Maigret and the Apparition Page 2

  “What do you want?”

  “I’m sorry to disturb you, madame. I am the chief superintendent in charge of the Crime Squad of the Department of Criminal Investigation…”

  Her frigid stare said “What of it?” as plainly as if she had spoken aloud.

  “I was wondering if you could tell me how the inspector is standing up to the operation.”

  “I shan’t know until the operation is over… All I can say is that he is alive, seeing that the surgeon is still in there…”

  “When he was brought in, was he able to talk?”

  This time she looked at him with contempt, as if he had asked a stupid question.

  “He’d lost more than half the blood in his body. He had to be given an emergency transfusion.”

  “How long before he regains consciousness, do you think?”

  “You’ll have to ask Professor Mingault.”

  “If you have a private room available, I’d be obliged if you would keep it for him. It’s important. An inspector will be in attendance at his bedside…”

  Her attention was distracted by the opening of the door of the operating room. A man appeared in the passage, wearing a white cap and a bloodstained apron over his white overall.

  “Professor, this person here is…”

  “Chief Superintendent Maigret…”

  “Pleased to meet you.”

  “Is he still alive?”

  “For the moment… Unless there are unforeseen complications, I hope to be able to pull him through.”

  His forehead was running with perspiration, and his features were drawn with fatigue.

  “Just one more thing… It’s important to us that he should have a private room…”

  “See to that, please, Matron… Now, if you’ll excuse me…”

  He strode off toward his office. Once again, the door opened. A surgical bed on wheels appeared, propelled by an orderly. Under the sheet could be traced the outline of a body, Lognon’s body, stiff and seemingly drained of blood, with only the upper part of his face showing.

  “Take him to Number 218, Bernard.”

  “Very well, Matron.”

  She walked behind the bed, with Maigret, Lapointe, and Créac close on her heels. It was a dismal procession, in the wan morning light coming from windows high above them. The sight of the straight rows of beds in the wards as they went past was scarcely cheering. It was like living through a bad dream.

  A house surgeon emerged from the operating room and tagged on behind.

  “Are you a member of his family?”

  “No… I’m Chief Superintendent Maigret…”

  “Ah! So it is you!”

  He looked at him searchingly, as if anxious to confirm that the Chief Superintendent really did look as he had imagined him to.

  “The doctor says there’s a chance that he may pull through…”

  It was a world apart, where voices lacked the resonance normal elsewhere, a world without echoes.

  “If he said so…”

  “Have you any idea how long it will be before he regains consciousness?”

  Was Maigret’s question so absurd that he deserved such a look as he got? The matron stopped the police officers at the door.

  “No. Not now.”

  The wounded man had to be made comfortable and no doubt be given treatment, since nurses were wheeling in a variety of equipment, including an oxygen tent.

  “You can wait out here, if you insist, but I’d rather you didn’t. There are regular visiting hours.”

  Maigret glanced at his watch.

  “I think I’d better be on my way, Créac. I’d like you to be present, if possible, when he regains consciousness. If he’s able to talk, take down verbatim everything he says.”

  He did not feel humiliated. No. All the same, he was a little ill at ease, not being accustomed to such disrespectful treatment. With these people, whose attitude toward life and death was different from that of the ordinary man, his reputation cut no ice.

  It was a relief, outside in the forecourt, to be able to light his pipe. Lapointe, at the same time, took the opportunity to light a cigarette.

  “As for you, you’d better go home to bed, after you’ve dropped me at the Town Hall in the Eighteenth Arrondissement.”

  “Would you mind very much if I stayed with you, Chief?”

  “You were up all night…”

  “Oh, well, you know, at my age…”

  The Town Hall was no distance away. In the inspectors’ duty room, there were three plain-clothes detectives engaged in writing reports. Crouching over their typewriters, they looked thoroughly conscientious.

  “Good morning, gentlemen… Which of you knows the facts?”

  He knew the men, if not by name, at least by sight, and all three had stood up as he came into the room.

  “All of us, and none of us…”

  “Did anyone go to break the news to Madame Lognon?”

  “Durantel went.”

  There were damp footprints on the wooden floor, and a lingering smell of tobacco smoke about the place.

  “Was Lognon on to something?”

  They looked at him, hesitating. At last, one of the three, a small fat man, began:

  ‘That’s just the question we’ve been asking ourselves… You know Lognon, Chief Superintendent… He had a way of making a mystery of it when he was on the trail of something… Often, he would work for weeks on a case before saying a word about it to any of us…”

  And no wonder, considering the number of times others had been given the credit for his achievements!

  “He’s been very secretive for the past fortnight at least. And sometimes, when he came into the office, he looked as if he was working up to something big, which he intended to spring on us as a terrific surprise.”

  “Did he drop any hints?”

  “No. But he had himself transferred more or less permanently to night duty…”

  “Do you know where he spent his time?”

