Appleby Plays Chicken by Michael Innes

There’s no conceivable means by which we can be pitched on.’
    David, although he had expected pretty well anything, was aware that he must be staring at the stranger round-eyed. The man’s speech had been the most complete giveaway that could be conceived – and yet he appeared to be utterly unaware of the fact. There had already been hints of an attitude that was distinctly what Timothy Dumble would call off-white; and now here was a proposal utterly at variance with the character in which the stranger had begun by presenting himself. Gentlemen of military cut, who take a glance at violent death and murmur some shibboleth like ‘Bad show’, don’t propose to bolt from it fifteen minutes later. David now had no doubt that he was dealing with a complete crook. The gentleman before him was a criminal and an enemy.
    This simplified matters. David presumably took no pains to conceal the conclusion to which he had come from appearing on his face. The stranger, as if belatedly conscious of crisis, had turned pale; and David could sense his body as taut and waiting. He really was dangerous now. And there was something – David felt his mind reaching for it – that he mustn’t be let do. There was some simple physical action that he mustn’t be allowed to take.
    What the stranger did was once more to turn and stroll away. This time he moved to the periphery of the rock, so that for a moment David wondered whether he was going to make a bolt for it. But he only mounted a boulder and once more scanned the moor below. ‘Well,’ he said, ‘the question’s academic now, anyhow. There are a couple of men making straight for the Tor.’ He stepped down and strolled back. ‘Or perhaps they’re girls. I’m not sure.’
    It seemed to David that the point was an important one. Girls are all very well, but it isn’t very feasible to call upon a brace of them to collar a thug. So he moved to the edge and made his own inspection.
    The moor was as empty as before.
     
    He swung round, already knowing what he’d see. For now – too late and when he had been fooled – he had identified that simple action that the stranger mustn’t be allowed to perform. It was stooping over the body and possessing himself of that gun. There was going to be another corpse.
    And of course it had happened now. The stranger was straight-ening himself as David turned to him, and the weapon was in his hand. There couldn’t be much doubt about what he intended. Then, quite unexpectedly, he spoke. ‘Look at this,’ he said, and took a step forward, holding out the pistol – which seemed very small – as if for inspection.
    This time David tumbled in a flash to what was happening. The stranger did mean murder – a second murder – and not consultation or parley. But this gun was a miserable affair, not fit for much more than crime passionnel in a boudoir. It would be reliable only at very close quarters indeed. And that was what the stranger was trying to make sure of now. David didn’t propose to oblige him. He needed almost miraculous speed – and some adequate internal chemistry gave it to him. In an instant he was over the lip of rock behind him. There was no time to discover whether this was a possible point at which to descend; he simply had to let his toes and fingers feel for what they could find. Bare stone scraped his chest; a fragment of stone whipped past his ear and he heard a bang from above; he had just realized the incredible fact that he had really been fired on when he felt his feet touch ground. For a moment he couldn’t believe this either; it was impossible that he should have come down that short but formidable descent in just no time at all. But it was true. He turned from the face of the rock without looking up, and took to his heels down the steep slope of the Tor.
    There was another bang. It came just after he had felt a queer jar in one of his feet. He wondered whether his pursuer had scored a lucky hit. They said