Madame Maigret's Friend Page 4

  ‘I see what you mean.’

  ‘So did Liotard see Steuvels here before Sergeant Lucas came?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘In other words, on the afternoon of the 21st, between the visits by Inspector Lapointe and Sergeant Lucas?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Were you present during their conversation?’

  ‘No, I was downstairs doing the housework, because I’d been away for three days.’

  ‘Do you know what they said to each other? Had they ever met before?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Was it your husband who phoned him and asked him to come?’

  ‘I’m pretty sure it was.’

  Some kids from the neighbourhood came and stuck their faces to the window.

  ‘Would you prefer it if we went downstairs?’ Maigret suggested.

  She led him across the kitchen to a little windowless room. It was very pretty and very intimate, with book-laden shelves all around, the table on which the couple ate and, in a corner, another table that served as a desk.

  ‘You were asking me how my husband spent his time. He’d get up at six every day, winter or summer. In winter, the first thing he’d do would be to light the stove.’

  ‘Why wasn’t it lit on the 21st?’

  ‘It wasn’t cold enough. We’d had a few days of frost, but then the weather turned nice again. Neither of us feel the cold. In the kitchen, I have the gas oven which gives enough warmth, and there’s another one in the workshop which Frans uses for his glue and his tools.

  ‘Before washing, he’d go and get croissants from the bakery while I made the coffee, and we’d have our breakfast.

  ‘Then he’d wash and get straight down to work. I’d leave the house around nine, with most of my housework finished, to go shopping.’

  ‘He never went out to make deliveries?’

  ‘Not very often. People would bring him work, and come and pick it up. When he had to deliver something, I’d go with him. That was more or less the only time we went out.

  ‘We’d have lunch at 12.30.’

  ‘Did he get back to work immediately after lunch?’

  ‘He’d usually stand in the doorway for a while to have a cigarette. He never smoked while he was working.

  ‘That would last until seven, sometimes half past. I never knew what time we’d eat, because he was determined to finish whatever work he had on. Then he’d put up the shutters, wash his hands, and after dinner we’d sit in this room and read until ten or eleven.

  ‘Except for Friday evenings when we went to the Saint-Paul cinema.’

  ‘Did he drink?’

  ‘A glass of brandy every evening, after dinner. Just a small glass, which lasted him a whole hour, because he only ever dipped his lips in it.’

  ‘What about Sunday? Did you go to the country?’

  ‘Never. He hated the country. We’d potter around all morning without getting dressed. He’d do odd jobs. He was the one who made the shelves and pretty much everything we have here. In the afternoon, we’d take a walk around the Francs-Bourgeois neighbourhood, then the Île Saint-Louis, and we often had dinner in a little restaurant near the Pont-Neuf.’

  ‘Is he tight-fisted?’

  She blushed. When she replied, it was more stiffly, and with a question, as is often the case when women are embarrassed. ‘Why do you ask me that?’

  ‘He’s been working like this for more than twenty years, hasn’t he?’

  ‘He’s worked all his life. His mother was very poor. He had an unhappy childhood.’

  ‘And now he’s apparently the most expensive bookbinder in Paris. He doesn’t have to tout for work, and even turns jobs down.’

  ‘That’s true.’

  ‘With what he earns, you could have a comfortable life, a modern apartment, even a car.’

  ‘To do what?’

  ‘He claims he only has one suit at a time, and you don’t seem to have a large wardrobe either.’

  ‘I want for nothing. We eat well.’

  ‘You can’t spend even a third of what he earns.’

  ‘I don’t bother myself with business matters.’

  ‘Most men work with a specific goal in mind. Some want a house in the country, others dream of retiring, others devote themselves to their children. He doesn’t have children, does he?’

  ‘Unfortunately, I can’t have children.’

  ‘And before you?’

  ‘No. He’s hardly known any other women. He made do with you know what. That’s how I met him.’

  ‘What does he do with his money?’

  ‘I don’t know. He must save it.’

  They had in fact found a bank account in Steuvels’ name, at the O. branch of the Société Générale in Rue Saint-Antoine. Almost every week, he made small deposits there, which corresponded to the sums he had been paid by his customers.

  ‘He always worked for the pleasure of working. He’s Flemish. I’m starting to understand what that means. He can spend hours on a binding just for the joy of achieving something remarkable.’

  It was strange: sometimes she spoke about him in the past tense, as if the walls of the Santé had already separated him from the world, sometimes in the present, as if he was going to come home at any moment.

  ‘Did he keep in touch with his family?’

  ‘He never knew his father. He was brought up by an uncle, who placed him in a charitable institution when he was very young – luckily for him, because that was where he learned his trade. But they were treated harshly there, and he doesn’t like talking about it.’

  There was no way out from the apartment except through the door of the workshop. To reach the courtyard, you had to go out in the street and through the arch, past the concierge’s lodge.

