John Creasey - The Toff and The Sleepy Cowboy

“Richard,” interrupted Pamela.

“Yes?”

“Could this place which was damaged possibly be Rubicon House?”

Rollison said sharply: “Yes. Does it mean anything to you?”

“It’s the house where the other relative of old Josh lives,” said Pamela, slowly. “The one whom I didn’t trust at all. He is a Mr. Hindle, at Flat I, Rubicon House.”

“About five-eight, plump, grey-haired, a bald patch, a broad nose, slightly tip-tilted, a round chin, rather a vague man to look at?”

“That’s him exactly!” cried Pamela.

“He’s the man who was so eager to help and believe Effie King,” declared Rollison. “Well, well, well! What a remarkable coincidence that they are living in the same house!”

“He owns the house — that is, Mr. Hindle does, and lets off three flats. The rents are almost his only income.” For a moment there was utter silence.

Jolly broke it from the raised alcove by saying : “Dinner is served, sir.”

* * *

Rollison needed time to ponder.

The discovery excited Pamela but her excitement soon faded and she sat looking down at her plate or looking up and catching Tommy’s eyes. He seemed never to look anywhere else. Jolly served first a halved grapefruit steeped in sherry and covered with sugar and heated under the grill, then a morsel of lemon sole with a sauce which melted in the mouth, finally saddle of lamb with peas and new potatoes which made believe it was spring. Half-way through the main course, they began to talk, slowly at first and then with more animation, until finally Pamela said:

“Richard, you must tell the police about Hindle. They must look for him as well as for King.”

“Yes,” Rollison agreed. “I’m trying to see all the angles.” He finished his lamb, and went to the hotplate ‘by the side of the table. “More for either of you?” Tommy’s eyes lit up, and he carved from the saddle of lamb hidden until then under a silver cover, adding peas and potatoes. “Pamela?”

“I shouldn’t really.”

“Keep Tommy company,” urged Rollison, and added: “I’ll go and talk to the Yard and to one or two friends of mine — I’ll be back before Jolly brings in the dessert.” He went to the kitchen where Jolly was whipping cream for a sherry trifle, and said: “Hold it until I’m through, Jolly, I won’t be long.”

“This won’t spoil, sir.”

“Good!” Rollison hurried out by the fire-escape, which was reached through the kitchen door. There was still light enough to see two men on duty in the courtyard behind the house, bounded on one side by these old Gresham Terrace houses, on one by a row of mews all three hundred years old and more, on two sides by big new buildings of ferro-concrete. He had a word with the two policemen and also with a third man, small and wiry, who had been sent here by Bill Ebbutt, after Jolly and Ebbutt his oldest and staunchest friend.

“Hallo, Percy.”

“Anything for us to do, Mr Ar?”

“Just look after me,” Rollison quipped.

“That’ll be the day,” replied Percy Wrighton, at one time a light-weight boxer near the top of his class. “There’s a pack of reporters out the front. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

“I’ll never say a word against you,” promised Rollison, and went through an alleyway into the mews and then round the corner into Gresham Terrace.

At least thirty men were there, with a sprinkling of women. He saw several with cameras, and also saw a camera on a tripod in the porch of a house opposite number 25, covering his front door. A cackle of voices sounded, surprisingly loud in the street. Two policemen were keeping the crowd away on one side so as to allow traffic to pass, other plainclothes men were on duty. On the fringes of the crowd were more of Bill Ebbutt’s men from the East End.

Parked some distance along but this side of the crowd was Ebbutt’s Model T Ford, his most prized possession. Rollison guessed that Ebbutt was sitting at the wheel of this, and walked up and stood alongside. There was Ebbutt, a mountain of a man, paunch squeezed against the steering wheel, his breath wheezing. The car was close to an empty house with ‘For Sale’ posters in the windows.

“Bill,” whispered Rollison. “Move over.”

“Who—?” began Ebbutt, turning his head swiftly; then he gasped. “Mr. Ar!” He eased his bulk to one side, and Rollison climbed up. “They’re after you tonight, Mr. Ar. Anyone would think no one had ever had a baby before.”

“Just a human story, you know how they love the angle,” Rollison said lightly. “May I use the running board to make a speech from? It won’t take long.”

“You going to talk to them lousy newshounds?” demanded Ebbutt.

“They’re not lousy, Bill — just story conscious. May I?”

“Use the roof if it will help,” Ebbutt replied.

“Thanks. I’d like you to go round to the police and your chaps and tell them to watch all the people on the fringe of the crowd. It’s just possible one of them has a hand grenade.”

“Strewth,” wheezed Ebbutt.

“I’ll stand on the running board and you give a toot or two on the horn,” said Rollison. The rubber bulb of an old fashioned horn was close to Ebbutt’s hand, and it was said that he could get a dozen different notes out of this. Rollison got out and rounded the car and climbed on the running board. As soon as he was holding on to the door, Ebbutt punched and poked at the horn, making an unmistakable tune.

“Da-di-di-da-di-daa-da! Da-di-di-da-di-da!”

