The Two-Penny Bar

by Georges Simenon

  ‘Fresh tar,’ one of them said.

  And the other examined a special map provided by the transport department, looking for places within their circle where there were current roadworks. There were four or five, all in different directions. The first expert said:

  ‘Chalk deposits.’

  Now they consulted a military map. Maigret walked up and down glumly, smoking his pipe.

  ‘No calcareous soil in the Fontainebleau area, but between La Ferté-Allais and Arpajon …’

  ‘I’ve found some grains of wheat in the tread …’

  And so the evidence accumulated. The maps became covered in blue and red lines.

  At two o’clock they rang the town hall at La Ferté-Allais to find out whether any firm in the town was currently using Portland cement in such a way that some of it could have found its way on to the road. They didn’t get their answer until three o’clock:

  ‘There’s building work going on at the Essonne mills. There’s cement on the main road from La Ferté to Arpajon.’

  They had pinned down one thing. The car had definitely passed through there. The experts took away a few other objects to examine more closely in the laboratory.

  Maigret checked off all the towns and villages within the circle on the map, and rang round the relevant police stations and municipal offices.

  At four o’clock, he left his office intending to interrogate Victor, whom he had not seen since the previous day and who was now held in the temporary cell at the foot of the stairs at the police headquarters. As he descended the stairs, however, he had an idea. He returned to his office and telephoned the accountant of Basso’s firm.

  ‘Hello! Police! Could you tell me the name of your bank? … The Banque du Nord, Boulevard Haussmann. Thank you.’

  He had himself driven to the bank, where he asked to see the manager. Five minutes later, Maigret had another lead in his inquiry. At ten o’clock that morning, James had cashed a cheque for 300,000 francs drawn up by Marcel Basso.

  The cheque was dated four days previously.

  ‘Boss, the guy downstairs wants to see you. Says he has something important to tell you.’

  Maigret walked ponderously downstairs and entered the cell, where Victor was sitting on a bench, leaning on the table with his head in his hands.

  ‘I’m listening.’

  The prisoner stood up briskly. He had a cunning look on his face. Shifting from one foot to the other, he said:

  ‘You haven’t found anything yet, have you?’

  ‘Still pursuing our inquiries.’

  ‘See, you haven’t found anything yet. I’m not stupid … Anyway, last night I had a bit of a think.’

  ‘You’ve decided to talk?’

  ‘Hold on! We need to reach an understanding. I don’t know if Lenoir talked or not. If he did, he didn’t tell you everything. Without me, you won’t get anywhere. That’s a fact. You’re stuck, and you’re going to stay that way. So, this is what I’ve got to say. Information like that’s got to be worth something. Got to be worth a lot. Let’s say I went and found the murderer and told him I was going to tell the police everything. Don’t you think he’d cough up whatever I asked for?’

  Victor had that triumphant look of the underdog who suddenly finds himself in a position of power. All his life the police had hassled him, and now he felt that he had the upper hand. He was strutting around looking very pleased with himself.

  ‘So there it is. Why would I talk? Why would I harm someone who hasn’t done me any wrong? You think you can put me away for vagrancy? You’re forgetting my lung. They’ll send me to a hospital, then to a sanatorium.’

  Maigret looked at him steadily, but didn’t say a word.

  ‘How’s about 30,000 francs? It’s not a lot. Just enough to see me through to the end, which can’t be long now. Thirty grand – what’s a piddling amount like that to the government?’

  He imagined he already had the money in his hands. He was exultant. He was interrupted by a coughing fit, which brought tears to his eyes, but they were like tears of triumph. Wasn’t he smart? Wasn’t he in the driving seat?

  ‘That’s my final offer. Thirty thousand francs and I tell you everything. You’ll get your man. There’ll be a promotion in it for you. You’ll have your name in the papers. Otherwise, nothing! You can do what you like with me. Just remember, it all took place six years ago, and there were only two witnesses: Lenoir, who won’t be saying any more, and yours truly …’

  ‘Is that it?’ asked Maigret, who had remained standing the whole time.

