Part 6 (1/2)

I could have gone on listening to him, but just then Lapidus insisted on introducing me to a group of doctors and biologists. All were of the same opinion: not enough data. The consensus was that one should start with the hypothesis that the deaths were caused by a congenitally determined reaction to certain unknown elements in the microbiosphere. Two groups should be singled out for study-forty in each, all men in their fifties, all having an athletic or a pyknic build, all randomly selected-and made to undergo a steady program of sulfur baths, sunbathing, body ma.s.sages, sudorifics, ultraviolet lamps, horror films, and some t.i.tillating p.o.r.nography, until one of them showed signs of cracking. A genealogical study would then have to be made of their hereditary backgrounds for any sudden or unexplained deaths, which is where the computer would come in handy. They had gone on to discuss the chemical composition of the bathing water and the air, the subject of adrenochromes, the possibility of a chemogenic schizophrenia of metabolic origin-when Dr. Barth came to my rescue and began introducing me to the legal experts on the team. Some of the lawyers argued in favor of the Mafia, others in favor of some new and hitherto undisclosed organization that was in no hurry to claim responsibility for the mysterious deaths. Their motive? But, then, what motive did that j.a.panese have for slaughtering all those Serbs, Dutchmen, and Germans in Rome? And had I seen today's papers? A New Zealand tourist had tried to protest the kidnapping of an Australian diplomat in Bolivia by hijacking a charter plane in Helsinki that was carrying pilgrims bound for the Vatican. That principle of Roman law which said ”id fecit cul prodest” was no longer valid. No, it had to be the Mafia, since any one of the Italians could have been a mafioso: the street vendor, the hotel porter, the bath attendant, the taxicab driver. . . . And the acute psychosis would suggest the presence of hallucinogens; although slipping someone a hallucinogen in a restaurant might have been tricky, where else would a person be apt to gulp down a cool, refres.h.i.+ng drink if not in a health spa after a hot and sweaty bath? The lawyers were then surrounded by the doctors, whose company I had just left, and an argument broke out on the subject of baldness, but without resolving anything. The whole scene was rather comical. Around one o'clock the smaller groups began merging to form a fairly animated crowd, and while champagne was being served the subject of s.e.x came up. All were convinced that the list of drugs and medications found on the victims was incomplete. Why was that? Because it didn't include any of the latest s.e.x stimulants or aphrodisiacs, and you could be sure the older men were using them. Topcraft, Bios 6, Dulong, Antipraec.o.x, Orkasfluid, s.e.x Tonic.u.m, Samirex Erecta, Elixire d'Egypte, Erectovite, Topform, Action Cream-the market was flooded with them. I was overwhelmed by this display of erudition, and also a little embarra.s.sed, since they'd managed to reveal a flaw in the investigation: at no time had anyone bothered to investigate the psychotropic effects of such medications. I was advised to look into it. You mean to say that not one of these medications was found on the victims? That in itself was suspicious. A younger man wouldn't make any bones about it, but then we all know how older men are apt to be secretive, prudish, and self-conscious when it comes to such matters. They had probably used the stuff and got rid of the wrappers. . . .

The party was getting noisy; windows were thrown open; cork went flying; a smiling Barth kept popping in and out of different doorways; Spanish girls made the rounds with trays; a platium blonde-Lapidus's wife, I guessed-not bad-looking in the dark, said I reminded her of an ex-boyfriend. . . . The party was a grand success. And yet I was in such a blue, melancholic mood, mellowed by the champagne: I felt cheated. Not one of these rather amiable hotshots had any of that flair, that special flash of illumination which in art went by the name of inspiration, that ability to sniff out what's relevant from a pile of facts. They didn't care about finding a solution to the problem; they only wanted to complicate it by inventing new ones. Randy had the gift but was short on the sort of erudition of which the Barth house was chock full-full but unfired.

I stuck around till the very end, joined my hosts in seeing off the last of the guests, watched as car after car went down the driveway till it was empty, gazed up at the house ablaze with lights, then went upstairs feeling defeated and disaffected. More with myself than with anyone else. Outside, a refulgent Paris loomed beyond the dark stretch of gardens and suburban clutter, but its refulgence was not enough to eclipse the planet Mars, now radiantly ascendant above the horizon: a yellow sphere someone had put there as the final dot.

