by John Creasey
Jolly’s appearance was impeccable, but not in accordance with his name. Not only did he always dress in black, but usually he looked on the verge of tears. Some said it was indigestion, but the Toff knew that it was simply Jolly’s way.
As the Toff entered his Gresham Terrace flat, Jolly was dusting with care a remarkable collection of knives, pistols, daggers, cartridges, weapons old, young and middle-aged, which adorned one of the walls of the lounge. The Toff, in his wilder moments, would claim that each and every weapon had at one time been used to try to end his life, but that was an exaggeration; he had, however, collected them during his varied exploits, and between he and Jolly was wagered a constant battle as to what would fittingly go on the wall. The larger pieces Jolly kept in a box-room museum.
‘Good afternoon, sir,’ said Jolly. ‘Tea, sir?’
‘I suppose so,’ said the Toff.
‘Perhaps with a little lacing of rum, sir?’
‘Where did you get that pagan idea?’ demanded the Toff. ‘I will drink tea, and if it’s really necessary I’ll drink rum, but I will not have lacings, and I’ve told you so before. Jolly, I have an urge to action.’
’I am not surprised, sir,’ said Jolly.
‘Any post?’ asked the Toff.
‘At your elbow, sir.’
The Toff saw three bills and a typewritten letter. Opening this, he frowned.
The Ridings,
Hersham,
Sussex.
Dear Rollison,
Forgive this hurried and last-minute note. Expecting you to be busy with the County for the summer, I did not include you in the invitations for my Annual Cricket Week here, but seeing that you seem to be playing only occasionally, it occurs to me that you can slip down for some of the games. Good ones, I assure you – Cozens among others will be down.
Do try to come. The opening match is on Monday – three days ahead – so there is good time to let me know.
Sincerely,
George Mannering.
To Rollison cricket was more than a pastime; it was a minor religion. The ground at the Ridings was of county class, and although he was due to play for Midshire the following week, he doubted whether a sprained tendon would stand up to three days hard. Two or three amiable country-house matches would enable him to loosen up thoroughly for bigger games, and to test the tendon.
Mannering, he knew, was the Chief Constable of Sussex, an affable gentleman who had two main objects in life – cricket and the effective control of his Constabulary. The Ridings was a dream-place, an Elizabethan Manor little spoiled by modernization.
Jolly brought tea.
‘Jolly,’ said the Toff, ‘I am going to Sir George Mannering’s for a few days; pack enough for a week.’
‘Immediately, sir?’
‘I start in the morning.’
‘Your gear goes with you, sir?’
‘It does; and don’t soak that new bat in linseed oil,’ directed the Toff.
He telephoned Mannering, who sounded delighted, and talked for ten minutes. Thereafter the Toff bathed, and later dined alone, read a futurist novel with some enjoyment and no little cynicism, and retired early.
He did not know that a Mr. Sanderson and his daughter, on the advice of Arnold Chamberlain, were planning to visit the Hersham district early in the following week—but were not anticipating sudden death.
Chamberlain had found little difficulty in interesting James Sanderson, without telling the latter just why. It was after he had done so that he went to the Oxford Street salerooms – some hours after Mr. Meer had retired to his bed. He saw the cabinet that Vincent Lowerby had delivered, and rubbed his hands.
He sat in front of it, manipulated a drawer, and after a moment took out a small wash-leather bag. From the bag he took a little heap of precious stones: diamonds, rubies, emeralds and sapphires, all scintillating in the brilliant electric light. He ran them through his hands for some seconds, smiling, but not pleasantly.
‘I wonder what you would say if you knew just what you bring me,’ he said aloud, and he was thinking of Lowerby. ‘However, you know enough. A little more and you would be dangerous.’
He laughed, and ran the jewels through his fingers again before locking them in a wall-safe. Then he drew a cheque for Dr. Vincent Lowerby, in excessive payment for the Chippendale cabinet, sealed the envelope, and rang a bell with the push on his desk. To the grinning negro who responded he said: ‘All prepared for tomorrow, the two of you?’
