The Poisoners Read Online Free PDF Page A

in front of witnesses. I couldn’t make out if his purpose was to heat me into it or cool me off it. Or maybe he was just sneering because it was his nature. Or maybe he was simply overacting a role, which brought up the interesting question: what role, in what play?
    “What did he use?” I asked. “Where’s the cannon?”
    “The gun?” Warfel made a gesture at the guard. “Give The Basher’s gun to Mr. Helm.”
    The man went around the bed and picked something off a chair that also held a jacket presumably belonging to Arthur Brown, who was in his shirtsleeves. The guard handed me a large Smith and Wesson double-action revolver with a six-and-a-half-inch barrel. Longer tubes are made, and for a powerhouse cartridge like the .44 they have some advantages, but they’re even harder to hide.
    I studied the weapon thoughtfully, pressed the cylinder latch on the left side of the frame, swung out the cylinder, and looked at the brass heads of the six cartridges. Two of the primers showed firing-pin indentations. Annette had been shot twice. It was very neat. I had no doubt the rifling would match the recovered bullets, if they were in condition to be matched, which doesn’t always happen.
    I closed the gun once more and walked up to the bound man in the chair. He looked up at me with steady brown eyes.
    “This is your gun?” I asked.
    “That’s my gun.” His voice was as expressionless as his face, flat and toneless.
    I said, “Tell me what happened.”
    He said, “What’s to tell, man? She looked like somebody else, red hair and all. I got the wrong girl.”
    “But you got her?”
    “Me and nobody else. Like Mr. Warfel told you, everybody makes mistakes. I’m paying for mine, like you see.”
    “How did it happen?”
    Warfel spoke behind me. “That doesn’t really matter, does it, Mr. Helm? This is your man. He admits it.”
    I turned slowly to look at him. “If you overheard my telephone conversation at the motel, you know that my instructions cover the person
or persons
responsible. Somehow, I don’t think Mr. Brown went out and killed a girl just for private kicks. Who gave the orders?”
    There was a little silence in the room. I was aware that the big man who’d greeted me at the elevator—the official frisker called Jake—had taken up a station in the doorway.
    Warfel said softly, “I wouldn’t push it, Mr. Helm. We made a mistake, a bad mistake. We admit it. We don’t want any trouble with you or your chief in Washington, so we’re giving you the man who shot your agent. I suggest you leave it at that, Mr. Helm.”
    “And if I don’t?”
    Warfel sighed. “We don’t want to buck Washington, not unless we have to. But if you try to push it we’ll have to, won’t we? I mean, you’ll give us no choice. And it’s not your line of work, is it, Mr. Helm? I don’t know exactly what you are, but you’re damn well not F.B.I. You’re not pretty enough, for one thing, and for another, nobody ever told a G-man to go out and kill somebody, not in so many words. They’ve got scruples; they’re gentlemen.”
    “And I’m no gentleman?”
    “No offense, Mr. Helm, but you’re a professional killer, aren’t you? I’ve seen a lot of them, and I knew you the minute I saw you. An executioner, a rub-out man. The only difference being that you seem to be a government rub-out man. I’m guessing that you belong to some kind of high-powered secret espionage or counterespionage outfit that plays pretty rough. And now you’ve lost one of your people and you’re mad. You’re not used to having your agents knocked over by punks like Arthur, here, working for hoodlums like me, are you, Mr. Helm? And you’re going to show us that no little private creeps can monkey with a big, bad government agency like yours!”
    His voice had turned harsh. I said, “Easy, Mr. Warfel. You’re saying it, not me. Don’t work yourself into a coronary on my account.”
    He drew a long breath, and forced a grin. “Ah,