Maigret: The Shadow in the Courtyard (1987) Page 3

“Come in.”

  It was a woman of about thirty, who had slipped on a fur coat over her nightgown and whose feet were bare. She nearly beat a retreat on catching sight of Maigret’s broad back, then she plucked up courage and stammered:

  “I didn’t know you had a visitor.”

  The Inspector started when he heard that drawling voice, which seemed to issue with difficulty from a clogged mouth. He looked at the woman who was closing the door, and saw a colourless face with puffy eyelids. A quick glance from Nine confirmed his impression. This was undoubtedly the drug addict from next door.

  “What’s happened?”

  “Nothing. Roger’s got a visitor. So I’ve taken the liberty…”

  She sat down at the foot of the bed, in a daze, and sighed as Nine had done:

  “But what time is it?”

  “Nine o’clock.” said Maigret. “You look as if cocaine didn’t suit you.”

  “It’s not cocaine…It’s ether…Roger says that it’s better and that…”

  She was feeling cold. She moved to huddle over the radiator, and looked outside.

  “It’s going to rain again…”

  The whole scene was gloomy and despondent. There was a comb full of tangled hair on the dressing table. Nine’s stockings were lying on the floor.

  “I’m disturbing you, aren’t I? But it’s important, apparently…It’s about Roger’s father, who’s dead…”

  Maigret was looking at Nine and he noticed that she suddenly frowned as though some idea had struck her. At the same moment the woman who had just been speaking put her hand up to her chin reflectively, muttering to herself:

  “Well, well.”

  And the Inspector asked her:

  “Did you know Roger’s father?”

  “I’ve never seen him…But…wait a minute…I say, Nine, nothing’s happened to your friend, has it?”

  Nine and the Inspector exchanged glances.

  “Why?”

  “I don’t know…I’m all in a muddle…I suddenly thought how Roger told me one day that his father visited somebody in the hotel…That amused him…But he preferred not to meet him, and once when somebody was coming up the stairs he hurried back into the bedroom…Now I’ve got the impression that this person came in here…”

  Nine had stopped eating. She seemed encumbered by the tray on her knees, and her face betrayed anxiety.

  “His son?” she said slowly, her gaze fixed on the window, a rectangle of glaucous light.

  “But then…” the other woman exclaimed “…Then it’s your friend who’s dead…Apparently it was murder…”

  “Is Roger’s name Couchet?” asked Maigret.

  “Roger Couchet, yes.”

  All three fell silent, ill at ease.

  “What does he do?” the Inspector asked at last after a long pause, during which a murmur of voices could be heard from the neighbouring room.

  “What d’you mean?”

  “What’s his profession?”

  And the young woman suddenly retorted:

  “You’re police, aren’t you?”

  She was agitated. Perhaps she was about to blame Nine for having led her into a trap.

  “The Inspector’s very kind,” said Nine, putting one leg out of her bed and leaning over to pick up her stockings.

  “I might have guessed it…But then you already knew before…before I came…”

  “I had never heard of Roger.” said Maigret. “Now you’ll have to tell me a few things about him…”

  “I don’t know anything…We’ve only been together about three weeks…”

  “And before that?”

  “He was with a tall redhead who calls herself a manicurist…”

  “Does he work?”

  That word was enough to make her embarrassment more obvious.

  “I don’t know…”

  “In other words, he does nothing…Is he well off? Does he spend his money freely?”

  “No. We almost always eat at a cheap prix-fixe restaurant…six francs…”

  “Does he often talk about his father?”

  “He only mentioned him once to me, as I told you…”

  “Will you tell me about the person who’s visiting him now? Had you met him before?”

  “No. It’s a man…well, I don’t know how to describe him. I took him for a process-server and when I came in here, I thought that was it, and that Roger was in debt…”

  “Is he well dressed?”

  “Well…I saw a bowler hat, a fawn overcoat, gloves…”

  There was a connecting door between the two rooms hidden by a curtain, and probably sealed up. Maigret could have put his ear to it and overheard everything, but he was reluctant to do so in front of the two women.

  Nine got dressed: the only toilet she managed was dabbing her face with a wet cloth. She was on edge; her movements were jerky. Clearly, things had got beyond her, and she was expecting unrelieved disaster, lacking the strength to react, or even to try and understand.

  The other was calmer, perhaps because she was still under the influence of ether, perhaps because she had more experience of this sort of thing.

  “What’s your name?”

  “Céline.”

  “Have you a job?”

  “I used to be a visiting hairdresser.”

  “Is your name on the Vice Squad’s list?”

  She shook her head, without indignation. And the mutter of voices could still be heard next door.

  Nine, who had slipped on a dress, was looking round the room, and all of a sudden burst into tears, stammering:

  “Oh God, oh God.”

  “It’s a queer business,” Céline said slowly. “And if there’s really been a crime, we’re going to be in a mess…”

  “Where were you at eight o’clock last night?”

  She pondered. “Wait a minute…Eight o’clock…Why, I was at the Cyrano…”

  “Was Roger with you?”

  “No…We really can’t be together the whole time…I met him again at midnight at the tabac in the rue Fontaine…”

  “Did he tell you where he’d been?”

