Salute The Toff

Waikato Times, Volume 127, Issue 21144, 20 June 1940, Page 12

Salute The Toff

BY JOHN CREASEY

NEW SERIAL STORY

CHAPTER I—(Continued) The Hon, Richard Rollison The Hon. Richard Rollison, leaning well back in an easy chair, sene spirals of smoke curling upwards and appeared to be in a dream. Despite a colourful dressing-gown and bloodred slippers he looked sleek, elegant and debonair. While about his liv-ing-room stumped a short, chunky man whose iron-grey hair was pushed upwards in a peak, whose clothes looked as though they had been slept in, and whose voice was hoarse with anger, worry and fear; or so thought the Toff, or the Hon. Richard Rollison. “I tell you, Rollison, it’s getting on my nerves. I’m not sleeping, I can’t stand it,! The police are doing their best but they don’t seem to get anywhere. Night after night it’s happening—cinema hold-ups, daytime robberies, murder! Do you know four people in my employ have been killed in the past three months? They’re on my consicence, I ought to have found a way of stopping it, “Whoa!” said Rollison, coming to life. “It’s no use taking that angle, Bruce, if anyone’s to blame it’s the police—but I don’t blame ’em. It's a racket more than they can stomach. More than anyone can stomach. Damned well organised, all the nerve in the world, and ruthless as a Nazi purge. There’s a spot of whisky in the sideboard.” “I don’t want whisky!” snarled Sir Bruce Wellward. "I want this thing stopped—it’s ruining us. Ruining us! And you lie back there like a blasted cat and talk about stomachs!” The Toff stood up and stepped to the sideboard, poured out a stiff whisky and handed it, neat, to the baronet. Wellward tossed it off and laughed bitterly. “It’s getting more than I can, stand, Rollison. Sorry.” “I can guess how you’re feeling,” said the Toff easily. “And I can guess what you’re going to ask me: you want me to get behind the racket. Right?” “Well—yes.” Wellward looked at his empty glass as though wondering where the whisky had gone. “I know you’re going abroad but another few weeks can’t make any difference. Have a cut at it, won’t you? Name your own price ” “That proves you’re ill,” said the Toff judicially. “I haven’t been reduced to working for moeny yet, thank the Lord! Bruce, I’m catching the Olanda for New York tomorrow, Southampton, three-thirty.” Wellward tried not to look contemptuous. “All right, have it your own way. But I should have thought this was just your kind of job. The police are beaten—so far, anyhow—and according to your reputation you know more than they do about the East End. But when we’re absolutely stuck for a good man, you go to America. What for?” snarled Wellward. “To study crime conditions?” The Toff was not annoyed. “What makes you think we’ll find our men in the East End, Bruce? The

woman in this case—the woman present when Marchant was killed—lives less than two miles from Piccadilly Circus, or I’ll sink the Olanda and swim to New York. Would you like to know her name?” Wellward stopped in the middle of a pace. “What? You know her?” “Nearly as well as I know you,” said the Toff comfortingly. “The loveliest and most callous little hellcat in London, and we’ve met before. Cardew, Irma Cardew. Even if I wanted to keep out of this business, I don’t think I could neglect her. Can you act?” “Act? Oh, my God!” groaned Wellward. “And I thought you’d got sense. You knew the woman’s name, you talk about not neglecting her, of going to the States, aftd am I an actor? Why the devil don’t you talk straight?” “Probably a congenital weakness,” said the Toff. He did not say so, but he was concerned about Sir Bruce Wellward. Only a badly frightened man would act like this. “I’ve been on this job for a fortnight, since Marchant was shot. The first time, in fact, that there was mention of the woman. But get over to that window, and glance out. Keep behind the curtain.” Wellward scowled but obeyed. He stared into Gresham Terrace, one of the more respectable thoroughfares in the West End of London, and he could see the man sitting at the wheel of a Morris two-seater and reading a paper. A milkman, a nursemaid, a policeman, and his own car and chauffeur made a quinette. “Well?” “The man-in the Morris comes from Irma,” said the Toff lazily. “A gentleman named Benny Duvanto. Don’t look too closely, I can tell you he’s small, swarthy, curly-haired and a perfect Percy. For all I know he shot Marchant. Irma and her friends have been watching me since they started. Irma Cardew doesn't make many mistakes, and she certainly isn’t going to underestimate me, if I get started. So to try—note that I say try—to hoodwink the beauty, I’m sailing on the Olanda. This evening’s papers will carry a story about a lovely in Hollywood longing for me, and with luck Irma’s men won’t follow me further than Southampton. They’ll see me go aboard and make sure I don’t slip off. And then they’ll report that the story of the romance is true, that Rollison’s on the high seas. I don’t think they’ll expect me to leave the Olanda at Cherbourg.” “G-great Scott!” gasped Wellward. “If you hadn’t let this business get on your nerves you'd have seen that an hour ago,” said Rollison. “And for God’s sake don’t give the game away. The man in the Morris knows you've called, he’ll guess why. Go out looking like the devil, swear at your chauffeur, and hurry.” Wellward stood with his feet apart, a solid, almost square piece of humanity, his heavy chin and his blue eyes gleaming. His right hand suddenly shot out. “Sorry, Rollison. And I'm damned glad—damned glad. If anyone can clear up this racket, you can.” “That’s what Irma thinks,” said the Toff. “But don't expect miracles, I’m only human.” (To be continued daily.)