‘Yes, bo’.’
‘All right, don’t make any mistakes, and get it over quickly. You can clear off for the night now, and post this on the way.’
He tossed Lowerby’s letter to the negro, who caught it neatly, grinned, and stalked out. Ten minutes later two men slipped from the back of the premises, the negro and a tall, thin, bearded Chinaman; a queer combination, and one which would have interested the Toff greatly.
Chapter Two
Visitors To Sussex
On the Monday, which was the day when Rollison was to play for Sir George Mannering’s XI against a strong team of South of England amateurs, James Sanderson finished putting his tie on, a task which twenty-five years of practice had never perfected in him, when his bedroom door opened abruptly and his daughter entered.
‘Aren’t you ready yet, darling?’
Sanderson smiled.
‘Kept you waiting again, have I? Don’t let it worry you, Syl; when you get a husband you can train him better. I’m nearly through, and—what’s the matter now?’
‘You can’t go out in that tie,’ said Sylvia firmly.
‘By heck I can—and will.’
But he doubted it. Sylvia rummaged through a drawer and selected one of a soberer hue, and stood by him while he slipped it inside his collar, after taking the first one off. He topped her by six inches, a tall, broad-shouldered, clean-looking man of middle age, with something of the rancher, the man of wide spaces, in his looselimbed body and far-seeing grey eyes. His voice was the kind to be heard often on the Australian plains.
He was reflecting, as she tied his knot, that he let her have her own way too much. Bound to happen, perhaps, when there was no one else to help to control her. Not that she had needed much controlling; she had the sound common sense that his daughter should have had, and was capable enough, even if the heiress to his considerable fortune. Nothing sheltered or secluded about her life! She could sit a horse with any man, and take her part in any conversation, any company.
‘That’s better,’ she said. ‘And now don’t dare to tell me you haven’t had breakfast.’
‘Before you were awake,’ smiled Sanderson. ‘I’ve been out for a walk, Syl.’
‘So that’s why you’re late. Dad, you’re impossible at times; you know I’m dying to get down to this place, and yet you fiddle and waste time, and—’
‘Turn round,’ said Sanderson, and he swung her round easily and spanked her with his free hand. ‘Get your hat, if you’re going to wear one.’
Sanderson waited for her in the foyer of the hotel.
When she did come she wore an absurdly small hat on the waves of her dark hair, with a tailor-made suit that discreetly emphasised a figure no man would complain about. Her hands and feet were tiny, the latter neatly shod, and the smile on well-shaped lips was matched by the gleam in her grey eyes. Most people would have said that she looked happy as she walked by her father’s side to the Rolls-Royce which was standing outside the doors of the hotel in Piccadilly.
‘Driving yourself?’ she asked.
‘Yes, we’ll see this on our own.’
‘That’s grand,’ said Sylvia. ‘Ye old Manor House for new-rich cousins from Australia. If we go there, Dad, the country folk will probably turn their long noses up at us.’
‘It depends on how you behave,’ said Sanderson, ‘and’ – he chuckled – ‘how many young bloods there are who aren’t married or engaged.’
‘If you think a mere engagement will put me off …’ Sylvi
a laughed. ‘You are a fool, aren’t you? But, Dad, the place does sound just right, doesn’t it? What agent sent you the particulars?’
‘None,’ said Sanderson.
‘Now what exactly do you mean?’
He was driving through the thick traffic near Hyde Park Corner. The girl imagined that his expression had altered, but it might have been the concentration on his driving. Yet she had seen that frown too often of late – as if he were worried by something he would not discuss.
He spoke abruptly.
‘Chamberlain put me on to it, Syl.’
‘Oh.’ The smile disappeared from her eyes. ‘I don’t like that man at all.’
‘I know you don’t.’
‘And why should he have gone to that trouble—you only bought a small fur cape from him, and—’
‘If you call a hundred guineas small, I don’t,’ said Sanderson, smiling again. ‘You jump to likes and dislikes too quickly, you know; you always have done.’
