The Toff In Town

night?”

“Many people who appear fleetingly in the public eye broadcast in that programme, sir,” remarked Jolly.

“Oh, yes. But Allen’s been home for several weeks. The B.B.C., whatever may be its shortcomings, is never weeks behind with the news. Allen was news a little while ago—I dimly remember reading something about him in the Morning Cry— but he isn’t news now. Yet suddenly the B.B.C. wakes up to the fact that he has a story which will probably interest the three or four million listeners who switch on at 6.15 every Saturday night.”

Ten million, I understand,” corrected Jolly dimly.

“Well, all the great British public doesn’t want the Third Programme,” remarked Rollison, “we can’t all be like you, Jolly. Anything else?”

“I would like to ask one further question, sir, if I may.”

“You may.”

“Why do you think it unnecessary to inform the police of what has been happening?” pleaded Jolly. “It occurs to me that you must have some special reason.”

“I have,” said Rollison, quietly. “The look in Barbara Allen’s eyes.”

Rollison was still thoughtful when he dialled a Mayfair number. Soon an old friend, named Wardle, was on the line. His voice portrayed the man—a well-modulated B.B.C. voice from which one deduced striped trousers and a black jacket.

“Hallo, Roily,” said Wardle, “what are you up to now? You wouldn’t telephone me at this hour of the morning unless you wanted something.”

“I do. Information about In Town To-night.”

“Want to broadcast?” inquired Wardle.

“Heaven forbid!” shuddered Rollison. “I’m interested in the way the show works—how they pick on the people in town, all that kind of thing. Can you take me along to Broadcasting House and let me have a word with ——”

“In Town To-night is done from Aeolian Hall,” interrupted Wardle, with the tone of a man who knew that he was talking to an ignoramus. “I can’t manage it this morning or early this afternoon. Conferences. About five o’clock this evening, if I can—I assume that it isn’t just idle curiosity?”

“Oh, no. Real live interest. Five o’clock, then, at the Aeolian. Thanks Freddie.”

“Pleasure,” said Wardle. “Good-bye.”

At half-past eleven that morning Rollison turned his M.G. towards the East End. He drove through the hustle of the West End and the comparative calm of the City, reached Aldgate and, in the space of a few yards, moved from one world to another. Gone were the tall, grey, sombre buildings and the polished brass plates and frosted glass windows, gone were commissionaires and porters in top-hats, those last relics of the days of Dickens, gone were the pale-faced juniors hurrying about their masters’ business, and the middle-aged and elderly men who appeared to carry the weight of the world on their shoulders. In their place were the ordinary, humble, humdrum people of the East End. Costers, gentiles, Jews, dark skins and white, barrows, touts outside the windows of the fur salons, clattering trams, rows upon rows of little shops.

At a traffic block at the junction of the Mile End Road and Whitechapel Road Rollison first really noticed the taxi with one blue painted wing and one black. He noticed it partly because he was thinking of taxis that morning, and partly because the driver had paused, further back, for an altercation with the chauffeur of a Rolls-Royce. That incident had taken place near St. Paul’s, and the taxi was still only a little way behind him.

He kept an eye on it in the driving mirror as he drove along the Mile End Road.

He had dug into Allen’s past, largely because he knew an official at the Air Ministry who remembered a great deal about Allen since he had become a sensation.

Allen’s record in the R.A.F. had been exemplary; his promotion rapid—and not just because of the war-time gaps made in the ranks of the Wincos. He had been on a special mission when he had been lost. Allen, according to Rollison’s informant had combined steadiness with dare-devilry; absolutely nothing was known against him. He had a flair for the theatre and had been in several R.A.F. shows.

Rollison’s next call had been to the offices of the Morning Cry in Fleet Street, because he remembered that the Morning Cry had starred the story of the man who had returned from the dead. Also, he knew Barry Grey, the oldest reporter on the staff—perhaps also the oldest, and certainly the most knowledgeable in Fleet Street. Barry had written up Allen’s story, and Rollison had left the office with a firm impression of a steady, likeable young man. Apparently Allen was an architect; his hobby had been amateur theatricals; he was thirty-one; he had been educated at one of the lesser public schools and his father was a clergyman. The amount of irrelevant information which the Morning Cry reporter had unearthed and remembered was astonishing, and Rollison felt that he knew everything he needed to know about Bob Allen.

He felt sure now, that Allen had never dealt in precious stones, and had never been wealthy enough to own a collection of them. If Blane had told the truth when he spoke of diamonds, that meant that Allen’s interest in them had been comparatively recent.

Rollison drew near a huge cinema which stood out above the low buildings on either side, and looked clean and fresh against the drabness of this part of East London. Near it was a public house which hadn’t been painted for decades—but above the front door was fastened a newly-painted sign.

Rollison did not turn into the street near-by, but went on a few hundred yards at a slow pace. Except for two rattling trams, there was no other traffic apart from the M.G. and the taxi with the odd-coloured wings. Rollison kept peering out of the window, as if he had lost his way, and then suddenly swung across the bows of the taxi. The driver braked and bellowed. The solitary passenger was thrown forward and Rollison caught sight of an attractive young woman.

He remembered the voice of the woman who had telephoned him.

When he reached the corner of Derrick Street, where the gymnasium was situated, the taxi was turning round