Maigret and Monsieur Charles Read online

  ‘It was the concierge who called us. She’d gone up to do the cleaning, as usual … When the tenant didn’t answer the door, she used her master key to get in and that’s when she discovered the body …’

  A tall, youngish man, aged around thirty, was lying on the carpet, and a doctor was leaning over him.

  It wasn’t an apartment proper. The entire wall, on the street side, was glazed, and so was part of the ceiling, like an artist’s studio.

  ‘Do you know his identity?’

  ‘Jo Fazio … He came from Marseille four or five years ago … Initially he was a pimp before finding a job as a bartender in a little, rather seedy club, the Paréo … He left around two years ago and, since then, it’s not certain how he earned his living …’

  The doctor stood up and shook Maigret’s hand.

  ‘It’s strange. He was shot point-blank from a small-calibre gun, I’d even say with the barrel against his skin. I can see that two bullets perforated the left lung and there’s another one lodged in his heart …’

  The dead man’s face had an expression of astonishment. As far as they could tell, he’d been a good-looking young man. He wore an elegant gaberdine suit of an almost luminous brown.

  ‘Has the weapon been found?’

  ‘No.’

  The forensics team from Criminal Records arrived with their cumbersome equipment. Then it was the turn of the middle-aged deputy public prosecutor, who disliked Maigret but still shook his hand.

  Examining Magistrate Coindet, however, was surprised.

  ‘How come you asked for me to be appointed? Do you think this murder is connected with that of the lawyer?’

  ‘It’s a possibility. I was half expecting it. When Nathalie slipped out, yesterday, via the little garden gate, she had a purpose …’

  He turned to Lapointe.

  ‘Are you coming?’

  There were too many people. He’d return when the experts and magistrates had left the scene.

  He and Lapointe went into the concierge’s lodge. She was a petite, lively brunette.

  ‘How long had this Fazio lived up there?’

  ‘Two years … He was a good tenant, quiet, who paid his rent on time … Because he was on his own, he asked me to clean his place and I’d go up every day at lunch time …’

  ‘Was he usually home when you went up?’

  ‘Most of the time no, because he ate at a restaurant … I didn’t always see him leave … I’m very busy … The residents come and go and I don’t take any notice …’

  ‘Did he have a lot of visitors?’

  ‘No. Only a lady …’

  And she spoke the word respectfully.

  ‘Every day?’

  ‘Almost every day.’

  ‘At what time?’

  ‘Around three o’clock in the afternoon.’

  ‘Did he come in with her?’

  ‘No. He was up there first.’

  ‘Describe her to me.’

  ‘She was a real lady, you could see that straight away. In the winter, she wore a fur coat and she had at least three. In the summer, she usually wore a suit from one of the top couturiers … I know a bit about these things—’

  ‘Her face?’

  ‘It’s hard to say …’

  A marmalade cat rubbed itself against Maigret’s legs.

  ‘Young?’

  ‘Neither young nor old … She could have been pretty … She must have been once … I’d say around forty, but her face was ruined …’

  ‘What do you mean by ruined?’

  ‘She nearly always had dark rings under her eyes, her features were drawn and her mouth had a strange pout …’

  ‘Did she speak to you?’

  ‘No. She’d go straight up.’

  ‘Did she stay long?’

  ‘She’d leave at around half past five.’

  ‘By car?’

  ‘No. I noticed she came by taxi, but she got out at the corner of the street so no one knew where she was going …’

  Maigret took the Cannes photo out of his pocket and showed it to the concierge, who went to fetch her glasses from the next room.

  ‘Do you recognize her?’

  ‘I’m not sure. This woman’s very young and doesn’t have the same mouth … But overall the face is the same …’

  Maigret then showed her the little passport photo.

  ‘What about this one?’

  ‘That’s better … With twenty years’ difference between the two …’

  ‘Do you recognize her, though?’

  ‘I think so …’

  The local chief inspector walked past the lodge. Maigret ran after him.

  ‘Was the doctor able to extract the bullets?’

  ‘That’s the job of the forensic pathologist, who’s not here yet … I think they found one that had glanced off a rib …’

  ‘Would you go and fetch it, Lapointe?’

  And, after thanking the inspector, he went back to the concierge.

  ‘Did your tenant work?’

  ‘I don’t think so. Apart from mealtimes, he didn’t go out at a regular hour …’

  ‘Did he get back late at night?’

  ‘I suppose I have to tell you everything?’

  ‘It will be better for you, because you’ll be cited as a witness.’

  ‘Apart from the three o’clock lady, as I called her, he had a much younger and prettier girlfriend … She generally arrived alone, or with him, at around two or three in the morning and spent the rest of the night up there … Once, I heard him call her Géraldine …’

  Maigret was impassive. He looked as if his mind were blank.

