Worlds of Edgar Rice Burroughs (2 page)

Still, he knew that Mireau had an office here and was involved in things that might change Algiers forever. The second man watched warily, wondering what the athletic man would do, and if he would be useful.

The third man who watched the athletic man go up the stairs was Beaton. Beaton watched faux Greystoke read the directory, so Beaton knew Greystoke was meeting someone. Only the French had offices here, and that made Beaton uneasy. Greystoke had odd allegiances for an English lord, and that alone made this worth pursuing.

Although Beaton didn’t know quite how to do so.

He would bide his time, watch, and take all actions under consideration. That was all he could reasonably do.

Aiden Mireau did not have a secretary. Nor did he have an impressive office. He had a room on the top floor, tucked behind the edge of the arches. The floor was hot, and Mireau’s office hotter still. It smelled faintly of sweat and whiskey. It had one window that clearly did not open, and a narrow battered desk that might have been new when someone tried to squeeze it through the door.

The man behind the desk was small, balding, and completely forgettable. Adrian Mireau looked like a bureaucrat. His clothing was cheap and ill-fitting. He had draped his suit coat over a nearby chair, and his wrinkled linen shirt was dotted with sweat.

He smoked a cigarette as he shifted papers back and forth. He did not look up as Tarzan entered the room, but waited for Tarzan to introduce himself.

Tarzan did so in French, using the name Jean C. Tarzan.

“Close the door,” Mireau said without looking up.

Tarzan looked down the hall before he closed the door. He saw movement near the stairs. Men on each floor kept track of comings and goings. He knew that he had become part of today’s list. Usually such things did not bother him, but too many strange things had happened on this day. He made note.

He turned toward Mireau to find that man looking at him.

Mireau’s face was as rumpled as his clothing. He looked gray and tired, a man who had long exceeded the end of his rope.

“Jean C. Tarzan,” he said. “I was beginning to believe you were a phantom.”

“I received this just today,” Tarzan said and handed him the crumpled telegram.

Mireau glanced at it, then sighed. He handed the paper back. “What have you been doing during the war?”

Tarzan decided he would tell only part of the truth. This man did not need to know everything.

“I retired from the War Office and married. My wife and I settled on some land in rural Africa, where we stayed until Germans destroyed our home.”

“And your wife?” Mireau asked.

Tarzan shook his head, unable to lie about this. But Mireau clearly took that gesture to mean that Jane had not survived.

“My condolences,” Mireau said. “So you returned to Algiers to resume your work?”

“I do what I can to stop the Germans,” Tarzan said.

“But you did not contact the War Office,” Mireau said.

It took Tarzan a minute to realize that Mireau was not repeating what he understood; Mireau was making certain that Tarzan had spoken to no one in the French government.

“I had not given the War Office any thought until I got this telegram an hour ago.”

“It is several months old.”

“I am aware of that. The man who delivered it worked hard to find me.”

Mireau’s eyes narrowed. Then he nodded at a nearby chair. “Would you like a drink?”

Not in the middle of the afternoon. Tarzan had never gotten used to that custom. He declined, and then peered at the chair. It was too small for him. He knew without trying that he could not sit in it.

So he remained standing.

“I am to talk with you,” Tarzan said, wondering if he should have come. Mireau had not volunteered anything when Tarzan mentioned the Germans.

“Yes,” Mireau said. “I would like to see your papers.”

“I don’t carry papers,” Tarzan said. At least not in the name of Jean C. Tarzan. But he didn’t add that.

Mireau stubbed out his cigarette. “I would normally ask you to leave if you did not have papers, but I have read your files, Mr. Tarzan, and those of your superiors, and I know what an unusual man you are. I doubt there are two men who look like you in all the world.”

Tarzan smiled thinly. “The portraits of my ancestors show that my looks are not that unusual.”

“Around here they are,
monsieur
,” Mireau said. “And on that basis, I will ask you this: would you be willing to take an assignment off the books for the War Office? We have need of someone with no ties to officialdom.”

“I am not sure whom you are, sir, nor do I know who you represent,” Tarzan said.

