The Erasers Read Free

longer there. He is also the clumsy murderer of the day before, who only slightly wounded Daniel Dupont. His victim ’ s residence is that little house with the fence around it at the corner of the street, just behind his back.
     
    The iron fence, the spindle-tree hedge, the gravel path around the house … He has no need to turn around to see them. The middle window of the second floor is the study window. He knows all that by heart: he studied it enough last week. For nothing, moreover.
    Bona was well-informed, as usual, and all Garinati had to do was follow his orders carefully. Would have had, rather, for everything has just been ruined because of Garinati ’ s blunder: probably no more than scratched, Dupont will soon be able to return behind his spindle trees and dive back into his files and index cards among the green calf bindings.
    The light switch near the door, a porcelain button with a metal plate. Bona had said to turn off the light; he did not do this, and everything was ruined . The tiniest flaw…Is it so certain? The hallway had remained lighted, of course; but if the bedroom had been in darkness, Dupont might not have waited to open the door wide to turn on the light. Maybe? Find out! Or would he have really done it? And the tiniest flaw was enough. Maybe.
    Garinati had never gone into this house before, but Bona ’ s information was so exact that he could just as well have moved around inside it with his eyes closed. At five to seven he has reached the house, calmly walking down the Rue des Arpenteurs. No one around. He has pushed open the garden gate.
    Bona had said: “ The buzzer won ’ t work. ” Which was true. The bell has remained noiseless. Yet that very morning, when he had passed in front of the house ( “ There ’ s no use your prowling around there all the time ” ), he had surreptitiously pushed open the gate, just to see, and he had distinctly heard the bell. No doubt the wire had been cut during the afternoon.
    It was already a mistake to have tried the gate in the morning; coming in this evening, he was afraid for a second. But the silence has reassured him. Had he ever really had any doubts?
    He has carefully closed the gate, but without letting the latch catch, and walked around the house on the right side, keeping on the lawn to avoid making the gravel crunch. In the darkness, he could just make out the path, paler between the two flowerbeds and the well-clipped top of the spindle trees.
    The study window, the one in the middle of the second story on the canal side, is brightly lighted. Dupont is still at his desk. It ’ s all just the way Bona said it would be.
    Leaning against the wall of the shed, at the back of the garden, Garinati waits, his eyes fixed on the window. After a few minutes the bright light is replaced by a fainter glow: Dupont has just turned out the big desk lamp, leaving only one of the bulbs on in the ceiling fixture. It is seven o ’ clock: he is coming downstairs to eat.
    The landing, the staircase, the hall.
    The dining room is to the left, on the ground floor. Its shutters are closed. At the back of the house, the kitchen shutters are closed too, but a faint light filters through their slats.
    Garinati approaches the little glass door, being careful not to expose himself to the light coming from the hallway. At the same moment the dining room door is closed again. Dupont already? He has come down quickly. Or else the old housekeeper? No, she ’ s coming out of the kitchen now. So it was Dupont.
    The old woman moves off toward the other end of the hall; but her hands are empty; he will have to wait longer. She comes back almost at once, leaving the dining room door open. She goes back into her kitchen and soon reappears carrying an enormous tureen in both hands, comes back into the dining room and this time closes the door behind her. Now is the moment.
    Bona said: “ You have almost five minutes to get upstairs. The old woman waits until he has