Midnight Plus One (1965) by Gavin Lyall

Author:Gavin Lyall [Lyall, Gavin]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2014-07-30T21:00:00+00:00

EIGHTEEN

I was saying: ‘Nobody fires just one shot to kill a man; always two. And if he’d killed Harvey, there’d be Maganhard, or Maganhard if he’d killed Harvey. Tell me I’m right – quick.’

She was crouched, too, down beside the laurels at the edge of the lawn. Old reactions die hard.

‘It’s your drunken friend Harvey shooting up the bottles in the Wild West saloon.’

I’d guessed that, too, but it didn’t make me feel any better. Why should he stop at bottles? And I still wasn’t carrying the Mauser.

I stood up reluctantly and walked across the gravel towards the front door. It felt as wide as the desert.

Inside the front hall three people were standing as stiff as a waxworks tableau. Harvey was leaning against the wall on my right, with the gun pointing vaguely down towards his own feet but not looking any less dangerous because of that. Maurice was backed up against the opposite wall, staring at Harvey with a look about as friendly as a hungry vulture. Miss Jarman was just standing. The phone was off its hook and lying on the floor.

The gun twitched my way as I came in. I said: ‘Put that damn thing away. What’s happened here?’

Harvey said: ‘I just kind of don’t like men attacking women – you know?’ His voice was carefully languid, but a bit thick, as if he was having to pick each word one at a time. Probably he was, by now.

‘Well, it’s over now. Get back to your bottle.’ I turned to Maurice.‘Pourquoi-‘

Harvey said carefully: ‘I heard her yell so I came out and there was this guy fighting with her.’

Miss Jarman said: ‘I was just trying to use the telephone, when-‘

‘Who to?’

She stared innocently at me, eyes wide. ‘To… a friend. I thought-‘

I took a couple of quick steps and picked up the phone.

‘Qui et-‘ But the line was dead by now. I slammed it back.

‘I put a security blackout on the use of this phone,’ I said. ‘Maurice was just interpreting that for me. Call it a misunderstanding. All right -who were you ringing?’

‘A friend. ‘ Her chin was up and she had the girls’ boarding-school expression on her face. She wasn’t telling who put frogs in the Latin mistress’s bed.

‘All right,’ I said again. ‘But if you’re selling us out, remember the methods they’ve used so far: you stand as good a chance of stopping a bullet as anybody. Maybe better, If they don’t get me with the first shot.’

Harvey had straightened up off the wall. ‘And kind of what the hell are you talking about?’

I swung round. I’d had just about enough of him and his thirst and his tendency to pull his gun on the wrong people. Maybe he wouldn’t get his gun up level before I’d broken his wrist for him…

Ginette said: ‘Give Louis the gun or I will kill you.’

We both looked. She was standing in the shadows at the back of the hall, leaning stiffly against the wall, with the Mauser held in both hands out in front of her.

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