1
THE DANGLING CORPSE
The chamberlain’s corpse danced from a rope looped around a beautiful chandelier in a ballroom surrounded by opulence, stinking of death.
Danced.
At this moment, the movements in question appeared to be a virtuadoré – an especially intricate noble courtship dance that involved a great deal of heel turns and swaying arms.
‘How is this even possible?’ demanded the Viscount of Cajoulac, pacing along the pristinely polished oak boards of his specially sprung floor which made dancing upon it less of a hardship to his guests’ knees.
Not the one hanging from the crystalline chandelier, of course.
‘I mean it,’ the slender, elaborately-attired Viscount insisted, pairing his outrage with a stomp from his emerald green silk with ivory lace shoe against the floor. ‘How can
