A Silver Ring in the Ear

by Tony Duvert

  “You are disgraceful. Who did you see with my son? Answer me.”

  Reassured, the sad bald detective bent his head towards his parted knees, as if he was about to vomit on the carpet. The old arm-chair creaked under his nervous bottom. Fouchet prepared a desolated, mournful face, crossed his hands in front of him in the gesture of a priest, and suddenly raised big, sincere eyes.

  “Your little boy. It’s terrible, madam. Good, there it is. But, madam… The shock is always so terrible for the parents. So terrible. I myself, were I his father, I don’t know what…”

  “Who did you see with my son?” repeated Beatrice violently.

  “Madam,” replied the detective, “it’s the same every time: we are engaged to winkle out bad news, and we get abused when we report it. Some composure, madam, I beg of you. It concerns your child, madam. Composure.”

  Beatrice, resigned to this charlatan comedy, but dead with disquiet, made no answer.

  “Your little boy,” said the detective, “your little boy goes walking with a great many people, you know. First I saw an average man, medium height, average physique, you understand, middle-aged, and very correct, what is more, it’s those insignificant people who are the worst ones, he was holding your son’s hand and they went to the Zoo. As they were taking two tickets for the little train, I heard that the man called your son ‘Marc’. That’s his Christian name, right?”

  Beatrice rapidly indicated that it was.

  “So that’s it. We’ve got the right person,” said the detective. “Well the man didn’t get into the train, he gave the second ticket to another little boy who was there, and with what a look, madam! I clenched my fists, that was all I could do. And so, when they got off the train, the man had followed on foot, they went into the toilets. All three of them.”

  “But I don’t care two hoots about that!” exclaimed Beatrice. “Did you discover his identity?”

  “Of the other little boy? No, I don’t think they knew each other, it was a chance encounter. In front of the ticket-window. The kids enjoy the little train, you understand, and those characters are aware of that. It’s quite disgusting.”

  “No. No,” begged Beatrice. “That man. The identity of that man. What is his name? How did my son come to know him?”

  “Just a moment. I myself followed them into the toilets. Obviously. Well your son and the other one there, the other little boy, they pissed into the thingummies there, you will know how it is done, and the man shut himself into a cubicle. Alone. It’s rather reassuring, as a whole. No?… The problem is that when they left, just your son and that character, they took a taxi. Then, with the time needed to recover my car…”

  “You don’t know where they…”

  “What do you want? Just wait. The next time, then, your little boy was in the street with a woman. Medium height, middle-aged, and so on. Rather well-built, note. Obviously disturbing. A formidable gaze. Very elegant, very. They were walking, this woman clasping your son’s hand.

  Beatrice’s cheeks were on fire.

  “That woman!… Who was she?”

  “Oh, very well, I’ll tell you. When they parted, I followed her, and she took a taxi.”

  “Which you didn’t follow.”

  “Madam!” protested the detective. What do you want? It would need a postée exprès car! One which followed me, to pick me up whenever needed. Doable. It’s doable. We could do that. But the costs are so high that…”

  “Was there a third person?” cut in Beatrice, at the end of her strength.

  “Yes. Alas there was. A new man. Medium height, average appearance, middle-aged. As I told you, that is the usual type of these men. All the same. They’re unmistakeable, that’s their special way. One can sniff them out. This one presented himself, you see, as a relaxed type, jeans and checked shirt. And there, madam, there I found an indication.”

  “Be brief, then!”

  “You will reproach me for it, I assure you. You will reproach me for it. Anyway, here’s the indication. The man was wearing a ring. In silver or gold, I don’t know, with that sun and at that distance, I wouldn’t claim to be able… Especially since I saw his hand from behind. As I followed them, I should say. From the palm side, eh.”

  “A ring on his finger. A married man, then?”

  “Madame, try to understand,” said the detective. (His eyes became even more sincere and woe-begone.) “I have so much fear for your son. I watched the gestures of that individual. At one moment, he was holding your little boy by the neck, and I made myself ready to spring up!… You would have done the same. But the fact remains that I didn’t take note of whether he was wearing that ring on the left hand or the right.”

