Introducing The Toff (7 page)

‘Is she well enough to be questioned?’ demanded the Toff. The two men were in the drawing-room of the flat, while Anne was in bed in the spare room.

‘Certainly not.’ The doctor was emphatic. ‘If she’s worried there is a strong likelihood of complete breakdown, mental and physical. I’ll give her a draught, and look in, in the morning. A good night’s rest might alter things completely.’

‘Hum,’ said the Toff. ‘Does that go for the police too?’

The medico suppressed a natural curiosity.

‘It goes for anyone, Mr. Rollison. It would be a criminal act to awaken her when she was sleeping off the effect of the draught.’ The speaker chuckled dryly. ‘But it would take an earthquake to disturb her.’

A curious little smile hovered about the Toff’s lips as he walked with the medico to the door.

‘Thanks,’ he said. ‘Make it a real strong one, doc, and don’t be surprised if you get a summons from Scotland Yard. They never seem to believe what I tell ‘em.’

Forty minutes later the Toff left Anne, already sleeping soundly. By way of precaution, the Toff had hired, by telephone, two ex-pugilists, who arrived promptly from a nearby gymnasium, and left them to entertain Jolly, just in case of trouble. But somehow, the Toff did not expect things to happen very quickly.

He went to Scotland Yard and had no trouble in getting to McNab. The chief-inspector welcomed him soberly into his small office, which, apart from the detective’s chair, was devoid of ordinary creature comforts.

The Toff squatted on the corner of an untidy table.

‘Well?’ queried McNab stolidly. He was a permanently stolid individual.

‘I’ve just had a fight,’ confessed the Toff, who had changed into an immaculate evening dress, and was at his spotless best.

McNab grunted.

‘That isna’ unusual, Rolleeson.’

‘Sure and it isn’t,’ agreed the Toff pleasantly. ‘But there was something different about this one, Mac. I smote Garrotty the Yank on the Adam’s apple, and he’s trying to get his swallow back.’

McNab was interested, but he stayed stolid.

‘So ye’re still nosin’ around that, are ye?’

‘Not half,’ admitted the Toff.

He related, without embellishments, the affair of the tarantula, which was enough to make any man nose around anything. Then, eyeing the Scot very closely, he confessed his suspicions of the ‘Steam Packet’. That he had followed them up, that things had happened, and what they were.

McNab was very still for a while. Then!

‘So ye had Garrotty and Dragoli cornered – and yet let them go?’

‘It might be said,’ muttered the Toff modestly, ‘that I got away, Mac’

McNab bit off the end of a black cigar.

‘Ye shoulda’ told us about the “Steam Packet”,’ he said quietly, ‘before ye went there.’

The Toff admitted that there was some justification in that viewpoint. But he noticed, with considerable interest, that McNab was not as indignant about it as he might have been. Which suggested that the detective was very nearly glad that the Toff had not forced the police to take precipitate action and raid Sletter’s place. The Toff, realizing this, assumed that the police had a plan of campaign.

He took a shot in the dark.

‘Of course I should,’ he drawled. ‘But I knew you wouldn’t want Dragoli and the Yank – yet. You’re after’ – his voice went very soft –’you’re after the Black Circle, aren’t you, Mac?’

Just as, a few hours before, tension had suddenly sprung into the secret rooms of the ‘Steam Packet’, so did the atmosphere of the small office go still.

McNab’s hand stopped half-way between his mouth and the desk, grey smoke curled upwards from the motionless cigar.

‘And so,’ he said at last, ‘ye know about that?’

The Toff shrugged.

‘I know it, old soldier, but I can’t tell you much more than that. It’s been about for a long time, I fancy. And the Goldman murder was part of it.’

McNab spent a long time examining the ash of his cigar. He was a very cautious man, as the Toff knew well, and the Toff waited patiently to see how he reacted to the challenge. McNab could turn nasty, which would make it very awkward for the Toff. On the other hand, as had happened before, he might become communicative and end up with an offer of co-operation.

The detective reached his decision at last. He pulled open the drawer of his desk and took out a small packet about the size of a matchbox, which was carefully wrapped in brown paper. One end was sealed, but the other had been opened and tucked in again.

McNab flicked the little packet across the desk, and it came to rest a couple of inches from the Toff’s hand.

‘Take a look at that,’ said the Scot grimly.

