Pel and the Prowler

by Mark Hebden

  He fished in an envelope he was carrying and laid the brooch on the table. It bore a single zircon in an old-fashioned setting and appeared to be of no great value. Pel lifted his eyes to look at Nosjean.

  ‘Look on the back, Patron.’

  Turning it over, Pel saw that across the centre of the mounting was a set of initials.

  ‘M de W,’ he said slowly. His head jerked up. ‘Marguerite de Wibaux!’

  Nosjean grinned. ‘I insisted on taking it away,’ he said. ‘Treville’s not a bad sort and he’s always co-operated. All he asked was that we keep his name out of the paper. He doesn’t want people to think he receives stolen goods.’

  ‘We’ll have no option if it leads to the killer,’ Pel observed. ‘It’ll have to come out in court. Did he remember who brought it in?’

  ‘Yes, Patron. It was a student. Strong-looking and dark-skinned. He thought he was Algerian or Tunisian or something like that.’

  Twenty-one

  ‘Moussia.’ Pel frowned, his thoughts whirring. ‘Strong. Athletic. Insecure childhood. Aggressive self-assertion. Claims to know how to get girls but in fact unpopular with them. Resentful, perhaps, because he thought none of them wanted him. Does his family have some connection with the Boulevard de Strasbourg area in Paris in 1940?’

  ‘His father joined the North African troops, Patron,’ Darcy pointed out. ‘He said so. He fought in Italy. He was Algerian and in those days before independence Algeria was part of Metropolitan France. He could have been in Paris on a visit and been caught there by the Occupation. And he could have got back to North Africa because the rules weren’t strict in those days and you could get from the Occupied to the Unoccupied Zone without too much trouble. A lot of people bolted to Algeria. Perhaps he did.’

  Moussia was indignant and frightened at the same time. ‘Why have I been brought in?’ he demanded.

  ‘To answer a few questions,’ Pel said. ‘Does the year 1940 have any significance for you?’

  Moussia looked bewildered. ‘1940? Why should it? That was the year of the Occupation, wasn’t it? Why should it have any significance for me? I wasn’t even born.’

  ‘What about your father? Where was he?’

  ‘As far as I know in Algiers, which was where he lived. It was where my mother lived, too. But I don’t know. And I can’t ask him because they separated and I think he’s dead now. I’m not even sure of that.’

  ‘Did you know your father well?’

  ‘Not much. I wasn’t very old when they split up.’

  ‘Did he ever talk about Paris?’

  ‘Only to say that he thought Paris had let the Algerians down. That was after independence, though. He considered himself a Frenchman and he had to take the first ship to Marseilles before he got himself shot.’

  ‘Was he in Paris in 1940?’

  ‘I shouldn’t think so. He’d only be about sixteen and he didn’t come from the sort of family that could afford to send him to Paris. Why? What’s it to do with anything?’

  Pel looked at Darcy and Nosjean. Moussia caught the glance and licked his lips nervously.

  ‘Will I be able to go now?’ he said. ‘Is that all?’

  ‘Not quite.’ Pel had been sitting with his hand over the brooch Nosjean had brought in. Now he removed it and pushed the brooch forward. ‘Do you recognise that?’

  Moussia’s face fell and his dark skin went grey. He nodded silently.

  ‘It was recovered from the antique dealer in Ferry-le-Grand. They say it was handed in by a man answering to your description. Was it you?’

  Moussia nodded again.

  ‘Whose is it?’

  ‘It was my mother’s.’

  ‘What was her name? Before she married?’

  Moussia hesitated. ‘Michelline de – de Walbecque.’

  ‘You don’t seem very sure.’

  ‘Yes. Yes, I am.’

  ‘De Walbecque’s the name of one of the professors at the university,’ Nosjean said in a flat voice. ‘I spoke to him only recently. On the Prowler case.’

  ‘Well –’ Moussia’s head turned nervously from one to the other ‘ – well, that’s what it is.’

  ‘Check with the university, Nosjean,’ Pel said. ‘They’ll have the parents’ names.’

  ‘They won’t have mine!’ Moussia’s voice rose. ‘Because they come from Algeria.’

  They sat in silence as Nosjean left the room, Moussia fidgeting constantly with the windcheater he was wearing. Nosjean returned within minutes.

