Signed, Picpus Page 4

  ‘Where is it?’

  ‘It’s on the Seine, upstream from Corbeil …’

  ‘No … Most often we’d go out up the Marne, to Joinville … A few months ago, Joseph got very enthusiastic about bridge …’

  ‘Did he ever mention the countess?’

  ‘Which countess?’

  But though Maigret searches the room with all the delicacy at his command, he comes up with nothing, nothing of a revelatory nature. In the desk, a number of notebooks in which Mascouvin, obsessively, kept detailed records. Books about bridge. Analyses of tricky games.

  Mademoiselle Berthe points out a photo on the wall of her parents taken in front of their house which also shows her crouching at their feet.

  ‘Do you think your half-brother was capable of stealing?’

  ‘Stealing? Him? … With all his scruples?’

  She laughed uncertainly.

  ‘It’s obvious you don’t know him … I remember when for a whole week he almost made himself sick with worry because he couldn’t find where he’d made a mistake of a few centimes in his accounts …’

  ‘Listen to me. I advise you to go to work. As soon as there are any developments, it will be simple for us to contact you at the agency by phone …’

  ‘That is a promise, isn’t it, inspector? Even if I can’t speak to him … If I could only catch a glimpse of him, just see him with my own eyes and know that he’s alive …’

  Maigret closes the window, takes one last look round the room and puts the key in his pocket. He has a quick word with the concierge. No, there was never any post for Monsieur Mascouvin. But now and then on a Saturday he used to get a pneumatic express letter from his half-sister when they were due to go out together on the Sunday. Yes, just recently the concierge noticed that he seemed preoccupied.

  ‘Such a considerate man, inspector! … You know, he’d never cross the yard without saying hello to the kids and at the end of every month he always brought them sweets …’

  Maigret heads off on foot towards Place de la République. The Café des Sports is almost deserted. Nestor, the waiter, is wiping the imitation marble tabletops.

  ‘Monsieur Mascouvin? I can’t tell you what a shock it was when I opened the paper this morning! … There, that’s where he always sat …’

  A slot machine, next to the counter. At the back of the room, a Russian billiards table near which Mascouvin sat every day at the same time.

  ‘No. I never saw him talk to anyone … He’d linger over his aperitif, which was always the same. He’d read his newspaper. Then he’d call me over and always gave me a twenty-five sou tip … When you saw him walk in, you knew almost to the minute what time it was …’

  ‘Did he often ask you for pen and paper?’

  ‘I think it was the first time …’

  Unfortunately Nestor is unable to say if on that evening Mascouvin wrote anything or just stared at the blotter in front of him. Nor can the waiter remember who used the blotting-pad before him.

  ‘It gets pretty busy here of an afternoon!’

  Maigret sighs, mops his face and climbs on the platform of a bus and dreams listlessly of fine sand and the steady rhythm of white-crested waves.

  ‘There’s another young woman for you, Maigret. Isn’t it just your lucky day!’

  This time a quite different type from Mademoiselle Berthe. A well-built girl of eighteen, by no means flat-chested, pink complexion, eyes set close to her head. Gives the impression that she’s just been milking cows and smells of milk.

  Actually this is more or less literally true, because she works in the dairy in Rue Coulaincourt. She is so overcome she feels she could cry.

  ‘Monsieur Jules just said …’

  ‘Excuse me? … Who is Monsieur Jules?’

  ‘My boss … He just said I had to come to see you …’

  She begins to get used to the atmosphere in the office and the heavy presence of the inspector, who sits there good-naturedly smoking his pipe.

  ‘Tell me all about it.’

  ‘I don’t know what his name is, I swear! … It was the car I noticed more than him, a convertible, green …’

  ‘But the young man … Describe this young man …’

  The girl blushes. Her name is Emma, and she only came to Paris from Rouen a couple of months ago. It’s her job to deliver milk to almost every house in Rue Coulaincourt. In the afternoon, she serves in the shop.

  ‘I don’t know if he’s a young man. Maybe he’s married? …’

  In any case it’s obvious she’s in love with the man who drives the green convertible.

