The Toff and the Terrified Taxman Read online

  “Smith out at Division told me he won’t listen to—”

  “Bill,” interrupted Rollison. “Bell hasn’t just a wooden chip, he’s got a Rock of Gibraltar on his shoulder. He’s also grief-stricken. There’s much more human being in him than he’s shown Smith or any other policeman. Dare I offer a piece of advice?”

  “Try me,” Grice invited.

  “See him yourself. Tell him how sorry you are about his daughter. Tell him all you want from him is any news about the people she worked for. Don’t push him: he’s like a walking stick of nitro-glycerine, likely to blow up at any time. Just let him have a good reason for thinking that policemen can be human beings, too.”

  After a pause, while Rollison found himself gripping the telephone very tightly, Grice responded: “I can’t see any harm in doing that.”

  “Bless your heart!” exclaimed Rollison with deep feeling, and rang off. He went to the window again, and saw Bell climbing into a police car; this time, the man didn’t turn round and look up. The plain clothes man next to the car was scratching his head.

  “Wondering what’s got into Grice, I suppose,” Rollison remarked to Jolly. “Did you hear what I said to Grice?”

  “Yes, sir – and echoed every word,” Jolly declared.

  “Good,” Rollison replied, with feeling. “It was the last thing I expected.” He raised an eyebrow at Jolly, and went on in a lighter tone of voice: “How’s your neck?”

  “It really is not too bad,” Jolly replied, and added soberly: “I admit that I didn’t think I would ever see daylight again, still less feel well-disposed towards Bell.”

  “I know the feeling exactly,” Rollison said. “And now—” He moved so that he would touch the hammer of which Bell had such fond memories, and went on quietly: “I need to think, Jolly. If I need my usual help I’ll send for you. If not we’ll exchange notes later. Don’t be too surprised to have a call from Mr. Slazenger or from private eye Johnny P. Rains. Disturb me for either.”

  “Very well, sir,” Jolly said.

  Rollison went to the big armchair, sat back, and stared thoughtfully at the Trophy Wall. The unexpected significance of the hammer soon faded, and although he looked from a silver-handled dagger used by a youth to kill his father to a set of test tubes containing strychnine administered by a chemist to prostitutes so that he could possess them during the awful death spasms, he did not think of the cases, only reflected, and soon drifted on to another. This was his favourite and most successful way of pondering a case in which he was involved. Subconsciously all that had happened went through his mind, and each face, each sentence, each incident, became increasingly vivid. Moreover he could think of what happened to Daisy Bell without being too distressed. It became part of a pattern of events which had started when Watson had been so alarmed by the telephone call, and finished with the death of the girl and the driver of the sports car which had been the instrument of her death.

  And the driver’s?

  That was one of the strangest and most macabre of the things to happen: a young man, dead of an induced heart attack brought on by the impact of car and girl. Yet in this slow and deliberate assessment of what had happened all the other things took on a particular significance: Watson’s lined face and Cobb’s early near-flippancy and later aggression. The encounter with Johnny P. Rains, and even the brief one with the lame man who had been so exasperated about the lift at Pleydell House.

  There had been the autograph-seeking girls.

  And there had been the young policeman who had accosted him in Pleydell Street.

  At last, everything fell into position, and he stirred. A restlessness always came upon him on such a time as this, and above all else he wanted action. But first, what line should he take? The obvious one was to find out what Johnny P. Rains had discovered about Watson. Rains had been on that trail for – Good Lord! – over six hours. Surely he should have reported by now.

  It was nearly half-past five.

  Rollison moved again to the telephone, opened the telephone directory and ran down the ‘Rs’. He found the number, recognising the digits as being the replacement for the old Grosvenor exchange. He could remember the first three letters of the old exchanges, but the first three digits, never. What use was progress when it created human problems and exasperated or irritated both men and women? He dialled. There was no answer. Brrr. Brrr. He dialled again, for there was a reasonable chance that the computerised exchange had computed wrongly. Brrr. Brrr. Brrr. Brrr. He rang off, as there was a ring at the front door bell, startling him because he was so preoccupied. He heard Jolly go to the door, and knew that Jolly would check that this visitor was either familiar or proffered no open threat.

