The Two-Penny Bar Read online

  ‘Which couple?’

  But she didn’t put up much of a struggle.

  ‘Very respectable people, both married. They come twice a week …’

  On his way out, the inspector glanced through the car windscreen at the identity plate.

  Marcel Basso,

  32, Quai d’Austerlitz, Paris.

  Not a breath of wind. The air was warm and heavy. All the trams and buses heading for the railway stations were packed. Taxis full of deckchairs, fishing-rods, shrimp nets and suitcases. The asphalt glistened blue, and the café terraces resounded with the clatter of saucers and glasses.

  ‘After all, three weeks ago Lenoir was …’

  There hadn’t been much talk about it. It was an everyday case – he was what you might call a professional criminal. Maigret remembered the quivering moustache and sighed as he looked at his watch.

  Too late now. Madame Maigret would be waiting with her sister at the barrier of the little station that evening and would not fail to mutter:

  ‘Always the same!’

  The taxi driver was reading a newspaper. The man with the top hat left first, scanned the street both ways before signalling to his companion, who was lurking in the entrance.

  They stopped in Place des Ternes. He saw them kiss through the rear windscreen. They were still holding hands after the woman had hailed a taxi and the man was ready to drive off.

  ‘Do you want me to follow?’ the driver asked Maigret.

  ‘Might as well.’

  At least he’d found someone who knew the Two-Penny Bar!

  Quai d’Austerlitz. A huge sign:

  Marcel Basso

  Coal importer – various sources

  Wholesale and retail

  Domestic deliveries by the sack

  Special summer prices

  A yard surrounded by a black fence. On the opposite side of the street a quayside bearing the firm’s name, with moored barges and a newly unloaded pile of coal.

  In the middle of the yard a large house, in the style of a villa. Monsieur Basso parked his car, automatically brushed his shoulders to remove any female hairs and went into his house.

  Maigret saw him reappear at the wide-open window of a room on the first floor. He was with a tall, attractive blonde woman. They were both laughing and talking in an excited fashion. Monsieur Basso was trying on his top hat and looking at himself in the mirror.

  They were packing suitcases. There was a maid in a white apron in the room.

  A quarter of an hour later – it was now five o’clock – the family came downstairs. A boy of about ten led the way, brandishing an air rifle. Then came the servant, Madame Basso, her husband, a gardener carrying the cases …

  The group was brimming with good humour. Cars drove past, heading for the country. At Gare de Lyon the specially extended holiday trains whistled shrilly.

  Madame Basso got in next to her husband. The boy climbed into the back seat among the cases and lowered the windows. The car was nothing fancy, just a standard family car, dark blue, nearly new.

  A few minutes later they were driving towards Villeneuve-Saint-Georges. Then they took the road towards Corbeil. They drove through the town and ended up on a potholed road along the bank of the Seine.

  Mon Loisir

  That was the name of the villa, on the river between Morsang and Seine-Port. It looked newly built, bricks still shiny, the paintwork fresh, flowers in the garden that looked as if they had been washed that morning. A diving-board over the river, rowing-boats by the bank.

  ‘Do you know the area?’ Maigret asked his driver.

  ‘A bit …’

  ‘Is there somewhere to stay around here?’

  ‘In Morsang, the Vieux-Garçon … Or further on, at Seine-Port, Chez Marius …’

  ‘And the Two-Penny Bar?’

  The driver shrugged.

  The taxi was too conspicuous to stay there much longer by the roadside. The Bassos had unloaded their car. No more than ten minutes had elapsed before Madame Basso appeared in the garden dressed in a sailor’s outfit, with an American naval cap on her head.

  Her husband must have been more eager to try out his fancy dress, for he appeared at a window buttoned up in an improbable-looking frock coat, with the top hat perched on his head.

  ‘What do you reckon?’

  ‘Shouldn’t you be wearing the sash?’

  ‘What sash?’

