Worlds of Edgar Rice Burroughs Read Free Page B

not just because of what Mireau had asked him. It was an unhealthy place to be, the opposite of the life Tarzan preferred.
    He scanned the hallway and saw no one, nothing that caused that movement he had seen when he closed the door. Of course, the door was a thin one, and someone might have heard his voice as he got closer to it.
    He didn’t like the feeling he had, as if he were being watched. Better to get out of here and find out information on Jane on his own.
    He hurried down the stairs, wanting out of the Grand Post Office. Even the bright streets were better than this place.
    He was halfway down when he heard a gunshot. It had come from behind him.
    He pivoted, knowing the shot had something to do with him. He ran back up, keeping his eyes peeled for any more movement, knowing that someone could be staring down the sight of a gun at him even now.
    No one ran past him, but the hallway smelled of gun powder. The door to Mireau’s office was open, even though Tarzan had closed it behind him.
    Mireau sat back in his chair, a bullet hole in the center of his forehead, blood against the back wall. He still clutched the whiskey he had poured before Tarzan had left.
    Tarzan cursed. He heard footsteps on the stairs as others hurried up, but no one had come from this floor.
    He told himself that Mireau’s death had nothing to do with him, that the man had worked—in his words—on the “darker side of diplomacy” for a long time, and someone could have killed him for that.
    But still, the timing was suspicious. Tarzan did not go inside the office—he knew better because the footsteps on the stairs were getting closer. Someone could arrest him for the murder, even though he did not hold a gun.
    Instead, he walked through the hallway, looking for the cause of that movement earlier.
    Toward the back, the hallway was covered with dust, caused by construction that clearly continued. There were no footsteps in that dust, nor was there any indication that someone had leaned against the wall. But closer to the stairs, he saw one sandal print, and a stubbed-out cigarette butt. The sandal print was smaller than Tarzan’s shoe print—not that such a thing was unusual—but it was small enough that it seemed unusual.
    The footsteps on the stairs grew closer—the sound of stomping, really, and labored breathing. Only one person was coming the entire way up the stairs, and Tarzan thought that unusual too.
    If he went down now, he would be the only suspect in this murder, which he suspected he was meant to be. If he waited, he could shadow the other man down, and perhaps no one would notice him.
    Or maybe he could find another way out of this building—after the other man had left.
    Tarzan stepped into the shadows and waited for the man to finish his climb up the stairs.

    Arthur Beaton was too old to run up a flight of stairs, let alone several flights. Halfway up, his breath came in short bursts, and he got lightheaded. Still, he didn’t want to stop.
    No one else seemed alarmed that a gunshot resounded through the Grand Post Office. He would have thought it his imagination if it hadn’t been for the fact that two men near him peeled away from the walls and headed calmly outside.
    Several others walked out as well, not like men who had finished whatever task they had to do in a post office, but like guards at the end of a long shift.
    For one second, he debated following them, and then he remembered where he was.
    He was in Algiers. The local law had its own agenda and the French colonial government only cared if one of its own died. Beaton wasn’t certain if the French would consider faux Greystoke one of their own, but he didn’t want to risk it.
    If Greystoke were dead, Beaton wanted to see it for himself, so that he could report back to the English government.
    He knew that the body could be moved or tampered with immediately after the killing. He also knew he was running toward trouble, not away from it, so he pulled out