Cynthia Manson (ed) (10 page)

“Perhaps he doesn’t
know Paris.”

“Or knows it only
too well! Not once has he ventured within sight of a police station. If he’d
gone straight, he’d have passed two or three. What’s more, he’s skirted all the
main crossroads where there’d be likely to be a man on duty.” Lecœur pointed
them out. “The only risk he took was in crossing the Pont Mirabeau, but if he
wanted to cross the river he’d have run that risk at any of the bridges.”

“I expect he’s
drunk,” said Godin, sipping his rum.

“What I want to
know is why he’s stopped.”

“Perhaps he’s got
home.”

“A man who’s down
by the Quai de Javel at half past six in the morning isn’t likely to live near
the Etoile.”

“Seems to interest
you a lot.”

“It’s got me
scared!”

“Go on.”

It was strange to
see the worried expression on Lecœur’s face. He was notorious for his calmness
and his most dramatic nights were coolly summarized by the little crosses in
his notebook.

“Hallo! Javel? Is
that Jules? Lecœur speaking. Look here, Jules, behind the flats in the Rue
Michat is the little house where the invalid lives. Well, now, on one side of
it is an apartment house, a red-brick building with a grocer’s shop on the
ground floor. You know it?

“Good. Has anything
happened there? Nothing reported. No, we’ve heard nothing here. All the same, I
can’t explain why, but I think you ought to inquire.”

He was hot all at
once. He stubbed out a half finished cigarette.

“Hallo! Ternes? Any
alarms gone off in your neighborhood? Nothing? Only drunks? Is the
patrouille
cycliste
out? Just leaving? Ask them to keep their eyes open for a young
boy looking tired and very likely bleeding from the right hand. Lost? Not
exactly that. I can’t explain now.”

His eyes went back
to the street plan on the wall, in which no light went on for a good ten
minutes, and then only for an accidental death in the Eighteenth Arrondissement,
right up at the top of Montmartre, caused by an escape of gas.

Outside, in the
cold streets of Paris, dark figures were hurrying home from the churches...

One of the sharpest
impressions Andre Lecœur retained of his infancy was one of immobility. His
world at that period was a large kitchen in Orleans, on the outskirts of the
town. He must have spent his winters there, too, but he remembered it best
flooded with sunlight, with the door wide open onto a little garden where hens
clucked incessantly and rabbits nibbled lettuce leaves behind the wire netting
of their hutches. But, if the door was open, its passage was barred to him by a
little gate which his father had made one Sunday for that express purpose.

On weekdays, at
half past eight, his father went off on his bicycle to the gas works at the
other end of the town. His mother did the housework, doing the same things in
the same order every day. Before making the beds, she put the bedclothes over
the windowsill for an hour to air.

At ten o’clock, a
little bell would ring in the street. That was the greengrocer, with his
barrow, passing on his daily round. Twice a week at eleven, a bearded doctor
came to see his little brother, who was constantly ill. Andre hardly ever saw
the latter, as he wasn’t allowed into his room.

That was all, or so
it seemed in retrospect. He had just time to play a bit and drink his milk, and
there was his father home again for the midday meal.

If nothing had
happened at home, lots had happened to him. He had been to read the meters in
any number of houses and chatted with all sorts of people, about whom he would
talk during dinner.

As for the
afternoon, it slipped away quicker still, perhaps because he was made to sleep
during the first part of it.

For his mother,
apparently, the time passed just as quickly. Often had he heard her say with a
sigh: “There, I’ve no sooner washed up after one meal than it’s time to start
making another!”

Perhaps it wasn’t
so very different now. Here in the Préfecture de Police the nights seemed long
enough at the time, but at the end they seemed to have slipped by in no time,
with nothing to show for them except for these columns of the little crosses in
his notebook.

A few more lamps
lit up. A few more incidents reported, including a collision between a car and
a bus in the Rue de Clignancourt, and then once again it was Javel on the line.

It wasn’t Jules,
however, but Gonesse, the detective who’d been to the scene of the crime. While
there he had received Lecœur’s message suggesting something might have happened
in the other house in the Rue Vasco de Gama. He had been to see.

“Is that you, Lecœur?”
There was a queer note in his voice. Either irritation or suspicion.

Look here, what
made you think of that house? Do you know the old woman. Madame Fayet?”

“I’ve never seen
her, but I know all about her.”

What had finally
come to pass that Christmas morning was something that Andre Lecœur had
foreseen and perhaps dreaded for more than ten years. Again and again, as he
stared at the huge plan of Paris, with its little lamps, he had said to
himself, “It’s only a question of time. Sooner or later, it’ll be something
that’s happened to someone I know.”

There’d been many a
near miss, an accident in his own street or a crime in a house nearby. But,
like thunder, it had approached only to recede once again into the distance.

This time it was a
direct hit.

“Have you seen the
concierge?” he asked. He could imagine the puzzled look on the detective’s face
as he went on: Is the boy at home?”

And Gonesse
muttered, “Oh? So you know him, too?”

“He’s my nephew.
Weren’t you told his name was Lecœur?”

“Yes, but—”

“Never mind about
that. Tell me what’s happened.”

“The boy’s not
there.”

“What about his
father?”

“He got home just
after seven.”

“As usual. He does
night work, too.”

“The concierge
heard him go up to his flat—on the third floor at the back of the house.”

“I know it.”

“He came running
down a minute or two later in a great state. To use her expression, he seemed
out of his wits.”

“The boy had
disappeared?”

“Yes. His father
wanted to know if she’d seen him leave the house. She hadn’t. Then he asked if
a telegram had been delivered.”

“Was there a
telegram?”

“No. Can you make
head or tail of it? Since you’re one of the family, you might be able to help
us. Could you get someone to relieve you and come round here?”

