Here Comes the Toff (5 page)

There was a pantherish beauty about Irma that the sombre lack of colour did nothing to destroy, and the close-fitting lines of her gown seemed to emphasize the almost animal perfection of her figure. Her eyes, lips, and cheeks held colour, however, the former blue but cold, lips which were naturally well-shaped, outlined in scarlet, cheeks rouged enough, but not too much.

“Yes, he's gone,” said Kohn. “Sidey knew just a little too much, my dear. Among other things, he knew that Martin had been working for us on the old man's accounts.” Kohn smiled mirthlessly. “And on the strength of that, Sidey asked for more money, threatening to discuss his knowledge elsewhere if he didn't get it.”

“You're a callous devil,” said Irma slowly.

“There are times,” said Kohn, with that same mirthless smile, “when I would not call you kind, my dear, although at other times perhaps you are. However, I am also careful. Benson, who so obligingly expunged Sidey for us, knows me only as Mr. Brown.”

Irma's eyes were narrowed.

“I've never had much faith in disguises,” she said, “but yours is good, I will say that. How do you manage it?”

“By being simple.” Kohn shrugged his shoulders, but was obviously pleased. “Tinted glasses, cheek pads to fatten my face, different clothes, and a padded stomach—nothing more, my dear. But we were talking about Sidey. He was killed by a sixpenny bread-knife, wiped clear of fingerprints, and the Fates even sent a fog to help us. He is a known crook, and the police will put it down to a thieves' quarrel, and assume that there is not much chance of finding their man. I do not make any mistakes, Irma, and you can take it from me that Sidey had to go.”

Irma shrugged gleaming white shoulders which her black dress emphasized, made even more seductive. She looked almost bored by the quick but pedantic voice of the speaker.

“All right. But be careful, Leo.”

“My dear, I was born and bred to affairs like this, and I …”

He broke off, for the woman interrupted him. There was a concentrated fury in her voice that astonished him, a cold savagery in her eyes which seemed to come without any cause.

“So was I—and so was Bram. And he died.”

“Of course,” said Kohn. “Of course, my dear, forgive me.”

He looked as uncomfortable as he was ever likely to, for the death of Irma Cardew's brother had become what he privately called a bee in her bonnet. For his part, he was glad for several reasons that Bram Cardew had been killed. He was glad, too, that Irma now called herself Curtis; it seemed so much safer.

In a dozen world capitals, and over many years, Leopold Kohn and Bram Cardew had specialized in crimes out of the ordinary. It had mattered little what they were, provided the stakes were high. Cardew, who had always worked with his sister, had shown Kohn a clean pair of heels on several occasions, and Kohn had resented it, without showing his resentment.

It was before Kohn came to this country that the Cardews, as a team, met their Waterloo. In an affair that concerned the carrying of arms and ammunition to a foreign power, they found Rollison on their trail. Rollison, known so colloquially as the Toff, had followed it relentlessly until Bram Cardew was killed and his sister stood trial for murder; for it was the Toff's way to succeed and, as he would say bitterly, the law's job to turn success bitter, since Irma was acquitted on lack of evidence, at the prompting of that now deceased judge.

For some years she had done nothing, and since Bram's death she had worn unrelieved black. Her love for her brother had been the guiding factor in her life, even the Toff had admitted that.

Kohn had met her again at Monte Carlo, and, after a decent interval from her trial, had asked her to join him. She was both clever and attractive, and she knew the tricks of the trade. She would, he had believed, prove a perfect partner; and in some ways she had, particularly in the operations abroad. Only on one point was Kohn unable to move her. He had remonstrated with her black dress – which she left off only when she was “on duty” – and the reply had inevitably been the same.

“To remind me of Bram, Leo.” Her lips would twist oddly, and her eyes would stare into Kohn's. “I'll wear it until I've got Rollison.”

After a few efforts Kohn had given up the struggle. Her hatred of Rollison he considered absurd, for he knew very little of the man, and was inclined to think she overrated his ability and his potential menace. When he suggested as much, Irma would smile at him obscurely and tell him to thank his Fates – for Kohn was fond of calling on them – that he had not yet encountered the Toff.

“You will, sooner or later,” she often said, “and when that happens I'll go out of black. Or I won't need it again.”

And there she left it.

She admitted that Kohn was smarter than her brother had been in some ways. He knew all the tricks, and when he had a man put out of the way he did it cleanly, and yet made as sure as anyone could that it would never be traced to him. But she also knew the Toff, and was one of those people who believed he could do the impossible.

