Judge Dee and the Prisoner of Montmarte by Lavie Tidhar

Author:Lavie Tidhar
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Tom Doherty Associates

7.

‘Sang Noir!’

It was Fourier who spoke first. He pointed at the horror on the floor.

‘Inquisitor Saragossa has been poisoned!’ he said.

It was perhaps a little dramatic.

‘It’s pronounced Zaragoza, actually,’ Lord James said. He held Lady Aurore to him passionately. ‘I am so terribly sorry you had to witness this, my darling!’

Lady Aurore pushed him away. ‘In my house? At my party? Who dared do this to me!’ She cast her cold, red eyes on the assembled guests. ‘I demand blood!’

‘I think we have enough blood here, darling…’ Lord James said. Noemi, the servant, ran to her mistress’ side. She cast an accusing glance at Lord James.

‘My lady, are you all right?’ Noemi said. Lady Aurore stroked Noemi’s hair distractedly.

‘I want blood,’ she repeated with finality.

There was an awkward silence.

It was the sort of awkward silence that always happens at a dinner party when one of the guests bursts open and explodes into a puddle of stinking goo.

The corpses smelled worse than the Gruyère.

Judge Dee stepped across the floor, avoiding the black blood. He stood over the bodies.

‘I am not sad to see him dead,’ he said. ‘In Catalonia, five decades past, he set up an operation selling tainted blood to the local vampires. The Sang Noir. By the time I got there all of the witnesses were dead. I was sure he had done it deliberately. In life he hated the living. In death he hated the undead.’

He turned and looked at the assembled guests, and his eyes were cold. ‘One of us in this room killed him. I can imagine many had a motive against the inquisitor. I am personally gratified—but I am a judge. I will find out who did this. And I will judge them, and pass sentence.’

There was another short silence.

Then – ‘Absurdo!’ said Lord James. ‘I mean, preposterous! I had nothing to do with it! I barely even knew the man. How do we know you didn’t murder him, Judge Dee? You have just confessed to holding a grudge against the fellow! It must have been you who poisoned the food!’

Jonathan winced at the word ‘food.’ And at Lord James’ tone. One simply did not speak in this way to Judge Dee. Not if they wanted to keep on living.

But the judge nodded calmly.

‘You are right,’ he said. ‘I am a suspect. We all are. I would ask that none of you leave until this matter is settled.’

‘But I must go back to Paris!’ Fourier protested. He looked nervous. ‘I had nothing to do with this, Judge Dee, and I refuse to be kept a prisoner!’

‘This is hardly a prison!’ Lady Aurore said, bristling. ‘This is my manor, and my party!’

‘So much of a party!’ Fourier said, snarling. He pointed to the corpses. ‘I for one do not plan to eat any more! Perhaps you poisoned all of the food, Aurore!’

‘Are you accusing me?’ the lady said. She stared at Fourier with loathing. ‘How dare you!’

‘Jonathan,’ the judge said in a low voice. ‘A word?’

‘Yes, master?’

‘Wipe the sick off your chin.

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