  ‘Mayors all wear a tricolour sash …’

  Canoes glided slowly by on the river. In the distance, a tug blew its siren. The sun was sinking behind the trees on the hillside further downstream.

  ‘Let’s try the Vieux-Garçon!’ said Maigret.

  The inn had a large terrace next to the Seine. Boats of all sorts were moored to the bank, while a dozen or so cars were parked behind the building.

  ‘Do you want me to wait for you?’

  ‘I don’t know yet.’

  The first person he met was a woman dressed all in white, who almost ran into him. She was wearing orange blossom in her hair. She was being chased by a young man in a swimming-costume. They were both laughing. Some other people were observing the scene from the front steps of the inn.

  ‘Hey, keep your dirty paws off the bride!’ someone shouted.

  ‘At least until after the wedding!’

  The bride stopped, out of breath, and Maigret recognized the lady from Avenue Niel, the one who visited the apartment with Monsieur Basso twice a week.

  A man in a green rowing-boat was putting away his fishing tackle, his brow furrowed, as if he were performing some delicate and difficult operation.

  ‘Five Pernods, five!’

  A young man came out of the inn, his face plastered with greasepaint and rouge. He was made up to look like a freckly, ruddy-cheeked peasant.

  ‘What do you think?’

  ‘You should have red hair!’

  A car arrived. Some people got out, already dressed up for the village wedding. There was a woman in a puce silk dress which trailed along the ground. Her husband had stuffed a cushion under his waistcoat to simulate a paunch and was wearing a boat chain that was meant to look like a watch chain.

  The sun’s rays turned red. The leaves on the trees barely stirred. A canoe drifted downstream; its passenger, stripped to the waist, sat at the back, doing no more than lazily steer it with a paddle.

  ‘What time are the carriages due to arrive?’

  Maigret hung around, feeling out of place.

  ‘Have the Bassos arrived?’

  ‘They passed us on the way!’

  Suddenly, someone came and stood in front of Maigret, a man of about thirty, already nearly bald, his face made up like a clown’s. He had a mischievous glint in his eyes. He spoke with a pronounced English accent:

  ‘Here’s someone to play the notary!’

  He wasn’t completely drunk. He wasn’t completely sober, either. The rays of the setting sun turned his face purple; his eyes were bluer than the river.

  ‘You’ll be the notary, won’t you?’ he asked with the familiarity of a drunkard. ‘Of course you will, old chap. We’ll have a great time.’

  He took Maigret’s arm and added:

  ‘Let’s have a Pernod.’

  Everyone laughed. A woman muttered:

  ‘He’s got a nerve, that James.’

  But James wasn’t bothered. He dragged Maigret back to the Vieux-Garçon.

  ‘Two large Pernods!’

  He was laughing at his own little joke as they were served two glasses full to the brim.

  2. The Lady’s Husband

  By the time they got to the Two-Penny Bar, things hadn’t yet clicked for Maigret, as he liked to say. He hadn’t had any high hopes in following Monsieur Basso
. At the Vieux-Garçon he had looked on gloomily as the people milled about. But he hadn’t felt that nibble, that little shift, the ‘click’ that told him he was on to something.

  While James was forcing him to have a drink with him, he had seen customers come and go, helping each other to try on their ridiculous costumes, laughing, shouting. The Bassos had turned up, and their son, whom they had made up as a carrot-headed village idiot, had gone down a storm.

  ‘Don’t mind them,’ said James each time Maigret turned round to look at the group. ‘They’re having a good time and they’re not even drunk …’

  Two carriages had drawn up. More shouting. More laughing and jostling. Maigret sat next to James, while the landlord, his wife and the staff of the Vieux-Garçon lined up on the terrace to see them off.

  The sun had given way to a blue-tinted twilight. The lights from the windows of the quiet villas on the far bank of the Seine glimmered in the dusk.

