Wasn’t she, too, a kind of phenomenon? Instead of panicking and taking a dislike to the big city, she had settled down in her new neighbourhood, in her street, taking root to such an extent that she had become one of the most popular characters there.
Her name was Justine. From one end of Rue Mouffetard to the other, everyone now knew old Justine with her drawling speech and the mischievous gleam in her eyes.
The fact that her son had been in prison didn’t embarrass her in the least.
‘Everyone has his own tastes and his own opinions,’ she would say.
Maigret had twice more had dealings with Honoré Cuendet, the second time after a major theft of jewellery in Rue de la Pompe, in Passy.
The burglary had taken place in a luxurious apartment where there were three live-in servants in addition to their masters. In the evening, the jewels had been placed on a dressing table in the boudoir next to the bedroom, the door of which had remained open all night.
Neither Monsieur nor Madame D., who had been sleeping in their bed, had heard anything. The chambermaid, who slept on the same floor, was sure she had locked the door to the apartment and had found it still locked in the morning. No sign of forced entry. No fingerprints.
As the apartment was on the third floor, there was no question of someone having climbed up. There was no balcony either, which might have made it possible to reach the boudoir through an adjoining apartment.
It was the fifth or sixth robbery of this kind in three years, and the newspapers were starting to talk of a phantom burglar.
Maigret remembered that spring, remembered how Rue de la Pompe had looked at every hour of the day, because he had gone from door to door, tirelessly questioning people, not only the concierges and the shopkeepers, but the tenants of the apartment buildings and the servants.
That was how – by chance, or rather, out of stubbornness – he had come across Cuendet. In the building opposite the house where the burglary had taken place, a garret looking out on the street had been rented six weeks earlier.
‘It’s occupied by a very nice, very quiet gentleman,’ the concierge said. ‘He doesn’t go out very much, never goes out in the evening and never has women visitors. In fact, he never has any visitors.’
‘Does he do his own cleaning?’
‘Of course. And it really is clean, believe me!’
Was Cuendet so sure of himself that he hadn’t bothered to move house after the robbery, or had he been afraid he would arouse suspicion if he left?
Maigret had found him at home, reading. By looking out of the window, he had been able to follow all the comings and goings of the tenants in the apartments opposite.
‘I must ask you to follow me to police headquarters.’
Cuendet hadn’t protested. He had allowed his room to be searched without saying a word. Nothing had been found, no jewels, no skeleton keys, no burglar’s tools.
The interrogation at Quai des Orfèvres had lasted nearly twenty-four hours, interspersed with beer and sandwiches.
‘Why did you rent that room?’
‘Because I liked it.’
‘Have you quarrelled with your mother?’
‘No.’
‘Don’t you live with her any more?’
‘I’ll go back there one of these days.’
‘You’ve left most of your things there.’
‘Precisely.’
‘Have you been to see her lately?’
‘No.’
‘Who have you met?’
‘The concierge, the neighbours, people passing in the street.’
His accent gave his answers an irony that might have been involuntary, because his face remained calm and serious. He seemed to be doing all he possibly could to satisfy Maigret.
The interrogation had yielded nothing, but the investigation in Rue Mouffetard had provided them with grounds for suspicion. It emerged that this wasn’t the first time that Cuendet had disappeared for a while. These absences generally varied from three weeks to two months. After them, he always moved back in with his mother.
‘What do you live on?’
‘I do odd jobs. I’ve put a little money aside.’
‘In a bank?’
‘No. I don’t trust banks.’
‘Where is this money?’
He wouldn’t say. Since his first arrest he had studied the penal code, and now knew it by heart.
‘It’s not up to me to prove my innocence. It’s up to you to establish my guilt.’
Only once had Maigret lost his temper. Faced with Cuendet’s air of gentle reprimand, he had immediately regretted it.
‘You got rid of the jewels one way or another. It’s quite likely you sold them. Who to?’
They had, of course, done the rounds of the known fences and had alerted Antwerp, Amsterdam and London. They had also passed the word to their informers.
Nobody knew Cuendet. Nobody had seen him. Nobody had been in contact with him.
‘What did I tell you?’ his mother had said triumphantly. ‘I know you’re clever, but my son, don’t you see, is really somebody!’
In spite of his criminal record, in spite of the garret, in spite of everything that pointed to him, they had been obliged to release him.
Cuendet hadn’t crowed about it. He had taken the matter calmly. Maigret could still see him, looking for his hat, stopping by the door, reaching out a hesitant hand.
‘See you again, inspector.’
As if he expected to be back!
3.
The chairs had seats of woven straw and gleamed golden in the semi-darkness. The floor, although of common fir wood and very old, was so well polished that you could see the rectangle of the window in it as if it were a mirror. The brass pendulum of a clock on the wall swung at a peaceful rhythm.
It was as if the smallest object – the poker, the bowls with their big pink flowers, even the broom against which the cat was rubbing its back – had a life of its own, as if in an old Dutch painting or in a sacristy.
Madame Cuendet opened the stove and put in two shovelfuls of glossy coal. For a moment, the flames licked her face.
