Pietr the Latvian

by Georges Simenon

  Despite this, the receptionists and interpreters behind the polished wood counter were as elegant and efficient as ever.

  ‘Police … A guest in a green cape … Small fair mousta—’

  ‘Room 17, sir. His bags are on their way up right now …’

  2. Mixing with Millionaires

  Inevitably Maigret was a hostile presence in the Majestic. He constituted a kind of foreign body that the hotel’s atmosphere could not assimilate.

  Not that he looked like a cartoon policeman. He didn’t have a moustache and he didn’t wear heavy boots. His clothes were well cut and made of fairly light worsted. He shaved every day and looked after his hands.

  But his frame was proletarian. He was a big, bony man. Iron muscles shaped his jacket sleeves and quickly wore through new trousers.

  He had a way of imposing himself just by standing there. His assertive presence had often irked many of his own colleagues.

  It was something more than self-confidence but less than pride. He would turn up and stand like a rock with his feet wide apart. On that rock all would shatter, whether Maigret moved forward or stayed exactly where he was.

  His pipe was nailed to his jawbone. He wasn’t going to remove it just because he was in the lobby of the Majestic.

  Could it be that Maigret simply preferred to be common and self-assertive?

  You just couldn’t miss the man wearing a big black velvet-collared overcoat in that brightly lit lobby, where excitable society ladies scattered trails of perfume, tinkling laughter and loud whispers amidst the unctuous compliments of impeccable flunkeys.

  He paid no attention. He wasn’t part of the flow. He was impervious to the sound of jazz floating up from the dance-floor in the basement.

  The inspector started to go up one of the stairs. A liftboy called out and asked if he wanted to take the lift, but Maigret didn’t even turn round.

  At the first landing someone asked him:

  ‘Are you looking for …?’

  It was as is if the sound waves hadn’t reached him. He glanced at the corridors with their red carpets stretching out so far that they almost made you sick. He went on up.

  On the second floor he read the numbers on the bronze plaques. The door of no. 17 was open. Valets with striped waistcoats were bringing in the luggage.

  The traveller had taken off his cloak and looked very slender and elegant in his pinstripe suit. He was smoking a papirosa and giving instructions at the same time.

  No. 17 wasn’t a room, but a whole suite: lounge, study, bedroom and bathroom. The doors opened onto two intersecting corridors, and at the corner, like a bench placed by a crossroads, there was a huge, curved sofa.

  That’s where Maigret sat himself down, right opposite the open door. He stretched out his legs and unbuttoned his overcoat.

  Pietr saw him and, showing neither surprise nor disquiet, he carried on giving instructions. When the valets had finished placing his trunks and cases on stands, he came to the door, held it open for an instant to inspect the detective, then closed it himself.

  Maigret sat there for as long as it took to smoke three pipes, and to dismiss two room-service waiters and one chambermaid who came up to inquire what he was waiting for.

  On the stroke of eight Pietr the Latvian came out of his room, looking even slimmer and smarter than before, in a classically tailored dinner jacket that must have come from Savile Row.

  He was hatless. His short, ash-blond hair was already thinning. His hairline was set far back and his forehead not especially high; you could glimpse a streak of pink scalp along the parting.

  He had long, pale hands. On the fourth finger of his left hand he wore a chunky platinum signet ring set with a yellow diamond.

  He was smoking again – another papirosa. He walked right up to Maigret, stopped for a moment, looked at him as if he felt like saying something, then walked on towards the lift as if lost in thought.

  • • •

  Ten minutes later he took his seat in the dining room at the table of Mr and Mrs Mortimer-Levingston. The latter was the centre of attention: she had pearls worth a cool million on her neck.

  The previous day her husband had come to the rescue of one of France’s biggest automobile manufacturers, with the result that he was now its majority shareholder.

  The three of them were chatting merrily. Pietr talked a lot, but discreetly, with his head leaning forwards. He was completely at ease, natural and casual, despite being able to see the detective’s dark outline through the glazed partition.

