‘Ici Valmy,’ he said. There was a pause. He did not know what else to say.
‘What’s new?’ asked the voice at the other end.
‘Nothing. They’ve lost the trail in Corrèze.’
There was a film of sweat on his forehead. It was vital the man stay where he was for a few hours more. There was a click and the phone went dead. Lebel replaced it and raced downstairs to the car at the kerbside.
‘Back to the office,’ he yelled at the driver.
In the telephone booth in the foyer of a small hotel by the banks of the Seine the Jackal stared out through the glass perplexed. Nothing? There must be more than nothing. This Commissaire Lebel was no fool. They must have traced the taxi-driver in Egletons, and from there to Haute Chalonnière. They must have found the body in the château, and the missing Renault. They must have found the Renault in Tulle, and questioned the staff at the station. They must have …
He strode out of the telephone booth and across the foyer.
‘My bill, if you please,’ he told the clerk. ‘I shall be down in five minutes.’
The call from Superintendent Thomas came in as Lebel entered his office at seven-thirty.
‘Sorry to have been so long,’ said the British detective. ‘It took ages to wake the Danish consular staff and get them back to the office. You were quite right. On July 14th a Danish parson reported the loss of his passport. He suspected it had been stolen from his room at a West End hotel, but could not prove it. Did not file a complaint, to the relief of the hotel manager. Name of Pastor Per Jensen, of Copenhagen. Description, six feet tall, blue eyes, grey hair.’
‘That’s the one, thank you, Superintendent.’ Lebel put the phone down. ‘Get me the Prefecture,’ he told Caron.
The four Black Marias arrived outside the hotel on the Quai des Grands Augustins at 8.30. The police turned room 37 over until it looked as if a tornado had hit it.
‘I’m sorry, Monsieur le Commissaire,’ the proprietor told the rumpled-looking detective who led the raid, ‘Pastor Jensen checked out an hour ago.’
The Jackal had taken a cruising taxi back towards the Gare d’Austerlitz where he had arrived the previous evening, on the grounds that the search for him would have moved elsewhere. He deposited the suitcase containing the gun and the military greatcoat and clothes of the fictitious Frenchman André Martin in the left-luggage office, and retained only the suitcase in which he carried the clothes and papers of American student Marty Schulberg, and the hand-grip with the articles of makeup.
With these, still dressed in the black suit but with a polo sweater covering the dog-collar, he checked into a poky hotel round the corner from the station. The clerk let him fill in his own registration card, being too idle to check the card against the passport of the visitor as regulations required. As a result the registration card was not even in the name of Per Jensen.
Once up in his room, the Jackal set to work on his face and hair. The grey dye was washed out with the aid of a solvent, and the blond reappeared. This was tinted with the chestnut-brown colouring of Marty Schulberg. The blue contact lenses remained in place, but the gold-rimmed glasses were replaced by the American’s heavy-rimmed executive spectacles. The black walking shoes, socks, shirt, bib and clerical suit were bundled into the suitcase, along with the passport of Pastor Jensen of Copenhagen. He dressed instead in the sneakers, socks, jeans, T-shirt and windcheater of the American college boy from Syracuse, New York State.
By mid-morning, with the American’s passport in one breast pocket and a wad of French francs in the other, he was ready to move. The suitcase containing the last remains of Pastor Jensen went into the wardrobe, and the key of the wardrobe went down the flush of the bidet. He used the fire-escape to depart, and was no more heard of in that hotel. A few minutes later he deposited the hand-grip in the left-luggage office at the Gare d’Austerlitz, stuffed the docket for the second case into his back pocket to join the docket of the first suitcase, and went on his way. He took a taxi back to the Left Bank, got out at the corner of Boulevard Saint Michel and the Rue de la Huchette, and vanished into the maelstrom of students and young people who inhabit the rabbit warren of the Latin Quarter of Paris.
Sitting at the back of a smoky dive for a cheap lunch, he started to wonder where he was going to spend the night. He had few doubts that Lebel would have exposed Pastor Per Jensen by this time, and he gave Marty Schulberg no more than twenty-four hours.
