The Erasers

3

Wallas, already half turned around, hears the latch fall back into place; he lets go of the doorknob and looks up at the house opposite. He immediately recognizes, at a third-story window, that same net curtain he has noticed several times during his morning walk. It probably is not very healthy to make a baby drink from the ewe’s teats that way: certainly not very sanitary. Behind the wide mesh of the netting. Wallas glimpses a movement, discerns a figure; someone is watching him and, realizing he has been seen, gradually moves into the dark room to keep out of sight. A few seconds later there is nothing left, in the window frame, but the two shepherds carefully bending over the body of the newborn baby.

Wallas walks along the garden fence toward the bridge, wondering if, in an apartment building of that size and inhabited by middle-class people, one can calculate that there is always at least one tenant watching the street. Five floors, two apartments per floor on the south side, then, on the main floor…In order to estimate the probable number of tenants, he glances back; he sees the embroidered net curtain fall back-someone had shoved it aside to watch him more easily. If this person had remained watching all day long yesterday, he could be a useful witness. But who would carry curiosity so far as to watch the comings and goings of some hypothetical passer-by after dark? There would have to be some specific reason-suppose his attention had been attracted by a scream, or some unusual sound…or in any way at all.

Fabius, having closed the garden gate behind him, inspects the premises; but he does not look as if that is what he is doing: he is an ordinary insurance agent leaving his client’s house and looking up at the sky to the right and to the left to see from what direction the wind is coming… Suddenly he notices someone odd watching him behind the curtains at a third-story window. He immediately looks away, to avoid arousing any suspicion that he has noticed, and walks at an ordinary pace toward the parkway. But once he has crossed the bridge, he veers right, taking a winding course that brings him back, in about an hour, to the Boulevard Circulaire; without wasting any time he crosses the canal, taking the footbridge at this point. Then, furtively keeping to the base of the houses, he returns to his point of departure, in front of the apartment building at the corner of the Rue des Arpenteurs.

He walks into it boldly, through the door that opens onto the canal side, and knocks at the concierge’s window. He is representing a shade and blind establishment; he’d like to have the list of tenants whose windows look south, exposing them to the excessive ravages of the sun: faded rugs, pictures, draperies, or even worse-everyone has heard about those masterpieces that suddenly explode with a terrible noise, those ancestral portraits that suddenly begin to run, creating in the bosom of a family that disturbing impression whose fatal consequences are dissatisfaction, bad humor, quarrels, sickness, death…

“But winter’s coming now,” the concierge observes judiciously.

That doesn’t matter: Fabius knows that perfectly well, but he is preparing his spring campaign, and, besides, the winter sun that people worry about least is all the more to be feared I

Wallas smiles at this thought. He crosses the street and turns into the parkway. In front of the main entrance of the apartment building, a fat man in a blue apron, his face calm and cheerful, is polishing the brass doorknob-the concierge probably. He turns his head toward Wallas, who nods politely in reply. With a sly wink, the man says:

“If you’re cold, there’s still the bell to do!”

Wallas laughs pleasantly:

“I’ll leave you that for tomorrow: the good weather seems to be over.”

“The winter’s coming now,” the concierge answers.

And he begins polishing vigorously.

But Wallas wants to take advantage of the man’s good mood to engage in conversation:

“By the way, do you take care of the other wing of this building too?”

“Yes, of course! You think I’m not big enough to take care of two bells?”

“It’s not that, but I thought I recognized the face of an old friend of my mother’s up there, behind the window. I’d like to go say hello to her if I was sure I wasn’t mistaken. On the third floor, the apartment at the end…”

“Madame Bax?” the concierge asks.

“Yes, that’s right, Madame Bax! So it was Madame Bax. Funny how things happen: yesterday we were talking at dinner and we were just wondering what had become of her.”

“But Madame Bax isn’t old “

“No, of course not! She’s not at all old. I said ‘an old friend’ but I didn’t mean her age. I think I’ll go up. You don’t suppose she’s too busy?”

“Madame Bax? She’s always glued to the window watching the street! No, I’m sure she’d be delighted to see you.”

And without a moment’s hesitation, the man opens his door wide, then steps aside with an agreeably ceremonious gesture:

“This way, Prince! It doesn’t matter, the two staircases meet. Number twenty-four, on the third floor.”