There are friends with whom we share neither interests nor any particular experiences, friends with whom we never correspond, whom we seldom meet and then only by chance, but whose existence nonetheless has for us a special if uncanny meaning. For me the Eiffel Tower is just such a friend, and not merely because it happens to be the symbol of a city, for Paris leaves me neither hot nor cold. I first became aware of this attachment of mine when reading in the paper about plans for its demolition, the mere thought of which filled me with alarm.

Whenever I'm in Paris I make a point of going to see it. To look and see, that's all. Toward the end of my visit I like to step under its foundation, to station myself between its four iron pylons and gaze up at its interlacing arches, the intricate trusswork outlined against the sky, and the grand, old-fas.h.i.+oned wheels used to propel the elevator. The day after the get-together at Barth's was no exception. Though it was now completely hemmed in by high-rise boxes, the tower was just as impressive as ever.

It was a bright and sunny day. Sitting on a bench, I thought about how I might back out of the whole affair -I'd already made up my mind the moment I woke up that morning. After all that effort, the mission now seemed to me so phony and irrelevant and misguided. Especially misguided was my enthusiasm. It was like a moment of self-revelation: behind all the major decisions in my life I saw the same impulsiveness, the same infantile thinking. On impulse I had enlisted in the commandos as an eighteen-year-old and wound up a spectator of the Normandy invasion-from a stretcher, that is; my glider, after taking enemy flak, had crash-landed off target, with me and a crew of thirty on board, right on top of some German bunkers, and the next day I found myself in an English field hospital with a broken tailbone. Mars was just a repeat performance. Even if I'd made it up there and back I couldn't have gone on reminiscing about it forever; otherwise I might have gone the route of that astronaut who wound up contemplating suicide because everything else seemed so anticlimactic by comparison, including offers to sit on the board of directors of several large corporations. One of my fellow astronauts had been made managing director of a Florida beer-distributing company; and now, every time I reach for a can of beer, I always see him stepping into the elevator in his angel-white s.p.a.cesuit That's why I'd joined the Naples mission: I had no intention of following in their footsteps.

Now, as I stood looking up at the Eiffel Tower, it all seemed so clear to me. It was a frustrating profession, so tempting with its promise of that ”big step for mankind” which was, at the same time, in Armstrong's words, a ”small step for man”; but in reality it was a high point, an apogee (and not only in the astronomical sense); a position in danger of being lost, a symbolic image of human life in which the l.u.s.t for the unattainable consumes all of man's powers and hopes. Only up there hours take the place of years, and a man's best years at that. Aldrin knew that the prints left by his s.p.a.ce boots would survive not only the Apollo program but mankind as well, that they would be eroded only when the sun expanded into the earth's...o...b..t one and a half billion years from now. So how could a man who'd been so close to eternity settle for a beer distributor's job? To know that from then on it was all downhill, and to have experienced it in such an intense and irrevocable manner, that's more than a letdown; that's a mockery. As I sat there admiring this iron monument erected to the last century by a master engineer, I wondered even more at my own fanaticism, at my own stubborn persistence, and it was now only a feeling of shame that kept me from racing back to Garges and packing my things on the sly. Shame and a sense of loyalty.

That afternoon Barth dropped by my guestroom in the attic. He seemed a little on edge. News. Inspector Pingaud, the Surete's liaison with the Barth team, had invited of us to his office. To brief us about a past investigation headed by one of Pingaud's colleagues, Superintendent Leclerc. Pingaud felt that the case merited our attention. Naturally I agreed to the interview, and we drove off to Paris together.

