Maigret Takes a Room Page 11

  On the ground floor, Vacher had opened the sitting-room curtains to see what was happening outside and he had taken up his position in the darkness, a pot of coffee within reach, smoking cigarette after cigarette.

  Maigret waited for his wife’s phone call before going to bed; he came downstairs in his slippers.

  ‘… No really. I’m very well,’ he said.

  ‘I hope you’re not going to move into that house permanently. Hortense is much better, and I could be back in two days, if not tomorrow evening … You don’t sound pleased about it …’

  He repeated absently:

  ‘No, really! No, really!’

  Then, before going upstairs, he went and exchanged a few words with Vacher, in the darkness of the sitting room. He could hear Mademoiselle Clément coming and going in her room; then the mattress creaked under her weight.

  It took him a long time to go to sleep. He was still aware of that illuminated window on the other side of the street. He also thought about that idiot Paulus and started to be angry with him, as if holding him responsible for all that had happened and was still to happen.

  7.

  In which Maigret remembers the only chicken whose throat he slit, and Mademoiselle Clément is very unsettled to meet a murderer

  The first time he woke up, a little before one o’clock, there were still two lights on in the block, and he had managed to put a name to each window and say almost with certainty what the people were doing.

  Following his instructions, the nurse hadn’t lowered the blind, and the lace curtains were open, so that he could see the white patch of the bed and the motionless face of Françoise Boursicault.

  She was lying on her back, her eyes closed. Seen from above, her nose looked thinner and longer.

  The nurse was still reading her book, with a cup of coffee within reach on the table, which she had pulled close to her armchair.

  That night Maigret felt something almost like a guilty conscience. He had just had some confused dreams that he could barely remember but that had left an unpleasant impression.

  He went downstairs without turning the light on and stepped into the sitting room, where nothing could be seen but the reddish tip of Vacher’s cigarette.

  ‘Is that you, chief?’

  ‘How are you?’

  ‘I’m fine. The fat lady has left me everything I need. She got up just now to make me some coffee. She was in her nightdress. If I hadn’t been on duty I’d happily have said a word.’

  ‘Didn’t you notice anything outside?’

  ‘Apart from a drunk zigzagging down the street half an hour ago. Following your instructions I went outside and, a bit further off, I asked to see his papers. He’s a tramp I know by sight, who was on his way to sleep in Place Maubert.’

  The phone-tap hadn’t produced a thing. It was true that Madame Boursicault could only have made a phone call before the nurse arrived, during a period of no more than an hour.

  ‘Keep listening in!’ Maigret sighed.

  He hesitated. He knew where Mademoiselle Clément put the beer, behind the cellar door. He went to get a bottle without making a sound and brought it to his room, leaving Vacher at the window.

  In the Ternes district, lots of the bistros were still open, and the men from the Police Judiciaire were asking questions about a certain Françoise Binet.

  Could they hope, after such a long time, that it would produce a result? Luckily there are more Parisians than you would think for whom most of the city is foreign territory and who confine themselves to their own district as if it were a village. There are some whose universe consists only of a few streets and who, for twenty years and more, have frequented the same brasseries or the same little bar.

  Maigret was sure that Françoise Boursicault wasn’t sleeping, that she wouldn’t sleep that night, and that her brain was whirring.

  Had she suspected that they would tap her phone? It was likely. She must have been thinking of everything, with the patience, the minute precision of someone who has for years known only the solitude of her bed.

  And yet he would have bet on her doing something: she was obliged to do something.

  He went heavily back to sleep, dreamed again, woke up for a second time before sunrise and saw the nurse leaning on the window, smoking a cigarette. He didn’t go downstairs, he went back to bed and, when he opened his eyes, the sky was dreary, the rooftops were dripping, but it had stopped raining.

  Nothing had happened during the night. Vacher had kept watch for nothing, and Maigret went to relieve him.

