“So,” I said. “Neither the owner nor Moses left the table even once?”
“No,” he said confidently. “Both of them turned out to be remarkably zealous gamblers.”
“Meaning that at nine o’clock there were only the three gamblers, Brun and Olaf?”
“Precisely. I remember that quite clearly.”
“Good,” I said. “Now, back to you. After everyone had dispersed, you sat for some time at the card table practicing card tricks…”
“Practicing card tricks…? I suppose it’s possible… Sometimes when I’m lost in thought, you know how it is, my hands take on a will of their own, it happens subconsciously. Indeed. Then I decided to smoke a cigar and made my way back here, to my room. I smoked the cigar, sat in this armchair and dozed off, I have to confess. I was woken up by what felt like a sort of shove—suddenly I remembered that I had promised poor Olaf that I’d give him a chance to get his revenge at ten o’clock. I looked at my watch. I don’t remember exactly what the time was, but it was a little after ten, and I felt relieved that I wouldn’t be too late. I hastily cleaned myself up in front of the mirror, grabbed a bundle of bills and my cigars and went out into the corridor. It was empty, Inspector—that I remember. I knocked on Olaf’s door: nobody answered. I knocked a second time, again without any success. I decided that Mr. Olaf had forgotten about his revenge and found something more interesting to pursue. However, I am terribly scrupulous when it comes to this sort of thing. I wrote the aforementioned note and stuck it to his door. Then I waited until eleven, upon my honor, reading this book here, and at eleven went to bed. And the interesting part of it, Inspector, is that not long before you and the owner started making your racket and clambering up and down the hallway, I was woken up by a knock on my door. I opened it, but no one was there. I went back to bed, but couldn’t get to sleep.”
“Uh-huh,” I said. “I see. What you’re saying is that from the moment that you pinned the note until you went to bed at eleven o’clock, nothing else of significance happened… there were no noises of any kind, or movement?”
“No,” Du Barnstoker said. “Nothing.”
“And where were you? Here, or in the bedroom?”
“Here, sitting in this chair.”
“Uh-huh,” I said. “One last question. Did you talk with Hinkus before lunchtime yesterday?”
“With Hinkus?… That ill little… Wait a second, my dear friend… Of course! We were standing outside the shower, remember? Mr. Hinkus was irritated because we had to wait, and I was calming him with some trick or another… Ah yes, the lollipops! He was quite amusingly confused after that. I adore illusions like that.”
“And after that you two didn’t speak to one another?”
Du Barnstoker pressed his lips together thoughtfully.
“No,” he said. “So far as I can remember, not at all.”
“And you didn’t go up on the roof?”
“On the roof? No. No, no. I didn’t go up on the roof.”
I stood up.
“Thank you, Mr. Du Barnstoker. I believe this will help the investigation. I hope you understand how inappropriate further practical jokes would be at this point,” (he quietly waved his hands at me). “Well, that’s good. I strongly advise you to take a sleeping pill and go to bed. In my opinion, that’s the best thing you could do at this point.”
“I’ll try,” Du Barnstoker said.
I wished him a good night and left. I went to wake up the kid, but then I caught sight of the door to Simone’s room shutting quickly and quietly at the end of the hall. I made my way swiftly back to it.
I went in without knocking and immediately saw that I’d done the right thing. Through the open bedroom door I saw the great physicist, hopping on one leg, trying to get his pants off. This was even more ridiculous given that the lights were on in both of the rooms.
“Don’t bother, Simone,” I said grimly. “Anyway, you don’t have time to get your tie off.”
Simone collapsed helplessly onto the bed. His jaw was trembling, his eyes bulged. I went into the bedroom and stood in front of him, my hands in my pockets. We were quiet for a while. I didn’t say a single word: I only looked at him, giving him time to realize that he was done for. He drooped even more under my gaze, drawing his head further towards his shoulders, his knobby, hooked nose looking even more despondent. Finally he couldn’t hold back any longer.
“I will only speak in the presence of my attorney,” he announced in a cracking voice.
“Come on, Simone,” I said with disgust. “You’re a physicist. What kind of lawyer are we going to find for you in this backwater?”
Suddenly he grabbed my jacket lapel and, looking up into my eyes, hissed:
“I know what you want, Peter, but I swear, I didn’t kill her.”
Now it was my turn to take a seat. I groped behind me for a chair and sat down.
“Put yourself in my position—why would I?” Simone continued fervently. “There has to be a motive… No one just kills… Of course, there are sadists, but they’re insane… Especially this kind of monstrosity, it’s like a nightmare… I swear! She was already quite cold when I took her in my arms!”
For a few seconds, I closed my eyes. So there was another dead body in the building. And this time it was a woman.
“You know perfectly well,” Simone blabbered on. “Crimes don’t just happen. True, André Gide wrote… But that’s just an intellectual game… You need a motive… You know me, Peter! Look at me: do I really look like a murderer?”
“Stop,” I said. “Shut up for a minute. Think hard and then tell me exactly what happened.”
He didn’t stop to think.
“Of course,” he said readily. “But you have to believe me, Peter. Everything that I’m saying is the sincere truth, and nothing but the truth. That’s how it happened. Even during that damned ball… She’d given me hints before, though I didn’t dare… But this time you’d pumped me full of brandy, so I decided, why not? It’s not a crime, is it? And then it was eleven o’clock, things were calming down, I left and quietly went downstairs. You and the owner were talking nonsense about the cognition of nature, the usual balderdash… I quietly walked past the den—I was wearing socks—and crept to her room. The old man’s light was off—hers too. As I’d expected, her door wasn’t locked, so right away I was encouraged. It was pitch-dark, but I did make out her silhouette: she was sitting on the couch directly across from the door. I called to her softly, but she didn’t answer. Then, well, I sat down next to her and, you know how it is, embraced her… Brr-r-r!… I didn’t even get a chance to kiss her! She was stone dead… hard, stiff… Like ice! Like petrified wood! And that grin… Who knows how I got out of there. I must have broken all the furniture… I swear to you, Peter, take the word of an honest man: when I touched her, she was already completely dead, cold and numb… You know I’m not a beast…”
“Put your pants on,” I said in quiet despair. “Clean yourself up and follow me.”
“Where are we going?” he asked in a terrified voice.
“To jail!” I shouted. “Solitary confinement! The torture tower, you idiot!”