Алистер Маклин: The Way to Dusty Death

She spat at him. ‘Fix it yourself.’

Harlow gave no warning. There was a blur of movement and the silencer of the pistol smashed against the blonde’s face. She screamed, staggered and fell to a sitting position, blood welling from gashes on both cheek and mouth.

‘Jesus!’ Rory was appalled. ‘Mr Harlow!’

‘If it’s any consolation, Rory, this charmer is wanted for premeditated murder.’ He looked at the blonde and what little could be seen of his face was totally devoid of pity. ‘Get to your feet and fix your friend’s hand. Then, if you wish, your own face. Not that I care. The rest of you, face down on the floor, hands behind your back. Rory, see if they have guns. The first man that as much as twitches will be shot through the back of the head.’

Rory searched them. When he had finished, he looked down almost in awe at the four guns he had placed on the table.

‘They all had guns,’ he said.

‘What did you expect them to be carrying? Powder puffs? Now, Rory, the twine. You know what to do. As many knots as you like, the twine as tight as possible and the hell with their circulation.’ Rory set about his task with enthusiasm and in very short order had the hands of all six securely bound behind their backs: the dark man now had his hand roughly bandaged.

Harlow said to Neubauer: ‘Where’s the gate key?’

Neubauer glared venomously and kept silent. Harlow pocketed his gun, picked up the knife his would-be assailant had dropped and pressed the tip against Neubauer’s throat, just breaking the skin.

‘I’m going to count three then I’m going to push this knife clear through to the back of your neck. One. Two.’

‘Hall table.’ Neubauer’s face was ashen.

‘On your feet, all of you. Down to the cellar.’

They trooped down to the cellar, all with highly apprehensive expressions on their faces. So apprehensive was the last of the six, one of the three swarthy men, that he made a sudden vicious lunge at Harlow, probably with the intention of knocking him down the steps and then stamping on him, which was a very foolish thing to do, for he had already had eye-witness proof of the quite remarkable speed of Harlow’s reactions. Harlow stepped nimbly to one side, struck him above the ear with the barrel of his pistol and watched him topple then fall halfway down the steps. Harlow caught one of his ankles and dragged him down the lower half of the stairs, the unconscious man’s head bumping from concrete step to concrete step.

One of the other swarthy men shouted: ‘God’s sake, Harlow, are you mad? You’ll kill him!’

Harlow dragged the unconscious man down the last step until his head hit the concrete floor and looked indifferently at the man who had made the protest. ‘So? I’m probably going to have to kill you all anyway.’

He ushered them into the cellar laboratory and, with Rory’s assistance, dragged the unconscious man in after them.

Harlow said: ‘Lie down on the floor. Rory, tie their ankles together. Very tightly, please.’ Rory did so, displaying not only enthusiasm for but now positive enjoyment in his work. When he had finished, Harlow said: ‘Go through their pockets. See what identification papers they are carrying. Not Neubauer. We all know who our dear Willi is.’

Rory returned to Harlow with quite a bundle of identification documents in his hand. He looked uncertainly at the woman on the floor. ‘What about the lady, Mr Harlow?’

‘Never confuse that murderous bitch with a lady.’ Harlow looked at her. ‘Where’s your handbag?’

‘I haven’t got a handbag.’

Harlow sighed, crossed to where she lay and knelt beside her. ‘When I’m finished with the other side of your face no man will ever look at you again. Not that you’ll be seeing any men for a long time to come – no court is going to overlook the testimony of four policemen who can identify you and the fingerprints on that glass.’ He looked at her consideringly then lifted his gun. ‘And I don’t suppose the wardresses will care what you look like. Where’s that handbag?’

‘In my bedroom.’ The tremble in her voice accurately reflected the fear in her face.

‘Where in your bedroom?’

‘The wardrobe.’

Harlow looked at Rory. ‘Rory, if you would be so kind–’

Rory said uncertainly: ‘How will I know which bedroom?’

Harlow said patiently: ‘When you come to a bedroom where the dressing-table looks like the toilet counter in a pharmacy, then you’ll have found the right bedroom. And bring down the four guns from the living-room.’

Rory left. Harlow got to his feet, crossed to the desk where he’d placed the identification documents and began to study those with interest. After about a minute he looked up.

‘Well, well, well. Marzio, Marzio and Marzio. Sounds like a firm of well-established solicitors. And all from Corsica. I seem to have heard of the Marzio brothers before. I’m quite certain the police have and will be delighted to have those documents.’ He laid down the papers, pulled six inches of a roll of stand-mounted Scotch tape and affixed it lightly to the edge of the desk. He said: ‘You’ll never guess what that’s for.’

Rory returned, bearing with him a handbag so large as to be more a valise than a handbag, along with four guns. Harlow opened the bag, examined the contents, which included a passport, then unzipped only a side compartment and pulled out a gun.

‘My, my. So Anne-Marie Puccelli carries a fire-arm around with her. No doubt to fend off those would-be nasty attackers bent on robbing her of those cyanide tablets such as she fed to the late Luigi.’ Harlow replaced the gun, then dropped into the bag the other documents and the four guns Rory had brought. He extracted the first-aid box from the bag, took out a very small bottle and poured white tablets into his hand.

‘How convenient. Exactly six tablets. One for each. I want to know where Mrs MacAlpine is being held and I’m going to know in less than two minutes. Florence Nightingale there will know what those are.’

Florence Nightingale had no comment to make. Her face was paper-white and drawn, she appeared to have put on ten years in ten minutes.

Rory said: ‘What are those things?’

‘Sugar-coated cyanide. Quite pleasant to take really. Take about three minutes to melt.’

‘Oh, no! You can’t do that.’ Shock had drained Rory’s face of all its colour. ‘You just can’t. That – that’s murder.’

‘You want to see your mother again, don’t you? Besides, it’s not murder, it’s extermination. We’re dealing with animals, not human beings. Look around you. What do you think the end product of this charming old cottage industry is?’ Rory shook his head. He seemed to be completely numbed. ‘Heroin. Think of the hundreds, more likely thousands, of people they’ve killed. I insulted animals by calling them animals. They’re the lowest form of vermin on earth. It would be a pleasure to wipe out all six of them.’

Among the six bound, prostrate prisoners there was a considerable amount of sweating and lip-licking in evidence. All six were plainly terrified. There was a ruthless implacibility in Harlow that made it all too horrifyingly plain that he was in deadly earnest.

Harlow knelt on Neubauer’s chest, tablet in one hand, gun, in the other. He struck Neubauer, stiff-fingered, in the solar plexus. Neubauer gasped and Harlow stuck the silencer of his pistol into his opened mouth so preventing him from clenching his teeth. With finger and thumb he held the tablet alongside the silencer.

Harlow said: ‘Where is Mrs MacAlpine?’ He withdrew the gun. Neubauer was babbling, almost mad with fear.

‘Bandol! Bandol! Bandol! In a boat.’