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Bertillon, Alphonse /ˈbərtlˌän, ˌbertēˈyôN/ (1853–1914), French criminologist. He devised a system of body measurements (the Bertillon system) for the identification of criminals, which was widely used until superseded by the technique of fingerprinting at the beginning of the 20th century.
Rodolphe Archibald Reiss (8 July 1875 – 7 August 1929) was a German–Swiss criminology-pioneer, forensic scientist, professor and writer.
Dr. Edmond Locard (13 December 1877 – 4 May 1966)[1] was a French criminologist, the pioneer in forensic science who became known as the "Sherlock Holmes of France". He formulated the basic principle of forensic science: "Every contact leaves a trace". This became known as Locard's exchange principle.
But what he sought, what he waited and watched out for, was the crack in the wall. In other words, the instant when the human being comes out from behind the opponent.
The man in the trenchcoat looked like the Latvian and yet did not resemble him! Same height: about 1 m 68cm. At a pinch he could be the same age, though in the outfit he was wearing he looked closer to twenty-six than thirty-two.
His outfit was nothing like that of an officer of the merchant fleet.
It was the straightforwardly vulgar body-language of a guttersnipe. Even
ersatz /ˈerˌzäts ˈerˌsäts/ I. adjective 1. (of a product) made or used as a substitute, typically an inferior one, for something else • ersatz coffee. 2. not real or genuine • ersatz emotion. – origin late 19th cent.: from German, literally ‘replacement.’
‘Don’t you think he’s got the same looks as Captain Swaan? …’ ‘Oh! So you know him … Well, of course he does! But not so much as you’d mistake one for the other … All the same … For ages I thought it was his brother.’
He made a sorry sight: a man so absent from the world and in such low spirits that he was no longer capable of reacting to anything.
Fyodor Yurevich, age 28, born Vilna, labourer, and Anna Gorskin, age 25, born Odessa, no occupation.
‘Did my wife call?’ ‘This morning … She was told you were out on a case …’ She was used to that. He knew that if he went home she would just give him a kiss, stir the pot on the stove and
serve him a delicious plate of stew. The most she would dare – but only when he’d sat down to eat – would be to put her chin on her hand and ask: ‘Everything OK? …’
‘Mortimer came back?’ ‘Around six this morning. In a foul mood. Wet, dirty, with chalk or lime all over his clothes …’ ‘What did he say?’ ‘Nothing
‘Nothing about the case in the papers, I hope?’ ‘Not a word. They’ve respected the embargo. Just a two-liner saying that a corpse had been found on the Étoile du Nord and that the police were treating it as suicide.’
came up just now to tell me that the
Mortimers have got tickets to see The Epic at the Gymnase Theatre tonight. A four-acter by someone or other …’ ‘Pietr’s suite?’ ‘Quiet as the grave! Nobody has been in it. I locked the door and put a blob of wax on the keyhole, so nobody can get in without my knowing …’
The Théâtre du Gymnase or Théâtre du Gymnase Marie Bell, is a theatre in Paris, at 38 Boulevard Bonne-Nouvelle in the 10th arrondissement (métro : Bonne Nouvelle).
Mortimer left his box on three occasions, reappearing in a stage-box and then in the pit, and finally to have a chat with a former prime minister, whose hearty laugh could be heard twenty rows away.
When Maigret turned to look up at the Americans’ box, Mortimer-Levingston had vanished.
tarmac. The door opened even before it was at a standstill. Mortimer-Levingston, in tails but without a hat, bounded up the stairs and went into the warm and brightly lit lobby. Maigret took a look at the chauffeur.
Mortimer was standing at the back of his box.
Puffer balls
When he finally got outside, the Americans’ limousine was just going round the corner into Rue Notre-Dame-de-Lorette. There were half a dozen taxis waiting at the rank opposite. Maigret began crossing the road. A gunshot rang out. Maigret put his hand to his chest, looked around, could not see anything, but heard the footsteps of someone running away down Rue Pigalle.
Still, Maigret looked quite upset, mainly because it was a flesh wound. His chest had been torn; the bullet had grazed a rib and exited near his shoulder blade.
On the other hand he could smell something in the air that reminded him of a hospital. He took a few more wobbly steps. And suddenly came to a stop by a settee. A black-leather-shod foot was sticking out from under
He lifted one end of the settee with weak arms and swung it round on two of its legs. It was what he expected: Torrence, all crumpled up, with his shoulder twisted round as if he’d had his bones broken to make him fit into a small space. There was a bandage over the lower part of his face, but it wasn’t knotted. Maigret got down on his knees.
