Maigret's Doubts (Inspector Maigret) Page 11

‘What do you mean, Lapointe?’

  ‘Was it Lapointe who asked you to call me?’

  ‘I’ve heard nothing from Lapointe, just a phone call a moment ago, asking us to pass on a message to you.’

  ‘What message?’

  ‘To go to Avenue de Châtillon straight away … Wait! I’ve jotted down the number …’

  ‘I know it. Who was that on the phone?’

  ‘I don’t know. They didn’t give their name.’

  ‘A man? A woman?’

  ‘A woman. She says you know about it and that you’ll know what it means. Apparently she looked for your number in the directory but …’

  Maigret was ex-directory.

  ‘Is there anything I can do for you?’

  Maigret hesitated. He nearly asked Joffre to phone the station in the fourteenth arrondissement so that they could send someone to Avenue de Châtillon. Then, on reflection, he did nothing. Sitting on the edge of the bed, he reached with his toes for his slippers. His wife was already in the kitchen, and he heard the little explosion as she lit the gas to heat the water.

  ‘Nothing, thank you …’

  What surprised him was that it wasn’t Lapointe who called him, when he was the man on the spot.

  Which woman would it be? Gisèle Marton? The sister-in-law?

  If it was one of the two, she couldn’t have left the building, because Lapointe would have noticed and called Maigret in person.

  And yet the Martons weren’t on the phone.

  He called to his wife.

  ‘While I’m getting dressed, could you take a look in the phone book, the section classified by street, and tell me who is listed for 17, Avenue de Châtillon?’

  He thought about shaving but decided not to, even though he was repelled by the idea of going out like that, to gain some time.

  ‘Seventeen … Here it is … Building …’

  ‘Fine. That means there’s a telephone in the concierge’s lodge.’

  ‘I also see one Madame Boussard, a midwife. That’s all. You’ll have your coffee in two minutes.’

  He should have told Joffre to send him one of the cars from Quai des Orfèvres, but now that would take longer than calling a taxi.

  Madame Maigret took charge of that. Five minutes later, after burning his mouth on some coffee that was still too hot, he came downstairs.

  ‘Will you phone me?’ his wife asked, leaning against the banisters.

  It was something she asked very rarely. She must have sensed that he was more worried than usual.

  He promised:

  ‘I’ll try.’

  The taxi arrived. He got in and barely noticed that it had stopped snowing, that there were now traces of white in the street, and on the roofs, but that an icy rain was blackening the cobblestones.

  ‘Avenue de Châtillon.’

  He sniffed, because the taxi still smelled of perfume. Perhaps it had just driven home a couple who had spent the night dancing in a cabaret. A little later he bent down to pick up a small pink cotton ball of the kind that grown-ups throw after midnight when drinking champagne.

  7. The Spiral Staircase

  Maigret had asked to be dropped off on the corner of Avenue de Châtillon and, as in his own part of town, the pavements were empty under the rain; as on Boulevard Richard-Lenoir there were some lights on in the windows, three or four per house. Walking a hundred metres, he saw two coming on and heard the sound of an alarm-clock in a still-darkened ground-floor apartment.

  He looked around for Lapointe in his corner, didn’t find him and muttered a couple of syllables under his breath, sullen, uneasy, drowsy.

  In the corridor of the yellow brick building, at last, he saw a very small woman, with hips as wide as her shoulders, who must have been the concierge, a Métro worker holding an iron box containing his lunch and another woman, an old one, with white hair in curlers, wearing a sky-blue woollen dressing gown and a bright purple shawl.

  All three looked at him in silence, and it was only later that he found out what had happened, and knew why Lapointe wasn’t on the pavement. For a few moments at the very least, he had felt a great emptiness in his chest, because he had thought that as the result of circumstances that he couldn’t guess his inspector might be the victim.

