‘My braces?’ shouted Maigret from upstairs.
‘In the top drawer.’
Maigret came down wearing his coat with a velvet collar and his bowler hat. He pushed away the eggs waiting for him on the table and, defying his wife, drank a fourth glass of brandy.
It was 5.30 when the door opened and the three men stepped outside and got into the taxi. It took a while for the engine to start. Madame Maigret stood shivering in the doorway while the oil lamp made the reddish reflections dance on the little window panes.
The sky was so light, it felt like daybreak. But this was February and it was the night itself that was silver-coloured. Each blade of grass was rimed with frost. The apple trees in the neighbouring orchard were iced so white that they looked as fragile as spun glass.
‘See you in two or three days!’ yelled Maigret.
Philippe, embarrassed, shouted:
‘Goodbye, Aunt!’
The driver slammed the car door again and crunched the gears for a moment.
‘Please forgive me, Uncle—’
‘What for?’
What for? Philippe didn’t dare say. He was asking forgiveness because there was something dramatic about this departure. He recalled his uncle’s silhouette earlier, by the fireplace, with his nightshirt, his old clothes, his slippers.
And now, he barely dared look at him. It was indeed Maigret who was beside him, smoking his pipe, his velvet collar upturned, his hat perched on his head. But it wasn’t an enthusiastic Maigret. It wasn’t even a Maigret who was sure of himself. Twice he turned round and watched his little house receding.
‘Did you say that Amadieu will arrive at Rue Fontaine at eight?’ he asked.
‘Yes, at eight o’clock.’
They had time. The taxi was going quite fast. They drove through Orléans, where the first trams were setting out. Less than an hour later, they reached the market in Arpajon.
‘What do you think, Uncle?’
It was draughty in the back of the car. The sky was clear. There was a golden glow in the east.
‘How could Pepito have been killed?’ sighed Philippe, who received no reply.
They stopped after Arpajon to warm up in a café and almost at once it was daylight, with a pale sun slowly rising where the fields met the horizon.
‘There was no one but him and me in—’
‘Be quiet!’ said Maigret wearily.
His nephew huddled in his corner with the look of a child caught misbehaving, not daring to take his eyes off the door.
They entered Paris as the early-morning bustle was beginning. Past the Lion de Belfort, Boulevard Raspail, the Pont-Neuf …
The city looked as if it had been washed in clean water, so bright were the colours. A train of barges was gliding slowly up the Seine and the tugboat whistled, puffing out clouds of immaculate steam to announce its flotilla.
‘How many passers-by were there in Rue Fontaine when you came out?’
‘I only saw the man I ran into.’
Maigret sighed and emptied his pipe, tapping it against his heel.
The driver pulled down the glass partition and inquired: ‘Where to?’
They stopped for a moment at a hotel on the embankment to drop off Maigret’s suitcase, then they got back into the taxi and made their way to Rue Fontaine.
‘It’s not so much what happened at the Floria that worries me. It’s the man who bumped into you.’
‘What are you thinking?’
‘I’m not thinking anything!’
He came out with this favourite expression from the past as he turned round to glimpse the outline, once so familiar, of the Palais de Justice.
‘At one point I thought of going to the big chief and telling him the whole story,’ muttered Philippe.
Maigret did not answer and, until they reached Rue Fontaine, he kept his gaze fixed on the view of the Seine as it flowed through a fine blue and gold mist.
They pulled up a hundred metres from number 53. Philippe turned up the collar of his overcoat to conceal his dinner-jacket, but at the sight of his patent-leather shoes, people turned round to stare all the same.
It was only 6.50. A window-cleaner was washing the windows of the corner café, the Tabac Fontaine, which stayed open all night. People on their way to work stopped off for a quick café crème with a croissant. There was only a waiter serving since the owner did not get to bed before five or six in the morning and rose at midday. He was a swarthy young southern-looking fellow with black hair. There were cigar ends and cigarette butts lying on a table next to a slate used for keeping score for card games.