Torrence was dead!
was a damask table napkin embroidered with the monogram of the Majestic. It still gave off a faint whiff of chloroform.
On Torrence’s shirt, exactly over the centre of his heart, there was a small brown mark.
First the chloroform towel, which overpowers the victim in twenty to thirty seconds. Then the long needle. The murderer can take his time and find just the right place between the ribs to get it straight into the heart, taking a life without any noise or mess. Exactly the same method had been used in Hamburg six months earlier.
‘Shush! The bullet came out, that’s the main thing. Help
‘Yes, we can keep it out of the news … I’ll alert the magistrates … I’ll go to see the prosecutor in person.’
International gangsters who engage in top-flight scams rarely commit murder.
they do sometimes use elimination to settle scores.
The dead are either snitches, or men who drank too much and blabbed under the influence, or underlings aiming to rise, thus threatening the sitting hierarchy.
Only a hotel valet could have got away with it. He had either been called up by the policeman or else he’d come in unprompted, to clear the table.
round: ‘Which member of staff knocked off early last night?’ The operator was taken aback by the question. ‘How did you know? Sheer coincidence … Pepito got a call telling him his brother was sick …’ ‘What time?’ ‘Around ten …’ ‘Where was he, at that point?’ ‘Upstairs.’ ‘On which telephone did he take the call?’ They called the main exchange. The operator confirmed that he’d not put any call through to Pepito.
Pepito Moretto, Hôtel Beauséjour, 3, Rue des Batignolles. Appointed on …
Maigret interrogated another employee and learned that Pepito Moretto had been recommended by an Italian maître d’hôtel and had joined the staff of the Majestic three days before the Mortimer-Levingstons’ arrival. No complaints about his work. He’d begun in the dining room, but then transferred to room service at his own request.
Around ten or a little before, Pepito had murdered Torrence at the Majestic. He must have had detailed instructions, because he knocked off work straight away, on the excuse that he’d had a phone call from his brother, and came straight to the bar at the corner of Rue Fontaine. Then he waited. At some point the dancer who’d just been named as José came over the road and passed Pepito a message that a child could guess: shoot Maigret as soon as he steps outside Pickwick’s Bar.
Pepito fired his gun and fled. His role was over. He hadn’t been seen. So he could go and get his bags from Hôtel Beauséjour …
screed /skrēd/ I. noun 1. a long speech or piece of writing, typically one regarded as tedious. 2. a leveled layer of material (e.g., cement) applied to a floor or other surface. 3. a strip of plaster or other material placed on a surface as a guide to thickness. II. verb — [with obj.] 1. level (a floor or layer of concrete) with a straight edge using a back and forth motion while moving across the surface. – origin Middle English: probably a variant of the noun shred. The early sense was ‘fragment cut from a main piece,’ then ‘torn strip, tatter,’ whence (via the notion of a long roll or list) sense 1 of the noun.
could see Pepito Moretto tailing the young man when he came out of Pickwick’s and then, reckoning he was too upset and therefore likely to give the game away, Moretto took his life without even bothering to remove the man’s wallet or ID – as a taunt, perhaps. As if to say, ‘You think you can use this guy as a lead to get back to us? Be my guest! You can have him!’
‘Did the old man have a beard?’
never set eyes on him myself … I mean, noticed him … We have so many employees! … But I did some research … Short, dark skin, black hair, broad shoulders, could go for days without saying a word …’
then came the corpse on the Étoile du Nord! Most of all, there was Maigret’s discovery of the unexpected relations between the East European and Mortimer-Levingston. And that was a major discovery!
Pietr was a self-avowed crook who was happy to taunt international police forces: ‘Just try to catch me red-handed!’ Mortimer was, in the eyes of the whole world, an honest and upright man! There were just two people who might have guessed the connection between them.
That very evening, Torrence was murdered! And Maigret came under fire from a revolver in Rue Fontaine! A third, bewildered person, who probably knew next to nothing but might serve as a lead to further investigation, had ...
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most he might get someone to testify against Pietr the Latvian, alias Fyodor Yurevich, alias Oswald Oppenheim, and who must have had many other identities as well, including that of Olaf Swaan.
What evidence did he have? What clues? The fact that
