The Pink Panther

by Max Allan Collins

  Renard shrugged. “He did give them a good sound bite.”

  “There is nothing ‘sound’ about Jacques Clouseau, Renard. He is a moron of the first rank. At times I wonder if anyone could really be as stupid as he…”

  Abruptly, Dreyfus’s pacing halted.

  Spinning toward his deputy, the chief inspector had a wild look in his eyes.

  “Renard—is it possible…that he may not be as stupid as we think…?”

  Renard’s eyebrows lifted. “It seems difficult to conceive that any human being could be that stupid.”

  “Yes! Yes!” He thrust a finger at his assistant. “We must be very careful, Renard—we must be careful of this seeming fool. Perhaps he is not the bumbler we take him for. Perhaps it is all a clever ruse!”

  Considering that, Renard said, “If so, Chief Inspector—it is a thorough ruse, indeed…”

  As they strode down the marble steps of the elegant Palais de la Justice, Clouseau and Ponton discussed the Pink Panther case.

  The inspector was pleased with the results of his interrogation of the soccer star, Bizu.

  “Ponton,” he was saying, “this man may be the athlete of the great abilities, he may have the fitness physical, but he cannot stand up under the advanced interrogation techniques of Inspector Jacques Clouseau!”

  And indeed, only minor wisps of smoke were emerging from his trousers now, following his use of the electrical box.

  “Have you come to a conclusion about Bizu, Inspector?” the towering assistant asked, as they approached the Renault, where Clouseau had parked it, backward.

  “I have!…Have you?”

  With a decisive gesture of the forefinger, Ponton said, “I think he is our best suspect. I would say that this Bizu is very likely the guilty party.”

  The inspector laughed lightly, as if feeling sorry for his charge. “Ah, my inexperienced if oversized waif…Allow Papa Clouseau to explain.”

  Soon they were in the Renault, which was a bit of a squeeze for Ponton, who nonetheless (at Clouseau’s bidding) got behind the wheel. Clouseau elucidated, as they drove through the scenic streets of Paris.

  “Fact—Gluant suspended Bizu.”

  Ponton nodded.

  “Fact—Gluant stole from Bizu the affections of the lovely Xania, certainly a woman of considerable charms, easily worth killing over.”

  Again Ponton nodded.

  “Fact—from the most important game of the year, Gluant removes Bizu and consigns him in shame to the bench.”

  Ponton nodded once more.

  “Fact—Bizu had the perfect opportunity to commit the crime, in the chaos that followed the team’s great victory.”

  Ponton said, “So, then, you agree—Bizu is guilty.”

  Clouseau’s eyes flared. “Don’t be absurd! He is clearly not guilty! He is innocent.”

  “But Inspector…working from all these facts, how do you come to this conclusion?”

  “Instinct!”

  Stunned by this, Ponton double-parked in front of Clouseau’s apartment building and said, “Inspector, if Gluant had done these things to me, I would have done exactly what Bizu did. I would have gladly killed him!”

  Clouseau eyed his partner. “And where were you on the afternoon of the murder?”

  “You can’t be serious!”

  “Ponton, my large friend with the moderate mind, I am always serious. Remember at all times, Ponton—there is nothing funny about crime.”

  And the inspector flung open the car door, by way of emphasis, knocking a passing bicylist flying off his bike, windmilling through the air.

  Not noticing this, Clouseau continued his lesson as he emerged into the street from the Renault. “Ponton, a mystery is like the jigsaw puzzle. Having the jig alone is not enough—one must also have…the saw.”

  Just up the block, the bicyclist, sitting up on the cement, began to groan.

  “Did you say something, Ponton?…No? My friend, you must at all times be observant. Because murder, she takes no holiday. And your mind must be like the Swiss watch, precise and full of gears and little wheels, turning, turning.”

  Turning, Clouseau promptly tripped over the bicycle that lay where its owner had left it.

  “This, this, this, for example!” Clouseau said, jumping to his feet, gesturing to the bike, a wheel spinning. “This abandoned bicycle—it could be the clue of some crime. Did it come from the sky? I think not. Somewhere, there is a story about this abandoned bike—was it stolen? Did some fiend cause harm to its owner?”

