‘If only she hadn’t kept bumping into me all the time … Women shouldn’t be allowed on the platform … Especially since she didn’t have the excuse of needing to smoke …’
He was more vexed than really angry.
‘You could take a look at the records, perhaps?’
‘Yes, that’s what I’ll do.’
He spent almost an hour examining the photographs, full face and profile, of most of the known pickpockets. There were some he had arrested twenty-five years earlier and who had come through his office several times, almost becoming familiar acquaintances.
‘You again?’
‘Man’s got to live, chief. You’re still here too. We go back a bit, don’t we?’
Some of them were well dressed; others, of shabbier appearance, were content to work the scrap-metal fairs, the flea market at Saint-Ouen, or the corridors of the Métro. None of them looked anything like the young man on the bus, and Maigret knew in advance that his search would be in vain.
A professional would not have had that tired and anxious look. A practised pickpocket would work only when he could be sure his hands wouldn’t tremble. And in any case, they all knew Maigret by sight, his face, his silhouette, even if only from the newspapers.
He went back down to his office and, when he found Janvier again, simply shrugged his shoulders.
‘You didn’t find him?’
‘I’m prepared to bet he was an amateur. I even wonder whether he knew he was going to do it a minute beforehand. He must have seen my wallet sticking out of my back pocket. My wife’s always telling me not to keep it there. When the bus jolted and those dratted potatoes threw me off balance, he must have suddenly got the idea.’
He changed tone.
‘Right, what’s new this morning?’
‘Lucas is down with flu. And someone bumped off that Senegalese gangster in a café near Porte d’Italie.’
‘A stabbing?’
‘Naturally. No one can describe the killer. He came in at about one a.m., when the owner was shutting up shop. He went straight over to the Senegalese, who was having one last glass, and struck so quickly that …’
One of those routine crimes. Someone would probably grass on him, perhaps in a month, perhaps in two years’ time. Maigret headed towards the office of the chief of police for the daily briefing, and took good care not to mention his misadventure.
It was turning out to be a quiet day. Paperwork. Forms to sign. Routine.
He went home for lunch and looked inquiringly at his wife, who had not raised the subject of her driving lesson. It was a little as if she were going back to school, at her age. She enjoyed it, and was even a little proud of it, but at the same time, she felt embarrassed.
‘You managed not to drive up on to the pavement?’
‘Why do you have to say that? You’ll give me complexes.’
‘No, no. You’ll make an excellent driver, and I’m waiting impatiently for you to take us for a trip along the Loire.’
‘Well, that will have to wait at least a good month, or more.’
‘Is that what the instructor said?’
‘The examiners are getting more and more exacting, and it’s better not to be failed first time. Today, we went on the outer boulevards. Who’d have thought there was so much traffic, and they all drive so fast … It’s as if …’
Ah, they were going to have chicken for lunch, like the woman on the bus no doubt.
‘What are you thinking about?’
‘My thief.’
‘You’ve arrested a thief?’
‘No, I didn’t arrest him, but he stole my wallet.’
‘With your badge in it?’
That was the first thing she had thought of too. A serious hole in the budget. It was true that he would get a new badge, where the copper wouldn’t be showing through.
‘And you saw him?’
‘As clearly as I’m seeing you.’
‘Was he old?’
‘Young. An amateur. He looked …’
Maigret was thinking about it more and more, without wanting to. Instead of becoming vaguer in his mind’s eye, the thief’s face was getting clearer. He was remembering details he did not know he had registered, such as that the stranger had thick eyebrows, which met over his eyes.
‘Would you know him again?’
He thought about the thief over a dozen times during the afternoon, looking up at the window as if troubled by some problem. In the whole incident, the face, the flight, there was something unnatural, but he couldn’t work out what it was. Each time, it seemed that a new detail was going to occur to him, that he would understand, and then he would return to work.
‘Good night, boys.’
He left at five to six, while there were still half a dozen inspectors in the next office.
‘Goodnight, chief.’
He and his wife went to the cinema. He had found in a drawer an old brown wallet, too big for the hip pocket, so he put it inside his jacket.
‘Now if you’d been carrying it in that pocket …’
They walked home, arm in arm as usual, and the air was still quite warm. Even the smell of petrol did not seem so unpleasant tonight. It was part of the arrival of spring, just as the smell of melting tar heralds the arrival of summer.
In the morning, the sun was back again, and he ate his breakfast by the open window.
‘Funny thing,’ he remarked, ‘there are some women who go halfway across Paris by bus, just to buy their groceries.’
‘Perhaps that’s because of Telex-Consumers.’
He frowned inquiringly at his wife.
‘Every night, they tell you on television which neighbourhoods have the best prices for certain things.’
He hadn’t thought of that. How simple it was! He had wasted time on a little problem his wife had solved in an instant.
‘Thank you.’
‘Does that help?’
‘It helps me not to think any more about it.’
And, as he picked up his hat, he remarked philosophically:
‘You don’t always think about what you want to.’