Wallas thanks him and walks in. The concierge follows him in, closes the door and goes into his room. He has finished his work. He’ll polish the bell another day.

Wallas is received by a woman of uncertain age-perhaps still young, in fact-who, contrary to what he suspected, shows no surprise at this visit.

He simply tells her, showing her his police card, that the necessities of a difficult investigation oblige him to question, at random, all the people in the neighborhood who might provide any information at all. Without asking him any questions, she leads him into a room crowded with period furniture and indicates a tapestried chair. She herself sits down facing him, but some distance away, and waits, her hands clasped, looking at him earnestly.

Wallas begins speaking: a crime has been committed the evening before in the house opposite…

Her face carefully composed, Madame Bax indicates a slightly surprised-and pained-interest.

“You don’t read the newspapers?” Wallas asks.

“No, very rarely.”

In saying this, she gives him an almost mournful half-smile, as if she did not often have the daily papers at her disposal or else did not have time to read them. Her voice is like her face, gentle and faded. Wallas is an old relative come to pay a call, on her visiting day, after a long absence: he is telling her about the death of a mutual friend, whose loss she laments with well-mannered indifference. It is five in the afternoon. In a little while she will offer him a cup of tea.

“It’s a very sad story,” she says.

Wallas, who is not here to receive condolences, puts the question in precise terms: the position of her window might have allowed her to see or hear something.

“No,” she says, “I didn’t notice anything.”

She is very sorry.

Hadn’t she at least noticed some prowler, some suspicious-looking types she could identify: a man in the street, for instance, who might have been paying abnormal attention to the house?

“Oh, Monsieur, no one ever walks through this street.”

Many people walk along the parkway, yes, at certain times: they walk fast and disappear at once. No one comes along this street.

“Still,” Wallas says, “someone had to come last night.”

“Last night…” It is obvious she is searching her memory. “Yesterday was Monday?”

“It might just as well have been the day before too, or even last week: apparently their work was carefully prepared in advance. Even the telephone was out of order: it might have been a case of sabotage.”

“No,” she says after a moment’s thought, “I didn’t notice anything.”

Last night a man in a raincoat tore something out at the gate. It was hard to see because it was getting dark. He stopped at the end of the spindle-tree hedge, took out of his pocket a small object which might have been pliers or a file, and quickly stuck his arm between the last two bars to reach the top of the gate inside It only took half a minute: he pulled his hand out immediately and went on his way, with the same casual gait.

Since this lady assures him she knows nothing, Wallas is ready to say good-bye. It would obviously have been surprising if she had happened to be at her window at just the right time. Besides, on thinking it over, did this “right time” ever exist? It is rather unlikely that the murderers have come here in broad daylight to plan their attack so calmly-to inspect the premises, make a false key, or dig trenches in the garden to cut the telephone lines.

The first thing he has to do is get in touch with that Doctor Juard. Afterward, if no clue turns up there and if the commissioner has not learned anything new, the other tenants in the building could be questioned. The slightest opportunity must not be neglected. Meanwhile, he will ask Madame Bax not to give away the little story he used as an excuse to the concierge.

To prolong this rest period before continuing his wanderings, Wallas asks two or three more questions; he suggests different noises that might have caught the young woman’s attention, unconsciously; a revolver shot, footsteps running on the gravel, a slamming door, an automobile starting up suddenly… But she shakes her head and says with her strange smile:

“Don’t tell me too many details; you’ll end up making me think I saw the whole thing.”

Last night a man in a raincoat did something to the gate and since this morning you cannot hear the automatic buzzer when it opens. Yesterday, a man…No doubt she’ll end up telling him her secret. Moreover, she does not exactly know what it is restraining her.

Wallas, who since the start of the conversation has been wondering how to ask her politely if she has been watching much from her window recently, finally stands up. “May I?” He walks over to the window. It was in this room that he saw the curtain moving. Now he reconstitutes the image which, on the spot and from such close range, does not seem the same any more. He raises the material in order to see more clearly.

