The Pink Panther

by Max Allan Collins

This obvious flattery Dreyfus chose not to characterize as patronizing, preferring to accept it at face value. “But, Renard—both of those options are rife with risk.”

  The deputy shrugged. “If you catch the killer, the medal is undoubtedly yours.”

  “And if I don’t catch the killer?”

  Renard said nothing, but flinched a smile.

  “Exactly! If I officially take on the Gluant case, but do not find the killer before the ceremony, I will be an ass, the object of ridicule, an embarrassment to the government…and the medal will undoubtedly go to someone else.”

  “Again,” Renard said quietly.

  “Again!…And if I do assign the case to someone else, and he finds the killer…”

  Another tiny shrug. “The man who finds Gluant’s killer will be a national hero.”

  “Yes, Renard—and he will undoubtedly receive the medal that is rightfully mine!” Dreyfus stepped away from the tailor. “It’s a nightmare—you understand, I seek not glory for myself, but for France?”

  “Of course, sir.”

  He turned to the framed portrait of Charles de Gaulle, visible between two crime scene blow-ups.

  “What would the general do…?” Dreyfus thought for several long moments. Then his eyes widened and flashed, his nostrils flared, and a faintly demented smile spread. “My God…there is a third option.”

  “A third option, sir?”

  Dreyfus’s smile was proud of itself. “What if I assigned an idiot to the Gluant murder?”

  Renard, his eyes slightly magnified by his glasses, blinked. Twice. “An idiot, sir? Intentionally? And why would this—”

  “Because an incompetent fool…an unimaginative, by-the-book, low-level incompetent would just plod along, the media following his every step…watching him get nowhere!”

  “I see,” Renard said, not seeing at all.

  Dreyfus began to pace, unaware that his pinned-together tuxedo was shedding pieces, the tailor following behind with concern, but too intimidated by the chief inspector to speak.

  Legs bare now, Dreyfus struck a pose that he imagined to be dignified and impressive. “It’s genius, Renard!…While this boob is treading water and splashing it all over the media, I will secretly put together a task force of the finest investigators in France—led by myself, personally!”

  “Ah,” Renard said, beginning to smile in understanding.

  “We will work around the clock, hunting down the killer…but strictly sub rosa. We will undoubtedly find the killer in time to secure the medal for…for the rightful recipient.”

  Renard’s head cocked slightly, an eyebrow arched. “And if you don’t?”

  “That is the genius of it! The boob I’ve assigned will take the criticism! I will make vague statements about my disappointment in this individual, who had come highly recommended to me, and so on…and indicate that I will take over personally…but at such a late date that the medal will not be forfeit.”

  “It is clever, sir.”

  Like the Pink Panther, the chief inspector had a flaw at his center: a desire for recognition that outstripped his numerous finer qualities. So it was that Charles Dreyfus, in his attempt to make himself look good, made a bad mistake.

  His greatest mistake…

  “And I think I know just the man, the perfect boob for this job…Before I rose to this office of distinction, I heard bizarre tales of an officer who wrought such havoc that he was banished to the hinterlands. He has for some years bounced from one province to another, one small village to another…generating some of the most amazing reports of incompetence the Police Nationale has ever known.”

  Renard’s confusion was obvious. “How ever has he managed to stay on the force?”

  “Ah, Renard, you know as well as I do, we live and breathe in a civil-service world—tenure alone protects him. And on occasion, rare occasion, he has produced results. The countryside is littered with those who despise him, with a small minority who are deluded by his manner, which I am told projects a level of confidence seen only in the highly skilled…or the utterly foolish.”

  Renard’s half-smile indicated he had joined the conspiracy. “I see—but this quality of confidence will aid in making him a presentable public choice for the case.”

  “Yes. A man of the people—a fresh face.”

  “Where can I find him, sir?”

  “I’m not sure which poor French citizens are burdened with his presence, currently—check the computer. Find him. Bring him to Paris!”

  “What is his name, sir?”

  Jacques Clouseau, Gendarme Third Class, rode through the cobblestone streets of the modest village of Fromage in the passenger seat of a paddy wagon.

