‘I could call the police—’
‘Of course! Except that I think that it wouldn’t do you any good and that a conversation between just the two of us would be preferable.’
Behind Cageot, a cleaning woman dressed in black had stopped work to listen. All the doors were open for her to clean the whole apartment. Leading off the corridor to the left Maigret had the impression there was a light-filled room overlooking the street.
‘Come in.’
Cageot locked the door again, put the chain on and said to his visitor:
‘To the right … in my office …’
It was a typical lower-middle-class Montmartre apartment, with a kitchen barely one metre wide looking on to the courtyard, a bamboo coat-stand in the hall, a gloomy dining room with gloomy curtains and wallpaper with a faded leaf pattern.
Cageot’s ‘office’ had been designed to be the sitting room and was the only room in the apartment to have two windows letting in the light.
A polished wooden floor. In the centre were a worn rug and three upholstered armchairs that had taken on the same indefinable hue as the rug.
The walls were dark red, cluttered with a large number of paintings and photographs in gilt frames. And in the corners pedestal tables and shelves were laden with worthless knick-knacks.
A mahogany desk with an old morocco top stood near one of the windows. Cageot chose to seat himself behind it, tidying away some papers that had been lying carelessly on the right-hand side.
‘Marthe! Bring me my hot chocolate in here.’
He did not look at Maigret. He waited, preferring to let his visitor launch the offensive.
Meanwhile, Maigret, sitting on a chair that was too spindly for his burly frame, had unbuttoned his overcoat and filled a pipe, tamping the tobacco down with his thumb, staring about him as he did so. A window was open, probably to air the place, and when the cleaning woman arrived with the hot chocolate Maigret asked Cageot:
‘Do you mind if we shut the window? I caught a chill yesterday and I don’t want to make my cold worse.’
‘Close the window, Marthe.’
Marthe had taken a dislike to the visitor. It was clear from the way she busied herself around him, banging into his leg in passing and making no apology.
The room was filled with the smell of chocolate. Cageot cupped the bowl in his hands as if to warm them. Outside in the street, delivery lorries drove past, their roofs reaching almost to the windows, as did the omnibuses’ metallic tops.
Marthe went out, leaving the door ajar, and continued cleaning the hall.
‘I won’t offer you a hot chocolate,’ said Cageot, ‘as I imagine that you have had your breakfast.’
‘I have, yes. But if you had a glass of white wine—’
Everything mattered, every single word, and Cageot frowned, wondering why his visitor was asking for a drink.
Maigret understood, and smiled.
‘I’m used to working outdoors. In winter, it’s cold. In summer, it’s hot. In both cases, a man needs a drink—’
‘Marthe, bring some white wine and a glass.’
‘Everyday wine?’
‘That’s right. I prefer everyday wine,’ replied Maigret.
His bowler hat sat on the desk, next to the telephone. Cageot sipped his chocolate without taking his eyes off Maigret.
He was paler in the morning than in the evening, or rather his skin was drained of colour, his eyes the same dull grey as his hair and eyebrows. He had an elongated, bony face. Cageot was one of those men who it is impossible to imagine anything other than middle-aged. It was hard to believe that he had ever been a baby, or a schoolboy, or even a young man in love. He could never have held a woman in his arms and whispered loving words to her.
On the other hand, his hairy hands, which were nicely manicured, had always wielded a pen. The desk drawers must have been full of papers of all kinds – accounts, calculations, bills and memoranda.
‘You’re up relatively early,’ commented Maigret after glancing at his watch.
‘I don’t sleep more than three hours a night.’
He was speaking the truth. It was hard to say how you could tell, but you could.
‘So, do you read?’
‘I read, or I work.’
They granted each other a moment’s respite. There seemed to be a tacit understanding that the real conversation would begin once Marthe had brought in the white wine.
Maigret couldn’t see a book case, but on a small table by the desk were some bound books: the penal code, Dalloz law manuals, legal tomes.