  “He was seen once or twice by the night patrols on Avenue Junot, not far from the spot where he was attacked… But not recently… He used to leave here about nine at night, and wouldn’t get back until three or four in the morning. Sometimes he would be out all night…”

  “Didn’t he put in any reports?”

  “I’ve looked in the register. He just wrote ‘Nothing to report.’”

  “Have you any men at the scene of the shooting?”

  “Three. Chinquier is in charge.”

  “What about the press?”

  “It’s not easy to hush up an attempt on the life of a detective inspector… Would you like a word with the superintendent?”

  “Not just now.”

  With Lapointe still at the wheel, Maigret had himself driven to Avenue Junot. The last of the autumn leaves were falling from the trees and sticking to the wet pavements. The rain, which was still pelting down, had not deterred a crowd of about fifty people from gathering in the middle of the road.

  A square section of the pavement had been cordoned off, and there were uniformed policemen on guard. When Maigret got out of the car to thread his way among spectators and umbrellas, cameras clicked all around him.

  “Just one more, Chief Superintendent… Could you move forward a little?”

  He glared at them as balef ully as the matron had glared at him in the hospital. On the small stretch of pavement protected from trampling feet, the rain had not entirely washed out the bloodstains, though they were gradually being diluted, and, since it had not been possible to use chalk, the position of the fallen body had been outlined with twigs.

  Inspector Deliot, yet another member of the Eighteenth Arrondissement Division, removed his sopping hat in deference to Maigret.

  “Chinquier is inside, talking to the concierge, Chief Superintendent. He was the first of us to arrive on the scene.”

  The building was fairly old, but very clean and well maintained. The Chief Superintendent went in and pu
shed open the glass door of the lodge, just in time to see Inspector Chinquier putting his notebook back in his pocket.

  “I was expecting you. I was surprised to find no one here from the Quai.”

  “I went to the hospital first.”

  “How did the operation go?”

  “Quite successfully, I gather. The doctor thinks he may pull through.”

  The lodge was clean and neat. The concierge, about forty-five, was still an attractive woman, with a pleasing figure.

  “Please sit down, gentlemen… I’ve just been telling the inspector everything I know… Look over here, on the floor…”

  The green linoleum was strewn with slivers of glass from a broken windowpane.

  “And here…”

  She pointed to a hole about three feet above the bed, which stood at the far end of the room.

  “Were you alone in here?”

  “Yes. My husband is night porter at the Palace Hotel, on Avenue des Champs-Elysées. He doesn’t get back here until eight in the morning.”

  “Where is he now?”

  “In the kitchen.”

  She pointed to a closed door.

  “He’s trying to get some rest, because, in spite of everything, he’ll have to go on duty tonight as usual.”

  “I am taking it for granted, Chinquier, that you have asked all the necessary questions. So don’t be offended if I ask a few questions of my own.”

  “Will you be needing me?”

  “Not for the moment.”

  “In that case, if you don’t mind, I’ll take a look around upstairs.”

  Maigret frowned, wondering what the inspector had in mind to do up there, but he didn’t pursue the point for fear of causing offense to the local man.

  “I’m sorry to have to bother you, madame…”

  “Madame Sauget. The tenants all call me Angèle.”

  “Do please sit down.”

  “I’m so used to standing!”

  She drew the curtain across the bed. It was usually kept closed up during the day, thus turning the main area into a small sitting room.

  “Can I get you anything? A cup of coffee?”

  “Thank you, no. So, last night, after you went to bed…”

  “Yes, I heard a voice call out:

  “ ‘Please release the catch.’ ”

  “Did you notice the time?”

  “My alarm clock has a luminous dial. It was half past two.”

  “Was it one of the tenants asking to be let out?”

  “No. It was that gentleman…”

  She looked embarrassed, as if she felt she had been trapped into committing an indiscretion.

  “What gentleman?”

  “The man who was shot at…”

  Maigret and Lapointe exchanged bewildered glances.

  “Inspector Lognon, do you mean?”

  She nodded, and went on:

  “One shouldn’t keep anything back from the police, should one? I’m not one to gossip about my tenants, as a rule. I never talk about their comings and goings, or the company they keep. Their private lives are no concern of mine. But after what has happened…”

  “Have you known the inspector long?”

  “Yes, for years… Ever since my husband and I came here to live… But I didn’t know his name… I used to see him go past, and I knew he was a police officer, because he came into the lodge a few times on identity checks. He never said much…”

  “When did you get to know him better?”

  “When he started coming in to call on the young lady on the fourth floor.”

  This time Maigret was struck speechless. As for Lapointe, he looked as if he had been hit over the head. Not all policemen are necessarily saints. Maigret knew that there were men in his own section who were not above indulging in extramarital adventures.

  But Lognon! He just could not imagine old Hapless slinking out at night to visit a young woman in a building barely two hundred yards from his own apartment

  “You’re quite sure we’re talking about the same man?”

  “He’s not the sort you’d forget in a hurry, is he?”

  “How long has he been in the habit of… calling on the lady?”

  “About ten days.”