  Looking like a figure stepped out of another time, Clouseau—in his spotless dark blue gendarme uniform with white cap, brass buttons ashine—projected a quiet dignity. The premature white of his hair was not shared by the dark dapper mustache which added to an air of competence that its wearer prized. Of average height and build, Clouseau nonetheless projected a larger-than-life presence; and many a member of the fairer sex had found him handsome.

  And yet, there was something a little…wrong. The confidence of his smile seemed somehow counterfeit; the shrewd cock of a lifted eyebrow might on closer examination look mildly skew.

  His eyes, often narrowed, appeared never to miss a detail. Appeared. Because the truth was, Clouseau often saw little that was of importance; so distracted was he in an attempt to maintain his dignity while fulfilling whatever his current case might be, that he had a tendency toward…what is the French word? Klutziness.

  He had not yet met the man whom he would consider his great ally—an ally destined to become an adversary—but Jacques Clouseau nonetheless shared the central flaw of Chief Inspector Charles Dreyfus: maintaining a dignified image was of key importance in the lives of both men.

  There remained, however, a vital difference between these two public servants. Charles Dreyfus would make any sacrifice to maintain his dignity; but Jacques Clouseau would sacrifice the dignity that was so important to him if it meant solving a crime—if justice could be served.

  During a career distinguished by a surprising number of cases that had reached successful conclusions, Jacques Clouseau had acquired detractors who unkindly insisted that within his hard head resided a decidedly substandard brain. Even his supporters would not argue with that assertion, though they would often point out that—within a chest swollen with perhaps too much pride—beat a great heart.

  This is not to say there were not casualties in the path of this inadvertently great detective. Even now, after having deftly removed the portable flashing light from the glove box, Clouseau placed it on the roof of the paddy wagon, oblivious to the need to fasten it in place. Thus the light, though flashing bright red, did not serve sufficient warning to the old lady knocked off her feet by it.

  Clouseau was too focused to take in such peripheral inconsequentialities. He had a case to solve. A robbery.

  Ah, a mystery! How the chase of the hunt energized him! It energized him almost as much as the hunt of the chase…

  “Faster, Andre!” Clouseau demanded. “Faster—crime waits on no man! So justice, she must not lag!”

  Through the streets they sped, rounding corners on two wheels. Finally the paddy wagon pulled into the modest town square, pulling up tight to a curb that hugged the nearby wall. This minor detail the great detective did not note, so of course he slammed his door into the brick—making only a small dent.

  “Swine wall,” he muttered. Then to his driver he said, “Are you an idiot? There is a wall here! Pull up.”

  The young driver followed Clouseau’s command.

  “That is much better,” Clouseau said. “Andre, I do not mean to be a harsh mistress. But, my young friend, when you have walked the streets of crime, as have I these many years, you will learn that no detail is too small.”

  With that Clouseau opened the door and walked into a parking stanchion
, so common on French streets, but an apparent mystery to the great detective, whose testicles rang like sore bells.

  Still not seeing who his assailant was, Clouseau chopped the air with expert karate blows, taking a step back. Noting the stanchion—“Swine stanchion!”—he turned to Andre, on the sidewalk behind him now, to inquire, “What fool placed this public menace here?”

  “The police department, I believe,” Andre said softly.

  “Take a note…Not a mental note! Take out your pad, man!”

  Andre obeyed.

  “Remind me to write the memo advising the Police Nationale to distribute leaflets describing this public nuisance. Some fool could be injured.”

  “A possibility,” Andre admitted.

  Clouseau recovered quickly from such mishaps—a combination of his intense training in the martial arts, and the large areas of his body that had gone numb from frequent injury.

  Skillfully avoiding the next stanchion—“They are clever, these stanchions, Andre!”—he approached the scene of the crime. His heart beat with excitement. A case! A new case!

  As he moved along the picturesque street, where the tourists seemed to outnumber the townspeople, Clouseau carried with him a riding crop, with which he beat a gentle rhythm against his thigh.

  Andre, who had been working with Clouseau only a short time, inquired, “Are you a horseman, sir?”

  Confused, Clouseau said, “Of course not! I am a policeman. Do I look like a horseman?”

  “Well, you are carrying a rider’s crop…”

  Clouseau paused and put a kindly hand on the younger officer’s shoulder. “You will learn, Andre, as you walk these streets of mean, that a policeman must be respected. This, she is a symbol of power!”

  He raised the crop swiftly, and unknowingly slapped a tourist in the face. The man cried out, and the woman at his side went to his aid, gazing at the two passing gendarmes with amazement and, perhaps, horror.

  “You see, Andre?” Clouseau smiled. “Power.”

  He did not sense the angry tourist striding up behind him, and his next gesture of the crop whapped the tourist in the stomach, doubling him over. When the man cried out, the two gendarmes wheeled, Clouseau’s instinctive karate chops slicing the air.

  Then Clouseau straightened, his mustache twitching as he smiled. He gestured to the tourist, who appeared to be bowing to them. “You see, Andre? Respect…”

  Moving into a small courtyard, with Andre behind him, Clouseau’s keen eyes took in the scene…and the suspects. A hot dog vendor stood under an umbrella; nearby were patrons, couples mostly, seated at small checker-clothed tables, enjoying the beautiful weather in this beautiful country. A central well—perfect for lovers to cast in coins, and make a wish—provided a romantic touch that Clouseau could well appreciate.

  A pair of gendarmes who walked this beat were waiting to assist the investigator from headquarters.

  Clouseau approached the agitated vendor, a mustached heavyset fellow in an apron. A slender younger man, apparently the vendor’s helper, stood behind the wagon.

  “I am Clouseau,” the great detective said to the vendor. “I am told you have a case for me.”

  “I am missing a case.”

  Clouseau frowned. “But has there not been a crime?”

  “Yes! I am missing a case. Of hot dogs.”

  Eyes narrowing, Clouseau said, “Ah, I see. It is the missing-case ploy. And how many hot dogs are missing?”

  “They come two dozen to a case.”

  “And how many does this make?”

  The vendor blinked. “Twenty-four?”

  “Twenty-four! Yes. And why do they come twenty-four to a case?”

  The vendor shrugged. “I…I don’t really know!”

  Clouseau slapped his thigh with the crop—a bit too hard. “Ow! Yes! This is the correct answer.”

  “It…is?”

  Clouseau raised a gently lecturing forefinger. “You see, had you known…you would be a suspect.”

  The vendor’s assistant offered, “Each case has two packages. Each package has a dozen hot dogs.”

  Slapping his thigh again, Clouseau said, “Ow!…You are a suspect!…Andre, take him to the van…Perhaps a trip to the headquarters will make you more forthcoming.”

  Too confused to be angry, the vendor’s helper walked off in Andre’s custody.

  Clouseau said to the vendor, “You are clearly a man of intelligence. This is your business. It is your business to know your business.”

  The vendor shrugged. “Well, yes. It is my business.”

  “Yes! Precisely! Ow.” Clouseau moved closer to the man, almost conspiratorial in manner. “How do you analyze the situation, my friend?”

  “Well…someone’s stealing my hot dogs.”

  From nearby, a local gendarme said, “A clear violation of statute 209A.”

  Clouseau warily eyed the source of this interruption. In a voice that was perhaps louder than need be, he said, “Statute 209, part A: a restaurant serving raw meat must be licensed for such; a brasserie serving cheese must also purchase an equal volume of ice; no café can have tables less than three feet from the boulevard. Section B and C are unimportant…they were repealed in 1897.”

  The vendor was taking all of this in, astounded by the depth of the officer’s knowledge.

  But still Clouseau went masterfully on: “Section D, however, remains in force—all streets bordering an abattoir shall be outfitted with a blood gutter terminating in a municipal sewer or licensed drainage ditch!”

  Then the detective whirled to the gendarme who had dared interrupt him and said, “So I can only assume that you meant to invoke statute 212C.”

  The gendarme squinted. “How does that statute read, sir?”

  Clouseau thrust a pointing finger skyward. “Unlawful to steal hot dogs!”

  The gendarme hung his head in shame.

