Two years ago, a prostitute would never have made that mistake. But his overcoat with its velvet collar and his standard black, hard-wearing serge suit and tie told her nothing. If she mistook him for a provincial out on the town, it meant he had changed.
‘Something happened here, didn’t it?’ he muttered.
‘The boss got bumped off last night.’
She also misread the look in his eye, which she thought was one of interest. But things were not so straightforward! Maigret was back in a world he had long since left behind. This nondescript little woman, he knew her without knowing her. He was certain that she did not have a record and that, on her passport, her occupation was given as artiste or dancer. As for the Chinese barman who served them, Maigret could have recited his criminal history. The cloakroom attendant, on the other hand, had clocked him and had greeted him anxiously, trying to place him.
Among the waiters, there were at least two whom Maigret had brought into his office in the past for questioning in cases similar to Pepito’s killing.
He ordered a brandy with water. He vaguely watched the room and instinctively positioned crosses, as he had done on paper. Customers who had read the papers were asking questions and the waiters were explaining, pointing out the spot near the fifth table where the body had been found.
‘Would you like to share a bottle of champagne?’
‘No, dear.’
The woman almost guessed, and was at least intrigued as Maigret’s gaze followed the new owner, a young man with fair hair whom he had known as the manager of a Montparnasse dance hall.
‘Will you see me home?’
‘Of course! In a while.’
In the meantime, he went into the toilets and guessed where Philippe had hidden. At the back of the main room, he could glimpse the office with its door ajar. But that was of no interest. He knew the scenario before setting foot in Rue Fontaine. The actors too. Going round the room, he could point to each person, saying:
‘At this table, we have a newlywed couple from the South out for a night on the town. This young man who is already drunk is a young German who will end the night minus his wallet. Over there, the gigolo with a criminal record and packets of cocaine in his pockets. He is in cahoots with the head waiter, who has done three years inside. The plump brunette spent ten years at Maxim’s and is winding up her career in Montmartre—’
He returned to the bar.
‘Can I have another cocktail?’ asked the woman, for whom he had already bought a drink.
‘What’s your name?’
‘Fernande.’
‘What were you doing last night?’
‘I was with three young men, boys from good families, who wanted to take ether. I went with them to a hotel in Rue Notre-Dame-de-Lorette.’
Maigret did not smile, but he could have continued the story for her.
‘First, we went into the pharmacy in Rue Montmartre separately and bought a little bottle of ether each. I wasn’t entirely sure what was going to happen. We got undressed. But they didn’t even look at me. All four of us lay down on the bed. When they inhaled the ether, one got up and said in this strange voice: “Oh! There are angels on top of the wardrobe … Aren’t they lovely … I’m going to catch them …” He tried to get up and fell on to the rug. Me, the smell made me feel sick. I asked them if that was all they wanted from me and I got dressed again. But I did laugh. There was a bug on the pillow between two of their heads, and I can still hear the voice of one of the boys saying, as if in a dream: “There’s a bug in front of my face!” “And mine!” sighed the other one. And they didn’t budge. They were both squinting.’
She downed her drink in one go, and decreed:
‘Barmy!’
All the same, she was starting to grow anxious.
‘You’re keeping me for the night, aren’t you?’
‘Of course! Of course!’ replied Maigret.
There was a curtain dividing the bar from the lobby where the cloakroom was. From his seat, Maigret could see through the slit in the curtain. Suddenly he jumped down from his stool and took a few steps. A man had just walked in, and said to the cloakroom attendant:
‘Nothing new?’
‘Good evening, Monsieur Cageot!’
It was Maigret speaking, his hands in his jacket pockets, his pipe in his mouth. The man he was addressing, who had his back to him, slowly turned around, looked him up and down, and grunted:
‘So you’re here!’
The red curtain and the music were behind them, and in front of them the door opened on to the cold street where the doorman was pacing up and down. Cageot was reluctant to take off his overcoat.
