Maigret and the Calame Report Read online

  “I replied candidly that I did not. He seemed surprised, and I’m not sure that he didn’t glance at me with a certain suspicion.

  “ ‘It should be among your archives,’ he said to me.

  “It was then that he told me the whole story. During the debate on the subject of Clairfond, five years ago, as the parliamentary commission was divided, one of the deputies, I don’t know who, had suggested consulting the opinion of an engineer of unquestioned standing. He proposed Professor Julien Calame, of the National School of Civil Engineering, and the latter spent some time studying the project and even investigated the site in Haute-Savoie. He then made a report which normally should have been transmitted to the commission.”

  Maigret began to understand.

  “This report was unfavorable?”

  “Wait! When the President talked to me about it, he had already ordered a search in the archives of the Chamber of Deputies. The report should have been in the files of the commission. It turned out that not only was it not there, but that part of the minutes had also disappeared. You see what it all means?”

  “That there were people interested in keeping the report unpublished?”

  “Read this.”

  It was another item from the Rumor, again short, but no less menacing.

  “Is Monsieur Arthur Nicoud powerful enough to prevent the Calame report from seeing the light of day?”

  Maigret knew that name as he knew hundreds of others. He had heard of the firm Nicoud and Sauvegrain because it was mentioned almost everywhere where there were public works, whether roads, bridges, or dams.

  “It was the firm of Nicoud and Sauvegrain that built Clairfond.”

  Maigret was beginning to regret that he had come. Though he was drawn spontaneously to Auguste Point, what the man was telling him made him as uneasy as when he had to listen to dirty stories in the presence of a woman.

  He could not help wondering what part Auguste Point could have played in the tragedy that had cost the lives of a hundred and twenty-eight children. He was almost on the brink of asking brusquely:

  “And where do you come into all this?”

  He could imagine that some people had taken bribes, politicians, perhaps persons in high office.

  “I’ll try to finish quickly. The President, as I said, asked me to organize a thorough search in the archives of my Ministry. The National School of Civil Engineering comes under the Ministry of Public Works, so that, logically, we should have had at least a copy of the Calame report somewhere in our files.”

  The words “Calame report” sounded more ominous each time they were repeated.

  “You found nothing?”

  “Nothing. We searched through tons of paper among files in the attic, and we found nothing.”

  Maigret was beginning to feel restless, ill at ease in his chair, and the other man noticed it.

  “You don’t like politics?”

  “That’s correct.”

  “Neither do I. Strange as it may seem, it was to fight against politics that twelve years ago I agreed to run for office. And when, three months ago, I was asked to join the Cabinet, it was again the thought of bringing some cleanliness into public affairs that made me do it. My wife and I are simple people. You can see the sort of apartment we stay at in Paris, during the parliamentary sessions, since I have become a deputy. It is more like a bachelor’s place. My wife could have remained in La Roche-sur-Yon, where we have a house, but we are not in the habit of living apart.”

  He was speaking quite naturally, without any hint of sentimentality in his voice.

  “Since I have become a Minister, we live officially in the Ministry, Boulevard Saint-Germain, but we come here for some privacy as often as we can, particularly on Sundays. But all that is beside the point. If I called you from a public booth, as your wife no doubt told you— for if I’m not mistaken you have the same kind of wife as I have—it’s because I’m suspicious of being overheard. I’m convinced, rightly or wrongly, that all my calls from the Ministry, maybe even from here, are recorded somewhere, I prefer not to know where. I might add, to my shame, that this evening I walked in one door of a movie theater on the boulevard and out of the other and twice changed taxis. I can’t even be sure this house is not being watched.”

  “I saw no one as I arrived.”

  Maigret was beginning to feel sorry for Auguste Point. Up to now the latter had tried to talk with calm and detachment. But when he came to the essential point of their meeting, he began to hesitate, to go around in circles, as though he feared that Maigret would get a false impression of him.

  “The Ministry’s archives have been turned upside down, and God alone knows how many papers are kept there of which no human being has any memory. During this time I had telephone calls from the President at least twice a day, and I’m not at all sure that he trusts me. Searches have been made also in the School of Civil Engineering without any result until yesterday morning.”

  Maigret couldn’t help asking, as one does at the end of a novel:

  “The Calame report has been found?”

  “Something, anyway, that appears to be the Calame report.”

  ‘Where?”

  “In the attic of the school.”

  “A professor?”

  “A supervisor. Yesterday morning I was given a note with the name of Piquemal on it, of whom I’d never heard. Someone had marked it in pencil: ‘With reference to the Calame report.’ I ordered him in at once. I dismissed my secretary, Mademoiselle Blanche, from the room, though she’s been with me for twenty years, as she comes from La Roche-sur-Yon and worked in my office there. You’ll see that this has some bearing on the matter. My parliamentary private secretary was not in the room either. I was left alone with a man of middle age who stood staring at me, saying nothing, with a gray paper parcel under his arm.

  “ ‘Monsieur Piquemal?’ I asked, a little anxiously, because for a moment I thought that I was facing a maniac.

