Here Comes the Toff (11 page)

The man who opened the door was known as Mr. Brown. He was mufflered up as he usually was, but his glasses were missing, for Ritzy and the other man knew him as Kohn as well as Brown, wherein they had an advantage over Benson.

“You've got her?” said Kohn, and Ritzy laughed.

“She'll be round in the morning.” He was smiling; a disarmingly attractive man, Ritzy Martin nearly always created a good impression. “All ready for you, Boss.”

“Tomorrow's too late,” said Kohn.

It was difficult to rouse the girl, but it had to be done, for Kohn was not a man to argue with. Some twenty minutes after she had entered the house she opened her eyes. Her head was throbbing, and her throat was sore, but otherwise she felt no ill-effects of the drug which she had breathed in the car. She managed to struggle to her feet from the settee on which she was lying, and as she did so she saw the dark eyes of Leopold Kohn.

Something in them frightened her.

“You and I are going to talk,” said Kohn. His voice was cold, and the girl flinched.

She said: “This is outrageous. I …”

Kohn leaned forward and brought the palm of his hand across her face. It was abrupt, brutal, entirely unexpected. She swayed backwards, and the red mark of his hand showed clearly on her cheek. Her eyes were narrow, but there was stubbornness and spirit as well as fear in them.

“Speak when I tell you,” said Kohn. “You visited Paul Renway's home last night.”

“And if I did …”

“Don't talk back!” His lips tightened as he struck her again, and she nearly lost her balance. “Just do as you're told. You talked with Wrightson, your fiancé. He had been visited by a man named Rollison earlier in the evening, and he probably talked to you about it.”

“I—had no idea.” She lied, and intended to lie, although she was cold with a fear of things she did not understand.

“You'll remember differently,” said Kohn.

He struck her again until her head was burning and tears filled her eyes, but not until the glowing end of a cigarette touched her arm did she give way. It was unbearable, an incredible thing, but she knew this man would go to any lengths of persuasion; lying served no further purpose.

Kohn listened to her recital, his lips still taut, until he knew just what Wrightson had told her of his conversation with Rollison. The girl was half-fainting when she had finished; in an hour she seemed to have aged years.

Kohn had interrogated her alone; now he touched a bell, and the taller of her captors entered.

“Put her to sleep,” Kohn said. “I shan't want her again.”

There was real terror in Phyllis Bailey's eyes as the roughneck pressed a pad over her mouth, and the sickly smell from it went through her nostrils and she felt her senses going. She tried to struggle, but she was powerless; her last conscious thought was that she might never wake up again. The abruptness of it all had a nightmarish horror.

Kohn laughed as the man, Billy to his friends, carried her out as effortlessly as he would a child.

Ten minutes later Kohn left the Leaning Street house and returned to the flat at Arch Mansions. The flat was empty and it was later before Irma returned, later still when he had finished what he had to tell her. She was smoking a cigarette in a long holder, and her eyes were narrowed as she listened. At last: “So Rollison knows about as much as we thought he did, and nothing more. Is it worth keeping the girl?”

“For the time being, yes,” said Kohn. “Wrightson will have to be brought in, or he will make a nuisance of himself, which would not do. Afterwards” – he smiled thinly and shrugged his shoulders – “we will do what is most convenient. She would not recognize me—although she might remember Mr. Brown – and Wrightson will not see me. But we will not pronounce a verdict yet, my dear, we will wait on events.”

Irma smiled at him through a haze of smoke, although she knew the verdict he spoke of would be one of life or death. That mattered less than the fact that he was demonstrating a ruthless efficiency likely to make the Toff think hard.

“It sounds all right, Leo. But don't take what you've learned about Rollison at its face value. He's smarter than you realize.”

“I think,” said Kohn softly, “that you are at once inclined to overrate Rollison and to underrate me, my dear. We have been co-operating for a long time. Have you ever known me make a serious error?”

“No-o,” said Irma as softly. “But you've never met Rollison before. He's not easy, Leo. How many attempts have we made on his life? Three, including that fool Wray's attempt to run him down in Aldgate. He's got away without any trouble each time, and he's sent you one of those visiting cards to mock you.”

Kohn shrugged. He was looking more self-satisfied than when he had received the Toff's card, for he had had time to tell himself that he was being unnecessarily worried, and that Rollison was endeavouring to use a bluff as a weapon. His pale face and somewhat ascetic looking expression, were not those of a man utterly devoid of scruple, with many murders on his conscience. It seemed incredible that he was the same mufflered and disguised “Mr. Brown” who had tortured Phyllis Bailey.

