Maigret remembered the harmonica which had been found in Rue du Roi-de-Sicile. The next moment he rang the number of the Lion d’Or.
‘Listen, did Victor play the harmonica?’
‘Sure he did. He even used to play it in the street as he walked along.’
‘Was he the only one who played?’
‘Serge Madok did too.’
‘Did they both have their own harmonica?’
‘I think so. Yes. I’m certain of it, because sometimes they used to play duets.’
But when Maigret had searched the room in the Lion d’Or, there had been only one harmonica.
What simple-minded Victor had come looking for in Quai de Charenton without telling the others, what ultimately he had died for, was his harmonica.
8.
What happened that afternoon would be added to the modest stock of anecdotes which a smiling Madame Maigret would relate at family gatherings.
That Maigret should have got home at two o’clock and gone to bed without having any lunch was not of itself all that unusual, although the first thing he always did whenever he got back to the apartment at any hour, night or day, was to go into the kitchen and lift the lids of the saucepans on the stove. He did say, however, that he had eaten already. But soon afterwards, while she probed a little deeper as he was getting undressed, he confessed that he had just helped himself to a slice of ham in the kitchen of the bar on Quai de Charenton.
She lowered the blinds, made sure her husband did not need for anything and glided silently out. Before the door had even closed he was in a deep sleep.
When she had done the washing-up and tidied the kitchen, she hesitated for some time before going back into their bedroom to fetch her knitting, which she had forgotten. First, she listened and, hearing regular breathing, turned the knob carefully and tiptoed back into the room without making any more sound than a nun in a cloister. It was at that point that, without ceasing to breathe like a man heavily asleep, he said in a thick voice:
‘Can’t believe it! Two and a half million in five months!’
His eyes were closed, and his face was flushed. She thought he was talking in his sleep but nevertheless stood stock-still so as not to wake him.
‘Now where would you start if you wanted to spend that kind of money?’
She didn’t dare reply, convinced that he was still dreaming. Then, still without moving his eyelids, he started to lose patience.
‘Answer the question, Madame Maigret!’
‘I have no idea,’ she whispered. ‘How much did you say?’
‘Two and a half million. Probably a lot more. It’s the minimum haul they took from the farms, and a sizeable part of it is in gold coins. Then there are the horses, obviously.’
He turned over heavily. One eye opened briefly and stared at his wife.
‘The thing is, we can’t get away from horse-racing.’
She knew he was not speaking for her benefit but for his own. She waited in the hope that he might go back to sleep so that she could withdraw the way she had come, without her knitting if necessary. He fell silent for some time, and she rather thought he had gone back to sleep.
‘Listen, Madame Maigret. There’s one small thing I want to know now. Where were there horse-races last Tuesday? Just in the Paris region, of course. Get on the phone now!’
‘Who do you want me to phone?’
‘Call the Pari-Mutuel. You’ll find their number in the book.’
The phone was in the dining room, and the flex was too short for it to be brought into the bedroom. Madame Maigret still felt uneasy when she had to speak into the small metal disk, especially to someone she did not know.
‘Shall I say I’m phoning on your behalf?’
‘If you like.’
‘What if they ask who I am?’
‘They won’t.’
By now both his eyes were open, and he was wide awake. She slipped into the next room and left the door open while she phoned. It did not take long. It was as if the person at the other end was used to answering such questions and obviously had the racing calendar at his fingertips, for he gave the information without hesitation. But when Madame Maigret went back into the bedroom to repeat to Maigret what she had been told, he was fast asleep, with his hands clenched tight and his breathing noisy enough for it to qualify as snoring.
She didn’t like to wake him, decided that it was better to let him rest. But just in case, she left the communicating door ajar and from time to time looked at the clock with surprise, for her husband’s afternoon naps rarely lasted very long.
At four o’clock she went into the kitchen to put the dinner on to cook. At half past, she glanced into the bedroom. Her husband was still sleeping. He looked as if he was dreaming that he was thinking: his eyebrows were knitted, his forehead was creased, and there was an odd curl to his lip.
But a little later, when she had sat down again in the dining room, at her usual place by the window, she heard a voice say impatiently:
‘Well, what about this phone call?’
She scurried in and was surprised to see him sitting up in bed.
‘Is the number engaged?’ he asked in a deadly serious voice.
This produced a most singular effect on Madame Maigret. She felt almost frightened, as if her husband were delirious.
‘Oh, I got through all right. That was three hours ago.’
He stared at her in disbelief.
‘What are you talking about? Look here, what time is it now?’
‘Quarter to five.’
He was not even aware that he had fallen asleep. He thought he had closed his eyes for just as long as it took to make a phone call.
‘And where was it?’
‘Vincennes.’
‘What did I tell you?’ he exulted.
He hadn’t spoken to anyone, but he had thought about it so much that it seemed that he had.
