The Queen Against Karl Mullen by Gilbert Michael

Author:Gilbert, Michael [Gilbert, Michael]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: The Queen Against Karl Mullen, Mystery
ISBN: 9780755132393
Amazon: 0755132394
Goodreads: 18848554
Publisher: House of Stratus
Published: 1991-06-06T07:00:00+00:00

That same afternoon, at about four o’clock, Mullen, who had been up to the West End to get his hair cut, turned into Axe Lane from the Gresham Street end. He had set out without raincoat or umbrella and had been caught by one of the short, but violent, showers which had been plaguing Londoners that autumn. The rain had stopped as suddenly as it had started and the sun was now reflected from wet pavements.

Bloody weather, bloody country, bloody people, thought Mullen. The desire to be out of it and back in South Africa had gone far beyond wishing and hoping. It was a passion.

As he rounded the corner he saw a crowd of young men approaching from the far end of the Lane. They seemed happy enough, God rot them, and were roaring with laughter at something said by a thickset character who was limping along with them.

As they came closer he saw that they all seemed to be equipped with new-looking, newly-sharpened pencils. Most of them had two or three sticking out of their top pockets. Clerks, he supposed, but he was puzzled to make out what they could be doing loafing about the streets in mid-afternoon. He was still puzzling about it when two of them grabbed him.

Mullen reacted instinctively. A scything blow felled one of his captors and as the other loosened his grip he shook him off and jumped for the nearest shelter. This was the entrance to one of the banks which flanked the South Africans’ office. At that hour the heavy double doors were shut, but considered as a place of refuge it had advantages. It was too narrow for more than two men to come at him at a time and the jutting door handles behind his back offered him a useful pivot.

Holding one of them in his left hand, he swung out anticlockwise at the first man who tried to rush him. Mullen was thickset and powerful and bad temper added weight to the blow which landed squarely in his opponent’s stomach and sent him to the ground, crowing and retching. Quickly reversing his hands and swinging clockwise, he hit the one who was coming up on the other side, in the throat.

There were now twenty or thirty men in front of him, but none of them seemed anxious to try their luck. Their leader shouted, “Go for his legs.” This was not a happy idea. Supported by the useful door handles, Mullen kicked the first one who dived for him full in the face.

As the opposition showed signs of demoralisation, Mullen decided to make for home. His own door was only ten yards away. He charged forward, bellowing like an enraged bull. He might have made it, too, and was nearly there when his foot slipped on the wet pavement. The next moment he was flat on his face with two or three men on top of him.

The thickset man who seemed to be the leader had stood back, so far, from the action.

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