John Creasey - The Toff and The Lady

“Except the name of the friend,” said Rollison.

She set her lips tightly and did not answer.

“Isn’t that mistaken loyalty?” asked Rollison.

She did not answer.

“You’ll have to tell this story to the police,” said Rollison, “and they’ll insist on knowing who it was. If you refuse to tell them they will think the story is a false one; assume that you administered the poison to”

“Poison!” gasped Phyllis. “Are you sure?”

“Yes,” said Rollison. “I am quite sure.”

“Poison!” she exclaimed again, and she rose from her chair and looked at him, her eyes rounded with horror, and her breathing quickening. She held her hands up in front of her, as if to fend off an evil thing. “I—didn’t dream” she continued, and then she turned away and stepped to the window, where she stood looking out on the dreary house opposite. “I can’t believe that Marcus would do that!”

“Someone did, this afternoon,” said Rollison.

She said: “I can’t believe that Marcus would do anything like that. He’s cruel sometimes, and—but that has nothing to do with it.” She swung round, suddenly angry. “I believe you’re lying to me! I believe you’re trying to make me say too much, that you want to make me incriminate myself.”

“Now don’t talk nonsense,” said Rollison. He stood up and went to the window by her side. “I would like to help you. I have an interest in the lady in question, too, and I shall have to go on making inquiries, whether you are free or not. If you tell me and then the police the whole truth, you won’t be detained.”

“How—how do you know?”

“They would need more evidence than that would give them,” said Rollison. He put his hands on her shoulders and made her look at him. Her eyes were bright and her face had a freshness and vitality which her fears and terrors then could not wholly hide. She was trembling, but she faced him frankly as he went on: “If there is anything in your story that it wouldn’t be wise to tell the police just now, I’ll tell you so. Seriously—I want to help.”

“I don’t see why you should,” she said.

“But you think I do, don’t you?”

After a pause, she slipped away from him and stepped to the table, where her handbag lay open. She took out a cigarette case and lit a cigarette, without once looking at him. She coughed when the smoke caught at her throat.

“I suppose so,” she said. “Marcus—Marcus Shayle is a friend of mine.”

“Did he give you any other explanation of his anxiety to look at the lady?”

“No, I’ve told you all I know,” she said, “except—oh, I know I shouldn’t have let him go there, I should have refused to have anything to do with it! But there seemed no harm, and Marcus—well, he’s engaged to my sister.”

“I see,” said Rollison.

“Need I tell the police that? I don’t want Janice to be brought into this if I can help it, she’s—she’s younger than l.

it might upset her, and” She paused, miserably, and then

asked: “Can you see what I mean?”

“Yes,” said Rollison. “But they’ll soon find out that he is engaged to sister Janice, you know. The police had better be told everything, but your best attitude is one of repentance. It was an odd request, you knew that you shouldn’t have acceded, but Marcus was a friend and you saw no real harm. Then when you had left the room you realized that if the matron discovered that you weren’t ill it might get you into trouble, so you decided to carry the thing through properly. That isn’t so far from the truth, is it?”

“No,” she said. “But it will make it look as if Marcus gave her the poison.”

“If he didn’t give it to her there is nothing to worry about, and if he did the sooner we know it the better,” said Rollison.

“Is Marcus Shayle a curly-haired man with a round, rather boyish face?”

Yes,” she said. “I suppose you saw him as you came up.”

“I saw him in the street. What did he want here?”

She told him, filling in the gaps of the conversation, although Rollison had heard all that really mattered while listening at the door. At first Marcus had said he much appreciated her help, and promised it would not get her into difficulties at the nursing home. After she had made tea, he had broached the subject of her returning to take up night duty, so as to make a note of everything the woman said.

When she had finished, Rollison asked:

“How long has your sister known Marcus?”

“Not very long,” she said. “Two or three months.”

“Before you went to the nursing home?”

“Yes, but after I had applied for a post there,” said Phyllis. “What has that got to do with it?”

“Nothing, probably,” said Rollison. “How long has he known where you worked?”

“Well—since I started, of course. In fact since I interviewed matron and she offered me the post. That can’t have anything to do with this, can it?”

“I don’t see how,” admitted Rollison.

As he spoke a car drew up outside with a squeal of brakes which startled the girl. Rollison leaned forward, and saw the top of a Wolseley. A moment later Grice and two of his men climbed out of the car. Rollison turned hastily.

“The police are here. Tell them the truth, as we’ve discussed it. If they ask whether I’ve been here, you can tell them, but there’s no need to volunteer the information. And don’t worry too much!” He was walking across the room as he spoke, and he picked up the man’s cigarette case and slipped it into his pocket.

“That belongs to Marcus,” Phyllis said.

“I hoped it did,” said Rollison: “He’ll get it back.” He stepped to the front door. As he opened it he heard footsteps on the stairs. Then a door opposite Flatlet 6a opened, and a man in painter’s overalls appeared. He seemed taken aback at the sight of Rollison, and darted behind the door again. As he did so he slid his right hand into the capacious pocket of his overalls, but he was a shade too late to hide the gun in his hand.