  The carriages trundled onwards. The inspector took in the scene around him: the coachman, whom everyone teased and who responded with a laugh through gritted teeth; a young girl who had made herself up as the simple country lass, and who was trying to put on a peasant accent; a grey-haired man dressed like a granny …

  It was all very confusing. Such an unexpected mix of people that Maigret could scarcely work out who went with whom. He needed to get things in focus.

  ‘See her over there? That’s my wife …’ James told him, pointing out the plumpest of the women, who was wearing leg-of-mutton sleeves. He said this in a cheerless tone, with a glint in his eyes.

  They sang. They passed through Seine-Port, and people came out on to their doorsteps to watch the procession go by. Little boys ran after the carriages for some distance, whooping with delight.

  The horses slowed to walking pace. They crossed a bridge. A sign could just about be made out in the half-light:

  Eugène Rougier – Licensee

  A tiny little whitewashed house squeezed in between the towpath and the hillside. The lettering on the sign was crude. As they approached, they could hear snatches of music, interspersed with a grinding noise.

  What was it that finally clicked? Maigret couldn’t put his finger on it. Perhaps the mildness of the evening, the little white house with its two lighted windows and the contrast with this invading circus troupe?

  Perhaps the couple who came forward to see the ‘wedding party’ – the man a young factory worker, the woman in a pink silk dress, standing with her hands on her hips …?

  The house had only two rooms. In the one on the right, an old woman was busy at her stove. In the one on the left could be seen a bed, some family portraits.

  The bistro was at the back. It was a large lean-to with one wall completely open to the garden. Tables and benches, a bar, a mechanical piano and some Chinese lanterns. Some bargees were drinking at the bar. A girl of about twelve was keeping an eye on the piano, occasionally rewinding it and slipping two sous into the slot.

  The evening got going very quickly. No sooner had the new arrivals climbed down from the carriages than they cleared away the tables and started dancing, calling for drinks. Maigret had lost sight of James and found him again at the bar, lost in thought over a Pernod. The waiters were laying the tables outside under the trees.

  One of the carriage drivers moaned: ‘I hope they don’t keep us too late! It’s Saturday! …’

  Maigret was alone. Slowly, he turned full circle. He saw the little house with its plume of smoke, the carriages, the lean-to, the two young lovers, the crowd in fancy dress.

  ‘This is it,’ he murmured to himself.

  The Two-Penny Bar! The name might refer to the poverty of the establishment, or perhaps to the two coins you had to put into the mechanical piano to make it work.

  And somewhere here there was a murderer! Perhaps one of the wedding party! Perhaps the young factory hand! Perhaps one of the bargees!

  Where was James? Where was Monsieur Basso? …

  There was no electric lighting. The lean-to was lit by two oil lamps, and other lamps on the tables and in the garden, so the whole scene was a patchwork of light and dark.

  ‘Come on … food’s ready!’

  But they carried on dancing. A few people must have been knocking back the aperitifs, for within a quarter of an hour there was a distinctly drunken atmosphere in the place.

  The old woman from the bistro waited at the tables herself, anxious that the food was going down well – salami, then an omelette, then rabbit – but no one cared much. They hardly noticed what they were eating. And everyone wanted their glass refilled.

  A noisy hubbub, drowning out the music. The bargees at the bar watched the goings-on and carried on their meandering conversation about the canals of the North and electric haulage systems.

  The two lovers danced cheek to cheek, but they couldn’t take their eyes away from the tables where all the merrymaking was going on.

  Maigret didn’t know anyone. He was sitting next to a woman who had a ridiculous painted moustache and beauty spots dabbed all over her face, who for some reason kept calling him Uncle Arthur.

  ‘Would you pass the salt, Uncle Arthur? …’

  Everyone was on first-name terms. There was much backslapping and ribbing going on. Was this a group of people who knew each other well? Or just a crowd that had been thrown together by chance?

  And what did they do in real life? For example, the grey-haired man dressed as the granny?

  Or the woman dressed up as a little girl, who spoke in a falsetto voice?

