Free French Fried by NANCY FAIRBANKS Page A

have not found the car, but we found shopkeepers who agree that it did not seem to be an accident and remarked how good it was of your husband to take care of the dog. I hope he has recovered.”
    “My husband or the dog? And why did no one go to the rescue if they saw the accident?”
    “It is a busy time for a shopkeeper, and they said that he rose almost immediately. Has the professor seen a doctor for his knee? I can recommend one, and if we find the driver, the driver must pay for his treatment.”
    “What about the poison?” I asked, sure that Jason hadn’t gone to a doctor. It’s harder to get a man to a doctor than to convince an El Pasoan to give up Mexican food. Only a serious medical condition will do the trick in either case.
    “Ah, the poison. Doctor Petit chooses tetrodotoxin. The symptoms of the Canadian gentleman support that conclusion, although the symptoms support other conclusions as well.”
    “How do you spell it, the toxin?” I asked, planning to look it up on the Internet. Our room had a modem connection, and my laptop has a modem. Inspector Roux spelled it for me.
    “The problem is, Madam Blue, that the toxin is found in a fish eaten by Japanese. The chances of a French goose being fed a Japanese fish are slim.”
    “Fugu. My husband has eaten it. Had I been with him, I would have protested, but a well-trained fugu chef is taught to remove all toxic parts but enough to numb the lips and tongue so the customer can enjoy the danger of what he’s eating.”
    “The Japanese are strange people,” mused the inspector. “They never commit crimes, but they take the photographs continuously, more often, I think, than they actually look at the sights they photograph. Very strange.”
    “I imagine the criminal mashed a bit of a puffer fish into the pâté. Since fugu is said to be quite tasty, Professor Levasseur would have noticed only the numbed lips and tongue, not the taste.”
    “I know of no place in Lyon that serves such a fish. It is probably against the law.”
    “Don’t you have Japanese restaurants? Have you called importers of fish?”
    “Lyon has wonderful fish in the area. We have no need to import fish that kill people,” said the inspector indignantly.
    I sighed. Obviously I’d get no nap. I had to look up Japanese restaurants and importers and call them, not to mention Googling—what a ridiculous word—the toxin for information. Perhaps it is found in some French fish that Inspector Roux knows nothing about , I thought, and said good-bye to him. Obviously he took his work seriously, but his loyalty to Lyon blinded him to some things that should be investigated.
    First I looked up tetrodotoxin, so called because the fish has four ugly teeth. I discovered that it is over 1,250 times more toxic than cyanide. Good heavens, it would take only one ovary or bit of testicle harvested at the right time of year to poison a crowd. I hoped that the police hadn’t left the remaining slices lying around. If they had pâté lovers in their ranks, policemen would start dying.

14
    Lyonnais Cuisine for the Well-To-Do

Jason
    Fast asleep when I arrived in our room, Carolyn had to be rousted out of bed and convinced to dress in clothes suitable for the fancy restaurant to which the Doignes and the Girards were taking us. We were to pay for our own meals, but not theirs. While she was putting on pantyhose, the discomfort of which she seems to blame on all men, including me, and a green dress, and pinning her hair into a chignon, which required her to choose earrings, hair ornaments, and a necklace, she told me about murals and riding in an Austin Healy with a dog in her lap.
    “A large dog?” I asked, grinning.
    “A pug named Winston Churchill. Sylvie gave it that name to irritate Albertine and her dog, Charles de Gaulle. You do remember Charles de—”
    “Of course,” I said hastily, not wanting to rehash the Charles de Gaulle fiasco in Sorrento. After that I heard about the repairs