The Toff and the Terrified Taxman Read online

  “He is the dead girl’s father,” Rollison said. “And I don’t think he’ll go on the rampage again. Now, let’s have a look at your neck.”

  Both neck and throat were red and swollen and painful, but grew easier as Jolly gargled and Rollison dabbed an alcoholic rub over the bruised skin. Apart from the attempted strangulation, Bell had not injured Jolly, who said with supreme confidence: “I shall have a stiff neck for a few days, sir, but nothing more. I really think we should see what the man is doing, I don’t share your confidence, and there are so many weapons on that wall.”

  “You go in one way, I’ll go the other,” Rollison conceded.

  Jolly took the short way, but he was not in sight when Rollison arrived at the other doorway; undoubtedly he was fascinated as the Toff at the sight before his eyes.

  There was Bell, looking as if mesmerised at the Trophy Wall.

  He stood on the far side of the desk, one hand in his pocket, studying the weapons, and he appeared to be as interested in the smaller, makeshift ones as in the axes and hammers, daggers and knives, and the ugly piece of iron piping.

  There was a velvet glove; a piece of string; some phials of drugs. Each was marked clearly with the names of the people who had killed with these, but in order to read the legends which Jolly had typed about each, one had to be on the nearside of the desk, within hand’s reach as well as easy reading distance. But Bell appeared only interested in the actual weapons themselves, not in their history. Could he be selecting one, after all, and still intent on murder?

  Chapter 8

  Half a Story

  Rollison stood at one doorway and Jolly at the other. Without looking away from the trophies, Ding Dong Bell rounded the desk and went close to the wall. Near at hand was a hammer; one used twenty-two years ago as a murder weapon. Bell put his hand towards it and lifted it by the handle, weighing it up and down in his hand. Then, as Rollison’s body went tense and prepared for an attack, the man replaced the hammer with a kind of reverence.

  At last, Rollison moved forward.

  “Quite a collection, isn’t it?” he remarked.

  Bell started, and looked round; and after a moment he asked: “All yours?”

  “All mine and Jolly’s.”

  “All Mr. Rollison’s,” insisted Jolly, stepping from the other passage.

  Bell turned his head sharply; stared; and then raised his hands and dropped them by his side. He pursed his lips, and after only a moment’s hesitation, asked drily: “So I didn’t choke the life out of you.”

  “Not quite,” Jolly replied, tartly.

  “And I’m sure that’s just as well,” Rollison said. “Jolly, what with one thing and another I didn’t really get much lunch. What can you fix for us?”

  “Certainly some sandwiches and coffee, sir.”

  “Beer.”

  “And beer.”

  “That should do nicely.”

  “I will see to it right away,” Jolly promised, and disappeared.

  Now, Bell moved to the desk and leaned against it, much as Rollison had done earlier. He wore a thick tweed jacket over a turtle neck sweater which somehow emphasised his compactness and physical strength. He looked levelly at Rollison, and spoke very quickly.

  “So that’s the hammer that killed Speaky Mason.”

  “Yes,” Rollison answered.

  “I’ve handled it before,” Bell told him. “I was an out of work docker in those days and a plumber’s mate on the side. That hammer belonged to the man I worked for, Tim Mayhew. It was stolen from him. You went after him and scared the daylights out of him, Toff, before he admitted it was his. You had a name for it. Don’t tell me, I’ll remember.” Bell did not look away from the Toff but suddenly he began to smile. “Psychological terrorism. That’s what you called your method.”

  The Toff affected to shudder.

  “Was I really as corny as that?”

  “You’ll never know how corny you were! Anyway, Toff, you went after Tim and you got him. That was in the days when a man got hanged for murder.” He raised the hammer up and down again as if longing to use it. “I never thought I’d set eyes on it again – or see you in your castle, Toff. That’s what they call an Englishman’s home, isn’t it?”

  “Yes,” Rollison answered.

