He had hidden the body, and had started the fire in order to destroy the all the traces of the crime.
Was that not a logical deduction of the entire sequence of events? Was it not a succinct summary of a criminal history such as one encounters every day—a banal history, in truth, for the criminal had not any particularly ingenious imagination in deflecting suspicion.
But was the story, in fact, so banal?
Were there not, in those various facts, disconcerting circumstances, mysterious points well worthy of intelligent research by a policeman devoted to his métier?
That was the road followed by the commissioner’s thoughts; he smiled at the hope that such an investigation, well-handled and expertly deduced, would do him honor.
To be sure, he did not want to bring the Sûreté into the affair, wanting all the merit for himself, but he did not have any agent on his staff clever enough and capable of carrying out the delicate research that it would be necessary to undertake. It was therefore necessary to resign himself to telephoning the Prefecture of Police in order that a sleuth could be put at his disposal. That was what he did.
Then, after taking time out to regulate another affair and give his orders, the magistrate picked up his hat and got ready to go out for lunch.
On the threshold of his office, he found himself face to face with a very correctly-dressed young man who greeted him ingenuously.
The newcomer might have been thirty; he was a fairly handsome fellow, with a pink and youthful face ornamented by a blond moustache over the full red lips of an amiable philosopher. Beneath semicircular eyebrows, with gave him a slightly naïve expression, gray eyes devoid of any gleam hid behind the shiny lenses of a myopic’s lorgnon. Nothing about him attracted attention—not even his costume, which was no less banal for being correct. He was a dull or neutral individual.
He bowed, with an unpretentious smile; then, in a bland and colorless voice, he said: “I’ve come to place myself under your orders, Commissioner.”
The magistrate considered him briefly, trying to put a name to the inoffensive face.
“Why, of course,” he said, finally. “It’s Monsieur Rosamour. I confess that I didn’t recognize you.”
“Which proves,” said the young man, with an imperceptible hint of satisfaction, “that it’s not necessary, in order to put on a disguise, to employ make-up outrageously, as some of my colleagues do. You know my principles: disguises are never very difficult to penetrate; a cunning malefactor who knows that he’s being watched never lets himself be taken in. False beard, false wig: there’s always a point at which the artifice can be pierced.”
“I know that; it’s not for nothing that they call you the scientific detective.”
“And I’m proud of meriting that appellation.
“Well then, we’re going to understand one another perfectly. Come with me, and I’ll explain what it’s about on the way.”
Like a man who can manage his effects, the commissioner recounted the story of the previous day’s fire, the mysterious disappearance of the aged tenant, and the sequestration of which he had evidently been the object. He set out, piece by piece, the scaffolding of his hypotheses, and deduced with great logical force the charges that weighed upon the scientist’s laboratory assistant.”
“And you’ve mounted a search for this laboratory assistant?” Rosamour put in, toying negligently with his cane.
“Immediately,” the magistrate relied, “And if my agents can put their hands on him, they’ll bring him to me and put him under lock and key without further ado.”
“I advise you not to do that.”
“Why not?” replied the other, nonplussed.
“It’s obvious. He can be questioned, and will be, but it would be premature to arrest him or make him aware of the suspicions that are weighing upon him. Thus far, for what can he be reproached? Have you see the corpus delicti—the cadaver? Where is the man who has disappeared? Perhaps his disappearance can be explained quite naturally. The laboratory assistant will reply to you, like Cain: ‘Am I his keeper? I left him yesterday, as usual; he was in bed. If he’s disappeared, it’s without my knowledge. You want to hold me responsible, but have you any proof that I had anything to do with it? First, find the fellow, dead or alive.’”
“You believe he’s innocent, then?”
“Me? Not at all. I don’t believe anything. I examine the situation; I feel out the terrain, and I say to you: remember the Gouffé affair.36 A man and a woman kill a bailiff and get rid of the body. Heavy charges are laid against them; people are sure—morally certain—of their guilt, but the investigation is absolutely paralyzed because there isn’t a cadaver. The trunk in which the victim was enclosed turns up, and things change their aspect completely. Are we not in the presence of a similar case? What we need to discover is the man who has disappeared.”
“I agree with you, but my conviction is that we’ll only find him by following the trail of his laboratory assistant. Monsieur Grillard, you see, wasn’t…”
“Monsieur Grillard?” the policeman interjected. “Did you say Monsieur Grillard?” He pulled a newspaper out of his pocket. “Perfect: here’s an item of information concerning him.”
Unfolding a copy of Le Petit Journal, he pointed out an article to the commissioner.
Finally, we have been able to penetrate a part of the mystery enveloping Monsieur Népomucène’s masterpiece. The magnificent statue that All Paris has been admiring in Georges Petit’s gallery is destined for the tomb of Monsieur Grillard, the uncle and godfather of the eminent artist, who wanted to render him the filial homage of his talent. His idea was perhaps a trifle bizarre, and not everyone will understand how it was possible to represent the image of a man still alive—although very ill, it seems—in the last spasms of mortal agony. Although it is always legitimate for genius to seize nature in the raw, there is in this circumstance a lack of good taste on which it is not appropriate for us to dwell.
