The Power of Illusion by Christopher Anvil

Author:Christopher Anvil [Anvil, Christopher]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: Science Fiction - Adventure, Fiction - Science Fiction, Science Fiction & Fantasy, Fiction, Science Fiction, Science Fiction - General, Adventure, General, Short Stories, Science Fiction - Short Stories
ISBN: 9781439134122
Publisher: Baen
Published: 2010-10-15T04:00:00+00:00

Key To The Crime

The dead man lay on his back in the damp leaves, shot through the temple. His cheap tan business suit was ripped and torn in a dozen places, front and back, as if by thorns. A nickel-plated revolver lay beside him on the leaves.

Looking down on him was a man of roughly his own build, but dressed in new leather high-laced boots, rough brown trousers, checked jacket and hunter’s bright-red outer vest and cap, with an expensive shotgun under his arm and a look of bewilderment on his face.

At the dead man’s head, a man in his late twenties, a silver sheriff’s star on his own leather jacket, knelt to study the body. A little back from the others stood a fourth man, tall, dark-haired, dressed in a business suit and a gray all-weather coat, who looked with alert gray eyes at the body, at the bewildered-looking hunter, the thick low-growing green pine in the surrounding forest of bare maples and beeches, and the nearby moss-covered ruin of an old cabin, where four cars were parked on the edge of the graveled road.

The sheriff glanced up at the man in the business suit and gray coat.

“The description matches, Mr. Verner. Black hair, gray at the temples. Brown eyes. About five feet eight. Spare build. Brown business suit and shoes. There’s no wallet on the body, but this must be the man.”

Verner looked at the body noncommittally and said nothing.

The hunter cleared his throat nervously.

“I thought he was lost, officer. I wasn’t going to shoot him. He stumbled out of the woods, and he looked as if he were going to fall. I hurried over toward him. I completely forgot that I was carrying this shotgun. I shouted to him, he glanced around, saw me, and said, ‘You won’t take me alive.’ I think then that I must have raised my own gun. It went through my head that the man must be crazy. I didn’t know what he might do. Then he shot himself.”

***

It had been only some four hours earlier that the phone had rung in Richard Verner’s office, and a man’s worried voice had said, “Mr. Verner, this is Brian Darrell. I’m the sheriff of Rockland County. Is it true, Mr. Verner, that you make your living by solving problems?”

“That’s right. Why?”

“Because I’ve just had one hell of a problem dumped in my lap, and I need help to solve it.”

“What’s the problem?”

“Late last night, a car went through here, rounded a curve, hit a patch of ice, and went off the road. It smashed through the guard rail and down into the ravine. This morning, a farmer noticed the smashed guard rail, and called me up. I got out there, and found that the car had gone all the way to the bottom of the ravine. The driver had apparently switched off the engine as soon as the car slid off the road, but that hadn’t helped him any. He was dead. Shot through the back of the head.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.