The English Assassin Read Online Free

Mozart
Clarinet Quintet in A
on the deck.
    “Mein Gott!” said Eva self-consciously. “What caused that?”
    Una Persson shrugged. “Some form of hydrophilia, I gather. A disease with symptoms similar to enteritis in cats.”
    “I mourn the Age of Steam,” said Lobkowitz returning with a box of
Rising Sun
matches. They were made by the Western India Match Co. Ltd.
    “A peculiar diagnosis.” Eva Knecht bent to look more closely at the creature. “Where was it found?”
    “On the coast of North Cornwall, eventually, but he’d been seen once or twice earlier. They think he went in somewhere around the Bay of Bengal. I was to take delivery of five cases of M16s?”
    “Yes, yes, of course.” Lobkowitz indicated the crates laid out under the grand piano. “With ammunition. Shall I get someone to load them for you, or…?”
    “Thank you very much.”
    Lobkowitz pulled a frayed velvet bell rope near the mantelpiece. “This is the old Bismarck mansion,” he told her.
    “I gathered.” With a battered brass Dunhill Una Persson lit a long brown Sherman cigarettello. “I should like to wash my hair before I leave.”
    As best she could, Eva Knecht flounced from the room. “I’ll check if the water’s on.”
    Four ex-POWs with shaven heads and wearing stained blue dungarees came in and began to take the crates of M16s outside to Una Persson’s SD Kfz 233 armoured truck. The ornate ormolu ‘Empire’ style telephone commenced to ring. Lobkowitz ignored it. “They all do that. It means nothing.”
    “Well, I think I’ll just…” Una Persson strode across and lifted the receiver to her head. “Hello.”
    She listened for a moment and then replaced the receiver. “A sort of rushing noise.”
    “That’s right.” Lobkowitz moved rapidly towards her, his spur jingling. “Jesus Christ, I’d like to…”
    She placed a small hand against his chest and kissed him on the chin.
    Eva Knecht stood in the doorway, one hand clutching her Jaeger cardigan round her shoulders. “I’m afraid there’ll be no more water today.”
    Una Persson stepped away from Prinz Lobkowitz and nodded gravely at Eva. “I’ll be off, then.”
    Lobkowitz coughed behind his hand. His eyes fell on his right boot and for the first time he noticed that he was still wearing one spur. He bent to unstrap it. “Don’t leave, yet…” He glanced up at Eva and added briskly: “Well, cheerio, my dear.”
    “Cheerio,” said Una Persson. Decisively, she left the room.
    Eva Knecht glared at Lobkowitz as he straightened to his feet, holding the spur in his hand. “Mozart!” she said. “I should have…”
    “Don’t be corny, sweet.” Lobkowitz put the spur on a pearl inlay table.
    “Corny!”
    Picking up an Erma 9mm machine pistol from the Jacobean sideboard, she offered him a round in the hip. He pursed his lips as if objecting to the noise rather than the pain, and went down on one knee as the dark stains dilated on his jacket and pinstripes. He clutched the ruined hip.
    She spent the rest of the clip on his face. He fell. Smashed.
    Una Persson came back at the sound. She raised her S&W and shot Eva Knecht once below the left shoulder blade. The bullet entered Eva’s jealous heart and she toppled forward. Murdered.
    Eva Knecht’s murderess took a black beret from the pocket of her maxi-coat and adjusted it on her head, glancing once into the mirror above the mantel. For a moment she looked thoughtfully from the coffin to the corpses. She replaced the S&W in her other pocket. She opened her mouth a quarter of an inch and then closed it. She took off the Mozart and flicked through the pile of albums on the floor until she found a Bach Brandenburg Concerto. She put the record on the deck, glanced down at the contents of the coffin, hovered undecidedly by the door, and then she left as quickly as her coat would let her.
    The Brandenburg was an inferior performance, spoiled further by a persistent screeching from the box.
    From below there