The Toff and the Fallen Angels (12 page)

‘Obviously not,' answered Rollison. ‘Did you look anywhere else?'

‘I wanted to, but as a matter of fact I got cold feet,' answered Angela, with engaging frankness. ‘And Guy was a bit troublesome, too. You'd think he'd never seen an attractive young woman before - he says it's a case of love at first sight, and I must say he behaves almost as if he means it. As a matter of fact, I think he's rather nice.'

‘I hope you're right,' said Rollison, looking at her thoughtfully. ‘Is Sir Douglas coming home tonight?'

‘No, he's being kept at the hospital for at least twenty- four hours. Why?'

‘Do you think you could lure young Guy to take you to a nightclub, or any place where you'll be out late?' asked Rollison. ‘I'd very much like to have a look round at Number 29.'

‘Well,' said Angela, after considering, ‘I will certainly try, and I shouldn't think it would be too difficult. I—'

Two things happened simultaneously, to make her break off. The telephone bell rang, and Jolly appeared to say with customary solemnity that dinner was about to be served. Rollison got up and reached for the telephone while Angela finished her brandy with almost sacrilegious haste, and hurried out with a ‘Three jiffs, Jolly.'

‘This is Richard Rollison,' Rollison said.

‘You've had a taste of what will happen to you if you don't keep out of Slatter's business,' a man said. His voice was muffled, as if he were speaking through gauze or muslin.
Or a nylon stocking,
thought Rollison. ‘You keep out of it, or a lot more heads will be smashed in, including yours.'

As Rollison hung up, Angela appeared again, her bright hair brushed with schoolgirl precision. Jolly, who had also disappeared, returned with a laden tray. Obviously Rollison's expression told them both that this had not been a normal call.

‘Anything to do with us?' inquired Angela.

‘I trust there is no immediate emergency,' said Jolly.

‘Just an awful warning of what will happen to me if I don't turn my back on the fallen angels,' said Rollison lightly, and went on almost in the same breath, ‘By George, I'm hungry!' He pulled a chair away from the table for Angela, and as they had dinner - lamb cutlets, green peas and new potatoes, all with rare flavour - he talked to Angela and recalled lunching here with Naomi Smith and the way she had introduced him to this case.

Jolly hovered, was praised for his cooking, and was duly gratified.

Angela left at half-past eight, promising to call the flat if she failed to lure Guy out of his uncle's house.

Rollison left at a quarter-to-nine, at the wheel of Jolly's ancient Austin A35, a small grey car which would be blown to smithereens if a stick of dynamite were wired to the self-starter. The streets were empty and it took only ten minutes to reach Bloomdale Street. There was a parking place quite near Smith Hall, and here, under the stern eye of a watchful policeman, he left his car. There were a lot of police about; he spotted at least four. So Grice had taken his extra precautions early.

‘Good evening, sir,' one of them said. ‘Are you all right? . . . Very nasty thing to happen, that explosion.'

‘Yes, I'm fine. But make sure no one puts dynamite in this one, won't you?'

‘Don't you worry, sir. We'll watch it like lynxes!'

Rollison murmured: ‘I'm sure you will,' and walked towards the house, recalling the shadowy figure of the bestockinged assailant on his first visit here. No one threw a shadow tonight, but a policeman stood near the porch in the full light of a street lamp.

The door was closed, and Rollison rang the bell. After a brief pause, Judy Lyons appeared, still very subdued. She peered out nervously, then stood aside.

‘We thought you weren't coming,' she said.

‘I hope you're glad I have,' replied Rollison.

‘I'm not sure that it makes any difference,' said Judy tartly. ‘We're all upstairs, in the drawing room.'

The room was immediately above Naomi Smith's study, but was much larger. Round the walls were couches and armchairs, other smaller chairs and tables with magazines were in the middle. In one corner stood an old radiogram, and by the side of it was a small table, at which Naomi was sitting. Rollison made a swift count of heads, and reached twenty-two. Anne Miller had not yet been taken to the police station; she sat with her long, slim legs stretched out, apparently deep in thought. The girls, all about the same age, were of all shapes and sizes, dark haired and fair. There was one sad-faced Indian woman with the red spot on her forehead, showing that she was a Hindu of good caste, and one short, dumpy African girl with a very lively face.

Every eye was turned towards Rollison; one elfin little creature in pale green blew him a kiss.

Naomi pointed to an empty chair at her side.

‘Please come and sit down, Mr Rollison. We had just decided to wait until you came, in the hope that you could give us some encouraging news.'

‘Not a hope in a thousand,' a girl said clearly.

‘It's a waste of time,' chimed in another.

Naomi's eyes flashed, she rapped sharply on the table, calling them to attention.

