Simon relit his pipe.
“One thing that peculiarly struck me in Robert Berger was his combination of nerve, self-possession and charm. Of course charm is an invaluable quality, but it doesn’t often go with nerve and self-possession. Charming people are generally weak and irresolute, charm is the weapon nature gives them to cope with their disadvantages; I would never set much trust in anyone who had it.”
Charley gave his friend a slightly amused glance; he knew that Simon was belittling a quality he did not think he possessed in order to assure himself that it was of no great consequence beside those he was convinced he had. But he did not interrupt.
“Robert Berger was neither weak nor irresolute. He very nearly got away with his murder. It was a damned smart bit of work on the part of the police that they got him. There was nothing sensational or spectacular in the way they went about the job; they were just thorough and patient. Perhaps accident helped them a little, but they were clever enough to take advantage of it. People must always be prepared to do that, you know, and they seldom are.”
An absent look came into Simon’s eyes, and once more Charley was aware that he was thinking of himself.
“What Lydia didn’t tell me was how the police first came to suspect him,” said Charley.
“When first they questioned him they hadn’t the ghost of an idea that he had anything to do with the murder. They were looking for a much bigger man.”
“What sort of a chap was Jordan?”
“I never ran across him. He was a bad hat, but he was all right in his way. Everybody liked him. He was always ready to stand you a drink, and if you were down and out he never minded putting his hand in his pocket. He was a little fellow, he’d been a jockey, but he’d got warned off in England, and it turned out later that he’d done nine months at Wormwood Scrubs for false pretences. He was thirty-six. He’d been in Paris ten years. The police had an idea that he was mixed up in the drug traffic, but they’d never been able to get the goods on him.”
“But how did the police come to question Berger at all?”
“He was one of the frequenters of Jojo’s Bar. That’s where Jordan used to have his meals. It’s rather a shady place patronized by bookmakers and jockeys, touts, runners and the sort of people with the reputation that we journalists describe as unsavoury, and naturally the police interviewed as many of them as they could get hold of. You see, Jordan had a date with someone that night, that was shown by the fact that there were a couple of glasses on the tray and a cake, and they thought he might have dropped a hint about whom he was going to meet. They had a pretty shrewd suspicion that he was queer, and it was just possible one of the chaps at Jojo’s had seen him about with someone. Berger had been rather pally with Jordan, and Jojo, the owner of the bar, told the police he’d seen him touch the bookie for money several times. Berger had been tried on a charge of smuggling heroin into France from Belgium, and the two men who were up with him went to jug, but he got off somehow. The police knew he was as guilty as hell, and if Jordan had been mixed up with dope and had met his death in connection with that, they thought Berger might very well know who was responsible. He was a bad lot. He’d been convicted on another charge, stealing motor-cars, and got a suspended sentence of two years.”
“Yes, I know that,” said Charley.
“His system was as simple as it was ingenious. He used to wait till he saw someone drive up to one of the big stores, the Printemps or the Bon Marché, in a Citroën, and go in, leaving it at the kerb. Then he’d walk up, as bold as brass, as though he’d just come out of the store, jump in and drive off.”
“But didn’t they lock the cars?”
“Seldom. And he had some Citroën keys. He always stuck to the one make. He’d use the car for two or three days and then leave it somewhere, and when he wanted another, he’d start again. He stole dozens. He never tried to sell them, he just borrowed them when he wanted one for a particular purpose. That was what gave me the idea for my article. He pinched them for the fun of the thing, for the pleasure of exercising his audacious cleverness. He had another ingenious dodge that came out at the trial. He’d hang around in his car about the bus stops just at the time the shops closed, and when he saw a woman waiting for a bus he’d stop and ask her if she’d like a lift. I suppose he was a pretty good judge of character and knew the sort of woman who’d be likely to accept a ride from a good-looking young man. Well, the woman got in and he’d drive off in the direction she wanted to go, and when they came to a more or less deserted street he stalled the car. He pretended he couldn’t get it to start and he would ask the woman to get out, lift the hood and tickle the carburettor while he pressed the self-starter. The woman did so, leaving her bag and her parcels in the car, and just as she was going to get in again, when the engine was running, he’d shoot off and be out of sight before she realized what he was up to. Of course a good many women went and complained to the police, but they’d only seen him in the dark, and all they could say was that he was a good-looking, gentlemanly young man in a Citroën, with a pleasant voice, and all the police could do was to tell them that it was very unwise to accept lifts from good-looking, gentlemanly young men. He was never caught. At the trial it came out that he must often have done very well out of these transactions.
