The Day of the Jackal

He arrived again with half an hour in hand, the small attache case inside an otherwise empty fibre suitcase that he had bought at a second-hand shop earlier in the morning. For thirty minutes he surveyed the street in which the armourer lived before finally walking quietly to the front door. When M. Goossens let him in, he went on into the office without hesitating. Goossens joined him after locking the front door, and closed the office door behind him.

«No more problems?» asked the Englishman.

«No, this time I think we have it' From behind his desk the Belgian produced several rolls of hessian sacking and laid them on the desk. As he undid them, he laid side by side a series of thin steel tubes, so polished they looked like aluminium. When the last one was laid on the desk he held out his hand for the attach case containing the component parts of the rifle. The jackal gave it to him.

One by one, the armourer started to slide the parts of the rifle into the tubes. Each one fitted perfectly.

«How was the target practice?» he enquired as he worked.

«Very satisfactory.»

Goossens noticed as he handled the telescopic sight that the adjusting screws had been fixed into place with a blob of balsa wood cement.

«I am sorry the calibrating screws should have been so small,» he said. «It is better to work off precise markings, but again it was the size of the original screw heads that got in the way. So I had to use these little grub screws. Otherwise the sight would never have fitted into its tube.»

He slipped the telescope into the steel tube designed for it, and like the other components it fitted exactly. When the last of the five components of the rifle had disappeared from view he held up the tiny needle of steel that was the trigger, and the five remaining explosive bullets.

«These you see I have had to accommodate elsewhere,» he explained. He took the black leather padded butt of the rifle and showed his customer how the leather had been slit with a razor. He pushed the trigger into the stuffing inside and closed the slit with a strip of black insulating tape. It looked quite natural. From the desk drawer he took a lump of circular black rubber about one and a half inches in diameter and two inches long.

From the centre of one circular face a steel stud protruded upwards, threaded like a screw.

«This fits on to the end of the last of the tubes,» he explained. Round the steel stud were five holes drilled downwards into the rubber. Into each one he carefully fitted a bullet, until only the brass percussion caps showed to view.

«When the rubber is fitted the bullets become quite invisible, and the rubber gives a touch of verisimilitude,» he explained.

The Englishman remained silent.

«What do you think?» asked the Belgian with a touch of anxiety.

Without a word the Englishman took the tubes and examined them one by one. He rattled them, but no sound came from inside, for the interiors were lined with two layers of pale-grey baize to absorb both shock and noise. The longest of the tubes was twenty inches; it accommodated the barrel and breech of the gun. The others were about a foot each, and contained the two struts, upper and lower, of the stock, the silencer and the telescope. The butt, with the trigger inside its padding, was separate, also was the rubber knob containing the bullets. As a hunting rifle, let alone an assassin's rifle, it had vanished.

«Perfect,» said the Jackal, nodding quietly. «Absolutely what I wanted.»

The Belgian was pleased. As an expert in his trade, he enjoyed praise as much as the next man, and he was aware that in his field the customer in front of him was also in the top bracket.

The Jackal took the steel tubes, with the parts of the gun inside them, and wrapped each one carefully in the sacking, placing each piece into the fibre suitcase. When the five tubes, butt and rubber knob were wrapped and packed, he closed the fibre suitcase and handed the attache case with its fitted compartments back to the armourer.

«I shall not be needing that any more. The gun will stay where it is until I have occasion to use it.»

He took the remaining two hundred pounds he owed the Belgian from his inner pocket and put it on the table.

«I think our dealings are complete, M. Goossens.»

The Belgian pocketed the money.

«Yes, monsieur, unless you have anything else in which I may be of service.»

«Only one,» replied the Englishman. «You will please remember my little homily to you a fortnight ago on the wisdom of silence.»

«I have not forgotten, monsieur,» replied the Belgian quietly.

He was frightened again. Would this soft-spoken killer try to silence him now, to ensure his silence? Surely not. The enquiries into such a killing would expose to the police the visits of the tall Englishman to this house long before he ever had a chance to use the gun he now carried in a suitcase. The Englishman seemed to be reading his thoughts. He smiled briefly.