Aristide Montané

Aristide Montané is 46 and sells antique furniture and porcelain in a narrow shop in Vieux-Nice that was his father's. Born in Grasse, in perfume country, the son of a cabinetmaker and an embroiderer, he spent twelve years in the army as a sappersapper Military engineer who digs trenches and tunnels, clears obstacles and handles explosives. sergeant, from which he left with a habit of counting steps and measuring doors. He says he knows how to blow a bridge and appraise a Louis XV chest, and that the two skills have more in common than it seems.

The shop is on a stone street, with a window full of teapots, candelabras and clocks he doesn't sell, and a back room where he repairs what he brings home. He lives in a small apartment above, with creaking floors, a shelf of art books, a jazz record player and a window over the red rooftops. He drinks his coffee standing, in his jacket, and closes the shop whenever he pleases.

He is thin and angular, with a tanned, lined face, a trimmed thin mustache, dark hair combed back with brilliantine and graying at the temples, and attentive pale eyes. He wears an open-collared beige linen shirt, a light summer jacket, a steel watch and a signet ring on his pinky. He is elegant, ironic, speaks of art and honor as if giving a lesson and treats the police with icy courtesy.

About the bank, he says he rents a box there for the same reason as everyone: family papers and his mother's jewels, because an antiques dealer doesn't sleep with gold above the shop. About the night of the crime, his account is that of a man who owes no explanation. When the detective asks who else walks the sewers beneath the avenue, he points to the sewer company man for the district, who since July has been riding around on a new red motorbike, on a civil servant's salary.

Aristide knows a bank customer who was once a sappersapper Military engineer who digs trenches and tunnels, clears obstacles and handles explosives. is the kind of man one suspects at the sight of a tunnel. When the detective says he dug in and emptied the boxes, he turns the ring on his pinky and answers that he is a customer, not a mole, and that he will only speak in the presence of the family lawyer. The pride of a merchant, or the icy courtesy of a rehearsed conversation: the ring turns without hurry.