The Erasers

6

As he left the police station, Wallas was once again seized by that impression of empty-headedness which he had earlier attributed to the cold. He then decided that the long walk on an empty stomach-which too light a breakfast had not made up for afterward-also contributed something to this feeling. To be in a position to think to advantage about the commissioner’s remarks and to put his own ideas in order, Wallas has decided it would be a good idea to eat a heavier meal. So he has gone into a restaurant he had noticed an hour before, where he has eaten with a good appetite two eggs and some ham with toast. At the same time, he has had the waitress explain the most convenient way to get to the Rue de Corinthe. Passing once more in front of the statue that decorates the Place de la Prefecture, he has approached it to read, on the west side of the pedestal, the inscription carved in the stone: “The Chariot of State-V. Daulis, sculptor.”

He has found the clinic easily, but Doctor Juard has just left. The reception nurse has asked him the purpose of his visit; he has answered that he preferred to speak to the doctor in person; she has then asked him if he wished to speak with Madame Juard who-she said-was also a doctor and, besides, was in charge of the clinic. Wallas has explained that he had not come for medical reasons. This explanation made the nurse smile-for no apparent reason-but she has asked nothing further. She did not know when the doctor would be back; it would be best to come back later, or telephone. While she closes the door behind him, she has murmured, loud enough so Wallas could hear her:

“They’re all the same!”

Wallas has returned to the square and walked around the prefecture on the right side, intending to come out onto the Boulevard Circulaire near the Rue des Arpenteurs; but he has lost his way in a labyrinth of tiny streets where the sudden turns and detours have forced him to walk much longer than was necessary. After crossing a canal, he has finally reached a familiar neighborhood: the Rue de Brabant and the imitation brick buildings of the wood exporters. During this entire course his attention has been completely absorbed by his concern to proceed in the right direction; and when, after crossing the parkway, he has found himself standing in front of the little house surrounded by spindle trees, the latter has suddenly looked sinister to him, whereas this morning he had been struck, on the contrary by its attractive appearance. He has tried to dismiss such unreasonable ideas, setting them down to fatigue, and he has decided to take the streetcar to move around the city from now on.

It is at this moment that he has realized that, for almost a half-hour, his mind had been exclusively preoccupied by the nurse’s expression and tone: polite but apparently full of double meanings. She almost looked as though she supposed he wanted a shady doctor-for God knows what reason.

Wallas follows the hedge, behind the iron fence, and stops at the gate, where he stares for a minute at the front of the house. There are two windows on the ground floor, three upstairs, one of which (on the left) is partly open.

Contrary to his expectation, no bell sounds when he opens the gate and walks into the garden. He closes the gate, follows the gravel path, and walks up the four steps to the door. He presses the bell; a distant ring answers. In the center of the varnished oak door is a rectangular window protected by an elaborate grillwork: something like intertwined flower stems, with long, supple leaves…it might also represent wisps of smoke…

After a few seconds, Wallas rings again. Since no one comes to open the door, he glances through the little window-but without being able to make out anything inside. Then he looks up toward the second-story windows. An old woman is leaning just far enough out of the left one to catch sight of him.

“Who do you want?” she cries when she realizes she has been seen. “No one’s here. You’d better leave, young man.”

Her tone is suspicious and cold, but nevertheless something about it hints at the possibility of getting around her. Wallas assumes his most agreeable manner:

“You’re Madame Smite, aren’t you?”

“What did you say?”

“You’re Madame Smite, aren’t you?” he repeats, somewhat louder.

This time she answers as if she had understood long before:

“Yes, of course! What do you want Madame Smite fori” And without waiting she adds in her shrill voice: “If it’s for the telephone, I can tell you now that you’ve come too late, young man: there’s no one here any more!”

“No, Madame, that’s not what it’s about. I’d like to talk to you.”

“I don’t have time to stay and talk. I’m packing my things.”

Wallas is shouting now, by contagion and almost as loudly as the old woman. He insists:

“Listen, Madame Smite, I only want to ask you for a little information.”

