Hunt the Toff

by John Creasey

  He turned the key; there was a faint click, nothing to suggest that the lock hadn’t turned. He slid the second in, and hesitated – and then turned with a quick twist of the fingers and coughed at the same time, to cover any sound. The key turned easily. All he had to do now was to pull at the handle of the safe, and it would open.

  ‘What’s the matter?’ she asked abruptly.

  ‘Open it – it’s all yours.’

  ‘Is it unlocked?’

  ‘It is, if those keys will unlock it.’

  ‘Open the door,’ she ordered.

  She was looking intently at him, and the smile had gone from her eyes, their expression was one of unholy expectation; she came forward a step.

  He felt quite sure that once she knew that the door was open, she would shoot him. He felt like a sitting bird. He coughed again, overdoing it and going red in the face. He snatched at his pocket, as if for a handkerchief, bending down at the same time. He pulled out his gun and plunged forward.

  She fired.

  Her face was a twisted mask, and hatred glittered in her eyes. The bullet plucked at the carpet – and his leg. He fired at her gun, and the whole of the future seemed to hang on that shot. It roared, flame flashed – and she cried out and flung her hand up. Her gun curved an arc, and hit the wall and dropped heavily to the floor. She clapped one hand about her wrist.

  The echoes of the shots faded.

  Rollison stood up and walked towards her gun, making no sound.

  The window was open; and the maid was in the flat. The shots must have been heard. Yet the silence remained, tense as the moment before the crack of thunder. He picked her gun up and slipped it into his pocket, and she stood watching him, lips beginning to twitch.

  Otherwise, she didn’t move. There was no blood; he’d hit the gun.

  A voice sounded, ‘Madame – madame, wake—oh!’

  That was a scream, cut short; the maid was in the next room.

  Rollison whispered, ‘Talk to her.’

  The maid had seen the empty bed, and the bookcase door was open an inch; that was why they could hear her. How had she got in? Rollison stepped close to the wall, covering the woman with his gun. She approached the bookcase door.

  The maid began to gasp.

  The woman said, ‘Elsa, it’s all right – I thought someone was in here, but I was wrong. Go back to bed.’

  ‘Oh, madame!’ The girl sobbed.

  Mrs. Woolf went to the bookcase door, opened it wider, and spoke soothingly; she had complete control of herself again. She let her wrenched wrist fall to her side.

  ‘It’s all right, Elsa, go back to your room.’

  Rollison saw a door in the next room – a communicating door from the woman’s room to her maid’s.

  ‘Oh, madame, I was frightened!’

  ‘Yes, I know, but there’s no need to be.’

  Rollison heard the maid’s dragging footsteps; and then a door closed.

  The woman shut the bookcase door.

  She turned to face Rollison – and looked as she had done when he had first seen her. Superbly beautiful and smiling, as if that venomous rage had never existed. He began to wonder if she were sane; but would an insane person have been able to treat the maid like that?

  There was no sound from the street; no police.

  She said quietly, ‘I think I’m beginning to believe in lucky stars, no one else seems to have heard that.’

  ‘Next door—’ Rollison began.

  ‘They are away, for the summer, the flat is empty.’

  ‘Upstairs?’

  ‘We’ve heard nothing, and we could hear if anyone were moving about.’ She glanced at the ceiling, then approached him, relaxed and smiling. ‘You’re better than I thought in some ways, but not so good in others, Toff. You’re nervous.’

  ‘That’s right,’ said Rollison. ‘I don’t like beautiful women who go about using guns – it kills my faith in human nature.’

  ‘I should hate to do that. Aren’t you going to look in the safe, now you’ve opened it?’

  ‘No. You are.’

  She shrugged, and went towards the safe, and he covered her. She had no gun, but he didn’t trust her. There might be another gun in the safe. He moved to that he could see over her shoulder when she was kneeling down – and she had to kneel on one knee in order to pull at the handle.

  He said, ‘Wait a minute.’

  She paused.

  ‘If you and your husband have anything in common, it’s devilishness,’ he said. ‘Keep to one side when you pull the door open.’

