The Toff Down Under: Break The Toff

By John Creasey

The Honourable Richard Rollison (aka ‘The Toff’) finds himself involved in a search for a lost relative – there is a large inheritance at stake. However, the aunt of the beautiful heiress is found murdered and the search for who might be prepared to go to such lengths in order to get their hands on the fortune leads to him and the heiress travelling all the way to Australia. There, the mystery deepens and there is clearly significant danger if the enquiry is pursued any further. An exciting finish to the hunt brings this adventure to a surprising finale.

• Language: English
• Publisher: House of Stratus
• Release date: Oct 1, 2015
• ISBN: 9780755138296

John Creasey

Master crime fiction writer John Creasey's near 600 titles have sold more than 80 million copies in over 25 languages under both his own name and ten other pseudonyms. His style varied with each identity and led to him being regarded as a literary phenomena. Amongst the many series written were 'Gideon of Scotland Yard', 'The Toff', 'The Baron', 'Dr. Palfrey' and 'Inspector West', as JJ Marric, Michael Halliday, Patrick Dawlish and others. During his lifetime Creasey enjoyed an ever increasing reputation both in the UK and overseas, especially the USA. This was further enhanced by constant revision of his works in order to assure the best possible be presented to his readers and also by many awards, not least of which was being honoured twice by the Mystery Writers of America, latterly as Grand Master. He also found time to found the Crime Writers Association and become heavily involved in British politics - standing for Parliament and founding a movement based on finding the best professionals in each sphere to run things. 'He leads a field in which Agatha Christie is also a runner.' - Sunday Times.

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Copyright & Information

The Toff Down Under

© John Creasey Literary Management Ltd.; House of Stratus 1953-2014

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise), without the prior permission of the publisher. Any person who does any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.

The right of John Creasey to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted.

This edition published in 2014 by House of Stratus, an imprint of

Stratus Books Ltd., Lisandra House, Fore Street, Looe,

Cornwall, PL13 1AD, UK.

Typeset by House of Stratus.

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library and the Library of Congress.

This is a fictional work and all characters are drawn from the author's imagination.

Any resemblance or similarities to persons either living or dead are entirely coincidental.

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www.houseofstratus.com

About the Author

John Creasey

John Creasey – Master Storyteller - was born in Surrey, England in 1908 into a poor family in which there were nine children, John Creasey grew up to be a true master story teller and international sensation. His more than 600 crime, mystery and thriller titles have now sold 80 million copies in 25 languages. These include many popular series such as Gideon of Scotland Yard, The Toff, Dr Palfrey and The Baron.

Creasey wrote under many pseudonyms, explaining that booksellers had complained he totally dominated the 'C' section in stores. They included:

Gordon Ashe, M E Cooke, Norman Deane, Robert Caine Frazer, Patrick Gill, Michael Halliday, Charles Hogarth, Brian Hope, Colin Hughes, Kyle Hunt, Abel Mann, Peter Manton, J J Marric, Richard Martin, Rodney Mattheson, Anthony Morton and Jeremy York.

Never one to sit still, Creasey had a strong social conscience, and stood for Parliament several times, along with founding the One Party Alliance which promoted the idea of government by a coalition of the best minds from across the political spectrum.

He also founded the British Crime Writers' Association, which to this day celebrates outstanding crime writing. The Mystery Writers of America bestowed upon him the Edgar Award for best novel and then in 1969 the ultimate Grand Master Award. John Creasey's stories are as compelling today as ever.

Chapter One

Relief From Gloom

Rollison sat at his desk, his back to a wall on which many trophies told of past triumphs, his eyes turned towards the evidence of present disaster. The evidence, in documentary form, had been accumulating for the past three months, but the final piece had arrived that morning in a large registered envelope impressively sealed and marked ‘Private and Confidential’. In the envelope had been many sheets of paper and many cold columns of typewritten figures, and the covering letter from his accountants had been remorseless. The only possible verdict was guilty – of losing a fortune.

The final blow had been the collapse of shares once thought impregnable. That many other people had also suffered was little consolation.