CHAPTER SIX

NO MURDER

THE door slammed. The footsteps of the police reached the first landing. Rollison raised his voice, and there was an urgent note in it.

“Grice! Stop the painter in overalls at the back!”

He put his left shoulder to the door behind which the man had disappeared. He was handicapped because of the glass in his pocket—if he shook it too much the two-shilling piece might move and the liquid would splash up to the handkerchief and be soaked up. The door sagged under his pressure. On the landing below Grice was calling orders to his men. As the door sagged still further, Grice came rushing up the stairs, and the door of Phyllis Armitage’s flat opened.

“Finish this off, will you,” said Rollison to Grice, and stood aside. Grice put his whole weight behind the effort, and the door burst open.

As he staggered inside, Grice muttered: “I hope you’ve good grounds for this.”

“A man with a gun and intent to murder,” said Rollison, and stepped past him towards a room which looked exactly the same as 6a. The window was wide open and a gentle breeze coming through. He looked out in time to see the man in overalls jump from the ladder to die pavement and run towards Queen’s Road. At the same time Grice’s two men reached the street and raced in pursuit.

Grice reached the window in time to see his men disappearing. He drew back as Phyllis came into the room.

Rollison beamed. “Miss Armitage—Superintendent Grice, of New Scotland Yard.”

“How do you do,” said Phyllis, calmly enough.

“Er—good-evening.”

“May I inquire what is happening?” asked Phyllis, and her turned-up nose helped to give her just the right expression of ingenuous bewilderment. “There’s no one in this flat—the

tenant has gone away for a week.”

“There was someone inside,” stated Grice.

“About whom we shall tell you in due course,” said Rollison, who felt on top of the world. “I think the Superintendent wants a few words with you, Miss Armitage.”

She still looked puzzled. “Of course,” she said, and went back to her own rooms, leaving both front doors ajar.

Grice had changed into a brown lounge suit and looked much more comfortable. There was a note of acerbity in his voice.

“I thought I’d find you here when I heard you’d been to the nursing home,” he said.

“Prophecies all coming true,” said Rollison, “and yet you always say you don’t believe in hunches.” He unbuttoned his pocket as he spoke.

Grice said: “What have you said to the girl?”

“You didn’t give me time to say much,” said Rollison. “Another ten minutes, and I would have got the whole story out of her. Here’s a present for you. I don’t mean the florin,” he added as he held the medicine glass out. There was still a little liquid at the bottom when he tilted it. “Go on, it won’t bite—didn’t the matron tell you I’d taken it away?”

“Yes,” said Grice. He took the glass and put it on the mantelpiece. “Why did you take it?”

“Curious disquiet at nursing home,” said Rollison. “It may have been genuine alarm at the collapse of “the lady”, or it might have been because they have failed to carry out police and doctors’ instructions, but it might also be because they harbour deep and guilty secrets. I didn’t intend to take any chances with that glass, although it probably contains nothing but Neuro-Phosphates .” The bantering note faded from his voice as he added: “How is the lady?”

“It will be touch and go,” Grice answered. “They think they’ll pull her round.”

“No murder yet,” said Rollison. “Here nor there.”

“You’re in an infuriating mood,” said Grice. “Here or there what?”

“No murder,” said Rollison. “Man with gun dressed as a painter was almost certainly after our demure little lady here. She has a very pretty face, not at all a bad figure, and something of the air of an ingenue which I think is natural and unassumed.”

You always did fall for a pretty face,” said Grice.

“That’s uncalled for, unfair, unjust and quite true,” declared Rollison. “See what you can find out from her. I don’t think she will keep much back. I do not think that she left the mystery lady’s room on a pretext, but I shouldn’t read too much in that. By the way, what doctors attend “the lady”?”

“Renfrew, of Wimpole Street, and Cray.”

“Renfrew as Mrs. Barrington-Ley’s society nominee, I suppose,” said Rollison. “Cray put up by the Yard.”

“Why do you ask?”

“Curiosity,” said Rollison.

“You’re unbearable,” said Grice. “Are you coming in with me to talk to this girl?”

“No, I must be off. I promised to call on Hilda to-night.”

“Mrs. Barrington-Ley?”

“Yes. Good hunting!” Rollison smiled and led the way out of the room.

As he reached the landing one of Grice’s men appeared on the landing below. The man came up when Rollison beckoned him, and reported that the pseudo-painter had managed to get away, but that Sergeant Miller was trying to find out where he had gone.

Grice was about to tap at Phyllis Armitage’s door and Rollison was half-way down the stairs, when he stopped, turned and called:

“Oh, William?”

“Yes?” said Grice, also turning.

“How was the wedding?”

Grice glared. Rollison, smiling as if he thought he had cracked a brilliant joke, continued down the stairs and into the street. There was a chance that Jolly had succeeded in tracing Marcus Shayle’s home, and therefore a chance of seeing the man before the police reached him. Hilda could wait until he had heard from Jolly. He called his taxi and, in a voice loud enough for Grice to hear, gave him the address of Barrington House, changing it only when they were in Bayswater Road.