Read Online Ten Little Wizards: A Lord Darcy Novel by Michael Kurland, Randall Garrett - Free Book Online Page B

time, I built in a tendency to repeat. The spell is worn out now, and it will take either another spell or two strong men to move Master DePlessis to his next resting place.”
    Lord Darcy examined the body. “Stabbed through the heart, you say?” He opened the sorcerer’s cloak and saw that the puncture went through the gold-trimmed light blue sorcerer’s gown, which was soaked with blood. The area where the corpse’s head had been showed a small pool of blood, not quite congealed. Of course, it had stopped congealing when Master Sean had put the preservation spell on the body. No further biological action would take place until the spell was removed.
    “Not too much blood,” Lord Darcy commented. “Of course, if he died within a minute or two, then the heart didn’t have much time to pump blood through the wound.” Lord Darcy tried to move one of the crossed arms, but it resisted his pull and snapped back into place. “Hmm, rigor is setting in. How long ago would you say it happened?”
    “Between three and three and a half hours before I performed the tests, my lord,” Master Sean said. “Which was about a half hour ago. Let us say that Master DePlessis died between eleven-thirty and twelve o’clock.”
    “Good, let us say that,” Lord Darcy agreed. “Here—what’s this?” He pried open the corpse’s hand and worked loose a folded piece of paper that had been concealed in the loosely-made, but now tight-as-iron fist. “Did you notice this?”
    “Yes, my lord, but I left it for you,” Master Sean replied. “I felt that it was more in your province than mine.”
    “You figured correctly, Master Sean. Thank you for your forbearance. Let’s see.” Lord Darcy unfolded the paper and held it up to the light of the nearest lamp. “A stiff, yellowish paper, about four by six inches. Torn from something on two sides, but neatly. Probably with a straightedge.”
    “Yes, Your Lordship, but what does it say?” Master Sean demanded.
    “Ah, I can see that you really did exercise self-control in not removing this from Master DePlessis’s hand before I got here,” Lord Darcy commented. “Let me see. Broad-nibbed pen. Steel point. Printed rather than written. What a shame, handwriting is so much more suggestive of character. Our murderer gave us something here, but is it enough?”
    “Is it from the murderer, then?”
    “I believe so. Certainly.”
    “Then, my lord, what—”
    ”Here,” Lord Darcy said. “Read it yourself.”
    Master Sean O Lochlainn took the yellowish paper rectangle and moved over to the window.
    “It’s a rhyme,” he said. “A children’s rhyme.”
    “It is a hellish message,” Lord Darcy said, staring out the window at the gray sky “It frightens me.”
    Master Sean read it to himself:
    Ten little wizards sat down to dine
    One wizard stuffed his face—and now there are nine.

CHAPTER SIX
    “It can be understood in several ways,” the Archbishop of Paris said, thoughtfully rubbing the scrap of paper in his right hand between his thumb and forefinger. “As a pronouncement, as a challenge, as a threat, as a warning; even merely as a comment. A ‘look how clever I am’ sort of thing.” He smoothed it out on the table and passed it back to Lord Darcy. “But at any rate, I think you’re quite right, Darcy; whoever did that is dangerously insane. That, however, is my opinion as worried human being, and a not particularly skilled, second-hand judge of character, not as a cleric and a sensitive. As a sensitive, I get nothing useful from that paper.”
    They were meeting at ten in the evening in the private study of Duke Richard’s suite in the private quarter of the castle. A severely plain and functional room, uncluttered with any decoration save for a shield blazoned with the coat of arms of Normandy on the far wall and a recent portrait of His Majesty between the recessed windows on the near wall; it showed clearly that the Duke of Normandy wished to be thought of as