Maigret Takes a Room Read online

  She added, walking towards a little table where there was also a newspaper:

  ‘In any case, I’ll be staying here.’

  And she seated herself on a chair.

  Maigret stood near the door, so that Janvier couldn’t yet see him. Madame Janvier, who had come towards the foot of the bed, her hands gripping her bag, looked at her husband with a shy smile and murmured:

  ‘Don’t worry, Albert. It’s all fine. Everyone has been very nice to me, and the children are well. You haven’t suffered too much?’

  It was quite touching to see two big tears suddenly welling up in the eyes of the wounded man, who was staring at his wife as if he had never expected to see her again.

  ‘Whatever you do, don’t worry about us. Maigret is here …’

  Had she noticed that, once his initial excitement had passed, Janvier was looking around for someone? It was almost embarrassing. Janvier was a family man, certainly, he adored his wife and his children. Maigret also had the impression that he felt more than anything a part of the Police Judiciaire.

  He took two steps forwards, and, seeing him, Janvier’s face sprang to life, he wanted to speak even though he had been told not to. Maigret had to gesture to him to be quiet.

  ‘Stay calm, son. Let me tell you first of all how happy we all are that you’ve pulled through. The chief asked me to pass on his compliments and his best wishes. He will come himself as soon as the visits stop tiring you.’

  Madame Janvier had discreetly taken a step back.

  ‘The doctor has only allowed us a few minutes. I’ve taken over the case. Are you strong enough for me to ask you some questions? You heard the nurse: reply by batting your eyelids. Don’t try to talk.’

  A wide beam of light crossed the room, vibrant with a fine dust, as if the intimate life of the air were being revealed.

  ‘Did you see who shot you?’

  Janvier, without hesitation, shook his head.

  ‘You were picked up on the pavement on the right, the pavement of Mademoiselle Clément, right in front of her house. You don’t seem to have had time to drag yourself along before you were found. The street was deserted, wasn’t it?’

  His eyelids beat.

  ‘Were you pacing up and down?’

  His eyelids beat once more.

  ‘You didn’t hear anyone coming.’

  A negative sign.

  ‘And, during the previous few hours, you didn’t notice anyone watching you?’

  It was no again.

  ‘Did you light a cigarette?’

  There was astonishment in Janvier’s eyes, then he smiled faintly. He had understood Maigret’s thought.

  ‘Yes,’ his eyelids said.

  According to the doctor, in fact, the shot had been fired from a distance of about ten metres. And yet there was no streetlight near Mademoiselle Clément’s house. Janvier was only a silhouette in the night.

  As he lit his cigarette, he had obviously provided a more precise target. ‘You didn’t hear a window opening at any point?’

  The wounded man took the time to think and at last shook his head, but with a certain hesitation.

  ‘Do you mean it wasn’t at that moment that you heard the sound of a window?’

  That was it.

  ‘I suppose that in the course of the evening several windows were opened or closed?’

  The evening had been warm, so naturally there were. Janvier confirmed as much.

  ‘In Mademoiselle Clément’s house as well?’

  Yes again.

  ‘But not around the time the shot was fired?’

  No.

  ‘Can you remember which direction you were facing when you were hit?’

  Nothing, in fact, could be deduced from the position of the body when it was discovered, because sometimes a man struck by a bullet turns 180 or 360 degrees as he falls.

  The effort to remember was so great that Janvier’s face contorted with pain. Madame Janvier wasn’t listening to them any more, and not only out of discretion. She had joined the nurse and was talking to her in a low voice, probably asking questions, risking timid recommendations.

  No, Janvier didn’t remember. It was natural too. He had paced so much, that evening, on the same bit of pavement …

  ‘Have you discovered a clue, whether about Paulus or his accomplice, which doesn’t appear in your reports?’

  It was almost the only plausible explanation, but, once again, Janvier replied in the negative.

  ‘And you haven’t found anything about another current case, or even an old case?’

  Janvier smiled again, guessing at Maigret’s reasoning.

  It was no. All the explanations proved to be false, one after the other.