  “I take it, then, that the first evening, he came in with her?”

  “Yes.”

  “Did he try to hide his face as he went past the lodge?”

  “That was the impression I got.”

  “Did he come back often.”

  “Almost every night.”

  “Was it very late when he left?”

  “At the beginning—that’s to say the first three or four nights—he left about midnight After that he stayed longer, until two or three in the morning.”

  “What is this woman’s name?”

  “Marinette… Marinette Augier… She’s a very pretty girl. She’s about twenty-five, and ladylike in her manners.”

  “Was she in the habit of entertaining men?”

  “I think I can answer that with a clear conscience, because she never made any secret of her private life… For a whole year, a handsome young man used to visit her two or three times a week. She told me they were engaged…”

  “Used to spend the night with her?”

  “You’re bound to find out in the end… Yes… After he stopped coming, she looked sad, I thought… One morning, when she called in to collect her mail, I asked her if the engagement was broken off, and she said:

  “ ‘You’re a good soul, Angèle, but I don’t want to talk about it. It’s no good upsetting oneself over a man. They just aren’t worth it.’

  “She must have succeeded in putting him out of her mind, because not long afterward she was her old, cheerful self again… She’s a very lively girl, and bursting with health.”

  “What does she do for a living?”

  “She’s a cosmetician, so she tells me. She works in a beauty salon on Avenue Matignon… That probably explains why she is always so well groomed and tastefully dressed…”

  “What about her boyfriend?”

  “The fiancé who stopped coming? He was in his thirties. I don’t know what his occupation was. I don’t even know his surname. I always called him ‘Monsieur Henri,’ because that was how he announced himself, when he went past the lodge at night.”

  “When was the relationship broken off?”

  “Last winter, around Christmas.”

  “Which means that for nearly a year this young woman—what’s her name? Marinette?…”

  “Marinette Augier.”

  “Are you, then, saying that for the best part of a year she has had no one up there with her?”

  “Except for an occasional visit from her brother. He lives in the suburbs somewhere, and he’s married and has three children.”

  “And about a fortnight ago, she came home one evening in the company of Inspector Lognon?”

  “As I have already told you.”

  “And since then, he’s been here every night?”

  “Except Sundays, unless he managed to slip in and out without my seeing him.”

  “Did he never come during the day?”

  “No, but I’ve just thought of something. One evening, when he arrived as usual at nine o’clock, I ran after him as he was starting to go upstairs, and called out:

  “ ‘Marinette isn’t in!’

  “ ‘I know,’ he said. ‘She’s at her brother’s.’

  “But he went on up just the same, without explanation, which, now I think of it, suggests that she had lent him her key.”

  Maigret now understood why Inspector Chinquier had gone up there.

  “Is your tenant in her apartment now?”

  “No.”

  “Has she gone to work?”

  “I don’t know, but when I went up to break the news to her as gently as I could…”

  “What time was this?”

  “After I had telephoned for the police…”

  “In other wor
ds, about three in the morning?”

  “Yes… I thought she couldn’t have failed to hear the shots. All the other tenants did. Some were leaning out of their windows. Others were coming down the stairs in their dressing gowns, to find out what was going on…

  “It wasn’t a pretty sight, what was out there in the street… So I ran upstairs and knocked at her door. There was no answer… I went in, and found the apartment empty…”

  She gave the Chief Superintendent a somewhat smug look, as if to say:

  “I daresay you’ve come across a good many peculiar things in the course of your career, but I defy you to cap this!”

  She was right. All Maigret and Lapointe could do was to gape blankly at one another. Maigret thought of his wife, who, at this very moment, was with Madame Lognon, whose Christian name was Solange, offering consolation, and doubtless doing all the housework for her!

  “Could she have left the building at the same time as he did?”

  “I’m sure she didn’t. I have very sharp ears, and I’m certain only one person went out, and that was a man.”

  “Did he call out his name as he went past?”

  “No. He was in the habit of simply saying:

  “‘Fourth floor.’

  “I recognized his voice. And besides, he was the only one to announce himself in that way.”

  “Could she have gone out before he arrived?”

  “No. I only once released the catch last night, at eleven-thirty, to let in the third-floor tenants, who had been to see a movie.”

  “So she must have gone out after the shots were fired?”

  “It’s the only possible explanation. As soon as I saw the body lying on the pavement, I rushed back here to call police emergency… I was reluctant to shut the front door. I couldn’t… I would have felt I was deserting the poor man…”

  “Did you bend over him, to see if he was dead?”

  “It was dreadful… I have a horror of blood, but I did.”

  “Was he conscious?”

  “I don’t know…”

  “Did he say anything?”

  “His lips were moving… I could see he was trying to speak… I thought I caught just one word, but I must have been mistaken, because it doesn’t make sense… Maybe he was delirious.”

  “What was the word?”

  “Apparition.”

  She flushed, obviously afraid that the Chief Superintendent and the inspector would laugh at her, or accuse her of fantasizing.