The Falcon's Malteser by Anthony Horowitz

There was a fall of at least forty feet to the cold, hard concrete below and I thought that was just where he was heading. Unable to regain his balance, he yelled and plunged forward, his body lunging out into the night. But at the last moment he managed to grab hold of the very edge of the overpass. And that was how he finished up: a human bridge. His feet were on the floor in what was left of Room 39. His hands were desperately clutching a piece of metal jutting out of the side of the overpass. His body sagged between the two.
    I looked behind me. The flames were closing in. I wouldn’t even make it through the shattered doorway now. But I wasn’t too keen on jumping across to the overpass. Jack Splendide was the only answer. A human bridge. I took two big steps. One foot in the small of his back and I was across—safely standing on the edge of the road.
    “Kid . . . hey, kid!” I heard him and walked back over to him. He was a big, strong man, but he couldn’t stay like that much longer. “Help me!” he rasped, the sweat dripping off his forehead. The wind jerked at my shirt. The cars roared by, only inches away now. Some of the drivers honked at me, but they couldn’t see Jack Splendide. I crouched down close to him. By now I’d been able to put a few things together.
    “Who was it, Splendide?” I asked. “Who threw the grenade?”
    “Please!” His hands tightened their hold as his body swayed.
    “You must have told them I was here. Who was it?”
    There was no way he could stall me. He was getting weaker by the minute and across the gap the flames were creeping up on him. He could probably feel them with the soles of his feet. “It was the Fat Man,” he gasped. “He guessed you might go back to the hotel. He paid me . . . to call if you did.”
    “Why?”
    “You insulted him, kid. Nobody insults the Fat Man. But I didn’t know he was going to try and kill you. I mean . . . the grenade. Honest, kid. I thought he was just going to take a shot at you—to scare you.”
    Yeah, I thought. And you came up to the fifth floor to watch.
    “Help me!” he whimpered. “Give me a hand, kid. I can’t hold on much longer.”
    “That’s true,” I said, straightening up.
    “You can’t leave me here, kid. You can’t!”
    “Wanna bet?”
    I walked away, leaving him stretched out between the flames and the overpass with a long, long way to fall if he let go. Maybe the police or firemen reached him in the end. To be honest, I don’t really care. Jack Splendide had set me up to be killed. He might not have been expecting a grenade, but he’d known the Fat Man didn’t play games.
    It had begun to rain. Pulling the remains of my shirt closer to my shivering skin, I walked down the overpass and forgot about him.

THE PROFESSOR
    I was woken by the smell of lavender. Lavender? Yes—perfume. You’ve smelled it before, Nick. Where? I can’t remember, but maybe it was mixed with the raw meat and . . . I swallowed, stretched, opened my eyes.
    “Blimey, you’re a sight!” Betty Charlady exclaimed.
    I was half stretched out on Herbert’s desk in his office. I’d had to walk home the night before, and by the time I’d gotten in I’d been too tired to go upstairs. I’d looked at the second flight of steps. They led to a bed with a crumpled sheet and a tangled-up quilt. I’ll never make it, I’d thought, and so I’d gone into the office and collapsed there. And now Betty Charlady was standing in front of me, looking at me like I’d dropped in from another planet.
    “What happened to you?” she demanded, shaking her head and sending the artificial daisies on her hat into convulsions.
    “I had a bad night,” I said. “How did you get in?”
    “Through the door.”
    “It was open?”
    She nodded. “You ought to lock it at night, Master Nicholas. You never know who might visit . . .”
    I needed a hot bath, a hot meal, two aspirin, and a warm bed—not necessarily in that order. Instead I went up and