The Dancer at the Gai-Moulin (9 page)

‘That will do, thank
you.'

There was a moment's hesitation.
Then Génaro asked:

‘Can I go now?'

‘Yes, you and the waiter. If I
need you again, I'll let you know.'

‘I presume there is no objection
to the club staying open?'

‘No, none at all.'

And now Adèle asked:

‘Me
too?'

‘Yes, go on home!'

‘I'm free to go,
then?'

The chief inspector did not reply. He
looked troubled, as he steadily stroked the bowl of his pipe. When the three people
from the club had left, the room felt empty. Just the chief inspector, Chabot and
his father were there, none of them speaking.

Monsieur Chabot was the first to say
something. He hesitated for a while, then at last coughed and said:

‘Excuse me. But do you really
believe …?'

‘What?' the other man asked,
irritably.

‘I don't know. It seemed to
me …'

And he made a vague gesture indicating
puzzlement. A gesture that signified: ‘It looks to me as if something fishy is
going on. Something's not quite right.'

Jean stood up, apparently having
mustered a little more strength. He dared to look at his father.

‘They're all lying!'
he said clearly. ‘I swear they are. Do you believe me, Chief
Inspector?'

No answer.

‘Do you believe me,
Father?'

Monsieur Chabot at first looked aside.
Then he stammered:

‘I–I don't know.'

And finally, as if common sense had come
to his rescue:

‘We should surely try to find this
Frenchman everyone is talking about, shouldn't we?'

The chief inspector seemed undecided,
since he was walking round with a stormy expression.

‘Well, at
any rate, Delfosse has vanished,' he muttered, more for himself than for the
others.

He paced about some more, and after a
while spoke again:

‘And two witnesses have said he
was in possession of that cigarette-case!'

He went up and down the room again,
pursuing his thought:

‘And you were both on the cellar
steps … And then this evening, you were trying to get rid of those
banknotes down the lavatory! And—'

Here he stopped and looked at each of
them in turn.

‘And now the chocolate-shop owner
says he hasn't had any money stolen!'

He went out, leaving them together. But
they failed to take advantage of it. When he returned, father and son were still in
their original places, five metres from one another, each plunged into a determined
silence.

‘Well, too bad. I've just
phoned the examining magistrate. He'll be in charge from now on. And he
won't hear of letting you out on bail. It's De Conninck. If you want to
take it up with him, you can always ask.'

‘François de Conninck?'

‘Yes, I think that's his
name.'

And Jean's father muttered
shamefacedly:

‘We were at school
together.'

‘All right, go and see him if you
think it will be any help. I doubt it, though, because I know him. For the moment,
he's directed me to have your son taken to Saint-Léonard.'

These words had a sinister ring. Until
now, nothing had sounded final.

Saint-Léonard! The
city jail! That terrifying black building towering ominously over a whole district
by the Pont-Maguin, with its medieval turrets, its loophole windows and its iron
bars.

Jean paled, and said nothing.

‘Girard!' the chief called,
opening the door. ‘Two men and a car, now.'

That was enough. They waited.

‘It won't hurt if you try
and see Monsieur de Conninck,' the chief sighed, for the sake of saying
something. ‘If you were at school together …'

But his face was a better guide to his
thoughts. He was thinking of the distance that separated the senior magistrate, born
into a family of lawyers and related to the most important people in town, from an
accountant whose son had actually
admitted
that he had intended to steal
from the till of a nightclub.

‘Ready, sir,' said Girard.
‘Should we …?'

Something glinted in his hands. The
chief shrugged an affirmative.

And it was a ritual gesture,
accomplished so fast that the father only realized what was happening when it was
over. Girard had taken hold of Jean's hands. A metallic click.

‘This way.'

Handcuffs! And two uniformed policemen
waiting outside by the car!

Jean took a few steps. It seemed he had
nothing to say. But at the door, he turned round. His voice was hardly
recognizable.

‘Father, I
swear—'

‘Well now, about those pipes! I
thought if we ordered, say,
three
dozen …'

It was the pipe-obsessed inspector who
had walked in, blind to the scene around him. As he suddenly caught sight of the
young man from behind, and glimpsed the handcuffs on his wrists, he stopped
short:

‘Oh, so it's in the bag, is
it?'

The gesture indicated: ‘Got him,
eh!'

The chief inspector pointed to Monsieur
Chabot who had collapsed into a chair, head in hands, and was sobbing like a
woman.

The other man went on in a lower
voice:

‘We can always find someone from
one of the other divisions to take the third dozen. When you think of the
price!'

A car door slammed. An engine
started.

The chief inspector, looking awkward,
was saying to Monsieur Chabot:

‘You
know … nothing's definite yet …'

And without conviction:

‘… especially if you know
Monsieur de Conninck.'

And the father, as he beat a retreat,
gave a pale smile of thanks.

At one o'clock, the local
newpapers were published, and all of them had banner headlines on their front pages.
The conservative
Gazette de Liège
proclaimed:

Corpse in laundry basket case!

The headline in the leftwing
Wallonie socialiste
was:

Crime committed by rich young brats!

The papers all reported Jean
Chabot's arrest and René Delfosse's disappearance. The Chabot house in
Rue de la Loi had already been photographed. One report read:

Immediately after an emotional meeting with his son at police headquarters,
Monsieur Chabot went home and has refused to make a statement. Madame Chabot
is devastated and has taken to her bed.

