“
What gives the Toff his ever-fresh, ever-appealing quality is that he likes people and continues to live a life of glamour and romance while constantly showing (by implication alone) that all men are brothers under the skin.
I am delighted that the Toff is available again to enchant a whole new audience. And proud that my parents named me Richard after such an amazing role-model.
CHAPTER ONE
Mellor flinched as if the pale blue paper were red-hot, dropped it and backed away as it fluttered to the thread-bare carpet. The pale blue envelope, torn where he had ripped it open, quivered in his left hand. Except for this trembling he stood still, watching until the letter settled. Even then he could read the black, block capitals.
The best way to disappear is to die
Suddenly he screwed up the envelope and flung it across the tiny room. It hit the wall, dropped on to the unmade bed and rolled down the heap made by his red-and-white-striped pyjamas. It quivered on the edge, then fell to the floor.
“I can’t stand it, I just can’t stand it any longer.”
He read the message again; then stared at the gas fire where the broken white mantles looked like bleached bones.
He spoke again, as if someone had been arguing with him: “No, I just can’t stand it any longer.”
His trembling stopped, he picked up the letter and looked down at it. Something like calm settled on his haggard face and his red-rimmed, bloodshot eyes.
He said: “I’d better get it over.”
He laughed; and he hadn’t laughed for days. Days? He hadn’t laughed for weeks—not since dread had first cast its shadow over him, not from the moment when he had decided that he must disappear.
It had seemed so easy and proved so great an ordeal; and he had failed because “they” knew he was here. He didn’t know who “they” were: not the police who would come and arrest him, giving no warning, if they knew where he was. He didn’t know who had plotted his death and driven him to desperation. “They” was a vague, nebulous word, describing the unknown. In less than a month they had turned him from a normal, cheerful, vigorous young man into a physical and nervous wreck.
He had fought them by himself because there was no one to help him; but he couldn’t fight any longer. Hunger had added the final touch of fear and that stark message gave him the simple answer to his problems.
He went to the window and looked out on to drab backyards of poor little houses, shrugged, turned and sat in a wicker armchair. It creaked and sagged. He leaned back with his eyes closed. A piece of broken wicker scratched his neck and he shifted his position.
He sat still for ten minutes. Downstairs a door banged; outside a dog began to bark. Before that letter had come the noises would have made him jump; now he was numb.
He opened his eyes and stared at the door; he had been sitting here when the envelope had been thrust beneath it.
He had heard no sound until a faint rustling had made him look up. Every nerve in his body had become taut as he’d seen first the corner, then the whole envelope. Whoever had brought it had flipped it smartly when half of it was inside, making it hit sharply against the edge of the carpet.
The messenger had crept away as silently as he had come.
Clutched by the now-familiar choking fear, Mellor had gone to the door and unlocked it stealthily, opened it and peered out on to an empty landing and an empty staircase. Then he had returned, picked up the letter and ripped it open . . .
Now he wasn’t so frightened because he knew what to do. He had been planning every detail while sitting and thinking. The door and the window would have to be blocked somehow, to prevent air coming in and gas escaping, thus warning others in the house before he was dead. The ideal thing would be cotton-wool or gummed paper but he had neither. A sheet or his pyjamas, torn into small strips, would serve; but that would be a laborious job and he had little patience left.
He got up and went to the bed, pulled the grubby pillowcase off and punched the hard pillow. It wasn’t made of feathers. He took out his penknife, slit the ticking and pulled out some dirty-looking grey flock.
That would do!
He grabbed a handful of flock—and nicked his finger with the knife. He stood rigid, looking at the tiny red globule that oozed up.
Perhaps the best way to kill himself would be to cut the main artery.
He began to tremble again.
No, he couldn’t stand the blood spurting out. He would have to feel it drain from him and would try desperately
