All Story Detective Feb 1949 by Various Authors

Author:Various Authors [Authors, Various]
Format: epub
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 11

Galahad’s Good Deed

BRANDON said: “Aw, hell, what crap.” He turned carelessly away.

As he turned, his hand shot to his hip pocket and a little black automatic appeared suddenly in his hand.

Koller shouted: “Mike, you fool!”

“Shut up,” Brandon snapped, his jaws working rapidly on the tobacco in his mouth. “Mister,” he said to me, “what are you going to do now? Want to shoot it out?”

“Put that gun away, Mike,” I said. “It’ll only make it tougher for you. I know you shot at me twice in the plant last night, but after you cut the wire and let Koller in, what did you do with Gus, the night watchman—and Gil Folly?”

He laughed harshly, and there was a sudden brutal slant to his jaw. I knew in that split second that there was no use talking any more. I squatted down, and I scooted forward. In the same instant his little gun barked, and lead zinged past my ear. I squeezed the trigger of my .38 then, and Brandon swayed on his feet as the slug hit him. He began to shout at me like a madman, and he weaved sideways, firing wildly.

I pumped three bullets into him as fast as I could pull the trigger. The shots ran together in a hammering roar, and they pounded back and forth through the vast empty factory. Cement dust from Brandon’s bullets spattered upwards into my face. I kept moving sideways, like a crab, and I thought my bent knees were going to break. I fired once more. Brandon pitched suddenly forward.

I straightened up. I got a glimpse of Koller running across the factory and dodging between pieces of machinery. I took careful aim, and I fired once. Koller dropped out of sight.

I found him lying on his back, his knees drawn up, his head against the steel base of a swing frame grinder. His eyes were open, and there was blood seeping through his shirt beneath the knot of his necktie. My slug had caught him in his left collar bone, close to the base of his neck. I bent over him.

“Koller,” I said, “what did you do with Folly and the night watchman?”

He looked up at me. His eyes were filled with fear and pain. “Brandon,” he said. “Brandon did it. I swear he did. He cut the fence—so I could come in. He told me about you knowing, and he said he had tried to kill you—in the partition by the testers, and out by the boiler room, The night watchman saw us, and—and Brandon killed him. I couldn’t stop him. He—he was like a madman. Then—then we ran into Folly—by the tracks. Brandon—got him—from behind.”

“What did you do with the bodies?”

He squeezed his eyes tight shut, and tears ran down his cheeks. “Brandon—carried them—into Number Four Kiln. I—I couldn’t stop him.”

I looked at my wrist watch. It was ten minutes after seven in the morning. I bent lower over the wounded man. “Koller, can you hear me? Did Brandon say what time that kiln was to be fired?”

He turned his face to the cement floor.

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