Murder Most Merry

by ed. Abigail Browining

  “He couldn’t bear the thought of appearing to the kid as a failure, a man nobody wanted and who had doors slammed in his face.”

  “But what did he do with himself all night?”

  “Odd jobs. When he could get them. For a fortnight, he was employed as night watchman in a factory in Billancourt. but that was only while the regular man was ill. Often he got a few hours’ work washing down cars in one of the big garages. When that failed, he’d sometimes lend a hand at the market unloading vegetables. When he had one of his bouts—”

  “Bouts of what?”

  “Asthma. He had them from time to time. Then he’d lie down in a station waiting room. Once he spent a whole night here, chatting with me.”

  “Suppose the boy woke up early this morning and saw his father at Madame Fayet’s?”

  “There was frost on the windows.”

  “There wouldn’t be if the window was open. Lots of people sleep with their windows open even in the coldest weather.”

  “It wasn’t the case with my brother. He was always a chilly person. And he was much too poor to waste warmth.”

  “As far as his window was concerned, the boy had only to scratch away the frost with his fingernail. When I was a boy—

  “Yes. So did I. The thing is to find out whether the old woman’s window was open.”

  “It was, and the light was switched on.”

  “I wonder where Francois can have got to.”

  “The boy?”

  It was surprising and a little disconcerting the way he kept all the time reverting to him. The situation was certainly embarrassing, and somehow made all the more so by the calm way in which Andre Lecœur gave the Inspector the most damaging details about his brother.

  “When he came in this morning,” began Saillard again, “he was carrying a number of parcels. You realize—”

  “It’s Christmas.”

  “Yes. But he’d have needed quite a bit of money to buy a chicken, a cake, and that new radio. Has he borrowed any from you lately?”

  “Not for a month. I haven’t seen him for a month. I wish I had. I’d have told him that I was getting a radio for Francois myself. I’ve got it here. Downstairs, that is, in the cloakroom. I was going to take it straight round as soon as I was relieved.”

  “Would Madame Fayet have consented to lend him money?”

  “It’s unlikely. She was a queer lot. She must have had quite enough money to live on, yet she still went out to work, charring from morning to evening. Often she lent money to the people she worked for. At exorbitant interest, of course. All the neighborhood knew about it, and people always came to her when they needed something to tide them over till the end of the month.”

  Still embarrassed, the Inspector rose to his feet. “I’m going to have a look.” he said.

  “At Madame Fayet’s?”

  “There and in the Rue Vasco de Gama. If you get any news, let me know, will you?”

  “You won’t find any telephone there, but I can get a message to you through the Javel police station.”

  The Inspector’s footsteps had hardly died away before the telephone bell rang. No lamp had lit up on the wall. This was an outside call, coming from the Gare d’Austerlitz.

  “Lecœur? Station police speaking. We’ve got him.”

  “Who?”

  “The man whose description was circulated. Lecœur. Same as you. Olivier Lecœur. No doubt about it, I’ve seen his identity card.”

  “Hold on, will you?”

  Lecœur dashed out of the room and down the stairs just in time to catch the Inspector as he was getting into one of the cars belonging to the Préfecture.

  “Inspector! The Gare d’Austerlitz is on the phone. They’ve found my brother.”

  Saillard was a stout man and he went up the stairs puffing and blowing. He took the receiver himself.

  “Hallo! Yes. Where was he? What was he doing? What? No, there’s no point in your questioning him now. You’re sure he didn’t know? Right. Go on looking out. It’s quite possible. As for him, send him here straightaway. At the Préfecture, yes.”

  He hesitated for a second and glanced at Lecœur before saying finally, “Yes. Send someone with him. We can’t take any risks.”

  The Inspector filled his pipe and lit it before explaining, and when he spoke he looked at nobody in particular.

  “He was picked up after he’d been wandering about the station for over an hour. He seemed very jumpy. Said he was waiting there to meet his son. from whom he’d received a message.”

  “Did they tell him about the murder?”

