Costache requested the old fingerprints from the archive and studied them for an hour under a magnifying glass with an ivory handle. He could swear they were identical. But he did not know whether the two years that had elapsed were sufficient to provide conclusive evidence. We shall see in ten years whether they’re like tree rings or not! At home, he had dipped his own fingers in violet ink, but nothing clear had resulted on paper. Then he got the idea of using wax. He dripped some wax from a candle and straight away pressed his the tip of his right index finger into it. He would have to wait a few years before repeating the exercise. Yesterday, he had had the fingerprints of the foreign-looking gentleman taken, the rather curious man Petre had brought in, and not only had he not been at all surprised, but he had seemed to know what it was all about. Only one conclusion could be drawn: he was an international crook, perhaps from New York, where, as he had seen in a photograph in the newspaper, criminal files were kept in a room whose walls were covered from top to bottom in hundreds of little drawers. It was Costache’s ambition to have a similar room in Bucharest. He would have to keep this Dan Crețu under close surveillance, to see whether he had accomplices. Sooner or later he would give himself away.
Setting aside the snowflakes and his plans for reform, he went back into his office, rolled a cigarette, lit it, inhaled the aromatic smoke with great pleasure, and pressed a bell. A strident buzz was heard. When the balding head of the sergeant appeared in the doorway, he asked that Petre be brought in. Petre, known as Rusu, the coachman of the Inger family, knew the man who had been found almost frozen. Costache again recollected the advertisement for the cake shop adjacent to his announcement, but he swatted the thought away, like a fly.
‘I’ve called you here to tell me all about the hijinks of yesterday.’
The coachman twisted his cap in his hands, and his cut finger seemed to throb. He answered determinedly: ‘The man’s from the madhouse, your worshib. I think he shot that blond lad, but he don’t want to admit it. He kebt shouting: I recognize nothing! I recognize nothing!’
‘But why was that? After all, nobody was accusing him of anything, like the police…’
‘I accused him, like the bolice, I did! And he goes: I don’t know how to shoot a gun — imagine that! — and that I take him to the hosbital quick, lest he die, I ain’t got no gun, he says, I don’t know where I am, I don’t understand nothing, I recognize nothing, berhabs something hit me on the head! He’s guilty, your worshib! But what about the blond boyar, didn’t he die?’
Costache regarded the cake shop owner’s coachman carefully: ‘Why do you wish to know?’
Petre fidgeted and answered to the effect that it was a Christian sort of question. Costache changed his tone and threatened that if he were hiding anything from the police he would be in big trouble, and from the frightened expression on Petre’s face he drew the conclusion that he had not told him everything. He did not think it was anything important: perhaps he had taken a ring from the man’s finger or something of the sort, but sooner or later it would be revealed.
‘What was he doing when you found him? Was he awake?’
‘He was lying on his side and goggling at the horse, which was taking a biss, bardon my language, as if he’d never seen a horse bissing in his life. I found him just as I was about to go back to town. He could hardly sit ub. I was afraid he might fall off the box. I thought he was blind drunk.’
It did not seem that the coachman had anything else worthwhile to tell. He sent him away, first giving him an order to pass on to the confectioner, since on Christmas Eve he was invited to the house of both the Margulis family and the Livezeanu family (he had not yet decided which invitation to accept). He had not been hoping for very much from the coachman and he had not been mistaken. He rang the bell once more, calling the slow-witted old man back from the door and feeling sorry for him. He discovered that the coachman who had been assigned to follow the man named Crețu was in the building and he demanded to see him straight away. He received a report on all the details of the previous night, the man’s crazy journey around the streets, his encounter with Nicu outside the Central Girls’ School, his visit to the Icoanei Church, lasting one hour and twenty minutes, his knocking on the locked door of the deacon, something about a plump woman (named Epiharia) who presumably knew more, his departure holding a blanket, and the hours and hours he had gone round in a circle, at random, as if he were trying to make fun of those following him and had irked the trusty coachman more than he cared to say. He had tugged on the reins dozens of times, until the horse was dizzy. And then there was his chasing after a passer-by on Brezoianu Street, and finally, at the very end, his taking refuge inside a hovel next to the Church of St Stephen, also known as the Stork’s Nest. At this point, the Police coachman had cheated: between midnight and the first cock’s crow, he had gone home to bed, sure that the man was not capable of taking one more step, because, unexpectedly for a man of his status, he had not taken a single cab or coach ride during all his lunatic roaming.
‘I’ll bet you anything he’s a madman. We ought to ask Mărcuța, and Dr Șuțu on Plantelor Street, and Dr Marinescu, at the Pantelimon Hospital.’
‘Bravo, well said, Budac. I shall ask you to go there right away. I want an answer by this afternoon. And before anything else, go to the Hospice in Teilor to see how the young man who was shot is doing. If he is conscious, come back immediately. It is extremely important that I talk to him.’
Rather than clicking his heels and saying: ‘Yes, sir!’ the Police’s best coachman soundlessly moved his lips. He knew very well that at Dr Rosenberg’s Hospice, patients without any name or papers were taken in, many of them in a serious condition. The City Hall paid an annual fee to the Hospice for this service, and likewise to Dr Șuțu’s establishment on Plantelor Street, where persons with no means of subsistence were treated. And on top of this, his wife was expecting him at home, as he had to slaughter the pig. It was the Feast of St Ignatius, after all. You can tell the chief’s a bachelor! He thought to himself. Why had he got it into his head to make a suggestion like that, when he knew the chiefs’ working method: if you’re the one who comes up with an idea, then you’re the one who acts on it? He ought to be charier with his words. But he promised himself that he would go home first and then visit every madhouse in the city. That vagrant was a menace. Since Petre brought him in yesterday, things had been going badly for everyone. He was like a curse.
‘Who relieved you?’ asked Costache.
‘I sent Ilie, ’cause he’s got a fast cab. But if it were up to me, two legs would be just as good. You don’t need four wheels to follow him.’
‘All right, never mind. See you don’t stop off at home first! There’s plenty of time for the pig this afternoon!’ called the chief after the coachman, confirming his reputation as a mind reader.
Costache then ordered that Nicu should be sent straight to his office as soon as he returned from Universul, with further instructions that the lad should not be left to come of his own free will but detained as a matter of urgency. He went back to the window: a fresh layer of snow had fallen and the city looked unwontedly jolly that Saturday morning. But it was obvious that the coachman had cursed him, because the sergeant now entered bringing the unbelievable news that the stranger’s chest had not been recovered, despite half of those on duty being responsible for finding it. After warder Păunescu took Fane back to the cell, the sergeant in the room with the safe had dozed off, but the door was locked and the box, likewise locked, was within. Quite simply, nobody had seen anything; nobody knew anything. They were all questioned. The sergeant was given a good hiding, Păunescu was likewise beaten black and blue, but there was something fishy going on, and nothing could be discovered. Now Fane was being questioned. Throughout this description, Costache’s face remained inscrutable, and the sergeant quickly left the office, making himself scarce.