Here Comes the Toff by John Creasey Page A

day.”
    The door latched gently, but Kohn walked across and turned the key in the lock, each movement slow and deliberate.
    â€œSo that was Rollison,” he said, very softly. “And he’s meddling in the Renway business. There’s a leakage somewhere.”
    â€œDon’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.”
    â€œI’ll look after Rollison,” snapped Kohn. “But watch Renway tonight, and stop his visit tomorrow.”
    â€œStop 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.”
    â€œRollison might make him talk.”
    â€œDon’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.
    â€œHe’s got you worried, hasn’t he? Don’t worry, my dear, I’ll talk to Wray within the next half-hour.”
    â€œTalking 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.
    â€œWhat is it?” snapped Kohn, who had heard her stumble.
    â€œA—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?”
    Â 
    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