Those crosses told the story of the night life of Paris.
“Some coffee, Lec?ur?”
“Thanks.”
Feeling rather out of touch where he was. he dragged his camp bed into the big room, placing it in a position from which he could see the wall-plan. There he sipped his coffee, after which he stretched himself out again, sometimes studying his notebook, sometimes lying with his eyes shut. Now and again he stole a glance at his brother, who sat hunched in his chair with drooping shoulders, the twitching of his long white fingers being the only sign of the torture he was enduring.
There were hundreds of men now, not only in Paris but in the suburbs, keeping their eyes skinned for the boy whose description had been circulated. Sometimes false hopes were raised, only to be dashed when the exact particulars were given.
Lec?ur shut his eyes again, but opened them suddenly next moment, as though he had actually dozed off. He glanced at the clock, then looked round for the Inspector.
“Hasn’t Saillard got back yet?” he asked, getting to his feet.
“I expect he’s looked in at the Quai des Orfevres.”
Olivier stared at his brother, surprised to see him pacing up and down the room. The latter was so absorbed in his thoughts that he hardly noticed that the sun had broken through the clouds, bathing Paris on that Christmas afternoon in a glow of light more like that of spring.
While thinking, he listened, and it wasn’t long before he heard Inspector Saillard’s heavy tread outside.
“You’d better go and get some sandwiches,” he said to his brother. “Get some for me, too.”
“What kind?”
“Ham. Anything. Whatever you find.”
Olivier went out, after a parting glance at the map, relieved, in spite of his anxiety, to be doing something.
The men of the afternoon shift knew little of what was afoot, except that the killer had done another job the previous night and that there was a general hunt for a small boy. For them, the case couldn’t have the flavor it had for those who were involved. At the switchboard. Bedeau was doing a crossword with his earphones on his head, breaking off from time to time for the classic: “Hallo! Austerlitz. Your car’s out.”
A body fished out of the Seine. You couldn’t have a Christmas without
that!
“Could I have a word with you, Inspector?”
The camp bed was back in the cloakroom. It was there that Lec?ur led the chief of the homicide squad.
“I hope you won’t mind my butting in. I know it isn’t for me to make suggestions. But, about the killer—”
He had his little notebook in his hand. He must have known its contents almost by heart.
“I’ve been doing a lot of thinking since this morning and—” A little while ago, while he was lying down, it had seemed so clear, but now that he had to explain things, it was difficult to put them in logical order.
“It’s like this. First of all, I noticed that all the murders were committed after two in the morning, most of them after three.”
He could see by the look on the Inspector’s face that he hadn’t exactly scored a hit, and he hurried on:
“I’ve been looking up the time of other murders over the past three years. They were nearly always between ten in the evening and two in the morning.”
Neither did that observation seem to make much impression. Why not take the bull by the horns and say straight out what was on his mind?
‘Just now. looking at my brother, it occurred to me that the man you’re looking for might be a man like him. As a matter of fact, I, too, for a moment wondered whether it wasn’t him. Wait a moment—”
That was better. The look of polite boredom had gone from Saillard’s
face.
“If I’d had more experience in this sort of work I’d be able to explain myself better. But you’ll see in a moment. A man who’s killed eight people one after the other is, if not a madman, at any rate a man who’s been thrown off his balance. He might have had a sudden shock. Take my brother, for instance. When he lost his job it upset him so much that he preferred to live in a tissue of lies rather than let his son—”
No. Put into words, it all sounded very clumsy. “When a man suddenly loses everything he has in life—” “He doesn’t necessarily go mad.”
“I’m not saying he’s actually mad. But imagine a person so full of resentment that he considers himself justified in revenging himself on his fellow-men. I don’t need to point out to you, Inspector, that other murderers always kill in much the same way. This one has used a hammer, a knife, a spanner, and one woman he strangled. And he’s never been seen, never left a clue. Wherever he lives in Paris, he must have walked miles and miles at night when there was no transport available, sometimes, when the alarm had been given, with the police on the lookout, questioning everybody they found in the streets. How is it he avoided them?”
He was certain he was on the right track. If only Saillard would hear him
out.
The Inspector sat on one of the camp beds. The cloakroom was small, and as Lec?ur paced up and down in front of him he could do no more than three paces each way.
“This morning, for instance, assuming he was with the boy, he went halfway across Paris, keeping out of sight of every police station and every traffic point where there’d be a man on duty.”
“You mean he knows the Fifteenth and Sixteenth Arrondissements by heart?”
“And not those only. At least two there, the Twelfth and the Twentieth, as he showed on previous occasions. He didn’t choose his victims haphazardly. He knew they lived alone and could be done in without any great risk.”
What a nuisance! There was his brother, saying: “Here are the sandwiches, Andre.”
“Thanks. Go ahead, will you? Don’t wait for me. I’ll be with you in a moment.”
He bundled Olivier back into his corner and returned to the cloakroom. He didn’t want him to hear.
“If he’s used a different weapon each time, it’s because he knows it will puzzle us. He knows that murderers generally have their own way and stick to it.”
The Inspector had risen to his feet and was staring at Andre with a faraway look, as though he was following a train of thought of his own.
“You mean that he’s—”
“That he’s one of us—or has been. I can’t get the idea out of my head.”
He lowered his voice.
“Someone who’s been up against it in the same sort of way as my brother. A discharged fireman might take to arson. It’s happened two or three times. A policeman—”
“But why should he steal?”
“Wasn’t my brother in need of money? This other chap may be like him in more ways than one. Supposing he. too. was a night worker and goes on pretending he’s still in a job. That would explain why the crimes are committed so late. He has to be out all night. The first part of it is easy enough—the cafes and bars are open. Afterward, he’s all alone with himself.”
As though to himself, Saillard muttered: “There wouldn’t be anybody in the personnel department on a day like this.”
“Perhaps you could ring up the director at his home. He might remember...”
“Hallo! Can I speak to Monsieur Guillaume, please? He’s not in? Where could I reach him? At his daughter’s in Ateuil? Have you got the number?”
“Hallo! Monsieur Guillaume? Saillard speaking. I hope I’m not disturbing you too much. Oh, you’d finished, had you? Good. It’s about the killer. Yes. there’s been another one. No. Nothing definite. Only we have an idea that needs checking, and it’s urgent. Don’t be too surprised at my question.
“Has any member of the Paris police been sacked recently—say two or three months ago? I beg your pardon? Not a single one this year? I see.”
Lec?ur felt a sudden constriction around his heart, as though overwhelmed by a catastrophe, and threw a pathetic, despairing look at the wall-map. He had already given up and was surprised to hear his chief go on:
“As a matter of fact, it doesn’t need to be as recent as all that. It would be someone who had worked in
