The Two-Penny Bar

by Georges Simenon

  ‘Victor Gaillard!’

  He calmly closed the card and returned it to its owner. The old woman came back up from the cellar and closed the trapdoor.

  ‘Nice and cold,’ she said, opening the bottle of beer.

  And she went back to peeling potatoes while the two men began talking in a steady, dispassionate tone.

  ‘Last address?’

  ‘The municipal sanatorium in Gien.’

  ‘When did you leave?’

  ‘A month ago.’

  ‘And since then?’

  ‘I’ve been broke, on the road. You could arrest me for vagrancy, but they’d just put me back in a sanatorium. I’ve only got one lung left.’

  There was nothing self-pitying in his tone. On the contrary, it was as if he were presenting his credentials.

  ‘Did you get a letter from Lenoir?’

  ‘Who’s Lenoir?’

  ‘Stop messing about. He told you you’d find your man at the Two-Penny Bar.’

  ‘I’d had enough of the sanatorium.’

  ‘And thought you’d squeeze a bit more out of the guy from the Canal Saint-Martin!’

  The old woman listened without understanding, without showing any surprise. It was as if they were having an everyday conversation in this rundown country kitchen, where a hen had wandered in and was pecking away around their feet.

  ‘Have you got nothing to say?’

  ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’

  ‘Lenoir told me everything.’

  ‘I don’t know any Lenoir.’

  Maigret shrugged his shoulders, lit his pipe and repeated:

  ‘Stop messing about! You know I know what you’re up to.’

  ‘What’s the worst they can do? Send me back to the sanatorium.’

  ‘I know, I know … you’ve only got one lung.’

  Some canoes glided past on the river.

  ‘What Lenoir told you is true. Your man is here.’

  ‘I’m not saying anything.’

  ‘So much the worse for you. If you haven’t changed your mind by this evening, I’ll have you locked up for vagrancy. After that, we’ll see …’

  Maigret looked him in the eye. He could read him like a book. He’d met his sort before.

  A different kettle of fish entirely from Lenoir. Victor was the sort who rode on the back of the bigger villains, the one who’s always put on lookout duty and gets the smallest share of the loot.

  He was one of those types who is easily led astray and doesn’t have the strength of character to get back on the rails. He had started hanging around the streets and the dance halls at the age of sixteen. With Lenoir, he had landed on his feet that night at the Canal Saint-Martin, and had managed to live off the proceeds of his blackmail as if it were a regular salary.

  But for his tuberculosis, he would probably have become a stooge in Lenoir’s gang. But his ill health meant he ended up in the sanatorium. He must have driven the doctors and nurses to despair with his thieving and petty misdemeanours. Maigret guessed that he had faced the courts on more than one occasion and had been in and out of various sanatoriums, hospitals, hospices and young offenders’ institutions.

  He wasn’t afraid. He had the same answer to everything: his lung. He’d be living off it until the day it killed him.

  ‘What do I care?’

  ‘Are you refusing to tell me the name of the man at the Canal?’

  ‘Don’t know what you’re talking about.’

  There was an ironic twinkle in his eyes as he said this. He bit off a large chunk of sausage and started chewing it assiduously.

  ‘I know Lenoir wouldn’t have said anything,’ he murmured, after a pensive pause. ‘Not like that, right at the end …’

  Maigret stayed cool. He knew he had the upper hand. What’s more, he now had a new means of getting to the truth.

  ‘Another beer, please, madame.’

  ‘A good thing I brought three bottles up.’

  She gave Victor a curious look, as if trying to work out what crime he could have committed.

  ‘To think you were well taken care of in the sanatorium and you left. Just like my son! He’d rather have his freedom than …’

  Maigret watched the canoes row past in the bright sunlight outside. It was nearly time for drinks. A sailing-boat containing James’s wife and two of her friends pulled in at the riverbank outside. The three women beckoned to a canoe, which followed close behind. Other boats followed. The old woman sighed:

  ‘My son hasn’t got back yet. I won’t be able to manage on my own. My daughter has gone to fetch the milk.’

