The Grand Banks Café

by Georges Simenon

  One small detail. Before returning to the trawler, he headed back to the Grand Banks Café. He went up to his room. He burned a number of papers.

  When he gets out of jail, he isn’t happy, even though Marie Léonnec is there, encouraging him to look on the bright side. And somehow he manages to get hold of a revolver.

  He is afraid. He hesitates. For a long time he just sits there, eyes closed, finger on the trigger.

  And then he fires.

  As the night wore on, it turned cooler, and the smell of seaweed and iodine weighed more strongly on the breeze.

  The trawler had risen by several metres. The deck was now level with the quayside, and the push and drag of the tide caused the boat to buck sideways and made the gangway creak.

  Maigret had forgotten how tired he was. The hardest time was over. It would soon be dawn.

  He summarized:

  Captain Fallut, who had been retrieved dead from the anchor chain.

  Adèle and Gaston Buzier, who argued all the time, reached the stage where they could not stand each other and yet had no one else to turn to.

  Le Clinche, who had been wheeled out on a trolley, swathed in white, from the operating theatre.

  And Marie Léonnec …

  Not forgetting the men in the Grand Banks Café, who, even when drunk, seemed haunted by painful memories …

  ‘The third day!’ Maigret said aloud. ‘That’s where I need to look!’

  Something much worse than jealousy … But something which flowed directly from the presence of Adèle on board the boat.

  The effort took it out of him. The effect of the strain on all his mental faculties. The boat rocked gently. A light came on in the foredeck, where the sailors were about to get up.

  ‘The third day …’

  His throat contracted. He looked down on the after-deck and then along the quay, where, hours before, a man had leaned over and brandished a fist.

  Maybe it was partly the effect of the cold and maybe not. But either way he suddenly shivered.

  ‘The third day … The ship’s boy, Jean-Marie, who kicked up a fuss because he did not want to go to sea, was swept overboard by a wave, at night …’

  Maigret’s eye ran round the whole deck, as if trying to determine where the accident had happened.

  ‘There were only two witnesses, Captain Fallut and the wireless operator, Pierre Le Clinche. The next day or the day after that, Le Clinche became Adèle’s lover!’

  It was a turning point! Maigret did not loiter for another second. Someone was stirring in the foredeck. No one saw him stride across the plank connecting the boat to dry land.

  With his hands in his pockets, his nose blue with the cold, unsmiling, he returned to the Hôtel de la Plage.

  It was not yet light. Yet it was no longer night because, out at sea, the crests of waves were picked out in crude white. And gulls were light flecks against the sky.

  A train whistled in the station. An old woman set out for the rocks, a basket on her back and a hook in her hand, to look for crabs.

  10. What Happened on the Third Day

  When Maigret left his room and came downstairs at around eight that morning, his head felt empty and his chest woolly, the way a man feels when he has drunk too much.

  ‘Aren’t things going the way you’d like?’ asked his wife.

  He had given a shrug, and she had not insisted. But there on the terrace of the hotel, facing a frothing, sly-green sea, he found Marie Léonnec. And she was not alone. There was a man sitting at her table. She stood up quickly and stammered to the inspector:

  ‘May I introduce my father? He’s just got here.’

  The wind was cool, the sky overcast. The gulls skimmed the tops of the water.

  ‘An honour to meet you, sir. Deeply honoured and most happy …’

  Maigret looked at him without enthusiasm. He was short and would not have been any more ridiculous to look at than the next man but for his nose, which was disproportionately large, being the size of three normal noses and, furthermore, was stippled, like a strawberry.

  It wasn’t his fault. But it was a physical affliction. And it was all anyone saw. When he spoke it was the only thing people looked at, so that it was impossible to feel any sympathy for him.

  ‘You must join us in a little …?’

  ‘Thank you, no. I’ve just had breakfast.’

  ‘Perhaps a small glass of something, to warm the cockles?’

  ‘No, really.’

  He was insistent. Is it not a form of politeness to make people drink when they don’t want to?