“There, it seems to me,” observed the commissioner, rubbing his hands, “is an incident that might help us in our research. It’s necessary to find this sculptor, and I have no doubt that we shall obtain precious information through that channel.”
“I’m convinced of it, as if you care to give me carte blanche, I believe I shall be able to bring you an abundant harvest of information in a matter of hours.”
They had just reached the commissioner’s domicile when a secretary, running after him, announced that Pilesèche had not been found at his habitual lodging and that it had been impossible to discover what had become of him.
Monsieur Rosamour took some notes, wrote down a few names and addresses, and, hot on the trail, set forth at a rapid pace.
It did not take him long to collect the information that seemed to him to be the most urgent, and a few hours later, getting down from a carriage at the commissioner’s door, he hastened to the policeman’s study.
“Am I on time?” he asked.
“You’re punctuality itself,” the other replied. “We’ll see if you’re equally precise in person. Sit down and tell me the result of your investigations.”
“First of all, no person, if you please.”
“Aha! The scientific method!”
“Exactly. Pilesèche, thirty-three years old, a pauper, unsuccessful, whose timidity and gaucherie have always prevented him from mounting to anything. Not in need.”
“Eh? Appetite coming and going, one isn’t astonished to discover one day, in hidden recesses, needs that one didn’t suspect.”
“I understand; we’ll see about that later. Second individual: Bémolisant, something of crackpot, started out making music; quarreled with his uncle, who didn’t like the arts and didn’t encourage them. Our artist wanted to renew the methods of music, cursed his contemporaries for not understanding him, and, shaking the dust of old Europe off his boots, went to Tonkin to look for more naïve enthusiasts among primitive peoples. In the midst of hair-raising adventures—if they’re
true—made the acquaintance a widow named Legris, whose daughter he married. Music continuing not to pay, the handsome Népomucène—for he’s a good-looking chap—set up as a vermouth merchant in Haiphong. Returned to France as soon as he’d amassed some small savings, and, returning to the arts, took up sculpture. Suddenly revealed himself by the statue representing his dying uncle.
“In that regard, I don’t know for sure as yet whether he was reconciled with Monsieur Grillard, but doesn’t that seem to you to be quite probable? That statue isn’t a work that one makes up; it’s evidently made from nature. He’s seen his model; it’s even necessary to admit that he’s seen him often, which contradicts the concierge’s declaration that no one went up to see the old scientist. That’s one of the points I have to investigate, and perhaps I’ll succeed in elucidating it. As for the artist, unfortunately, I did see him, because...”
The commissioner pursed his lips and said to himself, privately, that it was hardly worth the trouble of posing as a champion of new methods in order to bring in such a poor harvest. This was lyricism, not information; anybody could have done it better. He thought, however, that he ought to encourage the young policeman.
“Well,” he said, “you haven’t been wasting our time, but we still have a lot to do.”
“Wait a moment—I haven’t finished.”
“Ah! Let’s have it...”
“Such was the fashion in which my characters were described to me, and by way of conclusion, they don’t seem cut from the cloth of great criminals. They aren’t equipped to hurt a fly.”
“Beware of angry sheep.”
“I understand that, and I’ll be wary of taking any premature consequence from such vague premises. We’re in the presence of individuals in whom there is no predisposition to crime, and it we were able to examine their heads we doubtless wouldn’t find the superb atrophies that are the evident marks of criminal instincts. Nevertheless, one circumstance is sufficient to lead even the mildest of men to crime: poverty, anger, momentary madness. If the investigation of an affair weren’t made up of a thousand contradictory elements, police work would be banal. To arrive at the motives that have enraged our sheep, however, it’s nevertheless necessary to know their primitive character precisely: that’s done.”
“Yes, my friend, but we’re no further forward now than before.
“Wait! Let me tell you one item of news—a very important item…”
“Ah! Finally.”
“Do you know why I can’t put my hand on Monsieur Bémolisant
“I beg you not to spare your efforts; don’t leave me in suspense...”
“Because he’s disappeared.”
“Ah! Everybody in this affair has disappeared, then! But that corroborates my suspicions—admit it! There’s a link between all these events, no doubt about it, and our artist is mixed up in the affair somehow.”
“I’m not denying it. Yesterday evening, when he went to the Rue de Sèze to collect his statue, a man—it must have been Pilesèche; he fits the description—arrived like a hurricane, shoved him into the cab that was waiting for him and got into it after him, shouting “Gare de Lyon!” to the coachman. The cab was number 10,406. I questioned the driver; I have his statement and his description of the bizarre box containing the statue.”
“We have to telegraph the frontier.”
“What the point? For one thing, it would be too late, as they’ve had all night to flee. Secondly, it’s unnecessary, since our fugitives didn’t leave by train. They simply deposited the heavy crate in the left luggage office, which they took out again not long afterwards. Then they went along the Boulevard Diderot, where I lost track of them.”
“Good. They wanted to put us off the track and went to the Gare d’Orléans. That’s elementary.”
“Not at all. No one saw them either at the Gare d’Orléans or the Gare Montparnasse.”