From this new angle, the house in the middle of its meticulous garden looks as though it were isolated by the lens of an optical instrument. His gaze shifts to the high chimneys, the slate roof-which in this part of the country strikes a note of preciosity-the brick front ornamentally framed by two field-stone courses which are also echoed, above the windows, by projecting lintels, the arch over the door and the four steps of the stoop. From the street level one cannot appreciate so fully the harmony of the proportions, the rigor-the necessity, one might say-of the whole structure, whose simplicity is scarcely disturbed-or on the contrary, accentuated-by the complicated grillwork of the balconies. Wallas tries to decipher some pattern in these intertwining curves, when he hears the slightly bored voice behind him declaring, as though it were an insignificant thing without any relation to the subject:

“Last night, a man in a raincoat…”

At first, Wallas did not believe in the truthfulness of a recollection so belated. Somewhat confused, he turned around toward Madame Bax: her face was still as calm, with that expression of polite exhaustion. The conversation continued in the same mundane tone.

When he expressed a certain discreet surprise at her repeated assertions that she had noticed nothing, the young woman replied that one always hesitates before handing a man over to the police, but from the moment she learned it was a question of murder, she had dismissed her scruples.

There remained the more likely explanation: Madame Bax concealed, beneath her calm exterior, a little too much imagination. But she seemed to divine this impression, and to give more weight to her testimony she added that at least one other person had seen the malefactor: before the latter had reached the parkway a man who was obviously drunk came out of the little cafe-about twenty yards to the left-and took the same direction, staggering slightly; he was singing or talking to himself in a loud voice. The malefactor turned around and the drunk man shouted something to him, trying to walk faster to catch up with him; but the other man, without paying any more attention to him, went on his way toward the harbor.

Unfortunately Madame Bax was unable to furnish a more detailed description: a man in a raincoat with a light gray hat. As for his impromptu traveling companion, she thought she had passed him frequently in the neighborhood; in her opinion, he was probably well known in all the bars in the vicinity.

Leaving the building by the second exit, the one to the Rue des Arpenteurs, Wallas crossed the street to examine the gate: he was able to verify the fact that the automatic buzzer had been twisted to prevent contact when the gate was opened; this job, executed at arm’s length, seemed to him to have been the work of uncommon muscular strength.

Looking up, he glimpsed, once again, behind the mesh of embroidered net, the figure of Madame Bax.

“Hello,” Wallas says as he closes the door behind him.

The manager does not answer.

He is motionless, at his post. His massive body is leaning on his arms, spread wide on the counter where his hands grip the edge, as though to keep the body from springing forward-or from falling. The neck, already short, vanishes completely between the raised shoulders; the head hangs, almost threatening, the mouth slightly twisted, the gaze blank.

“Cold enough for you this morning?” Wallas says-to say something.

He walks over to the cast-iron stove that looks less disagreeable than this mastiff confined, for safety’s sake, behind his bar. He holds out his hands toward the glowing metal. For the information he needs, he would probably do better to look elsewhere.

“Hello,” a voice says behind him-a drunken voice, but full of good intentions.

The room is rather dim and the wood-burning stove, which draws badly in cold weather, thickens the air with a bluish haze. Wallas has not noticed the man before. He is slumped over the rear table, the only customer in the cafe, happy to find someone to talk to at last. He probably knows that other drunkard Madame Bax referred to as a witness. But now he is staring at Wallas, opening his mouth and saying with a kind of thick-tongued resentment:

“Why didn’t you want to talk, yesterday?”

“Me?” Wallas asks, surprised.

“You think I don’t recognize you?” the man exclaims, his face lighting up with a cheerful grimace.

He turns around toward the bar and repeats:

“He thinks I don’t recognize him!”

The manager, his eyes blank, has not moved.

“You know me?” Wallas asks.

“Of course I do, my friend! Even though I didn’t think you were very polite “ He counts carefully on his fingers “It was yesterday.”

“No,” Wallas says, “you must be making some mistake.”

“He says it was a mistake!” the drunk shrieks toward the manager. “Me, a mistake!”

And he bursts into the thunderous laughter.

When he has quieted down a little, Wallas asks-to get into the spirit of the thing:

“Where was it then? And what time?”

“What time, don’t ask me! I never know what time it is

It was still dark. And it was here, going out…here…here… here…”

With each new “here” his voice gets louder; at the same time, the man makes a series of huge vague gestures toward the door with his right arm. Then, suddenly calmer, he adds in almost a whisper, and as though to himself:

“Where else would it be?”

