Salute the Toff

by John Creasey

  “What do ye know of them?” demanded McNab.

  “Oddly enough, I haven’t met them.”

  “If I believed all ye tell me, ye’ve seen no one in the case,” said McNab sourly. “I wish I could believe ye more, Rolleeson, but ye tell such lies.”

  “At which I should be affronted,” said the Toff. “Yet I’m not. Tell me more of the Harveys.”

  McNab had not a lot to say. Mr. Mortimer Harvey was a wealthy man, who had recently retired from – and yet still took an interest in – the Mid-Provincial Building Society. A prominent society, and while he had been director Harvey had received a salary of some ten thousand pounds a year. McNab, for some reason, was always interested in salaries when they reached what he privately considered unjustifiable proportions.

  There was the daughter, Phyllis; a son, Gerald; and the wife, whom McNab dismissed as of no importance. The son was away from England.

  The Toff heard the story, leaned back in his chair, and said reflectively:

  “And you think the Harveys know something about Draycott’s whereabouts?”

  “It wouldna surprise me.”

  “I suppose Draycott met them in the way of business?”

  “Ay, in a way. When Draycott worked for his uncle, Harvey was by way of being a friend of the family, and that’s how they met. Graham Draycott—the uncle—was a much bigger agent than his nephew, until he went bankrupt. And thereafter it seems that Draycott had some difficulty in getting Harvey’s approval of his courtship.” McNab rolled the word ‘courtship’ round his tongue, as if to savour it fully.

  “You haven’t missed much, Mac. What are you doing about it?”

  “I’m having the girl watched.”

  “In the hope that she’ll lead you to Draycott?”

  “There could be less likely things than that,” said McNab aggressively. The Toff hastily agreed that many less likely things could happen.

  “Don’t you know the dead man?”

  “Not yet.”

  “And you’ve found no motive?”

  “I’ve had less than twenty-four hours,” protested McNab. “I canna pairform mireecles, even if ye think ye can. All the same,” added McNab more quietly, “the part the man Lorne is playing is peculiar. Would ye put him down as a man who’s used to crime?”

  “I would.”

  “And he appears to employ a number of men,” said McNab. “It’s a complication I didna want, Rolleeson. I was thinking it was a nice cut-and-dried murder with a personal motive. But it looks as if it might be bigger than that.”

  “Again we are agreed,” said the Toff.

  He left soon afterwards and walked back to Gresham Terrace.

  It was the first time since he had admitted Fay to the flat that he had been left alone for more than a few minutes. He intended to spend at least an hour at Gresham Terrace, trying to grapple with the many problems, and particularly the many apparently disconnected angles of the affair. On the one hand it looked a self-contained crime: Draycott having murdered a man at his flat and now being intent only on escaping from the police. The Lorne angle widened it; the man who had jumped from the train made it yet wider, and the fact that to McNab it seemed that the Harveys were hiding something.

  Rollison reached 55 Gresham Terrace and went upstairs slowly, his mind already working smoothly and the various factors appearing en masse, ready to be sorted out and as nearly as possible put in their right categories. But he was doomed to disappointment, for he found that Jolly had returned, and that there was a visitor.

  She was in the small lounge, and: “She has been waiting for half an hour, sir, although I was compelled to advise her that I had no certain knowledge of the likely time of your return.”

  “Patience being a virtue, she’s none the worse of that,” said the Toff, and then, a little hesitantly: “It isn’t Madam Litinov, Jolly?”

  “In view of your freely expressed determination to have nothing more to do with the lady, sir, I should not have admitted her had she called.” Jolly was dry and impersonal, and yet his eyes were smiling. “It is a Miss Harvey, sir.”

  The Toff stared.

  “Harvey?” A pause. “Sure?”

  “I did not have the temerity to ask for proof, sir, but that is the name on her card.”

  And the Toff took the card, which told him that Miss Phyllis Harvey lived at 9 Park Street, St. John’s Wood, raised one eyebrow above the other in silent contemplation of Jolly.

