Cynthia Manson (ed) (15 page)

“What kind?”

“Ham. Anything.
Whatever you find.”

Olivier went out,
after a parting glance at the map, relieved, in spite of his anxiety, to be
doing something.

The men of the
afternoon shift knew little of what was afoot, except that the killer had done
another job the previous night and that there was a general hunt for a small
boy. For them, the case couldn’t have the flavor it had for those who were
involved. At the switchboard. Bedeau was doing a crossword with his earphones
on his head, breaking off from time to time for the classic: “Hallo!
Austerlitz. Your car’s out.”

A body fished out
of the Seine. You couldn’t have a Christmas without

that!

“Could I have a
word with you, Inspector?”

The camp bed was
back in the cloakroom. It was there that Lecœur led the chief of the homicide
squad.

“I hope you won’t
mind my butting in. I know it isn’t for me to make suggestions. But, about the
killer—”

He had his little
notebook in his hand. He must have known its contents almost by heart.

“I’ve been doing a
lot of thinking since this morning and—” A little while ago, while he was lying
down, it had seemed so clear, but now that he had to explain things, it was
difficult to put them in logical order.

“It’s like this.
First of all, I noticed that all the murders were committed after two in the
morning, most of them after three.”

He could see by the
look on the Inspector’s face that he hadn’t exactly scored a hit, and he
hurried on:

“I’ve been looking
up the time of other murders over the past three years. They were nearly always
between ten in the evening and two in the morning.”

Neither did that
observation seem to make much impression. Why not take the bull by the horns
and say straight out what was on his mind?

‘Just now. looking
at my brother, it occurred to me that the man you’re looking for might be a man
like him. As a matter of fact, I, too, for a moment wondered whether it wasn’t
him. Wait a moment—”

That was better.
The look of polite boredom had gone from Saillard’s

face.

“If I’d had more
experience in this sort of work I’d be able to explain myself better. But
you’ll see in a moment. A man who’s killed eight people one after the other is,
if not a madman, at any rate a man who’s been thrown off his balance. He might
have had a sudden shock. Take my brother, for instance. When he lost his job it
upset him so much that he preferred to live in a tissue of lies rather than let
his son—”

No. Put into words, it all sounded very clumsy. “When a man
suddenly loses everything he has in life—” “He doesn’t necessarily go mad.”

“I’m not saying
he’s actually mad. But imagine a person so full of resentment that he considers
himself justified in revenging himself on his fellow-men. I don’t need to point
out to you, Inspector, that other murderers always kill in much the same way.
This one has used a hammer, a knife, a spanner, and one woman he strangled. And
he’s never been seen, never left a clue. Wherever he lives in Paris, he must
have walked miles and miles at night when there was no transport available,
sometimes, when the alarm had been given, with the police on the lookout,
questioning everybody they found in the streets. How is it he avoided them?”

He was certain he
was on the right track. If only Saillard would hear him

out.

The Inspector sat
on one of the camp beds. The cloakroom was small, and as Lecœur paced up and
down in front of him he could do no more than three paces each way.

“This morning, for
instance, assuming he was with the boy, he went halfway across Paris, keeping
out of sight of every police station and every traffic point where there’d be a
man on duty.”

“You mean he knows
the Fifteenth and Sixteenth Arrondissements by heart?”

“And not those
only. At least two there, the Twelfth and the Twentieth, as he showed on
previous occasions. He didn’t choose his victims haphazardly. He knew they
lived alone and could be done in without any great risk.”

What a nuisance!
There was his brother, saying: “Here are the sandwiches, Andre.”

“Thanks. Go ahead,
will you? Don’t wait for me. I’ll be with you in a moment.”

He bundled Olivier
back into his corner and returned to the cloakroom. He didn’t want him to hear.

“If he’s used a
different weapon each time, it’s because he knows it will puzzle us. He knows
that murderers generally have their own way and stick to it.”

The Inspector had
risen to his feet and was staring at Andre with a faraway look, as though he
was following a train of thought of his own.

“You mean that
he’s—”

“That he’s one of
us—or has been. I can’t get the idea out of my head.”

He lowered his
voice.

“Someone who’s been
up against it in the same sort of way as my brother. A discharged fireman might
take to arson. It’s happened two or three times. A policeman—”

“But why should he
steal?”

“Wasn’t my brother
in need of money? This other chap may be like him in more ways than one.
Supposing he. too. was a night worker and goes on pretending he’s still in a
job. That would explain why the crimes are committed so late. He has to be out
all night. The first part of it is easy enough—the cafes and bars are open.
Afterward, he’s all alone with himself.”

As though to
himself, Saillard muttered: “There wouldn’t be anybody in the personnel
department on a day like this.”

“Perhaps you could
ring up the director at his home. He might remember...”

“Hallo! Can I speak
to Monsieur Guillaume, please? He’s not in? Where could I reach him? At his
daughter’s in Ateuil? Have you got the number?”

“Hallo! Monsieur
Guillaume? Saillard speaking. I hope I’m not disturbing you too much. Oh, you’d
finished, had you? Good. It’s about the killer. Yes. there’s been another one.
No. Nothing definite. Only we have an idea that needs checking, and it’s
urgent. Don’t be too surprised at my question.

“Has any member of
the Paris police been sacked recently—say two or three months ago? I beg your
pardon? Not a single one this year? I see.”

