‘Hotel St Regis,’ he said four or five times before he could make himself understood.
It was perfectly idiotic. He should not have let himself be so affected by that boy. Because he was, after all, only a boy. As for Monsieur d’Hoquélus, Maigret was beginning to wonder if he was any more reliable than the young man.
It was raining. They were driving through a grimy neighbourhood with nauseatingly ugly buildings. Was this New York?
Ten days … No, it was precisely nine days earlier that Maigret had still been ensconced in his usual spot at the Café du Cheval Blanc, in Meung, where it was also raining, as it happens. It rains on the banks of the Loire just as well as in America. Maigret was playing cards. It was five in the afternoon.
Wasn’t he a retired civil servant? Was he not fully enjoying his retirement and the house he had lovingly set up? A house of the kind he had longed for all his life, one of those country houses with the wonderful smell of ripening fruit, new-mown hay, beeswax, not to mention a simmering ragout, and God knows Madame Maigret knew her way around simmering a ragout!
Now and then, with an infuriating little smile, fools would ask him, ‘You don’t miss it too much, then, Maigret?’
Miss what? The echoing chilly corridors of the Police Judiciaire, the endless investigations, the days and nights spent chasing after some lowlife or other?
So there! He was happy. He did not even read the crime reports or more sensational local news items in the newspapers. And whenever Lucas came to see him – Lucas who for fifteen years had been his favourite inspector – it was understood that there would be absolutely no shop talk.
Maigret is playing belote. He bids high-tierce in trump. Just then the waiter comes to tell him he is wanted on the telephone, and off he goes, cards in hand.
‘Maigret, is that you?’
His wife. For his wife has never been able to call him by anything but his family name.
‘There’s someone up from Paris here to see you …’
He goes home, of course. In front of his house is parked a well-polished vintage car with a uniformed chauffeur at the wheel. Glancing inside, Maigret thinks he sees an old man with a plaid blanket around him.
He enters his house. As always in such circumstances, Madame Maigret awaits him by the door.
‘It’s a young man,’ she whispers. ‘I put him in the sitting room. There’s an elderly gentleman in the car, his father, perhaps. I wanted him to ask the man inside, but he said I shouldn’t bother …’
And that is how, stupidly, while cosily playing cards, one lets oneself be shipped off to America!
Always the same song and dance to begin with, the same nervousness, the clenched fists, the darting sidelong glances …
‘I’m familiar with most of your cases … I know you’re the only man who … and that …’ and blah blah blah.
People always think their predicament is the most extraordinary drama in the world.
‘I’m just a young man … You’ll probably laugh at me …’
Convinced they will be laughed at, they all find their situation so singular that no one else will ever understand it.
‘My name is Jean Maura. I’m a law student. My father is John Maura.’
So what? You’d swear he thinks the whole universe should recognize that name.
‘John Maura, of New York.’
Puffing on his pipe, Maigret grunts.
‘His name is often in the papers. He’s a very wealthy man, well known in America. Forgive me for telling you this, but it’s necessary, so that you’ll understand …’
And he starts telling a complicated story. To a yawning Maigret, who couldn’t care less, who is still thinking about his card game and who automatically pours himself a glass of brandy. Madame Maigret can be heard moving around in the kitchen. The cat rubs against the inspector’s legs. Glimpsed through the curtains, the old man seems to be dozing in the back of the car.
‘My father and I, you see, we’re not like other fathers and sons. I’m all he has in the world. I’m all that counts. Busy though he is, he writes me a long letter every week. And every year, during the holidays, we spend two or three months together in Italy, Greece, Egypt, India … I’ve brought you his latest letters so that you’ll understand. They’re typewritten, but don’t assume from this that they were dictated. As a rule my father composes his personal letters on a small portable typewriter.’
‘“My dear …”’
One might almost use such a tone with a beloved woman. The American papa worries about everything, about his son’s health, his sleep, his outings, his moods, indeed even his dreams. He is delighted about the coming holidays: where shall the two of them go this year?
The tone is quite affectionate, both maternal and wheedling.
‘I’d like to convince you that I’m not a high-strung boy who imagines things. For about six months, something serious has been going on, I’m sure of this, although I don’t know what it is. I get the feeling that my father is afraid, that he’s no longer the same, that he’s aware of some danger.
‘I should add that the way he lives has suddenly changed. For months now he has travelled constantly, from Mexico to California and on to Canada at such a hectic pace that I feel this is some sort of nightmare.
‘I was sure you wouldn’t believe me … I’ve underlined each passage in his letters where he writes of the future with a kind of implicit terror.
‘You’ll see that certain words crop up again and again, words he never used before.
