The Toff In New York Read Free Page A

the same stratocruiser. He watched Mike’s car out of sight, and then went into the hotel. Conway and the girl were at the reception desk, talking earnestly. A bell-boy approached the dark-haired man, and asked:
    â€˜Can I help you, sir?”
    â€œLater, thanks,” the man said.
    â€œYes, sir.”
    There were bright lights in show-cases, models, jewels, perfumes and cosmetics in priceless containers. There were thick carpets and luxuriously comfortable chairs. Smartly uniformed bell-boys were dotted about, and lads, a little taller, were at the elevators. Oddly, few other people were about, and an elderly man with a bald patch in his white hair, and a little woman with obviously aching feet, looked out of place and pathetic.
    Valerie said: “But what shall we do? What can have happened to him?” She didn’t actually utter the next sentence, but obviously it was at her lips: “He must have met with an accident.”
    She looked sweet, pretty, desirable and alarmed.
    â€œYou could call . . .“ began a reception clerk who looked as if his clothes should be on a dummy in one of the show-cases.
    Conway did not let him finish.
    â€œDon’t you worry, Valerie; don’t worry at all. Let me take you to your room, and then I’ll get busy finding out what there is to find. I wouldn’t be surprised to learn that he had a puncture or some trouble with his car - why, it would even be possible that we passed him on the road. Just don’t worry. Mike and I will sort things out for you.”
    â€œYou’re so good, but . . .“
    â€œJust forget it, and leave the worrying to us,” urged Brian Conway. He gripped Valerie’s arm tightly, then looked at the clerk. “We’ll go right up to Miss Hall’s suite,” he declared.
    â€œYes, sir.” The clerk raised a hand for a bell-boy, and the wheels of the hotel were set in motion. Bell-boys to elevator, elevator to Floor Clerk, Floor Clerk to chambermaid and porter who were waiting in the room with Valerie’s luggage. Conway dispensed tips, and they were left alone in a huge room; a beautiful one, which looked as if it should be in a castle or some stately home - there was too much munificence for a hotel. A thick cream-coloured carpet, exquisite furniture, exquisite lampshades, including a small chandelier of Waterford glass or a very fine imitation. There was a sitting-room which would hold fifty people, when standing, and beyond was a bedroom with one canopied bed and pale-blue satin drapes. Off this, a queenly bathroom.
    Conway took a swift look round.
    â€œEverything seems fine,” he said. “Now, Valerie, you only have to tell me if there’s anything else you want.”
    â€œAll I want is news about Wilf,” said Valerie Hall.
    â€œSure; but don’t you worry, Mike will be back by now and we’ll get busy,” Conway promised her. “In my experience the worst thing you expect never happens - why, when I put every penny I had into Mike Halloran’s hands, five years ago, I seemed as if I was parting with my heritage. It was every penny I had. And Mike walked off with it. You know Mike; ask yourself if you would have liked the idea. I hardly knew the guy in those days, but he sold me on this prospecting, told me he had staked a claim to some hundreds of square miles right in the north of Quebec, country so wild that man hadn’t set foot in it before. But he knew there was uranium there, and oil too. All he needed was staking, and I told myself I could judge men. Was I right!” Conway laughed again, on that excited, triumphant note. “But it was nearly five years before I knew I was. Then Mike arrived back in New York and he cabled me the good news. Came over here a month ago, then went back to settle my affairs in England for a little while, and now I’m back with Mike, ready to cash in. And what might have happened?
He might have been a confidence