Read Online Lest Darkness Fall by L. Sprague de Camp - Free Book Online Page A

thinking of expanding my
distillery."
     
                "That's a great idea.
Of course now that you're established we'll put our loans on a business basis
—"
     
                "Meaning?" said
Padway.
     
                "Meaning that the rate
of interest will have to be adjusted. The normal rate, you know, is much higher
—"
     
                "Ha, ha," said
Padway. "That's what I thought you had in mind. But now that you know the
business is a sure one, you can afford to give me a lower rate."
     
                " Ai , Martinus,
that's absurd! Is that any way to treat me after all I've done for you?"
     
                "You don't have to lend
it if you don't want to. There are other bankers who'd be glad to learn
American arithmetic —"
     
                "Listen to him, God!
It's robbery! It's extortion! I'll never give in! Go to your other bankers, see
if I care!"
     
                Three blocks of argument
brought the interest rate down to ten per cent, which Thomasus said was cutting
his own heart out and burning it on the altar of friendship.
     
                When Padway had spoken of an
impending murder, he had neither been passing off hindsight as foresight, nor
trying to be literally prophetic. He was more astonished than Thomasus, when
they entered his big workshop, to find Fritharik and Hannibal glaring like a
couple of dogs who dislike each other's smell. Hannibal's two assistants were
looking on with their backs to the door; thus nobody saw the newcomers.
     
                Hannibal snarled: "What
do you mean, you big cottonhead? You lie around all day, too lazy to turn over,
and then you dare criticize me —"
     
                "All I said,"
growled the Vandal in his clumsy, deliberate Latin, "was that the next
time I caught you, I'd report it. Well I did, and I'm going to."
     
                "I'll slit your lousy
throat if you do!" yelled Hannibal.
     
                Fritharik cast a short but
pungent aspersion on the Sicilian's sex life. Hannibal whipped out a dagger and
lunged at Fritharik. He moved with rattlesnake speed, but he used the
instinctive but tactically unsound overhand stab. Fritharik, who was unarmed,
caught his wrist with a smack of flesh on flesh, then lost it as Hannibal dug
his point into the Vandal's forearm.
     
                When Hannibal swung his arm
up for another stab, Padway arrived and caught his arm. He hauled the little
man away from his opponent, and immediately had to hang on for dear life to
keep from being stabbed himself. Hannibal was shrieking in Sicilian patois and
foaming a little at the mouth. Padway saw that he wanted to kill him. He jerked
his face back as the dirty fingernails of Hannibal's left hand raked his nose,
which was a target hard to miss.
     
                Then there was a thump, and
Hannibal collapsed, dropping his dagger. Padway let him slide to the floor, and
saw that Nerva, the older of the two assistants, was holding a stool by one
leg. It had all happened so quickly that Fritharik was just bending over to
pick up a short piece of board for a weapon, and Thomasus and Carbo, the other
workman, were still standing just inside the door.
     
                Padway said to Nerva:
"I think you're the man for my next foreman. What's this about,
Fritharik?"
     
                Fritharik didn't answer, he
stalked toward the unconscious Hannibal with plain and fancy murder in his
face.
     
                "That's enough,
Fritharik!" said Padway sharply. "No more rough stuff, or you're
fired, too!" He planted himself in front of the intended victim.
"What was he doing?"
     
                The Vandal came to himself.
"He was stealing bits of copper from stock and selling them. I tried to
get him to stop without telling you; you know how it is if your fellow
employees think you're spying on