“It wouldn’t do any
good. Where’s Janvier?”

“In the old woman’s
room. The men of the Identité Judiciaire have already got to work. The first
thing they found were some child’s fingerprints on the handle of the door. Come
on—jump into a taxi and come round.”

“No. In any case,
there’s no one to take my place.”

That was true
enough up to a point. All the same, if he’d really got to work on the telephone
he’d have found someone all right. The truth was he didn’t want to go and
didn’t think it would do any good if he did.

“Listen, Gonesse,
I’ve got to find that boy, and I can do it better from here than anywhere. You
understand, don’t you? Tell Janvier I’m staying here. And tell him old Madame
Fayet had plenty of money, probably hidden away somewhere in the room.”

A little feverish, Lecœur
stuck his plug into one socket after another, calling up the various police
stations of the Eighth Arrondissement.

“Keep a lookout for
a boy of ten, rather poorly dressed. Keep all telephone pillars under
observation.”

His two
fellow-watchkeepers looked at him with curiosity.

“Do you think it
was the boy who did the job?”

Lecœur didn’t
bother to answer. The next moment he was through to the teleprinter room, where
they also dealt with radio messages.

“Justin? Oh, you’re
on, are you? Here’s something special. Will you send out a call to all cars on
patrol anywhere near the Etoile to keep a lookout for—”

Once again the
description of the boy, Francois Lecœur.

“No. I’ve no idea
in which direction he’ll be making. All I can tell you is that he seems to keep
well clear of police stations, and as far as possible from any place where
there’s likely to be anyone on traffic duty.”

He knew his
brother’s flat in the Rue Vasco de Gama. Two rather dark rooms and a tiny
kitchen. The boy slept there alone while his father was at work. From the
windows you could see the back of the house in the Rue Michat, across a
courtyard generally hung with washing. On some of the windowsills were pots of
geraniums, and through the windows, many of which were uncurtained, you could
catch glimpses of a miscellaneous assortment of humanity.

As a matter of
fact, there, too, the windowpanes ought to be covered with frost. He stored
that idea up in a corner of his mind. It might be important.

“You think it’s a
boy who’s been smashing the alarm glasses?”

“It was a child’s
handkerchief they found,” said Lecœur curtly. He didn’t want to be drawn into a
discussion. He sat mutely at the switchboard, wondering what to do next.

In the Rue Michat,
things seemed to be moving fast. The next time he got through it was to learn
that a doctor was there as well as an examining magistrate who had most likely
been dragged from his bed.

What help could Lecœur
have given them? But if he wasn’t there, he could see the place almost as
clearly as those that were, the dismal houses and the grimy viaduct of the
Metro which cut right across the landscape.

Nothing but poor
people in that neighborhood. The younger generation’s one hope was to escape
from it. The middle-aged already doubted whether they ever would, while the old
ones had already accepted their fate and tried to make the best of it.

He rang Javel once
again.

“Is Gonesse still
there?”

“He’s writing up
his report. Shall I call him?”

“Yes, please.
Hallo, Gonesse, Lecœur speaking. Sorry to bother you, but did you go up to my
brother’s flat? Had the boy’s bed been slept in? It had? Good. That makes it
look a bit better. Another thing: were there any parcels there? Yes, parcels,
Christmas presents. What? A small square radio. Hadn’t been unpacked.
Naturally. Anything else? A chicken, a
boudin
, a Saint-Honoré. I suppose
Janvier’s not with you? Still on the spot. Right. Has he rung-up the P. J. ?
Good.”

He was surprised to
see it was already half past nine. It was no use now expecting anything from
the neighborhood of the Etoile. If the boy had gone on walking as he had been earlier,
he could be pretty well anywhere by this time.

“Hallo! Police
Judiciaire? Is Inspector Saillard there?”

He was another whom
the murder had dragged from his fireside. How many people were there whose
Christmas was going to be spoiled by it?

“Excuse my
troubling you, Monsieur le Commissaire. It’s about that young boy, Francois Lecœur.”

“Do you know
anything? Is he a relation of yours?”

“He’s my brother’s
son. And it looks as if he may well be the person who’s been smashing the
glasses of the telephone pillars. Seven of them. I don’t know whether they’ve
had time to tell you about that. What I wanted to ask was whether I might put
out a general call?”

“Could you nip over
to see me?”

“There’s no one
here to take my place.”

“Right. I’ll come
over myself. Meanwhile you can send out the call.”

Lecœur kept calm,
though his hand shook slightly as he plugged in once again to the room above.

“Justin? Lecœur
again. Appel General. Yes. It’s the same boy. Francois Lecœur. Ten and a half,
rather tall for his age, thin. I don’t know what he’s wearing, probably a khaki
jumper made from American battle-dress. No, no cap. He’s always bare-headed,
with plenty of hair flopping over his forehead. Perhaps it would be as well to
send out a description of his father, too. That’s not so easy. You know me,
don’t you? Well, Olivier Lecœur is rather like a paler version of me. He has a
timid look about him and physically he’s not robust. The sort that’s never in
the middle of the pavement but always dodging out of other people’s way. He
walks a bit queerly, owing to a wound he got in the first war. No, I haven’t
the least idea where they might be going, only I don’t think they’re together.
To my mind, the boy is probably in danger. I can’t explain why—it would take
too long. Get the descriptions out as quickly as possible, will you? And let me
know if there’s any response.”

By the time Lecœur
had finished telephoning, Inspector Saillard was there, having only had to come
round the corner from the Quai des Orfèvres. He was an imposing figure of a
man, particularly in his bulky overcoat. With a comprehensive wave of the hand,
he greeted the three men on watch, then, seizing a chair as though it were a
wisp of straw, he swung it round towards him and sat down heavily. “The boy?”
he inquired, looking keenly at Lecœur.