Kill The Toff

“Who?”

“Does it matter?”

“Yes.”

“Billy Manson, the boxer,” said Clarissa and her lips twisted wryly. “Another of my sensations. Ugly men fascinate me, so does brute strength, and Billy had them both. I told him I wanted to see how the poor lived. He was born in Limehouse and isn’t ashamed of it, in spite of his fortune. He took me round. I was astonished at how many different people he knew. Criminals!” She laughed. “I wonder if you can imagine the thrill I got when I first met a man who had committed murder and got away with it.”

Rollison said: “I think so.”

“I almost believe you can. Billy did me proud but said there was one man in the East End I’d never be able to meet. Mellor. That was the first time I heard the name. It was impossible to meet him and of course I was determined to do the impossible. Billy was frantic, told me I was playing with fire—poor dear! He didn’t realise that I like fire. It wasn’t through Billy that I met Mellor, though; it was by accident. I went to a dance in Limehouse. It— it was dreadful! The crowd of sweating humanity—Oh, never mind. Mellor was there although I didn’t know it until I had a note from him. A kind of royal command. Billy was to have taken me to the dance but he had a heavy cold and his manager wouldn’t let him out, so I went with two friends of his. They shook at the knees when Mellor’s message came and advised me to leave. Leave! I laughed at them and met Mellor.”

She fell silent again and Rollison gave her a cigarette and lit it for her. She hardly noticed what she was doing; she was re-living the meeting with Mellor in a scene which Rollison knew so well. A dance-hall, dusty, festooned with grimy coloured paper flags, crowded with Lascars, seamen, dockers, factory workers; beer flowing freely, rowdyism, wild dances— and one man who held a kind of court and whom everyone in the room feared. The only remarkable thing about it was the speed with which Mellor had won this position. Rollison had spent some time in the East End only six months ago and had not heard of Mellor then.

He asked: “How long ago was this?”

“About six months. I met Mellor,” she repeated. “I can’t explain how I felt. It was as if I were meeting someone I’d known before and whom I knew to be corrupt. He was quite young. To make himself look older and more manly, he wore a beard. In anyone else it would have been laughable but in Mellor—I’d never met a man who frightened me before and I haven’t met one since. It was in the way he spoke, the way he ordered others about, the way he attacked that girl.”

She clenched her hands in her lap.

“We danced, of course. He was one of the hold-you-tight type, sexy, domineering. A silly little tipsy girl was dancing with a glass of beer in her hand and she tripped up and spilt it over my dress. He seemed to go wild, snatched the glass out of her hand and smashed it in her face. I shall never forget that moment. He just smashed it into her face, cut her cheeks and mouth. It was a miracle she wasn’t blinded. She screamed and tried to run away but he caught her hair and bashed her with his fist— and no one came to her aid. I tried to but they held me back. I did try.”

She sounded almost piteous.

“Yes, I’m sure you did.”

“She was unconscious when he flung her away. Her friends took her out. I was told afterwards that she was in hospital for a month. But—” Clarissa shuddered. “It was quite horrible. The first new sensation that revolted me. I walked out, of course. I haven’t been back to the East End since that night and I don’t want to go again. I stopped trying to find out why my cousin went there so often. I told myself it didn’t matter and I suppose it didn’t. I hardly knew my cousin. He was at school when I left England during the war and we didn’t meet after that. I tried to forget the whole business but couldn’t. It was so obvious that someone was trying to kill my uncle as well. So I worked on Waleski. I’ve told you about that.”

“Tell me again,” said Rollison.

She didn’t object.

“I knew my uncle had business in Paris and he kept hearing from Waleski. I read one of Waleski’s letters and saw the signature. It was an innocuous kind of letter, just saying that he was continuing the investigations and hoped to have some news later. I wondered what the investigations were, whether my uncle realised he was in line for murder. Waleski wrote from the Hotel de Paris so I went and stayed there. He wasn’t a difficult man to meet and—well, you’ve seen him. Ugliness still fascinates me. He wanted to get information out of me about my uncle; and he kept talking about a second son. I still don’t know whether my uncle ever had another son but Waleski talked as if there were no doubt. Waleski” —she laughed, a curious, brittle laugh— “thought that I was interested because if a second son appeared I’d probably get little or nothing from my uncle’s will. I didn’t tell him that I couldn’t care less. I pretended that it mattered. I was to go through the papers at Pulham Gate and the Guildford house, looking for evidence about this love-child and tell Waleski what I’d found. Then Waleski was called to London. I followed after a few days and he called me today and asked me to meet him at the Oxford Palace. He was disappointed that I hadn’t discovered anything yet and I—oh, I suppose I lost my head.” She leaned back and looked at Rollison from beneath her lashes: the familiar trick; she was feeling much more herself now.

“I told him that he’d better be careful or the great Toff would discover his little game. He went mad. He was holding his cigarette-case in his hand, grabbed my hair and struck me with the case. That’s all I remember, all I can tell you. Does it—” She smiled; yes, she was much more herself— “Does it tally with what I told you at the flat?”

“Near enough,” said Rollison.

“It’s the truth. And I still want to work with you.”

“We’ll talk about that in the morning,” Rollison promised.

“Don’t leave it too late,” said Clarissa. She stood up and approached him, taking his hands. “Have I bored you?”

“Terribly!”

“That’s where you’re like Michael: you won’t be serious when I want to be.”

“If I were called on to advise, I’d say: think more about Michael instead of trying to forget him,” said Rollison gently. “There’s more than one man cast in the same mould but not a lot of women like you, Clarissa. I think we