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    Vote for the Toff
    Vote for the Toff
    Vote for the Toff
    Ebook230 pages3 hours

    Vote for the Toff

    By John Creasey

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    About this ebook

    The Honourable Richard Rollison (aka ‘The Toff’) usually steers clear of politics, disliking the idea of party discipline and the necessity to conform. However, when a Member of Parliament is murdered just before an election, the Toff is urged to stand. This is not least by an old girlfriend from America who intends to write feature articles about him and his entrée into the political arena. All does not go well, however, as there are some who believe the Toff is just in it so as to find the murderers and at the same time expose a ring of dangerous drug peddlers. Attempts are made against his life and perhaps more is going on than even the Toff realises …

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherHouse of Stratus
    Release dateOct 1, 2015
    ISBN9780755138470
    Vote for the Toff
    Author

    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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      Book preview

      Vote for the Toff - John Creasey

      Copyright & Information

      Vote for The Toff

      © John Creasey Literary Management Ltd.; House of Stratus 1971-2014

      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.

      House of Stratus Logo

      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

      Death Of An M.P.

      Mr Charles McNamara, Member of Parliament for the constituency of Victoria North West, was a large, plump, genial man and a great champion of lost causes. It was said that he had spoken in the House of Commons in favour of more defeated Bills than anyone in the history of British Parliamentary democracy. He never said die. He was liked, laughed at, sometimes derided and as often applauded by Members from all sides of the House; by Scottish and Welsh Nationalists as well as Socialists, Conservatives and Liberals. He won more newspaper space than any other single back-bencher, and although nominally a Conservative, his party’s whip had been withdrawn from him for some outrageous breach of party discipline, making him virtually an Independent.

      He was a bachelor, and wealthy. By the general public he was believed to be a temperate drinker; he smoked only cigars and those in the evening; and he was known to have one ailment, albeit a serious one. He was a diabetic; only insulin, he praised, kept him alive. So he was quite used to the thrust of a needle and occasionally, in the washroom of the House of Commons, other Members would see the puncture marks in his arms.

      On a pleasant day in September he left his apartment at the Senior Club, behind St. James’s, wished the head porter and two assistants good morning, and stepped into dazzling sunshine. He was going to walk to the House, only twenty minutes away if he went through St. James’s Park. It was nearly half past ten. He had a committee stage meeting at eleven o’clock, so he was in comfortable time, and – one of the most conscientious men alive – he pondered the Bill which was to be discussed in the committee stage. It had to do with drug addiction, its legal status and the severity of punishment to be suffered by addicts and distributors.

      In Charles McNamara’s frequently declared view all habit-forming drugs were dreadful things: ‘pot’ was a wildly underrated menace to youth and to society. But, he would ask, did one stamp out this vice by simply making drugs more difficult to get? Or more risky to take?

      ‘You have,’ he rehearsed a forthcoming speech earnestly to himself as he stepped out of St. James’s Place into St. James’s Street, and looked up and down the sunlit thoroughfare, ‘to strike at the cause. At these young people’s apparent need of this deadly stimulant. At the cause—or at the least, at the source. And on that I have something to say.’ Here, his listeners would smile among themselves for he always had something to say.

      Satisfied that the road towards Piccadilly was clear, he crossed at a newly painted zebra crossing, glanced with cursory interest at a shop famous for hats in all variety, turned right towards the Mall, crossed the end of it without glancing too far along to the facades of the great clubs in the new, dazzlingly white buildings. He passed through the open iron gateway which had St. James’s Palace on one side and Clarence House on the other, a gateway which led through centuries of England. Traffic was heavy. A policeman wearing white sleeves up to his elbows was directing the stream of cabs and cars. Charles McNamara, M.P. went boldly forward. The policeman saw him quickly and held up a stream of cars.

      ‘Good morning, sir.’

      ‘Good morning, Constable.’

      Funny old customer, the policeman thought, and for a second watched the tall, portly, immaculately clad man, with his furled black umbrella and his black Homburg hat.

      Also in the policeman’s line of vision was a small, down-at-heel man in a brown suit; he skipped across the road in McNamara’s wake as if eager to dodge traffic, and the policeman didn’t give him a second thought.

      Charles McNamara passed through even more impressive iron gates, the shiny black paintwork decorated in gilt into St. James’s Park. With its lakes, its ducks and great variety of British and exotic water-fowl, its magnificent flower beds – the geraniums, glowing all the summer, were being removed by slow-moving but thorough gardeners – and its trees, which made a kind of arboretum, as well as its shrubberies and sweeping lawns, St. James’s was his favourite park.

      It was too early in the morning for the young lovers to sprawl; he disliked and disapproved of the shamelessness many would reveal later in the day. Then he saw a middle-aged man and woman lying side by side, bodies touching, lips touching, in the sun. The Member pursed his lips in stern disapproval, and walked quickly on.