  Nevertheless, she gathered up some glasses, which she took out to the tables on the terrace, then she dug some loose change out of a pocket concealed under her petticoat.

  ‘They’ll need some pennies for the piano.’

  Maigret stayed where he was, one eye on the new arrivals and the other on his sickly companion, who continued to munch away unperturbed. And he noticed the Bassos’ villa in the background, with its blooming garden, its diving-board next to the river, its two boats moored at the bank, the child’s swing.

  He gave a sudden start when he heard what sounded like a shot being fired in the distance. The people next to the river looked up too. But there was nothing to be seen. Nothing happened. Ten minutes went by. The guests from the Vieux-Garçon took their seats around the tables. The old woman came out, carrying several bottles of aperitif.

  Then a dark figure ran down the Bassos’ lawn. Maigret recognized one of the police officers. He fumbled with the chain of one of the boats, got in and started rowing towards them with all his might.

  Maigret stood up and turned to Victor.

  ‘You … stay put.’

  ‘Happy to oblige.’

  Outside, everyone had stopped ordering drinks, intent on the sight of the officer rowing across. Maigret walked down to the reeds by the river and waited impatiently.

  ‘What’s happened?’

  The officer was out of breath.

  ‘Get in … I swear it wasn’t my fault.’

  With Maigret on board, he started rowing back across to the villa.

  ‘It was all quiet. The greengrocer had just been round. Madame Basso was walking in the garden with the child. I don’t know why, I just had this feeling something was up – like they were expecting something. Then a car pulled up, a brand-new car. It parked just outside the gate, and a man got out.’

  ‘Balding, in his thirties?’

  ‘That’s right! He came into the garden and started walking with Madame Basso and the boy. You know where my observation post is … it’s a fair distance away. They shook hands. The woman walked the man back to the gate. He climbed in and turned on the ignition. And before I could make a move, Madame Basso jumped in with the boy, and the car sped off.’

  ‘Who fired the shot?’

  ‘I did. I was trying to puncture a tyre.’

  ‘Was Berger with you?’

  ‘Yes. I sent him to Seine-Port to phone around everyone.’

  This was the second time they’d had to alert all the police stations in Seine-et-Oise. The boat reached the far bank. Maigret went into the garden. But what could they do there now? There was nothing to do but phone around and alert the other stations.

  Maigret bent over to pick up a woman’s handkerchief, embroidered with Madame Basso’s initials. She had pulled it to ribbons as she had nervously waited for James to appear.

  What upset the inspector the most was the thought of all those hours he had whiled away drinking Pernod with the Englishman on the terrace of the Taverne Royale. Now he resented that. He was annoyed that he had let down his guard and allowed himself to be sucked in.

  ‘Shall I carry on keeping an eye on the villa?’
/>
  ‘In case the bricks run off? No, go and find Berger. Then the two of you help with the search. Try and get hold of a motorbike, and bring me hourly updates.’

  On the kitchen table, next to the vegetables, there was an envelope bearing James’s writing:

  To be delivered without fail to Madame Basso.

  Obviously the greengrocer had delivered the letter. It told the young woman what was going to happen. That’s why she was nervously patrolling the garden with her son.

  Maigret rowed back to the Two-Penny Bar. He found the group gathered round the vagrant. Someone had given him an aperitif, and the doctor was asking him questions. Victor had the cheek to give the inspector a look as if to say:

  ‘I’m busy. Leave me alone …’

  And he continued with his explanation:

  ‘He was an important professor, apparently. They filled my lung with oxygen, right, and then they sealed it like a balloon …’

  The doctor smiled at the way he described it, but nodded to his companions to show that what he was saying was true.

