‘This way, detective chief inspector. The minister is expecting you.’
Auguste Point stood in the vast, gloomy office lit by lamps, looking shorter and broader than in the apartment on Boulevard Pasteur. He proffered his hand and kept Maigret’s hand in his for a moment, with the insistence of those who have suffered a great shock and are grateful for the smallest display of sympathy.
‘Thank you for coming, Maigret. I am annoyed with myself for having got you mixed up in all this. You see now that I had good reason to be worried!’
He turned towards a woman who was ending a telephone conversation and about to replace the receiver.
‘Let me introduce my secretary, Mademoiselle Blanche, whom I mentioned to you.’
Mademoiselle Blanche stared at Maigret warily. He could sense she was on the defensive. She did not shake his hand but gave a curt greeting.
Her face was nondescript, unappealing, but beneath her simple black dress, adorned only with a narrow white-lace collar, Maigret was surprised to notice a body that had remained young, plump and still highly desirable.
‘If you don’t mind, we’ll go to my apartment. I have never been able to get used to this office, where I always feel uncomfortable. Will you take any telephone calls, Blanche?’
‘Yes, minister.’
Point opened a door at the back of the room and said, still in the same toneless voice:
‘Shall I go ahead of you? The way out is rather complicated.’
He himself was not yet acquainted with the building and he seemed lost in the empty corridors where he sometimes faltered in front of a door.
They found a narrow staircase and at the top crossed two vast, empty rooms. The sight of a passing maid in an apron holding a broom suggested that they had left the official wing of the ministry and were now in the private apartments.
‘I meant to introduce you to Fleury. He was in the adjacent office. But I completely forgot.’
A woman’s voice could be heard. Point pushed open one last door and they found themselves in a drawing room that was smaller than the others, where a woman was sitting by the window and a young woman stood beside her.
‘My wife and my daughter. I thought it best for us to talk in front of them.’
Madame Point could have been any middle-aged woman you see in the street doing her shopping. She too looked tired and drawn, her eyes slightly vacant.
‘First of all, I must thank you, detective chief inspector. My husband has told me everything and I know that the conversation he had with you made him feel a lot better.’
The newspapers with their sensational headlines were scattered on a table.
At first, Maigret paid no attention to the girl, who seemed calmer, more self-possessed than her father and mother.
‘Would you like some coffee?’
It felt a little like a home where there has been a death and the daily routine has suddenly been turned upside-down, with people coming and going, talking and moving about without knowing where to put themselves or what to do.
He was still wearing his overcoat. It was Anne-Marie who invited him to remove it and placed it on the back of a chair.
‘Have you read this morning’s papers?’ asked the minister eventually, without sitting down.
‘I only had time to glance at the headlines.’
‘They haven’t mentioned my name yet, but all the journalists know. They must have received the information in the middle of the night. I was warned by an acquaintance who’s a paste-up artist in Rue du Croissant. I telephoned the president right away.’
‘How did he react?’
‘I don’t know whether he was surprised or not. I don’t feel capable of judging people any more. Of course, I had woken him up. He sounded somewhat surprised, but I found him less upset over the telephone than I expected.’
He still seemed to be speaking reluctantly, without conviction, as if words no longer had any importance.
‘Have a seat, Maigret. Forgive me for standing, but since this morning I haven’t been able to sit down. It makes me feel anxious. I need to be on my feet, to move about. When you arrived, I’d been pacing my office for an hour while my secretary answered the telephone. Now, where was I? Yes. The president said something along the lines of:
‘ “Well, my friend, you’ll have to face the music!”
‘I think those were his words. I asked him whether Piquemal was being held on his orders. Instead of replying directly, he said quietly:
‘ “What makes you think that?”
‘Then he explained that he couldn’t be certain of what went on in his department, any more than I or any other minister could. He went off on a great long digression on the subject.
‘ “People hold us responsible for everything,” he said. “They don’t realize that we are mere bystanders and that those under our authority know it. They served a different master yesterday and may have another tomorrow.”
‘I suggested:
‘ “The best thing would probably be for me to offer you my resignation tomorrow morning.”
‘ “Not so fast, Point. You’ve caught me off guard. In politics, things rarely go according to plan. I’m going to think over your offer and call you back later.”
‘I presume he made a few telephone calls to some of our colleagues. Perhaps they held a meeting? I don’t know. Now, they have no reason to keep me in the loop.
‘I spent the rest of the night pacing up and down my bedroom while my wife tried to reason with me.’
She gave Maigret a look as if to say:
‘Help me! You can see what a state he’s in!’
It was true. On the night they had met in the apartment on Boulevard Pasteur, Point had seemed to Maigret like a man reeling from the blow he had just been dealt, who still did not know how he would cope with it, but had not yet given up.
But now he spoke as if events no longer concerned him, as if his fate had been decided, and he had stopped fighting.
‘Did he call you back?’ asked Maigret.
