The Toff And The Stolen Tresses Read online

  JOHN CREASEY

  The Toff And The Stolen Tresses

  Copyright Note

  This e-book was created by papachanjo, with the purpose of providing a digitized format of the books written by John Creasey without the least intention of commercial gain of any sort. This e-book should hence be utilized for reading only and if you like it and can buy it, please do to support the publishers.

  This book was scanned by a friend in America along with others.

  I am trying to create at least an ample collection of all the John Creasey books which are in the excess of 500 novels. Having read and possess just a meager 10 of his books does not qualify me to be a fan but the 10 I read were enough for me to rake up some effort to scan and create these e-books.

  If you happen to have any John Creasey book and would like to add to the free online collection which I’m hoping to bring together, you can do the following:

  Scan the book in greyscale

  Save as djvu — use the free DJVU SOLO software to compress the images

  Send it to my e-mail: [email protected]

  I’ll do the rest and will add a note of credit in the finished document.

  from back cover

  Three lovely heads have been shorn — long, silken hair has been cut off — and the Toff is faced with one of the most ingenious gangs of criminals that he has ever encountered. Clue after clue blazes a twisting and unexpected trail. And the Honourable Richard Rollison is drawn into an exciting climax deep in the heart of the East End, as he attempts to find a solution to the problem of the stolen tresses . . .

  Table of Contents

  Copyright Note

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  CHAPTER ONE

  Goldilocks

  “Sometimes I get so mad that I could have it cut off,” said Evelyn Day, “or else have it dyed jet black. No one ever calls out “Blackbird” to Anne, and she has just as much hair as I have.”

  She was flushed. Her blue eyes sparkled because she was annoyed. She looked lovely. She made James Matthison Jones long to take her in his arms and hold and hug her, but he was a wise young man, and did not follow his inclination. He was tall as well as wise, and had a chunky kind of face and a look, even when he was serious, of drollery. Now he smiled at her.

  “You’d rather cut off your hand than your hair,” he said.

  “Oh, don’t talk such utter nonsense,” retorted Evelyn Day. “Sometimes I wonder what you have for a mind. The next man who calls me Goldilocks, I’ll—I’ll—”

  “Goldilocks,” said Jimmy Jones, promptly. “It’s the loveliest hair I’ve ever seen, and I don’t care who calls you Goldilocks. I like to think that other people get a kick out of it, too.”

  “I’m not surprised that you’re fond of hair,” said Evelyn, tartly. “You’ll be bald before you’re thirty.”

  He was twenty-eight, and the prophecy was by no means baseless. He found his right hand smoothing over his bald patch. He did this for some time, while the laughter no longer lurked in but positively leapt out of his eyes.

  “You’ve plenty for two,” he declared. “How about fixing a date before anyone can accuse me of marrying you for your hair?”

  Her look of annoyance faded and the anger went out of her eyes, while she touched the back of his right hand very lightly. They were sitting at a table in the Embankment Gardens during a lunch time in late May, and the wallflowers and tulips, the forget-me-nots and the polyanthus made a wonderful show, the lunch-hour band was playing not far away, and London’s office workers were walking to and fro, only here and there was anyone in a hurry. All the seats along the paths were taken by people, young and old, eating sandwiches or fruit or chocolate. Behind them on the embankment proper the traffic was speeding, but there they seemed cut off from cars and river and the busy world.

  “Jimmy,” Evelyn said, “I don’t want to hurt you, but I don’t think I’ll ever want to marry you. You know that really, don’t you?”

  “You’ve suggested it before,” he conceded, and his smile didn’t fade, tut until you’re safely married off to your millionaire, I shall go on trying. The Joneses never give up.”

  “You know very well I’m not interested in how much money—” Evelyn began, but he squeezed her hand and laughed, making her break off.

  “Just my little joke,” he said, and finished his cup of tea. “Are you going for a stroll, or shopping?”

  “I must buy some white wool for my sister, and I ought to get a few oddments,” Evelyn said, and glanced at the small gilt watch on her rounded wrist; she had very clear skin, and all her movements were graceful. “What are you going to do?”

  The laughter and the drollery seemed to fade from Jim’s grey eyes.

  “I am going to get a haircut,” he declared.

  Evelyn burst out laughing. A dozen people were attracted, and turned to stare at her; most of them gave a quick, light-hearted smile. She looked happy. She was happy. As she hurried towards Villiers Street and the Strand, with Jim at her side, more people stared at her.

  They reached the end of Villiers Street, and she said: “See you in the office, Jim,” and hurried off. He also watched her. She was one of the lucky ones, he told himself deliberately.

  Face, figure, legs, ankles and hair. He could never forget her hair, the most beautiful golden colour that hair could be, striking and remarkable, and when she let it down, it reached as far as her waist. In one hectic afternoon, not long ago, she had accepted a challenge from two fellows in the office, and had let it down; Jimmy Jones could remember to this moment how every smile vanished and everyone was silent, because of the beauty of that cascade of golden hair.

  Goldilocks.

  Of course, everyone called her that, and occasionally it riled her; today, two passing youths had made the comment, with a kind of Teddy Boy impudence which had sparked her to annoyance.