  Inspector Maigret asked reception to show him the guest list. He wasn’t surprised to see that Pietr had signed in under the name of Oswald Oppenheim, ship-owner, from Bremen.

  It was a foregone conclusion that he had a genuine passport and full identity papers in that name, just as he no doubt did in several others.

  It was equally obvious that he’d met the Mortimer-Levingstons previously, whether in Berlin, Warsaw, London or New York.

  Was the sole purpose of his presence in Paris to rendezvous with them and to get away with another one of the colossal scams that were his trademark?

  Maigret had the Latvian’s file card in his jacket pocket. It said:

  Extremely clever and dangerous. Nationality uncertain, from Baltic area. Reckoned to be either Latvian or Estonian. Fluent in Russian, French, English and German. High level of education. Thought to be capo of major international ring mainly involved in fraud. The ring has been spotted successively in Paris, Amsterdam (Van Heuvel case), Berne (United Shipowners affair), Warsaw (Lipmann case) and in various other European cities where identification of its methods and procedures was less clear.

  Pietr the Latvian’s associates seem to be mainly British and American. One who has been seen most often with him and who was identified when he presented a forged cheque for cash at the Federal Bank in Berne was killed during arrest. His alias was Major Howard of the American Legion, but it has been established that he was actually a former New York bootlegger known in the USA as Fat Fred.

  Pietr the Latvian has been arrested twice. First, in Wiesbaden, for swindling a Munich trader out of half a million marks; second, in Madrid, for a similar offence involving a leading figure at the Spanish royal court.

  On both occasions he used the same ploy. He met his victims and presumably told them that the stolen sums were safely hidden and that having him arrested would not reveal where they were. Both times the complaint was withdrawn, and the plaintiffs were probably paid off.

  Since then has never been caught red-handed.

  Is probably in cahoots with the Maronnetti gang (counterfeit money and forged documents) and the Cologne gang (the ‘wall-busters’).

  There was another rumour doing the rounds of European police departments: Pietr, as the ring-leader and money-launderer of one or more gangs, was said to be sitting on several million that had been split up under different names in different banks and even invested in legitimate industries.

  The man smiled subtly at the story Mrs Mortimer-Levingston was telling, while with his ivory hand he plucked luscious grapes from the bunch on his plate.

  • • •

  ‘Excuse me, sir. Could I please have a word with you?’

  Maigret was speaking to Mortimer-Levingston in the lobby of the Majestic after Pietr and Mortimer’s wife had both gone back up to their rooms.

  Mortimer didn’t have the athletic look of a Yank. He was more of the Mediterranean type.

  He was tall and thin. His very small head was topped with black hair parted down the middle.

  He looked permanently tired. His eyelids were weary and blue. In any case he led an exhausting life, somehow managing to turn up in Deauville, Miami, Venice, Paris, Cannes and Berlin before getting back to his yacht and then dashing off to do a deal in some European capital or to referee a major boxing match in New York or California.

  He looked Maigret up and down in lordly fashion.

  ‘And you are …?’

/>   ‘Detective Chief Inspector Maigret of the Flying Squad …’

  Mortimer barely frowned and stood there leaning forwards as if he had decided to grant just one second of his time.

  ‘Are you aware you have just dined with Pietr the Latvian?’

  ‘Is that all you have to say?’

  Maigret didn’t budge an inch. It was pretty much what he’d expected.

  He put his pipe back in his mouth – he’d allowed himself to remove it in order to speak to the millionaire – and muttered:

  ‘That’s all.’

  He looked pleased with himself. Levingston moved off icily and got into the lift.

  It was just after 9.30. The symphony orchestra that had been playing during dinner yielded the stage to a jazz band. People were coming in from outside.

  Maigret hadn’t eaten. He was standing calmly and patiently in the middle of the lobby. The manager repeatedly gave him worried and disapproving looks from a distance. Even the lowliest members of staff scowled as they passed by, when they didn’t manage to jostle him.

