The Toff and the Kidnapped Child Read Online Free Page B

shirt, everything he might need in an emergency. He went into the bathroom and collected the oddments he wanted, and then went out. There was a dim yellow light on the landing above the stone steps, which cast grey shadows. He hurried down. The house was silent, and when he stepped into Gresham Terrace, that was also silent but better lit, and there were lights at some of the windows. He turned right, and hurried towards the mews where he kept his car. As he turned the corner, a policeman approached, recognised him, and spoke as if it were a happy chance to meet him.
    â€œHallo, Mr Rollison. Off out?”
    â€œFor a ride in the country,” Rollison said. “A friend of mine is ill.”
    â€œI’m sorry about that, sir.”
    â€œSure you are,” said Rollison. “Good night.” He went on, hurrying, feeling a great sense of urgency. The mews was in darkness, and he shone a pencil torch on the sliding doors of his garage, then switched on the light. A pearl-grey Rolls-Bentley Continental gleamed beneath it. Little more than five minutes after leaving the flat, he was parked outside, watching his wing mirror, sure that Eve Kane would not be long. Soon, a car turned the corner; a Sunbeam Alpine. It drew up behind the Rolls-Bentley and Rollison, already getting out, reached it before the door opened. He opened it and helped Eve out. The light showed how bright her eyes were, as if they were aglint with fear. He had met her for the first time three hours ago, but there was no sense of strangeness; he pressed her arm, to try to give some reassurance.
    â€œWe’ll be there in less than two hours,” he said, and took her to his car. “Did you bring a case?”
    â€œNo.”
    â€œThey’ll be able to fix you up at the school,” he said. Soon he was sitting beside her, and the engine was turning and the car sliding towards the end of the street, Piccadilly, and the north-west. “I’ll go out Edgware Road way, and then work across the suburbs,” he said. “I know the road.” They swung into Piccadilly smoothly, and in spite of the urgency kept down to thirty-five miles an hour. There was little traffic, and only here and there a policeman, but the Circus was ablaze with light which reflected on Eve’s pale face and put lurid colours into her eyes. “What time did it happen?”
    â€œApparently, about ten o’clock,” she answered, and told him exactly what the headmistress of the school had told her, so that he knew as many details as she. In a hopeless kind of voice, she went on: “I can hardly believe this of Ralph. I know that may sound absurd, but I can’t.”
    â€œWhy?”
    â€œShe idolised him, but—” There was a moment’s pause. “Although he was fond of her, I can’t believe that he would want to be responsible for her. It doesn’t seem to make sense.”
    â€œI see,” said Rollison.
    He was beginning to wonder what kind of shadow was really looming over this woman. She had jumped to the obvious and probably the right conclusion, and yet she rebelled against it because of what she knew of the character of her husband; and from what she had told Rollison, she was remarkably objective about him. On the other hand, she would not want to believe that her husband was going to leave her for another woman, and wanted to have the child with him.
    Once they were in the Edgware Road, he put on speed whenever he could. The car made little more than a humming sound, and Eve sat in silence, as if she could not bring herself to talk about the fresh disaster; probably because she felt that she had already said everything that needed saying.
    Suddenly Rollison said: “Gould Caroline have run away?”
    â€œI don’t think it would even enter her head.”
    â€œIf your husband hasn’t taken her with him, have you any idea what might have happened?” He meant: ‘Have you any