‘Do you mind if I take off my coat?’
‘Does that mean you’re going to stay for a long time?’
‘It’s minus five outside, but in here it’s quite hot.’
‘They say old people feel the cold more,’ she muttered, more to herself, to occupy her mind, than to him. ‘In my case, my stove keeps me company. My son was like that, too, even when he was young. I can still see him, in our house in Senarclens, right up against the stove, doing his homework.’
She looked at the empty armchair, the polished wood, the worn leather.
‘Here, too, he liked to be close to the fire and could spend days reading without hearing anything.’
‘What kind of things did he read?’
She lifted her arms in a gesture of powerlessness.
‘How should I know? Books he got from the reading room in Rue Monge. Look, here’s the last one. He used to exchange them as he went along. He had a kind of subscription. You must know about that.’
Bound in shiny black canvas, it was a work by Lenotre on an episode of the Revolution.
‘He knew a lot of things, my Honoré. He didn’t talk a lot, but his mind never stopped working. He read newspapers, too, four or five a day, and big, expensive magazines with colour pictures.’
Maigret liked the smell of the apartment, made up of lots of different smells. He had always had a weakness for dwellings that have a characteristic smell, and he hesitated to light his pipe, which he had filled mechanically.
‘You can smoke. He smoked a pipe, too. He was so fond of his old pipes, he’d actually mend them with wire.’
‘I’d like to ask you a question, Madame Cuendet.’
‘It’s funny to hear you call me that. Everybody’s been calling me Justine for so long now! I actually think that, apart from the mayor, when he congratulated me the day I got married,
nobody has ever called me anything else. But go on. I’ll answer you if I feel like it.’
‘You don’t work. Your husband was poor.’
‘Have you ever met a rich mole catcher? Especially a mole catcher who drinks from morning till night?’
‘So you live on the money your son gave you.’
‘Is there any harm in that?’
‘A manual worker gives his pay to his wife or mother every week, an office worker every month. I assume Honoré would give you money as you needed it?’
She looked at him closely, as if grasping the significance of the question.
‘What of it?’
‘Well, for instance, he might have given you a large sum when he came back after being away.’
‘There were never any large sums here. What would I have done with them?’
‘These absences of his lasted quite a long time, sometimes weeks, didn’t they? If you needed money during that time, what did you do?’
‘I didn’t need it.’
‘So he gave you enough before he left?’
‘Not to mention the fact that I have an account with the butcher and the grocer, and that I can buy on credit from any shopkeeper in the neighbourhood and even from the barrow boys. Everyone in the street knows old Justine.’
‘Did he ever send you a money order?’
‘I don’t know how I’d have gone about collecting it.’
‘Listen, Madame Cuendet—’
‘I’d prefer it if you called me Justine.’
She was still standing. She added a little more hot water to her stew and replaced the lid, leaving a slight gap for the steam.
‘I can’t cause him any more trouble, and I have no intention of causing you any. What I’m trying to do is find the people who killed him.’
‘When will I be able to see him?’
‘Probably this afternoon. An inspector will come and fetch you.’
‘And will they hand him over to me?’
‘I think so. But in order to find his killer, or killers, I need to understand certain things.’
‘What do you want to understand?’
She was still suspicious, like the peasant woman she had remained, like an old, barely literate woman who senses traps everywhere. She couldn’t help it.
‘Your son left you several times a year and was away for several weeks.’
‘Sometimes three weeks, sometimes two months.’
‘How was he when he came back?’
‘Like a man who’s pleased to find his slippers by the fire.’
‘Did he tell you when he was planning to leave, or did he just go without saying a word?’
‘Who do you think packed his suitcase for him?’
‘So he did tell you. He took spare clothes with him, underwear …’
‘He took everything he needed.’
‘Did he have several suits?’
‘Four or five. He liked to be well dressed.’
‘Did you have the impression that when he got back, he hid things in the apartment?’
‘It wouldn’t be easy to find a hiding place in these four rooms. Besides, you searched them, and more than once. I remember that your men ferreted everywhere and even dismantled the furniture. They went down to the cellar, even though it’s common to all the tenants, and up to the corner of the attic that we’re allowed to use.’
It was true. They had found nothing.
‘Your son didn’t have a bank account, we’ve checked that, or a savings account. But he must have deposited his money somewhere. Do you know if he ever went abroad, to Belgium, for example, or Switzerland, or Spain?’
‘In Switzerland, he would have been arrested.’
‘That’s right.’
‘He never talked about the other countries you mentioned.’
Several times, they had alerted the borders. For years, a photograph of Honoré Cuendet had been included among those of people who needed to be looked out for in railway stations and at other exits from the country.
Maigret was thinking aloud.
‘He must have sold the jewels and other objects he stole. He didn’t use professional fences. And as he didn’t spend much money, he must have had a sizeable sum somewhere.’
He was looking more closely at the old lady now.
‘If he only gave you housekeeping money as you needed it, what’s going to become of you now?’
