“You can also get the dead man’s prints, I suppose?”
“I could, if I had the body at my disposal,” Laurent answers sweetly.
Seeing Wallas’ questioning look, he asks:
“Haven’t you heard? The body was taken away from me at the same time as the control of the investigation. I thought it was sent to the same organization that sent you here.”
Wallas is obviously amazed. Could other services be concerned with this case? This is a supposition Laurent receives with obvious satisfaction. He waits, his hands lying flat on his desk; his kindly expression is tinged with compassion. Without insisting on this point, Wallas continues:
“You were saying that Dupont, after being wounded, had called to the old housekeeper from upstairs; for the latter to have heard him, deaf as she is, Dupont would have had to shout quite loudly. Yet the doctor describes him as greatly weakened by his wound, almost unconscious.”
“Yes, I know; there seems to be a contradiction here; but he might have had strength enough to go get his revolver and call for help, and then have lost a lot of blood while waiting for the ambulance: there was a relatively large bloodstain on the bedspread. In any case, he wasn’t unconscious when the doctor got there, since Dupont told him he hadn’t seen his attacker’s face. There’s a mistake in the account published by the papers: it was only after the operation that the wounded man didn’t recover consciousness. Moreover, you’ll obviously have to go see this doctor. You should also ask for details from the housekeeper, Madame…(he consults a sheet from the dossier) Madame Smite; her explanations are somewhat confused: she told us, in particular, some elaborate story about a broken telephone that seems to have nothing to do with the case—at least at first glance. The inspectors haven’t made a point of it, preferring to wait until she calms down; they haven’t even told her her employer was dead.”
The two men do not speak for a moment. It is the commissioner who resumes, delicately rubbing his joints with his thumb.
“He may perfectly well have committed suicide, you know. He has shot himself with the revolver once—or several times—without managing to finish himself off; then he has changed his mind, as so often happens, and called for help, trying to disguise his unsuccessful attempt as an attack. Or else—and this would be more in accord with what we know about his character—he has prepared this setting in advance, and managed to give himself a mortal wound that allowed him a few minutes’ survival in order to have time to bequeath the myth of his murder to the public. It’s very difficult, you’ll say, to calculate the consequences of a pistol shot so exactly; he may have fired a second shot while the housekeeper was going for the doctor. He was a strange man, from many points of view.”
“It must be possible to verify these hypotheses from the position of the bullets,” Wallas remarks.
“Yes, sometimes it’s possible. And we would have examined the bullets and the revolver of the supposed victim. All I have here is the death certificate the doctor sent this morning; it’s the only thing we can be sure of, for the time being. The suspect fingerprints can belong to anyone who came during the day without the housekeeper’s knowing it; as for the back door she mentioned to the inspector, the wind might have opened it.”
“You really think Dupont committed suicide?”
“I don’t think anything. I find it’s not impossible, according to the facts I have. This death certificate, which is drawn up quite correctly, by the way, gives no indication as to the kind of wound that caused death; and the information furnished last night by the doctor and the housekeeper is all too vague in this regard, as you’ve seen. Before anything else, you’ll have to clear up these few details. If necessary, you could even get the additional details that might interest you from the coroner in the capital.” Wallas says:
“Your help would certainly have made my job easier.”
“But you can count on me, Monsieur. As soon as you have someone to arrest I’ll send you two or three good men. I’ll be eager to get your telephone call; just ask for one-twenty-four—twenty-four, it’s a direct line.”
The smile on the chubby face widens. The little hands spread out on the desk, palms smooth, fingers wide. Wallas writes: “C. Laurent, 124-24.” A direct line to what?
Wallas again considers the isolation of his situation. The last bicyclists ride off in a group toward their work; standing alone, leaning on a railing, he abandons this support as well and begins walking through the empty streets in the direction he has decided on. Apparently no one is interested in what he is doing: the doors remain closed, no face appears in the windows to watch him pass. Yet his presence on these premises is necessary: no one else is concerned with this murder. It’s his own case; they have sent him to solve it.
The commissioner, like the workmen earlier this morning, stares at him with astonishment—hostility perhaps—and turns his head away: his role is already over; he has no access, on the other side of the brick walls, to the realm in which this story is happening; the sole purpose of his speeches is to make Wallas feel the virtual impossibility of entering it. But Wallas is confident. Though at first glance the difficulty is even greater for himself—a stranger in this city, and knowing neither its secrets nor its short cuts—he is sure he has not been asked to come here for nothing: once the weak spot is found, he will unhesitatingly advance toward his goal.
He asks, just to make sure:
“What would you have done, if you had gone on with the investigation yourself?”
“It’s not in my line,” the commissioner answers, “which is why they took it away from me.”