  “I didn’t ask him…”

  Through the window Maigret could see the Place Pigalle, its tiny garden, the hoardings advertising nightclubs. Then suddenly he stood up and walked towards the door.

  “Wait for me, both of you.”

  And he went out, knocked at the neighbouring door and, without waiting, turned its handle.

  A man in pyjamas was sitting in the only armchair in the room, which, in spite of the open window, was pervaded by a sickly smell of ether. Another man was walking about, gesticulating. It was Monsieur Martin, whom Maigret had met twice the night before, in the courtyard in the Place des Vosges.

  “Well, so you’ve found your glove.”

  And Maigret scrutinized the hands of the official from Wills and Probate, who turned so pale that the Inspector thought for one moment that he was going to faint. His lips were trembling. He tried in vain to speak.

  “I…I…”

  The young man in the chair was unshaven. His face was waxen, his eyes red-rimmed, his loose lips betrayed his weak character. He was greedily drinking water from the tooth-glass.

  “Calm down, Monsieur Martin. I hadn’t expected to find you here, particularly at an hour when your office must have been open long ago.”

  He was looking the fellow over from head to foot. He had to make an effort not to feel sorry for him, the wretched man seemed in such distress.

  From his shoes to his tie, fixed to a celluloid collar, Monsieur Martin was the caricaturists’ prototype of the petty official. A neat, respectable functionary with well-waxed moustaches, not a speck of dust on his clothes, who would undoubtedly think it below his dignity to go out without gloves on his hands.

  Now he didn’t know what to do with those hands, and his eyes roamed round the untidy room as if in search of inspiration.

  “May I ask you one question, Monsieur Martin?
How long have you known Roger Couchet?”

  Instead of terror, the man now displayed bewilderment.

  “Me?”

  “Yes, you.”

  “Why, since…ever since my marriage.”

  He said this as if the thing was self-evident.

  “I don’t follow.”

  “Roger is my stepson…The son of my wife…”

  “And of Raymond Couchet?”

  “Why, yes…Because…”

  He was recovering his self-possession.

  “My wife was Couchet’s first wife…They had one son, Roger…When she got her divorce, I married her…”

  The effect of this was as if a squall of wind had cleared the sky of clouds. The house in the Place des Vosges was completely transformed. The character of events was changed. Certain points became clearer. Others, on the other hand, became more obscure, more disturbing.

  So much so that Maigret dared not say anything more.

  He felt the need to get his thoughts straight. He looked in turn at the two men with growing uneasiness.

  Only the night before, staring up at all the windows visible from the courtyard, the concierge had asked him:

  “D’you think it was somebody from the house?”

  And her gaze had finally come to rest on the entrance. She hoped that the murderer had come in that way, somebody from outside.

  Well, it wasn’t so. The drama concerned the inhabitants of the house. Maigret was quite unable to say why, but he was sure of it.

  But what sort of drama? That he didn’t know.

  Only he felt that invisible threads were stretching out, connecting such very different points in space, going from the Place des Vosges to this hotel in the rue Pigalle, from the Martins’ flat to the office at the Rivière Serums laboratory, from Nine’s bedroom to that of the ether-doped couple.

  The most disturbing thing, perhaps, was to see Monsieur Martin flung like an unconscious spinning-top into this labyrinth. He was still wearing gloves. His buff overcoat in itself implied a respectable and orderly existence. And his uneasy gaze was trying to settle somewhere, without success.

  “I came to tell Roger…” he stammered.

  “Yes?”

  Maigret looked him in the eyes, calmly and penetratingly, and he almost expected to see his interlocutor shrivel up with anguish.

  “My wife suggested, you see, that it would be better if we should…”

  “I understand.”

  “Roger is very…”

  “Very sensitive.” Maigret finished off. “A highly-strung creature.”

  The young man, who was now drinking his third glass of water, glared at him resentfully. He must have been about twenty-five, but his features were already worn, his eyelids withered.

  He was still handsome, nevertheless, with the sort of good looks that some women find irresistible. His skin was smooth, and even his weary, somewhat disillusioned expression had a certain romantic quality.

  “Tell me, Roger Couchet, did you often see your father?”

  “From time to time.”

  “Where?” And Maigret looked at him sternly.

  “In his office…Or else at a restaurant…”

  “When did you see him last?”

  “I don’t know…Some weeks ago…”

  “And you asked him for money?”

  “As usual.”

  “In short, you sponged on him?”

  “He was rich enough to…”

  “One minute. Where were you yesterday evening about eight o’clock?”

  There was no shadow of hesitation.

  “At the Select.” he said with an ironical smile which implied: “If you think I can’t see what you’re getting at.”

  “What were you doing at the Select?”

  “Waiting for my father.”

  “So you needed money. And you knew he would come to the Select…”

  “He was there almost every evening with his tart. Besides, that afternoon I’d heard him speak over the telephone…For you can hear everything that’s being said next door…”

  “When you saw that your father wasn’t coming, it didn’t occur to you to visit his office in the Place des Vosges?”

  “No.”

