‘And you didn’t find out anything about where he was going, the company he was keeping?’
‘No, nothing.’
‘No girlfriend?’
‘He never talked about his private life.’
‘And no little dalliance with one of the typists?’
‘One of them, not specially pretty, blushed when she mentioned him, but I got the impression he hadn’t noticed her.’
Maigret picked up the telephone.
‘Madame Pardon? Hello, Maigret speaking. Is your husband there? Busy day? Would you mind asking him to come to the phone?’
He was wondering whether the doctor had by chance returned later on to Rue Popincourt.
‘That you, Pardon? Sorry to bother you, old man. Do you have patients to see tonight? . . . Listen. Something serious has come up, in connection with your friend Lagrange . . . Yes . . . I saw him. But since I was over there, there’s been a new development. I need your help. That’s right . . . I’d prefer it if you could pick me up from here . . .’
When he went back upstairs, still pursued by Lombras, he saw in the corridor Pierre Delteil, whom he recognized because of his resemblance to his brother.
‘Was it you that asked me to come?’
‘Hush!’ He indicated the reporter. ‘Follow me.’
He took the other man up to the laboratory and pushed open the door, just as Doctor Paul, who had been conducting a preliminary examination of the body, was straightening up.
‘Do you recognize him?’
Everyone fell silent. The scene was the more painful because of the resemblance between the two men.
‘Who did this?’
‘Is it your brother?’
No tears, but he clenched his fists and tightened his jaw, and his eyes stared fiercely.
‘Who did this?’ asked Pierre Delteil again. He was three or four years younger than the politician.
‘We don’t know yet.’
Doctor Paul explained:
‘The bullet entered the right eye and lodged in the brain without exiting. As far as I can see, it must have been a small-calibre bullet.’
The commissioner was using one of the telephones to call the prefect of police. When he returned to the waiting group, he passed on the instructions from the minister.
‘The press release must be as simple as we can make it. We announce that the politician André Delteil has been found dead inside a trunk left at Gare du Nord. As few details as possible. There’ll be time for that tomorrow.’
Investigating magistrate Rateau drew Maigret aside.
‘Do you think this is a political crime?’
‘No.’
‘Woman involved, perhaps?’
‘That I don’t know.’
‘Do you have a suspect?’
‘I’ll have a better idea tomorrow.’
‘I’m counting on you to keep me briefed. Phone me, even late at night, if there’s anything new. I’ll be in my office from nine a.m. tomorrow.’
Maigret nodded vaguely, and went over to exchange a few words with Doctor Paul.
‘Yes, of course, inspector.’
Paul was preparing to go to the mortuary to proceed with a post-mortem.
All this had taken time. It was ten in the evening when the dark shapes all filed one after another into the dimly lit staircase. The journalist was sticking close to Maigret.
‘Come into my office a moment. You were right. It is a bigwig. The politician André Delteil has been murdered.’
‘When?’
‘We don’t know that yet. He was shot in the head. His body was found in a trunk which had been deposited in the left luggage at Gare du Nord.’
‘Why was the trunk opened?’
The reporter had immediately caught on.
‘I have nothing else to say for today.’
‘Have you got any leads?’
‘I have nothing else to say for today.’
‘Are you going to be working all night on this?’
‘Possibly.’
‘What if I follow you round?’
‘In that case, I’ll have you arrested on the first pretext, and you’ll be cooling off in the cells till tomorrow morning.’
‘Understood.’
‘Just as well.’
Pardon knocked at the door, then came in. The reporter asked:
‘Who’s this?’
‘A friend.’
‘You won’t tell me his name?’
‘No.’
They were alone at last and Maigret began by taking off his jacket and lighting his pipe.
‘Sit down. Before we go over there, I’d like us to have a little chat, and it had better be here.’
‘Lagrange?’
‘Yes. A question for you, first of all. Is he really ill, and if so how bad is it?’
‘I was expecting that, and I’ve been thinking about it on the way, because it’s not easy to give you a straight answer. He’s certainly a sick man. He’s had diabetes for ten years.’
‘But that doesn’t stop him leading a normal life?’
‘More or less. I’ve been treating him with insulin. I’ve taught him to do his own injections. When he eats out, he always takes pocket scales with him to weigh certain foods. With insulin, that’s important.’
‘Yes, I know. Anything else?’
‘Do you want a diagnosis in technical terms?’
‘No.’
‘He’s always had some glandular deficiency, which is common in most people of his physical build. He’s weak-willed, impressionable, easily depressed.’
‘And his present condition?’
‘That’s where it gets more tricky. I was very surprised, this morning, to find him in the state you saw him in. I examined him thoroughly. Although it’s under strain, his heart isn’t in too bad shape, certainly no worse than a week or two back, when he was going about normally.’
‘And have you considered the possibility he might be shamming?’
Pardon had indeed thought of it, as could be seen from his embarrassment. A scrupulous man, he searched for the right words.
‘I imagine you have some good reason for considering these questions?’
‘I have very serious reasons.’
‘His son?’
