A Quiet, Little Town Read online

  “The cabdriver?”

  “Yes. I have a dozen cabbies on my payroll. They are my eyes and ears and keep me informed. Rich people are such fools, Mr. Forester. They pay the driver no heed and indulge in the most intimate conversations. Little do they know that the cabbie up there on his high seat sees and hears everything, and in turn, so do I.”

  “And what do you do with the information?” Forester asked.

  Walzer shrugged. “Besides my other businesses, I dabble in blackmail and extortion. It’s a profitable venture that requires little capital investment.”

  “There were three of them at the dock,” Forester said.

  “Yes. Dock rats, louts, ruffians, the poorest of the poor and of no account,” Walzer said. “As I said, the one who ran away will be dead by nightfall and the two you . . . ah . . . terminated have already been dumped in an East End alley. The authorities won’t even investigate. Violent death in all its forms is a daily occurrence in the slums, and seldom do the police get involved. More sherry?”

  Forester extended his glass. “Please.”

  Walzer refilled from the decanter and said, “You have questions?” An Eastern European accent shaded the man’s English, but Forester didn’t notice. To him, all limeys sounded alike.

  “Tell me this,” the Texan said. “How did my client know you were in this line of work?”

  “What line of work?” Walzer said.

  “Hiring assassins.”

  “Well, he didn’t know, because hiring assassins is not part of my usual business.” Then, frowning, Walzer said, “How much of this affair are you entitled to know?”

  Forester said, “All of it.” The frown didn’t leave the older man’s face, and the Texan added, “My client trusts me.”

  Walzer nodded. “I’m aware of your reputation and your client’s faith in you. He made that clear in his letters. I must confess, I wonder why he didn’t hire you for this undertaking. You seem the ideal man to get the job done.”

  Forester shook his head. “No. I’m too close. I’ve done gun work for my client in the past, and a clever lawman might draw the right conclusions. My client must have no direct connection whatever to the assassins, and I hope you didn’t disclose his identity to the men you hired.”

  Walzer said, “Of course, I did not. They were told the mark, his location, and nothing else. Professionals need no further information than that. By this time, they’re already in Texas, and when the undertaking is finished, they will scatter and make their separate ways back to London and then to . . . well, wherever they hail from.”

  Forester said, “Tell me this, how did my client . . .”

  “Between ourselves, let us drop the pretense, Mr. Forester,” Walzer said. “Your client’s name is Gideon Stark, and he’s a big rancher who wants to be bigger, an empire builder who dreams of founding a dynasty. You know this and I know this, and it’s all that I know. But at least now our masks have been removed.”

  A few moments of silence stretched between the men. A log fell in the fire and sent up a cascade of scarlet sparks. Sleet battered at the parlor window, and the frost-rimed wind raged around the mansion like a ravenous gray wolf.

  “All right, then, as you say, our masks are removed,” Forester said. “How did Gideon Stark choose you to take care of this matter?”

  “He didn’t, at least not directly.”

  Forester made no answer.

  “This is very much between us,” Walzer said. “Due to the sensitive nature of what I’m about to tell you, we will deal only in suppositions, Mr. Forester, not in facts. Do you understand?”

  The Texan drew on his cigar before he spoke. “I catch your drift.”

  Walzer nodded and said, “Good. Then let us suppose that there is a certain English gentleman rancher in West Texas, the youngest son of a belted earl, who is prospering mightily in the cattle business. His fond papa is a nobleman who quickly ran through his wife’s inheritance and now the meager rents from the kilted tenants of his Scottish estates do not support his extravagances, namely gambling and expensive mistresses. The earl is always, as the sporting crowd says, down to his last chip and in the dumps. Let me refill your glass.”

  Walzer poured more sherry and then said, “Now, shall we surmise, and this is all supposition, mind, that the earl is a member of the British Foreign Office and desperate for money. Could it be that happenstance threw the wretched blue blood in my direction, and we at once entered into a business arrangement?”

  “What kind of business arrangement?” Forester said.

  “If such were the case, one must imagine that money lending would be the likely arrangement,” Walzer said. “But then we must answer the question: Would a savvy businessman lend money to, as you Americans say, a deadbeat . . . a worthless, sponging, idler like the exalted earl?”

