“Good,” Victoria answered with relief. “You know sometimes, sister, I’m afraid we might give one of them a little too much, and the old fellow will have a, weak heart or something, and then we really will have a corpse on our hands.”
“It’s a chance we have to take.” Celestine said philosophically. “Every business has its little risks.”
“True, sister, true,” Victoria agreed, perking up.
“We must consider the alternative, you know. That silly Madeline would have married him, and we’d have lost a good boarder. Why, by this time we’d have lost all of them.”
“Shall we run another ad?”
“Oh yes, as soon as possible.”
“Do you think Madeline will be inconsolable?”
“Not if we get another fine specimen like Justin. Hope springs eternal.”
So saying, Celestine Carter sat down at the escritoire with her quill pen. “Now how do we word it? Oh yes. ‘Single gentleman...’ ”
Justin Gravelle read the advertisement, but he didn’t answer it. Nor did he take his story to the police. He concluded wisely that the police would hardly take the word of a broken-down old bum against that of a houseful of respectable ladies.
He also considered courting Madeline. But he decided against that too. After all, it was possible that she had murdered one of his predecessors when the luck had run against her.
Run, Murderer, Run!
by Bryce Walton
“Long live the King!” is the cry of loyal subjects. Assassins or regicides, however, express themselves somewhat differently.
I sat in the winged leather chair sipping Armagnac, an excellent wine rather soured by the ugliness of my host. He waddled to a decanter tray and the mere effort involved in picking up a bottle of whiskey made him wheeze.
I loathed abnormality. Distortions of human figures sometimes actually filled me with a nauseous horror. And Mr. Muruk was a genuine bundle of zinc-gray suet.
He settled behind a teakwood desk and glanced at an antique clock on the wall. “Exactly on time, Mr. Weston.”
“And I’d rather not waste it on unnecessary preliminary details,” I said. “I’m interested first of all in the price you’re offering.”
“You Americans. The price must be right, eh?”
I glanced through the ceiling-high windows at an edge of the UN building, silhouetted above the East River. “I don’t want you to underestimate the value I place on killing a man, Mr. Muruk. And also don’t want any awkward repercussions to result from our interview.”
Mr. Muruk gave one of those very eloquent Far Eastern shrugs. “You have a fine reputation in your field, Mr. Weston. A cautious and conservative and successful man. I should think you would be financially secure.”
“Not quite,” I said. “You see, I’ve never operated on any quantitative basis. I get no personal pleasure directly from my work. It’s never very exciting or stimulating and it’s often dull. It’s strictly a business. I do it for only one reason — financial gain. But I’m very selective and I operate on a strict qualitative level. For, you see, I have a deep conviction about killing.”
“What is this conviction?” asked Mr. Muruk.
“A sensitive and sane man can allow himself only a certain number of killings. Beyond that, he’s absolutely corrupted. I know that one more is all my conscience, such as it is, will tolerate.”
“So this job must be conclusively rewarding. I see, Mr. Weston.”
“I need enough from this one to retire,” I added.
Mr. Muruk grunted and lifted a leather bag to the top of the desk and slid it toward me. “I don’t represent some small organization or an individual,” he said. “But a nation, my own country. For a purpose such as this, we can allot considerable funds.”
I snapped open the bag, pleasantly taut with crisp packets of fifty dollar bills.
“Count it if you wish, Mr. Weston. Fifty thousand, would that be an adequate persuader? Fifty thousand more if you succeed? In unmarked American cash?”
I hesitated.
“Count it if you wish?”
“Oh no,” I said. It was more than enough, I decided, and there was no sense in traditional quibbling. “We’re in business. I must ask you to make the briefing as quick and to the point as possible. And another things, before there’s any further commitment. I never use a gun. Guns are dangerous and noisy. They’re also gross and unpleasant.”
“I know.”
“I prefer a job demanding the simplest and least brutal method.”
Mr. Muruk nodded. “So do we.” He sighed and waddled back to the decanter and poured more whiskey. “We have tried many approaches. All of them, subtle or otherwise, have failed.” He drank and shuddered, almost imperceptibly. “A number of internationally reputed gentlemen of your profession have been interviewed by me and sent out from almost every important capital city in the world. Failure, sir, failure every time. To say the least, our proposed victim seems to bear a charmed life.”
I smiled. “You Europeans have over-indulged perhaps. As with too much whiskey or too many women, sensitivity and imagination become blunted by excess. Couldn’t it be that repeated murders en masse squeezed the small individual job out of focus?”
“Maybe you are right,” Mr. Muruk said. “And a fresh direct American approach is what we need. Fortunately our victim’s coming to New York has made you, with your American vigor and calculated zest, available for testing.”
“There is nothing easier than killing a man,” I said. “It can be as simple as stepping on a cockroach. But it must be detached. A mere job that is never an end in itself.” Mr. Muruk smiled. “The price takes care of everything.”
“Exactly,” I said.
“Are you interested in international politics, Mr. Weston?”
“Hardly at all. But I read the papers.”
“Then you may be familiar with a small Near Eastern country rich in oil and ignorance. It is called Balikshar.”
“Yes,” I said. “King Asazian.”
Mr. Muruk nodded gloomily through the window. “Little King Asazian. You may know that five years ago he was ousted by a revolution without being assassinated, or formally surrendering his claim to rule. He was stabbed some twenty times and shot once, but proved, then as now, to be astonishingly durable,”
“I don’t see what it has to do with my job now,” I said.
“Impatience isn’t supposed to be part of your character.”
“I don’t like a thing cluttered up with nonessentials,” I said. “I can’t possibly share your motives, for wanting King Asazian eliminated. Can’t we dispense with background data?”
“Time hasn’t dulled my emotional involvement,” Mr. Muruk said sadly. “You see, he claims to be the King of Balikshar in Exile. As long as he remains alive, he will command a considerable and dangerous following in my country. Counter revolutions are a constant irritation.”
“It still adds up only to his being here alive,” I said. “I fail to see that it means anything else as far as I’m concerned.”
“Of course, Mr. Weston. But I must point out that, being an international figure, he is always under heavy Federal and local, round-the-clock guard. Particularly here in the United States. Because your government is especially sympathetic with his cause, not ours.”
“I expect legal inconveniences and other obstacles,” I said.
“He’s a patient in a Long Island hospital undergoing complex surgery. I’ll give you the pertinent details. He came here for special treatment, just as he has visited every major city in the civilized world for some specific medical or surgical need. King Asazian is a very old man, Mr. Weston. I wouldn’t presume to say how old, no one knows. Let me only say that our efforts should not normally be necessary. He should long ago have died from natural causes.”