Devereaux turned the corner and started north toward the river. In the next block was the entrance to the Métro. He decided to give it the test and started down the steps quickly; he noticed the name of the Métro station on the large, illuminated map inside and then shuffled into the line for purchasing tickets. He pushed over a ten-franc note and took his change and the ticket.
Out of the corner of his eye he saw the man descending the stairs.
Devereaux pushed through the turnstile and down another flight of stairs to the platform. He walked the length of the platform, to the far end, and turned again. The stranger was on the platform as well. He raised the copy of Le Monde to cover his face.
Not a very good job, Devereaux thought. He knew how difficult it was to follow someone, but the other man had been clumsy. As though he did not expect Devereaux to be on his guard.
The underground train whooshed quietly into the station, and after a moment the doors slid open. The cars were full of afternoon faces, tired and dour, each hiding private thoughts and mundane disillusions. Devereaux stepped aboard and then looked out. The other man had already gotten aboard.
A terrible job of surveillance, in fact, Devereaux thought. The other man should have waited until the train was about to go and then gotten aboard.
The doors slammed shut and the train slowly picked up speed. Devereaux glanced out the windows. The next station was Odéon; the train was heading west across the left bank of the Seine for Porte d’Auteuil, near the southeast edge of the Bois de Boulogne, the giant wooded park on the western edge of the city.
As the subway roared along between the walls of the narrow tunnels, Devereaux thought of the man who had followed him. Since he had made no contacts in Paris yet, they had to know he was coming. But from where? What was the connection with Jeanne Clermont?
And was it worthwhile to make contact or play out the game?
Hanley had spoken of time; there was some vague urgency to everything that Devereaux had to do. He was instinctively against forcing a decision, but the stranger who followed him had made changes. Something would have to be done.
The train pulled into the farthest station west on the Number 10 line twenty-two minutes later, and Devereaux got out of the last car with a few others and headed for the exit. He did not look around; he knew the stranger was following him.
In the fading sunlight, traffic crawled painfully through the place de la Porte d’Auteuil, accompanied by horns and the roar of tiny engines and the strident whistles of the uniformed traffic policemen in their pillbox hats and white gloves. Nothing seemed to move; it was simply part of the twice-daily ritual of the Paris rush hour.
Devereaux crossed the place near the south end of the Auteuil racetrack and found his way into the woods. He walked quickly, as though he were going to a rendezvous; he wanted to be deeper into the woods of the park before he turned on the man who followed him.
He climbed a steep path toward the Butte Montmartre and then turned into the woods themselves. Beneath the green canopy of the mature elms and poplars and chestnuts and maples, the sunlight was cut down. The woods were darker, and they muffled the sounds of traffic beyond the preserve.
He could not hear anyone behind him.
He crossed carefully into a roadway; there were no cars and no strollers. He went to the other side of the road and back into the woods. Then he turned and waited behind a massive oak.
A minute passed, and then another.
No one crossed the roadway.
In the third minute, a bicycle came speeding up the path, the driver intent only on the pleasure of the empty road and his body pushing against the machine. The head of the bicyclist was low over the handlebars, and his muscle-knotted legs were blurred as they pushed the gears.
Devereaux nearly smiled. Perhaps he was so inept that he had gotten lost.
The roadway was empty again. Devereaux waited and felt the weight of the black pistol at his belt.
“Monsieur?”
He turned suddenly and a man with large, sad eyes and a mournful face was in a small clearing fifty feet on the other side of him. Devereaux waited and did not speak.
“Do you speak French?”
“Who are you?”
“It is more important that I ask you.”
Devereaux waited. His brown corduroy jacket was unbuttoned; the pistol could be brought to firing position in a quick move of his practiced left hand.
The man who had followed him had not shown. And in his place appeared this large Frenchman in trilby hat and tan raincoat, the English clothes utterly failing to disguise the Gallic features. His nose was long and broad, the eyes were wide-set in a wide face; the ears were long, with large lobes. The eyes seemed amused and sad by turns, as though what they saw never failed to cause one emotion or the other.
“I didn’t understand what you said,” the Frenchman said.
“I said nothing,” Devereaux replied.
“Why are you here?”
“Taking a walk.”
“Are you American? Your accent is American.”
“I didn’t know I had an accent.”
The Frenchman grinned. “Precisely.”
“Who are you?”
“My name is Simeon, Inspector Simeon with the Criminal Investigations Department.”
“Has something criminal taken place?”
“Perhaps it might.”
Again, the two men did not move but played on the silence between them.
Devereaux could not see the road now behind him. Maybe the two men — the stranger he had spotted and this Frenchman — had worked together and the other man was now circling him. But how had Simeon gotten behind him?
“Let me be clear. I’ve followed you since you came to Paris. Your name is Clay and you are an American exporter. That is what your entry visa says and that is what you told customs. But you came from Britain. I am curious about you.”
“The French police must have a lot of time to indulge their curiosity.”
Simeon grinned broadly. “This is not a matter for humor,” he said, but the grin remained. “Why do you come to the Bois?”
“Why do you follow me?”
“Because I am curious. About you and about why you have taken a room in the hotel that was the hotel of William Manning.” The grin remained as a ghost of a moment before, but the voice was quick, harsh, even brutal. Beneath the comic exterior, something existed that was a lie to everything Simeon appeared to be.
“Who is William Manning?” Devereaux said calmly.
Simeon removed a small pistol from the pocket of his coat. It glistened in the thin light of the dying afternoon. Above their heads, the trees rustled in a slight wind; the sounds of traffic were distant. From a café hidden by the trees, they could now hear the clink of glasses and low voices.
“You are an American agent,” Simeon said. “You have an interest in William Manning and you have an interest now in Jeanne Clermont. I am a simple policeman; I have to know the truth of the matter.”
“Do you suppose I killed Manning?”
“Someone did.”
“What did you find? On his body?”
“The usual things. And a photograph. It was a photograph taken a long time ago — the type of film is obsolete — at the Louvre. It is a picture of a young man and his woman.”
What a fool, Devereaux thought suddenly. Manning had not forgotten her in all the years between; he had been in love with her. And then he had been killed, and now his stupid romanticism had complicated matters with this policeman.