  “Yes. He appeared to be staggered by the news and terrified. I asked them to bring him along.” Rather diffidently he added: “I asked them to bring him here. Considering your relationship, I didn’t want you to think—”

  Lecœur had been in that room since eleven o’clock the night before. It was rather like his early years when he spent his days in his mother’s kitchen. Around him was an unchanging world. There were the little lamps, of course, that kept going on and off, but that’s what they always did. They were part and parcel of the immutability of the place. Time flowed by without anyone noticing it.

  Yet, outside, Paris was celebrating Christmas. Thousands of people had been to Midnight Mass, thousands more had spent the night roistering, and those who hadn’t known where to draw the line had sobered down in the police station and were now being called upon to explain things they couldn’t remember doing.

  What had his brother Olivier been doing all through the night? An old woman had been found dead. A boy had started before dawn on a breathless race through the streets, breaking the glass of the telephone pillars as he passed them, having wrapped his handkerchief round his fist.

  And what was Olivier waiting for at the Gare d’Austerlitz. sometimes in the overheated waiting rooms, sometimes on the windswept platforms, too nervous to settle down in any one place for long?

  Less than ten minutes elapsed, just time enough for Godin, whose nose really was running, to make himself another glass of hot grog.

  “Can I offer you one, Monsieur le Commissaire?”

  “No, thanks.”

  Looking more embarrassed than ever, Saillard leaned over towards Lecœur to say in an undertone, “Would you like us to question him in another room?”

  No. Lecœur wasn’t going to leave his post for anything. He wanted to stay there, with his little lamps and his switchboard. Was it that he was thinking more of the boy than of his brother?

  Olivier came in with a detective on either side, but they had spared him the handcuffs. He looked dreadful, like a bad photograph faded with age. At once he turned to Andre. “Where’s Francois?”

  “We don’t know. We’re hunting for him.”

  “Where?”

  Andre Lecœur pointed to his plan of Paris and his switchboard of a thousand lines. “Everywhere.”

  The two detectives had already been sent away.

  “Sit down,” said the Inspector. “I believe you’ve been told of Madame Fayet’s death.”

  Olivier didn’t wear spectacles, but he had the same pale and rather fugitive eyes as his brother had when he took his glasses off. He glanced at the Inspector, by whom he didn’t seem the least overawed, then turned back to Andre. “He left a note for me,” he said, delving into one of the pockets of his grubby mackintosh. “Here. See if you can understand.”

  He held out a bit of paper torn out of a schoolboy’s exercise book. The writing wasn’t any too good. It didn’t look as though Francois was the best of pupils. He had used an indelible pencil, wetting the end in his mouth, so that his lips were very likely stained with it.

  “Uncle Gedeon arrives this morning Gare d’Austerlitz. Come as soon as you can and meet us there. Love. Bib.”

  Without a word, Andre Lecœur passed it on to the Inspector, who turned it over and over with his thick fingers. “What’s Bib stand for?”

  “It’s his nickname. A baby name. I never use i
t when other people are about. It comes from biberon. When I used to give him his bottle—” He spoke in a toneless voice. He seemed to be in a fog and was probably only dimly conscious of where he was.

  “Who’s Uncle Gedeon?”

  “There isn’t any such person.”

  Did he realize he was talking to the head of the Brigade des Homicides, who was at the moment investigating a murder?

  It was his brother who came to the rescue, explaining. “As a matter of fact, we had an Uncle Gedeon but he’s been dead for some years. He was one of my mother’s brothers who emigrated to America as a young man.”

  Olivier looked at his brother as much as to say: What’s the point of going into that?

  “We got into the habit, in the family, of speaking—jocularly, of course— of our rich American uncle and of the fortune he’d leave us one day.”

  “Was he rich?”

  “We didn’t know. We never heard from him except for a postcard once a year, signed Gedeon. Wishing us a happy New Year.”

  “He died?”

  “When Francois was four.”