  From the mantelpiece Maigret picked up a photograph of the young man, which stood there surrounded by numerous feminine portraits. He thrust it into his pocket, muttering: “If you’ll allow me.”

  “Just as you please.”

  “You surely don’t believe…” began Monsieur Martin.

  “I don’t believe anything at all. That reminds me to ask you a few questions. What sort of relations did you and your wife have with Roger?”

  “He didn’t often visit us.”

  “And when he did?”

  “He only stayed a few minutes…”

  “Does his mother know the sort of life he leads?”

  “What d’you mean?”

  “Don’t play the simpleton, Monsieur Martin. Does your wife know that her son lives in Montmartre, doing nothing?”

  And the civil servant stared at the floor, uneasily. “I often tried to get him to take a job.” he sighed.

  This time the young man began drumming on the table impatiently.

  “I’d like to point out that I’m still in my pyjamas, and that…”

  “Will you tell me if you saw anybody you knew at the Select last night?”

  “I saw Nine.”

  “Did you speak to her?”

  “If you don’t mind. I’ve never addressed a word to her.”

  “Where was she sitting?”

  “At the second table to the right of the bar.”

  “Where did you find your glove, Monsieur Martin? If I remember rightly, you were hunting for it last night around the dustbins in the courtyard…”

  Monsieur Martin uttered a strained little laugh. “It was at home…Just imagine, I’d gone out with one glove on and I hadn’t noticed…”

  “When you left the Place des Vosges where did you go?”

  “I went for a walk…Along the embankment…I…I had a headache…”

  “Do you often go for walks in the evening without your wife?”

  “Sometimes.”

  He was in agonies. And he still did not know what to do with his gloved hands.

  “Are you going to your office now?”

  “No. I telephoned to ask for the day off. I can’t leave my wife in…”

  “Well, go back to her now.”

  Maigret stood there. The poor fellow was searching for some way of taking his leave decently.

  “Good-bye, Roger…” he gulped. “I…I think you ought to see your mother…”

  But Roger merely shrugged his shoulders and stared impatiently at Maigret. The sound of Monsieur Martin’s footsteps died away down the stairs.

  The young man said nothing. His hand automatically took hold of a flask of ether on the bedside table and set it down further off.

  “You’ve no statement to make?” the Inspector asked him slowly.

  “None.”

  “Because, if you had anything to say, it would be better to do so now than later…”

  “I shan’t have anything to tell you later…Yes. One thing, which I’ll say right away: you’re making a hell of a big mistake…”

  “By the way, since you didn’t see your father last night you must be out of money?”

  “You’ve said it.”

  “Where are you going to find any?”

  “Don’t worry about me, please…Now, if you’ll excuse me…” And he poured some water into the basin to begin his toilet.

  Maigret, for form’s sake, took a few more steps round the room, then left it and went next door, where the two women were waiting for him. Céline was now the more agitated of the two. As for Nine, she was sitting in the easy-chair, slowly gnawing at her handkerchief as her great dreamy eyes stared out of the window at nothing.

  “Well?” inquired Roger’s mistress.

  �
�Nothing. You can go back now…”

  “Was it really his father who? ”

  And suddenly growing grave, with furrowed brow:

  “But in that case he’ll inherit?”

  And she went off, deep in thought.

  On the pavement, Maigret asked his companion:

  “Where are you going?”

  A vague, apathetic gesture, then:

  “I’m going to the Moulin Bleu to see if they’ll have me back…”

  He watched her with affectionate interest.

  “Were you very fond of Couchet?”

  “I told you yesterday: he was a real good sort – and there aren’t so many of them about I can tell you. When you think that some swine has…”

  Two tears welled up, and that was all.

  “Here we are.” she said, opening a little side door which was the artists’ entrance.

  Maigret, who was thirsty, went into a bar and ordered a half pint. He had to go to the Place des Vosges. The sight of a telephone reminded him that he had not yet looked in at the Quai des Orfèvres, where urgent mail might be awaiting him.

  He rang up the office boy.

  “Is that you, Jean? Anything for me? What’s that? A lady been waiting for an hour? In mourning? Not Madame Couchet? What d’you say? Madame Martin? I’m coming right away.”

  Madame Martin in mourning. And she’d been waiting for him for an hour in the waiting-room at Police Headquarters.

  Maigret knew her only as a shadow: the curious shadow seen the night before, against the curtain of a second-floor window, when she was gesticulating and moving her lips excitedly to utter terrible diatribes.

  “It often happens.” the concierge had said.

  And the poor little fellow from the Wills and Probate Office, who had forgotten his glove, had gone off for a walk by himself in the darkness of the riverside…

  And when Maigret had left the courtyard, at one in the morning, there had been the sound of something brushing against a window pane.

  He went slowly up the dusty staircase of Police Headquarters, shaking hands with a few colleagues on the way, and put his head through the half-open door of the waiting-room.

  Ten armchairs, upholstered in green velvet. A sort of billiard table. On the wall, the roll of honour: two hundred portraits of detectives killed in the performance of their duty.

  In the middle armchair, a woman in black sat very stiffly, one hand holding a handbag with a silver clasp, the other resting on the handle of an umbrella.