  “I guess not,” Forester said. “Sure doesn’t sound like a sound investment.”

  “And you guess correctly,” Walzer said. “But what if the nobleman had valuable information to sell because at one time or another his position in the Foreign Office put him in the front parlor of a score of tin-pot dictators and warlords in India, the Orient, and South and Central America? What do such despots need to stay in business, Mr. Forester?”

  “Money?” the Texan said.

  “High taxes usually provide more than enough of that. No, tyrants need arms, cannon, rifles, carbines, and sabers for their cavalry and a plentiful supply of ammunition,” Walzer said.

  “And you supply them,” Forester said. He smiled. “Hey, here’s a battery of cannon, no questions asked.”

  “I will not say yes, and I will not say no, but it is always possible that I deal in arms of all kinds, and that I use the earl as my go-between in those transactions. If that were the case, and I don’t say that it is, I would pay him handsomely and keep him in line with five-pound notes, threats of blackmail . . . and worse.”

  Forester smiled. “In other words, Mr. Walzer, you’re a world-class gunrunner?”

  “Gunrunner. Yes, that’s another of those new crude and hurtful American terms and one I would never use,” Walzer said, frowning. “If I engaged in such a business, I’d call myself a contraband weapons dealer.”

  Forester made no comment on that. He said, “Gideon Stark has all the weapons he needs. What he does need are men who can use them.”

  “And he has them, four of the best I could find,” Walzer said.

  Forester shook his head. “How did one of the biggest ranchers in Texas ever shove his branding iron into your fire, Walzer?”

  The older man smiled. “His branding iron into my fire? Hah, that’s a colorful way of putting it. But here’s how it might have happened, the very nub of the matter you might say.”

  Walzer took time to pour more sherry, and Forester said, “You’ll make me drunk.”

  “I doubt it,” Walzer said. He sipped from his own glass, the crystal engraved with an elaborate coat of arms. Forester guessed it was Russian, judging by the doubleheaded eagle.

  Walzer said, “Gideon Stark and the earl’s son, the young rancher I told you about earlier, share a fence and are neighbors and close friends. Or do you already know that?”

  “Stark told me only what I needed to know for this job,” Forester said. “He’s a tight, closemouthed man. He didn’t mention an Englishman, neighbor or no.”

  “Ah, leaving no loose ends also applies to the hired help, huh?”

  “I guess it’s something like that,” Forester said.

  Walzer fell silent as a tall, thin, melancholy man dressed in butler black stepped into the room and added a log to the fire. He bowed slightly from the waist and said, “Will there be anything else, sir?”

  Walzer shook his head. “No, Mr. Lewis, nothing more for today.”

  “Very well, sir,” the butler said. “Mr. Forester’s room has been prepared, and the fire is lit.”

  Walzer nodded and said, “I took the liberty of assuming you’d sleep here tonight, Mr. F
orester. I told the cabbie to pick you up in the morning after breakfast. As you know, I’m very isolated here. One can’t just step out of the front door and hail a passing cab.”

  “Suits me just fine,” Forester said. He glanced out the window. “Is that sleet, snow, or rain?”

  “All three,” Walzer said. “And there might soon be thunder. British weather, you know.” He turned his attention to Lewis. “You may take the rest of the day off to visit your ailing . . . sister . . . isn’t it?”

  “Yes, my sister Ethel, sir,” the butler said. “She’s down with female hysteria and a wandering womb, and her husband’s at his wit’s end.”

  “So sorry to hear that,” Walzer said. “Your brother-in-law is in service?”

  “Yes, sir, he’s third footman to Lord Rancemere.”

  “Then take the pony trap, Mr. Lewis, and I’ll see you tomorrow morning.”

  Lewis bowed. “Yes, sir. Thank you, sir.”

  The butler glided silently to the door, and Walzer called out after him. “And Mr. Lewis, for goodness sake wear your oilskins and stay dry.”

  The butler turned and managed a ghost of a smile. “Certainly, sir. It’s very kind of you to be so concerned.”

  Walzer waved a dismissive hand. “Think nothing of it, Mr. Lewis.”

