Death Smells of Cordite. Gordon Landsborough

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СКАЧАТЬ when a police sergeant came shoving a face heavy with suspicion round the door. There was another cop with him, chewing. The sergeant tried shock tactics.

      He looked at Joe with his foot in the basket, looked at Farran, holding Joe McMee’s unconscious widow. And he said, “You did it.” And it was no question.

      Farran looked sour. Really sour. Sourer than most men ever get even once in their life. And when he came back with his answer, it zipped, tore holes into that fresh cop. “You say that again, and my attorney’ll go for your department for slander.”

      He didn’t take talk from fresh guys, not even cops.

      The sergeant got it, that this tall, lean, brown-faced hombre didn’t let wise guys go to play with him. He got more than that—that this jaw-jutting, brittle-eyed guy was someone, even in a state where there were a lot of someones.

      The cop with the chew paused, said, “Dat guy’s Farran. Him with all them airplanes, Sarge.” Then went on chewing. And the accent wasn’t Californian. Strictly Brooklyn—or to stretch a point, maybe Yonkers. East Coast, not West. But a dumb cop at that, even if he bad recognised Farran.

      The sergeant climbed down. “I said, ‘Who did it’?”

      Farran grunted. The sergeant took a look round, then he did some grunting. “They’ll be along with an ambulance in a few minutes,” he said. “Homicide.” Then he took a long gander at the corpse, as if it fascinated him.

      Farran watched them, thinking it might be interesting to see professionals at work, but they never did a thing. Then there was the sound of a lot of sirens down in the street below, and a few moments later the room became solid with men all doing a job.

      Mrs. McMee came to life again with all the noise, but she was still pretty sick, and Farran found she was holding on to his arm very tightly for support. He sat up on the desk beside her and held her. After a time she realised what he was doing and he heard her say, “Thanks…I feel—bad.”

      Farran looked over her shoulder at big Joe. He thought, “Now, what do you do in such situations?” He had to think things out, because when you are bred to millions it’s usually other people who have to be considerate. But he got an idea very soon.

      “Look, you’d better get away from—him,” he told her. “I’ll take you out into the passage.” It wasn’t good for a girl to be sitting almost on top of a husband—deceased. He helped her off the desk and got her across the room.

      The cop who chewed was leaning on the door. He said, “You don’t go out. Nobody goes out. I got orders.”

      Farran stood there, holding the girl. “You fetch me the guy that gives those orders,” he told him toughly.

      A police lieutenant came across. He was quite a pleasant guy. He’d been told who the girl was. “You want to get her out of this atmosphere, of course,” he said. “Yes, take her outside. There’s a settee along at the end by the elevator. I’ll come in a few minutes and get a statement from you.”

      There were some nice cops, thought Farran, sitting by the whining elevator. Then he saw that the gum-chewer had lounged near and was watching them, and he thought, “Nice, but they don’t take chances where murder’s concerned.”

      The girl started off by holding her head between her hands, and then she got a little better and sat up and looked at Farran.

      He said, in that blunt way of his, “That was a shock to you. All that.” He didn’t soften his voice or try to express sympathy. It didn’t occur to him; he wasn’t built that way. Sometime later he realised a remarkable thing—that the girl didn’t want sentiment, didn’t want gestures of sympathy.

      In some curious way she understood his manner at once—accepted it and appreciated it.

      “Yes,” she said just now. “It was—a shock.” Her blue eyes were looking into immeasurable distances, all covering horror. They turned to Farran, looked at him. “You won’t leave me?” she whispered.

      Farran looked away to consider the request. “That’s asking something, isn’t it?” he said at length. “Why me? Haven’t you got relatives or friends hereabouts?”

      “Not here. In New York.” Her face was troubled. “That’s a long way, and—well, they’re not the kind to come distances.”

      “So you’re on your own?”

      “Now Joe’s gone—yes.”

      She began to cry again. Farran thought it might be a feminine device, even if unconscious, to arouse his sympathy. All the same he didn’t think the worse of her for that, because he had imagination—men who design aircraft must have—and he could project himself some way into the appalling situation she so suddenly found herself in.

      “I reckon at a time like this you do feel you’ve got to have someone around to talk to.” He told her who he was. “Farran. Russ Farran. I build planes. Good ones. I did,” he thought bitterly, remembering that strike picket at the gates of the mighty Farran works.

      “I know about you. Joe mentioned you sometimes.” And then the lieutenant came and separated them and took individual statements. When that was done, and the police doctor had examined the girl’s head (to corroborate her story, that she bad fainted and struck her head in falling, Farran thought cynically), the police lieutenant told them they could go. He said it very pleasantly, but he also added that they shouldn’t leave the city boundaries, because he might want to contact them again at any time.

      Farran took the girl down. When they went out into the white, late afternoon sunshine, it seemed to hit up from the sidewalk and sent the girl’s head spinning again, so he steered her into a café and ordered strong coffee for her. His theory was that strong coffee was good for a hangover; okay, what was the difference between a hangover and a bump on the head? Just one big pain in either case.

      The coffee did her good, too. She looked at it, got the strong smell up her nostrils, and shuddered. She didn’t touch it, but she got over her giddiness pretty quickly, so it could have been the coffee smell that helped.

      It wasn’t very crowded, but they couldn’t talk because the tables were on close, friendly terms with each other, and they didn’t want the fat guy back of them to hear what might be said.

      So after a time they rose and walked out. The girl seemed to lead, as if running away from something. Farran came after her because he knew she needed watching until she could settle down again.

      She turned and walked down towards the harbour road. The street was pretty quiet, but it was too hot in that white Californian sunshine for walking. Yet she seemed to want to walk.

      Farran humoured her as far as the end of the street, where the busy harbour road intersection was, and then he took her arm and said, “You’ve got to pull yourself together. Lady, you’re almost sleepwalking now. I was on my way sailing, but I can find time to drop you off some place if you want me to.”

      His brusque manner did her good, jolted her back to the present. She turned towards him, that white face too white to be pleasing, those blue eyes too big with shock to be attractive. And yet Russ Farran again had that feeling that she was a nice girl; there was some quality about her that appealed to him…something he didn’t usually notice in the butterflies who fluttered round his bachelor life.

      He СКАЧАТЬ