The little man, in a supreme effort, manages to grasp one of these arms; he hangs onto it with all his might, determined not to let go; hard as Wallas shakes him, he can no longer disengage himself. The drunk clings to him with an energy he seemed quite incapable of; but when his head bumps the floor in a convulsion, he suddenly releases his grip, his hands open and the body rolls to the ground, limp, inanimate…
The manager does not seem very affected by this scene. The drunk has probably had such fits before. With a strong grip he picks him up and sets him on his chair, while a wet rag restores him to consciousness at once. The man is cured as though by magic; he rubs his hand over his face, stares around, smiling, and declares to the manager, who is already back behind his counter:
“He wanted to kill me too!”
Nevertheless, since he does not seem to be holding this attempted murder against him, Wallas, who is beginning to be interested in this character, takes advantage of his mood to ask for information. The drunk, fortunately, has a much clearer mind than before his fall; he listens carefully and answers questions readily: yes, he met Wallas yesterday at nightfall, leaving this very cafe; he followed him, caught up with and accompanied him, despite Wallas’ unfriendliness; the latter was wearing a pale gray felt hat slightly too big for him and a tight raincoat with a small L-shaped rip on the right shoulder.
“Last night, a man in a raincoat…” So this man was the drunken bum Madame Bax noticed from her window, and the malefactor himself would be none other than…Wallas cannot help smiling at the absurdity of his conclusion. If it could only be determined that the suspect resembles himself! It is difficult to rely on the judgment of such a witness.
The latter, in any case, persists in confusing them, despite Wallas’ new denials. The other man walked along with him long enough-he says-for him to recognize him the next day. According to the rather vague indications he gives as to their route, it seems that they followed the Rue de Brabant, then the Rue Joseph-Janeck for its whole length, to the parkway, where Wallas’ hypothetical double went into a post office.
Then the drunk came back to drink at the Cafe des Allies.
The manager feels the story has something funny about it: why doesn’t this man want to admit that he was seen the day before? He must have something to hide… Last night? He’s the one who pulled the job. He came out of the little house when the drunk surprised him; he managed to lose him on the other side of town and then he came back to spend the night in peace here. Now he would like to know what the drunk remembers about his escapade. He probably thinks his memory is too good, since he has just tried to knock him out: bumped his head…that’s it. He must be the one who pulled the job.
Unfortunately the hours do not coincide: when the old housekeeper ran in to call the ambulance, he was…Still, he’d better be careful and tell the police about this shady customer; after noon, there is the risk of a fine if he is not reported, and if anything happened…
The manager picks up the telephone book which he leafs through for a long time, glancing suspiciously over the counter at the tables. Finally he dials a number.
“Hello, is this the registration service?”
At the same time he glares accusingly at Wallas.
“This is the Cafe des Allies, ten Rue des Arpenteurs…a lodger to declare.”
A long silence. The drunk opens his mouth wide. From behind the counter comes the sound of a faucet dripping regularly into the sink.
“Yes, a room rented by the day.”
“Sometimes.”
“I’ll send the form, but I prefer being registered as soon as possible… Especially in dealing with certain kinds of people…”
The offhandedness with which this man talks about him in his presence has something so shocking about it that Wallas is on the point of protesting-when he hears, once again, the chief commissioner’s ironic voice:
“If you’re not registered, what proof is there?”
In short, if he is trying to get him in trouble, the manager is making a mistake: by neglecting to register him, he was, on the contrary, permitting Laurent to continue his little joke. And with that strange man you never know where a joke is going to stop-or where it starts. Wallas, though deciding that it is scarcely reasonable to pay attention to such trifles, feels a kind of contentment in finding himself justified on this point.
“Name is Wallas. W-a-double 1-a-s. Wallas. At least that’s what he says.”
The phrase is deliberately insulting-libelous even-and the way the manager stares at his customer while pronouncing it finally obliges the latter to intervene. He takes out his wallet to get at his police card, intending to thrust it under the manager’s nose but he has barely started his gesture when he remembers the photograph attached to the official card: the photograph of a man obviously older than himself, whose heavy brown mustache makes him look like a music-hall Turk.
Of course this too-noticeable “identifying mark” was incompatible with Fabius’ theories as to the outer aspect of special agents. Wallas had to shave off his mustache and his face was transformed, rejuvenated, almost unrecognizable to a stranger. He still has not had time to have his old papers changed; as for the pink card-the ministerial pass-he must, of course, avoid using that.
After having pretended to check something on a ticket taken out of his wallet at random-the return coupon of his train ticket-he puts the whole thing back in his pocket, as naturally as possible. After all, he is not supposed to hear what is being said on the telephone.
Moreover, the manager finds his insinuations turning against him, and the questions being asked at the other end of the wire are already making him lose his patience:
“Of course not, I tell you he arrived last night!”
“Yes, only last night! You’ll have to ask him about the night before that.”
“In any case, I would have notified you!”
The drunk would like to add a word; he half stands up from his chair:
“And then he tried to kill me!…Hey! You better tell them he tried to kill me too!”
But the manager does not bother to answer. He hangs up the receiver and goes back behind his bar, to rummage through a drawer full of papers. He is looking for his police forms, but it has been too long since he has needed them and he has difficulty finding them again. When he finally gets hold of an old and flyspecked form, Wallas will have to fill it out, show his carte d’identite, explain his transformation. Then he will be able to leave-to inquire at the police station if a man in a raincoat was seen last night…
The drunk will go back to sleep in his chair, the manager will wipe off the tables and start washing the glasses in the sink. This time, he will turn off the faucet more carefully, and the little drops that strike the surface of the water with metronomic regularity will stop.
The scene will be over.
His heavy body resting on his widespread arms, his hands gripping the edge of the bar, his head hanging forward, his mouth somewhat twisted, the manager will go on staring into space.
5
In the murky water of the aquarium, furtive shadows pass-an undulation whose vague existence dissolves of its own accord…and afterward it is questionable whether there had been anything to begin with. But the dark patch reappears and makes two or three circles in broad daylight, soon coming back to melt, behind a curtain of algae, deep in the protoplasmic depths. A last eddy, quickly dying away, makes the mass tremble for a second. Again everything is calm…Until, suddenly, a new form emerges and presses its dream face against the glass…Pauline, sweet Pauline… and no sooner does it appear than it vanishes in its turn, to make way for other specters and phantoms. The drunk is making up a riddle. A man with thin lips, in an overcoat buttoned up to his neck is waiting on his chair in the middle of an empty room. His motionless face, his gloved hands clasped on his knees, betray no impatience. He has plenty of time. Nothing can keep his plan from being carried out. He is preparing to receive a visit-not the one from a disturbed, evasive person without any strength of character-but a visit, on the contrary, from someone who can be counted on: it is to this person that tonight’s execution, the second, will be entrusted. In the first murder, he had been kept in the background, but his work was flawless; while Garinati, for whom everything had been so meticulously prepared, had not even been capable of turning out the light. \nd now, this morning, he had let his man get away: