Without replying, and suddenly possessed by this revelation, she hauled her heavy body back in the direction of the mathematician’s residence. Encountering a policeman, she shouted a few incomprehensible words at him, dragging him unwillingly in her perfumed wake.
When she opened the door of the residence, she stopped dead, contemplated for a second the huddled body of her employer, then, with a wail consistent with her imposing thorax, fell carefully backwards into the arms of the handsome officer, whom she knew to be single.
It was at two twenty-five in the afternoon of Monday, November 29 that the body was discovered. At seven o’clock, in that same flat, we again find our band of journalists. They are glum. They are fed up with running to prefectures of police all over France, looking at bodies of males of various ages, and questioning witnesses who have heard nothing and seen nothing.
On the other hand, Professor Richard appeared to be in better form. The Toulouse murder has proved that he wasn’t mistaken. He knows now that there is a definite motive for all the murders, a connection between the victims... a connection that, however tenuous it might seem, how difficult to perceive by the interested parties, nevertheless exists and is there to be detected by someone with sufficient discernment.
It is with a cold resolve, a stubbornness that the others have never seen before, that he attacks the next phase of the investigation. No more sarcasm, no more jokes. It is as if the criminologist, aware of the urgency to come to a conclusion, will sweep all irrelevancies aside to reach the goal.
Already, by stopping the housekeeper from wandering off on erratic diversions, he had succeeded in getting her to reconstruct, practically word-for-word, the conversation which preceded her departure, just before the murder. But now, all the science in the world was powerless to stop the diatribe which spewed from the virago’s mouth:
‘Yes, monsieur, he was impossible. I know we mustn’t speak ill of the dead, but I’m telling you the truth. He made remarks about everything. And always a contradiction. If I said white, he said black. Yesterday, a neighbour came to talk. I asked him: “Wasn’t that a nice violet dress?” Do you know what he said? “It’s not violet, it’s purple.” And we argued about it for an hour. And it was violet, you know. Yesterday, it was the steak. He said it wasn’t fillet, I’d been had. And the butcher would never do that to me. Do you understand?’
‘Yes, dear lady, I understand life isn’t always fun for you. And, if I understand correctly, M. Stacier, a confirmed bachelor,displayed towards the fair sex an inclination ... how to put it?’
‘Compared to which the Tower of Pisa was a pillar of rectitude,’ suggested l’Hérisse, coming to the aid of the professor, who was momentarily lost for words.
‘Oh, yes. He was an old lecher. He didn’t look like it, but I know men and I don’t need to know them for long. When there’s one around me, I know straight away.’
‘What’s the lap record?’ asked “little” Saint-Bois innocently. When she failed to get the joke, he turned away to avoid laughing in her face.
‘And,’ interrupted the professor hurriedly, ‘can you give me an idea of the people to whom he paid his respects?’
‘Oh! I’ve got my ideas. But as I haven’t any proof, I prefer to keep quiet. In any case, he did his depravities in Paris.’
‘Did he go there often?’
‘You can’t say it was very often, but often enough. This year, he went once.’
‘And last year?’
‘Last year? Wait a minute. No, he didn’t go.’
‘I see. It seems rather intermittent.’
‘What do you think, Jacques?’ asked Maryse. ‘Say something. You have a sinister look. Or, at least, I suppose so, because with your hat crammed down and your scarf, we can hardly even see your eyes.’
‘I’ve got a terrible cold,’ replied the other in a voice made even feebler by the woollen scarf masking his respiratorypassage.
‘At what period this year did your employer go to Paris?’ continued Richard.
‘That’s easy. Mme. Berger, the grocer, was ill. Her cousin came to take care of her but, that day, she returned home to help with her brother-in-law’s wedding. And, because monsieur wasn’t there, I was able to replace her. The wedding was on a Saturday. It was the Saturday before my region’s feast day, which is the Sunday before Pentecôte.’
‘So it’s quite simple. Pentecôte was June 6th, so your feast day was May 30th, therefore the Saturday was May 29th, and the Saturday before that was May 22nd. So, M. Stacier went to Paris on May 22nd?’
‘That must be it.’
‘And he told you he was going to visit a woman.’
‘No. He didn’t tell me anything. I tried to ask him and drop hints, but he never said a word.’
And it was obvious that was the main reason she was peeved.
The investigation did establish that the victim had gone to Paris in May (without being able to determine the date, having thus to rely on the cross-checking supplied by Mme. Jules). He had left by the morning train and returned around midnight. And, noteworthy for such a frugal man, he also travelled first class.
As for the trap set for the travellers, so carefully set by Richard, it yielded no more tangible results than the preceding efforts.
IX
NANTES – LE MANS
THE MURDERER SPEEDS THINGS UP
Wednesday—Thursday, December 1-- 2
The professor’s resolve remained firm, even after that ordeal. The disappointing result of the Arras investigation, to which he had dedicated the whole of Tuesday, wasn’t enough to demoralise him. But on Wednesday morning, as he sat alone in the Paris express (the others having already returned), he ran through the reasons he had to be dissatisfied.
What upset him the most was