By stretching his imagination a little, Rollison found it depressingly easy to blame himself. He had spent with the prodigality of a Croesus, yet nothing he did turned to gold or even silver. One column of figures, heavily scored in red, was headed ‘Charities’; and if he had judged the wife of a man in gaol worthy of help; or the children; or an old lag genuinely trying to go straight, who would blame him? He now knew the answer: his accountants.

Rollison picked up the large, now empty envelope, which was addressed to The Hon. Richard Rollison, 22G, Gresham Terrace, London, W.l. He then read the accountant’s letter, and lingered over the paragraph which ran:

You will not, of course, be able to act with the same careless generosity as in the past, but with the most rigid control of your personal expenditure, you should be able to live in reasonable comfort but not, naturally, in the style to which you have been accustomed. You might, conceivably, look for a job. Having been a freelance for so long you would not greatly like that, but I think I could give you one or two introductions which might develop into useful opportunities.

Rollison tossed the letter aside, lit a cigarette, scowled, and sat back. His accountant, whom he had thought a friend, had become a menace. Like so many people, he laboured under the delusion that Rollison lived a life of leisured ease disturbed sporadically by spurts of excitement, sorties into London’s East End which annoyed the police, and occasional eruptions of violence upon bad men. Most would have been surprised at the work he did in every twenty-four hours; the fact that he was never paid for his services now had a pretty irony.

A sound penetrated the moody quiet of the room. Rollison had heard but paid no attention to it several times before. Now it was just outside the door which led to the small hall – and from there to his bedroom, the spare room, his man’s room, the kitchen, and the bathroom. This was a comfortable and well-planned Mayfair flat. Rollison had lived in it for nearly twenty years. The rent was £600 a year, more than he would now have to live on unless he took his accountant’s sinister advice.

He roared, ‘Jolly!’

The sound, which had been a man humming, stopped immediately, and the door opened. Jolly had polished the brass in the small hall every Friday since Rollison had lived here. He was polishing now, wore a green baize apron and carried a yellow cloth. In the middle fifties, he had seemed sixty from the day he had started to serve Rollison. His grey hair now had to be brushed with great care to cover his pink cranium; he had a lined face and the baggy, puckered skin of a man who had once been fat and had dieted with the iron will that dowagers seldom accomplished. Whenever they stood together, the top of Jolly’s head was level with Rollison’s chin.

‘Did you call, sir?’

‘Must we have that dirge all the morning?’

‘Dirge, sir?’

‘Even you wouldn’t have the nerve to call it singing.’

‘I was quite unaware that I was disturbing you,’ murmured Jolly precisely. Jolly was precise to a point of exasperation; it was his only fault. ‘I will—’

‘What the devil are you so happy about, anyway?’

‘Well, sir, it is a beautiful morning, spring is always—’

‘Jolly,’ interrupted Rollison firmly, ‘you know, don’t you? Or you’ve a pretty good idea.’

Jolly pretended to be puzzled.

‘Know what, sir?’

‘I’m broke. Bust. The dividing line between me and bankruptcy is no thicker than a hangman’s rope.’

‘Really, sir?’ Jolly stood calm. ‘I am most distressed to hear that. I confess that there have been moments during the past month when it seemed to me that the movement of certain stocks on the market was unfavourable so far as we were concerned, but I feel sure that you are taking too gloomy a view of the situation. In the past—’

‘There’s never been anything in the past like this,’ said Rollison sombrely. ‘Can you stand a shock?’

‘I think so, sir.’ Jolly appeared to clutch the duster more tightly and to stretch himself fully an inch taller.

Rollison eyed him for what seemed a long time; it was a long time, and worried Jolly, as it was meant to. Then Rollison leaned forward, put his elbows on the desk and placed the tips of his lean, brown fingers together with a precision which would not have shamed a prelate, and said: ‘You’ll have to find another job, or I’ll have to find one that will keep us both. Jobs for idle playboys are not two a penny and do not carry large salaries. It’s as bad as that. Wickham Utilities were my last hope. They’re as dead as a Port Said cat.’

A thin ‘Oh,’ wavered from Jolly’s lips. His expression and sagging of his shoulders showed that whatever his suspicions, he had not expected disaster.

