The Toff And The Stolen Tresses

CHAPTER NINETEEN

No Chance

Rollison had a split second to jump back, and tried to; but he was too late. Wallis caught his right wrist and twisted, pain shot up his arm, and he was jolted forward. He could not save himself, and collided with Wallis, who stood like a rock. And as Rollison dropped back, Wallis kicked the door to with his foot, then struck Rollison twice, once beneath the chin, once in the stomach with such power that Rollison went dizzy.

He felt himself grabbed and dragged along the narrow, dark passage. A light came on, dazzling him. His head was muzzy and he had no control of his legs or arms, the blows had been calculated to paralyse him. With one part of his mind he realised this, and also realised that he hadn’t a chance: with the other, he tried to make out where they were taking him.

Men spoke, roughly. Two of them held Rollison upright. A bright light was just above his head, and it hurt his eyes. He could see the men with strange, shimmery, blurred faces. Then he was pushed round. Beneath him there stretched a staircase, and it seemed a vast distance to the bottom, not just a flight of stairs but steps leading down into the unknown.

A man pushed, another kicked him behind the knees. He pitched downwards, thrusting out his hands against the wall to try to save himself. He failed. He felt great fear rising in him as he struck a stair with his head, but he didn’t lose consciousness. He fell from step to step, each bump painful but none agonising. Then he felt himself lying on the floor without moving; at the foot of the stairs, of course. He closed his eyes for a moment. All he wanted to do was lie there; but suddenly he realised that they would come down after him, and a kind of terror caught him as he tried to scramble to his feet and look up the stairs at the same time. Wallis was walking down.

Rollison felt even more like panic.

He warned himself: “Don’t lose your head, don’t let him see how you feel,” and that helped. He stopped scrambling and trying so desperately, his movements were calmer as he got to his feet, although he had to pull himself up with the help of a handrail. Wallis was the man who could strike terror into so many, who had broken bodies and minds, who had ruined lives. He was halfway down the stairs, stepping on each tread deliberately, as if he knew that the longer he took, the worse Rollison would feel. Rollison stood swaying. There was another door, to the right, and he could smell coal and oil, but all he could see through the doorway was a black void.

If he backed even a pace, he would turn and try to run, and Wallis would gloat.

If he could gain even a few minutes, he might have a chance to hit back. He had the automatic in his pocket and the two knives: two minutes to steady himself would help, even one. The sight of the gun might hold Wallis off, anyhow. Rollison gritted his teeth painfully because of the blow he’d received, and moved his right hand to his pocket for the gun.

It wasn’t there.

Wallis thrust his great left hand forward, and the small gun rested on it like a fat grey slug.

“This what you’re looking for?”

Rollison moistened his lips, but didn’t speak.

“I didn’t think it would take long to make you shut your trap,” Wallis growled. “You’ve done all the talking you’re going to do, to the cops or to Ebbutt or to anyone at all. You’re as good as a dead man.”

Rollison thought: “And he believes it.”

Rollison could believe it, too.

There were still the knives, one clasped with a steel band round his right forearm, the other round his left calf; it was not the first time that those hidden weapons had stood between him and disaster. If he could shift the one on his arm so that he could grip it, one thrust would settle Wallis, and the men upstairs would not expect to see him appear, with or without a knife.

“Let me tell you something,” Wallis said. “You’re one of the best-known men in London. I’ve made quite a study of you. So’ve a lot of other people. There isn’t anything important about you that we don’t know.”

He was on the bottom step now. The inches beneath him made him seem enormous, and helped him to tower over the Toff. He was still beyond striking distance, although one lunge would bring him within it. Rollison began to flex the muscles of his right arm to work the clasp down. He had done this a dozen times before, and it was almost possible to guarantee that within fifteen or twenty seconds the knife handle would rest against the palm of his hand.

He could feel it coming down; feel the wooden handle on his flesh, the cold blade also.

Wallis sneered: “You can’t get away with a thing,” and as he said that, there was a swift movement behind Rollison, hands gripped him, two men appeared from the dark void. One held his right arm outwards while the other pulled back the sleeve.

There was the knife.

Now get the one off his leg,” Wallis said. He stared at Rollison with his eyes glittering, in his way a handsome devil.

But the key word for Wallis was powerful. A man pulled up Rollison’s trouser leg, and found the knife.

“You can keep them as a souvenir,” Wallis told them. “Take him in the cellar.”

One man switched on a light which came from an unshaded electric bulb hanging from the ceiling of the cellar. Beneath a small coal hole, or iron grid, was a heap of coal for the fires; there were also two or three cans of petrol and paraffin, explaining the oily smell, and some wooden boxes piled on top of one another. Several of these boxes had printing on them but Rollison did not notice the word Jepson on any.

Along one wall was a bench with a few tools on it, including a cobbler’s last and some rubbery soles and heels. On another side was a similar bench, thick with cobwebs and dust. An electric train set stood on this, the rails loosely fitted, the train itself half covered with a piece of cloth.

The two men stayed behind Rollison.

The worst thing was that he did not know what Wallis would do; every moment was an ordeal by waiting. He could see hatred in the man’s eyes, could even understand it. What he could not understand was the delay: did Wallis realise that every second of delay was torture, worse in some ways than an attack itself ?

