‘The corner of Boulevard Richard-Lenoir and Boulevard Voltaire.’
And once he had settled into the back seat:
‘In case there are journalists watching outside our building.’
‘You mean I should go in on my own?’
He batted his eyelids in the affirmative, and she didn’t ask any more questions.
‘Go in as if there is nothing out of the ordinary. If the reporters question you, say that we have come back to spend a few hours in Paris and that I am in town. Prepare dinner, and if I don’t get back by eight o’clock, eat without me.’
Just as when he was at work at Quai des Orfèvres or out on a case. Not only did he not always make it back for dinner, sometimes she wouldn’t see him until the early hours.
‘I’m in the office,’ he would tell her on the phone. ‘I don’t know when I’ll be finished.’
She too had heard the radio. She could guess what was going on over there. She wondered whether her husband was going to renege on the promise he had made to her – and to Pardon – that he wouldn’t set foot in police headquarters during his holiday.
She knew he wanted to. She could see he was fretful, moody. When the taxi drew to a halt she murmured:
‘You could just go in.’
He shook his head. He waited until she had gone before saying to the driver:
‘Boulevard Saint-Michel. In front of the fountain.’
Maybe it was childish, but he felt the need to get closer to the field of battle. Sometimes curious onlookers stand for hours outside a house where a crime has been committed, even though there is nothing to look at.
All that he could see was the imposing entrance to the Police Judiciaire, with a police officer on guard outside, the courtyard with some small black cars parked there and the windows, one of which was the one to his office.
Two photographers stood waiting with their equipment out on the quayside, and there must have been others, as well as reporters, in the vast corridor on the first floor.
Had Janvier really uncovered some new piece of information? Was he acting on his own initiative or under the instruction of the irascible Coméliau?
Gilbert Négrel was on his own in one of the cells looking out on to the second interior courtyard.
There was no more talk of Éveline’s funeral, as if everyone, including her brother, had all of a sudden lost interest.
Maigret reached Quai des Grands-Augustins, just opposite the Palais de Justice, hesitated a moment, then went into a small Norman bar, slightly below street level, so he had to descend two steps to go in. It was always cool in there, no matter how hot it was outside, and there was no bistro in Paris where the smell of calvados was as strong.
‘So, what the newspaper says is true ...’
The landlord with the blotchy face had known him for years. He had the latest edition of the newspaper open in front of him.
‘What can I get you? Not too late for a little calva?’
He took it upon himself to fill two glasses. There was only one other customer, who was sitting in the corner perusing a travel brochure, and the waitress was laying the six tables with their red-checked tablecloths.
‘What was the weather like at Les Sables? Here, apart from a storm, it’s been glorious. Your good health!’
Maigret clicked glasses and drank a mouthful.
‘From the start I thought they’d call you back. I even said to my wife:
‘ “A case like this, only Inspector Maigret can solve it.”
‘Because, if you want my advice, I reckon they’re all lying. Don’t you agree?
‘If I was in Inspector Janvier’s shoes – it’s been a while since he’s dropped in here for a drink, by the way – if I was in his shoes, as I was saying, I’d have put them face to face, doctors or no doctors, and said to them:
‘ “You two sort it out between you.” ’
Maigret couldn’t help smiling, but he never took his eyes off the open windows of his office, which he could view from inside the bar. At one point he saw a man in profile, walking back and forth, and he recognized Janvier’s silhouette. He could even, in spite of the distance, make out a cloud of cigarette smoke in the silhouette.
The detail of the button was niggling at Maigret. It struck a false note for him. It obviously suggested that there had been some sort of struggle between Éveline and Doctor Négrel. From there it was but a short step to concluding that it was he who had struck the young woman or thrown her against a piece of furniture.
That in turn would explain the injection of digitalin, and even the mistake over the drug.
‘She was naked ...’ he murmured without realizing.
‘Pardon?’
‘Nothing. I was wondering ...’
He could see that glimmer again that he had first glimpsed on Quai de Charenton. Something didn’t quite fit here. One of the secondary characters kept popping into his mind, someone who had been talked about the least.
That was Claire Jusserand, the nurse whom Doctor Jave had poached from a Parisian clinic to take care of his child.
According to the papers, she had first of all refused to speak and locked herself away in the Villa Marie-Thérèse, where she could only be spotted at a distance, in the garden with little Michèle.
He remembered an anodyne phrase that he had read somewhere, in an article by Lassagne or one of the others.
Mademoiselle Jusserand is around fifty and seems to hate all men ...
He knew the sort. Most of them, in fact, do not hate just men, but women too, and live closed in on themselves.
But they don’t necessarily hate all men. Sometimes they harbour a secret devotion to one individual, and this becomes their sole reason for living.
Had she known Jave for a long time? In view of her profession, that was possible, indeed quite likely, as the doctor had patients in most of the clinics in Paris.
Maigret tried to imagine her at Boulevard Haussmann and inside the Villa Marie-Thérèse. She hadn’t known love, or, if she had, it had been an unhappy love.
