The Man Who Watched the Trains Go By

In which Kees Popinga changes his shirt, while the police and chance, failing to play by the rules, combine in a conspiracy of spitefulness

He was not discouraged, no. That would have been too pleasing to those gentlemen. But he could not help, when he bought a newspaper, or saw the billboards outside the kiosks, giving a bitter smile.

Nobody realized what he was up against, alone, facing everyone else, bravely playing the game, nor did they take account of the fact that certain details of everyday life made things very complicated for someone in his shoes.

So the first time he changed his shirt – in the washroom of a café, a place that held an important position in his wandering life – he had come out of the lavatory with the dirty shirt in one hand, and had then dropped it into an outdoor urinal on the street.

And then what had happened? – he had almost been caught! A policeman had seen the garment fall and, as Kees was walking away, had gone inside the street convenience, so that Kees had had to take to his heels!

Now that, for the second time, he was putting on a clean shirt, he preferred to throw the old one into the Seine, but it was more complicated than one might think to find somewhere to carry out this task without being seen. Always, at the last moment, he would glimpse an angler, a tramp, a pair of lovers, or a lady walking her dog.

And who would ever suspect these difficulties of everyday life? Not the newspapers, at any rate! He had provided them not only with a topic, but with plenty of free copy. And in spite of that, none of them had expressed the slightest sympathy towards him.

He was not asking that people should publicly take his side. Nor for two columns on the front page every day. But he knew what he meant. There is a way of presenting events of this kind so as to render the hero of them appealing or repellent. And in France, individuals caught up in mysteries or crimes are almost always presented with some sympathy.

So why was it different for him? Was this some plan on the part of Chief Inspector Lucas?

He had not stolen anything from anyone – that ought to reassure the bourgeoisie. And if Pamela was dead, well, he had not meant to kill her. And both times, he had attacked only women of a certain background, which should be enough to dispel any fears on the part of respectable wives.

Landru, the serial killer, who was ugly to boot, had had half the newspaper-reading public on his side!

Why? And why was there this unacknowledged hostility from the press – that is, when it was not blanking out any new developments, merely printing uninteresting pieces of information such as:

Dr Linze, whose opinion on the Dutchman’s case we had hoped to report, has informed us that despite his wish to help, he does not feel qualified, simply on the basis of a single letter, to advance a diagnosis concerning such a serious affair.

And this was what it had come to! Trivial disputes, marginal to his life, or to his freedom. The very next day, Professor Abram, feeling that he was the target of this comment by his colleague, wrote pompously to the paper to protest:

Words have been placed in my mouth about an affair which is in any case of little importance. It is true that in the course of conversation, I may have indicated that I considered Kees Popinga to be a paranoiac of the banal kind, but at no time was I putting forward this off-the-cuff opinion as a diagnosis.

So even the psychiatrists seemed to be losing interest in him! Even Saladin, the journalist who had written the best articles about him at first, was now simply publishing press releases without comment. Kees did not know the man. He had no idea whether he was young or old, cheerful or gloomy, and yet the journalist’s silence gave him a strange feeling in the pit of his stomach.

The experts who have studied the accounts of the firm of Julius de Coster, working over the Christmas holiday, have made a preliminary report, declaring that their inquiries will require several more weeks. It seems indeed that this affair is much more considerable than first appeared, not only because of a spectacular bankruptcy, but because of a string of embezzlements committed under cover of an honourable façade.

In another development, the Wilhelmine Canal has been dragged for the last few days. The body of Julius de Coster has not been found, and it does not seem possible that he was carried away by a boat.

The prevailing opinion is that this is a case of fake suicide, and that the businessman has escaped abroad.

But what was that to Popinga? Then, on the other hand, they seemed to delight in publishing brief reports like the following:

Chief Inspector Lucas went to Lyon yesterday, admitting that this was in connection with an investigation, but refusing to say whether it was the Popinga case, or whether on the contrary this concerned drug traffickers, several of whom are already in custody.

Why Lyon? And why did they keep harping on about some drug-dealing that was of no interest to anyone? Why did it seem as if a hidden mastermind was taking care to lay false trails?

The mastermind could only be Chief Inspector Lucas. It must be he who, one way or another, was preventing the journalists from doing the investigative reporting they usually carried out.

Because as a rule, every newspaper would pursue its own little inquiry, they would each have their theory, some kind of lead, they would ask questions and inform their readers of what they had learned.

But as of now, nobody had thought of interviewing Jeanne Rozier. There wasn’t a word about her state of health! It was impossible to find out whether she had recovered, and whether she was back working at Picratt’s. Nor was there anything about Louis, no report of his trip to Marseille or his return.

