“It helped,” McBride said, and now his glance went beyond Barry as Lynn moved forward.
“I’ll get them,” she said, and with no further hesitation she went over and picked up the gun Muriel had dropped. She retrieved the heavier automatic from the table.
As she started toward him there was the sound of a car in the driveway. A door slammed and feet pounded up the steps and across the veranda. Then Superintendent Kerby was hustling into the room, empty-handed except for the ever present swagger stick. Behind him came Inspector Cantrell, a uniformed constable, and, at the rear, the slim wiry figure of Eddie Glynn.
Kerby seemed more shocked at the sight of the three guns than at anything else, and as Cantrell collected them and Kerby gave his attention to Muriel, Barry knew without asking that Eddie was responsible for the police. Eddie, alerted earlier by what he overheard in his taxi, had added up the score and decided that it was time for some professional assistance.
In this Eddie had been right and Barry was grateful. His own feeling of relief at the moment was tremendous and in his reaction he knew his hands were trembling and his chest was still a little tight with strain. He also found it ironic that the assistance had not come earlier. A little more talk, a little more stalling, and there would have been no need for a gun, no danger to Lynn.
And then he understood that such reasoning was specious. The police had come unarmed, as was their custom. If they had walked in to find Muriel holding the gun and no longer susceptible to reason, neither violence nor bloodshed would have been prevented. The threat would have remained, but the problem would then have been Kerby’s, the risk his rather than McBride’s….
In less than fifteen minutes Superintendent Kerby had heard enough to know that it was time to transfer his base of operations to his office. He had already telephoned Headquarters to have a man sent to the Windsor to pick up Hudson for questioning, and now, as he glanced about the room, he was ready.
For another moment he considered Muriel Ransom, who had been speedily revived and now sat on the couch, her face slack and her eyes fixed dully on the floor. She had answered no questions nor shown the slightest interest in what went on around her. Now, when Kerby spoke to her, she did not even look at him, and he nodded to Cantrell.
“Look after her, Inspector.”
Cantrell touched her arm. When he began to lift it she came to her feet and turned toward the door with him without being told.
“You,” Kerby said to McBride, “can ride with me.” He looked at Barry and Lynn standing there together, glanced at Eddie Glynn as he made up his mind. “If you two want to ride back with Eddie it will be quite all right. Just follow along behind us, Eddie,” he said.
In the back seat of the Zephyr, Barry slid his arm lightly about Lynn’s shoulders and she reached up and touched his hand. She did not say anything until after the car started and neither did he. There were a million things in his mind and he had to block out the unpleasant ones before he could consider the more immediate problems. Finally, rousing himself sufficiently to sit up, he removed his hand and searched for a cigarette.
He said it was going to be a rough night and she said she knew it.
“It’ll be hours before Kerby has finished with us.”
“Yes.”
“Tomorrow’s Saturday,” he said and brought reluctantly into focus a subject he had been avoiding. “I’d better stop in at the airline office.”
“Oh?”
“The law works pretty fast here,” he said, “but not fast enough for me. I’m a witness now. I’ll never get away on Wednesday. I’ll have to cancel my flight ticket.”
“I’m glad,” she said simply.
He turned to look at her in his astonishment. “You’re what?”
“I’m glad.”
“Why?”
“Because now that you have to wait, maybe you’ll stop quibbling and take me with you. That’s the way it should be, isn’t it?”
His grunt was affirmative and suddenly he was grinning down at her in the darkness because he knew she was right. The very thought of this helped his morale tremendously and he knew that his canceled flight was no longer important. He would simply cable the boss and tell him why he was delayed.
He found his pack of cigarettes as the thought came to him, but as his fingers explored it he discovered it was empty. In the hope of finding a loose smoke in his pocket he groped again and this time his fingers touched tissue. Wrapped inside was the diamond Lambert had given him that first afternoon.
He had been afraid to tell Lynn about it at the time. He was still afraid. He could decide later whether or not to tell her where it came from, but at the moment the question was academic because he could not even afford to have it properly set. He left it there in his pocket. One day, when she was Mrs. Dawson, he might give her the chance to refuse it, but right now he had no intention of crowding his luck.
“What are you looking for?” she said.
“A cigarette.”
“Why didn’t you say so? Here. Have one of these.”
He took a cigarette from her pack and passed it on to Eddie. “Thanks, Mr. Dawson,” Eddie said. “Is everything okay?”
“Everything is wonderful,” he said and, leaning sideways, put his arm back where it belonged.
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this ebook onscreen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
copyright © 1956 by George Harmon Coxe
cover design by Mumtaz Mustafa
This edition published in 2011 by MysteriousPress.com/Open Road Integrated Media
180 Varick Street
New York, NY 10014
www.openroadmedia.com
EBOOKS BY GEORGE HARMON COXE
FROM OPEN ROAD MEDIA
Available wherever ebooks are sold
FIND OUT MORE AT WWW.OPENROADMEDIA.COM
FOLLOW US: @openroadmedia and Facebook.com/OpenRoadMedia
Videos, Archival Documents,
and New Releases
Sign up for the Open Road Media
newsletter and get news delivered
straight to your inbox.
FOLLOW US:
@openroadmedia and
Facebook.com/OpenRoadMedia
SIGN UP NOW at
www.openroadmedia.com/newsletters
Man on a Rope Page 20