‘To have done with what?’ Maigret asked.
‘With the other girl, her friend Louise.’
‘Didn’t they get on?’
‘That’s what I’m trying to explain. Mademoiselle Louise never stopped for a chat, and I know almost nothing about her, except through her friend, which means I only ever heard part of the story. In the early days, I thought they were sisters, or cousins, or childhood friends. Then Mademoiselle Jeanine told me they’d only met on a train two or three months earlier.’
‘Didn’t they like each other?’
‘Yes and no. It’s hard to say. I’ve seen quite a few girls that age pass through here. We have two of them now, dancers at the Lido. Another one’s a manicurist at Claridges. Most tell me their stories, their little problems. After a few days, Mademoiselle Jeanine did the same. But the other one, Louise, never confided in me. For a long time I thought she was proud, then I wondered if it wasn’t shyness on her part, and that’s what I’m still inclined to believe.
‘You see, these girls, when they arrive in Paris and feel lost in the middle of millions of people, either they try to impress, they brag, they blow their own trumpets, or else they withdraw into themselves.
‘Mademoiselle Jeanine was definitely the first kind. Nothing scared her. She went out almost every evening. After a few weeks, she’d come back at two or three in the morning and she’d learned how to dress. She hadn’t been here even three months when I’d hear her at night, going upstairs with a man.
‘It was none of my business. She was at home. This isn’t a boarding house.’
‘Did each girl have her own room?’
‘Yes, of course! All the same, Louise must have heard everything, and in the morning she’d have to wait for the man to leave before she could wash or use the kitchen.’
‘Is that what caused arguments between them?’
‘I’m not sure. A lot of things happen in two years, and I have twenty-two tenants in the building. I couldn’t have predicted that one of them would get herself murdered.’
‘What does your husband do?’
‘He’s head waiter in a restaurant on Place des Ternes. Does it bother you if I give the little one his food?’
She sat the baby down in his chair and started feeding him, one mouthful at a time, without losing the thread of her thoughts.
‘I told all this last night to your colleague, and he took notes. If you want my opinion, I’ll tell you this: Mademoiselle Jeanine knew what she wanted and was determined to get it, whatever it took. She didn’t go out with just anybody. Most of the men she brought here had their own cars. I’d see them parked outside in the morning when I took out the dustbins. They weren’t necessarily young. They weren’t old either. What I’m trying to say is that it wasn’t only for the pleasure.
‘Whenever she asked me questions, I could see what she was after. For example, if a man invited her to dinner in a restaurant she didn’t know, she was determined to find out if it was a smart restaurant or not, how you should dress to go there and so on.
‘It didn’t take her more than six months to get to know a certain side of Paris like the back of her hand.’
‘Did her friend ever go with her?’
‘Only when they went to the cinema.’
‘How did Louise spend her evenings?’
‘Most of the time, she stayed upstairs. Sometimes, she went for a walk, but never very far. It’s as if she was scared.
‘They were almost the same age but compared to Mademoiselle Jeanine, Mademoiselle Louise was a little girl.
‘That’s what got on Mademoiselle Jeanine’s nerves sometimes. She said to me once, “If only I’d been able to sleep on the train instead of chatting to her!”
‘All the same, especially at the start, I’m sure she was pleased to have someone to talk to. You may have noticed that girls who come to seek their fortune in Paris almost always pair up.
‘Then, little by little, they start to hate each other.
‘That’s what happened, and it happened quickly in their case, because Mademoiselle Louise couldn’t adapt and never stayed more than a few weeks in one place.
‘She wasn’t very well educated. Apparently, she made spelling mistakes, and that stopped her from working in an office. When she was hired as a shop assistant somewhere, something unpleasant would always happen to her. Either it was the boss, or a department manager who wanted to sleep with her.
‘Instead of being clever and making it clear to them that she wasn’t like that, she’d get on her high horse, slap them or slam the door and walk out. Once, there were some thefts in the shop where she worked, and she was the one they suspected, even though I’m sure she was innocent.
‘Mind you, I heard all this from her friend. All I really know is that there were times when Mademoiselle Louise didn’t work and went out later than usual to check out jobs she’d seen advertised.’
‘Did they have their meals upstairs?’
‘Almost always. Except when Mademoiselle Jeanine ate out with friends. Last year, they both went to spend a week in Deauville. Or rather, they left together, but Louise came back first, and Jeanine didn’t get back until several days later. I don’t know what happened there. For a while, they didn’t talk to each other, even though they were living in the same apartment.’
‘Did Louise get any mail?’
‘Never any personal letters. I even thought she was an orphan. Her friend told me that she had a mother, in the South, a half-mad woman who didn’t care about her daughter. Occasionally, when Mademoiselle Louise answered an ad in writing, she’d get a few letters on headed paper, and I knew what that meant.’
‘And Jeanine?’
‘A letter from Lyon every two or three weeks. From her father, who’s a widower down there. Then mainly pneumatics, to arrange dates.’
‘How long ago was it that Jeanine told you she wanted to be rid of her friend?’
