Crime Fraiche Read Online Free PDF Page B

clacking their knives open and placing them by their bowls and who would order the return to work by snapping them shut. She felt an irresistible tug to return to her childhood and walk a drive with the beaters.
    Abandoning Alexandre to join the Vienneaus, Capucine climbed into the Estafette, hoping that Alexandre’s flirting with Marie-Christine would not overly put Vienneau off his rhythm. Above the rattling of the van the beaters gossiped excitedly in an all but impenetrable country patois, apparently oblivious to Capucine’s presence. The gist seemed to be that death was very much the subject of the day. It would appear that the House of Maulévrier was jinxed and a long string of fatalities was just beginning.
    A venerable old man with a long white beard and a poncho made from a sheet of oilskin with a hole cut for the head and held to his waist with a piece of old rope caressed his dog, a highly mongrelized little black-and-white spaniel. “You lads don’ know nuthin’. Don’t got nuthin’ to do with Monsieur le Comte. It’s the élevage what’s jinxed. Things just ain’t right there. Everyone knows that. Those steers are cattle of the devil himself. An’ the punishment’s just a-comin’ on now. An’ it’s going to get worse, much worse.”
    The van jerked to a stop and the beaters clattered out, followed by Capucine. The head beater organized them in a line and said to Capucine, “ ’Demoiselle Capucine, you stay next to me, right here in the middle. That way you’ll be there to shoot any birds that go off the wrong way.” In a minute they heard the distant triple note of Oncle Aymerie’s horn and set off, dogs whining and straining but held fast on their rope leashes, sticks tapping, quiet imprecations of “ Allez là-dedans. Allez .”
    Twenty uneventful minutes later, still several hundred feet from the line of guns, they heard the popping of shots as the first birds took off. The beaters changed their rhythm, speeding up, yelling loudly, and flailing energetically with their sticks, seeking to create an even greater irritant for the birds than the din of the guns.
    The beater next to Capucine—the oracular old man with the tarpaulin poncho—clutched his face and let out a cry. Blood flowed freely through his fingers and down his chest. She held him by the arm as the other beaters went on. His spaniel yanked on his rope once or twice but then realized his master’s distress and sat down in front of him, looking worried and keening almost inaudibly. Capucine pulled the man’s fingers away from his face and mopped up as much blood as she could with her handkerchief. In a few minutes the blood flow dwindled but his face began to swell alarmingly. The man muttered over and over, “I told them, but they didn’t listen. I told them . . .”
    The policewoman in Capucine took over. She led the beater out into the clearing, entrusted the dog to one of his pals, commandeered Vienneau’s top-of-the-line Peugeot 607, and designated Alexandre as driver. At the car she cajoled her ward—intimidated by the luxury of the leather seats—into the back and instructed Alexandre to drive to town.
    The pharmacie was the only option as there was no doctor in the village. The pharmacist, Monsieur Homais, a grimly serious-looking man in his early sixties, examined the beater’s wounds with theatrical concentration.
    “If this keeps up, I’m going to ask Monsieur le Comte for a season contract.”
    Capucine smiled at the joke but couldn’t help remembering Oncle Aymerie’s dismay at yet another bloody accident on the heels of a fatality.
    “You treated Philippe Gerlier?” Capucine asked.
    “Madame, even I cannot treat the deceased. He was indeed brought to me, but I could do no more than pronounce his condition.” He produced an oversized magnifying glass and continued his examination, holding the tip of the man’s chin with two fingers to rotate his face left and right as was needed.
    “These cases