Friend of Madame Maigret Read online

  “At one point Schwartz said to him, looking furious:

  “‘That’s the second time you’ve played this trick on me.’

  “And that was when Alfred told me the story of the old lady.”

  “Just a minute,” interrupted Maigret. “What exactly do you know about Schwartz?”

  “He was the man my brother was working for. He had talked to me about him several times. He thought he was a fine fellow, but dangerous. He has a child by a pretty girl, an Italian, whom he lives with most of the time.”

  “Gloria?”

  “Yes. Schwartz worked mainly in the big hotels. He’d got on to a very rich, eccentric woman, whom he expected to get a lot out of, and he’d made Gloria take a job as her maid.”

  “And Krynker?”

  “I really only saw him dead, because the shot was fired when he’d only been in my house a few minutes. There are some things I didn’t understand until later, when I thought about it.”

  “For instance?”

  “That Schwartz had prepared the whole thing in minute detail. He wanted to get Krynker out of the way and he’d hit upon this method of getting rid of him without running any risk. When he came to my house he knew what was going to happen. He’d made Gloria go to Concarneau to send off the telegram to Fernande.”

  “And the old lady?”

  “I wasn’t mixed up in that business. I only know that since his divorce Krynker, who was on the Riviera, had tried to get in touch with her. Recently he succeeded, and she would sometimes give him small amounts of money. This would immediately melt away, because he liked to lead a grand life. What he wanted was enough money to get to the United States.”

  “Was he still in love with his wife?”

  “I don’t know. He met Schwartz, or rather Schwartz, tipped off by Gloria, managed to meet him in a bar, and they became more or less friendly.”

  “Was it on the night of Krynker’s death and the furnace that they told you all this?”

  “We had to wait hours while . . .”

  “We know.”

  “I wasn’t told whether it was Krynker’s idea or whether Schwartz suggested it to him. Apparently the old lady was in the habit of traveling with a case containing jewelery worth a fortune.

  “It was about the time of year when she regularly went to the Riviera. It was just a matter of inducing her to go in Krynker’s car.

  “On the way, at a prearranged point, the car would be attacked and the jewel case stolen.

  “In Krynker’s mind, this was to be managed without bloodshed. He was convinced that he wasn’t running any risk, since he would be in the car with his ex-mother-in-law.

  “For some reason or other, Schwartz fired, and I think he did it on purpose because this put the other two at his mercy.”

  “Your brother too?”

  “Yes.

  “The attack took place on the Fontainebleau road, and afterward they drove as far as Lagny to get rid of the car. Schwartz had a cottage somewhere near there at one time and was familiar with the district. What else do you want to know?”

  “Where are the jewels?”

  “They found the case all right, but the jewelery wasn’t in it. No doubt the countess had her suspicions after all? Gloria, who was with her, knew nothing about it either. Maybe she left them in a bank?”

  “That’s when Krynker lost his head?”

  “He wanted to try to get across the frontier right away, on his own papers, but Schwartz insisted he’d be caught. He couldn’t sleep, was drinking a lot. He was bordering on panic, and Schwartz decided that the only way to get any peace at all was to get rid of him. He brought him to my house on the pretext of obtaining a false passport for him.”

  “How was it that your brother’s suit . . .”

  “I understand. At one point Alfred stumbled, exactly where . . .”

  “So you gave him your blue suit and kept his, which you cleaned the next day?”

  Fernande’s head must have been full of bloody pictures. She was looking at her husband as though seeing him for the first time, no doubt trying to imagine him during the days and nights he had then spent alone in the basement and in the workshop.

  Maigret saw her shudder, but the next moment she held out a hesitant hand, which finally came to rest on the bookbinder’s big paw.

  “Perhaps they have a binder’s shop at the Big House,” she said, making an effort to smile.

  Levine, whose name was neither Schwartz nor Levine, but Sarkistian, and who was wanted by the authorities of three countries, was arrested a month later in a little village near Orléans, where he was spending his time fishing.

  Two days later, Gloria Lotti was found in a brothel at Orléans, and she steadfastly refused to reveal the name of the peasants to whom she had entrusted her son.

  As for Alfred Moss, his description remained on the police “Wanted” list for four years.

  One night, in a little circus that was traveling from village to village along the roads of the Départment du Nord, a down-at-heel clown hanged himself, and from an examination of the papers found in his suitcase the police discovered his identity.

  Countess Panetti’s jewels had not left Claridge’s, having been locked up in one of the trunks left in the baggage room, and the cobbler in the rue de Turenne never admitted, not even when he was dead drunk, that it was he who had written the anonymous letter.

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