“I am really not alarmed, my dear. Rollison escaped tonight, but he will by now be worried. Very worried, unless I'm considerably mistaken. And there will come a time when his luck will fail him.”

“I wonder,” said Irma. She stood up abruptly and stepped to the window, looking out into the street below. “I've an unpleasant feeling that he knows more than we think, Leo. You haven't known him after you before; you don't know what he's like. As for worrying him—that's nonsense. Nothing ever does. And it's easy to call it luck, but he gets away with it so often that there must be some other explanation. He's uncanny, and” – she shivered, although the room was warm – “I wish it was over.”

“You're losing your nerve,” said Kohn softly. “That won't do, my dear.”

“It's this continual waiting—it's always worse when he's doing nothing, or when we think he's doing nothing.”

Kohn said quietly: “He thinks he's doing something. He just doesn't know where to start. We'll have Wrightson safe before tomorrow's out, and after that Rollison will be helpless. Wrightson might have picked up information that could be damaging; it's not safe to leave him loose. Get to bed, my dear. Don't worry about anything except doing what I tell you, and doing it quickly.”

She stared at him, and there was a touch of annoyance in her manner.

“I think you said I co-operate, Leo. Don't forget that's the basis we work on. I don't take orders.”

For a moment it looked as if he was going to force an issue, and his eyes were hard. She out-stared him, the smoke curling from her lips, one hand at her waist. There was insolence, and a challenge in her manner, and the Toff would have been delighted had he seen this evidence of a coming quarrel among thieves.

The tension broke.

“Of course, of course,” said Kohn. “We're both a little on edge, my dear, that's all. I …”

And then he stopped, and she swung round towards the door, for the front bell rang sharply. Kohn slipped his right hand into his pocket as he stepped towards it, evidence of his nerves being in bad shape despite his words. But there was no one outside when he looked on to the landing.

There was something on the door.

A card, one of the Toff's, with the absurd little drawings at their rakish angle, and in ink the words: “
We won't be long now, will we, Leo
?”

 

 

It was a remarkable fact that the Toff contrived to arrange the arrival of his cards to coincide with the exact moments they would have the most effect. He called it luck, although in truth it was his remarkable ability to judge the psychological moment.

That night he had sent his card – via Jolly – as an acknowledgment of the latest attempt to kill him, while among other things he had done before retiring was to arrange with his garage for the provision of another Frazer-Nash until his own was in running order again.

He felt satisfied, up to a point.

Had he known anything of the disaster which had overtaken Phyllis Bailey, he would not, however, have been so satisfied with himself.

 

Phyllis's parents were worried when she did not come down to breakfast the next morning, but a telephone call purporting to come from a friend set their minds at rest. Phyllis worked in a study which she shared with a friend, and occasionally spent the night there.

Wrightson might have been worried, but he knew she was busy and was not really surprised when she did not ring him that morning. He wondered whether she had enjoyed her evening, and he was still wondering when the telephone-bell rang at last. It was after dark, and he had contemplated going out.

A strange voice greeted him and some twenty seconds later he was told that Phyllis had fallen down a flight of stairs and twisted her ankle. Would he go to see her? She was with friends at 28 Abbott Road, Highgate.

“I'll be there in half an hour,” said Wrightson promptly.

It was an optimistic claim, but he was in his car within five minutes of getting the message and speeding towards Highgate. The accident sounded trivial, but Phyllis was not likely to send a message to alarm him, and probably when he found her he would discover the injuries much worse. He was even prepared to find them disastrous. Luck, and two policemen who failed to see his number, enabled him to reach Highgate without trouble, and he was knocking on the door of 28 Abbott Road just inside his time limit.

It was one of a hundred terrace houses, all of which were of the same, drab grey and he told himself that it was one of the most distressing suburban streets he had been in for a long time. He even wondered what Phyllis had been doing there.

There was no immediate reply to his knock, and the silence and the gloom inside the house irritated him. He knocked again, and a moment later a light was switched on in the hall. The door opened and a thick-set, florid-faced man with a heavy moustache peered at him. His voice was that of the man who had telephoned, although now it seemed harsher and less educated.

“Mr. Wrightson? I'm glad yer've come. Come in, do.”

Wrightson stepped through.

“How is she?”

He did not see the expression on the man's face, for Jake Benson was behind him, closing the door. It was a leer; and would have warned Jim Wrightson of impending trouble.

“Not so bad, mister, not so bad. She's upstairs.”