  Jolly appeared.

  “I don’t recognise the caller, sir,” he said.

  “I’ll come and look.”

  Rollison got up and walked through the lounge-hall to the door. Above it was a small object which looked rather like the lens of a camera, in fact it was a form of periscope, which enabled anyone inside to see the person outside.

  On this occasion, the man outside was Johnny P. Rains, and as Rollison looked at him he pressed the front door bell again.

  “Bring him in,” said Rollison. “It’s Johnny P.”

  He went back and waited at the desk, wondering whether this would bring useful information. Soon, there came Jolly’s voice, and Johnny’s. Oh, confusion! But at least there would be no confusion in their voices for Johnny P’s, although pleasant enough, had a very different timbre from Jolly’s.

  “Please come this way,” Jolly invited.

  Johnny P. Rains wore the dark grey jacket and the lighter grey trousers which he had worn when Rollison had seen him at Pleydell House. His face was both broad and round, his chin was like a spade with a little point which appeared to have been stuck on afterwards. His fair hair receded at the forehead, giving him a decided widow’s peak, and his eyes still reflected that glint of humour. His gaze flickered towards the Trophy Wall but quickly back to the Toff, who shook hands and then pointed to an upright chair opposite his own swivel chair at the desk. Johnny P. was now right opposite the Trophy Wall, and few men could have resisted looking at it. He was not one of the few. Then he turned back to Rollison, and said: “A beautiful golden picture in a beautiful violent frame.”

  “Or more prosaically, a trophy wall,” Rollison said, and waited.

  “I’ve a detailed report,” stated Johnny P. “Our Mr. Watson went to three different places, and finally back to his office less than an hour ago.” He took a slim book from his pocket and held it towards the Toff, so that it could be read. The writing was small and very easy to read; not copperplate but very nearly as well-formed as type. “He went straight from you to the R.A.C. Club, where he had lunch on his own in the members’ dining room. He made a telephone call at one-thirty, left the club at one-forty, walked towards Piccadilly via St. James’s Square, and finally called - at two-fifteen - at a house in Jermyn Street.”

  “There aren’t many houses there,” Rollison remarked.

  “The bottom floor has been converted into offices, the upper storeys remain a private residence,” Johnny P. said. “I chatted with a shopkeeper who lives opposite.”

  “Was Watson a regular caller?” asked Rollison.

  Johnny P. smiled. “I am beginning to understand your reputation. Yes – at least the shopkeeper said he’d been there several times before.”

  “To the offices or the residence?”

  “He couldn’t tell,” the private investigator replied. “I’m not sure that it matters much, the owner of the import and export business on the ground floor being the owner or tenant upstairs. Quite,” Johnny P. added with a grin which in most people would have seemed like a smirk, “a man.”

  “Man or male?”

  Johnny P. laughed. “Male.”
/>   “Many girl friends?”

  “Nearly a harem.”

  “You mean, the girl friends live there?”

  “Apparently they occupy the top two floors.”

  “How many?”

  “My informant – incidentally, he cost twenty pounds, I hope that wasn’t too much – is an observant man but has never been inside the place. He doesn’t know how many lovelies live there at the same time, but never less than four, it seems.”

  “Do they change?” asked Rollison, almost incredulous.

  “Frequently,” Johnny P. answered. “I think I could get you some photographs but I’d guess they would cost another ten pounds apiece.” When Rollison made no comment the other man went on: “Harem or not, there is also a wife. Everything I know is written down, and I’ll have some photocopies made of the reports, so that we can each have copies. Shall I go on to the next place?”

  “Please,” said Rollison, very glad that he had sent this man on Watson’s trail.