‘She started talking about it more than a year ago, maybe a year and a half, but it was always when they’d had a quarrel, or when Louise had lost her job again. Jeanine would sigh:
‘ “To think I left my father in order to be free, and now I’m stuck with that dope!”
‘The next day or the day after that, she was pleased to see her again, I’m convinced of that. It was a bit like in a marriage. I suppose you’re both married?’
‘Jeanine Armenieu gave notice six months ago, is that right?’
‘Yes. She’d changed a lot lately. She dressed better, I mean in more expensive clothes, and went to places a cut above those she’d gone to before. Sometimes she was away for two or three days. She’d receive flowers, boxes of chocolates from Marquise de Sévigné. I knew what was going on.
‘Anyway, one evening she came and sat down in the lodge and said to me:
‘ “This time, I’m going for good, Madame Marcelle. I have nothing against this place, but I can’t go on living with that girl for ever.”
‘ “Are you getting married?” I said as a joke.
‘She didn’t laugh, but said:
‘ “Not immediately. When it happens, you’ll find out from the newspapers.”
‘She must already have met Monsieur Santoni by then. She was very sure of herself, and her little smile said it all.
‘ “Will you invite me to the wedding?” I asked, still joking.
‘ “I can’t promise to invite you, but I’ll send you a nice present.” ’
‘And did she?’ Maigret asked.
‘Not yet. She probably will. But anyway, she got what she wanted, and now she’s spending her honeymoon in Italy. To get back to that evening, she told me she was leaving without saying anything to her friend and that she’d make sure her friend didn’t find her.
‘ “Otherwise, she’ll just keep clinging to me!”
‘She did what she said she would. She waited until Louise had gone and then set off with her two suitcases. She didn’t even leave me a forwarding address, just to be on
the safe side.
‘ “I’ll drop by from time to time to see if there’s any mail for me.” ’
‘Did you see her again?’
‘Three or four times. Anyway, there was still a few days’ rent already paid. The last morning, Mademoiselle Louise came to see me and told me she was forced to leave. I admit I felt sorry for her. She didn’t cry, but her lips were quivering, and I could see how helpless she was. The only luggage she had was a little blue suitcase. I asked her where she was going, and she said she had no idea.
‘ “If you want to stay a few more days, until I find another tenant …”
‘ “Thanks very much, but I prefer not to …”
‘That was just like her. I watched her walk away down the street, with her suitcase in her hand, and when she turned the corner, I felt like calling her back to give her a little money.’
‘Did she also come back to see you?’
‘She came back, but not to see me. It was to ask me for her friend’s address. I told her I didn’t know it. I don’t think she believed me.’
‘Why did she want to find her?’
‘Probably to make it up with her, or to ask her for money. From the state of her clothes, it was easy to see things weren’t going well for her.’
‘When was she last here?’
‘Just over a month ago. I’d just been reading the paper, and it was still on the table. I probably shouldn’t have done what I did.
‘ “I don’t know where she’s living,” I told her, “but as it happens, they’re talking about her in the gossip columns.”
‘It was true. It said something like: “Marco Santoni, the vermouth heir, seen every evening at Maxim’s with a stunning model, Jeanine Armenieu.” ’
Maigret looked at Janvier, who had understood. One month earlier, Louise Laboine had gone for the first time to Rue de Douai to hire an evening dress from Mademoiselle Irène. Wasn’t it because she intended to go to Maxim’s to see her friend?
‘Do you know if she saw her?’
‘She didn’t. Mademoiselle Jeanine came a few days later, and, when I asked her, she started laughing:
‘ “We do often dine at Maxim’s, but not every evening,” she said. “Besides, I doubt they’d let poor Louise in.” ’
‘Did you tell all this to the inspector who came last night?’ Maigret asked.
‘Maybe not in such detail, because there are some things I’ve only remembered since.’
‘Did you tell him anything else?’
Maigret was trying to figure out what it was, in what he had just learned, that could have provided Lognon with a lead. The previous day, at ten in the evening, he had been in this same concierge’s lodge. That was the last time anyone had seen him.
‘Will you give me a moment to put my son to bed?’
She gave the baby a quick wash, changed him on the table and went with him into a kind of alcove, where they heard her whispering tenderly.
When she returned, she seemed a little more anxious.
‘I wonder now if what happened isn’t my fault. If only these girls didn’t make such a mystery of things, it’d be so easy! I can understand Mademoiselle Jeanine not giving me her address so as not to be bothered by her friend. But the other one, Mademoiselle Louise, she could have given me hers.
‘About ten days ago, maybe a little more, I don’t know exactly, a man came and asked me if a girl named Louise Laboine lived here.
‘I told him she didn’t, that she’d left several months ago but was still living in Paris, that I didn’t know her address, and that she came to see me from time to time.’
‘What kind of man was he?’
‘A foreigner. By his accent, I’d have said an Englishman or an American. Not someone rich or elegant. A thin little man who, come to think of it, looked a bit like the inspector yesterday. I don’t know why he made me think of a clown.
‘He seemed disappointed and kept asking if I was expecting to see her soon.
‘ “Maybe tomorrow, maybe in a month,” I told him.
