Here Comes the Toff Read Online Free Page B

the Toff bore with him. The Toff saw no reason to enlighten her on Jolly’s usefulness, nor on the fact that he was one of the most astute men in London, that he had a flair for finding the flaws in the Toff’s arguments – which was what the Toff wanted while theorizing on crime – and that he was familiar with the East End, the West End, the suburbs and even Greater London. Moreover, he was attached to him.
    Rollison, however, was able to delegate certain important items concerning Renway and Irma to Jolly, and thus was free to spend the promised day with Anthea. He called for her at her parents’ flat, to find his lordship out and her ladyship a little dubious about her daughter’s friendship with the Hon. Richard Rollison.
    In the course of a three-minute conversation the majestic and full-breasted woman who was Anthea’s mother mentioned Jamie seven times, and as the Toff stood up on Anthea’s arrival, he said, sotto voce :
    â€œBelieve me, Lady Munro, Anthea is safer with me than with Jamie. I shall deliver her back intact.”
    â€œWhat,” demanded Anthea, as a footman closed the front door behind them, “did you say to mother? I’ve never seen her so flabbergasted in her life.”
    Rollison crooked an eyebrow.
    â€œI was warning her against Jamie, darling.”
    â€œWhat?” Anthea was amused, yet puzzled.
    â€œTo divert her base suspicions from my own innocent head,” said Rollison. “Now let me look at you.” In the middle of Park Lane he stood and held Anthea at arms’ length, seeing the soiled mackintosh, the stout and worn brogues, the shapeless hat. “You’ll do,” he approved. “You may not look one of us to the gentlemen we’re visiting, but certainly you won’t look one of the nobs. At first glance, that is. You’ve a something, Anthea, which won’t stay hid.”
    â€œThank you, sir. Where do we go first?”
    â€œBy bus to Aldgate Pump, and then we walk.”
    â€œGood. I—but just a moment!” Anthea stopped, and held the Toff at arms’ length, scowling. “ You’re dressed to kill.”
    â€œThe Toff always is,” said Rollison, cheerfully. “They’d be disappointed if he wasn’t. Have you seen one of these?”
    â€œThese” were several visiting cards which, when they were on the bus, she examined with some care. They said quite simply that the Hon. Richard Rollison lived at Gresham Terrace, and was a member of the Carilon Club.
    â€œWhat about them?”
    â€œTurn over,” said Rollison.
    On the reverse side of the cards were several pencil sketches, and Anthea started. She saw a top hat set at a rakish angle, a swagger cane, and a monocle, the string hanging down and tied at the end to the cane. They were absurd little drawings, and yet they conveyed the name perfectly.
    The Toff …
    â€œYou are a fool! Why do you use them?”
    â€œTo frighten people,” said Rollison.
    â€œI don’t believe it.”
    â€œWhich doesn’t mean it’s not true. Those cards,” added the Toff somewhat self-consciously, half wishing that he had not brought them into display, “have an effect not unlike a grenade when put through the letter-box at the right moment. Which is quite enough of me – we’re sight-seeing, remember.”
    He took her to Wapping and the Hundred Arches; he took her to the Pool, and the hundreds of little alleyways leading from it. He showed her quaysides where murder had been committed; he showed her the bearded boatman who found bodies in the river frequently, and called them “deados”, and took them always to the Surrey side, because from the authorities there he received more payment than if he kept them on the Middlesex side. He showed her public houses which were the rendezvous of crooks, he pointed out pick-pockets, even one convicted murderer recently out after serving