Introducing The Toff Read online

  And then a gun appeared close to the window. Colliss could not see the man carrying it. Just the gun and the hand that held it showed. He had not time to move out of the line of fire; he raised his own gun.

  The two shots echoed simultaneously, and Colliss’s gun clattered from his hand.

  11: DRAGOLI IS ANNOYED

  Garrotty stood in the french windows of Colliss’s Winchester house. His automatic was smoking in his hand. There was blood on Colliss’s fingers, and the man on the floor looked unconscious. Garrotty moved quickly across the room, while footsteps and cries of alarm came from the other side.

  His lips twisted, he flung the door open.

  Two women and two men stood in the passage. They had been running and each one stopped at the sight of Garrotty and the gun. Fear beyond all reason showed on their faces, as the gangster, forbidding and menacing, lifted the automatic a little. A red-faced maid screeched.

  Garrotty’s thick voice flung a question. Over his mouth and chin he was wearing a handkerchief, over his eyes the brim of a wide-brimmed hat was pulled well down.

  ‘How many more in de house; – you?’

  He stabbed his gun towards the first man, plump, middle-aged, and dressed in black – Colliss’s butler for twenty-five years. The man gasped the words out: ‘None, we’re all here, we –’

  ‘Turn around,’ snapped Garrotty.

  The butler was the only one to hesitate, and Garrotty loosed a shot towards the man’s feet. It worked, and the butler swung round. Another swarthy-faced man joined Garrotty, masked as he was, and Garrotty nodded. The second gangster used a black-jack with equal force on men and women. Four bodies dropped, quite unconscious, to the floor of the passage.

  ‘Find a room wit’ a small window and push dem in,’ snapped Garrotty. ‘Move fast, Red, we ain’t losin’ no time.’

  The man named Red said nothing, but hurried along the passage, while Garrotty turned back to the room where Colliss was lying. A third gangster was standing by the window, watching the grounds, although there was little chance of an interruption.

  Colliss’s house was built well away from the main road. The archaeologist had always had a passion for the country, and he had buried himself on this little five acre patch of grass and woodland, with a ten-roomed house that was amply large enough for his bachelor requirements. The nearest building, according to Dragoli’s report when he had given the gangster particulars of the place, was a mile and a half away. Anyone who might have heard the shooting at a mile and a half would have taken it for granted that it came from an ordinary morning shoot for birds or rabbits

  ‘Fassen his legs,’ Garrotty snapped.

  The third gangster obeyed, using thin tough cord, while Garrotty started to go through the contents of the study. Bureaux drawers and cupboards were smashed open and the papers taken out. In five minutes Garrotty had every available paper on the desk by a wall, and at the same moment Colliss stirred, groaning a little. Garrotty swung towards him, and fear showed in the special agent’s eyes as the gun moved close to his head.

  ‘Talk fast,’ snarled Garrotty; he had learned almost from childhood how to strike fear in others and it came as a habit. ‘Where’s de dope on de Black Circle racket, Colliss?’

  Colliss hesitated. Garrotty bent down and struck him brutally across the face. Colliss writhed in his bonds, and the gangster hit him again. Colliss sobbed: ‘In – in the safe! In – my – bedroom.’

  ‘De keys?’

  ‘In – my pocket,’ Colliss gasped.

  Garrotty bent down, tapped the man’s body over expertly, found the keys and took them out. In five minutes he had located Colliss’s bedroom, opened the safe and obtained the papers. They meant nothing to him, but they would be what Dragoli wanted. Garrotty believed that he knew when a man had talked all he could, and as he entered the room he snapped orders to his fellows; the gangster who had hit the servants had returned, after locking them in a pantry at the back of the house.

  ‘O.K.,’ grunted Garrotty, ‘we’re through. Get de car started, Red.’

  Red, a fringe of red hair showing at the back of his head, beneath his hat, stepped out on to the lawn. The second man followed him. Garrotty turned round, his lips twisted.

  Colliss’s eyes still showed fear, and Garrotty laughed harshly,

  ‘You oughta learned how to take it, fella. So long.’

