The Titanic Secret Read Online Free

waiting for the second man to appear.
    He almost missed it. He was looking at the wrong end of the landing when the barrel of the shotgun appeared. Tremayne glanced to his left as his peripheral vision detected the slight movement. Then he flung himself backwards into the old parlour. There was a thunderous roar, and the expanding blast of shot from the twelve-bore blew a ragged hole through the bottom section of the parlour door and part of the wall. If Tremayne had still been standing by the door, he would at best have lost a leg.
    He stepped forward cautiously, and risked a quick glance upwards. He couldn’t see the other man, but he could hear him stepping across the landing.
    Tremayne could also hear the unmistakable metallic snicking sound as he closed the breech of the shotgun, which meant he knew what he was doing. Instead of firing both barrels one after the other, after which he would have disarmed himself, the man had clearly ejected the spent cartridge case and loaded another shell, so now he again had two rounds in the weapon. And Tremayne knew that at close quarters, a shotgun was just as lethal – in fact, arguably even more lethal because of the way the shot spread – than a pistol. The only advantage he had was that the shotgun was a full-length weapon, and so it would be more difficult to handle within the confines of the house.
    His problem was that the man upstairs would have a clear shot at him from the landing as soon as Tremayne stepped out of the parlour. What he had to do was get on the other side of the hallway, underneath the landing. And he knew he’d have to do that quickly, before it dawned on the man upstairs that he could use the girl as a shield.
    Tremayne pulled the parlour door open all the way, took another look up the stairs and then immediately stepped back from the doorway. In that split second, he’d seen a bulky figure at the far end of the landing, peering over the banister rail, the shotgun pointing down the stairs.
    To step outside the parlour would be suicidal, but Tremayne had no option but to try. He’d just have to hope his reactions were faster than the other man’s. He took a deep breath, checked that the Webley was ready to fire, then moved forward, stopping just inside the room.
    Then he thrust his right arm outside the parlour, aimed the pistol up the staircase, and pulled the trigger. The instant the weapon fired, he ran forward, taking giant strides across the hall. And at the same moment, the man above him pulled the trigger of the shotgun, the bellow of the twelve-bore much louder than the pistol shot.
    Tremayne felt a sudden stabbing pain in the back of his right leg as he leapt forward, but he ignored it. He slammed into the opposite wall of the hallway, already raising the Webley revolver and looking for a target. But the man had ducked back out of sight.
    Then Tremayne heard the shotgun being reloaded and knew he had only seconds before the man would probably start firing blind down the staircase. He needed to get out of range, fast.
    Opposite the parlour door was a second door leading off from the hall. Tremayne took two steps over to it and kicked it open. The man would have no doubt about what he’d just done, and hopefully would assume he now knew where the intruder was.
    Tremayne stopped and moved silently back to the centre of the hall. He knew that now he held a very slight advantage. He still couldn’t see the other man, but he could hear him.
    Seconds later, the shotgun barrels reappeared, aiming towards the second doorway, and almost immediately the man fired the weapon.
    The blast of pellets slammed into the floor just a few feet from where Tremayne was standing, and immediately he returned fire, pointing the Webley at the underside of the wooden floorboards of the landing.
    The pistol roared and bucked in his hand, the heavy bullet smashing straight through the wood. He heard a curse from above him, an expression of fear, and knew that his shot