Pietr the Latvian

by Georges Simenon

  His vast bulk filled the whole doorway for a moment. The Superintendent of Criminal Investigation almost called him back in, because he was a worrying sight.

  During the war comrades in arms had said farewell to him just like that, calmly, with the same unreal gentleness, before going over the top.

  Those men had never come back!

  9. The Hit-man

  International gangsters who engage in top-flight scams rarely commit murder. You can take it as a general rule that they never kill – at least, not the people they’ve chosen to unburden of a million or two. They use more scientific methods of thievery. Most of those gentlemen don’t carry guns.

  But they do sometimes use elimination to settle scores. Every year, one or two crimes that will never be properly solved take place somewhere. Most often, the victim is unidentifiable, and is buried under a patently false name.

  The dead are either snitches, or men who drank too much and blabbed under the influence, or underlings aiming to rise, thus threatening the sitting hierarchy.

  In America, the home of specialization, these kinds of execution are never carried out by a gang member. Specialists called hit-men are used. Like official executioners, they have their own teams and rates of remuneration.

  The same has sometimes occurred in Europe, notably in the famous case of the Polish Connection (whose leaders all ended up on the scaffold). That set-up carried out several murders on behalf of more highly placed crooks who were keen not to have blood on their own hands.

  Maigret knew all that as he went down the stairs towards the front desk of the Majestic.

  ‘When a customer calls down for room service, where does his call get directed?’ he asked.

  ‘He gets connected to the room service manager.’

  ‘At night, as well?’

  ‘Sorry! After nine in the evening, night staff deal with it.’

  ‘And where can I find the night staff?’

  ‘In the basement.’

  ‘Take me there.’

  Maigret ventured once more into the innards of this hive of luxury designed to cater for a thousand guests. He found an employee sitting at a telephone exchange in a cubby-hole next to the kitchen. He had a register at his desk. It was the quiet time.

  ‘Did Inspector Torrence call down between 9 p.m. and 2 a.m.?’

  ‘Torrence?’

  ‘The officer in the blue room, next door to suite 3 …’ the receptionist explained in the language of the house.

  The reasoning was elementary. Torrence had been attacked in the room by someone who had necessarily entered it. The murderer must have got behind his victim in order to put the chloroform gag over his face. And Torrence hadn’t suspected a thing.

  Only a hotel valet could have got away with it. He had either been called up by the policeman or else he’d come in unprompted, to clear the table.

  Keeping quite calm, Maigret put the question another way round:

  ‘Which member of staff knocked off early last night?’

  The operator was taken aback by the question.

  ‘How did you know? Sheer coincidence … Pepito got a call telling him his brother was sick …’

  ‘What time?’

  ‘Around ten …’

  ‘Where was he, at that point?’

  ‘Upstairs.’

  ‘On which telephone did he take the call?’

  They called the main exchange. The operator confirmed that he’d not put any call through to Pepito.

  Things were moving fast! But Maigret remained placid and glum.

  ‘His card? … You must have an employee card …’

  ‘Not a proper one … We don’t keep files on what we call room staff; there’s too much turnover.’

  They had to go to the hotel office, which was unmanned at that hour. Nonetheless Maigret had them open up the employee records, where he found what he was looking for:

  Pepito Moretto, Hôtel Beauséjour, 3, Rue des Batignolles. Appointed on …

  ‘Get me Hôtel Beauséjour on the telephone …’

  Meanwhile Maigret interrogated another employee and learned that Pepito Moretto had been recommended by an Italian maître d’hôtel and had joined the staff of the Majestic three days before the Mortimer-Levingstons’ arrival. No complaints about his work. He’d begun in the dining room, but then transferred to room service at his own request.

  Hôtel Beauséjour came on the line.

  ‘Hello! … Can you get Pepito Moretto to come to the phone? … Hello! … What was that? … His luggage too? … Three a.m.? … Thank you! … Hello? … One more thing … Did he get any mail at the hotel? … No letters at all? … Thank you! … That’s all.’