  Maigret observed him and observed his daughter, who, apart from that nose, bore him a strong resemblance. By looking at her in this light, he was able to get a picture of what she would be like in a dozen years, when the bloom of youth had faded.

  ‘I’ll come straight to the point, inspector. That’s my motto, and I’ve travelled all night to do just that. When Jorissen came to me and said that he would accompany my daughter, I gave him my permission. So I don’t think anyone could say that I am at all narrow-minded.’

  Unfortunately Maigret was anxious to be elsewhere. Then there was the nose. And also the pompous tone of the middle-class worthy who likes the sound of his own voice.

  ‘Even so, it’s my duty as a father to keep myself fully informed, don’t you agree? Which is why I’m asking you to tell me, in your heart and conscience, if you think this young man is innocent.’

  Marie Léonnec did not know where to look. She must have known deep down that her father’s initiative was unlikely to help arrange matters.

  As long as she had been by herself, rushing to the aid of her fiancé, she had seemed rather admirable. Or at any rate she made a touching figure.

  But now, inside the family, it was another matter. There was more than a whiff here of the shop back in Quimper, the discussions which had preceded her departure, the tittle-tattle of the neighbours.

  ‘Are you asking me if he killed Captain Fallut?’

  ‘Yes. You must understand that it is essential that …’

  Maigret stared straight in front of him in his most detached manner.

  ‘Well …’

  He noticed the girl’s hands, which were shaking.

  ‘No, he didn’t kill him. Now, if you’ll excuse me, there’s something I really must attend to. I shall doubtless have the pleasure of meeting up with you later …’

  Then he turned tail! He fled so fast that he knocked over a chair on the terrace. He assumed that father and daughter were startled but did not turn round to find out.

  Once on the quay, he followed the paved walkway. The Océan was some distance away. Even so, he noticed that a number of men had arrived with their sailor’s kitbags slung over their shoulders and were getting their first sight of the boat. A cart was unloading bags of potatoes. The company’s man was there with his polished boots and his pencil behind his ear.

  There was a great deal of noise coming from the Grand Banks Café. Its doors were open, and Maigret could just make out Louis holding forth in the middle of a circle of the ‘new’ men.

  He did not stop. Though he saw the landlord making a sign to him, he hurried on his way. Five minutes later he was ringing the bell of the hospital.

  *

  The registrar was very young. Visible under his white coat were a suit in the latest fashion and an elegant tie.

  ‘The wireless operator? It was I who took his temperature and pulse this morning. He’s doing as well as can be expected.’

  ‘Has he come round?’

  ‘Oh yes! He hasn’t spoken to me, but his eyes followed me around all the time.’

  ‘Is it all right if I talk to him about important matters?’

  The registrar waved a hand vaguely, an indifferent gesture.

  ‘Don’t see why not. If the operation has been a success and he hasn’t got a temperature, then … You want to see him?’

  Pierre Le Clinche was by himself in a small room with
distempered walls. The air was hot and humid. He watched Maigret coming towards him. His eyes were bright, and there was not a trace of anxiety in them.

  ‘As you see, he’s making excellent progress. He’ll be on his feet in a week. On the other hand, there’s a chance that he’ll be left with a limp, for a tendon in his hip was severed. And he’ll have to take care. Would you prefer it if I leave you alone with him?’

  It was really quite disconcerting. The previous evening, a bleeding, unwholesome mess had been brought which could not possibly, it seemed, have harboured the faintest breath of life.

  And now Maigret found a white bed, a face that was slightly drawn and a little pale which was more tranquil now than he had ever seen it. And there was what looked like serenity in those eyes.

  That is perhaps why he hesitated. He paced up and down the room, leaned his head for a moment against the double window, from which he could see the port and the trawler, where men in red jerkins were busily moving about.

  ‘Do you feel strong enough to talk to me?’ he growled, firing the question without warning as he turned to face the bed.

  Le Clinche assented with a faint nod of his head.

