A Gun for Sale Read Free

eyes, like little concealed cameras, photographed the room instantaneously: the desk, the easy chair, the map on the wall, the door to the bedroom behind, the wide window above the bright cold Christmas street. A small oil-stove was all the heating, and the Minister was having it used now to boil a saucepan. A kitchen alarm-clock on the desk marked seven o’clock. A voice said, ‘Emma, put in another egg.’ The Minister came out from the bedroom. He had tried to tidy himself, but he had forgotten the cigarette ash on his trousers, and his fingers were ink-stained. The secretary took an egg out of one of the drawers in the desk. ‘And the salt. Don’t forget the salt,’ the Minister said. He explained in slow English, ‘It prevents the shell cracking. Sit down, my friend. Make yourself at home. Emma, you can go.’
    Raven sat down and fixed his eyes on the Minister’s chest. He thought: I’ll give her three minutes by the alarm-clock to get well away: he kept his eyes on the Minister’s chest: just there I’ll shoot. He let his coat collar fall and saw with bitter rage how the old man turned away from the sight of his harelip.
    The Minister said, ‘It’s years since I heard from him. But I’ve never forgotten him, never. I can show you his photograph in the other room. It’s good of him to think of an old friend. So rich and powerful too. You must ask him when you go back if he remembers the time –’ A bell began to ring furiously.
    Raven thought: the telephone. I cut the wire. It shook his nerve. But it was only the alarm-clock drumming on the desk. The Minister turned it off. ‘One egg’s boiled,’ he said and stooped for the saucepan. Raven opened his attaché case: in the lid he had fixed his automatic fitted with a silencer. The Minister said: ‘I’m sorry the bell made you jump. You see I like my egg just four minutes.’
    Feet ran along the passage. The door opened. Raven turned furiously in his seat, his hare-lip flushed and raw. It was the secretary. He thought: my God, what a household. They won’t let a man do things tidily. He forgot his lip, he was angry, he had a grievance. She came in flashing her gold teeth, prim and ingratiating. She said, ‘I was just going out when I heard the telephone,’ then she winced slightly, looked the other way, showed a clumsy delicacy before his deformity which he couldn’t help noticing. It condemned her. He snatched the automatic out of the case and shot the Minister twice in the back.
    The Minister fell across the oil stove; the saucepan upset and the two eggs broke on the floor. Raven shot the Minister once more in the head, leaning across the desk to make quite certain, driving the bullet hard into the base of the skull, smashing it open like a china doll’s. Then he turned on the secretary; she moaned at him; she hadn’t any words; the old mouth couldn’t hold its saliva. He supposed she was begging him for mercy. He pressed the trigger again; she staggered under it as if she had been kicked by an animal in the side. But he had miscalculated. Her unfashionable dress, the swathes of useless material in which she hid her body, had perhaps confused his aim. And she was tough, so tough he couldn’t believe his eyes; she was through the door before he could fire again, slamming it behind her.
    But she couldn’t lock it; the key was on his side. He twisted the handle and pushed; the elderly woman had amazing strength; it only gave two inches. She began to scream some word at the top of her voice.
    There was no time to waste. He stood away from the door and shot twice through the woodwork. He could hear the pince-nez fall on the floor and break. The voice screamed again and stopped; there was a sound outside as if she were sobbing. It was her breath going out through her wounds. Raven was satisfied. He turned back to the Minister.
    There was a clue he had been ordered to leave; a clue he had to remove. The letter of introduction was on the desk. He put