Madame Maigret's Friend Page 10

  ‘And apart from that, you were together from morning till night?’

  ‘Pretty much. I’d go out shopping of course, but always locally. Once in a blue moon, I might go into the centre of town to buy something. I don’t care much about my appearance, as you may have noticed.’

  ‘You never went to see your family?’

  ‘I only have my mother and sister in Concarneau. It was only because of that fake telegram that I visited them.’

  It was as if something was bothering Maigret. ‘There wasn’t a set day for you to go out?’

  On her side, she seemed to be making an effort to think about that and give him an answer. ‘No. Apart from wash day, obviously.’

  ‘So you don’t do your washing here?’

  ‘Where would I do it? I have to go upstairs to fetch water. I can’t hang clothes to dry in the workshop and they wouldn’t dry in the basement. Once a week, in summer, and once every two weeks in winter, I go to the laundry boat on the Seine.’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘Square du Vert-Galant. You know, just below the Pont-Neuf. It takes me half a day. The next day, I go and pick up the washing. By then, it’s dry and ready to iron.’

  Maigret was visibly relaxing, smoking his pipe with more pleasure, and with a gleam in his eyes. ‘So one day a week in summer, and one day a fortnight in winter, Frans was alone here?’

  ‘Not all day.’

  ‘Did you go to the laundry boat in the morning or in the afternoon?’

  ‘In the afternoon. I tried going there in the morning, but it was difficult, because of the housework and the cooking.’

  ‘Did you have a key to the house?’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘Have you often had to use it?’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Did you ever come back and not find your husband in the workshop?’

  ‘Very seldom.’

  ‘But it has happened?’

  ‘I think so. Yes.’

  ‘Recently?’

  It seemed to have only just occurred to her, and she hesitated. ‘The week I left for Concarneau.’

  ‘Which is your washing day?’

  ‘Monday.’

  ‘Did he get back a long time after you?’

  ‘Not long. Maybe an hour.’

  ‘Did you ask him where he’d been?’

  ‘I never ask him anything. He’s free. It’s not up to me to ask him questions.’

  ‘You don’t know if he’d left the neighbourhood? You weren’t worried?’

  ‘I was in the doorway when he got back. I saw him get off the bus at the corner of Rue des Francs-Bourgeois.’

  ‘The bus from the centre or from the Bastille?’

  ‘From the centre.’

  ‘As far as I can judge from this photograph, the two brothers seem to be the same height. Is that right?’

  ‘Yes. Alfred looks thinner, because he has a thin face, but his body’s more muscular. They don’t look alike, except that they both have red hair. From the back, though, the resemblance is striking, and I’ve even mistaken one for the other.’

  ‘The times you saw Alfred, how was he dressed?’

  ‘It depended, as I already said.’

  ‘Do you think he ever borrowed money from his brother?’

  ‘I thought about that, but I don’t think it’s likely. He certainly never did it in front of me.’

  ‘The last time he came, was he wearing a blue suit?’

  She looked him in the eyes. She had understood. ‘I’m almost sure he was wearing dark clothes, more grey than blue. When you live with the lights on all the time, you stop noticing colours.’

  ‘How did you and your husband deal with money?’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Did he give you housekeeping money every month?’

  ‘No. Whenever I was short, I’d ask him for more.’

  ‘Did he ever object?’

  She blushed slightly. ‘He was absent-minded. He always thought he’d given me money the day before. So he’d be surprised and say, “Again?”’

  ‘What about your personal things, your dresses, your hats?’

  ‘You know, I spend very little!’

  Now she started asking him questions, as if she had waited a long time for this moment.

  ‘Listen, inspector, I’m not very intelligent, but I’m not stupid either. You’ve questioned me, your inspectors have questioned me, and so have the reporters, not to mention the suppliers and the local people. A young man of seventeen who likes to think he’s an amateur detective even stopped me in the street and read out prepared questions from a little notebook.

  ‘Before anything else, answer me honestly: do you believe Frans is guilty?’

  ‘Guilty of what?’

  ‘You know perfectly well: killing a man and burning the body in the stove.’

  He hesitated. He could have told her all kinds of things, but he was determined to be sincere. ‘I have no idea.’

  ‘Then why keep him in prison?’

  ‘Firstly, it’s not up to me, it’s up to the examining magistrate. Secondly, we can’t lose sight of the fact that all the material evidence points to him.’

  ‘The teeth!’ she retorted ironically.

  ‘And especially the bloodstains on the blue suit. And don’t forget the suitcase that disappeared.’

  ‘Which I never saw!’

  ‘It doesn’t matter. Other people saw it, a police inspector at least. There’s also the fact that, as if by chance, you’d been called away to the provinces at that particular moment by a fake telegram. Just between ourselves, I can tell you that if it was up to me, I’d rather your husband was free, but for his own good I’d be wary of releasing him. You saw what happened yesterday?’

  ‘Yes. That’s what I’m thinking of.’

