Dash it all, I was going to chance it. All I had to do was take out the Webley, cross the road, creep into the front garden, stand outside the window, and blast Mr and Mrs Laurence where they sat.
The fun part would be snatching the girl.
Carpe diem, they said at Eton. Take your shot, I learned in the jungle. Nothing ruddy ventured, nothing bloody gained.
I stoppered the spyglass and slipped it into my breast pocket. Using it had an odd side effect. My mouth was dry and I really could have done with a swallow of something. But I had surrendered my proper hip flask in exchange for the trick telescope. I wouldn’t make that mistake again. Perhaps Moriarty could whip me up a flask disguised as a pocket watch. And, if timekeeping was important, a pocket watch disguised as something I’d never need, like a prayer book or a tin of fruit pastilles.
The girl was demonstrating some dance now. Really, I would do the couple a favour by getting them out of this performance.
I reached into my coat pocket and gripped my Webley. I took it out slowly and carefully — no nose-ectomy shot for Basher Moran — and cocked it with my thumb. The sound was tinier than a click you’d make with your tongue against your teeth.
Suddenly, Lassiter wasn’t in view. He was out of his chair and beyond sight of the window.
I was dumbfounded.
Then the lights went out. Not only the gas, but the fire — doused by a bucket, I’d guess. The womenfolk weren’t in evidence, either.
One tiny click!
A finger stuck out from a curtain and tapped the windowpane.
No, not a finger. A tube. If I’d had the glass out, I could confirm what I intuited. The bump at the end of the tube was a sight. Lassiter, the fast gun, had drawn his iron.
I had fire in my belly. I smelled the dying breath of Kali’s Kitten.
I changed my estimate of the American. What had seemed a disappointing, drab day outing was now a worthwhile safari, a game worth the chase.
He wouldn’t come out of the front door, of course.
He needn’t come out at all. First, he’d secure the mate and cub — a stronghold in the cellar, perhaps. Then he’d get a wall behind his back and wait. To be bearded in his lair. If only I had a bottle of paraffin, or even a box of matches. Then I could fire The Laurels: they’d have to come out and Lassiter would be distracted by females in panic. No, even then, there was a back garden. I’d have needed beaters, perhaps a second and third gun.
Moriarty had said he could put reliable men at my disposal for the job, but I’d pooh-poohed the suggestion. Natives panic and run, lesser guns get in the way. I was best off on my tod.
I had to rethink. Lassiter was on his guard now. He could cut and run, spirit his baggages off with him. Go to ground so we’d never find him again.
My face burned. Suddenly I was afraid, not of the gunslinger but of the Prof. I would have to tell him of my blunder.
One bloody click, that was all it was! Damn and drat.
I knew, even on brief acquaintance, Moriarty did not merely dismiss people from the Firm. He was no mere theoretician of murder.
Moran’s head, stuffed, on Moriarty’s wall. That would be the end of it.
I eased the cock of the Webley shut and pocketed the gun.
A cold circle pressed to the back of my neck.
‘Reach, pardner,’ said a deep, foreign, marrow-freezing voice. ‘And mighty slow like.’
V
My father always said I’d wind up with a noose around my neck. Even Sir Augustus did not predict said noose would be strung from a pretentious chandelier and attached firmly to a curtain rail.
I was stood on a none-too-sturdy occasional table, hands tied behind my back with taut, biting twine. Only the thickness of my boot heels kept me from throttling at once.
Here was a ‘how-d’you-do?’.
The parlour of The Laurels was still unlit, the curtains drawn. Unable to look down, I was aware of the people in the room but no more.
The man, Lassiter, had raised a bump on my noggin with his pistol butt.
I had an idea this was still better than an interview with a disappointed Professor Moriarty.
On the table, by my boot toes, were my Webley, broken and unloaded, the flask-glass, my folding knife, my (emptyish) notecase, three French postcards and a watch which had a sentiment from ‘Violet, to Algy’ engraved inside.
‘Okay, Algy,’ drawled Lassiter, ‘listen up…’
I didn’t feel inclined to correct his assumption.
‘We’re gonna have a little talk-like. I’m gonna ask questions, and you can give answers. Understand?’
I tried to stand very still.
Lassiter kicked the table, which wobbled. Rough hemp cut into my throat.
I nodded my understanding, bringing tears to my eyes.
‘Fine and dandy.’
He was behind me. The woman was in the room too, keeping quiet, probably holding the girl to keep her from fidgeting.
‘You ain’t no Mormon,’ Lassiter said.
It wasn’t a question, so I didn’t answer.
The table rocked again. Evidently, it had been a question.
‘I’m not a Mormon,’ I said, with difficulty. ‘No.’
‘But you’re with the Danite Band?’
I had to think about that.
A loud noise sounded and the table splintered. A slice of it sheared away. I had to hop to keep balance on what was left.
My ears rang. It was seconds before I could make out what was being said.
‘Noise-some, ain’t it? You’ll be hearin’ that fer days.’
It wasn’t the bang — I’ve heard enough bangs in my time — it was the smell, the discharged gun smell. It cleared my head.
The noose at my throat cut deep.
I had heard — in the prefects’ common room at Eton, not any of the bordellos or dives I’ve frequented since those horrible days — that being hanged, if only for a few seconds, elicits a peculiar physiological reaction in the human male. Connoisseurs reckon this a powerful erotic, on a par with the ministrations of the most expert houri. I was now, embarrassingly, in a position to confirm sixth-form legend.
A gasp from the woman suggested the near-excruciating bulge in my fly was externally evident.
‘Why, you low, disgustin’ snake,’ said Lassiter. ‘In the presence of a lady, to make such a…’
Words failed him. I was in no position to explain this unsought, involuntary response.
Arbuthnot, captain of the second eleven, now active in a movement for the suppression of licentious music hall performance, maintained this throttling business was more pleasurable if the self-strangulator dressed as a ballerina and sucked a boiled sweet dipped in absinthe.
I could not help but wish Arbuthnot were here now to test his theory, instead of me.
‘Jim, Jim, what are we to do?’ the woman said. ‘They know where we are. I told you they’d never give up. Not after Surprise Valley.’
Her voice, shrill and desperate, was sweet to me. I knew from the quality of Lassiter’s silence that his wife’s whining was no help to him.
I began to see the advantages of my situation.
I had been through the red rage and fear of peril and come to the cold calm clearing.
‘At present, Mr and Mrs Lassiter,’ I began in somewhat strangulated voice, giving them their true names, ‘you are pursued only by foreign cranks whose authority will never be recognised by British law. If your story were known, popular sympathy would be with you and the Danites further frustrated. Those I represent would make sure of that.’