‘Leave us, Marthe,’ said Cageot as soon as the wine was on the table.
As she reached the kitchen, he nearly called her back to tell her to close the door, but changed his mind.
‘I’ll leave you to pour it yourself.’
Meanwhile, as if it were the most natural thing in the world, he opened a desk drawer and took out an automatic revolver, which he placed within reach. It did not even feel like a provocation. He was acting as though this were completely normal behaviour. Then he pushed away the empty bowl and rested his elbows on the arms of his chair.
‘I’m ready to hear your proposal,’ he said, with the air of a businessman meeting a client.
‘What makes you think that I have a proposal to put to you?’
‘Why else would you be here? You are no longer a member of the police, so you haven’t come to arrest me. You can’t be here to question me since you are no longer a sworn officer, and anything you say afterwards will be of no consequence.’
Maigret assented with a smile as he relit his pipe, which he had allowed to go out.
‘On the other hand, your nephew is up to his neck in trouble and you can’t see any way of getting him off.’
Maigret had put his box of matches on the brim of his hat and had to reach for it three times in quick succession, because the tobacco, which was probably packed too tightly, kept going out.
‘So,’ concluded Cageot, ‘you need me but I don’t need you. Well, I’m all ears.’
His voice was quite neutral, as colourless as his persona. With his face and a voice like that, he would have made a tremendous criminal judge.
‘Fair enough!’ decided Maigret, rising and taking a few steps. ‘What would you want in exchange for getting my nephew off the hook?’
‘Me? What can I do?’
Maigret smiled pleasantly.
‘Come, don’t be modest. It’s always possible to undo what one has done. How much?’
Cageot remained silent for a moment, digesting this offer.
‘I’m not interested,’ he said at length.
‘Why not?’
‘Because I have no reason to help this young man. He deserves to go to prison for what he did. I don’t know him.’
Maigret paused from time to time in front of a portrait, or in front of the windows, looking down into the street, where housewives jostled each other around little market barrows.
‘For example,’ he muttered softly, lighting his pipe yet again, ‘if my nephew were exonerated, I would no longer have the slightest reason to involve myself in this case. You said so yourself, I am no longer a member of the police force. To be honest with you, I confess I’d jump on to the first train to Orléans and two hours later I’d be in my little boat, fishing.’
‘You’re not drinking!’
Maigret poured himself a full glass of white wine, which he drained in one gulp.
‘As for what you can do,’ he went on, sitting down and putting the matchbox back on the brim of his hat, ‘there are a number of options. When the witnesses are brought face to face for the second time, Audiat could be less certain of his recollection and not formally identify Philippe. That happens all the time.’
Cageot grew pensive and, seeing his absent look, Maigret guessed that he was not listening, or barely paying attention. But no! He must have been asking himself:
‘Why the devil has he come to see me?’
>
And from then on, Maigret’s chief concern was to avoid looking in the direction of the hat and the telephone at all costs. It was also vital that he appear to mean what he said. Whereas in fact, he was wasting his breath. To loosen his tongue he filled another glass and drank it.
‘Is it good?’
‘The wine? Not bad. I know what you’re going to say. If Philippe is exonerated, the investigation will be re-opened all the more energetically, since there will no longer be a culprit.’
Cageot looked up imperceptibly, curious as to what was to come. Maigret suddenly turned red as a thought struck him.
What would happen if, at the same moment, Eugène, or his friend from Marseille, or the owner of the Tabac Fontaine or anyone were to try to reach Cageot on the telephone? It was possible, probable even. The previous day, the entire gang had been hauled in to Quai des Orfèvres and they must all be feeling somewhat anxious. Wasn’t Cageot in the habit of giving orders and receiving reports over the telephone?
But, for the time being, the telephone was out of action, and it would remain so for a few long minutes more, perhaps for an hour.