Wallas despairs of getting anything out of him. Still the pleasant temperature of the room keeps him from leaving. He sits down at the next table.

“At this time yesterday I was over a hundred kilometers from here…”

Slowly the commissioner begins rubbing his palms together again:

“Of course! Don’t good murderers always have an alibi?”

A satisfied smile. The two plump hands come to rest on the desk, fingers wide apart

“What time was it?” the drunk asks.

“When you said.”

“That’s just it, I didn’t say!” the drunk exclaims triumphantly. “You pay for the round.”

Funny joke, Wallas thinks. But he does not budge. The manager now looks at him reproachfully.

“It’s all a lie,” the drunk concludes after a pause for laborious reflection. He examines Wallas and adds scornfully: “You don’t even have a car.”

“I came by train,” Wallas says.

“Oh,” the drunk says.

His good humor has vanished; he seems worn out by the discussion. Nevertheless he translates for the manager, but in a completely gloomy tone:

“He says he came by train.”

The manager does not answer. He has changed position; his head up, his arms dangling, it is apparent he is preparing to take some action. As a matter of fact he grasps his rag and wipes it back and forth across the top of the bar.

“What’s the difference,” the drunk begins with difficulty…“what’s the difference between a railroad and a bottle of wine?”

He is talking to his glass. Wallas automatically tries to think of the difference.

“Well?” his neighbor suddenly asks, cheered by the prospect of a victory.

“I don’t know,” Wallas says.

“So there’s no difference for you? You hear that, bartender, he doesn’t see any difference!”

“I didn’t say that.”

“Yes you did!” the drunk shouts. “The bartender’s here to back me up. You said it. You pay for the round!”

“I’ll pay for the round,” Wallas admits. “Bartender, give us two glasses of white wine.”

“Two glasses of white wine!” repeats his companion, who has recovered his good humor.

“Don’t wear yourself out,” the manager says. “I’m not deaf.”

The drunk has emptied his glass in one gulp. Wallas is just starting to drink his. He is surprised to feel so comfortable in this filthy bar; is it only because it’s warm in here? After the sharp air of the street, a somewhat numbing sense of well-being penetrates his body. He feels full of kindness toward this drunken bum, and even toward the manager who scarcely encourages sympathy. As a matter of fact the latter keeps his eyes on his latest customer; and his expression is so deliberately suspicious that Wallas ends up, in spite of everything, by being somewhat disturbed. He turns back toward the riddle-lover, but the wine the latter has just drunk seems to have plunged him back into his gloomy thoughts. In the hope of cheering him up, Wallas asks:

“Well, what was the difference?”

“The difference?” The drunk seems completely in the dark this time. “The difference between what?”

“You know, between the railroad and the bottle!”

“Oh…the bottle…” the other man says slowly, as if he were coming back from a great distance away. “The difference…Well, it’s a big one, the difference…the railroad!… It’s not at all the same thing…”

It would certainly have been better to question him before giving him more to drink. Mouth open, the man is staring into space, one elbow on the table propping up his bloated head. He stammers incoherent words; then, with an obvious effort to make himself clear, he manages to say, with several halts and repetitions:

“You make me laugh with your railroad…If you think I didn’t recognize…didn’t recognize…just leaving here…We walked the whole way together…the whole way. That’s too easy! It’s not enough to change your coat…”

After that, the monologue becomes more obscure. A word that sounds like foundling keeps recurring, without any apparent reason.

Half asleep on his table, he stammers incomprehensible phrases, broken by exclamations and attempted gestures that fall back heavily or dissolve in the fog of his memories…

In front of him a tall man in a raincoat is walking along the fence.

“Hey! Aren’t you waiting for me? Hey, you!”

The man is deaf!

“Hey, you! Hey!”

Good, this time he heard.

“Wait up! Hey! I’ve got a riddle for you!”

Pretty rude, that man. Funny how no one likes riddles.

“Hey, wait up! You’ll see: it’s not hard!”

Not hard! They never guess them.

“Hey, you!”

“All right, you made me run to catch up!”

With a sudden movement, the man brushes off his arm.