‘I know when a man can be trusted, and Chamberlain can’t,’ said Sylvia shortly. ‘And I can’t understand why you took to him, either.’
‘It wasn’t a case of taking to him. He sold me the cape, and we got talking—he knew about the house. If it’s as good as it sounds, we won’t worry who introduced it to us.’
Sylvia was silent until they got out of London and on to the Hersham road. By then the June sun, the green countryside so unlike that at ‘home’, the wooded patches on either side of the road and the absence of those long, monotonous stretches of scrub, made her forget her dislike of Arnold Chamberlain, forget that from time to time she had felt that her father was worried.
It was good to be in England, and this part seemed as pleasing as any she had seen. If the details of the house they were going to inspect were accurate, it was an Elizabethan gem in the heights near Hersham, standing in two hundred acres, mostly of parkland.
Sanderson drove fast. In under two hours they reached Hersham and examined the directions Chamberlain had given. Out on the Brighton road, the third turning left, and then a signpost would direct him to Wyndham Manor. He followed the details and ten minutes afterwards climbed out of the Rolls to open the wroughtiron gates of Chamberlain’s recommended residence.
The first impression was good.
The parkland had not been neglected, and at that time of the year was at its best. As they drove along the macadam drive a dozen rabbits scurried from a patch of grass into the tangled undergrowth of bramble and young fern. Giant chestnut trees and mighty oaks were unfurling their leaves to greet the sky; the blueness of the sky had a hard, metallic loveliness heralding heat.
Sylvia exclaimed suddenly.
‘Oh, look!’
The house justified the exclamation.
It was built half-way along a gradual slope, grass- and tree-clad except for half an acre or more about the house itself, where lawns, although not lately mown, had not yet grown long, and a small rose-walk was already rioting in colour. Gabled and oak-beamed, the house was neither large nor small, but with its mullioned windows and old brickwork it looked superb.
‘Like it?’ Sanderson smiled.
‘Like it! It’s just perfect, Jimmy; it couldn’t be better! No, don’t let’s go in first, we’ll drive up as far as we can and then walk round—it’s more fun.’
‘All right,’ agreed Sanderson.
It was twenty minutes before he unlocked the front door with a key Chamberlain had supplied, and they stepped into a spacious oak-panelled hall, with parquet flooring. A staircase wide enough to be imposing faced them.
Sylvia lost herself in enthusiasm.
Sanderson’s enjoyment was derived as much from her as from the house, although by the time they had finished the ground floor he had made up his mind that it was what he was looking for.
‘We’d better go upstairs,’ he said, ‘and then find somewhere to eat, Syl. If you want to you can come back here for an hour or two this afternoon. I suppose,’ he chuckled, ‘if you learned Chamberlain was all kinds of a rogue, you wouldn’t let it put you off this place?’
‘You bet I wouldn’t,’ said Sylvia downrightly. ‘Don’t dawdle so, I want to see the bedrooms. And’ – she stopped suddenly. ‘I suppose there are bathrooms?’
‘Three, I’m told.’
‘I’d take it with one, and an old-fashioned bath,’ said Sylvia. She ran up the stairs lightly, ahead of her father, and at the top she stopped. He saw her stare towards the end of the wide landing, and as he reached her she said with a forced lightness: ‘It was the echo, I suppose; I thought I heard a sound.’
‘Could be a tramp making free of the place,’ said Sanderson.
He smiled lo himself when he saw that she did not go ahead of him again, but she was soon filled with further enthusiasm for the upstairs rooms. From all windows views of the sweeping downland presented themselves, green and delightful in the sun. From the south rooms it was possible to see the spire of Hersham church, but no other house or habitation was visible.
‘Next floor?’ said Sanderson.
‘Yes, of course, we want to see it all.’ She let him go to the stairs first, and held his arm as they went up. ‘You didn’t hear anything, did you?’
‘Nothing but mice,’ said Sanderson. ‘I—’
He broke off.