‘Damn that man Lebel,’ he thought savagely, but smiled broadly at the waitress and said, ‘Thanks, honey.’
Lebel was back on to Thomas in London at ten o’clock. His request caused Thomas to give a low groan, but he replied courteously enough that he would do everything he could. When the phone went down Thomas summoned the senior inspector who had been on the investigation the previous week. ‘All right, sit down,’ he said. ‘The Frenchies have been back on. It seems they’ve missed him again. Now he’s in the centre of Paris, and they suspect he might have another false identity prepared. We can both start as of now ringing round every consulate in London asking for a list of passports of visiting foreigners reported lost or stolen since July 1st. Forget Negroes and Asiatics. Just stick to Caucasians. In each case I want to know the height of the man. Everybody above five feet eight inches is suspect. Get to work.’
The daily meeting at the Ministry in Paris had been brought forward to two in the afternoon.
Lebel’s report was delivered in his usual inoffensive monotone, but the reception was icy.
‘Damn the man,’ exclaimed the Minister halfway through, ‘he has the luck of the devil!’
‘No, Monsieur le Ministre, it hasn’t been luck. At least, not all of it. He has been kept constantly informed of our progress at every stage. This is why he left Gap in such a hurry, and why he killed the woman at La Chalonnière and left just before the net closed. Every night I have reported my progress to this meeting. Three times we have been within hours of catching him. This morning it was the arrest of Valmy and my inability to impersonate Valmy on the telephone that caused him to leave where he was and change into another identity. But the first two occasions he was tipped off in the early morning after I had briefed this meeting.’
There was a frigid silence round the table.
‘I seem to recall, Commissaire, that this suggestion of yours has been made before,’ said the Minister coldly. ‘I hope you can substantiate it.’
For answer Lebel lifted a small portable tape-recorder on to the table and pressed the starter button. In the silence of the conference room the conversation tapped from the telephone sounded metallic and harsh. When it finished the whole room stared at the machine on the table. Colonel Saint-Clair had gone ashen grey and his hands trembled slightly as he shuffled his papers together into his folder.
‘Whose voice was that?’ asked the Minister finally.
Lebel remained silent. Saint-Clair rose slowly, and the eyes of the room swivelled on to him.
‘I regret to have to inform you … M. le Ministre … that it was the voice of … a friend of mine. She is staying with me at the present time … Excuse me.’
He left the room to return to the palace and write his resignation. Those in the room stared at their hands in silence.
‘Very well, Commissaire.’ The Minister’s voice was very quiet. ‘You may continue.’
Lebel resumed his report, relating his request to Thomas in London to trace every missing passport over the previous fifty days.
‘I hope,’ he concluded, ‘to have a short list by this evening of probably no more than one or two who fit the description we already have of the Jackal. As soon as I know, I shall ask the countries of origin of these tourists in London who lost their passports to provide photographs of those people, for we can be sure the Jackal will by now look more like his new identity than like either Calthrop or Duggan or Jensen. With luck I should have these photographs by noon tomorrow.’
‘For my part,’ said the Minister, ‘I
can report on my conversation with President de Gaulle. He has refused point blank to change an item of his itinerary for the future to shield himself from this killer. Frankly, it was to be expected. However, I was able to obtain one concession. The ban on publicity may now be lifted, at least in this respect. The Jackal is now a common murderer. He has slain the Baroness de la Chalonnière in her own home in the course of a burglary of which the objective was her jewellery. He is believed to have fled to Paris and to be hiding here. All right, gentlemen?
‘That is what will be released for the afternoon papers, at least the last editions. As soon as you are quite certain as to the new identity, or choice of two or three alternative identities, under which he is now masquerading Commissaire, you are authorised to release that name or those names to the Press. This will enable the morning papers to up-date the story with a new lead.
‘When the photograph of the unfortunate tourist who lost his passport in London comes through tomorrow morning you can release it to the evening papers, radio and television for a second up-date to the murder-hunt story.
