The inspector didn’t work alone. The events worked for him, almost independently of him. He had to keep up, not be overtaken by them.
This was how it had been since the Ulrich discovery. Only this morning, Maigret had no clue as to the identity of the body in the Canal Saint-Martin.
Now he knew he was a second-hand dealer who doubled as a loan shark, to whom the haberdasher owed money.
Now he had to follow this thread. A quarter of an hour later, he was ringing the bell at the Feinsteins’ apartment on the fifth floor of a building in Boulevard des Batignolles. A rather dim-looking maid with unkempt hair came to answer the door and seemed unsure whether she should let him in or not. But at that same moment Maigret spotted James’s hat hanging in the hallway.
Was this the wheels of the case turning relentlessly onwards, or was it a spanner in the works?
‘Is your mistress at home?’
The maid looked as if she was fresh up from the country, and he took advantage of her uncertainty to enter. He went to a door behind which he could hear voices, knocked and entered immediately.
He already knew the apartment. It was indistinguishable from most of the other lower-middle-class apartments in the area – a narrow sofa and rickety-looking armchairs with gilt feet. The first person he saw was James, who was standing in front of the window, staring out at the street.
Madame Feinstein was dressed to go out – all in black with a fetching little crêpe hat. She seemed extremely animated.
Despite this, she displayed no sign of annoyance when she saw Maigret, unlike James, who seemed put out, even embarrassed.
‘Come in, inspector. You’re not disturbing anything. I was just about to tell James how stupid he is.’
‘Ah.’
It had all the appearance of a domestic tiff. James pleaded, with no great hope:
‘Please, Mado …’
‘No! Be quiet! I’m talking to the inspector.’
Resigned, James turned back to look at the street, where he could have seen little more than the heads of the passers-by.
‘If you were an ordinary policeman, inspector, I wouldn’t be talking to you like this. But as you were our guest at Morsang, and as you are clearly a man who is capable of understanding these things …’
And she was a woman who was capable of talking non-stop for hours, capable of calling the whole world as her witness, capable of reducing even the most talkative person to complete silence!
She wasn’t especially beautiful. But she had a seductive quality, particularly in her mourning dress which, rather than giving her a sad appearance, made her look even more alluring. She was curvy, vivacious; she would have made an excellent mistress.
There couldn’t be a greater contrast with the phlegmatic James, with his lugubrious face and his wandering gaze.
‘Everyone knows I am Basso’s mistress, don’t they? I’m not ashamed of it. I’ve never made any secret of it. At Morsang, no one had any problem with it. If my husband had been a different sort of man …’
She barely paused for breath.
‘If he’d been able to sort out his financial problems. Look at this dump. I have to live here. He was never around. Or when he was, in the evening after dinner, all he ever talked about was money problems, the business, his staff, stuff like that. But what I say is, if you can’t give your wife the life she deserves, you can’t complain if she goes off with someone else …
‘Anyway, Marcel and I planned to get married one day. You didn’t know? Naturally we didn’t shout it from the rooftops. But for his son, he’d have started divorce proceedings already. I’d have done the same.
‘You’ve seen his wife, haven’t you? Not at all the sort of woman a man like Marcel needs.’
In the corner, James sighed. He was now staring at the carpet.
‘Where do you think my duty lies? Marcel is in trouble, he’s wanted by the police, he may have to go abroad. Don’t you think that I should be there by his side? Tell me, just say what you think.’
‘Hmm … well,’ Maigret mumbled in a non-committal fashion.
‘Exactly! You see, James? The inspector agrees with me. Never mind the gossip. I don’t care what people think. But James won’t tell me where I can find Marcel. He knows, I’m sure he does. He won’t even deny it.’
Luckily Maigret had come across women like her before, otherwise he could have been suffocated by this tirade. He was not surprised by her complete lack of conscience.
It was less than two weeks since Feinstein had been killed, apparently by Basso.
And here was his wife, in their dreary apartment, with her husband’s picture on the wall and his cigarette holder still in the ashtray, talking about her ‘duty’.
James’s face spoke volumes. Not just his face! His whole slumped posture seemed to be saying: ‘Can you believe this woman?’
She turned towards him.
‘You see, the inspector …’
‘The inspector said no such thing.’
‘I hate you! You’re not a real man. You’re afraid of everything. Suppose I tell him why you came here today …’
This took James so by surprise that his face went bright red. He was blushing like a child, to the roots of his hair. He tried to speak, but the words didn’t come out. He tried to regain his composure, but only managed to emit a strained laugh.
‘Go on, you may as well tell him now.’
Maigret was watching the woman. She was a little thrown by what James had said.
‘I didn’t mean to …’
‘No, you never mean to do anything! But you always end up doing it anyway!’
The room seemed smaller, more intimate. Mado shrugged her shoulders as if to say: ‘Fine, I will. On your head be it.’
