The Toff and the Deep Blue Sea

The Toff and The Deep Blue Sea

 

First published in 1955

© John Creasey Literary Management Ltd.; House of Stratus 1955-2014

 

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.

 

www.houseofstratus.com

 

 

 

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.

 

 

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.