  It was, as always, simpler than that. When Gisèle Marton had come to make her call in the concierge’s lodge, the concierge had got up to make some coffee but she hadn’t yet put out the bins. She had heard a call to the Police Emergency Service, then the message of her tenant, who had come out of the lodge without giving her any information at all.

  The concierge, as she did every morning, had gone to open one of the double doors to drag the bins to the pavement. Lapointe was just crossing the street, with the intention of glancing into the courtyard as he had done several times during the night. Because of the phone call that she had just overheard, the concierge had looked at him with suspicion.

  ‘What do you want?’

  ‘I don’t suppose anything unusual has happened in the house?’

  He showed his badge.

  ‘Are you from the police? There is someone, at the end of the courtyard, who has just called the police. What is the meaning of all this to-do?’

  So Lapointe had been led across the courtyard, this time without hiding, and knocked at the door beneath which he saw a chink of light. The three windows on the first floor were also lit.

  Maigret didn’t need to knock. They had heard his footsteps, and it was Lapointe who opened the door to him from inside, a Lapointe who was pale with exhaustion, and also because of what he had just discovered. He didn’t say a word, since the spectacle displayed to his chief spoke for itself.

  The sofa in the drawing-room-workshop converted into a bed, and it was Xavier Marton who was lying on it. The blankets were untidy, the pillow was at an angle, and on the floor, on the beige jute mat, halfway between the bed and the spiral staircase that led to the first floor, the body of the train-set lover lay on his belly, in his pyjamas, face down on the floor.

  The red stripes of his pyjamas further emphasized his contorted pose. It looked as if he had collapsed while walking on all fours, and he was completely twisted, his right arm stretched out, his fists clenched, as if in one final effort he had tried to reach for the revolver which also lay on the ground, about twenty centimetres from his fingers.

  Maigret didn’t ask if he was dead. It was obvious. Three people studied him in silence, because the two women were there, almost as motionless as the corpse, they too in nightwear, with dressing gowns over their nightdresses, bare feet in slippers. Some of Jenny’s hair, darker than her sister’s, had fallen over her face and hid one of her eyes.

  Mechanically, and not thinking about what he was saying, Maigret murmured to Lapointe:

  ‘You haven’t touched anything?’

  Lapointe shook his head. There were rings under his eyes, and his beard, like the dead man’s and Maigret’s, had grown during the night.

  ‘Alert the local station. Phone Criminal Records to send photographers and experts at once. And call Doctor Paul …’

  ‘And the prosecutor’s office?’

  ‘There will be time for that later.’

  In that part of the Palais de Justice, life didn’t begin as early as it did at Quai des Orfèvres, and Maigret didn’t want to have those gentlemen under his feet too soon.

  He looked at the two women out of the corner of his eye. It hadn’t occurred to either of them to sit down. Leaning against the wall, near the table with the train set, the sister-in-law, with a rolled-up handkerchief in her hand, dabbed her red eyes from time to time and sniffed as if she had a head cold. She had big, dark, gentle, fearful eyes, like those of forest animals, roe deer, for example, and she gave off a warm smell of bed.

  Colder, or more composed, Gisèle Marton loo
ked at Maigret, and she clenched her hands involuntarily from time to time.

  Lapointe had gone outside and walked across the courtyard. He must have been telephoning from the concierge’s lodge. The two women probably expected Maigret to question them. Perhaps he had thought for a moment about doing so but in the end he merely said under his breath:

  ‘Go and get dressed.’

  They were disconcerted by that, Jenny even more than Gisèle. She opened her mouth to speak, said nothing and then decided, after giving her sister a harsh and hateful look, to go up the stairs first; as she climbed, Maigret could see her naked, white thighs.

  ‘You too …’

  In a slightly husky voice, Gisèle said:

  ‘I know.’

  She seemed to be waiting for her sister to close the door of her room before going upstairs.

  Maigret stayed on his own with Marton’s corpse for only a few moments and barely had time to look around and take stock of the room. Nevertheless, it was photographed in his mind, down to the slightest details, and he knew he would find them in his memory when he needed them.

