Pel and the Prowler

by Mark Hebden

  ‘Police,’ Darcy said, showing his card.

  Immediately, the boy rose. The movement was stiff and entirely German but it was awkward and he knocked his coffee flying.

  ‘Mind if we join you?’ Pel asked.

  Schwendermann was bobbing about, flustered and red-faced, dabbing with his napkin at the cloth. ‘Bitte – please – sit down.’ The waitress arrived to whip off the cloth and Schwendermann was sweating with embarrassment and confusion as they took their places. ‘I expect you have come about that poor girl,’ he said. ‘Iss very unpleasant.’

  ‘How did you come to find her?’

  ‘I get up most early each morning to go jogging. I am too fat and must lose weight. But iss difficult because running makes me hungry and then I eat more. As I return I bring in the brot-bread – for my breakfast. When I find her iss a good morning. The sun shines. Alles ist in ordnung, I decide. When I come back I go to the broom cupboard to sweep the stairs. But there iss a body. It iss Marguerite.’

  ‘Go on.’

  ‘She iss lying in the shadows. I know her at vunce, of course. I see her often on the stairs. I have meet her at parties, you understand. Everyone here in this city iss most friendly.’

  ‘Do you like parties?’

  ‘Yes, sir. Parties are good when you are alone.’

  ‘Go to many?’

  ‘Not now. I am at a party and a girl takes off her clothes. Iss most embarrassing. I think my mother will not approve. So now I stay away.’

  ‘What are you studying?’

  ‘The French language. I become good at it, I think. I wish to know all European languages. But I also read a lot about architecture. There iss much here in this city. Roman. Renaissance. It iss called here the “ville aux beaux clochers”. It has many fine buildings, and there are in the libraries drawings and prints from the Middle Ages showing the skyline. Much iss destroyed in the Revolution, of course, but there are maps of the city through the ages. I go next year to Valencia and then perhaps to England. Then I see Spanish architecture and English architecture and much Roman remains.’

  ‘Where do you come from?’

  ‘Siegen in Westphalia. There is not much architecture there. My father was a Lutheran pastor. Iss now dead, though, and the pension my mother receives iss small and I must work hard because she iss poor and I must look after her.’

  ‘These parties you were invited to? Where you met people. Did you ever go with anybody in particular?’

  ‘Please?’

  ‘Marguerite de Wibaux. Did you ever go with her?’

  ‘Oh! No, sir! Never. I don’t think she likes me like that. Perhaps because I am fat and wear spectacles. Also it iss Marguerite who takes off her clothes at the party. She apologises the next day but I am much embarrassed.’

  ‘Did you quarrel about it?’

  ‘Oh, no! Afterwards she iss always kind. She speaks nice words when we pass on the stairs.’

  ‘Nice words?’

  ‘Goot morning. Goot evening. That sort of words. Always she iss polite und friendly. Sometimes we talk. But not much. Just about the weather. Once at a party before this I talked much mit her. About many things.’

  ‘About sex, for instance?’

  Schwendermann looked shocked. ‘No, sir! Never!’

  ‘Did you ever go to her room?’

  ‘To borrow a cupful of sugar for coffee iss all.’

  ‘Never late at night?’

  ‘Never, sir.’

  ‘Did anybody else?’

  ‘I never see anybody. But I do not look. I am not a spion – how you say? A spy? I am not a spy. I stay in my room and work.’

  ‘Ever see a type called Hélin?’

  Schwendermann’s eyes narrowed behind his glasses. ‘Often I see him in the hall mit Fräulein de Wibaux.’

  ‘In her room?’

  Schwendermann shrugged. ‘I cannot say I have when I have not.’

  Schwendermann led the way towards his flat, wrinkling his nose at the dust on the stairs. ‘We take it in turns to sweep them,’ he said. ‘Sometimes it iss done. Sometimes it iss not. Always I do it when iss my turn. We Germans are very thorough. Unhappily –’ he shrugged ‘ – others have not been so well brought up, I think. Perhaps that iss why Marguerite is put in the cupboard. So she will not be very quickly found.’

  They stopped in the entrance hall. It was wide and dark with a deep recess near the stairs.