‘Jolly,’ said Rollison, in a milder voice, ‘it’s half-past eleven. We’ll break the rule and have a spot before noon. You’ll have one, too, and sit down to it.’

Jolly’s brown eyes, startled from the shock, shifted from Rollison to the trophy wall behind him. He said, ‘Yes, sir,’ in a subdued voice, and went out. Three minutes later he was back, wearing his black coat and striped trousers, his winged stiff collar and grey tie. He went to a corner cupboard which was used as a cocktail cabinet, took out bottles, a syphon, and two glasses, poured out, and brought the drinks to the large pedestal desk, on a round silver tray.

‘Thanks,’ said Rollison. ‘And we don’t drink to spring, a change in fortune or your new boss, we just drink. Before the day’s out, I shall probably be rolling drunk.’ He drank as if he meant to be. ‘Didn’t I tell you to sit down?’

Jolly dropped into the armchair placed in position for visitors, and did not perch on the edge. He hadn’t recovered; he wouldn’t recover easily.

‘You could suggest ways and means of earning a living,’ Rollison said dryly. ‘Or neat methods of committing suicide. I’m not going to enjoy life when the Press gets hold of this, and I shan’t enjoy showing my face at Scotland Yard.’

Jolly gathered his faith about him.

‘I think you have too many friends to fear embarrassment, most people will be genuinely sorry, sir.’

He glanced meaningly past Rollison towards the trophy wall. There, like a crown, was a top hat with a bullet hole through it – two inches lower, and Rollison would have died without knowing that he was going to face his Maker so soon. There, too, were knives, automatic pistols, a palm-pistol, a glass cabinet containing phials of poison, a hangman’s rope – these and dozens of other souvenirs which should have been in Scotland Yard’s Black Museum.

In the beginning Jolly had disapproved of the exhibitionism which had prompted Rollison to display the collection, but his disapproval had faded with familiarity. Each article had its own story of a man-hunt; most stories had ended at the gallows; after every triumph Jolly had basked in reflected glory. The wall had become part of Rollison – that part which had a flair for detection, a nose for the right rail, a daring which had made him challenge crook and killer with a rip-roaring zest or quiet relish. The zest and daring sometimes showed in his grey eyes, which could laugh or be icy, as the mood took him. They showed, too, in his tall, lean, supple body, in his good looks, his easy carriage, and rakish air.

Each trophy told of front-page news and narrow escapes, but not once, during the course of any one, had Rollison or Jolly been glum in the way that they were now.

Rollison finished his drink, Jolly started to get up, for the bottle.

‘I’ll wait a while for another,’ said Rollison. ‘What’s in your mind?’

‘Something that must also be in yours, sir.’

‘I’m as empty as a cracked vacuum flask.’

‘That mood will pass,’ murmured Jolly, warming and almost paternal. ‘I wonder—’ He hesitated, as if doubtful whether to go on, but took the plunge. ‘I wonder if in the long run it will not be a good thing. After all, the modern trend is for the amateur to turn professional. If you had received even a—ah—modest fee for your many investigations, this emergency would probably never have arisen. And—may I go on?’ He expected to be told no.

‘Even false hope is welcome.’ Rollison looked more amused than he was. ‘I can stand a lot of flattery this morning.’

‘You have always under-rated yourself,’ Jolly said with mild rebuke. ‘I confess that I did so in the early days, and most people, except one or two journalists and Superintendent Grice, still do. The fact remains that you have often succeeded where others have failed, it is no exaggeration to say that many men now hanged would be alive if it weren’t for you. And some who might have been wrongfully hanged are alive.’

‘Magnificent,’ breathed Rollison. ‘Fetch my wings and halo, will you?’

‘You have always regarded detection as your career, your raison d’être, as it were.’ Jolly was now in full flood. ‘Most of your past inquiries have been thrust upon you. In practically every case the person who—ah—enlisted your help would have been more than willing to pay a fee, often a substantial one. If you regarded detection as a business, if you set out to work for payment, I feel convinced – convinced, sir – that the financial position would right itself.’

Again, he expected scorn and derision.