“Anyhow a couple of police officers went to see him. He didn’t deny that he’d been at Jojo’s Bar on the evening of the murder and had been with Jordan, but he said he’d left about ten o’clock and hadn’t seen him after that. After some conversation they invited him to accompany them to the Commissariat. The Commissaire de Police who was in charge of the preliminary proceedings had no notion, mind you, that Berger was the murderer. He thought it was a toss-up whether Jordan had been killed by some tough that he’d brought to his flat or by a member of the drug-ring whom he might have double-crossed. If the latter, he thought he could wheedle, jockey, bully or frighten Berger into giving some indication that would enable the police to catch the man they were after.
“I managed to get an interview with the Commissaire. He was a chap called Lukas. He was not at all the sort of type you’d expect to find in a job like that. He was a big, fat, hearty fellow, with red cheeks, a heavy moustache and great shining black eyes. He was a jolly soul and you’d have bet a packet that there was nothing he enjoyed more than a good dinner and a bottle of wine. He came from the Midi and he had an accent that you could cut with a knife. He had a fat, jovial laugh. He was a friendly, back-slapping, good-natured man to all appearances and you felt inclined to confide in him. In point of fact he’d had wonderful success in getting confessions out of suspects. He had great physical endurance and was capable of conducting an examination for sixteen hours at a stretch. There’s no third degree in France of the American sort, no knocking about, I mean, or tooth-drilling or anything like that, to extort a confession; they just bring a man into the room and make him stand, they don’t let him smoke and they don’t give him anything to eat, they just ask him questions; they go on and on, they smoke, and when they’re hungry they have a meal brought in to them; they go on all night, because they know that at night a man’s powers of resistance are at their lowest; and if he’s guilty he has to be very strong-minded if by morning for the sake of a cup of coffee and a cigarette he won’t confess. The Commissaire got nothing out of Berger. He admitted that at one time he’d been friendly with the heroin smugglers, but he asserted his innocence of the charge on which he’d been tried and acquitted. He said he’d done stupid things in his youth, but he’d had his lesson; after all, he’d only borrowed cars for two or three days to take girls out, it wasn’t a very serious crime, and now that he was married he was going straight. As far as the drug traffickers were concerned he’d had nothing to do with them since his trial and he had had no idea that Teddie Jordan was mixed up with them. He was very frank. He told the Commissaire that he was very much in love with his wife, and his great fear was that she would discover his past. For her sake as well as for his
own and his mother’s, he was determined to lead in future a decent and honourable life. The fat, jolly man went on asking questions, but in a friendly, sympathetic way so that you felt, I think, that he couldn’t wish you any harm. He applauded Berger’s good resolutions, he congratulated him on marrying a penniless girl for love, he hoped they would have children which were not only an ornament to a home, but a comfort to their parents. But he had Berger’s dossier; he knew that in the heroin case, though the jury had refused to convict, he was undoubtedly guilty, and from enquiries he had made that day, that he had been discharged from the broker’s firm and had only escaped prosecution because his mother had made restitution of the money he had embezzled. It was a lie that since his marriage he had been leading an honest life. He asked him about his financial circumstances. Berger confessed that they were difficult, but his mother had a little and soon he was bound to get a job and then they would be all right. And pocket money? Now and then he made a bit racing and he introduced clients to bookmakers, that was how he’d become friendly with Jordan, and got a commission. Sometimes he just went without.