Sylvia’s hand tightened about his arm as she saw the man who came from a room directly ahead of them. Any man would have made her jump, but the negro who stood there, unsmiling and monstrous, unnerved her. She stepped back a pace without relinquishing her grip on Sanderson’s arm, and she felt the sudden tensing of his muscles.
‘Dad—what—’
‘Get away,’ snapped Sanderson. ‘Get away fast; don’t—’
‘Not so easy, Mister Sanderson.’ A voice came from immediately behind them, and Sylvia swung round—to find a tall, bearded Chinaman, dressed in European clothes, eyeing her without expression. His English was perfect, except for a slight slurring of the vowels.
Sanderson snapped: ‘If you two—’
It happened very quickly.
She heard the negro say, ‘We’ve found yuh, okay!’ and she saw the vicious grin on his face. The Chinaman’s hands tightened on her shoulders, and she was forced away from her father, Sanderson dropped his right hand to his pocket; she saw him try to draw out a gun, glimpsed the grey steel. But the negro moved too quickly for him, crashed a vast fist into his stomach. Sanderson gasped as he doubled up.
And then Sylvia saw the knife.
It flashed downwards from the negro’s hand as Sanderson tried to get away. It struck, and she screamed – but no sound came, for a yellow hand tightened about her throat. Standing, staring, terror within her, she saw the stroke which cut into her father’s throat.
She saw the blood.
She collapsed, consciousness leaving her, and the Chinaman stopped her from falling. He carried her with little effort down the stairs, and at the bottom secured her wrists and ankles thoroughly before returning to the second landing and helping the negro to move the body of the man Chamberlain had introduced to Wyndham Manor.
The girl remained unconscious while the Chinaman drove the Rolls, and the negro a smaller car, which followed. They went for a while through the lovely countryside and the burning sun, and among the places they passed was the cricket field of the Ridings. White-flannelled figures were dotted on it, among them that of the Hon. Richard Rollison, who was enjoying himself, with no thought of crime in his mind.
No thought of murder.
Nor did that change during the day, or the night when, after their fill of beer and Sir George’s overloaded table, the guests and visiting team played billiards, or talked, or made a poker-school, and generally felt the well-being that the Toff believed an integral part of a game of cricket, and at least half of its attraction.
A cyclist free-wheeling down the hill leading into Hersham saw a clear stretch of road in front of him and drank in the beauty of the Downlands that stretched
on all sides. It was peaceful and quiet, and it was pleasant not to have to push.
And then, as he passed a disused quarry near the road, he saw something huddled at the bottom; at that moment a shaft of sunlight lit upon it.
The cyclist stopped and looked down. There was a sudden alarm in him, for the huddled thing was ominously still, yet like a man.
It was the body of a man, dressed like a tramp, and at the neck a wicked cut.
The cyclist leapt on his bike and rushed into Hersham, no longer free-wheeling or enjoying the scene. At the police-station he gasped out news of his discovery; and twenty minutes later he was sitting next to the driver of a police car, agitatedly describing the exact spot where he had seen the body.
But when he reached the spot again the body was not there!
Some blood was; but the local inspector, a dubious man where talk of death by violence was concerned, doubted little but that the cyclist – a local youth – had killed a rabbit and hoped to create a sensation; he knew that such things happened. But he was cautious and said little, for which he was glad; for a few hours later the nearest doctor had examined and tested the blood, to declare it human.
So much blood had drained into the turf that it seemed that the missing victim of the puzzling affair must have bled to death, even if the wound in his throat had not been fatal at the moment of incision. The cyclist was vindicated, the inspector perturbed enough to go at once to the Chief Constable and report – a daring thing on the day of a cricket match.
‘From the time this cyclist—a lad named Meakings—saw the body,’ said burly Inspector Dawbury, ‘to the time we arrived at the quarry, less than three-quarters of an hour passed, Sir George. That means—’
‘That at least two men went down into the quarry and pulled the body up to the road,’ said Sir George Mannering, a big, blond, typical country-gentleman. ‘Was there any sign of blood leading from the patch at the bottom, Dawbury?’
