What kind of spell is it that is forcing him to give explanations wherever he goes today? Is it a particular arrangement of the streets in this city that obliges him to be always asking his way, so that at each reply he finds himself led into new detours? Once before he has wandered among these unexpected bifurcations and blind alleys, where you got lost even more certainly when you happened to walk straight ahead. Only his mother was worried about it. Finally they had reached that dead end of a canal; the low houses, in the sun, reflected their old facades in the green water. That must have been in summer, during the school vacation; they had stopped (on their way to the seashore, farther south, where they went every year) to visit some relative. He thought he remembered that she was annoyed, that there was something about a legacy or something of the kind. But did he ever know just what it was? He does not even remember now if they had ever found the woman, or if they had left empty-handed (they had only a few hours between trains). Besides, are these real memories? That day might have been described to him often: “You remember when we went…”
No. The dead end of the canal he had seen himself, and the houses reflected in the still water, and the low bridge that closed off the end…and the abandoned hull of the old boat… But it is possible that this happened on another day, in another place-or even in a dream.
Here is the Rue Janeck and the wall of the recreation courtyard where the Indian chestnuts are shedding their leaves. “Citizens Awake.” And here is the plaque ordering drivers to slow down.
At the end of the drawbridge, the workman in the dark blue pea jacket and the visored cap makes a gesture of recognition.
CHAPTER THREE
1
As usual, the big house is silent.
On the ground floor, the old deaf housekeeper is almost finished preparing dinner. She is wearing felt slippers that muffle the sound of her comings and goings along the hallway between the kitchen and the dining room, where she sets a single, unalterable place at the enormous table.
It is Monday: Monday’s dinner is never very complicated: a vegetable soup, probably ham, and a cream dessert of some vague flavor-or else caramel rice pudding…
But Daniel Dupont is not much concerned with gastronomy.
Sitting at his desk, he is examining his revolver. It must not fall out of order-though it has been so many years since anyone has used it. Dupont handles it carefully; he opens it, takes out the bullets, carefully cleans the mechanism, checks its operation; finally he returns the clip and puts his rag away in a drawer.
He is a meticulous man who likes every task to be executed correctly. A bullet in the heart is what makes the least mess. If it is fired properly-he has talked it over extensively with Doctor Juard-death is immediate and the loss of blood quite slight. So old Anna will have less trouble getting rid of the stains; for her, that is what matters. He is well aware that she does not like him.
On the whole, people have not liked him much, Evelyne… But that is not why he is killing himself. It does not matter to him whether people have liked him or not. He is killing himself for nothing-out of exhaustion.
Dupont takes a few steps on the water-green carpet that muffles every noise. There is not much room to walk in the little study. Books hem him in on all sides: law, social legislation, political economy…Down below, to the left, at the end of the long shelves, stands the row of books he himself has added to the series. Not much. There were two or three ideas there, even so. Who has understood them? Too bad for them.
He stops in front of his desk and glances at the letters he has just written: one to Roy-Dauzet, one to Juard…to whom else? One to his wife, maybe? No; and the one he is addressing to the minister has no doubt been mailed the day before…
He stops in front of the desk and glances one last time at this letter he has just written to Doctor Juard. It is clear and persuasive; it furnishes all the explanations necessary for camouflaging his suicide as a murder.
At first Dupont had thought of making it look like an accident: “Professor kills himself while cleaning old revolver.” But everybody would have known.
A crime is less suspicious. And he could count on Juard and Roy-Dauzet to keep his secret. The wood exporters will not have to turn their faces into masks when his name comes up in conversation. As for the doctor, he shouldn’t be surprised after their conversation last week; he had probably understood. He cannot, in any case, refuse to do this favor for a dead friend. What is asked of him is not very complicated: transferring the body to the clinic and immediately informing Roy-Dauzet by telephone; afterward the report to the municipal police and the release to the local papers. A minister’s friendship is very useful at times: there will be neither coroner nor inquest of any kind. And later (who knows?) this complicity may be useful to the doctor as well.
Everything is in order Dupont need only go down to dinner.
He must seem in his usual mood, so that old Anna will suspect nothing. He gives orders for the next day; with his habitual precision, he settles several details henceforth without importance. At seven-thirty he goes back upstairs and, without a moment’s hesitation, fires a bullet through his heart.
Here Laurent stops; there is still something that is not clear: did Dupont die immediately, or not?
Suppose he merely wounded himself: he still had strength enough to fire a second bullet, since the doctor declares he was able to get down the stairs and walk to the ambulance. And supposing the revolver was out of the question, the professor had other means at his disposaclass="underline" slitting his wrists, for instance; he was the kind of man to have a razor blade handy in case the revolver failed him. It takes great courage to kill yourself, they say, but such courage is more characteristic of Dupont than this sudden renunciation.
On the other hand, if he had succeeded in killing himself outright, why should the doctor and the old housekeeper have invented this story: Dupont, wounded, calling for help from the top of the stairs and, though his life till then did not seem to be threatened, his sudden death on reaching the clinic. It might be supposed that Juard preferred this version, so that he would not be censured for having taken away the body: Dupont would have had to be still alive for him to be entitled to move him; and he would have also had to be capable of standing, so that the stretcher-bearers would not be needed; lastly, this brief survival permitted the victim to explain the circumstances of the murder viva voce. It is possible that Dupont himself recommended this precaution in his letter. But what is strange is that this morning the doctor virtually insisted that the wound had seemed insignificant to him at first-this, in spite of everything, makes Dupont’s death a little surprising. As for the housekeeper, she didn’t seem to have imagined even that the victim could have perished. If it is already surprising that Dupont, or Juard, adopted a solution that necessitated taking the old woman into their confidence, it is even more so that the latter played her role so skillfully with the inspectors only a few hours after the tragedy.
There is, of course, another hypothesis: Dupont might have shot himself the second time once he had reached the clinic-in this way, Madame Smite would have known nothing and her possible testimony would have to be taken into consideration by the doctor in concocting his own. Unfortunately, if it is likely that the doctor agreed to disguise his friend’s suicide, it is scarcely conceivable that he provided him the opportunity to carry it out.