Free Cynthia Manson (ed) by Merry Murder Page A

except Lecœur, who had promised to do the
first day shift as well so that his opposite number could join in a family
Christmas party somewhere near Rouen.
    It was a thing he
often did. so much so that he had come to be regarded as an ever-ready
substitute for anybody who wanted a day off.
    “I say. Lecœur, do
you think you could look out for me on Friday?”
    At first the
request was proffered with a suitable excuse—a sick mother, a funeral, or a
First Communion, and he was generally rewarded with a bottle of wine. But now
it was taken for granted and treated quite casually.
    To tell the truth,
had it been possible, Lecœur would have been only too glad to spend his whole
life in that room, snatching a few hours’ sleep on a camp bed and picnicking as
best he could with the aid of the little electric stove. It was a funny
thing—although he was as careful as any of the others about his personal
appearance, and much more so than Sommer, who always looked a bit tousled,
there was something a bit drab about him which betrayed the bachelor.
    He wore strong
glasses, which gave him big, globular eyes, and it came as a surprise to
everyone when he took them off to wipe them with the bit of chamois leather he
always carried about to see the transformation. Without them, his eyes were
gentle, rather shy, and inclined to look away quickly when anyone looked his
way.
    “Hallo! Javel?”
    Another lamp. One
near the Quai de Javel in the 15th Arrondissement, a district full of
factories.
    “ Votre car est
sorti?”
    “We don’t know yet
what it is. Someone’s broken the glass of the alarm in the Rue Leblanc.”
    “Wasn’t there a
message?”
    “No. We’ve sent our
car to investigate. I’ll ring you again later.”
    Scattered here and
there all over Paris are red-painted telephone pillars standing by the curb,
and you have only to break the glass to be in direct telephone communication
with the nearest police station. Had a passerby broken the glass accidentally?
It looked like it, for a couple of minutes later Javel rang up again.
    “Hallo! Central?
Our car’s just got back. Nobody about. The whole district seems quiet as the
grave. All the same, we’ve sent out a patrol.”
    How was Lecœur to
classify that one? Unwilling to admit defeat, he put a little cross in the
column on the extreme right headed “Miscellaneous.”
    “Is there any
coffee left?” he asked.
    “I’ll make some
more.”
    The same lamp lit
up again, barely ten minutes after the first call.
    “Javel? What’s it
this time?”
    “Same again.
Another glass broken.”
    “Nothing said?”
    “Not a word. Must
be some practical joker. Thinks it funny to keep us on the hop. When we catch
him he’ll find out whether it’s funny or not!”
    “Which one was it?”
    “The one on the
Pont Mirabeau.”
    “Seems to walk
pretty quickly, your practical joker!”
    There was indeed
quite a good stretch between the two pillars.
    So far, nobody was
taking it very seriously. False alarms were not uncommon. Some people took
advantage of these handy instruments to express their feelings about the
police. “ Mort aux flics! ” was the favorite phrase.
    With his feet on a
radiator, Janvier was just dozing off when he heard Lecœur telephoning again.
He half opened his eyes, saw which lamp was on, and muttered sleepily. “There
he is again.”
    He was right. A
glass broken at the top of the Avenue de Versailles.
    “Silly ass,” he
grunted, settling down again.
    It wouldn’t be
really light until half past seven or even eight. Sometimes they could hear a
vague sound of church bells, but that was in another world. The wretched men of
the flying squad waiting in the cars below must be half frozen.
    “Talking of boudin —”
    “What boudin ?”
murmured Janvier, whose cheeks were flushed with
    sleep.
    “The one my mother
used to—”
    “Hallo! What?
You’re not going to tell me someone’s smashed the glass of one of your
telephone pillars? Really? It must