Maigret's Madwoman Page 6

  ‘Since you didn’t come home at midday, I’ve warmed up the lamb stew for now.’

  ‘Good idea.’

  He ate with appetite, but his mind was elsewhere. He could still see the little old lady in grey on the pavement of Quai des Orfèvres and the lively gaze of trust and admiration that she had turned on him.

  ‘Can you try not to think about it any more this evening?’

  ‘I wish I could. I just can’t help it. I hate letting people down, and what’s happened now is that the poor old woman has lost her life.’

  ‘Would you like to go for a walk?’

  He said yes. He had no desire to stay all evening inside the apartment. And also, during an investigation, he had a habit – some might call it an obsession – of repeating the same actions every day.

  They walked down towards Bastille where they sat at a café terrace. A long-haired guitarist was playing, as he made his way between the tables, while a girl with dark-rimmed eyes held out a saucer to the customers.

  That, of course, made him think of the red-haired great-nephew, who probably went round the cafés busking when he was short of cash.

  Maigret gave more generously than usual, as his wife noticed. She said nothing, simply smiled, and they spent a little while staring ahead at the lights in the darkness.

  He was smoking his pipe slowly with short puffs. For a moment, he was tempted to go to the Bongo Club. But what would be the point? What more could he learn there than he knew already?

  The other tenants in the building on Quai de la Mégisserie had to be suspects too. Any one of them might have known the old lady better than they admitted. It would be easy enough to make an impression of her front-door lock and have a duplicate key made.

  But why? That was the question that kept returning to Maigret’s mind. Why?

  In the first place, why had there been all those previous visits? Not for the small sum of money kept in the apartment: only a few hundred francs, and easy to find in the desk drawer. But they hadn’t been touched. Maigret had found the banknotes slipped inside a savings book.

  ‘Tomorrow I’ll start investigating the two husbands.’

  It seemed ridiculous – especially since the second one had now been dead for twelve years.

  There must be a secret somewhere, a secret important enough to have caused the sacrifice of a human life.

  ‘Shall we go on walking?’

  He had drunk a small glass of calvados and had been on the point of ordering another. That would not have pleased his friend Doctor Pardon, who’d warned him off all alcoholic drinks.

  ‘You can tolerate wine and spirits for years, but there comes a time when the organism can’t take them any more.’

  He shrugged his shoulders and made his way out through the tables. On the pavement, Madame Maigret linked arms with him. Boulevard Beaumarchais. Rue Servan. Then Boulevard Richard-Lenoir and their good old apartment.

  Contrary to his fears, he fell asleep almost at once.

  Nothing happened at Quai de la Mégisserie overnight, and the bulky Torrence was able to sleep as much as he wished in the old lady’s armchair. At eight in the morning, Lourtie had gone to relieve him and found a reporter having an animated conversation with the concierge.

  It was a grumpy and heavy-footed Maigret who pushed open the door to the inspectors’ office at nine, and signalled to Janvier and Lapointe to follow him.

  ‘And you can come too, Lucas.’

  He sat at his desk and chose a pipe as if this selection was very important.

  ‘Now then, boys. We’re no further forward than we were yesterday morning. So for lack of any clues in the present, we’re going to explore the past. Lucas, you go to the Bazar de l’Hôtel de Ville, to the department where they sell tools and gardening implements. Some of the salesmen who were just starting out when Uncle Antoine worked there must still be in their jobs.

  ‘Ask them anything you like. I want to know everything about him, his character, his way of life, that kind of thing.’

  ‘Understood, chief. But should I get permission from the management? They won’t dare refuse, and the people working there will be more at ease than if I went to talk to them in some unofficial way.’

  ‘Very well. Janvier, you go to the City Council offices and do the same for Caramé. It’ll be more difficult, because it’s a long time now since he died. If the only people who would remember him have retired, get their addresses and visit them at home.’

  Routine steps, of course, but sometimes routine pays off.

  ‘And as for you, Lapointe, you’re coming with me.’