  “God-damn-it!”

  “What did you say, Ponton?”

  “Nothing,” Ponton said. “Sounds like someone may have been hurt down the street…”

  Clouseau smiled bitterly. “Ah, the city. There are millions of stories in the city which is naked; this you will learn, my friend—park the car, would you, Ponton, and join me in my flat? We should go over what we have discovered on our first day on the job.”

  Down the street, the bicylist had made it to his feet and was glaring red-faced at the oblivious Clouseau.

  “Bastard!” the biker screamed, waving fists.

  Clouseau looked behind him, to see who this excited devil was calling out to.

  Charging toward Clouseau like an enraged bull, the biker barreled through the intersection just as a large globe of the world came rolling down the incline of the adjacent street, traveling at enormous speed, knocking over the poor fellow in its wake, taking him with it.

  Ponton, from the doubled-parked car, bent down to look across through the passenger window at Clouseau and asked, “What do you make of that, Inspector?”

  Clouseau swallowed, shrugged, and said, “The world, how she turns, it is a mystery even the greatest detective can never hope to solve…Park the car, Ponton. And check in with the headquarters! See if there have been the developments.”

  “Yes, Inspector.”

  Clouseau was right: murder took no holiday, not on the Pink Panther case, at least.

  At the very moment he and Ponton were discussing the guilt or innocence of Bizu, the great soccer player himself was getting out of his exercise gear in the Team France locker room.

  Hearing footsteps, he looked up.

  Bizu saw a familiar face and, in his usual brusque way, said, “Oh it’s you—what do you want?”

  The reply was unusual to say the least—exemplified by the red light of a laser on the star’s forehead, as a weapon was sighted.

  The reflexes of Bizu were second to none among the great athletes of Europe. But when the bullet pierced his forehead, those reflexes were instantly shut down, and he dropped to the floor, a well-trained machine that would never run again.

  The gunshot as well as the sound of the body falling to the floor—for indeed it was a body, a corpse, no longer a man—was heard only by one party. The lovely PR rep of Team France, Cherie Dubois, had been passing by.

  Tentatively, she stuck her head into the locker room; normally, as a woman, she respected the privacy of these male athletes—not that some of them wouldn’t have relished the opportunity to strut around in front of her. Still, it was too late in the day for anyone to be in the locker room at all…

  So she merely called in: “What was that?…Is everything all right? Everyone all—”

  But the question choked off, when she saw the trickle of red making its way across the cement floor toward her.

  Opening the door wider, she saw Bizu, sprawled near the bench, and she screamed.

  The great player had gone out the last way he ever would have wanted to: once and for all, benched.

  As he approached his apartment door, Inspector Clouseau reached a hand into his pants pocket for his keys; but he paused.

  There would be no need for a key.

  His door was already ajar…

  Like Bizu, Clouseau had finely honed instincts. And from under his arm came the revolver that had been presented to him by his chief in Fromage. Many detectives used automatic handguns these day
s, nine millimeter weapons a strong preference in the profession; but not Clouseau. He favored the old-fashioned joys of a revolver—there was no danger of jamming. Such a weapon was entirely reliable.

  But he did not remember if he had loaded it, prior to leaving Fromage, and so—ever the master of detail—he broke open the well-oiled weapon to make sure. It was indeed ready for action: six bullets nestled in their little metal berths. Clouseau grinned confidently to himself, pitying the intruder who had risked incurring his wrath. He snapped the chamber back in place.

  The weapon was, perhaps, too well-oiled, as the cylinder bounced back open. When Clouseau—in proper procedure—raised the weapon, snout up, the bullets fell like brittle rain to the hallway floor, the weapon emptying itself.

  Clouseau whirled at the sound, saw nothing.

  Unaware that his weapon was empty, he stepped close to the door—it was not open wide enough for him to get any kind of view within the flat—and his trained police officer’s mind kicked into gear.

  Thinking, I must check for the trap for the booby, he stepped high on tiptoes to run a finger along the doorsill’s top.

