Chapter 13 Chapter Eleven

I gave Feng'er some money and told her to go to the movies with her sister, so that she could escape safely.I went out to dinner with Dominguez by myself, then came home and waited.At ten o'clock, Vigot arrived.He apologized and declined a glass of wine - he said he was so tired that a glass of wine might put him to sleep. He has been busy all day. "Assassination and sudden death again?" "No. A few petty burglaries. And a few suicides. These guys love to gamble and kill themselves when they lose it all. If I'd known how much time I'd have to spend in the morgue, maybe I wouldn't be Get a cop. I don't like the smell of ammonia. Maybe I'll have a beer instead."

"Sorry, I don't have a refrigerator." "Not like in the morgue. How about a little English whiskey?" I remembered the night I had gone down with him to the morgue.They dragged Pyle's body out like a tray of ice. "So you're not going back to England?" he asked. "Have you checked again?" "It's not." I held up the glass of whiskey and handed it to him so he could see how calm my nerves were. "Vigot, I want you to tell me why you think I had anything to do with Pyle's death. Is it a question of motive? Is it because I want to get Fenger back? Or do you think it's about losing her And revenge?"

"No. I'm not that stupid. One doesn't keep one's enemy's book as a keepsake. It's on your shelf, The Mission in the West. Who is this York Harding?" "He's the one you're looking for, Vigot. He killed Pyle—at a distance." "I do not understand what you said." "He's a sort of high-level reporter—they're called foreign correspondents. He grabs an idea and changes everything to fit it. Pyle comes here with York Hay on his mind." Harding came here once for a week. It was on his way from Bangkok to Tokyo. Pyle made a mistake and tried to put Harding's idea into practice. Harding was in his The book talks about a third force. Pyle organized a third force—a despicable little bandit leader with more than two thousand horses and two or three tame tigers. He got mixed up with them son."

"You never do that, do you?" "I always try not to." "But you failed, Fowler." For some reason, I thought of Captain Truhn and that night in the opium dens in Haiphong.That seems like years ago.What was he talking about?Said that sooner or later all of us will be involved in this whirlpool in a momentary impulse.I said, "You must be a good priest, Vigot. What's the matter with you, it's so easy to make people confess to you—if anyone has anything to regret?" "I never want anyone to apologize to me." "But you've listened to people's regrets, haven't you?"

"Occasionally listen to it once or twice." "Is it because, like a priest, in your line of work you cannot be frightened but sympathetic? Mr. Flick, I must tell you the truth why I broke that old lady's head. Well, Gustave, don't Don't worry, tell me why." "You're such a dreamer. Didn't you get drunk at the bar, Fowler?" "It's certainly not funny for a prisoner to drink with a police officer." "I never said you were a criminal." "But what if the drink even made me open up to you and make a confession? No one in your business keeps secrets from a repentant."

"Secrecy is rarely important to a penitent man: even to a priest. He has other purposes." "Will you cleanse yourself of your sins?" "Not always. Sometimes he just wants to see himself for who he is. Sometimes he's just tired of deceiving people. You're not a prisoner, Fowler, but I'd like to know why you Lie to me. You saw Pyle the night he died." "Why do you think so?" I never thought you killed him.You wouldn't use a rusty bayonet at all. " "Rusty?" "Here's the details of our autopsy. But I told you that wasn't how he died. It was mud from the Darko River." He held out his glass for another whiskey. "Now let me think about it. You were drinking at the Continental at six-ten that night, weren't you?"

"yes." "At six forty-five, you were talking to another reporter outside the Majestic Hotel, weren't you?" "Yes, Wilkins. I told you all this, Vigot. That night." "Yes. I looked it all up afterwards. It's amazing how you can keep all these trivial details in your head." "I'm a reporter, Vigot." "Maybe those times weren't quite right, but you can't be blamed, can you, if you stay here for a quarter of an hour and there for an extra ten minutes. You have no reason to think those times matter. Seriously." Yes, how doubtful it would be if you gave those times exactly."

"Am I inaccurate?" "Not quite. You were talking to Wilkins at five minutes to seven." "Ten minutes later than I said." "Of course. I said so. You arrived at the Continental at exactly six o'clock." "My watch always runs a little faster," I said. "According to your watch, what time is it?" "Eight past ten." "It's ten-eighteen on my watch. You see." He didn't bother to look at my watch.He said, "Then, as you said, it was twenty-five minutes to seven when you spoke to Wilkins—according to your watch. That's too much of a difference, isn't it?"

"Maybe I mentally adjusted the time. Maybe I set my watch right that day. I have to turn my watch sometimes." "What interests me," said Vigot, "(may I have some more soda?—this glass of wine you gave me is too much) you're not mad at me at the moment. I It's unfair to cross-examine you like this." "I thought it was funny, like a detective story. And, at the end of the day, you know I didn't kill Pyle—you said so." "I know you weren't there when he was murdered," Vigot said. "You point out that I've been here for ten minutes and I've been there for five minutes, and I don't know what you're trying to prove."

"That points to a little bit of a gap," Vigot said, "a little gap in time." "What is there to do in the gap?" "So Pyle can come and see you." "Why do you want to prove that so much?" "For the dog," Vigot said. "And the mud on the dog's paws?" "That's not mud, it's cement. You see, when he followed Pyle out that night, he stepped on some wet cement somewhere. I remember some construction workers working on the ground floor of this apartment- —they still do it to this day. I walked past them tonight when I came in. They work a long day in this country."

"I don't know how many houses have builders in them - and wet cement. Does any of those builders remember the dog?" "Of course I asked them. But even if they remembered, they wouldn't tell me. I'm a policeman." He paused, leaning back in his chair, looking into his glass.I felt that he had recalled something similar, and his thoughts had gone far away again.A fly crawled onto the back of his hand, and he didn't dislodge it -- as Dominguez would have done.I feel a still, deep power.Maybe he was praying. I got up, walked through the curtain, and went into the bedroom.At this moment, I don't want to get anything in the bedroom, I just want to walk away and avoid the silence in the chair.Feng'er's picture books were put back on the shelf again.She inserted a telegram from me among the lot of cosmetics - a message from a London paper or something.I wasn't in the mood to take it apart.Everything was as it was before Pyle came.The room hadn't changed, the ornaments were where they had been: only the heart was rotting. I went back to the living room, and Vigot put the glass to his lips.I said, "I have nothing to tell you. nothing. " "Then I shall take my leave," he said. "I don't think I'll bother you any more." When he reached the door, he turned around again, as if he was still unwilling to give up hope—his hope, or mine. "That movie you went to see that night was a weird one. I didn't think you'd like period dramas. What kind of movie was that? Robin Hood?" "Probably The Secret History of Clowns. I need something to pass the time. I need something to do, too." "For fun?" "We all have our own personal worries, Vigot," I explained carefully. After Vigot left, Feng'er would have to wait an hour before she came back, and she would have someone to keep her company.Strange to say, Vigot's visit disturbed me so much.It was as if a poet had brought his work to me for advice, and I had accidentally destroyed his manuscript.I'm a non-professional -- you can't seriously count journalism as a profession, but I can admit that everyone else has a profession.Now that Vigot has gone back to finish his unfinished file, I wish I had the courage to call him back and say, "You're right. I did meet Pyle the night he died. "