“Then what is the responsibility of the police, in your opinion?”
Laurent rubs his hands a little faster.
“We keep criminals within certain limits more or less fixed by the law.”
“And?”
“This one is beyond us, he doesn’t belong to the category of ordinary malefactors. I know every criminal in this city: they’re all listed in my files; I arrest them when they forget the conventions society imposes on them. If one of them had killed Dupont to rob him or even to be paid by a political party, do you think we would still be wondering, more than twelve hours after the murder, whether it wasn’t a suicide after all? This district isn’t very big, and informers are legion here. We don’t always manage to prevent crime, sometimes the criminal even manages to escape, but there’s never been a case where we haven’t found his tracks, whereas this time we’re left with a lot of unidentified fingerprints and some drafts that open doors. Our informers are no help here. If we’re dealing, as you think, with a terrorist organization, they’ve been very careful to keep from being contaminated; in this sense, their hands are clean, cleaner than those of a police that maintains such close relations with the men they’re watching. Here, between the policeman and the criminal, you find every grade of intermediary. Our whole system is based on them. Unfortunately the shot that killed Daniel Dupont came from another world!”
“But you know there’s no such thing as a perfect crime; we must look for the flaw that has to exist somewhere.”
“Where are you going to look? Make no mistake about it, Monsieur: this is the work of specialists, they’ve obviously left few things to chance; but what makes the few clues we have useless is our inability to test them against anything else.”
“This case is already the ninth,” Wallas says.
“Yes, but you’ll agree that only the political opinions of the victims and the hour of their deaths have allowed us to connect them. Besides, I’m not so convinced as you that such coincidences correspond to anything real. And even supposing they do, we’re not much further: what use would it be to me, for instance, if a second murder just as anonymous were committed in this city tonight? As for the central services, they don’t have any more opportunities than I do to get results: they have the same files and the same methods. They’ve taken the body away from me, and it’s all the easier for me to abandon it to them since you tell me
they have eight more they don’t know what to do with. Before your visit, I already had the impression that the case didn’t have anything to do with the police, and your presence here makes me sure of it.”
Despite his interlocutor’s evident prejudice, Wallas insists: the victim’s relatives and friends could be questioned. But Laurent has no hopes of finding out anything useful from this quarter either:
“It appears that Dupont led an extremely solitary life, shut up with his books and his old housekeeper. He seldom went out and received only rare visits. Did he have any friends? As for relatives, there seem to be none, except for his wife “
Wallas shows his surprise:
“He had a wife? Where was she at the time of the crime?”
“I don’t know. Dupont was married only a few years; his wife was much younger than he and probably couldn’t endure his hermit’s life. They separated right away. But they still saw each other now and then, apparently; by all means ask her what she was doing last night at seven-thirty.”
“You’re not saying that seriously?”
“Certainly I am. Why not? She knew the house and her ex-husband’s habits well; so she had more opportunities than anyone else to commit this murder discreetly. And since she was entitled to expect a considerable inheritance from him, she’s one of the few people I know of who could have any interest in seeing him dead.”
“Then why didn’t you mention her to me?”
“You told me that he was the victim of a political assassination!”
“She could have played her part in it anyway.”
“Of course. Why not?”
Commissioner Laurent has resumed his jocular tone. He says with a half-smile:
“Maybe it’s the housekeeper who killed him and made up all the rest with the help of Doctor Juard, whose reputation—let me tell you in passing—is not so good.”
“That seems rather unlikely,” Wallas observes.
“Even altogether unlikely, but you know that never kept anyone from being a suspect.”
Wallas feels that this irony is in bad taste. Furthermore, he realizes he will not learn much from this official, jealous of his authority but determined to do nothing. Isn’t Laurent really trying to wash his hands of the whole affair? Or else would he like to discourage his rivals in order to make his own investigation? Wallas stands up to say good-bye; he will visit this doctor first. Laurent shows him where he is to be found:
“The Juard Clinic, eleven Rue de Corinthe. It’s on the other side of the prefecture, not far from here.”
“I thought,” Wallas says, “that the newspaper said ‘a nearby clinic’?”
Laurent makes a cynical gesture:
“Oh, you know the papers! Besides, it’s not so far from the Rue des Arpenteurs.”
Wallas writes down the address in his notebook.
“There is even one paper,” the commissioner adds, “that mixed up the first names and announced the death of Albert Dupont, one of the biggest wood exporters in the city. He must have been quite surprised to read his obituary this morning!”
Laurent has stood up too. He winks as he says:
“After all, I haven’t seen the body; maybe it is Albert Du-pont’s.”
This idea amuses him enormously, his overfed body shakes from fits of laughter. Wallas smiles politely. The chief commissioner catches his breath and holds out his hand amiably.
