The Toff and The Sleepy Cowboy

In fact, he was day-dreaming.

It was comparatively early in the morning; half-past eight. He had been at the home of friends the night before, and back here late, so when the telephone had disturbed him he had not woken easily. It had been the overseas operator to ask if he could take a call from New York in half an hour’s time. So he had had time for his tea in bed, to scan the newspapers, even to shave. By the time the telephone bell had rung again he had been in this room. Waiting.

And studying the Trophies.

That was his man’s word for the strange assortment of objects on the wall behind the desk, and it was a good choice, for each was indeed a trophy of the hunt. In every case the quarry had been human, in most cases a man, but some had been women.

All were murderers.

Many had been hanged, before the laws of England had so changed that men and women were no longer hanged by the neck until they were dead, but sentenced, on conviction of murder, to ‘life’ imprisonment. Rollison kept an open mind on the subject of capital punishment but did not think that ‘life’ should prove, as it so often did, no more than nine or ten years in prison. Yet there were murderers whom he would have let off scot-free had he been judge and jury.

But none such as those he had been hunting until they had died or had been caught and tried, and later represented on this wall. For these trophies were of deadly killers; mostly evil men. The small tube of poisons reminded him of the hideous doctor who gave prostitutes a drug to make them scream and writhe — and while they were in contortions of agony the doctor possessed them. The top hat had two bullet holes; the second had knocked the hat off his head, some nine years ago. The lipstick had contained potassium cyanide, so that the user, breaking a thin coating protecting the lethal dose, had daubed her lips and died. Even the nylon stocking, looking solitary and strangely seductive draped over a skeletal foot, had been used to strangle a woman.

These things Rollison remembered as he waited.

He saw his man, Jolly, appear at the door leading from the kitchen, and sadly shook his head; Jolly by now, would have bacon and eggs all ready for the pan and would be exasperated by this delay.

Suddenly, a man said: “Mr. Rollison?” in an unmistakable American voice.

“Yes,” Rollison said, almost startled.

“Mr. Rollison, I’m sorry to bother you at this time, but my name is Selly, Jim Selly, of the New York Times. You might even remember me.”

Vaguely he did, thought Rollison, but he made a non-committal noise, and allowed Selly to go on:

“Mr. Rollison, are you expecting a visit from a friend from Arizona?”

“From where?” asked Rollison, startled again. “From Tucson, Arizona.”

“I’m afraid I have to say that I’m not,” replied Rollison. “I’m not expecting a visitor from anywhere in America, and I don’t think I know anyone in Tucson —or Arizona, for that matter.” He wondered why a news-paperman should call to ask such a question, but news-papermen were strange creatures with insatiable appetites for new twists and angles, so he did not wonder deeply. “Why do you want to know?”

“Are you sure you don’t know anyone from Tucson, Arizona?” Selly sounded acutely disappointed. “I am positive,” insisted Rollison.

“This man’s name is Loman — L-O-M-A-N. Is he a friend of yours?”

“Not,” answered Rollison, feeling wide awake for the first time, “unless he has changed his name. Why do you think I know a Mr. Loman?”

“He said that he knew you,” Selly answered.

“Oh,” said Rollison, baffled. “And is he on the way to see me, do you say?”

“Yes,” replied the newspaperman, and he paused. Rollison had a feeling that he was going to ask again ‘You’re sure you don’t know the man’ but thought better of it. “Well, thank you,” Selly went on. “Goodbye, sir.”

He rang off.

Rollison put down his receiver, still puzzled and more than a little frustrated. Selly might at least have told him more about this Loman from Arizona. He was contemplating the wall without really seeing it when Jolly appeared again. Jolly was half a head shorter than Rollison, an elderly man who had sad-looking, dark brown eyes, deep lines all over his face and a dewlap which had become wizened; he had the general appearance of a man who had once been fat but, after much self-sacrifice, had become thin; and dyspeptic. He had served Rollison since his schooldays, and these men were close friends.

Jolly was dressed in striped trousers and a white shirt and wore a green baize apron.

“Shall I put the eggs on, sir?”

“Jolly,” said Rollison, “do we know a man named Loman?”

After a moment’s reflection, Jolly answered: “No, sir. Should we?”

“I suspect that we are going to find out. Yes, put on the eggs, and I’ll tell you about the call while I have breakfast. Have you had yours?”

“Oh, yes, sir.”

“Then have some coffee while I eat,” said Rollison.

Between now and breakfast being served there would be no time to dress, so he went to a wall which was at angles with the trophy one and took down a World Gazetteer, then thumbed the pages until he found Tucson, pronounced, it was said, Teu-sonn. It was a city of some three hundred and fifty thousand people, with mountains to the north and south, the east and west. There the sun shone on most days of the year and it could become