‘I suppose you must have seen his wife?’
‘Yesterday evening, yes.’
‘What did she say?’
‘She couldn’t understand why her husband was wearing yellow shoes when he died. She claimed that the killer must have put them on him.’
Like the concierge, she too had noticed the shoes.
‘No, he often wore them.’
‘Even when he was still working in Rue de Bondy?’
‘Only afterwards. Quite a long time afterwards.’
‘What do you mean by “quite a long time”?’
‘Maybe a year.’
‘Did it surprise you to see him in these yellow shoes?’
‘Yes. It was different from how he normally dressed.’
‘What did you think?’
‘That he had changed.’
‘Really changed?’
‘He wasn’t the same at all. His sense of humour was different. He would burst out in peals of laughter.’
‘He didn’t laugh before?’
‘Not in that way. There was something new in his life.’
‘A woman?’
It was cruel, but the question had to be asked.
‘Perhaps.’
‘Did he confide in you?’
‘No.’
‘Did he ever make a pass at you?’
She protested vehemently:
‘Never! I swear! I’m sure the thought never even crossed his mind.’
The cat had abandoned the old lady’s lap to settle on Maigret’s knees.
‘Leave it,’ he said as she made to shoo it off.
He didn’t dare smoke his pipe.
‘I suppose it must have been a cruel blow for all of you, when Monsieur Kaplan announced that he was closing the business?’
‘It was hard, yes.’
‘For Louis Thouret especially?’
‘Monsieur Louis was the most attached to the company. He was so used to it. Imagine, he joined the firm as a messenger boy at the age of fourteen.’
‘Where did he come from?’
‘Belleville. From what I heard, his mother was a widow, and she was the one who brought him in one day to introduce him to old Monsieur Kaplan. He was still in short trousers. He hardly ever went to school.’
‘Is his mother dead?’
‘She died a long time ago.’
Why did Maigret have the feeling that she was hiding something? She spoke openly, looked him in the eye, yet he still sensed a slight shift, as furtive as her padded footsteps.
‘I believe he had trouble finding another position.’
‘Who said that?’
‘It was a conclusion I drew from what the concierge told me.’
‘It is always tricky to find a job when you’re past forty, especially when you have no particular skills. I myself—’
‘You looked for work?’
‘Only for a few weeks.’
‘And Monsieur Louis?’
‘He looked for a lot longer.’
‘Are you guessing or do you know for a fact?’
‘I know.’
‘Did he come to see you at this time?’
‘Yes.’
‘Did you help him out?’
He was certain now: Léone was someone who had savings.
‘Why are you asking me about that?’
‘Because unless I have a clear idea of the man he was during the last few years I will have no chance of catching his murderer.’
‘Yes, I did,’ she replied after a few moments’ thought. ‘I will tell you everything, but I’d like this to remain between us. Above all, his wife mustn’t find out. She is very proud.’
‘Do you know her?’
‘He told me. His brothers-in-law have important jobs and have both had their own houses built.’
‘Him too.’
‘He had to because his wife wanted it. She was the one who demanded they live in Juvisy, like her two sisters.’
Her voice was different now, and Maigret could sense some deep resentment that had been festering for a long time.
‘Was he afraid of his wife?’
‘He never wanted to upset anyone. When we all lost our jobs, a few weeks before Christmas, he refused to let it spoil his family celebrations.’
‘He didn’t tell them? He let them believe that he was still working in Rue de Bondy?’
‘He was hoping that he would find a new position in a few days, then a few weeks. Only, there was the house.’
‘I don’t follow.’
‘He was paying for it through a mortgage, and I heard that it was a serious matter if he missed a payment on the date it was due.’
‘Who did he borrow the money from?’
‘Monsieur Saimbron and me.’
‘Who is Monsieur Saimbron?’
‘The book-keeper. He’s not working any more. He lives on his own in rooms on Quai de la Mégisserie.’
‘Does he have money?’
‘He is very poor.’
‘But the two of you lent money to Monsieur Louis?’
‘Yes. Otherwise their house would have been put up for sale and they would have been thrown out into the street.’
‘Why didn’t he ask Monsieur Kaplan?’
‘Because Monsieur Kaplan wouldn’t have given him anything. That’s how he was. When he announced that he was shutting up shop he gave us all an envelope containing three months’ salary. Monsieur Louis didn’t dare keep the money on his person, because his wife would have realized.’
‘She searched his wallet?’
‘I don’t know. Probably. I looked after his money for him, and each month he would take out the equivalent of his salary. Then, when the money ran out . . .’
‘I understand.’
‘He paid me back.’
‘How much time later?’
‘Eight or nine months. Nearly a year.’
‘Was it a while before you saw him again?’
‘More or less from February to August.’
‘Were you worried?’
‘No. I knew he’d come back. Even after he repaid all the money . . .’
‘Did he tell you that he had found a job?’
‘He told me he was working.’
‘Was he still wearing the yellow shoes?’
‘Yes. He came back from time to time. Each time he brought me a present and some sweets for Mother.’