How had she got on with Éveline, whom she saw amassing jewels and who had not only a husband but also a lover?
The sun was setting, and the last of the tug-boats with their flotillas of barges were hastening to some port or other along the Seine. A fisherman was taking his rod apart, and the booksellers’ stalls were already shut.
‘I don’t suppose you’ll be dining here? I guess you are too busy?’
‘I have nothing to do. I’m on holiday.’
There was a hint of bitterness in his voice as he said that.
‘What’s on today’s menu?’
The menu was chalked on to a slate. There was Normandy sole and roast veal.
‘I’ll dine here.’
The landlord had a knowing look on his face. He didn’t believe a word of what Maigret had said about being on holiday. For him as for so many others, whatever was printed in the newspapers was gospel.
‘Maria! Reserve the table next to the window for the inspector.’
And he gave Maigret a wink, convinced that he was only here in order to keep an eye on heaven knows what.
‘Top up the glasses ... This one’s on me ...’
Jave and Antoinette had been in Maigret’s office for nearly four hours, faced by an increasingly nervous Janvier.
The lamp with the green shade was switched on. Someone came to close the window. Half an hour later, when Maigret was eating his dinner, he spotted the waiter from the Brasserie Dauphine going up with a tray covered by a napkin.
That was a sign. Glasses of beer and sandwiches signified that the interrogation was going to go on late into the evening.
There was little expectation of a result any time soon, and three or four reporters left the building and headed for the restaurant on Place Dauphine. They wouldn’t have gone so far if they hadn’t been sure that they had enough time to eat a meal.
There were now five other customers in the restauran
t: two men, sitting together on a banquette and chatting about carburettors – no doubt travelling salesmen – a foreign couple who were having trouble making themselves understood and finally a young blonde woman who had looked at Maigret with a frown as she came in through the door.
He hadn’t recognized her at first, even though the newspapers had published her photo. It was Martine Chapuis. She was wearing a printed cotton dress and was chubbier and fleshier than she had appeared in her pictures.
She also chose a place near the window and never took her eyes off police headquarters, except when she cast a glance at the inspector.
He found her very appealing from the start. She had an open face, a well-defined mouth, and was more feminine than you would have expected of someone so deeply immersed in university studies.
He almost wanted to go to speak to her, and she had the same idea herself on more than one occasion, as, whenever their eyes met, a faint smile appeared on her lips.
She knew from the papers and the radio what was happening across the road. She was quite familiar with the workings of the police from her father and she too was waiting for the grand finale.
She wanted to be in the front row. Wasn’t she one of those with a particular vested interest?
‘A real woman,’ he thought as he was served with the cheese course.
Suddenly he got to his feet and went into the kitchen, where the landlord, who had put on his white chef’s hat, was at work at the stove.
‘May I make a telephone call to Cannes?’
‘You know where the booth is. You just have to ask the price.’
Martine Chapuis, who was following him with her eyes, saw him go through the glass door and pick up the receiver.
‘Villa Marie-Thérèse in Cannes, please, mademoiselle. It’s a personal call for Mademoiselle Jusserand.’
‘There’ll be a few minutes’ delay.’
He went back to his table and had barely finished his camembert when the phone rang.
It was his turn to have stage fright, as he was about to do something he hadn’t attempted before, something he wouldn’t have been allowed to do had he been where Janvier was, in his office.
The line was, as he had both expected and hoped, a bad one. He heard a voice at the other end of it repeating impatiently:
‘Hello ... Hello ... This is the Villa Marie-Thérèse ... Who’s calling?’
The papers had written that the cook was a local woman. But the person who was speaking had no accent, which suggested that it was Mademoiselle Jusserand who was talking. He disguised his voice the best he could.
‘Hello! Claire?’
He was taking a risk – he had no idea how Jave addressed the nurse.
‘That’s me, yes. Who is this?’
He had to take another risk.
‘It’s monsieur.’
‘It’s a bad line,’ she said. ‘I can hardly hear you. The little one is crying in the room next door.’
It was working. He had used the right words. Now he just had to ask the question:
‘Tell me, Claire, when the police questioned you about the phone call madame made on Friday, did you tell them that you had talked to me about it?’
He waited, his heart pounding. Through the glass he could see Martine Chapuis staring at him.
‘Of course not,’ said the voice at the other end of the line.
The nurse sounded somewhat shocked, as if she felt that she wasn’t trusted.
‘Thank you. That’s all.’
He quickly hung up, forgetting to ask the operator how much it had cost, remembering only when he was back at his table.
Sitting opposite him on the other side of the narrow room, the young woman was giving him a worried look, and it was all he could do not to smile at her.
8. Inspector Janvier’s Big Night
The two travelling salesmen were the first to leave. As the landlord had said to Maigret towards the end of his meal, his regular customers were all in the country or at the seaside, and when it came to tourists ‘you never know’. One day the place was packed, for no good reason, ‘because they follow each other like sheep’. Another day, like today, there would be only ‘a couple of oddballs’ who sent back the dishes they didn’t like and then disputed the bill franc by franc.
