The Toff And The Curate

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

THE INTEREST OF THE POLICE

Rollison, expecting to be shot, dropped to the floor, keeping his eyes on ‘Keller.’ There was no time even to grab at one of the ledgers on the desk to use as a missile. It seemed like his last moment.

Then Gregson struck ‘Keller’s’ arm aside.

Gregson said nothing but simply grabbed ‘Keller’s’ arm and hustled him forward. The man by the door and the messenger were already in the passage.

Gregson slammed the door and turned the key on the outside.

Rollison picked himself up slowly, choked by relief. Gradually, he became aware of the footsteps. As soon as one lot faded, another drew nearer: the police were already in the building. He looked about the office and opened one of the ledgers. There were entries for various items of groceries, all neatly written up in a youthful hand. He resisted the temptation to look through the other papers on the desk, not wanting to be caught red-handed. He heard someone banging on a door not far away.

“I wonder how—” he began, then snapped his fingers. “Jolly, of course! He traced Gregson!”

He pulled the ledger towards him. The firm’s name was Mellish and Crow Limited and ccrtainly their business appeared to be genuine. He had a feeling that he had heard of them before but could not keep his mind on the book, just glanced through it, thinking:

“If Gregson hadn’t stopped him, Keller would have shot me. So I owe Gregson my life. Sensible thing to do—with a corpse on the premises he would have been for the high jump. But he was very quick—and Keller didn’t think. Strange metamorphosis, Keller seemed to be the big shot yesterday.”

He stopped, as an entry in the ledger caught his eye.

“Straker . . . £107.11.6d.”

Rollison remembered that was the name of the haulage firm which worked for East Wharf.

The police were making a long and careful job of the building. He wondered if they had found some of the men and whether a fight was in progress.

At last they arrived—and Jolly was with Chumley. Jolly’s eyes brightened at the sight of the Toff. He stepped forward swiftly.

“Are you hurt, sir?”

“Only a scratch and it wasn’t done here,” Rollison said.

“I’m very glad, sir.” Jolly glanced at Chumley whose red face was set, showing nothing of the affability which was his favourite pose. Jolly went on carefully: i knew you were being brought here, sir, and in the circumstances I thought it best to send for assistance.”

“In spite of arousing the interest of the police,” smiled Rollison. “You couldn’t have been more right.”

“I’m glad you realise that, Rollison,” Chumley said sarcastically. “Now perhaps you will stop lying to us. You’ve lied far too much.”

“Not really,” protested Rollison. “Afraid of guessing too much and misinforming you, knowing your dislike of doing the wrong thing! However, it’s a clear-cut issue for the police now. Two men tricked me into a taxi and threatened to kill me unless I withdrew from the district and went back home. They also said that they were indignant that I should try to interfere in a little matter of stolen whisky and its redistribution.”

“Whisky?” echoed Chumley. His interest, already keen, grew sharper.

“Yes. They tried to bribe me with a case of Black and White,” went on Rollison.

“Have you searched this place?” demanded Chumley.

“No. I haven’t been here for more than five minutes on my own.”

“You can do plenty in five minutes,” declared Chumley, darkly. “Sure you haven’t touched anything?”

“Frisk me,” invited Rollison, throwing out his arms in an exaggerated gesture. “I won’t make any complaint about illegal searching. Even if I’d had the time to touch anything,” he added, still standing with his arms stretched out, “I wouldn’t have had the inclination.”

“Why not?” demanded Chumley.

“I can’t imagine that they would have brought me to a place which, if afterwards located, might yield up its deadly secrets,” Rollison said lightly, it wouldn’t surprise me to find that the premises belong to some estimable firm, the management of which will be horrified to discover what’s going on at night.”

“We’ll find out,” said Chumley and ordered his men to begin searching.

Jolly found a first aid box in a cloak-room and dabbed iodine freely on Rollison’s scratch, fixing lint and adhesive plaster over it and rebuking him for not having attended to it before.

