A wooden shutter now protects the glass panes of the little door. The key turns easily in the lock. Wallas surprises himself in the attitudes of a burglar: instead of opening the door wide, he has slipped in through a discreet gap. He takes out the key and gently closes the door behind him.
The big house is silent.
To the right the kitchen, at the rear and to the left the dining room. Wallas knows the way; he would not need any light to guide him. He nevertheless turns on his pocket flashlight and moves forward, preceded by the thin pencil of light. The tiling of the vestibule is black and white, laid in a pattern of squares and lozenges. A strip of gray carpet with two garnet stripes at the edges covers the stairs.
In the luminous circle of the electric light appears a tiny dark painting that is obviously rather old. It is a nightmare scene. At the foot of a ruined tower, illuminated by a flash of sinister lightning, two men are lying. One is wearing royal clothes, his gold crown gleams in the grass beside him; the other is a simple peasant. The lightning has just dealt out the same death to both of them.
On the point of turning the doorknob, Wallas stops: if the murderer is actually lying in wait behind this door, it would be stupid for a special agent to fall into such a trap; since he has come to the rendezvous, he should play the game all the way to the end. He slips his hand into his pocket to take out his revolver, when he remembers the second one he has been carrying around since the morning—Daniel Dupont’s revolver, which is jammed and would be of no help to him if he had to protect his life. He must be careful not to make any mistake about which is which.
Actually, he runs no risk of doing so. Dupont’s revolver is in his left overcoat pocket: he had put it there first and then put it back in the same place when the revolver was returned from the laboratory. Since he has never handled both weapons at the same time, he cannot have confused them.
To be absolutely certain, he examines them on the spot by the light of his flashlight. He recognizes his own revolver indisputably. He even feels no apprehension about trying to fire the dead man’s gun—it is, indeed, that one that is jammed. He starts to put it back in his pocket, but then decides it is no use encumbering himself with this heavy object any longer. He therefore goes into the bedroom and puts it back in the night table drawer from which he had seen the old housekeeper take it this morning.
In the study, Wallas presses the button of the light switch on the door jamb. One bulb in the ceiling fixture goes on. Before leaving the house, the old housekeeper has closed all the shutters; consequently no one will see the light from outside.
His loaded revolver in his right hand, Wallas inspects the little room. No one is hiding in it, obviously. Everything is in order. Madame Smite must have straightened the piles of books which the inspector had indicated as having been disordered. The white sheet on which the professor had as yet written only four words has disappeared, filed away in a folder or in some drawer. The cube of vitrified stone, with its sharp edges and deadly corners, is lying harmlessly between the inkwell and the memo-pad. Only the chair is at a slight angle, pulled out from the desk, as if someone were about to sit down.
Wallas stands behind the back of the chair and looks toward the door; this is a good place to wait for the arrival of the hypothetical murderer. It would be even better to turn out the light; the special agent would then have time to see the enemy before being discovered.
From his observation post, Wallas carefully notes the location of the various pieces of furniture. He goes back to the door, presses the light button, and in the dark returns to the same place. He checks his position by resting his free hand on the back of the chair in front of him.
4
If the murderer’s trail has not been picked up, it is because Daniel Dupont has not been murdered; yet it is impossible to reconstruct his suicide in any coherent way.…Laurent rubs his hands together faster… And what if Dupont weren’t dead?
The chief commissioner suddenly understands the oddities of this “wound,” the impossibility of letting the police see the “corpse,” Doctor Juard’s embarrassed looks. Dupont is not dead; it just took a little thought to realize that.
The motives of the entire story are not yet quite clear, but the point of departure is here: Daniel Dupont is not dead.
Laurent picks up his telephone and dials a number: 202-203.
“Hello, Café des Allies?”
“Yes,” a low, almost cavernous voice replies.
“I’d like to speak to Monsieur Wallas.”
“Monsieur Wallas isn’t here,” the voice answers, disgustedly.
“You don’t know where he is?”
“How should I know?” the voice says, “I’m not his nursemaid.”
“This is the police calling. You have a man staying there named Wallas, don’t you?”
“Yes, I reported him this morning,” the voice says.
“That’s not what I’m asking. I’m asking if this man is in your establishment. Has he gone up to his room?”
“I’ll find out,” the voice answers reluctantly. A minute later it adds with a note of satisfaction: “No one’s there!”
“All right. I’d like to speak to the manager.”
“I’m the manager here,” the voice says.
“You are. Then it was you who told an inspector that nonsense about some fictitious son of Professor Dupont?”
“I didn’t say anything like that,” the voice protests. “I said that sometimes young people came in here, they’re all ages—some young enough to be Dupont’s sons….”
“Did you say he had a son?”
“I don’t even know whether he had any! He never came in here, and even if he had I wouldn’t have stopped him from getting into every whore in the neighborhood—excuse me, Monsieur.” The voice suddenly grows gentler, making an attempt at correctness: “The inspector asked if any young people ever came in here; I said yes. Over sixteen is legal. Then he insinuated that maybe this Dupont had a son; I didn’t want to say no, so I said it was perfectly possible he had come in here to drink one day or the other….”