Fernande, feeling uneasy, poked her nose out, but withdrew immediately.
‘Will you have a drink?’
Cageot had finally made up his mind and handed his overcoat to the cloakroom attendant, watching Maigret all the while.
‘If you like,’ he agreed.
The head waiter hurried over to show them to a free table. Without looking at the wine list, the newcomer muttered:
‘Mumm 26!’
He was not in evening dress, but was wearing a dark-grey suit as ill-fitting as Maigret’s. He was not even freshly shaven and a greyish stubble ate into his cheeks.
‘I thought you’d retired?’
‘So did I!’
This seemed pretty innocuous, yet Cageot frowned, and signalled to the girl selling cigars and cigarettes. Fernande sat at the bar, wide-eyed. And young Albert, who was playing the part of the owner, wondered whether or not he should go over to them.
‘Cigar?’
‘No thank you,’ said Maigret, emptying his pipe.
‘Are you in Paris for long?’
‘Until Pepito’s killer is behind bars.’
They did not raise their voices. Next to them, high-spirited men in dinner-jackets were pelting each other with cotton-wool balls and throwing paper streamers. The saxophonist wandered solemnly from table to table playing his instrument.
‘Have they called you back to investigate this case?’
Germain Cageot had a long, lifeless face and bushy eyebrows the colour of grey mould. He was the last man one would expect to meet in a place where people go to have fun. He spoke slowly, frostily, gauging the effect of each word.
‘I came of my own accord,’ Maigret replied.
‘Are you working for yourself?’
‘One could say that.’
It seemed unimportant. Fernande herself must have been thinking that it was pure chance that her companion knew Cageot.
‘How long ago did you buy the place?’
‘The Floria? You’re mistaken. It belongs to Albert.’
‘As it did Pepito.’
Cageot did not deny it, but merely smiled mirthlessly and stopped the waiter who was about to pour him some champagne.
‘What else?’ he asked in the tone of someone casting around for a topic of conversation.
‘What’s your alibi?’
Cageot gave another smile, even more neutral, and reeled off without batting an eyelid:
‘I went to bed at nine as I had a touch of flu. The concierge brought me up a hot toddy and gave it to me in bed.’
Neither of them paid any attention to the hubbub that surrounded them like a wall. They were used to it. Maigret smoked his pipe, and Cageot a cigar.
‘Still drinking Pougues mineral water?’ asked the former chief inspector as Cageot poured him a glass of champagne.
‘Still.’
They sat facing each other, grave and slightly sullen like two soothsayers. At a neighbouring table, some woman who didn’t know better was aiming cotton-wool balls at their noses.
‘You were quick to get the place re-opened!’ commented Maigret between two puffs of smoke.
‘I’m still pretty well connected with the “boys”.’
‘Are you aware that there’s a kid who’s stupidly compromised in this business?’
‘I read som
ething along those lines in the papers. A young cop who was hiding in the toilet and who panicked and killed Pepito.’
The jazz band struck up again. An Englishman, all the more priggish for being drunk, brushed past Maigret murmuring:
‘Excuse me.’
‘Go ahead.’
And Fernande, at the bar, was watching him with a worried look. Maigret smiled at her.
‘Young police officers are hot-headed,’ sighed Cageot.
‘That’s what I said to my nephew.’
‘Is your nephew interested in these matters?’
‘He was the kid hiding in the toilet.’
Cageot could not turn pale, because his face was always ashen. But he took a hasty sip of mineral water, then wiped his mouth.
‘That’s too bad, isn’t it?’
‘That’s exactly what I said to him.’
Fernande jerked her chin at the clock, which showed 1.30. Maigret signalled that he was coming.
‘To your health,’ said Cageot.
‘To yours.’
‘Is it pleasant, where you’re living? I’ve heard you’ve moved out to the country.’
‘It is pleasant, yes.’
‘Winter in Paris is unhealthy.’
‘I thought the same thing when I heard about Pepito’s death.’