‘Excuse me,’ the inspector interjected, trying to keep a straight face as he spoke to James, ‘I noticed you addressed her as tu. As I recall, in Morsang you were more formal …’
He could scarcely disguise his amusement, so great was the contrast between the James he knew and the sorry figure now standing in front of him. James had the look of a naughty schoolboy waiting outside the headmaster’s study.
At his apartment, with his wife crocheting in the other corner, he had maintained a certain aloof demeanour.
Here, he seemed a stammering wreck.
‘You must have worked it out by now. Yes, Mado and I were lovers too.’
‘Luckily not for long,’ she sneered.
He seemed disconcerted by this remark. He looked to Maigret for help.
‘There you have it. It was a long time ago. My wife never knew about it.’
‘And wouldn’t she let you know about it if she did!’
‘Knowing her as I do, I would never hear the last of it as long as I lived. So I came to ask Mado not to say anything if she was questioned.’
‘And did she agree?’
‘Only on the condition that I gave her Basso’s current address. Can you believe that? He’s with his wife and child. He’s probably already left the country.’
He said that last bit less decisively. He was lying.
Maigret sat down in one of the armchairs, which gave a creak under his weight.
‘Were you lovers for long?’ he asked, like some friend of the family.
‘Too long!’ Madame Feinstein snapped.
‘Not long … a few months,’ James sighed.
‘Did you meet in a furnished apartment like the one in the Avenue Niel?’
‘No! James rented a place in Passy.’
‘Were you already going to Morsang at the weekend?’
‘Yes.’
‘And Basso?’
‘Yes. It’s been the same gang for the last seven or eight years, with one or two exceptions.’
‘Did Basso know yo
u were lovers?’
‘Yes. He wasn’t in love with me then. He only became interested about a year ago.’
In spite of himself, Maigret felt jubilant. He looked round the little apartment, with its useless and rather hideous ornaments, and remembered James’s rather more modern and pretentious studio, with its doll’s house plywood partitions.
Then he thought of Morsang, the Vieux-Garçon, the canoes and sailing-boats, the rounds of drinks on the shady terrace, in a gentle, beautiful landscape.
For the last seven or eight years, every Sunday, the same group of people had been drinking aperitifs together, and playing bridge and dancing to records in the afternoon.
But in the beginning it was James who slipped off into the bushes with Mado. It was also he, no doubt, who first drew Feinstein’s sarcastic gaze, he who had midweek rendezvous with her in Paris.
Everyone knew. Everyone turned a blind eye and was complicit in covering for Mado’s affairs.
Among them her affair with Basso, who one day fell for her charms himself.
And now Maigret was enjoying this little scene in the apartment, what with James standing there looking pitiful and Mado forging on regardless.
It was to the latter that Maigret said:
‘How long is it since you were James’s mistress?’
‘Let’s see … five … no, six years, more or less.’
‘And how did it end? Did he break it off or did you?’
James tried to speak, but she cut him off:
‘It was mutual. We realized that we weren’t right for each other. Despite his airs and graces, James is as petit bourgeois as they come. Perhaps even more so than my husband.’
‘Did you remain good friends?’
‘Of course, why not? It wasn’t that we stopped liking each other …’
‘One question for you, James. Did you lend any money to Feinstein around this time?’
‘Me?’
But Mado answered his question:
‘What are you driving at? Lend my husband money? Why?’
‘No reason. Just idle curiosity. However, Basso did lend your husband money …’
‘That’s different. Basso is a wealthy man. My husband had financial problems. He was talking about taking me to America. Basso wanted to avoid any complications, so he lent him money …’
‘That’s all very well. But mightn’t your husband have mentioned the possibility of going to America six years ago?’
‘What are you insinuating?’
She was about to get on her high horse. Rather than face her blustering outrage, Maigret changed his tack:
‘I’m sorry, I must have been thinking aloud. I assure you I didn’t mean to insinuate anything. You and James were free agents. That’s what a friend of your husband told me, a Monsieur Ulrich …’
Through half-closed eyes he observed both their reactions. Madame Feinstein looked surprised.
‘A friend of my husband?’
‘Or a business associate.’
‘That’s more likely. I’ve never heard that name mentioned. What did he say to you? …’
‘Oh, nothing. We were discussing men and women in general.’
And James also looked surprised, but in the manner of a man who smells a rat and is trying to work out where this is all leading.
‘This is all very well, but it doesn’t get away from the fact that he knows where Marcel is and won’t tell me,’ said Madame Feinstein, rising from her chair. ‘No matter, I’ll find him myself. Anyway, he’s bound to write to me to ask me to join him. He can’t get by without me …’
James couldn’t resist a sideways glance at Maigret, a look that was as mournful as it was ironic. It could be translated as: ‘Do you think he’s going to write to her? Do you think he wants a woman like her on his back all over again?’
She spoke to him:
‘Is that your final word, James? Is that all the thanks I get, after everything I’ve done for you?’
‘Have you done a lot for him?’ Maigret asked.