  The door closed noiselessly behind the butler, and Walzer said, as though the interruption had not occurred, “I wasn’t there, of course, and this is all supposition, but I imagine Mr. Stark conversed with the earl’s son and happened to mention that he was looking for some skilled men to carry out an enterprise for him.”

  Forester smiled, “Murder for him, you mean?”

  “Yes, just that. But Mr. Stark likely stipulated that the assassins must be unknown to the American and Mexican authorities and that after hitting their target they’d disappear back into their holes. Of course, the earl’s son would recommend me as a discreet man who can get things done.”

  “How would he know that?” Forester said.

  Walzer shrugged. “I suspect the young man is privy to all his father’s secret dealings. I gather from the earl’s letters that his son is not a stickler for the law and has hanged or shot many a man without trial.”

  “Rustlers and nesters, probably,” Forester said. “Plenty of those in West Texas.”

  “Just so,” Walzer said. “Now let’s be frank. It’s time for some plain talk. Several months ago, Mr. Stark and myself entered into a correspondence during the course of which I agreed to help him by providing assassins. For a fee of course.” Walzer spread his thin-fingered hands and smiled. “And now here you are, Mr. Forester.”

  “The money is in my bag,” the Texan said. “Five thousand in gold.”

  “And . . .” Walzer prompted.

  “You’ll get the other five thousand when the job is done and an additional sum to pay the returning killers.”

  “Quite acceptable,” Walzer said. “Judging by his correspondence, Gideon Stark is a hard, unbending man, but I judge him to be honest in his dealings. Is that not so. Mr. Forester?”

  “He’s hung and shot more than his share his ownself, but I’d say he’s honest enough,” Forester said.

  The day was shading darker, and the light from the fire cast a crimson glow on the high bones of Walzer’s cheeks and deepened the shadows in his eye sockets and temples. Momentarily, as he leaned over to poker a burning log, his face looked like a painted skull.

  “Since we’re plain talking,” Forester said. “Who is the mark?”

  “Yes, a plainly asked question that deserves a plainspoken answer,” Walzer said. “The man’s name is Ben Bradford . . . Doctor Ben Bradford.”

  Forester was surprised. “A doctor? All this secrecy and fuss over a pill-roller? Heck, if Stark had asked me, I’d have put a bullet in him as a favor.”

  Ernest Walzer shook his head. “My dear Forester, in this affair there are wheels within wheels that you know nothing about. Stark wants the man dead, yes, but nothing, and I mean nothing, about the killing must be linked to him. He’s got to come out of this . . .”

  “As clean as a whistle,” Forester said.

  “Cleaner. Smelling of roses. No loose ends, Mr. Forester. Above all, no loose ends.”

  Burke Forester sat back in his chair. “Well, I did what Stark paid me to do, and now I’m out of it.” His gaze moved to the darkening window where lightning glimmered on the wet panes, the flashy herald of the coming thunder, and then he said, “As a matter of interest . . .”

  “Ah, another question,” Walzer said. “I was always told that Americans question everything.”

  “Just as a matter of interest,” Forester said. At Walzer’s nod, he added, “Who are the assassins?”

  “No one you would know. The names are obscure.”

  “Try me.”

  “Ah . . . this is so tedious,” Walzer said. “I grow weary.”

  “Let me decide what’s tedious,” Forester said. “After all, I’m in the same profession. It’s always wise to be aware of the competition.”

  “Yes, there’s always that, I suppose,” Walzer said. “Then let me see . . . Ah yes, the most dangerous of the four is the Russian, Kirill Kuznetsov. He is very much in demand in Eastern Europe, and his fee for a kill is around five thousand of your US dollars. He’s said to be very strong and can kill with his hands, but he’s also expert with a pistol, as they all are. Salman el-Salim is an Arab, and he boasted to me that he’s carried out two hundred assassinations with the jambiya fighting knife. Sean O’Rourke is an Irishman, a disgraced British army officer, and a hired killer. He’s said to be very efficient. And finally, the German Helmut Klemm, a crack shot with a rifle who often kills at a distance. He never leaves Europe but made an exception for Stark since it’s such a big-money contract. He talked about retiring to his estate in Bavaria after this task is done.”

