Maigret at Picratt's

by Georges Simenon

  ‘So he’ll try to silence him.’

  ‘Exactly! I didn’t want to try it without talking it over with you.’

  ‘You think you can stop him being killed?’

  ‘I’ll take every precaution. Bonvoisin is not the sort to use a gun. It makes too much noise, and he doesn’t seem to like noise.’

  ‘When do you plan on releasing the witness?’

  ‘Early evening. It will be easier to tail him discreetly then. I will put as many men on him as it takes. And if there is an accident, well, I don’t think it will be such a great loss.’

  ‘I’d rather there wasn’t.’

  ‘Me too.’

  Neither of them spoke for a while. Finally the commissioner merely sighed:

  ‘It’s your case, Maigret. Good luck.’

  ‘You were right, chief.’

  ‘Let’s have it!’

  Lapointe was so pleased to be playing an important role in an investigation that he had almost forgotten about Arlette’s death.

  ‘I got the information immediately. Oscar Bonvoisin was born in Le Mont-Dore, where his father was a hotel porter and his mother a chambermaid at the same place. He started off as a messenger boy himself. Then he moved away and didn’t go back until about ten years ago, when he bought a villa, not in Le Mont-Dore but very near, in La Bourboule.’

  ‘Does he live there?’

  ‘No. He spends part of the summer there and the odd day in winter.’

  ‘He’s not married?’

  ‘Confirmed bachelor. His mother’s still alive.’

  ‘Living in her son’s villa?’

  ‘No. She has a small apartment in town. People think he pays the bills. They say that he’s earned a fair bit of money and has got a cushy job in Paris.’

  ‘The description?’

  ‘Fits.’

  ‘Do you want to be given a vital job?’

  ‘You know I do, chief.’

  ‘Even if it’s on the dangerous side, with a great deal of responsibility?’

  His love for Arlette must have surged through his veins again, because he declared, a little too fervently:

  ‘I don’t care if I’m killed.’

  ‘Good! That’s not it, though. You’ll be making sure someone else isn’t. And for that it’s essential that you don’t look like a policeman.’

  ‘Do you think I do?’

  ‘Go to the cloakroom. Choose the clothes of a hardened shirker who’s looking for a job and hoping he won’t find one. Wear a cap instead of a hat. Don’t overdo it, that’s the main thing.’

  Janvier had returned, and he gave him broadly similar instructions.

  ‘People should think you’re a clerk on his way home from work.’

  Then he chose two inspectors whom Philippe had not seen before.

  He called all four of them into his office and, standing in front of a map of Montmartre, explained what he wanted from them.

  Night was falling fast. The lights on the embankment and Boulevard Saint-Michel were already on.

  Maigret thought about waiting for it to be completely dark, but it would be harder to follow Philippe through the deserted streets without arousing his, and especially Bonvoisin’s, suspicions.

  ‘Do you want to come here for a moment, Torrence?’

  The latter burst out:

  ‘I give up! That fellow makes me sick. Someone else can have a go if he’s got a strong stomach, but I’m …’

  ‘You’ll be done in five minutes.’

  ‘Are we letting him go?’

  ‘As soon as the fifth edition of the papers is out.’

  ‘What have the newspapers got to do with it?’

  ‘They’re going to report that he has been questioned for hours with no joy.’

  ‘Got it.’

  ‘Shake him up a bit more. Then put his hat on his head and boot him out, saying he’d better watch his step.’

  ‘Do I give him back his syringe?’

  ‘His syringe and money.’

  Torrence looked at the four inspectors who were waiting.

  ‘Is that why they’re in carnival get-up?’

  One of the men hailed a taxi and waited in it near the entrance. Others went to take up their positions at strategic points.

  Maigret had had time to ring the Drug Squad and the Rue de La Rochefoucauld station.

  Through the door of the box room, which he had intentionally left ajar, Torrence’s thunderous voice could be heard. He was throwing himself wholeheartedly into his part, telling Philippe to his face everything he thought of him.

