Chapter One
A Friend For The Toff
The Honourable Richard Rollison was walking along the promenade at Nice.
He was alone.
It was crystal clear that there was no need for him to be alone. Many gazed upon him, some with such obvious longing that most men would have found it embarrassing. He did not. Nor did he revel; instead, he rode through, as it were, not wholly oblivious but not deeply concerned. In fact, it was rather pleasant. Especially opposite the Hotel St. Germain, where the girl with the monstrous wide hat and the most seductive little figure on the Riviera, gazed longingly at him.
She nearly spoke.
He glanced at her, inclined his head with a gravity and a courtliness which would not have shamed a Frenchman of a century ago, and passed her by. She watched him go.
It was equally pleasant by the little shelter opposite the Hotel San Roman. The girl here was taller, built on a somewhat more generous scale, beautifully dressed, magnificently glamorous, and with hair so black that a raven would have looked upon it with envy.
She took a quick, timorous step forward.
Rollinson glanced at her also, and inclined his head in the grand manner, and walked by; she watched him tensely, if not tearfully, as if every thought in her mind were urging her to follow but some fear held her back.
The promenade at Nice is wide, spacious, and free to all. It may cost a fortune to have a room with a balcony overlooking the breath-taking beauty of the headland to the left, and the sea which is as shimmering and as blue as imagination ever suggested; but it costs nothing to walk along the promenade. It may cost a beggar a day’s food and lodgings to have a drink on the terrace of the Hotel San Roman, but it costs nothing to stand outside and watch the orchestra and listen to the music.
It is also a good place to beg, if one has cunning.
The gendarmes, with their little white batons and dark-blue uniform and truculent manner, will drive away all importunate beggars – those ill-advised enough to ask for alms – but they can do nothing with the beggar who simply stands near by, or crouches, and watches one with pleading eyes.
Several such beggars were on the promenade that morning, and they saw the Englishman with the perfectly cut grey suit, the virgin white shoes, the subdued and yet noticeable tie, the dark hair, and the good looks. He made quite a picture to behold. Connoisseurs would probably have agreed that no better-dressed man had walked the promenade that season. But none, least of all the beggars, believed that the way the beautiful girls looked upon him was a tribute to his looks.
That would have been shameless.
Whatever yearning burned in the hearts and minds of those who watched him pass, it was not for a soul-mate or a lover. The yearning was very, very different.
Rollison reached a spot on the promenade which was not lined, as it were, with such feminine delectability. In fact, it seemed deserted. He moved towards the rail, and leaned upon it. He looked down at the large pebbles of the beach and the lapping water, running gently to and fro among the pebbles. He looked upon the gaily striped umbrellas, offering shade from the warm sun. He watched children swimming. He saw one man fifty yards out, breaking the glass-like surface of the sea with long, powerful strokes; his arms and shoulders were tanned mahogany brown. The swimmer was a sight to see, yet Rollison did not watch for him; instead, he allowed his gaze to travel.
Not far off two young women lay on their faces, their backs completely bare, a trifling piece of red about the nether regions of one and blue on those of the other, saving them from absolute nudity. Their skin was golden brown. One moved, slowly, wriggling a lovely shoulder, and then her arms moved and her hands clutched at unseen things. She fiddled, and then lay still. She had fastened the top of her bikini, and now, without shame, was able to sit up, to yawn, and then to lie down on her back and roast her fair skin on the other side.
The Englishman watched.
A beggar stood by.
The sun grew hotter.
The yearning lovelies watched, too.
Then a couple passed, leaving Rollison and the beggar together; they were out of earshot of anyone else. Rollison put a hand in his pocket and brought out money, as if to give alms, and smiled amiably and asked in fluent French: “Is she here?”
“No, m’sieu.”
“Sure?”
“I have walked the whole promenade, m’sieu, from one end to the other, and she is not here. Five times I have done that.” Beautiful brown eyes, velvety and sad, looked into the grey eyes of the Englishman, not at the hand which held the mille francs notes. The beggar wore only a shirt, which was darned, trousers, which were patched, and brown shoes, which badly needed mending. His pale-brown hair was long and peppered with grey. He was one of nature’s ugly men, but the beauty of his eyes made it easy to forget that.
