A Silver Ring in the Ear

by Tony Duvert

  “I’m desolated, madam,” said Sorel in consternation. “I admit that I’ve truly done nothing worthwhile. I don’t know how you… me… after all… I’m a good-for-nothing.”

  “My boy, not at all!” cried Madame Rênal. You have worked very well! I am de-light-ed with you!”

  “Ah,” said Sorel, whom this unexpected praise left perplexed. “And would you care to tell me why?”

  “Certainly not! Compliments would spoil you.”

  “So it’s education by way of the cudgel,” said Sorel. He felt smug to be now in the boss’s good books.

  “By cudgel, yes Sorel. And don’t claim that you are horrified at that, I wasn’t born in the last shower.”

  Sorel wondered whether Madam Rênal had got wind of his private life. A painful eventuality: because she might profit therefrom. He asked:

  “But if you are happy, why withdraw that investigation from me?”

  “It’s not complicated. Must I remind you that we others, poor cops, work for an examining magistrate, and not for pleasure?”

  “And… he’s complaining?”

  “That’s right. Judge Sercuq is starting to become impatient. Since the high-ups are losing interest in our Brisset, his worship the judge has felt that the investigation is dragging, dragging, dragging… I need to give him the results.”

  “The results?” said Sorel, astonished. “But we have none, madam!”

  “That’s what you think, my boy. Matters have progressed a lot. Let me do it, and you watch.”

  “Have you found the killer?”

  “It’s not a question of a killer, Sorel. The game, in any case, looks too big for you, and the task threatens to become extremely delicate. Impossible to tell you more. And also, I’m not making you unemployed! On the contrary, you will have plenty of chances to go back to the Brissets. There are two items of news. They should excite you. Would you like to hear them?”

  “Yes, madam. Should I take notes?”

  “Please yourself. First point, Brisset’s son-in-law, Dr. Brunet, a leading biologist, was poisoned yesterday afternoon. Among his family, down there at Neuilly. He’s in a coma.”

  “A crime? A suicide?”

  “My impression is that it was a failed suicide, yes. But let’s wait. If he recovers, he will have something to say himself. For the moment, make enquiries softly, don’t antagonize any one, and wait until Brunet either expires or is saved. Then we’ll deal with it.”

  Sorel was scribbling, without a thought in his head.

  “All right?” asked Madam Rênal. “Second point. Brisset’s daughter, Beatrice, spoke to me for a long time yesterday afternoon. She’s the wife of this Brunet, the biologist. I forgot to say: I was a guest for lunch with the Brissets when the poisoning took place.”

  “You again!” joked Sorel.

  “Well yes,” replied Madame Rênal. “I can’t go anywhere without leaving a corpse behind me. I have such a horror of men! Moreover that is why you please me, my boy.”

  Sorel didn’t react to the remark.

  “So,” continued the superintendent, “Beatrice Brunet told me about some dirty business. I don’t understand much, I confess. According to her, her youngest son, Marc, spends his time in the streets with ladies and gentlemen unknown to the family. Curious games for a schoolboy. Madame Brunet engaged a private detective who followed the boy, and provided a spicy report. But you know the privates. Perhaps it’s all invention.”

  “And what should I do there?” asked Sorel with humour.

  “Naturally you will shadow that kid.”

  “Oh no, madam!” protested Sorel. “You’re not going to force me to… to do such a dirty job!… Oh no, that would disgust me!”

  “Your sentiments do not interest me, Mr. Sorel. Besides, you are mistaken. I am not ordering you to play at spies. But there is here a delicate little problem, which needs discretion and tact. You are the only one who would know how to tackle it. Precisely because it disgusts you.”

  The argument touched Sorel.

  “I will summarize,” said the superintendent. “Make an appointment with the Brissets, chat with them gently, etc. And meet Beatrice Brunet. She will let you know her son’s time-table, the times he leaves school, his usual walking routes, and you, you will quietly shadow him. You don’t like to follow little boys in the street?…” Madame Rênal added ironically. “It will be an enriching experience!”

  Julien Sorel grunted, his eyes lowered; he closed his note-book.