Pingaud was expecting us. The moment I saw him I recognized him as the quiet, gray-haired man I'd seen at Barth's side the night before, though he was much older than I'd taken him to be. He greeted us in a little side room, and as he stood up I noticed a tape recorder lying on his desk. Dispensing with any preliminaries, he told us the superintendent had been to see him the day before yesterday-though retired, the superintendent was in the habit of dropping in on old friends. During their conversation Leclerc had made reference to a case that he couldn't brief me on personally but that the inspector persuaded him to record on tape. Because it was a rather lengthy story, he invited us to make ourselves comfortable, then left us alone in the room. He did this seemingly as a matter of courtesy, not wis.h.i.+ng to disturb us perhaps, but the whole thing struck me as fishy.

I wasn't accustomed to police hospitality, much less from the French police. Then again, maybe it was too little. Not that I detected any outright discrepancies in Pingaud's version; I had no reason to believe it was a fake investigation or that the superintendent wasn't really retired. Still, nothing would have been easier than to set up a private meeting somewhere. I could understand it if they were reluctant to drag out the files-the files being something sacrosanct for these people-but the tape recorder alone implied they were anxious to avoid any sort of discussion. The briefing was to take place without commentary: you can't very well pump a tape recorder. But why the elaborate cover? Barth was either thrown just as far off balance as I, or else he wanted-was obliged?-to keep any doubts he may have had to himself. My mind was still mulling over such thoughts when a rather low, self-a.s.sured, asthmatic voice came on the tape recorder.

”Monsieur, just so there won't be any misunderstandings-I will tell you as much of the story as discretion will allow. Inspector Pingaud has vouched for you; still, there are certain matters that are better left undiscussed. The dossier you brought with you to Paris is something I've known about for a long time, longer than you, and I'll give you my honest opinion: this case doesn't warrant an investigation. Don't take me wrong. It's just that I have no professional interest in anything that doesn't come under the penal code. The world's full of mind-baffling things-flying saucers, exorcisms, guys on TV who can bend forks from a distance-but none of that means anything to me as a policeman. Oh, when I read about such things in France-Soir, I can scratch my head and say, 'Well, I'll be d.a.m.ned!' I may be wrong in saying the Italian affair doesn't call for an investigation; then again, I've put in a good thirty years on the force. You may disagree with me; that's your privilege. Inspector Pingaud had asked me to brief you on a case I handled a couple of years ago. When I'm finished you'll see why it was never publicized. At the risk of being rude, I must warn you that if you ever try to publish any of this material I shall categorically deny everything. You'll see why. It's a question of raison d'etat, and I am, after all, a member of the French police force. Please don't take it personally; it's a matter of professional loyalty. What I'm telling you is standard procedure.

”The case has now been shelved, though at one time the police, the Surete, and even French counterintelligence were all in on it. Well, to start with, the subject's name was Dieudonne Proque. Proque is not really a French name; originally it was Procke. He was a German Jew who, as a young boy, emigrated to France with his parents during the Hitler regime, in 1937. His parents belonged to the middle cla.s.s, thought of themselves-till the time of the n.a.z.is, that is-as German patriots, and had distant relatives in Strasbourg whose ancestors had settled in France in the eighteenth century. I'm going so far back in time because this was one of those cases calling for a through background investigation. The tougher the case, the more widely the net has to be thrown.