The mail delivery was waiting on his desk and on top of the pile lay a thick brown envelope on which his name, title and the address at Quai des Orfèvres were printed in large capital letters.
He realized what it was before opening it. His wallet was being returned. And a few moments later, he discovered that nothing was missing, not the badge, nor his papers, nor the fifty francs.
There was nothing else. No message. No explanation. He felt thoroughly vexed at this.
It was a little after eleven when the telephone rang.
‘Someone who’s insisting on speaking to you personally, sir, but is refusing to give his name. Apparently you’ll be expecting this call, and you’ll be furious if I don’t put it through. What shall I do?’
‘Put it through to me, then.’
And striking a match one-handed to re-light his pipe:
‘Hello. I’m listening.’
There was a rather long silence, and Maigret would have thought he had been cut off if he had not heard breathing at the other end.
‘I’m listening,’ he repeated
Another silence, then finally:
‘It’s me.’
A man’s voice, quite deep, but the tone could have been that of a child hesitating to own up to some piece of mischief.
‘My wallet?’
‘Yes.’
‘You didn’t know who I was?’
‘Of course not, if I had …’
‘So why are you telephoning?’
‘Because I need to see you.’
‘Come to my office, in that case.’
‘No, I don’t want to go to Quai des Orfèvres.’
‘Why not, are you already known here?’
‘No, never set foot there.’
‘So what are you afraid of, then?’
Since he could sense fear in this anonymous voice.
> ‘It’s personal.’
‘What’s personal?’
‘What I want to see you about. I thought of trying this when I read your name on the badge.’
‘Why did you steal my wallet?’
‘Because I needed money in a hurry.’
‘And now?’
‘I changed my mind. I’m not so sure. But you’d better come as soon as possible. Before I change my mind again.’
There was something unreal about this conversation and yet Maigret was taking it seriously.
‘Where are you?’
‘Will you come here?’
‘Yes.’
‘Alone?
‘Are you insisting on that?’
‘Our conversation has to remain private. Will you promise that?’
‘It depends.’
‘What on?’
‘On what you’re going to say.’
Another silence, this time seeming more ominous than the one at the start.
‘I want you to give me a chance. Remember it was me that phoned you. You don’t know me. You’ve no way of tracing me. If you don’t come, you’ll never know who I am. So on your part, that seems to call for …’
He couldn’t find the right word.
‘A promise?’ Maigret suggested.
‘Wait. I know what. When I’ve finished talking to you, you’ll give me five minutes to get away, if I ask.’
‘I can’t commit myself without knowing more. I’m an officer of the Police Judiciaire.’
‘If you believe me, there won’t be a problem. If you don’t believe me, or if you have any doubts, you could just manage to look the other way while I make myself scarce, then you can call your men.’
‘Where are you?’
‘Do you agree?’
‘Yes, I’m prepared to meet you.’
‘And you accept my conditions?’
‘I’ll be alone.’
‘But you won’t make any promises?’
‘No.’
It was impossible to do otherwise, and he waited with some anxiety to see how the other man would react. He must have been in a telephone kiosk on the street or in a café, because there was background noise.
‘Have you made up your mind?’ said Maigret, getting impatient.
‘As if I’ve got any choice! Why I’m trusting you is because of what the newspapers write about you. Are they true, all those stories?’
‘What stories?’
‘That you understand certain things that the police and the law courts don’t usually understand, and that in some cases, you’ve even …’
‘I’ve even what?’
‘Maybe I’m wrong to go on about it. I don’t know. Have you sometimes closed your eyes to something?’
Maigret preferred not to answer this.
‘Where are you?’
‘A long way from the Police Judiciaire. If I was to tell you now, you’d have time to get me arrested by the local inspectors. You could phone them quickly, and you already know what I look like.’
‘How do you know I saw you?’
‘I looked back. Our eyes met, you know that perfectly well. I was very scared.’
‘Because of the wallet?’
‘Not just because of that. Listen. Have someone drive you to the bar called Le Métro on the corner of Boulevard de Grenelle and Avenue Lamotte-Picquet. It’ll take you about half an hour. I’ll call you there. I won’t be far away and I’ll come and meet you right away.’
Maigret was opening his mouth to say something but the other man had hung up. He felt as intrigued as he was annoyed, since this was the first time a stranger had treated him so casually, not to say cynically.
Still, he couldn’t feel too angry. Throughout this quick-fire conversation, he had sensed an anguish, a desire to reach the right solution, a need to be face to face with the inspector who, in the stranger’s mind, was his only possible saviour.
Because he had stolen Maigret’s wallet, without knowing who he was!
‘Janvier! Is there a car downstairs? I need to go over to the Grenelle neighbourhood.’
Janvier was surprised, since no case on hand, just then, had anything to do with that district.
‘It’s a personal meeting, with the man who stole my wallet.’
‘Traced, then?’
‘The wallet, yes, it arrived by post this morning.’
‘With your badge inside? That’s surprising, because you might think someone would want to keep it as a souvenir.’
