Introducing The Toff Read Online Free PDF

was worth knowing. But he wanted more yet, and he had an idea that Harry could give it to him.
    His lips were very close together.
    ‘Don’t call me mister,’ he said unpleasantly. ‘And don’t try to fool me, Harry.’ He paused for a second, leaned towards the Pug, and then he drawled: ‘Who sent Dragoli to you, Harry?’
    It happened as he had expected it to happen.
    The Pug’s face literally blanched. In those piggish eyes leapt an expression of fear which the Toff knew was not inspired by himself.
    Harry’s lips worked convulsively. He faltered: ‘What – what do you mean?’
    ‘Stop fooling!’ snapped the Toff. ‘Someone sent Dragoli to you – and you know who it was.’
    For a full minute they stared at each other; and for a moment the Toff thought that the sinister influence which had a stranglehold on Harry the Pug would frustrate him.
    But suddenly the Pug’s resistance drooped.
    ‘Supposin’ I tell you? You don’t know ‘em, anyway.’
    ‘I know lots of things,’ said the Toff lightly, ‘that you wouldn’t dream. Stop stalling, Harry.’
    The Pug’s voice was hoarse. His eyes went to and fro, furtive, fearful.
    ‘If you will have it, mister – it was the Black Circle.’
    And for a moment there was dead silence in the room. The Toff stared at the Pug, and the Pug drew back. For the Toff’s eyes were like steel, making the Pug squirm.
    And yet the Toff was just thinking blindly. The Black Circle meant nothing at all to him; he had never heard of it. But it was a big thing in Harry the Pug’s sinful life.
    The Toff tried another shot.
    ‘The Black Circle is it?’ he said. ‘Well, what does that association do for its living, Harry?’
    He stared hard, but the Pug kept silent, a sullen obstinate silence with more than a tinge of fear.
    ‘Come on,’ snapped the Toff, with an ugly glint in his eyes. ‘Spill it!’
    The Pug kept quiet for a moment. His little eyes were darting to and fro, fearfully.
    ‘I daren’t tell you,’ he said at last. ‘I just daren’t, mister!’
    And the Toff knew that he had come up against a brick wall. It made him very thoughtful, for if the Black Circle was dangerous enough to make Harry the Pug refuse to squeal, it was very big indeed.
    Yet the Toff did not want to force the Pug’s hand too far. Up to now Harry had been useful; he still would be if the Toff handled him properly.
    ‘And so,’ said the Toff smoothly, ‘you won’t come across, won’t you?’
    The Pug cringed.
    ‘I daren’t, I tell you! They’d kill me if I squealed.’
    ‘That wouldn’t do any harm,’ the Toff said brutally. Then he grinned, and took a chance shot. ‘So they’d kill you, would they – just as they killed Goldman? And – he stared very hard into the Pug’s shifty eyes –’for the same reason, Harry?’
    The Pug hesitated.
    ‘Spill it!’ growled the Toff.
    ‘Well,’ muttered Harry reluctantly, ‘I reckon Goldman was going to squeal, mister –’
    ‘Fine!’ breathed the Toff.
    The Pug’s admission meant a lot. Goldman had been killed because he was ready to betray Dragoli and the mysterious Black Circle. But the knowledge did not take the Toff very far. He was as much in the dark as ever about the girl who had been with Goldman when he had been murdered.
    Again a silence fell over the room, tense, expectant. The Pug stared fearfully at his interrogator.
    ‘Fine!’ repeated the Toff suddenly and made another thrust, although he doubted whether Harry could help him much. ‘Where does the girl come in?’
    The Pug was surprised into gaping silence. He did not even protest that he knew nothing.
    ‘All right,’ said the Toff ironically, ‘I’ll believe you.’
    Then it seemed to the Pug that the Toff disappeared. One moment he was in the room, and the next he was gone. The Toff had that uncanny knack of being somewhere else before a man realized that he had moved at all.
    For the moment the Toff had learned all there was to learn from Harry the