John Creasey: The Toff And The Stolen Tresses

He went into the chilly morning air, and shivered, but his spirits rose when he saw dark clouds obscuring the stars; the street lighting was very poor. He went a long way round to Dirk Street, and just as the daylight was coming, stepped into the back yard.

A police car approached a few minutes afterwards; and turned into Dirk Street. No one would be surprised and probably a lot of hearts were beating uncomfortably then: but it was not until the stroke of five thirty that Rollison heard a heavy knocking at the front of the house. After a moment, lights went on upstairs; then one went on in the kitchen, where a man had been sitting in an armchair. He saw the man go slowly towards the front of the house, and a moment after through an open doorway, saw another man join him in the narrow passage.

The banging came again, and Rollison fancied that he heard a man calling the formula: “Open in the name of the law.”

Rollison used the key he had taken on his first visit, slipped inside, closed the door and stepped straight to the larder, where Stella Wallis had been imprisoned. He left the door ajar. Men were talking and arguing, Stella’s voice sounded shrill and angry, and then one of the men raised his voice:

“You can’t do this to us, I’ll see my lawyer!”

“You see him at the station,” a policeman said. “Don’t make a fuss. You’re only wanted for questioning.”

Stella said viciously: “One of these days I’ll tell you what I think of you, you slab-faced piece of bacon. There’s nothing in this house that shouldn’t be, and there never has been. My friends are a damn’ sight more honest than any cops.”

“Listen, Stella,” one of Wallis’s men said, “go and ask Ropey to come along. He’ll be okay, and—”

“Oh, it’s not worth worrying about now it’s light,” Stella said, and stifled a yawn. “It’s okay, Tiny won’t blame you because the rozzers picked you up.”

Confused sounds followed, next the slamming of the front door, then the sound of a car engine; and as it hummed, Stella Wallis came walking from the hall. If she came to the kitchen to make tea, she would almost certainly open the larder door.

Rollison waited tensely.

She went upstairs.

* * *

Some minutes afterwards, Rollison went into the living room and sat in an armchair. He did not put on a light but waited until sufficient daylight came through the window for him to look about him. He had to take a chance that when Ada and Donny came they would be shown into the front room; he put the tape recorder there, all set and ready; it would start when he pressed a lighting point in the wainscotting. The recorder itself was on top of a corner cupboard which held several pieces of Dresden china. No one could see it casually, and this wasn’t a morning when Stella Wallis would start spring cleaning. Then he put the rings and brooches behind the books in the smaller room.

He went out the back way, hurried to Gresham Terrace, bathed, changed, and cooked bacon and eggs; Jolly was in his mind a great deal. He telephoned the hospital and was told that Jolly had had a good night.

At ten o’clock, when Wallis was being taken into court, Rollison reached Dirk Street again, this time sitting in a car at one end of the street. At ten fifteen Donny arrived, alone. At ten twenty, Ada arrived, driving her own M.G. Nothing else happened that was at all unusual in Dirk Street, until a little after half past ten, when one or two youths drifted in, and hovered about Wallis’s house. Others sauntered up in twos and threes. If they noticed Rollison, they did not show it. They gathered about Wallis’s place, obviously a reception party. Rollison recognised several of them; at least six had been with the mob when he had nearly been crushed by the lorry.

At a quarter to eleven, a taxi turned the corner, and the youths began to cheer as if they were welcoming a film star; and as they did so, six of them moved swiftly away from the main party and surrounded Rollison’s car. He did not move.

One of them opened the door.

“Come on out, come and give a cheer for Tiny,” one of the youths sneered. “Come and tell him you’re sorry for what you did to him.”

Outside his house, Wallis towered above the youths, and looked across at Rollison’s car. Then he beckoned; and went into the house.

“We told you—” one of the youths said roughly, yet he didn’t touch Rollison.

“Yes, I’ll have a word with Tiny,” Rollison said, and got out. “I’d like to find out how he fooled the beak.” He shouldered one of the youths aside, and went straight towards the house. When he reached it, Wallis was standing in the hall and staring into the front room.

Rollison heard him say:

“What the hell are you doing here?”

It was his wife who said, gasping: “They said you’d sent for them!”

Rollison called from the front door: “No, Stella, I did. I thought it time we all had a little chat.”

He went in.

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

The Power Behind Wallis

Behind Rollison, crowding the street and the porch, were the youths on whom Wallis depended. In front was Wallis himself, so huge and powerful, and with his eyes glittering—not only furious, but puzzled; like a bewildered bull. His wife was puzzled, too, and neither liked nor understood what was happening. Into the doorway of the front room came Ada Jepson looking tiny and quite adorable, her eyes bright as if touched by a kind of fear.

Then Donny appeared.

And all of these people stared at Rollison.

“So they let you come away, did they,” said Rollison, as if that was the last thing he had expected. There was an edge to his voice: it would be easy for them to believe that he was acutely disappointed. “I thought you were certain—”

The puzzled look and the fury died from Wallis’s eyes, and he grinned with a kind of savage triumph.

“So you thought they’d remand me for eight days and you could go on playing your little game,” he said in a rough voice. The words carried to the gang outside, and won a ragged cheer. “It isn’t the first time you’ve got things wrong with me, Mr. Bloody Toff, but it’ll be the last.”

Rollison glanced quickly over his shoulder, as if he was suddenly scared. He dodged into the front room, as if to get away from the door—and bumped against the switch controlling the recorder.

Wallis grabbed his shoulder, and drew him back into the hall.

The youths hooted with laughter.

“Don’t you try any rough stuff,” Rollison said, and no one could doubt the note of fear in his voice. “The police know I’m here.”

“Hear that, boys?” Wallis roared, and his voice reverberated through the narrow hall. “The police know he’s here. Tell that to your wives and children, the so-called So-and-so Hero Toff is so scared he wants police protection! The police pulled him out of trouble last night, too. How about that for a caveman hero?”

The youths roared.

“I’ll tell you what I’ll do,” Wallis bellowed. “I’ll send him out for you to look after, be careful with him, he might get hurt.” There was a lilt of savage gloating in his voice. “Go on, Rollison, go and explain your mistake to my pals outside. See what happens to you.” He dropped his voice, and the savage note rasped. “They’ll tear you to bits, that’s what they’re there for.”

Ada exclaimed: “Rolly, be careful!”

“Being careful won’t help him,” Wallis sneered, and added: “Anyone round the back?”

“A dozen of us!” came a roar.

“These boys are well-trained,” Wallis said gloating. “They know all the tricks, which is more than you do, Rollison.” He put his arm round his wife’s shoulders, and squeezed, while she looked at Rollison as if she couldn’t quite believe that everything was as it seemed. “He thought I was tucked away for eight days and was going to try to work on you. What were you hoping to do, you pretty hero? Hoping to make Stella and Miss Jepson and Mr. Sampson break down and tell you all about it? That the idea? Well, it didn’t work, did it? And now the world knows that you were so scared of me that you tried to get me put inside while you got to work on my wife. You know what I’m going to do?” His voice was a rasping sound in Rollison’s ear again. “I’m going to say I came back and found you trying to fool around with my wife, and my friends got so mad they tore you to bits. Now get out.”