Murder Chez Proust by Estelle Monbrun

Author:Estelle Monbrun
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Skyhorse Publishing, Inc.
Published: 2013-01-01T05:00:00+00:00

14

THE MOON, WELL INTO ITS LAST QUARTER, shone dimly on the secluded buildings of the Teissandier family’s farm. It was one of those uncomely farms one finds in the Beauce, sitting squarely in the middle of unendingly dreary wheat fields that stretch in all directions as far as the eye can see. Albert had sworn he would break free of the place as soon as possible. He had just turned eighteen, and there was nothing he wouldn’t do to save up enough money to get to Paris, the first step in what he hoped would become a trip around the world. That evening he had earned a bundle playing guitar at a local ball, and the contents of the envelope that he had stashed carefully in the saddlebag of his moped had already carried him, in his imagination, as far as London, or even Liverpool.

Albert had the glistening red hair and the perky gaze of a young cocker spaniel. He whistled as he drove, taking the familiar turn into the little road leading up to his parents’ farm at top speed. Suddenly the headlights of a car flared up in his path. Momentarily blinded, he felt his moped skid out from under him, and in a great slide of gravel, he found himself facedown on the ground, his elbows skinned and his head more than a little shaken in spite of his regulation helmet, which was supposed to protect it from just such a fall.

As he tried to get up, Albert saw a cloud of little bright spots dancing before his eyes. A foot came down on his chest, pinning him to the ground and cutting off his breath. He could just make out the shadowy outline of a man in a raincoat, a hat pulled down over his eyes and a scarf over his nose and mouth. No doubt about it, he was being mugged just two hundred yards from his own house! The silhouette appeared above him at the center of a web of blinding light, just as he had seen in the dozens of science-fiction movies he had adored as a child. How many times had he dreamed of actually encountering an extraterrestrial being, and of how famous that would make him! But the voice that he heard next was definitely a human one:

“Stay right where you are, Albert. And tell me where you put the bag.”

“The bag?” he asked confusedly. “What bag?”

“Don’t play dumb with me, Albert,” the voice said threateningly. “Tell me where it is, unless you want something worse to happen to you. . . .”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” the young man gasped, scarcely able to speak. He was determined not to give up the fruit of his labors so easily to someone he assumed was the leader of a Chartres gang.

“Then let me refresh your memory.” And with a vicious kick to his side, which was already bruised black and blue by the fall, Albert’s assailant knocked the breath out of him.

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