  Madame Rênal got into bed. She was baptising a cashmere cover, a ruinous gourmandise which had tempted her for the fine season. She loved to sleep in the warmth, but she could no longer bear any weight over her. Soft and intangible wool, a silk quilt, over the finest eider-down duvet: so now a summer cloud would cover her with a warmish breeze in her slumbers.

  She sighed, stupefied with pleasure. And a miracle came to her: a great desire to sleep, such as comes over little children who have shouted, run, been mischievous, fought, guzzled, and who close their eyes, dead-drunk with having lived, already while they are being dressed for bed.

  She took no sweetmeats. She turned off her lamp. She made, in the dark, a great laughing grimace, puffing her cheeks: her exhausting day had delighted her. She had rarely conducted her business so well. She was going to be able to hoax Judge Sercuq, that pretentious fellow, that chamberlain of all the big names. Over the pink bed-sheet, the cashmere cover burned her loins: Madame Rênal slowly made her bosom dance, and massaged her enormous breasts with tender warmth. ‘But I need to summon the archbishop…’ she thought dimly, before sinking into the best night of sleep in all her adult life.

  XXX

  “I can tell you something!” cried Marc.

  His grandmother had accompanied him to his room when he went upstairs to sleep. They chatted gaily. Oriane, since Sunday, had decided to solve the enigma that had bothered her: but she didn’t dare to put pressure on Marc, and she held back her questions. Perhaps the right moment would come of its own accord.

  “Would you like me to tell you something?” insisted the child. “Well it was Philippe who killed Daddy. I heard him!”

  “Darling, what are you talking about?” said Oriane, scandalised. “First of all, your father isn’t dead. They are certain they can save him. As for your brother, I know you don’t like him much, but…”

  “He’s not my brother!” Marc cut in. “I tell you I heard him! In his room! Look, I listened here.”

  He showed Oriane how he had knelt against the partition that separated the two rooms.

  “It was Philippe who put the poison! He was talking all the time about killing him. During the whole of his vacation.”

  Oriane hesitated. She thought that there was probably an element of truth in what Marc maintained: she could easily imagine Philippe succumbing to verbal rages against his father-in-law. But still…

  “Marc, be kind, and promise me you won’t tell any one about that. I do believe you, but you’re wrong about Philippe. You didn’t understand properly. He is angry, but he isn’t bad. Anyway, darling, the doctors have said that the poison your father swallowed was a very complicated medicament. And there is none of that in the house, and the chemists sell it only on subscription.”

  Marc, disappointed, and not really convinced, sulked a little. His school-day had been heady: he had worn his earring from morning to evening, and provocatively he had raised his finger non-stop to respond and to show off. No one had mocked him: but every one had seen. A triumph!

  “And also, Marc,” said Oriane. “I need to talk to you about something silly. Darling, you won’t be angry?”

  Marc shook his head, sullenly, and gave a great yawn.

  “That’s it. Do you remember, Marc, the plastic ring you had on your finger the other day at lunch? Would you mind showing it to me?”

  “What ring?” muttered the boy.

  “Have you still got it?” Oriane asked gently.

  She knew that her grandson was se
cretive, but that he didn’t have the habit of lying.

  “Yes, I’ve got it.”

  Oriane waited. Marc made up his mind, regretfully, and rummaged in a pocket of his shorts.

  “You can look at it,” he authorised in an indifferent tone. “It’s rotten.”

  Oriane took the ring: and she saw, mounted on a large gold ring, the most perfect and heaviest ruby that she had ever held in her hands.

  “I’m going to get undressed,” said Marc. His grandmother’s silence seemed disturbing to him. He slipped into the lavatory, his pyjamas under his arm.

  When he reappeared, Oriane was sitting on a little upholstered chair that she had moved close to the bed. Only the bedside lamp was still lit.

  Marc slid between the sheets.

  “Wait, I’m taking off my shorts,” he explained.

  Because he slept without pyjama pants: but, now that he was big, he put them on, for decency, before getting into bed, if ladies were present at the ceremony.

