Free Introducing The Toff by John Creasey Page B

blur. He wondered whether he would be able to speak coherently, then thought muzzily of the detectives outside. Perhaps it would be better to signal to them.
    His fingers touched the telephone, but slipped along the shiny surface. He managed to get the earpiece off its hook, and tried hard to set his lips to the microphone, for he knew that he would never reach the window. His legs were wobbling – his arms went stiff.
    His mind was just a mad medley. Nothing ran normally, nothing looked normal. Anne, struggling against the unseen horror in the room, looked a hundred miles away.
    Then the room whirled crazily about him. The floor seemed to sway in front of his eyes; a roaring thunder filled his ears. He tried to speak – to shout – but the words were but a gurgle at the back of his throat.
    Then everything went black. He thudded to the floor, an inert mass.
    Anne Farraway tried to scream, but something caught at her throat. She tried to move, but her limbs were stiff. She saw, horrified, the still body of the Toff, the telephone – off its hook, but useless – and then she too felt the room swirling about her, and she dropped into a yawning oblivion.
     
    In the newly tenanted flat next to the Hon. Richard Rollison’s, two men stood close together, peering through a small hole drilled in the wall. They saw the whole drama as they watched in silence.
    Garrotty was holding a long gas-cylinder, with its nozzle inserted in a second hole in the wall. Through the hole the poison crept insidiously, striking the Toff and the girl into unconsciousness.
    Dragoli was standing next to Garrotty. He turned away suddenly.
    That is enough,’ he said smoothly. ‘Stop the gas, Garrotty. The quicker we get them out of there the better.’
    Garrotty turned off the gas control of the cylinder and swung round quickly enough. Sight of the plan which the Toff had found in the girl’s shoe had made him uneasy. It had been a narrow shave. If the police had found it first a hundred policemen would have been in the neighbourhood of the ‘Red Lion’ within an hour. And Garrotty did not like the idea of being caught red-handed in the dope racket in England.
    ‘Sure,’ he grunted. ‘What about Rollison’s servant?’
    Dragoli snapped at him.
    ‘You’ve got a silencer on your gun, haven’t you, and those two pugs have gone.’
    ‘Sure,’ repeated Garrotty placatingly. ‘I was only asking, boss.’
    ‘Then hurry!’ ordered Dragoli, leading the way to the kitchen quarters of the flat.
    A door opened from the kitchen to a small square of iron grid which was part and parcel of the emergency exit at the rear of the houses. The fact that Dragoli’s temporary habitation was a corner house made it easy to get Rollison and the girl into his own flat, for the Toff’s kitchen door opened on to the same landing. After that it was only a question of getting the couple down the front stairs and into the car which was waiting outside. Dragoli did not mean the man or the girl to live for a minute after he had got them to the ‘Red Lion’, for the Pug would handle their bodies, would be prepared to work more freely now there was no fear of the Toff.
    Garrotty went out of the kitchen first. His right hand, in his pocket, was fastened round a gun. He lounged across the iron landing carelessly, and then opened the Toff’s back door with his left hand.
    Jolly was bending over the gas-stove. He looked round with a start of surprise, and his mouth opened.
    ‘Shut up!’ hissed Garrotty, and showed his gun.
    Jolly’s eyes widened in fear. He backed away, his hands in front of his face. He hardly saw the gangster’s hand flash out before the butt of the gun crashed on his forehead. Jolly dropped down, a queer gurgle in his throat.
    Dragoli pushed past his satellite towards the inner door. He jerked it open with his left hand – his right hand was wrapped in bandages, the result of the Toff’s shooting.
    ‘The girl first,’ snapped the