”His father left him nothing when he died, and Proque later became an optician. He spent the occupation years in Ma.r.s.eilles, in the unoccupied zone, where he stayed with relatives. Except for the war years, he lived the whole time in Paris, in my arrondiss.e.m.e.nt, where he ran a little optical shop out of his apartment on Rue Amelie. Since he didn't have the resources to compete with the more established firms, business was bad, and he barely made ends meet. He made very little from sales, mostly from repairs-replacing lenses, fixing broken toys, that sort of thing. An optician for the poor. He lived with his mother, a woman going on ninety. A bachelor, he was sixty-one at the time in question. His record was clean: not one court conviction, though we knew the photo lab he'd fixed up at the back of the shop was far from being the innocent little hobby he said it was. There are people who specialize in risque pictures-not necessarily p.o.r.nography-but who are unable or unwilling to do their own developing, in which case they need someone else to handle it, someone reliable who won't make extra prints for himself. Within limits, there's not even anything illegal about it. Then there are those who lure people into tricky situations and take pictures for blackmail We keep most of the blackmailers on file, and it's not advisable for them to have their own darkroom or camera equipment or to hire a photographer who's already had a conviction. Proque was running that kind of racket, but only as a sideline. We knew that he was developing pictures and that he usually did it when he was hard pressed financially. But that was still no reason to move in on him. And frankly, these aren't the only things that get by the police nowadays. Not enough full-time staff, not enough funds, and not enough manpower. Besides, we knew Proque wasn't making a bundle on the deal. He didn't have the nerve to use extortion against any of his clients. He was the cautious type, a coward by nature, completely dominated by his mother. Every July they'd make the same trip to Normandy; they lived always in the same cluttered apartment above the shop, in the same building, with the same neighbors they'd known since before the war. A brief physical description of the man, since that's important for you: short, thin, prematurely stooped, with a tic in his left eye and a constantly drooping eyelid. To those who didn't know him, and especially in the afternoon hours, he gave the impression of being hard of hearing and a bit of a crank. But he was completely in his right mind, except for periodic drowsy spells-usually in the afternoon- caused by low blood pressure. That's why he always kept a Thermos of coffee on his workbench, to help keep him awake on the job. As the years went by, these spells grew worse, to the point where he was constantly yawning and on the verge of fainting or collapsing. Finally his mother made him go to see a doctor. He saw two doctors, both of whom prescribed harmless stimulants, which actually helped for a while.

”What I'm telling you isn't a secret; every tenant in the building knew about it. People even knew about his shady business deals in the darkroom. The guy was so easy to see through. And in the end these pictures were nothing compared to your bread-and-b.u.t.ter sort of stuff. The fact is, I'm in Homicide; morals offenses are not my department. Anyway, what happened later had nothing to do with morals offenses. What else should I tell you to complete the picture? He was a collector of old postcards, used to grumble a lot about having hypersensitive skin-too much exposure to the sun made him break out all over, though he didn't seem like the sort of man who'd go out of his way to get a suntan. But that fall his complexion started to change, became sort of coppery, the way it does when it's been exposed to a sun lamp, and some of his regular customers, friends of his, started saying, Tch, tch, Monsieur Proque, don't tell me you've been going to a sunroom?!' And, blus.h.i.+ng like a little girl, he'd explain that he had a bad case of boils-in the most sensitive spot, he said-so bad that his doctor had prescribed radiation plus vitamins and a special skin ointment. Apparently the treatment worked.

”That October was especially cold and rainy. Fall was also the time of year the optician was most susceptible to attacks of dizziness and fainting spells, so again he went to see the doctor, and again the doctor prescribed some pep pills. Around the end of the month, while he and his mother were eating dinner one night, he became very excited and began telling her about how he stood to make a killing on a big order for developing and enlarging lots of prints, in color and in large format. He figured on netting sixteen hundred francs on the deal, a small fortune for a man like Proque. At seven that evening he lowered the shutter and, after telling his mother he wouldn't be back till late, shut himself up in his darkroom. Around one in the morning his mother was awakened by a noise coming from her son's room. She found him sitting on the floor and crying 'worse than any man has ever cried before,' to quote the transcript. In a sobbing voice he kept screaming that he'd wasted his whole life and that suicide was the only way out, started ripping up his favorite postcards, knocking over the furniture . . . and there was nothing his mother could do to stop him. Though normally obedient, he completely ignored her. It was like some cheap melodrama. She kept trailing him around the room and yanking at his clothes; he kept looking for some rope, ripped off the curtain cord but was so weak his mother had no trouble getting it away from him; he went for a knife in the kitchen, and as a last resort threatened to go down to the darkroom, where he always kept a supply of lethal chemical on hand. But then he suddenly went limp, slumped to the floor, and before long was snoring and whining in his sleep. His mother wasn't strong enough to lift him into bed, so she slipped a pillow under his head and let him sleep like that through the night.

