“Not that I know of.”
“If he didn’t steal anything, he’s not a burglar.”
“You’re playing with words, Monsieur,” the little doctor insists: “he probably had every intention of stealing.”
“Oh, ‘intention’! You’re moving a little too fast.”
Fortunately the commissioner decides to say something and asks:
“It was the housekeeper who called you, wasn’t it?”
“Yes, old Madame Smite.”
“Didn’t you think it was odd that she should call in a gynecologist to take care of a wounded man?”
“Good lord, Monsieur, I’m a surgeon; I performed many such operations during the war. Dupont knew it: we had been friends since college.”
“Oh, Daniel Dupont was your friend? I’m sorry, Doctor.”
Juard makes an almost protesting gesture:
“Let’s not exaggerate; we knew each other for a long time, that’s all.”
Laurent continues:
“You went to get the victim by yourself?”
“Yes, I didn’t want to take an orderly: I have a very small staff. Poor Dupont didn’t seem in any danger; Madame Smite and I were able to hold him up, going down the stairs…”
“Then he could still walk? Didn’t you say, last night, that he was unconscious?”
“No, Monsieur, I certainly did not. When I arrived, the wounded man was waiting for me on his bed; he spoke to me and because he was so insistent, I agreed to take him without a stretcher, so as to lose as little time as possible. It was during the trip in the car that he suddenly grew weaker. Up till then he assured me that it was nothing serious, but at that moment I realized that his heart had been touched. I operated immediately: the bullet had lodged in the wall of die ventricle, he could have recovered from that. The heart stopped when I performed the extraction; all my efforts to revive him remained useless.”
The doctor sighs, with a look of great exhaustion.
“Perhaps,” the commissioner says, “there was some cardiac difficulty to complicate matters?”
But the practitioner shakes his head.
“You can’t be sure: a normal man can succumb to a wound of that type too. Actually, it’s a matter of luck.”
“Tell me, Doctor,” Laurent asks after a moment’s thought, “can you suggest at about what distance from the body the shot was fired?”
“Five yards…ten?” Juard says evasively. “It’s difficult to give an exact figure.”
“In any case,” the commissioner concludes, “for a bullet fired by a man running away, it was carefully aimed.”
“Chance…” the doctor says.
“There wasn’t any other wound, was there?”
“No, only the one.”
Doctor Juard answers a few more questions. If he hasn’t telephoned the police at once, it is because the phone in Dupont’s house was out of order; and once he reached the clinic, the wounded man’s condition gave him no opportunity. It was from a nearby cafe that Madame Smite had called him. No, he doesn’t know the name of this cafe\ He also confirms the removal of the body by the police van, and hands the commissioner, in conclusion, the only piece of evidence he has left: a tiny ball of tissue paper…
“I’ve brought you the bullet,” he says.
Laurent thanks him. The police magistrate will probably need the doctor’s testimony.
They separate after a few more friendly words.
Laurent stares at the tiny cone of black metal, a 7.65 projectile that could just as well have come from Wallas’ pistol as from any weapon of the same type. If only the cartridge shell had been found too.
This Doctor Juard certainly has something suspicious about him. The first time Laurent had any dealing with him, he could not quite dismiss this impression: the doctor’s embarrassed phrases, his peculiar explanations, his reticence had finally made Laurent suspect some sort of intrigue. He sees now that this is the man’s normal behavior. Is it his glasses that give him that shifty look? Or his deferential politeness? If Fabius saw him, he would unhesitatingly classify him among the accomplices 1 Hasn’t Laurent himself instinctively tried to unsettle him further by disconcerting questions? The poor wretch didn’t need any such treatment though: the simplest words, in his mouth, assume an equivocal quality.
“… My cooperation was so insignificant…”
What was surprising if people talked about his professional activities? Perhaps, today, he is also affected by the death of one of his friends under his own scapel. Heart disease! Why not?
“Chance…”
Chance, for the second time, puts this little doctor in a rather curious situation. Laurent will not be completely satisfied until the capital sends on the coroner’s conclusions. If Dupont has committed suicide, a specialist can tell that the shot was fired at close range: Juard has realized this and is trying, out of friendship, to convince Laurent that Dupont was murdered. He has come here to decide what effect his declarations have produced; he is afraid that the body-even after the operation-might betray the truth. He is apparently unaware that the police van has removed it to another destination.
He is a truly loyal friend. Didn’t he, last night, “out of respect for the deceased,” request that the press not make too much fuss over this “sensational incident!” Besides, he had nothing to fear: the morning papers could insert only a last minute brief account; as for the evening papers, they will have plenty of time to receive the group’s orders. Although a professor and living quietly, Daniel Dupont belonged to that section of the industrial and mercantile bourgeoisie that does not like to see its life, or its death, discussed in the marketplace. Now no newspaper in the whole country could flatter itself that it was completely independent of this class; with all the more reason in this provincial city, where their omnipotent influence seemed to have no flaws. Shipowners, paper manufacturers, wood exporters, spinning-mill owners, all join hands to protect identical interests. Dupont-it was true-denounced the weaknesses of their system in his books, but that was more a question of advice than attack, and even the ones who did not listen to him respected the professor.
Political crime? Did this withdrawn figure exert the occult influence some attributed to him? Even if it were so, you would have to be a Roy-Dauzet to construct such absurd hypotheses: a murder every day at the same hour… Luckily, this time he has not confided his hallucinations to the regular police. Laurent still has a bad memory of the minister’s last whim: large quantities of arms and munitions were-he claimed-being landed daily in the harbor on behalf of some revolutionary organization; this traffic would have to be stopped at once and the guilty parties arrested! For almost three weeks the police have exhausted themselves: the depots minutely inspected, the holds searched from top to bottom, the crates opened one by one, the bales of cotton unpacked (then repacked) because their weight was over normal. They had picked up, as their entire prize, two undeclared revolvers and the hunting rifle an unfortunate passenger had concealed in a trunk to avoid paying customs duty. No one took the matter seriously, and the police, after a few days, were the laughingstock of the town. The chief commissioner is not about to set off on a wild goose chase of that sort so quickly.
6
As he left the police station, Wallas was once again seized by that impression of empty-headedness which he had earlier attributed to the cold. He then decided that the long walk on an empty stomach-which too light a breakfast had not made up for afterward-also contributed something to this feeling. To be in a position to think to advantage about the commissioner’s remarks and to put his own ideas in order, Wallas has decided it would be a good idea to eat a heavier meal. So he has gone into a restaurant he had noticed an hour before, where he has eaten with a good appetite two eggs and some ham with toast. At the same time, he has had the waitress explain the most convenient way to get to the Rue de Corinthe. Passing once more in front of the statue that decorates the Place de la Prefecture, he has approached it to read, on the west side of the pedestal, the inscription carved in the stone: “The Chariot of State-V. Daulis, sculptor.”