“Keep looking,” urged Rollison, and placed two of the notes into a hand which was surprisingly clean for one of nature’s less fortunate children. He smiled again, and turned away as the beggar uttered his thanks in a quiet voice.
The beggar also turned away.
Rollison walked back, at the same slow pace, towards the great hotels, the people lazing on terraces and balconies, the bathers, the sun-worshippers, the people sitting on deck-chairs on the promenade. A very fat woman wearing a tweed coat, a shapeless tweed skirt, and a little man’s cap, looked as red as any beetroot as she moved among the deck-chairs. She was collecting her ten francs from those who sat on canvas, giving a ticket in exchange, and going on to the next.
She looked like an artist’s impression of Madame Guillotine herself.
On the right, the sea; lovely enough to hurt.
On the left, the road, the line of exotic palm-trees down the middle, and on the other side, the great hotels, mostly painted white or cream, some pale blue or yellow, pink or green. There was some traffic. Bright new Renault and Citroen taxis; here and there, a decrepit old cab, almost shamed to show its bonnet in the midst of such brash plenitude. Bright new American cars, with shade-giving vizors, gave a hint of opulence. Gleaming new British cars were of fabulous value. Colourful fiacres with gay canopy shades were drawn by horses which trotted briskly and guided, if guided were the word, by old men who seemed to be dozing in the morning warmth. Here was Nice in all its picture-postcard beauty, redeeming every promise it had ever made about the weather; adorned with those beautiful women, too.
Into all this, lolloped a clown.
He was driving a ridiculously little car, bright red and almost fresh from the conveyor belts of the great Renault factory on the island in the Seine. He looked much too big for this automobile. The roof, which rolled back like a wooden shop-front, was wide open, showing the clown’s head. He was bald on top, but around the bald patch flaming red hair was thick and bushy, and blown by the wind which the movement of the car created. He had a long nose. He had wrinkled eyelids, and these drooped so much that it was possible to believe that he was dozing at the wheel, thus accounting for the fact that he was doing no more than twenty kilometres an hour. Impatient and opulent British and American cars hooted and surged past him. An old man, sitting erect behind a dapple grey horse, flicked his whip, made his horse canter, and threatened to overtake the tiny car.
Then the car swung into the kerb, and stopped. Brakes squealed. The driver of the fiacre cursed magnificently. People stared.
All this was near the Hotel San Roman, and the dark-haired girl who had nearly followed Rollison. Rollison was on a level with her again, and but for the squeal of brakes she would almost certainly have stopped in front of him.
He turned.
She stared.
The little car jolted to a standstill, its single door opened, its clown-like driver uncoiled himself. He had to bend almost double in order to get out. Once on the pavement, he straightened up, as a spring might; sight and movement were unbelievable; one waited for the creaking of joints. And one remembered ridiculous clowns with enormous trousers and elongated boots, check shirts and silly hats, who climbed out of toy automobiles and squirted water into the faces of others who rushed to the rescue.
This clown needed no rescuing. He ran towards Rollison. Running, he was a sight to see, for his long legs had very bony knees which seemed to be thrusting their way through the cloth of his trousers. His arms waved, like a child’s out of control. His elbow threatened everyone who drew near. He had a fantastically ugly face and a huge mouth, which was wide open as he cried: “M. le Toff! M’deu! M. le Toff!”
The word ‘toff’, familiar to English ears and on an English tongue, sounded strange from a Frenchman. But none who watched – including the beauty with the generous curves and the timidity – was concerned with what he said, but how he said it. His voice travelled far, and must surely have been heard by the man who was still cleaving the calm water with his sun-browned arms and legs; and it was probably heard high up in the hotels, as far away as those rooms which cost only half a fortune because they had no balcony – only a window with a view.
“M. le Toff!” roared the clown, although now he was only a few feet away from Rollison; and it was clear that Rollison was the object of his attentions. That was not surprising, since ‘Toff’ had been his soubriquet for twice as many years as he cared to remember.
Rollison didn’t speak, but beamed almost as widely as the clown, and held out both his hands in welcome. The clown, long lean body, arms and legs waving in a kind of perpetual motion, ignored his hands and flung his arms round Rollison’s shoulders, and hugged him as a mistress would hug a long-lost lover. Then he held Rollison by the shoulders, thrust him back as if to make sure that no feature of the handsome face was missing, and then, with the greatest deliberation any man was capable of, he kissed him roundly on either cheek.
“George!” a girl exclaimed in the English of Hackney, “look at that.”
“Hush, it’s none of our business.” An embarrassed young Englishman hustled his lady love away.
Salutation over, the clown released the Toff, and stood grinning down upon him. This in itself was remarkable, for the Toff was six-feet one. To see the top of his old friend’s head, he had to stand some distance off, for there was six feet eight inches of Simon Leclair.
“Well, well,” he said in English, “you grow taller and thinner, but you’re losing your hair. Simon, this is wonderful!”
“Won-derful!” boomed Simon Leclair, with accented English of great clarity, “superb, magnificent, what the doctor ordered. How are you?”
“Fine.”
“Bewt-iful!” cried Leclair. “My friend, we have the drink. Come.” Suddenly, he looked alarmed, and past the Toff towards the dark-haired lovely. “You are not alone, yes?”
“Alone.”
“Alone?” echoed Simon unbelievingly. “No one is with you?”
“No one is with me.”
“No lady?”
“No lady.”
“Toff,” began Simon Leclair, lowering his voice as one might in a sickroom, “you are not so well?”
Rollison chuckled, and turned towards the road. They had to cross it in order to reach the San Roman, where he was staying, and the terrace where music was being played now. This music came softly and remotely, for those who had been at the casino until the small hours were not yet awake; and these were mostly wealthy clients who had to be given the utmost consideration.
“I’m fine,” said Rollison. “How’s Fifi?”
“Fifi,” echoed Simon, and gurgled and clapped his great hands. “How happy Fifi will be to see you.”
“Is she here, too?”
“But of course, friend Toff. Can you imagine Fifi permitting me to come to Nice on my own?” Laughter shook the clown’s body, seeming to rumble up and down his long, pipe of a neck. “Oh, what a good one that is! No, sir, she comes to look after me; we are both in the act.”
“Ah,” said Rollison, and there was a slight change in the tone of his voice and in the way he looked. “What act is it this time, Simon?”
“Where else would it be but the Baccarat?” asked Simon Leclair, flinging his huge red hands about and ending up with one upon the Toff’s shoulder. “The best show in Nice, isn’t it? In Nice?” He roared with laughter. “In the whole of the Riviera, in the whole of France, in the whole—”
Then a strange and frightening thing happened.
A car, travelling fast, swung off the road towards the Toff and Simon Leclair, making the beautiful woman with the raven-black hair cry out in sudden fear.
Her fears were for the Toff.
Chapter Two
The Questions Of Simon
The Toff saw the car coming.
He saw other things, too. At the wheel was a pleasant-looking young man in a navy-blue reefer jacket, wearing a silk scarf, his dark hair brushed smoothly back from a pale forehead. By the young man’s side was a girl, a blonde – and she was terrified.
The car was a big Citroen, and had been travelling at fully sixty kilometres, which was illegal and nearly murderous. When the Toff first saw it swing towards him off the road, it was only a few yards away.
“Nom d’un nom,” breathed Simon Leclair in a quivering whisper, for he was in equal danger. He pushed at the Toff, but the Toff was already jumping out of the way. Simon flung himself in the other direction. The wings of the car passed within inches of them both as they fell – much as the sea is cleft by the sharp bows of a ship. The engine stalled. The car stopped. The black-haired girl on the promenade was staring at the Toff, her gloved hand at her mouth. She was biting on to her hand; not pretending, biting.
The Toff knew that he was on the ground, and unhurt; at least, not seriously hurt. He did not pick himself up, but groaned, and then moved his body, as if in agony; but actually he moved so that he was facing the driver of the big Citroen. He looked at the back of the man from beneath his long lashes.
People bent over the Toff …
For a split second the driver of the killer car sat at the wheel, as if shocked to immobility. But he wasn’t. The Toff had caught a glimpse of his expression as the car had hurtled at them. There had been no look of dread, as on the girl’s; no horror, as there would surely be on the face of a man who had lost control of a car and was likely to kill or to maim.
He had known what he was about; which meant that the affair had been no accident.
At last the driver relaxed and moved; the blonde girl by his side began to shiver; a little man with waxed moustaches and a beard fifty years out of fashion turned towards the handsome young driver and, shaking both fists, hurled a bewildering selection of accusations at him, not the least offensive of which was imbécile.
Policemen came running.
Quite a crowd gathered round Rollison, all agog for blood. He lay with his eyes flickering and his lips tightening as if in pain. Hands touched him, men shouted orders – to lift him, to leave him there, to turn him on his back, to straighten his legs, to move his arms, to give him air, to give him water; advice flew hither and thither in great debate. Rollison, convinced that the young man had known what he was doing, wanted to feign injury, but he was desperately anxious about Simon.
That anxiety was dispersed in a flash. He heard Simon’s deep voice – it was very deep for a Frenchman – delivering a prodigious variety of epithets at the Citroen’s youthful driver. Through his lashes, Rollison saw the red hair and the bald patch; there was nothing at all to worry about – except perhaps the girl with the beautiful black hair. She was on the fringe of the crowd, and something of her terror still showed in her eyes.
Those eyes reminded Rollison of the beggar’s.
“Void M. le médecin!” an excitable little man cried out, and Rollison submitted himself to the ministrations of a doctor …
Simon gave unstinted unprofessional advice.
Rollison was poked, prodded, and moved gently; then he let it be known that he was coming round. Whenever anyone touched his left leg, he winced or groaned. He was given a sip of water, then some brandy, next a whiff of smelling-salts – which did in fact do much to clear his head; the only bruise he had was just above his left temple.
He grunted, opened his eyes as if bewilderedly, listened to this gabble of comment, saw that Simon was positively pinning the youthful driver with the sleek black hair against the trunk of a phoenix pine, holding him there with one long forefinger and gesticulating generously with his free right hand. A gendarme was aiding and abetting. The girl sat in her seat, her eyes closed. The beggar found a way through the crowd, looking very hard at Rollison, and for the first time Rollison tried to convey a message.
The difficulty was to know what message, for he was as eager to know more of the Citroen driver as about the black-haired girl. But the police would surely take the driver’s name and address, whereas the girl might vanish.
So Rollison looked from the beggar to the girl with the black hair and brown eyes.
The beggar followed the direction of his gaze, and with a nod that was almost imperceptible, he turned away. By then, willing hands were helping Rollison to his feet. He stood on one leg, leaning against a burly porter from the San Roman.
The beggar now stood near the raven-haired girl.
“M’sieu must have rest,” pleaded the porter, who knew this Englishman as a most generous client. “If you please, M. le médecin, M. Rollison must have rest.”
It was most confusing for the next five minutes. Finally, a kind of canvas sling chair, used for helping the helpless in and out of cars, was brought into service. Rollison was loaded on to it, and the gendarmes hurried, with their batons raised, to form a kind of guard of honour across the road. By then the crowd had swollen from dozens to many hundreds. The orchestra outside the San Roman was playing to almost deserted terraces, and would have no love for the cause of such desertion.
Simon stayed away from the hotel.
The doctor accompanied Rollison and the porters carrying him. The raven-haired girl stayed on the promenade, the beggar nearby.
In the hotel it was cool.
Upstairs in Rollison’s bedroom it was pleasant, too. The room had a balcony overlooking the bay, and the tree-clad hills which fell into the sea, all dotted with white villas. The coloured awning was down, to shut out the sun. A chambermaid was already on duty, turning down the bed, most eager to help. Rollison was stripped of his coat and of his trousers. The doctor prodded at his knee, and Rollison winced. He also gave a long-suffering look, although it did not hurt at all. The doctor prescribed bathing with a lead lotion, and then a tight bandage, gave precise instructions, and went out with the porter and the under-manager, who had tagged along from downstairs. So Rollison was alone, except for the maid.
