Yard man. “One of his chaps might have picked something up. I’m going over to find out.”
“It’s a waste of time saying ‘be careful’,” Grice sighed, standing up slowly.
“It’s probably not even possible in this affair,” replied Rollison.
He saw Grice out, then went back to the big room to find Tommy G. Loman coming from the passage which led to his room, a savage look on his face. Rollison thought for a moment that he was annoyed because Grice had not seen him, but the tall man said in a voice cold with anger :
“I called Pam’s father, and can you imagine what he said?”
“What did he say?”
“He said if I go anywhere near his daughter he’ll horsewhip me.”
Rollison, smiling faintly, said: “I would like to see him try,” and rested a hand on the bony shoulder. “It’s bad enough as it is, I know, and worse because you can do nothing. All the same, I would prefer you to stay here. You might hear from a newspaper which really has a clue where we can find King”
Scowling, Tommy said: “You want to know some-thing, Toff ? I’m not staying in this apartment for ever.”
Rollison gave a mock shudder and said: “Heaven forbid!”
Tommy was actually laughing when Rollison went out.
Police and a few newspapermen were still in the street, and the windswept rain brought a faint odour of burning from the house which had been destroyed. A small fire tender and some firemen were outside the house. Rollison evaded the newspapermen but not the police, and went to the mews garage where the battered Bristol had been taken after the fire. The engine started at a touch, and he drove to Piccadilly and then through the heart of London to the East End. The heavy rain and gusty wind made driving unpleasant. He kept a police car in view in his driving mirror, and had no doubt that policemen along the route were on the alert ‘for him and would report his progress to the Yard’s Information Room. Once through the narrow streets of the City, past the great banking houses and the insurance companies, the Bank of England and the Stock Exchange, he drove through surprisingly light traffic through Aldgate and then the Mile End Road.
The police car kept close behind.
Policemen waved him on.
Soon he was in a section of old London’s dockland, where narrow streets of tiny houses without gardens looked drab as well as dank. At last he turned a corner where there was a big Victorian public house, The Blue Dog; an inn sign with a blue greyhound on it swung and groaned in the wind. He pulled round the corner, to a wooden building standing back from the road, emblazoned:
EBBUTT'S GYMNASIUM
Here, over the years, Bill Ebbutt had trained some of the best boxers of the British ring.
A little man with his coat collar turned up against the rain came hurrying towards Rollison, peaked cloth cap sodden.
“In the pub, Mr. Ar!” he called, and led the way to the backyard of the Blue Dog where huge barrels and stacks of beer bottle crates made a kind of maze. The back door opened as they appeared and Ebbutt stood beaming at his visitor, then gripped his hand.
“How’s the conquering hero this morning?” he inquired in a wheezy whisper. “Come in, Mr. Ar.” He led the way to a parlour at the back of the main bars. On the table were two tankards, in a corner a wooden barrel, marked XXXX — the best beer brewed in Britain, Ebbutt claimed. It stood on a trestle made of unpolished oak.
As he turned the faucet, and raised and lowered the tankards to get the proper head of beer, he said:
“Lil’s asleep — sprained her ankle and the — doctor gave her a sedative.” He handed Rollison his tankard and raised his own, his small eyes sparkling in anticipation. “Here’s to the conquering hero,” he toasted. “Blimey, that was a job you did last night, Mr. Ar.”
“Bill,” said Rollison. “I’m sure you didn’t ask me here just to tell me how brave I am.”
Ebbutt’s expression changed. He drank more beer, wiped his lips with the back of his hand, and slowly shook his head. Rollison waited in the now familiar mood of disquiet.
“Mr. Ar,” Ebbutt said, “I don’t trust that Pamela Brown.”
“Oh,” said Rollison, taken completely by surprise.
“I don’t trust her no farther than I can see her,” Ebbutt went on. “She’s a living doll all right, they don’t come any prettier and I don’t say that when I was younger I wouldn’t have liked a date or two with her. But I don’t trust her an inch.” Ebbutt drank again and repeated the motion of wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. “She did a job on old Sonny Tucker, two or three years ago. He’d been out on the old razzle-dazzle and his wife wanted evidence. You know the kind of thing. Pamela Brown got everything out of the poor old geezer, where he’d been, who he’d been with.”
“Did his wife divorce him?”
“Divorce? Who said anything about divorce? Old Sonny’s been under his wife’s thumb since that very day.” Ebbutt squeezed his huge bulk in a shabby old armchair, and went on above the wheezing in his chest; it was almost as if there were two men inside him; or Ebbutt and his echo. “Well, your American buddy has fallen for her hook, line and sinker, hasn’t he?”
“How do you know?” asked Rollison.
“My boys keep their eyes open,” Ebbutt said, “and all I can tell you is that she’s up to no good. You take my word for it.” Ebbutt drained his tankard before going on: “I couldn’t come and see you, seeing as Lil was laid up, and telephones ‘ave ears.”
Rollison said slowly: “And your boys have eyes.”
“That’s right,” said Ebbutt, clasping the arms of his chair with fat hands. His tone and his mood changed again.