The old woman still does not seem to have made up her mind to let him in. He has stepped back so that she can see him more easily: his respectable clothes certainly count in his favor. And finally the housekeeper declares, before disappearing into the room: “I can’t understand a word you’re saying, young man. I’ll come down.”

But quite a while passes, and nothing at all happens. Wallas is on the point of calling, fearing she has forgotten all about him, when suddenly the window in the front door opens without his having heard the slightest noise in the hall, and the old woman’s face presses up against the grill.

“So you’re here for the telephone, are you?” she shrieks stubbornly (and just as loudly, though she is now six inches from her interlocutor). “That makes a week we’ve been waiting for you, young man! You’re not coming from an asylum, at least, like the one last night?”

Wallas is somewhat baffled.

“Well, I…” he begins, supposing she’s referring to the clinic, “I stopped by there but…”

The old housekeeper interrupts him at once, outraged:

“What? Does the company hire only lunatics? And you’ve probably stopped in every cafe on the way too, before you got here, haven’t you?”

Wallas remains calm. Laurent has suggested that the woman sometimes said funny things; still, he did not think she was this crazy. He will have to explain the matter to her carefully, articulating each word so she can understand what he is saying:

“No, listen, Madame, you’re making a mistake “

But Wallas suddenly remembers the two cafes he was in this morning-and the one he has slept in as well; these are facts he cannot deny, although he does not see why he should be blamed for them. Besides, why should he bother himself about these grotesque accusations?

“It’s a misunderstanding. It’s not the company that’s sending me.” (That, at least, he can state without any ambiguity whatever.)

“Then what’s this all about, young man?” the suspicious face replies.

An interrogation is not going to be easy under these conditions! Probably her employer’s murder has unsettled the housekeeper’s mind.

“I told you I’m not here for the telephone,” Wallas repeats, forcing himself to be patient.

“Well,” she exclaims, “you don’t have to shout so loud, you know. I’m not deaf!” She reads lips, obviously. “And if you’re not here for the telephone, there’s no use talking.”

Preferring not to bring up the subject again, Wallas quickly explains the purpose of his visit. To his great surprise, he makes himself understood without the slightest difficulty: Madame Smite agrees to let him come in. But instead of opening the door, she remains staring at him, behind the grill that half conceals her face. Through the opening in the window which she is about to close again, she remarks, finally, with a touch of reproach (shouldn’t he have known about it long since?):

“Not through this door, young man. It’s too hard to open. You can walk around to the back.”

And the window closes with a click. As he walks down the steps to the gravel path, Wallas feels her eyes fixed on him from the darkness of the hall.

Nevertheless old Anna hurries toward the kitchen. This gentleman has a nicer look about him than the two who came last night, with their red faces and their big boots. They went all over the place to do their dirty work and did not even listen to what they were told. She had to keep a close watch over them, for fear they might take something; their looks did not inspire much confidence. What if they were accomplices who had come to look for what the thief had not been able to steal when he ran away? This one looks less shrewd-and keeps getting mixed up in a lot of nonsense before coming to the point-but certainly he is better brought up. Monsieur Dupont always wanted her to let people in through the front door. The locks are too complicated. Now that he is dead, they can just as well walk around.

Wallas arrives at the little glass door the commissioner has mentioned to him. He knocks on a pane with his forefinger doubled up. Since the old housekeeper has disappeared again, he tries to turn the handle; the door is not locked. He pushes it open, it creaks on its hinges, like the door in an abandoned house-haunted maybe-where each movement provokes a flight of owls and bats. But once the door is closed, no rustle of wings disturbs the silence. Wallas takes a few hesitant steps; his eyes, growing used to the dimness, glances around the woodwork, the complicated moldings, the brass column at the foot of the staircase, the carpets, everything that constituted the ornaments of a bourgeois residence early in the century.

Wallas starts, suddenly hearing Madame Smite’s voice calling him from the end of the hallway. He turns around and sees the figure silhouetted against the glass door. For a second he has the impression that he has just been caught in a trap.

