Maigret and the Ghost Page 12

‘And Frederico is the painter who was working in your studio?’

  ‘Yes … Frederico Palestri …’

  ‘I’m expecting you, Monsieur Jonker … Don’t forget to bring your wife.’

  Maigret did not even look at the American critic. He was already picking up the phone again.

  ‘Get me the police station of the ninth … Hello! … Who’s speaking? … Dubois? … Take three or four men with you … And I mean three or four armed men, because the individual is dangerous … Get yourself over to 27A, Rue de Berri, and go up to the studio of a certain Mario de Lucia … If he’s home, which is likely, arrest him, yes, despite the late hour …

  ‘You’ll find a man who’s being held captive there, Frederico Palestri … I want both of them here as soon as possible … Once again, be careful! … Mario de Lucia is armed with a Mauser 7.63 … Find the weapon if he doesn’t have it on him …’

  He turned to Ed Gollan.

  ‘You see, monsieur, that you were wrong to protest. It took me a long time to understand, because I am hardly familiar with the trafficking of artworks, genuine or fake … Furthermore, your friend Jonker is a gentleman who does not easily lose his cool …’

  Once more, he grabbed the phone which had just rung.

  ‘Yes … Hello! … Lucas? … Where are you? … Quai de la Tournelle? … Hôtel de la Tournelle? … I understand … He’s eating in a café next door? … No, not on your own … Ask two neighbourhood inspectors to accompany you … After all, he could be the one who’s playing with a large-calibre automatic … I’d be surprised, but what happened to poor old Lognon is quite enough …’

  He walked over to the door of the inspectors’ office.

  ‘Get me a cold beer, would you …’

  He came back and sat down at his desk, and filled a pipe.

  ‘There you are, Monsieur Gollan! … I hope your painter is still alive … I don’t know Mario de Lucia, but it is likely that he has a criminal record under one name or another … Otherwise, we’ll contact the Italian police … We’ll know in a few minutes … Admit that you are as anxious as I am …’

  ‘I will only speak in the presence of my lawyer, Maître Spangler … His number is Odéon 1824 … No, I’m mistaken …’

  ‘It doesn’t matter, Monsieur Gollan … At this point, I’m in no hurry to question you … It is a pity that a man like you should be mixed up in this case, and I hope that Maître Spangler will find some robust arguments in your defence …’

  The beer still hadn’t arrived when the telephone rang.

  ‘Yes … Dubois? …’

  He listened for a while without saying anything.

  ‘Good! … Thank you … It’s not your fault … Make your report directly to the public prosecutor … I’ll drop by there later …’

  Maigret stood up, refusing to respond to the American’s questioning look. Gollan was pale.

  ‘Has something happened? I swear that if …’

  ‘Sit down and shut up.’

  He went next door and signalled to Janvier, who was typing out Marinette Augier’s statement, to follow him into the corridor.

  ‘Something wrong, chief?’

  ‘I don’t know exactly what happened yet … The painter has been found hanged from the chain of the toilet in the bathroom where he was being held prisoner … Mario de Lucia has disappeared … You’ll probably find his record upstairs … Put out a general alert to the stations, airports and borders …’

  ‘What about Marinette?’

  ‘She can wait …’

  A couple was coming up the stairs, followed at a distance by a police officer from the eighteenth arrondissement.

  ‘Please go into that room and wait for me, Madame Jonker …’

  The two women, who knew one another by sight, had never found themselves in such close proximity, and they eyed each other with curiosity.

  ‘And you, Monsieur Jonker, follow me …’

  He took him into the small office where he had interviewed Marinette Augier.

  ‘Have a seat …’

  ‘Have you found him?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Alive?’

  The Dutchman no longer had his rosy complexion or his assurance. In the space of a few hours he had become an old man.

  ‘Did de Lucia … kill him?’

  ‘He was found hanged in the bathroom …’

  ‘I’ve always said it would end badly …’

  ‘For whom?’

  ‘For Mirella … For the others … Especially my wife …’

  ‘What do you know about her?’

  It was hard to admit it, but he managed to, bowing his head.

  ‘Everything, I think …’

  ‘Nice and Stanley Hobson?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘What led up to the divorce from Herbert Muir in Manchester?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Did you meet her in London?’

  ‘At a country house on the outskirts of London, at the home of friends … She was very popular in certain social circles …’

  ‘And you fell in love with her? … Were you the one who suggested getting married?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Did you already know?’

  ‘It may sound unbelievable to you, but a Dutchman would understand … I hired a private detective to get information about her … I learned that she had lived with Hobson, known as Bald Stan, for several years, whom the British police had only managed to lock up once, for two years …

  ‘He met up with her again in Manchester, when she was Mrs Muir … He didn’t live with her in London but came to see her every so often to extort money from her …’

  There was a knock at the door.

  ‘You wanted a beer, chief?’

  ‘You would probably rather have a brandy, Monsieur Jonker? … I’m sorry I can’t offer you the tipple you drink at home … Someone bring me the bottle of brandy that’s in my cupboard …’

  They found themselves facing one another, and the brandy, downed in one, brought a little colour back into the Dutchman’s cheeks.

