Maigret's Revolver Read online

  ‘What will you have?’

  ‘A glass of port.’

  She smoothed her hair back either side of the little hat she was wearing, and crossed her shapely legs.

  ‘You know your father is ill?’

  ‘He’s been ill for ever.’

  There was no pity or emotion in her voice.

  ‘He’s in bed.’

  ‘I dare say.’

  ‘And your brother has disappeared.’

  He noted that she gave a start, since this news had taken her aback more than she wanted to admit.

  ‘It doesn’t surprise you?’

  ‘Nothing surprises me any more.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘I’ve seen too much. What is it exactly you want from me?’

  It was hard to reply straight away to such a direct question, as she calmly took a cigarette out of a case and said:

  ‘Have you got a light?’

  He held out a lit match.

  ‘I’m waiting.’

  ‘How old are you?’

  ‘I don’t suppose you took the trouble to come here to find out my age. From your badge you’re not an ordinary inspector but a chief, someone important.’

  Then, as she looked at him more closely:

  ‘You’re not the famous Maigret, are you?’

  ‘I am Detective Chief Inspector Maigret, yes.’

  ‘Has Alain killed someone?’

  ‘What makes you think that?’

  ‘Because if you are handling this affair, I presume it’s something serious.’

  ‘Your brother might be a victim.’

  ‘He’s really been killed, you mean?’

  Still no emotion. It was true that she did not seem to believe it.

  ‘He’s wandering around Paris somewhere with a loaded revolver.’

  ‘There could be quite a few people doing that, don’t you think?

  ‘He stole this revolver yesterday morning.’

  ‘Where from?’

  ‘From me.’

  ‘He came to see you? To your home?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘When there was nobody in? You mean he burgled your place?’

  This seemed to amuse her. An ironic expression passed across her face.

  ‘And you feel no more affection for Alain than you do for your father?’

  ‘I feel no affection for anybody, myself included.’

  ‘How old are you?’

  ‘Twenty-one and seven months.’

  ‘So it’s seven months since you left your father’s home?’

  ‘Call that a home? Have you been there?’

  ‘Do you think your brother is capable of killing someone?’

  Was it to sound intriguing that she replied, with a mocking air:

  ‘Why not? Everyone’s capable of it, don’t you think?’

  If they had been anywhere but on this café terrace, where a nearby couple was beginning to eavesdrop, he might have shaken her with exasperation.

  ‘Mademoiselle, did you know your mother?’

  ‘Hardly. I was three years old when she died, just after Alain was born.’

  ‘So who brought you up?’

  ‘My father.’

  ‘He looked after three children on his own?’

  ‘When he had to.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘When he didn’t have enough money to pay a nursemaid. There was a time when we had two maids, but it didn’t last. Sometimes a housekeeper took care of us, sometimes a neighbour. You don’t seem to know much about the family.’

  ‘Did you always live in Rue Popincourt?’

  ‘We’ve lived anywhere and everywhere, even up by the Bois de Boulogne. We would go up in the world, then down, then back up a bit, until we were really on a downward slope. And now, if you haven’t anything more important to tell me, it’s time I was going, because I’m meeting my friend.’

  ‘Where do you live?’

  ‘Just round the corner, Rue de Berri.’

  ‘In a hotel?’

  ‘No, we each have a room in a private house. I suppose you’ll be wanting the exact address.’

  She gave it to him.

  ‘Well, it was interesting to meet you, all the same. You get these ideas about people.’

  He dared not ask what idea she had had about him, let alone what she thought now. She stood up, in her figure-hugging suit, and the other customers looked at her, then at Maigret, probably thinking he was a lucky man. He got up in turn and said goodbye to her on the pavement.

  ‘Thank you,’ he said, reluctantly.

  ‘You’re welcome. Don’t worry about Alain.’

  ‘Why not?’

  She shrugged her shoulders.

  ‘Oh, just a notion. I get the feeling that although you’re the famous Maigret, you’ve got a lot to learn.’

  And with that, she walked off briskly towards the nearby Rue de Berri without a backward glance. He had not retained the police car. He took the Métro, which was crowded, allowing him to go on nursing his bad mood. He was out of sorts with everyone, including himself. If he had bumped into Pardon, he would have reproached him for ever having mentioned this Lagrange character, with his look of a fat ghost inflated with air. He was still feeling sore at his wife over the incident with the revolver, and not far off holding her responsible for it.

  But none of this should really be concerning him. The Métro smelled of disinfectant. The advertisements, always the same in every station, disgusted him. Outside, the sun was almost baking hot, and he was irritated by the sun as well, for making him sweat. Seeing him come in, the office boy understood that he was in a bad mood and merely nodded discreetly.

  On his desk, in a prominent position, and protected from draughts by one of his pipes acting as a paperweight, was a note:

  Please telephone the Gare du Nord transport police as soon as possible.

  It was signed Lucas.

  He picked up the phone, asked for the number, his hat still on his head, and in order to light his pipe he cradled the receiver against his shoulder.

  ‘Is Lucas still there?’

