Maigret Defends Himself Page 4

  They got to the second floor and Maigret did indeed turn the key in the lock.

  ‘Get some sleep and don’t worry about a thing. I’ll sort this out tomorrow morning.’

  In the room, she stumbled and fell to the floor, rolled over and made no attempt to get up again. In a few moments, she would be asleep.

  He got her back on her feet and took off her shoes and her jacket. He was going to leave her like this when she moaned:

  ‘I’m thirsty!’

  He went to the tiny toilet, rinsed the tooth glass and filled it with cold water. When he returned, she was sitting on the bed trying to take off her skirt.

  ‘My belt is hurting me …’

  She drank, all the while giving him distressed looks.

  ‘Won’t you help me? If only you knew how sick I feel! I think I’m about to throw up.’

  He had helped her to undress, leaving only her slip on.

  She hadn’t thrown up.

  ‘Well?’ Madame Maigret had asked him when he had got home.

  ‘A strange business. We’ll deal with it tomorrow.’

  ‘A pretty girl?’

  ‘I must admit I didn’t notice. She was blind drunk.’

  ‘What did you do with her?’

  ‘I took her to a hotel and had to put her to bed.’

  ‘Did you undress her?’

  ‘I had to.’

  ‘Aren’t you afraid …’

  Madame Maigret had a sixth sense. He wasn’t very satisfied either. At nine o’clock, when he got to his office, the first thing he did was call the Hôtel de Savoie. He was told that the young lady in room 32 had left, saying that Detective Chief Inspector Maigret, who had brought her, would be back to pay her bill.

  Ten minutes later, the switchboard operator at the Police Judiciaire informed him that there was no justice of the peace named Carvet in La Rochelle and no Carvet in the phone book. No Dubuisson either.

  3.

  ‘Don’t forget I am the police!’

  Maigret was standing by the open window, both hands buried deep in his pockets, his jaws clenched around the stem of his pipe. He hadn’t felt up to rereading Nicole Prieur’s statement. For a long time, he had sat slumped in his armchair, weary and nauseous, with not an ounce of fight in him. For a long time now, he had felt as if he were already a stranger in his own office, vaguely aware of the sound of voices and the comings and goings in the inspectors’ room.

  He was three years from retirement. Pardon had made a point of that, too. Why? Because he thought he seemed tired? Because he had discovered something wrong while examining him, something he didn’t want to tell him?

  He had advised him to drink less, or even not drink at all. A little wine with meals. Soon, he would be put on a diet. Then given pills to take at specific times. He was about to enter the world of old people whose organs turn weak or faulty one after the other, just like old cars that constantly need their parts changing. Except that you can’t yet buy spare parts for human beings.

  He was unaware of the passing of time. The patches of sunlight on the carpet and wall of his office moved imperceptibly without his noticing.

  He had no fight in him, not the slightest desire to defend himself. He accepted defeat. For a long while, he even felt a certain relief. No more responsibilities. No more exhausting evenings and nights hammering away at men whose confessions would finally bring investigations to an end.

  ‘Don’t forget I am the police!’

  It was perhaps that little phrase that saved him. He was almost in Meung-sur-Loire already, where the house was ready to welcome him and his wife, with the garden he would cultivate, like his neighbours, the flowers and vegetables he would calmly water at sunrise and sunset, the fishing rods lined up in the shed …

  ‘Don’t forget I am …’

  It was so unlike him, it sounded so fake, that a smile finally relaxed his face and he slowly began to unwind. He found himself on his feet, looking down at the sandwiches he had spurned. He took one, chewed a first mouthful and opened the remaining bottle of beer. He ate like this, standing by the window, looking at the Seine through the motionless foliage of the trees on the bank.

  He was at last getting back in touch with the outside world: passers-by who were going somewhere, a young couple in each other’s arms as they slowly crossed Pont Saint-Michel, stopping in the middle to watch a line of boats pass, to see the water flow by, to gaze at just anything, because the only thing that mattered was their joy in life, which they expressed by kissing.