Didn’t it seem as though they were pursuing a petty vendetta? And how credible was it that nobody had gone to the police to declare they had met Popinga! Because if they had, why was it being kept quiet?

In order to drive him into a corner, that must be it. He knew what they were up to! He shrugged and sighed scornfully, feeling that they wanted to isolate him in a kind of vacuum.

All the same, he took care over his behaviour. When he was walking in the street, he avoided looking at passers-by with a quizzical or ironic air. He avoided prostitutes, preferring to sleep badly or stay awake half the night, sometimes suffering from palpitations.

He had just had a new experience. Chance had taken him to the Javel neighbourhood, and to a very down-at-heel hotel. He had thought it would be wise to change the type of place he stayed in. That was a mistake. He was wearing the wrong kind of clothes to be staying the night in one of these poor doss-houses, and he had noticed that the people there had stared at him in surprise.

So, keep away from the extremes, aim not too high, and not too low. And now he had just twelve hundred francs left and sometime soon, he would have to get hold of some more money. He was starting to think about that. There was still time, but it was best to have a plan in mind.

The night at Javel had been that of 7 to 8 January, and Popinga, after throwing his latest used shirt into the Seine, decided to change district before reading the papers. It was raining. For other people, a minor inconvenience. For him, since he had to spend much of the day walking the streets and had no spare clothes, it assumed great importance, and it was as if nature had joined the conspiracy of spite against him.

It was near the Madeleine, in a comfortable brasserie, that he almost burst out into angry laughter as he read, in the newspaper where Saladin was a reporter:

Police release car thief.

The worst of it was that for some days now, he had been expecting something of the kind. He had not been wrong in thinking there was a catch in all this somewhere. As for imagining . . .

. . . Yesterday at five p.m. we happened to be present outside the Police Judiciaire when one of the car thieves arrested last week was released.

As this man, known as Louis, emerged from Chief Inspector Lucas’s office, we tried to obtain some information from an official source, but we met a wall of resolute silence.

We can therefore only communicate the results of our personal inquiries and put forward some suggestions.

First of all, no press release was issued when, on the night of 1 to 2 January, Chief Inspector Lucas, who normally does not handle this kind of case, supervised in person the arrest of a gang of car thieves.

Why was it kept so quiet? And why, since then, has nothing been heard about this affair, when four men and one woman have been held in custody?

We believe we can answer these questions, because we know the identity of the leader of the so-called ‘Juvisy gang’ – it was in that suburb that stolen cars were disguised overnight before being sold off in the provinces.

And the leader of the gang is none other than this same Louis, a former drug dealer, and the lover of Jeanne Rozier.

We have not forgotten that she . . .

Kees Popinga could have written the rest of the article himself, better than his friend Saladin. Never had his smile held so much scorn for the newspapers, for Lucas and indeed the whole human race.

Now we can see why Chief Inspector Lucas intervened personally in the Juvisy affair. The gang was all arrested, including a certain Rose, former chambermaid in a house of ill repute and sister of the garage-owner Charlie Goin, and all these individuals were being held for prolonged questioning without the press being kept informed.

If Louis has now been released, are we to believe that this is because he has established his innocence? We do not think so. And we confess that, for want of any official word from Quai des Orfèvres, we have proceeded to question a number of persons in the milieu who are acquainted with Louis and this kind of affair.

If Louis has been released, they told us, that’s because he’s going to do someone a favour, mark our words.

As if to confirm this opinion, last night Louis was observed calling in at several bars in Paris and issuing mysterious instructions to his friends.

Let us simply say, not to anticipate too far, that it appears that Kees Popinga, the attacker of Jeanne Rozier, is being hunted not only by the police, but by the entire criminal underworld, which has turned against him.

Which can only mean, we think, that an arrest is imminent. Unless by some accident . . .

This time, looking at himself in the mirror across the room, Popinga became aware that his face was pale and his lips unable to shape a smile, even a sarcastic one.

Events had confirmed his fears, and without Saladin, whom he now disliked much less, he would not have known a thing! He would have continued to come and go, without suspecting the web being woven round him.

It was after all very simple! The Juvisy stakeout had been successful and the gang had been arrested, but Lucas, instead of proclaiming this from the rooftops, had fobbed the press off with references to morphine and heroin.

He must have shown Louis the letter Popinga had written, denouncing everyone. And he had not hesitated, it was now clear, to offer him a shameful deal.

Yes, that was what had happened. The police were doing deals with Louis. They had let him go, in order that he could finish Popinga off. In other words, the police had been unable to catch him unaided!