Maigret bought a packet of shag and ordered a sandwich, while Philippe grew impatient.
‘What happened last night?’ asked Maigret, his mouth full of bread and ham.
And, gathering up the change, the waiter answered bluntly:
‘People are saying the owner of the Floria was killed.’
‘Palestrino?’
‘I don’t know. I’m on the day shift. And during the day, we don’t have anything to do with the nightclubs.’
They left. Philippe did not dare say anything.
‘You see?’ grumbled Maigret.
Standing on the kerb, he added:
‘That’s the work of the man you bumped into, you realize. Theoretically, no one should know anything before eight o’clock.’
They walked towards the Floria, but they stopped fifty metres short. They spotted the peaked cap of a Paris police sergeant standing in front of the door. On the opposite pavement, a knot of people had gathered.
‘What shall I do?’
‘Your chief is bound to be at the scene. Go up to him and tell him—’
‘What about you, Uncle?’
Maigret shrugged and went on:
‘—Tell him the truth.’
‘Supposing he asks where I went next?’
‘Tell him you came to fetch me.’
There was resignation in his voice. They had got off on the wrong foot, and that was all! It was a stupid business and Maigret felt like gnashing his teeth.
‘I’m sorry, Uncle!’
‘No emotional scenes in the street! If they let you go free, meet me in the Chope du Pont-Neuf. If I’m not there, I’ll leave you a note.’
They did not even shake hands. Philippe headed straight for the Floria. The sergeant did not know him and tried to bar him from entering. Philippe had to show his badge, then he vanished inside.
Maigret remained at a distance, his hands in his pockets, like the other onlookers. He waited. He waited for almost half an hour, without the least idea of what was going on inside the club.
Detective Chief Inspector Amadieu came out first, followed by a short, nondescript man who looked like a waiter.
And Maigret needed no explanations. He knew that this was the man who had bumped into Philippe. He could guess Amadieu’s question.
‘Was it right here that you bumped into him?’
The man nodded. Inspector Amadieu beckoned Philippe, who was still inside. He came out, looking as nervous as a young musician, as if the entire street were aware of the suspicions that were about to engulf him.
‘And was this the gentleman who was coming out at that moment?’ Amadieu must have been saying, tugging his brown moustache.
The man nodded again.
There were two other police officers. The divisional chief glanced at his watch and, after a brief discussion, the man sauntered off and went into the Tabac Fontaine while the policemen went back inside the Floria.
Fifteen minutes later, two cars arrived. It was the public prosecutor.
‘I’ve got to go back to repeat my statement,’ the man from the Floria told the waiter at the Tabac Fontaine. ‘Another white wine and Vichy, quick!’
And, discomfited by Maigret’s insistent stare as he stood nearby drinking a beer, he lowered his voice and asked:
‘Who’s that?’
2.
Maigret sat with his head
bent over his work with the application of a schoolboy. He drew a rectangle and placed a little cross somewhere in the centre. Then he stared at his effort and frowned. The rectangle represented the Floria, and the cross, Pepito. At the far end of the rectangle, Maigret drew another, smaller one: the office. And in this office he placed a dot indicating the gun.
This was pointless. It meant nothing. The case wasn’t a geometry problem. Maigret doggedly continued all the same, scrunched the page into a ball and started all over again on a fresh sheet.
Only now he was no longer concerned with placing crosses in rectangles. Poring over the page, deeply engrossed, he tried to pin down a snatch of conversation, a look, an unwitting attitude.
He sat alone at his former table at the back of the Chope du Pont-Neuf. And it was too late to wonder whether he had been right or wrong to come. Everyone had seen him. The owner had shaken his hand.
‘How’s it going with the chickens and rabbits?’
Maigret was sitting by the window and he could see the Pont-Neuf bathed in a rosy glow, the steps of the Palais de Justice, the gates of the police headquarters. A white napkin under his arm, the beaming owner was in a chatty mood:
‘So life’s good! Dropping in to see your old pals?’