  ‘I wouldn’t touch you with a bargepole, understand? I’d be too afraid you’d come. I’m going to have to get the office disinfected, as it is. Take this joke of an overcoat, put your hat on.’

  ‘You mean I can go?’

  ‘I’m telling you I’ve seen enough of you, we’ve all seen enough of you. We’re sick of you, get it? Pick up your junk and disappear, you piece of shit!’

  ‘There’s no need to push me about.’

  ‘I’m not pushing you about.’

  ‘You’re shouting at me.’

  ‘Get out of here!’

  ‘I’m going … I’m going … Thank you.’

  A door was opened, then fiercely slammed shut. The corridor was deserted, with only two or three people waiting in the dimly lit waiting room.

  Philippe’s silhouette stood out against the long, dusty vista; he looked like an insect searching for a way out.

  Maigret, who was watching him through his half-open door, finally saw him start down the stairs.

  His heart sank a little. He closed the door and turned to Torrence, who was unwinding like an actor in his dressing room after the show. Torrence could see he was concerned, worried.

  ‘You think he’s going to get killed?’

  ‘I hope someone will try but won’t succeed.’

  ‘His first priority will be to tear off to wherever he thinks he can get drugs.’

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘Do you know where that is?’

  ‘Doctor Bloch’s.’

  ‘Will he give him any?’

  ‘I’ve sent orders that he mustn’t, and he won’t dare disobey me.’

  ‘So what now?’

  ‘I don’t know. I’m going up to Montmartre. The boys know where to reach me. You stay here. If there’s anything, ring me at Picratt’s.’

  ‘In other words, more sandwiches for me. Doesn’t matter. As long as it’s not just me and that fairy!’

  Maigret put on his overcoat and hat, chose two cold pipes from his desk and stuffed them into his pockets.

  Before getting a taxi to take him to Rue Pigalle, he stopped at the Brasserie Dauphine and drank a glass of brandy. His hangover had cleared up, but he sensed that there would be another one along in the morning.

  8.

  The photographs of Arlette had finally been removed from the display. She had been replaced by another girl, who was presumably doing the same act, and maybe even wearing the same dress, but Betty was right: it was difficult to carry off. The girl may have been young and chubby, and pretty, really, but even in the photograph, as she undressed, there was something crudely vulgar about her which reminded you of dirty postcards and, a little, of those badly painted nudes you see rippling on the backcloths of fairground booths.

  Maigret only had to push open the door. A light was on at the bar and another at the back of the room, with a long belt of half-darkness between the two.

  Their apartment was so tiny that the Alfonsi had to use the club as a dining and sitting room during the day. No doubt, at aperitif time, customers who were more like friends would sometimes come to have a drink at the bar. Fred looked over his glasses as Maigret came towards him. He didn’t stand up but offered him a big paw and gestured to him to sit down.

  ‘I thought you’d show up,’ he said.

  He didn’t explain why. Maigret didn’t ask him. Fred finished reading the report about the inquiry in p
rogress, took off his glasses and asked, ‘What can I get you? A brandy?’

  He went and filled two glasses and sat back down with the satisfied sigh of a man pleased to be at home. Both of them heard footsteps overhead.

  ‘Is your wife up there?’ asked Maigret.

  ‘She’s giving the new girl a lesson.’

  Maigret didn’t relish the thought of the heavyset Rose giving the young girl a striptease demonstration.

  ‘You’re not interested?’ he asked Fred.

  The latter shrugged his shoulders.

  ‘She’s a pretty girl. She’s got nicer breasts than Arlette, fresher skin. But that’s not what it takes.’

  ‘Why did you try to make me believe that you’d only had sex with Arlette in the kitchen?’

  He did not seem embarrassed.

  ‘Have you been asking in all the hotels? I had to say that for my wife’s sake. It would have hurt her unnecessarily. She always reckons that I’m going to drop her for a younger woman some day or another.’

  ‘Would you have dropped her for Arlette?’

  Fred looked Maigret in the eye.

  ‘If she’d asked me, yes.’

  ‘You were infatuated with her?’