  Typewriters were clattering in the next room. The inspectors must be looking questioningly at their chief’s door from time to time and exchanging worried glances.

  He went back to his desk and read the last sentences in Nicole Prieur’s statement, because there were still two sentences.

  He didn’t take advantage of me. I guess at the last moment he lost his nerve.

  He filled a pipe and went back to the window, stronger now, a little gleam in his eyes. Then, after a sigh, he at last went and opened the door to the next room.

  Lucas was away. So were many of the others, scattered through Paris. Young Lapointe was on holiday. Janvier was typing a report. They all knew he was there, watching them, but, tactfully, they didn’t dare look up, because they knew that for Maigret to shut himself away like that, something serious must be happening.

  It was three p.m. according to the clock.

  ‘Will you come in here, Janvier? Bring your notepad.’

  Janvier was, along with Lapointe, the best at shorthand in the team, and he quickly came into the office and shut the door behind him. There was a question in his eyes, a question he didn’t dare formulate.

  ‘Sit down. I’ll dictate …’

  It didn’t take as long as he had thought. An hour earlier he would have provided explanations, come up with hypotheses. Now, he limited himself to the facts, avoiding anything that might seem like a comment.

  As he continued with his account, Janvier grew more solemn, frowning and occasionally throwing his chief an anxious glance.

  Twenty minutes sufficed.

  ‘Type up three copies.’

  ‘Very good, chief.’

  Maigret hesitated for a few seconds. The prefect had called him back to his office specifically to advise him not to tell anyone about this business.

  ‘Read this.’

  He pushed the young woman’s statement across the desk. After some twenty lines, Janvier turned red, as Maigret had turned red that morning in the prefect’s office.

  ‘Who could have …’

  Good old Janvier! Lucas and he were Maigret’s longest-standing colleagues, and the three men no longer needed words to understand each other.

  Immediately, without a moment’s thought, Janvier was asking the same question that Maigret had taken longer to formulate, because he was directly involved.

  ‘Who?’

  ‘That’s what I’d like to know. Who?’

  They were used to those more or less nymphomaniac, hysterical young women who periodically came to Quai des Orfèvres to spin their little yarns. There were even regulars they would see at fixed dates, like the so-called full-moon killers so beloved of the newspapers.

  Maigret had, of course, envisaged that hypothesis, but a mad girl wouldn’t have played her twin role without making a single mistake. Someone had taught her that twin role.

  ‘While you type up this report, I’m going to perform an experiment, though I think I know the result in advance.’

  So did Janvier, who had guessed what he meant.

  ‘Don’t mention this case to your colleagues. The boss is treating this like some sort of state secret. If you have any time left over, try to find out something about Monsieur Jean-Baptiste Prieur …’

  As Maigret was about to leave the room, Janvier said:

  ‘I hope you’re not too worried, chief?’

  ‘I did offer my resignation.’

  ‘Did he refuse it?’

&nb
sp; ‘He said he ought to accept it, but …’

  ‘Meaning what?’

  ‘I’m staying. As long as they don’t throw me out. I’m determined to defend myself.’

  A taxi took him first to Rue de Seine, where he walked nonchalantly into Désiré’s. The owner was behind his counter, serving a group of plasterers in white overalls who had come in for their red wine. In a corner, a middle-aged man was writing a letter over a cup of coffee.

  Désiré needed only a glance to recognize his customer from the previous night but he gave nothing away, avoided looking him in the face, began fiddling with glasses and bottles.

  ‘A small glass of white wine. Not a bottle this time.’

  The man, who had protruding eyes and a mauve complexion and seemed to be overcome by the heat, put a glass down on the tin counter and juggled with a bottle.

  ‘Sixty centimes.’

  The plasterers ignored Maigret. So did the customer writing the letter, who was having difficulties with his ball-point pen.

  ‘Tell me something …’

  Reluctantly, Désiré turned to him.

