Yes.
He will go back and wait for him behind the spindle-tree hedge, in the study full of books and papers. He will go back there freely, clearheaded and revived, careful, “weighing each of his footsteps.” On the desk is lying the cube of stone with its rounded corners, its faces polished by wear…
The ruined tower lit up by the storm.
Twenty-one wooden steps, one white step.
The tiles of the hallway.
Three slices of ham on a plate, through the half-open door.
The dining room shutters are closed; the kitchen shutters too, a faint gleam filtering through their slats.
He walks on the lawn to avoid making the gravel crunch on the path, which he could see because it was paler than the two flower beds on either side. The study window, in the middle of the second story, is brightly lighted. Dupont is still up there.
The buzzer that makes no noise, at the gate.
Five to seven.
The endless Rue des Arpenteurs, invaded by the smell of herring and cabbage soup, from the dark suburbs and the muddy checkerboard of paths between the miserable shacks.
At nightfall, Garinati has wandered around, waiting until it’s time, among this filthy vegetation of latrines and barbed wire. He has left Bona’s written instructions, long since learned by heart, in his room.
These papers-exact sketches of the garden and the house, minute descriptions of the premises, details of the operations to be performed-these papers are not in Bona’s handwriting; he has written out only certain items concerning the murder proper. As for the rest, Garinati does not know who the author is; who the authors are, rather, for several people must have gone into the house to make the necessary observations there, discover the arrangement of furniture, study the domestic habits, and even the behavior of each board underfoot. And someone has silenced the buzzer at the gate during the afternoon.
The little glass door has made a deep creak. In his rush to escape, Garinati has opened it a little wider than he should have.
It still remains to be seen if…
Go back without waiting. The old deaf woman is alone now. Walk back up there and find out for himself. The room being in darkness, find out at exactly what moment the unexpected hand turns on the light.
Anyone else, in his place…Unexpected. His own hand.
The murderer always returns
And if Bona finds out? He shouldn’t be hanging around here either! Bona. Bona…Garinati has straightened up. He starts across the bridge.
It looks as though it were going to snow.
Anyone else in his place, weighing each of his footsteps, would come, clearheaded and free, to carry out his task of ineluctable justice.
The cube of gray lava.
The buzzer silenced.
The street that smells of cabbage soup.
The muddy paths that disappear, far away, among the rusty corrugated iron.
Wallas.
“Special agent…”
CHAPTER ONE
1
Wallas is leaning against the rail, at the end of the bridge. He is still a young man, tall, calm, with regular features. The clothes he is wearing and his idle air provide, in passing, a vague subject of remark for the last workmen hurrying toward the harbor: at this time, in this place, it does not seem quite natural not to be wearing work clothes, not to be riding a bicycle, not to look hurried; no one goes for a walk on Tuesdays early in the morning, besides, no one goes for a walk in this neighborhood. Such independence of the place and the time has something a little shocking about it.
Wallas himself thinks how chilly it is and that it would be pleasant to warm himself up by pedaling across the smooth asphalt, swept on by his own momentum; but he stands where he is, clinging to the iron railing. The heads, one after the other, turn toward him. He adjusts his scarf and buttons his overcoat collar. One by one the heads turn away and disappear. He has not been able to get breakfast this morning: no coffee before eight in that cafe where he has found a room. He glances mechanically at his watch and notices that it has not started again; it stopped last night at seven-thirty, which has not made things easier for his trip or for anything else. It stops every once in a while, he does not really know why-sometimes after a shock, not always-and then starts again afterward, all by itself, with no more reason. Apparently there is nothing broken inside, it can also run for several weeks at a stretch. It is unpredictable, which is rather annoying at first, but you can get used to it. It must be six-thirty now. Is the manager thinking about going up to knock at the door as he promised? Just in case, Wallas has wound the traveling alarm clock he had taken the precaution to bring along, but he has awakened a little earlier anyway: since he was not sleeping, he might as well begin right away. Now he is alone, as though left behind by the wave of bicyclists. Before him, vague in the yellow light, extends the street along which he has just walked before turning the corner onto the parkway; to the left an imposing five-story apartment building with a stone facade stands at the corner, and facing it a brick house surrounded by a narrow garden. It was there that this Daniel Dupont was killed yesterday by a bullet in the chest. For the time being, Wallas does not know any more than that.
He arrived late, last night, in this city he scarcely knows. He had been here once already, but only for a few hours, when he was a child, and he does not have any very precise memory of the place. One image has remained vivid to him, the dead end of a canal; against one of the quays is moored an old wreck of boat-the hull of a sailboat? A low stone bridge closes off the canal. Probably that wasn’t exactly right: the boat could not have passed under the bridge. Wallas continues on his way toward the center of the city.
Having crossed the canal, he stops to let pass a streetcar returning from the harbor, its new paint gleaming-yellow and red with a gold coat-of-arms; it is completely empty: people are going in the other direction. Having reached Wallas, who is waiting to cross the street, the car stops too, and Wallas finds himself facing the iron step; then he notices beside him the disk attached to a lamppost: “Streetcar Stop” and the figure 6 indicating the line. After ringing a bell, the car starts up again slowly, its machinery groaning. It seems to have finished its trip. Last night, as he came out of the station, the streetcars were so jammed that he was unable to pay his fare before getting off; the conductor could not walk through the car because of the suitcases. The other riders informed him, with some difficulty, of the stop nearest this Rue des Arpenteurs, of whose existence most of them seemed quite unaware; someone even said that it was not in this direction at all. He had to walk a long time along the badly lighted parkway, and once he found it, he noticed this cafe that was still open, where they gave him a room, not very luxurious of course, but good enough. He was quite lucky actually, because it would not have been easy to find a hotel in this deserted neighborhood. “Furnished Rooms” was written in enamel letters on the window, but the manager hesitated before answering; he seemed annoyed, or in a bad mood. On the other side of the embankment Wallas turns into a street paved with wood, which must lead toward the center of town; “Rue de Brabant” is written on the blue plaque. Wallas has not had time, before leaving, to get hold of a map of the city; he plans to do so this morning as soon as the stores open, but he is going to take advantage of this respite he has before going to the police station, where normal service does not begin until eight, to try and find his way alone through the labyrinth of streets. This one seems important despite its narrowness: apparently long, it dissolves into the gray sky in the distance. A real winter sky; it looks as though it were going to snow.