  Bell turned to look at some of the other trophies again, and slowly shook his head. Without looking at Rollison, who suspected that his eyes were moist again, he began to speak in a low-pitched, grating voice.

  “I did a job, twenty years ago. My wife was in the family way and the doctors talked of twins. There was a long dock strike, and I couldn’t stay on as a plumber’s mate. So I did a job, and got caught. I attacked the man who found me, and he split his skull open on a wall when he fell. Okay – I pushed him hard. I saw red, see – just red. That’s my trouble, losing my cool. So the cops came for me. I asked them to let me see my wife, and they wouldn’t. Didn’t give me a chance, even tried to stop me seeing her when I was on remand. I was sent down for ten years on the day the twins were born.”

  Rollison raised his hands in a gesture which spoke for itself.

  “Didn’t see them for eight years,” Bell said. “I did my time and got full remission. All I thought about was my wife, Daisy, and the twins – and the coppers. I never did have much time for them, and after that—” He caught his breath and then flung out a question: “You still friendly with bloody Bill Grice?”

  Rollison did not hesitate. “Yes.”

  “So you’re still a copper’s nark.”

  “I am still in favour of law and order.”

  “Law and order,” Bell echoed, slowly and bitterly. “If you knew as much as I do about the coppers, you’d vomit. I did know a good one, once. Started a copper and finished as a copper, they never even gave him sergeant’s stripes. They don’t give you a minute’s peace and that’s the flicking truth.” He flung that out as a challenge, as if calling on the Toff to spring to the defence of the police. Instead, Rollison said: “There are some bad ones and there are some good ones. Have you had much to do with them lately?”

  “The further I can keep away from them, the better. But I’ll tell you one thing—” Ding Dong paused.

  “Then tell me.”

  “If I can help any poor devil who’s in trouble with the police, I’ll help him. No two ways about it. There are two sides. I’m on one and you’re on the other.” The defiance was very sharp in his voice and his expression. “So that puts you and me on opposite sides.”

  “It looks like it,” agreed Rollison, then took a chance, knowingly, anxiously, so apprehensive that his heart actually began to beat faster. “Which side was your daughter on, Bell?”

  Everything seemed to drop away from Bell except stark feeling. The grief, held in check until then, sprang naked to his eyes and livid to his face, which drained of colour. His hands and body tightened, yet soon went limp. Rollison moved to sit on the arm of his chair and so ease the pressure on his leg. Bell’s breathing began to sound, a faint hiss through his nostrils. They remained like this for a long time. Rollison tried to imagine what was going on in the other’s mind; that there was a struggle, bitter and hurtful, was clearly apparent.

  Then Jolly came in with a laden tray.

  Jolly, of course, had heard the conversation on his transistor, and had judged his entry deliberately to break the tension. He ignored Bell’s pose, did not appear even to glance at him, but set the tray on the low table, exactly as it had been set for Grice earlier in the day. The sandwiches had a fresh and appetising look; there was a wedge of cheddar cheese, new bread and a big crock of butter. Without a word Jolly turned, to be back in a few moments with a smaller tray on which were two bottles of a special 4X brand of a beer bottled exclusively for Bill Ebbutt at his pub in the Mile End Road.

  He stood back
and surveyed the trays.

  “I think that is all, sir. Will you have coffee or tea?”

  “Tea.”

  “Very good, sir.” Jolly flashed Rollison a glance of understanding and goodwill, and went out. Rollison began to wonder whether he should break the silence; whether the grief which knotted this man’s vitals was so great that he could not break through it to speak. Then, Bell moved; stared at the Trophy Wall; went to the window again and stared out. In a croaking voice, he said: “I warned her.”

  Rollison did not move or speak; in fact he hardly breathed.

  “I told her,” Bell went on. “I told her it was asking for trouble to work for anyone who was fighting the cops. And she was, she was making too much dough not to be. I told her. But—” He seemed to choke, his hands and shoulders bunched but he went on: “I’d taught her too well, that’s the bloody truth of it. Her mother always said I would. I’d taught her to hate the police so much she wouldn’t listen to me.” Bell’s voice faded in a sigh. “That’s something I learned a hell of a long time ago. You can’t win against them, they always get you.”

