Kill The Toff

“Yes, it’s worth the risk. She’s sweet.”

“She’s paid a visit to hell and that makes London seem like heaven,” Rollison said. “There are all kinds of hell. Have you been thinking much about Michael?”

“Well—rather more.”

“Has it worked?”

“I can think about him without feeling bitter or desperate and wanting to rush off to find some way of drowning my sorrow. Roily, you’ve already done me a power of good. I think you ought to marry me.”

Rollison raised his eyebrows slowly.

“Original thought. Most people would hate the idea.”

“Would you?”

He considered; and it seemed to him that she was in earnest although the words had doubtless sprung unguardedly from her lips.

She looked beautiful; she was beautiful. Vitality throbbed in her, made her eyes glow, made her lovely face radiant.

“I don’t think I should hate it,” he pronounced. “But Jolly will tell you that I am not the marrying kind.”

“I wonder why you aren’t married.”

“Jolly’s answer will do for that, too.”

“Proposal spurned?” she said lightly.

“No, deferred.”

“You don’t really trust me, yet, do you?”

“No.”

Clarissa said: “Michael didn’t. Michael told me that he wouldn’t marry me while he was still in the RAF because he would be afraid of what I would be up to while he was away. He could have trusted me, he need not have feared that. So can you.”

Her hand moved, to touch his.

Judith called: “I’m ready!” and thrust the curtain aside. Clarissa tossed her head back and laughed.

*     *     *

Mellor’s skin was clear, his eyes bright; he looked almost well. He sat up against his pillows in a small ward at the Woking Hospital. On a hard, uncomfortable chair in one corner sat a local detective—and at the window stood Clarissa, a little to the left, so that she could not easily be seen from inside.

Rollison tapped at the door and entered and Judith waited in the passage, her hands clenched. She would have rushed in but he had told her that he must break this news gently to Jim Mellor. Mellor said: “Hal-lo!”

“Well, Jim. Feeling on top of the world?”

“I’m a thousand times better,” Mellor said and gave a rather excited laugh. “You’re Rollison, aren’t you?”

“Yes. Who’s been talking?”

“One of the nurses and the flatfoot over there,” said Mellor. The detective smiled affably. “They have quite an opinion of you. I don’t know how you managed it or even what you’ve been doing but if you yanked me out of that Asham Street room I’ll never be able to thank you. It—it’s damned hard, even now, to believe that I needn’t have done it, that everything’s worked out all right.”

Words spurted from him, as if he were making up for the last weeks during which he had said hardly a word to anyone.

Rollison said: “You’ll believe it, as it’s true. Have you told the police everything you can?”

“Everything but I’m afraid it doesn’t amount to much. I didn’t really know Galloway, I’d just done some work for him—printing jobs— not a great deal. I went down to Limehouse on business one afternoon and—well, I must have been drugged. When I came round I was in the room with Galloway and there was blood all over the place. I must have been crazy to run away then but I was scared stiff. I felt pretty groggy, too, and there was a little chap who came in and offered to hide me. He said I’d had a brainstorm, and—no, it’s no use,” Mellor said, and his voice was hoarse, his face strained. “I suddenly found myself on the run—and then the newspapers came out with my photograph and I knew I was for it. I thought if I could keep out of the way long enough, the truth would come out. I know it was crazy, but—”

“Worry about it later,” Rollison said, is there anyone you want to see?”

“Want to see? I’m longing to see Punch— Judith. My fiancee—that is, unless she’s decided that I’m not worth seeing. She might—but I couldn’t have written to her! It would have involved her in the mess, too. Wouldn’t it? Have you met her? The police promised—”

He couldn’t speak quickly enough.

“Yes, I’ve met her,” Rollison said. “She’s here.”

“What?”

Rollison turned his head. “All right, Judith.”

The door swung open. Judith came slowly into the room, her eyes glistening, her arms outstretched, but there was a little hesitancy in her manner, as if this reunion were not quite real. The light in Mellor’s eyes must have convinced her.