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    The Handbag's Tale
    The Handbag's Tale
    The Handbag's Tale
    Ebook52 pages41 minutes

    The Handbag's Tale

    By Louis Shalako

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    About this ebook

    The Handbag's Tale is a highly-stylized murder mystery. Readers will enjoy a rich vein of dark and sardonic humour. Nana the Snake Dancer, poets, painters, proprietors of bawdy houses, inept burglars, and Inspector Gilles Maintenon make an unforgettable tale of a classic time and place: It's Paris, 1924, at the height of party season.

    The short story that inspired the series. Look for 'Redemption: an Inspector Gilles Maintenon' mystery, as well as 'The Art of Murder,' and 'Blessed Are the Humble,' available at many fine online retailers.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherLouis Shalako
    Release dateFeb 20, 2011
    ISBN9781458124968
    The Handbag's Tale
    Author

    Louis Shalako

    Louis Shalako is the founder of Long Cool One Books and the author of twenty-two novels, numerous novellas and other short stories. Louis studied Radio, Television and Journalism Arts at Lambton College of Applied Arts and Technology, later going on to study fine art. He began writing for community newspapers and industrial magazines over thirty years ago. His stories appear in publications including Perihelion Science Fiction, Bewildering Stories, Aurora Wolf, Ennea, Wonderwaan, Algernon, Nova Fantasia, and Danse Macabre. He lives in southern Ontario and writes full time. Louis enjoys cycling, swimming and good books.

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      Book preview

      The Handbag's Tale - Louis Shalako

      The Handbag’s Tale

      Louis Shalako

      This Smashwords edition copyright 2014 Louis Shalako and Long Cool One Books

      ISBN 978-0-9866871-4-3

      Design: J. Thornton

      This one is for mom.

      This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

      The following is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to any person living or deceased; or to any places or events, is purely coincidental. Names, places, settings, characters and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination.

      Table of Contents

      Scene One

      Scene Two

      Scene Three

      About Louis Shalako

      The Handbag’s Tale

      Louis Shalako

      Scene One

      Show him your pistol, Andre.

      Gilles Maintenon’s words, flat and smooth, defied the blackness of the night. This was an unexpected development.

      Sergeant Levain complied with the Inspector’s request happily enough. There was a long moment of silence, as a gust of the evening breeze sifted through the branches overhead.

      We are police officers, he informed the ‘apache,’ a tall young man wearing crepe-soled shoes, a black leather jacket, with dark and frightened eyes, and a very shiny flick-blade knife.

      The blade gleamed dully in the obtuse moonlight, reflected from around the corner of the alley by a thousand window panels.

      You may keep the pig-sticker, suggested Maintenon coolly. You may need it later, although Andre here never forgets a pretty face such as yours.

      Or a pretty ass, said Andre menacingly, with a twitch of the gun barrel.

      The youth snapped the blade shut. The knife disappeared into a back pocket in a heartbeat.

      Andre put the gun away very slowly.

      What have you got? the young fellow said, with a flick of the head. I may be able to help you.

      Maintenon and Sergeant Levain exchanged a brief glance.

      It is a hand-bag, said Levain. We have a dead body; one with a hole in the exact dead centre of the forehead.

      Do you know him? murmured Maintenon.

      The young man stepped in a little closer, staring down at the waxen features of the victim. The smoothly shaven, portly figure of the deceased was dressed in a dark and expensive suit with narrow, vertical pinstripes. It was their eleventh murder in three days. With the coming of autumn and a full moon, and with the party season well underway, Paris was a veritable zoo. Just a zoo—a zoo full of human beings, caged and cooped and fenced in, cheek by jowl and one on top of another.

      Party-animal, noted the fellow. I saw him go in.

      Where— snapped Levain.

      It was more of a statement than a request.

      There is a little house party around the corner, noted the subject with a wry tug of the corners of the wide, sensual mouth.

      He held up a hand and rubbed the fingers suggestively.

      It pays to know these things, he noted. I heard a sound—perhaps a shot. It was…odd.

      The young man’s instincts were aroused. He lived by his wits. Maintenon didn’t even ask the

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