‘What do you want me to say? He was ordinary-looking. Very proper, but not arrogant. He spoke well and knew what he wanted. With him, it was direct and to the point. No beating about the bush.If only all my customers were like that.’
‘What about the work? Was it just painting?’
‘Exclusively. Painting, and replacing old wallpaper with new. He was insistent that the old wallpaper be removed carefully. He didn’t want us to use a blow torch or a scraper, it had to be entirely by hand. And afterwards we had to wash down the walls and paint them before putting up the new wallpaper.’
‘That’s strange. What was under the old paper?’
‘I wasn’t interested. As long as he paid for the work to be done like that, I didn’t pay attention.’
‘Did you do the work yourself?’
‘No, it was one of my men.’
‘Can we talk to him?’
‘He doesn’t work for me any more.’
‘Do you know where we can find him?’
‘He’s disappeared from circulation. It’s strange, because that work was the last he did. He quit immediately afterwards. I was disappointed, because Auguste was a good worker. I was very happy with him, even though he was a bit strange. He studied... I don’t know what. As soon as his work was done, he went to his room and read or wrote. And he wasn’t very talkative.’
‘Did he give you a reason for leaving?’
‘He told me some story I didn’t understand.’
‘So, in short, we have no way of knowing what went on inside the house whilst the work was being done.’
‘Just a moment,’ interjected Maryse. ‘Normally, you wouldn’t just use one worker. There’s usually an assistant.’
‘Of course. His was Gégène. He’s here. I’ll call him.’
‘The two of us, me and Auguste, we slogged away in those rooms and didn’t see much. The bloke kept coming in with another one,’ began Gégène. ‘They plonked themselves down somewhere and we didn’t see them. Anyway, we had our heads down, and when we’re pushing it, we don’t bother with anyone else. The bloke, it was his place, and he could bring in who he liked. If it was chicks, we might have noticed, but another bloke, no sweat. And also, Auguste was a bit of a nutcase. There were times when he couldn’t stop talking, and others when he would go for hours without opening his gob. To be fair, he was a know-it-all, he was always reading these massive books. Sometimes he stopped during the work to write something down in the notebook he always carried.’
‘Could you describe exactly how the work wasdone? Where did you start?’
‘We started with a coat of whitewash over the walls and ceiling of the entrance lobby and stairs. Then the bloke asked us to go to the upstairs rooms.’
‘Of which there are twelve, I believe?’
‘Like the oysters, yes. What was strange was the way he wanted us to proceed. We started by removing the wallpaper from the first bedroom. The next day, we did the same thing with the second, and washed down the walls of the first completely. On the third day, it was the turn of the third bedroom to be stripped, we washed down the second and painted the first. And so on. It was weird, but we’re used to that sort of thing, as long as it doesn’t increase the work. And the bloke gave us each a tip.’
‘Of course. Let’s see. Just now you told us the stranger shut himself in with his visitors in half-finished rooms. In which rooms, exactly?’
‘Any one of them. No, wait a minute! It’s funny. You’ve made me think. It was always in the room where the paper had been removed that morning.’
‘And before the walls were washed down.’
‘That’s right. Funny, isn’t it?’
‘Well, interesting, at least. But you say the client insisted that great care be taken in the removal of the wallpaper?’
‘Yes, he even explained how to do it. He promised a tip if it was done cleanly. So we paid attention. Auguste was more fanatical than the bloke himself.’
‘I suppose that what concerned him most is that you not damage what was beneath the wallpaper.’
‘Probably. He told us often enough.’
‘And what was beneath the wallpaper?’
‘Under the paper? The wall.’
‘A blank wall?’
‘No, it was painted. Each room was a different colour: there was a blue room, a yellow one, green, red...’
‘Just uniformly painted?’
‘At the bottom, yes. But, sixty centimetres higher up, there were pictures all round the room.’
‘Frescos?’
‘I think that’s what they’re called.’
‘What did they represent?’
