The Erasers

5

“The car is here,” Juard says.

Dupont stands up and starts for the door at once. He is dressed for the trip. He has been able to put only one arm through the sleeve of his heavy overcoat, which the doctor has buttoned as well as possible over the wounded arm, which is held in a canvas sling. He is wearing a wide-brimmed felt hat that entirely conceals his forehead. He has even accepted dark glasses so that no one will recognize him; the only pair to be found in the clinic was a pair of medical glasses, one of whose lenses is very dark and the other much lighter-which gives the professor the comical look of a villain in a melodrama.

Since at the last minute Marchat refuses to do him the favor he had promised, Dupont will have to go to the little house for the papers himself.

Juard has arranged matters so that the corridors of the clinic are empty when his friend passes through them. The latter has no difficulty getting to the big black ambulance waiting in front of the door. He sits down on the front seat beside the driver-it will be easier for getting in and out without wasting any time.

The driver has put on the black hospital uniform and the flat cap with the shiny visor. Actually this must be one of the “bodyguards” Roy-Dauzet uses, more or less officially. The man, moreover, has an impressive build, a sober manner, the hard, inscrutable face of a film killer. He hasn’t opened his mouth once; he has handed the professor the letter from the minister proving that he is the man they have been expecting, and as soon as the doctor has slammed the door, he drives away.

“We have to stop at my house first,” Dupont says. “I’ll tell you where to go. Turn right…Right again…To the left…Around that building… Turn here…The second on the right…Now straight ahead…”

In a few minutes they reach the Boulevard Circulaire. Dupont has the car stop at the corner of the Rue des Arpenteurs.

“Don’t park here,” he tells the driver. “I prefer not to have my visit noticed. Drive around, or park a few hundred yards away. And be back in exactly half an hour.”

“Yes, Monsieur,” the man says. “Do you want me to park the car and come with you?”

“There’s no need for that, thank you.”

Dupont gets out and walks quickly toward the gate. He hears the ambulance drive away. The man is not a “bodyguard”: he would have insisted on following Dupont. His looks had fooled the professor, who now smiles at his own romanticism. The very existence of these famous guards is, moreover, quite uncertain.

The gate is not closed. The lock has been out of order for a long time, the key does not even turn in it, which does not prevent the latch from closing. Old Anna is growing quite careless-unless some child was playing here and opened the gate after he left-a child or a prowler. Dupont climbs the four steps up to the door, to make sure that the front door, in any case, is actually locked; he turns the heavy brass doorknob and pushes hard, adding the pressure of his shoulder, for he knows that the hinges are very stiff; since he wants to be sure of the result and mistrusts the unaccustomed movements imposed by his single good arm, he repeats the effort two or three times, yet without daring to make too much noise. But the big door is locked tight.

He has given Marchat the keys to this door, and the businessman has left without even bothering to return them. Dupont has only the key to the little glass door left; he must therefore walk around the house to the back. Under his feet, the gravel crunches faintly in the silence of the night. It was a mistake to count on that coward Marchat. He has wasted the whole afternoon waiting for him; finally he telephoned his house, but there was no one there; at quarter to seven he finally received a message that came from somewhere: Marchat was sorry, he had had to leave town on urgent business. That was a lie, of course. It was fear that had made him run away.

Mechanically, Dupont has turned the doorknob of the little door. The latter opens without resistance. It was not locked.

The house is dark and silent.

The professor takes off his glasses, which are bothering him. He has stopped in the vestibule and tries to figure out the situation…Did Marchat come after all? No, since it was the front door keys that had been given to him. And old Anna, if she hadn’t left, would be in the kitchen at this hour…that’s not certain…in any case, she would have left a light on in the hall or on the stairs…

Dupont opens the kitchen door. No one there. He presses the light button. Everything is put away, as in a house where no one lives any longer. And all the shutters are closed. Dupont turns on the light in the hall. As he passes he opens the living room and dining room doors. No one, of course. He starts up the stairs. Perhaps Anna forgot to lock the little door when she was leaving. She has been growing absent-minded the last few months.

On the second floor, he goes to the housekeeper’s room. It is obvious that the room has been put in order for a long absence.

Having reached his study door, the professor holds his breath. Last night, the murderer was waiting for him there.

Yes, but last night the little door was open: the man didn’t need a key to get in; tonight he would have had to force the lock, and Dupont noticed nothing of the kind. And if the man found the door open this time too, it is because old Anna had not locked it, in any case…It is impossible to reassure himself with arguments of this kind; with a bunch of skeleton keys, a specialist can easily open all ordinary locks. Someone has made his way into the house and is waiting, in the study, in the same place as yesterday, to finish the job.

Objectively, there is no reason to suppose this is not true. The professor is not easily frightened; nevertheless, at this moment he regrets that he was not sent a real bodyguard from the capital. However, there can be no question of leaving without taking with him the files he needs.

Marchat has told him on the telephone that the police commissioner did not think it had been a murder: he was convinced it was a suicide. Dupont turns around. He goes to get his revolver. Last night, when he departed for the clinic, he left it on the night table… Just before he goes into the bedroom he stops again: it may be here that the trap has been set for him.

These successive, more or less chimerical fears annoy the professor. With an impatient gesture he turns the handle; all the same he takes the precaution of not opening the door at once; he quickly thrusts in his hand to turn on the light and glances slowly around the door, ready to draw back if he sees anything unusual…

But the bedroom is empty: no thug is posted behind the bed, nor in the corner next to the chest. Dupont sees only his own face in the mirror, where the traces of an anxiety that now seems ludicrous to him still remain.

He walks straight over to the night table. The revolver is no longer on the marble top. He finds it in the drawer, in its usual place. He probably will not use it, any more than he had the night before, but you never know: if he had been armed last night when he came upstairs from the dining room, he would certainly have used it then.

The professor checks to see that the safety catch has not been slipped back on and returns, walking steadily, his weapon in his hand, to the study. He will have to use only one arm-fortunately, his right. First put the revolver in his pocket, open the door, turn on the ceiling light and, as fast as possible, grasp the revolver while kicking open the door. This little farce-useless as the one he has just executed-makes him smile in anticipation.

Wallas listens to his heart pounding. Since he is quite close to the window, he has heard the car stop, the garden gate open, the heavy footsteps crunching across the gravel. The man has tried to get in through the front door. He has shaken it a few times, without success, then has walked around the house. Consequently Wallas could tell it wasn’t Marchat who had changed his mind and come for the dead man’s papers; it was neither Marchat nor someone sent by him-or by the old housekeeper. It was someone who did not have the keys to the house.

The crunching footsteps have passed underneath the window. The man went to the little door which the special agent has left open for him on purpose. The hinges have creaked slightly when he pushed the door open. To be sure his victim would not escape, the man has looked in every room he passed on the ground floor and then upstairs.

Now Wallas sees the slit of light widening along the jamb, with unendurable slowness.

Wallas aims at the place where the murderer will appear, a black figure outlined against the illuminated doorway…

But the man obviously distrusts this room plunged in darkness. A hand moves forward, gropes for the switch…

Wallas, dazzled by the light, only distinguishes the quick movement of an arm lowering toward him the muzzle of a heavy revolver, the movement of a man firing As he throws himself to the floor, Wallas pulls the trigger.