  ‘You can go back to bed. You may have to resume your stakeout tonight. Drop by at headquarters and tell Torrence to send me someone. If there’s any news get him to keep me up to date.’

  Once in his life, when he was about twelve, he had tried to cut the neck of a chicken, because his father was away, and his mother had asked him to. He still remembered. He was pale, with his nostrils pinched. The feathers palpitated in his hand. The creature flapped madly. He couldn’t hold its head down on the block used for chopping wood, and he flailed about clumsily with the axe in his other hand.

  His first blow had been so clumsy that he had only managed to wound the bird and, to deliver the next few blows, he had closed his eyes.

  He hadn’t eaten it. He had never killed any more chickens in his life.

  Madame Boursicault had a long, thin neck as well. And while she might have remained motionless in her bed, he thought he could sense her fighting against her constraints.

  But he had been wrong to think that she might try to end it all. If she had had to, she would probably have done it immediately after he left, before the nurse arrived.

  He phoned the nurse.

  ‘She had a peaceful night,’ she told him. ‘She didn’t sleep much, perhaps two or three hours, in several stretches, but she didn’t get agitated.’

  ‘She didn’t say anything?’

  ‘She doesn’t say a word to me, not even to ask for a glass of water.’

  ‘I think you can leave her.’

  He saw her leaving a little later, with a raincoat over her white uniform and an umbrella in her hand. Then Madame Keller dragged the bins to the side of the pavement, looked up towards Maigret’s windows, noticed him and gave him only a dark look of reproach.

  He had told himself that once the nurse was gone Madame Boursicault would get up to close the curtains and maybe lower the blind.

  He had underestimated her. She left the window as it was, and he thought he understood that it was a kind of bravado or contempt. This way he could go on keeping her under surveillance, she wasn’t trying to hide. The concierge brought her up her breakfast. He saw the women’s lips moving, but it was only the concierge who sometimes turned towards him. Would Madame Boursicault dare to give her an errand?

  Lucas arrived a little later in a taxi and came up to Maigret’s room while he was shaving.

  ‘Torrence has gone to bed. He caught the flu and has a bad headache. He’s given me some information to pass on to you.’

  ‘Have they found someone who knew her?’

  ‘At the Diabolo, a moth-eaten nightclub on Rue de l’Étoile. An old drunk woman hangs out there almost every night. You must have met her in Ternes. She dresses as they used to twenty-five years ago: short, skin-tight dresses that make her look like a little girl. She often ends up spending the night at the station. They call her Thérèse.’

  ‘What does she say?’

  ‘She had drunk a lot when little Lapointe unearthed her, and he didn’t get much out of her. I’ve asked the local police to bring her to the Quai as soon as she’s slept it off.’

  ‘Did she know Françoise Binet?’

  ‘That’s what she says.’

  ‘“A pretty little thing,” she said, “plump as a quail, who laughed all the time, showing the loveliest teeth in the world. She was with Dédé. It didn’t last, because Dédé wanted to put her on the game.”’

  ‘Who’s Dédé?’
/>   ‘They think he’s a guy who runs a bar in Nantes now.’

  ‘She didn’t mention any others?’

  ‘Only first names and nicknames. She said it again: “A pretty little thing … I’d be curious to know what became of her …”’

  ‘Listen, Lucas. In a little while the concierge is probably going to go out to do her shopping. Stay alert. Keep a close eye on her. It may be that she’s going to post a letter, or send a telegram, or even meet someone. I’m not banking on it, but if it does happen it’s important that we get the message.’

  ‘Loud and clear, chief.’

  He went downstairs and called the Nantes Flying Squad just in case. Mademoiselle Clément, who was getting dressed, drew aside the curtain of the spyhole to see who was using the phone.

  ‘Maigret here, from the Police Judiciaire. Who am I speaking to?’

  ‘Grollin. It’s a pleasure to hear your voice, chief.’

