Ellery Queen's The Golden 13, page 13
Here was his own street, and his shop with a few samples of dark materials and some fashion drawings in the window. And the other shop, across the street. He opened the door, shut it again, and turned the key in the lock.
“Is that you?” his wife called.
As if it could have been anyone else at such a late hour and in this weather!
“Be sure to wipe off your shoes.”
At this point he wondered whether he was really awake. After all he had lived through, and with the massive shadow of the haberdasher still looming at the opposite doorway, all she could say was:
“Be sure to wipe off your shoes.”
He felt very much like fainting. And what would she have said then?
Kachoudas was kneeling on the floor with his back to the window and just in front of him, only a few inches from his nose, were die rotund legs and stomach of a man in an upright position. This man was Inspector Micou, who had not been distracted by the crime of the evening before from coming to have the tailor take his measurements.
The little tailor passed his tape measure around the waist and the hips, wet his pencil on the end of his tongue, and wrote down the figures in a greasy notebook lying on the floor; then he went on to measure the length of the trouser leg and the crotch. All this time Monsieur Labbé stood behind the lace curtains of the window at exactly the same height on the other side of the street. There were no more than eight yards between them.
Kachoudas had an empty feeling in the pit of his stomach. The haberdasher would not shoot, he was sure of that. He would not shoot because, first of all, he was not the sort of murderer to go in for firearms. Murderers have their pet ways of doing things, just like anyone else, and they are not easily divorced from their habits. Besides, if he did shoot, he would simply be giving himself up to the police.
In the next place, the haberdasher had confidence in Kachoudas. This was the real point. And yet couldn’t the little tailor, from his kneeling position, murmur to the rotund statue whose measurements he was taking:
“Don’t move. Pretend nothing has happened. The haberdasher across the street is the killer. He’s spying on us right now from behind his window.”
But he said nothing at all, and continued to play the part of an innocent and unpretentious tailor. There was an unpleasant odor on the mezzanine, but this did not bother Kachoudas in the slightest degree, for he was quite used to the greasy smell of wool which he carried around with him wherever he went. Probably Monsieur Labbé’s shop across the way had the staler and even more unpleasant odor of felt and glue. Every trade has its own stink. If such is the case, what smell is characteristic of a detective? This thought ran through Kachoudas’ mind, proving that he had recovered to some extent his aplomb.
“If you can come back late this afternoon for a fitting, I hope I can let you have your suit tomorrow morning.”
He went downstairs behind the Inspector, then passed in front of him as they walked through the shop, and opened the door, causing the bell to ring automatically. Neither of them had spoken of the killer, or of the elderly maiden lady, Mademoiselle Irene Mollard, whose murder was all over the front page of the newspaper.
And yet the tailor had spent a very restless night, so restless that his wife had wakened him to say, “Try to lie quietly, will you? You do nothing but kick me!”
After that he could not fall asleep again. He lay awake, thinking hour after hour until his head began to ache. By six o’clock in the morning he had enough of lying in bed and thinking, and he got up. After he had made himself a cup of coffee he went to his workroom and lit a fire. Of course he had to put a light on, for it was not yet day. There was a light across the street too, since for years the haberdasher had got up at half-past five every morning. Unfortunately one couldn’t see him through the curtains, but it was easy to guess what he was doing.
Monsieur Labbé’s wife would have no callers. Very rarely did a friend penetrate beyond the front door and then for only a short time. She would not receive care even from the hands of the cleaning woman, who arrived every morning at seven o’clock and stayed until night. Monsieur Labbé” had to do everything for her himself—put her room in order, bring up her meals, and carry her from her bed to her chair and back. Twenty times a day, when he heard her signal, he rushed up his spiral stairway from the shop to the mezzanine floor. Her signal was a very special one. A cane was placed near her chair and she still had enough strength in her left hand to tap with it on the floor.
The little tailor went back to his work, sitting cross-legged on the table.
“Watch out, Kachoudas,” he said to himself. “Twenty thousand francs are no joke, and it would be too bad to let them go. But life is worth something too, even the life of a little tailor from the wilds of Armenia. Even if the haberdasher is crazy, he can think faster than you. If he’s arrested they’ll probably have to let him go—for lack of proof. It’s not very likely that he amuses himself by scattering bits of newspaper all over the house.”
It was wise to think things over unhurriedly as he sewed.
Already a new idea had come to him. Some of the communications sent to the Courrier de la Loire were a whole page long. It must have taken hours of painstaking work to find the right words and letters, cut them out, and paste them up in order. Downstairs in the haberdashery shop Alfred, the redheaded clerk, was always about Behind the shop there was a workshop with wooden head forms where Monsieur Labbé blocked hats, but a peephole with a glass window connected these two downstairs rooms. The cleaning woman reigned over the kitchen and the rest of the house, so that a process of elimination made it clear that the only place where the killer could devote himself to his cutting and pasting was the bedroom shared by his wife and himself, where no one was allowed to enter. Madame Labbé could not move; she could not even talk except by making a succession of weird sounds. What did she think when she saw her husband cutting out scraps of paper?