  ‘Whether he’s guilty or innocent, it seems there are people who want him out of the way.’

  ‘Why did you show me his brother’s photograph?’

  ‘Because contrary to what you might think, his brother is quite a dangerous villain.’

  ‘Has he killed someone?’

  ‘Unlikely. That kind of person seldom kills. But he’s wanted by the police in three or four countries, and for more than fifteen years now he’s been making his living by theft and fraud. Does that surprise you?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘So it had already crossed your mind?’

  ‘When Frans told me his brother was unfortunate, I had the feeling he wasn’t using the word unfortunate in its usual sense. Do you think Alfred would have been capable of kidnapping a child?’

  ‘Once again, I have to say I have no idea. By the way, have you ever heard of the Countess Panetti?’

  ‘Who’s she?’

  ‘A wealthy Italian woman who was staying at Claridge’s.’

  ‘Has she also been killed?’

  ‘It’s possible, just as it’s possible she’s simply spending the carnival season in Cannes or Nice. I’ll know this evening. I’d like to take another look at your husband’s account books.’

  ‘Come upstairs. I have lots of questions to ask you, but I can’t think of them right now. It’s when you’re not here that I think about them. I should write them down, like that young man who thinks he’s a detective.’

  She let him go ahead of her up the stairs, then went to a shelf and took down a large black book the police had already examined five or six times.


  At the end of it, there was an alphabetical list of the bookbinder’s old and new customers. The name Panetti wasn’t on it. Nor was Krynker.

  Steuvels had small, irregular handwriting, with letters that overlapped and an unusual way of forming rs and ts.

  ‘Have you ever heard the name Krynker?’

  ‘Not as far as I recall. We were together all day, you know, but I never felt I had the right to ask him questions. You seem sometimes to forget, inspector, that I’m not a woman like any other. Remember where he found me. I was always surprised by what he did. It suddenly occurs to me that the reason he did it was because he was thinking about what his mother had been.’

  As if he hadn’t been listening, Maigret walked with large strides to the door, opened it abruptly and caught Alfonsi by the collar of his camelhair coat.

  ‘Come here, you. So you’re at it again. Have you decided to spend your days tailing me?’

  Alfonsi tried to brazen it out, but Maigret tightened his grip, shaking him like a puppet.

  ‘Do you mind telling me what you’re doing here?’

  ‘I was waiting for you to leave.’

  ‘So that you could harass this woman?’

  ‘I have a right to be here. As long as she agrees to see me …’

  ‘What are you looking for?’

  ‘Ask Maître Liotard.’

  ‘Liotard or no Liotard, I warn you of one thing: the next time I find you following me, I’ll have you put away for living off immoral earnings, got that?’

  It wasn’t an idle threat. Maigret was not unaware that the woman Alfonsi lived with spent most of her nights in the cabarets of Montmartre and had no hesitation in taking passing strangers to hotels.

  When he turned back to Fernande, he looked relieved. Alfonsi could be seen hurrying towards Place des Vosges in the rain.

  ‘What kind of questions does he ask?’

  ‘Always the same. He wants to know what you’ve been asking me, what I’ve replied, what you’re interested in, what things here you’ve examined.’

  ‘I think he’ll leave you alone from now on.’

  ‘Do you think Maître Liotard is harming my husband?’

  ‘The way things are now, I think we just have to let him carry on.’

  He had to go back downstairs, because he had left the photograph of Moss on the kitchen table. Instead of going back to the Quai des Orfèvres, he crossed the road and went into the cobbler’s shop.

  It was only nine in the morning, but the cobbler had already had a few drinks and smelled of white wine.

  ‘Hard at work, inspector?’

  The two shops were directly opposite each other. The cobbler and the bookbinder couldn’t help but see each other when they looked out, each bent over his work, with just the width of the street between them.

  ‘Do you remember any of Steuvels’ customers?’

  ‘A few, yes.’

  ‘This one?’

  He showed him the photograph. Fernande was watching them anxiously from across the street.

  ‘I call him the clown.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘I don’t know. Because I think he looks like a clown.’ All at once, he scratched his head and seemed to make a welcome discovery. ‘Look, buy me a drink and I think I can give you your money’s worth. It’s a stroke of luck you showed me that picture. I mentioned the word clown and I suddenly thought of a suitcase. Why? Oh yes! Because clowns usually come into the ring with a suitcase.’

  ‘Not the acrobatic ones.’

  ‘Clown, acrobat, it’s all the same. How about that drink?’

  ‘Afterwards.’

  ‘Don’t you trust me? You’re making a mistake. Straight as a die, that’s what I always say. This fellow of yours is definitely the man with the suitcase.’

  ‘What man with the suitcase?’

  The cobbler gave him what was intended as a knowing wink. ‘You’re not going to try and outsmart me, are you? Don’t I read the newspapers? And what did the newspapers keep talking about when this all started? Didn’t they come and ask me if I’d seen Frans or his wife or anyone else leave with a suitcase?’