She was a pretty little thing, also possessed of brown eyes and dark hair. She was a little timid, too, for she came from one of the vine-valleys of Bordeaux, and did not know or greatly like the ways of some of the wealthy patrons of the San Roman. Some pinched, kissed or poked, none of which was nice, but this Englishman …
“Suzanne,” said the Toff.
“M’sieu?”
“Do you think you could bring me some tea?”
“At once, m’sieu!” She beamed her desire to serve, then hurried out.
The moment the door was closed, Rollison got up and used his left leg as if he had been practising for the long jump or the hurdles. He sped to the door, turned the key in the lock, moved round, and stepped cautiously on to the balcony.
Here, in spite of the shade, it was much warmer.
By keeping to one side, Rollison could make sure that he wasn’t seen, even if anyone looked up, and there seemed little likelihood of that. The crowd remained. Simon, standing in the shadow of the phoenix palm, was talking and moving his arms and legs about like pistons; one second his red hair looked like flame in the sun, the next it was dulled as he moved into shadow.
The youthful driver, freed from the pinioning finger, was now besieged by gendarmes, one of whom was making notes. The raven-haired girl was walking away, and the beggar following her; in fact, had it not been for the beggar, Rollison could not have been sure that it was the same girl.
The killer car’s driver did not once look at the blonde who had been sitting with him, and was still in her place. She looked nice, mused Rollison; he wished that there was a way to have her followed and so find out more about her; but if he was to keep up the legend of his injured knee and consequent incapacity, he couldn’t do a thing.
Well, the police would have that name and address.
Simon moved from the crowd, and crossed the road, and Suzanne arrived with the tea.
She should not have done, for that was a waiter’s privilege, but the San Roman also had its staffing problems, and a willing girl was ever welcome.
When she came in, the door had been unlocked and Rollison was back in bed. Before she left, there was a tap at the door.
“See who it is, will you?” asked Rollison, although he felt quite sure that it would be Simon.
It was a bell-boy, a curly-haired imp of mischief in wine-red uniform, a tight-fitting jacket, bright silver buttons, and a silver salver. Suzanne took the letter on the salver, shooed the boy away, and brought the letter to the Toff. Scrawled on it in faint pencilled writing was his name: M. Rollison. It was sealed, and at the back was the embossed crest of the San Roman.
“All right, Suzanne,” said Rollison, and smiled. “Leave the door so that anyone can come in, will you, please?”
“Of course, m’sieu.”
Rollison wondered what was keeping Simon, and guessed that the clown was involved in yet another argument. He also wondered who had written to him, opened the letter, and smoothed out a single sheet of the expensive San Roman letter-heading, with the same expensive embossed monogram.
He read the pencilled words: “Please, will you see me? I call at your room at twelve o’clock.” There was no signature, nothing except the sloping hand to tell him whether this was a man or a woman’s writing; and the slope did not indicate either for certain. He poured himself tea, lit a cigarette, and then heard footsteps outside. These were followed, a moment later, by a loud thump at the door of his room.
“Come in, Simon!” he called.
This time Simon appeared, bending low so that he could get into the room from the wide passage. Standing upright, he was two inches taller than the lintel. The room, though not over-large, had its own small bathroom, the door of which was open. One of Simon’s elbows vanished into the bathroom as he came in and closed the passage door. Once inside, he straightened up to his full height, and bumped his head against one of two hanging chandeliers. Porcelain and gilt rattled; he swore, ducked, rubbed his head and glared.
“There should be one only, and that in the middle!”
“Agreed,” said Rollison politely. “Would you like a cup of tea?”
Simon looked blank.
“Your pardon?”
“I was offering you a cup of tea.”
“Tea,” echoed Simon, and regarded the tray. He had huge eyes, and the droop of the wrinkled lids was natural, not even slightly due to affectation. But he could open them wide, and did so now. They were a greeny-brown colour, very fine and clear, and filled with the deep repugnance that he felt.
