that suddenly begin to run, creating in the bosom of a family that disturbing impression whose fatal consequences are dissatisfaction, bad humor, quarrels, sickness, death…
“But winter’s coming now,” the concierge observes judiciously.
That doesn’t matter: Fabius knows that perfectly well, but he is preparing his spring campaign, and, besides, the winter sun that people worry about least is all the more to be feared I
Wallas smiles at this thought. He crosses the street and turns into the parkway. In front of the main entrance of the apartment building, a fat man in a blue apron, his face calm and cheerful, is polishing the brass doorknob-the concierge probably. He turns his head toward Wallas, who nods politely in reply. With a sly wink, the man says:
“If you’re cold, there’s still the bell to do!”
Wallas laughs pleasantly:
“I’ll leave you that for tomorrow: the good weather seems to be over.”
“The winter’s coming now,” the concierge answers.
And he begins polishing vigorously.
But Wallas wants to take advantage of the man’s good mood to engage in conversation:
“By the way, do you take care of the other wing of this building too?”
“Yes, of course! You think I’m not big enough to take care of two bells?”
“It’s not that, but I thought I recognized the face of an old friend of my mother’s up there, behind the window. I’d like to go say hello to her if I was sure I wasn’t mistaken. On the third floor, the apartment at the end…”
“Madame Bax?” the concierge asks.
“Yes, that’s right, Madame Bax! So it was Madame Bax. Funny how things happen: yesterday we were talking at dinner and we were just wondering what had become of her.”
“But Madame Bax isn’t old “
“No, of course not! She’s not at all old. I said ‘an old friend’ but I didn’t mean her age. I think I’ll go up. You don’t suppose she’s too busy?”
“Madame Bax? She’s always glued to the window watching the street! No, I’m sure she’d be delighted to see you.”
And without a moment’s hesitation, the man opens his door wide, then steps aside with an agreeably ceremonious gesture:
“This way, Prince! It doesn’t matter, the two staircases meet. Number twenty-four, on the third floor.”
Wallas thanks him and walks in. The concierge follows him in, closes the door and goes into his room. He has finished his work. He’ll polish the bell another day.
Wallas is received by a woman of uncertain age-perhaps still young, in fact-who, contrary to what he suspected, shows no surprise at this visit.
He simply tells her, showing her his police card, that the necessities of a difficult investigation oblige him to question, at random, all the people in the neighborhood who might provide any information at all. Without asking him any questions, she leads him into a room crowded with period furniture and indicates a tapestried chair. She herself sits down facing him, but some distance away, and waits, her hands clasped, looking at him earnestly.
Wallas begins speaking: a crime has been committed the evening before in the house opposite…
Her face carefully composed, Madame Bax indicates a slightly surprised-and pained-interest.
“You don’t read the newspapers?” Wallas asks.
“No, very rarely.”
In saying this, she gives him an almost mournful half-smile, as if she did not often have the daily papers at her disposal or else did not have time to read them. Her voice is like her face, gentle and faded. Wallas is an old relative come to pay a call, on her visiting day, after a long absence: he is telling her about the death of a mutual friend, whose loss she laments with well-mannered indifference. It is five in the afternoon. In a little while she will offer him a cup of tea.
“It’s a very sad story,” she says.
Wallas, who is not here to receive condolences, puts the question in precise terms: the position of her window might have allowed her to see or hear something.
“No,” she says, “I didn’t notice anything.”
She is very sorry.
Hadn’t she at least noticed some prowler, some suspicious-looking types she could identify: a man in the street, for instance, who might have been paying abnormal attention to the house?
“Oh, Monsieur, no one ever walks through this street.”
Many people walk along the parkway, yes, at certain times: they walk fast and disappear at once. No one comes along this street.
“Still,” Wallas says, “someone had to come last night.”
“Last night…” It is obvious she is searching her memory. “Yesterday was Monday?”
“It might just as well have been the day before too, or even last week: apparently their work was carefully prepared in advance. Even the telephone was out of order: it might have been a case of sabotage.”
“No,” she says after a moment’s thought, “I didn’t notice anything.”
Last night a man in a raincoat tore something out at the gate. It was hard to see because it was getting dark. He stopped at the end of the spindle-tree hedge, took out of his pocket a small object which might have been pliers or a file, and quickly stuck his arm between the last two bars to reach the top of the gate inside It only took half a minute: he pulled his hand out immediately and went on his way, with the same casual gait.
Since this lady assures him she knows nothing, Wallas is ready to say good-bye. It would obviously have been surprising if she had happened to be at her window at just the right time. Besides, on thinking it over, did this “right time” ever exist? It is rather unlikely that the murderers have come here in broad daylight to plan their attack so calmly-to inspect the premises, make a false key, or dig trenches in the garden to cut the telephone lines.
The first thing he has to do is get in touch with that Doctor Juard. Afterward, if no clue turns up there and if the commissioner has not learned anything new, the other tenants in the building could be questioned. The slightest opportunity must not be neglected. Meanwhile, he will ask Madame Bax not to give away the little story he used as an excuse to the concierge.
To prolong this rest period before continuing his wanderings, Wallas asks two or three more questions; he suggests different noises that might have caught the young woman’s attention, unconsciously; a revolver shot, footsteps running on the gravel, a slamming door, an automobile starting up suddenly… But she shakes her head and says with her strange smile:
“Don’t tell me too many details; you’ll end up making me think I saw the whole thing.”
Last night a man in a raincoat did something to the gate and since this morning you cannot hear the automatic buzzer when it opens. Yesterday, a man…No doubt she’ll end up telling him her secret. Moreover, she does not exactly know what it is restraining her.
Wallas, who since the start of the conversation has been wondering how to ask her politely if she has been watching much from her window recently, finally stands up. “May I?” He walks over to the window. It was in this room that he saw the curtain moving. Now he reconstitutes the image which, on the spot and from such close range, does not seem the same any more. He raises the material in order to see more clearly.
From this new angle, the house in the middle of its meticulous garden looks as though it were isolated by the lens of an optical instrument. His gaze shifts to the high chimneys, the slate roof-which in this part of the country strikes a note of preciosity-the brick front ornamentally framed by two field-stone courses which are also echoed, above the windows, by projecting lintels, the arch over the door and the four steps of the stoop. From the street level one cannot appreciate so fully the harmony of the proportions, the rigor-the necessity, one might say-of the whole structure, whose simplicity is scarcely disturbed-or on the contrary, accentuated-by the complicated grillwork of the balconies. Wallas tries to decipher some pattern in these intertwining curves, when he hears the slightly bored voice behind him declaring, as though it were an insignificant thing without any relation to the subject:
“Last night, a man in a raincoat…”
At first, Wallas did not believe in the truthfulness of a recollection so belated. Somewhat confused, he turned around toward Madame Bax: her face was still as calm, with that expression of polite exhaustion. The conversation continued in the same mundane tone.