Chumley pressed questions and he told the simple truth, giving the names by which he knew the two men and omitting only that he had known before of the whisky motive. Had Chumley been his usual genial self, Rollison would have been tempted to be more frank. As it was, the policeman became more terse and nearly abusive.

Rollison, smoking and sitting on an upright chair, stared at him coldly.

“I’m beginning to understand why Kemp got such a low opinion of the police,” he said.

Chumley bit his lips and turned away.

Inside an hour, a representative of the management arrived. He was an old, grey-haired, mild-mannered man, at first indignant at the police invasion, then apologetic and obviously puzzled. Thus he laid himself open to some of Chumley’s ‘pressure.’ Rollison stood by and did nothing and Chumley began to raise his voice.

The grey-haired man stood it for some minutes, seeming to grow flustered but, when Chumley called him a liar, he spoke with unexpected sharpness.

“Are you a police officer, sir, or merely an ill-mannered ruffian?”

Rollison caught Jolly’s eye. Chumley calmed down but asked more questions. Nothing the man said and nothing that was discovered suggested that the warehouse was being used as a storage place for whisky and the indications were that it had been used, as Rollison had suggested, as a meeting place. The night-watchman stoutly maintained that he knew nothing about it but he cracked unexpectedly. ‘They’ had made him do it, he declared; ‘they’ had threatened him with violence unless he let them in. ‘They’ had been using the office from time to time over a period of six months. He did not know why and he did not know their names but he knew that a number of people called there to see them.

It was three in the morning before Chumley conceded that there was no need to stay longer.

Walking up the stairs to the flat, Rollison limped noticeably and, when they were inside, Jolly said:

“I think you’d better spend a day in your room tomorrow, sir. Your leg might get much worse.”

“Day in bed be—” began Rollison, then saw Jolly’s expression and grinned. “A day not in the office! Yes, that’s more like it! Are you forgetting that I’m a Whitehall Warrior deeply involved in the conduct of the war?”

“I would rate this affair somewhat higher than investigating the pilfering of Army depots,” murmured Jolly.

“Well, well!” exclaimed Rollison. “How did you manage to find that out? You’d located Gregson, I suppose, and managed to keep behind the taxi?”

“I was nearby, sir, and I heard someone mention the warehouse address, so I telephoned Chumley immediately and hurried there myself. I thought it unwise to try to prevent you from entering the taxi. Had I done so we might not have learned so much.”

“No,” admitted Rollison. “This is certainly your day. By George, I’m tired!” He stubbed out a cigarette. “It’s a pity but I must go to the office in the morning. There’s a Conference of Great Men.”

“At what time, sir?” asked Jolly.

“Eleven o’clock,” said Rollison.

It was ten o’clock next morning when Jolly called him. Rollison looked at his watch, stared at Jolly and was told mildly:

“I think you have good time for the Conference, sir.”

Although his leg was stiff, he felt rested and much more able to cope with the pretentious big brass who were to sit with him round a horseshoe-shaped table and discuss the matter of pilfering from Army depots. Although the pilfering reached alarming proportions and needed close investigation, Rollison disagreed with the attempt to solve it under central direction. As soon as the problem was solved in one place, it broke out in another. He did not agree that it was organised but that, being so spasmodic, it was purely local. Since his particular task was less concerned with stopping the trouble than with arriving at the totals of material and value lost, his heart was not in it and he made frequent attempts to get transferred to another Department; he had almost given up the hope of getting back to active service.

The Conference lingered on until late afternoon. By then, correspondence had accumulated and it was nearly half-past six before Rollison saw his ATS clerk seal the last letter.

“Is there anything else, sir?” she asked.

“Yes,” said Rollison. “Do you ever go to West End nightclubs?”

“Why, yes—occasionally, sir!”

“What’s the whisky like?”

“You shouldn’t touch it,” she said, confidentially, it’s enough to put you out on your feet!”

“How do they sell it?” asked Rollison. “I mean, could you go and buy me a bottle— tonight, say?”

