“The police, then le Parquet, investigate. The corpse is there, on its back. The face is calm, almost smiling. On the shirt is a large red stain where the heart is. No need to formally recite the details. You know the result in advance. We’re now at the third known exploit of the bandit and he doesn’t vary his method. It’s true that, up to now, it’s been very effective. As usual, no clues. No sign of a struggle. Nothing’s been taken, nothing is missing.
“But, you ask, why did no one hear the detonation? Let us not forget it was the 11th of November and in the street children, untroubled by the weather, had been letting off fireworks all day long.
“This morning, once the autopsy was completed (always the same song: bullet to the heart, death instantaneous) an aeroplane carried an expert gunsmith with the projectile to Nancy. It was clearly demonstrated that it was fired from the same weapon as the others.
“That’s it. As for motive: nothing. The murderer, after the crime, vanished without trace.
“What now? An agonising question must be asked. Will the murderer continue, in the same fashion, to kill in every corner of France? Whose turn will it be tomorrow?”
What was rich about the article—which the public was not to know—was that it had been written off the cuff. Vital had not been present at the visit to the house. As he was leaving the examining magistrate’s office, he had said to Maryse:
‘Be a darling and cover for me. I have an errand to run on the other side of town. One can just as well be the eyes for two. I’ll meet you back at the hotel and you can fill me in. Provided you’ll let me return the favour.’
The following day, Saturday November 12th, the reporters dispersed to the Breton capital to look for a trail. Alas, their luck was out. With the result that, over cocktails that evening, they decided to return to Paris that same night.
‘A pity we didn’t come to that decision earlier,’ said Maryse. ‘There was a train at four o’clock that would have got us to Paris before midnight. That’s right, isn’t it, Jacques?’
‘Yes. That’s the one I took the day before yesterday,’ he replied briefly.
At the station, as he was accompanying the happy group, Jacques ran into a tall, hefty fellow who had just got off the train from Saint-Malo.
‘Well if it isn’t Monsieur Vital. I only put you on the train early Thursday morning at Saint-Malo, and now I find you here, at night!’
‘The pressure of work got me here very fast, dear Monsieur Broche.’
He made the introductions:
‘M. Hervé Broche, secretary to the Syndicate of Saint-Malo Fishermen, who was of great help to me in my investigation. Wait here, monsieur, whilst I leave these children to make their way back to Paris on their horrible little local train, which won’t arrive at the Montparnasse station before tomorrow, if it arrives at all. I’m staying. I have a hunch that it’s here that I shall discover the seeds of my victory. For I am more determined than ever to beat you all.’
III
MARSEILLE
PROFESSOR RICHARD’S PREDICTIONS
Tuesday, November 16
Ten o’clock in the morning. Marseille, Saint-Charles station. The train, with its sputtering locomotive and screeching brakes, had not even come to a complete halt before a joyous and noisy band of revellers stepped down from a first-class carriage. It was more or less the same men (and one woman) whom we saw, four days before, at Montparnasse. Vital was not amongst them, but he had been replaced by a new face: Hyacinthe L’Herissé (with an apostrophe). A curious personage, this one. A decadent poet, having published at his own expense a slim volume of ultra-surrealist poetry entitled Hypophisis, he had become a journalist in order to pay for it. For now, he wrote for Siècle, an intermittently appearing journal which had aready fired half-a-dozen directors.
Jacques, meanwhile, wasn’t far away. He was waiting on the platform. It was a rush. Smiling, he replied to all the questions they were pestering him about, whilst his eyes sought out Maryse. This time she was wearing a grey suit with silver fox fur and, despite the night passed in the train, appeared quite fresh. Straight away he explained:
‘On Saturday night, and throughout the whole of Sunday, I was in Rennes; a total fiasco. As a last resort, I took an unreliable and capricious so-called express to Dijon. I was getting ready, after an uneventful day, to depart for Nancy, when I learnt about the new crime. I was already at the station. All I had to do was change platform, to arrive here at three o’clock in the morning. A small bribe and I was on the trail—or should I say absence of trail?—by seven. I suddenly thought you would be arriving and decided to greet you in the absence of the useless local authorities.’
‘And what have you learnt?’ asked voices from all sides.
‘You can see for yourselves. It’s a stone’s throw from here. Nothing new, by the way. Absolutely the same as every other case, except this time nobody saw the man in grey... Oh, no, this is not right.’
‘What?...’ Maryse started to ask, then understood: her uncle, Professor Richard, was approaching with nervous little steps, his goatee raised by a breeze that even the most fervent Marseillais amongst the journalists would not call a Mistral.
‘Good morning, uncle,’ they shouted in unison. They knew him well, having often asked him for details he never refused to reveal.
Richard was smiling happily. He adored these children, as he called them.
Professor Fernand Richard was nearly seventy years old, but had stayed alert. Professeur de Physiologie at la Sorbonne, he had never, since the