  Maigret hung up, remaining as unnaturally calm as he ever was.

  ‘What’s the time?’ he asked.

  ‘Five ten …’

  ‘Call me a cab.’

  He gave the driver the address of Pickwick’s Bar.

  ‘You know it closes at 4 a.m.?’

  ‘Doesn’t matter.’

  • • •

  The car came to a stop outside the nightclub. It was shuttered, but a streak of light could be seen coming from under the door. Maigret was aware that in most late-night venues the staff – often forty strong – usually has a meal before going home.

  They eat in the same room that the customers have just vacated even while the streamers are being tidied away and the cleaners get to work.

  Despite that, he didn’t ring the bell at Pickwick’s. He turned his back on the club, and his eye alighted on a café-tobacconist’s at the corner of Rue Fontaine, the sort of place where nightclub staff often gather during intervals or after work.

  The bar was still open. When Maigret walked in there were three men with their elbows on the counter, sipping coffee with something stronger in it, talking business.

  ‘Is Pepito not in tonight?’

  ‘He left quite a while ago,’ the barman replied.

  Maigret noticed that one of the customers who had perhaps recognized him was gesturing at the barman to keep his mouth shut.

  ‘We had an appointment at two …’ he said.

  ‘He was here …’

  ‘I know! … I told the dancer from over the road to bring a message to him.’

  ‘You mean José …?’

  ‘Correct. He was supposed to tell Pepito I couldn’t make it.’

  ‘José did come over, actually … I think they had a chat …’

  The customer who’d gestured to the barman was now drumming his fingers on the counter. He was pale with fury, because the few sentences that had just been said in the café were all that was needed to explain what had happened.

  Around ten or a little before, Pepito had murdered Torrence at the Majestic. He must have had detailed instructions, because he knocked off work straight away, on the excuse that he’d had a phone call from his brother, and came straight to the bar at the corner of Rue Fontaine. Then he waited.

  At some point the dancer who’d just been named as José came over the road and passed Pepito a message that a child could guess: shoot Maigret as soon as he steps outside Pickwick’s Bar.

  In other words, with two crimes in a few hours, the only two people who posed a threat to the Baltic gang would be got rid of!

  Pepito fired his gun and fled. His role was over. He hadn’t been seen. So he could go and get his bags from Hôtel Beauséjour …

  Maigret paid for his drink, went out, looked back over his shoulder and saw the three customers vigorously upbraiding the barman.

  He knocked at the door of Pickwick’s Bar, and a cleaner opened it for him.

  As he’d thought, the employees were having a late supper at tables that had been put end-to-end to make a refectory. Chicken leftovers, pieces of partridge, hors d’œuvres – everything that the customers hadn’t eaten. Thirty pairs of eyes turned towards the inspector.

  ‘Has José been gone long?’

  ‘Sure! … Straight after …’


  But the head waiter, recognizing Maigret, whom he’d served, stuck his elbow in the ribs of the man who was talking.

  Maigret wasn’t fooled.

  ‘Give me his address! And it had better be the right one, OK? Or else you’ll be sorry …’

  ‘I don’t have it … Only the boss has …’

  ‘Where is he?’

  ‘On his estate, at La Varenne.’

  ‘Give me the books.’

  ‘But …’

  ‘Shut up!’

  They pretended to look in the drawers of a small office desk behind the podium. Maigret shoved his way into the group that was fiddling about and found the staff register straight away.

  José Latourie, 71, Rue Lepic

  He exited in the same ponderous manner as he’d come in, while the still-worried waiters went back to their meal.

  It was no distance to Rue Lepic. But no. 71 is a long way up the hillside street, and Maigret had to stop twice to get his puff back.

  At last he got to the door of a lodging house of the same general kind as Hôtel Beauséjour, though more sordid still. He rang, and the front door opened automatically. He knocked at a glass window, and the night porter eventually got out of bed for him.

  ‘José Latourie?’

