A Dangerous Fortune(123)
The coachman yelled and hauled on the reins. Solly stumbled, saw the horses almost on top of him, fell to the ground and screamed.
For a frozen moment Micky saw the charging horses, the heavy carriage wheels, the terrified coachman and the huge helpless form of Solly, flat on his back in the road.
Then the horses charged over Solly. Micky saw the fat body twist and writhe as the ironclad hooves pounded it. Then the front nearside wheel of the carriage struck Solly’s head a mighty blow, and he slumped unconscious. A split second later the rear wheel ran over his face and crushed his skull like an eggshell.
Micky turned away. He thought he was going to vomit but he managed to control the urge. Then he began to shake. He felt weak and faint, and he had to lean on the wall.
He forced himself to look at the motionless body in the road. Solly’s head was smashed, his face unrecognizable, blood and something else smeared over the road beside him. He was dead.
And Micky was saved.
Now Ben Greenbourne need never know what Augusta had done to him; the deal could go ahead; the railroad would be built; and Micky would be a hero in Cordova.
He felt a warm trickle on his lip. His nose was bleeding. He pulled out a handkerchief and dabbed at it.
He stared a moment longer at Solly. You only lost your temper once in your life, and it killed you, he thought.
He looked up and down the street in the gaslight. There was no one around. Only the coachman had seen what happened.
The carriage juddered to a halt thirty yards down the road. The coachman leaped down and a woman looked out of the window. Micky turned and walked quickly away, heading back toward Pall Mall.
A few seconds later he heard the coachman call after him: “Hey! You!”
He walked faster and turned the corner into Pall Mall without looking back. A moment later he was lost in the crowd.
By God, I did it, he thought. Now that he could no longer see the mangled body, the sense of disgust was passing, and he began to feel triumphant. Quick thinking and bold action had enabled him to overcome yet another obstacle.
He hurried up the steps of the club. With luck nobody would have noticed his absence, he hoped; but as he passed through the front door he had the bad fortune to bump into Hugh Pilaster going out.
Hugh nodded to him and said: “Evening, Miranda.”
“Evening, Pilaster,” said Micky; and he went in, cursing Hugh under his breath.
He went to the cloakroom. His nose was red from Solly’s punch but otherwise he just appeared a little rumpled. He straightened his clothing and brushed his hair. As he did so he thought about Hugh Pilaster. If Hugh had not been right there on the doorstep at the wrong moment, nobody would have known Micky had even left the club—he had been gone for only a few minutes. But did it really matter? No one was going to suspect Micky of killing Solly, and if they did, the fact that he had left his club for a few minutes would not prove anything. Still, he no longer had a watertight alibi, and that worried him.
He washed his hands thoroughly and hurried up the stairs to the card room.
Edward was already playing baccarat and there was an empty seat at the table. Micky sat down. No one commented on the length of time he had been away.
He was dealt a hand. “You look a bit seasick,” said Edward.
“Yes,” he said calmly. “I think the fish soup may not have been perfectly fresh tonight.”
Edward waved at a waiter. “Bring this man a glass of brandy.”
Micky looked at his cards. He had a nine and a ten, the perfect hand. He bet a sovereign.
He just could not lose today.
2
HUGH WENT TO SEE MAISIE two days after Solly died.
He found her alone, sitting quiet and still on a sofa, neatly dressed in a black gown, looking small and insignificant in the splendor of the drawing room at the palatial Piccadilly house. Her face was lined with grief and she looked as if she had not slept. His heart ached for her.
She threw herself into his arms and said: “Oh, Hugh, he was the best of us!”
When she said that, Hugh himself could not keep the tears back. Until this moment he had been too stunned to cry. It was a dreadful fate to die as Solly had, and he deserved it less than any man Hugh could name. “There was no malice in him,” he said. “He seemed incapable of it. I knew him for fifteen years and I can’t remember a single time when he was unkind to someone.”
“Why do such things happen?” Maisie said miserably.
Hugh hesitated. Just a few days ago he had learned, from Tonio Silva, that Micky Miranda had killed Peter Middleton all those years ago. Because of that, Hugh could not help wondering whether Micky had had something to do with the death of Solly. The police were looking for a well-dressed man who had been arguing with Solly just before he was run over. Hugh had seen Micky entering the Cowes Club at around the time Solly died, so he had certainly been in the neighborhood.
But there was no motive: quite the reverse. Solly had been on the point of closing the Santamaria railroad deal that was so close to Micky’s heart. Why would he kill his benefactor? Hugh decided to say nothing to Maisie about his unfounded suspicions. “It seems to have been a tragic accident,” he said.
“The coachman thinks Solly was pushed. Why would the witness run away if he wasn’t guilty?”
“He may have been attempting to rob Solly. That’s what the newspapers are saying, anyway.” The papers were full of the story. It was a sensational case: the grisly death of a prominent banker, one of the richest men in the world.