Free 77 Rue Paradis by Gil Brewer Page B

commissaire? The commissaire is a good man, but prone to excitement, monsieur. It would help if I heard this extravaganza from your own lips.”
    Baron said nothing.
    “Please, monsieur,” Follet said. “I promise to listen carefully.”
    Baron looked at Follet again. He decided to hell with it. He might as well tell him. They would keep him here anyway, and Follet somehow did not seem like the commissaire.
    “All right,” Baron said. He went through it all once more. He told Follet as thoroughly as he could, everything. He did not want to have to tell it again. Even thinking about it made him ill. When he finished, he was so worked up he could no longer sit in the chair. Again he began to pace the room. “I came here thinking I could get some help,” Baron finished. “Now I find nobody believes me.”
    “Pitiful, isn’t it?” Follet said. He moved over to a chair by the table, stuffed his hat in his jacket pocket, and, folding himself carefully, almost mechanically, he sat down, leaned his head back, and watched Baron. “May I see your passport, monsieur?”
    Baron found his passport, flung it across the table. Follet’s hand snatched it up. He glanced quickly through the passport. “You say you are Frank Baron?”
    “Yes,” Baron said. “I am Frank Baron. Can’t you read?”
    “Monsieur, please,” Follet said. He picked a shred of tobacco from his lip, wiped it on the edge of the table, breathed smoke, and handed Baron his passport. “It is true, the picture there is of you. A good, clear picture, too, I might add. No doubt at all about that. But see for yourself. Your name is Longwell—Herbert Longwell, of Richmond, Virginia.” Follet breathed some more smoke as Baron flipped incredulously through the passport. “Can you blame the commissaire?”
    “But—I am Frank Baron!”
    “Certainement!”
    “Are you ridiculing—”
    “But no, monsieur. I know for a fact that you are Frank Baron. I know all about you.” Follet waved his hand across his face, dropped the hand into his lap. The cigarette jiggled between his lips. “You are in trouble, monsieur.’
    Something like a cloud of relief spread through Baron. His hand was trembling as he held the passport. In the back of his mind he realized that somehow Gorssmann had substituted this faked identification for his real papers, but more than that, he sensed in Follet’s voice the thing he had been looking for: understanding.
    “Well?” Follet said.
    Baron looked at him. “What do you mean?”
    Follet shrugged, puffed rapidly at his cigarette. There were tiny tinges of red high on his cheeks and his eyes burned brightly. He coughed mildly around the cigarette.
    “I am satisfied you are telling the truth,” Follet said. “But truly, monsieur, you are in a terrible position. I have no way of telling you how terrible.” He paused. “I have no right to tell you how terrible.”
    “I don’t understand.”
    “You will, monsieur. But what is it you want me to do?”
    Baron began to feel the slow mounting wonder all over again. Was he never to find a shadow of peace?
    “You did right in corning here,” Follet said. “In one way, that is. In another way, it is the worst possible thing you could do. I mean, regarding your daughter, monsieur. I take it she means much to you?”
    Baron nodded.
    Follet shrugged again, the bony shoulders moving beneath the tent of his suit jacket. “And this—this girl, Elene Cordon? You are concerned about her, too?”
    Again Baron nodded, turned away. He got what Follet was trying to say.
    “Isn’t there something you can do?”
    Follet glanced away. The cigarette had gone out between his lips. He leaned over, spat it out on the floor, stepped on it, proceeded to roll himself another. Baron watched the long dangling shreds of tobacco fry and sizzle as Follet lit the new cigarette. It bobbled precariously between his lips.
    “We know of Hugo Gorssmann,” Follet said. “I have even met the man. Over ten