      So did the man in the brown suit, now only a few feet away from him.

      A crowd of teenage schoolboys, a few tourists and some old people were standing watching the water-fowl strutting on the grass and the rockery, and Charles McNamara paused to watch them too. How beautiful were the birds. He particularly admired two with vivid green breasts, and another with a scarlet crown. Beautiful. He lingered.

      The man in brown came very close.

      Charles McNamara felt a sharp prick in his left buttock, clapped his hand to it and spun round. His lips opened, to demand, ‘Who did that?’ It was an indignity he would not suffer in silence, and he was quite sure that one of the schoolboys was responsible.

      His mouth opened much wider. His eyes became enormous round pools. He gave a curious gasp of sound. He did not see the man in brown, nor a middle-aged couple, nor an old man, sitting on a wooden seat, who stared at him in mild surprise.

      His umbrella fell. He toppled forward. His hat fell and rolled away. He thudded on to the ground, and his head turned towards the right: towards his beloved House of Commons.

      A youth with a button nose said, ‘He’s drunk.’

      ‘Sozzled,’ declared a second.

      ‘Flat out,’ accused a third.

      ‘Can’t be, at this hour of the morning,’ remarked yet another of the teenage youths. He was sharp-faced, had a long nose and bright but deep-set eyes. ‘Mr. Stevens,’ he called, almost peremptorily, and at the same time went down on one knee beside the crumpled body. He put a finger on McNamara’s pulse, and another on his lips.

      One of the others called, ‘Try the kiss of life, Tobe.’

      ‘Wrong sex,’ retorted the youth with the button nose.

      ‘This isn’t funny,’ rebuked the youth who was on his knee.

      He glanced up, shading his eyes from the warming sun. Already the attention of nearly everyone near by had been drawn from the birds to the fallen man. A stocky, broad-shouldered man with a nearly bald head pushed his way through the gathering crowd.

      ‘What is it, Ashworth?’ His was the voice of authority.

      Young Toby Ashworth looked up, and something in his expression silenced everyone in sight, sobering even the youth with the button nose.

      ‘I think he’s dead, sir,’ he stated in a firm voice.

      The man, the master in charge, looked from his pupil to the man on the ground, and as he did so one of the other schoolboys exclaimed, ‘It’s Mac!’

      Stevens, bending over the fallen figure, called, ‘Mac Who?’

      ‘You know, sir,’ the youth said eagerly, ‘Mac, M.P.—McNamara.’

      ‘It is Mr. McNamara, sir,’ confirmed Toby Ashworth. ‘And I am sure he is dead.’

      A policeman, coming up with calculated deliberation of gait, heard the last word. He did not look much older than some of the schoolboys, but he very quickly took charge, radioed for more police, a doctor and an ambulance, and routine took the place of wonder.

      The early evening newspapers were flooded with the news, in a variety of valedictory stories. The headlines differed in content but not in prominence.

      MAC, M.P., DEAD

      MCNAMARA DEAD OF HEART ATTACK

      SUDDEN DEATH OF AN M.P.

      Sitting in the large living-room-cum-study of his Gresham Terrace flat in Mayfair, the Honourable Richard Rollison read the first headline and, like millions of others, felt both shock and a pang of regret. A most colourful figure had gone, one of England’s few remaining ‘characters’, and even though in some measure a mountebank, he had used and served the House of Commons well. The greatest failing of the modern world, Rollison sometimes thought, was that it made nearly all men stereotyped, and outstanding personalities as rare as hot-house flowers. He had met McNamara socially several times and served on two committees with him, most often on the Committee for Penal Reform. He had not known him well, but from what he had known, had admired his persistence and skilful use of procedure more than his intelligence.

      He thought: Pity.

      He read the story, which was graphically told, and also a paragraph which talked of McNamara’s diabetes. A diabetic seizure probably, he thought, yet Mac would surely not have neglected his insulin need. There was a photograph of an intelligent-looking, sharp-featured youth: Tobias Ashworth, who attempted to render first aid. At the foot of this was a short paragraph in bold print: Victoria North West will be the fourth by-election pending. Figures at the General Election were: C. McNamara, Cons. 17,107: J. Browning, Soc. 15,203: J. A. Indell, Lib. 3,407.

      ‘A marginal seat,’ mused Rollison. ‘It could go any way at any time.’

      For this was a period when neither of the great parties was held in particular esteem by the electorate, and swings in one direction or the other could not safely be prophesied. The constituency of Victoria North West was adjacent to the one in which he lived, and he knew some of the supporters of all the parties there.