The Toff picked the packet up, undid the opened end and squinted inside. He saw what he had expected to see when McNab had first shown him the packet – a fine, white powder. Then the Toff wetted the end of his little finger, dabbed the powder, and then tasted it gingerly.

He pulled a wry face.

‘So,’ he said finally, and his voice was hard, ‘that’s it, is it? Snow.’

‘Aye,’ agreed McNab, equally grim. ‘Snow.’

For cocaine, or, in the vernacular, ‘snow’, was the worst evil against which the police had to fight. Other crimes could be traced to a single source, and their effect was comparatively small. But the effect of dope trafficking was insidious, never-ending, wrecking men and women, turning them from decent citizens into social outcasts.

And snow was raising its ugly head in London again. The Black Circle was distributing it.

The Toff could have kicked himself for not thinking of that as the obvious solution, but that would have done him little or no good. He asked a question, although he knew the answer before it came.

‘Is it in big quantities?’ he demanded.

McNab nodded.

‘The City’s flooded with it – overnight almost. We’ve been well on top of the situation for months, and then it got out of hand before we knew where we were. There had been rumours – we sent a man to Stamboul to try and find something. But it’s burst on us mighty quick.’

The Toff swung his legs and nodded.

‘The whisper came from Goldman,’ he suggested.

‘Ay,’ said McNab. ‘We had a note from him on the morning of his death, saying there was snow about, that he knew where it was, and how much would it be worth if he squealed? There was no address, of course, so we couldn’t trace him.’

‘Of course not,’ agreed the Toff.

‘Mind you,’ said McNab, ‘we knew the Black Circle was behind it. Ninety per cent of the dope on the Continent comes from Stamboul – the Circle’s headquarters. What we didn’t know was who was running it over here.’

‘And Goldman could have told you,’ murmured the Toff. ‘Dragoli killed Goldman to stop him from squealing. Find Dragoli, and you’ve got your man.’

‘Too easy,’ grunted McNab, but there was a gleam of humour in his eyes. ‘We could have got Dragoli twenty-four hours ago, Rolleeson. But that’s not enough.’ The Scot leaned forward and banged his fist on the desk. ‘Where does Dragoli get the stuff? How does he get it into the country? Where does he keep it? That’s what we’re after, Rolleeson.’

The Toff swung his legs.

‘And your game is to trail Achmed, is it?’

McNab seemed ashamed of his little outburst.

‘Just that,’ he admitted. And he smiled lugubriously. ‘That’s why I’m not sorry you’ve made them worry about getting away from Lambeth. They’ll clear out, without thinking that the police know anything about ‘em, but we’ll be on their tail.’

‘I see,’ murmured the Toff, lighting a cigarette.

Many of the mysteries were cleared away, and up to a point the affair read like an open book. Goldman had been a member of the Black Circle, and had seen a means of making capital out of his knowledge as well as gaining immunity from the police. Dragoli, who was flooding London with dope, had discovered the treachery and killed Goldman, hiring Garrotty and his gunmen so as to keep the trail away from himself.

But Dragoli was not out of the woods by a long way. Something had gone radically wrong with his plans. The Toff, who knew nothing of Goldman’s dying taunt – ‘It’s on paper – in black and white!’ – guessed shrewdly that the Egyptian believed that the girl held the key to the mystery.

Otherwise, why had Garrotty been tormenting her?

The Toff puffed grey smoke out slowly. Then he slipped off the edge of the table and walked slowly across the office.

‘Well,’ he said quietly, ‘I’m not saying that you don’t stand a chance of getting what you want, Mac. But there’s one thing that’s worrying you –’

McNab scowled.

‘What do ye mean?’

‘The girl,’ said the Toff gently.

And, as he had expected, the Scot’s eyes narrowed and his lips tightened.

‘Yes,’ he admitted. ‘I’m worried about her.’ He stared suspiciously at the Toff’s bland countenance. ‘What are ye getting at, Rolleeson?’

The Toff grinned.

‘Just this,’ he said smoothly. ‘When I came away from the “Steam Packet” I had the girl with me, Mac. Steady, steady now’ – he held up his hand as McNab started to interrupt –’don’t be too hasty. I brought her with me, and she’s at my flat now. But she’s in a bad way. In fact, a well-known doctor, whose word you’ll have to take, forbids anything in the way of excitement, until the morning at least. So we’ve got to hold our fire until then.’

McNab scowled.

‘I’m not so sure about that,’ he said gruffly.

