Read Online The Janus Man by Colin Forbes - Free Book Online

questions.'
    `Dead end?' Grey poured himself coffee.
    `It was for Fergusson...'
    `You do sound grim this morning. Not at all chipper …'
    `Under the circumstances, I'm hardly likely to feel chipper, as you put it. And I did ask you about your future movements.'
    `Sorry. Wrong mood. Under the circumstances. Frankfurt here I come. This afternoon. I get the feeling I'm de trop — as the French so delightfully put it.'
    He paused, stared at Tweed expectantly, as though waiting for contradiction. None came.
    `Ziggy Palewska was cremated at four this morning.'
    Kuhlmann made his announcement standing in Tweed's bedroom, hands clasped behind his back, cigar in the corner of his mouth as he watched both Tweed and Newman who were sitting in arm chairs. The man from Wiesbaden had appeared as soon as Hugh Grey left the dining-room.
    He had asked for a quiet word and they had taken him up to the bedroom. Tweed stared back at the German whose expression was bleak. Newman kept his own expression blank and left Tweed to do the talking.
    `What the devil does that mean?'
    `His place of business — if you can call it that — went up in flames. That heavy wooden door you pushed to get inside to see the Pole last night jams. Palewska was trapped inside. Burnt to one black cinder. An accident, the state police are saying...'
    `But how could it happen?'
    `You tell me. You were there a few hours earlier. Notice anything especially inflammable?'
    `There were two drums of petrol in one corner,' Tweed said slowly. 'The room was full of stuff which could catch light — once a fire started. But how would it start?'
    `I thought you might tell me. People who live in that stinking alley say he used to turn up the hi-fi full blast. Had a passion for Louis Armstrong, they say. The eye-witness descriptions make a good horror story...'
    `What kind of a horror story?' Newman asked, feeling he should say something.
    `Imagine a fiery inferno. Flames shooting sky-high. And that bloody hi-fi still blasting out Louis on his trumpet. Turned as high as it would go, they said. Any comment?'
    `I don't think so,' Tweed replied. 'You tell us …'
    `Place was lit by oil lamps. So, the vibrations topple one of those oil lamps by the petrol drums. There was a big explosion which was probably one — maybe both — of the petrol drums. People who work nearby told me the oil-lamps alone worried them. When he had that hi-fi going they'd sit talking with Ziggy, watching the damned lamps shivering on top of whatever he'd perched them on. The thing which puzzles me is those petrol drums — a neighbour saw them earlier that evening. Never seen petrol in there before.'
    Kuhlmann sat down and waited. He expected a reaction — and he had seen both of them leaving Ziggy's place the same night. Tweed grunted, cleared his throat.
    `What are you saying was the cause of this new tragedy?'
    `State police call it an accident — subject to the report from the arson brigade. That's the second so-called accident involving you in less than twenty-four hours. First Fergusson, now Mr Ziggy Palewska. Maybe we have a specialist in town.'
    `A specialist in what?' Tweed asked.
    `Murder made to look like accident. I've already put that modus operandi through the computer. I'm waiting for the result.'
    `We were there, as you say, earlier in the evening. And I did notice the petrol drums...'
    Tweed gave Kuhlmann a brief outline of their visit, omitting a great deal. No reference to Lübeck or Dr Berlin. Kuhlmann never took his eyes off him as Tweed spoke in a matter-of-fact tone.
    `So,' the German said, `there was a definite link between Fergusson and Palewska? Why would Fergusson fly to Hamburg to see a man like that?'
    `Because he has been one of my contacts over the years. You realize there is a limit as to how much I can tell you?'
    `No limit on murder.' Kuhlmann pointed his cigar at Tweed. Fergusson was murdered — that I know. Fergusson had visited Palewska an hour or two before he's found