“Go and lock the back door, too,” the massive man said. “We don’t want to be interrupted, do we?” He did not even glance at the unconscious man behind the door, but worked a brass knuckle duster off his right hand, smearing knuckles and fingers with blood as he did so.
The little man came back.
“Door’s locked,” he announced. “And Milly will ring the bell if anyone comes.”
“Okay, let’s get a move on,” the other said. “We’ll have a quick look round first, and then we’ll make it look as if they’ve had a visit from an atom bomb.”
As he spoke, he grinned, and the grin was not nice to see.
And outside, the girl who had come to find whether Jim Jones was alone in the house sat waiting for them in a small car.
CHAPTER THREE
Visitor For The Toff
The Honourable Richard Rollison, known to so many as the Toff, and who much preferred to be known as plain Mr. Rollison, read about the attack on James Matthison Jones in the newspaper the next morning, together with a number of other reports from the twentieth-century world of peace and goodwill. An old lady had been beaten up in her shop and robbed of three pounds ten shillings, seven youths had set upon one youth and his girl in a cinema, and the youth and the girl were in hospital—as was the man named Jones. There were other crimes of violence, both in London and nearby, and one or two stories of little incidents in Glasgow did not exactly brighten the morning’s newspapers.
He was at breakfast.
It was ten o’clock.
His worst friend must have admitted that he looked remarkably clear-eyed and clear-skinned for a man of forty-ish who had not come home until half past three; and they would also have admitted that whenever a woman called him handsome, the woman was right. It was a casual handsomeness at this moment, for although he had not shaved he had bathed. His hair was damp and curling more than usual and, if the truth were told, looking a little more grey at the sides than of yore. He read without glasses, and ate bacon and eggs and then toast and marmalade with the single-minded attention of the true English trencherman to whom breakfast was the foundation of a successful day.