  Rollison let a few moments of silence drift, and then asked: “Who was she working for, Bell?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “You do know that if she hadn’t worked for him she would be alive, don’t you?”

  Bell faced him, very squarely, and there was an ugly twist to his lips; a rougher, uglier, note in his voice.

  “I know if you had held on to her, she would be.”

  “Are you sure?” Rollison asked. “I’m a long way from sure now.”

  “What the hell do you mean?”

  “Do you think the man who used her would have let her live long once she was known to be working for him?”

  Bell choked: “Used. What the bloody hell do you mean – used?”

  “I mean employed.”

  “You’d better mean employed,” Bell rasped. “If you ever accuse my Daisy of living fast and loose—”

  “Bell,” Rollison interrupted, “it’s no use reading things into what I or anybody else says. She was sent to spy either on me or the Inspector of Income Tax. I think more likely on both because he was scared stiff after he had a telephone call while I was with him, and anyone who knew I was interested in him would want to know what I was up to. The moment I’d actually seen her, the man who employed her would know there was a chance that she would be identified and might be persuaded to talk. So he might have arranged for her to be run down. Almost certainly someone did. Who is the man Daisy worked for, Bell?”

  “I don’t know.” Bell repeated, and paused before adding: “And I’m not lying, either. Listen to me, Toff.” He strode forward and bent over Rollison, grabbing his coat lapels and lifting him inches from the seat of the chair. He shook him bodily, savagely, teeth clenched, eyes blazing. “You listen to me. You let her go in front of that car. You killed her, and don’t you think I’ll ever forget it.”

  Very quietly, and without making the slightest attempt to free himself, Rollison said: “Don’t you think I shall ever forget it, either. I shall see her running into that car to my dying day.”

  Bell went still.

  Rollison could feel his breath, hot on his forehead. He could see the way the muscles of the other’s neck and face worked, how the veins stood out. He saw how the wrinkled lids closed over eyes which had suddenly become shadowed. Gradually, Bell eased himself away, and stood upright, staring over Rollison’s head. Rollison was aware of Jolly at the doorway but Jolly actually drew back. Bell moved now to a chair and dropped into it, and perhaps for the first time, saw the bottles of beer. He stared at them, and at the cheese. Like a man in a trance he picked up a knife and cut off a small wedge of cheese and put it into his mouth. Next he buttered a crust of the bread and put that into his mouth, too. Eating, he levered the top of a bottle, and tipped a glass before pouring out, making a perfect head. He drank deeply, making the froth ring his upper lip. He picked up a paper serviette and dabbed his lips. Then, he spoke.

  “Funny how a man can always eat, isn’t it?”

  “And drink,” Rollison observed.

  “Drink you can understand, it makes you forget,” said Bell shrewdly. “But food – I was in the middle of my dinner when I heard what had happened. I didn’t think I’d ever be able to eat again.” He paused. “Good bitta cheese, and I haven’t tasted bread and butter like this for years. You know how to live, Toff, don’t you?”

  “Jolly is a good teacher.”

  “Jolly get this 4X from the Blue Dog?”

  “Yes.”

  “Best beer I ever tasted,” Bell remarked. He ate and drank, and Rollison joined him. They did not say a word about Daisy for at least twenty minutes, during which time Jolly brought in tea in a brown earthenware teapot, and with it some kitchen cups. Bell looked up at him. “Tell my wife where you get this butter and cheese from, will you, Mr. Jolly? One of these slap-up places like Fortnum and Mason, I suppose?”

  “A small shop in Shepherd Market,” Jolly corrected. “I will gladly tell her, sir.”

  “Mr. Jolly,” Bell had said. “Sir,” Jolly had remarked, as if it were Bell’s natural due. This was not lost on Bell, who smiled faintly, just a curve at the corners of his thin lips. He finished a piece of sandwich, and looked across at Rollison, the smile gone, a hard look in his eyes.