  ‘What about the light?’

  ‘Iss one which you must press. A minutière, which shines for a liddle time. Unfortunately, I think it does not work. Iss usually dark. Iss a liddle light comes from the street lamps at night, but I think not much.’

  ‘Where were you when it happened?’

  ‘In my room, Noël Moussia will tell you. He always knows when I am in. He teases me much because I don’t run after girls as he does.’

  ‘Did you hear anything?’

  ‘No. But Marguerite’s flat is on the ground floor. She iss killed on the ground floor, I think.’

  ‘No sound of a struggle? No scream?’

  ‘No, sir. Nothing at all.’

  ‘And you saw no sign of any assailant?’

  ‘No, sir. I think when I find her that he has long since run away. There is nothing to stop him, iss there?’

  ‘What do you know of Moussia?’

  ‘He is sad, I think.’

  ‘Sad?’ It seemed a strange description. ‘Why?’

  ‘I think it iss because he iss part-Algerian. He has a – how do you say? – an obsession. Nobody else worries about it but it makes him aggressive and silly. I think he iss lonely.’ Schwendermann obviously considered himself something of a psychologist. ‘This iss why he does exercises all the time. It iss a sort of refuge. Somewhere to hide.’

  A thorough search had been made of the hostel at the time of the murder, but Pel decided to have a look round for himself. The back kitchen contained an old cast-iron stove which had once been black-leaded but now showed streaks of rust. The room was filled with trunks, suitcases, two bicycles and numerous cardboard cartons. The kitchen door leading to the backyard was locked and secured by half a dozen screws. There was no chance that the murderer could have slipped in that way. Near the cupboard in the hall stood a bucket containing a floorcloth grey with dirt, a small shovel and a broom almost devoid of bristles.

  ‘Iss for cleaning,’ Schwendermann said.

  ‘The Lab. boys went over it thoroughly, Patron,’ Darcy said as he unlocked the cupboard. ‘He could have hidden in here and waited for her.’

  The students’ rooms reflected their owners’ tastes. Moussia’s seemed to be filled entirely with apparatus for developing muscles, Schwendermann’s with books, which even rested on top of the cold cast-iron stove whose chimney was pushed through the wall. Aduraz’s was knee-deep in pop records. Sergent’s interest seemed to be sport.

  ‘We went through the flat the De Wibaux girl shared,’ Darcy said. ‘We found nothing. She was exactly what she appeared to be. Normal.’

  The room was a typical student’s room, spartan and devoid of good furniture but relieved by a large window looking out on to the narrow drive. Alongside it was a table carrying the photograph of a distinguished-looking man and woman.

  ‘Parents,’ Darcy said. ‘He’s well known at the Faculté des Médecins and the hospitals here. Gave lectures until recently.’

  There was also a blurred picture of a girl with a long-haired man. He had his arm round her and both were smiling broadly.

  ‘That her?’

  ‘That’s her. The guy’s Hélin.’

  Pel sniffed disapprovingly and began to open cupboard doors and drawers. The clothing they contained seemed rather better than the garments the average student wore. In one corner was a space where a single bed had once stood but now it was empty and bare-looking. An attempt had been made to cheer the place up with pictures of film and television stars, plants and piles of cushions. The other downstairs flat across the hall was similar
but it had a cramped look, with a third bed jammed in where obviously there wasn’t really room for it.

  ‘Annie Joulier’s,’ Darcy said. ‘She moved in with the other two girls after the murder.’

  They met the student Sergent in the street as he arrived from the lecture halls and took him back inside to question him. He clearly didn’t like the Police but he answered their questions. He had been at a meeting the night of the murder – apparently there were plenty of other students who could vouch for the fact – and had returned home around 11 p.m. and gone straight to his room.

  Slowly, they worked through all the occupants of Number 69, asking questions. It wasn’t easy because they all had their radios going and they all appeared to be deaf and had the volume turned well up. Like Sergent, they all claimed to be in their rooms. Antonio Aduraz and Annie Joulier, whom they found in Aduraz’s room, vouched for each other. They had been in Aduraz’s room, listening, they claimed, to jazz. The girl said they’d all been nervous since the murder and that she’d thought of moving to another building, but now she’d left the room she’d shared with Marguerite de Wibaux and moved in with Marina Lorans and Teresa Sangalli she felt safer. Aduraz, a slight boy with grey eyes and a shock of dark hair, clearly didn’t like Moussia and he spoke rapidly to De Troq’ in Spanish.

