Liberty Bar Read online

But other sounds came to her: footsteps in the street, still some way off, then a woman panting, out of breath – for she was running – who asked:

  ‘Why is there no light on in the bar? … Is it because …?’

  ‘Shush … Don’t make so much noise …’

  Then someone knocking on the shutters. The police officer downstairs going to the door. More sounds in the back room, and finally someone running upstairs.

  Jaja was frightened and gave Maigret an anguished look. She almost cried out when she saw him head for the door.

  ‘You two can go!’ Maigret said to the police officers as he stepped back to allow Sylvie to come in.

  And Sylvie came to a sudden stop in the middle of the room, her hand on her heart, which was beating too fast. She had forgotten her hat. She didn’t understand what was going on. Her eyes were fixed on the bed.

  ‘Jaja …’

  Downstairs, the first policeman must have been serving the second policeman a drink, because there was a clink of glasses. Then the main door opened and shut. Footsteps were heard heading off in the direction of the harbour.

  Maigret made so little noise, so little movement, that it would have been easy to forget that he was there.

  ‘My poor Jaja …’

  And yet Sylvie did not dash to her side. Something held her back: the glacial look that the old woman fixed on her.

  So Sylvie turned to Maigret and stammered:

  ‘Did she …?’

  ‘Did she what?’

  ‘Nothing … I don’t know … What is wrong with her?’

  One strange thing: despite the closed door, despite the distance, they could still hear the tick-tock of the alarm clock, so fast, so staccato that it sounded as if it was freewheeling and about to shatter.

  Jaja was approaching a new crisis. A perceptible shudder began to creep through her soft body, firing up her eyes, drying out her throat. But she stiffened. She made an effort to hold herself together, while Sylvie, distraught, not knowing what to do or where to go or even what position to adopt, simply stood in the middle of the room with her head bowed and her hands joined across her chest.

  Maigret smoked. He didn’t feel impatient any more. He knew that he had closed the circle.

  There was no more mystery, there were no more surprises. All the characters in the tale had taken their respective places: the two Martinis, the elder and the younger, in their villa, where they were compiling their inventory with the help of Monsieur Petitfils; Harry Brown at the Provençal, where he calmly awaited the outcome of the investigation while continuing to run his business via telephone and telegraph …

  Joseph locked up …

  Now Jaja sat up, at the end of her patience, at breaking point. She looked at Sylvie angrily. She pointed at her with her good hand.

  ‘It’s her … That poisonous witch … That wh—!

  She used the foulest word in her vocabulary. Her eyes pricked with tears.

  ‘I hate her, do you hear me? … I hate her … It’s her … She fooled me for ages … And do you know what she called me? … The old woman … That’s right! Old woman! … Me! The one who …’

  ‘Lie down, Jaja,’ said Maigret. ‘You’ll make yourself ill …’

  ‘Oh! You …’

  Then suddenly, with a fresh burst of energy:

  ‘But I won’t let her! … I won’t go to Haguenau … Do you hear? … Or else I’ll take her with me … I don’t want to … I don’t want to …’

  Her throat was so dry that she instinctively looked round for something to drink.

  ‘Go and get the bottle!’ Maigret told Sylvie.

  ‘But … she is already …’

  ‘Just go …’

  He walked over to the window, to check that there was no one in the house across the street. There was no one at the window, at least.

  A strip of street with uneven paving stones … A streetlamp … The sign of the bar opposite …

  ‘I know you are protecting her, because she is young … Perhaps because she has already made offers to you too …’

  Sylvie returned, rings around her eyes, looking weary, and handed Maigret a half-full bottle of rum.

  And Jaja chuckled:

  ‘I’m allowed a drink, now I’m on my last legs – is that it? I heard what the doctor said …’

  But just the thought of it put her in turmoil. She was afraid of dying. Her eyes were haggard.

  Nevertheless, she took hold of the bottle. She drank, thirstily, watching each of her two companions in turn.