  ‘Still out. His key’s here …’

  ‘Hand it over! Police! …’

  ‘But …’

  ‘At the double! …’

  The fact is, nobody could stand in Maigret’s way that night. Yet he wasn’t his usual stern and rigid self. Maybe people could sense something even worse?

  ‘Which floor?’

  ‘Fourth!’

  The long and narrow room had a stuffy smell. The bed hadn’t been made. Like most other people in the same line of trade, José must have slept until four in the afternoon, and hotels don’t make up beds later than that.

  An old pair of pyjamas that had worn through at the collar and elbows was flung across the sheets. On the floor lay a pair of moccasins with worn soles and broken uppers that must have been used as bedroom slippers. There was a travelling bag in imitation leather, but all it had in it were old newspapers and a patched-up pair of black trousers.

  Over the sink was a bar of soap, a pot of skin cream, aspirin tablets and a tube of barbitone. Maigret picked up a ball of scrap paper from the floor and smoothed it out with care. He only needed one sniff to know that it had contained heroin.

  • • •

  Fifteen minutes later Inspector Maigret had gone through the room from top to bottom, but then he noticed a slit in the upholstery of the only armchair in the room. He slipped his finger inside the stuffing and pulled out, one by one, eleven one-gram packs of the same drug.

  He put them in his wallet and went back down the stairs. He hailed a city policeman at Place Blanche and gave him instructions. The copper went to stand sentry next to no. 71.

  Maigret thought back on the black-haired young man: an uneasy gigolo with unsteady eyes who’d bumped into his table out of agitation when he’d come back from his appointment with Moretto.

  Once he’d done the job he hadn’t dared go back home, as he would rather lose the few rags that he had and those eleven sachets, which must have had a street price of at least 1,000 francs. He’d be nabbed sooner or later, because he didn’t have the nerve. He must have been scared stiff.

  Pepito was a cooler kind of customer. Maybe he was in a railway station waiting for the first train out. Maybe he’d gone to ground in the suburbs. Or maybe he’d just moved to a different doss-house in another part of Paris.

  Maigret hailed a cab and was on the point of asking for the Majestic when he reckoned they wouldn’t have finished the job yet. That’s to say, Torrence would still be there.

  ‘Quai des Orfèvres …’

  As he walked past Jean, Maigret realized that the doorman already knew, and he averted his eyes like a guilty man.

  He didn’t tend to his stove. He didn’t take off his jacket or collar.

  He sat at his desk, leaning on his elbows, stock still, for two hours. It was already light when he took notice of a screed that must have been put on his pad at some point during the night.

  For the eyes of Detective Chief Inspector Maigret. Urgent.

  Around 23.30 man in tails entered Hôtel du Roi de Sicile. Stayed ten minutes. Left in a limousine. The Russian did not exit.

  Maigret took it in his stride. And then more news started flooding in. First there was a call from the Courcelles police station, in the seventeenth arrondissement:

  ‘A man by the name of José Latourie, a professional dancer, has been found dead by the railings of Parc Monceau. Three knife wounds. His wallet was not taken. The time and circumstances of the crime have not been established.’

  But Maigret knew what they were! He could see Pepito Moretto tailing the young man when he came out of Pickwick’s and then, reckoning he was too upset and therefore likely to give the game away, Moretto took his life without even bothering to remove the man’s wallet or ID – as a taunt, perhaps. As if to say, ‘You think you can use this guy as a lead to get back to us? Be my guest! You can have him!’

  Eight thirty. The manager of the Majestic was on the line:

  ‘Hello? … Inspector Maigret? … It’s unbelievable, incredible … A few minutes ago no. 17 rang! … No. 17! … Do you remember? … The man who …’

  ‘Yes, he’s called Oswald Oppenheim … Well?’

  ‘I sent up a valet … Oppenheim was in bed, cool as a cucumber. He wanted his breakfast.’

  10. The Return of Oswald Oppenheim

  Maigret hadn’t moved a muscle for two hours. When he wanted to get up he could barely lift his arm and he had to ring Jean to come and help him put on his overcoat.

