The Body in the Vestibule

trash bin. These looked very worn. She picked up her bags and started to drop them in, and drop them she did, but not in the trash. Fish heads, bones, lobster and shrimp shells, orange rinds splayed out on the stairs as Faith screamed. She screamed again.

It wasn't old clothes. It was the clochard.

And he was dead.

The clochard of St. Nizier—his mouth hideously slack, eyes rolled back, and one hand grasping the filthy casquette, still in place on his head.

The lights went out. Faith was alone with the corpse.

Three

Faith stumbled down the few stairs to the vestibule and frantically pushed the button to turn on the lights. She intended to turn right around and run as fast as she could up those 121 steps to Tom and a phone.

But she knew she had to do something first. She had to make sure he was dead.

The thought was nauseating and she could hardly bring herself to approach the trash again. Slowly, she crept around to the side of the large container and groped for his hand. She could feel the slick plastic of the garbage bags surrounding him, then the rough wool of his coat. The stench of the rotting garbage made her feel faint. She followed the arm down to his naked wrist and tried to find a pulse. She did not even want to think about what she might have to do if she did.

There was no pulse. It wasn't just the smell of the trash. It was the smell of death that filled the hall.

Faith instantly dropped the lifeless hand and went up the stairs, pausing to close the lid of the poubelle that was now a casket. It didn't seem right to leave it open. Besides, she didn't like the idea of looking down on the body as she went up the stairs—and she knew she would look, no matter how much she told herself not to.

As she started to close the lid, she wondered what death throes had caused that convulsive grasping for his cap. His hand was like a leathery claw—the skin in folds, crossed on the back by a deep scratch, perhaps inflicted during yesterday's fight. She let the top come down and it slammed shut. She shuddered and quickly started to climb the stairs, hitting the light switch at each landing in terror at being left alone in the dark again. The cold from the stone stairs traveled through the thin rope soles of her shoes and she clutched her robe closer to her body.

How had the clochard gotten into the building and why had he climbed into the trash? Clochards slept wherever they wanted—in the parks or under the bridges of the Saone and Rhone in good weather; in shelters or the silk workers' tunnels, the traboules, in bad. If they could get into a building, they'd sleep in halls, but even clochards wouldn't sleep in dustbins, especially with the lid down. And the door to Place St. Nizier had been locked.

One more flight. She raced up and arrived at the door, panting for breath. It was only while she was fumbling with the keys that she realized no one had responded to her screams. Were the walls that thick?

“Tom!' She ran into the room and jumped on the bed, shaking him. 'Wake up, Tom!”

Tom did not make the transition from deep sleep to consciousness easily even in the best of circumstances and it took a moment for him to sit up and ask, 'What the hell is the matter?' In another moment, he was out of bed, 'Ben? Is it Ben?'

“No, Ben's fine!' Faith grabbed Tom's arm and pulled him back to the bed. She sat down next to him. 'We've got to call the police. I don't know how it happened, but that dochard who's always outside the church is in the trash downstairs, and he's dead.”

Tom shook his head and rubbed his eyes—hard. He knew that pregnant women had fancies, and during Ben's gestation, Faith had been fanciful indeed, yet it had usually taken the form of cravings for certain delicacies from New York restaurants and delicatessens that there was no way he could find at the Store 24 in Byford, the only source of food at ungodly hours. This hallucination was definitely something new—and one for the books.

“Darling, calm down and get back into bed. I think you've had a very powerful nightmare, but everything's fine. I'm here.”

Faith reached over and put on the light.

“I'm not dreaming! I wish I were! I couldn't sleep and the smell of all that fish was bothering me, so I took the trash down to the poubelle. And when I opened it, he was there. Dead. I even took his pulse.' At the recollection, she immediately got up to wash her hands. 'Go look for yourself if you like, but we've got to call the police. I mean you've got to. They'd never understand me.”

Tom followed Faith into the bathroom, where she started to scrub her entire arm thoroughly with Roger & Gallet's sandalwood soap.

“All right. I do believe you. It just seems so improbable.”

Faith briskly dried off and they went to the phone.

After telling the beginning of the story several times to what was apparently the wrong branch of the Police Na-tionale, Tom managed to explain the entire situation and was told they would be there immediatement.

“I'll have to let them in. Are you sure you're all right here?'

“Yes—and I certainly don't want to go with you.' Tom left with the key and Faith stood by the windows overlooking the street. In what seemed like only seconds, two police cars pulled up. She was impressed.

They approached the door and gave three resounding knocks with the heavy iron door knocker. The sound filled the night and Faith saw several lights go on in the buildings surrounding the square. Presumably, screams were normal nocturnal sounds in this part of the city. Such knocks on the door were not.

Tom must not have reached the vestibule. They knocked again. Faith opened the window and stepped out onto the small balcony. She was intending to tell them he was coming when she saw the door open. Several more lights went on at the neighbors'.

She stepped back and closed the window, then went into the living room to wait. After a few minutes, she decided to make some tea. She was freezing and maybe if she did something, she wouldn't keep seeing the clochard's face in front of her everywhere she looked.

The water had just come to a boil when she heard the keys in the locks and dashed down the hall to open the door. Tom stepped in first, followed by two policemen, gardiens de la paix in the city, she'd learned, not gendarmes, but they all wore those hats that made them look like children's book illustrations.

Tom appeared—what? Worried, embarrassed, tired— he was panting slightly and the gardiens, although trim, were winded. They were both tall, with dark hair. Then-cheeks were flushed and so smooth, it wasn't clear whether they'd both recently shaved or hadn't started to grow beards yet. The greatest difference between them was that there was a thin film of sweat on one's forehead, causing the dark hair that grazed it to curl slightly.

Faith stood contemplating the group for a moment, then asked, 'What is it? What's happening?' No one seemed to be rushing forward to tell her anything.

“Why don't we sit down, sweetheart,' Tom said, and led her to one of the chairs left in the living room after the party. The police glanced around in some surprise at the lack of furniture and remained standing.

“Faith, honey,' Tom said gently, 'There wasn't anything except trash in either of the poubelles.' 'What!'

“This is not to say you didn't see the clochard,' Tom started to explain, but then the younger of the two policemen interrupted.

“If I may, Monsieur Fairsheeld? I have some English, madame,' he explained, and pulled a chair next to hers and sat down, but not before glancing over his shoulder toward his partner. Madame was in a fetching white chemise de nuit insufficiently covered by a robe of the same material, her blond hair was delightfully disarranged, and her blue eyes, perhaps even larger than usual at the odd events of the evening, were striking. Madame Fairsheeld had been in bed no doubt and would soon return—it was a prospect with much appeal.

He pulled his chair a bit closer. 'First permit me to introduce myself. I am Sergeant Louis Martin and this is Sergeant Didier Pollet.' He paused for emphasis. 'Madame, what we believe has occurred is of course deeply upsetting. Occasionally, one of these men of the street—we call them