  From inside the bed, to which he had wriggled, he rolled the pants into a ball and threw them out; the shorts, green as water, had been rubbed down and were lying neglected at Oriane’s feet.

  She had no need to state the question she had prepared.

  “It was the chap who made the hole for me, you know, for the ring. Not him in person, we went to a dentist.”

  “Yes,” murmured Oriane. “the one who gave you that silver ring.”

  “I forgot to take it out, look.”

  Marc touched his ear and took out the jewel; he handed it to his grandmother, who put it on the night-table.

  “But that ring isn’t beautiful,” continued Marc. “He irritates me now, that chap. You only have to look, I’m not pleased.”

  The truth was rather different. In reality Marc and the man understood each other so well that Marc, the last time they met, had made a particularly intimate and audacious confession: and since then he had regretted, almost angrily, having talked too much. How he wanted to retract those few unwise phrases! Nevertheless the man had listened with a perfect calmness and sang-froid.

  “Do you know his name, this man who annoys you, Marc?”

  “No idea.”

  “But,,, what do you call him, when you’re chatting?”

  “I don’t call him anything.”

  What troubled Oriane Brisset most was that she was sure she had already seen that ruby on some one’s finger. Here in fact, at Neuilly.

  “Don’t I know him, this man?” she asked.

  “You?”

  The idea seemed to amuse Marc.

  “It is possible,” he said. “What is yours called? Does he irritate you too?”

  “Marc, that man, did you meet him outside, or here in our house?”

  The boy dodged the question, and preferred to answer indirectly:

  “He’s a kind man who is a kind lady, do you understand. I like him best as a kind lady. He is beautiful.”

  Oriane thought it wisest not to prolongue the interrogation; she would be patient. Day by day Marc himself would reel off the whole story, bit by bit, without her needing to prompt him.

  “I was the one who asked for the ring. It wasn’t he who gave it to me.”

  “You’re right, it’s not very pretty. But darling, I’d prefer you to give it back to him,” suggested Oriane simply.

  XXXI

  No, thought Julien Sorel, it’s not fundamentally unpleasant to follow a little boy. They have pretty backsides and catlike necks, it’s clear that there will be those who love them. But what to do with that ridiculous little cocklet, thought Julien. Scratch one’s ear?

  Marc was tiring to watch: he walked randomly, lounged about, turned round. Sorel could not keep track moment by moment: he had had little training in shadowing.

  The boy finally discovered a place that interested him. It was a scrap of empty land, open to passers-by, with piles of rubbish, broken bricks, ends of wood, and other remains of demolition; one could see, a little in the background, the old disembowelled building from which came these remains. Marc wandered into the debris and began collecting and throwing stones. Then he unearthed an empty oil can and improved the game: he put the can on a big pile of stones and bombarded it. Several times he scored a bull and hastened to put the can back. Little by little he increased the range.

  “Don’t turn round. This is a revolver.”

  A muted voice had just issued this order behind Julien Sorel’s back. He jumped.

  “Go across the path, and into the flats that were demolished. Don’t try to run.”

  Julien obeyed. Marc, very intrigued, watched the two men go past, and thought they were like cops in a film, or gangsters. He did not resume his game; he took up an observation post. But the men had already disappeared, swallowed up by the ruins. ‘He’s going to be killed,’ thought Marc. He did not dare to go closer. He strained his ears.

  A staircase cluttered with debris and tramps’ excrement led Julien and the other man into a not particularly sombre basement. The man with the revolver had a moustache, a goatee, a soft hat, and dark glasses.

  “So,” he suddenly growled, “sir is interested in little boys? I’ve been watching you for an hour, you piece of filth!”

  “But,” protested Julien, “this is ridiculous! I am assigned to…”

  “Shut your mouth!” the man cut in. “Types like you I would send off to the gas chamber quick smart. Poor pervert. Oh, I forgot: police.”

  The man showed a badge, and then sent his fist into Julien’s face, as Julien was preparing to reply. Then he went up to the ventilator and whistled twice through his fingers.

  “You’re a lucky devil, I won’t take you to the station,” the man went on. “But despite that we’re going to explain a few things, you degenerate. Hey, here are my colleagues. You’ll be spoiled, won’t you: three cops for one lonely sicko.”