‘I don’t know. I’d better give you the facts. Forty-eight hours ago, possibly a little earlier or later, we’ll know soon, a man was killed, more than likely in Lagrange’s apartment in Rue Popincourt.’
‘Have they identified him?’
‘Yes, it’s Delteil, the politician.’
‘Did they know each other?’
‘The investigation will tell us that. But last night, while we were dining at your place and talking about him, François Lagrange fetched a taxi-driver to come round to his door and with the driver’s help he carried down a trunk containing the corpse, which he then deposited in the left luggage at Gare du Nord. Does that surprise you?’
‘That kind of thing is always surprising.’
‘So now you understand why I need to know whether, this morning, when you examined him, François Lagrange was genuinely as ill as he wanted to appear, or whether he was play-acting.’
Pardon stood up.
‘Before giving you an answer, I’d like to examine him again. Where is he?’
The doctor was expecting that Lagrange had been brought into one of the offices in the Police Judiciaire.
‘Still at home, in bed.’
‘He doesn’t know?’
‘He doesn’t know yet that we have found the body.’
‘What are you going to do?’
‘Go over there with you, if you’re willing to accompany me. Did you consider him to be a friend?’
Pardon hesitated, then replied with frankness:
‘No!’
‘You felt sympathy for him?’
‘More like pity. I really didn’t enjoy seeing him walk into my surgery. I felt embarrassed, as I always do when I’m faced with someone so weak-willed. But I
can’t forget that he had to bring up his three children on his own, and when he mentioned his younger son, his voice would shake with emotion.’
‘Would you say that was just skin-deep sentimentality?’
‘I wondered about it. I don’t like men who cry.’
‘He has cried in front of you?’
‘Yes. In particular after his daughter walked out, without even giving him her address.’
‘I’ve seen her.’
‘What did she say?’
‘Nothing. She isn’t the crying type! Will you come with me?’
‘I suppose this will take some time?’
‘It could.’
‘Then do you mind if I ring my wife?’
It was dark by the time they were seated in one of the Préfecture’s police cars. During the drive, both men remained silent, each plunged in thought, and each, no doubt, feeling apprehensive about the scene they would soon be witnessing.
‘Stop at the corner,’ Maigret told the driver.
He recognized Janvier standing opposite number 37a.
‘Where’s your colleague?’
‘I took the precaution of posting him inside the courtyard.’
‘And the concierge?’
‘She’s taking no notice of us.’
Maigret rang the bell, and let Pardon go in first. There was no light on in the lodge by now. The concierge did not ask for their names, but the inspector thought he glimpsed her pale face through the window.
On the third floor, a light was showing in one of the bedrooms.
‘Let’s go up.’
He knocked, being unable to find the doorbell in the dark, since the landing light wasn’t working. Less time than in the morning passed before a voice called:
‘Who is it?’
‘Detective Chief Inspector Maigret.’
‘Just a minute, please.’
Lagrange must be putting on his dressing gown. His hands were trembling, since he had difficulty turning the key in the lock.
‘Have you found Alain?’
Then he saw the doctor in the semi-darkness: his expression changed, and he became even paler than usual. He stood there, not moving, without knowing what to do or say.
‘May we come in?’
Maigret sniffed and recognized the smell that had struck his nostrils, a smell of burned paper. Lagrange’s beard had grown since the morning and the pouches under his eyes were puffier.
‘Because of your state of health,’ the inspector began at last, ‘I didn’t want to see you without being accompanied by your doctor. Pardon has agreed to come with me. I presume you have no objection to his examining you.’
‘He examined me this morning, he knows I’m sick.’
‘If you would go back to bed, he will check you over again.’
Lagrange was on the point of protesting, as could be seen from his face, but he finally resigned himself, went back into the bedroom, took off his dressing gown and lay down.
‘Let me listen to your chest, please,’ said Pardon, gently.
While the doctor was applying his stethoscope, the man stared up at the ceiling. Maigret was walking up and down in the room. The fireplace had a black metal shutter in front and, pulling it up, he saw in the grate the charred remains of some papers which had been forcibly reduced almost to ash with a poker.
From time to time, Pardon murmured professional remarks.
‘Turn over . . . Breathe in . . . Deep breath, please . . . Cough.’
There was a door not far from the bed and Maigret pushed it open, to find an unoccupied bedroom, which must have been for one of the children, with a brass bedstead now lacking a mattress. He switched on the light. It had become a kind of lumber room. A pile of magazines was stacked in one corner, with some tattered volumes, including old school books, and a leather suitcase covered in dust. On the right near the window, one patch of the wooden floor, the shape of the trunk at Gare du Nord, was lighter in colour than the rest.
When Maigret returned to the next room, Pardon was standing up, with a preoccupied expression.
‘Well?’
He did not reply at once, and avoided the eyes of Lagrange, who was staring at him.
‘In all conscience, I believe he is fit enough to answer your questions.’
‘Hear that, Lagrange?’
The sick man looked at them in turn, without speaking and his eyes made an impression, like those of a wounded animal, gazing up at men bending over it and trying to understand.