  ‘Call it what you like. I’ve had hundreds of women in my life, probably thousands. I never took the trouble to count. But I’ve never come across anyone like her.’

  ‘Did you ask her to move in with you?’

  ‘I gave her to understand that I wouldn’t mind, and that it wouldn’t be to her disadvantage.’

  ‘She refused?’

  Fred sighed, stared through his glass, then took a swig of his drink.

  ‘If she hadn’t refused, she’d probably still be alive. You know as well as I do that she had someone. I haven’t been able to find out what kind of hold he had on her.’

  ‘You tried?’

  ‘I even followed her.’

  ‘Without success?’

  ‘She was craftier than me. What are you up to with the fairy?’

  ‘You know Philippe?’

  ‘No. But I know a few like him. Occasionally, some of them will venture into Picratt’s, but I prefer to avoid that sort of clientele. Do you think it will pay off?’

  It was Maigret’s turn to respond with silence. Fred had worked it all out, obviously. He was almost in the same line of business. They both had a roughly similar approach, just different styles of working and different reasons for doing so.

  ‘There are things you haven’t told me about Arlette,’ Maigret said quietly.

  A faint smile played on Fred’s lips.

  ‘Have you guessed what they were?’

  ‘I guessed what kind of things they were.’

  ‘Might as well take advantage of my wife being upstairs. The kid may be dead, but I’d still rather not talk about her in front of Rose. Truth of it is, between you and me, I don’t think I’ll ever leave her. We are so used to each other that I couldn’t do without her. Even if I’d gone off with Arlette, I’d probably have come back.’

  The telephone rang. There was no booth. It was by the wash-basin in the toilets, and Maigret set off towards it saying, ‘It’s for me.’

  He wasn’t mistaken. It was Lapointe.

  ‘You were right, chief. He immediately went straight to Doctor Bloch’s. He took the bus. He was only up there a few minutes and came back out looking a bit paler. At the moment he’s on his way to Place Blanche.’

  ‘Is everything all right?’

  ‘Everything’s fine. Don’t worry.’

  Maigret went and sat back down. Fred didn’t ask him anything.

  ‘You were telling me about Arlette.’

  ‘I always had a hunch she was a girl from a good family who had left home on a whim. As a matter of fact, it was Rose who first pointed certain things out to me that I hadn’t noticed. I also had my suspicions that she was younger than she claimed. She’d probably swapped identity cards with an older friend.’

  Fred spoke slowly, like a man mulling over pleasant memories. Before them, the long vista of the club in semi-darkness stretched like a tunnel, with the mahogany bar gleaming in the lamplight right at the end, near the door.

  ‘It’s not easy to explain what I meant. There are girls who’ve got a knack for love-making, and I’ve known some virgins who were more depraved than any old pro. Arlette was different. I don’t know who the guy was who turned her out, but I take my hat off to him. I’m an expert, as I told you before, and when I say I’ve never met a woman like her, you can believe me. Not only did he teach her the lot, but I realized she knew things I did not know myself. At my age, imagine that. With the life I’ve led. I was stunned. And she got a kick out of it, I’d bet my life on it. Not just going to bed with anyone, but even her act, which I’m sorry you didn’t see. I have known women of thirty-five or forty, most of them with a screw loose, who made a game of turning men on. And I’ve known little girls who played with fire. But never like her. Never so passionate. I’m not explaining it well, I know, but I can’t describe exactly what I think. You asked about a man named Oscar. I don’t know if he exists. I don’t know who he is. What is for sure is that someone had a hold on Arlette, and he kept her on a tight rein. Do you think she suddenly had enough and ratted on him?’

  ‘When she went to the Rue de La Rochefoucauld station at four in the morning, she was in no doubt that a crime would be committed and that it involved a countess.’

  ‘Why did she say she had found that out here? Why did she claim to have overheard a conversation between two men?’

  ‘For a start she was drunk. It was probably the drinking that prompted her to do it.’

  ‘Or else she was drinking to get up enough courage to go through with it?’