  ‘Do you know where she lives?’

  ‘No. She probably works around here, because they always came home on foot …’

  Lapointe had returned with the bullet. Maigret thanked the concierge and left.

  ‘Where to now?’

  ‘To Gastinne-Renette’s …’

  He was the gunsmith who usually acted as an expert for the Police Judiciaire. The assistant who was in the shop went to fetch his employer.

  ‘Well, well! Maigret …’

  They had known each other for over twenty years.

  Maigret held out the bullet.

  ‘Can you tell me off the top of your head what kind of gun this comes from?’

  Gastinne-Renette put on his glasses, like the concierge.

  ‘You know, this isn’t what you could call an expert report. I’d need longer. It’s clearly a small calibre, for example a Browning 6.35 that’s made in Belgium. There are models with a mother-of-pearl grip. I sold one that was inlaid with gold to a woman customer—’

  ‘Is it lethal?’

  ‘Not from a distance. Further than three metres and the shot lacks precision …’

  ‘The doctor reckons that the shots were fired right against the skin …’

  ‘In that case, of course … How many shots?’

  ‘Three or four, one to the heart and two others which went through a lung …’

  ‘Someone really wanted him dead … Who’s the victim?’

  ‘A certain Jo Fazio, former bartender turned gigolo …’

  ‘Pleased to have seen you again. Shall I keep the bullet?’

  ‘I’ll tell the pathologist to send you the others.’

  ‘Thank you … and happy hunting …’

  Maigret did not laugh at the joke but gave a wan smile.

  8.

  On the ground floor, the men from the undertaker’s were transforming the lawyer’s office into a chapel of rest, draping the walls with black fabric. The coffin had been placed in a corner, as if no one knew what to do with it.

  ‘Is the body inside?’

  ‘Of course …�
�

  Jean Lecureur came out of his office.

  ‘The funeral will be at eleven o’clock tomorrow,’ he stated. ‘The church is almost opposite. The announcements have been sent. Do you think Madame Sabin-Levesque will attend?’

  ‘I’m certain she won’t.’

  ‘It’s probably for the best. How is she? I have no news of what’s happening upstairs …’

  ‘Doctor Bloy must have come to see her before lunch … I’m on my way up there now …’

  On the stairs, he said to Lapointe:

  ‘Make sure you note down everything that’s said.’

  ‘Yes, chief.’

  It was the manservant who opened the door.

  ‘Where’s Claire?’

  ‘In the boudoir, I think …’

  She came out to meet them.

  ‘Is she asleep?’ asked Maigret.

  ‘No. Since the doctor left, she’s been sitting on the edge of the bed, in her nightdress, and she hasn’t said a word to me. She refused to have her bath and she wouldn’t let me do her hair …’

  ‘What did the doctor tell you?’

  ‘Nothing much. To keep an eye on her.’

  ‘Has she eaten?’

  ‘No. She only answers by nodding or shaking her head.’

  ‘What about you, have you had lunch?’

  ‘I didn’t have the stomach for it. I feel as if I’m watching a person slowly die … What’s going to happen, inspector? Apparently the coffin’s downstairs …’

  ‘That’s correct … Before going to see her, I’d prefer it if you could get her to put on her dressing gown.’

  ‘I’ll certainly try.’

  Claire was no longer hostile towards him. He could tell she was confused. The two men stood waiting in the drawing room for a long time. After a quarter of an hour, Claire came to fetch them.

  ‘She’s in the boudoir. I was forced to give her her bottle.’

  Maigret went in first. Nathalie was slumped in her usual wing chair, clutching the bottle of brandy. Her gaze was steadfast, however, and her face almost peaceful.

  ‘May I?’

  She pretended not to have heard, and Maigret sat down facing her. She caressed the bottle as if it were her most precious possession.

  ‘I have come from Rue Jean-Goujon,’ he said softly, as if not to alarm her.

  At last she opened her mouth and said only one word, with indifference:

  ‘Already!’

  After which, she swigged from the bottle, as Maigret had seen her do before. A little colour rose to her pallid cheeks and her mouth began to twitch again.

  ‘I suppose it no longer matters, does it?’

  ‘You were afraid that, if he was arrested, he’d inform on you as his accomplice, weren’t you?’

  She shook her head in denial.

  ‘No … It’s worse … He asked me to come to his place yesterday and he demanded a very large sum of money, promising that after that he’d go back to Marseille and leave me alone …’

  ‘Did you love him?’

  She said nothing and her gaze expressed a profound despair.

  ‘Why, if you loved him, did you take a gun with you?’

  That seemed to distress her.