  “Really. Andre, do you think it’s any use—”

  “Let me go on. The Inspector wants to know everything. My brother carried on the family tradition, talking to his son about our Uncle Gedeon, who had become by now quite a legendary figure. He provided a theme for bedtime stories, and all sorts of adventures were attributed to him. Naturally he was fabulously rich, and when one day he came back to France—”

  “I understand. He died out there?”

  “In a hospital in Cleveland. It was then we found out he had been really a porter in a restaurant. It would have been too cruel to tell the boy that, so the legend went on.”

  “Did he believe in it?”

  It was Olivier who answered. “My brother thought he didn’t, that he’d guessed the truth but wasn’t going to spoil the game. But I always maintained the contrary and I’m still practically certain he took it all in. He was like that. Long after his schoolfellows had stopped believing in Father Christmas, he still went on.”

  Talking about his son brought him back to life, transfigured him.

  “But as for this note he left, I don’t know what to make of it. I asked the concierge if a telegram had come. For a moment I thought Andre might have played us a practical joke, but I soon dismissed the idea. It isn’t much of a joke to get a boy dashing off to a station on a freezing night. Naturally I dashed off to the Gare d’Austerlitz as fast as I could. There I hunted high and low, then wandered about, waiting anxiously for him to turn up. Andre, you’re sure he hasn’t been—”

  He looked at the street plan on the wall and at the switchboard. He knew very well that every accident was reported.

  “He hasn’t been run over,” said Andre. “At about eight o’clock he was near the Etoile, but we’ve completely lost track of him since then.”

  “Near the Etoile? How do you know?”

  “It’s rather a long story, but it boils down to this—that a whole series of alarms were set off by someone smashing the glass. They followed a circuitous route from your place to the Arc de Triomphe. At the foot of the last one, they found a blue-check handkerchief, a boy’s handkerchief, among the broken glass.”

  “He has handkerchiefs like that.”

  “From eight o’clock onward, not a sign of him.”

  “Then I’d better get back to the station. He’s certain to go there, if he told me to meet him there.”

  He was surprised at the sudden silence with which his last words were greeted. He looked from one to the other, perplexed, then anxious.

  “What is it?”

  His brother looked down at the floor. Inspector Saillard cleared his throat, hesitated, then asked, “Did you go to see your mother-in-law last night?”

  Perhaps, as his brother had suggested, Olivier was rather lacking in intelligence. It took a long time for the words to sink in. You could follow their progress in his features.

  He had been gazing rather blankly at the Inspector. Suddenly he swung around on his brother, his cheeks red, his eyes flashing. “Andre, you dare to suggest that I—”

  Without the slightest transition, his indignation faded away. He leaned forward in his chair, took his head in his two hands, and burst into a fit of raucous weeping.

  Ill at ease, Inspector Saillard looked at Andre Lecœur, surprised at the latter’s calmness, and a little shocked, perhaps, by what he may well have taken for heartlessness. Perhaps Saillard had never had a brother of his own. Andre had known his since childhood. It wasn’t the first time he had seen Olivier break down. Not by any means. And this time he was almost pleased, as it might have been a great deal worse. What he had dreaded was the moment of indignation, and he was relieved that it had passed so quickly. Had he continued on that tack, he’d have ended by putting everyone’s back up, which would have done him no good at all.

  Wasn’t that how he’d lost one job after another? For weeks, for months, he would go meekly about his work, toeing the line and swallowing what he felt to be humiliations, till all at once he could hold no more, and for some trifle—a chance word, a smile, a harmless contradiction—he would flare up unexpectedly and make a nuisance of himself to everybody.

  What do we do now? The Inspector’s eyes were asking.

  Andre Lecœur’s eyes answered, Wait.

  It didn’t last very long. The emotional crisis waned, started again, then petered out altogether. Olivier shot a sulky look at the Inspector, then hid his face again.

  Finally, with an air of bitter resignation, he sat up, and with even a touch of pride said: “Fire away. I’ll answer.”