  ‘In short, you lit a cigarette, and the shot went off. You didn’t hear footsteps. You didn’t hear a sound. You fell, and you lost consciousness.’

  ‘I’m sorry to have to interrupt you, sir; the doctor gave strict instructions.’

  ‘Don’t worry, son. Try not to think about any of that.’

  He saw a question on the inspector’s lips, and the inspector knew him well enough to guess.

  ‘As of today, I’m installing myself at Rue Lhomond in Mademoiselle Clément’s house, and I’ll have to end up by discovering the truth, won’t I?’

  Poor Janvier! It was clear that he was imagining the chief inspector in the fat woman’s rooming house, and would very much have liked to go there with him!

  ‘I must leave you, Albert. Madame Dambois is being kind enough to look after the children while I’m away. I’ll come every day. I’m told that tomorrow I’ll be able to stay a bit longer.’

  She was putting on a brave face but, when she found herself in the corridor with Maigret, she couldn’t keep from crying as she walked, and he held her gently by the arm, without saying anything, without trying to console her.

  He preferred to telephone from his apartment, which seemed almost alien to him. Not only was he there on his own, without anyone to talk to, but except on Sundays he wasn’t used to being there at that time of day.

  He had opened the windows wide, had poured himself a little glass of sloe brandy and, while waiting for the call, was stuffing linen and toiletries into his old leather suitcase.

  It was also in a hospital that he finally got through to Madame Maigret, because she had persuaded them to keep in her sister, who was going into convalescence.

  Probably because she felt far away, because she was afraid that he couldn’t hear her, she adopted a high, unfamiliar voice, which made the receiver rattle.

  ‘No, nothing’s happened to me. I’m calling you to ask you not to call me here this evening. And to tell you why you didn’t get through to me last night.’

  They had agreed that he would call her at about eleven o’clock every evening.

  ‘Janvier’s been wounded. Yes, Janvier … No. He’s out of danger … Hello! But to pursue the inquiry I’ve had to move in to Rue Lhomond … It’s a rooming house … I’ll be fine here … No, really …! I assure you … The owner is charming …’

  He hadn’t intended to use that word, which made him smile.

  ‘Have you got a pencil and some paper? Take down the number … From now on call me a bit earlier, between nine and ten, so as not to wake the whole house, because the phone is in the corridor on the ground floor … No, I haven’t forgotten anything … It’s almost warm … I assure you that I don’t need a raincoat …’

  He paid another visit to the sideboard, where the gilt-edged decanter was kept, and finally left his flat, holding his heavy suitcase, locked the door and felt a little as if he were committing an act of betrayal.

  Was it only because of the inquiry that he was moving into Rue Lhomond or because he dreaded going back to an empty flat?

  Mademoiselle Clément hurried to meet him, very agitated, her large breasts wobbling in her blouse like jelly.

  ‘I haven’t touched anything in the room, because you advised me not to; I’ve just
changed the sheets and put on new blankets.

  Vauquelin, sitting in an armchair by the window, in the front room, a cup of coffee within reach, had got up and insisted on carrying Maigret’s suitcase upstairs.

  It was a curious house, which didn’t fit neatly into the normal categories of rooming houses. Although it was old, it was astonishingly clean and emanated a sense of gaiety. The wallpaper, everywhere, including the staircase, was light in colour, mostly pale-yellow, with little flowers and nothing old-fashioned or conventional. The woodwork, polished by time, gave off rippling reflections of light, and the steps, uncarpeted, smelled of wax.

  The rooms were bigger than in most furnished houses. They were more like the rooms in a good provincial inn, and almost all the furniture was old, the wardrobes big and deep, the chests of drawers potbellied.

  In an unusual touch, Mademoiselle Clément had put some flowers in a vase in the middle of the round table, unpretentious flowers, which she must have bought from a little cart when she did her shopping.

  She had gone upstairs with them.

  ‘You don’t want me to arrange your things? I don’t have a sense that you’re used to doing that.’

  She added, laughing with a curious, throaty laugh that made her bosom quiver:

  ‘Unless your suitcase contains things that I’m not allowed to see?’