  It was amazing, back at Quai des Orfèvres, to hear Lucas juggling with all these names that Maigret could barely keep up with – Madame Salazar the concierge, Mademoiselle Béguin the fourth-floor tenant, the cobbler, the woman who sold umbrellas, the dairy woman and her maid – all of whom he spoke about as if he had known them for ever, detailing their every habit.

  ‘What are you cooking him for tomorrow?’

  ‘Lamb stew. He likes eating. I think you asked me earlier what his passion is outside his work. It’s probably food. And although he’s sitting all day long, and doesn’t take any air or exercise, I’ve never seen a man with such a healthy appetite.’

  ‘Before meeting you, did he have any friends?’

  ‘I don’t think so. He never talked to me about them.’

  ‘Did he already live here?’

  ‘Yes. He did his own housework. Just once a week, Madame Salazar came in and cleaned the place thoroughly. Maybe it’s because we don’t need her any more that she’s never liked me.’

  ‘Do the neighbours know?’

  ‘What I did before? No, I mean not until Frans was arrested. It was the reporters who mentioned it.’

  ‘Have they cold-shouldered you?’

  ‘Some of them. But Frans was so well liked that most of them just feel sorry for us.’

  That was more or less true, in a general way. If, out on the street, they had counted up those for and those against, those for would certainly have prevailed.

  But the locals didn’t want it to end too soon, any more than the newspaper readers did. The greater the mystery, the fiercer the struggle between the police and Philippe Liotard, the happier people were.

  ‘Wha
t did Alfonsi want?’

  ‘He didn’t have time to tell me. He’d only just arrived when you came in. I don’t like the way he comes in here as if it’s a public place, not taking his hat off, calling me by my first name. If Frans was here, he’d long since have thrown him out the door.’

  ‘Is he jealous?’

  ‘He doesn’t like men getting too familiar.’

  ‘Does he love you?’

  ‘Yes, I think so.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘I don’t know. Maybe because I love him.’

  He didn’t smile. Unlike Alfonsi, he had taken his hat off. He wasn’t abrupt, nor did he assume his sly air.

  In that basement, he really did seem like a big man who was honestly trying to understand.

  ‘Obviously you won’t say anything that could be used against him.’

  ‘Of course not. But I don’t have anything like that to say.’

  ‘All the same, it’s obvious that a man was killed in this basement.’

  ‘So the experts say, and I’m not educated enough to contradict them. But he wasn’t killed by Frans.’

  ‘It seems impossible it could have happened without his knowing it.’

  ‘I know what you’re going to say, but I repeat, he’s innocent.’

  Maigret stood up with a sigh. He was pleased that she hadn’t offered him anything to drink, as most people think they have to in such circumstances.

  ‘I’m trying to start again from scratch,’ he admitted. ‘My intention in coming here was to examine the premises again, inch by inch.’

  ‘Why haven’t you? Everything’s been turned upside down so many times!’

  ‘I can’t face it. I may be back. I’m sure I’ll have more questions to ask you.’

  ‘You know I tell Frans everything when I visit him?’

  ‘Yes, I understand.’

  He walked up the narrow staircase, and she followed him into the workshop, which was almost dark by now. She opened the door. As she did so, they both saw Alfonsi waiting on the street corner.

  ‘Are you going to let him in?’

  ‘I’m wondering that myself. I’m tired.’

  ‘Would you like me to order him to leave you alone?’

  ‘At least for this evening.’

  ‘Goodbye.’

  She returned his goodbye, and he strode heavily over to Alfonsi. As he joined him on the corner, two young reporters were watching through the windows of the Tabac des Vosges.

  ‘Scram!’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘No reason. Because she doesn’t want you to disturb her again today. Understood?’

  ‘Why are you so unpleasant to me?’

  ‘Simply because I don’t like your face.’

  Maigret turned his back on him and conformed to tradition by going into the Grand Turenne and having a glass of beer.

  3.

  The Hotel in Rue Lepic

  The sun was still bright, but it was cold, the kind of dry cold that turned your breath to steam and froze your fingertips. All the same, Maigret had stood on the platform of the bus, sometimes grunting, sometimes smiling in spite of himself, as he read the morning paper.

  He was early. It was barely 8.30 by his watch when he walked into the inspectors’ room just as Janvier, who had been sitting on a table, was trying to get down from it and hide the newspaper he had been reading out loud.

  There were five or six of them there, mainly young ones, waiting for Lucas to assign them their tasks of the day. They avoided looking at Maigret, though some stole surreptitious glances at him while finding it hard to keep a straight face.

  They were not to know that he had been as amused by the article as they were, and it was to please them, because they expected it, that he assumed his grouchy air.

  There was a three-column headline on the front page:

  Madame Maigret’s misadventure

  His wife’s adventure the previous day in Place d’Anvers was recounted down to the smallest detail, and all that was missing was a photograph of Madame Maigret herself, along with the little boy with whom she had been so casually entrusted.

  He opened Lucas’ door. Lucas too had read the article, and he had his reasons to take the matter more seriously.

