The Judas Pair l-1 Read online

  But what was the missile? What exploded into his eye with such force? Clutching the parts, I went out into the hall. An old crone—the one I'd seen on my previous visit—was sobbing information into the telephone.

  "Excuse me," I said politely, taking the phone from her to calm her down. "When the Reverend came out of the study a few minutes ago, where did he go?"

  "Into the kitchen for some ice," she said, red-eyed, and at last I knew.

  You crushed a piece of ice into a sphere in the bullet mold, inserted it into the concealed chamber, and made sure your opponent got the silver-pinned pistol. No wonder the pathologist had never found the bullet. The ice had pierced Eric Field's eye, penetrated his brain from there, and instantly melted away from his body heat, just as the ice ball was now doing in La-grange's silent skull.

  Yet… I sat at the hall table examining the weapon further. Who on earth had had the gall, not to mention the authority, to compel the world's greatest gunsmith to make a treacherous pair of weapons like this so long ago? Dueling was crackers, but it was supposed to be an affair of honor. Somebody had wanted to be bold and dashing around the Regency clubs but was unwilling to run any actual risk while going about it. I inserted the turnkey and rotated gently against the spring's weight.

  The locks came out and showed their secret beneath the recess. There, engraved in gold was my revelation: REX ME FECIT. The King made me.

  It brought tears to my eyes. I had a vision of the old gunsmith in his darkened workshop, all his assistants and apprentices sent away for the night, as in obedience to royal command he fashioned the brilliant device alone. Yet he was determined his complaint should be recorded for others to realize in later years. The old genius had made the Judas pair. They bore all the characteristic features of his consummate skills. But he cleverly recorded the customary Latin inscription to tell the despairing truth why he had: the King had made him. That deranged sick man George the Third, or the Prince Regent, wencher and gambler? Probably the latter.

  Before the police arrived I'd substituted a pair of officer's pistols, Joseph Heylin of London, quite well preserved in an altered cutlery box, for the Judas pair. Lagrange's small collection in the morning-room cabinet was easy to find and he'd left the key in. I whisked the Heylin pair outside, where I burned a little black powder in one and loaded the other. Amid the general alarms and excursions nobody took much notice of me wandering about. I swapped both pairs. Going out to wait for the police to arrive, I tucked the Durs case on top of the engine of Margaret's Morris beneath the hood—carefully wrapped, of course, and wedged in good and proper.

  And when the pathologist couldn't find the bullet? I was suddenly unutterably weary. I decided to let them all guess till they got tired, as they had of old Eric Field and Sheila. When the Old Bills came hurtling up I was back in the study wringing my hands with the others. I was clearly very upset.

  Three weeks later Margaret was quizzing me again. I was just back from George Field's.

  "What did he say when you told him you'd found the Judas guns?"

  There'd been no mention of Margaret's husband. We'd just taken up together, going into her arcade shop daily and scratching a living. Naturally, the inevitable had happened, as it always does when a man and a woman live in one dwelling, but that was all to the good and it was long overdue anyway, as we both knew.

  The trouble was this conversion gimmick they have. That I was quite content to drop in to my old garden and still hadn't started clearing away the cottage's ruins obviously niggled her. She'd let several hints drop, asking what plans I had for rebuilding and suchlike. You have to watch it.

  "Lovejoy!" she complained. "You're dreaming again."

  "Oh. He said he didn't want anything to do with them, said it was poetic justice."

  "And then?" she pressed.

  "He shut the door."

  "I don't think he likes your instincts very much, Lovejoy."

  "I'm surprised," I said. "I'm really quite lovable."

  "Won't you offer them back to Muriel?" was her next gem. Sometimes I think women have no sense at all.

  "Of course," I said, thinking, That's not poetic justice.

  "When?"

  "Well," I said after a long, long pause. "Well, maybe later."

  "Lovejoy!"

  "No, look, honestly," I began, searching desperately for some way out. "It's honestly a question of time and personal values."

  "Lovejoy! How could you! It's stealing!"

  "Honestly, love, judgment comes into it," I said. "I'd take them back this very minute but—"

  "You've absolutely no excuse!" She started banging things about.

  "Maybe in time, honestly," I said. "I'm only thinking of her."

  Women have no tact, no tact at all. Ever noticed that?

  FB2 document info

  Document ID: 657c7282-3d04-4405-a0f6-0297f6db66d7

  Document version: 1

  Document creation date: 28.7.2011

  Created using: calibre 0.8.10 software

  Document authors :

  Jonathan Gash

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