Once again the description of the boy, Francois Lecœur.
“No. I’ve no idea in which direction he’ll be making. All I can tell you is that he seems to keep well clear of police stations, and as far as possible from any place where there’s likely to be anyone on traffic duty.”
He knew his brother’s flat in the Rue Vasco de Gama. Two rather dark rooms and a tiny kitchen. The boy slept there alone while his father was at work. From the windows you could see the back of the house in the Rue Michat, across a courtyard generally hung with washing. On some of the windowsills were pots of geraniums, and through the windows, many of which were uncurtained, you could catch glimpses of a miscellaneous assortment of humanity.
As a matter of fact, there, too, the windowpanes ought to be covered with frost. He stored that idea up in a corner of his mind. It might be important.
“You think it’s a boy who’s been smashing the alarm glasses?”
“It was a child’s handkerchief they found,” said Lecœur curtly. He didn’t want to be drawn into a discussion. He sat mutely at the switchboard, wondering what to do next.
In the Rue Michat, things seemed to be moving fast. The next time he got through it was to learn that a doctor was there as well as an examining magistrate who had most likely been dragged from his bed.
What help could Lecœur have given them? But if he wasn’t there, he could see the place almost as clearly as those that were, the dismal houses and the grimy viaduct of the Metro which cut right across the landscape.
Nothing but poor people in that neighborhood. The younger generation’s one hope was to escape from it. The middle-aged already doubted whether they ever would, while the old ones had already accepted their fate and tried to make the best of it.
He rang Javel once again.
“Is Gonesse still there?”
“He’s writing up his report. Shall I call him?”
“Yes, please. Hallo, Gonesse, Lecœur speaking. Sorry to bother you, but did you go up to my brother’s flat? Had the boy’s bed been slept in? It had? Good. That makes it look a bit better. Another thing: were there any parcels there? Yes, parcels, Christmas presents. What? A small square radio. Hadn’t been unpacked. Naturally. Anything else? A chicken, a boudin, a Saint-Honoré. I suppose Janvier’s not with you? Still on the spot. Right. Has he rung-up the P. J. ? Good.”
He was surprised to see it was already half past nine. It was no use now expecting anything from the neighborhood of the Etoile. If the boy had gone on walking as he had been earlier, he could be pretty well anywhere by this time.
“Hallo! Police Judiciaire? Is Inspector Saillard there?”
He was another whom the murder had dragged from his fireside. How many people were there whose Christmas was going to be spoiled by it?
“Excuse my troubling you, Monsieur le Commissaire. It’s about that young boy, Francois Lecœur.”
“Do you know anything? Is he a relation of yours?”
“He’s my brother’s son. And it looks as if he may well be the person who’s been smashing the glasses of the telephone pillars. Seven of them. I don’t know whether they’ve had time to tell you about that. What I wanted to ask was whether I might put out a general call?”
“Could you nip over to see me?”
“There’s no one here to take my place.”
“Right. I’ll come over myself. Meanwhile you can send out the call.”
Lecœur kept calm, though his hand shook slightly as he plugged in once again to the room above.
“Justin? Lecœur again. Appel General. Yes. It’s the same boy. Francois Lecœur. Ten and a half, rather tall for his age, thin. I don’t know what he’s wearing, probably a khaki jumper made from American battle-dress. No, no cap. He’s always bare-headed, with plenty of hair flopping over his forehead. Perhaps it would be as well to send out a description of his father, too. That’s not so easy. You know me, don’t you? Well, Olivier Lecœur is rather like a paler version of me. He has a timid look about him and physically he’s not robust. The sort that’s never in the middle of the pavement but always dodging out of other people’s way. He walks a bit queerly, owing to a wound he got in the first war. No, I haven’t the least idea where they might be going, only I don’t think they’re together. To my mind, the boy is probably in danger. I can’t explain why—it would take too long. Get the descriptions out as quickly as possible, will you? And let me know if there’s any response.”
By the time Lecœur had finished telephoning, Inspector Saillard was there, having only had to come round the corner from the Quai des Orfèvres. He was an imposing figure of a man, particularly in his bulky overcoat. With a comprehensive wave of the hand, he greeted the three men on watch, then, seizing a chair as though it were a wisp of straw, he swung it round towards him and sat down heavily. “The boy?” he inquired, looking keenly at Lecœur.
“I can’t understand why he’s stopped calling us up.”
“Calling us up?”
“Attracting our attention, anyway.”
“But why should he attract our attention and then not say anything?”
“Supposing he was followed. Or was following someone.”
“I see what you mean. Look here, Lecœur, is your brother in financial straits?”
“He’s a poor man, yes.”
“Is that all?”
“He lost his job three months ago.”
“What job?”
“He was linotype operator at La Presse in the Rue du Croissant. He was on the night shift. He always did night work. Runs in the family.”
“How did he come to lose his job?”
“I suppose he fell out with somebody.”
“Is that a failing of his?”
They were interrupted by an incoming call from the Eighteenth to say that a boy selling branches of holly had been picked up in the Rue Lepic. It turned out, however, to be a little Pole who couldn’t speak any French.
“You were asking if my brother was in the habit of quarreling with people. I hardly know what to answer. He was never strong. Pretty well all his childhood he was ill on and off. He hardly ever went to school. But he read a great deal alone in his room.”
“Is he married?”
“His wife died two years after they were married, leaving him with a baby ten months old.”
“Did he bring it up himself?”
“Entirely. I can see him now bathing the little chap, changing his diapers, and warming the milk for his bottle.”
“That doesn’t explain why he quarrels with people.”
Admittedly. But it was difficult to put it into words.
“Soured?”
“Not exactly. The thing is—”
“What?”
“That he’s never lived like other people. Perhaps Olivier isn’t really very intelligent. Perhaps, from reading so much, he knows too much about some things and too little about others.”
“Do you think him capable of killing the old woman?”
The Inspector puffed at his pipe. They could hear the people in the room above walking about. The two other men fiddled with their papers, pretending not to listen.
“She was his mother-in-law,” sighed Lecœur. “You’d have found it out anyhow, sooner or later.”
“They didn’t hit it off?”
“She hated him.”
“Why?”
“She considered him responsible for her daughter’s death. It seems she could have been saved if the operation had been done in time. It wasn’t my brother’s fault. The people at the hospital refused to take her in. Some silly question of her papers not being in order. All the same, Madame Fayet held to it that Olivier was to blame.”
“Did they see each other?”
“Not unless they passed each other in the street, and then they never spoke.”