  ‘The old woman’s about to pop her clogs! … Well, I don’t want to! … I want her to die before me … Because she’s …’

  She suddenly went silent, as if she had lost her train of thought. Maigret didn’t move a muscle, merely waited.

  ‘Did she talk? … She must have done, otherwise they wouldn’t have let her out … As for me, I tried to get her released … Because it wasn’t Joseph who sent me to see the son in Antibes … It was me alone … Do you understand?’

  Yes, of course! Maigret understood everything! He had learned everything he needed to know a good hour earlier.

  He made a vague gesture in the direction of the divan.

  ‘It wasn’t William who slept there, was it?’

  ‘No, he didn’t sleep there! … He slept here, in my bed! … William was my lover! … William came here for me and me alone, and it was she, who I took in out of the goodness of my heart, who slept on the divan … Did you not suspect that?’

  She yelled all this in a raucous voice. Now it was just a matter of letting her speak. It was coming from deep inside her. It was her true essence, the real Jaja, Jaja naked, that was being exposed to the light.

  ‘The truth is that I loved him and he loved me! … He appreciated that it wasn’t my fault that I never got a proper education … He was happy when he was with me … He told me so … It pained him to leave … And when he came back here he was like a schoolboy at the start of the holidays …’

  She wept as she spoke, and that made her face adopt a strange grimace that the pink light filtering through the lampshade rendered even more hallucinatory.

  Especially as she had one arm strapped up in a piece of apparatus!

  ‘And I didn’t suspect a thing! I was stupid! You’re always stupid in cases like this! I was the one who invited this girl, who kept her here, because it’s always fun to have young people around …’

  Sylvie didn’t move a muscle.

  ‘Look at her! She’s still giving me a look! She’s always been the same, and I, fat idiot that I am, thought it was just because of shyness … I was touched by her … When I think she seduced him wearing my dressing gowns, flaunting everything she had!

  ‘Because it was what she wanted! … Her and her pimp Joseph … William had money, dammit! … And they …

  ‘Anyway! The will …’

  And she grabbed the bottle and glugged down mouthfuls of rum. Sylvie took the opportunity to give Maigret an imploring look. She could hardly stand up. She was wobbling.

  ‘It was here that Joseph stole it … I’m not sure when … No doubt one evening after a few drinks … William had spoken about it … And Joseph must have said to himself that the son would pay a good price for this piece of paper …’

  Maigret was barely listening to this story, predictable as it was. Instead, he looked at the room, the bed, the divan …

  William and Jaja …

  And Sylvie on a divan …

  And poor William must have no doubt compared the two …

  ‘I suspected something when I saw Sylvie give William a look one day as she was setting off after lunch … I still couldn’t believe it … But straight afterwards he said he was going to head off himself … Normally he never left the house before the evening … I didn’t say anything … I got dressed …’

  The key scene, one that Maigret had reconstructed long before! Joseph paying a short visit with the will already in his pocket! Sylvie who had got dr
essed earlier than usual and who had had lunch in her town clothes in order to set off straight afterwards …

  The look that Jaja spotted … She said nothing … She ate … She drank … But no sooner was William out of the door than she pulled an overcoat on over her indoor clothes …

  No one left in the bar! An empty house! A locked door …

  They all went off in pursuit of each other …

  ‘Do you know where she waited for him? … The Hôtel Beauséjour … Out in the street I was walking up and down like a madwoman … I wanted to knock on the door, to beg Sylvie to give him back to me … At the corner of the street there was a knife seller … And while they were … while they were upstairs, I was looking in the shop window … I didn’t know what I was doing … I felt the pain all over … I went inside … I bought a flick-knife … I think I was probably crying …

  ‘Then they came out together … William looked completely different, as if rejuvenated … He even took Sylvie into a sweet shop and bought her a box of chocolates …

  ‘They parted company in front of the garage …

  ‘That’s when I started running … I knew he would be heading back to Antibes … I blocked his way, just outside of town … It was beginning to get dark … He saw me … He stopped the car …

  ‘And I shouted out:

  ‘“Take this! … Take this! … This is for you! … And this is for her! …”’

  She fell back on the bed and curled up into a ball, her face bathed in tears and sweat.