  ‘Would you like to take a trip down to a bar kept by someone called Dédé? Do you know it?’

  ‘It’s by the harbour, yes.’

  ‘You’ll be questioning him about one Françoise Binet, whom he knew twenty years ago or more.’

  ‘Do you think he’ll remember? He looks to me like he’s known a few in his life.’

  ‘Go anyway. Try and find out who his successor was with the girl. Get everything out of him that you can. Call me here, not at the Quai.’

  He gave him Mademoiselle Clément’s number.

  ‘It’s bucketing down out there!’ Grollin sighed. ‘It doesn’t matter. I’ve got an umbrella. Dédé will be in bed. It’ll put the wind up him to be woken by the police.’

  Mademoiselle Clément came out of the sitting room, her face freshly powdered, and the little hairs around her ears and on the nape of her neck still damp.

  ‘Would you like some coffee?’

  ‘For me and Lucas, if you don’t mind.’

  The tenants now greeted him as if he lived in the house, always with a questioning look in their eyes.

  ‘Take a close look at her window, Lucas. Note the position of the curtains. If, at any time during the day, you notice a change, be sure to tell me.’

  ‘Are you expecting her to give a signal?’

  ‘I would swear that there’s a signal.’

  ‘But the telephone? Doesn’t she have a phone within reach?’

  ‘It’s not enough.’

  ‘Are you sure someone came to see her while her husband was away?’

  ‘I’m convinced of it. It’s the only possible explanation. It’s likely, in fact, that he called her before he came into the street.’

  ‘So there was no need for a signal.’

  ‘Suppose that at the last moment the concierge came home, or the doctor arrived. He didn’t come on regular days. He called in to see her from time to time when he was on his rounds.’

  ‘I understand.’

  ‘They needed to agree a way of warning of a danger. It might be the position of the curtains, or the blind, or anything. I’ve looked through that window so much over the last few days that I wonder if I would see the difference. When was the last time you came?’

  ‘The day before yesterday.’

  Lucas, his face raised towards the window opposite, frowned.

  ‘Have you noticed something?’

  ‘I’m not sure. I’d like to take a look from up there.’

  They went up to Maigret’s room, which had been Émile Paulus’ room. Lucas went straight to the window.

  ‘When I came last time, three days ago, I remember that the window opposite was open.’

  ‘That’s right. It wasn’t raining yet. It was a lot warmer than today. Go on.’

  ‘I may be mistaken, but I don’t think the copper pot was there.’

  In the middle of the window-sill a copper pot could now indeed be seen, containing a green plant.

  Maigret was sure that the pot hadn’t been in the same place the evening before. He had seen it in a corner of the bedroom, on a narrow table, and had even stared at it for a long time when he was talking to Madame Boursicault.

  ‘Stay here. Keep an eye on the street.’

  He crossed the road and went into Madame Keller’s lodge; she received him with marked coldness. She was getting ready to go and do her shopping. The postman had been, and there were letters in the pigeon-holes, but none in the name of Madame Boursicault.

  ‘Can you tell me, Madame Keller, if, when you went up this morning, your tenant asked you to change the position of that house plant?’

  She muttered a crisp ‘no’.

  ‘Do you sometimes put it by the window?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Forgive me for pressing. The question is much more important than you can imagine. You’re the one who does the housework. If I’m not mistaken, that plant is usually in the left-hand corner, near the dining-room door.’

  ‘That’s its place.’

  ‘You’ve never been asked to put it by the window?’

  She suddenly stared at him, and he understood that he had stirred a memory. But she didn’t want to speak, because she now saw him as a cruel man who was making her tenant suffer.

  ‘She asked you to, didn’t she? When?’

  ‘A long time ago.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘I don’t know. It’s none of my business.’

  Without seeming to notice her obvious ill will, he insisted:

  ‘How many months ago?’

  ‘At least six.’

