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Quelle Horreur!


by William Burton McCormick


About the Author: William Burton McCormick is an Edgar, Thriller, Shamus, Derringer, Sliver Falchion and Claymore awards finalist whose fiction regularly appears in Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine, Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine, The Saturday Evening Post, Black Mask, Mystery Weekly and elsewhere. The character of Eleni Kardopoulina from "QUELLE HORREUR!" appears in the award-nominated novella A STRANGER FROM THE STORM.


Excerpt

“We are very happy to accommodate you, Mr. Dubois,” said the young woman with a devilish grin. “Your first time in Odessa?”  

“Oui,” sighed Dubois, an arm propped against the front doorframe to keep himself standing. “I’m told your rooms are quiet, Mademoiselle. My nerves you see. I’ve been hunting for a lodging half the night and must have sleep!”

Her grin widened and Dubois chastised himself for his honesty. They might charge him more, now, desperate as he was, a Frenchman lost in the Russian Empire. Well, they were lucky he’d stay here at all given the rumors about this half-hidden lodging house in the drizzling seaport. Each inn without vacancy tonight mentioned this abode as an alternative, and every mentioning brought warnings in Russian, Ukrainian, Greek, or Yiddish:

Guests quit this house in the middle of the night.

Or ran out in such panic that they tumbled down the Boulevard Staircase.

Or simply disappeared.

Go there only if you must!

Dubois was assured by other members of the Club Nautique that these rumors were unfounded, merely malicious gossip made by rival inns and dosshouses who wanted foreign marine merchants as tenants for themselves. He trusted his fellows more than the locals …



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