‘Nothing. Just a lot of spots, green, blue, red, pink. It’s funny, I don’t know anything, but I found them nice to look at. No matter which way I looked, I couldn’t make any sense of them. The funniest was Auguste. He would stand staring in front of the... thing... fresco. He must have asked me a hundred times if I saw anything in the paintings. I kept telling him no, but he kept asking. And he was always writing a ton of stuff in his notebook.’
‘And did he do the same thing in all the rooms?’
‘Now you mention it, it’s all coming back to me. Every day, after we stripped a room, he would write in his notebook, and that was when he talked the most.’
Richard turned to Lévèque:
‘We have to find this worker of yours, Auguste, as soon as possible. Don’t you have any idea where he’s gone? He didn’t have any friends, for example?’
‘My word, monsieur, it’s not going to be easy. I’ve never met someone so unsociable. Outside of his work and his books, nothing mattered. He took his meals at a restaurant on the road to Orléans and had a room in a local hotel. That’s it.’
‘What was his full name?’
‘Auguste Duroyer. He’s about thirty years old. That’s all I know about him. I don’t even know where he comes from. All I cared about is that he was a conscientious worker. And, for that, I had no complaints. I’ve never had a worker like him: never a drop too much, never any trouble.’
‘Except with mother Martin,’ interrupted Gégène, laughing.
‘Oh, yes, that. I’ve never understood it. He was supposed to paint the facade of Mme. Martin’s haberdashery. She had asked for a pale pink. I don’t know why, but Auguste painted it beige. She was very upset. But it all worked out. Auguste apologised and even worked all Sunday to re-do it.’
Jannin heard someone catch their breath. He looked at Bob, Richard, and Maryse, and they each nodded.
‘Another colour-blind fellow,’ he whispered in my ear.
XVI
JANNIN VERSUS X...
Friday, January 7
The first thing to do was to restore the walls of the twelve bedrooms to try and find traces of the famous frescos. Bitter disappointment: first the washing-down, followed by the painting, had eliminated even the slightest trace. The best specialists employed the latest techniques, all to no avail.
Jannin was forced to approach the problem from a different angle. When was the last time the house had been the prey of contractors? When had the wallpaper, so meticulously removed by Auguste and Gégène, first been hung? Presumably the frescos were there at the time, and the workers couldn’t have helped seeing them.
Through diligent police work, the superintendent was able to determine the year: 1933. For the first six months, the house had been occupied by a single man. Then, as the result of an inheritance, the boarding house fell into the hands of a young couple with big ideas: modernise it, then raise the rents. Furthermore, they decided to live there themselves, so they gave the residents notice. Being short of money as a consequence, they were only too happy to accept the offer from a painter: to do all the papering and painting work in exchange for free lodging whilst the work was being done.
Who was the mysterious painter? No one knew his real name, and the couple he worked for only knew him as Oscar.
On January 7th at eleven o’clock, we
received a visit from Maryse. Bob was occupied with another matter and was about to leave for the Prefecture to obtain further information.
‘I’d like to come with you,’ said the young woman. ‘Maybe Jannin will have something new to report.’
‘That’s fine. Charles! Drop what you’re doing and come with us. We’ll get hold of Jannin and grab some lunch together. I feel listless. This business is beginning to get on my nerves.’
Just as we arrived at the Quai des Orfèvres we saw, too far away for us to hail the driver, a small red cabriolet.
‘Well! Jacques had the same idea,’ observed Maryse.
The superintendent was not in his office. His assistant, who seemed very excited, informed us he had gone to see his boss.
‘I hope he’ll be back soon,’ he said, ‘because there’s been adevelopment.’ And, in a confidential tone, he added: ‘We’ve found Duroyer. He’s living in a hotel on the Rue du Départ. He’s calling himself Pierre Martin.’
‘What precautions have you taken?’