Maigret had put his hat down on the desk in such a way as to conceal the base of the telephone from Cageot’s view. And each time he picked up the box of matches, he slid the little round of wood he had sawn off that morning under the receiver.
In other words, the call had begun. Lucas was stationed at the telephone exchange with two shorthand typists who would take everything down.
‘I understand that you’re lacking a culprit,’ muttered Maigret staring at the rug.
What would happen if Eugène were to try to telephone Cageot and fail to get through was that he would come running. Maigret would be back to square one! Or rather it would be impossible to start again since Cageot would be on his guard.
‘It’s not difficult,’ he went on, trying to keep a steady voice. ‘You just need to find some boy who is of roughly the same build as my nephew. There’s no shortage in Montmartre. And there must be one whom you wouldn’t mind seeing locked up. Two or three testimonies into the bargain and it’s in the bag.’
Maigret was so warm that he removed his overcoat and hung it over the back of a chair.
‘May I?’
‘We could open one of the windows,’ suggested Cageot.
Oh no! With the noise from the street, the shorthand typists on the other end of the line wouldn’t be able to hear half of the things that were said.
‘Thank you, but it’s my influenza that’s making me sweat. The cold air would do me more harm. I was saying—’
He drained his glass and filled a fresh pipe.
‘I hope the smoke doesn’t bother you?’
They could still hear Marthe bustling around, but sometimes the noise stopped and she must have been eavesdropping.
‘Just give me a figure. What’s the price for an operation like that?’
‘Jail!’ retorted Cageot, bluntly.
Maigret smiled, but he was beginning to doubt his strategy.
‘In that case, if you’re afraid, suggest another scheme.’
‘I don’t need a scheme! The police have arrested a man they allege killed Pepito. That’s their business. True, from time to time, I do a small favour for the Ministry of the Interior or for the police. As it happens, I know nothing. I wish for your sake that I did—’
He made as if to get up to put an end to the conversation. Maigret needed to think fast.
‘Shall I tell you what’s going to happen?’ he enunciated slowly.
He took his time, speaking syllable by syllable:
‘In the next two days, you will have to kill your little friend Audiat.’
The message struck home, that was certain. Cageot avoided looking at Maigret, who continued, for fear of losing his advantage:
‘You know it as well as I do! Audiat is a kid. Furthermore, I suspect him of taking drugs, which makes him impressionable. Since he’s been aware that I’m on to him, he has made one blunder after another, panicked and, the other night, in my room, he actually came clean. It was very clever of you to be waiting for us outside the Police Judiciaire to stop him from repeating what he’d told me. But you might not be so lucky another time. Last night, Audiat went on a bar crawl and got drunk. He’ll do the same tonight. There’ll be someone tailing him all the time.’
Cageot sat absolutely still, his eyes fixed on the dark-red wall.
‘Go on,’ he said in a perfectly normal voice.
‘Do I have to? How will you go about eliminating a man under police surveillance day and night? If you don’t kill him, Audiat will squeal, that’s for certain! And if you kill him, then you’ll be caught, because it’s difficult to commit a murder under those conditions.’
The ray of sunshine filtering through the grimy window slid over the desk and, in a few minutes, would reach the telephone. Maigret smoked his pipe taking rapid little puffs.
‘What do you have to say to that?’
Without raising his voice, Cageot said:
‘Marthe! Shut the door.’
She did so, grumbling. Then he lowered his voice, speaking so softly that Maigret wondered whether his words would carry down the telephone.
‘And supposing Audiat were already dead?’
He didn’t bat an eyelid as he said this. Maigret remembered his conversation with Lucas, in the Chope du Pont-Neuf. Hadn’t the sergeant stated that Audiat, followed by an inspector, had gone back to his hotel in Rue Lepic, at around one o’clock in the morning? And the inspector must have kept a watch on the hotel for the rest of the night.
His hand resting on the worn leather desk top, a few centimetres from the revolver, Cageot went on:
‘You see that your offer doesn’t stand up. I thought you were better than that.’