‘Hmmm,’ murmured Rollison, marvelling. ‘You mean, put a brass plate on the door and advertisements in the Personal Column. If it’s a private eye you’re after, Rollison’s the man. You’re not often flamboyant.’

‘You could experiment,’ Jolly said firmly. ‘I will go so far as to say that you should. Your newspaper friends would send— ah—clients, there are times when the Yard might be able to use your services and would probably co-operate more fully if they were paying for them. May I inquire how far ahead the rent of the flat is paid?’

‘To December quarter day.’

‘So you have some seven months—’

‘A wise man would sublet.’

‘If you do that before trying some new venture, you will always regret it.’ Jolly was quietly vehement. ‘Allow me to pour you another drink, and then I ought to spend a few minutes in the kitchen, if you can spare me, sir.’

‘Above all things keep me fed and cheerful,’ Rollison grinned as Jolly went across to the corner cupboard. ‘Jolly, during your speech I had a brainwave.’ Jolly spun round, with rare eagerness.

‘Really, sir?’

‘You run the catch-the-crook business you’re so keen on, and hire me as your leg-man.’

Jolly could not hide his disappointment, but disdained to reply. When he went out, closing the door firmly behind him, Rollison was almost light-hearted; but not light-headed. Playing detective and making a profit out of detection were vastly different things. Jolly’s proposal had an immediate attraction, but this was no time for acting on impulse. At least there was no need to study the columns of figures and the cryptic comments again; he could tidy the desk. He might even spend the afternoon with Old Glory, his aunt and the only relative with whom he could talk freely about this.

He heard the front-door bell ring. Jolly’s voice was followed by a woman’s, too distant for Rollison to judge whether it was familiar or not. Jolly came in and closed the door; Rollison did not get a glimpse of the visitor.

‘Bailiff already?’

‘A young lady, Miss Jessica Ronley, would like to see you, sir.’

‘On business?’

Jolly was not amused.

‘She first made sure that you are the Mr. Rollison she wishes to see, by asking me if you were the Toff. I informed her that you are extremely busy, but would probably be able to spare her a few minutes.’ Jolly moved forward, appealingly. This might be an opportunity to find out whether a professional approach could be made, sir. I hope you won’t—’

‘Neglect the opportunity? You’re as bad as any accountant, planning to make a working man out of me. You above all ought to know better than to attempt the impossible. But I’ll see Miss Ronley. What’s she like?’

Jolly did not appear to hear the question, which implied that he could not report glowingly. Rollison pushed the loose papers to one side, lit a cigarette, heard Jolly talking as if he were private secretary to a dictator, then sat back.

With his first glimpse of Jessica Ronley, he decided that life was worth living after all.

She was young, probably in the early twenties. She wore a light cotton dress with huge green-and-yellow flowers on a light-green background, and had a figure which was likely to make young wives watch their husbands closely. A wide- brimmed, floppy straw hat, trimmed with the same material as her dress, framed a face full of vitality; only a remarkable face could have drawn the gaze of young men from her figure; hers would.

She seemed to glow as Rollison stood up and she approached. She had fair hair, with some curls showing beneath the hat; she moved easily, was eager rather than anxious. Rollison became so preoccupied with his visitor that he failed to notice that Jolly had left the door ajar.

‘Mr. Rollison?’ The girl held out her hand; a cool, firm hand. ‘It’s so good of you to see me.’ Her voice toned with everything else. Before Rollison could push a chair forward for her, she went on, ‘I know you’re very busy, but hope you’ll find time to help me – I want to find a young man who will soon be a millionaire.’

If she thought that would compel Rollison’s interest, she was right. Probably she had thought so; it had the hallmark of a classic opening gambit. So added to the body beautiful and the face of an angel was intelligence and a nice sense of timing.

‘Come and sit down and tell me when you mislaid him,’ Rollison invited.

The evidence in the folder lost its urgency, clear blue eyes chased gloom away.

Chapter Two

The Story

Rollison would have found it easy to sit and listen to Jessica Ronley for a long while. He could study first her glorious blue eyes, then the ridiculously attractive tip of her nose, next