  The Majestic could not stomach him. Maigret persisted in being a big black unmoving stain amidst the gilding, the chandeliers, the comings and goings of silk evening gowns, fur coats and perfumed, sparkling silhouettes.

  Mrs Levingston was the first to come back down in the lift. She had changed, and now wore a lamé cape lined with ermine that left her shoulders bare.

  She seemed astonished not to find anyone waiting for her and began to walk up and down, drumming the floor with her gold-lacquered high heels.

  She suddenly stopped at the polished wooden counter where the receptionists and interpreters stood and said a few words. One of the staff pushed a red button and picked up a handset.

  He looked surprised and called a bellboy, who rushed to the lift.

  Mrs Mortimer-Levingston was visibly anxious. Through the glass door you could see the sleek shape of an American-made limousine standing at the kerb.

  The bellboy reappeared, spoke to the member of staff, who in his turn said something to Mrs Mortimer. She protested. She must have been saying:

  ‘But that’s impossible!’

  Maigret then went up the staircase, stopped outside suite 17, knocked on the door. As he’d expected after the circus he’d just watched, there was no answer.

  He opened the door and found the lounge deserted. Pietr’s dinner jacket was lying casually on the bed in the bedroom. One trunk was open. A pair of patent-leather shoes had been left at opposite ends of the carpet.

  The manager came in and grunted:

  ‘You’re already here, are you?’

  ‘So? … Vanished, has he? Levingston as well! Is that right?’

  ‘Now there’s no need to go overboard. Neither of them is in his room, but we’ll probably find them somewhere else in the hotel.’

  ‘How many exits are there?’

  ‘Three. The main entrance on the Champs-Élysées … Then there’s the entrance in the covered mall, and the service entrance on Rue de Ponthieu …’

  ‘Is there a security guard? Call him …’

  The telephone worked. The manager was in a temper. He took it out on an operator who couldn’t understand him. He kept his gaze fixed on Maigret, and it was not kind.

  ‘What does all this mean?’ he asked as he waited for the guard to come up from the glass-walled box where he was on duty beside the service entrance.

  ‘Nothing, or almost, as you said …’

  ‘I hope there’s not been a … a …’

  The word crime, dreaded like the plague by hoteliers the world over from the humblest lodging-house landlord to the manager of a luxury resort, just would not pass his lips.

  ‘We’ll find out.’

  Mrs Mortimer-Levingston appeared.

  ‘Well? …’ she inquired.

  The manager bowed and muttered something. A figure appeared at the far end of the corridor – an old man with a straggly beard and ill-cut clothes at odds with the luxurious appearance of the hotel. He was obviously meant to stay in the back, otherwise he too would have been given a fine uniform and been sent to the barber every day.

  ‘Did you see anyone go out?’

  ‘When?’

  ‘In the last few minutes …’

  ‘A guy from the kitchen, I think … I wasn’t paying attention … A guy with a cap …’

  ‘Was he short? Fair?’ Maigret interrupted.

  ‘Yes … I think so … I wasn’t watching … He was quick …’

  ‘Nobody else?’

  ‘I dunno … I went round the corner to buy the paper …’

  Mrs Mortimer-Levingston began to lose her temper.

  ‘Well now! Is that how you conduct a manhunt?’ she said to Maigret. ‘I’ve just been told you’re a policeman … My husband might have been killed … What are you waiting for?’

  The look that then fell upon her was Maigret through and through! Completely calm! Completely unruffled! It was as if he’d just noticed the buzzing of a bee. As if what he had before him was something quite ordinary.

  She was not accustomed to being looked at in that way. She bit her lip, blushed crimson beneath her make-up and stamped her heel with impatience.

  He was still staring at her.

  Because he was pushing her to the limit, or perhaps because she didn’t know what else to do, Mrs Mortimer-Levingston threw a fit.

  3. The Strand of Hair

  It was nearly midnight when Maigret got back to his office on Quai des Orfèvres. The storm was at its peak. The trees on the riverbank were rattling back and forth and the wash-house barge was tossing about in the waves.

