John Creasey - Kill The Toff

“Fine. The food’s wonderful, the old dear can cook a treat.” Snub eyed Clarissa with unfeigned admiration; he was a most susceptible young man and had no hesitation in showing it. “Visitors for the patient?”

“Miss Arden, Mr Higginbottom,” murmured Rollison.

“Not my fault,” pleaded Snub, it doesn’t mean what it sounds as if it means, either. It means the bottom of a hill, or village, or something like that. How are you?”

Clarissa said: “First Jolly and now Snub! I hope you know how lucky you are, Roily.”

“Oh, he does.” Snub was earnest but his eyes were gleaming. “I keep telling him and he’s a good listener.”

“How’s the patient?” asked Rollison.

“Sleeping again. The Doc said he would sleep a lot and we were not to try to rouse him. He had some bread-and-milk for breakfast, though. He’ll do. Going to see him?”

“Yes. Where’s Mrs B. ?”

“Shopping in the village—she really is a marvellous old dear. Still has all her faculties and she boasts that she’s seventy-six. For some mysterious reason she’s taken a liking to me and you made a hit last night. Shall I lead the way?”

“No, there won’t be room for all three of us,” said Rollison. “Just keep your eyes open, will you? I don’t think we were followed but if the police were on the job they could do a lot by radio.”

He led Clarissa across the small, crowded room. In the sunlight he saw that it was spotless and freshly dusted. Clarissa didn’t ask questions but followed him submissively up the narrow steep stairs which creaked at every tread.

“Mind your head,” said Rollison and she ducked where the wall jutted out.

They reached a tiny landing. There were three doors, each of them closed; the box-room was immediately opposite the stairs.

Clarissa lowered her voice, as if the hush in the cottage demanded whispering.

“What are you going to show me?”

Rollison gripped her arm.

“Mellor.”

He felt her muscles grow tense, although he gathered that she wasn’t altogether surprised. The name had exactly the same effect on her now as it had before. She didn’t speak as he opened the door. The bed was behind the door with the head against the wall; all they could see was the foot of the iron bedstead, a bow-shaped chest of drawers with a dressing-mirror in a rosewood frame on the top of it and a small window with gay chintz curtains.

Rollison drew Clarissa in.

He stood by the window and watched her intently as she stepped past the door and looked at the sleeping man.

She took one glance, no more, and swung round on him.

“This isn’t Mellor! He’s nothing like Mellor. What are you playing at, Roily?”

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

Not Mellor?

Mellor stirred at the sound of her voice. “Look again,” whispered Rollison. “I don’t need to.”

But she peered, much more intently, into Mellor’s face. He looked tired; there was no hint of brightness or youth at his eyes and mouth, and his forehead was wrinkled in a frown, as if he could not throw off the weight of his fear, even in sleep. One arm lay over the bedspread, the fist clenched but not tightly. “Of course it isn’t Mellor,” Clarissa insisted. “We’ll go downstairs.”

Rollison waited for her to lead the way, and studied the homely face and the curly hair for a few seconds. Then he followed Clarissa, closing the door behind him softly. When they reached the parlour, she said:

“What on earth made you think it was Mellor?”

“It is.”

“Nonsense!”

“You didn’t know Mellor well, did you?”

“I shall never forget what that man looked like.”

“A beard makes a lot of difference and this one isn’t wearing a beard.”

“A beard doesn’t make a sharp aquiline nose flat, like the man’s upstairs. It doesn’t make thin lips full and friendly. It doesn’t make small, flat white ears stick out from the side of the head—I can’t understand you. I thought you knew Mellor.”

“That’s the man I know as Mellor—James Arden Mellor.” Rollison gave no emphasis to the Arden, just let the word come out casually, and watched her closely for her reaction. It didn’t come immediately.

“He’s not the Mellor I know. He— what did you say?”

“He is James Arden Mellor.”

She caught her breath. “So that’s it.” She glanced round, as if for a chair and instead sat heavily on a stool; but she didn’t look away from Rollison. “James Arden Mellor—my uncle’s love-child. Am I right?”

“Yes.”

“And that’s—that’s what you’ve been doing for him? Finding his long-lost son?”

“Yes.”

“Didn’t you know attempts were being made on his life?”

“Yes. That was incidental.”

“I don’t know why it has shaken me so much,” said Clarissa. “Since Waleski started questioning me, I’ve known there was a son. It amused me—call it malice, if you like. Uncle so strait-laced, so quick to criticise and condemn loose-living, with a bastard child running about somewhere. But after Geoffrey was killed I often wished he had another child. He’s been so desperately lonely since then. After Waleski’s taunts I found myself wondering whether uncle wished he could find the boy, whether he would like to acknowledge him. And I suppose he asked you to trace him?”

“Yes.”

“Are you sure it’s the man upstairs?”

“He was taken in by some old servants of your uncle’s who pretended he was their son, actually registered his birth. Then he was adopted by some people named Mellor, a childless couple of good middle-class standing. They were killed in the blitz when Mellor himself was in the Far East. The sticky part was tracing relatives of the Mellors who knew the truth about the child—that they’d taken him from your uncle’s old servants. They had few relatives and most thought he was a child of the marriage. But everything fell into place. There’s no real doubt that this is the natural son of your uncle and the adopted son of the Mellors, the only one they adopted. Until I heard about the East End Mellor, I didn’t think there was any possibility of casting doubt on my fancy. That’s been done with a heavy hand but, although it makes complications, it doesn’t affect Jim Mellor’s identity.”

She said: “Mellor is an unusual name but there must be hundreds of them.”

“There are but this isn’t simply a case of a name. The East End Mellor probably killed the man Galloway. Yet my Mellor is wanted for Galloway’s murder. See the cunning of it? The killer goes to earth, the police get hold of my Mellor’s photograph, the other Mellor’s gang convince the police it’s the man they want and the police go after him. What’s more scarifying, the Killer’s gang goes all out to drive Jim Mellor to suicide, too. It’s pretty obvious that Killer Mellor hopes my Mellor will be taken for him.”

Clarissa said slowly: it can’t be just that, Roily?”

“Why not?”

“You hardly need telling. If I could see at a glance that this isn’t the same Mellor, others can.”

“You didn’t spend enough enough time in the East End to learn their wiles,” said Rollison dryly. “Except for a few close friends, no one ever knew Killer Mellor well. He was seen in public occasionally, as at that dance, but if anyone who saw him that night was questioned by the police, they’d swear they didn’t remember what he looked like. Some would describe him as tall, lean, fair and clean-shaven, others as short, dark, bearded and stocky. The police wouldn’t be able to make head or tail of it. He’s never been through their hands, I doubt if they’ve fingerprints—in fact, I’m sure they haven’t, or they’d have had him before this. The first time Mellor appeared to slip up was over the murder of Galloway. Then prints were found and there was other evidence to point to this Mellor. And the police naturally assume that it’s the same one. They not only want their man for the murder of Galloway but for a lot of other crimes that will never be proved against him. They will be quite ruthless where Mellor is concerned and will take a lot of convincing that they’ve got the wrong man.”