  “I’ll see to her, Jolly. And by the way, does the name Draycott mean anything to you?”

  “I cannot recall it, sir.”

  “I was afraid not,” said the Toff. “All right, we’ll do this in style. Announce me, and keep your ears open.”

  Chapter Eleven

  Miss Phyllis Harvey

  To say that the Toff was surprised was only partly true. He was at once surprised and pleased and puzzled. He had wanted to meet Draycott’s fiancee, and had wondered how it could be contrived.

  He had another surprise as he saw the girl.

  Harrison had done her much less than justice. Nothing had prepared the Toff for so lovely a creature, and yet as he shook hands he wondered whether Harrison was not right after all; for Phyllis Harvey had a Madonna-like beauty of feature, with eyes large and blue and appealing, with soft lips barely touched with lipstick, cheeks a creamy pink and white which appeared to owe little to rouge, and dark hair drawn back severely from her broad forehead and set in plaits. A beautiful picture, and yet as expressionless as one drawn to scale and not by inspiration. Even when she spoke the Toff gained an impression that she was speaking carefully and deliberately although her voice was low-pitched and could be called ‘sweet’. She was of medium height, and by no means thin. She wore a black ‘cocktail gown’. She was hatless, and had a sable stole drooping back from her shoulders.

  The Toff believed that she took drugs; the irises of her eyes were strangely minute, and her manner strengthened the suspicion.

  “I do hope,” she said, “that I am not disturbing any of your arrangements, Mr. Rollison?”

  The Toff assured her that his arrangements were always flexible. She did not smile, but went on: “Thank you. You will, of course, guess why I am here?”

  She was talking like a book, thought the Toff; a textbook and not one for an advanced class. He had a peculiar impression that she was speaking as if she had rehearsed a lesson and that every word needed a conscious effort of memory. She was the reverse of natural – and so the reverse of Fay Gretton.

  “Is ‘guess’ the word?” asked the Toff. “It’s about Mr. Draycott, I take it?”

  “That is so.” She was silent for a moment, and her lips quivered. Then: “I am so distressed, Mr. Rollison. I hardly know what to do, nor whom to consult. I was advised by a friend that you would most likely be able to help me.”

  “Who was it?”

  “I—” She hesitated, as if the question had caught her unawares and she had not rehearsed an answer; if that was so she made an impromptu quickly and convincingly: “I hardly like to mention names, but it was a friend of my father’s, a Mr. Seward.”

  “Ah!” said the Toff. He knew a Geoffrey Seward, and Seward lived in St. John’s Wood. It was as likely a way of introduction as any, and he passed it by. “And what can I do?”

  “I don’t know,” Phyllis Harvey said, and she began to talk swiftly, yet without feeling; from time to time she paused, and her lips quivered. The Toff wondered whether he had misjudged her earlier manner, and whether it was explained not by careful rehearsal, but by the fact that she was distraught.

  She told him that her fiancé had left London unexpectedly, and without warning her, but that on the following day he had telephoned and told her that he might be kept from London for several weeks. Seeing that he was planning to be
married within ten days, that startled the Toff. But, said Phyllis Harvey, James Draycott made it clear that the matter was one in which his personal safety was threatened. He had told her no more than that, but asked her to be patient. Only when she had insisted had he given her an address where she could contact him in emergency.

  The Toff was sharply interested.

  “And you have that address?”

  “It is that which causes me so much distress,” said Phyllis Harvey slowly. “After—after the visit from the police, and the tragic discovery at James’s flat, I feel torn two ways. Justice demands that I advise the police where to find him, but my personal loyalty says otherwise. What must I do?”

  “How far are you prepared to trust me?”

  “That is a difficult question. I think that I could safely say that I am prepared to abide by your decision. If you think I should tell the police I will do so.”

  The Toff said sharply: “You think Draycott committed the murder, don’t you?”