Rollison found himself singing to the second rendering:

“Come to the cookhouse door, boys; come to the cookhouse door.”

The men and women in the crowd swung round and a man shouted: “There’s Rollison!” Another called: “There’s the Toff!” Others called out, many ran and cameras flashed. Ebbutt slid out of the driver’s seat on his errand. Soon questions were being flung at Rollison.

“Were you at Rubicon House?”

“Did you know she was going to have a baby?”

“Had you ever seen her before?”

“Was it an attempt to kill you, Toff?”

“Have you seen her since the baby was born?”

“Bill!” called Rollison in a tone which could be heard by nearly everyone present, “give one long blast on your horn, will you?”

“Glad to,” Ebbutt said, and immediately the horn hooted a hoarse, low-pitched sound which cut across the questions, silencing everybody. Then it wailed into silence itself, and Rollison raised his voice:

“I’ve no time to answer questions but I’ll make a statement. Ready?” After a chorus of ‘we’re ready’ and ‘fire away’, he went on: “I went to Rubicon House to look for a character actor named Alec George King, who lives there. I did not know him or his wife, Effie. King wasn’t there and I believe he’s in acute danger — of losing his life. Every newspaper must have a picture of him somewhere in its files. I don’t give a damn what you say about me provided you make everyone realise I want to see this man — urgently.”

“What do the police say?” a man called out. “They can’t act on this, yet.”

“Do you think King started the fire?” a man demanded.

“Did you start the fire?” another called.

“No, to both,” Rollison said. “The man or woman who started the fire was medium size, and King is six feet seven. The man or woman rode a motor-cycle, and wore a stocking mask. I can’t tell you anything about the man who started the fire but I can tell you about Alec George King.” He paused for a moment and then called: “Is there anyone here from the Globe?”

“Yes — I am!” a tall, fair-haired man showed clearly in the street lamplight.

“Is your name Stevens?”

“No — we’ve no one named Stevens on the paper.”

“Check at your office for me, will you?” asked

Rollison. “A man purporting to be from the Globe —”

“Mr. Ar!” bellowed Ebbutt, fear overcoming the hoarseness of his voice, “look out!”

A policeman shouted: “He’s throwing a bomb!”

Rollison saw the crowd freeze, momentarily, except for two policemen and a man on the pavement, whose right hand was raised in the act of throwing. For an awful moment it seemed as if most of those present were mesmerised by fear, but suddenly there was a wave of movement from the car; the crowd seemed to billow and sway rather than turn and run.

In the half-light, Rollison could see the dark spheroid in the air, curving an arc towards him and the Model T. He dared not take his eyes off it; dared not look to see if the man had turned and run once he had hurled the bomb. Rollison felt sure it would be a hand grenade, which would explode on contact with car or road. He had never been nearer to death. He stepped down from the running board and cupped his hands, fully aware that if he caught the grenade it might blow up in his hands.

He caught it.

It did not go off instantly.

With great deliberation he drew back his arm and threw the grenade towards the empty house; and he had never been nearer praying. No one was close to the spot, but if it exploded outside it could do unspeakable harm.

It crashed through the window.

A split-second later, it exploded.

14

Capture

ROLLISON WAS AWARE only of one thing: the flash of the explosion and the strange shape of the star-like hole which appeared in the window. He threw himself down, covering his head with his arms, and heard the roar and felt the blast. He was lifted bodily, but only a few inches. He heard the thudding and cracking of glass, mortar, pieces of brick and wood which fell into the street; one fell, lightly, on the small of his back; another, sharper, hit the fingers of his right hand.

The sounds all merged into one; a kind of roaring.

He only knew that the bomb had not exploded among people, among the reporters, that it had caused as little damage as possible; that he was alive.

He was oblivious of everything else; of the man who had thrown the bomb, for instance. And what happened in Gresham Terrace on that long-to-be-remembered night was seen by different people in different little silhouettes; none saw everything, but the picture of all that had happened was formed when every segment was put together.

* * *

Jolly at one window, Pamela Brown and Tommy G. Loman from another, saw a foreshortened view. The sudden shouting had drawn them to the windows and Loman had been the first to fling one up, momentarily ignoring Pamela. Then she was beside him and they squeezed together, Tommy’s long arm about her. They peered out, hearing Rollison’s clear statement and his answers to the questions, seeing the crowd, sensing a mood of some hostility. Then the policeman had shouted:

“He’s throwing a bomb!”

They saw the curious way the crowd seemed to sway back for the Toff, they watched as if hypnotised as the Toff caught the missile and, without a thought of nerves, threw it towards the empty house.

“Oh, God!” breathed Pamela.

Then Jolly cried: “Stop him, stop him!”

Tommy G. Loman looked away from the Toff and the bomb as the explosion flashed and roared, and saw a man pushing his way past two or three others, and saw, suddenly, a motor-cycle between two parked cars.

“Stop that man!” roared Tommy G.

“Stop him!” cried Jolly.

Pamela made herself look away from Rollison, who was flat on the ground, towards the man. Tommy was roaring: “Stop him, stop him!” and clutching her more tightly than she had ever been held in her life.