Cynthia Manson (ed) (12 page)

And what was
Olivier waiting for at the Gare d’Austerlitz. sometimes in the overheated
waiting rooms, sometimes on the windswept platforms, too nervous to settle down
in any one place for long?

Less than ten
minutes elapsed, just time enough for Godin, whose nose really was running, to
make himself another glass of hot grog.

“Can I offer you
one, Monsieur le Commissaire?”

“No, thanks.”

Looking more
embarrassed than ever, Saillard leaned over towards Lecœur to say in an
undertone, “Would you like us to question him in another room?”

No. Lecœur wasn’t
going to leave his post for anything. He wanted to stay there, with his little
lamps and his switchboard. Was it that he was thinking more of the boy than of
his brother?

Olivier came in
with a detective on either side, but they had spared him the handcuffs. He
looked dreadful, like a bad photograph faded with age. At once he turned to
Andre. “Where’s Francois?”

“We don’t know.
We’re hunting for him.”

“Where?”

Andre Lecœur
pointed to his plan of Paris and his switchboard of a thousand lines.
“Everywhere.”

The two detectives
had already been sent away.

“Sit down,” said
the Inspector. “I believe you’ve been told of Madame Fayet’s death.”

Olivier didn’t wear
spectacles, but he had the same pale and rather fugitive eyes as his brother
had when he took his glasses off. He glanced at the Inspector, by whom he
didn’t seem the least overawed, then turned back to Andre. “He left a note for
me,” he said, delving into one of the pockets of his grubby mackintosh. “Here.
See if you can understand.”

He held out a bit
of paper torn out of a schoolboy’s exercise book. The writing wasn’t any too
good. It didn’t look as though Francois was the best of pupils. He had used an
indelible pencil, wetting the end in his mouth, so that his lips were very
likely stained with it.

“Uncle Gedeon
arrives this morning Gare d’Austerlitz. Come as soon as you can and meet us
there. Love. Bib.”

Without a word,
Andre Lecœur passed it on to the Inspector, who turned it over and over with
his thick fingers. “What’s Bib stand for?”

“It’s his nickname.
A baby name. I never use it when other people are about. It comes from
biberon
.
When I used to give him his bottle—” He spoke in a toneless voice. He seemed to
be in a fog and was probably only dimly conscious of where he was.

“Who’s Uncle
Gedeon?”

“There isn’t any
such person.”

Did he realize he
was talking to the head of the Brigade des Homicides, who was at the moment
investigating a murder?

It was his brother
who came to the rescue, explaining. “As a matter of fact, we had an Uncle
Gedeon but he’s been dead for some years. He was one of my mother’s brothers
who emigrated to America as a young man.”

Olivier looked at
his brother as much as to say: What’s the point of going into that?

“We got into the
habit, in the family, of speaking—jocularly, of course— of our rich American
uncle and of the fortune he’d leave us one day.”

“Was he rich?”

“We didn’t know. We
never heard from him except for a postcard once a year, signed Gedeon. Wishing
us a happy New Year.”

“He died?”

“When Francois was
four.”

“Really. Andre, do
you think it’s any use—”

“Let me go on. The
Inspector wants to know everything. My brother carried on the family tradition,
talking to his son about our Uncle Gedeon, who had become by now quite a
legendary figure. He provided a theme for bedtime stories, and all sorts of
adventures were attributed to him. Naturally he was fabulously rich, and when
one day he came back to France—”

“I understand. He
died out there?”

“In a hospital in
Cleveland. It was then we found out he had been really a porter in a
restaurant. It would have been too cruel to tell the boy that, so the legend
went on.”

“Did he believe in
it?”

It was Olivier who
answered. “My brother thought he didn’t, that he’d guessed the truth but wasn’t
going to spoil the game. But I always maintained the contrary and I’m still practically
certain he took it all in. He was like that. Long after his schoolfellows had
stopped believing in Father Christmas, he still went on.”

Talking about his
son brought him back to life, transfigured him.

“But as for this
note he left, I don’t know what to make of it. I asked the concierge if a
telegram had come. For a moment I thought Andre might have played us a
practical joke, but I soon dismissed the idea. It isn’t much of a joke to get a
boy dashing off to a station on a freezing night. Naturally I dashed off to the
Gare d’Austerlitz as fast as I could. There I hunted high and low, then
wandered about, waiting anxiously for him to turn up. Andre, you’re sure he
hasn’t been—”

He looked at the
street plan on the wall and at the switchboard. He knew very well that every
accident was reported.

“He hasn’t been run
over,” said Andre. “At about eight o’clock he was near the Etoile, but we’ve
completely lost track of him since then.”

“Near the Etoile?
How do you know?”

“It’s rather a long
story, but it boils down to this—that a whole series of alarms were set off by
someone smashing the glass. They followed a circuitous route from your place to
the Arc de Triomphe. At the foot of the last one, they found a blue-check
handkerchief, a boy’s handkerchief, among the broken glass.”

“He has
handkerchiefs like that.”

“From eight o’clock
onward, not a sign of him.”

“Then I’d better
get back to the station. He’s certain to go there, if he told me to meet him
there.”

He was surprised at
the sudden silence with which his last words were greeted. He looked from one
to the other, perplexed, then anxious.

“What is it?”

His brother looked
down at the floor. Inspector Saillard cleared his throat, hesitated, then
asked, “Did you go to see your mother-in-law last night?”

Perhaps, as his
brother had suggested, Olivier was rather lacking in intelligence. It took a
long time for the words to sink in. You could follow their progress in his
features.