‘No, the badge was there, as well as my papers and the money …’
‘A practical joke, then?’
‘No, on the contrary, I think it’s very serious. My pickpocket has phoned me to say he’s waiting to see me.’
‘Should I come with you?’
‘Come as far as Boulevard de Grenelle. After that, you’ll have to disappear, because he wants to see me on my own.’
They drove along the Seine as far as the Pont de Bir-Hakeim and Maigret was content simply to watch the river slipping by. There were building works everywhere, demolition sites, barriers, as there had been the first year he had arrived in Paris. It seemed to start all over again each ten to fifteen years, every time Paris felt it was bursting out of its straitjacket.
‘Where shall I drop you off?’
‘Here.’
They were on the corner of Boulevard de Grenelle and Rue Saint-Charles.
‘Shall I wait for you?’
‘Wait half an hour. If I’m not back here by then, you can go to the office or for lunch.’
Janvier was intrigued as well, and it was with a curious expression that he watched the inspector’s bulky figure walk away.
The sun was shining directly on to the pavement where gusts of warmth and cooler breaths alternated, as if the air had not been able to make up its mind that it was springtime.
A small girl was selling violets in front of a restaurant. Maigret could see in the distance the corner bar with its sign Le Métro, which would light up at night. An ordinary-looking café, without any particular character, one of those bars combined with a tobacconist’s where you might go in for a packet of cigarettes, to have a drink at the counter, or perhaps to sit at a table if you had arranged to meet someone.
He looked round the interior where no more than twenty café tables were ranged either side of the counter, most of them unoccupied.
The pickpocket of yesterday was not there, of course. And the inspector went to sit in the back, near a window, and ordered a draught beer.
In spite of himself, he kept an eye on the door, noticing anyone who approached, pushed it open, and came up to the till, behind which there were shelves full of cigarette packets.
He was starting to wonder whether he had been naive when he recognized a silhouette on the pavement, and then a face. The man did not look at him but went straight up to the counter, leaned on it and ordered:
‘A rum.’
He was nervous. His hands were moving all the time. He dared not turn round and showed impatience to be served, as if he urgently needed the alcohol.
Grabbing his glass, he told the waiter not to put the bottle back in its place.
‘Same again.’
This time he did turn towards Maigret. He had known before coming in exactly where the inspector was sitting. He must have been spying on him from outside, or from the window of a nearby house.
He looked apologetic, as if he had had no choice, and had come as soon as he could. With his still trembling hands, he put some small change on the counter.
At last, he moved forward, took hold of a chair and collapsed into it.
‘Have you got any cigarettes?’
‘No, I only smoke a …’
‘A pipe, yes I know. I don’t have any cigarettes left, and I’ve run out of money.’
‘Waiter! A packet of – what kind do you like?’
‘Gauloises.’
‘A packet of Gauloises and a glass of rum.’
�
�No, no more rum, it’ll make me feel sick.’
‘A beer, then?’
‘I don’t know. I haven’t eaten anything this morning …’
‘A sandwich?’
There were several plates of sandwiches on the counter.
‘Not just now. I feel like I’m choking. You can’t understand …’
He was quite well dressed: grey flannel trousers and a checked sports jacket.
Like many young men, he was wearing a polo-neck jumper, rather than a shirt and tie.
‘I don’t know if you’re like what I was expecting from your reputation.’
He was not looking Maigret in the face, but darting quick glances at him before staring down at the floor once more. It was tiring to follow the constant movement of his long, thin fingers.
‘You weren’t surprised to get the wallet back?’
‘After thirty years in the police, not much surprises me.’
‘With the money still inside it?’
‘You desperately needed cash, didn’t you?’
‘Yes.’
‘How much did you have in your pocket, then?’
‘About ten francs.’
‘Where did you sleep last night?’
‘I didn’t sleep anywhere. I didn’t eat either. I spent the ten francs on drink. You just saw me use up the last few coins. It wasn’t enough to get drunk on.’
‘But you live in Paris,’ Maigret remarked.
‘How do you know that?’
‘And indeed, in this district.’
They had no immediate neighbours and were speaking in low voices. The door of the café could be heard opening and shutting, almost always for customers buying tobacco or matches.
‘But you didn’t go home.’
The young man was silent for a moment, as he had been on the telephone. He looked pale and exhausted. Evidently, he was making a desperate effort to respond and, full of suspicion, he was trying to foresee any traps that might be laid for him.
‘Just as I thought,’ he muttered finally.
‘What did you think?’
‘That you’d guess, you’d be more or less right, and once I was hooked …’
‘Go on.’
He suddenly became angry and raised his voice, forgetting he was in a public place.
‘And once I was hooked, I’d be done for, wouldn’t I!’
He looked towards the door, which happened to be opening just then, and for a moment Maigret thought he was going to run away again. He must have been tempted. There had been a quick flash in his dark-brown eyes. Then he reached out for the glass of beer, and drank it off in a single gulp, all the while observing the inspector over the top of the glass, as if judging him.
Maigret and the Nahour Case Page 14