  ‘Now they have to do the same thing with the half-lung on the other side, because you’ve got two lungs, see, or in my case one and a half.’

  ‘And you drink alcohol?’

  ‘Yeah. Cheers.’

  ‘Do you get cold sweats at night?’

  ‘Sometimes. When I sleep in draughty barns.’

  ‘What are you drinking, inspector?’ someone asked. ‘Has something happened that they had to come and fetch you like that?’

  ‘Tell me, doctor, did James borrow your car this morning?’

  ‘He asked if he could take it for a spin. He’ll be back soon …’

  ‘I very much doubt it.’

  The doctor gave a start, then tried to smile as he stammered:

  ‘You’re joking, of course …’

  ‘I assure you I’m quite serious. He’s just used it to abduct Madame Basso and her son.’

  ‘What … James?’ the doctor’s wife asked, unable to believe her ears.

  ‘Yes, James.’

  ‘It must have been a joke. He really likes a good hoax.’

  Victor was greatly amused by this. He sipped his drink and looked at Maigret with a sardonic smile.

  The landlord returned from Corbeil in his little pony and trap. As he was unloading the bottles of soda water, he happened to say:

  ‘What a palaver! You can’t go down the road now without being stopped by the police. Luckily they know who I am.’

  ‘Was this on the road to Corbeil?’

  ‘Yes, just a few minutes ago. There are ten of them next to the bridge. They’re stopping cars and asking everyone to show their papers. So there’s a tailback of about thirty cars.’

  Maigret turned away. It was nothing to do with him. It had to be done, but it was an extremely crude and heavy-handed method. And it was a lot for people to put up with two Sundays in a row, in the same département, especially for a small-scale crime that had had very little coverage in the newspapers.

  Had he lost track of the case? Had he been left floundering in the wake of events? Once again the memory of the hours spent drinking with James in the Taverne Royale came back to haunt him.

  ‘What are you drinking?’ he heard a voice ask. ‘A large Pernod?’

  The very word was enough to remind him of the week gone by, the Sunday get-togethers of the Morsang crowd, the whole disagreeable case.

  ‘A beer,’ he replied.

  ‘At this hour?’

  The well-meaning waiter who had offered him the aperitif was taken aback at the fury of Maigret’s response:

  ‘Yes, at this hour!’

  Victor, too, received a bad-tempered look. The doctor was talking about him to the fishermen:

  ‘I’ve heard of the treatment, but I’ve never seen such a thoroughgoing application of the technique of pneumothorax …’

  Then, in a whisper:

  ‘Not that it’ll make much difference. I’d give him a year at most …’

  Maigret had lunch at the Vieux-Garçon, ensconced in a corner like a wounded beast, growling if anyone came near. Twice the police officer came on his motorbike to report in.

  ‘Nothing. The car was spotted on the road to Fontainebleau, but hasn’t been seen since.’

  Marvellous! A traffic jam on the Fontainebleau road! Hundreds of cars held up!

  Two hours later, it was reported that a car matching the description of the doctor’s car had filled up at a petrol station at Arpajon. But was it the right one? The petrol-pump attendant had sworn there was no woman in the car.

  Finally, at five o’clock, a message from Montlhéry. The car had been seen doing circuits of the racetrack, as if on a time trial, when it blew a tyre. By sheer chance a policeman had asked the driver for his licence. He didn’t have one.

  It was James, and he was on his own. They were waiting for Maigret’s instructions whether to let him go or lock him up.

  ‘They were brand-new tyres,’ the doctor moaned. ‘And on its first time out! I’m beginning to think he’s mad. Or else he’s drunk, as usual.’

  And he asked Maigret if he could come with him.

  6. Haggling

  They made a detour to the Two-Penny Bar to pick up Victor. Once he was in the car, he turned and gave the landlord a look which meant something like ‘You see the special treatment I’m getting?’

