Introducing The Toff Read Online Free Page A

persuade the Toff not to put up difficulties over the hush-hush business, and the Toff was not surprised.
    Nor was he surprised when McNab refused to talk much. He agreed, generously, that there were a thousand Daimlers which might have answered his description of the murder car. Nor could the police be expected to put their hands on the driver of the Daimler because he had a beard and looked like an Egyptian.
    But there was not a shred of doubt that the police knew more about the affair than they professed, and it gave the Toff to think, furiously.
    He did not say so.
    ‘So we’re stuck,’ he suggested to McNab. They were in the latter’s poky office at Scotland Yard, which possessed only one comfortable chair – McNab’s – and he showed no inclination to linger.
    The Scot grunted.
    ‘Maybe. We know Garrotty’s about, mind ye.’
    ‘Och aye,’ grinned Rollison, ‘and we might guess that Garrotty killed Goldman, But we don’t know anything about the man with the beard’ – the Toff’s grin widened –’and we don’t know much about Goldman himself. Or do we?’ He arched his brows inquisitively. ‘Seeing that I found him, it doesn’t seem fair to leave me out in the cold.’
    McNab rubbed his chin, and then he grew talkative, which told the Toff that the Scot was giving nothing away beyond a little information which might be picked up from the later editions of the yellow Press.
    ‘Goldman,’ said McNab portentously, but with feeling, ‘was a damn’ fool. He meddled with things that were too big for him –’
    The Toff interrupted.
    ‘A point for you,’ he conceded. ‘Goldman meddled – I’m meddling. Sounds like a conjugation of verbs, doesn’t it, Mac?’ He beamed, and waved his hand airily. ‘But don’t let me stop you.’
    McNab bit the end off a cigar.
    ‘You’re getting funny,’ he growled. ‘See here, Rolleeson. The man Goldman was bad from beginning to end. He saw the inside of Pentonville before he went abroad, and then he mixed himself up with a gang of thieves. You know the result of it.’
    ‘Death via the said crooks?’ queried the Toff.
    ‘Never you mind,’ growled McNab. ‘I’m thinking that this is a big thing, Rolleeson. Ye’d better be careful.’
    ‘Of Garrotty?’ demanded the Toff.
    McNab scowled.
    ‘I’m not thinking of Garrotty.’
    ‘Um!’ said the Toff.
    Then he took a shot in the dark, with two reasons behind it. He was anxious to learn all he could and he tried to bluff McNab into speaking more plainly. And, more important, he was worried about the girl in the case. If McNab didn’t know about her, the Toff realized he was withholding information by not speaking, and that information might prove invaluable to the girl, might even save her life.
    ‘I know you’re not,’ he went on, and his eyes narrowed. ‘I wonder if you’re thinking of the girl in the case?’
    The shot went home. McNab’s lips tightened.
    ‘So you know about her, do you?’
    ‘I do,’ said the Toff frankly.
    The policeman lit his small cigar slowly.
    ‘Well,’ he said at last, ‘maybe you can tell us where she is, Rolleeson?’
    The Toff shook his head.
    ‘Then,’ said McNab, ‘all I’m saying is – be careful – verra careful!’
    ‘Sure I will,’ said the Toff smiling. He took his leave of the Inspector. McNab had said all he was going to.
    Jolly, the Toff’s personal bodyguard, grew apprehensively aware that his employer was brooding over something important. Jolly, a lugubrious soul, knew nothing of the satin shoe which was hidden in the Toff’s Gresham Terrace flat. But he saw the added gaiety in the Toff’s manner, and knew that the Toff deserted the flat more frequently than usual. Further, the Toff warned him to keep the door closed on all pipe-fitters from the Gas Company, gentlemen from the Electric Light Corporation, and representatives of the Metropolitan Water Board. The Toff did not believe in taking unnecessary chances; he even went so far as