  ‘I never had any illusions about him … He was my last chance … Don’t you understand anything …?’

  She tried to light a cigarette but failed, because her hand was shaking. Maigret leaned forwards and held out a lit match. She did not say thank you.

  ‘You have always felt superior to others, haven’t you?’

  She corrected him in a dull voice:

  ‘I am proud. Or rather, I was … Now …’

  She didn’t finish her sentence.

  ‘You found working in a nightclub demeaning and you would have felt even more humiliated behind the counter of a department store …’

  She listened to him. The minute he started talking about her, she began to take an interest.

  ‘Sabin-Levesque fell in love with you … It didn’t take you long to find out who Monsieur Charles was.’

  Still tense, she didn’t bat an eyelid.

  ‘You hoped for a glittering life of luxury, cocktail parties, receptions, dinners.’

  ‘I soon found out that he was the most selfish man I’d ever met.’

  ‘Because you weren’t the centre of his attention?’

  She seemed surprised, and Maigret went on:

  ‘He was everything and you were nothing in this household.’

  Her gaze had become steely again.

  ‘Everyone hated me, except Claire.’

  ‘Why didn’t you ask for a divorce?’

  She looked about her as if that gaze encompassed the entire apartment, the entire home, the entire fortune of the Sabin-Levesques.

  ‘Because you were greedy … You didn’t care if he went off with pretty girls from time to time. You were Madame Sabin-Levesque … and you intended to remain so, whatever the cost …’

  She drank. It had become an automatic gesture.

  ‘You resorted to brandy. I suppose you also had lovers …?’

  ‘Flings … Men I met in bars …’

  Now she’d cracked, she no longer thought to defend herself. It was as if she felt a sort of pleasure in laying herself bare.

  ‘Hotel rooms … Some got the wrong idea and wanted to give me money …’

  She grimaced.

  ‘Two years ago, you met Jo Fazio …’

  ‘That was different. I love him …’

  ‘He was a bartender …’

  ‘I rented a studio apartment for him and I kept him …’

  Again, she was cynically throwing down a challenge.

  ‘At the point to which I’d sunk, I couldn’t hope that he’d love me for myself … He pretended, and I pretended to believe him …’

  ‘Who suggested doing away with your husband?’

  ‘I believe we both thought of it.’

  ‘Fazio identified the clubs frequented by the so-called Monsieur Charles … He followed him several times while waiting for the right opportunity to present itself …’

  She shrugged. It was so obvious!

  ‘One night, when your husband came out of the Cric-Crac, Jo Fazio took advantage of the fact that the street was empty and hit him over the head. He bundled him into a stolen car and transported him to the banks of the Seine. Then he abandoned the car on a demolition site in Puteaux …’

  ‘I didn’t have anything to do with those details.’

  ‘But he telephoned you to tell you it was done?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘What life would you have led with your former bartender?’

  ‘I didn’t think about it.’

  ‘Admit that it’s not out of affection for your lover that you had him kill your husband.’

  ‘I don’t know any more.’

  ‘You had to remain Madame Sabin-Levesque … Now you were the real mistress of the house …’

  ‘You think badly of me, don’t you?’

  ‘Yes. At the same time, I can’t help feeling sorry for you, because you are both tough and fragile …’

  ‘Fragile?’ she sniggered.

  And Maigret repeated:

  ‘Fragile, yes.’

  ‘I assume you’re going to arrest me?’

  ‘It’s my duty. Go and get dressed. Keep an eye on her, Lapointe, because I don’t want her slipping out through the garden gate again.’

  Maigret slowly filled his pipe, lit it and began to pace up and down. He waited for almost half an hour. When she came back, she had Claire in tow carrying a pigskin suitcase.

  Before leaving the apartment, Nathalie took another long slug of brandy.

  ‘They won’t give me any in ther
e, will they?’

  She would be found guilty, it was certain. But given her sorry condition, she would probably be taken to the prison infirmary.

  The law firm’s door was open. The men from the undertaker’s had finished hanging their drapes. She took a couple of steps forwards and looked at the coffin.

  Her face showed no emotion.

  ‘Is he in there?’

  ‘Yes. He’s being buried tomorrow.’

  ‘And me, today …’

  They put her suitcase in the boot and Maigret sat next to the prisoner. She stared out at the quays, the bridges, the pedestrians, the buses and the cars as if all that already belonged to a distant past.

  On arrival at the Palais de Justice, Lapointe carried the suitcase, which was too heavy for her. Maigret knocked on Coindet’s door.

  ‘She’s all yours …’ he said morosely.

  He looked at her, but he had already ceased to exist for her. She sat down facing the magistrate before being invited to do so, and appeared to be very much at ease.

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