  ‘I don’t even know how he got away … He must have pushed me away, closed the door …

  ‘I was all alone in the middle of the road and I was almost run over by a bus … I didn’t have the knife any more … Maybe I left it in the car …’

  The only detail that Maigret had overlooked: the knife, which William Brown, his eyes already misting over, no doubt had the presence of mind to throw into some bushes!

  ‘I got home late …’

  ‘Yes … The bars …

  ‘I woke up in my bed, feeling ill …’

  Then, sitting up, she said again:

  ‘But I won’t go to Haguenau! … I won’t go! … You can do whatever you like to make me … The doctor said it: I’m going to die … And it’s this wh—’

  There was the sound of a chair scraping across the floor. Sylvie had pulled a seat towards her and collapsed on to it, sideways on.

  She passed out slowly, gradually, but it wasn’t feigned. Her nostrils were pinched, ringed with yellow. Her eye sockets were hollow.

  ‘It serves her right!’ Jaja cried. ‘Leave her! … Or maybe not … I don’t know … Maybe Joseph organized everything … Sylvie! … My little Sylvie …’

  Maigret leaned over the young woman. He tapped her hands, her cheeks.

  He saw Jaja grab the bottle and take another drink, literally pumping alcohol down her throat, which caused her to cough violently.

  Then the fat doll sighed and buried her head in the pillow.

  Maigret took Sylvie in his arms, carried her down to the ground floor and dampened her temples with cool water.

  The first thing she said when she opened her eyes was:

  ‘It’s not true …’

  Deep, total despair.

  ‘I want you to know that it’s not true … I don’t try to make out I’m better than I am … But it’s not true … I love Jaja! … He was the one who … Do you understand? … He was making eyes at me for months … He begged me … How could I refuse, given that I did it every evening with strangers …?’

  ‘Shush! Not so loud …’

  ‘Let her hear me! If she thought about it, she would understand … I didn’t even want to say anything to Joseph, in case he took advantage … I arranged to meet him …’

  ‘Just once?’

  ‘Just once … You see! … It’s true that he bought me chocolates … He was besotted … So much so that he frightened me … He treated me like a young girl …’

  ‘Is that all?’

  ‘I didn’t know that it was Jaja who … No! I swear! I thought it was Joseph … I was afraid … He told me that I should return to the Beauséjour, where someone would give me some money …’

  And, in a whisper:

  ‘What could I do?’

  They heard a moan from upstairs – the same moan as earlier.

  ‘Is she very seriously injured?’

  Maigret shrugged his shoulders, went upstairs, saw that Jaja was sleeping and that she had been moaning in her unconscious state.

  He came back downstairs and found Sylvie, who was a bag of nerves, jumping at every sound in the house.

  ‘She’s asleep!’ he whispered. ‘Shush …’

  Sylvie didn’t understand and looked at Maigret with an expression of dread; he merely filled a pipe.

  ‘Stay by her side … When she wakes up, tell her that I have left … for good …’

  ‘But …’

  ‘Tell her that she was dreaming, that she was having nightmares, that …’

  ‘But … I don’t understand … And Joseph?’

  She looked into his eyes. He had his hands in his pockets. He took out the twenty banknotes, which were still there.

  ‘Do you love him?’

  She replied:

  ‘You know full well that I need a man! Otherwise …’

  ‘And William?’

  ‘That was different … He was from another world … He …’

  Maigret walked to the door. He turned round one last time, as he fiddled with the key in the lock.

  ‘See to it that we don’t have to talk about the Liberty Bar again … Do you understand?’

  The door was open to the cold air outside. The ground was exhaling a damp vapour that was like a fog.