And, as Maigret froze with dread, he added:
‘If you want to know more, you can telephone the police station of the 18th arrondissement.’
As he spoke these words, he could have reached for the receiver and handed it to Maigret. But he didn’t, and Maigret breathed again, saying hastily:
‘I believe you. But I haven’t quite finished yet.’
He didn’t know what he was going to say. But he had to play for time. At all costs, he had to get Cageot to say certain words which he seemed to be avoiding like the plague.
So far, he had not once denied the murder. But nor had he said a single word that could be considered as a formal confession.
Maigret imagined Lucas growing impatient, the earpiece pressed to his ear, poor Lucas veering from hope to despair and saying to the typists:
‘There’s no need to type that.’
What if Eugène or someone else called?
‘Are you sure that what you have to tell me is worth it?’ persisted Cageot. ‘It’s time for me to get dressed.’
‘Please give me another six minutes.’
Maigret poured himself a drink and rose like a very nervous man about to launch into a speech.
10.
Cageot did not smoke, did not move, had no nervous twitches that could provide an outlet for his jumpiness.
Maigret had not yet realized that it was precisely this stillness that bothered him, but it dawned on him when he saw Cageot reach out towards a comfit box that was on the desk, and help himself to a sugared almond.
It was a small detail, and yet Maigret’s eyes lit up as if he had discovered the chink in Cageot’s armour. The man was neither a smoker nor a drinker nor a womanizer, but he liked sweets, sucking a sugared almond and passing it slowly from one side of his mouth to the other!
‘I could say that we are among professionals here,’ said Maigret at length. ‘And it’s as a fellow professional that I’m going to tell you why, inevitably, you’ll be caught.’
The sugared almond in his mouth moved faster.
‘Let’s take the first murder. I’m talking about the first murder in this series, because it is possible that you have others to yo
ur name. Wasn’t the solicitor to whom you were chief clerk poisoned?’
‘It was never proved,’ said Cageot simply.
He was trying to work out what Maigret was leading up to. At the same time, Maigret’s mind was working overtime.
‘It doesn’t matter! It’s now three weeks since you decided to eliminate Barnabé. As far as I can tell, Barnabé was the link between Paris and Marseille, in other words, between you and the Turks who bring the drugs in by boat. I’m guessing that Barnabé wanted to take too big a cut. He was invited to get into a car at night. Suddenly, Barnabé feels a knife stabbing him in the back and a few moments later his body is thrown out on to the pavement. You see the error?’
Maigret picked up his matches to ensure that the round of wood was still in place. At the same time, he wanted to conceal a faint smile that he was finding hard to suppress, for Cageot was thinking, earnestly trying to spot the mistake like a diligent schoolboy.
‘I’ll tell you later,’ promised Maigret, interrupting his train of thought. ‘For the time being, I’ll go on. The police, through some coincidence, are on to Pepito. Since the stuff is at the Floria and the Floria is being watched, the situation is dangerous. Pepito knows he’s going to get caught. He threatens to squeal if you don’t save him. You shoot him with a revolver at a time when he thinks he’s alone in the empty club. Here, no mistakes.’
Cageot looked up and the sugared almond remained poised on his tongue.
‘No mistakes so far. Are you beginning to follow me? But you realize there is a police officer inside the club. You exit. You can’t resist the urge to get the police officer arrested. At first, it seems like a stroke of genius. And yet, that was the mistake, your second.’
Maigret was on the right track. All he needed to do was go on, without rushing things. Cageot listened and mulled things over while anxiety was beginning to gnaw away at his composure.
‘Third murder, that of Audiat. Audiat too was about to talk. The police are watching him. The knife and the gun are out. I bet Audiat was in the habit of having a drink of water during the night. This time, he’ll drink even more because he is drunk, and he won’t wake up because the water in the jug has been poisoned. Third mistake.’
Maigret Page 10