”The next morning he was his normal self again, though extremely demoralized. He complained of a bad headache, said he felt as if he'd been drinking the whole night, though in fact all he'd had to drink was a quarter of a bottle of wine at lunch, and a weak table wine at that. After taking a couple of aspirin tablets, he went down to the shop, where he spent a routine day. He had very few customers as an optician, and since he spent most of his time in the back polis.h.i.+ng lenses or in the darkroom developing photos, the shop was usually empty. That afternoon he waited on a total of four customers. He kept a record of every order, even the most minor repair job done on the spot. If the customer was a stranger, he'd merely jot down the order. Needless to say, he didn't keep a record of his photographic work.

”The next two days were also uneventful. On the third day he got an advance for the enlargements and prints, though of course he was shrewd enough not to enter this amount in the cash receipts. That night he and his mother ate more extravagantly than usual, at least by their standards: an elegant wine, a special fish dish-oh, I can't remember all the dishes any more, though there was a time when I knew all of them by heart, even what kind of cheeses they ate for dessert. The following day he received another batch of undeveloped film, from the same client. During lunch he was in an excellent mood, telling his mother all about his plans for building a house; then, in the evening, he shut himself up in his darkroom again. Around midnight his mother heard a terrible commotion, went downstairs, stood in the hallway, and knocked on the back door of the darkroom. Through the plywood part.i.tion she listened to him ranting and raving, breaking things, turning the place upside down. . . . Panic-stricken, she ran to get her neighbor, an engraver whose workshop was just down the street. The neighbor, an easygoing old widower, used a chisel to pry open the bolt on the part.i.tion door.

”It was dark inside, hardly any noise. They found Proque lying on the floor; scattered all around him were the partially developed and still sticky negatives of p.o.r.nographic photos. They were everywhere, many of them torn and others still glued together. The linoleum floor was covered with chemicals, all the reagent bottles had been smashed to smithereens, the enlarger lay damaged on the floor, there were acid burns on Proque's hands and holes in his clothes, the faucet was running full blast, and he was soaked from head to foot apparently after trying to revive himself by sticking his head under the faucet. From the looks of it, he'd tried to poison himself, by mistake grabbed some bromide instead of cyanide, and went into a narcotic stupor. He put up no resistance when his neighbor practically carried him back to his apartment. His mother testified that after the neighbor left, Proque tried to go on another rampage but was too worn out physically. The scene that followed was again straight out of some second-rate comedy: he flopped around in his bed, tried to rip up his top sheet to hang himself, stuffed his pillowcase into his mouth, and all the time kept shrieking, crying, swearing. As soon as he tried to get to his feet he collapsed and fell asleep on the floor, as he had the time before.

”He woke up the next day feeling miserable as h.e.l.l. The sight of all the damage he'd caused only made him feel guiltier and more despondent, so he spent the whole morning picking up the pieces, rinsing things off, trying to salvage what was left of the negatives, and mopping up the mess. When he was finished cleaning up the darkroom, he took his cane-he was having another one of his dizzy spells-and went out to stock up on a new supply of chemicals. That evening he complained about having some sort of mental illness, asked his mother if she knew of any cases of insanity in the family, and refused to believe her when she said she didn't. The very fact that he could accuse her of lying convinced her that he wasn't fully recovered yet, since in the past he wouldn't have dared even to raise his voice to her. Never before had he acted so aggressively, but then she could understand how a person might lose his self-control after two consecutive attacks of hysteria, which would've been enough to make anybody think he was going insane. He promised his mother that if it ever happened again he'd go straight to a psychiatrist. It wasn't like him to make such rash decisions; it had taken him weeks to go see a dermatologist, and then not until his boils were really killing him. Not because he was tightfisted-he had no need to be, since he was medically insured-but because he couldn't put up with the slightest change in his routine.

”Not long after that he had a falling out with his client because several of the pictures turned up missing. We still don't know what transpired between them; it's the only major dark spot in the whole affair.

