“In any event, it’s absurd of me to ascribe that kind of deviousness to such a nonentity. Absurd, and unworthy of a Moses. Naturally, what we have here is a case of simple police bureaucracy and tactlessness, caused by a low level of cultural and intellectual development. I accept your apologies, sir, and give you a farewell salute. In addition, taking the circumstances into consideration… I understand that you will not have the decency to leave my wife in peace and spare her from your ridiculous questions. Therefore I give you my permission to ask these questions—no more than two questions, sir! In my presence. Quickly. Follow me.”
I followed him, rejoicing inwardly. He knocked on Mrs. Moses’s door and, when she answered it, cooed gratingly:
“May I come in, my dear? I am not alone…”
My dear, he could. She was lying in the same position under the lamp, now completely dressed. She met us with her charming smile. The old wretch minced his way up to her and kissed her hand—this reminded me for some reason of what the owner had said about his whipping her.
“It’s the inspector, my dear,” Moses rasped, wilting into the chair. “You remember the inspector?”
“Now how could I forget our dear Inspector Glebsky?” answered the beauty. “Sit down, Inspector, do us the pleasure. A beautiful night, don’t you think? So poetical!… The moon…”
I sat in the chair.
“The inspector has done us the honor,” Moses explained, “of making you and me suspects in the murder of that Olaf fellow. You remember Olaf? Well, someone killed him.”
“Yes, I heard about that already,” Mrs. Moses said. “Terrible. My dear Glebsky, how could you possibly suspect that we’d be involved in such a nightmarish crime?”
All of this was starting to get on my nerves. Enough, I thought. To hell with it.
“Madame,” I said dryly. “This investigation has established that yesterday, at approximately eight thirty in the evening you left the dining room. You can of course confirm this?”
The old man was about to burst out of his armchair, but Mrs. Moses was one step ahead of him.
“I can confirm it, of course,” she said. “What reason do I have to deny it? I needed to excuse myself, so I excused myself.”
“So far as I can understand it,” I continued. “You came here, to your room, and at around nine o’clock you again returned to the dining room. Is this right?”
“Yes, of course. To tell the truth, I can’t be certain of the exact time, I didn’t look at the clock… But most likely it was around then.”
“I would like to know if you remember, madame, whether you saw anyone on your trips to and from the dining room.”
“Yes, well, let’s see…” Mrs. Moses said. She furrowed her brow, and I tensed all over. “But of course!” she cried. “When I was on my way back, I saw a couple in the hallway…”
“Where?” I asked quickly.
“Well… just to the left of the landing. It was our poor Olaf and that amusing little creature… I don’t know whether to say a boy or a girl… Who is he, Moses?”
“One minute,” I said. “You are positive that they were standing to the left of the landing?”
“Absolutely positive. They were standing there, holding one another’s hands, and cooing quite tenderly. Naturally, I pretended that I hadn’t seen anything…”
So that’s why Brun had hesitated: the kid remembered that someone had seen them outside of Olaf’s room, and had had no time to think of an excuse, and so had tried to lie in the hope that nothing would come of it.
“I am a woman, Inspector,” Mrs. Moses continued. “And I never interfere in other people’s affairs. Under other circumstances, you wouldn’t get a peep out of me, but now, it seems that I am obliged to be utterly frank… Isn’t that right, Moses?”
Moses in his chair muttered something unintelligible.
“Furthermore,” Mrs. Moses went on, “but I doubt this is of any special significance… On the way down the stairs, I met that unhappy little man…”
“Hinkus,” I hissed, and coughed. Something had stuck in my throat.
“Yes, Finkus… I think that’s his name… Did you know that he had tuberculosis, Inspector? But you’d never think it, would you?”
“I beg your pardon,” I said. “When you met him, was he going up the stairs from the lobby?”
“That should be clear even to a police officer,” Moses barked angrily. “My wife told you clearly that she met this Finkus on her way down the stairs. Which means that he must have met her going up…”
“Don’t be angry, Moses,” Mrs. Moses said gently. “The inspector just wants the details. No doubt it is important to him… Yes, Inspector, he was walking up the stairs, and, so far as I could tell, from the lobby. He wasn’t in a hurry and seemed to be deep in thought, for he didn’t pay me a bit of attention. We passed each other and went our separate ways.”
“How was he dressed?”
“Awfully! That nightmare of a coat… what is it called… sheepskin! It even smelled, if you’ll excuse me for saying so… of wet wool, dog… I don’t know about you, Inspector, but I think that if a man doesn’t have the funds to dress decently he should sit home and try to raise those funds, and not go places where he’s likely to run into decent society.”
“I would give that advice to many people here,” Moses grumbled over his mug. “Stay home and don’t visit places where you’re likely to find good society. Well, then, Inspector, are you finally finished?”
“No, not completely,” I said slowly. “I have one more question… After the ball was over and you went back to your room, I assume, madame, that you went to bed and slept soundly?”
“Slept soundly?… Well, how can I put it… I napped a little, I was feeling a little excited—no doubt I drank more than I should have…”
“But then something must have woken you up,” I said. “Because when I broke so awkwardly into your room later that night—I beg your sincere forgiveness—you were not asleep…”
“Oh, so that’s what you mean… Not asleep… No, I wasn’t asleep, but I can’t say, Inspector, that something woke me up. I simply felt that I wouldn’t be able to get any good sleep that night, and so decided to read a little. As you can see, I have been reading up to this time… Still, if you want to know whether or not I heard any suspicious noises over the course of the night, I can tell you with certainty that I did not.”
“No noise at all?” I said, surprised.
She looked at Moses with what seemed to me like confusion. I didn’t take my eyes off her.
“So far as I can remember, no,” she said, uncertainly. “What about you, Moses?”
“Absolutely not,” Moses said definitively. “If you don’t consider the blasted fuss raised by these gentlemen over that tramp…”
“And neither of you heard the sound of the avalanche? You didn’t feel the shock?”
“What avalanche?” a surprised Mrs. Moses said.
“Don’t worry, my dear,” Moses said. “It’s nothing to worry about. There was an avalanche in the mountains near here, I’ll tell you about it afterwards… Well, then, Inspector? Perhaps that’s enough?”
“Yes,” I said. “That’s enough.” I stood up. “One more, the very last question.”
Mr. Moses’s growl made him sound just like a riled-up Lel. But Mrs. Moses nodded graciously.
“Go ahead, Inspector.”
“This afternoon, shortly before dinner, you, Mrs. Moses, went up on the roof…”
She interrupted me with a laugh.
“No, I did not go on the roof. I absentmindedly took the stairs up to the second floor from the lobby and then, without thinking about it, began climbing those awful stairs to the attic. When I suddenly saw the door in front of me, just a few boards really, I felt quite stupid… At first, I didn’t even realize where I was…”