  ‘He tried to muscle in with Annie,’ he said. ‘We’re going to get married when we qualify. She’s my girl.’

  ‘What happened?’

  ‘I punched him on the nose.’

  ‘Wasn’t that dangerous? He’s bigger than you and does a lot of exercises.’

  Aduraz sniffed. ‘He’s not tough,’ he said. ‘He just smells strong.’

  The girls’ attitude to the male students was enlightening. Moussia was a drip. Sergent was comme-ci-comme-ça because, although he was good-looking enough, he wasn’t interested in much beyond sport. Aduraz, with those Spanish eyes of his, was a dream. Schwendermann – ‘He’s all right but not a type to rush into a dark corner with.’ Marina Lorans and Teresa Sangalli vouched for each other and Marina confirmed Moussia’s comment about the creaking stairs but admitted it was possible to sneak up and down if you were careful and kept to the outer edges of the treads. Especially for a girl, and especially if people had their radios on – which they usually had. She confirmed the fact that Annie Joulier sometimes sneaked up to join Aduraz.

  ‘We all knew it,’ she admitted.

  She herself had heard nothing, though she’d heard Moussia banging about most of the evening. ‘Sometimes it sounds as though he’s fighting King Kong up there,’ she said. ‘Sometimes I think it’s a pity he doesn’t. It would be better than fighting everybody else.’

  Pel’s ears pricked. ‘Does he fight everybody else?’

  ‘Well, he and Tonino had that fight.’

  It seemed that the United Nations wasn’t as united as Moussia had made out, because Moussia had also had a scuffle with Sergent.

  ‘Why?’ Pel asked.

  ‘Because of Marguerite.’

  ‘I thought she went around with a postgraduate student called Hélin.’

  ‘Before that it was Louis Sergent. I think he liked the fact that she had a car.’

  ‘Is Moussia a troublemaker?’

  The girl frowned. ‘Not really. Just silly. He does stupid things.’

  ‘What sort of stupid things?’

  ‘Well, he got Marguerite drunk at a party we had, didn’t he? She never drank much as a rule and he put vodka in her glass. Louis wanted to punch him on the nose for that, too, and we threatened to kick him out. He’s pathetic really. He just pushes his nose in everywhere. He thinks because he’s strong and fit all the girls are going to fling themselves at his feet. He followed me around for a while. Everywhere I went. It was like having a shadow. In the end I told him if he didn’t stop it, I’d report him at the university.’

  ‘Has he followed other girls like this?’

  ‘Oh, yes. He followed Marguerite. That was what the fight with Louis Sergent was about. She didn’t like him much. Perhaps that’s why he fixed her wine. He also followed Teresa. And a few others. He just can’t pluck up courage to do any more and when people tell him to push off, he says he’s not wanted because he’s not European. It’s not that at all. It’s because he’s a creep.’

  It was late in the day when they found Hélin. He was standing at the zinc in a bar near the Porte Guillaume. He was older than the other students they’d talked to and, as his photograph had shown, wore a great deal more hair than he needed, together with a grubby sweater over patched jeans, down-at-heel shoes and a greasy windcheater. Considering his fiancée had been murdered only a few days before, he didn’t seem to be suffering too much. He showed no great willingness to talk.

  A juke box was pounding out pop so they persuaded him to sit in Darcy’s car where he looked with dislike at Pel. ‘I told it all to him,’ he said, nodding at Darcy.

  Pel studied him coldly, wondering for the thousandth time why it was that decent young women fell for such useless pieces of humanity as Hélin appeared to be. He would never make a good husband. After years of studying people, of that Pel felt quite sure.

  ‘Well,’ Pel said. ‘Now I’d like you to tell me. How long had you been engaged?’

