“Monsieur Torrence,” he answers in an elocutionary tone, as if reading from an advertising brochure, “is a man who sees all, knows all, and thinks of everything.”
“But still is not sharp enough to know when his pockets are being picked. You know, I’m beginning to think that maybe you were hidden someplace in that room, and that maybe you are the one who... But let’s get down to the business at hand. Are you planning to stay here all afternoon?”
“I don’t especially relish the idea.”
“Let’s lay our cards on the table, shall we? First, it was your bearded little sidekick who started tailing me. You came to spell him. From what I’ve heard about Agency O and the cases it has successfully solved, I know it would be childish for me to consider ditching you through a house with two exits or by changing trains on the Metro. You lost the first round, but you’ve come right back in the second.”
“I don’t understand,” he mumbles, all innocence, the picture of the man who gets slapped.
“You had the handkerchief. I got it back. Incidentally, I don’t mind giving you what’s left of it. The laundry mark is gone in my drink. So, now you are in charge of tailing me. And by the same token, I can’t go anywhere at all. Some fun!”
“To tell the truth,” he sighs, “I don’t find that so distasteful.”
“Maybe you don’t,” says she. “Mademoiselle! My bill, please!”
“Both together?”
“I should say not! Monsieur can settle his own.”
What would Torrence say if he saw her like this? No longer the young lady at all, or at least one heck of a sophisticated young lady. And yet, still with what might be called a kind of distinction, something or other one rarely comes across among people the police, or even private detectives, usually deal with.
“You never more talkative than this?” she asks.
“Never.”
“Too bad. We’re keeping these waitresses from finishing their jobs. Settle your bill and let’s get out! I suppose it doesn’t matter to you which way we go? That being the case, let’s walk down toward the Seine. It’s quieter there.”
They do not know that their waitress has just lost her bet. She bet her cronies that they would see the couple head straight for the first hot-sheet hotel of the Rue de la Bastille. Instead of which, they are walking quietly off along Boulevard Henri-IV.
“What you would like to find out, come hell or high water,” she says, “is where I’m going, where I came from, and who I was working for this morning, eh? That’s it, isn’t it? You followed me. You’ll go right on dogging my footsteps. And for my part, I am determined not to give you any information; in other words, not to go back home and not to have any contact with any of the people I know.”
She turns toward him, irritated, and then bursts out, “But why the devil don’t you light your cigarette?”
“Oh, I’m sorry. Just an old habit. I never light it.”
She had thought this would be an easy one, and yet she has never met so impassive a fellow as this tall redheaded young man who follows her around with such exceptional determination.
“Well then, why do you keep it in your mouth?”
“I don’t know. If it really bothers you...”
“Why do you try to pass yourself off as detective Torrence’s photographer?”
“I beg your pardon. What do you mean, pass myself off?”
“Don’t try to kid me. This morning, you were strapped up with a big camera. You were pretending to take pictures. But you forgot to take the cap off your lens...”
He smiles and acknowledges the point.
“One for you.”
“What do you do at that agency?”
“I work there.”
“And you’re most certainly underpaid.”
“How do you know?”
“Because you wear ready-made suits that shrink when it rains.”
They have reached the Ile St.-Louis. She sighs.
“I wonder what I’ll do with you. Not to mention the fact that I’d sure like a chance to change my clothes.”
“I don’t doubt it.”
“Why do you say you don’t doubt it?”
“Because you put that suit on in a hurry, at the last minute, so that you didn’t get to take the creases out of the sleeves. You usually dress more carefully than that, more luxuriously, I imagine, because you didn’t change your stockings, and you’re wearing stockings that go for a hundred and ten francs a pair. A little high for the daughter of a provincial lawyer.”
“You an expert in stockings?”
He lowers his eyes and blushes.
“At any rate,” he says, “your accomplice or accomplices are expecting you, and they’re beginning to be worried. I wonder how you’ll be able to get a reassuring message to them, with me on your tail. You’ll also finally have to find a place to sleep. You’ll have to—”
“Happy prospect!”
“Yes, I was just thinking the same thing.”
They automatically watch a string of barges that a tug is dragging upstream.
“Moreover,” Emile goes on, with his congenital humility, “if you don’t sleep in your own bed, we’ll know it by tomorrow...”
She shudders, looks at him, and says, “Fill me in on that.”
“Considering the point we’ve gotten to, it would be gauche of me to turn down such a request. Just follow my reasoning for a moment. If the handkerchief that was lost at the jewelry store during the burglary was sufficiently damning evidence to move you to do what you did this morning—”
“Oh, hurry up! It’s freezing out here.”
“I was saying, there are two kinds of laundry marks. Those that are made for private customers; they’re not very compromising. But modern laundries have a very huge clientele. That’s why they use special markings for the laundry from the large hotels—”
“That’s stupid!” she cuts in.
“Just the same, it made you turn pale! Anyway, I suppose that you and your accomplice or accomplices live at some hotel, probably one of the large hotels. The laundry mark would have put us on your trail. Now it’s just part of a punch that nobody, I hope, will try to drink! I say, if you don’t mind — on account of those snails that I ate — would you object to stopping at this little bar to have a beer at the counter?”
She follows him condescendingly.
“Two draft beers!”
“That still hasn’t clued me in on why, if I don’t sleep in my own bed tonight—”
“Well, you saw that I sent my colleague away.”
“The one who looks like a duck-hunting dog?”
“That’s right. He, and a few others, will now undertake a bit of real deep research. Tomorrow morning we will have the names and descriptions of all the women in your age group registered in any Paris hotels who did not spend the night in their own rooms. To your health!... Patron, how much do I owe you?”
“I asked you a question a little while ago.”
“Did you? I don’t remember it.”
They are again walking along the river.
“How much do you make, working for Agency O? What would you say to—”
“That would depend on how much you have on you.”
Taking him at his word, she opens her bag. They are at the tip of the island, where you can look up at the Cathedral of Notre Dame. The fog has lightened.
“If I were to give you—”
She counts the bills. Thirty... forty...
“—Fifty thousand francs?”
She is beside herself with joy. No way that this poorly dressed young man, who looks like an impoverished clerk, can refuse such a fortune.
“All you have to do is miss the subway train I get on...”
“But then,” he answers calmly, “you won’t have any cash on you. No, you won’t! Fifty thousand francs is all that you have in your purse. What if you don’t meet up with your accomplice? What if he got scared, and has already taken to the hills?”