And now Kees was filled not only with scorn, and bitterness, but a deep and profound disgust. He asked for some paper, took out his fountain-pen, but as he prepared to write, he shrugged his shoulders with weariness. Who could he write to? Saladin? Just to confirm what he said in his article? To Lucas, to congratulate him ironically? To whom, then? And what was the use?

Because Louis had joined the chase, they now thought it was all but over and were boasting of victory. What would happen? All the streetwalkers in Paris, all the tramps, all the proprietors of suspect bars and shoddy hotels would have their eyes open and would be ready and waiting to alert the police.

The police might not ever have clapped eyes on Kees, but Louis knew very well what he looked like.

He paid for his drink, but did not leave his table. He did not quite know why. He suddenly felt all the accumulated fatigue of his hours of walking through Paris. He stayed sitting on the long moleskin seat, vaguely looking out at the streets where umbrellas were bobbing past.

The truth was that a car thief, a convicted criminal, who lived on the proceeds of prostitution, was being given preference over him. Because that was the long and short of it. Nobody could deny it. And no doubt if Louis was successful, the authorities would close their eyes to the doings of the Juvisy gang!

He was thirsty. Too bad. He needed to think, and a glass of something alcoholic would help.

Basically, after the incident with Jeanne Rozier, he had been wrong to stop. Oh, he was clear-headed about it. He was beginning to understand the way public opinion operated. It would have been better if next day they had been able to read in the papers:

Killer strikes again! Kees Popinga attacks a young woman in a train . . .

And so on, something new every day, to keep the public breathless with interest and to become a legend.

Would anyone have cared a fig about Landru’s fate if he had killed only one or two women?

And perhaps he had been wrong to write what he really thought, instead of lying. What if, for instance, he had led them to believe that in Groningen, where he had passed for a model citizen, he had already been carrying out secret attacks?

He re-read Saladin’s article, which confirmed him in his view: the central focus of this story was no longer Popinga; it was already Louis who was becoming the leading character.

By tomorrow, Jeanne’s lover would have been transformed into a folk hero. The public would become enthralled in this manhunt through the Paris underworld, led by a common criminal with the tacit consent of the police!

Discouraged, no, he did not want to admit to that, and he would not allow himself at any price to lose heart. He had a perfect right to feel tired and to react to the injustice of which he was the victim. How many people were after him now? Hundreds? Thousands?

Which did not prevent him drinking his glass of brandy and gazing out dispassionately at the rain falling. Let them look! Let them scrutinize every passer-by. A man alone is always stronger than the crowd, if he can only maintain a cool head. And Popinga would keep his.

He had been wrong in one respect: he ought to have considered everyone his enemy right from the start. Since he had not done so, nobody had taken him seriously. They had not been frightened of him. They had regarded him almost as a grotesque figure of fun.

Well, so what? Did that prove anything? Did it stop him taunting the whole of Paris, as he sat in the warmth of a brasserie in front of his second brandy? Would that prevent him doing what he wanted to, something he would decide on, this very day, something enormous, something that would make them all quake in their shoes, the lot of them, including the car thieves, the good-time girls and Louis’ thugs.

He didn’t yet know what. There was still time. Better not to rush into it, wait for inspiration and go on watching the people walk past in the street like a stupid flock of sheep. Some of them were even running, as if that would do them any good. And over there was a gendarme in his cape, serious as a judge and thinking himself indispensable, wielding his whistle and his white baton. Wouldn’t it be more intelligent of him, instead of parading around like that, to come and check Popinga’s identity papers?

If he had, it would all have been over. No more Popinga affair, no need of Louis or anyone else, or of Chief Inspector Lucas, who must be thinking he was the most subtle of men.

Proof that he wasn’t as subtle as all that, was that Kees, without access to any information, had for several days sensed this blow coming, and had had the courage to sleep alone.

Who knows? Perhaps from now on, he would no longer sleep alone. But in any case, his companions would not be able to tell the tale . . .

His head was throbbing. He looked at himself in the mirror once more and wondered if he had really thought what he had just thought. Why not? What was stopping him?

He turned his head, since someone had spoken to him in English, a man who had been sitting at the next table for a few minutes, writing.

‘Excuse me, sir,’ he said with a smile, ‘do you by any chance speak English?’

‘In that case, may I ask for a favour? I’ve just arrived in Paris from America. I want to ask the waiter how many stamps I need to post this letter, but he doesn’t understand me.’

Popinga called the waiter over, translated, and looked at his companion, who was effusive in his thanks as he stuck stamps on a letter for New Orleans. ‘You’re so lucky to speak French,’ the stranger sighed, folding the blotter. ‘I’ve been really miserable since I got here. People don’t understand me when I ask my way on the street. You know Paris?’

