“Have they found the weapon she was killed with?”
“No. It might have been a hammer. More likely a bit of lead piping or something of that sort.”
“Have they found her money?”
“Only her purse, with some small change in it and her identity card. Tell me, Lec?ur, did you know she was a money-lender?”
“Yes. I knew.”
“And didn’t you tell me your brother’s been out of work for three months?”
“He has.”
“The concierge didn’t know.”
“Neither did the boy. It was for his sake he kept it dark.”
The Inspector crossed and uncrossed his legs. He was uncomfortable. He glanced at the other two men who couldn’t help hearing everything, then turned with a puzzled look to stare at Lec?ur.
“Do you realize what all this is pointing to?”
“I do.”
“You’ve thought of it yourself?”
“No.”
“Because he’s your brother?”
“No.”
“How long is it that this killer’s been at work? Nine weeks, isn’t it?”
Without haste, Lec?ur studied the columns of his notebook.
“Yes. Just over nine weeks. The first was on the twentieth of October, in the Epinettes district.”
“You say your brother didn’t tell his son he was out of a job. Do you mean to say he went on leaving home in the evening just as though he was going to work?”
“Yes. He couldn’t face the idea of telling him. You see—it’s difficult to explain. He was completely wrapped up in the boy. He was all he had to live for. He cooked and scrubbed for him, tucked him up in bed before going off, and woke him up in the morning.”
“That doesn’t explain why he couldn’t tell him.”
“He couldn’t bear the thought of appearing to the kid as a failure, a man nobody wanted and who had doors slammed in his face.”
“But what did he do with himself all night?”
“Odd jobs. When he could get them. For a fortnight, he was employed as night watchman in a factory in Billancourt. but that was only while the regular man was ill. Often he got a few hours’ work washing down cars in one of the big garages. When that failed, he’d sometimes lend a hand at the market unloading vegetables. When he had one of his bouts—”
“Bouts of what?”
“Asthma. He had them from time to time. Then he’d lie down in a station waiting room. Once he spent a whole night here, chatting with me.”
“Suppose the boy woke up early this morning and saw his father at Madame Fayet’s?”
“There was frost on the windows.”
“There wouldn’t be if the window was open. Lots of people sleep with their windows open even in the coldest weather.”
“It wasn’t the case with my brother. He was always a chilly person. And he was much too poor to waste warmth.”
“As far as his window was concerned, the boy had only to scratch away the frost with his fingernail. When I was a boy—
“Yes. So did I. The thing is to find out whether the old woman’s window was open.”
“It was, and the light was switched on.”
“I wonder where Francois can have got to.”
“The boy?”
It was surprising and a little disconcerting the way he kept all the time reverting to him. The situation was certainly embarrassing, and somehow made all the more so by the calm way in which Andre Lec?ur gave the Inspector the most damaging details about his brother.
“When he came in this morning,” began Saillard again, “he was carrying a number of parcels. You realize —”
“It’s Christmas.”
“Yes. But he’d have needed quite a bit of money to buy a chicken, a cake, and that new radio. Has he borrowed any from you lately?”
“Not for a month. I haven’t seen him for a month. I wish I had. I’d have told him that I was getting a radio for Francois myself. I’ve got it here. Downstairs, that is, in the cloakroom. I was going to take it straight round as soon as I was relieved.”
“Would Madame Fayet have consented to lend him money?”
“It’s unlikely. She was a queer lot. She must have had quite enough money to live on, yet she still went out to work, charring from morning to evening. Often she lent money to the people she worked for. At exorbitant interest, of course. All the neighborhood knew about it, and people always came to her when they needed something to tide them over till the end of the month.”
Still embarrassed, the Inspector rose to his feet. “I’m going to have a look.” he said.
“At Madame Fayet’s?”
“There and in the Rue Vasco de Gama. If you get any news, let me know, will you?”
“You won’t find any telephone there, but I can get a message to you through the Javel police station.”
The Inspector’s footsteps had hardly died away before the telephone bell rang. No lamp had lit up on the wall. This was an outside call, coming from the Gare d’Austerlitz.
“Lec?ur? Station police speaking. We’ve got him.”
“Who?”
“The man whose description was circulated. Lec?ur. Same as you. Olivier Lec?ur. No doubt about it, I’ve seen his identity card.”
“Hold on, will you?”
Lec?ur dashed out of the room and down the stairs just in time to catch the Inspector as he was getting into one of the cars belonging to the Prefecture.
“Inspector! The Gare d’Austerlitz is on the phone. They’ve found my brother.”
Saillard was a stout man and he went up the stairs puffing and blowing. He took the receiver himself.
“Hallo! Yes. Where was he? What was he doing? What? No, there’s no point in your questioning him now. You’re sure he didn’t know? Right. Go on looking out. It’s quite possible. As for him, send him here straightaway. At the Prefecture, yes.”
He hesitated for a second and glanced at Lec?ur before saying finally, “Yes. Send someone with him. We can’t take any risks.”
The Inspector filled his pipe and lit it before explaining, and when he spoke he looked at nobody in particular.
“He was picked up after he’d been wandering about the station for over an hour. He seemed very jumpy. Said he was waiting there to meet his son. from whom he’d received a message.”
“Did they tell him about the murder?”
“Yes. He appeared to be staggered by the news and terrified. I asked them to bring him along.” Rather diffidently he added: “I asked them to bring him here. Considering your relationship, I didn’t want you to think —”
Lec?ur had been in that room since eleven o’clock the night before. It was rather like his early years when he spent his days in his mother’s kitchen. Around him was an unchanging world. There were the little lamps, of course, that kept going on and off, but that’s what they always did. They were part and parcel of the immutability of the place. Time flowed by without anyone noticing it.
Yet, outside, Paris was celebrating Christmas. Thousands of people had been to Midnight Mass, thousands more had spent the night roistering, and those who hadn’t known where to draw the line had sobered down in the
