Maigret and the Killer
Page 16
‘Have you found anything?’
‘The cartridge cases. Four. 6.35 calibre.’
A small calibre. An amateur or a woman’s gun, which had to be fired at close range.
‘No reporters?’
‘Two came. They left quite quickly so as not to miss the deadline for their local editions.’
Inspector Fourquet was waiting patiently, pacing up and down and holding a handkerchief in front of his face to keep his nose warm.
‘Did he come out of there?’
‘Yes,’ grunted Maigret.
‘Are you going to tell the press?’
‘I’d rather this was kept out of the papers if possible. Do you have his ID papers, his wallet?’
Fourquet took them out of his pocket and handed them over.
‘His home address?’
‘Place des Vosges. You’ll see the number on his identity card. Are you going to inform his wife?’
‘It’s better than letting her find out about the murder from tomorrow morning’s papers.’
From the corner of Avenue de Villiers they could see the entrance to the Malesherbes Métro station and Lapointe striding back towards them.
‘Thank you for your phone call, Fourquet. I apologize for leaving you outside for so long. It really is freezing cold.’
He squeezed himself into the little car and Lapointe got in behind the wheel. He darted an inquiring glance at his chief.
‘Place des Vosges.’
They said nothing for a while. In the Parc Monceau, the white powder was still falling, forming a thin layer on top of the railings with their gilded tips. After the Champs-Élysées, they drove along the Seine and soon pulled up in Place des Vosges.
The concierge, invisible in the darkness of her lodge, switched on the light and Maigret grunted as they went past:
‘Madame Chabut …’
The concierge didn’t ask any questions. The two men stopped on the first floor, where on the solid oak door was a small brass plate engraved with Oscar Chabut’s name. The time was only half past ten. Maigret rang the bell. The door opened promptly and a young maid in an apron and cotton lawn cap looked at them with curiosity. She was dark-haired and pretty, and her black silk uniform emphasized her curves.
‘Madame Chabut …’
‘Who’s asking?’
‘Detective Chief Inspector Maigret, from the Police Judiciaire.’
‘One moment.’
They could hear the radio or the television, voices in dialogue as in a play. Then the sound was switched off and, a second later, a woman in an emerald bathrobe came towards them, looking surprised.
Not yet forty, she was beautiful, extremely graceful, and she walked with an elegance that struck Maigret.
‘Please follow me, gentlemen.’
She showed them into a vast drawing room where an armchair was installed in front of the television that had just been turned off.
‘Do sit down, please. Don’t tell me that my husband has had an accident—’
‘I’m afraid that is the case, madame.’
‘Is he injured?’
‘It’s more serious.’
‘You mean …?’
He nodded.
‘Poor Oscar!’
She didn’t cry either, but merely bowed her head in sorrow.
‘Was he alone in the car?’
‘It wasn’t a car crash. He was shot.’
‘By a woman?’
‘No. A man.’
‘Poor Oscar,’ she repeated. ‘Where did it happen?’
And, since Maigret hesitated, she explained:
‘Don’t be afraid to tell me. I knew about everything. We haven’t been lovers for a long time, or husband and wife so to speak, but two friends. He was a kind, cuddly teddy bear. People had the wrong idea about him because he’d thrust out his chest and bang his fist on the table.’
‘Do you know Rue Fortuny?’
‘That’s where he used to take nearly all of them. I even met the charming Madame Blanche because he was keen to show me the place. You see what I mean when I say we were good friends. Who was he with?’
‘A young woman, his private secretary.’
‘The Grasshopper! He gave her that nickname and that’s what everyone calls her.’
Lapointe looked at her intently, astounded by her poise.
‘Did it happen in the establishment?’
‘In the street, just as your husband was making his way back to his car.’
‘Has the murderer been caught?’
‘He had plenty of time to run to the top of the street and probably jumped into a Métro carriage. Since you knew about your husband’s affairs, perhaps you have an idea who the killer might be?’
‘Any one of them,’ she murmured with a disarming smile. ‘Any husband or lover. There are still people in the world who are jealous.’
‘Did he receive any threatening letters?’
‘I don’t think so. He had intimate relations with several of our female friends, but I can’t think of any whose husband would be likely to kill.
‘Make no mistake, inspector. My husband wasn’t a heartbreaker. Nor was he a brute, despite his appearance.
‘You’d doubtless be surprised if I told you that he was shy, and that it was because of his shyness that he needed reassurance.
‘And nothing reassured him as much as knowing that he could have almost any woman.’
‘Have you always consented?’
‘At first, he kept it from me. It took me years to discover that he was sleeping with several of my friends. Once, I caught him in the act and we had a long conversation, which ended in our being good friends.
‘Do you understand now? It is still a great loss for me. We were used to each other. We were fond of each other.’
