The Toff and The Sleepy Cowboy

“All I can say, Mr. Ar, is you be very careful where those Browns are concerned. They’re dynamite.”

The word seemed to hover in the air. There was no doubt Ebbutt had used it deliberately; the steady gaze, the sombre expression, told Rollison that. Pamela Brown was dynamite.

“Bill,” Rollison said, “are you telling me that you seriously think the Brown family could be behind the bombing?”

“All I know is that I wouldn’t trust any one of them an inch, and I wouldn’t trust your American friend with them, either. Beauty’s only skin deep, that’s what I always say.” Then Ebbutt leaned forward, both hands outstretched, and his manner as well as the tone of his voice were beseeching.

“Be careful, Mr. Ar. That wasn’t funny last night. You was about ten seconds, maybe less, between staying in one piece and being blown to smithereens. I don’t want nothing to happen to you, Mr. Ar. It turned me inside out when I realised what was happening.”

Ebbutt paused, then spread his hands, then added with great depth of feeling:

“Can’t you give this one up. Get out while you’ve still got a whole skin? A hell of a lot of people would breathe a lot easier if you’d drop out. Mr. Ar. I’ve never said a truer word.”

*     *     *

First Grice. Then Ebbutt.

If he didn’t know them better he would think they had been in collusion over this; if by chance they had then each believed beyond all doubt in the acuteness of his danger.

But even if he wanted to, how could he ‘give this one up’? He didn’t really know what it was, yet in all that had happened there must be the vital clues which, when seen and properly understood, would explain everything.

Why had the Browns told Tommy Loman to go to him? Clearly, so as to involve him. Was Pamela’s ex-planation’ right or was there another? Was there the slightest possibility that there had been a faked attack on her by one of her family? If so, what possible reason could there be?

Or would Brown Senior threaten to choke the life out of him, too?

Rollison, sitting at the wheel of the Bristol in dense traffic near the Bank of England, with the stench of car exhaust fumes and the growl of car engines all about him, went very still. The car behind him honked, and he realised a light had turned green. He drove on, going towards Blackfriars Bridge and the Embankment, the quickest way to Fleet Street. He found a parking place between Evening News delivery vans and as he did so a car drew up alongside him.

His heart lurched until he realised that the driver was Grice’s man.

“Where are you going, Mr. Rollison?” he asked, severely.

“To the Globe newsroom — I want to find out if they’ve any news of King.”

“If we lose you we can’t be responsible for what happens.”

“No,” agreed Rollison. “I hereby absolve you. Why doesn’t one of you come along and hold my hand?”

“That’s exactly what we’ll do,” the driver replied, and his companion got out on the other side.

Rollison and a massive, black-jowled detective officer walked together along narrow streets, past huge, old- fashioned buildings, to the Globe offices in a side street. They went upstairs to the newsroom together and the Yard man looked dubious when the News Editor, an old acquaintance, carried Rollison off to a sanctum sanctorum, small, choc-a-bloc with hide armchairs, and a huge desk along one side.

“Rollison,” said the News Editor, whose name was

Green, “we have undoubtedly narrowed down the search for this actor, King.”

Rollison’s heart began to beat fast.

“Beyond any doubt?”

Green, a very thin, very sharp-featured man with a high dome of a forehead, answered without hesitation:

“Beyond doubt. He’s been in a television series re-cently and one of the cameramen on the crew which makes the show lives in Clapham. He’s seen King drive to Clapham Common several times. A woman who watches the show regularly lives in a flat in a house overlooking Clapham Common; she says she saw King go into a corner house opposite the Common yesterday morning. He’d been there two or three times before. She’s certain because she’s been dithering about whether to waylay him and ask for his autograph.”

Rollison asked, bleakly: “Any other evidence?”

“We’ve had a greater concentration of reports that he’s been seen in the Battersea and Clapham Common area than anywhere else,” Green told him. “And so have the Echo and the Record. I don’t think there’s much doubt.”

“The house is the Browns’ house, of course,” Rollison said.

“Yes.”

“Thanks,” said Rollison. “Give Bill Grice a call at the Yard and tell him I hope to see him within half an hour. It will depend on the traffic whether it takes any longer.”

“I’ll tell him,” promised Green, and as they stood up he went on: “May I add my word to the thousands you must have had about last night? My men who were there were converted from sceptics to convinced Toffophiles in a matter of seconds.”

Rollison made his usual gesture, a self-disparaging wave of his hands in front of his chin. “I’m serious, believe me,” Green insisted. He walked to the lift with Rollison, picking up the massive detective officer on the way. “Be careful, won’t you?” he said as the lift doors opened. “You’re not a man we want to lose.”

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