  ‘Get me a cab …’

  A few minutes later he was in the surgery of Dr Lecourbe in Rue Monsieur-le-Prince. There were six people in the waiting room, but he was taken through the living quarters and, as soon as the doctor was free, he was shown into the consulting room.

  It took an hour. His body was stiffer. The bags under his eyes were so deep that Maigret looked different, as if he’d got make-up on.

  ‘Rue du Roi-de-Sicile! I’ll tell you where to stop …’

  From far off he caught sight of his two officers walking up and down opposite the lodging house. He got out of the car and went over to them.

  ‘Still inside?’

  ‘Yes … There’s been one of us on duty at all times …’

  ‘Who left the building?’

  ‘A little old man all bent double, then two youngsters, then a woman of about thirty …’

  ‘Did the old man have a beard?’

  ‘Yes …’

  He went off without saying another word, climbed the narrow staircase and went past the concierge’s office. A moment later he was shaking the door of room 32. A woman’s voice responded in a language he couldn’t identify. The door gave way, and he set eyes on a half-naked Anna Gorskin getting out of bed.

  ‘Where’s your boyfriend?’ he asked.

  He spoke in staccato, like a man in a hurry, and didn’t bother to look over the premises.

  Anna Gorskin shouted:

  ‘Get out of here! … You’ve no right …’

  But he stayed unmoved, and picked up off the floor a trenchcoat he knew well. He seemed to be looking for something else. He noticed Fyodor Yurevich’s dirty grey trousers at the foot of the bed.

  On the other hand there were no men’s socks to be found in the room.

  The Jewish woman glowered ferociously at the inspector as she put on her dressing gown.

  ‘You think that just because we’re foreign …’

  Maigret didn’t give her time to throw a tantrum. He went out quietly and closed the door, which she opened again before he had gone down one flight. She stood on the landing just breathing heavily, not saying a word. She leaned over the railing, staring at him, and then, unable to contain her imperious need to do something, she spat
on him.

  Her spittle fell with a dull thud a metre away.

  Inspector Dufour asked:

  ‘Well? …’

  ‘Keep a watch on the woman … At any rate, she can’t disguise herself as an old man.’

  ‘You mean that …’

  No! He didn’t mean anything! He wasn’t up to having an argument. He got back in the taxi.

  ‘To the Majestic …’

  The junior detective was downcast as he watched Maigret leave.

  ‘Do your best!’ Maigret called out to him. He didn’t want to take it out on the young man. It wasn’t his fault if he’d been taken for a ride. After all, hadn’t Maigret himself let Torrence get killed?

  • • •

  The manager was waiting for him at the door, which was a new departure for him.

  ‘At last! … You see … I don’t know what do to do any more … They came to fetch your … your friend … They reassured me it would not be in the papers … But the other one is here! He’s here! …’

  ‘Nobody saw him come in?’

  ‘Nobody! … That’s what … Listen! … Like I told you on the telephone, he rang … When the valet went in, he ordered a coffee … He was in bed …’

  ‘What about Mortimer? …’

  ‘Do you think they’re connected? … That’s impossible! He’s a well-known figure … He’s had ministers and bankers call on him right here …’

  ‘What’s Oppenheim up to now? …’

  ‘He’s just had a bath … I think he’s getting dressed …’

  ‘And Mortimer?’

  ‘The Mortimers haven’t rung yet … They’re still asleep …’

  ‘Give me a description of Pepito Moretto …’

  ‘Certainly … What I’ve heard … Actually, I never set eyes on him myself … I mean, noticed him … We have so many employees! … But I did some research … Short, dark skin, black hair, broad shoulders, could go for days without saying a word …’

  Maigret copied it all down on a scrap of paper that he put in an envelope that he then addressed to the super. That ought to be enough, combined with the fingerprints that must have been found in the room where Torrence died.

  ‘Have this taken to Quai des Orfèvres …’