Free The Devil in Amber by Mark Gatiss Page B

didn’t belong to him.
    ‘Not on an empty stomach, thanks.’ I sank back onto a bar stool. Volatile was out cold. ‘I presume you’re working for Mons’s lot. You needed to rub out that fellah on the floor there before he told me all about your lord and master, eh?’
    He might have talked. We shall never know. Because I was just conscious of a vague movement behind me as someone emerged from the back of the drugstore, a small pinprick of pain on the back of my neck and then a warm, fuzzy, muffled darkness as I crashed to the floor.
     
    My tongue felt like a stick in my mouth. I blinked a couple of times and focused on a tobacco-soiled ceiling and bare bulb hanging from wire that looked like a string of liver. Turning my head slightly, I found that I was resting on a rough candy-striped pillow that had seen infinitely better days. I turned my head the other way and sat up with a yell.
    Sal Volatile lay naked in bed next to me, three holes in his chest leaking unhealthy gouts of blood onto the stained mattress.
    I blinked and stared at the body, my bare back hitting the cold plaster of the wall behind the bed. The Webley lay on the carpetless floor, and as I moved to get out of bed, I noticed that a man was sitting on a nearby stool, arms folded, smiling over at me with an infuriating insouciance. It was Percy Flarge.
    ‘Oh, Lor,’ he said, pulling a face. ‘Got ourselves into a bit of a pickle this time, eh, old fruit?’
    I didn’t move but glanced quickly around the grim, bare room. ‘What…what the hell’s going on, Flarge? Where am I?’
    ‘You tell me. Favourite haunt of yours, by all accounts. We got a tip-off from the owner. You and the stiff came in some time ago, high as kites by his account.’
    ‘He’s lying—’
    ‘Checked into your usual room. Started getting up to…whatever it is you chaps get up to,’ continued Flarge, hatefully. ‘Lovers’ tiff ensues and…well…’
    He gestured towards the corpse. ‘Funny thing,’ he grinned suddenly. ‘My Pa always said he supposed men like you shot themselves. Turns out, you shoot each other!’
    I tried to keep my temper and got to my feet, glancing down at Volatile’s stiffening form. ‘What the hell are you on about? Listen, Flarge. Percy. I was approached by this chap in connection with an assignment for the RA. We arranged to meet earlier this evening. Well, someone must’ve been onto him, because it was a trap. He was shot–but only wounded–and I was drugged…’
    Flarge took out a pipe and began to fill it. He looked thoroughly sceptical.
    I felt suddenly hot with rage. ‘Look here. We can sort all this out. Would you mind awfully if we get out of here and leave the Domestics to clear things up?’
    Flarge shook his head. ‘No can do.’
    The door to the squalid room suddenly flew open and a skinny man in the uniform of a police captain emerged. He looked at mypendulous, swinging tackle, swore under his breath and then, turning back to the open door, beckoned. A chattering flurry of people suddenly piled inside, two of them photographers. Flash bulbs zinged and whined in my face. I threw up my hands to shield myself.
    ‘I suggest we make a move, sir,’ said the captain.
    ‘I was just making the same suggestion,’ I said, looking about for my clothes. ‘Move where?’
    ‘To the station house, sir. Where you’ll be charged with murder.’

8
The Buttons Come Off the Foils
    T his was a new and peculiarly horrid sensation. As long-term readers may recall, I’ve been in at more kills than the average Scotland Yarder has had bully beef, the victim usually having been knocked off by yours truly. And always–barring the odd assignment well away from civilized society–things have been hushed up nicely by the Royal Academy. True, I had once spent a night in the cells of a filthy Chinese nick when some overzealous Cantonese mandarin (or a Mandarin Cantonese) threatened me with seven kinds of hell for despatching his Warlord chum