  ‘Did I leave anything here last night? My umbrella perhaps?’

  ‘Nobody left an umbrella.’

  ‘Do you remember the girl who phoned me and then waited for me here? Did she ask you for one or two telephone tokens?’

  Looking stubborn, Désiré said nothing at first, then:

  ‘It’s none of my business. I don’t remember what happened last night anyway and there’s no reason I should talk about it.’

  ‘Did someone come in here this morning and advise you to keep quiet?’

  The workers were suddenly listening in, turning in Maigret’s direction and looking him up and down.

  ‘It’s sixty centimes,’ Désiré repeated.

  Maigret put a one-franc coin down on the counter and headed for the door.

  ‘You’ve forgotten your change. I don’t accept tips.’

  Much the same thing happened at the Hôtel de Savoie in Rue des Écoles. The manageress was a plump woman with dyed red hair who still possessed a certain charm. She was in her office, next to the key rack.

  ‘Good day to you, madame.’

  It was obvious from her first glance at him that she knew who he was. He told her anyway.

  ‘Detective Chief Inspector Maigret, Police Judiciaire.’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘I brought a girl here last night, and I’ve come to pay her bill because she didn’t have any money.’

  ‘You don’t owe me anything.’

  ‘Did she pay?’

  ‘It doesn’t matter. You don’t owe me anything.’

  ‘Did someone come here this morning, pay her bill and question your night porter?’

  ‘Listen, inspector, I know who you are and I have nothing against you, but I don’t want to make trouble for myself. I don’t know anything about the young lady or the things you’re talking about. My books are in order. We’ve never been in trouble with the police, or with the tax inspector.’

  ‘Thank you anyway.’

  ‘I’m sorry I can’t tell you anything else.’

  ‘I understand.’

  They had worked quickly. There was no point phoning Martine Bouet, the friend Mademoiselle Prieur had spent the evening with, listening to records. She wouldn’t tell him any more than the others had. He was pretty much certain, in fact, that Nicole had indeed made a phone call to Boulevard Saint-Germain from Désiré’s.

  It wasn’t the prefect who had set up this whole thing. He didn’t much care for policemen of the old school and that was his right. He didn’t particularly like Maigret, and thought the papers talked too much about him. That was his right, too.

  The minister of the interior had phoned him that morning in a panic to inform him about a story that might embarrass him, too.

  These people weren’t heroes or saints. They had only attained their positions thanks to intrigues which they preferred to forget and they still had to play the game to stay where they were.

  So Maigret was involved in a dubious matter, even perhaps a scandal? An influential figure in the country was complaining and threatening to take the matter even higher?

  All this was human. And how satisfying, for the new-broom prefect, to have someone older and more popular than he was in front of him and, in his quiet voice, tell him a few home truths!

  Paris was sizzling in the sun. Many people had closed their shutters to keep a little coolness in. Here and there, men were fishing, and there were other lovers like those on the Pont Saint-Michel, two in particular, who had taken off their shoes and were dangling their bare feet above the water. They were laughing as they looked at their toes, which they were wiggling in a grotesque fashion.

  ‘Janvier!’

  ‘Coming, chief.’

  He was busy on the telephone. When he entered Maigret’s office, he brought some typewritten sheets with him. Maigret started reading them. He only read three or five lines.

  ‘Are you sure you haven’t forgotten anything?’

  ‘I double-checked. But I’d rather you …’

  No, Maigret had no desire to reread what he had said. He signed with a heavy quill pen, took an official envelope from his desk, wrote the address on it and rang for the clerk.

  ‘Have this taken straight to the prefect’s office … I’m listening, Janvier.’

  ‘I called a friend of mine who’s a lawyer and who’s quite well acquainted with the upper levels of the civil service.’

  ‘Does he know this Prieur?’

  ‘He’s a first-class jurist, one of the best around at the moment apparently. He was married, but his wife was killed in a car accident about ten years ago. His father was a ship owner.’