  ‘You are aware that I am not officially involved in this case? My friend Jorissen asked me to prove your innocence. It is done. You are not the killer of Captain Fallut.’

  He sighed deeply. Then, to get it over with, he put his head down and charged:

  ‘Tell me the truth about what happened on the third day out, I mean about the death of Jean-Marie.’

  He avoided looking directly at the patient. He filled a pipe as a way of appearing casual and when the silence went on and on, he murmured:

  ‘It was evening. There were only Captain Fallut and you on deck. Were you standing together?’

  ‘No!’

  ‘The captain was walking near the afterdeck?’

  ‘Yes. I’d just left my cabin. He didn’t see me. I watched him because I felt there was something odd about the way he was behaving.’

  ‘You didn’t know at that point that there was a woman on board?’

  ‘No! I thought that if he was being so careful about keeping his door locked, it was because he was storing smuggled goods inside.’

  The voice was weary. And yet, it became suddenly more emphatic for he said distinctly:

  ‘It was the most terrible thing I ever saw, inspector! Who talked? Tell me!’

  And he closed his eyes, exactly as he had as he sat waiting for the moment when he would fire a bullet through his pocket into his belly.

  ‘Nobody. The captain was strolling on deck, feeling apprehensive no doubt, just as he had ever since he’d left port. Was there anybody at the wheel?’

  ‘A helmsman. He couldn’t see us because it was dark.’

  ‘The ship’s boy showed up …’

  Le Clinche interrupted him by heaving himself half up, both hands gripping the rope hanging from the ceiling which enabled him to change his position.

  ‘Where’s Marie?’

  ‘At the hotel. Her father has just come.’

  ‘To take her back! Fair enough. He should take her home. But whatever happens, she mustn’t come here!’

  He was getting worked up. His voice was flatter and its flow more broken.

  Maigret could sense that his temperature was climbing. His eyes were becoming unnaturally bright.

  ‘I don’t know who has been talking to you. But it’s time I told you everything.’

  His agitation had reached such a pitch, and was so vehement, that he looked and sounded as if he was almost raving.

  ‘It was awful! You never saw the kid. Skinny’s not the word. Wore clothes made from an old cut-down canvas suit of his father’s … On the first day, he’d been scared and he blubbed. How can I explain … Afterwards he got his own back by playing nasty tricks on people. What do you expect at his age? Do you know what a little brat is? Well, that was him. Twice I caught him reading the letters I wrote to my fiancée. He’d just look me brazenly in the eye and say:

  ‘“Writing to your bit of fluff?”

  ‘That evening … I think the captain was walking up and down because he was too jumpy to sleep. There was quite a swell on. From time to time, a green sea would wash over the foredeck rail and flood across the metal plates of the deck. But it wasn’t a storm.

  ‘I was maybe ten metres from them. I only heard a few words but I could see their shapes. The kid was on his high horse, he was laughing. And the captain stood there, his neck sunk in his jerkin and his hands in his pockets …

  ‘Jean-Marie had talked about my “bit of fluff” and he must have been taking the same sort of rise out of Fallut. He had a piercing voice. I remember catching a couple of words:

  ‘“And if I ever told everybody how …”

  ‘I didn’t understand until later … He’d found out that the captain was hiding a woman in his cabin. He was full of himself. There was a swagger about him. He wasn’t aware of how vindictive he was being.

  ‘Then this is what happened. The captain raised one hand to give him a cuff over the ear. The kid was very nimble and ducked. Then he shouted something, probably another threat about telling what he knew.

  ‘Fallut’s hand struck a rigging stay. It must have hurt like the devil. He saw red.

  ‘It was the fable of the lion and the gnat all over again. Forgetting he was a ship’s master, he started chasing the kid. At first, the boy ran off laughing. The captain started to panic.

  ‘A chance remark and anyone who heard it would know everything. Fallut was out of his mind with fear.

