John Creasey: The Toff and The Sleepy Cowboy

Many had been hanged, before the laws of England had so changed that men and women were no longer hanged by the neck until they were dead, but sentenced, on conviction of murder, to ‘life’ imprisonment. Rollison kept an open mind on the subject of capital punishment but did not think that ‘life’ should prove, as it so often did, no more than nine or ten years in prison. Yet there were murderers whom he would have let off scot-free had he been judge and jury.

But none such as those he had been hunting until they had died or had been caught and tried, and later represented on this wall. For these trophies were of deadly killers; mostly evil men. The small tube of poisons reminded him of the hideous doctor who gave prostitutes a drug to make them scream and writhe — and while they were in contortions of agony the doctor possessed them. The top hat had two bullet holes; the second had knocked the hat off his head, some nine years ago. The lipstick had contained potassium cyanide, so that the user, breaking a thin coating protecting the lethal dose, had daubed her lips and died. Even the nylon stocking, looking solitary and strangely seductive draped over a skeletal foot, had been used to strangle a woman.

These things Rollison remembered as he waited.

He saw his man, Jolly, appear at the door leading from the kitchen, and sadly shook his head; Jolly by now, would have bacon and eggs all ready for the pan and would be exasperated by this delay.

Suddenly, a man said: “Mr. Rollison?” in an unmistakable American voice.

“Yes,” Rollison said, almost startled.

“Mr. Rollison, I’m sorry to bother you at this time, but my name is Selly, Jim Selly, of the New York Times. You might even remember me.”

Vaguely he did, thought Rollison, but he made a non-committal noise, and allowed Selly to go on:

“Mr. Rollison, are you expecting a visit from a friend from Arizona?”

“From where?” asked Rollison, startled again. “From Tucson, Arizona.”

“I’m afraid I have to say that I’m not,” replied Rollison. “I’m not expecting a visitor from anywhere in America, and I don’t think I know anyone in Tucson —or Arizona, for that matter.” He wondered why a news-paperman should call to ask such a question, but news-papermen were strange creatures with insatiable appetites for new twists and angles, so he did not wonder deeply. “Why do you want to know?”

“Are you sure you don’t know anyone from Tucson, Arizona?” Selly sounded acutely disappointed. “I am positive,” insisted Rollison.

“This man’s name is Loman — L-O-M-A-N. Is he a friend of yours?”

“Not,” answered Rollison, feeling wide awake for the first time, “unless he has changed his name. Why do you think I know a Mr. Loman?”

“He said that he knew you,” Selly answered.

“Oh,” said Rollison, baffled. “And is he on the way to see me, do you say?”

“Yes,” replied the newspaperman, and he paused. Rollison had a feeling that he was going to ask again ‘You’re sure you don’t know the man’ but thought better of it. “Well, thank you,” Selly went on. “Goodbye, sir.”

He rang off.

Rollison put down his receiver, still puzzled and more than a little frustrated. Selly might at least have told him more about this Loman from Arizona. He was contemplating the wall without really seeing it when Jolly appeared again. Jolly was half a head shorter than Rollison, an elderly man who had sad-looking, dark brown eyes, deep lines all over his face and a dewlap which had become wizened; he had the general appearance of a man who had once been fat but, after much self-sacrifice, had become thin; and dyspeptic. He had served Rollison since his schooldays, and these men were close friends.

Jolly was dressed in striped trousers and a white shirt and wore a green baize apron.

“Shall I put the eggs on, sir?”

“Jolly,” said Rollison, “do we know a man named Loman?”

After a moment’s reflection, Jolly answered: “No, sir. Should we?”

“I suspect that we are going to find out. Yes, put on the eggs, and I’ll tell you about the call while I have breakfast. Have you had yours?”

“Oh, yes, sir.”

“Then have some coffee while I eat,” said Rollison.

Between now and breakfast being served there would be no time to dress, so he went to a wall which was at angles with the trophy one and took down a World Gazetteer, then thumbed the pages until he found Tucson, pronounced, it was said, Teu-sonn. It was a city of some three hundred and fifty thousand people, with mountains to the north and south, the east and west. There the sun shone on most days of the year and it could become much too hot but seldom too cold. Near it were many mines, mostly producing copper, and the final word was : ‘Tucson is one of the five quickest growing cities in the United States judged on population.’

“Humm,” Rollison said to himself.

Immediately, Jolly appeared with a tray which he placed on a table in a small, raised dining-alcove at one end of this large room. Rollison set to, Jolly drank coffee, Rollison told the story briefly, and Jolly remarked :

“I remember Mr. Selly, sir.”

“You do?” Rollison was intrigued.

“He came one day when you were out,” Jolly informed him, “and asked me what a Toff was.”

“Oh,” said Rollison, still further intrigued. “What did you tell him?”

“That a toff is a toff, sir.”

“I am sure that conveyed everything he needed to know,” Rollison said drily.

“Of course I elaborated somewhat,” went on Jolly urbanely, “but basically it is a difficult term to define, especially to this generation.” When Rollison speared a piece of bacon, obviously expecting him to go on, Jolly continued: “I told him that a toff was a gentleman of high social standing who exerted himself to do great good among the less fortunate members of society.”

“Oh,” Rollison said. “Can’t we do better than that?”

“Can you, sir?” inquired Jolly.

“I shall think about it,” Rollison decided, and after a liberal helping of bacon and eggs, spread butter and a dark-coloured marmalade on toast, finished breakfast and went to his room to dress. It was not one of his good mornings, for his attempt to define a ‘toff’ proved both disconcerting and abortive. He found that Jolly had made his bed and laid out a medium weight suit of heather colour, perhaps as satisfactory as any for this autumn day. “A toff,” he said in a complaining voice, “is a man who gets waited on hand and foot and is rich enough to give hand-outs.” He knew that was not fair to himself, laughed aloud, dressed, and was going into the big room when the telephone bell rang again.

“I’ll get it!” he called, and this time sat down with his back to the Trophy Wall, plucked up the receiver, and said: “Richard Rollison.”

“Good morning, Rolly,” said a man with a familiar voice. “And what have you been up to?”

“Bill” Rollison almost groaned.

“That’s right. Come on, now. You might as well confess.”

“Bill,” interrupted Rollison in a tone of mock des-peration. “You are the very man I need. Who better than Chief Detective Superintendent William Grice of New Scotland Yard to tell me what I am? Bill — can you define ‘a Toff?”

There was silence.

He had at least gained time to think, but thinking did not take him far. Grice was both old adversary and old friend, and had been concerned in most of the cases remembered on the Trophy Wall. Frequently, when he, Rollison, became involved in an inquiry it was before the police discovered that there was anything to inquire about. At such times Grice was likely to call and ask: “What have you been up to?” Rollison could not think of a single recent activity which could justify the question.