The Toff In Town

“You gave yourself away when you reeled off your new script so easily,” Rollison said. “If you’d had any sense you’d have gone on with the original.”

“Don’t be a fool!” cried Allen. “I’ve often mugged up a piece in an hour or two!”

“But you only had minutes,” said Rollison, “and that wasn’t your first mistake, Allen. If you’d been loyal to Barbara in spite of everything else, if you hadn’t played fast and loose with Pauline Dexter, you might have got away with it.”

“That’s a foul lie!” snapped Allen. “I’ve been a swine to Bar, but I couldn’t help it. My nerves“

“You act very well,” said Rollison coldly. “You fooled a lot of people, Allen. Of course, you weren’t putting on an act until you first went away with Pauline. She showed you a way out. Kill Merino, the man you feared, and share the proceeds with her. And you agreed. Since then you’ve acted very well— you were quite impressive at the studio. I suppose you took something to make you sweat realistically, just as you took morphia to make yourself sleep on Thursday and made it look as if you were still a helpless victim. And yet you probably killed Merino and——”

“I didn’t kill Merino!” cried Allen. “He didn’t matter to her, she could have shaken him off——”

He broke off, and drew a shuddering breath.

Rollison gave a little laugh.

“Yes, time to stop—you know a great deal about the relationship between Merino and Pauline, don’t you? But we’re wasting time. Lundy, how did you come to be forced into this?”

Lundy licked his lips.

Allen glared at him, and burst out:

“You’re trying to frame me—and so is Lundy!” screamed Allen. But you can’t get away with it It’s crazy! I’ve been having a dreadful time, my nerves are all to pieces, but I’ve been attacked—look!” He banged his forehead with his hand. “I didn’t do that to myself, I didn’t search my own flat. It’s a frame-up!”

He stopped, gasping for breath.

Barbara stepped forward into the circle of light, and said in a montonous voice:

“I can tell you. He——”

“Keep your damned mouth shut!” Allen cried.

Rollison said slowly. “This is one time when she isn’t going to do what you tell her, Allen. She tried to save you even in the studio, she wanted you to get away because she knows you’ll hang now that you’re caught But I think she’s seen the only sensible thing is to tell all the truth. Barbara, when did you learn all about it?”

She said: “Only—this afternoon.”

“How?”

She looked at Lundy. “He—he brought a message, told me all of it, told me that if it all came out, Bob would be hanged.”

Once she began, the words came freely enough.

Ebbutt put a hard, restraining hand on Allen’s shoulder, but Rollison was prepared for Allen to make a violent rush at Barbara as she spoke. “And I stayed in the flat, trying to decide what to do,” she went on. “Then—then I knew that I had to try to save Snub.”

Allen’s hands were clenching and unclenching, his lips were working and his face was distorted.

“I learned—that Bob planned—to have Snub Higginbottom blamed for Merino’s murder.” She turned to Rollison. “Lundy told me that he was one of the party which found Bob in Burma. It was officially a film party, and Merino was with them. But they weren’t just making films, they were looking for loot which the Japanese had taken from the Burmese and which was stored in a temple in one of the valleys among the mountains.” She caught her breath and turned towards her husband. “And Bob had already found it. He was kept prisoner by the natives because he knew where these jewels were. When he broke his leg, it was in trying to get away with the jewels with a native who was prepared to help him.”

No one spoke when she paused.

At last she spoke again, in a voice so low that they could hardly hear the words:

“Bob knew that he couldn’t do it himself. He sent the native with a message to a friend in Rangoon, a man named Maurice Fenton.”

Rollison remembered reading a letter signed “Maurice Fenton”, to do with one of Merino’s big accounts.

“And——” Barbara began afresh.

“You don’t know half of it!” cried Lundy. “Merino and I went out with the rest of the group—you know some of them, Blane and Max, there were a dozen altogether. And we reached the village. There were hundreds of natives armed with swords and spears, a pretty tough job—but we tried to reason with them. Allen wouldn’t stand for arguing. He’d got a machine-gun. The natives had found it, with some ammunition, and he’d rebuilt it, spent months doing it—and he mowed them down, he killed them in dozens!”

Lundy stopped; and no one moved or spoke, not even Allen

“It wasn’t any good leaving some of them alive,” said Lundy in a muffled voice, “so we finished them off, burned the huts down, and reported that we’d found the village set on fire by a hostile tribe—it often happens out there, no one was surprised. We got the jewels to Rangoon without any trouble, but getting them to England was a different matter. We divided them. Merino, Allen and I had the biggest lots, but everyone had plenty. They were smuggled back to England and the party split up, arranging to meet again when everything was safe, and the risk of danger was over. Allen fixed his story all right for the Press, same one as he broadcast. Then the trouble really started. Merino wanted the lot. He thought he could blackmail Allen into parting with his share, and get the others from those members of the party who still had some. He had a list of all the names and addresses—but Allen took it away from him.”