‘Was he jealous of you?’
‘He left me complete freedom, but he preferred not to know, with his male pride. Where is the body right now?’
‘At the Forensic Institute. I’d like you to go there tomorrow morning, to identify him officially.’
‘Where was he hit?’
‘In the stomach and the chest.’
‘Did he suffer?’
‘He died almost instantaneously.’
‘Was the Grasshopper with him when he was killed?’
‘No. He left first.’
‘He was all alone.’
‘Tomorrow, I’ll ask you to make a list of all the women in your circle of friends, all the mistresses you knew of.’
‘Was it definitely a man who shot him?’
‘According to Madame Blanche, yes.’
‘Was the door still open?’
‘No. She was watching through the spyhole. Thank you, Madame Chabut, and I am sorry to have been the bearer of bad news. By the way, did your husband have any family in Paris?’
‘His father, old Désiré. He’s seventy-three, but he’s still running his bar on Quai de la Tournelle. It’s called Au Petit Sancerre. He’s a widower and lives with a waitress in her fifties.’
Once in the car, Maigret turned to Lapointe and asked:
‘Well?’
‘She’s a strange woman, isn’t she? Do you believe what she says?’
‘Definitely.’
‘She didn’t show much grief.’
‘It’ll come. Later tonight, when she goes to bed alone. Perhaps the maid is the one who’ll cry, because she’s bound to have slept with him too.’
‘He was a sex maniac, wasn’t he?’
‘Pretty much. There are men who need that for their sense of self-worth. His wife made it very clear. Quai de la Tournelle … I wonder if the bar’s still open.’
They arrived just as a man with white hair and a coarse blue-linen apron tied around his waist was lowering the iron shutter. Through the half-open door they could see the chairs on the tables, the sawdust on the floor and a few dirty glasses on the pewter counter.
‘We’re closed, gentlemen.’
‘We sim
ply wish to speak to you.’
He frowned.
‘Speak to me? First of all, who are you?’
‘Police Judiciaire.’
‘Do you want to tell me what business the Police Judiciaire has with me?’
They were now inside, and Désiré Chabut had closed the door behind them. In a corner of the room a large stove was pumping out heat.
‘It’s not about you but about your son.’
He looked at them warily, with the calm, cunning gaze of a country farmer.
‘What’s he done, my son?’
‘He hasn’t done anything. He’s been involved in an accident.’
‘I’ve always told him he drives too fast. Is he badly injured?’
‘He’s dead.’
The man went behind the bar and, without saying a word, poured himself a small glass of marc, which he downed in one.
‘Do you want some?’ he asked.
Maigret nodded. Lapointe, who hated marc, said no.
‘Where did it happen?’
‘It wasn’t a traffic accident. Your son was shot with an automatic pistol.’
‘Who by?’
‘That’s what I’m trying to find out.’
The old man didn’t cry either. His lined face remained inscrutable, his eyes hard.
‘Have you seen my daughter-in-law?’
‘Yes.’
‘What does she say?’
‘She doesn’t know anything either.’
‘I’ve been here for more than fifty years. Come with me.’
He showed them into a kitchen and turned on the light.
‘Look.’
He pointed to the picture of a little boy of seven or eight holding a hoop, then to the same child dressed for his first communion.
‘That’s him. He was born here, on the mezzanine. He went to the local school then to the lycée, where he failed his baccalaureate twice. He got a job as a door-to-door wine salesman. Then he became the right-hand man of a wine merchant in Mâcon who had a subsidiary in Paris. He hasn’t always had an easy life, believe me. He worked hard. And when he got married, he was only earning just enough to keep the two of them.’
‘Did he love his wife?’
‘Of course he loved her. She was a typist for his boss. At first, they lived in a little apartment in Rue Saint-Antoine. They don’t have any children. Oscar eventually set up on his own, ignoring my advice. I was convinced he’d regret it, but, on the contrary, he prospered in everything he did. Have you seen his barges on the Seine, with “Vin des Moines” in big letters?
‘You see, to be that successful, you have to be tough. Unfortunately, because of that, smaller merchants ended up going bankrupt. It wasn’t his fault, naturally. But they still resented him, it’s only human.’
‘You mean the murder could have been committed by an aggrieved competitor?’
‘That’s the most likely, isn’t it?’
Désiré didn’t mention his son’s mistresses, the possibility of a jealous husband or lover. Was he aware of them?
‘Do you know people who bear him a grudge?’
‘I don’t know them, but there are some. You’ll probably find those who can tell you more at the Bercy warehouses. There, my son was seen as someone who had no hesitation on treading on others’ toes.’
‘Did he come and see you often?’
‘Almost never. After he set up in business, we didn’t get along very well.’
‘Because you thought him hard-hearted?’
‘That, and the rest. It doesn’t matter.’