  ‘I hope you don’t think it came from me? I was really surprised when I opened the paper this morning. I didn’t talk to any reporter. Yesterday, after we spoke, I telephoned Lamballe in the 9th arrondissement. I told him the story, but without mentioning your wife’s name, and asked him to find the taxi. By the way, he’s just phoned me to say that by pure chance he’s already found the driver. He’s sending him to you. The man will be here in a few minutes.’

  ‘Was there anyone in your office when you called Lamballe?’

  ‘Probably. There’s always someone. And the door to the inspectors’ room was probably open. But who? It scares me to think there was a leak here.’

  ‘I suspected as much yesterday. There was already a leak on February 21st. By the time you went to Rue de Turenne to search Steuvels’ place, Philippe Liotard had been informed.’

  ‘Who by?

  ‘I don’t know. It must have been somebody here in the house.’

  ‘Is that why the suitcase was gone by the time I got there?’

  ‘More than likely.’

  ‘In that case, why didn’t they also get rid of the suit with the bloodstains?’

  ‘Maybe they didn’t think about it, or maybe they thought nobody would establish the nature of the stains. Maybe they didn’t have time.’

  ‘Would you like me to question the inspectors, chief?’

  ‘I’ll handle it.’

  Lucas was still going through his mail, which was piled up on the long table he had adopted as a desk.

  ‘Anything interesting?’

  ‘I don’t know yet. I have to check. Several tips about the suitcase, as it happens. There’s an anonymous letter saying simply that it’s still at the bookbinder’s and we must be blind not to have found it. Then there’s another that says the crux of the case is in Concarneau. And there’s a five-page letter, in small handwriting, demonstrating with all kinds of arguments that the government set the whole thing up to divert attention from the cost of living.’

  Maigret went into his office, took off his hat and coat and, in spite of the mild weather, shovelled coal into the only stove that remained in Quai des Orfèvres, the one he’d had so much difficulty in keeping when central heating had been installed.

  Half opening the door to the inspectors’ room, he called to young Lapointe, who had just arrived.

  ‘Sit down.’

  He carefully closed the door, again told Lapointe to sit down and walked three times around him, throwing him curious glances as he did so.

  ‘Are you ambitious?’

  ‘Yes, sir. I’d like to have a career like yours. I think they call that having great expectations, don’t they?’

  ‘Do your parents have money?’

  ‘No. My father’s a bank clerk in Meulan. He found it hard to give my sisters and me a decent upbringing.’

  ‘Do you have a girlfriend?’

  He didn’t blush, didn’t become flustered. ‘No. Not yet. I have time. I’m only twenty-four, and I don’t want to get married until I’m sure of my position.’

  ‘Do you live alone?’

  ‘Luckily, no. My youngest sister, Germaine, is also in Paris. She works in a publishing house on the Left Bank. We live together and in the evenin
g she finds time to cook for both of us. That saves us money.’

  ‘Does she have a boyfriend?’

  ‘She’s only eighteen.’

  ‘When you went to Rue de Turenne the first time, did you come straight back here?’

  He blushed suddenly, and hesitated a good long while before replying. ‘No,’ he admitted at last. ‘I was so proud and happy to have discovered something that I caught a taxi and went via Rue du Bac to tell Germaine.’

  ‘It’s all right, son. Thank you.’

  Disconcerted and anxious, Lapointe hesitated to leave. ‘Why did you ask me that?’

  ‘I ask the questions, don’t I? Maybe you’ll ask the questions later. Were you in Sergeant Lucas’ office yesterday when he phoned the 9th arrondissement?’

  ‘I was in the office next door, and the door was open.’

  ‘What time did you talk to your sister?’

  ‘How do you know that?’

  ‘Answer the question.’

  ‘She finishes at five. She waited for me in the Bar de la Grosse Horloge, as she often does, we had an aperitif together and then went home.’

  ‘You didn’t leave her all evening?’

  ‘She went to the cinema with a friend.’

  ‘Did you see this friend?’

  ‘No. But I know her.’

  ‘That’s all. You can go.’

  He would have liked to explain himself, but just then he was told that a taxi-driver was asking to see him. He was a large, ruddy-faced man in his fifties, who had probably been a coachman in his youth and who, to judge by his breath, must have had a few glasses of white wine on an empty stomach before coming.

  ‘Inspector Lamballe told me to come and see you about the young woman.’

  ‘How did he find out that you were the one who drove her?’

  ‘I usually park on Place Pigalle. He spoke to all my colleagues last night, including me. I was the one who took her.’

  ‘When and where?’

  ‘It must have been around one o’clock. I’d just finished having lunch in a restaurant in Rue Lepic. My cab was outside. I saw a couple come out of the hotel opposite, and the woman went running straight to my taxi. She seemed disappointed when she saw it wasn’t for hire. But as I was only having a liqueur, I stood up and yelled to her from across the street to wait.’