“All right, if you won’t let me take your arm…Hey, not so fast! Let me catch my breath until I can remember my riddle…”

But the other man turns around threateningly, and the drunk steps back.

“What’s the animal…”

He chokes when he catches sight of the man’s furious expression; he is obviously about to beat the drunk to a pulp. The latter retreats, stammering some pacifying words; but as soon as the other man, who decides he produced his effect, starts walking again, the drunk begins following, trotting after him and whining:

“Hey, don’t walk so fast Hey! Wait up! Hey!”

People stop as they pass, turn around and step aside to make room for this surprising couple; a tall, powerful man wearing a raincoat too tight for him and a pale gray felt hat whose brim conceals the upper part of his face is walking fast, head down, hands in his pockets; he walks without rushing and seems to pay no attention whatever to the creature-strange as he is-who accompanies him, sometimes on his right, sometimes on his left, most often behind him, where he makes a series of unexpected swerves with the sole purpose, it seems, of keeping up with him. He manages to, more or less, but at the cost of a considerable amount of gymnastics, covering a course twice or three times as long as the one which would be necessary, with spurts of speed and stops so sudden that he looks as if he’s going to fall down at any moment. Despite these continual difficulties, he still manages to keep talking, in fragments, it’s true, but so that certain elements remain intelligible: “Hey! Wait up!…ask a riddle…” and something that sounds like “foundling.” Obviously he has had too much to drink. He is short and potbellied, wrapped in odd clothes, mostly in tatters. But from time to time the man walking ahead turns around without any warning and the drunk, terrified, steps back to keep out of reach; then as soon as the danger seems less, he starts walking again, stubbornly trying to catch up with his companion and sometimes even hanging onto his arm to hold him back-or else getting a step ahead of him only to find himself, an instant later, trotting along far behind-as if he were trying to make up for lost time.

Night has almost fallen now. The light from the rare street lamps and a few shops does not manage to create anything but a dim, fragmentary illumination-interrupted by gaps, more or less widely fringed with vague areas where the mind hesitates to venture.

Still the staggering little man persists in his chase, though perhaps he has undertaken it somewhat at random, and has not even figured out what its origin is.

Ahead of him, the wide, inaccessible back has gradually assumed terrifying dimensions. The tiny L-shaped rip on the left shoulder of the raincoat has grown so large that a whole flap of the garment has been detached and floats in his wake, like a flag, beating furiously against his legs. As for the hat, which was already drawn exaggeratedly far down over the face, it now forms a tremendous bell from which escapes, like the tentacles of some giant octopus, the vortex of intertwined ribbons to which, finally, the rest of the coat has been reduced.

The little man, in a supreme effort, manages to grasp one of these arms; he hangs onto it with all his might, determined not to let go; hard as Wallas shakes him, he can no longer disengage himself. The drunk clings to him with an energy he seemed quite incapable of; but when his head bumps the floor in a convulsion, he suddenly releases his grip, his hands open and the body rolls to the ground, limp, inanimate…

The manager does not seem very affected by this scene. The drunk has probably had such fits before. With a strong grip he picks him up and sets him on his chair, while a wet rag restores him to consciousness at once. The man is cured as though by magic; he rubs his hand over his face, stares around, smiling, and declares to the manager, who is already back behind his counter:

“He wanted to kill me too!”

Nevertheless, since he does not seem to be holding this attempted murder against him, Wallas, who is beginning to be interested in this character, takes advantage of his mood to ask for information. The drunk, fortunately, has a much clearer mind than before his fall; he listens carefully and answers questions readily: yes, he met Wallas yesterday at nightfall, leaving this very cafe; he followed him, caught up with and accompanied him, despite Wallas’ unfriendliness; the latter was wearing a pale gray felt hat slightly too big for him and a tight raincoat with a small L-shaped rip on the right shoulder.

“Last night, a man in a raincoat…” So this man was the drunken bum Madame Bax noticed from her window, and the malefactor himself would be none other than…Wallas cannot help smiling at the absurdity of his conclusion. If it could only be determined that the suspect resembles himself! It is difficult to rely on the judgment of such a witness.

