The Cellars of the Majestic Page 4
Torrence couldn’t help squinting at Maigret’s dazzlingly white shirt front with its two pearl buttons: it wasn’t often that they saw him dressed like that.
‘Listen to this … First, he and the girl had dinner in a cheap restaurant in Rue Lepic … You know the kind of place I mean? … The owner remembers them, because he isn’t often asked for real champagne … Then they asked where they could find a carousel … They couldn’t explain themselves very well … In the end, they were sent to the fair near Place de la Nation …
‘There, I picked up their trail again … I don’t know if they went on the carousel, but I assume so … They also spent some time at the shooting gallery. I know that, because Clark spent more than a hundred francs there, which certainly surprised the woman running it …
‘You see what I’m getting at … Walking arm in arm in the crowd, like a couple of young lovers … But hold on … You haven’t heard the best bit yet …
‘You know Strong-Arm Eugène’s stand? … At the end of the show, Eugène issued a challenge to the crowd … Right now he has a wrestler working with him … Well, our Mr Clark took up the challenge against him … He went and got undressed behind a tatty piece of cloth and gave Eugène’s wrestler a real thrashing … I imagine the girl must have been in the front row, cheering him on … Apparently, people were yelling:
‘“Go on, Englishman! … Bite his nose off! …”
‘After which, our lovers went dancing at the Moulin de la Galette … By three o’clock they were at the Coupole, eating grilled sausages, and I assume that after that they went quietly to bed …
‘The Hotel Aiglon doesn’t have a porter, only a night watchman who sleeps in a box room and pulls the rope without taking too much notice of who comes in … He remembers hearing someone speaking English at about four in the morning … He claims nobody went out …
‘There it is! Don’t you think that for people staying at the Majestic, it’s a strange way to spend an evening?’
Maigret said neither yes nor no, checked the time on his wristwatch, which he only wore on special occasions (it had been a present for his twentieth wedding anniversary), and left the table he had been using as a seat.
‘Have a good night, boys …’
He was already at the door when he retraced his steps and finished his glass of beer. He had to walk two or three hundred metres before he found a taxi.
‘Rue Fontaine …’
It was one o’clock in the morning. The nightlife of Montmartre was in full swing. A negro greeted him at the doorway of the Pélican, and he was obliged to leave his hat and overcoat in the cloakroom. As he walked into the room, where streamers and multicoloured cotton balls fluttered overhead, he swayed a little, like a man who isn’t especially comfortable.
‘A table by the dance-floor? … This way! … Are you alone? …’
He almost muttered to the head waiter, who hadn’t recognized him:
‘Idiot!’
The barman, though, had spotted him from a distance and was already whispering something to the two hostesses standing with their elbows on the mahogany bar.
Maigret sat down, like a customer, and, as there was no beer on offer, ordered a fine à l’eau. Before ten minutes had passed, the owner, who had been informed, sat down facing him.
‘No trouble, I hope, sir? … You know I’ve always been straight and …’
He was looking around the room, searching for anyone who might have provoked this unexpected visit from the police.
‘It’s all right …’ Maigret replied. ‘I just felt like a bit of entertainment …’
He took his pipe from his pocket, realized from the owner’s expression that it would be out of place and put it back with a sigh.
‘If you need any information at all …’ the other man murmured, with a wink. ‘But I know all my staff … I don’t think we have anyone here right now who might be of interest to you … As for the customers, well, you can see for yourself … The usual crowd … Foreigners, provincials … That man over there, with Léa, is a deputy …’
Maigret stood up and walked heavily to the staircase that led down to the toilets. They were in a large, well-lit room in the basement, its walls covered in blue porcelain. Polished mahogany phone booths. Mirrors. And on a long table, a multitude of implements: combs, brushes, a manicure kit, powder in every imaginable shade, lipsticks …
‘It’s always the same when you dance with him! Pass me a pair of stockings, Charlotte …’
A short woman was sitting on a chair with her evening dress hitched up. She had already taken off one stocking, and sat there gazing at her bare foot while Charlotte rummaged in a drawer.
‘Still 44 sheer?’
‘That’s it! … Give it to me! … When a man can’t dance, at least he should …’
She saw Maigret in the mirror and continued putting on her new stockings, throwing him a little glance from time to time. Charlotte, turning, now also saw the inspector and went pale.
‘Oh, it’s you …’
She tried to laugh. She was no longer quite the same woman as the one who had been putting her feet up on the stove and stuffing herself with pastries in that little house in Saint-Cloud.
Her blonde hair was so carefully groomed that the folds seemed permanent. Her skin was candy-pink. A simple black silk dress emphasized her soft figure, and over it she wore a dainty lace apron, the kind you hardly ever see except on a maid in a drawing-room comedy.
‘I’ll pay you for this with the rest, Charlotte …’
‘Of course …’
The small woman realized that the visitor was waiting for her to leave and, after putting her shoes back on, she rushed upstairs. As for Charlotte, who was pretending to put away the toilet articles, she at last made up her mind to ask:
‘What do you want with me?’
Maigret did not reply. He had just sat down on the chair vacated by the woman with the new stockings. He took advantage of being in the basement to fill a pipe, slowly and meticulously.
