handle; all the same he takes the precaution of not opening the door at once; he quickly thrusts in his hand to turn on the light and glances slowly around the door, ready to draw back if he sees anything unusual…
But the bedroom is empty: no thug is posted behind the bed, nor in the corner next to the chest. Dupont sees only his own face in the mirror, where the traces of an anxiety that now seems ludicrous to him still remain.
He walks straight over to the night table. The revolver is no longer on the marble top. He finds it in the drawer, in its usual place. He probably will not use it, any more than he had the night before, but you never know: if he had been armed last night when he came upstairs from the dining room, he would certainly have used it then.
The professor checks to see that the safety catch has not been slipped back on and returns, walking steadily, his weapon in his hand, to the study. He will have to use only one arm-fortunately, his right. First put the revolver in his pocket, open the door, turn on the ceiling light and, as fast as possible, grasp the revolver while kicking open the door. This little farce-useless as the one he has just executed-makes him smile in anticipation.
Wallas listens to his heart pounding. Since he is quite close to the window, he has heard the car stop, the garden gate open, the heavy footsteps crunching across the gravel. The man has tried to get in through the front door. He has shaken it a few times, without success, then has walked around the house. Consequently Wallas could tell it wasn’t Marchat who had changed his mind and come for the dead man’s papers; it was neither Marchat nor someone sent by him-or by the old housekeeper. It was someone who did not have the keys to the house.
The crunching footsteps have passed underneath the window. The man went to the little door which the special agent has left open for him on purpose. The hinges have creaked slightly when he pushed the door open. To be sure his victim would not escape, the man has looked in every room he passed on the ground floor and then upstairs.
Now Wallas sees the slit of light widening along the jamb, with unendurable slowness.
Wallas aims at the place where the murderer will appear, a black figure outlined against the illuminated doorway…
But the man obviously distrusts this room plunged in darkness. A hand moves forward, gropes for the switch…
Wallas, dazzled by the light, only distinguishes the quick movement of an arm lowering toward him the muzzle of a heavy revolver, the movement of a man firing As he throws himself to the floor, Wallas pulls the trigger.
6
The man has fallen forward, his right arm outstretched, the left folded under him. His hand remains clenched on the butt of the revolver. He no longer moves.
Wallas stands up. Fearing a trick, he approaches cautiously, his gun still aimed, not knowing what he should do.
He walks around the body, keeping out of reach of a possible reaction. The man still does not move. His hat has remained pulled down over his forehead. The right eye is partly open the other is turned down toward the ground; the nose is crushed against the carpet. What can be seen of the face looks quite gray. He is dead.
It is nervousness that makes Wallas lose the rest of his discretion. He leans down and touches the man’s wrist, trying to find his pulse. The hand releases the heavy revolver and dangles limply in his grasp. The pulse has stopped. The man i certainly dead.
Wallas decides he must look through the corpse’s pockets (For what?) Only the right overcoat pocket is accessible. H‹ thrusts in his hand and removes a pair of spectacles, one o whose lenses is very dark and the other much lighter.
“Can you say whether it was the right lens that was darker or the left?”
The left lens…on the right side…The right lens on the left side…
It is the left lens that is darker. Wallas puts the glasses on the floor and straightens up. He does not want to continue the search. He feels instead like sitting down. He is very tired.
In self-defense. He saw the man aiming at him. He saw the finger squeezing the trigger. He perceived the considerable interval of time it took him to react and fire back. He was sure tie didn’t have very quick reflexes.
Yet he had to admit that he fired first. He didn’t hear the other revolver fire before his own; and if the two explosions had occurred at exactly the same moment, there would be some trace of the stray bullet on the wall or in the backs of the books. Wallas raises the window curtain: the panes are also intact. His adversary did not have time to fire.
It is only the tension of his senses that gave him, at the time, that impression of slow motion.
Wallas presses his palm against the muzzle of his gun; it feels distinctly warm. He turns back toward the body and leans down to touch the abandoned revolver. It is quite cold. Taking a better look, Wallas realizes that the left sleeve of the overcoat is empty. He feels the shape of the arm under the material. Was this arm in a sling? “A flesh wound in the arm.”
He must inform Laurent. From now on this is a matter for the police. The special agent cannot continue to handle the case alone, now that there is a corpse.
The commissioner will not be at his office this late. Wallas looks at his watch; it shows seven thirty-five. Then he remembers that it had stopped at seven-thirty. He raises it to his ear and hears the faint ticking. It must be the detonation that has started it going again-or else the shock, if he bumped it when he threw himself to the floor. He will call the commissioner at his office; if he is no longer there, someone can certainly tell Wallas where to find him. He has noticed a telephone in the bedroom.
The door is open. The light is on. The drawer of the night; able is wide open. The revolver is no longer there.
Wallas picks up the receiver. Number 124-24. “It’s a direct line.” The ringing at the other end of the line is interrupted at once.
“Hello!” a distant voice says.
“Hello, this is Wallas, it’s…”
“Oh good, I just tried to call you. This is Laurent speaking. I’ve made a discovery-you’ll never guess! Daniel Dupont! He isn’t dead at all! Do you hear me?” He repeats, separating each syllable: “Daniel Dupont is not dead!”
Then who said the telephone in the house wasn’t working?
EPILOGUE
In the dimness of the cafe the manager is arranging the tables and chairs, the ashtrays, the siphons of soda water; it is six in the morning.
The manager is not altogether awake. He is in a bad mood; he has not had enough sleep. Last night he wanted to wait until his lodger returned before locking up; but it was no use keeping awake so late, for he finally closed up all the same and went to bed without ever having seen that damned Wallas come in. He has decided that his lodger was arrested, since the police were looking for him.
Wallas has come in only this morning-ten minutes-ago-looking tired, his face drawn, hardly able to stand up. “The police called, they’re looking for you,” the manager has said as he opened the door for him. Wallas is not affected by the news; he has merely answered: “Yes, I know; thanks,” and he has gone straight upstairs to his room. Too polite to be honest. It was a good thing he had waited until six to come in: if the manager had not been up, he certainly wouldn’t have got out of bed to let him in. Besides, he’s not going to take any more lodgers, it’s too much trouble. It will be a piece of luck if this one doesn’t make trouble with all his problems.