  She looked round – and she seemed to be younger, almost a girl; her eyes were dancing with real amusement.

  ‘Why? Are you still nervous?’

  ‘I just don’t trust Woolfs. Keep to one side, and pull the door slowly.’

  She obeyed, so that she was facing him. In spite of her words, she was as nervous as he, seemed to have difficulty in plucking up her courage to pull the door open. She tugged; it was heavy, placed like that she couldn’t get much force behind her arm. When it opened, it would swing towards her.

  She pulled again.

  The door opened – and a stab of flame hissed out, there was a coughing sound, followed by a dull thud at the other end of the room. A bullet buried itself in the panelling.

  The woman knelt there, as if transfixed, staring at the door.

  Rollison said softly, ‘The old trick, trust Leo to think of it.’

  He went across and stood by her side, convinced that for once she was completely dumbfounded, had been shocked to numbness. He was careful as he pulled the door wider open. Inside, at the top, the pistol had been rigged so that a shot was fired whenever the door was opened; he could see the little wire which ought to have been pushed to one side for the door to be opened without the shot being fired.

  The safe stood wide open, at last.

  The woman said, ‘The—devil!’

  She was shivering, and her voice quivered. She got up slowly, and leaned against Rollison. He kept his gun-hand free, but he didn’t think there was any danger from her for a moment.

  She drew her head back.

  There was no sound outside, the shots hadn’t been heard – but at any moment a car might turn the corner and pull up.

  She said chokingly, ‘I’ll kill him. I’ll kill him.’

  ‘No love for Leo?’

  ‘Love? I’ve hated him for years. He’s fooled, tricked, and cheated me. He’s humiliated me before my friends. He laughs and sneers and reviles me, and thinks I’ll always come to heel. Well, he’s wrong. He’s been wrong for a long time, but he didn’t know it. I’ll break him – I’ll kill him!’

  What would she say if she knew that Woolf was dead?

  ‘Why not humiliate him? Break him that way?’ He smiled into her eyes. ‘It would be easy, wouldn’t it?’

  She didn’t answer.

  ‘He’s framed a girl for Keller’s murder. Why not help to prove that he was behind it?’

  The words came casually, he turned away.

  ‘Save her? Not in a thousand years!’

  He didn’t speak.

  ‘You fool, Rollison, you don’t know him. He gets what he wants from every woman he likes, and then gets rid of them. Somehow – anyhow. That’s what he thinks he’s done with me. I’m just a cover for him, a cover of respectability, the good wife in the background. I’m too old for my fine Leo – much too old. He likes them young. This Lane girl – they had a wonderful time for a few weeks, she thought he was in love with her. She was one of those who helped to take him away. Help her? I’d gladly watch her hang.’

  She stopped.

  As he watched her, he heard a car approaching, some way off. It was the first sound he had heard from outside since he had come here. The noise set his nerves jangling, playing on them as if they were raw. He stared at the woman, and hoped that she would not notice the tension in him. The car slowed down and turned a corner – and came this way. He moved because the st
illness was unbearable.

  It was almost outside, now.

  It passed.

  He took a whisky bottle from the cabinet.

  ‘Have a drink,’ he said. He ran his hand over his forehead, and it came away damp. ‘Whisky – or brandy?’

  He poured her a whisky, added a splash of soda, and handed it to her. She drank it almost without realising what she was doing. He helped himself.

  He lit cigarettes for them both.

  ‘All right,’ he said. ‘Let the Lane girl hang. Leo will get away with that, as he’s got away with everything else. And you’ll have missed a chance to see him in the dock, to hear the judge pass sentence.’

  She looked at him from smouldering eyes, but the red-hot flame of hatred had slackened a little. She forced a laugh, and moved away from him.

  ‘What’s the Lane girl mean to you?’

  ‘Just a girl who’s had a raw deal.’

  ‘She couldn’t have one raw enough. You don’t know her. She’s as hard as they’re made. Bad, do you understand, bad right through. I know Elizabeth Lane.’ She drew at her cigarette, and her recovery was almost complete, there was mockery in her eyes – and that unnatural glint. ‘You’ve fallen for her, haven’t you? You’ve risked your own neck to save hers. I wouldn’t lift a finger to do that, but I might help you.’

