“I couldn’t tell you. We only saw him once. He’s a writer.”
“Was he wearing glasses?”
“Yes.”
“What kind of thing does he write?”
“Crime stories.”
“Devious, ingenious, tricky?”
“All of those.”
“Ha.” This discovery seemed to have a discouraging effect on the police. They started losing interest in Max Dorra. From that point on, they listed him as a missing person, but they scaled down the investigation into his disappearance.
Late the following year, I had a phone call from Professor Gallix:
“I thought you’d be interested in a new development in the Max Dorra disappearance.”
My stomach gave a lurch, but I made sure my voice was steady. “What’s happened?”
“He’s still missing.”
Thank God for that, I thought.
“But they published a picture of him in one of those magazines that list missing persons. When I saw it, I was thrown into confusion. The picture isn’t anything like the man who came to my lecture.”
“I expect they got the captions mixed.”
“No. I checked with his publisher. I can only conclude that the man you and I met — the man claiming to be Dorra — was an impostor.”
“How extraordinary.”
“Why anyone should wish to pose as a writer and attend a rather esoteric lecture is a mystery.”
“It defies explanation,” I said convincingly.
“It makes me wonder if something happened to Dorra before the lecture took place.”
He was getting too close to the truth for my peace of mind. “I shouldn’t think so.”
I didn’t enlighten the professor. I didn’t tell him I had arranged to meet Max Dorra the evening before the lecture, and that his body now lay deep in the Seine, weighted down with scaffolding bolts. Nor did I tell him that my translator-friend Gerard had been only too willing to play the part of Dorra. Pity the poor translators. They are starved of the attention they deserve. Gerard had savoured the admiring glances of the BILIPO staff when he arrived with the cheese and took the elevator to the upper floor and planted it there with the spectacles. Knowing the secret combination, he left without drawing attention to himself, a nonentity once more.
“I doubt if we’ll ever know the truth,” said the professor.
“If there were no mysteries, you and I would be out of a job,” I said.
“One other thing,” he added, “and quite unconnected with this. Did you give any consideration to my suggestion?”
“What was that?”
“The story in which one author kills another.”
“Impossible,” I said. “It will never be written.”