  As he was doing this, Nicole—within Clouseau’s apartment—was in the process of doing some laundry for the man she’d been assigned to help. Walking from the kitchen carrying two freshly laundered shirts of the inspector’s, she noted the door standing ajar, and gave it a helpful kick.

  Hanging by a wedged finger from the closed door, Clouseau was able through his phenomenal strength of will, to suppress a scream, merely thrashing in pain and weeping silently. Swinging back and forth, he did his best to reach the doorbell, but could not.

  Luckily, the inspector always had other options. It was unorthodox, he knew, but he would fire a bullet into the bell and ring it thusly. And so he learned that his weapon was empty.

  Composing himself, methodically going through the file cards of his mind to discern the most dignified response to this crisis, Clouseau—hanging by an ever reddening digit—began to kick wildly at the door.

  Nicole, in the kitchen, heard the racket and answered it.

  Clouseau fell in a pile of flesh, bones, clothing and humilation at her feet.

  “I humble myself before you, my dear,” he said, looking up at the lovely girl.

  “Oh, Inspector! Your finger!”

  “Yes…this…this is my finger…”

  “What have I done?”

  He allowed himself to be helped to his feet. “You have done the impossible, my dear. You have shown the fraility of the man you assume to be perfection. You have revealed the frightened little boy behind the mask of the great detective.”

  “Oh, Inspector…come in…It must be throbbing! May I rub something on that?”

  “Certainly…but first—my finger.”

  In the kitchen, Clouseau sat at the table while the chief inspector’s secretary applied salve to a finger swollen to the size of a summer sausage.

  “Oh dear…oh dear. It’s so large, Inspector.”

  “Thank you. But why are you here, in my private sanctuary, my sweet little salve-applying swan?”

  Pretty eyelashes batted behind the glasses. “I let myself in with a key…I hoped you wouldn’t mind.”

  She explained that his two new suits had come back from the tailor. Then as she was getting him a bottle of water from the refrigerator, she noticed a hardboiled egg in a bowl; very little else was in there. She took the liberty of removing the egg and, as she handed him a bottle of water, asked, “May I have this? It’s been a terribly long day, Inspector, and I haven’t had a bite since lunch.”

  “If you need a bite, my dear, you have come to the right place. Indulge yourself. Indulge. What is mine is yours!”

  She removed the shell at the sink, Clouseau at the table, his back to her. Holding the egg before her as if it were a precious jewel, perhaps the Panther itself, she suddenly felt how slippery the thing was, and before she knew it, the egg had squirted from her fingertips into her mouth, lodging there.

  Unable to speak or breathe, she gyrated helplessly behind the seated inspector.

  Who was expounding upon his philosophy of investigation. “You see, Nicole, for the great detective, it is necessary to be aware of everything that happens around him at all times. And this investigation, she is demanding like the small child with the hunger.”

  Nicole’s hands flapped at her chest, her face turning a bright shade of red.

  “If we are not observant,” Clouseau was saying, “we are unable to rise to the occasion. In this case, the case of the Pink Panther, I find it is necessary for me to bring into play everything I have learned in a lifetime of investigation. Things begin to appear in the mind that I do not remember ever having known. Have you ever heard of anything so strange, my pet?”

  “Urrrrk,” Nicole said. “Urrrk.”

  Puzzled, as her response seemed to be in a tongue other than the many he had mastered, Clouseau turned to Nicole, and saw her with the white end of the egg projecting from her lips, her eyes huge, whites showing all around, her color a deep lush purple.

  “Mon dieu!” Clouseau said, on his feet now. “Le Heimlich! Le Heimlich!”

  He flew to her, swivelled her around, his arms encircling her waist from behind, lifting her high off the ground.

  “Ahhh!” Clouseau blurted. “Yes! Yes! Ahhh! Ahhhh!”

  He did not hear the knock at his apartment door, and soon Ponton had entered the kitchen, to see Clouseau lifting Nicole off the floor from behind, thrusting wildly.

  It seemed to Ponton that the Police Nationale’s one-woman welcome wagon was outdoing herself where the inspector was concerned.