  He held his ground and felt a little quiver in his chest. His only fear was to see the woman in front of him retreating into silence. He smiled at her cravenly.

  ‘Six months ago it was autumn. The window was probably open?’

  ‘I don’t remember.’

  ‘I’m sure you’d already gone up to do the housekeeping, that you’d come back down again, that you were getting ready, as you are today, to go and do your shopping …’

  She followed him attentively, and it was clear that her memories were falling into place. She was surprised that he was guessing so precisely. She said:

  ‘I went back up, yes …’

  ‘You went back up, when you weren’t supposed to go back up …’

  ‘I’d forgotten to ask her what she wanted to eat. I also wanted to know if I was supposed to renew a prescription. She asked me to put the copper pot in the window.’

  ‘Without telling you why?’

  ‘Because it would do the plant good. The sun was shining.’

  ‘What happened over the next few days?’

  Defeated, she glanced in amazement at the inspector.

  ‘I wonder how you could have guessed. The next day the sun was shining again, and I wanted to put the plant back on the window-sill.’

  ‘She told you not to?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Thank you, Madame Keller.’

  He nearly asked her if her tenant had given her an errand but preferred to leave that one up to Lucas.

  ‘Are you going to upset her again?’

  It was better not to answer, and, a few minutes later, he knocked at the door. No one told him to come in. He turned the handle, pushed the door open and found Françoise Boursicault’s gaze fixed upon him. With a sigh of resignation she fell back on her pillow.

  ‘I do apologize for disturbing you again.’

  She didn’t say a word, kept her lips pinched; her whole life was concentrated in her pupils.

  ‘I wanted to check that the nurse being here hadn’t kept you from sleeping …’

  More silence.

  ‘And I thought that perhaps you might have something to say to me this morning?’

  She still didn’t respond. He walked back and forth in the room and stopped as if by chance by the house plant, whose leaves he began to stroke.

  Then, just as some people have an obsession with straightening paintings when they visit other people’s houses, he picked up the copper pot and put it back on the table.
/>
  ‘That’s where it lives, isn’t it? The concierge must have made a mistake.’

  He deliberately avoided looking at her. He stood there for a moment, turned around and, as he expected, found her looking much paler, with panic in her eyes.

  ‘Does it bother you if I move this pot away from the window?’

  He was worried that she would start crying again and thought about that chicken from his childhood. He hesitated for a few seconds, grabbed the back of a chair with a crimson velvet seat, straddled it, facing the bed, and began to light his pipe.

  Never mind that she wasn’t quite ready. He had just decided to try out the operation.

  ‘Did you expect him to come and see you this morning?’

  Never, perhaps, had he ever felt such a hateful gaze resting on him, a mute hatred, without violence, mixed with contempt and perhaps with a kind of bitter resignation.

  They were suddenly on strange terrain, where they moved as if in a state of unreality, and they understood one another almost wordlessly; each glance, each shiver became heavy with meaning.

  ‘He’s still in Paris, isn’t he?’

  After each phrase, he gave her time to think, while listening out for sounds on the staircase.

  ‘If he wasn’t in Paris any more you wouldn’t be worried and you wouldn’t have put that vase in the window. Because you got up to move it. It wasn’t the concierge who did that. And it wasn’t the nurse either.’

  She reached her bony hand towards the glass of water on the bedside table and took a gulp from it, with an effort that stiffened her neck.

  ‘Right now the Nantes police are questioning a man you used to know, one Dédé; Dédé will give us other names. And those people in turn will give us still others.’

  It was almost driving him to distraction.

  ‘It’s possible that he won’t come, that he’s suspicious. He must have been waiting for your phone call, yesterday or last night, and you weren’t able to call him.’

  A pause.

  ‘He knows, thanks to you, that a trap has been set up in the street. Perhaps over the last few days he’s been roaming about the area without coming too close. What I wonder is why he hasn’t rented a room or a flat in the house. It would have been so much easier!’