Longarm almost regretted what he had to do. Almost, that is, but not in a big way.
The Brit had had his chance to give himself up, and if he wanted now to respond with a revolver … it was his choice.
Longarm’s Colt appeared in his fist with the speed of a magician’s sleight of hand.
The .44 roared, the sound of it shattering in the closed confinement of a room even the size of the hotel ballroom.
The two bodyguards, obviously no strangers to quick mayhem, pushed their hands high into the air and stood stone still.
Lord Matthew Welpole was still also, but only for a few lingering moments.
Then he collapsed. Very slowly, first sagging slightly at the knees, and then the torso doubling forward. Finally he dropped to the floor, the unfired Webley beneath his body.
A bright scarlet pool began to form under him and to spread across the shiny parquet flooring.
“Guess I won’t arrest him after all,” Longarm said.
“We weren’t … I mean …”
“It’s all right. You’re both out of it. You made that clear enough.”
“Yeah.”
“Tell you what you can do now, if you would.”
“Yes?”
“Whyn’t you go tell Dame Edith she’ll have to find a new game to play. She finally lost this one.”
“Lost? Marshal, I guess you don’t understand.”
“How’s that, Milton?”
“Maybe it isn’t my place to say anything, but I been with the party since they came ashore in New York. And a person hears things, you know? Kind of puts things together sometimes?”
“Yes?”
“That woman upstairs, Marshal. She just won the game she was playing.”
“How does that figure?”
“She inherits, Marshal. Everything that poor bastard had is hers now.”
Longarm felt like the bodyguard had just kicked him in the stomach. Or worse.
Milton and the other guard turned and left the Crystal Room, leaving Longarm alone with a dead man. And with his own thoughts.
Dame Edith Fullerton-Welpole, Edy the high-kicking showgirl, won the final deal of the game. And there was not a single damn thing Custis Long could do about it.
Slowly, wearily, he reloaded the one fired chamber in his Colt and shoved the revolver back into his holster. What had he told Bill Fay? There are no guarantees in life. And what a pity that was, eh?
He turned and walked away, through the lobby and onto the street, ignoring the snotty desk clerk whose questions hammered at him.