‘The very least you can do is show good manners!' she said icily.

Stung, Anne threw her head up, ready for argument. ‘But Mr Rollison's good manners didn't prevent him from being three-quarters of an hour late, Mrs Smith. Perhaps a little bird told him that we can't be deceived any more, and that we've decided to leave here and make our own plans, instead of waiting to have our heads bashed in, or our babies bitten by rats. We've decided, too, that all these mysterious comings and goings are a waste of time, designed for the sole object of giving Mr Rollison a sense of his own self-importance. Good manners will hardly disguise the fact that the promised miracle hasn't come off.' There was a break in the young, scornful voice, and Rollison bit back the sharp rejoinder which rose to his lips.

‘You're all under great strain,' he said easily. ‘And that's hardly surprising. The situation was bad enough when you had to come here, it's still a cold and conventional world and you broke the rules. What's happened now makes it ten times worse. Probably half of you think that some bigoted person is out to make you pay for it.' He paused long enough to look round at every face, let his gaze come to rest on Anne's, and then went on: ‘I don't think this is true. I don't think these unfortunate people have been murdered in cold blood for the sake of a principle which is fairly loosely interpreted in this day and age. I think there is a very powerful material motive which no one yet suspects. Whoever is behind these crimes stands to gain a great deal. I don't, as yet, know what, and I don't know who. I do know you can't stand it much longer. The situation is unbearable, and I think tomorrow will see the end of it.'

Several faces lit up.

‘And I think the end may come when the criminals make one final tremendous effort to force you out of here,' Rollison went on. ‘If you go, you'll be playing into their hands, if you stay you may be in very grave danger indeed.'

When he stopped, no one spoke until Naomi asked in a very quiet voice: ‘What do you advise, Mr Rollison?'

‘I can't advise anything,' said Rollison. ‘I hope you'll stay. If I'm right and it's all over by tomorrow—'

‘We still have our marching orders from Slatter,' Anne remarked. ‘We can't win.'

‘If it's over by tomorrow,' said Rollison, quietly, ‘I think there's an even chance that Sir Douglas will change his mind.'

‘You mean there would have been if Anne hadn't thrown that brick,' said the African girl, simply, and without bitterness. ‘You can't seriously believe that Sir Douglas would relent after that.'

‘I seriously believe it,' Rollison assured her.

‘I think we all ought to make preparations to leave,' Anne said. ‘I—' She broke off as a bell rang sharp and clear, and suddenly her expression changed. Something like near despair touched her. ‘I have to anyhow. That will be the police. This is arrest by appointment,' she went on. ‘They said they would come for me at half-past nine.'

Judy was staring at her helplessly.

‘I have to go, too,' said Rollison. ‘I'll come down with you.' Anne stood up, so tall and slim and strangely lonely and forlorn. ‘And I'm absolutely serious,' he said to the others. ‘I think tomorrow may be the last day.'

No one spoke as he went out. Naomi jumped up, but he waved her back to her chair, and opened the door for Anne. There was a knock and a ring. He went ahead and opened the door cautiously, but this was no trick; there were three police officers in the porch, and the one in the middle was Adams.

‘Miss Anne Miller?' he asked formally.

‘Anne,' said Rollison, ‘if you need help, you have only to ask me.'

He heard Naomi hurrying down the stairs, obviously to offer what comfort she could. He nodded to the policemen and left the house.

There was no way of being sure the girls would stay on, but he believed they would. And if they did, and he was right in his supposition that tomorrow would see the whole hideous affair cleared up, then tomorrow would hold for them their greatest danger yet.

And he would have brought it upon them . . .

Two policemen watched him go.

Two policemen, obviously by coincidence, were standing outside Aldgate East Underground Station when he pulled up some distance away, and they were looking about them as if idly, but with particular interest at Gwendoline Fell, who stood by the side of her motor scooter which was parked right outside the station. She looked questioningly at the policemen, then glanced round in Rollison's direction. Her eyes lit up. The policemen, too, glanced at Rollison as Gwendoline went hurrying towards him, eager now as if to a lover. Rollison took both her hands.

‘I was half-afraid you wouldn't get here,' she said, gripping tightly. ‘Are you all right?' She searched his face. ‘Don't look so innocent!' she cried. ‘You
were
nearly blown up, weren't you?'

‘That story's got around, has it?' Rollison said, and laughed. ‘Yes, I survived. I'm afraid the car I'm now using isn't big enough to put your motor scooter in the boot.'

‘I'll leave it here,' she said, and they turned and walked back to Jolly's battered Austin. She appeared not to notice its age and condition. ‘You're going to get a front page headline in
The Globe,
and probably in other papers, too.'