  He heard a car pull up, a squeak of brakes, the slamming of a door. Then there were footsteps in the courtyard, and, as Lapointe had done for him, he opened the door.

  He knew Boisset, the inspector of the fourteenth arrondissement, who was accompanied by a uniformed officer and a chubby little man carrying a doctor’s bag.

  ‘Come in, all three of you … I think, doctor, that all you have to do is record the death … Doctor Paul will be here shortly …’

  Boisset looked at him quizzically.

  ‘A case I’ve been looking into for two days,’ Maigret murmured. ‘I’ll explain later … For now, there’s nothing to be done.’

  They heard footsteps above their heads, a tap being turned on, a toilet being flushed.

  As Boisset looked up at the ceiling in surprise, Maigret went on:

  ‘The wife and the sister-in-law …’

  He felt as weary as if it was he, and not Lapointe, who had spent the night outside, in the cold and rain. Lapointe would be back shortly. The doctor, after kneeling down for a moment, got back to his feet. He had pointed a torch at the dead man’s staring eyes, then brought his face close to the man’s lips and sniffed.

  ‘At first sight, it looks like a poisoning.’

  ‘It is.’

  Lapointe gestured to Maigret to say that he had fulfilled his mission. Whispering was heard in the courtyard. Several people had approached the shutters, which were still closed.

  Maigret said to the uniformed officer:

  ‘You should go outside and disperse any people who have gathered.’

  The doctor asked:

  ‘Do you still need me?’

  ‘No. Later we’ll give you the information you need on the man’s identity for the death certificate.’

  ‘Goodbye, gentlemen! Boisset knows where to find me …’

  Gisèle Marton came downstairs first, and Maigret noticed immediately that she was wearing her suit and had her fur coat over her arm. She was also holding a handbag, which suggested that she expected to be led away. She had taken the time to put on her make-up, and discreetly. The expression on her face was grave, thoughtful, still with a hint of surprise.

  When Jenny appeared in turn, she was wearing a black dress. Noticing her sister’s outfit, she asked, after moistening her lips:

  ‘Will I need a coat?’

  Maigret blinked. The one who was observing him most intensely was Lapointe, who had rarely been so impressed by his attitude. He felt that this was no ordinary investigation, and that the chief had no intention of proceeding in a normal fashion, but he hadn’t the faintest idea what he planned to do.

  His nerves were so tense that it was a relief to see Boisset light a cigarette. He held out his pack to Lapointe, who declined, then, turning to Gisèle, who was waiting as if on a station platform, averting her eyes from the dead man, he said:

  ‘Do you smoke?’

  She took one. He brought the flame of his lighter closer, and she inhaled nervously.

  ‘Do you have a police car by the door?’ Maigret asked the local inspector.

  ‘I kept it just in case.’

  ‘Can I use it?’

  He was still looking around him, as if to check that he hadn’t forgotten a single detail. He was about to give the two women the sign that they were leaving when he changed his mind.

  ‘Just a moment …’

  And he in turn went upstairs, to the first floor, where the lights were still lit. There were only two bedrooms, a bathroom and a box room piled high with suitcases, old trunks, a tailor’s mannequin and old paraffin lamps on the floor along with some dusty books.

  He went into the first bedroom, the larger of the two. It contained a double bed, and the smell told him that he was in Madame Marton’s room. The wardrobe confirmed as much, because he found in it clothes of the kind he had seen her wearing: simple, elegant, even luxurious. On a board just above the floor a dozen pairs of shoes were lined up.

  The bed was unmade, like the one downstairs. The nightdress had been thrown carelessly on it, along with the salmon-pink dressing gown. On the dressing table there were pots of cream, some little bottles, a silver manicure set and pins in a Chinese bowl.

  In another wardrobe there were men’s clothes: only two suits, a sports jacket, two pairs of shoes and some espadrilles. There mustn’t have been a wardrobe downstairs, and Marton still kept his belongings in the marital bedroom.

