“Hallo! Police Judiciaire? Is Inspector Saillard there?”
He was another whom the murder had dragged from his fireside. How many people were there whose Christmas was going to be spoiled by it?
“Excuse my troubling you, Monsieur le Commissaire. It’s about that young boy, Francois Lec?ur.”
“Do you know anything? Is he a relation of yours?”
“He’s my brother’s son. And it looks as if he may well be the person who’s been smashing the glasses of the telephone pillars. Seven of them. I don’t know whether they’ve had time to tell you about that. What I wanted to ask was whether I might put out a general call?”
“Could you nip over to see me?”
“There’s no one here to take my place.”
“Right. I’ll come over myself. Meanwhile you can send out the call.”
Lec?ur kept calm, though his hand shook slightly as he plugged in once again to the room above.
“Justin? Lec?ur again. Appel General. Yes. It’s the same boy. Francois Lec?ur. Ten and a half, rather tall for his age, thin. I don’t know what he’s wearing, probably a khaki jumper made from American battle-dress. No, no cap. He’s always bare-headed, with plenty of hair flopping over his forehead. Perhaps it would be as well to send out a description of his father, too. That’s not so easy. You know me, don’t you? Well, Olivier Lec?ur is rather like a paler version of me. He has a timid look about him and physically he’s not robust. The sort that’s never in the middle of the pavement but always dodging out of other people’s way. He walks a bit queerly, owing to a wound he got in the first war. No, I haven’t the least idea where they might be going, only I don’t think they’re together. To my mind, the boy is probably in danger. I can’t explain why—it would take too long. Get the descriptions out as quickly as possible, will you? And let me know if there’s any response.”
By the time Lec?ur had finished telephoning, Inspector Saillard was there, having only had to come round the corner from the Quai des Orfevres. He was an imposing figure of a man, particularly in his bulky overcoat. With a comprehensive wave of the hand, he greeted the three men on watch, then, seizing a chair as though it were a wisp of straw, he swung it round towards him and sat down heavily. “The boy?” he inquired, looking keenly at Lec?ur.
“I can’t understand why he’s stopped calling us up.”
“Calling us up?”
“Attracting our attention, anyway.”
“But why should he attract our attention and then not say anything?”
“Supposing he was followed. Or was following someone.”
“I see what you mean. Look here, Lec?ur, is your brother in financial straits?”
“He’s a poor man, yes.”
“Is that all?”
“He lost his job three months ago.”
“What job?”
“He was linotype operator at
“How did he come to lose his job?”
“I suppose he fell out with somebody.”
“Is that a failing of his?”
They were interrupted by an incoming call from the Eighteenth to say that a boy selling branches of holly had been picked up in the Rue Lepic. It turned out, however, to be a little Pole who couldn’t speak any French.
“You were asking if my brother was in the habit of quarreling with people. I hardly know what to answer. He was never strong. Pretty well all his childhood he was ill on and off. He hardly ever went to school. But he read a great deal alone in his room.”
“Is he married?”
“His wife died two years after they were married, leaving him with a baby ten months old.”
“Did he bring it up himself?”
“Entirely. I can see him now bathing the little chap, changing his diapers, and warming the milk for his bottle.”
“That doesn’t explain why he quarrels with people.”
Admittedly. But it was difficult to put it into words.
“Soured?”
“Not exactly. The thing is—”
“What?”
“That he’s never lived like other people. Perhaps Olivier isn’t really very intelligent. Perhaps, from reading so much, he knows too much about some things and too little about others.”
“Do you think him capable of killing the old woman?”
The Inspector puffed at his pipe. They could hear the people in the room above walking about. The two other men fiddled with their papers, pretending not to listen.
“She was his mother-in-law,” sighed Lec?ur. “You’d have found it out anyhow, sooner or later.”
“They didn’t hit it off?”
“She hated him.”
“Why?”
“She considered him responsible for her daughter’s death. It seems she could have been saved if the operation had been done in time. It wasn’t my brother’s fault. The people at the hospital refused to take her in. Some silly question of her papers not being in order. All the same, Madame Fayet held to it that Olivier was to blame.”
“Did they see each other?”
“Not unless they passed each other in the street, and then they never spoke.”
“Did the boy know?”
“That she was his grandmother? I don’t think so.”
“You think his father never told him?”
* * *
Never for more than a second or two did Lec?ur’s eyes leave the plan of Paris, but, besides being Christmas, it was the quiet time of the day, and the little lamps lit up rarely. Two or three street accidents, a lady’s handbag snatched in the Metro, a suitcase pinched at the Gare de l’Est.
No sign of the boy. It was surprising considering how few people were about. In the poor quarters a few little children played on the pavements with their new toys, but on the whole the day was lived indoors. Nearly all the shops were shuttered and the cafes and the little bars were almost empty.
For a moment, the town came to life a bit when the church bells started pealing and families in their Sunday best hurried to High Mass. But soon the streets were quiet again, though haunted here and there by the vague rumble of an organ or a sudden gust of singing.
The thought of churches gave Lec?ur an idea. Might not the boy have tucked himself away in one of them? Would the police think of looking there? He spoke to Inspector Saillard about it and then got through to Justin for the third time.
“The churches. Ask them to have a look at the congregations. They’ll be doing the stations, of course—that’s most important.”
He took off his glasses for a moment, showing eyelids that were red, probably from lack of sleep.
“Hallo! Yes. The Inspector’s here. Hold on.”
He held the receiver to Saillard. “It’s Janvier.”
The bitter wind was still driving through the streets. The light was harsh and bleak, though here and there among the closely packed clouds was a yellowy streak which could be taken as a faint promise of sunshine to come.
When the Inspector put down the receiver, he muttered, “Dr. Paul says the crime was committed between five and half past six this morning. The old woman wasn’t killed by the first blow. Apparently she was in bed when she heard a noise and got up and faced the intruder. Indeed, it looks as though she tried to defend herself with the only weapon that came to hand—a shoe.”
