Free Here Comes the Toff by John Creasey Page B

still a little uncertain in his mind about Anthea. She was an amazingly fresh youngster – fresh in the vivid sense – and yet although she laughed at the idea, it remained a possibility that she was thinking about him too seriously.
    It was the last kind of complication that Rollison wanted.
    He finished drying himself, dressed quickly in a dinner-jacket, and then stepped from his bedroom to the living-room. Jolly was not yet back, but it did not occur to the Toff that his man would fail to get the picture. Renway, however, was due at seven, and it was now a quarter to.
    The telephone rang again, abruptly.
    Rollison lifted the receiver, thinking of Anthea – and then he forgot her completely, although it was a woman’s voice, and one he would have recognized anywhere, at any time.
    â€œRollison …”
    â€œYe-es,” said the Toff very gently. “A moment, while I get a chair. I shall love a chat with you.”
    â€œYou won’t need a chair,” said Irma Cardew abruptly. “You’ll need wood made up into a box unless you get out of London quickly.”
    â€œMy dear Irma!” Rollison sounded genuinely startled, and in truth he was. “You’re not trying that very old one, are you?”
    â€œI’m telling you the truth,” said Irma, icily.
    The Toff hesitated for a moment, completely at sea. He did not believe that Irma would telephone him to tell him that he was being advised to leave London. It was the kind of puerile threat which some men – and women – made when they first met him, but Irma would not make that mistake. There was an ulterior purpose, and he could not see what it was.
    â€œYou heard me,” she went on, still sharply. “I’m not fooling, Rollison.”
    â€œNo-o. What was it you really wanted to say?”
    â€œI’ve said it,” said Irma, and then she drew a deep breath – one audible enough for Rollison to hear. “Rollison, I’m going to marry Renway.”
    â€œYes?”
    â€œDon’t talk like that! I need the money, and …”
    â€œIf I could think it were all,” said Rollison with a mocking note in his voice, “I might almost wish you God-speed. But I know differently, and …”
    It was then that the door of the room, leading to the hall, opened. It opened stealthily, and the Toff would have heard nothing since he was speaking and listening, but he was sitting facing the door. And suddenly he knew the real purpose of this call, and even then he silently applauded Irma, for it was very clever.
    â€œRollison, please don’t interfere!” Her voice sounded desperate, and another man than Rollison might have believed in the sincerity of her appeal. Rollison said, more loudly than before and watching the door all the time: “My dear, sweet girl, I hate interfering and you know it. But I need a lot more evidence than I’ve got that you’re going to be a virtuous woman, and settle down to marrying Renway. I wonder if he knows that you’ve been acquitted—by error—of a murder charge, and …”
    He went on talking.
    Most of what he said was nonsense, the kind of nonsense he was apt to talk at some length. But he was watching the door closely all the time, and he saw the hand that appeared round it. A hand holding a gun.
    He paused for a moment, and as silence descended the gun disappeared. The door was open only just wide enough for the gun and hand to get through.
    Irma said something, and Rollison hardly knew what it was.
    He slid his own right hand to his coat pocket after transferring the telephone to the left, and drew out an automatic. He talked back, and as he started speaking the gun showed again. He felt on tenterhooks as he levelled his own gun towards the hand at the door. “And then,” he said to Irma, “I might believe you. But not now, certainly not now.”
    The brim of a hat showed at the door, which