‘Albert was feeling you up?’
‘No. He was holding my hands. The older one said something like: ‘I’ve decided to finish it tonight.’
‘That doesn’t mean he’s going to kill her. It could mean he’s going to steal her jewellery. No reason he couldn’t be a creditor who’s just decided to send in the bailiffs.’
‘No,’ she said, with a certain stubbornness.
‘How do you know?’
‘Because it’s not like that.’
‘He explicitly talked about killing her?’
‘I’m sure that’s what he wants to do. I don’t remember how he put it exactly.’
‘It couldn’t be a misunderstanding?’
‘No.’
‘And this was two hours ago?’
‘A bit longer.’
‘So, even though you know a man was going to commit a crime, you wait until now to come and tell us?’
‘I was scared. I couldn’t leave Picratt’s before it shut. Alfonsi is very strict about that.’
‘Even if you’d told him the truth?’
‘He’d probably have told me to mind my own business.’
‘Try to remember everything they said.’
‘They didn’t talk much. I didn’t hear everything. The band was playing. Then Tania did her act.’
The sergeant had been taking notes for a few minutes, but in an offhand way, without much conviction.
‘Do you know a countess?’
‘I don’t think so.’
‘Is there one who goes to the club?’
‘We don’t get many women coming in. I’ve never heard of a customer who might be a countess.’
‘You didn’t manage to get a look at the two men’s faces?’
‘I didn’t dare. I was afraid.’
‘Afraid of what?’
‘That they’d know I’d heard.’
‘What did they call each other?’
‘I didn’t notice. I’ve a feeling one of them is called Oscar. I’m not sure. I think I’ve drunk too much. I’ve got a headache. I want to go to bed. If I’d thought you wouldn’t believe me, I wouldn’t have come here.’
‘Take a seat.’
‘Aren’t I allowed to leave?’
‘Not this minute.’
He pointed to a bench against the wall, under the usual black and white administrative notices.
Then he immediately called her back.
‘Your name?’
‘Arlette.’
‘Your real name. Have you got your identity card?’
She took it out of her handbag and passed it to him. He read: ‘Jeanne-Marie-Marcelle Leleu, twenty-four years old, born in Moulins, choreographic artist, 42 ter, Rue Notre-Dame-de-Lorette, Paris.’
‘You’re not called Arlette?’
‘It’s my stage name.’
‘Have you done any acting?’
‘Not in real theatres.’
He shrugged and, after writing down her particulars. gave her back her card.
‘Go and sit down.’
Then he quietly asked his young colleague to keep an eye on her, went into the next-door office to make a telephone call without being heard and called the Police Emergency Service.
‘Is that you, Louis? Simon here, La Rochefoucauld station. There hasn’t been a countess murdered tonight by any chance, has there?’
‘Why a countess?’
‘I don’t know. It’s probably a joke. The girl looks a bit crazy. At any rate, she’s drunk. Apparently she heard some guys plotting to murder a countess, a countess who supposedly owns some jewellery.’
‘Dunno. Nothing on the board.’
‘If there’s anything like that, let me know.’
They talked a little longer about this and that. When Simon went back into reception, Arlette had fallen asleep, like someone in the waiting room at a railway station. The resemblance was so striking that he automatically looked for a suitcase at her feet.
At seven in the morning, when Jacquart came to relieve Sergeant Simon, she was still asleep, and Simon filled his colleague in. He saw her wake up as he was leaving, but preferred not to hang around.
She gazed in astonishment at the new policeman, who had a black moustache, then anxiously looked round for the clock and jumped up.
‘I have to go,’ she said.
‘One moment, sweetheart.’
‘What do you want from me?’
‘Maybe your memory is better after a nap than it was last night.’
She looked sullen now, and her skin had become shiny, especially around her plucked eyebrows.
‘I don’t know anything else. I’ve got to go home.’
‘What was Oscar like?’
‘What Oscar?’
The man was looking at the report Simon had written while she was asleep.
‘The one who wanted to murder the countess.’
‘I didn’t say he was called Oscar.’
‘What was he called then?’
‘I don’t know. I can’t remember what I said any more. I’d been drinking.’
‘So the whole story’s untrue?’