  ‘In La Rochelle?’

  ‘You guessed it.’

  They both smiled. People who lie rarely make up the whole thing. The girl who had told him such a poignant story over the phone had said she was from La Rochelle. Her father was a magistrate and her friend the daughter of a wholesale fish merchant …

  ‘Go on.’

  ‘He still has a brother there who handles the ships. He himself has a personal fortune and lives in a huge apartment on Boulevard de Courcelles. Another brother, Christophe, who was married, had a daughter and lived in Morocco, killed himself in circumstances my friend doesn’t know. His wife has dropped out of sight. It’s believed she got married again, to an American, and lives in Texas. As for the daughter, she’s the Nicole Prieur you know.’

  ‘Anything else?’

  ‘The girl passed her baccalauréat last year and is studying at the Sorbonne.’

  ‘What kind of girl is she?’

  ‘My friend has never met her, but his wife has seen her a few times. He’ll talk to her when he gets home.’

  There was no reason for Monsieur Jean-Baptiste Prieur, Master of Requests at the Council of State and eminent jurist, to harbour any hatred towards Maigret, whose name he might not even know, let alone to hatch a plot against him in which his own niece’s reputation might be compromised.

  ‘I’d give a lot for a private conversation with that girl.’

  ‘I doubt you’ll get the opportunity, chief.’

  ‘Do you have any idea who might want to see me out of circulation badly enough to set up something like this?’

  ‘I’m sure there are a fair number of people. Including those who’ve been robbing jeweller’s shops in broad daylight for the past two months. There was another raid this morning, on Avenue Victor-Hugo.’

  ‘Did they leave any trail?’

  ‘None at all.’

  ‘Did they shoot anyone?’

  ‘Not that either. They calmly drove away, and nobody reacted, not even the jeweller, who was so stunned that it took him a whole minute before he sounded the alarm … Do you have an idea?’

  ‘Perhaps … Where was I yesterday at eleven in the morning?’

  Janvier knew, because he had driven the little black car.
br />   ‘At Manuel’s.’

  ‘And the previous day at about the same time?’

  ‘At Manuel’s.’

  ‘And …’

  Three times in a week Maigret had paid a visit to Manuel Palmari, the former owner of the Clou Doré in Rue Fontaine, who was now living like a pensioner in his ritzy apartment in Rue des Acacias.

  ‘It may be stupid, but I feel like going to see him again and asking a few questions.’

  It seemed senseless, but weren’t the events of the previous night just as senseless?

  For thirty years, Palmari, most often called Manuel in underworld circles, had been a bigshot in Montmartre, where he had started out as a young pimp.

  Had he had other activities, back in the days when Maigret, also young, had first met him? Maigret, a mere inspector then, had strongly suspected he had but had never been able to pin anything on him.

  During those thirty years, many gangsters had disappeared from the Pigalle area. Some had been shot down by rivals; others, after a few years in prison, were persona non grata; others still ran more or less seedy inns in Marseille or Nice.

  Manuel, who had soon put on weight, had found the wherewithal to buy the Clou Doré, which at the time was merely a shabby drinking hole, rather like Désiré’s, except that most of the clientele were criminals.

  The venue had soon been transformed into a modern bar, then into a restaurant with a few tables, where the customers, no longer just young people, would arrive in big American cars.

  Maigret sometimes had lunch there, lingering until the little room decorated in red and gold emptied.

  ‘Tell me something, Manuel …’

  ‘Yes, inspector.’

  ‘That fellow with a scar at the corner of his eye who was sitting in the corner …’

  ‘You know how it is, customers come and go, I serve them food and drinks, I take their money, and what the eye doesn’t see …’

  Manuel was a born actor. He play-acted for himself as well as for others, and sometimes, pleased with his performance, winked at his listener.

  ‘We’ve known each other a long time, haven’t we?’

  ‘We used to be a lot slimmer once upon a time, Monsieur Maigret!’