The Elephant is White [antikvár]

CHAPTER ONE Paris in spring! Paris at night. Le Pont des Cents Bougies at 10:30 p.m. The Seine, sporting her diamonds like some raddled old dowager, flowed hopefully under the Bridge as though waiting for her gigolo to steer her delicately through the rhythms of the city. But the only offer came from a gaunt figure, an overcoated raven of despair, balanced on the parapet with arms outflung. And even then some busybody had to come along and pull him back. Peter Pyke, crossing the Bridge on his way to a romantic rendezvous in the rue des Toits Tombés, grabbed at the overcoat. The Raven came away with it, picked itself up, and looked at Pete reproachfully. "Why," it demanded, "do you interfere with my destiny?" Pete began to feel vaguely resentful. This shabby Chaliapin with the voice of a bass singer stranded in Puccini, this Tchekov sideshow with the gaunt frame of a cossack and the lean face of a Misha Auer, why the blighter was designed by nature to be grateful. Yet the look in his eye was definitely one of contempt. "What right," he intoned, "have you to interfere between me and my chosen mistress? Death," he explained kindly. Pete looked at him.