The Tenth Witness (Henri Poincare Mystery) Read Online Free PDF

after all.”
    There are no words to describe the pulse that shot through me as we kissed. That afternoon, when she led our group off the flats and turned to congratulate us, I thought, Here is a woman who could make someone very happy. Earlier that evening, as she crossed the ballroom heading in my direction, I realized that that someone could be me. When our lips touched, I found myself in full adolescent free fall. It was preposterous. I knew it and had no interest in stopping it.
    I told her I was leaving for Hong Kong.
    “When will I see you next? We’re returning to Munich in a few days.”
    I had no pressing business in Munich, but Munich it would be.

eight
    M y father had called to tell me that Isaac Kahane, my own uncle by long association, had died. He was old and failing; we had all expected it, but just the same the news came as a shock.
    On the balcony, I thought of him as clouds slowly blotted the moon. Here was Isaac in his bow tie on a favorite bench at the park, reading Le Monde ; here, a five-year-old running, watching the man grow bright with a smile. He’d clear a spot and say, “Henri, come sit and tell me all about it.” The “it” didn’t matter. Life and our nearness mattered. He took interest in all that I said. I was precious to him and knew it in the way a child knows these things.
    He had lost six sons in the war. And his wife. Freda had lost two children and her husband. They found each other in the summer of 1945 and decided the world was too dangerous and hateful a place to risk raising and loving children again. What a surprise, then, that the child who lived in the apartment upstairs on rue Jeanne d’Arc should melt their blighted hearts.
    I was the beneficiary of their loss.
    It took little time to discover that Isaac’s great weakness was butterscotch. I’d save my allowance and go to the confectioner’s as often as I could. Isaac, in turn, would accept my candy as long as I ate some with him; then he’d dip into his pockets for some treasure that always came with a story. Here was the pen the Tsar used to proclaim freedom for the serfs. Here, a cat’s-eye marble so perfect it once started a war. I believed these stories, and once I was old enough to know they were stories, I believed in them, in their power to summon Isaac and Freda when I wanted them near.

    L EGS SET wide, one hand steady at the helm and the other resting on twin throttles, Anselm Kraus gunned his sleek runabout, Blast Furnace, hard through the waves. Strong winds out of the northwest had collided with a flood tide running from the southeast, creating a vicious chop.
    I shivered behind the windscreen, my stomach in knots.
    “You should have told me about the seasickness!” he yelled over the engines. “I’ve got medicine back at Löwenherz.”
    At that early hour, all I could see of him was his chest and face, lit from below by the dim, orange lights of the instrument panel. Apart from that, the world was black. And, in my sea-sickened state, spinning.
    “The Lutine ,” he called. “Why salvage her now?”
    Even contemplating an answer turned my stomach. He directed me to a compartment beneath my seat, where I found a bottle of soda water. Blast Furnace slammed through some waves and skimmed the tops of others, bucking and heaving. I leaned overboard and retched, trying to make a joke of the fact that Alec’s and my first substantial job should be at sea. I knew all about my weak stomach; still, I hadn’t hesitated when writing the Lloyd’s proposal.
    “Cheer up, Henri! No one ever died of seasickness. I’ll give us some throttle to take some motion out of the boat. Come on, take your mind off it. Talk. Why does Lloyd’s think it can salvage the Lutine now, after all the other salvage attempts? And what the hell does my sister see in a Frenchman?”
    I looked at him and threw up.
    “Oh—I see,” he said, listening to me retch. “It’s your charm.”
    In between bouts of hanging my head over