Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine 010111 by Dell Magazines

Author:Dell Magazines
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub, pdf
Publisher: Dell Magazines
Published: 2011-01-01T08:00:00+00:00

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Fiction

THE ALCHEMIST

R. T. LAWTON

They said they would pay me to bring the old man to them after nightfall. It wasn’t to be a lot of money but enough to get my interest, especially since I needed to eat, yet my criminal talents on the streets of Paris were still, shall we say, developing. Of course, some folk in our community of outcasts argued that my sleight of hand skills were so raw as to border on incompetent and there was no developing them. But, what did those people really expect from a young orphan recently graduated from Mother Margot’s School for Pickpockets? I merely needed a little more time to settle into my new profession.

And contrary to current rumors, Mother Margot did not throw me out just to get rid of me. Ha, given half a chance, I’d lift the purse of Louis the Fourteenth himself and show them all, but then our Sun King’s guards would scarce let a dirty street urchin like me get that close to his noble person.

So I guided the old man, a rich merchant, along the path winding from the banks of the Seine, out across the open dark land where ancient Romans had quarried building stones, an area riddled with pits and tunnels, and which was now used as a dumping ground for refuse, both the castoffs of men and the human outcasts who drifted here. Bull’s-eye lantern in hand, I led the merchant onward, up the slope of the Buttes Chaumont northeast of Paris proper and into an outbuilding in the ruins of the old Roman villa where most of our little community made our home. Here was our sanctuary from the king’s bailiffs.

I didn’t know if the men paying me were aware of it or not, but this greedy little merchant stumbling over the chalky gravel behind me did not appear to be a total fool. Evidently assuming that he might be sticking his head into a den of thieves, he had brought two bodyguards with him for his personal safety. And these two retainers were not coachmen or common house servants, but rather had the appearance about them of professional hired swords. I wondered where the old man had gotten them, as they were no one I recognized from the streets I worked. Something was afoot here, but I’d been left completely in the dark by both sides.

At the blanket covering the doorway into this part of the ruins, I barred the entrance with one outflung arm and inquired as my employers had requested. “Excusez-moi, monsieur, did you bring the silver coins as agreed?”

The merchant pushed my arm out of the way. “My business is with those inside, not a stripling like you.”

He and his two bodyguards thrust the blanket covering aside and entered the room, where a small blaze in a stone fire ring provided the only light inside. Erratic shadows played on the fitted stone walls and upon a second blanket-covered doorway near one of the rear corners.

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