“What’s that for?” Cannon asked, his eyes narrowing.
“Just precaution,” Gilbert said quietly. “I’m going to give you the combination now, and I’ll feel safer having you covered once you have that. I plan to keep the ten thousand I have in my pocket.”
“You think of all the angles, don’t you?” Cannon said coldly. “What’s the correct combination?”
“R-3, L-27, R-4, L-2. Better repeat it to yourself a few times.”
Cannon soundlessly began moving his lips. After a time he said aloud, “R-3, L-27, R-4, L-2.” He gave Gilbert a questioning look.
“You have it,” Gilbert said with approval. “Emily is in her chair watching television. Do you have your disguise?”
Reaching into his inside breast pocket, Cannon drew out the false nose and fitted it into place. The shotgun continued to bear on him.
With a frown Cannon said, “Well, get started next door.”
The liquor dealer’s teeth showed in the darkness. “I don’t think I want to turn my back on you, friend. I’ll go next door after you’re inside.”
“You’re a trusting soul,” Cannon growled.
He circled the man and the shotgun moved with him. He was conscious of it still aimed at his back when he reached the side door. Trying the door, he found it unlocked, pushed it open, then glanced back toward the garage. Gilbert stepped from shadow into moonlight, the shotgun now aimed downward. Lifting one hand in a salute, the man moved off across the lawn toward the house next door.
Cannon entered the house and quietly shut the door behind him.
There was only a dim light on in the hall, which bisected the house from one side to the other. At its far end he could see the stairs. His feet moved soundlessly on the thick carpeting as he went the length of the hall and climbed the stairs to the upper floor. There was a night light on in the upper hall too. Without sound he moved to the second door on the right and placed his ear against it. Inside he could hear a television set going.
Drawing his gun, he flicked off the safety, placed his hand on the knob, turned it and slammed the door wide open.
Directly facing him was a middle-aged, gray-haired woman seated in a wheelchair. She wore a robe over a nightgown and her eyes were burning with rage. Her lips were moving soundlessly in what seemed to be mute curses. Both hands rested on the arms of the chair and the right one held a revolver, its butt firmly set against the wood of the chair arm. The muzzle pointed straight at the doorway.
Cannon reacted faster than he had ever reacted in his life. His finger was squeezing the trigger before the knob of the door crashed back against the wall.
The bullet caught the woman squarely in the heart. Her mouth popped open and her right arm jolted from the chair to hang downward, still gripping the gun. She made a gurgling noise in her throat and her head slowly slumped to her chest.
With one stride Cannon was across the room and had jerked her head up by the hair. One look was enough. She had died instantly.
Flicking on his safety, he shoved the gun into his belt and moved to the picture on the north wall. Jerking it from its hook, he flung it aside. Behind it, just as Gilbert had said, was a small wall safe.
Mouthing the numbers aloud, he rapidly spun the dial. Within a matter of seconds the safe was open. His eyes lighted with satisfaction at the thick stack of currency inside. He didn’t bother to count it, ramming it into various pockets as rapidly as he could. It took both coat pockets and both side pockets of his trousers to hold it all.
Within a minute and a half of the time he had entered the room, he strode out again and ran toward the stairs.
He came to an abrupt halt as he rounded the corner and reached the top of the stairs. On the landing below him stood Arthur Gilbert with the shotgun aimed upward. He was smiling quite calmly-
Cannon’s last thought was the indignant realization that Arthur Gilbert had lied to him. The liquor dealer had said he wasn’t a courageous man. In that final moment Cannon could tell by the expression on his face that he was as cold-blooded and emotionless as Cannon himself, no doubt about it.
He made a frantic grab for his belt, got the gun halfway out just as both barrels of the shotgun blasted. He felt a searing flash of pain which seemed to encompass his whole body, then he felt nothing.
Stepping over the dead man, Arthur Gilbert moved to the open door of his wife’s bedroom. Viewing the scene inside with satisfaction, he leaned his shotgun outside the door and went inside.
He had some difficulty prying her stiff fingers away from the gun, nearly as much as he had had earlier when he forced them around it. When it was free, he dropped the gun into the drawer of the bedside stand and closed the drawer.
Then he left the room and went downstairs.
The side door burst open just as he reached the bottom of the stairs. A tall, lean man of about fifty rushed in, came to an abrupt halt and stared at Gilbert. Moving toward him like a sleepwalker, Gilbert allowed his face to assume an expression of dazed shock.
“For God’s sake, what was all the shooting?” the lean man inquired.
Gilbert said dully, “The Nose Bandit, Don. Miss Prentice must have left the door unlatched when she left. I was in the basement cleaning my new shotgun when I heard the shot. I loaded it and rushed upstairs just in time to meet him coming down. He’s dead. I let him have both barrels.”
“What about Emily?” his brother-in-law asked.
“That was the first shot,” Gilbert said, his face squeezing into an expression of grief. “Her bedroom safe is wide open and she’s dead. He killed her.”
“Oh, no!” the lean man said in a horrified voice. “Poor Emily!”
Between Two Woman
by C. B. Gilford
The lowly hangover is an affliction reflecting real misery. Fortunately, however, there is a limit to human suffering, a point beyond which one might as well be dead.
Tony Courtner had already had too much to drink. In the inner recesses of his mind he was aware of this fact. But he mixed himself another batch of martinis anyway, maybe just to spite Alison. Maybe she was the reason he drank; maybe she wasn’t. He’d sort of lost track.
“Tony, please.”
That was about all she could say to him these days, “Tony, please.” She sat over in the far corner of the sofa, wanting to keep an eye on him, wanting to count his drinks, but definitely not wanting to be too near him, not wanting him to touch her. Her brown eyes watched him. Her hair, the same color, was still slightly mussed from the tussle they’d had when she’d tried to stop him from taking the bottle of gin from the cabinet. She was a tiny woman and hadn’t been any match for him.
“Tony, let’s have dinner. The roast will be terribly overdone.”
“Then take it out of the oven,” he told her curtly. “Want to have a couple of drinks before dinner.”
“A couple! You’ve had six.”
So that was how many he’d had. Six. There wasn’t more than an inch of gin left in the bottom of the bottle. “I need another bottle,” he told her.
“There isn’t any more.”
“Look, I bought a whole case.”
“Yes, Tony, about three weeks ago, but it’s all gone. You drank it.”
“Well, I distinctly told you I wanted a supply of liquor kept in the house. You bring in everything else. You’re never lacking for anything, I notice. Always plenty of yogurt and carrot juice and that other stuff in the refrigerator. Well, gin is my health food, do you understand? Do you understand, Alison? Need I repeat myself?”