‘Never heard of them.’
‘Of course not. But I have. Very well-known European engineering firm specializing, among other things, in all types of diving equipment. Ties in rather neatly with your employment with a salvage and diving firm in Havana, doesn’t it?’ He obviously didn’t expect an answer, for he carried on reading at once.
‘Specialized in salvage and deep-water recovery. Left Siebe Gorman, joined Dutch salvage firm from which dismissed after eighteen months following inquiries into whereabouts of two missing 28-lb ingots worth 60,000 dollars salvaged by firm in Bombay Harbour from the wreck of the ammunition and treasure ship Fort Strikene which blew up there 14th April, 1944. Returned England, joined Portsmouth salvage and diving firm, associated with “Corners” Moran, notorious jewellery thief, during salvage work on the Nantucket Light which sank off the Lizard, June 1955, carrying valuable cargo diamonds from Amsterdam to New York. Salvaged jewels to the value of 80,000 dollars were found to be missing. Talbot and Moran traced to London, arrested, escaped from police wagon when Talbot shot police officer with small concealed automatic. Police officer subsequently died.’
I was leaning far forward now, my hands gripped tightly on the edge of the box. Every eye was on me but I had eyes only for the judge. There wasn’t a sound to be heard in that stuffy courtroom except the drowsy murmur of flies high up near the ceiling and the soft sighing of a big overhead fan.
‘Talbot and Moran finally traced to riverside rubber warehouse.’ Judge Mollison was reading slowly now, almost haltingly, as if he had to take time to appreciate the significance of what he was saying. ‘Surrounded, ignored order to surrender. For two hours resisted all attempts by police armed with guns and tear-gas bombs to overcome them. Following explosion, entire warehouse swept by uncontrollable fire of great intensity. All exits guarded but no attempt at escape. Both men perished in fire. Twenty-four hours later firemen found no trace of Moran – believed to have been almost completely incinerated. Talbot’s charred remains positively identified by ruby ring worn on left hand, brass buckles of shoes and German 4.25 automatic which he was known to carry habitually …’
The judge’s voice trailed off and he sat in silence several moments. He looked at me, wonderingly, as if unable to credit what he saw, blinked, then slowly swivelled his gaze until he was looking at the little man in the cane chair.
‘A 4.25 mm gun, Sheriff? Have you any idea –?’
‘I do.’ The sheriff’s face was cold and mean and hard and his voice exactly matched his expression. ‘What we call a .21 automatic, and as far as I know there’s only one of that kind made – a German “Lilliput.”’
‘Which was what the prisoner was carrying when you arrested him.’ It was a statement, not a question. ‘And he’s wearing a ruby ring on his left hand.’ The judge shook his head again, then looked at me for a long, long moment: you could see the disbelief was slowly giving way to inescapable conviction. ‘The leopard – the criminal leopard – never changes his spots. Wanted for murder – perhaps two murders: who knows what you did to your accomplice in that warehouse? It was his body they found, not yours?’
The court was hushed and shocked and still: a falling pin would have had the lot airborne.
‘A cop-killer.’ The sheriff licked his lips, looked up at Mollison and repeated the words in a whisper. ‘A cop-killer. He’ll swing for that in England, won’t he, Judge?’
The judge was on balance again.
‘It’s not within the jurisdiction of this court to –’
‘Water!’ The voice was mine, and even to my own ears it sounded no more than a croak. I was bent over the side of the box, swaying slightly, propped up by one hand while I mopped my face with a handkerchief held in the other. I’d had plenty of time to figure it out and I think I looked the way I think I ought to have looked. At least, I hoped I did. ‘I – I think I’m going to pass out. Is there – is there no water?’
‘Water?’ The judge sounded half-impatient, half-sympathetic. ‘I’m afraid there’s no –’
‘Over there,’ I gasped. I waved weakly to a spot on the other side of the officer who was guarding me. ‘Please!’
The policeman turned away – I’d have been astonished if he hadn’t – and as he turned I pivoted on both toes and brought my left arm whipping across just below waist level – three inches higher and that studded and heavily brass-buckled belt he wore around his middle would have left me needing a new pair of knuckles. His explosive grunt of agony was still echoing through the shocked stillness of the court-room when I spun him round as he started to fall, snatched the heavy Colt from his holster and was waving it gently around the room even before the policeman had struck the side of the box and slid, coughing and gasping painfully for air, to the wooden floor.
I took in the whole scene with one swift sweeping glance. The man with the nose was staring at me with an expression as near amazement as his primitive features could register, his mouth fallen open, the mangled stub of his cigar clinging impossibly to the corner of his lower lip. The girl with the dark-blonde hair was bent forward, wide-eyed, her hand to her face, her thumb under her chin and her fore-finger crooked across her mouth. The judge was no longer a judge, he was a waxen effigy of himself, as motionless in his chair as if he had just come from the sculptor’s hands. The clerk, the reporter, the door attendant were as rigid as the judge, while the group of school-girls and the elderly spinster in charge were as goggle-eyed as ever, but the curiosity had gone from their faces and fear stepped in to take its place: the teenager nearest to me had her eyebrows arched high up into her forehead and her lips were trembling, she looked as if she were going to start weeping or screaming any moment. I hoped, vaguely, that it wasn’t going to be screaming, then an instant later I realized that it didn’t matter for there was likely going to be a great deal of noise in the very near future indeed. The sheriff hadn’t been so unarmed as I had supposed: he was reaching for his gun.
His draw was not quite the clean swift blurring action to which the cinema of my youth had accustomed me. The long flapping tails of his alpaca coat impeded his hand and he was further hindered by the arm of his cane chair. Fully four seconds elapsed before he reached the butt of his gun.
‘Don’t do it, Sheriff!’ I said quickly. ‘This cannon in my hand is pointing right at you.’
But the little man’s courage, or foolhardiness, seemed to be in inverse proportion to his size. You could tell by his eyes, by the lips ever so slightly drawn back over the tightly clamped tobacco-stained teeth, that there was going to be no stopping him. Except in the only possible way. At the full stretch of my arm I raised the revolver until the barrel was level with my eyes – this business of dead-eye Dan snap-shooting from the hip is strictly for the birds – and as the sheriff’s hand came clear of the folds of his jacket I squeezed the trigger. The reverberating boom of that heavy Colt, magnified many times by the confining walls of that small court-house, quite obliterated any other sound. Whether the sheriff cried out or the bullet struck his hand or the gun in his hand no one could say: all we could be sure of was what we saw, and that was the sheriff’s right arm and whole right side jerking convulsively and the gun spinning backwards to land on a table inches from the note-book of the startled reporter.
Already my Colt was lined up on the man at the door.
‘Come and join us, friend,’ I invited. ‘You look as if you might be having ideas about fetching help.’ I waited till he was halfway down the aisle then whirled round quickly as I heard a scuffling noise behind me.
There had been no need for haste. The policeman was on his feet, but that was all that could be said for him. He was bent almost double, one hand clutching his midriff, the knuckles of the other all but brushing the floor: he was whooping violently, gasping for the breath to ease