madhouse in the city. That vagrant was a menace. Since Petre brought him in yesterday, things had been going badly for everyone. He was like a curse.
‘Who relieved you?’ asked Costache.
‘I sent Ilie, ’cause he’s got a fast cab. But if it were up to me, two legs would be just as good. You don’t need four wheels to follow him.’
‘All right, never mind. See you don’t stop off at home first! There’s plenty of time for the pig this afternoon!’ called the chief after the coachman, confirming his reputation as a mind reader.
Costache then ordered that Nicu should be sent straight to his office as soon as he returned from Universul, with further instructions that the lad should not be left to come of his own free will but detained as a matter of urgency. He went back to the window: a fresh layer of snow had fallen and the city looked unwontedly jolly that Saturday morning. But it was obvious that the coachman had cursed him, because the sergeant now entered bringing the unbelievable news that the stranger’s chest had not been recovered, despite half of those on duty being responsible for finding it. After warder Păunescu took Fane back to the cell, the sergeant in the room with the safe had dozed off, but the door was locked and the box, likewise locked, was within. Quite simply, nobody had seen anything; nobody knew anything. They were all questioned. The sergeant was given a good hiding, Păunescu was likewise beaten black and blue, but there was something fishy going on, and nothing could be discovered. Now Fane was being questioned. Throughout this description, Costache’s face remained inscrutable, and the sergeant quickly left the office, making himself scarce.
At around one o’clock they brought in Nicu, at a trot, flanked by two soldiers. The lad was swivelling his eyes every which way, but when he saw that there was no escape, he looked Costache straight in the eye, with a kind of scrutinizing mistrust. He held his thin lips clenched in a straight line, like a man who had just had to swallow an undeserved reproach, but controlled himself with dignity. Costache disguised his sudden good mood. The lad was holding his cap by the visor in his left hand and shifting his weight from one foot to the other, leaving splashes of water and mud on the wooden floor. The cop signalled the other two to leave the room.
‘Are you left-handed?’
Costache had as keen an eye for details as did Dr Margulis, except that the cop had an eye for every single thing, whereas the doctor had an eye only for the symptoms of disease. The policeman knew by instinct when there was something untoward, as surely as the doctor knew when he had a stomach-ache. By instinct, Nicu lied to them both.
He unclenched his lips and determinedly said: ‘No, sir, I’m not! I’m right-handed.’
‘Sit down over here. Are you hungry?’
‘No!’
‘Just as well. Tell me to the last detail what you talked about with the stranger you met yesterday in front of the Icoanei Church.’
Nicu sighed and unbuttoned his tunic: so this was what it was all about. Not the accident with the icicles or the wallet, which he would not have like to come to the attention of the Police, because then he would not have received the reward. And nor could it be some roguery on his mother’s part. It was the first time he had spoken to Costache and at close quarters he looked less frightening than he did from a distance. He recounted what he could remember, starting with the nicest part, about the toy cow, and finally he gave his own opinion.
He chose his words with care: ‘I’m not certain of it, but he may be a Martian. I don’t know whether you’ve heard of them,’ he added. ‘It was in yesterday’s paper. You are sure he’s not Jack, the Ripper, I mean?’
‘Why?’ asked Costache, rather confused by the ‘you are sure?’ not knowing that Nicu talked to himself in the second person when he was flustered. The Prefect had indeed discounted the hypothesis about Jack from the outset. Every police force and every newspaper in Europe were in ferment because of the murderer.
‘Because he’s a good man: I’ve seen him. He looks a bit like Miss Iulia. You would think that they were brother and sister.’
Costache’s expression was inscrutable.
‘Where’s the toy he gave you? I want to see it!’
‘At home,’ said Nicu, resisting the urge to touch his pocket. He shrugged regretfully, as if to reinforce what he was saying.
In a sudden rage, Costache asked himself aloud what kind of subalterns he had and how they had gone about searching the stranger. Who knows what else they had missed? Even the case had vanished. Nicu waited for him to vent his fury; he was accustomed to the highly-strung, what with his mother, but he made a mental note of this item of new information.
‘Draw for me what he gave you.’
He handed Nicu a sheet of splendid bond paper. He sharpened a pencil with a penknife. Nicu liked to draw, but up until then he had only done so on a blackboard and in the snow. It was the first time he had had the use of a sheet of white paper and a pencil. He flushed and, stopping and starting, as if he were carrying a heavy parcel, he drew the most comical cow of his entire life, accidentally ripping a few holes in the paper as he did so. He gave it a black piratical eye patch, but did not succeed in drawing the legs, which came out as spindly as straws, each ending in a pinhead. He handed the drawing to Costache, after giving it a dissatisfied look, like a painter who had rushed his work.
‘She’s called Fira. That’s what I called her. She hasn’t got an udder. The only thing worse would have been a udder with three teats!’
Costache seemed able to view people like the mirrored surface of clear water, but when you looked at him the water grew murky and no longer reflected anything.
He announced his conclusions: ‘First of all, you lied about not being left-handed, since you hold the pencil in your left hand, and secondly, you lied about not being hungry, I know that without any proof, and thirdly you lied about not having the toy on your person. This I can prove. Empty your left pocket; don’t make me do it myself.’
Nicu very reluctantly obeyed. His eyebrows were at a more acute angle than usual, like upturned letters v. He kissed the toy cow and handed it over, glancing sideways. Costache examined it and then stood up and went to the fireplace. Nicu was convinced that he was about to throw it on the fire and tried not to cry out. Costache dropped it, whether deliberately or not, but the legs of Fira the cow got caught in the grating of the fireguard and there she clung.
‘You may take her,’ said Costache, without giving any explanation. ‘You may also take the pencil and the paper, as a present. But here’s the thing! Do you want to help the stranger or not?’
Nicu acknowledged that he did. The cop instructed him for a long while and then released him.
‘How’s your mother?’ he asked in lieu of saying goodbye.
‘Well,’ replied Nicu, ending his visit to the police station as he had begun it, which is to say, with another lie. How did he know his mother? Costache was a good policeman, so much was true, but that did not mean the police station was a good place. He ought not to push his luck. And so he left at a run.
3.
Dr Margulis looked at his doublé watch – he had sold his gold one, what with Jacques’s infirmity – and discovered it was only 11:48am. There were another three quarters of an hour until the end of his free consultations for the poor, which he gave every Saturday. His assistant was playing truant, an old habit of his. The doctor showed out the old man, who without a doubt had a liver complaint, caused, also without a doubt, by drink (he reeked of plum brandy and was yellow in the face) and was half-gladdened, half-saddened that there was nobody else in the waiting room. But he knew that the people who had need of him would not have read the . If the news spread, it would be from mouth to mouth. Margulis was a good doctor, but had few patients. The charlatans, feldshers and barbers ‘with diplomas,’ who provided ground aspirin, hair-restoring creams, and abortion pills for women, had queues at their doors. He earned enough to meet his needs, and sometimes Agatha sold an item of value from her dowry. He