‘If you think I know anything, you’re wrong …’
Isn’t it remarkable that it’s the women who are placid by temperament who are most inclined to show their emotions? Charlotte would have liked to remain calm, but she couldn’t stop her face from becoming mottled with red, nor her hands from picking up the objects so clumsily that she dropped a nail buffer.
‘I was absolutely sure, from the way you looked at me at our house earlier on, that you assumed …’
‘Of course, you’ve never known a dancer or hostess named Mimi, have you?’
‘Never!’
‘And yet you yourself were a hostess in Cannes for a long time … You were there at the same time as this Mimi …’
‘There’s more than one nightclub in Cannes, and you can’t know everybody …’
‘You were at the Belle Étoile, weren’t you?’
‘What of it?’
‘Nothing … I just dropped by for a little chat …’
They were silent for a good five minutes, because a customer came down, washed his hands, combed his hair, then asked for a cloth to buff up his brightly polished shoes. When at last he had left a five-franc coin in the saucer, Maigret resumed:
‘I have a lot of sympathy for Prosper Donge … I wager he’s the best man in the world …’
‘You have no idea!’ she exclaimed passionately.
‘He had a difficult childhood and seems to have always struggled to …’
‘What if I told you he doesn’t have his school certificate and that everything he knows he taught himself? … If you had a look in his coffee room, you’d find books that people like us don’t usually read … He’s always had a passion for learning … His dream would have been …’
She broke off and tried to regain her composure.
‘Did the phone just ring?’
‘No …’
‘What was I saying?’
‘That his dream would have been …’
‘Do you know Jean Ramuel?’
‘No! I know he’s the bookkeeper and that he’s sick, that’s all. Prosper doesn’t talk much about the Majestic … Not like me, I tell him everything that goes on here …’
Now that he had reassured her, he tried to get a little bit further.
‘You see, what struck me was that … I shouldn’t tell you this … It’s confidential while the investigation’s still going on … But I’m sure it’ll stay between ourselves … Believe it or not, the revolver that was found in this Mrs Clark’s bag was bought the day before from a gunsmith in Faubourg Saint-Honoré … Don’t you think that’s odd? … A rich woman, married, with a son, arriving from New York, staying at a luxury hotel on the Champs-Élysées, who suddenly feels the need to buy a revolver … And not some pretty little ladies’ revolver, mind you, but a serious firearm …’
He was avoiding looking at her, staring instead at the shiny tips of his shoes, as if surprised to see himself looking so well turned out.
‘When you consider the fact that a few hours later this same woman slips down to the basement of the hotel by the service stairs … Hard not to assume she’s arranged to meet someone … Or that it’s in anticipation of that meeting that she bought her gun … Now suppose that this woman, who’s so respectable these days, had a turbulent past and that a witness of that past tried to blackmail her … Do you know if Ramuel ever lived on the Côte d’Azur? … Or a professional dancer known as Zebio? …’
‘I don’t know him.’
Without looking at her, he knew she was on the verge of tears.
‘There’s someone else, the night porter, who could have killed her, because he went down to the basement at about six in the morning … Prosper Donge heard his steps on the service stairs … Not to mention that any of the floor waiters … It’s a pity, really, that you didn’t know Mimi in Cannes … You might have been able to tell me something about the people she rubbed shoulders with in those days … Never mind! … I’d have liked to avoid having to go to Cannes … It wouldn’t look good if I found someone down there who knew her …’
He stood up, emptied his pipe and searched in his pocket as if to put small change in the saucer.
‘You wouldn’t do that!’ she protested.
‘Goodnight … I wonder what time there’s a train …’
As soon as he got back upstairs, he paid for his drink and hurried to the bar opposite, a café-tobacconist’s frequented by the staff of all the nightclubs in the area.
‘Phone, please …’
He called the telephone exchange.
‘Police Judiciaire here. Somebody’s probably going to call you from the Pélican and ask you for a number in Cannes. Don’t put them through too quickly … Wait till I get there …’
Just enough time to jump into a taxi. He rushed to the exchange and presented himself to the night supervisor.
‘Give me a pair of headphones … Has anyone asked for Cannes?’
‘Just now … I checked the number … It’s the Brasserie des Artistes, which is open all night … Shall I put them through?’
Maigret put on the headphones and waited. A number of female employees, also wearing headphones, watched him curiously.
‘We’re putting you through to 18-43 in Cannes, mademoiselle …’
‘Thanks … Hello, Brasserie des Artistes? … Who’s that? … Is it you, Jean? … This is Charlotte … That’s right! … Charlotte from the Belle Étoile … Wait … Let me close the door … I think there’s someone here …’
You could hear her talking, probably to a customer. Then the noise of a door closing.
‘Listen, Jean … This is very important … I’ll write and explain … Or rather, no, it’s too dangerous … I’ll come and see you later, when it’s all over … Is Gigi still there? … What? … No change there, then … You absolutely have to tell her that, if she’s asked about Mimi … Do you remember Mimi? … No, you weren’t there yet! … Anyway, if she’s asked anything about her … That’s right, she doesn’t know a thing! … Above all, she shouldn’t say anything about Prosper …’
‘What Prosper?’ Jean asked at the other end of the line.
