The Nickel Man

by Brian Stableford

  Presumably, inspiration came to them, for, half an hour later, Bémolisant came back on his own, drawing a little handcart that he had hired, leaving a ten-franc deposit as guarantee. He took the statue out of the left luggage office and after having it loaded on to his vehicle, he set off in the direction of the Seine.

  On the Boulevard Diderot, Pilesèche rejoined him, darting anxious glances to the left and right, and the two of them were swallowed up by the crowd...

  VI. A Fin-de-Siècle Detective

  Monsieur Rosamour was smoking a cigar by the fireside. Sunk in a softly-padded armchair, his feet crossed in the American fashion on the marble mantelpiece, Rosamour abandoned himself to the pleasure of daydreaming. He liked that quiet idleness in a cozy apartment, where his artistic temperament had assembled a few paintings and costly trinkets. His gaze wandered from one to another, and life appeared to him in its brightest colors.

  Rosamour did not, however, spend all his time doing nothing. He had a métier, or, let us rather say, a profession. He was a detective: a fin-de-siècle detective who had broken the mold of the police of old. He was an accomplished gentleman, correctly dressed, clean shaven, perfectly polished and susceptible of cutting a brilliant figure in any society.

  His colleagues at the Rue de Jérusalem 33regarded him with a disdain pierced with a certain jealousy, because, without having the air of being up to much, he had had a few successful cases at the outset of his career, and had treated them with means so unexpected that they wondered whether the young puppy was not about to turn the old methods upside-down—which caused the hairs of the old conservatives of the Sûreté stand on end.

  He claimed to be inaugurating the new type of the scientific detective.

  “Modern science,” he said, when he let himself go in telling the story of his vocation, “has put within our range resources still unutilized, in which it is sufficient to draw with full hands. Unfortunately, the ordinary run of policemen, ingenious and adroit as they are presumed to be, are notoriously insufficient in their education. Personally, I’m a doctor of science and a laureate of the Institut. When I reached the age to choose a profession I said to myself: What scientific career is as yet unexploited? And I perceived a lacuna in the police: that was my opportunity.

  “Certainly, my honorable colleagues have been able to take advantage of the most obvious conquests of science—railways, the telegraph and the telephone—but science intervenes in many other aspects of our lives every day, and for someone who knows it thoroughly, it is a torch, a sure guide, which it is necessary not to abandon for a single instant. In a general manner, and above all, what I want to introduce into my police research, is the scientific method, and to that end I’ve worked hard; the study of the masters has permitted me to glimpse the rules of what I might call the great strategy of the art.

  “Those rules, which were instinctive to them and which they applied, so to speak, without being aware of it, I claim to have classified in my mind, and I march almost with a sure step along the way, leaning on the experience of the ancients, served by modern scientific methods. No more empiricism: experimental logic! According to the case, I can apply the methods of any of my illustrious predecessors…at least to the extent that our physical means permit me to. Before acting, I always ask myself: what would Vidocq, Lecoq, Macé or Goron have done? And then: what should I, Rosamour, do?”

  Was not the young fin-de-siècle detective still a trifle lacking in the manner explaining his sound principles?

  He even claimed not to limit the scope of his method to classical science, and was not reluctant to seek help from the occult sciences, or those reputed as such—I mean hypnotism and induced sleep, whether he utilized the clairvoyance of extra-lucid mediums or sought to hypnotize suspects himself.

  In vino veritas, says the adage, and some people are not far from admitting that it is just as easy to get the truth out of a somnambulist as a drunkard.

  One could argue about that endlessly, and sustain that the aforesaid subject is not as unconscious as one would like to believe; that he takes a malign pleasure in parading his medium and his audience through a heap of extravagant stories, and that in the end, especially when his interests are at stake, he will resist suggestions and indiscreet questions with all his might. To that Rosamour replied that nothing is absolute, but, even supposing that hypnotized subject does not always tell the whole truth, it is incontestable that he is not in entire possession of himself, and betrays himself all the more easily by his reticences or his contradictions.

  What does a policeman require? A presumption, a clue, a guiding thread, a word let slip that puts him on the track, ready to check the indications given severely and subsequently find their material verification.

  A judgment based on revelations acquired in that state, either from the guilty person or a third party, would doubtless be iniquitous, but is it still bad when one only seeks within the revelations a means of investigation?

  For our part, we cannot say and almost dare say that the method will only ever prove its worth by the manner of its application.

  As for Monsieur Rosamour, he was convinced that he applied it with the greatest prudence, and we have no reason to contest the high opinion that he had of himself.

  These delicate problems, where the very essence of our psychic nature—to use the language of initiates—is at stake, without science having succeeded in grasping the link that attaches it to the corporeal world, are attractive by virtue of the marvelous that surrounds them and the element of the unknown that is inseparable from them.

  So, Rosamour was in the meditative attitude appropriate to an individual haunted by such grave thoughts. He was smoking his cigar and could, by reaching out his hand, pick up a little book from a table, in which his paper-knife marked the page that he had begun.

  It was not a work by just anyone; the book treated the subject of the divining rod and was signed Chevreuil.34 Such a name guaranteed the value of the contents.

