Free The Toff and the Deep Blue Sea by John Creasey Page A

She eyed Rollison much as a man might eye a girl whom he had not really seen before. Her eyes had a kind of radiant mockery, as if she knew that she was doing to him what he should be doing to her. She made him conscious of his lean, muscular body, of the tan of his skin; and he smiled almost warily into her face. Her eyes laughed. “There is plenty even for you, m’sieu.”
    â€œNaked and unashamed,” said the Toff, “I am going to eat first; I’m hungrier than it’s good to be. Would you care to stay up here and look for the Nuit Verte?”
    â€œLater,” said Violette, and moved and touched his arm. The radiance and the gaiety had vanished, shadows came back to her eyes. What had brought them back so suddenly? “M’sieu Rollison,” she said, “I owe you so much; I owe you everything. I can never thank you.”
    But she tried.
    She took his arms and pulled him close, and kissed him fiercely, almost savagely. She willed him to put his arms around her, to add to the pressure of her sudden passion.
    Then they moved apart.
    Without a word, Rollison led the way to the saloon, to the . succulent ham and the fresh croissants, the unsalted butter and a Camembert cheese which was almost a dream.
    As it was almost a dream, anchored here, a few miles off Nice, between the place where he had seen death, and the place where he had sent Simon Leclair. He hadn’t thought of Simon for a long time. He wondered if the clown would ever know the whole truth of what had happened. He didn’t say much, and the mood of quietness was upon them both. There were a hundred things he wanted to know, but he had plenty of time to ask his questions; and he wanted Violette to begin to talk of her own free will.
    She did.
    â€œLast night,” she said, “I heard them plotting to kill you. There was Raoul, Morency and one other man, named Sautot. Morency is the English one.” She spoke as if Rollison knew all of these people, she had but to name them; and she looked into his eyes.
    â€œWhat had I done to offend them?” Rollison asked mildly.
    â€œYou search for the girl, Daphne Myall,” Violette said flatly.
    â€œIs she at the Villa Seblec?”
    Violette shook her head, very slowly.
    â€œNo,” she said. “At least, I have not seen her there, and I live there. Why do you want her?”
    Rollison said: “Her parents are nice people.”
    The girl closed her eyes, as if that hurt. Rollison waited, convinced that it would be better if she volunteered everything she had to say.
    She opened her eyes.
    â€œThat is a very good reason,” she said. “You will not believe it, but it is because of very nice parents that I am here, and in such danger.”
    Rollison didn’t speak.
    â€œMy own parents,” Violette went on. “They did not deserve to suffer, m’sieu, but suffer they did. Their other daughter, Marie, disappeared like this Daphne Myall. Then it was discovered that her good name and that of our parents had been used to swindle a man of a large fortune.” Violette paused, and shrugged. “She was last seen in Nice, at the Baccarat Club. Then she vanished. I came to look for her.”
    Rollison said quietly: “And you haven’t found her yet?”
    â€œNo,” said Violette. “I have not.”
    â€œWhat have you found?”
    Violette said bitterly: “I thought I had found happiness. I was fascinated, enraptured, blinded. I fell in love with—the Devil.”
    The way she spoke told Rollison that this was as she felt.
    He murmured: “This Chicot?”
    The name seemed to hurt.
    â€œWhat do you know of him?”
    â€œThe two men are frightened of him.”
    â€œYes, everyone becomes frightened of Chicot,” Violette told him slowly. “It was Chicot who made such a fool of me. I met him at the Villa Seblec, inquiring for Marie. When I think of it, I feel that he exerted a kind