Murder in The Smokehouse: (Auguste Didier Mystery 7) (31 page)

Auguste glanced upwards. He was almost directly underneath the waterfall. If he could make the corner of that crag somehow he might pull himself behind it, escape out of range. There was indeed a natural path of steps in the rock, he realised, but at this time of year could he climb them with all the rain and the water in spate?

Hardly knowing what he was doing, he sprang for a foothold up the rock behind him, then another, and another. He slipped, and scrabbled frantically for a foothold as Gregorin burst into an aria from
The Queen of Spades
, pausing only to count. Up and yet again. Where was the next foothold? There was none. He was lying against the rockface, fear fighting pain.

Down below, Gregorin laughed once more. The sound determined him: he, Auguste Didier, would not die thus.

‘I won’t do it,’ he screamed down over the noise of the water. ‘Shoot me facing you. I won’t die like a frightened chicken.’

Gregorin shrugged. ‘I am loth to kill one for whom I have now some small measure of respect, but I am afraid it really is necessary,’ he said regretfully. Crouching down like a cat with his cat’s eyes gleaming, he tantalised Auguste by first aiming then lowering the pistol. Then he raised it once more.

If he was going to die, he would die as a Frenchman should. ‘I ask you, Gregorin, to tell Tatiana how I died and that I love her.’

The words sounded strange, like a play being acted out, despite the wind howling at one side and the water screaming at his other. If he let go now, the
force of the water might kill him anyway, dashing him on to the rocks beneath.

Gregorin shouted, exhilarated, his finger on the trigger, ‘Your widow, Didier.’

‘Wife, Gregorin.’ An almost chatty voice, and a well-aimed stone knocked Gregorin off-balance, sending the gun flying from his hand.

‘Egbert!’ Auguste croaked. His eyes had been so fixed on imminent death ten feet below, he had not been conscious of Rose’s slow, stealthy approach. Nor of the four constables who now pounded round the corner in his support, as Egbert dived for the gun.

Gregorin recovered like a cat, whirling into action, clambering up past Auguste in a flash, knocking him viciously sideways so that he slipped off balance, slithering, then tumbling down the rockface. Gregorin’s lithe figure seemed almost to dance with practised ease up by the side of the falls.

Auguste hit the ground, lying half on the stones, half in the beck, bruised and stunned. As he lay there he could see high above him, silhouetted against the patch of sky at the top of the falls, a man who paused briefly to wave to those below – and then was gone.

Egbert Rose was at Auguste’s side, as he painfully eased himself up. There was a choke in his voice as he said, ‘You damned fool, going off without telling me. We’ve had someone tailing Gregorin, but he lost him and ran back to tell me. You’re lucky Mrs Gertie wanted to kiss you goodbye and knew where you were going.

‘Only you, Sherlock,’ he continued as he heaved him to his feet, ‘only you could find a Moriarty who tries to push you
up
the blasted Reichenbach Falls.’