‘At around five thirty. As you can see, quite a few of us had a sleepless night. He told me that my resignation wouldn’t resolve anything, that it would be seen as an admission of guilt and that all I needed to do was speak the truth.’
‘Including about the contents of the Calame Report?’ asked Maigret.
Point managed a smile.
‘No. Not exactly. Just as I thought the conversation was over, he added:
‘ “I imagine you’ll be asked if you have read the report.”
‘I replied:
‘ “I have read it.”
‘ “That’s what I gathered. It is a rather fat report, filled, I presume, with technical details on a subject that a man of law is not necessarily acquainted with. It would be more exact to say you had browsed through it. You no longer have the report to hand to refresh your memory. I’m telling you this to protect you from more serious difficulties than those that await you. If you talk about the content of the report or point the finger at people, at anyone – that’s none of my business and I don’t care – you’ll be accused of making allegations that you can’t substantiate. Do you follow me?” ’
For the third time at least since the beginning of the conversation, Point re-lit his pipe and his wife turned to Maigret:
‘You may smoke too, I’m used to it.’
‘The telephone started ringing from seven o’clock this morning. It’s mainly journalists who want to ask me questions. At first, I replied that I had no comment. Then the tone became almost threatening. Two newspaper editors called me in person. In the end, I agreed to give a press conference in my office at eleven o’clock.
‘I needed to see you beforehand. I don’t suppose …’
He had been brave enough, perhaps out of shyness, perhaps out of fear or superstition, to refrain from asking until then.
‘I don’t suppose you have found anything?’
Maigret extracted the letter from his pocket and
held it out without saying a word. Was he deliberately exaggerating his movements so as to inspire a certain confidence in the minister? There was something uncharacteristically theatrical in his gesture.
Madame Point didn’t move from the sofa where she was sitting, but Anne-Marie crossed the room and read over her father’s shoulder.
‘Who is it from?’ she queried.
Maigret asked Point:
‘Do you recognize the handwriting?’
‘It looks vaguely familiar, even though I can’t identify it.’
‘This letter was sent last Thursday by Joseph Mascoulin.’
‘To whom?’
‘To Jules Piquemal.’
There was a silence. Wordlessly, Point held the letter out to his wife. Each tried to weigh up the significance of this discovery.
When Maigret spoke, it was to carry out a sort of interrogation, like at Boulevard Pasteur.
‘What is your relationship with Mascoulin?’
‘We don’t have one.’
‘Did you fall out?’
‘No.’
Point was solemn, worried. Although Maigret never got involved in politics, he was familiar with parliamentary behaviour. Generally speaking, even if the deputies were from opposing parties, even if they attacked one another viciously in parliament, they maintained cordial relations similar to those of the schoolroom or the barracks.
‘You don’t talk to him?’ Maigret pressed him.
Point wiped his hand across his brow.
‘It all goes back a few years, to when I had just entered parliament. A brand-new parliament, you’ll probably recall, when we had sworn there’d be no more shady goings-on.
‘It was immediately after the war and the country was riding on a wave of idealism. People wanted integrity.
‘Most of my colleagues, in any case a large proportion of them, like me, were new to politics.’
‘Not Mascoulin.’
‘No. There were still a few old political hands, but everyone was convinced that the newcomers would set the tone. After a few months, I was no longer so certain. After two years, I was disillusioned. Do you remember, Henriette?’ he said, turning to his wife.
‘So much so that he decided not to stand for re-election,’ she said.
‘During a dinner where I had to make a speech, I said that I had cause for concern, and the press was there to note my words. I wouldn’t be surprised if they regurgitated part of my speech any day now. The subject, in a way, was dirty hands. In substance, I explained that it isn’t our political system that is flawed but the atmosphere in which politicians live, whether they like it or not.
‘I don’t need to go into detail. You will remember the famous headline: The Republic of Cronies. We are together every day, we shake hands like old friends. By the time parliament’s been in session for a few weeks, everyone’s on first-name terms and politicians do one another small favours.
‘Each day you shake more hands and if those hands aren’t very clean, you shrug indulgently.
‘ “Well! He’s not a bad fellow.”
‘Or else:
‘ “He has to do that to keep his voters happy.”
‘Do you understand? I said that if each of us refused, once and for all, to shake dirty hands, the hands of schemers, the political atmosphere would be cleansed.’
He added bitterly after a while:
‘I practised what I preached. I avoided some dodgy journalists and businessmen who haunt the corridors of the Palais-Bourbon. I refused to do influential voters any favours, which I didn’t feel I owed them.
‘And, one day, in the Salle des Pas Perdus of the National Assembly, Mascoulin came over to me proffering his hand. I pretended not to see him and turned pointedly to another colleague.
‘I know he turned ashen and has never forgotten it. He’s the sort of man who doesn’t forgive.’
‘Did you behave similarly towards Hector Tabard, the editor of La Rumeur?’
‘I refused to see him two or three times and he didn’t press the matter.’
He looked at his watch.
‘I have one hour left, Maigret. At eleven o’clock, I’ll have to face the press and answer their questions. I thought of giving them a release, but that wouldn’t be enough for them.