  He lifted his gun a couple of inches, and touched the trigger. Four shots rang out in quick succession, hitting Colliss about the region of the heart. Colliss leapt upwards convulsively and then crashed down.

  Garrotty rubbed his fingers across his nose and stepped after the others. Three minutes later the noise of a car engine starting in the by-lane at the back of Colliss’s house broke the silence of the countryside.

  The house in Camberley where Achmed Dragoli was staying was like Colliss’s place in many ways, although it was closer to the town, and the main road. It had ten acres of its own grounds, and it had been let furnished to a man who called himself Smithers a month before. Dragoli had several furnished houses about the country; he knew that there was the possibility of needing several hide-outs in case of trouble, and he was well prepared.

  Garrotty was grinning complacently.

  ‘I put him over, Brodder, and I reckon you’ll be interested in dese.’ He dumped a case containing the papers from Colliss on a table. The room on the second floor of the house was in much better order now, for Dragoli had obtained servants, all male, who could use a gun and cook a seven-course dinner with equal facility.

  ‘De lot in de envelope,’ said Garrotty, with pride, ‘come from de safe, Boss, an’ Colliss reckoned dey was all ‘bout de Black Circle.’

  Dragoli nodded, without speaking, and took the papers out. There were a dozen, many of them no more than brief pencil sketches with a few notes scribbled on in ink. His expression did not alter as he looked through one thing after the other. Then: ‘Where are the rest?’

  ‘In de case,’ said Garrotty, with understandable surprise for Dragoli was standing nearer to them.

  ‘Give me them.’

  Garrotty, who for years had ruled one of the biggest rackets in New York City, had never known a man who could make him feel as scared as Dragoli did. He took out the papers, spreading them in front of the Egyptian. Dragoli went through them slowly, putting them all in a growing heap on the table. He did not speak until he had finished, and then his baleful eyes looked murderous.

  ‘You – helpless – fool,’ he said very softly. There’s nothing here – nothing at all!’

  Garrotty gasped.

  ‘But – but de guy –’

  Tricked you,’ sneered Dragoli. Told you what he wanted you to believe, and you let him do it. Do you know what these are, Garrotty?’

  Garrotty’s tongue ran along his dry lips.

  ‘Say---’

  ‘They are maps and plans of the location of Ancient Egyptian burial grounds,’ said Dragoli. ‘Where you ought to be---’

  ‘Say listen---’

  ‘Oh, get out of my sight!’ snarled Dragoli.

  Garrotty shrugged, but went to the door. He was half-way out when Dragoli called after him: ‘You’re sure you killed Colliss?’

  ‘Sure’as I’m here.’

  ‘All right,’ said Dragoli, and he took a cigarette from his case, lit it, and sat down in an easy chair. The chief thing he had wanted to do was to have Colliss dead. It would have been a big help had he been able to find papers showing what the man had discovered when he had been in Stamboul, but there was just a chance that he had committed them all to memory.

  On the other hand, the fact that he had deceived Garrotty made it likely that the papers were in existence.

  Dragoli smoked in silence for ten minutes, then put the cigarette out, and took a small rubber wallet from his pocket. It was filled with narrow slips of papers, like the contents of a Seidlitz-powder packet. He took one, opened it, and tossed it down his throat. Then he closed his eye
s and a soft, dreamy smile curved his full lips.

  At a quarter past nine Sir Ian Warrender had finished talking with Colliss. At half past nine Garrotty had fired those four shots at the special agent’s heart. And at twenty-five minutes past eleven Sir Ian’s car, driven by Detective-Sergeant Owen, turned into the small drive of ‘Homelea’, Colliss’s house.

  There was no suggestion of trouble. Peace and silence reigned over the countryside, and Owen drank in the clean air, telling himself that the day off duty was going to be fully up to his expectations.

  It was Warrender, glancing from the drive across the lawn, who saw the open french windows. He snapped an order at once.

  ‘Pull up, Owen!’

  The sergeant pulled at the brakes. Both men glanced across the lawn, and Owen saw what Warrender had fancied at his first look. The french windows were smashed.