  For a moment he wondered whether his sharpness would do more harm than good. The girl opened her mouth with a quick intake of breath, showing him for the first time that her teeth were as perfect as the rest of her features. Her eyes showed she was afraid, but it might be mental fear, anguish that her silence had forced on her.

  “Why should you suggest that?”

  “I didn’t suggest it, I asked a question.”

  “It—it isn’t wholly true,” she said, and he breathed more easily when he saw that he had not closed her up. He imagined that she could be obstinate. More softly, he said: “I think it must be, Miss Harvey. Either you believe in him or you don’t. What reason have you for thinking that he committed it?”

  “I—I hardly know.”

  “Try to think,” urged the Toff.

  He was conscious then of a peculiar fact: he was out of patience with Phyllis Harvey, and it was not often he was out of patience with a beautiful woman. Her manner irritated him, although he tried to persuade himself that it was because he was tired.

  “Well, I know that he has been—how shall I put it?—very worried at times. There has always been something which he has not discussed with me, and that made him seem” – she paused – “afraid. And it was a week ago that he received a letter while I was with him, at his office. He said: ‘I’ll kill the swine before I’ve finished.’”

  “And then!” asked the Toff, for she stopped.

  “He laughed it off,” said Phyllis Harvey. “He said it was a lot of nonsense. It was some trouble with a business transaction, in which I believe he had been bested.”

  “By whom?”

  “I have no idea.”

  “It was a large one?”

  “I inferred so.”

  “I see,” said the Toff, and he stood up, his hand thrust deep in his trouser pocket. “Well, my advice is that you do not give the police the address for another forty-eight hours, Miss Harvey, but that you do tell me.”

  “I will do that,” she said.

  She had come prepared, for she took a card from her handbag, a silver chain affair, and handed it to him. The Toff glanced at the address, which ran:

  ALLEN COTTAGE, HURLEY

  HANTS.

  “Thank you,” said the Toff, and as she stood up he assured her that if it were possible he would find the precise truth before the police learned where to find Draycott. In the same mechanical manner with which she had started that peculiar interview she thanked him, and he showed her to the door, then hurried after her so that he could get her a taxi. She gave her father’s St. John’s Wood address. The Toff went back, to find that Jolly had prepared sandwiches and coffee. They talked while he ate.

  “And so, Jolly, we come to the most peculiar fact of all.”

  “Through Miss Harvey, sir?”

  “Yes. Haven’t you seen it?”

  “Not yet, sir,” admitted Jolly. “If you will give me a moment or two for further consideration—”

  “I’ll tell you, and watch the effect with gratification.” The Toff bit a sandwich, and went on: “She greeted me by saying that of course I guessed why she had come. But there was no reason why I should guess, as far as I was concerned. No one except Miss Gretton, Mr. Harrison, Bert—and we can count Bert out—and the police know that I was aware that Draycott was missing. So why should Phyllis think I should guess?”

  Chapter Twelve

  West End Spotlight

  Jolly was a remarkable man.

  The Toff had been able to give him only the briefest of résumés, and yet Jolly grasped the essentials, and was aghast at his failure to notice something so simple but of outstanding importance.

  “I’m sorry, sir. The inference, of course, is obvious.”

  “Yes. Meaning that Phyllis Harvey knows more than she pretends. Well, that might be the case, but it might also be that someone has carefully primed her. She had all the appearance of being primed, and I’ll agree with McNab that she was holding out on us. Allen Cottage, Hurley, Hampshire. You probably passed quite close to it when you went down yesterday.”

  “And when I returned today, sir. I remember the village—a most picturesque and charming place.”

  “Good. Go down there, and if Draycott is on the premises let me know at once.”

  “Very good, sir.” Jolly hesitated. “You are sure that there is nothing I could do to greater advantage in London, sir?”

