The Erasers (24 page)

“
In my opinion, this letter proves nothing at all.
”
Laurent flattens the sheet out on his desk with his open hand.
“
Then nothing ever proves anything.
”

“
But,
”
the commissioner remarks,
“
that
’
s what I just finished telling you.
”

As though to console Wallas, he adds:

“
Let
’
s put it this way: with this letter, you can prove anything you want—you can always prove whatever you want
—
for instance, that
you
are the murderer: the post office employee recognized you, and your name has a certain resemblance to this discreet
‘
WS
’
that indicates it. You don
’
t happen to be named Andre, do you?
”

Wallas finds himself faced again with the commissioner
’
s jokes. He nevertheless answers, out of civility:

“
Anyone can have letters sent to him under any name. All you need to do is buy a postal number; no one asks for the purchaser
’
s real identity. The latter could just as well get himself called
‘
Daniel Dupont
’
or
‘
Chief Commissioner Laurent.
’
It
’
s only unfortunate that we haven
’
t discovered the place where he received his mail sooner; we would have picked it up this morning too. I repeat that you have to send a man to the Rue Jonas right away, to wait for his possible return; however, since he himself told them he wouldn
’
t be back, this precaution will probably be of no use. All we can do is send for that girl and question her. Maybe she
’
ll give us some clue.
”

“
Don
’
t get excited,
”
Laurent begins,
“
keep calm. Actually, I don
’
t see any reason why this Monsieur WS should be the murderer. What do you really know, when you come down to facts? With the help of a fanciful woman and a drunk man, you
’
ve been induced to accept mail, some mail that didn
’
t belong to you from a
poste restante
window. (Please note, by the way, that this is absolutely irregular: in this country, the police have no right to force the postal authorities to hand over private correspondence; you must have a court order for that.) All right. Who was this letter addressed to? To a man who looks like you. On the other hand, you also happen to resemble (though the testimony is more suspect) someone who is supposed to have walked past the little house and
“
stuck his arm between the bars of the fence
”
at around five o
’
clock. You have
decided, consequently, that this person then went into this same post office. All right. That would certainly be a coincidence
—
which the letter in question should explain. But just what does this letter say? That the sender (who signs himself J.B.) will expect this
‘
Andre WS
’
sooner than they had previously arranged (
“
after quarter to twelve
”
)—unfortunately the location of their rendezvous is not specified; that, because of the defection of a third person designated by the letter G, this same WS will need the whole afternoon to do some job, concerning which we are given no clues except that part of it was already completed yesterday (besides, you have to admit that one wonders what could still be done as regards Dupont
’
s murder). Aside from that, I can find only a little phrase whose meaning neither you nor I can figure out, but which we can probably dismiss as secondary—you agree with me on that. Finally, to finish up, we find that one word is illegible in one of the sentences you consider indicative—a word of seven or eight letters that looks like
‘
ellipse
’
or
‘
eclipse
’
or that could be
‘
align
’
or
‘
idem
’
or a lot of other things.
”

Laurent then declares that the possession of a postal box does not indicate necessarily criminal intentions any more than the use of a pseudonym. The city
’
s six post offices have a total of several thousand addressees of this nature. Some of the latter
—
less than a quarter, it appears—carry on a purely sentimental or para
-
sentimental correspondence. One must also include about the same number of more or less fictional commercial-philanthropic enterprises such as marriage agencies, employment offices, Hindu fakirs, astrologists, spiritual mentors,
…
etc. The rest, say more than half, consists of businessmen of whom only a tiny proportion are actually crooks.

The pneumatic message has been sent from post office number 3, the one serving the inne
r harbor and the northeast sub
urbs. It is, as always, a matter of a sale of wood, or of some operation relating to it: adjudication, transportation, cargo or some such thing. Since the market suffers extremely variable daily fluctuations, it is essential for the middle men to know how to take advantage of it quickly; a delay of twenty-four hours in a transaction can sometimes ruin a man.

J.B. is a commission-merchant (perhaps unlicensed—it isn
’
t necessarily so). G and Andre WS are two of his agents. They cooperated yesterday on a deal which is to be closed tonight. Without G
’
s cooperation, the second agent must be on hand sooner than usual in order not to be left behind.

Wallas is alone again, walking through the streets.

This time he is going to see Doctor Juard; as Laurent has just repeated to him: that is the first thing to do. He has managed to obtain the cooperation of the municipal police in the surveillance of the little post office and the questioning of the young woman working there. But he could see that the commissioner
’
s mind was henceforth made up: there is no terrorist organization, Daniel Dupont has killed himself. This is the only explanation Laurent regards as reasonable; he admits that
“
minor details
”
are temporarily at variance with this notion, yet each new element that is brought to his attention immediately becomes an additional proof of suicide.