Maybe that was why the old lady was looking at Maigret with a somewhat disappointed expression. People who came to visit her normally brought sweets, whereas Maigret had turned up empty-handed. He promised himself that, if he had to return any time, he would remember to bring some sweets himself.
‘He never mentioned any names to you?’
‘What sort of names?’
‘I don’t know. Employers, friends, colleagues . . .’
‘No.’
‘He didn’t mention any particular part of Paris?’
‘He only ever mentioned Rue de Bondy. He went back there several times. He felt bitter that they still hadn’t demolished the building.
‘“We could have stayed there another year!” he would sigh.’
A bell tinkled at the entrance, and Léone craned her neck in what must have been an habitual movement for her to see who had come into the shop. Maigret stood up.
‘I won’t bother you any longer.’
‘You’ll always be welcome.’
There was a pregnant woman standing at the counter. He picked up his hat and headed for the door.
‘Thank you.’
The two women watched him over the piles of white and pink baby clothes and linen as he climbed back inside the car.
‘Where are we going, chief?’
It was eleven o’clock in the morning.
‘Stop at the first bar.’
‘There’s one right next to the shop.’
A certain self-consciousness prevented him from going into that one, in full view of Léone.
‘G
o round the corner.’
He wanted to telephone Monsieur Kaplan and look up the exact address of Monsieur Saimbron, Quai de la Mégisserie, in the phone book.
And while he was there, since he had started the day with a calvados, he drank another one.
3. The Boiled Egg
Maigret ate lunch alone in his corner of the Brasserie Dauphine. This was significant, as he wasn’t so busy at work that he couldn’t go home for lunch. As usual, there were a number of inspectors from headquarters in there, drinking aperitifs, and they followed him with their eyes as he made his way to his usual table next to one of the windows, from which he could watch the Seine flowing by.
The inspectors, who weren’t even part of his squad, merely exchanged glances without saying a word. Whenever Maigret walked with this heavy tread and had this faraway look and demeanour that some mistook for a bad mood, everyone at the Police Judiciaire knew what that meant. And for all they were smiling, they nevertheless felt a certain respect, because sooner or later it ended the same way: a man – or a woman – confessing to their crime.
‘Would you recommend the veal stew?’
‘Of course, Monsieur Maigret.’
Maigret believed him, but nevertheless he was giving the waiter the same sort of stare he might give a suspect.
‘Beer, sir?’
‘No, a half-bottle of red.’
Purely to be contrary. If he had been offered wine, he would have asked for beer.
He hadn’t set foot in the office yet today. He had just come from Saimbron’s lodging in Quai de la Mégisserie, and the visit had left him feeling a bit queasy.
First of all, he had rung Max Kaplan’s address, only to be told that he was away at his villa in Antibes and no, they didn’t know when he would be returning to Paris.
The entrance door to the building on Quai de la Mégisserie was squashed between two shops that sold birds: there were birdcages spilling out over a large part of the pavement.
‘Monsieur Saimbron?’ he had asked the concierge.
‘Right at the top. You can’t miss it.’
He looked for a lift but there wasn’t one, so he had to mount six flights of stairs on foot. It was an old building, and the walls were dark and dirty. The landing at the top was illuminated by a skylight, and on the left, next to the door, hung a red and black cord like you see on certain dressing gowns. He pulled it. This produced a pathetic little sound on the other side of the door. Then he heard some light footsteps; the door opened, and he saw an almost ghostly face, long, pale and bony, with a few days’ worth of grey stubble and weeping eyes.
‘Monsieur Saimbron?’
‘That’s me. Please come in.’
This welcome, short though it was, was interrupted by a fit of dry coughing.
‘I’m sorry. It’s my bronchitis . . .’
There was a stale, sickly smell pervading the room. Maigret could hear the hiss of a gas ring, a pan of water boiling.
‘Detective Chief Inspector Maigret of the Police Judiciaire . . .’
‘Yes. I thought you’d come. You or one of your colleagues.’
The table was covered by a leaf-patterned tablecloth of the sort you don’t see any more except at flea markets. On it lay a newspaper open at the page where Louis Thouret’s death was announced in a few short lines.
‘You were about to have lunch?’
Next to the newspaper were a plate, a glass of water with a dash of wine in it and a chunk of bread.
‘It can wait.’
‘Please carry on as if I weren’t here.’
‘My egg will be hard-boiled by now anyway.’
The old man decided to go and get it. The hiss of the gas ring ceased.
‘Sit down, inspector. I’d advise you to take your coat off. I have to keep this place very hot, because of my old bronchial tubes.’
He must have been almost the same age as Mademoiselle Léone’s mother, but he had no one to take care of him. He probably never received any visitors either in these rooms, whose only hint of luxury was a view over the Seine and, beyond, the Palais de Justice and the flower market.
‘Has it been a while since you last saw Monsieur Louis?’
The conversation had lasted half an hour, because of the frequent coughing fits and also because Monsieur Saimbron ate his egg with unbelievable slowness.