  Two more men, made up like the first, emerged at the bottom of the stairway. The rest happened quickly: they all fell on Julien together and gave him a drubbing while repeating:

  “Oh yes? And do you like this kid? And this one? Do you want more, fuck-face?”

  As Julien, half stunned, sank onto the ground, the largest of the three men pulled down Julien’s pants and sodomised him violently.

  The member that penetrated Julien stupefied him and made his blood run cold in terror: because it was a medium-sized cock, or even quite a small one, and Julien understood that the man violating him was not Gabriel de Lorsange. All three were real cops.

  ‘But then, this is an attack,’ Sorel, indignant, suddenly thought.

  ‘They’ll pay for this, the shits!… If at least he had a large calibre, this fellow. But in this case, no excuses!’

  After the first cop had shot his bolt, a second one took his place and screwed Julien.

  ‘Ah, that’s better,’ thought Sorel. ‘It’s not up to my Gaby, but there’s a certain something.’

  The cop with the revolver picked up Julien’s wallet, which had fallen to the ground during the drubbing. He examined the papers and turned pale.

  “Take it out, I need to talk to him,” he said to the fellow who was fucking.

  “Let me finish.”

  “Take it out, and scram.”

  Julien, liberated, turned round. The cop squatted down next to him:

  “Where did you pinch this from, fuck-face?”

  He displayed a P.J. card, and Julien smiled feebly:

  “It’s my own. Inspector Sorel. Assigned to keep an eye on that famous kid. Do I resemble my photos? Despite my face looking like porridge?”

  Julien stood up and sorted himself out as much as possible: his raincoat hid the damage. He realized that he had a broken tooth.

  “We’re frightfully sorry, inspector,” said one of the men, who were all dying of consternation. “We suspected that… All of us are only auxiliaries, we can’t know everything.”

  “Give me your revolver,” growled Sorel. “You will remember your little game
s in the basement, I promise you that.”

  Julien examined the three faces: young, not bad looking, if they removed that paint. He reflected:

  “Battery and violation of a superior officer! Do you know how many years inside that costs? Furthermore, you treated me like a pedo, and that I do not admit! We’re leaving. Walk in front!”

  They went back to the street. Marc had vanished.

  “Gone, naturally,” cried Sorel. “If that boy was kidnapped during my, hm, my absence, I wouldn’t bet much on your prospects!”

  They walked a few steps, and then Sorel, whose plan was working perfectly, said:

  “Stop! Listen to me! I’ll agree to say no more about it. But on one condition. You will come with me, and you will obey me without question until to-morrow. It’s either that or prison.”

  The three men, who imagined that Sorel was enrolling them for some crime, accepted the bargain unhesitatingly.

  “Is that real hair on your faces?… Then you’ll need to shave, I have a horror of beardies. And now follow me.”

  When, around midnight, Gabriel de Lorsange came back from the theatre where he snored every evening, he found Julien naked in the middle of the living-room, accompanied by three men, likewise naked, who seemed exhausted.

  “Do come in, Gaby, you’re not disturbing us, I’ve finished!” said Julien Sorel, sighing. Gabriel noticed that he was fiddling with a revolver.

  “So, Juju, you need three at a time now?”

  “Pure chance. I had a little bone to pick with these chaps. Colleagues of mine, imagine that. Did you see my face?… A gift from them. They did that to me by mistake. An error.”

  Sorel had bandaged the largest of the wounds he had on his head.

  “Strapping fellows, eh?” he added ironically. “That,” Gaby, “doesn’t stop them being pure dish-cloths. Not one of them capable of screwing me four times. They’re weaklings, imagine!”

  “Ah,” said Gabriel. “You want me to, er, you in front of them?”

  “Me? Not at all!” said Sorel. “You are going to screw these three little shits for me, and up to the hilt! Let them feel balls on their bums, Your balls. And let them know what a real man is. (He pointed the revolver.) Come on, gentlemen, take your places! You, the hairy one, up with your bum, and spread it well!