  “I don’t know who she worked for, Toff.”

  “But you felt sure it was outside the law.”

  “Yes.”

  “Did she tell you so?”

  “No. But I knew from the money she spent and company she was keeping.”

  “Will you tell me who they were?”

  “For you to tell the cops?”

  “If necessary, yes.”

  “No,” Bell replied, flatly.

  “It might be possible to catch the man responsible,” Rollison reminded him.

  “This job is mine,” Bell declared.

  “Part of it’s mine,” Rollison reminded him.

  “It’s no use, Toff,” Bell said. “I won’t give anyone away to the cops, directly or indirectly. I can’t stop you trying to find out what you can, and I wish you luck. But I don’t co-operate with the police.”

  “Bell,” Rollison said, and let the name hang in the air.

  “Yes?”

  “Do you know whom Daisy worked for?”

  “I told you, no,” insisted Bell, and the smile hovered again. “The last man who called me a liar got his nose broken.”

  “I take the point,” Rollison said.

  “Here’s another point,” put in Bell, before Rollison could go on. “I won’t lie to you, Toff. I may not answer all your flicking questions, but I won’t lie.”

  “I really don’t think you will,” Rollison said.

  “Remember it. There are liars in Mayfair as well as in Whitechapel.”

  “And fools,” Rollison remarked.

  “What do you mean by that crack?”

  “I mean that you would be a fool to defend criminals against the police. And a bigger fool to take on this task of vengeance yourself. You might get hurt, too. Even killed.”

  “That would be a great loss, wouldn’t it?”

  “Your wife and your daughter might think so.”

  “I’ll take the chance.”

  “Perhaps the time has come when you should stop taking chances for other people,” Rollison suggested. “And trying to live for them.” He let the words hang but Bell showed no sense of resentment, not even of understanding, so he went on quietly: “Will you help me find out who employed your daughter?”

  “Not if you work with the police.”

  “I don’t have to tell the police everything.”

  “No, it’s no dice,” Bell said, decisively.
“No, Toff, you and me aren’t cut out to work together. I’d wonder what you were up to all the time and I’d wonder if you were passing on everything I told you to the cops. It wouldn’t work, I tell you.” When Rollison did not comment, Bell went on: “But I’ll tell you one thing more, Toff.”

  “Go on.”

  “I don’t hold her death against you, now. And I won’t ever.”

  “I’m very glad,” Rollison said simply. “Very glad indeed.”

  Twenty minutes later, Bell left the flat and went out into Gresham Terrace.

  Rollison stood at the window, watching him, and then was suddenly aware of police officers in the street advancing towards the man. It dawned on him that they would think he had somehow got past them, and would arrest him. Rollison was on the point of flinging the window open when a uniformed policeman appeared from out of his line of vision, and stopped Bell, who simply turned and stared up at Rollison’s window, with such derision and scorn on his face that Rollison could see it vividly.

  But the Toff spun round, snatched up the telephone and dialled 230 1212, the number of the new New Scotland Yard.

  Chapter 9

  More of Johnny P. Rains

  “What is it, Rolly?” Bill Grice asked.

  “Bill, I’ve just had Ding Dong Bell here, and your chaps have grabbed him down in the street. Will you send out a call to them to go very easy with him? ... He’s filled to the brim with hate for the police and is sure he’ll never get a square deal.”

  “I don’t quite see—” began Grice.

  “Will you fix it first and let me explain later?” pleaded Rollison.

  “I’m calling Information on another line,” Grice promised. “Hold on.” A moment later his voice sounded further away but Rollison heard every word. “Flash a message to the car in Gresham Terrace and tell them to handle Ding Dong Bell with velvet gloves. Yes, now.” Grice rang off that telephone and his voice became deep in the other. “What’s on, Rolly?”

  “If we can change his mood Bell might be able to tell us a lot,” Rollison said. “In his present mood, he won’t.”