The Toff And The Stolen Tresses

Wilson of the Globe is probably the best for this. We want to know if there have been many cases of hair fetishism in the past few weeks.”

“Young woman whose hair has been cut off, sir?”

“Yes.”

“I read of such a case only yesterday, I believe that it was at Croydon,” said Jolly. “And I think—but I will check, and have a report ready as soon as possible.”

“Good. And check the value of human hair for wigs and things, will you?”

“I will indeed. What time do you think you will be back, sir?”

“With luck, for dinner.”

“Very good, sir,” said Jolly. “I shall expect you.”

When Rollison stepped out of the kiosk the crowd round the shop had thinned. He saw a Jaguar moving off, and making a U turn. Donny was at the wheel, still wearing his white smock, with his young daughter beside him. Leah Sampson, aged about eighteen, with her lovely, glossy, raven black hair shorn off.

Had that been done to coincide with his, Rollison’s, visit to Donny?

If so, why?

It would be easy to imagine a reason for sheer coincidence.

Rollison passed the Rolls-Bentley again; no one was near it. Inside and outside the hairdressers’ things seemed quite normal, and he was sure that he wasn’t being followed. He recalled the address of Tiny Wallis and Mick Clay, which was quite near here.

He waited at a corner for fifteen minutes, and then the car which Jolly had laid on drew up, and a driver from the garage jumped out. “This the job you want sir?”

The job was a five years old Austin.

“Acceleration all right?” asked Rollison. “Like a jet, sir. Care to try it out?”

“I’ll take your word for it, thanks,” said Rollison. “You’ll wait for the breakdown van for my car, won’t you?”

“Yes, sir. Oh, and here’s something Mr. Jolly asked me to give you.”

“Fine,” said Rollison gravely, and took a small cardboard box from the man: the “toy’ pistol.

He got into the car, turned the corner at once, and then tried out the car’s acceleration; it was all that he could ask if he should need to get away in a hurry. He drove at normal speed towards the Mile End Road, and eventually to the street where the Blue Dog stood at the corner. He was not surprised to see two of Ebbutt’s scouts standing at the door of the big gymnasium behind the pub, a wooden building with a corrugated iron roof.

The men waved, and one came hurrying. Rollison slowed down.

“Mr. Ebbutt would like a word wiv you, Mr. Ar.”

“Thanks,” said Rollison, and got out and lit another cigarette. It was a little after half past three; less than two and a half hours since he had first stepped into the Blue Dog. One of the astonishing things was the speed of events. The attempt to run him down; the swift decision to act upon a woman’s charge of murder; the shearing of Leah Sampson’s hair; and the despoliation of the Rolls-Bentley. All of these things helped to create in him a cold anger which he could not throw off; so his greeting for Bill Ebbutt was not so bright as it might have been.

“Want me, Bill?”

“Yes, Mr. Ar,” said Ebbutt, panting a little because he had been hurrying. He looked almost an old man. “You’ve been warned plenty “aven’t you? They nearly tore your guts out down at the corner.”

“But they didn’t touch me, Bill.”

Ebbutt was as earnest as a man could be, and his big, ugly face was a study in solemnity.

“You got away with that, Mr. Ar, but take it from me you won’t get away with any more unless you take a bodyguard with you.”

“Thanks, Bill.”

“Oo’jer want?”

“Not yet,” said Rollison, with a grin which wasn’t quite spontaneous. “If I go around with two of your chaps on my tail, Wallis and Clay will have scored a moral victory. I’d like to borrow a cosh if you’ve any left among the relics.” Now the spontaneity was back. “We don’t want them to have any moral victories, do we? I’ll tell you if I reach the point where I’ll feel safer with two of your muscle-men behind me. How about that cosh?”

“I’ll get it,” promised Ebbutt, and was gone only a few minutes. When he came back, he handed Rollison a shiny black cosh, pliable and soft, and weighted with lead shot. “If I was goin’ to Wallis’s place, I’d take a knuckle- duster, you’ll never make an impression on ‘im or Clay’s thick skulls wiv a cosh. Mr. Ar, be sensible, and change your mind,” he pleaded. “This job ain’t worth getting yourself in ‘ospital for.”

“I’m not a bit sure that you’re right,” said Rollison, and gripped the man’s thick forearm. “Bill, it isn’t so long since you and your chaps ran into a lot of trouble in a job like this. I’m going to try to keep them out of this one if I can.”

“Well, I ought to know better than try to make you change your mind,” Ebbutt conceded unwillingly, “but we’d rally round, Mr. Ar. And you can’t say I didn’t warn you.”

His face was set and bleak as he watched Rollison drive off.

One of the scouts came up, and asked:

“Where’d you fink ‘e’s orf to?”