“First you, then the police,” she said. “You’re just bad news itself.”
“Lila, try to forget that you don’t like me for a minute, and put me into the picture, will you? You’ve six brothers and sisters in all, haven’t you?”
Any law against that?”
“What kind of a family is it, Lila?”
She drew in a deep breath.
“It’s the finest family in London, and I don’t care what kind of families your duke and aristocratic friends have! My father is the finest man in the world, bar none. He and mother have lived the happiest life anyone possibly could. There isn’t one of us kids who wouldn’t die for them if it would help them, and that goes for the in-laws, too. Why don’t you go away and leave us in peace?”
Rollison looked at her intently, and spoke with great deliberation.
“I’ll go, Lila, and I won’t come here again if you’ll look at me as you are doing now, and swear that the trouble your family’s in began yesterday—when I first came to see him. That’s all you have to do. Swear that it’s true, and I’ll go.”
She looked at him with her eyes brimming over with tears, and her lips quivering, but she did not speak again.
“Lila,” Rollison urged, “get the family together, talk among yourselves, try to work this out the best way. I want to help Donny as much as you do, if for different reasons. But if he keeps telling me half-truths, and if all of you close up when the police and I ask questions, he’ll probably get badly hurt. Don’t forget that.”
She still didn’t speak.
Rollison nodded and turned away, doubting whether he would ever be able to break her down.
He had moved only a step when he heard her cry out in a strangled voice, and he turned round. He saw a sight which he should have expected, and which Lila must have feared. Donny was being led out by burly Harrison.
“What’s on?” Rollison asked sharply.
Harrison held a toupee up for him to see.
“This is made out of hair cut from a girl’s head only two weeks ago. Hair experts are going through every wig he’s got.”
“Mr. Rollison,” Donny said in a strained voice. “I knew nothing at all about it, but I’ve been charged with being in possession of stolen—stolen goods.”
“You can tell that to the court,” Harrison said. “Move aside, Mr. Rollison.”
Rollison stood very still, and asked:
“Who’s doing this to you, Donny? Who is it?” Donny said: “There’s nothing I can say.”
* * *
“If I knew anything I’d tell you,” Lila said brokenly, tut I just don’t know a thing.”
* * *
Rollison went to his car and drove to Mission Street, about half a mile away. There was a corner cafe, patronised by dockers and labourers, and even now he could hear the throbbing heartbeat of the docks as he drew near. The owner, a man named Rickett, had been the first to suffer from Wallis’s brutality. He wasn’t in a big way of business, and for the most part was handy for emergency stores, such as canned and packaged foods for ships sailing earlier than expected. Night workers and the crews of ships which docked during the
night found him useful, too.
Rollison pulled up outside the shop.
Even before he stepped from the car, he saw the corner of the window, dressed much more attractively than the rest, with Jepsons’ goods of many kinds—their toothpaste, hair creams, cigarettes, pens and pencils, Jepsons’ writing paper, postcards, envelopes, Jepsons’ brushes and their polishes for shoes and furniture.
A woman was watching Rollison from inside the shop, and he saw her dart through a doorway leading to a room at the back the moment he opened the front door. Its bell clanged noisily. The shop was small and the shelves crowded. There was much more of Jepsons’ stocks here—pots and pans and gadgets, soaps and soap powders, canned foods, everything for the kitchen or the galley.
Out of sight a woman said urgently: “It’s lunacy, Tom, that’s what it is, sheer lunacy. Haven’t you had enough?”
A man answered in a quiet voice, and spoke very slowly.
“Becky, if you’re right, and this is the Toff, I’m going to see what he wants. It’s true that I
“I tell you it’s crazy! Look what happened when he went to see Donny! Everyone knows about it, and who can say where it will stop? They can have my hair for nothing, but they might kill you next time. Isn’t it bad enough to be crippled for life?”
“I can get along,” the man said, in the same deliberate voice. “You only see one side of it, Becky, you don’t see the important one. What’s going to happen if this doesn’t stop? No one will be safe anywhere. If the Toff can do anything to stop it now, then we ought to help him.”
“What kind of a chance has he got if the police couldn’t do a thing?” the woman almost sobbed. “And what about
There was a moment of silence.