  ‘Too long,’ Hélin said. ‘It went on and on. She didn’t want to get married until she’d finished her examinations. And with a medical student, that’s a long time.’

  ‘Didn’t you fancy waiting?’

  ‘Would you?’

  ‘Did you argue about it?’

  ‘Sometimes.’

  ‘About anything else?’

  ‘Such as what?’

  ‘Sex.’

  Hélin looked from Pel to Darcy and back again. ‘I see he’s been giving you the grimy details,’ he said.

  ‘Some of them. Did you?’

  ‘Wouldn’t you? She was an allumeuse, a cock teaser. That’s all. She’d get you into a clinch then start fighting you off. You never got anywhere with her.’

  ‘You wanted to get somewhere?’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘I’ve heard she wasn’t an allumeuse. That she just wanted to stay – ‘

  ‘Pure?’ Hélin laughed. ‘That’s old-fashioned these days.’

  ‘She was a virgin,’ Darcy said. ‘It seems to indicate that her beliefs were very firm. Why didn’t you break off the engagement?’

  Hélin hedged and Darcy supplied the answer for him. ‘Was it because her father had a lot of money and because she was due eventually to inherit more money from her aunt?’

  Hélin gave him a sour look. ‘It was nothing like that.’

  ‘Where were you the night she was killed?’

  ‘Here. Ask the boys.’

  ‘We will.’ Though there wasn’t really much point since the boys were obviously prepared to back Hélin’s word to the hilt. Just possibly they might be pushed a little later.

  ‘Didn’t you see her at all that night?’

  ‘Well –’ Hélin held out his hand and tilted it one way then the other to indicate uncertainty ‘ – like that. For an hour. In the Bar du Traffic. Near the university.’

  ‘About anything in particular?’

  ‘The usual. She didn’t think I paid her enough attention.’

  ‘Perhaps if you had she might have been alive now. Do you know a woman called Bernadette Hamon?’

  Hélin’s reaction was the same as Moussia’s had been. ‘Who’s she?’

  ‘A nurse.’

  ‘Am I supposed to have done her in, too?’

  ‘Do you know her?’

  ‘I’ve never heard of her.’

  Pel decided he disliked Hélin as much as Darcy did.

  When he’d been returned to his friends, Pel sat back, took out a packet of cigarettes, remembered his decision to give them up, sighed and pushed it away again. ‘It’ll play hell with your temper, Patron,’ Darcy warned.

  Pel looked up. ‘Could Hélin have done it?’ he asked.
<
br />   ‘He was with his friends, Patron.’

  ‘Suppose – just suppose – he weren’t with them. Would he have reason to kill her? It seems unlikely to be over money because he was benefitting from the fact that she had some. Could there have been some other reason?’

  ‘In a temper or something?’

  Pel frowned. ‘Perhaps he’d been trying to give up smoking, too.’

  Darcy frowned. ‘Well, he could have gone with her to her flat, hoping to get her into bed and she made it plain that there was nothing doing and he killed her in a temper. It’s been known, Patron.’

  ‘And,’ Pel ended, ‘his name – like Bernadette Hamon’s – begins with an H and his first name is Frédéric. Could those strokes have been an H or a crude F on its side? I think, Daniel, that we should look more closely into Monsieur Frédéric Hélin.’

  Five

  As they left the bar they remembered they hadn’t eaten since lunchtime and then only a sandwich and a beer, so Darcy suggested the Hôtel Centrale.

  ‘It’s better than the Bar Transvaal,’ he said. ‘That’s got no class. Always full of cops.’

  The manager of the hotel, a man called Gau, came forward as they entered. He knew Pel well but he knew Madame Pel better because she attended business functions in the hotel and sometimes even ate luncheons there with clients. He was all for Madame Pel, in fact, because she gave tone to the place, but the Police, well, they were all right when they had to be called to attend to someone who wasn’t all he claimed to be, but to have them sitting around drinking could get the place a bad name. Nevertheless, he stopped by their table with a smile, a tall man with a nice line in plump prosperity, and did his stuff with a bottle of wine to go with their food.

  As they tucked into it, Darcy admitted his relief at having Pel back. ‘It doesn’t get any easier,’ he admitted.