  Were they middle-class like the Bassos? Marcel Basso was sitting next to the bride. They weren’t flirting. Occasionally they exchanged a meaningful glance that probably meant:

  ‘This afternoon was good, wasn’t it?’

  Avenue Niel, in a furnished apartment! Was her husband here too?

  Someone let off a firecracker. A Bengal light was lit in the garden, and the young couple watched it tenderly, hand in hand.

  ‘It’s just like in a theatre,’ said the pretty girl in pink.

  And there was a murderer!

  ‘Speech! … Speech! … Speech!’

  Monsieur Basso got to his feet, a beaming smile on his face. He coughed, pretended to be embarrassed and began an absurd speech that was interrupted by rounds of applause.

  Now and again his eye fell on Maigret. His was the only serious face around the tables. And Maigret sensed the man’s discomfort as he turned his head away. Nevertheless, his gaze returned to Maigret twice, three times more, questioning, troubled.

  ‘… and I’m sure you’ll join me in a toast: to the bride!’

  ‘To the bride!’

  Everyone stood up. People kissed the bride, clinked glasses. Maigret saw Monsieur Basso go over to James and ask him a question. No doubt it was:

  ‘Who’s that?’

  He heard the reply:

  ‘I don’t know … just a pal … He’s fine …’

  The tables had been abandoned. Everyone was dancing in the lean-to. A small group of people, barely distinguishable from the tree trunks in the dark, had gathered to watch the fun.

  Corks were popping.

  ‘Come and have a brandy!’ said James. ‘I guess you aren’t a dancer.’

  What an odd fellow! He had already drunk enough to lay out four or five normal men, but he wasn’t really drunk. He just slouched around, looking sour, not joining in. He took Maigret back into the house. He sat in the landlord’s high-backed armchair.

  A stooping old woman was doing the washing-up while the landlord’s wife, who didn’t look far off fifty, and who was no doubt her daughter, busied herself around the kitchen.

  ‘Eugène! … Another six bottles of bubbly … It might be a good idea to ask the coachman to go and fetch some more from Corbeil.’ />
  A country cottage interior, very poor. A pendulum clock in a carved walnut case. James stretched out his legs, picked up the bottle of brandy he had ordered and poured out two glasses.

  ‘Cheers …’

  The sound of the voices and the music were now a distant hubbub. Through the open door they could see the fast-moving current of the Seine.

  ‘Little cubby holes for canoodling couples,’ said James contemptuously.

  He was thirty years old. But it was obvious he wasn’t the canoodling type.

  ‘I bet they’re at it already at the bottom of the garden …’

  He watched the old woman bent double over her washing-up.

  ‘Here, give me a tea towel.’

  He started drying the glasses and dishes, pausing only to take a swig of cognac.

  Now and again someone passed by the door. Maigret took advantage of a moment when James was talking to the old woman to slip away. He’d only gone a few paces out of the door when someone asked him for a light. It was the grey-haired man in the woman’s dress.

  ‘Thanks … You don’t dance either?’

  ‘Never!’

  ‘Not like my wife, then. She hasn’t missed a single dance.’

  ‘The bride?’

  ‘Yes … And when she does stop, she’ll catch her death …’

  He gave a sigh. He looked grotesque, a serious-looking middle-aged man in an old woman’s dress. The inspector wondered what he did in real life, what he normally looked like.

  ‘I feel like we’ve already met,’ he said casually.

  ‘Me too … I’ve seen you somewhere before … But where? … Maybe you’ve bought a shirt in my shop …’

  ‘You’re a haberdasher?’

  ‘On the Grands Boulevards …’

  His wife was now making more noise than anyone. She was obviously drunk, and was becoming quite over-exuberant. She was dancing with Basso and was clinging to him so tightly that Maigret turned away in embarrassment.

  ‘A funny little girl,’ the man sighed.

  Little girl! This thirty-year-old, buxom woman with her sensual lips and her come-hither look, now throwing herself at her gentleman partner.