“I suppose I could,” she said, looking at him suspiciously, for he spoke as if obtaining a bottle of whisky would be a great adventure. And then a false light dawned upon her. “If you really want some whisky, sir, a friend of mine is in the trade and I could get you some.”

“That’s sweet of you,” said Rollison, smiling. “But I haven’t gone mad. I want a bottle of the stuff I would buy at a nightclub but I don’t want to buy it myself.”

Then the true light dawned and she hugged herself as she went off, having sworn that she would not confide in a soul.

Rollison telephoned Jolly, to learn that he had not been able to find Gregson again but that the police were having one of their periodic comb-outs of the East End, that many people were already in hiding and the Fighting Parson was no longer the ruling topic.

“That’s better,” said Rollison. “He doesn’t want the limelight. I’ll go to see Cobbett the crane-driver, I think.”

“Very good, sir,” said Jolly.

Rollison had purposely kept from the crane-driver and not asked anyone else to watch him, believing it would be better if Cobbett lived in a fool’s paradise for a few hours. The time had come for the direct approach. But he was not able to go immediately for, as he left Whitehall, a stolid detective-sergeant in plainclothes approached and asked politely if he would mind stepping along to Scotland Yard.

About the time that Rollison was walking towards Scotland Yard with the amiable sergeant, Joe Craik was putting up the black-out shutters at his shop. After every one, he stopped and rubbed his hands, sniffed and smiled his quivering, rabbit smile. He was not furtive, yet gave the impression that he was afraid that people were pointing him out and talking about him.

When he had nearly finished, a youthful figure appeared in front of the shop. Craik turned and looked into the narrowed eyes of Cobbett the crane-driver.

“Now, what do you want?” demanded Craik, sharply.

Cobbett sniffed. Two or three people including a monstrously fat woman were walking by the shop and heard the opening remarks. The woman stayed within earshot.

“Have you heard about the accident?” demanded Cobbett.

“Yes, you fool! You might have—”

“Doan rub it in,” pleaded Cobbett and if he were acting he was doing so very well. “Wot ought I to do, Mr Craik? I never meant it.” Craik rubbed his hands and then said: “Well, my boy, if you’re really sorry, then I won’t make it any the worse for you. I know what you can do—go along to Mr Kemp, the curate, and tell him how sorry you are.”

“Do you think—” Cobbett began. “He won’t refuse to forgive you, my boy,” said Craik. “You run along.”

Cobbett still looked miserable but nodded and obeyed.

The fat woman wearing a coloured shawl and a tattered skirt, the hem of which dragged along the pavement, had heard every word. She moved on with a great effort when Craik finished his task, sniffing and saying in an audible voice:

“If I’d have moved off soon’s the boy “ad stopped, he would’a said I was listening to ‘im, that ‘e would!” Her fleshy face was set in lines of disgust. She waddled as far as Little Lane, turned into it and eventually reached Number 49. Outside, two of Bill Ebbutt’s men called out good-humouredly: “What’s the latest, Ma?” She tossed her head at them and was admitted to the Whitings’ home by one of the children who called her Mrs Parsons. Then, she regaled the old woman at the house with everything she had heard.

Mrs Parsons was, beyond all doubt, the district’s most notorious gossip. Some said there was no malice in her and that she could no more keep information to herself than a colander could hold water. The fact that she talked, and that no confidence was safe with her, was extremely well known—as was the fact that she had one particular crony, Mrs Whiting’s mother.

She was not a stranger to Rollison, of whom she always spoke in hushed tones as “The Torf and before whom she always curtseyed, but he had not been to see her often recently for he had come to the conclusion that she developed trivial incidents so colourfully and plausibly that they became entirely different from the original.

Soon, she was on her way again and immediately afterwards Mrs Whiting’s mother came hurrying out. So two tongues started wagging. Before long, the whole district knew that Cobbett was going to see the curate and wondered why. The story of the accident was already well-known and one of the characteristics of the East End was that when anything happened to the Toff, it had no chance of being passed over; it became an item of general interest.

Rollison, unaware of the significance in the talk, walked along with the sergeant towards Scotland Yard.