The Toff and the Fallen Angels

“That is a more colloquial way of putting it, sir.”

“Yes, I suppose so. I had imagined that I had always been reasonably selective.”

“As indeed you have, sir,” said Jolly, earnestly. “I am not expressing myself at all well this morning. What I mean is—” again he hesitated, and actually glanced upward as if hoping desperately for a celestial interruption. “What I mean is—”

“What do you mean?” demanded Rollison, obviously not disposed to let his man off the hook. His expression was one of mild amusement, and his well-shaped lips were sardonically curved. He was handsome, with dark hair showing only a few flecks of grey; dark, well-marked eyebrows, dark eyelashes which threw the brilliance of his grey eyes into impressive relief. He was sitting back, relaxed, without a spare ounce of flesh, and obviously as fit as a fiiddle. The tan of a brief holiday in the Swiss Alps still bronzed his face. He looked as if, when standing, he would be both tall and lean; as in fact, he was.

“What I mean, sir,” went on Jolly with great precision, “is that you have always demanded beauty and a quick wit, but recently you have not found these alone as satisfying as they once were.”

“Not bad,” agreed Rollison, smiling more approvingly. “I’ll settle for that.”

Jolly lost no time in withdrawing, and Rollison sipped the hot coffee, looking again at the Trophy Wall. He knew it was absurd and there was no reason for it, but he no longer felt that state of glowing contentment. His mood had changed to one of misgiving; the lightness of heart had been replaced by a sense of uneasiness, almost of burden. It was absurd ! He finished his coffee and stood up, approaching the wall behind the large, pedestal- topped desk, and looked at trophy after trophy, almost as if he were seeking in each some memory which would bring back the mood he had just lost.

Or which Jolly had taken from him.

It couldn’t be—surely it couldn’t be—that he was conscious of his age? What man in his middle—well, just passed the middle-forties could feel that? He had never been fitter. “Prime of life’ was not an empty phrase but simply one of fact.

Could he do, today, what he had done in the days long past?

There was the top hat with a hole through it—he would have been dead had he not ducked in time. He could certainly duck as quickly today. There was an old hob-nail boot, one of his earliest trophies; to win that, he had fought off four men and hardly given the danger a thought—he would not relish the same odds today.

But he could face them, surely.

There was the curate’s collar and the chicken feather, the phial of poison and the bicycle chain, the nylon stocking and the palm pistol, the dagger and the sword-stick. Each trophy—and there were fifty in all—was from a struggle against a criminal which he, the Toff, had won. All had brought danger, while in more than half the encounters he had been within an ace of death.

And in almost every case there had been a woman, young, middle-aged, or even old, who had attracted him and been attracted by him. To this day, he could not really understand why he had never married, why, for one reason or another, he had never—since the days of his incautious youth—proposed to a woman.

Yet he had known so many.

He believed—certainly he hoped—that all of them remembered their association with him with no regret at all.

He—

The telephone on the desk rang.

“And in time, too,” he said aloud. “I’m becoming positively maudlin.” He lifted the receiver. “This is Richard Rollison.”

“Good morning, Mr. Rollison,” said a woman with a most attractive voice. “You won’t know me. Though I have written to you. I would very much like to talk things over with you personally! May I?”

He said, without any noticeable hesitation. “Is it an urgent matter?”

“I think it might be.”

“Then in half-an-hour’s time?” suggested Rollison. “Or else this afternoon.”

“I’m at the Mayfair Hotel,” the woman said. “And in half-an-hour would suit me splendidly. Thank you.” And just when he thought she would ring off without introducing herself, she went on : “My name is Smith. Naomi Smith.”

Smith, mused Rollison as he put down the receiver; Smith, Jones, Robinson or Brown, what did it matter? One assumed name was as effective as another. Naomi was not likely to be assumed, however. That had a ring of authenticity.

He moved towards the kitchen. The door which led to it was closed, suggesting that Jolly was preparing a lunch which would send an aroma into the flat if the door were open, so he closed it behind him, and tip-toed towards the kitchen, passing the main bathroom door on one side and the spare bedroom door on the other. Beyond these was his room; and further beyond was a passage leading to Jolly’s room and the kitchen.

This door, too, was closed.

“Onions,” hazarded the Toff, as he turned the handle.

Lo! Onions were, indeed, frying, and giving off a splendid aroma. “Splendid’—the woman on the telephone had said—”Splendidly’, a rather unusual word in those particular circumstances. “Very well’ would have been more appropriate.

Jolly was at the wall-table, and there were traces of mince, potatoes, tomatoes and egg on a chopping board in front of him.

“Cottage pie,” announced Rollison.