  ‘You think it’s too much?’

  Victor felt a pang of disquiet at Maigret’s calm, inscrutable reaction.

  ‘I’m not scared of you, you know.’ He gave a forced laugh. ‘I know the score. You could rough me up a bit, but I’d tell the papers how the police beat up a poor invalid with one lung …’

  ‘Are you finished?’

  ‘Don’t think you’ll find the truth on your own. If you ask me, 30,000 francs is not much to pay …’

  ‘Are you finished?’

  ‘And if you think I’m stupid enough to go after the guy if you let me go, you’ve got another think coming. I won’t write to him, I won’t ring him …’

  His tone had changed now. He felt the ground slipping under him, but he was still trying to put on a brave face.

  ‘Anyway, I want to see a lawyer. You can’t keep me here more than twenty-four hours.’

  Maigret blew out a little puff of smoke, thrust his hands in his pockets and left the cell. On the way out he said to the warder:

  ‘Lock him in.’

  He was angry, and now he was on his own he could let it show in his face. He was angry because he had this idiot in his grasp, at his mercy, but he couldn’t get anything out of him.

  And that was because he was an idiot, because he thought he was cunning and tough!

  He thought he could use his lung as a form of blackmail!

  Three or four times during this interview, the inspector had almost struck him across the face, to knock some sense into him, but had managed to restrain himself.

  In truth, his hand was not a strong one. Legally, he had nothing on Victor.

  He had plenty of previous form, for sure; he’d led his whole life going from one petty crime to the next. But there was nothing new, except a vagrancy charge, that Maigret could get him on.

  And he was right about the lung. He’d have everyone on his side. The newspapers would devote several column inches to portraying the police as monsters.

  Dying man beaten by police!

  So he stood there calm as you like, demanding to be paid 30,000 francs! And he was right when he said they would soon have to release him!

  ‘Let him out tonight at around one o’clock. Tell Sergeant Lucas to follow him and not to let him out of his sight.’

  And Maigret clenched his teeth round the stem of his pipe. Victor knew, and he only had to say one word. Now Maigret was stuck with having to concoct theories out of diverse, and sometimes contradictory, evidence.

  He hailed a taxi and barked at the driver:

  ‘To the Taverne Royale!’

  James wasn’t there. Eight o’clock came and he still hadn’t turned up. The doorman at the bank confirmed that he had left at five as usual.

  Maigret had a meal of choucroute, then phoned his office around 8.30.

  ‘Has the prisoner asked to see me?’

  ‘Yes. He says he’s given the matter more thought and he’s willing to come down to 25,000. That’s his final offer. And he wants it put on the record that a man in his condition shouldn’t be fed bread without butter and be forced to stay in a cell where the temperature never gets above sixteen degrees.’

  Maigret put down the receiver. He went for a short walk in the
Boulevards, then caught a taxi to Rue Championnet, where James lived. His block was enormous, like a barracks. It contained small apartments inhabited by office workers, commercial travellers and small investors.

  ‘Fourth, on the left.’

  There was no lift, so the inspector slowly climbed the stairs, catching a whiff of cooking or hearing children’s voices from behind the doors on each landing.

  James’s wife answered the door. She was dressed in a pretty royal-blue dressing gown – it wasn’t particularly luxurious, but it didn’t look that cheap either.

  ‘You wish to speak to my husband?’

  The entrance hall was barely wider than a dining-table. On the walls were pictures of sailing-boats, bathers, young men and women in sporting garb.

  ‘It’s for you, James!’

  She pushed open a door, ushered Maigret through and sat back down in her armchair next to the window, where she picked up her crochet.

  The other apartments in the block were still decorated in the style of the last century, with their Henry II and Louis-Philippe furniture.

  This apartment, however, felt more like Montparnasse than Montmartre. It owed more to the decorative arts in style, but seemed to be the work of an amateur.

