Maurice was well aware that his appearance back at SD headquarters would not go unreported, nor would his questioning of a member of the cleaning crew. He could be chasing after a wild goose besides. What were the chances he’d find the same bent old codger sweeping the floor down from Colonel Albrecht’s office? Who would wager that the same janitor might have been plying his broom on the Saturday morning Beaumont Fournier purportedly visited Colonel Derrick Albrecht? More important, who would lay bets that a French laborer working in a department of the SS would speak to an inspector in the French police?

But there the old man sat, warming his hands before the furnace, when Maurice pushed open the door. Other custodians were in the room. Maurice discreetly showed his subject his badge and experienced a moment’s surprise when the old man’s murky eyes leaped to life with what seemed like an understanding of why he had come. Without a word, the janitor nodded toward the door and creaked up from his chair. Maurice took his lead and followed his shambling exit from the room.

In the hall, the janitor turned to him. “Oui, monsieur?” he inquired.

“I have a few questions. Are you willing to talk to the French police?”

“Depends on the questions.”

“Were you working here and in this hall on the morning of Saturday, October thirty-first?”

“Oui, monsieur.”

Maurice held up a photograph. “Did you happen to see this man here on that day?”

“Oui, monsieur.”

Maurice stifled a start. “Did you see him go into Colonel Derrick Albrecht’s office?”

“Oui.”

“Did you see him leave?”

“Non, monsieur.”

“No? Was that because you may have been somewhere else in the building when the man could have left?”

“Non, monsieur.”

“In the boiler room, perhaps?”

“Non, monsieur.” The man’s tired old eyes glinted with knowledge that he had no intention of sharing. The janitor was fully aware of what had transpired on this floor the morning of October 31, but his noncommittal responses made clear that he would say no more on the subject.

“You were in the hall the whole time during this man’s visit?” Maurice persisted.

“Oui, monsieur.”

“And would you have seen the man leave?”

“Oui, monsieur.”

“Merci, Oncle. Bonjour.”

Maurice departed the building of horrors feeling as if its evil had permeated the wool of his overcoat like tobacco smoke caught in the weave. So Colonel Derrick Albrecht had lied. Beaumont Fournier had kept that appointment with the chief of the French counterintelligence division of the Sicherheitsdienst, and now he, as chief investigator of the homicide department of the French National Police, had to find out if the author had left as he arrived.

CHAPTER SEVENTY

CHAPTER SEVENTY