”The following week pa.s.sed quietly, Proque became more subdued and never brought up the subject of his mental illness again. That Sunday he and his mother went to see a movie. Then on Monday he went completely berserk. It happened like this. Around eleven in the morning he walked out of the shop without bothering to close the door behind him. Nor did he bother to return his friend's greeting-an Italian who ran a little candy store on the corner-when the man called out to him from in front of the shop. The Italian later testified that Proque looked 'somehow funny.' Proque went straight inside the shop, bought some candy, said he'd pay for it on his way back-which wasn't like him at all-because by then he'd be 'rolling in dough,' climbed into a taxi even though it was a good ten years since he'd last taken one, and told the driver to take him to Avenue de 1'Opera. There he made the driver wait and came back fifteen minutes later yelling and waving an envelope full of cash, gave holy h.e.l.l to some street tramp who tried to make off with the money, climbed back into the taxi, and told the driver this time to take him to Notre Dame. When he reached the island, he paid the fare with a hundred-franc note-the cabby said he saw only hundred-franc notes inside the envelope-and before the cab had even pulled away from the curb, started to climb over the bridge railing. A pa.s.ser-by grabbed hold of his leg, there was a scuffle, the cabby jumped out of the car, but not even the two of them could handle him. A gendarme showed up, and together they managed to shove him into the taxi, leaving the hundred-franc notes lying on the sidewalk. When Proque wouldn't stop being hysterical, the gendarme handcuffed him, and they headed straight for the hospital. On the way there, Proque pulled a fast one. After the car drove off he collapsed on the seat, went completely limp, then suddenly lunged forward, and before the gendarme could stop him-they were driving in heavy traffic now- grabbed hold of the steering wheel. The cab rammed straight into a Citroen's front door, pinning the driver's arm between the steering wheel and the door. The gendarme managed to get Proque to the hospital in another taxi. At first the hospital didn't treat his case too seriously, since all he did was stand there in a daze, whimper a little, and refuse to answer any questions. Finally he was admitted for observation, but later, when the chief physician was making his rounds, Proque turned up missing. He was found under the bed, wrapped in a blanket pulled out from under his sheet, and huddled up so close to the wall that it was a while before he was even noticed. He was unconscious from loss of blood, having slashed both wrists with a razor blade smuggled from his clothes into his hospital gown. It took three blood transfusions, but they pulled him through, though he later developed complications due to his poor heart condition.

”I was a.s.signed to the case the day after the incident on the Ile St-Louis. Though there was nothing to warrant an investigation by the Surete, the lawyer representing the owner of the Citroen, figuring this was a good chance to milk the police, came up with a version charging the police official on duty with criminal negligence. Having in his custody a deranged criminal, the lawyer claimed, the policeman was responsible for allowing the taxicab to collide with his client's car, causing bodily and property damage as well as severe psychological shock to his client. Since the police were criminally liable, any compensation for damages would have to come out of government funds.

”Hoping to gain an advantage, the lawyer leaked his version to the press, which had the effect of escalating the whole affair, since now it was the prestige of the Police Judiciaire that was at stake. It was at this point that I was called in to make an investigation.

”The preliminary medical report indicated Proque had suffered an acute psychosis caused by a delayed attack of schizophrenia, but the longer he was kept under observation after his suicide attempt, the less this diagnosis seemed to hold up. In the s.p.a.ce of just six days he had become a thoroughly broken and wasted old man, but he was completely sane in all other respects. On the seventh day of his stay in the hospital he made a deposition. He testified that instead of paying him the sixteen hundred francs they had agreed upon, his client had paid him less than one hundred fifty, for failing to deliver all the prints. That Monday, while he was grinding some lenses for a new fitting, he suddenly became so furious he dropped everything and left the shop, 'to get what he had coming to him.' He had no recollection of going into the candy store or of anything that happened on the bridge, only that his client had come up with the balance of the money after Proque went to his apartment and made a stink. Later that night, after making his deposition, Proque suddenly took a turn for the worse. He died early the next morning of heart failure. The doctors were unanimous in ascribing it to a reactive psychosis.

”Though Proque's death was only indirectly related to Monday's attack, the case was becoming more serious. Nothing like having a corpse for a trump card. The day before he died, I had gone to pay Proque's mother a visit. For a woman her age she turned out to be very cooperative and obliging. On my way out to Rue Ame1ie I picked up a man from Narcotics to examine the darkroom and the photo-lab chemicals. I was tied up for quite a while with Madame Proque, because once she got started on something there was nothing I could do but sit and listen patiently. Near the end of my visit, I thought I heard the shop's doorbell ring through a crack in the window. I found my helper behind the counter going through the work ledger.