  “Get some spectacles,” Beatrice said dryly. “One last question, Mr. Fouchet: how was… with all those people, how was Marc behaving?”

  “He? Your son Marc? He… He had the look… Madam, it’s horribly embarrassing… but I must tell you the truth. He looked very pleased. Very much at his ease. If I may venture to sum up my impression in a word, just one, he looked happy. Alas yes. But don’t take fright. It’s precisely that which is so monstrous in these stories of sadists, the child believes that people are being good to him, doesn’t he, so monstrous, I’ve brought the account from the office, all the expenses are noted, these sadists, so monstrous, I must tell you the truth, the tévéha is obviously not our own work, we dispense with that also, at Lorenz and Wilson. Here you are.”

  Beatrice read a figure that exceeded ten thousand francs.

  “Should I continue my investigations?” asked the detective, who had stood up.

  “Certainly not,” said Beatrice. “Now it will be a matter for the police. As for you and your bill, there is no question of cash. I’ll give you a cheque, otherwise just go away!”

  “I’ll stay, then,” said Fouchet. And he sat down again with resignation.

  “Can you swear that these are not Bryant delicious?” asked superintendent Rênal in astonishment.

  “Darling,” protested Madame Brisset, “I am certain they are not! I never remember anything, These tulips are… are… Look at those variegated shades. A Callas double tardive, perhaps.”

  “What a beautiful woman!” remarked the superindendent. “Especially after her slimming treatment.”

  “I don’t share your opinion, Gilberte. There are many more of those parrot tulips. People sell me any old onions, I always forget everything.”

  “Oriane, no, it’s the Callas.”

  “Yes, exactly,” said Madame Brisset. “I think a plump woman has her charm. Men often prefer them that way. As you are. No, don’t laugh! Me, I’m nothing but a bean-stalk. All the better, though, because… Oh look, that must be a Clitoridia cascade.”

  “Cascade?”

  “yes, yes, certainly. I mix up everything. The nurserymen exaggerate. Ah, but look at my Super Darwin trumpet! I’ve had those for ever, what a pretty apricot tone.”

  “That clump is magnificent,” said the superindendent.

  “We’re going to have lunch outside, I’ve had a table set up under the old lilac. It’s really had it, the poor old thing. I hope it won’t fall on our heads.”

  […]

  Philippe was adjusting his tie in front of a mirror. He asked himself whether there was a little mark on a golden-blond stripe. He became silent.

  In the next room, Marc, who was beginning to have sore knees, got up. He checked his appearance, found himself particularly lovely, and wanted to go down and show himself to the people. Then he noticed on his night table the ring with the red stone. He went nearer, grasped the ring, and put it on his middle finger. A narrow ray of sunlight, clear and round as if projected by a little mirror, came through the window: Marc looked for this ray and observed his hand in it.

  The maid who was to take over from Peter was a large jovial woman, aged around fifty. fresh, calm and gluttonous, a woman whom Madame Brisset had liked at first sight. A mind to make ragouts, blanquettes, chicken with rice, legs o
f mutton stuffed with garlic and served with kidney-bean fondants: she was called Madame Pissoud. Peter had agreed to train her. The jovial Madame Possoud supported the short fat Englishman but she listened to none of his culinary advice. Chopped mint on my mutton, sir? Well really! And less of that! We’re not Arabs, with their oil!… And Madame Pissoud peeled her lovely garlic. The kitchen was perfectly equipped, the mistress was adorable, the house was overflowing with money, it had a little boy, very amusing, very sweet, who looked as though he ate well, his bottom was like a peach.

  Dr. Rousseau had made an appearance, and sat down next to the ladies, under the old lilac. How gentle was this spring! The summer was never so tender. Oh the seasons, they are words, maintained Madame Brisset. Rousseau talked about chimpanzees. They heard him over a glass of port and with knowing smiles: monkeys, that suggests both husbands and little boys, with an element of lewdness. The horrible beasts! Beatrice, busy but beautiful, dressed all in white, had rejoined the group. Dr. Brunet appeared in the garden shortly afterwards; he was courteous, in excellent humour, and, since the three ladies were talking together, he began a very cordial private conversation with Dr. Rousseau. Philippe showed himself in turn. He had a sombre expression: other than that, he radiated like the sun itself. Only Marc was absent.