“No,” he said roundly. “I would not.”
“There’s a bottle of whisky in—”
“You must be hurt very badly,” Simon declared. “You offer me tea. You talk to me of whisky. The one blows out my belly, and what do I have for déjeneur, hein? The second burns me like the vitriolic acid. And this in la belle France, where—”
“There is a spot of Belsac ’45 in the wardrobe,” murmured Rollison apologetically.
“My friend,” said Simon, with new, strange gentleness, “your body may be broken, but your head is still very sound. Thank you.” He went to the wardrobe and had to go down on his knees to get the bottle out; glasses were on the dressing table. He poured the wine as if it were liquid gold, and savoured and sipped as if it were the finest brandy from Cognac. That done, he pulled up an arm-chair and sat down, thrusting his long legs in-front of him. He seemed a long way off, although his feet were actually hidden beneath Rollison’s bed. “The man driver,” he announced, “will have severe punishment. He is an imbecile. I,” declared Simon, with great satisfaction, “told him some things or two.”
Rollison grinned.
“For the girl with him, I feel sorry,” went on Simon. “For myself, I feel sorry. For you, I feel sorry. For the driver, I would like to break his neck. What a thing to do! Sixty kilometres an hour. Sixty! Criminal that he is. He blames the dog, a little dog that goes pit-pat-pit across the road.” Simon moved the fingers of his right hand when he said pit-pat-pit, and it was almost as if a little dog were running. “.Sixty kilometres. He should be put in prison for—”
“There was no dog,” announced Rollison.
“It was only a little dog. You understand,” went on Simon, earnestly, and as if it had been a mistake to speak English, “un petit chien. Pit-pat-pit it went across the road, and the imbecile was travelling so fast that—”
“There was no pit-pat-pit,” murmured Rollison, “because there was no dog.”
“Un petit chien,” pleaded Simon.
“Non, man ami, il n’y avail pas de petits chiens, de grands chiens, de chats, ou de souris.”
“But it was just a little dog,” begged Simon.
“That was the driver’s excuse. He tried to run us down. Have you any enemies?” inquired the Toff earnestly.
“Have I?” breathed Simon. “Enemies? No, it is—”
He stopped, licked his thick lips, and opened his huge eyes at their widest. Then he leaned forward. “You have the enemy. He tries to kill you.”
“Kill or injure,” compromised Rollison. “I’m afraid so.”
“But—but, my friend, why?” asked Simon, in a faltering falsetto. “You are—” He stopped again, and the light of understanding dawned slowly in his eyes; it was remarkable that it had not shown before. “You mean, you are here on the business? The detection? Sapristi, what a fool I am not to know about that, of course! The detection! What, who, where, why, how—”
“I’ll tell you,” promised Rollison; “but before we go any further, do you know who the car driver is?”
“The first name, Raoul—the second I did not secure. He resides at the Villa Seblec—”
“Near here?”
“I do not know. I can find out if—”
“Wait a minute,” interrupted the Toff urgently, and the clown stopped; and outside there sounded the clear sound of a big bell. “Isn’t that twelve o’clock striking?” He listened, and the notes of a nearby clock became unmistakable. “Go and hide in the bathroom, will you? I’m expecting a visitor. Don’t let her know you’re there.”
Very slowly, Simon uncoiled himself. Standing at his full height, he looked down upon the Toff from great, wide open eyes. Slowly, he closed one of them, and the resultant wink was the best-known wink in the whole of France. From the stage of the Folies Bergère to the most exclusive night-clubs of the Champs Elysées, it had made thousands upon thousands roar with laughter, for it was a wink which conveyed the meaning of all the winks in the world, and passed all language barriers.
“I begin to understand,” he said hollowly. “I go. I shall return.”
He stalked off, disappeared into the bathroom, and left the door ajar. There was no sound from him, no sound in the hotel. But the strains of a lilting tune travelled up from the orchestra, more vigorous now because it was after midday, and the slothful could be disturbed.
Someone was to come at twelve o’clock.
It was now three minutes past.