It was twenty minutes after Charlie Wray had telephoned the information to Kohn that Irma stood up, pressed out a cigarette, and moved towards the door, and the flat next to Kohn's – which flat, as a porter had told Jolly, she often deserted.

“I'll see you later,” she said, “after I've patted Renway's hand again. For a millionaire, that man's the biggest louse I've met.”

“He won't be a millionaire much longer,” said Kohn gently.

“It'll be your fault if he is,
Mr. Brown
.”

As she spoke she reached the door, and turned the handle. For a second she stood quite rigid in the doorway, staring at something – or someone – Kohn could not see. The man saw her face pale, even beneath the rouge, and could imagine the hard glint in her eyes.

And then he heard the cool, assured, somehow mocking voice that greeted her, a voice which masked the Toff's inner excitement at hearing the name she had uttered.

“Hallo, Irma, my pet,” he said. “I've been wondering when I'd see you again. What's the trouble? Come, come, can't we find a smile for an old friend?”

It was then that Kohn realized instinctively who it was, and then that the Toff advanced into the room, while Irma stepped back as if in a dream.

 

 

Kohn did not speak; Irma seemed as though she could not. The Toff pushed the door to behind him, and offered cigarettes.

He smiled as he took out his case, and there was something inimitable and rakish about the crook of his brows and the twist of his lips, a something Anthea would have loved to see.

“I don't seem to be among friends,” he said, “and that's a pity. Smoke? No? Another pity.”

He lit a cigarette and flicked the match into the fireplace, sending a streamer of grey smoke over Irma's head as he did so. His movements were remarkably assured, and Kohn, seeing him for the first time, must have been impressed. He even sat down, hitching his trousers up to care for the crease, and he seemed quite unaware of the coldness of his greeting, or, at least, he ignored it.

Kohn kept silent deliberately; he was waiting to see how the woman would react to this unexpected encounter. The slightest sign of weakness, and his association with her would have to finish. He was surprised by the visit, but not alarmed: so far, he saw no need for being alarmed. He need not have worried about Irma, for she drew a deep breath, and flashed a smile more brilliant than Kohn had seen from her before.

“So
you're
back again, Rollison? I've been waiting for you.”

“I'm always butting in when I'm not wanted,” murmured the Toff. “It's a bad habit, but it has its points. Just to comfort you and your Sphinx-like friend, this is solely a social call.”

“We don't have to make you welcome,” said Irma.

“I hardly expect it, but I'm not really sorry. My regard for you was magnetic, sweetheart. I saw you at the Embassy last night, of course, and I couldn't resist following you. You're not surprised?”

“Not at all, but why the delay?”

“One way and the other I was busy, and had no time to see you home,” said the Toff, and his smile was winning. “And I should hate to compete with so practised a veteran as Renway.”

He drawled the name out, watching Kohn as he spoke. The man's face showed expression, losing its immobility for a fraction of a second; but the Toff knew malevolence when he saw it. Irma took it better than Kohn, and even smiled. She was used to the unexpected from Rollison, was getting over the first shock of meeting him face to face.

“You robbed me of my income,” she said. “I've got to be fed and clothed somehow.”

“Possibly,” murmured the Toff, “although it's hard to see why. Renway must be a profitable golden egg for you and Kohn. It is Kohn, isn't it? Leo to friends?”

He glanced across at Kohn through narrowed mocking, eyes, and he saw the man's thin lips curl back, knowing that his self-control was being severely tested.

“I don't know who you are,” snapped Kohn at last, “but I do know you've overstayed your welcome. Unless you want to talk to him, Irma?”

“A delicate hint, to be followed up by the more than possibility of my being thrown out,” said Rollison.

He tossed his cigarette away. “I'll relieve you of the bother, but you know where to get me if I'm wanted. Irma does, at all events—77a Gresham Terrace, as always, my sweet, and if you come tomorrow night I may be entertaining Renway. You'd be surprised if you knew how that man likes me.”

He waved a hand and moved across the room, easy, lithe, graceful. He was outside almost before Kohn realized it, and certainly before the crook had recovered from his anger.

Kohn stood up now, his face red, and his eyes blazing.

“The blasted fool! I'll get him if …”

“It's your last job on earth,” said the Toff's voice languidly from the other side of the door. “Teach Leo how easily threats slide off me, Irma, it will be your good deed for the day.”

