Palliser, slightly intrigued, took the elevator up to the lab. There in that big busy office, the long room with long tables and glaring strip lighting, the microscopes and Bunsen burners and cameras in a string of smaller offices, Duke led him to a microscope at one end of a table and said, "This is from one of Wells' shoes. The right shoe of a pair of black oxfords."
Palliser peered into the microscope and asked, "So what is it? You're the technician." He had nearly forgotten Toby Wells.
Duke said, grinning, "I didn't suppose you'd be an expert on house plants, but it's another kind of offbeat little thing like that damn snapshot. Sometimes we do turn them up. It's Beloperone guttaia. "
"Come again?" said Palliser.
"To you, the common shrimp plant. We spotted it when we were taking photographs in the Coffey apartment. There was a big potted plant knocked over and in the little iight the old lady put up, somebody trampled all over it on the floor. You could see where branches and leaves had been stepped on. I thought there was an outside chance that there'd be some trace on the soles of somebody's shoes, those leaves are pretty tough and springy-and I was right. There was one whole squashed leaf stuck on the arch of the shoe where the wet earth from the pot acted like glue. It's not that common a plant, Palliser. And if you can show that your boy hasn't been near another one since the murder-"
"By God," said Palliser. "Those will be his best shoes. He had them on for the date with the girl and he probably hasn't had them on since. By God, what a damned queer little thing."
"It's the little things that trip them up," said Duke. "Little things most people don't notice."
Palliser and Galeano went to bring Toby Wells in, and they had to spell it out for him, how they knew, what the definite scientific evidence was. He didn't take it in at first, said, "How'd anybody know one little leaf from another'?"
"The men at the laboratory can tell," said Galeano. "They've got ways. You were there when that plant got knocked over, you stepped on it and that tells us you were there when your grandmother was killed." Wells thought that one over for awhile.
"Why?" asked Palliser. "Why did you go there that night?" Wells just looked at the floor.
"Your own grandmother," said Galeano. "She'd been good to you. Gave you a birthday party just the week before, hadn't she, and got you out of that little trouble a couple of years ago. Why?"
Wells said, "Oh, for Gossakes. I was out of money." He didn't look up at them. "It all goes so quick-and she had money put away. She made good money out of that business. She never spent nothing on herself. She had that couple hundred bucks to hand right over-time I took those clothes and got caught. And she gives me a lousy ten bucks for my birthday. A lousy ten bucks! I was cleaned out, time I paid the bill at that disco that night. I went to see her, ask her to loan me some bread, and she let me in and then when I asked she started to talk real sharp, how I was young and foolish and ought to be careful, save some out of my salary-and I got mad. Old people just don't know how it is for young people these days-and I hit her and she fell against that plant and I started to look around for any money. I knew she had some hid away somewheres-but she came after me into the kitchen. She was yelling and calling me names and that hammer was laying on the counter and-"
"And did you find any money?" asked Galeano.
"There was only ninety bucks in her purse in the closet, I thought there'd be a lot more. I'm sorry. I never meant to do it. Never meant to hurt her so bad. I just needed some money to take Mae to that show she wanted to see."
Palliser picked up the phone to ask for the warrant on him.
THE JET DECANTED MENDOZA at Orly Airport into a chilly gray early morning. With the time difference, it was early morning here and already autumn in northern Europe. He was feeling tired and stale, though he'd slept on the plane. The travel agent had got a reservation for him at the Hotel Crillon and he picked up a cab at the airport entrance. It was a big hotel in the middle of the city. What he could see of Paris in the cold morning light was just another old, dirty city. Older than his town and parts of it dirtier, with the occasional streets of new, shining office buildings, apartments. Everybody at the hotel seemed to speak English and he was shepherded to a good-sized room with a private bath on the top floor. He undressed, went to bed and slept for four hours, and woke feeling more alert. He took a shower and shaved, got dressed again, and went downstairs for a cup of coffee at the hotel restaurant. The elegantly uniformed attendant at the main entrance called him a cab. He had taken an unreasonable prejudice against the Surete and said to the cab driver, "The Prefecture de Police," as distinctly as possible."
The cab driver raised a thumb. "O.K., bud," he said and let in the clutch with a jerk.
Mendoza had got traveler's checks cashed at the hotel and let the driver pick what he wanted of the sleazy thin paper.
The building was a square grim old pile looking like an old-fashioned military barracks, and he found out later that that was how it had begun life. He started out talking to a uniformed man at the desk in the lobby, who spoke some heavily accented English and presently summoned another man in civilian clothes who spoke more fluently, introduced himself as Delahaye, prefaced with a title Mendoza didn't catch.
"I think,"said Delahaye after deliberation, "M. L'lnspecteur Rambeau will like to speak with you," and he used the phone on the desk, spoke rapid French. He took Mendoza up in a creaking elevator to the second floor, down a long gloomy hall. At the end of it he opened a door and bowed Mendoza in. "The American police officer, Inspecteur."
The man at the desk in the large plain office stood up. There was a little wooden plaque upright on the front of the desk with lettering: INSPECTEUR LAURENT RAMBEAU.
"Ah," he said. "A pleasure to meet a colleague." He offered a firm hand. "Once I have visited your country, but not so far as California." His English was very good. He was about Mendoza's age and size and he had a thick crop of wiry curly black hair and a flourishing black Gallic mustache, inquisitive bright brown eyes. "Sit down and tell me how we can help you."
Feeling warmed and welcomed, Mendoza took the chair beside the desk and began to tell the story. Rambeau listened absorbedly, chin planted on hands and elbows on desk, and at the end he sat up, reached to the package of cigarettes on the desk, offered it politely, and said, "So, do we not all know how it goes. Day by day there is nothing but the little stupid violences, and then all of a sudden, once in ten years, arrives something complicated and strange. This is very interesting. I like it. I like it as a mystery. But the poor little Juliette." Mendoza had handed over the envelope of photographs and he shook his head over them. "A beautiful girl. One feels for the poor fiance."
"The Surete gave us nothing at all. They don't know her fingerprints and I can't give you any more information on her."
"Ah," said Rambeau. "The Surete. These big important men of affairs, sometimes they can be a trifle arrogant."
"Yes, we have the same trouble with the FBI at times."
Rambeau laughed. "You and I, we are the same kind of policemen, I feel. I can see things to do here. We both understand the value of the spadework. There is the telephone directory, first of all. It is a pity it is such a common name-Martin-there will be thousands in greater Paris. Ours is a bigger city than yours, Mendoza. In Paris and its environs there are more than nine million people. But," he went on briskly, "there are things to do about this. We are always busy, but I feel as you do about the little Juliette, I want to know why she is dead. Now, the telephone. We will set four or five men to check all the Martins and that will be a long job. The fiance's surname we do not know, and Paul is a common name, too. But there is this M. Trechard-Trouchard, some such name."