  ‘He’s tall, dark, very well dressed, always wears pale hats. Once he had a pair of binoculars on a strap over his shoulder …’

  ‘And he always parked his car a bit lower down than number 67?’

  ‘How do you know? … He’d come once a week, rarely twice … I’d see him go into 67A … I thought he must be going in to see a woman …’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because he was dressed like he was going to see a woman! … I can’t explain it … He smelled nice …’

  ‘So you passed very close to him?’

  Poor Emma! You could clearly picture her at around four thirty of an afternoon watching out for the green convertible then finding an excuse to rush outside and contrive some means or other to brush past the man of her dreams!

  ‘Did he come yesterday?’

  She is on the verge of tears and says yes with a nod of her head.

  ‘What time?’

  ‘I don’t know exactly but it was about five o’clock. He didn’t stay long … Of course he wasn’t the one who killed that woman …’

  Is that so? Maigret questions her patiently, agreeing with whatever she says. What this brawny girl is saying is a great deal more interesting than she realizes, because the description she gives ties in to the sort of man who it is not surprising to find mixed up in this sort of case.

  Too well dressed – Emma herself says it. Clothes that are too pale and always look new. A diamond ring on his finger. She also noticed that he had two gold teeth.

  A regular at the races. Maigret will have to check with vice and the gambling squad. What if they came up with a man answering to his description among the countess’s regulars?

  ‘I am very grateful to you, mademoiselle … Monsieur Jules was quite right to tell you to come and see me …’

  ‘He’s innocent, isn’t he? I can’t believe that a man like him …’

  What she doesn’t say – though it is of absolutely no importance for the investigation – is that for the last few weeks every time the green convertible parks in Rue Coulaincourt, she drops a flower on the seat as she walks past!

  ‘Did you notice anyone else going into 67A at about five o’clock?’

  ‘A woman …’

  ‘What sort of woman?’

  Her description corresponds fairly closely to the landlady of the Beau Pigeon, but Emma cannot remember if the woman went into the house before or after the man in the convertible had come out.

  As he speaks, Maigret jots down orders. Get an alert out for all green convertibles. Check among the racing fraternity for a man who is young, dark, etc.

  ‘Hello? … Hôtel-Dieu?’

  Mascouvin is not dead. The consultant in person has answered the phone. It seems the patient has a twenty per cent chance of recovering …

  There’s no way he can be questioned for a week – provided all goes well.

  ‘Hello? Mademoiselle Berthe? Your brother will probably be all right … No, you can’t see him yet … I’ll keep you informed …’

  A vast beach and the endless expanse of a mill-pond sea … It’s hot and Maigret sighs … This is the most laborious, the most discouraging time in any investigation … Individuals start taking shape, groups begin forming …

  Did they lock the old man up in his room on Boulevard des Batignolles? As it happens, the answer is forthcoming. A phone call from Inspector Torrence.
>
  ‘Is that you, sir? … I’m phoning from a little bar on the river … Our man left home at exactly nine o’clock … What? … Yes … He was indeed wearing his thick overcoat … No, he didn’t look my way … He doesn’t look at anything … He just walks straight ahead, like a convalescent out for a constitutional … Now and then he stops and looks in a shop window … He is very careful when he’s crossing the road as if he’s scared of the traffic … He hasn’t turned round once … At the minute, he’s standing behind a man fishing … I can see him from here … What’s that? … No he hasn’t spoken to anyone … What? I can’t hear you clearly … Newspaper? … He hasn’t bought a newspaper … Right … As you wish … Understood, I just carry on … I’ve been lucky enough to find an amazing Vouvray …’

  Maigret makes his way solemnly, ponderously, along a service corridor to the lab located under the eaves of the Palais de Justice. He shakes hands, leans forward and peers at what the experts are doing.

  ‘You boys come up with anything?’

  Nothing interesting. The handwriting on the blotter may have been either a man’s or a woman’s, and there are no fingerprints on the blotting paper itself. There are many different ones on the writing pad. Just in case, they ran a check against those of known criminals but without result.