‘I didn’t say that. I heard two men talking in the next booth, but I only caught snatches of what they were saying, the odd word here and there. Maybe I got it wrong.’
‘So why did you come here?’
‘I’ve already told you I’d been drinking. When you’ve been drinking, you see things differently, you make a drama out of everything.’
‘There was no mention of the countess?’
‘Yes, there was . . . I think . . .’
‘Her jewellery?’
‘They talked about jewellery.’
‘And of finishing her off?’
‘That’s what I thought I understood. I was drunk by then.’
‘Who had you been drinking with?’
‘Some customers.’
‘One of whom was called Albert?’
‘Yes. I don’t know him either. I only know people by sight.’
‘Including Oscar?’
‘Why do you keep saying that name?’
‘Would you recognize him?’
‘I only saw him from behind.’
‘A person’s back can be very easy to recognize.’
‘I’m not sure. Maybe.’
Struck by a sudden thought, it was her turn to ask, ‘Has someone been killed?’
When he didn’t answer, she became very nervous. She must have had a terrible hangover. The blue of her eyes was washed out, somehow, and her smudged lipstick made her mouth look enormous.
‘Can’t I go home?’
‘Not right now.’
‘I haven’t done anything.’
There were a number of policemen in the room now, getting on with work and swapping stories. Jacquart called the Police Emergency Service, who hadn’t heard anything about a dead countess yet, then, to cover his back, telephoned Quai des Orfèvres. Lucas, who had just come on duty and wasn’t completely awake, replied, just in case:
‘Send her over to me.’
After which he didn’t give it another thought. Maigret arrived soon after and glanced through the night’s reports before taking off his overcoat and hat.
It was still raining. It was a clammy day. Most people were in a bad mood that morning.
A few minutes after nine o’clock, a Ninth Arrondissement policeman brought Arlette to Quai des Orfèvres. He was a new recruit who wasn’t familiar with the building yet and knocked on several doors, with the young woman trailing behind.
That was how he came to knock on the door of the inspectors’ office, where young Lapointe was smoking a cigarette, perched on the edge of a desk.
‘Sergeant Lucas, please?’
He didn’t notice Lapointe and Arlette looking at each other intently and when he was directed to the neighbouring office he shut the door again.
‘Sit down,’ Lucas said to the dancer.
Maigret, who was doing his usual rounds while
waiting for the briefing, happened to be in Lucas’s office, standing by the fireplace, filling a pipe.
‘This girl,’ Lucas explained to him, ‘claims to have heard two men plotting to murder a countess.’
She was very different to how she had been before: in a clear, almost shrill voice, she replied:
‘I never said that.’
‘You said you had heard two men . . .’
‘I was drunk.’
‘So you made it all up?’
‘Yes.’
‘Why?’
‘I don’t know. I was feeling blue. I was bored at the thought of going home and sort of went into the police station by accident.’
Maigret gave her a curious glance, then carried on looking through some papers.
‘So there’s never been a mention of a countess?’
‘No.’
‘None whatsoever?’
‘Maybe I heard someone talking about a countess. You know, sometimes a word jumps out when people are talking, and it sticks in your mind.’
‘Last night?’
‘Probably.’
‘And that’s what you based your story on?’
‘What, do you always know what you’re saying when you’ve been drinking?’
Maigret smiled. Lucas looked annoyed.
‘Don’t you know it’s a crime?’
‘What?’
‘To make a false statement. You could be prosecuted for wasting . . .’
‘I don’t care. All I’m asking is to be able to go to bed.’
‘Do you live on your own?’
‘Of course!’
Maigret smiled again.
‘You’ve no memory either of the customer who you drank a bottle of champagne with and who held your hands, a man by the name of Albert?’
‘I can barely remember anything. Do I have to do you a drawing? Everyone at Picratt’s will tell you I was dead drunk.’
‘Since when?’
‘I’d got started yesterday evening, if you want all the details.’
‘Who with?’
‘By myself.’
‘Where?’
‘All over, really. Different bars. You can tell you’ve never lived on your own.’
It was a funny thing to say about young Lucas, when he was trying so hard to look stern.