  ‘You see, Monsieur Maigret, I can’t live without her … It is very dangerous to fall in love at my age … She told me that Hobson was blackmailing her, that she could get rid of him with a certain amount of money, and I trusted her … I paid up …’

  ‘How did the paintings business begin?’

  ‘You’ll find it hard to believe me because you’re not a collector …’

  ‘I collect people …’

  ‘I wonder how you’d classify me in your collection … Perhaps under fools? … Since you have investigated me, you have doubtless been told that I am a real expert on paintings of a certain period … When one has been passionate for so many years about a single thing, one ends up knowing a lot about it, doesn’t one?

  ‘I am often asked for my opinion of a painting … And it is enough for a work to have been part of my collection for its value to be undisputed …’

  ‘To authenticate it, in other words …’

  ‘That’s what happens for all the great art lovers … As I told you when you came to my home, I sold some works in order to buy others, always rarer and more exquisite … Once you start, it is hard to stop … One day, I made a mistake …’

  He spoke in a doleful voice, indifferent to what his fate might be.

  ‘Even though it was a Van Gogh … Not one of those I had inherited from my father … A painting bought through a dealer and which I would have sworn was genuine … I kept it in my drawing room for a while … A South American art lover offered me a sum that allowed me to purchase a work I had been wanting for a long time …

  ‘The deal was made … A few months later, a certain Gollan, whom I knew only by name, came to see me—’

  ‘How long ago was that?’

  ‘About a year … He spoke to me about the Van Gogh, which he’d had the opportunity to see at the home of my Venezuelan buyer, and he proved it was a skilful forgery …


  ‘ “I haven’t said anything to your purchaser,” he added. “It would be very unpleasant for you, would it not, if it became known that you’d sold a fake painting … Others who have bought paintings from you might become worried. Your entire collection would be under suspicion …”

  ‘You are not a collector, I repeat … You have no idea what a blow this business was to me …

  ‘Gollan came back to see me … One day, he told me he had discovered the author of the forgery, a brilliant boy, he claimed, just as capable of imitating a Manet as a Renoir or a Vlaminck …’

  ‘Was your wife present during that conversation?’

  ‘I don’t recall … Perhaps it was I who told her about it afterwards? … Perhaps she encouraged me to accept what was being offered? … Perhaps I agreed of my own accord? … People say I am a wealthy man, but the word “wealth” is relative … While I can afford certain paintings, I don’t have the means to buy others, no matter how tempting the opportunity … Do you understand?’

  ‘What I think I understand is that there was a need for the forged paintings to pass through your hands so as to authenticate them beyond a doubt …’

  ‘That’s pretty much right … I displayed one or two fakes among my paintings and—’

  ‘Just a moment! When were you introduced to Palestri?’

  ‘A month or two later … Through Gollan, I had sold two of his works … Gollan preferred to sell them to South American art lovers or to small, little-known museums …

  ‘Palestri was giving him cause for concern, because he was a kind of mad genius, and a sex maniac to boot … You guessed it on seeing his bedroom, did you not?’

  ‘I began to understand when I saw your wife standing at the easel …’

  ‘We had to pull the wool over people’s eyes …’

  ‘When and how did you find out that the goings-on in your house were being watched?’

  ‘It wasn’t me who noticed, it was Hobson …’

  ‘Because Hobson had come back into your wife’s life?’

  ‘They both swear not … Hobson was a friend of Gollan’s … He was the one who discovered Palestri … Are you managing to follow me? …’

  ‘Yes …’

  ‘I was caught in the spiral … I agreed to let him work in the studio, where no one would think to come looking for him … He slept in the bedroom you saw … He didn’t ask to go out, on condition we procured women for him … Painting and women were his only passions …’

  ‘I’ve been told he painted furiously …’

  ‘Yes … We would place two or three masterpieces in front of him … He would circle them like a matador around a bull and, a few hours or a few days later, we would find a painting whose inspiration and execution were so identical that no one could distinguish between the two …

  ‘He was a very unpleasant lodger …’

  ‘Because of his demand for women?’

  ‘And his coarseness. Even towards my wife …’

  ‘Did he stop at just being crude?’

  ‘I’d rather not know if he went too far … Perhaps … You saw the portrait he did of her with a few brush-strokes …

  ‘One passion, Monsieur Maigret, is already a lot for a man, and I should have contented myself with my love of art and remained a reasonable collector … But I was fated to meet Mirella … Although none of this is her fault … What were you asking me?

  ‘Oh! Yes … Who found out we were under suspicion? … It was a woman whose name escapes me, a striptease artist in a cabaret on the Champs-Élysées, I think, who de Lucia had brought for Palestri …

  ‘The next day, she telephoned de Lucia to tell him she had been followed on leaving my house, then accosted by a strange man who had asked her all sorts of questions … De Lucia and Stan kept a watch on the neighbourhood … They noticed that, at night, a short, thin character prowled around Avenue Junot …

  ‘Later, they saw him go into the building opposite with a young woman … He sat there in the dark, by the window, believing he couldn’t be seen, but since he couldn’t stop himself from smoking the occasional cigarette, the glow gave him away …’

  ‘It didn’t occur to anyone that he was from the police?’

