“YOU MEAN YOU actually killed the blighter with a blowgun?” the colonel said. “The same one you showed me that morning.”
“The zarabatana. He was getting away and I had to kill him fast and quiet. He was too far away to use the knife, so I used the blowgun.”
Behind his desk, Colonel Pritchett looked at Gatling in amazement. “Had you been practicing with the dreadful thing?”
“I used it just once,” Gatling said. “A lucky shot.”
The colonel, cold-hearted old villain that he was, wanted to hear the details of Otis Kilby’s death. Over in England, Hiram Maxim was experimenting with poisoned bullets.
Gatling said, “He was wearing a shirt and I put the dart about where his right kidney would be. I aimed for higher up, but I hit him anyway.”
The colonel leaned forward in his chair. “Then what did he do?”
“He fell down dead.”
Colonel Pritchett was most annoyed. “Details! I want details. How did he react to the curare? Did he go into convulsions, start to hallucinate, foam at the mouth?”
“I’m telling you all he did was claw at the air, gasp a bit, then fall down dead. I’d like to make it more exciting for you, but it wouldn’t be true.”
The colonel began to fuss with his foul-smelling pipe. Rumor had it that the Prussians were making poison gas to be used against the French in the next war. Gatling thought the Prussians should take a close look at the colonel’s awful pipe.
“What did you do with the blowgun? Throw it into the river?” The colonel’s tone was casual, but Gatling knew he was fishing. He was famous for his large collection of bizarre weapons.
“I brought it back. You can have it if you want it.” Gatling took the telescoped blowgun from the gun case and put it on the colonel’s desk. “You can buy a much fancier blowgun right here in New York.”
Colonel Pritchett picked up the blowgun so he could admire it. “What a beauty! So silent, so sinister, so deadly! It has the smell of murder on it. There may be fancier blow-guns for sale in New York, but they never got closer to Brazil than some New Jersey factory. I’m delighted with my blowgun because it’s the real thing. Thank you, Gatling.”
Gatling was glad to see the last of it.
The colonel turned a page of Gatling’s report. “What a bloody business it all was. Mr. Maxim will be saddened to learn of General Kilby’s death. A fine, gallant old gentleman, by all accounts.”
“Save the bullshit for Maxim! I’d just as soon not listen to it. General Kilby was vain, stupid, arrogant, sneaky, and dangerous. Plenty of men are like that, but they don’t have the power he had. I’m glad he’s dead.”
Finally the colonel got his pipe going. “Come, come! Let’s have a little Christian charity here. But then you’re not a Christian, are you? Come to think of it neither am I. But I must say I’m in a good mood today. Let me say how glad I am to see you back safe and sound. You collected every cent owed the Maxim Company as well as the five hundred young Kilby owed me.”
The colonel’s office smelled of the cheap shag tobacco he smoked in preference to costlier brands. He had been smoking it for more than forty years, as public schoolboy, Sandhurst cadet, and serving officer.
“I’ve been thinking,” Gatling said. “It would be a nice gesture if Maxim gave the eighty thousand back to the Confederates. Since he had so much respect for General Kilby, I mean. You say they exchanged letters over the years.”
“Yes,” the colonel said. His manner was distant; he wanted to hear no more about giving away $80,000 of the Maxim Company’s money. “However, the general’s dead and, naturally, would be unaware of such a gift.”
“Burton Tolliver could use it.”
“We could all use eighty thousand dollars. This Tolliver fellow, do you think he’ll make a success of it? A good fighting man isn’t always a good leader when peace comes. Look what happened to Grant.”
Gatling had his own doubts, but he kept them to himself. Tolliver was saddle leather tough, smart too, but he might not be ruthless enough. The general was finally gone after twenty-four years, and the younger men would be restless.
Gatling tried again, knowing it was pretty hopeless. “The eighty thousand would help make Tolliver a success. For Maxim it’s just a drop in the bucket.”
The colonel said airily, “How cavalier you are about other people’s money. I have no intention of bringing the matter to Mr. Maxim’s attention. You forget that Mr. Maxim is a Maine Yankee, a breed that makes even the stingiest men look like spendthrifts.” The envelope with the money in it lay on the colonel’s desk. He tossed it into a drawer and slammed it shut.
“I wish Tolliver every success,” the colonel said. “At least he won’t have Suarez to worry about.”
“We hanged him the way the general wanted him hanged. A short rope and no drop. That was the only good idea the general ever had. Suarez went to bits, started babbling when he realized what we were going to do to him. He kept begging for a bullet, but that would have made no impression on his men. So we hoisted him about a foot off the ground and let him strangle.”
“Most commendable,” the colonel said dryly.
Gatling stood up; he was thinking about walking up to McSorley’s Old Ale House. “I’ll be taking the train west in the morning. You know where to reach me.”
“Yes indeed. Thank you again for the blowgun. Must find some darts for it. Pigeons are the curse of Washington Square. One of them shat on my hat the other morning.” The colonel had extended the blowgun to its full length and was puffing through it, killing make-believe pigeons, when Gatling closed the door and went down to the street.