‘Never mind … She doesn’t know any Prosper, have you got that? Or any Mimi … Hello? Don’t cut us off … Who’s on the line?’
Maigret heard the alarm in her voice: the idea may have crossed her mind that someone was listening in to the conversation.
‘Have you got that, Jean? … Can I count on you? … I’ll hang up now, because there’s someone …’
Maigret took off his headphones and relit his pipe, which had gone out.
‘Did you find out what you wanted?’ the supervisor asked.
‘Maybe … Get me Gare de Lyon … I need to know the time of the next train to Cannes … As long as …’
He looked down testily at his dinner jacket. As long as he had time to …
‘Hello? … What’s that? … Four seventeen? … And I’ll get there at two in the afternoon? … Thanks …’
Just time to rush back to Boulevard Richard-Lenoir and laugh over Madame Maigret’s dismay.
‘My suit, quickly … A shirt … Socks …’
At 4.17, he was on the train bound for the Côte d’Azur, sitting opposite a lady with a horrible Pekinese on her lap who kept giving Maigret funny looks, doubtless suspecting him of not liking dogs.
At about the same time, Charlotte was getting into a taxi, as she did every night. It was a taxi that worked mainly with the customers of the Pélican and which took her home for free.
At five o’clock, Prosper Donge heard a car door slamming, the noise of the engine, footsteps, the key in the lock.
But he didn’t hear the usual phffft of the gas in the kitchen. Without stopping on the ground floor, Charlotte rushed upstairs and opened the door, yelling:
‘Prosper! … Listen! Don’t pretend to sleep … The inspector …’
Before going any further, she had to undo the button of her brassiere and pull her girdle down, twisting her stockings as she did so.
‘We have to talk seriously! Come on, get up! … It isn’t easy talking to a man who’s lying down!’
4. Gigi and the Carnival
For three hours, Maigret had the unpleasant impression that he was wading in a kind of no man’s land between reality and dream. Was it his fault? As far as Lyons and further, perhaps as far as Montélimar, the train had sped through a tunnel of wet fog. The woman with the little dog hadn’t left her seat opposite the inspector, and there were no empty compartments. Maigret had been unable to get comfortable. It was too hot. When the window was lowered, it was too cold.
So he had gone to the restaurant car and, to buck himself up, had drunk a bit of everything, first coffee, then liqueur brandy, then beer.
About eleven, feeling queasy, he had told himself it might be better if he ate something and had ordered ham and eggs, which went down no better than the rest.
In short, he felt the effects of his sleepless night, the hours on the train; he was on edge. Leaving Marseilles, he fell asleep in his corner, with his mouth open, giving a start when he heard the cry ‘Cannes!’ and sitting there dazed for a moment.
Mimosas everywhere, and sunlight so bright it might have been the Fourteenth of July. Mimosas on the engines, on the carriages, on the iron pillars of the station! And a swarm of travellers in bright clothes, men in white trousers …
Dozens of them emerged from a railcar, wearing peaked caps and carrying brass instruments. As soon as he left the station, he ran into another brass band, blaring its bright notes into the air.
It was a riot of light, sounds and colours. Everywhere there were flags and banners, and above all, everywhere there were golden mimosas giving off a sugary smell that pervaded the whole
town.
‘Excuse me, sergeant,’ he asked a policeman who looked equally festive, ‘could you tell me what’s going on?’
The policeman looked at him as if he had just arrived from another planet. ‘Haven’t you heard about the flower parade?’
Other brass bands were crisscrossing the streets, heading for the sea, which could be glimpsed occasionally, pastel blue, at the end of a street.
He was long to remember a little girl dressed as a pierrette being dragged along quickly by her mother, probably to get a good view of the parade. There wouldn’t have been anything remarkable about it if the little girl hadn’t been wearing an extraordinary mask, with a long nose, red cheekbones and a droopy moustache like a Chinaman’s. Her plump little legs scurried beneath her …
He didn’t need to ask for directions. As he neared the Croisette, he spotted a sign along a quiet street: ‘Brasserie des Artistes’. Further on, a door: ‘Hotel’. He could see immediately what kind of hotel it was.
He went in. Four customers, dressed in black, with white shirt fronts and stiff ties, were playing belote until it was time for them to start their shift as croupiers at the casino. A girl sat by the window, eating sauerkraut. The waiter was wiping the tables. A young man who was probably the owner was reading a newspaper behind the counter. And from outside, from far and near, from everywhere, came the echoes of brass bands and the overpowering smell of mimosas, dust stirred by the feet of the crowd, cries, car horns hooting …
‘A beer!’ Maigret grunted, at last divesting himself of his heavy overcoat. He was almost embarrassed to be dressed as darkly as the croupiers. As soon as he entered, there had been an exchange of looks between him and the owner.
‘Tell me, Monsieur Jean …’
Monsieur Jean was obviously thinking: ‘He’s probably a cop …’
‘Have you had this brasserie for a long time?’
‘I took it over nearly three years ago … Why?’