The Power Cube Affair - Phillifent John T. - Страница 2

His mind ran almost as fast. Like it or not, whether Mary Chantry had been delirious or not, he was involved in this affair and the only way to get out was to put Green off. And that was not going to be easy. By the time he reached the weatherbeaten front gate of his property he had a thin plan worked out. Through an unkempt garden, in at the front door, wheeling sharp left to the bathroom, on light, on hot tap and shower, off clothes to toss aside, grab towel to twist around his middle, then press close to bathroom door to listen. The hot shower spread a convincing halo of vapor. He listened.

There came the faint click of the beach-side door, a knock, then the sigh of the door opening.

"Hello! Anyone at home?" No mistaking that crisp voice. Guard waited one breath then pulled the door open and went through fast.

"Who the hell are you and what d'you want?"

The little man didn't scare easily. He moved from the table rapidly, but it was alertness rather than fear. The name Green fitted him badly, for he was neutral gray in everything, from his disciplined hair and cold eyes down over his shirt, suit and shoes.

"Good evening. Sorry to Intrude. Guard, isn't it? Your name on this fly-leaf."

"When you're done sneaking around—"

"Not sneaking, please." Green's voice grew icy edges. "I am quiet from habit, not stealth. My name is Absalom Green. May I use your phone?"

"Haven't got one. When a man rejects the world, Mr. Green, he'd be a fool to let it in through a stretch of wire."

"I see. Yet you have television, journals, newspapers?"

"Out of reach, not out of touch. Now, if you don't mind—?"

Guard gestured to the door but Green didn't move his feet, only his eyes. They had taken in a display on the window ledge.

"You're all alone here," he said. "Isolated. Isn't that rather hazardous with those valuables?"

"Valuables?" Guard stared, then grinned and said, "They aren't worth anything. Besides, I have a shotgun handy."

"I saw that." Green moved now to stand by the window ledge, with the shotgun within easy reach of his hand, but his attention on the carvings that stood along the tiles of the window's foot. "I deal in small semiprecious gems and art objects. Allow me to contradict you and say that these are remarkably good. I have no idea where they come from, which makes them unique. And of value. I could sell them for you at a very good figure."

"Not for sale," Guard told him. "Now, if you don't mind, I'm sorry I can't do anything for you—!"

"Sorry?" Green moved swiftly, reaching for the shotgun, swinging and aiming it all in one movement. "The regret is mine, Mr. Guard. You may have rejected the world, but if it jogged your elbow hard enough I imagine you'd take notice. And I can't risk that."

"I don't know what the devil you're talking about!"

"I think you do. I hear your shower running, Mr. Guard, and your feet and legs are wet, but not the rest of you. And there's blood—dried blood—on your arm!"

Guard looked down, and up again just in time to be deafened by the blast of the gun, to feel the instant agony in his chest as the hammer-blow slammed him backwards. And then the second barrel, which sounded much fainter than the first, and then he heard nothing at all.

Illya Nickovetch Kuryakin, slumped casually at the wheel as the car boomed steadily along at forty, flicked an eye at the dashboard clock.

"You're sure," he murmured, "that he won't mind us bursting in on him at this unearthly hour of the morning?"

"That's all right." Napoleon Solo sounded confident as he too snatched a glance at the time. It was just seven- thirty and the pair had been on the road since six. "It was John Guard himself who advised me, long ago, that if you want a pleasant journey and the roads to yourself, start early. The British are a law abiding people as a rule, but their road system was laid down in ancient times, when modern automobiles hadn't been thought of. These damned road markers, for instance. You're on top of them before you see them!" He was watching out for the finger post that would tell them where to turn off the A road and be on the way to Hythe, Sandgate and Folkestone. It came up now, and he talked Kuryakin into a left turn, then sat back.

"Just follow the road now," he said. "You have to admit it's been a comfortable ride. Kent, the Garden of England, they call it."

As the car wound its way through a twisting road Kuryakin reserved his opinion, came back to something else. "If Britain is such a law abiding land, why would a man like Guard want to retire from U.N.C.L.E.? I only know him from what I've heard, and he doesn't sound the type to let the job get on top of him."

"He's quite a character," Solo sighed. "I worked with him a time or two, got to know him well. About six-two, built like a wrestler, and faster off the mark than any man I ever met. Private means, a damned good education, and the kind that once he gets his teeth into anything he doesn't know how to let go. That's the way he was, and that was the real trouble. You see..." he groped for a smoke, frowning over memories, "... there are times, as you and I know, when we have to let go, when the higher ups decide to drop certain things, to turn a blind eye. Johnny couldn't take that. Once he knew who the crook was, he wanted to keep right on and get him, come hell or high water."

"I know that feeling," Kuryakin agreed.

"So Johnny decided to opt out, about three years ago. No hard feelings on either side. In fact, there's a standing invitation to Mr. Waverly, any time he's over this side, to call in. So, as we're on a kind of vacation for a couple of weeks, I sent him a wire and he said to come ahead."

"What does he do with himself, these days?"

Solo grinned and became cryptic. "Well now, you've seen that bit of carved stone on Mr. Waverly's desk? That thing that looks like nothing at all and yet makes you think of a lion crouched and ready to spring?"

"I've seen it, yes."

"Over to our right, any time now, we'll see the sea. The beaches all along here are shingle and pebbles. That carving was once one of those stones. Guard's hobby is to stroll about among the pebbles and pick up any odd ones that look like something possible; then he carves them. He more or less promised another one to match that lion, which is another part of the reason why we're calling in." He leaned over to peer at the roadside. "I think we are home. That's it. Pull over."

It was a quarter to eight. The two men eyed the untended garden; then Solo saw the folded end of a newspaper still caught in the letter slit and frowned as he raised his hand to knock. A second knock got them no reply. He tried the door and it yielded.

"No harm in going in," he said. "But this doesn't feel right, somehow." They crossed the tiny hail, opened the door opposite, and stood still for a shocked moment at the sight. Flat on his back, with just a towel across his hips, his arms flung wide, John Guard lay in a dark pool of drying blood on the stone floor. He lay very still. Kuryakin sniffed, went forward catlike, avoiding the blood pool, to crouch and stare.

"Shotgun, at close range," he murmured. "Some time ago, four or five hours at least." He extended a slim hand to touch, frowned, swung his head to Solo. "He's still alive, Napoleon. With a hole in his chest that size?"

"That's Johnny." Solo came to crouch. "Tough as bootleather. There's a call box back along the road a little way. Get the operator to help, Illya."