  In the courtyard, the young inspector asked:

  ‘Shall we take a car?’

  ‘No. We’re only going to the other side of the bridge, Rue Saint-André-des-Arts. It would take longer in a car.’

  The building was old, like the house in Quai de la Mégisserie, and indeed all the buildings in the neighbourhood. On one side was a picture-framer’s, on the other a cake shop. The glass-panelled door of the concierge’s lodge opened on to a corridor leading to a courtyard.

  Maigret went into the lodge and gave his name. The concierge was a plump, rosy-cheeked little woman who must have had dimples in her cheeks as a child, and they were still there when she smiled.

  ‘I thought we might be getting a visit from the police.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘When I read what had happened to that poor old lady, I thought right away that one of my tenants here was her niece.’

  ‘You mean Angèle Louette?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Did she ever mention her aunt to you?’

  ‘She doesn’t chat much as a rule, but now and then she stops and passes the time of day with me. We were talking once about people who didn’t pay the rent and she said some of her customers were like that, and she didn’t like to insist because they were important people. “But luckily, one day, I’ll inherit from my aunt!” She said it just like that. She told me her aunt had had two husbands, so she collected two pensions, and she must have had plenty of money put by.’

  ‘Does she receive many visitors?’

  The concierge looked embarrassed.

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Well, do other women, friends, sometimes come to see her?’

  ‘Friends? No.’

  ‘Or customers?’

  ‘She doesn’t work here, she goes to people’s homes.’

  ‘Does she have male visitors?’

  ‘Oh well, after all, why shouldn’t I say so? Yes, sometimes. One of them stayed here about six months. He was at least ten years younger than her, and he did the shopping and housework.’

  ‘Is she home at the moment?’

  ‘She went out about an hour ago, because she starts her rounds early. But there’s someone upstairs.’

  ‘One of her usual visitors?’

  ‘I don’t know. She got in rather late last night. When I released the catch, I heard the footsteps of two people. But I didn’t see anyone come back down.’

  ‘Does that happen often?’

  ‘Not that often, just from time to time.’

  ‘What about her son?’

  ‘He’s hardly ever here. I haven’t seen him for months. He looks a bit of a hippy, but I think he’s a nice enough boy.’

  ‘Thank you. We’ll just take a look upstairs.’

  There was no lift. The apartment faced on to the courtyard. The door was not locked and Maigret went in, followed by Lapointe, to find himself in a living room with modern furniture in department-store style.

  Hearing no sound, he pushed open a door. Lying in the double bed was a man who opened his eyes and stared at them with a startled expression.

  ‘What is it? What do you want with me?’

  ‘I wanted to see Angèle Louette, but since you’re here …’

  ‘Aren’t you …?’

  ‘Inspector Maigret, yes. And we’ve already met, a long time ago. You were a barman in Rue Fontaine in
those days. People used to call you “Big Marcel”.’

  ‘They still call me that. Do you mind? I need a minute to find my trousers, I haven’t got anything on.’

  ‘Go right ahead.’

  He was indeed tall, with a thin and bony body. He quickly slipped on his trousers and searched for his slippers under the bed.

  ‘You know, Angèle and me, it’s not what you think. We’re good friends. We spent the evening together, and I didn’t feel well. So instead of traipsing all the way across Paris to my place, Boulevard des Batignolles …’

  ‘Of course. And just by chance, you happened to find your bedroom slippers here.’

  Maigret opened a wardrobe. Hanging inside were two men’s suits, along with some shirts, socks and underwear.

  ‘All right. Now, let’s hear what you have to say.’

  ‘Can I get myself a cup of coffee?’

  Maigret followed him into the kitchen where Big Marcel set about preparing his coffee, as if well used to doing so.

  ‘There’s nothing to say. I’ve had some ups and downs, as you well know. I’ve never been a pimp, though, like some people have tried to make out. And the police have always had to let me go.’

  ‘How old are you?’