‘You know why I’m here?’
Lagrange must have made up his mind, no doubt during the examination, since he remained silent, and not a feature of his face moved.
‘Own up, you know perfectly well you’ve been expecting this since this morning, and you’ve made yourself ill with fright.’
Pardon had gone to sit in a corner, elbow on the back of the chair, chin in hand.
‘We’ve found the trunk.’
There was no reaction of shock. Nothing happened. Maigret could not even have sworn to a more intense expression appearing briefly in the other man’s eyes.
‘I’m not suggesting that you killed André Delteil. You may be innocent of the crime. I know nothing, I fully admit, about whatever happened here, but what I do know is that you transported the corpse in the trunk to the left luggage department. In your own interests it would be best if you talked now.’
Still silence, no movement. Maigret turned towards Pardon and glanced at him in discouragement.
‘I am even willing to believe that you are very sick, that the effort you made last night and the accompanying emotions have seriously upset you. But that’s all the more reason why you should tell me frankly what happened.’
Lagrange shut his eyes and opened them again, but his lips did not tremble.
‘Your son has run away. If he was the killer, we will soon find him, and your silence won’t help him in any way. If it wasn’t him, it would be preferable in the interest of his own safety that we should know that to be the case. He’s armed, and the police are on the alert for him.’
Maigret had stepped closer to the bed, and had perhaps leaned forward a little without realizing it; the man’s lips finally moved, he was stammering something.
‘What did you say?’
‘Don’t hit me! You haven’t any right to hit me.’
‘I have no intention of hitting you, as you know full well.’
‘Don’t hit me . . . Don’t . . .’
Suddenly he threw back the covers and thrashed about, looking as if he were fending off an attack.
‘Please don’t . . . Don’t hit me!’
It was unpleasant and pathetic to watch. Maigret turned to Pardon again, as if asking for advice. But what advice could the doctor give him?
‘Listen to me, Lagrange. You’re quite lucid. You’re not a child. You understand perfectly well what I’m talking about. And you can’t have been as sick as all that earlier on, since you had the energy to burn some compromising papers.’
There was a moment of calm, as if the man was getting his breath back, before he started to throw himself about more frantically, screaming this time:
‘Help! Help me! They’re hitting me! Don’t hit me! Let me go!’
Maigret took hold of one of his wrists.
‘Stop this, now, won’t you?’
‘No! No! No!’
‘Will you stop shouting?’
Pardon had stood up and approached the bed as well, looking searchingly at the sick man.
‘I don’t want to! Leave me alone! I’ll wake everyone in the house! I’ll tell them . . .’
Pardon murmured in Maigret’s ear:
‘You’re not going to get anything out of him.’
As soon as they moved away from the bed, Lagrange became still again and fell into silence.
They conferred in a corner.
‘You think his mind is really deranged?’
‘I can’t be certain of that.’
‘
But it’s a possibility?’
‘It’s always a possibility. We need to keep him under observation.’
Lagrange had slightly shifted his head, so as to keep them in sight, and was obviously listening. He must have understood the last few words. He seemed reassured.
But Maigret returned to the attack, although feeling unhopeful.
‘Before you take any decision, Lagrange, I must warn you of something. I have an arrest warrant made out in your name. Downstairs, there are two of my men waiting. Unless I have some satisfactory answers to my questions, they will take you to the Special Infirmary attached to the police cells.’
No reaction. Lagrange stared up at the ceiling, with such an absent air that they wondered if he had heard.
‘Doctor Pardon will confirm that there are procedures for detecting deception, and they are virtually infallible. You were not insane this morning. Nor when you burned those papers. And you are not insane at this moment, I’m sure of that.’
Was that really a vague smile on the man’s lips?
‘I did not strike you, nor will I. I will just repeat that this attitude will get you nowhere, and will only attract hostility, if not worse. Now, will you answer my questions?’
‘Don’t hit me, don’t hit me!’ the man repeated in a blank voice, like one muttering his prayers.
Maigret, his shoulders drooping despondently, went over to open the window and called down to the inspector waiting in the courtyard.
‘Come up here with Janvier!’
He closed the window and went on pacing the room. They heard steps on the stairs.
‘If you wish to get dressed, you may do so. If not, we’ll have you removed as you are, wrapped in a blanket.’
Lagrange merely kept muttering the same syllables, which became meaningless:
‘Don’t hit me, don’t let them hit me . . .’
‘Come in, Janvier. And you, sergeant. You’re going to take this man to the Special Infirmary. No point trying to dress him, because he might well start thrashing about again. Better put the handcuffs on him, just in case. And wrap him up in a blanket.’
A door had opened on another floor. A light appeared in the window on the far side of the courtyard, and a woman in her nightdress could be seen leaning out of her window, as a man climbed out of bed behind her.
‘Don’t let them hit me . . .’
Maigret did not watch but heard the click of the handcuffs, then heavy breathing, footsteps, thuds.
Maigret's Revolver Page 5