  The building was almost empty. At least Jean was still at his post in the lobby at the entrance to a corridor of empty offices.

  Voices could be heard coming from the duty room. Then, further down, there was light streaking out from beneath a door – a detective or an inspector working on some case. One of the official cars in the courtyard below was running its engine.

  ‘Is Torrence back?’ Maigret asked.

  ‘He’s just come in.’

  ‘My stove?’

  ‘It was so hot in your office I had to open the window. There was condensation running down your wall!’

  ‘Get me some beers and sandwiches. None of that soft white bread, mind you.’

  He pushed a door and called out:

  ‘Torrence!’

  Detective Torrence followed his chief to his office. Before he’d left Gare du Nord Maigret had called Torrence on the telephone and told him to keep going on the case on his own.

  Inspector Maigret was forty-five and his junior was barely thirty years old. Even so, there was something solid and bulky about Torrence that made him an almost full-scale model of his boss.

  They’d conducted many cases together without ever saying an unnecessary word.

  Maigret took off his overcoat and his jacket and loosened his tie. He stood for a while with his back to the stove to let the heat seep in. Then he asked:

  ‘So?’

  ‘The Prosecution Service had an emergency meeting. Forensics took photographs but couldn’t find any fingerprints – except the dead man’s, of course. They don’t match any we have on record.’

  ‘If I remember correctly, don’t they have a file on our friend from the Baltic?’

  ‘Just the “word-picture”. No fingerprints, no anthropometric data.’

  ‘So we can’t be sure that the dead man is someone other than Pietr.’

  ‘But there’s no guarantee that it is him, either!’

  Maigret had taken out his pipe and a pouch that had only a sprinkling of brown dust left in it. Mechanically Torrence handed him an opened packet of shag.

  There was a pause. Tobacco crackled in Maigret’s pipe. Then came a sound of footsteps and tinkling glassware on the other side of the door, which Torrence opened.

  The waiter from Brasserie Dauphine brought in six glasses of beer and four thick-stuffed sandwiches on a
tray, which he laid on the table.

  ‘Are you sure that’ll be enough?’ he asked, seeing that Maigret had company.

  ‘That’s fine.’

  Maigret started drinking and munching without putting his pipe out, though he did push a glass over to his assistant’s side of the desk.

  ‘Well?’

  ‘I questioned all the staff who were on the train. There’s definite proof that someone was on board without a ticket. Could be the victim, could be the culprit! We’re assuming he got on at Brussels, on the track side. It’s easier to hide in a Pullman car than in any other because each carriage has a lot of luggage space. Pietr had tea in the restaurant car between Brussels and the French border and spent his time flicking through a pile of French and English newspapers, including the financial dailies. He went to the toilet between Maubeuge and Saint-Quentin. The head waiter remembers that because as he went past him Pietr said, “Take a whisky to my seat”.’

  ‘And he went back to his seat later on?’

  ‘Fifteen minutes later, he was back at his regular place with a whisky in front of him. But the head waiter didn’t see Pietr again, since he didn’t go back by way of the restaurant car.’

  ‘Did anybody try to use the toilet after him?’

  ‘Sure! A lady traveller tried to get in, but the lock was jammed. It wasn’t until the train got to Paris that a staff member managed to force it open. The mechanism had been clogged with iron filings.’

  ‘Up to that point, had anybody set eyes on the second Pietr?’

  ‘Absolutely not. He would have been very noticeable. He was wearing shoddy clothes and would have stood out a mile on a de luxe express.’

  ‘What about the bullet?’

  ‘Shot at point-blank range. Automatic revolver, 6 mm. The shot caused such burning of the skin that according to the doctor the victim would have died from the heat shock alone.’

  ‘Any sign of a struggle?’

  ‘None at all. The pockets were empty.’

  ‘I know that …’

  ‘Sorry! However, I did find this in a small button-down pocket on the inside of his waistcoat.’