“If I hear anything new,” he says, “I’ll let you know. What hotel are you staying at?”
“I’ve taken a room in a café, Rue des Arpenteurs, a few steps away from the house itself.”
“You have! Who told you about that?”
“No one; I found it by chance. It’s number ten.”
“Is there a telephone?”
“Yes, I think so.”
“Well, I’ll find it in the book if I have anything to tell you.”
Without waiting. Laurent begins leafing quickly through the phone book, licking his index finger.
“Arpenteurs, here we are. Number ten: Café des Allies?”
“Yes, that’s the one.”
“Telephone: two-zero-two-zero-three. But it’s not a hotel.”
“No,” Wallas says, “they only rent out a few rooms.”
Laurent goes to a shelf and picks out a ledger. After a moment of fruitless search, he asks:
“That’s strange, they’re not registered; are there many rooms?”
“No, I don’t think so,” Wallas answers. “You see, your facts aren’t so exact after all!”
A broad smile lights up the chief commissioner’s face.
“On the contrary, you have to admire our resources,” he says. “The first person to sleep in this café comes to tell me about it himself, without even giving the landlord a chance!”
“Why the first person? Suppose the murderer had slept there last night, what would you know about it?”
“The landlord would have registered him and reported to me, as he’ll do for you—he has until noon.”
“And if he doesn’t?” Wallas asks.
“Well, in that case, we would have to admire your perspicacity in having found the only clandestine rooming house in town so quickly. It would even be bad for you in the long run; you’d be the first serious suspect I’ve found: recently arrived in town, living twenty yards from the scene of the crime, and completely unknown to the police!”
“But I only arrived last night, at eleven!” Wallas protests.
“If you weren’t registered, what proof would there be?”
“At the time the crime was committed, I was a hundred kilometers from here; that can be verified.”
“Of course! Don’t good murderers always have an alibi?”
Laurent sits down again behind his desk and considers Wallas with a smiling expression. Then he suddenly asks:
“Do you have a revolver?”
“Yes,” Wallas answers. “This time I took one, on the advice of my chief.”
“What for?”
“You never know.”
“Right, you never know. Would you show it to me please?”
Wallas hands him the gun, a 7.65 millimeter automatic revolver, a common model. Laurent examines it carefully, after having removed the clip. Finally, without looking at Wallas, he says in the tone of an obvious comment:
“One bullet’s missing.”
He hands the weapon back to its owner. Then, very quickly, he clasps his hands, separates the palms though keeping the fingers interlaced, brings his wrists together again and rubs his thumbs against each other. The hands separate and stretch; each doubles over with a faint clapping sound, opens once more and finally comes to rest on the desk, lying flat, the fingers spread apart at regular intervals.
“Yes, I know,” Wallas answers.
In making room for his ledgers, the commissioner has shifted the dossiers that cover his desk, thereby causing the piece of grayish eraser to reappear, an ink eraser probably, whose poor quality is betrayed by several worn, slightly shiny places.
5
Once the door is closed, the commissioner walks slowly back to his chair. He rubs his hands with satisfaction. So it is Roy-Dauzet who has had the body taken away! This kind of conspiracy story is worthy of the old lunatic’s grotesque imagination. And now he is sending his clan of secret agents and detectives all over the country—even the great Fabius and his consorts.
Political crime? That, of course, would explain the complete failure of his own investigation—in any case it is a good excuse—but Laurent greatly distrusts the minister’s tendency to hysterical storytelling, so that he is delighted to see others besides himself set foot on this dangerous path. He has no difficulty imagining the mess they will be getting into: it is apparent, to begin with, that the confidential agent sent to the scene of the crime hadn’t heard of the hasty transfer of the body to the capital—his surprise was not made up. He seems full of good will, this Wallas; but what could he do with it? Besides, just what is his job anyway?
He has not been very talkative; what does he really know about these “terrorists”? Nothing probably; and with good reason! Or has he been given orders to keep quiet? Maybe Fabius, who is the best sleuth in Europe, proved to him that Laurent himself was in the gang’s pay? You have to expect anything from these geniuses.
First of all, they operate as if their chief concern is to see the police stop their investigations (that was what they were most anxious about, they even ordered him to abandon the house without so much as sealing it or stationing a man there, even though the old servant who is still there alone does not seem to have all her wits about her) and then they pretend to come and ask his advice. Well, they will have to continue to get along without him.
Before sitting down, the commissioner straightens up his desk a little; he puts back the phone book, replaces the loose sheets in the dossiers. The one marked “Dupont” joins the left-hand pile, that of closed cases. Laurent rubs his hands again and repeats to himself: “Perfect!”
***
The Erasers Page 6