The beat officers were still in the habit of playing a hand of belote in the Chope before setting off on their rounds. There were some new faces who didn’t know Maigret, but the others, after greeting Maigret, spoke to their colleagues in hushed tones.
That was when he had drawn his first rectangle, his first cross. The hours dragged by. At aperitif time, there were a dozen ‘boys’ in the place.
Trusty Lucas, who had worked with Maigret on a hundred cases, came over looking slightly sheepish.
‘How are you, chief? Come for a breath of Paris air?’ Lucas still called him chief, in memory of the old days.
And Maigret, between two puffs of smoke, merely muttered:
‘What did Amadieu have to say?’
There was no point lying to him. He could see their faces and he knew the Police Judiciaire well enough to know what was going on. It was midday, and Philippe had not yet put in an appearance at the Chope.
‘You know what Inspector Amadieu is like. We’ve had a few problems at HQ recently. Things are a bit tricky with the public prosecutor. So—’
‘What did he say?’
‘That you were here, of course. That you were going to try to—’
‘Let me guess. His words were “act the wise guy”.’
‘I have to go,’ stammered Lucas, embarrassed.
Maigret ordered another beer and became absorbed in drawing his rectangles while most of the tables were talking about him.
He ate lunch at the same table, now in the sunlight. The photographer from the criminal records office was eating nearby. As he drank his coffee, Maigret repeated to himself, pencil in hand:
‘Pepito was here, between two rows of tables. The murderer was concealed somewhere. There’s no shortage of hiding places. He fired, unaware of the presence of that idiot Philippe, then went into the office to get something. He had just put his gun down on the desk when he heard a noise and so he hid again. And from then on, the two of them played cat and mouse.’
It was simple. Pointless looking for any other explanation. The murderer had eventually reached the door without being seen and made it out into the street while Philippe was still inside.
So far, nothing extraordinary. Any fool would have done the same thing. The clever part was what happened next: the idea of ensuring that someone would recognize Philippe and testify against him.
And, a few moments later, it was done. The murderer had found his man, in an empty street in the dead of night. This person bumped into Philippe as he emerged and rushed off to fetch the policeman on duty in Place Blanche.
‘I say, officer, I’ve just seen a suspicious-looking character coming out of the Floria. He was in such a rush that he didn’t bother to close the door.’
Maigret, without looking at his former colleagues, who were drinking beers, could guess what the old-timers were whispering to the new boys:
‘Have you heard of Detective Chief Inspector Maigret? That’s him!’
Amadieu, who didn’t like him, must have announced in the corridors of the Police Judiciaire:
‘He’s going to try and act the wise guy. But we’ll show him!’
It was four in the afternoon and Philippe had not appeared yet. The newspapers came off the presses with details of the murder, including his alleged confession. Another dirty trick of Amadieu’s.
Quai des Orfèvres was in turmoil, phones ringing, files dredged up, witnesses and informers brought in for questioning.
Maigret’s nostrils were quivering as he sat hunched on the banquette patiently doing little drawings with the tip of his pencil.
He had to find Pepito’s killer at all costs. But he was not on good form, he felt afraid, anxious as to whether he would succeed. He watched the young police officers and tried to fathom what they thought of him.
Philippe did not arrive until 5.45. He stood there for a moment, as if dazzled by the light. As he sat down beside Maigret, he attempted a smile and stammered:
‘It went on for ages!’
He was so exhausted that he wiped his hand across his brow as if to collect his thoughts.
‘I’ve been at the prosecutor’s office. The examining magistrate questioned me for an hour and a half. But before that, he made me wait in the corridor for two hours.’
Everyone was watching them. And while Philippe talked, Maigret looked at the men facing them.
‘You know, Uncle, it’s much more serious than we thought.’
