Mademoiselle Armande turned up promptly at ten, being an odiously punctual person who had been known to loiter in the street with an eye on her wristwatch, or stand for thirty seconds on the landing before knocking. She entered the study through the door left half open and murmured, “Monsieur Malinesco,” the words more snuffled than pronounced, accompanied by a deferential bob of the head. She was an insipid woman, rather on the homely side, pink-complexioned and dressed in neutral colors, who wore large shiny spectacles over the face of a wizened, calculating child. D watched her with concealed attention. What did she know about him? That he was rich (he who had never owned anything), and she respected rich people. A philatelist, a bibliophile, a lover of ancient art, liable to jump on a train or into a car and scour Brittany in winter just to bring back an antique dresser… Friendly with artists. Her job was to answer the telephone, write the occasional letter, visit the bank, and receive Monsieur Soga, the embassy attaché, a nervous little man who reeked of cologne; Monsieur Sixte Mougin, the antiques dealer; Monsieur Kehl from the Philatelist Society; and, more rarely, Monsieur Alain, who didn’t much look like a painter. She was becoming a connoisseur of postage stamps and even did a little collecting herself, only the French colonies, not to be extravagant. It’s a highly regarded hobby; they say the King of England has built up a remarkable collection. D had Mademoiselle Armande periodically tailed by a detective. She stepped out on Saturday nights with Monsieur Dupois, a civil servant at the Ministry of Education; they went to the pictures; Dupois’s concierge referred to Mademoiselle Armande as “the lady engaged to that nice gentleman who has been so unfortunate…” D, who distrusted other people’s misfortunes even more than his own, set the detective onto Monsieur Evariste Dupois, age forty-seven, owner of a property at Ivry, divorced… A gentleman who bet judiciously on the horses, bought a weekly lottery ticket, read the right-wing press, and visited a brothel in the rue Saint-Sauveur every Friday evening. An innocent man.
“Are you engaged, then?” inquired D of Mademoiselle Armande.
She did not flinch, being no doubt incapable of such a lively reaction, but her fingers twitched a little.
“Dear me, Monsieur Malinesco… However did you know?”
He saw that her complexion was improved by embarrassment.
“Just a coincidence, Mademoiselle. I happened to see you one Saturday on the arm of your fiancé.”
“It has not been completely decided yet,” she said reticently.
Innocent, innocent! (But that was not a wholly rational conclusion…)
“I intend to go away for six weeks. You will please pass on the mail to Monsieur Mougin.”
If anybody was going to look miserable as a drowned rat in a bucket three days from now, it was definitely Monsieur Sixte Mougin! D regretted the atrophied state of his sense of humor; it would have cheered him up no end to dwell on the troubles of that quavering, servile bastard Monsieur Sixte Mougin.
“When Monsieur Soga calls, tell him I’m in Strasbourg.”
Strasbourg was code for “unforeseen complications.”
Mademoiselle Armande did not turn a hair. No one suspected anything. Unbelievable that They hadn’t moved to place me under internal surveillance months ago! But if the unbelievable were not sometimes a reality, there would be no possibility of struggle. In cramped italics, the secretary was scratching into her diary: “Monsieur Soga. Say Strasbourg…” D, who disliked things to be written down, forced a smile.
“You don’t have much faith in your memory, I see!”
“Oh I do, but it’s funny, I always mix up the names of towns like Edinburgh, Hamburg, Strasbourg, Mulhouse…”
He hadn’t expected that. His throat went instantly dry. In the same code, known to just five people, Mulhouse meant “watch out.”
“And why is that?”
“I’ve no idea, for the life of me! Look, I nearly wrote Mulhouse just now, I can’t help it.”
“I might go to Mulhouse as well,” D said moodily.
He was fixing her with the cold, hard, stony-eyed glare she seldom caught from him — not the look of an art lover. Mademoiselle Armande put on a falsely bright smile, while D rapidly weighed the pros and cons.
“Here’s the key to the bottom right-hand drawer of the small cabinet in the hall. Fetch me the Zürich folder, Monsieur Feuvre, you know, the Swiss collection… The files are not in order, you’ll have to rummage.”
“Yes, Monsieur.”
Naturally, she left her handbag sitting next to the typewriter. D opened it with an unhurried dexterity acquired in the mail-interception department of the Secret Service. He scanned a note signed “Your fondly affectionate, Evariste.” Leafed through the address book. Saw — sickeningly — a telephone number: X 11-47. The number to fear was 11-74. Numeric inversion! Inside his head suspicion exploded into certainty. The returning Mademoiselle Armande glanced at her bag — ah, so we understand each other! D selected a letter from Monsieur Feuvre and put it in his pocket. “Will you kindly put the folder back in the file…” But he took back the keys to the cabinet, and she didn’t ask for them… Right, then; we thoroughly understand each other, thought D. This changed everything. He remembered finding his first taxicab parked and available only a few steps from the house, and how the driver had leaned toward him in a peculiarly obsequious manner… Soon as I leave here, she’ll call 11-74 — or another number, just around the corner perhaps, or in this very building… Made-moiselle Armande, clearly flustered, was struggling to surmount some hesitation or inhibition.