The Spy Who Came Home by Brett Halliday

Author:Brett Halliday
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: detective, mystery, suspense, espionage
Publisher: Mike Shayne Mystery Magazine
Published: 2014-03-26T06:00:00+00:00

V

MIKE SHAYNE continued to sit in the sprawled position on the carpeting for a long time. He stared at the door. Finally he got up with a growl and flipped the cushion toward the couch. He went into the kitchen, poured cognac, found a cigarette, lighted it. He pondered. The invader had had him dead. Why hadn’t he killed, found Haynes’ plans and departed?

There had to be a logical reason for why he had not.

Shayne took the cognac to his chair, sat, scowled in thought. The guy had to be Boris Poskov. The guy could be anybody else, any clouter, but for the purpose of finding reason and direction the detective had to assume the guy was Boris. And he had to assume that somewhere between Haynes’ house and the detective’s bed, Boris had picked up the action.

Where and how didn’t matter now. Nor did the fact that Boris had killed time before striking. The point was Boris knew Shayne had the Haynes plans, he had got the drop on the detective and then he had fled without the plans. Why?

The Russians had warned Boris: “No violence, no killing.” Was that it? But if violence, even killing, was a means to an important end, why the soft glove? Espionage, stealing secrets from another nation, preparing for missile war wasn’t a child’s game.

Shayne shook his head, went over the action in minute detail, looking for something that would explain. Boris had ducked a cushion, then had tripped the detective, followed him down to the carpeting and slammed the muzzle of the gun against the detective’s ear. He could have triggered the gun, killed the detective right at that point. But he hadn’t. And it was why the redhead had taken heart, had had no qualms about swinging on his assailant from the prone position. Shayne had realized Boris was not going to kill him. It wasn’t the way war games were played, not even cold war games, but then maybe Boris was a thinker.

Maybe Boris Poskov had reasoned that a large gun makes a loud noise, and a loud noise at four o’clock in the morning in an apartment building, especially a loud shout, would produce excited people, and the excited people would not leave time for a Russian agent to rip apart an apartment, looking for secret plans. Too, a loud gunshot could produce cops. Somebody would call the cops or the downstairs desk at the loud sound of a gunshot.

That had to be it. Boris had moved in on the apartment under the assumption that he would be dealing with an average John Citizen, a guy who had just happened to be walking a sidewalk when he saw a girl down a man and steal, a guy who had chased the girl and retrieved the briefcase because the guy still believed in law and order and right and all that jazz.

Yes, that had to be it. Boris had moved in under a wrong assumption. He’d hit the door of

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