  Forester sighed, less than impressed. “Heck, Stark could’ve hired four guns in Texas to do the job, men who work cheap and know how to keep their traps shut.”

  Walzer shook his head. “Not, not that, never that. Mr. Stark has too much at stake, too much to lose, and I mean losing something . . . very precious to him. The assassins he’s hired will return to Europe after they honor the contract and will never be heard from again. Your Texas gunmen may know how to keep quiet . . . until they get drunk and boast to a gossipy whore about all the men they’ve killed or suddenly get a taste for a little blackmail. No, the risk is too great to use homegrown gunmen.” Walzer shook his head. “It’s out of the question.”

  He clapped his hands and said, smiling, “Now, enough of business for tonight. Are you sharp set?”

  “I had breakfast on the ship and nothing since,” Forester said.

  “Then, as an honored guest I must feed you,” Walzer said. “Unfortunately, I gave cook and the maids the day off, idle tongues you know, but the scullery maid is here. She’s a stupid, doltish girl, but she cooks plain fare quite well. I ordered a meal of roast beef, gravy, and potatoes if you’d care to make a trial of it.”

  “Suits me,” Forester said. “I got my belt cinched to the last notch.”

  “On the bright side, I have a very fine Napoleon brandy you can have with your coffee.”

  “Does the scullery maid make good coffee?”

  “No.”

  “Then thank God for Napoleon,” Forester said.

  CHAPTER THREE

  “His was not an easy death, Mr. Walzer,” Lewis the butler said, looking down at the twisted corpse on the floor.

  “No, it was not, Mr. Lewis. Cyanide can be so unpredictable,” Walzer said. “It took him five minutes to die. Too long, Mr. Lewis, too long. Indeed, it was a horrific, painful death. He said the brandy tasted bitter, and I think he knew. He was a strong man, and even when he was convulsing, he still tried to reach his carpetbag. Was there a firearm in there?”

  “Yes, sir, a .45 caliber Colt revolver. I took the liberty of removing it before I pretended to leave the house,”
the butler said.

  Thunder slammed, and then Walzer spoke into the following quiet. “Money? Was there money?”

  “Yes, sir, a large manila envelope, folded, and filled with high-denomination dollar bills. I left it on your desk in the study.”

  “What about the scullery maid?” Walzer said. “Does she suspect anything?”

  Lewis shook his head. “No, sir, not a thing.”

  “Are you sure, Mr. Lewis? If there’s the slightest doubt we can dispose of her.”

  “Annie Griggs is a dull, empty-headed girl who reads modern novels of the trashiest kind and lives her life through their pages,” the butler said. “We have nothing to fear.”

  Walzer seemed satisfied with that answer, but said, “Still, keep good watch on her. No gossip, Mr. Lewis. I want no gossip . . . no scullery maids tittle-tattling over their tea.”

  “Very good, sir,” the butler said. “As you ordered, Tom Watkins the cabbie is here.”

  “Right on time, as usual,” Walzer said. “Send him in.”

  Lewis bowed and left, and a few minutes later, Watkins stepped into the parlor, hat in hand, a powdering of sleet on his shoulders. The frayed ends of his muffler hung to his knees. He saw the body on the floor and said, “Poor American gentleman.”

  “It was necessary,” Walzer said. “Business is business, after all.”

  “Whatever you say, guv,” Tom Watkins said. “Necessity knows no law.”

  “I want you to get rid of the body,” Walzer said. “There’s a gold sovereign in it for you. And you can keep his watch and chain and boots but I’ll hold onto the sword cane.”

  “Thank’ee, guv. The American gentleman will slip into the Thames at Limehouse nice as you please,” Watkins said. “An’ him being a stranger here an’ all, nobody will ever be the wiser.”

  Walzer nodded and then toed Forester’s corpse. “Good. Now get rid of the damned thing. It’s making me quite depressed.”

  After a struggle, the stocky cabbie managed to sling Forester’s body over his shoulder. Panting, he said, “He’s a heavy gentleman, Mr. Walzer. But for a couple of pence I can hire an orphan boy to help me with him at the river. There’s plenty of ragamuffins sleeping in the streets around Limehouse and they’re terrified of the law.”