‘Ring Rue des Saussaies … 00-90 … Ask to be put through to Colombani’s office …’
‘What shall I tell him?’
‘Nothing. I’ll speak to him myself – that is if he’s not already on his way.’
Colombani was still at his desk. He was usually late for meetings. He was very understanding and agreed to meet Maigret in his apartment rather than at the Police Judiciaire.
She had, as he asked, made him a cup of strong coffee, but it had not been enough to wake him up completely. He had missed so much sleep that his eyelids were still pink and itched. His skin felt too tight. He hadn’t had the energy to get dressed properly and had just put on his trousers, slippers and a dressing gown over his night shirt, the one with the collar which had small red crosses on it.
They made themselves comfortable in the dining room. They sat opposite each other with the decanter of calvados between them and, outside, on the white wall on the other side of the boulevard, in black letters, the names of Lhoste and Pépin.
They had known each other for long enough not to stand on ceremony. Colombani, who was short, like most Corsicans, wore lifts on his shoes, brightly coloured ties and a ring, with a real or maybe imitation diamond, on the third finger of his left hand. As a result, he was sometimes thought to be one of the criminals he was looking for rather than the policeman hunting them.
‘I’ve sent Janvier out to cover the race-courses,’ said Maigret as he smoked his pipe. ‘Where are they racing today?’
‘Vincennes.’
‘The same as last Tuesday, I’m wondering if it wasn’t at Vincennes that Li’l Albert’s adventures s
tarted. Preliminary inquiries have already been made around the race-courses but without appreciable results. At that stage, we were only interested in an ex-waiter. Today, it’s different. We now have to ask questions at the various betting windows, and especially those where the bigger bets are placed, five hundred or a thousand francs, and see if they have a customer, male, still young, with a foreign accent.’
‘Maybe the course’s own security people have already spotted him?’
‘Well, I don’t suppose he goes by himself. Two and a half million in five months takes some spending.’
‘And it must come to a lot more than that,’ said Colombani. ‘In my report, I only gave figures I was sure of. They are the amounts the gang definitely got away with. But it’s very likely the farmers had other hiding places whose locations were extracted by torture. I wouldn’t be surprised if the real total was four millions and upwards. What could those lousy scum from Rue du Roi-de-Sicile have spent it on? Not on clothes. They never went out. They ate and drank at home. Even allowing for the fact that there are five of them, it would take a good long time for them to eat and drink their way through even one million francs’ worth. And yet their raids had followed at short intervals.’
‘The leader must have taken the lion’s share.’
‘I’m wondering why the others would have allowed him to do that.’
There were a lot more questions which Maigret kept asking himself, so many in fact that there were times when he got sick of thinking and, passing one hand across his forehead, he would fix his eyes on an arbitrary point, the geranium in the distant window, for instance. But it was no good. Even here, in his own home, he was completely bogged down in this investigation and felt anxious about everything that was going on at that same moment in Paris and the suburbs. He had not yet arranged for Maria to be transferred to the infirmary in the Santé prison. But he had made sure that the afternoon editions of the papers published the name of the hospital to which she had been taken.
‘I assume you’ve sent a few inspectors out there to stand guard?’ asked Colombani.
‘Four, in addition to the uniformed men. The hospital has several exits. Today is visiting day.’
‘Do you think they’ll make a move?’
‘I don’t know. But given that they’re all crazy about her, I wouldn’t be surprised if at least one of them would try something regardless of the risks. Not to mention the fact that every one of them probably believes that he’s the father. And if they believe that, they’ll want to see the kid and the mother. It’s a dangerous game, and the danger comes not so much from me but from the others.’
‘I don’t get you.’
‘They killed Victor Poliensky, didn’t they? Why? Because it was very likely he’d lead us to them. If any one of them looks as if he’s about to fall into our hands, I’d be amazed if the others would let him go on living.’
Maigret drew on his pipe, looking pensive. Colombani lit a gold-tipped cigarette and said:
‘The first thing they’ll try to do is contact their leader, especially if their funds are running low.’
Maigret looked at him mildly but then his eyes hardened. He got to his feet, thumped the table with one hand and cried:
‘Oaf! What a fool I am! That never occurred to me!’
‘But you don’t know where he lives …’
‘That’s just the point! I’d bet they don’t know either. The man who set up the whole operation and gives the villains their orders is certain to have covered his back. What was it the hotel-keeper told me? That he would come to Rue du Roi-de-Sicile and give them instructions before they went out on every job? Got it? Has the penny started to drop?’
‘Not quite.’
‘What do we know about him, or what can we deduce? We’re looking for him at race meetings. Do you think they are more stupid than us? You’re quite right! Even as we speak they are unquestionably trying to track him down. To ask him for money, perhaps, but in any case to bring him up to date and ask for his advice or for new instructions. I bet none of them slept in a bed last night. Where would you expect them to go?’
