Hell Is Too Crowded - Jack Higgins [41]
"And where did Marie Duclos fit in?"
The old woman shrugged. "She was a French girl he took a particular fancy to, I don't know why. She was installed in the upstairs apartment and the other tenant removed. For two months he visited her ceaselessly."
"By way of the churchyard?" Brady said.
She shook her head. "No, he only used that method during the week that the road was being repaired. He didn't want the nightwatchman to see him entering the house."
"But why did he kill the girl?"
"She tried to blackmail him. A foolish thing to do--he was liable to the most insane rages. When he came for my daughter that night, I followed them back through the churchyard and listened while he told her what he had done. Her only worry was that he might come to harm."
"What did you do?" Brady said.
She shrugged. "What could I do? I'm an old woman and I was listening to a daughter who had become a stranger to me. He told her there was a way out, that all they needed was a scapegoat to satisfy the police. They didn't need to look far with the Embankment at the bottom of the street. The first drunk on the first bench would do."
"And that happened to be me," Brady said bitterly.
A slight breeze touched the back of his neck and the door creaked. He turned slowly, his hand sliding into his raincoat pocket and a familiar voice said, "Please to stand very still, Mr. Brady."
Haras moved into the room, the lamplight glinting on his spectacles. Brady raised his arms slowly and the Hungarian removed the Mauser and slipped it into his pocket.
"Now you may put down your arms."
He was holding the .38 and there was a confident smile on his face. "Sorry I've been delayed, but I was caught in a traffic jam in Oxford Street and missed you. I was waiting outside Carley Mansions, by the way. It was quite depressing to see you scuttle out ahead of the police, but somehow, I thought you might be coming here. You've really done quite well, Brady."
"For the first drunk on the first bench," Brady said bitterly.
"So, the old goat has been opening her mouth, has she?" The Hungarian smiled genially. "We'll have to do something about that."
He was standing well back from the table, a confident smile on his face. Madame Rose glared up at him fixedly. "You filthy swine," she said and started to get to her feet.
"Stay where you are!" Haras ordered.
As the Hungarian's eyes flickered to the old woman, Brady seized the lamp and pulled it from its socket, plunging the room into darkness.
Haras fired twice and the old woman screamed and crumpled to the floor. She lay in the patch of light thrown out by the electric fire and blood poured over her face from a gaping wound in the forehead.
Brady crouched for a moment at the side of a large wing-backed chair and then started to crawl round the back of the old-fashioned horse-hair sofa, making for the door.
Haras was still standing by the table and Brady could see the dark bulk of him in the slight glow of the electric fire.
"You can't get away, Brady," he said. "You don't stand a chance. I've got both the guns."
Brady remembered there had been four rounds in the .38 and Haras had fired two of them. He crouched between a chair and the wall a couple of yards from the door and carefully lifted a small china cat from a coffee-table beside him.
"I'm running out of patience, Brady," Haras said and there was an edge of anger in his voice.
Brady lobbed the cat across the room into the far corner. As it smashed against the wall, the Hungarian turned and fired twice in rapid succession. Brady jumped for the door, wrenched it open and darted along the corridor to the rear of the house.
Behind him there was a cry of rage. He ran into a large kitchen and made straight for the door at the far end. It was locked and as he fumbled desperately with the key, he heard the peculiar muffled cough of the silenced Mauser and a bullet scattered splinters of wood above his head.
He got the door open and went down a flight of