At least Rollison was standing on his own two feet, and no longer swaying. The light shining upon Wallis’s face cast shadows which made the man look horrific. That might be intended to add to the menace, but in a queer way it struck Rollison as funny; the overloading of a situation, so that the sinister could become almost ludicrous. It was not so marked as that, but it eased Rollison’s tension slightly. If Wallis had intended to attack as he had attacked so many others would he have waited? None of the stories of what had happened suggested that he would.

Why the delay?

“You’ve seen some friends of mine,” Wallis said, with sardonic humour. “Any of them talk?”

“None of them talked,” Rollison answered. “Some of them talked,” said Wallis. “I was just asking a rhetorical question. Rickett talk?” Rhetorical was a good word for Wallis. “Nobody talked,” Rollison insisted.

“They name me?”

“I named you, and they wouldn’t confirm or deny it. That was good enough for me, but it wouldn’t be any good in court.”

“No one’s ever going to get me into court,” Wallis said. “You’re lying. Rickett talked. Rickett told you about Bishopps. You want to know how I found that out? I talked to Bert Smith. The only question you asked was whether he did any work for Bishopps. Think that was smart, Rollison? Because I don’t. It proves to me how much wind you are. If you’d been smart you’d have asked a dozen questions.”

Rollison saw the magnitude of that mistake, and prayed that Ebbutt had sent help to Rickett quickly. He had been too keyed up, too viciously angry about what had been done to Jolly, and emotion had overcome logic.

“All right,” he said, “it wasn’t smart.”

“You aren’t so good at anything,” Wallis sneered. “How much do you know about Bishopps?”

“All I know is that everyone except Jones and the Blakes had some association with them,” Rollison said.

“What else?”

“What else is there?”

“There is another thing,” Wallis said heavily.

“You may as well talk.”

Rollison said abruptly: “There’s no other thing, Wallis, and I’ve talked enough.”

Wallis could have struck at him then, and actually fondled the knuckle duster on his right fist, but he did not strike. The cellar was quiet but for the breathing of the four men, although there were sounds from outside: not loud, all muffled but unmistakable. There were people walking, and now and again an extra clang on the iron cover of the coal hole told of someone who actually stepped on to it. Now and again, also a car horn sounded in a strangely subdued note. There was no sound of voices, but the little noise that did come through made Rollison wonder what would happen if he shouted.

They would only let him shout once.

Wallis did not attempt to strike him, and now one thing was clear; he was after information. He would count on the unspoken threat, the fondling of that brass weapon, the presence of the two men behind, to break down Rollison’s resistance and refusal to answer questions.

It was clear now that he was no kind of fool, and could think for himself; but it wasn’t yet clear what information he wanted.

He said: “Rollison, I don’t have to tell you what I can do for you, and I don’t have to tell you I don’t like your face. I’d prefer to see it looking different. Just now I told you I don’t intend to let you go, and that still goes with me. But a lot of things can happen between now and the time you die, and that’s up to you.”

It would make no difference, Rollison knew.

“You wanted to know one thing when you came to my place,” Wallis went on. “You wanted to know who was backing me on these jobs. That right?”

It’s right,” Rollison agreed.

“You found out yet?” Wallis demanded.

* * *

If the Toff said “no’ and so told the truth, he wouldn’t have any kind of chance, and this would soon be over.

If he said ‘yes’, Wallis would want him to prove it, and would want him alive so that he could talk.

And he could prove nothing.

* * *

Rollison said: “I haven’t got any further than Bishopps, and I don’t know much about the firm. They’re big wholesalers who supply a lot of goods to smaller sea-going vessels which are fitted out and provisioned from the docks. That’s as far as I’ve got.”

“Rollison,” Wallis said, raising both hands and nursing the knuckle duster, “you’ve got to think again. You know what happens when I get mad. Don’t get anything wrong: the way you talk will make the difference between dying the hard way or the easy way. You’ve been seeing Ada Jepson.”

“We’re old friends.”

“She went to see the man Jones, and she refurnished that house of the Blakes.”

“There isn’t much wrong with Ada,” Rollison said.

Then Wallis grinned.

It was only the slightest of grins, and vanished almost at once, as if Wallis knew that it was the wrong moment to show that he was amused. But what caused the grin? The simple statement that there wasn’t much wrong with Ada?

Why had she gone to such trouble to recoup the Blakes? Had it been conscience money?

Wallis said more savagely: “Okay, let’s get on with it. Why’ve you been seeing her?” When Rollison didn’t answer, he motioned to the men. Rollison felt his arms gripped from behind, so that he couldn’t move and couldn’t strike out. Wallis drew nearer, all his brutality naked in his face.

“Come on, let’s have it. Why’ve you been seeing her? She under suspicion?”

Rollison managed to say: “You must be crazy.”

“We’ll see if I’m crazy,” Wallis said. He thrust his left hand out, the fingers crooked, and clutched Rollison’s neck with such force that he almost cut off his breathing, and actually made him choke. “You think she’s my sponsor?”

“She can’t be,” Rollison exclaimed. “She can’t—” he broke off again as that hand clutched more tightly, and while the men behind him gripped his arms with fingers like steel bands. “I’ve told you all I know.”

“Okay, Mr. Ruddy Toff, we’ll see if we can’t loosen your tongue a bit more.”

Wallis let Rollison go, and again he stood swaying and helpless. The next few minutes would be the worst.

Then he heard creaking noises somewhere above his head, and a clatter of footsteps, enough to make Wallis turn round to see what was happening.

A woman stumbled into the cellar.

“It’s the cops,” she gasped. “They’re at the front door, three of them. I see them come.”