”Find anything?' I asked.

” 'Nothing to speak of.'

”His voice betrayed uncertainty.

” 'Did someone come in?'

” 'Yes. How did you know?'

”He then told me what had happened. When the bell rang, he had been standing on a chair searching an electrical cable box, so it was a few seconds before he was able to enter the shop. The customer heard him tinkering around in the back and, thinking it was Proque, called out in a loud voice, 'How are you feeling today, Dieudonne?'

”Just then my a.s.sistant came into the shop and spotted a bareheaded, middle-aged man who, the moment he saw him, instinctively made a move for the door. The reason was purely accidental. Normally the Narcotics Squad wore civilian clothes on the job, but that afternoon they were obliged to appear in full uniform for a small decoration ceremony being held in honor of one of their superiors. Since it wasn't scheduled to begin until four, my a.s.sistant had decided to wear his uniform to work so he wouldn't have to go home again to change clothes.

”It was obviously the sight of the uniform that had startled the intruder. He said he had come for his gla.s.ses and showed the agent his repair tag. The agent explained that the owner of the shop had been incapacitated and that therefore he would have to wait for his gla.s.ses. It looked as if there was nothing left to be said, but the stranger refused to leave. Then he asked in a low voice if Proque had suddenly been taken ill. The agent said he had.

” 'Seriously ill?'

” 'Fairly seriously, yes.'

'”I ... desperately need those gla.s.ses,' the stranger said quite unexpectedly, apparently unable to ask the question uppermost in his mind.

” 'Is he . . . is he still alive?' he blurted out suddenly.

”By now my a.s.sistant was getting suspicious. Without giving a reply, he placed his hand on the counter top's hinged lid with the idea of checking the man's identification, but just then the man spun around and left the shop. By the time the agent lifted the counter top and ran outside, the stranger was gone. It was the start of the four o'clock rush hour, a light drizzle was falling, and the sidewalks were packed.

”I was upset that he'd let him get away, but I postponed giving him a reprimand. Besides, we now had the optician's work ledger. I asked the agent whether he could recall the number on the man's repair tag, but it had escaped his notice. The ledger included a number of recent entries, but only the customers' initials were given, which didn't look too promising. Our only other lead was the missing stranger, who knew Proque well enough to call him by his first name. I jotted down the most recent entries, though I wasn't very optimistic. Was the repair tag a pretext or cover? I wondered. But any drugs that well hidden would have meant it was the work of professionals. I didn't know what to make of Proque any more. But even if I'd misjudged the man and his shop was being used as a drop, it seemed pretty absurd to think Proque would have helped himself to a dose, much less taken an overdose. The stuff could have been counterfeit, which was often the case, but it was unusual for dealers and middlemen to use narcotics themselves: they're too well acquainted with the aftereffects to be tempted. I was nearly at the end of my wits when my a.s.sistant suddenly recalled that, even though it had been raining, the stranger had been without an umbrella or a hat, and that his mohair coat was almost completely dry. We knew he couldn't have come by car, because the street had been blocked off for repairs, so chances were that he lived somewhere in the neighborhood. It took us five days to track him down. How did we find him? Very simple. Based on the agent's description a composite sketch was made of the missing man and circulated among all the concierges on Rue Amelie. The man identified was a prominent scientist, a doctor of chemistry by the name of Dunant. Jerome Dunant. While going through the ledger I'd noticed something unusual: the initials J. D. were listed on each of the three days preceding Proque's attacks. The doctor lived a few doors down the street, so early one afternoon I went to call on him. When he met me at the door, I recognized him at once from the sketch.

” 'Oh, yes,' he said. 'Come right in.'

” 'It looks as if you were expecting me,' I said as I followed him inside.

” 'I was. Is Proque still alive?'

” 'I beg your pardon, but it was I who wanted to ask you a few questions, not vice versa. What makes you think Proque might not be alive?'