  ‘Father: Amin Abda Moussia,’ he said. ‘Mother: Noëlle Besnier.’

  Pel pushed the brooch across the desk again. ‘It says “M de on the back,’ he pointed out. ‘That doesn’t go with Noëlle Besnier or Noëlle Moussia either. Would you like to think again?’

  Moussia’s mouth opened and shut without a sound emerging.

  ‘How did it come into your possession?’

  ‘I bought it.’

  ‘Where from?’

  ‘A shop in Dole.’

  ‘Name?’

  ‘I forget.’

  ‘Describe it.’

  ‘I – I can’t.’

  ‘When?’

  ‘Two months ago.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘For a girl I know.’

  ‘Which girl?’

  ‘She lives in Marseilles.’

  ‘Name?’

  ‘Monique Coudrais.’

  ‘Why buy a girl with the initials MC a ring carrying the initials M de W?’

  ‘It was second-hand and cheap and I could afford it. I was going to have them taken off.’

  ‘If you bought it for this girl in Marseilles why did you sell it in Ferry?’

  ‘She threw me over.’

  ‘So why not keep it for the next one? You told us you have no trouble getting girls.’

  ‘I decided I didn’t like it after all.’

  Pel leaned forward. ‘Come on. That brooch belonged to Marguerite de Wibaux, didn’t it? Are you trying to persuade us that a brooch in your possession carrying the initials of a girl who was strangled, a girl who lived in the same group of flats as you, a girl who knew you, who’d been to parties you attended – that it didn’t belong to her?’

  ‘It didn’t! It didn’t!’

  ‘Then who did it belong to?’

  ‘An aunt of hers.’

  ‘What!’

  Pel sat bolt upright and he saw Darcy and Nosjean exchange glances. ‘You’d better tell us the truth,’ he said.

  Moussia was shaking with fear. ‘The initials stand for Marie de Wibaux. That’s her aunt. Her father’s sister. She’s a spinster. She gave it to Marguerite but Marguerite hated it because it was old-fashioned and decided to sell it and say she’d lost it. It was insured so she actually got money for it from the insurance company. A guy came to see her about it. She said it was worth five hundred francs and they paid up. Other people do that sort of thing, don’t they? – pretend they’ve lost something and then claim the insurance.’

  ‘I’ve no doubt. Go on.’

  ‘Well, she gave it to me to look after because she was afraid the type from the insurance company would want to search her room to make sure she wasn’t telling lies.’

  ‘Which she was doing.’

  ‘Yes.’ Moussia gestured tiredly. ‘As a matter of fact he arrived early and very nearly caught us with the damn thing on the table. I nipped out the back way.’

  ‘Which back way? There is no back way. The door’s screwed up tight.’

  ‘Not that way. Through the window on the landing.’

  Pel had become very still. ‘This is something we haven’t yet heard about,’ he said. ‘Inform me.’

  ‘Well, it was easy. I’d done it before. I was once set on by a gang of kids who wanted to do me over.’

  ‘Why did they want to do you over?’

  ‘They were town kids. They don’t like students much. They resent us having grants.’ Moussia’s dark face split in a nervous smile. ‘The
y forget we’re the élite of the next generation. There’d been a slanging match in a bar and they were waiting and tried to grab me as I was coming home. I dashed into Number 69. When they didn’t find me they kicked the front door in.’

  ‘You hid?’

  ‘Not likely. They’d have found me. I nipped upstairs and slipped out of the landing window alongside Sergent’s room. The ground floor sticks out a bit further than the others so there’s a roof. I dropped down to it and then to the ground.’

  ‘Didn’t it make a noise? Didn’t it disturb the girls in the flat below?’

  Moussia sighed. ‘Next day Annie Joulier said she thought she heard burglars but as nothing was missing nobody enquired any further. We got the door fixed and that was that.’

  ‘Did you return the same way?’

  ‘Not possible. You’d have to climb up to the lower roof – and that’s too high. Then from there you’d have to climb up to the landing window by Sergent’s room. And that’s impossible, too.’

  ‘You can’t get in that way?’

  ‘Not unless you’re a gymnast.’

  ‘Which you are.’