Martine Chapuis had finished her coffee before Maigret and had opened her handbag to touch up her lipstick. She had then looked to the back of the room, where the landlord was, as well as the waitress, as if to ask for the bill.
Maigret, who was sitting back in his banquette, puffing on his pipe, observed her and wondered whether she would dare ... He sometimes amused himself by trying to predict what people would do next, and he always felt a certain satisfaction when he called it right.
Would she raise her hand to summon the waitress? She started to, but then glanced across at Maigret. Good! She was changing her mind and was looking at him a little more intently, opening her eyes wider as if to ask a question.
In response, he batted his eyelids in an almost fatherly fashion.
They understood each other. Somewhat awkwardly, she stood up and came over to his table. He stood up to offer her a seat.
It was he who called the waitress, but not for the bill.
‘Two calvados, my dear. From the landlord’s bottle.’
And to a surprised Martine he said:
‘You must be needing one. It’s a long wait, isn’t it?’
‘What I don’t understand is why you aren’t across the road. I read the paper and listened to the radio.’
‘I really am on holiday.’
‘In Paris?’
‘Shush! It’s a secret. We decided, my wife and I, to spend our holiday in Paris in order to have some peace and quiet, and even Janvier doesn’t know about it. So, as you see, I am in hiding.’
‘But you’re still involved in the case somehow?’
‘As an amateur, like everyone else. I too have been reading the papers and just now, by chance, I heard the news on the radio.’
‘Do you think Inspector Janvier is capable of understanding?’
‘Understanding what?’
‘That Gilbert didn’t kill that woman.’
The restaurant was currently as calm as an aquarium. The landlord and his wife, a little round woman with a face as red as her husband’s, were eating at the table nearest the kitchen, and the waitress was serving them.
On the opposite bank of the river, they saw some journalists come back. They must have washed down their rushed dinner with liberal quantities of drink, because they were clearly in high spirits.
Nearly all the lights had been turned off in police headquarters. On the first floor only Maigret’s office and the adjoining inspectors’ room were still illuminated.
Maigret was taking his time and had recovered his good humour.
‘You’re sure of that, are you? That he’s innocent?’
She blushed, which pleased Maigret, as he didn’t like women who were no longer capable of blushing.
‘Of course.’
‘Because you love him?’
‘Because I know he would be incapable of committing any shameful act, let alone a crime.’
‘Have you thought so from the beginning?’
She turned her head away, and he persisted:
‘Admit that you had doubts.’
‘I told myself at first that it could have been an accident.’
‘And now?’
‘I’m convinced that it wasn’t him.’
‘Why?’
Since the start of his meal he had had the feeling that she wanted to talk to him, that she really had something to say to him, something quite difficult. From the way that she behaved with him, he thought he understood how close she was to her father, how she confided in him. It was as if, in her father’s absence, she had chosen the inspector to stand in for him.
Instead of replying, she asked a question of her own:
‘Was it Concarneau you were ri
nging just now?’
‘No.’
‘Ah!’
She seemed disappointed that she had got it wrong.
‘I wonder what they’ve been up to over there all this time.’
‘Best not be impatient. It could go on all night.’
‘Do you think they are questioning Gilbert too?’
‘Possibly, but I don’t think so. Négrel is now in the custody of the examining magistrate and can’t be questioned without his lawyer present.’
‘Papa doesn’t get back until tomorrow morning.’
‘I know. You still haven’t told me why you are so certain that it wasn’t your fiancé who killed Madame Jave.’
She lit a cigarette, somewhat nervously.
‘May I?’
‘Feel free.’
‘It’s difficult to explain. You’ve never seen Gilbert, have you?’
‘No. However, I think I have formed a very good idea of what he is like.’
‘And of how he behaves when he is with a woman?’
He looked at her, surprised and intrigued.
‘I don’t need to be coy with you, do I? From what I’ve said you’ve probably realized that we didn’t wait until we got married to be with one another. Mother is furious, because people gossip, but Papa doesn’t mind. When that woman’s body was found, it was completely naked ...’
Maigret narrowed his eyes, peered at her more intently, because she was touching on a point that had intrigued him from the start.
‘I don’t know how to put this ... It’s a little delicate ... With some men it might have been possible ... Do you follow?’
‘Not yet.’
She downed half of her drink to screw up her courage.
‘If there had been something going on between them that Saturday and if Madame Jave had got undressed, Gilbert would have undressed too.’
It suddenly occurred to him that that was right. Other men would have been capable of acting differently, more casually. Not a young man like Négrel, who would have insisted in some way on being on equal terms with his companion.
‘How do we know he didn’t?’
It was barely a question at all, because he already knew the answer.
‘You’re forgetting that this was in surgery hours, and that Josépha could show in a patient at any moment. Can you imagine a doctor turning up naked in his surgery?’
Maigret Enjoys Himself Page 12