  He didn’t speak.

  ‘So you know Leo framed her. I wonder how well you know Leo. I wonder how you discovered that he was behind it. Oh, forget it, I don’t care.’ She went across to a chair, watching him. ‘Why, you’re handsome,’ she said, as if surprised. ‘Your photographs don’t do you justice, they make you look too old.’

  She was talking about photographs. The open safe was near him, and he was listening to her while he could be going through its contents. But he knew that she could tell him what he most wanted to know, she could prove that Woolf had framed Marion-Liz.

  ‘You’re not exactly an old hag yourself,’ he said.

  She laughed softly.

  ‘But you prefer them young, like the Lane girl. Oh, don’t lie, it’s not worth lying. If he were gone, perhaps I could start to live again, but—’

  She broke off.

  Rollison said, ‘Supposing we find out what’s in the safe. What do you want from it?’

  ‘Anything I can find about him,’ she said, but the passion wasn’t in her voice, she could switch that on and off; had it been acting all the time? Surely that wasn’t possible. ‘He’s as corrupt as the Devil himself, and the secrets of that safe could damn him. If I can get them, I’ll send him to hell. I’ll make him writhe and squirm, I’ll make him do what I want, I’ll let him know what it’s like to live the way I’ve lived. Open it. Take everything out.’

  He turned, and bent down.

  He didn’t know what warned him, but glanced round at her – as a knife swept towards his back.

  XVIII

  THE MESSAGE

  He plunged forward. The knife, aimed at his ribs, slid softly into the flesh at his waist. He fell at full length, twisting round as he did so. She was off her balance, because of the plunging stab. He clutched her ankle and pulled, and she fell heavily on top of him. He heaved her off. She rolled on to the floor, without any attempt to struggle.

  He stood up, and trod on the knife; the blade snapped.

  ‘I don’t think I like you, Mrs. Woolf,’ he said softly. ‘I don’t think we’ll get on at all well together.’ He lifted her; she was heavy, but in this mood he could have thrown her bodily at the wall. He dropped her into an easy-chair, and pulled the sash from her waist. It was sewn on at one side, and he tore at it; the stitches broke. He gripped her hands and bound them together.

  She sat glaring.

  He went to the safe and knelt down. There were jewel-cases and legal documents in thick envelopes; deeds of property, most of them; bundles of share certificates, all the normal things. He put them aside. He took out two thin bundles of one-pound notes, tossed them away, and glanced into the now nearly empty safe.

  There was one sealed envelope; and a small black book. No weapon, no knife.

  He took out the book.

  In it was a list of names and addresses; hundreds of names and addresses. Under each letter of the alphabet there were two sets of entries – men on one side, women on the other. There was no time to go through this. There were no notes against any of the entries, little that might give him a clue to anything he wanted.

  He slipped the book into his pocket, and picked up the envelope. He felt it, but there were only papers inside.

  A car drew near again.

  He stood up, slowly, and strolled to the window, as if he weren’t affected by it; but his heart started to thump again. He pulled the curtain aside an inch. The headlights of a car swept into the street.

  It was nearly two o’clock.

  He turned back, glanced at the woman, whose position hadn’t changed, but whose face was blank and almost sullen. He started to tear open the envelope.

  The telephone bell rang, breaking the silence.

  It made them both start.

  The bell kept on ringing with the steady regular ring of a local call. The telephone itself was on the desk. He approached it, stopping and pulling the woman up as he passed; she let herself be drawn up, and he spoke quietly.

  ‘Is there an extension?’

  ‘In the hall.’

  He went across and opened the door; a telephone stood on a small table just outside. He went back, while the telephone bell kept ringing.

  The police?

  They would come straight here, this wasn’t likely to be a police call.

  He undid the sash at her wrists.

  ‘Answer it, and be natural – I’m covering you.’