‘I got the call from the local police half-an-hour ago. Jannin was already in his meeting, and couldn’t be disturbed. I wasn’t sure what to do, so I called your office. You’d just left. So I phoned Professor Richard for instructions. He couldn’t come because he’s ill in bed, but he told me to send two inspectors right away, to apprehend Duroyer and bring him in.’
‘Was Vital there as well?’
‘Yes, just after the inspectors had left. I told him what was happening. There’s no problem with that, Jannin trusts him.’
‘How were the inspectors getting there? By taxi?’
‘No, of course not. They took the métro. It’s direct from here to Montparnasse.’
My friend didn’t say another word. He turned on his heels, opened the door, and ran down the stairs. Maryse and I bounded after him, leaving the assistant with his mouth open. Jannin was just coming up, so Bob grabbed him by the arm and turned him around.
‘Come along. I’ll explain on the way.’
The weather was bad, a mixture of rain and snow, which made the roads slippery. The traffic, at its peak near lunch hour, was terrible. My friend’s anxiety and impatience grew by the second. Usually so relaxed at the wheel, he took surprising risks, sliding between other cars, and accelerating through rivulets with a great splash, narrowly avoiding several accidents. We finally arrived at Gare Montparnasse and thence to Rue du Départ, pulling up outside the dingy hotel where the painter was hiding.
Bounding into the reception area and asking for M. Martin was the work of a moment.
‘He went out, messieurs, ten to fifteen minutes ago.’
‘Do you know where he went?’ demanded Jannin, showing his badge.
‘He usually has lunch in a small restaurant on Avenue du Maine, near Alésia, called Au Brillat-Savarin. Why is everyone after him? Another monsieur already came. M. Martin had just left. The other didn’t want to believe me. He went up to his room, but naturally, after five minutes, hecame down and ran after Martin.’
Bob and Jannin became frenzied again. After getting a brief description of Auguste, they threw themselves into the car. Maryse and I barely had time to get in before the brutal start threw us both back onto the rear seats.
The vehicle scraped the pavement as we arrived at the Alésia crossroads. Bob let out a triumphant cry. Fifty or so metres ahead of us, and almost at the corner of Rue Moulin-Vert, we could see Auguste Duroyer walking with a rapid step. We recognised him from his dark pink overcoat and moleskin trousers.
My friend hugged the kerb as he drew level with the painter. It happened before he completed the manoeuvre. As in all such cases, I didn’t realise what was happening until it was all over.
A man, dressed in a grey overcoat, was waiting at the corner of the street. When Duroyer was less than five metres from him, he extended his arm. Jannin had already opened the front passenger door and bent down. His hand, which he had plunged into his pocket, came out holding something metal. After that, I don’t really know much. Did I hear a detonation right next to me, and another farther away? I saw the painter crumble to the ground, whilst the man in grey turned the corner after giving a mocking gesture with his left hand.
Jannin jumped out of the car and ran to the corner. The sound of a car starting, followed by two detonations. Then the sound of a whistle: Jannin was trying to set up a roadblock.
It all happened so fast that I remained motionless. Maryse’s reaction was better. Opening the car door, she jumped out onto the pavement and ran to kneel beside Duroyer, who was lying face down.
Bob shouted: ‘Shut the door!’ and started off. We turned around in the street, collecting Jannin on the fly, and sped at full throttle in pursuit of the bandit, who had turned into one street and then another. We had to stop to get information, which cost us time. Soon, we had to give up and return to the scene of the crime.
Meanwhile, Maryse had taken charge of operations. Two officers who had rushed to the spot respectfully obeyed Professor Richard’s niece and kept the crowds at bay. We were thus able to operate freely.
It was easy to piece together what had happened. Jannin’s bullet had hit the bandit’s pistol just as he was firing it. The result had been, first of all, to deflect the bullet, so that instead of shooting the victim in the heart, the man in grey had shot him in the head. In addition, the weapon had been knocked out of the would-be killer’s hands. It was lying on the ground, nobody having touched it.