‘Apart from that, the moment we get a name, every policeman and CRS man in Paris will be on the street stopping every soul in sight to examine their papers.’
The Prefect of Police, chief of the CRS and Director of the PJ were taking furious notes. The Minister resumed:
‘The DST will check every sympathiser of the OAS known to them, with the assistance of the Central Records Office. Understood?’
The heads of the DST and the RG office nodded vigorously.
‘The Police Judiciaire will take every one of its detectives off whatever he is on and transfer them to the murder hunt.’
Max Fernet of the PJ nodded.
‘As regards the palace itself, evidently I shall need a complete list of every movement the President intends to take from now on, even if he himself has not been informed of the extra precautions being taken in his interest. This is one of those occasions when we must risk his wrath in his own interest. And, of course, I can rely on the Presidential Security Corps to tighten up the ring round the President as never before. Commissaire Ducret?’
Jean Ducret, head of De Gaulle’s personal bodyguard, inclined his head.
‘The Brigade Criminelle …’ the Minister fixed Commissaire Bouvier with his eye, ‘obviously has a lot of underworld contacts in its pay. I want every one mobilised to keep an eye out for this man, name and description to be supplied. Right?’
Maurice Bouvier nodded gruffly. Privately he was disquieted. He had seen a few manhunts in his time, but this was gigantic. The moment Lebel provided a name and a passport number, not to mention a description, there would be nearly a hundred thousand men from the security forces to the underworld scanning the streets, hotels, bars and restaurants for one man.
‘Is there any other source of information that I have overlooked?’ asked the Minister.
Colonel Rolland glanced quickly at General Guibaud, then at Commissaire Bouvier. He coughed.
‘There is always the Union Corse.’
General Guibaud studied his nails. Bouvier looked daggers. Most of the others looked embarrassed. The Union Corse, brotherhood of the Corsicans, descendants of the Brothers of Ajaccio, sons of the vendetta, was and still is the biggest organised crime syndicate in France. They already ran Marseilles and most of the south coast. Some experts believed them to be older and more dangerous than the Mafia. Never having emigrated like the Mafia to America in the early years of this century, they had avoided the publicity that had since then made the Mafia a household word.
Twice already Gaullism had allied itself with the Union, and both times found it valuable but embarrassing. For the Union always asked for a kickback, usually in a relaxation of police surveillance of their crime rackets. The Union had helped the Allies to invade the south of France in August 1944, and had owned Marseilles and Toulon ever since. It had helped again in the fight against the Algerian settlers and the OAS after April 1961, and for this had spread its tentacles far north and into Paris.
Maurice Bouvier, as a policeman, hated their guts, but he knew Rolland’s Action Service used Corsicans heavily.
‘You think they can help?’ asked the Minister.
‘If this Jackal is as astute as they say,’ replied Rolland, ‘then I would reckon that if anyone in Paris can find him the Union can.’
‘How many of them are there in Paris?’ asked the Minister dubiously.
‘About eighty thousand. Some in the police, Customs officers, CRS, Secret Service, and, of course, the underworld. And they are organised.’
‘Use your discretion,’ said the Minister.
There were no more suggestions.
‘Well, that’s it, then. Commissaire Lebel, all we want from you now is one name, one description, one photograph. After that I give this Jackal six hours of liberty.’
‘Actually, we have three days,’ said Lebel, who had been staring out of the window. His audience looked startled.
‘How do you know that?’ asked Max Fernet.
Lebel blinked rapidly several times.
‘I must apologise. I have been very silly not to see it before. For a week now I have been certain that the Jackal had a plan, and that he had picked his day for killing the President. When he quit Gap, why did he not immediately become Pastor Jensen? Why did he not drive to Valence and pick up the express to Paris immediately? Why did he arrive in France and then spend a week killing time?’
‘Well, why?’ asked someone.
‘Because he has picked his day,’ said Lebel. ‘He knows when he is going to strike. Commissaire Ducret, has the President got any engagements outside the palace today, or tomorrow, or Saturday?’