      As he flipped the front page over, a red Stop Press in the bottom right-hand corner caught his eye and he flipped back to it; and next moment caught his breath, for the paragraph read:

      ‘Death of Charles McNamara, M.P., being treated as murder’—official Scotland Yard Statement.

      That was the moment when two things happened. The telephone on the big pedestal desk at one side of the room rang; and Jolly, his man, came in from the kitchen.

      ‘Dinner will be ready …’ began Jolly, and was cut short as Rollison moved swiftly across from his chair, thrust the newspaper into Jolly’s hands and lifted the receiver.

      ‘Seen the Stop Press, Jolly?’ he asked, and went on in the same breath, ‘This is Richard Rollison.’ He looked at the wall behind his desk, so familiar to him and to Jolly and yet so startlingly strange to anyone seeing it for the first time. It was Rollison’s Trophy Wall, an exotic and macabre collection of souvenirs from crimes he had solved. ‘Yes, I … Who? …’ He broke into an enormous smile. ‘Yes, put her through!’ he boomed.

      ‘Chellis!’ he cried a moment later, ‘when on earth did you get here? … Wonderful! … How long will you be staying? … Even better! … Are you free tonight for dinner? … Yes, here at the flat … Oh, Jolly can keep everything hot for an hour, can’t you, Jolly?’ Jolly did not look overjoyed but inclined his head. ‘That’s splendid! … Just get into a taxi and tell the driver that Gresham Terrace is between Brook Street and Pendleton Street … My dear, I’m absolutely delighted.’

      He replaced the receiver and looked across at Jolly, putting his head on one side as he asked, ‘Aren’t we, Jolly?’

      ‘Indeed we are, sir,’ Jolly murmured.

      ‘Is this going to murder dinner?’ asked Rollison.

      A ghost of a smile hovered in Jolly’s eyes.

      ‘I think the charge can be reduced to manslaughter, sir, without undue strain. The sole, I fear, cannot be saved, but there can be smoked salmon in its place, and we have saddle of lamb, and …’

      ‘I’ll take the rest as read,’ said Rollison. ‘You haven’t met Miss Spiro, have you?’

      ‘No, sir. But you—ah—gave me a fairly vivid description of her when you came back from New York last summer.’

      ‘She is a remarkable woman,’ Rollison stated simply.

      ‘So you asserted at the time, sir.’

      ‘And a very fine newspaper woman.’

      ‘You made that very clear, sir. In fact you showed me some of her articles in the New Yorker, the New York Times and, I believe, the Saturday Review.’

      ‘Right each time,’ Rollison congratulated.

      ‘If I may ask one question, sir,’ said Jolly, glancing at the Trophy Wall, ‘is Miss Spiro aware of your—ah—extra-sociological activities?’

      ‘She knows me as The Toff,’ answered Rollison. ‘In fact—’ He broke off and his expression changed, becoming very thoughtful. ‘In fact I think I know why she is here, Jolly.’

      ‘Do you, sir?’

      ‘Yes. I suspect we are to be the subject of an article. Anachronism in English Society. Ancient Private Eye Competes with Modern Crime Detection …’ He smiled with relish. ‘It should be very interesting indeed.’

      ‘No doubt, sir.’ Jolly was obviously non-committal. ‘One other question, if I may.’

      ‘You may.’

      ‘If—ah—if Miss Spiro should question me on matters relating to such an article how shall I respond?’

      ‘Tell her all she wants to know, Jolly. If we try to conceal anything from Chellis Spiro we shall be under a continuous barrage of questions, trap-laying and Miss Spiro’s own particular brand of detective-work all the while she is here.’

      Jolly, less non-committal, controlled a slight shudder.

      ‘I quite understand.’ After a pause, he went on, ‘The sole looked most appetising, sir. Would you care for it now?’

      Rollison considered for a moment, then nodded appreciatively.

      ‘That’s a good idea. I’ll have it on a tray.’

      Jolly went out, obviously slightly subdued.

      He was as familiar of face, figure and voice to Rollison as Rollison was to himself. A man of medium height, in his sixties, with soulful brown eyes and a faintly dyspeptic or disapproving expression, his skin was deeply lined and in places actually grooved, and his jowl sagged as if he had once been very fat and had slimmed too suddenly and too drastically. He wore a black jacket and striped trousers, a pearl-grey cravat and a solitaire pearl tie-pin. His iron grey hair was sparse, and he had a bald spot.

      He had been in the employ of Rollison’s family for as long as Rollison could remember, and his, Rollison’s, valet, cook and general factotum for more than twenty years.

      Rollison poured himself a dry sherry, which would nicely prepare his palate for sole meuniére, cooked as only Jolly could cook it, and stood contemplating the Trophy Wall. In the centre was a newspaper photograph of himself pasted on cardboard with the headline TOFF DEAD! And many at that time had

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