It amused him to think that in a week, he had had time to explore every quarter of Paris.

‘Some friends have given me a tip, about a bar run by an American, where all the Americans in Paris can meet. Do you know it?’

The man was no longer young. He had grey hair, broken blood vessels in his cheeks and a cherry nose which revealed his liking for strong liquor.

‘Apparently it’s somewhere near the Opera, but I’ve been looking for half an hour without finding it.’

‘Would you be willing to accompany me there for an aperitif? I haven’t spoken to anyone for two days.’

Five minutes later, the two men were walking along the boulevard, and a street hawker, hearing them speak English, offered them some ‘special’ postcards.

‘I’m only here for a week, before moving on to Italy, then I’m going back home to New Orleans. Do you know it?’

People turned round to look at them. They were typical foreigners, strolling along the boulevards with an air of confidence, talking loudly, as if no one could understand them.

He was cautious enough to think he should say nothing too compromising to this man. If by chance he was connected to the police, or to Louis’s gang, there would be a heavy price to pay.

He pushed open the door of an unfamiliar bar, and was at once impressed by the décor and the atmosphere.

This was something quite new for him. It wasn’t France, it was the United States. Around a high mahogany counter, a number of tall and burly men were talking in loud voices, drinking and smoking, while two barmen, one of them Chinese, were busy serving whiskies and huge glasses of beer. On the mirrors, writing in white chalk listed the beverages.

For Popinga, it was a change from the French brasseries of the last few days, which he was getting to know by heart, with their nickel bowls on cast-iron stands for rinsing out cloths, their little bookcases holding the telephone directories, their cashiers perched on high chairs, their waiters in white aprons.

Here, the bar made him think of something else, a long sea-voyage, landing at some faraway port. Kees listened and realized that most of the customers were discussing that afternoon’s races, while the largest man, who had four chins and a brown check overcoat, like French caricatures of Americans, was taking bets.

He was saying this because he knew something about grains, which had been part of the concern of the De Coster firm.

‘I’m in leather. Would you like some sausages? Yes, you really should. I’m sure the sausages are excellent here, because this is America and American sausages are the best in the world.’

People were coming and going. Thick cigarette smoke surrounded the bar and the walls were decorated with photographs of American sportsmen, mostly with dedications to the café owner.

‘Say, it’s swell here, isn’t it? The friend who told me about it said it was the friendliest place in Paris. Two whiskies, barman.’

‘Is it true that French women are friendly to foreigners? I haven’t had time to go and sample the nightlife in Montmartre, I must confess it scares me a bit.’

‘Well, back home, they say that there are plenty of crooks up there, more cunning than our gangsters, and that foreigners are often robbed. You haven’t been robbed, have you?’

This helped Popinga to forget for a while the treacherous behaviour of Chief Inspector Lucas. Here, he was the experienced person, the one who could advise a beginner. The more he looked at his companion, the more naive he found him, more naive even than a Dutchman.

And he proffered a box of cigars, from which Kees took one without embarrassment, because just once, after all this time, and especially in this environment, he could allow himself the luxury of smoking a cigar.

‘You don’t know where they sell American newspapers, do you? I’d like to check the Stock Exchange reports.’

‘In all the kiosks. There’s one about fifty metres from here, along the street.’

‘Do you mind if I nip out for a moment? I’ll be right back. Order us a couple more sausages!’

There were fewer customers now as it was one o’clock and most of the other drinkers had left to have lunch elsewhere. Popinga waited five minutes, was surprised not to see his companion return, then thought about something else, and when he next looked at the clock, it was a quarter past one.

He had not noticed that the bartender was watching him closely, nor that he turned round to whisper something to his Chinese colleague.

The whisky had done him good. He felt in better shape. He would still be fit enough to deal with whatever Lucas or Louis and their like could throw at him, and he promised himself that this very afternoon, he would devise a plan that would amaze them and would oblige the journalists to refer to him in very different tones.

Why hadn’t the American come back? He surely couldn’t have got lost! Popinga opened the door, and looked out on to the pavement, saw the newspaper kiosk at the corner of the street, but of his companion there was no trace.

Then he laughed bitterly at the idea that he had just been swindled, and that the other man had left him to pay the bill.

He could get drunk. He was sure that whatever happened, he’d keep a cool head, and would not do anything to give himself away.

To pass the time, he went over to a machine that distributed chewing-gum, then he asked for another cigar, because he had dropped his on the floor, then he looked round, and became aware that the bar was now completely empty and that the Chinese waiter was eating his lunch, alone at the back of the room, while the other bartender was sorting out the glasses.