Wrightson frowned, but started upstairs quickly. There was no light in the house apart from the hall, and no sound but the footsteps of the two men. Wrightson was puzzled, for it was an unlikely place for Phyllis to come to; and he had not liked the look of the man.

“In here,” said Benson.

He switched on a landing-light and opened a door. Wrightson stepped into the room, and found himself looking at a few empty chairs, a deal table and half a dozen wall texts of the hell-fire variety. He swung round quickly, his eyes alarmed.

“What the devil's this? …”

It was not until then that he saw the gun in Benson's hand.

For a moment he was too stupefied to act or think, and before he had recovered himself Benson drove a fist viciously into the pit of his stomach. Wrightson groaned and doubled up, and the butt of the revolver cracked on his head, a roaring filled his ears.

He dropped heavily.

He was still unconscious when Benson and Ritzy took him from Abbott Road to Leeming Street, by car, and although he could not know it, locked him in the room next to Phylfis Bailey's.

Leopold Kohn was having an easy run.

 

The Toff knew nothing of these things when they occurred.

He saw no reason at all to suspect that Wrightson or his girl was in any danger, but he did believe Renway was likely to run into trouble before long. He was particularly anxious to keep an eye on the man, and for the time being concentrated on that.

Consequently he was at the So-So Club on the night after Phyllis Bailey had been kidnapped, and about the time that Jim Wrightson was being knocked out.

Irma had her fiancé were at the Club. The Toff had followed Renway from the Park Terrace house earlier in the evening and seen him collect Irma from the Marble Arch flat. They had dined at the Embassy at a table where he could see them and they could see him, but as he was with a lady of uncertain reputation even Irma was prepared to believe him to be on pleasure bent. At ten o'clock they left for the So-So, and by then the Tuff was bored with his companion. She left him, disappointed and angry.

The So-So was a night club typical of a dozen others, and he had long since exhausted all the interest they had for him. The clientele was mainly composed of youngsters hardly breeched and old folk like Renway with more money than sense. The Toff did not dance, although many hopeful glances were sent towards him, and he wondered whether it was worth while waiting. The So-So Club was above reproach; Irma and Renway were there simply for pleasure, and the only satisfaction to be derived was the knowledge that Irma knew he was there simply to watch her.

It was one o'clock, ahead of his quarries, left the Club.

He did not think he was observed as he guided the nose of his hired Frazer-Nash some fifty feet behind their taxi. The cab took a long route to Arch Mansions, where Irma got out. Renway did not go up to her flat, possibly a significant fact, suggesting that Irma was holding him at arm's length.

The Toff could see no benefit likely to come from visiting Irma or Kohn again that night, and he certainly had no desire to follow Paul Renway home. Had he done so, he might have been saved the shock which came next morning, but he was not to know that – for he was not ominiscient despite rumours to the contrary. He turned the nose of his Frazer-Nash to Gresham Terrace, yawning several times on the short run home.

 

Chief Inspector McNab had held hopes of getting to bed towards midnight, but he had been called out on an urgent job, and in consequence it had been nearly 1 a.m. before he reached the Yard again. There he found a report from the plain-clothes men watching Minnie Sidey, and the report made him wrinkle his broad nose.

He telephoned Rollison, to find that Jolly was “expecting Mr. Rollison at any time”. McNab was nothing if not persevering, and he walked to the Toff's flat, arriving there some five minutes before the Toff. The latter's surprise was gratifying, and McNab said the obvious.

“Ye didn't expect me, Rollison.”

“I did not,” said the Toff. “But it's always a pleasure to talk to the most shining light of the Yard. Have a drink and do put that cigarette out, old boy, it's foul. How long have you had it in your pocket?”

“It's one of your own,” said McNab, glancing towards a box on the table.

“Well, well, well,” murmured the Toff, “and I thought you were an honest man.” He dispensed whisky and soda, and sat back elegantly in an easy chair. “And now let it come.”

“It's the Sidey business, Rollison.”

“Really?” said the Toff.

“You know he was married,” McNab said, pushing a hand through his sandy hair.

“We did talk about it, I fancy.”

“Have you seen his widow?”

“Certainly not,” said the Toff, and for a moment he was afraid of learning news which would make him wish that he had.

“The thing is,” went on McNab, “my men think she's aware they're on her tail, and she won't move anywhere. I was wondering if you could watch her for a day or two? She'll not get on to you as she would my men, and I've an uncomfortable feeling she knows things she won't talk about.”

It was the nearest thing to a compliment that McNab had ever paid him, and the Toff was surprised. He thought quickly. Even had there been no connection between the murder of Sidey and the Irma-Kohn-Renway business he would have been interested. There was, however, a possibility that he would learn something very worth while. In any case his call on Minnie was overdue.

