‘I did what you told me, chief …’
‘Wasn’t he suspicious?’
‘I don’t think he noticed me.’
‘Tell me.’
‘First of all I went up to the toy department and bought the cheapest toy I could find, a little car that isn’t even clockwork …’
He took it from his pocket and set it down on the desk. It was canary yellow.
‘One hundred and ten francs. I immediately recognized Marton from your description, but it was a salesgirl who served me. Then, waiting for midday, I went and took a glance at Rue Saint-Honoré, without going in. The shop isn’t far from Place Vendôme. A narrow shop window with hardly anything in it: a dressing gown, a black silk slip and a pair of gold-edged satin mules. On the glass, two words: Harris, lingerie. Inside it’s more like a drawing room than a shop, and you can tell that it’s a luxury establishment.’
‘Did you see her?’
‘Yes. I’ll come to that in a moment. It was time for me to go back to the Louvre, where I waited near the staff door. At midday it’s a real crush, like at the end of school, and everyone hurries to nearby restaurants. Marton came out, in even more of a hurry than the others, and started walking very quickly along Rue du Louvre. He kept looking all around him, and turned round two or three times without paying me any attention. At that time of day there is a lot of traffic, and the pavements are crammed …
‘He turned left into Rue Coquillière, where he walked only about a hundred metres before going into a little restaurant called Le Trou Normand. The façade is painted brown, with yellow letters, and a printed menu hangs on the left-hand side of the door.
‘I hesitated and then decided to go inside a few moments after him. It was full. You could see that the people were regulars, and on one wall there is a box where the customers keep their napkins. I stopped at the bar. I had a drink.
‘ “Any chance of lunch?”
‘The manager, in a blue apron, looked around the room, where there are only about ten tables.
‘ “There will be a table free in a few minutes. Table number three is on the cheese course.”
‘Marton was sitting at the back, near the kitchen door, alone with a paper napkin and a set of cutlery. There was an empty chair opposite him. He said something to one of the two waitresses, who seemed to know him, and she brought him a second set of cutlery.
‘A few minutes passed. Marton, who had unfolded a newspaper, kept looking over the top of it in the direction of the door.
‘Soon, in fact, a woman came in, immediately spotted the table at the back and went and sat on the free chair as if she was used to it. They didn’t kiss, they didn’t shake hands. They merely smiled at each other, and it seemed to me that their smile was a little sad, or at the very least a little melancholy.’
‘Was it his wife?’ Maigret interrupted.
‘No, I had just seen his wife on Rue Saint-Honoré and I’ll talk to you about that again. From what you’ve told me, it was the sister-in-law. The age and appearance are a perfect match. I don’t know how to explain it …’
The truly surprising thing was that Janvier had used almost exactly the same words to describe her.
‘You might say that she’s a real woman, I don’t know if you understand what I mean by that, the kind of woman who is made to love a man. Not to love him in an ordinary way, but the way all men dream of being loved …’
Maigret couldn’t help smiling at the sight of Lapointe blushing.
‘I thought you were almost engaged?’
‘I’m trying to explain the effect that she must have on most people. Sometimes you meet a woman like that who immediately makes you think of …’
He couldn’t find the words.
‘Of what?’
‘In spite of yourself you see her nestling against her companion’s arm, you can almost feel her warmth … at the same time you know that she is meant for one man alone, that she is truly in love, a genuine lover … I soon found a seat two tables away from them, and that impression stayed with me throughout the whole meal … There wasn’t the slightest ambiguous gesture … They didn’t hold hands … I don’t think they even looked one another in the eyes … And yet …’
‘You think they love each other?’
‘I don’t think so. I’m sure of it. Even the waitress in the black dress and the white apron, a tall, thin woman with unkempt hair, didn’t serve them the way she served everyone else, and she looked as if she was acting as their accomplice …’
‘And yet you said at the beginning that they were sad.’
‘Let’s say serious … I don’t know, chief … I’m sure they aren’t miserable, because you can’t be truly unhappy when you’re …’
Maigret smiled again as he wondered what sort of report he might have had from Lucas, for example, who certainly wouldn’t have had the same reaction as young Lapointe.
‘Not unhappy, but sad, then, like lovers who aren’t free to show their love …’
‘If you like. At one point he got up to take off her coat, because she had glanced at the fire. It was a black woollen coat with a bit of fur around the collar and the wrists. She was also wearing a black jersey dress, and I was surprised to see that she was almost plump …
‘He consulted his watch several times. Then he asked the waitress to bring him his dessert and coffee, while his companion was still on her joint of veal.
‘He got up while she was still eating, and by way of goodbye he rested his hand on her shoulder, with a gesture that was both simple and tender.
‘He turned around in the doorway and fluttered his eyelashes …
‘I don’t know if I was right to stay. I told myself that he was going back to the shop. I finished my lunch at almost the same time as the woman did. Marton had paid the bill before leaving. I paid mine. I left behind her and, without hurrying, she went and caught the bus to Porte d’Orléans. I imagined that she was going back to Avenue de Châtillon and didn’t follow her. Did I do wrong?’
