and passed on to the next and last photograph. A fair-headed, youngish man in lounge clothes, good looking and yet by no means handsome, with a smile which leapt out of the photograph and seemed to make a personal appearance in the Superintendent's roomy office, peered up silently at Grice.

‘Nice-looking boy,' said the sergeant, breathing heavily down Grice's neck. ‘Isn't he, sir?'

‘Yes,' admitted Grice and read aloud from beneath the photograph: ‘Gerald Paterson. H'm. Take these, sergeant, and check them all in Records. Bring me any papers we may have about any of them. Not that I expect a lot.'

‘Are you going to see Peveril now, sir?'

‘Shortly,' said Grice. ‘I'll be in MacAdam's room if I'm wanted in the next half-hour. Ring the canteen and ask them to send me a cup of tea and some sandwiches there, will you?'

He went eagerly upstairs to MacAdam's workshop to find the man, with a watch-glass screwed into his right eye, bending over a jewelled timepiece.

‘Wait a minute,' said MacAdam without looking up. Then: ‘Who is it? Oh, sorry, sir.' He put the watch down hastily and the glass dropped from his eye, to be caught expertly. ‘Come to have another go at the case, sir?'

‘That's right,' said Grice.

‘I've had a look at her,' confessed the expert. ‘A beautiful job. I've never seen anything quite like it but I'll have it opened before I'm finished.' He picked up the black case and some delicate-looking instruments, more befitting a surgeon's case than a mechanic's outfit, and began to work. He concentrated for fifteen minutes while Grice had tea and sandwiches; by then it was nearly seven o'clock.

The telephone rang at seven with a summons from the Assistant Commissioner who wanted to see the Superintendent immediately. Grice scowled and MacAdam looked hopefully at him.

‘Shall I carry on with it, sir?'

‘No,' said Grice, slowly and obstinately. ‘I won't be long. Wait for me, Mac, will you?' He went out, aware of MacAdam's darkling thoughts but in no way perturbed by them, and hurried to the AC's office. There he gave a full report on the Jameson case: even Grice had almost forgotten that Jameson had been in since early in the affair which had started from an attempted mass murder in Chiswick.

The AC kept him nearly an hour: he was finishing the interview when Rollison was being given hot coffee in the house next door to Mrs. Mee, just before going to the girl. Grice was frowning when he left the AC, who asked for more results and questioned the wisdom of letting Rollison do just what he wanted. Then he turned his footsteps eagerly towards the workroom, anxious to get busy on the box which was defying MacAdam's efforts so stoutly but which MacAdam would certainly contrive to open sooner or later.

He was at the door of the workroom when a man called: ‘Mr. Grice—excuse me, sir, there's some news about the Jameson case.'

‘What is it?' Grice asked swiftly.

He received a report, none of it very clear, on something of what had happened near Canal Cottage. Rollison's part was not emphasised, although it was made clear that Rollison had been perilously close to being drowned, together with a girl so far unnamed. Grice played with the idea of going to Wembley at once but decided that he would be wise to interrogate Peveril and to get the case open before seeing or worrying further about the Toff. Nevertheless, he was pre-occupied when he rejoined MacAdam who picked up the case eagerly.

The sergeant was past wondering why Old Gricey was so anxious to be present when the little case was opened but took it for granted that it would contain something of particular importance.

MacAdam was a man running to flesh, of medium height, middle-aged and with a small bald patch on a head surrounded by frizzy, grey hair. His round face was almost cherubic and he was deservedly popular at the Yard.

He began work again intently.

The case continued to baffle him but he did not lose patience and Grice felt only slightly exasperated. Neither of them dreamed of what was happening at Wembley, nor of the conversation between Rollison and the girl. None of them knew that as MacAdam eased back from the case and wiped his forehead, the girl was saying: