Model for the Toff by John Creasey

Author:John Creasey
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: House of Stratus

Chapter Fourteen

Higgs

Where the highwaymen had lurked, in distant days, there was a wide tarred road or narrow tarred paths. Where much of Hounslow Heath had been, there were little houses with little gardens, mostly well-kept, mostly bright, mostly with smoke curling gently from their chimneys. It was a typical London outer suburb now, with bungalows spreading almost like mushrooms, even along Heath Rise. This was a winding road, with open heath on one side, where children played. The scene was much the same as from the window of Beryl Ward’s apartment: a group of eager footballers anticipating the season, a smaller group of die-hard cricketers determined to play for as long as they dared.

Rollison drove along at a moderate pace.

At the far end several large houses stood in their own grounds. They looked dark and almost forbidding, with their weathered red brick walls, big windows and slate roofs, and each was surrounded by a high wall, as if to defy the encroaching bungalows. But these bungalows came up to the very walls, and above two of the gates of the old houses there were boards, saying boldly in red: FOR SALE.

Soon there would be a dozen houses in the grounds of each of these, and before long the other large private houses would fall, too.

Heath View was in the middle of this little group; the middle of seven.

It stood farther back from the road than the others, and Rollison thought that it looked smaller. Certainly the grey slate roof was not so high. The gate was closed, but freshly painted bright blue, as if the owner was determined to resist its puny neighbours, and meant to stay here for a long, long time. The gravel of the drive was clean and washed, a bright-ish yellow; the lawns were trim, well cut and well-watered; in flower beds asters and zinnias were bright and colourful, and the earth had been recently turned. The house itself stood, unexpectedly, in a shallow dip in the ground, as if to hide itself.

Rollison left his car a little way along, while he explored.

A notice on the gate, freshly varnished, probably meant exactly what it said: Fierce Dogs.

“Dogs in the plural,” Rollison said thoughtfully, and opened the gate. No dog barked, but he was some distance from the house, and there was nothing to suggest that either dogs or humans had yet seen him. He walked briskly along the drive, making no attempt to hide himself; time for concealment, if any came, would be by night, when he might come again if there was evidence that Higgs was right.

Higgs.

Rollison had half expected to see Higgs nearby, but the boxer was not in sight. He might be hiding behind some of the clumps of bushes beyond the lawns, for the shrubberies were thick and darkly green. As Jolly had suggested, it would be like Higgs to want to spring a surprise, it would tickle his sense of humour to fling a triumph at the Toff.

There was no sound

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