  Maigret had spent the two most tedious years of his life in that police station and knew it inside out. He heard an inspector saying:

  ‘It’s for you. Your boss.’

  And Lucas:

  ‘Hello! I wondered if you’d be back at the office. I phoned your home as well.’

  ‘Did you find the taxi-driver?’

  ‘Stroke of luck. He told me he was in this bar on Place Voltaire last night when a customer rolled up asking him to take his cab out again, a big fat man, looking important, and he wanted to go to Gare du Nord.’

  ‘To put a trunk in the left luggage?’

  ‘That’s right, you’ve got it. The trunk’s still here.’

  ‘Have you opened it?’

  ‘They won’t let me.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘The staff at the station. They want the ticket or else a warrant.’

  ‘Anything special about it?’

  ‘Yes, there is. It stinks!’

  ‘You mean . . . ?’

  ‘What you think, yes. If it isn’t a corpse, the trunk must be full of rotten meat. Shall I wait?’

  ‘I’ll be there in half an hour.’

  Maigret went to the chief’s office. The latter telephoned the law courts. The examining magistrate had just left, but one of his deputies eventually agreed to take responsibility.

  When Maigret came back into the inspectors’ office, Torrence had not returned yet. Janvier was writing a report.

  ‘Take someone with you. Go to 37a, Rue Popincourt. It’s to do with a certain François Lagrange, who lives on the third floor left, across the courtyard. But don’t let him see you. He’s a big fat man, and looks unhealthy. Take a photo of the son with you.’

  ‘What do we do about him?’

  ‘Nothing. If the son should happen to come in and leave again, follow him discreetly. He’s armed. If the father
goes out, though I’d be surprised if he does, follow him too.’

  A few minutes later, Maigret was being driven to Gare du Nord. He recalled what Lagrange’s daughter had said on the café terrace on the Champs-Élysées:

  ‘Everyone’s capable of it, don’t you think?’

  Or something like that. And now it seemed someone had indeed been killed.

  He threaded his way through the crowds and found Lucas chatting casually to an inspector from the transport police.

  ‘Got a warrant, chief? I warn you, the man in charge of left luggage is a stubborn fellow, and the police don’t cut any ice with him.’

  That turned out to be true. The clerk fingered the document, turning it this way and that, and put on his glasses to examine the signature and the seals.

  ‘Well, as long as it’s clear it’s not my responsibility . . .’

  With a resigned but disapproving gesture, he pointed to a large old-fashioned grey trunk, its canvas torn in places, tied up with rope. Lucas had exaggerated, saying it stank, but there was a stale smell coming from it which Maigret well recognized.

  ‘I suppose you’re not going to open it here?’

  It was rush hour, and people were thronging to the ticket barriers.

  ‘Do you have someone here who can help us?’ Maigret asked the clerk.

  ‘There are porters on the station. You don’t expect me to carry it myself, do you?’

  The trunk wouldn’t go into the small police car from headquarters. Lucas had it put in a taxi. It was all rather irregular. Maigret wanted to move fast.

  ‘Where’ll we take it, chief?’

  ‘To the lab, that’ll be the most practical thing. Jussieu’s probably still there.’

  He met Torrence on the stairs.

  ‘Chief, something—’

  ‘You found him?’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘The young man.’

  ‘No, but—’

  ‘Then it can wait.’

  Jussieu was indeed still there. There were four or five people around the trunk, taking photographs from every angle and trying out different approaches before opening it.

  Half an hour later, Maigret telephoned the commissioner’s office.

  ‘He’s just left,’ he was told.

  Maigret called his home number, and learned that he was due to dine at a restaurant on the Left Bank. The restaurant reported that he had not yet arrived. They had to wait another ten minutes.

  ‘Forgive me for disturbing you, sir. Maigret here. It’s about the business I mentioned to you. Lucas was right. I think you should come over, because it’s someone important, and it might cause a stir.’

  He paused.

  ‘It’s André Delteil, the politician . . . Yes, I’m sure . . . Very well . . . Yes, I’ll wait for you.’

  3.

  Concerning someone as inconvenient in death as in life and Maigret’s sleepless night

  The Paris prefect of police was attending a dinner for foreign journalists in a grand hotel on Avenue Montaigne when the head of the Police Judiciaire managed to track him down by telephone. His immediate reaction was one word:

  ‘S—!’

  Then there was a silence.

  ‘I hope the press isn’t on to it yet,’ he finally muttered.

  ‘Not yet, no. There’s a reporter prowling round our corridors, he knows something’s up. We won’t be able to hide from him much longer what it’s about.’

  The journalist, Gérard Lombras, a hack reporter who specialized in minor scoops, always came round to Quai des Orfèvres in the evening and was sitting on the top step of the staircase, just opposite the door of the laboratory, patiently smoking his pipe.

  ‘Don’t say a word and don’t do anything until you hear from me,’ the prefect ordered.

  Then, from one of the telephone cabins in the hotel, he in turn called the minister of the interior. This was going to be a night of interrupted dinners, and yet it was a beautiful warm evening, with the streets of Paris full of strollers. Some of those walking along the embankments must have wondered why there were so many lights on in the offices of the old Palais de Justice building, although it was not yet dark.

