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back of the machine, and sent it hurtling to one side. The driver pitched up in the air and then crashed down. He fell so close to the front of the car that for a moment Rollison thought he had run over him, but there was no jolt.
    There was just the empty street ahead, a few people at the windows, their faces transfixed in horror; the small, grey houses and the dead street lamps, and a long way off, the blank wall of a warehouse. That was all.
    The lorry was steady now, but racing away from the corner, the motor-cyclist, and Rollison. In his mirror, Rollison could see the smashed machine and the inert figure on the ground. Then a woman approached him from one of the little houses, first walking, then hurrying. He stopped the car at the kerb, sat for a moment with sweat icy on his forehead, then he got out and walked quickly back. There was no sign of the youths, and the lorry had disappeared round a far corner. In the distance, near the Blue Dog, a crowd seemed to be staring this way, and a policeman came hurrying.
    The woman was bending over the motor cyclist.
    Rollison felt nausea, and was touched with the chill of horror. There was blood on the man’s face and on one hand, and he lay so still that he might be dead. The strange thing was the silence from the nearby houses, from which the women stared from their windows; and the silence of the woman now kneeling by the side of the man who lay so still.
    Rollison asked heavily: ‘How is he?’ as he joined her.
    She looked up, a little woman with thin features and a spiteful face. Her lips were twisted viciously and her eyes were full of hate, and she spat at him: ‘He’s dead and you killed him! Murderer, that’s what you are. Murderer! You ought to be strung up.’
    As her words fell on the sunlit air, another woman came out of the little doorway of her tiny house and took up the accusing cry.
    â€˜Murderer!’ she screamed at him. ‘ Murderer! ’
    Another shout came and another. There were men’s voices as well as women’s, youth’s as well as men’s. Never in his life had Rollison felt such menace or known a greater fear.
    Then dozens of youths appeared at a corner, and came slowly, menacingly, towards him.
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Chapter Five
Mob
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    The Toff could run away.
    There was both time and opportunity. The youths were coming from the corner where the lorry had turned, and the car was facing away from them in the other direction. Two or three women and several toddlers were between Rollison and the car, but he could reach it in time to get away; despite their menace the youths were too far off to prevent him.
    Or the Toff could stay and face it out.
    He knew what that could mean, what it probably would mean. These youths weren’t maddened by the accident, as the woman was; they had come to set upon him when his car had smashed against the truck, in case the job needed finishing. They had lain in wait. Now they had a perfect excuse for going wild, the excuse that they had turned on a motorist for killing one of their friends. No one could argue. No one could support Rollison’s story, for any who would speak for him were too far behind. Before they could come to his aid, it would be all over.
    So he could face it out and end up in hospital, like Jimmy Jones; unless he ended up in a morgue.
    The first woman was spitting her spite at him, others were joining in, the youths were drawing nearer. They weren’t coming quickly. They were wary, of course, there was a kind of cloak about the Toff, the protecting shield of his reputation. In the East End the name Toff was a byword, and many were frightened of him.
    If he ran away, none would ever be frightened again. A reputation built up over twenty years, and which had survived challenge upon challenge, could fade away like a wisp of steam if he turned his back on this mob of youths.
    All these things passed through his mind in flashes, like electric sparks. The shrill