This idea struck her, and she shuddered. He saw a touch of anxiety in her eyes.
‘I’m not afraid,’ she nevertheless replied proudly. ‘Honoré is a good son.’
She didn’t say ‘was’ this time. And she continued, as if he were still alive:
‘I’m sure he won’t leave me without anything.’
‘He wasn’t killed by a prowler,’ Maigret resumed, ‘and it wasn’t a random act. Nor was he shot down by an accomplice.’
She didn’t ask him how he knew this, and he didn’t explain. A prowler wouldn’t have had any reason to disfigure the face or empty the pockets of the slightest objects, including unimportant papers, pipe, matches.
An accomplice wouldn’t have done that either, knowing that Cuendet had been in prison and would consequently be identified by his fingerprints.
‘The man who killed him didn’t know him. And yet he had an important reason to get rid of him. Do you understand?’
‘What am I supposed to understand?’
‘That when we find out what job Honoré was preparing, and what house or apartment he broke into, we’ll be very close to knowing who killed him.’
‘It won’t bring him back to life.’
‘Do you mind if I take a look in his room?’
‘I can’t stop you.’
‘I’d rather you came with me.’
She shrugged and followed him, swaying her almost monstrous hips, and the little ginger dog trotted after them, ready to growl again.
The dining room was neutral, lifeless, almost odourless. The old woman’s iron bedstead was covered in a very white counterpane. Honoré’s room, poorly lit by a window that looked out on to the yard, was already taking on a funereal appearance.
Maigret opened the door of a mirrored wardrobe, found three suits on hangers, two of them grey and one navy-blue, shoes lined up at the bottom and, on a shelf, shirts with a bouquet of dried lavender on top of the pile.
On a bookshelf stood a red copy of the penal code, quite worn, which must have been bought down by the river or from a second-hand bookshop on Boulevard Saint-Michel; several novels dating from the beginning of the century, plus a Zola and a Tolstoy; a map of Paris which looked as if it had been much consulted …
On a two-level console table in a corner lay magazines whose titles made Maigret frown. They didn’t fit with all the rest. They were thick, luxurious magazines on glossy paper, with colour photographs of the most beautiful chateaus in France as well as sumptuous interiors in Paris.
He leafed through some of them, hoping to find notes, pencil marks.
In Lausanne, young Cuendet, an apprentice locksmith living in a garret, had grabbed everything he came across, including objects of no value.
Later, in Rue Saint-Antoine, he was to show a little more discrimination, but still only burgled random local shops and apartments.
Then he climbed another rung, breaking into middle-class houses, where he found both money and jewellery.
At last, patiently, he had reached the ritzier parts of town. Without meaning to, the old woman had said something important earlier. She had mentioned the four or five newspapers her son read every day.
Maigret would have sworn that it wasn’t the crime news he sought out, let alone the political news, but the society columns: weddings, accounts of receptions, dress rehearsals.
Wasn’t that the place where the jewellery worn by women in the public eye was described?
The magazines that Maigret now had in front of his eyes had also provided Honoré with valuable information: not only meticulous descriptions
of mansions and apartments, but even photographs of the different rooms.
Sitting by the fire, Cuendet had pondered, weighed the pros and cons and made his choice.
Then he would go and prowl around the neighbourhood, renting a room in a hotel or, if he could find one, in a private house, as had been the case in Rue de la Pompe.
During the last investigation, which had been several years previously, they had also picked up his trail in a certain number of cafés, where he had suddenly become a regular, for a time at least.
‘A very quiet man, who spent hours in his corner, drinking white wine, reading the papers and looking out at the street …’
In reality, he had been observing the comings and goings of masters and servants in a house, studying their habits, their timetables. Later, from his own window, he would spy on them as they moved about indoors.
In this way, an entire building would eventually yield up all its secrets to him.
‘Thank you, Madame Cuendet.’
‘Justine!’
‘I’m sorry: Justine. I had a lot of …’
He searched for the word. Friendship was too strong. If he said he felt a fondness for him, she wouldn’t understand what he meant.
‘I had a lot of respect for your son.’
That wasn’t quite the right word either, but neither the deputy prosecutor nor the examining magistrate was there to hear him.
‘Inspector Fumel will come and see you. If you need anything, please get in touch with me.’
‘I won’t need anything.’
‘If you should happen to find out where Honoré spent the last few weeks …’
He put on his heavy overcoat and carefully descended the staircase with its worn steps. He found himself back in the cold and noise of the street. There was now a little white powder hanging in the air, as it were, but it wasn’t snowing, and there was no trace of it on the ground.
When he entered the inspectors’ room, Lucas announced:
‘Moers phoned to ask for you.’
‘Did he say why?’
‘He’d like you to call him.’
‘Still no news of Fernand?’
He had forgotten that his main task was to track down the gang doing all these hold-ups. It might last weeks, maybe months. Hundreds, thousands of police officers and gendarmes had Fernand’s photograph in their pockets. Inspectors were going door to door, like vacuum-cleaner salesmen.
Maigret and the Lazy Burglar Page 4
