John Creasey: The Toff And The Stolen Tresses

Donny snipped and shrugged.

“I have done well, yes, but I am not yet a millionaire, Mr. Rollison. The secret of success lies in hard work.”

“And no competition.”

“One buys out competition.”

“Or drives it out.”

“Ah,” said Donny, and paused to look hard at Rollison’s reflection in the mirror; it was a strange way to meet a man’s eyes. a begin to understand what has brought you.”

“I don’t like to think of you hiring men like Tiny Wallis and Mick Clay,” said Rollison chidingly. “No one deserved roughing up like that because he wanted to buy a barber’s shop in your district.”

Snip.

“It was,” said Donny and paused and snipped; “unfortunate.”

“Do you know what happened to the man?”

“I am sorry,” Donny said, and kept snipping. “I was able to help him and his wife a little, and I do not think he will suffer very much.”

“Why employ Wallis at all?” asked Rollison, still mildly.

“Perhaps it was a mistake,” said Donny. Tut he had no instructions to use violence, only persuasion.”

“Under threat of violence?”

“I don’t think you always avoided violence,” murmured Donny. Rollison chuckled quite spontaneously, picturing his own wall and the many trophies of violent action. “All right,” he conceded. “I agree that there are times when action speaks louder than words. Why are you so anxious not to have any barber near you?”

Snip.

Pause.

“Mr. Rollison,” said Donny, “I think I ought to say that I do not recognise your right to ask such questions, and that I feel under no obligation to answer.” His reflection made him look rather like a saint. “However, I have no objection to making the picture clear for you. I am a family man. I have four sons and three daughters, and three of the sons and two of the daughters are married, while the others will be soon. Except for one son, all of my family is in the business. Each son and daughter and each in-law learns the trade, and then becomes a shop manager. With so many children, so many shops are needed.” He stood back, comb in one hand and scissors in the other. “It is a good thing that the grandchildren are not big enough yet.”

Rollison didn’t answer, and made no attempt to smile. Donny looked disappointed, but went on with his work. For several minutes there was nothing but the snipping, broken occasionally by the hum of an electric clipper. Donny worked quickly and with the grace and effectiveness of a master. When he had nearly finished, he stood back.

“Mr. Rollison,” he said, “you and I began life in very different ways. I was the son of poor parents, my mother was an Italian immigrant, my father spent much time in prison. When he was home, he was a barber. When I was ten, I was cutting the hair of the children of the neighbourhood, and when I was fifteen, I was in charge of the shop. I have been cutting hair in this part of London for over forty years, and I have seen my business grow and grow. It is not an exaggeration to say that it brightens the lives of many who would otherwise be drab. I turn no one away. I have special prices for those who cannot afford my normal charges. But I don’t want competition in this neighbourhood, Mr. Rollison, and if I can avoid it, I shall not have any. Once an old established barber wishes to give up, I pay him well for his business, and then either take over or close his shop. Is that unreasonable?”

“Breaking into a man’s home, smashing everything he possesses, kicking him so hard that he has three ribs broken and needs over twenty stitches in his head, terrifying his wife and probably scarring her mind for life—is that reasonable, Donny?”

There was a long silence.

“Just a little more off here,” said Donny, and snipped and stood back, and smiled; more like a picture-book saint than ever. “I think your regular barber will be satisfied—it is satisfying to work on a really good head of hair. I congratulate you, Mr. Rollison.”

“Yes?”

“I hope we are not going to be bad friends.”

“I hope not, too.”

Donny shrugged and whipped off the sheet, and brushed with a soft brush, talking all the time.

“Is there anything you would like, Mr. Rollison? Haircream, tonic, razor blades, shampoo lotion, toothpaste—anything at all?” He was smiling as he opened the door of a cupboard and showed a mass of expensive-looking goods. Rollison saw that most of them were marked in a way which he knew well: a monogrammed double J, in script writing; it was the monogram of Jepsons. “Or even,” went on Donny, “a wig?”

Rollison stood up.

“Not yet,” he said, “but I’ll know where to come if I want one, Donny.”

He broke off, for he heard a door slam. That seemed almost a sacrilege here. Then came running footsteps and voices, and a girl crying on a high-pitched note. Donny stepped swiftly to the door and opened it. A girl appeared, her eyes ablaze with rage and yet despair, a girl who would have been pretty but for her expression and for the disaster which had overtaken her hair.

She had been shorn.

Someone had hacked off her hair, as if with a pair of garden shears. One cut, close to the front of her head over the right eye, actually showed the white scalp beneath; one lock fell over her left ear.

“Look what they’ve done to my hair!” she cried. “Look what they’ve done to my hair! What am I going to do? Tell me, what am I going to do? I can’t stand it, I just can’t stand it, what am I going to do?”

CHAPTER SEVEN

Boys Will Be Boys

Rollison stood and watched the older man and the girl, and in Donny’s eyes he thought he saw the light of great compassion. No one could doubt the despair in the girl’s, and it was not all due to shock and distress; some deeper reason lay behind it.

“Don’t just stand there!” the girl cried. “What am I going to do?”

Donny put a pale hand gently on her shoulder.

“I will help you,” he said. “Leah, who did this to you?” Each word seemed to hang heavily on the air.

“I don’t know who they were. There was a gang of Teddy Boys hanging about near the shop, I didn’t know they were after me. I think it’s because I wouldn’t have anything to do with their leader, he tried to make a date—” at this Leah broke off, and hot tears flooded her eyes. “What am I going to do?” she asked brokenly, and seemed to fall towards Donny. “I can’t even enter for the competition now.”

Donny’s arms went round her shoulders as she cried. A saint? He looked at Rollison for the first time since the girl had come in, but he was not thinking of Rollison, only of this problem. Several assistants had come to see what was happening, two men with their hair only partly cut among them; but Donny took no more notice of these than he did of the Toff.

Rollison asked: “Where did it happen?” as if that mattered now.

“Please—” Donny began.

“It happened just round the corner,” said a little woman who stood with the crowd; short, thin, with sharp features and very bright, browny eyes. “The devils! If I had my way I’d horsewhip them. There must have been a dozen of them, and when I saw them set about her out there in the open, I thought the world was coming to an end. Two of them held her arms behind her and one pushed her hair over her face and made it hang down while another one used a pair of shears.” She gave that word a touch of horror. “I thought they were going to murder her!”

“Do the police know yet?” asked Rollison.

“There were two just round the corner, but it was done so quick no one had a chance to call them. You know what’ll happen, don’t you? Those devils will cover up for each other, the cops won’t be able to pin a thing on to any of them.”