  ‘You saw the man in the photograph leave with a suitcase?’

  ‘Not that day. I didn’t notice anyway. No, I’m thinking about the other times.’

  ‘Did he come often?’

  ‘Yes, quite often.’

  ‘Once a week, for instance? Or once a fortnight?

  ‘It’s possible. I don’t want to make anything up, because I don’t know the grilling the lawyers will give me the day the case goes to trial. I’d just say he came often.’

  ‘In the morning or the afternoon?’

  ‘I think the afternoon. You know why? Because I remember seeing him when the lights were on, so it must have been the afternoon. He always arrived with a little suitcase.’

  ‘Brown?’

  ‘Probably. Aren’t most suitcases brown? He’d sit down in a corner of the workshop, wait for the work to be finished, and leave with the suitcase.’

  ‘Was he there long?’

  ‘I don’t know. Definitely more than an hour. Sometimes I had the feeling he stayed there all afternoon.’

  ‘Did he come on a particular day?’

  ‘That I don’t know either.’

  ‘Think before you answer. Did you ever see this man in the workshop at the same time as Madame Steuvels?’

  ‘At the same time as Fernande? Wait. I can’t quite remember. I do remember the two men left together once, and Frans closed his shop.’

  ‘Recently?’

  ‘I’d have to think about that. When are we going for our drink?’

  Maigret was forced to go with him to the Grand Turenne, where the cobbler assumed a triumphant air.

  ‘Two old marcs. He’s paying!’

  He drank three, one after the other, and was about to repeat his story about the clown when Maigret managed to get away from him. As he passed the bookbinder’s workshop, Fernande gave him a reproachful look through the window.

  But he had to carry out his task to the end. He went into the concierge’s lodge. She was busy peeling potatoes.

  ‘Oh, so you’re back in the neighbourhood!’ she said sharply, upset that she had been neglected for so long.

  ‘Do you know this man?’

  She went to a drawer to get her glasses.

  ‘I don’t know his name, if that’s what you want, but I’ve seen him before. Didn’t the cobbler tell you what you wanted to know?’

  She was jealous that others had been questioned before her.

  ‘Have you seen him often?’

  ‘I’ve seen him, that’s all I know.’

  ‘Was he a customer of the bookbinder’s?’

  ‘I suppose so, because he came to his shop.’

  ‘Did he come on other occasions?’

  ‘I think he sometimes had dinner with them, but I don’t stick my nose into my tenants’ affairs!’

  The stationer’s opposite, the cardboard factory, the umbrella shop: it became routine, always the same question, the same gesture of producing the photograph, which people examined gravely. Some hesitated. Others had seen the man, without remembering where or in what circumstances.

  As he was about to leave the neighbourhood, Maigret decided to drop into the Tabac des Vosges.

  ‘Have you ever seen this man?’

  ‘The man with the suitcase!’ the owner said w
ithout any hesitation.

  ‘Can you tell me more?’

  ‘I don’t know what he sells, but he probably goes door to door. He’s come in here quite often, always just after lunch. He always has a strawberry syrup with Vichy water. He told me he had a stomach ulcer.’

  ‘Did he stay for long?’

  ‘Sometimes a quarter of an hour, sometimes longer. Oh, and he always sat in that seat, near the window.’

  From where there was a view of the corner of Rue de Turenne!

  ‘He must have had appointments with customers and was just killing time. Once, not so long ago, he sat there nearly an hour and in the end asked for a telephone token.’

  ‘Do you know who he called?’

  ‘No. When he came out of the booth he left immediately.’

  ‘In what direction?’

  ‘I didn’t notice.’

  As a reporter was just then coming in, the owner asked Maigret in a low voice, ‘Is this on the record?’

  Maigret shrugged. It was pointless to make a mystery of it, now that the cobbler knew everything. ‘It’s up to you.’

  When he walked into Lucas’ office, Lucas was juggling two telephone calls, and Maigret had to wait a while.

  ‘I’m still looking for the countess,’ Lucas sighed, mopping his brow. ‘The sleeping car company, who know her well, haven’t seen her on any of their lines for months. I’ve spoken to most of the big hotels in Cannes, Nice, Antibes and Villefranche. Not a thing. I also spoke to the casinos, but she hasn’t set foot in any of them either. Right now, Lapointe, who speaks English, is calling Scotland Yard, and I can’t remember who’s dealing with the Italians.’

  Before going to see Judge Dossin, Maigret went upstairs to say hello to Moers and give him back the photographs that hadn’t led anywhere.

  ‘No results?’ poor Moers asked.

  ‘One out of three isn’t bad. We just have to get our hands on the other two, though it’s possible they never had their mugshots taken.’

  By midday, they still hadn’t tracked down the Countess Panetti, and two Italian reporters, who had been alerted, were waiting excitedly at the door of Maigret’s office.