It was hard to suspect Donny.
It was easy to be fooled.
“I’ll check with Grice,” Rollison said. “Do you handle this part of the business yourself?”
“No, my eldest son is the expert. He’s a very clever chemist, and helps to prepare many of our lotions, some dyes and some rinses.”
Rollison looked at the unblemished skin and the lines which might have been carved out of I wax, and the saintliness which might hide something far more secular, and asked:
“If the hair of a dozen girls was cut off each week, what would it be worth?”
Donny answered quietly:
“Possibly a hundred to a hundred and twenty pounds.”
“Do you think that’s why so much is being cut off?”
Donny said:
“I simply don’t know, Mr. Rollison.”
“Lila thinks you know why hers and Leah’s was cut off.”
“Lila is very young and highly strung, and she is absurdly fond of her old father,” Donny I said gently.
“Or does she know that you’re being high pressured?”
“She cannot know what isn’t true.”
Rollison said in the same tone and without any change of expression:
“Why did you hire Wallis to beat-up the barber who wouldn’t sell out?”
Donny spread his hands.
“I did not intend Wallis to use force.”
“Just threats of force?”
Donny didn’t answer.
“I think you were compelled by someone else to put Wallis and Clay on to that barber,” Rollison said. “Who’s putting the pressure on you?”
“There is nothing I can tell you, Mr. Rollison.”
“Someone put sharp pressure on you to prevent you from talking freely to me,” insisted Rollison. “It won’t work. Black is black, and white is white, and you’ve always been on the side of the angels. You’re old enough to know that the end doesn’t justify the means. You’re old enough in the ways of the East End to know that if you let yourself be frightened into silence now, the pressure will get worse and worse. Who’s after you, Donny?”
“I don’t think we’ll serve any useful purpose by continuing with this conversation,” said the barber quietly, “and I have a lot of work to do. Will you excuse me?”
Rollison took one of the lists from his pocket, and said:
“Look at this.”
Donny studied it, reading without glasses. His lips tightened a little, and he shot a swift glance at Rollison, then looked back at the list. He nodded at last.
“What is it?” Rollison asked.
“The list of Wallis victims.”
“Or yours?”
“Only one could be blamed onto me,” said Donny, and seemed to wince.
“Do you know any of the others?”
“One of them is a wholesaler who has done a little business with me from time to time. I buy some of my supplies from him.”
“Hairdressing supplies?”
“Yes, the goods I sell.”
“Does he sell Jepsons’ goods?”
“Most wholesalers sell some Jepson goods,” Donny said. “Mr. Rollison, I’m sorry, but—”
The telephone bell rang. Donny seemed relieved and hurried to lift the receiver.
“This is Sampson,” he said in his precise way. “Yes, I will come at once.” He put the receiver down and said almost sadly: “Superintendent Harrison of the Division wants to see me again,” he told Rollison. “I must go.”
Harrison was one of the younger men, recently moved from the Yard to take over the Division. Rollison knew him more by reputation than by acquaintance. Today, he obviously did not intend to waste time with the Toff, and was almost brusque. Rollison went out, and saw a police car and two plainclothes men standing at the kerb, but no crowd was about today. The girl Lila was still at the cash desk, and there was still no friendliness in her manner. Rollison was actually outside when he turned round and went back to her.
Donny and Harrison and a sergeant had gone along the passage.
“First you, then the police,” she said. “You’re just bad news itself.”
“Lila, try to forget that you don’t like me for a minute, and put me into the picture, will you? You’ve six brothers and sisters in all, haven’t you?”
Any law against that?”
“What kind of a family is it, Lila?”
She drew in a deep breath.
“It’s the finest family in London, and I don’t care what kind of families your duke and aristocratic friends have! My father is the finest man in the world, bar none. He and mother have lived the happiest life anyone possibly could. There isn’t one of us kids who wouldn’t die for them if it would help them, and that goes for the in-laws, too. Why don’t you go away and leave us in peace?”
Rollison looked at her intently, and spoke with great deliberation.
“I’ll go, Lila, and I won’t come here again if you’ll look at me as you are doing now, and swear that the trouble your family’s in began yesterday—when I first came to see him. That’s all you have to do. Swear that it’s true, and I’ll go.”
She looked at him with her eyes brimming over with tears, and her lips quivering, but she did not speak again.
“Lila,” Rollison urged, “get the family together, talk among yourselves, try to work this out the best way. I want to help Donny as much as you do, if for different reasons. But if he keeps telling me half-truths, and if all of you close up when the police and I ask questions, he’ll probably get badly hurt. Don’t forget that.”
She still didn’t speak.
Rollison nodded and turned away, doubting whether he would ever be able to break her down.
He had moved only a step when he heard her cry out in a strangled voice, and he turned round. He saw a sight which he should have expected, and which Lila must have feared. Donny was being led out by burly Harrison.
“What’s on?” Rollison asked sharply.
Harrison held a toupee up for him to see.
“This is made out of hair cut from a girl’s head only two weeks ago. Hair experts are going through every wig he’s got.”
“Mr. Rollison,” Donny said in a strained voice. “I knew nothing at all about it, but I’ve been charged with being in possession of stolen—stolen goods.”
“You can tell that to the court,” Harrison said. “Move aside, Mr. Rollison.”
Rollison stood very still, and asked:
“Who’s doing this to you, Donny? Who is it?” Donny said: “There’s nothing I can say.”
* * *
“If I knew anything I’d tell you,” Lila said brokenly, tut I just don’t know a thing.”
* * *
Rollison went to his car and drove to Mission Street, about half a mile away. There was a corner café, patronised by dockers and labourers, and even now he could hear the throbbing heartbeat of the docks as he drew near. The owner, a man named Rickett, had been the first to suffer from Wallis’s brutality. He wasn’t in a big way of business, and for the most part was handy for emergency stores, such as canned and packaged foods for ships sailing earlier than expected. Night workers and the crews of ships which docked during the
night found him useful, too.
Rollison pulled up outside the shop.
Even before he stepped from the car, he saw the corner of the window, dressed much more attractively than the rest, with Jepsons’ goods of many kinds—their toothpaste, hair creams, cigarettes, pens and pencils, Jepsons’ writing paper, postcards, envelopes, Jepsons’ brushes and their polishes for shoes and furniture.
A woman was watching Rollison from inside the shop, and he saw her dart through a doorway leading to a room at the back the moment he opened the front door. Its bell clanged noisily. The shop was small and the shelves crowded. There was much more of Jepsons’ stocks here—pots and pans and gadgets, soaps and soap powders, canned foods, everything for the kitchen or the galley.