Free The Dead Can Wait by Robert Ryan Page A

Shelsey on a Crossley chassis. A very nice car. Warland Dual detachable rims, too. Probably the 25 HP model. Three occupants, none of them a chauffeur. Smartly dressed, two with dark oiled hair, one fair-haired. One of the former wearing spectacles.
    Seen it before, haven’t we? But where? Not here, not in Mayfair.
    At the hospital. When we fetched Watson. Only driver and one passenger then. The blond one. They’ve added an extra pair of hands since.
    Coyle examined the scene in his mind’s eye, almost as if he were watching a Vitascope. It was a trick he had. The Shelsey had driven off before he, Gibson and Watson had. Which meant what? That there had been no chance for these men to act there, which was true. Watson, Coyle and Gibson had exited the hospital cloaked by a phalanx of nurses changing shift, guiding them all the way to the car. If they had picked Coyle up en route and followed him, they must be good at what they did. Damned good.
    Then, as sometimes happened when he knew he had to act, his thumbs prickled. It was a strange sensation, almost like the chilblains he used to get as a kid. And, experience told him, it didn’t do to ignore his thumbs. Coyle waited until the car had gone by, peeled himself off the wall and ditched the cigarette. He looked back up the street at the mansion block where Gibson was waiting. He had to warn him that Watson’s life in danger.
    He had taken four steps when he glanced over his shoulder again, to see the Shelsey had turned and was coming back towards him. He unbuttoned his jacket, all thoughts of leaving the Bureau banished.

ELEVEN
     
    Winston Churchill barely glanced at the letter Watson was holding. ‘Would you have come for anyone else?’
    ‘Possibly not, but you could have tried first.’
    ‘I don’t have time for “trying”,’ the MP growled, tossing back the vermouth and heading for a refill. ‘How did you know it was a fake? The signature is bloody good. I got it copied from one of his letters.’
    Watson had to laugh at that. ‘Let me count the ways. The paper is wrong. The typewriter too new. The phrasing—’
    ‘All right, all right. Spare me the smart aleck analysis. Save that for your books.’ Churchill’s lisp was suddenly very pronounced. He picked up a cigar, abandoned in an ashtray, and puffed it back to life. ‘You’re here now. It did the job.’
    ‘And Holmes?’
    ‘He’s a difficult man.’
    Watson tried to make sure the alarm he felt at this didn’t show on his face. The fact that Churchill had stooped to forging a letter suggested Holmes was either indisposed or refusing to help the politician. ‘He is a very singular man.’
    ‘I think they say that about me, when they are trying to be polite. We have tried to engage him on several projects, including this one. Anyway, it was you we wanted. Well, I wanted.’
    ‘I wish I could say I was flattered.’
    Churchill studied Watson for a few moments, his face clenched like a pugilist’s fist. ‘There have been two great secrets in this war so far,’ the politician began. ‘One was the plan to get the soldiers off the beaches of Gallipoli without alerting the Turks to what was going on. That was a success, if you can call a retreat from such slaughter a success. And then there is the Scourge of Malice.’ He pointed again at the painting. ‘We are, in a manner of speaking, building our own Scourge.’
    ‘To strike terror, you said. Is it some form of ship?’
    ‘What makes you say that?’
    ‘Your background. First Lord of the Admiralty.’
    ‘Hmm.’ Churchill gave a flicker of a smile.
    ‘I would imagine you are developing some manner of new water-borne weapon.’
    ‘You’re close enough. But for the moment I can’t tell you what it is.’
    ‘Then why am I here?’ Watson relented and finally took a sip of warm vermouth.
    ‘Our Scourge had a malfunction. It killed seven men. Our own men. An eighth survived. Only he can tell us what happened. Until we know for certain