Read Online The Alchemy of Murder by Carol McCleary - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Carol McCleary
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be seen under a microscope. They get inside people and cause sickness and death, like the Black Fever that’s inflicting so many.”
“Yes, the fever. That I know about, it’s killing my neighbors.”
“Some people believe that it’s caused by microbes from the sewer. That’s what we are looking for, those little animals that get people sick.”
Michel scratched his eyebrow. “It’s God that causes sickness.”
* * *
G UIDED BY THE yellow light of an oil lamp, they followed Michel down the grim stone steps. Roth was careful to keep an eye on Pasteur and let him lean on his arm. Behind them were Doctor Brouardel and his assistant who followed closely behind him like an unweaned pup. At the bottom Michel turned to Pasteur, “How will we know when we come across these animals you’re looking for if we can’t see them?”
“We’ll take samples of the sewer water back to the laboratory. Billions live in a single teaspoon of water and we have to find the one that has singled out mankind to kill. The only way we can do this is with our microscopes. It won’t be easy to find the right one—all cats are grey in the dark.”
Once again Michel tossed back a look that clearly expressed his belief that all maladies were in the hands of God.
The sewer tunnel was a half-moon vault of blackened stone with the grim ambience of a dungeon. Perhaps the height of two men and a dozen feet wide, the middle of the tunnel was consumed by a cunette —a channel of sewer waters several feet wide. On each side of the channel was a narrow walkway fouled by debris left behind when the tunnel flooded.
“How many kilometers of tunnels are under the city?” Pasteur asked Michel.
“Hundreds of lieues ,” he said, using an old-fashioned measurement. A lieue was equal to about four kilometers.
Air in the tunnel was humid. The dankness was expected, but the smell was not. One would expect that a waterway that carried the excretions of one of the largest cities in the world would smell worse than Hades. But the moist air had the smell of damp laundry that had been left to mold.
Pasteur inquired, “How often do the walkways flood?”
“Whenever you don’t expect it. Water on the streets becomes a raging river down here. Lost a friend a couple of months ago when he slipped during high water. Found him days later—what the rats left of him.”
In an aside to Roth, Pasteur asked, “Do you recall the role the River Styx played in the Trojan War?”
“Yes, of course. Achilles was invincible, except for his heel. The single weakness was created when he was a baby. His mother, the sea nymph Thetis, held him by his right heel and dipped him into the River Styx to make him invulnerable. The magic water covered all of his body except the heel.”
Even though Roth was fairly new to the institute he was used to these random queries from the scientist whose mind was never at rest.
Pasteur pointed his cane down the tunnel. “The heel, the vulnerable heel … we have to make certain that our city’s weakness isn’t in the sewers.”
For certain, the sewers of Paris held an unusual place in the hearts and minds of Parisians because so much French history—and mystery—had occurred in them. They had long been the lurking place of criminal masterminds and revolutionaries—Jean-Paul Marat hid from the king’s men while plotting the Revolution of 1789, suffering a skin disease that he attributed to the sewers; Jean Valjean saved the life of Marius and dueled with the relentless Inspector Javert in Les Misérables ; and anarchists now crept through them to plant bombs under public buildings.
A fitting place for a killer to hide, the sewer was a netherworld of darkness and shadows, with small islands of hazy light created by feeble oil lamps set no closer than a hundred paces. A lonely place with only the sounds of drips and rushing water.
Grey-green frogs leaped out of their way as the men came down the walkway. Something
“Yes, the fever. That I know about, it’s killing my neighbors.”
“Some people believe that it’s caused by microbes from the sewer. That’s what we are looking for, those little animals that get people sick.”
Michel scratched his eyebrow. “It’s God that causes sickness.”
* * *
G UIDED BY THE yellow light of an oil lamp, they followed Michel down the grim stone steps. Roth was careful to keep an eye on Pasteur and let him lean on his arm. Behind them were Doctor Brouardel and his assistant who followed closely behind him like an unweaned pup. At the bottom Michel turned to Pasteur, “How will we know when we come across these animals you’re looking for if we can’t see them?”
“We’ll take samples of the sewer water back to the laboratory. Billions live in a single teaspoon of water and we have to find the one that has singled out mankind to kill. The only way we can do this is with our microscopes. It won’t be easy to find the right one—all cats are grey in the dark.”
Once again Michel tossed back a look that clearly expressed his belief that all maladies were in the hands of God.
The sewer tunnel was a half-moon vault of blackened stone with the grim ambience of a dungeon. Perhaps the height of two men and a dozen feet wide, the middle of the tunnel was consumed by a cunette —a channel of sewer waters several feet wide. On each side of the channel was a narrow walkway fouled by debris left behind when the tunnel flooded.
“How many kilometers of tunnels are under the city?” Pasteur asked Michel.
“Hundreds of lieues ,” he said, using an old-fashioned measurement. A lieue was equal to about four kilometers.
Air in the tunnel was humid. The dankness was expected, but the smell was not. One would expect that a waterway that carried the excretions of one of the largest cities in the world would smell worse than Hades. But the moist air had the smell of damp laundry that had been left to mold.
Pasteur inquired, “How often do the walkways flood?”
“Whenever you don’t expect it. Water on the streets becomes a raging river down here. Lost a friend a couple of months ago when he slipped during high water. Found him days later—what the rats left of him.”
In an aside to Roth, Pasteur asked, “Do you recall the role the River Styx played in the Trojan War?”
“Yes, of course. Achilles was invincible, except for his heel. The single weakness was created when he was a baby. His mother, the sea nymph Thetis, held him by his right heel and dipped him into the River Styx to make him invulnerable. The magic water covered all of his body except the heel.”
Even though Roth was fairly new to the institute he was used to these random queries from the scientist whose mind was never at rest.
Pasteur pointed his cane down the tunnel. “The heel, the vulnerable heel … we have to make certain that our city’s weakness isn’t in the sewers.”
For certain, the sewers of Paris held an unusual place in the hearts and minds of Parisians because so much French history—and mystery—had occurred in them. They had long been the lurking place of criminal masterminds and revolutionaries—Jean-Paul Marat hid from the king’s men while plotting the Revolution of 1789, suffering a skin disease that he attributed to the sewers; Jean Valjean saved the life of Marius and dueled with the relentless Inspector Javert in Les Misérables ; and anarchists now crept through them to plant bombs under public buildings.
A fitting place for a killer to hide, the sewer was a netherworld of darkness and shadows, with small islands of hazy light created by feeble oil lamps set no closer than a hundred paces. A lonely place with only the sounds of drips and rushing water.
Grey-green frogs leaped out of their way as the men came down the walkway. Something
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