The Toff leaned over and scribbled on a scrap of paper in front of the detective’s nose.

‘There’s the doc’s name, and his telephone number. Ring him up, or go and see him. And’ – the Toff’s smile was expansive –‘put a couple of men outside the house to make sure I don’t elope with her, Mac. And then trot along yourself in the morning. Say elevenish.’

Which, after a telephone call and much demur, the chief-inspector promised to do. If he could have seen twenty-four hours into the future he would have made a much greater demur!

The Toff was draped – no other word fits it – about a deep armchair in the sitting-room of his flat. His eyes were half-closed, and from the corner of his shapely mouth drooped a cigarette. His forehead was unruffled, and his eyes were gleaming. A presentable young man.

Anne Farraway thought so, as she saw him at her leisure for the first time. It was hard to picture him, gun in hand, keeping Garrotty and Dragoli at bay, laughing at the murder in their eyes. Yet it was he, beyond question.

The Toff smiled at Anne lazily. She had only just come into the room, and she was a rare sight. It amazed the Toff, so far as he was capable of amazement, that she should have recovered from the effect of her ordeal so quickly.

‘Breakfast in ten minutes,’ drawled the Toff. ‘Did you sleep well?’

Anne nodded, and stretched her slim legs in front of her luxuriously.

‘Almost,’ she said, ‘as though I’d been drugged.’

There was a twinkle in the Toff’s eyes.

‘A spot of veronal in your glass of milk, old lady, on medical advice. Feeling better for it?’

She nodded, smiling. The Toff was glad.

Her eyes, very, very blue, were brimming over with what the pedant calls gratitude, and her mouth, which was Cupid-bowed and soft, was trembling. She had a dimple, the Toff noticed, when she smiled, on either cheek.

The look of her made him very satisfied with life. For in the rig-out which he had borrowed from an obliging friend, Anne Farraway looked delightfully trim and neat, The clothes did nothing to emphasize the clearness of her skin now that she was rested, nor the determined lines of her mouth and chin, they were emphatic enough. Her hair, which the Toff had noticed in Sletter’s lift, was dark brown, wavy, and luxuriant. She was very lovely.

And she was very grateful. It seemed a dream, the manner in which the Toff had spirited her away from the rooms at the ‘Steam Packet’ – a pleasant dream, after the nightmare of her interrogation at Garrotty’s hands.

After breakfast, which was a complete success, she told the Toff about that. Of Garrotty, threatening, shouting, his thugs leering, cursing, banging clappers in her ears, insistently, maddeningly, shooting question after question, prodding her, keeping her from sleeping for forty-eight dreadful hours, driving her mad – mad!

‘I’m almost sorry,’ the Toff said when she had finished, ‘that I didn’t kill Garrotty while I had the chance. But perhaps it’s as well.’

He smiled gently at her, seeing the hint of horror which had crept into her eyes from the memory of her ordeal. He wished that he could keep her away from all thought of the affair until it was all over. But that was impossible. If she knew anything, the police would have to be told, and the Toff, with all respect to McNab, believed that he could talk to her more gently than the burly detective.

He lit a cigarette slowly.

‘Well,’ he said softly, ‘what was it all about, Annabelle?’

She took a deep breath. Her eyes clouded.

‘I suppose I’ll have to tell you,’ she said, just above a whisper.

‘I’m afraid so,’ said the Toff. ‘Me, or someone else, and it had better be me.’

She was silent for a minute, and the Toff realized that she was forcing herself to be steady. Her cheeks were pale; her eyes dull.

‘First,’ she said at last, ‘I’d better tell you this: Goldman is not the name of the man who was murdered. His true name was – Farraway. My brother.’

So that was it!

The Toff kept quiet. There was nothing he could say. But his heart was full of pity for the girl as she sat there, lifelessly. No wonder she hated the mention of Goldman’s name, and of his death.

Anne Farraway went on: ‘Of course, I know he wasn’t all that he should have been. John was always looking for something to do with a kick in it. He got mixed up with the wrong set soon after he left school. He was sentenced to five years’ penal servitude. That’ – her voice was barely audible –’smashed all of us up. I mean, my mother and stepfather. Mother died a little while afterwards, and Father never seemed to recover from the shock. We – we drifted apart. And’ – there was a firmness in her voice as she went on –’I was glad that Mother had gone, because John was harder – worse than ever he had been. He went abroad, after working with my step-father for a few months. I only heard from him now and again, when he sent me money.’