For Maigret, each word was loaded with significance. He knew the examining magistrate, Gastambide, a stocky Basque who was meticulous and contemptuous, who weighed up his words, spent several minutes formulating his sentences then letting them drop as if to declare:
‘What can you say to that?’
And Maigret was familiar with that corridor, filled with defendants under police guard, the benches crammed with restless witnesses, women in tears. If Philippe had been made to wait, it was deliberate.
‘The magistrate told me not to deal with any cases, to take no action before the end of the investigation. I am to consider myself suspended from duty and I must remain at his disposal.’
It was aperitif hour, the noisiest time at the Chope du Pont-Neuf. All the tables were full. The air was thick with pipe and cigarette smoke. From time to time, a newcomer greeted Maigret from across the room.
Philippe did not dare look at anyone, not even his companion.
‘I’m very sorry, Uncle.’
‘What else has happened?’
‘Everyone thought, naturally, that the Floria would be closed, at least for a few days. But it isn’t going to be. Today, there was a series of phone calls, some baffling developments. Apparently, the Floria was sold two days ago and Pepito was no longer the owner. The buyer has friends in high places and tonight the joint will be open for business as usual.’
Maigret frowned. Was it because of what he had just heard, or because Detective Chief Inspector Amadieu had just walked in with a colleague and sat down at the other end of the room?
‘Godet!’ Maigret shouted.
Godet was an inspector from the vice squad who was playing cards three tables away. He turned round, cards in hand, unsure whether to get up.
‘When you’ve finished your game!’
And Maigret screwed up all his scraps of paper and threw them on to the floor. He downed his beer in one gulp and wiped his mouth, looking over in Amadieu’s direction.
Amadieu had heard him. He watched the scene from a distance as he poured water into his Pernod. Intrigued, Godet finally went over to Maigret’s table.
‘Did you want to speak to me, sir?’
‘Hello, old friend!’ said Maigret, shaking his hand. ‘A simple piece of information. Are you still with the
Vice? Good. Can you tell me whether Cageot showed his face at HQ this morning?’
‘Hold on. I think he came into the office at around eleven.’
‘Thank you, my friend.’
That was all! Maigret looked at Amadieu. Amadieu looked at Maigret. And now it was Amadieu who was uncomfortable and Maigret was the one suppressing a smile.
Philippe did not dare speak. The case had just moved up a rung. The game was being played over his head and he didn’t even know the rules.
‘Godet!’ bawled a voice.
This time, all the police officers in the room shuddered as they watched the inspector get up again, still holding his cards, and walk over to Chief Inspector Amadieu.
There was no need to hear what was said. It was clear that Amadieu wanted to know:
‘What did he ask you?’
‘Whether I’d seen Cageot this morning.’
Maigret lit his pipe, let the match burn down to the very end and finally rose, calling:
‘Waiter!’
Drawn up to his full height, he waited for his change, glancing casually around the room.
‘Where are we going?’ asked Philippe once they were outside.
Maigret turned to him, as if surprised to see him there.
‘You’re going to bed,’ he said.
‘What about you, Uncle?’
Maigret shrugged, thrust his hands in his pockets and walked off without answering. He had just spent one of the most unpleasant days of his life. Hours on end stuck in his corner. He had felt old and feeble, with no energy, no inspiration.
Then the shift happened. A little flame shot up. But he had to take advantage of it right away.
‘We’ll see, damn it!’ he grunted to boost his spirits.
Normally, at this hour, he would be reading his newspaper under the lamp, his legs outstretched in front of the log fire.
‘Do you come to Paris often?’
Maigret, propping up the bar of the Floria, shook his head and merely replied:
‘Uh-huh, from time to time …’
He was feeling buoyant again. He did not express his good humour in smiles, but he had an inner feeling of well-being. One of his gifts was the ability to laugh inwardly without betraying his outer gravitas. A woman was sitting next to him. She asked him to buy her a drink and he nodded in acquiescence.
Maigret Page 2