“All right. We’ll send for you. But from now on watch out what you’re saying; and try to be a little more polite. Monsieur Wallas didn’t say what time he’d be back?”
A pause. The other man has hung up. A threatening smile is already spreading across the commissioner’s face…when he finally hears the voice: “All he said was that he would sleep here tonight.”
“Thanks. I’ll call back.”
Laurent hangs up. He rubs his hands. He would have liked to announce his discovery to the special agent right away. He enjoys in anticipation Wallas’ incredulous astonishment when he will hear at the end of the wire: “Dupont isn’t dead. Dupont is in hiding at Doctor Juard’s clinic.”
5
“The car is here,” Juard says.
Dupont stands up and starts for the door at once. He is dressed for the trip. He has been able to put only one arm through the sleeve of his heavy overcoat, which the doctor has buttoned as well as possible over the wounded arm, which is held in a canvas sling. He is wearing a wide-brimmed felt hat that entirely conceals his forehead. He has even accepted dark glasses so that no one will recognize him; the only pair to be found in the clinic was a pair of medical glasses, one of whose lenses is very dark and the other much lighter—which gives the professor the comical look of a villain in a melodrama.
Since at the last minute Marchat refuses to do him the favor he had promised, Dupont will have to go to the little house for the papers himself.
Juard has arranged matters so that the corridors of the clinic are empty when his friend passes through them. The latter has no difficulty getting to the big black ambulance waiting in front of the door. He sits down on the front seat beside the driver—it will be easier for getting in and out without wasting any time.
The driver has put on the black hospital uniform and the flat cap with the shiny visor. Actually this must be one of the “bodyguards�
�� Roy-Dauzet uses, more or less officially. The man, moreover, has an impressive build, a sober manner, the hard, inscrutable face of a film killer. He hasn’t opened his mouth once; he has handed the professor the letter from the minister proving that he is the man they have been expecting, and as soon as the doctor has slammed the door, he drives away.
“We have to stop at my house first,” Dupont says. “I’ll tell you where to go. Turn right…Right again...To the left …Around that building… Turn here …The second on the right…Now straight ahead...”
In a few minutes they reach the Boulevard Circulaire. Dupont has the car stop at the corner of the Rue des Arpenteurs.
“Don’t park here,” he tells the driver. “I prefer not to have my visit noticed. Drive around, or park a few hundred yards away. And be back in exactly half an hour.”
“Yes, Monsieur,” the man says. “Do you want me to park the car and come with you?”
“There’s no need for that, thank you.”
Dupont gets out and walks quickly toward the gate. He hears the ambulance drive away. The man is not a “bodyguard”: he would have insisted on following Dupont. His looks had fooled the professor, who now smiles at his own romanticism. The very existence of these famous guards is, moreover, quite uncertain.
The gate is not closed. The lock has been out of order for a long time, the key does not even turn in it, which does not prevent the latch from closing. Old Anna is growing quite careless—unless some child was playing here and opened the gate after he left—a child or a prowler. Dupont climbs the four steps up to the door, to make sure that the front door, in any case, is actually locked; he turns the heavy brass doorknob and pushes hard, adding the pressure of his shoulder, for he knows that the hinges are very stiff; since he wants to be sure of the result and mistrusts the unaccustomed movements imposed by his single good arm, he repeats the effort two or three times, yet without daring to make too much noise. But the big door is locked tight.
He has given Marchat the keys to this door, and the businessman has left without even bothering to return them. Dupont has only the key to the little glass door left; he must therefore walk around the house to the back. Under his feet, the gravel crunches faintly in the silence of the night. It was a mistake to count on that coward Marchat. He has wasted the whole afternoon waiting for him; finally he telephoned his house, but there was no one there; at quarter to seven he finally received a message that came from somewhere: Marchat was sorry, he had had to leave town on urgent business. That was a lie, of course. It was fear that had made him run away.
Mechanically, Dupont has turned the doorknob of the little door. The latter opens without resistance. It was not locked.
The house is dark and silent.
The professor takes off his glasses, which are bothering him. He has stopped in the vestibule and tries to figure out the situation…Did Marchat come after all? No, since it was the front door keys that had been given to him. And old Anna, if she hadn’t left, would be in the kitchen at this hour…that’s not certain…in any case, she would have left a light on in the hall or on the stairs. …
Dupont opens the kitchen door. No one there. He presses the light button. Everything is put away, as in a house where no one lives any longer. And all the shutters are closed. Dupont turns on the light in the hall. As he passes he opens the living room and dining room doors. No one, of course. He starts up the stairs. Perhaps Anna forgot to lock the little door when she was leaving. She has been growing absent-minded the last few months.
On the second floor, he goes to the housekeeper’s room. It is obvious that the room has been put in order for a long absence.
Having reached his study door, the professor holds his breath. Last night, the murderer was waiting for him there.