This is the case, for instance, with regard to the revolver which Wallas has found in the professor
’
s house. The caliber of the weapon corresponds to that of the bullet turned in by the doctor; and this bullet just happens to be missing from the clip. Finally, and most significant to the commissioner
’
s way of thinking, the revolver was j
ammed. This fact, determined in
the police laboratories, would be a capital one: it explains why Dupont, merely wounded by his first bullet, did not fire a second shot. Instead of being ejected normally, the shell has remained jammed inside; this is why it has not been found on the floor in the study. As for the rather blurred fingerprints taken from the grip, their arrangement is not incompatible with the gesture the commissioner has imagined: the index finger on the trigger as though to fire straight ahead, but the elbow stuck out and the wrist twisted in such a way that the muzzle of the gun is pressed, at only a slight angle, between the two ribs. Despite this inconvenient position, the weapon must be held firmly s
o that it remains in place…

***

A deafening shock in the chest, immediately followed by an extremely sharp pain in the right arm; then nothing more-then nausea, which is certainly not death. Dupont stares at his revolver with astonishment.

His right arm moves without difficulty, his head is clear, the rest of his body would also respond if he called upon it to do so. He is nevertheless certain of having felt the detonation and the rending of his flesh in the region of his heart. He should be dead; now he finds himself sitting at his desk as if nothing had happened. The bullet must have swerved. He must finish the job as soon as possible.

He turns the muzzle toward himself again; he presses it against the material of his vest, in the place where the first hole must already be. Fearing he might weaken, he puts all his
strength into contracting his finger But this time nothing
happens, absolutely nothing. However hard he tightens his finger on the trigger, the weapon remains inert.

He lays it on the desk and puts his hand through several exercises to prove to himself that it is functioning normally. It is the revolver that is jammed.

Although hard of hearing, old Anna, who was clearing off the table in the dining room, has obviously heard the explosion What is she doing? Has she gone out to call for help? Or is she coming upstairs? She never makes any noise with her felt slippers. Something must be done before she reaches him. He must get out of this absurd situation.

The professor tries to get up; he succeeds easily. He can even walk. He goes to the mantelpiece to look at himself in the mirror; he moves a pile of books aside. Now he sees the hole, a little too high; the material of his vest, torn, is faintly stained with blood; almost nothing. He need only button his jacket and it won
’
t show any more. A glance at his face: no, he doesn
’
t look so bad. He turns back to his desk, tears up the letter he has written to his friend Juard before dinner, and throws it in the wastebasket
…

Daniel Dupont is sitting in his study. He is cleaning his revolver.

He manipulates it with care.

After having checked the proper functioning of the mechanism, he puts the clip back in place. Then he puts his rag away in a drawer. He is a meticulous man, who likes every task to be executed properly.

He stands up and takes a few steps on the water-green carpet that muffles every sound. There is scarcely any room to walk in the little study. On every side books surround him: law, social legislation, political economy
…
Down below, to the left, at the end of the long shelves, stands the row of books he himself has added to the series. Not much. There were two or three ideas nevertheless. Who has understood them? Too bad for them; that
’
s no reason to kill oneself in despair! The professor smiles faintly, rather contemptuously, thinking again of the preposterous notions that had suddenly passed through h
is m
ind just now, while he was holding the revolver
…
People
w
ould have thought it was an accident.

He stops in front of his desk and glances one last time at this
l
etter he has just written, to a B
elgian colleague interested in h
is theories. It is a clear, dry letter; it gives all the explanations
n
ecessary. Perhaps, when he has eaten dinner, he will add a warmer word at the end.

Before going downstairs he must put the revolver back in the
light table drawer. He wraps it up carefully in the piece of rag
h
e has just put away absent-mindedly. Then he turns out the
l
arge lamp on his desk. It is seven o
’
clock…

When he came back upstairs to finish his letter, he found he murderer waiting for him. It would have been better if he
h
ad kept the revolver in his pocket
…
But who said that he
h
ad examined it just that day? He would have removed the old hell that jammed the mechanism. The laboratory only indicted that the weapon was
“
well cared for
”
and that the missing
b
ullet had been
“
recently
”
fired, that is, after the last cleaning
—
which could, after all, date from several weeks ago, even
s
everal months. Laurent translated this as follows: Dupont leaned it yesterday, in order to use it that very evening.

Wallas is now thinking that he should have been able to
c
onvince the commissioner. The latter
’
s arguments often
s
eemed worthless, and it was certainly possible to prove it to
h
im. Instead of which, Wallas has let himself get involved in utile arguments over secondary points—or even discussions
h
aving no relation to the crime whatever—and when he wanted
d
make the broad outlines of the case clear, he did so with
p
hrases so clumsy that this whole story of the secret society
a
nd the timed murders assumed an unreal, gratuitous,
“
badly
p
ut together
”
quality in his mouth.