  Warrender skipped out of the car with surprising agility for a man approaching sixty, and Owen had a job to keep pace with him. As they drew nearer they saw the broken glass lying outside the window and, through the smashed panels the sight of a man’s leg, the toe pointing towards the ceiling.

  Warrender was pale.

  ‘They’ve been here,’ he muttered. ‘I hope to God we’re in time. Draw your gun, Owen.’

  Detective-Sergeant Owen – who, because he was detailed to work on the Black Circle case, was carrying a .35 automatic, did as he was told. Cautiously they approached Colliss’s study, but no sound came. The sun, behind them, sent long shadows into the room as they stepped over the narrow gravel path. Then very softly came a voice, filled with uncertainty.

  ‘Who is there?’

  It was a whisper and Warrender knew that it was nothing to be alarmed about. He called out quickly: ‘The police –’

  ‘Thank God for that! Come on.’

  Owen went in first, conscious of the possibility that it was a trick, and that Warrender might be shot. He saw Colliss stretched out where Garrotty had left him for dead, bound hand and foot. Warrender followed, and swore.

  ‘Who –’

  ‘Get me free,’ gasped Colliss. ‘And whisky – over there.’

  Owen cut the cords, and Warrender found and poured the whisky. Colliss took a deep swig, and then pushed his hand through his hair. Owen had made him lean against the table, and he was still sitting down. The blood on his hand and forehead had congealed into an unpleasant brown crust.

  ‘Gunmen,’ he muttered. ‘Masked, and I couldn’t recognize them. If it hadn’t been for your warnings, Sir Ian...’

  Owen looked puzzled. Warrender was on his knees, undoing the wounded man’s waistcoat. To his astonishment, Owen saw something glitter beneath it, and a moment later recognized a mail-shirt. Round the heart were the marks of the four bullets, which had lodged in his clothing.

  ‘Find the servants,’ muttered Colliss, and Owen jumped for the door at a nod from Warrender. He left the door open, but Colliss spoke quickly.

  ‘It’s all right – they got nothing.’ He smiled faintly. ‘They thought they’d put the fear of God into me, and they damned nearly had. I didn’t dream it was as bad as this, Sir Ian.’

  Warrender’s smile was tight-lipped.

  ‘Nor do a lot of people. I won’t take credit for suggesting the mail-shirt, though: Rollison told me it was essential and I even wear one myself.’ He was smiling wryly now, while the other man said: ‘Rollison?’

  ‘The Hon. Richard.’

  Colliss frowned, wiping his hand across his forehead.

  ‘I know him, of course, but I thought –’

  ‘That he was just an ornament,’ smiled Warrender. ‘A great many people do. Have you ever heard rumours of a man named the Toff?’

  ‘I can’t say I have,’ admitted Colliss, making an effort to get up. ‘Why?’

  ‘That’s Rollison’s nickname in the East End; but you’ll have plenty of time to learn about it. If you’d been much in England lately you’d know Rollison all right. How’re you feeling?’

  ‘Stiff and sore,’ admitted Colliss. ‘I had to fox, though, and if he’d fired at my head ...’

  He broke off with a grimace.

  Before Warrender spoke again, he helped the man on to a couch, and telephoned the Winchester police. Meanwhile, Owen had found the servants, two of them still unconscious, but none of them badly hurt. Morley, the butler, had recovered from the shock quickly and proved an expert in first aid. Bandaged and feeling comfortable, Colliss told the whole story. How he had seen the man in the grounds, been surprised by the others, shot, and then – when Garrotty had finished with him – left for dead.

  Warrender nodded slowly.

  ‘You’ve a lot in common with Rollison,’ he said. ‘In fact you’re the second man left for dead who’s very much alive. Rollison’s the other---’

  ‘The Winchester people, sir.’ Owen spoke from the doorway.

  ‘Oh – send the Inspector in,’ said Warrender.

  He was annoyed that he had spoken of Rollison’s ruse in Owen’s hearing, but he saw no reason for believing that the man would allow his knowledge to leak out. He made a mental note to warn Owen later, and then concerned himself with orders to the local police against the possibility of further attempts on Colliss’s life, three police to take up residence at the house until further orders.