  And led to another refusal.

  James Matthison Jones watched Evelyn walking off at a good pace, and wondered what would happen to her. She had such dreams of romance—dreams at least as great as his. He hoped she wouldn’t marry a man older than herself, she was the type likely to appeal to them; not exactly soft and clinging, but possessed of a great simplicity and a kind of intense honesty. In fact, he told himself that although there were times when he positively ached to have and to hold her, it would probably be a mistake to marry her, even if she was so inclined; and she would never be.

  In her simplicity was a certain simpleness, a very different thing. He had known her at the office for nearly three years now, and knew her limitations, just as he believed that he knew his. They didn’t really like the same things; hers was a television, his a-book-and-armchair temperament. But for a few years it would be wonderful, and in time Forget it.

  His usual barber was so busy that Jim did no more than put his head inside; three chairs and a dozen customers. The next was as busy, but nearer the Strand there was another shop, dignified by the word Coiffure which appeared on a hanging sign outside. Here was no bar
ber but a hairdresser. Ladies and Gentlemen’s Hair Beauticians, declared a notice in the window. He stood on tip-toe, to look over the frosted glass and into the mens’ salon. Four chairs and, as far as he could see, only three men waiting; this was an expensive place, but he needed a trim, and the extra shilling wasn’t the world. Two men were waiting, after all. One of the barbers glanced up and beamed at Jim, and said:

  “It will not be long, sir,” in a way which sounded like “Eet weel not be long, sair,” and went on snipping, then stood back and admired his handiwork on a head of greying hair as if looking for the slightest blemish in the cutting. The barbers worked as if their very lives depended on it, scissors snipped and clicked and gnashed, hair fell gently to the rubber-covered floor, a man in a corner bent over a basin and a short, plump barber began to give him a shampoo.

  All was normal.

  On the other side of the double-fronted shop, divided three-quarters of the depth of the shop by a wooden partition, was the ladies’ salmon. There were several cubicles, much whispering, much mystery, a kind of abracadabra of the coiffeur’s craft. The several women, out of his sight, undoubtedly looked like space men.

  Outside, people strolled or hurried. Inside, Jim closed his eyes, and hoped that it wouldn’t be too long, then opened them again as the man next to him dropped a magazine on the table, and went to a newly vacated chair.

  “Only one more,” Jim mused, and picked up the magazine. It was small and printed on cheap paper, and the title read:

  HAIR STYLIST

  He turned over the pages and saw quarter-page pictures of women’s hair, rather like some likely to be found in the glossy magazines, but nothing like so effective because these were printed in black and red and on newsprint. Beneath each was the descriptive style, beneath that in turn the hairdresser who had dressed the hair of the model whose picture was shown.

  “There isn’t one a patch on Evelyn,” Jim mused, and ran the pages through quickly. He was about to drop the magazine when he saw the advertisement on the last page.

  £1,000

  in PRIZES

  this said boldly, and beneath it in smaller type but quite clearly:

  Hair Styles Competition for the Most Beautiful

  HEAD OF HAIR

  in Great Britain

  LADIES’ section GENTLEMEN’S section

  Entry FREE

  All particulars can be obtained

  from any member of the

  HAIR STYLISTS’ ASSOCIATION

  “You next, sir,” said the Italian with the white teeth and bright smile.

  “Oh, yes, thanks.” Jim jumped up. He took the magazine with him, sat down, submitted to the earlier rituals, and saw his own and the beaming Italian’s reflection in a tall mirror. “This beautiful hair competition,” he said, “can you tell me more about it?”

  “Oh, yes, with pleasure, sair. You take a leaflet.” The barber stood back, surveyed Jim’s silky, thinning hair and its large bald spot, and looked puzzled.

  “A friend of mine might be interested,” Jim said, solemnly.

  “Oh, yes, sair, I quite understand,” said the barber, “You take a leaflet. Everything is written down there.” He began to use the clippers with that kind of exaggerated care of a barber who knows that if he ill-treated his victim’s hair, it might have serious results; no infant’s hair was ever cut with greater care and gentleness. “The competition is open to everyone who had hair dressed by a member of the Hair Stylists’ Association, sair. It is very simple.”

  “Ah,” thought Jim. “The snag. I wonder where Evelyn has hers done.”

  He continued to think about it idly as he succumbed to the ministrations of the barber who certainly knew his business. He left, twelve minutes later, taking half a dozen of the printed leaflets about the competition in his pocket, and telling himself that he was probably a fool, and that Evelyn knew all about the competition. But if she knew nothing, and it attracted her, he couldn’t imagine anyone else winning.

  “No, Jim,” said Evelyn. “I haven’t heard of it.” She studied a leaflet with keen interest while she went on: “But it would be just a waste of time, I wouldn’t stand a chance.”

  “No one would stand a chance against you,” Jim asserted, and turned to one of the older girls in the office. “Rose, what’d you think?”

  “It’s as good as her money!”

  “No, really—” Evelyn began.

  “No mock modesty,” Jim ordered with affected sternness. Tor the sake of the office you’ll have to enter.”

  “Of course you will,” Rose said.