  Clouseau, in the midst of the Heimlich manuever, glanced back at Ponton and said, “Don’t worry, Ponton! We have almost made it!”

  The egg shot from Nicole’s lips and flew out the nearest window.

  “Ahhhhhh,” she said, as he lowered her to the floor.

  “Do you feel better, my dear?” the inspector asked, a hand on her shoulder as she bent, hands on knees, breathing hard.

  Ponton watched, amazed.

  She worked at getting back her breath. “Nothing…nothing like that has ever happened to me before…”

  “Well,” Clouseau said, flashing Ponton a smile, “it was lucky I was here, then—you could not have done that alone!”

  Nicole said, “Yes, yes, merci, Inspector, merci. You are so good at that! Where did you learn it?”

  “Well, in Fromage, we practice on the manikins.”

  Ponton’s eyes narrowed. “Really?”

  Clouseau nodded. “Ponton, remember, it is best done from behind. And Nicole, well—she really needed it!”

  “Ah,” Ponton said.

  Clouseau gestured to the kitchen table and all three sat.

  “Ponton, did you check with the headquarters?”

  “I did.”

  “And what have you learned?”

  Ponton shook his head. “What I learned, Inspector, what I continue to learn…is not to doubt you, and your…unusual abilities.”

  “Good! Good!…Why?”

  “Well—you seem to have been right about our friend Bizu. He was just found in the training facility locker room—shot in the head…right here.”

  Ponton tapped his forehead.

  Clouseau’s eyes narrowed in their characteristically shrewd manner. “I see. And who does Bizu say did this thing to him?”

  “Uh…he was shot in the head, Inspector.”

  “Ah yes. Was it fatal?”

  “Well—yes.”

  “How fatal?”

  “I would say—completely fatal.”

  Clouseau pondered. “Then speaking to him would be…out of the question.”

  “Well, he is dead.”

  “Were there witnesses?”

  “Only one—Cherie Dubois.”

  Clouseau nodded. “The beauty with the temper. Our witness is also…a suspect!” He looked at Nicole firmly. “My ample assistant and I mu
st go. While I am gone, Nicole—put nothing in your mouth!”

  Nicole said, “Not until you return, Inspector.”

  Now Ponton was doing the pondering, as the pair of detectives departed.

  Within the hour, Clouseau and Ponton were in the locker room at the Team France facility. The body had not been removed, a chalk outline drawn around it. The attractive blonde PR rep stood as far away from the corpse as possible while still remaining in the room. A gendarme was beside her.

  Clouseau bent over the body. “Ponton…take a look at this…Strange…most strange…”

  The big man crouched on the opposite side of Bizu’s body.

  With keen eyes on his partner, Clouseau said, “Do you not think this is the coincidence odd?”

  “What is, Inspector?”

  “That this man, he should be shot and fall precisely, perfectly within this outline on the floor?”

  “Uh…Inspector, I believe that was done later.”

  Clouseau’s eyes flashed. “Are we dealing with a madman? Who would kill a man, and take the chalk and—”

  “No, no—here in the city, we mark the position of the body with chalk. So the body can be moved, and we still have an idea of—”

  Clouseau jerked to his feet. “I know this! Do not patronize me, Ponton! I was…testing you. Well done! I applaud you. And now for this wench with the temper…”

  The inspector approached the young woman, whose arms were folded as if she were cold—indeed she was shivering…with fear.

  “Mademoiselle Dubois, please—tell me precisely what you saw. Leave nothing out!”

  She gulped and nodded and said, “I didn’t see anything, really. I was passing by the locker room. It was late, past the time that anyone is usually around, but I could hear someone on the other side of the door. Moving around? Then I heard Bizu say something like, ‘Oh, it’s you.’ Well, I didn’t figure this was any of my business, so I started down the hall, when I heard a sound that must have been gunfire!”

  Clouseau said, “Thank you, my child. One moment…”

  He took Ponton aside and said, “Go to the databases and check that name.”

  Ponton frowned in confusion. “What name, Inspector?”