‘I’ll have to tell them that Piquemal brought me the Calame Report and that I went to my apartment on Boulevard Pasteur to read it.’
‘And that you read it!’
‘I’ll try to be less categorical. The hardest thing, the impossible part, will be admitting that I left the famous report in an apartment with no security and that when I went to fetch it the next day to hand it to the president of the Council, it had gone.
‘No one will believe me. Piquemal’s disappearance doesn’t make things any easier, on the contrary. They’ll say that by some means or other I have eliminated an embarrassing witness.
‘The only thing that would save me would be to deliver up the person who stole the document.’
He added apologetically, as if to excuse his rancour:
‘That was too much to ask for in forty-eight hours, even from you. What do you think I should do?’
Madame Point broke in, adamant.
‘Offer your resignation and take us back to La Roche-sur-Yon. People who know you will realize that you’re not guilty. As for the others, you don’t need to worry about them. Your conscience is clear, isn’t it?’
Maigret’s gaze lighted on Anne-Marie’s face and he saw her pinch her lips together. He gathered that the girl did not share her mother’s view and that for her such a retreat on her father’s part would probably mean the end of her hopes.
‘What do you think?’ murmured Point, wavering.
That was a responsibility that Maigret could not shoulder.
‘What do you say?’
‘I think I should stand firm. At least, if there’s the remotest chance of finding the thief.’
Again, it was an indirect question.
‘I always remain hopeful, right until the last minute,’ said Maigret, ‘otherwise I would never embark on an investigation. Because I’m not familiar with the world of politics, I lost time in procedures that might seem futile. But I’m not sure they’re as futile as all that.’
Before Point appeared in front of the press, Maigret had to, if not restore his confidence, at least give him a certain assurance. He launched into a pared-down summary of the situation.
‘You see, minister, we are now on territory where I am much more at home. Until now, I had to work without anyone being aware of my involvement, but that still didn’t prevent us coming up against the people from the Sûreté the entire time. Whether it was at the door of your ministry, or that of your secretary, at Piquemal’s place or outside the home of your private secretary, my men invariably ran into the boys from Rue des Saussaies on surveillance.
‘I wondered at one point what they were looking for and whether the two departments weren’t carrying out a parallel investigation.
‘Now, I think they simply wanted to know what we would find out. It wasn’t you, or your secretary, or Piquemal, or Fleury who were under surveillance, but me and my men.
‘From the moment the disappearance of Piquemal and of the report became official, their inquiry came under the jurisdiction of the Police Judiciaire, because it took place in Paris.
‘A man doesn’t disappear without trace.
‘And a burglar invariably gets caught.’
‘Sooner or later!’ muttered Point with a rueful smile.
Maigret rose and looked him in the eyes, saying:
‘It’s up to you to hold firm until then.’
‘It doesn’t only depend on me.’
‘It depends above all on you.’
‘If Mascoulin is the one behind this plotting, it won’t be long before he brings in the government.’
‘Unless he’d rather take advantage of what he knows to increase his influence.’
Point watched him i
n surprise.
‘You know? I thought you kept out of politics.’
‘That doesn’t only happen in politics and there are Mascoulins in other spheres. I think – stop me if I’m mistaken – that his one obsession is power, but he’s a cold-blooded animal who bides his time. Every so often he drops a thunderbolt in the Chamber of Deputies and in the press by revealing some abuse or some scandal.’
Point listened with renewed interest.
‘That is how he has gradually built up a reputation as a ruthless righter of wrongs. So that all the fanatics, all the disgruntled, all the rebels like Piquemal turn to him when they discover, or think they’ve discovered, something unsavoury.
‘I imagine he receives the same sort of mail as we do when a mysterious crime is committed. Madmen, the unhinged and maniacs write to us, and so do people who see an opportunity to vent their hatred for a relative, a former friend or a neighbour. But in among the pile, there are letters that give us real clues and without which a good number of murderers would still be at large.
‘Piquemal-the-loner, who has sought the truth in all the extremist parties, in all the different religions and philosophies, is precisely the sort of man who, on discovering the Calame Report, didn’t think for one moment to pass it on to his direct superiors, of whom he is wary.
‘He turned to the professional righter of wrongs, convinced that the report would thus escape goodness-knows-what conspiracy of silence.’
‘If Mascoulin has the report in his hands, why has he not made use of it yet?’
‘For the reason I gave you. From time to time he needs to create an outcry, so as to boost his reputation. But the scandal sheets like La Rumeur don’t publish all the information they have either. It is the affairs they don’t write about that are the most lucrative, through blackmail.
‘The Calame Report is too juicy a morsel to feed to the public.
‘If Mascoulin has it, how many senior figures do you think he has at his mercy, including Arthur Nicoud?’
‘A lot. Several dozen.’
‘We don’t know how many copies of the Calame Report he has in his hands, which he can produce when the time is ripe to enable him to achieve his ends.’
Maigret and the Minister Page 8