“What’s more, Kachoudas, my friend, if you accuse him now and some proof of his guilt is found, those fellows (he meant the police and even his new customer, Inspector Micou) will claim that they did the whole job and take the reward away from you.”
Fear of losing the twenty thousand francs and fear of Monsieur Labbé. The tailor was caught between these two fears. But by nine o’clock his fear of the haberdasher had almost gone. In the middle of the night the noise of water flooding the gutters, of raindrops beating on the roof and of wind whistling through the shutters, came to a sudden end. After a long fortnight the storm was miraculously over.
By six in the morning there was only a drizzle of rain, silent and almost invisible to the naked eye. Now patches of the sidewalk returned to their natural gray color and people were walking around without umbrellas. It was Saturday, the weekly market day. The market occupied a little old square at the end of the street.
At nine o’clock, then, Kachoudas went downstairs, unlatched his door and started to take away the heavy dark green wood panels that protected the windows of his shop. He was carrying in the third of these panels when he heard the noise of panels of exactly the same sort coming down across the street at the haberdashery. He took care not to look around. He was not too worried because the butcher was talking from his doorstep to the shoemaker. He heard steps coming across the street and then a voice said, “Good morning, Kachoudas.”
With a panel in one hand Kachoudas managed to say in an almost natural tone of voice, “Good morning, Monsieur Labbé.”
“Look here, Kachoudas—”
“Yes, Monsieur Labbé?”
“Has there ever been anyone crazy in your family?”
His first reaction was to dig into his memory, to think of all his uncles and aunts.
“I don’t think so. . .”
There was a satisfied look on Monsieur Labbé’s face, and he said just before turning around, “That doesn’t matter. . .that doesn’t matter.”
The two men had made contact, that was all. What they had actually said was of no importance. They had exchanged a few words like the good neighbors they were. Kachoudas had not shown any fear. Wouldn’t the butcher over there, who was big and strong enough to carry a hog on his shoulders, have paled if someone had said to him:
“That man looking at you with those grave dreamy eyes is the killer of the seven old women.”
At the moment Kachoudas could think of nothing but the twenty thousand francs. He went back up to his low-ceilinged mezzanine workroom, climbed up on the table, and sat down to work again.
Across the street Monsieur Labbé was blocking hats. He didn’t sell many new hats but his friends at the Café de la Paix had him block their old ones. Every now and then he appeared in a vest and shirt sleeves in the shop. And from time to time, when he heard his wife’s signal, he dashed up the spiral staircase.
When Madame Kachoudas came back from the market and began to talk to herself in the kitchen, as she always did, there was a slight smile on the tailor’s face. What was it the newspaper had said?
If we go back over the crimes one by one we shall see. . .
First of all, the article went on to say, the crimes were committed not in any particular section of the town, but at its farthest extremities. Therefore, the writer concluded, the killer can go from place to place without attracting attention. This means that he is an ordinary- or innocent-looking man. In spite of the fact that his crimes are committed in the dark he has to walk under street lamps or in front of lighted shop windows.
He’s a man who doesn’t need money, because he doesn’t rob his victims.
He must be a musician, because he surprises his victim from the rear and strangles them with the string of a violin or a cello.
If we look back over the list of the women he has killed. . .
This aroused the interest of Kachoudas.
. . .we shall see that there is a certain connection among them. This isn’t very easy to put a finger on. Their social status has varied. The first one was the widow of a retired army officer and the mother of two married children who live in Paris. The second kept a little dry-goods shop and her husband has a job at the Town Hall. The third. . .
A midwife, a clerk in a bookshop, a rich old lady living in a house all her own, a half-crazy woman, rich too, who wore nothing but lavender, and finally Mademoiselle Irene Mollard, the music teacher.
Most of these women, the article continued, were from sixty-three to sixty-five years old and all of them were natives of this town.
The little tailor was struck by the name of Irene. One doesn’t expect an old woman or an old maid to be called Irene, or Chouchou, or Lili. . .One forgets that long before she was old she was a young girl and once upon a time a little child. You see! There was nothing extraordinary about that. But while he worked on the Inspector’s suit Kachoudas mulled this idea over and over in his mind.
What went on, for instance, at the Café de la Paix. A dozen or so men met there every afternoon. They were from various walks of life, most of them fairly well off, because it is normal to have attained a certain prosperity after the age of sixty. They all called each other by their first names. And not only did they call each other by their first names, but they spoke in a language all their own, with bits of slang and jokes that nobody outside the group could understand or appreciate. And this was simply because they had all gone to the same school and done their military service together. This was the reason why Kachoudas would always be treated like a stranger, why nobody asked him to take a hand at a card game unless there was no one else available. For months he had waited for an empty place at a card table.
“Do you see what I mean, Inspector? I’m sure that the seven victims knew each other as well as the regular customers at the Café de la Paix. It’s only because old ladies don’t go to cafés that they see each other less frequently. We must find out whether they weren’t all friends and how often they called on one another. They were all about the same age, Inspector. Then there’s one more detail that comes back to my mind; it was in the newspaper too. Each one of them was described in somewhat the same words as being well born and well educated.”