  ‘Thirty-five.’

  ‘And her?’

  ‘I don’t rightly know. She must be getting on for fifty. Maybe she already is.’

  ‘Big romance, is it?’

  ‘We’re just good friends. She can’t manage without me. If I don’t show up here for a week or so, she comes looking for me in all my usual haunts.’

  ‘Where were you, late afternoon, the day before yesterday?’

  ‘The day before yesterday? Let me think. I can’t have been far from here, because I was supposed to meet Angèle at seven.’

  ‘She didn’t mention it.’

  ‘She won’t have bothered. We were supposed to be going for a meal. I sat with my aperitif on the terrace of a café on Boulevard Saint-Germain.’

  ‘And she arrived at seven?’

  ‘She may have been a bit late. Yes, now I think of it, she was very late. One of her ladies had kept her waiting. She turned up at about seven thirty in the end.’

  ‘And you had dinner together as arranged?’

  ‘Yes. Then we went to the cinema. The restaurant’s called Chez Lucio, Quai de la Tournelle, they know me well there.’

  ‘And what is your occupation at present?’

  ‘Well, tell you the truth, I’m looking for work, but it’s not so easy at the moment.’

  ‘So you’re a kept man?’

  ‘You’re really trying to hurt my feelings, aren’t you? Just because, years ago now, the police tried to pin stuff on me. Yes, all right, she’s lent me some money now and then. But she doesn’t earn a lot herself.’

  ‘Were you going to sleep here all morning?’

  ‘She should be back soon, because she’s got a gap between appointments. She went to see you yesterday, and she told you everything she knew. So what are you doing here today?’

  ‘Well, it’s given me a chance to meet you again, hasn’t it?’

  ‘Can you go into the living room and let me take a shower?’

  ‘I’ll even give you permission to have a shave while you’re about it,’ said Maigret with irony.

  Lapointe was astonished at what they had just heard.

  ‘Yes, he’s been arrested four or five times, accused of pimping. And he was suspected of being an informer for a Corsican gang that was active in Paris a few years ago. But he’s a slippery customer, and we’ve never been able to prove anything about him.’

  Footsteps could be heard on the stairs. The door opened. Madame Antoine’s niece stood stock still on the threshold.

  ‘Come on in. I’ve just dropped by to pay you a little visit.’

  She glanced anxiously at the bedroom door.

  ‘He’s in there, yes. He’s just having a shower and then a shave.’

  She finally closed the door with a shrug.

  ‘Well, all this is my own business, isn’t it?’

  ‘Possibly.’

  ‘Why do you say possibly?’

  ‘It so happens that he’s an old acquaintance of mine, and his activities in the past were not looked on too favourably by the law.’

  ‘Do you mean he’s a thief?’

  ‘No, not to my knowledge. But when he was a barman, there were two or three women working for him in the neighbourhood, including one who was, let’s say, a hostess in the same establishment.’

  ‘I don’t believe you. Anyway, if that was true, he’d have gone to prison.’

  ‘No, you’re right, he didn’t go to prison. Because there wasn’t enough evidence.’

  ‘That still doesn’t tell me why you are here.’

  ‘Let me ask you a question first. Yesterday, when you mentioned your son, you said he was on the Côte d’Azur.’

  ‘I told you that was what I thought.’

  ‘In reality, he hasn’t left Paris and we had a very interesting chat.’

  ‘I know he isn’t fond of me.’

  ‘He’s as fond of you as you were of your aunt, you mean?’

  ‘I don’t know what he’s been telling you. He’s a hothead. He’ll never amount to anything.’

  ‘The day your aunt died, you had a date for seven o’clock with Big Marcel in a café on Boulevard Saint-Germain.’

  ‘If he told you so, that’s because it’s true.’

  ‘And what time did you arrive?’

  This seemed to unsettle her a bit, and she hesitated for a while before replying:

  ‘One of my ladies kept me waiting. It must have been about seven thirty when I got there.’

  ‘Where did you eat dinner?’