The door latched gently, but Kohn walked across and turned the key in the lock, each movement slow and deliberate.

“So that was Rollison,” he said, very softly. “And he's meddling in the Renway business. There's a leakage somewhere.”

“Don't be silly,” said Irma. “He saw me with the old fool at the Embassy, and Rollison doesn't need much encouragement to make two and two into four.”

“I'll look after Rollison,” snapped Kohn. “But watch Renway tonight, and stop his visit tomorrow.”

“Stop him?” Irma laughed without humour, and rested a hand on Kohn's sleeve, a curiously feline gesture. “My dear Leo, either Rollison was lying to scare us, or else he's made a date with Renway. Stop Renway keeping it, and he'll want to know why.”

“Rollison might make him talk.”

“Don't you believe it. Renway's too anxious to keep things quiet, for more reasons than one. But get Rollison quickly, he'll be in the middle of it before long.”

The passion in her voice did more to jerk Kohn out of his mood than anything else could have done. He looked at her oddly, and then shrugged.

“He's got you worried, hasn't he? Don't worry, my dear, I'll talk to Wray within the next half-hour.”

“Talking won't hurt Rollison,” Irma snapped.

She was by the door again, and she turned the key and opened it. She would not have been surprised had the Toff been there still, but there was no sign of him. As she stepped forward, however, her foot stubbed against an object on the floor, and she stumbled and almost fell. The thing slid along, and as she recovered herself she saw it and stared.

There seemed neither rhyme nor reason in it, and she could not reconcile it with the Toff's visit, although instinctively she knew it was connected.

“What is it?” snapped Kohn, who had heard her stumble.

“A—boot,” said Irma dazedly. “And a heavy one.” She picked it up, a large and hobnailed specimen, and went on: “Now I wonder just what that means?”

 

A telephone call to Scotland Yard about ten o'clock that night had brought to the police the information that there was something worth investigating at Noddle's Wharf, Wapping. Chief Inspector McNab, a Scotsman who was on duty many more hours than most of his colleagues, took a plain-clothes sergeant with him for the investigation, and thus found the body of Alfred Sidey.

Sidey was known to both men.

He was – or he had been – one of the few crooks who had tried their hands at a variety of things. Most stuck to one subject, McNab knew from experience; a blackmailer rarely turned his hand to burglary or counterfeiting, a conman rarely picked a pocket. Sidey had been thrice convicted in twelve years, however, and each time on a different count. McNab had also heard rumours that he was an exponent of putting on the black, and that he did not hesitate to squeal on men of his own type. Sidey, in fact, had been nobody's darling.

Now he was a corpse, and was likely to give the police as much trouble dead as alive.

McNab put the usual formalities into operation, traced the telephone call to a call-box which yielded no clue to the caller, and then decided to visit Mrs. Alfred Sidey. As he journeyed through the fog he cursed the whole affair.

The only clue was the bread-knife, one of a cheap variety probably purchased from a one-time sixpenny store, from which every print had been wiped clean.

It was police duty, of course, to advise the widow, although the Chief Inspector need not have performed it himself. But he knew Minnie Sidey, who was a red-headed shrew, and had seen the inside of gaol as often as her husband. So far as McNab could judge, she had been running straight for a year, but she was probably in her husband's confidence, and McNab decided she was worth interrogating. The quicker the better.

Certainly, Sidey had done well.

He had lived in a flat at Lambeth, of a type that probably cost him ten pounds a week, high for that side of the river. Minnie, who had been reading a passionate love story, was annoyed at the interruption, and even more by the sight of McNab. She made this clear before McNab had entered the living-room, for which he made, leaving her standing by the open front door.

McNab was a large, chunky man, not particularly tall, who created the impression that he was an outsize in all things – except, as the Toff would say when incensed, brain power. He had a corporation of considerable proportions, and yet it did not seem overlarge. His habit of walking slowly and planting each foot down deliberately was typical of him. In all things he was deliberate, and if he never jumped to conclusions, it rarely happened that his conclusions were reached on insufficient evidence.

It occurred to him that Minnie did not want to see him, and yet she did not seem too frightened. In short, she suspected that her husband had been unlawfully busy, but had little or no knowledge of how. That was the inference, although McNab did not take it for granted.

He sat, uninvited, on the arm of the chair, and turned his sandy face towards her. His hair, and eyebrows, were also sandy, beetling over light blue eyes which could be disconcerting. He had never been known to hurry in the normal course of business.