“ ‘En effet,’ said the Commissaire, ‘the day before he was killed you said you were penniless and you borrowed fifty francs from Jordan.’
“ ‘He was good to me. Poor chap. I shall miss him.’
“The Commissaire was looking at Berger with his friendly, twinkling eyes, and it occurred to him that the young man was not ill-favoured. Was it possible? But no, that was nonsense. He had a notion that Berger was lying when he said he had given up all relations with the drug traffickers. After all, he was hard up and there was good money to be made there; Berger went about among the sort of people who were addicted to dope. The Commissaire had an impression, though he had no notion on what he founded it, that Berger, if he didn’t know for certain who’d committed the murder, had his suspicions: of course he wouldn’t tell, but if they found heroin hidden away in the house at Neuilly they might be able to force him to. The Commissaire was a shrewd judge of character and he was pretty sure that Berger would give a friend away to save his own skin. He made up his mind that he would hold Berger and have the house searched before he had any chance of disposing of anything that was there. With the same idea in his mind he asked him about his movements on the night of the murder. Berger stated that he had come in from Neuilly rather late and had walked to Jojo’s Bar; he had found a lot of men there who had come in after the races. He got two or three drinks stood him, and Jordan, who’d had a good day, said he’d pay for his dinner. After he’d eaten he hung about for a bit, but it was very smoky and it made his head ache, so he went for a stroll on the boulevard. Then about eleven he went back to the bar and stayed there till it was time to catch the last Metro back to Neuilly.
“ ‘You were away just long enough to kill the Englishman in point of fact,’ said the Commissaire in a joking sort of way.
“Berger burst out laughing.
“ ‘You’re not going to accuse me of that?’ he said.
“ ‘No, not that,’ laughed the other.
“ ‘Believe me, Jordan’s death is a loss to me. The fifty francs he lent me the day before he was murdered wasn’t the first I’d had from him. I don’t say it was very scrupulous, but when he’d had a few drinks it wasn’t hard to get money out of him.’
“ ‘Still, he’d made a lot that day, and though he wasn’t drunk when he left the bar, he was in a happy mood. You might have thought it worth while to make sure of a few thousand francs at one go rather than get it in fifties from time to time.’
“The Commissaire said this more to tease than because he thought there was anything in it. And he didn’t think it a bad thing to let Berger suppose he was a possible object of suspicion. It would certainly not make him less disinclined to tell the culprit’s name if he had an inkling of it. Berger took out the money in his pocket and put it on the table. It amounted to less than ten francs.
“ ‘If I’d robbed poor Jordan of his money you don’t suppose I’d only have that in my pocket now.’
“ ‘My dear boy, I suppose nothing. I only pointed out that you had the time to kill Jordan and that money would have been useful to you.’
“Berger gave him his frank and disarming smile.
“ ‘Both those things, I admit,’ he said.
“ ‘I will be perfectly open with you,’ said the other. ‘I don’t think you murdered Jordan, but I’m fairly certain that if you don’t know who did, you have at least a suspicion.’
“Berger denied this, and though the Commissaire pressed him, persisted in his denial. It was late by now and the Commissaire thought it would be better to resume the conversation next day, he thought also that a night in the cells would give Berger an opportunity to consider his position. Berger, who had been arrested twice before, knew that it was useless to protest.
