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By Root 1282 0

swirling up into the sky above the zinc-clad ridge of the station roof, which shut off the horizon a few metres in front of her. Beyond this immovable wall lay the town; she sensed its presence constantly. But her irritation at not being able to see it gradually softened. She had put five or six pots of wallflowers and verbena in the valley of the station roof1 and she tended them with care; they provided her with a little garden and brought a touch of colour into her life of solitude. Sometimes she spoke of herself as a recluse living in the depths of a wood. Whenever he had nothing else to do, Roubaud would climb out through the window on his own, walk along the valley to the end of the station roof, clamber up to the ridge and sit looking down at the Cours Napoléon. He would take out his pipe and sit smoking, high up in the sky, with the town spread out beneath him - the docks with their forest of tall masts and the wide open sea, pale green, stretching to the ends of the earth.

A similar sort of lethargy appeared to have affected the Roubauds’ neighbours. The corridor on which they lived, which was normally buzzing with rumour and gossip, was now silent. When Philomène came to call on Madame Lebleu, they hardly raised their voices. Both women had been surprised by the way things had turned out and now, when they spoke of Roubaud, it was with a mixture of scorn and pity. It was quite obvious what madame had got up to in Paris in order to keep him in a job! Anyway, Roubaud’s name was mud, and nothing would ever convince them he was innocent. The cashier’s wife was now confident that her neighbours were no longer in a position to take her apartment from her and she treated them with contempt, walking past them very stiffly and refusing to acknowledge them. In the end she even managed to alienate Philomène, who came to see her less and less, finding her too stuck up and irritating. Madame Lebleu, for want of anything better to do, still kept an eye open for any goings-on between Mademoiselle Guichon and the stationmaster, Monsieur Dabadie, not that she ever discovered anything. In the corridor the only sound to be heard was the shuffle of her felt slippers. One day followed another, and nothing stirred. A whole month went by. Peace reigned. After all the turmoil, everything seemed to sink into a deep slumber.

For the Roubauds, however, there was one thing that continued to disturb them and make them feel uneasy. It was a section of the parquet flooring in their dining room. Whenever they chanced to look at it all their old fears returned. It was to the left of the window, a piece of edging which they had lifted and then put back into place in order to hide the watch and the ten thousand francs that they had taken from Grandmorin’s body, along with about three hundred francs in gold, in a purse. Roubaud had only taken them from Grandmorin’s pockets to make it look like a robbery. He wasn’t a thief and he would sooner starve, as he put it, than spend a single centime or sell the watch. It had belonged to a man who had defiled his wife and who had got his just deserts; it was tainted money, unclean ... No! It wasn’t fit to be touched by a self-respecting man like himself. He had been willing to accept the legacy of La Croix-de-Maufras, and he now no longer gave it a thought. But what he couldn’t come to terms with was the thought of going through Grandmorin’s pockets and taking his money after he had brutally murdered him; it played on his conscience and left him feeling shocked and frightened. Yet he had never got round to burning the money or going out one night and throwing the watch and the purse in the sea. He knew that this would be the wisest thing to do, but some obscure instinct prevented him. He had a subconscious respect for money; he could never have brought himself to simply get rid of such a large amount. At first, on the night of the murder, he had put it under his pillow, unable to think of anywhere safe enough to hide it. He spent the next few days racking his brains to think of hiding places. He tried one