‘ “I’ll leave her a note.”
‘He sat down at the table, asked for paper and an envelope and started writing in pencil. I slipped the letter into an empty pigeon-hole and forgot all about it.
‘When he came back three days later, the letter was still there, and he looked even more disappointed.
‘ “I’m not going to be able to wait much longer,” he said. “I have to leave soon.”
‘I asked him if it was important and he replied:
‘ “For her, yes. Very important.”
‘He took back the letter and wrote another one. This time he took his time about it, as if he’d been forced to make a decision. When he finished, he sighed as he handed it to me.’
‘Did you see him again?’
‘Only the next day. Three days later, in the afternoon, Mademoiselle Jeanine paid me a visit. She was very excited.
‘ “You’ll soon be reading about me in the newspapers,” she said.
‘She’d just been shopping locally and she was weighed down with little packages that came from the best shops.
‘I told her about the letter for Mademoiselle Louise and about the visits from the thin little man. “If only I knew where to find her …”
‘She seemed to think this over. “Why don’t you give it to me?” she said in the end. “If I know Louise, it won’t take her long to come and see me. As soon as she finds out from the newspapers where I am …”
‘I hesitated. But then I thought she was probably right.’
‘So you gave her the letter?’
‘Yes. She looked at the envelope and stuffed it in her bag. It was only on her way out that she said to me:
‘ “You’ll be getting your present soon, Madame Marcelle!” ’
Maigret was silent, head bowed, staring down at the floor.
‘Is that everything you told the inspector?’
‘I think so. Yes. I’m trying to think. I don’t know what else I could have told him.’
‘Did Louise ever show up after that?’
‘No.’
‘So she didn’t know her former friend had a letter for her?’
‘I suppose not. She certainly didn’t hear it from me.’
Maigret had just discovered much more in a quarter of an hour than he had expected. Only, the trail stopped abruptly.
It was about Lognon, even more than about Louise Laboine, that he was thinking, as if Inspector Hard-Done-By had suddenly started playing the main role.
He had come here, had heard the same story.
After which, he had disappeared from circulation.
Anyone else knowing what he knew would have phoned Maigret the previous evening to pass on the information and ask for instructions. Not Lognon! He was determined to see it through to the end, all by himself.
‘You seem worried,’ the concierge remarked.
‘I don’t suppose the inspector told you anything, expressed any opinion?’
‘No. He thanked me and left. He turned right when he got outside.’
What else to do but thank her, too, and leave? Without consulting Janvier, Maigret drew him into the bistro he had noticed earlier, ordered two Pernods and drank his in silence.
‘Can you phone the second district and find out if they’ve heard from him? Then call his wife, in case the office doesn’t know anything. Finally, make sure he hasn’t got in contact with headquarters.’
When Janvier came out of the booth, Maigret was slowly drinking a second aperitif.
‘Nothing!’
‘The only explanation I can think of is that he phoned Italy.’
‘Are you going to?’
‘Yes. We’ll get through more quickly from the office.’
By the time they got there, almost everyone had left for lunch. Maigret asked for a list of hotels in Florence, chose the most luxurious ones and struck it lucky with the third one. Yes, the Santonis were staying there. They weren’t in their s
uite, which they had left half an hour earlier to go down to the hotel restaurant for lunch.
It was there that he was able to reach them shortly afterwards. Fortunately, the head waiter had worked in Paris and knew a little French.
‘Could you ask Madame Santoni to come to the phone?’
When the head waiter had performed his errand, it was a man’s voice, an aggressive one, that Maigret heard.
‘Do you mind telling me what this is all about?’
‘Who am I speaking to?’
‘Marco Santoni. Last night, we were woken up on the pretext that the Paris police needed some urgent information, and now you won’t even let us eat in peace.’
‘I apologize, Monsieur Santoni. I’m Detective Chief Inspector Maigret of the Police Judiciaire.’
‘That still doesn’t tell me what my wife has to do with—’
‘This isn’t really about her. It just so happens that an old friend of hers has been murdered.’
‘That’s what the man last night told us. But what of it? Is that any reason to—’
‘Your wife was given a letter to keep. This letter would probably help us to—’
‘But is it absolutely necessary to phone twice? She told the inspector everything she knew.’
‘The inspector has disappeared.’
‘Oh!’ His anger subsided. ‘In that case, let me get my wife. I hope you’ll leave us in peace after that and avoid her name getting in the papers.’
There was some whispering. Jeanine must have been in the booth with her husband.
‘I’m listening!’ she said.
‘I’m sorry to bother you, madame. You already know what this is about. The concierge in Rue de Ponthieu gave you a letter addressed to Louise.’
‘I’m sorry I ever agreed to take it!’
‘What happened to the letter?’
There was a silence, and for a moment Maigret thought he had been cut off.
‘Did you give it to her on the night of your wedding, when she came to see you at the Roméo?’
‘Of course not. I didn’t have the letter with me at my wedding.’
‘Was it because of that letter that Louise went to see you?’
Another silence, like a hesitation.
Maigret and the Dead Girl Page 11
