The Erasers

4

But the chief does not seem convinced. He dares not reject his assistant’s hypothesis out of hand, for you never know: suppose that happened to be what happened, what would he look like then? Then too, the obscurities and contradictions of the case have to be interpreted one way or another… What bothers him about this theory is that it involves-accuses, actually-people too highly placed, whom it can only be dangerous to affront-whether they are innocent or guilty. He says:

“We aren’t accustomed here…we aren’t accustomed in the

Executive Information Service to work on suspicions as vague as that “

He would like to add, by the way, some nasty joke about the Bureau of Investigation, and the “great Fabius,” but he decides to restrain himself: this may not be the right moment.

In the hope of discouraging his assistant, at least temporarily, from the slippery path onto which the latter wants to lure him, he proposes to send him on an assignment to the scene of the crime: there he could deal with the local police functionaries and with the doctor who has received Professor Dupont’s testimony along with his last breath; he could also discover whether the victim’s residence furnishes any new clue; he could…But the assistant shakes his head. It is quite futile for him to waste his time in that gloomy provincial town, half asleep in the North Sea fog. He would find nothing there, absolutely nothing. It is here, in the capital, that the drama has been acted…that the drama is being acted.

“He thinks I’m afraid,” the chief realizes; but he doesn’t care. He says, quite casually:

“Sometimes you go through hell and high water to find a murderer…”

“…far away,” his assistant continues, “when all you need to do is stretch out your hand.”

“Don’t forget that the crime took place up there, even so…”

“It took place up there the way it could have taken place and, as a matter of fact, as it takes place anywhere, very day, now here, now there. What actually happened in Professor Dupont’s house the evening of October twenty-sixth? A replica, a copy, a simple reproduction of an event whose original and whose key are elsewhere. And tonight, once again, as every evening…”

“That’s still no reason for neglecting whatever clues we could find up there.”

“What would I find up there, if I went? Nothing but reflections, shadows, ghosts. And tonight, once again…”

Tonight a new copy will be discreetly slipped under the door, a correct copy duly signed and notarized, with just what it needs in the way of misspellings and misplaced commas so that the blind, the cowardly, the stone deaf can go on waiting and reassuring each other: “It can’t be really the same thing, can it?”

To try to persuade his chief, the assistant goes on:

“We’re not the only ones concerned with this case. If we don’t act fast enough, we run the risk of finding another service pulling the rug out from under us…maybe the great Fabius himself, who will pass himself off as his country’s savior once again…and get us all arrested, if he finds out we knew the truth and concealed it…You’ll be accused” of complicity, you can be sure of that.”

But the chief does not seem convinced. He growls between his teeth, with an expression of suspicion and doubt:

“… the truth…the truth…the truth…”