‘I don't deserve it,' Rollison said. ‘Will it also be connected with Slatter?'

‘Yes.'

‘I hope to heaven I've done the right thing.'

‘Let me be the judge of that,' said Gwendoline primly. ‘Off the record.'

He told her what he expected and had asked, and added as he drove along Commercial Road: ‘The police are already watching Smith Hall in strength, but they will probably be recognised, and I want some strong-arm men who won't be. Have you ever heard of the Blue Dog?'

‘In Wapping? Or is it Whitechapel?'

‘Whitechapel,' Rollison said. ‘So you've heard of it.' He turned two corners, and on the next was a public house, the woodwork painted bright blue, and the inn sign yellow with a blue-painted mongrel. Several people went in and two came out as they passed. Rollison turned this corner, and on the left was a big wooden building, over the front of which ran the legend:
Ebbutt's Gym.
Some elderly men and a few youths stood about, the youths sparring. Rollison pulled up near the entrance, and a man called: ‘Lumme! It's Mr Ar!'

‘Where's Bill?' called Rollison.

‘In the pub, Mr Ar!'

Rollison was giving Gwendoline Fell a hand.

‘Ask him if he can spare me a few minutes here,' said Rollison.

‘Sure will, Mr Ar!' The man, small and with a nutcracker face, hurried towards the back of the Blue Dog. The youths stopped sparring, and stared with great interest at the Toff and his companion. The door of the gymnasium was open and the sound of leather on leather came clearly. Rollison pushed aside a canvas flap, remarking for all to hear: ‘I'm bringing in a lady.'

‘S'okay,' said another smaller man in a white polo- necked sweater. ‘Always welcome, Mr Ar, with or without!' He beamed welcome at Gwendoline with a grin stretching from cauliflower ear to cauliflower ear.

The gymnasium was much bigger than it looked from outside. There were two boxing rings, both occupied by youngsters, half a dozen men gathered around each. The walls were fitted with parallel bars, there were vaulting horses and punch balls, everything, in fact, needed for training in a modern gymnasium. Over in one corner was a small office, partitioned off. In another was a door marked
‘Showers'.
The doorkeeper hovered near as Rollison explained.

‘Bill Ebbutt, who owns this and runs the pub next door, used to be a heavyweight,' Rollison began.

‘And a bloody good un, too,'
interpolated the doorman.

‘And he trains promising youngsters for nothing or next-to-nothing,' said Rollison.

‘Picks the good uns, too,'
whispered the doorman.

‘And a lot of old professionals come in and help with the training. It's really a kind of club.'

‘And a good un, too,'
repeated the doorman. Then his voice rose: ‘Here's Bill,' he announced with obvious pride, and waved a hand in greeting as Bill Ebbutt came in.

Ebbutt was huge, baldheaded, treble-chinned and wheezy of breath. He wore an enormous polo-necked sweater of a heather mixture wool; knitting it must have been a year's labour of love. So big was his jowl and so comparatively small his head that he looked rather like one pear reared upon another. His eyes, deeply buried, were a bright, periwinkle blue.

‘Cor lumme, Mr Ar, you're a sight for sore eyes.' He engulfed Rollison's hand. ‘Glad to see you, always will be, who's your lady friend?' He towered above Gwendoline, who looked up at him with barely concealed amazement.

‘Miss Gwendoline Fell,' said Rollison.

‘Glad to meetcha, Miss Fell, any friend of Mr Rollison's—' he extended a vast hand, but before he took Gwendoline's a change came over his expression, and almost in a whisper, he said: ‘Not the bitch who writes in
The Globe?'
He raised both hands in an onslaught of horror. ‘I never ought to ‘ave said that, I'm sorry, I—'

‘Very well put, Mr Ebbutt,' said Gwendoline calmly. ‘That's what at least half a million readers think of me.' She beamed up at him. ‘I don't mind what I say about them, so why should I mind what they say about me?'

‘I daresay,' said Bill, still abashed. ‘All the same, I never ought to say things like that to a guest. Here! Not come to do a story about me and my boys, have you? I dunno that I want—'

‘I just wanted her to know I'm not the nincompoop I sometimes look,' said Rollison. ‘Can we go into the office?' They crowded in, while sparring and the vaulting, the punching and the jumping continued. ‘Bill,' went on Rollison, ‘I need about two dozen of your boys for a job which could be very nasty.' He explained, wasting no words, obviously confident that Bill Ebbutt did not need telling anything twice.

‘I get the picture,' Ebbutt said. ‘If anyone does lay on a kind of all-out attack, you don't want to be caught napping. What do you really want, Mr Ar? One man for one girl? Only way to make sure they get absolute protection.'