It is the kitchen she has asked him to come into, a lifeless kitchen that looks like a model: the stove perfectly polished, the paint spotless, a row of copper pots fastened to the wall, and so well-scrubbed no one would dare use them. There is no suggestion of the daily preparation of meals; the few objects that are not shut away in the cupboards seem fixed forever ia their places on the shelves.

The old lady, dressed in black, is almost elegant despite her felt slippers; besides, this is the only detail that indicates she is at home here and not visiting an empty house. She tells Wallas to sit down opposite her and begins immediately:

“Well, it’s some story!”

But her loud voice, instead of sounding distressed, seems to Wallas like a clumsy exclamation in a play. He would swear, now, that the row of pots is painted on the wall in trompe-l’oeil. The death of Daniel Dupont is no more than an abstract event being discussed by dummies.

“He’s dead, isn’t he?” the housekeeper shrieks, so loudly that Wallas moves his chair back a few inches. He is already preparing a sentence expressing his condolences, but without leaving him time to get it out, she continues, leaning a little closer to him: “Well, I’m going to tell you, my boy, I’m going to tell you who killed him, so listen to me!”

“You know who killed Dupont?” Wallas asks, flabbergasted.

“It’s that Doctor Juard. The one with the sly face. I went to call him myself because-it’s true-I was forgetting to tell you: they cut the telephone wires here. Yes! Since the day before yesterday…no, even before that: I’m losing track now. What is it today…Monday…”

“Tuesday,” Wallas corrects timidly.

“What did you say?”

“Today is Tuesday,” Wallas repeats.

She moves her lips as she watches him talk, then squints incredulously. But she continues: you have to make such concessions to stubborn children.

“All right, say Tuesday. Well, as I was saying, the telephone hasn’t been working since…Sunday, Saturday, Friday…”

“Madame, are you saying it was Doctor Juard who murdered Daniel Dupont?” Wallas interrupts.

“Of course that’s what I’m saying, young man! Besides, everyone knows he’s a murderer; go out and ask anyone in the street. Oh, I’m sorry now I ever listened to Monsieur Dupont; he insisted on Doctor Juard-he had his notions, you know, and he never paid any attention to whatever I might think of them. Well, people are what they are; I’m not going to start speaking ill of him now…I was here, washing the dishes after dinner, when I heard him call me from upstairs; when I passed, I noticed the door had been opened-the one you just came in. Monsieur Dupont was on the landing-and as alive as you or I, you know-only he had his left arm against his chest and a little blood on his hand. He was holding his revolver in the other hand. I had a terrible time getting rid of the little bloodstains he made on my carpet, and it took me at least two hours to clean the bedspread where I found him lying when I came back-when I came back from telephoning. It’s not easy to get off, you know; luckily, he wasn’t bleeding much. He told me: ‘It’s just a flesh wound in my arm; don’t worry, it’s nothing serious.’ I wanted to take care of him myself, but he didn’t let me, stubborn as he was-I told you-and I had to go call that miserable doctor who took him away in a car. He didn’t even want me to hold him up, coming down the stairs! But when I got to the clinic early this morning to take him a change of linen, they suddenly told me he was dead. ‘Heart failure’ that murderer told me! And he wasn’t any prouder than that, no indeed, young man. I didn’t make a fuss; still, I’d like to know who killed him if it wasn’t that Doctor Juard! For once in his life, Monsieur Dupont would have done better to listen to me…”

It is almost a note of triumph that sounds in the old woman’s voice. Most likely her master kept her from talking, so as not to be deafened by that terrible voice; now she’s trying to make up for it. Wallas attempts to put some order in this flood of words. Madame Smite, apparently, has been more disturbed by the bloodstains she had to wash off than by her employer’s wound. She has not checked whether it was really his arm that had been hit: moreover, Dupont had not let her get too close a look; and the blood on his hand does not prove much. He was wounded in the chest and did not want to terrify his housekeeper by admitting it. In order to deceive her, he even managed to stand up and walk to the ambulance; it may even have been this effort that finished him off. The doctor, in any case, should not have let him do it. Obviously it is the doctor who must be questioned.

