Read Online Here Comes the Toff by John Creasey - Free Book Online

helpin’ ye none. I’ve bad news, I told ye.”
    She stared, still uncomprehending, and, in fact, unable to understand his attitude at all.
    â€œWhat—what kind’ve news? If Sidey’s inside again …”
    â€œHe isn’t,” said McNab, slowly, and more accentless. “He isn’t going to be, Mrs. Sidey.”
    Her hands went to her chest.
    â€œ What !”
    â€œI’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.”
    â€œ 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.
    â€œUseless 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.
    â€œYou’re kiddin’.” Her voice was lifeless.
    â€œListen 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.”
    â€œWho are his friends?” demanded McNab craftily.
    â€œYou 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.
    He stood up.
    â€œIf you learn anything, let me have it quickly. Don’t keep things back—it’s your husband they’ve killed, remember that.”
    â€œI won’t forget,” she said, tight-lipped.
    â€œThat’s right,” McNab hesitated, and then said less formally, “I’m sorry, Minnie. Anything I can do?”
    â€œNo.”
    â€œMoney all right?”
    â€œIf you think I’ll let the bleedin’ dicks pay fer his funeral, you’re wrong! Get out, get out, damn you, I …”
    McNab, knowing that hysterics were near, went out quickly, but stayed by the door for some minutes. He heard first the shouting, and then the sobbing – and decided that another woman was wanted. He knocked up a neighbour, who went at once to Minnie’s flat, and then walked slowly back towards Westminster Bridge and the