Cynthia Manson (ed) by Merry Murder

concerned, the boy had only to scratch away the frost with his
fingernail. When I was a boy—
    “Yes. So did I. The
thing is to find out whether the old woman’s window was open.”
    “It was, and the
light was switched on.”
    “I wonder where
Francois can have got to.”
    “The boy?”
    It was surprising
and a little disconcerting the way he kept all the time reverting to him. The
situation was certainly embarrassing, and somehow made all the more so by the
calm way in which Andre Lecœur gave the Inspector the most damaging details
about his brother.
    “When he came in
this morning,” began Saillard again, “he was carrying a number of parcels. You
realize—”
    “It’s Christmas.”
    “Yes. But he’d have
needed quite a bit of money to buy a chicken, a cake, and that new radio. Has
he borrowed any from you lately?”
    “Not for a month. I
haven’t seen him for a month. I wish I had. I’d have told him that I was
getting a radio for Francois myself. I’ve got it here. Downstairs, that is, in
the cloakroom. I was going to take it straight round as soon as I was
relieved.”
    “Would Madame Fayet
have consented to lend him money?”
    “It’s unlikely. She
was a queer lot. She must have had quite enough money to live on, yet she still
went out to work, charring from morning to evening. Often she lent money to the
people she worked for. At exorbitant interest, of course. All the neighborhood
knew about it, and people always came to her when they needed something to tide
them over till the end of the month.”
    Still embarrassed,
the Inspector rose to his feet. “I’m going to have a look.” he said.
    “At Madame
Fayet’s?”
    “There and in the
Rue Vasco de Gama. If you get any news, let me know, will you?”
    “You won’t find any
telephone there, but I can get a message to you through the Javel police
station.”
    The Inspector’s
footsteps had hardly died away before the telephone bell rang. No lamp had lit
up on the wall. This was an outside call, coming from the Gare d’Austerlitz.
    “Lecœur? Station
police speaking. We’ve got him.”
    “Who?”
    “The man whose
description was circulated. Lecœur. Same as you. Olivier Lecœur. No doubt about
it, I’ve seen his identity card.”
    “Hold on, will
you?”
    Lecœur dashed out
of the room and down the stairs just in time to catch the Inspector as he was
getting into one of the cars belonging to the Préfecture.
    “Inspector! The
Gare d’Austerlitz is on the phone. They’ve found my brother.”
    Saillard was a
stout man and he went up the stairs puffing and blowing. He took the receiver
himself.
    “Hallo! Yes. Where
was he? What was he doing? What? No, there’s no point in your questioning him
now. You’re sure he didn’t know? Right. Go on looking out. It’s quite possible.
As for him, send him here straightaway. At the Préfecture, yes.”
    He hesitated for a
second and glanced at Lecœur before saying finally, “Yes. Send someone with
him. We can’t take any risks.”
    The Inspector
filled his pipe and lit it before explaining, and when he spoke he looked at
nobody in particular.
    “He was picked up
after he’d been wandering about the station for over an hour. He seemed very
jumpy. Said he was waiting there to meet his son. from whom he’d received a
message.”
    “Did they tell him
about the murder?”
    “Yes. He appeared
to be staggered by the news and terrified. I asked them to bring him along.”
Rather diffidently he added: “I asked them to bring him here. Considering your
relationship, I didn’t want you to think—”
    Lecœur had been in
that room since eleven o’clock the night before. It was rather like his early
years when he spent his days in his mother’s kitchen. Around him was an
unchanging world. There were the little lamps, of course, that kept going on
and off, but that’s what they always did. They were part and parcel of the
immutability of the place. Time flowed by without anyone noticing