  ‘I wonder,’ murmured Maigret, ‘if how she was with young Albert …’

  ‘Oh yes! I’ve found out he’s one of your inspectors.’

  ‘I didn’t know either. He was really in love.’

  ‘I noticed.’

  ‘All women have some romantic feelings. He was deadset on her starting a new life. She could have married him if she’d wanted to.’

  ‘You think that made her feel disgusted with her Oscar?’

  ‘At any rate she rebelled and went to the police. But she still didn’t want to say too much. She left him a chance to get away with it, only giving a vague description and a first name.’

  ‘It’s still a dirty trick, don’t you think?’

  ‘Maybe, once she was face to face with the police, she regretted her impulse. She was surprised that they detained her and sent her to Quai des Orfèvres, and that gave her time to sleep off her champagne. After that she was much vaguer and virtually said she had made it all up.’

  ‘That’s just like a woman, I agree,’ said Fred. ‘What I wonder is how the guy found out. Because he was at Rue Notre-Dame-de-Lorette before her, waiting for her.’

  Maigret looked at his pipe without saying a word.

  ‘I bet,’ Fred continued, ‘you imagined I knew him and didn’t want to say anything.’

  ‘Maybe.’

  ‘You even thought it was me for a while.’

  It was Maigret’s turn to smile.

  ‘And there was I,’ added Picratt’s owner, ‘wondering if the girl hadn’t described someone a bit like me on purpose. Just because her man is completely different.’

  ‘No. The description fits.’

  ‘You know him?’

  ‘His name is Oscar Bonvoisin.’

  Fred didn’t bat an eyelid. The name evidently meant nothing to him.

  ‘He’s good,’ he said flatly. ‘Whoever he is, I raise my hat to him. I thought I knew Montmartre inside out. I talked it over with the Grasshopper, who spends his time poking his nose into everything. Arlette had been working for me for two years. She lives a few hundred metres from here. As I told you, I sometimes followed her because I was curious. And after all that don’t you think it’s incredible that we don’t know anything about this
guy?’

  He flicked the newspaper spread out on the table.

  ‘He used to spend time with that crazy old countess too. Women like that don’t go unnoticed. That’s a very particular world, all that, where everybody knows everybody, more or less. But your men don’t seem any more clued up than I am. Lognon came by just now and tried to pump me for information, but there isn’t any.’

  The telephone, again.

  ‘Is that you, chief? I’m on Boulevard Clichy. He’s just gone into the brasserie on the corner of Rue Lepic and done a round of the tables, as if he were looking for someone. He seemed disappointed. There is another brasserie next door, and first he stuck his face in the window. Then he went in and headed for the toilets. Janvier went in afterwards and questioned the bathroom attendant. Apparently he asked if someone called Bernard had left a message for him.’

  ‘Did she say who Bernard is?’

  ‘She claims not to know who he’s talking about.’

  A drug dealer, obviously.

  ‘He’s walking towards Place Clichy now.’

  Maigret had barely hung up before the telephone rang again, and this time it was Torrence’s voice.

  ‘Hey, chief, going into the box room just now to air it out, I tripped over that guy Philippe’s suitcase. We forgot to give it back to him. Do you think he’s going to pick it up?’

  ‘Not before he’s found some drugs.’

  When Maigret went back into the main room, Madame Rose and Arlette’s young successor were both in the middle of the dance-floor. Fred had moved and was sitting in a booth like a customer. He motioned to Maigret to follow suit.

  ‘We’re rehearsing!’ he declared with a wink.

  The woman was very young, with a shock of blonde curls and a rosy complexion like a baby or a country girl. She had the sturdy build and naive expression to match.

  ‘Shall I start?’ she asked.

  There was no music, no spotlights. Fred had just turned on an extra overhead above the dance-floor. He started humming the tune Arlette used to strip to, marking time with his hand.

  Then Rose, after saying hello to Maigret, mimed to the young woman what she should do.

  Awkwardly, the latter executed a series of what were supposed to be dance steps, swaying her hips as much as possible, and then, slowly, as she’d been taught, began to unbutton the long black sheath dress, which had been altered to fit her.