  He looked in the chests of drawers, pushed open a door and found himself in the bathroom. On the glass tray he saw three tooth mugs, a brush in each, which indicated that each of them came to the room in turn. Some lipstick on crumpled napkins, one of which had been thrown on the floor. And on the porcelain toilet bowl and the tiles surrounding it, there were little dried stains, as if someone had been vomiting during the night.

  The other room did not open on to the bathroom. It had to be reached via the corridor. It was smaller, papered with blue floral wallpaper, and the bed was a single one.

  This room was untidier than the other. The wardrobe door hadn’t been closed. A tweed coat bore the label of a New York fashion house. Not nearly as many shoes, only four pairs, two of them also from America. Last of all, on the table covered with an embroidered cloth which served as a dressing table, a collection of disparate objects: a pencil with a broken lead, a ballpoint pen, some change, some combs, some hairpins, a brush that had lost some of its bristles.

  Maigret recorded it all. When he came back down he was just as torpid as before, and with staring eyes.

  He discovered that the kitchen was on the ground floor, behind a partition that had been put up in a corner of what had been a carpenter’s workshop. He pushed the door open, while Gisèle Marton kept her eyes on him. It had a gas hob, a white food cupboard, a sink and a table covered with a waxed tablecloth.

  There was no washing-up lying around. The porcelain of the sink was dry.

  He went back to the others, who still stood frozen as if in a wax museum.

  ‘You will receive these gentlemen from the prosecutor’s office,’ he said to Lapointe. ‘Apologize to Doctor Paul on my behalf for not waiting for him. Ask him to call me as soon as he has done what needs to be done. I’m going to send you someone, I don’t yet know who …’

  He turned towards the two women.

  ‘If you would follow me …’

  Of the two, the sister-in-law was the more frightened, and it seemed as if she was repelled by the idea of leaving the house. Gisèle, on the other hand, had opened the door, and was standing stiffly waiting in the rain.

  The police officer had driven away the onlookers in the courtyard, but was unable to stop them forming a circle at the end of the alley, on the pavement. The old woman was still there, her p
urple shawl on her head as an umbrella. The Métro employee must have gone regretfully to work.

  They were looking at them the way the public always looks at comings and goings which look both mysterious and dramatic. The policeman parted the crowd to allow access to the car, and Maigret ushered the two women ahead of him.

  A voice said:

  ‘He’s arresting them …’

  He closed the door behind them and walked around the car to take his seat beside the uniformed driver.

  ‘To the Police Judiciaire.’

  The day was beginning to dawn, however vaguely. The rain was turning grey, the sky dirty. They overtook buses, and half-awake people were dashing down the stairs into the Métro.

  By the time they reached the river the streetlamps barely gave off any light, and the towers of Notre Dame stood out against the sky.

  The car drove into the courtyard. On the way, the two women hadn’t said a word, but one of them, Jenny, had sniffed several times. Once she had spent a long time blowing her nose. When she got out of the car her nose was red, as Marton’s had been on his first visit.

  ‘This way, please.’

  He walked ahead of them up the big staircase, which was just being swept, pushed open the glass-panelled door and looked around for Joseph but couldn’t see him. At last he showed them into his office, where he turned on the lights, looking briefly in on the inspectors’ office; there were only three of them in there, three who knew nothing about the case.

  He chose Janin at random.

  ‘Will you stay in my office with these ladies for a moment?’

  And, turning towards them:

  ‘Please, take a seat. I assume you haven’t had any coffee?’

  Jenny didn’t reply. Madame Marton shook her head.

  Maigret walked ostentatiously to the door, locked it from inside and put the key in his pocket.

  ‘It would be a good idea to take a seat,’ he said again, ‘because you’ll be here for a while.’

  He went into the other office.

  ‘Baron! Phone the Brasserie Dauphine. Tell them to bring a big pot of coffee … Black coffee … Three cups and some croissants …’