“You know that the dope traffickers are up to every sort of trick to conceal their dope. They hide it in hollow walking-sticks, in the heels of shoes, in the lining of old clothes, in mattresses and pillows, in the frames of bedsteads, in every imaginable place, but the police know all their dodges, and you can bet your boots that if there’d been anything in the house at Neuilly they’d have found it. They found nothing. But when the Commissaire had been going through Lydia’s bedroom he’d come across a vanity-case, and it struck him that it was an expensive one for a woman of that modest class to have. She had a watch on that looked as if it had cost quite a lot of money. She said that her husband had given her both the watch and the vanity-case, and it occurred to the Commissaire that it might be interesting to find out how he had got the money to buy them. On getting back to his office he had inquiries made and in a very short while learnt that several women had reported that they had had bags stolen by a young man who had offered them lifts in a Citroën. One woman had left a description of a vanity-case which she had thus lost and it corresponded with that which the Commissaire had found in Lydia’s possession; another stated that there had been in her bag a gold watch from such and such a maker. The same maker’s name was on Lydia’s. It was plain that the mysterious young man whom the police had never been able to lay their hands on was Robert Berger. That didn’t seem to bring the solution of the Jordan murder any nearer, but it gave the Commissaire an additional weapon to induce Berger to spill the beans. He had him brought into his room and asked him to explain how he had come by the vanity-case and the watch. Berger said he’d bought one of them from a tart who wanted money and the other from a man he’d met in a bar. He could give the name of neither. They were casual persons whom he’d got into conversation with and had neither seen before nor since. The Commissaire then formally arrested him on a charge of theft, and telling him that he would be confronted next morning with the two women to whom he was convinced the articles belonged, tried to persuade him to save trouble by making a confession. But Berger stuck to his story and refused to answer any more questions till he had the assistance of a lawyer, which by French law, now that he was arrested, he was entitled to have at an examination. The Commissaire could do nothing but acquiesce, and that finished the proceedings for the night.
“On the followng morning the two women in question came to the Commissariat and immediately they were shown the objects recognized them. Berger was brought in and one of them at once identified him as the obliging young man who had given her a lift. The other was doubtful; it was night when she had accepted his offer to drive her home and she had not seen his face very well, but she thought she would recognize his voice. Berger was told to read out a couple of sentences from a paper and he had not read half a dozen words before the woman cried out that she was certain it was the same man. I may tell you that Berger had a peculiarly soft and caressing voice. The women were dismissed and Berger taken back to the cell. The vanity-case and the watch were on the table before him and the Commissaire looked at them idly. Suddenly his expression grew more intent.”
Charley interrupted.
“Simon, how c
ould you know that? You’re romancing.”
Simon laughed.
“I’m dramatizing a little. I’m telling you what I said in my first article. I had to make as good a story out of it as I could, you know.”
“Go on then.”
“Well, he sent for one of his men, and asked him if Berger had on a wrist-watch when he was arrested, and if he had, to bring it. Remember, all this came out at the trial afterwards. The cop got Berger’s watch. It was an imitation gold thing, in a metal that I think’s called aureum, and it had a round face. The press had given a lot of details about Jordan’s murder; they’d said, for instance, that the knife with which the blow had been inflicted hadn’t been found, and, incidentally, it never was; and they’d said that the police hadn’t discovered any finger-prints. You’d have expected to find some either on the leather note-case in which Jordan had kept his money or on the door handle; and of course they deduced from that that the murderer had worn gloves. But what they didn’t say, because the police had taken care to keep it dark, was that when they had gone through Jordan’s room with a fine comb they had found fragments of a broken watch-glass. It couldn’t have belonged to Jordan’s watch, and it needn’t necessarily have belonged to the murderer’s, but there was just a chance that somehow or other, in his nervousness or haste, by an accidental knock against a piece of furniture, the murderer had broken the glass of his watch. It wasn’t a thing he would be likely to notice at such a moment. Not all the pieces had been found, but enough to show that the watch they had belonged to was small and oblong. The Commissaire had the pieces in an envelope, carefully wrapped up in tissue-paper, and he now laid them out before him. They would have exactly fitted Lydia’s watch. It might be only a coincidence; there were in use thousands of watches of just that size and shape. Lydia’s had a glass. But the Commissaire pondered. He turned over in his mind various possibilities. They seemed so farfetched that he shrugged his shoulders. Of course during the period, three-quarters of an hour at least, that Berger claimed he’d been strolling along the boulevard, he would have had plenty of time to get to Jordan’s apartment, a ten minutes’ walk from Jojo’s Bar, commit the murder, wash his hands, tidy himself up, and walk back again; but why should he have been wearing his wife’s watch? He had one of his own. His own, of course, might have been out of order. The Commissaire nodded his head thoughtfully.”