  “He nodded.

  “ ‘Sit down.’

  “ ‘It’s not worth while.’

  “I had the impression that his eyes weren’t friendly. He asked me, almost impertinently:

  “ ‘Are you the Minister?’

  “ ‘Yes.’

  “ ‘I’m a supervisor at the School of Civil Engineering.’

  “He stepped forward, handed me the parcel, and uttered in the same tone:

  “ ‘Open it and give me a receipt.’

  “The parcel contained a document of about forty pages, obviously a carbon copy, and headed:

  “ ‘Report concerning the construction of a sanatorium at Clairfond in Haute-Savoie.’ The document was not signed by hand, but the name of Julien Calame with his titles was typed at the bottom of the page, as well as the date.

  “Still standing, Piquemal repeated:

  ‘I want a receipt.’

  “I wrote one out for him. He folded it, slipped it into a worn brief case, and moved to the door. I called him back.

  “ ‘Where did you find these papers?.’

  “ ‘In the attic.’

  “ ‘You will probably be called upon to make a written declaration.’

  “ ‘You know where to find me.’

  “ ‘Have you shown this document to anyone else?’

  “He looked me straight in the eyes, with contempt.

  ‘To no one.’

  “ There were no other copies?.’

  “ ‘Not so far as I know.’

  “ ‘Thank you.’ ”

  Auguste Point looked at Maigret in embarrassment.

  “That is where I made a mistake,” he went on. “I think it was because of Piquemal’s strange behavior, for he looked like an anarchist about to throw his bomb.”

  “How old was he?” asked Maigret.

  “Forty-five, perhaps. Neither well dressed nor badly dressed. His eyes were the eyes of a fanatic or a madman.”

  “Did you get any information about him?”

  “Not right away. It was five o’clock. There were still four or five people in my waiting room, and I had to preside at an engineers’ dinner in the evening. When my visitor left, my secretary came in and I slipped the Calame report into my personal brief case. I should have telephoned the President of the Council. If I didn’t do so, I swear to you that it was again because I was wondering if Piquemal were mad. There was nothing to prove that the document wasn’t a forgery. Almost every day we are visited by some demented creature or other.”

  “Same with us.”

  “In that case you can understand me. My appointments lasted until seven o’clock. I just had time to go to my apartment and change.”

  “Did you talk to your wife about it?”

  “No. I took my brief case with me. I told her I’d come to Boulevard Pasteur after dinner. This kind of thing often happens. Not only do we meet here on Sunday for a little meal that she cooks, but I also come here alone when I have something important to do and want peace and quiet.”

  “Where was the banquet?”

  “At the Palais d’Orsay.”

  “You took your brief case with you?”

  “It remained, under lock and key, in the care of my driver, in whom I have complete confidence.”

  “You came back here directly after?”

  “Toward half past ten. Ministers have the privilege of not having to stay on after the speeches.”

  “Were you in formal dress?”

  “I took it off before I settled down at this desk.”

  “You read the report?”

  “Yes.”

  “Did it seem authentic to you?”

  The Minister nodded in affirmation.

  “It would definitely create a sensation if it were published?”

&nbs
p; “Without any doubt.”

  “Why?”

  “Because Professor Calame in fact foretold the disaster. Though I’m in charge of Public Works, I’m incapable of giving you chapter and verse of all his arguments and particularly of the technical details he provides to support his verdict. At any rate, he quite clearly pronounced himself against the entire project, and it was the duty of every person who read the report to vote against the construction of Clairfond as it was planned, or at least to demand a further inquiry. Do you understand?”

  “I begin to.”

  “How the Rumor became acquainted with this document I don’t know. Have they got another copy? Again I don’t know. As far as one can judge the only person in possession of a copy of the Calame report last night was myself.”

  “What happened then?”

  “Toward midnight I telephoned the President of the Council, but I was told that he was at a political meeting in Rouen. I almost called him there.”

  “You didn’t do it?”

  “No. Precisely because I was thinking of the lines being tapped. I felt that I was in possession of a case of dynamite capable not only of overthrowing the government, but of dishonoring a number of my colleagues. It is unbelievable that those who had read the report should have been capable of allowing…”

  Maigret thought he could guess the rest.

  “You left the report here in this apartment?”

  “Yes.”

  “In your desk?”

  “Yes, it has a lock. I considered that it was safer here than in the Ministry, where there are people coming and going all the time.”

  “Your driver remained at the door all the time while you studied the file?”

  “I sent him away and took a taxi at the corner of the boulevard.”

  “Did you talk to your wife when you got home?”

  “Not about the report. I didn’t mention it to anybody until the next day, at one o’clock in the afternoon, when I met the President in the Chamber of Deputies. I put him in the picture; we were standing by the window.”

  “Was he upset?”

  “I think so. Any head of government would have been upset in his place. He asked me to get the report and take it to his study myself.”

  “The report was no longer in your desk?” No.

  “And the lock had been tampered with?”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “Did you see the President again?”

