In the Shadows of Paris (The Predator Of Batignolles) by Claude Izner Read Free Book Online Page A

workbench running along one wall.
    ‘Hello! Is anybody there?’
    He heard the sound of breathing.
    Something moved to his left.
    Paul Theneuil swung round.
    Wednesday 5 July
    As he left Professor Mortier’s house, Joseph aimed a kick at a dustbin. He was livid. They’d sent him halfway across Paris to deliver a dictionary of Ancient Greek with only sixty centimes in his pocket! Before Iris’s betrayal, he would have been allowed to take a cab, but nowadays Monsieur Mori treated him as though he had fallen from grace. He walked up to the first in a row of omnibuses. A puckish-looking conductor was sitting on the platform puffing on a cigarette while he stared at his shoes.
    ‘Have I time to buy a newspaper?’ Joseph enquired.
    The man spat without letting go of his fag end.
    ‘We’re leaving in two minutes, lad.’
    In his hurry, Joseph bumped into an old man buying a copy of Le Figaro from the news vendor.
    ‘You oaf!’
    Joseph muttered an apology and, his Passe-partout under his arm, ran back to the omnibus, which was just moving off. His only thought was to find a seat, open his newspaper and make the journey in comfort. He knew the route off by heart: the boulevards and then, as they neared the centre, the more fashionable streets.
    ‘Hot, isn’t it?’ a man remarked.
    ‘Dreadful time of year.’
    ‘The newspapers forecast rain.’
    ‘Well, you can’t always believe what you read…’
    Some bored-looking firemen on duty were leaning out of the mezzanine at the Bibliothèque Nationale, watching the traffic below. Through half-open windows, public servants could be seen busily idling. One, however, was sharpening a pencil.
    The clippety-clop of the horses’ hooves echoed as they passed under the archway leading to Cour du Carrousel. Two men alighted.
    Leaden clouds presaged a dull day. A passing dray poked its nose in above the platform. The conductor cried out, ‘Two-legged animals only, my beauty! Room for two more downstairs, numbers seven and eight!’
    Ding a ling a ling.
    With a deafening clatter, the yellow omnibus turned the corner into a wide avenue. At every stop, people clamoured and waved their numbered tickets at the driver. The ‘full’ sign was put up. The conductor, who’d seen it all before, said in a jaded voice, ‘With omnibuses as with books – you never know what you’ll find inside.’
    Then he pulled the cord to alert the driver, who reined in his horses to allow another faster omnibus to overtake.
    ‘It’s going to bucket down!’ the driver called out.
    ‘It’ll make the grass grow!’ the conductor cried back. ‘Louvre, Châtelet, Odéon, room for one more upstairs. Number six!’
    On the pavement, a score of disappointed faces looked up at the sky and decided it was perhaps a good thing there was no room for them on the upper deck. At last number six came forward.
    Ding a ling a ling.
    ‘Get your Figaro, Intransigeant, Petit Journal !’
    A news vendor made a few speedy sales.
    Joseph opened his Passe-partout , handily just as number six, an enormous woman laden with shopping baskets, stepped on board. Nobody offered her their seat.
    ‘It’s no good, Madame,’ the conductor observed. ‘You’ll have to go upstairs. Here, I’ll give you a shove. Heave-ho!’
    Joseph shrank into his corner, feeling deliciously guilty, and skimmed the headlines.
    Guy De La Brosse’s Body Found
The remains of Guy de la Brosse, founder of our Natural History Museum, have been discovered in an abandoned cellar – formerly the museum’s zoological gallery…
    ‘Tickets please. What the blazes is going on here?’
    The Plaisance–Hôtel de Ville omnibus was struggling up Boulevard Saint-Germain, blocked by a noisy crowd. Stuck at the back of the vehicle, Joseph was thinking that he must go back to writing his novel, Thule’s Golden Chalice, when his attention was suddenly drawn to page two:
    Enamellist Murdered
There are still no clues in the case of the murder victim, Léopold