“Juard Clinic. Gynecology. Maternity Home.” The nurse who opened the door did not even tell him to come in; she was standing in the opening of the door, ready to close it again: like a guardian afraid that some stranger would try to force his way in, but at the same time she insisted on keeping him:

“And what is it you wish, Monsieur?”

“I wanted to speak to the doctor.”

“Madame Juard is in her office-it’s always Madame Juard who receives our clients.”

“But I’m not a client. I must see the doctor in person.”

“Madame Juard is a doctor too, Monsieur. She is in charge of the clinic, so of course she’s in touch with all the…”

When he finally told her that he had no need of the clinic’s services, she stopped talking, as though she had found out what she wanted; and she looked at him with the vaguely superior smile of someone who knew perfectly well what he wanted from the start. Her politeness assumed a nuance of impertinence:

“No, Monsieur, he didn’t say when he was coming back. Don’t you want to leave your name?”

“It’s no use, my name won’t mean anything to him.”

He had distinctly heard: “They’re all the same!”

“…that murderer told me…”

On the hallway carpet downstairs, the old woman shows him the scarcely perceptible traces of five or six spots of something. Wallas asks if the inspectors who came the evening before took the victim’s revolver with them.

“Certainly not!” Madame Smite exclaims. “You don’t suppose I let those two loot the house? I put it back in his drawer. He might have needed it again.”

Wallas would like to see it. She leads him into the bedroom: rather a large room, of the same impersonal and old-fashioned comfort as the rest of the house, stuffed with hangings, curtains, and carpets. A complete silence must have reigned in this house, where everything is arranged to muffle the slightest sound. Did Dupont wear felt slippers too? How did he manage to speak to his deaf servant without raising his voice? Habit probably. Wallas notices that the bedspread has been changed-it could not have been cleaned so perfectly. Everything is as neat and orderly as if nothing had ever happened.

Madame Smite opens the night table drawer and hands Wallas a pistol he recognizes at first glance: it is the same model as his own, a serious weapon for self-defense, not a plaything. He takes out the clip and notices that one bullet has already been fired.

“Did Monsieur Dupont shoot at the man running away?” he asks, although he knows the answer in advance: when Du-pont came back with his revolver, the murderer had disappeared. Wallas would like to show the gun to Commissioner Laurent, but the housekeeper hesitates about letting him take it, then she gives in with a shrug:

“Take it with you, young man. What use is it here now?”

“I’m not asking you for a present. This pistol is a piece of evidence, you understand?”

“Take it, I tell you, since you want it so much.”

“And you don’t know if your employer had used it before, for something else?”

“What do you think he would use it for, young man? Monsieur Dupont was not a man to shoot off his revolver in the house to amuse himself. No, thank God. He had his faults, but…” Wallas puts the pistol in his overcoat pocket.

The housekeeper leaves her visitor; she has nothing else to tell him: her late employer’s difficult character, the strenuous washing of the bloodstains, the criminal doctor, the continuing negligence of the telephone company… She has already repeated all this several times; now she has to finish packing her suitcases in order not to miss the two o’clock train that will take her to her daughter’s. It is not a very nice time of the year to be going to the country; still, she has to hurry. Wallas looks at his watch: it still shows seven-thirty. In Dupont’s bedroom, the bronze clock on the mantelpiece, between the empty candlesticks, had also stopped.

Yielding to the special agent’s urging, Madame Smite finally admits that she is supposed to give the house keys to the police; somewhat reluctantly she gives him the key to the back door. He will close it himself when he leaves. The housekeeper will leave by the front door, for she also has the keys for it. As for the garden gate, the lock has not been working for a long time. Wallas remains alone in the study. Dupont lived in this tiny room, he left it only to sleep and to take his meals, at noon and at seven at night. Wallas approaches the desk; the inspectors appear to have left everything as it was: on the blotter is lying the sheet of paper on which Dupont had written only four words so far: “which can not prevent…”-”…death…” obviously. That is the word he was looking for when he went downstairs to eat.