He seemed to be hypnotizing her into a remembrance of what had happened. She said reflectively, “I had a lot of customers. For a quarter of an hour or so, I forgot about him. Then, as I was taking someone over to the cashier, I glanced downstairs and saw, to my surprise, that he hadn’t yet left the store.”
“Where was he, exactly?”
“He was standing not far from Gaby.”
“Is that all?”
“I was very busy that day, and on account of the recent thefts, I had to keep an eye-on my own department. But I’m practically positive that I caught a glimpse of him again some time later. I shouldn’t like you to go by what I can tell you... When you’re looking down at a crowd of jostling people, you can’t be too sure. But I thought I saw him talking to another man.”
“Can you describe the other man?”
“No, except that he had on a gray hat... After that I didn’t see Justin Galmet again until the following Monday, when he went to Gaby’s department. He was waiting for me Tuesday, after work, but I didn’t want to speak to him. It was then that he told me not to worry about what he was doing and promised he’d explain later. I finally gave in, and we came to have a bite in this same place. Yes, just at this table, to the left of the door. Two days later he took me to see the house. He was very happy, and anxious to move into it... What’s the matter?”
The Little Doctor had turned so serious and was staring at her with such a frown that she wondered what in the world he had got out of her story.
“What day of the week is this?” he asked brusquely.
“Saturday...”
He started, and looked at the dishes before them as if he were anxious to see them taken away.
“Will you have some dessert?” he asked, and since she did not dare answer yes, he called for the check. Then without bothering to take her back to the store he jumped into a taxi.
“Quai des Orfèvres... Police Headquarters... Yes, driver, and hurry!”
“Are you back so soon?” asked the Inspector, looking like a statue beside the jumping-jack Little Doctor.
“Yes, so soon... First of all, give me some figures on the thefts in the big stores.”
“That’s easy enough. They keep very accurate statistics — accurate and terrifying. One place on the Left Bank calculates its loss by theft at nearly twenty million francs a year. That’s why all such stores employ a small army of Private detectives.”
“Are the thieves specialists?”
“Yes and no. First of all there are the shoplifters — women and girls who can’t afford to buy what they want and just take it. Yard goods are what they are mostly after. Then come the big battalions of semi-pros — women, too, because they have all sorts of ways of concealing their plunder. They carry shopping bags or have hiding places in their clothes. There was one, I remember, who pretended to be pregnant, and was stuffing things into a sort of kangaroo pouch under her dress. They usually work in pairs, so that one can distract the clerk while the other is stealing. We know a lot of these women but it’s difficult to catch them red-handed. They can smell out both the store detectives and our own men, and make their getaway so fast that we can’t stop them without raising a terrible rumpus. And that’s the last thing the stores want...”
“Isn’t there any bigger game?”
“Oh, yes,” said Lucas with a slightly bored air. “Certain jobs are too daring and clever to have been pulled off by women. But we’ve never laid our hands on any rings...”
“Then there are organized rings?”
“I really don’t know. I’d like to say yes, but we haven’t the proof.”
“And have there been many big jobs in the last few months?”
“Just the normal number, I imagine, that is in the big stores...”
He toyed with a paper-knife while the Little Doctor remained tactfully silent. After a pause Lucas rewarded his patience with a sigh.
“Other kinds of robbery have been on the increase,” the Inspector admitted. “In specialty and jewelry shops, for instance. A customer sweeps up a handful of jewels and dashes out to a waiting car. You’ve read about it in the papers. Almost impossible to carry off, you might say, and yet it’s done... There’s psychology in it, an element of surprise. The shopkeepers may be serving other customers at the same time — accomplices in the crime, perhaps — and it takes a minute or two for him to recover his presence of mind and turn in the alarm. Outside, it’s the same thing. The streets are full of traffic, the getaway car moves swiftly away and before anyone realizes it’s gone, leaving confusion behind it... What makes you smile?”
“Did I smile?” said the Little Doctor ingenuously.
“It seems to amuse you.”
“Why not? By the way, how many men could you let me have this evening? Men who aren’t too well-known, who can pass unnoticed in a crowd.”
“It depends on what you want to do with them.”
“Perhaps nothing at all, perhaps quite a lot. It all depends on whether my logic holds together. If it’s without a flaw, then... No, I’ll tell you later. If it doesn’t come off, I don’t want to be a jackass... How many men can you spare?”
“Half a dozen?”
“That’s not enough. I need at least twice that many. And a fast car, with no indications that it belongs to the police.”
“Do you realize that I can’t authorize an operation of this importance without consulting the higher-ups?”
“Very well,” said Dollent, imperturbably, “go ahead and consult them.”
“It’s only 6 o’clock, Inspector; we have plenty of time.”
“But if something’s going to happen, you can’t be too sure.”
“If anything happens, it will be at exactly half-past 6. Have another glass of beer.”
The two men were sitting at an outdoor café table, just across from the department store. A police car was parked, in defiance of all rules and regulations, in front of the nearby subway entrance. The Little Doctor had made all the arrangements, not on the spot, where he might have been noticed, but in the Inspector’s office, where he had drawn up a plan as thorough as that of a major military engagement, in which every man had a definite part to play.
“You, redhead: at exactly quarter past 6 you are to go to the slipper department and try on one pair of slippers after another until 6:30, when you will have your eye on cashier ‘No. 89’. And you there: you’ll treat yourself to a new wallet... Don’t worry, Lucas, it’s all on the expense account... You must be there when the bell rings, and you’ll have your eye on...”
And the Little Doctor put X marks on the plan of the store.
“Three men near the door, but they mustn’t close in until half-past. No use spreading the news that we’ve set a trap. And three others at the subway entrance.”
Dollent had carried out plenty of investigations, but this was the first time he had ever deployed such a large number of plainclothesmen. Inspector Lucas looked at him with a mildly dubious air.
“Is that all?” he asked somewhat ironically.
“No, I’d like to have one man in the toy department — just as a safety measure. I don’t want to come to the same end as Justin Galmet.”
Now, at the café table, the Little Doctor, watch in hand, dropped tantalizing hints to the Inspector as they passed the time away.
“If Galmet had been a regular department-store thief, do you think one of his accomplices would have murdered him? Don’t answer me too quickly... It doesn’t look as if he were really a big-time professional, in view of the amount of money he had in the bank. And only a petty thief would risk arrest for gains of a few thousand francs a week... But, you say, in the course of these last months... No, Inspector...”
“I didn’t say anything!”