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

and Kohn would begin to act against him tonight. Once they started he knew that they would be serious about it, and since he was convinced that Kohn, as Mr. Brown, was connected with Sidey’s murder – via Benson and perhaps via Irma – there was every reason to believe that his death would be preferred to his company.
    He had few illusions about Kohn – although more about that impressive-looking man with the high forehead than about Irma, however, for he had never met Kohn, until that night. He judged him to be as ruthless as Irma, and perhaps more clever. Certainly Irma lacked the “something” to make a Big Shot, although she was an admirable lieutenant.
    Rollison looked up and down Gresham Terrace, which was off Brook Street, before he entered the house where his flat was on the first floor. He saw no lurking figures, and only two pedestrians, and it seemed that he was not yet being watched; he would be before the night was out, or he had over-estimated Kohn’s prowess.
    He rang the bell of his flat, and Jolly opened the door. There were few occasions when the Toff went into his flat with his key while an affair was in progress: he knew the possibility of an unexpected guest waiting to welcome him. The simple things, the old-tried methods, were the ones more likely to succeed against him; he knew that well enough and took the necessary precautions.
    Jolly stepped towards the cocktail cabinet.
    â€œI wonder why,” said the Toff, not a little testily, “you always make a beeline for that, Jolly? Do I strike you as a toper, a two-bottle man, or …?”
    â€œYou look tired, sir.”
    â€œI don’t believe it,” said the Toff.
    Thereon he stepped into the bathroom and examined himself in the mirror at close quarters. He disliked admitting it, or affected to, but he did look tired. There were lines at his eyes which should not be there, and the eyes themselves looked heavy. He shrugged his shoulders, washed, and went back into the living-room, where Jolly had poured out whisky and soda. The Toff drank, without comment.
    â€œWell, Jolly, what have you been doing?”
    â€œNothing of much value, sir”
    â€œHmm. Kohn?”
    â€œThere is little information about him, sir. He is English, of a German father and an Austrian mother.”
    â€œVery English indeed,” said the Toff, cocking an eyebrow.
    â€œHis father was naturalized in nineteen hundred and three,” said Jolly, with a slightly disapproving note in his voice, “and the child, of course, took on his father’s nationality. Kohn was educated at Charterhouse …”
    â€œWas he, by Jove!”
    â€œAnd went to America, where he finished off his education at Yale. He returned to this country, an orphan, in nineteen twenty-one, and has since travelled a great deal. He is reputedly rich, although his father’s source of income is not disclosed, and it is not known whether much money was left to Leopold Kohn, sir. Kohn has been in England for some six months, and Miss Cardew for three. Miss Cardew, I understand, was not living at the Arch Mansions flat until ten weeks ago.”
    â€œHmm,” said the Toff. “So that’s all you know about our Leo?”
    â€œI’m afraid so, sir,” said Jolly, and he sounded genuinely apologetic. There was reason, for although the Toff had given him instructions to find all that it was possible to find about Irma’s new mentor, the idea – as Jolly knew well – had been to try to trace his recent activities. About that there was nothing to report.
    â€œI see,” said the Toff. “Not bad, on the whole. How did you manage to get hold of his history?”
    â€œI learned from the porter at the flats that he employed an old servant when he first went to the Mansions, but afterwards dismissed the servant without a pension. The servant was old, sir, somewhere near seventy. I paid him five pounds for this