Minnie snarled: “Get out've my house, you ruddy nark, an' …”

“That's quite enough of that,” said McNab heavily. “Come in and close the door, I want to talk to you.”

“What—alone in my house with you? Whatjer take me for! I'll complain about it, I will. I'll tell them you had a go at me.”

“That's all right,” said McNab comfortably. “I'm not worried, my girl, and I'm not likely to be. Be sensible, now.”

Minnie closed the door.

She had been in front of an electric fire, and her face was shiny and flushed with the heat. She had not painted nor powdered that evening, and her flaming red hair was tousled where her fingers had played with it. Her green eyes were glittering, and her lips, very thin and pale, were drawn tightly together. A slight woman, she seemed to have little or no figure as she planted herself in front of McNab, and she was not a sight to bewitch any man's eyes. Yet when she was dressed and ready for social occasions, Minnie Sidey was pretty, and she had an attraction for men which had frequently made her husband jealous – generally without cause.

“Well, what is it, you b—?”

“Try and ease off that language,” said McNab. He spoke slowly, as if picking his words with great care. In actual fact the care was expended on the accent which was apt, on hasty occasions, to become very broad Scots.

“I'll do what I want in my own house!” retorted Minnie, and it was obvious that she was reassuring herself because she was on her own ground. “What lies are you comin' to tell me?”

McNab eyed her evenly.

“I'm not telling you lies, Mrs. Sidey. I've got some news for you that you won't like.”

She stared, uncomprehending.

It was hardly likely that she would understand, and yet McNab had introduced the subject with far less callousness than might have been expected. There was another thing. Normally a policeman only visited a woman when he had company, for accusations of assault would otherwise be common and difficult to disprove. He had come alone, a strange thing for that most cautious of officers. She was suspicious of a trick, and her temper grew even more uncertain.

“Lissen, if you don't clear out …”

“Now stop it,” ordered McNab, and his own temper stirred. “It's doin' ye no good, and it's helpin' ye none. I've bad news, I told ye.”

She stared, still uncomprehending, and, in fact, unable to understand his attitude at all.

“What—what kind've news? If Sidey's inside again …”

“He isn't,” said McNab, slowly, and more accentless. “He isn't going to be, Mrs. Sidey.”

Her hands went to her chest.

“
What
!”

“I'm not liking the news I've got for ye,” said McNab, and to do the policeman credit, he felt sorry for the woman. She knew what he was going to tell her, and was staring at him fixedly, and with an expression in her eyes that was not far removed from horror. “Sidey's been killed, Mrs. Sidey.”

“
Killed
!” She breathed the word, and her hands tightened against her chest.

McNab doubted whether she had had any prior intimation, doubted whether she had suspected that such an end had been likely – which suggested that she knew little of the type of men her husband had lately been working with. He sighed inwardly, for he had hoped for information, or at least a hint that it was obtainable. No such hint was in that thin, shrewish face. Breathing heavily, she moved to a chair and sat down. Every movement was slow, and made with difficulty.

“Useless to mince words,” said McNab. “He was murdered, Mrs. Sidey.”

She accepted what he said, but she flinched. McNab was still trying to get the slightest hint that she had information, and now he knew that she had beaten him, for her expression remained blank, although she had contrived to pull herself together.

“You're kiddin'.” Her voice was lifeless.

“Listen to me.” He gave her the bare outlines of the murder, but did not tell her where the body had been found, nor how it had been discovered. She heard him out in stony silence that seemed uncanny, and when finally he finished, she said: “The lousy tykes! An' he's been on the up-and-up, Mister McNab, he's been runnin' straight. I bet he wouldn't take a job fer some blasted crook, and that's happened. That's what happens when you try to run straight. If the dicks don't frame you, yer own friends git you.”

“Who are his friends?” demanded McNab craftily.

“You know, as well as I do.” That was a fair answer, and McNab doubted whether she would crack under a stiffer interrogation. He was in two minds whether to take her to the Yard but decided to leave her.

There was no good reason for taking her away, and certainly not the slightest reason for treating her as a suspect. If the Press discovered that had been done, there would be trouble at the Yard. Sir Ian Warrender, the Assistant Commissioner and Head of the Criminal Investigation Department, had been told by the Home Secretary within the past ten days that due attention must be paid to all formalities – and McNab was not a man to ignore that. There was more reason than ever, in fact, why no one should have a complaint that could be splashed in the headlines.