Judging from the weather so far, it was going to rain all day, a cold, monotonous rain from a low sky, with the lights on in all the offices and damp patches on the floors.
Lucas was dealing with another case, a break-in in a warehouse on Quai de Javel, and he was in a hurry to get going. He looked questioningly at Maigret.
‘What do I do with her?’ he seemed to ask.
As the bell for the briefing rang at that moment, Maigret shrugged his shoulders, meaning: ‘It’s your case.’
‘Do you have a telephone?’ the sergeant asked again.
‘There’s a telephone in the concierge’s lodge.’
‘Do you rent a room?’
‘No. I have my own apartment.’
‘By yourself?’
‘I’ve already said that.’
‘You’re not scared you’ll run into Oscar if I let you go?’
‘I want to go home.’
She couldn’t be detained indefinitely for making up a story in her local police station.
‘Call me if he shows up again,’ declared Lucas, getting to his feet. ‘I assume you’re not planning on leaving town?’
‘No. Why?’
He opened the door for her and watched her walk away down the huge corridor, then hesitate at the top of the stairs. Heads turned as she passed. You sensed she came from a different world, the world of the night, and there was something almost indecent about her in the harsh light of a winter’s day.
In his office, Lucas inhaled the smell she had left behind her, a woman’s smell, almost the smell of bed. He telephoned the Police Emergency Service again.
‘No countess?’
‘Nothing to report.’
Then he opened the door of the inspectors’ office.
‘Lapointe . . .’ he called without looking.
A voice that wasn’t that of the young inspector replied:
‘He’s just popped out.’
‘He didn’t say where he was going?’
‘He said he’d be back straight away.’
‘Tell him I need him. Not about Arlette or the countess, but to come to Javel with me.’
Lapointe returned a quarter of an hour later. The two men put on their coats and hats and went and caught the Métro at Châtelet.
When Maigret left the commissioner’s office, where the daily briefing had been held, he settled down in front of a stack of files, lit a pipe and promised himself not to stir all morning.
It must have been around 9.30 when Arlette left the Police Judiciaire. No one spared a thought as to whether she had taken the Métro or bus to get to Rue Notre-
Dame-de-Lorette.
Maybe she stopped at a bar to eat a croissant and drink a café-crème?
The concierge didn’t see her get back. It was a busy building, it’s true, just round the corner from Place Saint-Georges.
Eleven o’clock was just about to strike when the concierge set about sweeping Building B’s stairs and was surprised to see Arlette’s door ajar.
At Javel, meanwhile, Lapointe was distracted and preoccupied. Thinking he looked strange, Lucas asked him if he didn’t feel well.
‘I think I’m coming down with a cold.’
The two men were still questioning the neighbours of the burgled warehouse when the telephone rang in Maigret’s office.
‘This is the detective chief inspector, Saint-Georges district.’
It was the station on Rue La Rochefoucauld, which Arlette had gone into at about 4.30that morning and ended up falling asleep on a bench.
‘My secretary tells me we sent over to you this morning a girl called Jeanne Leleu, known as Arlette, who claimed to have overheard a conversation about the murder of a countess.’
‘I think I know who you mean,’ replied Maigret, frowning. ‘Is she dead?’
‘Yes. She’s just been found strangled in her bedroom.’
‘Was she in bed?’
‘No.’
‘Dressed?’
‘Yes.’
‘In her coat?’
‘No. She was wearing a black silk dress. At least that’s what my men told me a minute ago. I haven’t gone over there yet. I wanted to telephone you first. It seems that there was something in it after all.’
‘It certainly does.’
‘Still no news of the countess?’
‘Nothing so far. It may take a while.’
‘Are you going to see that the prosecutor’s informed?’
‘I’ll telephone now, then head over.’
‘I think that would be better. Strange business, isn’t it? My night sergeant wasn’t too concerned because she was drunk. See you in a moment.’
‘See you then.’
Maigret wanted to take Lucas with him but, finding his office empty, he remembered the Javel business. Lapointe wasn’t around either. Janvier had just got back and was still wearing his wet, cold raincoat.
‘Come on!’
He crammed two pipes in his pocket, as always.
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Maigret's Memoirs Page 13