Of course, he wasn’t talking to Inspector Micou or to any other member of the police. He had a way of talking to himself, like his wife, especially when he was happy.
“Let us imagine that we know on what basis the killer—I mean, the haberdasher—chose his victims. . .”
For he picked them out in advance—Kachoudas had witnessed that. He didn’t just stroll around the streets casually in the evening and jump on the first old woman who crossed his path. The proof of this lay in the fact that he had made straight for the house where Mademoiselle Mollard (Irene) was giving a music lesson. He must have acted in the same way on previous occasions. As soon as it could be found out how he laid his plans, on what basis he drew up his list. . .Exactly! Why not? He was proceeding just as if he had drawn up a complete and definitive list. Kachoudas could imagine him coming home at night and scratching off a name.
How many old women were on the list altogether? How many women were there in the whole town between sixty-three and sixty-five years of age, well born and well educated?
Before the tailor had lunch at noon, he went downstairs for a moment to get a breath of fresh air on the sidewalk and to buy some cigarettes at the corner tobacco shop. Monsieur Labbé was just coming out of his door, with his hands in his overcoat pockets. When he saw the little tailor he pulled out one of his hands and gave a friendly wave. This was the way it should be. They exchanged greetings and smiled. Probably the haberdasher had a letter in his pocket and was on his way to mail it After each murder he sent a communication to the local newspaper. The one which Kachoudas read that evening in the Courrier de la Loire, ran as follows:
Inspector Micou is silly to enlarge his wardrobe as if he were going to stay here months longer. Two more and I’ll have finished. Greetings to my little friend across the street.
Kachoudas read the newspaper in the Café de la Paix. The Inspector himself was there, somewhat concerned about the delivery of his suit when he saw that the tailor had left his work. The haberdasher was there too, playing cards.
Monsieur Labbé found a way of looking at Kachoudas with a smile, a smile with no reservations behind it. Perhaps he really made no reservations, but had a feeling of genuine friendship. Then the little tailor realized that the haberdasher was glad that there was at least one witness of his deeds, someone who had seen him at work. In short, someone to admire him! And he too smiled, slightly embarrassed.
“I must go work on your suit, Inspector. You can try it in an hour. . .Firmin!”
He hesitated. Yes or no? Yes! Quick, a white wine! A man who’s going to make twenty thousand francs can easily afford a second glass.
The little tailor was impressed. First of all by the chimes of the doorbell, whose echoes swelled endlessly through the apparently empty building. Then by the huge gray stone facade, the closed shutters with only a pale light glimmering through them, the heavy varnished door and the polished knob. Luckily, it was no longer raining and his shoes weren’t muddy.
He heard muffled steps. A barred peephole opened, as in a prison, and one could guess at the pale heavy face behind it by a slight noise which was caused not by chains but by a swinging rosary. Someone looked at him in silence and finally he stammered, “May I talk to the Mother Superior?”
For a moment he was afraid and trembled. The street was deserted. He had counted on the continuation of the card game. But Monsieur Labbé might have given up his place. And Kachoudas was running a very great risk. If the haberdasher had followed him and was hidden somewhere in the shadows, he surely wouldn’t hesitate, in spite of the smile of a short while ago, to add Kachoudas to the list of his victims.
“Mother Saint Ursula is in the refectory. Who shall I tell her is here?”
Good God, if only she’d open the door!
“My name wouldn’t mean anything to her. Just tell her that it’s something very important.”
The nun’s muffled steps retreated into the distance and she stayed away an infinitely long time. At last she came back and released three or four well-oiled latches.
“If you’ll follow me—”
The air was warm, stale, and a trifle sugary. Everything was ivory color except for the black furniture. The silence was such that one could hear the ticking of several clocks, some of which must have been in rooms quite far away.
He did not dare sit down and he did not know how to behave. He had to wait for some time and then he jumped at the sight of an elderly nun whose approach he had not noticed.
“How old is she?” he wondered, for it is hard to guess at the age of a nun beneath her white cap.
“You asked to see me?”
He had telephoned beforehand from his shop to Monsieur Cujas, the husband of the second victim, who had a job at the Town Hall. Monsieur Cujas was still there, at the “Lost and Found” office.
“Who is calling?” Monsieur Cujas shouted impatiently.
Kachoudas had to screw up his courage before answering.
“One of the detectives with Inspector Micou. Can you tell me, Monsieur Cujas, where your wife went to school?”
To the Convent of the Immaculate Conception was the answer. He might have known that, since the victim had been described as “well educated.”
“I beg your pardon, Reverend Mother—”
He stammered, feeling more uncomfortable than he had ever felt in his life.
“rd like to see a list of all your former pupils who might now be sixty-three or sixty-four or. . .”
“I am sixty-five years old myself.”
She had a smooth rosy face and she observed him closely, toying the while with the beads of the heavy rosary that hung from her belt.