  “He left the house in Jermyn Street at three-fifteen,” reported Johnny P. “He was admitted by a blonde and seen off by the same blonde. He did not look refreshed or relieved, but neither did he look exhausted. What I mean is, nothing suggested that any of the ladies had given him her favours.”

  “So you don’t think it’s a high-class brothel?” Rollison asked.

  Johnny P. answered with great care: “The shopkeeper doesn’t see many men go there. I don’t think Watson used it as one, at all events. If anything he looked more harassed when he left than when he arrived. He was obviously afraid he might have been followed, and looked up and down and kept on looking behind him, and eventually he caught a Number 11 bus from the stop near the TWA offices.”

  “A bus,” remarked Rollison, startled.

  “To Liverpool Street.”

  “What did he do there?”

  “Bought a ticket,” Johnny P. answered.

  “To Harwich?” asked Rollison, very softly.

  Johnny P. gave a sudden, warm, highly amused chuckle, leaned forward, and said with obvious feeling: “You don’t miss much, Mr. Rollison! Half the time you’re a jump ahead. Before I have a chance to tell you, you’ll be telling me that he booked a ticket to Amsterdam, first-class, with a sleeper on the ferry from Harwich—the St. George.”

  “For tonight?” Rollison asked sharply.

  “No. Tomorrow night,” Johnny P. told him. “I took a chance on losing him to find out what he’d booked. I’m not unknown at the ticket office there, many an errant husband takes his lady love to the Continent that way. An old friend of mine was on duty, and gave me what information I needed.”

  “What name did Watson book under?” asked Rollison.

  Johnny P. laughed, and said. “Your third point but I suppose that one shouldn’t have surprised me. Grey.”

  “Plain Grey?”

  “W. B. Grey.”

  “Did he have to show his passport?” asked Rollison.

  “No,” answered the private enquiry agent. “He will have to when he goes on board the ferry, of course, and he’ll have to fill in details when he gets to the other side, but he certainly can’t show a passport as Watson and go aboard as Grey. So—” He broke off, inviting the Toff to hazard a guess.

  “Either the ticket is for someone else,” deduced Rollison, “or he has got a passport under an assumed name.”

  “Which sounds highly improper for an Inspector of Taxes.”

  “Highly,” Rollison agreed. “Well, you didn’t lose him afterwards did you?”

  “No. He went to the station cafeteria and had some tea, looked through a copy of the Evening News and kept a careful watch about him. But eventually he seemed satisfied that he hadn’t been followed.”

  “What kind of disguise did you wear?” enquired Rollison with interest.

  Johnny P. Rains laughed outright, then opened the small briefcase and took out a flat, flexible case and a folded lightweight raincoat. In front of Rollison’s eyes he took out what looked like a roll of fuzz, and raised it to his face; on the instant, he was a different, elderly-looking man. There was also something un-English about him; he looked more Scandinavian.

  “So I am two men,” he announced in a slightly foreign accent.

  Rollison sat back, smiling, and said: “Touché.”

  “Now there’s a remark from a generous man, a man I think I could get along with.” Johnny P. leaned back, took off the disguise and folded it and put it away. “To proceed! After he’d taken his time over his coffee, Watson alias Grey took a Number 11 bus back to his office, and when I left, he was still there. That’s the lot.” After a pause, he went on: “Now that you’ve had my report may I ask why you wanted it, Mr. Rollison?”

  “I’d rather leave explanations until later.”

  Johnny P. raised his hands. “As you wish.”

  “What is your fee?” asked Rollison.

  “For the day, twenty-five pounds plus out-of-pocket,” the enquiry agent replied. “By the week, I come cheaper – twenty a day, including weekends.” He leaned forward and although he was smiling there was a hint of anxiety in his expression. He was not as young as Rollison had thought, probably in the early fifties. As far as the indications went he was good at his job; what Rollison needed to find out was whether he was also honest. “Mr. Rollison, you may remember that I asked you if you could spare me a few minutes this morning.”

