A Sharpness On The Neck (Saberhagen's Dracula Book 9) by Fred Saberhagen (most read book in the world .TXT) 📗

      Already Radu was bored by the little figures. He picked one up, the blond girl-doll he thought the madman had been particularly admiring, and crushed it in his hand, reducing it to a smear of pink wax oozing between his fingers. De Sade made a sound like that of a victim under some probing stab by a torturer. Radu could derive faint amusement from the expression on de Sade’s face.

Chapter Nineteen

      Hoping to discover the whereabouts of the newly arrested Radcliffe as quickly as possible, I stood before a Parisian wall which had been dedicated to the posting of Revolutionary news.

      I had thought there might be a good chance of finding the name I sought on some freshly published list of those under arrest for crimes against the people—or under sentence of death, which now very nearly amounted to the same thing. But nothing on the board before me suggested that such lists were currently being displayed—if they ever had been. With the daily number of executions in Paris alone now in double digits and mounting steadily higher, perhaps the people in charge of the paperwork of terror were finding it increasingly difficult to keep up.

      My weary gaze focused upon one of the placards on the wall. It was actually only one of a number of authoritarian proclamations, some of the older specimens overlapped and almost entirely covered by the new. Though they dealt with different subjects, all were similar in tone:

      A portion of the treacherous suspects being held in our prisons have been eliminated by the people, vigilant in the cause of freedom; and it is certain that the entire nation, driven to desperate measures by continuous conspiracies, will be inspired to pursue the same course. All will cry out with one voice: Our soldiers who go to fight the enemy must be secure in the knowledge that they do not leave thieves and murderers behind them, to prey upon their helpless wives and children.

      It was signed by Marat and others. The cardboard was severely weatherworn in places, a reminder that Marat had been assassinated almost a year ago, a long time indeed when one was measuring the pace of Revolutionary events. Many of the other signatures were illegible.

      I felt a chill of foreboding on behalf of Radcliffe—and for my vow that I would save his life. I would have to act with dispatch to free my benefactor, who might well face not only the threat of la mechanique, but the less predictable chance of another wave of prisoner-slaughtering by mobs.

      But of course my first step must be to learn exactly where the unlucky wretch was being held. There were more than a dozen prisons now in the metropolitan area of Paris, with new ones being improvised, as it seemed, almost daily, and prisoners sometimes shuttled from one to another. I might conceivably search for days without finding the man I sought.

* * *

      It was one of those times when the demands of honor grip a man like a migraine headache, an undeserved punishment from which there can be no escape. I had as yet no evidence that Radu was out to frustrate my purpose, or even that he was aware of Radcliffe’s arrest or of my commitment to the American’s welfare. But where Radu is concerned it is always wisest to assume the worst.

      Several hours passed before I saw the silver lining of the cloud: It dawned on me that I might be able to use Radcliffe as bait to trap Radu.

* * * * * *

      I had tried several methods, including hypnosis, of interrogating Old Jules. But even so the willing and faithful servant could do little more than blubber helplessly. I could not extract from him information which was not in his possession. He had no idea to which prison his newly adopted Citizen Master had been taken.

      It began to look as if I might be forced to look through all of the rapidly proliferating Parisian prisons cell by cell, a procedure which would take days, days my client probably could not spare. Unless I could find some shortcut, magical or otherwise. I might have attempted some variety of sorcery, had I had in my possession anything—a piece of clothing, a lock of hair—which had been in close personal contact with Philip. But nothing of the kind was available.

      My thoughts next turned to the young woman, Melanie Romain, who obviously had some fairly close relationship with the man I was determined to protect. I did not really believe that they were simply old friends, as she had claimed. And now I regretted my carelessness in failing to find out more about her when I had had the chance.

      I thought about her. About Melanie Romain, the practical, kindly doctor’s daughter, whose mysterious job required her to work in a churchyard in the dead of night, briskly doing inexplicable things with freshly decapitated heads. She had told me that the older woman who shared her midnight labors was her teacher, Marie Grosholtz … but her teacher in what craft or art?

      Of one thing I was certain, having had my knowledge confirmed by Old Jules: Melanie had accompanied Radcliffe to Paris. And the elderly servant, after their party had reached the city, had heard Melanie give the young man the same Parisian address I had happened to overhear— Number 20, Boulevard du Temple.

      Well, the key to what success I enjoy usually lies in instincts and hunches, not in logic. It is somewhere away from the paths of science and reason that I will find my salvation, if I ever do. I might have taken other pathways to attempt to locate my savior in his own hour of need; but somehow this one beckoned.

* * *

      Looking for the address, I made my way on foot at dusk along the tree-lined boulevard, passing the building which had housed the once-famous English circus, now shuttered and apparently fallen