  The formalities finished, Warrender at last had a chance of learning what Colliss had discovered in Stamboul about the Black Circle.

  What he learned did not make him happy.

  12: TIME FLIES

  In any other form of organized crime, nothing happening would have been a good omen. It would have suggested that the gentry concerned had been made nervous of further efforts, and given the police time to make full inquiries.

  When, for a week, nothing happened in the Dragoli case, Warrender was not happy – if anything he was more gloomy than he had been when he had taken Colliss’s report.

  No reports were received that might have led to the finding of Dragoli, Garrotty, or the other members of the gang. No discoveries of caches of ‘snow’ were reported. True, there was no suggestion that the use of cocaine was getting appreciably more widespread than it had for years, but Warrender and others knew that was negligible evidence. It would take months, perhaps years, for the really malicious effect of the drug to materialize. A hundred thousand people might have been introduced to it in a week without the police getting an inkling of the truth.

  Colliss had recovered quickly from his slight wounds, and was still guarded at ‘Homelea’. Chief-Inspector McNab carried his left arm in a sling, but was on duty. Detective-Sergeant Owen was still attached to the case, with another Chief Inspector whose discretion was thoroughly dependable, by name Wilkinson. Others, without knowing the real importance of the affair, had been engaged in trying to trace Garrotty and Dragoli, but without success.

  With McNab, Warrender called at the nursing-home where the Hon. Richard Rollison was still staying, some ten days after the explosion at Shadwell. Rollison was up, clad in a brilliant dressing-gown, and sitting back with all his old assurance in an easy chair that normally had no place in the room’s furnishing. The Toff had a habit of getting what he wanted.

  He had a small table in front of him, and a fountain pen in his left hand. He grinned up as Warrender and McNab entered, but went on with his job, the left hand moving slowly but firmly. Warrender frowned.

  Taking art lessons, Rollison?’

  The Toff smiled, and flipped a card across to the Assistant Commissioner, who managed to catch it.

  ‘Making the left hand do what the right ought to,’ he said lightly. ‘All in the way of business, Sir Ian.’

  Warrender frowned down at a little, carefully executed drawing. A top hat set at a rakish angle, a monocle and a swagger cane. It was the first time he had looked on one of the visiting-cards that had once scared the life out of the deceased Harry the Pug.

  ‘My dear man –’

  ‘You haven’t heard me lecture,’
said the Toff, finishing a card with a flourish and laying his pen down, ‘on the merits of psychological terrorism, and you’ve missed a treat. Hasn’t he, Inspector? One of these cards, by the grace of God and a lot of luck, gets many folk worried. But that’s by the way – how’s things?’

  ‘I don’t like them,’ admitted Warrender.

  ‘Anything particular?’ asked Rollison. His right arm was in a sling to match McNab’s left, but the bandages were off his head. Two pieces of sticking-plaster decorated his left cheek.

  ‘Well, no. Excepting . . . .’

  He launched into a recital of what Colliss had told him.

  Colliss had managed to get a great deal of information in Stamboul, although little of it was definite. He had identified Dragoli, however, as an agent of a cocaine ring in Stamboul. Arrangements had been made and apparently were working smoothly, for the smuggling of the drug from China, across country to Stamboul, and then into Europe. The Black Circle was a wide organization – and the Stamboul authorities had been able to do little to stop its progress. It was a mixture, according to Colliss, of an Oriental Ku-Klux-Klan and the Ogpu. It had representatives in all manner of high places in Turkey and Egypt, and there seemed little chance of intercepting the supply of cocaine at its source.

  ‘Of course,’ said Warrender, ‘we shall warn the other countries. But our big task, Rollison, is to stop it getting a real hold in England.’

  Rollison grinned.

  ‘A damned sight better to stop it at the source, but I’ll agree it’s not going to be easy. I’d like to meet this man Colliss, though, he seems a promising fellow. I – Come in.’

  It was the nurse, and Rollison made a mock frown.

  ‘Now listen, I’m convalescing, Alice, and I won’t be warned not to get excited. I never do, anyhow, and –’

  “This has just come in, sir,’ said the nurse, a middle-aged woman who had found it impossible to be severe with the Toff for long.