  “Do not despair my young friend. One day you, too, may have the steel trap mind of Clouseau…Now, my dear vendor, tell me something about this…this ‘business’ of yours. This—what is the technical term? This hot dog business.”

  “Well,” the vendor said, “someone comes up to me and says, ‘I would like a hot dog.’ ”

  “I see…I see.” Clouseau moved in, eyes wide. “And then?”

  “Uh…then I sell them a hot dog.”

  Clouseau nodded, thinking, thinking, thinking. “I believe I have the grasp of the situation…may I summarize? You sell someone the hot dog.”

  “Yes.”

  “And then they…ask for the hot dog? This does not make sense to me.”

  “No, first they ask, then I sell it to them.”

  “Yes, yes. Clever. You are a clever man of business, monsieur. My congratulations…And so, into your well-ordered life, into this business so brilliantly conceived, comes the crime! The one who does not ask…who does not buy…the perpetrator!”

  “But…who, Officer?”

  Clouseau put his arm around the vendor’s shoulder. “My little friend, if I may call you ‘my little friend’?”

  “Of course.”

  “Crime…she is lurking. Somewhere. Perhaps there! Perhaps…here. I will need to question your patrons.”

  “But, Officer…they are Americans. A tour came through for lunch. I speak very little of the English.”

  Clouseau backed away, chuckling. “Oh, ye of petite faith! Am I not Jacques Clouseau—master of language? I speak eight languages…and one of them, as it happens, my little friend…is the English.” And to make his point, he said, “I am, in fact, fluid in the English.”

  The vendor said, “Don’t you mean ’fluent’?”

  “Not at all. Listen to the English flow from my lips…” And Clouseau spun toward the crowd, seated at their little tables, and said, in English, “Everyone! Up against zuh well!”

  As Clouseau glanced at the vendor, pleased with himself, the patrons shared glances and shrugs, and got to their feet and moved quickly to the well, and
stood with their backs to it as best they could.

  To the nearest gendarme, Clouseau said in French, “What are they doing?” To the suspects who had formed a ring around the well, he demanded in English, “What are you fools do-ing?”

  The vendor said, “You told them, ‘Up against the well.’ ”

  “I said ‘Zuh well! Zuh well!’ ”

  And he thrust his riding crop toward the nearest wall.

  “Ah!” the vendor said. He turned to the suspects and said, “The wall! The wall!”

  Soon the suspects had gathered against the brick, facing Clouseau.

  “Back to zuh well!” Clouseau demanded.

  A tourist nearby squinted and said, “You want us to go back to the well…?”

  “No, no, no! Hands to the…brick. Now! Do not an-gare me. It is not a pleasant thing to see, the an-gare.”

  “Anchor?”

  Grimacing, Clouseau gestured with the rider’s crop, making a circle, and finally they got it.

  Under his breath, Clouseau said, “Swine suspects,” and began to pat them down.

  He was on the first suspect when Andre returned from the paddy wagon.

  “Ah! My young assistant…watch and learn. You must not be shy, you know? You must be thorough…What’s this?”

  Clouseau, patting down the man with whom he’d recently conversed, had worked his way up the legs to the crotch.

  “Swine…In the van!…Andre, move quickly. Take him to the van.”

  The tourist was saying, “Ah come on! What’s the idea? What are you, some kinda French pervert?”

  “That is ‘prefect.’ And I am but a lowly pubic servant. Though I do hope to advance. Take him! Take him!”

  The next suspect—possibly the companion of the previous suspect, a male—was a female. A comely one, at that. But this did not dissuade the great detective from his duty. And though he searched thoroughly the same area used by her possible accomplice for smuggling purposes, he found nothing.

  “You madame, are free to go.”

  Within fifteen minutes, the search was complete—it seemed a dozen couples were involved in the hot dog smuggling operation, although none of the women had any incriminating evidence on their persons.

  Thus it was that Clouseau stood with Andre at the rear of the crowded paddy wagon, in which the vendor’s assistant had been joined by twelve American males—one of them a clever devil, a transvestite—all squeezed in, like hot dogs in a package. They left behind a dozen women, utterly astonished by the level of Clouseau’s police work.