‘To Vincennes?’
‘It’s more than likely. If they haven’t split up, they’ll have sent at least one of their number. But if they have separated without agreeing what each should do, it wouldn’t surprise me if all three of them have gone there. We had a glorious opportunity to round up the lot of them without even knowing who they are! It’s easy to spot men of that type in a crowd. And to think that Janvier is there, and I haven’t told him how to act accordingly! If we had thirty inspectors in the paddock and public enclosures we’d collar the lot of them! What’s the time now?’
‘It’s too late! The sixth race finished half an hour ago.’
‘Dammit! You think you’ve covered everything! When I went to bed at two, I was convinced that I had done all I could do. I had men studying payslips from Citroën and searching the Javel district. Laennec Hospital is surrounded. Every part of Paris where men like the Czechs might go to ground is being combed. Down-and-outs and tramps are being formally questioned. Hotels are being checked. Moers, in his lab on the top floor, is analysing every last hair we found in the rooms in Rue du Roi-de-Sicile.
‘Meanwhile, our gallant band have probably had an opportunity to exchange a few words with their boss.’
It seemed that Colombani was also a keen race-goer, for he wasn’t far wrong. The phone rang. It was Janvier.
‘I’m still at Vincennes, sir. I tried to get you at HQ.’
‘Is the last race over?’
‘Finished half an hour ago. I’ve stayed on with the cashiers who man the betting windows. It was hard trying to get anything out of them while the racing was going on, because they work under such pressure. It beats me how they don’t make mistakes. I questioned them about the bets, as you’ll remember. A man who sits at a thousand-franc window was immediately struck by my question. He’s travelled around central Europe and is able to tell different languages from each other. “A Czech?” he said. “I’ve got one who persistently bets the limit, almost always puts it on outsiders. For a while, I thought he must be from the embassy.”’
‘Why?’
‘Seems he’s a well-set-up sort, well bred, always elegantly turned out. He loses most of the time but doesn’t seem to mind. He just gives a little smile. But that’s not the reason why the cashier remembers him, it’s the woman who regularly accompanies him.’
Maigret gave a sigh of relief and turned to Colombani with a delighted glance as if to say:
‘We’ve got them!’
‘A woman! At last!’ he cried into the mouthpiece. ‘Is she foreign?’
‘A Parisienne. Hang on! That’s precisely why I’m still at the race-course. If I’d been able to talk to the cashier sooner, he would have pointed both of them out to me, for they were here this afternoon.’
‘What about the woman?’
‘Well, she’s very young, very good-looking, it seems, wears the very best haute couture clothes. But that’s not all, sir. The cashier told me that she’s a movie actress. He doesn’t go to the cinema very often and doesn’t know the names of the stars. But he reckons she probably isn’t a star, but takes the supporting roles. I mentioned a whole list of names but got no reaction.’
‘What time is it?’
‘Quarter to six.’
‘Since you’re out at Vincennes, I want you to go to Joinville. It’s not far. Ask your cashier to go with you.’
‘He says he’ll do whatever he can to help.’
/> ‘There are studios just after the bridge. Generally film-producers keep photographs of actors, including those who play small parts, and they use their collection when they are casting a new film. Got that?’
‘Got it. Where should I call you?’
‘At home.’
He was relaxed when he sat down in his chair again.
‘It might work,’ he said. ‘Provided he’s our Czech, obviously.’
He filled the gold-rimmed liqueur glasses, knocked his pipe out and refilled it.
‘I have a feeling we’re going to have a busy night. Did you arrange for that little girl to be brought?’
‘She’s been on the way since three o’clock. I’ll be going soon to meet her at Gare du Nord myself.’
The little girl from the Manceau farm, miraculously the sole survivor of the carnage and the only one who saw any of the assailants: Maria, now lying on her hospital bed with a baby by her side.
The phone rang again. From now on, he would never know what to expect when he picked up the receiver.
‘Hello?’
Again, Maigret’s eyes remained fixed on his colleague, but this time they were filled with irritation. He spoke in a muffled voice. For some time, he merely muttered answers at almost regular intervals.
‘Yes … Yes … Yes …’
Colombani tried to work out what was going on. But not being able to understand was made all the more galling by the fact that he could hear a buzzing sound from the receiver punctuated at intervals by stray, detached syllables.
‘In ten minutes? … Of course … Exactly as I promised …’
Why did Maigret seem as if he were holding back? Again, his mood had changed completely. No child waiting for Christmas was ever more impatient or excited, yet he was forcing himself to be calm and even to look grim-faced.
When he hung up, instead of saying anything to Colombani, he opened the door which led to the kitchen.
‘Your aunt and her husband are on their way,’ he said.
‘Eh? … What are you talking about? … But …’
Maigret's Dead Man Page 15