And suddenly, with a slightly trembling forefinger, he crushed a tear, a solitary tear, on his cheek.
‘When can I see him?’
‘Tomorrow, if you wish, at the Forensic Institute.’
‘It’s a bit further down, on the other side of the river, isn’t it?’
He refilled the two glasses, drained his, staring ahead of him. Maigret drank up too and, a few minutes later, they were back in the car.
‘My place, if you don’t mind. You can keep the car tonight and drive yourself home.’
It was almost midnight when he set foot on the stairs. He saw the door of their apartment open a fraction and his wife waiting for him on the landing. He’d called her at eight o’clock to say he’d be back late because he’d been expecting to spend longer with young Stiernet.
‘You haven’t caught a chill, have you?’
‘I barely poked my nose outside. Only to get in and out of the car.’
‘You sound as though you’ve got a cold.’
‘But I’m not coughing and my nose isn’t running.’
‘Wait till tomorrow morning. I’d better make you a nice hot grog and give you two aspirins. Did the boy confess?’
All she knew was that Stiernet had knocked his grandmother unconscious.
‘Without any trouble. He didn’t deny it for a second.’
‘Did he want money?’
‘He’s unemployed. He’d just been thrown out of his lodgings because he hadn’t paid the rent for two months.’
‘Is he a monster?’
‘No. He has the mental age of a ten-year-old. He doesn’t realize what’s happened to him or what lies in store. He answers the questions as best he can, concentrating hard, as if he were at school.’
‘Do you think he’s not really responsible for his actions?’
‘That’s for the court to decide, not me, I’m glad to say.’
‘Is there a chance he’ll be given a good lawyer?’
‘It will be a young one, not known in the criminal court, as always. He’s got three francs left in his pocket. It wasn’t his case that was delaying me, but an important man who was shot dead just as he was coming out of the most exclusive brothel in Paris.’
‘Just a minute. I can hear the water boiling and I’m going to make your grog.’
Meanwhile he undressed and put on his pyjamas, in two minds over filling one last pipe, although of course he ended up doing so. And the tobacco somehow left the unpleasant taste of a cold in his mouth.
OTHER TITLES IN THE SERIES
* * *
Pietr the Latvian
The Late Monsieur Gallet
The Hanged Man of Saint-Pholien
The Carter of La Providence
The Yellow Dog
Night at the Crossroads
A Crime in Holland
The Grand Banks Café
A Man’s Head
The Dancer at the Gai-Moulin
The Two-Penny Bar
The Shadow Puppet
The Saint-Fiacre Affair
The Flemish House
The Madman of Bergerac
The Misty Harbour
Liberty Bar
Lock No. I
Maigret
Cécile is Dead
The Cellars of the Majestic
The Judge’s House
Signed, Picpus
Inspector Cadaver
Félicie
Maigret Gets Angry
Maigret in New York
Maigret’s Holiday
Maigret’s Dead Man
Maigret’s First Case
My Friend Maigret
Maigret at the Coroner’s
Maigret and the Old Lady
Madame Maigret’s Friend
Maigret’s Memoirs
Maigret at Picratt’s
Maigret Takes a Room
Maigret and the Tall Woman
Maigret, Lognon and the Gangsters
Maigret’s Revolver
Maigret and the Man on the Bench
Maigret is Afraid
Maigret’s Mistake
Maigret Goes to School
Maigret and the Dead Girl
Maigret and the Minister
Maigret and the Headless Corpse
Maigret Sets a Trap
Maigret’s Failure
Maigret Enjoys Himself
Maigret Travels
Maigret’s Doubts
> Maigret and the Reluctant Witness
Maigret’s Secret
Maigret in Court
Maigret and the Old People
Maigret and the Lazy Burglar
Maigret and the Good People of Montparnasse
Maigret and the Saturday Caller
Maigret and the Tramp
Maigret’s Anger
Maigret and the Ghost
Maigret Defends Himself
Maigret’s Patience
Maigret and the Nahour Case
Maigret’s Pickpocket
Maigret Hesitates
Maigret in Vichy
Maigret’s Childhood Friend
Maigret and the Killer
Maigret and the Wine Merchant
Maigret’s Madwoman
Maigret and the Loner
Maigret and the Informer
Maigret and Monsieur Charles
* * *
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First published in French as Maigret et le tueur by Presses de la Cité 1969
This translation first published 2019
Copyright © Georges Simenon Limited, 1969
Translation copyright © Shaun Whiteside, 2019
GEORGES SIMENON ® Simenon.tm
MAIGRET ® Georges Simenon Limited
All rights reserved
The moral rights of the author and translator have been asserted
Cover photograph (detail) © Harry Gruyaert/Magnum Photos
Front cover design by Alceu Chiesorin Nunes
ISBN: 978-0-241-30427-3
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