  Doctor Paul, jovial as ever and extravagantly bearded, comes over in turn to say hello to the visitor.

  ‘So there you are, Maigret! … Listen, about the bright spark who struck these two blows with a blade … The first missed the heart by a few millimetres. The second one, however, scored a direct hit on the left ventricle. I’m going to give you something to go on … It is not possible that the murderer, from where he was standing when he struck, could have avoided being splashed by the blood, which would have spurted out with some force …’

  When they had found Octave Le Cloaguen in the kitchen he had no blood on his clothes, which had not been washed.

  Janvier, who has had only a few hours’ sleep, is back at Quai des Orfèvres.

  ‘Take this picture, it’s a photo of Mascouvin, go back to Rue Coulaincourt and show it around …’

  He must leave no stone unturned. He can’t afford to neglect any avenue …

  ‘Tell me, doctor … Could a woman have struck those two blows?’

  ‘Yes – if she was strong enough … You are aware that at certain times women, on account of their nervous constitution, can be stronger than a man …’

  A finding unlikely to make things easier, on the contrary!

  Lucas has gone off to pay a call on the countess in Rue des Pyramides. He had to wait an age because she was still in bed. She received him in a diaphanous negligée. The countess is very much the lady of quality. Uses a lorgnette. Insists on calling Lucas ‘officer’.

  Yes, of course, Mascouvin did owe her a small sum. Eight hundred francs? Possibly. Here we are not particularly concerned about small amounts … Absolutely not! She never put pressure on him to pay up … Poor man! … A wretched clerk out of his depth in a club where all the members are persons of substance: a retired colonel, the wife of a successful chocolate manufacturer, the chief clerk of a commercial bank … Two huge drawing rooms furnished in reasonable taste … In one of them a bar, and behind the bar a small galley where the sandwiches are made for patrons who stay late …

  ‘Ask her,’ says Maigret down the phone, ‘if she knows a man who …’

  He describes the man in the green convertible. The countess knows no one of that description.

  ‘That you, Lucas? … Ask around on the street … Maybe someone has seen the convertible? …’

  Maids and sales staff in shops are used to noticing models of cars that stand out from the usual run.

  Coaches full of foreigners arrive in Paris in large numbers. Guides bellow into loudspeakers. The thermometer reads thirty-five degrees in the shade, and no one can dive into a swimming pool anywhere because they are all crammed with bathers standing shoulder to shoulder.

  ‘Tell them to bring me up a beer,’ Maigret orders a clerk in the Police Judiciaire. ‘No, make that two …’

  Midday. Lucas is back.

  ‘Nothing on the green convertible … On the off chance, I took a copy of the list of club members. For it is a properly constituted bridge club. It doesn’t seem like a lot of fun, though. The rooms have pretensions to luxury, but, to judge by the books, which are kept up to date, the games don’t involve high stakes. Some members play for centimes, a few even for sous … Unattached people, people with no family, no friends, or husbands and wives in unhappy marriages who escape the atmosphere at home and spend an evening there, sometimes part of the night. The countess keeps them in order. Everyone tries to behave like it’s high society. But they’ll whine pitifully if they have to settle a debt of thirty or forty francs …’

  ‘Has Le Cloaguen ever set foot inside the club?’

  ‘He’s not on the list.’

  ‘What about his wife? … Or daughter?’

  ‘I thought of that. No one ever heard of them …’

  ‘How about Mademoiselle Jeanne?’

  ‘Got something there … When I showed the countess her photo, I got the impression that she batted an eyelid. She stared at it hard, too hard, then she asked in a voice that sounded a bit strained: “Who is this person?”’

  The waiter in the Brasserie Dauphine, who knows the offices of the Police Judiciaire as well as the tables in his bar, has put the two beers on the desk. Maigret downs the first in one. The other is already in his hand. He catches Lucas’s eye and mutters:

  ‘Sorry. Hope you don’t mind …’

  His thirst is too great. It’s too bad for Lucas, who has had plenty of opportunity to quench his thirst on the way here!

