‘Were they visited at all by a fifth man?’ asked Sanguinetti impatiently. Rolland continued his report as before, in flat tones.
‘During the evening another man joined them for half an hour. The clerk said he remembered because the visitor entered the hotel so quickly and headed straight up the stairs, that the clerk did not get a chance to see him. He thought he must be one of the guests, who had retained his key. But he saw the tail of the man’s coat going up the stairs. A few seconds later the man was back in the hall. The clerk was sure it was the same man because of the coat.
‘The man used the desk phone and asked to be put through to Schulz’s room, number 64. He spoke two sentences in French, then replaced the phone and went back up the stairs. He spent half an hour there, then left without saying another word. About an hour after that, the other two who had visited Schulz left separately. Schulz and the giant stayed for the night, then left after breakfast in the morning.
‘The only description the clerk could give of the evening visitor was: tall, age uncertain, features apparently regular but he wore wrap-around dark glasses, spoke fluent French, and had blond hair left rather long and swept back from the forehead.’
‘Is there any chance of getting the man to help make up an Identikit picture of the blond?’ asked the Prefect of Police, Papon.
Rolland shook his head.
‘My … our agents were posing as Viennese plain-clothes police. Fortunately one of them could pass for a Viennese. But that is a masquerade that could not be sustained indefinitely. The man had to be interviewed at the hotel desk.’
‘We must get a better description than that,’ protested the head of the Records Office. ‘Was any name mentioned?’
‘No,’ said Rolland. ‘What you have just heard is the outcome of three hours spent interrogating the clerk. Every point was gone over time and time again. There is nothing else he can remember. Short of an Identikit picture, that’s the best description he could give.’
‘Could you not snatch him like Argoud, so that he could make up a picture of this assassin here in Paris?’ queried Colonel Saint-Clair.
The Minister interjected.
‘There can be no more snatches. We are still at daggers drawn with the German Foreign Ministry over the Argoud snatch. That kind of thing can work once, but not again.’
‘Surely in a matter of this seriousness the disappearance of a desk clerk can be done more discreetly than the Argoud affair?’ suggested the head of the DST.
‘It is in any case doubtful,’ said Max Fernet quietly, ‘whether an Identikit picture of a man wearing wrap-round dark glasses would be very helpful. Very few Identikit pictures made up on the basis of an unremarkable incident lasting twenty seconds two months before ever seem to look like the criminal when he is eventually caught. Most such pictures could be of half a million people and some are actually misleading.’
‘So apart from Kowalski, who is dead, and who told everything he knew, which was not much, there are only four men in the world who know the identity of this Jackal,’ said Commissaire Ducret. ‘One is the man himself, and the other three are in a hotel in Rome. How about trying to get one of them back here?’
Again the Minister shook his head.
‘My instructions on that are formal. Kidnappings are out. The Italian Government would go out of its mind if this kind of thing happened a few yards from the Via Condotti. Besides there are some doubts as to its feasibility. General?’
General Guibaud lifted his eyes to the assembly.
‘The extent and quality of the protective screen Rodin and his two henchmen have built round themselves, according to the reports of my agents who have them under permanent surveillance, rule this out from the practical standpoint also,’ he said. ‘There are eight top-class ex-Legion gunmen round them, or seven if Kowalski has not been replaced. All the lifts, stairs, fire-escape and roof are guarded. It would involve a major gun battle, probably with gas grenades and submachine guns to get one of them alive. Even then, the chances of getting the man out of the country and five hundred kilometres north to France, with the Italians on the rampage would be very slight indeed. We have men who are some of the world’s top experts in this kind of thing, and they say it would be just about impossible short of a commando-style military operation.’
Silence descended on the room again.
‘Well, gentlemen,’ said the Minister, ‘any more suggestions?’
‘This Jackal must be found. That much is clear,’ replied Colonel Saint-Clair. Several of the others round the table glanced at each other and an eyebrow or two was raised.
‘That much certainly is clear,’ murmured the Minister at the head of the table. ‘What we are trying to devise is a way in which that can be done, within the limits imposed upon us, and on that basis perhaps we can best decide which of the departments here represented would be best suited for the job.’
‘The protection of the President of the Republic,’ announced Saint-Clair grandiosely, ‘must depend in the last resort when all others have failed on the Presidential Security Corps and the President’s personal staff. We, I can assure you, Minister, will do our duty.’
Some of the hard-core professionals closed their eyes in unfeigned weariness. Commissaire Ducret shot the Colonel a glance which, if looks could kill, would have dropped Saint-Clair in his tracks.
‘Doesn’t he know the Old Man’s not listening?’ growled Guibaud under his breath to Rolland.
Roger Frey raised his eyes to meet those of the Elysée Palace courtier and demonstrated why he was a minister.
‘The Colonel Saint-Clair is perfectly right, of course,’ he purred. ‘We shall all do our duty. And I am sure it has occurred to the Colonel that should a certain department undertake the responsibility for the destruction of this plot, and fail to achieve it, or even employ methods inadvertently capable of bringing publicity contrary to the wishes of the President, certain disapprobation would inevitably descend upon the head of him who had failed.’
The menace hung above the long table more tangible than the pall of blue smoke from Bouvier’s pipe. Saint-Clair’s thin pale face tightened perceptibly and the worry showed in his eyes.
‘We are all aware here of the limited opportunities available to the Presidential Sec