  ‘I didn’t think that you were like that …’ Sylvie stammered, not knowing what to say. ‘I … Jaja … I swear she is the best woman in the world …’

  He turned round, shrugged his shoulders and set off in the direction of the harbour, stopping a little further along under a streetlamp to relight his pipe.

  11. A Love Story

  Maigret unfolded his legs, looked the other man in the eyes and handed him a stamped sheet of paper.

  ‘May I?’ asked Harry Brown with an anxious glance to the door, behind which were his secretary and his typist.

  ‘It’s yours.’

  ‘I want you to know that I am prepared to give them compensation … A hundred thousand francs each, for example … Do you understand? … It is not a question of money: it’s all about the scandal … If those four women were to come back home and …’

  ‘I understand.’

  Outside the window could be seen the beach of Juan-les-Pins, a hundred people in swimsuits lying on the sand, three young women doing physical exercises with a long, thin instructor and an Algerian who went from group to group with a basket of peanuts.

  ‘Do you think a hundred thousand would …?’

  ‘I’m sure, yes!’ said Maigret, standing up.

  ‘You haven’t had your drink.’

  ‘No, thank you.’

  And Harry Brown, so correct, so well groomed, hesitated a moment before hazarding:

  ‘You see, inspector, I thought for a while that you were the enemy … In France …’

  ‘Quite …’

  Maigret headed for the door. Brown followed him, sounding less sure of himself:

  ‘… scandal isn’t as big a deal as it is in …’

  ‘Goodbye, monsieur!’

  And Maigret bowed slightly, without offering his hand, and left the suite and all its busy wool trading.

  ‘In France … In France …’ the inspector muttered as he descended the purple-carpeted staircase.

  In France what? What would you call Harry Brown’s liaison with the widow or divorcee in Cap Ferrat?

  A love story!

  So what about the story of William, with Jaja, with Sylvie?

  Maigret had to weave his way between semi
-naked bodies as he walked along the beach. The brightly coloured swimsuits showed off the bronzed flesh to its best advantage.

  Boutigues was waiting for him next to the physical education instructor’s hut.

  ‘Well?’

  ‘Case closed! … William Brown was killed by an unknown assailant who wanted to steal his wallet …’

  ‘But …’

  ‘But what? … No dramas! … So …?’

  ‘Yes, but …’

  ‘No dramas!’ Maigret repeated as he looked at the blue sea, calm as a millpond, and the canoes paddling about. Was there room here for dramas?

  ‘Do you see that woman in the green swimming-costume?’

  ‘She has very thin legs.’

  ‘Exactly!’ Boutigues cried out in triumph. ‘You’d never guess that she is … Morrow’s daughter.’

  ‘Morrow?’

  ‘The diamond merchant … One of those dozen or so people rich enough to …’

  The sun was hot. Maigret in his dark suit stood out among all this bare flesh. Snatches of music could be heard coming from the terrace of the casino.

  ‘Would you like a drink?’

  Boutigues was wearing a light-grey suit and had a red carnation in his buttonhole.

  ‘I did tell you that round these parts …’

  ‘Yes … These parts …’

  ‘Don’t you like it here?’

  And with a lyrical sweep of the arm he indicated the extraordinary blue of the bay and its huddle of white villas among the greenery, the yellow casino like a cream bun, the palm trees along the promenade …

  ‘The large man you can see over there in the small striped swimsuit is a top German press baron …’

  And Maigret, his eyes a dull grey after a sleepless night, muttered:

  ‘So what?’

  ‘Are you pleased that I made you morue à la crème?’

  ‘I can’t tell you how much!’

  Boulevard Richard-Lenoir. Maigret’s apartment. A window opening on to some scrawny chestnut trees with as yet only a smattering of leaves.

  ‘So what was the story this time?’

  ‘A love story! But, as they told me: No dramas …’

  His elbows resting on the table, he ate his salt cod gratin hungrily. He spoke with his mouth full.

  ‘An Australian who had had enough of Australia and all those sheep …’