Consequently he nodded.

“Good man,” said McNab. “You'll tell me if you find anything, of course.”

“Of course,” said the Toff reproachfully. “Have your bloodhounds off in the morning, and I'll be along before the lady gets around.”

McNab departed, well satisfied, for he knew the Toff could be relied on to allow a full meed of credit to fall on his shoulders, while the Toff smoked a final cigarette and wondered whether there was any ulterior motive in McNab's unexpected call. A visit so late at night certainly suggested that McNab was anxious indeed to get Rollison working. In the second, it was normally not McNab's policy to invite assistance, but rather to grumble and protest when that assistance was offered. The call, therefore, had two things which were peculiar, and to the Toff it suggested only one thing.

The police were stumped on the Sidey murder, and McNab was being pressured by the Assistant Commissioner to get results.

It had its humours, particularly since the Toff could have placed a finger on Benson at any time, with reasonable evidence to get him convicted. But as a whole there was little to laugh about in a case which the Toff was beginning to find exasperating. Despite the attacks on him, there was not a tittle of evidence to show what Kohn was after.

Rollison had made considerable efforts during the day to trace the man Martin. All he had discovered so far was that he was called ‘Ritzy' by his friends, that he had a bad reputation, that he was a clever accountant, and had not been in the hands of the police. Because of that last fact he was, presumably, considered a law-abiding citizen. Such assumption was not fully justified, as the Toff knew well. But it was always difficult to work against a man who had no past record. The reason for that was simple: there was no easy way of finding his weaker points.

He needed to talk to Ritzy Martin.

He had visited the Blue Dog earlier in the evening, to find Charlie Wray as enormous, as smiling, as smooth and as dangerous as ever. Benson had been in the bar for a quarter of an hour, and had then gone to the private parlour upstairs. Thither Charlie had followed him, two others had joined them, and the Toff had heard nothing to assist him, except a stream of bad language from Benson, for whom the cards – they were playing solo – did not run well.

The card game suggested that nothing was likely to happen immediately.

The Toff, returning to Gresham Terrace, had found Jolly back with a similar report. Jolly had visited the three addresses where Ritzy Martin had been known to live, but the man had not been at any of them and none of his landladies had any idea where he was. The fact that they had not complained of rent owing was reasonable evidence that he had kept his accounts with them clear. He did not, therefore, shift from one place to another because he found it cheaper, but because he wanted to.

In all likelihood, the Toff considered, the unknown person in the Kohn case kept switching his living-quarters because he wanted to make it difficult to be traced.

“We could ask Kohn,” the Toff had commented, and Jolly had grunted in a manner suggesting that he did not approve of such levity.

Afterwards, with hindsight, he knew that he should have suspected that there would be trouble for both Wrightson and Phyllis Bailey. True, there was no positive reason for his thinking that way, but he was so completely surprised by that development, so utterly deceived, that it remained a sore point with him for a long time.

He was surprised, he said, that he had slept in any degree of comfort that night, appalled when he learned that within three miles of him, Phyllis Bailey was lying half-asleep and half-unconscious, herself appalled by the brutality of the man whom she had heard called Brown.

The bruises of Kohn's blows were still on her cheeks, she had eaten little, and had only water to drink. In her eyes there was an expression akin to horror – an expression caused by the utter stupefaction which she had felt at the kidnapping and the brutality of her captor.

Why
had Brown been interested in the man Rollison?

Why
had it been necessary to kidnap her?

How
was Jim in danger – if at all?

Would
she ever go free?

These thoughts, preying on her mind, were made more fearsome by the effect of the drug which had been pumped into her. She had been torn out of her usual quiet, serene life, her emotional worries over Jim had been suddenly thrust into the background. If anything had evolved from it, it was realization of the depth of her love for Jim – who, she felt, was in danger as great as hers.

She was hungry, her face was bruised and painful, and she was afraid.

She did not know whether she would be alive on the morrow.

Wrightson, in the room next to her, was in little better shape.

He had not been questioned, but had been struck a dozen times by Benson, and later by a smooth-voiced, flashily handsome man whom he had heard called ‘Ritzy'. All the time that he had seen Ritzy it had been in semi-darkness, and he had not recognized the accountant who had admitted Sidey into his uncle's office. He should have recognized him, but like his fiancée, he was too startled by the developments, torn so abruptly from his usual life that the only thing which occurred to him was to try to think
why
?

And, of course, he thought of Irma, and the Toff's warning.