We approached Monsieur Delfosse as he was returning from Huy, where he owns
several factories. René Delfosse's father, an active man in his
fifties, showed no emotion on hearing the shocking news. He refuses to
believe that his son is guilty, and states that he will personally look into
it.

In his prison cell at Saint-Léonard, Jean Chabot is reported to remain
unmoved. He will see his lawyer before he appears before Examining
Magistrate De Conninck, who is in charge of the case.

In Rue de la Loi, everything was as calm
as usual. Children were filing into the schoolyard to play while they waited for the
bell. There was grass growing between the cobbles and a woman was scrubbing the
steps of number 48. The only other sound was that of a coppersmith hammering on an
anvil.

But doors were opening more than usual.
A head would poke out, looking towards number 53. A few words would be exchanged
from the threshold:

‘Can you believe it? He's
just a kid. When I think that not so long ago he was playing in the street with my
children!'

‘Well, I said to my husband, when
I saw him coming home the worse for drink a couple of times … At his
age!'

About every quarter of an hour, the
doorbell would ring at the Chabot house. The Polish student would open the door.

‘No, Monsieur and Madame Chabot
are not at home,' she would announce with her strong foreign accent.

‘I'm from the
Gazette
. Would you tell them—'

And the reporter would crane his neck to
try to see inside. He could vaguely glimpse the kitchen, and the shape of a man
seated there.

‘No, don't trouble yourself.
They are not here.'

‘But—'

She was already
shutting the door. The reporter had to be content with questioning the
neighbours.

One of the papers had a sub-heading a
little different from the others:

Where is the man with broad shoulders?

Followed by a report:

Everyone seems to believe that Chabot and Delfosse are guilty. Without
wishing to defend them, but respecting the objective facts of the case, we
are inclined to express some surprise at the disappearance of an important
witness: the broad-shouldered customer who was seen at the Gai-Moulin club
on the night of the crime.

According to the waiter, the stranger was French: he was seen for the first
and last time that evening. Has he already left town? Did he wish to escape
being questioned by the police?

This lead may be a possible line of inquiry, and if by any chance the
youngsters are not guilty, some light might be shed on the matter from this
direction.

We also believe that Chief Inspector Delvigne, who is leading operations
jointly with the examining magistrate, has asked the regular patrols to make
inquiries in order to trace this mysterious customer at the Gai-Moulin.

The paper had come out shortly before two
o'clock. At three, a portly man with ruddy cheeks turned up at police
headquarters asking for Chief Inspector Delvigne, and declaring:

‘I am the
manager of the Hôtel Moderne, Rue du Pont-d'Avroy. I've just seen the
paper, and I think I can tell you something about the man you're looking
for.'

‘The Frenchman?'

‘Yes! And about the murder victim!
I don't usually pay much attention to the papers, so that's why
it's taken me so long. Let's see, what day is it today, Friday? So it
must have been Wednesday. The murder happened on Wednesday, is that right? I
wasn't here, I'd gone to Brussels on business. Anyway, it seems a
customer checked in, with a foreign accent, and very little luggage, just a small
pigskin case. He asked for a large room looking on to the street and he went
straight upstairs. Then a few minutes later, another customer took the room next
door. Normally, we get people to fill in their police forms immediately. I
don't know why this didn't happen. I got back at midnight. I looked at
the row of keys and asked the receptionist if she had the forms for the new
arrivals.

‘And she said, “Yes, all but
two people who went straight out.” On Thursday morning, that's
yesterday, only one of them was back. I didn't worry much about the other. I
thought perhaps he'd had an assignation somewhere in town. During the day, I
didn't see the one who had come back, and this morning I was told he'd
paid his bill and left. The desk clerk asked him to fill out his police form, but
apparently he just shrugged his shoulders and said it wasn't worth bothering
about now.'

‘Wait a minute,' the chief
inspector interrupted. ‘Is this the person who corresponds to the description
of the broad-shouldered Frenchman?'

‘Yes. He
left, taking his suitcase, at about nine a.m.'

‘And the other one?'

‘Since he still hadn't
returned, I used the pass-key to go into his room, which is what we have to do in an
emergency. And on the pigskin case, I saw the name Ephraim Graphopoulos. And
that's when I realized that the man in the laundry basket must be our
customer.'

‘So if I understand this
correctly,' said the chief inspector, ‘both these men arrived on
Wednesday afternoon, a few hours before the crime, one after the other? As if they
were on the same train perhaps?'

‘Yes, the fast train from
Paris.'

‘And they went out that evening,
also one after another.'

‘Without filling in their
forms.'

‘And only the Frenchman came back,
and now this morning he's disappeared again.'

‘That's right. I would be
grateful if you could avoid mentioning the name of the hotel, it might put people
off.'

But at that very moment, one of the
waiters from the Hôtel Moderne was telling exactly the same story to a
journalist.

And by five o'clock the evening
editions of the papers were reporting:

Inquiry takes a new turn. Was the man with broad
shoulders the murderer
?

The weather was fine. In the sunny
streets, life was carrying on as usual. The local police were trying to spot the
wanted Frenchman among the passing crowds.
At the railway station, an inspector was standing behind
each ticket clerk and all travellers were being examined carefully.