‘You did well. And then?’
‘I went for a short walk before going back to Rue Saint-Honoré, because few luxury boutiques open before two o’clock, some not before half past two. I didn’t want to get there too early. I should also confess that I was slightly nervous. And I wanted to see the boss, and told myself that he was probably the kind of man who has lunch in posh restaurants and is in no great hurry.’
Maigret looked at Lapointe with slightly paternal benevolence, because he had taken him under his wing two years earlier, when the young man had come to Quai des Orfèvres, and he had made surprising progress.
‘I’m going to confess something to you, chief. I was so scared at the thought of going into a shop like that that I treated myself to a calvados first.’
‘Go on.’
‘I was about to make my first entrance through the glass door when I noticed two old ladies in mink coats sitting opposite the saleswoman, and I didn’t dare. I waited for them to leave. A chauffeur-driven Rolls was waiting for them a little way off.
‘Then, for fear that a new customer might arrive, I hurried up.
‘At first I didn’t look at anything around me, I was so scared.
‘ “I would like a nightdress for a girl …” I recited.
‘I assumed it was Madame Marton who was standing in front of me. Besides, when I observed her a little later I saw that she had certain features in common with the young woman in the Trou Normand. Madame Marton is slightly taller, she has a good figure as well, but her body looks harder, what one might call a sculptural body. Do you see what I mean?
‘ “What kind of nightdress?” she asked me. “Take a seat …”
‘Because it isn’t the kind of shop where you stay standing up. I told you it was like a drawing room. At the back, some curtains hide little compartments that must be changing r
ooms, and in one of them I saw a big mirror and a wicker stool.
‘ “What size is the young woman?”
‘ “She’s a bit smaller than you, her shoulders are narrower …”
‘I don’t think she suspected anything, she kept giving me a protective look, and I could sense that she was saying to herself that I must have come to the wrong shop.
‘ “We have this, in natural silk, with real lace. I imagine it’s a gift?”
‘I stammered that it was.
‘ “This is the model that we created for the trousseau of Princess Helena of Greece.”
‘I wanted to stay for as long as possible. I said, hesitantly:
‘ “I imagine it’s very expensive?”
‘ “Forty-five thousand … It’s a size 40 … If the girl is a different size, we would have to make the slip to measure because this is all we have in store …”
‘ “You don’t have anything less luxurious? Nylon, for example …?” ’
Maigret observed:
‘Goodness, Lapointe, you seem to know your way around these things. I thought it wasn’t the done thing to buy lingerie for your fiancée …’
‘I had to play the game. At the word “nylon” she assumed a disdainful, pinched expression.
‘ “We don’t have nylon here. Only natural silk and batiste …”
‘The door opened. In the mirror, first of all, I saw a man wearing a camel-hair coat, to whom the saleswoman winked, and I’m sure, chief, that her wink meant that she was dealing with an odd customer.
‘The man took off his overcoat and hat, walked around the counter and, drawing a silk curtain, went into a cramped little office, where he hung his clothes on the clothes stand. He left a trace of scent in his wake. I went on watching him, leaning over his papers, which he glanced at carelessly.
‘Then he came back into the shop, where he looked at his fingernails, then at each of us in turn, like someone in his own home, and seemed to be waiting for me to make my mind up.
‘I asked off the top of my head:
‘ “Do you have it in white? I would like a very simple slip, without lace …”
‘They exchanged another glance, and the woman bent down to take a cardboard box from a drawer.
‘Monsieur Harris, or Schwob, is the kind of man you see a lot around Place Vendôme and the Champs-Élysées, and he could just as easily work in films or exports, paintings or antiques. You know what I mean, don’t you? He must spend every morning at his hairdresser’s and getting a facial massage. His suit is marvellously well cut, without a crease, and I’m sure he doesn’t buy his shoes ready-made.
‘He has black hair, a little silver at the temples, and olive skin. He’s close-shaven, and looks at you in a haughty, ironic way.
‘ “This is the cheapest thing we have …”
‘A slip that looked like nothing at all, with only a couple of bits of embroidery.
‘ “How much?”
‘ “Eighteen thousand.”
‘Another glance between the two of them.
‘ “I don’t suppose this is what you were looking for?”
‘And already she was opening the box to put the slip back in.
‘ “I need to think … I’ll come back …”
‘ “Of course …”
‘I almost forgot my hat on the counter and had to go back. Once I was outside and the door was closed, I turned around and saw them both laughing.
‘I walked about a hundred metres, then crossed to the opposite pavement. There was no one in the shop. The curtain of the little office was open, the woman was sitting down, and Harris was combing his hair at a mirror …
‘That’s all, chief. I can’t swear that they’re sleeping together. What is certain is that they make a good couple, and they don’t need to speak to understand each other. You can sense that straight away.
