Inspector Pascal Mysteries 1000 #26 Odds

The odds aren't 50/50 in Pascal's latest murder investigation!
INSPECTOR PASCAL MYSTERIES 1000
 #26 Odds by T.K. Naliaka ©2017
New, Classic-style, mystery-adventure, short story fiction for all ages!

INSPECTOR PASCAL MYSTERIES 1000
 #26 Odds by T.K. Naliaka ©2017
 
    “Inspector Pascal, sir… Inspector Antione is moving the murder inquiry to the salon downstairs.”
    Dark-haired and hazel-eyed in a neat grey suit, Pascal glanced at the formal uniformed butler standing at the door. “You’re Jervis?”
    “Yes, sir.”
    “I just wanted to take a moment.  This library is delightful!”  Jervis shut the door and crossed the room to join him as Pascal strolled along one of the mahogany shelves to peer at the titles.  Pascal smiled, “C’est magnifique! … Chaucer…Homer… Moore…” Pascal stopped, reached out to pull a book, then pushed it in and with excitement, pulled out the one next to it, “Le Roman de Renart - édition 1890!”
    Jervis’s hand shot out and grabbed his.  Before Pascal could react, Jervis was pushing the cold hard muzzle of a revolver against Pascal’s neck.  Jervis yanked Pascal’s pistol out of its holster and jammed it under his own belt. “I see what you did Inspector - trying to set me up like that!  I’m not stupid!  There are 5,972 books in this room! What are the odds that you’d just randomly pick that book out of the shelves?!?”
    Pascal glanced at the books then at Jervis.
    “You’re my ticket out of here! One wrong move and you’re dead!”
    Jarvis stiff-armed him across the big room.  Pascal awkwardly opened the door and stepped out into the long hallway with Jervis’s arm crooked tight around his neck and the revolver barrel jammed under his chin.
   The big, broad-shouldered uniformed police sergeant standing by the door turned around.
    “Take your gun out and put it on the ground!”
    Pascal rasped out. “Sergeant Braque, do it.”
    Eighteen people – estate staff, the three owners, Camilla, Nigel and Rudolph, various police, turned to look, then stare.
    Seven staff blurted as one, “Jervis!?!”
    Braque eased his pistol out and squatted to set it on the floor. 
    “Put your hands up!”
    Braque slowly raised his hands.
   Jervis scowled at the other police. “Inspector Antione - all of you - put your guns down, now!  Hands up… Now!!”
    They carefully did what he told them to do.
    As they all stood there with their arms raised, Jervis yelled. “I’m leaving!  Anyone who tries anything and he’s dead!”  He jerked Pascal around by the neck and yelled again. “Everybody move back!”
    Camilla blinked disbelievingly at them as Jervis manhandled Pascal past her, “Jervis!  Why?”
    He stopped to snarl at her. “I loaned Percival eight hundred thousand twenty years ago, sealed on a handshake and he never paid me back!  I went every year and he had an excuse.  This year he said there’s no proof, no one would believe I ever had that kind of money anyway so there was nothing I could do!  Yeah? Nothing? Hah!”
    Rudolph exclaimed. “B-but... Jervis! How did you ever get 800,000 on your pay?”
    “I’m very good at saving my salary and investing it in stocks!”
    There was dead silence.
    Nigel gasped. “We should have hired Jervis to manage the estate portfolio instead of Percival!”
    Jervis wrestled Pascal down the hall. “It’s too late now! I wouldn’t work for you idiots even if you paid me a million in salary!”
    Camilla turned excitedly to Nigel. “It’d be worth it!”
    The hallway of astonished staff and police stepped aside as Jervis pushed Pascal past them to the top of the big spiral staircase and shoved him to go down the stairs.  Pascal’s first step was two instead of one, suddenly dropping him down farther than Jervis expected, and with Jervis’s arm around his neck, Jervis went down with him, off-balance.
    Pascal’s right hand shoved the revolver away from his chin as he hunched forward and his left hand seized Jervis’s forearm.  Pascal put his shoulder into the heave to leverage Jervis up and over.  There was a shriek from Jarvis as he was flipped, then was airborne down the stairs to crash against the rail and sprawl stunned at the first landing. The revolver bounced and clattered down the stairs to the main floor.
    Pascal straightened.  He turned around to see a hallway of people staring at him, “Ah…” He tugged his suit jacket and pulled at his tie.  “… he’s all yours, Inspector Antione!”
    Antione hustled down the hallway to him. “Good job, Inspector Pascal, flushing him out like that!”  Antione heartily shook his hand. “He really fooled us!  We had no suspicion, not a clue!”
    Pascal nodded. “Yes… thank you…”  He stepped out of the way as the police officers crowded down the stairs to Jervis. “… d-do you need us?”
    Antione was exuberant, “No!  No…we can handle everything! You just made it easy for everybody! It would have been months of work, if we were lucky! Take the rest of the day off, outstanding job!”
    Camilla and Nigel rushed to the stairs to lean over the rail, “Jervis! Jervis! We’ll pay a million and a half!”
 
    Braque glanced back as he pushed his pistol into its holster, striding to catch up with Pascal as he descended to the marble foyer and out the massive wooden entry doors to the big gravel circular driveway. “What just happened?”
    Pascal didn’t answer until he’d arrived at their parked vehicle.  He opened the door, then stopped to look over at the big mansion, then at him. “I was just looking at the books.  It’s a fantastic library. I saw a rare edition, I pulled it out.”
    “And..?”
    “It was hollowed-out, with a revolver in it…”
    “… the murder weapon!”
    “Yes.”
    “You’re joking!”
    “No!”
    Braque got into the car.  They both sat silently. Suddenly, Pascal rummaged in his pockets and pulled out his notepad and his pen. “Exactly what are the odds of randomly picking out the one book in a room of 5,972 books - that had a murder weapon hidden inside it?”
    “Wait a minute!” Braque turned to look at him. “What were the odds that it was the butler who did it?”
    Pascal chuckled, “Better than the odds today that we’d have the afternoon free?”

by T.K. Naliaka ©2017 all rights reserved