Stars For The Toff

“I sent a cheque to the company, but they say they never received it. The cheque was cashed and endorsed on the behalf of the company but the police say it didn’t go through the company’s books.”

“Well, it might help if we knew who cashed it,” said Rollison drily. “Have any of you any idea?”

“None at all,” said Madam Melinska. “None at all, Mr Rollison.”

“That is what you are to find out,” added Lady Hurst, severely.

Rollison frowned. “I’m sorry, Aunt. The whole thing sounds a complete cock-and-bull story, and that’s what the police think it is. The company was—”

“The company was, and should still be, a perfectly reliable one,” Lady Hurst said. “It has been established for over sixty years and I have known of it for most of that period. It was and should still be flourishing.”

Rollison looked thoughtful.

Before bringing Madam Melinska and Mona Lister to the Marigold Club, he had been busy telephoning newspaper friends as well as friends in the City, and he now knew most of the story. Space Age Publishing, Limited had once, as his aunt said, been a flourishing company. Then, quite recently it had been sold, and within a few months ugly rumours of bad debts, unpaid accounts and serious shortages in stocks began to circulate. It was now known that the company was virtually bankrupt.

“What went wrong doesn’t necessarily concern us,” said Rollison. “Nevertheless, this was the company in which Madam Melinska persuaded you, and others, to invest. Where did the money for those investments go? As I said, it appears to have completely disappeared—and it seems that the police think Madam Melinska and Mona have something to do with its disappearance.”

“The charge is absurd,” said Lady Hurst. “Why neither of them could even pay for their own bail.”

Rollison frowned. “Some people think that this is a sham—that Madam Melinska has the money but is pretending poverty in order to make the charge seem absurd.”

“Do you believe that, Mr Rollison?” asked Madam Melinska quietly.

Rollison looked at her without speaking, feeling an odd compulsion to say: “No.” But until there was proof of what had happened to the missing money, no one could be sure.

The dark, compelling eyes met his.

“If you help to find the truth you may be badly hurt, Mr Rollison, many of your friends may turn against you. But you will get help from unexpected sources.”

Rollison stared back, determined that her gaze should drop before his; but it did not. He was beginning to wonder how long he could keep this up, to wish that his aunt would make some kind of interruption, when there was a tap at the door. It was the auburn-haired manageress.

“I’m sorry, Lady Hurst, but there is a telephone call for Mr Rollison. A Mr Jolly. He says that it is extremely urgent.”

For Jolly to say that, it must be, thought Rollison.

There was no telephone in the drawing-room, and he got up, murmured an apology, and went out. He could feel the gaze of the three women, his aunt’s tinged with a slight hostility, Madam Melinska’s reproachful, the girl’s frightened. He picked up a telephone in the hall.

“Yes, Jolly?”

Jolly said: “It’s grave news, sir, I’m afraid.”

His pause underlined the statement, and Rollison caught his breath in sudden alarm. “Charlie Wray has been fatally injured—in a car accident, so-called. The car didn’t stop, but a passer-by took a description of it—and the police think it may well have been the car that tried to run down Lucifer Stride.”

*     *     *

From that moment, Rollison’s attitude towards the inquiry changed. Until then he had been involved almost in spite of himself. Now, he was involved because he meant to find out who had killed Charlie Wray.

The next few hours were a nightmare.

First, he went to Fulham, to see and identify the body.

Next, he drove to the East End, where Bill Ebbutt lived, massive, flabby, wheezy, generous Bill Ebbutt, who found “work’ for a dozen boxing has-beens at his gymnasium which was next to his pub, The Blue Dog, near the Mile End Road. As the Bentley turned the corner into the mean street of tiny terrace houses, men and women turned to stare and the whispers began.

“It’s the Toff . . . Toff . . . Toff . . .”

“TheToff’s here . . .”

Toff, Toff, Toff, To . . . Rollison felt that he could hear the soubriquet from a hundred lips. And he saw the men and women, brought by the bad news, gathered outside the wooden gymnasium. The entrance was lined with people, nearly all of them men—mostly friends of the dead Charlie, old sparring partners, old opponents of the ring.

Rollison slammed the door of the car and walked what seemed an unending gauntlet of sad and familiar faces. He had asked for help and it had been given cheerfully; and now one of their friends was dead.

The sun shone out of a clear blue sky. It shone on the open door of the gymnasium, and then on Bill Ebbutt, as he appeared, wearing a black polo-neck sweater and black trousers—as if he were in mourning. The clothes showed up the pallor of his face.

His big hand engulfed Rollison’s.

“Bill,” Rollison said, “I couldn’t be more sorry.”