Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 52, No. 7 & 8, July/August 2007
- Автор: Baldwin Barry, Campbell Melodie
- Год: 2007
- Язык: английский
- Год: Dell Magazines
- ISBN: ISSN:0002-5224
- Жанр: Другие детективы
Электронная книга - «Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 52, No. 7 & 8, July/August 2007». Краткое содержание книги:
Miss Parson laughed — not a cruel chuckle, but an honestly delighted peal of merriness. “Why Mr. Callaghan, for a boxer you are remarkably naïve. Mr. Sully doesn’t care if I notice him cheating. The worst I would do is leave the game.”
“You wouldn’t accuse him?”
“Of course not, a woman plays cards on men’s sufferance. If one man accuses another of cheating, there are a whole range of options available to the accused, including drawing a gun and shooting his accuser. Women complicate matters. If I accuse a man of cheating, I would expect to be dismissed from the game. You see, men have no acceptable method to challenge my accusation other than to get rid of me. No, Mr. Sully is not worried about me.”
“I see,” Corey said. “Or maybe I don’t see. Why do you think Sully isn’t playing?”
“I don’t know,” Miss Parson admitted, “but when I add this to Lieutenant Ridgewood’s problems, it makes me wonder about Mr. Sully’s other professions.”
“I see,” Corey said again, this time really understanding her concern. “Should we warn the lieutenant?”
“Warn him of what?” Miss Parson said. “A man I think might be a thief, might be responsible for his men missing the train at Laramie, and might be planning to steal the payroll under his protection. Why would Lieutenant Ridgewood believe us?”
“It still seems like we should try,” Corey answered.
Miss Parson sighed. “I know it does, Mr. Callaghan. I keep reminding myself that it’s really none of my business, but I’m not wholly comfortable with the decision.”
She looked about and spotted a matronly woman selling cold dinners. “Now shall we attend to our immediate concerns before we find ourselves left behind like the lieutenant’s soldiers?”
Corey and Miss Parson reboarded the train with two minutes to spare, their arms full of Rawlings Station’s notion of an evening meal. There were hunks of bread, cold potatoes, and a few pieces of chicken to be shared with Patrick and the priest.
“Cold again,” Patrick noted with a grimace. “You would think that since the station has the train’s schedule, it could try to cook food to be hot when the train arrives.”
His complaints did not appear to diminish his appetite.
A soldier appeared carrying food for Lieutenant Ridgewood and Miss Davis. The lieutenant appeared calmer than he had in the station, suggesting that nothing new had been amiss in the baggage car.
Thinking of the lieutenant’s problems reminded Corey of Jim Sully, and he twisted in his seat to look about the car but saw no sign of the man. He turned back toward Miss Parson, lifting his eyebrow in query when he caught her eye. She shook her head but said nothing.
With the hissing release of steam, the train began to roll forward. Perkins appeared in the door behind Miss Parson, almost having missed the train. Sully did not appear behind him. Perhaps Miss Parson’s suspicions had been wrong.
Perkins found his seat. He held a half-eaten leg of chicken in his right hand, and his mouth was full of unchewed meat. “Give me a moment,” he suggested, forcing the words out through the food in his mouth. “I’ll be ready to play again in a minute.”
“No hurry on our account,” Miss Parson assured him, then took a far more delicate bite from a chicken breast.
Perkins ignored her, stuffing more meat into his mouth before tossing the stripped leg onto the floor beside him. He wiped his hands on his vest and then reached for the cards.
“I’ve only got a couple more stops to win my money back,” he told them. “Let’s play some cards.”
Perkins, it appeared, should not have been in such a hurry, for when play resumed all luck seemed to flow the lieutenant’s way. It began with the first hand Perkins dealt, dropping a natural full house in front of the lieutenant. Two middling hands followed that didn’t amount to much as Father Murphy and Patrick took their turns dealing the cards, then Miss Davis carefully shuffled the deck and dealt out another hand. The lieutenant bid high for him — two full dollars. Miss Parson folded almost without considering her cards. Perkins stayed in the game, but Father Murphy quickly followed Miss Parson. Patrick licked his lips and matched the bet, while Miss Davis reluctantly folded.
The lieutenant claimed two cards. Perkins tossed in his hand, and Patrick, confident in his coming victory, took two as well.
The lieutenant looked suddenly very seriously at his hand, eyes growing wide with surprise. He looked down at his cards and bid three more dollars. Patrick foolishly matched the bet and called.
Lieutenant Ridgewood placed four sixes on the table. Patrick threw his three eights onto the deck in a gesture of disgust.
And that was the way it went for the next thirty minutes, with the lieutenant handily winning a third of the hands and Patrick’s once large pot slowly deserting him. He was just starting to get angry when a sharp lurch shook the car and the whole motion of the train altered.
“Did you feel that, Corey me lad?” Patrick asked.
Corey was looking about him, the same as most of the other passengers. Something was amiss with the way they were moving forward, but he couldn’t quite put his finger on what was wrong.
Perkins began to scoop up his money, stuffing the coins into his pocket. Everyone else was listening to the sound the train made as it raced along the tracks. “Are we slowing down?” Lieutenant Ridgewood asked, rising from his chair.
Shots rang out from somewhere up ahead of them — four or five bullets fired all in a rush.
The lieutenant turned toward the front of the train in astonishment, clearly realizing at least part of what was happening. “My men!” he shouted and began to step toward them.
Perkins, sitting across from the lieutenant, shoved the table hard into his retreating form. It wouldn’t have been possible in a luxury car where the tables were bolted to the floor, but in this makeshift arrangement the edge of the table struck hard against the lieutenant’s hip and knocked over Miss Parson as well, for good measure.
Corey sprang to his feet, but somehow Perkins had gotten a small pistol into his hands, and he spun and whipped it against Corey’s face. The boxer went down hard, momentarily blinded by the blow.
A final shot sounded ahead of them, followed by an ominous silence.
“We are slowing down,” Father Murphy announced. His voice sounded small and overwhelmed by the events exploding around him. “The sound of the engine is growing fainter and we’re slowing down.”
On his hands and knees, struggling to clear his head, Corey could not tell if the priest was right or wrong. He blinked his eyes ferociously until the spots in them faded sufficiently to let him look for Perkins’s boots.
“Why did you hit my Corey?” Patrick was shouting.
Perkins evidently ignored him, flipping the poker table over onto Miss Parson and moving toward the lieutenant.
As Corey’s vision finally cleared, the large man was striking the lieutenant again and again to make certain he stayed on the floor.
The door at the front of the car opened, admitting Jim Sully. “We’ve got it!” he told Perkins.
“Good!” Perkins answered him. “Now take a man and go to the horses. I want them out of the stock car and back up here as soon as these cars stop rolling. I’ll hold these sheep here.”
Sully grunted and disappeared back out the door.
Miss Parson and Patrick appeared to be unharmed. She pulled herself out from under the table into a sitting position. Patrick stood next to Father Murphy, gaping at Perkins and the chaos he was causing. The lieutenant was not so lucky. He lay on the floor where he had fallen, blood welling from injuries on the back of his scalp. “My men,” he groaned.