  ‘No, I’m not. I’m a weight-lifter. You’d have to be a cat burglar. Or two and and a half metres high, which I’m not. I waited in the yard at the back of the house until they’d gone then I slipped in through the front door.’

  Pel glanced at Darcy and Nosjean, then changed the subject abruptly. ‘Let’s get back to the brooch,’ he said.

  ‘Yes – well –’ Moussia gestured ‘– in the end, when Marguerite got the money for it from the insurance, she decided she’d better get rid of it for safety. Because she was scared to do it herself, I’d had it valued for her at the shop in Ferry-le-Grand. The guy said it was worth about five hundred and fifty francs.’

  ‘That’s a lot of money for a student!’

  Moussia shook his head. ‘Not to her. Her family’s rich. I said she oughtn’t to be seen selling it and I’d get rid of it for her. I told her I’d been offered four hundred and fifty. She was quite happy. After all, her family had plenty of money and she’d just got five hundred from the insurance company. She agreed to give me fifty if I got rid of it. For safety I took it to Ferry again and the guy gave me the five hundred and fifty. I kept the extra hundred.’

  ‘And the fifty she promised?’

  ‘She gave it to me.’

  ‘She didn’t do very well out of it, did she?’

  Moussia’s head moved silently from right to left and back again. ‘She wasn’t being very honest either,’ he said. ‘And she had all the money she wanted. I didn’t. And it didn’t stop her treating me like dirt later.’

  There was a long silence then Pel leaned forward. ‘Is this why you didn’t wish to admit to having the brooch?’

  Moussia drew a deep breath. ‘Yes. I also thought if you found I’d had it you’d think I’d done her in.’

  ‘We did. We still do.’

  ‘I didn’t! I swear!’

  Pel sat back in his chair. ‘You’d better stay here for the time being,’ he said. ‘Check with her family, Nosjean. Find out if she had an aunt with a brooch like this.’

  As Nosjean left the room, Moussia turned to Pel. ‘Are you going to arrest me?’ he asked. ‘For false pretences.’

  Pel sat very still. ‘It might even be for murder,’ he said.

  As Moussia was taken away, Darcy looked at Pel. ‘Think he’s the Prowler, Patron? He’s known to pester girls.’

  ‘Not pester them, Daniel. Follow them.’

  ‘What’s the difference? He also knows how to get out of that house in the Rue Devoin without being seen.’

  ‘Out. But not in.’

  ‘He probably knows a way in, too, that he’s not telling us about. With a rope or something. What do we charge him with?’

  ‘Not false pretences. Not yet. Not with five murders on our hands. Let him stew. See Judge Brisard. He ought to be able to deal with it. In the meantime, I think you and I should have another look at that house.’

  Several of the students – Sergent, Schwendermann and two of the girls – were in their rooms as they searched Number 69, Rue Devoin. The room that had been occupied by Marguerite de Wibaux was still unoccupied but her belongings were still there. Pel switched on the radio.

  ‘Go upstairs, Daniel,’ he said. ‘Then come down.’

  When Darcy reappeared, Pel looked up. ‘Well, go on,’ he said.

  ‘I’ve been.’

  ‘I didn’t hear you above the radio.’

  As they talked, Annie Joulier came tearing into the hall, yelling at the top of her voice that Moussia had been arrested. How she’d found out it was hard to tell but there was an immediate uproar and a gabble of voices, then all the girls shot out of the house to spread the news.

  ‘Do we stop them, Patron?’ Darcy asked.

  Pel shook his head. ‘Let them go. It’s true enough and it’ll keep the press out of our hair.’

  They continued to prowl round the building, searching in the broom cupboard, and finally in the yard at the back. It was a dank, shadowed sort of place away from the sun during the day and the street lights at night. By the outhouse built into the rear wall where the painter kept his equipment, Pel stopped. ‘That lock doesn’t seem a very good one, Daniel. Will it come open?’

  Darcy had it open within minutes. Inside they stared at the tins of paint, the cans of turpentine, the brushes soaking in water and white spirit, the paint-stained rags, the stepladders and cleaned-out pots.

  ‘Patron –’ Darcy’s head turned ‘ – those steps. Moussia said you couldn’t get back into the building without being seen. But if you knew that lock could be picked, you could. Easily. Especially after dark.’