He had been gazing
rather blankly at the Inspector. Suddenly he swung around on his brother, his
cheeks red, his eyes flashing. “Andre, you dare to suggest that I—”

Without the
slightest transition, his indignation faded away. He leaned forward in his
chair, took his head in his two hands, and burst into a fit of raucous weeping.

Ill at ease,
Inspector Saillard looked at Andre Lecœur, surprised at the latter’s calmness,
and a little shocked, perhaps, by what he may well have taken for
heartlessness. Perhaps Saillard had never had a brother of his own. Andre had
known his since childhood. It wasn’t the first time he had seen Olivier break
down. Not by any means. And this time he was almost pleased, as it might have
been a great deal worse. What he had dreaded was the moment of indignation, and
he was relieved that it had passed so quickly. Had he continued on that tack,
he’d have ended by putting everyone’s back up, which would have done him no
good at all.

Wasn’t that how
he’d lost one job after another? For weeks, for months, he would go meekly
about his work, toeing the line and swallowing what he felt to be humiliations,
till all at once he could hold no more, and for some trifle—a chance word, a
smile, a harmless contradiction—he would flare up unexpectedly and make a
nuisance of himself to everybody.

What do we do now?
The Inspector’s eyes were asking.

Andre Lecœur’s eyes
answered, Wait.

It didn’t last very
long. The emotional crisis waned, started again, then petered out altogether.
Olivier shot a sulky look at the Inspector, then hid his face again.

Finally, with an
air of bitter resignation, he sat up, and with even a touch of pride said:
“Fire away. I’ll answer.”

“At what time last
night did you go to Madame Fayet’s? Wait a moment. First of all, when did you
leave your flat?”

“At eight o’clock,
as usual, after Francois was in bed.”

“Nothing
exceptional happened?”

“No. We’d had
supper together. Then he’d helped me to wash up.”

“Did you talk about
Christmas?”

“Yes. I told him
he’d be getting a surprise.”

“The table radio.
Was he expecting one?”

He’d been longing
for one for some time. You see, he doesn’t play with the other boys in the
street. Practically all his free time he spends at home.”

“Did it ever occur
to you that the boy might know you’d lost your job at the
Presse
? Did he
ever ring you up there?”

“Never. When I’m at
work, he’s asleep.”

“Could anyone have
told him?”

“No one knew. Not
in the neighborhood, that is.”

“Is he observant?”

“Very. He notices
everything.”

“You saw him safely
in bed and then you went off. Do you take anything with you—anything to eat, I
mean?”

The Inspector
suddenly thought of that, seeing Godin produce a ham sandwich. Olivier looked
blankly at his empty hands.

“My tin.”

“The tin in which
you took your sandwiches?”

Yes. I had it with
me when I left. I’m sure of that. I can’t think where I could have left it,
unless it was at—”

“At Madame
Fayet’s?”

“Yes.”

“Just a moment. Lecœur,
get me Javel on the phone, will you? Hallo! Who’s speaking? Is Janvier there?
Good, ask him to speak to me. Hallo! Is that you, Janvier? Have you come across
a tin box containing some sandwiches? Nothing of the sort. Really? All the
same. I’d like you to make sure. Ring me back. It’s important.”

And, turning again
to Olivier: “Was Francois actually sleeping when you

left?”

“No. But he’d
snuggled down in bed and soon would be. Outside, I wandered about for a bit. I
walked down to the Seine and waited on the embankment.”

“Waited? What for?”

“For Francois to be
fast asleep. From his room you can see Madame Fayet’s windows.”

“So you’d made up
your mind to go and see her.”

“It was the only
way. I hadn’t a bean left.”

“What about your
brother?”

Olivier and Andre
looked at each other.

“He’d already given
me so much. I felt I couldn’t ask him again.”

“You rang at the
house door, I suppose. At what time?”

“A little after
nine. The concierge saw me. I made no attempt to hide— except from Francois.”

“Had your
mother-in-law gone to bed?”

“No. She was fully
dressed when she opened her door. She said, ‘Oh, it’s you, you wretch!’ ”

“After that
beginning, did you still think she’d lend you money?”

“I was sure of it.”

“Why?”

“It was her
business. Perhaps also for the pleasure of squeezing me if I didn’t pay her
back. She lent me ten thousand francs, but made me sign an I. O. U. for twenty
thousand.”

“How soon had you
to pay her back?”

“In a fortnight’s
time.”

“How could you hope
to?”

“I don’t know.
Somehow. The thing that mattered was for the boy to have a good Christmas.”

Andre Lecœur was
tempted to butt in to explain to the puzzled Inspector, “You see! He’s always
been like that!”

“Did you get the
money easily?”

“Oh, no. We were at
it for a long time.”

“How long?”

“Half an hour, I
daresay, and during most of that time she was calling me names, telling me I
was no good to anyone and had ruined her daughter’s life before I finally
killed her. I didn’t answer her back. I wanted the money too badly.”

“You didn’t
threaten her?”

Olivier reddened.
“Not exactly. I said if she didn’t let me have it I’d kill myself.”

“Would you have
done it?”

“I don’t think so.
At least, I don’t know. I was fed up, worn out.”

“And when you got
the money?”

“I walked to the
nearest Métro station, Lourmel, and took the underground to Palais Royal. There
I went into the Grands Magasins du Louvre. The place was crowded, with queues
at many of the counters.”

“What time was it?”

“It was after
eleven before I left the place. I was in no hurry. I had a good look around. I
stood a long time watching a toy electric train.”

Andre couldn’t help
smiling at the Inspector. “You didn’t miss your sandwich tin?”