Read Online Murder in the Latin Quarter by Cara Black - Free Book Online

tell you,” he said. “But we’ve spoken about this.”
    She stiffened, remembering the administrator mentioning “cut-throat” competition and the words “publish or perish.” All of a sudden, the possibility of an academic murder loomed.
    “Would this discovery put him in danger?”
    Huby blinked. ”What? This is an academic treatise. What danger could publication here pose for the professor?”
    Did Huby’s ambitions extend to claiming equal credit for Benoît’s findings, Aimée wondered.
    “Granted, but Professeur Benoît was murdered.”
    Huby’s jaw dropped. “Murdered? But I thought, an accident. . . .”
    “No accident, Monsieur. Murder.” She watched him. “Didn’t you know? Didn’t the police interview you this morning?”
    “They told us. . . .” Realization dawned in his eyes. “You’re not from the school. . . .”
    “Where were you this morning, Assistant Professeur Huby?”
    “This morning? Why, at the dentist. I’d lost a filling.” His eyes narrowed in suspicion. “But why all these questions? Who are you?”
    “Aimée Leduc, private detective,” she said. “I’m sorry. I should have told you the truth. I’m looking for a woman called Mireille.”
    “Assistant Professeur Huby?” A smiling, petite woman wearing red-framed glasses stood at the lab door. “Elise Cadet, from the science department. Sorry I’m late.” She strode into the lab and glanced around the room. “Fantastic lab facilities. Mind showing me around?”
    Aimée realized she could learn no more now. She leaned close to Huby. “Can you meet me later?”
    “I’ve got to give an interview to a real journalist.”
    “Here’s my card.” She put it in his hand. “It’s vital. Please.”
    The microscope with its tiny brightly lit slide sat on the counter. But what could she do with a slide? “I’ll take this journal with me, if you don’t mind?” she told Huby. And then she felt a whoosh of air as he strode away to meet the real journalist.
    Leaving by the back door, she followed the crumbling outer steps into a small rear courtyard. In front of her stood a two-story atelier, its glass roof half-covered by fallen leaves. The atelier’s tall windows revealed a spine of bones hanging from the ceiling. An elephant or dinosaur? She didn’t know. But she did recognize the crossbeams framing the structure. Aza-cca Benoît had stood here with his pig skeletons in the journal photo.
    So far, according to Darquin, a secretive Benoît had left Mireille an envelope. The timing was right for Mireille to have had the envelope with her when she appeared at Aimée’s office. Huby had revealed that Benoît had made a discovery regarding pigs, and also that he’d let Mireille stay, on the quiet, in the gatehouse where Aimée had found his body.
    She had to learn more.
    The atelier was cool. Lab coats hung on a rack next to a box of disposble white net mouth masks. She donned a mask and took a lab coat embroidered with the word TECHNICIAN. She expected more state-of-the-art equipment, but found another nineteenth-century gallery filled with skeletal specimens on tables. Boxes, boxes everywhere. Where to begin?
    She heard grunting, the sounds of cardboard sliding, and saw a cardboard box moving across the floor.
    “ Excusez-moi, ” she said. “Someone there?”
    No answer.
    She edged past the skull of a rhinoceros and saw a small blonde woman heaving a large box onto a table.
    “Madame?”
    Still no answer. Talk about unhelpful staff! And rude.
    The woman looked up, her face flushed. “ Un moment. ” She took a flesh-colored plug attached to a wire from her lab coat pocket.
    She removed her face mask and adjusted the plug in her right ear. “May I help you?”
    Hard of hearing? Or totally deaf. Not from old age: the woman was fairly young and attractive.
    “Professeur Benoît worked here, non? ” Aimée said, pronouncing the words with care.
    “I read lips, too. Face me and you can talk at normal