‘Be my guest, please,’ protested Cageot as Maigret opened his wallet.
Maigret still put fifty francs down on the table and stood up, saying:
‘So long!’
He just walked past the bar and whispered to Fernande:
‘Come on.’
‘Have you paid?’
In the street, she wasn’t sure whether to take his arm. He still had his hands in his pockets and walked with big, slow strides.
‘D’you know Cageot?’ she asked shyly at length, slipping into informality
‘He’s from my part of the world.’
‘You know, you should be careful. He’s a bit of a dodgy character. I’m telling you this because you seem like a good man.’
‘Have you slept with him?’
Then Fernande, who had to take two steps to Maigret’s every stride, replied simply:
‘He doesn’t sleep with anyone!’
In Meung, Madame Maigret was fast asleep in the house that smelled of wood smoke and goat’s milk. In his hotel room in Rue des Dames, Philippe had finally fallen asleep too, his glasses on the bedside table.
3.
Maigret perched on the edge of the bed while Fernande, her legs crossed, gave a contented sigh as she slipped off her shoes. With the same lack of inhibition she hitched up her green silk dress to undo her garters.
‘Aren’t you getting undressed?’
Maigret shook his head, but she didn’t notice as she was pulling her dress over her head.
Fernande had a small apartment in Rue Blanche. The red-carpeted staircase smelled of wax floor polish. There were empty milk bottles standing outside every door on the way up. Once inside the apartment, they had crossed a living room cluttered with knick-knacks and Maigret had a glimpse of a spotless kitchen where all the items were arranged with meticulous care.
‘What are you thinking about?’ asked Fernande as she peeled off her stockings to reveal her long, white legs and then examined her toes with interest.
‘Nothing. May I smoke?’
‘There are cigarettes on the table.’
Maigret paced up and down, his pipe between his teeth, and stopped in front of an enlarged portrait of a woman in her fifties, then in front of a copper pot in which a plant stood. The floor was waxed and near the door were two pieces of felt shaped like shoe soles, which Fernande must have used to walk around so as not to mark the floor.
‘Are you from the North?’ he asked, without looking at her.
‘How can you tell?’
Finally he went over and stood in front of her. Her hair was vaguely blonde, with an auburn tinge, her features irregular – an elongated mouth, a pointed nose covered in freckles.
‘I’m from Roubaix.’
You could tell from the way the apartment was arranged and polished and from the spick-and-span kitchen in particular. Maigret was sure that in the morning, Fernande sat there by the stove and drank a big bowl of coffee while she read the paper.
Now she gazed at her companion with a hint of anxiety.
‘Aren’t you getting undressed?’ she repeated, rising and going over to the mirror.
Then, immediately suspicious:
‘Why did you come?’
She sensed something was not quite right. Her mind was busy working it out.
‘You’re right, I didn’t come for that,’ admitted Maigret with a smile.
His grin broadened as she grabbed a bathrobe, suddenly overcome with modesty.
‘So what do you want?’
She could not guess. Even though she was adept at categorizing men. She took in her visitor’s shoes, tie and eyes.
‘But you’re not from the police, are you?’
‘Sit down. We’re going to have a nice friendly chat. You’re not entirely mistaken, because I was a detective chief inspector with the Police Judiciaire for many years.’
She frowned.
‘Don’t be afraid. I’m not there any more! I’ve retired to the countryside and the reason I’m in Paris now is because Cageot’s up to his old tricks.’
‘So that’s why!’ she said under her breath as she recalled the two men sitting at the table and behaving oddly.
‘I need proof, and there are people whom I can’t question.’
She no longer treated him like a punter – now she addressed him formally.
‘You require my help? Is that it?’
‘You’ve guessed it. You know as well as I do, don’t you, that the Floria is full of crooks and scum?’
She sighed to signal her assent.
‘The real boss is Cageot, who also owns the Pélican and the Boule Verte.’
‘People say he’s opened a place in Nice too.’