And what did Maigret get out of it in the end? Nothing he hadn’t learned already from the concierge or Léone.
For Saimbron too the closure of Kaplan’s had been a disaster, and he didn’t even try to find another job. He had a bit of money saved up. For years and years he had believed that it would be enough to keep him in his retirement. But because of currency devaluations he only had enough, literally, to fend off starvation; that boiled egg was probably his only solid nourishment of the day.
‘Luckily I’ve lived here for forty years!’
He was an old man, without children or any family.
When Louis Thouret had come to see him he had had no hesitation in lending him the money he asked for.
‘He told me it was a matter of life or death, and I could see he was telling the truth.’
Mademoiselle Léone had also lent him money.
‘He paid it back a few months later.’
But during those months did it ever cross his mind that Monsieur Louis might never return? And in that case, how would Monsieur Saimbron have paid for his daily egg?
‘Did he come to see you often?’
‘Two or three times. The first time was when he brought me my money. He gave me a meerschaum pipe as a present.’
He went to get it from a shelf. No doubt he had to be sparing with tobacco too.
‘How long since you last saw him?’
‘The last time was three weeks ago, on a bench in Boulevard Bonne-Nouvelle.’
Was the old book-keeper drawn back to the neighbourhood where he had worked most of his life? Did he make the occasional pilgrimage there?
‘Did you speak to him?’
‘I sat down next to him. He offered to buy me a drink in a nearby café, but I declined. The sun was shining. We chatted and watched the world go by.’
‘Was he wearing yellow shoes?’
‘I didn’t notice his shoes. That detail escaped me.’
‘Did he tell you what he was doing?’
Monsieur Saimbron shook his head. The same discretion as Mademoiselle Léone. Maigret felt he understood them both. He was beginning to grow attached to Monsieur Louis, even though all he had seen of him was his astonished expression at the moment he died.
‘How was he when you left him?’
‘I had the impression that someone was hanging around the bench and making signals to my companion.’
‘A man?’
‘Yes, a middle-aged man.’
‘What was he like?’
‘The sort of man you see sitting on benches in this neighbourhood. In the end he sat down next to us, without saying a word. I left. When I turned round, I saw the two of them deep in conversation.’
‘Friendly?’
‘They didn’t seem to be arguing.’
That was it. Maigret had gone back downstairs, decided against returning home and ended up in his favourite corner of the Brasserie Dauphine.
It was a grey day. The Seine was dull and lustreless. He had another glass of calvados with his coffee then went to his office, where he found a stack of paperwork waiting for him. A little later Coméliau, the examining magistrate, called him on the telephone.
‘What do you make of this Thouret affair? The public prosecutor put me on the case this morning and told me you were handling it. Just a straightforward violent mugging, I suppose?’
Maigret responded with a grunt that expressed neither yes nor no.
‘The family are asking for the body. I didn’t want to do anything before checking with you first. Do you still need it?’
‘Has Doctor Paul examined it?’
‘He has just give
n me his report over the telephone. He will send me the written version this evening. The knife penetrated the left ventricle, and death was virtually instantaneous.’
‘No other wounds or signs of a struggle?’
‘Nothing.’
‘Then I see no reason why the family can’t reclaim the body. I would simply like the clothes to be sent to the laboratory.’
‘OK. Keep me posted.’
Coméliau didn’t usually handle things this gently. It was probably due to the fact that the press had hardly mentioned the case at all and he had written it off as a violent mugging. He wasn’t interested in that; no one was.
Maigret poked the stove, filled his pipe and for nearly an hour occupied himself with administrative matters: writing notes on reports, signing off others, making the occasional humdrum phone call.
‘Can I come in, chief?’
It was Santoni, dressed to the nines as usual and, also as usual, exuding a scent of hair oil that would lead his colleagues to remark:
‘You stink like a tart.’
Santoni was twitching with excitement.
‘I think I’m on to something.’
Maigret didn’t react but looked at him with his large, cloudy eyes.
‘The first thing is that the office where the girl works, Geber and Bachelier’s, is a debt-collection agency. Just small potatoes, really. They buy up bad debts at a knock-down price then squeeze the debtors. It’s not so much office work as home visits and arm-twisting. The Thouret girl only works in Rue de Rivoli in the morning; every afternoon she visits the debtors in their homes.’
‘I see.’
‘Hard-up people, mainly, the ones who are most easily intimidated and end up coughing up. I didn’t see the managers. I waited outside the office entrance at midday, making sure the daughter didn’t see me, and spoke to another one of the employees, a woman not in the first flush of youth, who obviously resented her younger colleague.’
‘And . . .?’
‘Our Monique has a boyfriend.’
‘Do you know his name?’
‘I’m getting there, chief. They’ve known each other about four months and meet every day for lunch in a cheap restaurant on Boulevard Sébastopol. He is young, only nineteen, and works as a sales assistant in a large bookshop on Boulevard Saint-Michel.’
Maigret was playing with the pipes arranged on his desk. Even though his present one wasn’t yet finished, he started to fill another one.
Maigret and the Man on the Bench Page 4
