The Delphi Agenda Read Online Free Page B

her, and, for just a moment, she forgot who she was.
    When she opened her eyes again the policeman was leading her to a small love seat near the bedroom door. “Please sit, Mademoiselle,” he began. “As I said, Foix left instructions. And your name….”
    My name is Lisa Emmer, she told herself. I live at 35, Rue de l’Esperance. I’m thirty-two years old. She took a deep breath. “Yes, I know, the acrostic.” She looked up at him. “But it may not refer to me at all. It could just as well stand for ‘Elmer Aims’ or ‘Real Mimes!’ And even if it does point to me, and even if you had my home address, I don’t see how you knew I was going to take the Metro at Corvisart. You were waiting for me. How did you know?”
    “We are the police, Mademoiselle.”
    “No!” She stood and with an effort controlled her tremor. “That’s not good enough,
Captain
Hugo. Someone knew where to find me.
You
knew where to find me. I want some real answers.”
    “The banker, Mademoiselle, had instructions, as I told you.”
    “
Écoutez, Capitaine Hugo
.” She switched to formal French. “This is not real. You knew I would be there. Why would Raimond give my name to this banker…?”
    The memory of her sense that meeting Foix the first time was not an accident rose up and she stopped. “What’s going on?” she asked softly.
    Captain Hugo interrupted, gesturing toward the door. “Please, Mademoiselle. If you feel up to it, we need you to look.”
    She took a deep breath. “Of course Raimond knew I had a meeting this morning with the foundation. It’s logical.” She tried a smile. “All right.”
    From the doorway she could see the back of Foix’s desk and the silver railing of the gallery. “The cupid on the left looks wrong.” She pointed. “Something’s happened to it.” She scarcely noticed the other two men in the room.
    “Yes,” Hugo agreed solemnly. “A wild shot, apparently. It does give us some idea of the killer’s state of mind and a chance to determine where the gun was when he or she fired it.”
    She looked at him curiously. “He or she?”
    “We must consider all possibilities,” he said dryly. “All we can say now is that one shot went wild, ricocheted off the cupid and hit the glass of the window behind the desk, glass that, by the way, is triple-paned and bulletproof, unusual for a professor of Greek, wouldn’t you say?”
    Lisa stared. “No, I wouldn’t say since I have no idea what you’re talking about. Bulletproof glass?”
    “Ah, well, never mind; this is Paris, after all. To continue, a wild shot suggests either carelessness or tension,
n’est-ce pas
? And we know the shots were angled down, so the killer must have been about your height. Or perhaps a little taller,” he added.
    She stepped over the debris and advanced toward the desk until she could see Foix’s head lying against the back in his chair as if he had fallen asleep. His eyes, behind the rimless lenses of his glasses, were closed. The dark spot in the middle of his forehead seemed innocuous enough, like the decorative red or black painted
bindi
some south Asians affected. It seemed such a small sign to mark the end of a man’s life.
    A short, plump man was bent over Foix’s body, hands clasped behind his back. He straightened as she approached. He had dark hair slicked forward and a dapper moustache. His brown eyes regarded her sympathetically. “I am Dr. Viètes,” he said in soft, British-French accented English, taking her hand between his and pressing it warmly. “I am sorry, Miss Emmer. I understand the deceased was a close friend.”
    “Thank you,” she said. “Yes, he was.”
    Though Viètes’ eyes were touched by his sympathetic smile she wondered if the
médecin légiste
hadn’t put special emphasis on the word friend. Did the police suspect she and Foix were lovers? That she had shot him in some kind of jealous fit? She dismissed the thought as soon as it arose. This was absurd. She was