‘“If you should find yourself on your own …”
‘“If I were to be lost to you …”
‘“When you will be alone …”
‘“When I am no longer there …”
‘These words recur more and more frequently, as if they haunt him, yet I know my father has an iron constitution. I cabled his doctor for reassurance; I have his reply. He makes fun of me and assures me that, barring some accident, my father has a good thirty years ahead of him.
‘Do you understand?’
It’s what they all say: Do you understand?
‘I went to see my legal adviser, Monsieur d’Hoquélus, whom you doubtless know by reputation. He’s an old man, as you know, a man of experience. I showed him these latest letters … I saw that he was almost as worried as I was.
‘And yesterday he confided in me that my father had instructed him to carry out some inexplicable transactions.
‘Monsieur d’Hoquélus is my father’s agent in France, a man he relies on. He is the one who was authorized to give me all the money I might need. Well, recently my father has told him to make lifetime gifts of considerable sums to various people.
‘Not in order to disinherit me – believe me, on the contrary: according to signed but not notarized contracts, these sums will be handed over to me in the future.
‘Why, when I am his sole heir?
‘Because he is afraid, don’t you see, that his fortune may not be passed on to me in the proper manner.
‘I’ve brought Monsieur d’Hoquélus with me. He’s in the car. If you would like to speak to him …’
How could anyone not be impressed by the gravity of the old notary? And he says almost the same things as the young man.
‘I am convinced,’ he begins, weighing his words, ‘that some important event has occurred in the life of Joachim Maura.’
‘Why do you call him Joachim?’
‘It is his real first name. In the United States, he adopted the more common name of John. And I,
too, am certain that he feels he is in serious danger. When Jean admitted to me that he intended to go over there, I did not venture to dissuade him but I did advise him to go accompanied by a person of some experience …’
‘Why not yourself?’
‘Because of my age, first of all. And then for reasons which you will perhaps understand later on … I am confident that what is required in New York is a man familiar with police matters. I will add that my instructions have always been to give Jean Maura whatever money he might want and that in the present circumstances, I can only approve his desire to …’
The conversation had lasted for two hours, in hushed voices, and Monsieur d’Hoquélus had not been indifferent to the appeal of Maigret’s aged brandy. From time to time, the inspector had heard his wife come to listen at the door, not from curiosity, but to find out if she could finally set the table.
After the car had left, what was her amazement when Maigret, none too proud of having let himself be persuaded, had told her bluntly, ‘I’m leaving for America.’
‘What did you say?’
And now a yellow cab was taking him through unfamiliar streets made depressing by drizzle.
Why had Jean Maura disappeared at the very moment when they reached New York? Was Maigret to believe that he had met someone or that, in his haste to see his father again, he had cavalierly left his companion in the lurch?
The streets were becoming more elegant. The cab stopped at a corner of what Maigret did not yet know was the famous Fifth Avenue, and a doorman hurried over to him.
A fresh quandary about paying the cab driver with this unfamiliar money. Then off to the lobby of the St Regis and the reception desk, where he finally found someone who spoke French.
‘I would like to see Mr John Maura.’
‘One moment, please …’
‘Can you tell me if his son has arrived?’
‘No one has asked for Mr Maura this morning.’
‘Is he in?’
Picking up the receiver, the clerk replied frostily, ‘I will ask his secretary.’
‘Hello … Mr MacGill? … This is the front desk … There is someone here asking to see Mr Maura … What was that? … I’ll ask him … Might I have your name, sir?’
‘Maigret.’
‘Hello … Mr Maigret … I see … Very well, sir.’
Hanging up, the clerk announced, ‘Mr MacGill asked me to tell you that Mr Maura sees people only by appointment. If you wish to write to him and give him your address, he will certainly send you his reply.’
‘Would you be kind enough to tell this Mr MacGill that I have arrived from France expressly to see Mr Maura and that I have important information for him.’
‘I am sorry … These gentlemen would never forgive me for disturbing them a second time, but if you would take the trouble to write a note here, in the lobby, I will have it sent up with a bellboy.’
Maigret was furious. More with himself than with this MacGill, whom he did not know but had already begun to detest.
Just as he detested, immediately and completely, everything around him: the gilt-encrusted lobby, the bellboys smirking at him, the pretty women coming and going, the cocky men who jostled him without deigning to apologize.
Monsieur,
I have just arrived from France, entrusted with an important mission by your son and M. d’Hoquélus. My time is as precious as yours, so I would be grateful if you would see me right away.
Yours sincerely,
Maigret
For a good quarter of an hour he was left to fume off in his corner, so angry that he smoked his pipe even though he knew this was hardly the place for it. At last a bellboy arrived, who accompanied him up in the elevator, led him along a corridor, knocked on a door and abandoned him.
‘Come in!’