Now they were sitting at the table facing each other, and Fernande asked:
‘Would you like a hot drink?’
‘Not now. You’ve heard about the business in Place Blanche, a couple of weeks ago. A car drove past, with three or four men inside, at around three in the morning. Between Place Blanche and Place Clichy, the door opened and one of the men was thrown out on to the road. Dead. He’d just been stabbed.’
‘Barnabé!’ said Fernande.
‘Did you know him?’
‘He used to come to the Floria.’
‘Well, that was Cageot’s doing. I don’t know if he was in the car himself, but Pepito was with them. And last night, he copped it.’
She said nothing. She was thinking and her brow was furrowed, making her resemble an ordinary housewife.
‘What’s it to you?’ she protested at length.
‘If I don’t catch Cageot, my nephew will be convicted in his place.’
‘The tall redhead who looks like a tax clerk?’
Now it was Maigret’s turn to be surprised.
‘How do you know him?’
‘He’s been hanging around the bar at the Floria for the last couple of days or so. I clocked him because he didn’t dance and he spoke to no one. Last night, he bought me a drink. I tried to worm some information out of him and he more or less admitted it, stammering that he couldn’t tell me anything, but that he was on an important mission.’
‘The fool!’
Maigret rose and got straight to the point.
‘So, are we agreed? There’ll be two thousand francs for you if you help me nail Cageot.’
She couldn’t help smiling. She found this entertaining.
‘What do I have to do?’
‘First of all, I need to know whether or not Cageot showed his face in the Tabac Fontaine last night.’
‘Shall I go there tonight?’
‘Right away if you like.’
She shrugged off her bathro
be and, dress in hand, looked at Maigret for a moment.
‘Do you really want me to put my clothes back on?’
‘Yes,’ he sighed, putting a hundred francs on the mantelpiece.
They walked up Rue Blanche together. On the corner of Rue de Douai, they shook hands and parted company, and Maigret headed down Rue Notre-Dame-de-Lorette. When he arrived at his hotel, he was surprised to catch himself whistling.
By ten in the morning, he was ensconced at the Chope du Pont-Neuf, where he had chosen a table that was intermittently in the sun, as the passers-by kept casting shadows. Spring was already in the air. Street life was more cheerful, the sounds sharper.
At Quai des Orfèvres, it was time for the morning briefing. At the end of the long corridor of offices, the head of the Police Judiciaire was meeting his colleagues, who had all brought their case files. Detective Chief Inspector Amadieu was in his element. Maigret could imagine the scenario.
‘Well, Amadieu, what’s new in the Palestrino case?’
Amadieu leaning forwards, twiddling his moustache, saying with an amiable smile:
‘Here are the reports, chief.’
‘Is it true that Maigret is in Paris?’
‘So rumour has it.’
‘So why the hell hasn’t he come to see me?’
Maigret smiled. He was certain that this was how the conversation would go. He could picture Amadieu’s long face growing even longer. He could hear him insinuating:
‘Perhaps he has his reasons.’
‘Do you really think young Philippe fired that shot?’
‘I’m not making any accusations, chief. All I know is that his fingerprints are on the gun. We found a second bullet in the wall.’
‘Why would he have done that?’
‘Panic … We’re given young inspectors who haven’t been trained to—’
Just then, Philippe walked into the Chope du Pont-Neuf and made a beeline for his uncle, who asked:
‘What are you drinking?’
‘A café crème. I’ve managed to get everything you asked for, but it wasn’t easy. Amadieu has got his eye on me! The others are wary of me.’
He wiped the lenses of his glasses and fished some papers out of his pocket.
‘First of all, Cageot. I looked him up in the files and copied his details. He was born in Pontoise and he’s fifty-nine years old. He started out as a solicitor’s clerk in Lyon and he was sentenced to a year for forgery and falsification of records. Three years later, he was given six months for attempted insurance fraud. That was in Marseille.
Maigret Page 3