  She might doubt whether he would shoot, might defy him. He backed away, keeping her covered, and she didn’t even turn to look at him. She touched the telephone. He backed into the hall and lifted the receiver, and as he put it to his ear, the woman said:

  ‘Hallo.’

  A man answered; so she hadn’t lied about the extension.

  ‘Leah, listen to me,’ the man said, in a breathless voice. ‘He’s dead.’

  Rollison saw the woman’s shoulders move, then she glanced round at him, her eyes blazing with an unholy light.

  The man spoke urgently, ‘Leah, did you hear me? He’s dead. Leo’s dead.’

  She said in a strange, unnatural voice, ‘Yes, I heard you. I don’t believe it.’

  ‘It’s true. He was at Liz Lane’s flat – he’s been there all the time. Nevett was there, too. I traced Nevett tonight. He’s under arrest.’

  Rollison heard the sharp intake of Leah Woolf ’s breath.

  ‘Nevett is? Did he—’

  ‘I don’t know. He says Rollison did the job. You know, Rollison – the Toff.’

  She didn’t glance over her shoulder, just said, ‘Yes.’

  Rollison took an envelope from his pocket and printed on it, in pencil, ‘Ask if they’ve identified your husband.’ It was awkward, trying to hold the paper steady with his elbow as he listened.

  ‘I haven’t been able to find out much,’ the man said. ‘The tenants in the flat above were in Leo’s pay, he could go up and down as he pleased, as the police weren’t inside the house. He sent the tenants out tonight, he wanted to work on the girl, and she might have been noisy. Nevett told me that, on the telephone. Can you hear me?’

  ‘Yes.’ Her voice was still tensely calm. ‘Go on.’

  ‘Rollison got in, somehow. There was trouble, and then Nevett blew up, I don’t know exactly what happened. The police caught him. I’ve just been talking to a friend in Fleet Street. Nevett’s on a charge, the police have got the girl and her boy friend. Rollison got away. He may visit you, be careful.’

  She gave voice to a shocking sound that might have been a laugh.

  ‘Leah, what’s the matter?’

  ‘I still don’t believe you.’

  ‘Listen, this is sober t
ruth. Leo’s dead – shot through the head. It’s official, the police have released a story.’

  Rollison put his instrument down softly, and strode across to the woman, thrust the envelope in front of her nose. She took it, and read. The man was still talking. Rolfison went back and picked up his receiver.

  ‘You’ll be all right if you keep your head,’ the man was saying, ‘but we’ve got to get that safe open. We’ve got to save the records.’

  She said, ‘That won’t be so easy. Jim, do the police know who he is?’

  ‘Not yet. That gives us time. Listen, I’ve fixed up with a man to come over – Sammy Gilbert. He’s reliable, and he can open any safe. Let him in, get him to open it, take out the papers we want. He’ll be there soon, and knows what to do.’

  ‘Why don’t you come yourself, Jim?’

  The man didn’t answer.

  Rollison felt tension easing its way out of him, like pain fading away. It was a quarter past two, and the police still didn’t know who Woolf was; so they might not know until the morning, and probably wouldn’t.

  ‘Well, why don’t you?’ Leah Woolf asked the man on the telephone.

  ‘There’s no sense in taking risks. Let Sammy get the door open, give him the dope, and then it’ll be fine. When the police come, you don’t know anything about it. It won’t be the first safe opened while people have been asleep in the next room. Leah, don’t make any mistake. Sammy’s good, and this is the only way to handle the situation. You understand, don’t you?’

  ‘Oh, yes,’ she said. The strange, electric calmness remained in her voice. It puzzled Rollison, and seemed to puzzle the man named Jim. ‘And Leo is … dead!’

  ‘Listen, Leah.’ The man’s voice was cracked with anxiety. ‘Don’t act that way, I don’t like it. Leo lost his head over this Riordon job. That stuff has become an obsession, it’s all he could think about. He was taking big risks with it, I knew that all along, so did you. Understand, Leah – he wasn’t himself, so it went wrong. As if you didn’t know. Leah, can you hear me? Are you there?’

  ‘Yes, I’m listening,’ she said heavily.