  And Rosamour was thinking about what he had just read.

  As everyone knows, a divining rod is a forked stick, a simple hazel rod, which water-diviners—which is to say, those who make a particular specialty of detecting subterranean watercourses—hold out in front of them. At the moment when they are directly over the spring, the rod becomes active and bends, twisting the hand, thus indicating the precise spot in which it is necessary to dig.

  If the explanation is difficult, the fact is undeniable, and attested by people worthy of trust. The majority of scientists no longer refuse to admit it nowadays, while surrounding it with reticences and circumlocutions tending to protect the infallibility of science.

  But if the divining rod is capable of indicating springs, might it not be applicable to other searches? That is what one is tempted to ask. Examples abound of people who have sought to discover, by that means, hidden metals, buried treasures, even criminals...

  Ah! That was what interested our policeman most keenly, and a medium enjoying a certain reputation had been pestering him for some time with offers of service, assuring him that he enjoyed that precious faculty. Rosamour was seeking to enlighten his religion by rereading Chevreuil’s treatise.

  In truth, there were fors and againsts in the book, which dated from a era when it had appeared revolutionary to discuss such “nonsense,” as people said, and although the illustrious scientist seemed to admit the results obtained with the rod in the search for springs, he was evidently a great deal more skeptical with regard to treasures and criminals found by that means. The repeated failure of a large number of experiments was bound to give him reason for doubt.

  In brief, the conclusion of the work was, firstly, that in no case was there any direct action of the object sought on the rod; if the latter moved, it was because of an unconscious action on the part of the men; and secondly, that the rod turned, most frequently, when the operator believed that it ought to turn—which is to say, at the moment when, for one reason or another, the ope
rator was convinced that he was above the object sought.

  Right, Rosamour said to himself. I can admit that the rod is only the tangible sign of the phenomenon, but that it’s the man himself, without being aware of it, on whom the presence of the water, when it’s a matter of a spring, exerts its action. Which Chevreuil had difficulty understanding, because, in his day, the study of the psychic phenomena that are approached so boldly today, and seem less extraordinary, had not been carried out in depth. When one sees the hyperexcitability of the senses that can be obtained in certain subjects in the various phases of the second life, can one not admit that, by autosuggestion, one can succeed in acquiring a kind of flair, a particular and exceptional lucidity?

  The skeptics cry: “What are you telling us, with your rod? That the instrument that discovers water today by undergoing disorderly movements above a spring will, if you ask it for old tomorrow, cease turning when it passes over a subterranean aqueduct in order to agitate over a treasure? That’s too obliging.”

  But that’s the confirmation of the theory, Rosamour continued, for that flair, suddenly awakened, goes toward the object of the autosuggestion, not toward others. Why, then, should one not succeed in also following, using the same means, the tracks of criminals/ Not everyone will be up to it, but it’s sufficient for it to be possible, and that there are special constitutions capable of acquiring the necessary flair.

  And Rosamour picked up the book again in order to reread the instructive and quasi-marvelous story of the water-diviner Jacques Aymard, who had pursued murderers by that means in Lyon, and had put his hand on the real guilty parties.35

  As if to provide a counterweight to that story, so clear, it had to be admitted that subsequent attempts made by the same operator had been completely fruitless, but it was necessary to take account of the fact that the circumstances were not the same. It had been suddenly announced to him that a crime had been committed in the street, and, full of confidence in his power, the diviner, who had not reasoned as we have just done, proclaimed loudly that he would find the guilty parties, but it seemed that he lacked a point of departure; he wandered at random, and ended up in places where the murderer could not be.

  Rosamour smiled; those results did not appear to him as contradictory as people said, and he thought he could explain them simply.

  “To follow a trail,” he said, “one needs to be holding one of the ends. Can a dog find an object that is unfamiliar, without having got the scent in advance? In the case of the murder in Lyon, which gave him his success, Jacques Aymard had gone down into the cellar where the crime had been committed. In that circumscribed space he had been put, so to speak, virtually in the presence of the murderers, who had left something of themselves there—their spoor, if you like. He had the trail.

  “On the contrary, a crime is committed in a street, at an indeterminate spot; he murder has merely passed by; what permits his trail to be distinguished from those of other passers-by. In those circumstances, Aymard could not find the murderer, because he had absolutely no idea who he was pursuing, and was not impregnated, so to speak, by the personality of that particular individual.”

  And the policeman drew from all that the conviction the water-diviners—to leave them that name—are capable of discovering any object or person, but that it is necessary to put them in preliminary contact with the object or person in question.

  He was, therefore, in no doubt that the practice in question, so singular at first glance, might render great service in certain criminal cases, and he promised himself that he would use that precious means of investigation advantageously when the opportunity presented itself, with a set of favorable circumstances.

  He was at that point in his reflections when a whistle-blast summoned him to the telephone that he had taken care to install above his work-table.

  The head of the Sûreté ordered him to put himself without delay at the disposal of the police commissioner at the Panthéon.

  As soon as he had changed clothes, our man was on his way.

