Read Online Blackstone and the Endgame by Sally Spencer - Free Book Online

him.
    â€˜Give me your stuff, or we’ll cut out
your
eyes, as well,’ Sid said.
    The man in the cloak frowned. ‘You should not have threatened me,’ he said, with a new, harder edge to his voice. ‘I do not like being threatened.’
    Sid stood up, waving his knife in front of him. The new arrival lifted his walking stick up, as if he hoped to defend himself with it.
    â€˜That won’t save you, grandad,’ Sid sneered.
    â€˜No, that won’t save yer,’ echoed Bill, still astride Blackstone.
    Sid should have been paying more attention, Blackstone thought. He should have noted that Vladimir was standing perfectly comfortably without the support of his stick – and he should have drawn a very worrying conclusion from that.
    But he didn’t.
    â€˜I’ll slice you up, you dirty foreign bugger,’ Sid boasted. ‘First, I’ll cut your heart out, and then I’ll …’
    He stopped speaking as the casing of the stick clattered to the ground and the thin naked sword it had held glittered in the moonlight.
    â€˜OK, take it easy, mister, none of us wants any trouble,’ Sid said.
    But he did not sound half as frightened as he should have, because he still thought he could control the situation.
    Vladimir took one step forward, the sword flashed, and Sid sank to the ground.
    Blackstone felt Bill go rigid on top of him.
    â€˜Listen,’ the young thug said, in a panic, ‘this wasn’t never part—’
    The sword whistled through the air, slashing across Bill’s throat. The young man gurgled, and his blood began to gush from the wound like a fountain.
    Blackstone pushed the dying thug off him.
    â€˜His lungs will fill in seconds, and he will drown in his own blood,’ Vladimir said easily. ‘Why do I do these things?’ he continued, and now – though he was still speaking in English – he was addressing himself. ‘In Russia, I’m a serious man – perhaps even a grave one – but the moment I set foot on these shores, I feel an almost irrepressible urge to behave exactly like a cheap music-hall comedian. And what does that result in? It results in me having to kill two young hooligans
who didn’t even get the joke
!’
    There was no regret in his voice, Blackstone noted – merely a hint of annoyance at the inconvenience he had caused himself.
    Bill was thrashing around on the ground, trying to scream and finding it impossible.
    Blackstone raised himself on one elbow but did not feel strong enough yet to struggle back to his feet.
    â€˜I have a little business to conduct at the end of this lane, and then I intend to leave the area as quickly as possible,’ Vladimir said, leaning forward and wiping the blood off his sword on the dead Sid’s jacket, ‘and if you are in any state to do so, I would advise you to follow the same course of action yourself.’
    Blackstone made no reply. He was ashamed of his present condition – deeply ashamed – and of all the people in the world from whom he might wish to hide his fall, the Russian was at the top of the list.
    How could he let this man, above all others – the man who had worked with him to prevent the assassination of Queen Victoria; who, in Russia, had partnered him in solving the case of the missing Fabergé egg – see what he had become?
    Bill had stopped writhing, and – with a final desperate gurgle – he died.
    â€˜I have probably just saved some young woman from a life of domestic drudgery and violence,’ Vladimir said, picking up the sheath of his sword and sliding the sword back into it. ‘But, then again, this hypothetical young woman will probably end up married to someone just as bad as this brute.’
    Then he turned and began to walk towards the river.
    He had to get away before the police arrived, Blackstone told himself. If he didn’t, they would probably add these two murders to