  “I remember very well.”

  “I wanted to ask you to put any leg work you could in my way, I know you by your enormous reputation, of course, and I also know how good Jolly is, but if I may say so, he isn’t getting any younger.”

  “I’m sure he would agree to that,” remarked Rollison drily.

  “I’m sure, too. You must have a lot in common or you couldn’t have got on so well for so long. The truth is there’s not much divorce work now that the new laws are getting into their swing, and although I don’t much like the bedroom-cum-Peeping Tom work, it does pay a living. I don’t mind admitting that I might have to shut up shop, which will be a financial disaster. Men of fifty-two don’t find it easy to get work, especially when their only training is in the Peeping Tom business.”

  Johnny P. Rains stopped. When Rollison did not answer at once, he began to colour. When Rollison still stared at him searchingly, he collected his things together and then began to get up. He zipped the briefcase, and stepped away from his chair.

  “Forget it,” he said brusquely. “I shouldn’t have asked.”

  “I’m not a bit sure you’re right about that,” Rollison said, pulling him up short. He could hardly tell this man that a series of mental images had flashed through his mind when he might reasonably have been answering. He had almost said, being sure of the response, that any work Johnny P. Rains did for him would be dangerous, so would he take risks? Then he had the mental flash of Daisy Bell. Next, he wondered whether he had any right to ask another man to take risks, even for money and even though the man himself would almost certainly jump at the chance.

  Chapter 10

  Legman

  “Have you heard what happened in Pleydell Street today?” asked Rollison, as the other looked at him in perplexity.

  Frowning, Rains replied: “I heard there was an accident in which a girl was killed.”

  “Did you hear that the girl had been by the door while I talked to the Inspector of Taxes, and later ran away from me when I questioned her?”

  “Good God!” exclaimed Johnny P. Rains. “Is that the truth?”

  “The simple truth.” In a matter-of-fact voice Rollison told the enquiry agent everything that had happened, still very sensitive to the part he had played in the girl’s death, and went on: “There are indications that there could be danger. Acute danger. I don’t want you on my conscience as well.”
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  “Oh,” Johnny P. said in a rather limp voice. “So that’s why you weren’t very keen about offering me a job.” He pursed his lips. “Well, I see what you mean and I think you may be right.” With an empty and rather apologetic smile, he went on: “I don’t feel young enough to be a hero.”

  “I don’t blame you,” Rollison said, keeping an unreasonable note of disappointment out of his voice. He opened the middle drawer in his desk and took out his cheque book. “Will fifty-five pounds cover your fee and expenses today?”

  “Rather,” exclaimed Johnny P.

  A few minutes later he was speeding on his way. Still aware of the disappointment although he could not reasonably blame the man for his decision, Rollison went to the window, and peered down into the street. No one approached Johnny P. Rains as he walked across the street. There did not seem to be the slightest danger. In fact he had started to turn away, catching sight of the taxi which suddenly accelerated as the private enquiry agent crossed the road.

  “My God!” Rollison cried, and tried to fling up the window. But before he had time, before he had actually touched the wooden frame, the taxi had struck Johnny P. Rains and pitched him, a broken body, into the air and on to the pavement.

  The taxi put on even more speed and disappeared round the corner which led to Piccadilly.

  Rollison did not know what best to do.

  He had not told Grice of Johnny P. Rains. It might be proved that the man had come from this house but there was no certainty of that. If Rollison told the police he would have to produce the report, and that would almost certainly mean that the police would investigate the house in Jermyn Street, and by now he was extremely anxious to investigate that himself. But he made himself remember what Grice had said, and he made himself face the fact that this was not simply a hunt for an individual who dealt in crime but with at least one Inspector of Taxes. He had to tell Grice. He went to the desk and touched the telephone; and before he lifted it, the bell rang, making him start.