  Plywood partitions had been erected at odd angles, and most of the furniture had been removed to make way for shelving painted in bright colours.

  The carpet was in a single colour, a rather lurid green. The lampshades were meant to resemble parchment.

  It all looked smart and fresh, but seemed to lack solidity; you felt that the walls might give way if you leaned on them and that the paintwork was not quite dry.

  Above all, especially when James stood up, you felt that the apartment was too small for him, that he was boxed in and had to be careful not to bash into things when he moved around.

  An open door to the right revealed the bathroom, where there was only just enough space for the bath. The kitchen was no more than a galley, with a spirit stove on a bench.

  James was sitting in a small chair with a cigarette in his mouth and a book in his hands.

  Maigret had the distinct impression that there was no contact at all between these two people.

  They each sat in their own corner, James reading, his wife crocheting, with only the sound of the cars and trams outside the window to break the silence.

  No hint of intimacy whatsoever.

  He stood up, offered Maigret his hand, smiling awkwardly, as though he were embarrassed to be seen in such a place.

  ‘How are you, Maigret?’

  But his familiar cordiality had a different ring in this doll’s house of an apartment. It seemed to clash with the furnishings, the carpet, the modern ornaments arranged on the shelves, the wallpaper, the fancy lampshades …

  ‘I’m fine, thank you.’

  ‘Take a seat. I was just reading an English novel.’

  And his expression was saying:

  ‘Don’t mind all this. It’s none of my doing. I don’t feel at home here.’

  His wife listened in, without interrupting her work.

  ‘Do we have anything to drink, Marthe?’ he asked her.

  ‘You know we don’t!’

  Then to the inspector:

  ‘It’s his fault. If we ever get any bottles of liquor in, they get drunk within a couple of days. He has enough to drink when he’s out.’

  ‘Inspector, what do you say we go down to the bistro?’

  But before Maigret could respond, James frowned as he looked at his wife, who must have been making urgent signals to him.

  ‘If you’d like to …’

  He closed his book with a sigh and started fidgeting with a paperweight lying on a low table next to him.

  The room was not more than four metres long, and yet it felt like two rooms, as if two people lived their lives here without ever crossing each other’s path.

  The wife, who had decorated the flat entirely to her own taste, spent her time sewing, embroidering, cooking, making dresses, while James would come home every evening at eight and eat his dinner without saying a word, then read until bedtime, when that sofa covered with brightly coloured cushions was pulled out to form a bed.

  It was easier now to understand James’s need for his ‘little bolt-hole’ on the terrace of the Taverne Royale, with his glass of Pernod in front of him.

  ‘Sure. Let’s go.’

  And James leaped to his feet with a sigh of relief.

  ‘Could you wait a moment while I get my shoes?’

  He was wearing slippers. He squeezed between the bath and the wall. The bathroom door was still open, but his wife didn’t bother lowering her voice:

  ‘Don’t pay any attention. He’s not like other people.’ And she started counting her stitches: ‘Seven … eight … nine … Do you think he knows something about the business at Morsang?’

  ‘Where is the shoehorn?’ James muttered as he rummaged noisily through a cupboard.

  She looked at Maigret as if to say ‘You see what I mean?’

  James finally emerged from the bathroom, once more looking too large for the room, and said to his wife:

  ‘I’ll be back soon.’

  ‘I’ve heard that before.’

  He motioned to the inspector to get a move on, no doubt fearing his wife might change her mind. Even in the stairwell he seemed too big, as if he didn’t match the décor.

  The first building on the left was a bar frequented by taxi drivers.

  ‘It’s the only one around here.’

  The dim lighting glinted off the zinc counter. There were four men playing cards at the back of the bar.

  ‘Ah, Monsieur James, the usual?’ said the landlord, rising from his seat. He already had a bottle of brandy in his hand.

  ‘And what would you like, sir?’

  ‘The same.’