  The boy had to be called, and he came down at top speed. The noise he made, fast and heavy, could be heard on the stairs. He ran up to the lilac, and it was astonishing that he was so small but possessed such importance. First he kissed Dr. Brunet, his father. Then, as a spoilt child, he dallied among the ladies’ kisses. How exasperating they were constantly fiddling with one!

  “And you’re wearing a ring now?” grandma Oriane suddenly remarked.

  Marc looked at his right hand and reddened down to his neck. He had forgotten to remove the red stone from his finger.

  The entrée served was a cold soup derived from Peter’s arts.

  “Peter’s cooking is unique,” commented Dr. Rousseau.

  The little Chinese-style porcelain bowls contained, fresh and incomprehensible, a witch’s brew with complicated effects.

  Oriane explained the mystery:

  “A consommé of new carrots on seaweed, with brown sugar, green asparagus tips, crisp crayfish tails, and banana balls steeped in orange liqueur with red bird-pepper. Oh, I forgot: the little green spots are my chervil.”

  “I adore chervil,” said Dr. Rousseau.

  “There’s aniseed, and it has a touch of hemlock,” joked Superintendent Rênal.

  No sooner had she spoken than Dr. Brunet’s face was seen to collapse into his bowl: the biologist’s body, unstable on the garden chair, twisted, and fell to the ground.

  “Good Lord!” cried Dr. Rousseau, standing up and racing to his colleague.

  And then everyone stood up. Brunet was laid at the foot of the lilac. Madame Pissoud, who had heard the exclamations, came running. She was ordered to telephone for an emergency doctor. Brunet, greenish, sweating and panting, with foam on his lips, was unconscious. Dr. Rousseau loosened Brunet’s clothing, and sounded him. Marc, who had first thought to profit from the disorder by taking the ring off his finger and slipping it into his pocket, was too intrigued by the drama: he was fiddling with the great stone while watching his dying father.

  “The Anti-poison Centre,” Superindendent Rênal said suddenly. “It’s not a cardiac crisis, doctor! Telephone the Anti-poison Centre!”

  Doctor Rousseau raised his eyes toward her:

  “I fear you are right,” he said rather softly.

  Philippe had moved away from the group, and was wandering in the central alley, near the great clumps of tulips. Hands in his pockets, he was looking at his shoes, and attempting to assume an innocent expression. Without a mirror that was not easy.

  A little later, an ambulance took away Dr. Brunet, who was in agony. Dr. Rousseau did not go with him. He was unfamiliar with this field, he was not a reanimator: in the meantime he comforted the ladies.

  At one point, Superintendent Rênal took him aside and said:

  “Doctor, I really must speak to you to-morrow. Obviuosly it’s not an interrogation. Nor is it about what has happened here. But there is a new item in the Brisset case, and I would like to discuss it with you. At what time would you be able to come to my office?”

  “My chimpanzees have a siesta between two and three P.M. Would that suit you, madame?”

  “Certainly. You are very kind, doctor. I promise to keep you for only a few minutes.”

  No one was hungry now, so the leg was put away. Madame Pissoud cleared the table. She muttered to the boys, Philippe and Marc, asking them to come and eat something in the kitchen: she had a head of pork in vinegar sauce, that she had prepared for herself. And Peter’s skilful dessert: a marjolaine sorbet, embellished with horse-radish, cocoa-nuts and ginger. The boys obeyed, rather inconvenienced at being together. But Marc adored the head, and you, Mr. Philippe, there’s no way you’re going to take your train on an empty stomach! The food at boarding schools is so bad!

  XXIX

  Dr. Rousseau appeared around two o’clock. Superintendent Rênal received him very cordially. He asked for news about Dr. Brunet. She responded that he was still in a coma; the routine investigation, at the Brisset’s, had failed to discover anything special.

  “But let us go back to Professor Brisset,” said the superintendent. “Did you know that he was suffering from a very serious illness, a life-threatening illness?”