Mireau smiled thinly. “There are official diplomats and
charges d’affaires
in each major city. Then there are men like me, who handle the—shall we say—darker side of diplomacy.”

Tarzan had met such men before. They had fewer scruples, but they seemed to be loyal to their countries. Tarzan had no such loyalty to France, nor to England, but he did feel such loyalty to the jungles here in Africa. So, for that reason, and because he hoped to ask in a roundabout way about news of Jane, he asked, “What do you need me for?”

“You know the war is going badly for the Allies,” Mireau said.

Tarzan waited.

“We believe that a small group of our own people is selling information to the Germans.”

Tarzan shrugged. “Arrest them.”

“It is not that easy,” Mireau said. “A network of spies works Algiers, and the head of that network is making a small fortune by ruining the war effort. Track the money, perhaps get involved in the network, and we will—”

“I am not a subtle man,” Tarzan said. “And I do not plan to stay in Algiers long enough to infiltrate any group.”

Mireau tilted his head back and stared at the ceiling for a long moment. Then he sighed and sat up. “You are our only hope.”

“I’m sorry,” Tarzan said. “I’m not the man for you. Perhaps someone else will be able to help you.”

He turned and as he grabbed the door knob, Mireau said, “Perhaps there is a different way to do this. You are looking for news of the Germans in Africa. These men would have that news.”

Tarzan turned around slowly. “You do not want me to find these men so that you can arrest them.”

“We are at war,
Monsieur Tarzan
,” Mireau said. “Finesse belongs to peacetime.”

“I am not an assassin,” Tarzan said, and left.

Tarzan stepped into the hallway, noting that it was just a bit cooler out here. That office had felt stuffy and uncomfortable, and not just because of what Mireau had asked him. It was an unhealthy place to be, the opposite of the life Tarzan preferred.

He scanned the hallway and saw no one, nothing that caused that movement he had seen when he closed the door. Of course, the door was a thin one, and someone might have heard his voice as he got closer to it.

He didn’t like the feeling he had, as if he were being watched. Better to get out of here and find out information on Jane on his own.

He hurried down the stairs, wanting out of the Grand Post Office. Even the bright streets were better than this place.

He was halfway down when he heard a gunshot. It had come from behind him.

He pivoted, knowing the shot had something to do with him. He ran back up, keeping his eyes peeled for any more movement, knowing that someone could be staring down the sight of a gun at him even now.

No one ran past him, but the hallway smelled of gun powder. The door to Mireau’s office was open, even though Tarzan had closed it behind him.

Mireau sat back in his chair, a bullet hole in the center of his forehead, blood against the back wall. He still clutched the whiskey he had poured before Tarzan had left.

Tarzan cursed. He heard footsteps on the stairs as others hurried up, but no one had come from this floor.

He told himself that Mireau’s death had nothing to do with him, that the man had worked—in his words—on the “darker side of diplomacy” for a long time, and someone could have killed him for that.

But still, the timing was suspicious. Tarzan did not go inside the office—he knew better because the footsteps on the stairs were getting closer. Someone could arrest him for the murder, even though he did not hold a gun.

Instead, he walked through the hallway, looking for the cause of that movement earlier.

Toward the back, the hallway was covered with dust, caused by construction that clearly continued. There were no footsteps in that dust, nor was there any indication that someone had leaned against the wall. But closer to the stairs, he saw one sandal print, and a stubbed-out cigarette butt. The sandal print was smaller than Tarzan’s shoe print—not that such a thing was unusual—but it was small enough that it
seemed
unusual.

The footsteps on the stairs grew closer—the sound of stomping, really, and labored breathing. Only one person was coming the entire way up the stairs, and Tarzan thought that unusual too.

If he went down now, he would be the only suspect in this murder, which he suspected he was meant to be. If he waited, he could shadow the other man down, and perhaps no one would notice him.

Or maybe he could find another way out of this building—after the other man had left.

Tarzan stepped into the shadows and waited for the man to finish his climb up the stairs.

Arthur Beaton was too old to run up a flight of stairs, let alone several flights. Halfway up, his breath came in short bursts, and he got lightheaded. Still, he didn’t want to stop.