  He suspected her of being like this with all her tenants, not out of servility, or out of a sense of professional duty, but out of choice. He even wondered if she wasn’t a kind of Madame Maigret, a Madame Maigret who hadn’t had a husband to look after, and who consoled herself by coddling her tenants.

  ‘Have you been keeping this house for a long time, Mademoiselle Clément?’

  ‘Ten years, Monsieur Maigret.’

  ‘Are you originally from Paris?’

  ‘From Lille. Roubaix, to be precise. Do you know the Brasserie Flamande in Roubaix? My father was a waiter there for almost forty years, and everyone knew him. I wasn’t yet twenty when I joined as a cashier.’

  You would have thought, listening to her, that she had been playing at being a cashier as she might have played with dolls as a child and was now playing at being the landlady of a rooming house.

  ‘My dream was to settle in Paris on my own. When my father died, leaving me a small inheritance, I bought this house. I couldn’t live on my own. I need to feel life around me.’

  ‘Did you never think of marrying?’

  ‘I wouldn’t have been my own master. Now, if you would be so kind as to go downstairs for a moment. I would be embarrassed to arrange your things in front of you. I’d rather you left me alone.’

  Maigret gestured to Vauquelin to follow him. On the staircase they heard repeated phrases on the piano, and a woman’s voice doing vocal exercises. It came from the ground floor.

  ‘Who is it?’

  And Vauquelin, who already knew the house, explained:

  ‘Monsieur Valentin. His real name is Valentin Desquerre. He was quite well known as a singer of operettas, thirty years ago, under the name of Valentin.’

  ‘The room on the left, if I remember correctly.’

  ‘Yes. Not just a room, but a flat. He has a little sitting room at the front of the house, where he gives singing lessons, then a bedroom, a bathroom and even a kitchen. He does his own cooking. Most of his pupils are little girls …’

  Vauquelin added, taking some papers from his pocket, as they reached the ground floor:

  ‘I’ve made you a map of the building, with the names of the tenants and a summary of their stories. You’ll hardly need it, because Mademoiselle Clément will tell you it all, without you even having to ask. It’s an odd house, you’ll see. People come and go as if they were at home, they go into the kitchen, heat up some coffee and, since the telephone is in the corridor, everyone knows about everyone else’s business. Mademoiselle Clément will want to prepare you something to eat. She tried it with me. I preferred to go to the little bistro a few doors down.’

  They went there together. The awning was stretched over the two tables on the terrace, and inside a bricklayer was drinking a glass of white wine. The landlord was from the Auvergne; he had a deep-black moustache and wore his hair brushed low over his forehead.

  It was hard to imagine that Boulevard Saint-Michel, with all its bustling activity, was just around the corner. Children played in the middle of the street, as if in a little provincial town. The sound of hammering came from a nearby workshop.

  ‘I think I’ll be taking my meals here for a few days,’ Maigret said to the landlord.

  ‘As long as you’re not too picky, my wife does her best …’

  At eleven in the morning Gastine-Renette, the weapons expert, had sent in his report, which had troubled Maigret considerably. The bullet that had wounded Janvier, in fact, came from a high-calibre revolver, probably a Colt.

  And yet that was a heavy, clumsy weapon, used mostly in the army, but difficult to hide in a suit pocket.

  ‘Has anyone been roaming around outside the house since this morning?’ asked Maigret, clinking glasses with Vauquelin.

  ‘A few journalists. Some press photographers from the papers.’

  ‘Have you picked up any interesting phone calls?’

  ‘No. A man telephoned young Mademoiselle Blanche, who came down in her nightie and dressing gown. A beautiful girl.’

  ‘At about what time?’

  ‘Eleven o’clock.’

  ‘Did she go out?’

  ‘No. She went back to bed.’

  ‘Profession?’

  ‘None. She says she’s a dramatic artist because she’s managed to get some small parts at Châtelet or I don’t know where. An uncle comes to see her twice or three times a week.’

  ‘An uncle?’