  “Not at all, no. You astonish me.”

  “He hid it from the people around him. But I had been hoping that perhaps he told you.”

  “I was his pupil and collaborator,” said Dr. Rousseau, “and he showed me, I believe, a real friendship. Nevertheless he was not the kind of man who goes into confidential matters. He never told me about his personal life. How did you learn that…?”

  “I asked for a second autopsy,” said superintendent Rênal. “According to his will, he wanted to be cremated. That troubled me greatly, and I obtained an order that the body should stay at the morgue until the end of my investigation.”

  “Yes. Madame Brisset told me that, one day when I expressed astonishment that the funeral had not yet taken place.”

  “But what started me wondering was that this illness hardly seemed to bother him.”

  “Pardon?”

  “Yes! That is what gave me the idea of ordering the second autopsy.”

  “No, I swear that…”

  “Well, it was the shoe-lace, you see, doctor!”

  “The shoe-lace.”

  “Obviously. Did you not think about that? Nevertheless it’s simple. You know the anatomy of the neck. How can some one be strangled with a piece of string, if he doesn’t consent?”

  “Ah, now I understand. You’re right. It must have been his intention. But…”

  Dr. Rousseau took his nose and his mouth into his hands, joining them in a gesture of prayer. He meditated for a few seconds, and then suddenly exclaimed:

  “… but it’s absurd! Totally absurd!”

  “I share your opinion,” said the superintendent, satisfied. “It’s totally absurd. Here is the little detail that doesn’t make sense: instead of committing suicide, perhaps leaving a letter of explanation, no, he lets himself be strangled. Without any explanation. With the risk that one of his near relations or patients might be suspected of murder.”

  “Inconceivable!” confirmed Dr. Rousseau. “Excuse me, madame, I’m not blaming you, but really it’s a lunatic story.”

  “You have uttered the right word, doctor. A lunatic story. Lunatics, in the plural.”

  Superintendent Rênal exulted. She adored lively conversations and favorable roles: her own, at this point, raised her spirit, and her whole youth returned to her cheeks.

  “As for the professor’s behaviour, it had always been fairly original. He was full of singularities, fantasies… Nevertheless, I don’t remember having noticed anything unusual. There could have been a
subtle change in his condition… I forgot to inform you that, when Professor Brisset died, I hadn’t seen him for two months.”

  “Good. So it follows, doctor, that a hypothesis of mental derangement, excuse the expression, is defendable?”

  “It is,” admitted Dr. Rousseau.

  “Perfect. So we move on to the second lunatic.”

  “The second?”

  “Yes. We have admitted the possibility that the professor could no longer be in possession of all his mental faculties, and that he could have imagined this extravagant way of ending his days. But, that being the case, he would need an appropriate partner. Some one mad enough, bizarre enough, to agree to tighten it, that famous shoe-lace. A person with whom the professor was very intimate, and in whom he had complete confidence – but who was as much lacking in reason as was he himself.”

  “Right. Two beings deprived of judgement, and who acted out a… macabre scenario. Perhaps that’s the right track. So are you thinking of checking out his patients?”

  Superintendent decided to bring out her pipe, unlit. She treated it like an exhibit in a case which may by chance have landed on her desk. Dreamily, Dr. Rousseau examined this pipe without seeing it. Madame Rênal met his gaze, and, after having hidden the pipe behind a filing-cabinet, she asked:

  “Did you notice the object I had in my hand, just two seconds ago? What was it, doctor?”

  “No, I… no, I wasn’t paying attention. What was it about?”

  “Nothing important. But I am convinced that our lunatic, our second lunatic, is exactly like that object. We have him in front of our eyes, we perceive nothing but him, but we don’t see him.”

  Dr. Rousseau smiled, and protested:

  “I give you my word, madame, that I’m not the lunatic you’re looking for! On my honour as alienist!”

  As soon as Rousseau had left the superintendent’s office, she called in Julien Sorel.

  “Mr. Sorel,” she announced, “an excellent piece of news for you. I’m taking you off the Brisset case! I’ll finish it myself.”