‘Why … he was my first lover! … Before he came along I’d never have dreamed of cheating on my husband. He was different then. He didn’t drink. He looked after himself. He still had hair.’
And so the scales continued to oscillate between tragedy and complete farce. It was hard to hold on to the reality of the case: that Ulrich was dead, that someone had carried him to the Canal Saint-Martin, that six years later, behind the lean-to of the Two-Penny Bar, Feinstein had been shot dead and that Basso and his family were on the run from the police.
‘Do you think he could have left the country, inspector?’
‘I don’t know …’
‘If he needed your help you’d give it, wouldn’t you? You’ve been his guest. You’ve seen what sort of man he is.’
‘I have to get to the office! I’m already running late,’ said James, searching each of the chairs for his hat.
‘I’ll come out with you,’ Maigret added hastily. He certainly had no desire to be left alone with Madame Feinstein.
‘Are you in a hurry?’
‘I, er, have things to do, yes. But I’ll be back.’
‘Marcel will be grateful for your support. He knows how to show his appreciation.’
She was proud of her diplomatic skills. She could now envisage Maigret driving Basso to the border and being given a wad of banknotes for his pains.
When Maigret came to shake her hand, she held it for a long time, meaningfully. Indicating James, she murmured:
‘We can’t be too hard on him, what with his drinking and all.’
The two men didn’t speak as they walked along Boulevard des Batignolles. James strode ahead, staring at the ground in front of him. Maigret puffed contentedly on his pipe and seemed to be enjoying the spectacle of the street.
It was only when they reached the corner of Boulevard Malesherbes that the inspector casually asked:
‘Is it true that Feinstein never asked you for money?’
James shrugged his shoulders:
‘He knew that I didn’t have any.’
‘Weren’t you working at the bank in Place Vendôme?’
‘No. At that time I was working as a translator for an American oil company in Boulevard Haussmann. I was earning less than a thousand francs a month.’
‘Did you have a car?’
‘I used the métro … as I still do, incidentally.’
‘Did you have your apartment then?’
‘No. We lived in a rented place on Rue de Turenne.’
He was tired. There was an expression of disgust on his face.
‘Do you want a drink?’
And, without waiting for a reply, he went into the bar on the street corner and ordered two brandies and water.
‘Personally, I couldn’t give a damn. But I just don’t want my wife to be bothered. She has enough troubles as it is.’
‘Is she not well?’
Another shrug of the shoulders.
‘You don’t imagine she has much of a life, do you? Apart from Sundays at Morsang, where she can have a bit of fun.’
He threw a ten-franc note on to the counter, then changed the subject abruptly:
‘Are you coming to the Taverne Royale tonight?’
‘Maybe.’
As he came to shake Maigret’s hand, he hesitated, looked away and murmured:
‘What about Basso … have you discovered anything?’
‘Classified information, I’m afraid,’ said Maigret with a smile, full of bonhomie. ‘You like him, don’t you?’
But James was already on his way. He hopped on to a passing bus heading towards Place Vendôme.
Maigret stood there on the kerb for at least five minutes, quietly smoking his pipe.
9. Twe
nty-Two Francs of Ham
At Quai des Orfèvres they were looking for Maigret everywhere, for he had been sent a telegram from the police station at La Ferté-Allais:
Basso family found. Await your instructions.
It had been a combination of scientific deduction and sheer luck.
The scientific part was the tests on the car that James abandoned at Montlhéry, tests which narrowed down the field of inquiry to a small sector centred on La Ferté-Allais.
Then the luck came into it. The police had searched all the inns and kept watch on the streets without success. They had even questioned a hundred or so people in the town, but had drawn a blank.
Then, on this same day, a policeman named Piquart came home for lunch as usual. His wife was feeding the baby, so she said to him:
‘Could you nip down to the grocer’s for some onions? I forgot to buy them earlier.’
A small-town grocer’s shop on the market square. There were four or five shops in total. The policeman, who didn’t much like these errands, stood by the door, looking uninterested, while the grocer served an old woman known in the town as old Mathilde. He overheard the grocer say to her:
‘You’re pushing the boat out. Twenty-two francs’ worth of ham! Are you going to eat that all by yourself?’
Automatically, Piquart looked at the old woman, who was obviously very poor. And as the ham was being sliced, his brain began to whirr. Even at his house, where there were three of them, they never bought twenty-two francs’ worth of ham at one go.
He followed the woman when she left the shop. She lived in a little house on the Bellancourt road, with hens pecking round in the small garden out the front. He let her go inside, then he knocked and asked to be let in in the name of the law.
Madame Basso was working at the kitchen stove, an apron tied round her waist. In the corner, sitting on a rush chair, Basso was reading the newspaper that the old woman had just brought him. The child was sitting on the floor, playing with a puppy.
The police had phoned Maigret’s apartment in Boulevard Richard-Lenoir, then a few other places where he might have been found. They hadn’t thought to try Basso’s offices on the Quai d’Austerlitz.
The Two-Penny Bar Page 9