Duroyer was still alive, but the bullet had pierced the cranium above the left ear. He was in a coma.Soon, an ambulance transported him urgently to Laënnec Hospital.
After the victim had left, the young woman stood looking absent-mindedly at the corner of the street, as if trying to reconstruct the scene.
Jannin questioned everyone who had witnessed the events, and all those who had seen the man in grey before he had. We learnt nothing from the former, and almost nothing from the latter. The bandit had arrived by car a few minutes beforehand. He had got out, leaving the engine running and the door open, and had waited on the corner.
Having exhausted all the possibilities at the scene, we returned to the hotel on Rue du Départ. The two inspectors sent by Richard had finally arrived and mounted guard at the door. Vital’s red cabriolet was stationed not far away . Apparently it had ignition trouble.
The painter’s personal effects had been collected in a large trunk and two suitcases, the smaller of which had been forced open. Inside was the kind of empty space an octavo book would leave. Our man had got there before us. Under the pretext of verifying Duroyer’s absence, he had gone upstairs, opened the door, broken open the suitcase, and taken what interested him, before returning downstairs. We weren’t going to find anything. Searching diligently but furiously, Jannin was grumbling and swearing incessantly. Bob, on the other hand, was grinning in amusement.
XVII
THE PROFESSOR’S DEDUCTIONS
Monday, January17
A council of war at the professor’s house had decided, against his wishes, but following Bob’s advice, to keep secret all the elements we possessed concerning the affair. We did, however, agree to limit the period of silence to eight days. If nothing happened in the meantime, the press would be informed about everything on January 16th.
Jannin had three trails to follow: the vehicle used by the bandit; the “leak” of information concerning Duroyer; and a Cook ticket to Cairo, found in the luggage.
Needless to say, the superintendent had noted the licence plate of the car, but a simple verification had shown—to no one’s surprise—that the number was false.
Furthermore, an extra wire was found spliced to Jannin’s line at the exit from the switchboard. It had been cut recently, so there was no way of telling where it led.
Finally, the employees of Thomas Cook could only confirm that Duroyer had requested a ticket for Cairo, to arrive on January 12th. He had not given any explanation, and they hadn’t asked, of course.
> Bob, after two or three days of mysterious activity, during which I had hardly seen him, resumed his normal office routine. He said not a word about any results obtained and, despite my familiarity with his expressions, I was unable to say whether he had made any progress or not.
As for Maryse, we didn’t see her at all during the entire period. If her articles had not continued to appear, we would have feared the worst.
On the afternoon of Sunday, January 16th, my wife and I were at Bob’s residence. At around five o’clock, the phone rang. It was the Président du Conseil. Bob handed me a second earpiece.
After asking my friend about the progress of his investigation, Bernès added:
‘It has to end. This business is poisoning the political atmosphere. And everyone comes back from vacation on Tuesday. I’ve decided to hold a press conference tomorrow at the Hôtel de Matignon. I’d be obliged if you would attend. All those who have been following the affair will be present. Can I count on you?’
‘Of course, Monsieur le Président.’ As I gestured to him, he added:
‘I’ll bring Charles Termine as well.’
‘Perfect. Until tomorrow, then.’
The next day, Monday, January 17th, the phone rang at twenty-to-eleven. Bob literally bounded towards the apparatus, and I picked up the earpiece.
‘Hello, Bob? It’s Maryse.’
‘Well, good morning. What’s up?’
‘I want to tell you something important.’
‘Better tell me quickly. In twenty minutes, there a press conference at the Hôtel de Matignon . I’d love to have something new to report.’
‘I can’t tell you over the phone. I’ll be there in fifteen minutes. Wait for me.’
‘Impossible. The conference is at eleven o’clock. Meet me there.’
‘I’m not invited. And, besides, I haven’t any proof yet. Just an idea I would like to discuss with you and get your advice.’
‘Very well. Can it wait until the afternoon? Where and when can I see you?’
‘It’s just that....’ There was a moment’s silence. ‘Will my uncle be there?’
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