  ‘I saw him reach out to catch Jean-Marie by the shoulders, but instead of grabbing hold of him he pushed him over, head first …

  ‘That’s it. Fatalities occur. His head collided with a capstan. I heard the sound, it was awful, a dull thud. His skull …’

  He held both hands up to his face. He was deathly pale. Sweat streamed down his forehead.

  ‘A big wave swept over the deck at that moment. So it was a waterlogged body that the captain bent down to examine. At the same time, he caught sight of me. I don’t think it crossed my mind to hide. I started walking towards him. I got there just in time to see the boy’s body clench and then stiffen in a reflex that I’ll never forget.

  ‘Dead! It was so senseless! The two of us looked at each other, not taking it in, unable to understand what an appalling thing had happened.

  ‘No one else had seen or heard anything. Fallut didn’t dare touch the boy. It was me who felt his chest, his hands and that crumpled skull. There was no blood. No wound. Just the skull, which had cracked.

  ‘We stayed there for maybe a quarter of an hour, not knowing what to do, grim, shoulders frozen, while at intervals the spray lashed our faces.

  ‘The captain was not the same man. It was as if something inside him had been broken too.

  ‘When he spoke, his voice was sharp, without warmth.

  ‘“The crew mustn’t learn the truth! Bad for ship’s discipline.”

  ‘And while I looked on, he himself picked the boy up. Then just one more effort. Though … though I do remember that with his thumb he made the sign of the cross on the boy’s forehead.

  ‘The body, which had been snatched by the sea, was swept back twice against the hull. Both of us were still standing in the dark. We did not dare look at each other. We didn’t dare speak.’

  Maigret had just lit his pipe, clamping his teeth hard on the stem.

  A nurse came in. Both men watched her with eyes that seemed so vacant that she was disconcerted and stammered:

  ‘Time to take your temperature.’

  ‘Come back later!’

  When the door closed behind her, the inspector asked:

  ‘Was it then that he told you about the woman?’

  ‘From then on, he was never the same again. He probably wasn’t certifiably mad. But there was definitely something unhinged about him. He put one hand on my shoulder and murmured:

&
nbsp; ‘“And all because of a woman, young man!”

  ‘I was cold. I was not thinking straight. I couldn’t take my eyes off the sea on the side where the body had been carried away.

  ‘Did they tell you about the captain? A short, lean man with a face full of energy. He usually spoke in terse, unfinished phrases.

  ‘That was it! Fifty-five years old. Coming up to retirement. Solid reputation. A little put by in the bank. All over! Finished! In one minute! Less than a minute. On account of a kid who … No, on account of a woman …

  ‘And then and there, in the darkness, in a quiet, angry voice, he told me the whole story, bit by bit. A woman from Le Havre. A woman who couldn’t have been up to much, he was well aware of that. But he couldn’t live without her …

  ‘He’d brought her with him. And the moment he did, he had a sudden feeling that her presence on board would mean trouble.

  ‘She was there. Asleep.’

  The wireless operator began to fidget restlessly.

  ‘I can’t remember everything he told me. For he had this need to talk about her, which he did with a mixture of loathing and passion.’

  ‘“A captain is never justified in causing a scandal likely to undermine his authority.”

  ‘I can still hear those words. It was my first time out on a boat and I now thought of the sea as a monster which would swallow us all up.

  ‘Fallut quoted examples. In such a year such and such a captain, who had brought his mistress along with him … There were so many fights on board that three men never came back.

  ‘The wind was strengthening. The spray kept coming at us. From time to time, a wave would lick at our feet which kept sliding on the slippery metal deck.

  ‘He wasn’t mad, oh no! But he wasn’t Fallut any more either.

  ‘“See this trip through and then we’ll see!”

  ‘I didn’t understand what he meant. He struck me as being both sensible and freakish, a man still clinging to his sense of duty.

  ‘“No one must know! A captain can never be in the wrong!”

  ‘My nerves were so strung out I was ill with it. I couldn’t think any more. My thoughts were all jumbled up in my head, and by the finish it felt as if I was living through a waking nightmare.