The Dream Killer of Paris Read Free Page B

put behind bars the famous Bosco, big-time thief and the kind of colourful, elusive character only to be found in France!’
    ‘Well, well!’ he exclaimed, smoothing the long, solitary lock of hair which ran from one side of his head to the other. ‘I’m delighted to see that the reputation of our men is starting to cross the Channel. Give it a little time and Scotland Yard will be visiting our offices inRue des Saussaies to study our methods. In any case, my dear friend, without you and your faithful partner I don’t think we would ever have got the better of the infamous Billancourt studios killer.’
    I won’t dwell on the case of the Cut-throat with the Broken Watch which I referred to earlier. One of these days I intend to gather together all the documents and notes made at the time and write the whole story down. In the meantime, all the reader needs to know is that in the winter of 1933 James and I made the acquaintance of the kind and scrupulous Edmond Fourier from the Sûreté Générale. Although the investigation had been particularly sensitive (the idea of working with two amateur detectives was nothing less than sacrilege for some members of his organisation), Fourier, who had initiated the collaboration, always demonstrated full confidence in us. In the end, it served him well.
    With his customary tweed suit, tweed overcoat, thin moustache, bowler hat and swordstick, Superintendent Fourier was the archetypal French policeman. He was a mixture of Juve, Tirauclair and Chantecoq! 5 When I was with him I felt as though the shadow of Fantômas was about to appear on a rooftop or that the agile dandy overtaking us on the pavement was none other than Arsène Lupin returning from another burglary at a prince’s residence or the Crédit Lyonnais on Boulevard des Italiens.
    Edmond Fourier was about fifty-four or fifty-five and the son of ironmongers from the Franche-Comté region but he had lived in Paris, in Rue Cadet, for a long time. His humble origins had taught him common sense and realism, which often paid off. He had joined the Sûreté Générale at the age of twenty-seven, a few years after Prime Minister Clemenceau had set up his brigades mobiles , the famous Tiger Brigades, to counterbalance the all-powerful Préfecture de Police. Fourier was one of the stars of the Sûreté which, since its creation in 1820, had always suffered fromcomparisons with its rival. The large-scale reorganisation of the State’s police force the previous April had also seen the resources and remit of the Sûreté increase considerably so that it now had national powers. The staff of the Sûreté and the Préfecture were not quite ready to bury the hatchet but the new set-up did at least give each institution precise boundaries. 6
    ‘But I see no sign of that wag Trelawney,’ remarked Fourier, pretending to look left and right over his shoulder in case my six-foot -three friend was hiding in the policeman’s short shadow.
    ‘James stayed in London but he’ll be joining me soon. At the moment, I imagine he’s finding it very difficult to resist the siren call of your city.’
    ‘Do I take it then that you are … uh … what one might call “on holiday”?’
    All of a sudden his deceptively disinterested tone made me realise that meeting Superintendent Fourier like this wasn’t simply a coincidence. Although he undoubtedly had all the qualities required of a detective, his acting skills left much to be desired. I remembered that the evening before, as I had left a brasserie on Rue Saint-Martin near my hotel, and then again that morning during a short stroll among the booksellers on Quai de Montebello, I had noticed a thickset individual with a broken nose like a boxer and short black crew cut hair whom I vaguely recognised but couldn’t place at the time. Now, the detective’s mischievous expression instantly provided me with the fellow’s name: Raymond Dupuytren who worked for Superintendent Fourier at the Sûreté