“He strangles her . . . Pushes her in a locker . . .
“He soon realizes that everything will point to Donge, and that there is nothing, in fact, which could possibly incriminate him . . .
“To make doubly certain of this, he writes an anonymous letter, in Charlotte’s handwriting . . . Because there are several notes from Charlotte in the drawer in the still-room . . .
“I repeat, he’s a consummate artist! Meticulous! . . . He takes care of every detail! . . . And when he realizes that poor Justin Colleboeuf has seen him . . . When Colleboeuf comes to tell him that he feels duty bound to denounce him to the police, he commits another crime, with no trouble at all, and one which can easily be attributed to Donge . . .
“That is all . . . Torrence! . . . Use a damp towel on that scum—his nose is beginning to bleed again . . . He slipped just now and banged his face on the corner of the table . . .
“Have you anything to say, Ramuel?”
Silence. Only the American was still asking: “What’s he saying?”
“As for you, madame . . . What shall I call you? . . . Marie Deligeard? . . . Madame Ramuel? . . .”
“I prefer Marie Deligeard . . .”
“That’s what I thought . . . You weren’t mistaken in thinking he hoped to leave you soon . . . No doubt he was waiting until there was a nice round sum in the bank . . . Then he could go and look after his liver abroad, alone, a long way from your ranting and raving . . .”
“No!”
“With all due respect, madame! . . . with all due respect! . . .”
And suddenly: “Constables . . . Take the prisoner to the cells . . . I hope that tomorrow examining magistrate Bonneau will be good enough to sign a warrant and that . . .”
Gigi was standing in a corner, perched on her stilt-like legs, and all the emotion had given her such a craving for drugs that she felt dizzy, and her nostrils fluttered like a wounded bird’s wings.
“Excuse me, superintendent . . .”
It was the solicitor. Clark stood behind him.
“My client would like there to be a meeting between you, Monsieur Donge and himself, in my office, as soon as possible, to discuss . . . discuss the child who . . .”
“D’you hear that, Prosper?” cried Gigi triumphantly, from her corner.
“Would tomorrow morning suit you? . . . Are you free tomorrow morning, Monsieur Donge? . . .”
But Donge couldn’t speak. He had suddenly cracked. He had thrown himself on Charlotte’s ample bosom and was crying, crying his heart out, as the saying goes, while, a little embarrassed, she soothed him like a child.
“Pull yourself together, Prosper! . . . We’ll bring him up together! . . . We’ll teach him French . . . We’ll . . .”
Maigret—God knows why—was rummaging through the drawers of his desk. He remembered that he had put some little sachets he had taken during a recent raid in one of them. He took a sachet out, hesitated a moment, and then shrugged.
Then, as Gigi was almost fainting, he brushed past her. His hand touched hers.
“Ladies and gentlemen, it’s one o’clock . . . If you’ll be so good . . .”
“What’s he saying,” Clark seemed still to be asking, at the end of his first encounter with the French police.
They learnt the following morning that the cheque for two hundred and eighty thousand francs had been presented at the Société Générale in Brussels, by a man called Jaminet, who was a bookmaker by trade.
Jaminet had received it by airmail from Ramuel, under whose command he had been when he was doing his military service, as a corporal.
Which didn’t prevent Ramuel denying everything to the last.
Or from being lucky for the first time in his life, because owing to his poor state of health—he fainted three times during the final hearing—his death sentence was commuted to transportation with hard labour for life.
The Hotel Majestic Page 14