How cunning of the other man to have tricked him into paying for four sausages and several whiskies! He wasn’t rich, certainly. He needed his money more than anyone, because for him it was, so to speak, a matter of life and death. One detail summed up the whole story: when a shirt was dirty, he couldn’t have it laundered, so he had to buy another and throw into the Seine a shirt that had only been worn for a few days, and was practically new.

Why not order another sausage, and then that would do for his lunch? And it occurred to him that he might go and spend the afternoon at the races, which would do him good, since it was exhausting walking round the same places all the time.

He was about to open his mouth when the barman too, as if by chance, began to speak. Popinga let him begin first.

The Chinese waiter from the back of the room was listening and Popinga realized that something was in the air, and for a moment was tempted to run out of the door and disappear at top speed.

‘I didn’t dare warn you, because there were other people about, and also because I didn’t know whether you were a friend of his.’

‘Well, check your wallet. I don’t know which pocket you usually keep it in, but I’m prepared to bet anything you like it isn’t there now.’

Popinga patted his pockets and felt his throat constrict. As the barman had predicted, his wallet was no longer there.

‘You didn’t notice that while he was chatting and joking, he kept digging you in the ribs? That’s his speciality. I’ve known him for ten years. The police know him too. One of the most skilful pickpockets in Europe.’

For a second, Kees closed his eyes. For that same second, his hand went to the pocket of his overcoat.

As if the theft of all his money, his only resource in his struggle, were not enough, the American had also taken his razor, deceived no doubt by the shape of its wrapping, and thinking it contained something valuable.

Thousands of people might have been victims of a pickpocket that day in Paris. For most of them, if not all, it would simply mean that they lost a sum of money, great or small.

But there was one person, and only one, whose twelve hundred francs and his razor were, so to speak, his lifeline! Kees Popinga! And this man, more than anyone else, was on the defensive. Since that morning, fate had shown him, in the shape of a newspaper article, a threatening face.

And he had thought he could take a break, a kind of respite. He had accepted the whisky and sausages, and the conversation, which was such a change from his perpetual soliloquy.

‘I was on the point of warning you. But you weren’t looking at me. And then, as I said, I thought perhaps you were a friend of his, even a partner in crime.’

‘No, not much,’ Kees, replied, maintaining his near-angelic smile. No, he hadn’t lost a lot of money, or a little. He had lost it all! Everything a man can lose, stupidly, by chance, yes, it was the fault of chance, which had decided to cheat him, the same way both Louis and the police were cheating him.

He couldn’t make up his mind to leave. He looked at the floor, because he had felt a prickling under his eyelids and he was afraid of letting tears fall.

‘Listen. I trust you, I’ll lend you twenty francs for a taxi. I don’t know whether you’ll be reporting this to the police. It would really be a good thing for everyone if they could arrest him.’

Kees nodded. He wanted to sit down and think, put his head in his hands and burst out laughing or crying. It wasn’t just stupid. It was revolting, and he was convinced that he had not deserved this.

Apart from one small thing, obviously, but he had considered it justified. Only he hadn’t thought it through. It had been because of his hatred for Rose . . . An instinctive hatred, that had no precise grudge to explain it . . . And he had written to Chief Inspector Lucas to denounce the gang.

He took the twenty francs the barman gave him. He looked up and saw his own face in the mirror, through the chalked-up lists of drinks on the glass, a face that expressed nothing, neither sorrow nor despair, nothing at all, a face that looked like one he had seen ten years before in Groningen, the face of a man who had been knocked down by a tram, and both of whose legs had been cut off. The injured man did not yet know that. He had not had time to register the pain. And while other people were fainting on the street all round him, he had been looking at them with an incommensurable astonishment, wondering what was wrong with them and what had happened to him, why he was there on the ground in the middle of a screaming crowd.

He opened the door. Then he had to walk, but he was unconscious of the direction he had taken, the people he was jostling against, or the fact that he was talking to himself.

They had cheated. That was the only self-evident truth. They were all cheating, in their fight with him. They were cheating because he was too clever, and could not be beaten by playing straight.

That famous Chief Inspector Lucas, who did not dare publish his own photograph, was the number-one cheat, and was not above making bad poker moves, letting people think he was in Lyon and knew nothing about any car thieves.

Louis had cheated, because he was doing deals with the police. And Jeanne Rozier, she was a cheat too.

Popinga would not have believed it of her. If the attitude of the others filled him with indignation and disgust, her treachery hurt, because he had always thought there was something between them.

And now chance had cheated him too, by sending him this vulgar American, who did nothing but pick the pockets of his drinking companions.

10.