Lecœur felt a
sudden constriction around his heart, as though overwhelmed by a catastrophe,
and threw a pathetic, despairing look at the wall-map. He had already given up
and was surprised to hear his chief go on:

“As a matter of
fact, it doesn’t need to be as recent as all that. It would be someone who had
worked in various parts of Paris, including the Fifteenth and Sixteenth.
Probably also the Twelfth and Twentieth. Seems to have done a good deal of
night work. Also to have been embittered by his dismissal. What?”

The way Saillard
pronounced that last word gave Lecœur renewed hope.

“Sergeant Loubet?
Yes, I remember the name, though I never actually came across him. Three years
ago! You wouldn’t know where he lived, I suppose? Somewhere near Les Halles?”

Three years ago.
No, it wouldn’t do. and Lecœur’s heart sank again. You could hardly expect a
man to bottle up his resentments for three years and then suddenly start
hitting back.

“Have you any idea
what became of him? No, of course not. And it’s not a good day for finding
out.”

He hung up and
looked thoughtfully at Lecœur. When he spoke, it was as though he was
addressing an equal.

“Did you hear?
Sergeant Loubet. He was constantly getting into trouble and was shifted three
or four times before being finally dismissed. Drink. That was his trouble. He
took his dismissal very hard. Guillaume can’t say for certain what has become
of him, but he thinks he joined a private detective agency. If you’d like to
have a try—”

Lecœur set to work.
He had little hope of succeeding, but it was better to do something than sit
watching for the little lamps in the street-plan. He began with the agencies of
the most doubtful reputation, refusing to believe that a person such as Loubet
would readily find a job with a reputable firm. Most of the offices were shut,
and he had to ring up their proprietors at home.

“Don’t know him.
You’d better try Tisserand in the Boulevard Saint-Martin. He’s the one who
takes all the riffraff.”

But Tisserand, a
firm that specialized in shadowings, was no good, either.

“Don’t speak to me
of that good-for-nothing. It’s a good two months or more since I chucked him
out, in spite of his threatening to blackmail me. If he ever shows up at my
office again, I’ll throw him down the stairs.”

“What sort of job
did he have?”

“Night work.
Watching blocks of flats.”

“Did he drink
much?”

“He wasn’t often
sober. I don’t know how he managed it, but he always knew where to get free
drinks. Blackmail again, I suppose.”

“Can you give me
his address?”

“Twenty-seven bis.
Rue du Pas-de-la-Mule.”

“Does he have a
telephone?”

“Maybe. I don’t
know. I’ve never had the slightest desire to ring him up. Is that all? Can I go
back to my game of bridge?”

The Inspector had
already snatched up the telephone directory and was looking for Loubet’s
number. He rang up himself. There was now a tacit understanding between him and
Lecœur. They shared the same hope, the same trembling eagerness, while Olivier,
realizing that something important was going on, came and stood near them.

Without being
invited, Andre did something he wouldn’t have dreamed of doing that morning. He
picked up the second earphone to listen in. The bell rang in the flat in the
Rue du Pas-de-la-Mule. It rang for a long time, as though the place was
deserted, and his anxiety was becoming acute when at last it stopped and a
voice answered.

Thank Heaven! It
was a woman’s voice, an elderly one. “Is that you at last? Where are you?”

“Hallo! This isn’t
your husband here. Madame.”

“Has he met with an
accident?”

From the
hopefulness of her tone, it sounded as though she had long been expecting one
and wouldn’t be sorry when it happened.

“It is Madame
Loubet I’m speaking to, isn’t it?”

“Who else would it
be?”

“Your husband’s not
at home?”

“First of all, who
are you?”

“Inspector
Saillard.”

“ What do you want
him for?”

The Inspector put
his hand over the mouthpiece to say to Lecœur: “Get through to Janvier. Tell
him to dash round there as quick as he can.”

“Didn’t your
husband come home this morning?”

“You ought to know!
I thought the police knew everything!”

“Does it often
happen?”

“That’s his
business, isn’t it?”

No doubt she hated
her drunkard of a husband, but now that he was threatened she was ready to
stand up for him.

“I suppose you know
he no longer belongs to the police force.”

“Perhaps he found a
cleaner job.”

“When did he stop
working for the Agence Argus?”

“What’s that? What
are you getting at?”

“I assure you,
Madame, your husband was dismissed from the Agence Argus over two months ago.”

“You’re lying.”

“Which means that
for these last two months he’s been going off to work every evening.”

“Where else would
he be going? To the Folies Bergère?”

“Have you any idea
why he hasn’t come back today? He hasn’t telephoned, has he?”

She must have been
afraid of saying the wrong thing, for she rang off without another word.

When the Inspector
put his receiver down, he turned round to see Lecœur standing behind him, looking
away. In a shaky voice, the latter said:

“Janvier’s on his
way now.”

He was treated as
an equal. He knew it wouldn’t last, that tomorrow, sitting at his switchboard,
he would be once more but a small cog in the huge wheel.

The others simply
didn’t count—not even his brother, whose timid eyes darted from one to the
other uncomprehendingly, wondering why, if his boy’s life was in danger, they
talked so much instead of doing something.

Twice he had to
pluck at Andre’s sleeve to get a word in edgewise.

“Let me go and look
for him myself,” he begged.

What could he do?
The hunt had widened now. A description of ex-Sergeant Loubet had been passed
to all police stations and patrols.

It was no longer
only a boy of ten who was being looked for, but also a man of fifty-eight,
probably the worse for drink, dressed in a black overcoat with a velvet collar
and an old grey-felt hat, a man who knew his Paris like the palm of his hand,
and who was acquainted with the police.