No one else seemed alarmed that a gunshot resounded through the Grand Post Office. He would have thought it his imagination if it hadn’t been for the fact that two men near him peeled away from the walls and headed calmly outside.

Several others walked out as well, not like men who had finished whatever task they had to do in a post office, but like guards at the end of a long shift.

For one second, he debated following them, and then he remembered where he was.

He was in Algiers. The local law had its own agenda and the French colonial government only cared if one of its own died. Beaton wasn’t certain if the French would consider faux Greystoke one of their own, but he didn’t want to risk it.

If Greystoke were dead, Beaton wanted to see it for himself, so that he could report back to the English government.

He knew that the body could be moved or tampered with immediately after the killing. He also knew he was running toward trouble, not away from it, so he pulled out his own gun.

Although he was beginning to question the wisdom of that move as he got closer to the top, and his breath was getting even harder to catch. Soon he would double over wheezing, and he didn’t want to do that.

But the heat up here wasn’t helping. Neither was the fact that the last time he had run might have been in the previous century.

Finally he reached the top of the stairs and forced himself to breathe properly—not that he really achieved it. He was wheezing. He just hadn’t doubled over.

He kept his gun extended, noting the scent of cordite. He was about to follow that smell when someone pulled him into the darkness.

Tarzan gripped the man’s gun arm, keeping the weapon pointed away from him. But he did not let the sweaty European’s gun go down, just in case someone else came up the stairs.

Tarzan used the man as both a shield and a weapon. He couldn’t do much else, considering how hard the man was breathing. Tarzan had seen men this red-faced and short of breath before, often before they fell down in a fit of apoplexy.

Tarzan didn’t want the man to die, but he also didn’t want the man to turn on him, either.

No one came up the stairs. The man stopped wheezing, but he was still breathing hard.

Tarzan turned him around and took the gun. He emptied it of bullets.

The man looked familiar. Tarzan had seen him on the street for the past twenty-four hours. Even though Algiers was a French colonial city, Europeans did not go to the Kasbah in large numbers and almost never alone. This man had been near Tarzan’s hotel, near the cafés where he dined, and now here, in the Grand Post Office on the top floor, right after Mireau had been shot.

It was clear, however, from the man’s breathing that he had not been anywhere near Mireau when Mireau died.

“Who are you?” Tarzan asked in French.

Sweat dripped off the man’s bright red face. Still, he managed to straighten just a little. “Arthur Beaton.”

“Do I know you, Arthur Beaton?” Tarzan asked.

“I really prefer talking in English,” Beaton said in that same language.

“As you wish,” Tarzan said, still looking around the floor, trying to see if anyone else joined them. “The question remains. Do I know you?”

“Er, can that wait?” Beaton asked. “I heard a gunshot.”

“You did,” Tarzan said. “Someone shot Aiden Mireau. He’s dead.”

“Aiden Mireau?” Beaton asked. “Surely, you jest.”

Tarzan hated that phrase. He’d heard it ever since he had contact with the British, and it was always used in cases like this.

“Surely, I do not,” he said.

“Oh, good heavens.” Beaton actually looked distressed. “Why would you kill him?”

“Me?” Tarzan asked. “If I killed a man, I would not do so with such an unreliable toy.”

He shook the empty gun at Beaton, who cringed, even though he had watched Tarzan empty the chamber.

“If there’s a killer up here, I would like my unreliable toy back,” Beaton said.

Tarzan did not let go of the gun. “You’ve been following me.”

Beaton licked his lips. “It’s—um—not relevant at the moment.”

“It is to me,” Tarzan said.

“It’s complicated,” Beaton said. “May I see Mireau?”

Tarzan had no idea why this little man would want to see Mireau, unless he had something to do with the crime. “As you wish,” Tarzan said, and led Beaton to the door. He kept his hand on the Englishman, figuring if someone came up the stairs ready to make an arrest, Tarzan would give them Beaton along with the gun. It would take them a while to figure out that Beaton hadn’t fired his gun at all.

Beaton had to struggle to keep up with Tarzan, even though Tarzan kept his gait short. They reached the door. Beaton took one glance at Mireau, and then closed his eyes for a brief moment.