Game of Patience Read Online Free PDF

shook his head. “Perhaps. But Thibault said many of his visitors, not just the one who died with him, were timid, respectably dressed ladies. And this girl had no money on her at all, except for a few sous which happen to be about the price of a cab fare home, wherever in Paris home is. And Didier found a sizable bundle of notes on Saint-Ange. The stink is fouler than pandering, I imagine.”
    Brasseur smacked his fist into his palm.
    “Extortion!”
    “I think I begin to mislike the late Louis Saint-Ange. And perhaps to believe whoever murdered him did the world a service.” Aristide wheeled about, staring down once again at the spot where the dead girl had fallen. “One of his victims must have grown desperate and rid himself—or herself—of a most rapacious parasite. I wouldn’t expend too much effort in trying to learn who the killer was. But that poor girl had to die, too… .”
    “She must have been one of his victims,” Brasseur said. “You thought she’d been crying… .”
    “Yes. Pleading with him, perhaps. Probably she was trying to keep secret some childish indiscretion from a father or a fiancé.”
    “We’ll know more when she’s identified,” said Brasseur. “A nicely-dressed young lady like that, she’s sure to have someone wondering where she is, parents or at least servants.” He turned to Didier. “Inspector, station a man here in the building, in the porter’s room. And try not to let the news of Saint-Ange’s death spread too far. Keep that porter quiet; keep him flat-out drunk if you have to. Anyone who comes to call on Saint-Ange is to be held for questioning.”
    “Whom were you thinking of catching?” Aristide said.
    “If we’re right about Saint-Ange, another of his victims will probably come by with a payment soon, or at least one of his friends. Didier, I’m to be sent for as soon as you bag someone.”
    “Yes, Commissaire.”
    “And mind you treat them properly,” Aristide added. “The Terror’s over. Innocent witnesses give information more willingly if they’re not frightened half to death.”
    “I don’t take orders from you,” said Didier, coloring. “You’re not even an inspector.”
    “You will if I say you do,” Brasseur snapped. “Ravel works for me and gets paid by me, same as you; he may not have an official title, but he’s an agent of the police, understood?”
    “Yes, Commissaire,” Didier said, adding under his breath, “Never thought I’d be taking orders from a damned spy.”
    Aristide ignored him. Spy or talebearer were the first epithets that sprang to most people’s minds when they learned he worked for the police, but not openly as an inspector, peace officer, or commissaire. Some aspects of policing had not changed since the collapse of the old regime; the vast majority of “police agents” had always been spies and eavesdroppers, loathed by all including their employers, forever ready, for a small stipend, to repeat indiscreet talk or report observations and rumors.
    Aristide held the common police spy in as much contempt as did anyone else, preferring to devote himself to investigation rather than informing. The difference that preserved his self-respect, he thought, was that when he went undercover, it was to obtain evidence about crimes committed, for the sake of justice; while informers usually gathered loose talk and innuendo, hints of crime and sedition that had not yet occurred, for the benefit of suspicious authority.
    He strode out to the landing, glad to be away from the room in which the faint smell of gunpowder still hung. “Which of the apartments are tenanted?” he asked Didier, over his shoulder. “Have you questioned them all?”
    “The people two floors above heard some scuffling yesterday evening,” Didier muttered, “but they didn’t think anything of it. They’re too far above, and you can’t hear much in a stone house like this. The wife might have heard shots; but she admitted she got so used to