Ducret shook his head.
‘And what is Sunday, August 25th?’ asked Lebel.
There was a sigh round the table like wind blowing through corn.
‘Of course,’ breathed the Minister, ‘Liberation Day. And the crazy thing is, most of us were here with him on that day, the Liberation of Paris, 1944.’
‘Precisely,’ said Lebel. ‘He is a bit of a psychologist, our Jackal. He knows there is one day of the year that General de Gaulle will never spend elsewhere than here. It is, so to speak, his great day. That is what the assassin has been waiting for.’
‘In that case,’ said the Minister briskly, ‘we have got him. With his source of information gone, there is no corner of Paris that he can hide, no single community of Parisians that will take him in, even unwittingly, and give him protection. We have him. Commissaire Lebel, give us that man’s name.’
Claude Lebel rose and went to the door. The others were rising and preparing to leave for lunch.
‘Oh, there is one thing,’ the Minister called after Lebel, ‘how did you know to tap the telephone line of Colonel Saint-Clair’s private flat?’
Lebel turned in the doorway and shrugged.
‘I didn’t,’ he said, ‘so last night I tapped all your telephones. Good day, gentlemen.’
At five that afternoon, sitting over a beer at a café terrace just off the Place de l’Odéon, his face shielded from the sunlight by dark glasses such as everyone else was wearing, the Jackal got his idea. He got it from watching two men stroll by in the street. He paid for his beer, got up and left. A hundred yards down the street he found what he was looking for, a woman’s beauty shop. He went in and made a few purchases.
At six the evening papers changed their headlines. The late editions carried a screaming banner across the top. Assassin de la Belle Baronne se refugie à Paris.’ There was a photo beneath it of the Baronne de la Chalonnière, taken from a society picture of her five years ago at a party in Paris. It had been found in the archives of a picture agency and the same photo was in every paper. At 6.30, with a copy of France-Soir under his arm, Colonel Rolland entered a small café off the Rue Washington. The dark-jowled barman glanced at him keenly and nodded towards another man in the back of the hall.
The second man came o
ver and accosted Rolland.
‘Colonel Rolland?’
The head of the Action Service nodded.
‘Please follow me.’
He led the way through a door at the back of the café and up to a small sitting room on the first floor, probably the owner’s private dwelling. He knocked, and a voice inside said, ‘Entrez.’
As the door closed behind him, Rolland took the outstretched hand of the man who had risen from an armchair.
‘Colonel Rolland? Enchanté. I am the Capu of the Union Corse. I understand you are looking for a certain man …’
It was eight o’clock when Superintendent Thomas came through from London. He sounded tired. It had not been an easy day. Some consulates had co-operated willingly, others had been extremely difficult.
Apart from women, Negroes, Asiatics and shorties, eight foreign male tourists had lost their passports in London during the previous fifty days, he said. Carefully and succinctly he listed them all, with names, passport numbers and descriptions.
‘Now let’s start to deduct those whom it cannot be,’ he suggested to Lebel. ‘Three lost their passports during periods when we know that the Jackal, alias Duggan, was not in London. We’ve been checking airline bookings and ticket sales right back to July first as well. It seems on July 18th he took the evening flight to Copenhagen. According to BEA he bought a ticket at their counter in Brussels, paying cash, and flew back to England on the evening of August 6th.’
‘Yes, that checks,’ said Lebel. ‘We have discovered that part of that journey out of London was spent in Paris. From July 22nd until July 31st.’
‘Well,’ said Thomas, his voice crackling on the London line, ‘three of the passports were missed while he was not here. We can count them out, yes?’
‘Right,’ said Lebel.
‘Of the remaining five, one is immensely tall, six feet six inches, that’s over two metres in your language. Besides which, he’s Italian, which means that his height on the fly-leaf of his passport is given in metres and centimetres, which would be immediately understood by a French Customs officer who would notice the difference, unless the Jackal is walking on stilts.’
The Day of the Jackal Page 37