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Episode 7
Why had she told me she was a poisons expert? I blanched, and stared at my teacup.
"It does take people that way. The news, I mean. No, I haven't poisoned Augustus. Nor you, Mr. Slade."
"I—"
"Oh, I understand, Mr. Slade. But really, I'm suddenly not as hungry as I was. I think I'll—"
"I'll walk you, if I may," I said, setting the cup down untasted. Or was it? Now I couldn't remember.
I stood awkwardly, holding Miss Brazelton's coat for her. She shrugged into it, and started to meander for the door. I didn't see anything so mundane as a cash till in the tea shop, so I dropped enough to cover the tea we had barely drunk and the untasted sandwiches on the table, and followed.
"Mr. Slade…" she sighed, as we stepped back into the brisk fall evening. The rain had cleared away, and the air felt cool and crisp. "If you don't think I'm the one who killed my father, whom do you think is the likely suspect? My place is this way," she said, turning out of the quadrangle at the heart of the Temple campus.
She stepped out briskly enough, I had to jog a few steps to catch up. Some gentleman I turned out to be, walking her home from thirty feet behind. "Well, my first line of investigation seems to be a bust," I said. "Women. I thought that with all the feminine cross currents in your dad's life, well…"
"But you've cleared us all?"
"Not cleared, but everywhere I look, something points another direction. I've got to find some other thread to pull on. What was it you were saying about the Organization? Maybe that's where I should look next."
She shuddered theatrically. "I know nothing about those men. So many people think they are doing good. Sometimes they are, I suppose. When someone is out of work, or can't feed his kids, the Organization men will help out. But he had better vote the Organization slate… But I've never… been at ease with them. They're different from regular businessmen, somehow. I tried my best to avoid them when I was at home, and I—"
"I understand, I think. I'll have to look into that. Do you know of anyone your father had dealings with in the Organization?"
"I can't say that I do. Remember, I did my best to—"
"—avoid them, right."
"Here's my street, Mr. Slade."
I stopped, and she stopped with me. "Perhaps we should speak of something else then? Personal…"
She looked up at me, her glasses glinting in the streetlight. "Mr. Slade… Matt. We bounce from topic to topic, and I'm never quite sure whether I should be on my guard against you, or…"
"Oh, you should, most definitely," I assured her.
She chuckled, low in her throat. "Now that I believe. But then… oh, nevermind."
"What? I can't never mind it now that you mentioned it, whatever it is?"
"I was just going to say that I feel safer with you, Matt." She gave me a solemn look, but then turned for her place.
"Well, then," I said, holding my arm to her. "Let me escort you, Miss Brazelton."
She took my proffered arm, and we strolled, companionable for a moment. All the other worries seemed to recede. I focused on the lovely, charming, and intelligent girl beside me. Who, I reminded myself, just happened to be a poison expert in the middle of a poison case. Still thoughts of her father, and also of her father's fate and fortune seemed to recede.
We strolled that way, arm in arm, for less than a block. Behind me something crashed. I spun to see a pair of thugs darting from an alcove under a stairway. They had knocked an empty trash can rolling, in their haste. I grabbed for the big automatic, but like a chump I'd buttoned it under my coat. I struggled with the button, finally ripping it free, but not before they were on us.
I kicked one in the crotch as he came in, and almost had the forty-five in action when the second drove right through me. We crashed into the gutter in a tangled heap. My right arm got pinned between us, and the pistol just wouldn't bear. Blows rained down on me. My head bounced from his fist, into the pavement, and back to his fist. I felt my lips smashed to pulp, and blood filled my mouth. A red haze drowned my vision, and blackness was creeping in. In desperation, I reared up, trying to land a knee, or throw him off.
No good. I remembered I still had the little thirty-two, stashed in a trouser pocket. My left hand, uselessly pushing against the thug's weight, instead snaked down and found its butt. I yanked, but it tangled in the fabric. I pulled with the last of my strength, and something must have torn, for I had the tiny gun free in my hand.
I jammed it into the thug's armpit and started pulling the trigger. I kept on pulling until he collapsed on top of me. I probably only fired that little six-shooter twenty or thirty times, in desperate blindness.
I spat blood to clear my mouth, and tried again to shove the big brute off. He was no more movable dead than alive. I rolled, and finally managed to wriggle out. The whole thing couldn't have taken a few seconds; his partner still rolled on the sidewalk, clutching his damaged jewels.
I covered him with the forty-five, and looked around the empty street.
Claire Brazelton was nowhere to be seen.
She was gone.