Yes, but last night the little door was open: the man didn’t need a key to get in; tonight he would have had to force the lock, and Dupont noticed nothing of the kind. And if the man found the door open this time too, it is because old Anna had not locked it, in any case.…It is impossible to reassure himself with arguments of this kind; with a bunch of skeleton keys, a specialist can easily open all ordinary locks. Someone has made his way into the house and is waiting, in the study, in the same place as yesterday, to finish the job.
Objectively, there is no reason to suppose this is not true. The professor is not easily frightened; nevertheless, at this moment he regrets that he was not sent a real bodyguard from the capital. However, there can be no question of leaving without taking with him the files he needs.
Marchat has told him on the telephone that the police commissioner did not think it had been a murder: he was convinced it was a suicide. Dupont turns around. He goes to get his revolver. Last night, when he departed for the clinic, he left it on the night table… Just before he goes into the bedroom he stops again: it may be here that the trap has been set for him.
These successive, more or less chimerical fears annoy the professor. With an impatient gesture he turns the handle; all the same he takes the precaution of not opening the door at once; he quickly thrusts in his hand to turn on the light and glances slowly around the door, ready to draw back if he sees anything unusual...
But the bedroom is empty: no thug is posted behind the bed, nor in the corner next to the chest. Dupont sees only his own face in the mirror, where the traces of an anxiety that now seems ludicrous to him still remain.
He walks straight over to the night table. The revolver is no longer on the marble top. He finds it in the drawer, in its usual place. He probably will not use it, any more than he had the night before, but you never know: if he had been armed last night when he came upstairs from the dining room, he would certainly have used it then.
The professor checks to see that the safety catch has not been slipped back on and returns, walking steadily, his weapon in his hand, to the study. He will have to use only one arm—fortunately, his right. First put the revolver in his pocket, open the door, turn on the ceiling light and, as fast as possible, grasp the revolver while kicking open the door. This little farce—useless as the one he has just executed—makes him smile in anticipation.
***
Wallas listens to his heart pounding. Since he is quite close to the window, he has heard the car stop, the garden gate open, the heavy footsteps crunching across the gravel. The man has tried to get in through the front door. He has shaken it a few times, without success, then has walked around the house. Consequently Wallas could tell it wasn’t Marchat who had changed his mind and come for the dead man’s papers; it was neither Marchat nor someone sent by him—or by the old housekeeper. It was someone who did not have the keys to the house.
The crunching footsteps have passed underneath the window. The man went to the little door which the special agent has left open for him on purpose. The hinges have creaked slightly when he pushed the door open. To be sure his victim would not escape, the man has looked in every room he passed on the ground floor and then upstairs.
Now Wallas sees the slit of light widening along the jamb, with unendurable slowness.
Wallas aims at the place where the murderer will appear, a black figure outlined against the illuminated doorway…
But the man obviously distrusts this room plunged in darkness. A hand moves forward, gropes for the switch…
Wallas, dazzled by the light, only distinguishes the quick movement of an arm lowering toward him the muzzle of a heavy revolver, the movement of a man firing As he throws himself to the floor, Wallas pulls the trigger.
6
The man has fallen forward, his right arm outstretched, the left folded under him. His hand remains clenched on the butt of the revolver. He no longer moves.
Wallas stands up. Fearing a trick, he approaches cautiously, his gun still aimed, not knowing what he should do.
He walks around the body, keeping out of reach of a possible reaction. The man still does not move. His hat has remained pulled down over his forehead. The right eye is partly open t
he other is turned down toward the ground; the nose is crushed against the carpet. What can be seen of the face looks quite gray. He is dead.
It is nervousness that makes Wallas lose the rest of his discretion. He leans down and touches the man’s wrist, trying to find his pulse. The hand releases the heavy revolver and dangles limply in his grasp. The pulse has stopped. The man i certainly dead.
Wallas decides he must look through the corpse’s pockets (For what?) Only the right overcoat pocket is accessible. H< thrusts in his hand and removes a pair of spectacles, one o whose lenses is very dark and the other much lighter.
“Can you say whether it was the right lens that was darker or the left?”
The left lens…on the right side …The right lens on the left side….
It is the left lens that is darker. Wallas puts the glasses on the floor and straightens up. He does not want to continue the search. He feels instead like sitting down. He is very tired.
In self-defense. He saw the man aiming at him. He saw the finger squeezing the trigger. He perceived the considerable interval of time it took him to react and fire back. He was sure tie didn’t have very quick reflexes.
Yet he had to admit that he fired first. He didn’t hear the other revolver fire before his own; and if the two explosions had occurred at exactly the same moment, there would be some trace of the stray bullet on the wall or in the backs of the books. Wallas raises the window curtain: the panes are also intact. His adversary did not have time to fire.
It is only the tension of his senses that gave him, at the time, that impression of slow motion.
Wallas presses his palm against the muzzle of his gun; it feels distinctly warm. He turns back toward the body and leans down to touch the abandoned revolver. It is quite cold. Taking a better look, Wallas realizes that the left sleeve of the overcoat is empty. He feels the shape of the arm under the material. Was this arm in a sling? “A flesh wound in the arm.”
The Erasers Page 21