  ‘I’m wondering …’

  Noon strikes. Hundreds of thousands of Parisians will be making the most of the weekend and taking themselves off to the seaside or the country.

  ‘Hello? … Switchboard? … Get my wife on the line …’

  The second glass is almost empty. Both Maigret’s pipes on the desk are hot.

  ‘Madame Maigret? Is that you? … What? … No, I’m not ringing to say I won’t be home for lunch … The very opposite … I’ll be there in … say an hour … Meanwhile, pack the tan case … Yes, the tan one … We’re going to spend the weekend by the river … At Morsang … Yes … See you soon …’

  ‘What am I supposed to be doing?’ asks Lucas, who already knows that he won’t be spending the weekend in the country.

  Maigret, pencil in hand, writes a list of lines of inquiry for everyone to follow up. Rue Coulaincourt … The green convertible … Question all the shopkeepers and bistro staff … Boulevard des Batignolles … Too bad if nothing comes of it all, but it’s vital for Le Cloaguen to be closely tailed … Why not send a man to watch Place des Vosges? … Yes … A man posted near the fountain, to see if certain persons might want to take a look round Mascouvin’s cheerless apartment.

  Forgotten anything? Orders for the house switchboard. Make a record of all the countess’s phone calls. Also Le Cloaguen’s. You never know.

  As for the man with the two gold teeth, Vice and the Gambling Squad are already looking after him and also tomorrow, on race-courses …

  ‘See you Monday, Lucas.’

  ‘Have a good time, sir.’

  Maigret has already got his hat on when he stops.

  ‘By the way, there’s this girl, a Mademoiselle Berthe … Maybe it’s nothing … But never mind … On Monday I’ll want to know what she does between now and then …’

  ‘Pretty is she, sir?’

  ‘A peach … And maybe a peach with a heart …’

  Finally, shaking hands on the way, Maigret walks down the dusty stairs of the Police Judiciaire.

  4. Monsieur Blaise Catches Two Pike

  There are days which, though you don’t know why, sum up a season, a phase of your life, a whole gamut of sensations. That Saturday night at Morsang and the Sunday th
at followed were for Maigret the quintessence of summers spent by the river, the ease of life and the simple, sweet pleasures.

  The lanterns under the trees which did not have to be lit until the end of dinner; the leaves which turned a sumptuous dark green, the green of old tapestries; the whitish mist which rose off the moving surface of the Seine; the sound of laughter from the small restaurant tables and the dreamy voices of loving couples …

  The Maigrets were in bed when someone had brought a gramophone out on to the hotel terrace, and for some considerable time they had heard the sounds of soft, easy music and the crunch of gravel under the feet of dancers.

  Did the inspector really get any sleep that night? The annex of the Beau Pigeon, where the bedrooms were located, resembled a ship, with its exterior iron stairs and the balcony running along the entire length of the first floor. The rooms were small, like cabins, with whitewashed walls, an iron bed, bathroom and a deal hanging closet behind a cretonne curtain … That night everyone slept with their doors and windows open to the August night …

  ‘Have you got enough room?’ breathed Madame Maigret, hugging the wall.

  Of course he didn’t! The bed was far too small for two people. Maigret was beginning to drop off when a sound percolated into his slumber: first, a splash of oars around three o’clock, a rowing-boat being untied; he knew it was Isidore, the inn’s general handyman, who was going out to lift the eel-pots.

  Later, a baby crying. Among the people staying there some young families, in the majority, two dentists, an insurance inspector, some haute couture salesgirls … and all of them were happy and easy-going.

  ‘Where have you got to, Maigret?’

  In the half-light, Madame Maigret made out her husband, braces dangling from his waistband, leaning with his elbows on the taffrail. A fine curl of blue smoke rose from his pipe.

  ‘Tomorrow you’ll only want to have a nap after lunch …’

  Disjointed thoughts … Mademoiselle Jeanne often came to the Beau Pigeon … She danced too … The other hotel guests did not know what she did for a living and, among other things, she would go out for a row on the river with Madame Rialand, the dentist’s wife …