  He was sitting on the fold-down seat, facing Maigret. The window was wound down, and he had the impudence to ask:

  ‘Do you mind if I close it? It’s because of my lung, you know.’

  At the track there were no races on today. There were a few drivers doing practice laps in front of the empty stands. The emptiness of the place, if anything, made it seem more vast.

  A short distance away, a parked car; a police officer was standing next to a man in a leather helmet who was on his knees tinkering with his bike.

  ‘Over there,’ the inspector was told.

  Victor was fascinated by a racing-car hurtling round the track at around 200 kilometres an hour. Now he opened the window so he could lean out to get a better view.

  ‘It’s my car all right,’ said the doctor. ‘I hope it isn’t damaged …’

  Then they saw James, standing quite calmly next to the motorcyclist, stroking his chin, giving advice on how to fix the engine. When he saw Maigret and his companions approach, he murmured:

  ‘That was quick!’

  Then he looked at Victor from head to toe, as if wondering what he was doing there.

  ‘Who’s this?’

  If Maigret had been hoping for something from this meeting, he was disappointed. Victor scarcely noticed the Englishman, he was too interested in watching the racing-car. The doctor was already inspecting the inside of his car for any signs of damage.

  ‘Have you been here long?’ the inspector growled.

  ‘I’m not sure … quite long, yes.’

  He was so self-possessed, it was unbelievable. You wouldn’t think to look at him that he had just whisked away a woman and her child from under the noses of the police, and because of him the entire Seine-et-Oise force was on a state of alert.

  ‘Don’t worry,’ he said to the doctor. ‘Nothing worse than a puncture. The rest of the car is intact. It’s a good machine … the clutch is a little sticky, perhaps …’

  ‘Did Basso ask you yesterday to pick up his wife and child?’

  ‘You know very well I can’t answer questions like that, my dear Maigret.’

  ‘And I don’t suppose you will tell me where you dropped them off?’

  ‘I’m sure if you were in my shoes …’

  ‘I’ll give you credit for one thing, something even a professional criminal wouldn’t have thought of.’

  James was m
odestly surprised.

  ‘What’s that?’

  ‘The racetrack. Having delivered Madame Basso safely, you didn’t want the police to find the car straight away. And since there were roadblocks everywhere, you thought of the racetrack. You could have driven round and round for hours.’

  ‘I’d always fancied having a go at it, you know.’

  But the inspector wasn’t listening. He dashed over to the doctor, who was attempting to fit the spare tyre.

  ‘I’m sorry, the car stays put until we receive the order to release it.’

  ‘What? But this is my car! I haven’t done anything …’

  It was no use protesting. The car was put into a lock-up, and Maigret took away the key. The policeman awaited instructions. James smoked a cigarette. Victor was still watching the racing-cars.

  ‘Take him away,’ said Maigret, indicating Victor, ‘and put him in a cell.’

  ‘What about me?’ James asked.

  ‘Do you still have nothing to say to me?’

  ‘Not really. Put yourself in my shoes!’

  Maigret sulkily turned his back on him.

  Maigret was delighted when it began to rain on the Monday. The grey weather chimed in better with his mood and the tedious tasks of the day.

  Among them, he had to write a report on the events of the day before, in which he had to justify his deployment of the officers under his command.

  At eleven o’clock, two officers from Criminal Records came to collect him from his office, and all three of them took a taxi to the racetrack, where Maigret was able to do little except watch his colleagues at work.

  They knew that the doctor had clocked up only sixty kilometres since buying the car. The dial now showed 210 kilometres. They reckoned that James must have done about fifty kilometres at the racetrack.

  That left about a hundred kilometres to account for. The distance between Morsang and Montlhéry was barely forty kilometres by the most direct route.

  Using this information, they were able to mark a circle on a route map showing the maximum area the car could have reached.

  The two experts worked meticulously. They carefully scraped the tyres, gathered up the dust and other debris and examined it under a magnifying glass, putting some of it aside for further analysis.