Why had he envisioned MacGill as a middle-aged person of forbidding aspect? He was a tall, muscular young man, fashionably dressed, who came towards him holding out his hand.
‘Forgive me, sir, but Mr Maura is besieged by so many solicitants of all sorts that we must create a strong barrier around him. You tell me you’ve just come over from France … Am I to understand that you are the … the former … that is to say …’
‘The former Detective Chief Inspector Maigret, yes.’
‘Please, do sit down. Cigar?’
Several boxes of them were set out on a table. A huge mahogany desk dominated the immense drawing room yet did not make it seem at all like an office.
Disdaining the Havana cigars, Maigret had refilled his pipe and now studied the other man rather coolly.
‘You wrote that you’ve brought us news of Monsieur Jean?’
‘If you will allow me, I’ll speak personally of that to Monsieur Maura when you’ve been kind enough to take me to him.’
MacGill showed all his teeth, which were quite beautiful, in a smile.
‘It’s easy to see, sir, that you are from Europe. Otherwise you would know that John Maura is one of the busiest men in New York, that even I have no idea where he is at this moment and, finally, that I handle all his affairs, including the most personal ones. You may therefore speak candidly and tell me …’
‘I’ll wait until Mr Maura agrees to receive me.’
‘He would still have to know what all this is about.’
‘I told you, it’s about his son.’
‘Am I, given your profession, to assume that the young man has done something foolish?’
Unflinching, Maigret continued to stare coldly at the other man.
‘Forgive me for insisting, inspector. Although you have retired, according to the newspapers, I suppose that you are still addressed by your title? Forgive me, as I said, for reminding you that we are in the United States, not France, and that John Maura’s time is limited. Jean is a charming boy, perhaps a bit too sensitive, but I wonder what he could have …’
Maigret calmly rose and picked up the hat he had placed on the rug beside his chair.
‘I’ll be taking a room in this hotel. When Mr Maura has decided to see me …’
‘He will not be back in New York for about two weeks.’
‘Can you tell me where he is at present?’
‘That’s hard to say. He travels by plane and was in Panama the day before yesterday. Today he might have landed in Rio or Venezuela …’
‘Thank you.’
‘Do you have friends in New York, inspector?’
‘No one besides a few police chiefs with whom I’ve worked on occasion.’
‘Would you allow me to invite you to lunch?’
‘I think I would rather have lunch with one of them …’
‘And if I insisted? I am sorry about the role my position forces me to play and I do hope you won’t hold it against me. I’m older than Jean, but not by much, and am quite fond of him. You haven’t even given me any news of him …’
‘Excuse me, but may I know how long you’ve been Mr Maura’s private secretary?’
‘About six months. What I mean is, I’ve been with him for six months but have known him a long time, if not for ever.’
Someone was walking in the next room. Maigret saw MacGill’s face change colour. The secretary listened anxiously to the approaching footsteps, watched the gilt knob on the door to the next room slowly turn, then open slightly.
‘Come here a moment, Jos …’
A thin, nervous face, crowned with hair that was still blond although streaked with white. Eyes that took in Maigret; a forehead folding into
a frown. The secretary hurried over, but the new arrival had already changed his mind and entered the office, still staring at Maigret.
‘Have we …?’ he began, as when one appears to recognize somebody and tries to remember more.
‘Detective Chief Inspector Maigret of the Police Judiciaire. More precisely, former Inspector Maigret, as I’ve been retired for a year now.’
John Maura was shorter than average, lean, but apparently endowed with exceptional energy.
‘Is it to me that you wish to speak?’
He turned to MacGill without waiting for a reply.
‘What is it, Jos?’
‘I don’t know, chief … The inspector …’
‘If you wouldn’t mind, Mr Maura, I would like to speak to you in private. It’s about your son.’
But there was not a single reaction in the face of the man who wrote such affectionate letters.
‘You may speak in front of my secretary.’
‘Very well … Your son is in New York.’
And Maigret’s eyes never left the two men. Was he mistaken? He felt distinctly that MacGill was shaken, whereas Maura’s sole response was simply to say casually, ‘Oh …’
‘Aren’t you surprised?’
‘You must know that my son is free to do whatever he likes.’
‘Aren’t you at least astonished that he hasn’t yet come to see you?’
‘Given that I don’t know when he may have arrived …’
‘He arrived this morning, with me.’
‘In that case, you must know.’
‘I know nothing, that’s just it. In the rush of disembarkation and arrival formalities I lost sight of him. The last time I saw and spoke to him was when the ship was anchored at the Quarantine Landing.’
‘It’s quite possible that he met up with some friends.’
And John Maura slowly lit a long cigar with his initials on the band.
Maigret Gets Angry Page 14