  ‘I’m talking like Mademoiselle Clément. I wonder, in fact, whether she’s acting stupid or whether she really is naive. If it’s the latter, she’s as thick as two short planks. “Mademoiselle Blanche studies her roles, you know?” she said to me. That’s why she stays in bed almost all the time. Her uncle pays her a lot of attention. He wants her to be a great artiste. She’s very young: barely twenty-two …’

  ‘Have you seen the uncle?’

  ‘Not yet. It’s his day tomorrow. All I know is that he’s “very polite” and “perfectly correct” …’

  ‘The others?’

  ‘Charming too, of course. Everyone is “charming” in that house. Above Monsieur Valentin, on the first floor, there are the Lotards, who have a one-year-old baby.’

  ‘Why do they live in a rooming house?’

  ‘They’ve only just arrived in Paris and they haven’t yet found an apartment. They cook on a paraffin stove, in the bathroom. I went into their room; they have strings stretched from one wall to the other, with clothes drying.’

  ‘What does Lotard do?’

  ‘He’s in insurance. About thirty, tall and sad; his wife is a short little woman who comes down from time to time to chat with Mademoiselle Clément and leaves her door open to hear the baby when he wakes up. She hates Monsieur Valentin because of his piano. Monsieur Valentin must hate her because of the baby that cries every night.’

  ‘Do they have a flat as well?’

  ‘Just a bedroom and a bathroom. Behind them, in the room overlooking the courtyard, there’s a student, Oscar Fachin, who makes his living by copying out music and looks as if he doesn’t eat every day. From time to time, Mademoiselle Clément brings him up a cup of tea. Apparently he always refuses it at first, because he’s very proud. When he goes out, she goes and gets his socks to darn them. He hides them, but she always manages to get her hands on them.’

  What would Paulus be doing while they were there chatting by a tin counter, drinking a little glass of white wine in the air warmed by the sun that came in through the open door?

  The police had his data. He would have known by now that the house on Rue Lhomond was under surveillance. He had probably known since the first searc
h, because he hadn’t come back.

  Maigret had given Lucas the task of finding both him and his accomplice, the brown-haired man of about twenty-five.

  ‘Shall I go on watching the house?’ asked Vauquelin, who had just about had enough of Mademoiselle Clément and this quiet bit of street.

  ‘No. Not the house as such. Later on, at dinnertime, when the people have gone back to their rooms, I’d like you to go and question all the neighbours. It’s possible that one of them might have seen or heard something.’

  Maigret dined on his own at the Auvergnat’s bistro, reading the evening paper and sometimes glancing at the rooming house.

  When he got back at around 7.30 there was a pretty girl in the second room, which served as dining room and kitchen. She wore a little bright red hat. She was fresh-faced, with very curly blonde hair.

  ‘Mademoiselle Isabelle!’ said Mademoiselle Clément. ‘She lives on the second floor. She works as a typist in an office on Rue Montmartre.’

  ‘Detective Chief Inspector Maigret.’

  He greeted her.

  ‘Mademoiselle Isabelle was just telling me that Paulus tried to woo her. I didn’t know anything about it.’

  ‘Oh! It’s so vague … I don’t think we could call it wooing … I only mentioned it to show what kind of a boy he is …’

  ‘And what kind is that?’

  ‘In the morning I like to have a croissant in a bar on Rue Gay-Lussac before taking my Métro. One day I noticed a young man drinking his café crème at the same counter and staring at me. More precisely, he was looking at me in the mirror. We had never spoken to one another, but I recognized him. He must have recognized me too. When I left, he followed me. Then I heard his footsteps getting faster, I saw his shadow overtaking me, he came level with me and then asked if he could come with me.’

  ‘Isn’t that delightful?’ exclaimed Mademoiselle Clément.

  ‘Perhaps I was in a bad mood that morning. I’m never in a very good mood in the morning. I told him I was big enough to find my way all by myself.’

  ‘And then?’

  ‘Nothing. By the time I turned my head he had turned round, muttering some words of apology. That was why I mentioned it to Mademoiselle Clément. It’s rare for a young man to be so shy. Usually they insist, if only to save face.’