The latter, in any case, persists in confusing them, despite Wallas’ new denials. The other man walked along with him long enough-he says-for him to recognize him the next day. According to the rather vague indications he gives as to their route, it seems that they followed the Rue de Brabant, then the Rue Joseph-Janeck for its whole length, to the parkway, where Wallas’ hypothetical double went into a post office.

Then the drunk came back to drink at the Cafe des Allies.

The manager feels the story has something funny about it: why doesn’t this man want to admit that he was seen the day before? He must have something to hide… Last night? He’s the one who pulled the job. He came out of the little house when the drunk surprised him; he managed to lose him on the other side of town and then he came back to spend the night in peace here. Now he would like to know what the drunk remembers about his escapade. He probably thinks his memory is too good, since he has just tried to knock him out: bumped his head…that’s it. He must be the one who pulled the job.

Unfortunately the hours do not coincide: when the old housekeeper ran in to call the ambulance, he was…Still, he’d better be careful and tell the police about this shady customer; after noon, there is the risk of a fine if he is not reported, and if anything happened…

The manager picks up the telephone book which he leafs through for a long time, glancing suspiciously over the counter at the tables. Finally he dials a number.

“Hello, is this the registration service?”

At the same time he glares accusingly at Wallas.

“This is the Cafe des Allies, ten Rue des Arpenteurs…a lodger to declare.”

A long silence. The drunk opens his mouth wide. From behind the counter comes the sound of a faucet dripping regularly into the sink.

“Yes, a room rented by the day.”

“Sometimes.”

“I’ll send the form, but I prefer being registered as soon as possible… Especially in dealing with certain kinds of people…”

The offhandedness with which this man talks about him in his presence has something so shocking about it that Wallas is on the point of protesting-when he hears, once again, the chief commissioner’s ironic voice:

“If you’re not registered, what proof is there?”

In short, if he is trying to get him in trouble, the manager is making a mistake: by neglecting to register him, he was, on the contrary, permitting Laurent to continue his little joke. And with that strange man you never know where a joke is going to stop-or where it starts. Wallas, though deciding that it is scarcely reasonable to pay attention to such trifles, feels a kind of contentment in finding himself justified on this point.

“Name is Wallas. W-a-double 1-a-s. Wallas. At least that’s what he says.”

The phrase is deliberately insulting-libelous even-and the way the manager stares at his customer while pronouncing it finally obliges the latter to intervene. He takes out his wallet to get at his police card, intending to thrust it under the manager’s nose but he has barely started his gesture when he remembers the photograph attached to the official card: the photograph of a man obviously older than himself, whose heavy brown mustache makes him look like a music-hall Turk.

Of course this too-noticeable “identifying mark” was incompatible with Fabius’ theories as to the outer aspect of special agents. Wallas had to shave off his mustache and his face was transformed, rejuvenated, almost unrecognizable to a stranger. He still has not had time to have his old papers changed; as for the pink card-the ministerial pass-he must, of course, avoid using that.

After having pretended to check something on a ticket taken out of his wallet at random-the return coupon of his train ticket-he puts the whole thing back in his pocket, as naturally as possible. After all, he is not supposed to hear what is being said on the telephone.

Moreover, the manager finds his insinuations turning against him, and the questions being asked at the other end of the wire are already making him lose his patience:

“Of course not, I tell you he arrived last night!”

“Yes, only last night! You’ll have to ask him about the night before that.”

“In any case, I would have notified you!”

The drunk would like to add a word; he half stands up from his chair:

“And then he tried to kill me!…Hey! You better tell them he tried to kill me too!”

But the manager does not bother to answer. He hangs up the receiver and goes back behind his bar, to rummage through a drawer full of papers. He is looking for his police forms, but it has been too long since he has needed them and he has difficulty finding them again. When he finally gets hold of an old and flyspecked form, Wallas will have to fill it out, show his carte d’identite, explain his transformation. Then he will be able to leave-to inquire at the police station if a man in a raincoat was seen last night…

The drunk will go back to sleep in his chair, the manager will wipe off the tables and start washing the glasses in the sink. This time, he will turn off the faucet more carefully, and the little drops that strike the surface of the water with metronomic regularity will stop.

The scene will be over.

His heavy body resting on his widespread arms, his hands gripping the edge of the bar, his head hanging forward, his mouth somewhat twisted, the manager will go on staring into space.