  “It would be crazy not to,” put in a typist who had been studying the leaflet over Evelyn’s shoulder. “Here, Jackie, come and tell us what you think . . . Look, you don’t have to have a perm, you just have to have a set at one of these hairdressers, and they say they’ve members all over London . . . The one near Villiers Street is the best for you, obviously . . . George! Come and let us know what you think .. .”

  Jim strolled away from the crowd round Evelyn’s desk, and went to his own, in a corner. He was Deputy Office Manager, Buying and Accounts Departments of Jepsons, Mail Order Suppliers to The World. It was a quarter past two, and he ought to have stopped the discussion and got everyone back to a machine, a file or an order book, but Jepsons believed that a policy of reasonable latitude witIthe staff was wise policy. In five minutes all of the staff of this office, thirty-two people in all, were busy. It was true that Evelyn had the leaflet on her desk, but she began to type out orders from rough notes he or the Buyer had made at a bewildering speed; in front of a typewriter, she became a part of the machine. So did several of the other girls. The clatter of machines, the rustle of papers, the occasional bang of a filing drawer, the ringing of a telephone, the footsteps of clerks with roving commissions, turned this into just another afternoon.

  A little before half past five, work done and powder compacts, combs and lipsticks appearing like a rash all over the office, Evelyn came across to Jim. He would be working late, and his desk was still littered with papers; his task was to check orders against invoices, and pass the orders for payment.

  “I’ve made up my mind,” Evelyn said.

  “Which way?”

  “I’m going to enter.”

  “I want ten per cent commission!”

  “I haven’t a chance, but if there happened to be a freak result—”

  “Get along, Goldilocks,” said Jim, and laughed at her; and she laughed in turn, then hurried away, for the bells which released the staff here and in the dozens of offices of the Jepson Building were ringing, and the staircases, landings, lifts and passages suddenly swarmed with people. Except for the occasional late worker, like Jim, the offices were occupied only by ghosts.

  It was nearly half past six when Jim left, on a lovely evening. He could stroll along the Embankment, or through the gardens, or could go up Villiers Street towards the Strand as he usually did. He felt not only at a loose end, but deeply depressed. Evelyn’s bluntness had acted like a blow from a bludgeon, and forced him to accept the fact that he had no hope. It had not really helped to tell himself that marriage with her wouldn’t have worked, that their tastes differed, that her simplicity and sweetness would soon cloy. It was not much use, either, trying to persuade himself that he would soon get over it.

  Meanwhile, he had the evening on his hands, for he had intended to ask Evelyn to have supper and go to a film with him. He was on his own too much. Comfortable digs, a landlady who spoiled him, a sufficient salary—enough to marry and raise a family on, if he were careful—but apart from that, he told himself his was an aimless kind of existence. He had never been a club man, preferring books and browsing, but at twenty-eight he felt a stronger and stronger urge for company, and until today he had persuaded himself that Evelyn’s resistance could be worn down.

  He did not think that now.

  At least if she won that competition she would have reason to bless his name.

  He smile
d wryly, and found himself going towards the barbers. There were the hanging signs, the notices in the window and, standing at the corner nearby, the Italian barber. The man not only recognised but seemed positively pleased to see him.

  “Good evening, sir!”

  “Hallo,” said Jim, and smiled briefly. “Good night.”

  “Good night to you, sir!”

  Over effusive, Jim thought idly, and walked a little more briskly on. It did not occur to him that he was being followed.

  CHAPTER TWO

  The Shadow

  Across the street from the corner where the Italian barber had stood and behaved so effusively was a small, lean man, wearing a neat grey suit and a trilby hat pulled down over one eye. He had a cigarette in his mouth, and put his hand to take it away as the barber began to speak.

  A little further along another man leaned against a shop window, and was also smoking. He was massive, with a thick neck and packed shoulders, dressed in a dark brown suit, and his trilby hat was centred on his head. This man did not hear the barber, and could only see his back, but he saw the smaller man move suddenly, and observed that he moved after Jim. The small man and the big one drew level.

  “That is him,” the little man said.

  “Feller with the bald patch?”

  “Yeh.”

  “Okay.”

  “Don’t let him get away.”

  “No one gets away from me,” said the bull-like man in the brown suit. He nodded, and turned after Jim Jones, who had noticed the other man, but thought nothing of it, then.

  The barber had disappeared, towards the Embankment.

  For the rest, there was nothing unusual about the evening. The homeward rush hour was over, the queues outside the Corner House were diminishing, the Strand itself was not really crowded. Nelson stared blindly and blandly over London.

  And Jim had acquired a shadow.

  He could turn left, towards Trafalgar Square, where a few people were still feeding the pigeons, where the fountains played, and sightseers ambled, but that was too aimless. He could turn right along the Strand, but there were only the shops. He could go and have a meal in one of the restaurants, but was in no mood to eat on his own. It would be much better to get home to his books and the radio; his landlady would get a meal for him very quickly, and once in his own room he could probably put the depression out of his mind. His lodgings were in Chelsea, not far from Sloane Square; he could walk or go by bus. In the mood of the evening, he could not really make up his mind what to do.