“Damn! In Paris, nothing is lost; we need to find them.”
“Oh, don’t worry; I’m not overly bothered about that, sure that well find them when we need to do so. The scientific method, you see. I don’t play the Indian and sniff the traces of moccasins on the asphalt when I have better things to do. For the moment, and before anything else, I have to find my scientist, dead or alive. So I’ll leave, after having calmed your legitimate impatience—at least, I hope so. I’ll set out on the hunt again.”
The commissioner seemed more resigned than convinced. “Go on, then,” he said. “And don’t waste any time, for if our men are still running, we’ll have difficulty catching up with them.”
“What do you expect? In any case, they had twenty-four hours start. If they wanted to reach the frontier, they’ll have done so. Wherever they are, though, we’ll collect them just as easily, when the time comes. Let’s allow them to run and not give them any warning before having assembled a formidable body of evidence against them.”
When he had gone, the commissioner stood up in a bad mood, and strode back and forth in his office, muttering. He was disturbed by Rosamour’s methods. The old game seemed to him to be preferable to all those subtle theories. He could not understand why, having picked up the trail of the two fugitives, the agent had not tracked them until he caught them.
He could easily have imposed his way of seeing on Rosamour, but he would be shouldering a heavy responsibility in case of failure by preventing him from acting as he wished, and he decided to wait for the result of the preliminary investigations.
In any case, it was quite certain, as the policeman had said that the two fugitives would, indeed, be easy to find while they were dragging a hundred-and-fifty kilo parcel around with them.
VIII. How Rosamour Became Increasingly Perplexed
Madame Paponot had sensed that her importance was singularly inflated by being mixed up in this mysterious affair. She gladly told all her neighbors about the police interrogation to which she had been subjected. She even embellished it, adding to her own role, attributing replies to herself by which the magistrate’s intelligence had evidently been enlightened.
In brief, without her, the mystery would have passed unperceived. She had just saved society, and, satisfied with her busy day, perhaps slightly fatigued by the incessant talk, she was returning majestically to her lodge, which was almost the only part of the building still intact, when she found herself confronted by well-dressed man with a pince-nez shielding his eyes, who bowed gracefully and said to her, without the slightest hesitation: “Bonjour, Madame Paponot.”
“What, you know me?” said the concierge, straightening up in surprise.
“Do I know you! But certainly I know you. I’ve come to ask you for some information about the fire.”
“Aha! You’re a journaliss...”
“You’ve guessed it! Well, I wouldn’t have hidden it from you any longer.”
“You’ve arrived very late, you know. I’ve already seen five or six.”
“Oh, that’s nothing; there’s plenty more to recount. I’m the one who put it in the paper that throughout the blaze, the concierge, Madame Paponot, displayed superb courage and energy.”
“You put that, my lad? Well, that’s kind; you’re a nice young man. It’s true, all the same, that I wouldn’t have believed myself to be so courageous. I came and went-it was all the same to me!”
Rosamour—for it was him—had a bundle of newspapers under his arm. He searched it. “Look,” he said. “You can see the article…oh, damn, I can’t find it; I must have dropped it. I’ll send it to you; I’d like you to read it.” At the same time he unfolded some illustrated papers, and stopped, as if by chance, at the portrait of the hero of the day, the sculptor Bémolisant.
“A fine head,” said Madame Paponot, looking at it. She leaned over the engraving, and added: “But if I’m not mistaken, I know that face. A funny idea, putting a scrap-dealer in the paper.”
“A scrap-dealer!”
“As sure as my name’s Madame Paponot.”
“There’s ‘sculptor�
�� written under the picture.”
“Perhaps he is a sculptor, but he’s a scrap-dealer for sure. I even said to Monsieur Pilesèche: ‘Who’s that artiss,’ and he said: ‘He’s not an artiss, he’s a dealer come to collect our old scrap metal.’”
“Perhaps it’s not the same man. Have you seen him several times?”
“In truth, no. He only came that once on the thirty-first of December. You can see that I remember the date, and then, a face like that, one can’t be mistaken.”
“Monsieur Pilesèche was making fun of you.”
“Monsieur Pilesèche never makes fun of me,” said Madame Paponot, stiffening herself, scandalized by such a suggestion. “He’d have a job.”
“That’s true. And what did the two of them do, that day?”
“They had porters with them, who brought down a big crate full of scrap metal.”
“So you saw what was inside?”
“In truth, no, but they said it was—not to mention that it was heavy. The men were sweating.”
“And it was big, this crate?”
“Long, mostly—six feet at least. One might have thought it was a coffin.
“Ah! And they loaded the crate on to a carriage.”
“Of course. They were going to the Quai des Augustines, from what they said to the coachman.”
“I’d be very curious to see how your eccentric tenant was installed, if it’s not too badly burned up there.
“One corner’s still there, but you’ll understand that I can’t risk myself on the stairway. I’m a little heavy, and it might collapse. But if you want to, don’t hesitate. Go gladly. You’ll be all alone.”
Rosamour did not need the invitation issued in that picturesque form to be repeated, and set about scaling the shaky charred steps, cluttered with rubbish of every sort.
The Nickel Man Page 19