  ‘Stan Hobson said that if it was the police, the lookouts would work shifts … But it was always the same one, and he concluded that the man belonged to another gang, or that he was trying to find out enough to blackmail us …

  ‘It became vital for Palestri to disappear from the house … De Lucia and Hobson dealt with it, last night, using Gollan’s car …’

  ‘Gollan knew about it, I presume?’

  ‘Palestri refused to leave, convinced that having been used for nearly a year, he was going to be killed … He had to be knocked unconscious … He had already thrown his shoes into the garden …’

  ‘Were you present?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Your wife?’

  ‘No! … We were waiting for him to be gone so we could clean up the studio and the bedroom … Stan had already taken away the frames and the painting he was doing the day before … What I can tell you, if I am still permitted to ask you to believe me, is that I was unaware of their intention to shoot the inspector … I only realized when I heard the gunfire …’

  There was a long silence. Maigret was weary and he gazed with helpless sympathy at the aged man in front of him who was reaching tentatively for the brandy bottle.

  ‘May I?’

  Once the glass was empty, Jonker tried to smile.

  ‘In any case, it’s all over for me, isn’t it? … I wonder what I’ll miss most …’

  His paintings, which had cost him so dear? His wife, about whom he had never had any illusions but needed so badly?

  ‘You’ll see, Monsieur Maigret, people won’t believe that such an intelligent man can be so naive …’

  He added, after a moment’s thought:

  ‘Except perhaps, collectors …’

  In another office Lucas had begun interrogating Bald Stan.

  For another two hours, there were comings and goings from room to room, questions, replies, the clacking of typewriters.

  It was nearly one o’clock, like the night before, when the lights went out.

  ‘I’ll give you a lift home, mademoiselle … Tonight you can sleep in your bed without fear …’

  They were in the rear of the taxi.

  ‘Are you angry with me, Monsieur Maigret?’

  ‘About what?’

  ‘If I hadn’t panicked and run away, wouldn’t your job have been a lot easier?’

  ‘We would have gained a few hours, but the result is the same …’

  He did not seem so happy with that result, and even Mirella, when she was taken to the central police cells, had been the recipient of a look that was not devoid of sympathy.

  Lognon left Bichat a month later, thinner than ever but with shining eyes because at the police station of the eighteenth arrondissement, he was a sort of hero. What was more, it was his photo, not Maigret’s, that was in the newspapers.

  The same day, he and his wife left for a village in the Ardennes where the doctors had ordered him to convalesce for two months.

  Two months which, as Madame Maigret had foreseen, he spent taking care of Madame Lognon.

  Mario de Lucia had been arrested at the Belgian border. Hobson and he had been sentenced to ten years’ hard labour.

  Gollan denied all knowledge of the shooting in Avenue Junot and got off with a two-year prison sentence for fraud.

  Jonker only received one year, also for fraud, and, because the months already spent in detention counted double, he walked away from the court a free man.

  … On the arm of his wife, because Mirella had been acquitted for lack of proof.

  Maigret, standing at the back of the courtroom, slipped away quickly to avoid meeting them, especially since he had promised to telephone Madame Maigret to tell her the verdict.

  The case was already history, because
now it was June and all people could talk about were the holidays.

  1.

  ‘Tell me something, Maigret …’

  A little phrase the detective chief inspector would remember later, but which hadn’t struck him at the time. Everything was familiar – the setting, the faces, even the movements of the people involved – so familiar that he had stopped paying attention. It had happened in Rue Popincourt, a few hundred metres from Boulevard Richard-Lenoir, at the apartment of the Pardons, where the Maigrets had been in the habit of coming for dinner once a month for several years now.

  And once a month, too, Dr Pardon and his wife came for dinner at Maigret’s apartment – an opportunity for the two women to indulge in a friendly competition as to who cooked the best stew.

  As usual, they had lingered at the table. The Pardons’ daughter Solange, pregnant for the second time, looked like a balloon and seemed to be apologizing for being ungainly. She had come to spend a few days with her parents while her husband, an engineer in the eastern suburbs of Paris, was attending a conference in Nice.

  It was June. The day had been stifling, and the evening was stormy. Through the open window, the moon could occasionally be glimpsed between two black clouds, which it fringed for a moment in white.

  Following a tradition established at the very first dinner, the ladies had served the coffee and were now sitting at the other end of the lounge, talking in low voices, leaving the two men to have a private conversation. This was also the doctor’s waiting room, and well-thumbed magazines lay piled up on a pedestal table.

  Actually, there was one small detail that differed from the other times. While Maigret was filling and lighting his pipe, Pardon had disappeared for a moment into his consulting room and returned with a box of cigars.

  ‘I shan’t offer you one, Maigret.’

  ‘No, thanks … So you’re smoking cigars now?’

  He had never seen Pardon smoke anything other than cigarettes. After a brief glance at his wife, Pardon murmured:

  ‘It’s her doing.’

  ‘Because of all these articles about lung cancer?’

  ‘They’ve made quite an impression on her.’

  ‘Do you believe them?’

  Pardon shrugged.

  ‘Even if I did …’