It was a clever little essay, but so callous that you could not read it without discomfort.
Trying to make the most of his ingenious theme, Simon had forgotten that human beings, with feelings, were concerned; and if you smiled, for it was not lacking in a bitter wit, it was with malaise.
It appeared that Simon had somehow gained admittance to the little house at Neuilly, and in order to give an impression of the environment in which Berger had lived, he described with acid humour the tasteless, stuffy and pretentious room into which he had been ushered.
It was furnished with two drawing-room suites, one Louis Quinze and the other Empire.
The Louis Quinze suite was in carved wood, gilt and covered in blue silk with little pink flowers on it; the Empire suite was upholstered in light yellow satin.
In the middle of the room was an elaborately-carved gilt table with a marble top.
Both suites had evidently come from one of those shops in the Boulevard St. Antoine that manufacture period furniture wholesale, and had been then bought at auction when their first owners had wanted to get rid of them.
With two sofas and all those chairs it was impossible to move without precaution and there was nowhere you could sit in comfort.
On the walls were large oil paintings in heavy gold frames, which, it was obvious, had been bought at sale-rooms because they were going for nothing.
The prosecution had reconstructed the story of the murder with plausibility.
It was evident that Jordan had taken a fancy to Robert Berger.
The meals he had stood him, the winners he had given him and the money he had lent him, proved that.
At last Berger had consented to come to his apartment, and so that their leaving the bar together should not attract attention they had arranged for one to go some minutes after the other.
They met according to plan, and since the concierge was certain she had admitted that night no one who asked for Jordan, it was plain that they had entered the house together.
Jordan lived on the ground floor.
Berger, still wearing his smart new gloves, sat down and smoked a cigarette while Jordan busied himself getting the whiskey and soda and bringing in the cake from his tiny kitchen.
He was the sort of man who always sat in his shirt-sleeves at home, and he took off his coat.
He put on a record.
It was a cheap, old-fashioned gramophone, without an automatic change, and it was while Jordan was putting on a new record that Berger, coming up behind him as though to see what it was, had stabbed him in the back.
To claim, as the defence did, that he had not the strength to give a blow of such violence as the post-mortem indicated, was absurd.
He was very wiry.
Persons who had known him in his tennis days testified that he had been known for the power of his forehand drive.
If he had never got into the first rank it was not due to an inadequate physique, but to some psychological failing that defeated his will to win.
Simon accepted the view of the prosecution.
He thought they had got the facts pretty accurately, and that the reason they gave for Jordan’s asking the young man to come to his apartment was correct, but he was convinced they were wrong in supposing that Berger had murdered him for the money he knew he had made during the day.
For one thing, the purchase of the gloves showed that he had decided upon the deed before he knew that Jordan would be in possession that night of an unusually large sum.
Though the money had never been found Simon was persuaded that he had taken it, but that was by the way; it was there for the taking and he was glad enough to get it, but to do so was not the motive of the murder.
The police claimed that he had stolen between fifty and sixty cars; he had never even attempted to sell one of them; he abandoned them sometimes after a few hours, at the most after a few days.
He purloined them for the convenience of having one when he needed it, but much more to exercise his daring and resource.
His robberies from women, by means of the simple trick he had devised, brought him little profit; they were practical jokes that appealed to his sense of humour.
To carry them out required the charm which he loved to exert.
It made him giggle to think of those women left speechless and gaping in an empty street while he sped on.
The thing was, in short, a form of sport, and each time he had successfully brought it off he was filled with the self-satisfaction that he might have felt when by a clever lob or by a drop shot he won a point off an opponent at tennis.
It gave him confidence.
And it was the risk, the coolness that was needed, the power to make a quick decision if it looked as though discovery were inevitable, much more than the large profits, that had induced him to engage in the business of smuggling dope into France.
It was like rock-climbing; you had to be sure of foot, you had to keep your head; your life depended on your nerve, your strength, your instinct; but when you had surmounted every difficulty and achieved your aim, how wonderful after that terrific strain was the feeling of deliverance and how intoxicating the sense of victory!
Certainly for a man of his slender means he had got a good deal of money out of the broker who had employed him; but it had come in driblets and he had spent it on taking Lydia to night clubs and for excursions in the country, or with his friends at Jojo’s Bar.
Every penny had gone by the time he was caught; and it was only a chance that he was; the method he had conceived for robbing his employer was so adroit that he might very well have got away with it indefinitely.
Here again it looked as though it were much more for the fun of the thing, than for profit, that he had committed a crime.
He told his lawyer quite frankly that the broker was so confident of his own cleverness, he could not resist making a fool of him.
But by now, Simon went on, pursuing his idea, Robert Berger had exhausted the amusement he was capable of getting out of the smaller varieties of evil-doing.
During one of the periods he spent in jail awaiting trial he had made friends with an old lag, and had listened to his stories with fascinated interest.
The man was a cat burglar who specialized in jewellery and he made an exciting tale of some of his exploits.
First there was the marking down of the prey, then the patient watching to discover her habits, the examination of the premises; you had to find out not only where the jewels were kept and how to get into the house, but also what were the chances of making a quick get-away if necessary; and after you had made sure of everything there was the long waiting for the suitable opportunity.
Often months elapsed between the time when you made up your mind to go after the stuff and the time when at last you had a whack at it.
That was what choked Berger off; he had the nerve, the agility and the presence of mind that were needed, but he would never have had the patience for the complicated business that must precede the burglary.
Simon likened Robert Berger to a man who has shot partridge and pheasant for years, and having ceased to find diversion in the exercise of his skill, craves for a sport in which there is an element of danger and so turns his mind to big game.
No one could say when Berger began to be obsessed with the idea of murder, but it might be supposed that it took possession of him gradually.
Like an artist heavy with the work demanding expression in his soul, who knows that he will not find peace till he has delivered himself of the burden, Berger felt that by killing he would fulfil himself.
After that, having expressed his personality to its utmost, he would be at rest and then could settle down with Lydia to a life of humdrum respectability.