  As you will have guessed, the mystery whose discovery the fire in the Rue de la Montagne had permitted was not unconnected with the abrupt summons that had torn Monsieur Rosamour away from his studies in cerebral physiology, to plunge him into the midst of the positive operations of his profession.

  VII. On Induction in Criminal Matters

  Madame Paponot, the concierge of the burned building, had been singularly disturbed on hearing the cry of “Fire!” resounding in the stairwell.

  She was dozing lightly, plunged in her big armchair, wrapped up next to the purring stove.

  Suddenly, at that cry, she had found herself on her feet, eyes open, prey to a tremor that she had, however, succeeded in quelling very rapidly, in order to go and see where the fire was.

  Already, all the way up the staircase, there was a frightful racket of doors opening and people running down, uttering screams of fear, interjections, appeals for help and lamentations.

  A neighbor, possessed of a clearer head, ran to the nearest fire alarm, while someone else closed the gas taps and the tenants began throwing their furniture and bedding out of the windows.

  The firemen arrived quickly, moreover; the steam-pumps were set up and launched their sprays at the blaze. The flames had already invaded the stairwell, however; it was necessary to let the fire go and preserve the neighboring houses.

  The tenants had been able to get out in time, but the disaster had been so rapid that most of them had been able to save very little by way of possessions.

  It was necessary to consider it fortunate that there was no personal injury to deplore—for, all things considered, the disappearance of Monsieur Grillard definitely seemed to be anterior to the conflagration.

  That disappearance was nonetheless singularly intriguing to the police commissioner who was conducting the investigation into the cause of the fire. What could have become of the bizarre tenant whom all the witnesses declared to be incapable of quitting his bed? That was what the magistrate asked himself, and which he tried to clarify by means of a confused interrogation, to which Madame Paponot brought her customary volubility.

  The excellent woman explained to him with expressive gestures and an infinity of details that she had not seen her tenant with her own eyes for six weeks. She had been told that he was ill, but she could not affirm herself that he was not in any fit state to leave his room. She had been told, however, that he never left his bed, and that same morning...”

  “Who told you that?” the commissioner put in, impatiently.

  “Monsieur Pilesèche, of course. His helper…what do you call it? His laboratory assistant.”

  “And where is this laboratory assistant?”

  “At home, no doubt. He only comes twice a day to see his boss, give him what he needs and do a little housework. Hold on, though,” the doorkeeper remarked, as if struck by a flash of enlightenment, “in fact, I haven’t seen him since the day before yesterday.”

  “Aha!” said the commissioner, and with pressing the point any further, added: “Which physician visited your tenant?”

  “He detested them all equally and didn’t want to see any of them.”

  “So there was no one but this Pilesèche who went into his room?”

  “I believe so. Monsieur Grillard is something of a boor, and it wasn’t a good idea to knock on his door. I, who am speaking to you, Monsieur le Commissaire, even though I’m the concierge of the house, I said: That’s no reason to let someone die like that without help, but every time I said to Monsieur Pilesèche: I’ll go see to your boss now and again, and take him some soup—and I’m famous for that, you know, I’m praised for it—Monsieur Pilesèche replied to me: ‘Oh, Madame Paponot, you know Monsieur Grillard; how can you think of going to disturb him? It’ll put him in a terrible temper, and you’ll be the cause of him having a fit.’ You understand, me, I’m a good woman at heart, although a trifle abrupt at first sight, and I wouldn’t have wanted any harm to come to
that poor man, so I stayed on my stairs, without daring to knock at the door.”

  “And that never seemed singular to you?”

  “In truth, now that you mention it, it does seem slightly shady, but what do you expect. I’m a concierge, I’m not here to spy on the tenants.”

  The commissioner allowed her to launch into a long speech on the duties of her estate; he reflected, and searched among those elements of information for the conductive thread, which escaped him.

  The first hypothesis that he examined was that the invalid, seeing himself suddenly threatened by the fire, had made a supreme effort and had succeeded in reaching the staircase, where he had been suddenly enveloped by the flames. Although it was important not to neglect that supposition, however, it nevertheless ran into implausibility at several points.

  On the other hand, was it not necessary to see a singular coincidence between the disappearance of the old man and the fire breaking out suddenly with extreme violence?

  Could he have started the fire himself in a fit of delirium, and escaped via the rooftops? That was impossible, in his condition, and by dint of reflection, the commissioner found a combination of facts that suggested something quite different.

  No one had seen the scientist for six weeks; his laboratory assistant took care to ward off any unwelcome visit. And what was that laboratory assistant? A menial employee, come down in the world, who, after completing his studies, had never found the energy necessary to get out of his rut and quit the bohemian life into which he had lapsed.

  Was it impossible, given those data, to reconstruct the drama? First there had been a sequestration. The shameless bohemian had doubtless wanted to obtain from his ailing master that he should become his heir, or something analogous—there was no shortage of motives; that was for the examining magistrate to determine in a more precise fashion. The other had resisted. In a final scene of quarrel and struggle, the exasperated assistant had seen red and killed him. Suddenly, faced with his crime, he had been seized by a sudden terror; what should he do now? How could he avoid indiscreet questions?