removed a white rabbit from a hutch on his work bench.
“Daisy,” he said, smoothing back the rabbit’s long ears, “is the world’s most experienced time-traveller. I’ve used her for many experiments and she has always returned unharmed. I doubt if she knows what a remarkable rabbit she is!”
Burton stared, remembering his sergeant’s story. The hairs at the nape of his neck began to bristle.
“I am sending her back to a period a little after the time of the murder,” Webb said, “the location as before—Laver’s study. Perhaps one of your men reported seeing Daisy? In which case, we mustn’t disappoint him....” He set Daisy on the floor before the door into time and gently urged her through it. Instantly, she vanished from view.
Burton walked warily round the door in the centre of the room. He completed a full circuit without seeing anything of Daisy.
“Convinced, inspector? She will appear again in one minute—I have set the automatic control for that period.”
The seconds ticked by. Burton studied the time-scale carefully; a plan was shaping in his head, a plan to bring Clifford Webb to justice.
“Here she is, inspector!” the physicist exclaimed triumphantly.
He lifted the rabbit from the floor and placed her back inside her hutch.
Burton moved silently and, as Webb turned from the hutch, swung his fist to the physicist’s jaw. Webb slumped unconscious to the floor.
Burton studied the controlling mechanism of the time machine yet again. It seemed simple enough. He adjusted the time-scale for nine-twenty of the night of the murder. Webb had already told him that the space location was Laver’s study. He had only to step through to catch the murderer red-handed.
He took one last look at the unconscious form of Clifford Webb and stepped between the glowing helices into blackness....
There was the Persian rug, but Laver was not now stretched out upon it. The financier faced Clifford Webb, staring fascinated at the gun in his hand. Webb’s finger tightened on the trigger.
“Stop!”
The command was torn from Burton’s lips as if of its own volition. Webb half-turned, amazement written plain across his face—and, in that moment of hesitation, Laver hurled himself across the room to grapple with his would-be murderer.
Burton heard the shot, and saw one of the two men stagger and fall across the Persian rug. He looked down.
The corpse had been a rangy man with a sharply pointed nose. The eyes, which in life had never quite seemed to focus in one place, were now focused in death on the ceiling. Clifford Webb had paid in full for his intended crime.
“It was self-defence!” Gerald Laver screamed. “You saw it—he threatened me—I killed him in self-defence!”
Inspector Burton scratched his head and wondered what the commissioner would make of his report.
Конец ознакомительного фрагмента.
Текст предоставлен ООО «ЛитРес».
Прочитайте эту книгу целиком, купив полную легальную версию на ЛитРес.
Безопасно оплатить книгу можно банковской картой Visa, MasterCard, Maestro, со счета мобильного телефона, с платежного терминала, в салоне МТС или Связной, через PayPal, WebMoney, Яндекс.Деньги, QIWI Кошелек, бонусными картами или другим удобным Вам способом.