  ‘In an Italian restaurant, Quai de la Tournelle. Chez Lucio, it’s called.’

  ‘And after that?’

  ‘We went to the cinema at Saint-Michel.’

  ‘Do you know what time it was when your aunt was murdered?’

  ‘No, I only know what you’ve told me.’

  ‘It was between half past five and seven o’clock.’

  ‘What difference does that make?’

  ‘Do you own a gun?’

  ‘Certainly not. I wouldn’t know how to use one.’

  Marcel emerged from the bedroom, freshly shaved, wearing a white shirt and tying a blue silk tie.

  ‘You see?’ he said in a jocular tone. ‘These gentlemen woke me up. There they were, standing at the end of the bed. I wondered if I was in a film!’

  ‘Do you own a revolver?’ Maigret asked him.

  ‘Not likely! That’s a quick way to get nabbed.’

  ‘Which number on Boulevard des Batignolles do you live?’

  ‘Number 27.’

  ‘Thank you both for your cooperation. Regarding your aunt, mademoiselle, you may have the body fetched from the Forensic Institute and arrange the funeral any day you wish.’

  ‘Will I have to pay for it out of my own pocket?’

  ‘That’s your business. Since you’re her closest relation, you’ll inherit enough money to have some left after the funeral.’

  ‘What do I have to do? Ask a lawyer?’

  ‘Go the bank, they’ll advise you. If you don’t know already, you’ll find her savings book and chequebook in a drawer of the desk.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  ‘Don’t mention it. But don’t forget to let me know the time of the funeral.’

  He had rarely seen a gaze as stony as the eyes looking at him. As for Marcel, he was affecting a casual air.

  ‘Good day to you, Monsieur Maigret,’ he said ironically.

  Maigret and Lapointe made their way downstairs, and at the next street corner, Maigret went into a bar.

  ‘That pair made me feel thirsty. A beer, please. What’ll you have?’

  ‘The same.’

  ‘Two, then.’

  Maigret mopped his forehead with his handkerchief.

  ‘And thi
s is what we end up doing, when an old lady with grey eyes dies a violent death. You go to see people and ask them a lot of more or less silly questions. Those two up there must be laughing at us now.’

  Lapointe did not dare say anything. He did not enjoy seeing the chief in this mood.

  ‘Mind you, that happens in almost every investigation. There’s a moment when the engine’s turning over without connecting, you don’t know where to go next. Then something happens, something quite minor, often, that you don’t at first consider important.’

  ‘Your good health, chief.’

  ‘Yours.’

  It was still morning. The street was cheerful with housewives doing their shopping. They were not far from Rue de Buci street market, which Maigret particularly liked.

  ‘Come along.’

  ‘Where are we going now?’

  ‘Back to base. See if Lucas and Janvier have had more luck.’

  Janvier had returned, but not Lucas.

  ‘It was easy, chief. The man who took over from Caramé still works for the Council, and he knew him well from the days when he started there.’

  ‘Tell me.’

  ‘Nothing to hide, except that behind his back they called him “His Majesty Caramé”. He was a man who had a certain style and attached great importance to his appearance. He was proud of his position as well, and was hoping to get the Légion d’honneur as he’d been promised. He took every chance to wear a formal suit, because he looked good in it. His brother was a colonel in the army.’

  ‘Still alive?’

  ‘No, he was killed in Indochina. Caramé talked about him a lot. He used to say, “My brother the colonel …”’

  ‘And that’s all?’

  ‘All they could tell me. No known vices. But he regretted not having a child. An old doorman told me a story about him, but there’s no guarantee it’s true. Apparently, after three or four years of marriage, he sent his wife to a gynaecologist, but the doctor asked to see her husband. In other words, it wasn’t her that couldn’t have children, it was him. After that, there was no more talk of offspring.’

  Maigret was pacing up and down in the office, still looking irritable. Now and then, he stopped at the window, as if asking the Seine to bear witness to his bad luck.