  “Quite sure,” said the Toff. “I shall look after myself, Jolly. Incidentally, the man Lorne is what might be called a beautiful blond beast, and as such you will recognise him. And the woman, Myra, is red-haired and with such amber eyes that you’ll never mistake her.”

  “I will look out for them both.”

  “Good,” said the Toff. “And now I’d better see how Miss Gretton is today.”

  Fay, it appeared, was in fine fettle, for since she had learned of the possibility that Draycott was alive she had thrown off the anxiety and was filled with joie de vivre. Anthea told the Toff of that, after Jolly had left for his second visit to Hampshire in two days. Anthea ‘phoned, catching the Toff just before he left.

  “She’s downstairs with Jamie at the moment,” said Anthea, keeping her voice low. “She’s almost hysterical, Rolly. I didn’t think a man could affect a girl like that.”

  “Your knowledge of men is small,” murmured the Toff.

  “Don’t joke, please. Rolly …” Anthea’s voice grew soft, and the Toff knew that she was about to make a suggestion that she expected him to oppose. “Have you been out lately?”

  “I’m usually out,” said the Toff.

  “I mean by night. I mean,” added Anthea desperately, “have you been to a night-club, or a cabaret, or—what I really mean,” went on Anthea, speaking in a more normal and more pleasing voice, “is that I think it would do Fay good to have a night out. Only Jamie can’t look after us both.”

  “My pet, I was awake for nine-tenths of last night.”

  “But you’re used to that, aren’t you?” said Anthea ingenuously. “A night without sleep now and again won’t do you any harm. Or else you’ve disintegrated.”

  “Hush!” said the Toff. “That’s the word my aunts like to use about me. Where have you decided to go?”

  “You pet,” said Anthea, and the Toff told her that he considered that she had lowered her technique considerably since she had married, and that if that was the way she wheedled Jamie she would have to mend her ways, for no Scotsman would stand for it for long. He also arranged to call for the party in two hours’ time; that gave him precisely one hour and a half for sleep.

  Nothing happened to disturb it.

  He woke on time, dressed, and took a cab to 1023 Bayswater Road. He did not think that he was followed, although after his experience of the previous night, and the fact t
hat Lorne – or someone working for Lorne – had successfully shadowed him while avoiding discovery, he was prepared to admit that it might have happened again.

  Anthea had chosen the Can-Can Club.

  It was off Shaftesbury Avenue, and, unlike most of its contemporaries, was housed in a large building, and the main part of the club was on the ground-floor level. The walls were of mirrors, the decorations in gilt and gold, and the floor – a large one for a night-club – was not of wood, but polished glass on wood. The food was fair, the orchestra – it did not say band – good, and the service excellent.

  The Toff was not unknown there.

  The manager, Frederick, bowed on seeing him, and insisted on showing them to the table which Jamie had reserved. The Toff brought up the rear, knowing that the party attracted considerable attention, for many eyes were turned towards them, and many women talked, while the men looked at Anthea and Fay and kept their thoughts to themselves.

  Anthea was a vision in a gown of powder blue, and Fay in an evening-gown of black with white flowers at the corsage, and clearly, with her hair newly-dressed for the occasion, had that touch of the superb which made men gasp. The Toff, who was hardly unused to lovely women, was thoughtful when he considered the differences in Anthea, Fay and Phyllis. All three could justly be called beautiful, although Anthea only just scraped in.

  He thought of Phyllis Harvey dancing here.

  It was not likely to happen, and he shrugged the thought away Jamie, tall, broad, fair-headed, a Scotsman who could be dour and also charming, was in his most vivacious mood.

  The orchestra played dreamily through The Blue Danube, as sleepily through Rhapsody in Blue, and then swung into yeah, yeah, yeah. Anthea and Jamie were dancing, and the other girl looked at Rollison seriously for the first time that night. She had not had too much champagne, but she had been keyed-up, and the Toff could understand what Anthea meant by saying that she was on the point of hysteria. Her good spirits, and vivacity, seemed unnatural.