  “At what time last night did you go to Madame Fayet’s? Wait a moment. First of all, when did you leave your flat?”

  “At eight o’clock, as usual, after Francois was in bed.”

  “Nothing exceptional happened?”

  “No. We’d had supper together. Then he’d helped me to wash up.”

  “Did you talk about Christmas?”

  “Yes. I told him he’d be getting a surprise.”

  “The table radio. Was he expecting one?”

  He’d been longing for one for some time. You see, he doesn’t play with the other boys in the street. Practically all his free time he spends at home.”

  “Did it ever occur to you that the boy might know you’d lost your job at the Presse? Did he ever ring you up there?”

  “Never. When I’m at work, he’s asleep.”

  “Could anyone have told him?”

  “No one knew. Not in the neighborhood, that is.”

  “Is he observant?”

  “Very. He notices everything.”

  “You saw him safely in bed and then you went off. Do you take anything with you—anything to eat, I mean?”

  The Inspector suddenly thought of that, seeing Godin produce a ham sandwich. Olivier looked blankly at his empty hands.

  “My tin.”

  “The tin in which you took your sandwiches?”

  Yes. I had it with me when I left. I’m sure of that. I can’t think where I could have left it, unless it was at—”

  “At Madame Fayet’s?”

  “Yes.”

  “Just a moment. Lecœur, get me Javel on the phone, will you? Hallo! Who’s speaking? Is Janvier there? Good, ask him to speak to me. Hallo! Is that you, Janvier? Have you come across a tin box containing some sandwiches? Nothing of the sort. Really? All the same. I’d like you to make sure. Ring me back. It’s important.”

  And, turning again to Olivier: “Was Francois actually sleeping when you

  left?”

  “No. But he’d snuggled down in bed and soon would be. Outside, I wandered about for a bit. I walked down to the Seine and waited on the embankment.”

  “Waited? What for?”

  “For Francois to be fast asleep. From his room you can see Madame Fayet’s windows.”

  “So you’d made up your mind to go and see her.”

>   “It was the only way. I hadn’t a bean left.”

  “What about your brother?”

  Olivier and Andre looked at each other.

  “He’d already given me so much. I felt I couldn’t ask him again.”

  “You rang at the house door, I suppose. At what time?”

  “A little after nine. The concierge saw me. I made no attempt to hide— except from Francois.”

  “Had your mother-in-law gone to bed?”

  “No. She was fully dressed when she opened her door. She said, ‘Oh, it’s you, you wretch!’ ”

  “After that beginning, did you still think she’d lend you money?”

  “I was sure of it.”

  “Why?”

  “It was her business. Perhaps also for the pleasure of squeezing me if I didn’t pay her back. She lent me ten thousand francs, but made me sign an I. O. U. for twenty thousand.”

  “How soon had you to pay her back?”

  “In a fortnight’s time.”

  “How could you hope to?”

  “I don’t know. Somehow. The thing that mattered was for the boy to have a good Christmas.”

  Andre Lecœur was tempted to butt in to explain to the puzzled Inspector, “You see! He’s always been like that!”

  “Did you get the money easily?”

  “Oh, no. We were at it for a long time.”

  “How long?”

  “Half an hour, I daresay, and during most of that time she was calling me names, telling me I was no good to anyone and had ruined her daughter’s life before I finally killed her. I didn’t answer her back. I wanted the money too badly.”

  “You didn’t threaten her?”

  Olivier reddened. “Not exactly. I said if she didn’t let me have it I’d kill myself.”

  “Would you have done it?”

  “I don’t think so. At least, I don’t know. I was fed up, worn out.”

  “And when you got the money?”

  “I walked to the nearest Métro station, Lourmel, and took the underground to Palais Royal. There I went into the Grands Magasins du Louvre. The place was crowded, with queues at many of the counters.”

  “What time was it?”

  “It was after eleven before I left the place. I was in no hurry. I had a good look around. I stood a long time watching a toy electric train.”