  “No. I felt quite ill. I drove to Boulevard Saint-Germain and canceled all my appointments. My wife telephoned the President and said that I was unwell, that I had collapsed and would go and see him tomorrow morning.”

  “Does your wife know?”

  “For the first time in my life I lied to her. I can’t remember what I said to her exactly, and several times I must have floundered.”

  “Does she know you are here?”

  “She believes I am at a meeting. I wonder if you quite understand my situation. I find myself suddenly alone, with the feeling that as soon as I open my mouth, I’ll be attacked. Nobody would believe my story. I held the Calame report in my hands. I am the only one, besides Piquemal, to have had it. And at least three times during the last years I have been invited by Arthur Nicoud, the builder in question, to his place in Samois.”

  Suddenly he slumped. His shoulders seemed narrower, his chin softer. He seemed to be saying:

  “Do whatever you like. I have nothing more to say.”

  Maigret, without asking permission, poured himself some brandy and only after carrying it to his lips remembered to fill the Minister’s glass.

  * * *

  Chapter 2

  « ^ »

  Probably, at some stage in his own career, Maigret had had a similar experience, but never, he thought, of such intensity. The smallness of the room, its warmth and intimacy, heightened the atmosphere of drama which the smell of the country alcohol, the desk like his father’s, the enlarged photographs of the old people on the walls made Maigret feel like a doctor who has been summoned with great urgency and into whose hands the patient has placed his life.

  The most surprising thing of all was that the man who was sitting opposite him, as if waiting for the diagnosis, resembled him, if not exactly like a brother, certainly like a cousin. And not only physically. A glance at the family portraits told the Superintendent that his and Auguste Point’s origins were very close. Both were born in the country of enlightened peasant stock. Probably the Minister’s parents had had the ambition from the time he was born for him to become a doctor or a lawyer, just as Maigret’s had done.

  Auguste Point had gone beyond their wildest dreams. Were they still alive to know it?

  He didn’t dare to ask these questions yet. The man in front of him had gone to pieces, and he knew it wasn’t because of weakness of character. Looking at him, Maigret was overcome by a complex mixture of emotions: he was angry and disgusted and profoundly discouraged. There had been a time in his own life when he had found himself in a similar situation—although a less dramatic one—and that, too, had had a political background. He had not been guilty. He had acted as it was his duty to act, had behaved not only as an honest man but strictly according to his obligations as a public servant. Nevertheless, in the eyes of almost everyone he had done wrong. He had had to go before a disciplinary council and, as everything was against him, had been blamed. It was at this time that he had to leave the Paris headquarters and found himself exiled to Luçon, in the Vendée, the very department that Auguste Point represented in the Chamber of Deputies. His wife and his friends had told him over and over again that his own conscience was what mattered, but often he seemed to behave, without realizing it, like a guilty man. During those last days at the Quai des Orfèvres, for instance, while his case was being discussed in high places, he did not dare to give any orders to his subordinates, not even to Lucas or to Janvier, and when he came down the main staircase he had kept close to the wall.

  Auguste Point was equally incapable of thinking with any lucidity about his own case. He had just said all that he had to say. During the last hours he had acted as a man who is drowning and believes that only a miracle can save him. Wasn’t it strange that it was to Maigret he had appealed, to a man whom he did not know, whom he had never met?

  Without realizing it, Maigret had taken on the case, and his questions were those of a doctor trying to make a diagnosis.

  “Have you inquired into the identity of Piquemal?”

  “I asked my secretary to telephone the School of Civil Engineering, and she was told that Jules Piquemal had been working there for fifteen years as a supervisor.”

  “Isn’t it peculiar that he didn’t hand the document to the School Director but brought it to you himself?”

  “I don’t know. I didn’t think about it.”

  “It seems to indicate that he realized its importance, doesn’t it?”

  “I think so. Yes.”

  “In fact, since the Calame report has been rediscovered, Piquemal is the only person, besides yourself, who has had the opportunity of reading it?”

  “Not counting the people or person in whose hands it is at the moment.”

  “We can leave that for the time being. If I’m not mistaken, only one person, besides Piquemal, had known since Tuesday at one o’clock that you were in possession of the document.”

  “You mean the President of the Council?”

  Auguste Point looked at Maigret in dismay. Oscar Malterre was a man of sixty-five who, since he was forty, had in one capacity or another been a member of successive Cabinets. His father had been a mayor, one of his brothers was a deputy and the other a colonial governor.

  “I hope you are not suggesting…”

  “I suggest nothing, Your Excellency. I’m trying to understand. The Calame report was in this desk last night. This afternoon it was no longer there. Are you certain that the door hadn’t been forced?”

  “You can see for yourself. There is no mark on the wood or on the metal of the keyhole. Could they have used a master key?”

  “And the lock of your desk?”

  “Have a look. It is not a complicated one. I have often forgotten my key and opened it with a piece of wire.”

  “Excuse me if I ask you all the usual routine questions, just to clear the air. Who besides yourself has the key to the apartment?”