John Creasey - The Toff and The Sleepy Cowboy

“Mr. Rollison is expecting me.”

“Miss Brown?” asked Jolly, standing aside. “That’s right — Pamela Brown.”

“Mr. Rollison is certainly expecting you,” Jolly said, and turned as Pamela entered.

My! thought Rollison.

She looked ravishing in a dark green dress with a deep V neckline, her hair piled high, her eyes bright, ear-rings dangling and a brooch glittering at her bosom. The dress rustled faintly as she walked. It fell just above her knees, and for the first time Rollison saw that she had beautiful legs; he already knew that she moved with youthful grace. He was out of his chair and on his feet when she came in with one arm held out; he extended both hands and took hers.

“Ravishing!” he uttered the word that had first come to mind.

“Oh, thank you!” She had nice, cool hands, and she looked into his eyes, not about the room. “It’s lovely to be here.”

He held on to her hands a moment longer than was necessary, then drew her into the room. She looked about her, at and beyond the Trophy Wall, at the paintings on one other wall, at a group of four etchings of old London, and at the pieces of antique furniture ranging from Elizabethan through Georgian and Regency to Victorian all of which fitted perfectly in their places and merged together.

“What will you have to drink?” he asked.

“May I have something soft — ginger ale or bitter lemon?”

“Of course,” he said.

“You see,” she exclaimed with the familiar naivete. “I don’t drink alcohol.”

“Not at all?” He was surprised.

“Never.” She gave the word a slight emphasis and her eyes danced. “What a lovely flat you have. And — may I have a closer look at those macabre things on the wall?” She took her drink and they moved towards the wall as she went on almost in the same breath. “Did I see Baby Blue Eyes in the street as I was parking my car?”

“He’d just been in for a drink,” said Rollison. “How well do you know him?”

She looked at him quite sharply. “I’d never met him until this morning,” she said. “What makes you think I know him?”

“He didn’t mention you to the police,” said Rollison drily. “I couldn’t believe that was an accident.”

“Oh, poof! He was dazzled by the Toff and just didn’t see me!”

“Any man who doesn’t notice you is no man,” replied Rollison.

“But how gallant!” Her eyes danced again. “Well, let’s say he was so overcome when he realised who you were and what had happened, that he forgot me.”

“Which would make him even less of a man.”

“You are determined to live up to your reputation!” She looked away from him at the silk stocking which was draped over a polished brass bracket, and asked with new-found solemnity: “Is that a murder weapon?”

“Yes. Did you know about this wall and my reputa-tion or had you been looking me up?” he asked.

“Who could tell me?” she asked.

“Any newspaperman who wanted to.”

“Oh,” she said. “Yes, I suppose so. Well, as a matter of fact, I knew.”

“Just as you knew I was going to meet Tommy Loman at the airport.”

“Yes,” she said. How beautifully her eyes glowed. “Mr. Rollison —”

“Richard.”

“Richard, I cannot tell a lie!” She was acting very slightly, as if this in many ways amused her; she was laughing partly at herself, partly at the situation, partly at him. She lowered her voice and went on melodramatic-ally: “I am a private inquiry agent.”

“Good God!” he gasped.

“You mean I fooled you?” She was delighted.

“You fooled me utterly. At the very least I thought you were a seductress, plotting to seduce Tommy Loman.”

“Oh, nothing so unexciting,” she replied. “He isn’t the man I would try to seduce! I wrote to Tommy Loman and invited him in your name to come to London and see you,” she went on simply. “I signed the letter P. Brown, for Richard Rollison.”

This time Rollison was really astounded, but all he said was: “In my name?”

“Yes. I thought he would come if you invited him, whereas if a strange woman wrote, he might shrug it off. Aren’t you going to ask why?”

“Yes,” Rollison said heavily. “Why?”

“Because I believed he would run into trouble if he just arrived here and had nowhere to go for help.”

“I see,” said Rollison.

He was studying this young woman much more closely, reasonably sure that she was telling the truth but fully aware of how easy it would be to be fooled — ‘seduced’ — into accepting her on her face value. The harder he looked, the more flawless her complexion and the more beautiful her eyes; and the dress was most enticing, showing just enough of her white bosom and shoulders. She seemed to sense that it was a moment for silence and she made no attempt to speak or prompt him.

“Why should he run into trouble?” he asked. “Because he was coming to claim a fortune which someone else wants to take from him.”

“What fortune?”

“A great-uncle, his grandfather’s brother, left a for-tune and Thomas G. Loman is the only legatee,” she said. “And someone thought it a good idea to stand-in for the real Loman and collect the inheritance.”

“How did you know that?” Rollison asked quietly.

For the first time, she hesitated, and he preferred that she should; the series of swift answers made her sound almost glib. She sipped her ginger ale, swallowing slowly as if her mouth was dry, and finally went on:

“It’s a very long story, Mr. Rollison. If I’d been able to produce facts and evidence I think I would have gone to the police and told them — after all, it’s really their job, isn’t it? But I had only an old man’s fears and suspicions to go on, and — and a feeling, an intuition. Please don’t laugh.”

“I wouldn’t laugh even at a man’s intuition,” Rollison assured her.

“You see, old Josh — that’s the great-uncle — had a kind of persecution mania. He was ninety-one, and remarkably fit physically and no slouch mentally, except in this one way — he thought someone was always trying to rob him, and had a fear that someone outside the family would get his money when he died.”

“When did he die?”

“Just a month ago.”

“A natural death?”

“Yes — indisputably, I think.”

“Was there an autopsy?”

“Yes — I work with my father and a brother, Mr. Rol —”

“Richard.”

“Thank you, Richard! And my father has been in the profession for a long time. The police respect him and he telephoned the Superintendent of the Hampstead Division where Mr. Clayhanger lived, and said an autopsy might be advisable although a death certificate was signed. One was carried out by Kenneth Soames, and you must know pathologists don’t come any better.”

“I do,” admitted Rollison, becoming more and more intrigued. “What was the cause of death?”

“Cerebral haemorrhage. The old man had had two mild strokes so that wasn’t surprising,”

“And can’t easily be induced,” Rollison remarked. “Did he have a nurse?”

“Yes — a day and a night nurse in his last months. He —” She leaned forward and touched Rollison’s hand with her cool fingers before going on : “My father went to see him first, and took his fears seriously because he had such a lucid mind. He knew there was a nephew in Arizona, who was the only surviving relative, and wanted him traced and wanted to make sure he got the inheritance. Then one day my father was ill and my brother away and I had to go and see old Josh.” She gave a funny little strangled laugh. “You’ll never believe it, but he took a great liking to me.”