  James rested his elbows on the bar and asked:

  ‘Did you go to the Taverne Royale? I thought so. I couldn’t get there today …’

  ‘Because of the 300,000 francs.’

  James’s face displayed neither surprise nor embarrassment.

  ‘What would you have done in my place? Basso is a friend. We’ve drunk together hundreds of times. Cheers!’

  ‘I’ll leave you the bottle,’ said the landlord. He was obviously used to James and was anxious to get back to his card game. James didn’t seem to hear but continued:

  ‘Basically he didn’t have a chance. A woman like Mado. Talking of whom, have you seen her recently? She came by my office earlier to ask if I’d seen Marcel. Can you believe that? It’s like that guy with his car. He’s supposed to be a friend, but now he rings me to say that he’s going to have to ask me to pay for the repairs and the charge for releasing his car from police custody. Your good health! What do you think of my wife? She’s nice, isn’t she?’

  And James poured himself another glass of brandy.

  7. The Second-Hand Dealer

  There was something about James that Maigret found very interesting. As he drank, instead of becoming glassy-eyed, like most people, his gaze became more and more acute, until it acquired a sharpness that was almost penetrating.

  He never removed his hand from his glass, except to refill it. His voice was slurred, faltering, lacking in conviction. He looked at no one in particular. He seemed to be melting into the background.

  The card players at the back of the bar hardly spoke. The lights reflected dully off the zinc counter.

  And James’s voice was also dull when he sighed:

  ‘It’s weird. A man like you – strong, intelligent – and others too. Uniformed cops, judges, loads of people. How many are there involved in this? A hundred, maybe, if you include the clerks typing up the case notes, the telephonists passing on the orders … Let’s call it a h
undred people working day and night all because Feinstein got plugged by one tiny little bullet.’

  He looked at Maigret, and the inspector was unable to tell whether he was being sincere or ironic.

  ‘Cheers! It’s all worth it, isn’t it? And all this time poor old Basso is being hunted like an animal. Last week, he was rich. He had his business, his car, his wife and son. Now he can’t stick his head out of his hole.’

  James shrugged his shoulders. His voice slurred even more. He looked round the room with an expression of weariness or disgust.

  ‘And what’s it all about, eh? A woman like Mado with an appetite for men. Basso lets himself get snared – let’s face it, you don’t knock back opportunities like that when they come along. She’s a good-looking girl. Spirited. You tell yourself it’s just a bit of fun. You get together and spend an hour or two in a furnished apartment …’

  James took a large swig then spat on the floor.

  ‘Stupid, isn’t it? One man ends up dead. A family is ruined. And the whole machinery of the law swings into action. Even the papers come along for the ride.’

  The strangest thing was that there was no vehemence in his voice. He seemed to be talking aimlessly, gazing round the room at nothing in particular.

  ‘And that’s trumps,’ the landlord said triumphantly from the back of the room.

  ‘And Feinstein, who has spent his whole life chasing after money, trying to sort out his finances. Because that’s what his life has been – one long nightmare of unpaid bills and invoices. To the point where he has to put the squeeze on his wife’s lovers. And that’s obviously worked well, now that he’s dead …’

  ‘Now that he’s been killed,’ Maigret corrected him dreamily.

  ‘Do we really know which of the two actually killed the other?’

  There was a heavy, morbid quality to James’s words that fitted in with the growing gloom inside the bar.

  ‘It’s stupid! It’s so obvious what happened. Feinstein needs money. He has been watching Basso since the previous evening, waiting for his chance. Even during the mock wedding, when he is dressed up as an old woman, he is still thinking about his debts! He watches Basso dancing with his wife. You see what I’m saying? So the next day he makes a move. Basso’s been tapped for money before. He doesn’t play ball. Feinstein won’t give up that easily, pulls out his sob story: ruin, shame, he’d rather end it all now … the full works. I’d lay money on it being something like that. Just what you want on a fine Sunday afternoon by the river!