‘Madame Marton doesn’t have lunch with her husband, even though they work five hundred metres apart, and it was her sister-in-law who joined Xavier Marton.
‘I suppose, in the end, that those two must be hiding. Marton, in fact, doesn’t get much time for lunch. Very close to the Magasins du Louvre there are a number of cheap restaurants which I’ve seen the sales staff hurrying towards.
‘And yet he takes the trouble to go quite a distance, to a bistro with a different clientele, where no one would think of going to look for them.
‘Does Madame Marton usually have lunch with Monsieur Harris? I don’t know. The fact that he reached the shop after her doesn’t prove anything …’
Maigret got up to adjust the radiator, which, like the previous day, was tending to overheat. All day they had been expecting snow, which was forecast; the north and Normandy were already covered.
Had Maigret not been right to dismiss the psychiatric textbooks and all those things about psychoses and complexes?
He felt, finally, that he was dealing with people of flesh and blood, men and women with passions and interests.
Yesterday there had merely been one couple.
Today there seemed to be two, and that made an enormous difference.
‘Where are you sending me now?’ asked Lapointe, who was excited about the case as well and feared being shut out of it.
‘You can’t go to Rue Saint-Honoré or to Avenue de Châtillon now that the two women have seen you …’
And besides, what would he have gone there to do? The public prosecutor seemed to be right. Nothing had happened. Probably nothing would happen. Unless one of the two couples, in the grip of impatience …
When the phone rang, Maigret was looking at the time on the black marble clock on the mantelpiece, which was always ten minutes fast. It said it was 5.50.
‘Inspector Maigret here …’
Why did he feel a faint shock at the sound of the voice? Was it because, since the previous morning, he had been thinking about nothing else than the man at the other end of the line?
There were noises, voices in the background. Maigret could have sworn that the man was anxiously holding his hand cupped over his mouth. He was speaking in a low voice.
‘I’m sorry about yesterday, but I had to leave. I just want to know if you will still be at your office about a quarter to seven, perhaps ten to seven. We close at six thirty …’
‘Today?’
‘If you would be so kind …’
‘I’ll wait for you.’
Marton hung up straight away, after stammering a thank you, and Maigret looked at Lapointe rather as Madame Marton and Monsieur Harris had looked at each other in the lingerie boutique.
‘Was that him?’
‘Yes.’
‘Is he on his way?’
‘In an hour and a quarter.’
Maigret wanted to make fun of himself, of all the notions he had cooked up about this matter which, an hour and a quarter from now, would probably turn out to have a perfectly simple explanation.
‘We have time to go and have a beer at the Brasserie Dauphine,’ he growled, opening his cupboard to take out his overcoat and hat.
5. A Woman on the Embankment
It was just as he was about to go downstairs with Lapointe that the idea came to Maigret.
‘I’ll be with you straight away. Wait for me.’
And, still hesitating, he walked towards the inspectors’ office. His idea was that one of his men should follow Xavier Marton when he left the Magasins du Louvre. He didn’t know exactly why. Or rather, there were several things that might happen. First of all, Marton was liable to change at the last moment, as he had done once before, leaving Maigret’s office when the inspector was elsewhere. And his wife, who confessed to having followed him over the previous few days, was capable of spying on him once more.
If she approached him in the street, wouldn’t he follow her to A
venue de Châtillon? There were other possibilities. And even if nothing happened, Maigret was curious to know how the train-set salesman behaved when taking an important step, whether he would hesitate, whether he would stop on the way, for example, to boost his courage with a glass or two.
Janvier risked being recognized. Another inspector acting on his own, Lucas, for example, who was available, but who had never seen Marton, might not be able to spot him, even on the basis of his description, in the crowd of staff leaving the store.
‘Lucas and Janvier! Both of you go to the Magasins du Louvre. When the workers leave, Janvier isn’t to show himself, just point to Marton in passing, and then Lucas is to follow him on his own.’
Lucas, who didn’t really understand what was happening, asked:
‘Do you think it’ll take a long time, that he’ll go far?’
‘Here, probably.’
He nearly added:
‘But no taxis, no expenses!’
Because there are administrative rules that the public doesn’t know but which are sometimes very important for the people in the Police Judiciaire. When a crime or an offence is committed and when the police are delegated by the legal authorities to carry out an investigation the professional expenses of the chief inspectors, inspectors and technicians are in principle the responsibility of the guilty party. If he is not arrested, or if the court finds him not guilty later on, the Ministry of Justice foots the bill.
If, on the other hand, the case is one that the Police Judiciaire has investigated on its own initiative and if, in the end, there is no crime and hence no culprit, any costs become the responsibility of the Préfecture, which is to say the Ministry of the Interior.
And yet, for the police officers, this makes a huge difference. The courts, which always assume that the criminal will pay, are not too fussy, and will generally pay for a taxi. The Préfecture, on the contrary, goes through the expenses forms with a fine-tooth comb and requires accounts for the slightest comings and goings that cost the public purse money.
Maigret's Doubts (Inspector Maigret) Page 7
