‘Bravo, Bob,’ said the Président. ‘Excellent work. We now have the secret, and you’ve prevented another crime.’
‘Not so fast,’ interjected Richard again, clearly seething. ‘There’s someone he’s not going to save.’
‘And who would that be?’
‘My niece, Maryse. Her suspicions were becoming dangerous. I set her a trap, at my residence. By now she’s dead, asphyxiated.’
‘Jannin. On your way. As quickly as possible. Maybe we can get there in time.’
‘I don’t think so,’ sneered the professor. ‘It’s half-past one. Maryse has been there since half-past eleven. She’s been dead for at least half-an-hour.’
Jannin had reached the door and was extending a hand trembling with emotion to turn the handle, when it opened... Maryse stood there, slightly pale, but forcing a smile. Jacques, behind her, was holding her up.
They stood there without a word. Nobody else spoke. Richard grunted. He looked at them in dazed disbelief. Suddenly there was a burst of laughter, as clear as a bell. It was Bob, and his mirth seemed to chase away all the macabre phantoms in the room.
‘Well, professor,’ he exclaimed, ‘you don’t appear to be in form at the moment. As someone said, the people you killed seem to be in remarkably good health. Just now, it was the poor astronomer who was supposed to be a corpse in Cairo. Now, it’s your charming niece who has returned from the dead. My condolences, but it looks like the time to retire.’
I shall never forget the look of pure hatred in Richard’s eyes. He hissed:
‘The only error I committed was not to eliminate you at the start. I thought I was stronger. I knew that the others didn’t count. But it amused me. That’s why I lost.’
Romain Bernès shot a look of disgust at his old friend then, addressing the two young people, asked:
‘But... what happened? How is it that...?’
It was first necessary to seat Maryse. Despite all her efforts to remain standing, it was obvious she was at the end of her tether. It was Jacques who explained:
‘About an hour ago, M. Slowman came to find me in the antechamber and said to me: “ Maryse is in grave danger. A trap has been set for her in her uncle’s house. Get there as quickly as possible, but don’t fall for it. In my opinion, the most dangerous place is the laboratory. Jannin and I can’t leave, but I’m sure I can count on you to do your best.”
‘I ran like a madman. In Rue Cassini everything was locked, but one of my keys fit the entrance door, and the lobby door didn’t offer much resistance. Maryse’s wet shoes had left traces pointing towards the laboratory. The door was locked and resisted all my efforts. Despite all the noise I was making, there was no response from Maryse. That worried me, and I decided on more drastic action. I knew there were several iron bars in the toolshed in the garden. I fetched one and, two minutes later, the door was open. I couldn’t see Maryse at first, but an acrid smell made me cough. I stepped back instinctively, but the thought of Maryse lying there, dying or even dead, spurred me on. I’d often read that, in such cases, it’s best to cover the mouth with a handkerchief, and that’s what I did. Maryse was there, on the floor behind the large table, unconscious. The rest... doesn’t matter.’
He stopped to look at the young woman. She was asleep, with her head back. There was no doubt that it was a natural sleep. The pink had come back into her cheeks (as far as one could tell, under the make-up) and her breathing was gently normal. We smiled at each other as Jacques went over to Bob, took both of his hands, and squeezed them hard. The Président du Conseil coughed:
‘We find ourselves,’ he intoned, ‘still in the presence of problems: we don’t know who Richard’s accomplice is, nor where he is hiding. Also, I would like to know how M. Slowman knew that Maryse was in danger in the house in Rue Cassini.’
‘If you want to see the murderer... Here he is.’
And, with a rapid gesture, Bob, approaching the professor, put both hands on his face. When he pulled them away, the spectacles fell off and I saw that my friend held something soft and grey that I could not properly make out. An exclamation escaped all our lips. The professor was no longer in front of us, but had been replaced by a clean-shaven man in his thirties, with close-cut hair and a U-shaped scar on the left side of his skull. I recognised him as the man who had fired on Duroyer, the man in grey.
‘Gentlemen,’ said Bob, ‘allow me to present Dr. André Richard.’
‘The rest,’ he continued, after we had recovered from the shock, ‘is easy to understand. André, already a victim of a terrible aeroplane accident which left him with that scar, and possibly affected his mental stability, was informed by Bernard Argier about the tremendous importance of the secret he had discovered. He decided to appropriate it and, with the Egyptian barely dead, embarked upon his campaign. He needed money and the freedom to manoeuvre. He obtained both by staging his own murder. Who was the poor unfortunate whose remains were recovered? I don’t know, but, homicidal mania not yet having gripped him, I would like to think it was a corpse awaiting autopsy in the hospital. At the same time, Richard walked off with his cash and procured the sinew of his war.
‘Only one man had any doubts: his father. Which explains the professor’s reluctance to be enlisted as the criminologist. And, very quickly, in pursuit of the man in grey, he was seized by a terrible suspicion. He had no proof but, with each new crime, his intuition—which,