  The minister of the interior, who was from the Cantal area and still retained his regional accent and blunt speech, had exclaimed on hearing the news:

  ‘Even when he’s dead, this one’s a pain in the a—!’

  The Delteils lived in a large town-house on Boulevard Suchet, at the edge of the Bois de Boulogne. When Maigret finally obtained permission to telephone the residence, a valet told him that Madame was not in Paris.

  ‘Any idea when she’ll be back?’

  ‘Not before the autumn. She’s in Miami. Monsieur isn’t here either.’

  Maigret asked, on the off-chance:

  ‘You don’t know where he is, do you?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Was he in Paris yesterday?’

  A hesitation.

  ‘I’m not sure.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Well, Monsieur went out.’

  ‘When?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘The night before last?’

  ‘Yes, I think so. Who is this, please?’

  ‘I’m calling from Paris police headquarters.’

  ‘I don’t know anything. Monsieur’s not here.’

  ‘Does he have any family in Paris?’

  ‘Yes, his brother, Monsieur Pierre.’

  ‘Can you give me his address?’

  ‘I think he lives near Place de l’Étoile. I can give you his telephone number. Wait a minute . . . Balzac 51-02.’

  ‘And you weren’t surprised when your employer did not come home?’

  ‘No, sir.’

  ‘Had he told you he wouldn’t be home?’

  ‘No, sir.’

  Some new faces were turning up at the lab. The examining magistrate, Rateau, summoned from a friend’s house where he had been playing bridge, had just arrived, as had the public prosecutor, and they were talking to each other in low voices. Doctor Paul, the pathologist, who had also been dining out, was one of the last to appear, his eternal cigarette in his mouth.

  ‘Should I take him away?’ he asked, pointing to the trunk in which the corpse still lay curled up.

  ‘As soon as you have noted your initial findings.’

  ‘Well, I can tell you for a start this isn’t a fresh one from today. Oh, Good Lord! It’s Delteil!’

  ‘Yes indeed.’

  A ‘yes indeed’ that spoke volumes. Ten years earlier, none of those present would have been able to recognize the dead man. In those days, he had been a young lawyer more likely to be found at the Roland-Garros tennis courts, or in a café on the Champs-Élysées, than in the Palais de Justice, and he looked more like a film star than a member of the Paris bar.

  A little later, he had married a wealthy American woman, moved into the house on Boulevard Suchet, and three years after that had stood for election to the National Assembly. Even his opponents, during the electoral campaign, had not taken him seriously.

  But he had been elected, by a slim majority, and overnight had started to make waves.

  He did not belong to any political party but had become the scourge of them all, forever challenging people, revealing corruption, shady deals, scandals, without anyone being able to discover exactly what his motives were.

  At the beginning of any important debate, deputies and ministers would be asking:

  ‘Is Delteil here?’

  And their faces would cloud over. If he was there, with his Hollywood tan and film-star looks, his slim dark moustache curled up at the ends, it meant there would be a lively session.

  Maigret was looking grumpy. He had called the brother’s number, a furnished town-house on Rue de Ponthieu, and had been told to try Fouquet’s. Fouquet’s sent him to Maxim’s.

  ‘Is Monsieur Pierre Delteil there?’

  ‘Who wants to know?’

  ‘Tell
him it’s about his brother.’

  He finally got the other man on the line. The message must have reached him in garbled form.

  ‘That you, André?’

  ‘No, this is the Police Judiciaire. Can you take a taxi and come over here at once?’

  ‘I’ve got my car outside. What’s this about?’

  ‘Your brother.’

  ‘Has something happened to him?’

  ‘Don’t speak to anyone until you’ve seen me.’

  ‘But—’

  Maigret hung up, and looked irritably at the groups of men who had gathered in the large room, then, since he was not needed immediately, went back down to his office. The journalist Lombras followed closely on his heels.

  ‘You won’t forget me, inspector?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘In another hour, it’ll be too late for my edition.’

  ‘I’ll see you before that.’

  ‘Who is it? A bigwig?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Torrence was waiting, but before speaking to him Maigret telephoned his wife.

  ‘Don’t count on me for this evening, or probably all night.’

  ‘I thought so, since you didn’t come home.’

  A silence. He knew what, or rather who, she was thinking about.

  ‘Is it him?’

  ‘Well, at any rate, he hasn’t killed himself yet.’

  ‘Has he shot someone?’

  ‘That I don’t know.’

  He had not told them the whole story, upstairs. He had no wish to tell it. He would have to spend perhaps another hour having to deal with his tedious superiors, before he could get on with his investigation in peace.

  He turned to Torrence.

  ‘Find the kid?’

  ‘No. I saw his former boss and colleagues. He only left there three weeks ago.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘He got the sack.’

  ‘For some misdemeanour?’

  ‘No, it seems he’s honest, all right. But recently, he was always calling in absent. At first they didn’t hold it against him. Everyone seemed to like him. But as he started taking more and more time off . . .’