  Hoisting himself to the top of the wall, he peered over. ‘Empty yard here,’ he said. ‘Looks derelict. He could easily climb down and nip over here and return the same way. There are bricks stacked on the other side.’

  ‘How does he get back in the house?’

  ‘The steps, Patron. He could get on to that lower roof over the ground floor.’

  ‘He has to get in a floor higher. How does he manage that? There was no rope in his room.’

  Darcy frowned. ‘There must be some way. Perhaps he had it hidden somewhere. Perhaps we should go through that place again. Perhaps he has it in one of those suitcases in the kitchen. Having got back in, he sits tight until early next morning when he goes out – who’s to worry about anybody going out in the morning? – puts the steps away, relocks the shed and comes in through the front door as if he’s been out for nothing more interesting than to buy a morning paper.’ Darcy paused. ‘And, Patron, he didn’t have to do any climbing to kill Gilbertine Guégan. He wasn’t here. He was lodging with that pal of his, Habib, at Rue Novembre 11. Still –’ Darcy pulled a face ‘– leaving those steps out all night where they could be found – he was taking a risk, Patron.’

  Pel’s expression didn’t change. ‘Murderers do take risks,’ he said. ‘Let’s go back and see what Judge Brisard’s made of him.’

  Twenty-two

  Judge Brisard had made nothing of Moussia. In his usual pompous manner, he had told the policeman who had brought Moussia to his office to wait outside the door. Judge Brisard was a large, strong man despite his broad hips and plump behind, and was confident, as he always was, that he could handle his witnesses. Unfortunately Moussia was strong, too, and as Judge Brisard had leaned back in his chair, full of self-satisfaction, to deliver the lecture with which he usually prefaced his interrogations, Moussia had celebrated the policeman’s departure by pushing him – and his chair – over backwards, breaking the chair and knocking Brisard unconscious. He had then climbed through the window of Brisard’s private washroom and disappeared. The Police were unconcerned about the black eye and the lump on his head that Judge Brisard had acquired, only that his self-importance had allowed their prisoner to escape. But what they had to say about him was nothing compared with what Pel had to say.
>
  ‘He should be cut into strips and fed to the pigs,’ he breathed.

  Pink with fury, he sat at his desk and lit a cigarette to try to control his temper, while Darcy used the telephone to tear lumps off everybody within reach. In addition to false pretences and suspicion of murder, Moussia was now wanted on charges of assault and battery, evading arrest, and assailing the majesty of the law in the person of Judge Brisard.

  Several cigarettes later, Pel had calmed down enough to remember that it was about time for Claudie to go out on the streets and that if Moussia were about she could well be in great danger. Collecting Darcy, still red-faced from shouting down the telephone, he headed for the sergeants’ room. Claudie was standing in the middle of a group of men, ready to leave.

  ‘Even with that lot on your face,’ Misset was saying, indicating her make-up, ‘you’re an improvement on my wife. And not half as fierce The way she goes on at me, I need police protection.’

  When they saw Pel they broke up quickly, Misset’s face suddenly so blank it looked as if it had belonged to someone else who’d just walked away and left it.

  They watched Claudie depart. Darcy went with her to check the placing of his men. Still angry, Pel returned to his own office, hoping to take his mind off what had happened by absorbing himself in the pile of paper on his desk. The reports were still coming in from abroad, some for the second time because the first ones had not been complete enough to satisfy him. De Troq’, who was in the next room going through the local files, watched him heading for his office but wisely kept silent.

  Around ten-thirty the two of them slipped out to the Bar Transvaal for a drink. Because he was tired and was still angry, Pel had a whisky and, in a rush of blood to the head, because he wasn’t normally so generous, he offered De Troq’ one. It shocked him when he accepted because De Troq’ didn’t normally drink the hard stuff and he hadn’t expected him to say yes.

  When they returned to the Hôtel de Police there was a message from the police sub-station as Chenove to say they’d had a sighting of Hélin.

  ‘What was he up to?’ Pel asked.

  ‘We think he’s been with a girl who lives here. Her parents are away for a few days and the house’s empty except for the girl, and we think he was taking advantage of the fact.’